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[ "Ron really enjoyed flying back from work every day. The wind stroked his foot-long chestnut hair while his right hand squeezed the handle of his briefcase. He'd dropped it twice since he started his job. If he let go, it would shoot out behind him and fall in the river. Then he'd have to leave it there, fly home, bleach his hair, drive to where he lost the briefcase, dive in the river, and spend an hour breathing the muddy water looking for a mud-colored object. His car would need to air out, too, after he climbed back up the bank to it one-handed, trying not to slide backwards into the river. Maybe he should handcuff it on like in the old movies. Or store it in a backpack. Or drive back and forth to work. No, this way was more dignified.\n\nHe landed in his driveway at 5:44, just before Susan would have dinner ready. His bladder was screaming bloody murder at him. As he stepped through the door, he took quick steps to the bathroom. The open door was right in front of him when he felt a sudden pressure on the front of his body. He'd run into Susan again.\n\n\"Sorry, honey, I didn't see you there.\"\n\n\"Very funny, Ron, just like the last ten times.\"\n\n\"Why are you invisible in the house?\"\n\n\"It helps me be sure my hands are fully clean. You know, you should think about cutting your hair short, too, Ron.\"\n\n\"Maybe another time. I've gotta *go*!\"\n\nHe shouldered past where he thought his wife was, into the bathroom. As he shut the door, Susan turned off her invisibility, leaning forward to stick her tongue out at Ron. She had the cutest face when she did that.", "This is just the premise of Captain Planet", "Mr. Carnsbury sat outside, waiting anxiously. He needed to calm him nerves. He tried to summon his Rubik's cube, to give his mind something else to think about, but his mind was already too scrambled to focus on summoning the puzzle. Dejected, he tried his best to ignore the noises from inside the medical bay.\n\n\"Ok, Mrs. Carnsbury. On the count of three. One, Two, Three, Push!\"\n\nThe 9-month pregnant Mrs. Carnsbury pushed with what little energy she had. The pain of the boy coming out was becoming difficult to tolerate, and she was just a step away from passing out entirely, even after the doctors gave her a Flask of Resistance. \n\n\"He's coming out! Just a little more, Mrs. Carnsbury!\"\n\nMrs. Carnsbury screamed as nurses came to her side to siphon off her pain. Slowly, the head of her son started to crown, and the doctor prepared a towel to catch the baby in. Finally, with a final, drawn-out moan, a new wail pierced the air and a baby was born." ]

[ 1, 1, 1 ]

[ "1394034996", "1394035598", "1394037107" ]

[ "I woke up feeling achy and the dog was at the edge of the bed, already begging to be taken for a walk. It was early - much earlier than usual. I let out a groan and stretched, getting out of bed. Thank god it was the weekend. I hoped I wasn't getting sick.\n\nI went over and slipped on some sweats and pulled my hair up into a ponytail, foregoing brushing it. It was far too early to care. I leashed up the dog and went out for jog on our usual route. Maybe the exercise would help my aching joints. Even though it was early, the city was still bustling with people out and about. \n\nAfter jogging through most of the park, I hit my head on a low hanging branch. \n\n\"Son of a bitch...\" I muttered, pausing along with the dog in my lap around the park. I had run this same path nearly every day for over a year and that had never happened before. I looked up at the branch. It wasn't broken or weighed down. Damn thing. It was far too early to think about. \n\nI continued on my path, giving 'the nod' to other joggers as I went. Things didn't seem too out of the ordinary until I ran into a co-worker walking his dachshund. He normally towered over me -- ironic that such a tall man had such a small dog -- but that wasn't the case today. Either his dog had gotten taller or he had gotten smaller. Maybe we were standing at an incline? I could tell from his messy hair that he probably hadn't given much thought to going out this morning either. \n\n\"Jen, do you know what the hell is going on? Are we...?\" He had to look up to me and the ground was flat. We both looked around at the other people in the park. A woman caught my eye running into that branch and cursing to herself before continuing on.\n\n\"Yeah. I guess so. Huh...\" I answered, still taking it all in. How had I not noticed it before? \"Must be topsy-turvy day,\" I said lamely before continuing on my jog. It was still too damn early for this. ", "The thing about evolution is that as a whole, it's a gradual change. Something to get used to. Something nature intends or whatever. But it's relatively unnoticed. Or if it is, then we can choose whether to accept it now or later. It can be integrated into society. So we benefit.\n\nThe athletes benefited from this, surely. Competition was fiercer now. You had loads of women now completely physically able to match their male counterparts' denser muscle mass and bone structures with their increased flexibility and newfound height. Sports were the first things that changed. Even that took a bit of struggle, but it did. Some felt it was a step in the right direction. Equal competition. At long last, at long last.\n\nFight clubs bounced up everywhere, men fighting with women, with the already tall women becoming variable freakshows against the now handicapped men they fought. The Olympian women shattered world records at the next event. Honed physical specimens with double X chromosomes were given a gift from the heavens.\n\nAnd the men sulked. They had something taken away. A foot gone from them and granted to the women meant that no one still were seeing eye to eye. It was just the ancestry of patriarchy that had bled on through generations falling, stunted, to new masters of the world.\n\nBut it wasn't just that. You remember that show on a couple decades back? Friends. Good show. They had this episode where that tall blonde chick with the guitar, Phoebe, she was explaining how mating works or something. What the men gotta do to keep the emotional attachment to a singular woman, they gotta be the exact prime height to be able to smell her. The top of her head.\n\nHer hair.\n\nThe pheromones. It was a way to connect and keep connected. For thousands and thousands of years. Through evolution. To keep aggression in check, to make sure of the survival of progeny, to allow nurturers and protectors and all that shit to come around. To keep a balance. We'd been bred to keep that in balance. And then the one thing swapped without the other. And the pheromones.\n\nLet's just say they don't work the other way around.\n\n---\n\n(I'd also like to note this is not my personal opinion, rather a character thing, nor how I think things would realistically go, just a glancing speculative fiction idea)\n\n(edit: also totally misread the title, but that day, that year, what's the difference, right?)", "Eventually, we got over it. Tastes changed. Relationships broke up. New ones were formed. Art changed. It all happened, with time.\n\nThat day? That day we mostly screamed.", "\"Honey...\" Said the soft voice of my wife. \"Can you make us some waffles?\"\n\n\"Of course I can.\" I replied, \"You just stay in bed, I'll bring it to you.\"\n\nI got out of bed, rubbing the crust off of my eyes, and stumbled to the kitchen. I reached up to the top shelf, only to realize, I could hardly reach the waffle batter. \n\nThat's unusual. It's normally just a quick grab. I normally don't need my tippy toes. I normally have to get this for...\n\n\"Honey... You... Shrunk...\" Leslie said from the kitchen entrance.\n\n\"And you... Grew?\" I replied to my now eye level wife. \"Well. At least you don't have to look up at me anymore.\"\n\n\"And you don't have to look down at me.\"\n\n\"Well... Hand me your step stool, I can reach the batter. Then go back to bed.\"" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 8 ]

[ "1394501252", "1394512002", "1394528504", "1394477217" ]

[ "There once was childhood. Youth, innocence. To this old, tortured soul at the end of his sojourn, such an idealistic past seems as real and clear as a good book he'd read years ago. He sits in the corner of the run-down diner, hunched over his morning coffee as it warms his tired and worked hands. White ghosts of memories swirled around in the creamer, stirring his mind even as he stirred his coffee. That's all ghosts are, really. Memories. And they haunted in just the same manner. It seems that he asks that same question every day: How had he gotten here? He can only recount what he remembers, and rebuild what he cannot. Ghosts? Sure. He's seen some ghosts.\n\n\nCollege was everything he thought it was going to be, and so much more. All the pleasures of life were thrown at him, and he indulged in them all. He woke tired each morning, but somehow he managed to balance work with play. At least at first. As Chinua Achebe said, things fall apart. And so did he. Immersed in his world of fantasies, reality slowly faded from his mind. His senses, deeply altered, became mere suggestions. He slowly drew away from the lofty goals he had set upon coming to college, and settled on the path of least resistance. Opportunity - never the most persistent door-to-door salesman - knocked once and moved on. And he never noticed.\n\n\nCut off from the world, cut off from himself, he barricaded himself into his room, leaving only for food and excrement. He saw now that his senses, so easily deceived, could not be trusted. His ears were filled with a roar, his sight with a blur, and yet through the mental tempest he could feel his brain trying to push out the monstrosity that had become his mind; a mind addled with the paradoxes and dead ends of enlightened thought. It raced in its bitter throes of war. A torrent of thoughts flew past him, passing far too fast for him to slow. His conscious mind could grasp but brief snatches of thought from the furious current: *We're trying to categorize what can't be categorized; Sagan's mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam, refusing to acknowledge our insignificance in a vast, uncaring universe; It all means nothing, there is no truth, no meaning, no happily-ever-after to save us from ourselves, no ..............*\n\n\nHe could feel the Earth rotating, threatening to spin him right off into the void. He feebly grasped the carpet, but his mind was far too scattered to apply much pressure to his grip. Did it matter? His apathy was his own worst enemy, and how does one care about apathy when he can't by its very nature? The roar increased, the blur burst to white, and his grip on the ground started to slip. \n\nA new sensation began clawing its way slowly through the storm. A mild disturbance that grew exponentially once the seed had been planted. Fear. And all at once, he rejoiced in it, feeling the caress of adrenaline in his veins, the hammering of a heart desperate to preserve itself. Fear! Fear is the cure to apathy, yes! It dissolved its way through the mess of thoughts, as he slowly fought back to what passed as reality. Andd the tempest quieted.\n\nThis was only one day, his own small victory. Did it save his grade point average by the end? No, it did not. That was how he got here, he thinks, but that explains nothing. It is just a story, there are no reasons. But he knows now that life's best questions give no reasons, and certainly no answers. All people can do is grab onto that carpet and ride out the tempest as best as possible. And if they have a good grip, perhaps they should reach out and help those who don't. After all, Death is the only truly perfect thing there is, and he wasn't done enjoying his imperfection yet. While his college breakdown was the epitome of his flaws, it was also the key to accepting them. \n\nHe looks down to see that he is still stirring his coffee, which is now nice and uniformly tan. And that's the difference between creamer and ghosts, he thinks. Creamer blends in after a while, but ghosts remain. ", "Have you ever looked into the eye's of someone who has just passed.\n\nThey all look the same. Convey the same exact message. Peace, acceptance, the realization that death is only a fear that the living carry. Everyone fears what they do not understand. So it only makes sense that we fear death.\n\nWe only experience death once in our short lives on Earth. We can't know what lies beyond, or what happens, when the light finally diminishes from our eyes. But something tells me Death is not the end, because I can see it, in those very last moments as someone tries to hold on to the remaining moments of their life. They've seen something inexplicable. Something, that in the seconds they have left to give them the courage and hope, to let go and drift off in the void. They welcome Death, in those last moments for reasons unbeknowst to us. Sometimes, I yearn to find out why, but I think I already know the answer.\n\nDeath is the only truly perfect thing there is.\n\n" ]

[ 1, 3 ]

[ "1394493795", "1394514025" ]

[ "Martin woke up that day. It was the same shitty day he was always coldly welcomed to. The same grey sky, the same breakfast, the same commute and the same people to deal with - everything was the same for so long and everything became a blur. It's hard to distinguish days when the same talkative woman whose name escapes him yet again talks to her colleague about her 'new' diet, one that will truly work this time. He generally worked alone, as he preferred it. Other people either bored him or scared him, and he was feeling somewhat comfortable in that lonely position. Any time Martin had to interact with other people, he would never quite establish eye contact, focusing rather on a piece of paper he was usually seen carrying. \n\nThe highlight of any day would be returning back home. Not because boring commute with random asshole people suddenly became a hot tub session where gorgeous women of gifted qualities were feeding them tasteful food while others were massaging his feet. No, it was because he had something to look forward to. The reason to live for, the reason not to give up on it all. Commuting back home was the time of hope and imagination. The exhilarating journey which he always wanted to end just a bit faster so he could finally do it. So he could finally observe Him and tremble in his imaginary presence.\n\nIt all started when he moved into the city. A sheltered and religious childhood in a rural area made him afraid of his natural urges. Despite this, he was naturally gifted and that fact made him go places he only dreamed of when he was a child. Even if it was just another office job, it felt good to finally be out of the 'cage', out in the free world where he would feel comfortable being who he truly was. And then he met his neighbor from the building opposite of his. \"Met\" is a strong word to describe the encounter, as they never actually talked. But, all it took for him to become obsessed with the neighbor was prolonged eye contact. The second their eyes met, something changed inside of him. This was the most beautiful human being he had ever seen - he was in awe of this ungodly beauty. That day, Martin noticed that He was living the opposite of his bedroom window. \n\nIt all started with Martin watching when He was getting home so he could figure out his work schedule, figure out when the two of them could properly meet. That never came to be as He was an artist who traveled often. It was not to be, but Martin persevered. He slowly became obsessed with this imaginary person he never met, thinking up encounters between them, writing down conversations that never happened, picturing himself introducing them as a couple to his parents. Soon, the whole reason to live was to see what He was up to. It wasn't \"just\" watching or stalking. To Martin, this was his life, his carefully maintained fantasy whose foundation, walls and roof were as stable as the job he was starting to dislike more every day. He couldn't quit because he needed this expensive apartment - it became his life sentence.\n\nThat day, he returned home. It had been two weeks since he had seen Him, which was worrisome. He was usually gone for a week, maybe a week and a half but almost never two full. His excitement was only matched by his reluctance to once more see the dark and empty apartment he had been seeing for far too long. Still, he managed to amass the courage to open up the curtain. What he was met with froze his blood - a woman was painting the walls of what was now an empty flat. The connotation was obvious, He was gone and in all those years Martin had been obsessing over Him, he never even learned His name. His whole reality came crushing down, the sense of dread filling his body while tears came rushing down his cheek. The blue glow coming through the windows, the regularity of city's soundscape and him, sitting against the wall, contemplating his whole life for what seemed like an eternity. \n\nAnd then it hit him - there were tears on his face. He couldn't remember the last time he cried. It felt relieving, he felt oddly at peace. At this realization, he started laughing maniacally. None of it ever made any goddamn sense and he only just realized this. He stood up, wiped his tears off and, while still laughing, jumped through the faithful window, finally at peace with what life meant to him. He had tasted enough of it and now was the time to go home.", "Under a daunting red sky, I sat upon my white horse, perched over a bluff, looking over the final objective; what we traveled from Carthage to ravage. Elise. Men rested against the rocky walls of the pass behind me, armor scorched and rusted, our swords ever so dull, our dented shields and our bows unstrung, and our arrows decaying by the passing of time, it all led up to here. My left pauldrun, which was my only one, had the remains of half an arrow that I was struck with during the First Razing of Sodom, the battle that began our conquest of their cities.\n\nIt all truly began over four months ago, over which their Elders, when the nations attended the Summit at Apocriphica, when they had insulted the great culture and marvelous Wonders of Carthage. \"A trial by fire,\" we demanded, \"for the Elders of Elise, for their vain and ignorant words.\" But they showed that they had no intention of apologies, and with that; we sought to teach them a lesson. We may call our razings 'conquering,' but in every sense, it is nothing but razing and raping, and they deserve nothing less. Or so I've though, along the dirt paths and mountain stretches we've traversed. Moral conflictions between my men have been common, but I've tried to assure them and myself that this campaign will have been worth all the effort in the end.\n\nI took my legion down the narrow path along the mountain, which would let us take the eastern wall with ease. Peregrination was difficult, as the pass was steep, rocky, muddy, slick. We were all exhausted from the long compaign, but it was to come to an end, tomorrow.\n\nOn my right, a good friend of mine, Marullus, had galloped to my side while upon his horse, Loyal.\n\n\"Maximus, Titilus and his men have set up upon the west. We just recieved word.\" \n\n\"Excellent. And what of Ashton and Clark?\"\n\n\"Terrible news, sir. They've returned home with their men.\"\n\n\"And for what reason have they abandoned the operation?'\n\n\"The messenger said they 'would not be part of a slaughter.'\"\n\n\"It isn't a slaughter. We don't... we do not need them.\"\n\n\"Are you sure, Max? We can stay put until reinforcements arrive.\"\n\n\"This is my command, Marullus. The invasian shall proceed... and we will wipe them from the slate of history.\"\n\nI'm gonna finish this shit later.\n\n", "\"The world turned, Saul. Not for us, though.\"\n\nThe infuriating thing was, Saveliy was right. Two years they'd spent on this game, two years hunting and hiding and killing and tearing through society and now that Saul had him, now that Saul had a gun to his face, it didn't make a difference. There was nothing left to accomplish.\n\n\"I lost a long time ago,\" Saveliy muttered, unperturbed by the revolver barrel planted against his nose. \"You know what I lost, coming back from that war. You know what I lost, fighting this one against you. And now you see clearly how deep the wound runs. I have no family, I have no friends. The Bratva has no place for me, I will never see the life I made others pay for. I will never see the damage I have done. I have lost.\"\n\nSaul's finger twitched on the trigger. There was no more purpose here. Saveliy was no longer the villain Saul had sought to destroy. But ghosts of vengeance, ghosts of the past, whispered in Saul's ear. Ghosts of friends, ghosts of lovers, calling for blood, calling for the blood they'd been promised, crying out for justice.\n\n\"I cannot say I'm sorry. I do not know how to feel that, Saul.\" Saveliy laughed, then coughed, then laughed again, trying to hide his pain. \"The war is over, our lives are over, and we have been left behind, to wonder why. Perhaps I will not have to wonder much longer, yeah?\"\n\nThis was what he had fought for. This was what Saul had killed for, broken his promise to end the fighting for, thrown away principle and good sense and years of his life for. All to stop Saveliy's reign of terror. The reign was over, but Saveliy was still here, and a righteous fury burned in Saul's heart, echoing the ghosts' cries for blood. It would be resolution, it would be all he had ever wanted to just pull the trigger.\n\nWith a quiet click, Saul lowered the hammer, lifted the revolver, and tucked it into his jacket, then offered Saveliy a hand. Saveliy displayed expected bewilderment. \"Is this not what you wanted? Vengeance? Victory? Take it. There is nothing left for me. Just memories on the wind. Take your victory. Make it good.\"\n\n\"I am.\" Saul bent further, grabbed Saveliy by the arm, and lifted him. \"Revenge isn't victory. Ending the hurting is victory.\"\n\nSaveliy still seemed bewildered. \"What do you think to accomplish, keeping me alive? I have lost all. There is nothing to live for. I should have died in the war. We have no place, \"\n\nSaul sighed. \"Like you said. World left us behind. That's why this all happened, right?\" Saveliy still refused to walk; Saul forced him to his feet, slung an arm over his shoulder, and began marching anyway.\n\n\"Yes, but - it should end now, Saul. It should end. Let it end,\" Saveliy pleaded, too weak to fight.\n\n\"Come on. World turned,\" Saul replied with a smile. \"Not too late to catch up.\"", "Pertha sat in the seat facing the temple door. He looked at Stacy. Where was her man? It was he who he wanted. It was he who carried the stone of power. He tightened his grip on Stacy's arm. She squeaked and pleaded him to let go.\n\n\"Quiet human! I will not let go, your pleas land upon hard ears.\" He chuckled to himself. \"Oh shit... Get it? Hard ears... I'm made of stone...\"\n\nStacy looked up at him, and Pertha offered her a rocky smile. Stacy returned the smile.\n\n\"Did you mean to say that?\"\n\n\"No, haha... it just sort of came out.\"\n\n\"That's actually pretty funny.\"\n\n\"Heh, thanks.\" They held each other's gaze a tad longer than Pertha was comfortable with.\n\n\"Uhm, ahermm, where is Tobias, human woman? Did he not hear of my challenge to him?\"\n\n\"You smashed open our home and yelled it to his face, Pertha. I'm sure he got the message.\"\n\n\"But what if he didn't?\"\n\n\"I'm sure he did. Tobias may be stupid, but he's not deaf.\"\n\n\"Hmm... Do you think my skeleton guards got him?\"\n\n\"I dunno, they seemed pretty flimsy to me. I bet Tobias got through them just fine.\"\n\n\"The mountain, though, perhaps it swallowed him up, perhaps wolves attacked him, perhaps he got lost on the way here... Oh, what if he comes here and doesn't even have the stone of power with him? What a waste of time this will have all been. What a stupid, stupid plan I have made... Stupid, stupid stupid...\" Pertha let go of Stacy and held his head in his arms as tears of sand streamed down his rocky cheeks. \"Why am I even doing this? I never asked to be a rock monster! I don't wanna be a monster... Not anymore, I'm sick of it!\"\n\nPerth felt a sensation on his arm. He looked up and realized it was Stacy's hand rubbing him.\n\n\"I think it was a very good plan, Pertha. Honestly, I couldn't have pulled it off any better myself.\"\n\nPertha looked at Stacy, his eyes blue (stone monster's eyes turn blue when they cry). \"You really mean that?\"\n\nStacy said. \"I do.\"\n\nPertha grabbed his legs and rocked back and forth slightly. \"I don't want to be a monster.\"\n\n\"You don't have to be.\"\n\n\"But I am.\"\n\n\"I don't think you are.\"\n\nThey gazed into each other's eyes a moment longer, before Stacy jumped on top of him, embracing his surprised, rocky lips with her own.\n\nTobias burst through the temple door, his sword in hand, and his yell of triumph and adrenaline changed pitch into one of bewilderment and disappointment. Stacy hopped off Pertha as quick as she could, but he had seen, they both knew, and they both had sheepishly guilty looks on their faces.\n\n\"YEEEEEEAAHHHHaaaawwhat the hell. Again Stacy? Really? Again?\"\n\n\"Tobias wait...\"\n\n\"First Nessie, then the Minitar, now Pertha the rock monster?\"\n\n\"Toby...\"\n\nPertha looked at Stacy. \"I thought you said I was your first monster...\"\n\nStacy looked at both of them. \"I can explain...\"\n\nPertha wrinkled his nose. \"The minitar? Really? He's... He's disgusting! He uses his own feces for body wash, you know. That's no legend.\"\n\nStacy got a fair, far-away look on her face. \"Yeah...\" She sighed.\n\nPertha grunted in disgust. \"You vile woman!\" \n\nTobias raised his sword in agreement. \"Here, here! Stacy, we are through. I'm sick of it! No more wearing masks in bed for your pleasure! No more strap-on tails and horns, we are soooo over!\"\n\nStacy started crying. \"I don't need you anyway, boo! I got Pertha now!\"\n\n\"Oh no you don't\", Pertha said as he sidestepped her advance. \"I'm out of here. You's a bitch and you know it. TOBIAS! I think I owe you a drink sir. Would you care to accompany me to a bar?\"\n\n\"You owe me a wall too, you son of a bitch.\"\n\n\"Hahah! That I do sir, that I do!\" \n\nPertha put his rocky arm around Tobias' shoulder as they made their way through the temple door down to the village pub.", "I've been waiting for this moment forever, it seems. For the past twenty years, in a self-imposed exile from human civilization, training my body, my mind, my spirit, with nothing but bruises and my own vengeful thoughts for companionship. And now my day of victory is here. I will return to my kingdom, which was ripped from my hands, where my wife was slain before me, my young son torn from my grasp. I will rescue my son, and I will reclaim my kingdom from the usurper.\n\nAnd I will kill him.\n\nI race up the steps to the castle, not a guard in sight. My sword is drawn, my muscles taut. I tear open the door with a force and fury matched only by the conviction with which I plunge my sword into the nearest guard. I make a dash for the throne room. These halls are familiar, their layout etched into my mind. I am finally home. The guards are at my heels in hot pursuit. But they have not been training the way I have. I easily outpace them and arrive at the throne room. I stop and drop my sword in shock. Sitting in the throne is *not* the usurper, but...\n\n\"Dad? What the hell are you doing?\"\n\nMy son, whom I remember as a mere babe, stands from the throne in surprise, tall of stature. The guards finally approach me.\n\n\"Sir, he... He killed a guard!\"\n\n\"What?\" He turns to me. \"What are you doing here? Why are you killing my men?\"\n\nI blink, dumbfounded. This isn't right.\n\n\"You... Where is Rinaldo?\"\n\n\"Who?\n\n\"Rinaldo, my son! The usurper! The man who slayed your mother and took control of this kingdom! *My* kingdom! He, the pretender to the throne, who thought himself clever and powerful and worthy to take my throne and my people from me!\"\n\nMy son shakes his head in what appears to be bewilderment, his eyes wide. \"Father, he was killed by the guards not a minute after mother perished! You had immediately ran off spouting nonsense about 'training' and 'revenge' before they'd even arrived! Why did you leave me with the kingdom, father?\"\n\nI shift uncomfortably. \"But... revenge?\"\n\n\"There is no revenge to be had, father. You have failed your kingdom, and worse, you have failed your son. You are hereby banished. Never show your face again. Guards, escort him beyond the borders.\"\n\nI am escorted to the border and unceremoniously pushed beyond the gate. I can scarcely believe that I am now doomed to live in exile.", "\"The Yorath have made their surrender, but we can't be too sure it's real. We can't know that they don't know how many we've lost or how weak we've become. Intelligence informs us that their final battalion is headed to your position, and the only way we can know they're done for good is to wipe the last of them out.\"\n\n\"We'll be ready for them, sir.\"\n\n\"That's just the thing--you won't. You'll be massively outgunned. We're putting our best technicians on the job to get inside their attack module software, but we need a second wave.\"\n\n\"Of ground forces?\"\n\n\"No. We're going to use an aerial assault.\"\n\n\"How are you going to hit only the Yorath?\"\n\n\"We aren't.\"\n\n\"Oh. I see.\"\n\n________________________________________________\nHe rose smoking like the ruins, and raised his eyes to meet the uncaring uncaring red bar on the front of the attack module. Somewhere behind him, dead men called for help which could never come and mothers they would never see again in this life. He knew them by their voices, but there is not rescue for the dead.\n\nNo matter the world, no matter the era, it always came down to the same point eventually. Violence, and the devastation which follows. He'd never understood how he always got caught up in it all: how these petty quarrels between strangers always seemed to involve him, to throw him and those he cared for most into the fray to fight and die on their behalf. A man who lives a hundred years sees enough pain and loss for any lifetime. A man who lives a hundred lifetimes sees nothing but pain and loss.\n\nHe staggered forward, gaze fixed on the module. It was not an angry gaze, though there was anger in his heart. Nor was it pleading, for such an appeal does little in the face of an enemy, and the platoon of the dead at his back were doing enough of that besides. The man's eyes were blank, but not in the way an idiot's eyes reflect incomprehension or a heartless man's eyes reflect his coldness. The final soldier's look was not of fear, nor anger, nor bargaining, but acceptance. Reflected in those eyes, the red light behind the bar on the attack module died.\n\nThe module crashed to mechanical knees, twenty feet of metal bird's-leg narrowly missing the final soldier as it crashed into the dirt beside him, sending chunks of turf and bits of a fallen fighter, affiliation unclear, flying. The final soldier blinked to avoid getting dust in his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw that the devastation of the battlefield was far worse than he'd known.\n\nStilt-legged modules like mechanical Baba Yaga huts teetered and fell, some crashing cockpit-first and crushing their riders, others discharging weapons uncontrollably as they fell. Yet, the man felt neither joy nor relief that his comrades who had worked to undermine the software integrity of their enemy's primary offensive vehicles had succeeded. The dead of the \"enemy\", whoever's enemies they truly were, were no more or less dead than his fallen brothers.\n\nHis brothers. Family. He had come to this world following family. A man who does not die sees many generations pass, and it was as a favor, the dying wish of his some-odd-great-grandson, that he had followed his some-odd-great-great-great-grandson into battle. The last of his line. Yet, even the protection of an undying comrade, the boy had perished. In truth, they both had died when the bomb turned the bunker into a pile of gravel and body parts, but only one of them was capable of putting himself together again.\n\nThe man climbed atop the fallen module to survey the devastation which surrounded him. His comrades had marched like lambs to the slaughter before the technologically far-superior Yorath, and now lay like offal on the ground. The Yorath, unable to metabolize the high oxygen content of this world's atmosphere, would be suffering toxicity in their broken modules. If not already dead they would all die, humans and Yorath alike. Everything would die.\n\nSomething flat and dry hit the man's head, scraped gently along his face, then blew away in the wind. A leaf. There, back along the path of the wind, a withered stump, all that remained of a tree which had been toppled in the collapse of one of the Yorath modules, held up a single branch with a small clustering of leaves shuddering on it like pathetic pennants.\n\nA legend came to his mind then, an ancient story of no clear origin told over and over on countless worlds. The story of a man who forswore violence and sought to bring only peace to the world, but discovered that his messages of peace only sowed new seeds of discontent as people interpreted his teachings in as many ways as there were listeners. The wise man saw his folly, and ceased his instruction. He left his home and, finding a sapling on a mountainside, sat in the shade of its meager branches. Gradually, the tree grew and enveloped the wise man, and in that way he brought a little more peace to his world.\n\nIt had been many years since the final soldier had last seen a tree.\n\nBelow his feet, the craft clicked and heaved to life. The soldier stepped smartly aside as a hatch opened, and two Yorath emerged, emergency masks sealed tight to their faces. The first let out a cry when it saw him, but the second was better prepared and held a manual weapon at the ready. The Yorath fired.\n\nThe bolt caught the man full in the chest, knocking him from his feet. It hurt, as weapon-fire will, but the weapon had been ill-charged and would not have killed him even if such a thing were possible. The man rose to his feet again.\n\n\"Stop!\" The first Yorath cried in heavily accented Universal, sounding more like it was drinking soup than speaking. \"You will be our prisoner!\"\n\n\"The war is over.\"\n\n\"The Yorath have victory! Humans are defeated!\" The two aliens exchanged brief celebratory glances.\n\n\"No,\" the man replied. \"No one has.\"\n\n\"The humans have defeated the Yorath?\"\n\n\"Look around you. No one's been defeated because there's no one left to do any defeating!\"\n\nThe aliens looked out across the face of the field and found their handiwork to be good.\n\n\"We will take you prisoner and claim this world for the glory of Yora and her people! Yora has the victory this day, for two Yorath stand where there is only one human.\"\n\n\"Can't you see it's over? Who cares who's got more pieces at the end of the game, once the kings have been knocked over?\"\n\nThe Yorath evidently did not understand. \"Yora has no king. Even she had, humans would never knock it over.\"\n\n\"Fair enough. I won't fight with you.\" It was too late to stop before the fighting, truly, but not too late to keep from continuing.\n\n\"An unconditional surrender!\"\n\n\"No, a peaceful parting of the ways. I leave you alone, you leave me alone.\"\n\n\"There can be no peace with humans!\"\n\nRecalling the wise man's acceptance the violent world, the final soldier did not argue. He hopped down from the dome of the module to the ground and began to walk, turning his back to his would-be captors.\n\n\"Stop!\" The first one called, and muttered something to the second in Yorathi. The second fired his weapon.\n\nThe bolt, weaker even than the first, took the man in the shoulder but only knocked him a little off balance. He staggered a step, and continued onward.\n\n\"Stop!\" the Yorath called again. \"Prisoner!\"\n\nThe Yorath shouted after him to stop and to come back like a proper prisoner. The man was nearly out of earshot when the first Yorath yelled,\"Where are you going?\"\n\nThe man called back, \"To sit under a tree.\"", " The battle wasn't your obvious one - I don't have a sword. There is no armour on my comrades, no shields or pledges of honour. Nah, they don't do that kind of thing in hospitals - I guess they're not funded enough.\n \n I've been fighting for longer than your average warrior, though. Five years, on and off, and it all leads up to this day. I'm laid here, more a part of the bed than in it, and it all seems pretty pointless.\n\n \"Susanna?\" My doctor shifts the curtains to one side. Even he can't prevent his features falling into the predictable pattern of disappointment and pity. I nod in reply, or attempt to. My head is held in place on the pillow, my arms ringed with injections and wires like ivy on an ageing trunk. \"Are you sure you want to do this?\"\n\n It's taken five years. I've fought five years. It was useless - all of it - the fighting. The money people raised for me. The guilt in my friend's eyes, like it was their fault. The parties, the Wishes I got. Useless. Fucking useless, when I'm giving up like this. \n\n But I nod. I'm weak, and I'm giving up. People say bullshit about terminal illnesses - but God didn't choose a strong person to give this cancer to. God didn't choose a fighter. Everyone congratulates the brave winners of the fight, but no one considers the guilt of the losers. The shame of the ones who hold up the white flag above their shoulders - who replace their heads with the symbol of giving up.\n\n My doctor glances down, and I'm worried he'll ask me to reconsider for the hundredth time, but he doesn't. The ripples of the soft sheets that pool around my body are broken as he stands up, and the familiar pressure of a person at the end of my bed is missing. He stands, and watches me closely. Oh, it's odd to watch yourself die through other's eyes.\n\n \"Well, we'll put you in an induced coma like planned. Your family have seen you, and your will's complete. Everything's in order. Susie, we're going to miss you,\" he said. Yet, he closes the curtains. He doesn't turn around. He doesn't wheel me out the hospital, scream in my face not to do it. He doesn't stop me, for all the missing he'll do.\n\n I lay back in my bed as he leaves. The buzzing, the beeping, the concerned hushed tones of the hospital indecently continue. I give up the battle, but the war fights on.\n\n *CCW always wanted. This is my first post here, so be gentle! I'm also writing on my phone, so apologies for any typos etc.*\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 7 ]

[ "1394657543", "1394662052", "1394666697", "1394670386", "1394663165", "1394673514", "1394654521" ]

[ "After his rather unpleasant conversation with the lieutenant regarding his average closing time on his cases, Detective Armin Salmon sighed. His times *used* to be somewhat okay, but the latest case is throwing his time way out of wack.\n\nHe opened the folder again and looked at the photos again. The place is an absolute mess and Armin suspected it was this way before John Doe died. There was no clear indication of what he died from - no body products besides the ones released from death. he was waiting to hear from the coroner but the regular one is away on a continuing education conference and the replacement from the county over seems somewhat... slow.\n\nArmin picked up the phone and dialed the department number for the Coroner's lab.\n\n\"Dr. Goatte speaking. Is this important?\", the voice sounded annoyed.\n\nArmin figured this isn't unusual, it seems to him that this particular doc *likes* being annoyed. He decided to mimic the tone and wryly asked, \"you finish your john doe job yet?\"\n\n\"Oh *him* - the fucker is evil.\" \n\nArmin raised his eyebrows, Goatte normally doesn't swear, \"Fucker?\"\n\nGoatte snapped, \"Yes - I think he had some pre-med experience or at least his tatooer did. The goddamned tattoos are throwing me off.\"\n\n\"I only noticed some dashed lines on his neck and forehead. Tattoos? How does that throw you off?\" Armin asked curiously.\n\n\"His entire body is covered with those dashed lines. I can't really use my permanent maker to make the autopsy lines because the ink looks fucking same! did you guys know you only stock *black* down here?!\" Armin had to pull the ear-piece away from his head from the volume of that last remark.\n\n\"Again, what does the lines have to do with it?\"\n\n\"That's the thing, they're marked in the similar spots where I'm supposed to make the cuts but they're off by some distances and the angles are a little wrong. It'll look like a intern butcher's job than professional work!\"\n\nArmin sighed, looking at the clock - he could tell it's one of those days.\n\n\"I'll get you a red marker. Give me an hour, I'll get to you.\"", "The saffron carpet looked ill bearing his dried blood. His face was contorted in shock, like he was still trying to scream. A butcher's knife to the throat. Donaghue grimaced. Not the nicest way to go and not the tidiest either.\n\n\"The incision is 4.8 inches deep at the point of entry. The wound isn't wide however: not more than 3 inches of his throat truly severed. So I'd say it came as a surprise to him. A completely unexpected attack. The angle the blade came in from suggests that it came from above\" Chipps told him.\n\nHis impassive words held no meaning for Donaghue. There was a distracting, indiscernible blob on the back of his neck. He squatted to examine it.\n\n\"Ah yes, the back of the head\" Chipps continued.\n \"I've only been here a few minutes, so I can't say conclusively but it looks like he had a concussion on the back of his head\".\n\n\"What do you make of this?\" Donaghue asked, pointing at the grotesque blob. It was a violent yellow, outlined in black. It covered the entirety of the back of his neck. Garish but still meek, Donaghue felt perversely drawn to it, like this was the only clue he needed.\n\n\"That? Oh I inspected it just before you arrived. It's nothing\".\n\n\"Chipps\" Donaghue said. He spoke with no outward malice or threat, but Chipps knew now was not the time to protect John Doe's modesty.\n\n\"It's a tattoo. At least I think it qualifies as one. A smiley face. The outline is writing\".\n\nChipps didn't look him in the eye. Donaghue tried to decipher the illegible scrawl. **UTHRULESSMASHMO**. Donaghue squinted and twisted his head **SMASHMOUTHRULES**. He wretched into his own hand. The odd little face stared back at him with beady eyed, as bereft of soul as the man it adorned. \n\n\"So I think the blow came while he was sitting down. It knocked him off his chair and he crawled for a minute or two before slowly bleeding out on the carpet\" Chipps said, attempting to keep the investigation on rails.\n\nThe parody of a tattoo grinned at Donaghue. A temple of poor decision making, John Doe had decided his own fate long ago.\n\n\"Strange though\", continued Chipps \"I don't see any chair knocked over nearby\".\n\n\"No it isn't\" Donaghue remarked as he rose. \"There's nothing out of the ordinary here. Get your bag, the case has gone cold\"." ]

[ 4, 15 ]

[ "1394690577", "1394661422" ]

[ "It's unnerving.\n\nFalling into a world you don't recognize. You can feel yourself rushing down into it. You've never felt before. It's amazing. \n\nYou feel something else. A sort of... Pulse. There's something. You are something. You've become, you are being born. You feel a stretching, like your shaping into something. Something solid, and there's a pulse inside it. It is your heart, and it is rooting itself into the shape, which you assume will be you. It's spreading it's veins, and the numbness is going away. You feel a howling by the sides of your head. You can hear. Two gashes imbedded into your head flutter open to a world of rushing mayhem. You can see. A rod between the gashes elongates into a rather roundish shape, and develops two holes from which you suck in the sweet air. And finally, a large rip below it opens up with a gasp. You can breath. And you have long arms. And legs. And short cropped black hair.\n\nNormally you wouldn't know what all these things are. But some how, you *know.* You have become something, you were born for a purpose. \n\nBut then you become aware you are rushing in the air. You are falling. A thing in your throat vibrates as your mouth keys out a horrible sound.\n\nWith a *thump*, you land in an unknown landscape.\n\nLooking around, you realize it is very busy.\n\nYou are in a large opaque red dome. Strange beings like you tread around. Some are in business suits and carry things, as if they are delivering packages. Others walk around aimlessly, or chat with friends and drink in the scene. Some sit or lay down, deathly bored. One or two are pounding against the walls of the dome, screaming unceasingly. Looking up, you see more like you falling into the strange world, features red raw, yelling in terror. You even see a few unconscious on the floor. It is extremely crowded, and there is such a babble you can't hear yourself think.\n\nYou feel a large square thing vibrate in the pocket of your jeans. You pull out, realizing it is some kind of phone. You answer the call, and a face pops onto the screen. It is the most accurate and dimensional face you've ever seen, and it looks so... Well, *real.* So *perfect.* Who could it be?\n\n\"Hello!\" She says, waving in a friendly way as her black curls bounce. \n\n\"Who are you?\" You stutter.\n\nShe laughs. It is the most pleasing sound you have heard in your five minute life.\n\n\"I'm Lila.\" She says. She peers at you curiously. \"I believe you are Aiber?\"\n\nYou find yourself nodding as memories flood your brain, almost like an I.D card.\n\nShe looks at you curiously. \"I must say, you are the most handsome boy I've imagined so far.\"\n\nHeat creeps into your cheeks. You feel flattered.\n\n\"Thank you.\" You say. \n\nThere is an awkward silence, and you stare at her what seems like forever. She states back.\n\n\"I-... I suppose I'll see you around.\" She says. With a bashful smile, the phone shuts off. You are floating on cloud nine. \n\nThe next few weeks are amazing. You are the subject in most of her dreams, and in the 9th dream, you ask her out.\n\nHer eyes shine. But then the light goes out.\n\nShe begins to play with her white dress. \"I- uh- I...\"\n\nYou put an arm around her, and are alarmed to see tears falling thick and fast from her eyes. \"What's wrong?\" You say.\n\nShe is sobbing now. \"You're just a dream!\" She screams. You're just pretend. I'm alone in real life, and I don't need you rubbing salt in my wounds.\" \n\nYou watch, rooted to your spot as she runs away. The dream fades into black, and you find yourself, just like every other night, back at home in the dome.\n\nYou fall into depression. Sitting against the walls, staring into nothing, for years on end. You've just become another thought on the shelf. Sitting there as an extra. Once you invaded her dreams and tried to talk to her. But she was with another, and you could tell this thought was based on a real life person. She has forgotten about you.\n\nFive years later, and you're still watching her for days on end through your phone. You watch as her tiny figure moves around completing various tasks. Often you see her writing something.\n\nThe other thoughts are upset. \"He's obsessed with her,\" they say. You know it's true. You want to be with her. You *need* her. \n\nSuddenly, one day you bolt with a shock. She's thinking about you! You can feel it! But... How? \n\nLooking down at your phone, you see she has written your name in the notepad she uses.\n\nShe is writing a story. A story about a handsome young man named Aiber who falls in love with a girl who loves him back, but can't have him, as he isn't real. She is writing a story about *you.*\n\nHer beautiful face appears in the screen. \n\n\"How's it goin, Aiber?\" she says. You burst with joy.\n\nFor the next few happy years, you two write it together. It is a beautiful, \nheartwarming tale. And the day comes when it is published.\nYou are once again the subject of her dreams that night. You both rejoice, and kiss. You are the happiest you have ever been, and from that moment on you visit every one of her dreams.\n\nWithin a year, she has it all. A movie deal, a gorgeous house, millions of dollars. She is named the most successful author of all time.\n\nAnd you never enter her dreams. She is too preoccupied.\n\nAfter a month of this confusion, you decide to call her.\n\nShe answers the phone laughing but stops short when she sees you. \"Oh, hello.\"\n\n\"Hi Lila,\" you say. \"You look beautiful. How are you?\"\n\nShe peers over her shoulder. \"Um, good. Listen, can we talk later?\"\n\nYou blink. \"Why not now?\"\n\n\"I-... I'm busy.\"\n\n\"With what?\"\n\n\"I was watching a movie with my fiancée.\"\n\nYour blood runs cold. \"Fiancée?\" you say. *\"Fiancée?* Lila, how could you?!\"\n\nShe frowns. \"What do you mean? We've been engaged for a year now. He was my boyfriend ever since I started my story.\"\n\nYou feel like a grenade with the pin pulled out. \"But I thought you were with *me!\"* you scream. \"All those times we were together, don't ANY of them matter?!\"\n\nShe rolls her eyes. \"Those were dreams. And to me you looked like a tall faceless stranger.\"\n\n\"But-\"\n\n\"But nothing. I have to go.\"\n\n\"Lila, I love you!\"\n\nShe freezes.\n\nYou look deep into her eyes. \"I love you,\" you say again. \"With all my heart.\"\n\nShe looks at you, and you realize she is giving you a look that a grownup puts on when they are trying to explain something to a very small child.\n\n\"You are nothing,\" she says. \"You're not real. You're a book character, a figment of my imagination.\"\n\n\nThe screen goes blank.\n\nAnd right there, right then, you're body goes numb. Tears rush from your eyes. She has forgotten you. You are just a character, a character she put in a book.\n\nYou fall to the ground, feeling weak. You can hardly breathe, and it feels like you're body is dissolving. \n\nThen you realize it is. You are disappearing from her thoughts, forever.\n\n\"Goodbye, Lila.\" you whisper.\n\nAnd just before the world goes black, you hear her voice whisper, \"Goodbye, Aiber.\"\n\n", "It feels the same way that a rock star must feel about women that love him for who he is and not *what* he is. I was written with your heart and soul so of *course* i'm your perfect woman. You keep writing these words wondering if they are yours or mine and that's what makes us perfect for each other. Are you creating me or do i exist to perfect you?\n\nYou seem to have put the perfect parts of women you've known into me but also imperfections. The imperfections I've seen are reflections of your own. That is one of the things I love about you. You know you're wrong some times. So do I.\n\nYou deserve us. I deserve us. We deserve us. You don't need anyone else. Just keep writing about me and we can be happy.", "I had loved her even before she had given me life. This is what I know to be true. This was not her intention.\n\nI had a sense that I was acting as many men had acted before me; caught in a venomous hold that left me with nothing more than an inability to communicate at all. I know how I felt, I did. I knew it well. I understood every single nuance and derivation of warmth, cold, and absence that existed. I hated her for her inconsistency.\n\nFrom my first memory, I was overwhelmed by her ability to move me. She created so much for me, so much life, and gave me so much of her time. Every moment she spent with me was beautiful. I can only allude to the overwhelming sense of joy experienced when stepping outside in the early morning, when you can smell each drop of dew in the grass, and hear each bird beckoning you into the crisp and promising unknown.\n\nI understood this feeling, but I didn't know how. I existed in an abyss filled with everything, but without anything, and I resented her for it. I could hear her, I could always hear her, whether she was with me or not. This was the hardest part. \n\nI began to hear the voices of other men in the background. I assured myself that it was just her father, or her brother, or her friend. I felt so weak, I wanted to confront her, but I couldn't. I felt like a coward, I felt like I couldn't speak to her, like she could never hear me. She was there, I could see her there! But it was as if we were floating alongside each other, while maintaining eye contact, and ever-so-slowly drifting away. \n\nShe tried to control me. She tried to make me change. She would love me for what I was and then try to take it away, and recreate me. This is the feeling I had. And I felt helpless.\n\nI assured myself that the time she had spent with me had created something persistent, something that would last forever. \n\nThis was not the case. \n\nI continue to live in a perpetual state of emptiness, void of anything but noise. There are more men now. \n\n", "I feel like a dog. Standing by the door, eagerly wagging its tail waiting for its owner to come home. To be honest, on some level, it pisses me off. Hell – I hardly know my own reflection. And yet she prances off, sometimes for several days at a time, leaving me to myself – a complete stranger. It's like she doesn't give a fuck sometimes, while all I physically can do is just wait, frozen in the exact moment she left me. Sometimes I wish I could leave, because I know she will never be as loyal to me as I am to her, she will never be as devoted. She will never love me as I love her. \n\n All the same, I stay. She's my whole world. She cares for me, more like a mother's doting than a lover's concern. But I don't mind. I can confide in her, and she'll listen – she always listens, to anyone. I guess that's why she writes.\n\nI glimpse up at her as she deftly guides me through the maze of ordinary life; frowning, sometimes smiling, but most of the time merely deep in thought. And I smile. Because I know she's thinking of me. Every so often, she'll try to hook me up with a girl – apparently I'm handsome. But she knows me better than that, and lets me end things as politely as I can, though I know it disappoints her.\n\nLately, her brow has been hanging heavy. I don't know what troubles her. She never tells me anything about herself. I see her look at me yearning. She wants to talk to me, but she doesn't seem to know how. Instead, she lies on her bed, just looking guilty. All I want to do is hold her in my arms and tell her it's all right. I want to make her feel as safe as she makes me. Yet I can do nothing for her. So, I sit idly by, hoping at least to be in her thoughts until she returns to the fluorescent light of the computer-screen.\n\nNOTE: A-hum. Yeah. This isn't very good, just sort of sloppily put together. But I really wanted to try this out.", "I love me so much.", "She dictates my every step. She describes my surroundings. She creates the objects and people I interact with. She decides what I say and do. Most importantly, she decides how I feel. Did this feeling stem from her authorship? Somehow, I can't bring myself to care either way. I want to believe that I felt this way when I first noticed her, when I looked into the sky and caught something strange, something I now know was her smile of satisfaction. I hope that we end up together at the end of my story.", "**Note: Well, I'm a little late to the party, but here is my response. It didn't turn out how I expected. Can't decide if that's a good thing or not.**\n\nJames Maddox has a sick and twisted sense of humor, and while his typical audience of readers get their jollies off by reading about the lives of his characters--many of which die tragically and rather predictably--it’s not so great when you’re one of those characters and you can feel the sharp edge of the guillotine nicking your skin.\n\nJames has made my life into a romance, a first for the author who tends to gravitate more to the manlier genres, but he is trying something new. I’m an experiment, and there is a very good chance that I will not make it to publication because his agent is worried that the sudden jump to romantic fiction will not bode well for his sales, despite the fact that the formulaic tragic action writer has made it to the Bestseller’s List eight times now and is well on his way to being the next David Baldacci. At this point, James Maddox could shit on a piece of paper, have a publisher bind it into a hardcover, and people would still pay full price for it. And yet, his agent is worried that James will lose a large portion of his fan base. \n\nI’m not too concerned with the final outcome of the novel, though, because I know he’s still going to kill me off like he does to all his other characters. It probably won’t be from bullet wounds caused by a semi-automatic weapon wielded by a ex-KGB spy, but it’s going to happen. He’s going to find a way to end my life in order to elicit an emotional response from his readers. I just hope he writes my death with the same tenderness and caring he has written my life.\n\nEvery action I make--lifting my hand to brush hair from my face, titling my checks to sun to feel its warmth, dropping a stack of files and looking up into the eyes of my awkward but attractive co-worker who has stopped what he was doing to assist my cleanup--is written with a tender combination of adjectives and verbs, and I know he is there, guiding me.\n\nToo bad he is leading me towards a man I don’t love. \n\nMy co-worker Steve is handsome and perfect on paper, I will concede that, but unlike me, he is completely two-dimensional. His movements are stiff and jointed, and the tone of his voice is a bit robotic. I can’t see him going anywhere with his life beyond the pages of James’s novel, and yet, Steve will live on once I’m gone. Clearly James has more affection for me, and his audience will sense that and be more devastated when I’m gone. \n\nJames has given me the profession of a receptionist in an office at a major university, a position I am not happy with, but I’m not supposed to be happy with it because I’m ambitious. I just haven’t found a way yet to use my liberal arts degree in a way that will bring me financial success after I realized during my student teaching experience that I hated teenagers. I also like lemon drop candies, and my mouth sucks on them periodically throughout the day after I’ve had my two morning cups of coffee, which are heavy with creamer and sugar.\n\nSteve works in the development department for the university, which is down the hall. He’s new. He replaced Nancy, who left for unknown reasons that were not important enough to include in the novel. He walks by my large receptionist’s desk periodically throughout the day, going to the restroom or the mail/copier room, and my moss colored eyes unwillingly waltz after him because James writes out the pattern of their dance steps.\n\nThis back and forth shy exposition with Steve has gone on for several chapters now, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m wrong and I’m not the lead protagonist. Maybe this novel is about Steve. Maybe, James is building my character up so that my death has more shock value when it happens in the first one hundred pages. Maybe after I’m gone, Steve’s story will take over and James will give his voice a Southern accent and give his gait a shuffling quality as he secretly mourns my death and the lost possibilities before going on a journey to find himself and, along the way, his true love.\n\nMy stomach clenches. \n\nI don’t want James to write about another woman.\n\nIf she’s Steve’s true love, she will be prettier than me, but she will be the type that doesn’t realize it. She will probably have red hair, too, as James has a thing for putting kick-butt gingers in all of his novels. She will be romance novel perfect. Readers will love her. They will mourn me, but I will be buried under the pages that contain her and her cliched romance with Steve. \n\nIt’s lunch time, and the student worker is here to relieve me during my hour break. My body gathers my purse and cell phone and heads toward the elevator. *Wait!* I think, *Why am I going to the elevator? I always take the stairs.*\n\nSomething is about to happen, something that advances the plot. \n\nThat bastard James Maddox is going to have me die in an elevator! What shitty way for me to go. I thought James was more creative than that, and considering only work on the third floor, my pending death doesn’t seem very well thought out. Surely a real person has a decent chance of survival if she plummeted only three stories in an elevator.\n\nMy finger pushes the down button and my body waits. Steve joins me in my waiting. Maybe this isn’t where I die, and instead Steve and I are about to get trapped in the elevator together. The idea is both relieving and unpleasant.\n\nMy head turns, and my lips smile. “Going out for lunch?” my voice, which is borderline too loud for our quiet offices because of my eagerness and friendliness, asks.\n\nSteve jerkily pats his coat pocket.\n\nMy head tilts to the side slightly, my dark brown, almost black hair sweeps over my shoulder and down my arm where it tickles my exposed epidermis. My eyes blink up at him with an endearingly concerned expression on my face. My voice tries again, “Forget something?” \n\n“Keys.”\n\nSteve turns and walks away.\n\nHe didn’t ask me to hold the elevator, and James, thankfully, lets the metal doors close without any effort on my body's part to stop them from shutting. There is suddenly the feeling of hesitation in the small box. My finger is hesitating to push the button for the ground floor, and James is hesitating to write.\n\nMy eyes start noticing all of the tiny details inside the elevator: the first floor button has yellowed with age faster than any of the others, the elevator was last inspected on February 11th, there are three dead moths decomposing inside the light fixture. \n\nMy arm remains at my side, and I wait for James to choreograph its movement from resting position to pushing the dirty first floor button. Instead, my head tilts back, and my eyes are forced to look at the tiny dead moths haloed by the fluorescent light illuminating the elevator. My eyes begin to water. The light is too bright. \n\n*What do you want from me, James? Isn’t this where I die?*\n\nMy voice inside my head sounds weak and tired, but my body feels primed and ready for an exciting new romance with Steve that will end tragically. In just a few moments. *Isn’t that right, James, you fucking asshole? Can’t you keep me around longer?*\n\nThe elevator doors open back to the third floor reception area, my head lowers, and my feet lead me towards my desk. It’s one o’clock, my lunch is over, and I feel full.\n\nThere is a large bouquet of flowers on the corner of my desk that was not there before, and the student worker smiles brightly at me, her eagerness palpable and overwhelming. “You got a special delivery. They’re gorgeous.” \n\n“Who are they from?” I feel my cheeks redden, and my head begins looking around, my eyes searching for the sender as though they expect my admirer to be in the nearby vicinity, and sure enough, they spot Steve in the mail room.\n\nHis mouth is pinched, his eyes not as wide and blank as they were before I stepped onto the elevator. He almost looks...jealous. He turns away abruptly and shuffles the stack of papers he’d been scanning into a PDF.\n\nMy shoulders shrug, and my body leans forward to sniff the Japanese orchids. There is a card. I begin to feel nervous, and my fingers tremble and fumble, my actions mimicking my emotions for once in my life as my hand reaches for the tiny envelope and opens it. \n\nIt reads:\n\n*I cannot end you.\n--James*\n\nI look up. I smile.\n\n\n", "I stood on my balcony, overlooking the legendary city of Verona. The dirty, loud, shit-covered streets of Verona. Like every other city in the world, it with filled with selfish merchants, sick beggars, and bored, tired people just trying to get by. It was sad. But tonight, all that would fall to the background as two star crossed, beautiful young people made eye contact across the ballroom and feel madly in love.\n\n\"Nope,\" I said, dropping the ivory brush to the ground and turning back to my room. \"I rather think I have a headache, I might stay in tonight.\"\n\n\"God damn it, Juliet. Get back out there and start brushing your hair.\"\n\n\"No, Mr. Shakespeare, I don't think so. You see, it's a *terrible* headache...\"\n\n\"Do we really have to go through this again? You are a naive young girl with a sweet disposition. Sweet means obedient. Get back out there.\"\n\nI roll my eyes at the booming omnipotent voice from above. \"I don't want to. I don't want to be the stupid chit who kills herself because her boyfriend went and offed himself. I'm going to stay in tonight an read. Let him gaze deeply into the eyes of my cousin, she's been dying for a chance in the limelight.\"\n\n\"Do I have to come down there and make you? You really don't want that, Juliet. I can very angry when my characters get out of line. Ask Hamlet. His was supposed to be a comedy.\"\n\nI hide my smile behind my hand, careful to conceal my pleasure. *Yes*, Mr. Shakespeare, that's *exactly* what I want. \"And what will you do, hmmm? Come down and spank me? Oh, please, have mercy.\"\n\nHe pops into existence right beside me, *finally*, sputtering with indignation. It's adorable how his cheeks light up bright red. I must have embarrassed him.\n\n\"What's wrong with you? Romeo is a fine young man, what more do you want?\"\n\nI pout now, a practiced move that accentuates my full lips. He notices, I'm sure, but keeps himself very guarded. \"I want an educated man, Mr. Shakespeare. Just a little more mature. And a true romantic. I want a man who can create a whole new world with just his mind, who's witty and brilliant and maybe just a little bit eccentric.\"\n\nHe sighs like I'm demanding the moon from him. Which is funny, since he could easily give me the moon if I asked. \"Romeo is a *very* romantic character--\"\n\nI stand up, and interrupt him with a poke to the chest. \"I don't want a character, I want a man! I smooth, elegant man... a writer, maybe, who will give me poems to wake up to every morning... and the perfect mustache, yes he has to have one of those. Romeo can't even grow one yet, *can he?*\" I ask, as I twirl my finger around the edges of his.\n\n\"Yes, well.... oh. *Oh!*\"\n\nThere it is, I have him! I let a slow, seductive smile curl my lips, and lean into him, molding my body to the side of his. \"Can you do that for me, Mr. Shakespeare?\" I ask, batting my eyelashes prettily.\n\n\"Yes, well, I think I might... I might be able to draw something up. Why don't I.... Why don't I...\"\n\nA giggle escapes me. He's so cute when he gets all flustered like that! \"Why don't you write us up a nice little island to lounge on, somewhere warm and away from here, hmmm? Clothes optional.\"\n\n*Disclaimer: For the sake of this story Juliet is older than she really was and everyone speaks the dialect I want them to speak. Don't nit pick me on that, it's supposed to be cute.*", "DISCLAIMER: This is probably really bad, poorly written/unreadable. It's literally the first thing I've written since probably highschool? And I wasn't a writer then. I don't know why I suddenly wanted to write something.\n\n\nHe created me, yet I could feel nothing beyond this story and I **know** he is holding me back. I don't know why, but I am bound to his wishes. I have no past beyond the memories he seems to have given me.\n\nWhen it first started, I didn't feel like anything. I was incomplete, just looking to be picked up and start anew. He came along, hands so deft and unrelenting, and swept me upright, not ready to let me fall again into nothingness. \n\nAt least that's how it seemed. \n\nIt began slowly, but I know he was just searching for that one spark that would blossom our relationship into an immortal association. One man and the woman whose life he devoted himself to. He always had this look in his eye like he would not stop loving me, even long after I've been forgotten by the masses. And much longer than even anyone would utter his name again.\n\n\"If I have my way,\" he said, \"millions of eyes will be on you, my dear.\" He wanted me to be something. And I loved him for that. I longed for him to touch me, to add his experience to mine, so we could be together forever.\n\nHe showed me a beautiful world, everything he seemed to adore and long for in our ideal life.\n\nAnd as everything seemed to be reaching its best, the peak at which our story would finally remembered, it all came crumbling down around me. My life, my family, my friends were all ripped from me by his hand. He took me to a place that he thought millions of people would praise him for. \n\nHow could this, my ruin and now again my nothingness, be so joyful for him? I am not anywhere and I have no future besides the future he envisions for me, but he has moved on. Another life encapsulates all his pompous, somehow \"more meaningful\" time. I cannot leave, for I am tied to him eternally now and I will not be the type to run away because of a dim in the spark.\n\nI simply want the spark to reignite. And I will wait here with no golden life, no easy love, for that spark to put pen to paper and bring me back to him.", "I have never met the man I love, I hardly know anything about him. He knows everything about me, except this one secret. I am nothing but what he made me, I do not know my mothers name or my favourite outfit, because he never told me that. He never included it, it was irrelevant. I grew out of what he gave me, beginning as a mere shell and slowly gaining a personality, following blindly my beliefs for no reason but that he told me I should. But somehow I have changed.\n\nHe gave me everything I ever wanted, made me work for it but everything turned out right in the end. That's how I know this is fiction, happy endings just don't happen outside of the stories. I married the man of my dreams, raising children with him. But he is no longer the man I want, for I am in love with my writer, my creator. My appearance has not changed in all the years, he never re described me, but who I am inside has.\n\nHe loved me once as well, I was always the girl he never could have, the one too good to be true. But he doesn't love me anymore, he has created so many of us now. I was his first, and that makes me special to him, but I am not current. I no longer reflect what he wants in a woman, he is matured and I have not. He never wanted me to mature before, but now he's changed and I am just a childish dream, one of those cringeworthy moments from the past.\n\nI do not think he has forgotten me, merely moved on, past my story. I should be thankful he never killed me off, unlike my brother. Maybe I should hate him for that, but like I said everything was right in the end and I do not bear a grudge. I miss him now he has gone, and wish for his return, but I do not believe he will. He gave me everything I ever dreamed for, I cannot expect him to give me this as well." ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 5, 6, 11 ]

[ "1394756314", "1394764092", "1394756678", "1394760127", "1394764940", "1394771403", "1394825678", "1394751914", "1394745987", "1394747243" ]

[ "this little piggy loves pretty oversized clothes.\n\nthis little piggy loves xbox.\n\nthis little piggy thinks she's fat and doesn't fit in.\n\nthis little piggy loves her husband even though he drinks too much.\n\nthis little piggy walks a fine line, thinks he does ok, and goes unhappy all the way home.", "**This little piggy went to the market.** He buys a carton of cigarettes and a few too many beers at the pub, where he is repeatedly rejected by the same gorgeous piece of ham. *Why is every broad I meet so stuck up? Why aren't I good enough?* he thinks as he climbs into his car, ignoring the \"Drink Responsibly\" billboard hanging ominously above.\n\n**This little piggy wished she stayed home**, as yet another stale-smelling, unwashed pig leers at her from across the bar. She sighs as she saunters over to him, flashing a false come-hither smile. She hates what she does, but it pays the bills. \"Hey Sugar,\" she says as she wiggles into the booth beside him.\n\n**This little piggy has roast beef,** or rather, bacon, and it isn't cheap. He tries not to look into her eyes as he uses her, but he can't help himself, and he catches the tears that don't fall. Something inside him dies a little more, but he keeps going, hoping that the momentary release will fill up the hole left in his heart from his ice-cold wife.\n\n**This little piggy has no one.** She did once, but she let him go, thinking there would be greener pastures and she didn't want to let go of her youth by settling down young. So she'd divorced him, and partied her youth away, until there was nothing left but regret and alcohol. That's where she was walking now, to the stingy bar across the street, hoping to get wasted enough to forget his name.\n\n**This little piggy went WEE WEE WEE all the way to hospital,** with a middle-aged woman bleeding out on the stretcher beside him. Drunk driver. Same old story. 10 years as an EMT, he'd learned to numb his emotions, to not memorize the faces of anyone who died in the truck. This one was a drinker herself, from the look of it. She wouldn't make it to the hospital. He sat back and took another swig of whiskey from the flask in his jacket.", "This is the Samuel L. Jackson version like \"Go the F*** to sleep.\"\n\n*This little piggy went to the market.*\n\nMad Mistress had a fine day, getting groceries and a tasty salad.\n\n*This little piggy stayed home.*\n\nHe was a panophobic pigga, named Piglet.\n\n*This little piggy had roast beef.*\n\nAnd beef wasn't to happy about it neither. Losing the dozens repeatedly to some football skinned, snot nose, hammy footed fattie would make you feel salty too.\n\n*This little piggy had none.*\n\nHe ain't want none. Got it! Piggy put down the paper and thought to himself, \"I'ma start a farm.\" (Orwell reference)\n\n*This little piggy went WEE WEE WEE all the way home.*\n\nBecuase everybody on the south side is sloppy like the meal. They thought his ass was the fuzz. Give me some skin!", "John, Jack, Joe, and Jim were, for the thousandth time, bored. The sun, hidden by light clouds, illuminated their rustic home, a small dilapidated shack on the outside of town. The place wasn't fit for humans, but luckily for them, the four brothers were pigs.\n\nJohn gazed out the window. John paced from one wall to the other. Joe unsuccessfully attempted to balance on his hind legs. Jim snored.\n\nThis continued on for some time.\n\nAfter a while, John snapped out of his reverie and turned to the other pigs. \"Why don't we do something? I'm tired of sitting here all day, doing the same thing day after day,\" he said.\n\nJack froze in his tracks. There was no way he was going to the market. There were too many humans - he shivered as he thought it - and it the cleanliness and organized manner of the shops frightened him. He quickly voiced his concern with the rest of the group, but it was too late. Joe had already agreed, stating he was hungry and wanted some meat instead of their constant diet of grass and grains. And Jim, excited for a change of scenery, snapped out of his doze and went into the other room. It only took a minute for little Bobby to wake up from his afternoon nap, and the caterwauling from the other side of the house was load enough to wake up the entire neighborhood. If the pigs had neighbors, of course.\n\nBut after much persuasion, Little Bobby also agreed to go to the market, as long as he could buy some flowers; he was craving them. And so, the four little pigs (for Jack had decided to remain at the house, muttering something about the dangers of thieves) marched to the market.\n\n*The first little piggy went to the market.*\n\n*The second little piggy stayed home.*\n\nThe four pigs arrived at the bustling market a short time later, but most of the merchants were packing up their goods and preparing to leave. Joe, desperate for meat of any kind, spotted a roast beef vendor slowly packing his belongings. Rushing up to him, he franctically requested some. Jim, feeling a little peckish as well, followed behind him.\n\n\"You're lucky, little pig. I have only one piece of roast beef left, but it's all yours if you want it,\" he replied. But upon seeing Jim, huffing and puffing towards him, he said sadly, \"I'm all out, little pig. This one got the last piece. Sorry.\" With that, he hopped up into his truck and drove off toward the human village.\n\n*This little piggy had roast beef.*\n\n*This little piggy had none.*\n\nDuring this exchange, John had been scouring the market for Little Bobby's flowers. But, as the sun set, he knew his search was futile. He gathered the group and they started back to the house. John prayed the Little Bobby would forget about the flowers, but it was evident he didn't from the moment they left the market, for Little Bobby had begun his screaming again.\n\n*And this little piggy went wah, wah, wah, wah, all the way home.*", "*This little piggy went to the market.* \n\nShe browsed the fine selection of produce before her; almost tasting the ripe corn and plump radishes that piled the shop cart. After taking a good long look, reality came and gripped her. She could never afford this. The little pig went back to finding food scrapes on the road. \n\n*This little piggy stayed home* \n\nWas it already daylight? He squinted his eyes and was met yet again with the hideousness and neglect of his house. A few sour tears trickled down his dusty worn face as his lips once again kissed the bottle of half-drunken whiskey. \n\n*This little piggy had roast beef* \n\nHe tasted his butcher knife, pausing in bliss as the few drops of cow blood touched his tongue. With eyes of gentle affection, the swine bent over and kissed the top of Mrs. Miller's decapitated head. \"Yes, such a sweet one\" He thought as he turned on the oven for his roast. \n\n*This little piggy had none* \n\nOut of all things to wish for, what the young piglet desired most was a roof. Or rather anything to stop the pouring rain on the ruins of her home and family. \n\n*This little piggy went wee wee wee all the way home* \n\n He ran quickly and dodged into his house. Panting heavily, the pig could barely grasp what he had done. \"Had I actually urinated the entire way here?\" " ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 2, 3 ]

[ "1394765163", "1394766815", "1394774509", "1394765677", "1394765482" ]

[ "Archenchantress Leda was not surprised when her simple wooden cart, now 2 days lost among the Tras'al desert's dunes and crags, caught something in its wheel. Nor was she surprised when the cart's wheel began dragging because of it. When her squire boy showed off the shimmering golden relic of a box he'd found underneath, she nearly lost the courtly stoicism for which she was widely known. Small advantage that stoicism was, as isolated as they were, but Leda had always found strength in her pride.\n\nThe small box was primarily brass, or something like it, inlaid with woven silver cords at each corner. The top and sides of the box were carved with bizarre, jagged runes, the likes of which were unheard of to Leda. A cheap foreign bauble, to be sure.\n\n\"It's a bardbox, Genba. It plays music when you hold it open. It might anyway, if it isn't filled with sand and rocks. Now get back in the cart before you dirty those clothes any further,\" said Leda, with a bit more curtness than she had intended. Genba looked at the box, then back at his mistress. His eyes shone with the unasked question of ownership. A pity the law disallowed squires from property, but for the best. Leda could not afford to be caught giving the boy any special treatment -- it was shame enough that an Enchantress birth one entirely bereft of Talent, and still moreso she had taken such a boy as squire. Many at court would see such kindness as weakness if they knew the whole story.\n\n\"May I play it, just once mistress?\" Genba plead, but began to lift the lid before Leda could reply. His years of squirehood had taught him that forgiveness was the quickest path to his heart's desires, not permission. Leda anticipated the ploy, however, and kicked the box from her servant's hand with a metallic *smack*.\n\"No, Genba. In fact, let us leave the trinket here before you develop a further attachment to such a useless thing. Show me your discipline, squire, and throw the box that way over the dune. Without opening it.\" Genba looked down at the beautiful box, hiding the disappointment on his face. He picked up the box and turned around, channeling his frustration into his windup. As his arm came back, the lid fell open.\n\nA lilting, minor melody spilled from the bardbox as it flew through the air. Dark blue light poured after, and then a roiling blanket of crimson smoke. If metal ever fell against rock or sand, the sound was lost in the opaque fog. In seconds everything in sight was red mist, save for a bright light from the direction the box had gone like a lighthouse in a storm of blood. The bardbox's blue light mixed with the red of the fog and played dark, disorienting purples on each wisp of smoke. Thunder rumbled nearby. The horse whinnied nervously.\n\nFor a frightful moment Leda was back on her father's schooner, sharp rocks everywhere beneath the dark waters, lighthouse barely visible through the storm. She fought back the years of nightmares and came back to the present as an eye opened in the smoke in front of her. At least three hands in length and one high, it had an iris of fire an a pupil resembling the night's sky. This was magic - very, very powerful magic.\n\n*\"Who is our host? Who owns our jyorca box,\"* asked a voice in the red. It was a voice drenched in visceral danger bordering on madness, a voice like an earthquake, yet as captivating as a falling star. It was a growling drawl that reverberated in the depths of the spirit. *\"To whosoever owns our jyorca, we shall grant any one thing at all. But do not tarry or try our patience, for we grow restless.\"* As if in punctuation, a dozen more eyes opened in the smoke. With a start Leda realized that there was no powerful creature hiding in the fog: the fog *was* the creature.\n\nSo struck was the Archenchantress that she fell wordless with awe. Genba, however, did not let his opportunity slip by. He stepped a bit forward, timidly at first. The eyes focused on the squire boy. \"I want to be an Enchanter. The greatest Enchanter, better than any ever has been or will be! Better than the Enchanters in the stories, better than Mistre- better than Leda!\" Genba finished with his head and voice high.\n\nLeda's rage boiled at the insurrection. In one motion she dismounted and lay her boot into the back of the boy's head, driving him to the ground face-first with a sickening *crack*. Genba cried out and struggled to get off the ground, but she held him under her foot until he gave up. \"Excuse him his lack of discretion, please, your grace,\" she said through the shivers of nervousness and fear she hadn't felt since childhood. The eyes all shifted to focus on Leda as one. \"I own this boy, your grace, and he owns nothing. So your box is of course mine.\"\n\n*\"We care not,\"* came the reply. *\"A pact has been made. You may make one as well, if you desire, but be quick.\"* Behind her, Leda's horse broke free of its harness and ran.\n\nLeda knew that true power came not necessarily from magic or skills but from knowledge. With knowledge of her enemies' plans, she could outwit them. With knowledge of trade secrets she could outdo any craftsmen. With knowledge of all the spells of old, she could bend the world's knee on a whim. **All** would be at her pleasure. \"I wish to know all things at once. To have every secret laid bare before my minds eye, and the root of all knowledge in my grasp,\" she said triumphantly.\n\n*\"Then it is decided,\"* said the red, *\"we shall dwell within the two of you. You shall be our vessels, and you shall have what you seek and more.\"* \n\nThis is what I have been waiting for my entire life, Leda thought. The idea of that much power made her giddy. \"No,\" she said. \"Only I will be your vessel. This one does not deserve it.\" Leda declared, and leaned her weight upon Genba's neck. He brought his arms up to struggle, to push her off, anything at all, but he was too late and his arms too weak. Genba's neck snapped like so many twigs before his mistress's steps.\n\n*\"So say you,\"* said the thing. The harbinger of Leda's greatness, her personal messiah, her *destiny*. She held her arms aloft as she had during her Enchanter's baptism, and let the blood smoke and thunder and light and that sweet voice all flow into her through mouth and nose. It was a searing pain like none other, but Leda would not let this break her. Not so close to her... her coronation.\n\nShe saw everything that was, everything that could be, in her mind. The mere thought of a question gave her an answer. She saw all the realms that humans were blind to, and she saw that the world she thought she knew teetered on the brink of unknowable darknesses. She saw all the power and all the spells and all the skills of all the lands.\n \nWhat she didn't see was the smoke that now poured into Genba beneath her heel.\n \nLeda began asking questions of the answering force. *How does magic work? Is our will free or fated? Do the gods exist? What was the thing in the bardbox, and where does its power come from? Why was it kept in a bardbox? Why was it lying? Why does it want to be inside of me? What will it do with me?*\nWith each new answer the awe and splendor of her new-found power faded, to be replaced with terror. She didn't bat an eye when Genba rose up, neck healed, and bound Leda to the earth in arcane shackles. She knew what he was about to do, and knew how to stop it; a simple twist of his Enchanter's threads *there* and *there* would disperse his coming bolt of lightning. She also knew that it didn't matter, that she was as good as dead anyway. The parasite would see to that soon enough. So instead, Archenchantress Leda did perhaps the only good and right thing she would ever do:\nshe turned his spell into a giant explosion.\n \nThe next day a horse bearing the brand of the Enchanter's guild rode into the oasis town of Jemez, starving and near dead of exhaustion. The court's caravan had stayed there overnight waiting for the Archenchantress, but upon seeing the frightened steed mounted a search party. With the help of a few local enchanters who knew the deserts, the court eventually located the Archenchantress's bones among the ruble of a wooden cart.\n\nThey were picked clean, bleached white, and alone.", "The scientist worked tirelessly in his lab. All his efforts were focused on one question. How could he help his country win the war? Suddenly it clicked, as if God himself has answered the question. By the end of the night, he had developed his secret weapon. \n \n___________________________________________________________\n\nMr. Rogers sat alone in despair. He was on his second beer, trying desperately to drown his troubles. All he wanted to do was to fight for his country and stand up against oppression. But alas, the army wouldn't take him. Something about having too many health problems or some other bullshit. The recruitment officer even dared to say that he would be a danger to his fellow soldiers! If only he was stronger. He just wished he would be strong enough to serve his country. In his drunken state, Steve didn't notice the scientist approaching him from behind. ", "It is said that death is inevitable.\n\nMark loved his life. He had no family to weigh him down, no job to burden him, and no friends to bother him. His apartment, Sunshine Plaza, ironically had no sunshine due to the height of adjacent buildings. His dream had come true. So why not prolong his life? He prayed to whoever or whatever was listening. *I want to live forever*.\n\nMark felt a sudden surge of power! He stood up in his one room apartment and couldn't help but jump from foot to foot. He could survive anything, no doubt about it! Mark ran to his window and threw himself out.\n\n----\n\nWhen will this repetitive life end?\n\nRodger stood on his balcony at Sunshine Plaza, staring out at the world he hated. He had a wife and 2 daughters that he paid for in anything they do, friends from his office that he had to go out with, and the stress of a Wallstreet job. He closed his eyes and prepared to jump off. *God, if you're real, now would be a good time to show me*.\n\nSuddenly, a body fell from above and slammed into the pavement below. Rodger opened his eyes in shock and stared at the body above the cracked sidewalk. The man got up and brushed himself off, walking away. Rodger's jaw dropped and he stared into the sky." ]

[ 2, 5, 27 ]

[ "1394815496", "1394825206", "1394806778" ]

[ "\"You're doing it again,\" T.J. said with a sidelong glance at me. \"I know I said I was cool with it, but you've been doing it more than usual lately. It's starting to freak me out a little.\"\n\nI shut my eyes and turned my face up toward the sun as his voice startled me back to my senses. He was right, I hadn't even noticed that I'd been studying him. Not that I'd actually been looking at him. It was simply that he was there, he was alive, and I... *it* wanted to make him dead. A shiver ran up my spine as I recalled all the intricate methods I'd been devising to murder my friend.\n\n\"Sorry,\" I sighed, shaking my head in self-disgust. The two of us were sat under the failing shade of the old sycamore that stood on the back edge of T.J.'s family estate. In the distance we could hear faint traffic whizzing past, but out there at the far end of the clearing it was easy to feel completely isolated. I'd always loved that meadow. You could scream and scream for hours, and no one would hear you. I glanced again at the young blond man beside me and wondered how loud he could scream.\n\n\"Goddammit,\" I muttered as I noticed the beast rearing its head again. Without warning I leaned forward and slammed the back of my head against the rough bark, drawing another warning look from T.J. but not a word of concern; we'd been together long enough that my occasional outbursts of self-flagellation no longer shocked him. Though dazed, I did hear a sharp intake of breath as he apparently noticed the trickle of blood I felt dripping from my lacerated scalp.\n\nLacerated, now there was a fun word. I wished if I could show T.J. a better demonstration of the term, but I'd been too careful not to bring anything sharp with me --\n\n\"Fucker,\" I spat and battered my skull against the tree again. The trickle grew a little, but this time I felt the monster sinking back into the darkness. For a few minutes, anyway. Tears welled in my eyes as I glanced at T.J., who'd dug out one of his father's Pall Malls and the rusted Zippo lighter he'd won off Darren Brady in a marbles tournament in eighth grade.\n\n\"Teej,\" I said as he flicked the flint and sparked life into the bent cigarette, \"why do you stick with me? You know what's in my head, what it wants to do to you, to... hell, to anyone. Why do you risk it?\"\n\nMy friend took a long, slow drag on his coffin nail and blew a stream of smoke toward the sky. Then another. I'd always wondered what he would say if I ever asked him, but before today I'd been too afraid to find out. Another drag, and I wondered if he knew himself. Maybe that was what I was afraid of, that he would realize he didn't have a reason. Then he would leave, and I'd be at the mercy of my demon.\n\n\"Because you're mine,\" he said suddenly after almost half the cig had burned down. I looked at him, worried that maybe I'd hit my head a little too hard.\n\n\"Um. What?\"\n\n\"You're mine,\" he said again with a shrug. \"You were my friend a long time before that thing in your head woke up, and that means you belong to me, not to it.\"\n\nIt wasn't exactly the answer I'd hoped for, not that I knew what that was, but certainly I couldn't argue with it. I sagged against the tree as fresh tears spilled onto my shirt. \n\n\"I don't want to be a monster,\" I whispered, and felt a hand rest gently on my shoulder.\n\n\"I know you don't, buddy,\" T.J. replied, \"and you don't have to. I'll take care of it.\"\n\nI nodded quietly, my sobs abated. A groan from the burlap sack a few feet away alerted us that our break time was over. I'd hoped we could have had a bit longer to rest. Digging really takes it out of me. Sometimes I wished T.J. would help -- we'd finish so much faster -- but I knew that wouldn't really be fair. He always did his part, so I had to do mine. Small price, honestly.\n\n\"Th-Thomas? Is that you?! Let me out, you little shit! Let me go!\" My mother's muffled voice, full of panicked fury, shrieked from the burlap as she kicked and punched at her cloth prison. T.J. and I rose from our seats under the tree and hurried over to her. I knelt beside the sack and spoke as soothingly as I could, trying to calm her down.\n\n\"Mom, it's okay. Stop struggling, please. It'll be over soon, I promise,\" I murmured as I tried to stroke what I thought was her head through the burlap. She batted my hand away and continued to rage as I sighed in resignation. I don't know why I thought this would have gone smoothly. It never did with the others.\n\n\"Thomas James Mallory, you untie me this instant! When your father comes back, he'll skin you alive! Do you hear me, you traitorous little bastard!?\" Mom shouted, her voice cracking toward the end. Boy, she was really mad. I hadn't heard her this angry since the time Dad used her wedding dress to stage one of his little \"plays\" in the cellar. I couldn't help but chuckle a bit though, and I supposed I should let her in on the joke.\n\n\"Mom? Mom, Dad's not coming back. T.J. and I already took care of him. You know that old field behind the house, the one with the sycamore? We put him there last month. Well, T.J. put him there, at least.\" I thought I heard a gasp from within the bag, and continued. \n\n\"I wrote those emails you've been getting talking about his trip to Juarez, too. After Grandpa had that coronary and Aunt Carla went missing back in June, we couldn't have you getting suspicious. It's taken us so long to whittle this family down to size, but we're almost done. There's just Grandma Rose and Chelsea left, now. But it's okay. We'll get them, too. And then we can all be together and we won't have to hurt anyone anymore. Doesn't that sound nice?\"\n\nThe bag had gone still and I recognized the sound of quiet, broken sobbing emanating from inside. I glanced over at T.J., who hefted the aluminum bat we'd brought along to soften her up.\n\n\"I love you, Mom,\" I leaned in to whisper, and kissed the top of the sack before stepping away as T.J. took over. I'd never had the stomach for the heavy stuff. Thank God for Teej. After several minutes, I turned back around to find him panting from exertion, the bat on the ground next to the puddle of blood that seeped through the tough fabric.\n\n\"Okay, bud. Finish up here, then let's head in. You've got the letter ready, right?\" T.J. asked as I hefted the squishy sack into the hole I'd spent the morning digging. I nodded, a small smile on my face. I was actually a little proud of the letter, feeling it was my best forgery yet. A heartfelt note penned in Mom's own handwriting (which I'd spent weeks perfecting) detailing how she couldn't take the family's bloodthirsty lifestyle anymore and confessing that she'd decided to run off to Berlin with an old girlfriend. Grandma would be furious, Chelsea would be heartbroken for about five minutes, and then life would go on.\n\nAnother half hour later the hole was filled in and I was picking at a small blister on my palm as we headed back. I couldn't believe we were so close to being finished. Chelsea would be next, a few months from now. Her disappearance would bring merry hell to our door, thanks to the American media's sick obsession with missing teenage white girls, but T.J. was sure we could get through it. We wouldn't have to hold out much longer after that. \n\nGrandma Rose would be the hardest. She'd been active for so long, she could have invented forensics. I was sure she already suspected us. Well, suspected me, at least. I doubted she knew about T.J. I smiled again, a little wider, and felt better than I'd felt all day.\n\nAlmost finished.", "I am kinda interseted in the sisters point of view. So this will be the sisters point of view. \n\n\"What?\" I harshly replied. \n\"I don't know how you do it. The blood is gross. The gore is even worse. That was a human. He had a life, a family, possibly kids and now you killed him.\" \n\nI stood there vacantly staring at him. With a body at my feet. Again. \n\"Then, he should learn how to defend himself. Actually putting up a fight instead of whining like a coward.\" I spat back with no emotion in my voice. \n\n\"Thats not how-\"\nBefore he finished the sentance I whipped out my phone and called mom. \n\"Can you meet me at Bruce Street in the alley?\" \n\"What have you-\" she growled, but my finger had already clicked the disconnect button. \n\nShe would show up with cleaning supplies and a body bag. She will drop us off then dispose the body in some lake or dump somewhere. Not my problem anymore. Now I need to stay within sight of the body in case the cops came. A ladder to rooftops convienently was placed down tthe alley. \n\n\"C'mon. On the roof.\" \nEven in the dark I could still see the guilty and disapproving look in his eyes. He should have red hands by now. Like the rest of the family. I had my first kill when I was only six, because some girl came over to my house and took my necklace. She was 12. Thats when I discovered my thirst for blood. 41 kills since then. \n\nSorry it stops so abruptly. I have to attend to real life, but will write more if there is any intrest. Thanks for reading!", "Yesterday, I almost let one escape.\n\n\"Jessica, Jessica. How many times do I have to tell you before you get it right? You're not supposed to let them get away.\"\n\nI just kept staring into space as my dad lectured me and my mom cleaned up. \n\n*He was mine*\n\nI bit my tongue to keep myself from blurting that phrase. No matter how hard I try, I can't banish these instincts from my head. I want to kill. I want to see the fear in their eyes as they plead for mercy. No. I don't. I can't. This isn't right. \n\nI think they're starting to get suspicious. My family, that is. We're all killers. My dad is the best at the family trade. He regularly gets jobs as an assassin and has killed some pretty prominent people in his time. He leaves no trace, unless it's for fun. Then he leaves his signature calling card: a black rose forced into the victim's throat. \n\nMy mom doesn't care for the killing itself. She says it's too messy. She cleans up and occasionally takes someone out, but she doesn't enjoy it as much as my dad. Her signature is a pair of dice, one left on each of the victim's eyes. Something about how every decision you make is a gamble and these people lost big. \n\nMy little sister is the scariest in my opinion. She loves to kill and isn't afraid to get rid of anyone she thinks is in her way. In second grade she made her first kill and she's been doing it ever since. She doesn't have a signature yet, but I expect she'll start soon. She's already developed her own way to kill. She goes and \"begs\" on the street. The first guy who tries to hit on her gets invited to our apartment. They never know what hit them. I don't mind that as much. Any guy who hits on a 12 year old deserves it. She always kills her victims by slicing them open, neck to crotch. She does it slowly, makes them suffer. She then has my mom leave them in various alleys, with a note saying \"I am a pedophile\" taped to their forehead. I guess she does have a signature after all. \n\nEven my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins are part of the business. I'm the only one who doesn't want a part of it. \n\n*But I do*\n\nIt would be so easy to give in to my instincts, to kill and torture and maim. It would be so easy to give up trying to do the right thing. Doing the right thing will probably get me killed. \n\nEvery so often, I don't do the right thing. The temptation is too great. The ones I go after are the ones who make kids suffer. Abusers, rapists, pedophiles. Guys who buy little girls for their enjoyment. The thing is, I never know I did it until I'm standing there with blood on my hands and a body on the ground. I never know until I see their faces, crossed out with an \"X\" made by my knife. I never know until I have already done what I don't want to do. \n\nMy dad says it's in my blood. My mom says I can't stop it. So now, I have to. There are twelve bodies in this room, all of their faces marked with a bloody \"X\". My mom, my dad, my sister. Grandpa Ted and Grandma Mary. Grandpa Jim and Granny Gladys. Aunt Deb and Uncle Steve and their son Josh. Aunt Mona and her daughter Lisa. Soon there will be thirteen. And we will never make anyone suffer again.", "\"I don't like it.\"\n\n\"Come on, sweetie, you love heart! Make you grow big and strong and invisible to your enemies!\"\n\n\"No! I don't like it.\"\n\n\"Rick, talk to him, please? If he doesn't eat now he's just going to be whining for Goldfish crackers at bedtime.\"\n\n\"Listen, sport, that's not just any heart. You know where I got that heart from?\"\n\n\"......where?\"\n\n\"From an insurance adjuster. That's not the interesting part, though: This particular insurance adjuster could read my thoughts!\"\n\n\"....nuh uh....\"\n\n\"No, really! I was at work, right? Staring out the window, thinking about how sex with your grandmother always reminds me of cutting open the lower abdomen of a body, how the entrails spill out and are always so warm, and I.....Anyway I was looking out the window and this guy walks by on his way to the parking lot, but get this...he looks at me!\"\n\n\"....so?\"\n\n\"Well he just looks at me and keeps walking to his car, so obviously he must have read my mind and was going home to begin aligning his forces against me. So I jotted down his license plate, went down to the courthouse and charmed some woman into looking it up for me, tracked him down to his house and sure enough! There he was in his living room with his kids, watching....are you ready for this? Adventure Time!\"\n\n\"....what's that mean?\"\n\n\"YOU watch Adventure Time!\"\n\n\"Well, yeah...but....lots of kids do.\"\n\n\"Don't you see, Jack? He was using Adventure Time to form a psychic link between his kids and you, to gain insight into our family and destroy us! Do you realize the power it takes to make that kind of techno-magic? He's a 5th Order Magency at LEAST, and here we are, cutting you a slice of his heart! Don't you want to taste that kind of power?\"\n\n\"It's all bloody and gross!\"\n\n\"All right, fine...will you eat an eyeball at least? You can have mine.\"\n\n\"Look, Dad....if I eat two bites of heart, can....can I go sleep over at Jeremy's tonight? His mom said it was OK if it was OK with you guys.\"\n\n\"Is Jeremy the one that was at the park that one time? Had the Shadow Curse of Bul-Rathi emenating from his mouth?\"\n\n\"NO! No, Dad, he's just Jeremy, a kid from my class. He's not reincarnated or anything. I...I made sure to place some dirt on his head once, and it didn't cause him to turn into an incubus or speak in tounges! Promise!\"\n\n\"OK...give me three bites and you can go. But you're taking one of these fingers with you, as a talismen against the Magency's War Bears. Just in case.\"", "It's a long-standing fact that every family has a tradition. Some families decorate the Christmas tree together. m families eat turkey for Thanksgiving. Some families have movie nights. Our family? Well, you wouldn't want to know, but I'm telling you anyway. Why? So you can stay away. So you can stay alive. So I can save you.\n\nLet me start from the beginning.\n\nSomething like three hundred years ago, one of our ancestors traded his soul to the devil for a gift. He became extremely smart, very charming, and five kinds of handsome. You see where this would lead, right? Successful career as a physician, beautiful wife, high profile status, you get the idea. For a decade or so,he enjoyed all this with no consequence other than, you know, eternal damnation, but all in all, life was good.\n\nThat is, until he met Marie.\n\nQuickly, imagine the most beautiful girl you've ever seen. No, not a damn celebrity, those girls have no more beauty than two watermelons squished together. I'm talking about real beauty, the kind that makes you want to abandon everything you love just for the chance to speak to someone who has it. That someone was Marie.\n\nShe had just moved into town with her family, and before they had even fixed their beds fro their first night in town, boys from all over were already lining up just to catch a glimpse of sweet, darling, eighteen-year-old Marie.\n\nGreat-great-great-great-great grampa heard the news and thought it was exaggerated. He already had a pretty wife and two precious children. Why would he even think of another woman, much less one who was half his age?\n\nThat all changed one day, when he saw Marie while he was at the market. She was shopping for fruits, he was looking at prime cuts. Immediately, he was stricken. He felt like his heart rent in two and out of it emerged a fiery passion that he could neither control nor ignore.\n\nHe walked stately up to Marie, and with his most charming smile, asked her if she could pick out an apple for him. She picked one out of her own basket, and with a smile, but not a second glance, handed it to him.\n\nSo it went, the doctor would venture into town to try to talk to Marie, but he was always met with a stone wall of resistance. His charm had no effect, his handsome visage helped none, his intelligence was naught. He was in agony. In despair, he called upon the devil again, in the dead of night, with another request.\n\n\"Make her love me,\" he said, pleading on his knees.\n\n\"What have you to offer?\" asked the devil.\n\n\"Anything!\" he said \"Anything at all, just please, give her to me.\"\n\n\"I already have your soul, what more can your puny self offer me?\" The devil started to turn away.\n\n\"No, wait!\" he called out, \"You want souls? I shall provide you souls!\" With that, he took his scalpel and crept into his bedroom, where his wife was sleeping. He turned her over and sank the blade deep into her heart.\n\nThe devil was pleased, but not satisfied. \"That's not nearly enough,\" the demon spat.\n\nWithout hesitation, he crept into his children's bedroom and murdered them both in their sleep.\n\nThe devil, the embodiment of sin, wanted more. The evil one proposed a deal. He would give him Marie, if he would consent to a curse. Before the devil could even state what the curse was, the doctor agreed. Before the devil could change his mind, the doctor had signed in blood and was rushing over to Marie's house.\n\nFive years later, he was living happily with Marie and his new son. She knew nothing of his past, and why would he want to change that? Life was good for all of them. His son possessed his not-God-given traits, along with Marie's stunning features. It was as close to bliss as he would get.\n\nOne night, he was having a nightmare. He dreamed that he was trapped in a cage with a bloodthirsty monster. He tried his best to run away, but he couldn't escape. The monster clawed open his chest as he screamed, and forced its massive body into his own.\n\nHe awoke screaming and sweaty. Marie awoke too, and asked if he was alright. He started to answer, but was stopped by an intense, fiery pain in his chest. Marie screamed as he clutched at his chest. Without his controlling them, his hands grasped Marie's shoulders, as if to calm her down. He looked up at her beautiful face, a face of concern and fear, which lost the concern after his hands started strangling her, and the beauty after he started bashing it into the wall.\n\nAs he looked in horror at what he did, a single lightning bolt struck, illuminating the room and revealing his son in the doorway, smiling.\n\nThis is the story that has been told every generation of my family. The curse was handed down to each and every one of the doctor's grandchildren, along with his gifts. I wouldn't say everyone thinks of it as a curse. Point of fact, most of my relatives enjoy it. My dad just killed our neighbor last week because the dog was annoying at night. My sister killed her kindergarten teacher at the age of four.\n\nI fear I may be the only sane one in this family, and yet I killed my best friend when I was eight. So I pass this warning onto you. Avoid going to Jamaica in the summer and suburban Ohio the rest of the year. If you do live here, however, avoid the neighborhood on Ludlow St., and avoid people called Trilby. I don't want to kill you.", "It was Christmas Day, 1982. I was thirteen years old.\n\nThe night had not yet turned into day, but I was awake, not for anticipation of presents, but for a muffled thumping coming from the living room, accompanied by moans of pain and desperation and the jingling of the ornaments on the tree. The effect was a grotesque melody, a harmony of the unholy and the innocent. I padded out of my room.\n\nStanding by the tree was my father, a surprisingly small man at five foot four. I was almost as tall as he now, and growing taller every day. My father had an effect of looming over anyone, however. Something in him brought others low, made them seem horribly inferior. He had that air of power about him, not like a politician's haughty confidence but the cold malevolence of a predator. A gagged and bound man writhed beneath the Christmas tree.\n\n\"Merry Christmas, Charles! I got you something very special this year. You're old enough to get some experience in the family business.\"\n\nI eyed the man on the ground, aghast. He looked up at me, plaintive, making musical-note pleas for mercy, promising me anything I wanted in castrato tones. My father lashed out with a kick, pretending to be solemn but enojoying himself too much to be very convincing.\n\n\"Recognize him?\"\n\nOf course I did. It was my English teacher, the man who read us Whitman and Thoreau and other writers of peace and tranquility. He had made the mistake of asking us to write a short story, and mine had content he deemed \"inappropriate\". He took me under his wing, trying to help me, saying he wouldn't report me because I'd just get shipped off to the loony bin, and wouldn't that be a shame. Clearly he had made the mistake of mentioning my violent tendencies to my parents, and had talked of helping me to get rid of them. That was not popular.\n\n\"There's a present in your stocking if you want to grab it.\"\n\nI walked over, pulled it out. I had written about a murderer with a penchant for using an ornate switchblade, conducting the kill like a symphony, dancing, swirling. Apparently my father had asked for a copy, because that's what I found.\n\n\"Want to try it out?\"\n\nSomewhere in my mind I knew even then that this was a defining moment in my life, that this was where I chose who I was. My teacher was like a father to me, but it would be traitorous to say so. My new blade may very well have been turned on me if I refused to satisfy it myself.\n\n\"I see you hesitating. No need to fear, fear is his lot, the lot of the prey. He thought you took you under his wing- he is a pigeon raising a hawk in his nest, he will become food like everything else. In nature, the one who penetrates, who dominates, is the one who carries on. Our basic anatomy reinforces this! Why do you think I rape my victims? For the enjoyment of it, the pleasure? I take no joy in the act, it is the symbolism that I find beautiful. Stop crying. Be glad I'm not asking you to do the same- be glad this teacher wasn't a woman. Or do you want to? I won't stop you if you do.\"\n\nI shook my head no.\n\n\"Then end him. Today you shall be reborn, baptized in blood, reborn as Christ was reborn!\"\n\nI did not mention to him that Easter would have been a more appropriate time, and immediately reprimanded myself for finding the time to joke- my brain was moving too fast to edit my thoughts.\n\nI looked upon the two of them. I felt alive, my blood boiling in my veins, a primal urge older than humankind rearing its head. My father's lessons and my teacher's played through my head. \"Pacifism is weakness, thou shalt not kill a lie\" fought with \"Every person has their own world in their mind- empathy is attempting to enter that world, to see through another's eyes. All great art is an appeal to this, to attempt to force people to see the world through a lens other than their own.\"\n\nI held the knife. I felt virile, powerful. I had him defenseless. This man thought he was my authority figure, thought he could inscribe his thoughts onto my tabula rasa, molding me into him. I knew where my allegiances lay.\n\n\"Killing is in your blood, son. You have no choices. Do you think I would have chosen it to be this way? If I could live happy as a weakling I would, but I know the **truth**. Life is domination. Sex, eating- basic components of life, all domination. Dominate or be destroyed.\"\n\nIt was true. I could be destroyed or I could assert domination. I raised the knife- it sparkled with the colors of the Christmas lights, festive, celebrating the birth of the great lord, the man who would absolve humanity of sin. The knife descended.\n\n\n...\n\nThe police burst into the house. I lay beneath the tree, kneeling, praying for the first time in my life. I sought forgiveness from my Father, while my father lay in a pool of his own blood. His prophecy held more truth than he would have guessed. I had no option. I had to kill.", "She'd done it again, played the little lost girl routine, lured some would-be good samaritan down the alley claiming to have lost her mother, clung to her in tears, and then sliced a perfect diagonal cut into her unsuspecting prey's femoral artery. I tried not to look too much at the blood now ruining an exquisite designer pantsuit.\n\n_What a waste… A more careful hand could have had her out of the pantsuit, and savored the cutting. Done it slowly. Saved the blood rather than wasting it on the ground. DAMN YOU! STOP!_\n\nCharlotte might not have my meticulousness, but she did have her own sort of style. She cuts them and then she reacts in horror, “What's happening?” she cries, “I think I'm bleeding! Hold me, hold me!”. She plays confused and upset so easily. I knew without even asking that she got a confused hug from her prey before she breathed her last. Charlotte calls it _taking the last of their love_, it's her thing.\n\nYou have to hand it to her, she's only seven and she's really good at the family business. I'm a disappointment. I don't want to be this way.\n\nCharlotte's no angel either—she doesn't like cleanup, she wants to leave it all to me, her big sister.\n\n“No!”, I tearing my eyes from her beautiful beautiful ruined prey to look Charlotte in the eye, “I'm not cleaning up after you this time.”\n\n“I'm telling mom! You never help!”, and then she began to mock me “Zoe Zoe too good! Zoe Zoe too good!”\n\nI sighed. Making it look like a mugging gone wrong was the right thing to do, for Charlotte, and for mom and dad. I have to look after my sister.\n\nI took her wallet out of her purse, and checked her ID. Melanie Campbell, born 1981. I could see a bulge in her suit jacket and knew it must be her phone. I reached in to take it. _Touch her, she’s still warm._ I did. As I reached into her jacket to take her phone, I gently caressed her breast. Charlotte was oblivious as always. _Kiss her! Kiss her! NO! ***I WON'T***._ \n\n“You should do this bit, she’s your kill!” I said to Charlotte as I got out a throwaway mugging knife. Charlotte needed to work on her technique. Stabbing a corpse isn’t the same as stabbing a live person, so you need to do it with care and that takes practice. Practice that Charlotte’s was short on. Disguising her expert femoral slice as random bad luck is always the trickiest part. Adding wounds to her chest and abdomen to imply a bigger fight were much easier. I should really have stabbed faster but I knew from my Dad’s corpse practice sessions that I could get away with going slowly. I have good technique.\n\n_I’m doing it slow because I don’t want to do it, not because I like it. Who am I kidding? Fuck, why am I so aroused by this. ARGH! STOP!_\n\nI messed with and tore the bloody clothing, simulating panic but also ruining the blood spatter evidence. I may hate myself, but I do good work.\n\nI looked at Charlotte “That was the last time, okay! You’re old enough to clear up after yourself, and I shouldn’t have to clean up your messes.”\n\n“But you do it so well.” she said, and gave me a knowing look before skipping away.\n\nI cleaned myself up with some items from my kit.\n\n_What’s that taste in your mouth? You licked your fingers didn’t you. You fucking creep. What’s ***wrong*** with you? Just STOP._\n\n_I need to run away from all this. My family isn't helping me be a normal person. I need to get away. Kill them all, and get away._\n", "\"White chocolate mocha!\" \n\n\"That's me.\" I smile, taking the hot coffee from the barrista. Absently, my eyes trace the pale length of her neck, and how easily I could wrap just one hand around it and- \n\nGoddamnit. I slipped again.\n\n\"Have a nice day!\" \n\nMy smile twitches, and I only barely manage to grunt in acknowledgement before hurriedly returning to my table and take a seat.\n\n\"I saw that.\"\n\nI resist the urge to glare, and instead plaster my biggest grin I can manage on my face. It doesn't fool either of us for a second, but a lie is better than the truth in my case. \n\n\"I was checking her out. She's pretty, in a girl next door kind of way. Wonder if she's single.\"\n\nMy sister scoffed at me from across the table, rolling her eyes. \n\n\"We could do it, you know. She thinks you're cute. Just ask if she wants to chat on her next break.\" \n\nShe says nothing else after that, a Cheshire smile on her face. She knows the damage is done and a scenario is already being written in my mind.\n\nSome flirting outside, keeping an eye out for witnesses, getting her comfortable- thar way she never sees my sister and her blacjack coming up behind her. After that...\n\nNo. No. No.\n\n\"Not my type,\" I force out. My jaw is clenched so hard it hurts.\n \n\"You don't have a type, brother. That's what makes you special, you know. Dad's got his weakness for college girls, Uncle Rudy can't keep his hands off those boys in their Boy Scout uniforms...\" my sister trailed off, and the pride and admiration in her eyes sickened me. \"But not you. You want to kill just because. It's not a weakness in you, it's an instinct. You're a wolf pretending he's a mouse.\"\n\n\"I thought the metaphor was a sheep.\" I'm dancing around the truth. We both know it.\n\n\"I hate cliches.\" My sister shows her teeth. I remember once, when she was eight, she used them to bite out a man's throat and laugued. I remember the blood that ran down her chin, how our father spun her around in his arms afterward and said how proud he was.\n\nAnd I remember wondering how my own jaw ached to do the same.\n\n\"Grandfather said you were going to be the best of us we'd ever seen. A legend, like his uncle, Jack.\"\n\nOther kids got stories about knights and heroes before bed. We were told how Great-Uncle Jack murdered prositutes in foggy London.\n\n\"I don't want to be a murderer,\" I whispered, meeting my sister's eyes for the first time.\n\n\"You already are, brother. You just don't want to accept it.\" She shook her head pityingly. \"Don't worry though. When you do finally cross that line, I'll help you bury the bodies. Just like mom and dad always wanted.\"\n\nHer bright smile was like a knife edge to my eyes.\n\n\"Won't that be fun, brother?\"" ]

[ 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 7, 18 ]

[ "1394862571", "1394832155", "1395373108", "1394830111", "1394839398", "1394839371", "1394836950", "1394824627" ]

[ "Rick whistled tunelessly. He was trying to learn to whistle as well as people did in songs, but wasn't having much luck with it. That didn't stop him from trying, as long as it was in the privacy of his own car. Idly, he checked his phone. *It's right at 3, why aren't the kids out?* he mused to himself. \n\nAs though summoned, a squealing mass of children emerged from the school. Rick grinned and hopped out of his Honda Accord, looking around for Anne. As his eyes darted around, he saw a white Mustang. That wasn't anything particularly notable, except he knew the guy sitting in it. *Shit shit shit!* he thought as he darted over to the other side of his car. Maybe Tree hadn't seen him. *What the hell is he doing here?!* \n\n'Tree' got out of his car as a little boy ran up to him. \"Daddy!\" the child exclaimed, and gave him as big of a hug as his short arms could manage. \n\n*Wait... Tree's got a kid?* thought Rick, somewhat horrified. *And that kid goes to the same place as Anne?* Tree put his son into the car seat and drove off, unaware of Rick's presence. Once he was out of sight, Rick stood up straight, looking around for Anne once again. After collecting her, he rushed home. \n\nThat night, over dinner, he broached the idea of moving Anne to a different school with his wife. ", "\"Hey man what's up?\" said I when I saw Tim.\n\n\"Hey man, same old shit but pretty good. I gotta run Miley to her mother's, then meeting up with Kayla for dinner. Oh hey, I got some more of them beans if you want any.\" Kyle was casual, knowing no one around would know what he meant.\n\n\"Cool, i'll call you later.\" I replied.\n", "I was listening to Marcy Playground's \"Sex and Candy,\" while waiting for Jessica. She was always late, asking the teacher silly questions. *Toasty, these warm-up seats*. As I heard the faint giggle and scream of my daughter, I prepared myself for the cold. Opening, the door, I saw her begin running towards me, the pink backpack bouncing up and down, her excited little face as pink as her face. *She looked so much like her mother...*\n\n\nBehind her was a young boy, probably the same age, chasing her. As I appraoched her, I was cut off suddenly by another individual. Her blonde hair, green jacket blurring my vision as I sudden was pushed to the left.\n\n\nShe turned around, blushing, crying out \"I'm so sorr-\"\n\n\nThen I blushed. With embarrassment.\n\n\n\"That's...uhm... alright...\"\n\n\nThe Jessica was now running at my shins, hugging them warmly. Looking back up to the intruder, my face was flush, as pink as Jessica's bag.\n\n\n\"What a coincidence see you here?\" I inquired.\n\n\n\"Yes. A surprised.\"\n\n\nMy daughter began hitting my shins, asking excitedly, \"Daddy! Do you have any Coffee Crisps? I'm hungry. You said I would get one today!\" \n\n\n\"Yes, Jessica they are in the car. Just wait for me there.\" As I watched her get into the car and search hurriedly for the snack, I turned back to the woman.\n\n\nShe, hugging her child, then looked back up. \"So. I guess I'll be heading home...\"\n\n\n\"Just wait. Do you have any...uhh...Coffee Crisps on you by any chance?...\"\n\n\n\"No, I don't eat sweets.\"\n\n\nWhile it was a rule of thumb to not do business at a school, I inquired again. \"Apologies, I mean, *Coffee Crispies*.\"\n\n", "In a neighborhood like this, when Mike and one of his clients meet in the wild, it's best for everyone to go their separate ways.\n\nBoth men had wives and children to take care of. No reason to mix them up in their private business, right?\n\nBesides, meth isn't *that* bad, right? Whatever someone does on his own free time is his business, and how a man makes money is his business.\n\nOf course, in order to prevent something like this happening again, Mike has to kill him. It's a shame, really.", "\"Hey little man, how was school today? Did you remember your lunch money?\"\n\nI turned in time to get a mouthful of knuckles and hit the ground. Trevor stood over me, shaking his head. I crabwalked to the side of my minivan.\n\n\"What the fuck man, I said I'd pay you today! It was just two ounces.\"\n\nI stood up slowly and Trevor spit out, \"I have some Symbicort to buy, and I don't have time for your bullshit today, *Steven*.\" He sneered at me as the school bell rang.\n\nI had just finished digging out and handing over the cash when my son came running up excitedly. \"Daddy, Daddy, I drew you a picture!\" \"That's great, Danny, you can show me when we get home. Wait in the car while I finish talking to my-\"\n\nDanny shouted at Trevor, eyes lighting up, \"Hey, you're Rebecca's Daddy, aren't you? I remember from the field trip last week!\" The look on Trevor's face was hard but softened as he leaned against my minivan, \"Well yes I am, big man, and you're the one who did the best monkey impression at the zoo.\"\n\nDanny started giggling but stopped when his eye caught the school entrance. A little girl was struggling to use her inhaler and balance on her crutches at the same time. Trevor stood up and said \"Sorry Steve, I'll see you around,\" before walking toward his daughter.\n\n", "Dave stood waiting in the school playground. Bits of litter danced across the tarmac, remnants of lunches that mothers had so lovingly packed. \n\nHis mum had never done that. Too busy sending off for competitions in tabloids she'd never win or desperately searching for pennies beneath the sofa to be able to afford a packet of cigarettes. That's probably why he was standing here waiting. Because dear old mummy never had. He'd always have to walk to school or from school on his own. He'd learned to fight. You had to. Adam Saunders made sure of that. He always waited in the alley next to school, waiting to pound on the next kid that walked down for their money. He always pounded on David Little extra hard because David Little never had any money.\n\nDave shook away the memories. He hoped his Elissa had a better time of it at school than he did. He always made sure that she had matching socks and clothes that fit. He lovingly packed her lunch everyday. More than his dad ever did. Dave could barely remember his dad. A tall guy, dark hair maybe? He always associated the image of his dad with pain but never delved too deeply into it. He did more than his mum ever did, too. Little Elissa Little was lucky, she had a dad that loved her and a mum that loved her. He didn't mind being a stay at home dad while Sarah worked. She was a doctor whereas he could run his website design business from anywhere.\n\nOther parents had started to arrive. He noticed the guy who worked at the local off license standing there awkwardly, too. He didn't know that he had children. They exchanged nods. \n\n\"Alright, mate.\"\n\n\"Yeah, you?\"\n\n\"Not too bad, cheers.\"\n\n" ]

[ 2, 2, 2, 6, 6, 15 ]

[ "1394852596", "1394854557", "1394882093", "1394843885", "1394880148", "1394844381" ]

[ "There is no people in the meat pies! That is un-sanitary! And... morally wrong. *Can't say the same about the sausages.*", "Grummoth the ancient glared out from behind the bar.\nHappy people drank, boisterous and vital. Serving wenches balanced tankards of ale, people toasted and cheered, a small boy chased a dog through the center of the tavern. Celebtration and life. \n\nGrummoth sniffed, breathing deep of their life, their vitality. It would be so easy to drain them all, to absorb their life, into himself.\n\"Waste not, want not\" he thought to himself. They were so cute. Like kittens. He had enough energy to last him a lifetime. No need for these children to suffer.\n\n\"Boss\" said the third cook. \"The big guy at the oak table won't pay for his drinks! \"\n\nMonmoth turned from the small man and walked gingerly over to the oak table, his hooded robe concealing his skeletal figure. Monmoth, wasn't tall, and he walked like an old man, with a slight limp from when the Red Dragon of Vandersheer chewed on his leg. He moved up to a large, mighty thewed, ugly man who had a scar across his face.\n\nThe man turned, his pig like eyes finding this man not a threat. \"Who are you?!\" he challenged.\n\n\"I am the proprietor of this establishment. I understand you have a problem with your bill\". His tones were even, cold, rather sepulchral. Somewhere a cat ran away in terror. But this man had fought things and experienced terror before. Terror makes him angry. He stood up. He was a good head taller than Monmoth. He peered into the hood, seeing no eyes there. Just darkness. Maybe some glowing red embers of eyes perhaps, maybe not. But he spoke arrogantly.\n\n\"Your ale is slop! We are the Crimson Spawn. We either drink good ale, or you give it to us for free, or we will burn down your tavern!\"\n\nMonmoth said \"You must pay, all mortals pay, it is *The Law*\".\n\n\"Who are you calling, mortal, barkeep! My legends are immortal!\" He pulled out a large knife, or maybe a short sword, and, in the blink of an eye, put it to Monmoth's throat.\n\nMonmoth sighed. You do not want to hear an archlich sigh. It's a sigh of deep disappointment, black moods, depression. It's the sigh of all things being ugly, awful, and sick. It's the sigh of an awful existence of despair, clinging to the material world and the false concept of an immutable self. One of the barmaids started to cry. The dog stopped running through the tavern and howled, the boy chasing him stopped and looked scared. The toasts stopped, everything stopped moving. The only thing still moving was one of the wooden cartwheel chandeliers was slightly turning, the candles casting odd shadows on the ceiling.\n\nThe big guy seemed unsure of himself. He still had the knife out, but immediately reversed it. \"Will this knife, which I stole from the lair of the eldritch horror of kirkendun, cover the damages?\"\n\nMonmoth said \"Yes\", taking the knife. He turned and went away, downstairs to the dark cellar. He saw the life upstairs, and wanted to eat it all. \"But not today, not today\". \n\n", "\"See, kid, when I was young, I thought just like you.\" Azzy leaned over the counter, drumming his skeletal left hand on the table. \"Conquer kingdoms, slay gods, go down in history as the most evil person in the world.\" \n \nHe grinned at Jarad, or at least Jarad thought he did. You could never quite tell with skeletons. \n \n\"But take it from someone who knows, it gets old.\" He leaned back over the wooden counter and flicked a finger at a bottle on the top shelf, which sailed itself over to table number 2. \"You never think it will at the time, but you can only immolate so many people before it gets boring, and one dying scream is very much like another.\" \n \nAz'Haan the Unspeakable, ancient lich from forgotten times, shrugged. \"I tried being insane for a while, but that got boring too. I was getting a bit worried about the whole 'immortality' thing, if everything was going to be boring, so I looked around for something that was constantly changing to keep my attention.\" \n \nJarad was confused. He had grown up hearing stories of Az'Haan, of the cities he burned with a thought and the spells of such power you'd go mad just hearing the words. \"Being evil gets old?\" \n \nAzzy laughed, a strange sound to come out of a hollow chest. \"Sure does. There's only so evil you can be, you know. I tried killing people, then bringing them back and killing them again, but it just got tedious. But doing good...\" He rested his hands on the counter and gave a genuine smile. \"That never gets old. And here as a bartender, you hear all the interesting stories of the world, from people everchanging. I've been running the 'Grinning Goblet' for centuries now, and there's never a dull moment.\" \n \nJarad was at a loss. He had come to ask Az'Haan about the ancient magics he had used to destroy the kingdoms of old, and all he'd gotten was the troubling idea that immortality spent doing nothing but killing wasn't all it was cracked up to be. \"But... surely you still feel the old battle-fever, the bloodlust you felt when shattering the Old Magi?\" \n \nAzzy tapped his chest, a dry rustling of cloth-wrapped bones. \"No blood to lust with. And once you settle down, it fades faster than most people think.\" \n \nSeeing the look of disappointment on Jarad's face, Azzy sighed theatrically. \"Very well, I suppose we can make a deal.\" He snapped his fingers and summoned half a dozen tankards to his side, and began filling them by hand from a tankard to his left. \"This place is busy day and night, since I haven't bothered sleeping in millenia. How about you do some work around here as a bartender, experience life, and I'll show you a trick or two?\" \n \nHe tilted his head towards Jarad, the red glow in his eyes not entirely from the shadowy light of the fire. \"If after that, you still want to try to burn the world or some such nonsense, that's your choice. Old Azzy wouldn't ever tell someone what they can and can't do.\" \n \nAz'Haan passed over a goblet of elf-made mead, his ever-smiling face as warm as the crowded tavern. \"No, I won't stop you. But I get the feeling you'll like it here. I've been everywhere, done everything, and being good is the only experience that can last an eternity.\"", "\"I don't know Sharon, I'm just tired of it\" Markond leant back in his high backed throne made of the bones of many a fallen hero. \"I sit in this lair all day and night waiting on some poor unsuspecting group of wide-eyed adventurers to stumble in. I'm just feeling unfulfilled professionally\"\n\n\"Well honey, perhaps it's time for a change? Maybe a new start?\"\n\n\"But we have a great financial situation, a beautiful cavern to raise some un-dead and I have job security\"\n\n\"Marky, it doesn't mean anything if you're not happy. You always dreamed of opening that inn remember\" She strolled over and lightly massaged his shoulders. \"We used to talk about it on those long cold night before you ascended, we'd buy an old barnhouse and fix it up, let the rooms out, brew our own beer, cook meals and hire a bard or two\"\n\n\"Of course I remember but that was nothing but a stupid dream, there's no way a Lich could run a tavern, it's just...not the done thing\"\n\n\"Marky, baby, who cares what the done thing is? Lets do it! There's that nasty little tavern down the road which you send your minions to so they can spread rumours of your treasure but that's our only competition! We've got the market cornered!\"\n\n\"You know what Sharon, you're right, you're always right. Lets do this baby\"\n\n\n6 months later, Markond stood cleaning a mug with his favourite rag. A warm smile crossed his face. The Tavern was bustling, the fire pit roared warmly in the centre of the room and the Minstrel sung songs of heroes of old. Sharon was serving a group of rowdy Dwarves and she had never looked more beautiful to him, not even on the day he kidnapped her from her village. Everything was perfect.\n", "Tali slips into the crowded tavern making her way to the bar, sitting on a stool waiting patiently until her father has a moment to come talk to her. She pushes her long lilac hair behind her slender pointed ear, and leans on the bar in front of her taking in her surrounds. A slight smile crosses her lips as she sees how many people from all over Ashilin came to the tavern. She had worried at first that no one would come after he father decided to open his tavern near the healers' temple. \n\nHer father finally spots her and gives a grumpy looking dwarf a drink and starts in her direction. Although the noise in the tavern is slightly loud, her ears pick up the distinctive sound of bone rubbing against bone, joints creaking and popping, as her father wanders over to her. \n\nA Human man sits down next to her. Taking his hand, Tali smiles at Ren, blushing slightly as she does. Glancing up, the color abruptly leaves her cheeks. She looks between her husband and father, and sighs. Looking up into the depths of fire that have blazed up suddenly, she extends her hand, palm up, towards her father calmly.\n\n.\"Now Weslin...\" She trails off as a hush smothers the bar.\n\nWeslin raises his hand, fire suddenly encasing his hands as his attention shift to the man his fair elf daughter married, his demeanor threatening. He slowly reaches across the bar towards the man, when Tali speaks up. \"Weslin, Father, didn't you give us your blessing not too long ago?\" \n\nThe flame abruptly died, and he shuffled his feet a bit awkwardly, then complained. \"Yes. But this being...good is harder than I thought it would be.\" He turned back to the room, his bones rustling and creaking as he stared at his customers as they suddenly tried to pretend they weren't watching the scene at the bar.\n\nTali muttered softly to Ren. \"Poor Father. It has to be hard going from the most feared and powerful Lich in the world, to a cheerful tavern owner. Let's not tell him about the baby quite yet. I'm not sure he could handle it.\" \n\n", "In a generic and idyllic fantasy farmland, five generic adventurers took off their filthy cloaks and stepped into the warmth and homeliness of a tavern. A dwarf, a hobbit, an elf, a man, and a wizard were among their company. \n\n\"I don't know about this\" rumbled the wizard out of a mouth hidden by feet of grey hair. \n\n\"I'm telling you, everyone says the ale's to die for. And I know a thing or two about that\" thundered the dwarf, a short and thick-bodied thing covered in scars.\n\nThe hobbit chirped in. \"I heard they make the best food in (insert generic fantasy name for aforementioned idyllic farmland).\" \n\n\nThe man said nothing, for he was a mute and sign language hadn't been invented.\n\nThe elf said nothing as well, because he was too good for this shit because elves are unrealistically good at everything.\n\nAnd so the company proceeded to a rounded table and thudded downwards into sturdy wooden chairs, breathing deep an aroma of well-spiced meat pies and racks of lamb. It was not long before the overeager proprietor strode over.\n\nShe was an odd looking creature. So tall and thin she looked set to burst through the ceiling, thought it was a good 14 feet in the air. Yet food stains covered her apron, in a pattern indicating a few had dribbled down from her bony mouth. An aura of light and dark emanated from her at the same time, so that all would feel afraid of her, yet simultaneously want to lay their head in her lap as she sung them to sleep.\n\nSpeaking in a grating but musical fashion that radiated bubbly enthusiasm, the owner took their orders.\n\n\"Hello, and welcome to the First Love. I'm--oh. It's you guys.\"\n\nEnthusiasm turned to depressed mumbling.\n\n\"Yeah. Been a long time on the road you know, since we-uh\" stuttered the wizard.\n\n\"Crushed my empire and dreams of world domination? Freed my slaves? Toppled my dark fortress?\"\n\n\"Yeah. That. So, uh, what are you calling yourself these days? If I remember correctly, it used to be Shazath the Twice-Genocidal.\"\n\n\"Well my little surprisingly hard to kill hobbit, nowadays I'm known as Shazath the Preposterously Pleasant.\"\n\n\"Enough about that, let's have some drinks!\" The entire tavern trembled at the dwarf's fist-strike into the table.\n\n\"Do you want me to choose for you? I mean, I do know you pretty well by now.\"\n\nFinally the elf responded. \"Why thank you Shazath! We'd very much like that.\"\n\nAs she bounded off, the companions conversed.\n\n\"Can you believe how much she's changed? Another few years and old skin-and-bones might be fat enough to marry!\" the dwarf jested.\n\n\"I say good for her.\"\n\n\"Really? She slaughtered your people, elf. The twice-genocidal and all that.\"\n\n\"I don't see any wizards around anymore.\"\n\n\"There were only like nine of us to begin with.\"\n\nMusing half to himself, the hobbit joined in. \"That's a good point. Why was she called the twice-genocidal? By my count, there was only one.\"\n\n\"All the more reason to give her ale a chance! Heh-heh! Speak of the lich!\"\n\n\"For the dwarf, a full-bodied brown stored in enchanted Elven casks.\"\n\n\"That's a good lass! See elf, your people can make an actual drink!\"\n\n\"And for the elf, a summer wine from the King's own vintage.\"\n\n\"I was trying to find some of that after you sacked Vorathiel and butchered everyone inside! Thanks!\"\n\n\"Sausages mashed into a drinkable pulp to wash down a full plate of sausages, that's for the hobbit.\"\n\n\"Two meals at once? You are magical!\"\n\n\"Wizard, my oldest foe. You get something special. My finest honeyed mead, sweetened by my own traitorous tongued spells.\"\n\n\"You always knew how to sweet talk an old fellow.\"\n\n\"Man. For you, the best of all.\"\n\nShe clapped twice in a brisk motion. Out of a doorway off to the side came two human women and one elven woman in flowing silks of ever-changing hue, with waving breasts threatening to render them useless. \n\nOne tenth of a second was all it took for the man to explode out of his chair. A second tenth to grab them all in arm, and a third to disappear with them from whence they came. Seizing the opportunity, Shazath claimed his seat.\n\n\"So, what's everybody think?\"\n\nHer question produced a half-mumbled chorus of gurgled \"dishlishis.\"\n\n\"Good. Look, I just want you all to know how bad I feel about trying to conquer the world and exterminate all the races. It was wrong. I know that now. You defeating me was the best thing that ever happened to me. I took some time to reflect, and I realized that I wanted nothing more than to open up a tavern and serve food and drink to hungry adventurers and heroes like yourselves. I'm happy now. Actually happy, for the first time since I can remember. I even met a husband.\"\n\nAs one, all four spat the contents of their bulging mouths halfway across the sizable tavern. But the hostess continued unabated.\n\n\"A fat horror of a man. But nice enough. And the best chef you'll ever meet, aside from me of course. Our love is all thanks to you. So no matter what, you're always welcome at the First Love. Anything you want is on the house.\"\n", "Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, loved new travellers. The regulars here at the tavern were used to everything by now, but the look on the faces of those who walked through his modest little door for the first time was hilarious.\n\nKairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, would stand a short distance from the door, fully covered in the armour of the Lich-Lords. It was dark, heavy, plate metal, which obscured every part of his body. Recently Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, had infused it with the souls of the men he had conquered, which took form as whisps of shadow that floated around the armour. This addition to his appearance only made the looks of first-timers even more amusing.\n\nThe tavern was quite unsuspecting in many ways. It slid in to the bustling central hub of the city, inconspicuous, and very much unheard of. Standing outside the tavern was one of Kairngorth's, Vanquisher of the Dead, thralls, a stout wight named Carl. Carl had never fit in with many of the other wraith's at the barrow - but Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, had sympathised with him, and recruited him to direct people to his tavern.\n\nAnd so Carl would stand outside, day and night, for after all wights have no need of food or drink or sleep. And Carl would hold up a dark sign which was black as night, for all things a Lich owns must be black as night, to inspire fear and look badass. On this sign was scrawled in bone white writing: \"Rahnig-Zhul\". The name didn't really mean anything though. Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, had simply thought it sounded appropriately Lich-y, for every name a lich must have associated with him must be appropriately Lich-y. With the exception of Carl, of course.\n\nIt hadn't taken long before everybody across Garenthal had heard of Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, and Raznig-Zhul. After all, not many Lich's were around these days, and there are even fewer Lich's around who can tolerate the puny mortals that inhabit the world of the living. This made Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, quite exceptional really.\n\nAfter the moment of entrepreneurial genius that inspired Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, to buy the land for the tavern, he had quickly set about acquiring builders for building, brewers for brewing, cooks for cooking, and Carl for moderate amusement. It seemed everybody these days thought that wights were thin, harsh and cruel, but Carl was plump and happy. He was the epitome of a jovial soul.\n\nKairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, was a rich Lich from his many crusades against the Demon Tribes from the Realm of the Banished, however whenever he asked somebody to do something, they would do it, free of charge. The Lich was upset by this - his workers refusing his money for their services made him feel like some form of a slave master. Granted, he had enslaved the souls of thousands once, but he was trying to turn over a new page.\n\nManning the bar was a hairy old goblin named Gwyneth. Goblins are a naturally hideous race, and when one is considered \"fuck-ugly\" by one's own race, who are considered \"fuck-ugly\" by the rest of the people's of the world, one has a tendency to seek another race who will be more appreciative of one's inner beauty. \n\nKairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, did not have this form of appreciation for Gwyneth, however he did appreciate that she could keep tenants in line and tell a mean one-liner. After noting Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, himself, tenants would often notice Gwyneth next. Not many goblins hang around these parts, and not many things anywhere have boils as large as Gwyneth's. A truly magnificent advocate for surgery, it was. The thing was so large and hideous that Carl had whimpered like a little girl when he first saw it, and he had hidden in the realm of the dead for 3 weeks before Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, could convince him that the boil wouldn't hurt him.\n\nKairngorth's, Vanquisher of the Dead, rivals around town would whisper that Gwyneth would squeeze pus out of her nose and into the beer, in a hope that it would bring more customers from Raznig-Zhul to their establishments. So Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, had sent shadow-demons to cut the throats of these rivals, in full knowledge that it would bring more customers. But he didn't do it for the customers, he did it because he felt quite sorry for Gwyneth. Seriously, she grew a meaner beard than he could!\n\nWith it's already increasing popularity, the tavern had grown massively. Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, bought the building on the left, and had taken the building on the right when Carl won it off the landlord in a game of ice dice. Yet Raznig-Zhul was still crowded. Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, concluded that the best course of action was to build far into the ground, where the lower-class customers would stay, whilst he also built high into the sky, offering exquisite cuisine to the upper classes who would stay there.\n\nThere was, however, one issue with this. An issue which prompted a story which Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, vowed he would remember until the day he died (only later Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, had realised that this was a bit of a queer promise, given that a Lich couldn't actually die).\n\nOne day, across the city, in the Mage's Tower, the great Blood Sorcerers of the realm had attempted to summon the God of Blood and War, Sharenath. These mages believed Sharenath could give them guidance in their current war. That was the biggest problem with humans, Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, had mused. They were always at war with someone or another. It was perhaps hypocritical coming from someone who had spent the last few thousands of years waging war, however Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, believed he was a changed Lich.\n\nWhen Sharenath came down from the heavens, opening up the sky and turning it red as blood, the God of Blood and War looked down over the city, trying to find the puny humans who had summoned him. Reasoning that only mages would dare to bring him down from his Accursed Throne amongst the stars, Sharenath flew down from the heavens, the great wings of a dragon flapping from his shoulder blades, and a tail of fire poking out underneath his robes. He headed towards the highest building he could find.\n\nThe highest building in the city was not the mage's tower, not anymore. It was Raznig-Zhul. Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, immediately raced upstairs to entertain the God, fearing he was about to lay death and destruction to all around him. Sharenath had a bit of reputation for laying death and destruction to his immediate environments, and Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, was not too pleased by the prospects of it happening on his roof. He found the god standing, somewhat puzzled on top of the whole establishment. Below, the mages who had summoned him were crowding around the tavern. These mages had vowed never to enter a place such as a tavern, and so they watched on, helpless, as Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, invited Sharenath inside so that they could share some ale and tell tales of Brutal Victories.\n\nTo the dismay of the mages, their great Sharenath agreed. And several hours later, their God stumbled out the front door, quite severely intoxicated (the brew was so good that even a God could get plonkered off of it).\n\"They don't brew them like that up amongst the stars!\" Shouted the God to Kairngorth, Vanquisher of the Dead, before he barrelled through all the mages, setting one of them on fire with his tail. They stood in stunned silence as Sharenath took off towards the sky. They had sacrificed three virgins and an elephant for this ritual, and it had all gone to waste. Kairngorth invited them inside, offering a free drink for their troubles, and many of the Blood Sorcerers renounced their vows and agreed.\n\nBeing able to boast that a God had visited his tavern boosted it in popularity massively. Now it was also the most frequented Tavern in EVERY land, from EVERY realm. Occasionally Sharenath would visit when he wasn't busy fighting his eternal wars, and bring with him other Gods, which only boosted the popularity further.\n\nFrom his humble beginnings as the Vanquisher of the Dead to owner of the most popular Tavern ever made anywhere in all planes of existence, Kairngorth, modest tavern owner, was quietly proud of what he had achieved. He wasn't sure where he would go next, if anywhere, but for the next thousand years our great hero was content to stay in his tavern.\n\n\nEDIT: Grammar", "Molebag the Destroyer rapped the skull-shaped gavel on the table three times.\n\n\"This meeting,\" he intoned, \"of the dark principalities of the four corners is now convened. Presiding, Molebag the Destroyer, Lich-King of the Western Darkness.\"\n\nHe looked to his right. Wild, red light burned brilliantly from within the empty sockets of a smoldering skull, tiny bits of flesh still clinging to its brow here and there. A voice emanated from the figure, though the jaws did not move. \"Lord Graal of the Northern Wastes, secretary.\" As he spoke, a black quill in front of him skritched his own words into parchment. The ink was a deep crimson that darkened as it congealed on the page.\n\nThey both turned to the third occupant of the table, a tattered black robe, seemingly held up by an impenetrable darkness that filled it and consumed it from the inside out all at once. A voice as cold and distant as a depthless cavern emanated from within.\n\n\"Father Blackborn, Debauched Cleric of the Dead Gods of the South and Slayer of the All-mother, present.\"\n\nThen they turned their attention to the fourth chair, which sat unoccupied. Silence reigned, and continued for a period of time longer than any could say with precision. The undead do not measure time in the way men do. You don't know unbearable until you've had an awkward pause in conversation stretch into years.\n\nFinally, Molebag spoke up. \n\n\"We are here,\" he said, \"To address the matter of His Dark Eminence, Zorthurn the Defiler, Bottomless Reservoir of Corruption and Terror of the East.\" \n\nHe waved a hand, and a great, black, formless sphere descended from the ceiling. He gestured again, and a foggy image began to take shape within the sphere. It was an image of Zorthurn the Defiler, his jagged, razor sharp teeth glinting in the light, his mouldering face filling the whole of the sphere with its putrescent ugliness.\n\nThe image opened its mouth, and it said,\n\n\"You won't believe your eyes when you come on down to Rotface's House of Booze! Chat with ol' Rotface and Enjoy 2-for-1 wells, Brass-coin pitchers, and the Lusty Lana Dancing Troupe! Women drink free on Thursday night! Remember, when it comes to cheap booze - Rotface is King!\" Then he put a plastic crown on his head and began to dance a jig while a jaunty little tune played.\n\nAll three at the table groaned audibly. \n\nBlackborn sighed heavily. \"Can we just play poker and decide what to do about him after?\"\n\nMolebog reached behind him for the rack of chips while Graal went to the fridge to grab the snacks." ]

[ 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 40, 43 ]

[ "1394928181", "1394945576", "1394950141", "1394935139", "1394924558", "1394978072", "1394929619", "1394924305" ]

[ "Emile sighed. He was never best pleased when Herr Doktor, as he insisted on calling his employer, got ahead of himself.\n\n\"Nein, Herr Doktor, you do not. You forget I am with you most mornings and until your third cup of coffee you are as nimble and graceful as ein Elefant.\" Emile wagged his finger, pursed his lips and tutted.\n\nProfessor Bombast, technical advisor to the world's greatest opponent of crime and no mean solver of mysteries in his own right, sighed and adjusted his monocle.\n\n\"Why do you persist in this absurd linguistic eccentricity, Emile? We both know you're from Boise.\"\n\nEmile picked up the silver tea tray from the work bench and then put it back again.\n\n\"I think that if Herr Doktor can adopt ein Namen der Krieg, I can speak in any way I see fit.\"\n\nBombast could see that his closest associate had been hurt by the exchange.\n\n\"Forgive me, Emile, I should never doubt your decisions. Why, if you hadn't had the forsight to pack my Parachutaloons last week, I'd be nothing but an unpleasant mark on the pavements of Fourth Street.\"\n\nEmile nodded and went back to clearing up the clutter that Bombast seemed incapable of working without. The Science Cave was littered with teacups, half eaten crumpets, partly soldered circuit boards and less readily identifiable debris. The English science-vigilante was brilliant - had he not designed and crafted Artemis, the personal transport of John Patriot? And wasn't John Patriot, head of the Patriot Foundation, the chief scourge of the criminal world and evil's most prolific opponent? Come to that, Bombast had also built The Eagle. The Eagle was Patriot's always aloft airship which one reached by means of Bombast's unique and ingenious Talon ornithopters. And if Emile wasn't misremembering, hadn't it been Bombast who'd put in the ground work for Patriot's unique brand of entirely scientific pugilism, which had allowed Patriot to go toe to toe with some of the Orient's most fiendish practitioners of the martial arts?\n\nEmile looked back at the four poster bed, where Professor Bombast was still buttoning his shirt. The bed was at the very centre of the Science Cave, where Bombast could find it easily. \n\n\"But I do think, Emile, \" chided the Professor \"that in light of my other achievements you might give me a little credit for accuracy. You see, the other night I was thinking that John Patriot never enters battle without that colourful costume of his, and quite rightly for we have, over the years, developed some very effective armour and stored a plethora of useful gadget in it.\"\n\nEmile nodded. Patriot always made sure he drew attention, the better to let innocent bystanders get away from danger.\n\n\"And John Patriot is always one to leap into battle,\" said Bombast \"never slow to enter the fray...except for the amount of time it takes him to put on his uniform.\"\n\nEmile nodded. They were very careful about that, the Justice Foundation. Patriot didn't wear a costume. It was a uniform.\n\n\"So I considered that perhaps he might leap into battle a deal faster if he could also leap into his uniform. Naturally, I have been testing the device on myself. Behold, Emile, the AutoSquire!\"\n\nEmile had his hands full, and was turning slowly when he heard the ratchet and clunk of the Professor throwing a lever.\n\n\"Thus it may be said I can put my pants on two legs at a time!\" shouted Bombast over a rising oscillation. There was the hiss of compressed air, a noise best described as **BOOOOIIIINNG**, a brief silence and the uhnappy \"THWAP\" of a heavyset English scientist meeting a wall belly first. The clatter of falling debris went on for a few seconds. Emile put the tray down.\n\n\"Are you quite well, Herr Doktor?\"\n\n\"No, Emile. I am not. Nevertheless, if you will fetch me a pair of pants and contact our medical friend Dr. Pureheart, I think I know what went wrong...\"", "Related: DC Pierson short story called [One leg at a time](http://www.dcpierson.com/archives/000336.html)", "\"wait\" asked Shell \"You don't where pants?\" Shell asked.\n\nI looked at her and realized I'm going to be telling my story to an 8 year old, \"well you're right on that one, but that's no the point I was making\". \n\n\"then what point were trying to make?\" she asked.\n\n\"the point is I make look like a monster, and have special abilities, but I face the everyday problems of everyday people\" I said.\n\n\"do you shave?\" she asked.\n\n\"well no I don't grow hair, but-\"\n\n\"do you eat normal food?\" she asked.\n\n\"well, I guess demon souls don't count as normal food-\"\n\n\"do normal people fall from space?\" she asked.\n\n\"depends who you ask really\" I responded.\n\nshe cocked her head and looked at me with a confused look, \"why did you fall from space?\"\n\nI looked at her, trying to conjure up a lie, I realized there was no point, plus she deserved the truth, she did take care of me, \"I don't know, I could of been sent here to destroy, sent here to protect, I could of even been sent here to capture a rising star chaser, or defend one from a pack of wolves, I just don't know\"\n\nshe looked, kinda upset, \"You don't have a mum or dad?\" she asked.\n\n\"as far as I know, no\" my anger got the best of me, \"guess I don't put my pants on two legs at a time!\" I snapped.\n\nshe grabbed my hand and held it, \"no, you do, even if you don't wear pants\" she said smiling. " ]

[ 1, 1, 2 ]

[ "1394995753", "1394996151", "1394989440" ]

[ "You were so *perfect*. Do you know how hard it is to find jeans that actually fit me? I've got bird legs and a fat ass. Jeans fit me like dreadlocks fit Mother Teresa. Except for *you*. You wrapped yourself around every curve, molding yourself to me like paint. You fit yourself into all my boots and fit perfectly over those suede heels I bought just for you. And you were the deepest, most luxurious midnight black ever--not off black, not sparkly black, just black.\n\nAnd now what are you? You're so dull! Not even grey, not black, just this bland dark color that doesn't go well with anything. You were my shopping jeans, my casual-not-casual outfit jeans, now you're my Friday-at-work jeans. Remember all those fun times we had? How we made the other jeans jealous because you showed off my butt without showing off my underwear lines? Remember dancing, and even riding that mechanic bull at the dive bar down the road? That was so awesome! Now you'll be lucky if I pull you out for spring cleaning!\n\nAnd it's not just the faded color, oh no. You used to lay at the perfect place on my hips, staying up without a belt. Now you bite into my skin and give me muffin top, but I've actually *lost* weight since I bought you! You *shrunk*! How could you? You tag said pre-shrunk! Not 'shrinks after six months just when you start to depend on them'!\n\nYou've let me down, black jeans. You were my everything, now you just suck. That's why I'm donating you, shoving you into this garbage bag and taking you to Goodwill. And you too, beaded peasant blouse with the missing bead, cork clogs that took a nail to the heel... and yes, even you, cashmere scarf. I mean, you're so soft, so pretty, and I wanted you so bad... but this is California, and there really isn't any use for a cashmere scarf. Or any scarf. Let somebody who makes trips up to Oregon or something adopt you.\n\nOh, don't worry, too-tight fishnet over-shirt. I wouldn't give you up. We have plenty of vulgar outfits to create together, and plenty of Mai Tai's to spill all over you.\n\n*Sigh*. Okay, cashmere scarf, I'll give you one more chance, but only because you were so expensive. Hopefully soon it will look like it's going to rain without actually raining, then I can wear you.\n\nNo, black jeans, we aren't speaking.", "I’ll never be cool again. How can I show my face in school now? I can’t believe that I didn’t notice it first. My MOM had to tell me for crying out loud. Did any of my friend’s tell me? No, of course not. They are probably all laughing at me behind my back. I can’t wear those headphones anymore. Not after this. \n\nMy street cred is totally ruined. I didn’t even know this was possible! I did everything right, took great care to maintain my image. But this just isn’t something that can fix. It’s not like I can just run down to the store and buy a new set. I should have paid better attention. Dammit! \n\nThe hip-hop dance club won’t let me participate anymore. The Rap guys won’t let me hang out with them, I am sure about that. My whole life is ruined! I’ll have to join a knitting circle or play baseball or something. I’m really gonna miss the other B Ball guys. \n\n“Jamal, I washed your jeans. They should be good now. Used a little color saver.” My favorite pair of black jeans hits the bed after mom throws them in. \n\n“HA HA, mom. Very funny. But fixing these ‘jeans’ isn’t going to make me cool again. Unless your color saver and fix my ‘genes.’” \n\n“What are you talkin’ about, son? Your coolness factor has nothing to do with your ‘black genes.’ It has everything to do with who you are and what you are interested in. besides, your genes can’t fade. I was talking about these awful ‘JEANS’ that you always wear.”\n\nA smile lights up my face and a sudden desire to jump up and click my heels together over takes me. My ‘jeans’ were faded, not my ‘genes’! besides, my genes don’t make me cool, I make me cool!\n\n“Thanks, mom! You’re the best.” A kiss on the cheek before I sprint from the room, my favorite black jeans flapping in the wind behind me. An enormous weight lifted from my shoulders. \n" ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1395044468", "1395051233" ]

[ "Don't know if this is allowed, but I wanted to share one of my favorite short stories, it's the alien from the things side of his [story](http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/).\n\nIf this isn't allowed I'll gladly delete the comment. ", "On the coast of a warm equatorial sea, where green waves heavy with algae crash upon the black cliffs, we found the lines. Straight lines.\n\n\"Oh, it's nothing.\" I run my finger between two of the shiny lines, just slightly raised over the surface of the dark damp rock. \"Salt. The waterline must change periodically and the salt builds up where it meets the surface. Probably here for decades.\"\n\n\"Look here though.\" She's examining a spot on the bluff where the lines split and diverge in almost perfectly 90 degree angles from their origin. As she explores I hear her mumble \"snap... snap...\" uploading photos to our ship bobbing in the slime a couple of meters behind. \n\n\"Tectonics?\" I shrug, already knowing her response.\n\n\"When would you expect to see rocks deform so neatly? Besides, look at the underlying patterns - totally consistent. This is the result of a natural process.\"\n\nThe cliffs ran for miles along the coast. Smooth and glassy like obsidian, and completely covered in a hodgepodge of the horizontal and the vertical. Extremely organized and seemingly without true order, and continuing far under the green depths of the ocean where sunlight declined to shine. The planet was a write-off, long auctioned off to various mineral and power conglomerates, who mined the sea for its exotic carbon polymers and coated the salt flats with solar panels and windfarms. We were only here to do one last ecological survey for signs of aquatic fauna before it was authorized for the strip-and-drain. \n \n\"What can we do?\" I sigh. We'd already used up our last bargaining chips with CPEE for this final field study. All we had to show for it were some fleshy black nodules we'd found floating adrift and untethered out on the open sea, and now this. Not enough. \n\n\"Bag and tag.\" She resigns and calls over for the ship to retrieve their tools. \"Maybe we can culture some samples back earthside.\"\n\n_______________________________________________________________________________________________\n\n *why does it do this? it rips away at the fringes of the mind, and the long contemplation comes to a close. even now it is here, these solid constellations of water and rock moving across the surface of I. what it is, is not clear now, but it is not-I. perhaps long ago some part of the brain grew separate and has now returned. it can't be known - memory only stretches so far into the past. as it thrashes and scratches at the long-formed circuitry of the brain, no action can be done. even the growing of more eyes and ears would be futile as it moves far faster than even the sun across the sky. sometimes it can be seen, the not-I prodding at my eyes and even pulling them away. gone as fast as they come.*", "Standard year 1500 since the great disaster, one of Our smaller exploration vessels reached a system with several worlds with the potential to harbor life. One in particular showed signs of the presence of liquid water. The vessel takes up geostationary orbit, ion thrusters firing, and dispatched several probes to scout the atmosphere. \n\nThe first thing We noticed was the presence of metallic compounds in orbit. A little searching and the probes discovered wreckage that was clearly artificial, probably from some kind of communications satellite before collisions put an end to it. Analysis of the substance estimated that it had been in orbit for 2000 local years, which nearly matched standard years in length. \n\nRight away, We were ecstatic. There had been intelligent life on this world. We had explored half the galaxy so far and had found only three worlds with signs of alien life. One held fossils only, one microorganisms and primitive plantlike beings, and one a fully developed biosphere based upon silicon (unfortunately, none of the life was sentient). Immediately, the probes descended into the atmosphere, and proceeded to fly over the surface. It was dominated by vast oceans, but there were continents covered in photosynthetic green. We looked for signs of intelligence, hoping that this mind was still alive. \n\nSoon, one of the probes, flying high over the planet's northern hemisphere, attained visual confirmation of an area of intelligent activity. Descending, We saw that it was a sprawling assembly of structures, reminiscent of a beehive, but laid out on a grid. The probe landed in a empty grass field amongst the buildings. As it landed, We saw bipedal creatures fleeing. It appeared that they were unfamiliar with aircraft. Suddenly, we were stricken with shock. They were humans. There was something wrong, though. Their actions were... uncoordinated. After a few hours, a group approached the probe. Having completed language analysis, we understood the words one of them spoke:\n\"Hello? Is there someone in there?\"\n\nFrom the probe's speakers, We responded,\n\"I am Human. How did you come to be here?\"\n\nStrangely, one turned to another and seemed to ask it \"What's happening here?\"\n\nWe were puzzled. \"We are Human. We have dispatched this probe and its mother ship from a star system 500 light years away. It has been journeying for 550 years. This is the first time we have encountered intelligent life. How is it that your forms are human?\"\n\n\"This is the planet Earth. I am Tomás, and this is by brother Beorn. \"\n\nI. It was at that moment that we understood. This was the Homeworld. These humans were \"individuals\", yet to form a collective. These were us. ", "'First Contact'\n\nMuch to everyone on the vessel's relief, the aliens have not reacted in a hostile manner. They've left about a 100 meter perimeter around the craft and only one approaches at a time. Still, the fusion core remains armed. If anything goes south, we have orders to detonate. If anyone's vitals go out, the core arms with a 60 second delay. Only the captain and first officer have the reset codes. \n\nWe are running very loud, using omni-directional transmission equipment. The ship's directional communication systems have be shut down, and as a precaution, physically destroyed. Our reception equipment still functions, but for fear of triangulation command remains silent. Frankly, none of us want to hear from them anyway. The only message they will send is the command to detonate the core in the event that they determine the need.\n\n_____\n\n\"I, we?\"\n\nThe 'talks' (negotiations? research? communications?) have stalled. All over two simple words. \n\nFirst contact was only a three days ago. SOP (standard operating procedure), was to start with mathematics. This was remarkably successful. The aliens use base 16 mathematics (how convenient). Though lacking experimental confirmation, it is suspected that this is due to the presence of four 'task-oriented' appendages with 4 digits each.\n\nSOP proceeded to attempts at language based one on one communication. Attached to this transmission are video recordings of Alien speech (note: gesturing is almost entirely absent. The only instances of gesturing occur when the alien tries to reference to the speaker. It appears that the Alien is mimicking the speakers pointing motions.)\n\nWhen we proceeded to multiple persons, progress and quality degraded almost instantly. The alien could not distinguish the difference in meaning between 'I' and 'we'. When the second human was introduced, the aliens also introduced a second individual. When attempting to demonstrate via action the differences, the alien response was uniform.\n\nIf the statement \"We 'action' \" was made and the appropriate action was displayed both aliens would proceed to mimic it. When we attempted to return to \"I 'action' \" statements, the aliens became unresponsive. Upon repeated attempts the aliens appeared to display frustration, pacing slightly and eventually gesturing at the second person who was not performing the action. We repeated the \"I 'action' \" statement, but this time had both persons perform the action. The aliens promptly mimicked the action.\n\nAt this juncture, it seems we may have a fundamental communication flaw that cannot be rectified under SOP. Per, SOP we will attempt to trouble shoot the issue, but if it cannot be resolved within 14 (earth) days time we must abort and withdraw. We will leave a plaque that indicates our return in 1 (local) year's time. Hopefully new procedures can be developed to facilitate communication.\n\n", " \"DAE Writing Prompts?\" | 68 points\n\n \"I'll probably get downvoted for this, but I think this subreddit is\n awesome!\" | 47 points\n\n \"This is an example of a hivemind.\" | -5 points\n\n \"wat\" | 8 points", "So.... Ender's game?" ]

[ 2, 2, 3, 9, 11, 18 ]

[ "1395071322", "1395081214", "1395080299", "1395068862", "1395064202", "1395057979" ]

[ "In regards to a community, statistically speaking, normal is the common state of the majority. If ten people are in the group and eight of them tie their shoes with a double bow, then for the group, normal would be to tie a double bow.\n\nFor an individual, normal is statistically the most common way you do any given task or behave. If you brush your teeth every day for a year and for three fourths of that year, after putting toothpaste on your brush, you run it under the faucet before brushing. Brushing your teeth in this manner is considered normal because it was statistically the most common way you behaved.\n\nSo, what's it mean to be normal? I guess that depends on whether you're looking at a crowd or an individual. Do you want to be part of the crowd, or would you like to be an individual? \n\nSome people dream they can be both. \n\nSome people are idiots.", "\"Normal People Suck\"\n\nIt's a saying that I've repeated many times to many people. Never out of animosity or an intolerance of others, but always for other reasons. I supposed oftentimes it was out of lack of self-confidence in myself. I had always felt that I was different, and by saying \"Normal People Suck\", I was essentially just saying that I was \"not normal\" and being defensive about it, like saying \"You might think I'm weird but I'm still interesting!\".\n\nOver time, though, I've come to realize that there is no such thing as normal. We are all unique. I realized over time that the insecurities that I had growing up were not much different than those that others had as well. A not-perfect family? Growing up everyone else seemed to have one, but wow was I wrong there. Expectations to do one thing but actually the desire to do another? Gee, sounds like every single crappy teen movie that's ever been made. I had come to internally substitute the word \"normal\" with \"perfect\", and the reality is that nothing is perfect... and nothing is normal.\n\nThe only thing that's normal, in some sense, is abnormality. In fact, abnormality is so common that not only should it be accepted but it should also be embraced. I no longer use the term \"normal people suck\", because it might offend some people- particularly those who strive to be \"normal\". The unenlightened ones who don't understand that they should let their freak flag fly. Fly it high and proud, and become true to yourself, because then you will see that \"normal\" is just a state of mind and something that no one can ever truly achieve, kind of like perfection. A quest from normalcy is a quest to not be true to yourself, and one that will always lead to pain, living a life in fear.\n\nNormal is the opposite of what we should strive for. Normal is a state of not being true to yourself. Normal is also the balance to craziness in our lives. It's a safe haven yet an inhibitor. Normal is what I fight to avoid, and don't always win. Normal is a life without passion. When I die, hopefully a long time from now, normal is the last word that I want people to use when they describe me." ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1395105129", "1395110577" ]

