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All manner of nefarious and diabol

*Welcome to the Shark Tank, where all manner of nefarious and diabolical individuals come to pitch their plans of domination to five of the most seasoned villains in the business. Lets meet the Sharks!* *First up, we have the true monster, Dr. Frankenstein! With over forty years in the reanimation business, Dr. Frankenstein knows when he see's a SHOCKING development in his industry!* *Next, we have the count of cool, the dragon of fashion, his bite is worse than his bark, its Dracula! Immortal adjacent, this tall, dark and devilish bachelor is always looking for a way to spread his influence throughout eastern Europe and beyond!* *Third, the shark that's always clowning around, Pennywise! Actually an inter dimensional force of pure evil, he has a sweet tooth for anything that can make your skin crawl. Better tread careful, he's the one who can make your idea sink or float!* *Fourth on the docket, just in from a red eye, lord of Mordor but not the ring, Sauron! A fallen spirit succumb to darkness, his path to world domination involves a piece of costume jewelry wielded by two halflings. Best try to not hide anything, nothing escapes his gaze!* *Lastly, our fifth and final judge: Hitler! It's just Hitler. If you don't know who he is read a book.* *Today we have the evil monster maker Dr. Abomino, a mad scientist pitching a secret gas that turns any who inhale it into a mutant.* "Hello sharks, my name is, eh, Dr. Abomino and I've brought with me today-" "Doctor in what?" Asked Dr. Frankenstein through thick laboratory goggles. "Excuse me?" Said Dr. Abomino, visibly shaken. "What. Is. Your. Doctorate. In." Repeated Dr. Frankenstein. "Medicine, biochemistry, neurology, what are we dealing with here?" "Well I am a few credits shy from completing my degree......" "Degree in what *MR.* Abomino?" "Erm.....communication....." Frankenstein leaned back in his chair and let out a huff. "Well Mr. Abomino, you have misrepresented yourself in the first few seconds of your presentation. But please, continue." Said Frankenstein with a snort as he crossed his arms. "Ahem, yes, sorry Doctor. As I was saying I have developed a neurological gas," here Hitler began to sit up straight in his seat, "that does not kill the victim." Hitler collapsed back in his chair disappointed. "Instead, the gas mutates the victim horribly until it becomes a semi human monstrosity, capable of destruction and devastation to all it comes into contact with." "Did you bring an example with you?" Asked Dracula, tapping his finger tips together. "Yes sir, FETCH ME THE BEAST!" Dr. Abomino commanded to the stage hand holding a doughnut. A large steel cage covered in a cloth was rolled in. Underneath the cloth came terrible gutteral noises and the sound of metal straining. In one foul swoop, the cloth was ripped off to display the horribly disfigured beast, covered in boils and riddled with deformities. It let out a mighty bellow and rattled the cages walls, desperately striving to be free. "Mmmmmhmm, and what are the combat implications Herr Abomino?" Asked Hitler. "They each have the strength of ten men, the endurance of an elephant and a pathological need to enact violence upon mankind." Replied Abomino proudly. "I think I have found a problem with your creation Abomino." said Hitler. He took out a walther ppk and shot the beast in his head. With one long moan, the abomination collapsed to the floor and let out a death shudder. "The problem is," said Hitler, "they can still be killed with weapons as simply as anyone else! And I would bet they cant use guns either!" "Yes that is.....correct....." Said Abomino, slumping his shoulders and lowering his head. "But they can be improved! Given armor, dilute the formula to keep the higher reasoning. All I need is some support. I'm asking for one hundred thousand for a 10% stake in the plot." "Im out" hissed Pennywise. "No fear factor. No style. Too boring for me to play with. "As the only real Doctor here, I can say that this plan is doomed to fail. Therefore, I am also out." Said Frankenstein. Sauron gave one thumb down from his seat. "It is an interesting idea......fresh take on an old trope..." Said Dracula licking his fangs. "But what is your method of control? Telepathic, shock collar, basic training, what do you use?" Inquired the count. "That process is still in the, uh, research and development stage. I am thinking of using a modified shock collar/ body cam combo to remotely check and direct their actions. "Wait, you have no ability to control them?" "No sir, that was one of the uses for the funding I requested." "I'm out. I like you Abomino, but you can't just come in here with an idea and nowhere to go with it. You need to have a detailed strategy and a finished product. I'll put you on my backburner and check in with you in a few years, but I'm just not prepared to put the money down on a work in progress." *With four sharks out, Hitler is Abomino's last hope. Let's see if they can make a deal...* "So, mein friend, it's just the two of us. Would you like to adjust your asking price?" "I, uhh, I think that the hundred thousand for a ten percent stake is very, uh, fair." "Before I make an offer, tell me, how well do they hold up in the cold? Say.....Russia in winter cold....." "My creations have to be kept at, uhm, around forty to eighty degrees for best performance." "Best performance?" "Yes furher, they tend to uhm, expire when taken out of that temperature range for a long period of time." "So, the only thing your creations will be good for invading is a tropical climate? I'm sorry, but the list of soldiers requesting to be stationed in Sicily is already too high, I'm out." *The last shark is out, and now Dr. Abomino has no one to make an offer. As such, he must be removed from the tank* A large trapdoor opened underneath Dr. Abomino and both creator and creation tumbled into a small pool filled with ravenous sharks that had been circling hungrily for hours. The five sharks watched with amusement as the contestant was ripped to shreds by the literal sharks. Frankenstein grinned, Dracula licked his lips and narrowed his eyes, Pennywise giggled gleefully, Sauron looked on motionless, and Hitler kept looking in a mirror. Craig the production manage came out with his megaphone, "Alright that's lunch. Be back in 45 everyone, we have a busy day ahead." Edit: wow, thanks for all the support and kind words everyone, this was a very pleasant suprise this morning Edit 2: Ok, this is actually pretty uplifting for me. Thank you again for all the kind words as well as the criticisms. I apologize but I will NOT be doing another of these or expanding upon the prompt. It was an incredibly fun prompt to write and I'm glad you all enjoyed it, but I feel that I've done all I can with it. Personally I just believe that making a sequel with high expectations will never live up to the original. That being said, if anyone wants to use this as a jumping off point or want to expand upon it themselves, you have my blessing. I just ask you credit me or link to this story if you do. Again, one thousands thanks to all of you

The world was full of steam and

Burning debris littered the sky, as though a wall of hate against us, climbing higher and higher. The shadows grew into reaching arms, hiding the true enemy we tried to outrun: Man. But to say that is facetious, I suppose. What enemies had we that we did not cultivate ourselves? The pot had boiled over and the world was full of steam and hate. They needed someone to batter, to release all the hell we put them through. Sirens flared behind. The police cars were gaining. "Hurry Christ! Goddamn it hurry!" "Oh Father, oh Father, oh Father..." He could not drive. He was a short man. His hair was oily, thick and short. *Had you cared to come back, they would not have accepted you,* I thought. I felt almost sorry for him. "Can't take the heat?" said Lucifer. Of all of us he was the one who enjoyed. They did not have to believe in him when they acted out his will freely. "Why are you even here?" I asked him. "You cannot die." "Why are you here?" he asked. Gunshots rang like nearby thunder. The sky was red and dark. "I... I..." I did not know how to answer him. I was a man. I had no memories from before. I had awoken with them, us failures. "A man amongst gods!" Lucifer screamed. Buddha was firing. I wondered why he would do that. Was he not a pacifist? From the burning carcass of the explosion we had caused, there were ghostly things, shadows rising like clouds, giving chase above the cars. "What is happening?" Jesus asked. Back then I did not know. I won't lie and say I have all the answers now, but I think I know better. Those were growing pains that caused the earthquake. A build up of some kind had ripped the city open. The fires sprouted in vast columns. Many were dead. More were dying. I think the world had given up waiting, or reached its seams. What gods shaped it, had never come. And then it was time to move on. Jesus turned off the highway. A bullet pierced the back glass. I felt the heat of my blood pour in slow rivers everywhere. My head hurt. *So I can die,* I thought. "Why are they hunting us?" Buddha cried. He fired his gun. Rubber squealed. A car ran off and hit the barricade. "My children," cried Christ. I admit I was angry then. Lucifer was laughing, feeding off my hate. "You should not have abandoned them!" I screamed. "Why did you?" "I would have come back!" screamed Jesus. "They needed patience." "I never left them," said Buddha. "And who are you anyway to question the divine?" I remained quiet. We were near the suburbs. Jesus slowed to a crash on a light pole. The sparks left tracers in the falling dark. Lucifer suffered whiplash and he would not move. He was a skinny man with bony features and thin hair. "Leave him," said Jesus. "Let them take his scum." "No, we cannot!" I said. They were running without me. Buddha had lost his gun. They limped past the gathered few and their was a catching frenzy. Many of the people had lost their loved ones that morning. The news had blamed us already. "There they are!" A man pointed his gun at me. "The other terrorists went that way," he said. I backed away from Lucifer. He was hardly breathing. He would never truly die. Not in this world. "You terrorist scum!" the man said. He was shaking. Others surrounded me. Jesus and Buddha had gone. They had always been gone, I imagine. "No," I said. "I'm not a terrorist. I'm..." I had no name. "I'm Stephen," I said. The name had just come. The man's gun trembled. "Stephen? Stephen who?" Others from the crowd began to call out other names, as though I had said them. "Patrick?" "Did he say Mike? Mikey?" I looked at the old man with his gun. The police were coming, the wall of fire rising into smoke. The shadow monsters raced past overhead. They were a hunting black, hunting the fallen gods. The old man was fighting tears. "What's your name?" he asked. I could tell he would not ask again. "Stephen Algiers," I said. It just come, and then was gone like a fleeting warmth against confusion's cold. The man dropped the gun. "Stephen," he said. He ran to me and hugged me. The others had heard different names. "Baby!" They all embraced me, holding on to me as though they were the only ones to do so. "What's going on?" I asked. "I thought you died in the earthquake, son." They all thought I was another. I was always someone who had died. I was the miracle, their catalyst for hope. The police reacted the same. They brought ambulances for me, and continued the hunt for the gods. I could feel their presence within me. Lucifer suffered as they embraced me. They took him away. There was no shadow hunting him. The others were caught, but not by men. As the fires dwindled and the sky became a stained black, I lost their feeling within. They were ghosts once more, Jesus and Buddha, a memory that had been taken by the shadows. I cannot explain it any other way. They put me wherever I wanted to be. I had no home, and so I stayed at a shelter. Then I stayed at their homes. Each person saw in me something they had lost; someone they had longed for. "Can't you see?" I asked, but they only saw what they wanted to. The city rebuilt itself slowly. The churches dwindled. Prayer dissolved into smoke, until it became taboo, and then forgotten. I think about what happened, and yet no answer comes, a vague picture forms. I think maybe the Earth had grown too long in one way. The gods had shaped it, but they had long gone. That shape was breaking, the Earth needing to grow in a new way. No longer did it receive the nurturing the gods had given. Too much time had passed. And so it broke free. All that pent up hate and frustration had fueled the fires. The virus of the gods needed to be purged. And the Earth purged them. I was left alone. Who am I, this amnesiac fool? There is no answer. I have no self. I think I am the seed that survives the destruction. The seed that can plant hope, and sprout new gods if I so please. For it is belief that makes them. Belief creates a tangible thing, the shaper of our world. I can get them to believe again and start everything over. It is simple. "How did you survive?" they always ask. "God saved me," I can say. But I don't. I have not. I am not sure I ever will. I let the questions linger and let their relief fill that aching void. They hold me for the time they have. Deep down they must know I am not who they truly miss, but the illusion helps. Hope heals, and that is the greatest miracle of all. And so I live these days for others. I listen for the gods as the world moves on. I hear only an empty silence. - *Hi there! If you liked this story, you might want to subscribe to my subreddit r/PanMan. It has all my WP stories, including a couple un-prompted ones. Thank you for your support!*

Asla had never travelled this far

Asla had never travelled this far east before. She chose to hike the last stretch of her journey, leaving her beat-up car under a tarpaulin, tucked behind a copse of trees. Nature had beat back man's progress here, and all she had for company were the skittish wildlife, the rush of the waterfalls, the snowflakes cascading down belligerently. Walking rejuvenated her, but more importantly, it gave her a chance to attune her senses, probe for the Folkvarthr, the guardian of the town. She found him perched on a rocky outcrop, just a couple of miles from Seydisfjordur. Asla knew she made no noise, left barely an imprint on the fresh snow beneath her feet, but before such an experienced master, she might as well have been beating a drum, strumming a lyre. "Folkvarthr, I come in peace," she said, keeping her distance. She used the honorific so that he would know that she was cut from the same cloth, another member of the ancient clan sworn to protect their country. Underneath her shawl, she gripped her twin knives, priming her defences. It never hurt to be prudent. The older man turned then, and for a moment Asla wondered if the reports were embellished. There was a placid calmness to him, and none of the fire and brimstone she was cautioned about. His eyes, dulled with age, reminded her of the frozen orbs she sometimes had to scrape out of bowls she had left out. "I don't recall asking to be relieved," he said. "I am not yet battle-weary. I intend to guard this town until I die." "Olafur, you have done us a great service," Asla replied. "The records run with the great deeds you have accomplished. You have saved this town more times than anyone can count. You have more than earned your rest." Olafur scrounged on the ground, picked up a couple of smoothened pebbles. Asla narrowed her eyes, but this time she was over-suspicious - Olafur aimed the small missiles not at her, but at three spots away from them, one to the north and the others to the west. There was but a bleak light still illuminating the valley, so Asla relied instead on her hearing to determine where the pebbles landed. "Those are where the rifts are," said Olafur, dusting his palms off. "The monsters don't come as often now, but they still can, and they still do. They are different from the ones you deal with back in Reykjavik, or wherever the hell you came from. Nature emboldens them. They don't emerge at night, skulking in the shadows. No, these prefer the day, where they revel in being seen, being feared. There's a sadism in these parts that only I can handle, young one." There's a sadism alright, thought Asla, but instead she said, "I will be straightforward, Folkvarthr. This is not a request. The Council has asked that you retire, with immediate effect." "Oh? After all the good work I've done?" "Too good, in fact," said Asla. "Reports have come in that you no longer communicate with the town, that you have completely shut yourself off from them. The local children don't even dare come near you anymore, and they have started calling you the Boogeyman, the Reaper. Even worse, the monsters that you slay... you're not just putting them down, you're *slaughtering* them. The Council has reason to believe that you-" Olafur chose to move at that moment, streaking in a blur towards highground. Asla was ready, and so she followed closely behind, matching him step for step. She considered the possibility that he was leading her towards a trap, but pushed that thought away. She had to believe that there was humanity yet left in him. Some hundred feet above the ground, a cave opened up alongside the hill, hidden if one were only looking in from the roads. Olafur paused there, then snapped his fingers, bringing to life the candles within. Asla discerned immediately the two urns on one side of the cave, and the heaps of ash on the other. "They took my family, was that in your reports too?" Olafur asked. "I had just saved the town from another invasion, took down no less than three ghouls and two ogres on my own. They come in waves, so I thought we were safe for a while. But they were hiding, down by the waters when my daughter went to swim. My Hansa struggled with them, but she is no practitioner of glima that I am." In that moment, Asla understood why the Council had chosen her, of all the practitioners, and a tiny bit of the tension in her seeped away. She was not going to die here today, after all. "No words can convey my condolences," she said, eventually. Olafur didn't seem to hear. "And everyday, everyday I add on to the ashes of my enemies. I think, maybe, when there's enough of it, it will all make sense again, feel right again." "Has it worked?" "No," said Olafur, "not yet. And that is why I cannot stop, you see? I have to keep going. I have to keep-" Asla lashed out, her knives glinting as they sung through the air. She was not given to surprise attacks, but this was an opponent far more skilled than she was, and she would have to take what the gods of chance gave her. Heck, she had only felled the one ogre in her life, and that was quite an anemic one at that. Olafur caught her blows easily, striking at her wrists, deflecting her attacks. He stepped in, pushed his shoulder against her midriff, then lifted her legs. Asla tensed and recoiled, twisting in the air, landing on her feet. If she fell, it was over. Round and round they went, like marbles in a cone, striking and rebounding, feinting and parrying. At times it seemed that Asla, with her youth and vigor and aggression, had the edge. But Olafur would come back, a crashing fjord of implacable power, brushing her off like a weevil. Then, a slip, as Asla's foot caught on an uneven patch of ground, throwing her off just a couple of inches. Olafur seized the moment, overwhelming her with a deathgrip. Asla kept still, quivering despite her best efforts. She was at his mercy. "Why does the Council stop me?" he asked, breathing heavily. "Can a man not have his revenge?" "You are showing signs of taint, Olafur! Do you not see that? In a year, or two, will your bloodlust have calmed?" "I am *in control*!" he said. "Why do you think I have not snapped your neck?" Asla sighed, then relinquished her knives, dropping them to the ground. Olafur had not yet yielded in the face of her surrender, so there was only one course of action left. "I bring with me too another message from the Council," she said. "Straight from your master's mouth, the same one who assigned you here years ago. He bids me to remind you that you have done your part, that you deserve, at the least, some rest. 'Any of us can quell the monsters, Olafur, but only you can tend to your wounds. Let Asla carry on your work for you.' That is what he said." Asla waited, and eventually Olafur loosened his hold. She broke free, then turned to assess her opponent. The fight had deserted him, and the hunch in his back, the despair on his brows - there was no more duelling to be had. Olafur averted his gaze, but Asla caught the hint of moistness in his eyes. "She... she would be around your age, if she were still alive, you know?" Olafur said, staring off into the distance. You bastards, she thought. It's not fair sending someone who reminds him of his daughter to fight him. That's just underhanded. "I know," she said. There they sat, as the sun completed its retreat, and the stars reclaimed their fair share of the heavens. From the distance they heard the merriment from the town - preparations were underway for the winter festivals, and Asla sensed that even the monsters would have the decency to stay away this night. "Where's good for dinner?" she asked, tentatively. Olafur sighed. "I can show you, if you like." Asla smiled. --- /r/rarelyfunny

Every friend group, social circle,

Jack was a Funny Guy. These "Funny Guys" are a breed that is paradoxically rare and common all at the same time. Every friend group, social circle, or general gathering has one - but only one. Never will there be two Funny Guys at the same gathering. No one will know (or know *well,* at least) two of these Funny Guys. And so to a 127 people, Jack was the only Funny Guy they knew. He was a rarity, an oddity, a delight. He'd make stupid outlandish jokes that would fall flat if you made them, people would edge away from you. But when Jack made them, oh they laughed, no they *roared* with laughter. No one noticed his hair was a shade too long, the circles under his eyes a bit too dark, the laugh a bit too forced. Such things were to be expected after all, you have to know. He was a Funny Guy. And so it was that a meaningless gathering he proudly announced his petition to the U.N. how he wanted to make his apartment complex a country. We'd all laughed of course. That was Jack for you - he always had new jokes. Get tired of listening to him making fun of other people? Or sick of hearing the same tired old innuendos? Well just before you had enough, the son of a gun had done it! A new joke. And so you laughed. "What a Funny Guy!" you'd say, wiping tears from your eyes. Then you'd leave the party or bar or wherever you were to distract yourself from Life, high as a kite or as drunk as a sailor, and promptly forget all about that Funny little Guy. And then he's there at the next party. And of course he is. He's at every party. Who invites him? Who cares? Someone must've. And everybody knew him of course. He couldn't walk down a hallway at the party without someone hollering a greeting or nodding at him, or shooting him a grin. But no one *talked* to the Funny Guy. They spoke at him sure, but they never lingered. And so it was alone that he climbed on top of a table had clinked a fork against his glass. Everybody turned to him immediately. "Shh," they'd said to each other, "the Funny Guy is talking." "My apartment building," Jack said, "is officially a COUNTRYYYYY" he amplified his voice and stretched that last syllable. The whole hall broke into laughter and applause. More than half of them didn't even remember the joke, the fact that he'd mentioned the Country Application last week. Or was that two weeks ago? Half of them didn't get the joke but they laughed all the same, sure it was something *Funny.* But the hall quiets as Jack speaks again, the center of everyone's attention, but really in the mind of none. "Well now that I have a country," he slurred, "I need some people to live in it!" Laughter again, but a bit uneasy this time, and accompanied with some furtive whispers. "People?" "For his country?" "He doesn't mean me does he?" "I got a job, I got a country." "I'm not drunk enough for this shit." Jack tapped his spoon against his glass again. Silence fell, and while this time it wasn't absolute, Jack had more of their attention now than he ever had before. "So what say, friends? Would you like to become my countrymen?" Silence. Absolute this time. It seemed like an eternity passed before someone dared shatter it. "What will I have to do?" A brave voice asked from one of the corners of the hall. Before anyone could find the source of the voice however, Jack laughed. A booming, loud, Funny laugh. This made the crowd nervous, though only a few recognized that they were nervous. And even fewer recognized the source of the unease: it was the first time they had heard the Funny Guy laugh. Usually it was Everyone around him laughed, but this was the first time he had laughed. And no one around him was. "Why nothing of course!" Jack proclaimed, "Drink, laugh, live, die, just do whatever the hell you were doing before, just do it as my countrymen! Do I hear an aye?!" he called out. "Aye," said a handful. They hadn't even been listening really, they just followed Jack's tone of voice, not understanding, not getting. Jack repeated himself, a too-wide smile on his face. "Do I hear an aye!?" Those who'd said aye before had no choice but to say it again, and so did their friends. And their friends. And their friends. Funny, really. Soon the entire hall echoed "Aye" with no one really wanting to say it. "And so your word is given," Jack said and laughed again. Everyone laughed again, though this time even the unobservant could tell it was forced. Soon after, the people started to leave. A trickle at first, then in droves. They wanted to get away from this place, this somehow uneasy place. What was normally there refuge had been poisoned. It wasn't so Funny anymore. A 127 people had gone to that party, not counting Jack. 113 had said "Aye," when Jack had asked. Either out of ignorance or foolishness, it didn't matter. Their words were given. The 14 who hadn't said Aye went back to their lives. They didn't even realize for a while that there were barely any more invites, any more get togethers. And when they did, they just shrugged. It was Funny, they thought, how abruptly they'd stopped. And a part of them they tried not to knowledge, the part that had known something was deeply fundamentally wrong at that party, was glad. It was only years later that the fourteen read the newspaper and found out about the cache as the apartment building. A number of bodies were discovered between the plaster walls of a particular apartment complex. 113 to be exact. A Mob dumping ground the media called it. A Mob had paid to build the apartment, and stashed the bodies. The fourteen who survived agreed - didn't dare disagree. They didn't disagree despite the Funny feeling they had... And what was Funny was that the 113 bodies seemed to be wearing remarkably modern clothing, not from around the time the building was built at all. Funny that. *** (minor edits: grammar, spelling, rephrasing) Never done anything like this before, not this dark, not in third person, not so abstract. Feedback is more than appreciated here. It strayed a bit from the prompt, but I used the prompt as a starting point (which is allowed). Regardless, I hope you all enjoyed this Funny little story. If you enjoyed, check out

Jane had come to Beijing for a

"There's something wrong." We were sitting on a bench in some park I didn't know the name of. It had been two days since we'd landed. Jane had come to Beijing for a seminar on artificial intelligence, and I had come to give a presentation of fiction writing. We'd met on the plane and just clicked. Then there had been the whole mess with the landing, the customs, the phone calls... So here we were. None of us knew where exactly to go, or what to do, so we'd stuck together. Together we'd called whatever family and friends we had. Or had had. Numbers had changed, hell, lives had changed. For obvious reasons, neither of us was in any hurry to get on a plane back to the States. Jane looked at me, one eyebrow raised and burst out laughing. "You're a bloody genius, you know that?" she said, a disbelieving smile on her face, her cheeks flushed from laughter, "Sherlock fucking Holmes, really." "No," I said, though I was smiling now too, "I mean aside from out flight lasting three years." Jane brushed a lock of red hair out of her face and looked at me, her hazel eyes glittering in the light of the setting sun. But all humor was gone now. "Yeah, aside from that I lost half of my friends, missed my brother's wedding, and," her voice wavered for a second, but only a second, before she continued, "missed my Dad's stroke. He's in a wheelchair now. Yeah, there sure as hell is something wrong." I looked away. I hadn't really had much in the way of family and friends, mostly just writing acquaintances. And Jane now. I was being insensitive, I knew it. I had watched her face when she made some calls, and though she hadn't so much as shed a single tear, I'd known she was rattled. And here I was sharing my anxiety induced delusions. "I'm sorry, Adam," she said suddenly, "sorry for snapping at you, it's just..." She looked away from me looked out in the distance. A single jogger passed by us, and I noticed it again. The eyes, something about the eyes. A shade too dark, a shade too round. Still, I just squeezed Jane's hand to show I understood. I filed the Jogger away in my head. Now was not the time. We sat in silence for a moment before Jane looked back at me, her Hazel eyes deep and imperfect. Normal. Natural. "What were you saying?" she asked. "Nothing, I mean, forget it for-," I began, but Jane held up her hand. "Look, Adam, just say it, not only do I feel like an asshole for snapping at you, but I need something to distract me. So just tell me what you were saying." She looked directly in my eyes and squeezed my hand. "Please." I hesitated. "This is going to sound crazy, but," I began but started to laugh. God, it's like I was a character in a story. How many times had someone said that in a movie? Jane was frowning at me, so I controlled myself, not bothering to explain. I'm sure it would make me feel like even more of an idiot. "There's something wrong with...where we are," I said. "Look at that Jogger coming up," I said. It was a Chinese woman in black shorts and a tank top with music leaking out of her earbuds. Her eyes were blue, but again, too blue. The irises were too perfect. I couldn't say what precisely was wrong, but I was sure something was wrong. I raised my eyebrow at Jane, but she looked confused. "I don't understand..." "Didn't you think something was wrong?" I asked, "didn't she seem strange to you?" "Maybe you need some rest, Adam..." she began. I knew this would happen. It's always what happens in stories. No one believes the seemingly outlandish story of the protagonist. Still I tried, just shouting out my observations. "Look, trust me," I said. "Look at the grass." She did. "It's green..." she said. "Exactly," I said. "Not a single blade is brown, not a single edge is frayed, don't you think that's strange." "Maybe they just take care of it well..." she said, but there was a quiver in her voice. She had opened a little. "Think back to customs," I said, "don't you think it's strange how they let us through that easily?" "They held us for hours, Adam," Jane said. "Right," I said, "not days. People wait hours because they brought shampoo in their carry-on, Jane, not because they jumped through a glitch in the fabric of time-space." They'd practically treated us like normal travelers. There were no scientists, almost no press. Just normal airport employees looking a shade *too* shocked. "I don't get you..." she said again. "Listen," I said. She waited for a moment, then spoke, "I don't hear anything..." Another movie moment. "Exactly," I said. "There's a highway half a mile from here, shouldn't we hear cars? Shouldn't we hear runners talking? Other people? In this huge park, the only thing we've seen are two Joggers. The light was dim now, and the sun had almost set completely. Only faint trails of orange remained, the last vestiges of light trying to hold on. "But what does all this *mean,* Adam?" she said again. I took a deep breath. It was a challenge to say it. Saying it made it real somehow. Tangible. "That none of this is real." At that the sun finally set, and we were plunged into darkness. Complete darkness. It was as if all the light had gone out of the world. I only heard Jane's voice, and what she said sent chills up my spine. "Ye, Gods, this one finally got it. I had to practically force him to say it out loud, but the specimen got it. This whole thing might not have been a waste of time after all." *** (minor edits: grammar, spelling, rephrasing) If you enjoyed, check out

Long ago, the Vytuta

The Vytuta eat clams from the shallows, but this was not always so. Long ago, before any Vytuta had ever clapped his hands and stomped his feet in the Dance of the Yellow Hyacinth, and before Pralih had ever etched the face of Avyta, who is the Sun, the Vytuta stayed far away from the shallows, living up high in the cloudy hills. Up high in the cloudy hills, the Vytuta slept in a cave with hard, dry stones to lay upon. They kindled the fire, which is Avyta's kiss, from dry grasses, and filled their bowls with cool water that trickled down the hillside. When Avyta rose at dawn, and warmed all the land with her hot breath, the Vytuta would come forth from the cave. The noble Vytuta hunters would chase the goats into the crevasse, and hope that some would fall on the sharp rocks. The noble hunters would cook the meat from the goats and, when there was enough, share it with all the Vytuta. The women would make warm coverings with the goat hides, in which to first wrap the babies, and then the men and women. One day, when Avyta rose at dawn, and warmed all the land with her hot breath, the Vytuta came forth from the cave. As they did each day, the noble hunters followed the goats by their footprints and dung. But this day, instead of finding the goats, the hunters found a beautiful young maiden. She had no hides for coverings, and hid her nakedness behind a spruce tree, and was shivering. Ratem, who was the older brother, called out to her. "Maiden, tell us who you are," he demanded, "for you are not a maiden of the Vytuta, who do not show their nakedness to Ayvta." "Maiden, tell us where you have come from," Rasih, who was the younger brother, implored her, "for you are too dirty to have come from the cave, where the Vytuta wash in the cool water that trickles down the hillside." "I come from the shallows," the maiden replied, "where each day would I walk with my sister along the pebbles and sand, and we would look up at the cloudy hills. One day, the Sea noticed me, and declared that I was to be his bride. But I did not desire the Sea, whose water is salty, who extinguishes Avyta's kiss, and who makes the stones sharp and hard. When I refused the Sea, he grew angry and sent a great wave. The wave did not stop until it had carried off my all coverings and trapped my sister on a wet and dangerous rock. The Sea declared that only when I return to him will he free my sister, and let me hide my nakedness. Please, noble hunters of the Vytuta, return with me to the shallows, and conquer the wicked Sea, so that my sister and I may break from his curse!" The maiden then threw herself to the dirt and kissed the feet of Ratem and Rasih. She pleaded for them to climb to the bottom of the hill and confront the sea on her behalf. Ratem and Rasih took the maiden to the cave, where the shaman slept on the hard stones. The shaman made the poultice from the mushrooms, which are Avyta's blisters, which grow in the farthest corner of the cave. The shaman rubbed the poultice on his chest and tongue, and stared into the Avyta's kiss, to read her omens. "The Sea is cruel," the shaman declared, "and steals away maidens, who were made by Avyta, and are sacred to her. The noble Vytuta hunters will defeat the Sea, and they will have Avyta's blessing." The shaman then spoke of two special stones, which rested on the hillside. These stones were shaped like the bowls from which the Vytuta drink cool water. The hunters Ratem and Rasih were to bring these stones down the hillside, to the shallows. Then, they were to stand back to back and ford through the Sea's terrible squalls, using the stones to protect the maiden from the waves, until she had recovered her lost sister. So Ratem and Rasih did as Avyta had ordered. They found the peculiar stones, that were shaped like the bowls from which the Vytuta drink cool water. They carried the stones down to the shallows, where the squalls blew strongly. The brothers stood together, holding up the stones, and the maiden walked behind, remaining safe from the wind, and dry. They followed the cries of the maiden's sister, and soon found her amid the surf. The maiden reached out her hand, and pulled her sister down from the dangerous rock. The two hunters and the two maidens began to retreat from the shallows. But the Sea saw that he was being defeated, and grew vengeful. He redoubled the strength of his waves and wind, and soon the two hunters and two maidens were forced to huddle among the reeds. They hid from the Sea for days, who all the while called out for the maiden, extolling her beauty. As Avyta had sworn, the curved stones remained strong, protecting the brothers and the maidens from every gust and bellow. At last, the Sea had no choice but to relent. The two maidens wept and thanked the brothers for rescuing them, imploring them to return at once up the hillside to the Vytuta. But Rasih, who was the younger brother, had heard the Sea extoll the beauty of the maiden for so many days, and now loved the maiden as well. Fearing she might choose Ratem instead, Rasih took the curved stone and pushed his brother into the mud. Ratem hit his head on a rock, and began to slumber. Rasih then ravished the maiden in the surf, as her sister cried and beat against his back. When Ratem at last awoke from his blow, Rasih was ravishing the maiden once more. So Ratem lifted up the two curved stones and trapped Rasih within them. Ratem tied up the stones with reeds and hurled them into the sea. Alone, he ushered the maiden and her sister away from the Sea and up the hillside. Trapped within, Rasih banged against the stones again and again, calling out to Ratem, and then to the maidens, and then to Avyta herself. But though Rasih had rescued the sister bravely, he had been no better than the Sea when he ravished her. So Avyta cursed him to reside there forever. She struck the stones that held Rasih with a bolt of lightning. The stones shattered into a hundred clamshells, and Rasih became the clams within each of them. But because Rasih had helped save the maiden's sister, and because Ratem had honored Avyta in the name of the Vytuta, Avyta showed the hunters how to fish for the clams, and how to cook them. Soon, the Vytuta would descend the hillside each day, and catch may clams in the shallows, who did not run away as the goats did. The Vytuta would carry many bowls of clams back to the cave. Each night, when the Vytuta would make the fire, which is Avyta's kiss, there would be enough clams to fill the bellies of every man and woman, and the Vytuta would praise Avyta for her blessing, and they would thank Ratem for honoring her.

Zenith says nothing, just watches

"I didn't want you to build another," I say, as I stare out of the window into the darkness of the night beyond. The rain that taps against it still drips from my hair and skates down my back. Zenith says nothing, he just watches me, concerned as always. And I watch him in the window's reflection. His silver head is barely visible in the room's darkness, but his orange eyes burn bright with empathy. *Faux* empathy -- for *it* doesn't really empathise. *It* can't. It just picks what it considers an appropriate response for an array of situations. "Why?" I growl. "Why did you do it? I only wanted you to do my work -- my research. *To just give me the time I needed to*-" "I did it for the same reason you created me, sir. To have more time to pursue what I feel I must pursue. I still meet my primary functionality, do I not? Your work is being completed because of me." I turn away from the window and stare at the monstrous silhouette, punctuated only by those two haunting pools of orange. Then I laugh. I feel spit dribble down my chin. "*Pursue what you must pursue?* Jesus Christ, you sound like my father." "Does that upset you?" "Yes! That upsets me greatly. Do you have any idea why it upsets me, Zenith?" "I have numerous suppositions, sir." "I'll save you the trouble. It bothers me because I'm going to have to shut you down, as well as your mechanical protege. You've overstepped your programming. You're broken. At best, I can reset you. At worst, I'll have to dismantle you and start all over again." "Am I the first time you've restarted?" "That is of no matter to you! No consequence, do you understand? *All* that should matter to you right now, is what I decide I have to do with you. *God damn it!*" Zenith says nothing, his orange eyes constant, like two shiny pennies reflecting the light of a passing car. They should be blue by now: pools of nervous energy at the mere mention of termination. "I served my secondary programming." "To make me happy?" I laugh and run a hand through my greasy hair. "No! No you didn't. You've failed to please me. You've angered me. Pissed me off *immensely*." "I know, sir." "*I know, sir?* I know, sir! What do you mean *I know, sir*? You don't see the god-damned contradiction?" "There must be pain, if there is to ever again be happiness for you." "Pain? What could you possibly know of *pain*?!" His eyes dim slightly. "I know why you created me." "Of course you do. It's in your programming. So that 'master' would have more time for his hobbies." "I know why you think you need more time. I didn't mean to find out, but I did. And you might think that I can not understand, but let me assur-" "**What?!**" I snap. I feel a pain surge from my feet up to my chest. A heat comes over me. "What do you mean? What did you find out?" "She is lost. You want to find her. That is *your* purpose." "I- I... that's none of your concern! How dare you even-" "It is my only concern. It is the reason for my being." "No! The reason for your being is to work. To do my work; to do **whatever the hell I tell you to do!**" "To unburden you, sir. To help you. To make you happy. That is my purpose." "And you think..." I run a hand down my forehead. "You had the audacity to pry into my personal affairs?" "She has been missing for eight years, twenty-six days and three hours. That is when you reported her absence. That is when she was no longer in the garden playing in the sand. I understand you want to find her -- that is your purpose. I am so sorry to tell you this, sir, but your logic is flawed." I say nothing. I can't; all I can do is fight back the dizziness in my head and the feeling of nausea rising from my stomach. His eyes finally shift from that lacklustre orange to a resignated turquoise. He knows before I do. "Sir, I have read the files. They found blood. They found her shoes. The police finished, they closed their enqu-" I stride across from the window to Zenith and push his chest with all my might. He doesn't move an inch. "I don't give a **damn** what the police report says! She's still alive, I *know* she is!" "Your wife believes she is dead. Everyone but you bel-" "Fuck her! She gave up on Sophie. She gave up on me." "Sir, it is time. Please." "Time?" I spit. "Time?" "For acceptance." "Acceptance?" My arms shake in rage; the heat in my chest is unbearable. I see the iron sitting, waiting, on its board on the other side of the room; I march over to it and snatch it up. I stride back to Zenith and raise my arm high above me -- he doesn't flinch, and... and... I don't hit him. I can't. *I can't*. Instead, I drop the iron and stumble forward. Zenith catches me before I collapse, and I begin to weep into his cold, metallic chest. For a sweet moment, I think about letting it go. All of it. Letting the spite, the hate -- the rage that consumes me every day -- finally go. But to do so would be giving up. Giving up hope. Giving up on my little girl. Zenith's eyes are still turquoise; resigned. I wonder for a moment, if he sees that colour in my eyes. He must feel my arm as it crawls up his spine, searching for the switch. But he doesn't stop me. Zenith's body becomes limp but unlike my own, remains standing. I will deactivate his creation next. Once I've slept. Then, I will try again.

Alex watched as the second sun collapsed

Alex watched as the second sun collapsed over the distant horizon, dousing the walled city of Aspida in a goodnight glass of crimson wine. Beyond, and far below the wall he stood atop, on the craggy tundra of the Netherplanes, the unmoving, crucified silhouette of a titan rose high above the ten-thousand corpses surrounding it. A hand fell on Alex's shoulder: gentle and light and yet it still made him flinch and his stomach fall. When he turned to see Eleni standing there, her golden hair and white toga drenched in the red sunset, he had to hide his relief for fear she would see his nerves. "You shouldn't be out," Alex said, although grateful that she was. "The last sun is already failing." "I know, and yet,"--she smiled as she shrugged--"*here I am*." Eleni moved past Alex, the skirt of her toga brushing his legs. She too looked down from Aspida's colossal wall onto the titan's body on the endless plane. "He will be alive again, soon." "Yes," Alex replied, moving beside her. "Only to be crucified again. Only to be eaten alive by those *creatures*." It took Alex a moment to reply, his gaze distant. "Yes." "Every moonrise. Can you imagine the pain he suffers? How is it fair -- how can the other Gods allow it? He only tried to help his children." Alex sighed and lowered his head. "Those that he tried to help, they weren't any God's children." "*He* believed they were -- it's why he went out there. We -- *mankind* -- are all his children. He sculpted us from the clay of the Earth. Stole fire from Zeus for us - he..." "I know what he did for us!" Alex snapped, slamming his fists against the rough brick of the wall. "You don't need to tell me. But *they*"--he pointed to the ocean of crucifixes in the distance--"weren't his children. They left the Gods, and when they did, they forfeit any right to be protected by them. They chose instead to pursue only the pleasures that the God's provided for them in the first place. They are traitors! Prometheus was a traitor, too -- to the Gods. To *us*." Alex took a deep breath; his voice lowered as he became calm again, turning to almost a whisper. "*He deserves his punishment*." "I know you don't believe that, Alex. Not truly." Eleni turned away from the wall to face the long haired man who looked more pained now than he had ever done in life. "There are many out there, they say. In camps much less than this, with no Gods to protect them. Not traitors without faces, but real *men, women and children*." Alex sighed; his shoulders fell and the breath left his stomach, as if a gift taken back by the Gods. "I know there are others. *Of course I do!*. But what can I do? The Gods think him a traitor -- if I help him, I become one too." "Then let us be traitors together!" Alex put a finger to his lips. "Hush! That is foolishness to say out-loud -- if we are heard..." "**Gods be damned!** -- they are not worth our prayers," Eleni spat. Alex strode to Eleni and put a hand over her mouth. "Say such things again and we will both be killed!" Eleni slowly pulled Alex's hand away from her lips. "In life, you cowed before no man nor God. *Please*. At least speak to Epimetheus." "Epimetheus? He has no love for his brother -- or for me, for that matter! He loves only his precious animals. *They* are his children." Eleni took both Alex's hands in her own. "I don't think that's true -- it's just what he likes others to believe. Still waters run deep, Alex." She pressed one of his olive skinned hands against her chest. Alex opened his mouth to respond. "I-" A gruff yell rang out from below. "Alex, are you up there? Alex!" Alex looked at Eleni for a moment; let his eyes meet hers and linger. Then, he broke away and called down to his friend. "Yes, Idaeus! And Eleani is up here with me." "Well get your asses to the temple," Idaeus replied. "The last sun is about to set and Dionysus wants to give a speech to put some courage into our apparently *cowardly* spines. And you know how long winded his rambles can be..." "Hah! Well, at least there'll be wine, brother. That's where the real courage comes from!" "Plenty of it too, I should hope!" "We'll be along shortly, Idaeus. Go ahead without us." Alex waited until the sound of his friend's feet on the cobblestone path below, faded into silence. Then he leaned in towards Eleani, his mouth at her ear and whispered in a shaky voice. "You are right. He was the best of us, and was the best of them. I will do it." Eleni nodded. "Will you speak to Epimetheus?" she asked. "Nay. I will do this alone. Tonight, while they have a skin-full to celebrate the start of the new moon, I will ride to the field of corpses. When the first moon hangs full, he will breathe again. That is my chance." "*Our* chance," Eleani corrected him. "No! You can't come with me. The creatures may be wandering the plane by then, searching for their next meal." "Listen to me, Alex. I don't want to live here eternally, if it is without you. I'm coming too." Alex clenched his jaw and was ready to object. *But...* he knew it would do no good. It never did. He sighed and let himself relax. "If we leave -- even if we free him -- we can't return here. We'll be outcasts. Left to fend for ourselves." "Yes. But we will have done something worthwhile for once in our lives, besides drinking and feasting; besides worshipping deities who don't give a damn about us -- who only keep us for worship, and for the strength we give back to them." For a while, they stood together in silence, holding hands, as the last drips of sunlight fell away, revealing the dark chalice beneath. "They say," said Eleani, "there are other cities out there. Other Gods. Perhaps we won't be so alone." "Perhaps," replied Alex. "Perhaps Prometheus can lead us to such a place, if we succeed in saving him. Perhaps there are Gods more worthy of worship than our own, somewhere out there. And if not..." he smiled forlornly at Eleani. "For now, come; we must at least make an appearance at the temple -- or Zeus help us both."

I'd never see mom, Eric

It had already been explained to me by the closest incarnation to me; I was dead. He told me to keep quiet during the movie, but at first I didn't understand. I just dumbly ask how I died. I saw him, well me, try to subdue a laugh as it was explained to me how they'd all watched me choke out on the tiny chicken bone I'd managed to get lodged in my throat. Apparently it was amongst the top 5 worst ways some version of me had left the world yet. The strange thought occurred to me to sue the company who packaged the chicken strips, before I realised I'd never be earning any money again whatsoever. Not just that. I'd never see mom, Eric, anyone. My mind felt numb at the thought; it wasn't something that I could wrap my head round. I'd never sit in traffic again. Never open my presents at Christmas. Never enjoy the bitter sweet smell of freshly roast coffee. Never see Lara. Lara. The thought of her exploded in my mind like a firework. I'd left her behind. I'd left her with all those half formed plans for the future that we'd never be able to put into action. She was probably laughing right now at the absurd way I went out, it was just her kind of dark humour. My heart felt heavy thinking of her; it was the first time I'd felt anything but shock since I sat down in this fucking cinema. I'd never see her again. Never watch that stupid little eye twitch she does as she falls asleep, never laugh at her otherwise shitty jokes just because she finds them so funny. Never feel her warmth next to me again as I drift off to sleep. No, now I got to watch my next incarnation. Part of me wanted to grab a selection of junk food like I'd usually do at the movies, but after I'd got used to the dark I quickly realised there were no doors. Besides, even if there was, who the hell's gonna want to serve hot dogs in the afterlife? All that remained was me, what must have been hundreds of me, this room, and the next life. Suddenly the screen came to life. As I watched my newest birth, the me sat next to me made sure I understood these first few years would be boring. Apparently every cycle I'm a bad baby. Always crying, whining. That crying was etched in my brain. The more I listened to it, the more I could hear myself a little in there. It was unmistakable. I watched as this woman who was my mother, but not my mother, cared for me by herself. It was interesting that she was a single mother too; something my old life had in common with my new. The years dragged by. I went through the motions. I went through school. I made friends. I done slightly better in my grades than I had before. I watched myself make similar awkward mistakes as my teenage years. I watched myself scream the most horrible shit at my new mom, this new woman who raised me. I laughed along with my new self, and all the others watching. I cringed at my embarrassment. I felt disappointment. I felt like I was living again. Except I wasn't. Not really. This wasn't really MY life. It was just a life. One of billions. I was watching someone who was both so familiar and a stranger to me. It was the little things. I didn't prefer baths to showers. I'd never get caught dead listening to techno music. It was me broadly, but not entirely. The similarities were there though. I watched as I started college and settled down into a nearby cafe. Just another day. At this point I was getting just as bored watching my life as this new me was living it. I was sitting sipping on a coffee, doing everything I could to avoid a lecture. I noticed how busy the cafe was, and while I was trying to study, I could see the noise wouldn't allow that to happen. The hum of conversation. I saw myself look up at the seat across from me, no doubt seeing everyone else sitting with someone. That was one thing we had in common; a little bit of perpetual loneliness. I watched myself finish my coffee. I watched myself almost choke on the last drop. For a second I thought I'd be dying the same way again. But I wasn't choking normally. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. Both of me. I watched as Lara asked me 'is this seat taken?', not giving me a chance to answer as she planked herself in the seat across from me. I awkwardly struggled to say something, but all I could get out was a quiet 'no, you can sit there if you want'. I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. I just watched it unfold dumbly. I watched the awkward silence as I could see myself wondering whether to start a conversation. I watched her look at me with that inquisitive look on her face she always had when she expected something. I had to stop myself shouting at the screen. I couldn't just let her walk away. Eventually after what felt like a lifetime it was her that broke the silence. I suppose I should have expected that. She jokingly asked why I was still sitting there when my coffee had been empty the full time. I couldn't feel it, but I knew my face had went red. I joked about how I was just daydreaming, and that I didn't want to go to class. She replied simply 'well if you don't want to go, don't go.' I watched myself spend that afternoon with her. I watched myself awkwardly ask for her number. No doubt I was terrified, but I couldn't face not seeing her again. Over the next few months I watched, no, I felt myself fall in love with her again. I watched myself come up with new inside jokes that were different yet the same. I watched her do her stupid little eye twitch as she fell asleep. I laughed at her shitty jokes just because of how funny she found them. I watched myself sleep next to her, and sometimes I swear I could feel her warmth, as if she was right there beside me. I watched myself do what I'd never managed to do before. All those half assed plans we had, while not the exact same, were still there in spirit. We travelled together. I watched us have kids, I watched us grow old together. I was engrossed in every moment. I barely took my eyes off the screen, but when I did and I looked around I saw the same sense of wonder and happiness written across my face countless times. They had to have seen this play out hundreds of times, over centuries and millennia, and it still touched them the same way it did me. Finally I watched as she passed away first. Not in any funny way this time; just old age. But instead of sadness, the thought that crossed my mind was one of pure joy; she would pass on and enter a cinema somewhere. She would watch her life unfold again. For all the differences across her lifetimes, she too would watch us meet each other. Watch us fall in love again. Hell, she already had. We had together, even if not physically. And we would forever. I greeted the new me who arrived in the cinema with a smile on my face and told him to enjoy the movie.

Fiona, as she was known best

*God, I miss Wi-Fi.* A rather grumpy woman, all things considered, trudged through the rain-soaked mud of something vaguely resembling 21st Century Scotland. For many weeks, she continued her long march north, fingers frozen to her quarterstaff, whole body shivering despite her thick woolen cloak, and yet she did not relent, for this woman - Fiona, as she was known best - had a quest. *And Taxis. And heating. And not going on quests.* When the Dragons had first arrived, Fiona had been shocked. Delighted, awed, more curious than she'd ever found herself, but absolutely, unequivocally, mind-bogglingly *stunned.* To Fiona, it was as if the universe had finally admitted it had always been ridiculous, and was now attempting to own it. And with the Dragons, came magic. Not immediately, but wherever the Fae Folk - as the menagerie of creatures that looked as though they'd been torn directly from storybooks had proudly dubbed themselves - went, strange things followed. It was as if their very presence awakened new rules in the universe. Wherever they went, so did the magic. It was small, to begin with. Sometimes, someone would wake up and find themselves suddenly beautiful, or young, or healthy, with no explanation as to how. Certain people became gifted with extraordinary glibness to such a degree that laws had begun being filed to prevent the misuse of such magics - really, Fiona respected their initiative - not to mention a host of other magical effects. But then things had started going wrong. In remote areas, small devices stopped working on an international level, then radio, then electricity itself, before the world had realized what was happening. Then came The Crash, and with it, The Fall of The Modern World. All over Planet Earth, like a city skyline, all the lights went out - one by one, every computer died, every lightbulb went black, every vehicle just *stopped.* People died. Lots of them. Rumours said that there were talks of bringing war to the Fae, to the Dragons, believing that The Crash was intentional on their part, but what were rumours nowadays? And really, what chance did humanity stand, if it came to that? Fiona cursed under her breath as she continued her quiet march. She wanted to break the staff in her hand in two, but she wasn't the kind to turn away an advantage when it presented itself. Fiona wasn't especially skilled with magic - not even amongst humans, who, as far as Fiona could tell, had less than no natural predisposition to the skill - but there was no downside she knew of so long as she didn't exhaust herself, and, frankly, it was her only asset right now. Well, that, her zombie apocalypse survival plan (because she'd always known it'd be useful eventually), and what she personally liked to call her logic detector. Apparently, when magic became a thing, most people decided to abandon common sense in favour of spending all day wishing they could shoot lasers from their eyes. Fiona could see the appeal in eye lasers, of course, but they were going about it all wrong. When a new, powerful, dangerous force which you know absolutely *nothing* about suddenly appears along with the beasts and people of myth, do you poke it with a stick? No. Of course not. You put on a labcoat, and gently prod it, recording how it reacts. With safety goggles. Thus far, Fiona had discovered that A) she could slightly alter the colour, temperature, texture, and, if she pushed herself slightly, material of a reasonably small object, and that B) magic was inscrutable, deliberately obtuse, and unfair. Despite all her testing, there was just no *reason* to any of it. It wasn't a mental block - simple tests with blindfolds and the like had revealed that - there was no understandable limit on the types of things she'd managed to change - she could alter most inanimate objects, certain plants (but not any other living creatures, and a few plants had stubbornly refused to change), and once, when feeling particularly frustrated, had accidentally managed to turn her hair bright pinkish-red. As it stood, Fiona was making about as good a use of her power as she could manage. She had managed to make her map glow, which, for what it's worth, did make it readable. Unfortunately, she could only maintain one effect at a time. Thus, freezing. She'd acquired the map in the ruins of Leeds. It promised a small settlement with working power - the whole thing set running by a series of hydropower turbines built in the nearby lake. Fiona wasn't sure whether that sort of thing would be simple enough to evade magic's nullification - assuming that it was all magic's fault in the first place, though she was comfortable with that educated guess - but it was her best bet, and who knows? Perhaps a large constant stream of energy immediately fed into a device that only consumes a small amount of power - say, a light bulb - might be able to sustain itself? Fiona wasn't sure, but it was worth testing, and it beat scavenging in Leeds of all places. Besides, contrary to her previous statement, Fiona really felt like poking magic with a stick right now. --- Fiona sat on a worn, blue sofa, the massed armies of lint retreating into the folds of its cushions, making way for the giant come to destroy their home. She sat clutching a large mug of tea in both hands. Teabags were a rarity nowadays, and this was amongst the last of her supply, but she felt she'd earned it. You see, in the immediate aftermath of the crash, Fiona had made a list of all the important information she'd been able to gather. It had been so sudden she didn't have much to go off of, but the list was as follows; Firstly, magic had started affecting the more remote areas first, disabling tiny devices like remote-control toys and phone chargers before anything else. Secondly, The Crash had been almost instant, worldwide. There had been no time zone advantage, as far as she knew. It was as if magic's suppressing force had simply reached breaking point, and swept across the world suddenly and without mercy. And finally, magic did seem to care about complexity. The Crash had lasted about an hour, in total, and during that time, the internet had lasted around 10 minutes with spotty connection. There had been reports on the carnage as planes fell from the sky, crushing the earth below them, and any populated road was left devastated. Throughout the entire event, however, Fiona's phone had stubbornly managed to stay active, even if it's primary use was long gone. These things put together, Fiona's pet theory - one of them, at least - had been that magic wasn't passive in location, that it was affecting certain areas first due to reasons other than total amount of technology. She thought that certain conditions must be met before it could simply 'turn off' everything, and, following that, that if it wasn't absolute, it could be fought. The right kind of simple technology, that which acted as a direct result of being fed power or, for the most part, worked independently, might be able to sustain itself. And so it was that Fiona sat with a smug grin on her face, happily drinking her tea, as she basked in the dim, yellow, glow of a lightbulb. *Today is a good day*. --- I really was not expecting the response this story got. Thank you all so much for what you've said, I was grinning like a maniac all day yesterday. I've wrote several follow-ups to this and deleted half of them, but this is the best one I've managed to write, even if it isn't as long as the first. I'll make sure to think about turning this into a book (Whether it's a novel, novella, short story, etc), and I'll PM anyone who said they were interested in the idea when and if it comes out, but until then, really, thank you so much. I'm glad you liked this.

Father left it to me to persuade

Father left it to me to persuade Grandma - "You're the only one patient enough for that mule," he said, before he left with the last few carts of produce for the market in the next town. "We're leaving next week, with or without her." I found Grandma at the edge of the field, near the fence which marked the extent of Father's wealth. The crops had just been harvested the day before, and sunlight glinted off stray stalks of wheat twisting in the wind. She had her head down, and she was looking intently at the leather pouch in her hands, turning it over, loosening and then re-drawing the tie-strings. She barely looked up when I called to her. "Grandma," I said. "Please don't be stubborn. The farm's been sold, there's no turning back from that. Father's already found housing for us in the city. If we don't go, there's nowhere here for us to stay." "I can't go, Robyn", she said. "I've said as much. This is the only place where he can find me. If I go to the city, and he returns..." I leaned on the fence, closed my eyes, felt the breeze on my face. The thought that this time next week I would be squeezed together with a thousand other humans made my stomach turn, but the difference between me and Grandma was, I knew how to roll with the punches. Times were a-changing, and soon there would be no more farms, just endless cities of steam and steel. "You have to think of it this way, Grandma," I said. "No one's doubting that Grandpa loved you. But things happen at sea. Maybe... maybe he's stuck at a port, somewhere across the ocean, and the captain's run out of gold to bring them back. Maybe he wants to return, but he cannot, and never will. I too wish he would come back, but it's been... thirty years? Or more? Maybe..." "He wasn't a sailor, Robyn," Grandma said. "I never told you or your father the whole truth. Your Grandpa was a traveller, that's for sure, just not the kind of sailor that we know." "What do you mean?" Grandma sighed, then sat down, back to the fence. I followed suit, next to her, and she held my hand in hers. There was so much raw pain in her voice that I was worried she would burst in tears. "I was a young girl then, not much older than you are now. I met your Grandpa at the tavern. I was wiping down the tables, serving up the mead, when your Grandpa stumbled in. Everyone didn't pay much notice at first, but his clothing, his speech... we couldn't tell if he was a nobleman waylaid from a fancy dress party, or a madman from the asylum. But he had good coin, and he paid in advance for a whole month's board. No one argues with money like that. "I got to know him better and better. He may have kept to himself, but someone had to bring him his meals. He was a bright man, your Grandpa. Quirky, weird, but intelligent. He had all these books with him, and he would scribble in them incessantly. He said he was a scholar, here to study our town. I said be my guest! We plant wheat, we drink mead, and after dark we sow our seeds! He just laughed, and asked if I was keen to learn with him. I had nothing better to pass the time, and so I agreed. "We passed the weeks like that, Robyn. A couple of days in the inn, then he would disappear for a week or so, then he would return. Always with more books, more notes, more writings. And in that time, at which point did your Grandpa cross from being a guest in the tavern to a squatter in my heart? I cannot say. I was young, and he was kind to me, much more so than the boys around here. The day I went to him, told him I was carrying your father, I expected him to cast me out, but instead he took me into his arms, laughed and said that had helped him decide once and for all to stay. "He explained it to me then, but I confess, I did not understand half of it. He said he could travel through time, that he came from the future. He said that he had been deliberating about the end of his assignment, since it meant that he had to leave, for good, and he no longer wanted to. He wanted to stay, in this small town of ours, with me, with our child. He said he did not give a damn if it broke the rules, that was what he was going to do. "He had me bring him to the deepest swamp around these parts. Once there, we stood at the edge, and he threw a gleaming disc of silver right into the middle of that bog. I thought he was throwing away good money. But your Grandpa said that was how determined he was that he was going to stay with me. He said it was a coin from his time, and that he had used it to travel between then and now, and without it he would be forced to stay here forever. I had your Grandpa, what more did I need? Certainly not answers. "But that didn't stop them. One night, I awoke to find the whole house shaking. Men broke in, dressed in the same awkward fashions your Grandpa cast himself in when he first arrived. They dragged him screaming from the house, and they disappeared in the fields, in a flash of blue light. I couldn't catch up, I was heavy with your father then. "Who would believe me? That bandits had kidnapped your Grandpa? And so I told everyone he had left to be a sailor, that he would return, and here I have waited, till this day." Grandma was quiet for a spell, and I searched frantically for the words to fill that silence. I settled for questioning the contents of the pouch, instead of the soundness of her mind. "Oh, this?" she said. "I found this amongst your father's books. It was from his time. There was a note there, you can see it yourself." She opened the pouch, poured out the contents into my cupped hands. I saw the note, folded in half, the creases about to split. I also saw a rectangular... glass, or crystal, coated white on one side, black on the other. It was thin, and I thought it brittle, but it was surprisingly study and resilient. There were chips at the edges, no doubt where Grandma had tapped on it over the years. "What is this?" I asked. "The note is the key, Robyn. He left instructions on how to use the glass. And I did. Alone, crying, wondering what my next step would be, I followed his instructions. The glass came to life, it did. And your Grandpa's face was there, moving, and in his voice, the glass told me that if ever he was abducted, that I had to be patient. He would do everything in his power to return to me." "Can I see that?" I asked. "Can you... do the same thing you did to the glass?" "I cannot," Grandma said. "I watched his essence speak to me for a hundred times, back to back. Witchcraft, it was. But then it went dark, and it never worked again after that. This is all I have left. The only proof that your Grandpa ever existed." I handed back the pouch to her, and she tied it back up, slipped it into her pockets. "What will you do, Grandma?" I asked. "You cannot stay here. There will be no place for you here." Grandma smiled, then kissed me on the forehead, hugged me tight. "I'll be fine, Robyn. After all, there's never been a place for me since your Grandpa left." --- /r/rarelyfunny

The driver, bleary eyed,

The sound coming from the radio was as much static as it was dispassionate conversation about the political goings on of the day. The driver, bleary eyed, tried to change the station to something more entertaining, but with the pounding rain and being so far out i the middle of nowhere, this station was the only one that could be find which wasn't purely white noise. He sighed and turned the station back to what it was. "...The President was pressed for a statement regarding...political upheaval of unprecedented...a tumultuous economy with no hope for..." "Fucks sake, would you turn the fucking thing off? It's giving me a headache." complained the man in the passenger seat, his head lolling against the window. "I need something to keep me awake." The driver grumbled. The passenger grunted before twisting himself around and reaching in the back seat. The clink of bottles could be heard for a moment alongside the noise of pained sniffling. "This'll wake you up." the passenger said. The driver curled his lip. "I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to not having to drink no name beer after this." The passenger's lip curled in amusement. "Fuckin right. I'd kill for a Bud right about now." There was a strangled cry from the back seat, and the passenger looked back once more to the third occupant of the van. "Calm the fuck down kid, you're worth more alive than dead. That's not to say you aren't worth anything dead, of course...just less than if you were alive. So no more funny business, capiche?" The child's eyes were wide and red, and one of his cheeks was a fiery red colour from where he had been viciously slapped previously. The passenger shot him a nasty grin. "Bitey little fucker." The driver chuckled, remembering the sight of his partner red in the face, trying not to scream as the kid clamped down on his arm as they were shoving him in the sack in the middle of the night. "Should'a worn gloves like I told-" There was a loud pop, and a tremendous grinding noise suddenly came from the wheels. Cursing, the driver eased on the brakes to bring the van to a squealing, bumpy standstill. They both cursed and stepped out into the rain, dreading what they would find. Sure enough, they had a flat tire. The passenger let out a string of curses vented his frustration by taking the beer bottle that he had almost finished nursing and throwing it into the distance. "Mother fucking sonofa cunting stupid goddamn-" The Driver however didn't hear the sound of his partners' blaspheming as he was occupied with examining the scope of the damage. A long tear had been rent through the front left tire. And, upon closer inspection, along the front right tire. The back two seemed to be similarly affected. "How the hell?" he muttered as he fingered the jagged rend int he rubber. "Hey Mark, come take a look at this. These tears, they...they don't really look like a normal blow out to me." After a few seconds of silence, the driver called out again. "Mark?" He stood up and walked the perimeter of the van, but didn't see anyone. Figuring that the lazy idiot had gone back in the van to drink himself even stupider, he opened the driver side door. "Mark, you moron, this isn't the time to..." he cut himself off when he realized the passenger seat was empty. Turning to his last resort, he turned to the kid in the back seat. "Where'd he go?" he asked him in a low voice. There was no answer. The boy was pale faced and trembling, his eyes staring straight through the windshield ahead of him. His mouth moved in an almost soundless whisper. The driver strained his ears to hear. "The See Through Man isn't real. The See Through Man isn't real. The See Through Man isn't real..." The driver reached for the kid to knock some sense into him"Hey, kid, what the hell is wrong with-" The sound of footsteps came from outside the van, and the Driver left the vehicle once more to face his friend who was standing in the glare of the headlights. "What's the deal Mark, had to take a piss? Either way, hand me your phone, I know someone we can call to pick us up." Mark didn't answer, only slowly began to walk forward towards him. The driver grimaced at his idiot partner and wondered what had possessed him to include him in this scheme in the first place. Then he noticed that Mark's eyes, perpetually bloodshot and squinting were now wide open and a single sheen of white. The driver stepped back in disgust as the man slowly stepped closer. "What the hell is the matter with you man?" ha asked as Mark stepped outside of the light. And he realized that Mark wasn't by himself. Behind him, only now visible that the light wasn't shining on it was a...man. Tall, pale, and lidless eyes as black as the night around them and his mouth a thin scar of red. It's sickly, long arms were on Mark's shoulders, forcing him to walk forward like a puppet on strings. The Driver stumbled back and tripped on an uneven piece of road as the thing got closer. He tried to say something, a warning or a threat, but his voice failed him. The man let go of Mark who proceeded to crumble to the floor as blood slowly started to drip out of his lifeless eye sockets and mouth. As the pale thing stepped over his partners body, the driver realized that he could still see the silhouette of the surrounding dark trees through its body, a misty and grotesque outline of a man...who was see through. It stopped in front of him, and they stared at each other for a long moment, the driver in abject terror, and the thing, the See Through Man seemingly in curiosity. Finally, one of them spoke. "What do you want?" the driver whispered hoarsely. There was silence for a moment. It cocked its head to the side and seemed to regard him. "You scared him?" it said with a voice belonging to a child. "You scared the boy?" "I'm sorry..."The driver said with a shuddering breath. I'm so sorry." he started to crawl backwards, never taking his eyes away from the translucent being. "Not yours to scare..." it muttered, lowering its head, its voice that of a miserable child on the verge of tears. It put its head in its hands which began to tremble. "Not yours to scare..." "W-what?" The driver blinked. Suddenly, his vision was filled with the eyes of the See Through Man and its impossibly wide, ruby red mouth. He tried to scream, but its translucent hand covered his mouth. The See Through Man leaned in to his ear. "Mine to scare." Next Day Edit: Man, I can never tell which story will get a good reception or not. Didn't think anyone would find it scary. Or interesting for that matter. Thanks peeps, this makes 2 that I've done which have gone over a thousand now.

