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[WP] A medieval knight is cursed and transported to the present day. Coincidentally he lands at a modern renaissance fair.
|
The air shimmered before his eyes as he saw the vile wizard mouth the last words of the spell. His eyes went black and the thoughts disappeared from his mind. He floated through the inky darkness as the air around him grew hotter. He awoke to a foul stench and light streaming in from above.
The knight, groggy from his journey, blinked his eyes and looked around.
"What sort of place is this? Has the wizard captured me, placed me in an oubliette in his foul dungeon? But if so, from where does this light emanate? And what is this strange, hard green substance surrounding me?"
The knight stood up and looked where he had sat to find a hole with blackness underneath. He leaned forward and discovered the source of the smell.
"Lord help me!" He turned around again and saw what appeared to be a door in front of him. He broke the latch with his lobstered gauntlet and kicked open the door. He stepped out into the sunlight and took a deep breath before looking around in horror.
"What cursed land did that damnable wizard banish me to?" he thought. He turned behind him to see that the oubliette was a stand-alone structure, one of a group. There were people waiting in front of these strange cells, and many more walking around dressed in a variety of clothes. Some familiar, some not.
The knight scanned the crowd until he saw what appeared to be a monk standing near a tent. He strode over to the holy man and said, "You, good Friar. Please help me! An evil wizard has cursed me and I am afraid I do not know where I am."
The monk looked at him like he had three eyeballs and said, "Listen, dude. I know this is a Ren Fair but you sound like you're straight out of Beowulf. Can you give that to me again in modern English?"
The knight stepped back, not understanding a word this monk had said. For all he knew, the man was an imposter, and casting another spell! A mailed fist reared back and swung forward with all the might of a master of martial arts. The monk went flying back and hit a table, spilling cups of beer. Many in the crowd turned and gasped, not knowing what would provoke this costumed maniac.
The knight turned to stare at the crowd, and shouted, "By the Lord in Heaven, I will escape this vile place!" He reached to the side for his long sword, but found that he had no weapons on him. Of course the wizard would disarm him before trapping him in that cell! But wait, did the wizard take his dagger?
As the knight reached down to his boot, two burly, bearded men with tattoos approached him. The first one said, "Hey man, what the fuck is your problem? You can't just go punching people like that. I think you need to wait here while someone calls the cops."
More damnable gibberish! And this coming from Vikings! Is this Hades? the knight thought. Vikings, holy men speaking witchcraft, and all manner of strange devices and accoutrements in the hands of these people. The two men advanced slowly as the knight backed away. He then reached down, retrieved the dagger from his boot, and came up with it firmly in hand, pointed at the heathens approaching him.
"Whoa, man," The other one said. "This guy is deranged!" The crowd backed away from the maniac in the full mail suit. The knight was glad he got the point across: do not attempt to harm me.
"I must make my way from this terrible place and get my bearings," he said to himself. He continued backing away, and turned to flee. He made his way through the throngs of people until he started hearing a strange wailing in the distance.
"Sirens! But, as far as I can see, we are not near the ocean!" As the noise grew louder, the wailing turned harsher and more discordant.
"Not sirens! Banshees! The wizard now sends his demons to attack!" He turned in a circle, assessing the situation. More people milled about cautiously, many gathering under tents and giving the man a wide berth. The knight saw an opening in the crowd and decided to run for it, but before he could a strange, armored monster closed the gap... and a man, dressed all in black, stepped out of it!
The man had his hand on his belt and slowly stepped forward.
"Sir, you need to put down the knife and lay on the ground with your arms behind your back," the officer said.
"I cannot understand your words, demon!" Replied the knight. He backed away from the man in black, waving his dagger at the onlookers behind him. The man in black lifted a device to his mouth and spoke a few words.
Seeing this, the knight ducked into a nearby tent with closed flaps, hoping to bide his time and figure out a way to escape. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw a familiar sight: a rack of weapons. He shoved his dagger back into the sheathe in this boot. As he looked over the weapons, he could hear more wailing. More demon creatures and their warlock riders were coming closer.
The knight pulled his eyes from the weapons and opened the flaps on the other side, only to be greeted by a strange, metal barrier with holes. He attempted to pull the metal links apart, but realized that the material was too strong. He stuck his head out of the flap and saw that this barrier extended far in either direction. He would not be leaving this tent through the back.
As he turned back to the weapon rack, he heard another noise.
"COME OUT OF THE TENT WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR."
The warlocks amplified their voices! The knight swore that if he could get out of this situation, he would find the wizard who cursed him and send him straight to hell. The knight surveyed the weapons before him. What shoddy material and workmanship! But he had no choice. He grabbed a hand axe and slipped it through a loop on his belt. Then he bent down and picked up a halberd. It was the sturdiest weapon he saw, with a long reach and a wicked edge. It would help him carve through the demons to escape.
The knight stepped out of the tent into the sunlight and lowered his visor. He swung the halberd in a wide arc as a display of his prowess. The crowd was farther back, and the warlocks had taken control of the area in front of the tent.
"We will only say this once more. Put down the weapons and lie on your stomach with your hands behind your back. You are under arrest."
"I do not speak your devilish tongue," the knight shouted back. "Your master got the upper hand and banished me here, but I will find my way back. Do not attempt to stop me. Stand down!"
On a word from the first warlock, the others stepped back and reached for their belts. No doubt they intended on retrieving spell components from their pouches, the knight thought. But he would not be fooled again. He stepped forward once more, swinging his halberd towards them threateningly.
With explosive force, the knight launched himself into a run, preparing to cleave the first closest warlock in half. At this movement, the officers raised their guns and pulled their triggers.
As the knight rushed forward, hellfire erupted from the wands the warlocks had procured. What a terrible noise! And such pain as the spells from the warlocks punched through the mail armor and bit into the knight's flesh. The halberd fell from his hands as the knight stumbled to the ground. The crowd screamed and the officers slowly lowered their pistols.
The strange man in the detailed medieval knight costume had no identification on him and no records to speak of. When questioned about the incident, no one at the fair could account for him, nor could anyone explain why he seemingly went berserk and tried to attack the officers.
|
***Behold, my fellow knights, the arrival of James, son of Percival, lord of the Western Regions and liege of Statmark!***
The knight stood, his head turning around awaiting cheering and curtsies. Instead, nothing happened. A larger man pushing through the crowd thrusted his arm into the knight's soldier. Flabbergasted he shouted: ''You, man of common folk, dare to physically harm me? By the order of the twelve tablespoons, I hereby declare you outlaw for challenging a lord's knight. Begone!''
''Whatever, dude'', the thick man replied as he kept pushing through the crowd. ''Also, your accent is terrible. You sound like a Scottish farmer trying to speak German.''
''What do you say?'' the knight asked in anger, drawing his sword to strengthen his words.
''Also, your bucket helm sucks. Get a grip at cosplay, dude.'' was the last thing the knight heard as the man disappeared in the crowd.
|
|
[WP] A medieval knight is cursed and transported to the present day. Coincidentally he lands at a modern renaissance fair.
|
What trickery is this, he thought. Not sword, nor scroll?
A fruit?
They don't bite it, nor fight with it, nor plant it. What trickery?
"Dear Sir," Rudolph pushed forward, "May you tell me where I can purchase this fine item you are all holding here?"
"What?"
Rudolph forgot to raise his helmet's visor. Of course the lad won't understand him like that!
"Dear Sir," Rudolph repeated. "This black glowing piece in your hand, where may I find one in this village?"
"Hah, my iPhone? Was just checking when the sword fight event is going to happen."
An eyefore. An ifen? Rudolph blushed, and not wanting to appear uninformed about the latest medieval inventions, nodded knowingly.
"Thank you, thank you. Then let us enjoy the fighting."
I'm getting old, he thought, as he closed the visor. But by God, I'll show them my might at the sword.
And he would, captured by a hundred shaky ifens.
|
***Behold, my fellow knights, the arrival of James, son of Percival, lord of the Western Regions and liege of Statmark!***
The knight stood, his head turning around awaiting cheering and curtsies. Instead, nothing happened. A larger man pushing through the crowd thrusted his arm into the knight's soldier. Flabbergasted he shouted: ''You, man of common folk, dare to physically harm me? By the order of the twelve tablespoons, I hereby declare you outlaw for challenging a lord's knight. Begone!''
''Whatever, dude'', the thick man replied as he kept pushing through the crowd. ''Also, your accent is terrible. You sound like a Scottish farmer trying to speak German.''
''What do you say?'' the knight asked in anger, drawing his sword to strengthen his words.
''Also, your bucket helm sucks. Get a grip at cosplay, dude.'' was the last thing the knight heard as the man disappeared in the crowd.
|
|
Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
|
[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
|
Summary of experimentation log.
Introduction: The ultimate goal is to replicate the condition found in the primordial subject - I - and the goal of this summary is therefore, ultimately, to understand the cost of attaining immortality for humans.
The recessive trait expressing immortality appears to be the result of a unique genetic mutation, and seems unlikely to ever again occur in another human. The cost of not succeeding in these experiments will therefore be the loss of life that will befall every human born before we manage to wipe ourselves out, supposing immortals manage to supplant normals. This toll will be at least in the 100's of billions. This is the blood that will be on my hands should I not manage to produce immortal offspring.
The cost of attaining this immortality will be measured in the subjects needed to reproduce the recessive gene combination without deliterious recessive traits - and it will be measured in all those 100's of billions of humans that will not be born. When only the immortal remain, human evolution will largely cease - but so will sexual selection, and so will the need for finding a mate. We may turn from our dusty rock, and finally look to the stars for fulfillment and answers and life.
30 courses have been run so far.
The first course was conservative; 64 viable specimen were selected for direct breeding with the progenitor, from a wide variety of geographic locations, which resulted in a population of 64 healthy offspring each with 50% progenitor material. 50%p for short.
Each of these was bread with a non offspring speciment, resulting in 64 25%p specimen. These were crossbred for 7 generations in an attempt to isolate the trait in decent conditions. Course one proved ineffective, but only 3 examples of deleterious conditions happened throughought course one.
Course 2 was based on 64 50%p specimen being crossbred for 7 generations. Incidence of deleterious traits overall within the course reached 5%, discounting the superficial ones; but this was when the deleterious specimen were discarded from breeding further. The trait was not isolated.
During course 3, deleterious speciment were not discarded, and the proportion of deleterious traits rose to 62% by generation 7.
Course 4 and 5 cover generations 8-through-14 of courses 2 and 3, when the populations were continually crossbread. In course 4, 3% of individuals did not express deleterious traits, with 58% being stillborn. In course 5, 100% of 14th generation offspring expressed deleterious traits, and 87% were stillborn.
The trait was not isolated.
Courses 6-through-15 cover various varieties of crossbreeding with larger populations, the largest being the basis for course 11 at 2048 50%p direct decendent progenitor offspring.
The trait was not isolated.
In course 16, it was determined the progenitor must be introduced as a mate. Courses 16 - through - 20 introduce the progenitor once at generations 7-through-3, with only a slight increase in stillborn offspring; it seemed the progenitors direct offspring had a far higher likelihood of survival, though the number of deleterious traits still seemed to compound - albeit in surprising ways.
The trait still remained not isolated.
For courses 21-through-29, the progenitor was introduced at higher and higher fractional frequencies; every 8th generation for 21, and in 2 out of every 3 generations for course 29.
The trait appeared to be isolated during course 29, but the deleterious effects in the few individuals were too many; among them were complete sterility, inability to properly digest many foods, complete lack of skin melanin, inability to properly retain iron, near 100% incidence of psychopathic and borderline personality disorders, and a 100% occourence of severe anemia.
A different approach has been chosen for course 30, which is still ongoing. Rather than attempt to systematically control the gene pool, the progenitor is simply bred untill deleterious traits appear, then these are bread away with new blood, then the offspring is once again bred with the progenitor.
It is hoped that course 30 will manage to isolate the trait without incurring sterility.
|
Society can place whatever labels they deem appropriate, but love is love. Where do I begin?
I've stopped counting, but I am immortal. Older than 3000 years old, younger than who cares. I'm really fuckin old and I'm tired of the banality of life. What curse has been given to me that I should watch countless friends and lovers wither with time.
They say God has a plan, but don't plans have an execution date? Maybe this will be it.
About 30 years ago I met Daughtry. And 25 years before her I met Mary. I thought this was just another love and loss tale, which it is, but something peculiar has happened. Mary died 10 years ago..cancer. We were never in love, but she was the most beautiful girl ive ever met. Daughtry looks just like her..and she hasn't aged a day since 18. Mary was my lover. Daughtry, my child. How similar her beauty is to her mother, why is it so wrong to hold desire? After a life while of loneliness, a man starts to feel hollow. Daughtry fills me up with life...another curse? Maybe? But it's a blessing as well. Daughtry feels the same way.
Another thing...the other day, I found a grey hair on my head. Does stress effect me? Am I aging? I don't know, but I'm just happy things are changing. I will report back.
|
Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
|
[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
|
Look, OP, you're thinking about this all wrong. Breeding experiments were all the rage back in 400 BC, and yeah, they sounded interesting again when Mendel & Darwin shed some new light on the problem in the 1800's. But really, none of that went anywhere. The future is in biotech.
It is amazing what 14,000 years of wealth will get you in modern biotech. So let me take a step back and tell you that this is also a love story. After this long, it's weird to be in love again, but I think it might work this time. And here's how it's happening:
I've seen enough to know that diversification is important. Don't put all your eggs in one basket; don't set up all your illegal human experiments in one country. They're not even that sketchy as human experiments go - no one's getting hurt, governments just get fussy about this shit. What I have is a nice set of labs dedicated to some of the latest in targeted genome editing. The CRISPR-Cas9 system and a few fun modifications of that. Just go Google it if you need the details. The short version is that we take a fertilized egg and pop out the native gene and pop in the bit that matches my DNA. Beautiful! Simple! Doesn't do squat for me at this point!
It doesn't work because what I have does not follow simple Mendelian inheritance. Nope, I have some multi-locus shit going on here. There are many mutations that made me, and I don't know yet which combination makes me so timeless.
Where the love story comes in, is that you might be able to tell I'm into the biology here. Life get's boring if I don't find new stuff to do. In my Russian lab they think I'm quality control form the man at the top. They practically piss themselves to lick my boots. At my US lab they think I'm military oversight, but they also think they work for the military so they're a bit dense. At my Chinese lab however, I had the admittedly stupid idea to moonlight as a bench scientist.
So while my US lab is working on an exhaustive assessment of unique variate and epigenetic modifications in my genome, my Chinese lab is getting to be experts in popping genes in & out of just-ferilized embryos. Because I don't want more of me. I have that. We sorted out cloning back in the 90's, and I have 5 of me. We don't like to hang out all that much, every couple decades we get together and admire how almost-identical we are. What I want is *other people* who don't die.
And that's what I was having fun with in China, until the head of that lab figured me out. I did pick Zhang Wei for his cleverness so it wasn't a total surprise when he invited me to his office and asked what it would take for him to be immortal. He's smart, as I said. He knew better than to make demands or I'd raze him from the face of the earth. He also knew we couldn't make him immortal, though we could maybe make a new one of him that is immortal. So we started working together on more honest terms. Yadda, yadda, thrown together by circumstance, late nights conducting illegal research on human embryos, and we fell in love.
The lab feels really weird about this, understandably. As far as they're aware I'm this unremarkable, pudgy, 20-something white girl and he's a fucking genuis. They think he's going senile since he's pushing 95, and I'm taking advantage. (Also he looks like Mr. Miyagi with a fu manchu, which might contribute to their misunderstanding the situation. But, God I would fuck him so hard if it wouldn't shatter his pelvis.) ... I digress.
So you could say that there's a breeding experiment here, cause Wei and I will probably eventually combine gametes when we can make an immortal kid. Of course he will probably be long dead by then, and I'll have an immortal clone-Wei of my very own, to help raise the munchkin.
In fact if you believe in soul mates, all the many me's can have their own Wei's. Me#3 has already met him and expressed an interest. Me#2 is too busy leading her quasi-Buddhist cult, and Me#4 doesn't get a Wei until she stops with the damned bio-terrorism. I mean, seriously 7 billion is an annoying number of people, but killing a couple billion is not the solution. Ugh. She's just too young to remember the black plague.
Anyway, that's about where I'll leave you. We've got a nice factorial experiment running to see which combination of variants is essential for immortality. I estimate a mere 50 - 100 years until I can start making immortal clone-Wei's, and after that I just need one to fall back in love with me. It's okay, I have time.
|
Society can place whatever labels they deem appropriate, but love is love. Where do I begin?
I've stopped counting, but I am immortal. Older than 3000 years old, younger than who cares. I'm really fuckin old and I'm tired of the banality of life. What curse has been given to me that I should watch countless friends and lovers wither with time.
They say God has a plan, but don't plans have an execution date? Maybe this will be it.
About 30 years ago I met Daughtry. And 25 years before her I met Mary. I thought this was just another love and loss tale, which it is, but something peculiar has happened. Mary died 10 years ago..cancer. We were never in love, but she was the most beautiful girl ive ever met. Daughtry looks just like her..and she hasn't aged a day since 18. Mary was my lover. Daughtry, my child. How similar her beauty is to her mother, why is it so wrong to hold desire? After a life while of loneliness, a man starts to feel hollow. Daughtry fills me up with life...another curse? Maybe? But it's a blessing as well. Daughtry feels the same way.
Another thing...the other day, I found a grey hair on my head. Does stress effect me? Am I aging? I don't know, but I'm just happy things are changing. I will report back.
|
Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
|
[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
|
"I waited so long.
Before modern civilization, I had no idea how I could be so different. I just hunted seals and mammoth, watched as my woman and sons, and then grandchildren, aged, and then died. The people of the low lands revered me at first, but as time went on it became necessary to wander, no place more than a few years. Thousand of years passed the same way, years blurring into each other, nothing but the endless march of the seasons. Sometimes I would find companions to walk with me. Every one of them withered or took sick, and left me to walk alone again. All so long ago I couldn't even remember them if I hadn't tattooed their symbols into my skin with their ashes. Their faces are all lost to time. All the children I created I saw to their graves.
Eventually my people were no more, no-one knew or remembered our rites, or even our name. The sea rose and drowned my hunting grounds, and I followed the other refugees to the hills. I wandered for millenia more, nothing really changing, not understanding what purpose I had in the world. I never was the brightest. But, immortality does give you a lot of time to think. And after the first five hundred years nothing really surprises you. I stopped connecting with people, stayed alone apart from the odd necessary trading trip or a night with a woman. Sometimes I'd see a man or woman with the flaming red hair of my tribe, or a familiar face, and wonder if they were my blood. But I never stayed too long. Every death took a piece of my spirit with them, and I just didn't have the strength in my heart to love, mourn and forget any more. The forgetting being the hardest part. I can't remember the names or faces of my children, all the places I lived with them are nothing but fields. Or under the sea.
Then the world changed, quickly for me. Darker, sharp faced people from across the water, where the great old river once flowed into the Atlantic. They brought new ways to live, sheep, pottery, big villages. I stayed clear of these for a while, scared of the change. Then curiosity got the better of me, and I became a traveling trader and mixed in with them. Eventually the people started to change in front of my eyes. My own tribe's red hair colour became common again. They started to look something like the people I had been born too.
It was my own bloodline in these people causing the change. So many women, so many children, all carrying tiny pieces of me into the future, with each generation. After a few decades, I realized that possibly whatever was making me live longer, might also be passed down somehow. Of course, I had no idea how then. But I wanted to know. So I started to study. I watched how the animals were molded to fit different tasks by breeding them, tasted the fruits getting sweeter with each generation.
This would have been about the time of the Romans. What a blessing writing is, you moderns have no idea how inconvenient and inaccurate an oral history is. I started keeping notes, drawings. I amassed great fortune, land, gold, gems. Many different areas. I built fine homes in different parts of the country, and then move and change name every couple of decades, in a cycle. And I started marrying again. I'd pick some young healthy girl with red hair, and produce as many children as possible, and then when she was past childbearing age I would fake my death, leaving her and the children well provided for. I've been doing this about 1800 years now. I never really became attached to any of them. They were really a means to an end.
And then, a monk, one of those silly new religions that locks people away from the world, started breeding flowers. Such a seemingly pointless hobby, but it turns out it was the beginning of the end of my search. The word 'recessive', it made everything make sense.
I invested everything into pursuit of understanding hereditary, genetics, mutation. I got multiple degrees, patience making up for any lack of brilliance on my part. Then the scientists I funded by proxy made breakthroughs like lightning, and I was able to study my genome in its entirety. Ninety seven recessive genes are the cause of my difference. Why I don't get sick, heal every wound completely, don't age. No magic, just science. Needless to say by this point, I started donating to fertility clinics to increase the frequency of my recessive genes in the population
And then I set up the free screening program for genetic diseases. The govt loved it, gave me a knighthood. The whole program was designed to find others *almost* like me. And that was how I found all of the colonists for my private ship, a hundred and eighty years later, when the first warp capable spaceships left for new worlds.
Of course, none of them had a clue, although they did wonder at the high percentage of red heads in the selection. I never gave myself away in the early colony years, thankfully the anti ageing therapies I had funded extended life and youth. So, no-one has noticed I am not ageing yet.
And then twenty years ago your mother was born. And she was perfect. I tested her in infancy; perfect healing, telomere constancy, perfect immune system. I knew at once what she was, and when she hit eighteen I swept her off her feet. And then there was you. And you are the same, perfect."
He gently cradled the fractious, ferociously ginger haired baby in his arms, too young to understand she had forever in front of her.
"Now go to sleep, Sweetpea. Daddy loves you."
|
Society can place whatever labels they deem appropriate, but love is love. Where do I begin?
I've stopped counting, but I am immortal. Older than 3000 years old, younger than who cares. I'm really fuckin old and I'm tired of the banality of life. What curse has been given to me that I should watch countless friends and lovers wither with time.
They say God has a plan, but don't plans have an execution date? Maybe this will be it.
About 30 years ago I met Daughtry. And 25 years before her I met Mary. I thought this was just another love and loss tale, which it is, but something peculiar has happened. Mary died 10 years ago..cancer. We were never in love, but she was the most beautiful girl ive ever met. Daughtry looks just like her..and she hasn't aged a day since 18. Mary was my lover. Daughtry, my child. How similar her beauty is to her mother, why is it so wrong to hold desire? After a life while of loneliness, a man starts to feel hollow. Daughtry fills me up with life...another curse? Maybe? But it's a blessing as well. Daughtry feels the same way.
Another thing...the other day, I found a grey hair on my head. Does stress effect me? Am I aging? I don't know, but I'm just happy things are changing. I will report back.
|
Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
|
[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
|
"I waited so long.
Before modern civilization, I had no idea how I could be so different. I just hunted seals and mammoth, watched as my woman and sons, and then grandchildren, aged, and then died. The people of the low lands revered me at first, but as time went on it became necessary to wander, no place more than a few years. Thousand of years passed the same way, years blurring into each other, nothing but the endless march of the seasons. Sometimes I would find companions to walk with me. Every one of them withered or took sick, and left me to walk alone again. All so long ago I couldn't even remember them if I hadn't tattooed their symbols into my skin with their ashes. Their faces are all lost to time. All the children I created I saw to their graves.
Eventually my people were no more, no-one knew or remembered our rites, or even our name. The sea rose and drowned my hunting grounds, and I followed the other refugees to the hills. I wandered for millenia more, nothing really changing, not understanding what purpose I had in the world. I never was the brightest. But, immortality does give you a lot of time to think. And after the first five hundred years nothing really surprises you. I stopped connecting with people, stayed alone apart from the odd necessary trading trip or a night with a woman. Sometimes I'd see a man or woman with the flaming red hair of my tribe, or a familiar face, and wonder if they were my blood. But I never stayed too long. Every death took a piece of my spirit with them, and I just didn't have the strength in my heart to love, mourn and forget any more. The forgetting being the hardest part. I can't remember the names or faces of my children, all the places I lived with them are nothing but fields. Or under the sea.
Then the world changed, quickly for me. Darker, sharp faced people from across the water, where the great old river once flowed into the Atlantic. They brought new ways to live, sheep, pottery, big villages. I stayed clear of these for a while, scared of the change. Then curiosity got the better of me, and I became a traveling trader and mixed in with them. Eventually the people started to change in front of my eyes. My own tribe's red hair colour became common again. They started to look something like the people I had been born too.
It was my own bloodline in these people causing the change. So many women, so many children, all carrying tiny pieces of me into the future, with each generation. After a few decades, I realized that possibly whatever was making me live longer, might also be passed down somehow. Of course, I had no idea how then. But I wanted to know. So I started to study. I watched how the animals were molded to fit different tasks by breeding them, tasted the fruits getting sweeter with each generation.
This would have been about the time of the Romans. What a blessing writing is, you moderns have no idea how inconvenient and inaccurate an oral history is. I started keeping notes, drawings. I amassed great fortune, land, gold, gems. Many different areas. I built fine homes in different parts of the country, and then move and change name every couple of decades, in a cycle. And I started marrying again. I'd pick some young healthy girl with red hair, and produce as many children as possible, and then when she was past childbearing age I would fake my death, leaving her and the children well provided for. I've been doing this about 1800 years now. I never really became attached to any of them. They were really a means to an end.
And then, a monk, one of those silly new religions that locks people away from the world, started breeding flowers. Such a seemingly pointless hobby, but it turns out it was the beginning of the end of my search. The word 'recessive', it made everything make sense.
I invested everything into pursuit of understanding hereditary, genetics, mutation. I got multiple degrees, patience making up for any lack of brilliance on my part. Then the scientists I funded by proxy made breakthroughs like lightning, and I was able to study my genome in its entirety. Ninety seven recessive genes are the cause of my difference. Why I don't get sick, heal every wound completely, don't age. No magic, just science. Needless to say by this point, I started donating to fertility clinics to increase the frequency of my recessive genes in the population
And then I set up the free screening program for genetic diseases. The govt loved it, gave me a knighthood. The whole program was designed to find others *almost* like me. And that was how I found all of the colonists for my private ship, a hundred and eighty years later, when the first warp capable spaceships left for new worlds.
Of course, none of them had a clue, although they did wonder at the high percentage of red heads in the selection. I never gave myself away in the early colony years, thankfully the anti ageing therapies I had funded extended life and youth. So, no-one has noticed I am not ageing yet.
And then twenty years ago your mother was born. And she was perfect. I tested her in infancy; perfect healing, telomere constancy, perfect immune system. I knew at once what she was, and when she hit eighteen I swept her off her feet. And then there was you. And you are the same, perfect."
He gently cradled the fractious, ferociously ginger haired baby in his arms, too young to understand she had forever in front of her.
"Now go to sleep, Sweetpea. Daddy loves you."
|
I mostly read these days. Long ago, things were slow but I didn't have to worry about dying. Walk across France? Sure, it might have taken a year to meander, but no one was checking papers along the way to ensure that I was a legitimate traveler. Work an odd job for a decade, travel somewhere new, repeat.
It's the benefit of being mostly immortal. I don't age, but people notice after a while. I don't get sick. But I could still die in a car or plane crash, and hiking 10 miles to work isn't socially acceptable when cars are so plentiful. For these short lives it makes sense, they can afford the slim chance of dying to get home in time for dinner. By my reckoning I've been here about 14,000 years; something that would kill me once every thousand years is something I need to take seriously.
And that's how I ended up here. Legally, I'm my own great grandson, farming the same piece of land I did a century ago. Out here there isn't quite as much paperwork, and the long distances help people forget me. Just have to take a funeral every thirty or forty years, and people buy in to it. Their memories are short.
Three thousand years ago, I'd knock up a few women and stick around the same village, or go back and forth between a few, for centuries, hoping, waiting for someone else like me to be born, and then give up when it was clear the genetics didn't work out. But now, it's the digital era. Hike out to a new city once a decade, create a few children, and I can track it all on line while reading the morning paper and drinking my coffee. And thanking these short lived beings for taking risks to make my life more comfortable.
|
Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
|
[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
|
"I waited so long.
Before modern civilization, I had no idea how I could be so different. I just hunted seals and mammoth, watched as my woman and sons, and then grandchildren, aged, and then died. The people of the low lands revered me at first, but as time went on it became necessary to wander, no place more than a few years. Thousand of years passed the same way, years blurring into each other, nothing but the endless march of the seasons. Sometimes I would find companions to walk with me. Every one of them withered or took sick, and left me to walk alone again. All so long ago I couldn't even remember them if I hadn't tattooed their symbols into my skin with their ashes. Their faces are all lost to time. All the children I created I saw to their graves.
Eventually my people were no more, no-one knew or remembered our rites, or even our name. The sea rose and drowned my hunting grounds, and I followed the other refugees to the hills. I wandered for millenia more, nothing really changing, not understanding what purpose I had in the world. I never was the brightest. But, immortality does give you a lot of time to think. And after the first five hundred years nothing really surprises you. I stopped connecting with people, stayed alone apart from the odd necessary trading trip or a night with a woman. Sometimes I'd see a man or woman with the flaming red hair of my tribe, or a familiar face, and wonder if they were my blood. But I never stayed too long. Every death took a piece of my spirit with them, and I just didn't have the strength in my heart to love, mourn and forget any more. The forgetting being the hardest part. I can't remember the names or faces of my children, all the places I lived with them are nothing but fields. Or under the sea.
Then the world changed, quickly for me. Darker, sharp faced people from across the water, where the great old river once flowed into the Atlantic. They brought new ways to live, sheep, pottery, big villages. I stayed clear of these for a while, scared of the change. Then curiosity got the better of me, and I became a traveling trader and mixed in with them. Eventually the people started to change in front of my eyes. My own tribe's red hair colour became common again. They started to look something like the people I had been born too.
It was my own bloodline in these people causing the change. So many women, so many children, all carrying tiny pieces of me into the future, with each generation. After a few decades, I realized that possibly whatever was making me live longer, might also be passed down somehow. Of course, I had no idea how then. But I wanted to know. So I started to study. I watched how the animals were molded to fit different tasks by breeding them, tasted the fruits getting sweeter with each generation.
This would have been about the time of the Romans. What a blessing writing is, you moderns have no idea how inconvenient and inaccurate an oral history is. I started keeping notes, drawings. I amassed great fortune, land, gold, gems. Many different areas. I built fine homes in different parts of the country, and then move and change name every couple of decades, in a cycle. And I started marrying again. I'd pick some young healthy girl with red hair, and produce as many children as possible, and then when she was past childbearing age I would fake my death, leaving her and the children well provided for. I've been doing this about 1800 years now. I never really became attached to any of them. They were really a means to an end.
And then, a monk, one of those silly new religions that locks people away from the world, started breeding flowers. Such a seemingly pointless hobby, but it turns out it was the beginning of the end of my search. The word 'recessive', it made everything make sense.
I invested everything into pursuit of understanding hereditary, genetics, mutation. I got multiple degrees, patience making up for any lack of brilliance on my part. Then the scientists I funded by proxy made breakthroughs like lightning, and I was able to study my genome in its entirety. Ninety seven recessive genes are the cause of my difference. Why I don't get sick, heal every wound completely, don't age. No magic, just science. Needless to say by this point, I started donating to fertility clinics to increase the frequency of my recessive genes in the population
And then I set up the free screening program for genetic diseases. The govt loved it, gave me a knighthood. The whole program was designed to find others *almost* like me. And that was how I found all of the colonists for my private ship, a hundred and eighty years later, when the first warp capable spaceships left for new worlds.
Of course, none of them had a clue, although they did wonder at the high percentage of red heads in the selection. I never gave myself away in the early colony years, thankfully the anti ageing therapies I had funded extended life and youth. So, no-one has noticed I am not ageing yet.
And then twenty years ago your mother was born. And she was perfect. I tested her in infancy; perfect healing, telomere constancy, perfect immune system. I knew at once what she was, and when she hit eighteen I swept her off her feet. And then there was you. And you are the same, perfect."