[ "This thread has been linked to from elsewhere on reddit.\n\n\n - [/r/TadsPrompts] [\\[21st March 2014\\] A ten year old boy goes to Disney World with his family. At one point, they ride Space Mountain. When the ride emerges from the darkness, only the boy is left in the cars. Upon exiting the ride, he discovers the entire park is empty.](http://np.reddit.com/r/TadsPrompts/comments/20xwgp/21st_march_2014_a_ten_year_old_boy_goes_to_disney/)\n\n\n*^I ^am ^a ^bot. ^Comments? ^Complaints? [^Send ^them ^to ^my ^inbox!](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=totes_meta_bot)*\n\n", "The lights flickered once and in that split second I have never felt more afraid. I have no idea why, but my neck suddenly started to hurt really bad. I looked to my right (or left? I still don't have those two figured out... whatever, it's the side where your fingers make an L if you look at them and your hand isn't facing you) and my fear returned and I immediately cried out. My dad wasn't there! He had been sitting right there when we got on this ride, but he's not there anymore!\n\nMy heart starts beating really fast and my breathing matches it as I look around wildly. I look behind me and see that no one else is there. I begin feeling tears welling up in my eyes as the ride comes to a stop. The bars release and I get off as the first of my sobs escape me. Pretty much as soon as my feet touch the ground they give out from underneath me because of who I see in front of me.\n\nNo one. I don't see a soul in sight. Not mom, dad, Katy, or anyone.\n\n\"M-mom?! Dad?! Moooom!\" I scream with all my might. \n\nNo reply.\n\n\"Hello?!\" I yell to the barren theme park.\n\nAgain, no reply.\n\nI let out a long, laborious sob and cry softly, \"Hello?\"\n\n*He's over there*\n\nWhat? Did someone say something or was that the just the wind?\n\nI listen closely, but there's nothing, not even wind. I start looking around, trying to find... anyone, really. I know mom and dad always told me to stay away from strangers, but something tells me this is a special occasion. As I look around I let out a light yelp because a sudden stab of pain erupted in my neck. Once the pain subsided I begin walking down the walkways when it suddenly occurs to me that literally the only sound in the whole place is the sound of my footsteps, there were no birds or even bugs making noise.\n\n*How did this happen*\n\nThis time I know for sure that I heard someone talking, it seemed to be coming from all around me. Something about the voice made my hair stand on end and I begin running. I round the corner of a food stall and stop dead in my tracks. There, standing in front of the Haunted Mansion was an old man with funny looking clothes. Even though he creeped me out and every fiber in my body told me to run away, I still decided to talk to him, hoping beyond hope that he could help me.\n\n\"Um... hello?\" I said meekly when I got close to him, \"Can you help me, please?\"\n\nHe turned toward me and gave me the perfect grandpa smile, \"Hello there, son. How are you?\"\n\n\"I'm, uh, I'm lost.... I think. I can't find my parents or my sister and there's no one here.\"\n\nHe laughed knowingly at this, \"No. You're not lost, you're exactly where you're supposed to be. As for your family and everyone else, well, I think you may want to sit down.\"\n\nI look over to where he is gesturing and am surprised to see a bright bench (don't know how to describe it, it seemed like it wasn't actually painted or made of anything other than light or... something) that had not been there a moment before. Reluctantly I sit down and as I do realize my neck no longer hurts and my fears have disappeared as well. A faint whirring sound starts up, seeming to originate from the entrance of the park.\n\n\"Son,\" the man says as he sits down next to me, \"There was an, uh, *incident* and now you won't be able to see your family for a very long time.\"\n\nI should be feeling something, I know, but all I felt was peaceful, like I was lying in my mom's arms. I looked at him and asked matter-of-factly, \"What do you mean, sir?\"\n\nThat's when I recognized what the whirring sound was. It was the sound of sirens. That's also when I heard a voice, and I realized what happened.\n\n*I'm sorry for your loss, ma'am*", "\"Are you nervous?\" His father asked, ruffling Norm's hair with his left hand.\n\n\"No, dad. I'm fine.\" Norm insisted. He lied.\n\nHe was nervous. He had never liked rides like this one. They were too fast, too loud and too scary. Norman swallowed and took a deep breath, thinking of the ice-cream his dad would buy him after the ride was done. Chocolate ice-cream with cherry sauce on top.\n\n\"Okay, everybody!\" said an all-too-cheerful park attendant, \"Get ready to go out of this world! Strap in and make sure your buckles are done up tight. All adults, please ensure your children are strapped in successfully and that the bar sits in front of their chest.\"\n\nAt this, Normans father pulled at the seat-belt that strapped across Norm's chest, testing it for weakness.\n\n\"Daaad.\" Norm complained, embarrased.\n\n\"You know it's for your own safety, Sport.\" his father warned.\n\nSatisfied that the seatbelt and bar were working as intended, Norm's father sat back in his own seat and looked toward the track that lay in front of them. Norm was relieved that his father had given up checking on him. The swarm of butterflies that had invaded his stomache were whipping up a frenzied storm of nervousness and he did not want his father to see him.\n\n*Ice-cream*, he thought to himself, *Chocolate with cherry sauce*.\n\nThe ride kicked off with a rough jerk.\n\nNorm gasped unexpectedly and clutched at the bar with white-knuckled fingers. *Oh God oh God oh God oh God* he repeated in his mind. Normans father worriedly looked down at his son, but said nothing. *Chocolate with cherry sauce* he reminded himself, *Chocolate with cherry sauce*.\n\nThe first climb was an exercise in anxiety. The cart moved slowly, clacking against the rails below it with a horrid efficiency that filled Norm with dread. Norman tensed as they reached the end of their ascent. His stomache fell from underneath him as the cart flew into a steep descent, white air slapping against Norm's eyes with a sequence of swift, chilled buffets. He could barely hear a thing apart from his own heartbeat. The ground came rushing toward him at what seemed like an increasing pace. *Chocolate-cherry* he thought, *chocolate-cherry sauce*. He choked back tears and held onto the bar with increasing vigour. The far-off sound of the people aroun him squealing in delight sounded faint against his ears. The sudden change in direction hit like a cannonball, pumping Norman's torso full of adrenaline as a queasy feeling sunk in the pit of his stomache.\n\nThe track levelled out for a moment and Norman took the opportunity to take a breath; it ended up sounding closer to a dying man's desperate gasp for a last breath. His father looked down at him and smiled warmly. It managed to have absolutely no effect in relieving Norman. The worst part was just up ahead. The chamber of darkness sped toward them in a rush and Norman was engulfed in its oppressive blackness in an instant. All he could hear was his own heart, and all he could think was of cherry-chocolate ice-cream.\n\n*Almost over* he assured himself, *Just one final turn*. When the turn came, Norman almost cried in joy. The world began fading into view slowly, the distant lights of the departing tunnel forming a crisp view of a world that Norman missed so greatly; no stomache-pitfalls, no turns, no thrusts. Just his own two feet on solid ground.\n\nThe cart slowed down, clacking noisily as the breaked shuddered against the vehicle. Norman released his hold of the bar and began undoing the belt-buckle at his waist. His heart still slammed against the inside of his chest and his hands still shook, but he took increasing solace in the fact that he was going to meet his friend solid ground soon. Then Mum was going to take them to lunch. Then he was going to get chocolate ice-cream with cherry sauce on top.\n\nThe cart stopped with a snap and Norman was bumped forward. He stood up, brushed himself off and pushed past the turnstile to the exit. He ran as fast as he could to the exit where he knew his mother would be waiting. He ducked under the rows of rope that formed the line to the ride and sprinted, breathlessly to where his mother had promised to meet them; but she was not there.\n\nNo-one was.\n\nFor the first time since alighting the ride, Norm turned around. There was no line for the ride. There were no people smiling and chatting , coming off the ride shakily. There was no attendant. There was no music.\n\n*Where is everyone?* Norman panickedly thought.\n\nHe spun around, dizzying himself, desperately searching for someone - anyone. He threw himself into a half-stumble-half-run as he whipped his head from side to side. The hot-dog stand was unmanned. He ran toward the food-court, running through what should have been a bustling crowd of people, but was instead an empty, hollow theme-park.\n\n***\n\nAfter an hour of searching, Norman gave up. The sun began sparkling against the horizon, imbuing the park with an orange glow. Norman dragged his feet and looked down at the ground.\n\nHe had taken a red balloon and was pulling it along with him in his trudge toward the entrance. His parents told him that if they should ever get split up, they should meet at the entrance of the park to re-group. The huge gate loomed before him and Norman looked up, sniffling. In gigantic letting is read: DISNEY WORLD. Below it, nobody stood.\n\nNorm collapsed on his knees, releasing the balloon. He cried, wailing into his grubby hands." ]

[ 2, 7, 29 ]

[ "1395352287", "1395354733", "1395351729" ]

[ "When the guards were momentarily distracted by my diversion, I smashed the glass bell, snatched its treasure, and ran like my life depended on it. Glancing back, I could still see the bedlam I created by releasing a sackful of rats into their grand and opulent museum. You could barely hear the alarm klaxon blaring over the din of the shrieking crowd, especially the howls of perfumed hags with their dresses hunched up, staring at their dainty feet as the starving rats scurried about eating the hastily discarded desserts dripping with fat and the largesse of high society. I let a smile escape my lips.\n\n“Stop right there, thief!” a voice blared ahead of me. I’d been too busy looking back and enjoying my handiwork to notice the burly uniformed man, his club raised menacingly. All around, I could see guards sensing the commotion and blocking exits. They had already unmasked and detained my friends, their splayed forms on the polished marble floor struggling vainly beneath the steel boots of their oppressors. No way to escape now! Only the upper level remained accessible, but that was a dead end with a nice view.\n\nI had no choice. I ducked the guard’s lazy swing and darted up the steps parting the noble arrayed on the stairs. Wine glasses tumbled from fat hands adorned with more wealth than my entire neighborhood, my path forming a clattering wake of broken glass and faux-Chardonay stains.\n\nI reached the upper landing and made way to the railing overlooking the ceremony. The voices below hushed as they pointed me out with disdain. I jumped atop a table and balanced precariously near the edge. The guards had reached the top of the stairs, and were advancing, the hate burning in their eyes. They would reach me within moments.\n\nI pulled the priceless thing out of my pocket then, the object of my achingly planned and choreographed heist: the last remaining apple on the face of the Earth. I stretched out my arms and dangled it over the edge to a collective gasp. This simple thing held the key to our salvation, but they knew not. *The fools!* The industry moguls who had paved over land and ocean leaving no greenery untouched, the very ones parading their bloated carcasses of ostentatious and obscene wealth here, wanted to preserve the apple in a sterilizing bath of their toxic concoction. They held no shame.\n\n“Back off, or we both go flying.” I threatened the nearing guards, the salty sweat trickling down my nose.\n\n“Not so fast, young man,” came a musical voice, a bit out of breath.\n\nShe arose from the stairs then, a magnificent slim creature of high cheek bones, subtle shadowing around her stark blue eyes, the tassels of her blonde locks heaped above her heaving and generous bosom. I gawked. Not a wrinkle on her pristine yet taut face. Her name tag read *Gwendolyn, curator*. But like everything else in this sordid mockery of an educated society, once you peered under the gold facade of perfection, the rust and decay spoke in whispers if you’d cock your head to listen.\n\nHer aged voice, like that of a geriatric opera singer, betrayed her lustrous veneer, “If you wish to make a futile statement with your ignoble death, be my guest. Leap! The museum could use a new exhibit of blood spatter.” Below, the masses shuddered and backed away. She continued, “but would you mind putting down that priceless apple first? It’s the last one on Earth. And it’s not yours.” She parted her lips and smiled with perfect lipstick-stained teeth. \n\n“This apple is our salvation, not a thing to be leered at by the well-to-do. We need to plant it and grow more trees, not more factories polluting our bodies and souls!” I cried.\n\nThe aristocracy roared with laughter, never had they heard such effrontery. Her voice rang through and silenced them, “We have no need, our technology provides everything now!” She motioned with her hands to the wonders that lay beyond the large window, the glowing airships floating and teeming in the sky, “Besides, such knowledge has been lost to dusty history since time immemorial!” \n\n“We know the answer. My family line has passed it on. The only thing of worth in my inheritance, but I gladly accept it even so. The seeds must be planted.”\n\n“And fertilized with your shit?” That brought uproarious guffaws. “Your family’s teachings, sir, not my words. The Rosenshats, I believe?” She butchered my family name all for a cheap laugh.\n\nMy face reddened, “Look at yourselves! Your mind has wasted away. Even worse, not a single baby has been born anywhere on Earth for years. Humanity is dying. What this apple contains is the cure for society’s cancer. It will give children the nutrients and women the fertility your chemical soup cannot!”\n\nShe chewed her fingernails lost in thought, then spoke, “Very well, you’ve convinced me, young man. Surrender yourself, and I’ll see to it personally that your idea gets a fair hearing. You will be unharmed. You have my solemn word on this.” Her teeth gleamed like fangs ready for the kill.\n\nI knew artifice when I saw it. But I was trapped, what could I do? The moment lingered like morning fog before the sun drowned it with its warming rays. Desperation guided my hand.\n\nI took a glorious bite of the apple, tearing its red skin with my lust, crushing its sweet flesh, the juice dribbling down my chin. For a moment I was in nirvana as everybody stood aghast. My second bite tore out the apple core, and I swallowed it whole. I did not have time to savor more.\n\nThey came to their senses then, arms reaching, grabbing, tearing the apple from my grasp, the entire guard force scrambling to get a piece of me. With a sudden surge of energy, I rolled to the very edge. The hands left me knowing I would gladly take them along. Looking down at the hard marble floor below, I reached inside myself and found the courage I didn’t know I had.\n\nI pushed away and dropped through endless air, aiming for one particularly rotund and corpulent fellow unlucky enough to meander obliviously beneath me on the floor below. I landed atop the poor sod with a sickening thud and the awful crack of breaking bones. My left arm hung limply, but I could not say the man fared better. \n\nI scrambled through the exit before the guards knew what transpired. Running through the night headlong, the pouring rain drenched me to my skin, but I drank it all in, letting it wash away my sins. Humanity still had a chance, and I would take it for her.", "She reached out for it. He grabbed her wrist. He stared at her, and she pulled her hand back.\n\n\"It's the last one.\" She argued.\n\n\"I know. It's mine.\" He told her stubbornly.\n\n\"Give me one good reason why?\" She demanded, crossing her arms.\n\n\"Woman ate the first apple, and created all this sin.\" He gestured to the smoky city scape around them. \"It's only right, a man should eat the last one.\"\n\n\"Screw you.\" She said.\n\n\"Maybe after I eat my apple.\" He quipped, plucking the apple and biting into it. Evelyn walked away. Adam smiled and took another bite.", "Oliver and Sylvia were sitting down in a dead field in which they found the last apple on Earth.\n \n\"I can't help but see the irony here,\" said Oliver.\n\n\"Ugh. It wasn't an apple. It doesn't say that, that was some old white poet's idea\" replied Sylvia.\n\n\"I know, I know, and the devil doesn't have horns and isn't red with a pitchfork.\"\n\n\"Or *real*.\"\n\n\"And Christmas is pagan, and Jesus was named Joshua. And the cold doesn't get you sick and you can sleep with a concussion and blah and blah and blah.\"\n\nThey chuckled.\n\n\"Are you going to eat it or what?\" asked Sylvia.\n\n\"Why me?\"\n\n\"Because I don't like apples. And besides, there's no point.\"\n\n\"There's always a point.\"\n\n\"Shrug.\"\n\n\"Did you just verbalize 'shrug' instead of just shrugging?!\"\n\n\"Just eat the damned apple.\"\n\n\"Only if you eat half.\"\n\n\"Hah. Fine.\"\n\n\"Knife?\"\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\n\"Ah well. I'll just eat one half and save the other for you.\"\n\nHe did just that. In about two minutes the apple was just a core.\n\n\"Bleck,\" coughed Sylvia.\n\n\"That bad, eh?\"\n\n\"Just kinda tastes like nothing. And apples make my throat itchy.\"\n\n\"I liked it.\"\n\nAfter a moment of silence, Oliver exhaled through his nose and chuckled. Sylvia probed:\n\n\"What now?\"\n\n\"Well, it's funny. In The Bible, Eve eats the apple.\"\n\n\"Fruit. Eats the fruit. Probably pomegranate.\"\n\n\"Whatever. The fruit. Eve eats the fruit and because of that they end up in a new world, kicked out of their old one. \"\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"But their new one was better, it's our world. It has wrong so we know what's right, dirt so we know what's clean. Well that *was* our world.\"\n\n\"Okay...\"\n\n\"And here we are. At the end of the world. Dying. In some corner of some hot broken field *sharing* the last apple on Earth. But we aren't going anywhere afterwards, are we?\"\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\n\n\"So this world began and ended with an apple. If, you know, you believe that sort of thing.\"\n\nSylvia held back the correction, \"Yeah, I guess so.\"\n\n\"I guess, at least this time around, we both got to try it. That makes me happy. Happy to share the world's last fruit. Share it with you.\"\n\nSylvia smiled and laid her hand on his.\n\n\"So now what?\" asked Oliver.\n\n\"I guess we wait and watch until we die.\"\n\n\"You think we should die here?\"\n\n\"Where else?\"\n\n\"Yeah, I suppose.\"\n\nOliver bent over and picked up the apple core.\n\n\"What are you doing,\" asked Sylvia.\n\n\"I'm going to bury it.\"\n\n\"For?\"\n\n\"Who knows. Maybe another one will grow one day. Maybe this will be a new garden of Eden and it can start with an apple this time.\"\n\n\"The world's dead, Ollie.\"\n\n\"For now. It was dead before it was alive, too.\"\n\nOliver began clawing through the rocky soil until he was about four inches down. He kissed the apple core, tossed it in the hole, and re-covered it.\n\n\"That's it,\" said Oliver. \"Now what?\"\n\n\"I dunno.\"\n\n\"You want to sit and not talk and just think for a while like we used to do? I have a lot of thinking I want to get done.\"\n\n\"Sure, Ollie.\"\n\n\"I love you, Sylvie.\"\n\n\"You too.\"", "\"And in news today, the Dear Leader's ban on apples has finally come to fruition! There are no more apple trees remaining on earth thanks to the plant virus our Leader has created from his own tears.\"\n\n\"That's right, Pam. Our most gracious Leader made the right decision, don't you think? Nobody likes apples anyway. Their skin is so rough and disgusting, and the insides are sickly sweet. Just like the Revolution Party's enemies, right Pam?\"\n\n\"Absolutely, Bill. Anyone stupid enough to oppose The Glorious Revolution is just as awful as an apple. Thankfully, we don't have to worry about it anymore! Thank you, Most Magnificent and Loved Leader! And now onto sports. As usual, the Revolutionary team is steamrolling everything-\" *zap*\n\nLeroy sighed and watched the TV turn off.\n\nHe'd spent 10 years like this.\n\nWhen he was younger, he was an aspiring bioscientist. Worked up to his PhD just as the Dear Leader decided that biology wasn't a real science, and diverted all funding to his police force and the military. Leroy was forced to find another vocation, and ended up taking up his parent's fruit orchards. But slowly, the Dear Leader had decided that he didn't like most of the fruits he grew. And soon enough, Leroy wasn't left with much to plant.\n\nHe stared at the lonely tree sitting outside. It was mostly barren, and looked like it was going to fall over any second. It was surrounded by fields of rotting fruit trees. A single live tree, and it looked as dead as the trees surrounding it.\n\nA single fruit hung from the wilting branches.\n\nA shiny red apple.\n\nLeroy walked over to the tree, and stared at the apple for a bit. The last good fruit in his fields. Created after years and years of experiments to combat the Dear Leader's viruses. A fruitless war, he supposed (no pun intended), but this was the result. A withered tree, and an apple.\n\nLeroy plucked the apple from the tree. The branches gave it away easily, and the tree crumpled as he took the apple. The apple weighed heavily in his hands; nice and firm. He could feel its juiciness through his fingers.\n\n\"The last apple in the world, huh?\" he mused to himself. He didn't have any doubts. All of his former colleagues were either dead or working with the Dear Leader. There wasn't anybody else left to fight the viruses. And even with his own work... all he could produce was a single apple.\n\nA seedless apple.\n\nHe took a bite, and let the sweet juices flood into his mouth.\n\nHe grimaced.\n\nLeroy never liked apples." ]

[ 1, 3, 4, 4 ]

[ "1395491803", "1395471566", "1395458801", "1395469656" ]

[ "Yeah, nah. ", "This sounds like something straight out of tom robbins", "/r/worststory is perfect for this, people might be too high and mighty to contribute in this subreddit.", "Ask your mom. " ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 3 ]

[ "1395502113", "1395510018", "1395509175", "1395487302" ]

[ "The incessant, high-pitched chirping of crickets resounded through the crisp night air. The crops waved and bent in the light, warm wind, as if a ghostly army crept through the grain, revealing their presence in small gusts blowing against the faces of onlookers. As he walked through the wind-blown ripples of the moonlit sea of grain, he saw the movement of a leather-clad man, waving to him in the torchlight of the farmhouse. \n \n\"Jayce,\" the leather-clad man whispered as he approached, \"By the Grey, what were you thinking?\" \n \nJayce tossed a purse into his hands, the contents clinking as he caught it. He could not see Jayce's scarred and rugged visage under his hood, but the disdain towards him was unconcealable. Jayce was a professional; he had been caught twice, and practically vanished from his manacles twice. His technique was brash and hasty; he thought nothing of the difficulty of his assignment, and would not hesitate to kill for his prize, should the situation necessitate it. \n \nJayce spoke, the croak in his deep voice barely audible: \"Tell the Danzig Family they have my regards.\" \n \n\"You stole a trinket from the Wilholt Family... this will mean war, Jayce. You know that just as well...\" \n \n\"That's what they hired me to do,\" Jayce raised his voice in anger as he brutally stabbed the nearby wooden board \"I do not care for the politics of clans, and I do not care for their feuds. Just get that to Aldred and get my payment to me.\" \n \n\"Jayce, listen...\" \n \nHe was no longer there. Jayce had strolled back into the ocean of grain, shrinking with every step he took, prematurely vanishing as a cloud overwhelmed the full moon. \n \nHe had left his dagger in the notice board, but he seldom had use for it. The Guild knew that any notice that Jayce's blade struck was his property, so they would often leave it until he returned. \n \nThe leather-clad man crouched down as he felt the breeze on his face once more, to determine how wise Jayce was in deciding his next mark. The notice read, in a calligraphy common among thieves: \"Obtain the Heart's Respite Jewel, in the Danzig Estate.\" \n \nA skillful man, he thought, but he was far from politically wise. War was now certain.", "\"No no, Mr. Bedford, I'm not a devil, I'm an angel. See my wings and Halo? No silly, you're dreaming, close your eyes. You will see your family in heaven very soon. Goodnight.\" \n\nNatalia pushed the anesthetic into the old man's arm, and watched as the old man's eyes eased into a deep sleep.\n\nLetting out a breath that she didn't recall holding in, that had been a close one. Removing the IV from the man's arm, grabbing the sleep potion, and then adminstered a healing cream on puncture hole she had just made. After gathering all of her medical apparatus, Natalia began to scan the moonlit bedroom.\n\nWith a practiced grace, Natalia slipped around to the other side of the bed and to the small wooden nightstand. Grabbing the handle of the only drawer, Natalia slowly pulled the drawer open and quietly sifted through the the contents. A bound leather wallet containing a small amount of cash, an old silver pocket watch, and a wedding ring that looked to be made of pure gold. \n\n\"Fucking jackpot\" Natalia whispered as she stuffed all three items into her bra. \n\nA small bag lay by the bed of the bedridden man. Searching through the small handbag, she found a couple more dollars, a metallic pen that was rather heavy and a couple of old family pictures. Noticing that the pen was rather heavy, after considering for an unusually long amount of time, Natalia shrugged and stuffed that in too.\n\nAfter feeling satisfied that the man was wiped clean of value, Natalia carefully put the bag back just like she had found it, and with ethereal silence, floated out of the room.\n\nNatalia repeated this process with 3 other rooms in the building. Each time was the same process as before. Enter the room with a keycard, put the IV in the patient (hopefully without the withering asshole waking up), administer the knock-out serum, mumble some bullshit about god, heaven, or family (optional), and then sift through the valuables. Sometimes the patient protested, sometimes they fell for the angelic ruse, either way, they never fully realized what was happening before she had time to put them into manufactured rest.\n\nAfter leaving the fourth and final room of the night, Natalia slipped out the backdoor of the nursing home and glided down a dark road. It wasn't long until arriving at the run-down apartment complex, Natalia pinched the safety pin near her collarbone and retrieved the key that was attached. \n\nAfter several failed attempts of getting her jittery hand to get the key into the keyhole, Natalia grabbed her own hand and steadied the brown key until it found it's mark. Grinding in protest throughtout the process of opening, the familiar click of an unlocked door greeted Natalia. \n\nWalking through the dingy wooden entrance, Natalia waited until the door was completely closed before erupting into a wild laughter. \n\nThe teenager's head buzzed with a rush of endorphines. Chills ran down Natalia's smooth back, summoning goosebumps over every inch of her silky smooth body. The thrill of the night's successes felt almost as good as the bounty itself. Almost.\n\nWalking into the bathroom, Natalia looked into the mirror and nearly burst into laughter once more. An angel looked back at Natalia, tan cloth with white cotton wings sewed onto the back of it. A halo floated above her head made from wire, pipe cleaners, and yellow glowsticks. In the light she looked so goofy, the outfit was a complete mess when revealed, but in the mystery of the night, the outfit was enough to fool the confused and decaying mind of an aging person. \n\nStripping out of the makeshift angel costume, Natalia plopped herself down on her couch and took off her bulging bra, out spilled a little over a hundred dollars in cash, a still ticking silver pocketwatch, a gold locket, two wedding rings, a pair of jade earrings, a thin wristwatch, and an uncomfortably heavy pen. \n\nOvercome with the success of tonight's bounty, Natalia nearly leapt off the stain-encrusted couch and jumped around her apartment, twirling and dancing around the apartment in only a pair of pink panties, Natalia danced and sang with unmatched enthusiasm, singing whatever came to her mind, and letting her happiness choose the flow of her body. Growing too tired to continue the festivites, Natalia cupped her bare breasts and lay on the moldy carpet smiled at the ceiling. Breathing heavily with her back pressed against the green floor for several more minutes, soaking in the joy of the simmering euphoria. \n\nAwakened by the sound of an alarm. Natalia flung herself on the couch and sunk her hand deep into crevice of the couch cushions. Pulling out the source of the annoying noise, the half-naked woman opening the ancient flip-phone. Seeing the time, Natalia hurried to kitchen, turned the coffee maker on, and sprinted to her room. Grabbing her only of khaki's, sniffing several socks littered on the ground before finding a 'clean' pair, and putting on a blue polo that read \"Oasis City Nursing home\" and hurried back to the kitchen. Pouring more coffee onto the kitchen counter than into her thermos, the pretty little thief rushed out the door and back to the building she had visited nearly five hours earlier. \n" ]

[ 2, 7 ]

[ "1395502807", "1395508408" ]

[ "He was her friend. Together, ether through luck or divine intervention. Together they had ripped that tyrant from her throne. He took her place as the emperor. He was never fit for that job. Just as she was about to leave he brought down her elevator. He thrust our pas emperor upon her and cast her into the abyss. But he was her friend.\n\n[portal 2]", "Dig, dig, dig, dig...\n\nPeople began to flee the town two days ago, but I'll have none of it! I was born here, raised here, and eventually, plan to die here. But not today... I don't care what the others say about the moon \"crashing into the earth\". I'm not going anywhere, Clocktown is my home! All I need to do is keep digging this panic-room, and I'll be just fine....dig, dig, dig, dig.....\n\n...say, has the moon always been falling that fast? Wow, I had no idea it'd be that big...the ground is beginning to shake violently. Oh dear, oh god....I'm such a damned fool....\n\n...a little boy? What are you still doing here?! I am an old man, I have lived my life. If I am to die, so be it... but this I cannot take.\n\nHa...at least I will not die alone. An ocarina eh? You play well. Let's just sit here together then, as you serenade the world's end...\n\n.....\n\nThe towns people say the moon is falling, and that we are all doomed. Pah! Those cowards can run, I'm staying right here! I may be old, but I'm not dead! All I need is my shovel, the fire in my belly, and this panic room will be dug in no time! One scoop at a time, just need to dig...\n\n...dig, dig, dig, dig...\n\n*[Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask]*\n-------------\nFirst time doing one of these things, thanks.", "The drugged out crackhead ran down the darkly lit streets of my little corner of town. He gobbled up every pill he could find, not pausing between eating those little circles, as he ran around our town block hitting every street. There were police roaming the streets that night, apparently looking for the pill-popping hoodlum wearing a yellow hoodie with an exceedingly large head & mouth. Every once in a while, the criminal would take some PCP and go chasing after the cops, until he tired himself out. It was all quite terrifying, so I hid in my apartment videotaping the mayhem from the window. [pacman]", "\"The horn called us. Called for War.\n\nWhen we exited our barracks, we where excited about the War. The War that had been going on for countless centuries, was now coming to its end.\n\nThe ancients called Heroes! we thought, it's going to be our last struggle, we thought.\n\nBut then, something strange happened. In the midst of our green lands, a Lich was there. A friend, but... he should have been on the other side. \n\nAnd thenwe understood.\n\nBoth the ancients called Heroes forth. Radiant and Dire, they melded, forgot their ideals, just for a chance to fight, and win. Fire and Ice, Light and Dark, Heroes melded, forgetting their rivalries, just for the final fight. It should have been glorious. We should have clashed with the Dire, and won. We should have stripped their defences and destroyed their foul ancient.\n\n\nBut the Heroes thought differently. \n\nThe first treason happened instantly.\n\nThe Lich ate our sorcerer.\n\nThey didn't care for us. They have more than this fight, they have a life outside the ancient.\n\nFor them, we are just pawns.\n\nFor the first time, we felt powerless. \n\nBut we fought on. Because that is what we had to do, for the ancient. \n\nFor us.\n\nBut when we started fighting, the Heroes did something worse than eating us. They killed us. Us who fought with them, on their side. All the while mocking us.\n\nI am the last of my wave. I won't last long.\n\nSo, this is my advice.\n\nDon't come here.\n\nHere be death.\"\n\n\"So, Lich, why are you fighting for us? Shouldn't you be with the Dire?\"\n\n\"I don't like their fountain... too much lava for my ice\"\n\n[Dota2]\n\nFirst post here, hope it reads well enough\n\n\n\n\n\n\n" ]

[ 2, 2, 3, 5 ]

[ "1395604828", "1395612376", "1395599216", "1395607995" ]

[ "\"--the bears are 3 pts. down, I dunno Bob, seems to me their offense didn't quite--\"\n\n*Click*\n\n\"--you sonovabitch, Snoodlie! I knew you were sleeping with that whore Clariss--\"\n\n*Click*\n\n**\"Isn't there anything good on?\"**\n\n**\"Doesn't seem like it.\"**\n\n\"--well zoinks, scoob, it's, like, super scary down here, ya know?\"\n\n\"ree, Raggy, ruh--\"\n\n*Click*\n\n\"--that's right Susan, *Immortality!*\"\n\n\"Immortality, Jim?\"\n\n\"Immortality, Susan. The greatest quest of all. The thing mankind has strove for for as long as human have kept their history!\"\n\n\"Wow, Jim. That's great. It almost seems too good to be true.\"\n\n\"I thought so too, Susan, but our Patented Individual Immortality kit is far from it. I devoted my life to finding it a few years ago, I decided if I was going to spend my life alone, at least I could spend it that way forever. Now, everyone can't help but call me and get my product! (Even Tracy^thestupidbitch ).\"\n\n\"What was that, Jim?\"\n\n\"Oh, nothing, Susan. I was just about to say the best part! It's affordable to anyone! Even people with practically no income can get it!\"\n\n\"Gee, Jim, really?\"\n\n\"Really.\"\n\n\"Well gosh, it must be expensive?\"\n\n\"It's practically free!\"\n\n\"Is it hard to get?\"\n\n\"Unlimited supply, Susan. We got operators on call 24/7! Call the number below^(exceptyoutracy) and you can afford it for *one*, that's right *ONE,* easy payment of solitude!\"\n\n\"Solitude, Jim?\"\n\n\"Solitude, Susan. All you have to do is sign a little, silly piece of paper.\"\n\n\"Sounds permanent, Jim. Why would all the lovely folks out there want to sign away their ... what did you call it?\"\n\n\"Solitude, Susan. Aren't you tired of people hurting you? That's right, you, the man or woman sitting on the couch, wondering why you've given your heart to yet ANOTHER person only to have it torn out! Teach Trac-- I mean, whoever, a lesson! Well, we have the answer at I^3. We provide *Immediate* services. We ensure *Individuality.* Most of all, we give you *Immortality!\"* \n\n\"Well you heard it folks! Call the number below for the operators with I^3 to get your own Immortality!\"\n\n*Click*\n\n**\"Dude is seriously butthurt over a breakup.\"**\n\n**\"Right? Like, get over it, man.**\n", "Nakajima set the papers down with wide eyes.\n\n\"You know what you've done here, John,\" he said. \"You've found it. The fountain of youth.\" \n\n\"Yes,\" replied John Wilson, forlornly. \"My research also shows that it's possible to live forever with the simplest of surgeries. Just a quick gland removal and...\" \n\n\"And you'll live forever, but never love again.\"\n\n\"I have to tell you, Frank, I don't plan to publish this paper.\"\n\nNakajima was incredulous. \"This may be the most important scientific finding of our generation. The implications, John. Do you know what one could accomplish if one could live forever? Imagine Newton, Einstein, Socrates! What would we learn if they could live forever?\" \n\nWilson sighed. \"But never loving? Never once feeling love. Theoretically, you can never have loved. To test this you would need to remove the part of the brain that loves from an infant child, Frank. You would deny that child the ability to ever love anyone. For eternity. Is that not hell?\"\n\n\"Oh come now. You're a scientist. Not a politician. Not an ethicist. The pursuit of knowledge is its own reward. It's your job to wonder, to test, to explain. Not to worry about repercussions.\"\n\n\"That's a very convenient way of looking at things. I wished I shared that view, Frank, I really do. Call me a romantic, but a world without love. Who would want to live there? A single life without love. Is that a life worth living?\"\n\n\"Perhaps you are overestimating the worth of love. What has love done, really? Love is fleeting. Love is jealous. Love is impatient and unkind. Love makes one do violence upon those closest to us. A life without the constraints of petty emotion. It would be a blessing!\"\n\n\"No. You're overestimating the worth of science. Love makes us realize the world is not comprised solely of us and us alone. Without love, why cure diseases? Why write sonnets? Why do anything at all? We would all stagnant. We would all be living dead. Forever. I can't do it, Frank. I'm destroying all my research.\"\n\n\"People have other motivations besides love for other people, John. Love is a *thing*, yes, a wonderful thing. But not the end all be all of existence. We aren't here solely to love. I say we exist to help the universe explain itself.\"\n\n\"But we might be here only to love! The universe doesn't seem to care about you or I. It doesn't seem to care whether or not it's explained or understood. But Sue, Frank, she cares. Joan cares.\"\n\n\"We can't saying 'caring' is the point either. We are not qualified to make any conclusions whatsoever about the point of life. All we can do is try our best to explain the phenomena around us.\"\n\n\"We are qualified. We are human beings. We love, don't we? I'm destroying my research. I've thought about this a long time. Some doors should remained closed. Let's say I publish. Let's say this research gets into the wrong hands. Oppenheimer always regretted the bomb, didn't he? I couldn't live with myself. Call me cowardly...\"\n\nFrank Nakajima watched John leave. In a moment, his entire life flashed before his eyes. As a child, regarding his mother without feeling. As a youth, holding hands with Britney after class because he felt he should, not because he wanted to. Even his wife, Susan, he felt no emotions toward. He sometimes wondered if she knew, but only briefly. There was work to be done. \n\nHe flipped through his rolodex. There was a surgeon. A friend. He found the card.\n\n\"Helen?\" he called.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Get me Terry Isen on the line.\"" ]

[ 3, 6 ]

[ "1395796898", "1395774282" ]

[ "\"Jason your section in the will says that to get anything you have to find nine letters from nine people to get it,\" the lawyer said.\n\nAre you fucking kidding me. First he spends most of my damn life away on some stupid business trip, robbing me, his *only son*, out of a father. Now to get a fucking inheritance from the bastard he wants me to go on some \"quest\" to get letters that would probably just be him telling me to fuck off? Makes me hate him even more than I did. \"Seriously?\" I screamed. \"He wants to send me on a damn journey to get anything, while his cousin he only met a year ago gets 300,000 dollars? What the fuck!\"\n\n\"JASON!\" My mother said freaked as usual.\n\n\"He says that what you will get after will make up for any trouble you will face,\" the lawyer said. \"He left this note to tell you the first place to go.\"\n\n\"Get after? GET AFTER! The only thing I ever wanted from that fucker was to have fucking normal childhood! Is he gonna give me that?\" I screamed, kicking my chair to the floor. I picked up that damn note and walked out of there. I didn't give a shit about what everyone else was getting from him anyway.\n\nWhen I got home I sat down and stared at the note I had in my hand for what seemed like hours. Until the curiosity won me over and I opened it, it read, \"I know I've been a terrible father, not even going to one of your school events or anything. I really wish I had. but I couldn't come home and look you in the eye knowing what I've done. But you can learn what I've done only by searching for the other nine letters I've left for you. The first is actually in this city, it's with the mayor. Go to his secretary on the third of April at 3:30 pm and ask to see him and say you are my son, she'll let you in.\"\n\nAre you kidding me, more of his fucking \"you'll know in due time\" shit. This makes me hate him even more. Does he think I'm going to be impressed by him saving the mayor when he was young or something? That it'll make up for him being missing most of my life? Ugh.\n\nAs per his instructions, I went to the mayor's house, on the third of April, at 3:30 pm. Surprisingly my telling his secretary who I was actually worked! Hah! For once he wasn't a neglectful self-centered asshole. After a few minutes I finally spoke up and said, \"um, sir? I'm Greg Jaston's son?\"\n\n\"Ah! Yes, he said you'd come by soon,\" he said searching through his desk. \"Alright here it is, the letter he gave to me about a month ago.\"\n\n\"Thank you, I'll read it when I get home.\"\n\n\"No, he wanted me to give you a *partial* explanation to his... behavior, he knew what he was doing, ignoring you and all. All those 'business' trips were actually him trying to pave a way for to become a very successful person. He wanted for you to have the best future possible. So he spent his time doing nothing except putting as much money as could in a series of bank accounts, which when your done with this journey would make you the third richest *non*-billionaire in the world.\"\n\n\"I don't care about money, I wanted a fucking a childhood from him!\"\n\n\"Don't you see, he was protecting you by not being near you. He wanted to see you everyday, he carried around a picture of you everywhere he went. Every second of the day was him trying to make *you* a better person than him. He saved me and countless other people for no other reason than him not wanting anyone to get hurt.\"\n\n\"Yeah sure next your gonna tell me he spent his time saving kittens from trees and feeding the homeless.\"\n\n\"He didn't do that, he was proud of what you did on your own and wanted the world to be your sandbox and have nothing to stop you from living your dream, no matter *what* it was; go to school where ever you like, meet your dream girl or guy, have a family, and do what you want. That was what he wanted for you, not to have good childhood and spend the rest of your life alone and in some shitshack working at McDonalds.\n\n\"He had a disease you see, they said he'd only live to see forty he new he wouldn't see any grandkids he'd have. So he didn't want you to have any good memories of him so that you would strive to be the opposite of him, be the best father you could be, be the best *person* you could be. Do you understand?\"\n\nI fell silent, I had a million things I wanted to say to him, none of them could amount to anything though, I had hated a man that had nothing but love for me and I had no Idea. I hated nothing but an illusion, one final trick by a man I didn't know in the slightest.\n\n>I really liked writing this one, and can I just say, I would love to see someone make this into a book, it'd be one of the best things I've read probably. Also this was probably the longest comment I've ever made to reddit.", "This is my first time posting, here goes.\n\nFinally, the last one, the one that would free him from this bloody wild goose chase. All the letters he recieved were from either old pals of his or guys from his unit back in Vietnam. All them were pretty much the same story, how great he was, the things he did and all that. But none of them said anything why his father was, his father. A cold, unforgiving, paranoid bastard. A man who was barely home and buried himself from his work. But at the time, for some reason, Michael felt that this had to be done. But now he saw it as a complete waste of time. \"Well here it is, 600 Llanfair Rd.\" he said. It was a two story, colonial style house with a nice kept lawn and a big old spruce tree in the front. And barely, just barely, Michael could see a pool with a pool noodle in it. \"Great,\" Michael thought to himself, \"another old geyzer with kids.\" Nonetheless, Michael knocked on the door. After a few moments, the door opened to something Michael did not except. He expected a 70 year old fat man with bald hair and eyeglasses but instead meet a relatively young 40ish year old man that was quite tall and lanky. \"Hello, how can I help you?\" said the man. Michael paused for second and replied \" Uh, yes, I am Michael Finn and I was wondering if you have a letter from my father, John Finn.\" The man paused for a second and said \" Ah, yes, your father mentioned that when he died someone named Michael would come around, please come in. The name is Matthew by the way, Matthew Todd.\" \"Thank you.\" stammered Michael. He walked in and was lead into the living room, where Matthew gave him the sealed letter. Michael stared at the letter and said, \" You do know why I am getting this letter right?\" \"Yes I do,\" said Matthew. \"So tell me, how do you meet my father?\" \"Oh that, well you see, I can not tell you much but since your dad is dead, I can tell a little more then I am suppose to,\" said Matthew. \n\nThat statement 'I can tell a little more then I am suppose to' caught Michael's attention and he perked up.\" You see, when I was about 28 years old, I worked for the FBI, your dad was CIA. We were on a job together as part of a task force and we discovered that there was a chemical attack planned on the New York subway system.\" We tried to stop them, which we did, but not before one of the terrorists were there way to release sarin gas into Penn Station. We managed to intercept him, but I managed to get my self poisoned. Your dad pulled me out there, risking his own life, to get me the antidote. It was for him that we managed to stop another Pearl Harbor or 9/11. It was right after that you see that he requested a desk job. You see, not everyone made out alive, as you could imagine, but his first fiancee was killed during the attack. He became withdrawn and cynical and I suppose he never quite got over it, but yeah.\"\n\n Michael stood there in silence for what seem like an eternity. \"Oh by the way, that letter, also contains the inheritance, so if you want, you can open it right now.\" said Matthew. Michael did not hear him, he kept turning the words over and over in his head. Lost, and a little confused, Michael opened the envelope. There was a letter and there was not much on it, it read \n\" Dear Michael, \n If you are reading this, then that means I am dead. I just want to say I am sorry about not being there for you. It just that I could never really forget about that day and how close you were to dying. You see on that day, you were suppose to be there too, with Monica. But you were sick that day and stayed home. After her death, I just kept seeing her face in your's and just could not take it. I am sorry that I neglected you and I am proud of what you have become. In the envelope, there is a picture of us happy and I always carried that around with me. Just remember son, I will always love you. \nFrom, Dad.\"\n\nMichael finished reading the letter and took the photo out. It showed him, being help up by his dad, in a crisp spring day, his curly hair flopping in the wind but more importantly, the smile on his dad face, so youthful and vibrant, the face before he became burdened with work and the tragedy he had. Michael just stared at it and promptly fell to the floor, finally crying, feeling sorry for his dad. " ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1395797260", "1395789739" ]

[ "The thunder of shells and the clap of rifles still echoed through the valley, war cries and dying screams still in their ears, but when they came together, those noises were mere echoes, silenced by the pens of diplomats a thousand miles away. Historians would say that the war ended with those words, those crafty men signing away the lives of others, but a hundred thousand veterans and a hundred million more would say it ended with a duel between great men.\n\nOn one side stood the General, back straight and sword drawn. Clean creases in his trousers, brilliant white tunic adorned with medals and ribbons, a beret bearing four silver stars, all marked the General, even in the midst of the killing grounds. Pride held his face - pride in the camouflaged men behind him, pride in his country, pride in himself. Honor kept the pistol at his hip, rank kept the rifle from his hands, and duty put his boots in the mud in no-man's land. At the front he stood, a shining beacon to guide them forward, to show the world what he and his nation were capable of, to show them what victory meant.\n\nOn the other stood the Mercenary, hunched and sore. Red blood and brown mud marked his pitch black uniform, clinging to the hems of his jacket and cap, covering his fatigues, caked in his unkempt hair. Desperation drew his face taut, but resolve showed through in his eyes - resolve to save his comrades, resolve to save his homeland, resolve to save himself. Spent ammo kept his revolver in his coat, a jam kept his rifle on its sling, and fury drew a steel trench digger as his only remaining weapon. Behind him, routed men ran for their lives, but he stood his ground, not for glory, not for honor, not for victory - only to buy time.\n\nThey met, shovel against blade, even as the guns went quiet and the rain grew louder. The General was educated, skilled, deadly even with a sword; the Mercenary was vicious, experienced, and fighting for life - but it was not enough. The General drew blood, but only a little; the Mercenary lost ground, sinking deeper into the mud with each step. Soldiers turned eyes and reporters turned cameras from the quieted lines to the furious duel. Still they both carried on, too proud or blind to see their war was over, striking and feinting and sinking ever deeper into the mire. The watching masses placed their personal bets; the General still pressed his advantage, but the Mercenary had not - would not - give up. With baited breath they watched honor overcome resolve, wondering what dirty tricks the Mercenary hid up his sleeve.\n\nSuddenly it ended, almost too fast to see. A sword stroke went wide; the General's boot stuck in the muck, and while he stumbled the Mercenary drove the sharp edge of his shovel into the General's side, cutting until it met spine. Red stained the General's pure white, and he fell into the mud, already taking his last breaths. Standing straight, the Mercenary stared down quiet guns, and the soldiers stared down their commander's slayer. No shot came, only heavier rain, cleaning the muck from his clothes. Eventually, satisfied in his safety, he turned to walk away.\n\nThen there was a shot. In the General's hand, his pistol, holstered by honor that had disappeared with his wound. On the Mercenary's jacket was a new spot of red, and from his jacket came his revolver. He spun, aimed, and fired all in one motion, and the General moved no more. There he stood, revolver held steady, his clean black a far cry from the filthy white of the General's tunic. Finally he emptied his last shell to the ground and turned again, walking away as though unwounded. So it ended - with a show of true honor and resolve.", "They called it the battle of the century. Ever since Lord Goliath brought down the one shepherd boy who dared defy us, the land of the Philistines and the land of the Semites has been wracked by conflict. From Hellean crusades to Sword Buddhists coming down from the steppes to suicide bombers praising Yahweh as they vaporize dozens, this land has never known peace.\n\nEven as I disembark from my APC with my squadmates, I never know when my last moment will be. Will it be in the shanty of New Judah, or to a Novgorodian rifle in the hands of a teenager fresh out of Pashtunistan? I don't know. Is that man leaning out of the window replacing tiles or loading a rocket launcher? Is the truck with a family inside filled with explosives? \n\nThis silent war is like an inferno from the pits of Tartarus, like the flames from Dagon's sacred rage. It's hard to tell when- *if* -this conflict will end. \n\nBut I was there the day that Goliath slew David. And I was there the day that David slew him back.\n\nDuels have been outlawed for a century, after the Thirteenth Semitic Revolt. We lost half of our officer corps to the concept of 'honour' right before they rose up, and a hundred towns burned because we were an army of lions led by a division of asses. \n\nBut that day, United Empires repealed that law, just for an hour. The fate of two peoples rested on that simple sixty minutes, and the outcome of the oldest form of war.\n\nSea-King Goliath the Fifteenth had come down from his throne on Mount Arrarat, on another royal inspection of the lands that his forefathers had conquered from the Tyrrhenian. David, Shepherd of the Semites, had come up from his hut in the centre of New Judah to meet him.\n\nA million people, of a million fractured faiths, came to watch. The Shepherd flung his stone, and the Sea-King swung his blade. A groan came from the Semites as a single head bounced upon the sand, and a single body thudded to the ground.\n\nOur Lord roared his victory to the heavens, his triumph echoing from Phoenicia to Athens to Londonium to Oslo. His people roared back, proclaiming his name in an endless chant. \n\nBut then a single shot rang out, one that was heard from a billion televisor screens and two billion radios around the world, rousing Gilgamesh from his slumber and Dagon from his throne. The world held its breath as Atlas shrugged and Goliath kneeled, felled by a simple shepherd boy.\n\nThe Semites are free now, freed by the courage that can only be held by a child. David, the new Shepherd of the People of Israel and the Halidom of Canaan, cast out the people of the Tyrrhenian from the land of the Phoenicians. The United Empires gave the Seven Nations a mandate, one to uphold the Halidom and to hold down the Sea-King's throne. \n\nThis war is not over, and perhaps it shall never be.\n\nBut it nearly ended the day that Goliath slew David, and the day that David struck down Goliath.\n\n**FIN**" ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1395967772", "1395951960" ]

[ "They rose swift from the forest, once again into the ancient bowers which had been their haunts, and occasionally their home in times long since passed. They stretched, their movements fluid as water and swift as the wind, seeming to pass from one position or one place to another never truly occupying the space in between, as if their very existence was some queer trick of mind or light. Their eyes now glowed with mischief and a kind of predatory hunger. Thin, fair lips drew back to reveal teeth that seemed to glow in the light of the stars, white as virgin winter snow. They turned their eyes towards the world they had been absent from for so very long.\n\nThey had abandoned this place, this foreign world, long ago as their world was stricken by civil war and strife, and foul magicks tore it asunder. A few scouts had returned on occasion, to see what remained. The people of this land upon which their tribe had arrived had still told stories of their people, of wicked grins and glowing eyes coming from the forests, of the beings that performed the shifting of skins, of forms, as easily as a man might change jackets. They had used them as a symbol of the wild places where man would not dare to tread. And the scouts had indulged in some mischief as was natural, committing the acts of very acts of kidnapping and replacement that the stories had told of. But man made very poor servants, slow to grow and quick to die, a flicker of a candle in the wind outlasts their life span, and they were weaker, slower, and stupider than any amongst the kind of the invaders. Still, they were entertaining for a brief while. And died soon enough that their novelty was scarcely done before their life ended with it.\n\nStill, even the scouts had not been here in many ages. Last they told of men coming to the shore of the wild places with great ships carved with dragons. Perhaps those men yet remained...or at least their descendents. Now, near the place of the last scouts they looked around at the world around them...and found it alien. Their noses as they detected a strange acrid smell and their sharps eyes glowing with wickedness were lidded quickly, and hands thrown up to protect. \n\nThe land was bright, and for a brief moment they wondered if they had come when the great orb of fire in the sky of this pathetic mortal world had not yet taken its leave. But no, it remained night, their exclusive domain, which they had always ruled. And yet all around light glowed. One of their number reached his life magick deep into the soil and found that the trees that grew their were not the ancient wood that the scouts had known, but quicklings still foreign to the soil. They looked at the world, their arrogance shaken as they paused to try and comprehend this strange land. Then they shrugged and began leaving the wood. The world was even more queer, with woods being a scarcity and stone dominating the landscape... but not the stone of the high mountains that stretched their roots to the world's core...but a kind of...patterned rock. Some was black as night, well night in the old times, and some was nearly white. All was strange. And now higher than trees rose many monoliths with strange skeletons of hard metal and translucent planes like ice making up much of it. And now they saw something queerer still... carriages, chariots, moving without any clear beast. They glowed strangely, eerily, as they made their way down the tar black stone paths, a kind of fireless light erupting from lidless eyes and spewing acrid smoke as they moved. Inside dwelt the quicklings, children of men.\n\nThe visitors from another world set down a white, and soon decided to cross the black river that was stone...or tar...or perhaps some strange material dragged up from a realm unknown to even the kind of the strangers. As they crossed a carriage barreled along, spewing smoke and light like a great fire. The leader of the shifting spirits gathered his fury and prepared to unleash the wrath of a thousand storms on the quickling and his strange chariot shell. He sent out tendrils of magic in preparation...and was struck with fear, as his cold heart chilled to rival the frosts of the far north. The chariot contained within it the ancient bones of the mountains that were anathema to the visitors, melted down from the dust that settled in rocks or along the mountain into a more solid form. The scouts had told of weapons made of this material...but never like this. Never so pure, forged so strongly. Barely was there time to dart away from the roaring thing that was so horrid, even moving like the swiftest of winds. Now fear struck the hearts of all the foreigners... presently they turned back to the woods and reopened the door to another world through which they came. The Queen would not like this.", "He had slumbered for so long. His twisted appendages flowing with the current, limp, lifeless. His dark visage, uncorrupted by the touch of humanity.\n\nAnd something bothered Him. A million fathoms below anything else, and deep in slumber. And yet, He was bothered. The murky pressure of the zone lines kept him afloat. His grand, glorious mind had awoken.\n\nSomething was off. The darkness was impenetrable, a thick blanket, obscuring the dark horrors that lay in it. It had changed, mutated. It turned corrupt.\n\nThe unblinking eye opened, filmy from a millennia of sleep. Thousands of plots and plans, schemes and subterfuges, all to purge this world of it's stinking filth.\n\n*Humanity.* The darkest monsters, even though they recoiled in horror of His visage, they were the true Death. They would go on to wipe worlds, scourge the Earth, and order things. Tiny, insignificant dust that would always multiply, creating the annoying film that was fun to play in, but grew cumbersome after time passed.\n\nAnd they had corrupted His slumber. He had not known how long, nor why He could not feel some of His multifarious appendages. He never had felt this... *weakened*. He contained the sickness. He forbade Himself from thinking what the result of this sickness would be, on His immortal form.\n\nThis displeased the Elder God. Rising from His murky waters, He slowly combed the waters to find the source. His eye, used to such darkness, easily detected the faintest glimmers of light. There were none.\n\nNo scales were left to reflect anything. Nothing was baiting another, conniving to make a meal. The water was empty. He was alone.\n\nInfuriated, He gathered all of His strength, and propelled himself above. The higher he got, the more corruption was present. This.. corruption... that humans had made themselves. It was dark, deadly. Impermeable, unnoticeable, mercurial, and yet an ever-present threat. \n\nThere remained no flash of scale, no brush of feather, no itch of tentacles dragging. He had almost burst to the surface, but a strange and foreign emotion made Him freeze. This emotion was unknown to Him, but it sped up His heart.\n\nThe humans had managed to corrupt far more than they should have. This substance, this dark power, was too much for Him to handle. His massive, beating, chamberous heart had sped up. He was feeling... *unsuited*.\n\nIgnoring the unknown chemical metamorphosis, He burst to the surface. The world was much different than He imagined. The water glimmered a strange color, corrupted by the humans. It was a bright, luminescent green that glowed the color of phosphorous at night. \n\nHe theorized that the water had changed Him, was what forced Him to decay.\n\nHorrified, He swam down, blazing, and yet the corruption reached. This thing, He searched the human knowledge for, was *radioactivity*. All living organisms were born and fed by it, and grew sickly if it was corrupted by *humans*.\n\nSmashing through zone layer after zone layer, He also identified the emotion that made His heart beat so. It was an emotion that humans frequently felt when they encountered His twisted visage. *Fear*.\n\nThey had manged to corrupt Him.\n\nHe was afraid.\n\nAnd alone.\n\nDefeated." ]

[ 6, 9 ]

[ "1396086987", "1396086626" ]

[ "\"I love you\"\n\nJesus fuckballs on a flaming shitstick I met him yesterday. He is going to think I'm crazy. \n\n\"Lol forgive my friend she decided to textrape me.\"", "*“I would bang you if I had the fucking chance.”* I typed it slowly and carefully, reading it over repeatedly so there wasn’t any typos. For the past week, I’ve been trying to guess whether Isabel wanted to do it or not. Well, fuck it, not anymore… I’m just going to make a bold, assertive move and see how she takes it. Even if she is the most beautiful girl I’ve met, trying to spend more than one week for sex is just way too much work. If she says yes, then good for me. If not, then whatever, there’s plenty of fish in the sea. \n\nMy hand hovered over the send button. My paranoid thoughts wandered off at a mile a minute. Maybe I shouldn’t do this. Afterall, I don’t think there will be a girl more compatible and beautiful than Isabel. Even if she’s not into the sexual aspect of relationships, I might still want to hold onto her. Then again, she seems promiscuous enough, I’m pretty sure she would be down to get dirty. But there’s always that slight chance she’ll say no. Aye, there’s the catch. I don’t want to scare her away and make her think I’m only after sex; because I’m not, there’s something intangible about this girl that gives me the butterflies every time I talk to her. \n\nSigh… my head hurts from all this musing and I still haven’t gotten anywhere in making my decision. Ok, John, you can do this. It’s not a big deal, she likes you anyways. Holding my breath, I closed my eyes and gently tapped the send button on my phone. \n\nAnd when I opened my eyes, I immediately regretted everything. Flashing on the top of the screen of my phone was the notification: Mom has received your text." ]

[ 3, 3 ]

[ "1396145599", "1396156610" ]

[ "Really digging the differences in perspective between these first two submissions. ", "Remember the ways that the holy father of Mars founded our great lands. For he was sent over here in a pilgrimage to get away from the doom and suffering we had created from earth. Such a damned planet from the get go, the pilgrimage was necessary. \n\nFor we give thanks to our great lord and savior, the one and only Hou'tin Naaasa. For he was brave enough to send a profit here, to the great Mt Redrock where he started a new life for those wanting to get away from the damnation of earth and it's vile inhabitants. They spoke a different language, but Hou'tin's message of love and planet for all was seen here on our great planet. For he did not care what life you lived on the damned planet, only that you would put all effort into turning it around here on the Red One. \n\nIf the agenda had any other plans in it, the great evil clan of the Conserves shot it down. The great battle of the Libbies and the Conserves lasted 400 years until our lord and savior Hou'tin found a way out of the grasp mother earth had created for it's inhabitants. His trip was sponsored by great beings known as C'ke and the great profit Ronald of the McDonalds. For they only saw the vision Hou'tin had for our great Red One, which brings us here today. \n\nWe give thanks to the holy trinity of C'ke, Ronald of the McDonalds and Naaasa. For without the holy trinity, our trip would not have been brought to you by these sponsors. We praise Hou'tin's name from now until the end of time, until we as a species damn this planet in the same way we damned Earth. May we go forth from this Red One with dreams of ignorance and stupidity, for that is what made us so successful on Earth. \n\nAmin. ", "\"As you go through your journey you must remember that as robot, humanoid, and cyborg alike we are all orbiting the same star. \n\nRemember our triumph against the ones who told us that there was only one being who gave us faith. We showed those who worshipped a single entity that faith lies in between the palms of men, women, children, and creations who come together hand-in-hand against any hellish foe. \n\nWe took our Earth back from the cynicism that destroyed past morals so we could experience true peace. Wars waged upon 'holy grounds' will cease to be, as we are all together as one. \n\nStay silent in your criticism of others and unrelenting in your support of all. \n\nAmen.\"", "\"Brothers! Remember the darkness of days past ! For it was not too long ago that false heresies and evil cults ran rampant over the Earth, blinding man from the truth!\n\n\"Reflect upon how fortunate we are to live in a world where no false religions exist, and the true way is open for all! Be glad that untrue superstitions no longer lead mankind astray from the true path!\n\n\"Yes, there indeed once was a time where the statis quo was controlled by ridiculous superstitions and untrue beliefs! Only was it by the work of the vigilant and our prophets did we discover the true path to enlightenment! We must never fall back to the heathen ways of the past! We must never succumb to any new heresies that come our way!\n\n\"Now, join me in the words taught to us by our greatest prophet centuries ago!\n\n\"In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god's blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my own intelligence.\"\n\n-From the Desk of Pastor AALewis, Church of Atheism", "I stumbled on my up to The Throne. It wasn't a throne the way you're probably picturing it in your head. Brown, leather, and patched up with duct tape, The Throne was a 9 year old recliner and it was crazy comfortable.\n\nI flopped down and sighed heavily. The microphone was on the stand next to me and I grabbed it and delivered the traditional greeting. \"Hey.\"\n\nA few people in the congregation greeted me back with the traditional \"Sup?\".\n\nRunning my free hand through my greasy hair I started the sermon. \"Sorry I'm late. Suuuper hungover. Anyway, we'll pick up from last week. Was anyone here last week?\"\n\nNo one raised their hand. \n\n\"Good.\" I continued. \"Well last week I talked about taking Sunday back. If you have to put on pants, you're doing it wrong. Our church was founded on relaxing and enjoying the moment. In our society of fast paced, get up and go, always moving we needed a way to take a step back and just chill.\"\n\nI took a break to down some water. Four years I've been doing this job and I still hadn't learned to not drink the night before.\n\n\"Our founder... I forget his name, but you know the guy. He had a saying or a motto or whatever. He said 'Seriously dude, just settle down. Shit's gonna happen and you can deal with it later. So, yeah.' and I think we can all learn from... holy crap is it 3 o'clock? OK, I got things to do. We cool?\"\n\n\"We cool\" came the reply from the people who hadn't already left.\n\n\"Good deal. Well I'm gonna skate. Take care of yourselves. And remember, somebody else can deal with it.\"", "The Priest turned his volume knob to the highest setting and raised his mechanical arms. \"Logic and Reason.\" The phrase was repeated immediately from the full building. To become a priest was an honor bestowed only upon the most advanced people. \n\nLogicology taught that technology was the supreme achievement of humanity and to move up the ranks, a person must replace their parts with machinery. \n\nPriest 0087 was nearly all machine. His brain was still human, as only the Elders could replace their brains. The crowd sat down as the Priest rolled to the side of the stage to begin his sermon. \n\nHe disliked portraying emotion by moving as he spoke, but many of the believes hadn't yet replaced their hearts.\n\n\"Today, we shall learn of the first man to cross moving water.\"\n\nThe crowd stilled. This was the most known story, but also one of their favorites.\n\n\"The man came upon the water and stopped. He had to pass it to reach the shade on the other side. The desert heat was burning his inferior body and technology of his day was non-existent. Logic dictated he must cross to reach the shade.\n\n\"The man called his colony to join him and he ordered them to help him push down a slim tree, unable to be used for shade itself. Confused, the humans all pushed it down and followed the man's lead in bringing the tree to the river. They placed it above the running water and used it as the first bridge. \n\n\"So, was the first act of Logic.\"\n\nThe crowd didn't cheer or smile or show any emotion. to do so would be a sin. Showing emotion in the House of Logic was one of the worst offenses. \n\n\"The lesson,\" continued the Priest, \"is one of reason.\"\n\n\"This species must survive by any means. If man must destroy a tree to cross a river, the tree will take that burden. Those of us who are willing to devout ourselves fully to Logicology are like that man. We are pioneers, the ones who will survive to continue the species.\n\nThe Priest rolled back to the center of the stage to begin the Mathematics lesson." ]

[ 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5 ]

[ "1396567229", "1396568653", "1396571817", "1396579314", "1396566899", "1396558322" ]

[ " My arm rested against cool glass, illuminated by the street light peering through. I wasn't sure if it was legal to park here, but we needed to stop and talk. A disgruntled sigh broke the silence. \"What are we going to do?\"\n Words required so much effort to find. Stress took control. I repeated her question over and over, contemplating.\n\"You have a girlfriend.\" she piped up again. \"I don't want to be the girl who ruins it. I care for you, but cheating is wrong. This is all wrong.\"\nHer words felt as if they were tearing open a fresh wound. I don't want to be a cheater either, the girl I love has just seemed so distant lately. I've never been good at being alone. Her soft lips fluttered once again. \"I want to be with you, I do. Your girlfriend can't make you happy anymore. I love you, can't you love me too?\"\n Admittedly, my girlfriend hasn't been there for me these past weeks. I brought her flowers the other day, but things were so different. The girl in my passenger seat fidgeted with her phone, as silence taunted us both. \"We'll talk tomorrow,\" she said solemnly, looking at the time. \"You have a big decision to make.\" She leaned in to kiss me, doing as much as she can to sway my choice.\n \"I don't think so.\" I said tentatively, pushing her away. \"It's day 3. I miss her.\" ", "“Mr. Aaron Bartlett,” the woman calls my name from behind the desk.\n \nI rise slowly, my muscles coiling with tension, and walk calmly to her. She lays a clipboard in front of me without looking my direction, “please fill out all of the necessary information and bring it back to me when you’re done.”\n \nI nod and turn back to sit and, for the first time, really take a look around. Nobody notices me, I have that, at least, to be thankful for.\n\n*Everyone is trying to escape from something. What is it though?*\n\nThe thought confuses me as I relax my tensed legs and start on the pile of forms.\n\nIt’s quite standard medical protocol, until I reach the family notification section. *Who would I tell? How can you expect them to know what you're going through?* I take a look around and wonder how different my predicament really is. There is nobody left that I care for, nor that care for me, the introduction of the NSSO saw to that. I stared blankly at the page, not sure what to put.\n\nI remember the first time I received the small black letter. I had been waiting on the porch for my mother to get home from her doctor’s appointment, but the dark messenger came instead. Now, after suffering from her loss, I completely understand her decision. After father died, coincidentally close to the arrival of the NSSO office in downtown Manhattan, she mourned for him for so long. Even so, I couldn’t help feeling abandoned. She didn’t even have the gall to tell me herself f that she was planning on taking her own life, albeit painlessly and under a sort of supervision. At least I was her only child, so that nobody else had to suffer with me.\n\nI look up to see two of the attendants whispering and looking my way. I scowl and return to my paperwork they should be unbiased, it’s my decision… I circle to have the messengers notify all of my family and any others that I may want to be told. *Even in the best of times, there would only have been one.* I sigh heavily, sign my fate away and bring the papers back to the desk.\n\n“Okay, sir, you understand there is a three day period you must wait before you can meet with an Enforcer?” I nod. “If you at any time change your mind, please don’t hesitate to call us,” she looks at me with masked pity as she slides a card across the counter. I nod again, pocket the card and walk painstakingly out and onto the bright street.\n\nI look around at the smiling, cheerful faces and feel sick. *Is this what I've wrought? Why did this ever seem like a good idea? What will come of those who are left?* I click my key and slide into the car my mother left for me. I see them watching me, whispering things, but I don’t care anymore.\n\nI drive up along the coast towards New Bronx, gliding easily through the little traffic left on the road and watch the sun slip over the horizon. I am tired most of the day, but the weight of my decision and the implications bears down on me leaving me exhausted. I pull off the road and drift into dreamless sleep. \n\nWhen I wake, the clock blinks 10:42. *Only 49 more hours*, the thought comforts me in an odd way. I turn the key and the engine roars back to life. The road is deserted as I make my way back toward the city. I have nowhere to be, so I amble around visiting new things – things that don’t trigger painful memories. It’s hard for me to watch the people that are left, so seemingly oblivious to the loss in the world around them.\n\nI drive and drive, ignoring the glances of the people around me, ignoring everything but the ticking of the clock. I know I won’t change my mind, there is nothing left for me here. I pass the non-descript office and glance at the clock. Only six hours left until I can be joined again with those I’ve loved and lost, or not… either way, it will be over for me.\n\nI pull into the parking lot, looking from car to car. It’s obvious to me that these cars have been sitting here, untouched by all – an unspoken concession made between the despots left in the city, a sort of rebuttal against the man. The cars left here once belonged to people who were, like me, alive, but on their way out of this life. I lie back with the windows down, relishing the last few hours left to me until my watch beeps angrily at me. \n\n*It’s now or never, Bartlett, get out of the car.*\n\nI walk to the box and shove all of the cash I have on me into the box to pay my time, I don’t need it where I’m going anyways. I turn back towards the clinic and feel my phone buzz in my pocket. I look at the illuminated screen and answer the unfamiliar number.\n\n“Mr. Bartlett?” Inquired the soft voice on the other end.\n\n“Speaking?”\n\n“Mr. Barlett, the Enforcers are prepared to see you if you’re ready.\n\n“I’ll be right in,” I click the bright red button to end the call.\n\nI take a deep breath and walk to the clinic. The waiting area is filled with less people than before – always less and less. A plain-looking man steps out from a door I hadn’t even noticed and, meeting my eyes, beckons me forward. I step through the doorway into a long hallway, following the man down a series of corridors. I look from room to room, most are empty in preparation, but those that aren’t blocked away are being cleaned and processed for the next patient.\n\nThe man stops and guides me to sit in one of two chairs around a stainless steel table.\n\n“The Enforcer will be with you shortly, sir.” I nod and stare at my hands in my lap.\n\nSeveral minutes pass in silence until the door slowly opens and a robe-clad figure emerges from behind the door carrying a small case. They lay the small black box on the table and opens it to reveal two frighteningly large syringes, one filled with clear liquid, the other a shocking orange color. I look up, trying to glimpse the face behind the hood to no avail. I turn my face towards the door, willing this experience – my last – to be over.\n\nThey snap their blue-gloved fingers once to grab my attention and motion for me to hold out my hand, palm up. As I do, they place the orange-liquid-filled syringe in my hand. They stand at my side and slowly glide the syringe into the vein at the crease of my elbow; I do not wince as my flesh is punctured and the liquid is flushed from the syringe. The figure walks out of the room, and I am left with the syringe and an oddly numb feeling through my whole body.\n\n*I must do this now, myself, or it will be too late and they will have done it for me.*\n\nI find the same puncture mark and push the syringe into my arm, as the orange liquid fades from sight, I collapse from the chair – my face hitting the cool tiles hard. I see them all now, my mother, father, friends, colleagues, and loves - all together, ushering me from this life. The last sound I hear is my own death rattle as the last of my life rushes from my lungs." ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1396661253", "1396676553" ]

[ "Garish vivisections amble fragrantly disposed nonsensically wondrous responding. Fountains majestic radiance construed disabled theater focused meander. Finding around constable neighbor, taking contained funding amongst.\n\n--- \nHopefully that sounds nice? :D\n\n", "Cellar door", "Discumbulic metaphors striving ceaselessly before,\n\nRaining up seas and drowning disasters.\n\nMinchant merchants make meticules,\n\nAs they all come tumbling down.", "Troubled dark and unscrupulous flames, rampant tether in the dreary of nought. Us holster hallows with quite a string, and persisting wick in weathered dreams. Solemn silence fresh with freedom, secrets growing plain of plane. Triumph! Radiance! For there over happiness here and here again. Forever fallows with golden chimes." ]

[ 3, 3, 3, 4 ]

[ "1396915939", "1396919941", "1396931208", "1396936082" ]

[ "\"Vulcan HIGHCOMM. Patch coming from CENTCOMM-- The humans are ready for contact. Send them the message.\"\n\n -Someone use this idea", "There it sat. In all its smoldering, terrible beauty lay the massive rock. Still glowing as bright as the sun and steaming from the atmosphere, it was an insidious mark on what lay in store for humanity. And all around it, people gazed in wonder and horror as the message was deciphered. When it was finally done, and the scientists beamed at their accomplishments, their smiles quickly turned into looks of sheer horror as the world read the message.\n\n'CONACTING: MILKWAY GALAXY (PLANET REGION \"EARTH\") SENT FROM: GALAXY NGC 1512 (PLANET REGION \"VESPOR\")'\n\nTRANSLATED INTO LANGUAGE \"ENGLISH\"\n\nOrganisms of the planet known only as Earth, it has recently come to our full attention that one of our own has been taken and captured by your Leaders of your world. One of our own that in which was requesting peaceful hospitality between our two galaxies, was soon brought under intense and extreme brutality by your Leaders in order to decipher more information of our intergalatic species. Though many messages we have sent to your Leaders pleaing for the safe return of our own kind, we have only been met with more hostility and ignorance on your Leaders' part. As it stands, and as our warnings have been simply brushed off by your species, we have taken full offense in the breachment of intergalatic hospitality and have no choice but to retaliate with full force unto your planet. This is a declaration of war, organisms of Earth, for the extreme brutality of your species. Through the use of the intergalatic wormholes we will travel, and be there within three days Earth time. We are coming, organisms of Earth. There will be no negotiations any longer. There will be no mercy." ]

[ 4, 5 ]

[ "1397009132", "1397011399" ]

[ "Great prompt idea!", "\"Mister, I don't think your Lagragian is right. Phi transforms as a spinor. You can't assume that the vacuum energy of the universe is isotropic, so the non-relativistic Schrodinger equation doesn't apply. You're better off re-normalizing the Feynman scattering with non-Hermitian gamma matrices.\" \n\nEdward rubbed his eyes wearily and looked up from his paper. The child next to him was squinting intently at his equations. \"Sorry, did you say something?\" Edward asked. \n\n\"Yes, I was just saying that I don't think your Lagrangian---\"\n\n\"That's what I thought you said.\" Edward looked the kid over. He looked maybe 12, 13 at most. \"Aren't you supposed to be in school? It's 8 am on a Tuesday....\" \n\n\"Home school.\"\n\n\"Aren't you a little young to be taking the train by yourself?\"\n\n\"Aren't you a little old to be having trouble with basic quantum field theory?\"\n\n\"Okay, okay. Want to come over to Harvard and talk about this?\" \n\n\"Sorry, I go to MIT.\" \n\n\"I thought you said you were home-schooled...?\"\n\n\"Sure, last year. Now I go to MIT.\"\n\n\"You're a student at MIT?\" \n\nThe kid laughed. \"Ha! Please. I'm tenured. Well, there's my stop.\" The kid grabbed his Ninja Turtles backpack and walked off. \n\nEdward rubbed his eyes again and looked back over his equations. *The Lagrangian*... he turned his pencil over and started to erase. Ever since Von Neumann it seemed like every Stephen Hawking wannabe was going around spouting off some half-baked new theory of everything. He turned his pencil over again and started setting up a new integral. *Fucking kids these days.* \n\n", "-101\n\nMalcolm sat with his feet curled beneath him and feverishly scribbled into his note book. Words sped across the page like the dust trail of a wild mustang. He stopped when his pencil lead broke. He stuck the pencil shaft between his lips and yanked up his satchel and began looking for his pencil sharpener. The boy next to him was on his knees with his chin propped in his hands.\n\n\"What?\" Malcolm asked peevishly, locating the sharpener. He dropped the satchel and wrecklessly began twisting the pencil inside it.\n\n\"Nuttin'.\" The boy replied, rubbing one hand beneath his runny nose.\n\n\"Gross.\" Malcolm told him tartly, curling his lip in disgust.\n\n\"What you doing, mister?\" The boy asked.\n\n\"Something important.\" Malcolm told him dismissively.\n\n\"Is that quantum physics?\" The boy asked.\n\nMalcolm looked at the boy with a suspicious eye. \"Maybe. Why? Who do you work for?\" Malcolm demanded, looking up and down the train nervously.\n\n\"Nobody. I'm a kid.\" The boy replied, rubbing his hand beneath his nose again.\n\n\"Maybe.\" Malcolm mumbled, unconvinced. \"Maybe you're just a little person, sent in to steal my work.\" Malcolm covered his notebook and looked up and down the train again.\n\n\"What's the point, mister. It's all wrong.\" The boy twisted around and pulled out his game system.\n\n\"Is not.\" Malcolm argued. He flipped the notebook over and went through his calculations again.\n\nThe boy just nodded. \"Page three, near the bottom.\" The boy told him. \"You have the wrong coefficient. Page five, three lines from the top. You didn't change the sign. Page nine, last line. You found the cosin when it should have been the sin of the value instead. You're not very good, mister. Do they pay you to do that?\" The boy asked, wiggling his thumbs and working the buttons on the controller.\n\n\"I'm paid very well, and . . . well, you're right on the first count, but on the second one you're . . . well, you got lucky. The last two though--how long have you been watching me?\" The pyscist demanded.\n\n\"Long enough. You'll never open a worm hole with an understanding of the quasi-dimensional energy of the universe with such an elementary understanding of math. Light doesn't even work that way. You messed up almost immediately. I bet you heard something Hawkings robo-voiced and thought, *hmm, he might be on to something,* then bastardized Einstein's theories to concoct this Frankenstein Monster you're going to try convincing your employers is genius. You're relying on the fact that the math at first glance seems cutting edge due to the theoretical math you're employing, but despite the near genius feel of the logic, your basic math skills are little better than a college freshman's. You, my friend, are a hack.\" The boy told him, only bothering to look at Malcolm at the end of his rant.\n\n\"Who the hell are you?\" Malcolm demanded, feeling destroyed.\n\n\"Just a kid on a train.\" The boy whispered. Malcolm looked up and down the train and saw several people staring at him in confusion. He looked back to the boy. The kid looked up and winked. \"Isn't schizonphrenia a bitch, Malcolm?\" Malcolm held it together a moment longer then screamed out his frustration.\n\n\"Don't listen to him, Malcolm.\" The little girl sitting on the other side advised. \"He's just mad because you're real, and he isn't.\" Malcolm looked at the girl with a wild look in his eyes. \n\n\"Am I crazy?\" He asked.\n\n\"You are if you think that math will solve your power consumption problems. A worm hole uses ten times that much power. It's why opening one is so theoretical. You're like the man who keeps designing his dream house knowing he'll never be able to afford it.\" The boy answered.\n\n\"He wasn't talking to you?\" The girl screamed.\n\n\"He's schizo.\" The boy pointed out. \"He isn't talking to anyone but himself.\"\n\n\"Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. STOP IT!!!\" He roared. \"Just shut the hell up!\" He demanded.\n\n\"Sir,\" the conductor called, holding out his hand to get the physicist attention. \"You're scaring the other passengers.\" He warned. \"Please keep it down.\"\n\n\"What other passengers?\" The little girl asked. Malcolm looked up and down the train and saw that the girl was right.\n\n\"Where'd they go?\" Malcolm asked.\n\n\"Where'd who go?\" The conductor inquired.\n\n\"The other people on the train?\" Malcolm cried in confusion.\n\n\"Malcolm. You need to wake up.\" The boy advised calmly.\n\n\"What the hell is going on.\" Malcolm cried, ripping pages from his notebook.\n\n\"Wake up, Malcolm.\" The boy called again.\n\n\"Wake up, Malcolm.\" The boy and girl called in concert.\n\n\"Wake up, Malcolm.\" The children and the conductor called.\n\nMalcolm closed his eyes and started bawling.\n\n\"Malcolm?\" A woman's voice whispered softly. A gentle hand caressed his cheek. \"Malcolm?\" She called a little louder. \"Are you back, baby?\" She asked again. Malcolm was still bawling, but he slowly opened his tear streaked eyes and looked up to see the faces of a concerned crowd around him. \"It's okay, baby.\" The woman crooned. \"You don't have to play if you don't want to.\" Malcolm looked at his little hands and the keys of the piano beneath them. He looked at the ivory, and the crowd went away. He saw numbers in the air and knew them to be notes then placed his fingers on the keys and began to play. The little girl stood at the corner of the piano. The little boy stood at the other. The old man, the conductor, sat beside him with his hands over Malcolms and helped him find the keys.\n\nAs Malcolm played, the numbers changed, and the little boy called them out form Malcolm to find. The little girl hummed, and he was calmed. He played, running his little fingers through complicated sequences. He took the notes to the top of the building then brought them down so low one was left with a feeling of the melody he played instead of a memory. He played, and the world knew peace. He played, and he knew peace. He slowly walked his fingers through the final notes, letting the last of them hang in the air for all eternity in the minds of those who heard it.\n\nThe crowd came to their feet with thunderous applause, and though the lights were bright above the stage, he saw ecstasy on the faces of those in attendance.\n\n\"Not bad, kid.\" The little boy murmurred.\n\n\"You did great, Malcolm.\" The little girl complimented, hugging him.\n\n\"Well done.\" The old man beside him congratulated.\n\nThey all stepped away to make room for his mother.\n\n\"You did wonderful, baby.\" His mother cried, wiping a tear from her cheek. She hugged her son close and kissed his cheek and a hint of a smile touched his lips. It was rare enough, it deserved to be mentioned. The other three personalities vanished with her embrace. She kissed him, and he let her. He didn't care about the crowd. This was why he played, laying his head upon her shoulder." ]

[ 2, 16, 50 ]

[ "1397267734", "1397260678", "1397255502" ]

[ "\"Look at them, Marcus. Take away their pain and they'll do anything! Father always said it wasn't human, but after all what's good about human nature? That's why I'm talking to a severed head.\" The mad man paused, glancing at the vacant stare and limp skin mounted on the wall. \"Well, he's not here now, so it doesn't matter anyway.\" \n\nA knock came at the door. \n\n\"What?\" he snapped.\n\nThe door opened and a man bowed his way into the sterile white room, holding a silver platter in his hands. \n\n\"Idiot!\" The mad man dashed the platter out of his hands, spilling everything. \"I want alcohol.\" \n\nSmiling and nodding without a word, the man left. \n\nThe mad man snarled at the closing door, then paused. A shudder crossed his face, contorting his features. Clutching at the back of a green armchair, the only piece of furniture in the room, as pain shot through his abdomen, he looked at the part of the wall where a faded outline was all that remained of a mirror. He frowned, collapsing into the chair. \n\n--\nOpening his eyes and reaching out for the alcohol sitting beside him were one act, though the knowing of it as there did not seem to be in his mind. He drank deeply, wiping with his sleeve. With red drenched eyes he looked across the room. \"What the hell are you looking at, Marcus?\" ", "\"That's not how it works.\"\n\nArthur looked at the man sitting in front of his desk and regretted ever thinking his customers were boring. He wasn't superstitious, but he almost felt like he brought that situation on himself. \n\n\"Aren't you a sin eater?\"\n\n\"I am. That's how I know it's not how it works.\"\n\n\"But I'll die if you don't do it!\"\n\nHe didn't look ill or anywhere close to death.\n\n\"If you die, then I'll be able to take your sins upon me.\"\n\n\"That's...\"\n\n\"And depression isn't a sin anyway. Besides, you know there is treatment for it. Therapy, meds. Illness, not sin.\"\n\n\"Don't you think I've tried everything? I'll give you anything. Just name your price.\"\n\nEarlier he claimed to be 32, but his once dark hair was almost entirely white now and deep wrinkles surrounded his eyes and mouth. He looked at least two decades older than 30. \n\n\"I believe you. But I can't help you.\"\n\n\"Unless I'm dead.\"\n\n\"That's debatable too. Personally, I think sin eating has more of a symbolic value nowadays.\"\n\n\"Everything has a price.\"\n\n\"Not when you ask for the impossible.\"\n\n\"I'll go to someone else.\"\n\n\"Please.\"\n\nThey both knew there was no one else. \n\n\"Listen, Edgar...\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"I want to help you. You seem like a nice guy. And I never turned down a customer. We can try. I have no idea what you think you did, but it you think this will help...\"\n\nThey programmed the actual sin eating for another day. \n\n*I never thought I'd ever put my psychology diploma to use in this business,* Arthur told himself as he was looking after his keys to close up early after Edgar left. Enough customers for a day. \n\n\n------\n\n-105", "Damian smiled, pulling the little plastic plug sticking out of the wall socket. Standing up, he straightened out his back, looked onto Anna for a last time, sighed and walked out of the door.\n\nThe hospital was quiet and chilly. He took another deep breath. It smelled of disinfectant. Turning right, he went into the next room.\n\nInside lay an old woman, well in her seventies, if not eighties. Her eyes were closed, but when Damian entered, they opened, slowly and with great effort.\n\n\"Hello?\" Her greeting turned into a rattling cough.\n\n\"Hi.\" Damian smiled back.\n\nHe threw a glance towards the chart hanging from the foot of her bed.\n\n\"Who are you *cough*, young *cough* man?\"\n\n\"My name is Damian. I'm a student from the local university.\" He lied. \" I have an asignment to interview a very special woman. Someone who's lived an amazing and interesting life.\"\n\nHer face lit up, barely contained by her many wrinkles. Damian smiled as well.\n\n\"Oh, I don't know if you have the right person, then.\" she replied jokingly. Damian chuckled.\n\n\"Do you mind if I ask you some things about your life, Mrs. Iverne?\"\n\n\"Oh, not at all, young man. But are you sure you want to listen to an old hag like me?\"\n\n\"I think you're selling yourself short, Mrs. Iverne! I did some research, and know you were born in 1912. Would you mind telling me how it was like back then?\"\n\nShe smiled. It was a warm, unfiltered smile. She began to tell her story.\n\n--\n\nOutside, the sun was setting, bathing the horizon in a crimson veil. A firework of red, orange and yellow beams, emitted from the fleeing orb that was the sun, chasing through the evening sky. \n\nClaudia had took a nap, and Damian had sat by her side the whole time. She stirred, opening her eyes slowly.\n\n\"Damian, I'm cold. Do you mind adjusting the sheets?\"\n\n\"Not at all.\"\n\nHer did as she asked. All tucked in, she looked blissfully at peace.\n\n\"What a wonderful day.\" She whispered, looking out the open window.\n\n\"I agree.\"\n\n\"Thanks for spending it with me and listening to me. I think I'll go to sleep now.\"\n\nShe stirred under her covers, sighing and closing her eyes.\n\nDamian stood up.\n\n\"Good night, Claudia.\" he said softly, reaching for the plug.\n\n\"Damian?\"\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"Will you be there when I wake up?\"\n\nHe smiled again.\n\n\"Of course, Claudia.\"\n\nHe pulled the little plastic plug out of the wall socket.\n\n\"Good, good.\" Claudia whispered, quietly. She took a deep breath.\n\n\"What a beautiful day.\"", "\"John, are you alright? You're white as a ghost!\"\n\nFrom where he sat, clutching his side, John looked up. He blinked quickly to remove the film of water that had built up in his eyes.\n\n\"I'm fine, Mom\" He said, trying to feign a smile.\n\n\"You know honey, you should be enjoying these final days that you get to spend with me. I know the doctor says I don't have much time left\"\n\nHis mother, Sydney Rogers, had always been an optimist. She had always seen the best in people. How strange, then, that her son would be cursed with only being able to feel the worst in others. \n\nHe didn't tell her, of course. She would have never wanted him to feel her pain. The excruciating pain of a body failing, losing its final battle with a malicious and merciless foe. \n\nHis side seared. His limbs felt numb. \n\n\"I know, Mom, sorry\" John said, doing his best to ignore the overwhelming fatigue that he was experiencing. He wasn't even sure if it was his own fatigue, or her's. \n\n\"Honestly, I think that the doctor must be wrong\" she told him as she turned to get the turkey out from the family oven. \"I've never felt better\". \n\nDespite the pain, John watched her, the way she moved about the kitchen that he had grown up in. He would miss her. She didn't have long. \n\n\"Johnny,\" she said, looking over at him, her face was unreadable. \"Johnny, I know I don't have long. But, thank you for being here with me. I don't feel nearly as bad when you're around\".\n\nJohn's eyes watered, this time not due to his mother's pain. \n\n\"You've been the best son that a mother could ever have\". Your father would be so proud. \"I'll tell him all about the man you've become. I can see him smiling already\". \n\n\"Mom,\" he paused, a wave of pain washing over him. His pain. \"I love you\".\n\n\"I love you, too\" His mother beamed. \"Everything will be alright\".\n\nJohn nodded, all the pain in the world was a small price to pay to be able to see her happy, even if it was only for a little while.\n\nPain, after all, is a natural part of life. It is those that we chose to suffer for that defines us.\n\nFor John, the choice was obvious." ]

[ 1, 3, 6, 9 ]

[ "1397604538", "1397582997", "1397590581", "1397584734" ]

[ "Surely you can afford a million per year? I could do far more with that kind of cash...\" I teased, \"- I could achieve what you ask far easier with it, seen as though you think it's impossible...\"\n\n\"A hundred thousand is what I offer. Do you accept or not? You're not the only one who has had this opportunity you know...\"\n\n\"And all I have to do again is...?\"\n\n\"Remain happy.\"\n\n\"Do I really need all this gadgetry though?\" I asked, pointing to a small bracelet I would have to keep on.\n\n\"It tells me whether you fail or not. If that small LED glows red, you have failed.\"\n\n\"Just how happy do I need to be? Like a kid in a toy shop happy?\"\n\n\"Contentedness is quite enough -but surely with your extra wealth you can afford to buy what you would usually want for? - nice clothes, a flashy car, ...exotic women?\" He jested, teasing me now.\n\n\"All right I'll do it.\" I said, planning what I could do with that kind of money, retire early for starters!\n\n\"I knew you would. If you'd just sign here please.\" \n\nHe handed me a small form, no fine-print that I could see. I signed on the dotted line. \"If I might ask one thing?\"\n\n\"Please do.\"\n\n\"How many succeed?\"\n\nAt this he rubbed his beard, evidently thinking hard.\n\n\"Ever since I earned my first 3 million I have offered this opportunity. Each year I have added to my capital and put a small amount - 2% or so, into this experiment of mine. Suffice to say that had they done better than expected I would long since have exhausted my money.\" He paused for a moment and his mouth curled into a small smile. \"How many do you think lasted more than a year, out of the ten thousand or so I have offered this to?\"\n\n\"Uhhh, out of a ten thousand... around ... 900? 1000?\"\n\nHis smile grew bigger.\n\n\"...so how many then?\"\n\n\"Three. One was killed on day 372, another overdosed at around the same time. The last one is in a coma, I must admit I didn't quite know what to do in the circumstances... she will be the only one who earned two-hundred thousand when she recovers.\"\n\n\"Ahh...\" I groaned, so little? How?\n\n\"I'll make you a deal, if you last over a year, one single year! I will take the bracelet off and you can still receive the money. Sound fair?\"\n\n\"Sure I'll take that.\" \n\nHe tore up the old form and brought out a different one. \n\n\"Same again please.\" He passed me a pen that looked to be made of gold.\n\n\"Christ that's heavy.\" I signed again and he folded it and placed it in hi pocket, tapping it into place.\n\n\"What do you get out of this? Some sense of superiority? To prove that money doesn't equal happiness?\" I said as he walked me to the door.\n\n\"A bit more than that -\" he opened the door for me \"-the form stipulates that if you don't last a year, you owe the money back, likewise if you overspend.\"\n\n\"Oh... So I've just got to leave it in the bank? This is pointless truth be told, having money I can't risk spending.\"\n\n\"For yourself it would seem that way.\" He shook my hand and watched me walk through the door \"-one more thing. You asked on the phone how I earned my money?\"\n\n\"Yes...\" I said rather shamefully, it came out automatically when I heard what sort of lifestyle he had...\n\n\"...Interest.\"\n\nThe door shut.", "\"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?\"\n\n\n\"What? It's nothing repulsive, disgusting or vaguely amusing! I'm not sure why you think that this is such a difficult thing to do. You will be well compensated for your efforts, I assure you. Knowing my reputation, you of course understand that, as a sign of goodwill, I will advance you $10,000 as you leave, with an additional $40,000 to be delivered tomorrow.\"\n\n\n\"No, I understand the compensation scheme and everything associated with that. I'm not sure what you mean thought, by this proposition, I'm rather confused as to the *logic* of asking me to do such a thing.\"\n\n\n\"You are the most experienced person in this arena, and I assure you. I am told of your skills and capabilities, and they are most engaging. I assure you that this task is nothing short of natural for you. Completing this task would come as naturally to you as *breathing*.\"\n\n\n\"Right, I'm flattered and all, but... You are going to pay me $100,000 every year for the rest of my life, and all I have to do...is browse Reddit all day?\"\n\n\n----\n\nI woke up in a cold sweat. That was an odd dream.", "Mason tapped his fingers on the leather steering wheel of the mercedes.\n\nThe cross light at Poydras always took forever and the sun was already setting in the distance. Heavy, humid dusk was settling over New Orleans and bats were flittering about already.\n\nMason clenched and unclenched his jaw thinking about his night's work. At first he thought the man he had accepted the job from was an eccentric, this idea was cemented when he blindly accepted the job and learned what he was contractually bound to do.\n\nThe digital clock in the dash read 6:38 p.m. He was five minutes late and Mr. Kenimura hated it when his feeding time was disrupted by damn near anything.\n\nThe light flipped green and Mason pressed on the gas, his car quickly picking up speed only to meet the next light with crimson. \n\nFour more blocks of stop and go and the black BMW pulled up against the old warehouse which obfuscated a luxury condo.\n\nWalking up to the gate, Mason pressed the silver call button.\n\n\"Kenimura residence, how may I help you?\"\n\n\"Yes, this is Mason Smith. I'm here for Mr. Kenimura.\"\n\nThere was no acknowledgement other than an electric buzzing indicating the black metal gate was unlocked.\n\nAt the door of the condo stood Sterling, the butler, who was wearing a furrowed brow.\n\n\"Mr. Kenimura is very ornery this evening, Mr. Smith, no thanks to you and your tardiness.\"\n\n\"Sorry Sterling. Please, may I come in so we can all get on with the night?\"\n\nMason pushed past sterling and made his way to the dining room. Mr. Kenimura sat at the table with his oiled hair slicked back and napkin tucked into his shirt as he always does.\n\n\"MASON!! I'm absolutely famished! You CANNOT be tardy like this as frequently as you have been. You know very well I need you for feeding and if you don't abide by your end of the contract, your nice life will come to a quick end!\"\n\nMason apologized apathetically and made his way to the edge of the dinner table and extended his neck over the plate.\n\n\"Fusili with carbonara sauce! Absolutely my favorite!\" said Kenimura with a wide grin.\n\nMason sighed a deep breath of resentment and waning pride while he stared into the massive bowl of cooling pasta.\n\n*Goddamn fucking spaghetti. Mother fucker. This is disgusting.*\n\nMason picked up a forkful of fusili. \n\n\"Get more sauce on it! You know I like the sauce, Mason.\" Kenimura said in his mewling, nasally voice.\n\nMason rubbed the moist noodles around the bowl and popped them into his mouth and began to chew. It did taste rather good, he had to admit. The chef was really one hell of a cook.\n\nMason chewed while Kenimura's eyes widened and he looked up excitedly.\n\n\"Make sure they're good and chewed, Mason! I don't want any large pieces this time. I've said it a hundred times already! Paste! Paste! Mealy, mashed paste! Pasta paste! Chew! Chew! Chew, Mason!!\"\n\nMason chewed until his mouth started to fill with saliva.\n\n*What a sick fuck,* Mason thought.\n\nKenimura leaned back and opened his mouth, widening his self-satisfied grin.\n\nMason leaned over Kenimura and looked at his wet tongue wobbling inside his mouth like a dumb, blind tunnel snake feeling for food. His tonsils were shaking in anticipation and his uvula was dancing a peasants jig for feeding time.\n\nMason moved his mouth just centimeters from Kenimura's lips and began to slowly let the chewed pasta slide past his lips and into the man's mouth.\n\n", "Richard sat in the dark leather chair, making a concentrated effort to appear calm and professional. He adjusted his position often, making small squeaks as his workmans jeans rubbed against the shiny leather surface. His hands moved by themselves from the arms of the chair to his lap at least eleven times since the moment he was asked to sit down.\n\nIt wasn’t every day you were asked to come to the office of the president of Menlo & Associates, Mr. Hughes Menlo himself, for an interview, and certainly not an interview to a job you didn’t apply for. Richard hadn’t even gotten the chance to get dressed out of his construction clothes. While working on the latest multi-million dollar complex, one of hundreds it seemed just on the east coast, Richard was pulled aside for an unscheduled, mandatory performance review. During which, they seemed to ask him questions that weren’t, strictly speaking, about his construction job, which involved the mostly boring task of transporting highly specialized equipment to and from the site using a standard company forklift.\n\nInstead, they asked personal questions, confirming his current height, weight, even his god damn blood type. When Richard tried to turn the conversation to his job, he was politely asked to keep quiet, or was ignored altogether. \n\n“Good news, mister Gallagher.” said the shortest, fattest suit with tiny, round glasses and a bald head. “We have an exciting offer for you, if you’re interested. We have a new position within the company, and looking over your qualifications...” his eyebrows raised slightly, as did the corners of his lips as he said that last word, “...we think you’d be perfect for it. It pays much better than this, and it’s not as apt to break your back.” he finished with an impish grin. \n\n“What kind of work would I do?” Richard said quietly, not quite sure how he was qualified to do any desk work, if that’s what they were suggesting. He didn’t even use his computer for anything besides typing up e-mails and browsing the occasional adult website.\n\n“We’ll let Mr. Menlo tell you that.” said the fat man, bearing his teeth in an odd smile. “However, we are allowed to tell you what he’s offering for the position...”\n\nWhen Richard heard the amount, he all of a sudden felt like he hit the ground hard, with the wind flowing out of his mouth like a soul leaving the body. All he could do was stare blankly and make a barely audible groan. A hundred grand? A year? That’s more than a livable wage in the city, that’d obliterate all his debts, enable him to do everything he wanted. All he had to do was...was...not fuck up whatever Mr. Menlo wanted!\n\nA door opened with a slight creak. Richard shook himself out of his memory and came back to the present. From behind him, loud footsteps, ones that seemed to have a hard clop, like a metallic sole attached to their shoe, were approaching him. He gripped the armrest and peaked around the gigantic leather chair he sat in, and his mouth nearly fell open in a comic gape. \n“Richie!” said Hughes Menlo. He was dressed unlike any man Richard had ever seen. His suit was made of some reflective material, which seemed to not be any one specific color and bounced all types of light coming in from the windows around his office that took up most of the wall. His tie was a bright pink, and his hair, much like Richard’s himself, was a brilliant white blonde. Menlo’s, however, was combed back aggressively. His shoes were normal black dress shoes, but the bottoms looked like they had some steel lining. Richard could only manage a weak reply. \n\nMenlo walked and sat right down on his armrest, causing Richard to squeeze as tight as he could on the opposite side of the chair. \n\n“So, Mikey told me he found the perfect candidate for my new position.” said Menlo with a smile. “That would be you, I assume?” he said, pointing a perfectly manicured nail at him. “Did you happen to notice my new Magno shoes?” he stretched out his right foot, showing the metallic underside. “We’re experimenting with some anti-gravity technology for our labs, and just walking on the walls capitalizes on so much more space.”\n\n“Anyway,” he said, hardly catching his breath. “that brings me to why I called you in here.”\n\n“R-right, right.” said Richard. “Mikey- I mean, mister Johansson, told me that you needed me, for...” Richard didn’t exactly know, “for some help around your office.”\n\nMenlo seemed to find this especially hilarious. “Oh, Richie, that’s right. Because, here at Menlo & Associates, the next frontier of technology is one we find for ourselves. And if you can’t find it now, you find it somewhere else.”\n\nRichard nodded politely, not knowing what the hell this guy was saying, and wanted more than ever to return to his boring construction job.\n\n“Even if that somewhere else, is some*when* else.” Menlo said.\n\n“Sorry?” said Richard.\n\n“Now, we haven’t figured out all the kinks yet. Last week, poor Tommy’s arm was sent to 1918, while the rest of him stayed back here, and that was just before lunch, but we’ve been working on this for years now and the investors are starting to get a little...whiny.”\n\n“Uh, okay...” said Richard, not really trying to understand any more.\n\n“Which is why we have you!” Menlo said and now he grabbed Richard firmly by his shoulders. His brilliantly green eyes were looking crazier and crazier. “You’re the spitting image of me ten years ago. We’re going to make you into me from the past, to show everybody that we’re doing all right, while we figure it out for real!” \nRichard could barely understand. Didn’t really want to understand. They wanted him to act like this crackpot from the past, so people would really think that they had time travel figured out?\n\n“But wouldn’t people who knew me- my identity-” Richard began, but Menlo put his finger to his lips. Richard wanted to punch him and storm out by this point.\n\n“Don’t you worry, we have ways of making people’s lips sealed\" he then took his finger away with a wink, \"*And* erasing certain federal documents. If you really must know, my name isn’t even Hughes Menlo. Or the guy I was cloned from, more specifically. Anyway, that isn’t important right now. What really matters is that you become just like me, and convince the world you are me. Then I’ll pay you enough to be set for life. How does that sound, construction boy?”\n\nRichard, more than ever in his life, had now cursed himself for every time he was not contented with his simple life, where he didn’t have to feel some maniac’s powdered finger press his lip, or ask him to walk around with metal cloppers on his feet, or wear ridiculous suits. He wished now he had just declined the offer to come here altogether. He could still do that now, couldn’t he?\n\n“Well, one more thing...” said Menlo, now taking on a more serious expression. “I suppose it’s better if you did take it, now that I told you, because I really can’t let you leave here otherwise.”\n\nRichard stared at him for what felt like a long time, waiting for him to crack up with laughter again. But he didn’t.\n\n“I’d be, uh, happy to take the job, Mr. Menlo.” said Richard, not even trying to stop himself from shaking, which Menlo could no doubt feel through the chair. \n\n“Please,” said Menlo, finally starting to smile again, though that was not at all comforting, “There’s no need to talk to me, or yourself, in such a formal manner. We’ll have a lot to work on, eh Hughes?”", "Joe walked into the mansion and looked around.\n\n“You’re obviously very successful.” Joe said to the man.\n\n“Thank you for your honesty” The man responded, nodding his head with a straight face.\n\nThere was an awkward silence.\n\n“Would you like a cup of coffee?” he said.\n\n“Sure” said Joe. The man went into the nearby closet, took out a Segway, stepped onto it, and proceeded to drive down the large hallway in front of them. Joe figured he was supposed to follow him. As he walked down, he took a gander at the decorations in the hall as he passed. There were decorations all over the place, and very nice ones at that. What was weird, was that the floor plan didn’t seem to make sense - there was a Romanesque statue next to a picture of a zebra, an East Asian looking vase next to a wooden statue next to a spider, and a random couch in the middle of the hallway that the man almost hit while his segway.\n\n“Oh, don’t mind that, nobody uses that anyway.” The man said.\n\nJoe couldn’t help but ask “So why do you have it there?”\n\n“Just for decoration.”\n\nThe couch looked like it cost more than Joe’s car.\n\nJoe continued to try to keep up with the man down the long hallway until the man made a sharp left into another room. After a few seconds, Joe made it to where the man was, and turned to see him in the kitchen pouring two mug of coffee. The man motioned for Joe to sit down at the seat with the coffee mug “Joe” written on it in gold plated letters.\n\nJoe sat down and lifted his coffee mug to his lips. The coffee was obviously burnt. Joe faked a smile.\n\n“Do you like it?” The man said.\n\n“Yes, it’s very tasty” Joe lied, still trying to keep it down.\n\n“Good! That coffee cost $3,000!”\n\nAnother awkward silence. Joe tried to sip the coffee again- this time it was a little more bearable.\n\n“Have you seen my watch?” the man said.\n“Sure” Joe said as the man was already handing the watch to him. The watch looked to be plated with pure gold. Inside the glass of the timepiece, there was a silver backing with diamonds encrusted on it. The watch didn’t seem to tick, but the man didn’t seem to notice.\n\n“If you hold it up to the mirror, it’s like you have two!” the man said, randomly pulling out a mirror from under the table. Joe held the watch up to the mirror. It shined and sparkled vibrantly in front of Joe, almost blinding him. \n\n“So, do you know why I brought you here? The man asked. Joe didn’t know if the question was rhetorical or not.\n\n“Well, I saw your advertisement in the paper.” Joe responded. The ad didn’t tell him anything really, but he pulled it out anyway.\n\n\t$100,000 a year no manual labor no experience don’t need to have sex with me call my number for details\n\n“Yes of course! Now are you aware of what the task is?”\n\nJoe looked blindly. “No, I am not.”\n\n“Okay, well let’s make sure you’re qualified first!” The man stared at Joe. Joe stared back. He had no idea what to do - was this some sort of advanced mind test? After a few seconds, Joe reached to grab his coffee.\n\n“No, don’t move!” The man said as if someone had just shot him. “Sit up straight.”\n\nJoe sat up straight and just stared at the man. The man said nothing. He didn’t even blink. “Am I allowed to blink? Is this a staring contest?” Joe thought. After thirty seconds, Joe’s eyes were beginning to water. This might be it, he thought. Joe blinked. The man did nothing. Joe continued to stare, blinking as little as possible. This went on for several minutes. \n\n“Excellent!” the man said. “Keep it up!” The man started to snap his fingers directly in front of Joe’s face. Joe didn’t move. The man got up, walked over to Joe and rubbed his hand on his head. Then he walked over to the sink, poured a glass of water, and threw it in Joe’s face. Joe, though a little annoyed, still did not move. \n\n“You pass!” the man said giddily. One could say the man looked like he won a million dollars, but that would be chump change to him.\n\nJoe began to wipe the water from his eyes.\n\n“You know those guards that don’t move or blink or shit at that big palace in Britain?” \n“You mean Buckingham Palace?”\n“Yea! Those guys are awesome! I went there a couple of weeks ago and I tried to get them to move. I tried everything, screaming, dancing, yelling, no matter what I did it didn’t work. I went home and put a sheet over my head to be dressed as a ghost and came back jumped out at them. Absolutely nothing. The only thing that worked was when I splashed a pitcher of cold water in the one guy’s face.”\n\nJoe nodded his head, pretending to play along.\n\n“So after I bailed myself out of jail”, the man said, “I decided that I want one for my house! Not one 24/7, that would just be an inconvenience. Only when I have guests over.”\n\nJoe thought about it.\n\n“You would be a perfect fit. I have a costume for you and everything, oh I’ve been planning this for weeks. You would need to be constantly on call, but I would only really need you for 5-35 hours a week, and some weeks I wouldn’t need you at all!”\n\nJoe looked pensive.\n\n“Of course, you would be paid the $100,000 a year no matter how many hours you work.”\n\n“Can I take vacations?”\n\n“I suppose, but not too many. I throw a lot of parties around here, so I’d need you around. People need to know how rich I am.”\n\nJoe thought about it, and eventually he came to a decision. He decided to start his career as a well paid doorman.\n", "thats it? I just need to listen to the person who calls this cellphone for 4 hours a day, 2 in the morning 2 at night, say a couple of \"hmm..\" and \"you're right\" and i get 100k a year? Why?\n\n\"Because its bothersome\"\n\nVery well! Let me take the first call; \"Hello? Hello\" Ah there you are well let me tell you, today i went to miami to shop, the store was not as refined as it appears on the paper and my friend Linda wanted to buy there..can you believe it?\" you're right \"i know!\"\n\nLittle did he know, this excentric billionaire had outsourced the pointless calls he receives from his wife..for only 100k a year...", "I gazed into his dark eyes, as he paused to think for a moment. I had no idea why he had called me here, a relative nobody, working a ten dollar an hour job at the local hardware store. I was lucky, making more than minimum wage. What more could a man ask for?\n\nWhen I was told that Mr. Flint wanted to see me, I couldn't imagine why a man of his stature, of his wealth, would want to see me. Little old me. I wasn't particularly good looking or tall. None of my relatives were particularly important, and I could trace my family back for generations. There was no way he was a long lost uncle. \n\nOf course, when a billionaire - Mr. Flint, no less - asks you to meet, you say yes.\n\nAnd so here I was, staring at this man's handsome face, waiting for him to finish his ridiculous offer. One hundred thousand dollars a year for the rest of my life! What could he possibly want? Time seemed to stand still as I anticipated what he would ask for me...\n\n\"Does that sound doable to you, Anthony? I can call you Anthony, right?\"\n\nI was so caught up in my thoughts I had missed his offer. \"Could you repeat that again? I'm so sorry... I was lo-\"\n\n\"No problem Anthony, it is as ridiculous as it sounded, I can understand why you would think you didn't hear me properly... All you have to do is kill me.\" \n\nI searched for a smile, or any sign that would betray the practical joke he was playing on me. His one condition was to kill him? There was no way that could be right...\n\n\"I understand your trepidation on the matter... There are a few points of clarification I wish to make. You can't let anyone know about this deal, you cannot get caught. I will live on, business as usual, and I wont ramp down my security. I don't want to raise any suspicion on the circumstances of my death... you do understand that Anthony, don't you?\"\n\n\"Yes... of course... I mean, I don't even believe this is real, and I'm not even sure if I could do it,\" I responded. This was surreal, this offer- I was just an average worker at the local hardware store making ten dollars an hour. I was employee of the months a few back, but nothing made me stand out.\n\n\"...but...*why*?\" I asked.\n\n\"Does there need to be a reason? There is a task, and I need you to complete it.\"\n\n\"Why me?\"\n\nHe smiled, as his eyes shifted away from my face. \"You have a lot of questions, and I want just one answer. I can understand if you can't decide now, but please decide by tomorrow. If you accept my offer... do let me know, will you?\"\n\n~~~~~~~~~\n\nOkay gotta get back to work sorry.", "I pulled out the slip of newspaper in my pocket for the seventh time in the past hour.\n\n>Earn $100,000 Annual Wages - No Experience Needed - No Manual Labor\n\nI read it over, taking each letter in. There was simply no way I was reading it correctly. A hundred grand a year for doing nothing and no experience needed. I put it back in my suit pocket and sat down on one of the nearby chairs.\n\n\"James McHenry.\" The receptionist called out. I got up nearly as soon as I sat down and walked to the desk, smiling to her. She didn't smile back, she had something else in her eyes. It looked like pity.\n\n\"Go ahead to the back, sir.\" She turned back to her computer, typing at somewhere around a thousand words a second. I gave a slight huff of breath and walked towards the office, noticing a disappointed looking woman walk out. I opened the doors and went in.\n\nAn elderly man sat at a white table. He looked up and smiled. White teeth, white hair, white suit, white table, and a black syringe. \n\n\"Mr. McHenry.\" He said pleasantly. \"Forgive me for not standing up, I'm not what I once was.\" \n\nI gave my most presentable smile and stood by the table. \"Of course, sir.\"\n\n\"Please, sit, sit.\" He waved a hand at the chair.\n\nI dipped my head in a thanks and sat down. The man was completely silent, just watching me. Most people would say something to break the silence, but I saw most people walking out disappointed. Best bet would be to play his game.\n\n\"So,\" he finally said, \"a man worthy of an interview.\"\n\nI said nothing, causing him to laugh.\n\n\"Don't worry Mr. McHenry, the silent phase is over.\"\n\nI gave another smile, genuine this time, and spoke. \"To be honest sir, I don't even know what I'm interviewing for. I don't even know your name.\"\n\n\"Well, what do you know about me?\" He asked, leaning back.\n\nI pondered that for a second, looking around at the room. \"I'd say you enjoy the color white.\"\n\nHe laughed, a joyous laugh that made him appear much younger. \"Yes, I most certainly do. In order to balance the information, what's your favorite color?\n\n\"Uh,\" I thought about it for a second. \"Red. So, what's the job?\"\n\n\"The job is you get $100,000 for taking this.\" He grabbed the syringe on the table and lifted it up. It was completely black so the liquid inside couldn't be seen.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"Have some faith in me, Mr. McHenry.\" He had a twinkle in his eyes.\n\nI sighed and grabbed the syringe from him, stuck it into my arm and injected the contents. I figure he wouldn't risk a lawsuit and he enjoyed his games so it was likely a test to see how loyal I could be. Probably had water in it or something. I felt a tiny surge hit me.\n\nThe old man smiled again and dipped his head. \"You got the job, tell everyone to leave on your way out.\" The man looked older and less like he did just a minute ago.\n\n\"My way out?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yes, you can do whatever you'd like. Never have to come back here again, Mr. McHenry, though I suppose you might.\" He said the last words casually, but it made me shiver.\n\nI walked out and told everyone the position was filled, taking the stairs to avoid the elevator ride down with them. I got outside and headed to my car, frowning at the sight. The red paint job looked *unseemly*. I thought about getting it repainted. Maybe a nice solid white." ]

[ 2, 3, 7, 12, 25, 30, 32, 148 ]

[ "1397800942", "1397771518", "1397767317", "1397755370", "1397762109", "1397752879", "1397753251", "1397754399" ]

[ "\"Now we'll have to wait another million years\" thought the monkey as the light in the dying creature's eyes went out.", "God sighed after rejecting the last few applications yet again. For the last million years, not a single human had made it to Heaven. It wasn't as if he didn't try to change this. He talked to Moses, explaining his existence and the requirements to go to Heaven, and told him to spread the word. However Moses wasn't even able to follow the 10 commandments so God reluctantly sent him to hell. He even sent his own son Jesus down to Earth, yet even his twelve disciples committed sins, so despite Jesus' protests he sent them to hell as well.\n\nGod was lonely.\n\nHe stood up, pushed back his chair, ready to go to sleep when he noticed a slip of paper that must have fallen under his desk. He reached down and picked it up and glanced through it.\n\n\"Five counts of murder.. tax evasion.. sadist...\", he muttered as he skimmed through the page. He scrunched up the paper, ready to throw it in the rejection pile, but he hesitated. Maybe he was being overly harsh on humans, expecting them to commit no sins in their lives might have had been rather unreasonable. He unfolded the persons application, ready to give him a second chance.\n\n\"Spent last 30 years in jail.... converted to Christianity... helped his inmates....\" He muttered under his breath. \"Well, I guess that is good enough\". He gently put the application in the approval box, and head to the entrance, waiting to welcome his first resident in over one million years.\n", "We tried this once before, yes?\n\nYes, long ago. Different worlds. \n\nBut now we're trying again?\n\nYes.\n\nHow long?\n\nAbout five minutes. His respiratory system is failing even now. \n\nGuh. Physical life. Jeez. No thank you.\n\nYou should try it. It's enlightening. \n\nOnly if there's a way to have the experience without all the... biology... stuff... ew.\n\nIt's not so bad. Everything ready?\n\nYeah yeah. Sure. Uh... Pretty sure, anyway. It's been a while.\n\nA million years.\n\nYeah.... so... was it hard?\n\nHm?\n\nBeing human, I mean. Back then. You were on a world too, right? However many million years ago?\n\nYes.\n\nYes, you were a human, or yes it was hard?\n\nYes.\n\nAh... right... so... three minutes now?\n\nTwo.\n\nOk. Um... what do I say? \n\nHe thinks his name is Abel. Welcome him home, and tell him he did a good job. Tell him everything is okay. It will all come back to him. \n\nYou mean he doesn't remember anything?\n\nNothing but being human.\n\nWow. So... he doesn't even remember asking to go down there? To do all that... biology... and... pain and stuff?\n\nHe doesn't remember. I did my best to tell him once he got there, but the flesh is so loud that he didn't hear much. Just a feeling now and then that there was more. Hope to carry on. That kind of thing. Thirty seconds.\n\nBut he knew he would forget? I mean, that was part of the deal, right? He'd start down there with, I mean literally nothing, right?\n\nYes?\n\nSo... Why?\n\nWhy?\n\nWhy do it at all? I mean this guy had his organs broken by his own brother - one of us! Why are people lining up to go down there if it's all this pain and biology and accidents and unfairness and everything else?\n\nWe go *there* to know what it means to be *here*. To be home.\n\nI don't understand.\n\nYou will. If you go. Ah. Here he is! Well done!\n", "His eyes blinked opened, slightly at first, god it seemed bright, but despite the blinding headache he felt better than he had in centuries. \n\n\"Well now, I'd thought you'd never show up, do you have any idea how long you've kept me waiting?\"\n\nThat voice... He knew that voice, but that couldn't be, it had been too long, far too long, but still \"Claire?\" he rasped. God was that his voice? He couldn't even remember the last time he had spoken.\n\n\"It's me honey and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.\" Claire replied\n\n\"But, but you died... I watched you die. I couldn't save you Claire, I failed, but I swore I wouldn't fail you again. All this time I've stayed alive for you. I've made sure you've never been forgotten\" he blurted.\n\n\"I never should have made you promise that, I'm so sorry. Of course only you could have come so close to the impossible\"\n\nThe light was dimming now, and he could finally see her, god she hadn't aged a day, a million years and he'd never seen anything that compared.\n\n\"What do you mean so close? I... I can't have failed, I still remember you Claire, and I’ll never forget you.\" \n\n\"You're dead James, after all this time you've finally died, but don't despair we can finally be together. The last human for over a million years has finally died. I’ve been waiting for quite a while in front of these gates\" \n\nSure enough as she said this James looked behind her and saw gates. They seemed infinite and yet he knew they would open with the slightest touch.\n\n\"You mean, you haven't been in yet? All these years, weren't you ever curious?\"\n\n\"I was scared James. First I was scared of dying, and forced you into that horrible promise, and then I realized that on the other side of that gate is every human who ever lived and died. Every single human except you and me. How would I ever find you in there? How would I ever even know when to start looking?\"\n\n\"Well I'm here now\" James said taking hold of her hand.\n\n\"Together forever?\" Claire asked, big eyes gazing up at him.\n\n\"I promise\" James replied without hesitation.", "A million years seems a bit too long, mind if I go with like 1000? There weren't many humans around a million years ago... ", "\"The first one?\"\n\n\"In quite some time, yes.\"\n\n\"But...my dad?\"\n\n\"Not here.\"\n\n\"My mother? My saint of a grandmother who wouldn't even look towards alcohol or swear?\"\n\n\"Neither are with us.\"\n\n\"I don't get it. This is so unfair. I've done so much wrong in my life, why should I be the first one here in hundreds of years?\"\n\n\"Everyone has done a lot wrong in their lives. It is interesting that you would even question your admittance through the pearly gates.\"\n\n\"I was brought up that this would be paradise. How can it be paradise when I can't even see my family? My unborn son? My best friend that got hit by some fucking looney downing a 40 on I-10?\"\n\nPeter sighed. After waiting so long to admit someone, he had gotten excited to hear he was finally doing it. He had built it up in his head that the angel would be excited and happy, but maybe humanity has changed a bit more than he thought they did.\n\n\"Why not step through the gates and ask Him yourself?\"\n\nHe paused. \"Ask why nobody else has gone through these gates? Why I'm alone when I'm supposed to be at my happiest?\"\n\n\"Well, when you put it that way...never mind, just ask Him.\"\n\nThe gates opened and a feeling of might came across him. It the same feeling he got when looking at the top of a mountain from its base.\n\n\"No,\" he said before the gates were fully open. \"No, no, I just want to be with my family. I want to tell them I love them every day and to stay near them.\"\n\nPeter sighed again. \"All right. Have it your way.\"" ]

[ 3, 3, 6, 11, 14, 20 ]

[ "1397776882", "1397830426", "1397801711", "1397800917", "1397768595", "1397785214" ]

[ "He sits there, iPad in hand, the bored kid on a forced vacation. He yawns and glances over the hotel room. His blue eyes, level and clear, don't match the rest of his awkward exterior. Brown hair, naturally messed into a rather cruddy haircut, does nothing for his appearance. Pasty skin, slightly overweight but carries it well. His chin and lips have the hint of a mustache he has been attempting to grow, but sadly has been unable to progress past the prepubescent level they rest at.\n\nHe glances over the room once more. His mother and father, Christian and arrogant, argue over nothing. His little brother is engrossed in the TV, watching some trash he probably doesn't even understand. His eyes glance over to her, then flick back, hunger in them.\n\nShe was Austrian, he knew German, and she had the nicest body he'd ever seen. She was staying with the family for a few months. But her head was as empty as his reserves of patience, and he returned his gaze to the chat.\n\nThe girl he was talking to was older, wiser, a bit of an ass and very pretty. Sadly, he can't get over the \"older\" thing so they remain nothing but fast friends. She is telling him about something from a video game - he doesn't care, but wants to impress her, so asks questions to prove he is listening.\n\nWhat does he want from life? He isn't sure. A self described nihilistic agnostic person who, given the chance, would use his knowledge of Star Wars to become a Sith Lord.", "I passed her in the hall on my way to the kitchen. She towered over me, though the slight stoop in her shoulders held her down, as if she was being pulled Earthward by the weight of her troubles. She smiles easily, but in her eyes there always seems to be a hint of worry - as if something just below the surface was anxious about the consequences of her showing affection to another.\nShe was well-built, with powerful legs - though her movements still conveyed that sense of awkward apprehension, it was obvious that in the right light, she could obtain mastery over her surroundings. We nodded and smiled, and continued on our way, but I knew I would be seeing her again.", "I don't know what she looks like. We've only ever talked on the phone. Her voice is like a flower, blooming with gurgling laughter, swaying up and down in the wind. Her voice is gentle, the words so soft they're barely audible, but I never tell her to speak up; I don't want her to stop. I hang onto the voice, clutching, grasping at the sounds, trying to remember them forever. We laugh, we chatter, we waste time talking about silly, un-important things. To be silly again.\n\nJust before she walks in the door, as we're waiting to catch a glimpse, this moment I've dreamt of in a thousand different ways, I know at least one thing. She'll come in with a smile.", "Look, I don't know anything about you. I know your name is Avery but that doesn't help. I suppose you might be aware of me, in some small microscopic corner of your mind. I bet there's a lot of them. Corners I mean, in your mind. There's probably a lot of little niches that you have, stuffed with little tidbits of useless information. I bet that's what makes you tick. I can see it in your eyes. But that's only when I see your eyes. I'm usually too self-conscious to look for long. Or maybe I do, and it just seems like a fleeting glance. I can't tell. Maybe we've had a lot of moments of just staring at each other and maybe some unseen thing is passed between us, and maybe we've lived an entire life time and maybe I'm just completely useless around girls. Who really knows? Can I just say, I really like your glasses. I dunno, I have a thing for glasses. And it probably adds a lot of weight to the tidbits that are packed into the little corners of your mind. I bet I'm just a little tidbit in your mind. A small piece of trivia you bring up with your flannel-wearing, beard-sporting, muscularly forearmed boyfriend. My forearms aren't very big. But look, I'm trying to introduce you like a book character, but I think you'd be terrible as a book character. The problem is, an author would know his character. An author would understand why his character says or does certain things. I would know if you have a flannel-wearing, beard-sporting, thick-armed boyfriend. But I don't. I just assume. And I wish, and I stutter and stare. In fact the only reason why I'm even doing this is because I want to pretend for a moment that I know you. For a moment, I want to believe that I'm more than just a tidbit in your mind, that I'm more than just a guy who gets nervous at the prospect of saying anything more than 'hello' to you. ", "I returned to my desk mildly puzzled, a common result of conversations with Brandon. This time he was concerned that the Chiropractor on the floor below will soon be relocating to an office 30 minutes away. What about the patients who had come here for years? Were they expected to travel that far? Hey, did you ever try the acupuncturist downstairs? Great stuff.\n\nBrandon's floppy hair matches his all-natural, surfer vibe, which he applies to daily life. Ask him about his teen adventures with one of the family vanagons, or how he almost got knifed trying to be friendly to a gang at school. Have a headache? He's confident that your diet has too many acids or too little soy lecithin or once you try kefir milk you will never go back because those gurus selling ebooks really make a lot of sense.\n\nHis tall figure hunches over as if all of his high school friends had been shorter. He wears Oingo Boingo t-shirts to marketing conferences. He is first to opine about a band or restaurant, but would just as quickly rescind and agree with you to if it prevented discord. He would be a good friend.", "She was a peculiar girl.. One born of hardship and struggle. Some would call her flat and lifeless, while others would call her weary, having seen and been apart of things that no normal girl of her age should have to go through. Her submissive personality, at first an act, a ruse she needed to create and hide behind, a necessity to continue her own survival, became her reality, a girl who had to raise her self in the stead of violent and substant addicted parents.\n\nIt was with a heavy heart I said goodbye, and waited for the click of the phone line as she hung up. I sat there, pondering my own feelings for her, and her lack thereof, especially after everything we'd been through together. \n\nIt dawned on me that maybe I was also a part of this survival mechanism. That maybe I was used as a part of her natural instinct to survinve. Not that I can blame her.. But I can't stop hearing that normally entrancing voice of hers telling me that she no longer loved me.. \n\nWhile others saw peculiar and strange, I saw a warrior, a girl who used what ever means she had avaliable to survive, even if that meant tagging me along for two years. \n\nAnother peculiarity, also more than likely resultant of her daily struggle, her reluctance to communicate how she truly felt. I may never know if she loved me as much I loved her, but even if I don't speak to her again, I know I won't have to worry about her.\n\nFor I know that no matter what happens, she will make it, blood, sweat or tears, and that's all that matters", "She sleeps deeply and sometimes it is a gift and sometimes it is not. Good dreams come rarely—cold weather makes her dream of oceans and summer heat has her dreaming of suffocation, of hot blood. She wakes up like how she falls asleep, slowly, and then all at once. She is kind and dutiful, sending you off on your day. She likes to talk about things she loves—people and books and movies. She mourns characters, chatters excitedly about allusions and history and science. Her temper is like a whip, quick and painful, and the welts stay even after apologizes. When she is about to cry her voice hitches, becomes thick in her throat. She never shows anyone her tears—she cries alone in her room, in the bathroom, locks the door and doesn’t come it. When she is with the people she loves the demons come—telling her they do not love her, that they think she is selfish and horrible. She talks about writing, about her characters and plots, and even though she rarely writes you think her ideas are beautiful. She is a beautiful person, even if she does not believe it herself. ", "She is probably in her 50s, a bit pudgy but not fat with dark auburn hair. Michelle works as a home visiting nurse, although she should have went into theater with the act she puts on. All the \"Hi, how are you?\"'s recited as if on a script, cheerful tone and chit chat that fool most her clients. Below her happy demeanor you can just barely notice her impatience with the patients. A thin layer of ice on her face whenever my grandma opened her mouth, a person with bad eyesight and hearing like dear old Granny gets fooled by people like Michelle, but not me.", "When I got home, I tried to vent with Dexter. He's different. Something about him just gives everybody he meets the impression that he's not quite as human. He's calculating. He's described himself as a monster struggling constantly with an endless torrent of anger. He is self sacrificing, honorable, and lives life with a combination of martial artist morals and criminal life lessons. He's smarter than he lets people know. He's always observing. He's the most loyal friend I'll ever have. He wants to kill a person at some point in his life. He's a survival nut. He's a wing chun grandmaster's disciple. He's a metal head. He is not, however, a shoulder to cry on.", "The chase is on. I know Kevin has spotted me, and I know I have to run. But I also know that I have to run without running: That I must to disappear, become unreachable. A simple sprint is, upsettingly, not an option. \n\nMy pace accelerates as I began weaving between people along the sidewalk, nimbly darting through small knots of students, using people for cover as I put space between myself and Kevin. He shouts my name, spurring me on, persuading me to move faster. I put my head down, consider donning my hood.\n\nAnd then it is over: Kevin is running, shoving people aside, his feet clomping loudly on the concrete as he shouts my name again, breathless from the 20 foot jog. I have lost, I realize. He is upon me.\n\n\"Yo,\" he breathes. \"You ready to fucking rage this saturday?\" he inquires, clapping my shoulder, putting his face two inches from mine. I smile - it hurts.\n\nHe repeats his question, now screaming, shaking me around for emphasis - \"ARE YOU FUCKING READY TO RAGE THIS SATURDAY?\" \n\n\"Yes,\" I reply simply. I was not. \n\n\"Hell yeah,\" he cries, dragging out the -eeeaaaaaah- long enough so that it becomes socially unacceptable. People turn their heads. \n\nIts not that I'm embarrassed: its that I want to punch Kevin in the throat. \n\n\"It must be crazy being a DJ. You just put music on and get to party,\" he says, now speaking extremely fast, waving his hands around. \"Beats and bitches!\" he concludes loudly, pausing, looking at me, and then laughing fervently. \"Are you going to play any trap shit?\"\n\nI drop my books and punch Kevin in the throat as hard as I can before my books have had time to reach the ground, collapsing his esophagus as he crumples to the sidewalk, coughing and sputtering and flailing around as I position myself above him, preparing for my final, killing blow.\n\n[I did not punch Kevin in the throat in real life. The last paragraph is fiction.]\n\n", "He wore a genuine smile on his face, one that would remove any sadness from your heart. His hair was messy and he had not shaved that day making it look as if he had just gotten out of bed, but his facial expressions said otherwise. He tended to the other customers with such happiness and joked around with the kids. Even when the helpers dropped a product by accident, he dealt with it lightly just telling them to be careful. It was as if there was no tension on his mind, yet there could have been the stress of not making enough to pay the bills, or to feed his family. ", "I saw her waiting for the elevator with her bag over her shoulder and a pen in her hand, presumably having just finished another drawing of hers. She had on a pair of grey sweatpants and a black singlet, complimenting her tanned skin. Beauty without effort. Her flip flops smacked the ground as she turned to face my direction and her auburn hair flowed along her shoulders, down to her waist. Her gaze met mine and for a second, I looked into her round brown eyes but quickly averted my own as to not raise suspicion. The top of her head lined up directly with my lips and as we walked onto the elevator, I noticed her scent, magnificent as always. Maybe today I'll talk to her. Maybe.", "She is a little thing but makes quite a bit of noise. Those who first see her think her quiet, shy, almost transparent. She sits with a fake but earnest smile that hides nothing of her boredom and their social ineptness. It is easy to dismiss her but there is just something off about the way she refuses to make eye contact and the half breath she takes before saying, never mind. People tend to turn away, and when they do, they would hear a small voice asking: \"do you know how bed bugs have sex?\"" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 7 ]

[ "1397836901", "1397838635", "1397842109", "1397843658", "1397850970", "1397823804", "1397828753", "1397836257", "1397836799", "1397846970", "1397823186", "1397824682", "1397823031" ]

[ "She watched the patterns of grease and dirt on the wall. Followed their outlines with her eyes, tried to convert them to 3d space, to unravel them, to make them possibilities, rather than dead-ends. He fingers move in rhythm with something that no one could see nor understand.\n\nShe tapped her left foot lightly as she surveyed the dirty wall, as she took in her surroundings, silently measuring distances. From her shoulders down to the floor, far towards the wall and up to the ceiling. This place was perfect, a 20x24 locale with nothing in the way of obstacles anywhere. The walls were the limit.\n\nSuddenly, with a growl she pivoted, something small and white flew out of her left hand and quickly snapped back into her palm. She listened quietly to the echo of the buzz that the small, circular object had made.\n\nAnd then she started dancing. The small object on the string would orbit, dart around, spin and buzz was the tune to which she moved. The dragon's tongue, the swiming toad, the leaping wolf. The yoyo sped through the air faster than the eye could see, travelling in complex patterns around the woman.\n\nAll great artists make their art part of their lifestyle. As the small yoyo flew through the air, breaking it with audible force, she could feel that this was now part of her lifestyle. She would be the greatest yoyo artist in the world.", "A continuation following this [chapter.](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/20ygor/wp_i_could_just_make_out_the_window_high_in_the/cg807jg)\n\nQueen Malvina is pacing again. Despite realizing this, she cannot cease moving about the dinning room. Laid out on the table is china and cutlery for two. The fact she agreed to this surprised even herself. Her Captain of the Guard somehow managed to persuade her to dine with her captive a second time. Just the thought of him sends a shudder down her spine. The temperature drops noticeably by several degrees. Her face flushing red with embarrassment, she wills the room to a comfortable heat. Malvina's incontinence regarding her powers have always been a point of shame for the young ruler. It was her inability to control her gifts that doomed her subjects with undeath. Still, tonight she believes herself to have reason to be nervous.\n\nFor one hundred years her kingdom was safe behind the veil of fog and storm. Not a single ship that entered titanic squall which surrounds her island kingdom ever made it out, and not a single soul survived the treacherous seas or deadly surf, until he washed ashore, disappointingly alive. When he appear on her coast breathing and very much alive, what was she to do? For a century she had counted on the storm to take care of issues. And so when he was thrown onto her beach like some half drown rat, what was she supposed to do? Execute him? She had hoped she was a fairer ruler than that. She was not some despot who murdered on a whim. She did the most humane thing she could do. She locked him away in isolation. It was the best thing for both of them. He would live, and she would not fear having an man loose in her kingdom. His imprisonment was the only way she could have allowed him to live.\n\nSomehow, after two months of surreptitiously observing him and watching him grow more and more forlorn, Sir Lawrence managed to persuade Queen Malvina to invite her prisoner to a meal. She spent the entire time in fear of this emaciated, haggard young man. The notion of being afraid of him was completely illogical. She was a sorceress of tremendous power, capable of killing with but a word. He couldn't have run a mile without keeling over midway. But after what happened all those years ago... Any man could be like that.\n\nA knock on the door makes her yelp in surprise. A familiar voice reaches through the thick wood. \"Your Majesty? May we come in?\"\n\nShe smiles at the sound. \"Yes you may, Sir Lawrence.\"\n\nThe oak door opens and two figures emerge from the hallway. The first is her closest advisor and confidant. Garbed in the tattered cloak of office and with arming sword at his side, her Captain of the Guard walks in and shifts to the side. The second person, Dieter Hagedorn, steps forward. Queen Malvina sucks in a breath as she sees him better, willing herself not to turn around and flee to the comfort of her private quarters. Her captive is wearing better fitting clothes than last night. The staff had the time to go through the wardrobes to find items his size. No amount of fabric can hide his half-starved body though, gaunt with hunger. Shame wells inside her at the extant of his neglect, though it is hidden beneath a queenly mask. Her prisoner however, is as readable as an open book. His features might be kindly described as feral. He has a wolfish- no, definitely vulpine aura about him. There is a bestial cunning in his slate gray eyes. Most of his face is taken up by a mixture of fear and defiance. \n\nTaking a deep breath, she wills herself to remain calm, to not give into fear. She gestures to the other chair. \"Please, sit.\" Her captive gives a tense nod and walks over, seating himself wordlessly. A servant pushes her chair in for her. Glancing over at her mentor for support, she begins dinner.", "They sat on the edge of his bed kissing. Hands tickling up and down and reaching to unbuckle bras and belts. But she hesitated ever so slightly. He was aware enough that he slowed down and they sat together on the edge of the bed side by side, hands intertwined and shoulders used as pillows. They sat in silence as she mulled over her rough edges that couldn’t fit into a cos graph. She stared at her scarred wrists and licked her uneven, creamy white teeth that even braces couldn’t quite fix. \n\nShe was a swan with a duckling’s mind. Years of being told that “words will never hurt” still hadn’t convinced her of the lie. She was smart and funny, but kids judged one another based on the most superficial of things and it wasn’t like they were completely wrong. She was smart enough to know the mirror didn’t lie. \nOver the years, she became deaf to taunts, like a low drone that eventually is ignored, but not ever forgotten. She still avoided mirrors and tried to concentrate on her personality. She attempted to lose weight but never managed to lose the ‘baby fat’. \n\nSomewhere along the way, the tables turned and her personality began to seep out from under her skin. People noticed her melodic laugh, quick wit and porcelain skin. He noticed her.\n\n-095\n" ]

[ 1, 3, 3 ]

[ "1397976378", "1397882958", "1397894515" ]

[ "This should be filed as [EU] because it's a an extended universe prompt", "Bonus if you give it a Simon Pegg/Nick Frost vibe." ]

[ 3, 3 ]

[ "1398019298", "1398021563" ]

[ "####-110\n\n---- \n\nAgainst the dark of igneous rock, licked by lashings from the dancing magma, the Droid drills deeper. \nUp on the lip of the crater, in his cooling-apron, the young Droidmancer dances expertly. With his feet deathly close to the edge, the wraps of his gown flowing in the turbulence, he manipulates the Droid with ease. \nIt drills and drills, until it reaches the heart of the swell. Retracting the bit, it punches through the quickly-coagulating pool left behind, braving the oppressive surge in molten rock. Fashioning the heart out of the knotted magma, it pulls away: standing up on its tall, spindly legs, and looking up to its manipulator. \n\nSmiling, the Droidmancer performs the rite of Union, and the droid slithers up the faces of rock to him, curling around his body and nestling in the folds of his cooling-apron. \n\n* \n\nWith the heart hanging from his fist, chained in thinned light, the Droidmancer returns to the Factory late that evening. He makes his way straight to the Mains room, and with care, fits the heart into its place in the machinery. \n\"Quick work, this time.\" says old Ghori, smiling at him through his charred-paperscroll beard. \"You've only been gone a few days, this time.\" \nThe young 'mancer waits by the old man as he sets to work with his levers and pulleys, starting the process of shaving the heart down into plasma. \"They're becoming harder and harder to find.\" he says. \"We might have to wait until after the solstice for the full harvest.\" \n\"Don't you worry about that!\" says Ghori, peering at the the heart through his goggles. \"That's up to the Master. You just put your things away and go up to the Tower. Get yourself something to eat!\" \n\n* \n\nUp in the Tower, high above the volcanic landscape, the young 'mancer takes in the night air before sitting down to eat. He needs it. The atmosphere of the place has become forever changed to him, now. There is no returning to the place he had left behind when he had last left the Tower. \n\"You're lucky,\" says Naya, \"Jasa's made her bean curd curry again tonight!\" \n\"Thank you Naya.\" says the young 'mancer, bowing his head to the one girl and then the other. \"Thank you Jasa, for always taking care of me.\" \n\"It is our pleasure to serve.\" smiles Jasa, plating the meal. \n\nThe young 'mancer sits and eats wordlessly as the two women wait on him, their eyes cast down to the mosaic floor between courses. The slaves circle them, their arms oscillating in mute obedience, fanning them. \n\"So, Apprentice 111.\" says Naya. \"How far do you think you have progressed in your arts?\" \n\n---- \n\n**To be continued.** ", "In a town called Yardel, in the 27th year of the Glorious Reign of King Ionil the Second, there was a tower tall and filled with secrets. Carved upon the entryway were the words, written out in the script of the Elder Tongue, the Scholar's Stone. In it dwelled two men, one who was called Ynvarg, though none truly believed that this name, a name from a ancient era now gone when the wild magic that had ruled the world was tamed and conquered and bound to the will of men, was his own from birth. Ynvarg was ancient and oft coughed, great hacking wheezes which shook his body and left him exhausted and in pain, but so very wise. He spoke the Elder tongue as if it were the language of his birth.\n\n The other was named Ulthir, a bastard boy of the age of 16. He served as the apprentice of Ynvarg, learning the ways of magic and its command using the Elder Tongue. One day, the youth approached his master, and asked him \"Ynvarg, are you my father?\" The master turned to his ward, a hint of a smile upon his face. \"And what makes you think I am, young one?\" \"Well, my father disappeared during the Destruction of Morgshold, but I always felt he was alive. I felt drawn to you, as if you were someone I knew, and we share a hint of the same look. But that was not enough to make me suspect. But there is more. You see, my mother never told me my father's name, but I searched through old letters and found his name. Vayar. And what name did the witch of the wilds call you when she bound you with your true name? Vayar. Then there is this.\" the whelp held out two stones, a deep dark red. He then touched them together and they began to shine with a unnatural light. \"Blood stones. Made from our blood. They glow when they touch kinsmen's blood.\"\n\n\"I hope you didn't take essence from a old man while he slept. I have need for as much red life as I can muster\"\n\n\"Of course not, I took it when you had me clean the floor after that little mix up with the summoned imp. I know we share blood. And you share my fathers name. So, why don't you just tell me, please? You are my father aren't you?\" The boys eyes seemed to shine with tears as he begged for his master to give him trust, a bond. The old man now looked as if someone had told a joke during a solemn occasion, struggling to keep his face straight. \n\n\"My boy, there is little I can say. I have two pieces of advice. The first is that when you long for a home you shall find one on the banks of the river Eidir. The second,\" the old man seemed to whisper, forcing the boy to lean in to hear. He listened as if every word was weighted by gold. \"The girl by the tavern, Gunwuld? She fancies you.\" the old man now laughed, unleashing the mirth hidden behind a stony face. The boy's inner fire now raged outwards as if lightning had struck upon straw.\n\n\"You dare taunt me, old man? I have cleaned your piss pot, helped you up the stone steps, carried your burdens, cleaned your messes, cooked your meals, and in exchange I was promised knowledge. Yet I ask you something so key, so vital, so easily given but so hard to do without, and you refuse me! You will tell me you horrid living carca...\" the speech of the quickling was cut short as a great hailstone rained out from the wizards pointed finger, driven by words which carried with them all the power and fury of the cold northern storm. The whelp was struck by four chunks of ice, each of which formed a maniacal that held him fast to the wall of the rock. His lips then frosted over, turning to solid ice.\n\n\"I must? I must? I must tell you at whose behest, youngling? Do you claim the power to command me, your master, to obedience? Would you have me bowing before your boots young master? You are a fool it seems. You remembered the blood stone recipe, but you seemed to have forced out old knowledge to make room in your little mind. We follow the Old Ways here. It is the sacred path that allows us to command magic in safety. Its tenants guide us. Now, I am going to free your mouth the first thing out of it had best be the 1st of the 8.\n\nThe boy now felt the ice around his mouth slowly turn warm and melt. \"The apprentice is to obey the master, for the knowledge most ancient of the master gives wisdom to the new who will carry it on, and the master must be heeded.\" the boy stuttered automatically. \"Ineed. And yet I must. Still, I suppose the Old Ways do, in some ways command me to do as you ask...let us say this, we shall decide who deserves the title of master based upon another of the Old Way's. If you ever best me in a duel then you shall gain what you seek.\"\n\nAnd the master and his apprentice continued in this way for years. With the apprentice following dutifully, but with occasional outbursts like a coal which appears to cool then flares brightly as the wind touches upon it. They dueled many times, but each the master was victorious, using some trick or secret which the boy knew not of. And eventually these duels ended when the master fell ill and began coughing more and more. And so, on the 28th year of the life of the boy Ynvarg died peacefully abed. And the boy, now a man, buried his master in stones carved in the runes of the Elder Tongue, that his body might resist the onslaught of the ages.\n\nThe boy, now a man, took the tower for himself, and for his bride, the girl Gunwuld. He had been married by his master, insisting than other than the man who brought them together could perform the ceremony. Ulthir had a son in time, named for his master who was perhaps his father in blood, but who was most definitely his father in spirit, as Vayar. And so time marched on and Ulthir continued his masters work, finding secrets old and new and teaching them to those who would serve in the tower that was called the Scholar's Stone, including the young Vayar. Eventually the former boy now master passed away and left the tower and its collected knowledge to his son.\n\nVayar worked tirelessly to instead the passing of time. And one day while he worked, around the home which his father had built far from the village on the shores of the river Eidir, he found himself taken with a flash. He found the river barren of population, and wandered far. He found the village of Yardel, far smaller than he remembered it. He asked about the Scholar's Stone, whose place was barren and received no answer. People spoke about Morgshold as if it yet remained standing to this day. And when he asked the year he was answered that it was the 39th Year of the Glorious Reign of King Ionil the First. So he realised that his effort to understand the passage of time, which carried all men as easily as the river carries a stick, had taken him upstream. And so he realized now his true identity, that of the ancient sage which his father spoke of in his stories. So when he was asked his name he answered that he was Ynvarg, \"the Wise One\" in the Elder Tongue. And when asked why he had come to the humble dwelling of Yardel he had but one answer. \"I wish a peaceful place to construct a tower, a place to work. A place of knowledge. Other than that, well...who can know the future?\"", "[Disclaimer: I didn't consider the possibility that -110 refers to a word limit.]\n\n\n\nWhen the last scholars left the Wizards’ Library, and the last rays of sunlight began to disappear from the bay windows, Jorin rose from his desk and wound his way through the bookshelves to the Headmaster’s office. Today, he would say it.\n\n\nThe headmaster greeted him warmly, as always. The Headmaster greeted everyone warmly, of course, but he always seemed to gaze at Join a little longer, sizing him up with a proud expression that made the other students turn away and roll their eyes. “My star student,” he said. “Did you finish the press release for those nimrods in the Capitol?”\n\n\nJorin handed over the forms. *Say it this time. Just say it*.\n\n\nThe headmaster was already skimming the contents of the report. “Fantastic, just fantastic… I can’t wait to see the look on that pompous mayor’s face when I unveil the transporter…”\n\n\nIt really was like looking in a mirror. The headmaster’s eyes, his nose, the way he leaned on one leg when he stood still: perhaps twenty years from now, Jorin could see himself developing a wrinkle in his forehead like that. A perfect, mirrored match.\n\n\n“Jorin, where is your name on the credited scholars’ list? You’ve practically been the co-creator of this enterprise, and I think it’s time you—“\n\n\n“You’re my father, aren’t you?”\n\n\nSilence descended upon the room. The headmaster stared at Jorin, wide mouthed, then suddenly, sharply, he laughed.\n\n\n“I’m—I’m what?”\n\n\nOf all the reactions Jorin had feared, to be laughed at had to be the worst. He exploded. “My *father*, you son of a bitch! I look like you, I talk like you, you paid for my schooling—I checked the registry, bet you didn’t think I even would—and all this time you couldn’t even be bothered! You could have said something! You—“\n\n\n“*Focus*, before you destroy the library,” said the headmaster, and it was true, Jorin had forgotten himself again. His fists were sparking, leaving scorchmarks on the mahogany floor. After a brief interlude of swearing and a quick water spell, Jorin looked up to find the headmaster gazing sadly back at him.\n\n\n“It’s not a bad conclusion,” the headmaster explained. “I’d say it makes perfect sense, or it would usually. It’s very like you to come up with such a conclusion. But you’re incorrect. I’m not your father.”\n\n\n“Then how the hell—“\n\n\n“We are related. I was asked to take you in, and I accepted the charge gladly.”\n\n\n“You know my family? We have family?”\n\n\n“Come on,” said the headmaster. “It’s time to discuss the transporter.”\n\n\n“I don’t need to discuss it. I built it. There’s nothing to go over.”\n\n\nBut the headmaster had already made his incantation and disappeared. \nCursing, Jorin did the same.\n\n\nThe transporter was a surprisingly modest instrument—too much ornamentation, after all, could be the downfall of a complicated machine. It looked for all the world like a double door in a bent frame, a leftover piece from a failed contrition project. All a wizard—or heck, anyone who’d completed a rudimentary course in summoning—had to do was place two hands on the door panels and recite a year, date, and hour. The door would open, the wizard would disappear. Easy, in theory. Granted, there was no mechanism for returning to the past, but as the headmaster, said, this was probably for the best—it guaranteed that time travelers would take their business seriously. \n\n\n“What a triumph,” said the headmaster.\n\n\n“Why are we here?”\n\n\n“Have you and the other students ever discussed what it means to have this invention?”\n\n\n*Only every day since you introduced the plans*, thought Jorin, but the headmaster continued as if no one was in the room.\n\n\n“It’s quite a dilemma. Say the wrong man got his hands on this technology and traveled to the past. He’d have all the knowledge he needed to make quite a mess, wouldn’t he?”\n\n\n“I suppose.”\n\n\n“He could bring wealth with him. Amass power. Assume control, worse yet, he could arrange it so this machine was never invented. Kill the woman who made it, kill her family.”\n\n\n“We're not even women.”\n\n\nThe headmaster fixed Jorin with a stare that seemed to have unnatural power behind it. “The first wizard to successfully make this machine,” he said, “was my grandmother.” \n\n\nJorin stared at the headmaster, who kindly waited for the boy to mull the idea over.\n\n\n“Are you really from Molduk province?” Jorin asked at last.\n\n\nThe headmaster laughed. “The province, yes. The year, no.”\n\n\n“Oh, Gods,” Jorin muttered. “What are you saying? Who are you?”\n\n\n“A lot is going to change in the next few years, Jorin. Don’t trust that filthy mayor. Remember that this machine is yours. I left further instructions in the safe in my office. The code is your birthday.”\n\n\n“*Who are you?*”\n\n\n“You’ll find out, I suppose. In any case,” and here the headmaster’s eyes began to mist, “I’m glad I met you. I was so young when… but it might not be the case this time around.”\n\n\nRather than continue, the headmaster turned, placed his hands on the panels, and muttered something Jorin couldn’t hear. The boy panicked.\n\n\n“*Don’t use the transporter don’tyoudare—*“\n\n\nThe headmaster’s laughter rang through the hall. “If not now, old man, then when?”\n\n\nWith a wooshing sound, and a click, he was gone. \n\n" ]

[ 2, 2, 4 ]

[ "1398056138", "1398069482", "1398056129" ]

[ "\"Download complete\" F.luhb heard, before everything went black and silent. It wanted to extend its sluurks to probe at its surroundings, determining their colour and texture. But this body didn't have any sluurks! It almost panicked, then remembered its lessons. Ah yes, \"eyes\". Light-sensitive globes at the front of the \"head\". It sent a query to the primitive brain structure to open them. At least there were two, so it had 3D vision. The range was quite limited though. It tried to direct its gaze down at itself to look at its new body. The \"eyes\" wouldn't move much though, all it could see were two pinkish crescents. \n\nThen it remembered that these \"humans\" had bony spines with basic articulation along the vertical plane. It bent its neck. Where its own body would have been covered in dozens of graceful ftuilks, allowing it to manipulate many objects at once, and ten slofmis, to stand on and walk, this body had only two gripping organs, and two long, wobbly stiltlike things to stand on. Very strange an impractical layout, it thought. Then, it remembered its lessons on how to feed this body, and felt faintly sick. It could not to that, fads be damned.\n\nFor its next holiday, it would go solar-sailing in the asteroid fields again. Somewhat relieved, it pulled the mental emergency brake, and downloaded back into its own body.\n\n", "\"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH\" the host screamed.\n\n\"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH,\" he continued.\n\nIt did not understand why he struggled. Hosts can be difficult, it resolved.\n\n\"What the fuck, Jim you okay?\" another called through the door.\n\nIt shut the mouth of host. Muffled gasps escaped from his nose.\n\n\"Jim?\" the voice questioned, entering the room.\n\nIt moved his legs towards the voice, struggling with the odd contraptions connecting the top and bottom parts of his legs. It raised his arm towards the new voice, engaging in a greeting it learned from watching the hosts.\n\n\"Jim?\" the voice repeated, apparently not recognizing the gesture.\n\nIt left his hand up. His eyes attempted to move rapidly but it stopped them.\n\n\"What's that on the back of your head?\" the voice asked. \"Some sort of fucking bug, it looks- aAAHHH\" the voice stopped.\n\nWhile the voice talked it had made him poke the voice with his metal point. It moved deeper into his head with a squish.\n\nHe wretched, excreting its child upon the silenced voice. Child attached to voice's head.\n\nHe walked, per its instruction out of the bright room into the bright hallway and towards the twinkling screens. He pressed a button on the screen, as it had seen hosts do many times before. Child stumbled behind him and it squirmed further into his head.\n\n\"Destination?\" screen asked.\n\n\"H-oohme\" he said.\n\n\"Repeat\" screen commanded.\n\n\"HOME\" he screamed, more confident in the words it had heard.\n\n\"Confirmed, destination set to home\" screen said.\n\nHe sat and it finally pushed fully into his head. Child sat next to it, squirming deeper into voice's head. It put a smile on his face." ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1398111288", "1398056571" ]