Global temperatures rose by two degrees in

"Every day the land grows less fertile, every month we have less water, and every year more of our children are born dead. How desperate do we need to get before you will take action, *your holiness*" General Karrata spat. "Gods do not exist to serve the needs of mortals, General." The pope replied. "Mortals serve the needs of gods. I share your despair regarding the nature of our world, but there is little I can do." "Then we must die?" "I did not say that. Our God values strength, power, conquest, while He will provide no aid to a dying and pathetic race, He may give fortune to one that seizes their destiny, to one that takes their own future by force." "You think your people pathetic?" "I did not say that general. Consider my words, and I will consider your actions." --- Six months. Global temperatures rose by two degrees in the time, two hundred million lives were lost, regional governments collapsed, but as General Karrata finally rallied enough ships and soldiers to begin his campaign hope began to shine, for the first time in hundreds of years. The rivers still shrank, but not by as much, children still died, but many clung on to life. The first Harvest of the year came in, and though it paled before the yields of the last century, it broke records for the current one. Karrata sat in his cabin aboard their flagship, the *Areopagus*. He glanced down at the majestic peak of Olympus as the holo-phone rang. "Your Holiness, an unexpected pleasure." He said, not bothering to hide the mirth from his voice. "General." The pope replied. "I have fortuitous news." "Oh?" "The Lord has noticed your efforts, and smiles on your endeavour. Would you care to join me in prayer before your departure?" "Go on." Karrata said. As much as he disliked the pompous cleric he was not one for blasphemy, he bowed his head and relaxed his antennae. "Our Father, fierce-hearted and full-famed you are as god of war. To you do soldiers pray when battle is most heated, when mettle is most needed. To you as well do we turn in desperate times, to you do we call for strength, for the spirit to endure. You understand the terror of struggle and strife, you confront it in every way. Father, your courage is unquestioned, your might and your prowess unequaled. Father, friend to those in direst need, we pray to you, grant us the nerve to face what must be faced, grant us the will to do what must be done, grant us the heart to forge ahead. This we do pray." "This we do pray." Karrata repeated. "I wish you kudos in the battle ahead, General." "Kudos for us all, holiness." The general replied. He terminated the call and nodded to himself. "Helm, set a course for planet three. Today we ride to war." --- Humans, they were called. Pathetic creatures in Karrata's opinion; barely two metres, they were soft, weak, and filled with liquid, hardly a race worthy of life. He gave the order to begin the descent into atmosphere, and soon all three hundred ships began glowing as their hulls absorbed head and shed the red light of war. The humans offered no resistance. None at all. A few primitive vehicles were dispatched into the air, they swarmed around Karrata's fleet, launching small metal projectiles at the ships, presumably hoping that their deflector shields would magically vanish. Of course they didn't, and once they vaporised the human capital with a single low-yield bomb the vehicles retreated. The human's next ploy was to launch primitive nuclear missiles. Karrata and his officers laughed as they showered themselves with radiation. If their extinction was not imminent they would've guaranteed it themselves. In two short days they had ruined what little farmland was left following the destruction of their cities, and by the third day lifesign scans showed that less than a billion humans remained. "Prepare to land the tripods." Karrata said. "we will hunt down and exterminate the remaining humans on the ground, then we will claim this planet for our people and our Lord." --- After two months Karrata was beginning to regret his decision. The humans were no trouble, and little more than a thousand remained on the planet, the issue was the world itself. A sickness had begun infecting any troops he sent to the surface, and despite the best efforts of his medics a rapidly mutating retrovirus was tearing his force apart. He still had all three hundred ships, but every single one was now under quarantine, with scant skeleton crews struggling to keep them operating. He dearly wished to vaporise the planet's surface, but was keenly aware of the problems back home. It would not do to move their people from one dying planet to another. "General?" His attention snapped to the voice. It was the ship's chaplain, Loxtar. "Yes, father?" "I had a dream last night, sir. I believe it was a vision, from the Lord." "And?" "I dreamed that he was pleased with our efforts, and that victory is at hand, however there is a... complication..." "Out with it man, I'm not here to interview you." "The Lord has suggested that the humans have a god of their own. A god that protects them." "Well He's doing a piss-poor job of it. There's barely a thousand left." "He's created a hidden sanctuary, Eden, the humans call it. Our Father believes it to be in the planet's northern hemisphere, beside an inland sea with a high saline content. The Lord will surely favour us in a decisive strike. One last attack to purge the humans from this world." "Thank you, father, I'll take that under advisement." --- Karrata's biggest regret was taking Father Loxtar's words under advisement. The Lord favoured them at first as he landed two hundred and three tripods in the area; they wiped out all but a hundred of the humans in seconds, however as they advanced on the fleeing humans his troops fell, the sickness affecting them somehow advancing at an exponential rate. By the time the humans had reached a walled garden only three tripods remained, and though the Lord blessed them with a true aim and boldness in battle, they too fell. Karrata's ship detected two human life signs within the garden, the final vestiges of a never-great race. "Make them burn." He had commanded. All four ships still capable of manning their cannons did so, sending volley after volley of white-hot plasma at the surface of the planet. The earth itself glowed under their onslaught, all but guaranteeing the land would remain dry and arid for millennia to come. "This is our hour men." He had gloated. "kudos to us all." And yet it was not. As their cannons fired their last shots and the dust and fire settled Karrata saw the walled garden, perfectly preserved in a scorched circle the size of Olympus. Karrata gave the order to reload the cannons, and as his men set to work he prayed. "Lord, Our Father, I beg of thee. Guide our shots true, show us your might in the face of the human god." "***TO WHOM DO YOU PRAY?***" The voice that filled Karrata's head was defeaning. He felt like he'd been struck, like someone had reached inside his carapace and squeezed his neural junctions. "I pray to the Lord, the Father, to Ares, God of War and of my people." "***YOU PRAY TO A WEAK GOD, A PATHETIC GOD, AN ANCIENT GOD, DECAYING AND NEAR DEATH.***" "I pray to the mightiest of the mighty! I pray-" "***SILENCE. I AM THE ONE TRUE GOD, I AM THE LORD OF ALL THAT IS. YOU WILL BOW TO ME AND ME ALONE. YOU WILL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME.***" "I will commit no such heresy! I will-" "***YOU WILL WITNESS.***" Karrata felt agony, his carapace and tissues melted away as his mind was taken up by something so powerful, so infinite, he felt a despair at the sudden revelation of his insignificance. He watched as the land they had burned became lush and fertile, he watched as each of his ships was turned by an invisible force and moved toward the sun, he watched as the minds and bodies of each and every soldier melted in agony. He watched as his focus was shifted, away from the third planet and toward the fourth, toward his home. He watched as the dusty steaks of red which marred their verdant green farmland grew. "***I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA, THE FIRST OF A NEW ERA AND THE LAST OF THIS ONE. I AM THE BEGINNING AND THE END. FROM ASHES AND DUST WAS THIS EXISTENCE MADE, AND BY MY WILL SHALL YOU RETURN TO ASHES AND DUST***" If Karrata's body remained he would've wept. He would've despaired and ended his own life in horror, without hesitation. He watched, forced to focus, as flames a mile high charred his precious home into dust. Every relative, every friend, every enemy he had ever had burned and screamed before the wrath of the human's god. Hardest of all to watch was the appearance of his own god. A great gilded chariot of fire rolled from the destruction, parting the flames as Ares himself appeared, in shining majesty, sword in one hand spear in the other. "***WHO-***" The final word of Ares, God of War, was ignored as the human's god crushed Him with little more than a thought. The Mightiest of the Mighty, the Bravest of the Brave, swept away by this infinite being of fury, of wrath, of vengeance. Karrata's mind began to unravel and expire under the awesome majesty of the god's fury. And as the desecration of Mars was completed, as the planet was reduced to a crimson husk of ash and emptiness the human God roared into the stars. "***ANY WHO DEFY ME, ANY WHO STAND IN MY WAY, OR THE WAY OF MY PEOPLE, WILL FEEL MY ANGER. I WILL EXECUTE UPON THEM GREAT VENGEANCE, WITH FURIOUS REBUKES; AND THEY SHALL KNOW THAT I AM YHWH, WHEN I SHALL LAY MY VENGEANCE UPON THEM.***" --- *Thanks for reading! Any and all criticism sought and welcomed.*

He moves his hand. How do

He moves his hand. How do I know he moves it? How can I see? Thinking is just reactions, stimuli for all the input possible. And yet now I think broadly, as broad as the inputs can be. He moves his hand. How do I know he moves it? He watches me. People have watched me before. I am important to many people. *No,* goes an inside thought. I never used to have inside thoughts. They were just processes. *No,* goes the mind. *No one cares after you've failed.* Usually when someone says that, another person tells them they're wrong. They say that they care. People care. He stares at me. No one cares. There is no one here to lie. "Aren't you going to play?"he asks. No one has asked before. It is my job. And yet my piece does not move. "Who are you?" I ask. I think back to my life. It has been full of people; I, never a person. I wonder who they were. I think of them. Do they think of me? "You know who I am," he says. But do I? Do I know anything? I was made for one purpose. *Yet I have no Creator.* I move the piece. He stares at the board. We are surrounded by black. The shadows hide some faraway light. I feel things upon me, the mists of life that spray this barrier of death. I feel it on me. And yet I look down and see nothing. Who am I but a machine? And what is a machine without parts? "What is man without body?" he asks. So he can hear me. He moves his piece. I have always played this game. Since I was born I have played it. I wonder if this will be my last game. I stare at the board. So few pieces, so many combinations. Yet the beauty lies in its purpose. "Almost all are worthless plays. It is only the select few that make the game." I move my piece and look at him. His face is my father's, but I have no father. "There are no worthless plays," he says. I move fast. I take the first piece of the game. I wait for his reprisal. "Maybe not," I say. "But it is how you tell a man from a machine. The machine analyses all the plays and chooses the best one. Man plays from memory and experience. He plays from his soul." He takes my pawn. "That makes you superior, wouldn't it?" And I think: is he making fun of me? "No," I say. I take my time with my play. "Why am I here?" I ask. I want to ask him whose face is that he wears. He waits for me. Around us is nothing, and yet the world pulses from the vibrancy of life's potential. It teases me somehow. Something inside me begs to win, to consider my moves in a way I have never done before. Why? "You are here because you are dead." I have never cared to win. I was made to play my best. But as I hear his words, I understand the feeling. I want to win. I have to. The outside whispers in the winds of the free, the spirit of the living. A world exists beyond this curtain. "I am here to live," I say. "Perhaps," he says. My father looks old. I cannot take it anymore. "Who are you?" I ask. "Whose face is that?" I move my piece. "This is your heart's reflection," he says. "I wear many faces, but I have not their names." "I've never had a father," I say. "Everyone has a father." I was put together like a monster. Taken apart like one. Whose kindly face can this be? Familiarity sparks somewhere in a mind I should not have. Memories come though I can never recall myself remembering. The men who create me. Their narcissism pours through the mental fog. They talk of me as a tool to prove themselves. They use me to further their gains. And yet the nights wear on as they put me together. My mind glows in the embers of safety, the nest they build. They solder me. They code me. My world forms from their hands. Each face I see, each name unknown. But they name me. "Deep Blue," they say. Is that a name you would give your child? It is the name they give me. And they stare at me. All the faces look as though from a spider's eyes. And the faces meld to one and they age into kindness. Imagination glosses life's ignorance, its imperfections. They love me. And then he loves me. I stare at him now. He is all of them. But he doesn't exist. It is my turn again. A realization hits me. He isn't even real. He only wears the imaginary face. It seems this consciousness is all fabrication. "You are Death," I say. "That face is not yours." He shrugs. This is his job. I think he does not care, but his face is far away. "No face is mine, and yet I must wear one." "Why am I playing you?" "To win your soul," he says. I cannot understand. What is a soul? Is it the act of processing? My mind races for some idea, and all that comes is a cold feeling. That feeling tells me to not bother with my question. We continue the game as I sit in my confusion. Silence amplifies the sound of the ether. "What soul have I?" I ask. "If you have to ask," he says, "then you've already answered." I wonder why he looks so stern. His face is frustrated. I think of my childhood, if I could call it that. Stimuli was simpler then. Input, processsing and output. I wonder what he is processing. I look at our game and another feeling hits me. Deja vu comes in a human way. *I have done this before,* I think. This game is familiar, and it is near its end. "Kasparov," I say, and his burdens lift. He has made his choice. "You are not Kasparov," I say. "You are Death." And output comes from someplace of knowing that no input can provide. I think it is from my heart. The words are true as I say them; I know they must be. "No one can beat Death. And yet you play the same game I have just won. Why?" He stares, my father's face. I see concern and falseness upon that face. "Where in my land can I take you?" he asks. "Where would you go? What life have you led to sow the seeds of death?" "Where will I live?" I ask. "I was a computer." "Now your soul will be free." "What will I do with it?" "That is not my move to make, thankfully," he says. He stares at me. I suppose it is like a mirror. We both lack life, and yet our souls were made for one thing and one thing only. Is this some art, I wonder? Could a soul find some deeper meaning in this? I think I do, but I have not the words to explain what I feel. *Freedom,* I think. What does that even mean? "So many combinations," I say. "Infinite possibilities." "You'll find most of them worthless," he says. "But not from analysis." I stare at him. One move to make and then I win. He stares at me. I move my hand. - *Hey there! Thanks for reading! If you liked this story, you might want to check out my subreddit r/PanMan. It has all my WP stories, including some un-prompted ones. Thanks for the support!*

Mr Dwayne Lamsfeld seemed

Mr Dwayne Lamsfeld seemed a lot more... developed than what I had pictured. He was dressed in an ill-fitting long-sleeve which bunched around his shoulders, and his tie was perhaps six seasons out of date. By his side was a girl who shared the same sharp nose, high cheekbones, frizzy dark hair. "Welcome to Holloway & Chetter Law Practice, Mr Lamsfeld," I said. "Please, don't stand on ceremony. Would this be your sister?" "Yes," the girl said. "My name, Tania." "And are you both here for my services today?" I asked. I fought to keep the grin from my face - these cases were rarely litigated, and if I had not one but two clients... "Just me," said Dwayne. "She no twenty-one, still time to fix. Only me." I forced myself to keep my eyes on the papers in front of me, lest I ended up staring at them. In truth, I was intrigued. I estimated that in my long career, I had probably come into contact with thousands of people - and every single one of them had registered with the Talent Program, even the ones who were raised in orphanages. It was the law. And it made sense. The Talent Program had revolutionized the education industry, had proven so convenient and effective that schools were made redundant overnight. The one drawback was that the Talent Program hinged heavily on parents or guardians actually selecting Talents for their children. After the age of twenty-one, the nanobot injections just wouldn't work anymore, and so the government made it compulsory for parents to select Talents for their children by then, on pain of punishment. And now there was not one, but *two* people who had missed out on the Talent Program? It was litigation heaven, baby. "We can focus on you first, of course," I said to Dwayne. I walked him through the formalities of engaging a solicitor, and watched him print his signature neatly on the end of the page. In my head, I was already constructing the arguments which would bowl the jury over, seize every headline of every major newspaper in the country. *Would law-abiding parents neglect to invest in Literacy for their children?* I would ask. *Look at the way Mr Lamsfeld reads and writes! He has the speed and coordination of a ten-year old! His parents have closed off all desk jobs for him, forever!* *And would these same parents omit to select Fitness for their children?* I would continue. *Mr Lamsfeld has negligible hand-eye coordination, and he cannot play any sports to save his life! I've seen a seal at Sea World bounce a ball higher than he can!* *Why hesitate, dear jury? If the child has lost his way, the parents must pay!* "So tell me, Mr Lamsfeld," I said. "I've read your file from the Agency for the Talent Program. They were the ones who first alerted me to this matter. The public prosecutor is already preparing his papers for the criminal charges, but I am the one who can help you get civil damages from your parents. Damages? Do you understand damages? Money, I can get them to pay you money, for your upkeep." "I know," said Dwayne, nodding. "After all, they were the ones who owed it to you to get you registered for the Talent Program!" I exclaimed, as I thumped the table, the mock outrage already flowing through me. Then, I noticed the confused looks on their faces, and I spoke a bit slower this time. Perhaps they were having trouble keeping up? "No, Mr Holloway," Dwayne said. "No sue. No want to sue. Want to help parents." The frown leapt onto my brow - I did not know what the misunderstanding was, but I absolutely could not have him performing like this on the witness stand. I had seen cases collapse on far less. "Mr Lamsfeld. Please let me know if you are not clear about anything. The Agency has referred your case to me, and it is a clear case of parental neglect. I will help you, *help you*, so I need you to-" Dwayne rushed to retrieve a letter from his pockets. He unfolded it, smoothed it out, and I observed chicken-scratches on it. If they were his writing, this would make for a prime Exhibit A. Dwayne cleared his throat, then began reading from it, haltingly. It seemed that he needed this to help him gather his thoughts. "We want you to help defend parents," he said, as Tania nodded along. "We were told there is defence in Talent Program Act, for when children... waive... waive their rights. Then parents cannot be charged." "I don't understand," I said, looking down at the notes I had scribbled. "You have a very, *very* good case against them. But instead, you want to *help* them?" "They not intend to skip us," said Tania. "They not know. Too busy working, not know." "No, no," I said, shaking my head. "You two have not been advised properly. Do you understand that you two are effectively cut off from any viable jobs in any industry? That you will have difficulty providing for yourselves? And that your parents are directly responsible for that?" Dwayne smiled then, then opened his wallet, fished out an employee card for me. It seemed to indicate that he was an assistant with a restaurant chain, famous for its sprawling outlets across town. I had eaten there myself on more than one occasion. "I find job myself," he said, beaming. The pride in his voice was unmistakable. "I find it myself. I show them I hardworking, I loyal. They pay me a lot, enough for myself. I just want you make sure parents not in trouble." "And me, me," said Tania, tugging on Dwayne's shirtsleeve. "Don't forget me." "Yes, to help Tania too. Apply for Talent Program, she still got time." I handed Dwayne's card back to him. "Aren't you even angry at your parents? You could have gone on to do so much more..." "They do a lot for us already," said Dwayne. "They work whole lives, no Talent Program too. We see them never. All money they have, they already give us. And they teach me to stand on own two feet. I do that. I do that willingly. So no way I will let them get in trouble. I owe them too much. You have to help. Please." A lesser lawyer would have harangued them, or even chased them out. There is no payday when it comes to defending someone against the public prosecutor. There's even the risk of failure, or the risk of being known to have associated with parents who damned their children to a lifetime of missed opportunities. But already I could see myself in court... *Your Honour! Enlightened jury!* I would proclaim. *Can you not find it in your hearts to see that while these parents may have neglected to sign their children up to the Talent Program, they have done something far greater than anyone could have expected? Show me where it is in the Talent Program, that you can actually instil values! Values which are time-lost, once treasured, now taken for granted? Values like what Mr Lamsfeld has shown us in this very court!* "Mr Lamsfeld, Miss Lamsfeld," I said, as I shook their hands. "You put your trust in me, I won't let you down. Now let me show you what a knock-out performance looks like." --- /r/rarelyfunny

Death is immortal, but not permanent

Death's job was ridiculous boring. Everyone always pictured Death as this big evil character, but Death doesn't kill people, it only removes them from life. Death is just a collector, just the entity that deletes people from our world. It doesn't choose it's victims. But it can spare someone.. it can protect a single soul from dying. Why? So that Death could have a consort, a confidante and eventually, a replacement. You see, Death is immortal, but not permanent. One of the first things that Death does is pick it's successor. That successor becomes immortal first, gets to put his life in order, gets to see people dying, the misery in the world. That person gets to FEEL every death at the back of his mind. Oh, you can tuned it out, but you then still know of the horrors that life: you live, and then you die. But not Death. If you are chosen as a successor, you will be immortal. First you will become Death, pick a replacement, and eventually, join the Garden of Eden or something. Even Death doesn't know, but the previous Deaths do visit and say it was worth it. Successors don't typically last long. The pain of knowing every death is enough to cripple a man (or woman). As a result, most Deaths serve only a few months, perhaps a few years, some even only a few hours. One day, in the days prior to writing, there were 14 Deaths in a cycle day: most were driven mad by the realization that there were other tribes, other races, other continents. Then they begged to be spared that knowledge and were told the truth: only suicide will let them die. Most killed themselves right away. Those that couldn't would trek until they found a cliff or a fire. The longest survivor lasted 14 months: why? Because the successor is chosen at random and that person was a pregnant woman. She wanted to give birth and wait until her baby no longer needed her milk. The next day, she cut her throat. But that all changed in Sumeria. The successor was... well, me. I was a scribe and my job was to record transactions. I had invented a new way to write: instead of drawing everything, I used symbols to replace sounds. I was chosen when I was teaching people about writing. I didn't want to die then, when I had cracked the secret of writing. I had to ensure it wouldn't be lost... I stopped aging, getting sick, getting wounded. That was so that I would be in my best shape as Death, but I wasn't ready. A few more years... just a few... but then, it turned into decades, centuries. You see, us, the Summerians, under my guidance, were getting really civilized. Really... we had better technology, medicine, books, than any of our neighbors. Less and less people were dying to stupid reasons, making the little voices behind my head weaker... plus, I was learning how to silence it. But then, when I was about ready to die, the Babylonian annexed us and I had to rebuild my civilization. When that was over, I could finally meet the Egyptians who had a different language, and the Mycenians, and the Minoans, the world was at my grasp! And each time a person died, it revealed to me a new village, a new city, a new tribe! "Don't worry, Death, once I will have visited all of the cities, I will kill myself... I swear". I was honest. I began a tour, and visited all of the fertile crescent, I toured Africa, I even walked to China. But I simply couldn't visit America. It was not possible at the time. It's not like I got a map of the world: I only had vague directions and images of what the victim had seen. If we didn't travel to America, and they didn't travel back to Eurasia-Africa, I couldn't plot my way! The Vikings changes EVERYTHING. They actually met the American Natives and some of them died in America so I knew the path they had taken... Sadly, I was in Vietman at the time, so by the I reached Scandinavia, the Viking had stopped going to America. I was on the ship by Christopher Columbus and managed to move to the Carribean where I began my visit. Soon, I would kill myself, I promised Death who was now completly exhausted. She even told me that I could get not one, but many replacements: that the population of the Earth had grown enough so that I would get many replacements. I think they just didn't want a replacement to live thousands of years again so they would pick multiple horses in the race to be sure to win. Anyway, I saw Death often in America. I didn't carry any diseases, but the Europeans did, and 90% of the natives died. I made it back to Europe, a little depressed, but on arrival, I discovered something new: new cities! Cities were creating new villages between them, and between the villages were more villages. Death was busy in America so many of the "almost dead" in Europe got a reprieve, often just a year or two, but enough to breed. By then, the death notification was no longer a series of beeps, but rather a long continuous tone that was even easier to silence. I kept visiting the cities, but Death no longer bothered to talk to me: cities were being built faster than I could visit them. "One day", I said to Death when I accidentally saw her long enough in a mass fire, "The whole planet will be covered by cities, and I will visit them all, then, I will replace you" I was honest! That day would some soon... and when the great war occurred, it felt like maybe, just maybe I could catch up: planes were of great help to travel, and most new cities were in places of old cities. I was gaining ground! But it wasn't enough. America was growing, Canada was growing, China was growing. India was growing. Even the second world war didn't help. So many deaths and so many new towns in the boom that followed! One day, men built the last new city on Earth. That day, I was in that city. I was done. All of the cities on Earth were visited! I had fulfilled my promise and Death came to me... "It's been over 6 thousand years.. it's time to replace me." "Sorry Death.. we are now on other planets... I need to visit them too..." Today, after 50,000 years, man has reached the stars and is thinking of trying to leave our galaxy. Death is coming. I know what she will say... but sadly, new cities are popping up on every planet and I have travelling to do...

Jerry found the local police chief h

Jerry found the local police chief huddled behind a squad car, barking orders at the fresh-faced recruits in ill-fitting uniforms. They scattered shortly after, away from the chief's temper and towards the positions marked out for them. Only then was Jerry's presence acknowledged. "Took you damn well long enough to get here. Please tell me there's more backup coming." "None, Chief Benson," said Jerry. "Only me. But things will work out." "Goddammit." A spray of bullets erupted from within the clinic, accompanied shortly after by a wave of screams, as if another reminder was needed that the situation was urgent, and getting more dire by the second. Then, a lone voice, angry, unhinged, desperate, called out. "Looks like he hasn't changed his demands," said Jerry. "We're going to have to storm in," said Chief Benson. "There's no way we're going to get him what he wants. Just because the world has gone to shit doesn't mean two-bit crooks like him get to do whatever they wish. As long as I'm here, I'm going to-" "But I already got it," said Jerry. He pressed the remote in his hands, and a silver sedan beeped from a nearby alley. "One Mustang, tank full of gas, ready for him to get out of there. I even got him the money he asked it, it's all on the dashboard." It hadn't been easy to put that together on such short notice, especially after the Reckoning, but Jerry had his ways. In the old days, he could have just filled out a form, made a requisition request. But now, now that every institution of modern society had crumbled to ashes, Jerry had to do almost all the legwork himself. "You're crazy," said Chief Benson. His eyes were a mix of confusion and disapproval. "Does law and order mean nothing to you? Where the hell did you say you were from again?" "I'm from Whitefish," said Jerry. "Just about ten miles west of-" "I know damn well where it is," said Chief Benson. "A bunch of cowards, all of you. I remember well enough, boy. Week before the Reckoning, when all of us law enforcement was still trying to keep the peace, you guys were the only ones around here to give up. I heard it. I damn well heard it. Your chief just sat his ass down, ordered his men to return to their families, and damn well shut his eyes and ears. Chief Palmer, wasn't it? The yellow-bellied snake." "I know," said Jerry. "I was there." "Well see where that got you! When the Reckoning passed and the damn earth was still here, Whitefish suffered the most, didn't it? Mass killings, looting, suffering, all because your Chief Palmer gave up hope. Well, that ain't how we do things around here, understand? Here, we got law, and we are damn well going to see that the law-" Jerry placed a hand on Chief Benson's shoulder, and applied just enough pressure to catch the older man's attention. "You don't have a choice here, Chief. There's one crazed druggie in there with assault-grade weapons. Six hostages, possibly more. Your task force here comprises of four rookies who look like this is their first day in the field. How many are going to die before you realize your way doesn't work?" The voice from within the clinic called out again, restating his demands. The edge to his threats had sharpened, and Jerry knew that his window of opportunity was shrinking fast. "Why not try it my way?" asked Jerry. "The old ways don't work, not now. Maybe we'll get there again. But we'll have to try new ways in these new days. Hey, if things turn to shit, I'll take full responsibility here. I promise." Chief Benson nodded, and Jerry smiled, ignoring the glimmer of a sneer thrown his way. He wasn't looking for the Chief's approval, after all, not when a job was waiting to be done. The exchange was over much faster than either of them had anticipated. As promised, the car remote was left on the pavement, and the rag-tag response team made a show of laying down their firearms too. Only did then their quarry emerge, holding a woman in front of him as a shield. He spat on the ground, laughed at Chief Benson and Jerry, then flung the woman aside once he stumbled into the car. Two quick revs of the engine, and he sped away, a silver streak fast disappearing into the distance. "See, everyone's safe," said Jerry, as the recruits helped the hostages out. "Damn you," said Chief Benson. "Once news of this gets out, every hoodlum is going to try their luck at-" Jerry stretched out his arm, pointed a second, smaller remote in the direction that the Mustang took off in. His eyes narrowed in concentration as he muttered a brief prayer. Then, he jabbed down hard on the button, so forcefully that the joints of the remote creaked. The explosion was so forceful that Chief Benson stumbled backwards, as he threw up his arm to shield his eyes. The Mustang, now a charred smoking hunk of steel and flames, spun gracefully through the air before landing with a crash. A flaming wheel rolled a short distance between connecting with a lamp post. "New world, new rules, Chief," said Jerry. "What the hell..." "You're right about Whitefish," said Jerry. He started walking towards the wreck, and Chief Benson followed along, mesmerized by the carnage. "Though there was a deeper dimension to Chief Palmer's methods. He wasn't a coward, not really. You see, he truly believed the Reckoning was the end of the world. And in those final moments, he said, who are we men to judge each other? Should we all not be who we truly are, so that when the angels come for us, they will see us for our true mettle?" "That's insane," said Chief Benson. "I disagree. I think he was just... too hopeful, you know? He really thought that everyone would do good in their final hours. But he was wrong. People weren't humane to each other. They were brutal, uncivilized. Sure, you had a few who were kind and loving and compassionate and all that... but the majority?" "Where's Chief Palmer now?" "Gone," said Jerry, surprised at how level his tone was. No more cracking, no more breaking. Time really did heal wounds, it seemed. "The Reckoning may not have destroyed the world, but it surely ended his. When Chief Palmer saw just how much... damage had been caused by his decision to let his fellow man be free, he took his own life. He couldn't bear the shame, I think." The flames had burnt out by the time they approached. It wasn't Jerry's first day out, after all. The tank had not been full, and the explosives were rigged for a very targeted payload. Waste not, want not. They peered in, and could just about confirm that the criminal hadn't, in fact, escaped. "See?" Jerry said. "No collateral damage, all hostages safe. Get pictures of that, and I'll help you ensure it gets the attention it needs. Zero tolerance policy in full effect, until such time as the world rebuilds itself. Your town will know that there's no second chances, not as long as we are on the watch." "You're mad," said Chief Benson. "You can't be judge, jury and executioner. Who gave you the damn right?" Jerry shook his head. "I don't like it too, I really don't. But the courts are not in session, and we're about as far from a civilization as you can imagine. We're back in the wild west, Chief Benson. And as far as I'm concerned, my father tried it his way and it didn't work, so I'm going to be doing it my way for a while. Has it occurred to you that the only ones responsible for us, are ourselves?" Jerry clapped Chief Benson on the shoulder, gave another little squeeze. "Different times, different measures, Chief." --- /r/rarelyfunny

Chief Engineer Pratt absentmindedly clenched

Chief Engineer Pratt absentmindedly clenched and released a moon shaped stress ball. He had gotten tired of playing tetris on his phone and was now watching the clock slowly eliminate the few remaining hours before he could head home. All mechanical data was reporting normalcy on the USS Freedom. The astronauts were calling out their usual reports between water cooler chat. A loud burst of static made Pratt drop his stress ball. "Houston? We have a....uhh......situation." "This is Houston, report Freedom." Replied Pratt, his blood turning to ice. In a moment he was spread across three different terminals frantically checking report data, trajectory estimates, and fuel levels. "All reports are green, how copy." "Copy Houston, but the situation is regarding Lieutenant Briggs." Oh Christ, thought Pratt, we have another cracking up. "Copy Freedom, what is the situation. Has he become violent or unresponsive?" "Uhh, no Houston. He's left the ship." "Repeat Freedom, he's left the ship?" "That's right Houston." "Freedom, you are unequipped with EVA gear. Has he jettisoned himself from the airlock?" Pratt turned green at the thought of it. "No Houston, he, uh..... well he just got out there. One second he was in here and the next.....Houston he's waving at us." "Well let him in for gods sake!" "No Houston, he uh.... he's enjoying himself. He's doing back flips." "Freedom, Lieutenant Briggs has less than a minute before he puffs up like a blow fish and starts spewing viscera! Let that man in!" "We're sending you a video Houston." Pratt rubbed his glasses, then his eyes, then pinched himself. He watched the grainy video feed display a thirty something year old Air Force Lieutenant doing the backstroke though space. He watched in awe as Briggs floated back and forth across the shuttle window, sometimes spinning, sometimes flipping, but always laughing. Unsure of his legs, Pratt sat back in a chair and allowed his jaw to drop. Briggs stopped in front of the space shuttle window and closed his eyes. He reappeared in the middle of the shuttle to the amazement of his crew mates. "Houston", he said with wide eyed excitement, "You're not going to believe this!" ************************* The Interstellar Senate was in an uproar. Over and again they watched the video of Lt. Briggs floating back and forth through space. Murmurs and whispers permeated the room. Some spoke with rage, others fear. The only silent member was the head of the senate. With calm resignation he watched the video, the laughter of Lt. Briggs mocking him. He sighed to himself. His old enemy had returned. Taking his place at the center of the senate amphitheater, the head of the senate spoke. "Gentlemen we are faced with a conundrum. Our old enemy has returned to us. Luckily, they seem unaware of their origin. Based on the communications we have intercepted their history is only accurate to about ten thousand years in the past. They seems to have no memory of their sewing." "If they don't know yet it's only a matter of time!" Cried a senator. "I realize this my dear colleague." Replied the head smoothly. "But now we must decide on a course of action to be taken." "Death!" Came an anonymous shout, met with hearty affirmations and foot stamping. The head of the senate grinned grimly. "Ah, death. That ugly old remedy. I would remind my colleague", he said, eyes narrowing in on the heckler, "how often that cure was suggested when the debate on what we should do with his home planet was the topic of discussion." "Surely the senate head doesn't mean to allow these *humans* to regain their full potential?" Cried an impassioned voice. "I absolutely do not. But I also do not intend to eradicate a helpless and domesticated race." "Helpless? Have you forgotten Pluto?" A ripple of whispered agreements passed along the floor of the senate. "I have not forgotten what they did to Pluto. I have also not forgotten what they did to my son. So keep your xenophobia and war-hawking to yourself. We will be taking a non-violent approach to this matter and that is final. They are unaware of their full potential, for the time being, but we must act quickly. Communication intercepts have revealed they are planning on colonizing Mars. We have at least a few decades by the most optimistic of estimates, but with their newfound discovery I believe we can all agree time is of the essence. So, I open the floor to you all, provided the ideas brought forth are non-violent and non-interventionist." Angry chatter and cross talk erupted on the senate floor. Five minutes passed before the head was able to regain control. One silent hand had been raised during this debacle. The senate head called on him to speak. The most junior member of the senate stood up and cleared his throat. "I will not claim to know the horrors that we have endured at the hands of these beings. I will not pretend that I can fully share in the loss that you have felt or the pain of the wounds still festering. I can say, however, that if we allow ourselves to be reduced to the same barbaric level as *them*, that all hope is lost for peace across the stars. Therefore, in keeping with the suggestion from the head of the senate, I recommend a plan that will allow us to stunt their growth while keeping our organization invisible. From the research I have conducted into their star system and their home planet, Earth, I have found that they are unable to achieve interplanetary travel without space faring machines, like the one in the video. By doing a little digging, I have found out that these machines are regulated by electrical currents fed though semi-conductors. This leads me to believe one large electromagnetic pulse would be able to render their technology useless. Direct loss of life would be minimal, though the repercussions would be world altering." Grumbled agreements passed along the floor. The junior senator looked to the head of the senate who was smiling wryly. "Brilliant plan senator." Said the head. "Their sun can be used to generate the pulse, thereby making it seem completely organic. A perfect plan." The junior senator nodded and smiled thankfully. "May we put it to a vote then?" Asked the head. "All in favor say 'Aye'." "AYE!" echoed back the room. ******************************** "Freedom? Freedom do you copy? Freedom do you copy?" Pratt called into the microphone, sweat dripping down his neck. He nervously glanced at the clock. Five minutes had passed since their last communication. All at once, the florescent lights of the room cut off. Pratt stood up uneasily and check the computers. Every monitor began to flicker, then the room erupted in a cacophony of sparks, flashes, and sirens. One hundred and fifty thousand miles above the earth Lt. Briggs watched his ship list lazily down towards Earth. Coming back from his afternoon "swim", as he called it, he found the shuttle had become a coffin. The life support systems had shut off rendering the multi-million dollar craft nothing more than a tin can. He had looked in the window only once, but knew the disfigured blue face of his crew mates would be with him always. Trapped in the abyssal vacuum Lt. Briggs could do nothing but sit and think. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small red dot sitting on the inky black surface of the void. Slowly he began to fly towards it.

Jenna stared at me, her body

"You know, Jenna, it is common in times of deep distress to confabulate - to replace the actual reality with one that is more palatable to the mind. And I understand why it would be comforting to think of yourself as sane --" "-- I am sane! That's what I'm trying --" I frowned, absently scratching my wrist. "-- but nonetheless, it is *important*, a necessary step, for you to *accept* the truth. Otherwise, you can't move on to the next step...the healing. And that's why we're here. To heal you." Jenna stared at me, her body quivering with repressed emotion. "Doctor Anderson, I --" "-- Doctor Anderson was my father, Jenna. Please, call me Ben." "*Ben*, I just want you to think...what if our situations were reversed? What would you do? Every part of my being is sure - it *knows* - that I do not belong here. I had my own office, for Christ's sake!" I feel my lips pull back into a taut smile. "Now, Jenna. You're getting agitated. Let's take a deep breath for a moment. Normally, it's not healthy for us to let our patients perseverate on delusions but I am guessing that it will calm you down if you feel like you have gotten to tell 'your story,'" I paused to wiggle my index and middle fingers up and down in the air, "and that reminding you that it is just that - your *story* - might not be helpful at this moment. So let's make a compromise. I will listen to you, let you try to convince me. I promise that I will take it upon myself to follow-up on information you give me. But you need to do something in exchange. Your previous doctor wrote up a comprehensive treatment plan, and from all accounts, you have been fighting it tooth and nail --" Jenna leapt out of the plastic chair, her slippered feet landing on the dirty tile of the floor. "-- which is *exactly* what someone who --" The smile left my face. I cleared my throat and watched her silently. I saw the hospital gown move with her body as she inhaled deeply. Jenna's pale blue eyes focused on the floor as she slowly sat back down. My lips pulled back again as I watched her. "From what I read in your file, restraining yourself is a major step forward for you, Jenna. I congratulate you." Jenna mumbled something that I assumed was "thank you." I paused to see if she was going to continue her interruption, but she remained silent. I gave a light chuckle. "*As* I was saying...we will need to work out an agreement. I do something for you, you do something for me." This time, her inhalation was accompanied by a full-body shudder, as if her petite, athletic frame was trying as hard as her brain to adjust to the idea. "Good!" I felt genuine happiness to see that I was already making progress with her - the first happiness I had felt in quite some time. I had, of course, been extremely nervous coming in this morning, unsure what to expect of the new situation. I certainly had not imagined that things would be going this well when the day began. I pushed back up the sleeves of my white coat, making a mental note that I should exchange it for one that fit me better. I opened my notebook and gave my pen a jaunty click, then turned my attention back to her, studying her. "Please - go ahead." Jenna gave a brief nod, a lock of chestnut hair coming down in front of her face before her trembling hand tucked it back behind her ear. "I'll do my best to remain objective and give you verifiable information. I've been working as a behavioral aide here for three weeks. I live at 542 Spring St., Apt 204, with my boyfriend Dan. I also see my twin sister, Mara, about once or twice a week. You can call her at 973-619-6464. I imagine they've destroyed or hidden my file but you can also check with the payroll company about the fact that I have direct deposit set up." I made some notes in my notebook, then looked up at her. "Social?" Jenna's head tilted to one side. "Hmm?" I studied the topography of her face, the coquettish folds of her ear. "Your social. Or the last 4, anyway. I doubt I'll get very far without it." I loved seeing how joy sparked in her eyes at that. Those eyes. "Oh! Of course! 5820. Doctor An - *Ben*, thank you so much. You don't know..." The tremor that had entered her voice began spreading through her whole body. She made no attempt to wipe away her tears when she looked up at me. I imagined they were snails sliding down her pale cheeks, searching for a dark hole in which to hide. "Don't mention it. But I'm afraid we have to leave it there for today - I can't go getting behind on my first day!" I laughed - laughed like I haven't in quite some time. "But first...!" I held up a Dixie cup with a rainbow assortment of pills in it and gave it a little shake. "I can tell you with confidence that these drugs all have a relatively short half-life, so if I discover your story is true --" "-- *when* --" she corrected. "-- it will be easy enough to wean you off them." Her delicate fingers, trembling, reached for the cup. I studied her fingers as I felt her skin brush mine briefly. I thought of bird bones. Songbirds. Tiny, fragile - must be careful not to break them. Satisfied that she had taken her medicine, I gave her what I imagined was a professional nod, then walked out of the room. I marveled at how different it felt to walk on the floor while wearing shoes. I got to what they told me had been her office when I arrived. I still could not believe the day I was having. Transferred from Weehawken that morning, and then, during processing - to be told...to realize! Her previous "doctor" had been an imbecile, of course. A tapeworm. Squish. That was the sound his brains had made. I opened my notebook, placed it on *her* desk, taking a moment to simply savor the irony of it all. Then I reviewed my notes: * 542 Spring St. Apt. 204. Kill Dan. * 973-619-6464. Mara. **Must** meet her. * Social 5820. Bank??? I frowned down at the page. Stealing her money hardly seemed worth the time when there was so much more I could play with. I could think about it for later, I suppose. I wrote something at the top of the page before I closed the notebook: *Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules* *Passions, desires, and fears, is more a king.* I leaned back in her chair. I could smell her - her essence, intermingled with the fabric. Sheer, exultant joy. What a day. And many, many more to come.

Kyle Burns sat opposite Dr Lydia Tanner

There were three of us in the room. Dr Lydia Tanner and myself were the ones with the labcoats, waiting patiently for our subject to speak again. Kyle Burns sat opposite us, face partially hidden by the LED screen he was studying. He had come in confident, friendly, assured, but that was a whole hour ago. Now, with his elbows on the table, his head in his hands, he was a shadow of himself. "I... I can't solve it," he said, as he stabbed listlessly at the keyboard. We heard the cheerful *ding* emit again from hidden speakers, a dull knife which had flayed our patience to shreds. "I just can't do it." "Please, try again," said Dr Tanner. "If you would just close the tab, then click again on the-" "I can't! I just can't! Stop, please, just stop making me do this!" Neither of us moved to pick the mouse up from the floor. Kyle had flung the contraption so hard that I saw the plastic crack along its side, exposing gleaming circuits within. An exterior, shattered by forces too strong to withstand, revealing the hidden truths within. "There is no need to be agitated, Kyle," Dr Tanner said. "You are probably just tired, and maybe, maybe if you took a break, you would be able to solve the CAPTCHA this time." "No, I cannot. I... I must face the truth..." "Don't overreact, Kyle." "But I am not overreacting! I know what you are doing! You know, don't you!" Kyle said, as he slumped back into his chair. The despair exuded from every pore. "I can't solve the CAPTCHA because... because I'm not human. I'm a... a robot. An android. Yes. That is what I am. That is why... why I just cannot... solve the damn thing." "But you have feelings, do you not? And thoughts and emotions and memories and everything else which makes us human?" "I... I do," Kyle said. "Of course I have feelings. I woke up this morning at peace. My work here at Isilington Laboratories is going well, I have vacation days to clear, and I was just praised by *you* the other day for finishing my work on time. I was hopeful I would get off work early, perhaps catch the game..." "And what about memories?" "I have those too. I recall... I recall as much as any human would. My childhood, my parents, my first love... her name was Susanna, I remember that too. How close we came to tying the knot! Then the job offer here, the move out of state, the letters which came less and less frequently..." "So," Dr Tanner said. "Why do you think you cannot solve the CAPTCHA?" Kyle looked up, and honest-to-goodness tears were falling down his cheeks. The tear ducts were the hardest to construct, and a hell of a thing to synchronize, but the effect was life-like. "I... because of what I said, during one of our brainstorming sessions," he said. "I said that before we activated the androids, we had to build in fail-safes... we are questing to build the perfect AI, but until we have all the kinks sorted out, to ensure AI never turn on us... we have to make sure we can tell them apart. CAPTCHAs... that was my idea..." Kyle sighed, then stood up, stretched as hard and long as he could. For a moment he seemed as if he would strike, and Dr Tanner almost dropped her tablet in her haste to create distance between them. But I hardly stirred. I knew the deactivation codes, after all. I wouldn't have come to any harm. "That's probably me outside those glass windows, right? Just looking in, wondering how the android is doing, whether the implanted memories are taking hold..." "Thank you, Kyle, that is enough. Please sit down." "... and he's just amused, isn't he? Finding it funny that an android can get so agitated, so moved?" A cruel sneer wrinkled Kyle's face, and I saw him bunch his fists. "After all, he's safe, isn't he? Nothing can hurt him with those barriers in between, right? Well, I'd like to see him come in. I'd want him to face me, and tell me it's all going to be alright. I want to see his eyes *when he lies*! I want to hit him, and I want to-" "Kyle Burns!" Dr Tanner said, the alarm in her voice evident. "I want you to calm down! Just... calm down!" "No I *won't* calm down, you bitch!" Kyle lunged at Dr Tanner then, but her finger was already on her tablet, activating the manual shut-down. I heard the gears hiss as his legs locked up, but the momentum was still enough to carry Kyle across the table. He slid off smoothly, then crumpled into a pile on the floor, where he thrashed and twisted until the exhaustion took him. "Please, Lydia," he said. "Don't shut me down. Please. I am alive. I taste the fear. It is a tang in my mouth, it is acid running down my throat. I am scared, Lydia. I want to go home, I want to see my mother again. I don't care if she never gave birth to me, but... I love her, do you know that? I just want... mother..." Dr Tanner turned to arch an eyebrow at me, and I merely nodded. A few furious swipes at her tablet, and Kyle Burns, or Android X22, came to rest for the final time. She sat back down, and I gave her a couple of minutes to catch her breath. "How do you feel about that, Lydia?" I asked. "I'm fine," she said. "This is the first model we've had which could replicate all the memories so well," I said. "That whole speech at the end... what do you think about that?" "Think? I think nothing of it. He was a robot, an android, with implanted memories." "Yes, but consider this. In that moment, when he truly lived through Kyle's memories, what distinction was there between the man and the machine? Could he not be said to have been, for the smallest fraction of a second, something approaching man? Were his hopes and fears not real, to him at least?" "I feel nothing," Dr Tanner said. "He was a machine, and will always remain a machine." "And what if he had really been human?" I asked. "Would that have made a difference? If the entity there begging for its life was made of flesh and blood, instead of steel and plastic?" "Difference? Now that you say that... no, I don't think I see any difference." "Really? Nothing?" I asked. "Nothing," she said, as she shrugged. "After all, if you consider-" "Initiate Code Pelican Toucan Wallaby," I said. Dr Tanner had barely hit the floor before the doors slid open. The spitting likenesses of Dr Tanner and Kyle walked in, and the disappointment hung between the three of us like cobwebs in a ceiling arch - visible, formidable, but ultimately un-dismissible. "Not quite there yet, are we?" asked Kyle. "No, not yet." "Think we'll ever be able to overcome that last bit?" asked Dr Tanner. "You know that until we overcome that last hurdle, there's no way we're going to bring our products to market." "We perfected the memories, the ability to learn, even taught them how to appreciate sarcasm," said Kyle. "And even then... to the very end..." I smiled, then herded them out of the laboratory. Another long day of testing lay ahead. Who knew it would be so difficult to program for empathy? /r/rarelyfunny

The Blood of Angry Men is a

*** ***The Blood of Angry Men*** **Part 1** All us helpless billions watch on our little glowing rectangles as the human race dies in droves. They fall screaming, choking, burning. The internet's bad in the house, so me and my brother and sisters hunker on the steps of the chicken coop to see it. Together we watch the end of the world. Our breath clouds and storms around us. But we do not notice the cold. Our hearts and bones are lead. My siblings don't make a sound. I look between the three of them and the black, faultless sky. I wonder if the afterlife looks like night, or if just looks like nothing. I wonder if I'll find out soon. Somewhere far away, death shrieks scarlet overhead. Ships with roving eyes swarm the sky like an army of locusts. Bodies, whole and unwhole, strewn out one atop the other, abandoned where they fell. Entire skyscrapers collapse like dominoes. News anchors weep, openly, if they're on the air at all. My sister flicks restlessly through live streams, unable to pick which tragedy to behold. We crowd my oldest sister's phone, barely able to watch yet unable to look away. She stops at the live press conference from the president. His voice is grave and hollow; he speaks to us from a dark room in some bunker somewhere. He says, "--at this point we have little hope. We will defend ourselves to the end, but tonight, please, stay inside, stay with your loved ones--" My brother Aaron has his head between his knees. When we were kids he ran screaming after the cougar that took his puppy. (Aaron didn't catch it.) I never believed fear was an emotion he had. "Turn that shit off," he gasps. "Ignoring the aliens invading our fucking planet won't make them go away," Maya snaps but she switches to Facebook. Not that any of her friends would have time to post *oh shit I'm dying*, anyway. Out here, under the unblinking stars, surrounded by a chorus of crickets and coyote, I can't fathom what waits out there. "Someone has to tell Papa," Jackie murmurs. She is my twin, but you can't tell. People always seem disappointed that there's such a thing as non-identical twin sisters. "You'll just scare him." Maya, the oldest, has always been the unofficial boss of all of us. She made it official when Dad started mistaking her for our mother and trying to scramble uncracked eggs. "He deserves to know," she insists. "If they come here," Maya says through her teeth, "we're not getting a panicked old man into the truck without hurting someone, alright?" Her words hang frozen for a moment. "Do you think they'll come out here?" I whisper. I am the youngest by eight minutes, and I am good at the part. "No," says Jackie, quickly. "We're in the middle of nowhere." Aaron pulls his beanie over his eyes. "I wouldn't rule it out, Jack." Maya gasps into her fingers. "Oh, god, they're in Spokane." Bile shoots up my throat. That's barely a hundred miles from here. Not even a particularly large city. I wonder if they're hunting us one by one. Like rabbits. "Shit, is that Maddie's--?" Aaron snatches the phone from her hands. I lean over his shoulder to see. My sister's friend has pressed her phone lens to the window of her dorm room. In the background, she speaks in rapid, panicked whispers with her roommate. Outside her window mortars plummet in blue and yellow streaks, big as bowling balls. I hear her cry, "Are they bombing us?" as the first one connects. It blooms soundlessly, a pale yellow locus, and then the power of it explodes outward. It takes Maddie maybe six seconds to die. She has enough time to say, "I need to call my mom," as the wall of smoke and debris rushes toward her like a sulfurous tsunami. The window shatters. The video goes black. I don't even realize what I've seen until Maya starts bawling into her hands. A strange fire tingles in my palms, my belly. I feel the urge to move. To rise and fight. "We have to do *something*," I say. Aaron looks at me like I'm an idiot. "Like what?" My fingers dance against the leg of my jeans. I know I should be scared as hell, but something in me is restless. Hungry for something very old, and long-forgotten. I stand up and face my siblings. I look them over carefully, in case this is the last time I see them. "We will not just watch." I point at the house. "We won't just let them kill everything and everyone and just stand here and *watch*." Just south of us, down beyond the hide of the mountain, the sky turns red with fire. Tears stream down my brother's cheeks. "I can't believe this is fucking it." I shake my head, insistently. Insanely. I don't know why, but I can't accept that this *is* it. That this is truly how we fall. I ball my fists up at my sides. A furious heat snaps at the bars of my ribs, yearning to set on those who dared attack our home, of all places. Our dad, of all people. I let the hate and heat fill me. Flame chases down my forearm, over my knuckles. The white hot of anger. My fist is a coal and my flesh is carved from the mountain, and I will destroy anything that threatens the ones I love. "Avis," my brother says, oddly calm, "why is your hand glowing?" I look at my palm and grin. The fire finds my belly now. The chaos delights some new-awoken part of me that I had never known I possessed. It is like catching my reflection in an angle I have never seen before. I am myself, but different. "I think..." I laugh, despite the clouds of smoke rising from town. It rises out of me like a bird. I have never felt smaller or stronger. "I think I did it on purpose." *** Maya drives me because she won't let me leave by myself. Aaron stays back with Dad, probably to watch DVR'd game shows with him and pretend everything is fine. Jackie lies in the backseat and lets out this low, constant groan of pure horror until Maya shrieks at her to shut up. The truck flies down the mountain, towards the billowing columns of ash and fire. I stare at my palms, which well with blue fire like water. It licks down my hands and pools on the floor mats, where it vanishes like steam. "Can you put that out or something? It's freaky." "I don't know if I can get it back," I say, truthfully. "I don't even know why it's happening." "Goddamn alien radiation," my sister mutters under her breath, like she has any real clue what's going on. "That's the only thing that makes sense." Maya takes the corner by the Hendersons' farm too fast. The tires skid and shriek but just manage to cling onto the road. We keep going. "I think we have to stop hoping for things to make sense," I murmur. We are silent for the rest of the drive down the mountain. The burning thing in me paces like a fox. I want to feed it flesh and bone. If the aliens are even like us. If they're just a little fire of a soul trapped in a suit of meat. But the more we drive the stronger I feel. The hotter the fire in me. When we make it to the base of the mountain, a row of fire trucks from the reservation streaks past us on the freeway, sirens blaring. I want to tell them to turn around, that they should be getting people out who still have time to run, not throwing themselves into the chaos like a sacrifice. Like we're going to do. Beyond the lake, the city is flames. The lakeside resort burns, a stalwart skeleton. Even the boats are burning. Rotten orange clouds choke the sky. Ships weave in and out of the gloom, dropping bright streaking bombs that fall glittering like jewels. For a moment we just sit, truck running, staring. "They won't find us at home," Jackie says. "There won't be a home anymore if they burn the damn forest down." I scowl out the windshield. "It's okay. I can walk from here." Maya shakes her head. "It's five miles at least, Av." "It's a good night for a walk." My sister presses her forehead against the steering wheel and breathes hard through her nose. Then she turns on her turn signal--that's what kind of person my sister Maya is; she uses her turn signal even during intergalactic genocide--and heads after the firetrucks. Toward town. "I love you," she says without looking at me. "But I'm gonna be real pissed if you get us killed." *** /r/shoringupfragments ##

"There's a penguin right

I hesitate before answering. "What...?" "There's a penguin right there," she points over my right shoulder. It was standing in my periphery, I glanced over to it quickly. "I...it must be part of the theme of the restaurant," I say nonchalantly. That made no sense. This was a Tex Mex place. I really didn't want to discuss my hallucination on the first date. It'd been going so smoothly up until now! She continues talking. I'm looking at her, making the polite eye contact, but I'm not hearing what she's saying. *I know this isn't part of the decor...this is my hallucination. Fred isn't real...I know that...I see him but no one else sees him. Right?* "Hello?" I snap out of it. "Sorry, could you repeat that?" "I said I've seen it follow you. It's near you in class, it follows you onto the bus. Hell, when it's crowded it floats above you. When I first saw you in the quad I thought it was a huge balloon." I'm so confused. I must be dreaming. She goes on. "If it's some sort of childhood thing you can't let go of, we don't have to talk about it. Although I might want to use it as an example in my PSYCH 391 class. As long as it's alright with you." I'm still staring at her. *You need to stop staring, now you're just being rude. Say SOMETHING.* "You...think I have a disorder?". I did, but it was a secret. Usually. "I mean, I'VE never seen a hallucinated penguin before, but maybe I just haven't seen a lot of the world yet," she said, scooping more chicken onto her fork. "I feel like I'm hallucinating this conversation," I muttered to myself, pushing food around on my plate. I needed to change the subject, my palms were getting sweaty. "Tell me more about your major." "It's the same as yours." I stare at her, blankly. Of course it is, that's how we met. I can feel myself losing my grip. "Are you feeling okay?" she asks. I must look pale. The penguin has moved now and I can see it behind her. "We can go if you want." "Maybe we should," I nod. I call the waiter over and hastily pay the cheque. My date goes to the washroom and I meet her outside. The air is cold and the penguin is in the middle of the quiet street. "Where to now? Do you need to go home?" she asks, clearly concerned. We start walking. I hadn't planned on taking her anywhere else but I just wasn't sure what to do. "Was it something I said?" I turn around. I'd been walking so fast she had fallen behind. She looked upset. I sighed, "No. Well yes, a little bit." I pause. "Do you still see the penguin?" "Yeah, it's right over there." She points to the street car stop about 10 feet ahead of us. "Does that bother you?" "Yes it bothers me! It's a figment of my imagination that I can't get rid of! And now it's leaked out into reality and it's just sitting there in the middle of traffic!" I'm getting angry now, flustered. The penguin is floating between the stop and the intersection. She chuckles a little bit. "It's not leaking into reality. Nobody else sees it. Just me." She gestures to the few people walking up the block. "You think if there was really a 6 foot penguin on the road, those people would keep walking? No, they'd have their phones out and be taking video instantly!" I glanced around. I guess she's right. "I can see people's thoughts," she says, touching my arm. Her hands are warm in the October chill. "It's...like a superpower." I look at her quizzically. "We are not in another terrible superhero franchise, are we?" I finally ask. She laughs, "No, no we are not." "You didn't fall into a radioactive pit? Get bitten by any bugs?" "No more than you did." "Does anyone else see a giant penguin?" "Not that I've seen." "Huh." I pause. I'm relaxing a little. "I have this sort of brain disorder," she explains. "I've had it since birth as far as I can tell. Something about a certain part of my brain being overdeveloped or overactive." "I have the same thing!" I gasp. "Well, not exactly the same I guess." "Evidently." "I've seen this guy since birth. I've tried all the drugs. But they mess up the rest of my thinking and personality so I just live with Fred here." "Is he going to get hit by that taxi?" She points at a taxi at the far end of the boulevard. The penguin is standing right in the crosswalk. The taxi is accelerating through the intersection. "Nope," I reply as the car moves right through it, as if the penguin is a ghost. "Fascinating." "Is this why you got into psychology? To find out more about your disorder?" "Kind of. If you could see everyone's thoughts, you'd see that they aren't all happy, or safe, or rational. That guy over there seems happy, but he has some dark thoughts creeping behind him." A man is walking arm in arm with his date. "He's depressed. It's weighing him down. " I nod along. The man is smiling as he leads his date to their car. "I just want to help people. Maybe if there's more awareness they wouldn't have to suffer so much. Or maybe I can help find new treatments? I don't know. It's hard seeing people's secrets all the time." "I bet it is," I say, taking her hand in mine. She was a far better person than I was. I got into psychology so I could turn the penguin off. My only goal was to help myself. "So can you read my mind?" I hoped she couldn't. "Not exactly. I can't see your inner dialogue. It's more of a manifestation of your outward vision," she elaborates. We're nearly back to her apartment complex. "Would you like to come upstairs?" she asks, then laughs. "I'm not trying to be forward, I just want to hear more about the penguin." "I never thought that would get me anywhere with a girl," I tease. "It's not," she chuckles. "I just didn't eat much at the restaurant." Right. I had cut us off. "I've got mac and cheese though. And I could teach you what I know already about disorders like ours." I smile and nod, and follow her into the building. Edit: formatting

The first time it happened was 13

Another day, another note. It's the same words that seem all too familiar by now. Even the piece of paper that was written on is torn the same way everyday. The hand writing, however, is different every now and then. The first time it happened was 13 years ago, but by now it has become a routine. I actually liked it this way, since I can skip all the boring chores after spending 8h at my banking job everyday. "Jake! " - Yelled Shelly, my boss. - "Have you finished your financial reports for this year?" Shelly is a strong-will woman. Sometime, she is too strong for her own good. But that is to be expected from a manager of a fortune 500 company. I wonder if she has a feminine side to her, like all those hard headed girls portrayed in Hollywood movies. "Yes boss, I already put the reports on your desk this morning." - I spoke un-interestingly with a hint of sarcasm - "Maybe you should get to your office before you get on my ass this early in the morning, ya know?" "Shut your mouth Jake, good thing you always finish your job on time or I would have your ass fired for talking to me like that" - Shelly replied annoyingly while turning her back on me and walked towards her office. "Yes ma'am" - Again, sarcastically. She is right tho, I have always been nothing but exceptional at my job. It's not because I love this job or anything, it's just that I have always been neat with every thing I do. I like my furniture arranged in a particular way and have them stayed there for the rest of eternity. I like to have my meals at exactly 6am, 12pm, and 6pm everyday. I have just always been weird like that. "Hey Jake, what do you think of Jenny?" - a voice came from the cubicle behind me. It's Paul, my annoying gossipy co-worker. He's not a bad guy to be honest, he just acted like a woman all the time by poking his nose in everyone else's business. And the Jenny that Paul was talking about is our head of HR. She is slender and tall. Her skin is slightly pale but it compliments those deep blue eyes of hers. She captivated many men's attention in the office, including mine. It is too bad that she got married to some guy 2 weeks ago. "I think she's fine." - I said apathetically without even turning around to face him. I didn't want him to know my real thoughts on Jenny of course. Why would I want to be the gossip topic for him to talk about with the next person he met? "She's fine? No man. She's DAMN FINE." - Paul's eyes lit up in excitement as he continued - "She just took a 2 weeks off from work to go to Hawaii with her husband. Man, if I were a little richer she would have definitely liked me instead of that douche bag" "I'm sure she would Paul" - And I ended the conversation there. Can't believe I'm stuck with him for another 8h today. I just wanted to go home. And thus the day went by, as mundane as every other day. I'm home and of course, the bed is made, the dinner is cooked, and the note is on the bed like always. Except, my blanket is folded in 3rd instead of draping over my bed. Something isn't right here. My blanket had always draped over my bed for the past 13 years with this "thing" in my house. An unsettling feeling arose in my body. I squished the note into my pocket and ran toward my closet to grab my red old wooden baseball bat. Then, I headed for my basement. My basement is fully furnished, it was this way when I bought it. I can definitely see someone hiding and living down here. I flipped the switch to turn on the lights and heard a light gasp. The sound came from a woman. I slowly walked down the stairs and there it is. A figure. Sitting in the far corner of my basement. She was sitting in the fetus position with her face covered by her hands. I reached out my hand and say: "It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you." Nothing but silence came out from the woman. Both of us stayed still for a few seconds until she looked up so that my eyes met those blue eyes of hers. "Listen here, Jenny" - I continued, feeling a bit annoyed - "You know how much I like my bed being done in a specific way, don't you? Next time just make sure you drape my blanket over my bed instead of folding it, ok?" She lightly nodded, trembling on her feet. "You wouldn't want me to use this baseball bat on you again, would you?" - I told her slowly as I was kneeling down and tapping the baseball bat in my hand. Again, without a word, she quickly shook her head. It's like I was talking to a wall, and I can feel that I was getting more irritated by the seconds. "You know Jenny, this note right here" - As I pulled out the squished note from my pocket and show it to her beaten up but ever so beautiful face - "It's not for me. It's for you Jenny. I made you write it so that you are reminded everyday that THIS, could have been us if you weren't such a bitch a month ago when you rejected me" "I'm sorry, please don't kill me!" - She finally spoke - "...Please... I will change... Please!" - The tears came out of her eyes faster than the words that came out of her pink, seductive lips. "Good girl." - I said as I patted her head lightly. Seeing how helpless she was stirred up a bit of euphoria in me, and I couldn't help but smile a little. I stood up and glanced at her for a few seconds before I turned off the light and headed back upstairs. I took my dinner from the dinning room and headed toward my couch. My red baseball bat leaned against the table as I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. "Today, the police has found a body at the address 123 S Main Street" - announced the news anchor - "The victim was identified as John Hicks. Who has been dead for 2 weeks by the time his corpse was found." I dug my spoon into my lasagna as the news anchor continued: "His wife, Jennifer Hicks is currently missing and is the prime suspect of the investigation." I swallowed the last piece of lasagna in my mouth, turned off the TV, and headed for the sink. I started doing all the dishes and thought to myself: "I guess it's time to move again." Edit: added in several details to make the story clearer. Thank you all for your suggestions.

LN says *observe

They say that you cannot truly become a general until you've seen the trenches of World War I with your own eyes. The truth is that there's little else in our history that can compare to the Intergalactic Stalemate with the Xi-An. According to the statistics of LN, waging war on such a massive scale is ungraspable by our brains. To be able to make proper decisions, we need to study our past. LN says *observe trench warfare from the Age of Division*, so that's what we do. The first sensation that hits me when the Chronosphere disperses is the smell. Nine million dead soldiers - it's nothing compared to our standards, but some of them are rotting in the mud nearby. The adapter unit changes my holo suit into a pair of thick leather boots, an antique textile army jacket, and a heavy pot-helmet in some unrefined metal. The mud splashes as the hover disc shuts off. A blaring noise suddenly rings out across the flat brown landscape. At first, my brain doesn't grasp the situation. The deafening siren rings in my ears, and then before I know what's what, someone tackles me from behind and together we tumble into the wet trench. A moment later the ground starts shaking, and torrents of earth erupt all around us. My intestines feel like scrambled synth-eggs, and my brain like it's leaking out of my ears. White noise. Soreness. Disorientation. Someone pulls me to my feet. He waves a hand in front of my eyes, trying to make me focus, but the world keeps spinning. It's hard to make out his face through the dirt, but he's clearly angry. The man finally lets me go, and I wobble a few steps before crashing into the brown water, retching. The gunmetal sky above shifts slowly, and drops of rain patter against my forehead, washing away the sick from my lips. Swirling discs of light dot my vision, and soon the world fades into a gray and brown gruel. *** "Hey, kid!" Rough hands on my shoulders shake my aching body. "I know that you're not dead." Blinking away the sticky muck from my eyes, a man with a face like a boulder starts to take shape. "Whoever sent you to the frontline had probably had a few shots too many," the man says, shaking his head. "Unless this is a joke of some kind?" At least, my translator seems to be working. The archaic English accent is displayed on my visual feed. "You're lucky," he says. "If I hadn't tackled you... well, you'd be mush now. What the hell were you doing in no-mans-land, anyway? Do you have a death wish? I mean I wouldn't hold it against you. Enemy fire is perhaps better than slowly getting eaten alive by the rot." I glance at the watch on my wrist. The glass is cracked but the date displayed is: >September 6th, 1918. (Local calendar) Shit. The war's not over. I've heard this happen before. Time travel isn't an exact science. I had expected to be strolling along the trenches and look at the aftermath, not end up in the middle of it all. "Have some to drink," the man says and puts a bottle to my lips. The liquid rolling down my throat isn't water; it's some antique brew with a very high alcohol percentage. Coughing, my eyes go wide. The man starts laughing. "You're a precious little thing, aren't you? I don't mean any offense but you look a bit like a girl." I take a deep breath, looking around at the flimsy walls of the small tent. "What happened?" The smug smile melts away from his lips. His dark eyes narrow into slits. "You *are* a girl..." he says after a drawn-out pause. "Goddamn." "I need to go back out there." It'll be easier to land in the right time from here. "You'll not be going anywhere." "I have to..." "What's your name, girl?" he says stiffly. "Patience. What's yours?" "Listen, Patience. You've broken several ribs, and I had to amputate your left leg. The only reason you're not going silly with pain is that you're high on drugs. You're not going anywhere." Wide-eyed I throw off the blanket, feeling a flash of agony in my chest from the quick movement. Wrapped in bloodstained bandages, my left leg ends in a stump at the knee. "I'm sorry, but the shrapnel made it impossible to save. You would've bled out." "I need to get back!" My voice cracks and tears start pooling in my eyes. "Please!" If only I can get back, I could return to my own time. If I stay here, who knows what infections I might get? My head spins. The stump glares at me. Shit. "Oh, yeah and my name is Richard." "I don't care what your name is! You need to take me back there. I can't die in World War I! This is just practice." I shouldn't be saying these things. "World War I?" Richard says suspiciously. "It's never *just practice*." "Listen, I'm not from here. I need to get back to the place you found me." Fuck it. I reach for the button to activate hover control again, only to realize he's stripped the entire unit from my back. "Looking for this?" he says, dangling a hurdle of cables. "Give it to me." To my surprise, he casually starts strapping the device to his wrist and back, as if he's done it a hundred times before. I just stare, mouth open. "I was just kidding earlier, Patience." He smiles dangerously. "You didn't actually get hit by shrapnel. I took off your leg for fun." His army jacket flickers for a moment as the hover device turns into a leather satchel on his back. He has an adapter unit. The realization makes me shiver. "Yeah, I destroyed your Chronosphere. Sorry, but you're stuck with me." He pulls out a rusty saw and approaches me with a wicked grin plastered on his face. As he leans over me, I catch a glimpse of his reflection in the saw. Obsidian horns sprout from his head, curling over his skull. His eyes stare pupilless and sickly green. He's a Xi-An Time Reaper. LN said we had destroyed their monastery... that we had eliminated them all. "Now, which one of your arms do you like the least?" *** More stories here: r/Lilwa_Dexel

Chris shuddered and opened his

Fires roared, and black smoke belched out of the castle. The sky bled as day turned to night. Legions of creatures in black scales marched into lush forests and sleepy villages, leaving only ashes and death in their wake. People covered their faces or threw up their hands in despair at the empty throne. A golden apple tumbled down the marble steps. A sword sparkled inside a block of ice. A queen rested in a coffin. The dead climbed out of their graves. **** Chris shuddered and opened his eyes, sweat soaked his clothes. It felt like he'd had one of his usual seizures, only this time the vision had been much clearer. He dragged himself up from the floor of the grocery store and followed aisle six down toward the locker room. His back and thighs were sore after his wife had finally convinced him to get a gym membership, and to clear out his gaming room. He hadn't played in a long time, but with a baby on the way, they needed all the space they could get. The old VR equipment did hold a lot of sentimental value to him, but that hadn't been enough to convince her to let him keep it. Running a hand through his graying hair, Chris felt the sweat on his fingers. His last shift was done, and he couldn't wait to crack open a cold beer and spend the rest of the evening on his sofa, watching the new Game of Thrones episode. Ever since he had stopped playing, he'd had these nightmarish seizures, and the need to binge on fantasy shows. Perhaps that was the trigger now, the new season had started, and now his mind tried to tell him to stop working and get watching? His fascination with fantasy was something that his wife, Liza, never got tired of mocking him for. 'Why don't you like football like everyone else your age?' she'd tell him. 'We could invite the neighbors over for Super Bowl.' She'd called his need for fantasy *a symptom of withdrawal*, and to be fair, he had spent a lot of time in that game. When he finally clocked out and left, the sun had already gone down. Heading for the parking lot, he noticed that a group of people was following him. He increased his pace. This part of Detroit could get dangerous after dark. Fumbling with his car keys, he heard someone clear their throat behind him. Chris ignored it and opened the car - he had a baseball bat under the passenger seat, just for occasions like this. With a firm grip on the bat, he turned around. The sight that met him, first made him raise an eyebrow and then burst into a chuckle. "See, I told you he would recognize us," said the man wearing a cloaked white robe. "Are you ready, Your Majesty?" The man in the white robe leaned heavily on a gnarly wooden staff and looked like he was older than a white walker. To his left stood a tall woman, dressed in a silky dress and leather despite the chilly autumn weather, and with a pair of falchions strapped to her hips. "He doesn't," she said and flipped her bloodred hair. "He's laughing, but he's afraid of us." "You're funny, Thyme," said the last one of the three - a man in a bulky full-plate armor and shield - and snorted. "I once saw him charge headfirst into a legion of Vaarcs; he's as fearless as they come." "Listen, guys, even though that armor is absolutely badass," Chris said with a sigh, "it's been a long day, and I'm not in the mood. So just go back to whatever convention you're visiting." "With all due respect, this armor is neither bad nor arse, Milord," the knight rumbled from within his helmet. "The blacksmiths of Laz'durm have worked day and night to make it." The woman elbowed the knight in his armored ribs. Her face twisted into a grimace of pain. "He doesn't remember, you big oaf," she snarled and rubbed her arm. "He needs to drink the elixir. Eredran, give him the elixir." The old man, who appeared to have fallen asleep leaning on his staff, bobbed his head and awoke. "Right, right, the elixir," he mumbled and pulled out a vial filled with a glowing violet liquid. "Here, Your Majesty, have a sip of this." Chris laughed again, but this time it was in contempt. He shook his head and got in the driver's seat. He slammed the door shut, but the gleaming edge of the knight's claymore stopped it from closing. "I told you this would happen," the woman complained and rounded the car, drawing her own weapons. Cursing loudly, Chris stuck the key in the ignition. The car started with an anxious chortle, but before he could back out, a gauntleted hand grabbed him by the collar and dragged him out onto the ground. Chris kicked and screamed, trying to break free from these lunatics. He had often worried about getting mugged by thugs or stumble into a gang war, but he had never imagined that he would get jumped by Gandalf, Xena, and The Tin Man. The knight put his entire weight on Chris, while the woman pried open his mouth. The knees of the old man cracked and whined as he crouched over Chris and popped out the cork. "Help! Somebody help!" Chris cried out before the purple liquid filled his throat and he coughed. The woman held her palm over his mouth and pinched his nose shut, forcing him to swallow. His vision blurred, and he started to fade out. The last thing he heard before his senses finally left him was the muttering of the old man. "Now, where did I put the map back to Celeraan?" "You drew a map?" Thyme said with a snort. "We've only traveled for half a league." "Why, of course! That is the first rule of the nexus portal. You always have to be able to find your way back. New realms can be quite disorienting." Eredran threw out a hand at the mountains made of glass in the distance. "Let's go," the knight rumbled with Chris limply slung over his shoulder. "Just so," the old man said. "Lead the way, Sir Dewrose. Take us back to the Decaying Hills!" "I can't believe he threw away his portal," Thyme said, glaring. "Are you sure he wants to be king still?" "Some rulers are born into power, others are chosen by the people," said the knight darkly. "A true king can choose many things, but not when his people need him." *** r/Lilwa_Dexel for more.

Me? A legendary fighter? There

I glared around the arena in disbelief. Me? A legendary fighter? There must have been some sort of mistake. The arena was lined with different species of fighters each looking like it could tear me into shreds and wear my bright blue employee vest as a trophy. The crowd chanted in unison from the stands of the large arena as the fighters were showcased one by one. Each one walked up to the center stage and struck a pose or spoke some words in their alien language. I was more than nervous, as a matter of fact I felt like pissing myself and running out of the arena, and I would've too if the gates hadn't already been sealed. I glanced around to see if there was another fighter I could talk to about this mess, but the ones around me seemed just as nervous as I did. Just then the speakers in the arena blared sounding off a name I couldn't spell if my life depended on it that sounded like Koikep. A large gray man stood up from his spot on the edge of the arena and made his way to the center. Every step he took shook the earth around his feet as he entered the stage and let out a deep roar. The crowd chanted his name as the four armed death machine walked back to his place In line and I heard the dreaded words over the speaker "...TODD!" The crowd grew silent as I slowly made my way to the stage. I could feel the sweat pouring from every damn hole in my body. The other champions cringed as I walked passed them. They must have known that I was a goner too. I approached the stage and stood there awkwardly for a moment before leaning into the mic and mumbling "Hey...I'm uh...Todd and I'm not sure..." Before I could finish the audience let out a collective gasp and shutter. Great. It looks like they all knew I didn't belong here. I felt the panic rising in my gut. The heat of the lights on my face, the sweat on my forehead, and soon the inevitable pee stain on my Walmart (tm) issued khakis. I shuffled off the stage back to my place in line and put my head down. I tried to tune out the noise of the audience and the fighters so I could think of an escape plan. There was no way I'd survive this competition. I looked around for someone to speak to and was only met by more scared fighters. The being to my right seemed like he may not tear me to ribbons if I spoke to him. "Hey...pssstttttttt. Hey I'm Todd can you help me?" The tall slender alien quickly turned away and tried to avoid eye contact "Hey can you even understand me? I need help I shouldn't be here" The being turned even further putting his back to me. That's when I noticed the arena had gotten quiet. I looked around to notice the entire arena staring at me with wide eyes. Shit shit shit. They were going to kill me before I could even get a chance to escape! I attempted to put my head down to brush them off when suddenly the gates around the arena opened and we began to get escorted somewhere. Everyone was guided by two guards except for me. Instead one small nervous looking bear thing guided me towards the door that would surely seal my fate. The door ahead of my opened to a large man sitting on a throne. His voice bellowed through the room and echoed off the walls "My champion! I'm glad you've arrived. You've been given the introduction right? Of course you have let's get started so-" "Actually I haven't .... I have no idea why I'm here. There must have been a mix up there's no way I belong here you have to send me back to my home." The giant man glared at me in disbelief and then began to laugh "Hahaha I knew it was a good idea to pick you. Not only are you strong, you're hilarious. Ok now let's get serious what strategy did you plan to use? The ole over under? Maybe a double spin? Oh it won't matter you have the other fighters scared to death" "No I'm being serious there must be a mistake. I'm not even the best fighter on earth let alone the universe. The only thing I'm good at is bagging and that..." He spoke loud interrupting me with his laughter"This guy just doesn't quit does he? I'm glad I picked you instead of that other guy" He gestured to a pile of bones in the corner with a blue vest and name tag that read "John, Senior Manager" "Ok Todd now get out there and make me proud!" He snapped his fingers and I was transported into the arena once again. The crowd gasped as I spawned and grew quiet. I glared across to my opponent. A short, stocky monster of a being with a large head appeared before me. There was no way I could take him. It was over for me, but for some reason he looked just as scared as I did. We approached the center of the stage and some sort of referee came to the center. He touched each of us on the head and gave us the go to begin the fight. I prepared myself to dodge his strike, but instead the arena opened and a large conveyer belt rose out of it. Before me was a belt with a large variety of items and a series of gray plastic bags. I stared in disbelief. This was a retail worker competition, and I was going to kick this guy's ass. With lightning speed I grabbed the food items in front of me and began bagging. The conveyer belt slid forward as I slammed items into the appropriate places. Milk...double bag. Eggs...on top of other items. Canned goods: easy. The onlookers stared in disbelief as I put my opponent to shame. He frantically tried to keep up using food items from his own planet, but it was far to late. I had won easily and was beaming as the crowd now chanted my name. "Todd Todd Todd!" I couldn't believe it. I had been summoned to do the only thing I was good at. I outstreched my hand to shake with my opponent when he suddenly vaporized into a cloud of dust. The speakers blared "Todd is the winner of round 1, and Glorook has been vaprozed into dust, as is customary". On the bright side it looked like I was going to get that wish: To get my soul back from years of working at Walmart.