He gently cradled the fractious, ferociously ginger haired baby in his arms, too young to understand she had forever in front of her.
"Now go to sleep, Sweetpea. Daddy loves you."
|
Breaking news: The truth behind the Brookmire Banshee has been revealed. Today, an armed response unit entered the abandoned Brookmire Hospital to find a man seemingly in his thirties, clutching - and still writing - the following letter:
12th of July, 3062
Over a thousand years I've tried. For more than a millenium I've kidnapped people, forced them to mate with each other, tortured them to within an inch of my life and had them suffer all sorts of trauma and horrors in the hopes of somehow replicating my condition. But to no avail. Everything I try, every variable perfect and almost every base covered, years and years and years of pouring over data and hypotheses, testing my own blood and that of others, my DNA, wasting my life away in front of cliopboards and computer screens. It's a wonder they haven't crumbled away into dust like the many, many lives I've seen going by... Oh, the truths I've seen in my long life. I've seen men tear each other apart over uncertainty, I could answer the questions that mankind has been searching for answers for in the bowels opf history to no avail... and I've kept it all quiet. For fear of what exactly? For fear of being subjected to the very same sort of vile experiments that I've been performing for but a fifteenth of my damned existence? The irony runs so deep. But still there remains one question that not even I may be able to answer. Not even the most advanmced of scientific equipment can solve the mystery behind my condition, or provide me with the means to finally embrace the sweet, sweet black folds of death. I've stabbed myself, hung myself, shot myself, thrown myself from bridges and what has it brought me? Even more pain. Exactly the opposite of what I so desire... Is that why I started these profane studies? Who knows why, but one thing is for sure. If it's taken me one thousand and twenty six years and still no answer has presented itself, then what can I do? What can anyone do? what can Death himself do to this worn-out body being forced along the tracks of life by the cruel dominant mistress that is fate?! I can't... I can't! I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't...
The letter repeats this several hundred times. The man is believed to have been writing his letter for the past six months. Rumours that the same man appears in historical photographs and paintings ranging from ancient Greek sculptures to the late 2030s are still unconfirmed. More details to follow.
|
Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
|
[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
|
"I waited so long.
Before modern civilization, I had no idea how I could be so different. I just hunted seals and mammoth, watched as my woman and sons, and then grandchildren, aged, and then died. The people of the low lands revered me at first, but as time went on it became necessary to wander, no place more than a few years. Thousand of years passed the same way, years blurring into each other, nothing but the endless march of the seasons. Sometimes I would find companions to walk with me. Every one of them withered or took sick, and left me to walk alone again. All so long ago I couldn't even remember them if I hadn't tattooed their symbols into my skin with their ashes. Their faces are all lost to time. All the children I created I saw to their graves.
Eventually my people were no more, no-one knew or remembered our rites, or even our name. The sea rose and drowned my hunting grounds, and I followed the other refugees to the hills. I wandered for millenia more, nothing really changing, not understanding what purpose I had in the world. I never was the brightest. But, immortality does give you a lot of time to think. And after the first five hundred years nothing really surprises you. I stopped connecting with people, stayed alone apart from the odd necessary trading trip or a night with a woman. Sometimes I'd see a man or woman with the flaming red hair of my tribe, or a familiar face, and wonder if they were my blood. But I never stayed too long. Every death took a piece of my spirit with them, and I just didn't have the strength in my heart to love, mourn and forget any more. The forgetting being the hardest part. I can't remember the names or faces of my children, all the places I lived with them are nothing but fields. Or under the sea.
Then the world changed, quickly for me. Darker, sharp faced people from across the water, where the great old river once flowed into the Atlantic. They brought new ways to live, sheep, pottery, big villages. I stayed clear of these for a while, scared of the change. Then curiosity got the better of me, and I became a traveling trader and mixed in with them. Eventually the people started to change in front of my eyes. My own tribe's red hair colour became common again. They started to look something like the people I had been born too.
It was my own bloodline in these people causing the change. So many women, so many children, all carrying tiny pieces of me into the future, with each generation. After a few decades, I realized that possibly whatever was making me live longer, might also be passed down somehow. Of course, I had no idea how then. But I wanted to know. So I started to study. I watched how the animals were molded to fit different tasks by breeding them, tasted the fruits getting sweeter with each generation.
This would have been about the time of the Romans. What a blessing writing is, you moderns have no idea how inconvenient and inaccurate an oral history is. I started keeping notes, drawings. I amassed great fortune, land, gold, gems. Many different areas. I built fine homes in different parts of the country, and then move and change name every couple of decades, in a cycle. And I started marrying again. I'd pick some young healthy girl with red hair, and produce as many children as possible, and then when she was past childbearing age I would fake my death, leaving her and the children well provided for. I've been doing this about 1800 years now. I never really became attached to any of them. They were really a means to an end.
And then, a monk, one of those silly new religions that locks people away from the world, started breeding flowers. Such a seemingly pointless hobby, but it turns out it was the beginning of the end of my search. The word 'recessive', it made everything make sense.
I invested everything into pursuit of understanding hereditary, genetics, mutation. I got multiple degrees, patience making up for any lack of brilliance on my part. Then the scientists I funded by proxy made breakthroughs like lightning, and I was able to study my genome in its entirety. Ninety seven recessive genes are the cause of my difference. Why I don't get sick, heal every wound completely, don't age. No magic, just science. Needless to say by this point, I started donating to fertility clinics to increase the frequency of my recessive genes in the population
And then I set up the free screening program for genetic diseases. The govt loved it, gave me a knighthood. The whole program was designed to find others *almost* like me. And that was how I found all of the colonists for my private ship, a hundred and eighty years later, when the first warp capable spaceships left for new worlds.
Of course, none of them had a clue, although they did wonder at the high percentage of red heads in the selection. I never gave myself away in the early colony years, thankfully the anti ageing therapies I had funded extended life and youth. So, no-one has noticed I am not ageing yet.
And then twenty years ago your mother was born. And she was perfect. I tested her in infancy; perfect healing, telomere constancy, perfect immune system. I knew at once what she was, and when she hit eighteen I swept her off her feet. And then there was you. And you are the same, perfect."
He gently cradled the fractious, ferociously ginger haired baby in his arms, too young to understand she had forever in front of her.
"Now go to sleep, Sweetpea. Daddy loves you."
|
Summary of experimentation log.
Introduction: The ultimate goal is to replicate the condition found in the primordial subject - I - and the goal of this summary is therefore, ultimately, to understand the cost of attaining immortality for humans.
The recessive trait expressing immortality appears to be the result of a unique genetic mutation, and seems unlikely to ever again occur in another human. The cost of not succeeding in these experiments will therefore be the loss of life that will befall every human born before we manage to wipe ourselves out, supposing immortals manage to supplant normals. This toll will be at least in the 100's of billions. This is the blood that will be on my hands should I not manage to produce immortal offspring.
The cost of attaining this immortality will be measured in the subjects needed to reproduce the recessive gene combination without deliterious recessive traits - and it will be measured in all those 100's of billions of humans that will not be born. When only the immortal remain, human evolution will largely cease - but so will sexual selection, and so will the need for finding a mate. We may turn from our dusty rock, and finally look to the stars for fulfillment and answers and life.
30 courses have been run so far.
The first course was conservative; 64 viable specimen were selected for direct breeding with the progenitor, from a wide variety of geographic locations, which resulted in a population of 64 healthy offspring each with 50% progenitor material. 50%p for short.
Each of these was bread with a non offspring speciment, resulting in 64 25%p specimen. These were crossbred for 7 generations in an attempt to isolate the trait in decent conditions. Course one proved ineffective, but only 3 examples of deleterious conditions happened throughought course one.
Course 2 was based on 64 50%p specimen being crossbred for 7 generations. Incidence of deleterious traits overall within the course reached 5%, discounting the superficial ones; but this was when the deleterious specimen were discarded from breeding further. The trait was not isolated.
During course 3, deleterious speciment were not discarded, and the proportion of deleterious traits rose to 62% by generation 7.
Course 4 and 5 cover generations 8-through-14 of courses 2 and 3, when the populations were continually crossbread. In course 4, 3% of individuals did not express deleterious traits, with 58% being stillborn. In course 5, 100% of 14th generation offspring expressed deleterious traits, and 87% were stillborn.
The trait was not isolated.
Courses 6-through-15 cover various varieties of crossbreeding with larger populations, the largest being the basis for course 11 at 2048 50%p direct decendent progenitor offspring.
The trait was not isolated.
In course 16, it was determined the progenitor must be introduced as a mate. Courses 16 - through - 20 introduce the progenitor once at generations 7-through-3, with only a slight increase in stillborn offspring; it seemed the progenitors direct offspring had a far higher likelihood of survival, though the number of deleterious traits still seemed to compound - albeit in surprising ways.
The trait still remained not isolated.
For courses 21-through-29, the progenitor was introduced at higher and higher fractional frequencies; every 8th generation for 21, and in 2 out of every 3 generations for course 29.
The trait appeared to be isolated during course 29, but the deleterious effects in the few individuals were too many; among them were complete sterility, inability to properly digest many foods, complete lack of skin melanin, inability to properly retain iron, near 100% incidence of psychopathic and borderline personality disorders, and a 100% occourence of severe anemia.
A different approach has been chosen for course 30, which is still ongoing. Rather than attempt to systematically control the gene pool, the progenitor is simply bred untill deleterious traits appear, then these are bread away with new blood, then the offspring is once again bred with the progenitor.
It is hoped that course 30 will manage to isolate the trait without incurring sterility.
|
Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
|
[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
|
"I waited so long.
Before modern civilization, I had no idea how I could be so different. I just hunted seals and mammoth, watched as my woman and sons, and then grandchildren, aged, and then died. The people of the low lands revered me at first, but as time went on it became necessary to wander, no place more than a few years. Thousand of years passed the same way, years blurring into each other, nothing but the endless march of the seasons. Sometimes I would find companions to walk with me. Every one of them withered or took sick, and left me to walk alone again. All so long ago I couldn't even remember them if I hadn't tattooed their symbols into my skin with their ashes. Their faces are all lost to time. All the children I created I saw to their graves.
Eventually my people were no more, no-one knew or remembered our rites, or even our name. The sea rose and drowned my hunting grounds, and I followed the other refugees to the hills. I wandered for millenia more, nothing really changing, not understanding what purpose I had in the world. I never was the brightest. But, immortality does give you a lot of time to think. And after the first five hundred years nothing really surprises you. I stopped connecting with people, stayed alone apart from the odd necessary trading trip or a night with a woman. Sometimes I'd see a man or woman with the flaming red hair of my tribe, or a familiar face, and wonder if they were my blood. But I never stayed too long. Every death took a piece of my spirit with them, and I just didn't have the strength in my heart to love, mourn and forget any more. The forgetting being the hardest part. I can't remember the names or faces of my children, all the places I lived with them are nothing but fields. Or under the sea.
Then the world changed, quickly for me. Darker, sharp faced people from across the water, where the great old river once flowed into the Atlantic. They brought new ways to live, sheep, pottery, big villages. I stayed clear of these for a while, scared of the change. Then curiosity got the better of me, and I became a traveling trader and mixed in with them. Eventually the people started to change in front of my eyes. My own tribe's red hair colour became common again. They started to look something like the people I had been born too.
It was my own bloodline in these people causing the change. So many women, so many children, all carrying tiny pieces of me into the future, with each generation. After a few decades, I realized that possibly whatever was making me live longer, might also be passed down somehow. Of course, I had no idea how then. But I wanted to know. So I started to study. I watched how the animals were molded to fit different tasks by breeding them, tasted the fruits getting sweeter with each generation.
This would have been about the time of the Romans. What a blessing writing is, you moderns have no idea how inconvenient and inaccurate an oral history is. I started keeping notes, drawings. I amassed great fortune, land, gold, gems. Many different areas. I built fine homes in different parts of the country, and then move and change name every couple of decades, in a cycle. And I started marrying again. I'd pick some young healthy girl with red hair, and produce as many children as possible, and then when she was past childbearing age I would fake my death, leaving her and the children well provided for. I've been doing this about 1800 years now. I never really became attached to any of them. They were really a means to an end.
And then, a monk, one of those silly new religions that locks people away from the world, started breeding flowers. Such a seemingly pointless hobby, but it turns out it was the beginning of the end of my search. The word 'recessive', it made everything make sense.
I invested everything into pursuit of understanding hereditary, genetics, mutation. I got multiple degrees, patience making up for any lack of brilliance on my part. Then the scientists I funded by proxy made breakthroughs like lightning, and I was able to study my genome in its entirety. Ninety seven recessive genes are the cause of my difference. Why I don't get sick, heal every wound completely, don't age. No magic, just science. Needless to say by this point, I started donating to fertility clinics to increase the frequency of my recessive genes in the population
And then I set up the free screening program for genetic diseases. The govt loved it, gave me a knighthood. The whole program was designed to find others *almost* like me. And that was how I found all of the colonists for my private ship, a hundred and eighty years later, when the first warp capable spaceships left for new worlds.
Of course, none of them had a clue, although they did wonder at the high percentage of red heads in the selection. I never gave myself away in the early colony years, thankfully the anti ageing therapies I had funded extended life and youth. So, no-one has noticed I am not ageing yet.
And then twenty years ago your mother was born. And she was perfect. I tested her in infancy; perfect healing, telomere constancy, perfect immune system. I knew at once what she was, and when she hit eighteen I swept her off her feet. And then there was you. And you are the same, perfect."
He gently cradled the fractious, ferociously ginger haired baby in his arms, too young to understand she had forever in front of her.
"Now go to sleep, Sweetpea. Daddy loves you."
|
Look, OP, you're thinking about this all wrong. Breeding experiments were all the rage back in 400 BC, and yeah, they sounded interesting again when Mendel & Darwin shed some new light on the problem in the 1800's. But really, none of that went anywhere. The future is in biotech.
It is amazing what 14,000 years of wealth will get you in modern biotech. So let me take a step back and tell you that this is also a love story. After this long, it's weird to be in love again, but I think it might work this time. And here's how it's happening:
I've seen enough to know that diversification is important. Don't put all your eggs in one basket; don't set up all your illegal human experiments in one country. They're not even that sketchy as human experiments go - no one's getting hurt, governments just get fussy about this shit. What I have is a nice set of labs dedicated to some of the latest in targeted genome editing. The CRISPR-Cas9 system and a few fun modifications of that. Just go Google it if you need the details. The short version is that we take a fertilized egg and pop out the native gene and pop in the bit that matches my DNA. Beautiful! Simple! Doesn't do squat for me at this point!
It doesn't work because what I have does not follow simple Mendelian inheritance. Nope, I have some multi-locus shit going on here. There are many mutations that made me, and I don't know yet which combination makes me so timeless.
Where the love story comes in, is that you might be able to tell I'm into the biology here. Life get's boring if I don't find new stuff to do. In my Russian lab they think I'm quality control form the man at the top. They practically piss themselves to lick my boots. At my US lab they think I'm military oversight, but they also think they work for the military so they're a bit dense. At my Chinese lab however, I had the admittedly stupid idea to moonlight as a bench scientist.
So while my US lab is working on an exhaustive assessment of unique variate and epigenetic modifications in my genome, my Chinese lab is getting to be experts in popping genes in & out of just-ferilized embryos. Because I don't want more of me. I have that. We sorted out cloning back in the 90's, and I have 5 of me. We don't like to hang out all that much, every couple decades we get together and admire how almost-identical we are. What I want is *other people* who don't die.
And that's what I was having fun with in China, until the head of that lab figured me out. I did pick Zhang Wei for his cleverness so it wasn't a total surprise when he invited me to his office and asked what it would take for him to be immortal. He's smart, as I said. He knew better than to make demands or I'd raze him from the face of the earth. He also knew we couldn't make him immortal, though we could maybe make a new one of him that is immortal. So we started working together on more honest terms. Yadda, yadda, thrown together by circumstance, late nights conducting illegal research on human embryos, and we fell in love.
The lab feels really weird about this, understandably. As far as they're aware I'm this unremarkable, pudgy, 20-something white girl and he's a fucking genuis. They think he's going senile since he's pushing 95, and I'm taking advantage. (Also he looks like Mr. Miyagi with a fu manchu, which might contribute to their misunderstanding the situation. But, God I would fuck him so hard if it wouldn't shatter his pelvis.) ... I digress.
So you could say that there's a breeding experiment here, cause Wei and I will probably eventually combine gametes when we can make an immortal kid. Of course he will probably be long dead by then, and I'll have an immortal clone-Wei of my very own, to help raise the munchkin.
In fact if you believe in soul mates, all the many me's can have their own Wei's. Me#3 has already met him and expressed an interest. Me#2 is too busy leading her quasi-Buddhist cult, and Me#4 doesn't get a Wei until she stops with the damned bio-terrorism. I mean, seriously 7 billion is an annoying number of people, but killing a couple billion is not the solution. Ugh. She's just too young to remember the black plague.
Anyway, that's about where I'll leave you. We've got a nice factorial experiment running to see which combination of variants is essential for immortality. I estimate a mere 50 - 100 years until I can start making immortal clone-Wei's, and after that I just need one to fall back in love with me. It's okay, I have time.
|
Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
|
[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
|
As I sit comfortably in my lounge chair by the pool, watching my son swim laps, I can confidant say that I have never been happier in the last 14, 000 years.
I remember when I first realized I was immortal 14 millenia ago. I had lived a modest life to that point. I was a farmer like my father, as was his father before him. We planted the seeds of the wild fruit we found in the forest, and with this bounty we were able to support our small tribe even when the hunters were unsuccessful. Unlike my father and tribe however, my skin shone a brilliant white and my hair grew wildly. My small tribe accepted this, and I felt lucky to be commited to my woman Ooka, especially after she bore our 6 beautiful children. We and my parents shared a small hovel in the beautiful country now know as South Africa. But the great drought came on my 35th birthday. The wild fruit seeds were lost, and the hunters could only find dead and rotted animals as far as they searched.
I watched as my parents starved to death, then my wife. I ate little and had a burning hunger, but I stayed healthy. I did everything possible to scavange for food, but it was a barren wasteland and my children too weak to travel. Eventually even the last insects and vegetation died. When the the youngest finally died, the 3 oldest who could still walk and I began to migrate. A week later, everyone I had ever known was dead when I finally laid my eldest to rest.
I lay there beside him for a week, willing my body to die. It wouldn't. I jumped off the highest cliff I could find, and got up without a scratch. I threw myself onto a spear, and the spear point couldn't break my skin. I tried to remember if I had even got a scratch- and I couldn't. Maybe I was always like this. And Maybe I always would be. And the maybe turned into certainty. And it was then I knew. I knew I was immortal.
|
One Tuesday morning while sipping on my morning coffee, the bitterness seemed to resonate with my mood more closely than usual. It had been a restless night, a nice calm night breaking at the sounds of my neighbor's parent's viciously threaten to break down society's social constructs to get to the real issue of why the husband hadn't taken out the trash.
I had mulled over this question myself, using male rationale to empathize with John Thompson of 12 Hurle Ave. He could have been forgetful, I know all too well, even after thousands of years to take out the fresh fruit now turned sour and rotten from days of neglect. I shook my head before realizing I was simply distracting myself again.
I placed the empty cup into the sink to wash later. Another distraction for another time. After all, *I have my entire life ahead of me*.
I still appeared to be in my late twenties, late thirties, a full beard with my yellow skin, a "yuppy" as older people called me. A young professional only seeking the short release of love and the pursuit of happiness through financial gains! They professed that I would only learn the meaning of happiness when I got older and began to value the more important things in life, like settling down and have a family!
Appearances can be deceiving. I'm older than I look.
I was thirteen thousand years four hundred and twenty five years young in fact. I have had quite a few families, though none particularly worthy of note. Which got me to think that while in the short time that I have been presence as a human being, I have never met any other individual in the same predicament.
An odd question that from time to time that I would dwell on, I began mulling a simple experiment over. I am one individual that has an infinite amount of time with a finite amount of resources. How best to implement a society that would begin to change due to the injection of foreign DNA such as an immortal?
In my mind I began crunching numbers, simply over generations in different combinations and circumstance. If I had two children per mother per generation, with at least ten mothers, the offspring would be at least 20 units of human life back into the equation. Assuming an even split of male to female, with ten of each gender, the best I could hope for is a few hundred units of life in a few generations, given no intervention. If I seduced the female offspring in a far enough line, I could re-inject more DNA and ensure the continued production of life.
Numbers went through my head, as I walked over to my work desk. I shuffled a few tax forms and placed them on my bed, all while debating whether it would be easier or more difficult to intervene, or whether the parameters would allow for more... drastic measures... to ensure a controlled experiment.
A proper thought about this would have to be done. Little did I know, sometimes the largest changes comes from the smallest of seeds.
---
I had ruled societies at a majority of levels during humanities dark and middle ages. I had been a duke first, then a baron, but my favourite was count. Priviledged, but still without major responsibilities I had discovered was the way to go. I had ruled as Emperor once, but it was far too taxing on my mind, even as intelligence as I could be. Kingdoms were no better.
Now, ruling as a dictatorship, something that I truly only had glimpsed into, was something far different. Especially as 50% of the rule class is of direct descent to you, share your DNA and has the potential to murder you at every corner.
Breeding only takes time, and the best way to control the breeding is simply just to control the society.
I didn't mean to destroy the foundations of civilization as we knew it, or at least as people saw it before, but if you want to make an omlette, you have to break some eggs.
At least the coffee isn't as bitter as before..
|
Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
|
[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
|
"I waited so long.
Before modern civilization, I had no idea how I could be so different. I just hunted seals and mammoth, watched as my woman and sons, and then grandchildren, aged, and then died. The people of the low lands revered me at first, but as time went on it became necessary to wander, no place more than a few years. Thousand of years passed the same way, years blurring into each other, nothing but the endless march of the seasons. Sometimes I would find companions to walk with me. Every one of them withered or took sick, and left me to walk alone again. All so long ago I couldn't even remember them if I hadn't tattooed their symbols into my skin with their ashes. Their faces are all lost to time. All the children I created I saw to their graves.
Eventually my people were no more, no-one knew or remembered our rites, or even our name. The sea rose and drowned my hunting grounds, and I followed the other refugees to the hills. I wandered for millenia more, nothing really changing, not understanding what purpose I had in the world. I never was the brightest. But, immortality does give you a lot of time to think. And after the first five hundred years nothing really surprises you. I stopped connecting with people, stayed alone apart from the odd necessary trading trip or a night with a woman. Sometimes I'd see a man or woman with the flaming red hair of my tribe, or a familiar face, and wonder if they were my blood. But I never stayed too long. Every death took a piece of my spirit with them, and I just didn't have the strength in my heart to love, mourn and forget any more. The forgetting being the hardest part. I can't remember the names or faces of my children, all the places I lived with them are nothing but fields. Or under the sea.
Then the world changed, quickly for me. Darker, sharp faced people from across the water, where the great old river once flowed into the Atlantic. They brought new ways to live, sheep, pottery, big villages. I stayed clear of these for a while, scared of the change. Then curiosity got the better of me, and I became a traveling trader and mixed in with them. Eventually the people started to change in front of my eyes. My own tribe's red hair colour became common again. They started to look something like the people I had been born too.
It was my own bloodline in these people causing the change. So many women, so many children, all carrying tiny pieces of me into the future, with each generation. After a few decades, I realized that possibly whatever was making me live longer, might also be passed down somehow. Of course, I had no idea how then. But I wanted to know. So I started to study. I watched how the animals were molded to fit different tasks by breeding them, tasted the fruits getting sweeter with each generation.
This would have been about the time of the Romans. What a blessing writing is, you moderns have no idea how inconvenient and inaccurate an oral history is. I started keeping notes, drawings. I amassed great fortune, land, gold, gems. Many different areas. I built fine homes in different parts of the country, and then move and change name every couple of decades, in a cycle. And I started marrying again. I'd pick some young healthy girl with red hair, and produce as many children as possible, and then when she was past childbearing age I would fake my death, leaving her and the children well provided for. I've been doing this about 1800 years now. I never really became attached to any of them. They were really a means to an end.
And then, a monk, one of those silly new religions that locks people away from the world, started breeding flowers. Such a seemingly pointless hobby, but it turns out it was the beginning of the end of my search. The word 'recessive', it made everything make sense.
I invested everything into pursuit of understanding hereditary, genetics, mutation. I got multiple degrees, patience making up for any lack of brilliance on my part. Then the scientists I funded by proxy made breakthroughs like lightning, and I was able to study my genome in its entirety. Ninety seven recessive genes are the cause of my difference. Why I don't get sick, heal every wound completely, don't age. No magic, just science. Needless to say by this point, I started donating to fertility clinics to increase the frequency of my recessive genes in the population
And then I set up the free screening program for genetic diseases. The govt loved it, gave me a knighthood. The whole program was designed to find others *almost* like me. And that was how I found all of the colonists for my private ship, a hundred and eighty years later, when the first warp capable spaceships left for new worlds.
Of course, none of them had a clue, although they did wonder at the high percentage of red heads in the selection. I never gave myself away in the early colony years, thankfully the anti ageing therapies I had funded extended life and youth. So, no-one has noticed I am not ageing yet.
And then twenty years ago your mother was born. And she was perfect. I tested her in infancy; perfect healing, telomere constancy, perfect immune system. I knew at once what she was, and when she hit eighteen I swept her off her feet. And then there was you. And you are the same, perfect."
He gently cradled the fractious, ferociously ginger haired baby in his arms, too young to understand she had forever in front of her.
"Now go to sleep, Sweetpea. Daddy loves you."
|
One Tuesday morning while sipping on my morning coffee, the bitterness seemed to resonate with my mood more closely than usual. It had been a restless night, a nice calm night breaking at the sounds of my neighbor's parent's viciously threaten to break down society's social constructs to get to the real issue of why the husband hadn't taken out the trash.
I had mulled over this question myself, using male rationale to empathize with John Thompson of 12 Hurle Ave. He could have been forgetful, I know all too well, even after thousands of years to take out the fresh fruit now turned sour and rotten from days of neglect. I shook my head before realizing I was simply distracting myself again.
I placed the empty cup into the sink to wash later. Another distraction for another time. After all, *I have my entire life ahead of me*.
I still appeared to be in my late twenties, late thirties, a full beard with my yellow skin, a "yuppy" as older people called me. A young professional only seeking the short release of love and the pursuit of happiness through financial gains! They professed that I would only learn the meaning of happiness when I got older and began to value the more important things in life, like settling down and have a family!
Appearances can be deceiving. I'm older than I look.
I was thirteen thousand years four hundred and twenty five years young in fact. I have had quite a few families, though none particularly worthy of note. Which got me to think that while in the short time that I have been presence as a human being, I have never met any other individual in the same predicament.
An odd question that from time to time that I would dwell on, I began mulling a simple experiment over. I am one individual that has an infinite amount of time with a finite amount of resources. How best to implement a society that would begin to change due to the injection of foreign DNA such as an immortal?
In my mind I began crunching numbers, simply over generations in different combinations and circumstance. If I had two children per mother per generation, with at least ten mothers, the offspring would be at least 20 units of human life back into the equation. Assuming an even split of male to female, with ten of each gender, the best I could hope for is a few hundred units of life in a few generations, given no intervention. If I seduced the female offspring in a far enough line, I could re-inject more DNA and ensure the continued production of life.
Numbers went through my head, as I walked over to my work desk. I shuffled a few tax forms and placed them on my bed, all while debating whether it would be easier or more difficult to intervene, or whether the parameters would allow for more... drastic measures... to ensure a controlled experiment.
A proper thought about this would have to be done. Little did I know, sometimes the largest changes comes from the smallest of seeds.
---
I had ruled societies at a majority of levels during humanities dark and middle ages. I had been a duke first, then a baron, but my favourite was count. Priviledged, but still without major responsibilities I had discovered was the way to go. I had ruled as Emperor once, but it was far too taxing on my mind, even as intelligence as I could be. Kingdoms were no better.
Now, ruling as a dictatorship, something that I truly only had glimpsed into, was something far different. Especially as 50% of the rule class is of direct descent to you, share your DNA and has the potential to murder you at every corner.
Breeding only takes time, and the best way to control the breeding is simply just to control the society.
I didn't mean to destroy the foundations of civilization as we knew it, or at least as people saw it before, but if you want to make an omlette, you have to break some eggs.
At least the coffee isn't as bitter as before..
|
Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
|
[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
|
In my 14,000 years of life, I have had countless lovers, husbands, wives, boyfriends and girlfriends; I have also had just as many divorces, break ups and name changes. I was 40 years old when I realized I wasn't ageing. It seemed that I had stopped somewhere around 30, my husband and I at the time had decided to live a child-free lifestyle wanting to get the most out of the one life we had together. Little did I know, I would have several lifetimes. It wasn't long after that that I started to age myself, dying my hair grey, faking fine lines, until one day he died. Just like that, he went to work one day and never came home. I tried not to dwell on that. We had an amazing 30 years together and I mourned him like anyone would in their first life. From that point on, I realized that I needed to be careful and I needed to get smart real fast on the process of changing identities. I didn't know how long I would live and I didn't know how long it would take for me to start ageing again. I would never fully love anyone like I did my first husband, I got close a few times, there was this one woman in Australia who made me feel more alive at 600 than I did at 60, but that first life was special.
I was about 800 or so when I started to consider having children. Before it seemed irresponsible, what if they weren't immortal, I would have to abandon them at some point when it became clear that I wasn't ageing. But then I started considering what would happen if they were like me, I could have company, I could have someone that I wouldn't have to watch decay over the years.
It was easy to find sperm, men were always willing to give it out, just say you have an IUD and you are good to go. At first, I only had sex with men that I was naturally attracted to. I figured that had to be pheromones or something guiding me the best possible candidates, but after countless of miscarriages and failed attempts here I am. 14000 years old and formally trying to figure out the best candidates for mating purposes. It had become so scientific I rarely even had sex at this point. Insemination seemed like it would be the best way to ensure pregnancy. I even had a few eggs harvested so that I could try multiple different sperm on different eggs.
It was through this that I was able to see what was happening at a cellular level, the miscarriages that I had been having weren't young cells that had just not been viable, they had become old dead cells. I observed in test tube after test tube, sperm enter egg, cells begin to divide, and after 6-12 weeks the cells would all start dying, almost as if they were ageing too quickly to keep up with the new cell growth.
I begin studying the DNA of various men that I had figured were viable candidates, based on the average longevity of their family history, this always lasted the longest. There was a definite link, but not strong enough. Then I decided to approach it from a different angle. I, obviously, possessed a recessive gene and longevity seemed to be a dominate gene. What if I began looking for men that came from families with really short life spans.
It was hard to find with the advances of medical science. It seemed as if everyone could live to 120 easily, but they were there. The people whose minds started to fade early, or hearts gave out despite a healthy lifestyle. I finally found a man with a series of recessive genes, red hair, color blind, and so forth. It had taken centuries, but here I was 8 months down, one to go.
|
One Tuesday morning while sipping on my morning coffee, the bitterness seemed to resonate with my mood more closely than usual. It had been a restless night, a nice calm night breaking at the sounds of my neighbor's parent's viciously threaten to break down society's social constructs to get to the real issue of why the husband hadn't taken out the trash.
I had mulled over this question myself, using male rationale to empathize with John Thompson of 12 Hurle Ave. He could have been forgetful, I know all too well, even after thousands of years to take out the fresh fruit now turned sour and rotten from days of neglect. I shook my head before realizing I was simply distracting myself again.
I placed the empty cup into the sink to wash later. Another distraction for another time. After all, *I have my entire life ahead of me*.
I still appeared to be in my late twenties, late thirties, a full beard with my yellow skin, a "yuppy" as older people called me. A young professional only seeking the short release of love and the pursuit of happiness through financial gains! They professed that I would only learn the meaning of happiness when I got older and began to value the more important things in life, like settling down and have a family!