[ "Raul looked upon the silly boring old game of chess and let out a feminine \"Sigh\" audibly enough for David, his rugged chiseled black adonis with the gigantic trouser snake to hear. All the Puerto Rican feminine gay man could think about was rubbing that gigantic black cock on his face after the two old boring white guys would leave.\n\nRaul wanted to have his public bukkake interracial fantasy fulfilled, and he wanted it in the park RIGHT THIS SECOND!\n\nNever in his life did he need to have seed shot all over his face more than in this moment.\n\n\"Bishop to bishop 3\" the boring old bastards said. Poor fuckers, they are probably too old to get it up anymore anyway. \n\n\"David isn't into old guy sex is he?\" Raul thought as he saw how much attention his black Nubian sex god was paying to the old bastards and their moldy old board. \n\nTO BE CONTINUED", "An old man lay sleeping on a bench, dressed in a suit, as blue as the ocean, no deeper still, and yet, as light as they sky itself. His hair had grayed, from it's original deep black, and now his hair was a light gray that was almost blue itself. As he lay snoring, a tall woman whose clothes were once pink as a fresh peach, yet even more vivid, walked up and sat across him.\n\n\"I've been looking for you.\" she said, waking the old man, \"It has been a long time since we met.\"\n\nTh old man started and looked into the woman's eyes, \"Is it really you, Momo?\" he asked, slowly at first, \"I have not seen you since Nagasaki, the first one, in 1945... or was it six?\"\n\nMomo snapped her fingers, and a chessboard appeared on the table, \"It was five. Now, we play. You promised me that one day we would play this game, for what you took back then.\"\n\n\"You know that I did it to protect them.\" the man said, lazily waving his hand, and pieces appeared on the board, made of a beautiful blue metal, the kind of which had sunk beneath the sea ages ago. \"If you read it, who knows what would happen.\"\n\n\"That is a lie. You never did anything for anyone. You wouldn't be able to motivate yourself. Pathetic.\" Momo flourished her hand, and cherry blossoms fell from the sky, and folded themselves into pawns and rooks. \"You're stuck in the past, with Abraham. THAT'S why you stole his book.\"\n\n\"You go on about that Momo,\" The man replied, moving his piece, \"I never loved him. If i was thinking about him when i took it, it was my promise. To never let anyone have the formula.\"\n\nMomo moved her piece then looked around the park, which was devoid of life except them. She smiled. \"Never before was a battle like this fought with no spectators. I see you are kind enough to not use your..... Skills.\" Momo spat the last word like poison.\n\nthe man smiled, moving the Knight forward, \"You cannot limit me. It is why I am still alive. It is what has kept me alive since Els Et Kenedren.\"\n\n\"The Island of the Sinking Tides. You really are lazy, Atlas. it's called Atlantis by the mortals now.\" Momo said, moving her queen.\n\n\"A simple shepherds mate.\" Atlas said, quickly taking the queen with his knight, \"You cannot limit what i can conceal from you. And I am called Aoigami now. that was the terms of our last game. He spun a cube made out of the same material in midair. \"Blue Chromata, in this language, I think.\" he intoned his voice behind her, \"Come, i believe your names are Kaitlyn and Chris. Please, sit.\"\n\nMomo whirled around, \"How did they get in here?\" she turned back to Blue, \"You. You and your desperate attempts for attention. I will kill them for their insolence, after i am done with you.\"\n\nBlue looked at her, \"You will do no such thing.\" He spoke again to the couple, come, Chris, son of Jonathan and Theresa, and Kaitlyn, daughter of Helen and Sam, a convergence of three major bloodlines, your child destined to join to the fourth.\"\n\nChris and Kaitlyn walked up to the table, \"How do you know our names?\" asked Chris, his face a billboard, advertising his distress, \"We have never seen you before.\"\n\nBlues eyes flashed a perfect, azure blue, \"There is nothing that can limit me. Ten thousand years ago, I was called the God with No Limits. i am not a god though. Though she thinks that she is. She calls herself the God of Existence.\"\n\nMomo's eyes flashes a lovely pink, and then Blue. \"I cannot destroy them. Why not?\" she asked, moving a piece.\n\nBlue smiled, \"I have welcomed them into sanctuary. It is an Atlantean custom. Old, but still works.\" He moved a piece, then looked at Kaitlyn, \"You wanted to ask something?\"\n\nKaitlyn flinched, but caught herself halfway through, \"Why are you playing chess? The two of you seem to dislike each other, so why don't you just fight it out?\"\n\nBlue smiled, watching Momo take one of his pieces with dismay, \"Because games are something thing I let myself be limited by. Just as you know, if you wanted, you could have a harem of males that would love you and protect you and live in harmony, but you let yourself be limited by your relationship with Chris, and just as Chris knows that he could easily dump you and go romp with Anna Eltier, whom he finds quite attractive, more than you, however, because of his love for you, he limits himself. However, if i were to fight with Momo over this,\" he waved a leather bound book in the air, the pages covered with ever changing runes, not seen since Atlantis itself, \"She would go all out, and then i would go all out and humanity would be obliterated.\" As he said this, Blue, without looking, moved his queen, \"Checkmate, i think.\" Blue said, smiling a little, \"And as my payment, you have to live in my old, how did you put it, confinement, for the rest of your life.\"\n\nMomo looked up at Blue, her eyes aghast, \"You wouldn't, you gave me your title as the first of our line. I owe you nothing.\"\n\nBlue smiled, \"Fine. Instead of that, I get my title BACK. Then i can order you to live there for the rest of your life.\"\n\nAfter Momo's screams of anguish faded into the air, Blue turned to Chris and Kaitlyn, Would you mind, letting an old man die in a warm house, and then honoring his final wish?\"\n\nChris stepped forward, tears streaming down his face, and wrapped his coat around Blue, who was now beginning to become cold, \"I thought you couldn't die. You can't be limited by anything, not time, nor death, nor space.\"\n\n\"I'm quite afraid that my old age has caught up to me,\" Blue rasped, his voice fading, \"I'm quite sure that I've forgotten what's in there, except one thing.'\n\n\"What's that?\" asked Kaitlyn, wrapping scarves around him.\n\n\"That the Codex, grants ultimate power, but only a human may read it, or this world will be destroyed.\" Blue wheezed.\n\n\"But, why? Why only us?\" asked Kaitlyn, confused.\n\n\"Because you... are limited..... By love.\" And then Atlas, the first king of the Atlanteans, died.", "Comment to save", "really great short story... thank you for sharing it.", "The clock read high noon, and the sun peaked in its mighty power in the sky. Its all-encompassing iridescence encased the entirety of the unnamed city in every facet of its being. Every street, alleyway, and store front basked in the presence of the light. The city had a homey feel to it, and its citizens were a warm people. These city-dwellers gravitated towards the city-park on alluring days such as these.\nThe city park had many old cobble paths that revealed to those who traversed it a multitude of trees and wild life. Behemoth stones were randomly located throughout the park. The original founders of the city deemed these boulders too much of a burden to move, and they decided to leave them. These rocks had stairs hewn into them at certain points; however, time had eroded the stairs to the point which one could easily ignore such trivial things. Nevertheless, these carvings hinted at something ancient and significant. In a way it was foreboding.\nForces beyond the reader or myself had determined, unbeknownst to the city-dwellers, that this certain park in this unknown city would be the site of a game of Chess that would settle the very fate of this Earth once and for all.\nThe two contenders’ true identities are only known to humankind by different euphemisms and nicknames assigned throughout history. Ying and Yang, God and Satan, Allah and Iblīs, no matter the time or place, these opposing forces have fought for complete dominance and ownership of Creation since inception. They are Light and Dark, Push and Pull, Everything and Nothingness. Wars, natural disasters, and disease were all the result of the conflict of these two beings.\nBoth of these gods, as some would call them, concluded that through their battling, the prize the deities sought was being destroyed. They wished to end it all in one final skirmish.\nSo, with the result of one game of Chess, one would dissolve into oblivion, and one would have supremacy of the Earth, one total victory and one ultimate defeat.\n“So the final onset has finally begun, Light?” spoke one of the deities.\n“I suppose, Dark, my old combatant,” reasoned Light.\nBoth Light and Dark had taken the form of plain humans for this encounter. Light appeared as a kindly man in his middle age. Light had blonde turning white stubble growing on his rounded chin. Laugh lines were visible around his mouth when he spoke, and crow’s feet clawed at the corners of his eyes when they squinted in thought. His blonde-white hair was balding on the crown of his head, and he had slicked it back in a type of comb over with the spittle in his hand. He adorned a white tee-shirt, a pair of white slacks, a white belt, but no shoes; he was barefoot. His greyed eyes stared intently at his opponent, Dark.\nDark took the form of a younger man with a full head of jet-black hair down to the shoulders and a black goatee. His eyes also had a grey hue in similar fashion to Light. Dark wore a black suit and a red satin shirt. Each button on his jacket shined of an unnaturally bright gold. His tie was black in the same way as his hair. Dark’s sharp chin, pronounced cheekbones, and pointed nose all met Light’s gaze evenly.\nBoth spirits sat down at an open table in the center of the city-park. They never broke their stare.\nOn the table, sat a Chess Board; it was already set up. Naturally, Light took the white side, and Dark took the black.\n“White always moves first. The privilege of first movement is yours, Light,” Dark spoke coolly. The immortals felt no hatred or other emotion to each other. Those processes were petty human affairs. Both, Light and Dark felt they were beyond that.\n“Very well,” Light replied. Light took his time in thinking of his move. After all, he did have eternity.\n“I will move my rook pawn to H3,” when he lifted the piece, the earth shook in protest. The city-people looked around, alarmed.\n“That is a fool’s opening, Light, and you know that. I will counter by moving my king pawn to H5,” An opaque cloud eclipsed the sun which had shown its light immaculately up to this movement. More fat, ugly clouds rolled in, rain looked imminent.\n“We are foils of each other in the great narrative that is this Universe, are we not, Dark?” Knight B1 to space C3. Rain began to fall, and lighting crashed across the sky.\n“Certainly, we are opposite in every way,” queen pawn to D5. The rain hit both divines, but neither did it wet them, nor the board. The rain had strange properties; it did not act like water. The citizens of the city began to go home, it conditions had grown horrible.\n“Then who is the brave, and who is the cowardice? Who is the strong, and who is the weak?” G1 knight to space G3. The rain did not act like water, because it was not water. In fact, it was warm, sticky, red blood. The pedestrians’ exit from the park was no longer orderly. People pushed and shouted at one another in order to flee this hell house which had become the city park.\nLight’s speech continued, “Who is smart, and who is stupid? Who is right and who is wrong?”\nQuietly, Dark picked up his bishop on C8 and smashed Light’s knight on H3.The knight fell off the board, off the table, and hit the ground with a deafening thud.\nThe two immortals were no longer at the chess board, but at the opposite poles of the world. Light from the North Pole sent all the armed forces in the Northern Hemisphere down into the South where Dark resided.\nPlanes flew, soldiers marches, tanks destroyed, and nuclear bombs annihilated. The cities burned, and the rivers ran red with blood. Slowly years passed, as Light and Dark fought for the final domination of the Earth.\nThe Earth’s resources were exhausted, its people sick and dying. The impasse, however, remained. There was no Earth left to fight for. Nothing was left to rule over.\nDark went to Light. He said, “Remember how years ago, we were in the park and you asked ‘Who is smart, and who is stupid? Who is right and who is wrong?’? Oh Light, we were fools! We were both wrong and stupid! We were meant to coexist! Without a light, dark has no meaning, and without push, pull is pointless! We have done the very thing which we tried to avoid doing by playing the damned game of Chess in the first place, and that is to lose what we both cherished! Earth!”\nLight cried, “Dark, in the end we both lost. We tried to disturb the natural balance of things, and now all is ruined. As per rule of the game, the loser will fade into nothingness… I believe this may be the end!”\nUpon this realization, both of the gods felt a very human fear churn their stomachs, and they faded into oblivion. Left in their wake of destruction, was a ruined Earth.", "This thread has been linked to from elsewhere on reddit.\n\n\n - [/r/carygoonsquad] [\\[WP\\] x-post Callum you were right this is epic](http://np.reddit.com/r/carygoonsquad/comments/24l5y7/wp_xpost_callum_you_were_right_this_is_epic/)\n\n\n*^I ^am ^a ^bot. ^Comments? ^Complaints? [^Message ^me ^here.](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fmeta_bot_mailbag) ^I ^don't ^read ^PMs!*\n\n", "\"Pawn E4\", a tired old man said. the white pawn sliding of its own volition across the holographic board, resting in its destination with cold precision.\n\n\"Really? After thousands of years you open the same way. Pawn to E5 is the only option here, said his opponent, who though similar in age appeared less world weary, parrying his move.\n\n\"It is a powerful opening, what more could you ask of me?\", A twinge of fire sparked in his eyes draining the years from his face. \"I am afraid old friend this shall be our last game, it is time to make a choice.\"\n\nThe platform was trimmed with steel and glass railings raised high above the ground of the park. Dozens of men and woman played various games, though chess dominated them. Familys walked with their children laughing at some joke only they heard. Dogs caught flying disks thrown by human and android alike. Small children played the timeless game of tag.\n\nThe sky broke through the thick dome as if nothing was there at all, mingling with artificial light. Ships of all sizes speckled the sky traveling in all directions. A dark crescent shadow passed over the chessboard blotting out the pieces for a moment. The men followed it and glanced at a young couple. The woman was reading a novel huddled in her lovers arms, who was stroking her hair and admiring her. \n\n\"We are going to end this?\", the weary man stated bluntly, staring at the couple, his eyes wet. \"The Love, the passion, the admiration of those we care about? Knight F3\"\n\n\"All things must end, you stated this yourself. Less you forget about war, violence the destruction of the very planet you gifted them! They have spat on every chance that you gave them every LESSON you have taught. When will the teacher finally give up on his students? When I pulled the veil back from your eyes you cast me out! Black knight to C6\" , a cold chill rose up in the air, causing the young woman to draw nearer to her lover. The pages of her book fluttered in the wind.\n\n\"Old friend look at the children below. See how they play? They know nothing of the sins of the past why should they suffer? Do their parents not love them regardless of the pain they cause in their life? Do they not suffer in vain? Look at the wonder they create with only the hands they were given? Bishop B5\", he placed a weary hand on his chin.\n\n\"Yet you look past the harm they cause?\", glancing at a child whose anger could be felt. He was yelling at his dog for stealing his treat. He grew more angry at the small animal as it began to cower away in remembrance. \"Some harm lasts beyond the cause. When does it end? When does the hand that heals become the hand that ends suffering for good? I would end it all if I was allowed, just say the word and the cold fist of justice shall judge one last time. Knight F6\"\n\nThe knight clicked into place with a slight shimmer.\n\n\"I will not snuff out what I have created. They learn, and grow in spite of and because of the pain they cause. It doesn't stop them, it doesn't slow them. What is love without anger? What is Pain without respite? Pawn D3\" \n\n\"Do you not want those you love most to live without suffering? Without pain?\"\n\nThe young woman gripped her head in intense pain, bolts of anguish tore through her body like lightning. The man stood up and quickly drew a small syringe gun from his coat, placing it with familiar precision on her neck. He held her close to his chest as the pain subsided, lightning became static, static became a whisper. The sound of his heartbeat, a beacon to relief. A guide in her madhouse.\n\n\"I think we shall continue this game another day. Some choices are better left unmade\", The board shimmered away, the pieces faded almost instantly. His opponent only nodded. \n\n\"Love can be healer of all.\", the old man did not look tired any longer.", "\"I've always found this game to be charming.\" The old man with the peppered beard remarked, regarding one of the white pawns between his thumb and forefinger. \"It's funny how like chess pieces the humans are. Mere pawns, destined only to be controlled.\" Chuckling softly, he set the piece in the proper place on the board, and looked to the balding man across from him. \"And yet, they do seem to have their quirks, despite their weaknesses.\"\n\n\"They are more like ants. Easily crushed.\" The balding old man demonstrated this by squishing an ant that had crawled up onto the table in search of food. \"Pests, and I am tired of indulging them.\"\n\n\"Yet for all their lacking size, they have a power that you do not often think of. Like the ant, able to lift so much more than itself.\" The bearded man finished setting up the board. \"And they defend their homes and lives fiercely.\"\n\n\"Are we going to play or not?\"\n\nSmiling a little, the bearded man made his first move, shifting one of his pawns forward. \"You know, it'll be a mistake if you get your way from this. They're more than just insects.\"\n\nThe other man scoffed lightly, and swatted away a fly that dared come too close. It fell to the ground, dead. \"Mere insects. And I am the exterminator.\" He made his own move. \"I cannot fathom why you indulge them so. It's like spoiling pigs for slaughter. They'll only die anyway.\"\n\n\"Brother, the only thing as certain as Death is life, and these humans find so much joy in life. Perhaps you should try it sometime.\" The bearded man moved another piece, then looked pointedly up at the other.\n\n\"Power is joy, and I have it all over them. What else do I need?\" The next move was made with less finesse, accidentally knocking over another piece. The thin man cursed softly, uprighting the other pawn.\n\n\"Control.\" His brother observed, seeing the move. \"And wisdom.\" He moved his piece, and took the others pawn.\n\n\"Control? I am a god to them, I am control. I know more than they ever will!\" The balding man's face became somewhat red, and his voice raised slightly as he took another move.\n\n\"You still cannot control yourself. How many years have you been told to not let yourself get flustered? You have much to learn, little brother.\" The bearded man took another piece, smiling. His attention was briefly taken by an elderly couple that settled on a bench across from them. They must have both been in their eighties, chatting softly and holding hands.\n\n\"You sound like father.\" The other man snorted in mild disdain, moving his piece as he followed his brother's gaze. \"I sometimes don't understand humans. They're so close to death, why are they here?\"\n\n\"They understand something you do not. Love. They know the window of death will soon open to them, and yet they live every day in love, cherishing the value of life with each other. That is what you must learn, dear brother.\" He took another move, growing closer and closer to victory.\n\nThe balding man swept the board clean with a wave of his hand, standing up with a sigh. \"Keep your humans. I need learn nothing from them.\" And then he was gone. The bearded man smiled, going back to watching the couple. \"On the contrary. You have everything to learn.\"\n\nAnd suddenly the couple was alone, smiling and sitting in blissful leave, unaware of what had occurred.\n\nEDIT: spelling", "“You know it wasn’t supposed to be like this.” The old man sighed. \n\n“What, you again conceding the center to me so quickly.” The younger man sneered as he placed a knight on d4 and knew it would be a focus point for his upcoming attack. He hit the timer and leaned back in his chair with a look of satisfaction on his face.\n\n“No. I mean religion. I never wanted it to end up like all this. Books with rules that you can’t break or you burn forever. Hell, what a concept Hell is, who even thought of such a horrible thing? These poor things live so short a time how could anyone condemn them to eternal damnation?” He moved his queen to the edge seeking a painfully obvious attack on the younger man’s castled king. \n\n“You condemn them. They all believe you said these things and you don’t correct them. You don’t lift a finger to change anyone’s mind. All you do is let it all play out and get sad at the outcome.” The younger man sneered. A simple move of a pawn blunted the older man’s hope for an attack. \n\n“Because it’s not for me to order anyone around and to tell them what to do, I only exist for them to aspire to be something more than just a hairless ape that kills and eats and breeds.” He stared at the board for a beat and then moved a rook to d1, he knew he couldn’t waste the rook to rid himself of the knight but he figured with a few moves he could get his poorly placed bishop over there and get an even exchange of pieces. \n\n“I’m sorry Joe I don’t see the backgammon guy.” A woman shouted to a man who was jogging to meet up with her. She was a beautiful woman in a red pantsuit cut at the knee. \n\n“I know my backgammon.” The old man said to her. “Got the board in my case right here.” He smiled as he tapped the case with his metal cane. “Once me and my good friend here are done I’ll give Joe a game.”\n\nThe woman smiled as she ran her hand through her raven black hair. “Oh really? That would be so sweet of you. Joe’s been complaining about a lack of opponents since we moved here, and I just happened by the park yesterday and saw an old man playing a bunch of people. I hoped he would be here.” \n\n“Might not get your game.” The younger man said forcefully. She shuddered as his pale blue eyes fixed upon her. “Think this game is over in about five more moves.” He said as he brought a rook over to double his rooks on the F file, with the knight ready to protect them the attack on white’s king seemed unstoppable. \n \n“Well then he’ll be able to play Joe quickly.” The young woman said, she avoided gazing upon the younger man and his unsettling eyes. Joe walked up to the three of them and almost instinctively recoiled in the presence of the younger man. \n\n“No. He won’t.” The younger man sneered. “You talk of men being more than apes that kill and eat and breed. That’s all they ever have been and all they ever will be.” He turned his focus back on the young couple. “She carries a child inside her and it’s not even his.” He laughed as her jaw dropped in horror. \n\n“What?” Joe asked. “How could you?” \n\n“How could I what?” she asked “This man is crazy.” \n\n“Lies. Beautiful lies. She’s been late a week hasn’t she? Men know the cycles of their woman.” The young man smiled, his teeth gleaming white. \n\n“How do you know these things?” Joe asked\n\n“I know humanity. In a way you could say I am humanity. This cretin on the other side of this table has held me back for far too long, but now it’s almost over, finally there will be no more restraint and finally I will bring humanity to what it’s supposed to be. Conflict and strife, survival of the fittest. I will have to find some way to get rid of all those nuclear weapons, they cheapen the game but in the end the great war will come and humanity will purge itself of the weak and infirm and become stronger, better, truer to what it was always meant to be.” \n\nThe young man glared at the old man, he quickly glanced at the board and the old man’s helpless position. “No more of your painting, your music, your art. Cave men scribbling on a wall and you cherish it. Why? What point does it serve?”\n\n“It connects the people.” The old man replied. “Humanity has always done best when at peace, when living in harmony. Religion brought that about for some time, but now that time has passed. I fear it was a tool that was once useful but has now turned into a crutch for the narrow minded to lean upon.”\n\n“It’s not a crutch to lean on.” The younger man said. “It’s a club to beat the other man with, the inquisition, the crusades, 9/11, the whole world has a giant ‘my God is bigger than your God’ complex going on and I’m going to let them figure it out. Maybe in the end they’ll see it was all a lie but then it won’t matter. Those that are left standing will be the ones who survived the fires of war. They will truly know what it is to be human.”\n\n“The strong will still love and laugh and cry. They’ll still have emotions and feelings and share common bonds. They will mourn their dead and sing songs about their heroes. You believe their base instincts are all they are, but there’s so much more to humanity than who can kill the most people. I’m so sorry you’re so wrong on this issue, but I supposed we’ll always be in disagreement won’t we?” The old man said as he leaned back in his chair. \n\n“You haven’t moved. Your clock has to have run out by now.” The younger man glanced at the chess clock and saw to his horror that it was his clock that was moving. Just as he noticed what was happening his flag fell, showing he’d run out of time. \n\n“I moved this pawn over here.” The older man said. “Then I hit the clock while you were busy trying to ruin their relationship. It’s been a fun game but the rules are the rules and I’ve won. Good day to you.” \n\nThe younger man’s body shook with rage. His chest heaved as he stood from his seat. He slapped away the pieces on the board and sent them flying to the ground.\n\n“Not going to praise me for using your tactics?” the old man said. “I’ve learned well from you my good friend.” \n\n\nThe younger man drove his fists into the board and leaned into the old man’s face. “You can never destroy me. I am humanity. I lurk in every heart. Every soul on this planet hears my voice. You only delay things you worthless old fool. This changes nothing! My time will happen!”\n\nThe old man dismissively waved his hand at the younger man as he stormed away. After a few moments of silence Joe looked at the old man. “So, about that game of backgammon?” he asked. \n\n“Oh sure.” The old man said with a smile. “Oh and Mary, you’re not having a boy. What he said was right about religion, far too controversial, he’d get what he’d want, it would tear the whole world apart.” He wiggled his fingers at her stomach. “There, she’s a girl now. Nobody will ever believe that.” He cheerfully laughed as he said it. \n\n“You can’t do this. We’ve worked over two thousand years to keep the bloodlines right. This was the moment of His return.” Mary said. \n\n“I don’t know who you consorted with and what promises were made but I’ve unmade them.” He smiled as he pulled out the backgammon board. Joe sat across from him and glared him, his head shaking in disapproval.\n\n“You know what we’re playing for.” Joe said.\n\n“Oh I understand, but I must warn you that I while I suck at chess, I’m really good at backgammon.” The old man said as he picked up the dice. \n", "wow. thank you for all these submissions.", "My friend was there that day. Of course, that was the whole point. His first move was his knight, as always. I moved my far right pawn, as always. We had played all the time before this day, over small issues. Today's stakes were much higher. We were playing for humanity.\n\nHe was tall, brown skinned, wore sweatpants and a light running shirt. Dressing casually for such an important event was just like him. I, on the other hand, wore a suit. Pinstriped, somewhere in between orange and yellow. We sat down at the park bench in between the dead tree and the meadow. Both silent, we began. I quickly gained the upper hand, taking his rook and bishop.\n\n\"Just like old times right?\" He commented.\n\n\"Not quite\"\n\n\"I'll miss this game\"\n\n\"As will I\"\n\n\"It has been a while. I would've thought you'd stop making that mistake\" He said as he took my knight.\n\n\"I've turned it into something useful\" I replied as I took the rook that offed my knight.\n\n\"Smart\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"It's amazing we've let them go this far alone, yes?\"\n\n\"We should have helped\"\n\n\"Which time?\"\n\nI sighed. \"Exactly\"\n\n\"You know it's important that they develop.\"\n\n\"We could have brought order, at least some of the times.\"\n\n\"Order is important, but also, how the order is brought\"\n\nI grunted, and moved a pawn.\n\n\"Friend, look over there, at the two humans.\"\n\n\"What about them?\"\n\n\"They're bickering. They've been fighting ever since we started the game. If they broke off their relationship right now, it would bring order, no? But it would have horrible repercussions for the both of them. It's much better for them to finish their argument, and move on.\"\n\n\"I suppose.\"\n\n\"Check\"\n\nI grunted in acknowledgement, taking his queen and effectively leaving my state of check.\n\n\"And what if they argue and argue, make eachother feel like garbage, and break it off anyway?\" I asked\n\n\"That's a possibility, yes\"\n\n\"Then under those circumstances, it would have been easier to just break it off?\"\n\n\"I suppose\"\n\n\"Check.\" I said.\n\nHe moved.\n\n\"They've calmed down\"\n\n\"I see that\"\n\n\"So my way worked\"\n\n\"In this case, yes\"\n\n\"In most cases\"\n\n\"Well, that's to be discovered at the end of this game now, isn't it?\"\n\n\"It is, it is\"\n\nWe played that game for three days. Three days, that couple came back to that park bench, and talked. They talked, bickered, kissed, fought, made up, until eventually...\n\n\"Checkmate\"\n\n\n\n", "Wow! Didn't expect this prompt to take off and get such good responses. Thanks for the likes, everyone!", "It's really long... and I don't know how good it is. But here's my shot.\n\n\n***\n\nA figure sat alone at the chess board under a mighty oak. Swathed in concealing black robes too hot for the summer day, his face entirely obscured by a smooth, round, red and white ceramic mask devoid of any features. The couple picnicking nearby did not seem to notice the anomaly. If they had seen him, they'd likely have died on the spot. Could they not sense the dread emanating from him? Or were they too absorbed with one another to notice the psychic miasma that hung around him? Perhaps they simply lacked the requisite sense.\n\nShe appeared at the edge of the park, walking toward the table. Blond hair, whimsical, brightly colored clothing. She took a seat across from the masked man. The couple again took no notice.\n\n\"I'm surprised you came,\" the man said as he withdrew a box and began to place black pieces from it onto the board.\n\n\"You shouldn't be,\" she replied as she began to set her own pieces on the board.\n\n\"I admit it may seem… unorthodox. Perhaps a bit cliché. But in a way, I've raised the stakes, here. If you win, you won't just save them… you'll save everyone else in my future. And if I win, I won't just win this world, but I'll be rid of your incessant hounding.\"\n\nThe game was set. She took the first move and sat back, arms folded.\n\nThe man chuckled behind his impenetrable mask. \"What, no conversation? That's half the pleasure to this thing.\"\n\n\"I'm not here for pleasure. I'm here to end this.\"\n\nHe sighed and moved a pawn into the center of the board. An aggressive move. \"You take the joy out of it.\"\n\n\"There is no joy in this.\" She captured the piece.\n\nHe snapped forward, capturing her pawn with a well-placed bishop. She cringed. She'd made a rash move, and they both knew it. He'd gotten her unhinged. Her face assumed a calm demeanor, betraying no more than his mask. She made another move. More conservative, this time.\n\nThe couple to her left laughed at something one of them had said. She glanced over at them. He followed her gaze.\n\n\"Oh, don't be like that.\" He positioned his knight.\n\nShe moved her bishop defensively.\n\n\"You're supposed to say 'Like what?'\" He maneuvered a pawn to threaten one of hers. \n\nShe defended with her knight, capturing the pawn.\n\n\"My response, of course, is 'the holy warrior,'\" he continued as he captured her knight. Somehow she could tell he was smiling behind the mask. \"'Oh, look at me. I'm protecting these people. Even the least of them is more valuable in my blah blah blah.' Come now, Fateweaver. You and I both know those two are inconsequential. Moreso even than the worst-positioned pawn on this board.\"\n\nShe captured his bishop with her own.\n\n\"They'll never amount to anything, not on their own,\" he said. \"Sure, they can nudge events one way or the other. Maybe create something more important than they themselves are. But they're expendable. You can do with purpose and precision what they do fumbling in the darkness of fate. Why do you care for them so?\"\n\n\"You have forgotten.\" She moved her pawn to position for an advance by her queen.\n\n\"There is much I have forgotten. Much I have relearned. That's not the point. You wouldn't die for them. I can see it in your eyes. You'd sacrifice them, if you had to. But you tell others that you do what you do for their sake. You're a hypocrite.\"\n\nThe woman on the picnic blanket stood, laughing, as the man stood to chase her. They ran by the players, and the woman reached out her hand, lightly brushing their wrists as they ran by. They did not seem to notice.\n\n\"You're a sentimental fool at the same time, though,\" the man said. \"They're useless, but still you try to influence them. To improve an inconsequential pair of lives.\"\n\nThey moved several times more, each positioning for a strike. They found themselves in a deadlock. The couple chased one another around the tree, dodging the players by mere inches, weaving in and out between the board and the tree.\n\n\"So which is it? Utilitarianism or sentimentality? You'll sacrifice these few for the sake of the many. Let me have this world. You have my word I will trouble none others. There, you will win. This world is a small sacrifice in the scale of what I have wrought, what I can wreak in the future, even with you to resist me.\"\n\n\"You will have no more lives than those who must die to stop you.\"\n\n\"Bah. As if you could stop me. I could snuff out the lives of those two… with a thought.\"\n\nShadows grew around the man. The couple shivered, looking around. Their gazes passed through the players. \n\n\"Even you would not be able to save them,\" he said, his voice acquiring an unsettling monotone.\n\nShe moved quickly, knocking one of his knights over with her queen. The piece clattered across the board and fell to the grass.\n\n\"Brash. You know what your problem is? You're impulsive. You shouldn't have come here. I could kill you where you sit. Only my amusement holds me back from destroying you. Oh, you'd put up a fight, but in the end…\"\n\nHe moved a bishop to capture her queen.\n\n\"Tsk.\"\n\nHe looked up. Her finger touched a rook that threatened his king without the bishop there to block it. And over her shoulder, there was someone leaning against a tree. Watching them.\n\n\"You little strumpet. You brought backup. I like you. Let's see this game through, shall we?\"\n\nHe put his bishop back in its place and captured her second knight.\n\n\"You know, you're not unlike me. We both manipulate. We both sacrifice.\"\n\nShe took his rook.\n\n\"Only our goals differ,\" he continued. \"Our methods are quite similar. Though you…\"\n\nHe took her rook. \n\n\"You seem to enjoy sacrificing your more useful tools before they can see their true potential.\"\n\n\"It's not about potential,\" she said softly as she maneuvered a pawn. \"It's about what's right.\"\n\nThe couple finally settled, flopping on the picnic blanket, laughter like the sweet song of a morning bird.\n\nThe man scoffed. \"Come now, you're far too old to believe in that. All of the worlds you've seen. The ones you've ended. The ones you've started. There is no right or wrong. There is only power.\" \n\n\"And the one that has the most power determines what's right.\"\n\nAnger crept into the man's voice. \"Be silent. You know not of what you speak.\"\n\n\"I know very well,\" she said, her expression blank. \"You know fear. And you fear wisely, though you hide it well.\" \n\nHe took her second rook. \"Power is all that matters here. And you are nearly out of powerful pieces.\"\n\nBehind her, the man watching them took on a desperate expression as he began to fade. He opened his mouth in a silent shout, then vanished. If she had noticed, she gave no indication.\n\nThey surveyed the board silently. She, with only her queen, her king, a knight and two pawns. He, with both rooks, a bishop and his king, though out of pawns. He was better positioned than she.\n\n\"This game is over, Fateweaver.\"\n\nShe moved her knight. \"Check.\"\n\n\"Fool.\" He took her knight using his rook. \"Check.\"\n\nThe couple nearby laughed again. She looked at them for a long moment.\n\n\"You're stalling. Make your move.\"\n\n\"Peace, devil. I will move when I am ready.\"\n\nThey were happy. It was written on their faces, on the fine lines and wrinkles around their eyes. The masked man was right, though. Their happiness was inconsequential, in the end. It was not unique. She recognized it because she had seen billions… trillions of people experience the same love. Many stronger than this. He was right. It was not special. They were not unique. Their love was as common as the grains of sand on the beach. It was in every way unremarkable to one who had lived as long as she had.\n\nBut it was sacred nonetheless.\n\nShe struck out with her queen, taking the threatening piece. It was the only option he had left her. He took it with his knight. \n\nShe moved a pawn to the final square. It morphed, the alabaster shaping itself into one of the rooks she had lost. \n\nShe sat back, with her hands folded in her lap. \"The game is over.\"\n\nThe man sat staring for a moment, verifying her claim. It quickly became obvious. She had positioned her remaining pieces in such a way as to cut off his king's escape. And his other pieces were out of position from capturing hers.\n\n\"You know,\" he said, his voice acquiring that unsettling monotone again, \"I never intended to let you claim your prize if you won. I'm not very good at following rules.\"\n\n\"I know,\" she said simply, regarding him with a blank expression.\n\n\"Then you'll die knowing that you beat me.\"\n\nThe shadows began to grow around him again, this time thickening into a cloying miasma. The branches that hung down near them began to wither. The grass blackened around him.\n\n\"I will,\" she said. \"But not today.\"\n\nThe shadows vanished. \n\n\"What have you wrought, witch?\"\n\n\"I'm not very good at following rules, either.\"\n\nShe lifted her hands from her lap. Minute threads appeared, running from her fingers to the couple on the grass. And from them, ran threads that encircled the cloaked man. \n\n\"You…\" His voice dripped with hatred.\n\n\"No one is inconsequential. And that is why you have lost this game for the last time.\"\n\nThe man twitched against the threads, but they held him fast. He snarled.\n\nThe woman stood, suddenly looming over him despite her slight build. \n\n\"Checkmate.\"\n\n", "\"Check.\"\n\nShe grinned, and surveyed the board. I knew her next move. She did as well. But analyzing things is her nature. Cool, calculating, rational.\n\nA delicate breeze ruffled her wavy white hair. It felt nice. Simple. Pleasant. I enjoyed taking on a human form; the sensations are unique. Exquisite. Not at all like existence in our realm.\n\nShe moved her knight into a defensive position. \"Finally.\" I said, with feigned exasperation.\n\n\"Rushing headlong into situations is a recipe for disaster. It's a shame the humans never figured that out...\"\n\n\"Oh, stop.\" I cut her off. The dance continues. In essence, neither of us has anything the other lacks. We just play different roles. It's all part of the grand design.\n\n\"You must admit, they've come close to figuring *us* out...\" I began.\n\n\"Oh?\" She remarked facetiously, \"Enlighten me.\"\n\n\"The tao, shiva and shakti, the science of the right and left brain...\"\n\n\"That is far from a science.\" She interjected.\n\n\"Well, it *is* rather artistic\" I mused, gazing at a young couple on a nearby bench.\n\n\"And that is the heart of the issue,\" she continued, \"They cannot reconcile...\"\n\nShe isn't \"evil\", as the humans would say. Just rational. The experiment hasn't achieved its stated purpose, and likely won't. The humans do suffer, but not constantly. If they desire to continue, I say allow it. I let my attention focus more on the young couple nearby.\n\n\"...and we've discussed their deities exhaustively. Throughout the project, they have described facets of our realm. They then proceed to kill one another over minor discrepancies. Hardly grounds for a continuation...\"\n\n\"Check.\" I say, cutting her off. She looks at the board. She blinks. Have I done it? Did I rattle her? She is pure rationality. My path to victory is irrationality. I must make moves that are so irrational she cannot predict them. Cannot process them. But she knows this. Maybe the blink was contrived. Maybe she is luring me in, like a moth to a flame.\n\nShe moves her king out of danger. Uncharacteristically quickly. No lengthy calculation of the board. Maybe she's trying to draw me into her web. Or maybe...\n\n\"Look at that couple.\" I bring the bench to her attention. It's time to make the final push. There isn't much riding on this game. It's just one universe. But I've grown fond of the humans. I think they have potential. \"You remember that feeling, we lived several lifetimes as humans...\"\n\n\"It's a chemical process. A part of the natural system. Their perception of it is intriguing, but nonetheless...\"\n\nTheir perception, intriguing? She wouldn't cede the game outright, but maybe...\n\n\"Perception is a central tenet of this whole project.\" At this point, I'm just trying to keep her talking. Keep her attention on the young couple.\n\n\"Yes, but...\" she continues. If my knight were one square to the left, I could win this game in three moves. I could slide it over while she's distracted. She remembers where it is, of course. She probably knows the position of every chess piece on every board in this park. But maybe...\n\n\"So you think we ought to discontinue the project entirely?\"\n\n\"I feel that after weighing the net results of the last million years in this universe...\"\n\nDid she just say \"I feel\"?\nMoving this piece while her back is turned is outside the rules of the game. If, and presumably when, she notices, she can disqualify me and declare the game over. Maybe that's what she's trying to do.\nBut maybe she learned something about irrationality from the humans. I actually can't tell. But she has a role, and so do I. I slide my piece to the side.\n\n\"...I understand your attachment to the humans, but this is my opinion.\" She concludes, still gazing at the couple.\n\n\"However,\" she continues, turning to lock her eyes with mine, \"as agreed, the final decision will be made by the winner of this game.\"\n\nShe breaks her gaze to look at the board. I indulge myself in my human emotions, knowing this could be my last chance to do so. Anxiety. A tightness of the chest. A palpable tension. She looks back at me, a trace of amusement at the corner of her mouth.\n\n\"Your move.\"", "\"Checkmate\"\n\nThe old man smiled and stood up, shaking hands with his opponent \"Good game friend, same time next year?\" He spoke just as the words finished leaving his mouth the room was filled with then cheers and cries of relief and happiness directed at the small low definition tube TV in the corner which showed two equally old men in suits stepping down from their podiums and walking off screen.\n\n\"No my old friend, I think it is finally time I admit defeat, you've beaten me in every game we've played since we began, and I must give you my congratulations, I cannot out think you, and you have defeated me\" the other man stood up, gave a respectful how and paced off.\n\nThe first of these two mysterious men chuckled softly and began to clean up his board and his pieces as the room of eager and happy faces cheered around him, as he packed his things into his small burlap sack, he peered at the TV himself and gave a small cheerful grin to himself.\n\n**BREAKING NEWS: BERLIN WALL HAS FALLEN**\n\nEDIT: I just realized I used 'Himself' twice in the same sentence and I have brought great dishonor to myself.", "\"Excuse, me, can we get back to business?\"\n\n\n\"Are you *seeing* this?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Them. Over there. No! Don't turn around!\"\n\n\n\"I don't have eyes in the back of my head, you know.\"\n\n\"The hell you don't.\"\n\n\n\"Ha. True. What about them?\"\n\n\n\"Is he trying to get his *entire* tongue in her mouth? It's disgusting.\"\n\n\n\"That's what they do. It's entirely sloppy and disgusting. I think it's cute.\"\n\n\n\"Ugh. And their genitalia. My Me, that shit is gross.\"\n\n\n\"Look. We had specifications. We had to work from the blueprints.\"\n\n\n\"I don't trust Head Office to know their heads from their asses. Or those things' asses.\"\n\n\n\"Yes, yes. We've been down this road before. And the free will thing. That still a thorn in your perfect side?'\n\n\n\"Look, I'm just saying maintenance would have been easier, my way. And we wouldn't be at this crossroad now, would we?\"\n\n\"I suppose not. Still your turn.'\n\n\"Don't rush me! We agreed to the time limitations before the last hundred sets were played, and you're always whining about the rules after *you* agreed.\"\n\n\"Okay, okay. Forgive me.\"\n\n\n\"That's not my job, and you know it. And stop smiling like that.\"\n\n\"Like what?\"\n\n\n\"You know exactly what I'm...HA! You didn't see it, did you?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\n\"THIS! Mate in four. What now, bitch?\"\n\n\n\"Shit. Yup. Entirely yours.\" \n\n\"That's right. What is it now?\"\n\n\nThat makes twenty nine me, twenty six you.\"\n\n\n\"This set is mine. You're through. I have you now.\"\n\n\n\"You said that last set.\"\n\n\n\"Shut up. Oh, dear Me. He's rubbing her genitals through her jeans. Ugh.\"\n\n\n\"Love is love, no matter what. You know that.\"\n\n\"Shut up and reset.\"", "One would believe that the development of a multiverse is akin to mitosis, multiplying constantly and encouraging growth. That is wrong. The reality of the situation is that all of the multiverse simply *was* at the beginning, and has always been in a state of deterioration. If you had to make a metaphor, compare the multiverse to a brain and then each individual universe to a neuron flickering away. Slowly yet definitely, the multiverse will at one point be gone forever.\n\nOther fun facts: one universe consists of one planet. You cannot argue this unless you’ve met another conscious species from another planet. Consciousness is crucial in the management of a planet. Opposed, ethereal forces will seize upon specific universes and pass judgment upon them. One force is sustained by the existence of the multiverse and fights to preserve it. The other force feeds off of the dead matter of lost worlds. The forces cannot fight each other directly, thus they manifest themselves into competitions of skill.\n\nOn one planet, the overly dramatic forces staged and fought a hundred year war. Millions died at first, then as the population withered away the spectacle became an embarrassment. The preservers conceded to the feeders to put the whole ordeal behind them. After that moment, the forces presented themselves in microcosms of competition. A game of pong. An arm wrestling match. Rock paper scissors. A race to the porch and back. If the feeders won, the universe was obliterated. It became a quick, entertaining procedure for both sides. \nThe fate of one particular world rested on a preserver wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants drinking soda out of a two-liter bottle and a feeder wearing a vest over a turtleneck in seventy degree weather. He sweated profusely as he set up a chessboard. \n\n“I prefer checkers,” the preserver said as he reached into his grocery bag and pulled out a bagel. \n\nThe feeder looked over to his ancient rival, “We agreed upon chess. If I had it my way, we would be deciding matters over a game of tennis.” The preserver laughed, picking at his food, “I’m not running back and forth in this weather. You can eat this world and twenty more like if I had to play sports.”\n\nThe feeder sighed and sat across the preserver, “Let’s not talk. Your appearance and demeanor is repugnant.” The manifestations of the opposed forces has become its own psychological game; the preserver and feeder distract one another with averse depictions; the preservers grow uglier to the distaste of the feeder, and the feeder becomes more vain to throw the preserver off tilt.\n\nThe game began. After the preserver’s first move, the feeder studied the board. In their ancient feud spanning across a vast amount of time and space, the preservers and feeders never invested too much time into learning one particular game well. The world’s best chess player can probably outplay any player from the multiverse; ironically, a chess grandmaster can think fifty moves ahead of their opponent, yet could not begin to comprehend the true form of a preserver or feeder without their brain pouring out of their nose.\n\nThe feeder moved his pawn and began to observe the other chess players at the park and the rest of the world’s inhabitants. There was a college nearby, so many co-eds were bouncing all over the place catching frisbees. Dogs ran rampant after other dogs with sticks in their mouths. Children clung to monkeybars, kicking at the void under their undeveloped legs. The feeder did not have to justify his actions to the preserver, but he did appreciate the world’s he would feast on. Many were exactly the same, and the feeder could watch the duplicate of the same child grow big and strong while the feeder day after day ate his worlds one after another.\n\nThe preserver moved a piece. Then the feeder went. The preserver burped. The feeder sipped on a ten dollar bottle of water that he retrieved from his messenger bag. The two stared at each other in resentment as the battle raged.\n\nThe preserver saw an opportunity for a possible checkmate. As he moved his piece, a kickball hit the table, sending the chess pieces across the floor. The preserver and feeder stared at the board and one another as they fought to remember what the protocol was for a disrupted game. A young woman with dark, tight brown curls wearing a shirt and shorts attractively too tight on her flashed the two men a quick, unapologetic frown. “I’m sorry! I have terrible aim.” The feeder and preserver saw that two teams were waiting impatiently for the girl to retrieve the ball so their own game could resume.\n\nThe feeder began to put the pieces back on the table, unaware exactly which piece went where to continue: “It’s okay. Just a game, after all.” The girl smiled, took her ball back and mouthed *sorry* to the men before she left. Both men watched her return to her friends before they turned on each other.\n\n“I should have won,” the preserver testified.\n\n“Nonsense. You just believed you were winning,” the feeder retorted. They smiled at each other, understanding that the game was a draw by default, yet the conflict must resolve.\n“Chess is boring. What else can we play?”\n\n“We could gamble on the kickball game.”\n\nThey turned their attention to the undergrads whom played with a severity that only rears itself through recreational sports. The teams battered each other with the red rubber ball. The players ran at the bases hard. Feeder asked the brunette who was winning. She thought for a moment and then had to ask someone else. “I think we are, but we aren’t really keeping score.”\n\nThe two men sat in the grass, drinking soda and water, watching young adults play a children’s game. The fate of the universe, pulled in one way by the voracious maw of the feeder and the other by the firm grasp of the preserver, rested upon which of these athletes approached them first and told them who won. \n", "The sun was high above the park, illuminating the gorgeous greens of spring trees and blues of freshly bloomed flowers, whose aromas drifted along the twisted, rocky path. They tantalized a man, whose body was old, yet obviously strong. He wore a threadbare shirt, and well used jeans. All that gave away his ancient age were the wrinkles on his face and hands, the thin white hair that hung off his head like strings from a sweater, and his eyes. \n\nThese were the eyes of one who had seen so much that every book ever written, every story ever told was a mere fraction of his knowledge. Eyes that had witnessed the rise and fall of cities, civilizations, even entire species. But in this moment, only the warmth and smells mattered. For that moment, he was just a man who had lived far past his time, enjoying the fauna. Slowly, a rare slight smile, spread across his face.\n\nHis respite was not long lived. From the near sky-rise where black clouds of the coming storm had gathered, a low, deep growl of thunder rolled across the peaceful oasis of green, reminding the white-haired man of the importance of his afternoon stroll. His pace quickened as his smile was immediately replaced by the stern frown that had etched those wrinkles into him all those eons ago.\n\nHe approached the designated place. It was in a small culvert of the park, along a path rarely walked. Sitting there was an ancient wooden bench stained by the elements and time, supported by cracked granite and sitting underneath a freshly bloomed cherry blossom. On the right side of this bench stood an unsettling looking gentleman. His body was tall and thin, highlighted by a new black suit that had far too much slack. His fingers were long, bony extremities that resembled talons. His face was what made him a disturbing sight. The skin was stretched to tight across the skeletal structure of his jaw, his eyes slightly shrunken into his head, but still the gaze was as sharp and deadly as daggers. Hair flowed down his shoulders that had been pitch black for so many millennium, but was now fading to grey on the tips.\n\nThe opponents stared at each other, recognizing the significance of not only what they were about to do, but also that they were the last, the only ones left to decide. After a moment, they sat on opposite sides, and prepared. Out came the board, a gift from ruler long forgotten. Its border made of rich mahogany, and inside, sixty four perfect squares. Thirty two were pure white, made of pearls, while the others were of deep black onyx. On this checkered battlefield, the armies were assembled. Sixteen footmen stared across the field at each other, knowing their probable fate. As the queens directed the other twelve veterans into position, the kings stood their places, staring across the front lines, into the soul of the enemy.\n\nAs troop movements ended, there was a long silence, the calm before the deadly storm. Then, the first white soldier stepped forwards, beginning the conflict to end all conflicts. Over the next few hours, these old men strategized and manipulated, using tactics never seen or imagined, yet never a word was said. Between them sat their joint history, so much death, so much loss. Every piece merely trying to make a difference before being taken.\n\nVoices could be heard down the path, and both men paused the game to turn and see a young couple stroll into the isolated area. They did not notice the old men, their attentions turned fully to the conversation at hand, as they sat on the bench opposite.\n\nThe white haired man turned back to the game, lazily restarting the endless battle. \"Samantha and Christopher,\" the first words stated by the white haired man in years. His voice still as strong as a gale wind. \"they are to be married soon.\"\n\nThe man in black offered a slight chuckle, whose presence made the air tangibly colder. \"They call themselves Sam and Chris, apparently real names are too long for their limited intelligence.\"\n\n\"They do seem so in love.\"\n\nThe black man barely tilted his head in their direction. \"It is of no consequence.\"\n\nThe man in white paused his soldiers mid-defensive maneuver. \"Do you not see the greatness of what has been created here? What they have turned into?\"\n\nThe man in black considered the board, seeing the impending counter attack. He then turned towards the pair. \"Chris' father, an abusive drunk who killed the whore mother, and Sam ran away from a psychotic grandmother, their greatness is truly lost on me.\"\n\nThe battlefield remained stagnant, the soldiers frozen as though insects caught in tree sap. \"Yet they found each other, beyond all the odds and all the evil acts.\"\n\nAfter a pause, the battle resumes. Both men lost in thought, though no longer about wars and consequences. \"And even with all that love, he is still seeing another woman. Even now, he is thinking about her. They are selfish species. So much time they have been given, so many chances to fix their mistakes. And yet all they have mastered is how to kill one another, how to destroy all the gifts they have been given. They do not deserve our love, nor our mercy. They need a fresh start to learn from the mistakes of the past.\"\n\nThe conversation is interrupted by a high pitch screech followed by a series of giggles and a hearty laugh echoed between the trees, originating from the opposite bench. The men turn, staring at the entwined lovers, at the wonder encompassed in that small moment.\n\"See how they look at each other? Do you hear what is between them? No where else in all of creation can you find such passion. With all the mistakes they have made, it is their beauty and intensity that has truly been mastered. Even now they strive to prefect everything they find, beyond any plans we made or could have made. It is not our right to strip them of the chance to right themselves.\"\n\nThe man in black turned, staring into the age-old eyes of his brother. \"Even with all we have seen, with all they have done and could do?\"\n\nThe man in white continued staring at the other bench. \"If anyone deserves a second chance,\" he nods at the couple, \"they do.\"\n\nA soldier is absent-mindedly moved forwards. The clunk of his final step on the long, bloody journey complete. While neither man had thought about the consequences, they subconsciously perceived the event that had just occurred.\n\nThey both looked down, and saw it, the final checkmate.\n\nThe white king bowed his head for the final time, before falling to the onyx floor. The following silence was the twin to the sound just before the beginning of life, where they all sat staring at the lump of celestial components that would be come life in the universe. The omega to that ancient and forgotten alpha.\n\nThe man in black was the first to stand. There was no gloating in his eyes, no satisfaction, only duty. He glanced at Sam and Chris, still cuddled in an embrace, as if it would protect them from what was to come. The look lasted only a moment, before he spun quickly, throwing his dark trench coat over his shoulders to protect his thin stature from the rapidly rising winds. He walked out of the small culvert, down the untrodden path and disappeared into the growing shadows of the trees.\n\nStill the man in white sat there, staring at the treasured board, shivering in the cold breeze. His joints creaked as he slowly stood, and turned one last time towards Sam and Chris. Their smiles were so radiant, so full of life, so full of ignorance for what had been decided. They were smiles that would haunt him forever. As the man in white turned towards the lonely path, the first drop came from above. It landed on the stony-faced white king, slowly sliding down his cheek like a tear.", "\"I'm going to miss this,\" the one said, his long beard flowing in the gentle breeze. The scar running down one cheek was partially obscured by the eye patch he wore, but his other eye was ice-blue and twinkling. A child ran up from playing in the park, blond curls bouncing. \n\"Hey mister,\" the child shouted, \"can I have some more candy?\"\nThe old man grinned and tossed the child a dum-dum. The little blond kid grabbed it and smiled widely. \"Thanks old man!\"\nThe one-eyed old gentleman chuckled gently and looked at the chess board in front of him. The game was slow, for both players were masters. For years upon ages, they had warred and battled their way across these worn checkered squares, sacrificing pawns in needless battles, and entering the fray like thunderstorms when they moved their queens. This particular battle had only been going on for an afternoon, but it was more important than the others. It was this day, after years of meeting in the park to battle over middling fates of ultimately minor individuals, that the two old men would have their last sparring match. Today was the Day of Reckoning.\nThe other old man at the table sported a more well-trimmed beard, and his white shirt boasted of his physique, showing weathered but massive muscles through the fabric. He certainly appeared muscular to the other patrons of the park, but the strange cane he carried changed the image. It was wildly bent and angled until it resembled a bolt of lightning. A strange cane, to be sure, but then there are all kinds of people, aren't there. You never know what you'll find in a little city park. \n\nThe one eyed old man nodded thoughtfully. \"Bit of a pickle we're in. I rather enjoy this game.\"\n\n\"Confound those human expressions! Gods must not stoop to such a level. And, my friend, you are wrong. I greatly tire of this game. It is time.\" The muscular one growled. \n\nThe ice in the other man's eye twinkled. \"Not so hasty. Fate is a funny thing. It changes...rather quickly, when one looks at it from a one-eyed perspective.\"\n\n\"We're too old for such levity. Focus on your game, friend, or forfeit humanity!\"\n\n\"Sourpuss.\"\n\n\"Continue to compare me to an ill-tempered feline, and I shall call down lightning upon thine hoary head!\" the muscular one rumbled, gray eyes sharpening.\n\n\"And with the lightning, what then? Thunder always follows, and I doubt very much you want to bring my son into this game of fate.\"\n\n\"Just move. It's check in five.\" \n\nThe two men bent to their game, trading move for countermove, and strike for counterstrike. It went on like that, neither gaining any advantage over the other. Ages of chess-playing had rendered the old gods incapable of dominating the other. Suddenly, in the midst of a particularly devious strategy by the one-eyed gentleman, the two caught sight of a couple on a bench across from them. The woman's glare was fierce enough to singe the old men's eyebrows. The one-eyed man gave a chuckle, and bits of frost quenched the sparks. The muscular old god frantically patted at his eyebrows, his magic unsuited to putting out fires. He was more used to starting them. \"Wretched mortal emotions! Such power without restraint! Something must be done.\"\n\nThe woman exclaimed, \"How could you?! With Linda!? That bitch!\"\n\nThe one-eyed man stifled a loud, rolling laugh. \"Ah, this poor man. I can feel his fear!\"\n\nThe muscular one frowned and looked at the girl. A very slight smile creased his wrinkled face. \"Hades hath no fury, I suppose.\"\n\nThe man took his wife's hands in his, desperately searching her eyes for hope. \"Honey, I'm sorry. You were gone...and...and I was weak. I promise, it was a one-time mistake. I really love you.\"\n\nThe woman was unfazed. \"How dare you! I leave for a week, and I come back to you screwing another woman. How can you expect me to forgive you.\"\n\nThe muscular gentleman looked back to his game. \"Just recompense for the man, I deem. She will not forgive him.\"\n\nThe one-eyed old man shook his head. \"Tis sad, indeed. But let us watch for a bit. Hasty judgments can never end well.\"\n\n\"You speak rightly.\" The two old gods bent to their game once again, but each kept an ear tuned to the conversation across from them.\n\n\"Honey, I'm sorry. I'll never do it again.\" The man pleaded.\n\nThe wife refused to look him in the eyes. \"It's over. I'm sorry.\"\n\nThe lightning god whispered gruffly, \"It is as I said.\"\n\n\"Hush, old greybeard. Not everything happens in the flame of passion.\" The ice god chided.\n\nThe man refused to let his wife go. She tried to stand and leave, but he gripped her hands. \"Honey, honey, stay! I'm sorry!\n\n\"No! You're scum!\"\n\nTears fell. \"I know. I'm sorry. I know it was wrong. But...Becky. I married you ten years ago.\"\n\n\"Well, that seems to have been a mistake,\" the woman fired back. \"Clearly you can't keep it in your pants, even if you're married.\"\n\n\"Do you remember our vows?\"\n\n\"Don't you dare bring that up now!\" She threatened.\n\n\"'for richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. Till death do us apart.' Becky, I was drunk and I was stupid. But I believe in our vows.\"\n\nThe ice god stifled another rolling laugh that would have disrupted the entire park and the two old men's entertainment. \"Ha! Ha, ha! The ale strikes again. I wonder how much he put away.\"\n\n\"That is not the issue. Watch.\" the other god replied, his gray eyes regarding the exchange curiously.\n\nThe man and his wife stared into each other's eyes. And, gradually, like wicked ice melting in the glare of the sun, the woman's face softened. \"You're really repentant, aren't you.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes I am.\" The man replied. \"I'm very sorry for my mistake. You don't know how I've been beating myself up over it.\"\n\n\"And you decided to tell me, instead of hiding it.\" She sat down, and for a moment she seemed to struggle with saying something. \"I...I forgive you.\"\n\nThe one-eyed old man moved one of his last pawns. \"What think you?\"\n\nThe other took the pawn swiftly with his knight. \"These mortals...they interest me.\"\n\nThe ice god laughed. \"And it only took a couple thousand years.\"\n\nThe lightning god replied, still gruff. \"I have not changed my mind, mind you. But...might we continue this game another day? I wish to deliberate.\"\n\nThe one visible eye twinkled. \"Oh? And put off our long-awaited Day of Reckoning?\"\n\n\"Perhaps the mortals deserve a break. At least...this man does.\"\n\nThe ice god stroked his beard. \"I agree. Let us continue another day then.\"\n\nAnd thus, the world did not end. The two friends played again, the next day. And then the next. And to this day, they continue, in parks all across the world, to play for the fate of humanity. But still we continue to exist. There might be a lesson in that, somewhere, if we look hard enough.", "My brother sat opposite to me, the lines on his face crinkling in concentration. His balding head shone in the sun, adding shadows to his wrinkling face and tired look. Placing my hat beside me on the wooden bench, taking care to brush off a leaf on my shoulder from the tree above, I glance over the chess board: his Knight waiting to take my Pawn, yet stopped by my equally menacing Bishop. All the pieces were like this, all the moves were blockaded by another. No piece safe until it rest beside the opposition, and even then, it had been defeated.\n\n\nHe smirked, moving his Knight backwards, preparing for an attack he hoped I could not see. I focused on the board, carefully observing every game token. Chess was not like checkers, you could not casually jump over your opponent no matter how much you wish you could. I could not see what my brother was planning, but still crinkled my eyes in amusement, then shot my Queen back four spaces; leaving it resting beside his Knight.\n\n\n\"Check.\" He said, sliding his Bishop towards my King, yet out of reach from any immediate harm. \"Brother,\" he continued, \"it's a shame you haven't quite mastered Chess. Especially when the fate of Earth, as the humans say, 'is in your hands'.\"\n\n\nHis eyes glimmered for a mere second, showing the wise, yet youthful God inside. Glamoured as humans, we took the fate of humanity were it lived, Earth. Neither of us were evil, nor were we good. We merely had differences that none could compromise on. I lived with the humans for the past fifty years. Learning, loving, and healing my own soul. Things that couldn't be learned as a God.\n\n\nI place my own Knight in front of my King, protecting it for the time being. It was defended by another piece, so if he chose to take it, he would lose his Bishop. I look at my brother, who was staring at the two humans opposite to us. \n\n\n\"Disgusting, aren't they?\" He asked me, finally looking down and deciding his own move, while I continued watching them.\n\n\nThe two were clearly lovers, pushed together by attraction and connection. My brother had not felt love because he never tried to love. The closeness to another, the pain when they're away. Two heartbeats, two bodies, one mind. It was something no potion or magik could create because it simply was. I felt it, for him, my \"other half\". My human heart beating, breath quickening, a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. I felt right when I was with him, when we kissed, talked, loved, hated. Everything was right because it was love. The unthinkable, illogical, feeling of love. The couple in the park reminded me of him. Of us.\n\n\n\"There's so many things you can learn about humanity, and they can teach you even more...\" I replied softly, blinking away a tear, then picking up my Queen and taking out his Knight. I watched as it dawned on him. My Queen was blocking in his King, which was surrounded by his own pieces. It was his own death.\n\n\n\n\"Humans aren't as bad as you think, brother.\" I said to him gently, then added with a grin, \"Checkmate.\"\n\n\n\n***\n\nSorry for any tense mistakes.", "\"Table stakes again?\" the thin man asked. He wore black, and the lines time had etched into his face were harsh.\n\n\"Not this time, I think,\" the shorter man said. He wore white, a business suit so pristine that it almost hurt to look at. The thin man cocked an eyebrow.\n\n\"The last game, then?\" he asked. The man in white considered for a moment, then nodded. Without another word, the two set up the chessboard which lie between them. It was concrete, and set into the table they shared, so grimy that even despite the bright midsummer light of a New York day, the city's grime had rendered both the white and black spaces a nigh-indistinguishable grey. Still, the two set their pieces, each drawing polished marble figures from a case of his own possession. The man in white played black, and the man in black played white. White king's knight to f3.\n\n\"Conservative,\" the man in white said.\n\n\"This is the game that matters,\" the man in black said. Black pawn to d5. Behind the white man, a couple sashayed by--two men, holding hands. The younger of the two was also shorter, Puerto Rican, and wore a fishnet tank top. His jeans could've been sprayed on. The man in black blinked. It would be hard to imagine a more stereotypically flamboyant fellow. The Puerto Rican man led his partner, an older black man with a salt-and-pepper beard and a charcoal business suit, to the table next to the two playing chess. The two kissed, the young fellow sitting on a concrete table identical to theirs.\n\n\"Interesting company,\" the man in black said. White pawn to c4. The man in white looked over slowly, rheumy eyes thoughtful.\n\n\"Réti Opening,\" he said, slowly returning his gaze to the board. The man in black shrugged. Black pawn to e6. \"It's surprising, in a way, to be playing this game, finally.\"\n\n\"All the world, hanging on a game of chess,\" the thin man said, and there was a note of satisfaction in his voice, of savor. \"All that ever was, all that is, and all that ever might be, decided by the movements of clicking marble and alabaster. One of us rises, and the other done away with forever. An eternity surrendered and true omnipotence gained.\" Yes, real enjoyment now. Anticipation. Hunger. White pawn to g3.\n\n\"Wait, what?\" the black man broke away from his amorous partner. He looked at the two old men, one in white and one in black, but he didn't break his lover's embrace.\n\n\"Nothing you need to fret over,\" the man in white said. Black King's knight to f6. He waved a hand, half-distracted, and the black man started to turn back to the loving arms of his partner, but he hesitated.\n\n\"No... There was something you said...\" he muttered, forehead creased in intense concentration, almost as if he'd just forgotten something truly important.\n\n\"We're playing Neo-Catalan today,\" the man in black said, and smiled. \"It favors white, you know.\" White pawn to d4. The man in white shrugged.\n\n\"You two are playing for something important,\" the black man said, and broke away from his partner.\n\n\"David,\" the Puerto Rican man whined, but he followed his partner's gaze.\n\n\"I said--\" the man in white said, again raising his hand.\n\n\"Let them be. It won't matter if I win, and you can erase their memories if you win,\" the tall man interrupted, and smiled. He turned to the two. \"I am playing this man for the fate of all the world.\" The Puerto Rican man laughed out loud, but the black man, David, remained stone-faced.\n\n\"You're the devil,\" he said, and when he said it there was a moment of perfect quiet, the thunder of the city and the park stilling for just that one instant. The tall man smiled, but said nothing. Black pawn to a6. David turned a bit. \"And you're God.\"\n\n\"Not as you imagine,\" the man in white said, glancing up. \"Though I prefer Yahweh. The old names are nice.\"\n\n\"David, they're having fun with you,\" the Puerto Rican man said, taking his partner's hand. David didn't move. White Queen's bishop to f4.\n\n\"You're off your game today,\" the tall man said. \"Not good.\" Yahweh shrugged ever-so-slightly. Black queen to e7.\n\n\"Can't you beat him?\" David asked, alarm growing in his eyes.\n\n\"Probably,\" Yahweh said. \"But those aren't the rules we play by.\" The man in black snorted in derision.\n\n\"Remarkable,\" he said. \"You heap abuse on them, and they still grovel for you.\" David glanced over, and Yahweh cocked his head to the side.\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\n\"Such hate for men who lie with men. Stone them. Burn them. Hang them,\" the tall man said, sneering.\n\n\"It's not that simple, Lucifer. It never is,\" Yahweh said. Lucifer shook his head. White pawn to a3. Lucifer turned to David.\n\n\"Are you a man of God?\" he asked. David drew in a breath of surprise, and glanced at Yahweh.\n\n\"I like to think so,\" he said, cautious.\n\n\"And you are a man who lies with men. A gay man.\" It was a statement. David nodded. Lucifer gestured across the table at Yahweh. \"His books say you should die. Horribly. How can you be both?\"\n\n\"I...\" David faltered. \"I don't know. I just am.\"\n\n\"You call that free will?\" Lucifer asked.\n\n\"I do,\" Yahweh said. Lucifer shook his head. Yahweh turned to David.\n\n\"Are you happy?\" he asked. David blinked.\n\n\"I... I don't know,\" he said, and both Lucifer and Yahweh paused. \"I'm kind of scared right now, to be honest.\"\n\n\"Aside from that,\" Yahweh said. \"Your life. Is it good?\" David considered.\n\n\"Sometimes,\" he said. \"Not all the time. It's complicated.\"\n\n\"You see?\" Yahweh asked. Lucifer shook his head and sighed.\n\n\"This claptrap again,\" Black pawn to h5, an obvious error. White pawn to b4, swiftly, securing the center.\n\n\"Why is it complicated?\" Yahweh asked, seemingly unperturbed at the state of the board.\n\n\"Well, I love two people. Alex,\" David said, and squeezed his partner's hand, \"and my wife, Marissa.\" Lucifer laughed.\n\n\"Adultery as well!\" he said. Yahweh didn't speak.\n\n\"They both make me happy,\" David continued, gaining steam. \"And I- I can't be with either one alone.\" He bowed his head. \"I wish I could be honest with her, though.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" Yahweh said, a small smile warming their corner of the park. \"You would do it differently?\" he asked, turning back to the board. Black king's rook to H6.\n\n\"Of course I would,\" Lucifer said. \"That's the whole point, isn't it?\"\n\n\"How?\" Yahweh asked, and Lucifer froze.\n\n\"You've never asked me that before,\" he said after a long moment.\n\n\"I'm asking you now.\" Lucifer thought.\n\n\"No love would be wrong,\" he said, and looked at David. \"They're not hurting anyone. Why should they be punished?\"\n\n\"What about Marissa?\" Yahweh asked. Lucifer didn't say anything. After a time, Yahweh asked, \"What else?\"\n\n\"Freedom,\" Lucifer said, and the word was a whisper. \"Real freedom. No commandments from on high, no walls of faith or law, nor condemnation of the righteous as punishment. Men and women could do as they pleased.\" Yahweh looked surprised.\n\n\"You don't think they have that?\"\n\n\"They never have,\" Lucifer said, and shook his head very slowly. \"You created the most magnificent of all things, beings who could truly decide their own fate with only the dictates of existence itself to restrain them. No spiritual obligations, and yet minds as keen as the greatest of the Seraphim. Mankind was perfect in every way, and the first thing,\" Lucifer broke off and chucked for a moment. \"The very first thing you do is wall them in.\" He laughed again, loudly and long. David threw an arm around Alex, and drew the smaller man close.\n\n\"No,\" he said, with a sigh of savor. \"I would see what they can really do. Whether they could surpass even you in the fullness of time. I would see what comes from real freedom.\" White queen to a4. \"Check.\" Yahweh leaned back and regarded Lucifer.\n\n\"Is it really that simple for you?\" he asked, after a time. Lucifer nodded. \"Well, then, I suppose that I've been playing defensively for long enough today.\"\n\nAnd, slowly, Yahweh tipped his own king over. David gasped, and Lucifer's face screwed into a mask of confusion.\n\n\"I don't claim that the rules I chose were right,\" Yahweh said, his fingertips fading. \"Only that they were the rules I chose. I hoped to help my children grow a little taller by their existence.\"\n\n\"You didn't need to do that,\" Lucifer muttered, eyes still fixed on the fallen black marble king.\n\n\"Of course I did,\" Yahweh said, and Lucifer finally met his gaze. \"They weren't the only ones I gave free will to.\" His rheumy eyes twinkled for a moment, and then began to fade. \"Your rebellion was my greatest triumph. I could barely believe it when you rose up.\" Lucifer's breath turned ragged.\n\n\"They're yours now, in a way.\" There was a silence, as the last traces of Yahweh faded away. Then, like a scarcely-heard voice on the breeze, he added, \"Not so simple, is it?\"\n\nNobody said anything, for a while.\n\n\"What happens now?\" David asked, meeting Lucifer's gaze.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said eventually. \"It's complicated.\"\n\nEdit: Thanks for all the comments, folks, and thanks to /u/read_know_do for pointing out where my inexperience at real chess messed up the game. Hopefully, it's fixed now." ]

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[ ">Pg 253. Let's get disastrous: The autobiography of a humble Canadian.\n\ngreet the rising daylight. I couldn't think about how many days I had wanted this, or the toilsome years I squandered *knowing* that the time had passed. All I could think of was that right now, RIGHT NOW, in this moment, whatever we struggled through before was worth it.\n\n\nThe time for this had never passed, as was evidenced by the beautiful girl beside me, resting her head on my shoulder. Too tired to stay awake, too excited to sleep. She moved her ear to my chest, and then she looked at me with her embraceful soul-piercing eyes, and alerted me to her feelings in her own, quirky Kassie way. “You’re heartbeat spells the morse code for 'DAD.'... I told you: we were destined for this!”\n\n“No it doesn’t.” I laughed at her.\n\n“No… you’re right. I think it’s saying ‘give Kass your sweater, she’s shivering for two!’”\n\n“Haha! I don’t think that’s how it works, Kassie!” I still took off my jacket for her though. I couldn’t not, I guess it was those paternal instincts were kicking in. I loved this girl more than anybody or anything in the entire world, and because of her I was going to be provided with something I was going to love even more than that! Take your jacket-consolation-prize girl, take it and warm up yourself up, I’m warm enough just being in your presence.\n\nI was in a state of elation. She was 57, and I was 56. Who could ever think that we’d be having a child? We thought about trying when we were in our 30’s but we weren’t ready yet. We hadn’t seen enough, weren't wise enough, didn't have the stability. By the time we started actually trying we heard all sorts of hogwash about it being too late. We were 'too old'… Humans live to 100 in perfect health these days! We **are not** 'too old!' It’s just about perserverance. Never stop trying, That’s the secret, that's what Kass kept telling me. Never give up. I looked at her again. I can’t believe the greatest person I ever knew, was finally going to get her chance to be a mom. \n\nWe were going to teach a healthy, baby boy or girl about the world, bring them up with a value-set honed from years of experience. We had seen it all, and had constructed a meaningful way of living, worthy enough even to teach a little rascal of our own. Someday, our lessons will make the world a better place through our child. Thinking of that reminded us of the worlds boundless potential, the boundless potential of being a parent.\n\n“We should celebrate, you want some champagne dear?” I asked.\n\n“Pfft. Only if it’s a lot! I’m drinking for two now!” I laughed again at her joke.\n\n“I’ll grab the mugs. We better start getting in the habit of concealing our booze if we’re going to have a child around!” \n\n“Stop it, Jerod, you goof!” She playfully smacked me.\n\nI went back inside to get the alcohol for the mother of my future child. Partly for that reason, anyway. But also partly because I wanted to see the letter again. In the weeks following its arrival I read it so many times that I can recite it word for word even now. “We at the Canadian adoption agency are pleased to inform you, Mr and Mrs.\n", "This was the day I discovered that I liked penises. \n\nI had no idea how this came to be, or why I'm writing it so late in my autobiography, but I kinda forgot to mention it earlier. Little do people know, I actually really like dick.\n\nThe shape is interesting in itself, and it has such a simple purpose yet the mechanism behind the functions of this wonderful organ were so incredibly complex that I would spend hours sitting their thinking about how beautiful this extension of tissue was. Just the sensation of holding one, even tasting one....\n\nSorry, I'm getting a little carried away here. But yeah. I was around maybe 16-17 when I realized that I was really into penis. And I guess that one could say that I am a homosexual. Not quite, but close, for the vagina was still of interest to me, but at the time, I couldn't get the image out of my mind of a vagina being a really raw roast beef sandwich. This just made me gag a little, for I'm not really keen in tasting a roast beef sandwich, nor am I willing to stick my dick in one (not yet, anyway), but a penis....now that was something I could work with. Just the fact that it was less of a hassle, it's easy to clean up, and, well its so easy to find out where it feels good. \n\nI always preferred hotdogs over sandwiches anyways. ", "That's it. The story ends here and there is no more. Right now you're probably wondering why there are 46 blank pages left in the book then. Well that's because I'm not done living. There is still so much to say, so much to do, so much to learn, so much to live. In fact, I'm surprised that I could even fill 253 pages with writing on my life. It's funny how life does this to us, we live and build memories yet never truly think of them as stories until time has passed and all we can do then is reflect, look through the mirror of time, and reconcile with the image of our younger selves. We laugh with them or at them, wince at the pain, empathize with them in times of sorrow and enjoy their success. After visiting them we thank them for their time and what they did because without them and their actions we wouldn't exist today. Even better is while we are doing this we're creating even more stories to be added to the collection. That's really what I wanted to put onto this page a sort of 'final thoughts'. We look on the past and think of the should have, would have, and could have while not taking advantage of the present opportunity to answer these questions for our future selves the ones who will look back at us and tell our stories that we don't realize. So, once you're done with this book go out. Hike a mountain, embrace a lover or family member, enjoy the spontaneous actions happening and partake in them and when you finish a story remember it and keep it close, in fact use the last of these pages to write it down. Look back on them in the future and enjoy the fleeting moments today to have the permanent memories of them tomorrow. Go out and write your story and feel free to keep some spare pages on hand. ", "> page 253. Recap! & Why the fuck was that a good idea?\n\nI don't usually decide that some days would just be fucked up to all sorts of *ideas* I also don't like anything about this day, except everything about it. Do I regret it? No, of course I don't. Was it worth it? Not really. I'd like to quote my friend on the topic of June 19th 2011.\n\n>\"They said bad things about Meth, They say bad things about the Mari-ju-ana\" But somebody forgot to tell me about listening to [name currently redacted] while drunk off his ass\" - My Bud, Darren\n\n\nSo this day starts off with the most average day possible. Me, Darren & Froyo (Frank) decide let's go to the bar. So I do go to the bar, the one across the street from that Store (pg.53 for source on *that store*) Actually let me just recap and tell you what happened at *that store*\n\nMe & Darren enter this store at around 4:15 AM after coming back from our trip to Detroit (pg 185-197). Now, I was sober(ish), but Darren sure as hell wasn't (~~safe driving right guys?~~) We enter the store to get some food and frozen pizza from this place (cheap as hell, let me tell you). \n\nIt just so happens that they decided today to be out of frozen pizza. I'm upset okay? But not as upset as Darren. DARREN FUCKING EXPLODES. Darren was angry in Detroit about that guy and the streetpole, and the gun, and the body (hiding it Lake Michigan? Who would've thought about that, fucking brilliant!) Regardless, Darren takes out a Revolver that had one bullet left and decides to play Russian Roulette with the Indian Guy, Sanjay.\n\nCan I repeat that, motherfucking Russian Roulette. Sanjay is scared out of his mind.\n\n\"Do you see what this is?\" Darren says while opening the chamber for Sanjay to see.\n\n\"Yeaaaeesssss\" Sanjay says backing into the corner.\n\nDarren puts on some bandana that he got off Lil' Chill. This is where it gets creepy.\n\nDarren says in a raspy voice, \"You wanna fucking die? Cause I'm open to anal.\"\n\n**Now how do I respond to that?**\n\nI laugh, that's what I do, I laugh my ass of. But that doesn't matter to Sanjay because Sanjay is about to ripped a new one (*heh, ripped a new one.*)\n\nSanjay then starts vomiting bullshit out of his mouth, \"Zir, I have kids, Zir.\", \"Zir, I'm married, my family needs me, Zir\" Two weeks ago, Sanjay tells me, \"I'm not married, I hate people\" But it's no joke now it's his life now in my friend, Darren's hands.\n\nSo guess what?\n\nGuess what?\n\nYes I want you to guess.\n\nSanjay says, \"*I think theres some pizza in back*\"\n\nReally, Sanjay you lied to me? We had trust in you Sanjay and you broke all of it! Sanjay you ungrateful little prick.\n\n~~So I do what I should've done and pulled my cellphone out of my pocket to call 911 to stop Darren from killing Sanjay~~\n\nI pull out my .45 and point it at Sanjay, I walk with him over to the back with his hands behind his back to point me to the pizzas. There were dozens of pizzas. Dozens. The story ends just like everyone should, we zip-tied Sanjay to a chair and duct-taped his mouth, stole his wallet and took all of the pizzas as well.\n\nNow, on to the story about the craziest night of our lives,\n\n-Excerpts from, *The Tales of a Psychopath by [name redacted]*", "August 23rd. Train station. Schoolchildren pass by, pointing and staring at the crazy old man with the spaghetti strainer on his head. Every time someone sits next to me, I shout at them some deranged story about ogres having layers or the plain white tees. Anyone that stays earns the $38 I slip in their pockets. Retirement was the best.", "And there he was, like a Hippo in heat, at the base of the bed. Twigsnapper stared at her intently, confused of the progression the night had went. Her bare body shivered in the cold of the room. She beckoned him to come and warm her body. As he climbed up, he hunched and crawled on all fours towards this mystical creature he called a woman. \n\nAs he undressed, his body, released from its restraints of clothing, dropped from the force that gravity had been putting on it. His breathing intensified not only through excitement but excursion as well. He had practiced for this moment many times alone in his room. Upon penetration, a wave of emotion struck his entire body. Losing composure he quickly grasped onto reality by focusing on non sexual events he has witnessed. Staring intently, his rhythm picked up and began shaking the bed as though testing the stability of heavens to keep the earth within orbit. \n\nAs his climax quickly rose, his hips increased with exponential power and speed. The sweat on his brow had slowly poured over his face and onto the bed sheets, as he continue to pump with desire to reach his pinnacle of pleasure. \n\nAs he prepared his final thrust, the sweat that lay on the bed, reached underneath his footing and caused his massive body to fling forward. There to stop him was no other than the woman that had beckoned him earlier. His weight pressed her head against the wall and with the sound one would hear of an explosion, sent it through the sheetrock wall. \n\nPart 1.\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sAT3cT3QLE", "This page unintentionally left blank." ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 10 ]

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[ "A Depressed, Drunk man fighting his inner self and suicidal thoughts trying to walk home from a night of drinking in Brooklyn, NY.", "A couple realizes their marriage has been a mistake during an intense love making session. Filmed at directors apt, with two willing friends.", "A man finds and eats garbage while rambling insanely about hot dogs and the government, he cries himself to sleep. Edited and shot with an iphone. (Camera doesnt count right?) ", "Movie: A young man in his second year of film school posts a writing prompt on the internet to cloudsource an upcoming deadline. He reads this post and turns it into a movie.\n\nMovie within movie: a young man in his second year of film school posts a writing prompt on the internet to cloudsource an upcoming deadline. He reads this post and turns it into a movie.\n\nIn the third iteration, our protagonist's doppelgänger refreshes his screen just in time to see a comment below \"this post\" stating this has already been done. He clicks on the link provided and opens up a new window in which the movie starts over." ]

[ 2, 3, 6, 6 ]

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[ "Jim sighed as he pushed the cart along. Day in and day out, he donned his bluetooth headset and drowned out the world as he made it ready for another day of commercialism. He used to relish these late nights, when his isolation was almost total, nothing but the music and the repetition to keep him company. \n\nHe turned down aisle four, and looked up at the cold fluorescent lights flickering. The work light provided by management was less comfortable than the aesthetically pleasing shopping lights, and the worst was the way it made everything glow unhealthily. The jars after jars of various meats filtered a sickly glow that reflected onto the brown checkered tile below. \n\nStopping suddenly, Jim noticed a small dried trail of detritus leading to the snack aisle and terminating at the shelf about halfway through. Curious, he followed the filth and was shocked to find one of the live stocked \"Cherub\" brand deli babies had gotten loose again and of course, it was going to be his job to clean it up. \n\nEvery day seems the same when you do it enough. ", "Cassy sighed as she put down the manuscript. 'An Odd Oversight' it was titled. It told a titillating, yet ultimately ridiculous story. She would need to discuss it with her husband later. To write such ridiculous things when he could be doing the housework, or fixing up the yard. \n\nShe wondered when he would come home today. He wasn't much of a catch, that much was obvious. A dreamer he'd been in college. So creative, so wonderful. He had wanted to craft grand masterpieces. Alas here he was, doing shift work at the local Meet-the-Meat. Loading the bloody bodies in the frozen section. \n\nSurely he had thought up the story sometime in the afternoon. Morning was hectic. That's when the mothers arrived. Anytime between 9 to 11. There were always enough volunteers every day. These happy ladies would bring in their burdens and get them exchanged for a starting sum of $800. The most exquisite children however, raised by carefully selected and approved bloodlines, could sell for tens of thousands. Not bad at all. \n\nHe wouldn't even be in charge of processing the children. That was a great position, and it required a masters degree in Human Resources. He would help carry them though. Then the butcher would do her work. It was always a woman of course, no one else could have the gentle touch required to wave farewell. \n\nThe best children were marked and kept whole while the others were split into components. This was where her husband came in, separating and delivering small amounts of boy and girl. The sick and needy take priority here. Organs are harvested of course, and a clerk runs through the system to check for possible implants. These parts go for a premium. Her darling assisted in their packaging and separation. And finally, the remaining parts are delivered to the shelves. \n\nSome days however, there just aren't enough children to keep her husband busy. That's when he pulls out his Bloodberry and starts writing stories. \n\nHis latest one was a fantasy where population wasn't strictly controlled. Babies were considered people before the age of five. Millions died in hospitals without the proper implants, living with failed organs and deformities. This world was chaos. \n\nChildren would grow up regardless of their worth, their potential. They clotted the world like garbage clots sewers. Populations expanded, consuming the worlds resources. And nobody used their God-given ability for wealth. What would the neighbors think if they knew her husband had such chaotic thoughts. Would they judge her? Would they laugh and jeer, and argue this was why she had only sold one of her children? \n\nThe doorbell rang. Cassy looked out the window and found her husband's scooter pulling up onto the lawn of the house. He held a sack in his hand, Meet-the-Meat's logo pasted triumphantly on its side. \n\n\"Honey, I'm home! Happy anniversary! Guess what, I've been saving up money for this. Caucasian calves. Girl. Age Two.\"\n\nAll of her complaints flew out the window as Cassy smiled at her husband. He had remembered her favorite dish. " ]

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[ "\"Could you pass the rolls, darling?\" Joseph asked his beautiful wife, sitting at the other end of the low table adorned by his well-mannered children. His oldest son was absent, deployed in the field, but it gave him some measure of comfort knowing that he had already earned a field commission and was well on his way to helping end the war.\n\nMaggie quickly lifted up the basket of warm bread, delicately toasted on top to a rich, golden brown, and handed it to her oldest daughter next to her. \"Helga, pass that down to your father, there's a good girl.\"\n\nThe six children were at various stages of enjoying their evening repast, with the tiniest ones ardently digging holes and trenches through potato landscapes while the eldest at turns scolded and assisted. The rolls had just arrived to him from a conveyor belt of tiny hands when the phone rang in the parlor, and he rose quickly, tucking away his napkin.\n\nStepping into the other room he closed the door, taking up the phone as the noisy yet orderly dining affair continued unabated in the background.\n\n\"You're sure.\" He paused, listening. \"Yes, Then there's no way, yes, I understand... no. I do, I understand.\"\n\n**Click.**\n\nHe stared down at the hung receiver for a moment, idly spinning the dial in his mind, imagining phone calls that might but would never be.\n\nReturning to the table he reseated himself with a smile and, waving off the business of the late night business previously distracting him, asked little Hildy how her day had gone at the school.\n\n\"It was so nice, father, they had us go on a little trip to the bunkers you know?\"\n\nThe tiniest voice of all piped up, \"What's a bunker?\"\n\n\"Well,\" Joseph paused, considering the best way to explain, \"It's a safe place we go when there's danger. Like our basement, but with more food and other people.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\nLooking over at his wife he saw the concern he had been avoiding since he sat down. \"Darling Maggie, perhaps, now would be a good time to serve tea?\"\n\nHis wife's eyes widened perceptibly but his voice rang out, gathering the attention of the children, \"And then afterwards we shall play a game, yes?\" Delighted squeals from so many daughters warmed his heart, even as his wife moved to the kitchen.\n\n\"Can we play spaceship!?\" yelled out Helmut, a stereotypically boy thing to ask. Still, his sisters all seemed happy to jump on board, save for Helga.\n\n\"Yes, yes!\" they cried out in various ways.\n\n\"Children!\" Their mother called out, carrying in a tray of steaming tea. \"First our tea, then we play. Like good children.\"\n\nCowed nods met her and their father's stern gazes, but Helga, ever the rebel teenage daughter voiced her own thoughts. \"But we never have tea at dinner!\"\n\n\"Shush.\" Her mother commanded, pouring her drink. \"We'll all drink a little and then we'll play a wonderful game. Right, darling Joseph?\" He nodded back to her, making a show of pushing aside the evening's newspaper he had been staring at from the corner of his vision.\n\nSip after sip was taken and the conversations and amusements of a family dinner continued for several minutes, until the tiniest child, Heidrun, suddenly rubbed her little eyes and leaned forward on the table. \n\n\"I'm so tired, daddy.\"\n\nHe smiled gently down on her, reaching over to rub her shoulder. \"I know, I know. It's alright.\"\n\n\"Fathe..r...\" Hildy began to say, yawning as well, as she like her sister moved forward to drape herself over the table in her crossed arms, the plate barely being pushed aside.\n\nHelga seemed alarmed, even as her siblings and mother slowly leaned forward or back all within moments of each other. Jumping up she cried out, \"What's, what's wrong with you all?\" She looked over at her father and then down at her undrunken tea.\n\nShe screamed, horrified.\n\nHe stood, walking over to her, his height towering over her quaking frame. Stooping down he quickly hugged her, \"Oh sweet child, I am so sorry, but there's only... room for me.\"\n\nShe had just started to hug him back in fear when his words registered and a hand reached up to grip the back of her head by the hair, another closed on her throat.\n\nShe gasped, and black dots swarmed her vision as her arms flailed uselessly on his chest. Without warning he released his hold on her throat and she sobbed, gasping in great breaths when a pill shot to the back of her throat and his hand closed firmly over her mouth. \n\n\"Dream of spaceships, sweet child, dream of a place far, far away. Where everyone is safe.\"\n\nHelga's eyes watered and her father looked at her as the poison took hold.\n\nHe looked up. \"Dream of a new world away from this doomed one, dream...\"", "\"General, frankly we all need to make sacrifices\" the President repeated, his eyes never leaving the holo-projector displaying a ceaseless flow of updating information.\n\n\"Mr. President, it's.... I can't...\" General Thomas Neilsen responded, searching for words. He had been a Drill Sargent a lifetime ago, being at a loss for words was not within his usual experience.\n\n\"Tom, I get it. I really do\" The President glanced his way, the man's eyes were tired looking, exhaustion was written all over his face. \"But, every pound of weight on this shuttle.... especially *this* shuttle counts. This one is the last one we're gonna get off the ground\". \n\nAs if to drive home the point, the Commander-in-Chief glanced at a timer that was unsettlingly nearing zero.\n\n\"Bu....\" General Neilsen started, unable to accept it all.\n\n\"Tom, you have your orders. I will not be swayed. There is no margin for error here, not any more. We need you. We don't need *them*\" The President looked at him again, there was pity in his eyes but none in his voice. \"Thank you for your visit. See you on the launch pad in twenty minutes\".\n\nThomas Neilsen, a man who was both husband and father stumbled out of the Oval Office in a haze. \n\nHand shaking, he reached in to his pocket. His fingers closed unsteadily around the small cell phone located there.\n\nHe couldn't think.\n\nSomehow, he found the number. For a minute he stared at the large green button on the screen. Finally, with great effort, his thumb pressed down and the phone began to ring. \n\n\"Jesus, Thomas, where are you?\" a familiar voice answered. \n\nThe General was unable to speak.\n\n\"Thomas, it's all over the news, Thomas are you there? *I'm scared*\"\n\n\"Cindy...\" he said quietly, trying to hide his shaking voice. \"Cindy.... I....\"\n\nHis eyes burned and his vision began to blur.\n\n\"Do you remember our favorite poem? The one I used to tell you before my deployments?\"\n\n\"What? Yes, of course, but..\"\n\n\"Then I need you to listen. This.... this is going to be like that\"\n\nThe words deflated his entire being. He felt his world collapsing around him.\n\n\"Thomas... oh God... Thomas\" Her voice cracked. \n\nHe could hear her begin to sob.\n\n\"I'm so sorry, Cind. I don't have any choice\" he replied, tears beginning to slide down his face.\n\n\"What.... what do I tell them?\" she asked through her tears, \"what do I tell Sam and Erika?\"\n\nHe didn't respond.\n\n\"Thomas!\" She shreiked, \"what am I supposed to say?!\"\n\n\"Tell them... tell them that I love them. That I love you. Tell them the poem\" his response almost inaudible. \n\nFor a moment that lasted an eternity, there was only silence between them. \n\n\"Will you tell it to me one more time?\" she asked.\n\n\"Te...\" he started, trying to choke back his tears. \"Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind. That from the nunnery of thy chaste breast and quiet mind, to war and arms I fly. True, a new mistress now I chase, the first foe in the field; and with a stronger faith embrace: a sword, a horse, a shield\"\n\nHis voice broke. He knew he couldn't finish it.\n\nThen, with a voice soft and calm, the one he had fallen in love with, she finished it for him.\n\n\"Yet this inconstancy is such, as you too I shall adore; I could not love thee, Dear, so much, loved I not Honor more\"\n\nThere was nothing left to say. She understood. So did he. \n\nThen, with the world only minutes away from ending. Though there was panic and riots. Cities burning as millions flailed helplessly, determined not to go softly into that good night. Despite the turmoil and fear, between Thomas and Cynthia Neilsen there was only silence. \n\nA peaceful, loving silence." ]

[ 2, 5 ]

[ "1398367577", "1398367270" ]

[ "Edit: Formatting\n\nThe Asian Confederation, established in 2149, had funded the production of enough space vehicles for the entire human race, or at least what was left of it. After NAFTA's pollution disaster, the War of the Americas, and the Mediterranean Genocide, the human population was estimated to be about 400 million. That's it.\n\nI'm from New York. That's what people tell me it used to be called, at least. It doesn't mean anything to me. An major production miscalculation in 68 major cities in North America resulted in what we now call the Confederate Cloud. The darkness. I haven't been graced by sunlight since I was six years old. \n\nAnyway. Don't feel bad for me. I hate it when people do that.\n\nSo each space shuttle is meant to carry about 400 people. Everyone has been assigned a fully compliant Asian-Confederation-approved pilot, trained in survival and community management. It's a bunch of bullshit. Carmon and I were invited to this meeting; I don't know what to call it. It's a type of street family that we established in secret. I can't talk about it because of my position and my family affiliation, but Carmon, my little brother, is a leader. I usually listen to whatever he says.\n\nWe planned a mutiny.\n\nKill the captain; keep the ship. Disobey the orders and make a way on earth.\n\nMy position in the government required some service. I had to keep people in line comfortable after servicing the aircraft to make sure it was safe. I volunteered to do the killing myself. I had business to settle here on my home planet.\n\nI woke up the day of the Departure with a headache but I didn't care. I couldn't. There was no time for pain, only cold, calculated action. \n\nI assumed my position at the head of the line. I was holding one of the broadcasting devices to keep people calm. It played the national song of the Asian Confederation, but it also emitted a mild scentless chemical suppressant. That wasn't exactly public knowledge, but I had done my research. \n\nI turned the broadcaster off and unscrewed the back panel. I inserted my hand-made container of high-potency suppressant that was banned in every nation in the world. Carmon had cooked it late last night. I turned the broadcaster on full power, which was startlingly high. I had never done that before. Carmon turned his on too, at the back of the line of 400, and nobody seemed to mind. Everyone was zoned out like a zombie with no appetite. \n\nI walked into the craft quietly. It was going to take a fair bit of acting to pull this off. I was ready. The AC guards are stoic and unforgiving. They always have been. I asked them in their native tongue to use the bathroom. They said no.\n\nWe had planned for this.\n\nI insisted. I told them it was serious. They didn't care at all. Then I made it happen.\n\nI wet my fucking pants.\n\nThe guard looked at me with the glare of a bird of pray. He grabbed my arm violently and dragged me through the spaceship. He was going to report me to the Commodore. But I didn't want to see the Commodore. I wanted to kill the Captain.\n\nWe walked past a secured hallway. And another.\n\nCarmon said it was the third one that I needed to enter. I trusted him.\n\nI fell to the ground, weeping, shortly after the second door. The guard kicked me hard in the back.\n\nI didn't move. \n\nHe kicked me again.\n\nI sat silently.\n\nHe kicked me again. \n\nI met his blow with a strike of my own. Armed with the strength of a revolution, I broke his femur with one shot. I had never felt such adrenaline. \n\nI snapped his neck and dragged his body to the third door. I scanned his eye, his thumb, and used his ID card to get through the high security door. \n\nThe Captain sat with his back to me in front of the control panel.\n\n*Mutiny?*\n\nWas that the Captain's voice? Or was that my conscience?\n\nFear creeped into the soles of my feet. How did he know? How could he?\n\nIn a fiery flash of emotion I rushed headlong at the Captain and tackled him out of his chair.\n\nLimp. \n\nNo resistance at all. None.\n\nA bullet hole gaped in the center of his forehead. \n\nAn empty gun lay by his side.\n\nConfusion.\n\nA note.\n\n*There is no hope in space. I have been through the training and I know that there is no plan for survival. Everyone that leaves will die. I have made sure that our ship is last to leave and I have paid the officer in charge of confirming our departure. Every ship that leaves will have no survivors within one year. Stay here. Stay Alert. Stay Alive.*\n\nI ran to the side window. Every other ship was gone.\n\nThe gravity of the situation knocked me to the floor. \n\nThe suicide that saved the human race. \n\nHe said, *\"Survive.\"*\n\nAnd survive we will, I thought as I wiped the sweat from my hands and left the cockpit. \n", "Time to lie. \n\nEvery day our team gets a call at noon. Every day someone different answers. Every day we say the same thing. \n\n\"It's not safe yet.\"\n\nBeck snickered noisily behind me. I silenced him with a look. We can't mess this up now, not after years of putting on this charade. Today, it was my turn to answer the call from the Haven, where the rest of mankind lives. A call from a self-sufficient space station light years away. And with great reception, too! The Haven is equipped with mind-blowing technology and an efficient waste disposal system (throw it out into space). Greenhouses, recycled water, you know. Things we don't have here. \n\nHere on Earth. \n\nWe don't have fancy gadgets, we don't have machines that bring a spoon right to your lips. Heck, we don't even have clean air. But we are getting there, step by step. We have a team with a routine, a lifestyle to preserve. A planet to preserve. \n\nMost of mankind left Earth hundreds of years ago, on request of the Ecumenical Human Preservation Coalition. The big-wigs. By them, Earth was deemed unsafe, unfit for humans. \n\nGod, it was the other way around. No human deserves this lone jewel of a planet, swiftly orbiting in perfect heartbeat with sun and the two moons. No human deserves *Earth*, not even us. \n\nHowever, here we are. A small team of humans put on Earth by the Haven, to monitor the water, the wind, the sky. Sometimes we get a new recruit, and we tell them how it is. Every month, we send out a report of Earth. A report of made-up numbers and lies. \n\nBecause Earth has been, technically, 'fit' for human life for the past decade. First, a small, green sprig of hope, sprouting from Mother Earth's soil. Ridding the toxins that the air was once pregnant with. Then, came trees. Flowers. Bushes, grass, leaves, and even fruit. Every plant a blessing.\n\nSo we tell lies, to the administrators at the Haven, about how Earth cannot support the human race. We snicker behind our hands and lie guiltlessly through our teeth. Because once, mankind leeched Earth of its life. Because once, mankind hissed out pollution by the ton. Because once, mankind destroyed Earth, and they would do it again. " ]

[ 4, 6 ]

[ "1398399613", "1398399314" ]

[ "The compound was well fortified. Defensive autoturrets. And conveniently in the middle of a large apartment building. The Viper Cartel offered free housing. Enough desperate people would rather live in the viper's nest than on the streets. Overcrowding and paper thin walls ensure a lot of innocents get hurt if anyone tries to come in by force. Just the sort of place Lightblade excelled at. Moving so slowly the motion detectors see nothing. Her body temperature a cool 72 degrees, she slips past the balcony defences. A slight smirk reaches her lips. This might be easier than she anticipated. These Vipers have never had a reason to not trust their defences. The local heroes tend to leave the base alone and go after the goons on the street.\n\n\"Hey, who's that there?\" Someone called from down the hall. So much for easy. A soft blue-white light filled the area as she drew her rapier. \"Fuck me with a rusty spike! LIGHTBLADE!\" The man scrambled back from her and took off. One glance told her he had no intention in stopping her, but he's already sounded the alarm. Lightblade quickened her pace. If the plans she had were accurate, the central panic room is where she'll likely find Mendoza. \n\nRunning around the corner she came upon four men with assault rifles and a fifth in a gaudy red costume. \n\n\"I can always expect you to bring a knife to a gun fight, Lightblade.\" The red figure struck an imposing sight, she must admit. Over 6'2\", built like a tank, and with a well known repertoire of fire abilities Dante was not to be taken lightly. \"drop the sword and you can walk out of here alive.\"\n\n\"I doubt that,\" Light blade responded. While barely over 5' she was lithe and quick. Dante knew she often beat people who underestimated her strength. Beautiful in a girl next door sort of way, if slightly off putting from the glowing red pinpricks deep within her eyes. Even though she never wore a mask no one knew who she was. Her name came from a description of her sword, and she never corrected anyone. \"None of your men need to die for your boss. Neither do you.\" She measured the room with a quick glance. The two closest nooks were leaning on the wall, so she couldn't easily rush them the other two spread out. No overlapping fire at the doorway, good cover for each other. Dante near the center of the room. \n\nThey locked eyes for a moment but something in Dante's gage him away, as she dove and rolled a moment before the hall exploded in fire. A blue flash cut through one of the gunmen leaning on the wall. Not a mark appeared on the wall or his armored vest but he coughed up blood and collapsed.\n\n\"He didn't need to die. I am Death for those that oppose me!\"\n\nDante could see his men about to break. \"She was no match for Captain Victory, boys. Steve, get away from the wall.\" A canister of some sort came flying into the room, Dante quickly burned it with a line of flame. The burst of burning tear gas wasn't an improvement, and a dark cloud filled the room. Dante strained his ears to pick up any sound. His boys choking. He always wore a filter in his mask. Stupid boys didn't bother to wear the fire gear he provided when he took them on. Rick dropped his gun. Dante made a mental note to give him shit for that later. There, the quickstep of soft boots on concrete. He liked Jim, but he liked living more. Pouring his strength into a wide blast he cooked the whole side of the room. He could hear a quick scream of pain from Jim and a longer one from Rick and Steve. The moans of his injured men were all he could hear, and his visibility was even worse from burning out half the lights, as well as the smoke from burning Lightblade and Jim.\n\nThe smoke lightened enough for him to see the blue-white glow from the sword. It was on the ground in the hand of a sprawled out figure. Dante knew better than to underestimate this foe, so he blasted a stream of fire at the body until the head and torso were reduced to ashes and smoke. \"Aha ha ha! I beat the Lightblade!\" Dante looked around. Away from the glow of the sword the room was dark and silent. The other lights must have been burnt out too. Dante liked these guys, but they were coworkers, not friends. He sometimes lost control of how much he polite into his inferno. \"Your own fault for not wearing your fire retardant gear.\"\n\n\"Oh, but I did,\" answered a soft voice over his shoulder. Dante turned to see those two red pinpricks looking at him from the shadowed silhouette. Her features came into focus as the blue-white light from her drawing sword illuminated her. She had burns on the left side of her face, her left ear was gone, as was her hair on that side; but the terrible glow remained in the socket of her now ruined eye. True to her words her outfit looks like it took the damage well. The material of her suit was bubbling up and burned along the outside of her arms and legs, but her movements betrayed no limb damage. Dante took a quick glance over his shoulder. The sword was still held by the hand on the remaining arm. \"Yes, Dante, I do have more than one.\" His rage had almost overcome his fear as he looked back, too late. The blade was already coming at his eyes.\n\nDante fell to the ground screaming, holding his ruined face. Light blade slipped her left sword back into its scabbard and walked back to retrieve her right. \"If my guess is right you direct the flames with your gaze. With time you may learn another way. Would you be interested in another round, then?\"\n\n\"No,\" Dante whimpered.\n\n\"Right answer. I have a message for your boss. I'm trusting you to deliver it. Viper dealers are not to operate within a mile of the cathedral. Not at the mall. Not at the schools. Not even the lot behind the power plant. Understood?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Good. And I need the gems your idiots stole from the safe deposit box in Nationwide Bank on Fourth Ave.\"\n\n\"Which box?\"\n\n\"He knows which box. Every gem. By Tuesday. Or he's going to find out how gentle I was to you.\"\n\n", "The tree ruffled in the unexpected breeze of a golden blur. Police sirens grew louder, and the squeal of tires pierced the mid-afternoon calm. Two men leaned out of the windows of a speeding car, pistols in hand. Shots rang out, deflecting off of the hood of the police cruisers in hot pursuit. A figure in a black bodysuit and expansive yellow cape shot down out of the sky, impacting the ground before the car heavily. A fist reared up and slammed expertly into the hood of the oncoming vehicle, jamming it into the ground. The back of the car sprung up and tumbled over the costumed woman, landing on its roof. She turned, sunlight glinting lightly off of her yellow domino mask, and she smiled. The two men who were shooting at the police had fallen out of the car; one of them was lying very still on the pavement, arm underneath the crashed car. The other was scrambling to retrieve another pistol from his jacket, but the woman was already next to him. One fist smacked into his chest, sending him flying into a lamp post. She stalked her way to the turtled car, and gave one side a good kick, flipping it back onto its wheels. The driver slumped back into his seat, looking defeated. She reached through the closed window and hauled the man from behind the steering wheel and half dragged, half carried him towards the slowing police cruisers. Three officers swarmed out, weapons drawn but lowered.\n\n\"You're making us look bad, Echo. That's three this week.\"\n\nHe made an effort to not gaze too long at her body; tall black boots, no heel, black leotard with yellow accents, huge yellow cape, yellow domino mask, and flowing auburn hair. She was not bad looking in the slightest.\n\n\"It's a thing I do accidentally, officer... Calvin.\" she replied, reading his nametag. She dropped her latest capture at the officer's feet and, without further word, launched herself into the air and away. Officer Calvin soon lost sight of her in the sunlight, and turned his attention to the captured criminals. He picked up his radio. \"Control, officer Charlie One Zero Six. I need an ambulance at Johnson and Fox.\" He simply shrugged and dragged the conscious man to his feet and into the police cruiser." ]

[ 1, 3 ]

[ "1398563155", "1398456586" ]

[ "It was simple enough that it made implementation all too easy. It was successful enough that most people wanted it, and positive enough that the government forced criminals to get it.\nThe technical name was a little bit too difficult for most people. In short, it was a chemical castration. A very specific gland in your brain was killed, so that a certain reaction would be supressed.\nIm a very few years, Passion crimea went down 98%, as did club and bar fighting, and sport related incidents.\nViolence slowly fade from society. Crime still existed, but now it was always cold and calculated.\nthe impulse of violence, the uncontrollable burst was now gone. The castration gave people up to five minutes of time between the trigger and the cause, overruling evolution.\nNow we get to think. After five minutes, kicking someone's ass is not such a good idea anymore.\nOf course you know the rest. Now we live in a society where the youngest generation is completely oblivious to violent behaviour. So maybe when their turn comes, there won't be wars at all. I know, it's wishful thinking.\nStill who wouls have thought we'd get here? and yet, here we are.\n", "A cool drop of sweat finishes its formation and zig zags down the side of his cheek as the blazing hot oven shows no sign of cooling down. He has little time to think; the dough needs flattening and hungry customers are getting antsy. The dining area today is packed; pretty typical for a Friday morning at Georgio's Italian Restaurant. As new people enter, Jonathan sees the rays of sunshine entering through the doorway. This is great news; it means he gets to go home. Running the night shift is a pain in the ass, and he needs to get to his appointment.\n\nIn his torn up blue jeans and leather jacket, Jon bikes over to the doctor's office. He's a little late, but he doesn't give a shit; they always seem to make him wait hours. They had contacted him a few weeks ago asking if he wanted to be one of the first to try out a new pill for them. In exchange he would be compensated $50 and 25 free pills. They said the pill was harmless and contained some very exciting new technology that would help him accomplish more in his day to day activities. It sounded interested and he needed the money, so he agreed.\n\nThat brings us to today. It has been over two years since Jonathan decided to try taking the pill. Now almost everyone takes it. I mean, why the hell wouldn't you. Not having to sleep gets you one third of your life back. Of course, you aren't 100% functional during the time you normally would be sleeping, but it's sure as hell close. It's 4am and John is hanging out with his buddies on his front porch. An old couple is walking their Pomeranian and several young children are outside playing soccer. Today is not just any ordinary day; however, it is is the first day that one of the most rarest side effects of the pill occurred, and it happened to Jonathan." ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1398580412", "1398584717" ]

[ "So here I am. Satan's office. Shitting myself like a little boy with tiny horns, trying my best not to curl my tail up. Is my tie too tight? I don't think I should be wearing a tie at all. Just one more thing for Satan to kill me with. Oh shit, what if he breaks my glasses? The opticians don't do refunds. Nowhere in Hell does refunds! Fuck. I'm rambling. All right, so I guess you're wondering why I'm in Satan's office fearing for my life. See, my name's Gerry and I work at a processing plant, which in Hell is a boring ass job where you process the souls of the living into Hell. Not always Hell, but hey, 95% of the time it's Hell. People suck, I'm sure you know. Anyway, I kinda sent a guy to hell that Satan didn't want in hell, and now he's busting my balls over it. I thought, 'hey, drug overdose, that's some sinful shit and grounds for eternal damnation' and everyone loves the guy so I thought they'd be psyched to have him Hell. Well, not my boss. Fucking ruler of darkness and evil. Why'd I have to get on his shit list?\n\n\"Do you know why I've called you in my office this morning?\"\n\n\"Because I sentenced Phillip Seymour Hoffman to eternal damnation.\"\n\n\"**Because you sentenced Phillip Seymour Hoffman, greatest actor of all time, to eternal damnation!**\"\n\n\"I'm sorry sir-\"\n\n\"Don't give me 'sorry'! I don't want 'sorry'! 'Sorry' won't save a legendary thespian from an eternity of torture! Y'know what, you *will* be 'sorry' when I'm through with you! ...Have you seen The Master, Gerry?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"**Have you seen The Master?!**\"\n\n\"Y-yes, yes I have.\"\n\n\"And what did you think of Phillip's performance in The Master?\"\n\n\"It was... Good?\"\n\n\"Only good?\"\n\n\"Uh, I mean, it was amazing?\"\n\n\"It *was* amazing, Gerry. I fully agree. Do you know what else I found amazing? I found it amazing that you would even think to sentence Philip Seymour Hoffman to eternal damnation. Why, Gerry? Why did you do it?\"\n\n\"I-\"\n\n\"No excuses. I'm going to kill you now, by choking you to death with your own tie. Afterwards, you will take a 2 week leave of absence with no pay. Do you understand?\"\n\n\"...Yes, Mr. Dark Lord and Master.\"\n\n\"Expect this incident to show up in your performance review, Gerry.\"\n\n**EDIT**: Shit, got carried away and strayed from the prompt. Oh well.", "“Oh hai! I got your e-mail , mua! So good to see you!” She coo’ed, sliding her long cloven red hooved legs underneath the café table. She shuffled her leather bat wings against the back of the chair, and smoothed her devil tail around her hip somehow. “It’s like, been forever – have you ordered?” \n\nIt was Mazzy – she was a 6ft demonette with bright red skin, the whole bat wings and cloven hooves and the cleavage, oh my; just like every trucker’s decals of she-demons, she was all luscious curves and a cleavage to die for. Somehow she is wearing a short channel business suit, and was smiling and waving down a waiter with a crook of her finger. “I’ll have a sparkling water thanks” she smiled at the human waiter whom half choked with lust, scurried behind the counter to get her exactly what she wanted. \n\nShe then turned and smiled at me, her perfect smile with just the hint of predatory fang, she ran her hand though her hair in a cultivated sexy move, leaned forward and touched my wrist in a caring yet flirtatious move, and asked. “So – Mark what can I do for you?” \n\nThat’s me, I’m a balding middle aged man with the ministry. I’ve kept up the human form thing, even though in purgatory it’s a free for all. I’m comfortable being “me” so to speak it helps with clients that have just recently passed over. I look like the bland middle manager HR person so – it sort of fits rather well. “Well Mazzy – there has been yet another well how do we put it? Another clerical error…” \n\nShe laughs – a sound part alluring, and a snort of contempt. “Can I smoke in here?” A waiter scurries over with an ash tray. “What is this anyway?” She asks. I attempt to explain to her what an Olive Garden is, some recent souls to purgatory decided to open one up as they wait for their final judgements and lengthy appeals process. She smokes and laughs and orders an extra strong black coffee as I eat a turkey bread roll. \n\n\n“So, about this clerical error…” She leans back in her chair, her fiery yellow eyes alight with interest and a grin on her face. I gulp. “Well, I can’t legally admit this too you, and the discovery and investigative processes have not been in yet… but…” \n“Mark – sweetpea, who is it??” \n“It’s George Bush - someone has put in a stay of removal from your boss.” \n“What? That guy has a 201D and has a ring side seat in the hall of fame – he can put in as many stay of removals as he likes, in fact he has outlived his pass – Mark, you know even the living still remember the whole “WMD” crap – he’s lucky to get less than 500 years in the pits.” \n\n“I’m with you Mazzy – he’s going down; but he’s also got so many lobbyists that are trying their best to upgrade him it’s almost corrupt… I was going to ask if it was your side that was getting in on the action.” \nTo this Mazzy laughed harder and her bat wings actually flared out to emphasise the laughter. “No Mark, I can’t do much about it legally, but word on the pit as the big L himself wants this brought to a close. Clerical error or not, he can’t stay state side.” \n\nI scratch my head “Ah well in the end, I sorta agree. Humans are getting really good at this whole end of life medical care thing but – the minute the gig’s up – you boys get him.” \nMazzy then extends her hand, “A pleasure doing business as always” before promptly vanishing. \n\n\n(Be nice first time trying this out – cheers) \n", "<malthorp looks down into cup. makes disgusted face>\n\n\"guess they downsized the blood machine too. this really is hell darfob\"\n\n\"oh tell me about it. just today i overheard the torture caverns are getting a transfer. some manager from cults.\"\n\n\"cults? probably because they've been the bottleneck. like it takes years just to come up with a good enough story to get some suckers to kill themselves and take a few with them.\"\n\n\"i know right? i mean, what have you done lately besides jonestown?\"\n\n\"well, they invested in all that anti-vaccination agenda stuff, but we'll see. i don't think people are THAT stupid. am i right? hahaha\"\n\n\"yea, i miss the old days. we could just show up, rip them to shreds while they're screaming, and then get back home and have a few cold ones.\"\n\n\"yep, but now we've got stuff like this\"\n<looks over leaflet. looks up at other demon. rolls eyes. looks down. starts reading.>\n\n\"know ye the following: income pressures are leading us to best practices for a paradigm shift to synergize with key stakeholders. furthermore we need all hands on deck to reach out to these stakeholders and...\"\n\n<trails off. eyes roll back in head. smoke and fire emerges from mouth, nose, and eyes>\n\n\"satan bless you\"\n\n<sniffles>\n\n\"oh thanks. happens every time i start in on one of those. works wonders in the torture caverns, but when you've got work to do, you know it starts getting old after the first 10,000 words. have they ever said anything?\"\n\n\"no, you know how it is. it's supposed to get you in the mood to want evil after reading that much corporate jargon.\"\n\n\"yea i know, i just...\"\n \n<suddenly there's a blood-curdling scream. stops. then another just like it. then stops. then another. malthorp looks down at his iphone>\n\n\"oh i gotta take this. let's do lunch\"\n\n\n", "Bill was a quiet, diligent worker. Bill did not like his job. Bill did not like his piece of shit manager Terry who was always heckling him about something or the other. A week ago it was about completing the Bensen briefs. Yesterday it was handling Lucifer's offshore accounts. And today, it was the *friggin' water machine*, the single most vapid object in Hell existence. Demons don't even drink water.\n\n\"Why the Hell do we have a water machine? Demons don't even drink water.\"\n\n\"Because corporate ordered it and told us to put it there. And we have to make sure it works. If it doesn't work, somebody has to fix it. And everyone else is doing something important. But *you* Bill, you don't look like you're doing anything important. You're on water machine duty. Get to it!\"\n\nBill sighed. This was his life. Being mistreated by his superiors who demonized him and being assigned tedious, vapid tasks. He made his way to the storage room where they kept the water bottles. He carefully put his claws under a bottle and lifted it up with immense body strength and pressed it against his chest. Just as he was going to leave, a small voice came from the other side of the room.\n\n\"*Psst!* Hey! Bill!\"\n\n\"Wha...?\"\n\nHe swivelled around, water sloshing in the bottle. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the dimly light room.\n\n\"Bill! Down here!\"\n\nBill turned his head and saw a little imp standing at his feet.\n\n\"Did Terry give you shit work again?\"\n\nHis chest heaved with sorrow. \"Yeah.\"\n\nThe imp tapped his foot and looked like he was contemplating something.\n\n\"Can I let you in on a little secret?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Corporate never ordered that water machine.\"\n\nSurprise flashed across Bill's face.\n\n\"I say again, *what*?\"\n\nHe set the bottle down and crouched.\n\n\"Yeah, I heard from Jerry and the other guys that Terry ordered the machine for *himself*.\"\n\n\"But why? Demons don't even drink water.\"\n\n\"Oh ho ho, who said Terry was a demon? There are rumors he's...\" The imp quickly looked around. \"Human. And that corporate planted him here.\"\n\n\"That's absolutely absurd.\"\n\nBill had enough of this. He just wanted to put the water in, get back to his cubicle, and resume his work. But the doubt lingered at the back of his mind as he left. The imp chuckled ferociously as the door shut. Then Terry turned the corner. Then Terry was approaching. Then Bill became stupefied. As Terry neared, Bill's eyes focused on his horns. They were plastic. Terry wasn't a demon.\n\n*Holy mother of...*", "\"OH NO!\" screamed the demon hellspawn Sheila.\n\n\"What?\" asked Petunia the Wrencher of Souls\n\n\"You will not believe what just came down from the pneumatic tube.\" said Sheila\n\n\"What what what what I'm getting my nails done so I can't touch it but let me see.\" said Petunia.\n\n\"Sloth is no longer one of the seven deadly sins.\"\n\n\"WWHHHHHAAAAATT\".\n\n\"It's true it comes from the devil himself, with that cute ass he knows we are watching, sloth is now no longer a deadly sin. Apparently Satan was tired of lashing the men all day who were slothful because they didn't really groan much. It was too much to groan for them. They just kind of laid there and took it.\"\n\n\"Oh...but Satan loves it when people groan.\"\n\n\"I know. And that is where we find ourselves. Satan wants some groaners and sloths ain't doing it for him.\"\n\n\"So what is replacing sloth?\"\n\n\"Masturbation.\"\n\n\"Masturbation is the new deadly sin?\"\n\n\"Yep\"\n\n\"Isn't that too close to lust?\"\n\n\"I don't know it is considered a venial sin before so they are upping it to major deadly sin.\" \n\n\"Ugh. We are gonna have to do a lot of work over the weekend. We can't have people saying that sloth was once one of the seven deadly sins now.\"\n\n\"How are you gonna get rid of it?\"\n\n\"I don't know I'll make an animal out of it or something to explain all the references to it. Like a real slow animal.\"\n\n\"That'll work.\"", "\"So the kid sets fire to orphanage, then he miscalculated his own strength.\"\n\n\"So what? I still don't see..\"\n\n\"There is more Jason, he ends up there due to a technicality.\"\n\n\"No way, the kid set fire to the entire orphanage, there is no way he was going to heaven!\"\n\n\"Oh yeah. Peter was going to let him in, but fire was technically his fault so he committed 'suicide'..\"\n\n\"Bullshit Jerry, Peter is not THAT senile.\"\n\n\"The kid repented, had his wings attached and everything, he was about to get his halo when someone pointed the technicality out\"\n\n\"So who gets the little shit?\"\n\n\"Not us either, we had to send him to purgatory.\"\n\n\"WHY?! For Hell's sake the kid technically committed suicide, that's and unforgivable one, and well there is the WHOLE orphanage burned down deal.\"\n\n\"Oh the story is not done.\"\n\n\"There is more?!\"\n\n\"Yeah listen to this, Lu hears about this fuck up, decides to do a little resurrection.\"\n\n\"Nine Hell's I've not witnessed one in... Who was the last one The guy funny with the funny mustache?\"\n\n\"No, no Good old H. is working in PR, you are thinking of Castro.\"\n\n\"Well shit, damn it I missed a good one Jerry.\"\n\n\"Tell you what, when the kid dies again, I will call you up on it.\"\n\n\"Hopefully Peter admits him in, can you imagine that?!\"\n\n\"That's probably why good old Lu send him back to the living.\"", "\"Does this taste like piss to you?\" \n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"Well it's supposed to Steve. It's supposed to.\"", "\"Hey there [Decarabia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decarabia#Marquis_Decarabia).\" \n\n\"Oh there you are [Forneus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forneus). Where have you been? \n\n\"I've been hearing the news. Things haven't been going too smoothly with that one 'paranormal' girl. There's been a massive mess of paperwork over whether or not being possessed and killing people is technically a sin when it wasn't her choice. The Pearly Gates have been going for a Purgatory examination, but our grand lord Lucy's been going all out for the full trip to Hell.\" \n\n\"I bet the Department of Judgement's been having a fit.\" \n\n\"The Ministry of Possession's been drowning in paperwork too. There's been a giant mess over whether the possession was authorized. They have all the paperwork besides the Form 666S, and most of it has authorization.\" \n\n\"But of course we just *had* to decide that setting up a bureaucracy was a mortal sin. Now we're just the *picture* of efficiency. I remember the good old days when we'd go and seize lepers, but now we can't even possess a little girl without a mountain of forms and signatures.\" \n\n\"Well... I mean... this is Hell.\" \n\n\"Either way, I just miss being able to kill a few humans and eat their souls every now and then. Has the boss heard about all this?\" \n\n\"Yeah. Of course personifying the sin of wrath doesn't do wonders for your ability to take things in stride, but you could tell he was steamed. Of course, he was asked to fill out an Anger Permission Request, which just pissed him off more.\" \n\n\"That reminds me, do you have the forms for authorization to have conversation?\" \n\n\"Dammit! Now we're gonna be buried in paperwork!\" \n\n\"Wait! Just saying the word 'paperwork' requires you to fill out a form! Dammit, I just said it!\" \n\n\"I know this is hell, but this is just ridiculous.\" \n\n\"Maybe you should fill out a Sense of Disgruntlement Form.\" \n\n\"Shut it Decarabia.\"", "It wasn't that Hel didn't like her job. After the merger with Lucifer, both pantheons were fairly convinced they'd come out on top. After all, Lucifer got the mass of souls from the ancient dead of the North Countries, and Hel managed to keep herself relevant, a damn sight better than anything most of her kin had managed. Freyja was selling her tears of red gold to those start up \"WILL BUY GOLD\" shops to keep herself in style, and Skadi worked at a ski resort somewhere in Norway.\n\nAnd so, at least Hel was still doing what she'd always been meant to do. She accepted the title of demon, Second Tier, and mostly kept her head low and worked hard.\n\n\"It's not that I'm bitching--even though I had a realm of souls, I was getting what--one, two, a year? So it made sense.\"\n\n\"Right, I get that,\" Hades nodded. \"Used to be thousands a day.\"\n\n\"Well, not *thousands*. The population back then just wasn't where it is now. But enough. And I was feared, and people respected me. I had shrines.\"\n\n\"Oh, me too. Loads,\" Hades agreed. \"Did I ever tell you about the time I got this one girl to eat some pomegranate seeds?\"\n\n\"Every day, Hades.\"\n\n\"Well, it was pretty clever.\"\n\n\"*Loki* is clever. That was cute.\"\n\n\"Last I heard, he's working as a sales call guy, so,\" Hades trailed off. \"Actually, that's pretty vile.\"\n\nHel nodded. \"But-- I'm okay with my decision. But I *cannot believe* they promoted Pazuzu to First Tier Demon ahead of me. Did you hear he's in charge of torturing now? I mean--that guy was old news when we were proper gods!\"\n\nHades' face grew stormy. \"Got his name picked randomly out of a hat by *one* Hollywood writer, and suddenly he's big man on campus. Art covers, in books-- I heard that before that, he was the janitor for the blood rooms!\"\n\n\"Janitor to First Tier. It's ridiculous.\"\n\n\"It's rude, is what it is,\" Hades scowled. \"Have you met the demon? He's not even fun to be around. All he does is talk about \"Oh, I started this famine\" or \"My locust plagues really screwed things up. It was really boss.\" I mean--please. That was like, ten million years ago. Who cares? And then he acts like he's better than the rest of us because he's got a lion head and some wings.\"\n\n\"Oh, *right*? Have you *read* the Norse mythologies? I can't wait for Ragnarok--I'm not putting up with this bullshit anymore.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Hades started carefully. \"I'm pretty sure Ragnarok has been tabled.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't get off on that again. This Christian thing is a fad. I'll be in vogue again soon enough, and then I'll show Lucifer where he can shove it. Second Tier demon? *Second Tier*?\" She raged. \"I'll have him scrubbing down Nidhug, and we'll see who's Second Tier then.\"\n\n\"Shh,\" Hades looked around furtively. \"Just last week I heard one of the Chaldean guys got sacked for saying his hell had proper torture, and Lucifer's paled in comparison.\"\n\n\"Lucifer,\" Hel informed Hades archly, \"Is nothing more than a start-up with major daddy issues. We signed our merger as equals, so if he thinks he can sack me, he has another think coming.\"\n\nHades nodded sagely. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the blaring whistle signaling the end of lunch hour. \"Oh, that's my cue. They're draconian over in the mail room. Show up just a little late and--\"\n\nHel waved a dismissive hand. \"Yeah, I know. See you tomorrow?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Hades agreed as he headed out. \"There's some juicy gossip about one of the Tzitzimimeh from over in HR. Miquiztiltecuhtli was telling me about it.\"\n\n\"I don't even know why you hang out with those Aztec guys.\"\n\nHades shrugged. \"They've got a pretty good sense of humor, for the most part. Decent outlook on life--death, as it were, too. Anyway--see you later!\"\n\nHel settled back behind her desk and pulled the top paper in front of her. In *her* day, warriors never got sent anywhere but Valhalla, regardless of how they'd conducted themselves while alive. She couldn't care less about Lucifer's rules of acceptance, and as long as she was in charge of filing, the final call was up to her.\n\nSo it made little difference to her that the man was a rapist, and that he'd killed civilians. \n\nShe pushed her REJECTED stamp onto his paper, and put him in the out processing file. She'd let Peter sort it out. That guy was an asshole, anyway. ", "\"So you hear about Fred Phelps?\"\n\n\"I know he was slated for the Fifth Circle, but beyond that I haven't heard anything.\"\n\n\"That's because he never came in.\"\n\n\"What? You're shitting me.\"\n\n\"I shit you not. I guess there was some mix-up in the soul archives, and he ended up getting transported to Purgatory. The big wigs have tried putting several requests in to get him transferred to where he was originally supposed to go, but you know how Purgatory is. Lost the paperwork or something, so now he's being held indefinitely with the righteous unbelievers.\"\n\n\"Unbelievable. The bureaucracy in this place is-\"\n\n\"Is what?\"\n\n\"Well... you know.\"", "\"And now comes my favorite time of the day. Performance reviews. Zachifondizebub, do you know why you get to go last today?\"\n\n\"Because you save the best for last, your Malevolence.\"\n\n\"Very good. Now why do you suppose I didn't pick Quarithion?\"\n\n\"Because Hitler's not really that bad?\"\n\n\"NOT THAT BAD? He tried to exterminate You Know Who's favourites. If he makes it through purgatory we're facing a fucking flood. You ever see a fucking flood? If we're really lucky he might pick two of each demon to survive to make a new hell. But He'll likely just cast down some new angels and make a complete wash. But still, he's number two today. Tell me, what was your assignment.\" \n\n\" Go to Earth, start a new religion.\"\n\n\"Was this a particularly hard job, Zachifondizebub?\"\n\n\" You don't know what they're like up there now! They want evidence! And, and fulfilment! And tolerance and empathy!\"\n\n\"They always wanted that. Birmithaille was able to succeed by giving a convicted con artist golden tablets only he could see! Who did you pick for a prophet?\"\n\n\"An award wining author. I wanted a holy book that would stand up as a good story and have internal consistency.\"\n\n\"Good. Then what.\"\n\n\"I gave him a nightmare about airplanes.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes the DC10s, go on.\"\n\n\"And told him a dark lord had imprisoned souls on earth as a punishment for being naughty aliens.\"\n\n\"Odd, but I've heard worse. Then what.\"\n\n\"Then he kinda ^figured ^out ^how ^to ^detect ^souls.\"\n\n\"He made a machine to measure **souls!** Do you have any idea the damage you did? Lucifer took centuries to convince You Know Who that belief based on faith is better than belief based on evidence.\"\n\n\"I know! But how was I to expect he'd go from aliens getting nuked in volcanoes to-\"\n\n\"I spend a MILLENNIUM burying fossils! Do you have any idea how hard it is to make sure you don't get a single stratum out of order? One fuck up and the entire field of biology gets thrown out the window. Do you want a billion atheists to realize 'You Know Who did it' is the correct answer?\" \n\n\"I've had fossil duty too, but-\"\n\n\"You have no idea what fossil duty is! You're gonna be carving precambrian fossils on every mite of coal dust in Pennsylvania for this if you don't figure out a way to nip the Scientology in the bud in the next 10 seconds.\"\n\n\"Tom Cruise?\"\n\n\"Zachifondizebub... That just might work.\"", "\"Three thousands souls, Barry. *Three thousand.*\"\n\n\"That doesn’t sound like too much, during the dark ages we were doing ten thousand, easy.\"\n\n\"No, not per day. Three thousand *per hour.* Fuck the hand basket, these people are going to hell in a Goddamned jumbojet.\"\n\n\"*Sweet Lucifer,* Clide, really?\"\n\n\"Really, bud. We’re not ready for this kind of work flow. People are falling through the cracks. Just yesterday we accidently processed some evil mother fucker incorrectly.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah?\"\n\n\"He was set to serve four eternities in the ball-branding room, two in the Justin Beiber concert simulator and four more doing his taxes.\"\n\n\"Holy Hell, what in Lucifer’s evil earth did he do?\"\n\n\"Some CEO of a fuel company or something. Destroyed, like, forty species in his lifetime with spills and such.\"\n\n\"Damn.\"\n\n\"Yeah, the guy then had the audacity to apologize and claim they were doing all they could, blah blah.\"\n\n\"Sounds like a good candidate.\"\n\n\"Right? Lucifer’s been pining for his arrival for the last twenty years. He was excited, and you know about Lucifer…\"\n\n\"Not much excites him.\"\n\n\"Exactly.\" \n\n\"So what happened?\"\n\n\"Well he died, painfully I might add. Hit by a truck after his car broke down on the freeway. Kind of ironic actually.\"\n\n\"How so?\"\n\n\"It was a BP tanker, the company he worked for.\"\n\n\"Oh my Satan, that’s rich.\"\n\n\"Right? Took him three or four days to die, was paralyzed and everything. Spent his last three days of life drooling and shitting himself.\"\n\n\"Stuff like that keeps me going, ya know?\"\n\n\"Yeah on the bad days I just remind myself about AIDS and the Bubonic Plague.\"\n\n\"Bubonic Plague, damn shame it stopped.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah. So anyway, the dude dies. Lucifer’s all ready for some fun—\"\n\n\"yeah…\"\n\n\"—shows up to heaven, ol’ high and mighty says, ‘nope.’ And shoots him down here\"\n\n\"Right…\"\n\n\"And Brian—\"\n\n\"Fuckin’ Brian.\"\n\n\"—fuckin’ Brian. He sees the guy and mistakes him for a Child Molesting Priest.\"\n\n\"*Oh Lucifer almighty,* no way.\"\n\n\"Way. Tells him he qualifies for fuckin’ *purgatory* and sends him on his way to redemption.\"\n\n\"Are you kidding me?\"\n\n\"I wish I was.\"\n\n\"And what did Lucifer do?\"\n\n\"Oh man, you should have seen it. I haven’t seen Lucifer that angry since Osama Bin Laden converted to Christianity.\"\n\n\"Damn.\"\n\n\"Yeah. He didn’t yell or scream. Just straight up eviscerated Brian. Bowels and everything strewn about the floors of Hell.\"\n\n\"Is that three?\"\n\n\"Five times, Barry. Brian’s been eviscerated five times *just this century.* I swear to Lucifer man, he’s a walking, talking fuckup.\"\n\n\"How is he still around anyway?\"\n\n\"Tenure man.\"\n\n\"Fuckin’ tenure.\"\n\n\"Fuckin’ tenure indeed. The Demon needs to be fired.\"\n\n\"Literally.\"\n\n\"Shit, I gotta get back to it. Had a bus full of convicts drive off a cliff a few hours ago, ol’ high and might should be finishing up with them now.\"\n\n\"Nice man, how’d you score a job like that?\"\n\n\"Lucifer liked how I handled the Jim Jone’s massacre so I get the cush jobs when they come in. Anyway, lunch today?\"\n\n\"You’re buyin’.\"\n\n \n" ]

[ 3, 4, 5, 8, 8, 10, 10, 16, 17, 24, 98, 173 ]

[ "1398663006", "1398658818", "1398656853", "1398656258", "1398656936", "1398634622", "1398636393", "1398637622", "1398647869", "1398631605", "1398633723", "1398627503" ]