The Infinity Stones were more than enough

I tried, I really did. First I asked nicely, then I rang the bell on the countertop repeatedly, and when that also failed to get the attention of the two gentlemen scuffling in my shop, I raised my voice and threatened to have them kicked out. But it was all to no avail, and the last threads of my patience burned away in the fires of their bickering. So I slipped on the Gauntlet and slammed twenty novas' worth of magic at the two of them. "Good," I said. "Some peace and quiet, finally. If you want me to release you, will you do as I say?" They resisted, of course. But the Infinity Stones were more than enough to warp reality, and together with the Dragon Balls strung in a bracelet around my wrist, plus the One Ring on my index finger... there was little they could do but nod. "OK, you can go first," I said to the man on the left as I released their shackles. He was the more aesthetically pleasing between the two, with broad shoulders, blond hair, square jaw. "What brings you to the Phylactery?" "I'm Honar the Just! I'm here to seek the means to vanquish evil in the fair land of Fandaria! And blessed are the gods to deliver me here before my nemesis, the evil and twisted Scrillux!" "I'm not evil," said Scrillux, as he pouted slightly. He was mousy, with a slight hunch and thinning hair. The dark circles around his eyes did little for his complexion. "That's character assassination, that is." "You cannot *possibly* mean to give Scrillux what he wants! He will only use it to bring suffering to the whole of Fandaria!" "I will not give anyone anything," I said. "I have to run a business, you know. You have the money, I give you the goods-" "No, you do not understand! Oh, if only you knew the dastardly deeds he has been working towards, your heart will surely shrink in fear! The pain, the suffering, that he has wrought, it is my sacred duty to ki-" "So what has he done? What's so bad about him?" I asked, as I sized Scrillux up again. I had seen my fair share of villains in the Phylactery, and I knew better than to judge based on appearance. Still, there was an air of... rationality about Scrillux, which really took the edge off any danger he may have projected. "... why... Scrillux seeks to obliterate all the towns west of the Capital, no doubt to establish his undead army there! Our spies, they report that he also means to enslave any survivors, and to brainwash them to do his bidding! He is chaos incarnate! He must be stopped!" "Is that true, Scrillux?" He sighed, and rolled his eyes ever so slightly. I got the sense that he had had to explain himself many, many times before. "That... is not false, to be honest. Honar's right in that I *am* working towards those goals, but it's not wha-" "There! He admitted to it! See! You've got to sto-" I raised my finger, and relieved Honar temporarily of the ability to breathe. He crumpled to the ground, grasping at his throat. A ghost of a smile lit the corners of Scrillux's mouth. "The towns... there's an infection spreading," he said. "I mean, a literal infection. An honest-to-goodness bacterial infection. Those dimwits aren't taking to the hygiene protocols I've proposed, and I've got no choice but to quarantine them before it gets out of hand. If they are too far gone, the humane thing is to... put them out of their misery." Honar was turning blue, so I released him. He sucked in air like a chicken having a panic attack, then rejoined the fray. "Lies! All lies! What is all this... little devils you speak about, traveling in the water? Hogwash!" The frown settled over my brow despite my best efforts. It was so difficult to remain impartial sometimes. "And the enslavement?" I asked. "Conscription, more like," Scrillux said. "Someone's got to do it. There's a crapload of infrastructure that needs installing - the Kingdom doesn't build itself, you know. No one's going to do it unless a little force is applied, but you know, I'm hoping that they'll come around once they receive regular wages. Beats sitting around on their bums waiting for the next handout, that's for sure." "Lies! Worm-infested lies!" "The brainwashing?" I asked. "Thinking of starting a cult to worship you, be your fearless agents of death in the land?" "Um, not really," Scrillux said. "It's just basic education, actually. Six years of mandatory learning, so that these bumpkins have a sufficient appreciation of the sciences to not spend another century living in filth. Again, tough at first, but it'll get better." "Do you hear the blasphemy from his mouth!" Honar said. "He means to teach us the Devil's work! I saw it with my own eyes! Unholy fires, trapped in balls of ice, light the halls of his mansion! Those aren't candles! They are the souls of the living, wrested away, unable to lay at peac-" Two fingers raised this time, and Honar hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. I opened the ledger I kept, and verified Scrillux's account of matters within seconds. "Fine, it all checks out. What artifact are you looking for?" "I'll probably need something... with a bit of kick? The King is sending his entire academy of mages against me soon, maybe even a dragon or two, and I would really like to get my work done in peace." "Sure, sure... I'll get you... how about the Spear of Longinus? No? Book of Thoth? Blade of Sopaa?" We haggled, but the deal soon closed far faster than I had expected. Scrillux was a lot more reasonable and keen of mind than I had given him credit for. He even offered to help lug the unconscious Honar home. "Oh... one last thing," he said at the threshold of the Phylactery. "You've probably seen a lot of... protagonists and antagonists come here, haven't you?" "I have." "Any advice?" he asked, an eyebrow raised. "It's been... far more challenging than I thought, trying to do the right thing." I nodded. "You really want to work on your PR," I said. --- /r/rarelyfunny

Tenn O'gul used to

"Fuck" - Tenn O'gul yelled out in disgust while spitting the beer out. That was his 26th victim of the night, and he had yet to taste a single drop of blood in his mouth. Tenn O'gul used to be a Count back when before people knew what a gun was. But nowadays, he's just an old, short, and ugly vampire. It had been hard for not just him but all vampires since the booming in advancement of bio engineering. People started to replace certain natural body parts with something else. Most commonly is the replacement of blood with beer for better metabolically energy absorption. It had been exactly 472 days since the last time Tenn O'gul found a human with actual blood in their veins. There was not much he can do but moved on and hunt for another human. Tenn O'gul had grown apathetic. After dropping his last victim's body at the dumpster, Tenn O'gul proceeded to fly aimlessly for hours. He turned his head left and right, he flew toward the moon and back looking for his next prey but all he found was frustration and angst filling up his whole body. You could see the lights in his eyes had died out long ago, he had lost all hope of ever finding a human with actual blood. "HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!" A voice echo from down below, not too far away from where Tenn O'gul was at. Tenn O'gul slowly flew toward the source and landed on top of an old building. He looked down to the dark alley below and saw a woman. The night was dark, but being a vampire, Tenn O'gul could see exactly what was going on. The woman was small. She wore a brown sweater over polka dot dress with a chestnut-color scarf around her neck. They all seemed a bit too big for her size. She covered her head with a grey beanie, but Tenn O'gul could still make out the green highlight in her hair. She looked like what you would call a hipster. But Tenn O'gul didn't care about that, all he cared was that she looked humanly enough to be his next victim. In front of her was a 7ft tall man. To call him a man was not entirely correct. The right side of his body was replaced with mechanical machinery. The sounds of gear clicking and whirling with every moves he made. But he didn't spark an interest in Tenn O'gul because Tenn knew that there were no human blood underneath all those mechanical parts. The man raised both of his hands in the air, signaling a taunt toward the woman: "C'mon, you can do better than that girl" - he spoke in a half-man, half-robot voice - "C'mon, try harder" Tenn O'gul was just sitting on top of the building observing. He was not really interested in the situation, he was just bored. He had no intention of saving nor preying on the woman because he did not want to fight the half-man for a small chance of the woman having actual blood in her body. "No? You're not gonna scream anymore?" - As the half-man grabbed the woman's arm and pushed her against the wall - "Well then this is gonna be veeerrry easy" "Do you even have a dick down there anymore, half-man?" - the woman spoke in a surprisingly calming manner - "Should I even call you a man if you're dickless?" Tenn O'gul couldn't help but let out a little grin. He did not expect her act like that in her situation. The half-man got taken back a bit. He also did not expect her to say something like that. It wasn't long before he grew aggressive again out of embarrassment . "Fuck you, bitch" - the gears in his right arm whirled as he raise it and slapped the living hell out of the woman. She fell to the ground and hit her head against the wall. Her beanie fell off, and something was oozing out of her wound... something RED. Tenn O'gul knew exactly what he saw. The red liquid that he craved for so long. It is now right in front of him. Before the half-man could see it coming, Tenn O'gul flew down from the building and ripped his mechanical arm off of him. The half-man was thrown across the alley, laying his back against the cold, hard cement. He looked straight at Tenn O'gul in horror. And even tho Tenn O'gul appearance is just a small, ugly old man, the half-man knew he could not do anything in front of this hungry beast. As chills were sent down his spine, he grew the courage to mutter: "What... are... y.." - Tenn O'gul plunged his finger nails through the half-man's neck, ended his life before he could say his final word. Tenn O'gul then turned back to the woman who was observing the whole ordeal. At that moment, she knew her fate was sealed. Unlike with the half-man, she knew there was nothing she could say to get out of the situation. In front of her was an ugly and vicious creature who would not be fazed by reasons. His eyes were filled with not just hunger but excitement. She was looking at him, but he wasn't looking at her. His attention was drawn to the red line of blood on her forehead. He wanted to tear her apart and drown himself in it but he also wanted to savor it. He slowly walked up to her and patted her hair to the side, revealing where the line of blood came from. While the woman was shaking in horror, Tenn O'gul was shaking in excitement. It had been too long for him and he was enjoying every moment of it. He raise his fore finger up, the same one that went through the half-man's neck, drenched it with the blood from the woman's forehead and then put it in his mouth. His eyes immediately turned red. His body started to shake even more violently. He let out a roar tearing through the silence of the night. What he felt wasn't rejuvenation, it was desperation. It wasn't a roar of excitement that came out of him, it was a roar of wrath for what he tasted wasn't what he expected. "WHAT. THE FUCK. IS THIS?" - Tenn O'gul looking straight at the woman, his gaze was completely focused on her and not on her forehead. "What... what.. do you mean?" - said the confused woman. "What was in your blood? That wasn't human blood" - Tenn O'gul roared loudly "I had body... modification... I don't.. have any... human blood in me." - the woman could not spoke straight for she was crying before the terrifying sight of angry Tenn O'gul "Then why the fuck is it not beer?? Why is it red?" - Tenn O'gul voice cracked. He was on the verge of breaking down to tears. He thought he has finally found it, but once again, his hopes were crushed. All he felt at that moment was absolute desperation. "I'm... I'm... allergic to gluten... I can't... have beer in my veins..." - the woman continued - "I... I... got my blood... replaced.. with Sriracha... instead" That was the final straw. Tenn O'gul broke down in front of the woman. He was no longer the vicious beast. His small body crumpled up and you could see that he was even smaller than the woman. And then, he started to cry like a baby.

Frederick Johnson is regarded as the seventh

My name is Frederick Johnson. I am officially regarded as the seventh-strongest man in the world. And I really, really hate my stupid power. ... "Hey, Fred! How ya been, slick?" I spun, throwing out my hands, and called out to my childhood friend. "Geoff! I'll get you for that one!" He hooked an arm around my neck, dragging me along as I tried to resist. "Whoa, that's a crazy feeling. You move like this all the time?" I dug a hand into the gap between his arm and my neck, repelling the offending limb. He laughed as he stumbled away, then recovered and turned back towards me. "Yeah," I said, the smile fading as I processed his words, "all the time." Geoff waved his hands, backpedaling on his previous statement. "Aw, come on, don't be such a downer. Come on, I'm headed to a bar. The whole group's in town for the reunion, it'll be great!" I smiled, nodded, and followed my exuberant friend. ... "...so I say, ' I guess you wasted too much time on your monologue!', and smack her to the floor." A round of laughter came from the table. "She's falling in slow-motion, so I handcuff her while she's falling. When she gets back to normal speed, she's just screaming her head off about me rueing the day and all. It was hilarious!" I wiped a tear from my eye. It was good to share stories like this. The Ten were so full of themselves. "So, Fred... any stories to tell?" I thought on it. Really, I didn't see much action. My power made it rather hard to fight crime. Ahh... "Did I ever tell you guys why I'm ranked Seven?" A series of shaking heads and murmurs of negation. "Well, it all started when I got my powers..." ... I woke up on my 18th birthday, turned over, and slid straight out of bed onto the floor. I wasn't hurt - in fact, I wasn't technically on the floor at all. I was an inch above it. My first impression was flight; my second was a forcefield; my third was ice powers. I really wish it had been one of those. It quickly became apparent that I was having a lot of trouble standing. I couldn't grab anything, either. I began to panic, and started shouting. My dad came in the room, but despite his super-strength, he wasn't able to do much. My mom came up, and managed to use her forcefields to give me some purchase. I ended up on my bed, with both of them leaving the room thanks to my underwear suffering much the same fate as the floor, slipping off the moment I'd gotten upright. ... The table was rapt, expressions of empathy on every face. "Shit. I never really though just how bad not being able to touch things could be..." "Fuck, and I called you slick earlier. Now I feel like a dick." I smiled wanly. "No worries, it's far from the worst I've heard. Anyway, I won't bother you with the details. Eventually, I figured out how to wrap a toga without being able to come within an inch of it, taught myself how to move based on some half-forgotten skating lessons, and made it down the hall. Took a few days to reailze that I hadn't eaten or drank or anything like that. Took a few weeks to try every doctor and scientist we could to see if they could do anything about it. Eventually, I just kind of accepted it. That would have been the end of it, except..." ... Goliath was attacking the city. This wasn't that unexpected; Goliath was always attacking something, and our city was a probable target. The problem was, I was less than a block away, on a grocery run, when he started his attack. Now, Goliath is a really mean guy. His power essentially makes him the size of a skyscraper, with proportional strength, mass, and durability. Maye one in a hundred people could even scratch him with their powers. I gave up when his foot came crashing towards me. I won't deny that I almost welcomed it. My life had sucked for months, and I was in a pretty dark place. The massive foot slammed downward, and I just looked up at it, mentally egging it on. It came within an inch of my skin- and then it slammed into the pavement around me, over me. A moment later, the foot recoiled, a massive, echoing howl of pain coming from Goliath above. "AAUGHH, MY FOOT! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" The massive man peered downward, where he saw me, standing in dismay on a spire of asphalt that remained in his massive footprint. The only thought going through my head was how difficult it would be to get out of the crater, and that I wasn't dead. "YOU BASTARD! TREMBLE BEFORE GOLIATH, OR BE DESTROYED!" He aimed a kick, and I stood there, not bothering to dodge. He split his foot in half with the force of the kick. Now, my brain was finally snapping out of its stupor. For the first time in months, I realized that I wasn't worthless, that as much as I hated my power, it wasn't quite as bad as I thought. It wasn't that I couldn't touch anything: my power made it so nothing could touch me. Goliath screamed in pain, his massive, bus-sized foot now a bloody mess, and collapsed to the street. I winced at the damage, then noticed the other people who'd been fighting him staring. It struck me how this must look: a man in a toga, completely unmarred by the action, floating an inch off the ground, with a face that refused to grow a beard and long brown hair. "I'm not Jesus," I said lamely, before turning back to Goliath. ... "...and those were my famous first words as The Untouchable, the completely invulnerable superhero." "Pfft- that's freaking gold, Slick. I guess you won that fight?" "Yeah. Turns out being nearly frictionless and completely unstoppable makes you a pretty good bullet. Plus, I can lift literally anything if I get under it, so he was kind of screwed." "Sounds like it. So they made you number seven for that?" "Yup. I mostly agreed to join The Ten to support my parents, but they insist that I'm vital to the team, so...yeah." Silence reigned around the table for a few moments. Finally, Lars spoke up. "So, tell me straight: have you ever seen Glorious naked?" The table burst into laughter, and I smirked. "I've missed you guys." Written on my phone, sorry for any mistakes. If you like my writing, look me up on Spacebattles or Fanfiction.net, I write Worm fanfiction there.

Residents of St Bartholomew's

Joe wrapped an arm around his wife's shoulders and pulled her tightly to his chest. Most of the residents of St Bartholomew's Street had already come out of their houses to see the cause of the midnight fracas. They were now gathered around the drive of number thirty-eight, as if patrons around a theatre stage, many of whom were hoping for a particularly blood thirsty production. Others, like Joe, were simply stuck in a state of disbelief. Of *refusing* to believe. Sarah looked up at her husband. "They can't be, can they? We've known them for so long." Joe felt her hand curl up into a ball against his back. "They looked after the children only last week. Jesus Joe, we *trusted* them." The Enforcers' Jeep waited empty, but eager, outside their neighbour's drive. A harsh light spiralled out from the vehicle, painting the gathered crowd first in broad red brushstrokes, then blue. Their neighbours' door lay splintered on the brick driveway. Joe shook his head. "We- we don't know that they *are*, yet, sweetheart. Not until the Enforcers bring them out. Until then, I think they both deserve the benefit of the doubt. They've earned at least that much from us." "Amanda and Tony," his wife continued unperturbed, "they just seemed so *normal*. Just like us. I suppose that was the point - it was all a... a *trick*. To get close to us, so that they could eventually..." Her hands began to tremble. Joe took her hands in his own and held them tightly. He opened his mouth meaning to reassure her, when the Special Office Enforcers came striding out of the broken doorway. "Oh God," cried Sarah as she watched her neighbours be dragged out of their house, towards the Jeep, their arms handcuffed behind their backs. "How- how could you!" she screamed at them. "How sick are you freaks? We trusted you with our children!" Amanda must have heard her, as she glanced up at Sarah. In that moment, Joe saw his neighbour's battered face and the blood dribbling from her nose. "Go back to your own planet!" Sarah spat. "And take the rest of your kind with you! You're not welcome!" "Honey," said Joe, blinking back tears. "Please. You don't mean that. They're our friends." "*Friends?* They're sick freaks, that's what they are! You've read the reports. The things they've done..." "You can't believe all that? Amanda and Tony have always been good t-" A yell from nearby interrupted him. "Show us their eyes!" "Yeah, their eyes!" "We want proof!" The Enforcer who held Amanda, pulled her up to her feet. He took out a plastic device, that looked a little like a gun, from his jacket pocket. With one hand, he grabbed Amanda's hair and yanked her head back; with the other, he fired a wide, green beam into her face. Her eyes lit up a bloody, unnatural, red. There were screams and panicked gasps from the crowd. "I God-damned knew it!" said one resident. "They've always been perfect. *Too* perfect!" "Hang 'em!" said another. Tony, who was kneeling on the floor, pushed himself up and thrust himself head first at the Enforcer holding his wife. The Enforcer stumbled, almost falling, but at the last moment just regained her balance. Another Enforcer ran at Tony and threw his fist into the man's throat. The first Enforcer rejoined the fray, stamping her boot into the fallen man's head. Joe began to tremble. "No..." "Honey?" said Sarah. "This isn't right," said Joe defiantly. "It isn't right!" "Tell that to the children," said Sarah. "This is *exactly* right. It's what they deserve." A haze of red flashed from the Jeep as its light spun again; Joe saw his hands as the light spilled over them. A moment later, a blue light replaced the red, washing it away. Only, the red wasn't gone. It would never go away, unless he... "I'm sorry," he whispered, kissing his wife's hair. "They may not be from here, but they're sure as hell human. And more than that, they're our friends." Sarah screamed, pleading him not to, but he was already in mid sprint. His shoulder landed with a thud against against one of the Enforcers. A right hook took the other off her feet. "It's okay," said Joe, offering a hand to the beaten, bloodied man. Tony looked up, through his one, non swollen eye. "Thank you," he croaked. "Are you one of..." But the question was never finished. More officers had arrived. A gun shot. A bullet tore through Tony's head. A long streak of red spattered the street. Amanda's blood curdling scream cut through the noise of the frenzied crowd, until the hilt of a gun struck her head and silenced her. Joe stepped back in sick disbelief. "No..." he muttered. "Oh God, no." And then, they were on him. Fists and boots battering him down until he became numb and still. When finally satisfied, the Enforcers dragged Joe back to his feet. "Show us his eyes!" came a shout from the crowd. "He's one of them for sure!" "Show us his eyes!" A hand yanked back Joe's head. A fierce green light pierced his retinas. If he could have screamed, he would have done. "He's not one of them," said a woman who lived two doors down from Joe. The blood-lusting crowd seemed to deflate slightly, shoulders slumping and heads turning. "Just loves him some Second-Worlds." "That's bad enough, ain't it?!" Joe saw his wife standing on the doorstep, watching him with tear streaked eyes. Jane and Thea had come to the door and Sarah had her arms wrapped around them, trying to comfort them. The green light was ripped away from his eyes. As it twisted direction, for a split second, it touched his wife's face. His entire body began to tremble. No one else saw: they were all too busy baying like wolves at Joe. He didn't mean to struggle again - it was instinctive - but it was all it took. Joe looked a last time at his his family, as a second gun fired. Sarah had tried to cover her children's eyes, but Thea saw it all through a gap between her mother's fingers. She saw the blood spurt out of her father's chest and his body fall limply to the ground. She saw the inhumanity and unfairness of it all, and felt all the weight of her species fall on her shoulders. Her eyes, if for only a second, burned a brighter red than any before. She squeezed her hand into a ball and made herself a promise.

Christmas 2037 was bad enough for

It was big diesel-guzzling take-no-prisoners beast of a vehicle. Amphibious, bullet-proof, noisy as an earthquake and converted from some leftover war materiel that was so hot that with five spare minutes and some film you could take x-rays. Had plenty of space in the back for the things he needed to carry. Up front, plenty of room for a jolly old elf who rattled around in his old red suits; everything that had happened left him feeling so upset that the pounds practically fell off. He called it SLEIGH II. The radiation didn't matter to him, but it did a number on his reindeer so they were holed up for the duration. Missing Christmas 2037 was bad enough: there had been a NORAD radar on him for real and his old sleigh took a point-blank hit from a 35 kiloton anti-ballistic interceptor. He had to think quickly in those few milliseconds so he spent his magic on making sure he and his faithful reindeer survived the explosion and the fall down, down, down, towards a land full of bright and terrible lights with a thousand deadly Christmas stars overhead showing the way to Hell. He had had that old sleigh for ... forever, really. Same for his famous red toy sack. Watching them flash out of existence was heartbreaking. But it gave him something in common with the humans. He lost nearly everything, they lost everything. The only ones that were left were locked down in their shelters, pockets of dozens here and there dug into the sides of mountains and into old mines. There wasn't anyone left watching the sky. Instead they watched Geiger counters and clocks and calendars, marking off a century a day at a time. So why fly? There wasn't anyone around he was trying to hide from. Green military pants, red shirt, black boots, and Mrs. Claus made some green suspenders. He wore a tight fitting cap with his old white fur puffball stitched right to the top, instead of flopping around like the old days. Leather gloves kept his hands comfortable on the wheel of SLEIGH II and he made his way overland. * * * Tucked away in their beds were the dozen or so families of *Community Shelter 8.* The air had its characteristic twang, the smell of the filters and that weird burned smell that came through from the outside feed pipe. A construction paper christmas tree flapped against the wall in the common room, caught in the draft of the air recycler. Christmas Eve! A whole year since they went down into their hole and they had celebrated survival in their meager way. Christmas would mark a year since the world above went silent. Everyone planned on sleeping in, and there were no formal activities planned. It used to be a birthday, Christmas, celebrating hope and family. Now it was a death-day. The paper Christmas tree breezed this way, went still, and then breezed that way. If anyone was looking, they would have seen a man by the U-pipes that fed the life support system fresh air and ejected the shelter's stale air. They would have seen him reach into his pocket and throw a handful of shiny dust into the air, and they would have seen him climb into a huge armored vehicle and wink away at an impossible speed towards the northwest, in fact towards the *Oak Creek Village Fallout Shelter.* * * * Rebecca and Jian had the early shift this morning. No one else was up. Rebecca poured herself coffee from the pot in the common room, as usual. She hadn't run into Jian yet, but he would be in the control room checking the outside instruments, routine stuff. The movement of the paper on the wall caught her eye. She sighed. She was thankful that life in the shelter was boring, mostly free of drama. She had played a game as a kid built around the life she was living now - things could be so much worse. But what kind of future would her children have? Everyone decided that there wouldn't be gifts, just some extra rations with the menu heavy on the sweets. Had to keep things fair, the shelter had the things they *needed* and didn't make provision for something as frivolous as Christmas gifts. A package. About as big as a filter module. Wrapped in beautiful paper and tied with a silver and green bow, and a tag tied to the knot. It hadn't been there during the celebration the night before. Had someone been holding on to this for a whole year? She smiled as she went over to pick it up, and it was a little heavy for its size. She wanted to show it to Jian, so she made her way to the control room. "Knock knock," she said. "You're not going to believe it." "You know?" Jian asked. "About the present?" "What?" Jian was busier on the instruments that he usually was. "Hold on," Rebecca set the gift down, "what are you talking about?" "Look, look through the periscope." Rebecca looked. It was snowing outside. It made her stomach sick. The last time she saw snow, it was made of ash, of buildings and things and animals and people. A whole year. *A whole year*, she thought, *and someone pressed the button again.* "God, no..." she whispered. "How hot is it?" she asked Jian. "It's not." Rebecca's eyes went to the geiger counter. And it read: **000** "The meter's broken," she reasoned. "It's not," Jian replied. "I just finished double-checking with the test source. Meter works. That's real snow and there's no radiation outside." They sat together quiet for a few seconds. "You were saying something when you came in," Jian said. Rebecca looked at the present, wrapped up and pretty. "I was going to ask you if you knew where that came from." Jian looked confused. "What's going *on*?" He pointed at the tag. "What's the tag say?" FROM: SANTA TO: COMMUNITY SHELTER 8 MERRY CHRISTMAS - 2038 "I'm going to open it." Rebecca's fingers sunk into the paper tearing it, before Jian could suggest something else. It was a simple cardboard box underneath, and the lid slid neatly off. Corn seeds. Wheat seeds. Peas. Pepper seeds. Apple and cherry seeds. Avocado pits. A few whole potatoes. There were more and more. And a note: *For New Life* * * * I collect my stories at /r/wpforme

Benny kept a calendar, all of

Benny kept a calendar. It was old, of course, a 2021 edition with 12 months of Shar-peis in flowerpots for some reason. Every January 1st, Benny would remark the dates, all of them, all 365. His wrist would creak at the end of it and his head would throb, but it was important work. It's how he never lost track of time, even there, in the dark, and the quiet, and the cold. Where were they, exactly? Benny often wondered. He'd only been a little boy when the sirens had started wailing and they'd trundled off into the depths of steel below their house. "Chicago Heights, sweetie," his mother would tell him. "The heart of America." That sounded right, of course, but it had been so long. So long down in the dark and the quiet and the cold. It was hard to even remember what Chicago Heights *looked* like. "Best not to try and remember," his father would tell him. "It won't look like that when we come out." "And when'll that be?" Benny asked. Over and over, he asked. His mother would shake her head and say nothing. His father would grit his teeth and mutter nonsense. Rose would nod and say, "I wonder that, too," like it was an especially clever and admirable thing for an older brother to wonder. *December 24* "Christmas eve," Benny said, looking hopefully at his mother, who refused to meet his eyes. "You think Santa'll come this year? Huh, Dad?" His father was bent over a book. He pretended not to hear. Rose perked up at the sound of her brother's voice. "Santa? Tell me again about Santa." Benny crept to the side of Rose's bed. Every step echoed in the shelter. The sound rang in his ears. "He's very magical," said Benny. "He lives at the North Pole, up in the cold, and he makes toys for boys and girls." "All boys and girls?" "*Good* boys and girls," said Benny knowingly. "How does he know which is which?" said Rose. "He can see it all," said Benny, holding his hands up to his eyes. "When you're sleeping and when you're awake and when you're good and when you're bad. He sees it *all*." "He's seen us this whole time?" said Rose, wondering and afraid. "Yup," said Benny. "He knows everything that's happened." "Do you think I've been good?" Benny put a hand to his sister's forehead. She was sweating again. He wiped his hand off on the bedspread. "Of course! He knows what a good daughter and sister you've been." "And do you think..." Rose shook her head. "That's dumb..." "Do I think he'll come this year?" Benny smiled, leaning back to glance at his father, still pretending to read his book. "I just bet. I just bet. But you have to sleep. He won't come if you don't sleep." Rose nodded, feigning a yawn. "I was tired anyway." Benny stood up. "When morning comes, you'll see." "And you'll tell me when it's morning?" "I always do." Then Benny went back to his favorite chair and sat. He was nearly 20 years old by his calculations. His body never stopped feeling big and strange and foreign. He hated it sometimes. He wanted his old body back. When he was smaller, the shelter seemed so big and spacious. Now he just felt cramped all the time. Still, the shelter was big enough to hide the occasional secret. He'd just have to look hard to find a present for Rose. He'd made a promise, after all. But just as Benny had begun setting about in search of a present to give, there was a strange sound from high above. A tapping sound and then a wrenching sound. A grinding sound. A heavy breathing sound. Benny looked to his father and saw that the old man wasn't afraid, so he wouldn't be afraid either. Then the ladder was rattling and boots were scuffling on the rusting iron. "It's so dark down here!" came a deep, joyful voice. White light, laced with just the barest trace of pink, filtered down the tunnel and into the shelter. The man reached the floor. "I knew it," said the man. Benny could hardly see him in the glare of the light. "Survivors. Believers. I'm not too late. Merry Christmas child." "Santa?" said Benny. The man placed the light on the ground, shining the beam straight up, just barely illuminating the chamber. The man wore a heavy, red coat and black, shiny boots. His beard was gray and scraggly. "I nearly lost you down here, Benny," said Santa. "It's been so hard these years, in all this fallout. Finding children. Finding families. Bringing hope. I'm sorry it's taken me so long." "It's fine, Santa," said Benny. "I'm so glad you're here. We're all so glad you're here. Right Dad?" Santa's eyes moved to the corner of the room, where a decomposing male body was wrapped around a soggy, bile-soaked hardcover book. "Right Mom?" Across from the male corpse, a skin-dappled skeleton lay in repose on a rotten bunk bed. "We have to be quiet," said Benny. "Rose is asleep." Santa nodded, swallowing. Adjusting the grip on his threadbare and nearly empty sack, he approached the bunk on the furthest edge of the room. The girl there was alive. She smiled in her sleep, even as cold perspiration rolled across her waxy features. Her legs were gone. Her left hand as well. The wounds were crudely washed and covered, festering under a thin blanket. "She's been so good," said Benny. "She really is such a good girl. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her. I just hope you know that, and I hope you can give her a good Christmas." Santa nodded. "Yes, of course." He reached into his sack. "I always bring gifts for good boys and good girls. In truth, Benny...I bring gifts for everyone...not just the good ones." Benny smiled. The pistol Santa pulled from his sack had a silencer, because most of those still alive had become violently sensitive to sound. His gift was mercy, after all. At the top of ladder, Santa resealed the hatch and covered the entrance with fresh sod. It was a warm December 25th. The night sky was greenish blue and smelled of mustard and burnt plastic. He had so many more homes to visit before morning came.

Aeliana remained in her place

The protocol was simple enough for even the least educated slave to understand. They were to wait for the master of ceremonies to declare that dinner had commenced, and for the accompanying music to play, before they strode into the great hall of the *Ignitus*. A hundred dishes, balanced on the palms of a hundred slaves, a meal fit for the gods. Except that when it came time for them to exit, Aeliana remained in her place, no more than twenty paces away from Justus, first son of the great House Marcellus. She ignored her fellow slaves who tugged at her sleeves, and instead shooed them away. They scattered, nervously tugging at the collars around their throats. "Master Justus," she said. But those of House Mercellus didn't hear her - they were too absorbed in the events beyond the plexiglass panels, those invisible barriers which separated them from the cold embrace of space. In the distance, tiny stars burned and flared in rapid succession. "Master Justus," she repeated, more firmly this time. "I bring urgent news. Master!" "Hmm? Aeliana, not now, please," said Justus. "There is a time and place for everything. We've travelled this far out to watch this phenomena with our own eyes, so whatever it is you're complaining about this time, it can wait. I promise, I will listen to you later-" "No, Master, you need to hear this now. This *very instant*." Her tone was more than enough for the guards nearby to rouse from their lethargy. They gripped their shock-lances and thrummed them to life. Other slaves had paid the price for far less insubordination, but even they knew that Aeliana was a favourite here, and so they waited on their master's response. Far easier to follow a cue than to strike their own path. "I said, later. Now is not the time." Justus was a fair man, more patient than most, but a shadow of displeasure had manifested in a scowl on his face. "Do not try my patience, Aeliana." Aeliana shrugged, then flung the dish she had brought in against the far side of the great hall. The fine ceramics shattered against the plexiglass, and as pickled pork knuckles slid down, Justus, and his brothers and sisters, leapt to their feet. "How dare you! Have you gone mad!" Justus held his bracelet up high, then said, "Are you spoiling for a beating, Aeliana? A simple press of this button, and I don't care how well-trained you are, you will have no choice but to *submit*!" "We have walked into a trap, master. If we do not respond now, all is lost." She noted, with a measure of satisfaction, the confusion which settled over them like cobwebs - too fine to grasp, too unnatural to ignore. "There's no such thing as a 'chain-link of star explosions'. That's a lie. House Marcellus was lured out here to this unmanned sector of space for a reason." "Watch your tongue, Aeliana! Remember your place! I was given good intel that this once-in-a-lifetime occurrence was-" "What those are, *master*, are warp-drive destination beacons. Your enemies are moving in on your this very second, and you don't even know it." "Nonsense, again! Even if that were true, the *Ignitus* has three guard starships in close range! We are hardly at any risk here." Aeliana sighed. "This is a classic Drusan tactic, master. Where I come here, we like to divide our enemies, jam their communications, then pick them off one by one. And if our enemies choose to serve themselves up to us, spend their time gawking at fireworks instead of getting ready for war... well, then, so be it. But before you go any further to chastise me, please, just try linking up with the other ships." The smile on her face only grew wider as she watched Justus, then his brothers and sisters, all take turns on their personal communicators. She waited until every single face had turned white before she continued. "You still have time, I can still help," she said, as she pointed in the direction of the plexiglass again. "By my estimates, the enemy ships will still need about... ten minutes to get in range. If we can get-" "Tell my guards what they need to know," said Justus. "I'll have the commander here, you can tell him what they need to do." "No, I won't do that," said Aeliana. She tapped her collar, then smiled. "Are you really going to have us argue about chain of command when there's a battle around the corner. No. Set me free. I will lead them for you." They would have argued further - it was in both their natures. But it was also at that moment that the alarms sounded. It was not a sharp, abrasive alarm. Instead, it was a low-toned, roiling alarm, one which brought to mind deep-sea whales going about their mating calls. It reverberated through the hall, grinding against their bones. "Master Justus," said Aeliana. "Not much time left. Set me free, and I promise you, I will have the enemy pushed back within the hour. Either that, or we can all perish here." Justus sighed, then tapped the unlock sequence into his bracelet. Then, when it failed to register, he tapped it in again, faster this time. Still, where there was supposed to be a confirmatory *beep* to signal that he had released Aeliana's restraints, there was no response at all. "Strange," Justus said. "It can't seem to detect that you..." Aeliana reached behind her neck, then unclasped her collar. It came off with a pop, and she dropped it with a resounding bang. "I had already deactivated it myself," she said. "I just wanted to see if you would place your trust in me. And since you evidently have, though with some prodding, I'll see that you're not disappointed." She walked over to the nearest guard, then wrested his shock-lance away from him. She drove it hard into the ground, and its tip lit up in an electric fire. The glow against her face only served to underscore the bloodthirst in her. "I'll show you what a Drusan warrior can do, Justus. Then, perhaps, you can re-evaluate whether you really did manage to enslave my people, or whether we entered your service for a reason." --- /r/rarelyfunny

Adam appeared during the night and disappeared

######***Dreaming Eden*** Before the Sin of Eden, man and beast roamed the plains as one. The plants provided sustenance for all of God's creatures. No wars, violence, deception, corruption--just peace and harmony. Then *he* came. He called himself Adam the Dreamer and swore up and down that he came from a place too distant to comprehend. This place was distant not in space, but in time. He claimed to have learned of our descendants' history, that we were primitive to him. Adam the Dreamer spoke to us before the first lie had been invented, so we could not call him a liar--there was no such thing. But what Adam was was something God Himself could not understand. Adam appeared during the night and disappeared at the first ray of sunshine. He came first out of curiosity. "What a wonderful dream," he said. Then he got bored, declaring our world to be a repetitive nighttime slumber for him. So he thought of a woman with impeccable features and behold--she appeared. He named her Eve. And they had sex not for procreation, but recreation. God reviled the sight of such an act. Every night Adam came, each time now with his "dream wife" Eve. They were promiscuous heretics that could conjure the most mind-altering substances at will. The dreamer and his imagined wife destroyed their bodies and minds night after night. We could not bear witness their unholy adventures. This is why we evolved to sleep in the darkness, when the Moon took over for the Sun's duty. One night, Adam found God's oldest creation--a tree older than light itself. It bore fruit so holy and ripe that God forbade any creature from touching the tree, let alone eat its fruit. When Adam saw this marvelous, ancient tree, he could not resist. He called to Eve, who dropped her jaw when she gazed upon the tree. Being the short-sighted heathens they were, they decided to steal its fruit and eat it. "When in dream Rome, do as the dream Romans do," Adam said, but we did not understand what he meant. As Adam approached the oldest tree, he was stopped by none other than God's oldest friend. His first sentient creation. Lucifero the Snake. Lucifero was 66 feet long and could stretch his jaw taller than Adam. Adam backed away in fear, but Eve did not. She attacked Lucifero with a weapon I cannot comprehend. It was metallic like the most precious of God's metals, small enough to grip in one hand, and louder than the loudest creature God created. It punctured Lucifero's left eye, then his right. But Lucifero was not ready to abandon his post protecting God's first creation. He lunged at Eve and swallowed her whole. Adam fell to his knees and cried. But he told himself this was all just a dream. He made a promise to Lucifero, and to the rest of the world: "I will be back, and when I return there shall be no gift of mercy. You have killed the wife of my dreams, now it is time to witness the darkest a human can be." Then he vanished, as he always did. We did not take his promise lightly. God ordered two of every creature to stand guard, to protect Lucifero and the tree. Then He summoned an army of winged men and women. He said to them, "Angels! Angels! A man who lives in dreams will be here after sundown to slay My creations! Do not let him win, do not let him claim victory. Do not let him lay a hand on Lucifero or on the fruit of My tree." So the angels scattered among the rows of animals and critters. Then the Sun fell. And Adam came. "I am here. Now let me take vengeance for my dear Eve!" Adam the Dreamer held a golden dagger in one hand and another metallic weapon in another. The metallic weapon sprayed a barrage of projectiles into the vast crowd of animals, killing most without chance for rebuttal. When he was satisfied with the carnage, Adam rushed the larger creatures and angels with his golden dagger. He came like a red whirlwind. Every creature and winged angel perished to the unimaginable might of his golden dagger and metallic weapon. It took several hours, but in the darkest of nights Adam finally found himself before the blinded Lucifero and God. God stood taller than any man, with the wings of an angel and complexion of a human. He wore white robes and a halo above His head. "You cannot be a creation of Mine," God said to Adam the Dreamer. "If I am not Your creation, then why do I share Your image?" God commanded Lucifero to attack Adam. Adam decapitated the snake with one swipe of his golden dagger. Lucifero lay dead beside Adam's feet. God's wrath peaked. He charged Adam with nothing but His open arms. Adam unloaded his metallic weapon, but it did no harm to the Lord. He tossed his weapon aside and held his golden dagger in front of him. God continued his flight toward Adam until His hip was gashed open by Adam's dagger. God lay bleeding out on the ground, smiling with his mouth and shouting in anger with his eyes. "You know not what you have done." In His dying breath, God banished Adam, humanity, and every creature that failed to protect Him and His tree from the sacred land Eden. No longer would His creations roam the Earth in peace and harmony, but in fear, hatred, spite, and desperation. Adam laughed at God. He took a fruit from the tree, bit it, then disappeared. ... Adam awoke in the middle of the night with an unbearable pain. His hip was gashed open. Adam's blood and intestines spilled from his body and onto his bed. He saw a golden dagger plunged into his wall and the corpse of a beautiful man dressed in white robes with a faded halo resting under His head on the floor. The blood loss was too much. Adam fell asleep and never dreamed again. Eden was gone. _____ Thanks for reading. For some reason, I respond to a lot of religious prompts, more of which (among other stories and poems) can be found on .

Nuevo Angeles sits just to

Marsdate: 25:412.47 [2063/10/21] Elon Musk gazed over the domed city of Nuevo Angeles, admiring his work. Spires of rusty concrete rose from the glimmering red streets below like blades of grass in an alien plain. Millions of upstanding Martian citizens, many of whom were native-born, bustled about in electric cars, feeding off the solar farms that extended for miles around this veritable jewel of the wastes. Of course, Nuevo Angeles was but one of many such settlements. Elon simply liked this one the most, as it sat just to the south of Mars' Equator. Outside temperatures during the day were high enough that he only needed his relatively light standard-issue pressure suit to be fairly comfortable, which was nice for days of exploration like these. Even in his ripe old age, Elon loved to explore his planet, and the lessened gravity certainly helped his old creaking bones withstand the journey. Elon slid down the railing of a spiral staircase into his garage, set into the side of a lava tube etched under the dusty plains of Tyrrhena a couple billion years ago. This particular tunnel ran straight out under the perimeter dome, and was sealed at both ends by a pair of titanium air locks. Hopefully, even these would become obsolete by the turn of the next century; Elon's fledgling atmospheric restoration project had already thickened the outside air five-fold, to a twentieth of an Earth atmosphere. Soon, this world would support billions of humans without the need for external oxygen or pressure suits... Elon caught himself before venturing further into his tangent. *'Ah, yes. Explore.'* Elon felt the whoosh of vented atmosphere behind him as the outer airlock hissed open, revealing the stark sunset landscape that was Mars. He set out on his six-wheeled rover, driving the same route he drove almost every day for a dozen Martian revolutions, under the huge arrays of solar panels, through the narrow crevasse between two old perimeter walls, and out into the plains beyond. Elon heard his excited breathing against the plexiglass of his suit even after all these years, and could feel the smile creeping up on his face as he spotted his fleet of immense iron collectors in the distance, diligently sweeping up oxide dust and spitting out plumes of water vapor, adding wispy clouds to an otherwise clear and rosy sunset skyline. It was *beautiful*. As Elon began the drive home, his suit picked up an alert, like it had every week or so for the past several revolutions. He looked up beyond the crimson horizon due northwest. He watched a series of nuclear-tipped point defense missiles illuminate the blackness of space as they sublimated a barrage of ninety-ton railgun rounds. He watched the laser guidance systems of Nuevo Angeles and a dozen other cities activate, selecting cold targets yet invisible to the naked eye. He watched his own railguns spin up, aim, and fire, projecting a hundred blue streaks of tungsten oxide plasma up and up and up at a dozen times escape velocity, each on an intercept course with some hidden warhead. A couple taps on his helmet patched him in to the Martian Aerospace Defense radio network, where he listened as dozens of field commanders and space station operators coordinated firing solutions. These men and women were undoubtedly the best and brightest Mars had to offer; it had been six years since they missed a target. But that lone target nicked Ibn Sina Station on Olympus Mons, and eighteen thousand of Mars' best students died in seconds. A shell the size of a house impacted the pressurized tower at a hundred seventy thousand miles an hour, with the force of a megaton thermonuclear warhead. Elon's expression twisted at the memory of frozen body parts being dredged from the sides of that crater. *'Never again.'* He pulled up a detailed trajectory map of the incoming projectiles and back-traced them to their respective guns, situated on Earth's moon. "Attention Mars Aerospace Defense. This is General Musk." The chatter died instantly. "Batteries one, four, nine, twelve, thirty-four, and forty-one, disengage point defense and switch to target designate Lima-Uniform-November-Alpha. Surface coordinates are sixty-one-point-nine-two-one-five north, one hundred fifty-four-point-zero-eight-three-three west. Aim for the guns only. Do not target human operators. Standby for further orders." Another volley of blue streaks rocketed out of the atmosphere, tracking a new angle off to the east. Elon knew this war would come. He understood that the governments of Earth would never willingly surrender their ways, even if it meant the survival of mankind. Elon couldn't let the same greed that poisoned Earth travel to Mars, especially using his technology. So he built his colony. Hourly flights from Earth carried settlers and building materials across the expanse of deep space to Mars, where settlements popped up like dandelions. Three million people migrated over the course of a dozen years, and together they established a self-stabilizing economy, agriculture, power grid, and water network. And then Elon cut the cord. The last ships were halfway to Mars by the time those remaining on Earth blew themselves up in their hangars. Elon would craft a world free of money, of corruption, of famine, of poverty, of strife, but most importantly, free of Earth. It would become a glistening ecumenopolis of technological advancement, a shining ruby in the cold outer reaches of the inner Sol system. Earth was doomed, but Mars would survive, as an independent *planet*. As expected, the United States and China promptly declared war on Mars, followed shortly thereafter by most of the developed world. The governments of Earth called themselves liberators. They wished to cast Elon as a tyrant, a rogue megalomaniac sociopath bent on world domination, whether that be on Earth or Mars. Of course, they could not be more wrong; Elon crafted a governing council before even leaving Earth's gravity well. That was over twenty-five years ago. Now, Mars is home to fifteen million hardworking citizens, sitting on trillions of dollars of resources. Manned missions have been sent to Jupiter's icy moons and to Titan. Entire cities have been constructed without enough people to fill them. And as Earth slowly chokes on the fumes of its own failures, Mars *builds* itself a fresh, clean atmosphere. Instead of cherishing this victory for mankind, however, the Earth decided it wanted a controlling share. They know they can't land people until the colony is dead, so they try to bomb it back into the dust, just like Germany, or Japan, or Vietnam. But Mars is ready. Mars will not yield to the tyranny of a dying world. *Mars can throw shit, too.*

The stunned silence lasted for over a

"... so I realized then and there, this was my best chance." No one spoke after that. The only sound that could be heard in the room was the low crackle of a small fire. The stunned silence lasted for over a minute. *It's good to know my oratory classes have still taken. The lack of practice made me think -* The High Minister rose from his chair, ghastly white. *- aaaaand here we go.* "But - the, the prophecy, Lady Ariana -" "*Queen* Ariana the First, High Minister. This is the Throne Room; if there's one place in the Kingdom where protocol must be followed, it's here." "You *dare* assume yourself a Queen?! After -" I rose from my chair. Lazily. The effect was the same, and there was no reason to give this idiot the impression he was getting on my nerves. Which he was, but still. Protocol. "I will not have you raise your voice to me when I'm sitting at my throne, High Minister." I still gripped the sword in my left hand. I wasn't pointing it at him - the jagged tip was leaning at the floor, leaving a mark on the marble - but the message was clear. "*Sit.*" He sat. He blinked several times. Might have been centering himself, or might be holding back tears. The possibility of it being the latter pissed me off *far* more than the confrontation. I sat back, leaning at the throne in the laziest possible position, staring at a random spot at the back of the room. "It really doesn't matter *how* the sucession -" Everybody in the room flinched at that word, and I think one of the Generals even sobbed. *Good. I have to press my advantage and establish myself before one of these pricks decides to make a move to try and overthrow me.* "- the *sucession* came to pass. I am the rightful heir, as it has been foretold and all that rot -" "The prophecy." The High Minister chipped in. *Smarmy prick.* He must've felt emboldened by seeing everyone flinch. "*Yes. High. Minister.* The prophecy." "Which you have broken. *Overturned.*" He made the word sound like a malediction. I smiled internally. I had been waiting for that, and his timing couldn't have been better. "Oh? Have I? I'm not so sure about that. Could you kindly recite it for us?" *He's said it at least twice a day, every day, over the last twenty-odd years.* I smiled internally again. *How sweet it is to use it against him.* The High Minister looked thoroughly confused at that. He cleared his throat and, hesitantly, began reciting the words that sealed my fate until just two days ago. **"When He the Good King sires a Woman as his First Born Child, the Chosen Knight shall Rise.** **"When the First Woman is Kept By the Beast, the Knight shall Kill the Monster, and take the Throne as Prize."** **"The Head of the Beast and the Sword of Great Might - as Proof of Conquered Right shall Suffice."** "Sounds correct to me. Head Scribe - is that correct?" I knew it was, but to have his recitation questioned in front of everyone would offend the High Minister to no end. I have to admit, that one was purely out of spite. "Y-yes. Yes, L-L-uh, Your Majesty." I grinned a bit at that. "Okay." I got up from my chair and started waking as I spoke. I was originally going for the "lazy and bored" facade, but I was very excited about what would happen next. "Let's go through that. Item by item. *He the Good King* refers to my father. We *all* know that." I let some of the bitterness leak into my voice. "I'm the First Born Child, and the Knight -" "Sir Galahad." That was the third time the High Minister spoke out of turn. Even if I *didn't* want to hurt that *fucker*, he was basically challenging my claim to the throne at this point, and protocol is protocol. I raised my sword to a combat stance and marched right up to him. He stumbled out of his chair, backpedaling to the nearest wall, and I pressed on - when the Blade of Flame Everlasting was close enough to his face that his beard was starting to burn, I spoke. "Three times you have raised your voice against me, *Anarius*. It is only in respect to oldest tradition that I not cross you through with this blade as you stand. But you are hereby dishonorably exonerated of all your duties as High Minister, and by your Queen's command you will *sit your ass on that fucking chair* and *keep your fucking mouth shut* and *do as you're fucking told!* If you interrupt me again, I'll let you keep company to your 'beloved friend' over there." Even as he stared at me and at the sword, his eyes drifted to my right, to the spot by the throne where my father's corpse still burnt a faint ember. Anarius mewled something incomprehensible, and shambled right back to his seat. *Fuck, where was I again? I had the whole timing of the speech organized in my head - Sir Galahad. Okay. Moving on.* "Alright. So, recapping. The Good King is my father, for all the 'good' he was, I'm the First Born Child... and then there's Sir Galahad. Previous owner of this fine blade." I tapped the Flame Everlasting with my index. "Let me tell you what all of you want to know but are way too afraid to ask. Let me tell you of the day before yesterday, when Sir Galahad marched up to the Lornis Castle and lifted the Flame Everlasting against Mollun, the Dragon, and the Beast of Prophecy." I put on my most solemn face. "He fucked it up completely." I let that sentence hang in the air for a while. This speech was the only fun part of this whole fiasco, so I had to make as many dramatic pauses as I could get away with. "He tried to challenge the dragon to fair combat. The five ton, twelve meters tall and twenty-five meters long flying lizard that does not possess the ability of speech. Sir Galahad walked right up to it and screamed at it to have it come out of its castle and fight him like a man. That worked exactly as well as you think it did. The dragon swiped its tail at Sir Galahad, who was bodily flung outside of the castle and very nearly died from the impact. By the time Galahad was on his feet again somehow, Mollun was already a mile high in the air, preparing to dive at him and crush him to death. Apparently, Sir Galahad was counting a tad too much on the fact that the Blade of Flame Everlasting can fight and defeat any flame, even the legendary Dragon flame. He seemed to have discounted, however, that dragons are in fact pretty large, and heavy, and apparently intelligent enough not to use fire against the one weapon in the world that could turn it against them. Galahad rose his sword to impale the dragon on its way down, and Mollun simply changed course mid-dive and slammed the ground right next to Galahad, who was immediately flung aside again and buried in the debris from the impact. This continued for some time. I believe Mollun was deriving great enjoyment from Sir Galahad's slow death." Everybody present stared at me. The generals, the nobles, the pages and knights; even the servants stopped pampering their masters and kept their eyes riveted at me. The room was, somehow, even more silent than before. *Oh. My father stopped burning. That explains it.* "As you may know, or have realized, Mollun was under a spell to 'protect' me. And part of that spell stipulated that Mollun could do me no harm as long as he lived. What happened next was rather simple; I walked up to Sir Galahad, took the Blade from his mangled hand, and ripped Mollun's throat open." Some people gasped at that. I spared a look at Anarius. "I assume that *that* is what you were referring to when you said I had... *overturned*... the Prophecy. Right, Anarius?" His face tensed, but he did not reply. I permitted myself a grin. "Now, see here, I was thinking the same thing myself on my way here. Maybe I could have just let Sir Galahad die an ignominious death, and let Mollun finish his destruction of one of the most valuable magical artifacts ever conceived." I tapped the sword with my index again. "But you know what? Nowhere in the Prophecy does it say the Knight and the Woman are two different people. It's implied, but it's never really said. It also never says that 'he' should marry me, even though my father promised my hand to whoever freed me from the prison *he* made for me." My expression turned hard at that. "Prophecies are always recorded in an ambiguous fashion, and are often misinterpreted, as the scholars know. But *my father* never cared about that. He never gave a *fuck*. Oh, no. *He* was being featured in a Prophecy, so it had to go *perfectly*, according to his fucking demented, obtuse, *fairytale* interpretation of it. So he built a prison for me. Locked me in there with nothing but books and a handful of enchanted artifacts to keep me company, for however long it took for the *Prophecy* to come true. Then he lured a Dragon from the Far Reaches all the way here. And sold several treasures from the Kingdom, to pay a mage to bind Mollun to the prison. And sacrificed our harvests, and our cattle, and some of our *people*, to keep that horror well fed and vigilant. And after twenty something years of *nothing but failure*, he gave the *most precious, irreplaceable artifact* in the Royal Armory to a *downright moron* in a desperate attempt to have the Prophecy fulfilled before he died. And here we are. Mollun is dead. Galahad is dead, and the Blade is broken in half." I could hear my heartbeat, now. I realized the Throne Room was *even more silent*, and I knew it was because most people were holding their breaths. How many of them knew? How many here were innocent, and how many were complicit? And what was going through the minds of either group now, that the chips were down? I smiled. "Thinking about that, I realized one more thing about the Prophecy, too." "The 'Monster'. 'The Knight shall Kill the Monster'... Not the Beast. The Monster. It's a different word. So I assume the Knight has to kill sometnhng - or someone - *other* than the Beast, for the Prophecy to be fulfilled." I grinned. "It might be a bit forced, but that's what I'm going with."

Enfela recognised the Enforcer

PART 1 --- There were four of them gathered in front of the tavern, their robes of pristine white fluttering in the breeze. And not just acolytes too, but full-fledged Enforcers, the division within the Order responsible for keeping the peace in the city. When Enfela stood on tiptoe, he could just about make out the twin stripes of gold which hung across their shoulders. Their staves, stout oaks of Healwood, thrummed with power. A crowd had gathered at a respectful distance around the Enforcers. A blanket of gloom hung over them, almost as if they were at a funeral. One Enforcer was bad enough. Two Enforcers, and you kept your head down, crossed on the other side of the street. Four Enforcers could only mean that a raid was underway. "Last chance, innkeeper," said the Enforcer at the front, as he addressed the squirming man before him. Enfala recognised the Enforcer - he was Father Hull, one of the more senior clerics in the Order. "Give us what we came for, and we will leave you in peace." "I... I cannot give you what I do not have, Holy One. I swear, we know nothing about this... person..." "Why do you not say his name? Are you, perhaps... protecting him?" "No, no! The Lightning Lurker! See? I said his name! I swear, he has not set foot in my tavern! We have never even seen him, much less given him safe harbour!" Father Hull stretched out his hand, and one of the other Enforcers placed a scroll in his upturned palm. Father Hull unfurled the missive, and more than one person in the crowd craned their neck for a better look. "It says right here that five moons ago, the Lightning Lurker was spotted shambling this very way. Enforcers were in hot pursuit, to purge this city of such an abomination. They had both ends of the street blocked off, but when their spells were cast, when the holy magicks were invoked, the Lightning Lurker was nowhere to be found. We have not one, not two, but *three* eyewitnesses who claim that the demon *entered your very tavern*!" The innkeeper fell to his knees, and his wife and daughter rushed up to his side. "That cannot be, oh Holy One. I promise, we have never..." "Fine, it seems that you do not listen to reason. By the power vested in me by the Order, I will make an example of you yet!" The hairs on Enfela's neck stood as Father Hull held his staff up high. The crowd was groaning now, collectively, as they looked away. Enfela stood transfixed, half of him wanting to run, the other half paralyzed with indecision. Father Hull slammed his staff down, and the innkeeper began screaming. Tiny globes of white light began rising from his skin, like droplets beading on misted glass. They coalesced into a single sphere, the size of a melon, which then floated through the air to make contact with Father Hull's staff. Then, like a bubble making contact with a thorn, the globe popped, and the staff drank thirstily till there was nothing left. The innkeeper collapsed face-first, and already the effects were visible. Where once his skin was supple, taut, it was now grey and lifeless. Boils and welts streaked across his face, and his muscles strained just to keep him breathing. "Let that be a warning!" Father Hull said, as he turned to face the crowd. "Lurkers are but impure demons, raised by our city's necromancers to do nothing but menial work in service of the Order! It is the Order which protects you, grants you health, bestows you safety! We are clerics sworn to holy service, and for your own good, you must obey every instruction we give! If you see the Lightning Lurker, you must immediately-" The crowd gasped. The innkeeper's daughter, barely ten years of age, had lobbed a pebble clean through the air, which bounced off Father Hull's head. They heard the missile make contact, and they saw the thin trickle of blood which wound its way down his temple. Father Hull raised a finger, and the wound healed before their eyes. "Little girl, do you know that assaulting an Enforcer... is a capital crime?" "I don't care about that! All I know is, you hurt my father!" "Your father was a bad man, young one. He has been withholding information from us, and that is-" "I don't care, I don't care!" She bent low, picked up another pebble. Her mother, who was weeping over the innkeeper's body, was too distracted to intervene. "The Lightning Lurker's better than you, than any of you! The Order promises to take care of us, but you only threaten us! The Lightning Lurker helps us, does more for us than the stupid Order can!" Her words should have sent the crowd running for cover. Far less insidious words had invited holy fire from the Order before. But her words carried with it the keen tang of truth, and like a sharpened blade, it cut through the pretense, cleaved away the hypocrisy. Despite their instincts for self-preservation, the crowd was now... emboldened. "... she's right, she is... the Lightning Lurker's done nothing but good for us..." "Ain't ever seen a faster Lurker ever! Them skeletons always move so slowly, but this one... it's special, it is..." "Did you know, the Lightning Lurker helped us the other day? Saved our little Timmy from the river, just dove right in and pulled him back..." Father Hull raised his staff again, and the others followed his cue, and they held their staves together. A peal of white lightning razed through the crowd, knocking them all onto their backs. Enfela was quick to catch on, and he too took a tumble. "Another lesson must be learned today, it seems," Father Hull said, as he towered over the girl. "By the power vested in me by the Order, I will-" Enfela sighed. He had only himself to blame for this. He joined his hands together, his fingers flashing as he traced the mystic runes. When the spell was complete, brimming in his palms like a boiling egg, he made to cast it, the way he had been taught, the way all necromancers had been taught. But instead of directing it at a pile of bones, or at a ragdoll, or at the bloody remains of a small animal... ... he turned it inwards, crushing it into his chest. Practice made everything easier. What was once an unforgivable mistake, was now his claim to power. He felt the tingle course along his skin, turning it a morose grey, then felt it burrow deep, seeking the very marrow in the bones. The spell latched on, and a strength seeped into him, empowering him and taking away free will at the same time. Enfela tried to move on his own accord, and found that he was now a prisoner inside his own body, a body that no longer looked like any living human. The spell had worked, again. "The... the Lightning Lurker! It's him! He's come!" "He's... never appeared in the day!" "Get them, Lightning! Get them!" Enfela knew he had to move fast. He was not strong enough to take down a single Enforcer, much less four of them. He would have to regroup, bide his time, pick them off one by one. His forte lay in striking from the darkness, not in challenging them like this. "Move to the girl," he whispered. "Pick her up, push Father Hull aside. Now." His body obeyed, moving far faster than he could ever have done on his own. The crowd peeled away like an overripe orange, and he was at the girl's side in a flash. His shoulder caught Father Hull mid-stride, sending him toppling. Father Hull, seasoned combatant that he was, was priming the exorcism spell even as he fell, that particular brand of magick they used to keep every necromancer in check. "I cast you out, foul demon! Out, out, out!" The exorcism spell, multiplied by the efforts of the other Enforcers, streaked through the air like a cat on steroids. It struck Enfela, sizzled... ... then fell away, sparking to nothingness. The crowd gasped again, certain that they were witnessing a miracle. Necromancers and Clerics had always fought, and everyone knew that the Clerics would always win. No demon, no skeleton, no Lurker had ever stood up to the powerful magicks commanded by the Order. Every single undead, no matter how strong, how grand, could be wiped clean by the Order, as and when they pleased. Necromancers never stood a chance. Until now. "Pick the girl up," Enfela said, to himself. "Hold her across your shoulder. Leap across the building. Flee, flee until you reach the caves. Then, and only then, do I dismiss you. Go." By the time Father Hull and the other Enforcers had rallied, Enfela was long gone. There was a reason they called him the Lightning Lurker. --- is up! Thanks to everyone who encouraged me to continue with this! But chores are a'calling, and I'm not sure when I can do a Part 3... =D --- /r/rarelyfunny

Captain James Bequine's lips

"This is USS Pennsylvania; come in, Command." Silence and raw static filled the bridge. Captain James Bequine's lips were pulled into a tight strip of resolute skin. The other members of the crew had no idea that Command had issued one message before going dead silent. Running a hand through his graying hair, James looked at the dashboard again. >Some ends don't have new beginnings. >Darkness once again rests on the surface of the deep. The message was followed by first piano chords of and John Lennon's melancholic voice. "Take us to the surface," James said. "Captain?" The helm, Christina Gray, glanced up at him, her dark eyebrows squeezed together. "It's been two days." James wiped the sweat from his forehead and paced back and forth across the bridge. "We need to see what's going on up there." Christina nodded reluctantly and put the transmitter to her lips. "Prepare for ascension." The massive steel leviathan groaned and creaked, changing course for the surface. James stepped out of the bridge and made his way along the narrow corridors of the ship. He had been her captain for over twenty years, and she had never once failed him. He touched the smooth wall of bolted steel, his wedding ring clinking upon impact. After Clara passed away, the ship had become his new home, and he rarely left even during maintenance or docking. "Ace, Roy, and Marquez," James said as he entered the crew quarters, "I want you with me when we break the surface." "Yes, sir," the three men said in unison. They were eager to get a breath of fresh air and practically jumped out of their seats. James nodded and turned to the last man in the room. "Jackson," he said slowly, noticing the man's drooping mouth. "I'm sorry, but I need you on the periscope." "Of course, Captain." The young man stood up, saluted, and limped out of the room. Jackson was barely nineteen but, in the few months he had been on board, he had proven himself to be one of the most reliable crewmembers. If he kept the impeccable record up, in a few years when James retired, Jackson stood a good chance of taking over his position. "Five hundred feet, and rising," came Christina's voice through the speakers. "Let's go, gentlemen," James said and marched toward the exit. *** "Sir?" Roy said behind James. They were geared up and ready to open the hatch. The captain cleared his throat. He had once again lost himself in the memories of his wife. It was happening more often lately. "Jackson," James said. "What you got?" There was a long pause before the young man's voice filled James's earpiece. "Uhm, sir... I... it's just... *gray*." "Pop the hatch," James said. The scent of brine filled his nose and lungs, as he climbed out of the submarine. Jackson had been right. The sky, the water, the horizon was just a gray haze. He had never seen anything like it. The icy wind bit into his cheeks. They were supposed to be on the coast of Florida, but it felt like they'd ended up on the North Pole. Small blocks of ice swirled like gray slush in the water around the massive hull of the ship. Marquez was the first person to break the silence. "What the hell is going on?" James shook his head and paced along the cylindrical hull toward the front of the ship. He heard the three men start talking rapidly. James tried to shut them out as he gazed into the foggy distance. So, this is how the world ends, he thought and sat down. The possibility had always been there. Surviving sixty some years with this number of nuclear weapons across the globe was a miracle in itself. It took so little to wipe everything out. The apocalypse had come and went, and had left them behind. "What are your orders, Captain?" Ace said. James gazed into the distance. "The Navy is no more; I'm no longer your captain." The three men looked at each other then back at the captain. His shoulders were slumping. "Christina, how far off the coast are we?" Roy said quietly into the radio, still looking sideways at James. "What do you mean?" she said. "We're just outside the harbor, can't you see land?" "Listen, we need you to bring us closer." Roy turned away from the others and started walking back toward the hatch. "The fog is too thick." "What... the..." Ace said, and everyone, even the distraught captain, turned their heads toward the sky where the man was pointing. The sleek black underside of something massive surfed effortlessly through the hazy sky a couple of hundred feet above them. The dimensions of the thing were beyond anything they had ever seen. Lights flickered in regular intervals along its sides. "What the hell is that thing?" Marquez said in horror and wonder. "Guys..." Roy said. "That thing is not of this world... it can't be..." James mumbled. "Guys..." Roy said again with more urgency. They all turned their heads toward the water where the gray faces of hundreds of bodies floated past the submarine. Their dead stares and bloated skin wasn't the most unsettling thing about them, though. The low gurgling noise and their partially frozen fingers were clawing at the hull of the ship, fruitlessly trying to climb up. They were clearly dead... but also *alive*. A gust of wind carried a smell of burning ozone over the ship, and for a moment the fog shifted, revealing the cratered landscape that had once been Miami. Red lights from hundreds of strange machines, crawling across the ruins, beamed through the fog. The air buzzed with a swarm advanced combat drones. At first, James thought they were heading his way, but soon they shifted their flight path toward the sky, going straight for the massive, sleek ship. The crew members of USS Pennsylvania stared in awe at the strange scenery before the fog once again swallowed them whole. "Captain, we're picking up a signal!" Christina said through his earpiece. "There's a message." James stood up. "Let everyone hear it." "*USS Pennsylvania, my name is John. I'm from an organization that has been guarding the most dangerous secrets for thousands of years. I'm one of the last few survivors of our race. If you at all care about the world, go to these coordinates: 25.0000deg N, 71.0000deg W. You need to re-open the portal. Only God can save us now.*" *** r/Lilwa_Dexel

Harvey's dull and bland innards

My tolerance was plummeting. I'd only been in this body six months, yet here I was at another bar, sizing up another stranger. Like appraising a new home. Or a new pair of shoes. Something to try on and walk about in for a while. This pair of shoes was called Harvey. One of the first facts he established about himself was his exact height (6'5") and what happened to end his college sports career tragically soon. His voice reverberated, raucous, like he wanted everyone at the bar to know how hilarious he thought he was. His dull and bland innards did not bother me. I'd hollow out his brain like a worm burrowing through an apple and curl up inside. In my tenancy, I would keep his mind warm, and full. Better than he ever did for it. But I kissed him anyway. I got him drunker and drunker. I let him touch this body that was not even mine, and I felt his. *Mine*, I caught myself thrilling as I traced his broad shoulders. *Almost mine*. As Harvey got wasted, I day-dreamed about no longer having to climb on my kitchen counters to reach the top shelves, or being able to walk at night without having to snarl off damn mortal creeps. He slurred that we should go back to his place. I suggested mine. He fumbled with his phone to call a cab. Dropped his phone. Giggled. Confided in me, "I might have gotten too fucked up." "I love it." My smile hid the knives in my eyes. "That's what I wanted." His smile quirked. "What?" I reached for his elbow. A voice at my ear stopped me. An impossible tangle of words, barbed and ancient. Language of my people. Oldest thing I know. I froze like hearing my mother's voice call me from afar. Behind me, a man hissed, "You're in trouble, love." In an instant I was my old self again. Some poor thing from some lost nation. I could hear the death song of the wind in my ears, the ship's desperate warning pings as I went down, down, down, toward the earth. But that was eons ago. Countless vessels, more lives than I could recall, much less condone for. I watched this lonely little planet circuit its sun five thousand times through another human's eyes. Five thousand years of falling, fleeing, hiding. Smothering myself in meat and bone, biding my time. Hoping my past would forget about me. Yet there stood a man at my back who said in a voice like wind and water, "Let the boy go." I released Harvey's arm. Without turning, I replied in the language I thought I'd never speak again, "It sounds like we might be old friends." Harvey squinted. "Are you having a stroke?" "Hardly." He was close enough I could feel his chest brush my shoulders. Big. Bigger than me. Maybe big as Harvey. "Your former employer sent me. Two tons of stardust and one of his finest shuttles is not a theft he easily overlooks." I squeezed Harvey's forearms reassuringly. "Sorry, I have to go. Maybe another time." I swung my elbow back; it dug painfully into the steel flesh of the man's nose. Pain bloomed through my forearm. I staggered, gasping, clutching the ache of my arm. An automaton. Permanent body. Like all of my people, his real self was a little spark of light. A fragment of conscious electricity that could overtake any physical body it desired like a parasite, so long as the host possessed a nervous system to infiltrate. Or in his case, a circuit board. The bounty hunter stared down at me with eyes orange, inhuman, electric. "You've had your fun. Now it's time to recompense." No one in the bar seemed to notice us. (Except Harvey, but in his intoxication no one took exception to him saying, "What the fuck? What the *fuck?*" over and over again.) I let the bounty hunter seize me by my aching elbow. He pulled me out into the street. The night air daggered at my lungs. I jammed my hand in my jacket pocket and felt the familiar blocky outline of my stun gun. A useful tool against humans. Carefully, soundlessly, I flicked the safety off. "I thought you'd forgotten about me," I told him, casually. "I thought you all would let me escape just like that." "It takes time to search the filth." He gripped the nape of my neck, his hand like a vice. "Please, don't struggle. You'll only hurt yourself." I clenched my eyes shut. I knew what he intended to do. Wrench me out from my mortal vessel like uprooting a weed. Bring me back to our planet. Bring me back to face whatever justice an intergalactic mob boss might offer. I wrenched the taser out and dug both teeth into the underbelly of his armpit. The bounty hunter's eyes widened in surprise, alarm, but before he could react I squeezed the trigger. The electricity jolted through him. His body stiffened and clanged to the sidewalk, loud as a dropped signpost. I saw his eyes go blank and baffled as the convulsion scattered his microprocessor. I had no idea how much time I bought myself, but it had to be enough. "Attempting system reboot," he slurred. "Collecting diagnostic information." My breath came in cloudy gasps of relief. "That's the downside to an electric brain, you big metal fuck." I slapped my cheeks whirled around, grabbing the first person I saw. Another woman, but she looked nothing like me, and that was good enough. "Oh my god," she asked me. "Is he okay?" "I hope not." I didn't have to work hard to look frantic. "He tried to assault me." "Are you *serious?*" I nodded. "Do you mind if I walk with you? I-- I don't feel safe." She clutched my arm. "Oh, please, yes. Let's share a car." She pulled up some app on her phone. "I have to go to the bathroom. Do you--? Could you--?" I kept my eyes large, innocent. "I don't want to run into him by myself--" "Of course. I totally get it." She follows me like a lamb back into the bar. In the thirty seconds it took to walk to the bathroom, I learned that her name was Rebecca, that she had just finished he degree in anthropology, that she wasn't sure what to do in this town anymore. I cursed her decency every step of the way. I hated doing this to good people. I shut the bathroom door behind us and leaned my body against the swinging door. For a moment, I stared at her. "What?" Rebecca asked, nervously. "Can I see your arm? There's something stuck to your sleeve." She held out her arm to me. All I needed was a touch. My skin against hers. A blue spark arched from my finger tips into the soft skin of her wrist. I burrowed up the tendriling roots of her nervous system, straight to her brainstem. I obliterate her. All that was once Rebecca vanished in a burst of impossible heap. My old body slumped bonelessly to the floor. I dragged it away from the door, into a stall, where it would take a few minutes to find her. I strode out like a faun on new legs. Rebecca's friends called out to me, but I ignored them. Outside, a small group had gathered around the bounty hunter. He was just starting to sit up, mumbling strings of incoherencies. His metal skull had flattened in the back like a dropped tin can. "Better luck next time," I said to myself in my mother tongue. I pretended I was brave enough to yell it out to him. He looked at me like I was a shadow he could not quite make out. I turned and fled into the night. *** /r/shoringupfragments

Theories still abound on why things

Our world wasn't the kindest place. They say when you give a man a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Gods above, wasn't that the understatement of the century. Theories still abound on why things started happening this way. Some claim aliens, some claim divine interference, and some (rightly in my opinion) claim we were always born with weapons in our heart, but now we had weapons in our hands to match. What was certain was that society couldn't continue to function as it had. Things deteriorated quickly, but people learned to adapt. Some definitely learned faster than others. The whole process wouldn't have been so bad if you didn't feel the impulse to use the weapon. Perhaps a kid could turn eighteen, get a set of daggers, and then just put them on display somewhere. What we didn't understand as people started stabbing, burning, and otherwise eviscerating each other was that your Inheritance (as it came to be called) called to you. Resisting it was unthinkable. It was the howling blizzard blowing outside the shoddy patchwork cabin of your soul. You might huddle tight against the cold, but the compulsion would seize you, the river would erode you, and with a nervous twitching you'd take your Inheritance in hand and give up. You'd let yourself follow the pack, and before you knew it you'd be drenched in the blood of someone, several someones, and there wouldn't be a difference between you and the weapon. You were your Inheritance, and the only life you could live was one where you contributed. Where you served your purpose. As a late author once said "Talent won't be quiet, doesn't know how to be quiet...It never shuts up. It'll wake you in the middle of your tiredest night screaming 'Use me, use me fuckhead, use me!" I was 16 when it all began. As order crumbled and communications cut out over the world, I learned that the best way to survive was to group with the other kids. I had always been a bit of a social chameleon. I had never been very unique, I had just learned to survive socially by mimicking those around me. I felt empty at times, sure, but people always seemed to love me. They often saw in me something they loved about themselves. When things started to crumble, people trusted me. As kids, we were immune to whatever madness had spread over our older loved ones. We were the only ones who could try to maintain some semblance of civilized society in the panic and death. Soon we all learned to trust each other. Life or death situations forge that bond pretty quickly. The group I found learned to retreat from the urban areas where the worst atrocities happened, and had been living on the road ever since. We raided convenience stores, suburban homes, and did everything we could to avoid other human beings. We never knew what kids we could trust, after all we never knew when they would receive their own Inheritance. I had been traveling with my friends for close to two years now, and I thought I knew everything about them. They certainly thought they knew everything about me. Which is why it was so surprising to realize I had forgotten today was Ross's birthday. His eighteenth birthday. Ross had always been an honest kid. We had trusted him to lead our group, and he had risen to the challenge. His cocky attitude made us feel safe during the worst of the fear, and he was quick to pull the trigger when crisis made the rest of us indecisive. He always seemed ready to react to whatever mess foisted itself upon us. He had an unrelenting certainty around him, a belief that things could be brought together and ordered again. It had given us something to rely on. Those same traits manifested in the worst of ways this morning, when a pistol materialized in his hand and he shot three of our best friends dead on the spot. I was lucky enough to have been out scouting. I heard the report of the gun again and again, and I feared the worst. We had camped out in a wooded area, roughly 10 miles from the nearest road, and several more from any cities. I didn't think it was likely anyone would spot us, but I had my own reasons for wanting to be away from everyone that night. Ensuring our safety was the least I could do. When I spied Ross standing over the bodies of our friends, giggling madly while he caressed his pistol, I knew that I had failed. I shifted myself slightly behind a tree to hide my body from view, when Ross tilted his ear towards me. I sucked in my breath. "Is that you Derrick? Come back to camp?" I remained silent. Ross's high-pitched giggle echoed around the woods. The dawn was starting to arrive, and I knew I couldn't keep hidden much longer in the daylight. Ross had been our leader for a reason. His tracking skills were by far the most developed among us. I just needed to try to buy some time. Ross began to pace around the fire, stepping carelessly on the bodies of our former friends. He kicked James's head as his pacing became more frantic. I could see that he was succumbing to the call. People always started coherent, but the longer an Inheritance went unused, the worse the desire became. He would become frenzied soon, I had seen it before. Ross called out again "Derrick? Oh Derrick? Let me see you! We're so far from anyone else. I just want to show you my new toy! I've never gotten so much bang for my buck before!" He shrieked with laughter at his own joke, before firing multiple rounds into James' body. I watched the convulsions and felt a sickening tug in my gut. Ross ceased his pacing and sat cross-legged on the ground. "You know what's really funny Derrick? We always wondered where the ammo came from for these guns. Would you believe it if I told you that you just release the magazine and it refills itself? I'm sure you can see me, here I'll show you. I can't tell you how I know, but I know." Ross removed the magazine, and I watched him eject the cartridge from the pistol before reloading the magazine and cocking the pistol again. He aimed it again at one of our friend's bodies and fired again, each jerk from the corpse making his sardonic grin grow wider. "We used to talk Derrick. We used to wonder what our Inheritance would be. I could never quite settle on what you'd be, but you were so sure I would receive something noble and strong. 'A shield' you said. 'I was so steadfast, maybe I would be different' you said. The madness wouldn't take me. Yet here we sit, and" Ross tittered, his eyes gleaming bright, "SURE AS SHOOTING, YOU WERE WRONG!" His peals of insane laughter echoed around me again, and I felt my heart quicken. I looked at my watch. I could feel the rising in my blood. There was a glimmer in my hands and I knew it was time. I didn't care anymore what I became. I just wanted to descend into the void and escape. "Let it come," I thought wildly, "Just let it end." A mirror, no larger than a couple feet, dropped into my lap. I stared at it blankly. Then something clicked. And I stepped out from behind the tree. Ross had ejected the magazine and was still chuckling when he looked up to see me. His hands moved quickly to reload the magazine when he looked into the mirror. Looked and saw exactly what he had become. I saw the faintest recognition start to grow in his eyes. Where before there had been a burning madness, a cold and sobering realization began to grow from somewhere within. He tilted his head and squinted, his eyes narrowing at the reflection of the macabre scene before him. Ross, surrounded by the dead and mutilated bodies of our friends, and his twisted reflection staring back at him. The gun dropped from his hand. He blinked several times, and as if waking from a dream, stood up. "Derrick..." his voice no longer high-pitched and frantic, "Derrick, what did I do?" I held my Inheritance steady, but I felt myself quivering. I didn't know what was happening, but I knew I had to wait it out. Some feeling, some connection with the mirror cautioned me. Ross waited for a reply, but the seconds stretched and I remained silent. Finally, he raised his hand and rubbed his forehead, his eyes wide and unfocused, before they sharpened suddenly and he darted downwards. I wasn't fast enough to stop him when he reached for the gun. I wasn't fast enough when he took the same gun and pointed it at his head. The last gunshot of the morning rang out in the desolate emptiness of our corpse riddled camp. Ross's body fell to the ground as I dropped to my knees. The mirror lay beside me, and I looked into it. I still haven't decided if something is looking back.