Appearances can be deceiving. I'm older than I look.
I was thirteen thousand years four hundred and twenty five years young in fact. I have had quite a few families, though none particularly worthy of note. Which got me to think that while in the short time that I have been presence as a human being, I have never met any other individual in the same predicament.
An odd question that from time to time that I would dwell on, I began mulling a simple experiment over. I am one individual that has an infinite amount of time with a finite amount of resources. How best to implement a society that would begin to change due to the injection of foreign DNA such as an immortal?
In my mind I began crunching numbers, simply over generations in different combinations and circumstance. If I had two children per mother per generation, with at least ten mothers, the offspring would be at least 20 units of human life back into the equation. Assuming an even split of male to female, with ten of each gender, the best I could hope for is a few hundred units of life in a few generations, given no intervention. If I seduced the female offspring in a far enough line, I could re-inject more DNA and ensure the continued production of life.
Numbers went through my head, as I walked over to my work desk. I shuffled a few tax forms and placed them on my bed, all while debating whether it would be easier or more difficult to intervene, or whether the parameters would allow for more... drastic measures... to ensure a controlled experiment.
A proper thought about this would have to be done. Little did I know, sometimes the largest changes comes from the smallest of seeds.
---
I had ruled societies at a majority of levels during humanities dark and middle ages. I had been a duke first, then a baron, but my favourite was count. Priviledged, but still without major responsibilities I had discovered was the way to go. I had ruled as Emperor once, but it was far too taxing on my mind, even as intelligence as I could be. Kingdoms were no better.
Now, ruling as a dictatorship, something that I truly only had glimpsed into, was something far different. Especially as 50% of the rule class is of direct descent to you, share your DNA and has the potential to murder you at every corner.
Breeding only takes time, and the best way to control the breeding is simply just to control the society.
I didn't mean to destroy the foundations of civilization as we knew it, or at least as people saw it before, but if you want to make an omlette, you have to break some eggs.
At least the coffee isn't as bitter as before..
|
Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
|
[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
|
As I sit comfortably in my lounge chair by the pool, watching my son swim laps, I can confidant say that I have never been happier in the last 14, 000 years.
I remember when I first realized I was immortal 14 millenia ago. I had lived a modest life to that point. I was a farmer like my father, as was his father before him. We planted the seeds of the wild fruit we found in the forest, and with this bounty we were able to support our small tribe even when the hunters were unsuccessful. Unlike my father and tribe however, my skin shone a brilliant white and my hair grew wildly. My small tribe accepted this, and I felt lucky to be commited to my woman Ooka, especially after she bore our 6 beautiful children. We and my parents shared a small hovel in the beautiful country now know as South Africa. But the great drought came on my 35th birthday. The wild fruit seeds were lost, and the hunters could only find dead and rotted animals as far as they searched.
I watched as my parents starved to death, then my wife. I ate little and had a burning hunger, but I stayed healthy. I did everything possible to scavange for food, but it was a barren wasteland and my children too weak to travel. Eventually even the last insects and vegetation died. When the the youngest finally died, the 3 oldest who could still walk and I began to migrate. A week later, everyone I had ever known was dead when I finally laid my eldest to rest.
I lay there beside him for a week, willing my body to die. It wouldn't. I jumped off the highest cliff I could find, and got up without a scratch. I threw myself onto a spear, and the spear point couldn't break my skin. I tried to remember if I had even got a scratch- and I couldn't. Maybe I was always like this. And Maybe I always would be. And the maybe turned into certainty. And it was then I knew. I knew I was immortal.
|
This is my first post on writingprompt, its a bit long. Hope you guys like it.
I have many names and many identities. Once I was hailed as a saviour, a king another time, and now i'm just a neighborhood shoemaker for a mining city in the north of Canada. The locals would call me Jon the sole saver. I have a secret and that is I can control time around me. This comes with many benefits. For one, my mind subconsciously stops time within me so I don't age and when I get hurt all wounds heal within minutes. All these things happen without my control like how a heart beats without anyone thinking about it. I have always wondered if there is someone else like me but after fourteen thousand years the answer is still no, that is until I met the woman of my life, Nora. When I told her my secret she didn't freak out nor did she act like one of those worshipping fanatic freaks. She just embraced me, it was the happiest moment of my life knowing that at least one person would treat me normally. Of course we got married. It was a small wedding, just the two of us at a local church. In our honeymoon she told me that I was her hero because in a lot of comics it seems the hero in hiding always hid themselves somewhere north of Canada. I don't want to be her hero because she already is mine. We tried to have children many times but we always fail. We went to a local doctor who knew about my powers we were good friends. He did some examinations on Nora and came to the conclusion that the Egg; once it reached the embryonic stage it just stops as if time stopped around it. That night I laid on my bed, Nora was crying in the washroom. I want to comfort her but I have to words to say. Its as if the laws of nature is rejecting me, my children are rejecting themselves even before birth. It hurts me deeply but I know it hurt Nora more. After that night we stopped trying.
40 years has passed since that time, Nora turned 60 today but her beauty is still shown even under all the winkles. I can't sleep, I went to the kitchen and poured some milk into a cup, milk's gone bad. Nora will leave me soon, these brief few years won't last long. What do I do? What can I do? The more I thought the more ludicrous my ideas got. What if I made Nora immortal? I you need a specimen theres a living one right here. I'll think more about it tomorrow. I turned off the kitchen lights and left for bed, the cup was empty.
The next day i went to the local doctor. The doc's son was there too hr plans to take over his father's clinic soon so I just call him doc junior or DJ for short. I asked the doctor if he could find why I'm the way I am. We took blood samples and cell samples. After a few weeks doc concluded that it wasy blood and soon I began my experiments.
First it was animals I injected my blood in a wild boar first it died as its blood froze it self in time. Doc and i decided that we need to make a serum from my blood that will activate simultaneously when it has spread throughout the body. It finally worked on a lab rat. Its time for human trials. Doc volunteered and his son DJ agreed to it too. DJ wants to evolutionize Medicine. If everyone was immortal then war, hunger would be pointless and dissappear. I don't care about that, I just want Nora to be with me forever. It didn't work, doc died from brain damage as the serum spread through his body partially. DJ was sad but in his eyes it was a worthy sacrifice for the greater good.
DJ and I continued to work on our serum for the next 15 years failure after failure and Nora is running out of time. She's bed ridden, DJ has been monitoring her and its not looking well her stomach cancer is eating away her health. Out of options I told DJ that I'm going to use the new serum on Nora.
It was late at night and extremely windy. I walked into our room and Nora laid there slilently asleep, her skin pale and sickly green. I held her hand and she woke up. Flustered that I woke her up I let go her hand. She looked at me and said "I'm glad that got to spend my time with you. I am satisfied with this life so please don't be sad."
I went to the kitchen to get some medicine and water for her. I mixed the serum in the water and brought it to her. She drank it and went to sleep
Edit: accidentally clicked send before finishing so still not done
|
Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
|
[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
|
"I waited so long.
Before modern civilization, I had no idea how I could be so different. I just hunted seals and mammoth, watched as my woman and sons, and then grandchildren, aged, and then died. The people of the low lands revered me at first, but as time went on it became necessary to wander, no place more than a few years. Thousand of years passed the same way, years blurring into each other, nothing but the endless march of the seasons. Sometimes I would find companions to walk with me. Every one of them withered or took sick, and left me to walk alone again. All so long ago I couldn't even remember them if I hadn't tattooed their symbols into my skin with their ashes. Their faces are all lost to time. All the children I created I saw to their graves.
Eventually my people were no more, no-one knew or remembered our rites, or even our name. The sea rose and drowned my hunting grounds, and I followed the other refugees to the hills. I wandered for millenia more, nothing really changing, not understanding what purpose I had in the world. I never was the brightest. But, immortality does give you a lot of time to think. And after the first five hundred years nothing really surprises you. I stopped connecting with people, stayed alone apart from the odd necessary trading trip or a night with a woman. Sometimes I'd see a man or woman with the flaming red hair of my tribe, or a familiar face, and wonder if they were my blood. But I never stayed too long. Every death took a piece of my spirit with them, and I just didn't have the strength in my heart to love, mourn and forget any more. The forgetting being the hardest part. I can't remember the names or faces of my children, all the places I lived with them are nothing but fields. Or under the sea.
Then the world changed, quickly for me. Darker, sharp faced people from across the water, where the great old river once flowed into the Atlantic. They brought new ways to live, sheep, pottery, big villages. I stayed clear of these for a while, scared of the change. Then curiosity got the better of me, and I became a traveling trader and mixed in with them. Eventually the people started to change in front of my eyes. My own tribe's red hair colour became common again. They started to look something like the people I had been born too.
It was my own bloodline in these people causing the change. So many women, so many children, all carrying tiny pieces of me into the future, with each generation. After a few decades, I realized that possibly whatever was making me live longer, might also be passed down somehow. Of course, I had no idea how then. But I wanted to know. So I started to study. I watched how the animals were molded to fit different tasks by breeding them, tasted the fruits getting sweeter with each generation.
This would have been about the time of the Romans. What a blessing writing is, you moderns have no idea how inconvenient and inaccurate an oral history is. I started keeping notes, drawings. I amassed great fortune, land, gold, gems. Many different areas. I built fine homes in different parts of the country, and then move and change name every couple of decades, in a cycle. And I started marrying again. I'd pick some young healthy girl with red hair, and produce as many children as possible, and then when she was past childbearing age I would fake my death, leaving her and the children well provided for. I've been doing this about 1800 years now. I never really became attached to any of them. They were really a means to an end.
And then, a monk, one of those silly new religions that locks people away from the world, started breeding flowers. Such a seemingly pointless hobby, but it turns out it was the beginning of the end of my search. The word 'recessive', it made everything make sense.
I invested everything into pursuit of understanding hereditary, genetics, mutation. I got multiple degrees, patience making up for any lack of brilliance on my part. Then the scientists I funded by proxy made breakthroughs like lightning, and I was able to study my genome in its entirety. Ninety seven recessive genes are the cause of my difference. Why I don't get sick, heal every wound completely, don't age. No magic, just science. Needless to say by this point, I started donating to fertility clinics to increase the frequency of my recessive genes in the population
And then I set up the free screening program for genetic diseases. The govt loved it, gave me a knighthood. The whole program was designed to find others *almost* like me. And that was how I found all of the colonists for my private ship, a hundred and eighty years later, when the first warp capable spaceships left for new worlds.
Of course, none of them had a clue, although they did wonder at the high percentage of red heads in the selection. I never gave myself away in the early colony years, thankfully the anti ageing therapies I had funded extended life and youth. So, no-one has noticed I am not ageing yet.
And then twenty years ago your mother was born. And she was perfect. I tested her in infancy; perfect healing, telomere constancy, perfect immune system. I knew at once what she was, and when she hit eighteen I swept her off her feet. And then there was you. And you are the same, perfect."
He gently cradled the fractious, ferociously ginger haired baby in his arms, too young to understand she had forever in front of her.
"Now go to sleep, Sweetpea. Daddy loves you."
|
This is my first post on writingprompt, its a bit long. Hope you guys like it.
I have many names and many identities. Once I was hailed as a saviour, a king another time, and now i'm just a neighborhood shoemaker for a mining city in the north of Canada. The locals would call me Jon the sole saver. I have a secret and that is I can control time around me. This comes with many benefits. For one, my mind subconsciously stops time within me so I don't age and when I get hurt all wounds heal within minutes. All these things happen without my control like how a heart beats without anyone thinking about it. I have always wondered if there is someone else like me but after fourteen thousand years the answer is still no, that is until I met the woman of my life, Nora. When I told her my secret she didn't freak out nor did she act like one of those worshipping fanatic freaks. She just embraced me, it was the happiest moment of my life knowing that at least one person would treat me normally. Of course we got married. It was a small wedding, just the two of us at a local church. In our honeymoon she told me that I was her hero because in a lot of comics it seems the hero in hiding always hid themselves somewhere north of Canada. I don't want to be her hero because she already is mine. We tried to have children many times but we always fail. We went to a local doctor who knew about my powers we were good friends. He did some examinations on Nora and came to the conclusion that the Egg; once it reached the embryonic stage it just stops as if time stopped around it. That night I laid on my bed, Nora was crying in the washroom. I want to comfort her but I have to words to say. Its as if the laws of nature is rejecting me, my children are rejecting themselves even before birth. It hurts me deeply but I know it hurt Nora more. After that night we stopped trying.
40 years has passed since that time, Nora turned 60 today but her beauty is still shown even under all the winkles. I can't sleep, I went to the kitchen and poured some milk into a cup, milk's gone bad. Nora will leave me soon, these brief few years won't last long. What do I do? What can I do? The more I thought the more ludicrous my ideas got. What if I made Nora immortal? I you need a specimen theres a living one right here. I'll think more about it tomorrow. I turned off the kitchen lights and left for bed, the cup was empty.
The next day i went to the local doctor. The doc's son was there too hr plans to take over his father's clinic soon so I just call him doc junior or DJ for short. I asked the doctor if he could find why I'm the way I am. We took blood samples and cell samples. After a few weeks doc concluded that it wasy blood and soon I began my experiments.
First it was animals I injected my blood in a wild boar first it died as its blood froze it self in time. Doc and i decided that we need to make a serum from my blood that will activate simultaneously when it has spread throughout the body. It finally worked on a lab rat. Its time for human trials. Doc volunteered and his son DJ agreed to it too. DJ wants to evolutionize Medicine. If everyone was immortal then war, hunger would be pointless and dissappear. I don't care about that, I just want Nora to be with me forever. It didn't work, doc died from brain damage as the serum spread through his body partially. DJ was sad but in his eyes it was a worthy sacrifice for the greater good.
DJ and I continued to work on our serum for the next 15 years failure after failure and Nora is running out of time. She's bed ridden, DJ has been monitoring her and its not looking well her stomach cancer is eating away her health. Out of options I told DJ that I'm going to use the new serum on Nora.
It was late at night and extremely windy. I walked into our room and Nora laid there slilently asleep, her skin pale and sickly green. I held her hand and she woke up. Flustered that I woke her up I let go her hand. She looked at me and said "I'm glad that got to spend my time with you. I am satisfied with this life so please don't be sad."
I went to the kitchen to get some medicine and water for her. I mixed the serum in the water and brought it to her. She drank it and went to sleep
Edit: accidentally clicked send before finishing so still not done
|
Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
|
[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
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In my 14,000 years of life, I have had countless lovers, husbands, wives, boyfriends and girlfriends; I have also had just as many divorces, break ups and name changes. I was 40 years old when I realized I wasn't ageing. It seemed that I had stopped somewhere around 30, my husband and I at the time had decided to live a child-free lifestyle wanting to get the most out of the one life we had together. Little did I know, I would have several lifetimes. It wasn't long after that that I started to age myself, dying my hair grey, faking fine lines, until one day he died. Just like that, he went to work one day and never came home. I tried not to dwell on that. We had an amazing 30 years together and I mourned him like anyone would in their first life. From that point on, I realized that I needed to be careful and I needed to get smart real fast on the process of changing identities. I didn't know how long I would live and I didn't know how long it would take for me to start ageing again. I would never fully love anyone like I did my first husband, I got close a few times, there was this one woman in Australia who made me feel more alive at 600 than I did at 60, but that first life was special.
I was about 800 or so when I started to consider having children. Before it seemed irresponsible, what if they weren't immortal, I would have to abandon them at some point when it became clear that I wasn't ageing. But then I started considering what would happen if they were like me, I could have company, I could have someone that I wouldn't have to watch decay over the years.
It was easy to find sperm, men were always willing to give it out, just say you have an IUD and you are good to go. At first, I only had sex with men that I was naturally attracted to. I figured that had to be pheromones or something guiding me the best possible candidates, but after countless of miscarriages and failed attempts here I am. 14000 years old and formally trying to figure out the best candidates for mating purposes. It had become so scientific I rarely even had sex at this point. Insemination seemed like it would be the best way to ensure pregnancy. I even had a few eggs harvested so that I could try multiple different sperm on different eggs.
It was through this that I was able to see what was happening at a cellular level, the miscarriages that I had been having weren't young cells that had just not been viable, they had become old dead cells. I observed in test tube after test tube, sperm enter egg, cells begin to divide, and after 6-12 weeks the cells would all start dying, almost as if they were ageing too quickly to keep up with the new cell growth.
I begin studying the DNA of various men that I had figured were viable candidates, based on the average longevity of their family history, this always lasted the longest. There was a definite link, but not strong enough. Then I decided to approach it from a different angle. I, obviously, possessed a recessive gene and longevity seemed to be a dominate gene. What if I began looking for men that came from families with really short life spans.
It was hard to find with the advances of medical science. It seemed as if everyone could live to 120 easily, but they were there. The people whose minds started to fade early, or hearts gave out despite a healthy lifestyle. I finally found a man with a series of recessive genes, red hair, color blind, and so forth. It had taken centuries, but here I was 8 months down, one to go.
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This is my first post on writingprompt, its a bit long. Hope you guys like it.
I have many names and many identities. Once I was hailed as a saviour, a king another time, and now i'm just a neighborhood shoemaker for a mining city in the north of Canada. The locals would call me Jon the sole saver. I have a secret and that is I can control time around me. This comes with many benefits. For one, my mind subconsciously stops time within me so I don't age and when I get hurt all wounds heal within minutes. All these things happen without my control like how a heart beats without anyone thinking about it. I have always wondered if there is someone else like me but after fourteen thousand years the answer is still no, that is until I met the woman of my life, Nora. When I told her my secret she didn't freak out nor did she act like one of those worshipping fanatic freaks. She just embraced me, it was the happiest moment of my life knowing that at least one person would treat me normally. Of course we got married. It was a small wedding, just the two of us at a local church. In our honeymoon she told me that I was her hero because in a lot of comics it seems the hero in hiding always hid themselves somewhere north of Canada. I don't want to be her hero because she already is mine. We tried to have children many times but we always fail. We went to a local doctor who knew about my powers we were good friends. He did some examinations on Nora and came to the conclusion that the Egg; once it reached the embryonic stage it just stops as if time stopped around it. That night I laid on my bed, Nora was crying in the washroom. I want to comfort her but I have to words to say. Its as if the laws of nature is rejecting me, my children are rejecting themselves even before birth. It hurts me deeply but I know it hurt Nora more. After that night we stopped trying.
40 years has passed since that time, Nora turned 60 today but her beauty is still shown even under all the winkles. I can't sleep, I went to the kitchen and poured some milk into a cup, milk's gone bad. Nora will leave me soon, these brief few years won't last long. What do I do? What can I do? The more I thought the more ludicrous my ideas got. What if I made Nora immortal? I you need a specimen theres a living one right here. I'll think more about it tomorrow. I turned off the kitchen lights and left for bed, the cup was empty.
The next day i went to the local doctor. The doc's son was there too hr plans to take over his father's clinic soon so I just call him doc junior or DJ for short. I asked the doctor if he could find why I'm the way I am. We took blood samples and cell samples. After a few weeks doc concluded that it wasy blood and soon I began my experiments.
First it was animals I injected my blood in a wild boar first it died as its blood froze it self in time. Doc and i decided that we need to make a serum from my blood that will activate simultaneously when it has spread throughout the body. It finally worked on a lab rat. Its time for human trials. Doc volunteered and his son DJ agreed to it too. DJ wants to evolutionize Medicine. If everyone was immortal then war, hunger would be pointless and dissappear. I don't care about that, I just want Nora to be with me forever. It didn't work, doc died from brain damage as the serum spread through his body partially. DJ was sad but in his eyes it was a worthy sacrifice for the greater good.
DJ and I continued to work on our serum for the next 15 years failure after failure and Nora is running out of time. She's bed ridden, DJ has been monitoring her and its not looking well her stomach cancer is eating away her health. Out of options I told DJ that I'm going to use the new serum on Nora.
It was late at night and extremely windy. I walked into our room and Nora laid there slilently asleep, her skin pale and sickly green. I held her hand and she woke up. Flustered that I woke her up I let go her hand. She looked at me and said "I'm glad that got to spend my time with you. I am satisfied with this life so please don't be sad."
I went to the kitchen to get some medicine and water for her. I mixed the serum in the water and brought it to her. She drank it and went to sleep
Edit: accidentally clicked send before finishing so still not done
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Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
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[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
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"I waited so long.
Before modern civilization, I had no idea how I could be so different. I just hunted seals and mammoth, watched as my woman and sons, and then grandchildren, aged, and then died. The people of the low lands revered me at first, but as time went on it became necessary to wander, no place more than a few years. Thousand of years passed the same way, years blurring into each other, nothing but the endless march of the seasons. Sometimes I would find companions to walk with me. Every one of them withered or took sick, and left me to walk alone again. All so long ago I couldn't even remember them if I hadn't tattooed their symbols into my skin with their ashes. Their faces are all lost to time. All the children I created I saw to their graves.
Eventually my people were no more, no-one knew or remembered our rites, or even our name. The sea rose and drowned my hunting grounds, and I followed the other refugees to the hills. I wandered for millenia more, nothing really changing, not understanding what purpose I had in the world. I never was the brightest. But, immortality does give you a lot of time to think. And after the first five hundred years nothing really surprises you. I stopped connecting with people, stayed alone apart from the odd necessary trading trip or a night with a woman. Sometimes I'd see a man or woman with the flaming red hair of my tribe, or a familiar face, and wonder if they were my blood. But I never stayed too long. Every death took a piece of my spirit with them, and I just didn't have the strength in my heart to love, mourn and forget any more. The forgetting being the hardest part. I can't remember the names or faces of my children, all the places I lived with them are nothing but fields. Or under the sea.
Then the world changed, quickly for me. Darker, sharp faced people from across the water, where the great old river once flowed into the Atlantic. They brought new ways to live, sheep, pottery, big villages. I stayed clear of these for a while, scared of the change. Then curiosity got the better of me, and I became a traveling trader and mixed in with them. Eventually the people started to change in front of my eyes. My own tribe's red hair colour became common again. They started to look something like the people I had been born too.
It was my own bloodline in these people causing the change. So many women, so many children, all carrying tiny pieces of me into the future, with each generation. After a few decades, I realized that possibly whatever was making me live longer, might also be passed down somehow. Of course, I had no idea how then. But I wanted to know. So I started to study. I watched how the animals were molded to fit different tasks by breeding them, tasted the fruits getting sweeter with each generation.
This would have been about the time of the Romans. What a blessing writing is, you moderns have no idea how inconvenient and inaccurate an oral history is. I started keeping notes, drawings. I amassed great fortune, land, gold, gems. Many different areas. I built fine homes in different parts of the country, and then move and change name every couple of decades, in a cycle. And I started marrying again. I'd pick some young healthy girl with red hair, and produce as many children as possible, and then when she was past childbearing age I would fake my death, leaving her and the children well provided for. I've been doing this about 1800 years now. I never really became attached to any of them. They were really a means to an end.
And then, a monk, one of those silly new religions that locks people away from the world, started breeding flowers. Such a seemingly pointless hobby, but it turns out it was the beginning of the end of my search. The word 'recessive', it made everything make sense.
I invested everything into pursuit of understanding hereditary, genetics, mutation. I got multiple degrees, patience making up for any lack of brilliance on my part. Then the scientists I funded by proxy made breakthroughs like lightning, and I was able to study my genome in its entirety. Ninety seven recessive genes are the cause of my difference. Why I don't get sick, heal every wound completely, don't age. No magic, just science. Needless to say by this point, I started donating to fertility clinics to increase the frequency of my recessive genes in the population
And then I set up the free screening program for genetic diseases. The govt loved it, gave me a knighthood. The whole program was designed to find others *almost* like me. And that was how I found all of the colonists for my private ship, a hundred and eighty years later, when the first warp capable spaceships left for new worlds.
Of course, none of them had a clue, although they did wonder at the high percentage of red heads in the selection. I never gave myself away in the early colony years, thankfully the anti ageing therapies I had funded extended life and youth. So, no-one has noticed I am not ageing yet.
And then twenty years ago your mother was born. And she was perfect. I tested her in infancy; perfect healing, telomere constancy, perfect immune system. I knew at once what she was, and when she hit eighteen I swept her off her feet. And then there was you. And you are the same, perfect."
He gently cradled the fractious, ferociously ginger haired baby in his arms, too young to understand she had forever in front of her.
"Now go to sleep, Sweetpea. Daddy loves you."
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As I sit comfortably in my lounge chair by the pool, watching my son swim laps, I can confidant say that I have never been happier in the last 14, 000 years.
I remember when I first realized I was immortal 14 millenia ago. I had lived a modest life to that point. I was a farmer like my father, as was his father before him. We planted the seeds of the wild fruit we found in the forest, and with this bounty we were able to support our small tribe even when the hunters were unsuccessful. Unlike my father and tribe however, my skin shone a brilliant white and my hair grew wildly. My small tribe accepted this, and I felt lucky to be commited to my woman Ooka, especially after she bore our 6 beautiful children. We and my parents shared a small hovel in the beautiful country now know as South Africa. But the great drought came on my 35th birthday. The wild fruit seeds were lost, and the hunters could only find dead and rotted animals as far as they searched.
I watched as my parents starved to death, then my wife. I ate little and had a burning hunger, but I stayed healthy. I did everything possible to scavange for food, but it was a barren wasteland and my children too weak to travel. Eventually even the last insects and vegetation died. When the the youngest finally died, the 3 oldest who could still walk and I began to migrate. A week later, everyone I had ever known was dead when I finally laid my eldest to rest.
I lay there beside him for a week, willing my body to die. It wouldn't. I jumped off the highest cliff I could find, and got up without a scratch. I threw myself onto a spear, and the spear point couldn't break my skin. I tried to remember if I had even got a scratch- and I couldn't. Maybe I was always like this. And Maybe I always would be. And the maybe turned into certainty. And it was then I knew. I knew I was immortal.
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Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
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[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
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In my 14,000 years of life, I have had countless lovers, husbands, wives, boyfriends and girlfriends; I have also had just as many divorces, break ups and name changes. I was 40 years old when I realized I wasn't ageing. It seemed that I had stopped somewhere around 30, my husband and I at the time had decided to live a child-free lifestyle wanting to get the most out of the one life we had together. Little did I know, I would have several lifetimes. It wasn't long after that that I started to age myself, dying my hair grey, faking fine lines, until one day he died. Just like that, he went to work one day and never came home. I tried not to dwell on that. We had an amazing 30 years together and I mourned him like anyone would in their first life. From that point on, I realized that I needed to be careful and I needed to get smart real fast on the process of changing identities. I didn't know how long I would live and I didn't know how long it would take for me to start ageing again. I would never fully love anyone like I did my first husband, I got close a few times, there was this one woman in Australia who made me feel more alive at 600 than I did at 60, but that first life was special.
I was about 800 or so when I started to consider having children. Before it seemed irresponsible, what if they weren't immortal, I would have to abandon them at some point when it became clear that I wasn't ageing. But then I started considering what would happen if they were like me, I could have company, I could have someone that I wouldn't have to watch decay over the years.
It was easy to find sperm, men were always willing to give it out, just say you have an IUD and you are good to go. At first, I only had sex with men that I was naturally attracted to. I figured that had to be pheromones or something guiding me the best possible candidates, but after countless of miscarriages and failed attempts here I am. 14000 years old and formally trying to figure out the best candidates for mating purposes. It had become so scientific I rarely even had sex at this point. Insemination seemed like it would be the best way to ensure pregnancy. I even had a few eggs harvested so that I could try multiple different sperm on different eggs.
It was through this that I was able to see what was happening at a cellular level, the miscarriages that I had been having weren't young cells that had just not been viable, they had become old dead cells. I observed in test tube after test tube, sperm enter egg, cells begin to divide, and after 6-12 weeks the cells would all start dying, almost as if they were ageing too quickly to keep up with the new cell growth.
I begin studying the DNA of various men that I had figured were viable candidates, based on the average longevity of their family history, this always lasted the longest. There was a definite link, but not strong enough. Then I decided to approach it from a different angle. I, obviously, possessed a recessive gene and longevity seemed to be a dominate gene. What if I began looking for men that came from families with really short life spans.
It was hard to find with the advances of medical science. It seemed as if everyone could live to 120 easily, but they were there. The people whose minds started to fade early, or hearts gave out despite a healthy lifestyle. I finally found a man with a series of recessive genes, red hair, color blind, and so forth. It had taken centuries, but here I was 8 months down, one to go.
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As I sit comfortably in my lounge chair by the pool, watching my son swim laps, I can confidant say that I have never been happier in the last 14, 000 years.
I remember when I first realized I was immortal 14 millenia ago. I had lived a modest life to that point. I was a farmer like my father, as was his father before him. We planted the seeds of the wild fruit we found in the forest, and with this bounty we were able to support our small tribe even when the hunters were unsuccessful. Unlike my father and tribe however, my skin shone a brilliant white and my hair grew wildly. My small tribe accepted this, and I felt lucky to be commited to my woman Ooka, especially after she bore our 6 beautiful children. We and my parents shared a small hovel in the beautiful country now know as South Africa. But the great drought came on my 35th birthday. The wild fruit seeds were lost, and the hunters could only find dead and rotted animals as far as they searched.
I watched as my parents starved to death, then my wife. I ate little and had a burning hunger, but I stayed healthy. I did everything possible to scavange for food, but it was a barren wasteland and my children too weak to travel. Eventually even the last insects and vegetation died. When the the youngest finally died, the 3 oldest who could still walk and I began to migrate. A week later, everyone I had ever known was dead when I finally laid my eldest to rest.
I lay there beside him for a week, willing my body to die. It wouldn't. I jumped off the highest cliff I could find, and got up without a scratch. I threw myself onto a spear, and the spear point couldn't break my skin. I tried to remember if I had even got a scratch- and I couldn't. Maybe I was always like this. And Maybe I always would be. And the maybe turned into certainty. And it was then I knew. I knew I was immortal.
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Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
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[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
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BEGIN LOG
Date: 37 July, 5721 Anno Domini.
Day 185 of Year 2600 United Earth Founding.
Note: Today is Founding Day, remember to fire off controlled pyrotechnics tonight.
Project LEGACY, Experiment 99, Entry 216-7.
My wife died last night at approximately 2249 GMT. She was 216 years, 3 months, and 16 days old. She left behind 6 adoptive children, all well into their 40s to 100s, and myself. The funeral will be held in two days’ time, in a little spot just off the coast of where Seattle used to be, in the same spot where I proposed to her. It seems fitting, that we should part forever in the same spot where we became one “forever”. She was so sweet, my Meredith, and losing her feels like I’ve lost yet another part of my soul. She was the best wife I’ve ever had, and yet, she marks another “failure” in the LEGACY project. Another woman who could not bear a child for me, or should I say, for the Council. The Council, of course, will send along their regards, but I know that they are just hollow words. All they want to see is a “success”, a child born with the same ailment as my own, born to live forever, free of disease and able to heal from the most grievous of injuries. Not content with 200-year life-spans, they wish to “ascend to god-hood” and rule as a part of the Council for all eternity. They see me as a piece of a puzzle that they are only missing a single piece to and search desperately for the final piece.
But enough of the Council, this entry is not about them, this is about Meredith, my beautiful Meredith, always smiling, even as the Cancer spread to her eyes, blinding her before it made its way to her brain. Her voice will ring in my ears for all eternity, the way she sang the children to sleep, the way she would whisper my name as we lay in bed with each other, the way she would say “Welcome home.” when I came out of my study after another day of Council work. Her cooking was beyond compare, I’ve tasted the art of culinary geniuses the world over and nothing they made could hold a candle to the home-cooked meals she made. Her sense of humor was infectious, like a disease (Ha! Disease. Get it? You would have loved that one.), and everyone she met came away from the encounter happier. She was the moon of my life, our children the stars, the night sky ever bright with their presence. But now the moon has fallen, and the sun wishes for nothing but to fall with her.