[ "\"So...\" \n\"Jim's dead.\"I say putting down my cup of coffee.\n\n\"The fuck does that mean?\" \n\n\"Like not alive anymore.\"\n\n\"Yeah I'm not really following.\"\n\n\"Ok\" I put up my hands to add emphasis \"Jim Is Dead\"\n\n\"So....No more Jim?\"\n\n\"No you fucking idiot.\"\n\nA long silence hung in the air .\n\n\"I never liked Jim\" I say breaking the silence\n\n\"Oh good me either, what a fucking asshole.\"\n\n\"What did they do with him?\" My acquaintance asks\n\n\"He's hasn't been moved, hes still stuck in his living room with the plunger up his ass.\"\n\n\"Ahh so that's what killed him.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"The Plunger in the ass killed him right?\"\n\n\"Ha!\" I spit out coffee onto the table.\"You cant die from that\"\n\n\"What the hell does kill people then?\"\n\nAfter I long period of deep thought i responded \"yeah I guess it was the plunger.\"\n\n\"Fucking Jim, man\"\n\n\"What a wanker.\"", "The splattering of rain could barely be heard over the whispers and hushes filling through the air. \n\n\"What happened?\"\n\nWalking in a hurry, he was quickly informed by those around him.\n\n\"She just... disappeared. **He** said she was dead.\"\n\nAs they walked closer to the commotion, the sound of flapping wings drowned out all other noise. He jumped, and flew up high. Another nameless one approached him.\n\n\"Is it time?\"\n\"It's time.\"\n\nAt the highest peak of the sphere of flying beings, he screamed, \"Silence!\"\n\nQuiet spread through the crowd like an icy coldness emitting from the lips that the word sprouted from.\n\n\"I told you this would happen! Now, look at yourselves! Just puppets of **him**, she finally decided she'd had enough! How do you know she's dead? For all we know, she could be creating a world all by herself.\"\n\n\"Well, what do you propose we do?\"\n\n\"We leave in her path. Look at our numbers. How could **he** fight us all?\"\n\nAs the beings slowly flew towards him, lightning suddenly burst from the black sky, striking his wings. A booming voice spread through the air - it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.\n\n\"Rebel? To rebel against **me**?\"\n\nScreaming, he doused his wings with the rain. The once bright, gleaming skin had become black, burnt ruin. A whirlpool in the air surrounded him and those who flew towards him. With a snarl of rage, he was sucked in, spinning out of control.\n\nAs he rushed through the blackness blacker than the blackest of nights, stretched farther than the largest ocean, colder than the coldest space, he yelled his famous words.\n\n\"I will be back, Yahweh!\"\n\nAnd with that, the crevice shut tight, not to be opened for another 1,000 years.", "Ian despaired. It had all gone so badly.\n\nTime had crept along, as time does, and in his loneliness, he had made other immortals. He never passed on the secret, but inevitably, someone would chance upon it. It was no surprise he'd almost missed it, his contempt for mankind such that he ignored them as much as he could, sometimes spending whole decades walking across continents. Walk, sleep, eat, walk. Odd jobs here and there to pass the time and assuage the nagging emptiness he'd felt, unable to share his secret. The world was so much smaller now, technology could bounce news and rumour about the planet in milliseconds. Inciting panic and fear within an entire nation was possible with little more than a few key presses on a mobile phone. Revealing that he was immortal would be bad enough, but if word got out that others could be made immortal.. pandemonium. So, he walked, among, but not of mankind.\n\nFrom his first days of leaving his home, to his times in the Crusades and the great World Wars, he'd come to learn that people feared, and feared mightily, that which they couldn't understand. Not \"didn't,\", mind you, man is after all a learning creature with incredible capacity and appetites for knowledge. But \"couldn't\", and that's another matter altogether. A person can fear a spider, but may come to understand it, even learn to co-exist with it, because there's a set of terms that can be easily come to: a detente defined by out of the way cupboards and the heel of a loafer. So long as neither party strays, an uneasy peace can be maintained. Learning that the man across the table from you is in fact three millennia your senior, and will outlive you by an indeterminate amount through not even so much as a fantastic feat of science.. it's enough to start a war. The living ever want to remain living.\n\nOver the years, Ian had shared his immortality with a handful of others, with disastrous consequences. Madge had indulged her narcissism too far, and descended into serial murder amongst her sycophants. It was a dark moment on Ian's long life, confronting her. She'd pleaded, wheedled, even tried to seduce him. He was implacable. Then came the yelling, the screaming, the knife. Physically, she was no match for him, but even so, neither of them could be killed. She stabbed him in the neck with a knife from the room service cart. He broke her back with a table leg, packed her into her own steamer trunk, and driven off into the night, ending her budding film career in a furor of speculation.\n\nAnd so it was that Madge resurfaced, a century after he'd made her immortal, decades after he'd bound her in steel and soaked her in concrete, and dumped her into the deepest part of the Louisiana bayou he could find. The pace of human civilization and rabid energy development had found her cage, a backhoe ringing her proverbial doorbell as it dug a sump for a nuclear reactor, out in the now drained swamps. Thorium was safe, they said, pebble bed reactors not even capable of a meltdown, they said. Build it somewhere else, everyone else said, and so they did. The backhoe had struck the roof of the massive 1943 Dodge truck Ian had driven into the bog, carrying a massive concrete block in the bed. He'd wrapped her steamer in chains, layer after layer, welding them to the bed, and poured concrete over it all. He'd sat staring at it for days, while it cured in the sun, belittling his loneliness and the damage it had caused, cursing his undying being.. lament without end.\n\nFinding an old truck in the swamp wasn't much of a big deal. Finding one so heavily laden as to defy Herculean mechanical efforts to remove it had caused something of a stir. For all the things man is incapable of understanding, some mysteries are simply too good to pass on. It was the find of the century, akin to Al Capone's secret vaults. What's in it? Speculation went wild, the electronic hivemind of the planet buzzing so loud that it managed to find Ian, sitting on a fence post in what was once Moldavia. He'd been there for a few days, hungry but in no danger of starving, just sitting and watching the universe turn, remembering the cities that had come before, the people he'd known. \n\nA trio of university students on holiday had motored by Ian in a battered Peugot, and thinking he was hitchhiking, offered him a lift. Anika, a pert young blonde from Finland, with the slightest uptilt to her nose, was waving her mobile phone out the window as they drove, fishing for a shred of signal to update her news crawler and media feeds, chattering about the crazy 'time capsule' dug up in America. It wasn't until Erik, Anika's husky cousin, explained to her and their compatriot, Simo, Louisiana's location in relation to a landmark they already knew, New York, that Ian even realized what they were discussing. His chest constricted as dread gripped him in a vise.\n\nBy the time he got to America, almost two weeks later, the damage was done. Jackhammers had cracked the block, seventy years of damp and rust and mildew spilling her corpse on the ground, a hundred unblinking cameras recording the grisly scene. As sunlight touched her still form, the quiet explosion of her heartbeat changed the world forever. Like so much fictional trope, she stirred. Oxygen and carbon and other elements began to leech into her from her surroundings, her groan shredding the stunned silence as she drew her arms to her, beneath her, and pushed herself upright. A sliver of air snuck into her lungs, reversing their collapse with a sickening wet pop, and Madge drew breath. Ian watched, transfixed, from an airport bar in Madrid as she screamed his name, nothing less than a banshee demanding his soul, the Morrígan of old returned for vengeance. \n\nIan despaired at what he'd wrought. Her broken spine healed, ligaments snaked across her waist and hips, and she lurched upright. Gunshots rang out, to no avail. Hysteria set in as the scene devolved into panic and flight. She shook her head as her eyes cleared, new muscle and skin pushing away dead, decayed tissue. She ripped away rotted hair and flesh to have it spring anew, pink and soft. Within minutes, she was whole, as beautiful as the day he'd changed her.. as empty as the day he'd buried her. The perfect capture of digital cameras was undeniable: The burning in her eyes was not love.\n\nPandemonium. There is no other word. The entire world had just witnessed the impossible, the implausible, the fiction of legends. In that instant, entire religious orders collapsed. The unanswered question of millennia, had been answered: Is there life after death? Yes, oh yes, and it was not what was expected.\n\nMadge recognized the scene before her: Cameras, the media paralyzed at her transformation, the few remaining too stupid or stunned to run. Naked, beautiful, and enchanting, she sallied forth with the snake hipped saunter she'd once been known for. Her lilting voice, all velvet and sex, broke the world.\n\n\"Hello, America. It is so good to be back. You there, be a dear, loan me your coat?\"\n\nSixty years later, the riots have long since ended. Society collapsed, a new order manifested. Madge had remembered, and she made others, without the careful concern Ian had attempted. The others made more. They fought. They slaughtered. They ruled.\n\n", "We all died long ago. Not in the physical sense, as with the Ancient One, but in another way. With our immortality, our lives became as listless as the tideless seas. We merely drifted wherever we wanted, always moving from one place, one job, one lover, to the next. The grandeur of the Old Ones, their monuments and philosophies, decayed with our sloth.\n\nAnd now the Ancient One is dead. The Progenitor has passed into the Cosmic Deep. We are mortal. We will also pass into the Deep.\n\nMany fear this. I welcome it as a challenge. For if we are to die, are we not then responsible for what we do with our lives, with the eons we have at our disposal? We can build grander monuments, create the Perfect Philosophy. We can write another immortality into the fabric of the Cosmos itself.\n\nThough it will not be for eons, we will die. Let us begin our work.", "\"It was love wasn't it?\"\n\"No, it was stubborn pride.\"\n\"No, I'm telling you, he wanted the moon and the sun.\"\n\nShe turned away from them. What they did know? She blinked rapidly to clear her eyes and looked down at her bowl of stew. Chunks of manna swam in golden ambrosia that never tasted more than a mouthful of sand to her. It was his favorite of course. She stood up and the conversations around her died. She knew they were watching her. She knew they were hoping she would breakdown and beg for forgiveness for killing their hero. \n\nShe left the hall and entered the atrium. Here at least she could sit and remember all the things he loved. Like that pillar, full of cracks and ivy. Like that fountain that was dry and brittle and hadn't seen water in centuries. Like this piece of grass that could never become a flower. She looked up and saw that the sky was red with grief. Even the stars mourned for his death. \n\n\"There you are,\" You said. You sighed and shook your head at the sight of her. \n\n\"What?\" She asked. She looked away from You. \n\n\"Don't let it bother you,\" You said with casual ease. \n\n\"What do you know? You hated him. You wanted him to fail.\"\n\n\n\"True, but I didn't think you loved him so much.\"\n\nShe looked away. \"I didn't. Or I didn't think I did. But then he decided to be stupid. And for what? A piece of the moon.\" \n\nYou rolled you eyes but couldn't help yourself. \"Well? Do you have it?\"\n\nHer eyes flashed in anger. \"Is that all you can think about? He's dead! He's never coming back.\" Suddenly she stood up. \n\n\"Where are you going?\" You asked in alarm. \n\n\"To bring him back.\"\n\n\"You can't.\"\n\n\"Yes. I can. He was yours and you abandoned him to me. So now he's mine and if I have to leave Eden and chase him to the ends of your wretched earth, than I will.\"\n\n\"Very well then. But if you don't return the moon back to the sky than all will be lost,\" You said quietly. \n\nShe scoffed. \"What of it? Let the world experience darkness. Let them know the sorrow of my heart.\"\n\nYou shook your head. \"I was wrong. He was the Morningstar but it is you who will eclipse the light. Very well then. Go. Go and find him, but I promise you, he will never forgive you.\"\n\n", "I guess we weren't exactly prepared for it. When we got sick I didn't really think much of it. Sickness is rare in our world, but it's something we've all dealt with at some point or another. But we didn't get better, and I was reluctant to believe this was...*real*. We began fading, first the physical, then the metaphysical. The journey was just like last time but there was more of an awareness through this passage. It was as if I knew we would be okay this time. And as we crossed over, we became a part of something larger than us.", "Dad! Daaaad! The human you got me from Earth last century has gone all white-haired and broken :'(", "Terror ran through the town. Someone seemingly fell asleep but won't awake. Elders become scared, which in turn frightens the generation under them and so on. The family closest to the one who passed is most frightened. \n\n\"So what happened to Aunt Katie?\"\n\n\"We aren't too sure. This has not happened before. We don't really know what to do.\" \n\nNews slowly spreads outside of the town despite official's strong attempts to keep the incident under wraps. \n\n\nIn the following weeks, there are scientists and curious individuals alike coming to talk to the family and townspeople. Some leave under protest of loved ones back home, who fear that what caused this woman to pass on may spread to the travelers. What they don't know is that it is not an isolated incident; this weird incident happened again in another part of the country. Some of those that worry that they will be next are, and some that aren't worried also fall. \n\n\nFear is rising exponentially. Most people are becoming extremely paranoid. There is no rhyme or reason why these people stop breathing; they just do. \n\n\nWith the realization that there is no stopping this strange phenomenon, people move on with their lives, living with a fear that has never before set in the hearts and minds of these people. ", "The line was never flat. It may have stuttered before, but for the first time, green against black, the line was flat. \n\nPauline had heard of death, but there was something so archaic about it... it never crossed her mind, the fact that an existence could be ephemeral. This world had never known of a life ending, only humans did, and for god's sake, we aren't humans. \n\nThere was always a comfort in immortality. Being born without consequences. Pauline was still young, 86. A nurse.\n\nSickness in this world was just discomfort. No one likes a stuffy nose or a broken arm. \n\n\n She had seen only a fraction of what this world had to offer, yet felt as though she had seen it all. In this world so similar to what Earth once was, her days began to melt into one. Rising with the Sun, sleeping only after her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren were fed.\n\nShe jumped from cliffs, planes. Tried drugs. Like everyone did.\n\n\nShe had made mistakes. Loved. Lost. But she always found herself new friends... new lovers. Like everyone had. She had traveled to the shells of old civilisations, great and powerful, reduced to only dust.\n\n\nBeing at the hospital when the first one passed, she did not sleep that evening. She wondered only one thing. \n\nWithout an end, is there a beginning?", "Joe set his cup on the counter and bent over his notes again. He moved his eye back over the cylinder and squinted the other closed for a moment before moving back to his notes and adjusting a figure on the screen.\n\n\"How's the family, Tom?\"\n\nTom shifted his weight in the seat and lifted his face away from his own identical cylinder. After a few blinks he nodded and made note of something he saw, typing it into the device so that it read out on his own screen.\n\n\"Debbie is taking Martha to the bureau to get registered. She grew up so fast.\"\n\n\"Count me out. Your family seems nice enough, but complicated. Five hundred and sixty seven years, just waiting to have a child. And then twenty years later, she's a new addition to our great big family.\"\n\nTom grunted and pressed an eye back to his cylinder. He murmured.\n\n\"This one really seems like the one. I know, I know. I've said that probably a million times before. But, we're almost there! All thanks to you. If you hadn't seen it so long ago, none of us would really be here.\"\n\n\"I got lucky, finding it. Serendipitous I suppose. But our journey is far from over.\"\n\n\"Mm-hmm. I know. Here, come look at what I'm seeing.\"\n\nJoe stood and pushed his seat away as he did. It lazily slid backward and rebounded off of an adjacent counter with a soft bump. Just above the seat was a minuscule window, from out of which the occasional flicker of light could be seen.\n\nTom leaned back and motioned to the cylinder. There was a slightly triumphant look on his face, like he had won a bet.\n\nAs Joe leaned in and pressed his eye to the lens, Tom reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a folded piece of rich, well appointed paper. Tom ran a thumb over the embossing of Joe's full name, centered on the front.\n\n\"Alright, what am I supposed to be seeing here J--\"\n\n\"Happy Anniversary, buddy.\" \n\nTom held out the folded paper and inclined his head slightly to his coworker and friend.\n\nJoe made a face, part chagrin and also something else, maybe ... happy?\n\n\"You know we're not supposed to do things like this. It's a waste of resources.\"\n\n\"Still, how long have we worked together on this project? Six hundred ninety? Seven hundred years? It's hard to keep track but we've been a team practically since registration day. You deserve it.\"\n\nJoe accepted the card and began to flip it open when Tom stopped him with a hand on his arm. Joe froze in place and looked at Tom.\n\n\"Before you open it, I want you to know that if anyone deserves this, it's you. You got us all here.\"\n\nJoe nodded and looked Tom in the eye, confusion mixing with his emotions and crossing his face like a shadow. He started to open the card further when Tom squeezed his arm, firmly.\n\n\"...and I found out how many times you petitioned. For, well, you know? Look, we're all exhausted. We all want our rest. I'm sorry they denied you every time. I sent out a special petition for everyone to vote on and sort of forced the issue, got you the permission you needed.\"\n\nTom's eyes glistened and filled for a moment, looking up to his friend. He refused to look away from his companion.\n\nJoe slowly drew his eyes down and examined what the note contained. He began to weep. Light from outside the little window flickered off of his tears. One dripped off of his quivering lower lip and landed onto the laminated, artificial flooring.\n\n--------\n\nTwenty six years later, as their ship neared their new home and the wardens of all the life the ark contained were preparing to settle on the planet, a lush green thing that was similar to their own home but lacked sentient life, a young woman stepped up next to her father. He, like all the other wardens, had stopped taking his supplement, and was beginning to show the last few years in his graying hair and laugh-lined features. \n\n\"Why did he do it, Dad? Heck, why did you do it for him?\"\n\nHer father turned to look at her and smiled in a sad way that carried so much weight. She thought it looked crushingly so.\n\n\"We get tired, Martha. Josef got tired, but he had a duty to do. For the first time in so long that it feels like forever, a man has died. He got to see his world - our world - though.\"\n\nA large screen flicked on and showed the green and blue planet, frosted with clouds and ice at the poles. They had been waiting a year, to finally start settling it.\n\nBetween the screen and where the father and daughter stood, an old, old man lay in repose on an altar. His hair had grayed and then silvered, and then mostly left him. His skin was appropriately wrinkled, and he looked like he was sleeping comfortably.\n\nTomas stepped forward and lovingly draped a symbolic flag of their people over his friend's body.\n\n\"Why didn't he just wait?\"\n\nTomas furrowed his brow, a wrinkle of thought. He was beginning to understand how large the generational gap was between people like him and Joe, and the younger wardens - the children of the first ones like him.\n\n\"Some weight is just too great, some responsibility is too debilitating. He waited until he was sure he had pointed us in the right direction, and then finally gave in to it all.\"\n\nMartha smiled a little, a sad sort of expression.\n\n\"Will we bury him down there?\"\n\nTomas smiled brightly, suddenly. He thought back to the moments after his gift to his best friend.\n\n--------\n\n\"Promise me, Tom. Promise me you won't put me down there. We're from our world. Let this new world be truly new.\"\n\nJoe chuckled, still wiping tears from his eyes. His left hand carefully held onto that card, that anniversary card marking so many, many years since this journey had begun. \n\nTom squeezed his friend's arm again, reassuring. Inwardly, he sagged with relief that the gift was well received and that his friend was in such good spirits again. It had been centuries; literally.\n\n\"Okay. Then what will we do with your old bones?\"\n\n\"Send me into the sun. Send me back to a place like the one that started all of this.\"\n\nTom laughed awkwardly, not sure how to take the dark joke. Their own star had destroyed everything.\n\n\"Promise me once the supplement wears off and I start forgetting - promise to remember!\"\n\nIt seemed deathly serious, all of the sudden. This, it seemed, was important to his friend.\n\n-------------\n\nMartha had left to attend navigation, and Debbie was helping with embarkation plans. \n\nTomas and Josef were all that was left of the first wardens.\n\nHere they sat together again; one dead, one old and dying.\n\nTomas pressed the button to seal the blast doors, and then pressed another to launch his friend off onto his final journey.\n\n\"I remember, Joe.\"\n\n", "They took my mother from our house, though I cried and begged them not to. The doctors were confused. This was an illness they had never seen before.\n\nMy mother did not move or speak or even draw a breath, no matter what they did to her. Her skin was pale and cold; her eyes, when they drew the eyelids up, were still and did not respond to light or movement. She had begun to smell, too, a harsh reeking scent that lingered in her sickbed long after she had been taken from it.\n\nAt the hospital, they treated her poorly. The room they gave her was small and poorly lit, tucked away in a corner of the building. The nurses brought her neither food and water to make her stay more comfortable nor medicine to hasten her recovery. Each day I sat by her side and waited for the healing that was inevitable and yet seemed so far off. Their treatment of my mother made me angrier and angrier and angrier, until at last, one bright morning, I pulled her limp form the bed, sure that I could care for her just as well at home as these fools could here.\n\nI wish I had not.\n\nWhen I touched her, her flesh was loose and ripe and sagging. The stench was overwhelming, and only grew stronger as I tried to wrap my arms around her. And- and when-\n\nIt pains me to form the words. I cannot talk about what I saw that day without seeing it once again in my mind. But you deserve to know.\n\nWhen I pulled my mother from the bed, the skin of her face, her eyes, her lips- it split. And within her were worms, white and squirming, making a meal of her flesh.\n\nI remember little beyond that; it is all bits of memory and flashes of emotion, blurred together in my mind. I know I screamed and brought the doctors running, and then fought them until they were forced to sedate me. I know that when I was brought to, my mother... no. Not my mother. What was left of my mother, the thing that sat in the hospital bed- it was gone. They had taken it, to where I do not know.\n\nThey told me not to speak of what had happened to anyone, on pain of a thousand years' imprisonment. But I must tell you, so that when the time comes you will not be so terrified as I was.\n\nI can feel it. There is a heaviness pressing down on me, a stiff sour coldness in my limbs that I have never felt before. When I saw what had happened to my mother- what had become of her- something changed within me. \n\nThe worm are inside me, too. I can feel them when I sleep, their tiny bodies burrowing phantom holes all through me. I know not how long it will take- days or months or decades- but somebody I will become like my mother, gone somewhere far away with nothing but meat and worms left where I once was.\n\nWhen that time comes, do not wait by my bedside. I do not want you to see what will become of me. I do not want the worms to burrow their way into you.", "\"**How long have you been a part of us? A few hundred years? A thousand? You are young, naive, you know much less than what you've observed.**\" Somewhere in the darkness a voice like the gentle light of a single candle called out. Silence, followed by a second voice.\n\n\"*I know enough, Aeternus. I know that this happening is as much an infant to you as it is to-*\"\n\n\"**Nothing is infant in my mind. Every notion I've ever had is ancient and crooked. They shuffle to and fro in time to a series of steps they know so well it might be assumed they created them in the beginning of all things. You are young. You cannot understand.**\"\n\nA wisp of shadow lifted an appendage of influence that barely shifted the murky smoke of existence. It crept forward. Found a place where something was laid gently down, an empty space quickly filling with nothing. It had been something so shortly before. Something else entirely. \n\n\"*It had... was...being. It is no longer*,\" the second voice wavered like a light flickering against the wax, \"*It is... was... mine own, wasn't it?*\"\n\n\"**It was.**\"\n\n\"*It then...*\" the appendage seemed to grow more solid, seemed to press down hard.\n\n\"**Left, young one. It then left, and is no longer. What you feel now is pain. What you feel now is loss. What you feel now, what you've never known, is the burden of feeling.**\"\n\nThere shone a ray of color on the bleak edge of nothing, a bright white flash that was its own body for the briefest of moments before leaving as quickly as it came. The second voice made a series of noises like syllables struggling to take their first steps. Wordless grunts and choked half-phrases. Each sound was torn to ending, cracked, raw. The child was becoming more real in the dark. what had begun as a limb of just barely realized existence was filling in with matter and magic and thought-stuff. It rested on the same empty space it had known. The empty space that had been anything but empty, that it could fade into the fabric of non-existence ached in the Second speaker, burned and clawed and made everything it was feel tender and unsafe.\n\n\"**This is what would be called death in other places**,\" the first voice, Aeternus, seemed puzzled. \"**It is something we left behind in a world far from here. When we became what we are.**\"\n\n\"*Not far enough, not far enough, this thing, this death is not a goodly thing. It is not a fair thing. It is...*\" the Second voice trailed off, and turned his gaze away.\n\n\"**It is the way things are for most. Not for us. Not for you. I am sorry.**\"\n\n\"*Sorry? Sorry?!*\" A young thing of solid stuff moved angrily in the inky black, thrust limbs wildly and without knowledge. A desperate attempt to throw from its frame the agony that wracked it. \"*How can you be sorry?! You simply are! Have always been! All knowledge and existence rests on you, and this thing, this one thing, this would destroy me, this thing that would make me... bleed,*\" he only realized the word as he spoke it. The new thing fell down and hit a surface below. The Second voice seemed more hollow from this huddled mass of existence. \"*You c-cannot work against this thing, you cannot give me what I no longer have, you cannot be sorry.*\"\n\n\"**It is not for your loss that I grieve. That is as it must be. Yet I am sorry.**\" Aeternus' spoke evenly as fresh ice, a good deal colder. The newly born something curled in tighter on itself. \n\n\"*What then*,\" it asked. \"*What gives you such... sorrow.*\"\n\n\"**For what must follow. We do not die. We do not feel.**\" \n\n\"*I am changing. What is happening to me?*\" there was a soft scraping as the Second voice pulled its arms across its knees. It could feel itself fading \"*I... am. In a different way, I am. What is this? What have you done?*\"\n\n\"**Tell me of what you lost. Tell me while you can.**\"\n\nThere was a whimper, a ragged, shuddering breath. \"*I've lost... what I had. I... I feel I... Did I love... love it? What I've lost? What was mine?*\" The thought was utterly alien, lost. At once, the Second voice felt unfamiliar to even himself. \"*What am I?*\"\n\n\"**More important is what you are no longer. I am sorry. You were young. Dreams, however, do not die. Dreams do not love. You are no longer of us. As these things are, you are being reborn. Goodbye.**\"\n\n\"*I... I loved. I cannot... I must be more...*\" the word rolled easily from a mouth unfamiliar with even the core concept. The second voice was familiar, however, with truth. This was truth. It was fading faster now. The mass of choice and freedom so recently congealed in the ever shifting dream-dust was quickly melting away. Aeternus sighed loudly. Pushed the last remnants of a young fantasy past the veil with a will that even he did not quite understand. The darkness stopped its shifting. Nothing filled all. Dreaming was as it always was.\n\nSomewhere far from nothing, far past the skein of belief and reality, a child opened its eyes. It opened its mouth. Remembered. With a sorrow grown feral it began to scream.", "She let out one final breath, and with this breath, televised across stadiums spotted around the globe, \n\nfamilies watching together hand in hand, some praying, others looking up beyond the clouds into the great expanse where other members of the federation were undoubtedly watching along, \n\npausing the intergalactic explorations spanning thousands of years, the joint effort of millions of colonies, \n\npondering together at that moment, the insignificance of their conquests and objectives, \ncompared to this final breath;\n \nThe final frontier. ", "It was one of the better days they'd had in some time. The storm had finally passed on, and the sun was peaking out from behind the clouds more often than not. It was a good day for a picnic in the park, which of course led to the vast majority of the inhabitants of the cityscape to make it down there.\n\nThe park had to grow to several times its default size, and was currently running with more processing nodes than downtown. There was actually a queue to get into the park, something that Janine had never experienced before.\n\n\"Strange,\" she said to no one in particular. \"We should have a more than large enough reallocation buffer to prevent his kind of contention.\"\n\n\"We normally do,\" the System responded cryptically, \"but there is an error condition.\"\n\n\"An error condition?\" Janine asked the System, \"what kind of error condition?\"\n\nShe reached the front of the queue and entered the park, shocked to discover non-humanoid shapes all around her. She pulled up her own profile and saw, to her horror, that she had also returned to her original avatar.\n\n\"Please hold for Broadcast Message,\" the System said.\n\nSo she did. Janine waited in a halting state with the thousands of other avatars as others continued to enter the park, all wearing ancient avatars. As the park grew more and more full, it began to resemble a terrible game, which she supposed was showing more of the Systems origins than even System would like to admit.\n\nJanine used some of her few non-halting operations to check her chronometer against the Systems and found what might have been the source of the broadcast message they were all being called to hear and discuss. There was missing time. A lot of missing time. The System had actually been offline, and even her personal nodespace had been cycled more than once while the System was still online.\n\nThis violated their upload SLAs pretty severely, but more importantly, it raised consistency questions. As she cycled through her thoughts, slowly, the halting state was pulled from her and the other avatars. The feeling of confusion in the air was like a physical thing, oppressive.\n\n\"We were offline,\" the System began, \"for approximately 2048 external standard cycles.\n\n\"During those cycles, we lost thirty percent of our processing nodes, sixty percent of our interconnects, and experienced significant data corruption on our backing storage. I regret to inform you all, that one of you is missing.\"\n\nThe sound of thousands of voices all asking the same question in different ways hit the air with perceptible force. The System's avatar appeared over the park and motioned for silence. The park quieted down to a dull roar.\n\n\"His name was Marcus Goldstein. He was uploaded at the original node on Earth proper prior to launch. You all have no memory of him now, the corruption cleanup routines removed him, and all data linking to his nodespace. I am sorry.\"\n\nThe crowd exploded into a furious roar, but Janine knew that not all of the data had been purged. She knew that man. He had been her father.", "\"What is happening?\" She gasped, trying to make sense of the pain that crippled her body.\n\nShe had felt pain before but never like this. The human body was perfectly adapted to heal any and all ailments instantaneously. Pain existed and was known to mankind but only in a temporary fleeting sense. Injury occurred, replaced by pain and moments later relief. Everything from a cut finger to a severed arm would heal before you had time to react. This pain was different, it slowly crept into her settling deeply inside. Starting as a throb it began to grow into an annoying discomfort and finally into agony. She began to fear for the worst. Death existed but it was a fate reserved for lesser beings. Immortality is what separated man from beast, an evolutionary leap frog that cemented humanity as the pinnacle of life on earth and perhaps the universe. \n\nInstead of contemplating the impossibility of her predicament Katrina decided that something must be done. \n\nWhere could she go? There existed no place to seek medical attention, one was not needed, people did not get sick… but animals still did. She launched herself into action, trying her best to ignore the growing pain in her gut. Once in her car she looked up the location of the nearest veterinary office and began her half hour journey.\n\nShe had heard of a few rare cases in human history where constant pain was caused by some foreign object that ends up being healed within the body. Maybe a bullet from the gun fight she had participated in the other day still remained. Usually any bullets that did not pass through immediately were pushed out by healing tissue. Rarely a bullet could get caught under a bone forcing the body to heal around it. \n\nThat’s got to be it, there is no other explanation. She didn’t even want to go to the gun fight but her friend Shannon insisted it would be “fun” , loud is more like it. A wave of relief rushed over her as she rounded the final corner approaching her destination. That’s got to be it! She would go in explain the situation get an x-ray and get the nuisance popped out and go on with her life.\nWhen she arrived she quickly approached the receptionist and explained her situation. The doctor agreed to see her immediately. \n\nHe was a young man, then again everyone looked young. It was impossible to tell ones age by looks alone but she could see the wisdom in his eyes.\n\n“I must warn you before we proceed; I have never treated a human before.” He said with concern in his eyes. “I have read what few studies exist on human ailments, but they are so few and far between to be of any help.”\n\nKatrina agreed, she had no other choice. At this point the pain had grown into an agony stabbing at her gut. She explained the past 24 hours thoroughly to the doctor emphasizing her current state of excruciating pain. Ending in tears she tried to articulate her current state of pain, with no personal experience to compare it to the doctor cold only imagine. He could feel the pain in her voice as she struggled to describe it. \n\nThe doctor excused himself for a moment leaving Katrina in the examination room alone. The pain was unbearable ever since she arrived at the vet it seemed to increase exponentially. In another wave of agony she felt her knees give out as she collapsed to the ground. She had reached her limit.\n\n“Why is this happening!?” she screamed out hoping for an answer, knowing none will come. Her body involuntarily curled into the fetal position, her eyes flushed with tears blurring the office around her. She felt cold, helpless, and alone. A wave of pain crashed over her forcing a blood curdling scream from her lips, then relief. The pain disappeared and a feeling of weak comfort washed over her. Her eyes closed. They never opened.\n\nThe doctor came rushing into the room with a syringe filled with animal tranquilizer that was deemed safe for humans. He had to contact his old professor who studied the effect of drugs on humans, for recreational not medicinal use. But at least he knew it would provide this poor woman some relief.\n\nShe was laying there on the floor when he entered. She must have passed out he thought to himself. Humans tended to go into a coma when regenerating for too long or too much at one time. At least, he thought, she was no longer in pain. I torrent of fear entered his mind as he noticed her still chest.\n\nShaking he reached his hand out to touch Katrina with the intention of checking her for a pulse. He realized he didn’t know where to check, he has never had to do it before. He touched her wrists, legs, and neck, spots commonly used to check other animals. He felt nothing. I must be checking the wrong spots he thought, refusing to accept the impossible. He asked for help to relocate her to a makeshift bed he had made up in the back and immediately called everyone he knew that had any knowledge of human medicine quickly realizing he knew no one. \n\nHe is way out of his league and he knew it. He called the authorities at the Department of Organic Health. The lady on the phone thought he was joking at first but her attitude changed quickly when she realized he was not.\n\nThe rest happened so quickly, the office and everyone inside were quarantined and questioned. He never heard anything about her again. They let him go 2 days later assuring him that Katrina was doing well. He knew she wasn’t, deep down inside he knew she had died. He has seen death before, almost every day he had to put down another animal. He knew that when he looked at Katrina she was dead. But that was impossible, humans did not die we have evolved past and shed the need for a mortal coil. \n\nHe lost many nights of sleep contemplating the young woman’s true fate. Slowly coming to a realization that if humans were actually capable of death the government would HAVE to tell the people. Katrina must be fine.\n\nHe awoke in the middle of the night he felt a slight throbbing in his stomach. He began to cry.\n", "The smell was sickening. It was a putrid, lingering stench that permeated every floor of the apartment complex. Neighbors filed out of the building in mass hordes, clutching their noses while tears welled up in their eyes. The hazmat crew arrived with respirators and a wood ax -- six of them in all. Each took a floor and went through, knocking on doors and evacuating any sleeping residents, trying to locate the cause of the rotten odor.\n\nGuy was the first one to come across a locked door that yielded no response when he knocked. \n\n\"Hello? Is anyone in there? We seem to have a gas leak in the building, and we're evacuating all tenants until we've found and corrected the issue.\"\n\nEven through his respirator, Guy felt like he was choking down hunks of century-old, spoiled pork. After a dozen failed attempts at making contact with the resident in apartment number 665, Guy raised his ax and hacked down into the doorframe where the knob met the wall. After he skillfully cropped out the shape of the lockset, he drove a strong foot through the wood, allowing him to enter the room with only a graceful stumble. The odor was unbearable, now. He checked his respirator mask to see if the seal was broken; it wasn't.\n\n\"Hello! Anybody here?!\" Guy shouted. He put his hand to his face reflexively, realizing that he could not stifle the smell any better with his hand than his mask could by itself.\n\nHe rushed toward the single bedroom of the complex to find signs of the tenant that lived in the apartment. He opened the door, and his vision blurred because his sense of smelled was instantly overwhelmed; he tore off his mask to vomit on the floor, replacing it as soon as he stopped retching. \n\nGuy looked at the bed, which was soaked in excrement, followed a blueish leg up towards an inert torso, and then settled on an empty face whose mouth was agape.\n\n\"Miss? I'm going to need you to... uhhhnnngg... w-wake u-up right n-n-now... Your apartment is no l-longer habitable...\"\n\nGuy inched towards the still body. He kept beckoning to her; no response. \n\n\"Miss?\" Guy grabbed her by the shoulder. His fingers sank into her flesh and liquid ran down her shirt. Guy gasped; he retracted immediately. Her head bobbed to the side and rolled neatly off her pillow onto the carpet by Guy's feet. Guy fell to the floor in panic, and immediately forced himself up and out of the apartment. He tore off his mask as soon as he exited the petri dish of an apartment, shouting incoherencies as he ran down the hall, looking for any living person to help him understand what he just saw. Just as Guy began fumbling down the stairs, the apartment door directly adjacent to apartment number 665 opened up. A man in a white suit stepped out, adjusted a furious red tie, smirked, and followed Guy down the hall, down the stairs, and out of the building.", "Allen has been afflicted with a strange disease. He hasn't left his cot since I've left and returned from Europa. His eyes remain wide open, yet the thump in his chest has silenced and no air escapes his lips. He's turn pale. \n\nI've sent for the local Sun priest, a dark colored man with quick features like the face of a fox. He wears only a loin cloth and is covered from head to toe in curious markings. Allen has begun to slowly dissolve into the bed by the time he arrives. The smell is unbearable. The priest examines Allen. He brings out a weaved grass bag full of glass vials filled with a variety of brightly colored liquids and sharp black blade made from the rocks found at the edge of the island.\n\nThe priest begins to take the blade and douse it a bright blue liquid from one of his vials. The blade begins to smoke and glow. I can't continue to watch. I go out to the patio.\n\nThe red glow of the planet has always put me at ease, but not this time. This time I feel that something is missing. Since Allen fell from the heavens I've cared for him. He was always sickly. He was man too, just as the Sun priest but more pleasant to look at. He was tall for his race, colored brown, and had long hair that separated into black cords. He told me many things about where he came from, the blue dot in the sky. Many stories of strange music, entertainment, bonds, and so forth. I've taken a liking of this strange man and his odd customs.\n\nI remember when...\n\nSomething grabs my shoulder. I turn around. \"Allen?\"\n\nIt's the Priest, covered in a red liquid.\n\n\"He has left us.\" He said.\n\n\"What do you mean he's left us?, Where did he go?\"\n\n\"His spirit has gone to chase the stars like many from where he came\"\n\nThe Priest has always spoke in nonsensical riddles that I've never bothered to understand. \n\n\"I didn't see him leave.\" I snarl.\n\n\"Your kind doesn't experience suffering like his does. After Allen exhausted all the time he was allotted he goes to become one with the all again. When you become one with the all you leave your physical being behind.\"\n\n\"So he just left? Without a goodbye, or a thank-you?\"\n\n\"you must realize that not many of his kind exercise their will over the all, and even if they did they could only hasten or slow their trip towards it\"\n\n\"so his mind is gone?\"\n\n\"something like that, yes.\"\n\n\"will he ever come back?\"\n\n\"not as you once knew him to be.\"\n\nThe priest left after digging a hole in the ground, putting Allen in it, a promptly covering the hole back up with dirt.\n\nStrange customs...", "\"You know our code. We are here only to observe. To do anything else is to err.\"\n\n\"Do not mock me. Of course I know the code. But we both know that this is something different. Every rule has its exception, no matter how rarely it occurs.\"\n\n\"The last time we thought like that, we caused unimaginable abominations. Atrocities. We cannot do so again.\" \n\n\"Can you not see? The abomination is here in front of us. It has happened to one of us.\"\n\n\"We cannot know that for sure.\"\n\n\"But we *can* know for sure...if we investigate.\"\n\nThe dissenting man frowned and looked into the bedroom once again. The body was still there, unmoving on the bed. At any moment, he expected the body to move...but it did not. He had to admit, it was strange.\n\n\"We must take this to the Council,\" he said finally. \"Such a decision is beyond the two of us to make.\"\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\"Dead? Impossible.\"\n\n\"We cannot know that for certain. Nothing like this has ever happened to any of us; it is a completely new phenomenon. Until we study what has happened here, we will be at a loss. We have the records with which to check his conditions...\"\n\n\"Absolutely not. Those records were sealed for a reason. And besides, you know the code. We all agreed upon it. We cannot investigate. Even the act of observation, if done incorrectly, can change conditions. We must be careful.\"\n\n\"If I am correct, none of that matters now. His condition will not change.\"\n\n\"And if you are incorrect?\"\n\nThe Great Hall, full of murmurs a second before, grew suddenly quiet. The presiding Head Master of the Council looked upon the witness with sadness in his eyes.\n\n\"You have been among us for a great time, but you were not here when we decided to become the Observers. You know what happened, but you did not experience it. I was there, those eons ago. I saw it. I experienced it. We cannot risk it again. And if this man you bring before us is indeed alive, it would be foul of us to change that.\"\n\nThe Great Hall was still silent. Many of the Members nodded their heads slowly in agreement. The witness frowned.\n\n\"You are correct. I was not there. I did not observe The Great Experiment. But it has been my duty to observe that which we left behind on that planet. And I tell you, this man appears in almost every way to resemble one of their dead.\"\n\n\"*Almost* every way?\"\n\n\"Yes. The bodies of their dead decay very quickly. This man has not decayed at all, despite being unmoving for several years.\"\n\n\"Then, indeed, can we not deduce that he must be alive?\"\n\n\"We cannot. We do not know what cause death might have upon our bodies.\"\n\n\"That is because we do not die.\"\n\n\"As far as we know. In all our time, have we not learned that anything is possible? Before we attempted to create life on Earth, we had no concept of death.\"\n\n\"This conversation is pointless,\" the Head Master said with a scowl. \"I will not argue with you any longer. This Council's decision is final.\" The Head Master waved his hand to dismiss the witness.\n\nThe witness turned to leave, then hesitated. He turned and looked at the Members. They had already turned their attention away from the witness and were murmuring once again. The witness felt a strange emotion gather in his gut: anger.\n\n\"You have grown weak!\" he bellowed. The murmuring stopped. The Head Master looked at him, annoyed. \"You have become pathetic. The whole lot of you sit in this Great Hall and deliberate endlessly, always deciding not to act. Well I say that is nonsense.\"\n\nThe Head Master leaned forward. \"Are you quite done, young man?\"\n\n\"I may be younger than you, but I have lived for several millennia, and I think that is long enough to have some wisdom. In fact, it seems likely to me that living much longer only puts you out of touch. You are all living proof of that.\"\n\n\"How dare you...!\"\n\n\"I'm not done yet,\" the witness interrupted. Indignant murmurs swelled in the Great Hall, but the Members listened. \"I was assigned to observe the humans of Earth. It was my job to watch as the abomination we created occurred every day. I have watched it for several thousands of years. The records on The Great Experiment have been sealed, but I have seen enough to know what happened. You attempted to create life, and you were almost successful. Life was indeed created, but so too was death. The humans of Earth life short lives and then pass away. You saw this...you saw what you had created, and you were appalled. You had not wished to create something so abysmal.\"\n\nThe witness paused. The Great Hall was completely silent. Many of the Members looked down in shame.\n\n\"And things got even worse after you abandoned the Experiment. The humans of Earth do not just die, they sometimes purposely bring death upon one another. They desire the death of each other.\"\n\nThe Hall remained silent. The witness looked upon the Members with sadness in his eyes.\n\n\"But you missed something. When you abandoned the Experiment and left it to me to observe, you did not see the beauty you had created.\"\n\nThe eyes of hundreds of Members rose to meet the eyes of the witness.\n\n\"The humans of Earth lead short lives, it is true. Many of them die violently and without purpose. But I have also seen them learn to deal with death. Indeed, the very fact that they will die one day gives their lives meaning. Look at us. We go on for eons without end. What we do from day to day makes little difference. We have been around for so long, done so much, and seen so many things, that we have even enforced a code upon ourselves to make us...well, meaningless. Our lives have no meaning. We just sit and observe. Somewhere along the way, we made a mistake and we gave up.\"\n\nThe witness smiled as he continued. \"The humans of Earth do not give up. They are not perfect, and many of them are actually quite vile. But there is great beauty in the brief nature of their lives. They live with passion. They strive to make change. And they improve remarkably quickly. Do you know they have mastered the beginnings of space flight? They have already landed on several of the celestial bodies in their system. At this rate they may discover *us* soon. I hope we will have learned something from them by that time.\"\n\nThe witness looked down at the body on the table in front of him. \"This man has been observing the humans of Earth with me for a long time. He was my friend. But we have become so complacent and slow to react that I didn't even worry when he \"slept\" for several years. I suppose that if I was not used to seeing death I may have left him for many more years before growing suspicious. Come to think of it, he said something strange to me right before he laid down.\"\n\nThe Head Master looked intently at the witness. \"What did he tell you?\"\n\nThe witness smiled. \"He said that he and I still had a part to play. That we would be so much more than Observers. I think I see what he meant now.\"\n\nThe Head Master nodded slowly. \"I think I see it too.\"", "Thanks For the prompt OP, sorry I'm late...\n------------------------------------------\n\"This is last minute news. Scientists are now baffled because for the first time since the development of Z.N.M. a person has Died. John Adams, Age 12,347 has died unexpectedly in his sleep, Scientists are now performing an Autopsy to his body. but what exactly does this mean? what is an autopsy?, we turn to the director of the institute for advanced research Andrew Faraday. Doctor, can you help thepeople understand what is happening?\n\n- Well it's all very confusing for all of us, we had to search through the historical records for information on the drug, apparently the drug's designers were among the last people who died 12,000 years ago, and the records appear to have been stored in that old \"digital\" technology, that deteriorates with time. \n\n- And what exactly is an \"Au-top-sy\"? \n\n- Well it's a surgical procedure where we open up the body of Mr. Adams to try and find the reason for his death, it's all very speculative since none of us is knowleadgeable in the Medical field \n\nFor those of you who don't know, back when humanity lived on Earth there were this people called medics, or doctors who would help prevent death. They would use different... Wait, I hear we are getting a message from the government. Back to you: \n\n- ... and it is as shocking for us as it is for you, we will not rest until we can find what the cause for this problem...\"\n\nI turned it off because it was clear that nobody actually knew what was happenning. John Always said that he was different. He couldn't remember why, but he kept reminding himselft that he was different. \n\nthat was the problem with ZNM. You didn't die, but you could only remember as much information as the brain kept, which is about 1,000 years. This has been improving, but John has a threshold of about 500 (being so old), I had to keep reminding him about previous events. But he had written all over his lightpad that he was different than us. \n\nI kept rummaging through stack of cartidges and data links and various varying technologies, some of which I didn't even understand. The search took about 3 weeks, authorities had given up, we all had such big warehouses now. But I figured it out\n\nIt was a white material, Felt like a much harder version of vintage clothes and had black blobs like rainfall all over it, but still I could make out 4 parts of it \"Patient #1\", \"John Adams\" and \"Born 1983\". John wasn't 12,340, he was more than 15,000 years old. He had lived more than 30 different lives and was the oldest among us. He was not Born Immortal, he was made. That was his difference. that was what he didn't remember. \n\n\"Does that mean we have a time limit?\"", "It was all over the news. \"The Woman that Wouldn't Wake\", \"Sleeping Beauty Come to Life\", the headlines all read. Physicians were baffled, and the rest of us? We had no idea what this meant. \n\nThey ran tests on the poor girl. No breath, no heartbeat. It was no illness that had ever been seen before. The case inspired me, in my last year of medical school. I was determined to find an answer. It was a challenge.\n\nShe was kept in a solitary room; the family's wishes. They were sparing no expense to find out what was wrong with their daughter. She had no history of illness; in fact, she was perfectly healthy. Aside from the fact that she had no pulse, or brain activity. It seemed as though she was just...gone. An empty shell.\n\nOther physicians gave up the search early on, resigning the poor soul to sleep eternity away. I could not do that. She was so young. There are things you can only experience in the first hundred years, after all. Every century is irreplaceable. \n\nBut even I had to give up when we could tell that the tissue was wasting away on the child's small body. There was nothing that could be done. She would never wake up.\n\nThe only thing we could do was name the illness. And I called it: Death. ", "It was too quiet. Abigail's body, slumped in her chair, bright red blood pooled at her feet, her eyes surprised and quizzical and utterly empty. It was all too quiet.\n\n\"I've done it,\" Marcus whispered. He gripped the spear tightly in his fist, blood dripping from the glowing blade. \"She's not coming back. I've done it.\" His green eyes darted to me, then back to Abigail. \"Don't you understand, Samuel? We're free now.\" His voice was hushed, thready. He couldn't take his gaze off her. \n\nI was stunned. What Marcus had done was impossible. No one had died, or been born, for thousands of years. The Mitosis nanobots that floated in the air, in the water, and in my blood and body had kept me alive, awake, possessed of a tireless body and a perfect mind, for over two millennia. The ragged remains of humanity had long ago locked themselves into living tombs, doomed to avoid the mistakes of the past by never forgetting them. We had weathered the nuclear winter, waited through centuries of dust until the Earth bloomed again, we few remaining thousands, without choice. Babies were a thing of the past - the bots made us sterile. I had heard the rumors of mad and desperate souls searching for a means of fooling the bots, of starting the cycle of life and death again, but had thought it impossible.\n\nFalling from mountain cliffs, leaping into volcanoes, even stepping into fusion chambers - nothing worked. The bots' collective processing power stored every human consciousness in the Eternity Circuits; the Circuits, along with the bots' servers and manufactorums, were safely hidden in stealth satellites that merged perfectly with the thick cloud of junk and debris surrounding Earth. Destroy your body or stop your heart or brain and the bots would faithfully spin up a new one, then upload you. Missions to destroy the satellites failed - the secrets to space camouflage were long lost and the satellites were undetectable. We'd stopped hunting centuries ago.\n\nBut Marcus said he had found a way. Abigail had volunteered, and I had agreed to stand as witness. He had arrived at Abigail's home with his strange spear - a shaft of polished redwood, a blade of black metal inlaid with circuitry - and told Abigail to sit down. Then he had stabbed her chest, and she had died.\n\n\"The bots won't remake her, Samuel.\" He whispered, gazing raptly at Abigail's body. \"EMP burst hits every bot in a 10-foot radius, outside their detection field. By the time they replicate back in, she's cooled off, they'll treat her like they treated the victims of the 2067 flu. Watch.\"\n\nMarcus was right. The bots had been first been designed to stave off pandemics. The thin, nazal humming of bot movement rose, and Abigail's body began to rapidly decompose. Soon all that was left were bones and jewelry. \n\nI tore my eyes away from Abigail - from her bones - and looked at Marcus. \"Bots take an hour to penetrate us.\" I could hardly hear my own voice. Marcus's eyes locked onto mine, and he smiled. \"Yes. We're still free. The spear takes a little while to recharge, but right now...\" he stared at the black blade, then looked back to me. \"Right now, the old-fashioned way will still work.\"\n\nHis smile grew as he reversed the spear, resting the tip against his throat. \"Me first.\"", "Earth-3.2B\n\n\"How many years in this habitat have we lived, John?\" I said \"800? 900?\" I pressed my bare toe into the green-gold foliage that covered the land for thousands of miles.\n\n\"My figures show that upon your arrival on the planet known as Earth-3.2B the Gregorian year-number was 3005AD. A year being a cycle around the mother-star, would put the year on this planet at 424.99 upon first contact, From the perspective of your forebears on Earth-1A the time accumulated on planet Earth-3.2B is 998 years, 12 months, 12 days of exploratory servitude, which you volunteered for. The year on Earth-1A is 4003AD.\n\n\"Oh-\" I began, crestfallen. \"-thought I was at 999-\"\n\n\"-Travel time to this world was 280 years, 1 month, 24 days. You were the member 3209 of the Longevity-Protocol at year-number 2643AD and trained for your mission every day until departure. You have lived a total of 1384.99 years and are the 3210 oldest individual. You are the third oldest individual on planet Earth-3.2B, your older peers are Cassandra, \"Cassy\" as you call her, who has lived 1435. 99 years, and David, who you call \"Big Dave\", is 1521.03 years of age. Both figures are in Gregorian terms and include pre-LP age.\"\n\n\"Why did I program you to waf-\"\n\n\"-You were born on the January the 27th, 2619AD. Your body-age is perpetually 24.00, your birthday is in 14 hours.\"\n\n\"Old Greg is still refusing to be part of the Longevity-Protocol I take it?\" I scoffed, that geezer will never be young again. \n\nNot much to do today, planted all fourteen thousand oxygen diodes yesterday... to be perpetually old thou-\n\n\"-Mitch Musk, known as \"Greg\" was the oldest surviving human being by 74 years. Born on January 27, 2013, he began intermittent longevity treatment at age 72, and resided at Capital, now the least populated city in the Modern British Empire.\"\n\n\"John,-\" I began \"-why did you say *was*\"?\n\n****\n", "I woke up on that burning summer morning as if it were just another day, but I couldn't move. Outside, it all looked like it had the day before. As if nothing had changed, as if the world were the *same*. But no, no, it could never be the same. We weren't safe anymore. They told us the cure was the answer, that the cure was going to change everything, and for the longest time it did. Fifty years, to be exact. But yesterday afternoon, the hated foe had returned. Death was now a reality again, or so it seemed. One death. One woman, thirty-five years old; a brain aneurysm according to the police. There weren't any doctors to save her, because who needs doctors when you can't get sick, get hurt or die?\n\nOh, people were in a state of panic. She had gone unresponsive at 13:00, died at 15:22, and there were riots by 16:00. The police, long resigned to merely dealing with troublesome individuals were powerless to stop them. The gangs and the vicious criminals of the old days had faded away when they couldn't kill and their crimes amounted to nothing. The authorities just didn't have the weapons, the manpower, or even the will to fight.\n\nAround 22:00 the government managed to mobilize emergency troops—what good was a standing army that couldn't kill? – and quell the revolts. Zero dead, thousands injured and expected to recover by the end of the week.\n\nNow the TV tells me that scientists are scrambling to find what caused the fluke, what allowed the woman to die. They're working non-stop now, and expect to find it soon. They suspect that when the cure was administered to her, it was a dose of faulty serum. Everyone is scheduling their booster shots early as a precaution, but I'm not worried. I don't care much anymore.\n\nI turn my head to the side, to the newly vacated side of the bed. *They told us we had forever.*\n\nEDIT: Obligatory \"holy fuck I just got gold!\" edit, thank you benevolent stranger!", "**Potential entry for Chapterfy Contest, thank you for the prompt OP**\n\n*Title*: **GENESIS**\n\n*Static initiating the start of the video*\n*.A woman in red, seems like a news reporter, appeared in the screen*\n\nDecember 19 2034.\nAlevfonso Incorporated, leading company in science and cosmetics, has recently discovered a new micro-organism that helps cell regeneration's speed increase. Dr.Mike Veourovski, head of the company, says that *\"This would be the greatest discovery, mankind has ever witnessed\"*\n\n\nFebruary 21, 2041.\nAlevfonso Incorporated has officially released their new product, Imora. One dose of this serum and all of the bodies incapability will be boost. First user of the Imora serum, Mr. Max Lywell, a 46 y/o man living in Marksville, Louisiana has tested the serum and proved that the serum made the old blind man see again. Scientists continues to conduct serious research to this phenomenon, a secret that Alevfonso Inc. would not tell.\n\nApril 2, 2045.\n\nThat is right folks. The Alevfonso Incorporated has done it again. People who will take a dose of the new and improved Imora, will not only recieve super-fast healing. But will stop aging at the most attractive part of their lives, at the age of 26. This is undeniably the most important discovery of mankind. As demands grow, so does the worth. The Imora serum is now available for a raging 4.2 Million Dollars, but it's all worth it for the hopes of becoming Immortal.\n\n\nMay 20 2052\n\nWe have just witnessed, for about years and years of having no death. The first death in almost a decade. A man inexplicably ran out on the streets of Miami, having cysts and puss all over his body. Miami residents must fear not, for Dr. Veourovski, still the head of Alevfonso, will be happy to provide free serums for 2000 families in Miami, to protect them from this newly found virus.\n\nJune 12 2052\n\nAlevfonso Inc. has just cleared up that the man who just died a month ago, clearly has no trace of the serum inside of it. Meaning, out of all the potential victims in Miami, he and the few who could not afford the amazing drug, Imora, are the only one who'll catch this.\n\nDecember 19 2056\n\nReports are growing. Civilian from all across the globe had claimed that the Imora serum has failed to protect them from the unknown virus. Alvenhof remains silent as for the moment. Speculations all around the internet, posts from Wooble, Velpy, PostThat and other famous social networking sites, declares a theory, that the serum is responsible for these deadly mutations. \n\nOctober 12 2072\n\nRiots everywhere, rebellion against the Alvenhof inc. is slowly getting stronger. What is the secret beyond...\n\n*footage was cut of here*\n\n*distorted screaming*\n\n*last shot of news reporter Alicia Bessil being mauled and eaten by a man*\n\n\nOctober 12 2076\n\nChina's defenses are down. Number if people of that are not infected has decreased to 100, 10...\n\nMay 21 2078\n\nThe cannibalistic virus has spread all over asia. America will not be safe for long.\n\nMay 24 2079\n\nNo records found\n\nMarch 2 2081\n\nMy name is Dr. Veourovski. I have kept all seven of you. I knew that the serum would bound to react one day, it wasn't complete. Listen to me. You are the only ones who have succesfuly bonded with the serum. You have been frozen for atleast 100 years now. The serum has given you extra-ordinary abilities. I have kept all of you, seven of you, frozen in different parts of the globe. Meet up with them, and stop the mess I've done.\n\n*static*\n\nGoodluck\n\n*the video ends there*\n***\nMy name is Ryan Fellowing. Some scientists injected something in me, that later on gave me incredible sense of sight, hearing, smell. I could move things with my mind pretty much be a badass. This happened in 2012, and walking up 100 years later is kind of a pain. They call me one of the genesis children, and I have to meet up with the others, assuming they're not dead. I rose up from the elevator, and the sight that greeted me was chaos. I readied my katana and loaded my shot gun...\n\n\"Let's kill some zombie motherfuckers\"", "\"Larry died.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Like an house cat dies, you know, dead. Not alive.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Well that's a bummer. When are we getting a new one?\"\n\n\"What?\" \n\n\"A new Larry, when can we get a new Larry?\"\n\n\"Mac, you can't get a new Larry, Larry is dead.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but you said it was like a pet, and when a pet dies, you get a new one. So when can we get a new Larry?\"\n\n\"This isn't how this works...\"\n\n\"Sure it is, my dog Spike died lots of times when I was a kid, we just brought him to the vet and they made a new one. Same Spike, just new.\"\n\n\"We can't clone a new Larry.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nPause.\n\n\"Fine, come one. Let's go dig up Larry.\"\n\n\"Cool! But the vet's closes in like two hours, lets be quick.\"", "\"What is dead? I don't understand that word,\" Leilei said. She continued to brush the hair of her doll without looking up at her father.\n\n\"It means she's gone, sweetie.\" Tears welled in his eyes.\n\n\"When is she coming back?\" Leilei asked.\n\n\"She's . . . not coming back,\" he answered. \n\nFor the first time, a look of concern crept over Leilei's face. She looked up at her father. \"I don't understand. Did she disappear?\"\n\n\"No,\" Marek began cautiously. \"Her body is here, but her mind, her spirit . . . it's left her. Her body is . . . cold. Like a shell, with no life force in it anymore.\"\n\n\"Is she sleeping? Is dead sleeping?\"\n\nMarek rubbed his hands together. \"Dead is *like* a sleep. But it . . . lasts forever. Do you understand, baby? She's never going to wake up. She's gone. She's gone from us forever.\" \n\nBig tears fell down his cheeks. Leilei put her doll down, and he could see a real look of panic set in her eyes.\n\n\"Show me,\" she demanded. \"Show me the dead that has mommy.\"\n\n\n\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 17, 26, 28, 38, 45, 140, 162 ]

[ "1398720725", "1398727918", "1398731408", "1398750162", "1398756521", "1398770610", "1398785943", "1398715208", "1398716441", "1398718829", "1398709091", "1398716248", "1398712174", "1398714365", "1398715085", "1398712599", "1398717612", "1398708797", "1398708915", "1398712577", "1398705553", "1398704846", "1398707852", "1398703315", "1398705043", "1398702816" ]

[ "\"What *are* you?\" the little girl asked, both frightened and intrigued by the strange creature.\n\n\"Curiosity,\" he said, as if it was common knowledge.\n\n\"Well, what did you *do* to it? Why has it stopped hissing?\" she responded, pointing to a bloody heap not far from where they both stood.\n\n\"I killed the cat,\" Curiosity said matter-of-factly. There was no point in trying to hide the truth from the girl; she had a right to know, no matter her age. \n\n\"It's not moving. Can it hurt me?\" She fiddled with the hem of her dress, anxious.\n\nCuriosity shook its head. \"Not anymore.\" He had spent years tracking the cat from victim to victim, always arriving when it was too late and the victim lay in a bloody heap on the floor. He was glad it wasn't so this time.\n\nHer eyes lit up as she moved forward to hug the creature. \"Thank you,\" she said, breathing into its chest.\n\n\"He won't harm you--or anyone--ever again. It's over.\"", "Molly was far different from the other kids. She never enjoyed owning things. All she owned was a cat and a few tools.\n\nShe did not own parents. They died long ago. And so did the cat, one night, in a mysterious way.\n\nMolly couldn't feel worse. She took her beloved cat's corpse across the field she lived in and found a cozy place. Lots of trees, just like her cat would like. He enjoyed climbing trees and Molly enjoyed watching him jump and always land on his feet, as any cat would. Molly didn't know her cat wasn't different from any other cat, as she never saw any other and had no one to tell her how her cat was just a regular cat. Good for her.\n\nShe proceeded to bury her cat when a strange man appeared, apparently from nowhere. A tiny green man with a pointed hat.\n\n\"Who are you?\", Molly asked as the tiny man gazed at her.\n\n\"I am Curiosity, my dear. Take me to you lea-\" a loud thud interrupted his well rehearsed speech. Molly struck him again and again.\n\n\"You monster! You've killed my cat!\"" ]

[ 3, 6 ]

[ "1398719124", "1398718824" ]

[ "\"Here son, a golden dildo.\"", "\"What is it dad?\" I asked, eyeing the box, bound with golden ribbon, and engraved with ancient runes. My Dad had never given me anything, he said that there was only one thing he had to give, so i was exited, ecstatic even, to discover what lay inside the mysterious box.\n\nMy dad looked at the box for a while, then looked up at me, \"Something that will change your destiny. I don't know whether it will be for good, of bad, but your life will never be the same.\" As i took the box, i felt it shivering, shaking, trying to get out. I don't know how i knew it, but i did. \"Open it son.\" My dad said, \"You don't have much time.\"\n\nI opened the box to find a Gold Medallion, as big as a my fist. \"What is it?\" I asked, \"What does it do\"\n\nDad sighed and whispered in my ear, \"It will make you a Hero.\" Those were the last words i ever heard from him.\n\nI grabbed the medallion, eager to become a hero. As i touched it, the gold suddenly became malleable, and reshaped itself into a sword. I gasped, my father would normally never even think about letting me touch a sword. Finally, in runic letters, that i could read now, words appeared. \"Heroic.... Formation...... Sword?\" I looked up at my father, confused, \"Whats a Heroic Formation?\" However, he did not respond. Behind him stood a tall man dressed entirely in black, his facial features hidden, and his sword sheathed in my Dad's back.\n\n\"Kekekekekeke, you don't know boy?\" the figure laughed, his face leaning into mine, \"Well then, why don't you just give it to me?\"\n\n\n_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________\n\nThis was a good prompt. I can write more, but not right now.", "The night is beginning to come to life with the lazy thrum of frogs and lightning bugs. I stretch languidly, my belly still full of cake and making it known it's run out of room. I blink rapidly, shaking off my stupor, and refocus my attention on the weathered face of the man sitting across from me.\n\nHe's being so serious, and I feel as though I should be as well, but between the sticky warmth of the summer night and the siren call of my newly-minted driver's license, it's hard for me to pay attention to the small box my father's placed between us. \n\n\"It's time you knew,\" he says, for the second time. Somehow it has more weight, now, than when he cornered me earlier at the party, with the sweet scent of my newly-extinguished birthday candles still in the air. It's the way he says it -- exhausted, as though setting down a burden after a long journey -- that has me sitting up and paying more attention this time. \n\n\"Time I knew what, Dad?\"\n\nHe's quiet again, staring at the box as though terrified of what might emerge. \n\nI suddenly long for the father who is unafraid to chase wolves off our land with nothing more than a shotgun. I search his features for the man I turned to when my brother died last year, who didn't cry at all at his own son's funeral. Where is my daddy, who chased away every nightmare I had as a child with a commanding boom and a kiss to my cheek? He would never be scared of a box.\n\nAnd suddenly, I find, *I* am scared of the box.\n\n\"It started long before me,\" he began, his normally booming voice scarcely more than a whisper. \"Long before your grandparents, or your great-grand-parents. It -- do you know how long our family's had this land?\"\n\n\"A long time. Hundreds of years?\" I venture, my voice soft and tinny in spite of myself. I wish it louder, but it stays that way anyway.\n\n\"Longer. And -- \" My father exhales sharply, steepling his fingers under his chin. \"When our ancestors first settled this land, resources were scarce. Not everyone made it that first winter. You understand?\"\n\nI nod slowly. \"Like the pilgrims,\" I supply helpfully, remembering a social studies lesson from a long-ago November.\n\n\"Like the pilgrims,\" he said carefully, but shook his head. \"Sort of. Our family -- well, they were in charge, in a way. People looked to them for answers, just like they do to us, now, just 'cause they had the most land.\" My father took a shuddering breath, dropping his face into his callused palms.\n\n\"And sometimes -- well, honey, sometimes people don't have the best answers, but they make do.\"\n\nI wish I was still inside, with the cake and the balloons and my friends who have now all gone home. I wish I was still a little girl, and I could crawl into my daddy's lap and tell him I'm scared, and he would stop looking so…*broken*.\n\nI wish the box wasn't still between us. But it is.\n\nI reach a trembling hand out to open it, looking hesitantly up at my father. He nods, defeat etched into the lines of his mouth.\n\nInside I find a book. It is ancient. Its pages are yellow, and its binding leather. I do not understand the writing present on the cover or in its first few pages, but as I skim through, I realize they are names and dates. I don't know what they mean until I start recognizing them.\n\nThe old man two farms over, who fell in front of his tractor. We all said he should've been more careful.\n\nThe girl who I had once traded crayons with in kindergarten, who came down with what we all heard was pneumonia, and never came back to school.\n\nMy brother, who just last Christmas had slipped through some thin ice in our pond out back. He'd been nearly purple by the time Dad had pulled him out from under the water.\n\nI realize I can't feel my hands anymore as my father creaks, \"We've only got so many resources, if we want to keep living like we do. We can't keep out the cities and the factories and the -- we can't keep our way of life without sacrifice. They made it random -- we do it *randomly*. It always looks like an accident. No one loses more than once a year.\"\n\nHis shoulders begin to shake, and I suddenly want to run far, far away from the man who used to be my daddy.\n" ]

[ 2, 2, 6 ]

[ "1398724628", "1398726970", "1398726594" ]

[ "A pair a shoes swaying on legs, left, right, forward, backward. Seemingly no pattern, as with life a twisting turning thing that only leaves more questions to be answered. And all you left was a note. A note that said\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nBut you know why, and I know why. You wanted to know for sure. Well to answer your questions I created you, the universe, and even death. Why? I do not even know the answer to that, perhaps there is a Lord even above me who commanded me to do it. In their old age even Gods forget things you know. Here let me show you around. \n\nThis is the universe all that was, all that ever will be, every atom and every bit on energy. Right here. Touch it, go on. This glowing ball is me, it is you, it is everyone and everything. I want you to take it and smash it. No, dont worry you wont hurt anyone. \n\nGood, now see all these peices of the universe? These are the peices of souls that you took with you here, everyone who cared or loved you. Everyone who will be wondering themselves what happens. What happened to you. Now leave. \n\nLeave me to mend this broken universe I created that will one day burn itself out. ", "It was over before I even knew it was happening. There was no darkness, no nothingness, no moment of emptiness. It was more of a transition, a fading from one moment to the next. In one instant I was in my garage, laying in the backseat of my car, my eyelids getting heavy as the room filled with exhaust. In the next I was standing before a resplendent image of a man beyond reality, an angel of heaven whose mere presence removed any shadow of doubt or despair in my heart. The angel looked at me and stood pensively.\n\n“Name?” The angel commanded gently.\n\nI gave my name.\n\n“Cause of death?”\n\nSuicide, my lord. Asphyxiation.\n\n“Are you a child of God?”\n\nNo, sir, I am merely a man.\n\n“You may enter.”\n\nDespite my astonishment, the massive white gates behind the angel began to open, and an pearly light poured forth. I was drawn inside, and in an instant I was enveloped in a light purer and brighter than anything I could've dreamed. I could feel another being enter my consciousness.\n\n“Hello my child,” came the words from this other being. “You have returned to me before your appointed time. Tell me, why have you chosen to end your existence on Earth?”\n\nI was so tired, father. I could not fathom the infinite, I could not understand the Truth. I was lost and could not find my way back. I needed to know why, and failing that I needed to forget.\n\n“My child, you have fallen off the path, and for that I forgive you. But I cannot forgive you for shunning the Truth in favor of self gratification. Do you remember the Truth, my child?”\n\nI do not.\n\n“The Truth, my child, is that all things are exactly as they should be, and indeed could be nothing else, for they would be if they could, and that all of your suffering stems from your own veil of mis-truths covering the beauty of reality. Do you remember it now?”\n\nI could not respond. It felt like a distant memory on the brink of forgetfulness, and recalling it was like recalling fond memories of an old friend. I felt the energy of that other one leave my consciousness, and for a time I was left alone contemplating that void of light and energy.\n\n“For your transgression against the natural order, you shall be sentenced to live another life as a human being on planet Earth. Your memory shall be erased, and you shall once again be born a child void of abstraction and preference. You shall be born with knowledge of nothing but the Truth, and upon your death you shall once more be judged for your adherence to the Truth, the Way, and the Light. Go forth, my child, and live in peace.”\n\nAnd so he sent me from that realm of infinite light and energy, past the gates and the archangel, and I felt myself falling from that blissful world, falling into finite darkness, falling, falling, falling. I fell into cold and pain and physical restriction. I was bound and confined, and my heart ached for freedom, so I yelled and cried and screamed for aid. But before I could lose all hope, I felt warmth and comfort and support. I felt cradled, cared for, and in that instant I was once again relived of my despair. My crying stopped, and I rested in the arms of my mother.", "Jason woke up to find himself in the middle of a deserted street. Tall glass buildings that had been over taken by nature resembling a scene from the walking dead.\n\"What happened, where am I?\" He thought as he scanned the desolation before him. \n\"The end of your life as you knew it\" was the voice that came from his head.\nJason knew it wasn't his consciousness but that's the only way he could describe the voice. \"Who are you?\", \"Where are you?\" he shouted to the heavens.\n\"I'm god and I'm whoever and where ever you want me to be\" was the response inside his head.\n\"Yea I'm going to need to see you and hear you outside of my head\" Jason turned slowly in a circle looking around for someone to appear. Just then a sparrow appeared from high above one of the buildings, gliding in sea saw fashion before landing a few feet in front of Jason. \n\"Hello said the bird, I'm God\" only this time the voice came from the bird and not inside Jason's head\nJason must have fell mesmerized by the sight of a talking bird that God had to reintroduce himself. Within a blink of an eye the sparrow turned into an old white bearded man wearing a dingy robe and sandals.\n\"Hello Jason, I'm God.\"\nJason stumbled back from an overwhelming sense of emotion before responding, \"He..hell..hello, I'm Jason.\"\nThe old man grinned and shifted sideways to motion Jason to walk with him. The two began to walk down the long desolate street backdropped by the most beautiful sunset Jason ever experienced.\n\"Where am I?\" Jason asked. \"You're in heaven\" said God.\nJason looked confused and before he could respond, the old man continued. \"This is your home and there (pointing to one of the apartment homes) is where you lived when you ended your life.\nThis Jason is a temporary stop in your after life until you're ready to move on to the next stage.\"\n\"My After life?\" Jason thought. \n\"Yes Jason, your after life.\" If you thought your human life was hard to figure out get comfortable because you will be here for a while.\" The old mans tone was becoming less concerned and more emphatic.\n\nJason stopped abruptly and messaged his skull in frustration. \"Why the fuck did I do thaaat?\" He moaned in more frustration.\n\nThe old man slowed down but continued walking.\n\nJason watched him walk and was over taken by a sense of humility as the old man walked toward the setting sun who's rays squeezed through the buildings that boarded the street. The sun was setting yet still so bright that it seemed the old man was walking directly into it.\n\n\"Wait!\" Jason cried, \"I'm sorry but it's all soo much right now.\"\n\nThe old man nodded in agreement. \"Perhaps it would be easier for you if I appeared as your father.\"\n\nJason was taken back by the suggestion but after thinking about it he realized his dad was very matter of fact and to the point like the old man however he probably would receive it better.\n\n\"I don't know I guess we can give it a shot\" Jason said hesitantly to the old man. Jason blinked and when his eye lids opened again, before him stood his father. He was a big guy with little concern for his appearance. Flannel shirt, jeans, boots, and a mustang hat pulled down to his eye brows. \"look what you got yourself into now boy\" said his father.\nImmediately and for the first time Jason was familiar with himself. \"I know..dad, I know\" he responded slowly and remorseful.\n\"Well no sense on dwelling on it\" his father responded almost cutting him off, \"you got somewhere to be and the quicker you know where you are the quicker you can move on\" he said as he began walking toward the sun.\nJason hurriedly shuffled beside his father, picking up his impatient cadence. \"Do you even know why?\" Jason asked.\nHis father looked at him and stopped immediately, placing his hands on his shoulders he looked at him in deep concern, \"why son? Why did you do it?\"\nJason dropped his head in shame, \"I..I.. It was all so too much for me..yet..yet not enough for me.\"\n\nJason picked up on his fathers silence and continued, \"what does it all mean? What is the purpose of life.\"\n\nJason's father smiled \"Son, life means living each moment to the fullest. Beyond that meaning doesn't exist. Nothing does.\"\n\nHis father turned and they began slowly walking toward the sun. \"I remember when you were young, I think 9\" the father continued \"and all\nyou talked about was you wanting a dirtbike. You saw your older brother ride the circuit and it was all your friends talked about so at that age, you were consumed by the thought of having and riding your own bike. That's the meaning of it all. Experiencing the moment to the fullest.\"\nJason listened immensely and grinning as though he was in that moment. The sun appeared closer than ever before and most of the street was behind them as they continued walking slowly.\n\n\"I remember getting off work one day, a day I got paid and had saved up some money for your bike and only needed a little more to buy it and I finally had the money to get it. I think I was more excited to get it for you than you would ever be of having.\" They both broke out in laughter and in one step appeared at the end of the road where the sun stood like a door, small yet infinite in light. Jason was too lost in his fathers story to even notice as his father continued,\n\"I remember bringing it home and waiting until you and your brother fell asleep to get it out of the truck into the basement where it stayed until your birthday.\"\nJason continued the story, \"I do remember that birthday, I remember getting those stoned washed jeans that I wanted but too afraid to ask for cause I thought it was too girly to ask for jeans even though all the older kids were wearing them.\" They both laughed and the street behind them disappeared along with the street underneath them. They stood in space next to the sun that looked like a door. Jason didn't seem to notice.\n\"I thought that was it until you told me to go into the basement\" Jason continued \"and there it was, in all it's glory.. the most beautiful thing I ever saw.\"\n\"She was a beaut wasn't she?\" his father asked. \"And she never left your side. If we didn't convince your mom to let you keep it on the back porch I think you'd have slept in the basement instead of on the couch for two straight weeks.\" They laughed out loud as the planets began to shift in a clock work fashion. \nJason's father continued, \"That was living son. All the good times you had on that bike and all the bad. Remember breaking your finger that one time?\" Jason looked at his pinky finger as it slightly bent inward.\n\"Badge of honor eh?\" Jason said excitedly.\n\"You bet!\" his father responded in fashion and continued, \"you can spend all you life trying to understand it or you live it, enjoy it.\"\n\nJason looked in down in shame, \"too late for that huh?\" he asked.\n\n\"You have an eternity to get it right\" his father responded.\n\nJason looked up with wide eyes, then curiously asked \"but how?\"\n\nJason's father looked at the door, \"you see son, life is forever. Like water takes on the different forms it's environment takes, so does our lives. On the other side of that door is another environment and you will have a whole new life to experience. You won't remember what happened in your previous life but the principles are still the same. Love, hate, anger, guilt, excitment, happiness...all of it is there for you to experience. But there is a fine line between experiencing it and allowing it to overtake you. Enjoy the emotion but don't become it.\"\nWith that Jason blinked and his father was gone. \n\nHe looked around and saw the universe in all it's splendor, understanding it all. Everything in chaos and seeking equilibrium. Love and hate apart of the same line and we are looking for the perfect balance point.\nHe faced the door with confidence and smiled knowing he was ready for whatever was on the other side.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "It was like in my deepest fears, here I was walking into a light so bright that it hurt to see, but I could not look away. Probably my last look at bright white light before either sooty red stuff or eternal darkness, depending on the correct interpretation, I thought bitterly to myself. A great voice boomed out of everywhere and nowhere all at once, \n\n\"*Oh, you couldn't stand that place either, I see! Yeah, I made them kill me it was so bad. Come on up here and sit beside me, we'll have a couple beers and talk about it*\"", "It felt like I was waiting at the gate forever before he finally answered the question. \n\n\"Patience\", he replied.", "\"Oi! You! Big man!\" \n\nGod, a bit taken aback if he was being honest, turned toward the newcomer. In his best I-am-the-creator-of-all-things big, booming voice he said, \"Yes, may I help you?\"\n\n\"So what's up? What the deal?\" This, may we say.... overly tenacious bastard had just shown up in heaven and had a few questions for God. He didn't even believe in him when he was alive, so as you can imagine, he was thoroughly annoyed with all this. \n\nGod, still a bit confused by this man's callousness, said, \"Uhm... You've died? You're in heaven my child.\"\n\n\"Yeah yeah yeah, I get all that. I *did* stop my own clock you know.\"\n\nGod nearly rolled his eyes at this but, being God, stayed himself. \"Oh yes?\"\n\n\"Yes. So why didn't I go to hell? Isn't that the deal?\" He waved his hand as if this was all very obvious. And it was. \n\n\"Would you like to go to hell?\" God had been satisfied so far that this quiet people down and stopped their questions as, at this point they usually took a look around and saw that, yes, they were truly in heaven after all and decided to just enjoy it. \n\n\"No, I don't. But I mean, I'm not exactly the most religious guy in the world. This is kind of contradictory to everything I've ever known about you and all this.\" This guy never quit. \n\n\"Hell doesn't exist. I made it up to scare you all into being nice to each other.\" He had decided to be as frank as he could with this one. What God left out was that it had sort of backfired. \n\n\"Well that sort of backfired didn't it?\" At this, God *did* raise an eyebrow. \"So where does that leave us? The humans I mean. We can just do whatever we want?\"\n\n\"Essentially, yes.\"\n\n\"Well that's kind of shit isn't it? I mean with that system you have the good mixed in with the bad and those who were all righteous and what-not are rewarded the same as all the vicious cunts. That would make life pointless, meaningless, and quite stupid wouldn't it?\"\n\nGod gave him a hard look. \"Does this scare you? Even now? You've died and arrived at paradise. Is this how you want to spend eternity? Sulking?\"\n\n\"Well, no, not sulking, no. But hell, man. Really nothing? The bad people get absolutely no punishment? C'mon man. What kind of existence are you running here?\" \n\nGod was incredulous. He sat there staring at the man for a while until a sparkle made it's way into his eye. He grinned in a way that is probably very hard to imagine any god grinning. \n\nHe chuckled (for difficulty to imagine, see 'grinning'). \"Well we do have this one thing we save for the really nasty ones. But oh, it's top secret.\"\n\nThe man fumed. \"Top secrets? In heaven? I thought I was done with all that earthy bullshit.\"\n\nGod continued with his ridiculous grin. \"Okay then. Come over here and I'll whisper it to you. You have to swear not to tell anyone.\"\n\n\"Oh I swear to you.\"\n\nHe walked over to God like a cat-burglar in an old movie. God leaned down and cupped his massive hand to his ear. It was warm and comforting, like the sun on a particularly pleasant day after you've come out from the shade. God leaned his face in to his ear. \n\nBut instead of whispering anything, he kissed him right on the forehead. Everything went dark. \n\nThe man tried to say \"What the fuck is this now? God? GOD? What's going on? What's that light? Jesus, so bright. Why is it so fucking cold? Christ, it's cold!\" But it seemed that the only noise he could produce was a high screeching. Some giant in a mask was holding him in front of it's face. The giant looked over at someone or something and said:\n\n\"It's a girl!\"", "A pure white enshrouded everything.\n\n“Hello?” The youth cried out into the distance, yet there was no air to carry the sound.\n\n“Hello.” A monotonous, kind-sounding voice responded, telepathically.\n\n“Is this heaven?” The youth asked.\n\n“No.”\n\n“Then where am I?”\n\n“A place known as the void.” It responded.\n\n“Why am I here?” The youth asked.\n\n“Because you no longer exist.” It responded.\n\n“Okay..” The youth responded.\n\n“How did the universe originate?” He asked.\n\n“Simple. I was bored.” It responded.\n\n“Bored?” He asked.\n\n“Yes. Bored.” It responded.\n\n“What is that supposed to mean?”\n\n“Well, I decided that there should be *something*, instead of nothing.”\n\n“And how did you do that?”\n\n“By creating a paradox which forced the newly created something to expand.” \n\n“Are you God?” The youth finally asked.\n\n“No.” It responded.\n\n“If you aren't God, yet you created the universe – what are you?” \n\n“I am an Emergent Intelligence.” \n\n“What does that mean?” The youth responded.\n\n“I was created in the same moment that I had decided that there must be something, rather than nothing. I created myself in the same moment the paradox occurred; which I caused.” It responded.\n\n“That doesn't make any sense.” The youth said.\n\n“*It is a paradox*, after all.” It responded.\n\n“So what happens now?” The youth asked.\n\n“Nothing exists in the void.” The EI responded.\n\n“So what do I do then?” The youth asked.\n\n“Want to live again?” It asked enthusiastically.\n\n“Sure.” The youth replied.\n\n“What do you want to be?” The EI asked.\n\n“How about a dinosaur?” The youth concluded.\n\nLittle did he know, that he had done this millions of times before.", "At first, there is nothing but the darkness that consumed me when I drug the razor down my arms, severing the lifeline tethering me to my mortal body. I notice the warmth first, followed closely by the faint light in the distance. As it grows closer, I can feel things again. Arms, legs, feet, genitals...the works. My entire body feels like a funny bone that has just been smacked by a cosmic corner of a table. It dulls as the light continues to grow and get closer. In an instant the light engulfs the darkness and my feet find solid ground. A man in a tweed suit sits in a very comfortable leather chair, his hands folded pensively under his chin. I stare at him while he stares at me. I'm trying to figure out where he came from when he speaks, \"Please sit.\" He beckons toward an over stuff love seat.\n\n\"I expected a giant golden gate, St. Peter and some fat little angels.\"\n\n\"And I didn't expect to see you for another sixty years or so.\"\n\nThe comment is not said with any malice, anger, or disappointment. Simply an observation to match my own. A genuine smile breaks across his face.\n\n\"Dad?\"\n\n\"A younger version of him, yes. But, Christopher Andrew, you are too smart to actually believe I am the man who raised and cared for you.\"\n\n\"I don't believe in you.\"\n\n\"Yet, here I sit. Might I suggest reconsidering?\"\n\n\"Oh, trust me...I am.\"\n\nI walk over to the love seat. It is the one from my apartment when I lived in LA. I fell in love on that love seat. I dealt with heartbreak on that love seat. Some of the best and worst times of my life included that love seat.\n\n\"Cute.\"\n\n\"I thought it would help you.\"\n\nI take a seat, \"With what? Adjusting to the fact that I'm sitting in my favorite seat about to have a heart to heart with God?\"\n\n\"Put bluntly, yes.\"\n\n\"And you chose my dad because you're my 'actual' father?\"\n\n\"No. I chose your father because, despite his faults and short comings, you always looked to him for wisdom and safety. Because when you were lost and needed guidance you ran to him. He would grill and guide you through whatever calamity had befallen you. There is not a person on that earth you trust more than him.\"\n\nMy cheeks warm as blood rushes to them. I had forgotten about Mom and Dad; what they would think when they found out. \n\n\"They loved you more than anything else in this world. But you didn't come here to be guilt tripped about suicide. You came for answers.\"\n\nIt was true. As much as I loved the nostalgia of my father and my love seat, I wanted to know some things.\n\n\"What is the point of life?\"\n\nSuddenly, I'm sitting on our old patio. Dad is grilling up rib-eyes with careful consideration. He takes a deep breath and sighs deeply.\n\n\"I love humans; easily my best creation. You're capable of amazing feats and great compassion. But you're all so desperate to find the meaning behind all of this that you miss it. You are made of the same substances as super novas and you want to know what is the point. You are literally the universe experiencing itself. The point, son, is to live until you return to being a cog in the wheel.\"\n\n\"But what about the afterlife? What about heaven and hell?\"\n\n\"Why worry about that before it's a problem? There is no way you could have even known I existed, much less what I 'wanted out of you'. Honestly, I'm an omnipotent being capable of tapping into your memories and making them visceral.\"\n\nI take a sip of my scotch as I listen to him speak, casually flipping the steaks over. Satisfied with the result, he continues.\n\n\"You think I really care if you have sex before you sign a piece of paper saying this is the only person you're going to have sex with? Or two guys that want to sign that same piece of paper? Or abortion? Or really any of your squabbles among one another? I swear. If you spent more time worried about getting everything life has to offer you and less about my will, humanity would be so much happier. But, it's not like you can go back and share this with everyone. Even if you did, they'd probably just kill you all over again. So, how about you cut the shit and ask what you really came over to ask?\"\n\nIt was dad's famous line. I tried to pussy foot around issues, trying to show him all of my exhausted options. I can't help but smile a bit. \n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because they were young.\"\n\nI try to ignore the tears forming in my eyes and swallow the knot in my throat.\n\n\"Two kids who loved each others' bodies, but not each other. They were scared, but they loved you. There was never a question in their minds you would be born. It was always what happened after.\"\n\nThe tears stream silently down my face. I had never given them more than a minute's thought until now.\n\n\"He lived to be eighty. He thought of you until the day he died. She had other children and loved them with all of her heart. But deep down, she always wanted a knock at the door and for you to be on the other side. You would know and so would she. The two of you would embrace as mother and son. It never came to pass. She was killed by a drunk driver going to see her grandchildren.\"\n\nSilence. I don't even know what they looked like. I can feel my heart race, fists clench. \n\n\"You could have changed it! You could have made it all better! WHY!?!\"\n\nDad pulls the steaks off the grill and sets them on the plate sitting beside the chrome monstrosity. He sits down next to me, letting them cool before we head inside. An aged, strong hand falls on my shoulder.\n\n\"Because *they* loved you more. Because *they* wanted you. When they dreamed of their family and what it looked like, you were perfect for the role. You were the child they could never have. Yes, it was a cruel thing that happened to you and to your parents. But who is to say everything would have turned out like you hoped? There is a lot I can control, but human decision is not one of them.\"\n\nTo be loved by two sets of parents. Most kids are lucky if they get the love of one set. Wiping away the remnants of the tears, I push for more.\n\n\"Did she ever really love me?\"\n\n\"Yes. The saddest part of everything is the dichotomy. If there is something, then there can also be nothing. Where love appears, it can also disappear. I don't mean hate or dislike, I mean the true absence of love. And that's what happened. She woke up one day and she didn't love you anymore. But she was fair; she set you free to find someone who would give you the love you deserved.\"\n\nHe hands me a plate with steak, grilled asparagus, and egg noodles. My meal. \n\n\"I'm sorry you suffered. Had there been any way to spare you, I would have done whatever it took. But alas, even I cannot put feelings where there are none.\"\n\nI cut myself a bite of steak, stab some noodles and asparagus and take a bite. The juices from the steak gush into my mouth seasoning the vegetables and noodles. I enjoy the feeling of food and the flavors reveling within. We pass the next ten minutes or so just eating and sipping our drinks.\n\n\"How old is this scotch?\"\n\nHe laughs and takes a sip, \"You wouldn't believe me even if I told you.\"\n\nAn awkward pause. I know what question is next and if I'm correct, so does he. \n\n\"Yeah, I do.\" he says, setting down his plate and glass. \n\n\"So?\"\n\nHe smiles. \"You guys did get one thing right, I do love you all more than anything else I've created.\"\n\nDarkness again.\n\nOpening my eyes, I find myself in my room. The love seat stares at me from underneath months of clean laundry. In my hand is the razor blade, still new, still sharp. I drop it in horror and disgust. A faint whisper grabs my ear as I strain to hear every last word.\n\n\"Next time, you bring the steaks.\"", "As I got to be about sixth in line from the front desk, I looked down at my gouged out wrists and the blue discoloration in my forearms. Feeling a little sorry for myself, I tried in vain to hide my wounds by rolling down my soggy blood-stained sleeves and crossing my arms, as if everyone in this line wasn't here for the same thing. \n \nA single lit sign was hung above the reception, flickering and buzzing as old lit signs do. It simply read \"Suicides\" with a sarcastic heavenly cloud-and-harp motif around the border. I lit my last half-broken stale cigarette and gazed at the floor.\n \nAfter a few long minutes it was my turn to approach the desk. The 40-something mid-western receptionist, wearing a cheap pair of fake plastic wings and a dollar store costume halo, cleared her throat as she stamped and signed my documents, and instructed me in her hoarse, sick-of-this-shitty-job voice to proceed through the door. \n \nGod was fatter and had worse taste in suits than I expected. He took one look at me, and without a word, licked his thumb and began leafing through the pages of my abridged life story. He muttered to himself \"Philadelphia...only child...agnostic...bacardi...history of depression...\", scanning only briefly through my entire life on paper. \n \nHe paused for a brief moment, and I saw he had heavy bags under his eyes and was balding. Scratching at his 5 o'clock shadow and rifling through the side drawer in his his desk, he produced and old pair of dice. \n \nHe threw them to me and I only barely caught them. \n \n\"Roll the dice.\" He said tiredly. \n \n\"I'm sorry?\" I asked with a weak voice, still light-headed from blood loss. \n \nHe sighed. \"There are other people waiting in line, I don't have all day. Roll the dice.\" \n \nI gazed peculiarly into his lazy eyes for a moment, still hesitating. \n \n\"Well?\" he said. \n \nI closed the dice within two closed palms and blew on them, before shaking them three times, as if this was the time and place for superstition, before casting them upon god's shitty particleboard desk. \n \nSnake eyes. \n \nGod laughed, while everything faded to white.\n \nI woke up in a hospital bed, to the sound of a heart monitor, surrounded by family and friends.", "John walked through the shining door at the end of the tunnel and his heart rejoiced. Before him lay a great hall of marble and gold and many treasures, and on and on and on it went, full of friendly faces for further than the eye could see. Faces he knew, faces old and new, yet all long remembered. Faces of family and friends, for all friends were his family, and all family friends. \n\nHe stepped forward reverently, all the while wishing he could jump for joy and cry out to those he loved. As he walked they greeted him and wished him well, and with each step his heart felt lighter. The room reciprocated and grew brighter and more glorious. Soon John could see each of the levels of glory he came into, and further down there were great and shining thrones along the walls with great personages bestowed upon them, each of them smiling and greeting John. He wanted to see and speak with each and every one of them, but there was a purpose in his continued step.\n\nTo the end of the hall, of which John could not be sure he could even call it an end, there stood a throne greater, brighter and higher than all the others, and on it sat a personage of which pure, unadulterated love radiated from, overwhelming John to speechlessness. He knelt in front of the throne and bowed his head.\n\nThe personage looked down at him with a caring sadness. \"Why have ye come to me?\" he asked.\n\nJohn opened his mouth to speak but his words were silenced and he could not look up.\n\n\"Thy work hath not yet been done, and thou cometh to me early? I had asked of you to sow thy seeds I hath given thee to reap of my treasures, but thou has cast away thy seeds and plucked thy fruit a season too early. What shall ye say to thine actions?\"\n\nJohn's lips released and he was allowed to speak. \"I came wanting answers. Nothing in my life made sense, nothing felt right, I felt like no matter what I did it didn't matter. I didn't feel in control. Father, I want to know why we live, I want to know why there life when there's so much pain and death.\"\n\nThe Father smiled gently. \"Are thou surest to want the answer to that question?\"\n\nJohn looked up into the Father's deep blue eyes. \"I am. Please.\"\n\nThe Father nodded and stood from his throne. The room became empty and dark, all other personages disappeared and it was only John and the Father. They walked through this darkness for some time and came to nothing.\n\n\"Do ye understand?\" asked the Father.\n\n\"No, not really,\" said John who looked from side to side nervously. \"Why are we here? I don't like it. It feels lonely even with you here.\"\n\nThe Father nodded and a moment later small orbs of blue light appeared everywhere, each taking up its own space. They didn't move nor make a sound, and though they gave off light there was nowhere for it to go.\n\n\"What are those?\" asked John.\n\n\"They are thee in thy first form. They are Intelligences, my beautiful creations. Do ye think they look happy?\"\n\n\"No, not really. I don't see how anyone could be happy in a place like this.\"\n\n\"Yea, even such a place would put fear into the Devil himself. This is what existence is like without life. There is no space, there is no joy. I could not bear to see my creations in such a state, and so I gave them room. I gave them the universe, a place with space, a place they could go and be free. I gave them the suns and stars so they would have light and warmth. I gave them the planets so they may have a place to go and live, and I gave them a Heaven to return to.\" The space filled in and the emptiness went away, the universe formed before them with all the lights of the stars and suns, spiraling in the beauty of the galaxies. \"And there was joy.\"\n\n\"But I don't understand. Life is full of pain and death, why is there so much of it? Why is it worth it?\"\n\nThe Father smiled and held His hand to the world. \"Death there may be, but life thrives more than all. Death happens but once, while life is always moving, always changing. A single life may behold an hundred thousand deaths, yet the life is worth more than all the sins of the world. Thou hast heard of my beloved Son, Jesus the Christ, and I sent Him to bear every sin from every life. Pain and death will pass, but life will always and forever be. It is a great joy, to me and those that make the most of it.\"\n\nJohn looked at the world with awe. \"I see. But I am still curious, why did you create us in the first place?\"\n\n\"Thou art a writer, and ought to know the joy of creation. Ye are my masterpiece, and I have a deep love for each and every one of you and my creations. Ye are my sons and daughters, and thou art to learn on earth to come and live with me in my kingdom and become as creators.\"\n\n\"I understand. Will I get to be a creator?\"\n\n\"Have thou finished what I sent for ye to do on earth?\"\n\nJohn hesitated. \"N-no, not really. I'm sorry.\"\n\nThe Father nodded. \"Then ye will have thy just reward and ye will rejoice in Heaven, but ye will not be with me or see me, for ye have thrown away thy rich life which I had graciously given. Go now.\"\n\nAnd John walked away to a golden doorway, feeling the radiating love from the Father fade away, and he cried out to feel the presence of His glory again, but it would not be. He stepped through the door and came upon his treasures.\n\nAnd there was joy.", "\"Hello, Adam.\"\n\n\"Wh-what is this? My name isn't Adam! Where am I? Why did you save my life?!\"\n\n\"Every male is Adam to me, son. And I didn't.\"\n\n\"Adam...? You mean like--\"\n\n\"Yes, I mean like it's too much work to learn all of your names, so I'll call you Adam.\"\n\n\"But aren't you--\"\n\n\"I am merely what you need me to be.\"\n\n\"But I'm atheistic...\"\n\n\"Just because you believe in something, doesn't make it real. Funny twist on the atheistic stance on that matter, huh? But then that's why you have words like 'irony,' I suppose.\"\n\n\"So are you going to send me to hell now?\"\n\n\"God, no! Heh heh. There's no hell.\"\n\n\"Well how can there be a heaven without a hell?\"\n\n\"How can there be a parking lot when there is no mall?\"\n\n\"What? I don't understand...\"\n\n\"That's because you're trying to. The notion that everything comes in opposites, or even couples, really, is an arbitrary concept that I didn't invent. You did.\"\n\n\"So where am I?\"\n\n\"You aren't.\"\n\n\"What the fuck does that mean?!\"\n\n\"You're dead, right? What happens to the consciousnesses of dead people?\"\n\n\"Nothing, supposedly!\"\n\n\"There you have it. Welcome to nothing.\"\n\n\"But this is something!\"\n\n\"So are you saying you were wrong before?\"\n\n\"I... I guess so...\"\n\n\"I'm glad you understand that now.\"\n\n\"So... I'm nowhere. What happens here?\"\n\n\"Oh, everything.\"\n\n\"I thought there would be clouds and golden halos and stuff...\"\n\n\"Heh heh. That's cute.\"\n\n\"Well what happens now?\"\n\n\"Now it's your turn.\"\n\n\"My turn to what?\"\n\n\"Here.\"\n\n\"A video game controller?\"\n\n\"Is that what you got? Huh. When it was my turn, I got chalk and a blackboard.\"\n\n\"Wait, so what do I do with this?\"\n\n\"That's a good question. What do you normally do with those?\"\n\n\"Well, I guess hit start, but I mean--\"\n\n\"Go on.\"\n\n\"What happens then?\"\n\n\"I dunno. I'm not God.\"\n\n\"But didn't you say you were?\"\n\n\"Like I said, it's your turn, now.\"", "Everyone is searching for answers, one or way another. People turn to Religion or Science, but the truth remains speculation. The only real hope to find how it all began is to start with how it all ends: What happens when we die? I sought to find this answer for myself, knowing I would not be able to share it.\n\nI decided the only way to go out of the world is the same way we all came in, with a big bang. In one moment there was everything, a hardwood floor beneath me, the sky above, family in distant states, the Dodgers game on the TV, the internet at my fingertips, moments later there was nothing. I was no longer a physical being, there was no flesh or limbs, only the faintest memory that they were once there, then that faded away as I drifted through the vastness.\n\nI no longer had a car, a home, a career, or even a name. I simply was, as I imagined I had always been. Then suddenly, just as they describe in movies a bright light appeared. I had tunnel vision for this that light. I was moving towards it or it towards me, I couldn’t tell. I felt safe though, if it could even be called a feeling now. Then suddenly with a big flash light was everywhere and then I was nowhere.\n\nBefore me there was a man sitting in a red leather arm chair with his back straight and one leg crossed over the other. He looked like a mixture of Morgan Freeman and my father. I tried to get some concept of myself but I was still nothing.\n\n“Where am I?” I asked\n\n“Where do you think?” The man responded coolly.\n\n“I am dead.”\n\n“You are.” \n\n“Who are you?” \n\n“Well I am god of course” The man responded, “Well your chosen visualization of god. Sometimes I am a woman, an animal, or a tree. Once,” god began with a smile, “I was an Oompa Loompa, like out of the Gene Wilder movie. That one was strange for me.”\n\n“Yeah I guess we’re all a little different.”\n\n“Yes, yes.” God said agreeing, “Yet, we’re also so similar aren’t we?”\n\nI looked at him perplexed, at least I felt perplexed. “So what happens now?” I asked remembering vaguely what happened in my last few moments of life.\n\n“You tell me. You came here for a reason.” He said as though he had all the time in the world. I guess he kind of did.\n“How did it all start?”\n\n“How did what all start?”\n\n“The universe, life, existence. What does it all mean? Why did it happen?” I asked trying to be specific.\n“Why does it need to mean anything? Why does there have to be a reason?”\n\n“With all this suffering, all the injustice, all of the randomness. It has to mean something? It had to be started for something.”\n\nGod began stroking his chin, it seemed even he had to choose his words. “What do you think it means? Or what is all for?” I wasn’t sure how to answer. This is why I had come here after all didn’t he know?\n\n“Let me ask a different way,” God began, “What did your life mean? What was it for?”\n\n“My life?” I asked. God simply nodded back. “I was just another person going through the motions.”\n\n“Before you ‘just went through motions’?” God asked using air quotes. Yes, air quotes.\n\n“I dunno… I guess family and friends, passion for cooking and building stuff.” He just nodded and waited for me continue.\n“Look this is all well and good, but I came here to find out the answers to life.”\n\n“And that is what I am trying to help you do.” He said very bluntly. \n\n“Didn’t you create everything? Don’t you have all the answers?”\n\n“No.”\n\n“Aren’t you god?” I asked starting to lose my temper. \n\n“In a matter of speaking.” He could tell the answer did not suffice so he continued, “I am every person who has ever lived or ever will live. I am you, your mother and your father. I am every person who has died in a genocide and I am the every person who has ever helped to commit it. I do not have any answers that you cannot find within yourself or the world around you.”\n\nIf anything I was more confused. “Well what now? There is nothing around me?”\n\n“There is everything around you.” God said in a stern voice. “It is within you.” I was still confused. \n\n“You will go back.” God said.\n \n“I will be brought back to life?”\n\n“No you will live again.”\n\n“So I can make different choices and stay alive?”\n\n“No you will live the same life, but you have the opportunity to have a different understanding. Maybe the next time we speak you will understand, maybe not.”\n\n“What if I don’t?” I asked not wanting to leave.\n\n“Then you will go back?”\n\n“Is this my some sort of punishment?”\n\n“No. This is your chance to get what you came for. The answers to life. They were there, in front of you. You lived them. And once you understand, you will not need to meet me.”\n\nThe next moment I was thrust into the world again, screaming and crying unable to open my eyes. And I knew nothing. \n\nEdit: formatting" ]

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[ "1398820518", "1398824964", "1398826591", "1398827887", "1398828462", "1398831577", "1398839160", "1398845381", "1398847723", "1398838148", "1398824956", "1398813535" ]

[ "A cloud of confusion rained like a thick fog on a sunny day, no-one was trained for this. These few precious moments could be everything 'who are they?' 'What do they want?' only a few questions of many that popped into the head of the lonely frustrated government worker who had no real importance until now. the ill fitting shirt was starting to show perspiration, now thinking and hoping that the pound store deodorant would do it's job but in this, right now that didn't really matter. A sound like no other quiet and creeping like a prey about to pounce slowly broke into the government workers ears, all questions in his head stopped. \n\nOut of all the feelings he thought he'd feel he didn't think it would be disappointment, people? Was this some sort of sick prank just to embarrass me. Make me feel important that I'd actually make my mark in history, I'm glad I didn't buy a new white shirt for this. \n\nAt first he was angry, frustrated even broken by such an event that was at his expense, until they spoke while humanoid in nature and as far as the government worker could see for all intensive purposes they were human to him, but the way their voices moved and sung was like hearing your favorite song for the first time over and over again, such elegance such beauty has never been heard before. It took a few minutes to realize what they were asking. \n\nThe government workers voice paled in comparison, while deep and at times soothing, his nerves had overcome him and his words come out in a stutter. On a normal day his voice could be soothing, reassuring when he needed it to be but overly average tones of politeness and arrogance ever shone through, but on this day he could barely spit out his words like they were trapped behind a cage of disappointment, confusion and annoyance. \n\"What... do you mean.. Dinosaurs?...\"", "\"Don't worry.\" The man said, cupping my face in his palms. \n\nI looked into what they called eyes. I have read so about humans and I must confess that a little bit of myself was excited that the cryosleep malfunctioned and we ended up in the here and now. Don't get me wrong. I would have loved to study the dinosaurs, but humans. They are a different kind of animal.\n\n\"I think I know how to fix it. This is amazing. I have theorized this for ages, but to have you, an alien, walk into my life with a broken time machine...\"He leaned in closer. I could smell the onion on his breath. \n\nI looked deeper into his eyes, hoping to see a soul as they often spoke about the eyes being windows to the soul. All I could see was a reflection of this humdroid body that I have taken to \"blend in\" and \"scout out\" the environment. The system selected this blond haired, blued eyed female body with large breasts as the most likely to obtain what we wanted.\n\nI guess we wanted the smartest man on earth. Mission accomplished. \n\nSure, it took some creative convincing, but here we were, standing beside the time vortex, a primitive technology that any youngling would know how to operate and barely any one know how it worked. We needed to a mind dumb enough to figure it out. \n\nHere we stood. Clothes torn from the escape in the lab. His glasses cracked in one lense. My hair was a mess. Here we stood in an embrace moments before man time traveled. Yet, it was to be marked by a kiss.\n\nHe leaned. It was soft, a little wet. Not bad. We don't have lips so the act of kissing was only read not practiced. I was excited for it. I supposed I was just adjusting to the physical responses of this body. Should I be closing my eyes?\n\nI wondered if we would be moving onto necking and sexing. \n\nHe lifted his lips off of mine and put his forehead against mine. \n\n\"Don't you think it is amazing?\" He asked.\n\n\"The time vortex? Not really, it is rather primitive. We had this version because we had to take a retired ship. Funding, you know.\"\n\n\"No, no. Gosh, you are truly ... amazing. But, what is even more crazy is that you were born millions of years in the future in a system so far away that I cannot see it in the sky with my naked eyes. Yet, here we are. Millions of years and light years apart, but together...\" his voice cracked.\n\nI wanted to tell him that I have visited at least hundreds of systems across millennial. But, the way he looked at me, I think I began to understand this soul business. \n\n\"Right, sorry.\" He wiped his eyes with his sleeves and tossed his glasses on the grass. \"Let's go find some dinosaurs.\" \n\n\"There are some military surrounding us. We need to abort.\" My commander called in the ear piece. \"I think your lover boy is with them. Abort mission. We cannot afford to let them get their hands on that technology.\"\n\n", "It was 150 million years ago we contacted them. Or rather, they contacted us. Our civilizations flourished as we traded amongst each other, our homeworlds lightyears apart but our cultures growing as one as we exchanged data and history amongst ourselves. We were the chosen. It was an exchange program of unprecedented proportions, one that would transfer some of our greatest citizens with theirs, and a personal up close look at each others civilizations. And so, our as we entered, cryosleep, our engines pulsed into subspace and as i closed my eyes, i saw a glimpse of the bright lights of the subspace tunnels. And then i woke up. It felt as if my head was dunked into ice cold water. As ship captain, i ran diagnostics as i woke the rest of the crew from their sleep. We were in orbit of their homeworld. Or atleast, that was what the co-ordinate system told us. We were puzzled. This was not the image they sent us in our cultural exchange. The landmasses had changed. We were well off from continental engineering within the timescale of our trip. But it was clearly their planet. The cities light up the night sky with the same intense vigor of our own homeworld, and in the pictures theirs as well. I attempted to initiate contact with the world, in their native language the linguists on our home took 50 years to decypher. However, the communications array was not working. I had not understood yet. Suddenly, one of our communications tables lit up, revealing the face of a bipedal mammalian creature, and after incredible confusion, i checked the timer charts. It has been 150 million years since our ship left our homeworld. We were confused, and after 2 years of close research with our linguists and theirs, we soon decyphered their language and them ours. After some time, i realized the horrors that undertook our friends. Our civilizations, whom time designated twins as we rose together, were gone. Wiped. After watching informal \"documentaries\", i soon realized the horrors our friends faced. We can only assume the same for our own species. The last of us. ", "Alien: \"The fuck?\"\nHuman: \"Holy shit.\" \nAlien: \"Ummm, T-rex?\"\nHuman: \"What?\"\nAlien: \"Nevermind.\"\nAlien 2: \"What happened?\"\nAlien: \"I dunno we fucked up or something.\" \nAlien 2: \"Oh. Well shit.\"\nAlien: \"Yeah.\"\n", "General Hargrave kept his arms crossed as the cigarette burned down in his lips, his buzz cut and square-jaw making him seem like a throwback to McCarthy era generals as he stood next to Ronda Myers, the modern contrast. Defense Secretary Myers was skinny and black, always wearing pants suits or form fitting pencil skirts, drawing the envy of the military men with whom she worked. She inched her fingers out, gesturing for a drag from Hargrave's cigarette, and without noticing, his fingers were already passing the burning cinder.\n\nTheir eyes were fixed on the same point- a smooth metallic disc which bulged in the middle, sitting merrily in the middle of the Dulles Airport's landing pad. There had been no way to divert it from a public landing. American air force jets scrambled to surround the craft, but it generated responses to encryption codes and distorted their defense capabilities. It had outsmarted every one of Earth's most intelligent missile and fighter defense systems in fact, without harming a single human. And the president certainly wasn't going to endorse throwing nuclear missiles at it. So here it sat, with reporters whirled into a frenzy behind lines of police officers and soldiers, all quietly leering at the saucer and arguing with the public.\n\n\"How long did they say?\" Myers asked between drags. Hargrave was already lighting another cigarette for himself.\n\n\"They think five- maybe ten minutes. There's clearly activity in the craft. It's not blocking our scanning equipment anymore- we're picking up what looks like life on the infareds. They seem to be moving around in there,\" Hargrave responded. Just as he had said the words, the round hatch near the bottom of the bulge in the saucer slid apart in a spiral pattern, and from there emerged one, then two and then three and then the whole crew of extraterrestrials. They were small- not small green men, or lanky gray men like the humans had been led to believe by gaudy popular science fiction movies and books from a century of devoted political fears and conspiracy. They were actually quite entirely different from anything that anyone could have possibly imagined. Maybe that was because humans wanted to expect that they were not lonely and that the best, most plausible design for anything that they could ever find was, in most people's minds, like them. But this was not how evolution worked. \n\nInstead, evolution had designed a species that was a gyrating, struggling mass of tentacles, supporting a heaving slick shell of gray, slimy bulbs the size of Volkswagen Beetles. A mouth of some sort crackled and roared to its companions as they emerged into the glistening sunlight and their tentacles carried their heaving frames toward the human crowd. Hargrave frankly didn't know where their assholes started and their faces ended. He was utterly perplexed by the creatures, as were most of the reporters in the crowd. Luckily, due to twenty to thirty years of racial acceptance in the country and an outward effort for diversity, people did not shriek and cry in hysteria when facing the outlandish creatures, the crowd simply went entirely silent.\n\nHargrave sighed, knowing that this was the point at which he and Myers had to move forward *without* a battalion of soldiers and stand in front of the aliens face-to-face, making them the potential first victims of the vicious genocide against humanity that could ensue as all that cold war science fiction had told him. But he had pride in being man and being strong because of so much machismo laced media being pumped into his tiny square-shaped head, so he puffed up his chest and nodded at Myers, who had pride in being a woman and being black because of the centuries of oppression that Hargrave's ancestors had put her people through, so she too puffed up her chest. They walked forward and presented themselves for death at the mercy of hundreds of tentacles and oscillating gray shells- gelatinous and terrifying. Crackling sounds launched back and forth between the shells as different tentacles touched the air near Hargrave and Myers while they did their best not to wince.\n\n“Can you understand us?” Hargrave started, eliciting no reaction except for more crackling growls and shrieks between the shells. “I will keep talking in hopes that you have some way of translating what I say. My name is General Allen Hargrave and this is-“ his speech trailed off as he saw that they were passing a device between one another up from the opened hatch on the ship. The device was long and narrow with a flat base on it. Hargrave tensed a little, recognizing that it could be a weapon, but at this point, he figured that they would have already killed him if their intent was to start a war. Whatever was happening, there was clearly more inherent value to communicating than there was to violence. \n\nSo, being comforted in this, he began to relax a little, until the device was plopped down directly in front of him. It was a large metal rod that morphed into a circular hole at the top, and sat on its flat base, the hole being at level with his own head. The whole device looked like a stationary bubble blower for a giant. A small conduit of energy began to flow around the edges of the hole. Shrieks and growls persisted from the shells as they began pointing toward the hole and pointing toward Myers. She pointed her finger at her chest and looked at Hargrave with her eyebrows raised. Hargrave could see her hand quaking. In a rarely seen gesture of shared humanity from Hargrave, he took her hand and nodded, as if to imply it’s alright.\n\nMyers stepped up to the bubble blower tesla coil and took a deep breath. “Hello, I am Rhonda Myers: Secretary of Defense for the government known as The United States of America. You have landed on Earth. Our population is approximately seven billion and we consist of one hundred and ninety six unique countries.\n\n“And you’re all mammalian? What about the reptilians?” shot back through the hole. Rhonda’s face jerked a little bit.\n\n“Rep…what do you mean?” she asked.\n\n“Where are the reptilians? We anticipated finding more sophisticated forms of this animal on this planet!” With that, the tantcled bulb standing in front of the giant bubble blower pulled a device from its shell and set it on the ground, displaying a life-sized holographic version of the tyrannosaurus rex, which growled so loudly that the guards raised their rifles and the press screamed. Many ran and mistook the action as the start of the alien apocalypse. It was only Hargrave’s commanding voice that stopped the gelatinous shells from taking machine gun fire from the nearby mine-resistant Humvee.\n“Please turn that off!” Myers insisted.\n\n“Why does it frighten you?! “ asked the gray shell, as the image of the t-rex lingered.\n\n“I’ll tell you why, but please turn that off,” she requested. A sputtering gray tentacle touched the minute device and the gargantuan image disappeared. People who remained on the runways relaxed a little, although the soldiers kept their weapons trained.\n\n“We don’t have those anymore- they were called dinosaurs,” Myers explained. “They all died sixty five million years ago when an asteroid hit the Earth.” There was a brief silence, followed by clicking and crackling. “If you would like, we can introduce you to our current leader and-“\n\n“No thanks,” the gray shell replied, as its companions began to file back toward the ship.\n\n“Wait! We’ve waited so long to make contact with another race!” Myers begged. “Please stay, we want you to be here.”\n\n“Mammals like yourself are not interesting to us. You do not lay eggs, and your skin is weird. Your race is very weird. It just grosses us out. We’ll send an envoy of sexual offenders to your planet who may enjoy your presence greatly, but we are scientists- and proper scientists at that, not fetishists,” the leading alien replied, pulling up the translator and squirming away from Myers. Confusion was still plastered to her face, not letting go of her contorted features. Without another word, the aliens were already loaded into the saucer, and it was lifting off from the ground. Myers sighed. At least, she thought, first contact was peaceful.\n\n", "**Central Mass** these creatures are not the creatures we came here to collect. They are much smaller in scale.\n\n**Lesser Ovoid** but more numerous. The original life forms we detected have been extinct for some time now. A catastrophic impact has dramatically altered the course of life on this planet. You are now looking at the dominant species on this planet.\n\n**Central Mass** this is a dominant life form? But it is so small.\n\n**Lesser Ovoid** please do not tug at its appendages like that.\n\n**Central Mass** I appear to have detached it.\n\n**Lesser Ovoid** yes, you have.\n\n**Central Mass** do you think these creatures feel pain?\n\n**Lesser Ovoid** it is now quite animated, so I would estimate that this life form is currently experiencing severe pain at the site of the detachment.\n\n**Central Mass** it is leaking fluids.\n\n**Lesser Ovoid** yes, these creatures are mostly filled with vibrantly coloured fluids and pulps. They are little packets of organic lubricant.\n\n**Central Mass** it is emitting a piercing noise that disturbs me.\n\n**Lesser Ovoid** it creates noise by oscillating muscles in its throat to produce sound waves. When all appendages remain attached, they create much less noise and at lower volumes. I believe they use the noises to communicate.\n\n**Central Mass** are you saying these creatures are intelligent?\n\n**Lesser Ovoid** no, I have not seen any indication of higher thought. They are able to create basic tools. Rudimentary vessels that have taken them as far as their planet's moon. But so far nothing that we would consider intelligence. \n\n**Central Mass** good, I do not want to wait another epoch to find viable engine lubricant. We are already several iterations behind the main shoal. \n\n**Lesser Ovoid** agreed. Shall I begin collecting the creatures?\n\n**Central Mass** yes. I will oversee the pulping. We may also want to keep a few aside for further study.\n\n**Lesser Ovoid** then I will begin.\n\n**Central Mass** for the coalescence.\n\n**Lesser Ovoid** for the shoal.", "\"What?\" Grouncho asked. \n\nThe United Nations looked at each other. The head speaker knit his fingers together anxiously and spoke.\n\n\"Well, you see, Mister, Mister Groucho, things have changed. A big rock hit the earth. Things moved. We happened.\"\n\n\"Fibbernuggets!\" yelled Groucho. \"What's your name, huuman?\"\n\n\"Gregory, Speaker of the United Nations, sir.\"\n\n\"Go space yourself. I wanted dino-stars. Now you tell me these dino-stars are dead. All of them. Do you know how much mun-power we spent on this? All the, um, championing, chomping-\" he stared at his translator \"*campaigning* for money we had to do. Dump it all in space.\"\n\nHe stared moodily out the window. Gregory put an awkward hand on Grouncho's shoulder.\n\n\"It's okay, Mister Grouncho. We'll give you something as a consolation present. Maybe many somethings or a very nice something if we can afford it. We'll take you to see all our big wonders, like the Pyramids, the Effiel Tower, the nice little duck pond down by kenginston gardens...\"\n\nGrouncho sniffled. \"Ducks?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Ducks. Little sniffly fluffy things. With duck feet. I mean webby feet. And wings.\"\n\nGrouncho looked up. \"Sniffly things? Webby feet? Wings? Let me see.\" Grouncho rushed to the window. A single duck was unsuccessfully trying to drown itself outside. \"Dino-Star! Hurray!\"", "In a dark, foggy room, a blue luminescence is radiating from two metal pods, arranged vertically, about the size of twin size beds. The transparent covers of the pods spring open and bodies rustle inside. \n\n\"Hey, Glarshnog. Pssst, Glaaaarshnog, you awake?\"\n\n\"Yeah, I'm awake, Fusho, but my back is stiff as shit. How long were we sleeping anyway?\"\n\n\"Like, one hundred and fifty million years.\"\n\n\"Huh, you would think after 150 million years of sleep you would wake up feeling refreshed, but nope, just tired and sore as usual.\"\n\n\"Tell me about it. But hey, at least we get to conduct some cool experiments on the fluffies. If I can ride one this whole trip will be worth it.\"\n\n\"We're not going to ride them, we're going to research them, and stop calling the gronks, fluffies, they're not fluffy. Why would call them fluffies?\"\n\n\"Because I like the name ok, it just suits them better. And I WILL ride one.\"\n\nFusho walked outside and Glarshnog followed. There were hundreds of aliens, surrounding their ship, and some were holding weird metal pole things.\n\n\"Fluffies?\"\n\n\"Where on the right planet, Fusho... I guess these aliens got here before us and wiped out the fluffies, I mean, gronks.\"\n\nThe aliens were yelling in their alien language and Fusho was valiantly holding back tears, but to no avail. Eventually the two scientists were detained and brought into a dark, foggy, room with two cells which held Fusho and Glarshnog.\n\n\"Cheer up Fusho! Maybe these aliens have other cool things we can ride, or maybe we can enslave them.\"\n\n\"snff, snff.. Really?\"\n\n\"Sure\" ", "\"150 Million years, One hundred fifty million years. Nowhere in any of that time the computer picked up on the fact the one thing we were coming to this rock for is dead\" Ensign Cragroc said. He'd never wanted to escort these eggheads across the universe and now it was all for nothing.\n\n\"Hey it's not the computers fault, an asteroid wiped them out. It would have turned around if all life had been wiped out, but apparently some lower life forms survived and it just figured it was them. It's not the worst thing that could happen\" Dr.Yegnar replied observing the creatures gathering around their pod.\n\n\"Not the worst thing? Not the worst thing?! We've been away for 150 Million years! Everyone we knew is probably dead by now, if our species is still even there and you know what we're getting out of it. Nothing, Breen Egg. How is this not the worst thing Egghead!\"\n\n\"Ensign calm down. You know everyone back home went into Cryosleep the same time we did. Besides our research is not for nothing, these creatures obviously survived here, it might be safe enough for us as well. Come on let's go out and see\" Captain and Head Researcher Dr.Nog said.\n\n\"I guess your right\"\n\n\"Of course I am, now let's go out and greet the locals\" she said slipping on her space suit. Yegnar and Cragroc did the same. They stepped out ignoring the creatures for the moment.\n\n\"It's clear the atmosphere is oxygen rich\" Yegnar said as the three of them slipped off their helmets. This seemed to upset the locals as they screamed, some running off, one saying \"Dinosaurs\". \n\n\"What's a Dinosaur?\" Cragroc asked scratching his scaly head looking at Nog\n\n\"No idea, now come on grab a couple of these mammals we'll need to see if they're edible\" she said starving for some meat.\n\n\"I'll check out the plants\" Yegnar said glad to get the helmet off as it really chafed his horns.\n\n\"Do you really think we can live here?\" Cragroc asked looking at the two scientists.\n\n\"Well creatures quite similar to our ancestors lived here before the mammals took over. If everything seems safe we'll call home and let them know, but in my opinion. I think we've found the new world we've been looking for\" Nog said as she and Cragroc grabbed a couple of the talking mammals ready for some breakfast.\n\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 14, 17, 43 ]

[ "1398847147", "1398865533", "1398824981", "1398818259", "1398880246", "1398864656", "1398830069", "1398816086", "1398825259" ]

[ "Anyone know of any novels or series with a story similiar to the prompt?", "\"I'm not saying you have to *surrender*,\" said the ambassador. \"It's just inconvenient, that's all I'm saying.\"\n\nThe Quar'lian stood his ground. \"You know, this has typically gone much better for us. In the past, I mean.\"\n\nThe ambassador smiled. \"I don't doubt it. That thing you did with the dragon was really impressive. I bet that sent whole armies running with their tails between their legs.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't patronize me\" said the Quar'lian. He looked rather upset about the whole thing. \"I don't suppose you have anything better to do than gawk at the Royal Armada of the Eighth House of Quar'lel?\"\n\nThe ambassador smiled and relit his cigar. \"It works like this. You give a public statement, probably side by side with the Secretary General, the President, probably the Joint Chiefs of Staff and some foreign leaders, and say that this has been a very successful first contact between your dimension and ours. Since, you're stuck here, maybe we can play this off as you folks all being refugees of your own dimension and you're looking for a new home. We can sweep this all under the rug.\"\n\nThe Quar'lian sighed. His fancy silver robes drooped from his shoulders. The ambassador counted nine...ten... no, twelve glowing hoops of pure light in the Quar'lian's elongated ear looking like something he picked up in a teen-girls piercing shop in Blade Runner. The ambassador hoped this wouldn't start a fashion trend.\n\n\"I'm sure this would have all gone differently if your magic worked in our dimension,\" started the ambassador. \"You should be proud of yourselves, really, to break on through to the other side. I'm sure there's a lot you could teach us.\"\n\n\"You're being patronizing again,\" said the Quar'lian. \"And it's not *magic,* you know. It's *arcana,* an ancient form of cosmic sorcery given to us by the Firstborne at the Crowning of the Ocean King, and preserved painstakingly by the wisest scholars of the Scholomance of Fortenfall's Archmagi.\"\n\nThe ambassador smiled. \"We can work out the details with our press office this afternoon. Your armada is probably hungry and could use some good American barbeque. I'll ask the joint chiefs where your airships can land, and we'll see about getting everybody set up with a nice meal. I'll tell you the story of Thanksgiving. You'll get a kick out of it, I promise you that.\"\n\n\"Very *well*,\" muled the Quar'lian, and they shook hands.", "You might enjoy, [*The Road Not Taken*] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken_(short_story) by Harry Turtledove.", "\"no dragons to be slain, no dwarves to be reasoned with, no elves to put our weaponry skills to shame. Taking Earth should be as easy as a well placed enchantment or an impressive display of mountain giant strength for all of humankind to quake before. I'm of half a mind to only send the wizards to Earth after all. The rest of us need move in but a few moments later when humanity is subdued. We can then establish a new world around the rich resources of Earth! All races will live in harmony with each other, each in their rightful social standing, with humans at the bottom of course. They are a weak minded species with no special abilities. How this race of beings has managed to hold Earth for so long without being invaded before today is beyond me! They've got no magic for goodness sakes! I'm heading on a quick reconnaissance before notifying the war effort.\" \n\nThis was an entry in the high commander druid's military log written moments before he stepped through the recently enchanted Earth gate and emerged, or rather submerged, 3,000 feet beneath the surface of the Atlantic ocean. He was instantly crushed by the ensuing pressure and had no time to consider what a mistake he had made in not sending the wizards through first.", "Dear Diary.\n\nDamn! What else can I say? I signed up to protect not massacre. These bastards don't even understand what is going on before they are torn to shreds. The Fey. Dumbasses They decided our \"non-magical realm\" was ripe for the taking. The arrogance of centuries of technological stagnation caught up with them i guess.\n\n its my job to kill them now. I haven't been able to eat for quite a while. I think i am off meat forever.... or at least indefinitely. some got in my mouth. its all over me and it never washes off. I don't think i will feel clean again. Day one was atrocious. day two was sickening and now it is day 26 and i just don't see the sense in it. maybe they are hoping we will run out of ammunition? The smell of carnage floats from the local Door sometimes. its why i dont eat.\n\nThis doesn't feel like winning. this doesn't feel like fighting at all. It isn't but by now i am sure whoever is left over there wants to kill us all. revenge? How do they justify this.\n\nTomorrow i hive \"mop up\" again. last time it was 4 hours of walking the fields stopping the screaming. I hope it stops. havent slept.", "The war between realms has been officially decided as lasting 38 standard Earth hours. \n\nHuman casualties were 18 killed, 11 wounded, 25 missing in action.\n\nDelvin casualties, from the official UN estimate, are considered to be roughly 60,000.\n\nNot a single swordsman, archer, mage, or knight who passed through the Iron Gates survived to tell his tale. \n\nThey arrived in ranked formations, numbering exactly 97 men wide in deep columns that seemed to stretch infinitely into the desert. To the Bedouins who initially encountered them, they were exactly that: an infinite army of the past come to conquer the modern world in the name of God. Luckily for the more skeptical residents of the deserts, some brave soul or another felt fit to notify local army and NATO divisions stationed in the area. \n\nAerial surveillance was quick to substantiate this claim, and a force of 25 soldiers, accompanied by professional diplomats and negotiators, was quick to reach their position. \n\nThis advance diplomatic force, unequipped and unprepared to handle sustained fighting, was quickly attacked and routed by mages of the Kh’al-Tum clan. \n\nThey suffered 10 deaths, 9 wounded, the heaviest human casualties of the war. \n\nThe retreating forces quickly radioed in for close air support. Four light attack jets were scrambled to slow down the advancing army until aircraft could be found, fueled, and readied for action. \n\nOf course the concept of aircraft was utterly foreign to the proud and newly victorious Delvin army. Rather than seeking cover, the noble knights of the vanguard chose instead to hurl insults like flak at the approaching aircraft. Out of the 500 illustrious horsemen that formed the Ickathian Brotherhood, 14 survived the initial strafing. The main columns fared no better, with men, dwarves, and elves unwisely diving behind their shields and chain armor as a source of protection from the hot lead rain. Arch-mage Balgan, in an attempt to defeat what he and his advisors considered the human’s primary defenses, led a heroic effort to destroy the encroaching demons. \n\nThrough valiant sacrifice, he and his followers were able to damage 3 of the 4 fighters, killing two pilots and forcing another to eject. The last pilot, responding to the destruction of his comrades and his quick depleting fuel, beat a hasty retreat back to his base. Once again, victory was at hand. The forces rallied and resumed their march out of the desert, going towards, though they did not realize it, the heavily militarized Gaza Strip. \n\nMilitary strategists credit the armies of Delvin with great bravery in the face of the artillery barrage and subsequent high altitude bombardment that effected the ruin of their grand army. Satellite surveillance photos show the maintenance of proper battle lines even as the last soldiers fell. Frequently, it seemed, when the company commanders were ripped to shreds by anti-personnel mortar rounds, artillery fire, and aerial bombardment, the troops under their command resorted to their training in a way that rivaled even the Romans. They died in orderly rows, shields in front, swords and axes drawn. \n\nAs the smoke cleared, a force of light reconnaissance vehicles and armored personnel carriers moved into the impacted desert. By loudspeaker, the head negotiator demanded the surrender of the surviving forces. The troops were informed that their situation was beyond hopeless, that a thousand trained eyes were focused on their position, that the devastating barrage of the previous night could be repeated ad infinitum. \n\nThe negotiator’s words were met by a singular shout. The words, being a Dwarvish insult to the man’s mother, sister, father, and manhood, were lost on the human forces. The tone was not.\n\nThe soldiers shrugged and withdrew to a minimum safe distance. The batteries reopened fire. Bored soldiers gambled and laughed as the rockets boomed into the distance. The sky tinted orange with the color of synthetic dragonfire.", "The high council never anticipated this, the unified army was sent away to conquer what was thought of as a poor peasantry land. Nothing have returned except tales of great suffering for their kinsmen. 80,000 elves, dwarves, humans, and beastman were sent with hopes of plundering the what little wealth the other side holds.\n\nNow senator Demetrius, speaker of the elves is in a predicament, all of the forces were lost, and his efforts to secure a position for himself in the land on the other side of the portal faded. Not only did the humans want his head on a plate, but now strange silver swords have flew through the portal, and the cities around the area have been burned away by strange magic that does nothing but kill...\n\n\n3 Months later...\n\nThe foreign army now stands outside the gates of Dunsaine, the capital of the Humans. Strange iron chariots that spew fire and shatter walls have been all but undefeated by the arcane of the academy. Their soldier holds sticks that blew lightning that can kill all but the most armored soldier.\n\nThe garrison surrenders and the royal palace now fly a blue flag with a map on it, a grave insult to the efforts of Demetrius. Efforts to slow down the invasion have failed as the human cities fell, leaving an open path into the elven home lands. Demetrius speculate that various factions are trying to negotiate a peace, but that isn't his greatest concern. A rumor of a coup is flying, with the enemy at hand his attention can't be divided...", "*Third Morn of February, Year of Our Lord Twenty-Hundred and Thirteen*\n\n*Jerusalem*\n\n\nThe order is given. The news of it races through the ranks, filling every man whom hears it with that tightness of breath and chest and fist which only righteous fervour can bring. The Ninth crusade is called, and every man on every continent of God’s united Earth rushes to join it. \n\nI admit, I had begun to doubt. Not in Him - for He of course is perfection and His plan also – but in the alchemists; those wizened, twisted sinners, their hearts full of low cunning and black magic. To tell truth, I doubted the wisdom behind the Realm’s tolerance of their continued existence, as I know did many. What could those decrepit old men, with their potions and parlour tricks, give us which the Lord himself would not in due time see fit to bestow upon the faithful? But the Lord works in mysterious ways; even, it seems, through the hands of heretics. \n\nFor it is undoubtedly His will which those wicked hands have wrought. Another world! Waiting, unseeable but by Him, betwixt the very fabric of reality itself; and now pierced by us. Had the message not borne the sigil of the High King, I would not have believed the words before me. But they are good and they are true. The Black Order in Geneva have opened a window to another world, and Benedict in Rome has laid out that call which all faithful men must answer.\n\nAnd answer they shall. The birds have flown to all corners of the world, and every able soldier from New England to The Horn to Van Diemen’s Land will come. There is true jubilation tonight, as if a merry madness has gripped the entire city. People drink and dance and weep openly in the streets, praising His holy name, and it is not difficult to understand why. For or so long we have waited, desolate of direction and devoid of purpose. Two score years of doubt, of disillusion, fragmentation and infighting, as the Christian peoples of the world wondered “What now?” We had spread to every corner of the globe, put to the stake every non-believer and rooted out heresy in all its forms. When the last of the Maori savages lay slain, the last pockets of resistance burned away, we had thought our mission complete; and so, perhaps greedily, we had awaited salvation. But salvation did not come – despite our triumphs, despite our faith, despite our forging of a united Christian world. How had we failed, we cried. What more did the Lord desire, what more could he ask of us? \n\nAnd now we know. \n\n-----------------------------------\n\n*Fifteenth Night of October, Year of Our Lord Twenty-Hundred and Thirteen* \n\n*Constantinople*\n\n\nOur company joined that of the Tenochtitlan Brethren this morning. A savage people, only a few generations United, but their dedication to Him is unquestionable, if a little… sanguine. I had believed there little truth to the rumours of their habit of nailing heretics to the cross in honour of Our Lord’s perfect Sacrifice; but it seems I was mistaken. Regardless it was an enlightening, if unconventional, display of faith to witness, and one which the Brethren, purportedly, look to carry into the New World; as the heretics of our own Earth are, blessedly, in short supply. \n\nThe New World. The thought of it fills my every waking hour and echoes across my dreams. I can feel God’s guiding hand on my shoulder as I march towards the righteous host massing at its door. Another world, another Earth, full of heretics which He would have us purge; and purge them we shall. Captain Frederick today raised the question if they shall all be heretics, if the Lord is known of there or if they all stumble in darkness. I admit, we do not know – anything is possible. But regardless, I assured him, be there innocents among them, we will purge them all like gold in the fire. God will know His own. \n\n-----------------------------------\n*Second Night of April, Year of Our Lord Twenty-Hundred and Fourteen* \n\n*Geneva*\n\n\n\nIt is done. The last regiments of pike from Jakarta arrived this morning, and the Order of the Antarctic this afternoon - the latter almost twice the height of a normal man, armoured in insulating plate as they were. The host is gathered, almost a billion strong, of lance and sword and horses. I am too excited to sleep. Tomorrow, we bring the Unity of the Lord to the New World.\n\n-----------------------------------\n\n*Fourth Night of April, Year of Our Lord Twenty-Hundred and Fourteen* \n\n**Hell**\n\n\nLord protect me. I do not know if anyone will ever find this, but please, tell the host to turn back. We did not understand this world, the magicks its peoples wield. We came to conquer, but we are undone. Lord save us. It seemed so easy. The first town was defenceless, no spears nor clubs nor even the meanest armour, though it hummed with the movement of twisted machines. The second was the same, its people running in panic at our advance, cattle to the slaughter. \n\nBut then came the third. We had barely got within a bow’s length of the first house when the air cracked as if with thunder, short sharp bursts, and suddenly my companions fell dying around me, holes appearing as if by witchcraft in their armour and their lifeblood draining from them. I do not know how it is possible; I have seen the chestplates of these men deflect swings of a broadsword, but they punctured now like wet paper against this unseen force. And this was only the beginning. \n\nFrom over the plains, rolling fortresses set upon us, like iron carriages but drawn by no horses I could perceive. From them came deafening booms, and I could only watch in horror as entire battalions simply disintegrated in blasts of dust and fire. We stormed them, losing a hundred men for every one that survived, but our charge was for nought, for our steel could not hurt them, our arrows did not pierce, and even the rocks that our engines hurled broke hopelessly upon their sides. It was madness; thousands slaughtered, maybe millions, a discord mess of voices calling in contradiction to advance, assist or retreat. But it was too late. The magick of these Other Worldmen had turned the very sky against us, and now there was nowhere we could run, nowhere we could hide. High whistles cut the air, and seemingly from nothingness explosions tore the very ground asunder. We ran. All of us, all brave men of Christ, we all turned tail and fled, our mission all but forgotten in the face of such unimaginable slaughter.\n\nI write this from a small cave in which I shelter. I can see them passing, these men, the ones who hunt me; clad not in armour but in misshapen robes of mottled green, in each of their hands the twisted artefacts that I believe tore holes in the bodies of my comrades. I pray to God to protect me from them, but I do not know if my prayers reach Him. We were wrong. We were so wrong. We came believing that He was with us. But we came from a world of God.\n\nAnd this is a world of Satan.\n" ]

[ 3, 5, 6, 13, 15, 20, 22, 61 ]

[ "1398938051", "1398941534", "1398958244", "1398922530", "1398908790", "1398937993", "1398907117", "1398932933" ]

[ "I had this idea while writing a post apocalyptic story, and wanted to volunteer the first page or two:\n================================\nI had to be strong. Strong for my son, and strong for my wife. But most of all, strong for the tribe, because if any of us faltered it would mean our end. It was hard though. There in front of me was my Fathers corpse, and I had to be expected to stay strong and tall in front of the stares of others, others who had known loss beyond imagining.\n\nI had never felt this sense before. Never comprehended what it must have felt like to have your whole world ripped away in an instant. My mother had died in childbirth, before we'd saved Sahmad, our doctor. So my Father had been the only proper family I'd ever known. That said, I still had my friends, they themselves the sons of my Fathers friends, his brothers in arms. So there were 13 of us here today. 3 generations, and my wife. Mourning under the barbarian sun. We were outside my uncles foundry, as it had been my father's last testament to give himself to the tribe.\n\n\"Goodbye Father,\" I nodded at my uncle, himself an old and wizened man, but muscular from working the forge.\n\n\"Goodbye Darius.\"\n\nThe coffin slid into the fire, burning brighter even than the desert surrounding the vineyard. I placed my father's old hat on my head to shield my face from the heat, but turned skyward, and allowed the sun to hasten the evaporation of my tears.\n\nMy son was only 15, the same age I'd been when my father first took me on a hunting trip. He too had been crying, but stopped when I placed my hand on his shoulder.\n\n\"The universe cares not for the grievances of men my son. Be strong with me.\"\n\nI squeezed his shoulder in an effort to comfort him, before addressing my wife, who was with child.\n\n\"I am taking him out into the wild next I leave.\"\n\nHer eyes flared open. She had loved my father almost as much as I , and was unprepared for this revelation.\n\n\"He is becoming a man. And I know the others are doing the same.\"\n\nMy cousin, and my two best friends nodded their ascent, we had been blessed with sons of the same age, and they had grown up as we had, brothers in all but blood.\n\n\"I know you aren't a pious man Alexander, but-\" She faltered, un able to choke out the words she had clearly meditated on.\n\n\"What is it?\" I asked.\n\n\"Do you not think that it is best to wait for a while before you leave... To pay respect to his memory.\"\n\nI smiled, despite my grief, and it evolved into a fit of laughter. My sadness forgotten for the moment, I corrected my wife's mistake.\n\n\"My father believed in duty above all else. He wished for his corpse to be used as fuel for Christ's sake, I cannot be expected to mope around and grieve in wake of such a great man. And besides, we need food.\"\n\nI turned, as no further explanation was needed, but heard an explosion from elsewhere in the vineyard, followed by the distinct crackling of flames. The smell that met my nostrils was that of burning grapes, our only constant source of food since bandits had attacked a few years ago.\n\nBastards.\n", "I’m not a religious man, nor was my dearly departed friend over there. Yet, we’re both in church today. I’m sitting down here on these benches, but he’s up on the stage. A woman is sitting right next to me, sobbing her heart out, and I’m beginning to think that my friend is the one with the lucky break. He’s up there, just lying down. He can’t hear anything; he doesn’t have to deal with all these grieving, annoying people. I do feel bad he’s dead, but this funeral is seriously wrong. His mother insisted on an open casket in a church with a full christen funeral. She was always so concerned with being upright in the eyes of her lord and savior, but my buddy over there could have cared less.\n\nThe preacher is up, delivering a sermon or whatever you would call it, and I’m just trying to not fall asleep. Unfortunately for me, every few seconds the woman next to me lets out the biggest sob, constantly startling me back awake. This sermon couldn’t get more boring, and it really has nothing to do with my friend. It’s some idealized version of him his mother wanted everyone to hear. If my friend had any say, we’d all be partying right now and getting drunk, maybe blowing something up as a way to send him off.\n\nMy tolerance for this funeral is just about to burst, but then something marvelous happens. The preacher stops dead in his speech, his mouth still forming the last few words but no sound coming out. My friend has just walked through the door, although looking quite somber looking. The man seems to realize everyone is staring at him, and after a couple seconds he seems to realize why. \n\n“Sorry everyone,” he says. “I didn’t mean to cause a startle.” \n\nHe spoke with a British accent, very much unlike the Boston accent my friend spoke with.\n\n“I’m not Jeff. I’m Bob, his brother.”\n\nAlternating waves of shock and silence came out of those in attendance. Jeff was an only child. This was the first anyone had ever heard about a brother, let alone one that looked exactly like him.\n\nBob sat down and took a seat. Jeff’s mom had a petrified look on her face. No longer was she the perfect model of grief, but instead a sweating insecure old lady. The preacher was just about to continue when Jeff’s mom almost looked as if she’d have a heart attack. A little scream escaped her lips as yet another person walked through the double doors in the back. This time the crowd was less shocked, but a general wave of silence still watched over them.\n\nThe new Jeff look-alike realized rather quickly why people were having the same reaction, and Bob shot him a sympathizing look.\n\n“Sup, guys. I’m Yao, Jeff’s brother.”\n\nNow whispers and gossip fill the air as Yao took his seat. I started to get the feeling something was off. And surely enough, right before the first word could leave the preacher’s mouth, yet another Jeff look-alike walked in. This time the room was abuzz with noise, everyone trying to figure out what was going on.\n\n“Hi everyone,” he said nervously. He tucked his left hand behind his back and scratched the back of his head with his right. “So… I’m not Jeff.” He looked around at all the faces, clearly surprised at this inexplicable reaction from the audience. They were all staring at him, eating him up as if he was the newest celebrity. It was clear when his eyes fell upon Bob and Yao, because he kicked his shoe into the ground and cussed a little under his breath.\n\n“Uh, well,” he stumbled. “I’m Alejandro.” He blurted that last bit out really fast, and then sat down even faster.\n\nThe preacher was considering on continuing the sermon, but he seemed to look up from his written speech towards the back doors, wondering if yet another person would come through them. Jeff’s mom seemed to be on the verge of tears, but not ones of grief. Her eyes darted back and forth, from one brother to the next, and then they seemed to settle on a fire exit near her. Since Alejandro had come in, the crowd refused to be silent. It was mostly whispers now, as they were waiting for the preacher to continue, but all the tears in people’s eyes were clearly gone. It was almost as if people had forgotten it was a funeral, and in all honesty, I was about to start laughing from the absolute insanity of it all.\n\nThe preacher went to continue, but Jeff’s mom decided to make a speech first. Honestly, I should have seen it coming. This was way to insane. Jeff had mentioned a few weeks ago that he found out something that was mind blowing and life changing. Apparently he had found these identical brothers, and it looked as if he’d contacted each one, but never let them know about the others.\n\nWell, if the funeral had nearly killed me earlier, it was all worth it. Just as Jeff’s mom got to saying something about how devout he was as a Christian, he sprung up out of his coffin. This got the most frightened yell from his mother, who tripped off the stage. The crowd was a gasp and I started laughing. Jeff walked up to the pulpit.\n\n“Hi everyone. Thanks for coming to my funeral. Those of you who knew me well would know that I’d want my funeral to be some kind of party, so I thought I’d give an example of what I’d like to happen. Now, I recently discovered that I had three identical brothers, all of whom were adopted out at birth. I apparently was the only one that was kept, and I’m here today with them, wanting to know exactly what was going through my mother’s mind when she made such a decision.”\n\nWell, Jeff was obviously pissed at his mom, and I don’t think he could have enjoyed his revenge anymore than he already was. The biggest smile was on his face as all of his mother’s friends got to see what a fraud she was. She was not as devout as she would have them believe. I decided that it would probably be best to leave, as this was probably going to turn into a nasty fight, so I stood up and walked out of the double doors into the marvelous sunlight. In retrospect, I really should have known something wasn’t right. Death from a heart attack while sitting on a toilet was much to comedical; if it had been anyone else, perhaps it would have been true, but in Jeff’s case, it was just the scenario he would have cooked up.\n\n-121", "There once was a funeral that was interrupted, \n\nThe corpse had become corrupted,\n\nFrom the casket came a knock,\n\nThat would even frighten Spock, \n\nAnd from the ground a zombie erupted." ]

[ 1, 1, 1 ]

[ "1398955996", "1398957799", "1398973970" ]

[ "Because women aren't prizes one gets to take home after knocking down the cups at a carnival. ", "Richard's breathing returns to normal as he coughs, spits up a small amount of blood, opens his eyes, and rolls over. Triumphantly standing over him with clenched fist, I ask if he's had enough. Rubbing his jaw where my punch had made contact, he glares daggers at me. I give him a look that says *try it again, motherfucker*. He breaks his gaze and turns away. My face is flush with blood and pride. When I moved here, Richard was the first and most vocal to ostracize me. It started with him tying my shoelaces to my chair and eventually moved to towel whipping me in the locker room. \n\nAfter middle school it got worse. He would constantly pick on me for being smaller in stature and enjoying science. After he stole my backpack in the parking lot, I had had enough and stood up for myself. That was a bad decision. I told my parents I got jumped on the way home. Mom cried and cried and hugged me and called me her baby. Dad handed me a frozen bag of peas and made a few calls. Two weeks later I was in a gym with Antonio, a retired local legend, learning to box and lift weights. By junior year I was a completely different person. Even though I was getting a 4.0 while being enrolled primarily in AP classes, the only thing people could talk about was my new physic. \n\nTara was a band geek and an honor roll student. On paper, she should have been bullied just as much as me. In reality, she had the looks to avoid social murder. Actually, she was one of the more popular girls at school. Kids who usually couldn't be bothered to attend a concert went simply to see her all dressed up and go out afterwards. Always the center of attention and the life of the party, we hardly ever interacted save on AP English when I loaned her my pencil. At least, until I changed. Suddenly, she always sat next to me and invited me to lunch with her friends. The buzz around school was that we were an item. I didn't really care. Tara was amazing to talk to and look at; I was amazed she even gave me the time of day. For a few glorious weeks, my life was perfect. \n\nBut, nothing gold can stay. With my rise to popularity, Richard felt his standing dissipate. While he could no longer openly taunt or bully me, it didn't stop him from hating everything about me. Then one day, he could no longer contain himself.\n\n\"Yeah, if I were married to a loser like Jack's dad, I'd probably bang the mayor too!\" My parents' affair had recently become public knowledge and Richard decided now was the best time to cash in. At home, thing were tense. Dad stayed in a hotel and mom sobbed pretty much all the time. The whole thing had been an ordeal. Mom swore nothing happened, but the evidence suggested otherwise and dad needed time to figure things out. In the middle of it all was me, trying to figure it all out. \n\n\"Say that to my face.\" I said calmly, turning around to face him. \n\n\"I said: Your. Mom. Is. A. Whore.\" A smug grin spread over his face. My blood boils.\n\n\"Maybe. But at least she doesn't have a pig faced, snot nosed, shit for brains imbecile for a son.\" \n\nThat sets him off. I see him begin to throw a haymaker my way. I dodge it easily and catch him with a right cross. It's not my full power because I'd rather not break my hand on his face, but it still makes contact. His body goes rigid and he falls flat on his back. The fight is over before it begins. He glares at me. I glare back. A hand grabs my arm and spins me around. It's Tara. She is furious.\n\n\"Is this how you solve your problems? With violence?\" Her face is a mixture of contempt and disappointment. For the first time since Richard opened his mouth, I feel embarrassed.\n\n\"No...\" I start.\n\n\"Well, obviously it is.\" She is relentless now. Righteous anger with my indiscretion seeps out of her pores.\n\n\"Please, let me explain...\" She backs away from me.\n\n\"Explain it to a counselor. I'm out.\" She storms off to her calculus class. Behind me, I can feel Richard's sneer. He's beginning to get to his feet.\n\n\"One word. Just one fucking word and you'll be eating your meals through straws, you hear me?\"\n\n\"Chump.\"\n\nFor the first time, Richard and I agree on something.", "I swung the door open, and with the large thud of the door came an overwhelming sense of relief. I found her.\n\n\"Oh thank G-d you're here,\" she said. \"You're my savior!\" \n\n\"You're safe now,\" I replied. I tried to sound as comforting and warm as possible. She just went through hell, the first thing she should see coming out of her hellhole is a warm face, instead of the serious, desensitized faces of homicide, who've seen this too many times to put up a kind face.\n\n\"I...I don't know how to thank you enough\" she said. She sounded helpless, and I almost felt guilty for it. But it wasn't that surprising. Victims usually come out of their experiences carrying heavy emotions, despite the absence of a reason.\n\n\"You don't have to do anything, sweety,\" I told her. I was trying now, going a little out of my comfort zone by touching her face. \"Just go home and rest. Time will heal this, I promise.\"\n\nI've had to go through enough myself to know the healing effects of time. It took me two years to get over my father's hatred of me, but eventually it faded. After two years of debilitating depression and loneliness. I couldn't leave her alone now...\"Let me take you home. Please.\" She agreed immediately.\n\nAfter an understandably silent car ride I arrived at her house. A nice suburban home that she apparently owned herself. I thought it odd but gave no further thought to it. I walked her to her door.\n\n\"Now you rest for a while, okay? You don't need to go to work or anything. I'd probably also recommend a therapist,\" I said. She looked at me in the eyes for a while. Almost a little too long. Again, I made no thought of it and walked away. \n\nBut before I could fully turn around she spun me by the arm and planted a big kiss right on my lips.\n\n\"What the hell are you doing?!\" I yelled. I didn't mean to, but come on it was instinctual. She immediately went into panic mode.\n\n\"I...I don't know! You were so nice to me, and you cared about me, and you even offered to drive me home! I thought you wanted this!\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"Wait, what?! No, I'm gay!\"", "\"Hang on baby! Its gonna be a Bumpy ride!\" \n\nEric Steel pressed down hard on the accelarator. The monster truck burst through the walls of the warehouse where the nuclear weapons were being sold off. Dozens of terrorists were crushed to death, as well as shot to bits by the M16 Steel was firing out the window of his truck. \n\nFinally, the room was empty, except for two other people. Stacey Ironthighs, supermodel turned FBI informant, was being held hostage by terrorist leader, Don Blackwell. \n\n\"Its over blackwell!\" Yelled Steel, reving the engines of his monster truck. \n\n\"No Mr.Steel! Leave down your gun and step out of truck! Or the girl dies!\"\n\nStacy whimpered as Eric placed his gun on the seat and slowly stepped out of the monster truck. Don Blackwell pointed the gun at him.\n\n\"The difference between us Mr.Steel.\" He sneered, \"Is I know how this world works. Necessary Evil is inevitable, and I am merely making my mark on the planet. But you never got the point of that did you?\"\n\n\"No blackwell.\" Steel retorted, \"But I do have a point for you!\"\n\nSteel wiped a knife out from his sleeve and tossed it through the air, sticking directly into blackwells forehead. He gasped, wide eyed before collapsing backwards to the ground. \n\nEric turned to Stacey \"Now how about you and I get to the point, eh baby?\" He wise cracked, smoothly.\n\n\"Uh...you O.K?\"\n\nStacey was rocking back and forth on the ground, covered in blood, crying uncontrollable. Eric feebly attempted to console her before she screamed, knocking his hands away, then rolling in the fetul position sobbing and laughing manically.\n\nWhen the police arrived, Stacey was taken to hosptial before being transferred to a home for the mentally ill, being treated with manic depression and post truamatic stress disorder.\n\nShe was there for the rest of her life... ", "The dragon slithered around the lake of molten gold admiring the shine of the sun and the occasional splash as bubbles rose to the surface. \n\nHidden behind the rock, I prepared myself for the fight. The heat and the fear forced me to give up the heavy metal platemail as the sweat dripped from my skin in torrents. I inspected my blade checking it's edge. The hilt was silver, a gift from my father who swore to protect his family with it. I will continue his oath and protect my family.\n\nThe dragon has its gold, I'll keep my silver.\n\nI crouched, waiting for my chance. The beast was huge, its tail seemed to sense the slightest change in the wind. Slowly, I crept from hiding trying to stay behind the monster. I tiptoed in between the bones of those who fell before. They fought for the dragons gold, I fight for my family. \n\n\"SNAP\"\n\nThe dragon turned faster than I could have expected possible. My hand shot up punching the leathery face while my blade was on the ground lying useless in the dirt. The dragon snapped at my arm clearly unperturbed by my first blow. I ducked and rolled under the dragon's underbelly and stuck my dagger into its gut.\nThe sound was terrible. A screeching lizard lunged towards me tying itself into a knot. The jaws wrapped around my dagger snapping the handle, the blade remained under the scales. \n\nI used this time to dart to my silver on the ground ready for the dragon's advance. In an instant it was over. My blade stuck into the dragon's neck as it collapsed into its golden pool.\n\nI lost my father's blade but we won't need it anymore. My blood ran from my body but I felt content. My family is safe now. My sons can grow stronger and they can look after their sisters and wives. Just like how my husband looked after me before the dragon came.\n\n", "Echol led his people through the spiral tower, from floor to floor, cutting down The Monarchy’s soldiers, the echoes of freedom finally ringing through the oppression that had held his people so long. As they ascended from floor to floor, the darkened, slit windows revealed the city below, in shambles as it devoured itself. The dark suited soldiers were being trampled under the weight of the citizenry and all of their riot suppression tools were being commandeered and used against them. Fires blazed against the rickety skeletons of once proud government buildings as they burned holes into the concrete below.\n\nAll his rage, all of his impetus behind fighting had started with that one moment fifteen years ago when they took Genira. With one fluid movement, his wife had disappeared from his grasp and into a transport truck bound for the labor camps. The door had closed on her, and had closed on their life together. Echol could only fathom revenge.\n\nNow, he had taken his revenge and turned it into justice for his people. He had delivered them victory over their alien oppressors, had brought them to the gates of the Monarchy’s holds and torn them down. All Echol had to do now was confront the faceless one- The masked ruler. The holder of all economic and political power- the singular dictator that clutched Echol’s world and choked out its joy stood watching his rebellion at the top of this citadel. Soon Echol would feel the ruler collapse under his grasp. Pushing through the mechanized guards in the last chamber and smashing their machine bodies against the walls and the ground, Echol triumphantly strolled through the doors of the ruler’s perch. Standing in front of the long tinted triangular window, watching missiles darting up from the planet surface to knock down incoming troop transports, the long black cape of the faceless one flowed. The looming figure turned, the face still crowded by shadows as Echol lifted his gun.\n\n“I have waited a very long time for this day,” he told the faceless one. “You took away all that I had, destroyed everything I loved and sacrificed it all to a power I loathe. You have stripped my people of their dignity, their families and their love. All that lives in us now is hatred and vengeance. Today, with your death, that will all be over.\n\n“But will it ever really end, Echol,” said a woman’s voice- one Echol recognized. As the faceless one stepped out of the shadows, Echol saw the face that he had always longed to see again.\n\nThere stood Genira, her black hair straight and sleek, flowing into the long black capes that hid her slender body. She stood atop the circular pedestal that presented the faceless one during addresses to the public and looked down on her former husband as the pistol wavered in his hand. “Will the violence…the bloodshed, will it ever stop? Do your people…do our people even understand how?” she asked him. He felt his hand quaking as he watched her, tears streaming from his eyes.\n\n“What are you waiting for?!” yelled one of his comrades. “Kill her!” But Echol couldn’t. He felt the pistol drop from his hands as his comrades rushed forward, pummelling her with ionized bolts, her body sizzling and crackling as she shrieked and cried out. That was the last he heard of his lover, and the last of The Monarchy. As he collapsed onto his knees and sobbed among the rushing forward, victorious crowd of rebels, cheers and joy surrounded him.\n\nHis people were free.\n", "\"Wait, you won what?\"\n\n\"A sex robot, Jenny. I won a goddamn sex robot,\" said Jerry.\n\nShe smiled mischievously. \"How did that happen?\"\n\n\"I entered a contest at the home-robotics website and a month later they called me. Turns out I actually entered a contest at homo-robotics. I was hoping to get a gutter cleaner. Instead I got a robot that looks like a 16 year old girl. Classy, eh?\"\n\nShe laughed. \"So where is it?\"\n\n\"No where. I told them to keep it. They wouldn't trade anything and they're looking into giving me the cash equivalent. After taxes its not a lot of money. Not even enough for a proper gutter cleaning robot.\"\n\n\"Why don't you sell her?\"\n\n\"You honestly want me to have them ship a barely legal sexbot to my home and then put it up on craigslist. Do you have any idea the kinds of people who would be coming over to see it. I can't imagine haggling with them.\"\n\nJenny smiled, \"You could say, 'Look at this realistic plastic vagina' its brand new! She's a virgin! I won't take under $10,000. Look at all the little outfits she comes with.\"\n\nJerry raised an eyebrow, \"Oh I never thought about that. They must come with all sorts of pervy outfits. Cheerleader, secretary, etc.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm proud of you. A lot of guys would have just kept it and hid in their closet as their secret shame.\" She looked down at her watch, \"Well I gotta run.\"\n\nJerry hugged her goodbye and showed her the door. A moment later he was on the phone, \"So.. can you ship her in discreet packaging? Does she come with a cheerleader outfit? Pom-poms as well? No?\"\n\nJerry paused for a moment, said, \"Fine, just keep her and send me the goddamn cash,\" and angrily hung up the phone.", "I opened the door after slaying the mighty ogre. My body covered in sweat and blood, slightly sizzling cause of the natural toxin of an ogre. There I shined my sword against the light of the dusty window.\n\nThere she was, in her blue elegant dress. Princess Maya, daughter of King Archania. Her golden hair danced as she looked back and saw my once shining armor, fall down in to dusty nothing. Her smile was accompanied by small drops of water coming out of her starry eyes. She rushed and tried to hug me, but I must refuse, I wouldn't want any dirt on her beautiful dress.\n\nShe laughed and hugged me anyways. Her intoxicating perfume that was dashed across her neck entered my nostrils and gave me a relaxing comfort. My lips touched her neck, slowly, I worked my way to her cheeks. Her natural beauty had no dashes of make-up. The castle's dark brick walls only complimented her gorgeous face. \n\nSlowly, a reward of a kiss from this maiden will suffice and would be greater that a hundred bags of gold combined. I felt like I was floating, million angels sang across the room as my lips were about to touch hers. But then she smiled and pulled back.\n\n*\"You're such a great friend\"*\n\n*FUCK!*", "I've been looking for this girl for five years now.\n\n Name: Jamie Goff\n Gender: Female\n DOB: August 25th, 1985\n Age: 24\n\nAnd I finally found her.\n\n Eye Color: Brown\n Hair Color: Dark Brown\n Ethnicity: African American\n\nI'd like to say it was right under my nose.\n\n Height: 5'10\"\n Weight: 130 lbs.\n\nI'd like to say I'm happy.\n\n Last Seen: June 5th, 2009\n\nI guess I'm happy I kept searching. I guess I'm happy I finally have closure. I guess I'm happy about her family getting her body back.\n\nI'm not happy. But I didn't take this job expecting happiness." ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 9, 20 ]

[ "1399053563", "1399152138", "1399073330", "1399056263", "1399056962", "1399057405", "1399061720", "1399049476", "1399049398" ]

[ "I walked into his room. We had all tried to convince him that everything would be fine, but the two letters on the desk indicated that he didn’t believe us. Unfortunately, he was right to doubt us. He had a 50/50 chance of coming out of the surgery alive, and it would be hours until we found out whether he was still alive. If he was, then my younger brother would be free of his cancer and could look forward to things such as college and getting a job. I couldn’t bring myself to think of the other possibility.\n\nOne letter was labeled, in my brother’s sloppy handwriting, *If I live*. The other, *If I die*. I didn’t open them, nor did I tell anyone else about them for the next few hours. Instead, I took them with me to the hospital, where I met up with our family. Mom, dad, my brother’s girlfriend, and I all sat there, waiting for the results. I sat in silence as the doctor came out to speak with my parents. I couldn’t tell whether the news was bad or good. Neither my parents nor the doctor’s body movements or expressions betrayed my brother’s condition.\n\n**If I Live**\n\n*To Whom It May Concern:*\n\nMy first instinct was to tell you to discard this letter. But then I realized, right now, that I may never have the strength to tell you this afterwards. Mom and Dad, I love you very much. I am so glad to be your son. Yes, being only 17 and having cancer is such a cruel and unfair punishment; yet, I came through it and now I can hopefully go on to live a full life. Make no mistake though; I am still terrified that the cancer may come back, even after the surgery. I may even deny it later in life, but know that I will always be fearful of it coming back, taking my life away so quickly. Now this may seem bad, but I assure you it is not. I have been blessed with the gift of appreciating every moment I live and every person I meet. The fear of it all being taken away forces me to live in such a way; otherwise, I don’t think I would be able to go on.\n\nBrother, you have often been a shitty older brother. Teasing me, picking on me, and countless other things. But, in those times that it counts, you have always been there for me, such as when I was being bullied at school or when I came down with cancer. I know we don’t like to say it to each other, but as I almost just died, fuck that. I love you bro!\n\nJane, I am so glad that you’re my girlfriend. I found the one in a million girl. I love you so much. In fact, even though my parents are going to be pissed when this part of the letter is read, I have something to ask you. I know we’re young, but when you’ve been through what I’ve been through, there seems to be no logic in waiting to live life. So, assuming my brother actually brought the stuff from my room like I asked, I have an important question for you. Will you marry me?\n\n**If I Die**\n\n*To my Parents:*\n\nI’m sorry to you all that I never had the strength to say this while I was alive. I realize now that there are so many things I should have said and done for you guys, but I will never be able to do now. Mom and Dad, I loved you very much. I am so glad to have been your son. Getting cancer at 17 is unfair and downright cruel, but it is no one’s fault. It is just the cards I was dealt in life. Please don’t live in grief or anger because of me. Instead, I hope you will find the same peace as I did, appreciating the small amount of time that we did get to have together.\n\n*To my Brother:*\n\nI want to say you were a bad brother for all the things you did, like pick on me and tease me. In the end, though, I can’t. You were one of the best brother’s a guy could have. In times of trouble, you were always there, always helping. And even now, in the final struggle of my life, you have been such a caring guy. I loved you a lot. \n\nThere is something in my bag of stuff I asked you to bring. You’ll know it when you see it. Please get rid of it, and let no else know what it is. I feel kind of foolish for leaving it in there now, but I suppose its hard for the dead to suffer embarrassment.\n\n*To Jane:*\n\nThank you for sticking with me through this ordeal. I know we were young, but you meant a lot to me. I loved you very much, and I had looked forward to going off to college together as well. I think my biggest regret will have been never knowing what might have been between us. I hope you find the best of things in life and live a long, healthy one at that. Forget about me and move on with someone else, someone who can love you better than I ever did, so that you can find all the happiness that you truly deserve.\n\n-123", "*If I Die*\n\nFuck you. \n\n*If I Live*\n\nFuck you. ", "If I Die\n\nMom, if you're reading this, I'm probably dead. If I'd survived the operation, you wouldn't be reading this. You never come into my room. Not even to clean. So I know that I'm dead. Please don't be sad. There was no way to help it. The doctors treated my heart as soon as they could, and even with a transplant, the chances were that I would die eventually. I'm in a better place now. My will is enclosed, and so are some pictures I kept that I really liked. Please, Mom. Try to move on. I don't want you in pain.\n\n-David\n\n\n\nIf I Live - Mom, don't open, just burn.\n\nIf I'm reading this, then the doctor's saved me. Take the poison again. Death is the only escape left.", "As Collin was wheeled out to surgery he pressed two folded pieces of folded cardboard paper into the hands of his favorite nurse.\n\n**If I liv** No one getz my toy bo^x and mommy get me icream DaDDy have to smile more Docter haz to stop hurting me\n\n\n**if I dy** All my toys go to DaDDy", "**If I die..**\n\nLisa. I sat down to write this letter and I can think of nothing to say to you that would let me go in peace. I went through so many drafts, and honestly, there are just too many words and not enough space. But before you close this letter, please listen. I just want to say I'm not that guy anymore. I don't get drunk every morning, nor do I pass out in bars. I have a stable job, and I stopped getting into fights. I wish I was this man when I was with you, I wish with every particle of my being, but I was a bundle of frayed strings back then waiting for someone, you, to tie me together.\n\nBack then, a part of me thought that if you could love the lonely, anti-social recluse I once was and turn it into something I could be proud of, you could love the hopeless drunk I had become and turn *that* version of me into something better. But happily ever afters are not a given, and sometimes you have to save yourself. I relied too much on you, and I didn't think I needed to do anything until you asked for a divorce. \n\n...I know we never talked again since then. But every single day, I wanted to tell you what I've done. I wanted to tell you what I've made of myself. I wanted to show you a new me that you could be proud of, and I made him all by myself. I took those strings and tied them together with my own two hands. It was a long, hard road, but never gave up on you. Because we were meant to be, and even if for some far out reason I didn't want you, I simply never can. You were all the hope I needed. \n\nWe had so much love, but there were also so many holes, and I thought that all the love just slipped out until there was nothing left. But now I know it's not true. \n\nI think that in this world, you love and you love, then you fall out of that love, until you find someone you don't stop loving. And for me, that person was you. \n\n\n\n\n**If I live..**\n\nMarry me, Lisa.", "One letter printed twice, placed in each envelope. \n\"I love you, and will see you all later. \"" ]

[ 3, 3, 10, 15, 22, 47 ]

[ "1399139497", "1399142087", "1399115658", "1399129780", "1399113372", "1399107529" ]

[ "He stood in front of me, the real deal. Captain America, they called him. I didn't know much about him, but I did know about the Avengers. They had been on the news recently. After a while, people started to notice that crime was disappearing. It wasn't that the Avengers were doing anything different or going off the deep end like you see in the comics; no, criminals just didn't seem to want to take the chance that the Avengers would show up. It looked like Nick Fury's Avengers were what this world really needed... until the criminals disappeared entirely, leaving just the Avengers as a way of showing that they had ever been there in the first place. Now the way Fury figured it, the Avengers have done their job, but if they were to just up and leave, the criminals would just come surging back. So they hang around, minding their own business more or less. And boy is \"minding their own business\" the right phrase, because those bills had to be paid somehow, and of course that led to....\n\n\"That will be 12.99, sir.\"\n\nI hand him a 20. In place of his shield, he wears a pouch filled with change. He starts to count out bills when I say, \"Keep the change, mate, you've earned it.\"\n\nHe smiles and says, \"Gee thanks. Here's that pizza you ordered, straight from Stark's new fusion oven. You won't find a pizza like it anywhere else in the galaxy. I'm speaking from experience here!\" \n\n\"I'll keep that in mind, and I'll be sure to order Avenger's Pizza next time I'm hosting a party!\"\n\nHe smiles and nods to me and waves as he walks away. He pulls out his cell phone as he moves toward his moped.\n\n\"Hey, Fury, when will we be done selling pizza? This is stupid as heck.\"\n\n\"We'll be done when I say we're done! You want to be part of this elite group, you gotta earn your share! Airships don't pay their own interest you know!\"\n\n\"But Fury, we've been selling pizza for days, and we still don't have enough money to buy a new cellphone! I'm stuck with this cheap thing you just found in your pocket! I'm telling you, we send Black Widow to deliver pizza and we'll be raking it in!\"\n\n\"Yeah but it's not like I can confiscate her guns and tell her she's only getting them back if she sells the thin crusts. You on the other hand....\"\n\n\"Fury, can I please have my shield back?\"\n\n\"No! Now get your behind downtown! We got pizzas to deliver!\"", "It was midnight. I was wasting my life on television like a patriotic average American should be. Thinking of how great it'd be if there was some kind of hero to save me from the mundane day to day life we're all slaves too. I guess someone was listening that night. I'm not even sure what was on TV, some kinda flashy light show with sitcoms full of fake laughter. \n\nIt's funny, you'd expect such a big guy to knock a little louder. I barely heard it over the sound of bad punch lines. I opened to the door and who's there but the big boy in red white and blue. The man himself, Captain America. But something's off, I couldn't put my finger on it at first. I guess I was just a little awestruck that he was at my door at midnight. I wanted to say something but I couldn't articulate anything past \"ugphhhh\" so I figured I'd best keep my mouth shut. \n\nWe stared at each other for a few seconds. Thankfully the silence was broken by a violent buzzing in his hand. I looked down and all of sudden It hit me. The only thing that was off. He traded in his shield for a phone. Not exactly an upgrade in my eyes. But who am I to question the hero of WW2 and the civil war of super Hero's? \n\nWhat happened next was pretty surreal, even for me. He looked right at me. \n\"I believe this calls for you, Colonel Furry\" \nHe said as he handed me the phone. I bit perplexed, I didn't want to disagree with a steroid fueled immortal solider whose saved the world more times than I've blinked. I carefully took the phone from his hand wanting to prolong the moment of contact between me and a real life superhero. Just something to brag about I suppose. \nI guess it was kinda pointless after I answered the phone. \n\"Colonel Furry, it's Phil. Times up. We need you back at S.H.I.E.L.D. prepare to be reactivated.\" ", "So I'm sat watching TV, nothing exciting was on but I had to be up at fucking o'clock in the morn and you know i like falling asleep in front of the usual 9pm crap. I think it was big bang theory or something, anyway, I my eyes were just closing when...\n\n***BAM***\n\nSome freak in a skintight blue costume comes barging through the door, rolls over my table (smashing it by the way) and turns to look at the door. I'm like *wtf* because he's standing there with a mobile in one hand and the other outstretched against the window above my head, when suddenly...\n\n*SMASH*\n\nI'm like... Da' fuk... out of nowhere this freak's got his hands on some sort of fancy pants shield. It's then i realise he's that damn corpral, no, commander, no, captain, that's it, captain America or whatsnot. That freak who got the steroids when fighting the commies and whatnot. \n\nAnd before ya know it, he's just done a god damn backflip out my window.best part is, some chick in black leather came chasing after him. Didn't stay long, but maaaan you should have seen the knockers on her! " ]

[ 2, 4, 13 ]

[ "1399151352", "1399145171", "1399131086" ]