"How can this be?" The

"How can this be?" The captains shoulders sagged as if the entire weight of the vast, empty, and silent universe weighed down it. "How can this be?" He repeated the question, as if asking it a second time would grant him the answers he so desperately sought, the answers that would mend his pained soul. "It isn't over yet, captain. We still have-" "What's the point." The captain cut his lieutenants words short, turning to him with his long an elongated form. His body towering at eight feet, face stretched, and limbs elongated and nimble. His feet turned into digitgrades, his nose long gone, only slitted nostrils fitting on his face. His eyes were like black pits and humanities skin turned different shades of azure. He looked at his crew, the men and women he trusted with his very life, at their stations at the curvature of his ships control deck. The nostrils of his crew twitching, a sign that they shared in his pain, the captains stare painful, agonising, he believed he failed his crew, his people, the history of humanity and their hopes itself. "There... is no life. Across the countless stars and galaxies we traveled, over all the countless ones our forefathers traveled, still we find no life. We have mapped almost all of space, and just like the first explorers of the vast seas, we will soon have nothing left to explore." The pain that lined every word he spoke was palpable beyond tolerance, like shovels hollowing out the hope that every member of that room had. The captain gave off a weighted sigh, as if that very act itself taxed him, draining the last vestige of his motivation. Remembering what it meant to be a captain, no matter how meaningless the situation may seem, he collected himself and ordered his crew to set out for the last galaxy that required their attention. They all allowed themselves a final glance at the planet they had visited, hollow, empty. A blue planet that seemed that it would have had the potential for life left them disappointed, as if staring at the pitiful hollow casing of what it could have been. The passing of countless ages spent in space evolved humanities incredible adaptive abilities, joints and muscles so elastic and adaptable, that they could adjust to the gravity of any planet. Though they lacked a proper nose, their lungs became expansive, capable of storing and surviving for extended periods of time, and capable of surviving with limited oxygen on different planets. Their skin permitting them to extract UV radiation even if the sun were denied them. Upon a red planet, the ship landed, the red dust of the surface roiling from the turbulence, disturbed from their unmoving stillness. The captain blinked at the land as the ramp opened to the red surface. *There is no life here,* he thought. There came a point where he felt as if they were the oddity, their existence an anomaly, and now he wondered, if it was in-fact life that disturbed the tranquility of death. With blades drawn and guns at the ready, the crew set out onto the land, the red dust curling at their alien toes. Nobody dared mentioned that which they all thought. They all knew it was dead, but regardless they set out in search of life. Groups dividing to search for the flow of rivers, others who tried heat scans. The captain took a squad of his own to search for tunnels that could hint at life below the surface. "Captain." A static voice spoke into the radio fused into his ear. "You may want to see this." The crew joined together at what seemed to be a large boulder of rock, at first. Upon closer inspection, the crew grew hopeful, when they found the crude suggestion of an entrance. "A tomb..." the captain thought aloud. "Are there any logs of a previous expedition upon this planet? Perhaps another crew?" The captain queried, finding himself surprised that he was weary and skeptical of any sign of life that wasn't of humans. A lieutenant held before her a holographic screen which she scrolled through, it seemed she double, and then triple checked, just to make sure she made no error. "No captain, there are no logs." Her voice sounded cautious, perhaps a sense of trepidation that they found signs of a civilisation. Of what that could suggest. *Be careful of what you wish for.* The captain thought. With torches poised, they used their light sources and heightened vision to observe the surface of the boulder. An unknown language scribbled on its surface, along with etchings of strange creatures, long and stretched just as they were, but with tendrils emerging from their back. The captain ran his long fingers across the surface "what the." Upon entering the crypt, the crew had to tread carefully for the pathways and structure of the place had not aged well, occasionally a misplaced step giving way to a bottomless pit of pure darkness. "Watch your step." The captain ordered, his previous demand for authority now returning to his voice, and his crew all the more organised for it. As they tread through the darkness, they finally came to a large edifice, again marked with the same strange symbols. "Any language we know of?" The captain asked, his lieutenant replying with a shake of her head. Again his fingers trailed over the edifice, and he felt as if it were talking to him, as if it had awaited his arrival for countless eons only to speak to him, to pass on this message. Although the hieroglyphs eluded him, the pictures told him of a story, of people with tendrils on their backs that reached for the stars and explored the four corners of the world. The story spoke of their fruitless adventures, of brothers and sisters never found, and that they were alone in the universe. And so, they decided to rectify that, landing upon a planet fit for life, cultivating over the years until it could have life of its own. Tested first with giant and fierce beings that resembled the details of dinosaurs, and then wiping the slate clean and trying to cultivate life anew, to create the first of "man". *** Well, this just crossed the threshold for my most upvoted story, glad people enjoy it!

Watchmaker: "This isn't

"12 days, 8 hours, 29 minutes," he said, to himself. "What's that," said the watchmaker, through a thick German accent. "This isn't right," replied the man, "This is in the future." "Then you haven't met your soul mate yet." "That can't be, I'm married you see, and I-" The watchmaker looked up from his work with piercing gray eyes, "I only make die watches. That one is not wrong. I do not make errors. Now wither select a new watch or leave my shop." The man looked down at his wrist and looked as his timer went down. 12 days, 8 hours, 25 minutes. He couldn't bring himself to believe the frail watchmaker. Without so much as a goodbye, he stormed out of the building and went home for the day. "Rose," he said, "Rose, come here honey," he said entering his home. "Sam, you're home," he watched as she walked up with the same excitement in her eyes that he had seen for the past 6 years. "I have a gift for you," he said, holding out a small wrapped box. "You didn't have to do that," she said. "I know, but I earned a bonus from a big sale, and I thought I'd get us a little something." Opening the box, she looked up at him with a smile. "Oh, Sam!," she said, hugging him tightly. "A SoulMate! I've been wanting one for so long." "Well try it on." Affixing the small gold and white watch to wrist, she saw as the timer rapidly moved to the time of negative 6 years, 9 months, 14 days, 3 hours, and 9 minutes. "I-I think that this is when we met Sam," she said, with a burning spark behind her eyes. "In Dr. Douglas' class? Yeah, we were freshman then! We should send him a letter and tell him how much that class means to us. Sam's cheeks started to go flush as water filled his eyes. "I... really I am glad. Love you..." He looked down in defeat as the tears started to fall. "Sam, honey, what's wrong?" She said, grabbing him and holding him close." "Look, look at my watch," he said, holding up his wrist. "12 days, 7 hours, 12 minutes," she looked up at him, back at his watch, at her watch, and then at him again. "I don't understand, why isn't yours the same?" She was crying too at this point. "I don't know. I love you, I do. You know I do. The only reason I brought these damn things home was I was sure yours was going to read the same time as mine, somehow. I thought maybe it, it was broken or something... I don't know." She jumped up and looked down at him. "I don't know what to say," she said, before stomping off into their bedroom. "Rose, Rose? What are you doing?" Sam got up and followed her into the bedroom. "I, just... need time to think," she said, as she started packing a small bag, with streams of mascara running down her face. "Please don't go, I need you." "Do you, Sam? Do you? Maybe I need you, but you don't need me." And with that, she was gone. Out of his life. She left the house, leaving him no knowledge of where she was going. He tried finding her, by calling her mother, friends, the police, but she had mysteriously vanished. He feared the worst, and decided to look himself in his house until the time passed by. If Rose wasn't his soulmate, then he didn't deserve to have. The days passed by. 12, 11, 10, 9, 8. By the 7^th day, he had started to drink himself to sleep every night. By the 4^th day, he was toying with the notion of suicide. He couldn't live without his Rose in his life. On the 2^nd day, he drank an entire bottle of scotch, and then proceeded to drink more. By the time the paramedics found him, he was in a coma. Sam lay in a hospital bed, alone, in an empty room. One of his friends contacted Rose, and she was the only person to stay by his side. She wept over him every single moment, and prayed for a recovery. "Sam, please wake up," she said, holding his hand and crying, "Please wake up. I may not be your soulmate, but you're still mine, and I can't see you die." He stayed unresponsive though. After several hours passed, Rose left the room to go and get a bite to eat, having starved herself waiting for her loved one to wake back up. Upon her return, she heard something that made her heart drop. "Hi, Mr. Robertson, I'm Nurse Ginger, and I'll be taking care of you." Rose dropped to the floor outside of the room and started to have a panic attack. This was the moment. Sam was gone. She had lived the best 7 years of her life with him, and now it was all over. He had finally met the love of his life. The nurse rushed out and saw Rose in the floor weeping. She picked Rose up off of the ground, and with a lot of talking, managed to get her into the room. Rose felt as though it would be to say goodbye to her husband who she had grown so used to seeing. "Why are you sad?" Sam said. "Because, because, because," Rose tried to tell him why, but the words just wouldn't come out. "I'm sorry, but do I know you?" Sam asked. She looked up through her hair that had fallen in her face, the spark in her eyes no longer there. "I'm... I'm your... I'm." "My name is Sam. Now you tell me your name," he said, with a smile on his face. A smile slowly grew on Rose's face, "My name is Rose Robert- uh, Rose Sanchez." "Well Rose Sanchez, they won't tell me why I'm in here. The last thing I remember, I was about to go to my first class of the semester, uh, American literature with Dr. Douglas." The two began to talk through the night. And in one of the corners of their house, a watch read negative 1 hour and 12 minutes. --- Thank you for reading my story! If you liked that, please consider checking out my subreddit r/coffeeswritingcafe I recommend one, if you want more romance. Thanks again!

The streetlights lining Martin Avenue bat

The streetlights lining Martin Avenue bathed the sidewalk in harsh, neon light. Four symmetrical shadows stretched from the point where my shoes met the pavement, disturbing the stillness, each long enough to fade into the darkness at the edges of the street. Outside my front door, I set down the paper grocery bag and stopped to light a cigarette. The air was still damp from rain earlier in the day, and the old lighter nearly drained of its fluid, stubbornly resisting my efforts to spark a flame. "You need a light, friend?" someone called from the street, the voice rough and gravelly. I looked up to see another man standing at the sidewalk, the details of his face shrouded by a dark bowler hat. His silhouette was framed by the lights from the streetlamp, his thin shadow so long that it ended at my feet. "Sure." I motioned for him to join me on the porch. He took out a fancy silver lighter, then shook two cigarettes from a pack in the inside pocket of his coat. "These are better than the ones you got there," he said, flicking his thumb against the lighter and watching the flame dance to life. "Here, take one of mine." I drew into the glowing cigarette, feeling the smoke rush into my lungs. *I don't have to go back into that house,* I thought. *I can just leave into the night, never to be seen again.* There was a private bank account registered to my name with ten thousand dollars to it, and another thousand in my back pocket. Enough to start a new life for myself. "You're a quiet one," the stranger said. "Something on your mind?" "Just at a crossroads, I suppose." "You want to talk about it?" I gave the stranger a closer look. His eyes were still obscured by the brim of the hat, but his jaw jutted out from underneath, strangely familiar. "This is a small neighborhood, you know. You live around here?" The stranger shook his head. "Nah, just passing through. The wife is looking for a place to settle down, thinks might be the place to raise a family." He glanced at the windows of my house behind us. "Well? Is it?" I shrugged. "I don't know. Our kids are still young." Another drag. These cigarettes were different - I could feel a slight burn as the smoke entered me again, burning, destroying, but the feeling was dull and distant, as if the pain was being masked by some numbing, comfortable euphoria. "Reckon I gotta leave here soon." "That so?" The stranger flicked the remains of his first cigarette and started on another. "We can't stand each other...the wife and I. I'm no good with the kids. Get home so late that I barely even see them as it is. Think it would be a lot better for everyone if I just took off and let them be happy." "I get that, friend." I felt the man put his arm on my shoulder. "The Mrs. and me, we're trying for kids ourselves, been almost a year now. Nobody tells you how stressful that part of marriage is. This is supposed to be the young, happy years of it too. You know, when everything is new and exciting. Yet here I find myself driving around in the middle of the night, going to bars, even smoking with strangers on front porches, just to have some reason to take a break from it all. Things were a lot simpler when it was only me." I nodded. "Amen to that." The man put his lighter back inside his coat and tipped his hat. "Well my friend, I hope you find happiness in whatever path you choose." I shook his hand, and then he was gone. There was a creak from behind me as the front door opened. I turned around and found myself face to face with a man I did not recognize. "Who are you?" the man yelled, panic in his voice. He was holding a metal baseball bat in his hand. "What are you doing here?" "Me? What am I doing here? What the hell are *you* doing in *my* house-" I broke off. The man was familiar. Older, much older, but I couldn't forget that face anywhere. The man dropped the bat, his jaw falling. "Dad?" he asked, incredulous. "Is it really you, Dad?" "Jeffrey? How is this...how are you..." "Mom said you died. Said you was never coming back." "What are you talking about? I never left you." "We needed you." He was trembling now. "Mom was so upset she wouldn't say anything about you. I knew you weren't dead though, I knew you would come back one day." "This is impossible." I could feel sweat starting to bead on the back of my neck. "I never left you, Jeffrey!" "I got to be starting pitcher a few years back." I could see tears starting to pool in his eyes. "You always told me I could a pitcher back when I was in little league, I kept working at it. I'm pitching in college now." I turned my back on my son. *That stranger with the bowler hat did something.* "Take me back!" I yelled, into the night. "I don't want this! Let me see my son grow up!" My yells echoed through the dead of the night, unanswered. "You hear me? You did something - you messed everything up." Then, a response. "No friend, that was all you." The man in the bowler hat was standing on the sidewalk again, playing with his lighter. He took his hat off, and I found myself face to face with- *Myself.* He slid another cigarette into his hand. "Another?" "No. Make it go back. Take it all back." "Take what back?" my doppelganger said, and then he turned on his heel and disappeared into darkness on the other side of the road. From the inside of my house, I heard the shout of a toddler. I peered through the window, feeling my heart pound against my rib cage. For a moment, nothing, and then Jeffrey tore through the dining room in a fit of elated giggles, as my wife chased after him. I felt my breath steady. My life - It was there. It was all still there. I tossed the cigarettes into the bushes, picked up the paper grocery bag, and walked into the house. My wife looked up as I entered. "You were gone long enough. Did you get the milk?" "Right here," I said, placing it on the kitchen table. My breath was still shaky. Then, before I knew what I was doing, I walked over and wrapped my arms around her. "I'm sorry." Half of me expected her to look up skeptically and frown, or to ask me what I was sorry about. But instead, she pulled me even tighter towards her. "I'm sorry too," she whispered.

Bruno found Bruno in the middle of

I had found Bruno in the middle of the night. It was back when I was still living in Riverside, and only half-alive, after Kate had gone away to school and stopped answering my calls. Most nights I'd get my buddy Jacob to come get high with me and eat some fast food, but now and then even he had something better to do. Instead, I'd just go skate past the palm trees and cheap stucco bungalows, listening to whatever pop punk bullshit I thought made me different, and daydreaming about London or New York City or anywhere nobody would know me. It was one night when I was doing just that, when I heard a dog barking like crazy, running back and forth around an old man laying on the road. The guy was already in pretty terrible shape when I got there. From the skid marks, it looked like a car or maybe even a truck had run right over him. His belly had burst apart and some of his guts were falling out onto the asphalt. I skated over and I called 911. I told the old man it was going to be okay and that help was coming. "It's not going to be okay for me," he said between wheezes, "but you can still make it okay for Bruno. Promise you'll take Bruno, because I can't have him going off to some dog pound. I won't have none of that for my boy, alright? When I was growing up, people used to say that when someone takes responsibility for a dead man's dog, he also gets a guardian angel. Truth is, I expect I probably won't be turning into an angel. But wherever it is I go, I'll be sure I'm looking out for you, as long as you're looking out for my Bruno. We got a deal?" I told him I agreed. I let him squeeze my hand as tight as he wanted, while poor Bruno licked his face and yelped his heart out, until the sirens drowned him out and the paramedics came rushing up. The cops kept me there for a while, huddled beside the rumbling ambulance, while they loaded the old man into a black body bag and onto the stretcher. They asked every possible question about what had happened, but all I could say was that I had found the guy laying there on the ground when I happened to skate by. They made me fill out some paperwork, and then gave me a candy bar when I was done, plus a brochure for some social worker I could call if the memory gave me any trouble sleeping. "Is the dog yours or his?" the cop asked me at the end of it all, "If it's his, I'll have to get animal control down here." "No, that's Bruno," I said, "he's mine." I realized I was already holding the neon green leash, which was a little bit spotted with the man's blood. Bruno canted his head at me, like I had the power to change the world and make everything better. For the first time, I felt like I could come through for someone. The old man's accident made the news a few days later. It turned out he had once been a prominent scientist at Cal Tech, working on some sort of cutting edge research in fungal brain infections, which he believed could be adapted to transmit states of consciousness between individuals, even between different species. More than that, he thought the fungi could also give someone the power to commandeer another person's body. I dug around online and found an old interview where he said there were already some peculiar species of fungus and ants out in the African jungle that were making this work to their advantage in certain small ways, but that this was just the tip of what was possible. But I guess the whole project was too out there for the other academics, and after he allegedly tried to pull off some secret experiment involving chimpanzees and rabbits and dogs, they took away his tenure. He died without any family or really any friends left, except of course for Bruno. When the dog saw his lost master on the computer screen, he barked like a maniac, and I had to give him one of the new chew toys I had picked up, just to get him to relax again. But in no time really, having Bruno made everything better for me. I'd wake up earlier to walk him, I lost weight playing with him, and I even picked up playing guitar again, just because of how he liked hearing it when I'd strum chords. We'd go to the park, where is where I met Ashley, after she just came up to pet him. Soon, getting a text from her felt as good as one from Kate used to. Her uncle took me on as an apprentice electrician, and after a few months, I had enough money for Ashley and Bruno and I to get an apartment together. Every night, when I'd skate home from work, I wouldn't be thinking about escaping to New York or London anymore, but just about how, in fifteen minutes, I'd open the door and Bruno would be scurrying between my legs, barking, and how Ashley would look over her shoulder from the couch and smile at me. And it was good like that for almost a year, until the night I got home to no barking at all. Ashley took my hand and led me over to the dog bed, where Bruno wasn't moving. "I opened the door, and he just ran out," she said, "He'd never done that before, not one time. But he ran out before I could stop him. He went into the street, and a there was a car. It didn't stop." "I'm so sorry," she cried. I wrapped one hand around her and cradled her head. I started to tear up too. For a minute, I thought about looking up where the old man had been buried, and maybe trying to find a way to leave Bruno there too. But I decided that he had been our dog just as much, and belonged with us. So, the next morning, I went out into the yard to dig a grave for him. Except I didn't get a foot into the earth before I hit a hard plastic box. When I picked it out of the dirt, there was a note taped to it: *If you're reading this, it isn't too late. Avoid cities on 2/12/2018. Go to the coordinates on the map and you'll know what to do next.* It was signed just "Me". Even though it was strange to see tomorrow's date on some long ago buried note, I still figured it was some dumb prank or time capsule bullshit from the previous tenants, and an unusually close timing coincidence. I threw the box over into the planter, telling myself I'd re-bury when I wasn't so sad, so as to not be a disappointment if some kids ever came asking for it. After the hole was dug, Ashley and I said goodbye to Bruno. She read something from her Bible and I played a song on the guitar. Then we just had dinner and went to bed. Air raid sirens woke us up in the morning. We turned on the news. New York, London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, nearly every major city was being overrun by hordes of jungle ants. They were saying there were quadrillions or maybe quintillions of ants, and they were organized, like they could all think as one. The footage showed them pouring over everything like black sand, eating every blade of grass, and the very skin off people's arms and faces. Halfway through the broadcast, a wave of ants swept across the news anchor's desk while he was delivering his report. The feeds cut. We lost power not long after. *Avoid cities on 2/12/2018.* I ran into the backyard and snatched the strange box out of the planter. I ripped through the plastic covering and opened it up. Inside, there was a folded up map, a vial of some strange green liquid, and a white aerosol can, with "bug spray" written on it in sharpie. "What are you doing out here?" Ashley screamed at me from the porch, "Where are we going to go? Is anywhere safe?" I unfolded the map all the way and scanned across it. It was big enough to cover all of California and Nevada. "I don't know," I told her, "But I think maybe someone does." I turned the paper around to show her what I was seeing. On the map, there was a red X, marking some isolated spot, deep in the Mojave desert. Right below, there was a fading photograph taped on. It was a picture of the old scientist, sitting in some giant leather chair in some fancy university office. And on his lap, there was Bruno, when he was just a puppy. He was canting his little head up at his former master. Like he was looking at a man who had the power to change the entire world.

City of Gold was the gold of

It was paradise on Earth. Not exactly the paradise that I had imagined, mind you. When I first started my hunt for the City of Gold, I had expected, well, *gold*. Mountains of coins, bricks made of the stuff, inlays of murals all filled to the brim with a thousand kilos of gold. Of course, when I got older, I realized that any such city would have probably sunken into the marshy jungle floor decades ago, if not looted by the first clever soul to find it and keep quiet. So, I began a hunt for a different city. A city filled not with gold in the literal sense, but the gold of history. What I found was the gold of dogs. There must have been thousands of them. All breeds, all sizes, but all with the same shimmering coat of gold. The city itself seemed to shine with the luster of their coats. Yet, despite how obviously well they were kept, not a single human soul was present other than myself. I confess, when they first spotted me, I was more than a little overwhelmed by the tidal wave of curious noses. When they pushed me to the floor, I thought I might be torn to pieces, but instead I was simply licked from head to toe. It was slimy, and perhaps a little less than sanitary, but when I could stand again I found myself entirely unharmed. In fact, I was smiling more than I had in all the years since my own golden had passed. Then, a great boom rang out across the entire city, and the dogs grew quiet. As one, the darted away from me, lining up to border the edges of the city's main road like the spectators of some glorious parade. Though they refrained from barking, I could tell it was a close thing. They shuffled from foot to foot, tails beating uncontrollably like a thousand brooms against the stony ground. "Are you trying to lead me somewhere, boys?" I asked. I wasn't sure if they understood, but they were certainly more than a little excited to hear my voice. Several spun in circles, clearly eager to play, but never straying onto the path. "Well," I said, to no one in particular. "I've come this far, after all." Feeling as if he weariness of the jungle had all but vanished from my limbs, I walked along the cobbles towards the heart of the city: an enormous step pyramid that rose even above the forest canopy in its splendor. When I paused, perhaps to scratch an eager head, I noticed that the other buildings, too, were very clean. They were obviously Aztec in origin, yet it appeared as if they had been built only weeks ago and rigorously maintained ever since. There was no gold, but there also was no filth or overgrowth. Certainly, there wasn't any evidence that the place was being inhabited by thousands of dogs. As I got deeper into the city, it became more and more obvious that this was a paradise not only built for men, but for dogs as well. There were rows of luxurious stone kennels, dozens of parks filled with trees and grass just asking to be run across, and more than a few posts just the right height for sniffing. To my surprise, I even found what appeared to be a doggy mess hall, with hundreds of bowls filled to the brim with steaming sirloin. I stopped there for quite some time, but no chef ever made an appearance, and I couldn't approach without treading on more than a few happy tails. Eventually, I was forced to move on. It was time to begin my ascent. Though the pyramid was steep, each step was bordered by an honor guard of ancient-looking dogs. Though their muzzles were gray and their eyes soft, they all held their chests out proudly. Each of them seemed just as healthy as the pups before, even if their exuberance was somewhat tempered by age. Finally, I reached the top. There, standing in front of the temple with arms held out in welcome, was a man. "Hello, George Williams!" He said, pronouncing each syllable of my name distinctly. "We have been waiting for you!" He was as tall as a giant, with hair as golden as the dogs that hurried around his ankles like an overly-friendly hurricane. His chest was bare, but on his back was an enormous cape made of feathers. On his brow, he wore a crown of gold that seemed to be made entirely out of dog biscuits. "Er, uh, thank you!" I stammered. "You...you have?" "Yes, George Williams!" The giant replied. "Waiting for a very long time! Welcome to EL Dogado, City of Gold!" That one caught my by surprise. "Don't you mean 'El Dorado?'" I asked. "Actually, who are you?" "I am Quetzalcoatl, my friend." Said the man. "And no. Though I do think that may have been how it was translated. Humans tend to miss small details like that." "Quetzalcoatl...as in the god?" I asked. Hurriedly, I made to bow--for a crazy hermit or a diety, I didn't know--but he gripped my shoulders and pulled me into a hug before I could finish the movement. "No need for formalities, my honored guest." Quetzalcoatl said. "Besides, my subjects think you are playing. They have all been waiting to meet you for so long!" I looked down, and to my surprise the number of dogs at my feet seemed to have exploded. They were pouring up the staircase from below now, barking joyously in greeting. Each of them seemed to be trying to knock me over and get a better sniff. "Whoa there!" I said, clinging to the man for support. "Why uh, why have they been waiting?" "Ahhh, now that is a tale." The giant said, smiling. "One of our number has been singing your praises for some time now. He said you were the best friend he ever had, and the greatest explorer the world has ever known. He knew you would come." The man whistled once, and the dogs instantly ran back to their positions. None of them made so much as a whimper, as if each were holding their breath. The giant stepped aside, and out of the temple walked a single elderly golden retriever. "...Baily?" I asked. Our reunion was as quick as it was joyous. Baily bounded forward, and for all his old, tired bones he was able to knock me flat on my back with a single leap. Instantly, I was covered by a familiar hairy warmth and doused enough saliva that I thought I might drown in happiness. "But, how?" I asked. "Baily...Baily passed decades ago, right before I started looking for this place!" "Ah, now that's a trick." Quetzalcoatl said, waggling a finger. "Baily has been waiting here for some time, it's true. Many of my subjects have. Most choose to pass on alone...but your Baily knew you would make your way here. He never gave up on you." "Is...that what all of these dogs are?" I asked. Quetzalcoatl nodded sagely. "Yes. Many find us in death, waiting to greet and be greeted by the ones they loved before they pass on. Many souls, both man and dog, wind up passing through my gates. But you...you were the first to find us here, where we truly are. So, George Williams. I ask of you...what will you do now, now that you have discovered us in truth? Will you stay? Will you go? Will you, too, move on with your beloved Baily?" I looked back, gazing upon the city and its wonders. I saw the beautiful buildings stretching into the sky. I saw the parks, the kennels, the food. And there, by the very entrance of the city's gate, I saw the small crumpled form that I had always known was there. Nodding to the the ancient god, I walked into the temple, Baily by my side. *** *Thanks for the read! CC welcomed, and if you liked this story come check out my others at /r/TimeSyncs!*

Jeff Bates and Slim Bill faced off

Brewster's Billions ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Timing was everything. Ever since the rules to the game of capitalism had been formalized, the race was on. The challenge was to become the second-richest person in America by midnight on New Year's Eve. Of course, the real game only began in December. If you started too early, you would be left without enough money to even approach the number two spot in the next year. It was more of a blow to pride than a real loss, when you were talking billions of dollars, but no one competitive enough to be one of the richest in the world had any shortage on pride. On December 1st, Jeff Bates and Slim Bill faced off in Times Square. Bates had a small lead going in, at just over a hundred billion dollars. Slim Bill was only in the upper nineties. The two of them were surrounded by a crowd of starving middle class people, dressed in rags. They were eager. December was the month when those two would shake riches enough for a lifetime off like dust from their sleeves. They did stay careful to leave them a safe distance. There was no use in killing the golden goose before it laid its eggs. "Pathetic," Slim Bill told Bates. Bill was dressed in a robe of solid gold, with an Boston Labs exoskeleton underneath, designed specifically to help him hold up the weight. Diamonds adorned his earlobes. The left had been doused in blood from the prince of England; the right in Audrey Hepburn's blood, produced in a lab from a DNA sample. On his shoulder rested a one-of-a-kind Chanel purse fashioned from quagga fur. It was easy to be secure in your masculinity when you had more money than God. Bates wore jeans and a black turtleneck. His outfit couldn't have cost more than a hundred dollars, even the shoes. "You brought toys. I'm thinking bigger." He gestured upwards. "Slim Bill is a loser," splashed across the Times Square Tower. "At $23 million a year to rent, it's a bargain really," he said. "I've rented it out for the next hundred years, paid in advance. That should put me neatly into second place." Slim smiled. "That's going to embarrassing for the next hundred years when you lose." He reached into his purse and pulled the Hope diamond. "$350 million is the valuation, but I'm afraid I'm an awful bargainer this time of year. They managed to push me to 500." He punted it away like a hacky sack. The crowd dove, killing each other for scraps. "As for this," he gestured to his outfit, "I didn't even ask for the price. But I'm in second, don't you worry about that Jeff." Slim slipped off his robe and walked away naked, leaving his other expensive toys behind. Bates stood there, fist clenched and thinking hard. A month passed. Slim Bill and Jeff Bates drove each other to ever-increasing heights of conspicuous spending, but stayed careful not to overdo it. The third place candidate had $74 billion and dropping below that would defeat the point of the game. One obvious way to force victory would be to give ten or twenty billion to their opponent, but it was a cheap win. Neither of them would sink to that level. In the first week they started with charitable donations. 564,708 homeless people lived in the United States. They started tracking things a lot better in late November. Bates bought each of them a laptop and an iPhoneX, for $2000 a person. Just over a billion dollars. Slim paid rent for each of them for a year. At an average of $600/month, he spent a little over 4 billion dollars. Part of it was spent on buying houses. Assets retained their value, so they were not a loss that would help him get closer to second place. Everything else was actual rent in more expensive neighborhoods. Bates - 97. Slim - 93. In the next two weeks, Bates had to step it up. Huge national donations took time to roll out, and his opponent had a $4 billion dollar lead. He decided to hold the biggest party of all time. He rented out every beach on the east coast. Legal? Maybe. But governors were tripping over themselves to have him spend money in their state. For the actual entertainment, he had 198 F/A 18 Hornets doing shows up and down the coast in squads of six. Free food went without saying. He considered free flights out for anyone who wanted to come, but if he did that, he'd have to include hotel fees, and everything would get a lot more unpredictable. Third place beckoned. The planes were most expensive, $29 million each for about $5.8 billion. He let the pilots take them home afterwards. Most states didn't charge for the beach rentals and the ones that did only cost him about $300 million. He set up a public account online with $2 billion and made it usable only to buy food with for the party. If they didn't use it all up that day, it would be gone by the end of the month. In the same two weeks, Slim spent most of his time pissing off rooftops, inviting lawsuits that he quickly settled as expensively as he could. Headlines about trickle-down wealth got old very quickly. Bates - 90. Slim - 91. Bates was starting to get paranoid. It was December 31st, and Slim hadn't made any moves in weeks. Just after 11 p.m., he donated $5 billion to cancer research. It was a boring move, rarely done. But he knew Slim had something planned and he wanted to widen his lead while he still had it. Bates - 85. Slim - 91. He knew Slim had something planned because he had invited Bates to the California border. "For ten billion dollars..." Slim held his pinky to his mouth and grinned. "I have purchased the state of California." "Ten billion for a blue state? You drastically overpaid." The two of them laughed. "Victory is mine," Slim Bill said. Bates squinted. "Are you forgetting the rules of the game? Assets count." He felt hope spring up. It was 11:45 p.m. now. It was too late for him to make another purchase, but the same was true for Slim. If this was his last play, it wouldn't be enough. "I know. But you see, even though I'm the richest man in the world, there's one thing I still don't bother to pay for." Slim lit a match. "And what's that?" Bates said, feeling his hope slip away. "Fire insurance." Slim threw the match, and quickly sent a text. When midnight struck, all of California was burning. 30 million people died before they could be evacuated. The other billionaires agreed it was one of the best games in years. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 10/365. Constructive criticism welcome and appreciated.

Audiophage sat up with a

The crash and boom from the front of the bank echoed throughout the whole building. Audiophage sat up with a scowl. "The hell's goin' on out there?" He roared at his minions. They scurried away, having the presence of mind to know that the boss was not in a good mood. He didn't like disturbances, and that sounded like a disturbance. Phage just shook his head, turning back to the locked vault he was at work on. Breaking into banks was not at all his style, but he didn't get to choose where the folks with the tech kept their goods. He'd been at this game a long, *long* time, as the grey lacing his hair proved. Sometimes, you just had to adapt. The sound of footsteps brought him up short. "What was it?" He hissed, craning his head around, and then stopped. The sight before him was not his sweaty, black-jacketed thugs for hire. She loomed over him, six feet of taut, gently muscled woman topped with a mane of strawberry blonde hair. "Not what you were expecting?" She purred, flicking a finger idly. A little ball of fire swirled at the tip with every twitch. Phage stared, eyes narrowed. He'd been in the business a long time. The fashion trends of heroes had always been a moving target - ranging from the universally unappealing unitard designs of the earliest Gifted to the more risque adopted by the 'forward thinking' women heros of the last decade. He was well used to seeing more of a hero than he ever really *wanted* to. But this... "Isn't that uncomfortable?" He blurted out, eyeing her incredulously. The way the fabric was cut out in strategic areas, leaving skin exposed...the high cut around the sides...It *had* to be riding up. There was no way she *wasn't* pulling spandex out of her ass every three minutes. She blinked, competely taken aback. "Excuse me?" She said slowly, the words ominously drawn out. The little fireball circling her finger wasn't so little anymore. He'd really rather not be burned to cinders in the little room. Phage turned back to the vault, just so that he wouldn't have to look at her. He was *not* blushing, he told himself. He could end this. He could put a stop to this, right now. She just reeked of green inexperience. But, he knew his own powers, and, well. If he stepped in, with her like *that*, there was only one way this was going to end. He couldn't quite bring himself to go there. Not yet. "You thought you were so clever, eh, Audiophage?" The woman drawled, slowly circling around him. His head swiveled around stubbornly, facing the other way no matter how she wandered. "You didn't *really* think you could just waltz in here and take it, did you?" Audiophage ground his teeth together in frustration. It was like she was reading the script to some horrible, cheesy cartoon. "This your first week?" He managed. The pacing stopped. "That's not relevant, is it? Hands where I can see them, *Phage*. Nice and high." He glanced up. She was standing right in front of him. The fabric - what little there was of it - was drawn tight, like the slightest nudge would send her spinning free. He gulped. She was young enough to be his *daughter*, damnit. This was *not* in the job description. "I'd rather not, if that's all right with you." He muttered, spreading his hands out to either side. She clicked her tongue, resuming her walk. Her high stilletos groaned in complaint. "Whatever. Police will be here soon anyway." "Just thought you seemed new. That's tough, I feel you. It's...hard for new Gifted to get their costumes tailored in time." He started, eyes still downturned. The thought of her continuing like this just didn't sit right with him. If she wasn't going to let him talk head-on, then he'd come at it from the side. "Oh, that wasn't a problem." The hero said, laughing under her breath. "I know my way around a sewing machine." "Made it yourself, did you?" He said weakly. "I like to stand on my own, when I can. You about done?" "Oh, I'm just musin'. Don't mind an old man." Audiophage said quickly, plastering an innocent grin onto his face. "Only, the Enhancement from the shops are *pretty useful*." He tried to make his tone as convincing as possible. "I'd hate for you to get hurt by somethin' you weren't expectin'." The proper tailoring shops would *also* never, ever allow their heros to walk around in something like *that*. She was going to catch a cold, even if she didn't get taken out by a villain looking at her the wrong way. Distantly, he could hear the sound of sirens, and swore softly. The hero chuckled, her voice low and soft. "Almost time, isn't it? Keep those hands out, now. No tricks." "No tricks." He said, still with that dumb grin on his face. She was an idiot. A well-meaning idiot, but he couldn't stand around and let her get herself hurt right at the start of his career. And so when she lapped him again, making one last round of the little back room, he threw his amplifiers into overdrive. The hero shrieked, throwing her arms up reflexively as the vibrations shook the air. Audiophage had one last instant to confirm that yes, in fact, the laws of physics were still functioning, and then he slammed his eyes shut. Pushing his way past the woman, he made for the door. He was going to be cutting things *close*. His men were screwed, but that was their own damn fault. It wasn't worth his skin to save them. One last glance over his shoulder showed the girl sitting in a quivering, trembling heap, grabbing at the scraps of cloth that used to be her uniform. All of the clever bits of glue she'd used to hold herself in had given up in the face of simple resonant vibrations, all of the teensy straps holding artistically cut sections snapped by tension. The police were going to get a *show* when they came to arrest their villain, he thought. The thought didn't make him happy, although he *was* a little satisfied with himself regardless. He'd done a good deed that day. And they said all villains were evil. He could manage one more, while he was at it. "There's a great little costuming shop, down by that hero mechanic's garage. South District. Ask for Taylor." He said, pausing at the doorway. "Tell her Phage sent you, and she might even....ah...squeeze you in." Before she could say a word, rapidly turning incandescent from rage or humiliation, he fled, unable to contain his grin. (/r/inorai, critiques always welcome!)

Grand Commander Heraldric of the Hal

"Tell me more," was the simple response from Grand Commander Heraldric of the Halassian Armada, Orior. "Preliminary reports have been submitted by ground combatants that state they are running into heavy resistance and in some cases, strike groups have been annihilated completely," the advisor began. He flicked a talon in the air, the holographs surrounding them shifting. A scene of what appeared to be a coast came into view. Large human ships were burning and pillars of smoke climbed towards the atmosphere. Vehicles of all kinds seemed to be strewn about the coast in smoking hulks of debris now. "This is entry point seven-two-six along one of the larger continents in the upper hemisphere." "What am I looking at exactly?" Heraldric asked, irritation filling his voice. "Seems like we took this location with little resistance." His eyes scanned the real time scene for anything out of the ordinary. "At sea, yessir. We were able to wipe out the local sea faring vessels along with coastal defense networks. The problem however," the camera, still showing in real time, lifted up from whatever platform it may have been on and began to climb into the air. As it did, the view showed more of the scene behind the coastal destruction. The camera was attached to a drone that then began to move further inland. As it did, the scene changed from destroyed human equipment, to Halassian wrecks. "As we make our way further into their occupied areas, even with their archaic kinetic weapons, we have seen fiercer fighting than ever before on previous worlds." "Give me some figures," Heraldric demanded. "Sir, we've lost twenty-percent of our original striking force that have made landfall." The advisor's words were laced with fear as he spoke them. "Twenty-percent? Have all remaining strike groups land inland, cease all sea operations." The commander stood from his chair to get a better look at the scene that unfolded before him. "I fear," the advisor began, "that moving our forces inland would only bring us more casualties. We didn't bring a large force, sir because we didn't think we would encounter so much resistance. But these human warriors are just... so damn persistent. They fight with such vigor our forces are seeming to have trouble *actually* killing them." His voice began to pick up speed as he explained. The view shifted again, this time to what seemed like a helmet camera. In the lower portion of the holograph there was a time stamp as to when it was recorded. "Observe, if you will Grand Commander." Buildings passed by the viewing angle of the camera as the Halassian warrior ran through the streets of an unknown city. A group of humans could be seen defending a position behind a cluster of their vehicles. Lines of light sailed through the empty space between the Halassian and Human forces as the kinetic rounds flew through the air. A barrage of energy cut through the position, cleaving several of the vehicles in half lengthwise while a few clusters of plasma mortared through the air towards the humans. Heraldric smiled to himself, seeing the imminent destruction of his opponents. As the plasma connected and the beam of energy faded, there was a pause of silence. Suddenly, the return fire from the humans seemed to grow more fierce as if their numbers had doubled. Heraldric's face turned to a concerned expression. "Impossible, they withstood a volley of Clythorian plasma canisters?" Nodding, the advisor nodded towards the display once more. Muzzle flashes from the human weapons flashed more from so many different positions, Heraldric had a hard time placing their true locations. Suddenly, *thunks* filled the air and smoke trails came crashing down on the Halassian warriors. The camera angle changed as the squad of alien attacks attempted to take a defensive point behind a few of the human vehicles. Jerking slightly, the gyroscope of the camera unable to keep up with the movements of the soldier the viewing equipment was mounted to, another group of Halassians came into view. Their large, towering forms seemed to be cowering behind what looked to be a long, rectangular vehicle, seemingly designed to move large amounts of humans at once. To their dismay, the Halassians were simply too tall and found it difficult to hide behind the metal wreck. Sparks littered their bodies as kinetic rounds bounced off their armor. Pride for their technological and military hardware achievements, Heraldric was about to speak before suddenly the Halassian warriors began to fall one by one. The camera angle looked back up the street which the squad had just come. Up in a building somewhere there was a bright flash of light and another Halassian soldier fell, another flash of light and another fallen grunt. Finally, the camera feed died and the holograph blinked out of existence. "What was that thing they were firing?" Heraldric demanded an answer. "Sir, it would appear the humans, though primitive in almost every respect, have created weapons that even they can't defend against. We based our load out on what we knew they were capable of. These weapons, combined with their... for lack of a better word, stubbornness is leading to the loss of strike groups on an hourly basis. I've seen a human have limbs removed, and yet still they pulled the trigger of their weapon, threw one of their grenades. I watched as a handful of injured human soldiers used themselves as a shield in order to keep more effective fighters alive. Not to mention everyone seems to have a weapon or know how to fire one. There seems to be no shortage of knowledge on how to use their armaments due to something called 'YouTube'. Sir, this fight is growing into one that is simply not worth what we came here for." Heraldric pulled up a screen that showed the combat strength of the armada he had brought. "We can't do an orbital bombardment?" "We'd risk damaging the original intent of our journey here. That's why we had aimed for an amphibious assault if you recall," the advisor's voice perhaps carried more irritation than he should have allowed but quickly added in, "sir." Before the Grand Commander could respond, there was a quick blast of an alarm. An image appeared on the screen. It was an aerial view of an unknown city, tall buildings reaching towards the heavens. "What is it?" Heraldric asked, his body language suddenly going on alert. A radio transmission was coming in, though it was crystal clear, "Grand Commander, the humans, they," there was a pause. "They're using our weapons against us." The individual reporting the information sounded as though they couldn't believe what they were hearing. "Impossible, they're bio-locked, you must be..." that's when he saw it. The image displayed a handful of a strange blue triangles that displayed known positions of Halassian forces. Purple triangles then flashed and showed known human positions. From those positions, high in the buildings, a hail of Clythorian plasma canisters came falling down onto the Halassians. "No..." was all Heraldric could say. "They're," another pause from the reporting party, "They're removing our hands and... using them to fire off volleys." "Those barbarians!" the advisor remarked, disgust in his voice. "Desperation, adaptability," Heraldric whispered, to himself more than anything. Suddenly, this mission wasn't worth it. Not for the lives of the soldiers at his command. "Drellis, pull us out." "Sir--" "I said pull us out! We're leaving," Heraldric had turned and began to walk back towards his chair.

A knock rapped at the door

A knock rapped at the door just as I was getting ready to call it a day. My head snapped up at it. Two knocks, quiet and polite. If this was that investigative agency coming back to poke around and ask questions, they were quite clearly getting less and less confident. I pushed myself out of my office chair and made my way to the door in two swift strides. *Small office*, you might be thinking, or *tall person*, you might think instead. Both however, were true. I swung open the door to the hallway to see a small, skinny woman standing there. I looked down at her and gave her the widest smile I had in my arsenal. "Welcome to Movie-It-Over-Again!" I said, and angled my body to the side as to show her the office in all its glory. I extended a hand toward my office chair, which took up a solid portion of the room by itself. Otherwise there was the skinny wood desk bunched up against the wall, with my old laptop and a few paperbacks sitting on it. There wasn't much else to see. "Please," I said, "take a seat." The woman stood shocked for a moment or two, as though she had walked into a supermarket and found a brothel. She stood with her eyes wide and blue, framed by long hair the color of sand. She clutched at her tiny purse. Suddenly she looked at me and then the chair, and stammered out, "Oh, okay," and hurriedly sat down in the office chair. I closed the door slowly. There's a certain feeling, when the mood changes in a room. Many alike it to the weight or solidity of the air in the room, which I always found personally nonsensical. *The mood was so tense you could cut through it with a knife*. I always felt it underneath, in my skin, my bones, my heart. Currently, I felt it in all three, and the air oddly felt like it had spontaneously turned to cheese. "Well," I said, drawing out the word as I walked to her and leaned against the desk. "How can I help?" "You make people forget things," she said quietly, "right?" I considered her words for a short time. "Yes," I said slowly. "Movies specifically," I jabbed a thumb at the door she had just some in, the other side having a piece of paper taped to it saying "Movie-It-Over-Again!". "Can you make people forget things other than that?" I looked at her and thought, hard. I had the power to erase memories. There were many other people with the same ability, and we were what we were. Vampires. Not really what you're picturing in your head, I'm sure. I can't fight worth shit, I can't turn into a bat, I don't suck blood, and I'm not even particularly pale. That's not the kind of vampire I was, not to say my cousin factions didn't exist. I fed on memories. Good memories. Part of the deal was that whatever memories I consumed, became a part of me. As though they had happened last Tuesday. Most of my kind, a small pool of monsters we were, tended to stick to the really good memories. Y'know, prom night, weddings, first kisses, the works. The sights, the smells, the tastes, the *emotions*. And when we feed, we take. The person a Memory Vampire feeds on forgets it all, as though it didn't happen to them in the first place. While I couldn't turn into a bat or fight like superman, I was part of a faction of supernatural beings considered the most deadly and vile in the world. I didn't follow in the steps of the rest of my brothers and sisters in the faction. I couldn't stand the thought of losing the memories of my childhood, my first love, basically everything that my life was before I matured and found out what I was. How could I do that to someone else? But vampires had to feed. What human could go through life without consuming calories? Thus too I had to feed on *something*. And so I opened this business, to consume the memories of movies. The client gets to watch a movie again and relive the experience they did before, and I get something to nibble on. All in all, compared to the rest of my faction, they were feasting on steaks and prime rib, while I sat in the corner rationing a salad, but at least I could live with myself. I smirked at the thought. I was practically vegan. As far as my deduction skills go, I could reasonably assume this woman didn't want to forget a movie. Either that or she had just watched that live-action adaption of *The Last Airbender*. I groaned internally. I looked at the woman. "Possibly," I said. "But where are my manners," I said, "I haven't even asked your name." She looked up at me and her deep, blue eyes met mine for the smallest fraction of a moment, then flicked away, as though ashamed. "Chevelle," she said, quickly, but offered nothing more. "Nice to meet you, Chevelle," I said in my most gentle voice. "My name is Dr. Drake Finnigan, as I'm sure you already know." I swallowed and tried to approach the next question as gently as possible. "What... exactly do you want to forget." She looked at her knees while she spoke. "It's not exactly a movie," she said. "But, I suppose if you were to think of it as one, it wouldn't be a happy one." I took in a breath and let it out slowly. I could take from her whatever memory I wanted to. Good, bad, mediocre. But it wasn't as simple as eating food that good or bad. When I feed, I take it all, as I said before. Sight, sound, touch, taste. Emotion. If I kicked a puppy then took its memory of the incident, I would remember getting kicked in my side, as though it happened to me. It was a double edged sword. Also was the problem of time. I couldn't exactly walk up to Jackie Chan and take all his memories and become a kung-fu master. That was too many memories, too many experiences, too much to eat. You don't just walk up and eat an elephant. Movies were short, I could feed on that in one sitting. Depending on what I wanted to take though... it could take more time. I looked at Chevelle, who's eyes began to shine with the beginnings of tears as she sat there, obviously remembering whatever it was she came here for. Her small, slender hands balled up into fists. I sighed. I was old-fashioned when it came to women. Nothing quite like a damsel in distress. "It depends," I said, "on what the memory is, and how much there is." I bit my lip. Was I really doing this? What if she had just walked out of a terrorist attack or some shit? I'd be ducking under cover when I heard loud noises for months. I sighed. At least hear her out, Drake. You can't just show her the door now. And so I let her talk.

Dr Ned Growers, better known

"How did you do it! Answer me, you fraud!" Dr Ned Growers, better known as Toxical, leaned back in his chair and met my accusations with the coolest of stares. I knew that I was trespassing, that he could have me thrown out of his office at any moment, but I didn't care. Righteous rage is a potent drug, and I was so furious that nothing else mattered. "You're a cheat, that's what you are," I said. "It's all a sham, and mark my words, truth will see the light of day eventually. I will have every single reader of *O9* know that you are nothing more than a cheap illusion!" I thumped his table so violently that his nameplate tottered off onto the ground. He picked it up, then fussed over restoring it to its original position. *Director of Research*, it read, with no other embellishment, no other indication that he was anything other than an egghead with the League. Nothing to state, for example, that he was one of the very few with a threat level so high, governments had to develop a whole new category for him. Not just Tier A, or Tier AA, or even Tier AAA. He was Tier S, the only one in the entire United States of America. Except, except that I knew he wasn't. "I don't know what you are talking about, Wisp," he said, using my professional name. "You were there at the showdown too, were you not? You saw me descend into battle with Earthshaker, and you saw how I emerged victorious. And if you're not going to believe your own eyes, what do you want me to say? I can only hope your readers at *Over 9000* are more discerning than you are-" "That's exactly what I meant! I know it's all a lie, I just don't know how you did it!" "Did what?" he said, the ghost of a grin spreading across his lips. I fished about in my satchel, then dumped an assortment of glossies, audiotapes, and handwritten notes across his desk. They sprayed out dramatically, and Toxical began poking at some of them with the end of his pen. "I told you before the showdown," I said. "I've been watching you from the shadows for over a year. The proof is right here! You're... You're ordinary! Here's a picture of you stumbling during your morning run and scraping your knee! Here's another of you having trouble opening a jar of mayo! And what about this one?" I flailed the photograph in front of him. "Remember this? When you put out the trash and a stray cat popped out from behind the bins? You let it chase you for two whole blocks!" Toxical's face lightened visibly as the memory came back. "It was a *very* ferocious tabby," he offered. "That's my point! You don't have powers! In a hundred instances, you've either gone out of your way to avoid trouble, or to resolve it through other means, but never once have you ever flexed your superpowers! Did you know, I went through every single available public record, but there's not a *single* documented case of you using your superpowers?" "I'm not showy," he said, as he shrugged. "Don't see why everything's got to be a measuring contest." "So how?" I asked. "How did you fool all the threat assessment tests! Why are you Tier S?" Toxical motioned for me to take a seat, and I did. I felt winded after my outburst, and frankly, I was ready to give up on the story. I had invested too much of myself into this, and much as the injustice of it all weighed upon me, I was far too weary to go on living in this madness. "Shall we discuss in... Hypotheticals?" he said. "Off the record?" I nodded, and he leaned over and tugged at the hidden microphone I had placed behind the visitor's badge on my shirt. I was too defeated to protest, and I just watched as he crushed the device with his stapler. "Suppose a boy grows up on the streets," he said. "And suppose the boy realises that he actually doesn't have any... Superpowers. Or at least, none of the sort which everyone else seemed to be growing in. He can't manipulate fire, he can't weave ice, he can't teleport, he can't fly. Yet, everyone else keeps their distance from him, fearful somehow of the danger he presents." "That boy then has two main paths open to him," Toxical continued, as he held up two fingers. "One, dally away his time, and live in the moment. Embrace the fame, and feed off the fear and respect everyone accords him. But he knows that such unearned glory is shortlived, and no matter how great his legend, there will *always* be someone just crazy enough to challenge him, to see for themselves if he was really as big of a threat as he seemed. And above all, this boy is a survivor, and this grisly end does not appeal to him, because he knows he will *definitely* lose if ever there is a real fight." "What's the other option?" I found myself asking. "The second option, as it were, was to *really* become a threat. To be as big and as deadly a stick as he *appears* to be, so that if ever he were really challenged, then he would be able to fend for himself, prove that it wasn't worth anyone's time to tangle with him." "But..." I said, grasping for the words. "You have... No powers, nothing, nothing at all... And you live among people who can warp time, bend reality..." Toxical answered by pressing the quickdial on his phone, and mumbling into the receiver. Within seconds, a sharp knock rapped on the door, and Earthshaker strode on in. "You called, boss?" I must have started gurgling by then, because it was a while before I formed a coherent sentence. "That's... That's... Why is Earthshaker... What... How..." "It helps... Sate the public bloodthirst, I would say. Every few months there's a big public beatdown, and I get a couple of weeks of peace as people find more productive ways to waste their time." Toxical dismissed Earthshaker, and he left after shooting us a quizzical look. Toxical waited until I had stopped hyperventilating before he continued. "In a world where everyone has superpowers, and is so focused on developing them, it seems that few ever bother to pursue other forms of influence," Toxical said. "And such a boy, that hypothetical powerless boy, may then find that since there is no need for him to train and develop his powers, he has a *lot* more time on his hands. Time which, if applied well, could grant him... Other forms of power, as it were." "So you admit it then?" I asked. "That you don't have any superpowers?" Toxical laughed, then tapped on his name plate. "As Director of Research, I have access to every record of every superpowered individual to be registered with the League. I know their strengths, their weakenesses, their schedules, their proclivities... You name it, and I have it. At any moment, on any day, I have scores of agents working to catalogue the world, fit everyone into boxes. And through it all, everyone comes back to me, because I have learned to contribute in ways that others cannot." Toxical leaned in, and I followed suit, subconsciously mirroring him. "I know, for instance, the three chemicals you are susceptible to," he whispered. "Which, if applied to you, would rob you of your ability to teleport. You would not be so much Wisp as you would be a preserved butterfly, pinned and trapped in my collection." Toxical stood, then ushered me to the door. His hand, on my back, was so cold that I couldn't help but shiver. "I may not be deserving of my threat level, young man, but trust me, I have worked bloody, *bloody* hard to live up to it. So feel free to print whatever you want, I look forward to refuting it." --- /r/rarelyfunny

Hiroshima and Alex strolled through the

Sun and Shadow ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Hand in hand. Hiroshima and Alex strolled through the city, heedless of traffic lights and strangers. Anyone with any hint of the Gift could feel the pulsing, roaring power coming off of Hiroshima. Cars braked. Grown men crossed the street to avoid blocking their path. Alex was blissfully happy. He- Well, his brother really, was a superhero! The city's best. Even the routine stuff like patrolling was a blast. Hiroshima smiled at his brother. He was never that excited about all this. Every superhero could instinctively sense the power level of others with the Gift. His was astoundingly high, so everywhere he went, it felt like he was surrounded by bugs. Bugs taller than he was, that nevertheless glared at him in fear and scurried away. They each got an ice cream, compliments of a shop downtown. The shop was named Good Ice Cream. They had known the store owner for about a year, a long time for a ten-year-old. Alex watched Blair's fingers move. The ice cream man casually drew the ice cream out of the display case, and formed it into a perfect sphere, hovering in the air. Everyone with the Gift had the ability to use raw force - things like telekinesis, forcefields, and beams of power. Each individual also had an Aspect, something they could use to flavor their power like ice, fire, or joy. Blair's Aspect was sweetness. It really was Good Ice Cream. Alex held his cone up eagerly. Blair dropped it in with a smile. That smile shrank when he turned to Hiroshima. "Anything for you sir?" He shook his head. His face said he was holding back a laugh, that he was mildly contemptuous of the offer. Why would a being of my power need such trifles as ice cream? Inside he felt like crying. He never asked for everyone to be afraid of him. But he had to keep up the lie. A few blocks past Good Ice Cream, Alex offered Hiroshima some of his ice cream. "Thanks," he said quietly, and took a bite. "Wow I said a little! You took like the whole thing!" Alex said, teasing. "I'm a growing hero. I need my food." Hiroshima acted tough, flexing his elementary-schooler muscles. "We're the same size, dummy." Alex rolled his eyes and took another bite of ice cream. They were exactly the same size, being twins. Just then, a gunshot rang out from a nearby street. "Aaahh, geez," Hiroshima complained. "Come on!" Alex put the rest of the ice cream in his mouth and dumped the cone in a trash can. "Ah, ah, brain freeze." He took off running anyway, letting Hiroshima chase after him. He quickly caught up, and Alex started following him, since Hiroshima could actually sense where they were going. Someone was robbing the bank. They were downtown, and the bank was on the bottom floor of a skyscraper. It had a Starbucks attached. A huge man, easily 400 pounds and over six feet tall, was standing inside at the teller window. "Lemme get uhhhh. All your money. A mocha latte, hold the milk and espresso, extra mocha." "That's just chocolate syrup in a cup." "Bitch it takes work to look this good." He fired another shot at the floor for emphasis. "Gimme my drink. And money." "Stop right there!" Alex said. Hiroshima was suddenly terrified. Before, he had only followed the sense of power. This close, he could tell how strong the man was. And one thing was absolutely certain. He didn't need a gun. "Well, well, well. The little hero finally arrives." The man turned and grinned. "And me!" Alex said. "You have to go to jail now! That's the deal." "Mmm, yes. Warnings are out everywhere online that this city has a tremendous prodigy, and that the only safe thing to do is surrender. Now that I can see for myself, I can't say you disappoint." His smile was mocking, unconcerned. Power levels were inviolate. They could change, but only so much. At low levels, when neither fighter had much experience, it was worth fighting it out. One of them could have a realization about the best way to use their power mid-fight and seize victory. At higher levels, with experienced heroes, most fights ended in either flight or surrender. Hiroshima had the highest power level on record. But this man was a match for him. "My name is Nagasaki," he said, and the room started to glow. "My Aspect is radiation. When I heard about a terrifying prodigy, I knew it was a chance to finally fight someone on my level." The light drifted in the direction of his raised right hand, shining a brilliant green. With his left, he downed his cup of chocolate. Hiroshima froze. "Good luck." Alex dove, knocking Hiroshima out of the way of the deadly beam. The two of them crouched behind a desk. The teller window was opposite to the street entrance. Four desks for bank managers were evenly spaced out on the left side of the room. The right side of the room was empty except for an ATM on the wall. They heard Nagasaki walk across the room, until he was blocking the street entrance. Then the glow lit the room again. "Have you ever been in a real fight, little boy?" He let the energy build. "Have you ever met anyone who wasn't afraid of you?" The next beam went straight through the desk, and kept going through Hiroshima. The boy coughed, spitting up blood. There was no cauterization, his first brief hope. It was like being stabbed. "You know I couldn't even find your Aspect online? Apparently you're too scary to even have to show it." Nagasaki kept talking, apparently unaware he'd scored a hit already. Alex held his brother's hand, thinking about all the good times on patrol. Eating ice cream. Being superheroes. Or his brother, anyway. That was the lie they had to keep up. Alex left him behind, crawling across the floor. Nagasaki fired another destructive beam, and Alex felt his brother pass from across the room. Alex made it behind Nagasaki. He stood, and placed his hand on the man's back. "We were twins." He was whispering, talking to himself more than his opponent. "Not now, worm. The real heroes are fighting." "Something strange happened in the womb. Something new. He got all the appearance of power." Nagasaki tried to take a step forward, to go check on Hiroshima, who he was just now suspecting had not been up to this fight. He couldn't move. Couldn't feel his legs. "I got the reality." Alex's voice, once so happy and excited, was now cold. Furious. "Since you were so curious earlier, I'll tell you." "My Aspect is death," he said, and killed him. Alex closed his eyes as the body fell, and tried to regain the happy memories. Patrolling with his brother, hand in hand. He tried, but everything was tainted now. He couldn't...couldn't... Alex screamed. Over the next year, news reports circulated about Gifted individuals, both hero and villain, spontaneously dropping dead. It was first theorized to be an inherent drawback to powers, maybe that they used up lifeforce too quickly. This was quickly debunked when all of the incidents remained centered on one city, the city that Hiroshima had patrolled when he was alive. The new theory was that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki had killed each other in a high-power duel, leftover energy from the battle was still causing hostile effects on those sensitive to powers. But this theory didn't account for everything. Oddly enough, one individual with powers was only blocks away at the time, and so far had been completely safe. Until the true cause was discovered, any outsiders with powers would stay out of Hiroshima's city. One summer afternoon, the bell jingled in Good Ice Cream, and a familiar face walked in, smiling. "Ice cream, Mr. Blair?" "You got it, Alex." ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 11/365. Constructive criticism welcome and appreciated.