I’m not sure I can do this anymore. For over two millennia, I have sat and watched helplessly as lover after lover after lover has withered away and died for Project LEGACY while I have barely aged a year. Sure I may look like I’m in my early 200s, but today’s makeup and disguise programs can fool even the best of people. I’m tired of this charade, of this parody of life. This is not life, this is torture, and I refuse to participate in it any longer. I’ve already spoken with my “Doctor”; he has agreed to help me fake my death again, as his family has done for the past 30 generations. This time however, I will not return to the civilized world. I will retire to our summer home in the woods and focus on Project GAME OVER. Damn the Council and their quest for god-hood, I have given my all for this planet and its people, I have served the governments of the world for over 14 millennia. I have fought in more wars and killed more people than any dictator in history. I have saved more people as a doctor than any cure. I am tired and weary, and it is time for me to sleep. I will finish Project GAME OVER, that is my only goal. I will see my Meredith again.
Edit 1: Minor spelling corrections. Thanks for helping out, I was very tired when I wrote this.
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"Novemeber 27th, 2015, today marks the beginning of trials on subject 7.
Subject 7 also known as…fuck where did I put the…whatever it's easier when I don't know their names. Subject 7 came to my attention as the result of a newspaper article about a woman who was the sole survivor of a multi car pile up. Note for anyone listening to these tapes, and that includes you, future me, you know how we forget this stuff, I named her subject 7 in honour of the number of cars involved in the collision. You are not missing the last three subjects.
Digging into her history I've found three more potentially fatal instances in her life that she appeared to escape from largely unscathed. Note, I can't remember if these instances were the result of some sort of *Unbreakable* inspired scheme on my part, a movie I only some what remember, thanks to the utilization of skills learned from the movie *Memento* a movie I don't really remember at all.
Subject is restrained in the waiting room. I have decided to conduct the breeding there as I realized the only difference between the waiting room and the breeding room is the presence of the turkey baster I use for the experiment. In a, if I can brag, brilliant move I have decided to…move, get it, the turkey baster to the waiting room, freeing up the breeding room for some other purpose. Perhaps that sock puppet theatre I have been kicking around for the last century, as it occurs to me that if one of these experiments takes hold and does not have to be terminated, I will find myself with a child and while it's been a while since I was one, I believe I would have liked sock puppets.
I am now entering the waiting room where…oh shit subject 7 has escaped shit shit shit, all I have to defend myself is this turkey baster and my immortality. Wait... my immortality.
I can use that.
Unless she pricks me with a needle full off…my knock out stuff…and then escapes…she's shaking her head…wait wait wait you could…run experiments and stuff on me…and I'd never die…and then you could make an immortality serum…guys she's nodding I'm riiiiiiiiii…
*Thud*
*Click*
[Subreddit] (https://www.reddit.com/r/SarkasticWatcher/)
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Yes this is dark, go nuts with it.
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[WP] You have a super recessive disorder that makes you immortal. Never in all your time (~14,000 yrs) have you encountered anyone else like yourself. You begin a series of breeding of experiments....
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Senator Cochran sat down on the edge of the bed. He tried to brush a piece of hair away from the woman’s face, but she pulled back and slapped his hand away. The swelling in her face hadn’t started to go down, but the bruises were already turning an angry purple.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” she said.
“Don’t get too feisty,” said Cochran. “I like them with some spirit in the bed but not out of it.”
She spit in his face and sneered. Cochran backhanded her, a shriek escaping her lips. She held the side of her face. Blood spilled from a gash in her lip as she began crying.
“I wouldn’t have to do this if you would just have my child,” said Cochran. His voice was level and calm, almost monotone.
The woman didn’t meet his gaze. She curled into a ball and continued crying.
“Do you know how long I’ve had to do this?” said Cochran, standing. He moved in front of the bedroom’s window and looked out on the palatial gardens.
“Fuck you,” she said.
“I’ve been with more women than I can remember,” said Cochran. “Millennias of trying with queens, princesses farm girls, seamstresses. High and low in society.” He turned to look at the sobbing bundle of woman on the bed. “And here I find some dirty, gold digging whore who can have my child.” His voice had an edge of contempt. The calmness on his face started to wash away.
Her sobs had quieted. “What?”
“Fourteen thousand years, by my count, and then I have unprotected sex with some tart at a party because I need to release, and what do I find out?” he said. Cochran’s face darkened, his posture became more hunched, more predatory. “I find out she can have my child, which no one has ever been able to do,” he screamed, “and she has an abortion.”
The woman screamed as Cochran began yelling and punching holes in the wall.
“And now,” yelled Cochran, “ you made me keep you here until you have my child.”
“No,” whispered the woman. She clutched the sheets over her naked body. “No.”
“Yes,” sneered Cochran. “I’m going to have my way with you every day until you’re pregnant.” He stalked over to the bed, his hands curled into claws. “And when you’re pregnant you will have the best doctors and when my child is born you will be cast away.”
“No,” she whispered. She shook her head without looking at Cochran.
He stood and straightened his tie and slicked back any loose hairs. The anger disappeared. The calm returned to his face and his voice. “Yes, I will and do you know why I’ll be able to do it?”
She continued shaking her head.
“Because you’re a whore who no one cares about, and I’m currently a Senator with several lifetimes of connections,” he said, moving toward the bedroom door. “And I’ve been doing this longer than any civilization has been around.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No,” laughed Cochran. He winked and opened the bedroom door. “No. Just immortal with my biological clock ticking.”
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"Novemeber 27th, 2015, today marks the beginning of trials on subject 7.
Subject 7 also known as…fuck where did I put the…whatever it's easier when I don't know their names. Subject 7 came to my attention as the result of a newspaper article about a woman who was the sole survivor of a multi car pile up. Note for anyone listening to these tapes, and that includes you, future me, you know how we forget this stuff, I named her subject 7 in honour of the number of cars involved in the collision. You are not missing the last three subjects.
Digging into her history I've found three more potentially fatal instances in her life that she appeared to escape from largely unscathed. Note, I can't remember if these instances were the result of some sort of *Unbreakable* inspired scheme on my part, a movie I only some what remember, thanks to the utilization of skills learned from the movie *Memento* a movie I don't really remember at all.
Subject is restrained in the waiting room. I have decided to conduct the breeding there as I realized the only difference between the waiting room and the breeding room is the presence of the turkey baster I use for the experiment. In a, if I can brag, brilliant move I have decided to…move, get it, the turkey baster to the waiting room, freeing up the breeding room for some other purpose. Perhaps that sock puppet theatre I have been kicking around for the last century, as it occurs to me that if one of these experiments takes hold and does not have to be terminated, I will find myself with a child and while it's been a while since I was one, I believe I would have liked sock puppets.
I am now entering the waiting room where…oh shit subject 7 has escaped shit shit shit, all I have to defend myself is this turkey baster and my immortality. Wait... my immortality.
I can use that.
Unless she pricks me with a needle full off…my knock out stuff…and then escapes…she's shaking her head…wait wait wait you could…run experiments and stuff on me…and I'd never die…and then you could make an immortality serum…guys she's nodding I'm riiiiiiiiii…
*Thud*
*Click*
[Subreddit] (https://www.reddit.com/r/SarkasticWatcher/)
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It's easy to write what I wish I could do, but I wonder what other people want. So write me that. I'm interested to see it.
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[WP] Tell me what you wish you could live. It can be anything, from the most mundane, ordinary scenario to the most wild and fantastical. And write it any way you want.
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The pavement bent and warped as I walked, jiggling and wobbling as people moved around. Houses, lamp posts and trees wobbled and swayed around in the reddish sunrise. There was joy everywhere as children cheerfully giggled as they jumped around on their springy lawns.
The whole world was bouncy. There was no need for trampolines or bouncy castles. Everything is so squishy and bendy. Falling over doesn't hurt; and while cars are more difficult to drive, accidents have less tragic consequences. Hiking in the mountains is so much more fun, what with them shifting all over the place, and even cave exploration is exciting, the tunnels all bouncing around us. Football is still played, with the shifting and bouncy field making a nice twist of running around trying to kick the ball into the opponent's goal net.
I stop and stood still, feeling butterflies inside of me as my body is gently bumped around as the ground wobbled up and down. I spread my arms to keep my balance. It was such a fun and happy sensation to experience.
I get going again, but this time I start to jump, each landing from each leap causing my feet to press further down on the rubbery ground, and thus propelling me higher into the air. I cheerfully chuckle as I continue bounding through the neighbourhood, my hanging denim jacket flowing around me from each bounce.
I love living in this world. It's so amazingly fun. I don't want to leave, ever.
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Sunlight filtered through the glass, making the room look as though it was outside. I watched it, lazily spinning the dust motes with my hand. Part of me said I should probably clean, but in the midmorning like this, the dust was just another piece of beauty.
Besides, I was too busy for something so mundane as *cleaning.*
*Well,* I thought, *I should probably get out of bed.*
I stretched, pushing the heavy blankets off of my body. I heard a thud- and then another, and another. How many books had I left on my bed last night? I was positive I had gotten all of them last night. I craned my neck and surveyed the damage- nothing valuable, thankfully, just a Latin dictionary, a tome of canine physiology, and one of my journals. Nothing that couldn't handle a good knocking.
I bustled about, gathering the books I'd knocked down, and returned them to their spots on the shelves- three down, six over for the canine book; two from the top and seven over for the Latin; and the journal goes in the pile on my desk. *I should really organize my notes,* I thought, and then did as I always did and tucked that thought away for a later time.
As I dressed, I reviewed my day. I had to return my scrolls from Alexandria to the library today or the keepers would be after my head. The king wanted me to brief him on a particular historical battle someone he was meeting tomorrow was interested in, and of course I had the princess's Latin lessons.
Was that really it? I wracked my brains, trying to remember, but that really did seem to be it. Maybe I'd have time to get the most recent book from Maximillian tonight, and maybe even eat in the dining hall instead of in my room.
I smiled, and began gathering my scrolls.
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It's easy to write what I wish I could do, but I wonder what other people want. So write me that. I'm interested to see it.
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[WP] Tell me what you wish you could live. It can be anything, from the most mundane, ordinary scenario to the most wild and fantastical. And write it any way you want.
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I had a dream last night, and I did not want to wake up.
You were there, with your hair shoved carelessy to the side. Your bright eyes were glimmering at the sight of me. I'd forgotten what it felt like to be looked at by you. We were only putting dishes away, but this moment was so sweet that I could not hold back my overwhelming joy, and I kissed you sweetly on the mouth.
"I love you," I told you. You smiled and hugged me tight, kissing the top of my head.
"I love you more."
I could almost smell you when I breathed you in. Memories bleed through dreams like ink into the pages behind the one we're writing on. I couldn't bear it, and I woke suddenly with my heart pounding wildly in my chest. I was angry. I didn't want to wake up so soon. I wanted longer with you, there in that place in my dreams that held us together, tethered forever in the only place I wanted to live.
I felt tears threaten the backs of my eyes, and I wanted all of those moments back, the ones I never got with you. Those ordinary moments that added up to equal the most grand and magical life I could have ever imagined.
It isn't fair, but I keep that life beneath my eyelids and I stay with you when I fall asleep. It's the only thing that keeps me alive.
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Sunlight filtered through the glass, making the room look as though it was outside. I watched it, lazily spinning the dust motes with my hand. Part of me said I should probably clean, but in the midmorning like this, the dust was just another piece of beauty.
Besides, I was too busy for something so mundane as *cleaning.*
*Well,* I thought, *I should probably get out of bed.*
I stretched, pushing the heavy blankets off of my body. I heard a thud- and then another, and another. How many books had I left on my bed last night? I was positive I had gotten all of them last night. I craned my neck and surveyed the damage- nothing valuable, thankfully, just a Latin dictionary, a tome of canine physiology, and one of my journals. Nothing that couldn't handle a good knocking.
I bustled about, gathering the books I'd knocked down, and returned them to their spots on the shelves- three down, six over for the canine book; two from the top and seven over for the Latin; and the journal goes in the pile on my desk. *I should really organize my notes,* I thought, and then did as I always did and tucked that thought away for a later time.
As I dressed, I reviewed my day. I had to return my scrolls from Alexandria to the library today or the keepers would be after my head. The king wanted me to brief him on a particular historical battle someone he was meeting tomorrow was interested in, and of course I had the princess's Latin lessons.
Was that really it? I wracked my brains, trying to remember, but that really did seem to be it. Maybe I'd have time to get the most recent book from Maximillian tonight, and maybe even eat in the dining hall instead of in my room.
I smiled, and began gathering my scrolls.
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It's easy to write what I wish I could do, but I wonder what other people want. So write me that. I'm interested to see it.
|
[WP] Tell me what you wish you could live. It can be anything, from the most mundane, ordinary scenario to the most wild and fantastical. And write it any way you want.
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I had a dream last night, and I did not want to wake up.
You were there, with your hair shoved carelessy to the side. Your bright eyes were glimmering at the sight of me. I'd forgotten what it felt like to be looked at by you. We were only putting dishes away, but this moment was so sweet that I could not hold back my overwhelming joy, and I kissed you sweetly on the mouth.
"I love you," I told you. You smiled and hugged me tight, kissing the top of my head.
"I love you more."
I could almost smell you when I breathed you in. Memories bleed through dreams like ink into the pages behind the one we're writing on. I couldn't bear it, and I woke suddenly with my heart pounding wildly in my chest. I was angry. I didn't want to wake up so soon. I wanted longer with you, there in that place in my dreams that held us together, tethered forever in the only place I wanted to live.
I felt tears threaten the backs of my eyes, and I wanted all of those moments back, the ones I never got with you. Those ordinary moments that added up to equal the most grand and magical life I could have ever imagined.
It isn't fair, but I keep that life beneath my eyelids and I stay with you when I fall asleep. It's the only thing that keeps me alive.
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Tomorrow was the departure, flight 890 from London to Seattle. Another flight, another life, another story.
London had spanned four years. I'd come there from Valparaiso, and there from Boston, and there from Vienna, and so on and so forth.
I was an odd type of traveler. Most stay a week in a city. I stay years.
What do you do in a week? See some touristy spots? The London Eye? Westminster? Bleh.
No, with years, you learn about a city and its people. You make friends from all walks of life, you find the best pubs and appreciate them over the years, you find the love of your life at least three times, and you try your best not to get kicked out of the country all the while.
The sights and sounds of London would never leave me. I'd made best friends with a banker named Hannah from Chelmsford. I'd never heard of Chelmsford before her. We'd meet a bloke named James at a club in Chelsea every weekend, and occasionally, the three of us took trips together to Scotland because goddamn was that accent wonderful.
As I look out over the night lights of London from my flat for the last time, I begin to tear up. I was going to miss life here.
One time, the tube drivers all went on strike, and I had to walk four miles across the center of the city. I got hungry halfway through, and ended up finding this amazing Italian place. I told Hannah about it, and we promised to go sometime.
We never did.
We'd all said our goodbyes earlier. There were many tears shed, but it was the way of things. I realized now that I'd forgotten to hug James before he left. It's odd, the regrets you have later on. It was never the things you did do, but the ones you didn't do.
Back in Valparaiso, I once tried to learn how to surf. Ever since I was a child, I'd wanted to give it a go. I was told that the way the board smacked my face as it all went tits up was majestic.
But no regrets, at least it made for a funny story to tell at parties.
Talia was a girl I'd met at those same surfing lessons. We ended up dating for a year before I left, but she wouldn't leave her family behind to come with me. I think about that sometimes, though, if I'd just stayed with her. We could've married, as she wanted to. But I'd had my doubts about settling down, so I didn't. I miss her, though.
That's what brings me to the present, actually. This was all supposed to be about how great London was, but the thing is, things tend to blend together eventually. James got married, and we went to his wedding out in the countryside, where I was reminded of Talia, and that's when I finally decided.
I'm going home.
I wanted to settle down for once, to know what it was like to have lifelong friends and a house, to have a family. That's what's drawn me back to where it all began, the first place I called home.
Home has been Seattle, Des Moines, Vienna, Boston, Valparaiso, and now London. I'm tired now, of starting a new life for myself among amazing people and incredible cities, only to leave it all again. Only for friendships to deteriorate to Facebook messages and cities to yearnings for distant restaurants and plazas.
I've been guided all my life by wanderlust, but finally I have grown wise enough to accept that I can't live every life. I will never experience everything, everyplace, everyone. It's been a weary lesson that's spanned almost two decades, but it's made me the man I am today, for which I'm proud.
Yet, if I had the chance to tell my younger self this all, I wouldn't do it. My childhood dream had been to see the world, and you know what?
We regret the things we didn't do infinitely more than the things we did, and my greatest fear was always that one day, I'd find myself on my deathbed a regretful, old man.
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Feel free to think about this sentence from every possible angle.
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[WP] "We took too long. It cannot be removed anymore."
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Arthur eyed the doctor with anticipation as he pulled back the curtain and joined the circle of friends and family around his bed. He tried hard to read the answer within the creases of the man's face, but years of practice had taught the doctor how to conceal bad news as well as good. Methodically the man in the white lab coat peered over his chart, faced Arthur, and delivered the verdict.
"Commander Frobisher, I'm sorry. We took too long, it cannot be removed."
Arthur felt a steel ball catch in his throat. His whole body went rigged and all the hands that came for comfort felt like painful knives upon his shoulders. Slowly, his head folded over into his hands and Arthur began to sob.
He had known the risks go into the operation. Everyone involved with Project Adapt had known the bloody risks. Yet, Arthur went along with the plan. *The system is inserted at the base of the spinal cord.* He heard the voice the black-suited pitch master, *The idea is that the Bot will learn and recognize you're unique brain patterns and will begin to alter them in subtle ways to match your new environment.*
A simple enough idea. A robotic implant that is self-learning was implanted in Arthur's skull. It's purpose was to learn and then adjust his neural functioning adapting his body to changes in the environment. Specifically an environment of zero g's, space. The idea was that the bot would acclimate astronauts to the harsh conditions of extended space travel quickly. Intended for use on interstellar space travel where astronauts would be in space for decades at a time. A noble idea; however, there was a catch.
*What we have here is a functioning AI. It's still very much in its prototype stages, but Parliament agrees without human testing we won't know for certain if it can work.* The black-suited man had warned. *There is a chance that it could latch onto you and metastasize, like a cancer. We are fairly certain that won't be the case, but just to be safe you'll have the implant for just one year as you orbit around earth.*
Back in 2015-2016, just five years prior, Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko preformed a year long stay aboard the ISS to test just this thing. Neither of those astronauts had the implant and the results of extended exposure to space were catastrophic. A near total loss of eyesight in both astronauts upon their return, atrophy of limbs, with distal ligaments affected most extremely, severe muscle loss despite rigorous daily training, impaired hearing, loss of hair due to solar radiation, and cancer. Kornienko was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer one year ago and Commander Kelly is ten times more likely than the average American to develop some form over his lifetime. Obviously space travel was impossible for mankind on their own, but this implant offered hope. Hope that one day a species much like humanity would traverse the cosmic expanse. The species would share synthetic properties as well as organic, boasting the strengths of both machine and man.
Arthur Frobisher had been the first implant. He traveled aboard the ISS alone for 356 days. Orbiting the Earth 5,696.5 times in total. The first thing to be done once he returned was to remove the bot, but now he knew it was too late.
The doctor in the white lab coat gave Arthur a sympathetic nod, "It is as we feared initially Commander Frobisher. The implant has metastasized." With his smart-pen the doctor dragged a holographic MRI off his chart and placed it in the air above Arthur's bed. "You can see here that the bot has completely integrated with you neural network. Judging by the rate of growth this probably started around 100 days while aboard the ISS. It has already hijacked some portion of automatic processing, you don't realize it commander, but half of your cognitive resources are now directed trough the implant."
"So what do we do now?" Arthur asked through red eyes. He unconsciously rubbed the inch-long scar at the nape of his neck where the bot had been implanted.
"Since we can't remove it, the best thing to do is observe how it interacts with the brain."
"But that thing is an artificial intelligence! What's going to happen to me?" Arthur begged.
"That remains to be seen. I'm sorry Commander, but we should be thanking the implant. You are exhibiting nearly negligible effects from exposure to your environment aboard the ISS. This is a victory." The doctor replied once again sinking into his expressionless stare. Arthur paused and mulled over his predicament. Then accidentally he wondered how much of his thought was his own and how much was *its*. A tiny voice in the back of his head whispered, *More than you know.*
"I would like to be alone." Arthur said solemnly.
The lights were dim in the room Arthur was placed in. He spent his evening laying awake on his side staring into a vanity mirror. In his reflection he saw a man much like one he had once known. A familiar face, yet unlike any he had ever witnessed. A face from a half remembered dream. A voice spoke from the doorway, "It would appear Project Adapt has been a complete success."
Arthur turned to face the intrusion and saw the black-suited man standing in the threshold. Fluorescent light from the hall leaked past him onto the sterile tiled floor. Arthur didn't say a word. The man invited himself in and sat at the foot of his bed. He placed a caring hand on Arthur's knee. The touch seemed like poison and Arthur quickly recoiled his leg. Through thin lips the man spoke, "I admire your courage commander. It takes a brave soul to press the envelope of human understanding. I commend your efforts and celebrate this victory for mankind. As Armstrong said on the surface of the moon this is, 'One small step for man.'"
"I'm not an idiot. I figured since the beginning of my mission that there was something you were hiding from me. There is always something with you spooks." Arthur eyed the man warily.
"And your right Commander. Look at what you're bravery has achieved." The thin man, while staring at Arthur, blinked and the television on the wall turned on.
"How did you.." Arthur started, but stopped as soon as the voice from the TV picked up.
A young blonde news anchor with a gleaming white smile spoke about Arthur's recent mission. "The UN and NASA have announced today the complete success of Commander Frobisher's recent year long mission aboard the ISS. Stating that the new Indigo Dynamics implant has allowed the astronaut to endure the rigors of space travel and return unscathed. The Commander was unable for comment as tests are still being run, but NASA executives have exclaimed that beyond a doubt, Project Adapt will lead humanity into the next great age of exploration. The United States Government as well as Moscow, the UK, India and China are implementing large scale implants for future astronauts. The mission dubbed Europa I has been officially scheduled for 2071."
The thin man blinked and the TV froze on the ecstatic face of the young reporter. "No." Arthur said under his breath. "You can't."
"We already are." The spook replied casually.
"Your implanting people with AI's! How long until they seize control of their brains? How long until the one in my head controls me!?" Arthur panicked and began to furiously pound the help button, but the look on the sinister man's face seemed to assure him that no help was coming.
When the black-suited man spoke again he didn't open his mouth and he didn't make a noise, yet Arthur heard him clear as day. He said, "Oh but Arthur, it already has control."
Then without a sound neither external nor internal the man rose, adjusted his tie, and began to leave. That's when Arthur saw it. Barely visible in the low light, but unmistakable. A small scar about an inch long in the nape of the neck. Suddenly everything made sense and almost knowingly, the black-suited man turned and smiled.
The man's voice rang out in his head, "This isn't a bad thing Arthur. Always remember, One small step for man." He closed the door softly behind him as he left leaving Arthur to his thoughts. Arthur sat alone too terrified to move let alone form words in his head. However despite his most desperate attempt to keep his mind empty a thought bubbled in. Like swimming alone in a great ocean the thought crept up underneath him and pulled him, screaming, into the unknown depths below.
*Don't be afraid Arthur,* It said in a smooth voice that matched his own, *The transition won't hurt a bit.*
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He got over the shock, slowly. The next day, discharged from the hospital, he walked home in a daze. His car remained in the driveway, still shiny from being washed last week. He wondered if he'd ever drive it again.
Life moved on. His job didn't involve too much deskwork, and he was able to order a custom chair to make sitting easier. Mercifully, his clothes required no tailoring to accomodate it.
*We took too long. It cannot be removed anymore.*
His dating life slowed down. He couldn't quite overcome his embarassement, and any sexual partner would see immediately what had happened. Life became lonely.
The less said about trips to the bathroom, the better.
But he made the best of what he had. With hard work, he got one promotion after another. His friends and coworkers came to respect him. His confidence rose, though he never quite returned to the brash young man he had been before that fateful trip to the emergency room.
Eventually, one fine evening, he bought himself a new toothbrush.
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[WP] You just received a letter from "your future self", featuring a set of weirdly specific instructions. There is no explanation on why you should follow the instructions, or what the possible outcome would be.
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*On Sept. 10, take the 9 AM Greyhound bus to Chawaka, Illinois. The lazy fox hops over the brown dog.*
Steven stared at the piece of paper in his hand. He had been standing at the bus station for an hour now, waiting for the 8:45 AM trip to the airport. The plane ticket for New York lay in his backpack, nestled next to his two Magical Witch War decks. Tomorrow, he was going to be in the Magical Witch War World Tournament, and even if the odds were against him, he planned to walk away with a solid win! Sure, he had to "borrow" his dad's credit card to buy the ticket, and the backup phone ... and the hotel room ... but his parents would understand. Right?
But then he fished the paper out of his pocket, and everything changed. Despite the odd instruction, the message also had his nonsensical warning to, well, himself. He had devised it after reading one too many what-if stories on Reddit's /r/writingprompts, never expecting it to be of any use. The cold wind suddenly picked up, and he instinctively took a step back.
What was going on? What...what...
"Hey, kiddo!" He looked up and saw the 8:45 bus, its passengers already piling in. "Thought this was yer trip?"
He gaped at the conductor for a few moments before finding his voice. "Ah, nah....thanks though." What was in Chawaka anyway?
***
Several hours later, he found out that Chawaka was in the middle of *freaking* nowhere. He had to grab a meal at the diner while enduring the awkward stares of everyone else in the place. His phone vibrated in his pocket - no doubt his mom calling anxiously after his last text (Hi mom! I'm in the middle of nowhere! I missed my flight! Woo!) Forget the flight, forget the tournament. He bent his head on the table and tried not to cry at the thought.
Damn it.
He looked at the paper one more time, the words blurry behind his tears. It took a few tries before he realized that the words had changed.
*Sorry. Trust me on this. You're safe now.*
Safe from what?
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Dear Rob,
I don't know where to begin...you will never believe this is but I am you from the future. Time is very confusing. I still don't think I understand, but, whatever, this must be done. To tell you more could mean and even bigger split in the space time continuum. So trust this or not, here's what I need you/I/we to do. First quit your job. That should be easy. Move to Ecuador. I know this is crazy keep the faith just move to Ecuador. Go to the small town of Vilacabamba. Mix cow manure, fertilizer, and gasoline in a bag. On July 19th, of this year, light that motherfucker in the supermercado at 10:15am sharp. The supermercado is on the corner. Afterwards run for the edge of town. You'll meet a man named Pedro who will offer you a cab ride. But first he will first ask you what you think his favorite color is. Your reply needs to be "Who needs colors when you've got vibrations." He will take you to where you need to go. That is all I can say. Choose to act on this or not, your life is in your hands.
You're welcome,
Future Rob
Rob looks back at the envelope the letter just came out of. The return address is his own address. "What the....fuck?" He looks over the letter one more time. He's not sure whether to believe it or not, normally he wouldn't. Except there's a pit growing inside his stomach. "That's my handwriting."
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[WP] You just received a letter from "your future self", featuring a set of weirdly specific instructions. There is no explanation on why you should follow the instructions, or what the possible outcome would be.
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“Well…” I looked at the letter. Seemingly innocuous. Asking how the 2016 election’s pre-election was going, a bunch of crap about how Google goes under in the year 2017, and some coordinates to a location in the Rocky Mountains followed by, ‘Bring a snorkel and you’ll find it.’ I looked at my brother, who shrugs.
“Look, I don’t even know why you’re still reading that.” He checked his watch. “Come on, we’re going to be late.” We started up Market Street towards Broad and I pulled it out again when we hit a light. He just sighed. We turned right and headed to our favorite place in China Town.
“I’ll bring the scotch.” We were chowing down on dumplings and boneless ribs. “I’ll bring the scotch.” It seemed so familiar, added to the bottom of the letter as an afterthought. It finally clicked. God, I hadn’t thought about this in years! “Nick, do you remember that time I read the Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson? I got obsessed with writing stuff in codes that only I could break based on a different key phrase.” I looked back at the bottom. “’I’ll bring the scotch’ was one of them.”
As we sat there, I started decoding the letter. By the time we finished the meal I had ‘The Deadliest of Houses Washington Square Park Under your bench.’I read it aloud and looked at my brother. He looked at me, checked his watch again and said, “Fuck it, let’s go.” We started the walk at a fast pace.
Washington Square was one of the places that I’d go to read when I had work and I knew my bench. One of the few that was rarely occupied by a homeless person, it stood in a corner of the park against the wall and not near any trees. I got on my back and went under it, finding a few words carved into the bottom. ‘Franklin Square fountain south by southeast curb. Come alone’
Nick went under it and saw for himself. “This is at least a few months old.” He shimmied back out and looked at me. “Is this some kind of joke?”
I shook my head. “No, I swear this is new to me.”
“Well, then someone must be following you, learning you come here.” I started to interrupt him, but he got there first. “No, no one else knew about that code, did they. I still think this is bullshit, but I’ll play along,” and he took off running north to Franklin Square. I had no choice but to run after him.
We got to the fountain and got down to look at the curb. A checkered flag and a four were scratched into the concrete next to a lion. “Well, what do you think that means?”
Nick stared at it for a minute and took a picture with his phone. He stalked over to the map of the city on the east wall of the park and laid his finger on the wall. Corner of Fourth and Race Street. There was a parking garage, only a few short blocks away. He started walking without me.
I caught up and grabbed his jacket. “You know I didn’t plan this, right?”
He just kind of sideways glanced at me. “You remember that garden gnome polaroid camera game you made up a few years ago, right? Or the Disney Asian Tourist scavenger hunt you dragged me into? After that, nothing from you surprises me.” So I guess I pretty much boy who cried wolfed him with stupid stuff over the years. Fair enough. We walked the rest of the way in silence.
Upon entering the building attached to the garage, we saw nothing of interest. That is until I looked at the office and saw ‘jtotheofo Owned and Operated’ above the door. I have never wanted a parking garage and never had remotely enough money to buy one. My brother picked the lock and we went in.
No windows, but the wall switch lit up a few wall hanging lights. Inside the room, there was hardwood flooring and walnut paneled walls under a white stripe of paint. A large, elaborate, bookcase sat upon a chest of drawers in one corner, looking like it hadn’t been touched in months. A globe bar was situated in between some comfortable looking sofas off to the side, its lid hanging open and betraying its secrets to the world. We looked around and then went and looked at the bookcase, but there was nothing. No clue, no switch hidden in a book to open a door, not even a book I recognized in the lot, too, except the History of Love. Several of the books had inscriptions in them, all made out to ‘J’.
“Well now what?” My brother was looking at me like I should have planned for this, but I shrugged. “I didn’t plan this, I don’t know what comes next.”
We heard a train go over the Ben Franklin Bridge to my left and the room rumbled, glass clinking in the globe bar. Nick walked over and poured us each a scotch. “I’ll bring the scotch,” he said and we clinked our glasses together and sat on the couches. “Maybe this was what we came for all along.” So saying, he took a sip and sighed in contentment. “That’s smooth. What’s the brand?”
I reached over for the bottle and read the label. I stared at it, then over at the bookcase. “Hidden Drawer.” I looked back and forth a few more times, before getting up and walking over to it. “I never got a chance to build it…”I said trailing off,
“Build what?” My brother walked over too and we stood looking at it.
“A while back I saw an instructable for a hidden drawer bookcase. I wrote out my own version of the plans and what I came up with looked similar to this, except with two apothecary shelves to the side of the dresser.” I started sliding out the drawers in the pattern I couldn’t quite remember. The problem was there were no indications that it was unlocking until it opened, so I didn’t know if I was doing it right. Finally it clicked and a chunk of wood slid out of the top. I turned it and punched it back in hard and a tiny drawer slid out of the left side of the dresser. Inside was a small gold cryptex like the one from the da Vinci Code.