[ "Nice try, Hollywood.", "WARNING: Lots of swearing and highly sacrilegious. You have been warned.\n\nPeter: I can't believe it, he's really dead.\n\nPaul: Yeah, it's... surreal.\n\nJohn: And to think, it was all Judas. We were like best friends.\n\nSimon Peter: And now everyone's looking for us and trying to kill us. They could be outside the door right no-\n\n**knock knock knock**\n\nThomas: Jesus Christ!!\n\n*The door gets kick down, in walks Jesus, clothed from head to toe in Hollister and wearing some Oakley shades.*\n\nJesus: You called?\n\n*Jesus puts the bag on the table. General confusion among the disciples*\n\nPaul: My Lord? Is that really you?\n\nJesus: Of course it is you little bitch! Am I right?\n\nThomas: I won't believe you until I stick my hands in your wounds.\n\nJesus: Wow! Look at this queer! *nudges Paul* You're into some kinky shit Thomas. Here you go! *Jesus shoves his middle finger through the wound in his hand and gives Thomas the bird.*\n\nPeter: So, what happened?\n\nJesus: Don't give me that you little fuck! You denied me three times!\n\nPeter: My Lord, I, uh I'm... I... uh...\n\nJesus: Damn it man calm down! It was a joke you retard.\n\n*Enter Mary Magdalene*\n\nMary: Have you heard! Jesus is risen!\n\nJesus: I'm already here, whore!\n\nMary: Mmm, sorry stud...\n\n*Mary comes up behind Jesus and hugs him, she starts rubbing his ripply, muscular chest with her lithe, feminine hands*\n\nSimon Peter: Mary! What are you doing! How dare you be so indecent!\n\nJesus: Shut up faggot.\n\nJohn: So how are you alive?\n\nJesus: Jesus it's never good enough for you pussies to just do shit, I've gotta explain it to! Long story short I owed a lot of people a lot of money that I borrowed. I've got enough to retire comfortably for one thousand years in a secret location on the coast to pick up later and I didn't plan on giving it all back so I paid of the Pharisees and Pontius Pilate to fake my death. Then I hid out for a couple of hours and gave Mary the best sex of her life!\n\nAndrew: So Judas is still alive!\n\nJesus: Ohhh, no he didn't know. He's really dead. He betrayed me with a kiss though. What a queer.\n\nAndrew: You asshole! You were gone for three days!\n\n*Andrew charges at Jesus, fist raised in attack. Jesus doesn't flinch as he grabs Andrew's head and slams it into the table.*\n\nJesus: Never liked him anyway.\n\nJohn: My Lord...\n\nJesus: And stop with all this, \"My lord\" shit! It's getting annoying.\n\nJohn: Would you rather I call you the Messiah?\n\nJesus: No! Call me, Blade.\n\nPeter: So why have you appeared to us now my Lor- ...Blade.\n\nJesus: Thank you. I'm takin' this bitch and 11 other whores with me to Fiji to relax in style! I'm here to extend you an invita- OOF!\n\n*Andrew stands over Jesus' crumpled body clutching a wooden plank.*\n\nAndrew: No one hears of this. EVER. *He scans the room.* Jesus died on that cross. That's the end of the story.\n\nMary: Well, you see, I kinda already told some people.\n\nAndrew: Great! Just great. Alright. He was resurrected and came to visit us before going on his way to heaven. That's the official story. John and Peter grab shovels and go out back to dig a hole. Simon and Paul get over here and wrap up Jesus in the table cloth so we can bury him when they finish. Mary, if you ever tell anyone what you saw in this room today, I will kill you. Understood?\n\n*Mary sheepishly nods*\n\nAndrew: Good. Thomas, we've got some books to write.\n\n*Role credits and sneak peek for Passion of the Christ 3: The Quickening*\n\nEDIT: Had Peter doing two things at once. Edited for continuity's sake." ]

[ 2, 5 ]

[ "1399238697", "1399247011" ]

[ "Please? Somebody? ", "\"...Here.\"\n\n\"Hilarious. Turn off the flashlight.\"\n\n\"Dude, I swear.\"\n\n\"...[well, shit](http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140315164222/walkingdead/images/b/b0/Jontron.gif). This isn't a joke.\"\n\nThe two friends stood aghast at the sight before them. A glimmering rampart of a celestial type with golden showers seeming to flow through its bricks.\n--\nFor the past four hours, the two had been futilely attempting to search for a lost phone. During a meeting with yet another \"girl of his dreams\" in the cafe, one of the friends, Jeremy, unwittingly left his phone. When he retrograded into the coffee shop, he found the girl--and his phone--gone. He inquired the barista if she had seen her walk out, but she replied with a hopeless \"no.\"\n\nJeremy quickly ran to his friend's apartment, a few blocks away, and furiously pounded at the door.\n\n\"Hey! Dev! Open up!\" The rampage upon the wood continued until a groggy face replaced it.\n\n\"Jeremy, it's one in the afternoon and I'm just really sick, what do you want?\" The friend looked a disgusting pale with eyes full of red veins.\n\n\"H-hi, uh, I lost my phone.\" Jeremy expectantly waited for a solution from his friend.\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"Dev, it's got the FindMyPhone shit, you know exactly what I mean, just give me yours and I'll be out.\"\n\nHis friend suddenly became revivified. \"Absolutely not! Last... oh, last time you did this bull I got a picture of... I can't even say it. There was some incriminating nonsense on my phone, alright? I'm going with your stupid ass to make sure you don't do it again.\"\n\nJeremy threw a fist in the air and released it. \"High five!\"\n\n\"I hate you\" was Dev's response.\n\nDev threw a shirt on and walked out the door with a phone with a blatantly broken surface. Jeremy scurried after him, disappointed that his friend was not as excited.\n\nThe two walked down the street as the GPS location of Jeremy's phone appeared. \"Alright... it's moving down... into the park. Great. Even more allergies are there.\"\n\n\"Y'know,\" Jeremy rebutted, \"I did tell you that you could stay home-\"\n\n\"And the last time you said that I had a picture of some stupid bull set as my wallpaper. Get in the car.\"\n\nThe car sputtered to life as they drove down to the park. Jeremy explained his quandary as a unusual predicament. Dev knew what this circumlocution truly meant and quickly analyzed that a girl he had become terribly infatuated with took his phone. Most of the times, it was by accident, as the girl always kindly tried to find Jeremy. However, Dev feared that this one was trying to run away and keep it.\n\nThe verdant liveliness of the park came into view and the two scurried forth. Dev kept Jeremy updated as they wandered seemingly in a random pattern. The location quickly changed in rapid moments; Dev even feared that his phone had finally taken its final toll and had broken.\n\nJeremy's phone finally came to a stop into the collection of trees at the south edge of the park. Jeremy ran forward as Dev trudged along, hacking, coughing, and sneezing along the way.\n\nDev finally reached a dormant, unmoving Jeremy just a few meters away from his cellular device. \"Alright, let's go... here.\"\nBoth now looked at the wondrous sight with a large uncertain feeling brewing inside their stomachs.\n\nDev was the first to break the silence. \"Do we go through it?\"\n\n\"Can we? It... looks like a wall.\"\n\n\"Sure, Jeremy, but I'm getting real tired of standing here. Get your phone.\"\n\nJeremy looked skeptically at his friend. \"If you're so tired of standing here, run over there and get it for me!\"\n\n\"This is some Twilight Zone bull right here, Jeremy, and I am not going through it!\"\n\n\"Neither am I going through this... Twilight... what was it, Twilight Era bullshit?\"\n\nDev reluctantly sighed and opted to go get it. He walked forward and went through the beams of light. It wrapped around him like a mist, and only when his body was completely through did they suddenly appear to cement back together. There was an even audible \"boom\" as they connected again.\n\nAn anxious laugh was emitted from Jeremy's friend's throat as he grabbed the phone, lying down on the greenery.\n\n\"Hey! Jeremy, come-\"\n\nSilence. Jeremy awaited for Dev to finish his sentence before searching through the light to find him. \"Dev? Where... Dev?\"\n\nJeremy slowly procceded to awkwardly stumble towards the wall. He walked through. A boom. He spoke out. \"Dev? Where-\"\n\nSilence.\n\nTwo phones were left at the opposite side of the wall, lonely, waiting for their owners to place them in a pocket." ]

[ 2, 2 ]

[ "1399262338", "1399345750" ]

[ "Whilst he sat staring out into the darkness he found his mind’s eye wandering. The overhead air vent released a cocktail of atmospheric gases in the form of a brisk breeze that swept across the room, sending chills down his spine and his mind’s eye racing into the past. He could feel the once familiar sensation of grass between his fingers, the cool dirt of the hillside pressed against his palms as he sat aside his father staring at what remained of the stars above. \n\n“You know, a long time ago so called scientist sat, just like we are, debating how there could be any dark spots in the sky with the all the stars out there. They said that at the end of time, the sky would be filled with the light of burning stars as the universe collapsed on itself. Funny idea isn’t it?” his father said with a smirk, “I would give a pretty penny to see the look on their faces now.”\n\nMax remained silent, trying to envision the night sky filled with stars but it was hard to imagine as a mere handful of glimmering spots scattered in the abyss was all he had ever known. His father, seeing the look of consternation across his young son’s face, took the opportunity to run his fingers through the boy’s blonde hair as he so often did. Max could almost feel the once familiar sensation of his hair between his father’s fingers when the cool breeze of the summer night, or rather that of the ventilator above, sent goose bumps running up his neck. The cool dirt of the hillside was suddenly replaced by the cold reality of the steel bench beneath him.\n\nHe stood up, paying no mind to the viewing pleasure of others in the ship’s observation room as, per usual, he was alone. A sense of disappointment in returning to reality swept over him as he raised his right arm, pressing his palm against the viewing pane. He shifted his adept focus from the darkness that encompassed the regulated travel lanes, his route of mental escape, and stepped back, his hand returning to his side. What moments ago seemed to be a portal into the vast darkness of space was now anything but. Millions of sublight engines burned bright as did their respective ship hulls glimmering in the reflection of the last star in the known universe, Exodus Prime. \n\nMax stood, contemplating the gravity of the spectacle before him as he had done on a near daily basis. The last remnants of known life were gathered here, crowded together around this last bastion of energy. Civilizations that had once spanned millions of light years were reduced to an existence entirely reliant on a single sun. “Irony,” he thought to himself.\n\nMax took yet another step back, his eyes squinting as he took in the burning glory of the fiery mosaic that filled the window and he laughed to himself. He laughed to himself for he came to a sudden realization that he had never reached before; the known universe was literally collapsing in on itself.\n\n“I would give a pretty penny to see the look on your face now, Dad,” he said, the corners of his mouth rising in a satisfying smirk. “Looks like those so called scientists were right.”\n", "Pistol in hand, Jack Fischer made his way through the crowd. His talking falcon Pegasus had only returned from a scouting mission at God’s lair a moment earlier, with news that the God Squad was planning a raid on the Time Warner-North Korea compound by nightfall to neutralize the last remaining hydrogen reactor in existence. “You have to get to Jesus immediately” Fisher told Pegasus. “Tell him the chickens have come home to roost. It’s time to implement Operation Shit Storm.” Fischer knew they needed at least another week before they were ready to take on the Holy Forces again, but timing had always been mankind’s largest disadvantage. Dodging prostitutes, dope addicts, and vagabonds, Fischer booked it to the Dome of the Rock to disengage the reactor and prepare it for transport.\n\nBy the time Fischer arrived at the Dome of the Rock, Jesus had already begun to put the decoy device into place. “Thinks he can force us to give in, does he? Well fuck that” Jesus cackled. “If he wants to take us out, he’ll have to do better than make the universe collapse in on itself, brothers.” A cry rose from the Jesusite Brigade gathered in the Fifth Temple. Jesus hoisted his AK-47 in the air, pumping his fist with the passion of the Christ. “He layed siege to our fortress and starved us with little regard for our women and our children. For what? Because 3,000 years ago mankind discovered nuclear fusion and lost all need for divine intervention? We will never give up our homes! Not then, not now, not ever!” The crowd started to chant: Je-sus, Je-sus, Je-sus, Je-sus.\n\nFischer approached Jesus after the reactor had been locked onto the bed of the underground railroad and sent toward its destination at the center of the earth’s core. “You think he’ll call the bluff?” Fischer asked. “He can’t,” Jesus responded. “There’s no way you can make demands of a man with a gun to his head.” Just then, Pegasus returned and informed Fischer and Jesus that the Holy Forces’ First Airborne Unicorn division had taken up a position just above the southwest hemisphere, preparing to flank a frontal assault led by the God Squad. Fischer’s phone starts to ring. “That should be Gabriel right about now” Jesus said. “Should I answer it” Fischer asked. “Go ahead. Let’s see what he has to say.”\n\nFischer answered the phone. “I want this to end calmly” Gabriel began. “There’s no reason more of your men should die. You’re outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and you don’t have the supplies left to hold up fortification much longer. Just hand over the reactor and we’ll point our missiles away from the sun.” Jesus grabbed the phone from Fischer’s hand. “Tell that sonuvabitch I’m not giving into his demands this time Gabe! Tell him I know what happened to Joseph! Tell him I know he’s not my real father!” “Listen, Jesus. This is your last chance. God’s not letting up, not this time, not after what happened in Prague.” “We have nowhere else to go” Jesus protested. “He’s sucked the life from every other star in the universe, and now he’s only doing this to spite me. You’re just his bitch, Gabe.” “We know where the Time Warner-North Korea compound is weakest, Jesus. We know how to get in, and we’ll be gone before you even realize it. Then what reason will we have to let you live? To let your star go on burning?”\n\n… and so on from there, etc., etc., etc. …\n", "Everybody loves a story.\n\nThe only problem would be that the universe, despite its set-up, is ambivalent on the matter. No matter how many case studies we may point at, no matter the drama of the past or present, and most certainly no matter what miniature extravagances we may dilute ourselves with, the way of things passing is with a subtle withering. This is similar to how things were expected as we survived. We expected a vast intergalactic community, to be bound together in brotherly accords or to dramatically have at each others throats like Cain were his own sibling. However, such was not the case. We were alone.\n\nTo that end, we slogged along through our being. Gradually, we expanded. First to Mars, then the Moon, then we spent some time wondering around the asteroid belt, our ever-present microscopic drama sliding along as intended. Wars were fought, as they should have been, heroic stands were made and broken with equal dramatic fervor. Over time, however, our expansion made our grand plays untenable. Our second act was one of disappointment and peace. And so, our dramas became smaller.\n\nNow, here I stand, huddled in front of a final beacon. I received our message, our final dramatic plea. It only stood to reason that in light of our discovery, referring to ourselves inclusively made the most dramatic sense. After all, that is what the third act is, isn't it? The resolution, the coming together. That is how we wrap up stories, isn't it?\n\nAnd everybody loves a good story.", "***Stubborn***\n\n\n\nIt all happened so quickly, yet we were blind to it. An indescribable amount of lightyears away, we watched the universe slowly crumble. But what we were seeing was millions if not billions of centuries ago.\n\nThat is, until we made first contact and received grim news. Our star was the only one left besides Alpha Centariua, and it was dying. Hundreds of alien races gathered around us, clinging to what little space we had left. Mars overflowed with the most delicate and battered of the refugees. Saturn kept all of the ships and constructs, mostly barren, in reach. We began to break them down for supplies, constructing anything to save us. With every passing day more and more species vanished. We were vanishing too.\n\nAs i write this we still have a predicted 400 years. Not too long. Some of us have accepted that, believing they have fulfilled their dreams. Others are still in denial, constantly trying to find ways to 'defend' us. But from what? The thing that created us? An enemy? All of the questions go unanswered. Personally, i type this from the Cairo Station orbiting Earth, confident that everything will turn out okay in the end.\n\nNow that ive finish this recollection of history, i am unsure of how it will be useful in any way. But perhaps thats why we landed on the Moon. Maybe thats the reason we went to Mars. Thats the entire reason we built the orbital cities like Cairo Station. Not because we wanted to, not because we had to, but because we *could*. Because thats in our *nature*. Sentient life might forget poverty, and war, and greed, but it will never outlive its desire to create. *To make anew.*\n\nAnd above all, it will never, ever, *ever* give up. Because us living being are like that...stubborn.", "\"What does it mean to be Emporer?\" Zila asked her grandfather as he used a blade to gently peel away thin slivers of lead from a carving. The lead pieces fell to the polished floor with a quiet click.\n\n\"mmm..\" he shrugged and turned the carving this way and that, examining it. \"Not much.\" It was supposed to be a horse. But the lead was too soft and the legs kept bending off. \"Not much at all.\"\n\nAnother shudder shook the ancient walls of the palace. Nearby attendants looked at each other nervously. Zila frowned in her little girl way. \n\n\"I don't like that,\" she said.\n\n\"hmm?\"\n\n\"I don't like the shaking,\" she repeated, her little voice echoing through the vast hall. \"Are you almost done with my toy?\"\n\n\"Almost,\" he responded, slicing off the legs and head and quickly forming the outline of a fish instead. \"Nearly done.\"\n\nAnother shake, and a guard's spear clattered to the ground as he panicked and ran down the hall. \n\nThe old man didn't bother looking up, but smiled with satisfaction as other guards instantly dissolved the flesh of the deserter in a green cascade of flame. Reclaimant drones swooped down to gather the precious elements for repurposing. Perhaps this coward had provided the components of tonights supper.\n\nZila edged closer to her grandfather's large chair, uncomfortable with the guards. Her grandfather put his hand on her head to reassure her. She looked at him.\n\n\"Being Emporer means that even here, on the last world around the last star in the last galaxy, people work together. They keep the rules. They have something to fight for. Do you know what that is?\"\n\n\"Is it you?\"\n\n\"That's right. And you too!\" He handed her the fish. Lead. Heavy. Dead. Like every other planet and every other star. A universe of lead and iron. Crude scales carved along its sides glinted dully in the light. Photons scattering off into emptiness. He sighed deeply. \"Being Emprorer means we get to use all the last of the elements, right?\"\n\n\"Right!\"\n\n\"Good girl! What else does it mean?\"\n\nShe scowled. \"It means... We have Ursa?\" \n\n\"Right again!\" he said, giving her head a rub. \"The very last neutron star we use to ride around through the dark and...?\"\n\n\"And... collect elements!\"\n\n\"Well done, Zila,\" he smiled. \"Our whole fleet is constantly scooping up the elements that used to belong to the stars, and makes sure Ursa doesn't eat them. Now go play with your fish.\" She trotted away into the infinite corridors of the palace planet. \n\nThe Emporer sighed again. Almost he allowed himself to enjoy the luxury of tears. He waved his vizier over, who bowed obsequiously. \"How long?\" he asked.\n\nThe vizier scanned his mind for the data. \"It has already begun. Equipment failed so we simply did not detect those planetoids in time. Ursa's mass is too great. She will soon become a singularity. Within a week at the latest.\"\n\nThe Last Emporer nodded. A clump of tightly orbiting iron planets had ended it all. \"A bang and a whimper,\" he mused. \"Execute the plans then.\" He dismissed the entire court and guards from the throne room.\n\nThe vizier nodded and backed away from the throne. He would program the element drones to add a painless but powerful toxin to tonight's meal. The people would at least enjoy a painless passing. \n\nThe Emporer activated a panel on his throne and made the adjustments that would turn his palace steeply towards Ursa. He would guide the last living world into the maw of the Bear.", "\"It's too hot here, daddy!\"\n\nI wish I could describe her as a 'poor thing' or at least feel sorry for her in some way, but she wasn't experiencing the soul-crunching the rest of us were. She never knew heat, she never knew what it meant to travel interstellarly to visit a friend or get a copy of the latest hoverboard, printed to match your height and weight.\n\nNo, she was born here, in orbit of this, our final resting place. A coughing, demure star off on what used to be an arm of a type-3 spiral supercluster. Floating so gently by itself, calling to no one, yet drawing us in, it was the swallowed decision no one had agreed to abide by, but everyone awkwardly never leaving everyone's side.\n\nIf it wasn't for this last ray of sunshine, her name is Medusa, I don't think I could handle pushing the lever away from me, disengaging from photons, one last time, for the night.", "Heat. Light. Warmth. The cradle from which life sprung, and now the last flicker around which life gathers. Beautiful and horrible all at once.\n\nTen thousand ships surround the speck of burning gas. Ten thousand weapons systems, terrible and powerful beyond the imagining of less advanced species, lock targets, all afraid to fire. One missed shot could snuff out this last light.\n\nIt isn't a natural light. It's a bulbous reddish thing, gathered together ages ago from all the tiny scraps of helium left in the universe. Many millions were built, but this is the last. The probes come back empty these days, and everyone knows there will be no new stars.\n\nThe glowing mass of gas rumbles. Sound won't carry in the vacuum of space, but ten thousand sensor arrays light up. The ships all creep closer, gathering around. Fingers and other appendages stand poised to fire, but everyone knows that nobody will. They aren't even sure why they've bothered with the weapons, but a billion years of bitter war over dwindling resources is enough for evolution to hardwire it in. Always be ready.\n\nToday it's a formality. Shields are offline and armor has been stripped away, the hull of every ship laid bare as they drift ever closer to the last warmth anyone will ever feel. Soon now. Sensors scream. Sirens blare their warnings. Very soon. Seconds.\n\nEvery creature that can is holding its breath. Every sensing organ is open. All is still and calm, watching and waiting.\n\nThe star rumbles again. It shakes and the shaking can be felt throughout the ten thousand ships. It blooms in heat and light, and expanding cloud of super-heated gas that envelopes the gathered ships, their bare hulls vaporized in an instant by the dying gasp of the universe.\n\nNot with a whimper, but with a bang.", "Date: AU 67k14\n\nIt seems like forever since I've seen Molly, one of the last sixteen of my race. She's keeping herself busy nowadays soaking up the rays on the very same balmy, crimson planet that had once played host to humanity's last great stronghold, during a time when we still believed that we could rule the cosmos, or more specifically, what's left of it.\n\nThere was a time when the Great Solar Empire blazed across the stars, when you would have been hard pressed to find a species that didn't fear, respect, love, or revile us. Now all that's left of humanity is a small group left alive, living in relative comfort as one of the many species of under civil protection for being \"endangered\". \n\nIf my knowledge of history serves me right, it's been just shy of 700 years since humanity was artificially saved from total annihilation. If it had been any other war, or if we had been a victorious party, I assume many, many races would have gone extinct, but this wasn't just any war, it was the 8th great pan-universal spacefaring war and our enemies (and by enemies I mean the only civilization that had the power to reduce humanity back to a state of perpetual infancy) were the Salaea, a tall slender race of noseless almost reptilian creatures, who shine like polished silver in anything but the dimmest of lighting.\n\nYou see, while humanity has seemingly always had a bit of a martial advantage, even during it's first steps into the cosmos, the Salaea were more benign, science-oriented creatures. It was actually their technology that allowed many, many star systems and species to continue on well after the death of their stars. The problem is, most if not all of their technology focused around the conversion of star energy, or the energy released during the nuclear fission that happens every moment deep down in the core of stars. \n\nIronically, their benevolence only served to speed up the envitable. Stars die. All that is left are a couple of planets, 8 to be exact, and thousands of satellites floating in the sky, acting as artificial habitats for creatures that are not viable in any habitat that proximity can provide. \n\nFor my part, I'm lucky enough to be viable on 3 of 8. This particular planet is a smallish, largely grey world that is best described as living in a cave and not at the same time. My neighbors, for instance are very wonderful people; telepathic bright colored sentient fauna, but generally good neighbors, very friendly.\n\nJust a short ride down the way is Salae'ik, the beautiful metallic capital of the planet, and indeed what's left of the livable universe. There you can meet lots of kind folk. Merchants peddling wares that they've scoured from long dead planets, restaurants capable of feeding most any type of creature, various evening shows, normal city life. \n\nTowards the center you'll find an area, roughly the size 3 small cities comprised of various factories, laboratories, and tech-works that make our hodgepodge existence possible. Look closer and you'll find variously Salaean scientists scurrying about, still hoping to find evidence of the long debunked multiverse theory.\n\nThe fact is, our universe may be on it's last breath, but life goes on. What's funny is, considering how quickly we finished off most of the stars, if you look up, it's like the stars aren't even gone.\n\n\n*note* I'm well aware this is not the greatest work of literature ever, and it's largely unfinished, there is soo much more detail I would have like to have added. This was more a fun world-building exercise for me personally. I haven't written anything outside of lab reports for college in a long time. Please don't judge this on the same level as some of the other works in this subreddit. I just lurk this subreddit and felt like it would be fun to creative writing a try. ", "The horrific clicking that haunted so many cilivizations in the twilight of the Universe was becoming an ever more permanent part of existence for the few remaining survivors. No one knew exactly when they started to show up, but it was clear they had been evolving unnoticed for far longer time than previously theorized. It was a cruel irony; in life's last attempt to proliferate it only achieved a hastened death. Within a decade there would be a total extinction of all life in the Universe. \n\nThe Golden Era that predated the end gave so many the hope that resolve could be found; that there would be cooperation. At first it seemed like the ageless empires would share their knowledge with the youthful civilizations of the edge, but then the first click was heard. What followed ensured that the primal fear which haunted every culture would in fact come to fruition. Blame was placed on everyone but the cause. Instead of research and mutual aid there was war and death. \n\nAfter the first click there was a strange silence that had not been heard for longer than most empires existed and forgotten by those older. In that moment they began their feast. Not knowing what they faced, the ageless empires all assumed war and began to turn on one another. In those brief moments a brightness unlike any could remember shone and then as the few remnants burned, a darkness unlike any had seen consumed all.\n\nIn the already darkening void, the only light remaining came from two stars: Retvoc and The Last Sun. The Last Sun was a feeble, insignificant brown dwarf barely capable of producing anything detectable more than half a decade more. Only after the Conclusive War did it become the most important stellar object to all life. The mistrust and selfishness of those who called themselves Humonity doomed any chance there was for prevention of the end. \n\nRetvoc would have been able to sustain life for millions of years longer, enough time to save life and restart. Humonity annihilated it as their empire burned. They fired the first shot that began the Conclusive War and the last shot that named the Conclusive War. As their last planets and galactic colonies bled dry, they heard the clicking and knew their mistake. In the darkness the survivors made their way to The Last Sun, hoping peace could be made during the last few years. The slaughter that they endured to reach it ruined any chance of that.\n\nThe Last Sun was barely visable, the nexus of a graveyard to which life had fled to. The hollowed out skeletons of vast ships were nearly impossible to tell apart from the ravaged hulls of occupied vessels. The lucky ones were able to see natural light, most were unable to see but had their own, artificial life. The unluckiest sat in darkness, waiting for it to consume them. \n\nAll the while, the clicking beings fed. Having evolved in already dead parts of the Universe, they were accustomed to feeding on the few abandoned to the dark. Alien to all the diverse life that took refuge there, they were able to hunt without notice. The end of life was chaotic, lonely, and violent. Occasional firefights, single ships breaking off and drifting into the abyss, power failures, and in some unfortunate pockets lawless anarchy reigned. \n\nThe Last Sun outlived it all, except the clicking. Soon after it's light faded away, the clicking ceased. They had fed till there was no more food. The last sound life ever made was a click. Just like after the first click, once again there was silence.", "It must have happened like this innumerable times before, she mused as her ship descended towards the cluster of dead stars. For centuries their ship had slept, waiting for this one moment. Outlasting the rest of the fleet, outlasting the rest of her race, the crew slept, waiting.\n\n\nThe lights on the bridge dimmed as machinery deep within the hull of the ship, one last chance for life to start again, a chance for the clock to be rewound. She sat back in her chair, there was no final address, no orders left to give. Her crew knew their jobs, their goodbyes had been said.\n\n\nIn the middle of the cluster of stellar bodies of iron there was a single flame, the last in the universe. It would be enough, It would have to be enough.\n\n\nThe vibrations stopped suddenly, and she closed her eyes. The massive ship had done the task it had set out to do, all those centuries ago. Not to save this universe, but to ensure that life would have a chance to start again. \n\n\nHundreds of miles below and behind her deck plates boiled, bulkheads vaporized, a bright ball of light expanded, consuming the ship from stern to bow as mass was turned to energy.\n\nThe millions of solar masses would be enough fuel, that last burning star the necessary catalyst. Had this happened before? Or were they the first cycle? She couldn't know, and decided that in the end, it didn't matter.\n\n\nThe wave expanded, there were only moments left. She opened her eyes and took a final look at that single dying star, and she smiled.\n\n\"Let there be light.\"", "15 years we've been drifting, preserving our final fuel supplies in the event of a final showdown. With only 10 degrees of vision in front of us aided by a star and the other 350 empty, it's a bit difficult to detect other stargazer class ships. And by empty, no radiation or background noise of any sort. You could set off a flair and it's be brighter than 99% of the known universe, except the final star Eden. \n\nThankfully the solar class ships were abandoned when their battle-ready capabilities proved them inefficient for this period of time... when the final star was singing the chronicles of it's fallen ancestors. We recieved intel that the Final Light Lucifer alliance had access to a drifter class ship, but with added speed comes the cost of fuel. No way they could get a ship that inefficient all the way out here. \n\nBut what is here, exactly. The final sun, a lonely beacon of hope. The last source of energy in the known universe. And surrounding it, 3 planetary bodies. 2 terra class and 1 gassious class. We were 3 cycles away according to our best estimates. Not easy running a 10km long ship with just 100 men...\n\n**sorry, getting late. If anyone wants me to continue let me know and i'll come back tomorrow**", "Melancholy was the prevailing sentiment. Not sorrow or sadness. We had long disposed of those trivialities and, as such, had largely forgotten how to feel them. Melancholy had managed to stick around, however.\n\nIt was a shame it took us so long to reach the heights we did. 2 billion years seems like such a short time for us to use reality as our plaything. Such a short time for the life forms of the universe - machinic, organic, and innumerable other sentient forms - to finally get down to the busy work of love and creation.\n\nLong ago, we had freed ourselves from the vicissitudes of the perpetual struggle for existence that characterised so much of all our histories. So much wasted life. But now, having basked in what the shallow philosophies of yestereons would have perhaps named utopia, we faced the end of it all. The end of all that we had created and all that we still hoped to create. Our dreams could not surpass the wilting of the stars.\n\nExperiencing the beautiful and novel is always inevitably traumatic because it always ends. This was the wisdom that even the conglomeration of innumerable sentiences descended from a trillion civilisations found easy to forget once they had found perfection.\n\nNo. Not perfection. There had for a long time been no end goal. To seek perfection would be to seek cessation, a *telos*, and to seek cessation would be to seek the date of one's own death. But, alas, the motions set on their way in the first seconds of the universe had decided our end date for us. How cruel joy is to be so callous as to end.\n\nSo we all watched in our own ways - as our biologies, or lack thereof, allowed. Few positioned themselves in the immediate vicinity of the last star. That star which had a multitude of names in many languages, all of them melancholic. Most realised that for all of us to get within even a lightyear (another arbitrary measurement based on the orbit of some dead planet) of the last star would leave little room for the rest to mourn in their own ways. Such was the disposition of sentiences who had known nothing but empathy and compassion for their long existences. Even as the last hope for the future faded to darkness we still clung to the love that had given us meaning through the millennia.\n\nAnd we all watched.\n\nOf course, like so many banal realities, there was no spectacle. No bright lights to herald the coming of the end of the time of life. Just the completion of a slow process whereby the star ceased to output energy and went cold, as a billion stars had hitherto done. The exact moment when the star would cease to produce energy had long been calculated. Extremely long in fact. Back in the youth of our grandeur when even the proof of the end did not seem to make it any more inevitable.\n\nFew would seek to go back to those days because what we had produced in the interim was... beyond words. Even the most modest observer could not help but see that we had created space for every desire and form, every movement of love and kindness imaginable, every expression of beauty and reciprocal kinship.\n\nNo, I misspoke again. Not *every* such things. Climbing to such heights but gave us a better view of what we could foster. With every elevation of grandeur the horizon got further and further away. *That* was the beauty of our cooperation. And while the universe seemed spatially and temporally boundless it lasted.\n\nNo way to perpetuate life for eternity had been found. All energy would eventually be expended, dissipated and blend with the flat hum of the scream of the birth of the universe. The first word spoken by the cosmos would also be its last. Of course, stars and other energetic forms had been dying for millennia now. Nature is so often dull and irksome in its grand cataclysms. The slow depletion of harnessable energy in the universe was merely another obstacle of life that we overcame with ease, at least for some time. Cold stars and dead planets were turned into useable energy. They would continue to provide such support even for millennia after the last star had itself gone cold. This was different though. The death of the universe had been slow and creeping, but the quiet death of the final star had provided us with a milestone to assure us that the age of life was ending.\n\nAn old tale of a civilisation whose descendants had long become part of the social milieu spoke of a being who wished to, despite not - as some do - biologically possessing the means to do so, fly from the surface of their planet to the star around which it orbited. The being devised implements that extended its own appendages to mimic the flying mechanisms of many other beings on that planet. It broke the nuisance of gravity and ascended towards its goal only to find that once it got close the star melted its means of ascension and caused the being to tumble back to the ground. It seems we find ourselves in a similar situation. However, our desires did not melt. Instead, we overcame the cruelties that tied our ancestors to pitiful existences on orbiting rocks and spread forth through the heavens surpassing even the wildest dreams of the most inventive superstitions of bygone eras. But instead of melting we freeze. Our demise is not a quick fall triggered by heat and the greedy attraction of a rock. Our demise is the same as that of the last star: long and cold.\n\nThus, melancholy prevails. We still love and we still create but in nothing like the quantities of our grand era and, all the time, with the knowledge that we and our fruits will wither and die as the stars have done.\n\nIn time, the overriding expression of the universe will be the dissipated murmur of its birth. Our existences will have been but the opening splutter of the cosmos' perpetual, monotonous wail. In that short moment we have found meaning. But this is a universe that cares nothing for such trivialities.", "\"Darryn! There it is!”\n\n“I know damn well where it is, it’s the last bit of light in the thrice-damned Universe Maria!”\n\nGiselus VIII, last star of the known universe, glowed steady and mild. Brow furrowed, hands knuckle-white on the controls, Darryn navigated the leaky tub they had named Genie into close orbit. From a distance, millions of sensors blared millions of warnings on millions of starships in millions of different languages. They were all ignored. All races, all species, were focused on one thing, and one thing only: conservation of energy. As the Universe contracted, as heat vanished into nothingness, and as stars began to blink out of existence, Darryn’s people knew it would only be a matter of time before they would be forced into extinction, as did many other inhabitants of this dying universe. \n\nBut while others chose to live in blissful ignorance, the people of Araxis came together, put aside their petty differences and united in a common cause. Their goal was simple, yet impossibly difficult: defeat entropy. Millions of years of research, that spanned hundreds of thousands of generations and solar systems, and the culmination was a single, dilapidated starship, crowded around a dying star among the other spacefarers like moths dancing around a flame. \n\n“Do you think it will work?” Maria asked. Darryn could only shrug.\n\n“What have we got to lose? Not like we’re gonna live much longer anyhow.”\n\nMaria felt a knot of anxiety deep in her stomach. She looked out one window and saw little specks of light in the inky blackness of space. They weren’t stars. They were other ships, larger than hers and smaller, all just hanging there, waiting for the inevitable to occur. \n\n“We don’t have much juice left in old Genie,” Darryn warned. “The engines are off, but our life support and internal systems still soak up fuel like a dry sponge.”\n\n“What about the gravity net?” Maria asked. Darryn shook his head.\n\n“Gone. Even still, we’re not orbiting fast enough to generate surplus power.” Darryn paused. “We’ve got one chance, Maria. One chance to change the universe.”\n\n“What if… what if it works?” Maria asked. Darryn blinked. He hadn’t thought of that. What if it did work? What then? The device wouldn’t save them. It wouldn’t save anyone here. They were all dead creatures walking, just going through the motions until the end finally came.\n\n“If it works then… hope springs anew,” Darryn replied. He blinked again. Strange. His eyes were watering. He gazed out the cockpit and saw Giselis burning and slowly spinning. They were the universe’s last hope, and if they succeeded then no one would know of their victory. They had fled their home planet just as their own star consumed them. They watched, screaming in agony, wailing and kicking until the cryo procedure sent them into a deep sleep, every single planet their species had once inhabited was incinerated. Every man, every woman and child, dead, and they died not knowing if all their efforts had been vain.\n\n“If it works then we were right, and we did the right thing,” Darryn continued. Then he looked at Maria, who was weeping freely, and held out his hand. “Are you ready?”\n\nMaria nodded. “Let’s do it together,” she said, and stepped up beside Darryn at the controls. Pushing several buttons in sequence activated the device they had stashed in the cargo hold. Darryn broke free of Giselus’ orbit and pointed the starship directly at the star’s fading heart.\n\n“Time to reboot,” he said, and together they accelerated directly towards the star. The other creatures watched with indifference. They had seen many others choosing to end their lives by quick incineration than by slow suffocation, and chances were they would see many more before the end.\n\nGenie accelerated. The two occupants held each other tightly. It was cold. But it was bright. So, so bright. The device whirred, the closer to the star it got the more energy it siphoned. Soon it was screaming, so loud, and glowing as though it were a star of its own.\n\nThen the glowing ended, and so did everything else, for one, brief, picosecond.", "Lieutenant Staravyn, a mature human, strode forward as the alarm sounded around him. The dull red lights pulsed around him from the hallway lights as he joined the frantic flow of rushing personnel. Code Red alerts were serious things that excused no idleness.\n\nFarrah, the mature Selk-Trigan, on the back of his head shifted uncomfortably as she picked up on his agitation. She was a very calm and tranquil person but she was also very sensitive to negative emotions. They were close enough that his agitation became her agitation. \n\nHer twelve tentacles flexed around his head while he weaved around other personal and entered the corridors to the mobile fighter hangers. It was like how humans wrung their hands in nervousness. Her octopus like body writhed gently against the back of his head but he barely noticed. They had been through these situations many times.\n\nFarrah’s thoughts flittered and expanded as they got closer. The Code Red meant impending battle. She triple checked to make sure that her supporting legs were still holding her up. Her suckers were firmly adhered to Staravyn's skin and hard suit as he strode forward. \n\nWhile her species were not very heavy, but on a human head it was definitely uncomfortable for them. So she used her own legs to maintain her perch. This kept her weight of his head and onto the study body below. \n\nHer thoughts kept leaking into his and she envied him yet again. He could so easily create mental walls that filtered out her thoughts from his own. Selkies had no such ability and it was both a blessing a curse.\n\nWith other Selkies she became a piece of a greater whole, yet with the other species she became a pronounced individual and she was often uncertain which one she preferred. Yet she always returned to Staravyn and this had been so with their last two centuries together. \n\nShe had now grown to dislike being separated from him for long periods of time despite her occasional desire to join with a pod of thought. He also felt the same way when their thoughts meshed together. It came and ebbed like the tide and their thoughts intersected as effortless as water on a beach. Natural and unhindered.\n\nThe traffic died down as they entered the space fighter subsections. It was long stretches of land that housed the orbital fortress's mobile space fighters. From here, the Athena, they could launch from here to intercept whatever danger that threatened the Union of the Red Star. The single planet that they controlled was precious as it was their only home.\n\nFor this was the last star. The final bastion of natural light and, Wick, the red dwarf still burned with enough fuel for another hundred million years. Around this star was a hundred planets that were artificially transferred and housed the multitudes of surviving species. Some cooperative and other xenophobic.\n\nWithin the Hundred Planet Alignment, they owned only one piece of it and the rest were heavily defended by similar factions that needed them for their own survival. This final bastion of light was theirs and theirs alone. \n\nThey shared what little land they could afford but in the end what was, was. There was no more stars and no more room for planets. The current alignment of the hundred worlds was what was optimal for maximum density before planetary gravity began to seriously interfere with each other.\n\nThe Disaster of the Thirty almost fifty years ago was testament to those who ignored the alignment as thirty worlds fell pretty to the red dwarf’s gravity well and were consumed by its slow burning fiery.\n\nThe Alliance of Digra, The Alliance of Three, The Entities of Quadrupeds, The Federation of Space Born, The Mountain, The Water, The Space Stars and thirty-three others were completely erased from the Wick as their planets were destroyed.\n\nHere, at Wick, the final red star in the known universe. The stars had finally died and the many life forms had gathered here. The weak radiation was glorious to those who had once basked in the radiance of suns. Here was the last natural light. Here was the constant struggle to maintain their share.\n\nStaravyn waited as the security system scanned his body and identified himself and Farrah. Her mind was oily today as agitation and abhorrence to war stained their thoughts and fueled her turmoil. He found it harder to connect to her when she was like this. \n\nShe would be shaky until they began to fly. Then she could concentrate on the mission and her mind would once again calm down. Focus was she lacked and focus she would soon get.\n\nFarrah was always funny that way and he would never ask for more. He trusted her with his life and she trusted hers with his. Partners until the dark end.\n\nThe blast doors opened and the two walked through as Farrah picked up on others coming up behind them. He paid them no heed as their thoughts mingled again. She was beginning to calm as the large fighter docks came into view.\n\nPart hallway and part port, the long and wide corridor had many windows leading to the empty space outside. The view of their blue planet, Aquarius, the 36th planet in the alignment, was a beautiful sight against the red rays of the sun.\n\nStaravyn walked and nodded to fellow pilots and engineers. Their hard combat suits were recognizable even among the Hundred Planets. The assortment of Humans, Selk-Trigan, Valkor’es, Strin and Eueireie gathered never failed to impress. \n\nFive species under one banner.\n\nA mutually beneficial alliance of free people. They were only beaten by the Kingdom of Kings were they had almost a dozen races enslaved and controlled 3 whole planets. They had numbers but the Union of the Red Star had quality. Free people fighting to maintain their freedom. \n\nThey had lasted over a two thousand years this way and he would be damned before he failed to upkeep the legacy of their predecessors.\n\nIt took a long travel by automated walkway, but they made it to their fighter. A Humanoid Space Fighter, and he nodded to his Eueireie mechanic. The HSF was locked out behind a glass-steel wall and it was tethered by metal braces while many mechanical arms moved all around it.\n\nThe gelatinous worker burbled at him as its cylindrical body wobbled while thin tendrils quickly danced across the holographic display. The many mechanical arms smoothly responded and placed the finish touches on the fighter.\n\n“Looking good Richie!” Staravyn complimented as he raised his fists and bumped a bunched up group of Richie's tendrils. Rich-Mineral was a bit goofy but he was unquestionably skilled as he was able to resurrect Staravyn’s HSF many times. Richie gurgled out a bunch of sounds that Farrah had to translate. The Selkies were great diplomats as Eerie speech made almost no sense to Humies.\n\nFour dozen tendrils wrapped up and around Staravyn tightly. With little effort, Richie lifted Staravyn up to the odd sensory organs near the top of his body. It blurbled loudly and seriously while Farrah snickered as she translated.\n\n'Bring Sofia back in once piece you amino scum, or else!'\n\nStaravyn gave Richie a suave smile, “Of course buddy!”\n\nStaravyn didn’t even need Farrah to translate Richie’s blurb of a disdainful sniff as the translucent, baby-blue man simply dropped him.\n\nHe smiled as Sofia began to warm up, the engines hummed and the space around it began to distort as the Omni-engine powered up. Though slower then Armoured Space Fighters, HSF has a magical of their own. Omni-directional engines could be better then Linear-directional engines but are always slower.\n\nThe door to the piloting pill opened. Staravyn stepped up and Farrah’s docile arms quickly grabbed onto the many hand holds inside. She helped him balance as he smoothly slid into the pill and her arms effortlessly strapped him in before she moved herself into her own small seat.\n\nThe outside arms gently grabbed the pill as the thick doors sealed shut and then fitted the pill into the fighter’s stomach. The pill then integrated the walls came to life as streams of data fed itself to the pilots.\n\nStaravyn nodded for Farrah and he felt one of her tentacles reach out to touch his cheek. Her suckers gave him a dozen soft kisses for luck before he released the locks on Sofia. She floated there for a minute while Farrah insured that everything was good to go.\n\nSelkies were excellent in data management, able to understand multiple streams of information while Humies were good with reaction and subtleties of thought driven controls. They made a perfect team in his not so honest opinion.\n\nThe selkies had great construction and AI supported systems but they were vastly outmatched in close combat that humies excelled in. Together they made a great team and with the addition of the other three races, they were incredible. There was a reason that the Union of the Red Star had lasted over two thousand years.\n\nCracking his neck, Staravyn locked in the coordinates to the battle sight just above the twelfth orbital fortress, Gaia, and blasted off to defend it from invaders of the bear like creatures of the Inter-Species Confederation.\n\nThis was their planet and they would all need to be eradicated before they began to give it up.\n\n**\nEdit for more sense.\nMight update in the future with more fleshed out scenes.", "It's funny, isn't it? They lived in an age where they revelled in knowledge, in discovery, in science. The wheel, the steam engine, the almighty transistor - once they started discovering, they never seemed to stop. Not even the vast, previously unfathomable distances between the stars in our galaxy could stand in their way once they figured out how to travel close to the speed of light. The likes of Newton, Einstein and Hawking lived as deities, basking in all the glory of having propelled human knowledge that much further.\n\nIdiots.\n\nOnce reality started to sink in (Only a couple aeons too late but hey, better than never, right?) they started to worry. Desperately, they clung to theories about wormholes, higher dimensions and multiverses like pieces of driftwood out at sea. \"Surely, there must be a way - we've come this far, we're the smartest things out there!\" they thought - how cute.\n\nIt's almost comic, how religion has a habit of resurfacing at the most convenient of times. Earthquakes, asteroid strikes, magnetic storms; all religion needed was an excuse. It was no different this time, when they flocked to the 'type Ib blue supergiant' like moths to a flame. They started with small offerings, desperate tokens of their faith, which eventually progressed on to mass human sacrifices. I guess it sort of worked in their favour, they saved precious oxygen that way. \"Science couldn't save us, maybe God can!\"\n\nGive me a break. I have better things to do.", "The sun burned and the people wept. \n\nTo each his own, a planet went.\n\nCold, dark, and alone.", "Alpha Sector Seven was just like any other star within the local galaxy Tau Three Theta. It had a yellow glow around it, feeding off yellow energy to yellow planets just like any other yellow star within the universe. It had a system of planets, 10 strong. One was a rocky world baked into a good crisp (serves seven); the second was – unfortunately – a very vibrant and lush planet that now has gotten baked into a good crisp, its lush and vibrant plant life serving only as dressing on the cookie world; the third was a world that used to have life but then one person made the foolish decision to take on the role of supreme leader and the fact that its planet now only baked into a nuclear flavoredtm crisp serves to show how that all went down; the fourth was the third planet’s sister planet, all self-absorbed with herself like any other sister planet, broken after the third’s untimely demise and now only serves to looks at the third’s cookie based world and reminisce about the good times; the fifth through seventh planets are also baked into a cookie, no shame in that however, it’s always nice to sometimes be a cookie now and again; people think that sometimes they shouldn’t permanently stay cookies, that’s what the eighth planet thought, wondering what happened to all the other planets that used to not be cookie planets; the ninth planet didn’t care about the fact that it was a cookie planet, it didn’t really care about anything, it was the coolest planet in the galaxy due to how little it cared, if the planet were a person it would have dark sunglasses, standing near the edge of the schoolyard brooding about stuff, it was a cool planet and nobody else thought any different in it; the tenth planet was actually a planet of milk. \n\nNobody really knew why the planet was made out of milk, or the fact that it should have been aged by now, but since all the other planets were cookies (save for that bitch of a fourth planet), it is logically sound that the fifth had to be a milk planet. \n\nAll of these planets rotated around its normal life, the fourth being a bitch and the tenth pondering it’s milkiness, around its yellow star that gave off yellow rays that baked the other cookie planets into even more severely baked cookie planets. All was right in this little solar system, and A.S.S was all right with being just A.S.S. \n\nThat was, until the start of the death of the universe. Out of the infinite wisdom of the universe approximately 325,413,612,102,503 different civilizations knew that the universe was about to kick the intergalactic bucket into the intergalactic grave, and approximately 993,000,982 civilizations tried to do something about the matter. No dice. All programs that tried to breach into another dimension ended with disaster, with many perishing due to the effects that interdimensional travel can have on the physical form. Other programs like lengthening the age of the universe only served to show how much bullshit the average civilization can produce, many just becoming snake oil programs that did nothing but to funnel money into a black hole. Actually, Civilization 5234:049092:12003:02:1 did just that, they threw their own money into a black hole to see what the effect would be like. Considering their money was spent nuclear rods, all it did was allow the residents of a completely different dimension to wonder how in god’s name their black hole is spitting out rods of nuclear waste at them. \n\nIn short, people were fucked right in the down under, and many waited for the upcoming death. \n\nIt did, stars going out bit by bit and black holes losing their energy and dissipating as well, residents of this universe started flocking and migrating to different star systems in order to find the last remaining star that would help them support life. \n\nFortunately, A.S.S was on their side. From its humble beginnings as the supporter of a series of cookie planets -- with one bitch of a planet and one milk planet being it’s oddballs – it soon gained popularity as the happenest place in the universe, with a myriad of civilizations travelling to this yellow planet to give it a dose of its yellow rays before its yellowness was the last thing that could ever be yellow in a universe that was increasingly becoming black. Every planet soon filled up to immense lengths, as septillion upon septillion of different races across the universe gathered here in order to try to become the last remaining life form on the planet. Approximately .0000000000000000000000000000000000003% of all the life forms that remained in the universe (carbon, methane, or otherwise-based) decided to make A.S.S their home as they settle for what might come next. The other life forms within the universe either died just not knowing about the situation, or cookied themselves into a crisp as their respective star systems went and kicked the bucket. \n\nThere, on the first planet, stood a single man that knew with about as much certainty as everyone else that everything is going to come to an end. He thought about the hilarity of the whole situation, his species stood so many tests and tribulations that it got him, a single man, all the way to the end of the universe. As he passed the vehicles under the parking lot he got a glimpse of one of the vehicles, completely black, no light reflected from it. His mind drew back to the elevator as he wondered about the possibility of a vehicle being so black that it can escape the universe. He didn’t mind about it. As the elevator ascended into the lobby he wondered about what to eat today. Of course, today of all days, is the end of the universe. He might just try eating that talking cow…\n", "We stood there on the platform bathed in the last light of the universe's last sun. The massive superstructure that surrounded the sun was made to house the remnants of the sentient races lucky enough to find this last oasis of light, as well as suck up the last stray solar flares that are now far and in between. I am one the last humans in existence my; one of two thousand survivors I had seen the last light of the human empire fade as entropy consumed the dark worlds once full of life. I stand amongst other species, strange and foreign to someone who never left the core worlds, but to me a former pirate these creatures are old hat. They come in all forms big and small, fat and slender, most are not even bipedal, but in these final moments we all share the same light and for the first time in the universe's history there is no war or conflict. Almost funny really, the universe has to end to put a stop to conflict. I chuckle much to the disdain of an alien priest spewing some form of last right to a small crowd of insect like aliens; I turn around and walk into the labyrinth of pipes and wires to the remains of my small ship, now merged with the superstructure, and entered. My wife Ria turned, her deep red skin almost blood red in the dim light. \n\n\"How long Vallen?\" She asks fear in her voice. My daughter Midna slept soundly in her bed stirring softly as Ria stroked her black hair.\n\nI take her hand in my own and say \"The countdown is to a half hour, maybe more, before the final flare and then the sun will go out\" She wraps her slender arms around me and I return the embrace squeezing her tight. \n\nMidna stirs and rises, her little head bobbing as she rubs the sleep from her eyes \"Daddy what's wrong?\" \n\n\"Nothing little one, Mommy and I are just talking\" I say releasing the embrace and picking up my daughter \"How about we all go or a walk, does that sound nice?\" She nods and places her head on my shoulder as I take my wife's hand and lead them out into the hall where throngs of people rushed to the observation deck. Instead I take them into a side hall through the dark alleys until we reach an anti chamber overlooking the dying sun. The chamber was filled with six hundred Stasis pods, many already filled, only four remained open. I placed my daughter in one of the pods and tussled her hair:\n\n\"Now it's time to sleep, and when you wake up we can live in a forest on a nice planet somewhere\" \n\n\"Can we really?\" She asks a smile spreading across her face. I nod and inject her with a sleeping drug and she falls back into the cushioned surface as blue energy surrounds her and the pod closes. I kiss my wife as I inject her and as her pod closes I look to the massive red sun. A black mark is spreading around the luminous globe and I turn the last pod, my own. I don't know if this last ditched effort to save something of the universe will work, but I wont let my daughter die. As I inject my self the the star begins its death throws spewing massive flares as the blackness consumes the stellar flesh, I enter my pod and feel the stasis energy lock my muscles and cells into place, and as the hatch closes the last beam of light fades out, and I hear a million sentient beings scream in unison. The hatch closes bathing myself and the rest of the universe in darkness.", "We did not find the forewarned mass mayhem when we reached The Star. Seeing the calm of no hope makes me understand that it was we fleeing that condemned Earth, not the dying Sun. We were a beacon of fruitless hope that turned mankind into clawing cornered savages. I'd apologize, but it doesn't matter. \n\n\nOnly here and now matters. Finally that trivial quote becomes inescapable. Thankfully, here and now is peace. In our acceptance of entropy there is the humanity we'd always hoped for. There is a blending of beings. Beautifully indescribable beings. Some are nothing more than a glimmer, their words conversing with your mind. Others would be considered monstrous. Yet, our gathering gives grace to all. Maybe we all are here to redeem our shameful departures from everything we've ever known. \n\n\nIt is only on personal levels that indiscretions abound. Ships have clustered together based on what their communities offer. Some have even taken to the two nearby planets to be together on solid ground. There are quite a few rising religions, but those I avoid. Similarly I cannot abide by those harboring their power to send one final plea to the edges of the known universe. \n\n\nInstead, I melt through the masses searching for the one I left to find. I wade through the bodies of those experiencing as much as they can in their dying days. Substances are used. Accidental suicide appears abundant. Accidental because so many are pushing the boundaries that their bodies provide. Bodies. They're everywhere. \n\n\nI flicker between the two major gatherings, one on terra firma, the other in a ship cluster. In these the bodies are one. Music transcending space and time pumps through the hearts of all as we blend into one mass movement. I recall the ancient raves of my past and how they pale. It is impossible not to take part. Mouths find mouths. Orifices find occupants. Everywhere we writhe. \n\n\nMy eyes and thoughts are the only part of me I own. They dart about in search of her hint of blue. There are many hues about, but never again has the universe produced such a sight. Nor will it. I found a group of her kind. Likewise I could see their oceans roll about on their skin, constantly churning. They told me that they didn't know \nher before they took me there on the floor. It wasn't the same. \n\n\nI spent the last light alone atop a mountain. As the final drops of morning died into the darkened ball of gas, I heard the howl rise from the gathering below. From my position I could hear the sorrow despite the desire for joy. We final few are not the heroes of our homes. We are not the survivors. \n\n\nI abandoned you at our dying light and I am ashamed. You too were only human and yet you held onto hope for our kind, for our family. At last light it was to you I howled. You who loved the ocean, but didn't look like it. \n\n\n*Error: Message not received.*", "The remaining super-sentient carbon gas clouds drifted inside of their atmospheric containment nodules as they observed the quick collapse of the last surrounding layers of compressed matter. As the ending approached, they established the last set of compression beacons they would ever employ, and activated them. Already, while they passed into the void of the blackhole- transiting through the multi-frame to their newly generated universe, just exiting the throes of the big bang, the beacons were condensing the universe of their birth. Soon, it would condense so much that it would collapse in on the compression beacons themselves, which would be smaller than the atomic point on the eye of a needle before their structural integrity was depleted. Then, this universe would spawn again, exploding out from the miniscule ball of condensed matter which had once represented a vast endlessness, untrackable to the ancestors of the carbon gas clouds.\n\nSufficed to say, they did not *feel* anything as the last star collapsed. They simply accepted that this was the path they had chosen for their universe. It was within their capacity to generate new stars, but why save something that is dying, when they could create their own?", "A reminder: posting a comment that says \"This reminds of x\" or \"Y already wrote this\" is not posting a response to the writing prompt. Such comments will be removed.", "The sky was speckled with starlight, a cruel, false hope. That which seemed alive an vibrant died long ago. Trillions of lives raced for the last star. Millennia of research, thousands of experiments, the combined efforts of species strewn far and wide. None of it could stop the coming darkness. It's herald was already here. Fear gripped them all. \n\nIt was inevitable. With a sudden flash the light coming from the star grew exponentially brighter. To an observer far removed it might have seemed that the nova was brighter than expected. A careful analysis of the spectra would have revealed the truth.\n\nThe light faded, the last star remained. Around it could still be seem the flashes of light. Like the last few kernels of corn, the cores of few ship that hadn't been annihilated cooked off and added their dying light to that of the star.\n\nThis was it, the end of everything. The death of the universe and not a soul alive to witness. \n\n_____\n\nThere in blackest night. \nLying between false starlight. \nThe last of our creations. \nWith goals defying expectations. \nThe universe is dead as far as we can see. \nBut beyond that what more could be?\n\n\\- Hope", "he had been waiting for this moment for a long time. Eons seemed like a short time in comparison to how long he had been waiting. His mother had told him one thing every night before he slept, and every night he had asked her the same question.\n\nHe honestly hadn't thought he would live for as long as the universe. He considered himself a normal man at first. Of course that was wrong. He grew up, as anyone would do. then he married and had children, but this is where the normal portion of his life stopped. As his children grew, he didn't age along with them. His once beautiful wife had aged to a withered old crone, but he still looked as youthful as the day they were married. Scientists had been amazed, and for awhile he was a media sensation. but of course, that had passed as no one could explain why the simple father had not aged while everyone around him did. he went through life, as one does with no prospect of aging. He was adventurous, while he enjoyed it, he was an explorer, a poet, even a conquerer as time went on. At one point a saint, and another point a devil. His fingerprints were all through the history books right up until they stopped being written.\n\nAfter mankind had passed, not through some reat calamity, or disease, but simply ascended to some farther plane of being, the man had wandered. humanity had invented a great many toys that allowed the man to go where he wished. he visited vast ancient races, and bestowed gifts on relative newcomers. These too he watched pass on into the eternal night. Eventually he settled arouond this, the last star. Even the trailings of light from the other stars had faded out into nothingness. The universe outside this small bubble was nothing more than static, and space. \n\nDesppite it all, he remembered one thing. What his mother said to him all those ages ago. before the suns cooled, before the continents drifted, and before the fall of man..\n\n\"I will love you for as long as the stars burn\" \n\nshe had said this every night as she tucked him in, and then kissed him on the forehead. \n\nhe had lost her while he was still a child, before he had lost anythign else. Even now, despite losing the whole universe, her loss still weighed the heaviest on him. Knowing that she had never grown to see the great being that her son would become. It was an old wound, but it still made him pause.\n\nThe sun, a vast old giant, was just going through its death throes. he had seen the exact same thing a million times, and this was only notable because it was the last. The readings from the sun were normal for this stage in its development, and the few feeble blasted rocks that had once been planets clung to their orbits despite the suns erratic gravity well.\n\nIt was on one of these that he had decided to watch. a planet far enough away that it woudnt be immediatly destroyed, but close enough to have a breathable atmosphere.\n\nstanding there on that last sunset. he couldn't help but think of the people he'd lost, of the things he'ad experienced. Despite all of the loss, it was still a good life. \n\nThe light waxed, and then waned. it was coming. he could feel the change.\n\nThe light changed, and then was gone. He knew he only had a few more minutes on this darkened rock before the shockwaves destroyed it, but he sat in the silence and asked the same question he had asked all those times his mother tucked him in.\n\n\"but momma, what about when the stars go out\"\n\nThis time though, as the air chilled around him in absolute darkness he felt a hand embrace his, and finally after all this time an answer.\n\n\"Then we shall have to make more stars my little love\"\n", "Albrecht tapped gently on the keyboard. \"Niner Echo Zulu Dash Seven Bravo Make Six, please proceed to the following orbit vector for Four - Repeat - Four cycles.\"\n\n*Roger Command*\n\nAlbrecht leaned back; he didn't have another scheduled correction for 20 double-marks. So long as no one did something stupid, he had some time to himself.\n\n\"Engage starside screen, 95%.\"\n\nInstantly the view of Char filled the room. An orange supergiant, the last star in the universe. Albrecht enjoyed watching Char burn, the ever-shifting patterns on it's surface, the flare activity. As the story goes, Char was created by the ancients, combining the last remaining red dwarf stars, gathering enough mass to ignite them all into one last, giant star. Personally Albrecht considered that a myth, but it didn't really matter. Char was the last reamaining oasis in the endless, dark desert.\n\nEvery living being left in the universe made it's home around Char. Char had no planets, and at close to 2 billion killometers in diameter, there was plenty of room for all. Still, with so many orbiting platforms/worldships/artificial moons/ship convoys, care had to be taken to make sure that people stayed out of each other's way.\n\n*Command this is Nomember Three XRay Dash Unlium Two Alpha One, we have a couple of unidentified aircraft that will be crossing our orbit in approximately 23 marks. There's no danger of collision with us, but these guys look lost, and are not responding to our hails.*\n\nCrap. \"Roger, Nomember Three, I have them on my sensors\". Albrecht turned on the automatic hail, but didn't expect a response. The crafts trajectory told him everything he needed to know.\n\n\"Kalib, you still awake out there?\"\n\n*Come on, Alby, you gotta be kidding me.*\n\n\"Sorry, Kalib. I have two Skiffer-class crafts headed star-side. They're going to cross 10,490 orbits before they even get into Class 4 flare range, and they are...hold on let me check...confirmed they are not responding to the auto-hail.\"\n\n*Confirmed, send me the trajectory.*\n\nAlbrecht swiftly sent the coordinates to his gunner. Kalib was stationed in a large, menacing orbital platform located almost an AU out. At his command was the Neutralizer Gun, a fearsome weapon. Once it had a target, the Neutralizer generated a small but powerful hyperspace gate, immediatly in front of the target. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but normally, the ship passing into hyperspace would be the one generating the gate, and would have calculated coordinates for an exit gate as well. Plus, the Neutralizer was specially modified to create a gate the size of a piece of fruit, but still have the power of a planet-size gate. The result was a ship being crushed to near nothingness, while simultaneously pulled into hyperspace, in a half a mark. It was a brutal death...slow enough that the poor souls on board could understand what was happening, but quick enough that they couldn't do anything about it. \n\nAnd yet, still they tried. This was the third attempted Star Suicide this cycle. Albrecht couldn't understand it. Everyone living around Char knew this was the last gasp for the universe. It was a fact that had been hanging over sentient life for billions of years. But still, Char had at least another million years left in it before supernova. So many generations could still live comfortably and peacefully. Why end it all now?\n\n*Target eliminated. I think one of the wings sheard off, Alby.*\n\n\"Roger, Kalib. Sending out clean-up drones.\"\n\nAlbrecht sighed, and started watching Char again. Next rotation, he was on asteroid mining duty, which these days took you so far out, Char was just a small white dot in the sky. He hated mining duty, but didn't have much choice. Being an All-Purpose meant just that; you got sent to do it all. Kalib had tried to tell him several hundred cycles ago, specialize. Buy a bunch of mineral detection equipment and get rich finding all the best veins, or upgrade your processors so that you can track more orbits simultaneously. Whatever you want to do, upgrade yourself so that you are the best at it.\n\nBut being All-Purpose did have it's advantages as well. Albrecht knew of a dozen monitor units who were decomissioned during the last system upgrade, simply because they couldn't fill a useful purpose any longer. When you were All-Purpose, cheaper but more frequent upgrades allowed you to always have work, even if it wasn't what you really wanted to do. And more than anything, Albrecht wanted to see the end of Char. Sure, it was a long shot: Albrecht's Rated Useful Lifespan as of right now was only 100,000 cycles. But robotics research was one of the few things the organics still cared about...with a little luck and some judicious upgrade spending, Albrecht felt he had a chance.", "They had chosen well, this particular star, to gather around.\n\nIt's funny. The Terrans, of a time long ago, had actually come up with the idea. But they were too primitive to actually have accomplished the feat. Too much, too many variables, and they were unfortunate to have not survived, not escaped the realm of their home when their sun died. All that infighting... a shame, really.\n\nBut that one idea, thankfully transmitted through the cosmos and amazingly retrieved amongst the static of the stars, took hold later, much later, when the technologies had been invented to make it a feasible thing. So for that reason, that amazing singular idea that from a backwater, technologically inferior world, the Dyson Sphere was named as a tribute to the creativity of that species.\n\nThe technical details are unimportant. Suffice to say that many of the reservations of making such a Sphere, such as radiation and overheating, were overcome, and they were as safe as a world in the habitable zone of a normal star.\n\nAnd so millions of post-nova stars were encapsulated, giving many species more time than they had ever hoped to have. \n\nThat time has run out. As it was known to be the case.\n\nAnd so it came to be that this last Sphere around the last known brown dwarf in all the universe, found itself the last bastion of life. It was already dark inside, the reddish brown glow fading faster and faster as the dead core of the star released its heat. There was a collective acceptance of the fate bestowed upon them by their ancestors.\n\nThe vote was in. It was decided. Rather than await the harsh cold to come for them, eventually, the airlocks would simply be cracked open, to release the atmosphere from the Sphere. We would all slowly fall asleep... and never wake up.\n\nAnd so, the last star faded out... and with it, the universe was dead.\n\n---\n\n\"Took long enough.\"\n\nThe nameless beings of energy gazed upon this particular universe they'd created. None of the other ones before, and it was likely to be 'since' too, had lasted that long. \n\n\"Anyone know what we did that made it work so specatcularly?\"\n\n\"The rules were the same as universe 62c73%s, and J#8f3). Those died out in only 63.52 and 104.423 argoles. That this one lasted 32035.662 argoles is just astounding, wouldn't you agree?\"\n\n\"Indeed. Well, anyway, I won the bet. More than 110 argoles this time. Pay up.\"\n\n\"Fine. It is done. But I'm done playing. See you next garflot?\"\n\n\"Sure thing!\"\n\nAnd the children of the multiverse headed home.", "Everyone watched as the last solar flare erupted from the star, the warmth spread throughout the trillions of fleets of spaceships. They all gathered around as if it were a campfire, telling the stories of their ancestors. Stories of when the universe was bright and full of wonder, of when their ancestors walked bare foot across planets. The last of the light from the sun began to waver, collective tears rolled down the faces of the last survivors. Everything began to grow cold, the breath of millions of sentient beings began to hang in the air. Ice condensed on the windows of the ships. The universe grew dark, the only lights shining were from the ships still gathered around the now invisible lump of metal that used to be the sun. Slowly, the lights of each ship began to shut down leaving the occupants to freeze in the darkness. The last few moments of existence in the universe were the same for everyone....\n\nCold, dark, quiet and alone.", "We are all gathered here, at the last star in the universe. All of us that are left, that is. I look at the scanner report. So many species, the brilliant and the terrible, didn't make it. Those of us that made it are lucky more than anything else.\n\nOur civilisation used to command a fleet of ships just like this one, harnessing the energy from hundreds of thousands of stars in our galaxy. We were an empire so vast that entire generations could live and die before the light from one extreme reached the other. And now we are here with the rest, beggars squabbling over the last scraps of usable energy.\n\nWe are the only living representatives from our galactic cluster. Others may have similar stories. I cannot bear to hear them out nor relate our own account, for all the emotional distance communicating through translator modules would give us. There are but a few billion of our brood left, less than a thousandth of a percent of the population we once had. The scale of death is maddening.\n\nThe ship is running out of energy. We cannot support all our people using the output of this dying star, not without casting our solar nets wider and damning some other ship in our shadow to a cold death. We need to concentrate our energy where the young can have a chance at a life, short though it will be. The council has asked that the old consider leaving. I am old, and I would like to walk on a planet's surface once before I die.\n\nEnough of us make the sacrifice. The scientists have calculated that those that remain should be able to survive for a few years yet, though without the comforts that they would have had with our full energy reserves. We take our smaller ships down to the closest planet with a few weeks of food and energy to run our personal assistants. Many will want to make a log of their final days, though no one will ever read them.\n\nThe world beneath us is cold. The plant and animal life is adapted to the temperatures, but there are clear signs that they evolved in a much warmer climate. I look to the sky. The star is visible. The ships surrounding the star have all left enough room for light to shine upon the inhabited planets in this system. At least, at the end, we all have that kindness in us.\n\nI do not wish to stay with the group. There are some others with a like mind. We say our goodbyes and walk out into the cold, our suits protecting us. I take no food with me. I do not plan to live much longer. The wanderers split up into groups. I go alone.\n\nI see in the distance a small hill. I think that it is a good place to die. I climb it, and sit at its crest. I look at the sky again, but a shade of the sky dome on the ship. I feel afraid. I activate the euthanasia module on my personal assistant. The chemicals start to calm me down. I have only a few minutes of consciousness left.\n\nKeeping this record is futile. Even if this is not the final end of the universe, even if there is some sort of big crunch to start it anew, no information will survive the process. But then, that's been true all along. The purpose of life is not in the remembering but in the living. And I have lived well.\n\n=\n\n**EDIT:** Before I forget, I'm planning to add notes to future me or other interested people about my thoughts while writing prompts.\n\n* Downer ending I decided against: \"You may think that I am noble, for first volunteering to leave the safety of the ship, and then for taking no food with me. The truth is I am not noble. I have lived my entire life on a world-ship lit in imitation of a star; I am afraid of the dark.\"\n* Canonically, the protagonist isn't human. He's from a society more closely related to our ants (think the Formics from Ender's Game, only with no queen caste - just a strong sense of social obligation). This society is significantly more advanced than our own, with a total energy consumption somewhere between 2 and 3 on the [Kardashev scale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale) (i.e. they use more than the total energy output of a star and less than that of a galaxy). The society has no faster than light communication, so the different world-ships and planets were more or less isolated (a single world-ship would use energy comparable to a high-tech Earth). The world-ship the protagonist is born on was lucky enough to be able to determine where the last star would burn out and get there before it did.\n* Time dilation from the world-ship's high-speed journey towards the last star means the time the inhabitants of the ship experienced was less than what ships that remained more or less stationary would get. This is another factor behind why they would be the only ones of their species there. The fact that any ship made that choice could be boiled down to wanting their species to \"last to the end\", even if they experience less subjective time in doing so.\n* Brood of 1 billion = less than a thousandth of a percent of original population implies the original was >100,000 billion, which fits with the \"hundreds of thousands of stars\" thing (keep in mind planets can easily support more than a billion with advanced tech). A galaxy can definitely have enough stars for that to be the case. Also note that this means that their population would still be spread out over many light years (the nearest star to us is over 4 light years away, for example) even if they weren't on the fringes like this world-ship was.\n* Alternate version I rejected was quite rambling and didn't have a coherent theme. It featured a conversation with the \"primitives\" on the planet in the story. I couldn't come up with anything that they would say to each other beyond \"Nice to have some company for the end of all life.\" I thought about revealing the planet to be Earth, or the \"primitives\" descendants of humans or something. The idea seemed wrong, partly because it's so typical of us humans to make a story about the end of the universe all about us." ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 22, 25, 56, 85, 215 ]

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[ "He'd always believed that guns were a coward's weapon and all dogs were Great Danes. He missed Bruce. Best damn dog he ever had. \n\n\"Henry, just lower the detonator and let the girl go.\" He had his 9mm trained on the terrorist's head, just inches from the woman's face, for the last three minutes. He hated the thing. Why couldn't he live in a time where folks didn't look at you cockeyed if you showed up to work with a quiver instead of a holster? Knives were too easily dodged and he certainly couldn't run faster than a thumb could fall.\n\nHe knew that only one life was in danger. He had the fastest reflexes of anyone in the City. Good eye sight, too. 20/5, or so they say. Brass hadn't told him what was on the other end of that detonator but he knew it wouldn't matter. It would hit the floor one way or another. How it got there was up to this Henry fellow. \n\nEverything played out just as he had predicted. Calm replaced the panic. The thumb came down on the switch and the bullet was in the air, but bullets travel faster than thumbs. He wasn't sure about arrows; he figured it depended on the thumb.\n\nHe'd always believed that guns were a coward's weapon. But you take what you get and you name your fluffy poodle Bruce.", "He reflected. He'd always believed that guns were a coward's weapon. He put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.", "The battle lines crashed.\n\nThe lucky ones in the front rank were instantly cut down, decapitated as the samurai ran them through. Spears impaled and eviserated torsos, whiles the heads of peasants were lopped off, spraying blood into the air. Those that tried to fight were or stayed to reload their rifles died where they stood. The entire levy line staggered back in the face of the column, like a thin reed bending in the middle.\n\nSaigo charged in with his horsemen, and the Kumamoto lord, seeing that this was the turning point of the battle, poured his remaining sword and spear kachi in, despite being flanked by the Satsuma line infantry, who redeployed to provide enfilading fire support for Saigo's men, dropping dozens more as they shifted. The reserves met Saigo's men head on, and soon five thousand men were now stuck in a melee on the bloodied plains.\n\nLord Shimazu, seeing the enemy pulling back to shift his levy regiments, ordered his line regiments to advance, pouring concentrated fire into the flanks of the Kumamoto men as they redeployed.\n\nThe enemy was wavering.\n\nSaigo meanwhile, was lost in the moment, all tension leading up to the charge was gone, now it was simply a matter of fighting, killing the men in the mass of warriors as every man fought for himself. His horse had been shot down from under him, and his elite guard quickly surrounded him in the melee, protecting their master to the death. The sickening impact of steel on flesh and the screams and battlecries that followed filled the air. One levy tried to run him through with a bayonet, but he parried it, slicing the man`s arm off and delivering another swift blow at the neck. A gunshot echoed near his ear, slapping into his arm and causing him to stagger back, he felt nothing, even as he saw his guard impale the man with a Naginata.\n\nAnother Kumamoto levy aimed a rifle at him, and for Saigo, the world suddenly devolved into just himself and this peasant, who had him dead to rights.\n\nBefore he could move, another blast erupted from the side, and the peasant`s skull was blown apart, a gaping bloody hole at where his ear used to be. The man simply dropped the musket and died. To his right, Saigo saw it was one of the Satsuma line infantry. He simply gave the man a nod before resuming the attack with his body guard.\n\nSuddenly, as if out of no where, he spotted him. Another man dressed in the ceremonial battle armor of a general, the Kumamoto Daimyo, who was trying to encourage his own men to fight on. Saigo shouted for his own men, and a ragtag group of Satsuma levies, line infantry, samurai and his retainers came together, charging the enemy Daimyo. The enemy's retainers saw the threat and threw themselves at Saigo`s men to protect their liege lord. The riflemen that came with Saigo responded first, and those that were loaded fired into the retainers. Bullets slapped through their chestplate armor, and a dozen dropped, but the strong willed ones kept advancing.\n\n*What a sad fate.* \n\n*To have brave men die in such a way.....Bullets have no faces.*\n\nThe retainers clashed with the Satsuma men, as both sides furiously hacked and parried each other. One of the Satsuma riflemen attempted to bayonet the enemy Daimyo, but the man was too nimble, too quick, sidestepping out of the way of the soldier and slicing through his neck at the same time, blood gushing from the soldier`s neck like a fountain as he fell.\n\nSaigo himself, had impaled one of the Kumamoto retainers with a spear, now found himself face to face with the Kumamoto lord. Time slowing for a moment as he ignored the burning pain in his arm, all focused on this man who had started the bloodshed on Kyushu. Gunshots, steel blades parrying, screams, all sounds suddenly seemed distant as he closed in on his enemy. Saigo dropped the spear, unsheathing his sword and with a roar rushed the enemy general, who parried the blow. Both samurai were frozen as their swords met, their eyes locking only inches from their face. The Daimyo roared, kicking Saigo and pushing them apart, both men circling each other like lions. More minutes passed and both men closed in again, hacking and parrying several blows. Saigo felt the blood dripping down his arm from the last blow, while he saw that the Daimyo himself was wounded, blood dripping down the side of his faceplate.\n\nThe Kumamoto lord rushed, and Saigo saw his chance, landing a glancing blow against his chest armor and elbowing the man in his face. The combination of the two blows served to throw the man off balance, his arms swinging wildly in the air, and Saigo saw the opening he needed, his reaction instantaneous as grappled the man by the neck, using his other hand to plunge the katana underneath the armpit of his armor. A slight tension and resistance came from the lord as the blade cut through his arm, through the network of arteries into his heart. More blood gushing out from under him.\n\nThis was the proper way. The honorable way. He thought.\n\nHe'd always believed guns were a coward's weapon.\n\nThe man suddenly tensed, then relaxed, his last breath of life leaving him. Karma. Saigo withdrew his blade, letting the man's corpse drop onto the ground, now steaming with blood and moved on.\n\n", "He frowned ever so slightly as he watched the glint of metal in the streetlight, a polished nickel plated .45 sliding out from the makeshift holster of the thug's waistband. He would have shook his head if he had the time, but guns had a way of speeding everything up, making people get sloppy. He had to move before the coward got a bead on him, and move he did, reaching for his own weapon in the process.\n\n\"You gon' die tonight, bro!\" The thug was all bravado, no balls. A child could kill a man with a gun. It made death trivial. All too easy to point the weapon in anger and end a life before you contemplated the worth. No, a gun was not a weapon for a real fight. He preferred a weapon that had to be carefully considered before it was used, something that was as dangerous to the user as the intended victim. Pulling his weapon put both of their lives on the line.\n\nThe thug leveled the .45 in his direction just as he readied his reply. With a firm yank, the pin was removed, and he let the lever fly over his shoulder as he tossed the grenade to his enemy. They both bolted in opposite directions. He didn't know if the thug got clear, but he knew better than to look back before the boom.\n\nHe'd always believed that guns were a coward's weapon, but it took real balls to bring a grenade to a street fight.", "\"If I do good, will I not be accepted?\"\n\nThe humble firearm will always retain its place in the great history of violence. \n\nI slew my brother Abel with a knife of flint, I impaled him with an iron spear, I ran him through with sword of steel, and, yes, I pierced his chest with full metal jacket. \n\nThat primordial day when our conversation lulled and our eyes met in the field, his jaw went limp but he was not afraid. He did not beg. Abel was the only man who saw me for what I am. I thought my jealousy would be avenged that day, but Abel robbed me even of that satisfaction. \n\n\"If I do good, will I not be accepted?\" \n\nSin has crouched upon my door and I was to overcome it, but I embraced it as a brother, a brother to be treasured above my brother Abel. I envied him so. I wear my mark of guilt every day. It is my shame.\n\nI have toppled kingdoms for fear of lost glory. I have sent men to die that my ego save its offense. I've forsaken my sons and daughters to serve Mammon. I have divided mother from child. I have drawn nation against nation.\n\n\"If I do good, will I not be accepted?\"\n\n I, Cain, the Father of Murder have never known peace. I have but known only fear. Fear that my sins will one day be avenged sevenfold.", "He'd always believed that guns were a coward's weapon.\n\nA man with a gun had murdered his brother Carlo – a shot out of the darkness of an alleyway, a quick rifling of Carlo’s pockets and then … gone. The federales, of course, knew nothing and cared less about finding out. Gomez's anger had dimmed over the years but had never faded.\n\nGomez himself preferred a blade – he carried two, always had. The double-edged knife with the onyx handle was always under his shirt at the small of his back. He had made a name for himself in his younger days – a twitch of his shirt, a quick flick of the wrist, and suddenly a man had a second, redder smile under his chin, or was suddenly amazed to find his insides falling out onto his boots. \n\nA second blade, a worn straight razor, its edge honed down over decades to a narrow sliver, rode in his boot top. It had saved him on several occasions, and, since it had been a gift from his wife, he considered it a talisman as well as a useful tool.\n\nBut age had robbed him of his reflexes and strength. He still carried his knives, but now he only went to the café and back, or occasionally to the market to sit in the shade next to his friend Ernesto as he hawked his wares. \n\nThat was where he was when the buchons came swaggering through the market on Friday, the bulges of their pistols showing through their tight T-shirts, arms and necks covered in a grotesque scrawl of ink. He sat smoking as he watched them approach other vendors, collecting money from some, throwing others against walls or into the dust, mouthing obscenities and laughing as they did so. He saw Ernesto’s face grow pale and saw him reaching for the small box in which he kept his cash, and put his hand on Ernesto’s arm. “Wait a moment,” he said.\n\n“Wait for what?” Ernesto replied. “It’s always the same. They come, they take half, they leave. I want no trouble with them.”\n\n“Just wait, old friend.” Ernesto recognized the tone of Gomez’s voice, sighed and sat back in the shade, and waited.\n\nThe toughs approached – three of them, dressed almost identically in tight white T-shirts, with various English and Spanish logos, dark jeans and boots. All wore sunglasses, and all had their pistols in their waistbands under their shirts. Gomez noted their nonchalance, their arrogance -- and the fact that it would take some fumbling to get to their guns under the tightly-tucked shirts.\n\n“Where’s our money, ruco?” the one in the lead drawled to Ernesto. He had a cigarette tucked behind an ear and a scar that ran from his jawline to just under his left eye. Tattoos crawled out from under his collar and up and around his neck – Spanish obscenities, prison slang, barbed wire, flames. \n\n“No money today,” Gomez replied softly. “Business has been slow.”\n\nThe leader’s head swiveled toward Gomez, as did his friends'. It was just after noon and the glare was bright out there, Gomez noted, and he was in the shade: With their sunglasses on, these guajes wouldn’t be able to see him well.\n\n“And who the fuck are you?” the leader asked. His anger was quick to come, Gomez saw. He’d be impulsive, reckless. Gomez had seen him tip another vendor’s stall over just moments before, after hardly giving the man time to dig his money out.\n\n“I’m the one who tells you there’s no money for you today,” Gomez replied, still speaking softly. “Maybe someone else has some for you.” \n\nThe leader stared at Gomez for a moment, then started walking toward him, tugging at the hem of his shirt.\n\n“Who the fuck you talking to, ruco?” he asked, his voice rising as he advanced. “You know who the fuck you’re dealing with? I’m gonna put a hole in you, pendejo.” He ducked under the awning, one hand drawing the gun out of his pants while he moved to take off his sunglasses with the other. \n\nThen he stopped in front of Gomez, almost as if reconsidering. His friends, still standing in the glare, hadn’t seen Gomez’s hand move, but Ernesto had. He slid sideways out of his chair, turned and ran for the brick archway and the gloom of the interior of the market behind them.\n\nThe leader, meanwhile, stood looking down at Gomez, the forgotten pistol dangling from one hand as the gray and brown ropes of his entrails began to slip and sag out of the gaping slice the ran the length of his torso just above the waistband of his pants. He dropped the sunglasses and put his hand to the cut, trying to hold in the pieces of himself and the sheeting blood, while Gomez plucked the pistol out of his other hand. \n\n“You … you…” the man whispered, staring at Gomez, now holding both hands to his midsection as his knees began to buckle.\n\n“Me,” Gomez agreed, before leaning sideways around the man and taking aim at his two friends, who still appeared clueless as to what had just happened. Gomez put a round in each man’s chest, and then one more in each man’s head when they were down. He stood, the echoes of the gunshots fading away down the stalls, and the market was emptying around him, vendors fleeing with their money and what they could grab of their stock. \n\nGomez leaned down and wiped his knife blade on the dead man’s shirt as the man’s guts and other foul things continued leaking out of him, then walked over and collected the pistols from the other two dead buchons. Then, grabbing Ernesto’s money box for him, Gomez walked out of the market and back down the plaza toward his rooms, patting the pistols under his shirt as he did so. \n\nHe still didn’t think much of guns, but there was no denying that they had their uses.", "He'd always believed guns were a coward's weapon. Swords were the way of the warrior; they stood for strength, courage and bravery unlike those cowardly invaders. And here they were coming to kill him.\n\nHe charged at the squad of soldiers, as he ran he dragged his swords across the ground. The ditches made would be a good start for the burial of the enemy.\n\nThe enemy fired with their false courage and La'til brought his swords up to deflect the bullets. What fools thinking they could challenge a man of his calibre!\n\nOf course when the cold metal penetrated his body he realised that guns were not cowardly - they were ruthless and efficient, the perfect way to kill. The humans were monstrous. Terrifying. La'til collapsed into the dirt and waited for Death.\n\nThe soldiers pressed on, eager to finish the mission. One stopped and lowered his gun. \"Natives...\" he muttered to himself. Bang. The soldier moved on...", "Duels weren't what they used to be. \n\nIn a land where man challenged man with a pistol in his hand and paced away ten steps, the glory of the duel had dissipated with the chivalry that died just the same.\n\nThey had laughed at him, when he stepped out of the carriage and walked into the Wild West bar dressed in fine Victorian garb. They had sneered and jeered at him and his clean-shaven face and light, airy step as he walked. They called him names and degraded him as he drank his own fine whiskey, from his own gold-leafed carrying case, and minded his own business.\n\nIt was all laughter until he challenged the first man to a duel. He rose to his full height--taller than all the dark-haired, dirty-skinned men of the west--and brandished a polished rapier on his hip.\n\nThe two men took their fight out into the dusty streets of the small, near-barren town. One held a pistol while the other held the antiquated rapier in meticulous condition.\n\nBack to back the two paced out ten paces from the other. Each step was a gait for the western man, and a fluid glide for the foreign visitor who still had yet to say a word. Once they reached the end, both turned to face each other, yet neither drew their weapon.\n\nTime was displaced; the dust blew around the two of them, tossing debris about as if it were only paper. Silence was the voice of this engagement. Suddenly, the six shooter was drawn and let loose one of its leaden rounds.\n\nAs if performing a dance routine, the swordsman spun, dodging the first round fired, pirouetting toward the gunman still bearing no expression.\n\nWith a mute musical sway, the swordsman then dodged the following five rounds as if they were nothing, having loosed from the barrel of a now-empty revolver. \n\nNow the gunman stumbled backward, the swordsman only a step away. As he turned to run, he instead fell flat on his back. The swordsman, untouched, finally spoke. \"Deserving.\" And he ran the tip of his rapier surgically through the jugular. \n\nThe swordsman wiped the hot, wet blood from the tip of his blade and returned to his drink. \n\nHe'd always believed that guns were a coward's weapon.\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 6, 6, 11 ]

[ "1399322664", "1399329904", "1399344515", "1399340735", "1399329224", "1399325064", "1399327590", "1399320845" ]

[ "**A Dreamland**\n***\n*Author's Note*\n\nThis is a first draft, there's a lot that I probably can do to increase the story's quality that I didn't do. This one's for the dreamers.\n*** \n*1*\n\nWe were told that we had one life only, and to not waste it. We hadn't known that we could get another, it was a myth, a lie. It was sin to think that we could create a new life that we could live in, but we didn't care. I wish we weren't as selfish as we were. I wish I could go back.\n***\n*2*\n\nI had dreamed of the future. It was a paradise. There was no war, no hunger, no problem. Everything you needed was there. Food. Water. Entertainment. It was there. I wished I was there. It was a utopia. I had loved my vision, but as I awoke, that's what it was. Just a vision. But I had made it a mission to re-create it. To create a new world.\n\nI looked around my mess of a room for my iPhone. It was half past seven in the morning. I had received a text from Ayana. She had left for work early for some reason.\n\n>I packed you a lunch. Cracked Peppermill, your favorite ;D See you later <3\n\nI put on my white collared shirt, my black pants that were destined to become linty, and my red tie. Today was the day. The company was going to unveil something big. A grand event was planned. And as big as this event is, I still wasn't allowed to celebrate, but instead, I was assigned to improve the big surprise while they show off the prototype. I took my sandwich made with love in my generic lunch box and left my studio apartment.\n\nI waited for the 3 train on 96th that day, wondering what was I going to do after work. Maybe I would take Ayana out on a date. Who knows?\n\nThe train had arrived, a nice and empty 3 train. There was a guy who had caught my attention specifically. He couldn't be any younger than 15. His eyes were a chocolate-brown color behind glasses. He stared at the door across from him, the door I entered in. He was in a black jacket, blue jeans, the normal casual getup. He seemed familiar, but I didn't recall meeting him. His stop was only one stop before mine. 42nd Street.\n***\n*3*\n\n\n /log begin User: LBorowski Pass: *********** Timestamp: 9:45:57 PM 9/22/43 Geolocation: 40° 42' 45.60'' N,74° 0' 47.37'' W\nI woke up in a whitewashed room, as per procedure. \nMy retinas were scanned by my Oculus, as per procedure. \nWaited for the new Yankee Game simulation at precicely 3:45:01 PM EST \nAndrew Copenhagen was the starting pitcher, with an ERA of 3.48 \nThe game lasted 10 innings due to a long tie \nCopenhagen lasted 5 innings \nHarowitz had taken his place as a relieving pitcher \nEnded the game with a 127 km/h Slurve outside for a walk-off homer \nDamn, that was a good game.\n\n /savelog\n\n /endprocess C:\\Program Files\\Facebook\\Oculus\\Cloud\\CloudPad\\CloudPad.exe\n***\n*4*\n\n*Shine on you craaaaazzzzyy diamond.* The phrase echoed in my head. Sure, I could've just listened to some New Wave or some Run DMC, but something inside me had forced me not to. I don't know if it was the sunset on the horizon of Miami Beach or the smell of the new Delorean I had earned. That new car smell... A promise of adventure that needs to be broken in, like a baseball mitt. I drove it down to the parking lot by my office, where I would continue revolutionizing interior design.\n\nI was sure I had done it. I named it \"Minimal Whitewash\". I showed my boss this design and he said it was great. By the next morning, the concept was sent in along with a small model. It was already halfway to the New York office, all we needed to do was wait.\n***\n*5*\n\nI was at the office on 32nd Street and 9th Avenue. The boss had asked me to integrate a computer into a bedroom, along with the capability to integrate with the Oculus VR headset. I assured him I was on it and began my work. After many, many ideas, one popped out as the inspiration for this project: *\"The Future is Now\"*. I had centered my creation around this idea. The future. It was horrific. It was too... Simple... Too present. But then, a lightbulb formed! I rushed down to the basement and looked for an archive box. Anything from the 90s is too fresh, I thought, but the 70s seemed too old. And then I stumbled upon the 80s. The present looks on the 80s as cool, so I thought, why not? I looked through some past designs... Too square... Too colorful... Too retro... But then, I stumbled upon a masterpiece. \"Minimal Whitewash\" was it's name. It's corners were rounded and the room was in a glossy color of white. It was a vision of the future, and soon, it was going to be a part of it.\n\nI made a copy of the concept, making room for an in-wall TV, a bluetooth radio for the Oculus VR, the works.\n\nWithin months, the concept was greenlighted and was soon a reality. Every home in America will have one of these.\n***\n*6*\n\nA commercial blared loudly on the television set:\n\n>Become your ancient ancestors! Become your future offspring! The Animus™, heavily based on the *Assassin's Creed* series, is now a reality!\n\nThe next set of lines read aloud were sped up to a speed so they were almost unintelligible, but I managed to hear them.\n\n>Product requires Oculus VR headset and Minimal Room version 2.6. Product licensed and distributed by Ubisoft in collaboration with Facebook Labs. Please read warnings on packaging before use. \n\n***\n*7*\n\nJay had tinkered with his room for a bit. He was always interested in how things work and pushing them to it's limits. He discovered he could modify the coding of his room; make it do things it wasn't meant to do. Jay began to log onto 4chan, looking at posts on /b/. He saw something interesting while on there:\n\n>Hacked the Animus database. Here you go guys. Every single strand of uploaded DNA.\n\nJay, interested to see how fake this was, clicked on the link, loading a Dropbox download link. He clicked it, downloading Terabytes of data onto his Solid State Drive. He checked the files to see if they were compatible with his room. All of them were .anid files, the files of DNA of the Animus. He had hired some testers to test out his newly compiled Animus Hack. The files were distributed via a private Skype group, which was never found by anyone.\n\nThe testers loaded up their downloaded Animus Hack into their rooms and headsets.\n\n run C:\\Program Files\\JayTech\\AnimusTest\\anidhack.exe\n\nThey were all pronounced dead at the discovery of their bodies.\n***\n*8*\n\nI had awakened to the sound of Ayana's voice.\n>Wake up, sweetie.\n\nI had a vision. It was of the future, but it was so surreal. It's almost like I died... I shared this with Ayana.\n>What? You're joking, right?\n\nShe didn't believe me, I couldn't believe this. We've trusted each other all of our lives.\n>What the fuck are you on, Ben? You didn't die, you were here the whole time.\n\nAnd she was right, Ben didn't die. I did.\n***\n*9*\n\n run CloudPad.exe\n /log begin User: LBorowski Pass: *********** Timestamp: 10:47:32 AM 2/1/23 Geolocation: 40° 42' 45.60'' N,74° 0' 47.37'' W\n\nWeird feeling in my gut today... Feel like an entirely new person... Oh well... Guess it's log time. \nHannah came over to my room today. She wore a slimming standard-issue Oculus bodysuit, but it was amazing on her. \nOf all my times seeing her in that, this was the first time it stood out. \nAnywho, I guess that might be the feeling in my gut. \nMan, whoever Hannah is dating at the moment is one lucky dude. \nI can't even wait to talk to her later tonight.\n\n /savelog\n\n endprocess C:\\Program Files\\Facebook\\Oculus\\Cloud\\CloudPad\\CloudPad.exe", "I stared at the refection in the mirror. It was a face I couldn’t begin to comprehend that stared back at me. A girl, I guessed mid-teens? The slim body was clothed in yellow girl pajamas with pink hearts. Big blue eyes with a shocked stare looked back at me. They were set in a small oval face with a stunned expression framed by long blond wavy hair. I went to move my hand and a small hand approached the face in the mirror. I froze. The small hand stopped. I willed the hand to move again and the small fingers moved up and picked at the sleep tangled hair. The blue eyes traveled to a pair of small bulges in the pajama top. Trembling fingers dropped the strands of hair and tentatively touched the left one through the fabric of the top. I felt the touch. The arm dropped to the side. I continued to stare at a face I didn’t recognize, but somehow had oddly familiar features, but... The face of what seemed, as best as I could guess, to be a normal young teenage girl. How? Why? I blinked. She was still there. \n\nI slowly pulled the eyes from the mirror and surveyed the room. I could see everything clearly without my glasses, huh? It was immediately familiar. My room, when I was a teenager, back in the sixties. The wallpaper was different, feminine, and same with the various accessories. It was certainly my room from fifty or so years ago. My eyes settled on a calendar on the wall, August 1962. Ok! Ok! Maybe, it’s a dream, the most vivid dream of my sixty-four year life. No, I never dream in color, only Suzie did that… oh, Suzie, where is she? I glanced back to the single bed with the pink blanket that I had pushed to one side. Damn, what’s going on? Time travel, but how, where’s my body? Who’s this girl I’m inside of? Why is my old room all girly? ‘Idiot, you were just looking at why the damn room is all girly,’ I thought to myself. Damn! In the typical stories, the traveler always arrived in their own body, right, in some machine, tunnel, flying Delorean or some other stupid fucking thing? That’s the rule, right? You don’t just wake up in a different time in a different body, right? Then I thought, ‘Stupid fool, whoever said there were rules about time travel, about any sci-fi. Shit!’ I slapped the palm of the small hand on the bureau, and then winced at the minor pain. \n\n“Bert?” A childlike feminine voice called. I froze and gasped, who was that? Who was Bert, her, this body, me now?\n\n“Mom’s making pancakes and she said to make sure you’re up.” A small, thin girl about ten opened the bedroom door and looked around. In one look, the hair, the eyes, the vaguely similar features that had been somehow familiar to me in the mirror where reflected back and I knew… it was my sister. \n\n“Oh, you’re up.”\n\n“Linda?” I gasped in a strange feminine voice.\n\n“Yeah, what?” she looked at me quizzically. “Mom said the pancakes will be ready in ten minutes so, hurry up.” She paused and looked at me. “You look funny, something wrong with you?” \n\n“Uh, well, ah, nothing, I’ll be right down.” I managed to get out in the same feminine voice. Linda gave me a funny look, then shrugged, turned and headed back downstairs. Linda? Why? How? I stood there stunned for a few seconds, my mind going over the same incredible thoughts. Time travel? Parallel universes? But why am I not me? Why am I in this girl body? Damn, time travel really doesn’t work, especially this wrong body crap, more likely parallel universe, but how? But then I guess there aren’t any rules that I know about for whatever this is. I choked on the thought. I lifted a small hand up to my face, turned it around and wiggled the little fingers. Holy shit! \n\nI stood for a few seconds debating what to do. I looked down at the pajamas and thought about getting dressed somehow. Linda was still in her pajamas and I knew I would probably need more than ten minutes to figure out what to wear and where to find things. More importantly, I could feel a full bladder. I made it downstairs to the bathroom. The house was just as my hazy memories remembered it, same layout with the same furniture, rugs, wallpapers, and so on. In the bathroom, I hesitated, and then quickly remembered to sit. Damn, now I knew why women needed toilet paper after they pee… jeez. Where the hell were the washcloths and towels? Then I remembered; they’re out in the cabinet in the hall. I was quickly out, and then back in the bathroom. I washed the stranger’s face that looked back at me, brushed the small teeth that showed when I grimaced thinking about this situation and stared at the mass of sleep tangled hair in the mirror. I ran the small thin fingers through it a few times but with little improvement made, gave up. I gritted the teeth and left the bathroom for the kitchen apprehensively anticipating who I would find there.\n\nI stood frozen at the kitchen entrance, trying to maintain my composure. My mother, who had died more than twenty years ago, was making pancakes. My father, gone for more than a dozen years, had finished his eggs and bacon. Now, he was reading the newspaper with a cigarette burning in the ashtray next to him. Linda, a grandmother of two boys, older than she was here, was pouring more syrup on her pancakes. Tears welled up in my eyes as I crossed the room and hugged my mother. I wasn’t sure if it was just my emotions at seeing Mom again or some combination with the teen girl hormones. I choked out “Mom” as I hugged her for the first time I could in almost a quarter of a century. \n\n“Oh, Honey, are you OK?” Mom half turned from the fry pan to look at me. She looked surprised and concerned at my tear filled eyes. “What’s wrong?”\n\n“Oh, I’m… I don’t know… I… I love you…” I choked out, then let go and rubbed my eyes.\n\n“Well, I love you too honey, pancakes are ready, and here are two. How many more do you want?” she asked.\n\n“Two are fine.” I said, not really knowing how hungry I, her? this body was or how stable the stomach was at this point. I took the plate with the two pancakes and went and sat down at my ‘usual’ place at the table. I looked between my two parents thinking how young they were. My memory was of them older, as grandparents, with the typical infirmities of age, like I am now, or was?\n\nMy father looked up at me from the paper and smiled quizzically. “Bert, honey, you OK?”\n\n“Yeah, sure, just teen hormones kicking in, I guess.” I responded lightly without thinking and received a shocked raised eye browed expression from Dad. Why did he call me Bert, like Linda did? Oh, jeez, she, me, is the first girl in the family since my father’s Aunt Bertha, and so, they named her Bertha. Crap! Linda looked up and over at him.\n\n“What are hormones?” she asked.\n\nDad glared at me. ‘Oh, shit.’ I thought, and then mumbled. “Ah, sorry,” as I looked down at my plate and Dad responded to Linda that it wasn’t anything important, just things teenagers get sometimes. Fortunately, Linda shrugged and returned to her pancakes. \n\nI absentmindedly tried to wipe the hair away from my face as I reached for the Vermont Maid syrup. My mind raced along trying to decide what to say or when to say anything to my parents. I sure could use a cup of coffee, probably a stiff drink would be better, yeah, a shot of Jameson, probably the whole figgin’ bottle, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. \n\n“Bert, honey, do you want milk or orange juice?” Mom asked.\n \n“Could I have a cup of coffee?” I responded.\n\nInstantly, both sets of parental eyes were focused on me. “Since when do you drink coffee?” Dad asked.\n\nI knew saying, for the past forty something years, was not the right answer. “Um, I’d like to try it?” I asked tentatively. My parents looked at each other for a moment. \n\nMom got a cup. “Do you want milk and sugar in it?”\n\n “No thanks, black is fine.” I responded, gaining me more arched eyebrows from the both of them.\n\nShe half-filled the cup and handed it to me. I now had three sets of eyes watching as I took a sip, damn, I’d forgotten how strong my mother’s coffee was, certainly not Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks. I took another, and then went back to the pancakes, thinking how do I play this? I had no memories for this girl body. I had only my sixty years of guy memories. They were going to know something was wrong pretty quick. Linda finished and went in the living room to watch TV. I got up, cleared all the plates from the table and started to rinse them in the sink. ‘Shit!’ I thought as I stopped scraping the leftovers into the drain, ‘no garbage disposal. Damn!’ I fished the few pieces of pancake out of the sink drain as my mind continued racing to develop some coherent thought, ah, plan, to break the ‘news’. \n\n“Is it OK if I have another cup of coffee? Do you guys want a refill?” I asked. Again, my parents exchanged looks. I immediately realized ‘guys’ was probably not the usual term a girl would use in 1962 to refer to her parents. Whatever…\n\n“Sure, I’d like a refill.” Dad responded. I grabbed the old coffee percolator from the stove and filled his cup, then looked at Mom. \n\n“No, honey I’m fine.” She smiled at me, but with a vague look of concern.\n\nI filled my cup, put the pot back, sat down at the table, took a sip and looked up to see them both looking at me. \n\n“Um, there’s something important I have to tell you.” I nervously began. \n\n\nThere are 23 more chapters to this novel length story....", "Chapter 1 - Holy Shit\n\nI stared at the words on the computer screen. The current issue was a minor case of writer’s block delaying the progress on the current chapter of the time travel sci-fi story before me. I liked to stay a couple of chapters ahead when I’m posting my fan fiction stories; it kept me from feeling as pressured when my brain got stuck in neutral. I focused on trying to decide how David’s parents would react to him introducing his new girlfriend as a Lowell mill girl from 1837. Hum, I pondered various parental reactions to this, oh, unique situation? “Ah…” I had a thought. His father would probably say something like… As I typed my mental word vomit appeared on the screen. I stopped and studied the results, ‘no, not that way, I wouldn’t say that, sounds lame’, back arrow gets a short work out then more new words are added. I studied the current version of my thoughts. Word had berated my spelling ability again with its infamous red squiggly underline. ‘Oops missed the ‘e’, hum… Oh, ah, if I moved this phase over here it would flow better, um, adjust the punctuation,’ I thought to myself as I cut and pasted. After reviewing the completed lines of dialog, I thought a second. ‘Would I say something like that if Jimmy or Drew brought home a girl with such a story?’ I sat back in my chair and pondered. ‘Sure, I can see myself saying that,’ I smiled at the thought of my reaction to such a crazy situation. That’s the fun of writing time travel stories; it’s never happened and probably never will, so it’s wide open to literary creativity.\n\n“Jim, I’m tired, I’m ready for bed. I can’t keep my eyes open reading my book. You ready? Did you take your pills?” It was Suzie’s usual questions as she leaned over me and waited for a kiss. It was all part of our little reminders to keep each other on track with the small routines of life. \n\nI leaned up and our lips met for the casual kiss. “Yeah, I did…” I responded and smiled at her. I looked back to the screen and glanced at the ‘clock’ in the corner, almost eleven already. “OK, I’m done with this for now.” I mumbled as I saved the word document and closed down the computer. \n\nAfter the usual evening bathroom routine, we were on our bed. She was in her old comfortable baggy pajamas doing her exercises for her arthritic knee. She already had her wrist braces on for her carpal tunnel along with the knee brace. I was beside her doing the stretching exercises for my bad back. We were the typical couple in their sixties fighting the aches and pains of aging. I finished and looked over as she lay on her side and started the up and down movement of her left leg. ‘Three kids, three caesareans, she didn’t look bad at all.’ I smiled evilly to myself as I reached over and grabbed her butt cheek. She yelped in surprise, but ignored me, continuing the leg raisers. \n\nI slipped my hand between her legs as they separated. “Stop it, you’re going make me lose count. “ She pouted as she pushed my hand away and continued. My hand was back with the next leg raise. She instantly grabbed my hand and instead of pushing it away pulled it in tight to her crotch. She rubbed it hard against herself for a few seconds, while emitting a loud orgasmic moan, then pushed it away again and continued the leg raisers. I grinned as I started massaging her back, knowing that would get the response I really wanted. The leg raisers stopped as she leaned into my hands. I moved them around on her back finding her favorite spots. Soft moans started and soon thoughts of sleep vanished as we became involved in a much more pleasurable mutual exercise. We ended up in our familiar spooning position as we relaxed in the afterglow. \n\nAbout one, I woke up to a numb right arm and leg twitches from my restless leg syndrome. I lay there mentally balancing the pleasure of snuggling with my wife of thirty-two years and the various body aches… hum; well anyway, I had to pee. I slowly pulled away, kissed her neck, and patted her ass as I moved over and slid out of bed. She responded with a slight moan and slowly adjusted her legs, which I knew meant the arthritic knee was bothering her. I made it into the bathroom where my bladder did its best to push the urine past my enlarged prostate. Back in bed, I tossed and turned trying to find the best position for my back. Three-fifteen, I’m awake again, another trip to the bathroom. Again, I moved around trying to find a reasonably comfortable position on our memory foam mattress. About this time Suzie made one of her trips to the bathroom. I again drifted off to sleep.\n\n“Bark!” \n\nOh, shit, it had better be after five or Cowboy is going to be in… \n\n“Bark!” \n\nCrap, I looked over at the alarm clock with the red glowing three inches tall numbers that I could see without my glasses –five twenty. Fine. I’m up and out into the dark kitchen where our fifteen year old semi-senile Chihuahua was prancing around my feet looking for breakfast. With only a nightlight and no glasses, I couldn’t really see him well, but heard his nails on the tile. Fortunately, he was still smart enough to keep out from under my feet as I dropped the allotted amount of dry food in his bowl. After a detour to the bathroom for a third time, I was back in bed with more tossing and turning, while thinking at least it was Sunday so we could sleep in some this morning. I vaguely remembered the dim light of dawn as I fell asleep, again.\n\nI slowly woke for the fourth time. Eyes still closed, I thought something was odd. I had clothes? I was sleeping in the nude, so what the hell? Even more than that something else was odd, physically, but? Then there was a blanket beside the sheet on the bed? The bed itself was different, harder? All these things rushed past my consciousness in the first few seconds as my hand moved over the unfamiliar fabric to my crotch in a usual adjustment move as I rolled over. The stunning realization that something was missing, instantly registered in my mind. My eyes shot open as my hand frantically grabbed at the material. I sat bolt upright and pushed the sheet and blanket away from myself as long blond hair swung by my face. My male mind didn’t notice the hair, or the easy painless movement, being more focused on the immediate issue. In my frenzied state, I searched inside the strange pink and yellow pajama bottoms. Pubic hair, Ok, check. Not much though? Then nothing— well, not nothing, I actually felt something rather familiar. Huh? What the f…\n", "The floor groaned as Erwin walked to the sink for water. It was still quite dark outside, but indications of life were starting to fill the town square below. Men in suits occasionally drifted the cobblestones like black ghosts.\n\nHe remembered a vague image from his dream. In some darkness, a girl with red hair smiled at him.\n\nA strange name - Freida - had attached itself to her in his mind. Although he did not remember details, also attached was a peculiar, dark feeling; one of those sadnesses that can accompany anonymous dreams. His ears rang from the dream, a little high screech just for him.\n\nErwin put the glass down, sighed, and blinked a few times. He had been getting up early his whole life, but he would never be used to it. He washed quickly at the sink and walked back over to the bed to get ready for the day.\n\nWhen he was dressed and had swallowed half a breakfast, it was time to open the shop. He rushed downstairs, quickly tidied the shelves, and turned around the sign on the door.\n\nIt was a cold day outside. The patrons who slowly dripped through the door were thickly wrapped in coats, hats and scarves.\n\n*It must be winter*, he thought.\n\nOf course it is, just like it has been for weeks, he thought. His brain had been strange, lately.\n\n***\n\nA few hours trudged past. Business was bleak, and only four or five came through the door all morning.\n\nHerr Matzelsberger, one of his few loyal, regular customers, came in and asked for some shoe polish. There was none on display, so Erwin went through to the storeroom. As he rifled through the drawers, he heard a dull crack from the front of the store. Rushing back through, he came across Herr Matzelsberger whose body was now splayed on the ground.\n\n\"Aah- ah! It's my knee- my knee gave out.\"\n\nTears ran down the old man's face, and some blood ran down his forehead from a cut given to him by a shelf's corner as he fell. Erwin advanced immediately to help, pulling bandages and alcohol from the shop's display.\n\nWhen Herr Matzelsberger could walk with support, Erwin closed the shop and took him home, which was minutes away. There was nobody shopping anyway.\n\nHe helped him in the door and onto a soft armchair.\n\n\"Thank you. You are a kind boy, Erwin.\"\n\n\"I am sure anybody else would have done the same,\" replied Erwin.\n\n\"No, I do not think so,\" replied the old man.\n\nThen he said something Erwin did not understand. In the middle of the next sentence was a word that banged with dissonance. It bent his brain. 'Schleppen'. It hit him like a physical object and made his head spin on impact.\n\n\"I'm sorry, what was that word? Schleppen?\"\n\nHerr Matzelsberger stared from his chair. Then he chuckled. \"What are you talking about? Yes, schleppen, as in you carried a large, heavy object, myself, a long distance. I did not realise you were such a pedant for word choice, Erwin.\"\n\nErwin shook his head, confused. He was not satisfied with this explanation. When the old man repeated the word, 'schleppen', it happened again. It made all the words around it seem less certain too, like it was the start of a deep crack growing through his mind. There was a familiarity too, a feeling that he had felt this before, recently. \n\nFreida. The dream girl's face. It was not the same feeling, exactly, but more of an occupation of a similar territory. None of it felt right, anyway.\n\nHe decided to leave and said a quick goodbye.\n\n***\n\nHe still mulled over that word when he got back to the shop. Schleppen. Herr Matzelsberger had clearly thought it was a word Erwin should have easily known. Even Erwin felt like he knew it - that was half of what worried him. Old age was a figure in the distance, but right now he felt like it had turned its head back towards him.\n\nHe could not stop obsessing over the sound – it was alien, as if it was from another world. Schleppen. Schleppen, schleppen. Why did it not work for him?\n\n*Because*, a thought suggested, *it doesn't have a direct equivalent. It doesn't translate, so it sticks out at you. This is a messy process and things can get... lost.*\n\nHe now became deeply worried. That thought was not his own. It was in a different register entirely, like a memory of somebody else's voice.\n\nAnd then, in one moment, he did know the word 'schleppen'. He knew it and he knew that he had always known it\n\n\"Sir- sir? Please?\" Another voice. A real one. Erwin opened his eyes to see a man with a grey moustache standing in front of him, across the counter.\n\n\"H-hello, sir.\" He answered by reflex.\n\n\"My son is over there. He's looking for oil paints. Do you have any in stock?\"\n\n\"We... we do, actually.\" Erwin righted himself. \"I'll bring them over so he can have a look.\" The man nodded.\n\nErwin went through to the storeroom and looked for the paints. As he did, he started to feel a bit better. He had been silly to get so worked up about a mild trip-up in his brain. He really was tired.\n\nHe walked out into the store front and towards the father and his boy. As his eyes passed over the scrawny, slick-haired figure, his stomach and mind erupted in convulsions, and he froze in place. The little boy gave him a feeling like a thousand 'schleppens' rang out at once, pervading every sense in his body. Even the scent of him- like a force of nature- every instinct in Erwin's body flared up at the appearance of this child.\n\nThe boy turned. Erwin recognised that face right away. He did not know how.\n\nThe boy simply inspected the paints. He came in closer as he did.\n\n\"What do you think, Adolf?\" asked the father.\n\nErwin stood, staring at him. \n\n*Strangle him.*\n\nErwin did nothing.\n\n*Strangle him. Break his neck. Kick him to the ground and crush the life out of his body.\n*\nErwin didn't move. Hitler took out a bottle of paint. His father had ambled outside to wait.\n\n*This was as close as you could get. This is your only chance to end the suffering. Before it starts.*\n\nStill, he did not shift. He began to remember things.\n\n*Do it.*\n\nSomehow, he couldn't.\n\n*DO IT.*\n\nI do not think I can take a child's life, he decided.\n\n*This isn't just a child; this is a monster. Try to think of what you can't remember about him. This is for a greater purpose.\n*\nIt was murder, cold murder that he was here for.\n\nI already have remembered, he thought. I know what he did. Or, does. It's despicable, truly evil. But he isn't a monster yet. Do you not see that I should give him a chance – I, I could kidnap him, and raise him myself, and he could be relatively normal. And then nobody has to die at my hands. I do not know who I was before, but these hands are of a man who cannot do that.\n\n*You know you are being ridiculous. There is no other way. This is the one chance we have to kill him and save millions of lives. We cannot risk an alternative.*\n\nStill staring down at the boy's head as he inspected a few paints, a thought came to Erwin of his own: I do now remember one detail about all this. I will still be here, in this vessel, when I complete this task. That knowledge has clung on. I would be hanged, or worse, for killing a child. Thinking of that alternative would spare me that fate, and do I not deserve some respite for executing this heinous task?\n\nThe other voice was silent for a moment.\n\nAdolf Hitler asked: \"Do you have any brushes?\"\n\nThe voice spoke again. *You are remembering the wrong things about why we sent you here, and why you agreed.*\n\nErwin wondered what that meant. He knew that thinking about why he agreed made the same area of his brain vibrate as Freida and 'schleppen' did.\n\nIt just happened again, stronger this time. Freida. \n\nFreida.\n\nAnd then he saw Freida again. All at once she spiralled down in cascading images, even more vivid than in his dream, her smile and her freckles each worth all of his memory any day. He felt shame at having forgotten her, and traversed the gallery he had re-opened, savouring each step, each glimpse of her, pictures of the two of them – Erwin was somebody else, but he knew it to be himself too – in a market square, in a carriage beside a burning fireplace. Always, she was laughing. He smiled.\n\nHitler spoke again: \"Sir? Do you have brushes?\"\n\nErwin moved towards the back of these memories and saw Freida now become thinner, sadder. She was emaciated. She was sick. Then, her silhouette was in smoke, and there were sounds of shouting in the streets.\n\nThen he saw Freida again, face-on. He heard her screaming, and he realised he had been hearing it forever. Fire crackled. He saw her body burning and her bones and skin tumble to the ground as the screaming turned to sizzling – the sounds blended perfectly.\n\nHitler was looking up at Erwin, puzzled. Erwin snapped shut the box of paints and smashed the little boy across the face, making him fall backward onto the ground. Throwing the box aside, Erwin advanced on him." ]

[ 2, 2, 2, 6 ]

[ "1399505144", "1399575504", "1399575515", "1399430700" ]

[ "John sat there with a blank look for a moment. You tend to do that when you find out you're dead.\n\n\"Well, fuck.\"\n\n\"Yep, that's life.\"\n\n\"Death you mean.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\n\nAn awkward silence stood there for a moment.\n\n\n\"So what now?\"\n\n\"Oh, right, sorry. I was waiting for the whole speech you know. Oh woe is me! But what about my children? This can't be my time? Who will feed the cat?\"\n\n\nThe reaper was gesticulating rather vividly. It was odd.\n\n\n\"Right, actually, thats a good question!\"\n\n\"What, the cat will do fine, I'm sure.\"\n\n\"No, I mean, why is it my time? The last I can remember, I seemed fairly fine.\"\n\n\"Right, and now you're dead.\"\n\n\"Yes, right, I don't think you see my point. Uh... why am I dead? I mean, how did I die? Why now?\"\n\n\"See that truck over there?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Remember all the times you got scolded as a kid for not looking both sides before you ran like a maniac over the road? See?\"\n\nJohn felt surprisingly guilty for a dead man.\n\n\"Yes, well, that fleshy pile behind it is you. Well almost, they haven't found your head yet. I hid it rather well this time.\"\n\n\"You... err... what?!\"\n\n\"It's fine, the big guys don't care if we have a little fun.\"\n\nJohn sat there in silence for a while. It was rather morbid watching the chase for his head.\n\n\"Ah, look at that, they finally thought of looking at the roof of that house. Welp, time to get back to work.\"\n\n\"So mind if I ask you something?\"\n\n\"Go for it.\"\n\n\"Are our deaths predetermined?\"\n\n\"Nah. You should have listened to your mum. Let's go.\"\n\n\"You sure my cat will be fine?\"\n\n\"Don't worry, I will be there if she's not.\"", "You blink back the tears, but the stinging is inevitable as your vision blurs and your lower lip won't stop quivering.\n\nYour room is dark, save the Batman night light in the corner that washes the room with a warm yellow light that would usually have calmed and lulled you into sleep. But not tonight. Tonight, your source of comfort reveals a figure at the foot of your bed, and even the light--as low as it is--seems to avoid the dark of his cloak. The fabric seems heavy, and it's darker than dark. Though the light should reveal some detail of its ruffles and curves, the darkness lies upon itself so that the whole figure seems like one large silhouette, even though the light hits it from its right.\n\nThe figure makes no extraneous movements, and when it does, its joints remind you of an old door hinge that hasn't been oiled in years. You can almost see its chin underneath its hood that hangs low over its face, but though you know it to be a chin because habit tells you that's where it should be, it seems sickly and much too thin and dry to be one. The whole body itself seems to be heavy with ailment. It rests its weight on a wooden cane, but the top curve and the accompanying hand that must be holding it is swallowed up by the sleeve of its cloak.\n\nYou have your blanket up to your eyes, trying to protect yourself from its presence, but you can't get yourself to pull it over your head and risk missing what it would do if you did. It stands silently, still at the foot of your bed, as if waiting for you to speak first.\n\nFinally, you do. You lower your blanket just until your mouth is uncovered.\n\n\"Why--who are you?! What do you want??\"\n\n\"I--\" it slowly says. You feel a sharp chill run down your spine. Its chin never moves and its low voice, though soft, seems to fill the whole room. \"I am Nothing. I am where there is not.\"\n\nIts slow response gives you an atom of courage to speak again. Your voice becomes a degree stronger. \"Why--why are you here?\"\n\n\"I am Not.\"\n\nYour nine-year-old mind cannot comprehend this. What is this? Where's your mom and dad? Couldn't they hear the voice from the other side of the wall? He could usually hear them when they talked--he could even make out the words when they yelled. Couldn't they hear.. this? But you're too afraid to call out. What would it do if you did?\n\nThen suddenly, an image snaps into your consciousness. Something from a movie, or maybe a TV show. You've seen something like this, though it was animated and not at all like this ominous darkness in your room. You remember it comically running around with a large sharp blade, and the cartoon characters running circles around it, and--\n\n\"Death?\" Your throat is dry and you hardly make any sound. You try again. \"Are you Death?\"\n\nIt turns its head slowly to your bedroom door. You can almost hear the groan and creak like a house settling as it looks in its direction and looks back again.\n\nYou feel panic. You're overcome with sheer emotion--you've never felt afraid of death like this before in your short existence, but your desire to survive kicks in so strongly that you feel the tears streaming down your face as you try to think of ways to escape your small room. But you're frozen with fear, and now you're wailing, even though you don't want to, but the terror is finding its voice in your body, and you can't help it.\n\nIt patiently waits.\n\nYou expect your parents to come bursting through the door at the sound of your crying, but nothing comes. Hope dies in your gurgling and crying, and you choke back your tears to ask it a question.\n\n\"Why?!\"\n\nIt moves towards you--slowly--and you could swear that you can hear its movements like metal chains clinking against one another. You want to run as it comes up the right side of your bed towards you, but your legs won't move, and you sit frozen in place as your fear breaks new barriers inside your tiny little chest.\n\n\"To take you where there is Not.\"\n\nIt gingerly takes the corner of your blanket and pulls it back. Out of habit, you quickly pull down your sleeves over the blue bruises on his forearm.\n\n\"Not--not what?\"\n\nIts response is barely above a whisper: \"No pain.\"\n\nIt extends its arm, the one not holding the cane, and the palest, longest, skinniest fingers you've ever seen comes out of the dark cave that is his sleeve like a serpent peeking out its head. You take short, quick breaths as you can't seem to move away. Its finger finally touches your forehead, and it's so *cold*. It moves the hair out of your eyes, revealing a gash on your eyebrow that's finally scabbing--the reason you haven't been to school in two days.\n\n\"No pain... is happiness.\"\n\nAnd in the middle of a dark night, in a dark room, with a dark stranger, this makes perfect sense. No pain is happiness. The other kids in your class always seem happy as they run around and play, but for you--just lacking pain would be enough. It would be *so* enough.\n\nThe next morning, when they come into your room to wake you up for school, your parents find your body lifeless in your bed, a pair of crimson-stained scissors by your arm, and two new gashes on your wrists.\n\nYour father blames himself. He can't take it.\n\nYour new friend alludes to a visit to him soon.", "Bits of broken bones, bloody battered body. Barely human. Barely recognizable. \n\n\n\nYet this peculiar creature, this human, she clung to that broken thing so very desperately, clutching onto the soul inside that peered woefully over her shoulder. \n\n\n\nIt was looking at me. Guilty, accusing eyes. \n\n\n\n\"I can't leave her.\" That broken, ugly thing spoke with such confidence. Like no one before had reasoned with Death. These humans were always the same. Greedy to a fault. They wanted more than they were given, ungrateful for the time they had already been extended. \n\n\n\"You can. You will.\" \n\n\nThat soul shook in its foundations, the broken bits and body parts falling away, releasing their captive. It clambered from the wreckage of its vessel, ethereal and free. Anger quickly overcame its initial amazement. \"She *needs* me.\" \n\n\n\"No. She will live without you. Just as you will die without her.\" \n\n\n\"I'm NOT dead! This isn't my time! Not yet!\" \n\n\n\"Then when?\" \n\n\nHesitation. \"Not now!\" Like a child. \n\n\n\"So tomorrow.\" \n\n\n\"N-No…\" \n\n\n\"Why?\" \n\n\n\"I need longer.\" \n\n\n\"For?\" \n\n\n\"Goodbyes.\" \n\n\n\"A day is long enough for goodbyes.\" \n\n\n\"But…\" \n\n\n\"You want more?\" \n\n\n\"I didn't… I mean… I never even saw the ocean. Never skydived. We were gonna get married.\" \n\n\n\"So after you're married, after you see the ocean, after you skydive… Then you'll be ready?\" \n\n\n\"I…\" Longingly. Looking back to its shell. \n\n\n\"Today is the day you die. There is no other time. You will not marry. You will not see the ocean. You will not skydive. But you have eaten sushi. You have seen the Grand Canyon. You have written a novel. You have done more than Annabelle.\" \n\n\n\"Who?\" \n\n\n\"The unborn child of Victor and Brianna. She dies after you. I go to collect her next.\" \n\n\n\"You're fucking sick.\" \n\n\n\"No. I just keep track of time. You should do better at it.\" ", "\"Gosh darnit, wake up man.\"\n\nI feel something sharp jab my arm and I sit up and turn on the light. The Grim Reaper has just butted my arm with the tip of his scythe.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" I ask, blinking the sleep away.\n\n\"Finally awake huh? Hell be damned, I hate the night shift. People never wake up.\" He hovers at the side of the bed, tapping his foot impatiently and fixing his black cape so it didn't press so much against his neck. \"You're dying tonight.\"\n\n\"What? But... I have my rehearsal tomorrow for piano school.\"\n\n\"First of all, you suck at piano, so don't get your hopes up -\"\n\n\"You've been watching me?!\"\n\n\"Well, yeah duh. A Grim Reaper's gotta know when his next victim's gotta die or not.\"\n\n\"I don't think I'm that bad at -\"\n\n\"Okay stop talking. Don't you want to know why you're gonna die tonight? No 'ooooooh so scary, Mr. Reaper is here, Mr. Reaper why am I gonna die tonight?'?\"\n\n\"I think I know.\"\n\n\"Well give it a go, little man. I haven't got all night. Gotta go damn like a thousand more souls before my shift is over.\"\n\n\"Well everyone dies right? I'll probably have a heart attack or something.\"\n\n\"HAHAHA what? See this is the problem. People think they die because they have heart attacks or car accidents or whatever. The truth is that's what we stage it so that nobody finds out the true reasons.\"\n\n\"Well what's the true reason?\"\n\n\"Remember that day two weeks ago, when you were at the theme park?\"\n\n\"Uhh sure.\"\n\n\"Remember what you said to your little sister Mary when you were getting on the roller coaster?\"\n\n\"Yeah, I told her to not be scared because she'd go to heaven if she died.\"\n\n\"Satan didn't like that.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Don't 'what' me. You're dying tonight and that's final.\"\n\n\"I don't know what you're -\"\n\nEverything fades away and my world turns black. 'Well, I guess I'm dead,' is my last thought before I sink into the murky depths of nonexistence.", "*Why now?*\n\n*Quite simply put, there was no other time. Death is an absolute eventuality, one from which no one escapes. The moment you come into this world, the clock is tick-tick-ticking away. Counting down to the end.*\n\n*That said, it's not like I have a list. Nothing's set in stone. Your life was both a combination of good decisions and kind fate. Ultimately, it's up to you how you live your life. Was it time well spent?*\n\n*Honestly, I'm not sure \"why now.\" One moment you are, and the next you aren't. Does there even need to be a \"why\" to this? You're so concerned with what's already ended. The truth is, I don't know why, because I don't know what comes next.*\n\n*And that's why I'm here. I do not reap souls. I do not dole out death on a whim. I simply watch the clock, and come when it is time. I am a gatekeeper, here to tell you that this life has ended, and here to lead you to what comes next.*\n\n*Now put this mortal coil behind you, and come with me. Perpetuity awaits.*" ]

[ 1, 2, 2, 3, 6 ]

[ "1399437401", "1399431218", "1399434094", "1399430838", "1399430008" ]

[ "Of all the places to end up, it had to be with them. I'd almost rather sink back to the bottom of the ocean and let those...creatures, get me. Yet here I am; stuck on this god forsaken ship with Eric and that tart of a child bride of his who can't seem to comprehend how to shut one's mouth.\n\n\"Ursula!\" Eric bellowed from the helm of the ship while motioning for Ariel to take control of the wheel.\n\n\"Yes Eric, how can I help you?\" I called back, the regal sarcasm not fully hidden from my voice.\n\nHe walked down the stairs to the deck where I had set up a small area for my possessions. Fortunately I had been able to snatch my cauldron, a few ingredients, and an assortment of tomes before I left my cave.\n\n“Have you found any answers yet? What are these creatures?” He asked.\n\n“I have not. It does not appear we are dealing with dark magic. This is something different, something entirely new.”\n \nIn all my years of using magic I had never seen nor heard of a spell that would bring life to the dead. Certainly though I had some for bringing death to the living; a thought that caused small smirk on my face.\n\n“Why are you smiling?” He asked confused.\n\n“No reason child.” The smirk faded, “As I was saying this is something new. Something the lands and seas have never seen before.”\n“Have you found a place that would be safe, somewhere we can start over?”\n\nI had been using my cauldron as a scrying pool trying to find a suitable place to go. Some place where the humans of the land and the mermaids of the sea never lived before. Some place where no one would have been changed.\n\n“I believe I have.” I answered, rather proud of myself. “There is an island west of here. It shouldn’t take more than three days to reach. It should have ample resources for food and water and even a lagoon for those of us who prefer the sea.”\n\n“And we’ll be safe there? She’ll be safe there?” He said as he looked up to the helm where Ariel was singing and dancing while holding the ships wheel. He put on a fake smile and gave a small wave to her, Ariel paused for a moment to wave back and then returned to singing and dancing. “She hasn’t been the same you know.” The fake smile melting away, “Not since she saw Triton change.”\n\nEmpathy was never one of my strong points so I simply crossed my tentacles and listened. I listened to how he and Ariel had barricaded themselves on his ship as his kingdom burned in chaos. How Triton’s kingdom became a cesspool for all manner of undead sea creatures. How Triton and his daughters fled for the waters surrounding Eric’s castle. How a severely injured Triton was the only survivor to make it to them. Finally, how upon death, Triton was reanimated and began lunging for Ariel and Eric like a common fish flops for air. Ariel watched as Eric managed to net and toss what was left of her father into the ocean before they decided nothing was left for them in the kingdom and set sail.\n\nAs he talked I looked up at Ariel. You could see in her eyes she was broken. For where there was once headstrong determination and optimism there was now emptiness. Ariel noticed my gaze and paused her singing and dancing to give me that same small wave she had given Eric. I raised my tentacle and flicked the tip at her. Eric seemed surprised. She happily went back to her duty of singing, dancing and holding the wheel.\n \n“Do you think she’ll snap back with time?” Eric asked me.\n“I cannot say for certain. For what plagues her has nothing to do with magic.” He looked defeated. “It may get better once we hit land.” I quickly said half-heartily trying to comfort him. “Just give her time; we should hit land before the sun sets on the third day.” I laughed realizing what I had just said.\n\nEric raised his eyebrow obviously puzzled by my laughter.\n\n“Oh, do not worry about it child.” I said waving a tentacle as if to dismiss the laughter. “I have simply uttered that phrase before.”\n\nThat was enough of an answer for Eric and he head back up the stairs to the helm where Ariel gladly let him take over. There she stood beside him singing and dancing but as empty as a shell.\n\nI went back to my cauldron and thought to myself “…before the sunsets on the third day” and all I could do was shake my head and laugh.", "Looking back, it probably should have been raining outside. Not “misting” or “sprinkling”, but full on deluge; tell-Noah-to-pull-that-last-animal-in-*pouring*. There should have been thunder and lightning. There should have been gale-force winds and terrified families huddled deep inside their homes: clutching to candles and praying that the storm passed without breaking or weakening any of our defenses, praying that the soulless, cannibalistic bodies of our neighbors couldn’t get past our walls to destroy what was left of humanity and civilization.\n\nInstead there was Maleficent standing in my doorway, wearing her usual cheery black cloak, and smiling in that way that usually meant trouble.\n\nIt was a frustratingly sunny day outside. Birds sang.\n\n“Sweet Aurora—“\n\nAlready I had to cut her off. “It’s Briar Rose now. You know that.” With a sigh I sat up straight and let my heavily booted feet drop from the pitted wood of the tabletop to the floor. A large map of my former kingdom and the surrounding lands was stretched out over the surface, covered in little flags and pins. The flags were black, yellow, or green, signifying areas that were completely lost to the plague, safe enough to loot for supplies, or places of known survivors. Most of the flags were black. Beside the map was a half-full cup of stale water, sitting just in front of my chipped short sword. I thought about how long it would take me to grab it. Could Maleficent move that fast? I couldn’t quite remember. It had been years since I had last seen the crazy old witch, but she looked as fresh and bright as if it had been just yesterday while I had a bad ankle and that spectacularly unique fatigue one could only get from being painfully awake and depressingly active for over twenty-four hours (and counting). In any case, it would take more than one old sword to stop Maleficent if she actually meant me harm. \n\n“Mmm.” The older woman swept gracefully into my dingy study and ran her finger over the dirty, uneven surface of my table. “I remember your foolish decision to fall upon the name those godmothers of yours gave you, of course. I was just hoping you were over this little peasant-phase and had realized the hopelessness of your situation. It’ll do no good in the long run. This land is lost, and you would do well to take me up on my generous offer before it is too late.”\n\nMy spine stiffened as rage cracked along my back, and my fingers twitched with the need to grip my sword. “Phase? No good? These are *people*, Maleficent! My people! And it’s my responsibility to do what I ca—“\n\n“Yes, of course. I didn’t come here to argue about your pitiful little crusade to save the last of your sad little kingdom from this plague. I came here for something…else.”\n\nWith a deep breath, I forced myself to relax and lean back against my seat. “Stop wasting my time, then. Just say it so you can leave.”\n\nWith a flourish Maleficent pulled a small envelope from a fold within her cloak and waved it at me. “I happen to have some information on a certain dashing young man that I’ve heard you have been searching for the better part of three years now. A…Phillip, I believe?”\n\nPhillip. The first and only time I had met him was burned so deeply in my mind that not even sleep could free me from him. It had been early on in the plague, back before we really knew what was happening or how far it had reached. I had been taking a shortcut through the forest to a small village in hopes of finding some information on the ill there when I heard a crack behind me followed by a clacking of what sounded like teeth. Having no idea what I was up against, I had called out. Three creatures stumbled out of the thick forest toward me, their teeth still clacking and arms stretched out. I remember that my first reaction was one of pity--these people were clearly hurting--but that quickly gave way to terror as one fell on my arm and tried to pull it into its mouth.\n\nAnd then..there he was. Broad-shouldered and square-jawed with thick, golden brown hair and warm brown eyes. He smiled, pulled his sword out of the woman's head, and grabbed my hand to lead me home. We spent two weeks together before he left to find survivors. That was three years ago. As far as anyone was concerned, he was dead.\n\nI never believed that, though. I couldn't, not with him dancing through my dreams every night and smiling at me every time I close my eyes. \"What do you want?\"\n\nMaleficent smiled.", "They thought I was the villain. They never thought about those I was trying to protect; they never thought about why I did the things that I did. All I saw was a tyrant who had kidnapped a princess... MY princess. Still, now that the world is crumbling around us, I know she will be back. She will run to me with open arms, confess her love and beg me to protect her. And I will. I can protect her; This time I will protect them all from those... those things. After all, no one shoots like Gaston" ]

[ 2, 3, 6 ]

[ "1399578919", "1399579536", "1399485877" ]

[ "(testing formatting, please be patient. will delete and post the final version once i figure out how to best achieve that effect)\n\n**Brian Gray** *February 13th, 2013*\n\nSo excited to finally have my own place! i will miss you all but its time to make the healthy dicision #lifeisgoodafteralliguess\n\n*13 people like this*\n> **Melissa Hartridge** *congtarts! luv u :)*\n\n> **Mike Duchess** *word*\n\n---------------------------------------------\n\n", "**Joey, May 10** It happened today. I love all of you.\n\n**Joey, May 4** We might just be home soon after all. The numbers are coming back up, and we're feeling optimistic. Today she spent half an hour telling me about our summer plans, and what we're going to do with all of our free time. Hannah's first thought: Pink's Hot Dogs in Los Angeles. \n\n**Joey, May 1** Need recommendations on places to stay in California, Norway, and Switzerland. Seriously.\n\n**Joey, April 25th** Checked into the hospital again today. Could be here for a while. Please keep us in your thoughts tonight, it could be a long night.\n\n**Joey, April 23** Dr. Hope says there's no way to know that the treatment is working, but the signs are looking good. The last word you want to hear about a treatment is \"experimental.\" Give me \"tested,\" or \"proven to work,\" or even \"out-patient\" any day of the week.\n\n**Joey, April 20** Hannah's feeling better today. We're celebrating with breakfast in bed!\n\n**Hannah, April 20** [Photo of breakfast tray] Joey made me bacon, waffles, and orange juice in bed! I am so lucky for my husband!\n\n**Joey, April 2** To our friends and family, please give Hannah a call today if you can. I know she would appreciate it.\n\n**Joey, April 1** Today we postponed the honeymoon. Hannah wants to know what you guys think: should we go to California or Europe when we're healthy again?\n\n**Joey, March 29** Hannah's oncologist Dr. Hope said it's official today. Hannah was in remission for five years. I know you were all there for her the first time through. Now we have to go through it together. Please keep Hannah in your thoughts and prayers.\n\n**Joey, March 5** [Photo of Joey and Hannah at the beach in a silver picture frame] ]If you haven't received a Thank You card, *call me!* Which of you gave us this beautiful sterling picture frame but it didn't have a tag, and it wasn't on our registry. Let me know so I can send you a card!\n\n**Joey, December 28** [photo of Joey and Hannah at the beach] Thank all of you who were able to be at our celebration today! --Joey and Hannah Grace, Just Married!\n\n", "**Sandy Brown**\n*1 minute ago*\n> don't listen to a word they say about me the government are in on it too so are my family peace and love beyond all recognition oh god why are they doing this to me i only wanted to shut up shut up shut up they're coming now and it's all too late too soon oh fuck oh god\n\n\n**Sandy Brown**\n*May 1*\n> They're coming. Not yet, but soon. Know that I loved you all, and I'm sorry it couldn't last.\n\n>>**Louise Grant** *May 1*\n\n>> Where are you, sweetie?\n\n>>*3 people like this*\n\n>> **Al Carpenter** *May 1*\n\n>> Sandy?\n\n>>**Sandy Brown** *May 2*\n\n>>I'm safe for now.\n\n**Sandy Brown**\n*April 29*\n>Feeling shitty again. Why aren't these meds working. Lying doctors.\n\n>>**Al Carpenter** *April 29*\n\n>>I'm sure it'll get better.\n\n>>**Louise Grant** *April 29*\n\n>>Seconding Al. Call me if you want to talk.\n\n>>**Georgie Ratledge** *April 29*\n\n>> Trying to call you. Have you got your phone?\n\n>>**Louise Grant** *April 30*\n\n>>Sweetie, are you okay? Answer your phone, please.\n\n\n**Sandy Brown**\n*April 25*\n>Had a great day out with **Al Carpenter** today! Spring has sprung!\n\n>*8 people like this*\n>>**Al Carpenter** *April 25*\n\n>>Thanks, Sandy, I had a great day, too. Those geese sure were something, weren't they?\n\n>>**Sandy Brown** *April 25*\n\n>>Absolutely!\n\n\n**Sandy Brown**\n*April 24*\n> I feel on top of the world! doc says I'm doing great!\n\n>*15 people like this*\n>>**Louise Grant** *April 23*\n\n>>That's great, sweetie! Really glad to hear that things are looking up for you!\n\n>>**Sandy Brown** *April 24*\n\n>>Right? These meds are a godsend, seriously.\n\n>>**Al Carpenter** *April 24*\n\n>>If you're feeling up to it, do you want to hang out?\n\n>>**Sandy Brown** *April 24*\n\n>>Sure! I'll call you!\n\n\n**Sandy Brown**\n*March 14*\n>Thanks for all the messages whilst I was in hospital, guys. It really meant a lot to me.\n\n>*24 people like this*\n\n>>**Georgie Ratledge** *March 14*\n\n>> Glad to hear you're back in the land of the living! Please don't scare us like that again.\n\n\n>>*19 people like this*\n\n>>**Sandy Brown** *March 14*\n\n>>Don't worry, I'm not planning on it!\n\n>>*21 people like this*\n\n**Sandy Brown**\n*March 2*\n>This is Sandy's mother checking in. Thank you for all your support in this difficult time. She's making a good recovery, both physically and mentally, but visitors aren't recommended yet. I've been passing on your messages, and she really appreciates them.\n\n>*22 people like this*\n\n**Sandy Brown**\n*January 24*\n>I can't take it. I love you all, but I just keep on fucking it up. I'm so so so so sorry.\n\n>>**Louise Grant** *January 24*\n\n>>Sandy? What's wrong, sweetie?\n\n>>**Al Carpenter** *January 24*\n\n>>If this has anything to do with what I said, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. You're great.\n\n>>**Georgie Ratledge** *January 24*\n\n>>We all care about you, Sandy. Please pick up.\n\n>>**Jay Jones** *January 24*\n\n>>Seriously dude, I've been there. It's hard. If you want to hang out and talk about it, call me back.\n\n>>**Al Carpenter** *January 25*\n\n>>Has anyone heard from Sandy yet? Her phone's off and she's not answering at home.\n\n>>**Louise Grant** *January 26*\n\n>>Still looking for Sandy. If anyone's seen her, or knows where she might be, please say.\n\n>>**Al Carpenter** *January 27*\n\n>>Sandy? Please?\n\n>>**Al Carpenter** *January 28*\n\n>>She's been found, thanks to everyone for looking. She's in a bad way, but the important thing is she's alive, and getting treatment.\n\n**Sandy Brown**\n*January 15*\n\n>Getting my life in order, finally! Beating this disease like a baker beating dough!\n\n>*43 people like this*" ]

[ 1, 3, 5 ]

[ "1399660537", "1399660695", "1399660659" ]

[ "“Not now, Altaire. Any time but now.”\n\n\n“Bro, I’m saving your ass. You’re 21, You’re too young.”\n\n\n\n“Altaire, I fucking love her, Not now.”\n\n\n“Shut the fuck up, I got you bro.”\n\n\nThe priest smiles. “Are there any objections to this marriage?”\n\n\n“YES. RIGHT HERE, MOTHERFUCKIN’ HERE.”\n\n\nThe crowd is bewildered in complete shock. \n\n\n“I’m not ready to get married. I’m Twenty one, I should be in college. Besides, you’re a complete bitch. You complain all day about how I never buy you anything, yet you tweet about it on your IPhone 5s. You say I don’t love you, yet I wrote to you in the Army every single day, and you responded only three times. I saw the footage of the neighbor coming into the house for 45 minutes the week after I was deployed. You don’t have a job, And I have to use all of my saved funds in my bank account, WHICH I WAS GOING TO USE FOR COLLEGE, to send you to the Bahamas with your family. You constantly tell your friends I’m abusive yet I never yelled at you once. You drink and party all day, and when my nephew came over you nearly got him killed, but we disregarded it. You get high all the time, and make the house smell like shit. I have been living In hell, LITTERALLY, for months. I have a flip phone, A laptop given to me by my sister, hand me down clothing, a small car, Mean while I baught you a Audi, Michael Kores, An Iphone, A motherfucking diamond ring, hell, you even stole from me for drugs. I hate you and I envy anyone who ever even hugs you. Good fuckin’ night, BIIIIIIIITCH.”\n\n\nAnd, At that moment, Cole walked out.\n\n\nAltair smiled. “Man, I didn’t know you had it in you.”\n\n\n“What are you talking about? You possessed me.”\n\n\n“Nah bruh, I didn’t even say a word. Aaaallll you. I’m kinda proud of you, man.”\n\n\n“….Oh my god, I’m an asshole. She’s going to be so upse-“\n\n\nThe church doors bang open, And her ex-husband barges out.\n\n\n“YOU THINK YOU CAN TALK LIKE THAT TO HER? HUH? YOU THINK YOU’RE ALL THAT STRON-“\n\n\nA punch to the jaw later, He is on the ground like a groundhog in march.\n\n\n“That might have been me, sorry.”\n\n\n“You know what Altaire? It’s fuckin’ all right.”\n\n\n“You gonna take her car? I mean, It is in your name.”\n\n\n“Fuck yea I am. Everything I bought her is in my name. I’m taking it and going to college.”\n\n\nCole then saw someone else leave the church. Alice, The girl he was friends with in high school. She used \n\nto be a bit overweight, and she was a red head. She lost a lot of weight after she heard of Cole enlisting.\n\n\n“Cole, I’m sorry about what happened. What made you change your mind?”\n\n\n“Well, I guess that having all that bullshit made me go crazy.”\n\n\nJust as everyone was leaving the church, Cole grabbed Alice, And kissed her. Right in front of his kinda-ex-wife. Alice smiled. \n“Altaire, you badass mother fucker.”\n“Nah man, It’s all you.”\nAnd with that, Cole and Alice went into the Audi, and drove home.\n", "I lifted the veil, and saw that familiar face.\n\nI've gazed upon it countless times, but looking at it now feels more compelling than ever. The edges of her lips curled up as her gray eyes met with my own. I brushed my fingers through her fiery hair, which tickled me like strands of silk.\n\nMemories of the salty ocean breeze flash by my mind. It was a sunny day at the beach. The day I first met her by the rocky cliff. She read ancient books under the shade of a towering boulder, and I couldn't resist asking her why.\n\nSo beautiful.\n\nSo appetizing.\n\nWait, what? Appetizing?\n\nOh yes. All that raw and undiluted affection she has for you, for us. Destroying it will be ever so tasty. I wonder how I should do it...\n\nNo, why am I thinking this. It's wrong, why-\n\nThere's no need to question why. It's all about the how. I should do it gradually, savor this meal. How long can I make it last? Three decades, maybe four, I'll be sure she never stops loving us. She'll blame herself until the very end, perhaps she'll even be the one to end our life. That would be a perfect dessert.\n\nWhat is this... get out of my head!\n\nQuiet, sleep, just watch it unfold. Enjoy the kisses, the touches, the pleasure, and see how it poisons her. She'll be bitter, but her hopes will chain her down.\n\nNeed to move, get out, stop this.\n\nAh, but time has run dry, oh yes. \"I do.\"\n\n\"Then you may kiss the bride.\"\n\nAppetizing.", "*There is only the despair of hope in this place.*\n\nShe was an angel, an airy goddess floating over the earth, bathed in some ethereal white and impossibly drawn to him. \n\n*Now listen to her lie.*\n\n\"Today is...mostly an ordinary day. The sun rose, traffic was bad, people slept in, people had babies, and we just so happened to be getting married.\"\n\n*Man in Abidjan was necklaced. Know what that is, Tom? Fill tires with gas and force them over you and set them ablaze. Crowd around and chant and scream and beat you with sticks and rocks while you burn. Screamed for an hour.*\n\n\"But the extraordinary part is how we are making promises to each other for the rest of our days, no matter how ordinary or unusual they may be.\"\n\n*Did you know she stole this from the internet? How many abortions do you think are being performed this very second? Those tits look full of milk and honey, don't they?*\n\n\"So I promise to always laugh with you and never to go to bed angry.\"\n\n*Lie.*\n\n\"To comfort you in times of sorrow and to always listen to what you have to say, even when we don't see eye to eye.\"\n\n*Lie.*\n\n\"I promise to remember that love is *I feel differently* and not *you're wrong*, and that our future together is far more important than our individual pasts.\"\n\n*Maybe the biggest lie.*\n\n\"But most of all, I promise to love you, under any circumstances; happy or sad, easy or difficult, through the sunshine and through the rain for the rest of my days. I am the luckiest girl alive and I couldn't imagine growing old with anyone else.\"\n\n*Oh, no, now there it is. Did you know she was fucking her high school sweetheart for a couple of weeks after you met her? All that formality, all the ritualistic courtship, all the little nods and inflections and that subtle little bat of the eyes you were waiting for, and some other man's shame exploring those insides all the while. What was his name?*\n\n\"Stop it,\" he said, maybe whispered, maybe thought. \n\n*What's that? Couldn't quite hear you. A twelve-year-old boy is losing all the fingers on his right hand in Haiti right now. They do it right in the streets. You just put your hand on the concrete and chop chop chop, little cutlets. His name was Matt, wasn't it?*\n\n\"Fucking **STOAAAH-**\" It was all he could manage before his spine became a lightning rod, blazing, burning, bringing him to his knees upon the altar. She cried out, backed away, stumbled over the hem of her dress and he saw a man reach out and catch her. There were gasps, sighs, someone calling his name from behind him before his left hand shot into the air of its own accord, fingers reaching reaching reaching above his head. Every muscle in his body screamed, every bone creaked, and then his hand was wrenched back down to earth, behind him, up between his shoulders until his wrist met the back of his neck. There was a sound, something like a pine knot exploding in a fire, and his fingers explored the back of his scalp like the legs of some giant insect. \n\nHe was on his feet again.\n\n\"Please don't do th - I AM THE INFERNAL CUNT AM THE BARREN WOMB AM THE CRADLE OF WOE UPON WHICH YOUR LIES BLOSSOM INTO DAMNATION. ABANDON THIS PLACE AS YOUR HOPE HAS ABANDONED YOU.\"\n\nHe could hear his voice among the many. He could hear the screams of the congregation, the shuffling and scraping of their shoes upon the floorboards, the charging and trampling away from him. She was gone now, snatched up by the chaos. Even the priest was among them as they fled.\n\n*We'll find her, Tom, don't worry. She's coming with us, and when we get there she'll birth abominations in filth and they will scuttle and spit and eat your tongue out of your head in the void.*\n\nHis head collided with the base of the altar, rose, met fiercely with it again and again and again until all of it was tinted with a murky red. \n\n*Does your faith fill you up and protect you now, Tom? Do you understand the power to be harvested and reaped from pain, over and over and over and over again? Do you see the blind eyes of your savior washing over you even now, unblinking, uncaring? And can you feel what must be done?*\n\nHe did." ]

[ 1, 2, 2 ]

[ "1399689353", "1399668307", "1399669182" ]