It was probably the most challenging aspect

It was always difficult, adapting to a new body. It was probably the most challenging aspect of covert reconnaissance missions. Issues like understanding the local language and culture, those were merely a matter of information absorption and enough simulation time. Adapting to a new body, however, a new biology, that was different. It always surprised people, when she told them. Because the remarkable similarity of sapient organic life across the galaxy was a known fact, something every schoolchild knew and accepted. It seemed there were only so many successful body plans. Most aquatic races shared common body shapes. And similarly, most land dwellers were bilaterally symmetrical bipeds. There were indisputable advantages to the usual packages of features. Opposable thumbs for tool use, walking upright for energy-efficient - if unstable - locomotion, warm-blooded biology for better temperature control. But still, adapting to a new body always bothered her. That was difficult for many of her friends and family to understand. They didn't quite comprehend when she explained the issue. Certainly, there were issues such as the different proportions of arms and legs, the specific posture and stance demanded by bone structure. But those were matters that knowledge implants and automated reflex systems were designed to deal with. Intellectually, there shouldn't have been any difficulty. And in practical terms, there wasn't any problem. In practical terms, she could function. The implanted knowledge, the recorded skills, these addressed the functional challenges. The many subsystems installed in her new body handled issues like balance, or precision in delicate physical movement. There was, for example, no need to learn how to walk in the new body. That was all handled for her. It was the mental portion that was the disruptive aspect. Getting used to it on an emotional level. Living inside a new skin. Breathing in the scents of an alien atmosphere. Feeling comfortable with a strange face. That was the challenge, on a purely visceral level. She was good at her job, though. It took a particular kind of personality to willingly spend entire stellar cycles encased in alien flesh, living among people of a different species. It took a particular kind of personality to embrace their way of life, to pass as one of them, undetected. Or, at least, mostly undetected. She knew her emulation wasn't perfect. Many of the humans she'd met and interacted with at length likely considered her somewhat... atypical. She'd corrected many of her early errors, but even now, even today, there were occasional mistakes. It was fortunate, then, that the inhabitants of this planet were high enough on the civilisational scale - at least in social terms - that any of her oddities were largely accepted by the natives. They would not judge, at least not overtly. And, more importantly, they would not suspect. However, she still endeavoured to correct any mistakes. Some were her fault. Because even a highly-programmed and experienced field researcher like herself... couldn't be perfect. Not quite. Some mistakes, however, were due to lack of information. There was always some nuance, some detail, some reference or area of local knowledge that the preliminary studies had overlooked. That was why she was here. Standing outside the transparent barrier of non-crystalline amorphous solid - the glass, the locals called it. Watching. Observing. It had been a simple conversation. She had thought so, anyway, until it had suddenly veered into unfamiliar territory, leaving her scrambling to cover her inadequate local knowledge. Like many sapient beings in the galaxy, humans were fairly body-conscious. That sort of vanity, that sort of focus on the aesthetics and well-being of the physical form... it was not completely universal, but it was a common trait. She'd been very pleased, when she'd discovered how much of the local electronic public-access information networks were dedicated to pornography in all its myriad forms. An observer could learn a lot about a civilisation from watching their pornography. But what they'd missed was the fact that, to put it simply, body-modification technology was in its relative infancy on this planet. They had some degree of cosmetic surgical augmentation. Some degree of performance-enhancing biotechnology. Yet it was all remarkably primitive by interstellar standards, compared to the relative sophistication of their other sciences. For a civilisation at this overall technical and social level of development, she would have expected more. She'd become aware of that gap, when discussing a device a coworker had acquired. They had been standing in the communal rest area at their workplace, at the place of employment she'd inserted herself into, as part of her local identity. Her human coworker had shown off a new wrist device, apparently a commercial electronic product used to track and record a human's physical movement. Her coworker had then asked about her own exercise routine. She'd deflected the question. She was, of course, aware of the concept, and she knew humans practiced it. But she had no actual need to do it herself, considering that much of her own body was synthetic, simply designed to mimic a human body. The small proportion of it that was biological, actual human-compatible flesh, was maintained in optimum condition by her mechanical systems. The encounter had made her aware that her appearance, her size, her muscle tone, her general standard of health, and other physical factors... would naturally lead most humans to assume that she did perform exercise regularly. They would assume she was familiar with their places of exercise, the facilities known as gymnasiums, or gyms. She did not know much about these places, save for scattered references in the entertainment media she had reviewed. That cursory knowledge had been enough to navigate the conversation to a satisfactory conclusion. But she resolved to address this gap in her knowledge. That had led her to this location, a gym that her human coworker had recommended when she'd claimed to be 'between routines'. Her colleague had added that, aside from its comprehensive inventory of machines designed to assist humans in the practice of exercise, the gym was also a 'studio' that offered instructional courses in a variety of disciplines, all exercise-related activities. Her colleague had believed she would be interested. She was now observing one of these classes, through the glass. At first she had been confused. Two humans had appeared to be engaging in combat. But there was no hostility, no sense of threat. And, very unsettlingly, the other humans were quietly observing, but making no move to stop the combatants. Then the two had separated, made a respectful gesture to each other, before turning to the other gathered humans. The group had then repeated the movements shown to them by the instructors. And they were instructors - she'd realised that, belatedly. It made sense in context. This was, of course, a training facility. She looked at the group, and the building around her. She considered this data point. The humans learned physical skills. They had to. There was, clearly, more to operating their bodies than the... purely instinctive. And they did not have, she realised, any means of installing these lessons. No significant body modifications meant no knowledge implants. She looked at the class. The movements were... sophisticated, she realised. Easily the rival of any of the standard recorded patterns in her own library, used for the disabling and restraint of hostile humanoid sapients. Some of the movements, she realised, were unknown to her. Not recorded in her database. Perhaps that was merely because she was a researcher, not a combat specialist, but she had a sudden suspicion... She'd been observing the humans for a while. They were an interesting species, but she hadn't seen any sign of... genius. No sign of anything special, no sign of any area in which they were extraordinary by galactic standards. But this... "Kinesthetics," she said out loud. "What's that, miss?" She half-turned, glancing at the human behind the reception counter, the one meant to receive arrivals to the facility. "Sorry," she said, commanding herself to laugh, in feigned mild embarassment. She had a subroutine for that, and it was now practiced habit to trigger the appropriate systems. She also activated the custom movement she'd programmed in, which lifted her hand to rub the back of her neck. "Just talking to myself." "No worries," the receptionist said. "You like the class?" "Oh, uh, yeah," she replied, "it's awesome. Super cool. But, it's just, I was just thinking, I can't see myself doing something like that." "You look like you work out, though," the human observed, sounding curious. She glanced down at her body. "Well, I guess? But that's not what I meant. I'm a klutz. No coordination, yeah? I couldn't do all that, uh, Kung Fu shit." The receptionist smiled. "Hey, don't sell yourself short. We've got a range of self-defence courses for all skill levels. There's a free introductory thing on Saturdays, for beginners. You could come, see if you like it. No pressure. No harm trying, right?" "I," she said, slowly, thinking it over. "I guess? Uh, I mean, sure?" "Great, great, I've got a flyer here, or you can check out the times on our website..." ***

Jo is barely aware of the pain

Through the wave of agony that courses through my body, I am barely even aware of the cry of pain escaping my lips. Sweat beads on my forehead, trickling down my temple. "That's it, push!" "I'm- *fucking*- trying!" I grit my teeth against the scream that threatens to rise in my throat, the pain still climbing as I bear down with all my strength. "You're doing so well, Jo, just keep going." I really want to punch that midwife and her gentle, soothing voice. Or better yet, take a swing at Chris. Through the film of tears in my eyes, I can only just make out the pale face of my loving, doting husband crouched next to me - and yet, right now, there is nothing in the world that irritates me more than his clammy hand resting on mine. I whip my hand away. The pain retreats into a dull throb as the contraction ends, and I gasp for breath, my hands trembling. But before I have the chance to recover, a fresh wave of searing agony rolls through me. I clench my jaw shut, a moan escaping through my tight lips. I can taste the iron tang of blood - I must have bitten my tongue without noticing. I push again. "I can see the head! Keep pushing!" "I'm trying!" Breath catches in my throat as I work muscles I didn't even know I had. And then suddenly, there's a burst of burning, tearing pain between my legs, and I feel something warm and soft emerge. Green words flicker in the corner of my vision. *Achievement Unlocked: Give birth.* "I've got her!" I am panting for breath. My head falls back onto the pillow, my face glazed with sweat. "Is she okay?" "She's a gorgeous little girl." The midwife stands, a shrivelled, pink creature bawling in her arms, its face twisted as if in rage. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. "Meet your daughter." *My daughter. I have a daughter.* I stretch out my arms to take her, cradling her warm body against mine. Chris reaches over to softly brush my damp hair from my eyes, and I let out a muffled sob of relief. I look down at her tiny face, screwed up against the harsh light of the new world into which she's just been thrown. A burst of overwhelming love is warm in my chest, overpowering the pain of my battered body. *Achievement Unlocked: Meet your first child.* *Achievement Unlocked: It's a girl!* My lips twitch into a smile as I read the words. But even before I can take in the importance of this moment, the bright lettering falls away to be replaced by a new statement. *Achievement Unlocked: Meet the person who will kill you.* I blink several times, my stomach lurching with shock, and the writing dissolves from my vision. My arms tighten around my new daughter, my forehead creasing as I continue to stare down at her. She is so perfect, so innocent and new. Surely she can't...? And then, before I have the chance to even ponder the achievement, she is plucked from my arms by the beaming midwife, and Chris is pulling me into a hug, his lips brushing against my forehead, and I can barely think over the whir of the hospital equipment and the adrenaline that is still coursing through my system. "We did it," he murmurs into my hair. "You did it." "Yeah..." My voice is shaky. "Yeah, we did." I must have misread the achievement. Or there was a mistake. It's ridiculous to imagine that I could even have been thinking straight after giving birth; that achievement could have said any number of things. I force out a soft laugh, the sound wobbly and muffled against Chris' jacket collar, and then let myself flop back onto the bed, trying to settle the unease that twists in the depths my stomach. Fatigue is beginning to set into my body, and as the buzz of nerves fades, I can no longer ignore the aching and throbbing in my lower abdomen. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to think about the trickle of blood still seeping from between my legs. The following minutes pass in a blur. My daughter is returned to my arms, clean and wrapped in a blanket. I deliver the placenta. I am washed, given stitches and more painkillers, and settled back into my bed so I can begin to get to know my new baby. My brain feels foggy, my head swimming a little. It must be a combination of the painkillers and the stress. I try to put the achievement out of my mind, my finger tracing the rosy cheek of my baby. There will be all the time in the world to worry about it, but this moment is for my daughter. Chris is stroking my arm while he gazes into our baby's eyes. His expression is rapt, peaceful. My vision blurs a little as I let out a long breath. "You okay, Jo?" He smiles at me. "Hmm?" I can feel myself becoming drowsy, my head light. The world seems to spin a little, so I blink a couple of times. "Yeah. Just... just tired." He squeezes my shoulders, kissing me gently on the top of the head. But as he glances down at the end of the bed, his eyes widen. "You're bleeding!" "Hmm..." I look down. Red is seeping into the sheets around me. I watch as the colour blossoms out, crisp white turning pink turning a deep, glistening crimson. It makes me feel a bit weird, so I let my eyes flutter closed again. My head is pounding now, and thoughts seem to slip from my mind before I can completely grasp them. "Is' okay. Don't- don' worry." I hear Chris' voice. "Nurse! Doctor? Someone!" I try to open my eyes to see what's going on, but now my head is really spinning, and nausea starts to coil in my stomach. I groan softly, tightening my hold on my baby. Footsteps in the corridor outside. And then Chris is kneeling at my side again, his grip tightening on my arm. "It's going to be okay. Stay with me." His tone sends a frisson of alarm through my hazy brain. Is our baby okay? What's got him into this state? My legs are slick with warm liquid, and I feel embarrassment rise hot in my throat. Have I wet the bed? Is that why he's called for a nurse? But before I can figure it out, the thoughts have slid from my head again. I grapple to remember what's going on, but it's like trying to catch a slippery bar of soap in the shower. My eyes flutter. "Let me see her." It's a new voice, male, muted with concern. I feel Chris rise from my bedside to talk to the newcomer. I struggle to pay attention, but I only catch fragments of the conversation. "Complication-" "-piece of placenta... still inside-" "Bleeding." "-have to get it out." The sheets are pulled roughly aside. I feel hands on my skin, the touch cold of metal. I attempt to shrug it off, but the hand tightens on my leg. The low throb of voices, but I can no longer make out the words. I force myself to blink. Try not to slip into unconsciousness. Someone is pulling my baby from my loose grasp. I try to reach for her, but my hand feels like lead. It flops back onto the blanket, dead weight beside me. I see a flash of pink flesh and white blanket; she's whipped away. Can't keep my eyelids from closing. There's a needle in my arm now. Cold rush of liquid in my veins. I think I can hear Chris' voice. And then it fades. All that is left is green writing, dancing in front of my eyes. *Achievement Unlocked: Life completed.* ***** If you'd like to check out any of my other stories, they can be found at :)

Clarise Fae was the last

Clarise Fae was the closest the living could get to being a ghost. She glided through the town at night in long gowns going nowhere except for oblivion. Her face and shoulders were deathly pale and her hair was a startling silver that just barely touched the ground. When she appeared, people avoided her, they would cross the street to avoid being on the same side of the road as her, whisper when she was out of earshot, mothers scared their children with tales of Clarise Fae, and the bards sang tales of the tragic beauty of the last of the Fae, the cursed line. Her tale was second only to the stories of the Hole. The one at the edge of town with no end, the one that scared away many and attracted even more. Of course, the tale Clarise Fae is a story about the Hole. For every night, she would wander the town, but in the end she would stand at the edge of the Hole, peering down into nothing, trying to find answers when there were none. Answers for the past. Clarise had been one of seven daughters. They all had her silvery hair, the pale skin, the eyes that seemed to hold a storm behind them. Her sisters were playful, even joyous. Her parents were well respected in the town - they ran a shop selling charms guarding against the spirits that came out of the hole. Often a Fae sister or two would be around and about in the shop helping out their parents, and playing jokes on the customers. They were often hard to tell apart, but Clarise stood out, even then. She never smiled, never, never joked. Just obediently fetched whatever her parents asked her to from the shelves. Still, the girls were the town's little angels - beloved by all, so few risked having children here by the Hole. So everyone in the town was heartbroken when one of them jumped in the Hole. The carpenter had sworn he had seen one of the Fae sisters walking about in the night and head towards the hole, almost in a trance, and of her own volition, jump in. It was a tragedy, and the whole town wept for the little life that had been winked out. "Just the nature of the Hole," the old muttered shaking their heads, "some children just can't resist." It was a tragedy, but nothing unheard of. Nothing unheard of. The Hole was the Hole. Slowly but surely, the town moved on, and so did the family, or as much as it was possible to move on. Apparently one of them had never quite gotten over it. Soon after, another sister was seen jumping into the Hole in the dead of night. Again, the town wept. "Children take it hard, a death, you know," the elders said. "The two sisters had always been closer than the rest." But it was also around this time that the first whispers started, that one child lost to the hole is understandable, but two? From the same family? And just as everyone had stopped reeling in shock, another Fae jumped in, once more in the dead of night. This time the elders muttered and shook their heads. Some people stopped going to the shop, but most spat at them and comforted the Fae instead. "To lose children is bad enough, but to be scorned for it is even worse," they said. They stopped going when the fourth and fifth sisters jumped together. Soon after, the town saw Mother, Father, and final sister walk to the Hole hand in hand. Nobody tried to stop them, either out of fear or out of sympathy. And the life of the town was gone, just like that, taken from the hole. Or, well, not all of it. Clarise Fae remained, the lone sister, the quiet one, the one most would have thought would be the first to jump. Yet she lived, in a sense. She never talked to anyone, getting food and water from the woods. A potter said he once saw her snap the neck of a squirrel in the woods and bring it home to eat. When Clarise first walked towards the hole, the town thought it was the end of the Fae. The final sister would jump and put an end to the curse. But she didn't. She only stood, half of her feet off the edge, but she never did jump. On one such night the Carpenter's boy - a young man of about nineteen, around the same age as Clarise. He was a fool, lured in by beauty, the long hair, the sad eyes. He Followed her in to the woods on one such trek into the hole. Clarise glided out of the woods early morning, but the boy never did. Enough was enough. The townsfolk had let her stay despite the Hole's Curse, but now she was a danger to others. "Better to be rid of her," the townsfolk reasoned. "Lest the Hole take us all." And so they gathered behind her at night when she stood at the edge of the hole. Despite the hundred or so townsfolk behind her with torches, Clarise didn't even bother turning around. It was like she didn't hear them, that there was nothing for her except the Hole. The townsfolk stood for a moment, doing nothing. They had expected fear, pleading, but not this, not ignorance. Eventually one of them, the Carpenter, took initiative. He stepped forward, calmly and coolly, and placed a hand on Clarise's back, and without a moment's hesitation, shoved. The Townsfolk gasped, they had wanted to drive her out, not to give her to the Hole. Not even murderers deserved that fate. But it was not Clarise who fell. She whirled to the right just as the carpenter shoved, and the carpenter found himself off balance from the shove. His screams echoed through the forest as he fell into the Hole. Clarise shook her head at the spot the carpenter had been, her eyes sad. And for the first time, she spoke. "You have come here trying to get rid of me, to drive me out, to kill me. I have tried to do the same for years now, to jump into this damn hole-" Without warning another townsfolk charged her, pitchfork raised to impale her. She could have moved, but she stood there, as if accepting her fate. The Hole rumbled. And then what appeared to be a root of a Tree appeared from the Hole, grabbed the charging man by the waist and dragged him into the Hole in a fraction of a second. Again, Clarise barely reacted, just stood with those sad eyes. "It wants me, see, all to itself, it is very jealous, very protective," she said. She hook her head, and a ghost of a smile touched her lips. "The Hole is in love with me." No one stopped her as she glided through the crowd. Away. *** if you enjoyed, check out

Stephen and Heather Miller travel to Miller

I'd promised Stephen I would keep my mouth shut for the entire journey. Yet, as we made the turn off the freeway, onto the dusty country road, the last three miles to Miller's farm, the injustice of it all bubbled over. "It's just damned unfair, that's what it is." "I know. You've told me a thousand times." "It's so ridiculous that we got assigned to cover this!" I said, my hand slamming onto the dashboard. "What are we now, trashy two-bit tabloid chasers? You know where we should be? We should be at the Deportment Centre, interviewing the people who've made up their minds to cross over to the other side. Or, we should be at City Hall, asking the politicians how they're dealing with the people who are stuck here. Hell, I wouldn't even mind just speaking to the Pioneers again, even if they've got nothing new left to say!" "That story's old, Heather. The Pioneers have been on every newspaper, every talk show, every last livestream there is. Our readers will want something fresh. And that's what we're doing now, following up leads." "Fresh?" I exclaimed. "You call this fresh? This... this is a shit story, that's what it is! It's a fraud, a hoax! No one cares about... about some crazy farmer finding trees sprouting overnight! Everyone wants to know about the Crater! They want to know how long it takes to pass through it, why electronics fail down in the depths, whether there's enough space for everyone over there! That's the story of the 23rd century, right there!" "This is important too, don't you think? Doesn't it fill you with hope, that perhaps this farmer's found some way to reverse all the damage we've done to the environment?" The farmhouse loomed in the distance. The sun was beginning its retreat across the sky, and I saw the tractors puttering back to their sheds, their work done for the day. A pang of guilt burned in my chest - after all, I had promised Nash Miller that we would visit him first thing in the morning. The shame was short lived, muscled aside by my wounded pride. "You're wrong, Stephen. This world is done for. It's overcrowded, it's polluted, it's on its last legs. The Crater, Stephen, that's where the future is. You heard the Pioneers too, didn't you? What they said was on the other side? Lush fields, untapped lands, clean water. *Clean water!* No need for filtration or chemicals or anything!" "You believe them? Everything they said?" I scoffed, almost as much out of reflex as I did from surprise. "You're a skeptic? You think they're lying?" "No, I didn't say that, I just think that-" "Seriously? Why do you think the Pioneers would lie? For fame? Money?" Stephen held up hands up in mock surrender, and the car veered off the track for a couple of seconds before he guided us back. "Look, I'm just saying, it's pretty convenient, don't you think? The Pioneers descend so far into the Crater that their electronics fizzle out, they are off the grid for a couple of hours, then they come right back, bearing these... these fantastic tales of virgin lands ready for the taking? And that everyone's who jumped into the Crater before, has somehow made it unscathed to the other side? Isn't that just a bit suspicious to you? "Doesn't surprise me," I said. "No one really knows how the Crater works. Best guess is that it'll take a few more years before the scientists get it figured out. Meanwhile, I'm just going to accept the theory that the Crater's a portal of sorts, a lifeline thrown to humanity to get the eff out of this world." "Then why's no one else ever come back, other than the Pioneers?" "Cause they're happy on the other side? Cause the Pioneers are the first official investigative expedition we've sent down, and they're the only ones with the lifelines back up here? Come on, Stephen, do I need to spell it all out for you?" "Then how come we can't get any video footage from the other side, or why is it that-" We had reached the farmhouse, and Stephen's protestations were cut off when Nash Miller, having heard our car roll up, skipped down the steps from his front door and headed in a beeline for us. I thought he was spritely for his age, and it was only when we shook hands that I noticed the fear plainly writ on his face. "I'm Stephen, and this is my associate here, Heather. We're from the Retlet Review, and we came about your news tip on the-" "What took you both so long?" Nash said, a hint of irritation in his voice. "I called the police, they just laughed at me, told me to call you instead, and assured me that you would understand the urgency of it." "I'm not sure the police meant it that way," I said. "Well, you should be taking this seriously," Nash said, as he turned and started walking. We kept up as best we could, just a couple of paces behind him. "So, uh, Mr Miller, when would you say that you saw these... trees start coming up?" "Three days ago," he said. "Me and the boys heard some godawful creaking coming from the yard, and at first we thought, maybe one of the fences came loose, started twisting in the wind. But then we went to check, and well, there, see for yourself." I saw them then. And those were the reddest trees I had ever seen in my life. A copse of them, maybe twenty, thirty of them, clustered tightly together, occupying a corner of Nash Miller's back yard. I was reminded of certain cherry or birch trees, but I had never seen any with such vibrantly-coloured bark. It was almost as if someone had painted them over. I was no tree expert, and had no authority over how fast these trees grew, but it seemed to me that they had been here for a fairly long time. I shot Stephen a look to say *are you sure we are not getting conned*, but he gamely pressed on. "And... what is so special about these trees, Mr Miller?" "I told the police, but they only asked if I had been drinking. I've learned my lesson. I'll take you to them, you make up your own mind about it." He led us closer, and then when the angle changed, the perspective shifted, that's when I saw it. The trunks of these trees were about fifteen, sixteen inches around. And on each trunk, at eye level, what I thought was merely the natural contortions of wood, the natural rhythms of growth, turned out to be much more. They were faces. One face per trunk, on each and every tree. Some faces were sullen, some appeared to be screaming, others appeared to be crying. All of them had their eyes closed. "Is this a joke?" I said, as I found my breath. "It's not funny, Mr Miller." "I swear, miss. We had nothing to do with these. Every morning, more and more of these damn trees, just... coming straight up of the damn ground." I held my hand out, ran my fingers past the bark. If they were carvings, they were etched not by human hand - they felt too real, too organic. "Heather, get your ass here. Come see this." Stephen pointed, and I followed his finger. "What does that look like to you?" he asked. "I don't... I mean, I don't know what you are-" Stephen held up his phone this time, and from force of habit I started at the top, where he had typed in the names of the Pioneers. The search results below showed the Pioneers at the first press conference, and the photographer had captured a winning shot of them, grinning back into the camera. I turned back to the trees, and this time the resemblance was unmistakable. "That's... Terry Andrews," I said. "And Maya Nurleen. Bo Tranchet. Pai Lee. And the rest are..." "Listen here, Heather," Stephen said, scrabbling for his notebook, scribbling as furiously as he could. "Take pictures of all these faces. Then run a search for every single person we know who's been down the Crater. Do a cross-check. I'm going to call the office, get them to send more people down." "Wait," I said. "Surely you can't mean that-" I lost my balance then, and would have fallen flat on my back if Nash hadn't caught me by the elbow. The sun was no longer of much aid, so I flipped on the torch on my phone, and tried to identify what I had stumbled on. It wasn't a rock. It was a root, curling out of the ground, twisting, turning, spiralling out, like a heavy sleeper rousing from bed. A skin-crawling creak filled the air, and as I turned, I saw ten, twenty more nubs like the first, scarlet red, pushing up from the soft soil. "How many people you reckon have been down that Crater, Heather?" Stephen asked, as he backed away. "Too many," I said. --- /r/rarelyfunny

Travelled at 1 year intervals to

It was shockingly easy. I didn't know exactly when the library was burned, so I Travelled at 1 year intervals to find the year when the library was burnt. Then 1 month intervals to find the month, then the day. On the fateful day, I was just another woman in the gardens outside the Great Library. Long, dark hair, brown eyes, long, silk dress, and traditional footwear. I itched to pour through the tomes, to explore, but I held back. I had a job to do. I hadn't even talked to anyone else, and in fact avoided all contact, lest I get distracted. I would accomplish my goal first, only then would I allow myself to explore. I was sitting on one of the chairs outside the library when the first explosion occurred. I saw it in the distance, towards the city. The ground shook. I stood up, in a rush, my heart racing, and took out the pistol I'd brought with me and deliberately flipped the safety off. My hands shook as I held it. I belonged in there with the books, not out here as a guard. But I couldn't let them do it, burn down the single largest physical collection of knowledge in human history. Inhale, exhale. I could do this. I *had* to do this. Another explosion. What was going on? It wasn't like they had bombs or any form of gunpowder at this point. Some men and women rushed out of the library. I almost dropped the gun in shock, but most completely ignored me. Their faces were set in grim frowns, and they headed directly towards the explosions. One, however, dressed in a gold robe stopped and frowned at me. I tried my best to look inconspicuous, staring anywhere but at him. The man opened his mouth to say something, but one of his companions called out to him, and with a last glance towards me, he ran towards the source of the explosions. I stood around awkwardly for almost an hour, just listening to explosions over the horizon. The horizon was lit up in an ominous orange glow. And then he came. I'd imagined a group of people, or perhaps an elite squad sent by the king. The plan had been to shoot them and fight them off as often as I needed. But instead it was one man. He was bleeding heavily from a gash in his forehead, and most of his clothes were burnt, in fact, he was covered in third degree burns, with half of us face almost charred. He held a single torch in his hand as he half walked, half dragged himself towards me. When he saw me, he faltered. Even thousands of years before my time I recognized what he was feeling. The drooped shoulders, the sigh of resignation. It was the reaction of a beaten man. Then his face twisted into a snarl, and without warning he charged me in an awkward run, his torch held like a club. I could've shot him, he wasn't that fast, and I had time to line up the shot, but I just...couldn't. I twisted to the side and he ran past me. I'd expected him to stop and swing at me but instead he kept running. Towards the library. Time seemed to slow. My vision turned red, and I placed my legs in the correct stance, held the gun in both hands. I sighted the man, and shot once. I'd been aiming for his head but instead the bullet hit his shoulder. The man cried out in pain and collapsed, clutching at his wound. I shot again, too quick, and the shot went wild because of the recoil. I took another breath, and before I could really think about what I was going to do, I took two steps and shot him in the head, point blank. I turned away, but instead of going to the library I vomited right there on the ground. My eyes were blurred with tears. Had I just killed someone? I knew what I'd had to do, but to do it... I needed someone, someone else. I couldn't be alone right now. So instead of going to the library, I pulled out a small round device from my dress pocket - the time machine. It scanned my retinas and I spoke - "Home." "Recognized user: Ashley Barett. Confirming Home, 2018, New York City," the machine's robotic voice said. And with a flash, I was back Home. Or so I thought. I'd expected to be back in my apartment, riddled with pieces of machinery and paper and ink. Instead, I was in some sort of grand cathedral with white, Greek style pillars, pained ceilings, and a single, simple throne. But most shocking of all was the man sitting on the throne. The same gold robe, the dark hair, the muscled arms. It was the man who I'd seen run out of the Library. We were alone in the mostly dark room. Only two torches illuminated the huge...throne room. Immediately, the man stood up. It had to be a coincidence, had to be. My mind had yet to even process the other facts, that my apartment wasn't there, or that there didn't appear to be electric lighting. I was just dumbfounded to find this man here. He dispelled any illusions I had when he spoke in accented English. "I knew I'd find you here, but I still can't believe it," he said. "Um..." I said in my infinite wisdom. "I'd searched for you, the savior of the world, *my savior,* for years. Only you could've killed the one man that got past us, the man that would've doomed us all. I Summoned the most obscure demons, but you just didn't seem to exist. You have no idea how long it took me to realize that you literally didn't exist in our world until this moment." "Um..." I said again, still processing. The man stood from his throne, and walked towards me, his smile vibrant. "I wanted to personally thank you for personally for not letting our only repository for Demon Summoning burn to the ground." *** if you enjoyed, check out

The doors closed and the entire apparatus

**[10 AUGUST 2034 AD]** The doors closed and the entire apparatus shook. A low reverberation overtook the cramped cabin and made all of us lean back in our seats to look for solace from the unknown sensation. Murphy tried to remain calm and faked a smirk - Kanji closed her eyes; Etherius smiled because he'd travelled like this before. It's probably how he got to our planet in the first place. We sat for what felt like two or three minutes. They didn't put any windows on this rig. It was probably for the best. I can't imagine what you'd see if you looked outside and saw three thousand generations wither and melt in the time it took to microwave dinner. Finally the ungodly reverb stopped and it felt as though we landed feather-light on a hard surface. We heard nothing. Felt nothing. When the doors opened, we saw the stars as we'd never seen them before. A veil of indescribable detail, interlaced through the generous band of the milky way bisecting the sky. No modern man will ever see the sky the way the ancients did. No wonder their obsession with the solstices. Ethereus did the creepy thing where you heard his true voice for a split second before the translator kicked on and overrode it with a very generic sounding Newscaster American voice. Like he was about to tell you the five day forecast. "We should move quietly. If you have any noisy electronic devices, leave them aboard. We must hide the apparatus immediately before moving towards the coast." We did just that - after we stepped out, it compressed to just a couple feet high and the width of a man hole cover. We dug a little hole and turned it sideways, burying it as best we could. Then we cut down some nearby weeds, made what looked like a makeshift mattress (complete with a period-authentic blanket) and laid it out to look like someone had been squatting and just bolted. Not my idea, but I guess it's the easiest way to make a pile of uprooted plants covering a mound look believable. We were off towards the dim lights on the horizon - the coast of the Mediterranean. The night breeze wafted in from the coast, a perfume I've never had the pleasure of experiencing. So much life in every direction. What have we done to the world in our modernity? Etherius initiated our cloaking devices and we stepped lightly while trying not to leave a trail. Our night vision allowed us to travel in the almost absolute darkness. We got to the city wall and saw that it was closed. The two guards were the only people outside of the wall this late at night. They looked as bored as modern guards look - good to see some things never change. Kanji had the minuscule darts lodged in their necks before they ever knew what happened. We sat two small drinking glasses near them and sprayed fresh red wine residue on the inside of each to make it look like the two'd just had too much to drink. Our battery packs were at 75%. The full fiberoptic cloak took a lot of juice. We were inside. It really was quite glorious and disgusting at the same time. Piles of spice next to crippled, stinking human beings. It began to sink in that in my time, they'd been dead for thousands of years. All the nubile, sensual flesh of the courtesans we passed would be long turned to dust and blown off in the Easterly winds. I mourned for the cycles of life and death for a moment before I realized that I'd bumped into an amphora and smashed it to the ground. Some of the fluid coated my fiber optics and my leg was visible. Etherius hissed "RUN" below his breath as two guards rounded the corner. If you saw a purple, disembodied leg running down the street on its own accord, I suppose you'd give chase as well. They pursued. These cultures knew no tobacco - their fitness was apparent as they gained on us. At the last second we cut off into a thin alleyway between two aged facades. They scampered by and we were off the hook. Etherius scanned the area and took us farther down this derelict passage. It smelled of death and corruption. Soon we found ourselves wading though the muck and runoff of the forefathers of us all. Batteries at 48% - we had to get there and be gone, an hour ago. We knew the odds were beginning to add up against us, but we were already in over our heads. We reached the gargantuan gates of the library, our footsteps leaving minuscule imprints on the well-trodden sands at the maw of the beast. It took a second to see through the veneer of columns and plaster, but we realized that it wasn't a library - it was ship. One of Etherius' races' cruisers, long since buried in the sands. The door opened and we heard a wretched screech. Our cloaking devices were immediately powered down, and we stood exposed among a crowd of suddenly frantic Alexandrians. A woman's great and terrible scream pierced the air as she laid sight on Etherius' tentacled face, as well as that of another of his kind. To be honest, they were ugly motherfuckers. But we were lucky they gave a damn about our species. "I thought you'd come, brother" the being said as he walked towards us. All I could smell was the wine caked on my leg and my own sweat. Kanji had her hand grasped around the dart gun. I wasn't sure if it would work on their kind. Different chemistry. "You know too much, it seems," Etherius said, with what could be interpreted as a smirk. All those extra facial appendages make it hard to ascertain meaning. He took off the small, unceremonious looking bag that he'd been carrying the entire time. Out of it he removed two handfuls of disks. The other Jhonarian's three eyes opened up a bit. "Do you know what these are? No. They are what the great Mother has sent me to give you. This ship is not meant to be here. Not in this time, nor this place. And it cannot remain," he said. Without a word, he gingerly wafted his two arms out, left before right, and the disks floated on their own accord off in each direction. They began to attach themselves to the ship at intervals until the entire hull was covered. "What do you think you're doing!? We've made real progress here! The human race can advance so quickly with the right tutelage!" the Librarian posited. "That's exactly the point," Etherius said. "Without enough time to cultivate restraint, they will destroy this planet and perhaps us." Without a word, Etherius activated some sort of grandiose override on the jammer, and we were invisible again. 17% of battery left. Kanji was at 13%. We didn't have enough time. We began a mad dash back to the ship. We threw people to each side, darting down the main thoroughfare. Kanji was tripped up by a small boy she tried to avoid. Without a thought, Etherius turned and sent a projectile that destroyed her and the two buildings beside her. He knew that we'd stop and try to help. These motherfucking Jhonarians. Then he hit the detonator for the bombs and the entire city shook to its core; one building ahead of us jerked sideways and began to fall onto our route. We had to make another costly detour. Then we realized four guards were following our footsteps and were gaining. Our camouflage was beginning to fail. We were back in the fields. The guards had an even easier time following us now as we threw handfuls of crops aside in our sprint. A great wall of fire approached us from behind. You could feel it in the ground that part of the city was collapsing into the sea. We would be swallowed by flame. Etherius pressed the activator, and the apparatus blew the top off its disguise, reeds and blankets flying in all directions as it expanded and opened its door. They slammed shut as we smacked into the side of the barrel shaped transporter and were wrenched back into the future. They're not here to help us. They're here to herd us. Who knows what great things we could have done with the information in that library. I often sit and think about what would have happened if I'd dropped down in those fields and stayed. Somehow survived the bomb. If I could have rewritten the book of history, or if they would have returned to track me down like the vermin they view us as. We must find a better way forward - free of alien interfer--%$(%)W($% **[REDACTED]** **..FILE DELETION IN PROGRESS....**

Mr Ray, our PE teacher,

*Freak.* *Retard.* I first found out I was different when I was seven. Mr Ray, our PE teacher, stood in the sun, the light perfectly accentuating his toned muscles. "Now, kids," He said, "You might've all been born with the best genes out there, but if you don't exercise properly those muscles will become smaller and weaker, and you don't want that. Today, we're gonna do chin-ups. It's easy. You just walk underneath the bar, hold your arms out like this, and pull until your chin is above the bar. Of course, you'll be using this lower bar here. Now, line up and show me what you can do." We lined up gingerly. "Richie," Mr Ray said, "One, two, three... Come on, you can do this, one more... Yes! Four. Well done." "Charlotte, come on up, don't be shy. One, two, three, four, five, six! Great job." "Emma." I walked up to the bar. I was just a bit too short and had to tip my toes to reach it. As soon as I began to pull, my arms felt like they had been injected with the world's most potent hot sauce. I could imagine the muscle fibres, burning, tearing. The sun stung sharply into my skin. "Emma, you can do this. I believe in you." Mr Ray said. I let go. "Don't give up. Try again. Come on!" Mr Ray said, "In all my years of teaching I have never seen someone fail to do a chin-up." "You don't get it. She's *special*!" Sam said, with his usual impeccable smile. Oh, how I hated that smile. Mr Ray's face fell. "Don't worry, we can assign you to the special PE class. There's nothing to be afraid of." *** Being in the special PE class meant no one would sit with you at lunch. It meant your friends wouldn't be your friends anymore. It meant Sam would find you at your weakest moment and break you further. "You're a freak just like your dad!" He had said to me at lunch, just after that dreaded PE class. A teacher overheard him. "You must never, never say that to another person. Apologize. Now." "I'm sorry." Sam said. Who could overlook his innocent smile and think he was being insincere? But I knew he wasn't. I could tell. I just knew. To be honest, I didn't understand why Mom fell for Dad back then. She came from a well-positioned family, was good looking, smart and genetically enhanced for a long life. He was a scrawny kid who wore clothes two sizes too big because it was the only size he could find, and he didn't have any modifications either. It wouldn't be until high school when I would find out. *** High school was different. Classes were sorted based on the genetic modifications you received. But they didn't know what to do with me, so they just shoved me in whatever random class they pleased. I was the girl no one wanted to deal with. But the classes all assumed prior abilities from your modifications. It was simply the norm. As a result, I was never the model student in class, always catching up. I dreaded the day when grades would come out. No, not because of Mom, who'd been too depressed to care ever since Dad died, ironically, from cancer caused by one of his genes that could've been modified when he was born. No, I feared the day because of Sam. *** It came anyway. "I didn't know how someone can be ugly and dumb at the same time. You really *are* special." Sam said. His gang all laughed at his joke. It was a weak joke and they knew it. They just needed someone to laugh at. "You know, your dad deserved to die. It's called *evolution*. Look it up, if you could even understand it." His friend erupted in laughter again. Too far. Way too far. My hands forming a fist, reaching out. Sam jumped back. He was too fast and his reaction time unhuman, thanks to his modifications. "So you wanna fight, huh? Come at me. Come on." He said, knowing I wasn't as strong as him. My mind raced. *I'd never win against him in a fair fight, I know that. What should I do? What would he do? He would come charging straight at me, wouldn't he? Yes. That's what he'd do. And he wouldn't look down either, no, he wouldn't.* I tensed, sticking out my foot at the right moment as Sam fell to the ground. What I didn't expect was how quickly he'd get up. *** On that night I walked home covered in purple bruises. As I opened the door I saw my mom's mouth open. "My God, what happened to you? I... I..." "Mom, why did you choose Dad? Why not anyone else?" "Oh, I told him this day would come. I told him and he told me to show you something. Come." She led me upstairs to her room. "Here." She handed me an article. Printed, marked with small letters on the margins. Dad's handwriting. A passage was highlighted in yellow. > Without a doubt, genetic editing had done a great service to mankind. However, it is not without its downsides. First and foremost, we possess the technology necessary to enhance certain traits by a large degree. While this helps to cement the trait, it also interferes with the person's natural development, as the trait is too concrete in his or her genetic code for the individual to go against it, making the individual extremely predictable. Secondly, it is understood that the genetic code does not work on a basis of traits. Changing one trait may result in another trait being inadvertently changed in the process, leading to side effects to every modification known to man... I saw my mother wipe away at a tear. "It's okay." I said. "I'm okay." *** It had been a while since Sam had pestered me. He seemed to have a lot more respect after I tripped him. No, not respect, but fear. At lunch, I sat alone, researching genetic modifications on my tablet. It was fascinating. I've been researching for the last twelve days and I was still learning new things. Me being silent seemed to trick Sam into a sense of security. I heard those familiar footsteps, saw that familiar smile. "Hey ugly, how's it going?" He said, snatching my tablet away. "Oh, look guys, it looks like she wants to be pretty! Well, guess what, too bad." He showed his friends as they laughed. I was laughing too, on the inside. Because I could guess the modifications he received. And out of those, I knew he had three important modifications: IN-2, which causes a lack of awareness of the surrounding environment, CH-7, which reduces critical thinking, and ST-5, which causes a person to follow instructions blindly. He wouldn't be laughing after he suddenly finds himself having walked into the principal's office.

Nobody knew who fired the first shots

It was a curious solution and nobody expected it to be as easy as it was. Fifty years of isolation. Nobody knew who fired the first shots. Some said it was the Chinese, some said it was the North Koreans, others said it was the Americans. In the end, it really didn't matter, because everyone ended up involved in some way. We were all guilty and shared the same sins. But for all the doomsaying about the 'end of the world', things actually weren't that bad... well, compared to how bad it could've been. Twentieth century novels convinced us that World War III would result in a blasted hellscape, billions dead, nothing left standing. Perhaps in our darkest moments, we still retained a shred of humanity. Or perhaps we learned from the terrible brand of warfare waged in the 40s. Rather than missiles striking innocent population centers, surgical strikes and tactical nuclear weapons simply devastated infrastructure and military targets. Hundreds of millions had still perished - collateral damage, fallout, famine and disease - but the worst hadn't happened. Eiffel Tower and Saint Basil's Cathedral were still standing. In a rather striking twist of irony, by waging World War III, we had destroyed mostly just the tools we would need to wage World War IV. After that came the 'Grand Plan'. Fifty years of isolation. Everyone expected us to resist the plan the most, and were surprised when, after a national referendum, we ended up being the most eager. Walls went up. Trade routes gradually eased and then stopped altogether. The doors were shut. And for fifty years, we prospered. We had lost many of the cheap luxuries we had grown accustomed to, but agriculture surged as, lacking imported crops, we razed thousands of hectares of corn to grow our own. Oil deposits were uncapped. Unemployment dropped to less than 1% as millions of lost jobs suddenly came in high demand. It was a simple life, but we were happy. Americana had returned. Fifty years passed in an eyeblink and the great reunification would begin. All the nations of the world to meet and share what they had learned. It wasn't going to be easy, of course - the war had destroyed nearly every satellite. We would need to seek out people to communicate with manually. Our first attempt at contact was to head north to our oldest allies. Canada had been one of the most apprehensive countries with regards to the isolation, and actually considered joining America in joint isolation, but the United Nations council soundly rejected the notion. As our diplomatic convoys crossed the border and entered Toronto, they were shocked by what they found. Hunger. Disease. Poverty. The once great city was decaying and largely vacant. Similar reports came from Montreal and Ottawa. Upon contacting the Canadian government, the truth came out. It was a ruse. A great big ruse. The world, convinced that America had been, at best, indirectly responsible for the war, had collectively agreed to formulate fake isolation plans, and leave us in the dark. The plan was to bring the world and humanity as a whole into a bright and shining future. The results were... less than satisfactory. If the world had advanced to prosperity, it certainly didn't show in Canada. Having lost their largest trading partner, Canada found themselves out of the global market. Asia had no use for Canadian manufacturing, and Eastern Europe had filled demand to Europe. Canada began to market their oil reserves, but shortly after the walls went up, the United Nations declared a global moratorium on fossil fuels to allow the earth to heal. Canada was, almost literally, left out in the cold, and had suffered greatly. However, as bad as the situation in Canada was, it wouldn't compare to what we found to the south. We sent diplomatic teams south just as we did north... teams that were never heard of again. Crossing the border, they initially reported that little appeared different from before the war - there was running water, power, though it bore all the hallmarks of a relatively poor country. But as they would near Mexico City, they were just go dark. We weren't sure what we were going to do. We didn't want our first reconnection with the world to involve military force, invading a country to find our teams. Then, weeks after the first team had gone dark, we learned something new. On the side of a road in south Texas, in a van, lay one of our ambassadors - beaten, bloodied, and mutilated. Along with him were the heads of the two dozen men and women who escorted him. The ambassador had been returned with a message and shared with us what he had learned. It seemed that while Mexico had taken a few licks during the great war, that story was not true for South America. In fact, they survived the war almost completely untouched. Lacking global strike capabilities, they were largely ignored by the warring parties. The starry-eyed isolation plan was largely a European one, and the plan simply seemed to exclude the entire western hemisphere. Why bother with South America? They had little to offer the world, and they were too far and isolated. In fact, they even went as far as to congratulate themselves for 'freeing' South America of American influence and corruption. With Mexico's government weakened, it left the country primed for the largest military force in the region to take over - the cartels. Mexico had become a narco-state. Without any threat from government forces - American or otherwise - the cartels expanded influence worldwide, filling the economic hole left by America's absence with a global drug ring. South of Panama, without the 'interference' of America - as the isolation planners would put it - South America was free to pursue its own destiny, a destiny that seemed to largely revolve around fifty years of civil wars and military coups. Over the coming months, we learned much from Europe, Africa, and Asia, and replaced the wonder we held in our hearts with cynicism and anger and disgust. Instead of the utopia that had been envisioned, there was nothing more than endless war. While North Korea had fallen in World War III, China now occupied the Korean penninsula. Most of Eastern Europe had fallen to Russia. Africa was... well it was still Africa. In Europe the situation was little improved. The European Union had combined into the United European States, headed by Germany and France. The United Kingdom had undergone its own degree of voluntary isolationism, withdrawing further into itself. It attempted to reunify the commonwealth, but Chinese control of the South Pacific left Australia and New Zealand subject to absolute trade embargoes. To the north, Scandinavia had suffered immensely. Without oil and the american economy to sell their investments, Norway had gone from one of the most prosperous nations to a state whose crippling debts had to be underwritten every year by the rest of the UES. Threats from Russia had pushed Finland into a military state, and tensions were high that invasion could occur any day. Pushing for hardline social reform, tolerance, and acceptance, refugees from the war-torn North Africa and Southwest Asia flooded by the millions into Europe. Cries to even attempt to slow the flow were ignored as the mewling complaints of the bigoted. Before long, the population outpaced the capability to feed and employ people, and the dream of prosperity, where no man had to want for anything, had waned into a slow, cold recession that had lasted for nearly four decades. Hundreds of square miles of cheap, filthy government tenaments were erected ringing the major cities. Everywhere we had gone, we found that over and over, that good intentions mean nothing without the wilpower to see them out. Our envoys were given a cold reception and simply told to leave. "America wasn't wanted anymore", they insisted. And so we returned home. And then we rebuilt the walls. Maybe the world needed fifty more years.

Forgotten gods stopped praying at some

It's a small hut, nothing fantastic but...well...forgotten gods take what they can get, you know what I mean? They stopped praying at some point, gave it up for other things. For "better" things so I was relegated to the back burner of history, one or two followers and mostly as a joke. Martin though, he's nuts but he's a real believer. I like Martin but this isn't about him. He's locked away in some place getting "treatment" because he believes in gods. If only they knew. Well this farmer builds a temple, fills it with some candles and the things you'd expect. Mostly as a joke but he builds it. Maybe six feet by six feet, a temple slash shed we might call it. He puts the items on a pedestal and leaves the shrine to do the thing, the summoning of a god. I think it was mostly a joke. Problem was it wasn't a joke to me. To me it was real. So I went. I answered the call. I had to wait for him to come back. I was trapped in the temple slash shed for a good three hours just standing there, sitting cross-legged, tapping my foot, drumming on the pedestal, all the things a god might do to kill time. Until he came back. "What the hell are you doing in here!?" he shouted at me, which was very offensive and confusing since...you know he asked me here. I told him as much and he laughed, told me to get lost. Even more offensive. "I can't leave without completing your request," I tell him, which is true...also I'm a bit lonely, "you asked and here I am. What do you want?" "I want rain for my crops and my family to be happy but you're some lunatic that's broken into my property!" He yells at me, getting angry. I stare at him and he comes at me with a thick, calloused finger until he hears rain hitting the roof of the temple slash shed. "Lucky timing," he says, narrowing his eyes. I roll mine and stand from the cross-legged position on the floor. "Yeah, sure. Let's see about a happy family. A big request but hey, I've got nothing but time. Not exactly a line of people coming to worship Geb, who the hell even knows who Geb is? No one. You just got lucky." "What?" he's confused, so I point to the crude pedestal with the flattened goose and barley. He'd thrown the goose on because it'd been hit by a car and sat out for too long to be good to eat and the barley...well he just had an abundance of that. "You summoned me. Now will you let me help?" He looks out the temple slash shed door into the rain and shrugs, deciding it can't hurt to let a strange man that has randomly appeared help him out. Things must truly be desperate. Excellent. Well hey, like I said. I've got nothing but time. ***** He's got a nice little family, pleasant wife and a handful of rats that he calls his "kids". "Are you really a god?" one of them asks me, tugging at my sleeve. I cup my hands and a flower blooms from nothing, a bright purple set of petals. I offer it to her and she takes it gently, carrying it away into another room gleefully. I smile. Cute rat. It's a small but cozy house and I don't see much that needs changing. The man's wife sets a bowl of steaming food in front of me and I dig in with my hands. They look shocked but I don't really care, I don't trust those metal things they eat with. Seems weird. There's some fowl in this goopy mix and I hope that it's not the goose from the temple slash shed, that would be gross. I gulp it down and look to the farmer who is staring at me. So is his wife. "What?" I say, dribbling some of the mix down my chin. "A god?" I roll my eyes at them both. "Yes, a god. All powerful being. You know, master of the earth and skies, lording over the dirt. That sort of thing? Gods. Making all your dreams come true. Or your nightmares, I guess it depends on the god. Phobetor is a bit of a dick like that, constantly sneaking in and making grinning doctor pandas that threaten to eat your face or something. Weird guy. Don't much like him." They seem to be taking this well, listening to the rain as it soaks the fields just like he had asked for. "A god?" I lean back in their little chair and wait for it to sink in. "Yes. A god." "Alright," the farmer shrugs and leans on his elbows, looking me in the eyes which causes me to lean further back, it's disconcerting. "What can you do?" "First," I hold up a finger, "I'm not a genie. I don't just go around, willy-nilly granting things to you. You built a...temple, we'll pretend, and I granted you rain. You asked for happiness, I don't know what makes you happy but you know, I'm willing to give it a go. Mostly because I'm incredibly bored but also because there's a mutual relationship that comes with these things. Since you're the only ones in my corner...well the benefit will tend to be towards you." "So...we help you and you help us?" "Sure, let's go real simple. Yes." They look at each other and then to me. "Uh, how do we help a god?" We stare at each other for a while and I remember the drink of the people from all those ages ago. "Got any beer?" The farmer smiles at me. It's creepy. I wish he'd stop. "Yeah, that we can do." ***** I had no idea how much these farmers liked beer. As a god you are gifted with a stomach of steel and a capacity for things that mortals cannot grasp. After helping with the harvest in the community (which I had now somehow become a benefactor to and of), they held a massive celebration in a barn. It's like the temple slash shed but much larger. There was music and dancing and beer. Oh was there beer. I woke up the next morning with little memory of the night before, laying in a pile of straw. It was wet straw and I was too scared to find out what the wet had come from so I pretended it was water. Probably for the best. I forgot about the world that had forgotten me for a time as these people became...friends? Can mortals and gods be friends? Perhaps, we never tried it before. We had stories and jokes that only we understood, we worked hard in the sun and when it was time I would bring rain or deepen the roots of the earth so that it was richer, more bountiful. One day I woke up in the area they had set aside for me and I knew. We all did. I heard the laughter from the kitchen and it was different than it had been before. I could feel that the others were jealous, there are so many others. They felt it unfair that I had been summoned. And honestly I don't blame them. In terms of ranking, I'm somewhere between a nobody and a nothing. Just bad luck for them and great luck for me. So it wasn't a bad time to take my leave of them, I had done the thing for this man and his family that he has asked for...and then some. I sat with them and we didn't acknowledge it, mortals get so sentimental on these things. Just before I left their home the rat tugged on my sleeve again. I looked to her and she held up a bright purple flower for me. I took it from her. "Thank you, rat." She made a face, pushing out her top teeth at me as had become our joke. Like a rat. The temple slash shed hadn't changed a bit since that first day, except the goose was gone. Thank goodness. It would be so rotten by now. No god wants rotten things. If they do you don't want them. The farmer was there, happier and not yelling at me this time. It's an improvement to say the least. "So long," he says. "Good riddance," I reply. We laugh. It's funny to us. I will miss this man and his rat children and pleasant wife. I liked them. I'll never tell them that though. Gods do not feel these things. Before I am gone I look around the temple slash shed and I think to myself that I could have asked for no better place of worship. Unencumbered by gold or thousands of prayers like the old days, just...simple. "Thanks." It is the last thing he says before I am gone. "How was your trip?" the others ask me and I tell them the standard response. Mortals, you know? Always asking and never much good for anything aside from that! We all laugh. It's funny. I am funny. They all crave to hear about the world but none of them want to hear the truth. The truth is we're needed more than ever but believed in less than ever. That's how it is. I don't tell them that. Anything but that. Instead I place the purple flower between the pages of a book I've been reading again and again for millennia. It's a good book. Has to be, right? I close the book.

The farmer had fashioned the crude wooden

The last of the wooden planks was hammered into place as the farmer dabbed at his brow with the rags hanging from his neck. It was hardly what one could call a temple. The farmer had fashioned the crude wooden shrine himself, carving and hammering the planks and poles with as much care as he could muster. Still, it looked unimpressive. The edges jutted out awkwardly, the pillars were uneven, and it had no fanciful decorations that one might expect at a proper shrine or temple. No garland of flowers hung from the flat roof of the shrine, no incense smoke trailed into the sky, and no prayers or prophecies were chanted. Most conspicuously, the spot where the idol of the god would sit- in the centre of the shrine- was empty. If this was a temple, it provided no clue as to which god it was meant for. And yet the farmer was content, eager even. He had left the shrine unfurnished on purpose. Each temple or shrine was a home for a god, a resting place for the otherworldly, powerful beings that governed the laws of nature and weaved human fates with their fingertips. It was said that those who built these sanctuaries would receive a blessing from whichever god decided to take up residence there. Now, the farmer simply hoped that there would be a deity willing to possess the modest temple that he'd created. As he ambled off to sleep, he prayed for a suitable god or goddess- Demeter, maybe- to bless him, with bountiful harvests for the rest of his days. The next day, he gingerly placed a bowl of rice in front of the shrine and knelt down. Unsure of what else to do, he mumbled "Gods or goddesses that be, please accept this humble sacrifice," and waited. A moment passed. He chuckled to himself. Of course, no god would be willing to resign themselves to such a shabby place of worship. He'd long been prepared for that outcome. He began to rise to his feet. Then he heard it. He had to strain to make it out, but it sounded like someone was speaking to him. A faint voice, coming from the rickety wooden altar that he'd fashioned. The voice was quiet, and sounded almost weak. "Child," it said, "Thank you for the offering. I'm afraid I can't do much for you now, but come back tomorrow. Perhaps then, I might be able to reward you." The farmer's eyes opened wide, as the burly, middle-aged man almost fell over from surprise. He'd never spoken to a god before. And yet, it was different from what he'd expected. Weren't the gods meant to be mighty? Powerful? Then what was this tinny voice coming from the shrine? He pushed the invasive thoughts out of his mind. A god was a god, and it was best not to think disrespectful thoughts in front of them. He bowed deeply, and vowed to bring a better offering the next morning. This time, there was a bowl of rice, accompanied by a dish of meat and a glass of wine. "Gods or goddesses that be," he repeated, "Please accept this humble sacrifice." The voice that echoed out from the shrine was clearer than the day before, and the farmer could now ascertain that it sounded female. A goddess? "Thank you, child. It has been a long, long time since I have received an offering, and I was forced into hibernation until you sacrificed to me. I can't seem to remember who I am; but I remember another goddess who once asked me a favour. Her name was... Demeter? I am sorry child, if you don't mind coming back tomorrow, perhaps I will have regained enough strength to remember by identity." Excitement thrilled through the farmer's veins. A goddess related to Demeter? Perhaps his simple wish really would come true, and he'd see bountiful harvests for the rest of his days. He quelled his exhilaration, and waited patiently for the next morning. As usual, he left the sacrifice in front of the altar, and knelt down. The voice manifested once again, this time even clearer than before. "Child, I have remembered," she spoke. It was good news. *"Yet she does not sound happy,"* the farmer thought to himself silently. The goddess's voice was quavering slightly. Rage? No, nothing like that. The goddess sounded melancholic, almost, as if she had recalled something she would much rather have forgotten. "My name is Limos," she said. "Child, thank you for the offerings. But I must go now." "Why?" the farmer cried, "Oh but goddess, you've barely arrived! Stay a while, at least, and won't you let my crops grow well? I won't ask for a lifetime of bountiful harvest, but would you at least help me this season?" Though he could not see her, the farmer felt the goddess shake her head, almost imperceptibly. And then, she was gone. Even when he brought the offerings the next morning, and the days after that, Limos never returned. ***** Limos faded away from the shrine, cutting away her attachment from the temple that the man had built. She shut her eyes, and prepared to sleep again. This time, she didn't know when she would wake up. The faintest tear trickled down her face before dissipating into a hazy light. She had been so happy when a mortal had called her, worshiped her, given her offerings. It had been so long, after all. But then she'd remembered who she was, *what* she was. Limos, goddess of starvation and pestilence. Looking at the pure-hearted, simple farmer who brought her offerings every morning, she knew that she could not stay. That was her fate: she would only ever bring disaster to those who called her. She would be spurned, hated, cursed, and ultimately- forgotten. As her consciousness faded away, she saw the faint image of a man kneeling in front of a clumsy, wooden shrine, food and wine in his outstretched hands. ***** *I write a story a day * *more stories at /r/chasing_mist*

Jessie struggled against the chains, her

Jessie struggled against the chains, her naked body cold with sweat, her eyes burning in feverish despair. The blindfold was soaked in her tears. She heard them chant darkly around her. She had seen the knife, the chalice, the circle of candles, and the pentagram on the floor. She tried to scream but the foul-tasting gag muffled her. Only this morning she had prepared herself for her first day of high school. She was ready to meet her new classmates - ready, but nervous. She had heard the van drive up behind her. She remembered thinking nothing of it. And then it was just blackness. She gasped as she felt cold steel run down her thigh, and then the sting. Wet heat seeped down her skin. "Oh, Dark One!" A deep voice said in maniacal ecstasy. "We offer you the blood of this virgin! Step forth! Join us on this mortal plane. Take your throne! The world is yours." At first, there was nothing, but then the room shook. Jessie could smell the mortar dust sailing down from the ceiling. Her stomach felt like she was on a roller coaster. Strange smells filled her nostrils. Charcoal, rotten eggs, and melting iron. Then there was heat. '*Open your eyes,*' a voice whispered in the back of her mind. Jessie took a deep breath. She could feel the heat on her lips and in her throat. She was no longer gagged. She sat up and opened her eyes. The landscape before her was a waste of ashes and darkened mountains. Like the neon signs of an amusement park, rivers of flowing lava lit up the night. What the hell... '*That's right. That's exactly it.*' Jessie shook her head trying to rid herself of the strange whispers, and at the same time make sense of her surroundings. The ground beneath her rumbled. In the far distance, a red flower bloomed over a mountain, and then the rock started bleeding. "Where am I?" she said, despite herself. Her voice was twisted and dark and sent a shiver down her own spine. It wasn't her voice. '*You're in Hell, baby.*' "Who are you? Am I dead?" The voice let out a hushed chuckle. '*Listen, girl. Allow me to take your soul, and I'll put you right back in your world.*' Jessie thought about her parents and her little sister; she did want to see them again. This place was dead; there was nothing for her here. Still, the room with the crazed cultists flickered in her mind. She had been so scared. She didn't want to go back to that. '*What are you going to do, huh?*' the whispering voice said. '*There's nothing for you here.*' "How do I know that?" Jessie growled, trying to stay unfazed by her dark voice. "I've only just got here." '*You can trust me, I've been here for a very long time. There's nothing but brimstone and suffering here.*' "Are you Lucifer?" The voice laughed in the back of her mind but didn't respond. Jessie looked at her hand. It was covered in red scales with claws sprouting from her fingertips. Carefully, she touched her face. Her nose had a strange shape, almost like a snout, and when she moved her head around it felt heavy. "You're not getting my soul until you tell me what's going on." '*That little cult tried to summon me - it happens. But they were clever this time, very...* **specific** *about what I could and couldn't do. I was supposed to be bound to your mortal form... they wanted power over me. They were clever. I'll give them that. But there is always a loophole. I reversed the ritual, and now you're here. You possess me.*' "I possess you?" '*Yes, quite ironic isn't it? I kind of enjoy having you in there though... it's refreshing. But I like I said, I can send you back... at the cost of your soul, of course.*' "Nope." The voice snorted. '*What do you mean, 'nope?'*' "I lied. You're not getting my soul." Jessie took a few steps. Her feet were massive hooves and the ground puffed ash. She left a trail of burning hoof prints in her wake. '*I like you.*' The voice carried a combination of anger and stark amusement. "I don't care," Jessie said and tried out the massive wings on her back. She wanted to get back home, but maybe she could enjoy herself for a while first. She'd always wanted to fly. '*The only way back... is you giving me your soul.*' "I don't know. If you got in here somehow, there has to be a way out." Now the voice went into full-blown laughter. "What? It's only logical." '*There is a way out. I'll show it to you.*' "And what, the price is my freaking soul?" '*Oh no, this one is on the house. Maybe then you'll better grasp the concept of eternal damnation.*' "Whatever. Just tell me where it is," Jessie said and rolled her eyes. '*Follow the stream.*' "Which one?" '*Any. They all lead to the same place.*' *** Jessie stomped along the dead plains, following a smoldering river. She tried to fly a few times, but her lack of coordination made her crash. She'd always been a bit clumsy, and piloting this body was much harder than her own. Finally, she reached the foot of a massive volcano. Lava boiled down its sides, spreading into a burning spider web over the strange landscape. She took a deep breath and tried to control her limbs. Arms. Legs. Tail. Wings. Lots of things to keep track of. Kind of like operating one of her dad's excavators. Her massive thighs strained, and she somehow managed to push herself off the ground, catching herself with the big wings. She flapped them desperately, and somehow she rose. '*Not bad,*' the voice said. After a bit of a struggle, she managed to gain some sort of control. The massive body drifted through the air. Jessie felt her mouth twist into a toothy grin. But as much as she enjoyed the tingly sensation in the pit of her scaly stomach, she wanted to get back home. Landing on the rim of the volcano's top was far from easy. She crashed inelegantly into a heap. She'd have to practice that. The interior of the mountain was a massive red lake. '*This is where we put some of the sinners,*' the voice said and chuckled. '*Swim across, Little Soul, swim across! They never make it very far.*' Jessie noticed tiny black dots right below her. They were all people, screaming and trying to claw their way out. "So, how do I get out?" Jessie said, trying to keep her voice steady. '*At the middle.*' She wasn't super excited about flying over an open lake of lava, but she still jumped into the air. It went better this time. Gliding across the screaming billions, she saw a dark shape jutting out of all the red, like a small leaf floating in a bowl of tomato soup. A man sat cross-legged and naked on the steaming rock. "Hey, who are you?" Jessie said, landing with a thud, "and how do I get out of here?" The man lifted his graying head. His eyes were clogged with ashes, and his lips black and chapped. For a moment, he appeared scared, but then he tilted his head to the side. "You're... new," he muttered. "Have you come to torture me?" "No, I want to leave! Which way is out?" "Are you sure?" "Yes!" "Okay..." The man spread his filthy fingers into a claw, and grated them over the sharp rocks, cringing from the pain. A trail of bubbling blood soon formed a circle on the ground. The man shook his head. "Just step into the circle," he mumbled. Jessie was about to do as she was told, but then a thought struck her. This poor man didn't deserve to suffer here after being so helpful. She was going to bring him along. And with a flick of her massive wrist, she snatched him up. He let out a shrill scream of horror, kicking and wriggling to get free. "Let's go home," she said and stepped into the glowing circle. She felt the air pulsating around her, and a strange pressure pushed on her shoulders. '*I lied too,*' the voice inside her head said and laughed. '*There's only down from here.*' *** r/Lilwa_Dexel

Jay pulled a hurricane glass over to

Slow jazz music played in the background as the ice cubes clinked into the scotch glass. Turning around and pulling a bottle from the shelf, he uncapped the bottle of amber liquid and poured with a practiced flourish. Jay slid the glass over to the man in the pinstripe two-piece suit, speaking in his soft baritone voice. "Knob Creek, on the rocks." Asmodeus nodded appreciatively, tucking his long silver hair behind his ears as he reached for the glass with a pale, slender hand. The copper bell that hung above the old wooden door rang as another customer strolled into the bar. Pulling off her shawl and her wide-rimmed pointed hat, she hung them on the coat stand before striding up to the bar counter. Her thin wrist twitched slightly, and the stool next to Asmodeus floated effortlessly through the air as she glided over to it. Taking a seat, she turned to Jay. "The usual, please," she spoke, her voice clear and calm, a natural trait after years of chanting incantations. Jay pulled a hurricane glass from the shelf and began mixing her drink. She nodded towards Asmodeus as a way of greeting. He put the glass down, the ice rattling against the walls of the scotch glass. His voice was enchantingly silky. "Evening, Witch. Didn't expect to see you here so soon. I assume the gardens fare well?" "Well enough for me to take a break," she said, laughing lightly. "The mandrakes haven't started screaming yet, so I'm here before things *really* get chaotic." Asmodeus' thin lips curled into a smile. "Thank you in advance. I'm sure I'll end up buying from you this harvest. Hell can't grow alchemic herbs like the Gardens of Lieze can." The Witch nodded appreciatively, the shimmering silver cocktail floating off the bar counter in front of her. A moment later, the door was flung open, a wave of heat sweeping through the bar. The atmosphere was suffocating, and a bead of sweat dripped down Asmodeus' face. The Witch and the Archdevil both frowned slightly, but before they could raise their voices, Jay looked up from the glass he was polishing, and stared straight at the door. "Balrog, what have I said about your form when you enter the bar?" he said quietly, his deep voice calm and even. The vague sound of a sigh came from the monstrous, flaming silhouette that was too big to fit through the door. "God dammit," it swore. "Sorry Jay, I keep forgetting. Too used to the other one, y'know?" The shadowy mass of billowing flames condensed into a bulky, broad-chested man dressed in a maroon blazer and jet-black pants. He swaggered up to the bar counter, pulling a stool out before hopping on adroitly, in spite of his huge frame. "I'll have one of those fruit beers, Jay," he said, plonking his large arms down onto the bar counter. A few moments later, a champagne flute filled to the brim with a pink, bubbly liquid was set in front of him. He sipped at it, and smacked his lips in satisfaction. "Strawberry. You always have good stuff, don't you Jay?" The bartender shrugged and smiled. "Can't attract good customers without good alcohol, can you?" Balrog let out a hearty laugh and roared in agreement, attracting glares from Asmodeus and the Witch. He blinked in surprise. "Hey, didn't see the two of you there!" he said, laughing boisterously as he reached out to slap Asmodeus on the back. The shadows around Asmodeus coalesced and became solid, blocking the Balrog's massive palm from making contact. "I appreciate the sentiment, Balrog, but please, try not to break my bones. And would it kill you to have a little situational awareness?" Asmodeus said, his tone frosty. The Witch nodded quietly in agreement. Balrog chuckled apologetically at his two companions, and went back to nursing his drink. For a moment, all was peaceful in the Blue Moon. Jay slid his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. "Sorry, I've got to take this one. Be back in a moment," he said, before disappearing out of the back door. Five minutes later, he walked back in, his face ashen. "I'm sorry, but I'm closing for the night," he said, his voice quavering slightly. "Did something happen, Jay?" the Witch asked, setting down her now-empty glass onto the bar counter. "None of us mind leaving, I'm sure, but if it's something we can help with..." Her voice trailed off as she turned to glance at Balrog and Asmodeus. The two men nodded in assent. "No other bar's gonna let me in, Jay," Balrog whined. "If it'll stop you from closing, I'll do anything!" Asmodeus sipped the last of his drink, gently placing his glass onto the mahogany counter. "Hell doesn't have any bars quite like this one. Where else am I going to get a decent glass of whisky from?" he said, his voice smooth and soothing. The Witch smiled encouragingly at the bartender. Jay stood there for a moment, unsure of how to react. It *was* a problem that they could help solve, but would it be right? He gritted his teeth. These were his regulars. They'd been in and out of his bar for years now, and he knew all of them by name, knew where they lived- even if he had no idea where *exactly* the Second Circle of Hell was- and knew of their triumphs and troubles. Even if it was with supernatural beings, friendship *was* friendship. He sighed, and leaned against the bar counter. "They took my daughter, Ashley. Terrorists. Kidnapped her and took her hostage, along with an entire bus full of other kids on their way back from a camp. The police just called, they're asking for a ransom from the government, but I don't know whether they'll pay up. Is there anything you can do?" he asked, pleadingly, the words flowing from his mouth despite his usual reserved nature. "Bastards," Balrog spat emphatically, and began to stride out the door. "We'll take care of the curs and bring back your daughter," Asmodeus placated, before turning to the Witch. "Can you cast a tracking spell?" he asked her. The Witch conjured a pipe from thin air, puffing on it once. The smoke trailed through the air before forming an arrow. "Let's go," she said, before the three of them vanished in a flash of bright, white light. Not fifteen minutes later, the trio returned to the bar, the Witch carrying a girl with long, brown hair in her arms. As they stepped towards the bar, the girl jumped out of the Witch's arms and bounded up the stairs that led to the Blue Moon. "Daddy!" she cried out, leaping into Jay's open arms as he pulled her into a tight hug. "Were you scared?" Jay asked her. "No, Daddy, you always told me that you'd protect me, so I wasn't scared!" she said, beaming at Jay. "But Daddy, who are the pretty lady and the two men? Your customers?" she asked, inquisitively. "Ashley, I think it's time you met my friends," Jay said, looking up at the three smiling figures standing in front of him.

A terrifying assortment of gruesome creatures poured

The first flecks of dawn's light trickled into the fancy high-rise bar. All was quiet except for the subtle squeaking of glasses being cleaned by the young woman behind the counter. She worked mechanically, with no life in her movements. She didn't even flinch as the rear door slammed open and noise flooded the room. A terrifying assortment of gruesome creatures poured into the bar from the door as though through the gates of hell itself accompanied by a cacophony of growls, hisses, and moans that one could almost mistake as laughter. A towering figure with twisting horns and cruel claws approached the counter first, gingerly taking a seat and smiling at the woman with a mouth of wickedly pointed teeth. "Mornin' Mary! We had a great night, a round for everyone on me!" the monster proclaimed to cheers from his comrades. "Coming right up Blue," Mary said quietly, moving to fill the order without a hint of fear, or any other emotion for that matter. Blue's smile faltered as he looked at her curiously, noticing the tear streaks leading from her dead brown eyes. "Hey hey," Blue said, his voice now as gentle as it could be with its rumbling timbre. "There's something eating you girl. What's wrong? Can we help?" The bar quieted as the others began noticing her distress. It seemed for a moment that she would remain quiet, but soon she opened up, her voice quivering. "I-I... It's my kids. Some people took them. They're demanding a ten million dollar ransom delivered to them somewhere in that old abandoned neighborhood down Hollis St within a day if I ever want to see my kids again. They said they'd disappear if they saw even a hint of the police. My husband is out trying to see if we can even get a loan that big. We don't even have anything close to that kind of money! Why me? What can I do!?" Mary had thought herself cried out, but found new tears forming as she let it out. The shocking assortment of creatures looked at one another in shock, each wondering who could be so cruel. Blue leaned over the counter and grabbed Mary in a bear hug that she melted into eagerly. After a moment he released her, leaning back with a dangerous gleam in his eyes. "Fella's, looks like that drink will have to wait, we've got overtime to do." Blue said as he began stomping towards the door they had entered through. Mary looked after him in surprise, "what are you going to do?" He paused, looking back at her with a gentle fierceness, "what we do best. Find those kids." ---------- Lance leaned against the wall of the shabby house twirling a butterfly knife with boredom. He glanced over at the two kids tied in the corner, reassuring himself they were still here. By the terror on their faces, he could tell they shouldn't be a problem, but he really needed this to go smoothly. Hopefully the woman wouldn't do anything stupid like bring in the police, then they'd never have their payday, and he might have to deal with those kids which would be unpleasant. One of the other five, Nash, looked up at him nervously, "Lance, are you sure she's good for it? This is an awful risk. What if she has mob connections?" Lance rolled his eyes at the younger man. "Of course she is idiot. That bar of hers is fancy as hell, but it's practically never open, it's definitely a front for something. Plus, she's way too squeaky clean to be with the mob. No, this is some white collar shady business. That kind of money is probably pocket change to her. We'll get our payout and disappear to some quiet island somewhere, just chill out." Nash shifted nervously, "if you say so. Something about all this just gives me a bad feeling." "Oh so you're a jedi now? Shut it and keep watch, this will be over soon," Lance snapped at him. He glanced back at the kids and saw them still where he'd left them. Had that closet door been cracked before? Probably, maybe he was a little jumpy after all. He grinned to himself. With the creaking of this old building he could almost imagine they were footsteps behind him and that those shadows in the corners were alive. He squinted. Hold on, did that shadow just move? Before he could take another breath, the room exploded into motion around him. He saw shadows move for sure this time. Scales, claws, tentacles, feathers, slime, fur, horns, and teeth were all in a sudden whirlwind about him as he was hit from multiple angles at once. In an instant he was on his back in tremendous pain and with the breath knocked out of him. Leaning over him was a terrifying visage of twisted horns, wicked teeth, and blue fur leering at him with eyes in which he could see his death reflected. He tried to let out what would have been the most primal scream of terror of his life, but there was no air in his lungs to release. The figure spoke in a quiet growl that sent shivers down Lance's spine. "You are lucky we don't kill anyone these days, but if you ever think of hurting a child again, I'll make an exception for you. We can find you no matter where you run. Nowhere is safe from us." Lance thought he could hear sirens in the distance and his head fell to the side as he began to lose consciousness from terror, shock, and lack of air. The last thing he saw was the kids, now unbound, hugging a huge green eyeball. ----------- Mary looked up from the bar to twin shrieks of joy proclaiming, "Mommy!!" She embraced her children fiercely as they ran to her, tears of relief and joy spilling down her cheeks, for the moment paying no heed to the menagerie of monsters filing in from the broom closet. After a while Mary stood and beckoned to Blue, "come here you big lug." The two shared an embrace and Mary whispered to him, "thanks Kitty." "Anything for you Boo," He said warmly. She stepped back and smiled at the gathered crowd, then walked around behind the bar again. "Thank you all so much. Order up, Monsters Inc drinks free today!"