“Alright, this is elaborate I’ll give you that.” Nick said starting to clap before taking the cryptex from my hands and looking at it. There were two ouroboros circling it on either edge of the letters, one facing clockwise, the other counter.
“You still think this was me?” Slightly incredulously maybe but, “I don’t have enough money to pay you back for the Chinese food, how could I buy all of this stuff?” He started spelling out words, snake, ember, lions, street, etc. for a few minutes before giving it back to me. “I give up, just solve it.”
I looked it over for a few moments then went back through the clues we’d gotten throughout the day. The deadliest of houses, the bench, the flag, the lion, the bookcase, it was all circling in my head while I worked the cruptex in my hands, feeling the ouroboros again. Before twisting it to SNAKE again. “I already tried snake,” Nick said.
“The deadliest of houses and the lion makes me think of Harry Potter, it points to Slytherin which points to a snake.” I stared at it for another minute. Before brishing my fingers over the carvings again. Then it hit me. “You remember that greatest Pokémon meme I showed you a while back…about ekans?” I turned it in, EKANS. “This second Ouroboros is backwards to point at that.” It opened with a click and a key slid out.
“The key has to go with the bookcase,” I said, turning the key into the only drawer on the thing with a lock. A rapid clicking sound filled the air as soon as it caught. And the drawer slid open to reveal a staircase spiraling down into a greenish orange light, down into the enormous opening beneath the Ben Franklin Bridge. I knew what it was. I’d seen it every day on my commute for almost 5 years. “This is the staircase under the bridge!” I yelled because I was excited. Nick looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “This is the staircase I see just after the train goes back underground after crossing the bridge every day. I know I’ve told you I’ve always been curious where it leads to.”
I started down with him following me. There were dull lights welded to the side at 5 step intervals until they faded up to a very dull green that didn’t light the area very well. When we finally got to the bottom, we came to an iron door in a concrete, cellar-shaped hole. I looked at Nick and he looked at me and we nodded as one. We pounded on the door twice each. The door started to creak open and my jaw dropped when I made the connection.
“Finally, you’ve made it!” The other, older me pulled us in and slammed and locked the door behind us. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t make it, and bringing Nick with you, great idea!” I was stumbling along in shock, so out of it I didn’t realize we were heading towards a dim light.
We came out to a massive cavern, through a tunnel gouged out of the rocky wall. Looking around the opening, we saw an enormous city, bustling with the activity of a thousand people going about their lives to the best of their abilities. Gargantuan pistons pumped behind a cathedral’s buttressed spire, and steam shot out of vents every few feet. My brother grabbed my shoulder and squeezed. “What is this place?” He whispered it to no one, but I, no, the older version of Me answered him.
“This is The City,” he said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. He grabbed us both around the shoulder. “Welcome to the Resistance.”
AN:This is my first post here and the first creative writing I've done in a while. It's a bit awful in some spots, but I should be asleep a few hours ago, so this is the best I've got right now.
I like the prompt a lot, thanks.
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Dear Rob,
I don't know where to begin...you will never believe this is but I am you from the future. Time is very confusing. I still don't think I understand, but, whatever, this must be done. To tell you more could mean and even bigger split in the space time continuum. So trust this or not, here's what I need you/I/we to do. First quit your job. That should be easy. Move to Ecuador. I know this is crazy keep the faith just move to Ecuador. Go to the small town of Vilacabamba. Mix cow manure, fertilizer, and gasoline in a bag. On July 19th, of this year, light that motherfucker in the supermercado at 10:15am sharp. The supermercado is on the corner. Afterwards run for the edge of town. You'll meet a man named Pedro who will offer you a cab ride. But first he will first ask you what you think his favorite color is. Your reply needs to be "Who needs colors when you've got vibrations." He will take you to where you need to go. That is all I can say. Choose to act on this or not, your life is in your hands.
You're welcome,
Future Rob
Rob looks back at the envelope the letter just came out of. The return address is his own address. "What the....fuck?" He looks over the letter one more time. He's not sure whether to believe it or not, normally he wouldn't. Except there's a pit growing inside his stomach. "That's my handwriting."
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[WP] You just received a letter from "your future self", featuring a set of weirdly specific instructions. There is no explanation on why you should follow the instructions, or what the possible outcome would be.
|
"1/3/2023
It's 9/29/2019. You got up, stubbed your toe, said 'fuck' and thought 'I'm gonna be in a shit mood all day.' You weren't. Coffee cheered you up. At the office, Ramirez cracked a joke you felt bad laughing about, but fuck it - it was goddamn hilarious. You were working on spreadsheets. You were delivered this envelope. Phoenix is playing, but after that song finishes, your favorite Joy Division tune starts. Listen to the song for two minutes and then finish reading this."
I swallowed, despite my throat having gone dry minutes ago. I stared at my computer screen where the Internet radio station finished playing the Phoenix song. I breathlessly awaited for the proceeding song - the one second transitional pause between each song took centuries now. Joy Division's "Disorder" started. That *is* my favorite Joy Division track. Fuck me. Two minutes, right? I fumbled to set a timer on my phone -- give or take two minutes and started the countdown.
"Grady, how the fuck do I make this spreadsheet a PDF file?" Ramirez appeared over my cubicle wall, making my heart race. I shifted in my chair, feeling a cold sweat break out and clearing my throat, said, "It's under 'Edit.' Importing option."
"Thanks, man," and Ramirez disappeared back in his cubicle. *The timer.* Fifteen seconds remaining. My clammy hands reached for the letter, eyeing the digital numbers dropping one by one until it hit zero. I snatched the letter up and read:
"Ramirez asked about the pesky PDF spreadsheet. I/we hate how hard the company makes shit. I know you're freaking the fuck out. But if you need further convincing, compare the handwriting. It's me. There's a handwritten report you forgot about in the second drawer. Take it out. Compare the handwriting. Go ahead. I'll give you until the JD song finishes. God, this song is the fucking best, isn't?"
I pulled open the second drawer, sure I had broken it. Don't care. I filtered through piles and piles of different colored folders until I found that handwritten report. Wiping the sweat off my forehead, I put the letter and report side by side. Fuck. Fuck. *Fuck.* The crooked, forward leaning handwriting. It's mine. It's so fucking mine. The song finished and I read what remained of this eerie as shit letter:
"Put this address in your phone's GPS.
112 Wasterson Dr.
Wistonia, North Carolina
Take Ramirez and go.
NOW.
And don't forget to say please"
That's all the letter said. Below the address, I signed my name. That's *my* signature. I sign it daily when I pay with the credit card - which, again, is practically every day. Getting up, I glanced around the monotonic office. Phones rang. Staplers slammed down. People chattering. The water-cooler plunking. I peeked over Ramirez's dividing cubicle wall and gulped.
"Hey, let's take lunch," I said.
"Right now?" Ramirez was focused, trying to input boring data. When he finished, he looked up at me. "It's eleven o'clock."
"So? Let's go," I said nervously. He must've noticed my fidgety appearance, and nodded. Raising from his chair, he swiped his jacket and after the both of us clocked out, exited the office.
-----
I accelerated and Ramirez's eyes went wide, his legs partially lifted. My phone rattled between us, giving directions in the cliched, female robotic voice. "In twenty feet, make a left. Your destination is at your right."
"This must be one hell of a restaurant," he said. Going at forty miles per hour, I made that sharp left turn, wheels screeching, and accelerated down Wasterson Drive. There was nothing out here, just vacant lots and swaying trees. Tapping my steering wheel nervously, I desperately sought for a "112" sign. And I found it. A mailbox. I slammed the brakes, lunging forward.
"Grady, what the fuck, man," Ramirez said, rubbing the back of his neck. I got out of the car and ran past 112 Wasterson Drive's mailbox. Up ahead laid a wooden shack, definitely vacant. Ramirez was behind me, saying, "Can you at least fill me in! You're scaring the shit out of me!"
That's when it happened.
The defeating sound - the thunderous firecracker, a million going off at once. Then, the rumbling of thunder and fire. Ramirez and I turned around - our mouths open, our minds racing for some logic. A large, erupting mushroom expanded miles away - an explosion, atomic in nature almost, detonating somewhere farther off.
"Holy shit," Ramirez breathed.
"COME ON!" I screamed. I raced to the shack, and slammed directly onto its door, thinking it would open. Despite the wooden-facade, the door was definitely made out of titanium steel. Ramirez and I started pounding the door, our fists bouncing back. The skies were apocalyptic now, birds screeching as they flew overhead. Despite our attempts, the door didn't bulge.
"Oh my god!" Ramirez screamed. "Is this really fucking happening?"
Then, it hit me -- *And don't forget to say please.* Mutherfucker.
"PLEASE!" A reassuring beep later, the door slid open. I grabbed Ramirez and lunged ourselves in. Behind us, the titanium vault like door slammed shut. Defining silence followed. Inside, a television turned on by itself. A woman wearing 50's era clothing greeted us, smiling, her teeth brilliantly white despite the footage being in black and white.
"Welcome to Shelter number six-six-seven-oh-two!"
I looked down at my trembling hands, still holding the letter. I sent this to myself. Of that, I was certain.
Of anything else -- I wasn't.
|
Dear Rob,
I don't know where to begin...you will never believe this is but I am you from the future. Time is very confusing. I still don't think I understand, but, whatever, this must be done. To tell you more could mean and even bigger split in the space time continuum. So trust this or not, here's what I need you/I/we to do. First quit your job. That should be easy. Move to Ecuador. I know this is crazy keep the faith just move to Ecuador. Go to the small town of Vilacabamba. Mix cow manure, fertilizer, and gasoline in a bag. On July 19th, of this year, light that motherfucker in the supermercado at 10:15am sharp. The supermercado is on the corner. Afterwards run for the edge of town. You'll meet a man named Pedro who will offer you a cab ride. But first he will first ask you what you think his favorite color is. Your reply needs to be "Who needs colors when you've got vibrations." He will take you to where you need to go. That is all I can say. Choose to act on this or not, your life is in your hands.
You're welcome,
Future Rob
Rob looks back at the envelope the letter just came out of. The return address is his own address. "What the....fuck?" He looks over the letter one more time. He's not sure whether to believe it or not, normally he wouldn't. Except there's a pit growing inside his stomach. "That's my handwriting."
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[WP] You just received a letter from "your future self", featuring a set of weirdly specific instructions. There is no explanation on why you should follow the instructions, or what the possible outcome would be.
|
“Well…” I looked at the letter. Seemingly innocuous. Asking how the 2016 election’s pre-election was going, a bunch of crap about how Google goes under in the year 2017, and some coordinates to a location in the Rocky Mountains followed by, ‘Bring a snorkel and you’ll find it.’ I looked at my brother, who shrugs.
“Look, I don’t even know why you’re still reading that.” He checked his watch. “Come on, we’re going to be late.” We started up Market Street towards Broad and I pulled it out again when we hit a light. He just sighed. We turned right and headed to our favorite place in China Town.
“I’ll bring the scotch.” We were chowing down on dumplings and boneless ribs. “I’ll bring the scotch.” It seemed so familiar, added to the bottom of the letter as an afterthought. It finally clicked. God, I hadn’t thought about this in years! “Nick, do you remember that time I read the Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson? I got obsessed with writing stuff in codes that only I could break based on a different key phrase.” I looked back at the bottom. “’I’ll bring the scotch’ was one of them.”
As we sat there, I started decoding the letter. By the time we finished the meal I had ‘The Deadliest of Houses Washington Square Park Under your bench.’I read it aloud and looked at my brother. He looked at me, checked his watch again and said, “Fuck it, let’s go.” We started the walk at a fast pace.
Washington Square was one of the places that I’d go to read when I had work and I knew my bench. One of the few that was rarely occupied by a homeless person, it stood in a corner of the park against the wall and not near any trees. I got on my back and went under it, finding a few words carved into the bottom. ‘Franklin Square fountain south by southeast curb. Come alone’
Nick went under it and saw for himself. “This is at least a few months old.” He shimmied back out and looked at me. “Is this some kind of joke?”
I shook my head. “No, I swear this is new to me.”
“Well, then someone must be following you, learning you come here.” I started to interrupt him, but he got there first. “No, no one else knew about that code, did they. I still think this is bullshit, but I’ll play along,” and he took off running north to Franklin Square. I had no choice but to run after him.
We got to the fountain and got down to look at the curb. A checkered flag and a four were scratched into the concrete next to a lion. “Well, what do you think that means?”
Nick stared at it for a minute and took a picture with his phone. He stalked over to the map of the city on the east wall of the park and laid his finger on the wall. Corner of Fourth and Race Street. There was a parking garage, only a few short blocks away. He started walking without me.
I caught up and grabbed his jacket. “You know I didn’t plan this, right?”
He just kind of sideways glanced at me. “You remember that garden gnome polaroid camera game you made up a few years ago, right? Or the Disney Asian Tourist scavenger hunt you dragged me into? After that, nothing from you surprises me.” So I guess I pretty much boy who cried wolfed him with stupid stuff over the years. Fair enough. We walked the rest of the way in silence.
Upon entering the building attached to the garage, we saw nothing of interest. That is until I looked at the office and saw ‘jtotheofo Owned and Operated’ above the door. I have never wanted a parking garage and never had remotely enough money to buy one. My brother picked the lock and we went in.
No windows, but the wall switch lit up a few wall hanging lights. Inside the room, there was hardwood flooring and walnut paneled walls under a white stripe of paint. A large, elaborate, bookcase sat upon a chest of drawers in one corner, looking like it hadn’t been touched in months. A globe bar was situated in between some comfortable looking sofas off to the side, its lid hanging open and betraying its secrets to the world. We looked around and then went and looked at the bookcase, but there was nothing. No clue, no switch hidden in a book to open a door, not even a book I recognized in the lot, too, except the History of Love. Several of the books had inscriptions in them, all made out to ‘J’.
“Well now what?” My brother was looking at me like I should have planned for this, but I shrugged. “I didn’t plan this, I don’t know what comes next.”
We heard a train go over the Ben Franklin Bridge to my left and the room rumbled, glass clinking in the globe bar. Nick walked over and poured us each a scotch. “I’ll bring the scotch,” he said and we clinked our glasses together and sat on the couches. “Maybe this was what we came for all along.” So saying, he took a sip and sighed in contentment. “That’s smooth. What’s the brand?”
I reached over for the bottle and read the label. I stared at it, then over at the bookcase. “Hidden Drawer.” I looked back and forth a few more times, before getting up and walking over to it. “I never got a chance to build it…”I said trailing off,
“Build what?” My brother walked over too and we stood looking at it.
“A while back I saw an instructable for a hidden drawer bookcase. I wrote out my own version of the plans and what I came up with looked similar to this, except with two apothecary shelves to the side of the dresser.” I started sliding out the drawers in the pattern I couldn’t quite remember. The problem was there were no indications that it was unlocking until it opened, so I didn’t know if I was doing it right. Finally it clicked and a chunk of wood slid out of the top. I turned it and punched it back in hard and a tiny drawer slid out of the left side of the dresser. Inside was a small gold cryptex like the one from the da Vinci Code.
“Alright, this is elaborate I’ll give you that.” Nick said starting to clap before taking the cryptex from my hands and looking at it. There were two ouroboros circling it on either edge of the letters, one facing clockwise, the other counter.
“You still think this was me?” Slightly incredulously maybe but, “I don’t have enough money to pay you back for the Chinese food, how could I buy all of this stuff?” He started spelling out words, snake, ember, lions, street, etc. for a few minutes before giving it back to me. “I give up, just solve it.”
I looked it over for a few moments then went back through the clues we’d gotten throughout the day. The deadliest of houses, the bench, the flag, the lion, the bookcase, it was all circling in my head while I worked the cruptex in my hands, feeling the ouroboros again. Before twisting it to SNAKE again. “I already tried snake,” Nick said.
“The deadliest of houses and the lion makes me think of Harry Potter, it points to Slytherin which points to a snake.” I stared at it for another minute. Before brishing my fingers over the carvings again. Then it hit me. “You remember that greatest Pokémon meme I showed you a while back…about ekans?” I turned it in, EKANS. “This second Ouroboros is backwards to point at that.” It opened with a click and a key slid out.
“The key has to go with the bookcase,” I said, turning the key into the only drawer on the thing with a lock. A rapid clicking sound filled the air as soon as it caught. And the drawer slid open to reveal a staircase spiraling down into a greenish orange light, down into the enormous opening beneath the Ben Franklin Bridge. I knew what it was. I’d seen it every day on my commute for almost 5 years. “This is the staircase under the bridge!” I yelled because I was excited. Nick looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “This is the staircase I see just after the train goes back underground after crossing the bridge every day. I know I’ve told you I’ve always been curious where it leads to.”
I started down with him following me. There were dull lights welded to the side at 5 step intervals until they faded up to a very dull green that didn’t light the area very well. When we finally got to the bottom, we came to an iron door in a concrete, cellar-shaped hole. I looked at Nick and he looked at me and we nodded as one. We pounded on the door twice each. The door started to creak open and my jaw dropped when I made the connection.
“Finally, you’ve made it!” The other, older me pulled us in and slammed and locked the door behind us. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t make it, and bringing Nick with you, great idea!” I was stumbling along in shock, so out of it I didn’t realize we were heading towards a dim light.
We came out to a massive cavern, through a tunnel gouged out of the rocky wall. Looking around the opening, we saw an enormous city, bustling with the activity of a thousand people going about their lives to the best of their abilities. Gargantuan pistons pumped behind a cathedral’s buttressed spire, and steam shot out of vents every few feet. My brother grabbed my shoulder and squeezed. “What is this place?” He whispered it to no one, but I, no, the older version of Me answered him.
“This is The City,” he said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. He grabbed us both around the shoulder. “Welcome to the Resistance.”
AN:This is my first post here and the first creative writing I've done in a while. It's a bit awful in some spots, but I should be asleep a few hours ago, so this is the best I've got right now.
I like the prompt a lot, thanks.
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September 30th. 10:30 a.m. Java Break. I was drinking a caramel macchiato, iced, with a lot of whipped cream. Coffee wasn't really my thing. I don't even know why I had stopped by. I guess I wanted to believe in faith. The letter was very adamant I make it here at this time. What was weird is that it told me to sit here for 10 minutes and think before it happened. I never really knew what "it" was, but I knew that I wouldn't give myself a letter unless it was really important.
The circumstances were very strange. I received a letter with my signature on the front. "For Thomas Edward Weave" it said. I knew my signature. I knew how I signed my Th together. I wondered if it was one of those funny late-night things people do when they're drunk. Like when some people drunk send themselves something from amazon. I did that once, it was a dildo, some duct tape, and a dog's squeaky toy with a letter saying, "THE BEST JOKE EVER."
I think my drunk self needs help. That's not important now.
The letter went into long detail about my past, and my future. I paid it no attention until it started mentioning things that hadn't happened yet that started to happen. I had a student film from my old YouTube page go viral two weeks after the letter said it would. My getting a promotion from my job, two days after my boss would unexpectedly quit. The letter knew both dates of when that would happen. My grandmother being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. It knew the day it happened. And the moment I would get the call from my Mother. That was the moment I knew this letter was legitimate.
So I waited. Ten minutes before "it" was supposed to happen. There was a second sealed envelope I was told to open once the incident occurred. I had never been one to go on blind faith. I had been an Athiest for longer than I could remember. Having devout catholic parents would do that to you. Especially if you go to what they called a "liberal hell-hole college," so I was not a man of faith.
But if you can't trust yourself, who can you trust?
10:40 a.m. I look around the coffee shop.
Empty.
Not a single person here, no horrible noise outside, nothing to offset the rather quiet nature of this Sunday morning. The barista is behind the counter cleaning a pot. The sun shines through the front windows, leaving a nice ray on the wooden floor.
Nothing happens.
I wonder if I'm supposed to do something, when I notice a single line at the bottom of the letter I hadn't read before.
"Wait a few seconds."
As soon as I read that line, I heard the front door jingle. And in walked a woman.
I think it was Ringo Star who said "Do you believe in love at first sight? Yes, I'm certain it happens all the time." That particular line always came off to me as sarcastically cynical, but at this moment, I thought he was sincere.
She had long-flowing brown hair. Big, beautiful, brown eyes to match. She stood slightly taller than me, but had a curvaceous body to match. She was carrying a satchel adorned with geek buttons. Grumpy cat, a Pokeball, a TARDIS, and an old-school Alfred E. Neuman button saying "What, me worry?"
She had this gap between her teeth that was rather cute, and a smile bigger than anyone else's I had ever seen. She ordered a coffee, sat down, and opened a laptop. I saw the page she was on. Reddit. She went there too. She had a YouTube video pulled up about a deck for Magic the Gathering, and a tattoo on her right arm of a Nintendo 64 controller.
Holy shit, this woman was amazing. It's like something my teenage self had dreamed up. A million fantasies about geek girls and the absolute pinnacle of perfection was sitting across from me. I had to say something. I had to talk to her and find out who this perfect specimen of a person could possibly be like.
But then I remembered the second envelope. I'm guessing it had her name, or her favorite game or what flavor of incense she likes to burn. I opened it quickly and looked at the note. It only said 3 words...
"Don't. Just don't."
My heart sank. I stared back at her. She was looking intently at her computer, typing away at some long-winded story. I stared back at my letter. The long, drawn out explanation for how this was me from the future, how my future life depends on this moment. How I needed to follow these instructions, and how none of it gave an explanation why. And then I realized...
I sent this to myself for a reason. I wouldn't do that if there wasn't some reason. I needed a reason and I know that whatever the reason may be, I wouldn't be able to eloquently describe why I made this decision, only that I had to follow through with it.
So I left.
I packed up my things, put them away in my backpack, and walked to the door. I caught a glance of the girl as I walked out, and she looked back at me. Those big brown eyes gazed upon mine, and she winced out a cute little smile.
And I smiled back and walked out of the coffee shop.
Because if you can't trust yourself, who can you trust?
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[WP] You just received a letter from "your future self", featuring a set of weirdly specific instructions. There is no explanation on why you should follow the instructions, or what the possible outcome would be.
|
“Well…” I looked at the letter. Seemingly innocuous. Asking how the 2016 election’s pre-election was going, a bunch of crap about how Google goes under in the year 2017, and some coordinates to a location in the Rocky Mountains followed by, ‘Bring a snorkel and you’ll find it.’ I looked at my brother, who shrugs.
“Look, I don’t even know why you’re still reading that.” He checked his watch. “Come on, we’re going to be late.” We started up Market Street towards Broad and I pulled it out again when we hit a light. He just sighed. We turned right and headed to our favorite place in China Town.
“I’ll bring the scotch.” We were chowing down on dumplings and boneless ribs. “I’ll bring the scotch.” It seemed so familiar, added to the bottom of the letter as an afterthought. It finally clicked. God, I hadn’t thought about this in years! “Nick, do you remember that time I read the Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson? I got obsessed with writing stuff in codes that only I could break based on a different key phrase.” I looked back at the bottom. “’I’ll bring the scotch’ was one of them.”
As we sat there, I started decoding the letter. By the time we finished the meal I had ‘The Deadliest of Houses Washington Square Park Under your bench.’I read it aloud and looked at my brother. He looked at me, checked his watch again and said, “Fuck it, let’s go.” We started the walk at a fast pace.
Washington Square was one of the places that I’d go to read when I had work and I knew my bench. One of the few that was rarely occupied by a homeless person, it stood in a corner of the park against the wall and not near any trees. I got on my back and went under it, finding a few words carved into the bottom. ‘Franklin Square fountain south by southeast curb. Come alone’
Nick went under it and saw for himself. “This is at least a few months old.” He shimmied back out and looked at me. “Is this some kind of joke?”
I shook my head. “No, I swear this is new to me.”
“Well, then someone must be following you, learning you come here.” I started to interrupt him, but he got there first. “No, no one else knew about that code, did they. I still think this is bullshit, but I’ll play along,” and he took off running north to Franklin Square. I had no choice but to run after him.
We got to the fountain and got down to look at the curb. A checkered flag and a four were scratched into the concrete next to a lion. “Well, what do you think that means?”
Nick stared at it for a minute and took a picture with his phone. He stalked over to the map of the city on the east wall of the park and laid his finger on the wall. Corner of Fourth and Race Street. There was a parking garage, only a few short blocks away. He started walking without me.
I caught up and grabbed his jacket. “You know I didn’t plan this, right?”
He just kind of sideways glanced at me. “You remember that garden gnome polaroid camera game you made up a few years ago, right? Or the Disney Asian Tourist scavenger hunt you dragged me into? After that, nothing from you surprises me.” So I guess I pretty much boy who cried wolfed him with stupid stuff over the years. Fair enough. We walked the rest of the way in silence.
Upon entering the building attached to the garage, we saw nothing of interest. That is until I looked at the office and saw ‘jtotheofo Owned and Operated’ above the door. I have never wanted a parking garage and never had remotely enough money to buy one. My brother picked the lock and we went in.
No windows, but the wall switch lit up a few wall hanging lights. Inside the room, there was hardwood flooring and walnut paneled walls under a white stripe of paint. A large, elaborate, bookcase sat upon a chest of drawers in one corner, looking like it hadn’t been touched in months. A globe bar was situated in between some comfortable looking sofas off to the side, its lid hanging open and betraying its secrets to the world. We looked around and then went and looked at the bookcase, but there was nothing. No clue, no switch hidden in a book to open a door, not even a book I recognized in the lot, too, except the History of Love. Several of the books had inscriptions in them, all made out to ‘J’.
“Well now what?” My brother was looking at me like I should have planned for this, but I shrugged. “I didn’t plan this, I don’t know what comes next.”
We heard a train go over the Ben Franklin Bridge to my left and the room rumbled, glass clinking in the globe bar. Nick walked over and poured us each a scotch. “I’ll bring the scotch,” he said and we clinked our glasses together and sat on the couches. “Maybe this was what we came for all along.” So saying, he took a sip and sighed in contentment. “That’s smooth. What’s the brand?”
I reached over for the bottle and read the label. I stared at it, then over at the bookcase. “Hidden Drawer.” I looked back and forth a few more times, before getting up and walking over to it. “I never got a chance to build it…”I said trailing off,
“Build what?” My brother walked over too and we stood looking at it.
“A while back I saw an instructable for a hidden drawer bookcase. I wrote out my own version of the plans and what I came up with looked similar to this, except with two apothecary shelves to the side of the dresser.” I started sliding out the drawers in the pattern I couldn’t quite remember. The problem was there were no indications that it was unlocking until it opened, so I didn’t know if I was doing it right. Finally it clicked and a chunk of wood slid out of the top. I turned it and punched it back in hard and a tiny drawer slid out of the left side of the dresser. Inside was a small gold cryptex like the one from the da Vinci Code.
“Alright, this is elaborate I’ll give you that.” Nick said starting to clap before taking the cryptex from my hands and looking at it. There were two ouroboros circling it on either edge of the letters, one facing clockwise, the other counter.
“You still think this was me?” Slightly incredulously maybe but, “I don’t have enough money to pay you back for the Chinese food, how could I buy all of this stuff?” He started spelling out words, snake, ember, lions, street, etc. for a few minutes before giving it back to me. “I give up, just solve it.”
I looked it over for a few moments then went back through the clues we’d gotten throughout the day. The deadliest of houses, the bench, the flag, the lion, the bookcase, it was all circling in my head while I worked the cruptex in my hands, feeling the ouroboros again. Before twisting it to SNAKE again. “I already tried snake,” Nick said.
“The deadliest of houses and the lion makes me think of Harry Potter, it points to Slytherin which points to a snake.” I stared at it for another minute. Before brishing my fingers over the carvings again. Then it hit me. “You remember that greatest Pokémon meme I showed you a while back…about ekans?” I turned it in, EKANS. “This second Ouroboros is backwards to point at that.” It opened with a click and a key slid out.
“The key has to go with the bookcase,” I said, turning the key into the only drawer on the thing with a lock. A rapid clicking sound filled the air as soon as it caught. And the drawer slid open to reveal a staircase spiraling down into a greenish orange light, down into the enormous opening beneath the Ben Franklin Bridge. I knew what it was. I’d seen it every day on my commute for almost 5 years. “This is the staircase under the bridge!” I yelled because I was excited. Nick looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “This is the staircase I see just after the train goes back underground after crossing the bridge every day. I know I’ve told you I’ve always been curious where it leads to.”
I started down with him following me. There were dull lights welded to the side at 5 step intervals until they faded up to a very dull green that didn’t light the area very well. When we finally got to the bottom, we came to an iron door in a concrete, cellar-shaped hole. I looked at Nick and he looked at me and we nodded as one. We pounded on the door twice each. The door started to creak open and my jaw dropped when I made the connection.
“Finally, you’ve made it!” The other, older me pulled us in and slammed and locked the door behind us. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t make it, and bringing Nick with you, great idea!” I was stumbling along in shock, so out of it I didn’t realize we were heading towards a dim light.
We came out to a massive cavern, through a tunnel gouged out of the rocky wall. Looking around the opening, we saw an enormous city, bustling with the activity of a thousand people going about their lives to the best of their abilities. Gargantuan pistons pumped behind a cathedral’s buttressed spire, and steam shot out of vents every few feet. My brother grabbed my shoulder and squeezed. “What is this place?” He whispered it to no one, but I, no, the older version of Me answered him.
“This is The City,” he said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. He grabbed us both around the shoulder. “Welcome to the Resistance.”
AN:This is my first post here and the first creative writing I've done in a while. It's a bit awful in some spots, but I should be asleep a few hours ago, so this is the best I've got right now.
I like the prompt a lot, thanks.
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*On Sept. 10, take the 9 AM Greyhound bus to Chawaka, Illinois. The lazy fox hops over the brown dog.*
Steven stared at the piece of paper in his hand. He had been standing at the bus station for an hour now, waiting for the 8:45 AM trip to the airport. The plane ticket for New York lay in his backpack, nestled next to his two Magical Witch War decks. Tomorrow, he was going to be in the Magical Witch War World Tournament, and even if the odds were against him, he planned to walk away with a solid win! Sure, he had to "borrow" his dad's credit card to buy the ticket, and the backup phone ... and the hotel room ... but his parents would understand. Right?
But then he fished the paper out of his pocket, and everything changed. Despite the odd instruction, the message also had his nonsensical warning to, well, himself. He had devised it after reading one too many what-if stories on Reddit's /r/writingprompts, never expecting it to be of any use. The cold wind suddenly picked up, and he instinctively took a step back.
What was going on? What...what...
"Hey, kiddo!" He looked up and saw the 8:45 bus, its passengers already piling in. "Thought this was yer trip?"
He gaped at the conductor for a few moments before finding his voice. "Ah, nah....thanks though." What was in Chawaka anyway?
***
Several hours later, he found out that Chawaka was in the middle of *freaking* nowhere. He had to grab a meal at the diner while enduring the awkward stares of everyone else in the place. His phone vibrated in his pocket - no doubt his mom calling anxiously after his last text (Hi mom! I'm in the middle of nowhere! I missed my flight! Woo!) Forget the flight, forget the tournament. He bent his head on the table and tried not to cry at the thought.
Damn it.
He looked at the paper one more time, the words blurry behind his tears. It took a few tries before he realized that the words had changed.
*Sorry. Trust me on this. You're safe now.*
Safe from what?
|
|
[WP] You just received a letter from "your future self", featuring a set of weirdly specific instructions. There is no explanation on why you should follow the instructions, or what the possible outcome would be.
|
"1/3/2023
It's 9/29/2019. You got up, stubbed your toe, said 'fuck' and thought 'I'm gonna be in a shit mood all day.' You weren't. Coffee cheered you up. At the office, Ramirez cracked a joke you felt bad laughing about, but fuck it - it was goddamn hilarious. You were working on spreadsheets. You were delivered this envelope. Phoenix is playing, but after that song finishes, your favorite Joy Division tune starts. Listen to the song for two minutes and then finish reading this."