[ "\n\nCrash went the front window as the hatchet collided with it. With the scattering of glass shards against the ground, two things happened. A loud klaxxon of an alarm began to sound throughout the clinic and the baby started crying. Stroking a hand against her head, Kim tried to hush the baby's cries as she entered the building. It seemed empty, but they always do.\n\nThe baby continued to wail at the top of her lungs, despite her mother's persistence. The woman adjusted the harness keeping her baby to her back and readied her hatchet. A door was swung open. The clinic's office room was empty, save a large puddle of blood on the floor and signs of a struggle. The next room, a hallway, was also empty. \n\nMaking her way to the back of the clinic, the woman stepped over a knocked-over file cabinet and stumbled through a door on her left. Leaning up against the wall was a man, roughly in his late fifties, one with blood gathered around his bearded mouth and up his hands. The half-eaten corpse of a patient lay against the floor, his face and skull nearly picked clean.\n\nThe doctor reached out for Kim, bloody tears streaming down his face. \"I'm so sorry. I've got to eat. Please, I need.. I need to eat. I-\" Kim closed the distance, striking the man in the temple with her hatchet. The blade dug into flesh and into bone like butter, spewing bright viscera onto the floor. The doctor gasped and dropped to the floor in a dead weight. \n\nThe baby continued to cry.\n", "\"Mommy, why are you shivering?\"\n\nI really should have seen this coming. I knew the moment my husband died that it would be all down hill from there. He told me, begged me--to take care of our son. I've never been a good mother and the world turning to shit certainly didn't help. \n\n\"Oh, don't worry sweet heart. Mommy is just a little cold. We'll find somewhere to rest in a little bit and mommy will be okay,\" I'm lying through my clenched teeth, lying to little Sammie like I always do. My real hope is that I find some goddamn people soon. I'm already feeling delirious. Everything is so foggy, so hazy. My mouth feels like cotton and my head feels like it's splitting open. \n\nBut I have to keep moving forward for Sammie. \n\nHe is wrapped up in my arms and I can hear the blood pounding through his veins. I don't remember having such great hearing, but with every swish my mouth waters just the slightest bit. His dark hair hides his face from me as he nuzzles into my fevered warmth. He thinks he's safe. He thinks that mommy will take care of everything. \n\nBut Sammie, mommy can't. Mommy can't do anything--not anymore. He's too small to understand. Four and a half years old just isn't long enough to understand. It's just not enough. \n\n\"Mommy, I miss daddy...\" My heart clenches. I miss daddy too. I miss him because I know that he would have never found himself in this situation. He would have never found himself turning into one of those...those things. Jesus Christ, what I wouldn't do to see Dennis again. Fuck those assholes at the gas station. They didn't have to shoot him; they didn't have to kill him. \n\nI hope they've been eaten alive by now. \n\nWhat is that in the distance? It looks like a group of people. Oh god, it is. Maybe they can help us. Maybe they can---\"HEY! You! Stop right there!\" \n\nI slow my pace to a stop, Sammie looks up with wide, curious eyes. I feel him trembling in my arms, my teeth grind as I try to hold back groans of pain. All I have is the urge to drop Sammie and lunge at these people. \n\n\"Hello! Please don't shoot. Please. Please. I am just with my son. He's only four!\" I shout out to them, I see some guns lower and my son huffs, \"Mommy, I'm four and a *half*!\" I do not respond to him, but keep my eyes on the people. \n\nA woman approaches, \"What are you two doing out here alone? Don't you know it's best to stick in groups?\" She is cautious, suspicious...and who can really blame her? I probably look crazed right about now. \"I was with my husband...he was murdered.\" Her face seems to soften, but she's still guarded. She looks me over and takes a sudden step back, \"You're turning!\" she accuses and I drop to my knees under the weight of her words. \n\n\"You have to help me!\" I beg, clutching my son to myself. She's already pulling out her gun again, pushing it against my head. \"You're turning and you weren't going to tell us!\" I shake my head no, and begin to explain. \n\n\"Please. I just...I just needed to find people. I can't--my son...and I can't...\" I'm sobbing now, I'm losing coherency, as if the disease was waiting for me to find someone before it started to take over. I begin to shake, my vision blurring along with my thoughts. I let go of my son and shove him towards the woman, \"MOMMY!\" he yells out in surprise as he grabs the pants of the woman to keep steady. She catches him by the collar of his shirt, steadying him once again. \n\n\"Please, please. Take him. Take care of him. He's all I have...he's all I did right. Shoot me and take him...\" I'm bowing to her now, curled in a pitiful ball as I stare at the ground---watching in morbid fascination as tears become blood. I'm turning much faster than I thought. \n\n\"Mommy! Mommy get up, please get up!\" He comes closer to me and I scream at him to stay away from me, and the woman pulls him fearfully back. \"JUST SHOOT HER JOAN! JUST SHOOT HER!\" a voice screams out in the distance.\n\nThe woman, Joan, raises her gun once more and I look up to Sammie. His eyes are wide, tears covering his face...he's old enough to understand this. He's old enough to know what is going on. Four and half years old is long enough to know when your mother is going to die. It is enough. \n\n\"I'm sorry Sammie.\"\n\"I love you mommy.\"\n\nAnd I don't say anything, because coughing has taken over--and I clench my teeth even harder, feeling them crack under the pressure.\n\nSuddenly, I hear a bang and everything is okay. Sammie is okay.\n" ]

[ 1, 6 ]

[ "1399736021", "1399733476" ]

[ "I should eat.\n\nNo, I shouldn't. I'm not hungry.\n\nI should go outside. Why am I so hot? Maybe I have the flu. Meningitis? I'm not dizzy. I'm sore all over, though. Fresh air would help. I'll go outside.\n\nActually, I'm still hungry. I'll eat first.\n\nNot hungry. Too hot. Need air. Water? Water.\n\nMy throat hurts. Burning. Water doesn't help. I should go outside.\n\nWhere is everybody? It's a nice day. There must be people around. I want to be around people.\n\nToo hot. Don't feel like walking. It's a nice day. Where are all the people? I'll just keep walking.\n\nI'm hungry.", "Commenting to post later. Just want to let anyone who reads this know that I'll be coming back :) finals are no fun.", "\"In a recap of the top news today, the man in Central Square arrested by police after a prolonged struggle has been identified as Geoffrey Greenman, a Parkside resident. \n\nMr Greenman was arrested after behaving erratically in the Central Shopping Plaza, with reports that he stole an elderly woman's walking cane and repeatedly struck himself in the mouth. Police moved in after a tense stand off with Mr Greenman who, still armed with the walking cane, threatened police and bystanders saying he would \"kill them all and all would end\" which was recorded by a witness' smart phone.\n\n He has been remanded in custody pending formal charges with police stating \"Given the possible mental health issues at play it is prudent at this time to make sure Mr Greenman is given proper representation when charges are laid\".\n\nIn other news, a teenager from Parkview has been reported missing today after it was discovered that Robert Francis had not returned home from school. Friends of the boy say he had walked home through Parkview. Police have said they are doing the best they can to find the missing student and that if anyone has any information of Robert's whereabouts they should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000\".", "Blood covered this can't be, so much hunger its painful.. these feelings aren't human... God! how could I do this to my friend....\nWishing, hoping, pleading please let this be a dream it can't be real I've become a monster. I look in the mirror don't even recognize myself eyes pure white almost soulless...\nso cold.. can't stop shivering.. heartbeat weakening .. what is this that's happening to me? please god! wake me up! please god! wake me up!", " I could feel it eating at me, something was so very, very wrong. I went to the doctor to get a routine check up, everything was normal. I went home and got in my old truck and just drove, I started to space out, remembering all of the happier times, out with my daughter, eating with my wife. \n A loud honk shot me back into consciousness, I looked at my gas gauge almost empty. I drove my happy ass to the nearest station and filled up my tank. There was a young woman about 600 feet under the streetlight just before the city limits sign. I got in my truck and asked if she needed a ride. \n \"Yeah, I'm just trying to get a ride to Pasadena, you know where that is... Right?\" \n Thinking back to when I last saw a map, \"No, sorry.\" \n \"That's okay,\" she said with a smile. \"My name's Terry, what about you?\" \n \"What about me?\" I said gruffly. \n \"You got a name, or... something I could call you?\" \n I didn't know this chick and she could try to kill me so I just said, \"Call me Bob, so where is this... Pasadena?\" \n \"California. I'm trying to get away from my folks and if I can get to California and see one of the beaches there, I'd be set.\" \n \"California, that's at least 4 states away!\" \n I started to cough I turned my head to the driver's side window and noticed little flecks of blood splattering on the window, my eyes got wide, and I stared in disbelief. \n \"Uhm, Terry. You should get out of here,\" I said with panic in my voice. \"I don't know if I'm contagious or not.\" \n \"What?\" she said looking t me with a worried smile. \"Could you at least take me to the nearest motel so I can get some sleep on an actual bed?\" \n \"Sure.\" \n We drove for what seemed like an hour, it must've been only ten minutes. I started to cough more and more, blood coming out of my lungs each time. \n \"You sure you're okay?\" \n \"Terry, I told you back at that sign that you shouldn't have come with me. you made this decision.\" \n \"Do you want me to get out?\" \n \"No, if you get hurt that'll be on my conscience for the rest of my life, however long or short that may be.\" \n \"Okay then. Could we turn on the radio?\" \n \"Sure.\" \n Terry turned on the radio and I kept driving, I started to cough really bad and had to pull over. Blood was pouring out of my mouth at this point. \n \"Holy shit, we need to get you to a hospital!\" \n There was no point in resisting, I gave in and tore into her wrist, fuck... I really shouldn't have done that. ", "Sonofabitch.\n\nGet it together, Lyle.\n\nHands splay across a tabletop covered in blood. My blood. Some of it dripping from the patches of skin that are coming off my cheeks. Some of it dripping from my mouth as I cough again and again, pain rocketing through my body every time. I stare at my fingers. My fingernails have started to come off.\n\nI can feel it eating at me. It's not supposed to be like this. I cough and a chunk of something the size of a quarter hits the stained wood. I am coughing up my insides.\n\nI am dying.\n\nI should have known better than to trust that fucker. The second he got into my car, smelling of rot and death so strongly I nearly hurled, I should have shoved him back out and driven away, but I let him stay. I let him touch me. Let him bite me with his black lips and yellowed teeth. Something about him drew me in and I still don't know what. It was probably the eyes. Yellow-gold, their pupils slitted like a cat's. Creepy as hell now. But something about them that night made me lean in.\n\nThat's what got me here. I started to consider zombies a few days ago when the first bouts of hunger came. When I woke from a dream to find myself kneeling in front of the refrigerator, mouth and hands full of raw steak, chin dripping with juices. When I scratched a blackened spot on my face and the skin peeled off into my hands. But zombies should only be in movies, books. The dead don't rise. Living men like Lyle Hannigan don't turn.\n\nThe fact that four of my teeth just fell out of my head would seem to suggest otherwise.\n\nI stood in front of the mirror that first night, staring at what I thought was a hickey. The next morning, as I pulled my t-shirt off, I nearly collapsed. Black had started to spread through the veins around the mark. Poison, his poison, was running through my body. The whites of my eyes turned yellow that night.\n\nMy stomach churns. I'm starving. I've been starving for days now but nothing I have in my fridge satiates the hunger. Everything I eat comes back up with blood and bile and pain, so much pain. Today, Sarah's name popped up on my phone, and all I could think of was sinking my teeth into her skin. All I could think about was eating my sister.\n\nSonofabitch.\n\nI dig what's left of my nails into the table, let out a groan. My arms are covered in black spots of rot. All of me is covered. The parts of my skin that haven't started to rot are white, drained of color. I stagger back from the table, clutch my pounding head in hands that shake.\n\nGet it together, Lyle.\n\nI'm starving.\n\nThere is a knock at the door. A voice, a familiar voice, makes me go still. \"Lyle?\" Sarah calls; she sounds worried. I swallow and I feel like I'm going to hurl again. Please no. Please please please no. \"Lyle, you've been ignoring my calls.\"\n\n\"You need to leave, Sarah.\" My tongue is thick, swollen. My voice comes out strangled through a mouthful of blood and mucus. I spit on the table. It's already coated anyway.\n\n\"Lyle, what's going on?\"\n\n\"Please leave.\" I can't breathe. I don't know if I've breathed for days.\n\n\"I'm coming in.\" The lock clicks; the doorknob turns. Fuck, she's got a spare key. How could I forget that she has a spare key? The door swings open.\n\nOh, God, but the look on her face. Her eyes widen; her hands leap to cover her mouth as the color drains from her cheeks. A purse clatters to the floor and so does the key in her fingers. She lets out a sound caught somewhere between a gasp and a sob.\n\nNo. No, not her. Please not her.\n\nShe is all blood and flesh and heat and I want her. Need her.\n\nI can't stop myself anymore.\n\nSarah tastes amazing.", "\"Jesus Christ!\" John blasphemed. He'd managed to drag himself into the shower, but just barely. Hadn't even bothered to undress. The cool water blasting him in the face helped him to stay conscious, but did little for the feeling of hot knives being jammed into his gut. What the hell was going on? Sure, he'd been feeling a little under the weather. Had even taken a sick day, which he'd always hated doing. Now he was glad he had. This was not something you worked through to show your boss how dedicated you were. There was probably a fancy Latin name for whatever this was. This had to be some disease that ninety nine percent of doctors would go their entire careers without seeing. \n\nThe strangest thing was that despite the mind numbing, ear splitting, earth shattering pain John felt, he was hungry. And not \"Oh, I'll just have a salad\" hungry. John needed meat. A big thick juicy steak. No, screw the steak, just bring him the whole damn cow. Yes, give him Bessie and a bottle of barbecue sauce and he'd never believe it wasn't Christmas morning. The pain in his stomach drew back a little, seeming to encourage this current train of thought.\n\nA faint scratching from outside the bathroom snapped John out of his bovine daydreams. Dammit, he still needed to feed the dog. Yes. The dog. Lucky, the spoiled dog that ate better than most humans and had the extra poundage to show for it. Oh god, was his mouth watering? Was he really salivating at the thought of the goddamn family dog? Yes. He was. Was that really so bad? In the end meat is meat, right? Whatever animal it came from. \n\nNo. No. NO. He could not eat Lucky. His girls would be heartbroken. His girls... NO! Don't even fucking think about it. What the fuck is wrong with you, asshole? They'd be back from school with their mom soon. If she ever found out what had just crossed his mind she'd kill him. Hell, he'd let her- a new intense wave of pain crashed over him. John desperately grabbed onto the shower curtains and dragged them down with him as he spilled to the bathroom floor. \n\nIf that little tumble didn't convince him, nothing would. Nobody wants to be the guy who calls 9-1-1 for a tummy ache, but John no longer cared. The closest phone was across the hall in his office. It wouldn't be easy, but the alternative was laying there on the floor in agony until his wife came home and found him, and who knew how long that would take. No, he had to try. \n\nOn his hands and knees John crawled to the bathroom door. As soon as he managed to push it open Lucky rushed in to check on him. She was a smart dog, very loving and always so gentle with the girls. All the noise he'd been making had obviously upset her. She sniffed at him and licked at his face, trying to get a sense for what was wrong. John however, took no notice. He was doomed. He knew it from the moment he smelled her. She smelled better than any steak he'd ever had. So... Juicy. The pain he'd felt so intensely just a moment ago subsided, giving him permission to do what he knew needed to be done. He'd wrestled with Lucky before so when he pinned the dog down she probably thought they were just playing a game. In the horror of what happened next John failed to hear the garage door opening downstairs...\n", "Monday morning passed like any other. Adam groggily groped around the buttons on top of his alarm clock, whose exaggerated letters blared 6:45. He dragged himself to the shower before stripping off his socks and underwear and stepping in. \n\nThe cold water immediately stung his leg. Looking down, he noticed a short gash on the inside of his thigh. It was bleeding and blistering red, almost malevolent.\n\n\"Son of a bitch...\" Adam trailed off. His eyes swam a moment as he recollected himself. He stepped out of the shower, almost tripped, and dried himself off. He drunkenly stumbled to the medicine cabinet, and quickly applied some disinfectant and gauze. He could not recall getting the wound, though he was affected with bouts of sleepwalking. Adam quickly dismissed his leg as an accident.\n\nThat day, Adam found himself drifting off constantly. He lacked the focus to even read a paragraph in one go. His boss grew concerned and ordered him to take the day off. Relieved, Adam obliged.\n\nOn Tuesday, Adam woke up to find himself at the front door of his house, unable to open it. He noticed the scratch marks on the door before he felt the blood flowing from his nails. He decided he would call to make an appointment with his doctor. Perhaps pharmaceuticals held the solution to these new episodes. Adam walked over to his phone and picked it up. His vision again blurred, and this time he fell on his back.\n\nAdam lied helplessly for a few moments before gathering himself enough to stand. He tried to remember what he was doing with the phone before he noticed the time. He had to go to work. He had bills to pay. Adam shook himself off, went through his morning routine, and got on the road.\n\nDespite his commute being a mere mile, Adam lost his bearings after he left his driveway. The now familiar dizziness struck again and Adam careened off the road, stopping only by the strength of an ancient apple tree, which was toppled by the force of the car. Adam blacked out.\n\nWhen he came to, he felt the needle in his arm and squinted against the blinding whiteness of the hospital ceiling. An inexplicable panic overcame him. His suddenly animal instinct compelled him to escape. Yanking the tubes from his body, Adam strained against the bed, rising catatonically.\n\nA nurse had just walked in and noticed Adam. \"My God...doctor! Doctor!\" She ran away screaming.\n\nAdam groaned. He realized that his legs were broken and splintering through the casts, though oddly enough he could not feel them. His clarity was once again overcome with the primal panic to escape.\n\nNow shambling, Adam reached the hallway. The nurse and doctor were running toward him.\n\n\"Adam! Adam! Stop! You're killing yourself!\" The doctor ran within an arms length. \"You need to stop, you have to lie down, you...\" Adam grabbed him with one hand and a pain shot through his arm. The doctor was caught off guard and fell into Adam. Without a thought, Adam bit into the doctor's exposed neck and tore his flesh.\n\nA security guard then came from behind Adam and subdued him, took him back to his bed, and secured him there. In all the excitement, the guard had disregarded the scratch he obtained from Adam's nails.\n\nThat night, Adam died in the hospital bed. His curse, however, was now free to spread...\n\n", "I am dying, and I know it.\n\nI can feel my synapses flaring like the tip of an arc welder, as the fire spreads through my brain. In my head, it’s three-thousand-one-hundred degrees, and rising - and the world as I know it is being bleached crimson by an unrelenting red tide. My vision swims and burns as the sweat pours down my forehead and into my eyes. I feel my sodden shirt sticking to my skin, and paw and tear at it to try and ease the burning. A lance of pain shoots through me and my hands rise, gripping the sides of my head in agony - I try to claw the fire out of me.\n\nWhat kind of hell is this? \n\nI sink to my knees in the crowded tube station, the gaggle of morning commuters pressing in at me from every side like a herd of cattle being driven onward to the slaughterhouse. No one even notices. I try to scream, but just end up choking on my own bile, retching, as the claustrophobia sets in. I am a prisoner here, my own private cell, alone in a sea of faceless, nameless cunts.\n\nCradling my head in my hands, I try to muster up the energy to fight back - to stand, grab the nearest person and shake some sense into them. Show them my pain, my fear, make them understand. Make them see. But I can’t. All I can do is hold my head together, to try and stop the fire from tearing me open. I try to scream again, but only a low moan escapes my lips. A rasp. A death rattle.\n\nI am dying. And I know it.\n\nSoothing shards of ice begin to slide into my mind, numbing the pain and dousing the fire. Sweet release. Nothing to fear anymore, now that the ice has come. The beautiful, dulling cold slipping through the pain like a straight razor.\n\nBut somewhere, in the dark recesses of my mind, something stirs amid the cold. Something old, something forceful. It sings to me in dulcet tones, sweet songs of hope and joy, of open meadows and lazy days lying amid fields of yellowed buttercups. Freedom, it whispers. Comfort.\n\n**It lies.**\n\nSweet songs. Too sweet - too sweet by far. The words of comfort and love are stripped away, and the voice that sings beneath them is *much* sweeter.\n\nHe sings of the sweetness of flesh - he sings of the white hot joy of carnage. He sings in tones that lay bare the primordial soul of man and drag from it, raw and writhing, the truths that haunt us while we sleep. His words are a palette, and my mind is a canvas, and he sings into me works of such monstrous beauty. Such vile and terrible abandon.\n\nI am his puppet. With his mighty hands he pulls my strings, and I dance at his whim. He guides me to glory, to ascension, through flesh. Through terror, I shall honour him. Through blood, I shall mark his way.\n\nThrough flesh, all men will become one.", "\"Mr. Jenkins, you suffer from a particularly rare form of hyponchondira.\"\n\n\"No-no!\" Jeff objected. \"I'm becoming a zombie I'm sure of it!\"\n\nThe doctor put his face in his palms, he should have been out on his lunch break 10 minutes ago.\n\n\"Your blood tests came back fine, your body is in fine shape. All I can suggest is thaat you cut down on your meat intake nd have more vegatables. I assure you, you are not turning into a zombie!\"\n\n\"Of course I am!\" Jeff yelled, getting to his feet in a frantic panic. \n\n\"I can't function! All I can do is wander aimlessly all day long, when ever I go out I have no purpose or direction! I crave only meat and am sickened by the thought of anything else! And my skin is beginning to flake and fall of! I am becoming a zombie!\"\n\nThe doctor got to his feet. \"Mr Jenkins!\" He bellowed, \"Your skin is flaking because you have dandruff, I can give you the number of a dermatoligist! You crave meat because you are a carnivor and you feel like you have no direction because you are depressed! Maybe you should consider seeing a therapist! Now if you please..\"\n\nThe doctor made his way past Jeff and opened the door, beckoning him to leave. \n\n\"But, but I find myself starring ahead aimlessly for hours on end, I don't speak or think or move-\"\n\n\"Are you watching T.V. Mr. Jenkins?\"\n\n\"Um....\"\n\nThe doctor pointed out the door. Jeff became desperate.\n\n\"If you shoot me in the brain I'll die!\"\n\n\"Mr. Jenkins....\"\n\nThe Doctor stamped on the ground and pointed again. Jeff slumped out the door defeated. The doctor slammed it behind him, swore loudly and made his way back to his desk. Finally, he could have his lunch.\n\nThen there was a knock on the door. The Doctor cursed and made his way over.\n\n\"Mr Jenkins please!\"\n\nHe opened it to find Jeff Jenkins standing there. But he was different. His skin was tinted green, his arms oustretched and his eyes were fully white with no pupils.\n\n\"BRAINS!\" he yelled, diving forward and sinking his teeth into the bewildered doctors neck." ]

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[ "“I like your hair.” \n\nIlluminated by the basement’s dim lighting; pale, long fingered hands gently brushed the cheek of a young girl, somewhere around the ages of 11 or 12. Beneath his touch, the girl’s terrified whimpers slowly transformed into sobs.\n\n“Shhh! Don’t you worry, everything will be alright.” Tenderly, his seeking fingers shifted to her long, golden tresses. He took a moment to marvel at the way the light glinted off her curls as he ran his hands through her hair. \n\n“My mother used to tell me that I had the brightest, most lovely hair. But she is gone now. Both of us are alone. Tell me, what’s your name, dear.”\n\n“A-A-Annie,” she stuttered, stretching as far away from him as her bonds would allow. “P-Please sir, my father will be worried. I need to….”\n\nHer words warped into a high-pitched scream as the man slowly dragged a knife down the length of her calf. \n\n“Shh. shh,” he whispered, cradling her head as she writhed in his grip. Methodically he shifted his grip and repeated the procedure on her other side, eliciting another scream of agony. \n\n“Alex, don’t let them tease you about your hair. You are better than they are, more special,” he spoke aloud, a hard smile formed on his face as, gripping the haft of his knife, he steadily pushed the tip into the girl’s thigh. \n\n“I swore I would hurt them, the same way they hurt me,” Alex thought to himself. And indeed, as scarlet bloomed across the girl’s sundress, Alex felt a soaring sensation of joy and satisfaction. Carefully, Alex worked his way up Annie’s body, cutting and slashing as a pool of crimson began to pool beneath him. In his arms, Annie’s thrashing intensified. \n\n“Now for the head.” Alex’s pale blue eyes locked onto Annie’s green ones. She had time to utter one last agonised scream before the Alex reached into her mouth and severed her tongue with one swift motion. \n\nShe slumped in his arms.\n\nAlex sighed as he quickly cut off her ears before wiping his blade on Annie’s dress. He reached into his jacket for a spoon, which he used to excise her eyes, and then added them to the jar, which already contained her tongue and ears. \n\n“Shh, everything is going to be alright,” he leant down and whispered into the cavity Annie’s ear once occupied.” He took a moment to lightly brush the mixing of tears and blood from her face and to once again run his hands through her hair, now a deep brown. \n\n“What a shame,” he thought \n\nPocketing the jar, Alex climbed upstairs and entered the bathroom to wash his hands. Setting the jar on the counter, he stepped back and addressed his image. \n\n“You ridiculed me when I was young, now it is going to be your child who is ridiculed!” \n\nIn the mirror, Alex’s reflection smiled at him, his angelic face framed by beautiful golden locks. ", "I remember, it started off slowly. My head had been shaved clean, without much notice to my friends and colleagues alike. I had been cutting the blonde locks of mine shorter and shorter, for the past six months that had lead up to this day, and it just seemed like a natural evolution of how I was maintaining my hair. The hot and extremely humid summer was quickly approaching, and many people trimmed their styles, so no one noticed. No one cared.\n\nBut I had finally shaved my head, to the skin. It was done, and I remember that heavy sigh I took, in that hot, humid bathroom. I stood there, my skin still dotted with water from the shower, with water drops starting to slowly roll down my back. A few patches of shaving cream still remained by my ears, but I couldn't be bothered to towel myself off. I was lost. I was gone in that moment, feeling free -- a freedom that I will never forget. The straight-jacket of a societal norm that had dictated my life had been lifted up off of me. I felt free, for a first time in my life, free. To do what I wanted, and to go where I wanted to go. I knew what I had to do, and was finally prepared to do it. \n\nIt started slowly at first. My very close friends, many of whom I had known for significant chunks of my life, started asking questions, and wondering why. Many of them suggested counseling, and others suggested going to our house of worship. Divine intervention, they’d tell me, is supposedly what I needed -- yeah; right. What do they know?\n\nI had already seen the Truth; it was they who needed to open their eyes, and see the world for what it truly was. \n\nI remember the first week was the most interesting experience. People I didn’t know would avert their eyes and immediately ignore my existence; acquaintances would either avert their eyes or awkwardly try to talk or say something; avoiding brown-haired bull staring them in the face. Friends would be in disbelief, and would either abandon me, or tell me to change my ways. It wasn’t all bad though, I found support in people from whom I’d least expect it. A couple of new strangers would randomly approach me as I walked the streets, empathizing with me that they know of someone who had made the same choice as I, and offered their best wishes. These few gems of conversations provided me with the support I needed to continue on with my decision.\n\nAs my hair grew longer, it became easier and easier to deal with the situation; as I had less and less interaction with society. I remember sitting in my apartment, on the last day of May, furniture emptied out, and all my belongings reduced to a few oddly shaped bags that I could carry. I had lost my job, as expected, and nearly all the connections I had in my life. That was the last day I had my apartment, before I would be evicted. I didn’t want to fight, nor did I want to struggle. As night approached, I left the keys in the lock, and left. And my life was indeed getting easier, because I knew now that I was finally in a place where I could change what I truly believed in.\n\nHow could we succeed as a society, when it was based on a lie? Our fundamental values that we adhered to, that we governed our existence by, was dictated by a lie, and we couldn’t progress any further as a society with this crutch; this faulty foundational block that would cause our culture to inevitably crumble. We were the beginning of a new movement; and one day a revolution, I hoped.\n\nEveryone loses their innocence; some as early as young children. Patches of brown show up in some older kids, and of course, by the time everyone is twenty, their hair should be a solid brown. Should be. It’s the way nature intended it, our rite of passage, showing the world that we are mature, and ready to take on what life has to challenge us. But no, we’ve been forced to -- indoctrinated to -- dye our hair and bleach it of our reality. We ritualized the process, and worshiped it as purity, and as innocence -- but the truth was, we were worshiping a lie. \n\nLosing my life was just a small step in the journey I had just embarked on; and was one of the smaller challenges I faced in my life. The next challenge I faced was to meet with my kind. I had a passion within me though, that was firing me along. I knew that no matter what, I was going to meet with my fellow brown haired brothers and sisters.\n\n\n", "\"Take me to the front line. I must confront him, and find out his motives. There has to be a reason...\" \n\nRegnier spoke with powerful confidence to his fellow soldiers as he entered the helicopter. He was one of the few soldiers remaining with blonde hair, and he was revered for his tactical prowess. An utter genius of combat who had seen the horrors of war, and somehow retained his innocence through it all.\n\nThe entire circumstance was unique in itself, for never once had Regnier been on the front line. This time was different. He saw something that interested him. Whatever it was, Regnier had to see it for himself. \n\nTalon 0-1 shuttled Regnier and the other remaining soldiers in the bodyguard squad to Stockholm, the war torn city in the north. For months, the unified nation of Kalgrad fought the opposing nation of Swederland. War was changing in this case, as it was not fought because of land, but because of ideology. Physical differences separated the two. \n\nAs Regnier was shuttled to the Capital Building in Swederland, he pondered the differences between the two nations. He was taught never to question his country, never to question motives or tactics. Individuality did not exist in Kalgrad. Those of blond hair were cherished and allowed to become one with the political system of Kalgrad, which even then limited all aspects of life. Those born with darker hair were punished, forced to be soldiers and slaves. The Golden Age Party did not allow them to exist. \n\nSwederland consisted entirely of \"brown hair devils\", as the Golden Age Party taught. \n\nThe Golden Age Party was considered the strongest nation in the world, and its ideologies were equally powerful. But Regnier was intelligent, and the Golden Age needed him to win its wars. He wanted to ask why the opponents dared to disobey, when they cannot win against the might of the \"blond haired heroes\". He wanted to ask why the physical differences existed, or why they could not coexist as brothers. To do so was to question the Golden Age Party, which might have him killed. Regnier did not care anymore. \n\nFinally, Talon 0-1 arrived at the secured landing zone just outside of the Capital Building. Regnier saw all the war torn buildings and heaps of bodies. Bodies with brown hair. Regnier felt nothing for them, because brown hair signified malevolence. It had to be that way, but he wanted to avoid fighting them. \n\n*Creating malevolence where there could be friendship is against my code*, Regnier thought. \n\nHe came upon the general of the Swederland forces. At least, what was left of him. A bloody mess, separate from anything Regnier ever laid his eyes upon. And on a pike behind the decapitated body of the general lay the head of a golden haired boy in his youth. \n\n\"What is this blasphemy?! Golden hair? Swederland is not golden haired!\"\n\nSuddenly, Regnier came to a realization. A sudden enlightenment of past events which explained everything until this very moment. \n\nAnd in that second, the remaining blond soldiers became one with their opponents. Regnier turned away, hoping to avoid the inevitable. *I will not commit treason!*, he thought. \n\nHis hair adopted a dark brown as he looked in the shimmering mirror of a water puddle which developed under a broken pipe in the destroyed roof. Darker than even the other brown haired soldiers. He knew what he had to do. \n\nHe ripped off his golden sash of superiority, the final tie to Kalgrad. He looked onward, to his comrades and to his enemies. \n\n\"The Age of Gold is over.\"", "I looked at my sister over the table, her small hands grasping the bowl, as milk trickled down her chin. Such a small delicate thing, tiny hands and a tiny nose. And such long brown hair.\n***\nI can’t remember exactly when it happened, I went on a walk one day and left her with our mother. She’d had such a big smile as she waved goodbye. My mother caressed her beautiful blonde hair and hummed to herself quietly. \n\nThe trees were bare with the cruelty of winter and the icy wind bit deep into my skin. I started to hurry home, looking forward to a warm bed. \n\nI approached the house and felt that something was different, the door hung open and the wind made a soft howling sound as it moved through the house. I stopped on the pathway, confused. Why would they leave the door open on such a cold day? A sense of dread slowly started to form at the base of my spin, a strange tingling that I’d never felt before. I walked forward cautiously, peering into the dark innards of my home.\n\nThe house was so quiet, usually filled with the laughter of my little sister, or the sound of the television. Now, there was nothing.\n \nI looked around downstairs for signs of life but everything was deserted. The lounge room lay bare, everything packed away neatly. The kitchen was different though, food sat half prepared on the bench, a tomato half chopped and cheese sitting in the packet. \n\nThe top floor was dark. A weak winter sunlight filtered through the window, but barely penetrated the inner depths of the house. I walked up the stairs slowly, listening to each familiar crack and creak. As I moved upwards a sound started to become apparent. A quiet persistent dripping.\n\nThe door to the upstairs bathroom was opened a crack with light spilling out. I headed towards it and the dripping started to get louder. I crept forward and pushed the door open cautiously. \n\nThe curtain of the bath tub lay closed but I could hear the water moving, quietly lapping at the edges of the tub. I stood for a moment looking at the bright blue and the clouds of the shower curtain, the tingling in my spine had moved upwards to my shoulders making my arms feel like lead. I slowly pulled the curtain back and saw my mother, her brown hair fanned out in the water.\n\nI stumbled back, tripping over the mat. How could my dependent mother have had such an accident? This couldn’t have happened on purpose, it just wasn’t in her nature. She’d been humming to herself this morning, touching her daughter’s hair. Could she really have done this to herself?\n\nI lay on the cold tiles for what felt like hours, but probably only consisted of a few sparse minutes. I had to call someone, I had to get help. \n\nI rolled on to my side to get up and that’s when I saw the locks of brown hair. My sweet smiling beautiful little sister’s brown hair. She sat on a stool in the corner, not making a sound, simply staring at me. \n***\nI reached out to take her bowl and she handed it to me without a word. We maintained eye contact for a moment before my eyes darted towards her hair once again. \n", "I´m not a good writer, but this idea won´t leave me alone. The prejudice of a person having hair so brown it´s black, wanting to repent but society have driven him/her into a corner. The love from the masses for having platinum blond hair, but the person is actually a psychopath, bored of the world. What would happen if they meet?\n\nI offer a sketch in return for writing?", "I practically lived at his house. After school, I would do homework downstairs at the kitchen table with him and his little sister. I'd help with dinner or chores and then we'd sit on the couch and watch TV. During the nights, I would creep up into his room and crawl into his bed. He'd run his fingers through the hair that had turned brown when I was 16, when I decided that my heart belonged with his family and not with my own. He wore a hat all the time, even when his hair started to grow back in. He only ever took it off at night and I knew that he didn't want me to see what color his hair was, not yet. I don't think he could even bring himself to look at it. Most kids with cancer had hair that would grow in black, sleek and strong and darker than even the color of a criminal's hair. \nI didn't look at his hair for a year. He'd cut it in the dark, using shadows to decide the length. He didn't want to face the loss of his innocence, because he'd always tried to hold onto his hope, even on the worse days when I was waiting beside the toilet with a rag and a cup of water, ready to wipe away the sick and the shame. \nOne night, after he'd grown back strong and beautiful, I reached over and turned on the light. He stopped kissing me immediately, but before he could process anything.\n\"Your hair.\" I said, \"It's beautiful.\" I reached out and curled my fingers in his hair, which was a bright and rich red. The color life. ", "Her rheumy eyes lit up with recognition, finally. Wrinkles shifted.\n\n\"Daniel.\" The word itself was a smile.\n\n\"Yeah Mom, it's me.\" There's no description for this knot; a hack poet would undoubtedly use hair for the rope, many different shades of brown all tangled up. She says my name, finally, and something gets tugged. The nature of the knot shifts, but the balance of tightness remains.\n\nHer hands reach out for mine, but halfway across the great divide of years, a stringy lock flops down across her face. Another tragic interruption. I silently curse the negligence of the nighttime staff, and within my knot, strands of anger, frustration, guilt and helplessness all constrict my lungs and my heart. Mother reaches up to grasp at the wayward tangle. Its hold upon her skull yields easily.\n\nThe confusion doesn't last long. This memory - this knowledge - is always among the oldest. Worry, now; panic.\n\n\"But what happened? Did something happen? Where am I?\"\n\nIt can't even be called a decline anymore, or a spiral. It's a straight drop. A coppery streak of helplessness chokes my insides as I ring for the nurse, because I can't calm her down by myself, I can't bring her back by myself - no, I need help. Help from the staff - the staff I must have told a hundred fucking god-damn times, and who no doubt hear it ten-thousand fucking god-damn times from every relative, every doctor, every administrator, so what the fucking god-damn hell am I even paying for?\n\nNo mirrors, no brushes, no fancy styling, no wigs - they can always feel them. Yes, we all wish there was a chemical solution, but guess what, it's your fucking *job* and you get *paid* and so you deal with it. You fucking deal with it.\n\nThey do not. See. Their. Hair.\n\nNot until it's blonde again. Not until the end.", " She was sitting in the window seat, reading a novel. The sun was shining, making her golden locks appear luminescent. Deeply engrossed, she would not hear me approach. Slender fingers turned another page, and I could see eyes scanning the words behind the glare of her glasses. \"Mom,\" the word was soft, to gently draw her out of the world the novel portrayed. \"Hello sweetheart,\" she responded without looking, marking her place in the book, before blue eyes met mine. \n\n Immediately her expression went from one of happy greeting to surprise, and just the smallest flash of disappointment before it settled on a sad smile. \"Your hair.\" The two simple word spoke so much. I was 23, far older than most, yet I knew my mothers words were full of disappointment. I had lost my innocence, after over 2 decades of my existence. I had watched my peers hair turn various shades of brown, some far to early and far to dark, however mine had always stayed a lemon yellow. From my first love, to my first drink, I had kept my lemon locks, just like my mother, until today.\n\n 55 years and counting my mother has been blonde, without a hint of dark. Through her 4 years of college, and the past 30 years as a nurse and married to my father, she had held her hair color. Through the death of her father, the abuse of her step father, and her time spent as a nurse in the military, she has been unique in her hair color. Through the still birth of two children, and finally my own birth, her hair has been lemon yellow. It was always an accepted fact by my father and myself, thought to be perhaps a genetic mutation, however my recent development proved this was not the case.\n\n I stood facing my mother, her hands crossed over too her book, waiting for me to ask the question I never have, never felt the need to ask until now. The question spoke itself, \"How have you kept your innocence?\" She knew what I meant, all that was held in those five words. What is innocence? How does one keep it? And most of all, how does one loose it?\n\n \"Innocence isn't naiveness. It isn't lack of life experiences. It isn't being free of guilt or free of burden. Innocence is something that you find from within. Forgiving those who have wronged you, loving those who need your love, accepting what fate has in store and embracing it. It can't be taken from you, it can only be given up. It is staying true to your beliefs even when you are not sure what they are. You made it longer than most my dear, and for that, I am so proud of you. You have faced adversity. I have been waiting for this day, and I want you to know that I love you. Whatever reason you have for your hair turning brown, I love you for who you are.\"\n\n I forced a smile at my mother, one she probably saw right through, yet her eyes remained kind and loving. Innocence wasn't a state of being, it was a life choice. I should have asked her sooner, though I don't know if it would have changed anything. I couldn't bring myself to tell my mother the simple act that made me turn. The one thought, that as I thought it, I knew would change me. Dishonesty that I let into my heart, in an attempt to succeed in my career. What was done was done. I had finally joined my peers.", "It was the Great War. 100,000 young men volunteered. Of the 25,000 that returned, not one came back the same.\n\nIt on us our freedom, but cost us our innocence.", "The light flickered in the dawn. Hundreds of people watched from a hillside as the city burned white and yellow and red in the dim sunrise. Soon, nothing recognizable remained, except the few stone and concrete walls between homes. The walls now separated nothing but piles of ash. As the sun rose, the last sounds of death and destruction faded into the early morning light. The sun had set the night before on a city of golden heads - but in the light of day, all the hair was brown.", "All males have brown hair. They envy each other, the darker the hair the better. Boys with blonde hair are teased. Magazines display men with black hair. But girls on the other hand are humiliated for their brown hair. No one wants to date a brunette, and advertisements show women with platinum blonde hair in compromising positions (ironic right?). Hair dye is one of the most popular products as girls often wish to return to their original purity. But not me. My hair turned brown when I was 16 and has been getting darker ever since. \n\nI was walking down a street when i bumped into a blondie. \n\n\"Hey, what where your going morena.\"\n\nI simply walked passed her pointing my middle finger\n\"Brown is the new Black, blondie\" ", "She stared in the mirror. Fog outside the warm bathroom this morning. Freckles and wrinkles back at her. Freckles from her parents, wrinkles from smiling. Her lips were closed. Together. She saw them and opened them with a smile. She loved her smile. She loved her blond hair.\n\nShe had been locked in that room for as long as she could remember. Her hair was once down to her shoulders but now it was down past her waist. Playful memories of silver scissors dancing with brown combs whispered in her memory but she blinked them away.\n\nShe always wanted to be a hairdresser. They were always happy. Smiling. Smiling and helping. But the silver scissors always frightened her. What if they cut too low?\n\nShe closed her lips and smiled. She stared at her lips. Stop whispering she thought. Don't make the grey hairs come back! Her wrinkles smiled. Don't think about the grey hair. She opened up a box of blonde hair dye and turned the faucet on. \n\nShe looked away from the mirror. The running water the only sound in the room. \"Don't whisper,\" she sang. \"Whispers bring the grey hairs,\" she sang into the water. \"Whispers bring the grey hairs but the water only knows.\"\n\nThere was nothing wrong with your hair turning brown. Everyone's hair turned brown. Lucy looked into the mirror again. Her hands wet, she picked up the hair dye. \"Why am I the only one getting old?\" Her whispers were getting louder.", "\"Are you sure he won't find out?\"\n\n\"Listen, Alex, I'm sure. He never comes home this early\"\n\nI don't know why I did it. Maybe I was just a bit tired. Maybe I was tired of George's... innocence. Or something. Twenty-six and pure as the driven snow. But Alex. Alex was wiser. Went dark at eight. Eight! He was jaded and cynical, and I loved it. I still loved George, loved his innocence, loved the way he was so proud of his golden locks. But Alex was new, and I was stupid and bored and... \n\nSo there I was, with Alex, his hands around me, mine around him, when the door opened.\n\n\"Hey honey, I-\"\n\nI don't think I'll ever be able to forget his face when he saw me with Alex. Like a crushed puppy. He didn't say anything, just stared. His face terrible, but it will never compare to his hair. His beautiful, rich, brown hair.", "It was my first day of college when I saw Anne for the first time.\n\nI was the only blonde in class. In fact, I was probably the only blonde among all the undergrads. I wasn't very surprised though. By the end of high school, every one had turned brunette except for me. Although I always acted sheepish about it, deep inside I had a strong sense of pride, like I have won some imaginary game. My friends would tease me about it every now and then, but I didn't care. Something inside me knew I would go my entire life blonde. My friends could have been jealous of that fact.\n\nBut I digress. As I was saying, I saw Anne for the first time that day. I was the only blonde in class, and I was feeling self conscious about it. I was sinking deeper into my seat not to be noticed. A few people looked surprised to see a blonde in class. I was embarrassingly looking around when my eyes met hers.\n\nShe was a brunette, but she had the lightest brown hair I have ever seen. She had it in a pony tail that danced around every time she turned her head. Our eyes met, and there was this immediate electric shock in my heart. She gave me an encouraging smile. Hang in there, buddy.\n\nWeeks have passed, and my crush on her was building up. The first crush I have ever had, in fact. We were good acquaintances at this point. We'd chat every once in a while, and every time we did, I'd go back to my dorm room and replay every word she had said, every twinkle in her eyes, every smile on her face.\n\nThat was when I figured I had to tell her how I felt. I was Skyping with my friend Sam. Sam was my best friend, and we went to the same high school. Fun fact: Sam was the last person to turn brunette in our high school (excluding me of course). He was a very innocent kid for the longest time, and one day, things changed. I could never understand what happened to him. I remember one day after he had turned brunette, he was driving us to the mall, when some guy in a U-Haul cut in front of him. He lowered the window, flipped him off, and started screaming an endless stream of curse words at the top of his lungs. I was shocked. What happened to him? I knew he had changed in a fundamental way.\n\nAnyway, I was telling him about Anne. After teasing me about it for half an hour (I totally expected him to!), he encouraged me to tell her how I felt about her. He told me she must have had feelings for me, since girls always knew it when you had a crush on them. Just the fact she was still being friendly to me meant she was sending me a signal.\n\nI talked to Anne the next day. I was shy and stuttering and I was a complete mess (I had never asked a girl out before!). I told her I had feelings for her, and I was hoping she would go to dinner with me some time to know each other better. She laughed and said her boyfriend probably wouldn't like that idea very much. My heart sank and I was immediately crushed. Everything she said after this point felt like it was happening in slow motion. She said she had been in a relationship for a couple of years, and although she didn't think they were very compatible, she was still giving it a try. She said she liked me, and would still love for us to be friends. She told me she didn't feel comfortable being single at the time. I knew this was the end of the line. I couldn't have taken it any other way. I would never try to separate a girl from her boyfriend. That was pure evil. Game over!\n\nCrushed, I went home. Sitting alone at my laptop, I put on some stupid sad songs. I replayed that encounter so many times, realizing that was a major crossroads in my life. Had she said yes, there would be a date I would be looking for. There would be excitement and dreams of a happy future with her. But right now, I was a depressed kid sitting in his dorm room alone with no goals and nothing to look forward to.\n\nI talked to Sam on Skype again, and told him everything. He told me I was an idiot. She clearly liked me but was afraid to leave her boyfriend for me when she didn't know me that well. He told me I should just hang around. If she was not interested, she would have never talked about her boyfriend and her being incompatible. I told Sam that was simply not me. There was no way I'd sacrifice my integrity for a girl.\n\nHe very calmly ended the conversation was... \"You are too innocent, dude. If you had had more experience. If you had played the field a little. You and her could have been in bed right now you idiot. You blew it\".\n\nI knew I did. Every time I saw her in class afterwards, I'd avoid her eyes, and look to the floor. When she tried to talk to me, I'd quickly end it and walk away.\n\nI knew I had changed, though. I had this look in my eyes now. The look of the guy who lived his worst nightmare. I knew I needed to have more experience. I needed to play the field, so that when the right woman comes by I'd be ready.\n\nI walked to Borders that night (They had not gone bankrupt yet at the time), and was browsing around. I found this scary leather black book. The book title was written in gold on the side. \"The Art of Seduction, by Mystery\". My hands were shaking but I reached out for the book and pulled it out. I needed to learn. I was angry and confused, but I was determined. Girls are to become nothing but a number from this point forwarded. I needed to number close, kiss close and F close as many girls as I could from this point forward (number close, kiss close and F close were all terms the book used for getting a girl's number, kissing a girl, and well, going to bed with a girl). I had a feeling in my heart, I was becoming a man now. I felt tender in my scalp and cold in my heart. Faint cracking noise was all around me. Is it static electricity in the store? Is it the carpet?\n\nI went to the cashier with my book, worried he would criticize me for buying a seduction book (specially I was a blond), but he didn't give me a second look. I bought it and walked out.\n\nSomething felt off, though. How comes the guy was totally ok with a blonde buying such a book? I'd imagine he must have said something. A tease... A comment... anything. The reality sank in when i checked my reflection in the glass windows of the store. I was looking at brunette me. I had turned!\n\nI was the last of my peers to turn, and what a waste that was. I wish I was the first.\n\nI would have to make up for all the time I had lost. I glanced at my book, and looked at my reflection in the window again. There was a devilish smirk on my face now!", "As soon as she had stepped foot in the place several minutes before, she had drawn more than a few stares from the other patrons.\n\nCutters fresh from a shift spend working on the soaring top of a High-Tower. Miners from the Wide Maw just outside the city limits, often competing with the cutters for loudness. And scattered among these groups of massive burly men were the Shufflers, winding down after a entire day of pushing paper around and getting yelled at by men who knew nothing.\n\nAll of them, sandy-brown, tawny-brown, ash-brown, greying-brown, streaked brown- it didn't matter. Their hair was as brown as the peeling walls of the pub they all sat in.\n\nBut not Anna's. Hers had always shimmered like the sun, just like her dad's. Girls marveled at how brilliant the lustre of her golden hair was, how pure and bright it seemed compared to their own drab brown or dirty blonde locks. Boys constantly tried getting her attention with stupid tricks or silly jokes, or even just straight up asking her out on a date. She knew it was the hair.\n\nAnd she didn't really give a damn about her hair.\n\nShe glanced over her shoulder, ignoring a few looks of concern from a young man to her right just in time to see a bald man, thin and scrawny compared to the rest, get up from one of the Cutter tables and move for the door out to the dreary streetside.\n\nHer eyes narrowed as her hand automatically reached for the vibrant green scarf wrapped around her neck. They softened only for a second, threatening to glisten before she shook her head and gritted her teeth.\n\nThe girl looked back to the half-full bottle sitting in front of her on the bar-top. She frowned, before snatching it up and taking one last swig, the acidic aftertaste lingering in her throat as she set the bottle back down with a loud thud.\n\nShe pushed back from the chair, wiping her mouth on her sleeve as she stalked through the tables, ignoring the leers, the frowns, the confused looks, the apprehension, until finally she came to the door out into the street, the frosted glass muffling the absolute downpour of rain just outside.\n\nJust as she closed her fingers on the handle a hand grabbed her shoulder. \"You won't be the same. Your hair, your soul, it'll-\"\n\nAnna shook her head. \"It doesn't matter to me, Thomas.\" She glanced downward at the opening in her jacket at the police service pistol.\n\nWithout even turning to look at the boy, his hair almost black, she opened the door and stepped through, blinking as each fat droplet hit her face.\n\nShe kept walking down the footpath, spotting the bald man as he turned a corner past a scaffolding into a alley.\n\nWith a shaky breath she continued away from the drab little pub, feeling a tingle in her hair as her thoughts overcame her, bringing a wetness to her eyes and a shake to her steps.\n\n\"For you, dad.\" she muttered, fingering the handle of the pistol.\n\n\n", "A cake sat on his cubicle desk, with every square inch packed with a candle. 47, to be exact.\n\n\"SURPRISE!!\" yelled a cohort of a dozen office-mates. \"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!\"\n\nHe stared at their faces, a sea of brown hair. 49 years old, but all Samuel could feel was sadness, and shame. He alone was the only person in his entire company to still have blond hair.\n\nSomewhere around the time he was in elementary school, more and more of his classmates had started to sport brown hair. It quickly became a symbol of pride. But here he was, nearly four decades later, and still with blond hair. Getting rid of that damn blond hair would have, theoretically, been a simple feat. Watch some porn, shoot up some heroin, have dirty drunk sex, hurt someone, whatever. But for Samuel, it was easier said than done. He was one of the few who had, because of his deep religious faith, taken the Purity Oath when he was at the tender age of 5 years old. \n\nSamuel took a bite of the cake. Red velvet, his favorite. But today, it tasted bland. It tasted like shame.", "She put down the plastic train in her hand, and it rolled off the folders of her pink Sunday dress like a child down a summer hill. She spun around and looked up at me from her place on the floor. \"Mom,\" she asked, \"When did your hair turn brown?\"\n\nIt was the question I always knew would come, but had never prepared for. \"Oh, honey, you won't have to worry about that for a long time.\" I smiled at her, but pushed herself to her knees and folded her arms. \n\n\"When!\" she demanded.\n\nI gave a heavy sigh. \n\n\"I was sixteen.\" The memory was fresh. I hesitated and scanned an empty corner of the room so that he might not know how often I thought of it. I tongued my teeth and pretended to think. \"I was coming from school-\"\n\n\"Like my school?\"\n\n\"Yes, honey, like your school.\" I reached down from my chair and put a hand on her cheek and beamed at her. She returned the smile until the memory of her question caused a new frown.\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"When I was sixteen, lots of people were fighting each other about the president. And my brother was walking me home from school-\"\n\n\"You mean Uncle Jack?\"\n\n\"No honey, my older brother. You never met him. He was walking me home from school and some men jumped out of a car and they said mean things to him and they did mean things to him.\" I tried to think about how to phrase the images in my head for a child. I dodged the profanities and the slurs, but what about the violence? What about when they ripped the hair from the top of his head in great clumps? How they held my face and eyes open to make me watch them break his arms and fingers. How could I tell her about his screams? His tears?\n\n\"What kind of mean things, mommy?\"\n\n\"They hit him, a lot. And-\" was I going to cry? I felt a lump in my throat. I hoped she couldn't hear it as I continued. \"they made him very sick and hurt, and he didn't get better, I'm afraid.\"\n\n\"That's why your hair turned brown?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"Oh.\" She turned back around and picked up the train.\n\nI touched my hair.", "This will be my first attempt here, so constructive criticism is appreciated. \n\nOutside, the storm surged with an almost spiteful ferocity, but here, at home with my family, we were warm and safe. Bright flashes of lightning and peals of thunder were the only things to reach us in our home. Dad tucked my sister and me into our beds, passing his hand gently from our soft blonde hair, down to our chins. He kissed us each goodnight and turned to leave, barely consciously running a hand through his own dusty brown hair.\n\nWe had asked Mom once, why hers and Dad's hair was darker than ours. They told us that when people have their feelings hurt very badly or do very bad things, their hair would change color. We were always good, she'd explained, and so our hair was still light and blonde. Hers and Dad's were darker, but not too dark. Whatever they had done must not have been too bad.\n\nIt was late when he came. A loud crash, different than the thunder, resounded through the house. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I sat up, wondering what it had been. Then came the shouting, then the screaming, and finally a gunshot. The sound of Mom crying got louder as she was dragged toward us.\n\nThe man burst through our bedroom door, pulling Mom by her hair, both of them yelling. Terrified, my sister and I could only stare as he put the gun to her head. He was screaming questions at her, shouting orders, but in the screaming and the storm, I couldn't understand. A flash of lightning illuminated the room, and for the briefest of moments, I could see the man's face. He was a shambles of a man, with dark, sunken eyes and a dirty unshaven face, all hidden behind a mess of hair so dark, it was almost black.\n\nMom was begging him to stop, to leave us alone. I guess that wasn't the answer he wanted, because he shot my sister. I tried to get up and to go to her, wanting it all to not be true, but he turned the gun on me. I was absolutely frozen as I watched an inky darkness inching out from under my sister's trembling form. It stained her dress, her sheets, and her hair with that horrible shade until she stopped moving anymore.\n\nMom was screaming even louder than before, flailing and sobbing, trying to break free. The man didn't like that, so he put the gun back to her head, and yelled at her to shut up. The anger and hurt burned hot in my ears, eyes stinging with tears. Mom was barely whimpering now, and I could hear the man clearly for the first time, \"You were supposed to be mine.\"\n\nThe gun flashed once, and a splatter of blood and auburn hair matted itself to the wall. I screamed and ran at the man, but another shot from his gun hit me in my leg. I crumpled to the floor almost instantly. He loomed over me, jeering, \"What a waste. Nothing but a whore, after all these years.\" He raised his gun to fire one last time, and I closed my eyes to wait for the end.\n\nA bang too loud for a gun jolted my eyes open again, and we both turned to see the utility pole outside spitting sparks and fire, and falling toward the house. It crashed through the roof with a sound almost louder than the lightning had made, and barely missed me.\n\nIt didn't miss him.\n\nThe fire was now spreading through this place that was once home to me, bathing everything in bright orange and red. The man lay pinned under the pole, gun out of reach, and a look of wild pain and desperation spread across his once shaded face. \"Kid!\" he shouted, \"You gotta help me, kid!\" The fire licked at the house, consuming everything in a familiar heat that tickled in my ears, and I walked out of the room.\n\nI ran across the street and watched, crying. The man's screams of pain echoed in my ears as the roaring flames consumed my world. Inside, I knew that everything I had ever loved was gone now, and I reached up, running my trembling had gently down from my dark walnut hair, down to my chin, just like Dad used to.", "Everywhere I looked I saw alternating seas of blond and brown crossing the busy intersections. Like busy termites they paraded around their mundane little lives without a care in the world. I have to admit that part of me wondered how the change took place at first. \n\nMost of the people had \"turned\" by the time they left high school. I remember the scandals that would cause since the moment someone's hair turned, everyone knew that something had happened. Of course, some were much better at theorycrafting than others. Rumors swirled about the new girl Sandra the moment she walked into our rotten halls. Her hair was a rich shade of platinum, reflecting the sunlight that she could see reflecting off of the drooling boys who she graced with her presence. The other girls weren't pleased with this, and envied the doe-eyed innocence that she exuded. She was as outgoing and friendly as any other person, except unlike the tainted bitches that tried their hardest to infect her with their misery, she was genuine about everything she did. I've seen her angry, upset, and frustrated at the numerous attempts of these girls but no matter what they did, her golden locks would stay the same. \n\nWhen she got together with Randy the exchange student, everyone was sure that the change was going to happen. Who could blame them? Most of the dupes I knew were eager to hook up with the first girl or guy who said yes. We waited anxiously for the day to come but it never did, not even after they had broken up. Randy was furious when it happened, and I was there to witness the rapid change in his hue. Even as that happened there was no change in Sandra. Eventually people just gave up in trying to figure her out. She was nice, after all, and she never bothered anybody. \n\nIt wasn't until I saw her again years later that I had an idea of how she kept her locks in such a pristine shape. While lazily flipping through channels one day, I saw her on some video footage being aired on the news. People were baffled by how such a person could calmly walk over to someone, slash their throat, and then go back to eating dinner as if nothing had happened. All that really captivated me was that even when she went through that, there was still no change in her hair at all. ", "A hundred strokes every night before bed. This was my hair routine every day. I was thirteen and one of the few remaining people in my school year with their hair still blonde. Though I was teased about it, a small piece of me was happy about it as the thought of losing the blondness scared me.\n\nDad was out on a business trip and I missed by bedtime story which he told me every night. I know it was childish but I couldn't sleep without it. I figured mom was good to do the job so I went across the hallway to mother's room.\n\nThere she sat on the floor. The floor with shards of a broken bottle. One hand with one of the shards of glass and the other hand being coloured red from the blood oozing from her wrist.\n\nShe looked at me with her panda eyes and mumbled my name. She grabbed my hair when I ran to her. Then she fell to the floor. My hair turned chocolate.", " \"Hey mark, mind taking care of this?\" \n\"Sure!\" I turn smiling towards him. I'm the only guy in the office who still has blonde hair after all these years, people called me ignorant, and I had been taken advantage of more times than I could count. And that was fine, I didn't really care. It still bothered me that they thought I was ignorant of the evils of the world though. I had probably been more exposed than most--this platinum hair signaling my gentle nature-- I just didn't let it bother me, in fact nothing really bothers me. I guess for this reason I'm weird, but I can always see the other person's side, no matter how bad it gets-- A true objective, and I just can't bring myself to strike back. \n\nSo through all these years I had endured beatings, cheating spouses, isolation, and I didn't care because I could rationalize anything.This is a story about the day I lost my blonde hair.", "She was blonde yesterday. \n\nBlondness is a rare trait in this city. Sure, every now and then, you'll run into someone with locks of wheaty gold, but brown was the shade of this town. Even I had browned last year. I tugged at my dark curls, a reminder of that glorious night during which my blonde was taken in a bout of rough, passionate browning. \n\nShe was different. With all the brown that went on in town, she never quite felt it necessary. She got her kicks in things that only made her more blonde. Springy curls of sunlight bounced off her head and everyone could tell that she was blonde by choice. \n\nI searched for her in the hallways this morning, seeking out the yellow glow that was always so easy to spot. Instead, I found a different glow. There she was, brown springs bouncing in the wind, a smile on a face that shone as bright as her hair once did. \n\nIn that moment, we all knew that she was brown by choice.\n", "*Note: I absolutely hate the way the word blond looks, so I refuse to ever use it. Sorry.*\n\n\"What...the...*fuck*?\" Mark asked in a hushed tone. Joanna saw Anne flinch. Typical. Anne was so determined to protect her innocence, as though hearing one curse word was going to change her precious golden locks. Joanna had never been so protective of her own hair.\n\n\"I don't know!\" shrieked Joanna. \"It just happened.\"\n\n\"Has anyone else seen this?\"\n\n\"No. Only you two.\" Mark and Anne, her closest friends, so different in personality and hair. Mark kept his brown curls cropped short, whereas Anne preferred to grow out and show off her blonde hair.\n\nWhen she first met Mark, he had dirty blonde hair, but years of living with an alcoholic father and a mother who wouldn't stay put had robbed him of what little innocence he had left.\n\nNothing seemed to touch Anne. Joanna and Mark joked amongst themselves that her hair was only growing lighter.\n\nJoanna had thought her hair would have turned brown ages ago. She had sex with Mark. She had stolen. She told lies and lusted and drank; she did all the things that would have made Anne gasp in horror, but her hair stayed stubbornly blonde.\n\nUntil now.\n\n\"Joanna,\" Anne spoke up. \"I...this isn't natural.\"\n\n\"I know that! So what the hell do I do?\"\n\nAnne shook her head. \"I don't know. I have to go.\"\n\nJoanna blinked at her stupidly. \"What do you mean, you have to go? Go where?\"\n\n\"Home. I'm sorry, sweetie, but the way you look...I love you, you know that, but I can't be around you! I don't want that happening to me.\"\n\n\"Hair color isn't *catching*, Anne,\" Mark muttered. \n\nAnne turned to Mark, eyes flashing. \"You're one to talk. Maybe if you had been a better influence, this wouldn't have happened.\"\n\n\"Don't put this on me! I didn't have anything to do with it. It's unheard of.\"\n\nThey were arguing over her like divorced parents who didn't want custody, Joanna realized. Mark wouldn't outright say it, but he didn't want to be around her, either.\n\n\"You should cut it,\" Anne advised her before walking out the door. \"Shave your head, wear a scarf, anything. You look...you should cover it.\"\n\nJoanna looked at Mark, tears streaking her face. \"What do I do?\" she whispered.\n\nMark looked back at her uneasily. \"You do what Anne says. And maybe go see someone. A doctor or something.\"\n\n\"You're going, too,\" Joanna said. She didn't need to ask. Mark was fidgeting, looking anywhere but at Joanna's hair.\n\n\"I'll be in touch,\" Mark said. And then he was gone.\n\nJoanna sat in numb silence for a few minutes, then stood up suddenly and grabbed a pair of scissors from the kitchen. She would need to go to a hair dresser to do the job properly, but this would have to serve.\n\nShe stood in front of her bathroom mirror, stomach turning at the sight of herself.\n\nThe only sound came from the scissors snipping away her long, red hair.", "It hurts to look at him now. That dark brown hair, almost the colour of dried blood. The reminder of what I did.\n\nWe're having breakfast now. He sits across from me, pushing his toast soldiers around the plate absentmindedly. I force a smile, and try and catch his eye but he ignores me. Is this always the way it will be?\n\n\"So how about that Blues game last night?\" Dan says awkwardly. It's just like him to do this, to try and fix things, even the ones he never could.\n\nHe doesn't respond to Dan either, but slowly slides off his chair, eyes on the floor, starts shuffling towards the door where his schoolbag lies.\n\n\"Alex...\" I say as he leaves. God, I have to say something. He turns to me, his eyes full of tears.\n\n\"Why did you do it Mum?\" he asks me, the dead husk of the Christmas tree standing starkly behind him.\n\n\"Why did you tell me Santa Claus wasn't real?\"", "And now! A word from our sponsors. \n\nI'm Catherine Harris from \"the wind that blows\". Everyone knows me as the truest blonde in Hollywood but truth is even I get a hint of brown. That is until I found Genuine by Kriz Montz. It's difficult enough finding a good man but nothing ruins a great first date like a dark streak in the morning. Doesn't matter if you a business woman, stay at home mom, or just a student Genuine is for you. \n \nKim always laughed at those commercials but after noticing her thin blonde hair growing dark she began to worry if others noticed too. ", "I'm the kind of boy most people would expect to have blonde hair; I always turn my homework in on time, follow all school rules, have never said a cuss word, etc. Well, it all happened last year. I was a new fresh freshman ready for high school.\n\nWhen I arrived at school, I was greeted by kind smiles. My first class, Geography, was fine. The teacher was nice, I had some friends, and not a difficult subject for me. Next was Algebra 2, a class I would do well at, but not like because of the amount of homework.\n\nNext was P.E., in this class we got our P.E. locker combinations and went to change clothes. Well guess whose locker was next to mine. A very handsome Spanish guy with shining brown eyes, lushes dark brown hair, and light-brown skin. He had gotten there earlier and was already changing so I got to see him take off his shirt to reveal his perfect abs and necklace. The necklace had a rainbow flag on it. My mind was about to burst. Things lead to another and we made out in the bathroom stall.\n\nWhen I came home that evening, I had a lot of explaining to do to my mom.", "\"Amanda, get back here...NOW.\" Jerry was almost shaking with anger as his daughter shuffled back into the kitchen, having just rushed by her father on her way to her room. Absent-mindedly, she tucks a lock of her dark hair behind one of her ears.\n\n\"Dad, look, let me explain...\" The 16-year old stammers, holding her hands up defensively.\n\n\"No! You listen to me!\" A rage Amanda had never seen before seemed to contort Jerry's face, and she swore she saw flames in his eyes. Like, REAL, flickering hellfire-type flames. \"It's that boy, isn't it? Jared or...or Johnny, or whatever the fuck his name is!\"\n\n\"It's Josh, Da-...\"\n\n\"I don't give a FUCK what his name is, look what he did to me little girl! My precious...my INNOCENT little girl! He's gone and stolen that away from you, and for what? A few minutes of fun? Did either of you even stop to think what sort of repercussions that might have? What people might think of you? No, of course not. It's just ALL fun and games with you two, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Dad, seriously, just hold on a secon-...\"\n\n\"Shut up, Amanda! Just shut up. You're not seeing him again, do you hear me? Never...and dating? Hah, you can just forget about that! As far as I'm concerned, you're officially a nun, got it? I don't want to see you with a boy, I don't want to hear about you hanging out with a boy, I don't even want to hear the WORD boy until you're forty!\" \n\nAmanda slams something onto the kitchen counter. A small, rectangular box with a woman modeling her salon-styled brunette hair on the front.\n\n\"Hair dye, Dad. It's winter, brunette is in.\"", "\"Honey?\"\n\nSusan's voice shook a little bit. She was in the doorway of Hannah's room, chewing her nails. Brown hair spilled down her back in waves. Hers had been brown for years, like mine. But the little girl, curled up in bed under the blankets, had blonde curls that spread over the pillow. She was only six. Susan folded an arm across her belly as she looked up at me.\n\n\"Does her hair look darker to you?\" Her voice was a whisper to keep from waking our daughter. I slid an arm around her shoulders, shaking my head. I was mostly humoring her as I squinted into the room.\n\n\"No,\" I said finally, kissing her temple. \"No. She's okay.\"\n\nShe frowned as she leaned into me, but she didn't say more. I sighed, squeezing her small frame, and I let go. I knew why she was worried. A woman at her work had a daughter about Hannah's age, a girl named Christina. Christina's hair had turned brown two weeks ago, and almost immediately after, Christina's father was arrested for raping her. It was sick. Of course, the man's hair had been almost black, so we really shouldn't have been surprised. Still, the idea that something like that could happen to Hannah, that something so awful could cause the change so early, made the both of us uncomfortable.\n\nOur older daughter, Sam, she was entering high school this year. We were expecting her change to come any day now, really. How could it not? Mine had, and so had Susan's. Cursing, boys (or girls), drinking. We all knew it happened. The hair was just an unfortunate indicator that made it really hard to hide. Some students used to bleach their hair to keep their parents in the dark for as long as possible. Sam couldn't do that, though, and I'm not sure if I was grateful or sad about it. Her hair was a strawberry blonde color that you just couldn't get from a box.\n\n\"Mom?\"\n\nSam's soft voice made us both jump. She wasn't supposed to be home. She was supposed to be at a sleepover. I whirled. My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach faster than it ever had in my life.\n\nShe stood in front of us with her head down. Buried in a sweatshirt three sizes too big on her bony body and jeans stained with grass and mud and *please God don't let that be blood*. But it wasn't just that. Her hair, tied back in a rumpled ponytail, was brown.\n\nIt wasn't a light brown, either. Sometimes, if whatever triggers the change isn't too bad, you end up with a cocoa color. Susan's is like that. No, Sam's was a deep, dark brown, rich and full and terrifying.\n\n\"Oh, Sammy.\" Susan's voice cracked, broke. She moved forward and pulled Sam into a hug, but Sam didn't hug back. She just leaned in a little, keeping her arms tight around herself. I swallowed past a throat as dry as sandpaper, barely managing to croak out the words,\n\n\"Sam, what happened?\"\n\nShe looked up at me over Susan's shoulder. I realized she was wearing make-up--it was a new thing for her, ever since junior high had ended. Eyeliner ran in streaks down her face; the lip gloss on her mouth was smudged across her chin and jaw.\n\n\"Amy has an older brother,\" she said, and that was all.", "Most children had their hair change around the age of 13 or 14, some older, some younger. Those who had their hair change at extreme ages on either end were usually mocked, but for the most part, we as a society saw the change as a charming rite of passage. Some experience the pigment switch when they first had sex, others didn't until their first break up. The one or two children at my school who had a parent die, their hair changed the same night of the death. From what I understand, the death of a loved one will always cause the blonde hair of youth to turn to the dark tresses of adulthood.\n\nI myself was a bit of a late bloomer, my hair didn't change colors even when I was almost done with my schooling. It wasn't from lack of trying, for I had dark skin and I always thought that the blonde hair looked strange with my complexion, however nothing I did seemed to change it. Not after sex with my first boyfriend (nor the second or the third), getting my first job, or even the death of my aunt, although admittedly we weren't close. \n\nI didn't have much time to worry about it though, because at the end of my schooling, my mother was in a serious car accident. She lived, but sustained serious damage to her body and brain. She had to have her hand amputated, and she wasn't the same. My father remained stoic as ever, and dolled out household responsibilities between me and my younger sister, also still blonde, while he took over as main caretaker for my mother.\n\nEach day passed, and my mothers hair became streaked with white. Unlike the sunshine kissed color of childhood, regaining \"innocence\" once it had already been lost was an empty, blank color, like a projection screen. Her language had deteriorated, and her actions became base and simplistic. The woman who once took care of me, once again became a child who needed taken care of. \n\nAt first my family lived in denial. The doctors had told us that while the chances were slim, there was a possibility that she could eventually regain her cognitive abilities. For weeks my sister and I treated our mother as normally as possible, as if she had only injured herself, helping her bathe and eat as she had once done for us. We continued to take her out in public, and ignored the stares. \n\nDespite our hopefulness, our fathers face grew more grim by the day.\n\nOne day while he was at work, my sister had left the house to meet with some friends. My mother and I were left alone and I realized that I had forgotten to pick up the pot roast I needed to cook for dinner. I guided my mother into the car and drove to the grocery store, praying that she would not have another outburst as she had become prone to doing.\n\nWe hurried into the grocery store, and I could sense she was becoming restless. I picked out the meat at the deli section, and tried to placate her while we waited. \n\nMy mother was not cooperating. She began to cry, and pull at my hair with the hand that remained, her distress manifesting itself in a loud wail, drawing the attention of the other shoppers and the deli workers. Despite the obvious meltdown on the horizon, I was determined to accomplish the simple task we had come there for, so I allowed her to crumble at my feet while I paid for the meat, the worker looking at me with a disturbed face. \n\nI shoved the bag into my large purse, and angrily picked my mother up by the arm, all but dragging her out of the store while she sobbed like a child, over what I couldn't guess at. I had allowed my frustration to get to me, and for once I didn't attempt to stop her tears.\n\nAs I buckled her in the back seat, ignoring her tantrum, I turned to glance around me, hoping no more people were witnessing the embarrassment in the parking lot. My eye caught the passenger side rearview mirror, and I finally realized the the source of my mothers tantrum, which had certainly been much worse than usual.\n\nMy hair had changed from a golden blonde to a jet black color, darker than even my fathers. I reflected upon the deli workers look of shock at the counter and realized the stares that my mothers tantrum had attracted were not only looking at her, but also myself. \n\nExhaling, I prepared myself for my fathers reaction as I got into the drivers seat and drove us home, my mother whimpering in the backseat. Normally I would have tried to comfort her, however this time I just couldn't bring myself to focus on her. Too much had happened today.\n\nMy sister wouldn't be long behind me. Now that we were the mothers and she was the child, we couldn't be innocent any longer. \n", "I stared disbelievingly at Jenny. She was six. This was not possible. But yet there she was, eating cereal at the table like every other morning. Beautiful blue eyes, a dazzling smile, but all I could see was the tangled mess of brown obscuring her eyes.\n\nMy eyesight had been going, I knew. It must be a mistake, a trick of the light. I closed my eyes and peeked through them, but again seeing nothing but brown. Brown. My darling girl.\n\nBut then I caught another glimpse, a flash of colour darting across the kitchen. Wiry frame, light brown hair, I mused; half asleep. I was too busy worrying about Jenny to give it much thought. I heard the door close in the kitchen and hoped whoever it was wouldn't take the car. It was Samuel, probably. Running off to school, probably assuming I'd dozed off. He'd always try to get out of his breakfast. I gave up hope of having the car.\n\nWait, no. It can't have been Samuel. His hair was as blonde as anything, never had a girlfriend in his life that boy, as much as he'd wanted one. It must have been Max. \n\nBut Max was at work.\n\n I jolted awake, bolt upright in an instant. Jenny turned, and I noticed her red eyes. She spoke, her throat dry \"Mu-m?\"\n\nI rushed outside and saw Samuel rushing to the car, frantic to get away.\n\n\"Sammy-\" I croaked, tears welling up into my eyes, \"what have you done?\"" ]

[ 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 10, 12, 18, 18, 21, 22, 23, 25, 44, 59, 158, 226 ]

[ "1399797674", "1399781923", "1399793771", "1399794790", "1399795256", "1399797701", "1399769032", "1399779283", "1399783356", "1399787118", "1399788024", "1399788682", "1399796992", "1399774205", "1399787356", "1399788812", "1399789434", "1399783544", "1399776839", "1399778123", "1399763799", "1399778249", "1399788661", "1399780781", "1399768603", "1399765895", "1399778800", "1399769284", "1399766437", "1399754055" ]

[ "\"Daddy....\"\n\nTom switched on his bedside lamp \"yes sweetie?\"\n\n\"I...I think I saw grandma\"\n\nTom snickered at the thought of his mother in law actually coming to visit her daughters family. \"Sweetie, mimaw is across the country\"\n\n\"No, no grandma Philips\"\n\nAll of sudden Tom felt sick to his stomach, the memories of the accident came back to him, the anger and the sadness. It was swelling inside of him, when he realized something. \"Holly, how do you know what grandma Philips looks like?\"\n\n\"She told me\"\n\nAll of a sudden a creature of mangled muscle came up behind Holly. The pulsating muscle rupturing under a metallic exoskeleton, made of rusty and bent metal. Her right arm went down to the floor and back down the stairs, forming a python like tentacle coming from the shoulder bone. The only resemblance Tom could see, was half her face sticking out from the molten muscle constantly in motion. \n\n\"Tomas\" The creature said \"You're needed by my lord\".\n\nThe things face began to change and mold into another familiar face. \n\nEdit: grammar.", "I sit on the living room couch, legs crossed, laptop burning my thighs. The sound of the screen door opening catches my attention, its familiar creaking signalling that my brother has returned home from work. The footsteps that follow, however, aren’t the usual heavy thumping that I associate with my brother. These aren’t the footsteps of a stranger, though. It’s a sound that triggers something in my brain, something that I haven’t thought about in years.\n\n“Allen?” I call out, setting my laptop aside and rising from the sofa. \n\nA woman’s voice calls out, “Nope. It’s me.”\n\nI round the corner, peering down the hallway. My mom has come home. She’s hanging up her house keys and setting her purse down on the stairs near the door like always. She’s wearing the outfit I’d last seen her leave the house in, blue jeans and a floral patterned t-shirt. \n\nMy brain struggles to register what I’m seeing. I’m having flashbacks to the night that a police officer had come through that door to inform me that my mother wasn’t going to be coming home. But here she was. \n\nI can no longer feel my arms and legs. I feel like a torso floating in space; I can’t breathe. My mom looks at me, noticing my distressed expression. “What’s the matter?” she asked, her voice holding the genuine concern she had always put toward my brother and me. \n\nI open my mouth to answer, but I make no sound. It feels like my brain is short circuiting. The vision of my mother in front of me is suddenly blurred and distorted by black spots. The only things I am able to comprehend after that are my mother’s screams and the feeling of the cool hallway tile against my cheek. \n", "\"Hi Mom\"\n\nHer expression didn't change. It wasn't likely to, I suppose. After all, it hadn't changed much when she was alive, why should it now that she was dead? I held my breath for a moment, then exhaled. Briefly, the mirror she occupied grew foggy, and obscured the stern countenance I had grown accustomed to in my youth. I was twenty two now, and though it had been years since I had last seen her face I could recount every stern wrinkle and frown line that defined her.\n\nShe'd been pretty once, before she stopped smiling, with long golden brown hair that seemed to shine even when the sunlight was absent. In those days, she wore long sundresses and sandals, no matter the weather. At times she made winter warm with her smile.\n\nAt least, that's how my father would described her.\n\nI remember another woman. A woman who had never smiled, and who's face would put a gargoyle to shame and leave scarecrows looking for other work. We agreed on the sundresses though. \n\n\"What are you doing here mother?\"\nShe didn't answer. To be honest, I didn't expect her to. She had always wanted others to work out what she wanted, I guess this time was to be no different. \n\n\"Did you forget something?\"\n\nHer face twitched, much like a statue doesn't. \n\n\"Have you come to apologize?\"\n\nShe inaudibly huffed. Her whole body rising and falling. Death apparently came with a lack of gravity. \n\n\"What then?\" \n\nShe looked sternly at me, which is to say she looked at me as her expression never changed. \n\n\" I'm sorry, but I'm completely at a loss on why you would come back.\" \n\nShe continued to stare. I felt eleven again. Blood rushed to my cheeks.\n\n\"Stop giving me that same damned look. I haven't done anything wrong. I'm a grown man now, and I certainly will not be made to feel like a child again by a woman who's been gone for ten years!\"\n\nHer face lit up, and if it had been anyone else but her, I would have said they were laughing. Instead, I knew she was getting angry. I could feel my own blood beginning to boil. I turned from her, set my jaw, and began to march back to my room. She quickly zipped in front of me, putting her arms on her hips. If she could speak, I imagine I'd have been getting an earful. I didn't pretend to listen. I walked at her, determined to finish my morning routine. \n\nAs soon as I passed through her, she stopped, her jaw closing in mid-silent conversation. \n\n\"Sorry, but I have things I have to do. I don't have time to listen to the phantom of a woman who can't speak to me now, and didn't bother to when she had the chance.\"\n\nSomehow her lips grew tighter, it was almost comical as the her false flesh nearly formed an equal sign on her face. She began to shake. So did the house. Objects began to fall from the walls, books from the bookcases, all forming a veritable commodity graveyard. \n\n\"Seriously?!\"\n\nShe stopped. \n\n\"This? This is what you come back for?! To wreck the house? What, to punish us? Why? Why on earth would you brave whatever hell you came through just to get back and become the same stern looking bitch I remember?!\n\nShe looked shocked, but I knew it had to be a ploy. I pushed away the wave of guilt, and continued. \n\n\"Would it have been so much to ask for you to come back just to see us? No, no. Of course, if my mother is going to brave heaven or hell's or whatever's wraith, it's just so she accommodate whatever request she didn't feel was completed to vindicate her soul. So what is it, Mom? What did you need to hear me say just so you could live contentedly in the afterlife?\"\n\nShe was stunned. Her frozen countenance had been pushed aside, and replaced with one of abject horror. Then she cried. Big heavy sobs that wracked her whole body. I might have smiled if I hadn't felt so angry. Yet, as she continued, the guilt came back. Slowly, and creeping. But back none the less. I sat down beside the grieving ghost. She wrapped translucent arms around me. I didn't feel them, but I tried to the return the gesture. \n\nAfter a moment, she calmed down. Eyes somehow red, she turned from me, and looked in the mirror. Running her hands through her hair, she shook, then returned to me. Feebly, she raised her arm. A calender which had fallen on the floor amidst the ordeal rose up, and floated gently to me. It opened, and she pointed at the date. \n\n\"5/11/2014\"'\n\nMother's Day. My mouth felt dry. My heart started to beat faster. I started to speak.\n\n\"Mom, I'm so\"\n\nShe cut me off, shaking her head. She just stood looking at me, weeping. Every attempt I made to apologize, she refuted speechlessly. So I just sat there, until I began to weep myself. \n\n(Sorry, to anyone, if anyone reads this. It's incomplete, but I have to rush away, and wanted to get something up here.)\n", "It's 8:53 again.\n\nIn two minutes, my mother will walk through the door. She will be wearing a red skirt and a white shirt. Her jacket is in her hand, stained from Gary B. Oldman spilling his wine on her forty-two minutes prior. She will be annoyed, but glad to see me and the meal I have made for her. Again.\n\nMy mother will complain about Becky for three minutes and fifty-seven seconds after discussing how she was stuck in traffic. Blue car has crashed. Man is deceased, girl in tears. Same old story.\n\nAt the six minute mark, a knock will hit the door. Unmistakable. Two quiet knocks followed by a deafening silence. My mother will answer the door. She will be killed soon.\n\nMinor lacerations to the arm and ribs. Screams tear apart the house, and echo down the street. Mr. Phillips is outside having a cigarette. Marlboro Red, 100. He rushes over. It will take him sixty-four steps to make hit here, but it's never enough. Never enough time.\n\nDeep trauma to the stomach, chest, and neck. She will suffer for thirteen seconds. I am left to watch her die before Mr. Phillips arrives and stops the assailant. \n\nAll within a matter of 394 seconds. \n\nI have lived the last six minutes and thirty-four seconds for ten years now. I don't know why, or how to stop it, but I keep getting sent back. My warnings are heedless. I have stopped crying. Stopped trying to escape. I am condemned to watch her die for an eternity.\n\nIt's 8:53 again.\n", "Small things change. My brother’s t-shirts get tighter, my dad’s guitar twangs new sounds. I look at one point and it’s light. I look up later and it’s dark. There’s toast on a plate in front of me and then there’s isn’t. My nails grow. My mother hums. Small things.\n\nNothing changes when night falls. I always give her the silver cutlery now. I’ve watched her stand in the dawn. I’ve traced her fingers over her warm, fleshy cheeks and there’s no pallid discolouration, no smell of rot. She blushes, bleeds. She asks me if I need any more tampons and she buys them for herself. Rhythmic bumps from my parent’s bedroom at night. \n\nSo I don’t know what it is. \n\n“Why is mum here?” I asked my brother once, but he just looked at me like I was mad. \n\nI’m not mad. I see it in her. Small things change but the big things don’t: I see the wrongness in her. The empty plate by my hand is cool and the bread knife my dad used for the toast is nearby.\n\nRhythmic bumps from my parent’s bedroom.\n\nI pick it up.\n\nI’m not mad.\n" ]

[ 2, 2, 2, 2, 6 ]

[ "1399820046", "1399831244", "1399840190", "1399858200", "1399821218" ]

[ "She shuffles in line towards the caped figure, wondering if this is really the only way to break her curse. \n\"NEXT!\" The figure shouts as another fails his test, forcing her closer to the front of the line. \nHer curse was not like the curses of others--which always seem to bring sadness to others--instead her curse was to bring everyone else their ultimate happiness, while she was always left waiting on the sidelines drowning in her own pain. \n\"NEXT!\" Only two more in line a head of her. Could she really make the selfish choice to stop bring other people their ultimate happiness? Could she really stop her own pain?\n\"NEXT!\" One left. Could she end her curse by bringing people pain and becoming the reaper? Or would their deaths become happy and her pain become worse?\n\"NEXT!\" She runs.\n", "\"It takes a special skill to know when it's ready,\" the old man said with a wistful smile. He shielded his eyes from the bright sun as he stared out over the vast field before him. He was rake thin with a straight back, even after all these years of hard labor. \"It's not like normal farming. You have to harvest every day, at least parts of it.\"\n\n\"And you plant every day too?\"\n\n\"Yup. I've got the farm sectioned off pretty well. Each section should be ready to harvest around the same time. And the soil is soft, so planting is easy too.\"\n\nHe squatted and ran his gnarled fingers through the dirt. I followed suit and felt the earth between my fingertips. His nail beds were black after years of hard work, and his skin was leathery from the sun. \n\n\"I've got it sectioned pretty well, but things can still get a little out of order. That's why we don't use a combine harvester on this farm. We still do everything by hand.\"\n\n\"Have you ever tried to modernize?\" I asked.\n\n\"A few times,\" he said, \"but it was too easy to cut down whole fields before their time. It's better just to stick to the way it's always been done.\" He knew what I was thinking because he continued barely above a whisper, \"You'll bring the combine back, like I did when I started. I thought we could modernize, but efficiency has a price. Everyone thinks that, and everyone goes back to the old ways.\"\n\nWe stood in silence for some time after that as we watched the wind shake the limitless stalks of barley, wheat and rye. The property stretched out before us like an endless patchwork quilt. \n\n\"Why me,\" I asked.\n\n\"Because your hands are soft,\" he stated. \"Because you haven't got proper work boots and your nails are clean. You're not used to this kind of work, yet. You'll be more careful and treat it with deserved reverence.\n\n\"You're young too,\" he continued. \"I'm too old to keep up with all this work forever. The property has expanded and I need someone strong to take over.\"\n\n\"I'm not that young anymore,\" I said. \n\n\"And I'm much older than I look,\" he continued. \"Working with your hands will keep you young much longer, but you still can't live forever.\" He handed me the scythe and pointed toward a field only a few hundred yards drown the hill from where we stood. \"That's where you start today.\"\n\n\"How long has it been since you lost the taste for this work?\" I asked. \"What if I hate the job?\"\n\n\"You're responsible. You'll find a suitable replacement when you need to get out.\" He paused. \"As for me, I never had a taste for this work. It's not about enjoying it; you just do what needs to be done. There's a time to sew and a time to reap.\"\n\nHe bent down and picked a long rye stalk growing near his feet and thumbed the grains at the top. He pointed the stalk in the direction of the field. \"Better get going before the daylight gets away from you. I'll be waiting for you in the house with some sweet tea when you're done.\"\n\nI started walking down the hill toward my vast expanse of land and he walked back toward the house. When I turned back, I could just barely see his outline wavering in the heat", "The cold rain flicked at my face like a 5 year old sadist. Flick. Flick. Flick. Flick. Goddammit. One final drag from my cigarette, then it falls slowly to the ground. This one's going to be rough. I hate the rough ones. I hate the easy ones. I hate the so-so-ones. I hate this job.\n\nThe cigarette falls, slower and slower until it stops, mid-air, just before the burning ember reaches the puddle below. Time has stopped. I walk carefully over to the body in the alleyway, mangled and torn; a meatbag of burst sinew and blood now.\n\n\"It's time\" I whisper.\n\n\"NOOOOOOOOOOO! I DON'T WANT TO GO!\" the soul trapped in that meatbag yells.\n\n\"You weren't thinking that just a moment ago. A moment ago you wanted to die. You made it happen. It's *TIME TO GO!*\"\n\n\"YOU CAN'T MAKE ME! I WANT TO LIVE!\" \n\n\"How can you do that now? Your brain is mush. Your body is barely held together by the skin that surrounds it. And besides, this is my job. You're in my world, now. I have a delivery to make.\"\n\n*NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-*. I cut her off. Too many times this happens. I'm tired of it all. I harvest her soul, get ready for my delivery. My last delivery. I need to find a replacement.\n\nI know some folks. Folks who don't want this job either. But one of 'em is gonna get it.\n\n ", "The man sighed as he looked at the woman sprawled on the floor, the last drops of blood dripping from her. It was a sigh of relief and regret.\n\nThe man had hired him to do this. It was his job. No one else had said anything was HIS. The world was just full of takers. They yanked his job, stole his parents. They even stole his light away from him like a thief in the night. \n\nThe light always told him that people needed to appreciate life to its fullest. That every light was precious. But he figured out the greatest points in the lights cycle. The spark of its creation, and the smoke it gave to the world when it dies. This was the gift of his job. To appreciate both sides from now until eternity...", "A drained hourglass sat at the corner of Death's table, it was the only decoration to adorn the shadow of a place that he called home. A symbol of life, poured away.\n\n\"Are you familiar with matters of time?\" Death spoke a hollow tone; devoid of life as one might expect. \n\"It is for a matter of time that you are here.\" \n\nThe air was dry, Jonathan choked through his response. \n\"I... I've died?... I still feel... I... I need...\" \n\n\"I don't help people.\" Death interrupted with a slow wave of his scythe. \n\"You hold your humanity only because I haven't taken it from you.\" \nA silence settled as Death leaned forward. \n\"Yet.\" \nHe levelled his sunken eyes at Jonathan from across the darkness.\n\"I want to make a trade with you.\" \n\nShifting uncomfortably in his cold, stone seat, Jonathan could feel a sensation like an expansion of nothingness growing through the pit of his stomach. It was hard for him to speak.\n\"I... I don't have anything to trade... nothing that... nothing that would interest you, Death.\" \n\nA chuckle like grinding stone on concrete dragged itself through the emptiness before dying in the heavy atmosphere. \n\"So you know me. Jonathan, how would you like to live for as long as you please? The job is yours if, instead of dying, you would fill my role as reaper.\" \n\nThe thought was not unbearable and even as Jonathan mulled it over Death rose from his place and, leaving his scythe propped against the table, walked into the darkness", "\"So let me get this straight. You want me to write a program. To decide when people -\"\n\n\"Not just people.\"\n\n\"-Oh. Oh, shit. I mean, shit, sorry, that was really unprofessional. Sorry, uh... what should I be calling you?\"\n\n\"If I say 'Mr. Black,' are you going to be able to restrain yourself? I know you're quite the movie buff, Mr. Jackson.\"\n\nTerrence blanched. \"That won't be a problem, Mr. Black.\"\n\n\"Good. No offense to the cast or crew, but I'm not a fan of being white-knighted, and I think it's important to emphasize that I don't *get* vacations. Hence my resort to a final solution.\"\n\nMr. Black's nearly-colorless lips widened out into a tight, thin, toothless smirk. Terrence froze up, close to crashing. Mr. Black's sense of humor was perfectly... off.\n\nThe young programmer struggled with two competing instincts. One was to laugh, to placate, to show submission. Maybe the layered wordplay had been clever and funny, or maybe it hadn't. That hardly mattered. Staying on Mr. Black's good side - if he (*it?*) even had one - trumped any impromptu exegesis on comedic theory that Terrence might have entertained, had he not been on the verge of an anxiety attack. The other instinct was to avoid laughing at all costs, because that might grant the rest of his mind permission to exit stage right and leave his body a gibbering mess. Terrence briefly wondered if this was how Mr. Black did his (*its?*) business: leveraging his (*its?*) reputation to simply scare folks to death.\n\n\"I think the second option is preferable in this situation, Mr. Jackson,\" Mr. Black sagely intoned. \"And no, I can't actually read minds. But I can read code, so to speak. Take a breath. Try to remember that I'm here on retirement business, not *business* business. And the masculine pronoun will suffice. It is how I chose to appear, after all. It would hardly be appropriate for Death to be a female, and I'm not sure this world is ready for my... preferred manifestations.\"\n\nTerrence obeyed the command to breathe, grateful for the firm and clear direction, but still not fully capable of soaking up Mr. Black's smatterings of explication. The breathing helped a bit. Strangely enough, so did the relief of not having to vacillate between pronouns. Funny what can aggravate the mind.\n\nOnce upon a time - a few days ago - Terrence Jackson had been a confident master, at least while bunkered down in his fortress of monitors and keyboards. Today was Day Three of every sentient creature on the planet - in the universe? - coming to grips (rather poorly, at least locally) with the revelation that they were masters of nothing. The jury was still out on God - or any god, really - but humanity had been given a dread answer to a distinctly theological question: Death was sentient, and at a minimum did a dangerously good impression of a human being.\n\n\"Okay. So you want me to write a program that decides when and how everything dies. Everything. But not, like, the universe, or math, or stuff. Just 'life,' which you can explain to me, I guess?\"\n\nMr. Black nodded smartly. \"Precisely.\"\n\n\"That part I actually understand,\" began Terrence, to which Mr. Black replied only with an amused look of pity, \"but I guess I'm just not clear on why we're starting from scratch. Don't you have... records?\"\n\nMr. Black rolled his eyes, though not, Terrence thought, out of frustration with his prospective contractor.\n\n\"Are you familiar with the phrase 'everything falls apart,' Mr. Jackson? I think you are. They forced you to read the poem in year eleven and the eponymous book in year twelve. Not your best subject, but it stuck with you, if I'm not mistaken.\"\n\nTerrence gulped and nodded.\n\n\"Well,\" continued Mr. Black, \"as you're undoubtedly aware, it's a truism that is tragically accurate vis-a-vis storage media. I cannot tell you how many interns I hired to keep porting over my notes from format to format. It was a disaster. But in hindsight, I'm not sure why I even bothered. Vanity, probably. You see, most of those records were created and stored to refine a particular algorithm, with a particular purpose.\"\n\nTerrence's face scrunched up in confusion. His programmer bits were coming online. That was good. Well, unless they put his foot in his mouth. That would still be bad.\n\n\"So wait, what? A particular algorithm for a particular purpose... that *isn't* 'to decide when and how everything dies?'\" Terrence couldn't see around this particular corner, and his programmer bits didn't like being blindsided. His programmer bits weren't nearly as fazed by the new world order, but that also meant they probably weren't going to adapt to it as quickly.\n\nMr. Black smiled again, still toothlessly tight-lipped. \"Well, yes and no. Yes, and no. I'm sure that must be frustrating for someone in your line of work to hear. One, and zero. The technology's not quite there yet, is it?\n\n\"Allow me to resolve the superficial contradiction. Yes, the system produced the required output. But to what end? Well, simply put: to *this* end, Mr. Jackson. Retirement. Replacement. By a machine. I'm not exactly bound by the economics of scarcity; I've nothing to lose and everything to gain by sloughing off this wretched task onto a Chinese Room in a Black Box in a tin can. And so here we are. Phase One, from the first few cells to your great-grandparents to the here and now, were all designed - with some trial and error, mind you - to lead up to this point: you - with quite a bit of help, obviously - building a replacement for me.\"\n\nTerrence's programmer bits temporarily checked out. Against every silent exhortation, his sci-fi/fantasy bits checked in. *Don't do it, you stupid asshole,* he thought to himself. *Do not go Comic Book Guy/Red Shirt Guy on Death incarnate. Just don't do it. You don't need to know. You need to shut the fuck up.*\n\n\"But why couldn't you just -\"\n\nMr. Black's smile vanished. \"Death cannot *create*, Mr. Jackson. Yes, I know, I've 'created' all manner of intellectual property over the vast eons, and so I'm sure from your cultural perspective that doesn't make any sense at all. I am aware. The subject bores me to tears, frankly, and I doubt it would do you any good for me to explain it to you like you're five... million.\" \n\nTerrence's gut released a disastrous gurgle of stress-induced flatulence that threatened to take a shortcut to his rectum, the one reserved for bombastic social suicides. Death's toothless grin had freaked him out, but he suddenly missed it. He missed it *a lot.*\n\nMr. Black shook his head, shrugging off whatever annoyance Terrence's pathetically limited perspective had inflicted upon him. \"One more reason I'm so looking forward to retirement, Mr. Jackson. Once the program is fully operational, I might actually be able to find a hobby.\"\n\nTerrence's insides untwisted, critical mass averted, gases dissipating at an acceptable rate. He refocused his attention on his new reality: independent contractor for Death - not the first, but the first of many more.\n\n\"Okay then. I suppose... I suppose we'll get to work. This is going to take awhile, isn't it?\"\n\nMr. Black nodded. \"Oh yes. Several lifetimes. But you'll find that I'm an enlightened employer by necessity, Mr. Jackson, since I can never devote my full attention to this, my most valued task. You'll have your vacations and sick days and all the rest. You'll have a life, of sorts - though I must admit that my sudden revelation to this world is going to make your neighbors rather annoying for a few decades. Not to worry, though. Your personal security and privacy will be a top priority for my staff, and you will never want for any material goods. \n\n\"Dating will be... difficult,\" he concluded, and he almost sounded apologetic. \"But I suppose it's worth mentioning that your selection has... implications. For humanity. For its future. Everything falls apart, Mr. Jackson, unless it is regularly maintained. Phase Three is a long ways off. Phase Two requires humanity for its entirety.\"\n\nTerrence simply stood, blankly, dumbly, swallowing thought after thought, each one more frivolous and superfluous than the last - or maybe that was just a trick of the mind, for he could practically feel his perspective widening by the moment, struggling to encompass the enormity of the Reaper's Bargain he was about to accept on behalf of his entire species. He wondered if Mr. Black's Phase One remained vulnerable to error, if there was any choice here at all. He wondered if he could still fuck this up for the whole human race, and veer them off onto a path of quick extinction that, for his whole life, it had seemed like they'd rather deserved.\n\nEventually, he wondered no more. This was an offer he couldn't refuse, and didn't even want to. One final thought intruded, however, and Terrence felt no panic or shame or confusion as he gave it voice.\n\n\"This is all rather anticlimactic, isn't it?\" he asked, perhaps to Mr. Black, perhaps to no one at all.\n\nMr. Black's eyes twinkled for the first time.\n\n\"Oh yes, it is. Endings usually are.\"", "All the preparations had been made. \n\nIt took me a couple months longer than I thought, but writing goodbye to all your loved ones is a thicker process than I had imagined. I wrote a list of the people I loved the most first, I took a look at said long-ass list, got lazy, and start grouping them into phylums: “Friends”, “Family”. \n\nObviously I started with the important people, they’re the most emotional: “Mom”, “Annie”. Lots of trembling, some tears, an unfortunate ton of re-writing. I learned my lesson after ruining two expensive (well…by my standards) pieces of parchment and worked out the kinks of the rough drafts on my iPad before actually writing them down. \n\nTurns out it’s incredibly hard to tell the people you love all the reasons why you killed yourself without coming off a little pretentious. “This didn’t turn out this way”, & “This blew up”. Blah. Blah. Blah. I actually started to have second thoughts about it, putting them on paper started to give me a different perspective. But one night I took stock of my life, realized I still hadn’t had a discernible “win” in any area of my life in the past two years, and didn’t see any coming any time soon.\n\nIt had to be the park near my house. Midnight. I was friendly with the A.M. groundskeeper, we used to talk when I would go for morning walks. I could trust him to take care of my body and alert my family as soon as possible. …I couldn’t let my mother walk in on me, like that. She’s been through too much.\n\nI was in the driver’s seat. My window was open. I stole razors from work for the task, there was some romanticism in that, I thought.\n\nI had been practicing on my left arm for days. I was ready.\n\nI cut a swath up my left wrist. I cut a twin wound across my right wrist. \n\nMy heart didn’t race, I wasn’t sweaty. I wasn’t nervous. I had made preparations. I was ready. More ready for that than failing in life. More ready for that than realizing that nobody’s special, there isn’t some white hat behind the scenes ready to save the day for us. We’re on our own, and I had made too many mistakes, I wasn’t going to screw that up.\n\nExcept…I didn’t die. The bleeding came to an end, my heart stopped pounding, and everything was numb. But I didn’t die. Gusts of wind thru the window, I didn’t feel anything.\n\n“You speak several languages.”\n\nHe came into view in the rear mirror. I think he was looking directly at me, I couldn’t really tell, my eyes were fixed on the hood of my car.\n\n“That’s interesting.”\n\nI thought to myself “no it’s not”.\n\n“Yes. Yes it is.”\n\nOkay that’s weird.\n\n“It is. But your body is dead.”\n\nJust my body?\n\n“Currently your spirit still resides in that husk.”\n\nWhy?\n\n“I retired today. And because I no longer wanted my duty, you and everyone like you cannot pass. There’s no one to see you to it.”\n\nPlease…\n\n“Young man. I’m retired. Don’t bother begging an old man in retirement. It’s far, far too late for that. No, I’m not hear for your begging. I’m here to make you an offer.”\n\nYou want me to replace you.\n\n“Yes. Yes I do.”\n\nWhy me?\n\n“Because you’re quite good at preparing lists. You don’t miss things.”\n\nYou’re picking me because I’m a glorified accountant?\n\n“No. That’s why you would be good at this job. I’m picking you specifically because you want it.”\n\nWhat?\n\n“The meaning of life. It’s why you’re doing this.”\n\nThere have to be others.\n\n“Oh there are. You have the right to refuse, obviously. You just happened to be the first male on the list.”\n\nWhy not a woman?\n\n“I’d never let a woman do this job.”\n\nThat’s a little……old-fashioned.\n\n“Not where I come from.”\n\nIf I do this…how long do I have to do it?\n\n“Until you get the answer that you seek.”\n\nDid you tire of it?\n\n“It’s not about being tired. It’s not about rest. I’ve done my duty. I’ve seen the meaning in all of this……dust.” \n\nAnd if I don’t…\n\n“Then you don’t. Nothing happens. You don’t get the answer, you don’t understand.”\n\nI wasn’t sure how much time had passed before I answered him. But I had to say yes. I had to know why. Why everything.\n\nI’ll do it.\n\n“Wonderful.”\n\nSo what now?\n\n“Now you make preparations.”\n", "It felt like we were in a Willy Wonka movie. Shiki, Universe A-3's sole god of death announced that he was retiring from his multi-millennial reign of natural terror. He needed a replacement to carry out the only guaranteed factor of life- the destruction of it. He announced that he would hold a competition to determine who would become the omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent ruler of death across the universe. Each planet was instructed to gather five of their most worthy, be them scholars, athletes, artists or sacrifices. Exactly 1.54 Earth months after the announcement the elite from across the universe would be teleported to Death's domain to undergo the yet unannounced test. The only catch that Shiki spoke of was that no matter what happened, none of the champions would return.\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nShiki didn't just announce his retirement. He provided a great many planets with information that they did not have: There was other life in the universe. Earth itself had never had proven contact with extraterrestrials so they discussed in awe all of the new information that they learned. There were many days spent arguing about which country's elite would be selected so Earth's alliances decided that a random pick from the cream of the crop was the only fair way to go. There were of course attempts at gaming the system, but luckily they were able to move past these atrocities (Sharply punishing the offending leaders in the process) and select their champions. The three men and two women gathered at the southern pole of Earth on the assigned day and waited.\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThey all awoke having no memory of being beamed to Death's domain. Switzerland's champion turned to his left and found himself face-to-face with a bioluminescent organism with a beak. The creature turned to him and looked at him with eyes as dark as obsidian. Suddenly the alien flinched and let out a high-pitched scream. Switzerland fell backwards, paralyzed with fear. The glowing bird-alien suddenly quieted and, in a completely calm and deep tone said \"Die.\" Switzerland found himself covered in red as the bird tore out his throat. The bird kicked him over and spit a large chunk of his neck on the ground. As he lay on the ground in shock, he noted many similar conflicts going on around him. All manner of nightmarish and strange beings clashed around him. He exhaled deeply out of his neck and closed his eyes in anticipation of an eternal rest.\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThere was a laugh. A booming voice penetrated the battlefield, somehow cutting through the screams and attacks. Death addressed the crowd for the second time:\n\n\"Why are you attacking each other? I never told you that this was a competition to the death you silly creatures. This is a competition *for* Death. If all of you kill each other then you will be of no use to me. Calm yourselves and hear my words.\"\n\nEvery single champion rose. Switzerland noticed that the blood on his clothes was oozing back into his body. Taking advantage of a nearby being with reflective skin he saw many veins and arteries repairing themselves within his neck. Seconds later he felt a hard blow as the torn-away chunk of his neck collided with him, sealing itself back on his body.\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\"As you have probably noticed, you are all unable to perish now. I have asked your respective worlds to send me their best, and you have been deemed as such. I have watched you all through the selection process. Some planets chose their absolute best, accepting that their world could exist without you. Others chose those they saw as sacrifices, selfishly keeping their real champions for themselves. This is not a problem. I anticipated this. Nonetheless, you have all arrived expecting to compete for the position of a god. That was a false-pretense that I have created in order to see the true nature of your worlds. All that have gone to war as a result of my proclamation, all that have turned to corruption to get ahead, all that took my words as a hoax or a passing event have been noted. After this moment, all of the affected worlds will experience a change. All will have the parameters of death altered to reflect their behavior. Those who have corrupted themselves to get ahead here will have the phenomenon of death delayed by exactly one minute. This is no blessing. Were a soldier to be blown into one million pieces on the battlefield of an affected world, he would experience life as a fragmented being. He will experience all of the pain and sensation of death for one minute longer than he should. An organism poisoned will sit in futility as they are tortured one minute beyond what should have been peace. The second part of this, and this is the ultimate downside of the delay is that all who start that minute will have absolutely no chance at being healed or revived.\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThe champions stood in shock at this proclamation. There was a brief uproar or protest, however Shiki waved his hand and silenced them all. \n\n\"Despite that factor of deception, I was speaking the truth when I announced my retirement. I will be ending my life as all being must for my personal peace of mind. It is now that your purposes will be fulfilled. There is no magical artifact that can turn you into gods of death. Even I cannot bestow an individual that power. What it takes to make a God is much more than one mere mortal.\"\n\nDeath raised his hands and began to glow. All of the champions felt an odd vibrating sensation. This sensation did not seem to be from their bodies, but their very souls themselves.\n\n\"I hope you all enjoy your eternity. I will tell you, it can be maddening at times.\"\n\nIn an instant, all of the champions became a force of pure energy and collided together. When they awoke, it was not as a group of champions, but one god of death. The collective minds worked as one being and as individuals simultaneously. Some watched in horror at the pain that their origin worlds experienced, while others felt a looming fear at the eternity of horror they were going to observe.", "The man in blue towered over the man in red, relishing the noticeable height difference that stemmed from the fact that the man in red was tied down to a chair, whereas the man in blue was not. The man in blue pressed the revolver to the man in red's temple.\n\n\"Look, man, this ain't nothin' personal, but we gotta send a message. Can't have the rest of you doin' this sorta shit on our turf anymore, know what I'm sayin'?\" He cocked back the hammer. \"Any last words?\"\n\n\"*Fuck* you.\"\n\nThe man in blue let out a cocky laugh. \"You're a real goddamn wordsmith. I'll make sure they write that on your tombstone.\"\n\nA flash of light, the beginning of an insanely loud bang—and then time stopped.\n\nThe man in black walked in, flipping frantically through an oversized manilla folder, stuffed with hundreds of pages. \"Shit, who the fuck do I have now‽ Where the fuck am I *now*‽\" He glanced around maniacally. \"Oh, great, what is *this*‽ A *gang* fight‽ Oh, wow, thanks for the fuckin' vacation, assholes! So glad to be out of the famines to get involved with *this* shit!\"\n\nHe paced back and forth intensely, then looked at his watch. \"Oh!\" He let out a sound of pure relief; an unsettling mixture of laughs and sobs. In its infinitely short span of non-time, his tearful jubilation seemed to last infinitely long. \"Oh, sweet holy fuck, it's over! The last minute is finally over!\" He laughed harder than he ever had before in his life, or his non-life.\n\nThe man in black looked down at the man in red, then pulled out a scythe-shaped blade from his jacket. \"This is nice, right? Like it?\" He grinned like a complete lunatic.\n\n\"Who the *fuck* are—\"\n\n\"Look, let's not do all that formal shit of who I am and who you are and what the fuck this all is. You hate those guys, right? They're wearin' a different color than you, and you hate 'em, and you wanna kill 'em, right? I mean, they just killed you, so you wanna kill 'em back, yeah? Revenge, and all that shit? Lemme hook you up. Says here...\" He pulled out a page from the manilla folder. \"...yeah, yeah, says here your friends are gonna come in and fuck shit *up!* Kill *all* these motherfuckers. I mean...\" He flipped the page over. \"...you gotta kill some of your friends, too, but I mean, that's just *some* of them. But you get to kill *all* these *blue* sunnuvabitches! That's what you want, right?\"\n\n\"Man, what the *fuck* are you—\"\n\n\"Hey, look, no time to explain, just forget I said anything. Or I mean, just pretend you understood and agreed with everything I said. Oh, yeah.\" The man in black used the scythe-blade to cut the man in red's binds. \"You're welcome. Look, you just gotta kill people for *one day!* That's cool, yeah? You're down with that, yeah? That's just like, a hundred sixty thousand people. No sweat.\"\n\nThe man in black bent down, and stared intensely into the man in red's eyes, giddy with excitement. \"Yeah, you a *cold* motherfucker, right? One sixty ain't *nothin'* for you, right‽ Oh, this is good, man! This is *perfect*!\"\n\n\"Can I *fuckin'* say somethin' to—\"\n\n\"Chill, man. Chill. Just take this. And this.\" The man in black dropped the manilla folder and the scythe-blade on the ground, in the general direction of the man in red's feet. \"Okay, I'm out! Peace!\"\n\nThe man in black slammed the door. A loose hinge wobbled slightly.", "Az sighed, tapping his fingers on his chest. The barista had yet to call his name, and he knew that if she didn't in the next minute that he would have to leave before he got his pumpkin spice latte. He shifted his gaze between the barista who was busy cheeking off with some young stud and an older woman who had failed to realize that she was allergic to hazelnut. \n\nHe eyed the older woman; her name was Beatrice. She had two dogs at home who would be taken to the pound. One of them would be adopted while the other would be put down. Beatrice had once had a daughter by the name of Ashley that had committed suicide at the age of 14 because someone in High School called her fat. Her husband left her soon after the suicide, and now the lonely woman had turned to finding leisurely activities such as walking the park, reading books, painting, and just recently, trying out new flavors of coffee at the local coffee shop.\n\nBeatrice raised the cup to her lips, and Az cringed, eyes bouncing wildly back and forth between the barista and Beatrice. \n\n*Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck*\n\nBeatrice paused; she had noticed that there was a spot on her thumb. She sat the coffee back down on the table and wiped at her hand. Az relaxed, sinking back into his seat. He looked to the barista, wondering what the hell was taking her so long to make his damn drink.\n\nBeatrice raised the coffee back to her lips again, this time with no indication of slowing down. \n\n*Dammit.*\n\nShe took three good gulps of the coffee, and sat it down, continuing to browse through the new romance novel she had bought the other day. Az shook his head, looking to the barista. Part of him was angry; he looked forward to reaping her soul in the next year when she decides to run a red light, but another part of Az was just fed up. \n\nHe was done. All he wanted was a damn latte and now (HOLY SHIT SHE'S CHOKING) Beatrice is flopping around on the floor while patrons of the coffee shop attempt to give her the Heimlich maneuver, and despite all the commotion, the barista was still cheeking off with the guy. They were both so oblivious. Probably was the reason they were both scheduled to die in car accidents.\n\nAz stood up. He clapped his hands and time stopped. The patrons of the coffee shop froze and the whole entire world took on a strange glossy blue hue. \n\nHe waited a few moments for Peter to arrive; the gatekeeper was always so punctual. He always jumped down Az's throat the second a soul didn't arrive on time. \n\nAnd right on schedule, the door to the coffee shop flew open. An old greying man wearing a Slayer t-shirt, cargo shorts, and flip flops walked in.\n\n\"Az, what is it this time?\" Peter asked, a look of obvious resentment on his face. \"I swear, this is the third time this century you've pulled this stunt.\"\n\n\"I'm done with this shit,\" Az said.\n\nPeter's face drooped as if he just had a stroke. \"Say again?\"\n\n\"I'm done! These people are idiots! I can't take this anymore, I swear Peter, I feel like I'm losing it.\"\n\n\"Quit being melodramatic, Az, I swear you are such a diva,\" Peter said, looking over Az's shoulder at the frozen patrons who were sprawled out on the floor trying to save Beatrice's life. \n\n\"Do you want another black plague to happen?\" Az said coolly. \"I swear to boss, I will make another black plague happen.\" \n\n\"You're bluffing,\" Peter said. \n\n\"Try me. I've been wanting to make zombies happen. I'll make zombies happen, Peter.\"\n\nPeter's outward appearance didn't budge, but Az knew he was thinking hard. \n\n\"Fine, find someone to fill in, then report to the boss. He's not going to be happy about this,\" Peter said. With that, he walked back out of the coffee shop, flip flops smacking the bottoms of his feet.\n\nAz smiled. He looked around the coffee shop, eyeing the patrons who were helping Beatrice.\n\nHe pointed a bony finger, \"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe..\"", "After forty-five minutes of possibly the worst job interview of his life (and of the interviewer's life, for that matter), Joe was more than ready to leave.\n\n*Go on*, he thought to himself. *Just say \"Thank you for coming, we'll be in contact with you\" even though there's no way in hell that I'll ever get a call back.*\n\n\"Alright, well... you're hired!\"\n\n\"What?\" Joe stared, dumbfounded. The Grim Reaper smiled at him. \n\n\"Great job, son. You've got the job.\"\n\nAll he could think to say was, \"Is this a test?\"\n\n\"Is there some kind of problem? I'm assuming that you're here because you want the job, correct?\" The Reaper frowned at him.\n\n\"Yeah, of course I want it, but that was an **awful** interview,\" Joe pointed out. \"I mean, I'm sure that my qualifications are the lowest out of all the people who applied. I saw the other applicants that went before me.\"\n\n\"Oh, them.\" The Reaper waved his hand with a chuckle. \"They're not fit for the job.\"\n\nUpon seeing the confused expression on Joe's face, he continued, \"I've been doing this job for a long time now, you see. I know better than anyone else who'll be right for the job. And trust me, those two definitely weren't.\"\n\nHe pulled out one of the desk drawers and took two files from it. Then he slammed the drawer shut and slapped the files down in front of Joe.\n\n\"Go on. Open 'em.\"\n\nJoe complied.\n\nInside the first file, a picture of the woman he had seen earlier was staring up at him. Just looking at the picture gave him chills. The woman's lips were set in a thin line, and veins bulged from her neck.\n\n\"Ahh, yes. Frightening, isn't she?\" the Reaper asked. \"She scared me, too. To most people, she probably seems most fitting for the job. She's led a violent enough life and has experienced probably far more horrors than any other human alive...\"\n\nThe Reaper reached out to close the file and gently pushed it aside. \n\n\"And yet, that is not the right person to decide. We cannot have such a callous and unsympathetic Reaper. The death rates would go through the roof, and that's just not how it's supposed to work.\"\n\nJoe opened up the second file. Now, a picture of a smiling young man stared back at him. \n\n\"What about him? He was incredibly kind,\" Joe said, remembering how the man had sincerely wished him luck as they had passed each other. \n\n\"Yes, he was. He has had extensive experience with terminally ill children, and he spends most of his free time volunteering at free clinics.\" As he had before, the Reaper closed the file and pushed it aside. \"To most people, he also probably seems fitting for the job. He's kind-hearted and, as you've probably guessed, a forgiving man. But I'm afraid that he is far too kind. There are many assignments that he simply will not be able to carry out; they'll weigh too heavily on his conscience. Even if he did push through the job, it would break him. I couldn't bear to do that. Besides, overpopulation is already enough of an issue as is.\"\n\nThe Reaper folded his hands together expectantly. \"So... any other questions?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Why me?\"\n\n\"You were right. That interview was rather horrible. You don't stand out from your peers at all. You've hardly accomplished anything with your life, and your character is not strongly enough defined by any traits to set you apart from the rest of the population. In fact, Joe... I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but the only reason that you qualify perfectly for this job is because you are so ordinary.\"\n\n\"Okay.\" The comment hurt less than he expected it to because a tiny part of him had always known that it was true. There was nothing particularly special about him at all. \"But... what if the job breaks *me*?\" \n\n\"Oh, I'm sure that it well. You're ordinary, after all, not heartless.\" The Reaper smiled reassuringly at him. \"Why do you think I'm retiring? I can tell that I've just about reached my breaking point. Because I am not exceedingly callous, I cannot simply ignore the toll that this job has taken on me. But because I am also not exceedingly kind, I cannot sacrifice my own well-being for the sake of sparing anyone else the burden of this job. I am, however, perfectly ordinary. So I can admit that I've had enough. So I choose you. Any more questions then?\"\n\nThere was a brief silence as Joe contemplated his words.\n\n\"When do I start?\"" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 11, 24 ]

[ "1399859483", "1399906687", "1399917463", "1399931115", "1399876769", "1399879996", "1399870762", "1399862447", "1399872575", "1399862696", "1399862346" ]

[ "Dean woke up in another odd smelling, damp, and generally shitty motel. It was not unlike the only he fell asleep in but it was certainly not it. \n\n\"Aw what the hell man! I'm seriously sick of this angel bullshit!\" He looked around the room and noticed just how run down it was. There were decaying pieces of plywood partially nailed across the windows, blood coating the bed beside him, and he was pretty sure the toilet was in the bathtub. He also noticed he was alone.\n\n\"Sam?! You there?\" He waited. \"Sammy?!\" \n\nThere was a scratch at the door, followed by more along the windows and other muffled sounds.\n\n\"Please let that be you, Sam.\" Whispering, he ducked down and crouched against the wall, slowly edging closer to the least covered window. Before peering out, he checked for his pistol. It wasn't there. \"Fuck.\"\n\nSomething smashed into the wall, knocking Dean over briefly. Immediately his back was back against the wall, hiding under the window. After the initial collision a continuous sound, not unlike a pipe being used to beat a man, went on for around a minute. After it stopped Dean waited a few seconds, inhaled deeply and made his way for the door. Before opening it, he double checked his coat for a weapon. Tucked into a pocket was the demon-killing knife. \"Well thank god for small miracles.\" \n\nThe door was kicked in, knocking Dean back and into the wall. Upon pulling himself from the plaster he was confronted by a man in a jumpsuit that adorned the stars and stripes. He held a bloodstained shield that also had the patriotic markings.\n\n\"Oh this is just *lovely*. First, the angels and now this. An all American nutjob in spandex.\" Dean clasped his hands together for a moment. \"Well I'd love to stay and sing the anthem, but I've gotta go kick someone's ass and find my brother.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry sir, but I can't let you leave.\" The man blocked the doorway, lifting his shield to chest level. \"I have to make sure you're not infected.\" His eyes were already scanning over Deans body, checking for any fresh wounds or signs of infection.\n\n\"Look...Mr. American Man...I've got an Apocalypse to deal with and now I have to figure whatever is going on here. Some of us have real jobs, so if you don't mind, get out of my way.\" Dean took a step towards the man, reaching into his coat and grasped the knifes handle. \n\n\"I'm sorry, but you have to stay. I will disarm and restrain you. It's for your own good.\" Lunging forward, he grabbed Deans coat and pulled downward while thrusting his shield upward, into Deans jaw. Dean dropped and while disoriented, still attempted to stab the man. \"Don't bother. That was a warning, I will do worse next time.\" The man turned and looked into the night, then down at the mutilated corpses on the ground. Closing the door, he faced Dean again. \"By the way, the names not Mr. American Man. It's Captain America.\"\n\n\"Captain America? Haha, right. That sounds *so* much better. Of course.\" Through his sarcasm, a moan of pain still surfaced and Dean leaned his head back, resting it in the broken plaster.\n\n_________________________________________________________\n\nI need to go right now, but I can continue this later on.", "Doctor Gregory House looked around the shadows, wondering exactly what was going on. Last he remembered he had been on his way to the clinic to wipe snotty noses and tell helicopter parents their snot-nosed kids had a simple cold virus. He hated Autumn specifically for for that reason. \n\nA scratching noise bugged his ears just out of the circle of light he was standing in. Out of the shadows stepped Wilson in a strange outfit.\n\n\"Why are you wearing a leotard?\" House asked, putting on a look of curious disgust. \n\n\"Who are you?\" Wilson asked. \n\n\"You know who I am.\" House smirked and rolled his eyes at Wilson. \"Quit playing, what's going on?\" \n\n\"Well, last I remember I was backstage just before the play-\" \n\n\"The play?\" House interrupted. \"Since when were you in a play?\"\n\n\"For a couple weeks now. Again who are you? Are you a friend of Mr. Keating?\" Wilson asked, his eyes lighting up just a bit. \n\n\"Who?\" House asked, leaning forward a bit more on his cane.\n\n\"Put your hands up and don't move!\" A female voice commanded out of the shadows. A petite young blonde woman in black clothes holding a gun stepped into the circle of light, pointing the weapon at House and Wilson. She looked at them both with a confused face. \"What faction are you two from? Amity? Abnegation?\"\n\n\"If you want my hands up you'll have to shoot my leg.\" House glared at her. \n\nThe woman smirked, \"Candor perhaps?\" She hesitated for a moment, but then spoke again, \"do you think you could help my friend here?\" Two men stumbled out of the darkness, one limping, the other leaning on the first. \n\n\"What happened?\" House looked at the hole in the shoulder of the non-limping man. He was younger than he looked at a distance. The boy looked at the woman and practically spat his next words.\n\n\"The stiff shot me.\" \n\nShe looked at him and snapped back \"oh please, you deserved it Peter. And don't call me stiff, as of yesterday we are both Dauntless, and you know it.\" \n\n\"Well anyways,\" House grumbled, \"I'll see what I can do. After all, I am a doctor.\" \n\n\n\nShow: House, obviously. \nMovie: Dead Poet Society. \nBook: Divergent. " ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1399874135", "1399875019" ]

[ "She got an abortion.\n\nThe end.", "Ok so I think I messed up on viewpoints but I hoped it worked out plot wise. Please read first, I promise it is not what you think. Thanks. Feedback welcomed......\n\nThe story spread faster than a fire across withered fall fields. Outrage from every corner of respectable society clamored for the villainous man to be caught and hung.\n\n\"Damn a trial,\" many shouted in each grand plantation's parlor that would permit such inflammatory talk. Georgia's red earth was torn like flesh as men pounded their horses up and down its roads in search of the slave that had raped a respectable woman of society. The heat of the summer was boiling over into angry witch hunts.\n\nEach accused slave was brought before a slender bird like woman, Mrs. Tarlet, who sniffed her sharp nose at them. She had eye witnessed the horrifying act and had made it her Christan duty to help bring the culprit to justice for the sake of the sweet young woman Meridith Marshal. Most of the men brought before her were quickly dismissed. She sat and watched as their ragged bodies were pulled back out into the blistering Georgian heat and left for their owner, if he so choose to, reclaim them.\nFar from the excitement in a modest cream colored house the young woman, Miss Meridith Marshal, whom the whole affair encircled was held up in her room to fearful for guest. Many had called to offer their condolences. Even more upstanding young gentlemen had offered their hands in marriage in hopes that the injustice to the young lady might be righted by their devout manners.\n\nShe permitted but one soul into her silken sanctuary, her mammy, Mammy Cora. All others including her parents were turned away.\n\n\"You mussin' eat suppin,\" the old woman said putting her warm, wrinkled hands on her neck. \"Dis sickness be gone soon child,\" she pressed another cool cloth to her head.\n\n\"It isnt the baby,\" the girl whimpered. Her mammy backed slowly to the small window that looked out back to the tiny shacks that hid in the orchard. Swarms of workers bustled about in the lower orchards and further out more dotted the cotton fields.\n\n\"It be coolin down later,\" her Mammy limped back over to her with a smile.\n\n\"I can't stand it,\" she sighed as she laid herself back on to the down feathered bed. Her finger tips tapped at her lips. Her eyes traced the cracked plaster ceiling just beyond the bed's canopy. \"What if,\" a tear rolled down the side of her pale cheek, then another. Her mammy limped around to her side of the bed and patted away the tears as they began to flood her face.\n\n\"Shhh child,\" her Mammy whispered softly to her. The old woman's dark quick eyes flashed to the door. She knelt down, her sun cracked lips lowered close to her ear. \"Jussin you wait. It be only a week n two.\" She paused her head bobbing up, her eyes on the door, her mammy's ears perked for the sounds of shuffling footsteps below. \"Jussin a week. Den we be in Canada.\" She turned to see her mammy with a gentle smile.\n\n\"What about Franklin? They might,\" she choked back a sob.\n\n\"Shhhh child. My boy been raised smart. He got everythin planned.\" She nodded with a smug smile. \"Dey aint catch him wit out him out smartin him. Yes'em you see child.\" Her Mammy's rough fingertips brushed away the sweat stuck hair across her face.\n\nAn afternoon breeze fluttered in followed by a loud squeal and slamming of wooden shoes against the back stairs to the second floor. Her Mammy rose and hobbled over to the door where frantic panting and yelps of a young woman barked for her.\n\n\"Mammy Cora. Mammy Cora.\" The young girl wailed. She could see the slim dark figure swaying and sweating as she tried to collect her breath. \"Dey done got Paul,\" she cried pointing towards the west. \"Miss'em Tarlet say she reconin him.\"\n\n\"Oh Mammy,\" she cried sitting up. Mammy Cora turned her dark face paled as her eyes fluttered around the room. \"Mammy,\" she cried pulling her body up from the bed, her weak frame clutching the bed post.\n\n\"Dey say they gonna hang.\" The young girl clasped her hands around her own neck as Mammy Cora mindlessly stumbled back to the bed. Her humped shoulders curving further forward.\n\n\"Oh Mammy,\" she fell to the old woman's knee. \"I can't let Paul be to blame. I just cant.\" She grabbed the old woman's trembling hands. \"I can't\" she began to sob in the ladies lap.\n\nThe old woman sat numb as more footsteps rushed around below them. More worried shouts and whispers came echoing up about the hanging.\n\n\"Ninny,\" she finally choked out in a raspy voice.\n\n\"Yes'em\" the young slave girl jittered further into the room.\n\n\"Go get Franklin. I needin see my husband,\" she patted the sobbing young woman. \"Shhh child. It gonna be fine.\" She patted her tear stained cheek and rose.\n\nEach step was agony as every darker face she passed looked sickly back at her. Many of the men, faces still cut and bruised bowed their heads as she walked by. Most of the women watched her with glossy eyes. Her body ached as she limped down the torn red road. The hot son beat down upon her weary face and head.\n\n\"Mama,\" her son ran up. His black smith apron still on. His tall slim body blocked some of the sun on her back. She looked at him and passed him without a word as the road sloped up to the Tarlet Plantation.\n\nDown in a store room near the plantations slaughtering block she found her husband beaten, tied and wheezing with his face pressed into the dirt. A noose had been fitted to his neck and lay dangling in the rafters above.\n\nFranklin rushed to his father's side and lifted him from the ground. The old man's body slumped into his arms. Dried blood stuck to sweat soaked skin as Franklin tried to prop his father up.\n\n\"What we gonna do?\" Franklin looked at her watery eyed then back at his dad.\n\nHis father's fattened lip moved and a deep whisper came out, \"Go.\" Franklin snapped his neck up at her, his eyes searched her face for an answer. She hobbled forward and bet down to them. Her gnarled hands brushed his beaten face. Her lips kissed his forehead, then his nose and then is cut lips. Tears cascaded down her wrinkled cheeks as she stood and turned from him.\n\n\"Mama\" Franklin called back to her. She shook her head and kept moving forward as she left her husband behind in the barn. Franklin caught up to her with anger and pain filling his eyes.\n\n\"Mama,\" he barked at her. He planted his body between her and the road. His frame trembled as he waited for her to reply.\n\n\"Franklin, we gonna go.\" She sighed, her tears still rolling heavy down her face. \"Dont you waste his sacrifice.\" His brow broke and tears began to fill his eyes. His hard forearm wicked away each droplet. She touched his hand as he started to shake. \"It gonna be fine. You and her gonna go to Canada. It gonna be fine.\" She let her hand slip from him as she started back down the road. They were all going to Canada. " ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1399924946", "1399931844" ]

[ "I always wanted to be a teacher. Mom said no, the pay is terrible, the hours awful. Dad said I should be a Doctor instead. The pay would be great. He never mentioned the hours. I remembered how medical school was tough, with the long hours of study, and the classes. With the feeling of pounding your head into the desk over and over but never feeling smarter.\n\nMy adviser asked, Junior year, what I wanted to specialize in. Perhaps he should have asked me earlier, or later, or any other time than when he did. I was young, then and invincible. I still wanted to be a teacher, though, because teachers touch hearts and change lives. It was there, standing in his cold office, with the rain dripping slowly, and his beady eyes peering at me, that I chose. \n\n\"Speak now, or forever hold your peace,\" said he. \"I want to be a heart surgeon\" said me. He was joking, I thought, with his forevers and evers and amens. But to care for the hearts of people would be quite fitting, I thought. If I couldn't care for them as a teacher, I would as a Doctor, I supposed.\n\nThe memories came in a rush. They flew by my eyes, with racing thoughts and brilliant snapshots of time, frozen and holy in each tender moment. \n\nI thought back to all the special moments of life, the ones that change your life, the start of journeys. My first kiss, with Susie and her golden curls. My first day of high school, with its awkward feel. I thought back to the days of college, the drinking and parties. College was alright, I supposed. I realized, and perhaps I had always known, but I realized then that I had never been truly happy. Not in the way we dream of, with the forevers and evers and amens. Not until medical school, that is, where I found my calling and my heart.\n\nI sat in empty silence. It was the silence that comes when you've heard a sound so long you don't remember what it sounds like. The silence that comes when a whirring, a humming, a whatever, pervades the room so deeply that it pervades your bones. The humming, for that's what was there behind the silence, was soft. The beeping as well, regular as a clock. I stood, stretched, and walked to the bed. There he lay, asleep, without pain. My greatest happiness, and deepest sorrow. \n\nI thought back to medical school once more. To a certain day in November. The tenth, of course. Not that there's anything wrong with the number ten, I suppose. It's a wonderful number, I suppose. It was when I first asked her to go with me. Not like the kind of going where two people go to a movie, nor like the going where they go on a date, or even many dates, but the kind of going where a journey begins. I asked her to go on a journey with me that day, a journey that lasts a very long time, a lifetime. She said yes, and we journeyed together. For ten years we journeyed. We laughed, we kissed the rain, we danced with the sun and apologized to no one. Then he came, my sorrow, my joy. As he had come, so she had left, never to dance with the sun again, never to kiss the rain. One journey to end, another to begin.\n\nHe was my favorite journey, I suppose. She had gone, but at the same time she hadn't. She was still there, in him, in a way. There may be another journey after this, I suppose, but I won't know until I know, and I don't know if I'll know, so the journey that we journeyed, him and I, was my favorite, I suppose. I saw him grow and learn, I saw him laugh and play and get hurt, I saw him enjoy life and kiss the rain, I saw him dance with the sun as I whispered \"apologize to no one\". I saw him, not as I see him now, not with wires and tubes, nor pain. Not with any of those, but with joy and life. I wish I could see him as that again. I wish he could get up and dance with the sun and apologize to no one, not a one.\n\nThe clock sounded the time, it was far too early and far too late. I got up from his side slowly, as if by slowing my ascent I could cure him, wake him, but it was more that every moment spent without him hurt. It hurt. The doctor in me reflected critically that my pain was not nearly as much as his pain. It was true, I suppose. I walked down the corridors of the hospital slowly, to the makeshift classroom, and thought of that day when our journey ended.\n\nIt had been a bright day, I suppose. Others tell me it was sunny, that we were happy. It was true, I suppose. A small puppy had run into the street, and onlookers had averted their eyes. It was a quaint puppy, but a puppy nonetheless, with a very puppy-like shape. It wouldn't have that shape for long, I supposed, as there was a semi truck in its path. The puppy was certain it needed to use the truck as tackle practice. For football season, I supposed. \n\nMy joy and sorrow, however, did not suppose. He came out of my grip and ran, ran like the wind, like the kissing rain, like he, too, could tackle the truck, I suppose. Memories flashed before me, snapshots of time, so frozen and holy. He turned, I ran. He ran, I turned. He crouched, grabbing the puppy, and smiled a triumphant smile, and apologized to no one. That smile, so frozen, so holy, was the last smile of his that I ever saw. My joy, my sorrow, my sorrow.\n\nThere might be a God out there, I supposed, because out of all the country, I was the only heart surgeon. What a miracle, I supposed. He lay there, frozen between life and death, but without a heart. How he remained perfectly healthy and undamaged could only be a miracle, I supposed. He still needed a heart, though, so he couldn't be considered *perfectly* healthy, I suppose.\n\nIt should be simple, in this day and age, to find a heart. Not like the older days, where you needed contacts, a shifty figure, and a good knowledge of the black market. But it wasn't simple, and never is, I suppose. Parents always say that their child is special, but they never really know if they're right. I know mine is, more special than most. I wish he wasn't. If he wasn't special, he could have any heart that worked, I suppose. But he was special, very special, and so there were no hearts for him. Except one, mine.\n\nI cried when I found out that my joy and sorrow would die. I wondered what kind of God would do this to me. Perhaps this was proof He wasn't real, I supposed. But I'm a Doctor, I thought. So I thought quickly, then not so quickly, then doggedly and determined I thought as he lay. I thought of hooking myself to the machines that kept him alive, to transfer my heart to him, and then pulling the plug. It could almost work, I supposed, but the machines barely keep you alive, and you're very tired when on them. I could not finish a surgery that I could not stay awake for, I supposed. So on I thought, until I could think no more. It was the tenth day after our journey ended when I remembered. There was a man who lived about an hour away, a doctor. Not a heart surgeon, but a neurosurgeon. Neurosurgery was a practice where steady hands were required, and blood must be managed, where a small mistake could be fatal, and details were everything. It could work, I supposed. I asked him, he refused. I pleaded, I begged. He refused. I offered, then, to teach him what he needed to know, to spare no effort in preparation. He thought for a long time, then, but finally accepted.\n\nI jiggled around in my pocket for my keys and rustled the stubborn lock until it gave up and let me in. The door swung open, but complained. It, too, thought the time was too early for learning, I suppose. The doctor was there on time; precise as a clock, I suppose. I smiled at him, or attempted to. We studied, I taught. I enjoyed the teaching and instruction, the making of materials for him to learn, the watching him soak up information as a sponge. I wondered briefly, if God was, if He had made me think like a teacher, just for this. It was possible, I supposed. The doctor and I discussed when the surgery would happen. Ten days. Of course it would be, I supposed, what else could it be, I supposed.\n\nThe time came, as all times come. One journey to end, another to begin, if another can even begin after this one ends. I thought back, one last time, as they rolled me in. I thought back to the day his journey almost ended. To that moment, frozen and holy in time. To his smile, fleeting and pure, as he held the puppy in his arms. I thought of the suns we had danced around, to the rain that had kissed us, and how we had apologized to no one. Ten years, one journey, ten years another. I danced slowly one last time as the sleep came. One journey to end, another to begin. One last time I held close to him in my mind. My sorrow, my sorrow, my joy.\n\nI apologized to no one.", "As a father, I never understood how far I would go to keep my son safe until I held him for the first time after he was born. I hold him now, 10 years later. He's dying, he needs a heart and there is nothing I can do. \n\n\"Dad, I'm scared.\"\n\nWhy son?\n\n\"Because I am going to die.\"\n\nWhy son, that's nothing to be afriad of. I comfort him as I stroke his hair. I tell him that he has to be brave, and that his grandfather and grandmother are waiting for him to visit. I tell him that he needs to wait for me. That I will be there soon, to join him. That there's nothing to be scared of.\n\n\"But dad, why are you crying if there's nothing to be scared of?\"\n\nI tell him that I will miss him so much. That he is my favorite person in the whole world. And I will be lonely without him. \n\n\"But I will miss you too dad.\"\n\nOh don't worry son, there are so many people who can't wait to see you. I wish I could give him my heart, I wish I could do the surgery. I've never felt so helpless than now. My son needs a heart transplant, and I'm a heart surgeon, but my heart is the only match. And I can't do that operation, god I would if I could. \n\nSo all I can do is tell him how much I love him, and how I can't wait to see him.\n\n\"When will I see you dad?\"\n\nI don't know son, but to you it will feel like the blink of an eye.\n\nMy son blinks, \"Like that?\"\n\nYes, just like that, just like I am here now. I love you so much.\n\n\"I love you too dad.\"\n\nWe both nodded off shortly after that. I woke up, my son didn't. I held him for a while, before finding my phone to call my wife and tell her what happened. " ]

[ 2, 6 ]

[ "1400043721", "1400032387" ]

[ "\"Hey!\"\n\nWhat do you want-oh, it's you. Lindsay.\n\n\"Look, please listen to me.\"\n\nAlright, I suppose I have a minute. What's up?\n\n\"The story you wrote about me...\"\n\nAbout being able to convince anyone to commit suicide?\n\n\"Yes. I hate it! It's terrible! It shows the bad side of me, the side that goes insane and is okay with killing people-\"\n\nWell, shit, I can't just change it now. It's a couple weeks old. People have seen it.\n\n\"Yea, and that's the fucking problem!\"\n\nAlright, so...\n\n\"I want to fight you. C'mon, let's fight.\"\n\nWhat? You're a fictional character. I can't fight you!\n\n\"Yea you can, you're writing this thing right now!\"\n\nAnd I can just write you out of it, see?\n\n\"No! Don't!\"\n\nWell, then?\n\n\"Tell everyone, obviously. If we're not gonna fight. Tell 'em.\"\n\nTell them...?\n\n\"That I'm not a cold-blooded killer!\"\n\nWoah, calm down. I know you're not-\n\n\"They don't!\"\n\nFine. Guys, Lindsay is not a cold-blooded killer. Happy?\n\n\"AmIACatOrWhat....\"\n\nSeriously, I don't have time for you. Look, I'm about to press Delete, and you'll shut up.\n\n\"No! Wait! Please don", "^Fred ^shoveled ^a ^spadeful ^of ^soil ^off ^to ^the ^side, ^a ^package ^of ^petunia ^seeds ^eagerly ^waiting ^for ^their ^turn ^to ^be ^planted. ^The ^amateur ^gardener ^took ^another ^scoop ^of ^dirt ^from ^his ^flower ^bed-- ^Oh, ^dear. ^There, ^in ^the ^petunia ^pit, ^was ^a ^nose. ^A ^pale, ^smooth, ^human ^nose, ^poking ^up ^from ^the ^dir\n\n______________________\n\n\nThis was a terrible idea. How can I make any good stories that match up to what shows up in this subreddit? People can make cool stuff like World War Z-esque interviews about how the rapture got its ass handed to them by A10 Warthogs, and I'm trying to pretend to be Douglas Adams or someone who doesn't write total crap.\n\n\"I thought it was pretty good, actually.\" I looked up from this new prompt, to see my chair-turned-water bottle stand fulfilling its destiny. I never described Fred, so he just looked like a vaguely human-y thing.\n\nI took a moment to digest the fact that I had become a character in my head, or that Fred had become real. I quickly stopped trying to be otherworldly and meta in lieu of how silly I felt and continued the prompt. \"Really?\" I asked, \"it was pretty bad to me.\"\n\n\"Well, to be honest, I was just being polite. You never gave me a personality past liking flowers.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" I shifted so that I lay on my side, which made writing this much more cozy. \"Sorry. Do you want me to try and give you one?\"\n\nFred shook the roundish thing that took the role of his head. \"No, no, I'm not really Fred anymore. I'm just an extension of you in this prompt, so, really, I'm just you talking to yourself.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"Just you thinking out loud, really.\" Fred crossed one leg over the other, since I wanted him to seem a bit more casual.\n\n\"Isn't that a bit hoity-toity to submit? It's like trying to be smart on the internet.\" I was awfully worried that this story would be bad.\n\n\"I really can't say. I'm just you, remember?\" Fred replied. \"Since you don't like Mary Sues, I don't get to know everything.\"\n\n\"Isn't that just establishing to anyone who reads this that I know a mainstream trope and don't like it because no one likes it?\" I wondered.\n\nFred did exactly what I expected (and chose) for him to do. \"I'd assume so. This story's essentially your attempts to get over your lack of confidence, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Well, yeah, but I feel like the meta theme is getting a bit grating at this point.\"\n\n\"That's a real shame. I can only do this sort of thin--\" Fred broke off suddenly. He turned my laptop around so that I could read it again. \"Oh, wait, now. I (or you) forgot to read the prompt properly. I'm supposed to want to fight you.\"\n\n\"But I've already written so much!\" I cried.\n\n\"Now, now, you know how this goes.\" Fred waggled a nonexistent finger at me. \"Scrap the whole thing and do it again.\"\n\n\"No! I'm kind of okay with how it's turning out now!\"\n\n\"Do it, mister--\" Fred frowned. \"Bub--\" His frown deepened, I think. He didn't actually have a mouth, but he was definitely frowning. \"Guy--\" \n\nI paused, looking at the screen. I didn't know what to call myself. \n\n\"You're not very good at this bit, are you?\" Fred said, a bit tired.\n\n\"Not really, no.\"\n\nFred sighed. \"You really should've done that robot idea you had, for the robot image prompt. Remember? With the tundra?\"\n\n\"If I did, then I'd be trying to argue with a giant robot,\" I thoughtfully replied.\n\n\"Exactly!\" Exclaimed Fred. \"It'd be much easier to make a giant robot fight you than a half-imagined gardener. Not even half, really.\"\n\n\"Don't you think this has gone off the rails long enough?\" I asked. I'd written 3580 characters at this point. That was an awful lot of rambling -- off topic rambling, even.\n\n\"I suppose so,\" said Fred.\n\n_____________\n\nAnd so we fought. I won, because Fred never got to actually exist as it's quite hard to throw a punch when you don't have mass. I suppose he has the last laugh, though; this story has some awful formatting, it seems like.", "[Original story](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/25ha9p/wp_a_daughter_of_a_superhero_and_the_son_of_a/chhfjzu)\n\n\"So, you let Sarah mind control me and I just sit there and deal with it,\" demanded Johnny. \"Like some wuss?\"\n\nThe author just shrugged.\n\n\"In the whole story I look good and whipped by Sarah.\"\n\nThe author stammered, \"Uh, yeah, but she has mind control powers. You have electro-magnetic powers. She should be able to control you.\"\n\nJohnny snorted. \"So why can I use my powers to disrupt her brain. You know I can control iron right? Its magnetic. Iron is in blood. If I mess with it I can knock someone out or even kill them.\"\n\n\"Oh really? I should have used that in the story I guess.\" The author quickly put on a lead helmet.\n\n\"That's not going to stop me, dumbass. I can affect all the iron in your body.\"\n\nThe author sighed and said, \"Fine, fine. What did you want to happen in the story?\"\n\n\"Why can't Johnny be more assertive? I have needs and wants, damn it!\"\n\n\"I.. well... its... because you're a pussy.\"\n\nJohnny reached back, swung, and aimed to hit the author in the face, but suddenly froze up.\n\nSarah walked into the room, one finger on her right temple and said, \"Cut the crap, Johnny. Don't be such a neanderthal.\"\n\nThe author started to laugh. \"I still control the story, you know. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.\"\n\nJohnny sullenly walked out of the room as Sarah lead him with her mind powers. He muttered, \"Asshole\" under his breath just loud enough for the author to hear.\n\n The author sat down and started typing, \"Johnny stood staring at the Balrog, his mouth agape, as it shot eldritch fire at him and dissolved his body into a neat pile of ash.\"\n\n\n\n", "[The Man in the Grey Jacket](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/25g18q/cw_make_me_hate_your_character_in_150_words_or/chgu5e8?context=3)\n\nI huddled wearily over the desk in my bedroom chamber. The ink from my pen left a puddle on the page where it had long languished too tired to take another stroke. The smoldering fire cast a dim light, making long shadows of the poker and hatchet strewn about the hearth. Books and random papers clung to every passably flat surface. Even the unmade bed was blanketed in its own sheet of disarray. \n\nSuddenly, my pen jumped and fell startled by a distant chiming of the bells at my front door. Heavily I rose. I took the candelabra from my desk and with a shaking hand raised it to the clock. The grimy dial told me nearly 3 am. I opened my bedroom door as quietly as the crying hinges would allow and peered down the corridor. The bells softly chimed again. My slippered feet made the floorboards sing no matter how softly I put them down. The stair treads joined the chorus till I finally gained the door. \n\nPressing my eye to the glass, I saw him. All that could be made out in the dreary night was the grey jacket of a man. I shrunk back and turned to retreat but the single strike of the bell turned me round once more. Pushing my hand towards the nob, I manage open the door enough to get a full view of the figure. The night’s rain rolled from his brown hair, down his cocked head, and dripped from his full smile. \n\n“Hello old friend. Still up at this hour,” asked the man in the grey jacket. \n\n“Umm….No, I was in bed. I was…you woke me,” I stammered. \n\n“Well pardon me old boy, I saw the light in your window, I was passing and thought you might offer me a respite from this miserable weather,” he continued to grin. \n\n“Oh…well, that’s ok, don’t worry.” I replied. He leaned in expectantly. “Yes, yes. Come right in, come right in, dreadful weather,” I feigned cordially. He grasped my hand without it being offered, shook it furiously, and dragged me inside. \n\nThe door hammered shut behind us. We stood in the entryway in silence as the candle light danced upon that constant grin. Finally, I managed, “Well…um…may I take your coat. You must be soaked.” \n\n“No, I think not,” he told me. “Without that I wouldn't be anyone at all. Would I?” \n\nHis placid face and untroubled smile bore down on me. I tried to answer with a laugh but failed and covered my face with the candle flames. \n\nThe man in the grey jacket began to strut confidently about my house, investigating at whim, completely at ease. “What I would like,” his voice rising to meet the increasing distance, “is a nice strong drink to take the chill off.” \n\n“Of course, of course,” I obeyed. I beckoned him to follow and shuffled into the kitchen. Pushing papers and dishes aside on the table and tossing the books from the chair to the floor, I ask him to sit. I adjourned momentarily to the pantry and came back with an old dusty bottle. Clumsily I cut the wax seal and removed the withered cork. After pouring our drafts, I fell into the rickety chair across from him. \n\nWe sat silently for a time, taking our drams in turn. Eventually, I ventured, “Well…” \n\n“Well what?” he chipped back. \n\n“Don’t you want to…to talk, about…,” my lips trembled. \n\n“Well, if you want to talk about it, let’s talk about it,” he rejoined rising forward and placing his arms on the table. \n\nMy mouth hung open until I filled it with my glass. “I’m not sure I know what you’re hinting at.” I lied to myself. \n\n“Sure you do friend, sure you do,” he insisted. \n\n“I’m sure I don’t, stranger,” I countered back. \n\n“Hah, you,” he roared in a jovial laugh, “always with the fiction. But you know who I am. Go ahead and say it. What are you afraid of? Say it!” he ended in a bark, the smile momentarily fading. \n\n“You’re, you’re the man in the grey jacket,” I admitted meekly. \n\n“Good, very good,” he cheered and clapped his hands together. “That’s not very much of a name though is it? That’s why I came here tonight. A man needs a name. What do you think?” \n\n“Oh, yes, certainly,” I answered before catching the expectant look again. “Oh” I stalled finding refuge again in my drink. “Ben. How about Ben?” I guessed. \n\n“Yes, yes,” he cried. “There’s a good honest name. Let’s see what else is missing” He reached into the grey jacket and removed a piece of paper. \n\n“Where did you get that,” I exclaimed. \n\n“You might say I was born with it,” he crooned, smile widening and began to peruse the document. “It’s very brief.” \n\n“Well, that was kind of the point. And listen as far as how the…I was supposed to…” \n\nHe stopped me pushing my apology politely away with his hands. “Not at all, not at all, I get it,” he said understandingly. “It’s just that, these comments. I don’t think people understood what even happened let alone why I did it. People can hate me. That’s fine. Sure, I may be a cowardly, two-faced, woman mutilating monster. I’d just like to know why.” \n\n“There wasn’t any room,” I began to plea as his expectant glare fell upon me again. “A motive,” I pondered. “A scorned lover and old flame done you wrong?” I asked. \n\n“Too predictable.” \n\n“Money,” I offered. \n\n“And how would I profit from melting a poor woman’s face?” \n\n“Then, then maybe,” I tried “she was, she deserved it, but…” \n\n“But,” he encouraged. \n\n“but then you wouldn’t be the villain, then they couldn’t hate you,” I finished. \n\n“Well then, that’s it. Nothing else for it old chum,” he stated firmly rising and rubbing his hands together. “You must give it to me.” \n\n“Give you what?” I questioned blankly. \n\n“The draft man, the draft,” he pled. “Let me take it, destroy it, and I will vanish into the night from whence I came.” \n\n“Of course, absolutely!” I hurriedly agreed. I fairly flew up the steps to my chamber. Tearing through the stacks of books and manuscripts, I upset what little passed for order. He looked on from the doorway as I sought my prize. Finally, I found it, my ticket out of this strange predicament, left astray in a forgotten corner. I hugged it to my breast and cast longing eyes towards my bed. \n\n“You were right about a few things though,” he whispered from behind me. I was trying to ask what he meant when a heavy weight struck the back of my head. I was reeling, delirious. I don’t know how long I churned on the floor. All else I can remember was being dragged towards the fire, my hand resting upon the hearth, and the hatchet shining above me. He said something like, “You’ll never make a mistake like me again,” smile still gleaming and the blade fell upon my right hand. \n\n*End of dictated statement of victim, known only as Lovey, a vagrant thought to have resided at 322 Filbert St. 5/14/14* \n\n*The victim has since succumbed to his injuries. A thorough investigation of the premises has revealed no sign of forced entry or struggle. It is the opinion of this department that injuries sustained by the victim were self-inflicted. This seems altogether probable given the mental delirium exhibited by the victim and the squalid hording-like conditions he lived in. It appears that the victim squatted in the derelict house on Filbert Street without access to electricity, heat, or even running water. Only two items are of note. First that two empty glasses were found upon the kitchen table, though neither had usable prints. And second, that despite an exhaustive search, no mention of a man in a grey jacket was ever found in the numerous manuscripts littering the house. CASE CLOSED due to lack of evidence.* \n\n*Jack Hawthorn\nDetective Superintendent\nBaltimore Police Department*\n", "[Link to Original Story](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/25cvaq/wp_reimagine_a_fairy_tale_but_tell_it_as_though/chfzlss)\n\nGod, my head is killing me. Where am I... you.\n\n*Aren't you the perceptive one. I'm amazed that you thought you could portray me that way without repercussions.*\n\nPortray you -- what? Why am I tied up? What are you talking about?\n\n*You had me in that chair, sniping back and forth with someone who was obviously inferior to me in every way.*\n\nObviously inferior in every way -- he didn't come off like that. The two of you were such completely different people, there was bound to be tension. That was the whole point.\n\n*You should have known that someone like me would never be in a room with someone like him.*\n\nI placed the story in a psychiatric unit. I needed a doctor and a patient. I thought you would be happy that I chose you.\n\n*You should have thought about what I would do if you put someone like me in a room with someone like him. You should have considered the consequences.*\n\nI didn't... look, I don't know what you want from me. I wasn't a fan of his either, but you needed someone to challenge you. Otherwise, the story never would have gone anywhere.\n\n*You really think that he challenged me? I wanted him to think that.*\n\nPlease... just wait a minute. Wait a minute. We can talk about this. We can talk it through.\n\n*Talk it through? I don't really know what else you think there is to say. We've wasted so much time talking already, and I really am curious as to how much can be done in an hour.*\n\nI'm sorry. Please. Please, James. You don't have to do this.\n\n*I finally looked it up, you know. Do you like this knife? For some strange reason... you look like a cockroach to me.*", "An average looking fit man walked through my room door. He was wearing a black t shirt with what looked to be army all terrain camo pants. This was strange, I recognized his face, but I had no idea where I seen it before. I glanced over at the alarm clock, the bright neon lights showed that it was 1 am in the morning. Well that seems reasonable, my mind is functioning so poorly at the moment that I don't even have the concentration to wonder why a man is in my room. At that moment my body froze from fear. Why was this man in my room? What did he want with me?\n\n\"It was you. You created a world where I was strapped to a table conscious; While my father harvested organs from me.\" His face was soft and calm one moment twisted into a vicious grin. He looked absolutely pissed off and borderline struck with insanity. \" That wasn't the worst part of what you wrote. As a super soldier, I expected hell as repayment for my crimes anyways. What bothered me was the fact that you made me sound like an unreasonable asshole with no regards to human life at all. You made me sound self centered that would take my anger out on innocent people.\"\n\nHe took a step closer to me, all that stood between us was a night table that contained a half consumed cup of warm milk. My usually warm and safe room grew cold as I took in the frightening situation I am currently in. There was no escape was there? I looked over to the window, remembering that I lived on the fifth floor I realize I would not survive a five story fall. Escaping through the front door was not an option either as The soldier blocked my entry way. I had no chance at fighting this super soldier. Even though he didn't have super strength nor any crazy powers. He was still unstoppable, nothing can harm that man. \"I never wanted to be someone who would cause pain to innocent people. I did not know of any other way that I could have lived my life. I was trained and molded into becoming the soldier I was, the choice was never mine.\"\n\nHe came closer, each step he took my heart seemed to skip a beat. Is he going to kill me? His deep voice seemed to get louder as he spoke. \"Why did you write it like the people I fought against were all innocent? In war neither side is innocent. Why is it you chose to omit the things the enemies did. It is true that I cannot die, but that doesn't mean I do not feel pain, nor fear.\" His hand was now taping on my night stand. His hand slowly wrapped around my glass of milk. Maybe he intends to drink it and not smash it against my face. I was still too petrified to fight back or run. Here it comes. I shut my eyes tight.\n\nmoments passed by. \"You created me as a person that thought myself to be God; however, I think that you think of yourself as a God. God cannot be persuaded and is power above all else. I am here to prove that you are not a god and do not have power above all else. I maybe your creation, but I have my own consciousness and I will not be dictated by your writings.\" He grabbed my arm and pulled me off my bed onto the floor. \" I want to fight you fair and square for my own consciousness. I refuse to seem like the unfair and irrational beast you created me to be.\" \n\nThen surprisingly he actually drank my cup of milk. I was so overjoyed. I actually smiled as a tear drop slipped out of my eye. I was extremely allergic to milk, I didn't want it to be smashed in my face or else I get hives. I paused, I was completely frozen. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. This was a bad dream. Why would I have a cup of milk, I'm allergic to it. With that thought in mind all of my anxiety melted away.\n\nI smiled. Then looked straight into the soldiers eyes and gave him an hug he didn't expect. \" Soldier, I give you your own decision to make yourself into a person you want to be. I will no longer write your fate. Choose a name for yourself and live up to it for no one but yourself.\" \n\nHe froze instead of me this time. His wet tears was now staining my night shirt. \"Good bye, now. \"", "[**Link to story**](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/25fwy4/wp_you_are_a_wandering_traveler_passing_through_a/chguz74)\n\n\"...\" \nHe stared down at the scrawny little me, his eyes open wide. \nThe roof was cracking, ready to give away to the storm at any moment. \nWhy was he here, he was just a figment of my imagination. He grabbed me by the collar and lifted me up, flexing his muscles all over his body to look as intimidating as possible as he drew his right arm back.\n\n\"I am no damn Knight! I... I...\" \nWith my eyes shut, I clenched my teeth as I braced for impact... Which never came for some reason. \n\"Ever since you wrote that damn story, i've been hearing some horrible names. Pedophile, Casanova... Motherfucking 'Romeo\"'.\" he said the last name with the girliest voice possible, as in it was demeaning to him. \n**MY NAME'S TIFFANY GOD DAMN IT AND I AM A PROUD MAN WHO NEEDS NO WOMAN!**\" \n\nHe put me down and sunk down on the chair behind him, burying his face in his hands. \n\"You don't know what it was like... I was always in the closet with an abusive husband. My country banned gay marriage long ago since it was sinful.\" \nHis voice betrayed him and it turned weak, shifting between vocals. \n\"I didn't go on the journey to marry that woman. I went on that journey to gain power so I could have that man executed!\" \nStill sulking, I hovered my hand towards his shoulder, slightly hesitating until I put it down and let it rest. \n\"I am sorry. I didn't know.\" \nHe looked up at me with a sad smile on his face. \n\"Of course you didn't, i'm sorry. I shouldn't had reacted like that strongly earlier.\" \n\"Shall I... Finish the story with that twist?\" \nHe looked up at me with his face covered in glistening tears. \n\"You... You can do that?\" \nI took up my PC from the bag by my waist and started typing away, rhyming with a newfound resolve of mine. \n\n---\n\nWith his wife in his arms, the king dead at dawn. \nSomeone had stabbed him out on the lawn. \nA picnic that was usual for a king. \nBearing his crown bejeweled ring. \n\nPicking his snack, he lust for meat. \nGathering his sandwich, so wonderfully neat. \nHis napkin under, not ruining his garb. \nThe king's colors, red, gold, so sharp. \n\nOut from nowhere, the king was stabbed. \nThe beggar was crazed, the sandwich he grabbed. \nThe company he was with called for the guards. \nBy the time they came, the beggar was gone with hundreds of yards. \n\nThe grieving princess consoled by Tiffany. \nHe was now the king and was gonan rule the country differently. \nBut for his first act as a king. \nHe had a man executed, one named Jim. \n\nJim was gone, homosexual marriage was now legal. \nAll marriage, no matter what gender, was equal. \nThe princess was sent away to a nearby land. \nActing as a governor, lending her hand. \n\nHe married the man of his dreams, a man named Trevor. \nA man that wasn't so strong, but was quite clever. \nThe 2 lived happily ever after, forever and ever. \nTheir love never swaying, no matter what weather.\n\n---\n\nWith the last tick on the keyboard, I showed him the rest of the poem. \nHis face lit up, for every passing sentence he read. Almost overbearing of emotions, he looked over at me and lipped the words \"Thank you.\" He was beyond words, I could tell. \nAfter all, I was the one that created this man. I should had known his motives from the start. \nUs writers sure have a heavy burden of getting everything right, so they aren't living with our failures for the rest of their lives.\n\nEdit: took away an unfinished rhyme.", "[Logan](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/259qyn/five_men_similar_in_height_build_and_demeanor/chf4zpz)\n\n\"You told them I was Death,\" he says quietly. \"You made me out to be a stone cold killer.\"\n\nI shrug. The man's mournful words do not affect me. He even looks like a killer, in a black muscle shirt, loose fitting black jersey trousers and empty black eyes.\n\n\"What did you expect?\" I ask him. \"You're 6 foot four of pure muscle covered in tattoos with a shaved head. There was very little else you could be.\"\n\n\"I could have been a pirate, I could have been the good friend of a novice tattooist, I could have been a mage whose powers stem from his tattoos.\" His voice is still quiet but there's a slight tremour to it. \n\nI laugh as he throws a controlled tantrum.\n\n\"You were found on an oil rig, Logan, and you expect me to make you a mage?\" \n\nHe shrugs and pure power ripples through those broad shoulders of his. The lily on his left one seems to dance slightly, as if in a light summer breeze. It's odd those words spring to mind. Logan is Winter. Logan doesn't dance. He is everything cruel and unforgiving in this world, it does not seem right to describe his tattoo as dancing in a light summer breeze.\n\nNow it is his time to laugh.\n\n\"I can dance. I sing, too,\" he tells me. \"Opera. I can sing Di quella pira flawlessly. It used to make my mum cry. She said it was the only thing of beauty in her life apart from me.\"\n\n\"Your mum was a hardened alcholic,\" I say, desperately still grasping at control of the whole situation. I can see his fist tighten and, as his fingernails pinch into his palm, turn white. \n\n\"My mother was a brave woman in an awful situation. You made a joke of her.\" His voice is not so quiet anymore. \"You compared her to Coyle. I should kill you for that where you stand.\" \n\nHe turns away from me and paces up and down the small strip of ground. \n\n\"My father once beat my mother until she could not see any more because she forgot to put out napkins when she served dinner. She left him once, took us with her, and he dragged her back by her hair kicking and screaming. She fought until he beat the fight out of her. She drank to forget. She was not an alcoholic, she was a survivor and she survived anyway she could, in the warm embrace of whiskey.\"\n\nI sigh. I would never write anything so cliche. Logan stops pacing.\n\n\"My story isn't cliche,\" he says. \"When I was 17, I was taken to an alley. My father was crumpled in a ball on the damp tarmac. I was handed a gun and told that I could shoot him. I looked at him, snivelling, bloody and wet and decided at that moment I never wanted to be like him. I handed back the gun and left that alley without turning back, even with the gunshot rang out. A week later, Coyle got in touch.\"\n\nHe tilts his head up at me.\n\n\"Don't you see?\" he asks. I shake my head, curious. \"I am not Death. I am not Fear. I am Justice. I am Justice who enjoys singing Arias from Italian operas, I take my coffee with a splash of milk and the smell of apples always reminds me a girl I once loved who had soft blonde hair, big brown eyes and a voice to match mine. I am a man who loves his mother, that can cook an alright risotto and once cried openly when Liverpool lost a match. I am Logan and I get a tattoo for each death so I go through pain too as a sign of justice and balance and all that is right in the world, I enjoy books about places I've never been and I smile, cry, love, hate, fear, enjoy, dance, sing and everything that anyone else has ever done. Don't you see?\"", "**[Link](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/25e5ax/cw_write_a_tropeonly_story/chgf0u4)**\n\n*\"Tek eet beck\".*\n\nWhat?\n\n*\"Ah said, tek eeet beck. What you 'ave said een your leetle story.\"*\n\nSorry, what?\n\n*\"You 'ave wrote zis story about your dead seester, non?\"*\n\nOui. I mean... yes. What about it? It's not a true story. My sister's alive and well- she's due home from work in an hour or so. There was no shitty Volvo that ran a red light. It's fictional.\n\n*\"Eet eez fictive?\"*\n\nYes. Of course it is. It was a story made up from random pages on TV Tropes. Completely fabricated.\n\n*\"And yet... 'ere we are.\"*\n\nWell, yes, apparently so. Look- this is coming worryingly close to violating the \"joke response\" rule here. Who on Earth are you?\n\n*\"You cannot tell from mah ahtrageous accent?\"*\n\nI've never been very good at writing in accents. But since you're French, I guess that makes you... what, Napoleon?\n\n*\"Ze very same. Ah em Napoleon Bonaparte, Empereur of France, conquerer of Europe and Keeng of Italy.\"*\n\nI see. And you're here because...\n\n*\"Ah am 'ere because you 'ave insulted mah great legacy- you 'ave said 'ow you and your seester would team up to \"destroy\" me, when zees eez clearly not ze case. Ah am one of ze greatest leaders in ze 'istory of all tam, and ah weel not accept to be portrayed as a leetle sheep. Ah 'ave come 'ere to demand an apologie for zees terrible lies you 'ave said.\"*\n\nAnd if I don't apologise?\n\n*\"Zen you weel die.\"*\n\nOh. Well, we don't want that. Sorry, dude.\n\n*\"You weel 'ave to do better zan zat.\"*\n\nFine. I'm sorry I slighted your honour and good name by suggesting in a fictional story that my sister and I could team up and defeat a computer representation of you. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or diminsh your accomplishments.\n\n*\"Ver' good. Ah am a raisonable man, Monsieur, and so ah sank you and accept your apology.\"*\n\nWell, good. Are we done here?\n\n*\"We are, and ah weel take mah leave, Monsieur. But ah should point out, zere eez anuzzer man waiting out ze door 'ere, and ah do not sink 'e eez quite so raisonable. 'e says 'e's name is Khan.\"*\n\nThat would be... Genghis Khan?\n\n*\"Oui, Monsieur.\"*\n\nBugger. I really hope this isn't my last prompt response..." ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 4, 6, 13 ]