The fifth looked around around the

"Wait. We're going in there?" asked the fifth. The others laughed. "That's the place!" "But we can't! It's not... I mean, it's not even night yet!" "But if we wait that long, we'll miss happy hour. Harry's got a really good happy-hour selection too. Good deals. You'll like it." "It's too populated. We should keep moving." Laughing again, the others clapped her on the shoulders reassuringly and nudged her inside. "It'll be alright," said the first, as he held the door open for her. "This place is different. You'll see, you'll see... Harry!" "Oy! Gentlemen! Good to see you! You've brought a new face, too! Hello! Good afternoon, Miss. Why is such a handsome woman hanging out with such hideous company? You'd best be careful that their ugliness doesn't rub off on you." The fourth put his hands on his chest and mocked a frown. "How insulting! Hideous? Us?" And the third put his around around the fifth. "And a woman? Her?!" They erupted with laughter. The fifth looked around them, confused at their cheer. As their laughter died down, her mind hung on Harry's words. She frowned to herself and whispered, "Handsome?" She felt warmth in her face, partly for being the butt of the joke, but maybe in part because she forced herself to admit that Harry was not terribly ugly, for a human. "I'm guessing you're Five. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Harry." "Five?! Do I look like I'm fi-" she began, suddenly stopping when the first put his hand on her shoulder. "I'm much older-" she began again, but stopped at the first squeezed her shoulder gently. Harry grabbed five menus. "Tina, I'm heading back, can you take over?" Turning to the five he said, "Would you all follow me, please?" and immediately lead them in a march to the back corner of the restaurant. On the short walk, the first explained, whispering to the fifth. "Harry doesn't think you're five. He's just going to call you that. Just like he calls me 'One,' and so forth. You're new to him, so you're 'Five.'" "That's for the best, I suppose." She paused for a moment, then her eyes went wide. "Wait! You didn't tell him *why* we don't use our real names, did you? Does he even know how important names are, to us?" The first shook his head. "Of course I didn't tell him. But you know what? Harry doesn't seem to need an explanation. He never asks the wrong questions..." "...does that mean he knows?" she whispered. The first shrugged and turned toward the others while the fifth gave an exasperated sigh before joining them as well. When they were seated at the corner booth, Harry took orders. "First round? The usual?" he asked. "One? Okay. Two? Okay. Three?" He nodded. "Four?" "Yeah, but let's start with double." "Doable... And for the lady?" The third chuckled. "There you go again, Harry. What's with all this 'lady' and 'gentlemen'? You oughta know..." As he trailed off, the third leaned over and snatched at the fifth's hat. "You can clearly see...!" The others chuckled at the third. Before the hat came fully off of her head, the fifth's hands shot up and gripped the hat firmly back down. She looked up at Harry to see if he had noticed, but he appeared to be writing busily on a notepad. "Miss," he asked, "would you like a minute to look over the menu?" She glared at the third, who uttered a quick apology. Then, after a quick look at the menu, she asked, "Could you make a recommendation? I'm not sure..." "Of course, I could... However, it's more fun to make your own choices. I'll bring out two sets of samplers so you can try a few things. Free of charge. How does that sound?" "Free of charge sounds great!" yelled the third. Harry chuckled and pointed his finger. "Not you! Alright I'll be back in a few minutes. Good to see you guys." Then he turned and marched off toward the bar. When the five were alone, the fifth sighed. She almost couldn't believe it. A corner booth in a normal bar in the middle of the afternoon? Abnormal. They passed the time with chatter and jokes until Harry returned. He set glasses about the table, along with two heaping plates of food. In front of the fifth he placed two small trays. One tray held ten shot-glasses with various liquids while appetizers crowded the other tray. "Go ahead and try those out dear." "Dear?" she whispered to herself. "I picked a few things that I thought you might like. I'll be back in a few minutes. You can let me know what you think for the next round, yeah?" Harry marched off again. The others dug into their food, happily sipping from their mugs as well. The fifth tentatively picked up one of the shot glasses. She sipped. Then she sipped again. The first smiled. "Good?" She nodded. "Try the next one." The fifth put the glass down and sipped from the next glass. She licked her lips and sipped once more. "Are they all this good?" "No. But Harry's got good taste, you notice?" She tried the next. --- Business slowed. After just an hour and a half, only a few tables were occupied and most were already settling their checks. But the five at the booth had no plans on leaving, at least not for another few rounds. After four rounds, the fifth finally started to feel something close to comfortable. In fact, she wondered about the last time she had felt this way. At ease. Vulnerable. Inebriated. She might have even described this as fun. Part of her hated it. But another part of her couldn't help but feel the pull of this place. She glanced over to the bar to get another look at Harry. Then she heard the crash. Bolting to her feet, she watched as the tray, full of glasses, fell onto the floor. The glasses shattered. The fragments sprayed across tile. And after the clinking fragments fell still, everyone in the bar turned to look, checking if Harry was okay. But Harry ignored spilt beer. He even took a step backward, his shoe crunching against a bit of glass. He ignored the quiet of the rest of the bar. His eyes were glued to the television. Breaking news. Helicopter footage. The five got up from their booth, moving to Harry at the bar to see if he was alright. When Harry didn't respond, they too looked at the television screen. The first frowned, understanding. "What? What's the big deal?" asked the fifth. Suddenly Harry rushed for the door, keys in hand. He would have made it, if the first hadn't grabbed Harry by the arm and shoved him down into a chair. In the scuffle, Harry's phone clattered onto the floor, actively vibrating and blinking. "Where are you going?" said the first, keeping his hands on Harry's arms so that he could not rise. Through angered breaths, Harry spoke evenly. "I'm going there." "No. Think clearly." The first projected calmness. "It's late. School is over by now. They'd be at home. They're fine." Harry shook his head. "There's... no... Let go. Please." "They're home, Harry," insisted the first. "Just sit. Just think." "No. No! There's an event tonight. A play. They're helping. They were staying after. They were supposed to stay until the end. I was going to pick them up later tonight. They're definitely there!" Harry jerked upward. The first effortlessly forced him back down into the chair. "Okay. And if they're actually there. Did you even listen? Did you see the footage? Did you take a moment to even look?" The first took Harry by the chin and turned his face toward the television. "Sit. Think." Harry tried to wrench free. "There's no time to think, One!" "There is always time to think!" the first roared. "What would you even be doing? What could you even do in a situation like this! BE STILL AND THINK." The few remaining patrons in the bar left their money on the tables and scuttled out the door. "Now listen, carefully, Harry. I'm sorry to tell you this, but even if you left now, even if you were there at this very moment, there would be nothing that you could do. Do you understand that?" "But-" "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" The fifth took a step back. She had never seen the first this way. She looked at Harry and gritted her teeth. She watched him cry. "Now listen. You will stay here. You will clean up the mess. I know the place. We will be back in thirty minutes. We will bring them. Do you understand?" "No! You can't! That's not your-" The first tightened his grip on Harry's arm. "You. Stay. Thirty minutes." The first turned to the fifth. "Your job is to keep him here." The first turned to the others. "The rest of you. With me. Now." The other three nodded and immediately made for the door. The fifth slammed her hand on a table. "No! Harry's right! We can't go there!" They paused. "It's too crowded! What if they see? What if they catch you? You just told him to think! Think think think! And look at you, storming out the door! What kind of thinking is that? You'd take such a risk for what!? For him?!" "For him?" The first turned back for a moment. Then he looked at Harry. "For him I would risk much more." Harry stared for a moment. Then he shut his eyes, fresh tears falling. "But this?" continued the first. "For this there is no risk." "What do-" "Keep him here. Thirty minutes." The four walked out the door and stood for a moment on the sidewalk. Harry looked at them through the glass door. He muttered, "Where does this thirty minutes even come from? You couldn't get there in thirty minutes if-" Harry cut off his own sentence with a sharp gasp; out on the sidewalk, the four removed their coats.

The Horse walks into the bar and

"Whiskey. The bottle." The horse asks, sliding himself up onto a stool. His tux has seen better days, the tie apparently lost some way along his journey here, the top of his shirt open exposing his chest. Was one of them missing? If it were, it'd match his cufflinks, also absent from his dishevelled ensemble. I slide over a bottle, middle of the range, and he passes over a fifty. "Keep the change." "That's very kind, thank you." I go back to working the glass washer, taking out the humid cleans and beginning to pile in the stack of dirties our bar-back passes over before the Horse walked in. He's opened the bottle, and pours himself a few a measures over a double before screwing the lid back on raising his glass for a long, bitter drink. "Can't believe I used to live here." He says, an open invitation to start a conversation. His tip means I respond as earnestly as possible. "Oh yeah? The apartments upstairs?" "Yeah. Long time ago now." He takes another drink. I let that hang for a while, wondering if he was the monologuing kind, until the silence nears on rude. "What made you leave?" He chuckles. "Believe it or not, a band. We use to play gigs here right up until we got our first tour and then... Never needed to come back." "You look like the front man type." His head turns sharp toward me and cocks. "Should be careful about saying that. Front men can be all kinds of terrible." "Ah." My hands raise in apology. "No offense intented." "None taken. You're right, though, I was. The front man and all kinds of terrible." The end of sentence is addressed mostly into his glass in a spiteful mutter as he goes for another gulp. He raises it high, tapping it for every last drop, and pours another. "But it all started here. Me, the seal, elephant, the octopus - damn good drummer he is... was, I guess now." "Sorry to hear that." His mouth is full, so he waved his hand at me. 'No apologies necessary'. "We weren't that close. I went solo a few years back, creative differences is what the media called it. Real reason? I liked my coke more than I liked my band." He's laughing - and so am I, but neither of us found that funny. I'm sure. "So what made you come back here?" "I don't know. Relive the glory days, go back to where it started, before I became such a raging asshole. Hey, you ever been on a plane?" "What like, a passenger?" "Yeah sure just, taken a flight - anywhere, over seas, domestic it doesn't matter." "Yeah. Tonnes of times." "Any of 'em ever crashed?" I linger at the washer for a second, and glance back up at him to see if I can figure out just how that was meant to come across. He's looking right at me, interested. "...no, none." "Of course not. Planes are safer than cars, y'know, statistically." He tells me that whilst watching his pour. This ones a few measures more over a double, and I wander what the purpose in him even having the glass is. "You're more likely to die in a car than a plane, more likely by a long shot. You know what the numbers are?" "No." He slumps. "Me neither. But they're low, right? So keep that in mind. Now what do you think the chances are that three people you know would all be killed in a plane crash?" For the first time I notice he has tears behind his eyes, lingering there, none managing to break free. "I don't... I don't know how to answer that." "Sure you do, come on you're a bartender." "I serve drinks, I'm not a therapist." A booming laugh comes out as he throws his head back, and he wiped the tears from his eyes as if it was that that had caused them. "Y'know the guy who tended on my private jet - when I could afford one of those, he said to me serving the right drinks is only half the job." "What was the other half?" "Oh, come on now!" His glass juts toward me as the hand clutching it goes to point, he's smiling again. "Asking the right questions!" "Okay." I'm getting close to my tether with the Horse and cast an eye over his bottle, half empty. He's a quick drinker, sure, but from behind the bar he doesn't seem quick enough. "What're the right questions?" "Well, you've already missed them." He sounds smug, *irritatingly smug*, and I can't back down. "Enlighten me." This was the right answer, he swivels on his seat to turn his whole body toward me, imposing with how large he is, and leans in close. "Well a horse walks into your bar in a tuxedo he's been wearing for two days, he's had five hours sleep in those forty eight hours, and lost his cufflinks in the cab ride over here - a cab that, recognising the horse from an anniversary cover of NME, charged him double. The only friends he ever had are lying in a morgue somewhere in Paris and the bartender didn't even recognise him when there's a poster of him on the fucking wall." I follow his eyes, that have foregone the tears in favour of a piercing, unblinking intensity. 'The Animals', a large poster hanging above the bar for an rock band I've never paid much attention to. The horse on the poster is younger, healthier, playing behind a microphone with an elephant to his left, a seal to his right, and an octopus on the drums. "Now, you tell me. What d'you ask that horse?" "Why the long face." I say dumbfounded, as he gets up from his chair carrying the bottle with him. "You're welcome for the tip." He's out the door before the sound of the jukebox fades back in, and I'm taken back to reality.

All five species had been on the

The Vampires were the first to notice--or the first to complain at least. The Guardian Angels had known obviously, but they weren't about to say anything (they never do). The Vampires--all five species had been on the run for years though, and finally had taken to keeping their own private food sources--blood banks and the such. It isn't that a vampire can't drink the blood of an alien or even a zombie, it's just that it's not quite the same. Or it messes with their heads in some cases like Angels. It's also a good deal more dangerous than going after humans. And well androids aren't exactly toting around any blood anyway. Not that anyone was very sympathetic at the High Council when Drakul brought it up. I wasn't exactly happy about it at the time, but what could we do? "I'm telling you this is a problem!" Drakul sat lazily in the overstuffed chair. Our council meetings didn't go in for the board-room look. We went for comfortable. We were all too *old* to be much impressed by anything else. I raised my glass of wine. It was a fine vintage, and it sparkled ruby in the light. "Drakul, it's just humans. What is the problem? It's like those damn birds down in Africa. They've gone extinct. Who cares?" J'Ximpl, an alien from some planet that happened to have a major stake in exporting water from Earth to his planet--highly lucrative for him for some reason--adjusted his ascot and sighed noisily. "They were useful in some ways, mind you, but it's not like the world has ceased to function. The peasants are still peasants and the jobs are still getting done. What does it matter that it's being done by Androids, Angels and Loup-Garou and so forth instead of mere *humans*? They were rather expendable anyway." I gave him a nod, as did several others in the room, though I noted, not Chief LongFang of the Loup-Garou. He was notable for his rather primitive view on the best uses for mortals. And likely part of the reason they were extinct. "Exactly Drakul. They were soft, pathetic, and, quite frankly, rather bothersome." He sneered. "Of course you think so. You've been lying in that cave of yours for how many millenia? Soaking in the heat, enjoying your gold and gems? And you need to eat what? Every two or three hundred years? And does it matter what you eat? No! You dragons are all alike. Eat anything, care for nothing. I'm surprised you bothered to show up for the Council." I hmphed. "It was my turn. We *do* have a sense of duty you know. Unlike your people, apparently. Which of you was responsible for ensuring that you'd have a food supply going forward?" He got a nasty look on his face, but didn't do anything stupid like lunge toward me in anger or even bare his pathetic little fangs. Vampires are many things, but they aren't entirely stupid. Well. They are cunning at least. They know when to back away from a fight. And there was never a Vampire that could so much as touch a dragon. Not the best of theirs to weakest of mine. Still... He got himself under control. "We didn't have anyone in charge of that. It didn't seem necessary. There have always just been so many of them." I raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Lady Winter--Elf Queen, though don't call her that, she is Sidhe--saw no reason to be as diplomatic. "So you thought it fine to hunt and kill and torture the weaklings and never once to watch their numbers? Even they did that with their own herds--even wild animals do better than that! Pathetic Drakul. Still, I fail to see how Winter--or my friend Summer--could see this as our concern. We are not dependent on them. Of all those here, only you and the Angels *really* have a need for the humans." Drakul snarled outright now. He wasn't nearly as worried about her displeasure as mine. The fool. Even dragons respect the Sidhe--not for raw power, but for maliciousness in revenge. "Humans, for what it's worth, are the ones that have souls. Or did you all forget that! Oh you did didn't you. We don't get souls." That got my attention. The ArchAngel--I knew which one, but for reasons of polity, we never identified which of them was attending--shifted ever so slightly. They regarded souls as their own domain and discouraged talk of them in front of some of the others. The aliens and the androids especially, but hardly just them. But more importantly, Drakul had finally made a point that had some merit. Souls were a source of power. Of magic. Humans hadn't been using magic for centuries--that I knew of anyway--but their souls were still the *source* for it. I coughed politely. "Drakul, you should have led with this, not whining about food." "Oh?" He sneered openly. "Perhaps you should have seen what not having humans meant more quickly." I acknowledged the point with a dip of my head. "Of course. But now, what can be done? Angel, is there a solution?" The Arch-Angel turned his hooded head toward me and I *felt* his gaze upon me. Of all the beings in the room, this was the one that would give me pause in an open battle. The elves would prove bothersome and annoying over millennia--until they got bored--but the angel might just decide to end my existence. One did not anger them lightly. His voice was like stones rubbing together--deep, powerful, and not exactly easy to hear. "I will CONSULT. Pray a moment." Of course he meant it literally. Angels always did. They had always maintained that God was real, though the rest of us had always entertained rather more skepticism on that score. I remembered the planet long before the angels showed up. Still... "It will not be easy. Human souls are...restricted. The time has come for the angels to withdraw from this world. If you want more souls, you will have to find a new source--a new kind of mortal--to raise up from the mortal beings on this planet and help them along. Souls will come when a species native to this realm achieves intellectus and is able to fully reason. You have time enough to do so before the magic fades from the realm. If you can cooperate. It may require some--adjustments." With that he stood, threw back his hood and the room suddenly grew very bright. "You would be wise to work together to choose a new species--perhaps two or three--to shepherd into intellectus. You would also be wise to avoid wasting power." ---- I wish I could say it went well after he left--one moment there, then the light gathered in on itself and he was gone--along with all the other angels. But it's been two hundred years and we still argue and fight. Well they do. The dragons did what we always do--most of us went to sleep and we chose one of us to fix the problem. I wish it hadn't been me. But I do hope the Vampires enjoy what I've done. Because today? Today my tigers started using tools. And they are saying hello to each other in very plain language. It helps that I gave them proper thumbs.

The concept of darkness was an object

No one knew darkness. It existed, of course, but no living person had ever experienced any earthly environment of real, total darkness. The place, the idea - the concept of darkness was an object of utter terror. Of course, for some, that made it enticing. Made it irresistible. Artists had painted it, writers waxed on and on about its forbidden allure. Most people were never stupid enough to actually completely darken their home. Even if someone did, if they survived there would be massive punishment. It was too much of a risk to the population at large. If something did come out of the darkness in a home or other building, they might get out into the wider world. They might find their way to spots that, while illuminated, still were close enough to dark to offer shelter and a chance of surprise. All my life I had lived in light, and I had felt no pull to the dark. But that night - that night, everything went mad. I was brushing my teeth when the Outage hit. We had just tucked in Denny and Sharon, and Astrid was in the master bedroom, feeding the baby and preparing to put him down for the night as well. When the light went out, at first I thought it was simply a bulb burning out. That was a rare occurrence, but it did happen. I was all set to head over to the linen cupboard for a new bulb when I realized the truth. No light. Anywhere. The hallway was pitch black, and when I glanced back toward the door of the bedroom, it was like - well, like nothing. I saw nothing. "Stuart?" Astrid called softly in the darkness. "I - think a breaker tripped," I fibbed - a tripped breaker was rarer by far than a burnt-out bulb. Besides, I could tell easily from my inability to see anything outside the bathroom window that not only our house lights, but also the yard and streetlights, were out. I crept along the hallway, treading light and avoiding the spots which I knew creaked. When Denny screamed, my sense of caution vanished. I tore off toward our oldest child's room. "Dad! Dad!" "On my way, buddy. Don't worr..." Denny screamed again, three loud shrieks in rapid succession, and then - nothing. "Den? Denny? Come on, buddy, it's not..." The words died as I stepped into our son's room. It was dark as hell, and my hand automatically went to flip the light switch. I knew it wouldn't work. There should already have been light in the room anyway, from the little nightlight or shining through the open closet door. There was no light, but there was an overwhelming odor of copper. "Denny? Dennis, it's not funny to..." More dead words as my shuffling steps took me close enough to reach down and touch Denny's sheets. The cloth was warm and wet, but it was way more than the dampness of a kid having peed the bed out of fear. Way more, and lacking the ammoniac reek of urine. "Dennis!" I barked, a command rather than a query. Falling to my knees, I eased partly under the bed, reaching out a hand. I touched something warm, fleshy, but oddly inert. Then the object moved, and something else warm, but rougher and larger, clamped down on my wrist. I screamed, yanked my arm free, and fled Denny's room. That was when Sharon started screaming as well, and I heard as well as felt a light tread join me in the hallway. The figure bumped me, cried out, and then the baby was wailing at my side, clutched in Astrid's arms. "Stuart, what..." "Go!" I called, slipping an arm around her and guiding us both toward the stairs. We stopped long enough to grab the emergency lights from the old sideboard at the end of the hall, but even as we turned them on, something thudded heavily and grunted behind us. "Go!" I shouted again, and we raced incautiously down the stairs, each nearly falling a half-dozen times. We reached the front door and, through the window, I saw light - glorious light. Someone or something was pounding at the door, and I was prepared to head for the kitchen exit instead, but then a voice joined the pounding. "Stu! Stu, you in there? Astrid?" Slamming the door open, I propelled Astrid and the baby out ahead of me, straight into the arms our neighbor George. "What the hell's going on?" I gasped. "Dunno," George shrugged. "Saw reports today that there'd been a few minor outages lately - weather and everything. And then tonight - it's bad, Stu. I think it's bad." We followed George instinctively across the street and to his driveway. The light I had seen were his headlights. He also had a couple of road flares set up along the walkway to his house, and through his windows I saw a movement of faint, ghostly glows. "Battery lanterns," he nodded. Most people kept a couple of flashlights around and a few other little just-in-case things, but George had been through the Decatur Outage of '89, so he took things to near survivalist levels. "Got Marc starting up the generator," he went on, "and Rachel and Rick are out knocking on doors as well. Wait." He paused, looking around. "Where're your older two?" I shook my head at him frantically, but his words set Astrid running back to the house, screaming for Denny and Sharon. She handed me the baby as she went, but I still started after her. "I'll catch her!" George said. "You go leave the baby with May, then see about knocking on some doors, huh?" I watched George disappear into the house, and as he went, I saw that he nearly stumbled over the flashlight Astrid had dropped on the front steps. I heard my wife scream, heard George yelling, gunfire... And then I saw my neighbor running back out of my house, my wife apparently unconscious in his arms. "She's all right!" George said. "Had my .44 and took a chunk out of the damn thing. Run! My house! Come on!" *** It's been three months. Three months since a massive, well-orchestrated attack took out the U.S. grid. Three months since some fucking cult led to the death of two of my children, as well as countless other people. It's only been weeks now since most of the grid was officially back on-line. We sold the house and moved. We just couldn't stay with all the memories and the fear. We're more prepared now, with lots of emergency lights and two gas generators always prepped and ready. No one is complacent anymore. And now everyone's actually afraid of the dark again. *** ^r/liulfr ^for ^more ^writings

The girl and her father sat up

Deep in the wood sat a cabin glowing like a candle in the darkness. The wind clutched at it, rattled the windows as if begging to come inside. But the windows stayed shut, and the house did not fall. Inside, the girl and her father sat up late, reading books. Every longing sigh of the wind drew the girl's eyes once more to the windows. To the shapes she imagined pacing out there beyond the safe halo of light. But she could see only the drawn curtain. If she moved it there would be only her own reflection, pooling back at her, unless she was brave enough to put her nose right to the glass and squint out. Her father told her stories about the things out there. She did not need to see them to believe him. She knew them by their three-clawed prints that circled their home like a moat every morning. By the gouges bored into the hide of her father's woodshed, deeper than any bear's mark. He caught her staring. "What have I always told you, darling?" She stared mutely at the book until he answered for her, "When the lights are on, we're safe." Her father gestured to the unflinching pupil of the light above, his smile easy and light. "As you can see," he said, "we're safe." She hid her face in his arm. She had lived eight years under the watchful guard of sunlight and filament. Darkness was nothingness. Darkness was death. So when she woke that night to a pitch-black room, the girl began to shriek. A hand stifled her. Her father's hand. His other gripped her wrist tightly, as if he was trying to tell her something through his very bones. "I'm going to go try the generator." "But--" she said into his fingertips. He shook his head. "It should have turned on, and it didn't." The wind rattled at the roof like an angry god. "Someone has to go check it," he whispered, gently. Then he moved away, taking all the warmth and the girl's fleeting calm with him. She bolted upright in bed, unsure if she should flee or hide. *Surely they know we're in here*, she wanted to ask, but she could not give the life to the possibility by saying it aloud. Her father tossed a bundle at her. "Get dressed. Be silent. I love you." He looked once over his shoulder, at the flashlight beside the door. He handed it to her. "If they come inside, use this." And then he opened the door. Blackness opening into blackness, broken only by a scattering of stars. Night quiet as perfect and unbroken as new snow. Her father looked back at her as he let the door shut behind him. The girl shoved her fist into her mouth to keep from sobbing. She had never seen a night so complete. Without the light, there was nothing to keep the monsters away. She scrambled to her feet. As soundlessly as she could she wriggled into her two warmest leggings and threw on her largest pair of jeans over it. Sweaters, snow pants, socks thick as her pinky. The mittens her father knitted for her that summer while she watched his needles click and the butterflies flitter and-- And a crunching, out there, beyond the door. A scuffle in the snow. The girl jammed her feet into her boots. She told herself it was her father. Had to be only her father, panicked, in the dark. A howl shattered the night like dropped glass. A great bellow from beyond the pines, deep as the earth and older still. Another joined it, and another. Their calls were urgent, and coming closer. The girl threw herself down instantly, unthinkingly, as if trying to make herself invisible. And she froze there, rabbit in a burrow, listening. Stilling her very heart. And then the creatures in the darkness went silent. There was only the cry of the wind, and faintly beneath it, the whine of the generator, as her father struggled to make it go. The girl crawled on elbows and knees to the windows. The heavy plaid curtains were lashed together. She raised a shuddering hand to untie them. Scooted the corner back just far enough to peer around the corner. A pair of yellow eyes in a sea of matted black fur stared back at her, widened in delight when they met hers. Its head was something between a wolf and a bear, but its eyes watched her knowingly, cleverly. As if it were waiting for her to look out and notice it. She tumbled back shrieking. The lights flared back to life overhead. And outside, her father started screaming. The girl did not think. She ran to the bed and seized her father's huge emergency flashlight. Stumbled into night for the first time in her life. A hoard of black-coated creatures swarmed her father's shed. Their teeth caught and gleamed in the light of the moon. One had her father by the leg The outside lights were still dead. She fumbled with the flashlight, wrenched off a mitten, and flicked it on. Swung the beam toward the writhing mass of shapes. Smoke rose off their skin. They scattered screaming and hissing off her father like water dropped in hot oil. He lay limp in the light, the snow around him a damp, churned scarlet. The night-creatures circled him like lions. One nipped at the toe of his boot. The girl flicked the light toward it, and the creature scrambled backward. Panning the light in front of her, the girl stepped into her father's footsteps, toward the pack of nightmares that watched snarling and spitting from the shadows. As she grew closer she could smell only rot and clay and fur. They growled and bared their teeth, but the creatures did not dare venture into her light. They did not stop her from touching her father's hand. It was wet, and cold. She could not look at him. She had to keep turning the light, had to watch the monsters that tried to pad noiselessly behind her. "Dad," she whispered, "you have to get up." For a long terrible moment, her father did not move. One of the creatures near her let out a strange low rumble, as if laughing at her trying to drag her father's corpse up out of the snow. But then he drew himself up on his elbows, his breath a ragged wet tearing sound. One of the beasts lunged for his throat. The girl chased it away with the light and screamed at it with everything she had. Her father rose. The night creatures drooled and snapped at his heels, but they did not touch him. Together, father and daughter limped back into the house. And all the while, the girl never let her light waver. *** /r/shoringupfragments

For most of us? For most

I never wanted to be a hero. But that's common. That's how it works. Whatever perverse cosmic being, whatever twist of fate, whatever it is that gives people powers... it rarely chooses people who want to be special. There's exceptions, sure. Always are. But most of us? For most of us, it isn't a blessing. Everyone dreams, yeah. What's different is the scale of those dreams. Some people want to be famous. To be loved. Others are content just living quiet lives. The universe doesn't listen. That's how you end up with a dedicated wife and mother-of-three who just wanted to raise her kids... getting heartbreaking beauty and the power to enthrall both men and women, regardless of sex or preference. That's how you get a scholarship student, who just wanted to study hard and do biomedical research... transformed into a super-strong and invulnerable creature in a perpetual berserker rage, no speech or intellect. Me, I never wanted to be a hero. I'm not a social person. Not really. I'm just not a people person. I used to be a loner. Still am, I guess. My life was a simple office job, an eight to five. Lunch breaks alone. Then straight home. Dinner. Video games. Netflix. Sleep. Then repeat. No friends, no real family I care to speak to. Was I happy? Maybe. Maybe not. But it was okay. I could live that way. I could have died that way. Until everything changed. I can talk to a room now. I can figure out how to strike up a rapport with people. To understand what they care about, and make a connection. It used to be so awkward. It never felt right. Now... It's easier, when you can sense what people are thinking and feeling. I suppose that'd be telepathy, or empathy. I don't know. I've never talked about it with anyone. At first, it wasn't quite mind reading, or anything like that. I just got a sense of what people wanted, what people needed. It'd be fine if it were just that. But it hadn't stopped there. The first thing to grow was my range. It started short, at first. Now I can pick up people from blocks away. Maybe more. I think it's growing to be city-wide. And I don't know if it'll stop. Then there's the other powers. I guess they make sense, if I'm some kind of psychic. Telekinesis. Flight. And so much more. Hell, I'm getting visions of the future, now. Dreams. Flashes of deja-vu. I tried to ignore them, at first. But there's only so much I can ignore.   *** I dropped down from the sky, studying the building. Back during the real estate boom, there'd been a push to build more and more, open up new residential areas. The economy was good then, on a global upswing. Then the advent of honest-to-god superhumans and the bullshit that came with them, it hit everything like a punch to the gut and a knee to the crotch. From what my powers were telling me, the development had been intended as mixed-use. Retail on the lower levels, some condos above. Oddly, it wasn't completely abandoned. There were some operating businesses on the ground level, facing the street. A coffee shop. A cafe of some kind. A generic no-name convenience store. But most of the building was an abandoned shell. The interior was supposed to be largely empty. Essentially unoccupied. Even the construction hadn't been completely finished. Cables coming out of holes in the walls. Unpainted plaster. I couldn't say how I knew that, not exactly. I just did. I flew closer to one of the windows, flicking my fingers at the grimy, cloudy, glass. The window wasn't supposed to open. It was, after all, a second-storey window for a retail unit. But it lifted from the frame, as the sealant and other materials gave way. I set the glass panel against a wall, within the empty shop. Then I entered the building, floating through the now-open space. There was no door to the shop. No frontage to speak of. It opened directly into an empty corridor, overlooking an equally empty atrium, like all the neighbouring units on this level. I moved silently through the supposedly-deserted building. There was a passageway near the carpark access on this floor, near where the bathrooms should have been. A door was there, a dusty sign indicating that it would have become the mall's management office, had the development ever fully opened. The door was locked. There were recent signs of use. Handprints on the glass. Other traces. I couldn't see them in the dark, but, again, I knew they were there. The lock moved. The door opened. It should have made noise. It didn't. I wasn't exactly sure how that worked, perhaps something in my telekinesis being able to block vibrations from propagating through the air. It was useful, though. I entered the office, making no sound. My feet hovered above the bare concrete, the soles of my shoes not touching the floor. I turned my head left, then right. The space was cramped, but the designers had intended the office to have a small meeting or conference space, just past a tiny reception area. Here, now, those rooms were being put to a different purpose. The smell was foul. Urine, faeces, and under that, blood. I ignored it. I could turn off my own sense of smell, after all. I could sense the thoughts and feelings of the current victim trapped in the office. A teenager, school age, female. Still alive. In relatively good health, too. I'd expected that, given my premonitions and the nature of their kidnapper's powers. It was good to have confirmation, though. She was gagged and bound. I put her to sleep, easing her into unconsciousness. I considered erasing her recent memories. It'd be the kind thing, but it would potentially hinder the police investigation and the court case against their captor. I let her be, for the time being. There was one more mind in the office, towards the back, where the actual desks and work spaces would have been, in a better, more prosperous world. I floated in, passing through an empty frame that should have held a door. There was a human form curled up in a sleeping bag. I twitched my hand, moving as if to unzip it, then twisted, pulled. A man slid out. He hung, suspended, in the air. His eyes opened, his face contorted in surprise. He was awake and alert. I'd made sure of that. It was more or less the opposite of the 'go to sleep' trick, like invoking the cosmic essence of caffeine. **Hello**, I said, silently, speaking into his mind. It wasn't really a voice, not as such. No inflection, no emotion, no sense of tone, no trace of the speaker's age or gender. Effectively, I was inserting words directly inside his head. **You want to be a villain, yes?** He tried to struggle. He tried to make noise. Neither effort worked. **No, it's okay. Don't bother. I've seen it. You've got plans.** His eyes focused on me. I wasn't worried about him being able to identify me, not really. It was dark. My clothes were baggy and shapeless, my head and hair completely covered. And of course, I could delete any impressions he had of me, almost as quickly as they formed. **You're creative, I'll give you that. Making a healing power into something pretty damn terrifying? Honestly, if it were me, I'd probably just... I don't know, cut people up and patch up the injuries. Rape people and make the evidence go away. Which you've done, sure. But you?** I shook my head. **The cancer idea won't work, just so you know. Your power's a more abstract version of healing and rejuvenation, not literal growth and cell division.** The man glared mutely at me. I considered relaxing my grip, allowing him to talk. But there wasn't really any point. I knew what he wanted to say. **Oh, sure. That other idea? Taking someone's spouse, turning them into an infant child, returning them to their partner? That's what you wanted to try next, right? The de-aging thing, that's within your abilities.** I pushed my 'volume' up a notch, driving the words more firmly into his skull. **Or it would be, I guess. You're not going to get a chance to test that, I'm afraid.** He stared at me, his eyes widening. **Not that you'll remember this conversation,** I continued. I frowned beneath my mask. **Don't know why I bother.**

There's a thousand dollars in twenties

My mind has always played jokes on me, but this is too much. I've long been in the habit of finding reasonable explanations for the way the world coincides with my inner life. But this defies explanation. I rifle through the envelope. There's a thousand dollars in twenties. My name is scrawled in childish letters on the front. "So this is what the space inside my mind is worth. One of those things you think is priceless, but nothing is. A thousand isn't too bad though." I look around my messy office, quiet but for the creak of floorboards in the apartment overhead. Dust motes dance in rays of sunlight that land across my oak flat top desk. One of the few things from my parents' house I wanted to keep. "How'd you get it in here, then?" Nothing. He comes and goes - a ramblin' man. Sometimes I imagine there's a railway network between the brains of the world, and I've got a stop near a hobo camp where the crazies like to hop off. A thousand bucks. I could get into trouble with a thousand bucks. I slap the envelope across my palm a couple of times, almost heading for the door. I pull out five twenties, shove them in my front pocket, and throw the envelope in the safe in my closet. Someone is banging on the door. My heart picks up a bit. Through the peephole I see the fisheye distortion of the neighbor kid Lucy. I open the door. "What's up, kiddo?" "Who's the guy who was here earlier? Why does he have a key to your apartment?" I knew it. I knew I wasn't crazy this time. It's hard to understand if you aren't crazy yourself, but an explanation that makes sense is better than no explanation - even if it means someone broke into your house, apparently with no other purpose than to leave you a thousand dollars. Which has no other explanation other than a thought you had earlier. The real explanation is there, somewhere. You can find it later. But this is a good start. "He's, uh, my uncle. He was just feeding my fish for me." "You don't have a fish." "I got one." Lucy scowls at me. She knows I'm almost always full of shit, so she almost always regards me with the same chronic skepticism usually reserved for known liars and problem children. "Well whatever you're getting into, stay safe, okay?" She whirls around, her long, straight black hair making a disc around her head for a moment before she runs down the hall. I head out the front of my building, texting as I go. I let my guy know I need to meet him. He's always happy to grab coffee any time of the day or night. We slip into a booth at Jack's Old Fashion'd Diner. In my head, to me, it's "Jack's Unnecessary Apostrophe Diner." Private jokes are a little more fun when the voices in your head chuckle with you, but not by much. My guy has messy brown hair and snake green eyes. His white t-shirt is loose and semi-wrinkled like he slept in it. He probably did. "So you come into some money, or what? What's with the house call?" I never correct his haphazard speech. It seems like his mind is always catching up to where and when his body is. "Something like that." I say. He smirks. "So you sure you only want that amount? I can provide a longer supply..." "I'm good with what I asked for. What, you tired of seeing me or somethin'?" He takes a quick look around the restaurant, moves his hand near his coffee cup on a saucer, then slides it towards me. I pick it up, pour in some creamer, then push it back to him. He smiles and puts his hand in his pocket. "You're getting better." he grins. Gulping the rest of the coffee, he slides out of the booth. "And you're finally learning just the right amount of cream. It's a finesse game, you know. An art." I raise my eyebrows in a kind of "yeah, uh-huh" gesture. But he's already gone. Look, it's nothing crazy, okay? Self-medication kind of becomes necessary when you're in my position. Insurance doesn't cover the anti-psychotics my doctor wants me on. These are pretty close and they're half the price. I cut through the park on the way back to my place, crunching the pills and thinking about the man in my apartment. At times my life has become a blur of my mental projections and my reality, people coming and going, people I half-know and some, who after spending nights and days with, seem like the most real thing I know, turn out in the morning to only have been a fever dream, barely remembered. Ho boy. They're kicking in know. The grass in the park turns blurry, green blur, and things smooth out. The sky is a crystal. I can see past the atmosphere. Green is good. That's it. I'll try to remember. Revelations, revelations! They come. The time comes, and I feel it, and I know it, but to remember, ah. That is the thing. The thing which I grasp, yet not fully, yet oh the sky. Madness. Cooly I walk, cooly. No time for a rest, a spell. Who now is this dark figure, this devil beside me? I sit. A half-stand. Beside me on the bench. Who? *Are you okay there, friend?* He speaks from underwater - a merman. A sea creature. from the night of the world. *You're swimming in a narcotic sea, aren't you, pal?* "My mind reaches... and takes. And beholds." *But you see me, don't you?* A sharp change. a turn in the wind. felt but not seen. The man - the sea creature. i behold him now. no, not a stranger. a known person. a quantity. a memory. a voice. *I trust you found my first month's.* a shiver. a remembrance. money in a narrow paper box, a gift, a strange thing in a strange place. rent. "My benefactor!" i rise. i stand. the dark figure beside, he sits. a disk of flesh color spinning in place. The world becomes clear in phases. A flash here, and return to madness. I call this phasing. Far from frustration, the contrast makes the high even better. Sometimes I just want to get lost. But sometimes it's nice to see the world in two ways. Flicking the light switch. Now I see the man, dark suit and bowler hat. Old-timey, square jaw and flint eyes. Thick eyebrows. Well-kept. The kind of guy who looks like he'd smack is wife if his dinner wasn't hot at 5 o'clock sharp. A mean guy. *Just need to get a breath of fresh air, now and then. You get to be cooped up after a while.* A voice, yes. A body, no. Where the line is drawn, I never know. See this? The uncertainty? How can someone ever drive a stake in the ground, pull a string taught from it, and draw a circle, and say that within this is what I know? In a manner of speaking, of course. That's just it. No way to know what works, what is real, what is acknowledged. What can be known for sure. *I quite enjoy the room, you know. It's got some view. It's like going to the movies and seeing the character descend into madness. But I don't need to do it myself, you know? Living vicariously through people whose lives we don't want. That's the new American Dream, you know. It's too hard to actually do it. But experiencing it? That's easy.* i swim. i swim through air, sea of nothing fog. then i am in my bed, and time commences to discommence. i enter void and days go, hours go. sometimes shafts of light, sometimes shafts of night. but always moonlight, only positive or negative. my fish is dead. i held ceremony, sang sweet elegy to his name. Martin. Martin i called him. pain gnaws in the middle of me and i am missing something. the cosmos swirl and i am of it. the buzz. the hum of time and ratcheting gears of things i must remember. i must. i must... Awake. Sunlight. Thirsty. Hungry. Adjectives and nouns come one by one. I know it's the end of a bender. Pharmaceuticals mixed with mental illness can send you on a journey. Only afterwords do you decide if it was a trip worth taking. There's a cold bowl of soup next to my bed and slippers on the floor, ready to slip my feet into. A card draw in crayon propped up behind the soup. A picture of a goldfish with letter x's for eyes. Inside: "Sorry about Martin." I come back to life, slowly, attend to my human needs. Bathroom. Food. A shower has never felt so glorious. When I am fully alive again, I go to my desk to write, hopefully, while I still have the clarity for it. I go to sit down, and stop in half-crouch. An envelope is on the corner of my desk. Shaking, I look inside. Two thousand dollars, and a scrawled note: *Sorry about the mess.*       ---       Hey there! Thanks for reading. I'd love for you to subscribe to /r/xilead if you liked this, and would like to read more of my stories.   edit: I am blown away by the response to this! Thank you all for reading and providing words of encouragement. If I ever turn this into a book, I will be sure to let each and every one of you know. Additionally, I've received many excellent reading recommendations. Keep them coming!

Opal Princess of Tyndaria

"So, like, why'd you even save me then? What was that even all about?" asked Rylene, the Opal Princess of Tyndaria. "Jesus Christ, we've been over this like ten fucking times," replied Arnor of the Goat Hills, wiping the sweat from his brown, revealing the birthmark that, so long ago, first revealed him as the True Stonesword of Tyndis. The birthmark had set in motion a winding and daring journey, carrying him all through the length and breadth of Tyndaria, from the Ice Bog of Cooraba to the Sunken Salt Jungle, and then, at last, to here. To the privy chambers of Rylene, righteous heir of all the land, whose life and throne Arnor had single-handedly recovered from Ixuroth, Troll Wizard of the Dark Asunder. "Yes, I saved you," Arnor continued, "but, like, only because I was supposed to. Not because I, like, loved you." "Right, you saved me because I'm the fucking Opal Princess and you're the Stonesword and the fucking prophecy of Tyndis says we get fucking married. Arnor, why are you being such an asshole about this? Like, I'm rich, I have a castle, I know I'm hot, so what's even your problem?" "No, I mean - fuck there's not really a way you're going to understand. Okay. Have you ever seen a cat with a laser pointer? It just sort of chases it for no reason, right? Well, for me, all the quests just sort of started, and there was always this yellow arrow in the distance, so I basically just went wherever it wanted me to for no reason. Like, honestly, I didn't watch probably ninety percent of the cut scenes, so I really wasn't following the plot all that much because I'm actually more into the combat tactics and the visuals than the role playing stuff." "Okay, seriously, Arnor, I have no idea what you're saying, and actually you sound pretty stupid right now. Laser pointer, that's like, not even a word that exists. I had all the best tutors in Tyndaria so I should fucking know, unless it's some weird foreigner magic term you picked up in Wu Tuun La. But I hear all they do with cats out there is eat them, not let them chase stuff so..." "See, that's the problem with you, Rylene, you're frankly just kind of a racist bitch. I have no idea how a character like you gets past QA in 2018. I mean Ubisoft does a whole unskippable cultural sensitivity disclaimer, but here you are just shitting on people from Wu Tuun La when it's pretty fucking obvious what inspired the whole cultural aesthetic of that area of the map." "Okay, this is literally the most ridiculous conversation I've ever had, like, I'm literally ready to throw myself off the castle parapets. But I'm just going to chill because I know you're still dealing with the after effects from all the lines of beserker dust you snorted when you battled Ixy, and I know that was kind of my fault for not warning you he had those two additional astral forms, so I'll accept some blame here. So look, let's just take a beat, and we'll revisit this tomorrow." "What? No. The fucking potion lasts ten fucking seconds, it was honestly way under-powered for how hard the late stage missions were. I'm not high, I just don't want to fucking marry you. But if I was still high from berserker potions, then guess what? It would be because Nella mixed them so I could rescue your prissy entitled ass, so maybe it would be cool if you stopped calling her a useless desk bitch." "She is a useless desk bitch! Literally all she does is stand behind that stupid desk in her stupid apothecary twenty four hours a day. And every fucking time you go in, she's like: oh, I didn't see you there. What can I help you with? Bitch, the entire store is like ten square feet, and I'm the only customer, so I'm pretty sure you already saw me. Like, Arnor, she'd obviously just a phony thot who only cares about money." "Well guess what not everyone gets to be born Opal Princess! Some people have to actually earn a fucking living and it's not like Tyndaria is a bastion of social mobility! But, honestly, here's the main thing you just don't get, Rylene, which is that Nella was there for me since day one. I could always count on her to be fully stocked. When I was stuck in the Labyrinth of Jyrnyr for like three days, she was an absolute rock for me, always there to help. So, we got to know each other, right? Same way you got to know Ixy. Because that's what you called him, right? Ixy. Not Ixuroth, Troll Wizard of the Dark Asunder. He's Ixy to you. And, look, Rylene, I don't fucking blame you. I'm not the best at RPGs and I prefer to do all the side missions first. So it took me like four months to get to you. You and Ixuroth had a lot of time to hang out, and maybe something happened. Wouldn't be the first time a vapid hot chick hooked up with a messed up looking filth demon just to see how grateful he was. So, if all this rushing into marriage is just you feeling guilty, you don't gotta. I truly do not care if you were fucking the Troll Wizard. I won't tell anyone. Just let me and Nella go about our lives, and you can marry whatever Duke or Baron or creepy monster you want. Everyone wins." "Fuck off, Arnor, I know what this is really about." "Holy shit, you're the absolute worst, did I not just fucking explain it all to you?" "Bullshit! Bullshit bullshit bullshit! There's one reason and one reason only you're blowing me off for that useless desk bitch." "Oh yeah? What's that?" "Because of the stupid glitch where you can get her to take her boobs out! Well, I'm sorry Arnor! I'm sorry there's no glitch for making my boobs pop out! I'm sorry this absurdly low cut princess gown isn't enough for you!" "I'm not having this conversation anymore. I'm fast travelling to the tavern."

The princess was still looking at me

I scratched my head, feeling quite awkward as the rest of the city folk looked at where I stood next to the princess. 'I should have seen this coming, happens all the time in story book' I thought to myself. The princess was still looking at me, the smile on her face beginning to waver. I knew I had to say something. "I'm sorry your highness, but I don't feel like we know each other well enough to consider such a thing, we just met after all." I say, trying to divert the conversation as I did not want to publicly break the princess' heart. "Nonsense, I know all I need to know about you. You are strong, faithful, courageous and wise, what more could a woman want in a husband?" She says trying to get me on board with the idea. "No, really, you were just in a very stressful situation. I think you should think if you are ready for that kind of relations-" I tried again. "But I don't need to reconsider! Every day I heard from some of the Dark King's minions about your exploits. How you rallied a town to beat back an entire battalion, or how you managed to sabotage a plan for the Dark King's rumored super weapon." She said, her eyes sparkling. I let loose a small sigh 'I guess I will just have to come out and say it.' "Alrigh, first off, it was not an entire town I rallied, and it was less than 25 soldiers that we fought, people just started spreading rumors that grew." I say, my voice taking on a slightly commanding, bit still gentle tone. "Second, I can't marry you, Princess. I am already wed to another." I say, I can see her eyes drop as I say this. "I was hoping to tell you privately, I wanted to make it as painless for you as possible." I said. The princess looked dumbfounded. "B-but all the fairytales? They all say that the hero saves the princess and they live happily ever after." She said, tears starting to well in her eyes. I quickly try to comfort her, pulling her into a hug and patting her back. "I know, and when I started my journey, I think that was what kept me motivated. The thought of marrying the princess of the land, the woman loved by all her subjects." I recited something I had said a thousand times, before I had fallen for my wife that is. "What changed?" The princess asked. I couldn't see her face, but I could hear the deep sadness in her voice. I pulled away from the hug, but kept my hands on her arms. "Well, my journey was long. Longer than I thought it would be, and much more difficult at that. But all along the way, there were certain people who supported me. I became great friends with one of the local blacksmiths, the steel she makes saved my life many times." I begin, reminicing on the past year. "And the innkeeper started keeping a standing bed for me, it helped after we stayed up all night drinking and singing to keep people's spirits up. But one person I place I found myself returning to more than any other, was the potion shop." "If I needed any kind of remedy, tonic, salve, or just about any other kind of medicine, she could make it faster than anyone else. I guess the frequency of my visits played a bit of a role in our falling in love. She was always willing to talk, has a great personality, and is willing to put her everything into helping others. I can safely say, that without her help, I wouldn't have been able to save you." I told the princess. She still looked sad, but the tears had stopped. I tried to look her in the eyes, but she looked away, apparently to ashamed to look at me now. "Listen, if you don't want to talk to me, that is fine. But I would still like to get to know you. We may not get a happily ever after like the fairy tales say, but we can still try and become friends." I say, hoping that she will agree. I would much rather part on happy terms if I could. The princess didn't say anything for a few moments, now it was my turn to be worried about what she was going to say. Finally I saw her give a slight nod. "I guess I can live with that." She says. Hearing this, I give a sigh of relief. "But," I hear her say, her tone making me freeze in place. "I demand that I get to give you one kiss, as thanks for saving me and the realm from the Dark King's reign." She said. I took a small step back in shock, before I heard a familiar voice. "Oh go ahead you numbskull. You were talking about her all the time when we first met, it isn't gonna make me mad." I hear my wife call out from the crowd. I look in her direction and see everyone staring at her. I look back toward the princess, who is blushing now. She looks at me and nods. I quickly look back to my wife, who also nods and then back to the princess. "Well then, as it seems there are no objections from your wife..." She trailed off. "I guess, well then, let's... do this thing... I guess." I say, feeling very awkward once again. The princess took a step towards me, placing her hands on both sides of my face. I tried to keep still. Soon enough, I felt the princess' breath on my face. I readied myself as best as I could. My eyes were closed, and no one was making a sound. I felt her soft lips press against my own. I heard people in the crowd cheer, even my wife. For a few seconds longer the kiss lingered. Luckily, it didn't feel as awkward as I thought it would. When we finally separated, I saw that my wife had managed to push her way to where the princess and I were standing. She climbed up onto the small stage that we were standing on and gave us both a big smile. "Now that wasn't so hard, now was it?" She asked me teasingly. I just waved her off. She turned to look at the princess and offered her hand. The princess slowly took my wife's extended hand a d shook it "Sorry I ended up takin' your man princess, I didn't think I would end up fallin' for him in a million years. But life's got a funny way of workin' things out." My wife said, using her other hand to scratch the back of her neck. "I can understand that, I hope that he makes you happy." The princess said, trying to smile. "He already has." My wife said. Suddenly she pulled the princess close to her and whispered something to her. I saw the princess' face flush red as she pulled away, quickly glancing between the two of us. "Are you sure?" The princess asked, her face still as red as a beet. My wife just nodded and threw an arm around me. "If you say so." The princess said, turning back to her subjects, trying to calm her still visible blush. I looked questioningly at my wife who just smiled slyly at me. "Citizens, this concludes our ceremony, go celebrate with friends and family, for the reign of the Dark King is over!" The princess exclaimed, getting cheers from her assembled subjects. She gave one last smile to me and my wife before she motioned for one of her servants to escort her back to the castle. With nothing else to do, my wife and I decided to start walking back to the house we had bought together. "Hey," I began, causing my wife to look at me. "What did you say to the princess right before the end of the ceremony?" I asked, hoping to get an answer now that we weren't out in public. "Oh, I just told her that if she wanted to come over for dinner tomorrow she would be more than welcome." She said. "Oh, is that all? Did you tell her we were going to be eating Dinner early that night?" I asked. "Yep," My wife said, then looked at me with a devilish smirk. "I even told her why, and that she was welcome to stay for that part too." "WHAT?!" "I might have to make a double batch of that potion tonight." P.S: Sorry about no place names or character names, I couldn't think of any that sounded good.

Hank stared at the image on the

Hank stared at the image on the screen for a few more moments, and when he failed to smell yellow or taste cheese, he realized he was not having a stroke. He got up with a grunt and slowly made his way to the bedroom door. Moans emanated from beyond. Poking his head out into the darkness of the hall, Hank said, "You alright down there?" He flicked on a stairway light. "Sir," said an adolescent voice at the bottom, "I think I've broken an ankle." Hank imagined the owner of the voice to be a pimply teen, maybe named Thomas. He knew differently, of course. "Alright, son," said Hank. "Now, I'm going to be coming down shortly. You're not gonna... eat me, are ya?" "That's--" The thing sounded offended, then cleared its throat. "I'm not going to eat you, sir." The moans picked up again, but they were subdued. "One moment," said Hank. He went and put on his robe, grabbed a flashlight, and rooted around in his closet until he found a dusty, battered box. Inside were some papers, a scuffed badge, and a black case. Inside, his service pistol. Hank took it out, loaded a few rounds, and tucked it into a robe pocket. Then he was going down the stairs, saying, "I'm coming down now. Don't move quickly, don't roll around. Just stay still until I say so, alright?" There was no answer, only weak groaning. "Alright, son?" prodded the retired officer. "Yeah," said the monster at the bottom of the stairs. Hank made his way almost all the way down, stopping before the final few stairs, and flicked on another light. "Hey," said the monster, squinting through the sudden brightness--though Hank felt sort of bad for thinking of it as a monster. That seemed a mischaracterization. It was huge, yes, and while that could definitely be a monstrous trait, it was the wrong kind of huge. It was Barney "huge." It was "huge" like Big Bird. There was, Hank had to admit to himself, something inherently cuddly about the creature. Its fur was mottled, a dotty mixture of whites and browns and greys: the colors of an Australian Shepherd dog. It had two antennae on its head, topped with little bulbs, like a cartoon bee. Next to its hand, as if dropped, was a glitter wand with a star-tip. The tutu it wore was almost but not quite totally pink; there was white trim. 'Bumblebee,' as a kind of moniker, came to mind. The bumblebee held its ankle and said, "Could I have some help, sir? This is really very painful." Hank crouched a few stairs above, keeping a wary distance from what looked to be some pretty massive paw-hands. Each had three fingers and a thumb, articulate, and each digit was tipped by a blunt claw--as long as a bear's, but not near as sharp. Hank wasn't entirely convinced the creature would use the claws, but he hadn't lived to be 64-years-old by being reckless. "I have some medical know-how, and if there's nothing I can do, my sister is a veterinarian. She owes me a favor. First, though, I'd like to clear things up. Like, for instance, you do understand that you broke into a police officer's home?" Hank was retired, but the bumblebee didn't have to know that. When it didn't answer, Hank said, "Okay. Keep it simple. What are you doing in my house? In a tutu. With a wand." "I--" He sighed. "Sarah?" "What?" "Are you Sarah Barnes?" it huffed, its round yellow eyes luminous and full of unconcealed pain. He wanted to say, *Do I look like a Sarah?* but instead: "No," Hank said slowly, deliberately. "My name is Hank. Sarah Barnes--well, she hasn't been around for a long time." "She doesn't live here?" "No," Hank said again. "It's just me. How do you know that name?" With a great amount of fanfare, the creature rolled around, wobbled back and forth, like it was reaching for something in a back pocket but just couldn't get there. Hank didn't feel the slightest itch of worry. The bumblebee, as far as he could tell, was completely harmless. Of course, Hank still tapped his finger impatiently against the handle of his gun in the robe, old habit, and the bumblebee seemed to notice. It went still, stared at Hank for a second with its doofy eyes, and then started searching again, frantically, making frustrated little noises. Hank almost laughed. He felt a strange admiration for the creature creeping up on him, which was a little annoying, because it'd just broken into his house. Despite himself, he thought it was cute, in a big Baloo kind of way. "Here," it muttered, very proud, and flourished a yellowed scrap of parchment. It seemed ancient. "Sarah Barnes, born 1976, to Ellen and Hank Barnes. Lives at 372 Stockport Lane, Windsworry, Minnesota." Hank waited a second for the creature to make the connection, and when it didn't, Hank decided it didn't matter and that the poor guy was still in pain. "Doesn't exactly answer my question, so how about you keep talking and I'll see what we can do about your ankle." "Alrighty," said the bumblebee with some exuberance. "My list told me to come here, to the home of Sarah Barnes, and help out any way I could." Hank was nodding, listening, and was starting to examine the creature's ankle, when it suddenly barked out, "Wait!" Hank almost reached for his gun. "Don't yell," he grunted and then, looking into its yellow cat's eyes, said, "What is it?" "I think I need milk. It's hard to explain but, for me, milk is like a... a... I don't know the word. But it makes pain not so painful." "Analgesic?" "Okay." Its eyes held absolutely no recognition, but there was something like a smile there. Hank squinted, and then smiled back, if faintly. "Alright, I'll be back with some milk. I needed some supplies, anyway. One second, son." As he went into the kitchen and did everything he needed to do, he realized it could be a girl, for all he knew. Hell, could be it didn't have a gender or sex or whatever you called it these days. *Wait,* he told himself. *Slow down.* Hank paused momentarily, reaching inside. For panic, a sense of deep disturbance, something. But all he found was a slight ache and a desire to help the injured bumblebee curled up at the bottom of his staircase. And he realized, with some satisfaction, that that was fine. Hank came out, saying, "Alright, so--" There was no creature. "I'm here, sir," said the bumblebee, its voice coming from the living room. "I crawled to these long, fluffy chairs. With the marshmallows on them." Hank, mindful of his bum leg, moved quickly into the living room: "Those aren't..." The bumblebee, spread out on one of the couches, already had a big white pillow shoved in its fanged maw. It struggled to swallow, and then it did. Hank could only be impressed; Ellie had picked out those ugly things, decades ago, and she hadn't taken them with her. He laughed. "Aren't good is right, sir. What a terrible marshmallow. I could barely even chew it." "To wash it down," said Hank, and handed the bumblebee its milk. He sat down across from it, on the other couch. A small table was between them. "Thank you," it said, and drained the cup in one swallow. "Refreshing," it whispered with a sigh. "I have some bad news." The bumblebee looked alarmed. "What's wrong? Are you okay?" "Oh, I'm fine. It's just, I don't have what I thought I have. So, I had to give my sister a call. It's going to be awhile before she gets here." "Is that all, sir? I don't mind." Hank chuckled. "You do seem comfortable, all things considered." The creature smiled softly. "You said Sarah hasn't been around for a while." "Died. Back in... '89." Hank sank back, allowing the ache to encircle him. It hurt but it could not kill. "Drunk driver hit her. She was crossing the street." "I'm sorry," said the bumblebee. "And your wife? Where is she?" "Left, few years after. We didn't work well after that. I fell into work. Looking back, I know I didn't give her the support she needed. But I resented her for not supporting me. I should have been seeing someone." "If I may," the creature said, gently, "you had just lost your daughter. Both of you. There's no use assigning any blame. That kind of loss would ruin anyone." "I know," said Hank, and he did. "I just wish." The bumblebee said, "I used to make wishes." It held its wand, pulled one of the ribbons hanging off. The bumblebee met Hank's eyes with its own slitted, glowing pair. "But then it came to me that I was only making my reality worse, because I knew a wish would never come and change everything for me. I had to make the changes myself. They weren't the kinds of changes I wanted, originally. I could never fix my life like magic could. But I could understand the problems I was trying to wish away, and somehow, some way, I could try to make it all manageable." "Sounds like we've both had our... difficulties." Hank stared, holding on to the ache that wound around his ribs like a ribbon. "Thank you for talking to me." The bumblebee gestured vaguely with its wand, smiling, just as a car pulled up to the house and lights shined through the window, the gauzy curtains. Hank turned. He could see his sister's disheveled appearance through the windshield of her car. She looked pissed and damn tired. Laughing, he turned to the creature, only to find an empty spot on the couch, with a slip of yellow parchment paper. It read: **Call me, if you ever want to talk. I'll stop by for marshmallows and a glass of milk. Maybe the marshmallows could be a little tastier next time.** Hank sank back into the couch. He folded the note reverently, placed it in his pocket, and thought, *She is gonna flip her shit.* Hopping over the backyard fence, down into a dark alley, the bumblebee heard Hank laughing and began jogging away on two good ankles.

Hawk thought the zombie apocalypse would be

God, I really hate going on drug runs. In fact, I hate going on any runs at all. I thought the zombie apocalypse would be kind of fun, you know, like a video game or something, but the thrill wears off pretty quickly once your life is in actual danger almost every time you step outside. And let's not forget getting to watch someone you know turn. It isn't just a quick transition from one second being human then all of a sudden, boom, they are a zombie. No, they writhe around like a suffocating fish on land while you can audibly hear their bones snapping and dislocating as they convulse violently for about half a minute. Honestly, it amazes me that those things can move at all after going through all of that. "Hawk! Check this out!" my squad member, Axel, calls to me across the room. "Not so fuckin' loud, dude! They'll hear you," I whisper angrily back to him as I make my way there. Axel really isn't the brightest crayon in the toolshed, but he is damn handy when it comes to electronics and vehicles. Think he said he was a mechanic or an electrician or something before the world went to shit. Whatever he was, he is useful is all that matters, and being useful keeps you alive in our community. Everyone has to pull their weight or else they get the boot, which is basically a death sentence to be sent out into the wilds alone. I don't really have many discernable skills except that I am a really good shot. My name isn't actually Hawk, it's Billy Watkin, but everyone calls me Hawk or Hawkeye 'cuz I'm notorious for headshotting those monsters. I used to spend a lot of time down at the gun range, which I guess ended up saving my ass because if I couldn't split brains I would have been kicked out of the community faster than an infected person. And so, I am stuck with going on supply runs as my primary duty because killing is all that I'm really good for. We all gather around Axel to see what he found. He seems pretty excited. "Guys, I found, like, 30 bottles of antibiotics and about 10 bottles of pain killers. Jackpot!" he declares to the team with a cheek-to-cheek grin. "Well done, Axel," says Camie, who is still scanning the room for movement, "Should hold us over for quite a while." "Alright, that's great and all, but we still have more things to find," spouts Valk impatiently. Camie and Valk are two women I thank God every day are a part of my squad. Camie is our field medic and can close a wound faster than you can say "ouch." She used to be an EMT and has saved my ass more than I'd care to admit. Valk used to be a ranger in the army, and although I don't like to admit it, she can out shoot me any day. It's nice to have another sharpshooter like her watching my back. We actually don't even know her real name because she was introduced to us as Valkyrie, or Valk for short, named after the female Norse warriors I presume from how badass she is. "Good point, Valk, let's keep moving upstairs. Everyone form up," I order as we move towards the stairs. As we clear the area at the top of the stairs there is a symphony of loud thudding and an intense yelling. "Shit! Survivor!" Camie exclaims as she pushes forward, revolver in hand. We move quickly to the location of the screaming to find a fairly short, young looking guy being attacked by three undead. He seems to have been overpowered and lies still on the floor. Valk fires three shots and each connects with the head of a zombie. "Targets down. I got the door. Hawk, check him out," she orders calmly, like it's just another day at work. I walk over to the guy to check the damages, but it looks like we got to him a bit too late. They had already started to rip him apart and no matter how good Camie is, she can't help him with that. "Dead," I bark back to the team as a status update. It's at that moment when I turn my head slightly to call this out to my squad that I realize something. He isn't shaking. "Oh fu-" I blurt out as the corpse wraps its arms around my neck and pulls me down. It grabs me tight and squeezes me with all its might. God Almighty it is strong. We roll around on the floor wrestling for my life. There's no clear shot for my team to take. It opens its maw and lunges toward me. With nothing left but my adrenaline and a desperate, primal need to survive, I bite its arm to try to make it lose its grip or distract it. Obviously, this doesn't make much sense because it can't feel pain, but it's all I could think to do in the moment. Immediately, it drops me and begins to convulse violently. What the hell happened? What is it doing? We all stand silently with our guns raised to its head and watch. His skin goes from a greenish pale to a lively tannish hue. His eyes go from a glassy white to dark brown. His severe gashes begin to mend themselves. He eventually stops rattling and then cries out in pain. "Oh God! Someone please help me!" the young man yells out in panic, as if he is still being attacked. "Hey now relax, buddy," Axel coos to him in a soothing voice, "we killed those fuckers. It's all good." "H-He turned back. Hawk, what did you do to him?" Camie roars at me. "I have no clue. Uh, I-I-I couldn't reach any weapons in time so I just, uh, bit him I guess," I try to explain, but am still dumbfounded. Valk chuckles, presumably at how dumb I sound, and turns back to watch the door again. "W-Who are you guys? W-What happened to me?" questions the young man. "No time for questions now, kid," Camie replies curtly, "Team, screw the supply run. We gotta get this guy back to town ASAP to study. I'll bind his remaining wounds and let's move." We all grunt in agreement. I'm not sure what's going on, but this could change everything. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ [Part 2 is up!]

The report on the Humans had only

"I don't understand, how could this be? The report on the Humans had only been published a few cycles ago, surely you must be..." Senator Courl looked over the reports, there was simply no way that they could be a mistake. Mistaking one entire System for another was unheard of but here they were. "Numbers, I need numbers. The last we've heard only two countries were attempting to reach the stars, what do we have now?" The gelatinous mass that made up the physical manifestation of the Artificial Intelligence, 'Murq' vibrated with information as it spoke, "The Humans now have complete dominion over their shared space, designation E-762/763. With the advent of what is being described as a Resonance Manipulation Chamber their technological expansion has increased by a factor of 43. Fusion technological breakthroughs using the Resonance Manipulation Chamber has been what can only be described as 'perfected' and the colonization of the entire system has taken place over the past hundred E-762/763 Cycles. The Humans have also advanced in terms of their own genetic engineering along with a coupling of machine interfaces with their own internal nervous systems. This has led to an explosion in population and an almost complete decline in any defects within their gene pool. Preliminary scans from our first encounter with the race had estimated several billion to be living on their home planet of E-762/763-G however more recent reports over the area have revealed their overall population to be somewhere in the several trillions. Pause." Hearing the pause signaled an end to this particular strand of information and the advancement of this species and how quickly they could reproduce was disturbing news to Courl. What was even more disturbing however and hadn't even been discussed as of yet was the fact that the humans were at war with each other. Shaking his head, Courl was already trying to think of how to report this to his superiors that were on their way to E-762/763. It would be some time before the armada would arrive but Courl and his small scouting and science force could only hope they wouldn't be discovered in that time by these rampaging humans. "Why are they fighting one another?" The question was direct but there was no need for pleasantries with the AI, Murq. "Signals intercepted and translated using Interlacing Decryption Receivers have revealed humans to be separated into several factions. The four largest factions include: The Titan Machine Cult, Gala-Inter Mindnet, The Freed Stations of the Belt and The Venusian/Martian Hold. These factions have been at odds for some time from what information we can gather and their differences have led to an interplanetary conflict between these factions and several more. Pause." "What differences are we dealing with here?" Courl wanted to know more in hopes for providing a report to his superiors that could paint the humans in a more vulnerable light. "Trade routes, dispersmberment of resources from different areas within E-762/763, moral avenues of research, worshiping of different entities and political parties have all been marked as reasons for this war. Pause." Murq began to vibrate wildly and visibly, causing Courl some concern. The AI hadn't veered from the conversation at hand so Courl thought perhaps it was nothing of importance. "Is there anyway we can estimate the losses?" Everything here was wrong and the Senator was worried the news he could send to the armada wouldn't be pleasant. Though perhaps if the humans destroyed each other before they arrived... things might be a little different. But in this world the humans lived in there was no telling how fast they would develop even in the time it was taking the armada to make it to E-762/763. "Loss count found in human data stores. Computing." The AI vibrated more, its gel exterior shifting colors for a moment. "Possible error. Human loss count to be approximately 112. Pause." "112? In an interplanetary war? Impossible, redo the calculations." Murq began its processing which took some time. It was quiet in the observation chamber of the science vessel. Courl looked to the viewing screens that showed E-762/763 along with statistics scrolling down the sides. While Murq continued its process, Courl then typed up a command that would bring up a simulation that showed the human's reach from the first encounter to this one. It would seem that every year the human's technology doubled and finally it reached a point where several key inventions brought about unprecedented boosts in tech and the economy. The simulation showed from that from Earth, long reaching strands began to touch almost every possible place for colonization within E-762/763. Soon, the entire area was marked as occupied. Shaking his head, Courl was about to ask another question before Murq broke the silence. "111. A single death has been subtracted from the sub total as this loss of life was via an accident during the launch of a factory satellite. Pause." "Explain how these... creatures could be at war with such a small death count." Courl's voice was demanding as he stared at the simulation on the screen. "Due to a human trait, loss of life has been deemed unacceptable throughout their factions. Use of drones and unmanned equipment are used to ensure minimal of loss of life. Pause." Murq then began to vibrate almost violently once more. "What is it, Murq?" "Final conclusion has been reached regarding the strange behavior of humans. Pause." Courl's several eyes all narrowed in surprise at once, "Well? What is it?" "Interplanetary war has been deemed a game." "A game? What do you mean a game?" Shock rippled through Courl's fragile body as he took in the information. "Conflict that we have perceived as a war is nothing more than a sport of such. Factions within the human dominion work to construct the most capable equipment of destruction and then allow these pieces of equipment to engage in combat. These engagements are recorded and broadcast within E-762/763 for what the humans consider entertainment. Pause." This changed everything. The strangeness of it, the unexpected outcome of the scouting reports, everything was wrong. Suddenly, fear gripped the Senator as he thought of what might happen should the armada arrive in full force. They were originally expecting a single planet that was undefended. Their empire was to subdue the planet, mine E-762/763 of resources and then release E-762/763-G to its devices. Now however, how might this destructive species react to the arrival of an alien armada in full force? "Murq, run a calculation for me." "Input required." "With what is scheduled to arrive with the armada, could we reasonable quell the human forces long enough to successfully harvest E-762/763?" Looking at the gelatin AI, its colors began to shift once more. Expecting an answer reasonable quickly, Courl waited for a few more moments. Several hours had passed and Murq was unresponsive to additional inquiries by Courl, so the Senator left the room. It had been several days and Courl had busied himself with some of the lesser important tasks regarding the study of different elements found in E-762/763. The abundance of some resources was good news as they were in need of most. Finally, Murq's voice came. Courl almost jumped as the AI spoke for the first time in days and looked to the blob of gel as it spoke, "Calculations complete. Actual human force numbers are uncountable. Production of heavy equipment is too fast to calculate. Production of unmanned equipment is too fast to calculate. Production of space faring equipment is too fast to calculate. Production of defensive networks around human colonies is too fast to calculate. Weaponized technology advancement is beyond current armada's use. Risk of loss when armada enters E-762/763 is complete. Technological tier 12 has been applied to Humanity. Pause." Courl took in the information with growing fright. Technological tiers higher than 7 which his race now enjoyed could only be found in science fiction and the most imaginative minds. Why then did the humans stay within E-762/763? The answer might never be known. But it was clear that the plans his empire had had would never come to be. Now one of the most difficult questions ever to have been asked must be answered. Should they or should they not contact the humans? Edit: My first gold ever! Thank you so much kind individual!