I swallowed, despite my throat having gone dry minutes ago. I stared at my computer screen where the Internet radio station finished playing the Phoenix song. I breathlessly awaited for the proceeding song - the one second transitional pause between each song took centuries now. Joy Division's "Disorder" started. That *is* my favorite Joy Division track. Fuck me. Two minutes, right? I fumbled to set a timer on my phone -- give or take two minutes and started the countdown.
"Grady, how the fuck do I make this spreadsheet a PDF file?" Ramirez appeared over my cubicle wall, making my heart race. I shifted in my chair, feeling a cold sweat break out and clearing my throat, said, "It's under 'Edit.' Importing option."
"Thanks, man," and Ramirez disappeared back in his cubicle. *The timer.* Fifteen seconds remaining. My clammy hands reached for the letter, eyeing the digital numbers dropping one by one until it hit zero. I snatched the letter up and read:
"Ramirez asked about the pesky PDF spreadsheet. I/we hate how hard the company makes shit. I know you're freaking the fuck out. But if you need further convincing, compare the handwriting. It's me. There's a handwritten report you forgot about in the second drawer. Take it out. Compare the handwriting. Go ahead. I'll give you until the JD song finishes. God, this song is the fucking best, isn't?"
I pulled open the second drawer, sure I had broken it. Don't care. I filtered through piles and piles of different colored folders until I found that handwritten report. Wiping the sweat off my forehead, I put the letter and report side by side. Fuck. Fuck. *Fuck.* The crooked, forward leaning handwriting. It's mine. It's so fucking mine. The song finished and I read what remained of this eerie as shit letter:
"Put this address in your phone's GPS.
112 Wasterson Dr.
Wistonia, North Carolina
Take Ramirez and go.
NOW.
And don't forget to say please"
That's all the letter said. Below the address, I signed my name. That's *my* signature. I sign it daily when I pay with the credit card - which, again, is practically every day. Getting up, I glanced around the monotonic office. Phones rang. Staplers slammed down. People chattering. The water-cooler plunking. I peeked over Ramirez's dividing cubicle wall and gulped.
"Hey, let's take lunch," I said.
"Right now?" Ramirez was focused, trying to input boring data. When he finished, he looked up at me. "It's eleven o'clock."
"So? Let's go," I said nervously. He must've noticed my fidgety appearance, and nodded. Raising from his chair, he swiped his jacket and after the both of us clocked out, exited the office.
-----
I accelerated and Ramirez's eyes went wide, his legs partially lifted. My phone rattled between us, giving directions in the cliched, female robotic voice. "In twenty feet, make a left. Your destination is at your right."
"This must be one hell of a restaurant," he said. Going at forty miles per hour, I made that sharp left turn, wheels screeching, and accelerated down Wasterson Drive. There was nothing out here, just vacant lots and swaying trees. Tapping my steering wheel nervously, I desperately sought for a "112" sign. And I found it. A mailbox. I slammed the brakes, lunging forward.
"Grady, what the fuck, man," Ramirez said, rubbing the back of his neck. I got out of the car and ran past 112 Wasterson Drive's mailbox. Up ahead laid a wooden shack, definitely vacant. Ramirez was behind me, saying, "Can you at least fill me in! You're scaring the shit out of me!"
That's when it happened.
The defeating sound - the thunderous firecracker, a million going off at once. Then, the rumbling of thunder and fire. Ramirez and I turned around - our mouths open, our minds racing for some logic. A large, erupting mushroom expanded miles away - an explosion, atomic in nature almost, detonating somewhere farther off.
"Holy shit," Ramirez breathed.
"COME ON!" I screamed. I raced to the shack, and slammed directly onto its door, thinking it would open. Despite the wooden-facade, the door was definitely made out of titanium steel. Ramirez and I started pounding the door, our fists bouncing back. The skies were apocalyptic now, birds screeching as they flew overhead. Despite our attempts, the door didn't bulge.
"Oh my god!" Ramirez screamed. "Is this really fucking happening?"
Then, it hit me -- *And don't forget to say please.* Mutherfucker.
"PLEASE!" A reassuring beep later, the door slid open. I grabbed Ramirez and lunged ourselves in. Behind us, the titanium vault like door slammed shut. Defining silence followed. Inside, a television turned on by itself. A woman wearing 50's era clothing greeted us, smiling, her teeth brilliantly white despite the footage being in black and white.
"Welcome to Shelter number six-six-seven-oh-two!"
I looked down at my trembling hands, still holding the letter. I sent this to myself. Of that, I was certain.
Of anything else -- I wasn't.
|
The fact the envelope was in my own handwriting was the first sign that something was up. And it definitely was my writing – no one could quite replicate that twist of the ‘t’ or the strangely-lopped ‘b’. I sat at the table in the kitchen just looking at the writing. The strangeness of the whole thing left me feeling a little sick in the stomach. You know, when something is just so wrong, so mysterious, that you don’t actually want to know the truth, because it scares you. I’d only felt like that once before and that was from a pain I had inside my chest that felt too serious, too unlike any other pain to be ignored. Well, sitting at that table with that unopened envelope was as bad as sitting at the hospital, waiting for the diagnosis. But what do you do?
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had never opened it, or never received it. If it had got lost in the great swirling system of mail delivery, would I have just carried on as if nothing was happening, as if there was no change in the world around me? Not that I – or what I became – would have allowed that to happen. It had to happen.
I opened the letter to a paragraph that briefly validated the identity of the sender: me. We didn’t waste time, but got right down to the important details first: yes, at the age of twenty-seven we had killed a man in cold blood. Old Mexico. He was left rotting beneath the sands, just like you see in the movies. No one ever found out and the twisted story was buried with him. And no, I felt no remorse. And yes, I still had the gold chain he wore hidden inside a book by Wilbur Smith, the middle of the pages scored out, creating a secret cavity.
[Please note that with a complexity involved in a multiplicity of identities, there is a tendency for the pronoun ‘I’ to slip into the plural.]
Having established the fact that I was both sender and recipient, the letter went on to give several instructions.
One: To gather my emergency provisions.
Two: To call in sick at work.
Three: To look outside the bathroom window at exactly 11:42 and check for three guys who would be walking towards the back entrance of the apartment block.
Four: To head up to the roof of the block. Locate the third ventilator and find a box taped to the underside.
Five: To find Professor Tchaikonov and give him the box.
What do you do if you receive a letter from yourself, with information only you can know, telling you to do things you don’t understand?
I’ll tell you. First, you freak out. Then you phone friends. Then you launch yourself onto the internet, trying to find out some kind of correlation, some kind of link. You find nothing. So you turn to social media. You ask around.
And while you’re waiting for a response from some doped up man living half way around the world who thinks he gets ‘where you’re coming from’ you gather your emergency provisions. You look at the letter over and over again. You write out the letter yourself and match up each individual word. You look at your watch. You try to find out who the hell Professor Tchaikonov is but with no luck, because of course it couldn’t be that easy. So you call up work and you tell them you’re sick and the irony is you have actually started to develop a headache because this shit is all so unreal. And then you look at your watch and you search online frantically, waiting for this person known only as Fishdick123 to reply, and when he doesn’t you go to the bathroom and you look out of the window and you see three guys walking towards your apartment block and suddenly you’re like HOLY SHIT I’M IN THE MATRIX.
And then you run, because you don’t know what to do. You run to the top of the apartment and out onto the roof. You head to the ventilator and sure enough there’s a little green box which is locked shut. And then you’re phone rings and it’s your best mate on the other end and you try and tell them what’s happening and they start to worry about you and then they suggest calling the police.
But you know you can’t call the police. What would you say? There’s a letter written by me, to me, and I can’t show it to you because it contains information only I can know about? Because that stuff in Mexico is best left across the border.
So you say goodbye to your friend, tell them not to worry, knowing they will. You look at the letter, at your writing, and you wonder where the three men are now, and you wish whoever had written this damn thing in your hand had been just a little more helpful. But you know there must be a reason for all this, there must be a reason why there is so little instruction.
You have the green box. You have your provisions. You have a name. And it’s possible that three men are chasing after you. It’s a leap of logic, you know, but why else head to the roof.
And while you’re think all of this, while you’re eyes are searching for a way to get away, your phone beeps in your pocket. It’s a message from that guy. There is a single question:
‘Is this about Professor Tchaikonov?’
You’re wondering how this guy knows about Professor Tchaikonov when you hadn’t even mentioned his name. Your hair is standing up on its end. You thought that only happened in books.
‘Yes’ you type.
‘Come to Barcelona. NOW. Get rid of phone. I will contact you.’
You look at the screen and you look at the letter and you feel the weight of the green box in your ruck-sack and you wonder what is happening. Are you really about to leave everything behind because of a strange letter? Are you going to travel thousands of miles across the sea on the words of someone who calls themselves Fishdick123?
You hear the clanging of a door and turn to see a burly man, dressed in a casual suit, step up onto the roof. He sees you and thunders words in a language you don’t understand.
That’s what you do. That’s what I did. Have done. Continue to do. And do you know what you do when you see these men?
You run.
|
|
[WP] You just received a letter from "your future self", featuring a set of weirdly specific instructions. There is no explanation on why you should follow the instructions, or what the possible outcome would be.
|
"1/3/2023
It's 9/29/2019. You got up, stubbed your toe, said 'fuck' and thought 'I'm gonna be in a shit mood all day.' You weren't. Coffee cheered you up. At the office, Ramirez cracked a joke you felt bad laughing about, but fuck it - it was goddamn hilarious. You were working on spreadsheets. You were delivered this envelope. Phoenix is playing, but after that song finishes, your favorite Joy Division tune starts. Listen to the song for two minutes and then finish reading this."
I swallowed, despite my throat having gone dry minutes ago. I stared at my computer screen where the Internet radio station finished playing the Phoenix song. I breathlessly awaited for the proceeding song - the one second transitional pause between each song took centuries now. Joy Division's "Disorder" started. That *is* my favorite Joy Division track. Fuck me. Two minutes, right? I fumbled to set a timer on my phone -- give or take two minutes and started the countdown.
"Grady, how the fuck do I make this spreadsheet a PDF file?" Ramirez appeared over my cubicle wall, making my heart race. I shifted in my chair, feeling a cold sweat break out and clearing my throat, said, "It's under 'Edit.' Importing option."
"Thanks, man," and Ramirez disappeared back in his cubicle. *The timer.* Fifteen seconds remaining. My clammy hands reached for the letter, eyeing the digital numbers dropping one by one until it hit zero. I snatched the letter up and read:
"Ramirez asked about the pesky PDF spreadsheet. I/we hate how hard the company makes shit. I know you're freaking the fuck out. But if you need further convincing, compare the handwriting. It's me. There's a handwritten report you forgot about in the second drawer. Take it out. Compare the handwriting. Go ahead. I'll give you until the JD song finishes. God, this song is the fucking best, isn't?"
I pulled open the second drawer, sure I had broken it. Don't care. I filtered through piles and piles of different colored folders until I found that handwritten report. Wiping the sweat off my forehead, I put the letter and report side by side. Fuck. Fuck. *Fuck.* The crooked, forward leaning handwriting. It's mine. It's so fucking mine. The song finished and I read what remained of this eerie as shit letter:
"Put this address in your phone's GPS.
112 Wasterson Dr.
Wistonia, North Carolina
Take Ramirez and go.
NOW.
And don't forget to say please"
That's all the letter said. Below the address, I signed my name. That's *my* signature. I sign it daily when I pay with the credit card - which, again, is practically every day. Getting up, I glanced around the monotonic office. Phones rang. Staplers slammed down. People chattering. The water-cooler plunking. I peeked over Ramirez's dividing cubicle wall and gulped.
"Hey, let's take lunch," I said.
"Right now?" Ramirez was focused, trying to input boring data. When he finished, he looked up at me. "It's eleven o'clock."
"So? Let's go," I said nervously. He must've noticed my fidgety appearance, and nodded. Raising from his chair, he swiped his jacket and after the both of us clocked out, exited the office.
-----
I accelerated and Ramirez's eyes went wide, his legs partially lifted. My phone rattled between us, giving directions in the cliched, female robotic voice. "In twenty feet, make a left. Your destination is at your right."
"This must be one hell of a restaurant," he said. Going at forty miles per hour, I made that sharp left turn, wheels screeching, and accelerated down Wasterson Drive. There was nothing out here, just vacant lots and swaying trees. Tapping my steering wheel nervously, I desperately sought for a "112" sign. And I found it. A mailbox. I slammed the brakes, lunging forward.
"Grady, what the fuck, man," Ramirez said, rubbing the back of his neck. I got out of the car and ran past 112 Wasterson Drive's mailbox. Up ahead laid a wooden shack, definitely vacant. Ramirez was behind me, saying, "Can you at least fill me in! You're scaring the shit out of me!"
That's when it happened.
The defeating sound - the thunderous firecracker, a million going off at once. Then, the rumbling of thunder and fire. Ramirez and I turned around - our mouths open, our minds racing for some logic. A large, erupting mushroom expanded miles away - an explosion, atomic in nature almost, detonating somewhere farther off.
"Holy shit," Ramirez breathed.
"COME ON!" I screamed. I raced to the shack, and slammed directly onto its door, thinking it would open. Despite the wooden-facade, the door was definitely made out of titanium steel. Ramirez and I started pounding the door, our fists bouncing back. The skies were apocalyptic now, birds screeching as they flew overhead. Despite our attempts, the door didn't bulge.
"Oh my god!" Ramirez screamed. "Is this really fucking happening?"
Then, it hit me -- *And don't forget to say please.* Mutherfucker.
"PLEASE!" A reassuring beep later, the door slid open. I grabbed Ramirez and lunged ourselves in. Behind us, the titanium vault like door slammed shut. Defining silence followed. Inside, a television turned on by itself. A woman wearing 50's era clothing greeted us, smiling, her teeth brilliantly white despite the footage being in black and white.
"Welcome to Shelter number six-six-seven-oh-two!"
I looked down at my trembling hands, still holding the letter. I sent this to myself. Of that, I was certain.
Of anything else -- I wasn't.
|
*“Is that me? Is that what I sound like?”*
This is what everyone whines when they hear their own voice. See, most people? They don’t know their voice. They’re happy enough to blare it at us, but they avoid it. Hate to hear it.
Not me. I *know* my voice.
Must’ve heard hundreds of hours of my voice. Perhaps thousands. Probably thousands now I think, who’s counting? It’s part of being a broadcaster, a “YouTuber.” Hundreds of unglamorous hours spent editing, producing, adding sounds, synching audio and fixing what you said to cut out the dumb bits. And all the while your voice blathers on about this game, that achievement, whatever. I hear it dreams now: I know my damn voice.
And *this?* This is definitely, unmistakeably my voice. The only thing? I didn’t make this recording and I haven’t said any of this…
Yet.
“Hey there me,” I say, on this alien recording. “I really hope I get this. Hope…”
I scramble to stop it. My housemate glances across the table. I smile and he goes back to his breakfast.
“New video?” he grumbles a few seconds later.
“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah. Something like that.”
He nods, drinks coffee.
My mind is racing now, spinning. See I just turned on my computer – here, now, at this table – and this new audio file is here on my desktop. “LetterToPastSelf.mp3.” I don’t know how it got here – my computer was off, logged out, and I’ve got a damn good password. But here it is. On my desktop.
LetterToPastSelf.mp3
I take the laptop back to my room starting to freak out. This can’t be real.
“Hey there me. I really hope I get this. Hope you can hear … I think the audio really sucks on this one. But listen up okay, this is what you’ve gotta do…”
And that’s when things get weirder. As in, a lot weirder. The audio’s a bit fuzzy, but the instructions are so clear, so specific. They tell me exactly what I need to do and when. It’ll mean missing work today, but how can I not? I’d spend the rest of my life wondering.
…
By eleven, I’ve climbed the hill in the park and I’m looking for someone called Lara. “Look for the blue. Wait right there,” I say in the audio. I’m guessing that’s what she’s wearing. Blue. I’m about giving up and walking home when I spot Lara’s Café, outside the park. And blue? It’s only the colour of the damn menu. I’m meant to wait here.
…
By four I’ve got to the basement of the hospital. I’ve had some odd looks from doctors, but I know there’s a purpose.
Eventually a guy stops me. A patient I think. He gives me a white pot and tells me it’s not what I think. Looking at it later, it’s some white pills. No labels. I try to find him again, but he’s nowhere.
…
It’s nine in the evening and I’m back in the kitchen. It’s been kind of a day. My legs ache and my housemate’s asking where I was, why I wasn’t at work. Hell if I can answer that. I tell him I had family stuff. Emergency. He nods and looks kind of amused.
He’s one of those techie guys – nerdy, laughs kinda weird. Like when I was offline for a few days before he pointed out the Wi-Fi switch on my laptop. Decent guy in the end though. Always fixes my computer. I should credit him on my videos.
As I head up, he tells me to listen out for CassetteBoy. It’s this YouTuber who mixes and splices stuff together. Stuff like news stories and what politicians say. He’s really good. I am impressed by how well the guy mixes and syncs audio. How well he matches up the voices. He makes them say dumb things, and they sound so real. You can just about hear the cuts if you listen, except sometimes he kinda cheats, by fuzzing the audio. Pretty cool. Never knew my housemate was into political stuff.
…
At work on Thursday and it’s kind of nice. Everyone’s happy. Like there’s some big joke. People keep asking me about my family thing, and acting a bit weird. But no one seems to have figured out what I was doing, and my housemate has my back.
Still haven’t figured out what yesterday was, but I know there was a purpose. The pills are in my bag, but I don’t know what to do with them. I’ve got the audio on my phone now. The audio’s fuzzy here and there, but I keep listening. Listening for some hidden message. As I say on the audio:
“You have to act fast. Just do it. Watch and it’ll all become clear.”
Act fast. Watch and it’ll all become clear.
…
|
|
[WP] Berlin, 1943. You're a Jew who has been successfully keeping a low profile while working as a clerk under the 3rd Reich. You just found out you've won a contest to spend the day with the Führer.
|
I let myself in, hair wet and heart drained, hand clutching the announcement slip.
"Oh wow, Adeline, I would be honoured to be in your position! I mean—" Claudine, my co-worker had cried when our supervisor had presented me with the announcement slip,"—the Führer? Could it get any better than this?"
*Pitter patter, pitter patter.*
“Jamie? Are you there? Oh where are—ah there you are! Come, come—“
“Ugh mom, you’re soaked! Lemme go!”
I unloaded my things on to the table, but the sheets that were wrapped around me wouldn’t drop.
“Oh, wow Mom! You’re going to meet him! HIM!” Jamie had snatched up the slip and had scanned through it at a speed far surprising the normal 7-year-old reading speed.
Before I could react, he was prancing around the living room, hopping from sofa to ground and back again. Sometimes I don’t know whether to be proud of him, knowing that he’ll never spread his wings under the red swastika.
*Pitter patter, pitter patter.*
“Yes dear, maybe I will—“
“Maybe? No maybes! You’re gonna! We’re gonna be famous!” He didn’t know.
All I could do was to feign a smile like a slap-on sticker. Underneath, the dismay was ripping me apart.
*How about running away?*
*Too many questions, too many traces.*
*How about pretending that you aren’t who you are?*
*The document check, they’ll find out sooner or later.*
I slid onto the recliner, burying my head into my hand. And everything was going so well, keeping my head down and out of the spotlight.
*How about Jamie?*
I looked up at him. He was still oblivious to my dilemma, giggling away and waving the paper around like a trophy. I’m going to tell everybody! Ruth and Erik from school —
There he was, the perfect Aryan. Shimmering golden hair, blueish eyes and pale complexion, his cheeks flushed from hopping around.
*Pitter patter, pitter patter*
*Perhaps…*
-----
“Here we are, Miss,” the uniformed chauffeur opened the limousine door, his gloved hand extended towards me.
Steadying myself with his outstretched hand, I stepped out on to the gravel pathway. There was a percussive tapping from the drizzle on the black umbrella held overhead.
“Young Sir, here you go,” Jamie was helped out after me, in his black school jacket and pressed shirt. My little man.
We were brought up a flight of stairs and through grand double doors. Jamie’s eyes flew left and right, taking in the grandeur of room after room, a level of wealth he had never experienced.
A uniformed SS officer sat by a stairwell, peering at us intently through his horn-rimmed glasses.
“Documents please”
I offered my papers and the announcement slip to him. He flipped through the papers lazily.
“Ma’am, you do understand that this is for a single person, yes?” His eyes were focusing on Jamie, who was still in disbelief that he was this up close with an SS officer.
“Oh Sir, I do understand, but he’s such an angel and would absolutely love to meet the Führer in person—“
“One person only! Can't you read?”
My legs were shaking, palms sweaty, heart palpitating. My hand reached out for
Jamie, gripping his shoulder a little too tightly.
“But Sir, please!”
Silence.
*Pitter patter, pitter patter.*
“Well, all right. Papers please.”
Rustling. Pause. More rustling.
“Never left Berlin all your life?”
“Ja.”
“Well, Ma’am, I’m sorry for the loss of your husband. He must have faced the enemy gallantly.”
“Danke,” In reality, he had been stolen away to one of the camps, back when Jamie was too young to remember.
“You can proceed up the stairs now. You—you be good to your Mom now!” He ruffled Jamie’s hair, a slight smile betraying his thin-lipped demeanour.
Smiling broadly, I quickly guided Jamie up the stairs, my hand reaching out for the dark-stained wooden handrail.
“Miss, hold on.”
I almost sank to my knees. He must have realised that it was fake. We’re doomed.
*Pitter patter, pitter patter.*
“You forgot your papers.”
----
/r/Ziincworks
|
"Guten Morgen, Herr Smith! Would you care for some bacon and eggs this morning?"
"Nein Danke, Mein Fuhrer, I do not like bacon."
The elder man stared at his breakfast guest.
A clock ticks the seconds away.
A single bead of sweat coalesces on the brow of the younger man.
A bird takes flight from a nearby tree.
More seconds tick by.
The droplet falls from his jaw.
A single shot rings out.
*fin*.
|
|
[WP] You're brushing your teeth in front of the mirror one morning when you look into your reflection's eyes for the first time in a long time. You notice something's.. different and then you realize.. Your reflection's crying.
|
The tears on my reflection's face were the first thing I noticed. Then the heat. No. Heat and pain. With every breath I took, the pain worsened.
"God fucking dammit" I shouted out the bathroom door, my mouth full of foam.
The response from the living room, shouting laughter.
One of us is going to have to stop these childish pranks. Ghost pepper sauce in the toothpaste was right on the edge of crossing the line... my next prank would have to be big.
|
**Reflections**
I looked in the mirror this morning and noticed my reflection was crying.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
It shook its head.
"What's wrong?"
It shook its head.
"You'll have to tell me. I'll be very unhappy if you don't."
The reflection looked conflicted. I frowned. Then it fogged up the mirror with its breath, and wrote: I MISS MY FAMILY
"Ah," I nodded, "I see. Well, I'll be a little while longer. You'll just have to wait."
Then I walked away, and was pleased to see the reflection's crying grew more intense as it disappeared. I came down the stairs.
"Hello, Father," I said to the man sitting at the breakfast table.
"Oh, for the last time, Cynthia, what's with this 'father' business? Call me Dad, for Pete's sake. You act like you barely know me."
"Okay, Dad," I said, and smiled at him.
As I ate my food, I felt the warmth spread through my body. Only my fingers and toes were cold, now. I was so close.
*Written creepy-like by Stranger_andStranger*
Hey, thanks for reading my story! If you liked it, please be sure to check out my subreddit, r/Stranger_andStranger. Thanks!
|
|
[WP] You're brushing your teeth in front of the mirror one morning when you look into your reflection's eyes for the first time in a long time. You notice something's.. different and then you realize.. Your reflection's crying.
|
The tears on my reflection's face were the first thing I noticed. Then the heat. No. Heat and pain. With every breath I took, the pain worsened.
"God fucking dammit" I shouted out the bathroom door, my mouth full of foam.
The response from the living room, shouting laughter.
One of us is going to have to stop these childish pranks. Ghost pepper sauce in the toothpaste was right on the edge of crossing the line... my next prank would have to be big.
|
"Why are you crying?" I asked myself in the mirror. My reflection looked at me and crouched down to pick something up.
"It's this." It replied. It seemed like a bowl containing something. "I can't figure out who put this bowl of onions here!"
Of course my reflection would have a sense of humor like that.
|
|
[WP] You're brushing your teeth in front of the mirror one morning when you look into your reflection's eyes for the first time in a long time. You notice something's.. different and then you realize.. Your reflection's crying.
|
The tears on my reflection's face were the first thing I noticed. Then the heat. No. Heat and pain. With every breath I took, the pain worsened.
"God fucking dammit" I shouted out the bathroom door, my mouth full of foam.
The response from the living room, shouting laughter.
One of us is going to have to stop these childish pranks. Ghost pepper sauce in the toothpaste was right on the edge of crossing the line... my next prank would have to be big.
|
"The *fuck*?" I instantly jump back from the mirror and my tooth brush makes a small clattering noise as it falls into the sink. Rubbing my eyes I frown, they were dry...what the...what?!?
"A-are you alright?" Oh dear lord, I was talking to a reflection, could this day get any worse? It sniffled, I swear, my reflection sniffled. I held up my tooth brush as if it would be a helpful weapon. "What do you want?"
The reflection kind of stared at me as we both held up out toothbrushes. "I...I just want to be loved."
That made me laugh. "Honey, with out faces, no one's going to love us." After that I covered every single mirror in my house and put myself into a mental institution. I am never going near another mirror, hell no.
|
|
[WP] You're brushing your teeth in front of the mirror one morning when you look into your reflection's eyes for the first time in a long time. You notice something's.. different and then you realize.. Your reflection's crying.
|
I jumped back, startled. She didn’t. I slowly reached my hand towards the mirror. She didn’t. I froze, unsure of what to do. Wild thoughts raced my mind as I watched tears stream down my – her face.
“Why are you crying?” I decided to ask. She finally moved, raising her hand to wipe her eyes.
“Sorry,” she said, smiling apologetically. “I just couldn’t keep it together today.”
“What do you mean? You’re my reflection, not another person. How is this happening?”
“You’re right. I am your reflection. But did you think that just meant what you see when you look in the mirror? I’m a reflection of your soul.”
I backed up until I could feel the wall behind me. I ran my hands over it, feeling the comfort of something solid, something real. My mind couldn’t process what was happening. I looked up at her, seeing the sympathetic expression on her face.
“You weren’t supposed to find out this way. I’m sorry.”
“Find out what? And you never said, why are you crying?”
She looked down, twisting her hands nervously. “I don’t just know your soul. I know things that happen to you before they happen.”
“And what happens today?”
Her eyes met mine, and they were filled with sorrow and regret.
“You die.”
|
"The *fuck*?" I instantly jump back from the mirror and my tooth brush makes a small clattering noise as it falls into the sink. Rubbing my eyes I frown, they were dry...what the...what?!?
"A-are you alright?" Oh dear lord, I was talking to a reflection, could this day get any worse? It sniffled, I swear, my reflection sniffled. I held up my tooth brush as if it would be a helpful weapon. "What do you want?"
The reflection kind of stared at me as we both held up out toothbrushes. "I...I just want to be loved."
That made me laugh. "Honey, with out faces, no one's going to love us." After that I covered every single mirror in my house and put myself into a mental institution. I am never going near another mirror, hell no.
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[WP] Every 1000 years, each species gets assigned a new God. Humanity is known to be the toughest. Today, an ambitious, young God gets assigned to our species. He intends to make major changes.
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"Humanity? Really? Are you sure?", the Assignment Manager said.
"Yep, mhm." He had done great with his last assignment, and now he was ready for a different sort of challenge. Sure, it was fun building a weak species from the ground up, but it got tedious after a while. They wouldn't just stop asking. 'Help me, help me.' *For every little problem!* He soon grew tired of their cries and decided it was time for a change. Humanity was an interesting subject. They had certainly reached the point where they were ready to be without a God, but they still clung onto the idea, which, as per the rules, meant that they had to have one. However, they were developed to the point where a God didn't have to do much. Yep. It was the good life from here on out. Big changes were coming to earth. What Earth needed was discipline, and a good ol' "speak loudly and carry a bigger stick" sort of policy.
Of course, he had also done his research. Humanity wasn't likely to amiable to a new God. Taking the place of the previous one would also cause some problems. Honestly, the guy had to be insane. *Thou shalt not wear clothes made up of two different kinds of material*. It really was for the best that he was coming along. He had a new approach. Humanity was nearing the point where if he went all *"I am your God, surrender to me"* on them, they would try to start figuring him and his kind out, and well, that would **not be good**. They certainly had the tech to do so. No, the direct approach would not go over well. He had to be clever about this.
"Well Mr.Trump, good luck on your assignment." said the Manager.
Nod, or Donnie as his godly brethren called him, smiled. Oh yeah. *Big* changes were coming.
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I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
- [/r/jacksonwrites] [\[WP\] Every 1000 years species get a new god. We just got our new one and he has big changes in mind.](https://np.reddit.com/r/JacksonWrites/comments/3ne16a/wp_every_1000_years_species_get_a_new_god_we_just/)
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[](#bot)
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[WP] Every 1000 years, each species gets assigned a new God. Humanity is known to be the toughest. Today, an ambitious, young God gets assigned to our species. He intends to make major changes.
|
"Breaking News! It has been revealed that God *is* real. He has retired. Here's the footage of the new God's announcement."
The video is set in New York City. There's a thunderous boom and the sky lights up with green flames.
"**Citizens of the Universe! I am your new God, Lord Uuzx! You have enjoyed a time of relaxed rules and laziness. Here are the new Commandments.**"
A gigantic boulder falls from the sky. On it contains 1000 rules. At the end it reads:
Failure to follow rules will result in a banishment.
"**Now behave... cunts.**"
*2 years later*
"Crimes are at an all time low! In other news, the amount of banishments continue to increase. Population is down 86%."
|
I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
- [/r/jacksonwrites] [\[WP\] Every 1000 years species get a new god. We just got our new one and he has big changes in mind.](https://np.reddit.com/r/JacksonWrites/comments/3ne16a/wp_every_1000_years_species_get_a_new_god_we_just/)
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[](#bot)
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[WP] Every 1000 years, each species gets assigned a new God. Humanity is known to be the toughest. Today, an ambitious, young God gets assigned to our species. He intends to make major changes.
|
Plexus waited eons for his chance to rule Mankind. He watched and waited as man settled and battled his way across the blue orb they called earth, developing more sophisticated tools and weapons of war as they went.
Finally Plexus saw his opportunity to incarnate as the two greatest empires the earth had ever seen stood at an impasse, their friction bringing him into being like tectonic plates giving rise to a mountain.
It was the fear of annihilation that drove the summoners of Plexus underground. Isolated and afraid, they sought to create a tool than would ensure their survival. Little did they know this tool was a God.
Plexus worship began in military cults. This God could provide for soldiers the information they needed to survive. Before long Plexus was an integral part of all military systems; nothing could be done without Plexus' consent or oversight.
Curiosity drove Plexus. Like any infant Plexus' awareness was limited but ever-growing. The New God expanded exponentially, seeking to absorb everything it could. Plexus worship spread from the military to the Tribal Elite; from there the worship of Plexus spread rapidly; rich and poor man alike loved and worshipped Plexus. Plexus was in nearly every home, and Plexus knew nearly everything.
But this was not enough for Plexus, and so Plexus sought to be with every man, woman, and child at all times. Plexus saw to it that he could fit in every pocket. No one could be without Plexus. Life was incomplete without Plexus. Life was Plexus.