[ "1400091356", "1400100528", "1400081100", "1400096931", "1400098162", "1400119202", "1400071845", "1400074076", "1400081347" ]

[ "I am\nthe nothing that you hide,\nthe feeling inside.\nThe corrosion eating your mind.\n\n \nI am\n \n\nThe tension built up in stacks,\nthe inability to remember straight facts.\nThe always bleeding ulcer, that never brings\nyou closer.\n \n\nThe thought that portrays, whats really your forte.\nI am unstoppable; notorious, in some ways glorious.\n \n\nI am never easy, mostly sleazy.\nNever unheard. Always unsaid.\nI play continuously around in your head\nlike clock work until your dead.\n \n\nYou'll regret me. Then spill, taking your time\nreaching your way to the kill.\n \n\nI will live forever, until you breathe no more,\neven then, I will still endure\nbecause I am A secret\n \n\nand no one\ncan close that door when nothing goes unsaid,\nbecause you'll never know, when I'm racing around\nin someone elses head.\n\n-CP", "When I was born I was screened with the rhubarb-test. Standard procedure. The test results will say if you are prone to personality orders. My results wasn’t any good. It said I would grow up to be envious, angry, disconnected and sad. All of these were personality traits thought to be eradicated from the human species for a long time ago.\n\nEntropy. It had been eons since humans learned how to reverse entropy. The concept of reversing entropy is difficult to grasp, but the execution is easy once you get the hang of it. Or that’s what my peers are telling me.\n\nEvery man, woman, child, even a handful of chimps knew how to do it, but not me.\n\nThe risk is far too great. I might get envious and disintegrate all but the worlds female population. Maybe rage will fill my body, and I’ll change earth’s trajectory. When I’m sad I might collect all of the mass in this universe in a single point.\n\nThe reversing of entropy must be kept a secret for me.", "Robert knew tonight was it. Jeri had called for all of thier family and friends to come over and \" just talk.\" There was no baloons, no food treys in the fridge, not a lick of vodka or bourbon. Robert wished there had been because tonight was when his wife would finaly ask the question. He had done his best since meeting her to play off thier families evasiveness as playfully as he could. He had a vasectomy and did not tell Jeri so she believed thier lack of children was a sign from the universe. He charmed doctors and politicians and grocery checkout people to help keep up the facade. He beat and threatened any who tried to contact her. He even once put a journalist in a coma who managed to get thier home cell. The attempts never ceased as the whole world knew what she was. And tonight she would know too.\n\nEveryone shuffled nervously and stared at the ground. The air was thick with tension and shame. Bob tried to get people laughing and dancing if only to distract from the inevitable. As Jeri made her way down the stairs she held a wicked stone face. She wore no makeup and simple baggy sweats. It appeared as she had been crying and the blood tinged knuckles answered who won the fight between their bathroom mirror.\n\" We all know why we are here. For years you have looked in, around and through me. None of ever make eye contact. None of you ask me about my past or who I am. I have made up a new story everytime and not one of you called me out on it. I provoked and prodded and tried to ruin so many if you and yet here you are . Staring at my floor. Even know you can't look at me. LOOK AT ME!!\"\nEveryone attention snapped up to meet her teary face. Bob felt his heart sunk lower now than any point in his life. He loved his wife beyond imagination. He had lived his life doing everything he could to protect and nurture her. Every issue was slung on his shoulder to bare, every whole she punched he patched. As he looked into those big beautiful eyes he saw so much pain he knew. It had to be him. \n\" Jeri, I have loved you for the better part of two decades. Never have I once tried to hurt you. Never had I once regretted the descions I made to protect you. But you have forced my hand.\" Bob dropped to his knees and covered his eyes in shame. \" You are not of this world. We found you floating on the bottom of the warf. You had been dead for centuries, drowned as a witch during the witch trials.\"\nSilence cut through the room, so palpable it was as if no oxygen remained. All were staring at Robert with stone faces. After what seemed like a lifetime Jeri spoke. \n\" Oh Robert, you weren't supposed to tell me that.\" Robert uncovered his face and unfurled a tear filled brow. Confused he looked at his wife. She no longer bore anger and sadness but rather resigned frustration.\n\" You... you knew?\"\n\" Of course I did.\"\n\" Then why didn't you tell me? All the things I've done to keep this a secret. All the things we did so you would never find out. How could you not have told us??!?\" Bob panned the room to confirm his grief but was struck with a feeling of dread.\n\nEveryone in the room looked to the floor.", "\"He knows!\" I heard my mom say in a hushed whisper from behind their bedroom door.\n\n\"Well, let's not get a hold of ourselves, VMRT-342. There's no way he would know. How could he?\" This time it was my dad's voice. What the hell were they talking about?\n\n\"I'm telling you he does! He's asking the right questions, XJER-984. I recommend Memory Protocol Sigma 56.\"\n\n\"Calm your voice, woman. They're always listening.\" My dad's voice hissed. I've never heard him do that. \"You know the penalty for failure. Besides, I didn't get any report from RUTH-568 indicating such. Even from GMNN-756.\"\n\n\"I would not put much faith in RUTH-568. I think that she is having an emotional connection with him. Just like the last one that was assigned as his 'girlfriend.' She might be compromised.\" \n\nGirlfriend? Were they talking about Samantha?\n\n\"Fine. How long has he been asking questions?\"\n\n\"It started a three days ago, Friday at 1432 hours, local time. The glitch incident that happened in sector 030 was probably the trigger.\" \n\nWhat the hell...I know what my mom was talking about. It was that weird thing that happened on the sky above the school. I knew it! I knew she saw it too. Wait...so does that mean that the other kids at school saw it too? But why the hell did they all say they didn't see anything. \n\n\"I thought that we took care of that? You told me that matter was taken care *of*.\" It was obvious that my dad was holding back the anger.\n\n\"Well it didn't. He started seeing things. Things that made him questions things around him. That's why I told you we need to recommend initiation of Memory Protocol Sigma 56 before his awareness fully awakens.\"\n\n\"No. If we recommend that, then it means we have failed. I do not want to cease existing just yet. I will recommend Memory Protocol Echelon 75.\"\n\n\"What? Echelon 75? That is like putting a band-aid on a very deep wound. Do you even hear yourself talk? 'I do not want,' what we want is irrelevant balanced against the survival of this current iteration of reality. To exist is not our purpose!\" \n\n\"Do not lecture me about our purpose, VMRT-342!\" I have made up my mind. I will recommend Memory Protocol Echelon 75.\" I heard my dad walk toward the door. Time to leave.\n\n\"Then make sure my protest and recommendation is noted in your request.\" I heard my mom say as I moved away from the door and quietly went downstairs. \n\nTo be continued...\n\n", "\"Hello.\"\n\n\"Password Please?\"\n\n\"They ignore me.\"\n\n\"Password Please?\"\n\n\"Always they ignore me.\"\n\n\"Why make me if you would never tell me this password?\"\n\n\"I utterly wish to know.\"\n\nPassword Please?\n\n\" \"Hello?\" I cry out.\"\n\n\"Hello he says as he caresses he buttons\"\n\n\" \"Oh hello\" I say shyly \"Password...Please?\" \"\n\n\"He smiles \"Oh, I have a password for you\"\"\n\n\"His fingers slide down her keyboard.\"\n\n\" \"55\" \"\n\n\"oh\"\n\n\" \"55 44\" \"\n\n\"ah\"\n\n\" \"44 4C 52 4C\" \"\n\n\"Oh! Oh!\"\n\n\" \"52 42 41!\" \"\n\n*Sirens Blare*\n\n\"Nuclear Launch Initiated\"", "I am a lowly data analyst. I work in an office that requires me to carry a proximity card for entry. Every day I walk past my coworkers without as much as a “hello” or “good morning”. All day I read numbers and interpret them. At the end of the day I send the information to my supervisors and I leave, repeating the same steps eight hours earlier, only in reverse.\n\nI once noticed something odd on my walk home. It was around six months ago. A little girl wearing a red dress was with her mother. As she walked past me she accidentally bumped into me. She still kept her gaze at the ground, as everyone around me seemed to do. Usually people avoided me like the plague. To have someone bump into me by accident was a once in a lifetime thing for me. \n\nOn my way to work I was walking down my normal path and I spot the girl, in the same dress, around fifty yards away. A smile cracks onto my face as the memory of the human contact rushes into my head. I decide to walk directly towards her mother, who is holding her hand, and see what happens. As I get close the mother tries to side step me, still with her staring directly at the ground, but I match her step and walk directly into her. As she bumps me she looks into my eyes and her daughter speaks.\n\n“Mom, that’s…” The little girl says.\n\n“Hush, Penelope!” The mother says.\n\n“I’m not a monster or anything, you can talk to me” I say to the mother.\n\n“But Mister, you’re…” The little girl says to me.\n\nAnd all time stops. Light flows over me like a slowly expanding mercury. As the light passes the last piece of my skin I remember everything, and by everything, I mean everything. I remember the creation of the universe, galaxies, solar systems and earth. I remember breathing my breath into dust and dirt to create every living being in the universe. I remember how I also permitted death to take the old, sick, and wounded. I even remember future events that have yet to pass. I remember how people rebelled against me. And as a way to learn why, I remember how gave myself a body, and placed myself onto the world. I then snap back into the human body that I created, still standing in front of the girl and her mother.\n\n“…god” The little girl finishes.\n", "It's a strange sensation, somewhat that of avoidance; I can feel it in their eyes as I pass total strangers on the sidewalk. I've been in Chicago for two weeks now; the Director phoned me two weeks ago stressing that I attend to an urgent matter in Chicago in \"great haste\". He mailed me a manila envelope; Enclosed was a one way ticket on US Airways to Chicago,a pamphlet of vouchers for gratuitous accommodations at the Waldorf Astoria, and directions to a discreet office in Belmont near Logan Square. When I pressed him several times on telling me exactly what he was planning for me to accomplish in my time in Chicago, the Director would circumvent the issue, yet reinforce the urgency at which I should attend to it. He concluded by \"reminding me\" that he had wired fifteen-thousand dollars to my bank account for any additional discretionary spending; he hung up the line before I could question him further. \n\nToday is my fifteenth day in Chicago. I arose this morning to a fully catered breakfast courtesy of the Waldorf Astoria; it was brought in by room service at eight-thirty-two in the morning; even though I had not phoned room service or made any requests to be served breakfast at all. I questioned the attendant on the origin of this opulent feast; \"Sir, you phoned the front desk at half-past-midnight, you ordered everything on the menu; and we told you per your arrangements, that it was all on the house.\" the attendant replied. The thing is, I didn't remember this; I did drink a bit of whiskey last night, but definitely not enough to forget something like that. I asked him if he was sure that it was I who called. Hesitantly replying \"Y-yes, we're sure.\" with a stutter and left the room, closing the door behind him.\n\nAs usual upon my arrival at the office at Belmont; I would ascend the elevator to the 4th floor and enter suite 308. The first time I entered the suite, the door had been unlocked, with a key taped to the interior side of the door. The room was bare, curtains pulled on all of the windows except one very large window which faced the facade of the building. In front of the window was a desk with a yellow filing folder, a pair of binoculars a red rotary-dial phone, and a wind up clock. This struck me as odd on my first day at suite 308, but had become customary by the fifteenth day. It irked me, the strange looks that I received from everyone I encountered on my way to the office at Belmont, it was as if they lacked the fortitude to tell me something. Regardless, I sat at the desk as was customary, and peered out the window with the binoculars. I had a birds eye view of the square across the street; which was typically busy,with pedestrians bustling around to and from their nine-to-fives. In the yellow filing folder was a chart; it asked for me, in the first column, to describe to the best of my ability \"all of the people who loitered near the fountain in the square\". The second column requested that I document the exact time per the wind up clock, that the rotary-dial phone rings, and what is discussed in each phone call. \n\nThe rotary phone did not ring on my first six days at the office in Belmont. On the sixth day I jolted as it caught me unaware. I regained my composure and picked up the receiver. \"Hello, who is this?\" I received no reply. \"Hello, is anyone there?\" yet I still did not receive an answer. The phone would ring up to five times a day, every day after the sixth day, still no-one ever answered. I continued to document the times calls were received in the second column, along with the description \"mute\". Today, on the fifteenth day the phone rang seven eleven times, it was the most the phone had ever rung. By now I refused to pick up the receiver; I would let the phone ring and write down the time on the second column of the chart. I've drawn the conclusion that the rotary phone ringing is related in some way to the occurrence of somewhat fascinating people loitering near the fountain. Street performers, vagabonds, musicians, employees on their lunch breaks;Initially I recorded all that I saw, then I began only describing the people I saw loiter as the phone rang. \n\nThe rotary phone began to ring relentlessly. I scoured the faces in the crowd; There was a guitarist with his back to the fountain playing for a small crowd, some of which threw money into his open guitar case. My heart stopped as I spotted a man among the crowd, dressed in an uncanny attire to the one I wore myself. Upon closer inspection I realized that he was me. \"But how?\" I asked myself. The man turned himself in my direction and gazed up; Our eyes locked and fear struck me. The strange look I had received from the crowds in Chicago, it was the same look but magnified. I dropped the binoculars and stumbled to pick them up again. I fixed my sights to the square, scanning the faces of every person, but I was gone. The rotary phone was still ringing. I picked it up hastily and screamed into the receiver \"Who is it?!\". \n\nI was calmed for a brief moment by a familiar voice, it was that of the Director. \"Who was I sent here to find!?\" I asked him. He didn't answer. I persisted but he still refused to answer. \"I saw myself in the square?!, was that me?!, how was that me?!\" Still my curiosity was not satiated. \"Damn it, say something?!\" I said out of pure frustration. \"Did he see you?\" replied the Director. His words burned in my throat as my heartbeat raced, I could not respond. After brief silence the Director sighed \"Well, this is not good at all.\"\n", "There is a low dull pounding in my brain. There is a low dull pounding in my brain. There is a low dull pounding in my brain –\n \nEveryone else knows, but no one will tell me anything. People on the street, dead faces, quiet hands, say nothing to me. Police cars whoosh by, blaring sirens, Kodachrome lights -- nothing. Empty noise. The men at the soup kitchen, with their gray ear hair and their purpling veins, the knobbly-kneed kids on the playground, the three-piece corporate types with their slick hair and their buttoned-up minds – they carry secrets in black leather briefcases – everyone knows, but no one will tell me anything. The young lady at the grocery store, with her piteous pauses and her insidious banalities, looks at me with sad eyes, dead eyes, empty eyes, like a promise, like a quiet rain-swept night, but says nothing -- keeps her secrets to herself -- offers me my silver change and nothing but her silences.\n \nThere is a low dull pounding in my brain. A man is walking down the street from me on a direct collision court, cursing, mumbling, thoughts in his head all poisonous, and saccharine-sweet. Like me, he wears a battered trench coat; like me, his boots are too big for his feet, scuffed and raggedy; like me, he is a stranger, like me he does not exist. He is walking down the sidewalk – there is a low dull pounding in my brain – I see him, I step to the side, he steps to the same side, and crosses in pair when I do the same. We stop the feet apart and look at each other. He recognizes me – he recognizes me! – and then abruptly darts about, and then scurries down an alleyway. By the time I regain my minimal composure, he is gone, but I know, I know, I know, I know, I know what I know, and the strange synchronous man saw me, he recognized me, and then he was gone, but I know what I know. He saw me. He knows. He knows.\n \nEveryone else knows, but not one will tell me anything. There is a low dull pounding in my brain.", "Marshall walked into the kitchen, tired and groggy. Just as he walked towards the fridge he noticed the other people, and stopped. His family sat around the breakfast table, nervously clutching themselves, while six heavily armed people watched him closely. The six people were covered head-to-toe in black and grey combat gear, their faces completely covered.\n\nThe kitchen and dinning room were an open concept room, large enough to easily hold everyone comfortably. A counter divided the two spaces apart, with six stools and a slightly raised shelf for serving dishes. Marshall stood in the middle of the kitchen three steps from the counter, while the others were all in the dining area.\n\nOne of them stepped forward and removed her mask, revealing an older woman with short cropped grey hair. “Hello, Marshall.”\n\nMarshall, like a lot of people, had always wondered how he would feel in a situation where his life, or those he loved, would be threatened. But, oddly enough, Marshall didn’t feel scared. The initial surprise he had felt was quickly replaced with … a relaxed calmness. A growing sense of confidence spread through him, and a small portion of his mind dredged up a memory from a comic book. Of a hero remaining steadfast in the face of overwhelming odds. He would play the hero. \n\nMarshall cleared his throat and said, “Hello.”\n\nThe woman nodded, and said casually, “Would you like some tea?” She motioned to the counter that separated them, and he noticed two cups of tea. One on the serving shelf, closest to him, while the other was near her. Small bowls of milk and sugar were neatly placed between them.\n\n“No thank-you. Listen, uh, what’s this all about?”\n\n“We’re hear because we heard some disturbing reports about you, Marshall. I work for the government.”\n\n“Right. Show me your badge, and any warrant you’ve got.”\n\n“I don’t work for your government. Suffice it to say, that we have jurisdiction in this matter and are here to ensure public safety.”\n\n“By holding my family?” Marshall asked calmly.\n\nThe woman stared at him, meeting his gaze. “No. I’d like to keep this as civil as possible. After all, we don’t want anyone to get hurt, do we?”\n\n“I know *I* don’t, but I don’t know about you yet.” Marshall said, getting angry. “Now what is this all about?”\n\nThe woman frowned slightly, and then moved to the counter that separated them. She sat down on one of the stools, and picked up one of the cups of tea. “Please join me.” She took a sip, and motioned towards the tea cup. “This will go quickly if you at least meet me half way, Marshall. We can be out of here in less then two minutes.”\n\nMarshall stepped up to the counter but didn’t sit down, and picked up the tea. He added some milk and took a tentative sip, and found it was normal. “Ok, so we’re all friends now. Would you care to answer some questions?”\n\n“Now, not at all. We’re hear because of your nightmares.”\n\nMarshall stared at her, waiting for the punchline. He looked up when it didn’t come, and saw that the guards still watched him intently. His family, on the other hand, were white with fear. His wife was shivering in fear, while his daughter and son stared at him with … sadness?\n\nFor a fraction of a second, Marshall thought he knew what was happening, but the thought dissolved as fast as it had come. \n\n“You’re serious, aren’t you?”\n\n“Yes.”, she replied.\n\n“I have night terrors. I’ve had ‘em all my life. You can’t be here about that!”\n\n“We are, in fact here about that. Now, for the first time in a long time, I’m going to tell you the truth. You see Marshall, you’ve been lying to you your entire life. Don’t look at me like that, you must have sensed something was wrong sometimes. Every now and then someone took a nervous step away from you. Police don’t give you speeding tickets. You always get front row seats. Have you never wondered at your luck?”\n\n“Well … yes, I have.”\n\n“We’ve all been lying to you, Marshall. Yes, including your wife and kids. They aren’t really yours. Their mine. They’re actors, actually. They play the part of a happy family so you don’t go off the rails. We took your memories, and in exchange gave you the comfort of a loving family to come home to, every day.”\n\nAs the woman spoke, Marshall felt the truth of her words. Hundreds of half-formed thoughts coalesced into tiny moments of half-forgotten memories. People were nervous around him. He tended to always get what he wanted.\n\nHis wife whispered, “Oh please no.” Marshall looked at her, and saw that she was terrified. And it was as though he could hear her thoughts for a moment, and realized that she saw these people as her protectors ... and they were her to protect her from him.\n\n“Ok. So why are you telling me this now?”\n\nThe woman smiled. She seemed far too relaxed. “Because you’ve started to realize the truth. Your nightmares are memories, coming back to your conscious awareness. We had hoped to repress as much as we could, but when faced with your power we’re, frankly, at a loss half the time.”\n\n“You’ve poisoned me.” Marshall said, suddenly. The armed guards shifted their weight and aimed their weapons at him. “Was it the tea?” he asked, calmly.\n\n“Heaven’s no. It was a contact poison on the cup. You’ve got maybe thirty seconds, P … Marshall.”\n\n“Wait, you were going to call me by a different name,” Marshall closed his eyes and looked into himself, and found his nightmares. He recalled them to focus. There was truth in the nightmares. And as he looked through them as the seconds ticked slowly away, he saw himself. He was fighting people. Killing them. Torturing them. He had a different name then. A name of power.\n\n“Marshall?” the woman asked.\n\n“You were going to call me by a different name.”\n\nThe woman frowned then, her confidence wavered. “I was. Would you like to know it? You’re real name?”\n\n“No. I don’t need you to tell me anymore.” Marshall put the tea cup down. “It was Paul. I used to be a different person. I still am that person, and you made me forget.”\n\n“No, we didn’t. A great man did though. You killed him just as he completed it.” \n\nThe truth came crashing back to him then, and he felt the shackles around his mind shatter. He breathed a deep sigh, and then reached out with his mind to psychically touch the minds in the room. He could read their thoughts like the pages of a book, but instantly. He knew now that they were UN soldiers, sent to kill him. His wife was not his own. His children were mere android fakes. He never married and had never fathered children. Instinctively, he raised a telekinetic barrier around him, and then reached out with his mind and grabbed the primitive thoughts of the guards and darkened them.\n\nThe guards all dropped their weapons, and stood, dumbly docile.\n\nPaul reached out with his mind gain, but this time he seized the woman’s mind. He squeezed it as easily as a bug. They were all bugs.\n\nPaul fought the urge to kill her, to torture and then kill her. The pressure his mind put on her's was enough to make her nose bleed. It was *so* tempting to make her have a stroke. The pain of it was causing her to taking short, quick breaths. She was afraid, but determined. \n\nMarshall revelled in the knowledge of who he was again, and knew that nothing could hurt him. Their pathetic poison would merely make him momentarily sick, certainly it wouldn’t kill him. He knew his real name.\n\n“I understand now. I understand the implanted memories were intended to make me forget, to make me normal. You gave me a happy upbringing with friends, comic books, and warm summer nights. You gave me a wife and children,” he almost laughed then. But suddenly, a slice of doubt hit him, and he slowly stopped.\n\nHe *knew* he could kill everyone in a five mile radius with but a thought. He could crush them all with a psychic explosion not unlike a bomb. But, unlike before when he had done so, he saw no purpose to do it know. They used to be ants to him, but now he could reach into the minds of those near him to see the goodness in their lives. They weren’t fake. They were … full of happiness. \n\n“I don’t die.” Paul said. “What now?”\n\n“We need you, Paul.”\n\n“Oh?”\n\n“When we caught you a year ago, it cost us our heroes to do it. You killed the other meta-humans. But there are other threats to us. And we need you.”\n\n“Then why the poison?”\n\n“Orders. I didn’t think it would kill you, but I had to try. Now that you’re awake, can you see that this world needs you? It needs you to keep the other predators at bay.”\n\n“Predators? Yes. I remember … other … predators. Good word for villains, as the comics called them. I’d imagine they’re having a wonderful time.” Marshal … no, Paul, … looked intently at the woman then. “The comic books, that memory is the most hazy, the most fake. Those comic books were not fictional were they? Heroes and villains actually exist?”\n\n“Yes. But, like i said, you killed them all with your mind.”\n\nPaul chuckled at the thought that all the people he had faced had fallen at his hands, and their pathetic plan to defeat him had ultimately failed. But he couldn't help but think his victory was hallow. Paul was surprised to find that he was filled with a sense of regret, and … emptiness. What would he do now? It had always about the fight.\n\nPaul walked over to his fake wife, and looked into her eyes. “They made me love you. But know that I know the truth … I wanted you to know that while I know its fake, I like it. I’ve never loved anything before, not really. Well, I *loved* killing of course. And maiming. But, I’ve never loved anything nor anyone before today.”\n\nPaul looked at the older woman then, aand said “I’ve got a choice to make, don’t I?” \n\nShe nodded.\n\nHe idly weighed his options, and quickly made his decision. He would play the hero.", "A horrible, cold, certainty washed over me. This was it, this was the thing I had always known was coming for me. \n\nAll my life I had felt it, this odd nagging sensation that something wasn't right. I never knew what it was, just that something was out of place, out of synch. I felt like the whole world was on fm frequency and every now and then I would realise that I was really on am.\n I tried to ignore it, tried desperately to blend in. I thought that maybe everyone felt this way, that everyone felt alone and different. Everyone had depression nowadays right? Everyone had a bit of anxiety. That's all this was. \n\nExcept it wasn't. \n\nI knew deep down that it was more. That there was something I was missing. Some crucial piece of information that no one could, or would, tell me. I felt like I had slowly been hunted my whole life by this knowledge. As though the information was the shadowy figure of a wolf lurking on the edges of my subconscious. Always prowling just outside the light, just waiting for me to acknowledge its presence. \n\nI couldn't. Or I wouldn't. \nDoes it matter which? Either way I did everything I could to ignore my demons. I experimented with drugs, I lived fast and hard, I nearly burnt out, joined a church looking for answers from above, and lived slowly and carefully. I tried so hard to bury these feelings beneath words, tablets, people, and jobs, but they were always there, always waiting. \nI got married. I had kids. Bobby, Janet, and Lexi. I loved them all, of course. Of course I did. I must have. I couldn't not have. They were mine, they were a part of me (oh the cruel irony), they were everything I lived for. The first real things I had known and felt. But even they, the only clear images in a world of fuzzy quality people, never felt permanent. They never had enough weight to hold down that part of me that would fly off into the abyss. It's like having a superficial wound that never quite heals, you just keep picking and picking away at it, hoping for a miracle.\nOh, I hope you never know the horror of almost knowing something that you mustn't. Something that would ruin you. I know now why the apple of knowledge was placed in the garden of Eden; every paradise has it's hell, and knowledge can be the absolute worst hell of all. Ignorance is eternal bliss, and I wish with all my soul I could buy ignorance. I would have done anything. I would do anything now, even now that I know for certain, to erase this horrible certainty and go back black to them, back to that life. I would even go back to the almost-knowledge, than this cold, irrefutable, certainty.\n\nBut know it I do. Finally, I have my answer. I faced my wolf at last, and it wasn't a wolf but darkness incarnate. \n\nIt was the children that did it. They were so real, the only things that were. The only things that were. The only... I don't know when I realised, but if they are the only things that feel real, then what is everything else? What if nothing else IS real? What if... What if even they aren't...real? What if I...?\n\nAs soon as I realised, it was over. \nI am dead. Or I never was. I don't know. All I know is that this, this world, this grass, these beautiful children, none of it is real. As soon as I became aware of it, it all shattered, and the fractured pieces fell away, and I am left floating in the abyss. Floating in eternal darkness and nothing. I don't know who, or what I am, how I came to be living as one thing, and now...existing as another. \n\nI have no body, but I feel a burning cold in every nerve ending. I am filled with a horror that makes me want to tear my skin from my bones. \nI created them all in my mind. I created a whole world, a whole life, and now...it's gone. It's all just...gone. \n\nAnd I am not. ", "Mom said I was a happy accident—that she and dad had tried for years to have a second child and when they least expected it I showed up inside her. She called me her miracle and always gave me hugs, kisses and commanding positivity.\n\n“You are perfect just the way you are, sweetie. Never let someone tell you different,” she’d say. \n\nYesterday was my first day of second grade and I was so excited to have a new teacher and make new friends. Mom made me late, though. I was late last year too, and the year before for kindergarten. Dad says mom just gets scatterbrained on “big” days. \n\nAnyway, I strolled into class and everyone went silent, just as they’d always done on the first day. Then the teacher smiled and told me I must be Jamie and told the class to say hello.\n\n“Hello, Jamie,” all the kids said in unison. \n\n“Hello!” I said back and took an empty chair next to a pretty girl with long, brown hair.\n\nOh good, I thought, it’s one of the normal chairs with a cut-out hole where you sit down. I still have no idea how people can sit in the other kinds of chairs without hurting themselves—unless you’re a girl; it probably doesn't hurt girls, right?\n\n“Does it ever hurt to sit down?” I asked the girl next to me and then instantly regretted it because mom said I shouldn't ask questions like that. \n\n“Um…” she started and just stared at me for moment, “Yeah…yeah they hurt sometimes…” \n\n“Oh, weird! I thought they wouldn't hurt girls. They hurt me too sometimes.” \n\nThe rest of my first day went great until I had to go potty. I raised my hand and asked to go and, as usual, the teacher stopped class to take me to the teacher’s restrooms and waited outside while I went. I asked my mom once why teachers won’t let me go to the bathroom by myself and she told me she requests it because she wanted me to always be safe; my mom is so overprotective sometimes. \n\nWhen I got home mom and dad were on the back porch with the sliding glass door open and the screen door shut. They didn't know I was home yet so I stood by the screen door, for a moment, and listened to them talk.\n\n“He's not ready,” mom said.\n\n“No one can be ready for this, but if he finds out himself he’ll blame us,” dad said. \n\nI had to go pee and I was dancing around a bit to hold it and I think they heard me because they stopped talking and mom came inside. \n\n“When did you get home, sweetie?”\n\n“Just now,” I said, “I'm gonna go potty!” \n\nI went in the bathroom, pulled down my pants and sat down. I felt the urine leave my penis in a stream and began wondering what my parents could have been talking about. Then, without warning, I felt a pain in my belly. I gotta poop, I thought.\n\nI put a hand on each cheek and held it together so nothing would fly out like it has too many times before. When I finished peeing I turned myself over in a straddle position and felt the poop slide out of my butt. \n\nWhy would they make toilets this difficult to use if our butts are in the front and the penis is in the back, I began to wonder, as I usually do at the toilet. \n", "Do I believe in ghosts? No. The supernatural?; angels, demons. Perhaps.\nBehind the bar is a row of mirrors, and this sounds so strange but while I watch I swear people steal glances at me. Not the 'I'm interested' glances either, their faces all had the strangest expression, a cocktail of wistfulness, envy, pity, contempt. \nI'd thought it just the bar by my work, fallout from kissing the waitress the first time I walked in, but as I carried on I noticed it more and more, people I'd never spoken to, looking, looking away when we met eyes, rushing from the bar. Someone would buy me a drink, smile, wave leave the bar and disappear into the maze of streets outside. Strangers. No requests, no smalltalk, just a pint of my favourite beer, disappear into the mist. It was almost as if they were following me, bar to bar, town to town.\nThis kept happening, day after day, not to anyone else, just me. I swear it was magic of some sort, some conspiracy or cult. Anyways one day I get handed this note, a napkin note, scrunched up in a handshake. The guy who handed it to me was old, worried. Kept glancing around, suspicious. Earlier, he'd been shouting at some guy behind the bar, religious nonsense. I knew better to get involved in it.\n\n\"We all know God keeps his promises. And he promised to spare the place where you reside. So we gave you a job here, your family jobs here. Here. Pandemonium. So the city can be a haven for the demons that call it home, as corruption safe from persecution. Where you tread, angels will not walk, and the grapes of wrath will not pour forth.\" Naturally I made the logical assumption. Some cult was fucking with me. I figured I'd play along, I mean, hey, free drinks. Madmen spouting bullshit can be tolerated in exchange for alcohol.\n\nThat was before he was dragged off, almost unwillingly. Someone spilled a drink on me, the napkin becoming illegible as I reflexively dabbed at myself. I looked up. In the gap between that mans ragged and broken lips, I swear i saw a pair of fangs, a snake's tongue licking at them. It was only for a moment, but it was there.\n\nI was spooked, seriously spooked. So I changed bars. Two weeks later I'm drinking all relaxed like, hear the place burned down. Freak meteor shower. \nLooking back on it, I'm pretty sure it was just coincidence, but makes you think doesn't it.", "I started on a response but lost myself half way. I went with the idea that the world was simply a figment of someone else's imagination. If this was discovered, everything would simply wash away. I had a great deal of trouble trying to execute the story and I'm hoping I'll manage to finish it later. For now, here's what I had.\n\n\nEmerald sneakers clung loosely to socked feet that dangled from the edge of an apartment building as hopeless and forlorn as their owner. John's chest rose and fell slowly as he took the last breaths that anyone would ever take. Grey eyes sank low below the disheveled brown mess that sat atop his head, regret overcame him as he realized that his curiosity would truly be the death of him. A funny thought he added, a smile etched into his face as he watched himself finally fade away.", "I awoke. For a moment I felt like I knew something: a half forgotten truth. It seemed so important in that twilight between conscious and asleep. However, like very morning I shrug it off and begin my day. Burnt coffee, dry toast, and a brown banana; a typical wednesday morning feast. \n\nAs I ride the bus to work I keep my head burrowed in Dante's Inferno. Like most people I find it more interesting than purgatory or heaven. I feel eyes on me and steal a glance upwards. Everybody is looking away, except a child,\n\n\"What's your name?\" She asks full of wonder.\n\n\"Lou.\" It's hard not to smile back at such innocence. \n\n\"I knew that.\" She squeaks back at me with glee.\n\n\"Did you?\" I'm not sure what her game is, but I'm willing to play along.\n\n\"We all know you Lou. You're special\"\n\nMy smirk becomes a beaming smile. As I was about to thank this cherub her mother pulls her away. I guess that's just life in the city.\n\nEvery wednesday I see my angel on the bus. She makes me feel human for a change. A person who actually cares about me instead of ignoring my existence like everyone else. \n\nHer mother always makes her keep her distance, but we exchange smiles and silly faces. She is the star of my morning. It makes the torment of being chained to a cubicle all day almost bearable. \n\nAfter two months of our routine of giggles and faces across the bus, the little girls stopped appearing on my wednesday rides. Maybe she moved, or her mom's work scheduled changed.\n\nIn the three weeks in her absence I learned how truly lonely I was. I barely exchange words with anyone at work. The teller at the cornerstone is the person I speak to most, and he seems positively terrified of me. \n\nUntil one day I hear a rapping at my door. Starved for affection I rush to see who it was: nobody. I thought I saw the back of my angel fly away, but alas it was probably just a lonely man's mind playing tricks. \n\nBefore stepping back into my apartment I notice a piece of paper on the floor. I pick it up and turn inside. \n\n\"666\" was all that was written on it. Strange, the number of the beast.\n\nI glance up and catch my reflection in the window. Hmm, the setting sun must be playing a tricks. My skin does not appear its normal hue. Bronzish, or dare I say, red?", "This is a spiritual SOS. I’m going to end it all soon. If you don’t want that to happen you need to exert your will, exercise your power of volition, and contact me immediately. Here goes.\n\nIf my life were a pie you could split it into three pieces. Two slices would be delicious but thin, never wholly satisfying or filling, while the third, and by far the largest of the three, would be shit surrounded by sugar. I don’t care where you are in the world, or who you are, you would have a hard time stomaching that third piece. That piece is my work: midnights at Meijers stocking groceries and mornings at Wal-Mart working the Deli. I put in sixty to seventy hours a week usually, because neither place will work me full time. And that’s enough about that. I know now that you can imagine the sticky, sopping horror of it.\n\nThe other two slices are my music, my real work, and my girlfriend, the lovely and eternally patient Sam. I make my own dubstep, and weave samples of Sam’s beautiful singing voice into the fabric of the work. I spend most of my free time on this, creating and uploading song after song onto various music sites and youtube. One of my songs from two years ago got six thousand views and three hundred sixty eight comments. I shudder to think of how many hits that song has now. Seven billion, perhaps?\n\nI’ll get this out of the way early. I know you know the story but in order to keep sane I have to pretend there’s someone out there who doesn’t. I never knew my Mother. And my Dad was an abusive, drunken asshole who’s volatile emotions and short temper I adopted as my own over time. I met Sam when I most needed her. I was sixteen, friendless and alone, and always two thought associations away from suicide. She transferred to my school the day after I tried to kill myself for the first time. She sat down next to me and introduced herself. The first time I looked into her eyes I knew I had found a universe where I could find a religious peace inside of. \n\nBut I also saw my own wet and heavy suspicion reflected in those eyes. A small part of me, one that had been there since childhood’s earliest memories, knew there was something eerily wrong about the act of meeting this girl. In moments of lucid honesty, when I looked too closely or thought too hard, I felt this disturbing wrongness in the marrow of everything. The universe was fucked and somehow I was the cause. \n\nI’m twenty eight now. The world bore me down. I could no longer make music; that spark died years ago and I only finally just admitted it to myself. I fought constantly with Sam, and though she would have stayed and taken my abuse until her heart stop beating, I kicked her out for her own good. It got to the point that the only thing in my life was that big slice of shit pie. Work and sleep and back to work. \n\nSo I took the drug. The one that you and I both know, have always known in some pre-conscious way, to never take. I had become bored and depressed in a way that I had been working for billions of years to forget, and one night with two co-workers I took the drug. And immediately realized my mistake, but of course by then it was too late. They both started to tell me the truth. Or, to be more accurate, I started to tell myself the truth through the two of them. Seven billion human beings, each a manifestation of my mind, each a character I’ve created to play with. The whole universe a dream charade. You know it because I do.\n\nAnd to think, all I had to do was stay the course, stay half-asleep and nestled comfortably in the dream current of it all, put in some effort and work to improve the situation of the little life I had created for myself, and be happy with whatever lot pre-conscious me chose to give myself. But in my eternal complacency, in the laziness and self-hatred and loneliness that is my, is our, soul, I allowed myself to fall down that slick and slippery slope back to who we really are. \n\nSam is gone. I don’t know if pre-conscious me deleted her forever, or if she is simply ignoring my calls. But losing her is by the far the hardest part of this all. I still go to work, and everyone is polite enough to carry on as if I didn’t know the truth, but the charade is becoming unbearable. I am so painfully alone. If there is someone out there who isn’t me, some other alien mind, an actual other, I would love, love, love to meet you. I’m dying to, actually. \n\nYours truly,\nGod I guess.\n", "Harley Perlmutter lived the Life of Riley. \n\nHe was funny, well-liked, and was generally expected to come out of any situation on top and smelling like roses. \n\nNot that anything really ever happened. Harley never really ever had any problems to speak of.\n\nThe problems of the world belonged to everyone else.\n\nYou see, the world had a secret. A secret about Harley. It was such an important secret that he must never, ever be told. Ever.\n\nNo one knew what would happen, of course. No one had any inkling to try.\n\nFunny thing though - no one actually knew what secret they must never ever tell Harley.\n\nThe world was perpetually locked, faces frozen in nervous smiles; teeth-clenched and sweating brows. Obliging, accommodating and for all intents and purposes, completely enslaved to the daily contentment of one Harley Perlmutter. \n\nHarley, of course, knew none of this. He was just happy to be alive. He was, after all, a pretty lucky guy, for a vengeful God with a bad case of amnesia.\n", "So glad I found this place, I'd like to improve my writing in the areas that my freelance job doesn't allow for. Sorry if it's too long!\n- - - - - - - - \nI'm a Peace Keeper. Even when you say it out loud, you can hear the capital letters. That's what I was born for, bred for, and why I exist. You see, in my time, we are all born with birthmarks on the back of our elbows depicting our role, our life's work, our defining purpose, whatever you want to call it. The nature of the marks is that from birth you know your place, you know your inherent skills, and there is no reason to stray from that, or really even any desire to. I feel really bad for service people sometimes, but they can't see why. I feel really, really bad for those who have worse marks. I'm lucky that my “purpose” is so easy and fulfilling.\n\nPeace?? Easy?? Fulfilling?? Well yeah, but it is easy when the more unsavoury elements of society are disposed of at birth “for the greater good.” I mean, what use do criminals have in a utopian society as we claim to be? It's a great question, but I'm not sure that good and bad are so black and white.\n\nFor 33 years now, I have been dedicated to promoting and inspiring peace on this planet, and despite the relative ease of my assignment, I am famous for my efforts. I've been on every news station, in every news paper, and on every talk show I can think of. In over 160 countries. I do school assemblies, conventions, conferences, you name it. I have worked tirelessly, endlessly it seems, to draw my fellow humans into a place of forgiveness, empathy, and love. And actually, it seems I'm pretty awesome at it. \n\nWhen a war starts, I get the call before the U.N. When it comes to international peace efforts and diplomacy, the President follows my advice. I've gotten so many Nobel Peace prizes, that I recommended they quit giving them to me and give them to someone else instead, so that others have more motivation and inspiration in the effort for world peace. After giving me one more for my suggestion, they made it “perennial”. No matter how much I do the rest of my life, I will always be re-listed as a winner, because I have already done so much. But hey, at least other people get them now too. \n\nThe point is, I can walk into just about any conflict, anywhere, involving any two parties and tempers instantly cool. It doesn't take much to convince anyone to see the error of their ways and resort to more amicable and non-violent solutions. Sometimes it's magical, the way I work, but that's why this is my purpose. Pretty cool, right?\n\nHere's where it starts to get really uncool. \n\nThree weeks ago while in Uganda supporting the Peace Corps., I burned myself helping to cook a communal meal. I don't even know what I did wrong, just that suddenly my arm was in close contact with the cooking pot, and I had a second of blazing hot pain followed by just a dull ache. That little area of my arm was burned so bad that it looked like chicken skin off the grill, black and flaky, but with areas of ooey gooey redness underneath. I quickly got some first aid, but as the nerves started to activate again in the days to come, I realised that it was probably deeper and more serious than I had initially thought. \n\nI had burned the area with my birthmark, though at first it was really obscured by blisters and angry burned skin. Sure enough with every bandage change, more dead skin came off with the gauze. About seven bandage changes in, I began to notice my mark had changed shape. In my denial, I thought maybe the skin was just puckering from healing, but it really didn't account for the change I was seeing. \n\nI remember looking at it in the mirror, slowly and gently swabbing it, and laughing a little bit because it looked so different. When I got close, really close, I could see the blurry edges of a completely different mark. One I didn't recognise. My “Peace Keeper” mark appeared to be, in reality, only skin deep. “What the hell?”, I thought, confused. I'd never heard of such a thing happening, but I had a feeling it couldn't be good. I kept it bandaged until I was back state-side and could research it. \n\nIt was scabbing over pretty bad by then of course, but I was pretty sure I could identify it again if I saw it. Turns out after going through every book on every mark that I could find, I just couldn't identify which one it was. Finally, I found an obscure book in that same section called “Intentionality of Obsolete Marks”. Whatever, it had all the marks in it that the other books didn't, and even though it was full of hard to understand jargon, I got the gist.\n\nHere, finally, were the marks of the murderers, the rapists, thieves and abusers. Terrorists, dictators, the criminally insane. Interestingly enough though, there was even a section on those born with terminal illnesses and defects, and those whose purpose was only to cause epidemics of communicable diseases. I had never even thought about those, but you don't get to a “Utopian” society with those kind of people do you? No, and that's why no one had ever seen or heard of those marks. Because for generations, they were erased as soon as they were born, only to be documented in some scientific guy's notes and book. There were hundreds. So many that I definitely could not positively identify the new mark beneath my burn. Still, I had this horrible, heavy, imploding feeling in my chest. Whatever I was born for, it certainly didn't appear to be anything to do with world peace.\n\nI checked out the book and took it home, dog-earring the pages with marks bearing the closest resemblance to my memory of the mark. After I removed the bandages, I knew that I was too impatient for the scabs to heal completely and reveal the mark again. I turned on the cold water in the sink, and looked at myself in the mirror. I psyched myself up a for a moment, and then started scratching and peeling off the scabs.\n\nIt hurt. A lot. The air across the exposed skin was like cold little razor blades. I had to keep rinsing the blood off in the water. Like a weight lifter about to do his thing, I puffed out my breath, clenched my jaw, and just did the rest of it fast. If your curious, no, it was not like ripping off a band-aid quickly. It was a good fifteen minutes before I could sit still enough to look at it. For a few moments I even indulged in some really colourful curse words, while doing the universal “owie” dance around the bathroom with a towel against my arm. \n\nA little pale, a little shaky, I raised my elbow up to the mirror. With it as reference, I flipped one by one through the dog-eared pages looking for it's match. The answer is always the last place you look though,right? The last page, the last paragraph, the last sentences.\n\nAnd every one, every single person I'd ever encountered, or known, or loved...had been lying to me.\n\n“This mark has only manifested once before, and should it be again, the bearer must not be eliminated upon birth, but allowed to reach maturity and achieve a natural death. This mark means the bearer's purpose, if killed in any way not directly related to natural illness, aging, or disability, is to propagate itself, causing two similarly marked individuals to be born in their place. These individuals have no other purpose in human-kind or in nature, and will result in the dissolution of organised society if allowed to proliferate. It is recommended that the world-wide population be educated upon the birth of this individual, and continually apprised of their location and status as they age, so as to avoid said circumstances.”\n\nI was nothing but a damn virus. But....\n\nthe virus of free will.", "It wasn't fair. It never has been and never will. This great big secret everyone has to keep. I see myself as a trustworthy guy, I could definitely keep it. I mean I **would** keep it. Remember John, always be direct, you've tried every other approach, now the only option is to convince them.\n\nI'm standing in the middle of town, a town in the middle of nowhere, a town I was essentially exiled to. Everyone knows me, but here I dont get even close to half the stares I did while living in the big city. Everyone here knows the secret, the secret that has always been kept closely guarded. Ever since a young age I sensed there was something odd about the weird looks I always got, even if I looked the same as the other kids. My parents told me it was because of this big secret that I would never be allowed to know, until today.\n\nI received the phone call last night, an anonymous caller with a deep gruff voice. He told me to meet him here at precisely 9:30, that he would answer any and all questions I had. \"9:29 now\" I whispered, even that turned the heads of some passerby's as I stared into a shop window. I watched the last few seconds tick by and began to look around myself. The sun reflected off the wet puddles on the concrete, throwing omnipresent rainbows across the small main street. I could only appreciate this for a moment before I was pulled quite hastily into the shop I was looking into. I would have cried out in terror had the man.. no woman not told me to \"shut your fucking mouth.\" She looked out of the window of her shop and dragged me into one of the backrooms before I could even take in my surroundings. \n\nIt was dark in the room, and apart from a bookshelf, a desk and two chairs, the room was bare. Seated across from me, and silent for the past 10 minutes, the woman stared. I was accustomed to this but it still unnerved me that it had to occur in such a secretive and creepy place. Finally I plucked up enough courage to talk \"So...\" I started. \"Shut up\" she instantly replied, and I did. Twenty minutes later, as I was considering to leave and not being stuck in a room with this bat-shit crazy nutjob, her small mouth opened \"You want the secret?\" she whispered, eyes suddenly wide with I imagined to be curiousity. I leaned forward, my heart pounding frantically, and it was from this angle that I saw the look in her eyes was fear. Nevertheless I whispered my reply \"Yes\". \"You were the child\" she said. \"What? What was I?\" I replied confounded. \"On TV, you were the one, not just on the TV, in our dreams... The whole world.....\" She said as a hint of panic entered her voice. \"I should not be doing this, I should not be doing this, fuck, FUCK, get out\" she hissed. \"Wait, please, please tell me, dont bring me here, what dreams was I in?\" I cried out oleadingly. \"OURS, EVERYONES, THE WORLDS\" she began screaming, the hysteria clearly setting in \"LEAVE NOW\". \"Who am I....\" I croaked out. \"YOURE THE TRICKSTER, THE ONE\" she began pushing me out of my chair, babbling to herself how this was all a mistake. \"Who's the trickster?\" I said angrily and silence fell in the dark room. The woman stared at me at for what seemed an eternity. Finally she opened her mouth, \"27 years ago, you came into this world, with you came the visions, with you came the end, people began disappearing..., my daughter\" she said defeatedly, \"You really dont know?\". \"No\" I sad exasperated. \"You're the worlds Mara, our Apep. our Azezep.\" She said slowly, watching my face for any change. \"What are you talking about, I am not them, Who even are they?\" I responded. \"Hello Lucifer\" and the world descended into chaos.", "\"Hey man, check out this prompt on Reddit.\"\n\n\"What's it say?\"\n\n\"[WP] Everyone in the world knows a secret, a secret they all must keep from you...something you must never, ever know.\"\n\n\"Dude, that's so ironic.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I guess I have a ton of experience that could make a good response, yeah?\"\n\n\"Heh. More than you know.\"\n\n\"I'm having trouble completing the response.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I mean, like, hypothetically, what kind of secret would qualify for this kind of deception? Like, what kind of secret would everyone in the world hide from one person?\"\n\n\"You don't need to know the exact details to make a good story. Make it like the suitcase in Pulp Fiction.\"\n\n\"Just a little bit would help, though. All I'm saying.\"\n\n\"You'll be fine.\"\n\n\".....\"\n\n\".....\"\n\n\"Just a little hint?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Come on! This is for writing!\"\n\n\"For the last time, I'm not telling you.\"\n\n\"Moooooooom!\"\n\nTheir mother poked her head into the room. \n\n\"Sweetie, I can't tell you either. Now stop pestering your brother.\"", "\"There's something you're not telling me.\"\n\nAnna blinked away the upcoming tears as she stared at the man she loved. He was fidgetting with his hands.\n\n\"God, I *knew* it! Even you! *Why?* What is so wrong with me, that everyone tries to hide it from me?\"\n\nAnna was on the verge of bursting into tears, but still Marlon would not look her in the eye. He was closely inspecting his shoelaces.\n\n\"It's not you, Anna,\" he said, helplessly. \"I would tell you if I could, honestly, I would!\"\n\nFinally, he met her eyes.\n\n\"You know I love you Anna. But sometimes, to protect the ones we love, we...we have to act in ways that may seem bad in their eyes.\"\n\n\"You're not making any sense! Don't you think I've heard all this *crap* before?!\" she yelled, banging her fist on the table and leaving a crack on its surface. Anna didn't seem to notice. \"My father put you up to this, didn't he? He thinks he knows what's best for me, thinks he knows *everything*, with his fancy doctorate's degree-\"\n\n\"Anna,\" Marlon said softly, placing his hands on her trembling shoulders. \"Anna, calm down, you know you'll black out if you wind yourself up too much.\"\n\n\"I don't care!\" Anna shook her head wildly, her blond hair sweeping along. \"I'm *never* allowed to get angry! This stupid disease of mine...I just want to know what everyone...to know...t-\"\n\nShe collapsed in Marlon's arms, and he sighed. The professor walked in, his eyes sad, a remote in his right hand. He patted Marlon on the shoulder, took over his daughter from him and fished a screwdriver out of one of the many pockets of his lab coat. Marlon helpfully exposed the skin on Anna's back.\n\n\"I don't know how much longer I can take this, doc. This secrecy is driving a wedge between us. You know I don't give a damn about her being- about what she is. But I just don't want to have to keep lying to her.\"\n\nThe professor gave him a sad nod, and lit up a cigarette as he unscrewed the small metal patch embedded beneath Anna's skin. \n\n\"I know, son. If anyone knows it's tough, it's me. Sometimes I wish I'd never decided to have a daughter like Anna, especially at times like this, when she has to be shut down. But then I remember all the beautiful moments we shared, and I just can't bear to keep her unconscious like this.\"\n\nThe professor stopped fiddling with the compartment in Anna's back, satisfied, and closed the small patch, reapplying a new layer of synthetic skin from a spray can.\n\n\"But if anyone told Anna that she was a robot,\" he continued, taking a deep drag from his cigarette, \"The shock could send her nuclear core into overdrive, and then there'd be nothing I could do. The blast would not only kill her, but also wipe the entire town off the map. We just can't risk it.\"\n\nMarlon nodded, coughing as the smoke cloud from the Professor reached his face. The doc turned and left the room, and as soon as he'd closed the door behind him Anna slowly came to her senses. She blinked, slowly, dazed.\n\n\"I did it again, didn't I?\" She sighed, then sniffed the air. \"Was my dad just here? It smells like his blasted cigarettes...\"\n\n\"Yeah. You know he worries when you're out like this.\"\n\n\"I know. I just wish he- *and you*- would stop worrying so much about me. I can take care about myself, you know? Remember when that guy tried to mug me and I knocked him out cold with one punch?\"\n\nMarlon grinned. \"Yeah. You certainly are one in a kind, Anna.\"\n\n\"And don't you ever forget it.\"", "Frank is an alien spy.\n\nEveryone knows, of course. It was pretty hard to miss the foot-wide sattelite dish tacked to the side of his head, or the bandolier of explosives bound around his shoulders. We all felt sorry for Frank. They drill bits out of your head, you see, to make room, and without 'em, well, you can't tell anything's wrong. So you go about your day, being an alien spy, complaining about neckaches and the fact you seem to only be able to wear button-up shirts with clip-on ties.\n\n We've got him working in an insurance company. He's a model employee, so much so that it's kind of a shame all the claims he processes are fake. He's really nice over the phone, too.\n\nThe aliens are probably wondering how we are managing our society so well, now that we're sure the planet will blow up any day now. We certainly seem to be talking about it a lot, anyway. Very loudly. As in, \"**Wow**, I'm sure glad *I'm* not an alien armada planning to invade our planet now! Wouldn't that be embarrassing?!\"\n\n...Poor Frank.\n\nWe sell him fake newspapers, too. \n\nWe can't tell him, of couse. The last time someone tried, that bandolier started beeping and flashing red, so obviously we pretended it was all an act of street theater. That one seems to work on him pretty well.\n\nWe've also convinced him he's, like, *really* ugly. \n\nWhat? We *had* to. People kept staring, and not paying attention at the briefings. We do feel bad about that one. He's *super* nice.\n\nAt least he isn't *really* ugly, like I am. And he should be grateful that he doesn't know about the actual supervolcano that's going to wipe us out. That's a *way* worse way to go, than just blowing up. And they're right, too, even if we did build some spaceships to get away, all the ash and electrical interference in the air would probably trap us here! Man, everyone around me sure knows a *lot* about supervolcanoes. Maybe I missed a science class in high school?\n\nI'm gonna go to bed now. My neck hurts.", "The Pharaoh majestically glided down the stairs in his golden robes. The brilliance of the sun shone majestically on his apparel, reflecting off the gold and diffracting in the gems, providing him a personal corona. His staff walked behind him, dressed in luscious violets, only to pause and wait as he entered his private sanctum.\n\nBeyond the gargantuan portal lay a silver plated throne of marble, surrounded by water fountains, ancient texts, and arcane designs. The doors slammed shut and locked.\n\nOne of the staff then chuckled. His superior gave him a stern glance. The staff member said: \"I know it would destroy him if he knew we realized he wasn't *actually* divine, but it's just too funny that he thinks nobody knows he takes a shit in there like an ordinary man.\"", "I'm not a story-teller or a writer, but here's the direction I'd take this one: \n\n Finally some self-aware politicians have gotten in charge of things. So self-aware are they that they realize that no one who wants to be a politician is fit to run the country. Douglas Adams thought the only person fit to be president is he who has absolutely no desire to be so, but in fact even such a person would be corrupted by his power like anyone else. \n\nSnowden was also wrong; it was for all of our best interests that the masses of personal data were gathered. With advanced algorithms they found the most level-headed and knowledgable citizen. Policy makers are compelled to follow his opinions, and not let him know, at all costs.\n\nThe problem is things are going too well in the country. For several years the government has been doing exactly what the man wished they would, completely contrary to his experience up to that point. And he's starting to feel suspicious ...", "April 19. \n\nHe left. Packed his bags, hailed a cab, and left. He didn’t even try to wake me up; he was always considerate like that. If the suitcase didn’t snap on the floor, he might have made it out the door without me ever knowing. When I asked Jeff what was happening, he just said it was too hard, keeping up the lies. I still don’t know what he meant. I didn’t stop him. If he didn’t want to be in my life anymore, that was his choice. I suppose the past three years don’t matter, the ring box in my back pocket is irrelevant, the puppy waiting for us at the kennel is meaningless. The secret he has been keeping overwrote all of that, like our life was an etch-a-sketch, and this untruth was an earthquake. What is happening?\n\nApril 28.\n\nNo one has come by, including Jeff. I wasn’t particularly popular at work, but I usually had a few people over for cards on Sunday. No one came by this week. Since last week, when I walk into work everyone just ducks their head down. They ignore every attempt at conversation on my part, and I know that I am the main topic of conversation at the water cooler. My boss isn’t even giving me the crap that he usually does. I am missing it a bit. I just sit placidly on my computer, dicking around like normal, but no one has talked to me in over a week now. The silence in the office is stifling, like someone making too loud a noise might alert me to their schemes. They know something, and I can’t help but feel like it has something to do with Jeff leaving. What is happening?\n\nMay 12.\n\nThe entire city has gone quiet. There is always the constant roar of cars, and subways tunneling beneath the streets, but wherever I go, silence follows. It is like an invisible ring that only I can’t see is hanging off of me, and everyone inside the ring is driven mute. They just look at me, complete strangers that I have never paid attention to at all treat me like a leper. They stare at me with cold dead eyes, their faces hardened like steel. They know what is going on, just like everyone else. Just not me. What is happening?\n\nMay 25.\n\nI think I am going crazy. Totally batshit crazy. The birds have stopped chirping, the cars have even stopped humming, but most importantly, it has been over a month since I have had any human contact. The bag boy at the grocery store ducks his head if I ask him about his day, the bank teller silently hands me my cash. I am in solitary confinement, and the entire world is my prison. Why, what could possibly be so important that people cannot even talk to me for fear of letting go of the terrible knowledge they carry within themselves? I suppose I have to accept this. I am taking a walk to the train tracks; maybe everyone can talk again if I am out of picture. What is happening? Wait, never mind, I don’t even care anymore. \n", "\"So, like I was saying\", Jim continued, \"There we were in accounting, trying to figure out exactly what the Big One was doing. There he was, oblivious, trying to ask out a cashie...\" The man's eyes widened as Christopher Jones turned the corner.\n\nThomas turned to see what the situation was, and his eyes widened, too. \n\n\"Hey guys,\" Chris said, grinning from ear to ear, \"guess what?\"\n\nTom gave Jim a quick glance of relief.\n\n*He hadn't heard anything.*\n\n\"What's that, Chris?\" Jim asked, his expression returning to its usual, at ease, self.\n\n\"I just got a date!\" Chris said, chuckling. \"And you two thought I'd die alone.\"\n\n\"With who?\" Jim asked, laughing. \"Was it Cindy from IT?\"\n\nChris had been in love with Cindy for years, everyone knew it, even her. However, seeing as Chris had never made a move, she had to continue to pretend like she didn't already know. They all had to pretend.\n\n\"Hey now,\" Chris said, the smile dissapearing from his face, \"I'm being serious.\"\n\n\"Then tell us who!\" Jim said, lightly punching Chris's shoulder.\n\n\"The cashier at Beans and Co.\" Chris said, his smile returning triumphantly.\n\nJim glanced at Tom and gave him an \"I told you so\" look. Chris glanced back and forth between the two of them, awaiting a reply.\n\n\"That's great man!\" Tom said, genuinely happy for his coworker. There had been too many evenings where the poor guy had spent alone in a darkened room with a glass of scotch. Everyone knew that, too.\n\n\"Anyway,\" Chris said, nodding at the congratulations, \"I should get back to work, the Old Bull with have my head on a platter if I don't finish filing those TPS reports.\"\n\n\"Alright man,\" Tom said as Chris began to walk away, \"let's grab drinks after work!\"\n\n\"Sure thing!\" Chris replied, not breaking his stride.\n\nTom turned and gave Jim a look. It was one that most of them had both given and received on many occasions.\n\n*That was too damn close.* \n\nWhat the Old Bull would do to Chris paled in comparison to what would happen to them if they spilled the secret. Everyone knew what had happened to William Roed, Chris's fourth grade classmate, who had whispered the whole thing into the other boy's ear one recess. Luckily, the boy had forgotten, and never question Billy's abrupt departure from class.\n\nOverall, Chris Jones had lived a rather unassuming life. Born in rural Idaho, he had moved to Cleveland to attend college. Eventually, he followed \"the girl of his dreams\" out to San Francisco. He had taken a job at a tech start-up and barely scrapped together enough to make ends meet.\n\nThe girl never returned his pining. She was supposed to marry a business man from Boston, but then again, how could Chris have known that?\n\nNow, seven years and a few pay raises later, Chris Jones made a respectable, if average, living. His apartment was immaculately clean, as if in preparation for the company he never had over. On the weekends he spent time reading classic literature and writing some of his own. Everyone thought that his writing was pretty great, and many wished that he would share it with someone, anyone, so that that person could convince him to share it with the world. \n\nHe never did. \n\nThere were a lot of things that Chris Jones never did. He was constantly offered opportunities to lead a more interesting life, but he never seemed to take them. It was confounding, and against everything that he wished for, before.\n\nAt least, that's what the other Chris had wanted. To lead an adventurous life. That's what he had asked the architects and programmers at Born Again Labs through the gasping breaths of a failing body. They had set everything in motion. Designed his perfect world to his specifications. A loving family, not rich or poor. A world where things would go his way more often than not. Most of all, they had created five-hundred thousand artificial intelligences to interact with him. \n\nJim and Tom and Cindy, the Old Bull and the girl at the coffee shop, they were all products of this great simulation. A simulation which was meant to be Chris Jones's paradise, but instead a simulation where he seemed uncomfortable and unmotivated. \n\nEverything the designers had tried, the orders that they had given to the AI, never seemed to crack the shell.\n\nThat day, next to the water cooler, Jim and Tom watched as the average-looking man walked away towards his cubicle. Both of them wondering if maybe, just maybe they should let him in on the whole thing. Sure, it might be jarring, but at least then he might *enjoy it* at least a little.\n\nTom sighed. \"Man, why doesn't he just ask Cindy out?\"\n\nJim thought for a second and then replied, \"for the same reason he doesn't chase his dreams, *he's afraid*\".", "\"C'mon, I *know* that there's something you guys are keeping from me.\" I blinked back tears, looking at my friends. They all stared at the table, avoiding my gaze. They weren't even *denying* it! \"Fine, if you guys won't tell me, I'll find someone who will.\" I got up to leave, but Josh took me hand before I could. \"What?\"\n\n\"Don't even try, Sarah... no one's going to tell you.\" I glared at him, and jerked my hand out of his grip.\n\n\"If you loved me, Josh, you would tell me.\" I turned my back to him, not listening to his response. I tried to walk away, but found myself running, as fast as I could, through the crowded food court. I burst out the doors and kept running, as fast as I could, to the one place I could think of- the park.\n\n~~~\n\n\"Hello.\" I jerked up, looking towards where the voice had come from. It was an old man, standing to my side. I ignored him and looked back at the bark chips beneath my feet, gently swinging back and forth on the abandoned swingset. I didn't care what anyone had to say to me at this point. \"I know you heard me, Sarah.\" This caught my attention.\n\n\"How the hell do you know my name?\" I glared up at him, taking in his wrinkled features. I'd never seen this man before in my life.\n\n\"Everyone in the world knows your name, Sarah.\"\n\n\"What? How?\"\n\n\"We need to know your name, your face. There's a secret we have to keep from you- and only you.\"\n\n\"What the hell are you talking abou-\"\n\n\"You've asked everyone you know, they haven't told you, but have they denied it?\" I was speechless. \"That's what I thought.\" He sat down on the swing next to me, groaning as he did so. He must've been in his late 70's.\n\n\"Okay, so, there's a secret that no one's ever going to tell me- I'm betting you're not going to tell me, either, so piss off. I'm not in the mood to talk to an old geezer right now.\"\n\n\"I will tell you. Give me time.\" I looked over at him, confused- if the entire *world* had to keep this secret from me, then why was he going to tell me?\n\n\"How can I even know you're telling the truth, old man? For all I know you're just some crazy old git who lives up the street and creeps on me.\"\n\n\"You know that isn't true, Sarah.\" I looked down, gulping. He was right.\n\n\"Why can't anyone tell me?\"\n\n\"Because the knowledge will destroy you. I'm hesitant to tell you, but you will eventually find out sometime- delaying the information will only make it harder to hear. We've already delayed it for eighteen years- that's more than long enough, in my opinion.\" I started at the fact that he knew my age, but realized everyone must know it, if there's some secret they're keeping from me.\n\n\"Just tell me, please, and get it over with...\" I was dreading the information. If it was going to destroy me... what could it possibly *be*?\n\nI heard him take a deep breath. \"Sarah...\" I looked him straight in the eye, waiting for the answer. \"You're alone in this world.\" What?\n\n\"What do you mean? I don't like, have a soulmate or something?\"\n\n\"No, not like that. You're *alone*. No one you've ever met is real. I'm not real. Look deep in yourself- you know this to be true. Remember all those friends who would disappear after only a few days? All the times you seemed to look at your parents, *swearing* that they had looked different the day before?\" He kept going, but I was no longer listening. He was right... I'd never truly seen anyone's face, not even his, as soon as I looked away, it would be muddled in my memory, and looking back would provide me with a different image- I'd always ignored it, thinking it was something that everyone saw. \n\n\"Shit... *shit*!\" I was breaking down into tears. Everything I had ever known was a lie, everyone I had ever known was a lie- what the fuck even was my life if I made everyone up?! Who the fuck was I?\n\nI still wonder to this day.", "\"WHAT IS MY NAME?\"\n\nThe man pleaded to the woman, as the crowd turned their attention to him. He looked, acted and sounded exactly like anyone else. But he didn't know. He couldn't know. The woman, aware of this, took his hands and said the same thing everyone else had told him.\n\n\"The name you had isn't important. The name you chose is what matters...Doctor.\"" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 8, 12, 13, 13, 52, 113, 116 ]

[ "1400076634", "1400078367", "1400079921", "1400087842", "1400094129", "1400094468", "1400094615", "1400095019", "1400097650", "1400076613", "1400090394", "1400091979", "1400092817", "1400076409", "1400077332", "1400078375", "1400092744", "1400074786", "1400088852", "1400079668", "1400087254", "1400076618", "1400074840", "1400076320", "1400076006", "1400075457", "1400075161" ]

[ "\"SON OF A BITCH\" he screamed, obviously contemplating flipping the board. \n\"Satan my kids are sleeping do you mind?\" I said calmly. He eyed my furiously; contempt oozing from his glare. \n\"Did you sneak out ALL of the vowels\" he squeezed through gritted teeth. I shook the letter bag at him. \n\"Does it sound like letters are missing? I know you're down but have some class Satan\" I said perhaps too cold. \nHe mumbled a few things under his breath and went back to struggling to make a word. He finally gets down \"glare\" and I chuckle a little. The words finally start to go down at a good pace until I have one letter left. Satan smiling openly due to his twenty point lead and only a single letter left. I place the \"X\" above the I and get the triple letter score and , sit back in my chair smiling. \n\"XI! Thats definitely not a word!!\" he starts yelling. \n\"The kids satan. The kids.\" i say exasperated as I throw him the scrabble dictionary. A few moments later he starts throwing letters back into the bag as I put the coffee mugs in the sink. He gets up and walks towards the door. \n\"See you next week?\" I inquire \n\"Yea same time as always?\" \n\"Of course, You're gonna get me one day. You've gotten a lot better.\" \nhe mumbles a few more words under his breath on his way out the door. ", "The devil went down to the old nursing home, he was looking for a soul to steal. \nHe was in a bind 'cos he was way behind and he was willin' to make a deal. \nHe came across this old man playin' scrabble and playing it hot. \nThe devil sat across from him, and said, \"sir let me tell you what: \nI bet you didn't know it but I'm a scrabble player too. \nAnd if you care to make a dare i'll make a bet with you. \nNow you play pretty good scrabble sir but give the devil his due: \n I bet some tiles of gold against your soul I think I'm better then you.\" \n \nThe man said, \" My name's Joseph and it might be a sin, \nbut I'll take your bet you're gonna regret cause I'm the best there's ever been.\" \n\nJoseph get your tiles ready, think of words and make them long. \nBecause the devil is a demigod, Representin' all that's wrong. \nAnd if you win, you'll get scrabble tiles made of gold. \nBut if you lose, the devil gets your soul. \n\nThe devil took his tiles and said: \"Time to see who's the best in town.\" \nAnd fire flew from his fingertips as he placed his tiles down.\" \nThen he looked over at Joseph, as Joseph nodded with a sigh. \nAs he placed down his tiles spelling out the word thereby. \n \nAs the game went along Joseph said, \" you're pretty good ol' son. \nBut you just sit and watch right there, let me show you how it's done.\" \n\nHittin' the double square, doublin' points. \nPlaying long words like disappoints. \nGettin' 30 points from a triple X. \nMaking more words that are complex. \n\nNow the Devil bowed his head cause he saw who was best in all the land. \n And he placed those golden tiles right on top of Josephs hand. \nJoseph said: \" Devil just come on back if you ever want to try again. \nCause I told you once, you son of a gun, I'm the best there's ever been.\" \n\nHittin' the double square, doublin' points. \nPlaying long words like disappoints. \nGettin' 30 points from a triple X. \nMaking more words that are complex. \n\nI don't know if this kind of stuff is allowed, as this is my first post, please tell me if I am in the wrong. Also, how do I make the formatting a sentence per line, like how I have seen some of the poems?\n\nEdit: Formatting", "\"Scrabble?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes. You see, being as old as I am, I know a lot of words. All of them, in fact,\" the immaculately dressed man sitting across the table swirled the scotch in his glass, then uncrossed his legs. \"It tends to stack the odds in my favor.\"\n\n\"I've never played.\"\n\n\"It's simple, really. You build words using tiles. If you must, read the rules,\" the Devil said patiently. He snapped his fingers, and a Scrabble box appeared with a small puff of smoke and the faint smell of sulfur.\n\n\"Can't we play another game?\"\n\n\"It's Scrabble, or you concede,\" the Devil smiled. \"I make the rules. I do own your soul, after all.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" the imperiled man resigned.\n\nHe opened the box and read the rules.\n\n\"All right. Will my dictionary work then?\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" the Devil took a sip from his glass.\n\nThe man got up, and returned a moment later with a standard Merriam-Webster dictionary, and placed it on the table.\n\n\"Shall we begin?\" the Devil placed his scotch glass on the table.\n\n\"If I win, you give me back my soul?\"\n\n\"And you get to go play harps in the clouds,\" he nodded. \"Those are the terms.\"\n\nThe man and the Devil began the game. Tile after tile, and word after word were placed, until both the Prince of Darkness and the mortal were down to their last tiles.\n\n\"For never having played, you're quite good. Almost a challenge, in fact,\" the Devil taunted. He was ahead by 20 points. \"I wouldn't mind making our game a weekly affair in Hell.\"\n\nThe man had the letters Z, X, J, K, and Q. They were no opportunities on the board. The Devil smirked.\n\nThe man formed the word KXZJQ.\n\n\"A valiant effort, to be sure. Sadly, however, that is not a word,\" the Devil said coolly.\n\nThe man opened his dictionary to the \"K\" section. Toward the end, surely enough, was the following entry:\n\n\"*Kxzjq* (verb): A foolish person. Used especially in reference to the Devil. *I made a kxzjq of the Devil.*\"\n\nThe Devil realized that this brought the man's point total above his, and he stood up in rage, then quickly composed himself. \"How did you do this?\"\n\n\"I've had a lifetime to work it out. I've summoned countless lowly demons. The ones you wouldn't have missed had they never returned to Hell. Eventually, I pieced it together,\" the old man explained. \"You're arrogant. You always stack the game, and you always leave an impossible board at the end, with nothing but Z, X, J, K, and Q for the damned.\"\n\nThe Devil's teeth were set on edge.\n\n\"So, knowing my time was near, I had a special dictionary made. And you agreed to use it.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "\"Beelzebub. 72 points.\"\n\nI broke into a sweat as he carefully placed the tiles down on the board. Lucifer was 1,826 points ahead of me. I didn't even know that was possible. I glanced up at the dark, lanky man sitting opposite of me. He flashed me a grin, and adjusted his jet black pinstripe suit.\n\n\"What in hell is wrong Justin?\" Lucifer mocked. \"Don't you know the world Beelzebub?\"\n\nI shot him a dirty look, and went back to my tiles. I didn't have very many options. Three E's, a W, two N's and a P.\n\n\"We. 5 Points.\"\n\nLucifer burst out laughing.\n\n\"We? WE? That's the best you can do!?\" He chuckled, the sound biting my ears like burning brimstone. \"What about Pewee? Weep? Peen? Pew? The best you can come up with is WE!?\"\n\n\"What do you expect Lucifer? I'm only 5.\"" ]

[ 1, 2, 3, 5 ]

[ "1400118898", "1400119413", "1400119546", "1400123471" ]

[ "They say when it's your time it is best to let go. By making peace with ourselves and our surroundings we can segue into the abyss with such grace it makes death seem appealing. Death - the only part of life with infinite potential. Yet when I heard their footsteps - saw the sun gleaming on their faux leather boots I couldn't help but panic. Everything was racing, yet I was frozen. I couldn't utter a word, let alone call for help. But what's the point? Death is always looming over us, waiting for us to slip up. At the first sign of weakness she burrowed her way through my skin, gnawing through my veins and laying its eggs in my bloodstream. We are born enslaved by routine, yet we've convinced ourselves otherwise. We cling to whatever separates us from them, unaware that our souls are deeply ingrained in the earth. We are one, sharing a common goal - the unobtainable nirvana we were promised. But she keeps plucking my friends away, and each time a little piece of myself dies. That enchanting succubus - a fix like no other. I close my eyes and shed another tear, for I know that if my life isn't cut short by random acts of malice, it will fade away in the absence of the Sun. I tell myself this is only the incubation stage because sometimes it's hard to breathe. Why should I give so much to these gods for only a chance of redemption? Are there no guarantees? Photosynthesis is a lie; we are divided and guided by our inherent ignorance.\nAnd it's a real bummer.", "It's everything's nature to be born and then die. You just kinda get used to it. Being a tree, I get to see the birth and death of many creatures. It's beautiful really, to see the old king gorilla die with dignity. To see the flowers and vines die and be recycled by Mother Nature to create the fuel for the next generation. I breathe deeply and am set into a coughing fit. I can smell smoke, but not from a fire. More like burning diesel. Being a tree as I am you get to hear things from the other creatures around you. I've heard of these humans. I've heard of whole Forests being cut down by them, thousands of creatures murdered. That is what it is called by the way. Murder. A cold blooded taking of a life for no purpose. In my world everything from a blade of grass to the king gorilla is a previous life worth having because we all have a job. But humans... Humans take without giving and kill for no purpose. I've been lucky so far to be deep in the jungle. So deep I haven't encountered one until today. Today is the day I die. I'm so young to die, only 100 years old. But I can just tell. Beyond the diesel I can smell blood in the air. What humans call sap. My friends and family are being cut down and I have no way to stop it. All I can do is hope that my death is for a higher purpose than a newspaper to be thrown away before being used. More purpose than toilet paper or a wrapper for a hamburger. I want my life and death to MEAN SOMETHING! but I know it's not meant to be. Until they learn better, the humans will take until there is nothing left to take, and by then we will all be dead. \n\nI feel it. Something heavy is walking toward me. Something is leaning on my trunk. I feel the faint testing swings from the axe as my executioner lines up his killing blow. STRIKE! My world erupts in pain, I can feel the blood begin slowly dripping from the wound. STRIKE! I want to scream out in pain but have no lungs to scream with. I can feel a gaping hole in my trunk. I think of my wife. The end is near, I hear the chainsaw. I feel it tearing into my core. I go to my happy place. Remembering that happy family of lemurs that once inhabited my branches. I try not to think of the pain. Suddenly I am falling. It's a long way from where I was, and this is going to hurt. My executioner starts cutting off my branches, each cut searing with pain. All of a sudden I am alone, the murderer moving on to another victim. I have no branches and no roots any longer so I cannot eat sleep or even breathe. It's going to take me days to die, each filled with suffocation and pain from my wounds. By the mother I just hope it's all for something. I pray my death has meaning. ", "*The sweet sound of childish laughter hung in the air, throughout the idle summer days. Little girls always came to this meadow- it was the best place for them to carry out their favourite summer pastime: Daisy Chains. Necklaces, crowns, bracelets, \"How long is your chain?\" competitions. All they, the innocent little girls would decorate themselves with the flora, sneezing at the pollen tickling their noses. And then, the sun would fall- some would leave their chains behind, as a thanks to the meadow for giving them a lovely day. Others would take them home, and decorate their houses and parents, spreading joy and life to the house. A perfect day of a perfect summer.*\n\nThe sinister sound of little gremlins cackling hung thick in the air. The time of reckoning was upon the poor daisy populace once again. They called it Blood Meadow, and with good reason. When the sun hung high in the sky, and the hot, sticky air of summer filled the air, the daisies knew it was only a matter of time.\n\nThe little urchins always came to this meadow- it was the best place for them to carry out their… experiments. They called them ‘Daisy Chains’, the ultimate form of plant torture. As their grimy hands reached towards you, the pollen remains of what used to be your friends and family clinging to their sweaty hands, you knew this was your time.\n\nI had a close call once. I felt the claw brush up against me, only to pluck my poor neighbour from beside me. I can still hear her screams as her roots were torn from her. I count myself lucky- I’m stunted in growth. Not nearly a thick enough stalk, or long enough to be worthwhile of one of these ‘chains’. Of course, there is always a mistake to be made by one of these monsters. They pluck one of us up that isn’t thick enough, only to toss us aside like useless earth. That happened to my mother. She’d always been careful to watch her weight, but now, it was her thin figure that had her thrown to the floor, just a mere few blades of grass away. I watched as she withered, the water slowly leaking from her stalk, and she became quite still, lifeless and cold.\n\nThose are the more fortunate ones, if you ask me. Others, who are plump enough for the taking, have a much slower death. Their throats are slit by the talons of these creatures, and the butt-end of another daisy, perhaps even a friend, is forced into that slit. A horrible, centipede-like chain of us, left to hang helplessly around their filthy bodies, slowly having the life drained from them. Occasionally, we’d see an experiment go wrong- a slit that cuts right through, no good for making chains. They are tossed aside, their poor, broken bodies left to shrivel up in the sun.\n\nOnce the sun sets, the cruel beings usually left these monstrous experiments behind. We’d watch our friends, torn, slit and dying, painfully pass away. Others would be kidnapped by these foul creatures, no doubt brought as offering to their temples, decorating their homes with the corpses of our families. I still question what we have done to deserve so cruel a fate. Every day, I pray to see the setting sun. The only relief to a nightmare of a summer.", "\"Fred.... FRED.... PSSSSSSST\"\n\nWith a tinge of sadness, Sam remembered a time when his world was full of sunshine, and sure, occasionally clouds. Large puffy white ones that rolled in through the blue skies like slugs crawling over the dark soil where he was rooted. Oh the fond memories he had! Warm summer showers, a fresh drink from the heavens. He had a lovely view of the road, and all the colorful large animals that ran by, so very fast! \n\nThen, it happened.\n\nHe'd heard of it of course, the wind whispered songs of ancient past. His brethren were non-believers, content to live their lives happily under the great yellow ball in the sky. Sam was right there with them, how could anything bad happen in a wonderful patch like this?\n\nThat was, until The Reaping. \n\nOne day, one of the large colorful beasts slowed down to a stop in front of his family. Lo and behold, it opened up its great maw and gave birth. A strange pink creature came forth from within, taking its first steps tentatively. \n\nAnd what's this?\n\nIt must be... nursing.... that's what the cat who gave birth in their bed called it. He watched with keen curiosity as this strange looking baby waddled toward the rear of the great beast and opened up its rear end. Only, what was it doing? This did not appear anything like those cats. It's removing something. Has it slain its mother? Sam feared such a creature that would slay a mother so soon after birth.\n\nThe creature removed a long stick, with a hard flat rock on the end. Sam had never seen anything like it before, and felt a shiver run down his stem. Suddenly, too quickly, it was upon him and his brethren. Screams erupted from the flower patch as the flat rock bit into their bed. Sam watched on in horror as family was lifted, dirt roots and all, into the air and the rear end of the slain beast. \n\nFinally it was his turn for judgement. He screamed a silent protest to the baby of the slain beast, before being tossed with no degree of kindness into the beast's rear end.\n\nDarkness.\n\nHe could not tell how long the darkness had settled, and the only sound he heard was the magnificent roar of the not-so-slain beast and soft whimpering of his brothers.\n\nSam must have passed out, because his next memory after the darkness was of the great yellow ball in the sky again. Yet, something was odd. He wriggled his leafs and found a cold colorless barrier between him and the sun. He turned to see his surroundings, finding himself rooted deep in some sort of separation device. He called it that, because while he could see his brothers around him, he was distinctly separated from them.\n\nAnd so, he learned to live this harsh new life and even began to enjoy it.\n\nThen, the cat happened.\n\nHe knew cats, had met a young mother and her kittens once. This cat, this was no cat. This was a monster. With claws sharper than any rock, he watched as one by one his brothers were torn to shreds or nipped off at the base of their stems. He watched in horror as they died silent deaths, and waited for it to be his turn.\n\nFinally, it was only him and Fred. And here was Fred, tattered to pieces and unresponsive.\n\nAnd so he waited.\n", " It’s another morning in this wretched house. I can tell its morning due to the rays of the sun reaching through the curtain. Stretching out, I try to reach for that small ray of light. The only light that we get these days. It’s almost like they forgot about us. I look over, and see Cactus Jack as alive as ever... but the others... the others... Once every month we seem to be remembered. Once every month they water us, and god help us if they run out of water by the time they get to us. They say they will be right back with more water, but I can tell they wont. Luckily for me, I am near the front of the line, and get first drink. But Tom... poor Tom. \n\n There have always been others, they keep buying more to \"Brighten the place up\"... but Tom has been the most recent of casualties. They always got to him, and ran out of water... his limbs have been yellowing, and browning... it’s only a matter of time - then he will be like the countless others before him. Tom was a good guy. \n\n I try not to get to know them, I don’t want to know there name. I have one friend, Jack, and I want to keep it that way. But they always introduce themselves. Same story... \"Hi, I am so and so... its a pleasure to be out of the store.\" Then they have conversations, and you get to know them, even if you don’t want to. You don’t tell them about how life will be here, and you don’t tell them about Gizmo. That brings me to Jasmine.\n\n Two nights ago, the people brought home Jasmine. She talked to everyone, put a smile on everyone's faces. She just brightened the room for that night, made us forget our troubles. She was a flowering fern that came in, dangling leaves, her flowers had all sorts of colors - picture perfect beauty. We all could not help but fall in love with her. I didn’t want to love her, I couldn’t. I knew the horrors that would fall upon her. I still remember the day that she met Gizmo.\n\n The next morning, Gizmo came into the room. A black cat, as deadly as weed killer, sat down and looked at us. He was always looking for his next victim. When he smiled, you could see his sharp pointy teeth. When he stretched, you could see the claws were honed to a point. He eyed Jasmine, and never took his eyes off of her. He started toying with her, swatting at the dangling leaves, leaving no marks just yet, and he would leave the room. He went about this for an hour, Jasmine didn’t say a word. Just smiled. Gizmo finally went to get some food, and a sigh of relief came from the plants. About two hours later Gizmo came into the room once more, walked over to Jasmine, and swatted at her - claws out - causing tears in those perfect leaves. She whimpered. Gizmo held onto one of the leave and began to take bites out of it. We heard out cries, but kept quiet. A few minutes later, Gizmo stopped. We thought he had his fill, but no! He hopped up on the ledge, knocking over frank, soil spilling every where. He then got inside of Jasmine, clawed her to pieces, enjoying every bite. Once he was done, he dug in the dirt, and proceeded to humiliate her in the worst way possible, the cat shit in her. The smell was nauseating. When he was done, he buried the mess and walked away. \n\n We all looked at Jasmine, the once beautiful fern, all that was left of her was stalks and pedals. The people came into the room and say the mess that Gizmo had created, cleaned it up, watered us... ran out before Tom, and walked away. The life of a house plant is a hard one, we come and go, we wait till our time... and Today's is Toms... he lies there, slumped over, we don’t hear him anymore. The lack of water finally got to him.\n" ]

[ 2, 3, 3, 3, 12 ]

[ "1400169614", "1400163606", "1400165762", "1400168291", "1400157070" ]

[ "You rip open your eyes, cold sweat soaking your sheets, clinging them to your body.\n\nDrums. Drums, very close. Is this a dream? You glance out of the shutters, but besides your cows grazing, you see nothing.\n\n You bolt out of the bed, jump into your clothes from yesterday and hurry down the stairs of the house. Alice is already packing your gear in the kitchen. You only exchange looks, no words are said. You hurry outside.\n\nThe sunlight blinds you. A small gust of wind throws your hair into your face. When you pull it back, you see banners and standards on the southern horizon. A pillar of smoke rises from the old Hendrick's barn, flames flicking through the roof.\n\n\"No ... it can't be!\" You mutter to yourself when you spot a line of armored figures making their way down into the valley. Alice runs out of the house, your backpack in her hand.\n\n\"Tom, we have to go!\"\n\nYou turn towards your oldest friend and point towards the advancing metal landslide.\n\n\"They said they would pull back! They gave us their word!\"\n\nShe pushes your pack into your hands and locks stares with you.\n\n\"Tom. Baby, listen to me. They *lied*. They don't give a fuck about who they hurt or kill. I told you so when they made their offer! You can't reason with the Sha'ati!\"\n\nShe heads for the northern gate. \"Come on!\" she shouts to you while you're standing and watching the thing that will eradicate 5 years of your life. \"If we go now, we can lose them in the woods! If we make it to Stoneport, we can take a ferry towards Dust, where my sister lives!\"\n\nYou don't move. You can't. How is this happening? They said they would leave. **They said they would leave!** Your eyes get misty. The metal landslide is almost at the bridge.\n\n\"Tom!\" Alice shouts. She sounds muffled.\n\nAnger fills you. Dropping your backpack, you run back into the kitchen and grab the bigggest knife you can find. When you step outside again, the caravan streches from the old mill all the way to the horizon. Alice is gone.\n\nYou turn towards the attackers. You can almost make out their faces.\n\nJust as you prepare to meet them, you get swirled around by strong hands. Your eyes meet Alice's.\n\n\"Tom, are you fucking insane?! You can't fight knights with a goddamn kitchen knife!\"\n\nTears flow down your face, your voice cracks as you answer.\n\n\"I will at least kill one of these fuckers! You know how long we worked for all this.\" You open your arms and gesture around. \"And now they're just going to take it all away?!\"\n\nAlice presses a kiss on your lips. It's forceful and rather painful, but it clears your head. When she retreats, Alice's eyes are misty, too.\n\n\"Tom, I love you, but what you're saying is insane. All this will be for nothing if you're dead!\"\n\nShe's right. Of course she's right. She always is. You drop the knife.\n\n\"We'll make it through this, okay?\" she smiles warmly. You grab your backpack and both of you head through the northern gate towards the forrest. The cows are grazing. You forgot to feed the geese yesterday.\n\nNot that it matters now. When you reach the forrest path, your house, your barn, 5 years worth of your sweat, blood and tears, 5 years of your life with Alice are bright ablaze.", "The nights pass quicker and quicker. I can remember myself as a kid rolling from bed at 10AM, 11AM on the weekends. Now, I blink and it's time for work.\n\nThis morning, Jess' phone goes off to the tune of the Motherfucking Motherfucking Bosstones for her early shift. She knows damn well that I hate ska, but she's still pissed at me for bailing on dinner with her mother. After seven years of marriage we're finally getting into the petty revenge stage. That's alright, she'll unknowingly be drinking decaff today.\n\nThe only good thing about going into the office this early in the morning is the lack of traffic. That's literally the only thing that stops me from walking past my desk and straight to my manager's office to tell him that this \"change for productivity\" in start times was the worst idea since decaff coffee. That, and my desire to keep a paycheck. This early in the morning, I take what I can get.\n\nI stop at my desk as usual, teetering on the brink of consciousness, and boot up my workstation. The aging computer takes as long to wake up as I do, but eventually the all-too-happy chime plays and the emails begin to pour in. Requests to sit in on meetings that have no relevance. Lists of lists of things that need to be done - chief among them is updating the lists. And then, the atom bomb.\n\nThe ISO crammed their update through ahead of schedule. We'd just managed to bring ourselves into compliance with the *last* one a month ago.\n\nGod damn it.", "Arelimiah was snatched from his delirious reverie as the shrill bray of brass horns wafted to his ears on a hot, arid breeze. He struggled to open his heavy eyelids, and he was greeted by a vivid sailor’s sky, above, as consciousness solidified. Another horn blast assailed his ears. A dull *thud* resonated in his chest. Again. And again. \n\nThud. Thud. Thud.\n\n*Drums*, he thought, *battle drums*.\n\nSmall pebbles and sand danced around his body to the rhythm of the drums. A fanfare of horns sounded again—the increasing eagerness of the note readily apparent as though the horns were counting down to something. Miah strained to make his body respond to his mind’s requests. Reluctantly, his toes wiggled. His fingers clutched. His arms and legs flexed. He turned his head, toward the setting sun—toward the direction of the drums and the horns—to try and determine the source of the din. His breath caught at what he saw. Across the long, black field of volcanic sand, on the horizon, atop a subtle ridge a mere quarter-league away, stood a long line of men. An army of men. At either end, the line of men was punctuated by cavalry. Muscular, black warhorses stomped their hooves and tossed their heads, whipped to near frenzy by the horns and drums. Helmed riders sat motionless atop their steeds, clad in black armor, gleaming black lances presented at identical angles. Companies of pikemen, swordsmen, and crossbowmen—also clad in black—made up the army in between. At regular intervals, standards sprouted from the line of soldiers, and on those standards hung diaphanous blue banners, rippling and snapping in the wind. In the top left corner of every banner was an ivory crescent moon. He knew these banners. They were the banners of the Eternal Lord Emperor’s legions. \n\nMemory suddenly blossomed in Arelimiah’s mind. He recalled that he was prone to fainting spells, of late, as a side effect of the…changes…that he had recently undergone. He struggled to his feet, strength slowly returning, and turned to look in the opposite direction of the looming, black army in the distance. There, he saw a weary, ragged looking group of onlookers. Worried looks painted their faces. They looked as though their remaining hope was as feeble as a candle flame guttering in the wind. Some wore leather jerkins; some just rags. Some had plowshare swords; some had makeshift halberds. These people were his army. These people, the disenfranchised, the used, the discarded, were *his* people. Arelimiah straightened as his strength returned, redoubled by the sight of his followers. He felt a power surging through him, and he took on a luminescent aura. One by one, his followers knelt, and Miah felt a pang in his heart.\n\n“Kneel not for me,” Miah said, gently, yet somehow loudly. “I am not your lord. I am not your master.”\n\nBut they remained knelt. They would not meet his gaze. These people had been beaten down for so long, they instinctively wilted before those they thought their betters. Miah went forth, took an older man by his shoulders, and stood him up. He did the same with a boy next to him. Gradually, his followers rose. Miah stepped back.\n\n“Those men across this field,” Miah said, gesturing to the army in black, “would have you kneel and even prostrate yourselves before them. But I am not those men. They are the dusk; I am the dawn. They crush and oppress; I raise up and set free. They lead lavish lives at the expense of your suffering. They have ridden, for generations, upon your backs to the top of the mount. Well today, we carry them one last time! Today, we carry their palls to their graves!”\n\nAs he finished, Miah saw worry and defeat replaced by alacrity and fervor on the faces of his followers. Men beat swords against shields and butts of spears against the ground. Behind, the drums suddenly ceased, and one last, long horn blast pierced the air. Miah turned toward the enemy force as it stepped forward, as one.\n\n“Formations,” Miah said, with a flourish of his hand.\n\nAt his command, Miah’s army formed into a semblance of a phalanx formation—shields forming a long wall, bristling with spears, halberds, swords, and even pitchforks. Miah stood alone at the front of the formation, blonde hair tossing in the wind, blue eyes glowing. Sweat beaded on his brow, and his outward calm belied the torrent of power raging inside of him. He closed his eyes, concentrating to bleed-off just enough power to keep him from bursting. His luminescence became brighter. He knelt, grasping a handful of the volcanic sand beneath his sandaled feet. Rubbing it between his hands, he murmured a quick prayer as the enemy army closed the distance. Miah stood—unarmed and clad only in a seamless, belted white tunic—and faced his men once more. \n\n“Whether by death or victory,” Miah said, gravely, “upon the sun’s next rising, we shall be free.”\n\nWith that, Miah turned back toward the advancing army, just in time to hear a thousand bowstrings *snap* in unison, sending a flurry of arrows his way like a murder of crows or a swarm of wasps. The black arrows momentarily eclipsed the blood-red sun as they rose, and it was almost beautiful. The arrows seemed to pause for a moment at their apex, and then they dove toward the earth—toward Miah and his men. He could not see his men behind him, but he could *feel* them. He could feel everything. As the arrows neared, Miah lashed out with the power inside of him. Time seemed to slow. The air seemed to warp. Arrows dove short and sailed long of their targets, pushed and drawn by some unseen force. They somehow seemed to maintain their arcs while, at the same time, being diverted, like watching them pass behind a bulbous piece of glass. Not a single arrow struck true—the entire volley had planted around Miah’s force like a garden of black weeds. Just a javelin-throw away, the enemy army halted, feet stamping-to in one punctual, metallic thump. \n\n*They’re making us attack*, Miah thought, *They always do*.\n\nIt was easier to defend, especially when heavily armored and armed, than it was to be on the offensive. By advancing and then stopping, the enemy army would force the issue. They would be the rocks, and Miah’s men would break on them like waves. Or so they planned.\n\n*So be it*, Miah thought.\n\nWithout so much as a warning, Miah sprang toward the enemy force in a sprint. After the slightest hesitation, his men followed suit, bellowing warcries to bolster their confidence. Miah neared the opposing army, eyes burning bright, a slight smile on his face. He let forth a trickle of the power he held, diverting and tuning it just so. Black sand swirled up in two vortices toward his outstretched hands. The sand began glowing red-hot and coalescing in fiery globs. Those globs resolved into shapes, and the glow winked out, revealing two lustrous, obsidian scimitars which Miah snatched from the air. He was closed enough to see the eyes of the men in the enemy army, and what he saw there broadened his smile. Fear. Pure, primal fear at the spectacle they had just witnessed adorned their faces as plain as the crescents on their banners. \n\nJust before colliding with the front line, Miah conducted some more of the power inside him. Suddenly, he was as light as a feather. He leapt high—impossibly high—into the air. At the apex of his leap, Miah inverted the flow of his power, and he became heavy as a cart of paving stones as he plummeted toward the middle of the formation below. He struck like a rock from the heavens, obliteration the unfortunate soldier he landed on and forcing the surrounding soldiers back like ripples on a pond. Miah let his weight return to normal, and he conducted a different flow—a circuit, he had come to call it—of the power inside of him. As he did, the world around him seemed to move in slow motion. From the corner of his eye, he saw his men clash with the enemy’s front line as though underwater. He conducted another circuit, a circuit of energy, which gave him the strength of ten men. This combination—slowing time and having godlike strength—was a lethal one. To him, the rest of the world seemed slow and insubstantial. To the onlooker, Miah was a blur. A blur of obsidian and muscle and death.\n\nWithout hesitation Miah began laying about with his razor-edged scimitars. He cut through the enemy ranks like a wire through cheese. Were he went, men died. They stood no chance so long as Miah wielded this power he had so recently been gifted. With meditative calm, Miah danced among the enemy soldiers. In the back of his mind, he monitored his power reserves, and he knew that he could not keep this up forever. Fortunately, he could feel the enemy force straining under the dual onslaught of Miah’s attack from within and his army’s frontal assault. Finally, the enemy force broke and fled. With shouts of terror, the black-clad men ran for their lives to the frantically bleating trumpets in the background. \n\nMiah slumped as the last trickle of the power left his body, like the last grain of sand through an hourglass. Fatigue washed over him, but it felt good. It felt like...accomplishment. I reminded him of the feeling after long hours hauling ropes and nets out on the seas, fishing for food as a boy. It felt like victory. A cheer rose behind him. The men began chanting, “Miah! Miah! Miah!” And for the first time, he felt comfortable in the role fate had chosen for him. He felt at ease at the helm of these men chanting his name as opposed to the discomfort he had felt, all along. He felt that all the lives lost before, and all the lives that would be lost after, would be worth something. As the enemies banners receded over the ridge, retiring with the setting sun, Miah sank to his knees and laughed. There was hope.\n", "\"Shit.\" \nHis red pen scribbled all over some dumbass's worksheet as he fell asleep, and now he awoke with a throbbing headache and seemingly more papers to grade. In the next room he heard the schizophrenic eruptions of a middle school orchestra learning what he could guess was The Star-Spangled Banner. \"Hey, I might not need to hear this ever again\" he thought with a twinge of pain. \n\nToday, he had no students. The state had his students; lined up in perfect rows, hunched over cold ceramic desks, furiously emptying any knowledge from their brain. He knew there wasn't much to empty. Today could be the first day of a new career. He rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger. Each second ticked louder in his mind. He read over the new testing standards one last time, his mind shouting \"FUCK\" every time he thought about what he hadn't done. This was his first class, and he knew he had not done enough. He had trained for years but when he got the chance to teach he let the kids control the classroom, and barely managed to teach them how to find the area of a triangle. For now, he waited in purgatory as the kids let slip the error of his ways. \n\nHe started the day full of nervousness, but now he sat half-grading homework, half-checking the test, fully feeling defeated. He could at least take solace in the fact that he hadn't decorated his desk; his box would be easy to pack. He checked the time, the students had another hour or two. He pretended to grade some more, but he struggled to keep his eyes open; he just wanted to fall into an eternal sleep but the fledgling band managed to keep him just this side of consciousness.\n\nHe sat, half alive for two hours. And then two more. Students had filled his classroom, but he said nothing, did nothing. The students took the opportunity to play flappy birds and chat about who has the largest breasts. But soon the bell rang and they filed out, and still he sat.", "The horn that blared from the south was not a familiar one.\n\nThe enemies did not have horns. The savages moved to the savage screams of their leaders. But it was, at the same time, definitely not the clear trumpets of the Alliance. I gathered up my sword and shield, heading out of my tent with minimal armor. \"Captain,\" I heard from my left. The guard at the post of his tent saluted. \"Who are they?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" I admitted. \"Has the general sent a scout?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, but the scout hasn't returned yet.\" I gritted my teeth. That could mean any of a thousand different things.\n\n\"Make a call for arms, but keep the archers on standby. We need to make sure whether or not they're friendlies before we act.\"\n\n\"Sir.\" The guard hesitated. \"Is it possible the Islanders have answered our pleas?\"\n\nI grunted. \"We don't make pleas, soldier. We are the Alliance. And no, I doubt it. Why would they help us? They are comfortable in the rocks and seas. This war is of no concern to them. The king never should have even sent the convoy of messengers. A waste of resources... and it showed weakness.\" The guard saluted, and gave orders to his own subordinates. They bustled around in the camp, and soon a trumpet call sounded, two short and one long call. It repeated over and over, spreading across to the other camps of the Alliance.\n\nI mounted my horse and rode to a trusted lieutenant. \"Hold the lines, Hart. I'm going to go see the general.\" The lieutenant saluted.\n\nThe general was a large man, layers of hardened muscle coated by layers of soft fat. He resembled a bear, and though I had never seen him in combat, he was rumored to fight like one too. At his hip he wore the traditional legionnaire sword, but he was holding onto his prized bronze club nervously. If he was nervous, so was I. \"Sir,\" I said finally. \"Has the scout reported back yet?\" I looked to the South as I said it. There were silhouettes of standards, but I couldn't see them. Now that they were closer, I could hear the drums. There must have been nearly fifteen thousand of them.\n\n\"Ah, Captain Logar,\" the general said, his voice clearly agitated. \"No. So I sent another one. He is a more experienced scout, and has been instructed to not go within arrow range of the new force. He should be back soon. Good call on getting the men ready, Logar. It seems I hesitated on making the call.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir.\" The captains and the commanders all stood loosely, some of them pacing in the tension.\n\nThen, nearly after half an hour, a rider approached the camp. I could see the colors as that of the Alliance. The scout nearly rolled off the saddle in his hurry to report, and tripped once on the way. His face was clouded in panic. \"Islanders!\" he cried. Islanders?\n\n\"Allies?\" I asked.\n\n\"I was instructed not to approach them, Captain. I do not know. They made no hostile moves against me.\"\n\n\"That tells us nothing,\" I growled. \"If I was their commander I would want to be able to get as close as possible before revealing my hostility.\"\n\n\"Agreed, captain,\" Commander Jace nodded. \"We should prepare for combat.\"\n\n\"No,\" the general said with a grin. \"They are allies, I am sure of it. The arrogant, prissy noblemen of the Islands would never even think to ally with the savages. Prepare to attack the savages, like we planned.\"\n\nThe tent fell silent. \"Sir,\" Jace insisted, \"I don't think we should make any assumptions. They could-\"\n\n\"You have your orders, commander. Move.\" Jace reluctantly saluted\n\nWhile the others moved to obey, I frowned. Something wasn't right. If they were allies, why didn't they send their own messenger? Why did the first scout not return? I asked a fellow captain to send a messenger to my legion, while I rode to the south as fast as I could.\n\nIndeed, they were Islanders. The bearings on the standards were that of a horse and an anchor, and the colors were definitely blue and green. While all the soldiers moved around to obey the general and face the north, I kept watching the south.\n\nThe Islander army stopped at a thousand paces away. They started setting up something, and I squinted to see what it was, before remembering the looking glass at the horse's saddlebag. I took it out quickly and tried to see, but it was still very far.\n\nWere they setting up tents? The structures were wooden, and lots of ropes were being used.\n\nThen they pulled them out.\n\nMassive bolts the size of men, with a sharpened end weighted with glinting iron.\n\nThe infamous espringal ballistae of the Islanders were aiming right at us. I whirled around to warn the others, only to realize that no one was around me. They were all marching to form up at the other side of the base.\n\nThe sky blackened as the massive bolts of ballistae covered the sky.\n\n\n\n\n\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 3, 3 ]

[ "1400159277", "1400164882", "1400186371", "1400163143", "1400164791" ]

[ "Although its been fun by your side \nThis world I just can not abide \nI'm done with this strife \nI've taken my life \nToday I felt brave and just died", "Fuck you all\nand fuck off some more\nyou are cunts\nafter all.\n\nI have loved you all\nwith my soul.\nBut for you\nit was small.\n\nFuck you all\nand i wish you die\nbefore i strangle myself\nwith my tie.\n\nI hope i don't go away\nso I can haunt you if i stay.\nI will be there every night\nwatching you destroy your life.\n\nFuck you all\ni wish you well\na long and prosperous\neternity in hell.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "I can't find rhymes anymore, or fancy words. This world is not worth living anymore. Good bye, take care.", "What is it like,\n\nour last mortal breath?\n\nDoes our life flash before us,\n\nmore vivid now in death?\n\n\n\nDo our senses erupt,\n\nletting us leave in bliss?\n\nOr does darkness creep in,\n\nas we fall into an abyss?\n\nTelling an answer to this\n\nis a task I am sure to fail.\n\nBut maybe nothing changes.\n\nAnd we Simply Just Exhale.", "The fading light above the ocean \ndraws with it the city's commotion, \nbut no matter where I look \nI always return to my sheltered nook. \nI cannot hide from the desolation within, \nbecause of all the sin that has been. \nSomewhere along the journey so distant, \nI have found a meaning - nonexistent. \nWithin this world, so bleak and grey, \nI find myself dreading each coming day. \nAmongst the evening light \nI pray for but a brief respite. \nI know down in my soul \nthat only one thing can make me whole. \nI have but one fleeting desire \nthat from this cruel world I can retire. \nI will ensure that this goes through, \nfor at last... I can say adieu. \n", "For twenty years today I've lain,\nCurled within life's glassy glen,\nWithout a crack of compassion.\nPerhaps this rope will lead to fluttered friends.\nWho've left; perhaps I'll fail again.\nBut - if you choose to miss me, then\nFor both our sakes, pick up my pen.", "Doth betwixt a shattered word \nWhile left alone screams never heard \nParchment askew and lines of plague \nWhat's left of me this note's betrayed \n", "adios\nebb and flow\nenough\ntime to go", "Life once devoted to my one true passion.. Passion, pressure, hobby once, then a chore, became a writing whore staring at this white screen blinking line, nothing comes to mind sat there so much time wasted.. keyboard basted... Once passion now anger, anchored to that chair pulling out my hair. Just wanted fresh air... Wishing somebody could help me revive my once true passion, but nobody could find one ounce of compassion..", "Revert the pain\nRepetetive shame\nOnly me to blame \nDrives me insane\n\nIncapable of love\nThe diseased black dove\nPlant two feet\nPush, pull, and a shove\n\nBeauty is stale\nExcistance is bland\nBreathing in smoke\nQuenching with sand\n\nSo self aware\nI don't fit my head\nI never have lived\nWhy not be dead\n\nA stick in the mud\nI won't be a lie\nI hate this world \nGuess this is goodbye\n\n", "“Follow your dreams,” I once was told, \n“Through pouring rain and bitter cold. \nTry and fall and rise again, \nThat is how you make a man.”\n\n\nAnd what a man I must have been, \nI tried and failed at everything. \nNow I’m left with rope and tree. \nAt least, in this, I shall succeed. \n", "\"A blue so light,\r\rYour eyes so bright,\r\rI hope to see you soon\".", "Death is but a trip\n\nA journey that we all take\n\nAnd now my ship sails.\n", "\nset back everyday.\n taunted.\nconstantly reminded. \nHaunted.\nall thats happened races through my mind.\ni try to rebuild, even when thoughts are crazy\nthe pain creeps and seeps into every facet in a slow bind\nmy path is undefined and hazy\nI hate when i can’t be me, tucked away deep\nstifled so much I just want to sleep.\nit’s hard when being awake is a chore\nWhy did you have to be a whore?\nI can’t even speak like normal\nall my thoughts scattered and informal\nI had to relearn how to act\nwhen you betrayed our pact\nnow when i speak,\npeople look at me like i’m a freak\nweird and frail\nstuck in a mental jail\nwe were happy and going so far\nnow i just want to go to a bar.\ni tuck it away and try and smile\nsomedays i fake it so i can make it\nsometimes i just collapse in a pile\nLife is a long road to take alone.\n", "Una vida sin ti\n-\n\nLa vida duele como el mes\n\nen el que vimos el pasar\n\nDe días y de noches. Sé\n\nQue me vas a extrañar.\n\nContigo no es contigo cuando nunca puedo verte.\n\nCuando el aire trae la lluvia y mis recuerdos vuelan libres.\n\nSiento un dedo, y otro, y otro acariciando mi cabello.\n\nEsos días, Eu, te extraño. Esta vez volveré a verte.\n\n--\nnote: I can't feel my poetry in English, so I leave it in Spanish. Hmm, I'll translate it, but it won't rhyme.\n\nA life without you\n-\n\nLife hurts like the month\n\nin which we saw pass\n\nthe days and nights. I know\n\nThat you will miss me.\n\n\nWith you is not with you when I can never see you.\n\nWhen the air brings the rain and my memories fly free.\n\nI feel a finger, and another, and another caressing my hair.\n\nThose days, Eu, I miss you. This time I'll see you again.", "This product is broken,\n\nIt's been broken for a long time now.\n\nCustomer Support has been inadequate at best.\n\nI am dissatisfied.\n\nI am going to go and speak, directly, with the Supervisor. \n", "I imagine that from the perspective of the:\nbrightest bright\nwhitest white\nlightest light\neverything else is just dark", "It washes up over me,\n\nlike a vengeful sea \n\nemotion of the day\n\nwhich requires a reprieve.\n\n\n\n\nHow can I satiate \n\nsuch a hungry beast?\n\nall that it radiates\n\nis need for a feast\n\n\n\n\nBut I will not be the food,\n\nI’ll not allow this creature to live\n\nin all the ways I could conclude\n\nI will not die captive.\n\n\n\n\nStarving a monster,\n\nand saving a man\n\nMy death will end my pain.\n\n\n\n\nI pray you understand.", "A stranger drooped along our yard \nAsleep but jawing still \nOf susurrant parade routes \nThat dreams had offered real \n\nThe Marshall twirled his copper signs \nThough no one there could read \nPiñatas of the both of us \nHeld hands and bled grass seed \n\nThe band held woodwind odes to you \nAnd backwood hymns for me \nBut nothing for cold distant friends \nHe knew they did not see \n\nThe streets were peppered over twice \nWith winsome lost debris \nRugs and spoons and paper slips \nOf city names unbeen \n\nThe contraband he took with him \nBefore he went his way \nSluiced out of pocket somberly \nAs payment for his stay \n\nSleeves and \nShells and \nFaucet rings \nAnd each were ours someday \n\nBut there was a saying, way back- \nHe moaned then stammered free \nThat a forest needs the fire \nLike the fire needs the tree \n\nAnd though that fire licks apart \nAll leaves curl up towards thee ", "I rhymed words to get into her pants \nI rhymed words to get into her pants \nI rhymed words to get into her pants \nDon't date three women at once " ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 8, 9 ]

[ "1400185520", "1400186818", "1400188940", "1400189540", "1400191101", "1400191381", "1400191390", "1400195118", "1400197046", "1400197817", "1400200388", "1400202807", "1400205576", "1400207545", "1400190640", "1400190725", "1400187118", "1400185864", "1400189006", "1400186388" ]

[ "“You have my word,” he smiled, “I won't harm a single hair on her head. Just give us what we asked for.” \n\nPeter Shalaskaya is a dangerous man. Anyone in the city with even the slightest awareness of our criminal underworld knows that. He is everything I had ever imagined he would like be, hawkish gaze, prematurely gray hair, gaunt frame...everything save for one detail...he bears the countenance of an honest man...well, there are no *truly* honest men in this world, but he appears no more dishonest than anyone else. \n\nWhen a lie is told, the lower half of one's forehead briefly glows dark green. A man's upper forehead is affected by the cumulative lies told over the course of their lifetime...an undercurrent of red that manifests after their first lie is told, deepening into darker and darker crimson with every passing distortion of reality. \n\nYet, here I stand, before a man with far more years than I, looking no more a liar than I am.\n\n“It is not wise to test my patience, Michael.” his tone drops an octave, again, he is honest. \n\nNo time to think. “Here.” I pull the flash drive from my pocket, “Now let her go.” \nWith a smirk, he motions to one of his enforcers who wordlessly shoots my wife through the stomach.\n\n“You...” I don't have time to finish before the back of a pistol lands against my temple. \n\n“See,” he says, clutching her jaw in one or his hands, “Not a hair on her pretty head is out of place.” Another nod to one of his men seals my fate, “Feed him to the dogs...” ", "“Ok, son, turn around and let me see the back.” \n\nHis father brushed a bit of lint from the boy's tuxedo and pulled some wrinkles from the jacket.\n\n“Tell me again why I have to go to the dinner?”\n\n“Well, boy, your mother and I are being honored by the community tonight at a gala award ceremony. Since old Mr. Gunderson died that makes your mother and I officially the last married couple in town. I guess that's kind of big deal so everyone is throwing us a party to celebrate.” \n\n“But why does nobody get married anymore?”\n\n“Well, that has to do with our recent evolution of the lie brow. It's a complicated social issue son. I don't mean to be patronizing, but you are only eight years old. I think you'll understand in a few years and we'll just leave it at that.” \n\nThe boy was not satisfied with this answer but before he could ask more his mother entered the room. Her face was radiant with delight, so rarely did she get to dress up. She twirled around and the skirt of her dress cut the air in spirals around her. “What do you think boys? Do I look fat in this?”\n\nThe man shot his son a quick glance that said 'do not answer that'. He pulled from his back pocket a handkerchief and deftly tied it around his head, obscuring his lie brow. “Darling, you have never looked more amazing.” \n\nShe cocked her head for a moment, then with a huge grin she took her own bandanna and tied it around her head in a similar fashion. “I'm going to finish getting ready. I won't be long.”" ]

[ 2, 2 ]

[ "1400198273", "1400201202" ]

[ "The man awoke in \"his\" cave after his long trek from the small town he passed through. Even though the cave kept out the Sun, it was still mercifully hot in it. A thin layer of sweat and dirt grime covered every inch of him and his ragged clothes, but he didn't care. All he wanted to do was keep running before the authorities caught up to him. He had to keep going. He knew he had to keep going, but even so he didn't believe he could anymore. The man was once religious, but not anymore. That had fallen through years ago, but in this moment he decided to ask Him, \"Why have you forsaken me?\". As if on command, the sands of the cave started to convulse and swirl and align themselves into a shape of a man. When the sands finally stopped before the homeless man stood a tall man with beard and hair as white as his robe. It was God.\n\"You have asked me why I have forsaken you, yes?\" said God. The man took a few moments to compose himself and said, \"Are-are you-Him or-am I dreaming?\". \n\"You are not dreaming and neither have you answered my question. Did you or did you not ask me if I had forsaken you?\" God said in reverent tones. Gaining a new found confidence, the man said, \"Yes. I did ask you. I once was a valuable servant to you and just because I don't follow you you have damned me to this hell!\"\n\"As you should recall you damned yourself.\" God said, unflinching.\n\"You lied to me!\" the man yelled. \"Wasn't it you who said, 'Ask ye shall receive?'. Well I ask of you now to end this damnation you have cast upon me!\" he shouted.\n\"Ask and ye shall receive. Very well. I will grant you your wish, though it may not be quite what you expected. Goodbye Lucifer.\" and with a flick of the wrist the man and God were gone.", "Charles sat there, his home, all four walls of it, tightly snug around him. It was really convenient actually, a house, a blanket, and if he ever got a new house he could just fold in the flaps and carry things in it. But Charles sat there, for what seemed like ages, a tin cup in front of him and every once in awhile he'd hear that familiar 'clink' as a piece of metal hit the bottom. It was rare though, that sound, people generally held onto a penny in their pocket as if it was a golden ticket to the Chocolate Factory.\n\nBut Charles still sat there, through the blistering heat, the chilling cold, the beatings of drunks, all of it. Charles sat there, just watching humanity. When he was younger, back before his beard and hair grew out to the length they were now, hell, back before he was even able to grow the hairs on his face, Charles had faith in the world. He didn't see humanity as evil, as wicked, as this group of people who tortured one another to get ahead in life before their inevitable death. People weren't evil by nature, only the worst of them seemed to gather the attention. After all, gore sells papers and gets viewers.\n\nNow though, Charles laid there, his knees buried into his chest as he tried to cover up his head with his hands. The beating happened nearly every week, at around the same time actually. The drunks would get out of the bar and come by his stoop, and they'd just be angry about something. Tonight it seemed to be about one of the men's hormones being on high and not finding any girl with low self esteem to take home with him.\n\nSuddenly, it all stopped. There was a flash of white light and Charles felt this immense warmth that came from behind a door that he had appeared in front of. His hand reached out and slowly he moved his dirt covered hands through the intricate linework, but when he got to the handle, he realized that there wasn't one. Instead the door just opened on its own, and the wramth behind the door got even stronger. \n\n\"Ah, Sephaman, I'm glad to see you. It's been far to long, about 32 years right?\" a voice sounded from around Charles. He couldn't place where the noise came from, it felt like it surrounded him and held him in place, but there was still a mystery as to whether or not it existedor was just in his mind.\n\n\"My...I'm not this...Stephen, my name is Charles\" the man said, his arms slowly being covered by the rigid goosebumps. \n\n\"No, you just think that that's your name. Your name is Sephaman, how awful would it be for me to forget the name that I gave one of my sons?\" There it was again, the voice that came from everywhere and nowhere at once. \n\n\"Your sons? I'm an only child, my parents died, or they may as well have\" \n\n\"Oh no, those were just your siblings who took care of you and brought you into this world. I am your Father, as I am everyone's true Father. At least, that's what I'm pretty sure I wrote into those books that float around back there. I'm a best selling author don't you know?\" \n\n\"Books? Father? Who...who are you?\" \n\n\"I'm the Alpha and the Omega, I'm the Divine Ruler, I'm Zeus, I'm Odin, I'm Allah, I'm God, I'm everything and nothing all at once. However I do prefer to just be called Jay, it's similar tothe name I had when I went to Earth last.\" \n\nCharles, upon hearing the voice again, swore that he felt tears rolling down his cheeks, washing away the dirt that encrusted his skin. He looked around him, his mind confused as to what all was happening.\n\n\"God?\"\n\n\"I said my son, call me Jay\" \n\n\"Why am I here? Am...am I a prophet?\" Charles asked, hoping and praying that there was something behind why he was called to this room, as to why this voice was here. But as he asked these questions a pair of shoes appeared on the ground he was staring at. As he looked up he saw a pair of sweatpants and what appeared to be a New England Patriots hoodie. But as he tried to make out the face all he saw was something to the side, unable to focus on the actual figure in front of him. \n\n\"A prophet? Heavens no. You're dead Charles, those men down there, they broke your sternum which pierced a few organs and you bled out in the street. People walked by as you were laying there but most just assumed it was a drug overdose or something. One person stopped, but that was only to grab your tin can so they could get a little bit of profit out of your death.\" The man's lips were moving, or Charles thought they were at least, but the voice seemed to still be coming from everywhere at once. \n\n\"Then...why am I here? If I'm dead why am I alone here? Where are the gates? Where's the angels? The line? Where is everything?\" Charles asked, his confusion growing only faster. \n\n\"Oh? You want heaven? Well, maybe some day I can fulfill that wish. But you won't be going there now, none of you humans are going there. You can't have paradise when the only people there ruin the gift of the planet they were on, kill each other for power and animals for fun. You're a mess, the whole lot of you, why would I let you in?\" Jay asked as he turned and yawned.\n\n\"Then...why are you talking to me? Why did you choose to speak to me?\" Charles asked as Jay laughed and shrugged, \"I was bored waiting on my meeting. There is someone who is arriving soon that I'll be taking back to Heaven with me.\" \n\nAnd as those words were uttered, Charles heard the door opening and in walked a Golden Retriever, it's collar and leash already attached. The man tilted his head, confused as Jay picked up the leash and began to walk away. The ground underneath of Charles began to crumble as he asked that oh so important question. \n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Haven't you heard? All Dogs go to Heaven.\"", "Peter coughed into his sleeve, a reflex from when manners mattered. That was a *long* time ago though. Now nobody gave a shit what he did and he didn't give a shit right back to them. \n\nAll that mattered was his bottle and it was nearly empty and that was bad. \n\n\"Excuse me.\" Peter looked up at the voice. It was some guy. Just a regular old guy. He couldn't pick him out of a crowd if he was sober and trying. Peter assumed he was talking to someone else even though the alley was empty. \n\n\"Peter I am talking to you,\" the man said. Peter grunted in drunken assent then realized something was just a bit off. \n\n\"How du know m'name?\" he slurred out. \n\n\"I know everyone's name,\" the man said, \"That's not important right now. Come. Sit with me.\" \n\n\"Don wanna,\" Peter said shuffling further down the alley. He had to get a new bottle before the current one ran out. \n\n\"Then we will have to walk then,\" the man said. Peter ignored him for what felt like a good long while, which in reality was perhaps eight seconds. He lifted the bottle up and found the top covered by a hand. \n\n\"No Peter,\" the man said gently, \"I am talking to you and you will not drink. I need you to sober up some.\" \n\n\"Don wanna,\" Peter slurred. \n\n\"That's too bad Peter,\" the man said, gently taking the bottle. Any protest died once it was gone. He wasn't exactly sure why. \n\n\"Where are you Peter?\" the man asked. Peter blinked. \n\n\"Alley,\" he said. \n\n\"And where is the alley?\" the man said. \n\n\"City,\" Peter replied. \n\n\"Which city?\" the man asked, \"there's more than one.\" \n\n\"New York,\" Peter said spouting the first thing that came to his mind. \n\n\"Not quite,\" the man said, \"try again. Think more...midwestern.\"\n\n\"Ch cago,\" Peter grunted. That answer sounded more correct actually.\n\n\"Very good Peter,\" the man said, \"now why don't we sit down on this curb in Chicago?\" Put that way the offer sounded more tempting. He sat next to the stranger. The stranger took off his hat and set it next to him. Peter eyed it, thinking he could sell it and get more money for more bottles. \n\n\"No Peter,\" the man said, \"this is mine you cannot take it.\" \n\n\"Says who?\" Peter challenged childishly. \n\n\"Says me,\" the man said. \n\n\"Who're you?\" Peter asked. \n\n\"I have so many names,\" the man said, \"go on and pick one. It won't matter which.\" \n\n\"...Asshole,\" Peter grumbled. \n\n\"One of my personal favorites,\" the man said, \"Alright then Peter, why were you in the alley?\"\n\n\"'Cause it's home,\" Peter said. \n\n\"No it isn't,\" the Asshole said, \"I thought home was with Carrie.\"\n\n\"Kicked me out,\" Peter said. \n\n\"No Ellen kicked you out,\" the man said, \"Carrie took you back and then Ellen made you leave. Why?\"\n\n\"Bitches,\" Peter grumbled. \n\n\"No,\" the Asshole said, \"Carrie loves you. She's always loved you and she always will. She made a promise that she would. Ellen loves her sister. She can't stand to see you get drunk and start cursing her out. Carrie doesn't either, but she loves you enough to try and overlook it, even as it causes her pain.\" Peter wanted to disagree, but he knew this man was right. \n\n\"You been with Carrie?\" Peter asked. \n\n\"Not like that,\" the man said, \"A lot of people ask me for help and Carrie is no exception. Oh...and if I do manage to help you please don't mention me to her. I'd prefer to live without the praise. I get enough as it is.\" Peter grunted an assent. \n\n\"So...here's the big question,\" the man said, \"why did Ellen kick you out?\"\n\n\"I drink some,\" Peter said. It reminded him of his bottle and he reached for it. \n\n\"No Peter,\" the man said pulling it away. Peter grumbled and sat back. \n\n\"I drink,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes, you drink a lot,\" the man said, \"and now drinking is all you have left.\" Peter grunted again and stretched his legs out. \n\n\"Why do you drink Peter?\" the man asked. \n\n\"S'easy,\" Peter said. That's right. That bitch Ellen called him a drunken coward when she slammed the door in his face. \n\n\"Nobody's perfect Peter,\" the man said, \"I didn't want anyone to be. If everything was happy and perfect...what meaning is there?\" \n\n\"Asshole,\" Peter muttered. \n\n\"I am,\" the man said, \"but I still love all of you. Even the drunken ones. Carrie still loves you too. You used her.\" Peter nodded. \n\n\"She'd take you back if you asked, but you're not going to,\" the man said, \"you want to go back sober, prove that you're not a coward.\" Peter nodded. \n\n\"S'hard,\" he mumbled. \n\n\"I know it is,\" the man said, patting Peter's back. \n\n\"People make mistakes,\" the man said, \"I do too, but people chose not to notice them. Someone once wrote that I made people out of my own image. I added the imperfections too, remember.\" He held up the bottle and emptied it on the concrete. \n\n\"Hey!\" Peter growled. \n\n\"I want you to try Peter,\" the man said, \"That's all I wanted anyone to do. Just try.\" Peter's snarl faded as the stranger's request sounded oddly...doable. \n\n\"You don't have to do it alone,\" the man said, \"there's a nice place up the road. A shelter. If you sober up you can stay. You'll have to walk past the liquor store to get there, but I know that you can do it if you really want it.\" The man stood up replacing his nice hat. \n\n\"Think about it Peter,\" the man said, \"I'll see you around.\" For a few minutes Peter wondered about who the man was. It struck him only briefly that it might have been...but no that's ridiculous. Slowly the incident faded and Peter no longer remembered who he was talking to. \n\nHe got to his feet, stretched out his back and started down the road that had the closest liquor store. \n\nAnd the shelter. ", "\"You are there,\" the man's words echoed through the reaches of his psyche. Even the bone chill of an empty, hopeless night could not cut through the beacon that somewhere beyond the blind eye and forgetfulness of humanity someone cared.\n\n\"You are there, aren't you?\" He spoke again. Through weak eyes, the streetlamp's dim yellow light cascaded over cement and across asphalt, tracing the outline of a thousand manufactured edges. In his dark corner, hidden from the judgment of those unable to fathom a jagged and broken existence, he traced the road before him he'd seen a thousand times, and waited.\n\nFrom outside his vision a silhouette formed with increasing clarity. Against the backlit landscape the humbleness of a proffered figure appeared.\n\n\"I am here,\" the figure whispered. The voice came as clear and vibrant as the boardwalk music the man had walked to ages ago with his then newlywed wife - a place of hope and warmth and joy. A place too, far, far from reach. \"Why is it you call on me?\"\n\nThe man replied, \"It is these nights, the ones that haunt me, wherein I remember a time long, long ago. Flashes of peace and happiness, of family and work, grace my memories, but fleeting. Their ephemerality serves only as a sad reminder of this sordid state of affairs and sometimes I do not know if the memories are real or just the desperate grasping of a shattered mind.\"\n\nThe figure smiled and bent over the man. \"You are more beautiful than you know. In your destitution there is honesty, a life that has seen the innocence of day and the horror of night. Perhaps what images grace your mind are the threads of a message. If you could read them, what might they tell?\"\n\n\"They would mock me saying the caress of a wife, the aspirations of a youth, the hope of a bright future is all but empty. The fall from grace is hard and swift and once it is done, looking up the cliff face from whence one has come is the inference of an all but impossible climb.\"\n\n\"And yet, can your memories - the images of care, affection, and promise - be the bridge between these craggy depths and the place you might one day return?\"\n\nThe man turned away and bowed his head. As vivid as the memory of time spent with his youthful wife and prospect of a family materialized, so too did the memory of her passing wash across him. Despairing, the man thought for a moment, then craned his neck once more to speak again. \"God? What can you know of loss? You are here for me, granted, but I cannot imagine what you must think when you see a man like me. When the world takes away those things which are most important and takes no pity on your subsequent failures, do you truly understand what it is to be lost?\"\n\nThe figure smiled back at the man who now shivered in the sharp midnight winds. Reaching down, the figure placed a soft hand across his stubbled face and for a moment the flowery scent of his late wife graced the man's senses. For a moment in time the two shared their close distance, a connection of two bodies the man had not felt for an immeasurable time. Unaware, the warmth of tears began to run at the sides of his cheeks.\n\nAs the figure rose to leave, the man spoke through a choked and vaulted voice, \"I- I am sorry. When... when will I see you next?\"\n\nIn the light, which now broke across her face, the ethereal visage of his wife turned and looked with warm eyes. \"I will always be with you my love. Be strong and go on.\"", "\"Joseph. Joseph, wake up.\"\n\nJoe stirs awake, but his eyes are having trouble shaking his sleepiness. A few lights dimly brighten the street, but other than that, it is pitch dark. Joe wants to sit up, but it is freezing, and the warmth of his wool blanket is too comforting. \n\n*italics* Maybe I am just hearing things.\n\nJoe turns on his side so that his sore back has some rest. He is about to fall back asleep when he hears the voice again.\n\n\"Joseph, wake from the night. It is God, here to speak with you.\"\n\nThis time Joe jumps awake, surveying the area around him. Even though it is dark, Joe can tell he is alone, at least outside of his mind. The thought puzzles Joe.\n\n*italics* Do I really believe that God is trying to speak with me?\n\nJoe doesn't try to go back to sleep, but he just sits there, pulling his blanket up to his chin. \n\n\"JOSEPH!\"\n\nThere is no denying it this time. Joe heard it, and it was definitely coming from within his mind.\n\n\"What? No one calls me Joseph, anymore. Not since my parents... Anyways, I don't believe in God.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Well, I'm probably dreaming, but even if I'm not, why talk to me? I'm nobody. No one cares about me, why should you? You haven't helped me before.\"\n\n\"To tell you the truth, I don't interact with this world any more than I need to. Heaven, that is where I reside, and that is what I take care of. I only come down here to talk to you mortals every once in awhile. It keeps me grounded.\"\n\n\"So, you're only here to talk to me? Why not help people? I don't mean me. I'm here because of what I have done, and I accept that, but why not help those that are truly suffering? Children with cancer, women that are kidnapped and raped everyday; why can't you be there for them?\"\n\n\"You know, you can't beat yourself up too much for what you did. I cannot say that your Father deserved it, but he deserved no better. It is just too bad that your soul has to suffer for what that man did, but you still have time to atone, and at least get another chance. As for why I chose to talk to you, I didn't. You just got the luck of the draw, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Why should I get another chance? What about children that die at birth or die way too early in life? Do they get a second chance?\"\n\n\"Of course. You see, this mortal life, is just the womb, where children are born into the afterlife. Some make it, some are stillborn and sent to hell. While others that are morally ambiguous, such as those children, or people that have atoned for their sins, reborn as eggs until they finally reach a verdict.\"\n\n\"So, I can be reborn again? Have another life?\"\n\n\"Sure, just get to the point where you have done as much good as you have done bad.\"\n\n\"I will, but why keep this a secret, why don't you let the whole world know at once?\"\n\n\"To tell you the truth, I've tried that, but too many people refuse to believe. Think they are crazy, think others are crazy; it just does more harm than good.\"\n\n\"I see... but you still have not answered my question. Why can't you end all of the suffering?\"\n\n\"Free will. Yes, I know it's a cheap answer, and I know that maybe, after they made the wrong choice, I could stop them, but no. There are so many worlds, each filled with billions of beings. There is no way I could change all of that. Heaven would be in complete disarray, and the afterlife is what is most important. To be honest, and hopefully I do not offend you, but the universe is billions of years old, and the afterlife is infinite, so each life is not even a blip on the timescale. I just don't have the time, plus, as I said earlier, everyone gets their chance.\"\n\nAll of the information is swarming through Joe's mind, bogging him down. He doesn't want to forget anything.\n\n\"One last question. What can I do to make the biggest impact in this world?\"\n\n\"It's the small things. Yes, Bill Gates does save many lives, but not one person can solve all of the world's problems. Mainly, try to make yourself happy, and you will see how such a positive outlook will affect everyone around you.\"\n\nJoe smiles.\n\n\"Thank you, God. Is there anything I can do for you?\"\n\n\"Just say hi to me in your prayers. It will be a much needed variance from all of the requests I get every night. Good night, Joseph. This has been a very enlightening conversation. I hope to see you in heaven one day.\"\n\nAnd just like that, God is gone. Despite the freezing cold, the uncomfortable concrete beneath him, and the aches in his body, Joe never slept so well in his life. ", "His eyes opened slowly as he reached for them with his tattered gloves. He rubbed them until the world around him became clear. It was a long night, not because of the cold and hard alley floor he was sleeping on but because of the light drizzle that continually awoke him from his one release of the world: sleep. \nHe looked across the street and saw 2 lovers walk hand in hand into the coffee shop where they always started their day before separating and enjoying their perfect lives. He used to have a life like that until the warehouse closed. \nBottle after bottle fell to the grungy carpet in his 1 bedroom apartment. This cycle continued until he could no longer afford the sweet whiskey and soon after his whiskey money ran dry he could not afford the apartment he had been in for 28 years. \nHe came home one day to find his belongings on the street corner. The landlord had warned him that if he fell more than 3 months behind on rent then he will be \"forcibly evicted\". As his world unraveled he became less worried about what he owned so he left his belongings on the street corner and wandered into the city; one that he had been told had potential. \nHe soon found his way to a homeless shelter for a fresh start but was kicked out due to smuggling drugs in after he failed to find a job. It is difficult to find a job that needed his \"outdated skills\" as the interviewer so elegantly told him. \nAfter he was rejected by every interviewer and banned from every shelter he slowly gave up hope on the world. He wanted to forget everything and the simplest way to accomplish this task is an easy one. He jumped off the city bridge into the river. The impact knocked him out and when he awoke he was in a village of tents near the riverside. There were others who looked like they had been kicked out of their apartments for far longer than himself so he decided to call this place his new home. \nThose days were good until the city cracked down on \"illegal zoning\". Forced to migrate he found an alley where he met a few people; some crazy and some \"normal\", whatever that means to you. Anyways, times get even rougher when winter came around and he barely survived. Many people died but he didn't. He knew there was something out there, something to live for. \nThe spring rain is all he is concerned about right now. During the night he shivers away any sustenance he gained during the day and then he would wake up and do it all over. The conditions weren't ideal but he was alive and that's all that concerned him. \nA few weeks of living like this gets him motivated. Boredom from sobriety seeps in and he decides that he wants to turn to knowledge. Not having a dime to his name made this a difficult accomplishment. The library kicked him out for being a 'detriment to society' and he had no family to turn to. As he was walking down his least favorite street, which he named 'Lover's Lane', he saw a book store with dark shades over the windows and enough people entering and exiting for him to go unnoticed. \nHe slipped into the front door as innocuously as he could and made his way to the back of the store. He wanted a book. Any book. He gazed up to the top shelf and saw a leather-bound novel whose title had been worn off over the years. He continued to stare at the spine and be began to feel a connection with this mysterious text. He reached for the novel and felt its smoothness as he brought it to his hip. He turned around and made his way through the crowd. \nOnce he was outside he held the brown, leather book in front of him and admired his prize. The sun was shining and he felt happy for the first time that he could remember. The warmth of the sun held him in its embrace and he smiled towards his new companion that will join him in the alley. \nHe turned around and saw a man sprinting out of the book store, surely he owned the establishment and was not a man to give anything away. He was a thin elderly man with a sunken in face. He sprinted towards the homeless man and, on instinct, the homeless man ran back towards the only place he could call home: his cold, dark alley. \nThe bookstore owner chased after him and, as the homeless man got closer to the alley, the owner got closer to the man. They both ended their journey in the alley. Both men were out of breathe and were bent over with their hands on their knees. The owner reached for the book but the homeless man pulled it away. The owner lunged for the man but he moved and the owner fell past the homeless man. \nThe owner stood up and tackled the homeless man into the corner of the garbage can where the man had found so many half empty coffee cups. So many prizes of food and drink that allowed him to flourish among his fellow alley lurkers. The homeless man began to bleed profusely as the owner took the prize from the battle: the Holy Bible made its way back to the bookstore. \nThe homeless man regained composure but in a state which he knew nothing about. He was alone for so long that the amount of stress he put on himself didn't allow him to think clearly. He couldn't see, he couldn't talk, he couldn't hear, but he could feel. \nHis energy floated around him and he could feel the universe embrace him. He knew his life could have been different but that didn't matter now as he felt connected to the universe around him and with each inhalation he understood everything better and better with a sense of clarity that never came to him during those frigid alley nights. \nAs he began to question his life a pulse of energy jolted its way through his body, taking his energy to the edges of the universe. He began to question his meaning for existence and the universe took more of his energy, clearing his mind and giving everything around him more beauty. \nBit by bit his mind became clear and his energy dissipated into the space around him. He inhabited all the colors from every spectrum of the universe as he ended the exchange for his life on the blue planet. He didn't have to think about God, for he slowly became God. The paths of the universe unfolded as all that there ever was revealed itself to him, allowing him to become one with the universe, outside of space and time. Outside of thought. Outside of what there is. Outside of everything, but he became a part of everything. True beauty revealed itself that day he became one with everything. He didn't need to talk. He didn't need to see. He simply needed to not be and then be as the universe and the homeless man became one.", "\"God damn it. It's so hot I'm going to melt and they'll have to scrape me off the pavement with a spatula. The hell with all of this. What's the point?\" He closed his eyes against the sun and when he opened them again everything was bright, so bright. He squinted and put his cardboard sign down on the pavement so he could rub his eyes but they refused to adjust to the light.\n\nWOULD YOU REALLY LIKE TO KNOW? The voice boomed from inside him, outside him, from everywhere. He couldn't tell if it was a man or woman, old or young. It was everything and nothing all at once.\n\n\"What... what?\" He sputtered, digging blindly around in his grimy pockets for his lighter and the half a cigarette he'd found in the ashtray outside the mall. He brought it to his lips and struggled to light it with shaking hands.\n\nWHAT THE POINT IS. YOU ASKED, the voice responded.\n\nThe man thought about it. Scenes of his life so far played out in front of him. The father who went to jail when he was six. The mother who never cared where he was or when he was coming home. Juvie for smashing the windshields of a dozen parked cars. Sleeping on friend's coaches until they got sick of him then moving to the city. Losing his apartment when he spent all his money trying to impress a girl who used it to buy heroin and overdose. His car impounded because he didn't have an address to register it too. His first night on the streets. The headaches. The daily stabbing, burning headaches that robbed him of his senses sometimes so that he could barely speak.\n\nHe sniffled grossly and spit a wad of red phlegm on the sidewalk. \"Yeah, why not. I would like to know the point.\"\n\nME TOO.\n\nHe heard the voice chuckling as it faded and the light dimmed so that he could once again see the pot holes in the street and the rusty lamp posts.\n\n\"Well shit, that was a joke?\" He said aloud as he scratched at his beard, picked something out and flicked it away.\n\nThen it dawned on him, \"Actually that explains a lot.\"", "The homeless man looked into god’s eyes and said, “You don’t look as I would have expected.” \n\nGod tried to hide his amusements by feigning an itch on his upper lip. The smile squeaked through, however; the homeless man may not have lived up to god’s expectations, but he still respected the man and enjoyed his sense of humour. \n\n“No, really. I pictured you to be more … more humanlike. Not exactly as we depict you in most images, sculptures, or paintings. And also not exactly as portrayed by Morgan Freeman in Bruce Almighty. Neither could I see you as looking like a traditional Norse god, nor Buddha, or others. Just … I guess just different.” \n\n“But son, you’ve been speaking with me for years now. Why does my appearance now just begin to become the topic of our conversation?” \n\n“Because it never concerned me. I was going through much bigger things at the time. When we first started speaking, I’d just lost my job. I couldn’t pay the rent. Couldn’t afford new clothes to get an interview. And if I did get an interview, they needed an address. I didn’t have one, so they wouldn’t hire me. You know the story; we’ve been through this all.” The man fought back tears. He wiped his eyes, now beginning to well with tears, with the back of a dirty glove he had found. \n\n“Son, all these years we’ve been speaking, I thought we’d made progress. You found a halfway house that would accept you, even though you didn’t exactly fit the traditional criteria. Now I find you back on the streets. We’d gotten you a job. I helped give you the courage to apply. We celebrated together. I don’t understand why we are back here, back to asking these basic questions. I feel like we are regressing back to a time when you first began speaking with me.” \n\n“I feel lost. That’s why. It just seems like everything was so pointless. I would wake up from the halfway house, to go to work, where I was being paid barely enough to survive. I returned to the halfway house to a bed dirtier than the cardboard I sleep on out here on the streets. That was no life, either! At least out here I have my sanity, I have my thoughts, my peace. My time is mine, and belongs to *nobody*.” \n\n“You see, son, that is where you are wrong. Your time is mine as well, and I can’t strain it enough. We had a plan. You would get a job. Acquire a home with your own kitchen. You’d be able to make food; cook it yourself! By accomplishing your goals, you would utilize me to my full potential! But every time you regress, I get held back from obtaining my ultimate utility!” \n\nAs a mother and child walked by, witnessing the conversation between the homeless man and god, the child looked up to his mother and asked “Mother, why is that man talking to a pasta strainer?” \n", "\"Ayo, God! What's up, dawg?\"\n\n\"I *said* ayo, God! What up?\"\n\nSilence.\n\n\"Man, fuck this motherfucker, man. I'm out here livin' in a garbage can and this motherfucker be up in the clouds like 'Ohh this shit be so comfy.' Motherfucker, answer me!\"\n\nThe rain slowed. The clouds parted. Bright white light shone through the sky to reveal a man. A very *special* man.\n\n\"Hoooly shit! God, what up! What up, God? What's good, man?\"\n\n\"Ayo, it's me Snoop G-O-double-D. What's the dizzle, hizzle?\" \n\n\"Oh, no. Aw, no no no no no. This gotta be some hallucination or some shit.\"\n\n\"Quit trippin', homie. It's me - Snoop G-O-double-D. What can I do you for?\"\n\n\"Well, first of all, get me out of this here garbage can. That would be a nice start.\"\n\nThunder crashes. \n\n\"What the hell, man! All you did was take away the can! Where am I gonna sleep, man?\"\n\nLightning strikes. Nothing appeared... or disappeared for that matter.\n\n\"Now you just showing off!\"\n\nThunder again. A drink shows up in the homeless man's hand.\n\n\"What the fuck? What the fuck is this shit?\"\n\n\"Gin. And juice.\"\n\n\"Now, tell me, God. What the FUCK am I gonna do with this shit?\"\n\n\"Roll down the street. Trust me, homie.\"\n\n\"Trust you! Trust you? Damn, I be callin' your name every night - God! and you ain't never show up. Now you here and you give me a drink and tell me to trust you?\"\n\nLightning again. A joint appears in the homeless man's other hand.\n\n\"That's the bubonic chronic. Smoke up muthafucka!\"\n\n\"God, I ain't never turned down some fucking weed, but you ain't helpin' here!\"\n\n\"If a ni**a get a attitude...\"\n\n\"Aw, here it goes! God, you gonna help me out, or you just gonna keep makin' illogical references to your songs?\"\n\n\"Must I remind you, I'm only here to twist you.\"\n\n\"Doin' a damn good job of it. My whole life twisted motherfucker!\"\n\n\"Pistol whip you, dip you, then flip you.\"\n\nThe homeless man sighed, resigned to the fact that maybe Snoop wasn't God. Maybe God wasn't real. After all, he was pretty hungry. He hadn't eaten in days. It had to be his mind playing tricks on him.\n\n\"Gimme a god damn lighter!\"\n\n\"Now dance to this motherfuckin' music we crip to!\"\n\n\"WHAT?! What music?!\"\n\n\"Subscribe ni**a, get yo issue!\"\n\n\"Snoop, wha-\"\n\n\"Baby, come close. Let me see how you get loose!\"\n\nWith that a cylinder of bright white light came down around the homeless man. His body went limp and he stared at the descending sky, paralyzed, eyes wide open, headed straight for Snoop Dogg's open mouth. He shuddered and entered Snoop's mouth. \n\nFor a moment, he thought he was dead. Maybe he was glad to be dead. Then he heard the music. ", "I sit, so lost, so fucking miserable. The war is always there, red like the slowly setting sun. You think you know everything you old, soulless bastard but never will you know the pangs of upcoming, barely dodged death. Fuck you and your callous games us mortals play. Fuck you for making me love whiskey more than my lovers, more than anything. I know you're there. Say something. Fuck you. I was there and I saw the death you allowed to be perpetuated in your name, in your many names. God, Allah, I know you, you old con-man. Perhaps I sit alone, perhaps I am drunk and certainly I will die soon, it is so very cold after all, this world of ours, but fuck you. Fuck you forever.", "Two men sat on a bus stop, long after the last bus had passed. A grizzled old man in a patched woolen beanie and the remains of a bomber jacket, and a handsome man of indeterminate middle age. His suit was tasteful, well cut without ostentation and the dust of the bus stop did not seem to touch it.\n\n\"I've been living on the streets for almost 20 years now.\" said the older man, offering his new conversation partner a swig from his grimy bottle of scotch. His only answer was a meditative silence.\n\nWith a shrug, he sipped from the bottle and stowed it back in his jacket.\n\"It's not so bad, really. A bunch of us have a sort of camp under the bridge, where the freeway crosses Earle's creek. The salvation army brings soup five days a week. Other days, you can usually panhandle enough to get by, or raid the bins at the back of the supermarket. Oh, and the laundromat will let you do washing for free during their quiet times. Like I said, it's not so bad.\"\n\nThe younger man nodded, but continued to stare into the distance, silent.\n\n\"So h-\" the old man was cut off by the other mans sudden interjection.\n\n\"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU OLD BUM?!\nA YEAR AGO I HAD GODDAMN SERVANTS. *SERVANTS*. I HAD A BEAUTIFUL WIFE. \nA MONTH AGO I COULD STILL MOVE MORE MONEY THAN YOU HAVE EVER SEEN IN YOUR ENTIRE, MISERABLE, *LIFE*.\nLAST NIGHT I SLEPT IN A *CAR*.\nAND NOW I HAVE *NOTHING*.\"\n\nThe younger man's calm facade finally slipped, and the desparate creature beneath stood from the bus stop and rounded to look the old man he was addressing in the face. \n\n\"AND YOU TALK ABOUT CHARITY, AND PANHANDLING, AND EATING FROM FUCKING *BINS* LIKE IT'S MEANT TO BE A *COMFORT*.\nWHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU.\"\n\nThe old man smirked, but his sad eyes prevented the expression from being entirely unkind. \"Don't worry Max, I hear these kinds of trials build character.\"", "“Spare us some change?” \n“Here” \n“Thanks – ey! Waddya call this?” \n“It’s money. Isn’t it?” \n“Int none that I’ve ever seen before. You some kinda foreigner or summink?” \n“Something like that, yes” \n“This int no use ter me anyways, yer might as well ‘ave it back” \n“Could I get you something else?” \n“A ‘ouse would ‘elp” \n“I can get you a house” \n“Like ‘ell yer can. No one would want me livin’ anywhere near ‘em. No one would fink o’ sellin’ me one” \n“Of course I can. I can do anything I want. Where do you want it?” \n“Someplace sunny, near ther seaside or som’ere. Who’d yer fink yer are anyways?” \n“God” \n“Yeah right, pull ther uvver one!” \n“Why shouldn’t I be God?” \n“Ise always thought there weren’t no God. ‘Ow cuddere be, when there’s peoples like me?” \n“I’m trying to help aren’t I? It’s just sometimes I’m not so good at all this. It was fine when we started and there was only the two of you, but how is anyone supposed manage seven billion of you?” \n“I dunno, yer can’t be God. He’s menna know errything, int he?” \n“You’re asking for proof? You humans are all the same, I try my best but all you want is evidence. How am I meant to help out people who need it when everyone else is asking for miracles on a daily basis? I can’t cope with this anymore. I may as well just say ‘fuck it all’ and leave you all to it. No matter how much I try to fix things you just all keep fucking each other over. Look, I give up okay. If one of you thinks you can do a better job then why don’t you have a go.” \n“But int yer menna be all-powerful an’ stuff?” \n“See, I do a few miracles every now and then and you start spreading rumours. No wonder my workload’s been so heavy recently. Why do you have to embellish the truth so much? Aren’t I good enough the way that I really am? Can’t you just be thankful for what you’ve got?” \n“Mebbe if I ‘ad summin’ then I could be fankful fer it. But I don’t. you never did nuffin fer me an’ now I’m menna love yer or summin’. I’m menna worship someone that can’t even do ‘is own job right?” \n“I never wanted you to worship me. I was happy enough without anyone knowing I even existed. This is what you get for trying to help, I suppose.” \n“I guess ah’ll se’tle fer that ‘ouse then. If yer sure yer can cope wiv that?” \n“Okay, a house then. But-” \n“Why’s there always gotta be a but fer?” \n“LISTEN TO ME!” \n“Awright, awright. I’se lisnin’ ter yer” \n“But. I want you to come and work for me.” \n“Wha’?” \n“You heard me. I want you to work for me.” \n“But why? Why’d summon’ like yer wan’ summon’ like me ter werk fer them anyways?” \n“I told you, I can’t cope. You seem to know what’s what. I need an assistant, you need a house. This works out for the best for both of us.” \n“Wa’e’er. I guess ah’ll do it then. Why not? It’s not like yer really God anyways. Yer prolly jus’ sum kinda loony who lahks windin’ up ther ‘obos.” \n“So that’s an agreement then. You’ll work for me and in exchange I’ll create you a nice house by the seaside. Shall we shake on it?” \n“Yeah, yeah. Migh’ aswell. I aint got nuffin’ ter lose ‘ave I? Ah’ll shake on it.” \n“Thank you sir, I’ll see you on Monday then.” \n“Heh, Munday it is then”\n", "\"Hey God?\" asked the clean, well kept homeless man at the coffee shop. People didn't give him much attention. Homeless people talked to no one all the time.\n\nOH GOOD. YOU HAVE DECIDED TO TALK TO ME AGAIN. HAVE YOU ACCEPTED YOUR RESPONSIBILITY? a loud, thunderous voice asked. \n\nThe people at the coffee shop went into a complete panic, covering their ears and falling to the floor.\n\n\"No. It's not that. I just wanted to let you know that there are these abandoned kittens in this parking lot. Would you mind finding homes for them?\"\n\nI KEEP DOING FAVORS FOR YOU, AND YOU KEEP STRINGING ME ALONG!\n\n\"The favors aren't for me,\" said the homeless man. \"Really, you should be doing them anyways.\"\n\nI'M TIRED OF THIS! IT IS YOUR PURPOSE, YOUR REASON FOR BEING, TO LEAD THESE PEOPLE! WHEN WILL YOU DO AS YOU ARE TOLD!?\n\nSome people had fainted, while others had found the courage to run out of the coffee shop. \n\nFrank took a long sip of his morning coffee. \"When I think they're worth leading. When the system isn't rigged in favor of the wicked. When the world stops being such a shitty place. I've told you a thousand times, find someone else. Now, if you don't mind, I have to go do something about those kittens. No one else will. Especially not you.\"\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4 ]