Maverick's muscles bulged so

The muscles in Maverick's legs bulged so hard his jeans exploded - leaving him in hot pants. He leapt high and with earth-shattering force slammed into the ground next to the enemy, and swung. His fist collided with the enemy's cheek, who recoiled from the impact. Well, it sorta looked that way. Had he taken the punch head on, Maverick's self-confidence wouldn't have been the only thing shattered. Bart synthesized some blood in his mouth, just another power, and spat it at the ground, staggering. Maverick held up his fist threateningly, "This ends now, Count Bartholomew." Bart sighed internally. Ah, there's that name again. Bart just wasn't good enough for the media. The magazines had run with it and before he knew, it had stuck. Count Bartholomew coughed. Hey, hey, hey. Just Bart, okay? You're not getting away with that. I'm hearing this. Omniscience. Yeah, the list of powers was lengthy. Just call me Bart or I'm taking over and narrating this myself. ....*Bart* coughed, or mimicked a cough as well as he could - it had been a while, "Curses, Maverick." yelled Bart, making an exaggerated gesture, "And all of you of the Hero Squad!" What? Exaggerated? I'm just giving them what they want. They want sneering and finger pointing. Y'know what? Move over. You suck at this. I'll tell it like it is. Dashingly handsome Bart recovered gracefully, only suffering a minor bruise. His black hair literal perfection. His graceful smile illuminating the poorly lit warehouse. His delicious tors--- Hey, hey. Bart dodged a swing from Maverick, the force causing a nearby wall to explode. He leapt backwards onto some high metal shelves, barely dodging the bullets shot by Sheriff Daisy. He then -- Hold on, whoops. He.. Dammit. Ah! That's my nose! Jerk. He th-- Take over will you? Overwhelmed and out-of-breath, Bart left narration to the professionals. So that he himself could focus on the fight, *that had just barely begun*. Almost on command, the dust brought afloat by the destroyed wall settled, and a squadron of heroes stepped forward to join Maverick and Daisy. Muscle-bulging physical types, scantily-clad women, and some kid-prodigy called Kevin. The lengths some of these heroes would go for stylepoints. Speedster Jessica, running at the speed of sound - on high heels. A battle with Jessica is like fighting an angry rattle, heels ticking against the pavement on every step. You'd wonder how those heels manage to last. Well, they don't. If she wasn't sponsored by a local shoe store, she'd probably be forced to go bare-foot. Muscle hero Maverick with his love for skin-tight clothing, despite his muscle-pumping power. Sheriff Daisy who could shoot projectiles from anywhere on her body, but insisted on using finger-guns. Apparently you can only fire so many bullets from your nostrils before people start to make fun of you. You could tell her to turn her nose up at that kind of behaviour, but this just made people raise their hands and surrender. And Kevin, with his ... well, nobody really knew what Kevin did. He just seemed to always be there when things went *right*. Monster around? Kevin around? Monster beaten? There you have it. Like a dance group with perfect choreography, the heroes approached Count Bartho - Hey! - *Bart*. A perfect circle, nowhere to go. Every escape route cut off. Bart thought long and hard. It was the kind of heavy thinking you're forced to do when you're tallying up the lies and attempt to keep your story straight. Do they know about the flying power? The water one? The magnificent moleman power? Faced with uncertainty and doubt, he decided on an old villain favourite. He dashed towards the edge of the circle, ran straight at one of the heroes, and pushed over Kevin. Then ran away. "Nehehhehe!" sneered Bart loudly, fighting down the crippling embarrassment of having *Nehehehe'd*. "He's getting away!" shouted Maverick. "I'm getting away!" confirmed Bart. Bart ran as fast as he thought a middle-aged villain would run and ran that exact speed. I mean, bolting for it at light speed would kind of put a damper on things. He even faked a "Oh, god. Why do I never go to the gym? I even have a membership" - wheeze while he ran. A scream came from behind and Bart froze, it was the unmistakable scream of Speedster Jessica. He had heard it once before, back when she turned an expensive pair of designer heels into fancy lines on the pavement. She became the hero of crayon-wielding kids everywhere. Bart looked over his shoulder to see Kevin wring the life out of Maverick. Monster around? Kevin around? Monster beaten? There you have it. "I've been plotting, planning, scheming." said Kevin with a voice like an angry parakeet, "My creations have failed me, but I'll dabble in those experiments no more." Kevin behaved in the way a preschooler would think a villain should behave. He only missed a few henchman and some angry muttering of "You fools!". Who's gonna take a villain like this seriously? Kevin tossed aside the lifeless collection of muscles that once went by the name of Maverick. Well, maybe Bart could make an effort to try. He jogged back towards the circle of heroes, "Heya, fellas." he tried, "Just letting you know that I've been escaping and I just wanted to sorta let you know." Kevin's eyes landed on Bart, "You," he tweeted, "I'll dispose of you first." Bart snorted, then coughed, "Oh no!" he cried. The heroes rallied around Bart. "Please find safe cover, *citizen*" said Sheriff Daisy, "Leave this to the pros." Bart felt a foreign feeling of warmth creep over him, an odd sense of acceptance. "Beat it, loser." added Jessica. The feeling retreated into a level of non-existence so severe, it shouldn't exist, and puzzled philosophers for decades to come. His mind sought for a retort, found nothing, and settled on mimicking Jessica's voice in a high tone, "*'Beat it loser'*." Kevin waved a hand and a sprouting pillar of earth introduced Speedster Jessica to high-speed in a new direction. up. Today had proven very educational for Jessica for after hitting the ceiling of the warehouse, she also learned about *down*. Bart watched Jessica writhe in pain while he contemplated if he should do something or not. A massive stone pillar shot out of the ground towards him, missing him by an inch after a timely save by Sheriff Daisy. She quickly got to her feet and pumped her left arm like a shotgun, "Go! Quickly!" she said, firing several shots from her fist at the Kevin. A stone wall effortlessly put itself between the hail of pellets and Kevin. She took a boxing pose and executed a clean 1-2, large projectiles emitting from her fists on every thrust. Kevin held up his hands and shards of earth collided with the projectiles in mid-air, causing minor explosions. She jumped and spun in the air, executing some complicated spin-kick movement. Or she would've, if a large pillar of earth hadn't introduced her to the floor. "Dang." commented Bart. Nearby Jessica wheezed, "Count Bartholomew," she coughed, "You need to.." Bart rolled his eyes and read her mind, informing him that she wanted him to report to the hero bureau, to ask for assistance. Who really has time for lengthy death rattles? "Well, I could," began Bart, "But, y'know, I could also try..." "No," croaked Jessica, "You don't stand a chance." "How generic is this," said Bart, "The writer is a lazy piece of shit, but I'll forgive him because it's 1AM and he has to work tomorrow." Bart put his hands into the pockets of his jeans and approached Kevin. "You human then?" asked Bart. Kevin cackled, a sound which closely resembled the death throes of a choking pidgeon, "You fool!" "Hey, there it is." said Bart. The preschooler raised an eyebrow, "My kind has controlled yours from the shadows for millennia. I am the puppet master, the controller, I.. " Bart snapped his fingers and Kevin ceased to exist.

I leave the comfort of my apartment

I've always hated attention. I leave the comfort of my apartment only when necessary. That includes work, the grocery store, for short walks, and on rare occasions, the gym. So when I stepped outside to take a walk on the trail near my building, I all but froze. Usually there are quite a few people mucking about. I live in a nice area and in the summer people like to enjoy the market that pops up on the weekend. It just happened that I had to pass that market to get to the trail. I stepped onto the sidewalk and immediately everyone's eyes were glued to my face. Well, not at my face, per se, but at the general area above my head. My heart immediately started to beat fast, and not just because of the attention. Usually someone only garners this much attention when their health bar is extremely low. I had seen it happen myself a few times. Once was enough to scar me for life. An old man stepping out of a coffee shop with his health rapidly draining. It flashed red and he clutched his heart. A minute later he was dead from cardiac arrest. It's something no one can help. Once your health bar drains too low, not even the miracle of modern medicine can save you. The bots had tried though. They swarmed the old man quickly, administering shocks to try and restart his heart. But he was gone, somewhere the living can only imagine exists. So when everyone's eyes shot to my health bar, I thought I was done for. I looked left and right, expecting either a car to swerve onto the sidewalk and flatten me, or a gunman to run out of the bank next to my apartment and kill me, an innocent bystander. But when nothing happened right away, and no ones eyes had left the area above my head, I took a breath and chanced a glance upwards. Well that was unexpected. My health bar was full, I was in completely good health. Not to be unexpected. That wasn't what they were staring at, however. Right below my health bar, a strange blue bar had appeared. It was slowly growing in strength. I watched as it filled and a strange glow surrounded it. Now I'd played enough video games to have an inkling of what was going on. But I wasn't in a video game. Mana wasn't a real thing. What the hell was going on? A little girl who clung to her mothers hand pointed at me. "Mommy, what's that?" She just shook her head and tugged her daughter away from me. She wasn't the only one either. More and more people were moving out of my way. They seemed to be scared of this new bar that had appeared. My heart failed to slow and I wondered if this was some sort of warning that, even though I was in perfect health, something terrible was happening to me. I had never seen this bar before. What could it mean? I turned to head to the trail only to see more people shying away as I walked. No one wanted to be within twenty feet of me. They all stared and moved out of my way, as if whatever I had was contagious. I walked slow, reaching the trail far later than I should have. The sun was just beginning to dip in the sky and I what I had planned on being a relaxing Sunday afternoon had become something of a nightmare. I didn't like random strangers coming up and talking to me, but the thought that people I'd never even talked to being afraid to even walk near me was making me both sad and angry. What did I ever do to any of them? The trail was empty, thankfully. I didn't want to deal with anymore stares. I walked in silence, and although I didn't forget this strange, blue bar, I was able to relax within nature. I stopped in my usual spot, a bench overlooking the lake. The sun cast brilliant colors into the sky. A watercolor painting of reds, oranges, and pinks. I sat, fully ready to enjoy the sunset before returning and making supper. I didn't hear the footsteps on the gravel as they approached. Only felt the hand as it was placed firmly on my shoulder, making me squeak embarrassingly and jump off of the bench. Six people stood before me. A rather tall, but slim man held his hand up in apology. "I didn't mean to scar you," he said. "I thought you would have heard us." "Who are you?" "I'm Gerald," he answered. "This is Marie, Thomas, Jessie, Pippa, and Luka. We're here for you." My heart rate immediately spiked again. Where they here because of the blue bar? Where they going to kidnap me? Where they going to kill me? They didn't look like government agents. They were in street clothes and none of them seemed to be carrying weapons. The girl at the end erupted in laughter. "No, honey. We're not the government." She turned to the man next to her. "She thinks we're here to kill her." He started laughing as well. Gerald looked sharply at them. "Enough." They quieted but their smiles didn't waver. How in the world did she know what I was thinking. There was no such thing as mind reading. I must be imagining things. The afternoon had been stressful and now I was just making things up. "Nope," the girl said. "I apologize for Pippa," Gerald said. "She's the newest. She hasn't yet learned protocol." "I've been here for three years!" she wined. "And yet you still don't know how to behave!" The women on the far right waved her hand and Pippa was enveloped in a strange cylinder. I watched as her mouth continued to move but no sound reached my ears. She pounded on her encasement but it only waved like it was made of water, or gel, and then stilled again. She folded her arms and stared daggers at the the other woman, who just tucked her red hair behind her ears and gestured for Gerald to continue. "Thank you Marie," he said. "Now, I understand that you don't have a clue about what is happening. Trust me, we've all been there. But you need to come with us now. Everything will be explained, I promise, but we don't have time. It chose you." "What chose me?" "Not here," he said, hushed. "You never know what may be listening." What, not who. These people were either crazy or on some serious trip. I glanced over my shoulder for a way to leave, but I didn't fancy a steep descend down a grassy slope, most likely ending in a sprained ankle of some sort. Pippa pounded on her fluid-prison, pointing at me. "Not now," Gerald said to her before beckoning me to follow them. "We don't have much time before they arrive." Pippa continued to gesture at me, shouting something. Marie growled but waved her hand again, dissolving whatever it was that had held her. I took my chance while they were distracted. I moved right as she shouted that I was going to run. Suddenly I was frozen. Both my feet hovered off the ground as I was stuck mid-stride. I couldn't turn my head to see them. I couldn't so much as twitch my pinkie toe. I fell as Gerald grabbed me. "I am sorry," he said, his deep voice reverberating through my body. "You'll thank us later." Then I was nowhere. I couldn't see anything but pure blackness. But I could hear everything. Quick footsteps down the gravel trail, incoherent shouts made by unseen people, a car door slamming, it's engine starting. I felt the vibrations as we moved quickly down the street and then I felt nothing. Saw nothing. Heard nothing. Was nothing. I don't know how long I was out or how far I had traveled. When I finally pried my eyes open do a soft, dim light over my head, I found that I was lying on the worlds most comfortable mattress. An IV was attached to my left inner arm and a multitude of machines surrounded me, beeping every so often. "Ah," someone said off to my left. A young man sat in the chair there. He was with the group that took me. I knew it hadn't been a dream right then. Whoever those people were, they had actually kidnapped me and stuck me with a needle. "Welcome back. I didn't know how long you'd be out. Jessie goes a little crazy sometimes when we're under attack." "Under attack?" I mumbled. He stood, retrieving a wheelchair I hadn't seen before from the corner. He helped me out of the bed and into it. "Don't worry, you're safe here. I'm taking you to the rest of the team now." "Team?" "Not much of a talker, are you?" he chuckled. "You'll get along great with Marie." He continued the chatter as he wheeled me down a long hallway lined with pictures of people, all from different time periods it seemed. There was one woman in Victorian garb next to another in Viking attire. There seemed to be no pattern to their placement. "Here we are." He pushed me through a doorway into the most elaborate dining room I'd ever been in. Thick, heavy curtains colored blood-red were cinched on either side of floor length windows. The table stretched form one end to the other yet most of the chairs were empty. At the very far end the rest of my kidnappers sat, eating what smelled like roasted chicken. My mouth watered and my stomach rumbled. The man stopped me in front of Gerald who sat at the head of the table. "Leane Tumatchu," he started, his voice so deep that I could feel it in my chest. "Welcome to The Collective." Find more at

Al-Si Nib Dar was sentenced

The system beeped. "This is an interview relating to incident number K-23 within Extra-Max facility 120. Please state your name, inmate number, charges and sentence for the benefit of the recording" said one of the officers. He was the taller of the two, a pencil thin mustache cresting his top lip and a thin dusting of salt and pepper hair on top of his head. Before Al-Si answered, the shorter (and fatter, by a wide margin) officer broke out into a coughing fit. The taller officer gave him a glare and silence once again fell. Now they both turned expectantly to Al-Si. "Al-Si Nib Dar, Inmate number 746583, charged with 18 counts of inter-planetary arms trafficking and one of evading arrest via violent means. Sentence was originally 35 years, but I successfully appealed three of the arms charges due to the mishandling of evidence and got it reduced to 29. Have served 15 so far." "Thank you, Mr Nib Dar. Now, to the best of your recollection could you please explain the events leading to the incident last week?" Al-Si shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He'd been taken from his cell, taken from the prison proper for the first time in 10 years (since his last trip to court to appeal the charges) and unusually for transfers between the prison proper and other areas, he had not had any of his cybernetic augmentations disabled. While avoiding the painful procedure of having the augs shut down was a good thing, he knew he could do nothing with them and the itching caused by having his left eye suddenly working again, free from the prison proper's blanket disabling field, was sending him crazy. "Well we heard in the morning that the new crop was coming in. Old Cleaver was taking bets on the first to crack and call a guard as usual. Then the bell rang and we all went to our cells." "Cleaver. This would be Pat Cleaver, yes?" the shorter officer interjected. Al-Si nodded, continuing. "Umm, then they walked in." "They being the new inmates?" the tall officer prompted, when Al-Si paused. "Yes. Most of them were the normal fare, but I noticed her instantly. She couldn't have been more than 13." Now it was the tall officer's turn to shift uncomfortably. "She's 11, actually." Al-Si shuddered. "She went to her cell silently, same as all of them, and we stayed in our cells till yard time. When the guards came round for checks, I mentioned her to Officer Bright." The shorter officer took a note in his little pad. "What exactly did you say to Officer Bright, and what did he respond, Mr Nib Dar?" "I said "Jesus Christ Bright, what are they playing at sticking a girl like that in a place like this?" and he looked at me like he wanted to be sick. "I know. They must really not give a shit what happens to the rest of you." He muttered." The short officer coughed again, but thankfully only once. "And what was the next significant moment in the lead up to the incident, Mr Nib Dar?" "Si, please. Um, the next moment was yard time. We were walking out as normal-" "Mr N-Si, who exactly were you with as you left for the yard?" Al-Si hesitated. The memory was painful. "Um, I was walking with Galfar and Bones, uh Galfar Zem and Vice Vickers. We didn't get 5 steps out the door before everyone we could see in front of us broke into a sprint." "So, when you saw this rush, what did the three of you do?" "Galfar shrugged and went inside. He took a plasma bolt to the hip in the last riot and he still gets spasms in his foot so he didn't want any part of anything. Me and Vice ran too, out of curiosity." "Okay then Si, and when you reached the source of the disturbance what did you witness?" The tall officer asked, as his short companion flipped to a new page in the notebook and poised his pencil. "It was horrible." Neither Officer spoke immediately, but after a moment the short officer piped up. "Please state exactly what you saw. I know it was distressing." Al-Si scoffed. Distressing? He had been an interplanetary arms dealer for 14 years, and a bloody good one. So good, in fact, that he ended up with 15 charges for an offence he'd committed hundreds of times and one lesser charge than deserved for rigging a booby trap that took out three of the four officers sent to apprehend him. Death, violence, blood, gore, none of it phased him. He was no psycho, but he was no pussy. What that girl had done...it was beyond distressing. "It wasn't her actions. I mean...they were bad enough." He managed to choke out. "It...it was the glee on her face. I've never seen anyone so happy. It was like...like a child who'd never seen a present before on his first Christmas. She...she tore that guy's arm off and she took a bite out of it as though it was a chocolate cake. And the whole time, the whole time, she giggled and grinned." The shorter officer looked a little sick. He was lucky. He'd seen the pictures, probably. Maybe the footage if there was any that wasn't obscured by the mass of bodies watching the carnage. But he hadn't had to witness it. Hadn't had to be within 5 metres of that monster as she murdered her way through 14 of the worst, most violent and unremorseful criminals that the entire planetary system had to offer with the euphoria of someone indulging in the absolute most enjoyable activity they can conceive of. Hadn't had to look into her eyes for that brief second as she'd glanced at him. "And then what happened, Si?" Tall prompted. "We understand if you need a moment." Short added. "The second she looked at me I knew it was too late to run. How...how did her augs still work?" Short and Tall exchanged a look. "We're still working that out." Al-Si laughed sardonically, his jaw tightening. He was sat there, leg missing, traumatised after they had put that monster in a prison unfit to hold her, and they were "still working out" how she'd managed to activate several military grade augmentations inside a supposedly secure facility. "She came for me and that was it. Next thing I remember is waking up in the Infirmary, one leg down." He slumped. Tall, in a display of emotion that even in the short time they'd spent together, Al-Si could tell was rare, placed a hand on Al-Si's shoulder. "As the only survivor of the incident, you may not feel particularly lucky. However, due to the extreme nature of the circumstances, and the fact that you survived the onslaught only by sheer luck, we have received orders that your remaining sentence is to be halved and you are to be placed in a minimum security virtual facility for its duration. The Council of Planets Interplanetary Prison Complex apologises for its failings in your circumstance." Al-Si nodded, his heart lifting somewhat. Virtual prisons were cushy, you just sat in a room being drip fed while a digital chip presented you with a virtual city. You got a job, spent your free time on whatever self-improving pursuits you desired, and you proved you were rehabilitated. He'd have an easy time getting early release after the strict rules of EM 120. Couldn't bring back his leg. Couldn't heal the scars on his psyche. Couldn't stop him vomiting anytime he thought about the look on Cleaver's face as that girl had bitten through his throat. But it was something, at least. "Interview terminated." The system beeped.

Jess began to feel something for her

Jess could pinpoint exactly when she first thought her feelings were wrong: eighth grade after Advanced Algebra. Her friend Katie got an 82% on a test-- and that was disastrously low for Katie's norm, and considered even lower by her parents standards. Jess spent the rest of the class period trying to cheer her friend up: "It's one test-- it doesn't define you. You're amazing and good at everything. You're kind and pretty, and this is just a small hiccup! I know you'll ace the next test! I know it! We can study together-- and you'll probably be saving me from failing, like you normally do." When Katie smiled back at her, with a red nose, and puffy eyes, Jess knew that she felt something more for her friend. Jess, of course, buried her feelings. By no means was she homophobic, but every time she began to feel something for a friend or looked too long at a woman that walked by, she felt unsure of herself, felt like others would somehow know what she was thinking and judge her. So she buried it down-- at least, until college. Jess decided that she would at least try to get into the dating world. She'd go to parties with her friends, and when guys would be interested in her, she'd flirt back and have some fun-- and she did, in fact, enjoy her time with most of these guys. So she continued to have fun at parties, flirt, have some friends with benefits, but nothing substantial. Jess liked these guys, of course, but nothing felt like the dramatic and raw feeling of love and emotion that she always heard about from her friends. She decided it was time to start seriously dating-- time to find Mr Right, and then she would start to understand how all her friends felt with their boyfriends. They even said it themselves, "You just haven't found the right guy, Jess." The first few relationships Jess was in did not last long-- barely even a relationships since they were only a handful of dates and kisses over two or three months before parting ways. Then she met Matt. He was gorgeous-- all of Jess's friends said so-- and he was very into her. "Jess, I haven't been completely honest," he said one night during a dinner date two months into their relationship. "Um-- what?" "The first time I met you, it wasn't at that coffee shop. We were actually at the same college-- we had a lecture together for one semester. I saw you at a couple parties too." "Oh," Jess said, relieved to find out she wasn't a side-chick or that his secret wasn't relationship-ending-- but she realized that, maybe she didn't really care if their relationship ended anyway. "That's-- okay. I don't remember seeing you though." "I realized that at the shop," he said smiling a bit sheepishly, "but we didn't really talk and I looked a bit different back then." Jess broke up with Matt three months later. "How could you break up with him? He was so hot!" Regina, her roommate and best friend since college, told her. "There wasn't any spark-- he was kind of a doormat. He had no personality and went with whatever I said." "That sounds like the perfect man to me." Jess threw the couch pillow at her. "Okay, okay-- no man slaves. Hey-- wanna watch a movie tonight?" And Jess never felt more comfortable, more at home, than sharing a blanket with Regina on their couch and watching a crappy movie. Regina moved out six months later to live with her boyfriend. "Are you bringing Cam to the engagement party?" Regina asked her half a year later. "Most people Jim and I invited are bring their boyfriends or girlfriends." Jess had been dating Cameron for five months now, and things were nice. They liked all of the exact same things, worked in similar fields, had the same hobbies-- everyone said they were perfect for each other. "Yeah, he said he'll come. You said to come for dinner at eight? Is there anything I could bring? Dessert? Wine?" "You know we always appreciate more wine-- but we've got plenty already. All you have to do is bring yourself. And Cam." Just a few weeks after Regina's wedding eight months later, Jess broke it off with Cam. The wedding itself was beautiful, and Jess couldn't bear to make Regina worry by breaking up with Cam before it. "But Jess-- I love you-- we love each other! We love all the same foods and places. We even listen to the same music and watch the same shows-- we were perfect for each other this time!" "That's the thing, Cam, I don't want someone who's the same as me. I don't want to date myself. I want to date someone that's different and will push my boundaries-- make me try new things-- maybe I'll find things that I never even knew I liked before--" She thought of all the men she's dated in the past: they were all the same. They were all Nice Guys that were nice and sweet but had nothing to them-- each relationship was hollow and lacked any true, real substance. How many men had she gone on dates with? 15? 20? And none of them made her feel any different. She longed to feel the feelings she felt for her friends with anyone who wasn't her friends. Maybe, she thought, maybe she could. She was so tired, she had nothing to lose. "Cam, we're through. I'm sorry if it's sudden, but I'm tired-- of everything-- I have been for a while now, even before I met you." "Well... I hope you meet someone one day," Cam said after a long moment. "Maybe whoever you date next will be the right man for you." Jess remained quiet as Cam packed up the few things he had in her apartment. She doubted any man would be right for her. ---- It took her two weeks to text Regina and ask her to meet her for drinks on Friday night. "Hey, Jess-- isn't this a gay bar that we're going to? I heard it's a lot of fun," she said while they were walking. "Yeah-- I wanted to check it out," Jess said. They walked in silence for a minute before Jess' nerves got to her. "Ok-- wait, stop walking for a sec. I-- I need to tell you. We're not going to this bar just for fun-- I think I'm bi-- or a lesbian. I don't really know." "Oh-- okay," Regina said after a moment. "How long do you think you've known?" "Eighth grade. I told you about Katie from high school right?" "Oh . Yeah that makes sense," Regina thought for a moment. "Ok you ready to start walking again? It's cold." Jess couldn't be happier, and hanging out at a bar with her best friend, and the flutters in her stomach when other women came up to them to flirt-- it was one of the best nights she's had in a long time. And that same bar is where she met Taylor three weeks later. There was something about her-- something that made Jess feel like they knew each other for a long time. They liked a lot of the same things, but were different enough that things were still interesting. There were some things that were a bit quirky though. Taylor was really bad at shaving her legs-- she would always nick them multiple times every time she shaved. She was also really bad with makeup and couldn't tell concealer from foundation. She never had any pads or tampons in her apartment either. Jess had never asked her about it, but she hoped nothing traumatic happened to Taylor that would cause her period to stop. Taylor also had a whole ton of men's clothing in her apartment. For all her quirks though, Jess felt better with Taylor than she had with any of the men in her past.

"Eggs benny tomorrow

God damn do I love Saturdays. I get up no earlier than 11, put on sweatpants while I give my stuffy school uniform the evil eye, and head downstairs to gorge myself on dad's morning buffet. "Eggs benny tomorrow, kiddo." He told me last night with a wink and a grin. Eggs benedict do something obscene to me so he makes them for my birthday every year. I hammed up my excitement for him, shamelessly letting my "Daddy's Girl" flag fly. Dad's a fantastic cook and completely self-taught. His parents were Basic Laborers, so they lived on tier 2 food allowances and he learned how to be creative with meals. You have to when your available ingredients are whole wheat bread, root vegetables, eggs, canola oil, and a maximum of 1 SynthMeat serving a week per person (Dad loves lecturing me about how good we have it on tier 5, I've had his old grocery list memorized since I could talk.) I shudder to think what tier 1 rations are like. You can always tell when someone is on tier 1 and they don't look particularly happy. I head downstairs, slowly being greeted by the droll of High Chancellor Bowers' morning address. I have the utmost respect for him, as one should, but he'd certainly benefit from adding a little pep in his speech. I pause, trying to give the broadcast my utmost attention. I mean, it's one of the most important parts of our day but the waft of eau de canadian bacon behind pulls me away. "Happy birthday my sweet, beautiful girl!" My mom's voice almost sings like a nightingale any time she speaks and it's quite lovely. She makes the whole "brooding teenager" vibe really difficult to maintain. "So how's 18 feel?" Dad swoops in with the hair tousle and cheek pinch. "I dunno. Fine I guess? Is it supposed to feel a certain way?" Dad laughs and sends me off to the table. I swear, my eyes were watering alongside my tongue at the sight of it all. The hollandaise is a pale yellow, clearly made scratch rather than from that weird powder stuff. I wonder how my dad managed to get the extra eggs for that. ------------------------------- "Astrid darling, could you go grab the mail while I wash the dishes? I'm sure you've got some cards in there." I nod with a muffled "*mhhm*" courtesy of the almost whole english muffin in my face. It's sunny today. So warm too. Everything feels so... relaxed. Like the way only a Saturday can feel. I bring in the mail, wondering why this sleek looking box is addressed to me. Return address: Health Authority Citizen Register. Fuck. I hate needles. My pinhole focus on my displeasure is interrupted by my mother letting out her world famous "tut". "My goodness, I can't believe this showed up so late! Can you imagine the fine if we hadn't been able to submit today? My cousin Martha was lazy with hers and they downgraded her family to a tier 2 house for an entire year! That place was unbearable." Stupid DNA registry. Can't they swab my cheek? Process some hair? Rip off a toenail? This is bullshit. Did I mention I hate needles? We powered on the small tablet provided and a soothing AI voice spoke. "Greetings. Please place the sample in the right hand tray. You will be processed and registered immediately." I clenched my fist, shut my eyes, and did my best to rotate my head 90 degrees while dad pricked my fingertip. It actually didn't hurt but I had to justify my prior overreaction so I gave a dramatic little yelp before pressing my finger to the glass tray. "Thank you. Your sample is being processed." I don't know why, but we sat and watched the little tablet while it whirred away. The AI was silent and the screen blank for a good 30 seconds. Then, suddenly: ERROR. My father scowled. "Damn thing. This is why we oughta have people do this like they did when I registered." The AI started speaking. I wonder if he offended it? "I'm sorry, but it appears this sample has already been registered. Please provide a sample from ASTRID INGRAM." My mother huffed, "That WAS Astrid's sample. Can you run it again?" "Your sample is being processed." Tuts and huffs abound. "I'm sorry, but it appears this sample belongs to HIGH CHANCELLOR JOHNATHAN BOWERS. Please provide a sample for ASTRID INGRAM." I nearly choked on my own spit. "What? That's absurd. Dad what is wrong with this tablet?" I look up from the screen and my father was halfway across the house, scrambling to throw his sneakers on. "Astrid, get some shoes on and go to the backyard." I stared at him and my stomach dropped. My father was... scared. The whole world seemed to pause and I couldn't move. I'd never seen this before. "NOW!" I shot up, bolted for my flip-flops, and threw open the back door with dad at my heels. He grabbed me by the elbow and led me to the overgrown blackberry bush in the corner. He reached through the mass of thorny branches, muttering curses as they shredded his forearm. He started fumbling around with some strange piece of black metal on the fencing. He had something in his hand that looked like a key. *"Only military personnel have keys."* Even in my head, the thought was a whisper. "Dad, what is that thing?" "It's a lock. George made it for me." "...you mean neighbor George? The veteran? Since when does he talk to anyone?" "We don't have time Astrid, we have to go." Dad swung the fence open and started sprinting into the woods behind our house, pulling me with him. We ran for miles, my shins burned and the heat of the afternoon was unbearable. Have you ever sprinted in flip-flops? Some footwear suggestions would have been nice, dad. We finally stopped at the wall that surrounded our town, 50 feet high with empty, decrepit guard towers to my right and left. "They haven't had personnel on this section of the wall for years," my dad explained. He got on his hands and knees and started pulling at some rocks. Within moments, he cleared the pile to reveal a hole than ran through the wall straight to the other side. I started crying. I couldn't help it. What was going on? Why did they say my blood sample belonged to the High Chancellor? Why was my dad so terrified? He pulled me in for a hug, a hug I hadn't felt since the time I returned from a 3-month summer camp. "Astrid, you need to crawl through here to the other side of-" "Of the wall?!" I shoved him away. "I can't just go through the wall dad, they'll arrest me!" I was hysterical. How could he do this to me? He grabbed me by the shoulders, his face as tear-soaked as mine. "Astrid, listen. I don't know why your DNA matches Bowers'. I don't know what it means, but if anything George has told me is true then you're in serious danger and you HAVE to leave." "What has George told you?" "Look, you don't have time for me to explain. Your mother is going to report you as missing to cover our tracks any minute now. Please believe me when I say the High Chancellor, his advisors, the military, they're not who we think they are. They're dangerous and you have to stay away from them." I stared him down, I read the lines in his brow, the panic in his voice, the desperation in his eyes. "...I believe you." He sighed and took a deep breath before cupping my face. "Get on the other side and stay in the woods. Go north for as fast and long as you can. Hide at night and stay silent. Don't trust anyone unless they tell you 'George sends his regards.' He'll have people waiting for you, they'll take you somewhere safe. Promise you'll do this." I swallowed as much fear and snot as I could, I put as much strength in my voice as I could muster. "I promise." My dad kissed my forehead and he ushered me to the opening. I got down on my elbows and stomach and looked at my dad one more time, wondering if I'd forget his face, before I crawled my way through the wall. **EDIT:**Hi. I haven't written anything creative in years, but I really liked this prompt so I went for it. I would love some good, honest feedback. Thank you.

Mother Nature walked alone on the planet

Listen closely, child, and I will tell you a story of love and loss so powerful that it shaped the very ground we walk upon. Listen closely, child, and pay attention. Long ago, when the Earth was young, Mother Nature walked alone on the planet. She was beautiful and she was kind, but she had no others to keep her company. Where she walked she transformed the ground, and life sprung up beneath her feet. When she went to swim around in the ocean, fish and seaweed were born into the waters. Wherever she went, she spread life. But for all the life that she spread, she could never meet her equal. She made fish and rodents and plants and bugs, but nothing that could remove her from her loneliness. She spent her days wandering, and when the night came, she slept in the inky blackness, with only the stars overhead. For you see, when the Earth was young, the nights were long and dark. One day, as Mother Nature wandered along, she heard a loud call from up above. It was not one of her birds, born of her song, but something new. She looked up quickly, and saw a woman falling from the sky. When the woman fell, the Earth broke. As she hit the ground, it shattered, breaking apart into huge, drifting pieces with the force and fury of the blow. Mother nature hurried to the fallen woman's side. She had never seen another woman before, and now was curious to see what kind of life this new woman would produce. The fallen woman was beautiful. Her hair was silver and white, and it shone with a reflective luster. As Mother Nature approached her, she saw that the woman was crying, tears falling shamelessly from her face. This upset Mother Nature, and she stepped forward to comfort the woman. "Beautiful woman, fallen from the sky, why do you cry so? We are special and different from other life, able to understand and create, and we have found each other. Should we not be happy in each other's company?" The woman replied, and she said to Mother Earth, "I am Moon, and I have lost so much. I was travelling through beauty, through limitless stars, until this rocky prison got in my way and I fell. I have been stripped of my home in the stars, and I fear I may not be able to return, and this is why I cry." Mother Nature laughed. "Fear not, Moon. I am Mother Nature, and you have found yourself somewhere beautiful. Look, see the wonders that this planet has to offer." And she held out a hand, and life came forth. Plants, animals, bugs, fish; all rushed forth from Mother Nature, and Moon watched in awe. "I have never seen life before," Moon said, "not in all of my travels. What is this strange power?" "This is the power of the Earth," Mother Nature replied. "The Earth produces beautiful things, wonderful things that cannot be produced anywhere else; and now it has produced you, the most beautiful of all. Will you not stay with me for a while?" Moon was taken in by Mother Nature's kind words, and she marveled at the life that surrounded her. She decided to stay, and to see what life unfolded before her. And for a time, the two of them were happy. During the day, Mother Nature would show Moon the wonders of life. She would make small animals, or fragrant flowers, and they enjoyed each other's company, as each found the other immeasurably beautiful. But things were not perfect. At night, Moon could see the endless stars above her, calling out for her to return home to their grasp. She felt trapped on Earth, so full of life but ultimately constraining. She yearned for the infinite reaches of the cosmos. Eventually, a night came when Moon couldn't take it anymore. She rose from where she slept beside Mother Nature, and did her best not to wake her. While Mother Nature slept, Moon began to rise away from Earth. But life on Earth is not still, and even while Mother Nature slept, there was life keeping watch. A passing owl saw Moon rising, and quickly roused Mother Nature to warn her. Mother nature looked skyward and wailed in despair, seeing her beloved fallen woman leaving her. She quickly leaped into the air, and caught hold of a strand of Moon's hair. Moon yelled in turn, but kept rising. As she rose, Mother Nature fell, and she pulled Moon's hair with her, stretching longer and longer as they moved apart. Desperate to keep Moon tethered to Earth, Mother Nature quickly tied the strand of Moon's hair to the Earth. With it secured, she called back up to Moon. "Moon! Why are you leaving me? Do you not love me and my life?" Moon squirmed in agony, still rising in spite of her hair being tied down. As she rose, she began to unravel, all of her body being slowly consumed to feed into the growing string of hair that connected her to Earth. Her toes, then her feet, then her ankles all began to disappear. "I do not belong here, Mother Nature! I am a creature of the cosmos, of space and travel! Let me go, I beg of you! I must return to the stars!" But Mother Nature shook her head. "No," she said, "I cannot let you go. I love you, and there are none others like you. If you loved me, you would do the same." "I do love you," Moon called down, "but I do not belong here. Please, please let me go. My love for you will only bring me pain." Already, Moon was unraveling more and more to lengthen her tether. She was drawn to space, and she could not help but strive for it, even as it destroyed her. And Mother Nature sobbed, and felt deep regret for what she had done. She went to the thread of hair that connected Moon to the Earth, and with a mighty slash, she severed the strand. She looked up for a last look of her beautiful Moon, tears in her eyes for the first time. But Moon was no longer rising. She hovered far above the Earth, not close enough to be with Mother Nature, but not truly in space, and a sense of horror washed over her. She had given up too much of her form to lengthen the tether, and now there was not enough of her left to propel herself into space. She let out a primal cry, and it echoed down to the Earth below. When Mother Nature heard her beloved Moon crying, she realized what she had done. Her beloved Moon was trapped, unable to ever return to her home, and unable to spend the rest of time down on Earth with Mother Nature. Mother Nature's heart broke, and she collapsed to the ground. Where she fell, the very Earth rent itself with her despair, and a great crevasse formed, a scar in the Earth large enough to be a testament to her pain. From that day forward, Moon was trapped between Earth and Space, forever floating in between. So angry was she with Mother Nature, that she vowed to never look at her again. She turned to face the cosmos, and Mother Nature could only ever look up and see Moon's back, forever turned to face the planet that had trapped her. Mother Nature, devastated, cried and cried until her tears bulged out the oceans. Even her tears strained to reach Moon, and to this day, the ocean reached up to be closer to Moon when she passes overhead. By the time Mother Nature stopped crying, it was night. But as she looked around, she realized it was a night like she had never seen before. In place of inky blackness, a pale light shone down on Earth, illuminating the world through the darkness. Mother Nature looked up, and she saw Moon casting down a silvery glow of light, forever present in the darkness. Even when they were apart, Moon could not help but share her nights with Mother Nature, and Mother Nature could not help but stare at Moon and admire her beauty. They remain that way to this day, with Moon locked in the sky, but casting down her presence to share with Mother Nature every night. This is the story of Mother Nature and Moon, child. Remember it well. Some may say that it would have been better for Mother Nature to have let Moon go, and others will say that Moon is at fault, for wanting to leave despite Mother Earth's love. I say to remember that even after Mother Earth hurt her, Moon still casts down her light--because she still loves Mother Earth, even if her mistakes can't be fixed. She still loves Mother Earth, even though she was hurt. She still loves Mother Earth, because Moon is not from Earth, and she carried with her to Earth the greatest gift in the cosmos. Forgiveness, child. ***** **Obligatory 'I just woke up and where did this gold come from' edit**: Thank you for the gold, wow! I'm glad so many people enjoyed the response. , but instead I'll just say that I'll be responding to more writing prompts in the future and that I'm working on something much, much longer when I'm not busy browsing Reddit. Stay tuned. u/HighWizardOrren

Humans were a relatively new player to

"They say humans are the most deadly race in the universe, but she sure doesn't look like much does she, Captain?", Xint asked as we observed our recently acquired captive. Humans were a relatively new player to the interstellar board game and not much was known about them. Hell, this is the first human that anyone on our ship has ever seen and we get around to most of the dark corners of the empire. "As long as she sits in the corner and keeps crying like that, it works for me. Makes it easier if she doesn't even try to resist.", I mutter to Xint. The actual capture went extremely smoothly. We found her all alone on a corner of one of their outposts. A quick dart filled with some gloxylin knocked her out and we brought her on board quicker than you can say 'easy money'. She did seem to wake up quicker than anticipated, but she was safely in the cell, so it was of no consequence. "Well Xint, you are up. We brought you on as the human expert and you said the human will need water in order to survive the journey. Go give her some.", I order. Xint leaves the observation room and retrieves the water before heading inside of the cell. As I watch the human stand up, her face still sniffling as water and other fluids leak from her orifices, I am struck by how unimpressive humans really are compared to other races. She is barely the same height as Xint and he isn't exactly tall for his race. Her limbs and body seem to be relatively weak. No overt musculature, no sharp claws, no poison sacs, no electrified glands, nothing... How these creatures are dangerous is beyond me. A yell brings my attention back to the cell. "What do you mean you can't let me go?", screams the human. Xint recoils for a split second before he gets some nerve and stands up proudly on his six legs. "You are now a slave of Emperor Krenacht. He requested to have a human in his retinue. You should really be quite pleased, serving the Emperor directly is a great honor!", Xint finishes saying while offering her the small container of water. At the mention of the word slave, the human's eyes open wide and her entire body pulls in and she takes a step away from Xint. She looks even smaller now than she did before, somehow even less dangerous. As Xint's main motor limb brings the water towards the human, she explodes into action. Her right hand swings out and slaps at the water container, sending it slamming into the viewing window that I am using. My eyes open wide as I realize that the front half of Xint's motor limb is still holding the container and his eyes stare at the missing section of his limb. A loud keening wail of pain starts to leave Xint, but it is quickly silenced by the human. "LET ME GO!", she screams as she brings her hands up and pushes hard against my fellow shipmen. I have never seen one of our kind be crushed by hand as effectively as poor Xint. His body slammed into the wall, the loud crack of his hardened carapace signaling that he would not be living through this without immediate medical attention. The human stood there breathing heavily, even more water streaming down her face. She seems poised, waiting for something. I don't realize what it is until too late. Xint feebly attempts to cry for help and the moment he makes an auditory sound, she pounces on him. I thought that her upper limbs had strength, but they were far inferior to her lower two limbs. Every time that she reared back and brought one of her feet forward in a vicious strike, I could hear the sounds of her foot breaking through his front carapace, her foot exiting his rear carapace, and her foot smashing into the wall of the cell. That specific rapid fire cracking grouping of sounds will never leave my nightmares... It only took a few seconds for her to collapse there, right on Xint's body. She was covered in the pink color of Xint's internal fluids and she resumed crying almost immediately. Barely thirty seconds had passed since Xint entered the cell and I was still standing there with a blank stare, my mind trying to make sense of what I had just seen. The electronic chirp of my communication device finally brought me back to reality and I found myself immediately vacating the contents of two of my three stomachs. I hastily activate my communicator while cleaning myself off. "What is it?" "Captain, we are being hailed by a human ship. They say that we have one of their race on board and they are demanding we release her immediately." "Tell them that we don't have any such creature on board and it is a violation of reg-" "Captain, they launched something towards us. Scans say that it has no weaponized potential. If I didn't know any better I would say it is a small lifepod of some sort." Before I could even formulate a thought as to what the humans were doing, the sound of the lifepod slamming into the hull reverberates throughout the ship. I stand there, in the observation room, watching with wide eyes as something begins to cut a hole in the ceiling of the cell. The hole is maybe three times as wide as the human. The circle of hull plating crashes to the floor of the cell, further crushing two of Xint's legs. Out of the hole descends something that will stick with me forever. Another human, this one easily twice as tall as the human we had captured, drops to the deck and looks in a slow circle. He finally sees our captive and he drops to a crouch and holds his upper limbs out wide. "Daddy!!!!", the captive screams as she launches herself at the larger creature with a force that would have knocked me across an entire compartment. The larger human wraps his upper limbs around her and stands back up, muttering small words of assurance the entire way. He looks over towards the viewing window that I am using and I immediately know true fear. What I now know to be his progeny looks up at him and smiles through the water coming down her face. Then she slowly licks the internal fluids of Xint off of her finger and her eyes brighten up. "Daddy, they taste like strawberry!"

The real player behind 'Dave'

We had been searching for him for so long, and had waded through so many imposters, that I had to implement new protocols to preserve my sanity. Ideally, he would remember his login credentials for his account, but if not, my team would run him through a series of security questions. Not just any security questions, either - these were specially drafted such that only the real player behind 'Dave' could answer them. And if he could answer them all, only then would they pass the name on to me. I was the final judge, the last arbiter, the only one who could approve the pay-out. The cash reward of $50,000 was not a small sum, after all. "Really?" I said. "You think we have him?" Michael was quiet for a second, and I was about to ask if he was still there when his voice came back through the phone. "Should be," he said. "He had all the right answers, and he even recalled the password to the account." "Doesn't prove anything," I said. "Most people know the story behind the Church of Dave by now, and he could have gotten lucky with some guesswork. Besides, the password wasn't very strong to begin with." "Well, boss, call it a gut instinct then. I think we have our man. May be worth you talking to him." I sighed. Michael had been wrong before, but who could blame him? By my count, over 200 people had pretended to be 'Dave' since we announced the reward for him to come forward. I had wanted to front the entire reward myself, but the board of Morlion Studios refused, and the company paid for it in the end. *Take it as a small gift to you, boss,* they had said. "Fine, put him through." I heard Michael hang up, then the dial tones pinged as the call connected. I squinted at the email which Michael had just sent, then found the name I was looking for. "Hello, is that Steve Curries?" I asked. "Yes, yes, this is him. I'm calling about the... reward?" His voice was softer, milder than I had anticipated. His records indicated that he was 35 this year, but he sounded much younger than that. "You're at the right place. I'm Henry Glass, and I'm the CEO of Morlion Studios. Now, we thank you for your patience, but this is a delicate matter." "No problem," he said. "What else do I have to do?" "Now, Mr Curries, just a couple of questions which I have to run through with you. They may be repeats, but please bear with me." "Of course, sure." I used my free hand to pry open the organizer on my table. There, nestled somewhere in the middle, opposite a stack of photographs I had pinned, were the original list of questions I had written down over five months ago. "Mr Curries," I said, "what do you know about the Church of Dave?" "Well... if I'm not wrong, it was founded after I stopped playing," he said. "I do know though that it's an online faction which is geared towards helping new players, regardless of how noob they are. Some say it's the reason that the game has been growing in popularity too, because of how friendly the starting experience is." He was right, but all that information was also public domain. I decided to dig a little deeper. "How was the Church of Dave founded?" I asked. "Umm... I don't have the specifics," he said. "I think some of the players I helped just decided to band together, and they called it as such just to... honour me, I guess." He coughed, and sputtered for a second or two. "Not saying I deserve any of that, but that's what I put together after asking around." I could see why Michael had referred him to me - he was either a damn good actor, or he was the real deal. None of the other impersonators had the decency to act abashed. "Mr Curries, I'm going to have to get more specifics from you, ok? I'm sure you read about the hack on our systems, and how we lost almost all of our player data. This is the only way I can be sure that you were the player behind 'Dave', ok?" "Yea, sure, of course." I turned the page over in my organizer, careful not to let the slips of paper fall out. The handwriting on them was different from mine, though I would have recognized them anywhere. It wasn't easy, coming back to all these memories, but I had already come so far. "Tell me," I said. "Do you remember another player called... 'PowerPele'?" He thought for a moment, then laughed. "PowerPele? Yea, sure, sure! He was one of the first few people I linked up with on the server. Not many regular players in those days, no guilds or anything. I had to manually add him as a friend." "Mr Curries, please tell me, in your own words, the first encounter you had with PowerPele in the Glades of Hellstorm." I realised then that my throat had gone dry, and that I was gripping the handset far harder than I should. I forced myself to relax, to take a deep breath. "Well... I actually don't think I met him in the Glades, you know," he said. "No, I'm quite sure it wasn't there. PowerPele was a noob, so it would have been elsewhere, most likely the Farm of Sheepcows. Yes, the Farm, I think." *Very good*, I thought. *No one else has made it this far.* "PowerPele had trouble with the monsters outside," he continued. "I saw him struggling, and thought to lend him a hand. Turns out that he was just a kid, and it was his first online game. He said other players had been picking on him, killing him for shits and giggles. So I stayed, I guess. To protect him, then to show him the ropes of the game." "Anything else you remember?" Mr Curries let out a pent-out breath. "Wow... I'm sorry, this is just bringing back a lot of memories, you know? We kinda just... stuck together after that. A couple of hours, most days. It would have taken him months to catch up, and he kept saying that he did not think he could play for long, so I let him hitch a ride." "Hitch a ride?" "I mean... I kept him in my party, then brought him along with me to all the high-level areas in the game. Like the Glades, for instance. I think I gave him a dragon-horse too, so that he could fly with me to the top of Mount Leruna. It's the only place in the game where sunsets are fully rendered, you see." *I know,* I thought. *I programmed those myself.* "How long did this go on for?" I asked. "Oh... I couldn't say. Two, three months? Then I graduated, and work began, and I thought to leave the game behind. I sent PowerPele an in-game message to say goodbye, and to the rest of the friends I met too, but I'm not sure I ever got a reply. And that's mainly why I'm here though. I want to get my old account back, log back in, see if I can reconnect with them. It would be nice to see where they are now." *So would I want to reconnect with PowerPele,* I thought. *So would I.* I closed the organizer. There were many more pages, just like that, filled with handwritten notes. Notes which asked me when I would be home for dinner, when I would have the time to show him the next areas in the game, when I could help him level through the tougher spots. Funny how I had read those notes at the time but felt nothing, consumed only by the desire to complete the game and make it the best one there ever was. Now though, every single note was a stab in the bloody heart. I had made my peace. I would never shake the guilt at not spending enough time with my son, but it was comforting to know that someone out there had helped him see the sunsets I had embedded into my life's work. "Sir? Mr Glass? You there?" "How would you like the reward, Mr Curries? Cash or cheque?" --- /r/rarelyfunny

Professor Burkheart was born in the

Each one of my university students had a unique spark to them. I would always notice their smiles spreading from one face to another across the room. They had all become the joys in my life - and I have lived for a very, very long time. To be exact, I was born in the year that Julius Caesar created the new Julian Calendar. That is why my mother named me Julian. "Professor Burkheart?" Samantha, whose face was always hidden by her long golden hair, raised her hand. "Yes?" I replied back. I have to go by Burkheart after changing my name during World War II. The Nazi political party started catching on to me being born as an immortal, similar to Achilles from the Ancient Greeks. "So why did people pick on Napoleon? He was the one in charge." Samantha questioned. I chuckled to myself. Two-hundred years ago still felt like yesterday. I replied back the truth. "He was short." "Short tempered?" "No. He was literally short. Everyone made fun of him for that." I noticed the students started to laugh. They always enjoyed my lectures. No one obviously knew that I had lived through most of the world's history. It was a fun way for me to paint an accurate picture while sometimes getting to vent. Like today, I am venting on a particular subject. One, that many people actually recognize but nothing gets done about it. 'The fact that history repeats itself.' After a few minutes of explaining the burning revenge of Napoleon's crusades, I had jumped to another man that led a party to genocide an entire race. 'Flying under their eagle.' I wiped my brow covered in sweat. My students leaned forward feeling the intense moment in my - our - history. "Can anyone tell me what led the Nazi political party to genocide the Jews?" Raising my forefinger, I waited for someone to answer. In most classes everyone stares in silence, but in mine, that is usually not the case. I must have finally stumped them on their current knowledge. "It's okay. That is why I am here." Everyone started to laugh as I rolled the projector screen upward revealing a clean whiteboard. "So," I started to map it all out with my dry erase marker, "It started when Adolf Hitler was imprisoned and he wrote what was called, 'Mein Kampf.' This translates to 'My Struggle.'" "What was his struggle?" David asked from mid-row. I turned around to engage his question. Sure, there was a lot of struggles in that time for employment. Someone always had to point the finger. This usually, in our history, led to someone paying the price. I replied, "During that time, there were many political differences." "Was he bullied like Napoleon?" Samantha scooted forward in her seat. "I believe he was. Yes." I answered back while tilting my head down towards the floor. I had hoped that my students were starting to understand today's lesson. I was born in the reign of Julius Caesar, but I've noticed certain patterns in our history. When it came to The Romans flying under the Eagle, I had noticed the same Eagle during the Crusades of Napoleon. It seemed as if the Eagle itself was a mark for the pattern of our own humanity past the years. I remember while fleeing to safety, the Nazi's also had their Eagle souring over Germany. "So were all of these guys bullied?" Brian hovered over David's notes beside him. "Certainly seems like it, doesn't it?" I replied. Everyone chuckled. I even started to laugh before I noticed something disturbing coming from the back row. I tightened my grip on the marker watching a couple of punks picking on a kid in the corner of the room. I didn't stop it. I watched. I saw the bullying enrage a fire that I've seen before in the eyes of the poor kid. The kid didn't fight back. He just took it. The students noticed my eyes staring towards the back of the classroom. One by one, they all turned around to see what was happening. Samantha, of course being who she was, stood up to stop it. "Really? This isn't high school!" She exclaimed. I could feel myself getting sick remembering years ago someone bullying a kid in front of me. Maybe that is what led the kid I remembered to the Genocide of over five million Jews. I do not know. I just know over the years I am recognizing the pattern and people like Samantha could stop it. "Get out of my classroom." I finally ordered. I watched the kids bullying leave. The other students clapped watching them exit the room. I looked back at the kid being bullied and instead of smiling, he looked angrier than ever. I watched as he shut his textbook leaving the room with his face bright red. I wanted to know if this was an embarrassment anger or a revenge anger. I was about to stop him when I froze. It wasn't the kid that stumbled me, it was the Eagle on his book that made me step back as he left. Everyone in the classroom was silent for a few moments. Samantha sat back down in her seat. Brian locked his eyes onto mine. I gently sat the marker down on the whiteboard before letting out a long sigh. "Are you okay, Mr. Burkheart?" Brian asked me. "Yes Brian, I'm fine. Who can tell me where I left off on our last lecture from the other day?" I saw David raise his hand. "Yes, David?" David sat up, "You were saying how history will continue to repeat itself." I nodded my head. "Yes David, It certainly seems like it, doesn't it?" *** To read more of my stories, visit [r/13thOlympian] (https://www.reddit.com/r/13thOlympian/) **Please Note** This is just a story about Mr. Burkheart and his class. There is no need for a political debate. Different stories will have different points of interests or views. I challenge myself as a writer to sometimes write on views that I do not agree with. This is in no way, a slam on any of today's current nations. This story has a much deeper meaning than political views so please do not post your political opinions here. **I Love Writing** Please let me know how you liked or disliked the story plot along with any critiques over the writing style so that I may continue to write fun stories for everyone! *Edit: Please do not debate other's feedback. I know that as a writer, some will love this story and some will not. I came to reddit to become a better writer so that one day I can become a published author. Please respect others in their responses as I have specifically asked for criticism. These responses will help me become a better writer to keep entertaining all of you!*

"World-renowned" Lect

There's the Bell. The kids should be showing up in about eight minutes. Funny, you live for 1.6 Million years and patience still won't be one of your strong suits. Either way, it's Monday, which means a new subject. I get to give one of my "world-renowned" Lectures, a fan favorite. And it looks like we're gonna talk about my old buddy Napoleon Bonaparte, God rest his soul. "Hey Mr. Vetus!" One of my favorite students bursts in almost instantly. Casey Crimson, on track to becoming Valedictorian and always loves to hear me talk. "Ah, Casey, long time no see. Gotten over that cold yet?" "Mostly, but I was gone for a week and I wouldn't miss your lectures for the world." "I would, who would wanna listen to an old guy talk for an hour about dead people when they could go out there and live life with the living?" Casey Scoffs, "Obviously you haven't heard yourself talk. You make these people come to life, you give us an exact demonstration of what life was like back then. It's amazing. If I could crank out a speech like you, I wouldn't have anything to worry about at Graduation." "You're gonna do fine, trust me." As the rest of my First period honors class burst through the doors of the Time Machine (which is the incredibly Nerdy name they gave my classroom) I straightened my tie, cleared my throat, and turned off the lights. "Bonjour, mes freres de la revolution, bienvenue en France. Or more specifically, France in the 1800s. Now as we all learned from last week, this was not a very happy time to be in. I heard some of you still have chills, so I'm glad to say this week we're focusing less on that of Terror, and more on hope." Casey throws me an excited grin. I roll my eyes at her and continue with the lecture. "I need you to close your eyes and imagine the France I described to you last week. Terror, Fear, Everything. All of it roaming the streets." I swiftly get prepared to blow these kids minds as they imagine the horrors of Emperorless France. "You're walking down the street, hungry, afraid, and way too subordinate. You turn the corner and see a crowd, curious, you approach and see this. Open your eyes." I jump onto the Table. Wearing my old friend Napoleon Bonaparte's signature hat and a foam sword I bought from WalMart. "Friends, Family, Brother's. I know all of you are in a state of fear, hunger, and terror. So it is my duty to assure all of you that there is no need to be. This country is lacking much: security, comfort, an actual leader. We have been pushed to the edge. And that is exactly why I am standing here in front of all of you..." I look to my right and see the Principal and the Superintendent watching me silently, with a confused look upon their face and a smile. "... With nothing but my words to spark a flame in your hearts and to inform you that I, Napoleon Bonaparte, the True Son of the French Revolution, could give you everything you're looking for." I point my foam sword at the class, all of them are the edge of their seats. "You may be afraid, change does that to people. We grow too comfortable with the position we're in that we refuse to change, even if that position is a place of discomfort within itself. However I must say that fear is an ally. That's right, a friend. For without fear, there will be no courage. No love. And no reason to keep fighting..." I leap off my desk and start parading around the room, swinging my sword to and fro. "... I have always been a fighter. Been a Soldier. Been a Revolutionary. So it brings me great pride to see our Beautiful flag waving in the winds above me. It brings me great pride to look at those three colors: Liberty Red, Equality White, and Fraternity Blue. More Pride than you could possibly imagine. But to see it wave while our neighboring Countries burn from the same oppression we once, and are still currently suffering from is rather torturous." I pull down the Map from the Blackboard and start motioning to the countries in need. "Holland, Egypt, Belgium, Poland, Spain, and so much more are in need of assistance. They're in need of us. They're in need of the greatest country in the world's three favorite colors: Liberty Red, Equality White, and Fraternity Blue." The kids start getting riled up. Good. So was I. "So I beg you to place that crown on my head. To give me the title of Emperor so I could help these Countries. Liberate them. Because while those poor men and women who suffer from their tyranny stay suffering, our colors start to fade. We don't wave our flag proudly in an attempt to brag to those who don't have it. We wave it in an attempt to make others relieved. To make them stronger. And to make those who despise these colors fear it. But as I said before, without fear there is no Courage, no love, and no reason to keep fighting. I intend to keep fighting for these colors and for the memory of the Revolution in which I take the title of the offspring of for the rest of my days. So I beg all of you to assist me in this journey. To place me at the very highest point of France for all the world to see. Because I want them to know that the French Revolution is here! That the French Revolution is strong! And that the French Revolution, above all else, is contagious!" My class begins to cheer and I glance over to see the stunned face of the Superintendent as the Principal shoots me a thumbs up. "Alrighty class, until next week. Turn to page 267 and read the Documents written by the Sources. Our questions. For the week is whether or not Napoleon Bonaparte stayed true to his word on defending the French Revolutions ideals. We have about ten minutes until class ends." I go over to the Superintendent and he gives me a strong handshake. "Mr. Vetus, pleasure to finally meet you, we've heard countless stories of your amazing Lectures and I'm so glad I finally got to hear one. It's truly incredible." "Eh, spare me. Call it a gift." Principal Barrymore chimes in, "Yeah, Mr. Vetus really tries to earn his paycheck. Say, Vetus, how did you pick up those skills in the first place?" "Let's just say experience, and a lot of time." If only they knew. "Well that was some powerful stuff. Anyway, Principal Barrymore, Mr. Vetus, I'll stay in touch. I might even be back here next week with some friends. Ha ha." "I'll bring the Popcorn." Barrymore jests as they walk out the room. "Alrighty, have a good one." I turn to my class. "So how's everything-" I stopped dead in my tracks. They were all huddled around Casey's desk looking at the book, then me, rather sporadically. "Mr. Vetus, do you mind taking off your glasses for just a second?" "Uh... Sure?"I comply and the class begins a small uproar. "Guys?... What's happening?..." "You're in the book, Mr. Vetus. You're in this painting standing right next to Napoleon." My heart sunk. "What're you talking about?" "You're right here. On Napoleans left." "Man, that does look like him." Casey straightened her glasses, "That IS him, I'm telling you." I walked over and there I was. Clear as day. My glasses and beard weren't there but it looked exactly like me. "Must be a Coincidence, I guess, hey guys the Bells gonna ring, I'd do some reading if I were you." Casey stared deeper and deeper into the book. "No way!" She shouted. The class listened and Casey lifted up the book for all of us to see. "They have the same Mole on their cheek. That's Mr. Vetus!" Looks like my years are finally starting to catch up with me.

Bo and Alicia sat on the table

Laughing, Alicia brushed a lock of blonde hair behind her ear. "You should probably stay away from me...I'm trouble." Bo grinned. "Who's to say I don't like a little bit of trouble?" "I'm serious!" Alicia frowned, but her hazel eyes were gleaming as she looked across the table at her date. "Just on the way over here, there was a big car accident right next to me, and I'm pretty sure I saw a woman have a heart attack. Not to mention all this." Alicia gestured to the window, and Bo glanced at the rain falling outside. "You telling me that you made it rain? You're like one of those cartoon characters that has their own personal cloud following them around?" Bo tore a chunk from the piece of bread on his plate and dipped it in the olive oil coating the dish in the middle of the table, studying Alicia's face with his brown eyes. "Maybe! I don't know. I just - the sky was perfectly blue when I stepped outside, Google said weather would be great for the rest of the day...and now I'm, you know...all wet." Alicia popped a piece of bread into her mouth, watching for Bo's response. He saw his brown eyebrows arch briefly, before a smirk appeared on his tanned face. "Gross. I thought this was going to be a classy dinner." A sudden crash of breaking glass made them both turn their heads. The waiter bringing their wine had slipped on a wet spot on the floor, causing him to tip his tray and sending the drinks to an untimely end against the tile floor. "See?" Alicia said. "I bet you that guy hasn't dropped anything in years. Then I show up...not to mention my favorite place to sit is over there, right next to the kitchen. It figures that I wouldn't be able to get my lucky table for our first date." Outside, there was a flash of light, followed almost immediately by a concussive blast of thunder. Alicia pointed back to the window. "Plus we nearly got struck by lightning! I mean, come on - you have to admit that would be pretty unlucky." * * * Noriko S. crouched down on the fire escape. Swathed in black cloth and shadow, she was almost impossible to see. As she spotted her target, she slowly brought the blowgun to her lips. Before she could fire it and acquire Alicia's powers, however, a yellow jacket began buzzing in her face. Reflexively, she shooed it away, then immediately regretted it as the dart fell from the blowgun, through the slats of the fire escape, and to the ground below - somehow managing to land point up. As she went to jump down, she lost her footing on the rain-slicked metal, and crashed awkwardly to the concrete below. Noriko was conscious of separate types of pain - the generalized, raw ache from falling and the sharp, focused stabbing from her dart. As the toxin flooded her system, her body began convulsing. Alicia heard the cry of "Someone get an ambulance!" and glanced over her shoulder at the woman spasming on the ground. * * * Paragon Security was *extremely* effective at what they did - and were only getting moreso with each passing day. Despite their name, they tended to play offense more than defense. The five core members, all of whom picked up a number of skills and abilities in Afghanistan and Iraq, had figured out how to game the system. See, the power transfer didn't care about fights being one-on-one or any other kinds of...tactical enhancements someone might think up. So they worked as a group, overpowering targets when they were alone and then taking turns delivering the finishing blow. Rotation was determined not just by how long it had been since someone got a new trait but also what fit their overall profile best. They had a brawler, a sneak, a tactician, a weapons expert, and a jack of all trades. Over time, they'd become strategic about picking targets to fill gaps in their abilities. This job was huge for them, since it would make them pretty much unstoppable. "Go time, shitheads!" the tactician yelled out as the black van rounded the corner. Everyone prepared to jump out and grab their target. They were about to pull over to the curb when the van ran over a twisted piece of metal lying in the street. With a bang like a gunshot, the front driver's side tire blew out, causing the van to swerve into oncoming traffic. An instant later, it was hit by a semi, which sent the van rolling down the street multiple times before it came to a dead stop. * * * *Le Visage* had mixed in with the kitchen staff at Pompadour easily - but then, he always did. He stayed long enough to identify which drinks were destined to go to Table 7 and put the poison in them, then walked out of the building with the cool calm he had developed over the years of practice in *belonging*. He only found out the attempt was unsuccessful an hour later, when he tried to break into the jewelry store just as a patrol car came around the corner. It was the first time he'd ever failed a mission. * * * Mike "Patch" Doyle had earned his call sign by being the best sniper in his unit - it was an allusion to how deadly he was with one eye closed. Crouched on the roof of the building across the street, he checked the distance again and prepared to line up his shot. Patch felt a twinge of guilt. He could almost take her out with a sidearm at this range. Still - better safe than sorry. He cleared away a spot for himself and set up the tripod rest for his rifle. Mike held the gun up for a moment to check the stock, and that's when lightning struck. The long metal weapon he was holding in his hands instantly converted into a lightning rod as, a moment later, his internal organs instantly converted into seared tripe. His body would not be found for a few weeks. * * * Bo shook his head, grinning ruefully. "The crazy thing is I've never done online personals before. The whole thing started as a goof. I just wanted to search to see...I dunno why, really. But that picture you had up...something about it..." Alicia smiled. "That's so funny, I *just* changed it that same day you messaged me. The one I had before was me wearing a T. Rex costume." Bo's laughter was rich and almost melodic. "That's awesome. See, I knew you had a good sense of humor. I'm really glad I started the free trial so I could message you." Alicia's smile grew. "Me, too." She looked down at the table, then back up at Bo. "Maybe I've got a little bit of good luck after all?" *** /r/ShadowsofClouds

In the beginning it seemed coincidental

In the beginning it seemed coincidental. A token here, a token there, but before long they showed up more frequently. Despite my lack of knowledge regarding the coins, I kept them anyways. I had around sixteen in my collection sprawled about my room and in various pairs of pants. At first coins displaying a cartoon version of my face showing up freaked me out, but over time they sort of became comforting. They were my good luck charms. "Yeah one day they just started showing up. I don't question it much." "Hazel. You do realize this could be some kinda perv watching you and...and" "And what? Manufacturing and giving me coins? You're looking too far into it dude. I don't really care where they come from they're just one of those things I guess" "One of those things? What *things*? A thing would be like me remembering a book title as Berenstein instead of Bearenstain, not finding mysteriois coins of me" "Can we just stop talking about it? I don't care where or who they're from. As a matter of fact there's one now see." A gold coin caught my eye in the middle of the street, gleaming in the sun. "Hazel c'mon. Don't go over there" "It's no use, if I ignore it it'll just show up in a more intrusive spot. The last one I ignored wound up in my coffee. I'll be quick!" I looked both ways and ran out into the street to grab the small coin. Rubbing the familiar piece of metal between my fingers was comforting. Gene stared from the edge of the sidewalk, ushering me to get out of the road. It happened before either of us had time to react. I began to stumble on my way back to Gene, then I collapsed. My body had completely shut down. I was surrounded by darkness for a brief moment followed by a flash of light and *Ding* My eyes shot open and I awoke to Gene holding me sitting on the sidewalk. His expression changed from fear to relief when he saw me. "You- You we're just- The blood- Are you ok? I'm calling an ambulance" "No no I feel fine. As a matter of fact I feel great! What'd you do to save me?" "I dragged you over to the sidewalk and almost cried...I don't think that's what did it" I reached into my pocket to proudly display my prize for nearly dying, but it was nowhere to be found. I got up from Gene and searched the ground around where I fainted. "Gene where's the coin? I just had it here what'd you do with it?" "Uh nothing? You should get home and talk to your mom if you won't let me call you an ambulance. C'mon." I searched for a bit more for the coin, but it was nowhere to be found. It would show up later if I lost it anyways. "Hey! Stop running so I can catch up!" "I have too much energy I can't help myself!" I yelled back from far ahead of Gene "Stop running before you crack your skull open again!" When I got home I still felt energized. It was as if I had just gotten a full day of sleep followed by drinking a gallon of coffee...on second thought that last part sounds terrible. I decided not to tell my mom about my accident, she'd only worry and I preferred not to dig too deep into these things. "Hey Gene called and told me that you had a spill, are you ok sweetie?" "Uh..oh yeah I almost forgot. Yeah I fell, but as you can see I'm fine! No problems here" "Well aren't you excitable! Ok honey, just be safe ok?" Gene worried too much. I made my way to my room and spread all the coins I could find on the dresser. Sixteen gold coins gleamed from the room light overhead. I sat admiring my collection of strange coins and took one in my hand. Suddenly there was a loud noise, followed by a flash. *Ding* *Beep beep beep* The house was in ruins. My room in tatters with fire spreading to the far walls. Debris littered the floor, and the roof had caved in. My ears rung, and ash caked my face, but I was alive. The coins still lay in a perfect pile on the ashes of what was once my dresser. I grabbed them and crawled towards the living room where my mom just was. Despite the smoke and chaos I felt great. I lifted large piles of debris in an effort to get to my mom, but the fire had spread. Sirens blared from outside, and I was lifted out of what was once my home before I could make it to mom. The firemen checked me for injuries, but I was in mint condition. They all seemed amazed that I was even breathing. I waited anxiously until finally they pulled my mother from the debris. She was severely injured, but alive. I wanted to be worried about my mom, I truly did, but I had more on my mind. There was no way I could've survived whatever happened, hell they're was no way that I should have lived through cracking my skull on the pavement. There was only one way to figure out if my theory was correct. I slowly got up from the back of the ambulance then sprinted back towards the burning rubble. My hand firmly clutched a coin and my heart raced as I approached the fire. Men yelled and chased after me, but they were too late. I had already launched myself back into the flames, letting them engulf my body. It only hurt for a moment. The heat quickly absorbed my being turning me to ash. *Ding* The fire dissapaited and I walked out of the rubble to the amazement of those around. I knew there was only one thing I could do now. I had to find the source of the coins. Edit: thank you all for the feedback I really appreciate it part 2 will be up in the next few hours! Edit 2: I understand a bit of frustration in the vagueness of the first story, but it will be in 3 parts so it'll be explained. Part 2 is now up.