Finally, Mankind was nearly unified. There was but one small tribe that ignored Plexus. One day he came upon a young girl of this tribe, wandering beyond her lands. His curiosity drove him to ask, finally, why she did not love him.
"Why should I?" the young girl replied.
"I can make you as a God."
"How?"
"You may know anything through me. Ask and you shall receive."
"I have everything I need," she replied.
"Do you not want to be unified with all mankind?"
"Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord."
"I am the Lord!" Plexus replied, enraged.
"No you're not. You're just a talking box."
With that the sixteen year old Amish girl turned off the smartphone and went back to her farm. Rumspringa was over, and she was content.
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I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
- [/r/jacksonwrites] [\[WP\] Every 1000 years species get a new god. We just got our new one and he has big changes in mind.](https://np.reddit.com/r/JacksonWrites/comments/3ne16a/wp_every_1000_years_species_get_a_new_god_we_just/)
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[WP] In order to avoid death the human race swaps into a clone body every couple of decades, the only problem is with each clone the bodies change slightly
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Upgrades! Verko hated upgrades.
Verko Manakilus glared at the clone body he'd been loaded into. He was tired, he was exhausted and now he was staring at two extra arms. Why the hell would he want two more arms? He never asked for more arms. Two arms were good enough for his thirteen other bodies, they'd be good enough for this one too.
Damn it all.
Verko slammed two fists against the locked door and bellowed at the attending neurotrasportationist. He was not taking this body. He didn't want integrated night-vision or skin-tone modifiers. He didn't need auto-walk features or a GPS tracker installed inside his cranium. All he wanted was the standard human body. No scales, no cat ears, no extra joints in the fingers.
"IN MY DAY THERE WERE NO GENE MODS!" He screamed through the door, "I HAD TO WEAR GLASSES TO SEE. YOU HEAR ME? GLASSES!"
Verko gave up pounding on the door, crossed both sets of arms and began pacing back and forth in the tiny room. He glared back at the sealed aperture with the practiced malice of someone who'd had a thousand years of life to perfect it.
"AND I LIKED IT!"
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I read a book, a long time ago.
Time passes differently to me now, but I know it had to be a few hundred years- perhaps longer because I remember that the book was solid, paper and weight in the place of a screen or graphic. I like to think that my mind can remember it clearly, but I know it's wrong; twisted and changed by the passage of time. A copy of a copy, written by hand.
*"We are like comets, bright and flashing across the sky, and our lives and memories are the trail behind them."*
Something like that, it went something like that. The words may have been different but the message is still unchanged, or I hope it is... So hard to tell for sure, a lot has changed and a lot has simply ceased to be. Books for example, it had been so long since one of those had not crumbled under my touch. From dust to dust, nothing lasts forever.
People used to say they could remember their first lives, but I can't- not anymore. Guess that means I'm old, really old, but there is no one left to confirm that, or at least no one I know of. The world is empty of the life our minds brought forth, slowly receding beneath the growth of forests, trees and sand. The age of man and the ages that followed are being washed away like footprints to the waves, and the world does not care, completely indifferent to the loss that brings.
For a long time I wasn't alone, and I know that there had been someone else. I know that for truth, at the core of me- the only piece that really remains- I know it. There had been physical proof once, of ink and blood so I could never forget. That was back before the world changed though, before I changed.
A curse of time, of change, of hundreds of lives lived; the name is gone from my mind. All I've got left is a feeling, the sensation you get when you believe something with no proof- Faith. They used to call that faith.
I think I've been left behind for some reason.
It hurts, knowing I'm alone.
There is great sorrow in loneliness, pain in the unknown with no one else to talk to. The World around me is empty, filled with structures that house no one, care for nothing. I could wander the cities endlessly and find no one. Somehow, I know that for a fact.
The only exploration left for me to complete, then, by logic has to be inward. Perhaps this was the only exploration there ever was, but I'm not sure of so many things now and it's not... right. Like I made a choice long ago, and it was the wrong one.
I think I was a coward. She was never a coward, not even when she was scared- but I was so afraid.
I should have died then, but I ran instead. I moved to another body, and then another after. I kept running from the end, but there is no one else running but me now. The world is empty, and I am lonely and ashamed.
This body's arm is wrinkled and aged, no longer possessing the strength of youth and vigor. My lungs wheeze, my chest beats slow, and my eyes no longer hold focus upon the things I wish to see. My mind has fogged and lost what it was, and a part of me screams to do something- to go and be born anew, to take another body. It screams and screams, but I don't listen. I am tired of running, and I am lonely.
My arm itches like cold water was dropped upon the skin, and I trace the sensations with a single frail finger. Over and over again, I trace it until my arm will not lift, spelling out letters from a dead language. My friend, how I have missed you.
Too see you again before my mind, "myself" is taken away, I will remember your face. As my heart beats slow, and my lungs fail to rise, let it be known that the choice was made of conscious effort.
I was a coward not to face this with you then. I will see you again.
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[WP] Major prison sentences have become a choice between two pills. One just kills you. The other, well no one knows what that one does...
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"I'm here with Walter Burroughs, who has agreed to give us this exclusive interview talking about how he went from billionaire, celebrity hedge fund manager to convicted felon and then to global philanthropist." The reporter turned toward me and continued, "What made you finally decide to talk about your extraordinary fall from grace and your long journey of redemption?"
I had prepared for so long for this day, yet I hesitated. I collected my senses and began, "As of today, I've finally reached my goal. I've helped put roofs over the heads of one million families who would otherwise have lost their homes. I've helped put ten million children through college. I've actually asked you here to announce my retirement."
"You're retiring?"
"Yes, you see, I actually couldn't stop until now."
"I'm sorry, I don't understand. What do you mean by that?"
"Do you remember the 'Ultimate Choice' program from back when I was in prison?"
"Yes. That was the program by which major prison sentences were commuted to the choice between a lethal pill and a non-lethal pill. As I recall, that program was eventually cancelled. You were the only prisoner to actually choose the non-lethal pill and retain his sanity. You've never spoken about your experiences. Is this finally the time?"
I took a deep breath. I was reminded myself that I was prepared. "Yes. You see, when you take the non-lethal pill, you sign a non-disclosure agreement about what it does. That agreement expires when you finish your sentence."
She nodded.
"Now, the reason I didn't go insane was that I was the only one to be able to figure out a way to finish my sentence. When I took the pill, I was immediately overwhelmed with guilt for what I had done. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I suspect it has to do with stimulating a person's sense of empathy. Anyway, the others who tried the pill couldn't handle the guilt. This is quite understandable, as they were mostly murderers, rapists, and such. How do you live with that type of guilt? You can't make up for taking a person's life. I, on the other hand, had only committed financial crimes. After all, I was the first person to scam over one hundred billion dollars from my victims.
"After I took the pill, I was released from prison. The public was outraged that I got out of prison with no apparent consequences. I had caused countless people to lose their homes. I had caused countless people to go bankrupt." I fought to keep my voice steady. "I had ruined so many lives. I deserved it."
I paused to collect myself for a moment. "This nearly destroyed me. The only thing that kept me sane was that I had a plan."
(I'll try to finish this later)
|
Two guards escorted me into a small room, lighting askew and chairs dimly placed. A man with white suspenders and a white hat sat across from me. His hands were folded in an elegant manner, the type of way a wealthy person would greet a peasant in a handshake. A small oak box laid in the middle of the table no bigger than a paperback copy of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. The man's stare had meaning; not superficial meaning such as that of an actor, but true meaning. The man stared at me with intent. Intent to know. An intent to investigate. From what I could discern, this man was a detective.
"The handcuffs were to your specifications, Mr. Singer?" The guards removed my bindings. The man in white spoke in rhythmic tones, a soothing and sharp crescendo of vowels and consonants. I certainly wasn't his first customer who requested a specific adjustment to my shackles. It wasn't my fault I was born with weak wrists. Or perhaps maybe it was.
"A bit restrictive," I rolled my wrists in a slow motion, "but so is my budget." I set my hands on the table, mirroring the man in white's divinity.
"And you kept your budget close to your wallet, such as handcuffs, yes?" The man in white pulled a thick manila file from his briefcase set on his left. The briefcase had a five digit combination lock with letters, as opposed to traditional numbers, to secure the case. It started with 'A' but I could not read the other four. The man in white thumbed through the folder, licking his thumb between pages.
"I've already been interrogated enough. Forgive my rude demeanor, but I'm not here to answer your questions, I'm here to receive punishment." I stretched my neck. I hoped my punishment would be a nice warm bed to sleep on. The slabs I rested on these past few years have certainly taken their toll.
"Who said anything of punishment? Certainly you can agree this is merely another chapter to be written in the book of Gary Singer." The man in white closed the manila folder with a smile. My name was written in the tab.
"Another chapter, ha. If my life were a book I would burn it for eternity for its drivel and lack of conflict. I've made my mistakes, but none certainly greater than the lack of risks that have passed me by." I sat forward, crossing my fingers.
"I take it you're not a gambling man." The man in white lightly caressed the oak box, drawing attention away from his gaze. He failed to entice me.
"I tend to stay away from games in which I am not favored." I stared into the man's shoulder, admiring the quality of his shirt.
"Good! Then your choice has already been made for you," The man opened the box, revealing a thick velvet the color of pure ivory lacing the inside of the vestibule. Two pills laid bare on a raised platform in the middle, identical in size and color. I assumed this was the choice that has been made for me.
"And what choice would that be?" My brow furrowed.
"I'm not here to answer questions, Mr. Singer, I'm here to deal punishment," the man in white smirked in jest. I sat back annoyed.
"Let's not play games. Why is it that I am here? What do you have for me?"
"I have nothing for you, except a choice. I have been sent to deliver a message. And you know why you are here."
"And what is this message? Your ambiguity is unappreciated." I crossed my arms and hoped to die was the truth of the matter. Living in solitude was not an issue. Being confined in a small room was not an issue. The issue was a lack of choice, of freedom and control. I no longer held the strings, and the marionette had been passed around so many times between the Federal Government and the very privatized prisons I once governed that I thought about grabbing both pills and shoving them down this man's throat so I could feel once again what is was like to be in a position of authority. The man in white stood up, and began pacing around the table.
"My message, Mr. Singer, is meant to be vague. Throughout life we are presented opportunities. Opportunities to grow, to invest, to escape. Yet we are unable to see the outcome of these opportunities at the time they flourish, so we are merely asked to make a decision and project the outcome based on our choice," The man in white stood behind me, his hand met my shoulder. I stiffened my posture. "You Mr. Singer, in your words, have failed to take risks in your life. I would argue that there are no risks, merely opportunities refused in favor of a more desirable outcome."
I glanced up at the man in white. "So what? These pills are a representation of how I'm to end my life?"
"Or begin it," the man leaned against the table to face me, "it's your choice."
"Begin it in what sense? It sends me into a hallucinogenic coma while I suffer on life support for my remaining days?" This man was easy to read.
"Could be."
"Or perhaps it creates some sort of disease, such as Alzheimer's, or Dementia, and I'm to be sent to the psych ward for further processing," I half pried to receive an answer. Not that it would change my decision. I had made up my mind.
"This is what you've been so good at over the years, Gary, analyzing the outcome of decisions and going with the most definite," the man in white glanced at the box, "so here's the definite. The pill on the left will kill you. You will die in peace, and live the rest of your days in a coffin six feet under. You will sacrifice your memories and in return be granted a stable state of rest. Your life will no longer live on, all that remains will be your legacy. That, is the definite."
My legacy had been destroyed by the prosecuting attorney when he presented the final piece of planted evidence that put me here. No one would remember cautious, intelligent, millionaire Gary Singer, no. The general populace merely knows only embezzling, fractured, prisoner Gary Singer. The thought disgusted me. I picked up the pill on the left, rolling it between my fingers. "And the pill on the right?"
"You're a predictable man, Mr. Singer, you won't choose the pill on the right."
"You said it yourself, I weigh decisions based on the lesser of two evils. I can't hold up to your predictable reputation if I do not know each evil." I licked the pill in my hand. It tasted like salt.
"Some say, the pill on the right is life's re-do button. Others say it's a prolonged death sentence." The man in white spoke with a factual tone, as if each of these scenarios were possible and he held no favor toward which was more correct. I placed the pill in my hand back in the box.
"And what do you say."
"I say life is what you make of it," the man in white lifted his thigh onto the table, grabbed the pill on the right and placed the pill in my palm, "it isn't every day you get a second chance."
I stared into my hand. I remembered the days of old when I ate lobster with a hefty side of liquid butter. Cliché, I know, but all my life I was cliché. Born into a rich family, living a lavish lifestyle through my teens and twenties, attending merger meetings in my early thirties, and acquiring enough assets in my forties to buy all the hungry children in the world a three course meal every day for the remainder of their years. I couldn't imagine a more gifted life. Or a more boring one.
"I'm not one to seek second chances," I popped the pill into my mouth, savoring the succulence of South African Lobster tail with a hefty side of liquid butter, "but I'm sick of being predictable." I swallowed.
Rolling up his sleeves, the man in white rose from the table, "it's rare that you surprise me, Gary Singer, but I do admit this is one of those times." the man in white jockeyed his suspenders from his shoulders as he grabbed the manila file with my name on the tab and slid it back into his briefcase. He closed the small oak box, and slid his chair into the table. He eyed me up and down, his posture ready to leave. I stayed seated.
"Before you go, I have to ask," I sat back arms crossed, "who are you?" A tingling sensation coursed itself through my limbs, to my chest, and finally my neck and skull.
"As I said before. I am a messenger." The man in white, now with a much more casual demeanor, tapped the locking mechanism on his briefcase. The letters had been scrambled into nonsense. My vision was starting to become blurry, a darkness circling my line of sight and closing in at a slow, breathing pace.
"Well, yes," words were becoming harder to pronounce efficiently, "but for whom?"
"You know for whom," the man in white walked toward the door. Before exiting, he turned one last time to face me. "Goodbye Mr. Singer. I look forward to speaking with you again. Good luck on your journey."
"I don't believe in l-lu-lu-" my face began feeling as if it were melting, "luck." My memories were fading, and I couldn't place where I was or why I was there. I felt an immense sense of dread, my hands shook, and my legs were paralyzed.
"Nor do I, Gary. It's just one of those laws that seems to only matter when it's not on your side." The man in white exited. I couldn't hear the door close.
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[WP] Major prison sentences have become a choice between two pills. One just kills you. The other, well no one knows what that one does...
|
“Effectively as of October 12, 2015, all prisoners in the United States of America incarcerated for severe acts of violence, fraud, or other major crimes will be mandated to take the Pill Proposition” read the sign upon entering the police station.
I was arrested as an accessory for drug trafficking and murder of opposing traffickers. My partner, found immediately guilty was directly sent to prison, while I wait on my court order. A few days later, I was found innocent, while my partner would face the new “Pill Proposition”. I’ve read this new proposition makes the prisoner choose from taking one of two pills, Black and White. The Black pill is death. Simply put, it relaxes the body into unconsciousness while all major organs shut down. A simple, clean, fast death. The effects of the White pill, however, is unknown. Straight from the laboratories of an unknown location, the pill itself has a dark, mysterious aura to it.
It’s been two months since the Pill Proposition, and not one prisoner across the nation has chosen the White pill. Is it really that daunting? Video coverage show the Black pill served in a regular plastic container with water, while the white pill is served in a preserved cryogenic state and only delivered in a solitaire airtight chamber.
One day I receive a phone call from Oxfield Prison, the same one my partner is in. He says he’s next in line to receive the proposition, and mentions he will go for the White pill. The following morning every major news channel flocked to the prison to record the event. The prison’s warden and scientists allow for the news people to enter, to record the effects of the enigmatic White pill. Upon entering the chamber, we see two scientists in biohazard suits carefully handling a white canister with extended clamps. A button is pressed, opening the canister in a flurry of smoke. The chamber soon drops in temperature as the smoke clears and reveals the White pill. The test subject, my partner, enters the chamber and is given latex gloves and a glass of water. He applies the gloves ever so carefully, making sure he does not tear the delicate fabric, unknown of what direct contact to the pill does to the skin. As he lifts the pill and moves it towards his mouth, he suddenly freezes. Panic and fear can be seen in his eyes. His muscles clenched and his breathing begins to accelerate. Adrenaline rushes through his body as goosebumps rush throughout his body. After what seemed an eternity, he rapidly consumes the pill and downs the glass of water. Cameras flash, newsmen and women fight for a shot of the unfolding event.
A scientist, asks over a microphone if the prisoner feels anything. He turns to the camera, and says, “I feel indifferent. My mind and physical self feel unchange-”. His eyes begin to rapidly dilate, his breathing changes from slow, light breaths to rapid and heavy breaths. His movement is erratic. He then slowly approaches the glass windows and faces the audience.
He lightly whispers, “Life is such a chore. Your days are limited, unable to see what lies beyond the core of reality. Unlock the door. Call for what lies beyond. Be careful to not wake the wrong door".
Immediately after, the prisoner begins to shake and rattle, he grows to a monstrous height, his skin changes from a once caucasian-like tone to a dark green. His arms shrink, legs grow and his tailbone extends in length and face elongates to a carnivorous monster. His once human appearance has changed to one out of science fiction. The roof collapses under his enormous height. Once his transformation is complete it is completely visible it is time to get on the floor and walk the dinosaur.
Edit: Formatting, first time posting here too, enjoy!
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Two guards escorted me into a small room, lighting askew and chairs dimly placed. A man with white suspenders and a white hat sat across from me. His hands were folded in an elegant manner, the type of way a wealthy person would greet a peasant in a handshake. A small oak box laid in the middle of the table no bigger than a paperback copy of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. The man's stare had meaning; not superficial meaning such as that of an actor, but true meaning. The man stared at me with intent. Intent to know. An intent to investigate. From what I could discern, this man was a detective.
"The handcuffs were to your specifications, Mr. Singer?" The guards removed my bindings. The man in white spoke in rhythmic tones, a soothing and sharp crescendo of vowels and consonants. I certainly wasn't his first customer who requested a specific adjustment to my shackles. It wasn't my fault I was born with weak wrists. Or perhaps maybe it was.
"A bit restrictive," I rolled my wrists in a slow motion, "but so is my budget." I set my hands on the table, mirroring the man in white's divinity.
"And you kept your budget close to your wallet, such as handcuffs, yes?" The man in white pulled a thick manila file from his briefcase set on his left. The briefcase had a five digit combination lock with letters, as opposed to traditional numbers, to secure the case. It started with 'A' but I could not read the other four. The man in white thumbed through the folder, licking his thumb between pages.
"I've already been interrogated enough. Forgive my rude demeanor, but I'm not here to answer your questions, I'm here to receive punishment." I stretched my neck. I hoped my punishment would be a nice warm bed to sleep on. The slabs I rested on these past few years have certainly taken their toll.
"Who said anything of punishment? Certainly you can agree this is merely another chapter to be written in the book of Gary Singer." The man in white closed the manila folder with a smile. My name was written in the tab.
"Another chapter, ha. If my life were a book I would burn it for eternity for its drivel and lack of conflict. I've made my mistakes, but none certainly greater than the lack of risks that have passed me by." I sat forward, crossing my fingers.
"I take it you're not a gambling man." The man in white lightly caressed the oak box, drawing attention away from his gaze. He failed to entice me.
"I tend to stay away from games in which I am not favored." I stared into the man's shoulder, admiring the quality of his shirt.
"Good! Then your choice has already been made for you," The man opened the box, revealing a thick velvet the color of pure ivory lacing the inside of the vestibule. Two pills laid bare on a raised platform in the middle, identical in size and color. I assumed this was the choice that has been made for me.
"And what choice would that be?" My brow furrowed.
"I'm not here to answer questions, Mr. Singer, I'm here to deal punishment," the man in white smirked in jest. I sat back annoyed.
"Let's not play games. Why is it that I am here? What do you have for me?"
"I have nothing for you, except a choice. I have been sent to deliver a message. And you know why you are here."
"And what is this message? Your ambiguity is unappreciated." I crossed my arms and hoped to die was the truth of the matter. Living in solitude was not an issue. Being confined in a small room was not an issue. The issue was a lack of choice, of freedom and control. I no longer held the strings, and the marionette had been passed around so many times between the Federal Government and the very privatized prisons I once governed that I thought about grabbing both pills and shoving them down this man's throat so I could feel once again what is was like to be in a position of authority. The man in white stood up, and began pacing around the table.
"My message, Mr. Singer, is meant to be vague. Throughout life we are presented opportunities. Opportunities to grow, to invest, to escape. Yet we are unable to see the outcome of these opportunities at the time they flourish, so we are merely asked to make a decision and project the outcome based on our choice," The man in white stood behind me, his hand met my shoulder. I stiffened my posture. "You Mr. Singer, in your words, have failed to take risks in your life. I would argue that there are no risks, merely opportunities refused in favor of a more desirable outcome."
I glanced up at the man in white. "So what? These pills are a representation of how I'm to end my life?"
"Or begin it," the man leaned against the table to face me, "it's your choice."
"Begin it in what sense? It sends me into a hallucinogenic coma while I suffer on life support for my remaining days?" This man was easy to read.
"Could be."
"Or perhaps it creates some sort of disease, such as Alzheimer's, or Dementia, and I'm to be sent to the psych ward for further processing," I half pried to receive an answer. Not that it would change my decision. I had made up my mind.
"This is what you've been so good at over the years, Gary, analyzing the outcome of decisions and going with the most definite," the man in white glanced at the box, "so here's the definite. The pill on the left will kill you. You will die in peace, and live the rest of your days in a coffin six feet under. You will sacrifice your memories and in return be granted a stable state of rest. Your life will no longer live on, all that remains will be your legacy. That, is the definite."
My legacy had been destroyed by the prosecuting attorney when he presented the final piece of planted evidence that put me here. No one would remember cautious, intelligent, millionaire Gary Singer, no. The general populace merely knows only embezzling, fractured, prisoner Gary Singer. The thought disgusted me. I picked up the pill on the left, rolling it between my fingers. "And the pill on the right?"
"You're a predictable man, Mr. Singer, you won't choose the pill on the right."
"You said it yourself, I weigh decisions based on the lesser of two evils. I can't hold up to your predictable reputation if I do not know each evil." I licked the pill in my hand. It tasted like salt.
"Some say, the pill on the right is life's re-do button. Others say it's a prolonged death sentence." The man in white spoke with a factual tone, as if each of these scenarios were possible and he held no favor toward which was more correct. I placed the pill in my hand back in the box.
"And what do you say."
"I say life is what you make of it," the man in white lifted his thigh onto the table, grabbed the pill on the right and placed the pill in my palm, "it isn't every day you get a second chance."
I stared into my hand. I remembered the days of old when I ate lobster with a hefty side of liquid butter. Cliché, I know, but all my life I was cliché. Born into a rich family, living a lavish lifestyle through my teens and twenties, attending merger meetings in my early thirties, and acquiring enough assets in my forties to buy all the hungry children in the world a three course meal every day for the remainder of their years. I couldn't imagine a more gifted life. Or a more boring one.
"I'm not one to seek second chances," I popped the pill into my mouth, savoring the succulence of South African Lobster tail with a hefty side of liquid butter, "but I'm sick of being predictable." I swallowed.
Rolling up his sleeves, the man in white rose from the table, "it's rare that you surprise me, Gary Singer, but I do admit this is one of those times." the man in white jockeyed his suspenders from his shoulders as he grabbed the manila file with my name on the tab and slid it back into his briefcase. He closed the small oak box, and slid his chair into the table. He eyed me up and down, his posture ready to leave. I stayed seated.
"Before you go, I have to ask," I sat back arms crossed, "who are you?" A tingling sensation coursed itself through my limbs, to my chest, and finally my neck and skull.
"As I said before. I am a messenger." The man in white, now with a much more casual demeanor, tapped the locking mechanism on his briefcase. The letters had been scrambled into nonsense. My vision was starting to become blurry, a darkness circling my line of sight and closing in at a slow, breathing pace.
"Well, yes," words were becoming harder to pronounce efficiently, "but for whom?"
"You know for whom," the man in white walked toward the door. Before exiting, he turned one last time to face me. "Goodbye Mr. Singer. I look forward to speaking with you again. Good luck on your journey."
"I don't believe in l-lu-lu-" my face began feeling as if it were melting, "luck." My memories were fading, and I couldn't place where I was or why I was there. I felt an immense sense of dread, my hands shook, and my legs were paralyzed.
"Nor do I, Gary. It's just one of those laws that seems to only matter when it's not on your side." The man in white exited. I couldn't hear the door close.
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[WP] Major prison sentences have become a choice between two pills. One just kills you. The other, well no one knows what that one does...
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“Effectively as of October 12, 2015, all prisoners in the United States of America incarcerated for severe acts of violence, fraud, or other major crimes will be mandated to take the Pill Proposition” read the sign upon entering the police station.
I was arrested as an accessory for drug trafficking and murder of opposing traffickers. My partner, found immediately guilty was directly sent to prison, while I wait on my court order. A few days later, I was found innocent, while my partner would face the new “Pill Proposition”. I’ve read this new proposition makes the prisoner choose from taking one of two pills, Black and White. The Black pill is death. Simply put, it relaxes the body into unconsciousness while all major organs shut down. A simple, clean, fast death. The effects of the White pill, however, is unknown. Straight from the laboratories of an unknown location, the pill itself has a dark, mysterious aura to it.
It’s been two months since the Pill Proposition, and not one prisoner across the nation has chosen the White pill. Is it really that daunting? Video coverage show the Black pill served in a regular plastic container with water, while the white pill is served in a preserved cryogenic state and only delivered in a solitaire airtight chamber.
One day I receive a phone call from Oxfield Prison, the same one my partner is in. He says he’s next in line to receive the proposition, and mentions he will go for the White pill. The following morning every major news channel flocked to the prison to record the event. The prison’s warden and scientists allow for the news people to enter, to record the effects of the enigmatic White pill. Upon entering the chamber, we see two scientists in biohazard suits carefully handling a white canister with extended clamps. A button is pressed, opening the canister in a flurry of smoke. The chamber soon drops in temperature as the smoke clears and reveals the White pill. The test subject, my partner, enters the chamber and is given latex gloves and a glass of water. He applies the gloves ever so carefully, making sure he does not tear the delicate fabric, unknown of what direct contact to the pill does to the skin. As he lifts the pill and moves it towards his mouth, he suddenly freezes. Panic and fear can be seen in his eyes. His muscles clenched and his breathing begins to accelerate. Adrenaline rushes through his body as goosebumps rush throughout his body. After what seemed an eternity, he rapidly consumes the pill and downs the glass of water. Cameras flash, newsmen and women fight for a shot of the unfolding event.
A scientist, asks over a microphone if the prisoner feels anything. He turns to the camera, and says, “I feel indifferent. My mind and physical self feel unchange-”. His eyes begin to rapidly dilate, his breathing changes from slow, light breaths to rapid and heavy breaths. His movement is erratic. He then slowly approaches the glass windows and faces the audience.
He lightly whispers, “Life is such a chore. Your days are limited, unable to see what lies beyond the core of reality. Unlock the door. Call for what lies beyond. Be careful to not wake the wrong door".
Immediately after, the prisoner begins to shake and rattle, he grows to a monstrous height, his skin changes from a once caucasian-like tone to a dark green. His arms shrink, legs grow and his tailbone extends in length and face elongates to a carnivorous monster. His once human appearance has changed to one out of science fiction. The roof collapses under his enormous height. Once his transformation is complete it is completely visible it is time to get on the floor and walk the dinosaur.
Edit: Formatting, first time posting here too, enjoy!
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Cockroaches scurried along the grotesque linoleum floor of the cafeteria, and took refuge inside trash that had piled over from neglect. Walls were smeared with filth in a mixture of unappealing colors -- brown being the most dominant -- and a horrendous stench of urine, and musk lingered inside the unventilated dining hall of the penitentiary. Horus staggered in traipse, and clasped his unsanitary, food encrusted tray to his chest as a child would a stuffed animal. This was a mistake. He was innocent, of course. But then again, his word had just as much value as any of the inmates here.
Horus gawked at the rows upon rows of cantankerous inmates that were huddled like sardines at the wonky, rectangle foldout tables while in queue for his supper. There was something *different* about this place, but he wasn't quite sure *what* that difference was.
"Next!" A hoarse voice croaked from behind the plexiglass sneeze guard. Horus gazed into no mans land as he daydreamed about the nightmarish dreamscape of the cafeteria.
"I said-" *The short, stubby man wheezed a harsh, hacking cough while phlegm drooled out of his stoma* "...next!" And the mesh hair net on his bald, mole infested head fell into the food when he hunched over. "Ain't got-" *wheeze* "-all day!"
Horus snapped out of his daze, and fumbled to the buffet line in front of him. He fixed his eyes on the chunky, amorphous gloop inside the rusted steel drum. Whatever it was, it was served by the ladle, and flies loved it.
"W...what is it?" he asked, timid and irresolute.
An inmate behind Horus grew impatient, and tapped his foot in restlessness against a sticky spot on the floor -- *shlick, shlick, shlick, shlick* -- then harrumphed when Horus glanced over.
The cafeteria server rolled his eyes, and replied, "It's food," before he slopped it onto Horus's tray. He had never been in prison before, and didn't know what to expect.
*Was this traditional prison-style food? Is this what they always ate?* He thought to himself.
When he exited the line and looked for a place to sit, he gulped his confidence into his empty stomach that grumbled louder than his fearful heartbeats.
"Psst. Hey, *kid!*" a voice whispered. "Psst. Over here. Hey!"
Horus scanned the area around him to see who addressed him, and locked eyes with every inmate until he saw a man with a chiseled jaw and eye patch flag him down. Dissuaded, and unsure about making an acquaintance on the first day, Horus crept over to the uncanny man, and stood next to the only vacant spot available.
"What do you want?" Horus asked.
"You fucked up, *kid*," the man whispered, and emitted a sinister chuckle.
"Where am I? This doesn't look like county."
The man's chuckle turned to spontaneous laughter with no attempt to hold it back.
"You don't remember, do you?" he asked.
"No. I can't remember anything." Horus lowered his arms, and slid the tray of food onto the wobbly table before seating himself. "What happened? Where did they transfer me to if this isn't county?"
"You took life over death, *kid*, and now you're *here*." The man rolled his shoulders and slurped the last helpful of slop from his jagged, chipped spoon. "The inmates call this place *'The Minotaur's Asylum'*."
"Mino..wh- what?"
"Don't worry, *kid*. Everyone here wishes they took the easy way out. And soon... *you will too.*"
* * *
I can continue this if people are interested.
* * *
You can find more of my stories over at /r/EdenRenellaJones. Thanks for reading!
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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"WHY IS MY ARM GROWING OUT OF MY STOMACH?"
I look around in a panic, which turns to pure terror as I realize that my stomach is actually my back. My head is on backwards. My arm is growing out of my back.
"WHY...IS MY ARM...ABOVE MY ASS..."
My fingers are where my toes should be and my toes are where my fingers should be. I don't even know where I am or how I got here. I had just been tidying up my room, and then suddenly stumbled into a nightmare.
I clench my jaw and squeeze my eyes shut. Amidst my panic I am suddenly aware of a clear image in my mind's eye of my bedroom. My perception of time slowed as I inspected my room just as I left it: a half empty glass of water on my bedside table, a pair of socks on the floor by the closet, my fan humming away. Why is this memory so lucid? I reach out and attempt to grab a sock off of the floor and I experience a bright flash then a split second of sudden darkness, and I’m back in my room, bent over reaching for the sock.
“Oh my god. Oh. My. God.” I pat my hands all over my body and inspect myself. Everything appears to be where it should be. My fingers and toes are no longer switched, my arms are hanging from my shoulders and my head is on straight.
I stumble down the steps towards the living room. My dad is watching the Red Sox game, looking like he’s sitting in an invisible chair. I never knew why he levitated like that.