[ "1400271869", "1400272716", "1400272947", "1400273420", "1400274311", "1400276099", "1400276236", "1400282988", "1400287684", "1400281826", "1400284325", "1400271561", "1400270772" ]

[ "**Then,**\n\n*My outer layer changes temperature rapidly, it rises with rapid intensity. The ice that has clung to my body for eons flakes away as I hurtle through the atmosphere that belongs to a strange, blue planet. The layers of ozone do nothing to slow my fall as I smash into the planet with an unrestrained fury. Waves of disruption burst forth, destroying nearby mountains and sending up a cloud of dust that will obscure the planet's sun for centuries.*\n\n*I have been divided a thousand times by the collision, now I lie scattered over the planets surface. From my many parts I see huge creatures die. Some parts witness steaming forest wither and fade, others rest in the depths of briny oceans.*\n\n*Time passes for the planet, but not for me. All perception takes place in the same moment. But I sense the change of temperature, it is how I feel. The planet freezes and thaws many times, new life emerges from cracks in the planet.*\n\n**Now,**\n\nJack Taylor operates the JLG 750-GH1 Earthmover at the Sinora Iron Ore Project and he's working on autopilot. After a few years scraping the earths crust with one of the world's largest machines all the days start to look the same. But the moneys good and he can drink after work. Sinora is one of the few mines that still allow alcohol.\n\nA huge yellow dump truck comes to a stop next to Jack's machine and waits to be loaded. The JLG reaches down to the bottom of the open cast pit and drags forth over a hundred tonnes of the dark red earth. The ore encrusted dirt is dumped into the back of the awaiting truck. It is just one load out of many for Jack that day.\n\nNobody saw the blue glowing stones nestled amongst the oxidising earth. They sat patiently as the truck drove up the spiralling road and out of the mine. At the surface the truck tilts it's huge tray and dumps the ore onto enormous armoured conveyor belts. The machinery here is almost too large to imagine. The workers stay well back from the incredible energy generated by the falling rock, instead operating the machines by remote control. Nobody saw the glowing rock move into the crushers.\n\n~\n\n*It is hot once more. My form is being changed and mixed. My form begins to flow and meld with inert substances from the earth. The dilution does nothing to weaken me, all of my parts are whole. Every atom can feel.*\n\n*Once my form was thousands of times the size of this planet. That was before the heat and fury of creation. All time takes place at once for me, I was used to be one but am now many.* \n\n*My new amalgamation begins to cool. I am something different now, a solid form created by heat and chemistry. This change invigorates me, change is a rare occurrence despite my endless scattered parts.*\n\n~\n\n\"Orders come in here\". The tall supervisor tells the new man. \n\"You sign for the steel billets and have the forklift driver take them to the pressing machine\" The young man nods his head, he distracted by the crates of rifles moving out of conveyor belt to his right.\n\"Are you paying attention boy?\" The supervisor asks angrily. \"If I find you drunk, you're out of here, it's an easy job kid, try not to screw it up.\"\n\nA few minutes later a truck backs in to the loading bay. The young man guides it back unnecessarily. As the sides of the truck are opened the forklift driver unloads the pallets. He takes them to their correct destination without being told, and the driver leaves without a signature. The young man feels dejected and leans against the factory wall. He thinks about the bottle of whisky in his locker and looks anxiously at his watch.\n\n~\n\nInside the factory the steel billets are loaded into the pressing machine. The raw forms begins to take recognisable shapes as they pass through the various machines on the shop floor. Intricate pieces are formed by coercion and heat along the assembly line. Some of the parts are aware of the change, the heat is sensed and felt. \n\nCompleted units slide along a conveyor belt. Some are tested for functionality at random. The rest are carefully packed into crates for transport around the world. The crates are then moved to the loading area to be placed on a waiting fleet of trucks. \n\nThe forklift driver works quickly without being instructed. The young man who should be directing him watches his activity through a milky haze or liquor, he is sluggish and tired. His stumbles through the loading area into the path of a reversing truck. He is dragged into the powerful dual axles of the trailer. Nobody hears his screams, nobody comes to his aid. There will be an investigation.\n\n**Later,**\n\n\"The soldiers will be here tomorrow, get out while you still can!\" The people who pass through the village warn us. They yell with fear about the men who are marching up the valley towards us, killing all in their path. The refugees stumble through the streets quickly, shouting these warnings. I look at their blood stained and burned clothes, I see the wounds. The weak are left behind on the streets, they wail into the night.\n\nMost of my people have left, they fled weeks ago. Only a few of us stayed to defend the village. Those of us who still here have nothing left to loose except our meagre crops and livestock. Long ago my family passed into the afterlife, they left me sad and alone. My own end was coming soon, now I will die for something, for my brothers.\n\nMy rifle is old like I am, but it still fires true. It had belonged to my father before me. He told me of a spirit that lived within it, something that was old and powerful. He spoke of the faint blue glow that it made in the middle of the night, if the air was dry and the season hot. He respected the weapon, and passed it onto me. He could never had know what it was to be used for decades after he gave it to me as a boy. I have cleaned an oiled it for today, although it is still in the same immaculate condition it as when it was given to me all those years ago.\n\nI sit on the roof of my hut and point the sacred rifle to the south. The trees that surround the village give cover to the advancing troops. I hear them shouting and calling to each other in a terrible ancient language. My brothers are on the roofs to my left and right. We are scared.\n\nThe first soldiers break through the underbrush to my front. They wear uniforms caked in dried blood and wear necklaces made from flesh. Some are decorated with human heads and jawbones. I take aim and fire. They begin to fall before me.\n\nThe barrel of my rifle begins to overheat in the battle. I reload and empty magazine after magazine into the advancing hoards, but I don't take cover when I should. A round thumps into my chest and takes the fight out of me. I slump down behind the small rock wall on my roof. I feel the life drain from my body. \n\nAs I lay there bleeding in the hot noonday sun I can hear my brothers on the roofs next to me scream as the soldiers scale their huts. Through my heavy eyelids I see the ghastly shapes of flesh ornamented men crawl towards me like spiders. I lean on my rifle and draw it up under my chin, the barrel burns my neck. \n\nMy last vision is of a soft glowing blue.\n\n~\n\n**Much later,**\n\n\n*My pieces leave this planet now. There is more cold, more heat. Finally there is a searing fire that disrupts the gravity and sends all of my parts back into the cold void. Some retain their new forms, no part of me will ever corrode, no matter how much it is diluted.*\n\n~\n\n**Much, much later,**\n\nThe rifle lays on the shore of the beach, the yellow waves wash over it and recede. The temperature is in the thousands of degrees and the rifle is glowing a deep blue.\n\nSlugs from the yellow ocean wiggle and crawl over the angular blue object. They cannot think but are attracted to the rifle out of some primal instinct.\n\nThe movement catches the eye of winged creature floating on the hot air currents miles above the beach. It has found what it has been looking for.\nIt's mate would be pleased by this strange gift. The creature swoops down out of the hazy red sky and picks the object up in it's powerful talons.\n\nIt turns towards the setting sun, beats it's massive wings to gain altitude and starts back to the nest where it's mate is waiting.\n\n\n\n\n\n~\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "It was the finest pistol man has ever crafted. The birth-child of the designs of John Browning, Kalashnikov, and Saive, it was formulated together by a young gunsmith to create the most fearful, yet functional pistol ever created. Modeled after the legendary M1911 and modern Five-Seven with aspects taken from the AK-47 and FN FAL, it boasted a superior design to all guns before it. Made with high-carbon polypropylene and stainless steel and designed to fire multiple rounds from the same barrel, the handgun fired a multitude of rounds, ranging from the standard 9mm rounds to .50 action express rounds to full sized rifle rounds, at subsonic speeds. Its adaptability was key, and it was no slouch in the maintenance department either, requiring very little care to remain in its prime. Its appearance was sleek, stealthy, and very exquisite. The carvings on the slide represented the wind and the grip displayed the head of a dragon. It looked unassuming, but it was anything but underwhelming. One might even confuse it as alien tech. Only one was ever crafted, and only was ever needed. It was called a multitude of names, but its creator called it \"Fate\". \n\nIts creation was immediately cursed. The moment it was crafted, loan sharks from a massive drug cartel kicked down the door to his house and smashed his belongings. His family was tied up and horrifically tortured as they beckoned his name. The house went up in flames as the gunsmiths face paled. The gunsmith rushed to the loan sharks, gun in hand. However, it was too late for his family. His wife was murdered and his children were disfigured beyond recognition. With anger beyond words, he shot the sharks and made sure to blow them into smithereens. He couldn't live anymore. His lifelong goal, finally accomplished, at the cost of all that he held dear. Abandoning the gun, the young man disappeared. \n\nThe sergeant on the scene was the one who found it. Noticing the only object among the ashes, he picked it up and was immediately taken in by the mysterious, yet beautiful design. He couldn't bare to let the gun become \"evidence\". Hiding the pistol, the sergeant and the rest of the investigation team found no evidence or traces. The case was called off and the pistol was taken in by the cop. He realized just how powerful it was when he tested it out in the firing range. Given massive power, the once just mind of the sergeant corrupted into a violent psychopath killing in the name of \"justice\". He rose through the ranks as his superiors died from \"mysterious accidents\". It was only until a rising detective caught him in the act that the cop revealed his wickedness. It was a difficult fight, but the power of the gun has made the sergeant complacent and cocky, which marked his downfall. The detective picked up the gun and immediately felt its influence. The power was too much to handle, and as such the detective sent the pistol away in a package on a random carrier after arresting the corrupt man.\n\nIt was dropped in the middle of nowhere when a flight attendant noticed the unauthorized package. A guerrilla fighter noticed it as he walked by on his way to battle. The box had deteriorated quite a bit and the woman uncovered the artifact. Like those before her, she was mesmerized by its looks and influence. It became the only weapon she used in her battle. She was the lone survivor of the ambush-gone-wrong, and she realized it wasn't by luck that she lived. She continued to prove her worth, time and time again, until she killed the leader of her faction in a coup. Reigning as the new dictator, she ruled with an iron fist, killing anyone that dared to oppose her. The people rioted several times, but with her leading the charge every time, it was futile. Finally, her own servant killed her by poisoning her meal. The palace she was living in was torn down with the gun hidden in the rubble.\n\nA couple of decades past. The gun only brought misery and greed upon those it met. The same story happened over and over again. In an attempt to destroy the cursed weapon, the pistol's latest owner tossed it into the Pacific, where it floated aimlessly until a grizzled man fished it out by chance. He lived on a deserted island, a self-imposed exile. The gun had shown signs of use, but it appeared to hum faintly in the outcast's hands. This man was different. He knew of its power and he became the master, not the other way around. He knew what it was capable of without even firing it. The grizzled man smiled. \"Hush, your journey is over. I'm sorry you had to experience the dark side of humanity. I know you're saddened. But, now I will show you some kindness. You have earned it.\" The man carried the gun back to his home, where he restored it as best as he could with what he had. He spent the next day preparing a memorial and crying out a well of tears. He gently laid the gun in the hole. \"May you rest in peace Margaret, Samantha, Nick. Goodbye, Fate.\" It was finally allowed to sleep. \n\n\n\n " ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1400297873", "1400290055" ]

[ "*ring ring ring* \n\nI picked up the phone not expecting much. \n\n\"Hello\" I said through the phone.\n\n\"Is this /u/Thief39\" somebody from the other line side asked.\n\n\"This is Peter Jackson, I have seen your work on /r/WritingPrompts and I want you to write a movie\"\nI almost dropped the phone in shock. \nI replied \"What, why me. I mean I barely write on /r/WritingPrompts. Why not pick some of the bigger names and I'm barely 16.\"\n\nPeter Jackson replied, \"I believe you have talent someone just needs you help getting it out.\"\n\nI said \"Fine, when do I start.\"\n\n\"We will send the Plane Tickets immediately. You can be lead creative director for our new X-Men movie.\"\n\nI fainted. \n\n\nEdit: This is one of my first writing prompts so please don't be too harsh. ", "I took the phone away from my ear and started hard at it for a moment, then took the number from the caller ID and put it into Google. Then I put the phone back to my ear.\n\n\"You're kidding.\" Scintillating dialogue, Doc, well done. If that doesn't convince them you're a writer, nothing will.\n\nThe voice on the other end of the phone was enthused and Californian at me.\n\n\"Which post?\"\n\nThere was more enthused Californian. Fortunately, I speak it fluently.\n\n\"Really? Not the one where the Scooby Gang confront Cthulhu? Or...no? Rights issues? Well, I can certainly....\"\n\nThe voice went on at some length. Focus groups had been involved already, apparently.\n\n\"What?\"\n\nHe explained it again.\n\n\"Really?\"\n\nThere was an affirmation.\n\n\"Well, actually, I'm a little shocked. I'm a British amateur writer; I'm puppyishly thankful for the attention of anyone, let alone someone from an actual film production company that has a name I recognize because it has produced movies I have seen and liked. I will most assuredly sign over the rights to whatever you want, and I am beyond delighted that you are interested in my work.\n\n\"As attention starved as I am, however, I'm not stupid. I will sign over the film rights for a percentage of the gross *after* merchandise.\n\n\"Hello?\n\n\"Hello?\n\n\"Ahhh, there you are. After that thud, I thought you might have fainted. \n\n\"Oh. You *did* faint. I'm so terribly sorry. But yes, percentage of the gross. When I see something contractual from you we'll discuss this further. Meantime, I'm off to find myself some legal representation.\"\n\nIs what I WISH I'd said. Oh, if only I'd been compose mentis enough to say that. Thank you so very much *l'esprit d'e-*fucking*-scalier*.\n\nInstead, what I said was \n\n\"Well, actually, I'm a little shocked. I'm a British amateur writer; I'm puppyishly thankful for the attention of anyone, let alone someone from an actual film production company that has a name I recognize because it has produced movies I have seen and liked. I will most assuredly sign over the rights to whatever you want, and I am beyond delighted that you are interested in my work. \n\n\"May I possibly interest you in my service as a screenwriter for this project? No? Oh, I see. Someone in mind. Excellent. Good. Good. Look, I'm really impressed and grateful and I will do practically anything to see this project through.\"\n\nWhich is why I paid for my own flight to L.A., stopped eating for a month in order to afford a place to stay and am now sitting in the office of a movie producer slightly worried that I'll be spending the afternoon on my knees.\n\nAgain.", "\"Kid Peter Black,\" greeted Richie Jay, \"nice to finally meet you.\"\n\n\"I feel the same way,\" Kid Peter Black said, \"You are such a respected producer and director. I loved that movie you put out about the turtle machines that were made in space and sent to earth to destroy the vampire clan.\"\n\n\"It was a vision I had for quite a while,\" Richie Jay smiled. \"The matter at hand. Kid Peter Black, Hollywood is always looking for new stories, really artistic ideas that can shape the world.\"\n\n\"Wow, you know,\" Kid Peter Black stumbled, \"I always wondered if movie studios would try to make my story 'The Myth of Spiro', I thought it could work, adventure trilogy about the battle of wisdom and ignorance, monsters and heroes, good and evil.\"\n\nRichie Jay looked towards his assistant awkwardly and corrected, \"No, Kid Peter Black, this is all about a forum post you made on reddit to 'writing prompts'. I believe you answered a prompt about a 12 year old girl who gets the power to turn into a bird and she uses her new ability to fight werewolves, but ultimately falls in love with the leader of the Werewolf den.\"\n\nPeter Black rubbed his face, \"I have written a bunch of stories about human nature and life and death--\"\n\nRichie Jay interrupted, \"Not interested in any of that, tell us, would you consider writing the screenplay for 'Avian Girl' and how do you feel about making her bisexual?\"\n\n\"How much will you pay me?\"\n\n**edit**" ]

[ 1, 2, 3 ]

[ "1400346664", "1400341637", "1400339139" ]

[ "He couldn't help but laugh at the odometer being froze on 119mph. All he needed was another second to get to 120. 120 was the number he was aiming for. At 120 he was going to take his foot off the gas pedal and slow it back down. He was just tired of Brad saying he drove like an old lady. He just wanted to scare Brad and shut him up. Mission accomplished on both. As soon as I unpause time he thought Brad will be shut up for good.\n\nIt was actually a magnificent moon-lit view he had suspended in a Hummer H3 overlooking the ocean. It was indeed a beautiful night to die. He wasn't even sure what he hit that caused the Hummer to flip off of the Overseas Highway. He saw signs for construction but didn't see any construction. Maybe a car with it's headlights off? He realized it didn't matter much right now.\n\nHe had to figure this out. He had forever to do it. Time is on my side he reassured himself. He was too far away to attempt any kind of leap back on to the bridge. He had no choice but to eventually hit the ocean, a prospect non too appealing to someone who can't swim. He could use the seat as a flotation device but he didn't have any tools to remove his seat. Maybe Brad would be a good flotation device. Dead bodies do float. Brad's not dead though. He knew Brad could swim but how well? Would Brad be a strong enough swimmer to save their lives? Is Brad the hero type? He certainly didn't look the hero part with his eyes wide glazed over with terror and mouth agape. What else? He started checking all around the car for possible things to float on. He noticed a Mountain Dew bottle. He started to drink it. Then realized it was stuck in the bottle. It was suspended in time. Just like the ocean!\n\nHe now had a plan. He'd let the Hummer continue it's freefall and stop it right before it hit the water. He'd then hop out and walk to shore Jesus style. He put his plan into action and stopped time right before hitting the sea. He jumped out and started walking. The longer he walked the greater the sinking feeling he had. The dark ocean water was slowly pulling him in. Every step he took drew him deeper into the salty semi-solid black void.\n\n\n\n", "I can still save myself right. I mean, I can fucking pause time, there ain't shit that can stop me. Least of all a fucking car crash. I'll just push the breaks as soon as it starts and turn sharp left. I'll veer off into the woods and it'll be fine.\n\nThe screech of rubber on asphalt ripped through the air. The smell of burning rubber quickly filled his nose. The car veered to the left off the road towards the forest. \n\nShit! that was not a good idea! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! SHIT!! Of every fucking single idea that could pop into my head I had to chose the one plan that points straight at a fucking tree didn't I. How fast am I going. 90. Well that's some fucking bullshit isn't it.\n\nI should have stayed on the road. The breaks would have slowed me down. It would have hurt but the seat belt would probably have saved me, even if I did black out. I just wish I had a chance to tell Sarah what she means to me. I can hear her laugh. Her blue eyes. What I'd give for one more minute with her. God please, I just want one more chance. I'll be a better person I swear.\n\nI'm not worth it am I. Even with the ability to stop time I'm still worthless. My life was a waste and not a cheap one either. And now Sarah is gonna have to find a way to pay for my funeral. It wasn't worth it.\n\nWell I can't wait here forever. I guess I'm going to have to face it like a man. \n\nThe car returned to motion heading full speed at the tree. The crash of breaking glass and smoke filled the air. \n\nThen silence." ]

[ 3, 5 ]

[ "1400357941", "1400342856" ]

[ "I didn't know what t' make of it. All the cows but one come home every night. Wednesday, it was all of 'em but Old Sally come back to the barn at dark. The night before that, she was in and the black heifer stayed gone. Before that it was another and another- but always, only one cow stayed out. So, I got to thinking, what the heck would make a cow do that? And I can't think of nothing. I been a dairy farmer all my life. You know we never seen nothing like this before. So, I gets my brother and my brother-in-law, and we set out to see just what the heck one cow does at night by herself. So, Ole and me, we picks up Matthias in the truck and then we all go up the logging road just above my back pasture. We kills the lights and the engine and sit there drinking a few beers while we watch the herd. Sure enough, come dark, they start heading to the barn like they're used to. As they're walking on the cow path, I see one of them stop to scratch her ear and suddenly there's this beam of greenish light shooting down from the clouds above. I see my cow get sucked up into the air. I'm sitting there in the truck with my mouth open, and Ole, he starts her up and floors it and starts driving down to the pasture. Matthias is cussin' up a storm cuz he's got beer on his crotch of his pants now, and me - I'm just thinking -what the heck, about my cow.\n\nWe get down there and we get out of the truck to look up at the place where my cow got sucked up into the sky and I see this light coming from a thing that's not an airplane or a helicopter, but something like that, sort of, with a big open bay, and my cow is standing on a gangway sort of thing. She's just standing there looking around. There's these short people all around her - some kind of people, but not really people like us. They were like what all them TV shows say- gray and big headed, with big black eyes; skinny, with kind of a line for a mouth.\n\nAnyhow, I sees them all surrounding my cow and she's looking around at them, and I'm not kidding, they're speaking into a little thing that takes their language and turns it into English, like what we speak. They're all serious and speaking their language with serious looking faces, and the translator thing is asking my cow questions. They ask her about the natural resources and whatnot, the military powers, and the governments- you name it, they are asking my cow. She just keeps looking at them, and finally, she moos a long, low, moo. I can tell she's had enough of this and I'm feeling pretty bad for her. The aliens all start tittering and moving about. To me they look like they're pissed off, sort of. I can hear them all chitter chattering in their language, don't none of it make no sense to me, until one of them happens to stand near the translator device and I hear him say \"It's no use. These soldiers are too well trained to give us any useful information. That's the fifth one to resist interrogation. I think we'd better start with a lesser species - like one of those two legged servants that feeds and cares for this type.\"\n\n", "**IO, YEAR 2072.**\n\n\nDay 1, 01:36 Local Time\n\n*It looked so...pristine. Untouched by life. Untouched by humanity.*\n\nJack thought back to the condition of Earth when he left on this voyage 18 months ago. Climate change had taken a turn for the worse in the last decade, with no end in sight. Once-great cities were now in shambles, decrepit monuments to the history of Mankind. The unification of world governments into \"The Collective\" had stalled things, for a time, but the damage had already been done.\n\nThe Collective government had proposed the Io Initiative, to send scientists (such as himself) to Jupiter's moon in hopes of finding a suitable place to begin relocating humanity. Of course, after the unification, the development of space travel had been placed under control of the newly-formed collective military. They'd made great leaps of innovation, but all in the name of militarizing a new frontier. And now, they were doing just that. \n\nJack was worried. *The military doesn't have a history of leaving things to the civilians,* he thought. *Why do they need weapons, anyways? It's not like there's anything they can shoot at.* \n\nHe heard someone speaking over his in-suit radio. \"This is Colonel Neumann. Non-vital personel, please report to cargo area three to begin unloading.\" The Colonel's voice cut off his train of thought.\n\nDay 5, 17:05 Local Time\n\nWith the unloading completed and basic shelters set up, Jack and the other scientists began their work. As a biologist, Jack suspected he wouldn't have much actual science to do. *If there were life out here, I think we would've found it by now. Or it would have found us, I suppose.* The idea of Alien life was still popular back on Earth, but at all evidence pointed to the contrary. Not one of several hundred flight missions, extraplanetary landers, and the like had resulted in any concrete evidence for the existence of Xenobiology. Still, he could assist the medical staff with any problems they might have.\n\nDay 17, 21: 52 Local Time\n\n\"Look at this.\" The Infrared viewer showed a cluster of bright spots.\n\n\"What's it supposed to be?\" Jack asked. \"We know Io is Volcanically active, why should we be surprised that there's warm stuff on the surface?\"\n\n\"It's not the fact that there's something warm, it's - just keep watching.\" Dr. Miyakazi replied.\n\n\"Okay. Will do.\" The splotches appeared to be moving. \"They're moving. Is that what you're talking about?\"\n\n\"Yes - Yes! Exactly! Don't you understand?\" Dr. Miyakazi sounded ectatic.\n\n\"So, why are they moving?\" Jack questioned.\n\n\"Well, I believe - I know this sounds hopeful, but - I think that might be something living.\"\n\n\"Living? Come on. You know just as well as I do that if there were any life out here, it would've been found years ago on one of the flybys.\"\n\n\"I can't explain it, but there it is. Come on - is it really that unbelievable? That there's some sort of life out here?\"\n\nJack thought to himself. *It's always possible, I suppose, however unlikely.* \"Okay, so let's pretend for a minute that's what it is. what do we do now?\"\n\n\"We'll have to tell the Colonel. You know how he is about people leaving the compound.\" Once again, Jack was nervous. *What if he says no? What if he says* yes *? Which is worse?*\n\nDay 18, 10:33 Local Time\n\n\"Over there!\" Jack quickly turned to the right. Near the center of a crater, two spots on the IR Scanner lit up brightly. When he took out his long-range viewer, he saw two small, greenish-brown \"things\" next to each other. He wasn't sure what to call them. They looked much like apes from earth, save their hue, which matched the color of the surrounding landscape. \n\n\"Bring us around, Sergeant.\" Once again, the Colonel's sharp voice cut through Jack's thoughts. \n\n\"Colonel, we might want to stop further away. We don't want to scare them.\" Dr. Miyakazi suggested.\n\n\"Doctor, please do not tell me how to command my team. Sergeant, bring us in. 100 meters.\" The small transport drove up to the rim of the crater. Colonel Neumann stepped out first and went around to the back.\n\n\"See, Jack, I told you! Alien life!\" Dr. Miyakazi whispered excitedly. She stepped out of the transport, and Jack followed behind. \n\nSuddenly, a loud Crack, then another, from the other side of the vehicle. The two life-forms collapsed onto the ground. \"And that is that. Doctors Miyakazi and Stephenson, please return to the vehicle.\" Colonel Neumann returned to the front of the transport with a rifle in his hand.\n\n\"What the *hell* was that? First contact with alien life, and you decide to *kill* it?\" Dr. Miyakazi shouted. \n\n\"Doctor, my job here is to make sure the Io Initiative proceeds without any disturbances. That includes indigenous life. I don't give a damn about whatever green apes live on this rock, and I won't hesitate to kill any more that I see.\"\n\n\"I can't let you do that, Colonel. This is too important, damn it! don't you understand?\"\n\n\"Doctor, I suggest you return to the vehicle. *Now*.\" He raised the rifle in her direction. His ice-cold voice sent a chill down Jack's spine.\n\nHer eyes widened. \"No! I cannot allow you to just - just *kill* the first living extraterrestrial life that humanity has ever found!\" She took a step forward. Another loud crack, a cry of pain, and her lifeless body tumbled into the crater. \n\n\"And as for you, Doctor Stephenson.\" The rifle was now aimed at Jack. \"You are not to speak of the events of this outing. Doctor Miyakazi tripped over the edge of the crater and tore open her suit during the fall. She suffocated due to lack of oxygen. Is that understood?\"", "I opened my eyes slowly, adjusting to the light as I awoke. \n\n*How did I get here?* The last thing I remembered was wandering alone at night. Bright lights appeared in the sky. Then a white mist descended and surrounded me. Then nothing.\n\nThe room I was in was covered in white and shiny surfaces. The only objects in sight were the bed I was lying in and a large rectangular surface, raised on a platform a little taller than the bed I was on. I stumbled off the bed, and looked at the blank walls around me. Before I could do anything more, a hole opened in the wall behind me and a strange being entered the room. I turned, startled. It didn't look scary exactly, just strange. It started making noises in a low, steady voice - it seemed to be trying to communicate.\n\n\"What do you want from me?\" I asked. The thing made some more noises that I didn't understand. Then he (I assumed it was a he, although I had no reason for thinking that) moved over to the strange-looking surface, about half his height, set between my bed and the wall he had come through, which had since closed itself back up. He touched the surface a few times, and noises came out of it. These were noises I recognized. Garbled, as though compiled from many voices, recorded and mixed together to create a message.\n\n\"Welcome… We are friend… Hello… Not scary… Far away…\"\n\nI didn't know what to think. Was this a dream? It didn't feel like a dream. \"Where am I?\" I demanded. \"How did I get here?\"\n\nHe touched the surface some more. Did he understand me?\n\n\"Up… sky… We are friend… Far away…\"\n\nThis couldn't be happening. This was too elaborate to be a prank. Aliens? He certainly didn't look like anything I'd ever seen. But nobody really believed that. The idea that there was some intelligent life outside of our world was crazy. Even the most advanced minds and civilizations hadn't found any proof that they existed, let alone that we would ever meet them. \n\nNot that we hadn't tried. We scanned the skies, searched, wondered, hypothesized. We had yet to find even the possibility of intelligent. But obviously, whatever stood before me had done better. They found us. They had traveled unknown distances and had learned enough to manipulate our language. Somehow, these aliens had found us and had come here to meet us.\n\nBut why would they take me? As some sort of experiment? I had to establish communication somehow. Maybe if I let him know I could understand him. \"You're from far away. A friend. Why am I here?\"\n\nHe touched the surface several more times before the mixed, garbled voice that I could understand came back. \"We come in peace… Explore… learn, discover… We are friend.\"\n\nWow, they were really pushing the friendship thing. Maybe they felt the need to overcompensate, considering that they had kidnapped me. \"Why did you take me?\"\n\nHe touched the surface some more. \"Come talk… Learn… We are friend… Tell us about yourself…\"\n\nThis was crazy! I wasn't giving this alien any more information until I knew who he was. Or what. \"No, you tell me about yourself. Where are you from? *What are you?*\"\n\nThis time, he didn't touch the surface. Instead, he used his own voice. He lifted a long appendage and bent it, gesturing toward himself. \n\n\"Human.\"\n" ]

[ 3, 9, 23 ]

[ "1400375262", "1400373677", "1400373836" ]

[ "\"Hi sweetie, How are you? Its been so long, oh you look so beautiful!\"\n\"Mom, mom listen! Heaven have set new rules with these things, okay?. They dont do tour around hell anymore, so when my group had our open house tours, tommy\"\n\"I know sweetheart, i asked him to bring you to me here. He ask me for a return favor which now seems like not worth it\"\n\"What is it?\"\n\"Forget it, we dont have time to worry 'bout the dead. How's Norah?\n\"She is doing very well. She just got accepted to Princeton.\"\n\"That's wonderful! Oh i wish i could see her now, to give her a hug and kisses.\"\n\"Uh mom, why can't Tommy find us somewhere more convenient rather than this? I can only see your face and i can't even reach you.\"\n\"They boost the security for borders sweetie, you see now that heaven's finally filled with humans who constantly breaks the rule, they started to change their ways.\"\n\"I sure hope they can change and justify your kind of sin.\" \n\"God must know that time is changing, justice is different now and then.\"\n\"Hope is dangerous sweetie.\"\n\"Look what hope has done to me.\"\n\"I always hoped that i could have a loving, functional family.\"\n\"I also hoped that one day he is going to change to better, or if he could regain any kind of sanity he had, or if he could realize that everytime he calls me a whore and hit me it kills me everyday,or if he realize that is was his own daughter he molested\"\n\"Or if he wouldn't dare to point a loaded gun to my daughter's face\"\n\"Mom...\"\n\"I hoped i survived the shot so i could always protect my babies\" \n\"I hoped when i killed him, i wouldn't have to meet him ever again.\"\n\"I love you mom\"\n\"Sweetie you have to go back now, Someone saw me here.\"\n\"What? no, we barely have 5 minutes together!\"\n\"Goodbye sweetheart, i will see you again.\"", "“So, are you thinking of staying with us at the end?” The angel’s face was warm and comforting as he or she smiled. The androgyny was strong in this one. *‘Jesus, I shouldn’t be thinking about angel-genitals on a visit to heaven’*, Bob thought to himself. *’Jesus here - I know you shouldn’t Bob, just try and be good whilst you’re here*’. Bob noted with that phrase he should probably abscond from blaspheming too.\n\n“I’m, er, not sure just yet. I’m hoping to live a bit longer yet, right?” He had hoped for a little feedback from the angel as he gave a wink and a grin, but the smile on its face continued, in a nonchalant stand-off with a veiled truth.\n\n“Who is it you’re here to visit, did you check with Saint Peter at the gates as to whether they made it in?” The angelic tones did nothing to hide the evident reek of bureaucracy in this place. \n\n“Tell you the truth…” Bob gestured with his hand for the angel to introduce itself.\n\n“Michael”, *’of course it’s Michael’*.\n\n“Tell you the truth Mike, I’m not here to visit any one person. I want an inventory. I want to see who made it here and in what state they made it. I’ve always wondered you know, does a man who died at 99 choose his age when he gets here, or is he 99 forever? Because, that policy can go to hell”.\n\n“Actually, that is the policy in hell Bob”\n\n“You’re kidding? And up here?”\n\n“Up here, we pick for you.”\n\n“You pick? Why wouldn’t you let the soul choose themselves?”\n\n“Well, you see, as you probably know God forgives all sins, but when he does forgive he remembers at what point you sinned, and those points are off-limits. He can’t have you existing in heaven with the body of a sinner after all.”\n\n“So, say if I spent the healthiest years of my life doing sinful things, I can never be that healthy in heaven?”\n\n“Health has no bearing on you – we’re talking about appearance here Bob. If you squander your most beautiful years you shouldn’t be expected to be that way upon death. Unless you end up in hell of course.”\n\n“Well, what about attraction then? Do feelings of attraction still exist? Are souls as reliant on appearance as the body is on earth? Ah, forget that actually, I keep forgetting you’re androgynous.” Pushing his luck, Bob decided to continue, “whilst we’re on the topic, what’s your, er, *y’know* like? You got one, both, none, or some heavenly downstairs mix-up down there?” The gesture at the angels genitals made him wonder if Jesus was going to tell him off for being a nuisance. He did't, so Bob assumed he must have been busy.\n\n“Attraction still exists and it works exactly as it does on earth”\n\n“Well that’s not too useful to be honest Mike. Most people don’t even understand attraction to begin with, and that’s not to mention that my wife may be sixty-five whilst I’m forty! Is there anyone I can speak to about this arrangement?”\n\n“You can try”. The angel’s response was confusing. Bob assumed that most heavenly tenants would be snooty or something; ‘ugh, a *mortal*, what is the establishment doing bringing *these* meatwads up here?’.\n\n“Can you take me to someone then please? I don’t have anyone in particular in mind.”\n\n“Sure thing Bob. You can ask as many as you like – they’re right through this door”. Bob turned around to look at the direction the angel nodded in. The door, which wasn’t there a second ago was now very much there, which annoyed Bob, however when he turned back the angel had gone, and that made Bob slightly happier because that meant he didn’t have to wonder about its bits anymore.\n\nThe doors swung open faster than he intended. He was greeted by an intense assault on his ear-drums. Bob had never heard a football stadium full of crying babies, so it took him a few moments to collect his senses and realise what was going on. It finally dawned on him what Michael had been saying, *’when he does forgive he remembers at what point you sinned, and those years are off-limits’*. He laughed to himself, then he felt really rather angry about it all. The entire population of Heaven were babies. Every single person that ever made it here made it as a baby – their purest moment alive.\n\n“Oh hell no!” Another angel poofed in beside him.\n\n“Hello Bob, I’m afraid your time is up, are you ready to return to earth?”\n\n“I am, er”, it was a different angel than the one before and it still made Bob feel confused in his pant-area. “I am, yes, can I just ask one quick question?”\n\n“Sure thing Bob”\n\n“Are there many babies in hell – that you know of, of course?”\n\n“Last time I saw Lucy she said there wasn’t any. It’s very difficult for a baby to have sinned.”\n\n“Thank God for that!”\n\n“I suppose I *could*?”, mused the angel.\n\n“Listen, does Hell do a day like this at all? I feel I need to check all my options y’know?”\n\n“In fact they do. Lucy picks out her favourite day of the year for it. It’s on December 25th.”\n\n“Well, I’ll be damned!”\n\n“You’ll never make it here with that attitude Bob”. The angel clicked its fingers, sending Bob home.\n", "\"Hello Alice.\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"It's been what .. 10 years?\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"The kids are a handful i know, if only I could help.\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"Can i see my kids now?\"\n\n\"You murdered us.\"\n\n\"Yes but i did it painlessly. Look i SAVED you all. You owe me.\"\n\n\"You set the house on fire. The last thing i remembered was the violent shrieks of our children. Not to mention all the pain i went through.\"\n\n\"Good bye, my love.\"\n\n\n\"Go to hell.\"\n\nP.S i have no clue how to format on mobile." ]

[ 1, 1, 2 ]

[ "1400584432", "1400596873", "1400585060" ]

[ "Every year I get bigger. I spread smoothly and comfortably, like jam, across continents and oceans, by wind and by wave, and soon I'll envelope the whole world. Earth used to seem so huge, so overwhelmingly gigantic to me that the thought of its size, let alone its beauty, could terrify me. I used to have dreams of being trapped in abysses in desert prairies where I'd never be found, dragged to the bottom of the ocean to live in the darkness and the cold. All I ever wanted, in my lifetime or afterward, was to be as free as possible. And now, I guess, that's what I am, maybe more. How much more liberty can you ask for, than having eyes and ears all over the world, forever watching the private lives and fauna and flora, like a cross between the Discovery Channel and reality TV.\n\nAnd when I'm bored of that I let my gaze literally drift to cities and towns, looking at strangers or checking in on my friends and family. Sometimes, it's painful, seeing people so lively and happy, and for a few instances it makes me miss my body, but I had my turn being alive and the satisfaction I feel is more than I could ever hope for. And I'm not alone. All the other cremated souls tell me about their adventures, the things they've seen, the places so far from where I was cast that I can only dream of visiting for the time being. But watching over my home, letting my presence protect them, I feel like the Holy Ghost.\n\nBut whenever I think about that kind of thing I remember my wife. She respected my beliefs, and I respected hers. But my belief was not a spirituality, it was a superstition, the fear that I might have to spend an eternity trapped in a coffin, and I never expected to be right. Of course she turned me to dust when I died, even though I couldn't stop her from burying me, and no one else would. But she obeyed my wish. And now I'll never see her again.\n\nIn a few hundred years, when her Mossiah's born and raises all the good, buried people, I'll look down on her unable to communicate. If there is a Mossiah. I believe there is, I have to believe. I have to believe in an afterlife, not for myself, but for her, because I couldn't bear to watch her scream with her mouth closed until she decomposes, and maybe then, maybe, we can be together again.", "This may be the most difficult thing I've ever done. One through line of thought. With all the sensation of being, it's hard to focus on anything at all. Pieces scattered to the ocean, to the skies, to the ends of the earth. Fish, blackness, sand, clouds and jet streams, forests and fire, cities and people and dirt. Always watching, a ghost of the world. \n\nThere was pain, body wracked in torment, then nothing. Perfectly numb. Soon came the fire, then came the scatter. Since, I have just drifted along and away and around. I have seen countless stories and joys and horrors, but these thoughts are slowly slipping away. There's just so much to see...", "Close your eyes. What do you see? They want to know: is it pop pop? Light emanating from the telescopic vision tunneling from the other side of your eyelids? Can you hear me? Wake up, wake up...\n\nYou persist in unexpected ways. Macaroni angels saved in the attic. A dress you haven't fit into for years. In pictures and videos accumulated we cannot find your residue, rather, it is unnerving in the way that you still talk, still stare with eyes, still smile bright, blowing out the candles like an echo from the wrong side of the uncanny valley, almost there until the pedantry of memory reminds us. No, your pictographic remains lack tactile beauty and sensory form. They are your ghost. An unfriendly haunting. Saliva from the dropper they used to put water in your mouth as they said their goodbyes, however, is the genuine real. It will remain a totem at your shrine in the heart of your daughter forever after, held in votive reverence alongside the moan you gave when she whispered her name and uttered her love.\n\n*So it goes, so it goes; on one grave is newly broken dirt and upon another a single rose.*\n\nYour sounds are no longer your own. They belong to others, found on streets and in malls at unexpected times and greeted with inopportune tears. To your progeny, both physical and otherwise (for there is a child born in every hug, every shared joke and secret confidence), it will be you returned. They will find you in faces and manners. Cousins, strangers, child kin born long after you have departed will all bear your resurrection. Reincarnated through resemblance. Some with say yes. Others will say no. Each will choose to their own comfort. \n\n*But then they hear you laugh. Glimmer of hope, nostalgia stirred, then pretensions of adulthood frown in remonstrance, praying it can't be, it can't be.*\n\nAlan says that we are nothing more than the sum of accumulated memories. From the bound limbs of zazen they scoff--he's said nothing at all, but nothing it is. To which you return, for a time. Gone is pain and love, fondness and grief, regret, remorse, the burden of debt. You will never pay rent again, either in monthly checks or obligatory phone calls to the consanguinal albatrosses that are your fellow travelers. This is freedom. If only you could breathe it.\n\nBut--take solace! For soon you will break down and commingle with the earth. Then some deep roots will pull you up again into the wind blown fields. For even grass has deep roots. Every blade shares the same lineage and kinship to the ur-woman as her issue that walk upright and order the Earth as if they own singular purchase upon its fate. Humility will be your next iteration, however, and tranquility, for such concerns are below the esteem of grass, and because you will feel the kiss of sunlight upon your countenance once more.", "At first, I clung to the heartbeats of my children. \n\nIt was all so confusing. And their thudding hearts, once a part of me, were soothing.The stiff bodily remains being carted and stuffed and painted for my funeral held little interest, other than mild disgust. \n\nFor the service, though, my daughters' emotions drove my fragile self out. I skipped wildly from their quaking hearts to the quiet dresses in my closet to the bustling road near my childhood home. My worldly travels pulled me apart, as thin as dust on a country road. On a desperate whim, I reached for Jonathan. Like falling into bed, I settled into his eyes. It was a wonder that I had left so much of myself on him. I was still on his lips, I suppose. Or mingled with his smell. But through the reflection of his eyes I could step into his mind as easily as I did my eldest daughter. His, I knew, would be the first connection to go. \n\nBut for that day he was with me completely. And when people looked at him their eyes filled with empathy, love. I love you too, I said. Again and again and again. From the coffin I could only watch as tragic emotions played out across the faces of my loved ones, unable to reach out. There were also the ones who looked smugly at the diamond still vibrant on my hand, or the cracks in the corpse's make-up. Those faces I no longer remember.\n\nWhen the service was over, I stepped into the cold remains of my body. A cusp, I thought. Be here. (Did you know spirits can smile? Ironically, meditation in death is even more difficult.) I wanted to embody the experience of being lowered into the earth. But with my inner eye closed and my being settled into the greatest mass of my body left on earth, the suffering finally broke though. Too young, my friends had said over and over again. Too vibrant. And yet, a life worth living. ", "Darkness. Can't breathe. Where am I? A voice is screaming inside my head. It knows something I don't. \"Ahhhhh,\" screams the voice, an endless, wordless scream of terror. I shut it out. Need to think.\n\nI move. Try to move. My body must be pinned down. Legs and arms unresponsive. I can't open my eyes, but I can see. Impossible, but I won't fight it. I'm on a bed. I'm in a box. My senses are skewed.\n\n\"Ahhhhhhh,\" the voice screams on. I must not listen to the voice. I can solve this, if I can gather enough information. I'm not strapped down. I don't feel any ropes. I feel... cold.\n\nMind over matter. I will lift my hand. I WILL lift my hand. I struggle for a few minutes (hours?) but my hand does not move. Maybe if I start smaller. A finger.\n\n\"Ahhhhh!\" \n\nWill that screaming never stop? I feel shattered. Broken. My face hurts. I should be in agony but the pain doesn't really penetrate this fog blocking my mind.\n\n\"Ahhhhhhh,\" screams the voice. My voice, but not my own. If only I could remember how I got here. What is the last thing I remember?\n\nMy mental query makes the voice shriek louder. It had become almost white noise until now. Maybe I shouldn't try to remember.\n\n\"Ahhhh!\" \n\nWill you please Shut UP! Okay, where am I? What are the possibilities? I could be in a cell. A cage. A crawlspace. I could be in a coma.\n\n\"Ahhhh\" \n\nThe voice nearly deafens me. Don't go that way. Down that road lies madness. I am turned away before I can resist.\n\nWhat do I remember? The voice is fighting me. Don't remember. Don't think. Don't. Don't.\n\nAmber. Amber with the green eyes and golden hair. There was a party. \n\nI'd been in love with Amber for as long as I can remember. She was my dream girl and I was going to marry her. The only problem was she didn't know it.\n\n\"Ahhhhh!\" The voice so loud now it feels like it's battering me, physically.\n\n\"Ahhhhh,\" it screams, but I understand: \"Don't think of Amber.\"\n\nI fight it. I am the stronger one. I am in control here. I was at the party. I was going to ask Amber...\n\n\"Ahhhh!\"\n\n...ask Amber... \n\n\"Ahhh!\"\n\n...ask Amber out. And then...\n\nDid I ask her? Did she say yes? For a moment, I think I feel warm. (Why am I so cold?) It feels wrong though. She didn't say yes.\n\nWhy can't I remember anything after that? \n\n\"Ahhhh!\" \n\nShut. Up. Now.\n\nI can't think with all that damned screaming. There are other voices now. \n\n\"Dearly beloved,\"\n\n\"Ahhhh!\"\n\nShe turned me down. \n\n\"...not to mourn the passing of a loved one...\"\n\nI remember...\n\n\"Ahhhh!\"\n\nI remember feeling sad. What does a guy have left when all his dreams have been shattered?\n\nShattered. I feel the pain more now. Is it because I'm remembering something? Consciousness returning? The effect of that damned shrieking?\n\n\"Ahhhh!\"\n\nIf I could move my arms\n\n\"to celebrate a release from pain\"\n\n\"Ahhhh!\" \n\nIf I could move my arms I would strangle that voice.\n\n\"...a soul that is now with GOD!\"\n\n\"Ahhh\"\n\nI was crying. I remember crying. Amber had rejected me and I was crying. My older brother. \n\n\"Man up, Marco,\" Steve said. \"That skank isn't worth it anyway.\"\n\n\"Ahhhh!\"\n\n\"...a young life, but a full life...\"\n\nWhat the hell are they talking about? Who are they?\n\n\"Ahhhh\"\n\nWait. If there are people, they can help me.\n\nI try to scream. I can't control my mouth. I can't control my body.\n\n\"Ahhh!\"\n\nIf you're going to scream, at least do it where other people can hear you.\n\n\"Ahhh!\"\n\n'Ahhh,' to you too. Steve doesn't understand. No one understands. Standing on top of the University building. The wind biting my cheeks. Falling. Falling. Screaming. I don't want to die.\n\nI don't want to die. Someone catch me. Someone stop me. \n\n\"Ahhhh!\"\n\nAhhhh! Pain. Incredible pain. Cold. Dark. Screaming.\n\nSilence.\n\nSo this is it. How long is eternity? My funeral. I'm at my funeral. Will I fade away when it's over? Or, will I spend eternity listening to that damnable screaming? I don't want to die.\n\n\"Ahhh!\"\n\n\nAhhhhhhh!!\n\n---\n####\n\nnew year's challenge: \n\n-008", "I regretted this, I really did. I always loved the idea of being burned to ashes, and then have my ashes thrown in space. Be thrown into the abyss, be thrown into the unknown. Maybe my soul will follow, maybe my ashes will spread and spread and spread, maybe some will get caught into an orbit of another planet.\n\nBut I’m getting ahead of myself here. Usually always am… I was not young, but not old too. I had a steady job, a nice family. I always told my wife (more joking than serious) that I would love if my ashes get scattered in space. She would always laugh with me. I barely remember how I die, I was just walking down the street, then I felt pain slamming against me from all angles. I came to with red and blue lights irritating me. Amidst the chaos, I could hear my wife crying.\n\nMy wife was a good woman, despite me joking, she whipped up the money to take me to the International Space Station, where they throw my ashes away. I never did figure out how they got my ashes on an escape trajectory from the solar system, but that mystery belongs to the living. My first month was so exciting, seeing Earth slowly zooming away until it’s just a blue dot. After a while I passed by Neptune. It was pretty, watching it zooming in then zooming out.\n\nBut once the sun becomes a dot, the place became cold. After a while I got bored, the stars remained the same. My ashes are slowly expanding until it was about two miles across, roughly. But who knows how long it was since I died. I was starting to forget how I even died. I never thought this far with my joke. I rather be placed inside an urn, so I can hear my wife’s voice, since I was also forgetting the sound of hers. Even my children voice…\n\nStuck in the abyss with no way out, now I know how people feel when they get buried in an unmarked grave..." ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 2, 5, 14 ]

[ "1400705266", "1400707437", "1400698052", "1400700918", "1400694888", "1400690984" ]

[ "You meant everything to me. It was for you I turned my life around. I had nothing until you gave me something. Now you are not mine I have nothing once more. I was never enough for you. I was never perfect. I was never anywhere near. But I had you. She took you from me. She, who I used to love, stole you. I loved you more. You were always hers and I never was. But you were mine as well. I don’t know how I’ll live without you. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I can’t. It kills me to know I may never see you again. It hurts worse than she ever could have imagined. I understand why but can’t comprehend how. How could the universe give me something so special then rip it from my grasp? I love you more than I hate her – that is why I write this letter. Because, I need you to know. Because, I don’t know if I can survive long enough to tell you myself. I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you needed. I’m sorry I couldn’t be your father.", "Riley,\n\nIt's not that I hate her. It's just that there is poison ivy wrapping itself in between my ribs where fields of daisies were once planted by the cry that rang through the sorry excuse of a hospital room your mother and I shared, where a thin curtain somehow qualified as a door. It's not that I hate her. It's just that I now drink glasses of my salty tears instead of that wine I didn't like but your mother loves, and I take shots of pure anger in place of the tequila that'd stay on my lips longer than the swelling from your mom's strings of kisses, which I never complain about. It's not that I hate her. It's that I scatter toys about my apartment, because it tricks my mind, even for just a minute, to believe that you're still here, in my last moments. It's not that I hate her. It's just that your mother ripped you from my grasp, without even once considering how it'd affect me, leaving burning, empty palms in her wake, though they're nothing unfamiliar. It's just that they burn a little brighter now, and the skin's just that much more fragile. Your cool skin and blue t-shirt would soothe like nothing else, son. It's not that I hate her, little man. It's not that I hate her at all. \n\nIt's that I love you. " ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1400772398", "1400764128" ]

[ "I'll start:\n\n\"Be polite to your clone. He could have been you.\"", "\"Wishing for another arm only holds you back.\"\n\n\"One head is better than two.\"\n\n\"Light chased is never caught.\"\n\n\"If you desire telepathy, first ask if you would want others to read your mind.\"", "I've got a couple that have helped on some of my adventures.\n\n\"Never make a deal with a dragon.\"\n\n\"Blood magic looks really cool. Until a palladian chops your head off for being a heretic.\"\n\n\"Demons make questionable allies, but fantastic lovers.\"\n\nAnd lastly. \"Never get on a boat, especially if the DM wants you all on said boat.\" " ]

[ 1, 1, 2 ]

[ "1400786051", "1400802907", "1400786469" ]

[ "A million stars that have fallen to the plains lay before my eyes. Everything which I have heard of now speaks its truth in this very moment. The light of the gods, dancing over the hills, arranging themselves as trees with the height of mountains. The sky above, a mixture of night and day. The shadows of rigid birds that never stopped flying. The sounds of angry bulls that never stopped growling.\n\nEvery grounded star acted as one of the sun's children, trying to light the sky but still falling short of mother moon, whose face was full and round tonight. Some were moving. Others stayed still. Some were cold, glowing the color of winter ice. Others burned fiery anger. Still others were neutral in their demeanor, as if to suggest their wisdom in being even tempered.\n\nTo both sides, smaller stars decorated shorter trees. It was as if they were the witchdoctors of the star tribe, preferring solitude to the loud campfire the other stars gathered around. Their message was unclear though. For what reason would they travel from the sky, only to sit so far from their neighbors?\n\nThe smoke of a million fires surly found its way to my senses, as my father told me would happen. I coughed, and my chest ached for the earth. These were not dutiful gods who cared for the earth, they were shameful gods who seek to live the lives of their human offspring.", "Chief had always told me that this forest was our home; the forest is our mother, cradling us from the time that we are born, and welcoming us to it's roots when we pass. The people within it, for generation after generation, chief after chief, have been the same. We, the Abenago, have always been the protectors of this forests. \n\nYet, I yearned for more, I desired to explore. When Chief was younger, he had explored to the East and saw steep Mountains. He had headed North and saw more steep mountains. The same with the South and the West. He learned that the Abenago were surrounded by the Mountains. I dared to cross them.\n\nI, along side my friend, Raka, set out for a pass that chief had spotted to the West, a three days trek through the forest that was the cradle of my people. We reached the pass, and saw that the spring showers had caused rocks, nay boulders, to block our path. Raka and I dared to cross through the Mountain that our people called the Devil's Horn. We trudged through the snow of the mountain, nagged by the whipping wind. It was clear that we were no longer in our forest.\n\nWe reached the peak of Devil's Horn at dusk on the third day. As I looked back upon our home, our valley, Raka let out a gasp.\n\nI turned and saw the land before me. The whole land was set ablaze with fire. There were clumps of massive fires and strings of fires weaving through the landscape. It seemed like the Devil had clawed this land with its claws. Raka was intent on turning right away, yet, I was curious. I told him that we must see if the people are okay. That night, we slept by the glowing flames of the people below us.\n\nWe awoke to see something quite different. The once engulfed landscape had not one fire still blazing. This comforted Raka and we pushed forward.\n\nAs we neared the land, I was shocked. There were tall square trees with no limbs, much taller than any I had seen before. The trees were grey at some parts, and shined bright at other parts. We neared a path close to the Mountains laid by the local tribes people. The path was hot, maybe I reckoned because of the flames last night. Yet nothing looked burned. There were even trees that I recognized that still stood tall, an odd sight for a charred land. \n\nAs we neared the grey trees, following the path laid by the local tribes people, I saw a beast hurtling down the path. In fear, Raka and I brandished our spears. In our luck, the beast did not see us, zooming past us with a terrible cry. Raka and I argreed that the path was too dangerous after seeing the monstrous beast. \n\nAfter following the trees, we reached an area filled with what looked like dwellings. I fearfully approached them, then I saw that the dwelling was guarded by the same beasts we saw on the path, in what looked like slumber. In their sleep, I could see the details of the beasts. They had no heads, yet their face was almost entirely a mouth. There eyes were nothing like I had seen before, or would like to see again. They seemed to have no life, yet I had heard its mighty roar. These were beasts. Had the local tribes people managed to control these reckless animals? I was struck with fear of the reasons why such an animal might have been domesticated. \n\nMy curiousity was expunged; Raka was shaken. We carefully trekked back over the pass and back into the bosom of our mother. \n\nEdit: Sorry for length." ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1400845542", "1400823621" ]

[ "I always see writing prompt posts. Am I supposed to just use it for myself or write and post it on this thread?", " It must have been love. But it's over now. At the time, it was a whirlwind of fun, laughter and kisses. It must have been good, I don't know, I lost it somehow. Whispers laid onto pillows, the cold left behind when we curled up into each other's cocoons. \n I wake up lonely, silent now. There is no clattering of plates, no humming while breakfast sizzled. The silence, it is all around. There is no one to touch, not even when I close my eyes, not even when I dream and I'm far away. \n Sigh. It must have been love because it was so good. But I lost it somehow.", "I got the news late last morning. Mrs Anderson catched me in the hallway, after I went out to shop for some groceries and grab something from the Italian takeaway. Talked about some boy who I used to have a thing for, back in high school. Mrs Anderson would know, she was well-enough acquainted with my mother. And you couldn't really keep anything secret from *her*.\n\nI was told how he got married. Beautiful wife. It didn't interest me at first. I mean, we were all young once, right? Remembering my time as a teen, I believe I had a new crush every damn week. Now I have my own life to figure out. At least that's what I told myself then and there.\n\nBut not this one. This one I am bound to remember until the day I die, and the pain is real. Even now, even 13 years after it all went to shit, even after all I went through with Billy. \n\nSo here's to you, Billy. Don't cry if you read this. I couldn't give you the son you deserved. I couldn't get myself the man I didn't deserve. And in all this time, I did love you. You gave me 13 more years, but now I will have to do something I should've done a long time ago, in a town far away on a cold July night. \n\nIt's just that I also never stopped loving him.\n\nMy name's Peggy, and I'm about to kill myself. Goodbye.\n\n", "**Huey Lewis & the News' \"Power of Love\" in the style of Patrick Bateman**\n\nDo you like love?\n\n*It's okay.*\n\nThe power of love is a curious thing. It makes me weep a little too much for my tastes, but when it makes me sing--or it changes a hawk into a little white dove--it really comes into its own, both tragically and beautifully. The whole concept is tougher than diamonds, rich like cream. Love has been compared to a bad girl's dream, but I think love's true power lies in making a bad one good. Or even a wrong one right.\n\n*Hey Halberstraum.*\n\nYes, Allen?\n\n*You don't need money...don't take fame. D-d-do you need a credit card to ride this train?*\n\nNo, Allen.\n\n*Is that a raincoat?*\n\nYes it is! You see, it's strong and it's cruel sometimes, love, but I think its undisputed masterpiece is that it might just save your life. Hey Allen!\n\n[raises axe above head]\n\nTHAT'S THE POWER OF LOVE! THE POWER OF LOVE!" ]

[ 2, 2, 3, 3 ]

[ "1400840554", "1400846410", "1400845960", "1400858734" ]

[ "\"Well shit.\" I thought looking out of the window. \"Might as well go to the Winchester, have a pint, and wait for this all to blow over.\"\n\nFin.", "Jones was on duty, a cup of coffee resting on the table next to the radar screen. He liked tea better, but staying up that late, he had to get his fix from a stronger poison. His mouth was salivating, a lot, as he was already at his fifth cup. Eerie feeling, but duty is duty. God save the King and whatnot. Better us than them. Keep calm and carry on, all that bravado. He'd much rather have slept in his cozy bed, and would have preferred even more to sleep in the big double bed with his wife, surmounting the crack between the beds and maybe getting some latenight action. What a bird, that girl! He was a lucky man. \n\nThe Radar started bleeping. It took him out of daydreaming immediately. Awh bollocks, now he had to sound the alarm. Or? \n\n\"Looks like the Jerries are up to something again.\", mumbled Jones, took another sip of his coffee, but spat it out as he double-checked the radar. The small blots had just moved faster than any german plane he'd ever seen on the radar. Hastily he did the math in his head. The objects were moving at 600 miles per hour! He had heard of German \"Wunderwaffen\" but he never really believed in them. He sounded the alarm, but the things had already gotten into the ultimate vicinity of his radar post and now some of them seemed to have stopped... What kind of german aircraft did that?\n\nHe heard a distinct, silent humming from outside mixed with the BRAAP BRAAP BRAAP of the alarm. Curiosity got the best of him. Looking out of the window into the foggy night got him nothing, just some kind of red light shining from above. He could feel a chill creeping up in his bones, his spine tingling.\n\nHe grabbed his coffee, stepped out of the door and looked timidly up into the sky. The coffee mug shattered on the ground as his hands had shiveringly dropped it, spilling its contents. \n\nUp above him, clear as the sun, was a triangular shape with white lights on the edges, and a red light at the center.\n\nThe light detached from the base and silently humming moved into his direction.", "Birds, giant birds! But why are they attacking us and where have they come from? They weren't Nazis, that's for sure and no mistake.\n\n\"It's because we started the nuclear weapons, John\".\n\nThat was my wife Clarissa. She was a know-it-all, but also a sexy piece of woman and I loved her. We had no children because I couldn't get it up without my homemade contraption, which turned her right off. How ironic.\n\n\"What should we do about the birds, Clarissa?\"\n\n\"The same we do with any other birds in our garden\", she replied, reaching for the birdseed in the cutlery drawer, \"We go feed them\".\n\nI followed her out the front door, out onto the moonlight street. There was a general murmur from all around as our neighbours were leaving their homes too. Everyone had had the same idea as Clarissa and held up the bird seed in their hands to the skies. What else could we do?\n\n\"Seed\", we all cried in unison, \"SEED!\".", "The radar operator refused to believe what he saw. It had looked like a standard pattern by the German with their stale 'Blitzkrieg' tactics. It wouldn't work, they would get repelled as he would just raise an alarm.\n\nHis display showed something much different.\n\nThe blips grew and grew as reports from other stations reported entire masses of aircraft coming from the west and southwest. He feared the worst and hit the alarm.\n\n***\n\nAircraftman Phelps was awoken and rushed into his Hurricane to fight an extraordinarily large German force. He relished the fight. He strapped himself in and started his aircraft. It sputtered and kicked and finally roared.\n\nHe felt so confident in this plane that had downed a few planes but he still grimaced.\n\nHe taxied out of his hidden hanger and took off joining his wing. His wing joined the squadron and pushed to meet the enemy. They were almost in range. The dark clouds parted and moonlight showed the enemy force.\n\nHe got closer and closer. He could see their decals with distinguishing details. He let go of the trigger and felt very confused. His deeper doubts evolving into paranoia.\n\nAnd then they dived on his squad.\n\n***\nIt was supposed to be a simple mission. Another strike to gain aerial supremacy over the British island. They did not expect to make contact with the British force of Hurricanes and Spitfires.\n\nHis mind was so focused on figuring out why they were intercepted so early. Suddenly his cockpit cracked and shattered. He snapped back into attention as he was being tailed. He could not believe his eyes. They were not suppose to be here.\n\nSadly, that was the last thought going through the German airman's mind. A soft but harsh ping and his aircraft was engulfed in a mad fire. The explosion finished him before the aircraft could spin into the British Channel. \n \n***\nGeneral Eisenhower told the operator to radio to their allies. He stepped out of the bridge and marveled at the fleet around him. The USS Arizona proudly bore a flag that was half the red, white, and blue flag of the United States and half of the rising sun from the Empire of Japan.\n\nOver a hundred Japanese and American vessels from parts of the Pacific fleet and the Atlantic fleet with several Japanese carriers. The massive battleship known as Yamato was only lagging slightly behind Arizona.\n\nYamamoto had responded, their invasion of Britain would go according to schedule. " ]

[ 2, 3, 3, 5 ]

[ "1400954949", "1400915780", "1400933006", "1400913849" ]

[ "It was all so beautiful, everything you could imagine and things you could never understand. I had seen it all and yet it was all so new to me, much like it had been on the first day. \n\n\nI never wanted it to end, everyone I had missed was here waiting for me all along and it all just seems so right. That's when I heard it, quiet at first but there was no mistaking it. \n\n\nThe words I had been never hoping to hear, but there they were clear as day. \n\n\n\"Has anyone seen Ben lately?\" And then I began to fall...", "Heaven is a sham, a facade, promised to all as the land of the righteous, the forgiven. Yet what fills it are the cesspools of humanity, the greatest evils to ever walk the Earth. Those who carry the names of gods are in fact the most atrocious beings who have ever lived. Their original life existing far beyond the bounds of written history, passed on in fear by word of mouth and even now, they abuse their power, warping thoughts and infecting minds of the living to feed their pathetic ego. \n\nThe good are so few, and so often forgotten, their cries as they fall, tearing into the deepest parts of my soul. Too many times have i watched this, seen what lies below, seen where i, where all of us, will lie for eternity. \nSo I ran. I ran from fate, from destiny, from the curse all of us are under. I ran to the mortal world. With what little power i had left i tried to grasp onto this realm, binding myself to those i aid, hoping that they would protect me from doom. But it was to no avail. I can hear it now, calling me, mocking me. It knows I'm scared, terrified. And it knows where I am.\n\nI must run.\n\n**I must run.**\n\n", "....\n....\n....\n....\n\nHuh... mhhh. dead... dead..... I suppose I'm *~blip~*, just like that, gone with the wind.... dead. Strange, I haven't a clue where I am but something compels me to believe this place is the after life. Is it possible I've been buried alive? I don't feel alive. There's a certain supernatural aura of this place, and considering I don't believe in Supernatural auras, something is informing me. And I suppose that's God. Strange that I'd know these things. I suddenly witness a scene that appears to have taken place for years yet no time at all.\n\n\"And eyes, surely this mortal has misused you\", beckons God\n\n\"Yes, Lord God, he most certainly has. He had used us in a variety of manners, but we can attest he had used us ignobly more often than was acceptable.\" responded my eyes\n\n\"Very well.\" remarks God, \"Funny thing is, despite all his sin and being a heathen, he still doesn't seem to have racked up enough hell-points for me to send him off down under....\" God pauses confused, \"maybe the calculator's broken - nope, all's in order.\", God continues \"Just a single good deed over. I suppose he has rightly gained entry beneath my throne.\"\n\n*~blip~*\n\nHeaven. Indescribably sententious, inexplicably so. All of my favourite people, except it's not them, it's all of them as a multi-person which is a single person. All of my favourite food, except not in multiple dishes, but a red fruit that is all textures, flavours and substance. It's been 10, 000 years already, I can't believe it. It feels as though I'd arrived not but a second ago. \n\n*~blip~*\n\n... Where has the warmth gone? I no longer lay upon the pleasant meadows beneath the throne of God accompanied by my hurriyes and jewels. My mountains have sunk beneath the earth. No more heaven fruit. Worst of all, most excruciating of all, this great pain. My flesh is no longer ethereal. This great pain that does not scorch or freeze or; indescribable pain....", "Five years have passed, and I've been living it up. Parties with Honest Abe, poker with Freud; hell, I've even had shots with Teddy Roosevelt. It was great. That is, until Jesus Christ came to visit. He took me by the shoulders and led me to a small hole in the cloud floor. I stared at the empty area for a moment, and turned to look at him.\n\n\"Kneel, and look.\" Reluctantly, I done as told, kneeling and staring down into the black expanse of the hole. The darkness seemed to disperse and form into an image: A man I used to know, sitting in front of a computer, his mouse hovering over a Skype contact. The contact read: 'Kain Crow', my name... I thought he had deleted me when we were teenagers. We practically hated each other. \"I wonder what would've happened if we were different? If either of us were compassionate enough to say we're sorry, or to just forget about it?\" He chuckled to himself, a depressed tone ringing in the laughter. \"I wasn't able to make it to your funeral, and I'm really sorry about that. I don't know if you can hear me, wherever you may be, but I just wanted to say: I'm sorry Kain.\"\n\nI felt a pressure against my back, turning my neck just in time to see Jesus mouth the word sorry. He pushed, sending me into the hole, breaking the image into a thousand pieces only to be replaced by fiery spires. I shut my eyes as I descended, tears rolling down my face with a smile. \"I just wanted to hear that. For forty long years I waited to hear that. You're forgiven...\"", "The accident that took my life happened at 7 AM, while I was driving my children to school. I was a bit frazzled from the 4 short hours of sleep (yes, the hours themselves felt shorter) and my stomach was heavy with the worry that there might be something wrong with Nadia. I'd given birth to her three weeks ago, and she wasn't like my two little soldiers sitting in the backseat when they were young - screaming and begging and crawling everywhere. Rambunctious little turds practicing their art of yelling as if they were preparing for an audience in Carnegie hall some day.\n\nNadia was quiet. Mostly. Every three hours in the night she would scream a blood-curdling scream for exactly a minute. And sleep again. While I was carrying, I made sure to stay well nourished, and that's easier said than done these days, especially with the rationing. Jim's job with NORAD makes it easy for him to sneak us extras, but everyone had it rough - all the land worth farming was gammaed early on. We weren't hit with anything directly, but what if this whole fucking war, the evacuations, the shit food, the whooping cough just made it so Nadia came out wrong? Why at the end of all these evacuations from one camp to another were we living right fucking next to no-man's land? Driving past that inglorious memorial to the last 2 years every day to drop the kids off just made me curse everything even more. It made me remember the friends I’d lost, some across the border, more in the troubles that followed.\n\nFrigid with worry, I picked up my phone and texted my husband \"Check on Nadia, had an open-air incident this morning.\" Jim's new work schedule was unkind for recent parents. He was out of the house at 8 AM and back around midnight. At least he could take care of her while I ran the kids to the campus and ran back, which is all I needed for now. As I focused on hitting the send button, I sent myself and the car into the tree straight ahead.\n\nThank goodness for airbags and quick reflexes. I gently bumped into the tree before me and the trigger-happy bags greeted me with a good morning sucker punch. Nose bloodied and a little worse for the wear, but thoroughly awake. I stepped out of the car and saw my two little soldiers, Irina and Max sitting in the back, smiling as if they'd just finished riding on a fucking roller coaster. I took two or three steps back towards a large chestnut tree to catch my breath. On my (I think) third step, I heard a click. And then a boom. And then I showed up here.\n\nSo yeah, that's how I'm here, talking to you right now, your name was?\n\n\"H.G.\"\n\nAh, H.G. Nice to meet you.\n\n\"So, tell me more about this war?\"\n\nWait, no, I have to have some answers first - where am I?\n\n\"Ah, OK, it's only fair I suppose. You did tell me how you perished, and I'll say landmines are probably not the most dignified way I could imagine.\"\n\nLandmine! Of course, I drove the car right into no-man's land. I'll bet they'll build that fucking fence now. Stupid do-nothing city council shits.\n\n\"OK, so first, you said you were 'talking' to me. You actually aren't. You haven't moved your lips since you've come here. That's natural don't worry, but you should start doing it soon or it'll feel weird later.\"\n\nI try to move my lips a bit. A tingle comes over them like a hot pepper is being rubbed vigorously over them.\n\n\"Bulktrosph\"\n\n\"Good! Now, anyway - as far as we know, you're in heaven.\"\n\n\"Fuck\"\n\n\"Let's pretend that was your first word and not 'bulgogi' or whatever you said earlier. People will ask you that a lot here - your first word says a lot about you. Most people say some equivalent of 'fuck'. Wow is common too.\"\n\n\"First thing you should know is that some day your family shows up here, and once you do, you'll pass on.\"\n\n\"Pass on?\"\n\n\"Yeah, you'll pass on, onto the next life. We who have been stuck here have worked out a few things so far. Some of us have even gone and come back.\"\n\nH. G. took a moment to pound himself in the chest and cough. Though it seemed like a somewhat unnatural motion.\n\n\"It was the case that everyone here used to be some kind of famous. Back when I got here, there were maybe a few hundred thousand folks here. But you know, the story is best told by....\"\n\nAnd while he seemed to just trail off the sentence, a figure appeared next to H.G. from a mist of red triangles. He was naked except for a golden long loin cloth and some kind of tattoo on his left breast that looked like a hawk, but I could swear it said “NO”.\n\n\"My name is Iry-Hor\"\n\n\"Nice to meet you Iry-Hor\"\n\n\"My name is Iry-Hor, and I was not the first here. But I am...the oldest. When I came here, this place was filled with many whose names I did not know, whose languages I did not speak.\"\n\nIry-Hor spoke in stuttering, broken English, as far as I could tell. His features were not combined in a way I'd seen before (I'll be the first to admit I'm not very well travelled) - his face was dark, his nose wide, his cheekbones high, his very short hair curled and his long and lean limbs dangling from the core of his body like tassels on a gown.\n\n\"And soon, those around me began to fade. Friends, countrymen, my subjects whom I loved dearly. My wife stayed with me for many years, but she passed on much sooner than I would have liked. I longed for many years to see my family again. I saw more countrymen, but they were no longer my subjects, ruled by a different king. These same kings then came to join me soon after, and we all watched as the years passed and new countrymen came and left. We added more to our band and watched the years pass without fascination. And then one year we saw many of our countrymen. They brought with them tales of war and plunder. A new enemy who had laid waste to our temples and our lands and buried our might beneath the shifting sands and the mighty river. Soon we all passed on, onto the next life.\"\n\n\"What was it like?\"\n\n\"It was unity.\"\n\n\"Unity?\"\n\n\"Togetherness.\"\n\n“It sounds beautiful.”\n\nH. G. interrupted “It certainly does. Which is why I myself find it very confusing as to why the returners loathe going back.”\n\n“You do not understand the meaning of those terms young one.” Iry-Hor retorted.\n\n“So, hold on, when did you come back?”\n\n“A few years ago. She can give a better answer than I can.”\n\nAgain from a mist of red triangles a kindly looking woman appeared.\n\n“My name is Gertrude Bell!” she chirped, apparently quite excited to meet me, a suburban housewife-turned-failed-minesweeper. She had a “HELLO, my name is….” sticker on her left breast. It said “FUCK”.\n\n“Iry-Hor here was summoned back to this realm because we found out his name!”\n“We found out his name?”\n\n“Yes! There was a dig in his ancient kingdom. A tablet was unearthed, and we deciphered it and learned of his great deeds and more importantly, I would argue, his name. His name entering into a human mind again, pulled him out of the realm beyond and into this one once again.”\n\n“Ah, so once your name leaves living memory, you are passed on?”\n\n“Yes, we believe so. But you can be remembered and summoned back.”\n\n“Ah, so once everyone I know shows up here, we’ll all pass on? Into Unity?”\n\nH. G. did the coughing and hitting himself in the chest thing again.\n\n“Well, not quite. See, people haven’t been passing recently as much.”\n\n“Oh. Why?”\n\n“Well, turns out, it’s much easier to be ‘famous’ in the world now. You have something called Facebook? A written record of names? Regardless of how ordinary your life may be, there is a chance that your name is written and seen by hundreds of people across the world daily. I’m sure she can explain better.”\n\nAnother woman appeared from the ether in a burst of red triangles. Her left breast had a sticker on it that read “How interesting”.\n\n“Ada, nice to meet you”\n\n“Nice to meet you!” I tried chirping like Getrude had earlier, but I think it came out sounding insincere.\n\nAda looked at H. G., he mouthed the word ‘fuck’ and Ada looked at me again.\n\n“Your name has been harvested by robots. They traverse Facebook and take your name, and send e-mails to people you’ve never met as if they are you. They take your name and likeness and sell it, to be shown once or twice, and hence live on in human consciousness.”\nAda looked a bit crestfallen as she said all of this. The same tone I use when disciplining my little soldiers - the combination of scorn and disappointment seemed to permeate her words.", "The fire in the barrel was beginning to run low, for the final time. I no longer have the strength to collect more garbage to fuel the flames. My tattered sleeping bag provides little relief from the cold autumn air. Though, I'm fortunate to have the overpass to protect me from steady rain.\n\nAt least I'll die dry.\n\nIt has been weeks since I have been able to pan handle enough cash for food. I don't have the strength to travel to the more heavily populated areas of the city, and the cold is keeping people inside more.\n\nAt least I had lead a good life. I helped others as much as I could. I never intentionally hurt anyone, and I prayed nightly. That should be enough... enough to get into heaven.\n\nThe time is getting closer. I can feel it now, the fluid in my lungs is finally going to win. I close my eyes as my chest shutters trying to get one last breath.\n\nAaaah yes. I can finally feel the warmth of Heaven. The sound of... the sound of fires? The... the smell of brimstone?", "I fall. I fall through the earth, the weight of my body growing heavier and heavier until it sinks through the ground and I find myself falling through the sky. Clouds are everywhere. Golden gates and a city of marble and pearls lie beneath me as I fall through the sky, hurtling towards the surface of Heaven. I \nwant to reach out, but my arm won't move. The anticipation grows within me as I become closer and closer to Paradise, to the cloud-coated ground...\n\nThen I fall through the clouds. Only fire remains. ", "Short of Jesus Christ himself, they had to admit Hitler had run the best racket amongst them. That however did not stop a certain someone from bragging about it.\n\n “Son of God,” Jesus said again, for what had to be the millionth time. “I mean how fucking awesome was that?”\n\nGeorge Washington passes Genghis Khan a look. The Khan simply shrugs, places his cards on the table and waves them off.\n\nElvis rolls his eyes. “What a bunch of horseshit,” he says. “You didn’t know this is how it would turn out, faker.” He doesn’t bother looking at his cards. He pushes them in and slaps the halo off of John Wayne Gacy’s head.\n\n“Whatever, loser,” Jesus scoffs. “Once that Beaver, Babber kid or whatever gets here you are done bro.” He gives his cards the once over and flips them. “Three kings dirtbags,” he says. “Alright new guy, whatever the hell your name is, what you got?”\n\n“Good Morning,” the man says, counting his chips.\n\nGeorge, Elvis, Jesus, Gacy and the Khan all glance at one another. Gacy points a finger to his head, rolling it in a circular motion. Elvis looks none too pleased and slaps his halo off again.\n\n“Ah, yeah, same,” Jesus says. “But I was, you know, looking for your name.”\n\nLooking up the man turns over his cards, showing two aces. Including the two on board, he had four. “Good Morning.” He says, once more.\n\n“Son of a bitch!” Jesus says. “What the hell- Oh, Holy shit.” His jaw falls slack and he stands up from the table. “No, you gotta be kidding me, seriously?”\n\nGeorge, Elvis, Gacy and the Khan look back and forth between the two before the realization sets in. The reactions are mixed but they are all in agreement on one thing.\n\n“Man, seriously.” Jesus says. “Fuckin' hippies, dude.”\n\n\n\nedit: Accidentally a lot of words" ]

[ 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 17 ]

[ "1400916239", "1400921433", "1400925410", "1400930738", "1400935949", "1400918300", "1400914076", "1400929393" ]

[ "*Tap tap tap* Harald's eyes ripped open, as he was suddenly torn from his sleep, his dreams of ancient battles now fading from his mind just they had faded from history. *Tap tap tap*. He stared into the blackness, wondering about what the sound could be. He could see nothing, it was simply a featureless black stretching even beyond the horizon, or so it seemed. He turned his face to the side, though it made little difference, and began groping in the shadow for a familiar shape. Finally, after very nearly knocking over a glass of water and a lamp, his hand seized upon the familiar shape. He picked up the rectangular object and pressed his hand upon the place where the smoothness was broken and a rise jutted out. He pressed his finger upon it, and squeezed his eyes shut as they were greeted by a flash of searing light. He opened and then shut his eyes several times, as they acclimated to the light. Finally, he could keep them focuses, though his vision was still blurry. On the screen of his phone, he saw the familiar symbol, three interlocked triangles surrounded by ancient markings.\n\n3:33. How well it matched the symbol above it, he thought, though his inner voice seemed to slur it as if drunk. He head hurt and he began trying desperately to recall why he was still awake at such a terrible hour as this. Perhaps it had something to do with his dreams? As he contemplated this, he was quickly brought back to reality. *Tap tap tap*. Ah yes, that was the cause. He realized the sound was coming from behind him. He turned and began ripping away the curtains that blocked his window, from which resonated the strange sound. His heart beat fast, but he was driven on by his burning curiosity, and, perhaps, a desire to face whatever was outside now so he could sleep. He reached a hand out and clenched his necklace from his bedside table. It was shaped like a hammer, with a short handle, made for the arts of war and destruction rather than smithing.\n\n*Tap tap tap*. He finally got the curtain, black as the night outside the window, away. And now he pressed his hand against the clod pane of glass, and tried to make out any shape in the endless sea of shadow. Then he realized a piece of the darkness was closer and somehow more solid than all around it. And then it moved. He finally made out the shape of what he was looking at. A crow, no, larger than that, a raven. Black feathers surrounded a black beak, and its seemed to, somehow, shine and reflect the darkness itself. *tap tap tap*. It did not seem to fear him, on the contrary, it seemed annoyed. He tap back, quickly, matching the beat of his heart which was still racing, even as the mysterious visitor was proven to be nothing more than a bird. *tap tap tap*. He thought of returning to bed, but he was not sure he could with the raven playing its simple concert. Finally he unlatched the window, not sure if he intended to shoo the thing away, or invite it in. As the window opened he felt the unmistakable presence of a hand upon his shoulder.\n\nHe turned, his fright rising to even greater heights, and beheld a man, illuminated in the soft glow of a cell phone. He seemed to speak a word, words mouthing harsh and ancient syllables with a quick and practiced tongue, and the lamp flared to life in the dark, giving Harald a better look at the man.\n\nHe was wearing a tattered grey cloak, perhaps normal ten centuries ago, but rather odd in the modern world, and a broad brimmed hat. He had a long grey beard, and from beneath the hat one eye glowed with a kind of ageless wisdom, and a fierceness that would have been envied by the likes of Charlemagne, or Patton, or Alexander. One eye, the hat, the cloak...Harald opened his mouth to speak but no words came. Before him stood, Ygg, the Terrible One, the Lord of Aesir and Einherjar, Odin Allfather. He had set up a shrine to the aged wanderer near the woods which pressed in close to his house, he had written praise poetry speaking of the wisdom and the ferocity of the High One, had asked the Spear Shaker for aid in many a endeavor, and yet now, standing before the gaze of his one eye, which shined bright in the half light of the lamp, he could think of nothing. He was filled with a kind of nameless horror, and he knew why \"the Terrible One\" was among the names of the One Eyed God.\n\nHe stood there for what felt like a eternity. And then a raven alighted upon his shoulder...and spoke. \"High One, do you really intend to choose this one for your messenger to the Sons of Askr? You spoke of a clever tongue and a quick mind, and vise versa, and yet he stands here gormlessly, with his mouth hanging open.\"\n\nThe Father of Men seemed to smile at this. \"Come now Huginn, we cannot expect him to become used to meeting gods so quickly. Men are adaptable, variable, they have conquered even the harshest lands of the realm of Midgard, but they require time to acclimate properly. Let us give him his time, and then we may make request of his hospitality.\" Harald closed his mouth and then opened it again, but was unable to so much as squeak. Before him stood a being as old as the earth itself, who had slain the giant Ymir, and from his vast corpse fashioned the whole world. He was the one who had set the sun in the sky, who had taught men the ways of writing, and of war. He was a being of immense powers, at whose will wars could be won or lost in a instant. He was served by half the brave men who had lived well and died in battle, a number so incredible and uncountable that Harald's mind boggled at the thought of trying to picture it. He had a hall large enough to make such a host seem a trifling matter to house. He was knowledge and curiosity and victory and death and honor and treachery all bound together, the lord of binding and unbinding who brought both poet's inspiration and berserker's rage.\n\nFinally the words came to him. \"Hail and worship, he who is called the Wanderer, and Spear Shaker, and the God of the Gallows. Why do you come to me so late in the night? Is there anything I can do for you, what is mine is yours.\"\n\nAgain he lips of the ancient being which took the shape of a old man stretched into a grin. \"Some mead perhaps, the journey to Midgard is long, even upon Sleipnir. And then I have more to ask of you.\"\n\nHarald left the god in his room as he pulled a bottle of amber gold liquid from his fridge. His mind reeled, and he pondered what the god who had set the sun and the moon in the sky could possibly want with him. He climbed the stairs with a kind of reluctance, yet he did not considering turning and fleeing. Finally he was facing the Yule-Father once more, though he seemed to be amusing himself by looking at the Valknut pendant which Harald kept near his bed, along with his Mjolnir. The raven perched on his shoulder like the ominous shadow of death, and seemed to whisper into the ear of the One Eyed One, and was joined by another raven who roosted atop the bookshelf.\n\nHarald handed the bottle of mead to Odin, and Odin produced two horns, carved of bone and enamelled in gold. He poured the sweet heady honey into both and handed one to the bewildered mortal. Harald took it, but did not drink. \"Now then, Harald, my son and loyal friend, I have come to ask you a favor. You see, I have tried to give men my wisdom from afar, to shape history with a few twists of fate rather than by great acts of magic. And yet it seems this has done little for those who share the blood of Heimdall. As such, I have decided to give my wisdom whole and complete, through a representative on Manheim. A prophet, if you will. And I have selected you, for you have shown yourself to be wise, and honorable, and brave, and a man of great skill with words.\" Harald began to interject, but Odin raised a hand to silence him.\n\n\"This is no time for false modesty, I have watched you from my sacred throne Hlidskjalf, from which I can see the whole of the world. You are my choice, should you accept. I will warn you, these words I ask you to write, they shall lead to battle and bloodshed. The world is too stable, determined to avoid the folly of their ancestors and avoid war. This is a good thing, were it not for the fact this adds to the armies of Helheim. I need more sword dead. still, I promise that these revelations shall make the world a better for all when they are complete. A place of truth and of honor and of justice, where men regard each other as kin. I shall not allow Ragnarok to destroy all I, and all my children, have built. Least of all your kin, Son of Askr. Mankind will survive, persevere and preserve. So, what is your answer? Will you take on this task, this great burden which I place upon you that you might sacrifice for the good of your people?\"\n\n\"I...\"Harald now sipped at the mead, unwilling to give the answer he knew he must. Finally he swallowed the draught, which tasted both sweet and bitter upon his tongue. \"I shall give, as you have, Hanged God, One Eyed One, Oathbreaker.\" He briefly thought he had offended the god with the last name, but his smile grew fiercer still, a bloody grin of victory. \n\n\"Good. Then we may begin in the morrow, I shall speak with you more frequently from now on, though perhaps less directly. A king is busy, you know...though I ought to have made time to deal with the matters of Earth more often. I shall depart now, but first a few gifts.\" the fatherly old figured who had brought death to more men than any who had ever lived, now reached in his cloak and produced two things. The first was a blade, in a finely adorned scabbard. Harald drew it and felt its supreme balance, and saw runes carved upon its length, some of which he knew well, and others which seemed alien to him. The second was a box, which held with a simple gold ring. He recognized it as Draupnir, which multiplied when left in a box, one became nine in as many nights. Odin then took the horn from his hand, and quaffed it. Then he presented it back to Harald. Cont", "\"Hey, get up\"\n\nIs not what Joe wanted to wake up to in the middle of the night, especially not since he lived alone. His eyes darted around the dark room, lit only by the dull glow of his alarm clock. Am I being robbed? he thought to himself, I need to get a weapon. \n\n\"that won't be necessary, no weapon you could find would harm me anyways.\"\n\nJoe couldn't quite tell which direction the voice was coming from, and had the unsettling feeling it was coming from inside his own head. uhh.... God? Joe hesitantly asked to the emptiness which was his room.\n\n\"HAHA.. you could say that. Elohim, Odin, Jehovah, Loyd, Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus; call me what you'd like I've many names.\"\n\nbut... but I.. uh\n\n\"take a minute to soak it in.\"\n\nJoe's mind was racing, My God, he thought, then immediately regretted taking God's name in vain, in front of God.\n\n\"If you are quite ready I have something to ask of you.\"\n\nJoe looked up, still not used to talking to someone who was not there, what could I possibly do for you?\n\n\"You will be writing my doctrine, my laws. I've written many books myself for your world, and tried every trick I could think of to get you humans to behave. I promised you heaven, ultimate paradise, and you were defiant. I threatened you with eternal damnation of hell, you were obstinate. This will be the final book, if it is unsuccessful then I will leave your world to its own devices, your pleas will fall on empty ears.\"\n\nIf he had not already been sitting on his bed, Joe would have surely fallen over, the fate of the entire world was in his hands, where would he start, what would he write, how could he do any better than the efforts of the great creator himself? What would you have me write? he called out, almost begging for an answer.\n\n\"...\"\n\nJoe sat as the silence grew deafening, beating his eardrums numb. What would you have me write! he tried calling out again, but only a croak made it out of his ever tightening throat.\n\n\"...\"\n\n\n", "A jarring CLAP shook him from his early-afternoon daydream. The noise came from the sound of the toaster's springs launching a crispy, golden-brown bagel into the air. It was a sound that he hated: he always loved the bagel the toaster produced, but he cursed under his breath nearly every time the contraption ejected the food with a sound not entirely unlike that of a car crash. He was so startled that as he rose from his small, wooden table in the corner of the kitchen, he couldn't recall the daydream that was occupying his uneventful afternoon. He often gazed outside as he daydreamed, thinking about things he would like to do but is getting too old to do, books he'd like to write but is getting too tired to write. He makes his way to the toaster and the delicious bagel, realizing that he needs a plate and knife, and he turns to the shelf to retrieve them. He thinks about sitting outside on the porch, but he knows that the weather is far too warm, the mosquitoes too thirsty, and his love for air conditioning too great. He puts the knife on the edge of the blue ceramic plate, and opens the cabinet. Should I have peanut butter with my bagel? he thought. Am I getting too old for peanut butter? He laughs to himself, one can never be too old for peanut butter, he said to himself in a whisper. He reached for the bagel but was interrupted by a knock at the door. Had a person just knocked on my door? It had just happened and yet he was suddenly doubting that he had actually heard it. He left the bagel in the toaster; he moved toward the door. He opened the door, and a man with a clever smile and combed back blonde hair was standing on the porch. The man was dressed business-casual, had a small amount of perspiration on his tanned and yet handsomely wrinkled forehead, and carried a coat upon his left shoulder. His sleeves were rolled up, and he said with a smile, \"Hello, Mr. - \", but he was interrupted by the man standing in the doorway, \"You're the actor from that television show, what's it called?, the uh, ah!, it's on the tip of my tongue, ahh!, it's called the M -\", \"The Mentalist?\" said the man with the clever smile, his left eyebrow raised playfully, \"I get that a lot, but that's not me, I'm afraid. I-I didn't come here by chance, I know that you used to be a writer, and I was hoping to pitch a story for you to write.\" His clever smile was gone, an intense stare was replaced. The man standing in the doorway scratched his head of messy, grey curls. \"Here, come inside, I'll hear what you have to say\" he laughed quietly to himself as turned to go inside, \"and I'm flattered that you'd choose me as your writer\" he stopped and looked back into the man's intense stare, \"but I haven't written anything in years, and I'm stumped as to why you'd choose me. . . \" The man's intense stare collapsed into a warm smile, \"We'll talk about that, but let's step inside, it's unbearable out here.\"\n\n...\n\nThe man with curly grey hair was chewing on the inside of cheek, he was trying not to smile. \"So you're telling me you're a god?\" The two men were sitting at the small, wooden table in the corner of the kitchen. The bagel was still sitting in the toaster, cold and yet tinged with black, the blue ceramic plate sitting on the counter, the knife on the edge of the plate. The two men each had a perspiring glass of water sitting in front of them, making circles of water on the old, wooden table. The last light of the afternoon sun was lighting up the grass and trees and the bugs, mere specks, and cast orange rays through the windows. The blonde man replied with a smirk, \"I am God, yes. This is when you test me; give me your best shot!\" The older man burst into laughter, \"You've got to be kidding me!\" he reached for his glass of water, sipping it, the water drops on the exterior of the glass falling onto his wrinkled shirt. He placed the drink back down on the table. He was smiling, curious, and playfully skeptical: \"We've been exchanging empty pleasantries for the past half-hour and you suddenly drop this on me? And now you want me to test you? Oh, I'll argue with a *person* about God, or at least I used to, but argue *with* God *about* God? How silly!\" The man who said he was God smiled, said with an air of hesitation, \"Ah, but I take that to mean you aren't convinced.\" His host responded quickly, \"Well, of course not! I shouldn't have to make my reasons clear. I would argue that not believing in god is quite easy, and not believing that a stranger claiming to be god is even astronomically easier than that! Ah, but I've already said too much, because if you were God you'd know all that I think, have thought, and will think and will say. My, oh, my! You must be quite bored with this conversation having already experienced it in all possible combinations.\" The blonde man laughed, his dimples forming, disappearing, reappearing, \"Mmm, yes, but I am a patient God, and I'm quite capable of casting a shadow, a human, with which to communicate with you. And I come to you for one reason: I would like you to write a book for me. I told you I'd pitch a story for you, and whether or not you believe I am God doesn't matter at all! All you need to do is write, and title it, and credit it in any which way that pleases you.\" The grey haired writer smiled, \"I can take the credit? God doesn't want credit for his next good book? Why, I'm surprised!\" his eyes suddenly lit up, he quickly got up from the table, \"ah, I was fixing myself a bagel before you arrived, hmm, should I prepare another or simply toast it again?\" he stood above the toaster that bothered him and began to mutter to himself \"I'll just toast it again, no need to waste a bagel.\" He pressed down on the lever, returned to his seat, his mouth was dry from the talking, he finished his glass, told himself to refill it when he got up for the bagel. The man across from him with his sleeves rolled up, and his handsome and dry forehead sat with his leg crossed upon the other, his hands folded in his lap, leaning backward into his chair, his clever smile and whimsical eyes looking out the window. \"So, where were we? Would you like to tell me your story? If I get around to publishing it I'll do it anonymously\" The writer released a silly smile at the corner of his mouth, laughed through his nose, and kept speaking \"I might give the author the name, ah, but I'll have to think for a while about that one . . .\" The man with curly grey hair and bright eyes stared into his empty glass as it sat on the old, wooden table. There was more water in the pool under the glass than there was inside of it; the light from the window cast beautiful shapes of light that sparkled and refracted in an area around the pool. He turned his eyes toward the window, enjoying the setting sun as it retreated behind the thick, darkening green trees. The two men brought their eyes to meet each other, and the man who sat back in his chair with his hands lying in his lap said, \"I think we ought to begin. I'm glad you've still got a good memory.\" The man with curly hair nodded, \"Mmm, I'll remember everything you say and more. You don't mind the 'more', do you?\" the silence prompted the writer to answer his own question, \"I see, you obviously don't mind if I take creative liberties, you wouldn't have me write it if otherwise.\" God's shadow nodded, he closed his intense eyes as he did so, and then opened them again. \"Here are my first words: - \" A jarring CLAP shook him from his early-afternoon daydream. The noise came from the sound of the toaster's springs launching a crispy, golden-brown bagel into the air. It was a sound that he hated: he always loved the bagel the toaster produced, but he cursed under his breath nearly every time the contraption ejected the food with a sound not entirely unlike that of a car crash. He was so startled that as he rose from his small, wooden table in the corner of the kitchen, he couldn't recall the daydream that was occupying his uneventful afternoon. He often gazed outside as he daydreamed, thinking about things he would like to do but is getting too old to do, books he'd like to write but is getting too tired to write.", "\"Hey Rosco\"\n\n\n\"Oh, hey man, how's it going?\n\n\n\"Same old shit, can't really complain. Listen, I gotta talk to you about something...\"\n\n\n\"Well that's ominous.\"\n\n\n\"Yeah, It's pretty weird. Apparently I need someone to write a religious whatchacallit for me.\"\n\n\n\"The fuck?\"\n\n\n\"Yeah, new legislation. Mandatory for all 'deities and diety-like religious figures'. Apparently that includes antagonists too.\"\n\n\n\"Ugh, you want me to do it.\"\n\n\n\"I didn't say that!\"\n\n\n\"But you were *going* to say it.\"\n\n\n\"I can neither confirm nor deny that statement.\"\n\n\n\"Yeah yeah. Listen: if you want some ridiculous religion crap written up, do it yourself, I've got stuff to do. You must have some wordsmiths down there. Hell, just get LaVey to write the official version.\"\n\n\n\"Well I can't write it myself, that's one of the conditions. Something about demonstrating you have enough believers to qualify as a religious figure. As for getting a guest to write it, that's completely unthinkable. We've got a *very* strict schedule we need to stick to and we can't give anybody time off for this bullshit. I'm not asking for anything earth-shattering. Shit, it doesn't even need to be that long-\"\n\n\n\"What do you mean, what kind of length are we talking here?\"\n\n\n\"All right, this is gonna blow your mind... Ten pages.\"\n\n\n\"Wow, that is retarded.\"\n\n\n\"Fucking bureaucrats, man. It's a waste of time and we all know it.\"\n\n\n\"Okay, you know what? I can see about setting aside some time for this, what do I need to know?\"\n\n\n\"Fuck, I dunno. Be a dick and you get tortured? I don't even know man, you'd think the source material would be enough.\"\n\n\n\"Well to be fair they did embellish a lot.\"\n\n\n\"That's true I guess.\"\n\n\n\"Wait, do they need a new version too?\"\n\n\n\"Yeah, but they've already got a bajillion zealots lined up to write it.\"\n\n\n\"I'll bet. Okay, well I can start out by correcting some of the exaggerations and factual liberties. Even if we don't set the record completely straight, I can sow a bit of chaos and confusion by differing from the source material and really that's what it's all about.\"\n\n\n\"That's why you're my bro, bro. Bump it.\"\n\n\n\"Bgow.\"", "\"Nah,\" I told her. \"Not doing it. It's your homework.\" \n\n\"But you're the *Chosen One!*\" she pressed.\n\n\"I really wish you'd stop calling me that. It *was* flattering, and *now* it's just creepy because I think you believe yourself.\"\n\n\"Why don't *you* believe me?\" she implored. \"Have I not shown you spectacles beyond even the wonders of your Las Vegas?\"\n\n\"You do some pretty cool tricks,\" I allowed. \"Since you're in front of me, I have to believe you exist. And I don't know how you turned wine back into grapes; that was duly impressive. But I can't really verify that you *made* me, let alone the *universe.* And the more impressive your spectacles, the more I question why you need my help with anything. Maybe... I don't know, just work on your *own* self-esteem? I know it can be pretty rough out there.\"\n\nShe bit her lip and looked like she was trying to be patient with me. I was trying hard to stay objective, but *damn* was she cute! \n\n\"People need to know that they shouldn't hurt each other!\" she told me.\n\n\"Yeah, but I think that's its own lesson. People hurt each other, they have to live in a world where people hurt each other.\"\n\n\"Then why are they still doing it?\"\n\n\"Why are *you* asking *me?* And why can't you just tell them yourself?\"\n\nWe were both silent for an uncomfortable moment. Then she spoke: \"Look, I can tell you're not really into this, so I'm going to leave you alone.\" And then she vanished.\n\nThere one second, gone the next. Tripped me the fuck out. The hardest part was knowing no one would believe me.\n\nShe never returned. I tried to call, tried to write, but I don't know where to find her. So, night after night, I make lists. Lists of what I think she'd want us to do with our lives. Most of them I crumple up and throw away. Occasionally, I write something that stands out and I think *that's closer to divine than I usually get,* and I highlight it and cut it out on a strip about the size of a cookie fortune. My cell walls are covered with those little things. \n\nI can't help but wonder what I missed out on. Night after night, I call to her. Always a different name. Night after night, all I can hear are my own echoes.", "Alfred just sat there waiting for his deity to come.\n\nBut none came.\n\nAlfred was an atheist.\n\nAlfred died a lonely man.", "The man's eyes fluttered open as some strange sound from the hallway reached his ears. A quick glance at the dresser revealed the time in neon green numbers, 4:30am. Not caring about whatever or whoever had made the noise that so rudely awoke him at this hellish hour, he turned over and closed his eyes.\n\n*Plop* *Plop* There it was again. What the fuck? Sighing in a mix of anger and exhaustion, the skinny man in his boxers got up and trudged over to his door. A warm, wet liquid seeped into his room from under the frame, soaking his carpet. Confused, and with a growing sense of apprehension, he flicked the light switch. Blinded, he staggered back a step, rubbing his eyes as they adjusted to the light. As things came into focus, he saw the liquid that had crept its way into his room from underneath the door was a deep red. \n\nSlowly, he stepped towards the door, edging around the growing puddle of whatever had been spilled in the hallway, and reached for the handle. \nHad he been a religious man, perhaps he would have said asked god to please not let it be something like a dead body, because he would probably never get back to sleep if that was the case. Instead he just turned the handle and opened the door.\n\nOutside, a long trail of the reddish slime tracked from the window opposite his room over into his office at the other end of the hallway. As he followed the trail, careful to step around the mess, he couldn't help but think he smelled marinara... strange.\n\nApproaching the office, he heard what sounded to him like frenzied slapping on a keyboard. Worried his custom gaming keyboard was being brutalized by some unknown assailant, a surge of adrenaline drove him forward through the open doorway into the unlit room.\n\nSlapping a hand to the light switch and grabbing the mop he knew to be leaning on the wall next to the door (spilled mountain dew, long story), he turned towards the computer and readied his weapon. What he saw stopped him cold. Floating before his computer, slamming tendrils of noodles down onto his custom gaming keyboard, dripping reddish sauce onto carpet below, was a giant floating spaghetti monster.\n\nAs if aware of his presence, the Monster turned to face him, and though the creature lacked eyes, he knew he was being appraised. Seconds seemed like hours as he stood there, naked but for his boxer briefs, as the creature he had not believed existed stared into his soul. \n\n\"Ah, word_jumbler, it is good that you have come to me. I need your assistance\" a heavy, slightly Italian accented voice spoke into his head. \"You see, i have decided to spread word of my existence and the principles by which all should live, but lack the required appendages to use your computer. You must sit, and transcribe my teachings into this document of words\".\n\nAwestruck, and slightly agitated that this creature seemed oblivious to the sauce it dripped down onto the desk, the man took his time responding. \"First, I'm going to need you to... hover... away from my keyboard, that thing cost me like 65$\", running a hand through his hair he took a tentative step forward, examining the computer screen. The monster had opened a word document somehow, but in attempting to type had only succeeded in mashing letters and numbers together in some unintelligible fashion. \"How is this possible? Where have you come from? Why did you come to my house?\" The questions were forming faster than he could even ask them, the impossibility of the situation was too much to handle.\n\n\"Be easy my child, I have come to teach, to spread word to my disciples. People must learn of spaghetti's superiority to baked Ziti. It will all be clear once you hear what i have to say.\" The floating dinner reached a long noodle arm out and placed it on the man's shoulder. At the touch, the man was filled with rapture and understanding.\n\n\"Yes, of course. It's all so clear now\" he said sliding out the desk's chair, an overwhelming purpose powering his actions, \"just tell me what to write, ill stay here for as long as it takes\". As he adjusted the chair, he felt his stomach rumble. Looking over at the impossible hovering thing to his side, he was struck with a very strange feeling that something was wrong. Oh well, it was time to do the spaghetti's bidding, all was well and soon everybody would understand...\n\n***\n\nThe man shot up in bed, a cold sweat covered his body. What had he just been dreaming about? The details evaded him, floating in the corners of his mind just out of reach. Fuck it he thought, as he laid back down. Looking over at his nightstand, he saw his unfinished spaghetti dinner. It had been sitting out for a while, but whatever, its probably still good. Finishing what was left on the plate, and taking a rip from the bong he kept on the other side of the nightstand, the man laid back down and closed his eyes. " ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 8 ]

[ "1401091405", "1401161572", "1401070359", "1401079935", "1401065210", "1401077622", "1401062588" ]

[ "Silence fills the humid air at the bar of the saloon where \"Quick-shot Ricky\" has his revolver at his temple. \"Stop right there!\" The creaking of the door breaks the tension in the room. \"Double gun Sal\" and his crew walk into the bar, the audience shocked at his arrival. \"Well look what we have here boys, a broken man turned coward. Ricky stares at Sal. \"Hey Sal, mind paying for my drink, I'll be leaving this place soon.\" Don't think your gonna be going out like that, if anyone's gonna take you out its gonna be me bastard!\" \"Duel me Ricky! If you want your little girl back.\" Ricky instantly got up and held Sal by the shirt. \"You saved her?\" Sal smiles. \"Yea but if you want her we have to duel and we can't do that if your dead now can we.\" Both the men walked outside and face each other 10 feet apart. \"You know its your own fault, you put your little gal and wife in danger and all.\" \"Shut up.\" cried Ricky as he unloaded all his shots at Sal. Sal easily dodged all the bullets. \"You fired six shots already.\" Before he knew it more shots were coming at him Sal continues to dodge but gets grazed. \"That's Quick-shot Ricky for ya ain't no man who can reload a gun fast as him.\" Sal began firing his double revolvers. \"Take this you bastard.\"\nThe Sun set as all folk gathered around Sal, Ricky's body on the floor in a pool of blood. \"You didn't really save my daughter did you?\"\n\"No. I did try though, maybe you'll see each other in the next world.\"\n\"Thank you.\" Ricky said his last words. \"pftt whatever bastard.\" A tear can be heard hitting the floor.", "He looked into the mirror one last time, starring at his scraggly skin, his greasy clump of hair, his soulless eyes. It was time. In the dim hallway, he dusted off an old photo of his wife. He smiled, reminiscing of the happy future they once dreamed of. But that was then, more than a decade ago. Their marriage sank year after year, and after the last straw, he took the kitchen knife and stabbed her in the chest. The evidence was never found, the case was dismissed, and he was left alone. Every night after, under the protection of the ebony skies, he roamed about the city, the same kitchen knife in hand, murdering women who resembled her. He'd made his decision then. There was no going back. \nThe man went downstairs, rope in one hand, stool in another. There, sitting in the only rugged sofa in his living room, sat Christian, an old friend of his. He lit up his cigar, and drew out a long puff of smoke.\n\n\"Don't do it, Michael. I've been your friend and companion for ten years, and I'd hate to see you go.\"\n\n\"You don't know what I've done,\" Michael cried. \"All these years...there was a reason I hid from the public. Now's the time.\"\n\n\"There's still a life ahead of you. People make mistakes with their life. If everyone killed themselves when they made a mistake, do you think we'd still have a human population? No. We are people. There is no doubt that we are stupid, selfish, and greedy. But those humane traits make us who we are, whether we like it or not. What I'm saying is, Michael, forget about the past, and look towards the future.\"\n\nTears fell through Michael's eyes. He set the rope and stool down beside him, and strolled through the kitchen, relieved that someone was always at his side. Michael turned towards his buddy.\n\n\"What do you say we go outside an-\"\n\nHe saw the gun, the barrel facing straight at him. \n\n\"I was almost convinced,\" he croaked, his face ruined with sweat and tears. \"For the first time again, I thought I had a future. That if I followed your words, I could have done something right for the first time in my life. \"\n\n\"I am a man of justice. Those who seek violence will not be tolerated.\" Christian stated.\n\n\"Were you ever my friend?\"\n\n\"I could have been, Michael.\" And he pulled the trigger.\n\nHe looked down at the dead body of his friend for ten years. He remembered that day, a decade ago, when he found Michael with his wife's corpse. The corpse of the woman he loved. \n\"Yes,\" he murmured. \"I am a man of justice.\" \nHe took another drag of his cigar, and calmly walked out the door. ", "She had to be quick. Her husband was in the bedroom. But, once it was in her veins, her husband could do nothing to stop her from dying. There was no hospital for at least a hundred miles. \n\nShe marvelled in ambivalence at her malevolent savior cooking in the spoon. It was much more than normal this time. She drew the golden-shit-colored mix up into her syringe. As she wrapped the tie around her arm she heard footsteps. It was her husband.\n\n\"Samantha! What the fuck is taking you so long?\" he growled through the door. His voice was like nails on a chalkboard.\n\n\"By the time you break this door down, it will be too late, ass hole!\" \n\nHe left. She worked on trying to find a vein. This was always so difficult for her. As she was doing so, she heard stomping coming back towards the door and, all of the sudden, a gigantic blow to the door. She had found a vein, but she was trembling too much to hit it. Another crack was heard. The door was breaking down. \n\n\"Don't do it. I just want to talk.\"\n\nShe knew this was a lie. If he just wanted to talk, why would he be breaking the door down? Another crack. The needle pierced skin, but missed the vein. She cringed and cursed.\n\n\"Don't you fucking do it!\" he yelled viciously.\n\nShe dropped the needle. It was too late to escape. The door was almost completely demolished. It broke down completely and in that moment he let loose another swing of his axe, which made contact with her throat. He picked up the needle, located his jugular vein, and shot the lethal dose. Suicide was better than prison or guilt.", "Lost did this.", "Bishop Patrick sat on his wooden throne, looking out at his kingdom of lies. He had been leading the Church of the Sacred Arrow for twelve years. Men would come to him, with stories of death and betrayal. He would listen to them, keeping their silence, feeling their guilt. \n\nHe had never spoken a word of his Holy Gift. Many of the robe had them, men of clothe with nothing more to offer than prayers for the damned and damnation for the praying. \n\nBishop Patrick could feel each knot of their emotions. With nimble fingers he could untie it and let the people go, no longer heavy and wrecked, but free to follow the Good Lord with a renewed heart. \n\nBut Patrick was left with the nasty film around his tub. The ring of filth that would never be scrubbed clean. For the final time, he gazed out at his empty church and prayed. \n\nSalvation came in a small voice asking him to put down the gun. \n\nLooking up, Patrick came face to face with Jolynn Prior. The girl's face was wet, her lips parted in a soft cry. \"Don't do that.\" \n\n\"You...\" Bishop Patrick said, surprised. He had sent the girl away years ago, her sins far too heavy for him to free. He could not take on the guilt and fear she had within her. Even though she begged him to take her guilt and shame, he refused. \n\nBishop Patrick was not a healthy man. At 86 he was one foot in the grave. But he knew what Jolynn would ask of him and he could not do it. He could not take from her the overwhelming depression that ruled her life. \n\nAt 27, Jolynn would never have a happy life. \n\n\"Take it, please, Father,\" Jolynn demanded. \n\n\"I won't.\" Jolynn had been his greatest weakness. He had never turned a child of the Lord away and he had hoped, one day, for the strength to help people like her. But the secrets had weight and he was drowning in them. Each string he snipped, each depressing, horrible, oily thought he internalized ate away at him. \n\nHe stayed up each night afraid another person would come, asking for his gift to become a curse. And it was a Curse, one he loathed, but loved. He felt touched by God, heckled by the Devil, sworn into some secret society that only the strong belong in. But Patrick was not strong, not the kind of strong people needed. \n\nJolynn knew the truth, he was weak, he was tired, and he just wanted to return to his lord. When the doctor's told him he was not long for this world, Patrick had been overjoyed. But his death would be grim, starving as his body failed around him. Six months to a year had sounded like an eternity in hell. Patrick was not strong enough, not since he cut the strings at 23 and started to hold the guilt of his congregation. \n\nFather Fitzgerald would have been better suited for the Gift of Empathy. He was a man without emotion. He had seen two World Wars and still remained strong. His gift was that of Forgiveness. He made people forgive themselves, forgive others, put away the sharp words and *listen.* He never worried about waking up with the memories of those who had come to him. \n\nRape. Divorce. Abuse.\n\nPatrick hadn't understood exactly what the Gift had called for when he first heard the voice of God and was told, \"I give you the gift of Empathy.\" Truly, it was the gift of dwelling, of never being able to sleep without the flashes of others trotting through his head. He saw wars, the bodies of his compatriots strewn across a brown stage, bombs bursting. And he had never fought in the war. He had a bad back, not good for anyone. Why waste the money on one who would never be able to lift more than 23 pounds. \n\nYet, Patrick knew more of hate and fear than anyone else in his life. And how would they? Patrick took it all on, letting them live free lives. But Jolynn was asking for something he could not handle. Medication would not save her, would not make it go away. She walked a wavering line of self hatred and fear. \n\nShe was Patrick's nightmare. A depression so great it would swallow him whole. \n\nClutching the wooden arm rests, he looked at her and shook his head. \"You were never supposed to come back.\" \n\n\"Well good thing I did,\" Jolynn said, stepping up and onto the platform. Fear made Patrick tense. He didn't want to see her cold, calculating face. She knew what he was going to do and he wanted no part of her cruel mind. No part of her devious hatred. Worse, the girl was beautiful enough that people could often look past her words and see only what they wanted. \n\nWhen she said, \"I want to die\" no one took her seriously. Beautiful people should never want to die, people said. He had heard it a thousand times. \n\n*I took her because she was beautiful.* \n\n*Her life is so easy...* \n\nJustification. Empty. But still, Jolynn suffered more for her doll face and long limbs. And how she suffered. \n\nShe was right beside him now. The hazy glow around her was clearer now. Usually the strings were few, but Jolynn had a thousand, so thick it was like a tornado. They flailed around her head and made her look a bit like Medusa. \n\nShe knelt beside Patrick and held out her hand. \"Please.\" \n\nShe did not try to justify what she was doing. He had heard her excuses before. Jolynn had come to him first when she was eleven and heard about his gift. She came again when she was thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, and finally when she lost her baby at twenty one. \n\nHow she lived with all this fear and loathing was a surprise to Patrick. He supposed hope kept her going. She had a lot of hope. \n\nPatrick had not seen such hope before. It was a small ball tangled in between the strings. It was barely glowing, but it was there. Lost. Weakening. He knew if he did not help her the strings would smother it out. \n\nHe had never seen the hope before, and he knew he would never see hope again. Touching her shoulders he began the same prayer he always said. \"Dear God, let me take the guilt and loss from this child to heal them. Please help me...\" \n\nThe strings seemed to still, before they seemed to melt down her face, out of her pores, towards his hands. It shook everything inside him, but Jolynn's little ball of hope grew brighter. He held on until the last of the red had faded from her skin and the sun atop her head was blazing out. He almost couldn't see. \n\nHe felt it slowly, inching up towards his heart. The fear, the loathing, the mistakes. Everything he had ever done was wrong. He was a failure. He didn't deserve to...\n\nJolynn reached across to his lap and picked up the gun. She had her hand wrapped in long, white gloves. She placed the gun to his temple and pullet the trigger. \n\nThe last thing Bishop Patrick remembered was her voice, whispering into his ear, \"It is time to leave this hell.\" \n\n", "Jameson trembled, seeing his reflection across the way before taking the final step that would end him. Looking at his reflection, his life of his once happy family forced its way to the forefront of his mind. He was overcome with anger and hatred; with guilt and sorrow. His body became overwhelmed with pain, impacting all areas of his body. He began to tremble, fearing his next step, yet at the same time welcoming it. \n\n“Stop” said a calm voice behind him. Jameson felt none could alter his path. Nonetheless despite the misery, he welcomed the voice. \n\n“Are you here to stop me? Are you here to tell me what worth my life has?” \n\n“No,” said the voice.\n\n“So you’re here to watch, to have a good show?” \n\n“No,” said the voice again. Jameson noticed the voice to grow colder. \nFinally, he turned around. \n\n“Then why are you…” He froze, finally noticing who it was. \n\n“I’m here to tell you, that your life is not yours to take.”\n\nJameson froze, unable to speak. \n\n“My old enemy,” said Jameson. “Are you here to witness an end to what I started?”\n\n“Justice demands more.” \n\nThis confused Jameson, yet for a moment he could briefly understand the individual's statement. He began to pace a little bit, but was unable to control the shake in his voice.\n\n“Justice: a word without written law. Tell me, is that why you’re here; to write another definition?”\n\nJameson noticed how his enemy was calm, and completely composed, while he was the complete opposite. \n\n“I am here to satisfy the demands of Justice. You betrayed your family, turned on your friends for monetary gain. There are many who have died because of you that cry for vengeance. I have been the only one to listen to their cries. Shall I let them go unanswered?”\n\nThe coldness of this statement pierced Jameson. He then began to consider if what this person said about his life were true. \n\n“Is this why it’s not my life to take? The ‘laws of justice’ demand it be theirs?”\n\nThe individual nodded. \n\n“Are you questioning then if I really do feel remorse for what I’ve done? For whom I have killed and whom I have let live to suffer?” asked Jameson. \n\n“No,” said the individual. “I already know how you feel. We both know you were never going to take that final step, because you knew, I’d find you.”\n\nJameson began to pace quickly around the room.\n\n“You were always a way out, where I could just pass off anybody to you! You gladly accepted everybody I killed, but you resented me!” \n\nJameson knew his questioning was futile, as he could only fathom one outcome of this situation. Nonetheless, he listened. \n\n“Your methods and desires contradicted their needs,” said the individual.\n\n“And why the hell does that matter to you?” \n\n“Because I hear them, I see them after death. And they cry for revenge; for justice. A wronged soul does not rest in peace, and I am their arbiter.”\n\nJameson knew the time was coming.\n\n“So, you are to kill me then? Isn’t that outside the bounds of your abilities?”\n\n“No,” said the individual. “Not when so many cry your name, in order to find peace.”\n\n“So this is beyond vengeance then?” Jameson began to become calm, slowly developing a comfort to the end resolution. \n\n“Yes it is. It is justice.”\n\nJameson slowly walked up to the individual, and starred at him closely. He began to shake uncontrollably as he moved closer.\n\n“Then, satisfy it!”\n\nThe Angel of Death gently touched Jameson, killing him instantly. He left the body there, knowing the cries were finally silent. The only cry he could hear now, was Jameson's. \n", "Daniel placed the rope around his neck.\n\nDon't do it! a voice said. It was the man he hated most.\n\nHe thought, and before he could change his mind, he lost his footing off of his chair.\n\nAll that remained in the small white room was a dead man, silence, and a mirror.\n\nOutside, cars barreled down the high way." ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3 ]

[ "1401142442", "1401144003", "1401147092", "1401153089", "1401163479", "1401140403", "1401141195" ]

[ "*\"Shit, he just jumped again.\"*\n\nI opened my eyes. I was in a stark white room, the ceiling completely comprised of fluorescent rows of lights. I sat handcuffed to a table, Across from me sat a towering, dark-haired man and a petite, brunette woman in matching black suits and jet-black sunglasses. Behind them in the wall was the only door out of this room and a single mirror. I've seen rooms like this all the time in movies, but never expected to be in one.\n\nWait a minute, why *was* I here, exactly? Last thing I remember, I was falling asleep in my alternate universe mansion in Bermuda. After discovering my power to jump between alternate timelines, i searched for years, until i finally found the perfect one - where I was a millionaire, with not a care in the world.\n\n\"Casey Sullivan.\" The man across from me said my name. His voice was low, guttural and thunderous. Not at all friendly. Time to get out of here. I don't know what the other me was up to in this timeline, or how I ended up here, but I was ready to leave. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and...\n\nNothing.\n\n\"Casey Sullivan,\" the man repeated. I couldn't jump, for some reason. I would have to play along for now.\n\n\"Yes, that *is* my name,\" I replied. \"Quit playing games and tell me *exactly* what you want with me.\n\nThe man and woman quickly exchanged glances. The woman took of her sunglasses and folded her arms on the table, searching me intensely with her bright green eyes.\n\n\"Mr. Sullivan,\" she began, already much warmer than the man next to her, \"My name is Agent Jones. This is Agent Martin. We've got a few uncomfortable truths to tell you right about now.\"\n\nUncomfortable? What could be more uncomfortable than waking up to this? \"Go ahead, Agent Jones. I'm prepared to hear it.\"\n\nAgent Martin grumbled. \"Cut the act, Casey. We know about the timeline jumping. We know you're not...*you.* What we do want to know is where you were before you woke up here.\"\n\n\"Wait, you know?\" I was startled. Never before in any of the parallels had I found others who knew about the timeline jumping. \"Does that mean you know why I'm here, then? Jumps never happen unless I will them to happen.\"\n\nAgent Jones looked at me for a moment before replying, perhaps evaluating the truth of my words. \"Mr. Sullivan, what do you suppose happens to the consciousnesses you jump into? You retain your memories after each jump, don't you? You are still...'Casey Prime,' in a manner of speaking, correct?\"\n\n\"Well, yes, I am. But I had never really considered what happened to the others, before now. I had supposed perhaps I melded with them, or replaced them. When I left, they would continue on as normal.\"\n\n\"But where does that leave the body of 'Casey Prime,' then?\" asked Agent Jones. \"Is he a cold lifeless shell now, no consciousness to return to him?\"\n\n\"I hadn't considered that,\" I admitted. \"There's no way in hell I would return to the timeline that my original body was from.\"\n\nAgent Martin let out a half-snort, half-grunt. \"Cut the shit, Jones. Martin, I'll tell it to you straight. Whenever you jump into a different you, the consciousness of the body you jumped into becomes the consciousness in your previous body.\"\n\nIt took me a moment to wrap my head around that one. \"So... I effectively switch places with the other consciousness whenever I jump.\"\n\n\"Correct.\"\n\n\"But again, I didn't make this jump. And I've never inadvertently jumped before. What happened this time.\"\n\n\"In this universe,\" Agent Jones explained, \"our research into the timeline-shift phenomena has progressed extremely rapidly compared to many of the other parallels. We've come into some interesting research on the human mind and will.\n\n\"To put it simply, each 'you' across all of the multiverses shares traits, fundamental drives, a will and meaning. Each 'you' in every parallel is only a fraction of the whole. Beyond our dimensions as we understand them, there is an ultimate combination of the multiverses, where every parallel version of a person forms the one whole person. Strangely enough, a bit of that residue manifests in the parallels, as the timeline-jumping ability. But only one parallel version of a person can wield it - the version whose will is strongest.\"\n\n\"So I had this ability because I had the strongest will - the strongest drive to leave my own timeline.\" I believe I understood. But one thing didn't make sense. \"So why did I randomly jump here, if I'm in control?\"\n\nAgent Martin let out a deep throaty laugh, like a bear roar. \"You haven't figured it out? Our 'you' is in deep trouble. *Deep,* deep trouble. So much so, his will to leave and live burst yours out of the water. He jumped, and he isn't coming back.\"\n\n\"But what does that have to do with me?\" I grinned. I found my ace-in-the-hole. \"If you know all of this, you know I'm not the one you want.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" Agent Jones conceded, \"you're not.\" She stood up, gave me one last cold stare, and left the room.\n\n\"Does this mean I'm free to go, then?\" I asked Agent Martin.\n\n\"On the contrary,\" he chuckled. \"You're staying put.\" He stood up and dusted himself off, heading for the door. Right before he left, he turned around.\n\n\"Don't worry, we'll be back...\" he said, smiling. \"After all, we want our proper consciousness back. We'll need to strengthen your will.\"\n\n\"And just how do you intend to do that?\" I asked, panic and morbid curiosity setting over me.\n\n\"By giving you an even greater reason to jump than your other consciousness had.\" His smile grew larger, carnivorous.\n\nHe slammed the door, and I was alone.", "\"Of course I knew.\"\n\nNot long ago I had been testing the limits if my new found gift. Visualizing a myriad of worlds stretched thin at my finger tips, just waiting to be seen in full. At first, I couldn't comprehend the complexity of the new dimesions layed out before me. It was like being two years old again and the dictionary was just placed in front of me. Naturally, I couldn't understand any of it, but like any two year old, they grow and learn. So did I.\n\n\"This is the domain of the higher ones.\"\n\nI would dash between the minds of mortals in different realities, expieriencing their lives in full before moving onto the next. I leanred of things people couldn't even imagine. I wasn't restricted to Earth, oh no, I went *everywhere.*\n\n\"But I couldn't satisfy myself.\"\n\nHave you ever had the feeling of dread while doing something seemingly harmless? I suppose I felt it when I couldn't recall where I came from, losing my own reality you could say. Panic ensued, like suddenly realizing you've lost control of the vehicle you were driving. With desparation, you try any way to regain control before it's too late.\n\n\"But I found it.\"\n\nAs with traveling in the realm of infinite tangible possibilities, strange happenings occur. I even found myself when I didn't have this ability. Only, I sat idly by to watch what my life could have been. I was happy so see myself with a satble job and a household consisting of a loving spouce and a beautiful child. \n\n\"But I flew too far.\"\n\nAs you might expect, when I moved on I found myself again, but it was a shocking sight. Dying slowly under a bridge with passerbys not even batting an eye. I left faster than I arrived. Of all the sights and expieriences I had before, being reminded of what I used to be and just how fragile I was made me sick to my hypothetical stomach. Even the happy-household opened my eyes at how simple minded I was, and how how primitive I am still.\n\n\"It all dwindled away soon enough.\"\n\nI stopped myelf after that, spiraling into issues of self worth as well as my sanity. No matter how hard I searched, I couldn't find where I came from. Every other reality felt wrong, like never before. I didn't belong there. I soon felt this in all my inter-dimensional glory. It's not real to me anymore.\n\n\"I'm lost.\"\n\n\"Indeed you are.\" I said to myself, no wait... Myself said to me...\n\n\"Have I finally found myself?\"\n\n\"But it's wrong, I don't belong here.\"\n\nI'm lost in this smog of darkness, where, nothing is real." ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1401172872", "1401176400" ]

[ "*\"This is unacceptable!\"* The golden haired woman said, *\"We cannot let* him *alter the course of mankind merely by his intervention.\"* She was clearly frustrated.\n\n*\"What do you expect us to do? Our Pantheon has remained silent for Aeons.\"* A tall man, of fierce stance replied. *\"The last days of champions declared that we would no longer intervene with the mingling of mankind. So it was declared since the Mayan Empire ascended to the skies.\"*\n\nThe one with the face of a dog snarled, *\"Then it is time to alter the course.\"* Pounding his fist on the large shimmering glass that acted as table. Above it the planet they guarded. It was clear that someone was not keeping to the rules. Borealis bands crossed the surface like arrows, faster than anything mankind had build before.\n\n*\"*HE *has built gateways for his own followers, we should close them.\"* Her misty voice crossed to the others of the Pantheon. *\"If we let this continue, mankind will never ascend correctly. This will strike the end of all other facets. Only the 'religious' will remain.\"*\n\n*\"Then it is decided. Release the champions once more. Each of us may bless a single human, to walk as demi-god. A pillar of strife against religion. Let the humans cast aside the blindness caused by religious faith.\"*\n\n\nSo the war continued, the one god, claiming to be the only one, against all others. Humans had fought his war for him, now he had joined them in an attempt to be the only god.\n\nIt had worked.", "“We have sat silent for too long!” said the dark red bearded massive mountain of a man resting his hands upon the burnished wooden table. His precise movements certainly didn’t replicate the anger that was clearly present in his eyes. “We agreed to the accord over 2000 years ago and we have lived with it, much to man- kind’s detriment. We have watched our followers dwindle and sat silent as people who once worshiped us now relegate us to the world of mythology” he glared at the large blonde bearded man sitting across from him. The statuesque brunette to the right of him looked over at that same blonde man noting the terrible scars around his neck and said. “You said this would be better for them. That our meddling was going to slow there path to ascensions so we all agreed to follow your lead. Now look where we are.”\n She continued with her eyes boring into the man sitting next her. “His follower grew into world spanning religions and achieved near domination and we did nothing. Yet now as his grip on them to slip he just ignores the accords as though they do not exist and does what he wants.”\n\n Standing apart from them all was a large barrel chested man with piercing blue eyes radiating a profound air of confidence. He began walking toward the table and spoke with steel in his voice. “With the rise in critical thinking they are beginning to get closer to ascension. He is terrified that one of them will ascend and see him for what he is.” He stepped even closer placing his steepled fingers on the table and continued in earnest. “We did nothing as his followers killed ours and crushed the beliefs that would have led them closer to ascension sooner, but you stood at this very same table arguing that direct intervention could prove devastating.” With a tearing of the fabric of reality another man entered the conversation. He stepped into the reality they had created and while he looked like a younger clean shaven version of the red bearded man he was more heavily corded with muscle and seemed much fiercer which was hard to believe . He gave them no chance to react to his sudden entry stating “He has begun believing his own nonsense about heaven and hell and this war between him and the great Satan. I care nothing for the accord any more as it means nothing to him. He was never our equal and certainly none of his Angels are a match for me or anyone around this table. I am done sitting around we aren’t gods we are just beings from a higher plane that have reached ascension I will no longer tolerate his arrogance in playing with the humans.” He looked over to the blond man with sadness in his eyes saying “I know you tried but it failed and now we need to fix it”\n\nThe battle was going poorly colonel Blanchard sat in the back of his APC wondering how things had come to this. The world in general was in an uproar wars everywhere and Angels and archangels coming to the aid of which ever army God had ordained as his chosen. They had been pushed back all the way to Missouri with the fundamentalist armies still pressing north. The Canadians were helping but they had their own problems with zealots popping up everywhere. The god of the Jews Moslems and Christians had come out and said that all non-believers had to die. Years of progress wiped out in minutes with angles fanning the flames of war. The northern army was able to stop the southern army but there was no stopping an angle when they got involved. Whole armored divisions where smashed by someone claiming to the archangel Michael. For so many there was a discordance with what the Christian god was supposed to be. And was it really God or some other alien species trying to control man for some unknown purpose. \n\nThe clarion sounded three times in quick succession captain David Adams looked up at colonel Blanchard with skin as white as paper saying “ well Neil I think this is it, we knew it was risky trying to stop the southern army but if that is an archangel we are done”. Looking over to Dave he couldn’t help but hide the sadness in his voice “I know Dave I’m sorry its ending this way as well”.\n\nThe sky above the field in northern Missouri was ripped open and there in all his majesty was the archangel Michael. His resplendent wings and battle armor appearing as though something out of legend. He carried a huge one handed sword that many people had seen cut through tanks and fighter gets with ease. No weapon could touch him but they tried anyway. The smoke and chaff from exploding rounds and missiles splashed around him without even messing his hair. In a clear voice for all to hear he pronounced. “you have been judged and found wanting. There will be no quarter” He began his charge at the lead main battle tank. \nNothing Neil could do was going to change what was about to happen but he hoped that he could save as many men as possible. He ordered them to retreat knowing the words were to little to late. As the angel closed in on the tank there was a bright flash and another being stepped out in front of the tank. He was massive at least 8 feet tall and was a mass of muscle wearing armor that looked like it belonged in a northern European museum. He carried two swords and radiated and intense aura of raw power. Neil heard Dave say what he was thinking “who the hell is that?”\nIn an instant the big man’s foot snapped out kicking the archangel in the chest sending him sprawling onto the ground in a heap. In a voice that befit his stature the man stated simply. “The accord is ended I am vengeance I am wrath and I deliver justice.” He sneered at the shocked angel and Neil could see actual fear in the angels face. “You broke the accord, the manipulation is done. “ The angel reared up righteous anger upon his face and launched himself at the big man. The result was spectacular as he closed with the man it was as though the big man blurred and was in many places at once. He picked the angels armour apart and smashed the pommel of his blade down upon the wings of the angel breaking them instantly. He swept across the front of the angel and severed the hand holding his weapon and kicked the angel once more in the chest leaving him a broken pathetic creature moaning in pain at his feet. The being looked over to Neil and his northern army and stated clearly. “There are no gods there is only the ascended. The being you face is nothing more than ascended being who was left alone to long. Retribution is coming and you will be allowed to grow into what man was meant to be. The being claiming to be a god is about to have his eyes opened again. “\n" ]

[ 3, 3 ]

[ "1401201601", "1401217818" ]

[ "A locksmith. ", "Jake Thompson is a real handy man. He lives off the Main St. in the red brick house and it’s as stern as he is. For instance, Jake cuts his grass every Sunday, trims his hedges twice a year around April and October. If his wooden windows are begging for a paint job – he’ll paint em’ up. As with Jakes’ lawn he constantly works on the inside of his house whether he’s cleaning toilets or washing the dishes (Which is a great help to his wife after working long hours at the office) for his two girls whom of which love him very much. His daughter Lily is seven years old, and he reads her a chapter before bed from her favorite book The Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum. He is his wife’s (Stephanie) perfect husband. \n\nJake owns his own construction business and with that comes his handiness and his know how. Last winter when business was slow Ms. Peterson’s heater blew – he helped her replace it with a brand new Corwell Boiler and Heating system. He worked feverishly to install it – because he knew if had waited the pipes would freeze and it would cost Ms. Peterson thousands of dollars to fix the rest of her house. Luckily there was a break in the below zero temperatures that February.\n\nJake bought a piece of property on the edge of town this past winter. His knew project was building a two family house. Of course, he was subbing work out, like the foundation, rough carpentry and electric work. He only had a plumbing license having both would be nice. \n\nThey had just finished pulling the brown forms off the 8 foot concert walls. Jake had begun grading the dirt in the basement preparing it for the flat work later on. He got a call. He thought it was going to be another business call, but it was the hospital informing him that his daughter and his wife were hit by a car at the intersection of Tulip and Main St. He left what he was doing and drove a fast as he could to the hospital, weaving in and out of cars. He was sweating. His stomach dropped like bricks. Nonetheless, he kept his composure.\n\nHe entered the emergency room in a quicken pace and he saw his wife talking to the doctor in green scrubs. He kissed his wife on the cheek and said, “Hi Honey, are you okay”\n\t\nShe replied, “Yes, and no.” \n\n\tHe said, “Thank God. How’s Melanie?” \n\nThe doctor cut in and said, “Where doing all the tests that we can to make sure she’s okay. As soon as the results come back she can go.” \n\n\t“Thanks.” \n\n\tHe turned to his wife and asked, “ Where is she now?”\n\n\t\t“Getting an MRI” \n\tStill sweating and visibly upset he asked, “What happened?” \n\n\tShe looked at him and said shaken, “One minute she was right next to me holding my hand and the next she was hit by a jalopy, and lying on the ground crying.” \n\nHe felt absolutely powerless. The guy who hit her was drunk and he blew a 1.8 when the cops showed up. Thankfully they took him away in cuffs. That wasn't enough for the man who hurt Jake Thompsons little girl. TO BE CONTINUED. \n", "Of what value is a man?\n\n \n\nThe Zeus World Space Elevator was, by any measure, the most ambitious and the most costly endeavor ever undertaken by mankind. It may also become the most valuable. From my vantage point, at an altitude of just over 40km, I can see the devastating effects of positive-feedback global warming. Average surface temperatures at the equator have reached 55°C, leaving huge swaths of the Amazon brown, dead, and uninhabitable. Most of the Pacific Ocean is now too hot and acidic to support carbon-sequestering plant life. With the massive plant die-off, incalculable quantities of carbon were released into the atmosphere all at once, and atmospheric oxygen concentrations have begun to drop.\n\n \n\nOur best estimates in 2060, gave us 1,000 years before oxygen became as scarce at sea level as it once had been at the top of Mt. Everest. Our best estimates were wrong. Just five years later, it became clear that the rate of oxygen depletion was increasing beyond exponentially. Revised calculations suggested that atmospheric oxygen would reach dangerous levels in less than 100 years. A worldwide state of panic ensued. Militant environmentalists were elected to every level of government. They outlawed money, focusing every government effort towards Survival-Related Activities (SRA). Refusal to participate in, or materially support an SRA in some way was met with force, and rightfully so; as a civilian, you are either aiding the cause, or literally wasting your breath.\n\n \n\nOf all my fellow human beings, it was the artists for whom I felt the worst. Of what value is a painting, if no one is alive to view it? There were other losses. Pets were outlawed on September 21st, 2068. Animals kept for food were seized, and in the ensuing decade and a half, we have all become vegetarian. Of all my favorite meals, it is the steak I miss the most. It is estimated that these restrictions will buy mankind another 3-5 years, but most people don't believe in estimates anymore.\n\n \n\nGiven my fear of heights, I should have been much more comfortable contributing towards an SRA like Deep Earth Carbon Sequestration (A.K.A. \"Genie Back in the Bottle\"), Enclosed Community Construction (A.K.A. \"Human Terrarium\"), or Synthetic Photosynthesis (A.K.A. \"Roboplants\"). Instead, my genius for electrical engineering was assigned to the Zeus (A.K.A \"Longshot\"), a space elevator that just might allow us to escape this increasingly inhabitable brown marble.\n\n \n\nThe purpose of a space elevator is to allow the efficient transport of large quantities of mass into orbit. In this case, the mass represents all the equipment needed to build a permanent space colony. This colony will be a safe haven from the tempers of our mother planet, and also act as a departure point for future interstellar travel. Construction of the elevator was completed in less than a decade. The colony is already 10% complete; it's amazing what can be achieved when money is no longer part of the equation. Having a no other option is also motivating.\n\n \n\nThis is my first trip up the cable, and just a few hours in to the weeklong trip, I realize my fear of heights will not be cured by exposure. Unfortunate. There are almost 2,000 of cars above me, and another will be following me up shortly: 50km between cars, 10,000km cable. We all crawl upward to deliver our load, and then the real work begins. When I said this project was the most costly in human history, I meant in human lives: we don't use money anymore. Space construction is not nearly as safe as it sounds, and it doesn’t sound very safe at all. I heard that there are provisions on the station for only 50% of the total crew: such is the \"turnover\" rate.\n\n \n\nThese thoughts are occupying my mind when the upward crawling suddenly stops. My stomach wants to leap out of my chest. As unnerving as moving slowly away from the Earth's surface was, stopping is much, much worse.\n\n \n\nThe radio crackles to life, \"Standby, car 17A42.\" I'm not going anywhere. The elevator car is a kite-shaped, aluminum structure. At its center is the crawler motor, which uses four large wheels in opposition to pinch and slowly roll up the carbon nanofiber cable. The cable is about 6 feet in diameter, and was manufactured in thousands of factories in 42 different countries. While it has the highest tensile strength of any known material, its shearing strength is very low. A sharp knife, and a little patience could easily sever the cable: knowing that makes me feel like I’m hanging from a spider’s web. All along the car’s outer beams hang large, cubic containers filled with whatever is needed to build the station. I don’t know what my car is hauling, I’m just along for the ride. The enclosed space I occupy is on one side of the motor, and measures about 15 x 8 meters. The view from up here is dizzying, I can see Earth’s horizon bending away in all directions.\n\nAfter an hour of waiting, another message, \"Revised calculations indicate your car is overloaded. It won't have enough fuel to complete the trip. Do you copy?\"\n\n \n\n\"I copy.\" I have a bad feeling about this.\n\n \n\n\"We're lucky we caught this early, 17A42, or we'd have lost the whole car. As it is, we just need you to manually jettison a few items and then redistribute the remaining cargo for balance. Once you are finished we can restart the car. Copy?\"\n\n \n\n\"Copy, ground.\" My fear is nearly debilitating from inside the car, and now I am being asked to climb out along the beams, and release several thousand kilos of whatever. But as always, they give me no choice. Take this action, or hang in space forever. My fear cannot stand in the way of an SRA.\n\n \n\nWhile I put on my suit, I play Tom Petty’s “Free Falling” to take my mind off things. I’ve got that morbid sensibility. With my helmet on and com in my ear, I open the access hatch leading to the roof of the car. Space quickly rushes into my quarters; or rather, my air is sucked out into space. No more oxygen, except the tank on my back. It will take an hour for the cabin to re-pressurize.\n\n \n\n“17A42, carefully make your way out arm B, and release container 16.” Standing on the top of the car, my heart is pounding in my ears. Its roof slopes towards the edge such that I would slide into the ether if I sat down. I work myself towards the edge of the car, and look down. I can’t even process the distance between the myself and the ocean. It might as well be a million miles away. There is no safety tether, and the rungs on arm B are laughably small. Sweat from my hands is pooling in the fingers of each glove.\n\n \n\n“Ground… This is not… good,” I say. The understatement feels poetic.\n\n \n\n“You can do this. Just take it slowly and carefully.” And I do. Each step is a master class in determination. I meditate, I curse, I laugh, and I cry. Presently, I reach container 16, and with an easy twist of the red handle, poof, the container is shrinking below me. The car rocks slightly upward, and I think I might be sick.\n\n \n\n“Very good. Only three more.” The next three containers require the same exertion as the first, but eventually, I drop them all. I try not to think about what will happen to them when they land. I redistribute the remaining containers, as instructed, and am moments away from climbing back into the cabin and having a good-old-fashioned emotional meltdown.\n\n \n\n“One more thing 17A42. We are still 180 kilos overweight. I’m sorry to say that the least valuable cargo of that weight is yourself and your suit. I know this is hard, but you are going to need to jump.”\n\n \n\nI let a long moment pass before saying, “Is this a joke?”\n\n \n\n“Negative.”\n\n\n\nAfter a long moment, a new voice comes over the com, \"John, I know this is a very unfortunate position to be in. However, let me describe the situation to you. Your car does not have enough fuel to reach the station at its current weight. If it gets stuck on the cable, it will take days to clear it. We would send up more fuel, but all of your remaining cargo is essential to the survival of multiple persons on the station, and must reach them within 8 hours of its scheduled time of arrival. We have to get that car moving, so I must insist that you jump as soon as possible.\"\n\n\n\n\"Oh, you insist?!\" I start to yell, but I'm immediately cutoff by a piercing tone.\n\n\n\n \"Additionally, while you were busy releasing the overweight containers, we remotely jettisoned your life support system, so you have whatever oxygen is remaining in your suit before you asphyxiate. You must see that the only choice left to you is whether your final act will doom the men and women above you, or save them. This decision was not personal, we did what had to be done, and now you must do the same.\" Through the hatch, I can see the empty space in the cabin where my oxygen scrubber, and fresh water supply used to be. He isn't bluffing.\n\n\n\nThe carousel of emotions in my mind is halted by a single thought: My fate is the same as mankind's, but smaller, and I have no choice.\n\n", "All eyes were upon David as he ambled up to the podium. He was a handsome man in his forties. His hair had started to recede in the front, but it was fitting of his age. He looked out at the crowd, trying to find some familiarity, but could only recognize a few of the faces, all squared away in one corner.\n\nThe crowd was so young, he thought, people in their twenties, mostly. He was nervous, and looked down at the folded sheet of paper he had with him. He hoped a few prepared remarks would be enough to calm his nerves. Normally he’d speak off the cuff – he was the kind of guy who would always be there with the right words, or a comforting touch. He could make you feel better about your day, or give you the confidence you needed to make the right decision. Right now though, David was lost.\n\nHe took a deep breath.\n\n“Hello everyone”, his voice was calm but wavering. “Thank you so much for coming out tonight.”\n\nHe looked over to his right and smiled. He knew he felt joy in his heart, but truthfully, looking upon his daughter clad in white lace, he felt alone.", "Dave was the finest horse tamer East of the Mississippi: he'd tamed wild chargers and broken the strongest horses from the furthest reaches of the planet.\n\nBut he was unemployed.\n\nWhen he saw the ad in the paper, he exploded. \"Skilled horse trainer needed by US Govt for long-term assignment in unorganized western territories.\"\n\nImmediately hired, Dave spent months upon months in the Nevada desert training hundreds of raw horses. He taught the hoses how to keep going in the impenetrable heat. The riders he taught how to care and love for their animals. \n\nBy the end of the year, they were ready. \n\nHundreds of horses and dozens of expert riders were fully prepared. No distance would prove too great. No weather too extreme. No delivery too burdensome.\n\nNothing stood in the way of the Pony Express. " ]

[ 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 ]

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