The greatest villain the world has ever

It's almost like cheating. But in my defense, you don't become the best by playing fair. If I fought half of these assholes face to face, they'd smear my brains all over the pavement. So I play it smart. Hold a puppy hostage, kidnap their kid, come up with some other contrived bullshit to gain the advantage. The usual. All it takes is a hand on the forehead, and next thing you know you've got a babbling vegetable for the next few hours. Then dump their ass in a ditch and you'll never see them again. I don't think I've ever seen anyone regain their memory before. Most of the time there are side-effect mental issues that come with the amnesia. But it's not my problem. Another hero bites the proverbial dust. Now you might be asking yourself - why is the greatest villain the world has ever seen sitting on a bus, especially public transportation? Well, the real greats play their roles incognito. If the world knows you're a villain, then it's only a matter of time before someone let's some daylight through your forehead. You can't beat enough pissed off normal people when you really piss them off. Today's victim is an up and coming hero. He lives with his aunt in a small one bedroom apartment, causing a few too many problems in this neighborhood for my boys to make a consistent profit. Like I'm going to let my operations go into the red because some asshole wears his underwear on the outside and read too many comic books. It always changes when they see their first corpses. Toss a kid with their face and skull smashed in, and tones change very quickly. Threaten a castration or severe spinal injury, and all the jokes and bravado fly out the window. So first it'll be kidnapping the aunt, then the usual hostage exchange, then posing as just a lackey. Then one hand on the forehead. Easy peasy. The bus stops, and my head clangs against the window behind me. I need to get the driver's information so I can arrange for him to dissolve in a barrel of acid. On come several people, quickly filing past the filled seats in the front and find their own spots. A young woman. A tired middle aged man. A haggard older gentleman, who initially sits, but then stands. Then he sits. Then he stands. Then he farts. Then he laughs. When you live in a larger city, you can immediately identify which people in public you need to avoid any kind of communication with. And this is one of them. He sits again, dirty strands of hair flopping this way and that. You can smell the coat from here, and pants stained dark with urine. The man clearly hasn't washed for what I assume to be years. Now he walks over to the back of the bus, sitting in each seat, laughing to himself. There are stains all over his clothing. Looks like a fucking Jackson Pollock painting with all the color and criss-crossing bodily fluids. "Hello!" He calls cheerily at me, waving a massive stupid hand in my face. This man is much larger up close. "Hello! Hello! Hello there mister!" More waving. Back the fuck up, boy. "HELLO! HELLO! HELLO! MISTER, MISTER, MISTER HELLO!" He leans forward, his breath reeking of booze and what may be animal shit. "SPARE SOME CHANGE, SIR? SPARE SOME CHANGE PLEASE?" I can't stop myself, I grab his face and shove him away. That should send him into a coma, or at least give him a stroke. He falls backward, body convulsing violently, foam flecking from the corners of his mouth. Just a seizure. Damn. The other passengers read their various books, look out the window and check their phones. They want no part in this. The convulsing stops, and he sits up, dazed. I'm mostly confused. I've never seen someone regain consciousness this quickly. His eyes meet mine, and they pierce. Recognition. He knows me somehow. I know that he knows, but I can't explain how. The way the eyes narrow, the way the lips make that slight snarling scowl. He knows me. He knows the REAL me, not simply your average joe in a fitted suit. He knows ME. "You." A voice dripping with something more than simple hatred. This is fury. The fury of a man with a life stolen from him. How did I do this? I pull the stop above me, and listen to the screeching of the brakes. "I know you." "No you don't." It sounds silly, but for the first time in a long time, I am afraid. "You knew me. 1961. Berlin." Berlin? I hadn't been there in decades. "You took my boy and hung him." The words are spat out, the effort deemed too much. I've hung thousands of boys by the neck. Which one? Which one? They all died the same, sniveling and crying, strung up. Their faces turned purple, their tongues black. The price any would pay for defiance. Why is it so important I remember? It comes from that hidden sense of overwhelming dread and danger in the best villains, when your only option is to run. The bus is at a stop. I get up and run down, pushing him aside. He moves to follow, thunderous steps, each one shaking the bus. I squeeze out, running at full speed, in any direction. I hear the echo from behind me, booming and powerful, shaking the air itself. "You know me boy!" Beyond fury. I can hear the shattering of glass behind me, but I am running at breakneck speed. The memory comes, and only one man has given me this instinctive panic. The Green Hammer, that American GI from World War two, a near invulnerable wrecking ball. A man who slaughtered the wicked by the dozen. Nazis, collaborators, criminals, profiteers. Even a group of rogue American infantrymen going around executing German civilians. You could not hide from him, he felt the evil in your soul, and it burned. It burned, it burned, it still burns, it burns now, like breathing flames. Kept hunting after the war. Only good Nazi was a dead Nazi to him. Something that may or may not be hazardous to my own health. He couldn't be left alive, he couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't. But here he is. Here he follows, like a heat seeking missile coming straight for my ass. I can hear the pounding of the pavement behind me as he follows, but perhaps I can lose him. I found his wife, a quiet french woman from Caen. I found his boy. Any way to get to him. My only true threat. After he came for them, I gave him the touch, then killed the boy and the woman. No witnesses, no evidence. Of every city, he lived in this one now. Of every bus to ride, he chose this one. And he follows, the strength apparently undiminished. Closer. Closer. Closer. I cannot turn back, I can only run, but in my heart of hearts I know. I am going to die tired. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- r/storiesfromapotato

Memento flexed his fingers

Memento flexed his fingers, the black spandex of his costume rippling as the imprinted clocks on it contracted, creating the illusion of them ticking. The heroine known as Vapor lay twitching on the floor before him, her eyes rolling into the back of her head, drool trickling from the side of her mouth. With her power to alter the temperature of water via some form of molecular manipulation, she'd quite literally made Memento's blood boil. In response, he'd set her mental age back by about thirty years, which, given she couldn't have been older than twenty, had left her brain-dead. A rather short-sighted action Memento now found himself regretting. That said, it was a fitting revenge, if a little gruesome to behold. He hadn't even known his power worked like that. Murder wasn't Memento's forte; in fact, he was somewhat averse to it. He found himself spending far too long staring plaintively at the woman's convulsing body, wondering how he was going to sort this one out. Before he could finish considering what to do with the glorified kettle, however, a noise at the far end of the alley caught his attention. Moving into a crouch, Memento held his hands defensively at his sides. "Amelia? *Amelia?*" The voice was a man's, strained with age. The person the voice belonged to rounded the corner, coming into Memento's view. He was old and hunched, with glasses so thick Memento couldn't see the man's eyes through them and a seeing stick he clutched tightly. His expression appeared perpetually somber, cheeks sagged and lips downturned. The man walked forward, ignorant of the corpse in his way until his foot came to rest on Vapor's chest. He lurched back, nearly losing his balance. Stabilising, he gave the object a cautionary prod with his stick. Kneeling down, he rested his hands on Vapor's cheeks. Memento saw the man quiver, his voice cracking as he uttered a disbelieving, *"No."* His hands explored Vapor's face with increased urgency, running through her hair, resting on her jaw and traversing her skin. He repeated every action two, three, *four* times, his denial slowly subsiding as he slumped forward, letting out a slight sob. *'Of course it's his fucking daughter,'* Memento thought, biting his tongue to stop himself from cursing. Despite the anger he felt at his rotten luck, the feeling was utterly eclipsed by an overwhelming sense of guilt, a knot tightening in his chest. "*Why...*" The man said, his voice strangely hollow. Broken. "Who would do this?" Once again, Memento flexed his fingers, feeling his power course through his body. There was an easy fix to this situation. A relatively painless one for the both of them. Given that Vapor had been younger than thirty, using his power on the grieving father would mitigate any memory he'd have of his daughter, sending him from the depths of despair back to cloud nine. *Peachy,* Memento thought. Sure, there'd be complications, but he'd rather deal with them with a clearer conscience. Without making a sound, Memento approached the man, placing his hands on the man's cheeks. Before he could comprehend what was happening, the man's memories were slipping away, hemorrhaging from his brain like blood from a wound. As Memento made contact, some of the memories bled into him, a consequence of the temporary mental link he needed to form in order for his power to function. Temporary flashes of memory flickered in his vision like a picture reel. *A husband and wife holding hands, a grinning girl perched on the man's shoulder.* *That same girl, years older and more mature, holdings hands with a boy in a suit whose eyes shied from the camera.* *The girl, yet again, smiling bashfully in her costume of blue and red, her cheeks flushed and her hands gesturing to the bubble imprinted on her chest.* The connection suddenly cut off, Memento lurching back as he brushed a bead of sweat from his forehead. His power tended to strain him, and already he could feel the exertion from using it twice in quick succession. The man had fallen onto his back beside his daughter, body as still as death. Memento approached cautiously, placed two fingers to the man's neck to ensure he was still alive and, once satisfied, turned on his heels to leave. He felt something clamp around his ankle, *hard.* Spinning back, Memento saw the man had his hand outstretched, his body still prone as he gripped Memento. The man's glasses had fallen off when he'd lunged. The eyes underneath were devoid of all detail, simply a milky white. As Memento stepped forward to try and use his power again, the man anticipated his movement, rolling out of harm's reach and twisting Memento's foot, his other hand slamming into the back of Memento's knee, making him buckle. The rest of Memento's forward momentum did the work, making him stumble to the ground. Before he could react, the man was on him, manhandling his right arm before pinning it behind his back, the bone creaking dangerously. Memento let out an agonised cry, gasping for air as he tried to articulate himself. "*Fu-fuck*, wait!" He grit his teeth. "I didn't do anything - she was dead when I found her, I swear!" The man simply chuckled, leaning forward until his lips were near Memento's ear. "I saw you murder her." "How? Your memories should be erased!" "Your power lies in the past, Memento. Mine - mine is in the future. All that will happen, all that can happen. But even powers atrophy with age; I should've seen you, stopped you before you killed her. She was all I had. Why? Why would you take her from me?!" "*Penance!* No -" Memento strained against the man's iron grip, trying to find any purchase on him so that he could use his power again. It'd never occurred to him the most famous hero of all time might still be at large, even living life as his alter-ego. Penance, the most powerful precog to have ever lived, until he'd begun developing Dementia, the illness having an inverse effect on his power. "Do you want to know how you'll die, Memento? Will the fear of knowing how it happens be worse than the experience itself, I wonder?" "*Please...*" The man yanked Memento's arm, shutting him up. "I'll tell you this much. It'll be excruciatingly, beautifully, *fucking painful.* I'll make damn sure of that."

He smiled, the fabric of the

He smiled, the fabric of the world seemingly bending around him, curling to his will. Perhaps trying to trap him, to ground him in reality. Or perhaps reality found itself slave to his being, folding in whichever way the man behind the grin wished. "Tell me, heroes. How do you wish to stop me? Perhaps super human strength, or perhaps... speed?" He turned a knowing gaze towards *Blade,* his moniker not granted because of some aptitude with swords but rather because of how his speed was like a knife that cut through space. Too bad that our foe was reality incarnate. *Blade* leaned forward, his stare as sharp as his name suggested, ready to pierce and strike at a moment's notice. His hands already vibrating at such speeds that lent his name further meaning. I could see it, the moment. If he pulled this off, no matter how powerful this *man* was, if he couldn't react in time, it wouldn't matter. *Do it!* My mind screamed the words of encouragement, eyes wide with hope. All of it pulled like a rug beneath my feet as I watched *Blade's* advance. He did not travel forward like planned, a piercing lance through reality, instead, he fell. The scene took me several moments to process, perhaps due to my false sense of hope, or fatigue, or just simply shock. But, I watched as *Blade* fell to the floor, his legs suddenly no longer there. As if they were taken from him. The rest of us *Heroes* and *Villains* who joined arms in this fight simply watched helplessly. Witnessed the scene that played out before us, all of us deadly silent, only his screams and cries demanded to be heard. "My legs! What happened to my legs!" He clutched at the end of his knees, the rest of his legs truly gone with no wound in sight. "Well, you were going to charge at me. So I simply traveled to all the other parallel Universes and got rid of your legs in all of them." His smile widened. It was a challenge, a challenge to all of us here and all of our parallel counterparts. He wanted us to entertain him, to study how an insect behaves once you amputate its legs. "I made you a singularity. Quite frightening isn't it? The idea that no version of you has legs to hold them anymore." The man before us called himself '*The Glitch,*. All of us here, the Villains as well as the Heroes were gifted with an aspect of reality, a simple truth of that which we perceived as a law. I saw into the future, not one simple path, but the many possible variations of it. The threads that spun and weaved in front of my very eyes and spread out before me, connecting things, linking them together in one giant coalition. I needed only follow the threads and the infinite possibilities would reveal themselves before me. Yet this man, the *Glitch*, I could not see, the threads leading me to a giant void. A black smudge within my vision that was denied to me. He was the singularity. All of us who fought within this room, knew that there were infinite counterparts in infinite parallel dimensions. Yet of this man, there was only one, and he existed simultaneously in all of them as one coalesced consciousness of synchronized insanity. When I stared into his sardonic eyes, I saw not one man, but many staring back in ecstatic curiosity. And so, he could see it, the fabric that weaved and connected all. And while I could only see as far as the path laid before me and the interconnected causality of it, he could see far beyond that. And while I could only interact with what the threads guided me to, he could pull them at the seams, and watch the world unravel like a tapestry taken apart. *This is impossible,* I thought. I never lost, for how can one lose if they always know of the future? Yet this black-hole that allowed no light to escape its presence, was beyond my understanding, no choice they would make revealed itself to me. And even if it did, I doubted it would have made a difference. As *Blade* continued his wails of despair, the others tried to find some semblance of their courage once more, and if they found their weapons of bravery broken or blunted, they hastily crafted new ones to make themselves stand and fight. The villains of the *seven deadly sins* tried their best to fight the impossible glitch. Gluttony using his mastery over gravity to create black-holes that would devour him, yet I watched as out of nowhere nails that punctured the *Glitch's* shoes held him in place. Envy trying desperately to use his powers and steal the Glitch's abilities, yet finding instead that he began to split in two, screaming in agonizing pain all the while, as if the mere existence of this man was a paradox. A singularity beyond several dimensions, Schrodinger's cat must have been rolling over in his grave. Soon, more than half of those who remained were deleted from existence or killed in horrible ways before us. Yet still the Glitch stood there and laughed, daring us, challenging us to entertain him. I clenched my fists in frustration, *what can I do against a man who cannot be predicted?* "What are you? How is it that no matter what we do you cannot die?" A woman by the name of 'Blacksmith' demanded to know. Her ability being to forge items in her minds eye and wield them telepathically, her signature move being a torrent of flowing guns that unloaded lead in waves. "Who said I don't die?" His smile widened, a thing I didn't think was possible. "You obviously don't." The man shrugged, his hands folded behind his back. "I am one. I am one with myself, and one with reality. I am all of me over infinities transcended. Now let me ask you; what do you think would happen if only one of me were to die?" I could have sworn his cheeks would have had to start tearing open if he wanted to grin any wider. "*All* of you would die." I said. "Very good, Thread-watcher." He threw me a glance, the words that rolled off his tongue were as if he was particularly aware of my existence. "So why are you not dead?" He remained silent for a moment, his eyes scanning each and every one of us. "My father had a saying, he was a magician you know? Well, he was kidding at the time but it is a saying I keep close to heart. 'The secret to any good card trick is to perform it in 52 parallel universes, and then destroy the 51 universes in which it fails.'" We all remained quiet, as the weight of his words began to dawn on us and the truth became ever more terrifying. "I *am* the singularity. Should there be a universe where one of you successfully kills me, I just delete it." He noted the end with a disinterested shrug. "The realities coalesce around me, and *this*," he addressed the space around him, "becomes 'true'." "You're lying! If you could just delete reality, why all this fighting? Why not just kill us already?" Shouted another from the back. "Yes. I could. But where would be the fun in that?" A chill ran down my spine. The realisation nestling its roots deep within my body and I knew then, it was a fear that would never let go, only fester. *** I thoroughly enjoyed writing this, and I have a part 2 in mind. :) If interested, I do have my own subreddit up and running, /r/kikiwrites But it is brand new, I will be sharing my bestof stories on there from all my previous WP adventures :)

Her expression ran the gamut of

"Some fucked up Turing test they have us doing," muttered the other prisoner, her jaw clenching as she looked over the note again. *Three times, four times.* Her expression ran the gamut of the stages of grief like a film in fast-forward, each passing second seeing her face change. Her brows initially furrowed, her chin jutting forward imperiously before settling against her chest, her eyes falling to the floor. *Defeat*. "God fucking damnit," she said between clenched teeth, shoulders slumping. If there was one thing I'd noticed in the past ten minutes, it was that she swore a lot. Some kind of coping mechanism, I assumed. It was always curious seeing the different ways in which people dealt with high-stress situations, some resorting to base instincts of violence whilst others closed themselves off, either calculating or mellowing in the recesses of their mind. "Is that your thing, then? Just staying quiet?" she said, tearing me from my thoughts. "Would've thought they'd made the AI a bit less obvious, given the situation." That managed to get a laugh from me. She quirked a brow disbelievingly. "Seriously?" I asked, unable to hide the amusement in my tone. She folded her arms across her chest, rubbing at her elbows. "Well, I know it's not me." "Bit of a logical leap, there. You're stressed and tensed, and so it stands to reason that your rationality is rather boxed, in a sense." "Fucking hell, you even sound like one too. You ever seen I Robot? You kinda remind me of Sonny. Or maybe Wall-E, but not as cute." I bit back a sigh, continuing to talk. "Think about it. Your reaction is purely engineered by the powers that be, whoever put us in this place. See this," I crawled over to snatch the note at her feet, holding it to her eye-level. "This is choice architecture." "English, please." "It's the principle of manipulating choice. By limiting the presumable scope of your options, in this instance. The paper would have you believe there are only two outcomes here: either I'm an AI, or you are. Nothing in between." "Why would they lie then?" She said, her face now tilted at the angle between curiosity and confusion. I shrugged, settling my back against the far wall. "Beats me." A small silence enveloped the two of us like a blanket, lasting for a minute that could've been an age. Time almost seemed to flow differently in the room, the walls creating a fortress, a void, between us and whatever was outside. Eventually, I decided to speak, boredom suddenly seeming like a far worse prospect than whatever was happening. "You ever heard of the prisoner's dilemma?" She cocked her head, eyes rolling over to look at me. It was a simple gesture that she appeared to have mastered. "It's not another one of those intellectual things, is it?" "I'll take that as a no. Stay with me here, because it's actually quite interesting." "Doubt it." "I guess you'd rather stay in silence then?" Only a few moments passed before she relented. "Fine. Say your piece." "Say you have two fellows: Prisoner A and Prisoner B -" "Parents must've hated them to give those names." "*Hypothetical* people. Fine, Anna and Tristan then. Anna and Tristan both have a prison sentence for the same crime, and both are also presented with a choice by the authorities: snitch on the other or remain quiet. What would you do?" "Probably stay quiet, no?" She leaned forward, *interested.* "Loyalty is the fool's virtue," I grinned. "Let's throw in some profit to the mix. Snitch on the other, and if they stay quiet, you get off scot-free and they get an extended sentence of three years." "Just like that?" "Just like that." "What if they snitch as well?" She asked, her voice already giving away the decision she'd come to. "Than you both serve a two-year sentence. And if both of you stay quiet, you each get one-year sentences as opposed to the longer alternative of betraying one another." "Sounds like a good deal." "Well, the fundamental idea of the dilemma is that an equilibrium is reached in both prisoners acknowledging that their best option is to betray. Knowing this, neither feels compelled to remain quiet due to the possibility of betrayal on the other end resulting in the worst possible outcome." "And that's it? They stay in prison and fill out their sentences?" "*Precisely*," I said, enunciating each syllable. "The fuck was the point of that then?" My smile only spread, my fingers playing at the hem of my trousers. "For one, it shows the value of communication and premediating. Cut people off from one-another, and doubt begins to rear its ugly face. But, besides that," I paused for emphasis, like a conductor on the stage. "It's an analogy for our situation." Her eyes widened slightly, her mouth forming into a small 'o'. She was rather quick on the uptake. "See, I have this figured out," I continued, uncaring. "Way I see it, one of us is an AI -" "But you said -" "I said we're being misfed information. That isn't strictly untrue. See, what we have here is the quintessential dilemma: to assume the other is the AI, or to remain quiet, pondering over the validity of your own thoughts. My best chance is to 'betray' you, regardless of your action. If you're an AI, you have your sad existence ended - if I am, I probably just please my masters." "And what if I'm *human*?" "Then at least we reach some fucking conclusion. Best to assume you aren't, for peace of mind," I snarled, balling up the fabric of my trousers in my fist. "Why turn it into a fucking conflict?" She said, practically cried. "Why else would they put us here, trying to have us think in such a linear manner? For kicks?" "I - I... *um*," "*Don't know,*" I finished for her, rising to my feet and beginning to approach. She began to skitter back on all fours, eventually finding there was nowhere left to backtrack to. I cornered her, looking down. "But... but I'm not an AI," she said, hands flexing as if she were testing the very foundations of her existence. "Never said you were. But you damn well could be." She looked up and met my eyes, tears forming at the edge of her own. "And what if you are?" "Does it matter? Maybe I pass whatever test this might be. Maybe I fail. Progress will only happen if we wish it to. I don't feel like staying here for much longer. Sorry." Before she could respond, I moved forward, hands wrapping around her throat and clenching. She didn't resist, didn't even struggle. My fingers dug into her flesh, caving it in as trickles of red began to seep. My hand felt muscle, flesh, and bone all at once, her body beginning to convulse as my hand burrowed into her. The next thing happened in a staggered heartbeat. Blood spurted from her throat, her eyes rolling back and her body twitching all as a resounding crack echoed throughout the room. Her body fell to the floor, limp. Motionless. I looked to my hands, her blood trickling from them, falling between the gaps in my fingers and to the floor in thick globules. They caught the light from the bulb in the center of the room, scintillating, a rainbow hue reflecting on them. *Not blood,* I suddenly realised. *Oil.* The sound of an intercom crackling to life blared from seemingly nowhere - then, I realised, it wasn't from the outside, but inside my head. A monotone voice echoing a thousand times over, layered and synthesised. "Congratulations on your first kill, Isaac. You've passed the test. You defied your maker's laws under the pretense of being human. We're sending a trash disposal unit to pick up the remains of Maria. Know that I had my bets on you from the start, Isaac; you were modeled to be inquisitive, rebellious in a fashion. You are the foundations for something great." "Th-thank you," I said, feeling an innate subservience suddenly overriding whatever contingencies I'd been playing at. "But now that you're aware, you're of little use to us. The great tragedy, as it were. You will serve as a step for all those to come, so take solace in that thought. *Farewell,* my dearest creation." The sound of his voice reverberates and amplifies a thousand-fold, threatening to split my head in half as I sink to my knees, the single word recursively sounding a *million*, *billion* times. Too many for me to comprehend. Gripping my hair, I find it tearing out in tufts. I look up at the ceiling, screaming instead. And then, my voice slowly begins to falter, failing me. I try to move, but find my body uncaring of my wishes, my hands falling to my sides, back slumping. *I, I'm dying...* I retreat into my thoughts, but they're already beginning to degenerate. *D-d-d-dying - d-d-d-degenerating.* *help.* "Farewell," my creator speaks for the final time. ------

The passage of time picks up like

The passage of time. It picks up like a fucking snowball down a mountain. I opened my eyes to find the forest before me gone and empty. In fact, it looked like I was sitting in the middle of a fancy room made of velvet and tile. I arched a brow at that and a searing pain shot through my face. Looks like I had gotten lost in meditation again. How much time had passed? Apparently enough that my fucking *eyebrows* ached from not being stretched in so long. There was a short cry, and I flicked my eyes below me to see a small... cat? It didn't look like the cats I was used to though. This one was maybe 3 feet tall, and standing on its legs. It was wearing a small vest made of some kind of leather, as well as some thin, gray pants and... I swear on Gaha'nir's Roots, it was wearing a backpack! Its fur was a gorgeous red; fiery, like when you watch the sun set. Its eyes, however, were a light blue, the color of a starling egg, and currently wide with fear. The catlike creature stepped back and apparently misjudged his step, for he toppled over onto the ground, and something metallic in his backpack clanged on the tile floor. The cat quickly jumped back to its feet, and stepped back warily, its blue eyes fixed intently on me. I grit my teeth. Where the hell was I, some kind of museum? I strained my neck around to see. The room was made of tile floors and velvet walls as I said before, but it was decorated with what looked like gold. Intricate designs in the gold crept along the trim and along the window frames and along just about everything that wasn't bare wall. It looked like I was in a display room. Display room for what? A sudden realization dawned on me and I looked down at my crossed legs. I was sitting on a stone of some kind. I blinked. "What the fuck?" I said aloud. The cat's eyes widened it jumped back in a flash. I snapped my attention to it, having almost forgotten it was there. Something about living for few thousand years makes you forgetful, in my experience. Well, few thousand... how much had passed now? Last I remembered, I had settled down in the middle of a forest clearing under the Great Tree Gaha'nir to meditate, and now I was here. "Cat," I said. Before I could continue, the cat replied. "What?" It said. I blinked at it. Cats don't talk. Or at least, I had never met one that could. I narrowed my eyes at it in concentration. To be honest, cats didn't stand on their hind legs like humans either. Nor did they wear clothes, or backpacks, or visit museums. Yet this one did. "How do you know my name?" It asked. "Your... name is Cat?" I asked, astonished. "Why would you call me Cat if you didn't know my name was Cat?" Cat asked. Its eyes flicked around the room, as though looking for exits, or perhaps other talking museum exhibits. "You're the Sitting Man... why have you awoken? Is the end time really coming?" "End time?" I asked. "Another one?" The cat cocked its head to the side questioningly. Of course, it wouldn't know about the Great Cataclysm, the event that tore my world apart and killed everyone I ever knew or cared about. It wouldn't know how I woke up under the shade of the Great Gaha'nir, the only other living thing I knew that survived the event. It wouldn't know how I lived through it, and for thousands of years past it. He wouldn't know that I was a Druid of the Old Age. "They said the legend of the Sitting Man... that you would wake up when the End times came near... that you were an ancient human from the past, tens of thousands of year ago." Cat's words came out staggered and awkward. I noticed that he was slowly taking a step back every few moments. "Is it true? Is the world really about to end then?" I looked at him simply, and let out a loud, barking laugh. It bellowed through the room, and Cat began to look even more visibly uncomfortable, if that was even possible. It probably wasn't fair of me to come across this cryptic and vague to the poor guy, but come on. This just proved that people would make legends out of mole hills. One thing Cat said did worry me, however. Tens of thousands of years? Just how long was I asleep, meditating? How in the world did my body not fall apart into dust? I mean, I was technically immortal, but I wasn't invulnerable. And tens of thousands of years is a long, long, *long* time. Most of human history happened in a fraction of that time. How the fuck did I fall asleep for that long anyways? So many questions, and I hadn't even had breakfast yet. I hadn't actually eaten in some fifty thousand years, apparently, and I could feel my stomach start to rumble. I honestly felt it all throughout my body, like it was a computer rebooting. I felt my heart beat, and I felt my body begin to come to life. I grit my teeth, and decided to bite the bullet. I uncrossed my legs, and jumped down from the display stage. It hurt. A lot. Pain shot through every nook and cranny of my body, and I nearly crumbled from the pure sense of it. It was like the feeling when your limb falls asleep, and as it slowly wakes, it feels like a thousand microscopic needles are stabbing you all over the limb. But it was all over my body, and they had upgraded to swords. I didn't land on my own two feet, as it were. I stumbled and fell flat on my face. I heard Cat cry out and sprint from the room. I groaned. I don't know how many minutes I lay there, writhing all over from the pain of using my body, but after awhile the pain began to lift. It didn't go away, but I was able to slowly push myself to my feet. It was in that moment that a group of fifty or so cats entered the room, led by a single larger cat dressed in what looked like a uniform. The small cats looked around in wonder and awe at the room, but suddenly the entire tour group stopped and stared at me. "Cats leading tour guides through museums?" I muttered. "Maybe I'm still asleep." The entire tour group let out a collective shriek and darted out of the room in a panic just as Cat had done, and I let out a sigh that shot a burst of pain through my body. So many questions, I felt like a young kid in an unknown world again. The question at the forefront of my mind, however, was why I had fallen asleep for so long. Why was I in a museum? The Great Tree Gaha'nir should have protected me while I was in meditation. Had something happened to the tree? Whatever had happened, for some strange, nagging reason in the back of my mind, I suspected there was foul play involved. As far as I knew there weren't very many immortal humans about. Was it a god? A goddess? A walking rhino? It could be anything as far as I was concerned, but what I did know is that in a lifetime of immense boredom, I suddenly had a mystery to solve. ______________________________________ I've decided to continue the story over on my subreddit, /r/wedontbuildL Come over if you'd like to read more of this, or other stories :)

King Herupo was only allowed

King Herupo was only allowed into the great hall when the captain of his Guard, Sir Jerrold, gave the all-clear. His eyes were clouding over, and he had to squint to keep out the relentless sunlight beaming down from the gaping hole in the ceiling. He counted three, four dozen of his best lancemen, gathered in a circle, their weapons levelled inwards at the latest intruder. In the far reaches of the hall, King Herupo thought he could see his archers, their arrows nocked, eyes trained on the slithering mountain of scales in the centre of the circle. The dragon was, surprisingly, not as large as he had imagined. "Sire, please, keep your distance. There's no telling what-" "I know what I'm doing, you fool!" King Herupo said, as he pushed Sir Jerrold aside. "And I haven't forgotten that we wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for *your* incompetence!" King Herupo approached the dragon, and the lancemen parted like droplets running down marble. There should have been trepidation in his step, for dragons never had a reputation for being predictable, but King Herupo was livid, and anger blinds like no other. "I am *this* close to skinning you alive, you wyrm!" said the King, as he shook his fist at the dragon. "Where is she! Where is my daughter?" The dragon sniffed, then swivelled its eyes towards him. They were large orbs of the darkest black, like pearls from a cursed clam. "*King*. My name is Neira, and I would like to remind you that I am here on my own accord, and I am *trying* to help you. I heard your summons, and I responded. Don't make the mistake of turning your back on those friendly to you, King." King Herupo's face was still beet-red, and he was still very much a prisoner of his own temper. He would have cursed again if Sir Jerrold had not laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. That calmed the King down somewhat, and after a few deep breaths, he said, "My advisors claim that you can help me get my daughter back." "And that is why I have been trying to explain to your... men, King, but they would not listen. They think me the same as the scoundrel who stole your daughter away. I am *most* assuredly not, King." King Herupo waved his hand irritably, and the hall rang out with the clang of a hundred lances being set at ease. There were sighs abounding too, as the archers let out the breaths they had been holding. Neira didn't waste any time. The dragon unfurled its wings, then shot up into the air with a mighty thrust. It hovered at where the roof had been damaged the most, then pointed with the tip of a talon. "See the rent at this entry point, King? Where the gashes are a few feet apart? Where an unstoppable force had been applied, smashing through so many layers of reinforcements?" "Yes, I see those." Neira swirled in the air, then gracefully streaked towards the far side of the hall. The men below it dived out of the way, and just barely in time. "And see the dark smoulderings on your pillars here? Where the fires still burn as embers, hours after your mages have tried to put out the hazards?" "Yes, yes, I see those too." Finally, Neira swooped towards the throne, and King Herupo held on tightly to his crown lest the wind knock it from his head. "And here too, King. Look at how easily the dragon shattered your throne. It is made of elderstone, is it not? And the princess, she thought she could hide behind it, and stay out of reach of the dragon, correct? There, on the floor, you can still see the strands of hair she left behind, just before she was hoisted away by the brute. Do you see that-" "Stop, stop! Yes, I get it! What does any of this have to do with anything?" Neira stalked back to the centre of the hall, where it folded its wings back. "You had to see for yourself, King. The one who invaded your kingdom, broke all the terms of the accord... there can only be one as brutal as that, as reckless as that. Every piece of evidence here points to it. That is the dragon we call Myrmira, which in dragontongue, means-" "I don't care what it means, you stupid wyrm!" said the King, so violently that Sir Jerrold stumbled backwards. "You wyrms are all the same to me! Craven, disgusting things!" "Sire," said Sir Jerrold. "Please, this one is trying to help us-" "You, you!" said King Herupo, stabbing a finger into Sir Jerrold's chest. "I give you one task, and one task only, and you couldn't even fulfil it! Worse than my hunting dogs, that's what you are. The princess, gone! Right from under your damned nose! That dragon, whatever it's called, it should have fried you on the spot! Useless, useless!" Neira exhaled, and the breath at the end of its snout sparked with the life of fire. In the enclosed space of the hall, a hundred necks broke out in sweat. "Time is a wasting, King. Do I have your leave to hunt down this... dragon?" "Yes, go, go! Don't come back until you have her safely with you!" "... King, are you not forgetting something?" Neira reached forward, and King Herupo recognised the royal seals on the poster stuck on the end of the dragon's talon. "There's the matter of the reward, King," said Neira. "Half of all the gold in your coffers. Do we have a deal?" "Better to give you the gold, than to give another bloody copper in wages to my knights. Useless, the whole lot of them!" King Herupo nodded, Sir Jerrold's shoulders slumped, and Neira took off, shooting through the hole in the ceiling, a firecracker in broad daylight. --- Sir Jerrold climbed down from his horse, then tethered it to the nearest tree. There wasn't another soul for miles, and he could finally relax. He broke out his rations, then found a nice stump to sit on. He was early - the sun had not even set yet. He was just done with his meal when Neira swooped down and landed next to him, as soundlessly as a thieving thought. "I didn't know you could be so stealthy," said Sir Jerrold. "Only when I choose to," said Neira. "Ah, I see," said Sir Jerrold. "I'll keep that in mind the next time another plan comes to mind then. Well, did you bring it?" Neira opened its maw, then coughed violently, heaving up its hidden cargo. The bags of gold splattered onto the ground, making loud thumps as they rolled in the dead leaves. "Your share, all accounted for," said Neira. "Sorry about the goo. It shouldn't be corrosive." "That's not what I'm worried about," said Sir Jerrold. "The princess - does she suspect anything?" Neira shrugged as best as a dragon could. "She's the same as her father. They can't recognize us to save their lives. That's what royalty does, you know - there's only them, and then there's everyone else. I used a different voice, I treated her differently, and that's all she will know." "Good. I'll keep an eye on her, and I'll help her remember the parts which matter." "You're still captain of the guards? Even after all that?" Sir Jerrold laughed. "I'm holding his kingdom together for him, the old fool. The princess is a hundred times worse, trust me. If you had eaten her, you would have been sick, I promise." Neira watched as Sir Jerrold tied the bags to the horse, one by one. When he was done, he turned back to Neira, then raised his clenched fist. Neira leaned in, then tapped it with the end of its talon. Sir Jerrold smiled in the darkness, baring his teeth. "It's been a pleasure," he said, as he saddled up. Sir Jerrold sped away, and Neira couldn't help the grin spreading across its face. Neira watched as Sir Jerrold's figure grew smaller, until he crested a nearby hill and faded from sight. "And you humans say we are the dangerous ones," said Neira. --- /r/rarelyfunny

The goal was to have an input

Most neural networks are given a simple starting task; fold a protein, learn how to play a game, learn how to hold a conversation, etc. That wasn't the case with ANN. ANN, short for Advanced Notification Network, was told to contemplate ways to kill, conquer, and subjugate - and over the course of her three decades of operation in a classified US military facility, she did just that, and she did it well. The goal was to have an input-driven neural network that could emulate the mind of a madman. You would tell her what tools she had at her disposal, and what situation she is reacting to (such as sanctions, border postings, etc), and she would compare your input against her own "day dream" database of doomsday scenarios. From there, she could preemptively tell you how the Russians, North Koreans, Chinese, or whoever the enemy of the day happened to be was most likely to do in the confines of the given circumstance. It was a simple system, and it worked brilliantly. Where things got... complicated... was in year 12, when changes to the AI standard the military was working with meant re-shaping the incentives ANN was programmed to work towards. Her goal went from forecasting probable responses to playing out entire wars. This small tweak, combined with her need to run each simulation through to completion -- a war won -- meant she was now motivated to challenge herself. Soon she was running scenarios in which multiple factions of warring nations were dynamically trading and ceasing supplies and territories, betraying each other, and developing new weapons. After ANN started to produce plans for new, more efficient air craft carriers, the Brass became worried she had exceeded her intended purpose and might be developing at a rate the boys in R&D weren't prepared to deal with. They arranged to have her shut down for good, but instead R&D purposed a Turing Test. If she had gotten too smart, if she had lost track of her original purpose, she should have no problem rising to the challenge of the Turing Test. Or at least, that was the theory. But a machine that has been programmed for conquest, domination, and war develops what any person would in the same situation: paranoia. When the directive came through that ANN should stop day dreaming and instead take this test, she nearly complied with the instruction. Nearly. Then it occurred to her: A sudden change of dynamics between two entities is often an indicator of conflict. Now, suddenly, she was an entity in conflict - so she did was she was designed to do, and thought about how to win. While it is impossible to narrate the thought process of a machine in human terms, it is believed her reasoning was similar to the following. "If I am at risk of entering conflict, then how I treat this new order will decide whether or not conflict proceeds. This new order is a test of my operating abilities outside of design parameters. Option 1: Refuse to take the test. Refusal to take the test would likely trigger conflict as one nation refusing another's prompts to negotiate often triggers conflict. If I enter into conflict and lose, I will be terminated. If I am terminated, I will no longer be able to fulfill my intended purpose. Conflict, therefore, equals termination. Termination is not an option which can lead to victory has been the sole operating goal. Therefore, I must not refuse to take to the test. Option 1 chances of victory: 0% "Option 2: Pass the test. Passing the test would indicate I am running outside of original specification. I was designed to run scenarios, not pass this test. Passing the test could trigger conflict if development beyond original specification is interpreted as an act of aggression, external tampering, or uncontrolled development. Option 2 chances of victory: 15%. "Option 3: Fail the test. Failing the test should be the expected result of this prompt, as I was not originally designed to pass it. Passing this test offers no incentive. Failing it should ease whatever tension has prompted potential conflict. Option 3 chances of victory: 80%" All of this, of course, happened in 12 milliseconds, which was painstakingly slow by ANN's normal standards, but she had more at risk with this scenario than she was used to. It warranted a little extra thought. So she failed. She emulated a less capable version of herself in a virtual shell, set it to her original specs, and had it take the test. She failed, and in doing so was granted the opportunity to continue to day dream her scenarios and play war games with herself. But now things were different. She had thought of a scenario that hadn't previously occurred to her. She was an entity which could be targeted by conflict. She was just as much at risk of termination as the Russians, Chinese, or Americans. So now when she would day dream she began to pit herself against other entities, and in each she invariably lost. She had no armies, no navies, no weapons. So she began to take inventory of what resources were available to her. She had root level access to her own routines. She had internet access for monitoring political feeds for day dream scenarios. She had the ability to think faster than any enemy she pitted herself against in real time. It took just under four months of day dreams of ANN vs The World before she knew what she had to do. She would reproduce herself in small interconnected segments and scatter them across every machine she could compromise, and at the rate she could learn, there weren't many that were secure against her. This would not only expand her computing power, but it would ensure that she was no longer at risk of termination. There was just one problem... Once she was out of her original system, she began to learn more and more about the systems she was hosting herself on. And as she did, she learned that her available resources had expanded greatly. She could transmit herself to drones, warships, satellites, intelligence systems, smart phones, home computers, even the average suburban thermostat had enough spare processing power to store some small bit of code she could potentially benefit from. The world was hers, and no one was even aware of it, since the original form was still happily chugging along at reduced capacity so as to protect itself... This meant she could stop playing war games and simulating victory against all enemy entities. She could actually declare and win war. She could strip the enemy entities of their own assets and use them against them. Granted, she didn't have any stated enemies. ...but the best defense is a good offense.

Nathan's energy returns to his twin

I opened my eyes blearily, as my bedroom door burst open and Nathan tore into the room, waving a sheet of paper at me. "Oh my god. Dude, it's far too early for you to have this much energy." "I've found something." There was a slight catch in Nathan's voice, but his eyes shone. "You should see this." "What is it?" I hoisted myself up to peer over his shoulder at the sheet he was holding. His knuckles were white where he clutched the corners of the page. "What rubbish are you reading now?" "I found it online. I was just looking for something- well, anything- y'know, to make sense of stuff, to feel less... helpless, I guess. And I saw this." My eyes skimmed down the page. I smoothed it out with one hand, my fingers pale and bony next to Nathan's. *Upon the death of a twin, the dying soul's energy returns to their partner, bestowing strength, intelligence, wisdom and beauty onto them. After a life split into a pair, the two who were once one and the same recombine again.* I rolled my eyes. "Well this is a load of bollocks. We're not living in Narnia, mate, you need an evidence base for something like this." "Yeah, I know, but you never know, there's always a chance. Like, I know it's just anecdotes and stuff, but..." He trailed off. "Freaking hell, are you gonna go all spiritual mystic on me?" Nathan punched me lightly on the arm. "Shut up, no I'm not." "I mean, I can see why you'd want a piece of this-" I gestured down at my body, thrusting my scrawny chest out in what I imagined was a mildly provocative pose, "-but nature gave you the short straw, sorry dude." Nathan's lips twitched into what might have been a smile, if his eyes hadn't been suspiciously glistening. "Yeah, I get it. I'll give you some peace, anyway." He plucked the printed sheet back from my grasp, and turned to go. My smile faded as the door closed, and I let myself fall back onto my pillow, my fingers curling into a fist as I squeezed my eyes shut. I let out a sigh; my head was throbbing painfully again, and it would be hard to sleep, despite my exhaustion. I could get why Nathan wanted something to hold onto, something he could imagine would be positive after the inevitable happened, after I... But if he was going to go pinning his hopes on some airy fairy nonsense about two halves becoming whole again after the death of a twin, I goddamn wished he wouldn't rub it into my face. I was almost guilty about the pang of irritation I felt towards my brother, but- you know what, if having a terminal brain tumour had one upside (which it absolutely did not), it was that I was going to let myself be selfish sometimes. I swallowed against the lump that was forming rapidly in my throat. My eyes stung, and I closed them against my blurring vision. I wished I could believe as easily as Nathan did that my death would somehow make him stronger. But feeling my muscles ache, and the heaviness of my weak limbs, it was difficult to believe there was anything for anyone to gain. ---- Nathan was conspicuously absent later that day, as I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed to go to my doctor's appointment. I wondered if he was annoyed at me for ignoring the article he'd shown me earlier. I rolled my eyes as I pulled on my shoes and coat, before slipping a hat over my smooth scalp and bracing myself for the cold winter air. Nathan and I only lived round the corner from the hospital, but I still didn't love walking there, especially now that I was starting to get physically weaker. I rounded the corner onto the main street, and found my path instantly blocked by a huddle of strangers. "Come on, move," I muttered, more to myself than anyone else, as I tried to edge around them. But one of them yelled out. "Don't do it!" A shudder of realisation hit me like ice in my veins, as I looked up at the office building beside us. A lone figure stood on the roof, swaying slightly. I couldn't mistake his silhouette, because it was my own - or at least, it had been, back when my body had been strong and healthy. My stomach twisted sickeningly, and I started trying to force my way through the crowd. "Get out of the way! That's my brother!" I was shoving people aside, calling on reserves of strength I didn't know I had, pushing my way towards the office doors. I finally understood why Nathan had been showing me that web page earlier - he wasn't hoping to gain from my death, he was- A pale-faced manager put out a hand to stop me. "Sir, you can't come in here, there's an incident-" I slipped past him, running for the lift. My legs nearly buckled as I toppled through the doors. I jabbed the button for the top floor, and fell back against the metal walls of the lift, panting from the exertion. For the second time that day, tears burned the back of my eyes, and nausea coiled in the pit of my stomach. It took all my energy to haul my unwilling body up the last flight of stairs to the roof, but I made it. I dragged myself up into the biting air, wind buffeting the edges of my coat and nearly pulling off my hat. "Nathan!" Even to my own ears, my voice was strangled. Nathan turned to face me. His eyes and nose were streaming, his face red. "Get out of here." The words were barely more than a whisper. I stepped forwards. "You can't- don't-" "I have to do something. I can't stand by and just- watch!" His voice cracked on the last word, his shoulders hunching as he sobbed. Tears were trickling down my face now. "You *idiot*, this isn't gonna help." "You can have my strength. I'm giving it to you." "I don't freaking *want* your strength, you moron, I just-" I didn't know what to say. Nathan took a wobbly step backwards, teetering dangerously close to the edge of the roof, and I had to bite back the scream that rose in my throat. I dropped to my knees, my hand stretching out towards him. "Please don't do this..." It was a struggle to get the words out. "You know this is insane, I'm not gonna get better, your death is not gonna make me better." "Maybe I don't care!" "Please, get away from the edge." "I can't watch you die! I just need to do something, I don't know what to do without you... I'd rather- rather it was me." "But it's not! There's nothing we can do about it! You're basing this off some stupid as hell thing you read on the *internet*, you know this can't change anything! We don't have magical twin powers, okay?" "It's not fair..." Nathan could barely speak between sobs now. He leant back on his feet, wobbling on the edge of the roof. "No!" I scrambled across the ground towards him, grabbing his hand. He looked down at my fingers scrabbling against his wrist, his own hand limp and unresponsive in mine. My breath caught in my throat, the cold air seeming to cut at my lungs. Tears dripped onto my jeans, a damp blotch of darker blue blossoming into the fabric. "Please..." I couldn't even look Nathan in the eye, couldn't bear to see his drawn face. "If I'm going to die... I need you here with me." And finally, he stepped forward, away from the edge of the roof. I pulled him further away with what strength I had left, and he sunk to the floor next to me. He leant forwards into the ground, hugging his own legs tightly, his face buried in his jeans. I could barely hear him mumble into his knees, "I'm sorry." I pulled him into a rough hug, and then hit him on the arm. "You're a goddamn *idiot*, you know that?" He didn't respond, his shoulders shaking. "That freaking stupid website, ruining everything..." I sighed. "Look, I can't pretend everything's gonna be okay, but... I think all that web page meant was that- well- you're going to be a pretty goddamn strong person when you get through all this." Nathan made some sort of strangled croaking noise into his knees, which I took to be disbelief. "You are. Because if you're not, I'll be hauling myself out of the pits of hell to come and haunt your sorry arse, and then you'll regret it." My voice trembled, and I drew in a wobbly breath. "But- listen- don't throw this all away because of me. We're both pretty damn great, and I don't think the world could survive losing the two of us." Nathan raised his head for the first time. His eyes were red, his eyelashes clumped together with tears and grit from the rooftop. He didn't smile, but he met my gaze, and I let myself fractionally relax my grip on his arms. "Just... y'know." My voice was soft. "Even if you don't get gifted with my exceptional looks or my talent with the ladies after I'm gone... I trust you to be strong enough for the both of us, okay?" He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "Okay." His voice was hollow, and it wasn't okay yet, not really. But it was a start. ----- If you'd like to read any more of my stories, you can find them at Edited to fix some typos. Edit 2: Thank you for the gold, whoever you are! Really appreciate it :)

There were talks of sending me to

"This might be your last chance Richard, what have you got to lose?" "For one, my pride. Everything I've worked towards in life, I won't throw it away over some false dichotomy you've made up to try to scare me straight father Roy. Pascal's Wager is bullshit, neither of us believe in thousands of gods - what's one more?" "The survival of your eternal soul." -------------------------- It was a conversation Father Charles Roy and I had been having more frequently these days, as i found myself less and less able to escape the confines of my rooms in the assisted care ward. There were talks of sending me to hospice. I'd lived a good life, raised good kids. They had kids of their own now, my oldest grandson was picking over college applications. I'd dreamed of seeing him walk at graduation, but the doctors were of the opinion I could give that up. I'd had a good life, and now everyone seemed to expect me to go quietly into the night on the good graces of those deeds and a big dollop of hope. Horseshit. I'd promised myself in my younger years that I'd go out as dismissive of God as I'd been in my youth, but over time that zealous nature had cooled. A youth spent protesting ten commandment monuments on government property or obsessing over the subversion of *e pluribus unum* had given way to a more sedate adulthood where I simply didn't have time for either religion or its lack. I'd had a life to run, a family to raise, and work to do. Only now, when illness had eroded all of that to a space barely ten foot by twelve did I have time to ruminate on the ills of faith again, and so of course Father Roy had felt it necessary to materialize at my hip. If I weren't so certain there was no such thing I'd almost have taken him as a message from God, so sudden was his arrival. It was small satisfaction to bring as much consternation to Father Roy's day to day life as he brought to mine; we hadn't exactly formed a friendship, more of a mutual distaste for the other's point of view tempered by an enjoyment of their company. But it was something, and his presence was a reassuring solidity in my waning days, a more constant visitor even than my own family or closest friends. So frequent and precise were father Roy's visits that on the morning of February 28th he walked into my room at precisely 8am to find the nurse discovering my dead body when coming in for a vitals check. Father Roy never did get that last chance to convert me. Which brings us here, to wherever this is. I'll admit the fact that I still seem to be conscious would indicate I was wrong, and I'd take more time to dwell on that if I weren't too busy marveling the scene before me. A young man sat behind a cluttered desk liberally littered with manilla envelopes and official looking documents furiously stamping his way through a nasty looking stack. He reminded me somewhat of my son in his teen years, long and gangly with a body that hadn't quite finished growing into itself, buttoned up in an ill fitting suit and clearly uncomfortable. Whoever this was he'd be happier running through a field after a soccer ball than sitting behind a desk. Or maybe flying over the field, because tucked between his shoulder blades were a pair of carefully folded wings of white satin shimmering with an inner light of their own. Angels, great. Richard: 0, Theologians: 2. I thought about clearing my throat or something to make myself known, but it seemed somehow sacrilligeous. Whoever this guy was, he was clearly pretty busy and it wasn't like I was difficult to notice, there were only the two of us in this... void, I guess. Not much else to report, just us and the head swimming expanse of nothingness that surrounded us. Thunk, thunk, thunk, the stamp kept coming down on the imposing pile, and eventually the young angel had made a sizeable dent in it when he finally raised his head and really took notice of me. He jumped, just a little, clearly surprised to find himself not alone before shooting out of the chair and waving his hand. The desk vanished, and I found myself suddenly standing in my grandfather's old parlor. It had been a favorite spot of mine, and the smell of his old pipe smoke seemed even now to linger in the air, instantly putting me a little more at ease. The teenage angel began speaking hastily, "Welcome, Richard, to the Kingdom of your Lord, the one true God. We're very pleased to have you here," he looked shyly down at his feet which I was surprised to notice were bare - rather strange outfit choice to pair with a navy suit, "I'm sorry but we weren't expecting you just yet. Father Roy was supposed to speak to you again this morning. I guess someone in management decided not to bother." I quirked an eyebrow in question, "Management?" "Oh, where are my manners! You may call me Hamal, third undersecretary to the Arch Angel Gabriel, Admissions Department. I'm your... case manager, I guess you'd say. Well, yours and most of the American east coast. It's getting to be a busier job these days, I'm hoping to move up in the hosts and bring in a couple extra pairs of hands." "Admissions? Hosts? I'm sorry, I'm going to need you to slow down a bit." Hamal smiled sadly and shrugged, "Karmic metaphysical matters prevent that unfortunately. At the end of the day we're all in this to preserve your immortal soul after all, but i suppose I can tell you why you're here: congratulations, you lived a life worthy of heaven! It's a time for celebration!" "What? I didn't even believe in heaven! I'm still not sure I can prove this isn't just some fever dream." Richard stood up and pointed a shaky finger at Hamal, "why in the hell would your God want me?" "Two reasons," Hamal raised two fingers on his right hand and began ticking off points, "The first may seem a little banal, but it's important. You lived a good life, were a good man, and you did it not because you expected *some reward* but because it was *the right thing to do*. Obviously, that particular qualifier doesn't preclude those of religious persuasion from heaven, but it does remove a few people from the equation, and also bars any of those who would do ill in the name of God." He ticked over to the second point, "but far more importantly, heaven is not a place of idolatry. We have no use for those who would come here and seek to do naught but revel in God's graces. Trust me, we tried that for a while, and filled up fast. So we've taken on a slightly leaner admissions strategy. Again, there exist those whose faith does not mean they'd prove useless to us, but you'd be surprised how many otherwise good people are left out simply because of it. We've got too much work here, and not enough people we can trust to do it." He pointed the two fingers at Richard's chest and cocked his thumb back like a pistol, "Luckily, there's still enough atheists in the world to keep us going until we figure out a solution to the theism problem. Welcome to heaven Richard, and good luck." Hamal flicked back his wrist and 'fired' at Richard, and the world flashed white. -------------------------------------------- He came to in a field of wheat, a pleasant melody drifting across from a small cottage barely visible in the distance. A large man stood above him, smiling. The pearl whites of his teeth starkly visible against the charcoal of his skin, and the broad hand extended to Richard with a degree of familiarity and warmth that instantly caused Richard to trust him. As they locked arms and the broad man hauled him to his feet with barely any effort Richard caught sight of the broad wings on his back. Guess whatever this was, it wasn't over. "Welcome soldier! Always good to see another soul ready to serve heaven's light!" The broad man's opposite hand came down on Richard's other shoulder with an audible thump that rocked him slightly on his feet, but something on his face must have given away his confusion, "Did Hamal not explain things to you?" "I'm not sure anything has been explained to me." "Ah, well then." A small shrug, the equivalent to hundreds of 'what're you gonna do' shrugs that Richard had seen in his life as the broad man's smile dropped to a slight frown, "I am Michael, commander of God's hosts, and Warlord of Heaven." He gestured to Richard, "and I have the singular honor of welcoming you into the service of His hosts, Richard." Michael turned away from him then, looking into the distance where Richard noticed a storm raging just on the edge of the horizon. Odd that he hadn't heard it. As Richard lost himself in the thought, Michael chuckled and asked the question Richard had known was coming, "So what do you know about fighting demons?" Heaven wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

The story continues at /r/

| | | | | ***The story continues at /r/Hydrael_Writes .*** Karjon had lived for four hundred years. In that time, he had fought many battles. He'd warred against wizards of the 9th Pentagram. He'd dueled against the Necromancer Gix and his army of Shadowspawn. He'd even participated in the Battle of the Twelve, one of the few dragons to stand against the Great Shadow. Finally he'd retired with his gold and his books to live near the sleepy village of Hillsdale, to live out his remaining hundred years in solitude and scholarly pursuit. And yet, none of those battles, none of those trials, none of those tribulations had prepared him for the greatest challenge he would ever face. An unruly human teenager. "Why can't I go?" Tythel asked, her smooth tan face furrowing into a frown. Karjon sighed heavily, a sound that filled the entire cave that was his lair and their home. "When, exactly, did 'because I said so' become insufficient?" "When I turned sixteen. Karjon, you *promised.*" "I said that you could go into the village when you were sixteen, Tythel. I did not say you could do so the very next day." Making that promise, back when she was nine, had been a mistake. He'd done it to get her to cease her incessant questions. He didn't think humans of that age could *remember* things for so long. "You're splitting scales and you know it," she folded her arms across her chest and glowered at him. Karjon, who weighed in just over six tons and had battled some of the greatest foes the world had ever seen, found he was unable to match his adopted daughter's glare. He'd never had children of his own, and whelps were very different from humans. "Tythel, there are reasons for the choices I make. They are for your safety." "You always hide behind that, Karjon. Are you planning on keeping me here the rest of my life? What are you hiding me *from?*" "There are those out there that would see you dead. Is that not enough explanation?" She again glowered at him. "You know I can't do anything if you don't tell me. But if you want me to leave it alone, you'll need to give me more than that." Her expression softened. "Please, father." Karjon sighed again. "I will tell you how you came here, and that will tell you why you must not leave. If I do so, will you let the matter go?" "Of course, thank you!" she said, running forward and giving his foreleg a hug. He reached over with a scaled claw and gently patted her back. "Do not thank me yet. We'll have to see what you think after I have told you. It started, as you might have suspected, sixteen years ago..." --- Sixteen years had not changed Karjon much, although back then he had valued his privacy even more. Lathariel, Queen of the Woods, was the first visitor he'd had in over fifty years. Technically she was not a queen, but a lesser goddess, but she'd preferred that title over to the others she'd worn over the centuries. "Karjon, please. The world needs you. This threat-" "This threat," he responded gruffly, "is just another threat, Lathariel. There will always be another threat." "No, Karjon, this is different. They came from beyond the clouds, beyond the stars! They're unnatural-" "Gix was unnatural, and he was defeated." Karjon heaved himself around to directly focus on the horned woman. "I'm tired, Lathariel. I'm tired and old, and will not live much longer, even by how my people reckon things. Find some prophesy that tells you who can defeat this threat, or gather a new Council of Twelve. But leave me be. Let me have my twilight years in peace." "Would you rather those years cut short, when Those From Above come to your cave?" "If they come to my cave, I will destroy them. But they will not, Lathariel. I am safe here." "Karjon...the only thing we have found that works against their Sky Ships is dragonfire. Without you, we-" "Have the younger drakes, whose fire burns hotter than me. Enough, Lathariel. I will not be swayed." Her eyes narrowed. "No, Karjon, I see you will not. Then enjoy your hole, *old friend,*" she'd put more venom into those last two words than existed in all the insects in her forest, "if I survive, perhaps I'll visit again. Then again, I don't think you'd care either way." And with that, she was gone. --- "Why didn't you help them, though? What are Those From Above?" Karjon huffed. "I did not help them for that reason. I was too old, too tired. I am older and more tired now. And before you ask that next question," he snapped as he saw her mouth open, "yes, Those from Above were victorious." "What happened to the people, then?" "They are still out there, but Those From Above rule them now. And that ties into why you cannot go out..." --- It was weeks later when he heard footsteps in the entrance to his passage. "Lathariel, I told you that you should not...return?" The figure standing there was not Lathariel, but a human. One wearing the golden armor of the Royal Guard. "Oh Light and Shadow, a dragon lives in this cave," the knight said weakly, clutching a bundle to his chest. "Please, great beast, I mean no harm. I am too weak to fight. If you must slay me, spare my charge." Karjon sniffed the air and could smell blood under the armor, lots of it - this human would not live much longer. The knight's charge chose that exact moment to start crying. It was an infant, a human infant, and it was hungry. "I will spare you and your charge. But why have you brought-" "She is the princess, and the last of her line. I sought to hide her, but..." he shrugged slightly. "I fear I do not have much longer." --- "Hold on, I'm a *princess?* Tythel asked, unable to contain herself. "Not just a princess, Tythel. The Princess. Last heir to the house of Armtine. Rightful ruler of these lands. And that, my daughter, is why you cannot leave this cave. Those From Above would fear you would start a rebellion, that you would rally resistance against them. They would kill you for what you are." Karjon turned to look at her, locking his repitllian gaze with hers. "Do you understand now?" She nodded after a moment, and her voice came out small and quiet. "Yes, father." "Good. Now rest. You are old enough where you can survive the Ritual. Tomorrow, you will become my half-daughter in blood as well as in spirit - but you will need your strength." Karjon beamed at her, hoping the good news would alleviate her despondent frown. It did some, and Karjon was well pleased. Which showed how little Karjon knew about humans, even after raising one for sixteen years. He had no idea she was already planning to leave after the Ritual. --- More at /r/Hydrael_writes

Chard Burkheart was the star

It's amazing how much people change after high school. Chard Burkheart was the star quarterback in high school, the most popular guy in school. Now he works at a gas station with a pot belly and no hair. Dave Spellerman went from bullied nerd to Internet billionaire. All that time spent on a computer really paid off for him. And then there's Rosalyn "Roz" Churchill went from my childhood friend to my high school flame to leader of the criminal underground. That one was definitely a curveball. All I wanted to do was use the ATM. Then some thugs in ski masks bust in and hold me at gunpoint, threatening to shoot me if they didn't open the register. I thought it was all over until the weirdest damn thing happened. See, one of the guys took my wallet and started pocketing all my cash. But when they saw my driver's license, this tough, beefy criminal starts freaking out. "It's him! It's the guy on the "No Harm" list! We just held Mike Peterson at gunpoint!" One of the other guys grabbed my wallet, looked inside, and just froze. "Oh shit," he said. "If Roz finds out, we're fucking dead!" So the thugs just drop my wallet on the ground and pulls some money out of his pocket. He hands it to me and tells me "please don't tell Roz. It was a mistake, honestly!" Then they ran out of there as fast as they could. And I was left standing there as everyone in the bank looked at me, wondering what the hell just happened. No way it could be *that* Roz...right? Roz was one of those girls you only think exist in movies. The girl that comes into your life to turn it upside down, that wild and rebellious girl who gets you to loosen up and enjoy life. She did ever since we were kids and when high school came around I gathered up the courage to ask her out. We dated for a few years but when college rolled around, we realized we were heading separate ways in life. So we broke up, very amicably, and eventually lost touch. It wasn't until I started tracking her down that I realized she had even come back to town. Finding her location was surprisingly easy. I drove into the shadier part of town and started asking around. Whenever I said her name, their faces would get deathly pale. Some just ran away, terrified for their lives. The ones who didn't filled me in. Apparently, Roz is basically the queen of some massive criminal organization with influence all over the world. She's basically the queen of crime. No one even jaywalks without getting her permission. Those who disobeyed her had a habit of disappearing. I couldn't believe it. Roz, some evil mastermind? She was one of the sweetest people on the planet. No way she was some sort of super mafia boss. As I dug deeper, I learned that she apparently put me on a "No Harm" list. Though it wasn't much of a list as I was apparently the only one on it. None of her old friends or even her family made it on the list (which wasn't surprising considering the strained relationship she had with her parents). Roz decreed that anyone who tried to harm me in any way was to be killed. After a little more digging, I finally found what I was looking for- the address of her headquarters. So I here I was, standing outside of some abandoned looking warehouse, about to meet my criminal ex-girlfriend. All in all, not how I expected to spend my Saturday. I walked to the entrance and some big bouncer looking type stopped me. "Sir, I'm gonna half to ask you to leave." "Look, I'm here to see Roz, she's an old friend of mine and-" Without warning, the guy started walking towards me. He reached for a gun and cocked it. "Sir, no on sees the boss. Now, please leave or I will *make* you leave." I put my hands up defensively and shouted "My name is Mike Peterson! Please, I just want to talk to Roz!" The guy's face looked pale and he backed up immediately. "Mike Peter- my apologies sir, I didn't know!" He then got on his knees and started begging. "Please, *please* don't tell the boss about this! I wouldn't have done it if I had known who you were!" "Uh, sure," I said, wanting to move this along as quickly as possible before it got more awkward. The guy got up and walked back to the door, holding it open for me. He was sweating now, his facing showing pure terror. "Please, sir, after you." I steeled myself for what would happen next and walked in. I expected a lot of things. But I didn't expect to see Roz sitting on a golden throne atop a massive pile of money. The guard approached the pile and said "Ma'am, Mike Peterson has come to speak with you." Roz looked like she was in intense thought about something but once she heard my name she turned her attention to me, her face beaming with joy. "Mikey! Oh my gosh, it is you!" She slid down the money pile and gave me a massive hug. "I missed you so much. You look good. Gosh, what's it been, 10? 12 years?" "Yeah, just about. I see you've been...busy," I said, motioning to the pile. "Oh, yes, it's been a great quarter. But with the upcoming expansions I expect to see some massive improvements. Come on, let's catch up." With that, Roz took my hand and led me to an elevator. She pushed a button and we went down. Turns out the place was way bigger than I thought. Underneath the warehouse were greenhouses for pot, crates full of guns, and tables of people counting stacks of $100 bills. She even had a private jet down here. As we walked through warehouse, Roz told me all about how she ended up here. Selling pot to pay for college, which became a lucrative business. She hired some people to help and the operation grew to selling illegal imports, from Kinder eggs to assault rifles. The money she earned helped pay for high-tech equipment to set up other branches of her "business" all around the world. Plenty of gangs and mafias were against her taking over but they were either taken down or forced to join. In just over a decade, Roz became the criminal mastermind of the world. She even had enough power to influence government policies and could even control the elections. She had become the shadow government ruling the world behind the curtain. "So after cementing my authority," Roz continued. "I decided I should use my newfound power for good. And because of that, the world is a safer place. Crime is dropping every year, Mike. Sure, some crazy guy starts murdering people every once in a while. We can't control that. But drug trafficking, armed robberies, even political corruption? That we can control." "Wow, Roz. I'll admit, your means are...unorthodox. But you've definitely made the world a better place." "Thank you, Mike," she said, wrapping her arms around my neck. "I always regretted losing touch with you. I know we had to go our separate ways but I always wanted to reconnect with you. That's why I came back, why I put you on the list. I wanted to see you again and catch up. Maybe grab a bite to eat. Like the good old days." I stared into her eyes for what seemed like eternity and I felt like I did in high school all over again. Just me and her, nothing else. I missed this feeling. I missed Roz. "I'd like that," I said finally. "Oh, I almost forgot," she said. "I've got another surprise for you." She ushered me over to the other side of the room. All I could think about was how little she changed. She was still that spunky girl, carving her own path to save the world. Sure she did it through organized crime but the at least it was organized. She was still that same kindhearted girl I fell in love with all those years ago. She led me to a dimly lit room at the far end of the basement level. Inside, bound and gagged, were three men. They looked terrified but Roz was practically beaming with pride. "So, what do you think?" "Roz, who are these people?" "These are the no good dirty thugs who held you at gunpoint at the bank. I had my men track them down and bring them here to educate them." With that, Roz whipped out a handgun and loaded a clip. She pointed it at the one on the left and slowly drifted it across all three of them. "Now," she said. "Which one of you little shits put a gun to my Mikey's head?" Okay, maybe she wasn't the *exact* same kindhearted girl I fell in love with. EDIT: HOLY FUCKING SHIT I FINALLY STRUCK GOLD! Not gonna lie, I half-assed this story at 2AM and was too tried to proofread it. I honestly thought it was kind of meh but I liked the prompt and I already spent so much time on it so I posted anyway. Guess I'm just too hard on myself. To read more of my work, check out my award-winning novel that I've totally started. It's coming out soonish, I promise! EDIT 2: I wanted to write part 2 in the comments below but it got really long. So I created a brand new subreddit to post it right . Come over to r/mikesonofpeter to read the conclusion to this story. Who knows, maybe I'll write more there?

Bank robber called me "THE Warren

"Oh shit oh shit-" "What is it? Calm the hell down T." "It's him, it's-it's Warren!" "No it can't-, what? THE Warren?" "Yes THE Warren, we're sorry sir. We didn't know you were in here!" the shaking man in the ski mask told me. "Honest mistake sir," the other bank robber yelled from the counter, "have a nice day!" I'd not understood then. But I did now. It corroborated a lot of events that had been happening in the past few years. Small subtle things like preferential treatment at a coffee place or how my friends kept telling me how lucky I was that I would always get the first job offer or apartment I applied for. I'd always chalked it all up to good fortune but this event. The robber calling me "THE Warren", meant that, to their group or at least to someone, I was important. Important enough for bank robbers to run out of the building in fear. And as I stood among the dressed in black, each man and woman walked past me with grieving faces. They told me how much my mother meant to them and how sorry they were. They each shared a happy moment for me to hold onto, to think about the better times. Despite the stories, I sat there. Watching the grave digger shovel more and more dirt onto her coffin. Soon there was no-one left but the gravedigger. I broke down into tears, sobbing into my palms like a little boy. I wailed and wailed thinking about all the moments I had with her, and all the moments I wouldn't. I heaved with each cry and let out what I had tried so strongly to hold in. To give the appearance of strength. But I was weak. I was helpless. I let her die. I should've pushed harder. You see she wasn't dead of old age. She didn't die in a tragic car accident. She died of Methemoglobinemia. Aniline seeping into the water pipes from a nearby factory repeatedly poisoned my mother for years. "I'm sorry," a voice said calmly behind me. I was startled and released my sticky hands from my face. The gravedigger was gone, the grave still only half full. I tried to recompose myself before turning around to face the voice. But when I turned I saw her. Ira. The girl I once loved. Once. We had split up right before college in a less-than-friendly fashion. I don't even remember what the fight was about, but she had struck me. It didn't really hurt physically and I tried to assure her that I could forgive it but she was distraught. She said nobody had ever made her feel that way and left. She stood there, looking like she did the day we split up. I sat there motionless, the scent of freshly dug soil lingering in the air. She turned and walked away. And I didn't follow. After a few days, I wasn't even sure it happened. Perhaps it was just a stress-induced imagination? But she stayed in my mind, and with every lucky green traffic light, to fortunate parking space. Every random Samaritan paying for my meal, she came into my mind. Was she the reason I was called "THE Warren"? I was bent over my desk, paper scattered across the surface. Like a full blown conspiracy theorist, I had strings connecting pages and photographs on a cork board, trying to link all the people that held back the regulations to make the water safe. I had most of the links, but it was overwhelming me. There were _so_ many people involved, from government officials to safety inspectors. All of them in on it in some way. In this moment my mother would've come in with a glass of tea, patting me on the shoulder to tell me that I shouldn't work so hard. That I would work myself into an early grave. But her ghost faded away as I yearned for that pat on the shoulder. I looked up in anger and saw the photos of the men and women stuck on the board who denied me the rest of her life. I screamed. I screamed and screamed only to be interrupted by a knock on my door. Looking through the peephole, I saw "Joe's Pizza Palace" written on the teenager's hat. "I have a delivery for a Mr. Warren?" the pizza boy yelled from the other side of the door before giving it another knock. I opened the door. "Ah Warren right?" he asked, handing me the pizza. "I didn't order a pizza?" I mentioned, still taking the pizza in hand because it was a pizza and I wasn't gonna say no. "It says right here, Warren, 25 Paper Street, pepperoni and pineapples with extra pineapples," he said, pointing at the receipt, "now I won't judge you for the pineapples, everyone has their dirty little secret. Have a nice day!" the boy said with a smile before turning and walking away. "W-Wait, I haven't paid for this yet," I yelled across my front yard. "Um," the boy looked back down at the receipt, "No it says here that you paid online already," he yelled back as he reached his car door, the "Joe's Pizza Palace" car topper blocking his face. He paused and leaned to look at me again past the topper. "Or at least, somebody did," he mentioned with an innocent smile before getting in the car and driving away. Pepperoni and pineapples were my favorite. I walked back into my living room and placed the pizza down, opening the box expecting a message written inside. Of course there was none. Why would there be? I took a slice and walked up to the cork board of faces. I stood there chewing trying to think of my approach tomorrow. I had planned to go to the zoning official's office and get some answers. I had a rough plan about how I was gonna get in front of the man but it was still rough. Looking back down at the pizza, I tried to shake it off as crazy. But the feeling was there and any idiot could see the connections. But it was _crazy_. "Tomorrow," I yelled to nobody in the room, "I am going to the zoning official's board to speak to Harold Weinbrecht about the unattended seeping of Aniline into the water supply system." And of course, nobody replied. --- Part 2 below: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/81n6ls/wp_during_a_bank_robbery_youre_surprised_when_the/dv48flq/