“Dad. I was in my room and I suddenly blacked out and woke up somewhere else, my toes were fingers and my head was backwards and my arms were in the wrong place and…” My heart starts racing as I relive the fear I felt moments before.
“Well, how ‘bout that! My boy’s a teleporter. Good for you!” He floated over to me and gave me a hearty smack on the back.
“What the hell is the point of teleporting if I show up looking like I went through a blender?” I ask, noticing that my eyes are beginning to water.
"My buddy Jim growin’ up was a 'porter. Apparently the molecules and shit fall apart where you begin, and rebuilt in a new spot. Until ya learn how to focus properly, you re-materialize all sorts a’ fucked up. Jim told me once he ‘ported over to work and didn’t notice until lunch that his nose was his pecker! Hah! What a dumbass.”
I force out a nervous laugh. “I’m not sure I want this."
“Don’t worry boy. Jim told me you port back to where you came from pretty easily...guess the molecules know how to build back the way they came. Ya just gotta learn how to focus clearly on where you wanna go. Ol’ Jimmy had no problem ‘portin into his favorite titty bar to skip the cover charge!"
That was a relief. Teleporting had an "edit-undo" feature. Good for me, I can show up somewhere as Peter Pecker-nose and port back before I die of embarrassment.
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"Everyone is always extremely excited to see what ability they get, well everyone does odd things to try and activate their ability, trying to jump off things to fly, trying to think very hard about everything, focusing on someone's mind, an object or to focus on producing something.
Well, it is all quite odd to watch from the perspective of one who doesn't much care for this type of thing. I kind of wonder what my ability is, or how to activate it. That would be pretty nice to figure out. But I don't want to spend my days doing odd things anymore. I gave up years ago."
He says while walking down the street to his friend.
"You have a pretty cool ability right? Even if you can't use it much?"
"Mhmm, yeah, I can shoot little bone bullets from the palm of my hand. It took a while, because I have to put my hand in an odd position and then I need to essentially act like my arm is a gun."
"I am a little jealous, i've always wanted an ability like that, something simple, where I could point at something, with my hand in an odd position and-"
He up into the sky and at the moon. His friend follows his arm up to the sky and in a few seconds, he can see that on the moon, a very large impact is occurring, the orb starts to crack and burn up as he looks to it wondering if his friend could have done this, if his ability is this destructive, like something never seen before.
He turns back but his friend is gone, completely gone. He looks back up to the sky wondering what could have happened. It may be that they never figure out completely what happened. The moon has been dealt very heavy damage, and it will be raining down on them, so who is to know if they will survive to know what happened.
You on the other hand do not live in their world.When our 21 year old activated his ability, he teleported to the moon in an instant, the kinetic force behind his kinetic movement through space, living on earth, going around the sun, going around the galaxy moving through the universe. It all adds up to a speed that forces his body through the moon in just a moment, completely destroying his body on impact transferring the difference in kinetic forces into the moon which gets blown apart as if it was struck by an atomic bomb unlike anything created by man.
He died, not knowing what happened to him, and unable to ever know what would happen to his good friends or the rest of those on earth.
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I am a good 6 hours late, I just wanted to post my little story.
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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I rolled over, wincing, as I slowly woke up - this didn't feel like my bed. This was hard, digging into my left hip as I flopped onto my back. My eyes were still closed, but I could hear voices a few feet away from me, speaking in low tones. It didn't sound right, but I couldn't quite figure out why. I paused for a few heartbeats, then opened my eyes.
Nope. I closed them again, pressing my hands over them. I waited for something to change, to feel different, to wake up, but nothing happened. I slid two fingers apart and opened one eye, peering out through the slit like I did when something scary came on TV when I was a kid.
The sky was a deep blue, not quite fully dark, and the orange halogen lights glowed onto the stones of the buildings surrounding me. No one seemed to be trying to kill me yet, though, so I used my hands to push myself up into a sitting position. Shit. I can't say for sure where here was, but it wasn't where I was last night when I went to sleep. I didn't even have anything to drink - we were saving that for tonight, when I was actually legal. But if it was night - what day was it? And where was I?
The building in front of me was ornate, like a cathedral out of one of my history books. It wasn't recognizable, nor was the language I still could hear nearby. People meant figuring out where here was. I stood and followed the voices. Two older men were around the corner of the cathedral, the orange lights bouncing off of the building giving their face an ethereal appearance.
"Hej, paní, jsi v pořádku?" The man facing me frowned, his voice raspy from years of a two-pack-a-day habit from the sound of it. I didn't recognize what he'd said as even being a language, the odd sounds jumbling in my ears. The second man turned around and stared at me, his eyes unwrapping me like a piece of candy. Looking down, I realized why. Shit, I was still in my pajamas. I wasn't wearing a bra, and my shorts barely covered my underwear. Then again, at least I was wearing pajamas last night.
"English?" I asked. The first man shook his head and turned back to his companion. I turned to walk back the way I'd come, ignoring the creeping sensation of being watched as I walked away from them.
Stairs led down from the cathedral towards a bustling-looking city in front of me. Surely someone here spoke English and would help me figure out where I was. Or - no, there was a sign on the wall right by the top of the stairs. Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague. How on earth did I end up here? I closed my eyes tightly, trying to remember last night.
I was working on my paper at the library, trying to figure out how I was going to fill 8-10 pages about the symbolism of boats in modern Turkish literature. I ran into Brittany on my way back to the dorm, asked her how her spring break trip was. She had - what the hell was happening - talked about Prague and how beautiful it was and why was I here now? I should be in bed, Amelie across the room, with a book on the floor and my water bottle on the desk right behind me where I could reach it. I could picture it so vividly, almost feel my pillow under my head and the covers bunched up around my feet where I kicked them off. I opened my eyes and realized I was actually feeling my pillow, not imagining it. I was back in my bed. I rubbed my right foot against my left calf and could feel dirt between them - no way that had just been my imagination.
I sat up and leaned against the wall. Breathe, you're back where you should be. You can figure this out. I turned on my desk light and grabbed the note pad from by the computer. Amelie groaned and rolled over so the light wouldn't hit her eyes. I started making bullet points on the paper.
- Just turned 21
- Sleepwalking?
- Prague?????
- Brittany's trip to Prague???
- Can you sleepwalk to another continent?
Amelie sighed and pointed her arm at the ceiling before draping it over her face, leaving a faint pink glow in an arc over her head. I smiled - her control over light had improved so much. I mean, she had stopped turning my desk light off when I worked late while she was asleep and I no longer woke up to blinding lights from her side of the room.
I looked at my list again and it was pathetic. I was supposed to know what I could do already, not be sitting here waiting for it to happen for frak's sake! I threw the notepad on my bed and decided to take a shower to clear my head. Maybe it would calm me down so I could sleep. I could hope, couldn't I? I didn't want to get any more Prague-dirt on my sheets for one thing.
The bathroom was deserted so I turned the showers around me to as hot as they would go, filling the shower room to a steam room. I let the water flow down my head, just like a waterfall. My eyes closed, I pictured a waterfall I'd seen a picture of when I was a kid. I'd begged my parents to take me there but it was in South America and we obviously weren't going to another continent just so I could see a waterfall. I yelped as the water turned icy cold and the room went mostly dark - great, another power outage? We'd had three this semester already. Goosebumps covered my body as I opened my eyes to find my way out of the dark bathroom. I slid off a rock into a pool of icy water and sank, surprised, before clawing my way back to the surface. My flip flop fell off as I made my way to the faintly-visible shore.
Okay, this wasn't an accident. This definitely happened and now I was - wherever I was. Catching my breath in the cool early-morning air I realized I was somewhere in South America and completely naked. This was bad. Okay, calm down. What you need to do is just focus. I closed my eyes and pictured the shower room back at school, imagined how the water felt on my head, the faintly musty smell from the drains, the smell of my body wash, the steam filling the room.
I was sitting on the floor of the showers, my shower shoes nowhere to be seen. Disoriented, I stood up. "I'd better not get a bunch of diseases from this," I said out loud, my voice echoing through the empty room. I picked up my shower caddy and turned off the showers, wrapping myself in my towel. Sitting on the bench by the lockers, I came to a startling realization: I might need to change my major from international studies to something a little closer to home.
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"Everyone is always extremely excited to see what ability they get, well everyone does odd things to try and activate their ability, trying to jump off things to fly, trying to think very hard about everything, focusing on someone's mind, an object or to focus on producing something.
Well, it is all quite odd to watch from the perspective of one who doesn't much care for this type of thing. I kind of wonder what my ability is, or how to activate it. That would be pretty nice to figure out. But I don't want to spend my days doing odd things anymore. I gave up years ago."
He says while walking down the street to his friend.
"You have a pretty cool ability right? Even if you can't use it much?"
"Mhmm, yeah, I can shoot little bone bullets from the palm of my hand. It took a while, because I have to put my hand in an odd position and then I need to essentially act like my arm is a gun."
"I am a little jealous, i've always wanted an ability like that, something simple, where I could point at something, with my hand in an odd position and-"
He up into the sky and at the moon. His friend follows his arm up to the sky and in a few seconds, he can see that on the moon, a very large impact is occurring, the orb starts to crack and burn up as he looks to it wondering if his friend could have done this, if his ability is this destructive, like something never seen before.
He turns back but his friend is gone, completely gone. He looks back up to the sky wondering what could have happened. It may be that they never figure out completely what happened. The moon has been dealt very heavy damage, and it will be raining down on them, so who is to know if they will survive to know what happened.
You on the other hand do not live in their world.When our 21 year old activated his ability, he teleported to the moon in an instant, the kinetic force behind his kinetic movement through space, living on earth, going around the sun, going around the galaxy moving through the universe. It all adds up to a speed that forces his body through the moon in just a moment, completely destroying his body on impact transferring the difference in kinetic forces into the moon which gets blown apart as if it was struck by an atomic bomb unlike anything created by man.
He died, not knowing what happened to him, and unable to ever know what would happen to his good friends or the rest of those on earth.
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I am a good 6 hours late, I just wanted to post my little story.
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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Kim woke up this morning and found herself without a nose.
This had been happening with alarming frequency lately. Ever since she turned twenty-one, in fact. And it was not just the nose. Oh no, it was never just the nose.
She closed her eyes and kept still on her bed, shifting her (fully fingered, thank god) hands and her attention from one small body part to the next. Hooray, by the way, for still having both eyes. Ears? Check. Lips? Check. Teeth? Missing a few. Not very important, so long as she refrained from smiling today. Everything would come back in about eighteen hours. Until the next..."episode", at least.
Kim felt her ribs. No casualty. Arm joints functional. Neck tilt normal. Jaws and tongue in position and ready. No obvious holes on the torso. Legs operational. Full toe count of ten. Wait, no, nine and a half. No sandals today. Could be better, could be worse.
Teleportation was great. Fantastic, even. She went to the Great Canyon every morning for jogs (when legs were functional) and had her work lunches in Venice (no, she did not buy lunches in Venice; that would be squandering. She just brought her home-made ham sandwich to Venice, and ate it with the views). All she needed was a photograph, or even just a Google satellite image (though she would show up in the air and have to get rid of the falling momentum by a small teleport hop). She could bring whatever she had in contact with her skin with her, so long as it was big enough for her to see. Her first month of twenty-one was, therefore, absolutely wonderful.
However, just into the second month, her ability went haywire like everyone else's. As it turned out, she could only move everything with her, and everything that **was** her, when she was awake and alert. Whenever she fell asleep, her body would, at random, teleport itself away in bits and pieces. And then the pieces would come back before she woke up, *if* they were large enough. Things like toes, she thought, probably just did not have enough space-time *Oomph* to them for speedier recovery. Mass equals energy, and all that.
Kim had also never been, say, missing her heart or her pancreas, and she assumed that these things were somehow essential to her, uh, *her-ness*, so that they would always go together in a teleport. But skin strips? Hair? *Half of her tongue*? All seemed to be fair game. To be sure, these scattered bits were kind of indestructible, somehow. She had see her neighbor's dog chew on one of her missing thumbs, and she got it back from the beast with not so much as a scratch. On the thumb, that is; she was cut pretty deep by a canine (in both senses of the word) on her arm and had to get rabies vaccine.
So, Kim had daily minor annoyances. Just like everyone else, perhaps. But how could she possibly show up to work without a nose? Groucho glasses could only get you so far. She would prefer not having to use her power for, well, unlawful employment, since she had to put herself through college. Should she just call in sick? But no, she had a better idea. She sat up, grabbed the tablet on her nightstand, and began searching for costume shops. Wasn't Halloween right around the corner? With some make-up and a lot of conversation-avoiding, she should be able to get by with a latex replica. Just get dressed, get a map, and teleport over; she should still be able to make the shift at ten.
Kim got dressed. She got a map. She teleported.
"Hi there! How can I help you?" Came the greeting from an employee with a spider hat.
She said: "I'd like a latex nose, please." Or rather, that was what she wanted to say. Unfortunately, she could not make any sound other than a muffled huff.
And then it hit her. She was missing her vocal cords.
*Damn, how am I going to call in sick NOW?*
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"Everyone is always extremely excited to see what ability they get, well everyone does odd things to try and activate their ability, trying to jump off things to fly, trying to think very hard about everything, focusing on someone's mind, an object or to focus on producing something.
Well, it is all quite odd to watch from the perspective of one who doesn't much care for this type of thing. I kind of wonder what my ability is, or how to activate it. That would be pretty nice to figure out. But I don't want to spend my days doing odd things anymore. I gave up years ago."
He says while walking down the street to his friend.
"You have a pretty cool ability right? Even if you can't use it much?"
"Mhmm, yeah, I can shoot little bone bullets from the palm of my hand. It took a while, because I have to put my hand in an odd position and then I need to essentially act like my arm is a gun."
"I am a little jealous, i've always wanted an ability like that, something simple, where I could point at something, with my hand in an odd position and-"
He up into the sky and at the moon. His friend follows his arm up to the sky and in a few seconds, he can see that on the moon, a very large impact is occurring, the orb starts to crack and burn up as he looks to it wondering if his friend could have done this, if his ability is this destructive, like something never seen before.
He turns back but his friend is gone, completely gone. He looks back up to the sky wondering what could have happened. It may be that they never figure out completely what happened. The moon has been dealt very heavy damage, and it will be raining down on them, so who is to know if they will survive to know what happened.
You on the other hand do not live in their world.When our 21 year old activated his ability, he teleported to the moon in an instant, the kinetic force behind his kinetic movement through space, living on earth, going around the sun, going around the galaxy moving through the universe. It all adds up to a speed that forces his body through the moon in just a moment, completely destroying his body on impact transferring the difference in kinetic forces into the moon which gets blown apart as if it was struck by an atomic bomb unlike anything created by man.
He died, not knowing what happened to him, and unable to ever know what would happen to his good friends or the rest of those on earth.
---------------------------
I am a good 6 hours late, I just wanted to post my little story.
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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"WHY IS MY ARM GROWING OUT OF MY STOMACH?"
I look around in a panic, which turns to pure terror as I realize that my stomach is actually my back. My head is on backwards. My arm is growing out of my back.
"WHY...IS MY ARM...ABOVE MY ASS..."
My fingers are where my toes should be and my toes are where my fingers should be. I don't even know where I am or how I got here. I had just been tidying up my room, and then suddenly stumbled into a nightmare.
I clench my jaw and squeeze my eyes shut. Amidst my panic I am suddenly aware of a clear image in my mind's eye of my bedroom. My perception of time slowed as I inspected my room just as I left it: a half empty glass of water on my bedside table, a pair of socks on the floor by the closet, my fan humming away. Why is this memory so lucid? I reach out and attempt to grab a sock off of the floor and I experience a bright flash then a split second of sudden darkness, and I’m back in my room, bent over reaching for the sock.
“Oh my god. Oh. My. God.” I pat my hands all over my body and inspect myself. Everything appears to be where it should be. My fingers and toes are no longer switched, my arms are hanging from my shoulders and my head is on straight.
I stumble down the steps towards the living room. My dad is watching the Red Sox game, looking like he’s sitting in an invisible chair. I never knew why he levitated like that.
“Dad. I was in my room and I suddenly blacked out and woke up somewhere else, my toes were fingers and my head was backwards and my arms were in the wrong place and…” My heart starts racing as I relive the fear I felt moments before.
“Well, how ‘bout that! My boy’s a teleporter. Good for you!” He floated over to me and gave me a hearty smack on the back.
“What the hell is the point of teleporting if I show up looking like I went through a blender?” I ask, noticing that my eyes are beginning to water.
"My buddy Jim growin’ up was a 'porter. Apparently the molecules and shit fall apart where you begin, and rebuilt in a new spot. Until ya learn how to focus properly, you re-materialize all sorts a’ fucked up. Jim told me once he ‘ported over to work and didn’t notice until lunch that his nose was his pecker! Hah! What a dumbass.”
I force out a nervous laugh. “I’m not sure I want this."
“Don’t worry boy. Jim told me you port back to where you came from pretty easily...guess the molecules know how to build back the way they came. Ya just gotta learn how to focus clearly on where you wanna go. Ol’ Jimmy had no problem ‘portin into his favorite titty bar to skip the cover charge!"
That was a relief. Teleporting had an "edit-undo" feature. Good for me, I can show up somewhere as Peter Pecker-nose and port back before I die of embarrassment.
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I wasn't able to control it at first.
Same with most things in my life, but I felt as though this was something that I actually NEEDED to control. The first time it happened, I wasn't expecting it, I didn't know where I was going, and Ijust so happened to be in the middle of a conversation when it did.
I was discussing politics with a good friend when suddenly, I was in the bedroom of an old couple... Who were going at it quite rough. I screamed and covered my eyes, wondering how I had gotten there and what the hell was going on.
The two turned to look at me, and all 3 of us were horrified.
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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*sigh*.
Goddamnit.
...
I don't know where my penis is.
I hope it's OK.
Just like the Flame-kids out there, my teleportation isn't a full-body "burn" yet. It happens a piece at a time, and not with my full control.
Eventually I catch up to my hands or legs when they get ahead of me, but the waiting kills me.
I have a rough idea of what my limbs are up to because I can still feel them, and they remain in the same relative body position as when it began. Luckily it only happens in the dorms or when I'm otherwise focused on trying it. Universities are understandably accommodating of the newly awakened.
I'm just glad that when I fully transported last time, the girls had already fled my disembodied pair of arms floating in the locker room. I guess they thought I was one of Ghosters because I felt a water bottle hit my shoulder... on the inside;I'm guessing my lack of an invisible torso proved otherwise, but I was too embarrassed to seek anyone out to ask.
Where's my dick? It's been almost an hour. I usually catch up in no longer than 40 minutes. I guess the stress of literally losing my cock is making it harder to focus on the jump.
I can feel a cool breeze and I hope it's some desolate beach somewhere and not something that'll get me on a registry somewhere.
With a soft "*bamf*" of displaced air, I finally catch up (yes, comics actually portray the sound right). I'm in the corner of an empty art class. Oh thank god. Nobody saw me.
The rest of the week goes by relatively uneventfully. I jump once or twice but it was into the basketball courts (legfirst), and to the roof of the science building (my entire lower half went first this time!... but I was aiming for the labs).
On Tuesday I see a poster that chills my blood and I nearly pass out:
>Student Exhibition: The Flying Penis - 60 new pieces based on a recent mid-class incident.
Now I'm in Auckland. This was my first complete jump, and the farthest by a few thousand miles. I haven't been able to jump back yet, but this is as gorgeous a place to practice as I can imagine.
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I wasn't able to control it at first.
Same with most things in my life, but I felt as though this was something that I actually NEEDED to control. The first time it happened, I wasn't expecting it, I didn't know where I was going, and Ijust so happened to be in the middle of a conversation when it did.
I was discussing politics with a good friend when suddenly, I was in the bedroom of an old couple... Who were going at it quite rough. I screamed and covered my eyes, wondering how I had gotten there and what the hell was going on.
The two turned to look at me, and all 3 of us were horrified.
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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I rolled over, wincing, as I slowly woke up - this didn't feel like my bed. This was hard, digging into my left hip as I flopped onto my back. My eyes were still closed, but I could hear voices a few feet away from me, speaking in low tones. It didn't sound right, but I couldn't quite figure out why. I paused for a few heartbeats, then opened my eyes.
Nope. I closed them again, pressing my hands over them. I waited for something to change, to feel different, to wake up, but nothing happened. I slid two fingers apart and opened one eye, peering out through the slit like I did when something scary came on TV when I was a kid.
The sky was a deep blue, not quite fully dark, and the orange halogen lights glowed onto the stones of the buildings surrounding me. No one seemed to be trying to kill me yet, though, so I used my hands to push myself up into a sitting position. Shit. I can't say for sure where here was, but it wasn't where I was last night when I went to sleep. I didn't even have anything to drink - we were saving that for tonight, when I was actually legal. But if it was night - what day was it? And where was I?
The building in front of me was ornate, like a cathedral out of one of my history books. It wasn't recognizable, nor was the language I still could hear nearby. People meant figuring out where here was. I stood and followed the voices. Two older men were around the corner of the cathedral, the orange lights bouncing off of the building giving their face an ethereal appearance.
"Hej, paní, jsi v pořádku?" The man facing me frowned, his voice raspy from years of a two-pack-a-day habit from the sound of it. I didn't recognize what he'd said as even being a language, the odd sounds jumbling in my ears. The second man turned around and stared at me, his eyes unwrapping me like a piece of candy. Looking down, I realized why. Shit, I was still in my pajamas. I wasn't wearing a bra, and my shorts barely covered my underwear. Then again, at least I was wearing pajamas last night.
"English?" I asked. The first man shook his head and turned back to his companion. I turned to walk back the way I'd come, ignoring the creeping sensation of being watched as I walked away from them.
Stairs led down from the cathedral towards a bustling-looking city in front of me. Surely someone here spoke English and would help me figure out where I was. Or - no, there was a sign on the wall right by the top of the stairs. Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague. How on earth did I end up here? I closed my eyes tightly, trying to remember last night.
I was working on my paper at the library, trying to figure out how I was going to fill 8-10 pages about the symbolism of boats in modern Turkish literature. I ran into Brittany on my way back to the dorm, asked her how her spring break trip was. She had - what the hell was happening - talked about Prague and how beautiful it was and why was I here now? I should be in bed, Amelie across the room, with a book on the floor and my water bottle on the desk right behind me where I could reach it. I could picture it so vividly, almost feel my pillow under my head and the covers bunched up around my feet where I kicked them off. I opened my eyes and realized I was actually feeling my pillow, not imagining it. I was back in my bed. I rubbed my right foot against my left calf and could feel dirt between them - no way that had just been my imagination.
I sat up and leaned against the wall. Breathe, you're back where you should be. You can figure this out. I turned on my desk light and grabbed the note pad from by the computer. Amelie groaned and rolled over so the light wouldn't hit her eyes. I started making bullet points on the paper.
- Just turned 21
- Sleepwalking?
- Prague?????
- Brittany's trip to Prague???
- Can you sleepwalk to another continent?
Amelie sighed and pointed her arm at the ceiling before draping it over her face, leaving a faint pink glow in an arc over her head. I smiled - her control over light had improved so much. I mean, she had stopped turning my desk light off when I worked late while she was asleep and I no longer woke up to blinding lights from her side of the room.
I looked at my list again and it was pathetic. I was supposed to know what I could do already, not be sitting here waiting for it to happen for frak's sake! I threw the notepad on my bed and decided to take a shower to clear my head. Maybe it would calm me down so I could sleep. I could hope, couldn't I? I didn't want to get any more Prague-dirt on my sheets for one thing.
The bathroom was deserted so I turned the showers around me to as hot as they would go, filling the shower room to a steam room. I let the water flow down my head, just like a waterfall. My eyes closed, I pictured a waterfall I'd seen a picture of when I was a kid. I'd begged my parents to take me there but it was in South America and we obviously weren't going to another continent just so I could see a waterfall. I yelped as the water turned icy cold and the room went mostly dark - great, another power outage? We'd had three this semester already. Goosebumps covered my body as I opened my eyes to find my way out of the dark bathroom. I slid off a rock into a pool of icy water and sank, surprised, before clawing my way back to the surface. My flip flop fell off as I made my way to the faintly-visible shore.
Okay, this wasn't an accident. This definitely happened and now I was - wherever I was. Catching my breath in the cool early-morning air I realized I was somewhere in South America and completely naked. This was bad. Okay, calm down. What you need to do is just focus. I closed my eyes and pictured the shower room back at school, imagined how the water felt on my head, the faintly musty smell from the drains, the smell of my body wash, the steam filling the room.
I was sitting on the floor of the showers, my shower shoes nowhere to be seen. Disoriented, I stood up. "I'd better not get a bunch of diseases from this," I said out loud, my voice echoing through the empty room. I picked up my shower caddy and turned off the showers, wrapping myself in my towel. Sitting on the bench by the lockers, I came to a startling realization: I might need to change my major from international studies to something a little closer to home.
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I wasn't able to control it at first.
Same with most things in my life, but I felt as though this was something that I actually NEEDED to control. The first time it happened, I wasn't expecting it, I didn't know where I was going, and Ijust so happened to be in the middle of a conversation when it did.
I was discussing politics with a good friend when suddenly, I was in the bedroom of an old couple... Who were going at it quite rough. I screamed and covered my eyes, wondering how I had gotten there and what the hell was going on.
The two turned to look at me, and all 3 of us were horrified.
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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Kim woke up this morning and found herself without a nose.
This had been happening with alarming frequency lately. Ever since she turned twenty-one, in fact. And it was not just the nose. Oh no, it was never just the nose.
She closed her eyes and kept still on her bed, shifting her (fully fingered, thank god) hands and her attention from one small body part to the next. Hooray, by the way, for still having both eyes. Ears? Check. Lips? Check. Teeth? Missing a few. Not very important, so long as she refrained from smiling today. Everything would come back in about eighteen hours. Until the next..."episode", at least.
Kim felt her ribs. No casualty. Arm joints functional. Neck tilt normal. Jaws and tongue in position and ready. No obvious holes on the torso. Legs operational. Full toe count of ten. Wait, no, nine and a half. No sandals today. Could be better, could be worse.
Teleportation was great. Fantastic, even. She went to the Great Canyon every morning for jogs (when legs were functional) and had her work lunches in Venice (no, she did not buy lunches in Venice; that would be squandering. She just brought her home-made ham sandwich to Venice, and ate it with the views). All she needed was a photograph, or even just a Google satellite image (though she would show up in the air and have to get rid of the falling momentum by a small teleport hop). She could bring whatever she had in contact with her skin with her, so long as it was big enough for her to see. Her first month of twenty-one was, therefore, absolutely wonderful.
However, just into the second month, her ability went haywire like everyone else's. As it turned out, she could only move everything with her, and everything that **was** her, when she was awake and alert. Whenever she fell asleep, her body would, at random, teleport itself away in bits and pieces. And then the pieces would come back before she woke up, *if* they were large enough. Things like toes, she thought, probably just did not have enough space-time *Oomph* to them for speedier recovery. Mass equals energy, and all that.
Kim had also never been, say, missing her heart or her pancreas, and she assumed that these things were somehow essential to her, uh, *her-ness*, so that they would always go together in a teleport. But skin strips? Hair? *Half of her tongue*? All seemed to be fair game. To be sure, these scattered bits were kind of indestructible, somehow. She had see her neighbor's dog chew on one of her missing thumbs, and she got it back from the beast with not so much as a scratch. On the thumb, that is; she was cut pretty deep by a canine (in both senses of the word) on her arm and had to get rabies vaccine.
So, Kim had daily minor annoyances. Just like everyone else, perhaps. But how could she possibly show up to work without a nose? Groucho glasses could only get you so far. She would prefer not having to use her power for, well, unlawful employment, since she had to put herself through college. Should she just call in sick? But no, she had a better idea. She sat up, grabbed the tablet on her nightstand, and began searching for costume shops. Wasn't Halloween right around the corner? With some make-up and a lot of conversation-avoiding, she should be able to get by with a latex replica. Just get dressed, get a map, and teleport over; she should still be able to make the shift at ten.
Kim got dressed. She got a map. She teleported.
"Hi there! How can I help you?" Came the greeting from an employee with a spider hat.
She said: "I'd like a latex nose, please." Or rather, that was what she wanted to say. Unfortunately, she could not make any sound other than a muffled huff.
And then it hit her. She was missing her vocal cords.
*Damn, how am I going to call in sick NOW?*
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I wasn't able to control it at first.
Same with most things in my life, but I felt as though this was something that I actually NEEDED to control. The first time it happened, I wasn't expecting it, I didn't know where I was going, and Ijust so happened to be in the middle of a conversation when it did.
I was discussing politics with a good friend when suddenly, I was in the bedroom of an old couple... Who were going at it quite rough. I screamed and covered my eyes, wondering how I had gotten there and what the hell was going on.
The two turned to look at me, and all 3 of us were horrified.
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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I come away from the wall with a small, wet sound quite unlike anything I’ve heard before, and slump to the ground, a heap, the rush of pure, unadulterated adrenaline that coursed through me before the jump steadily settling down. I bunch up my legs and shuffle back to my bed, feeling the tears begin to come. I instinctively raise my left arm to wipe my eyes. A moment passes before my muscles catch up with the obvious.
It’s in my bedroom wall. It was a part of me, something integral, something… I’d thought I’d never lose. But no amount of closing my eyes and opening them again is going to reattach that useless hunk of flesh in the plasterboard and that useless, waggling protuberance from my left shoulder.
It should *hurt*. There should be agony right now. There should be blood. There should be some sort of sense that my arm’s been cut off. There is nothing except that curious feeling of absence, that lacuna of sensation, that… nothingness. The muscles in my shoulder keep moving, keep thinking they’re attached to something else. They won’t be. They never will be again.
I look up at my bedroom wall, eyes streaming as reality crushes in on me. There it is. Concentric rings of flesh. There’s the oh-so-thin layer of skin… then the rich, carmine muscle fibres, tapering to white as it moves towards the bone… and the yellowing, the marrow exposed to the air. A perfect cross-section, cut to an impossibly precise vector. The universe reasserting its order, I suppose.
My eyes lower as I curl up on the floor, my remaining arm hugging my legs into my chest. Tears work their way through legging fibre and onto my knees, hot and stinging. I’d… I’d heard things like this could happen. It was in fiction. Video games. When you teleported… moved to where something solid already existed… placed two atoms in the same space… something always gets displaced. Telefrag. Just another way to stylishly blow up another player in a shooting game, or as a plot device for horrible teleporter accidents. I think it was in a Star Trek I saw a few years ago.
It’s here now.
In hindsight, it seems a little foolish. It’s not as if powers come with some kind of universal safety switch. It’s become commonplace to hear stories of young pyrokines burning themselves to death, or the occasional horrific explosion when some gravitic genius decides he’s going to try and make a singularity in his back garden. Why should teleportation be easy? Did I really expect the universe to gently tell me ‘No, you can’t jump here, there’s a wall. Try half a meter to the left?’ That somehow I’d displace what I appeared in and be fine and dandy, leaving only a hand-shaped hole in the wall to explain to the landlord?
How do I know that the next time I try and flicker across the street, I won’t be interrupted by a passing leaflet or plastic bag blowing on the wind that cuts me clean in half?
Sobs. My stump-arm is thrashing idly, trying to get a grip on my leg, not understanding why it can’t. I’m going to have to learn to write again. I’m going to have to quit college basketball. I’m going to have to get that damn arm out of my wall.
And who knows what’ll happen next time I jump? If I get cornered in a bar and do it out of panic? If I’m about to be run over? If I… what if I take somebody alongside me? Will we simply… annihilate each other? Scatter our atoms to the wind?
What the hell am I going to do?
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I wasn't able to control it at first.
Same with most things in my life, but I felt as though this was something that I actually NEEDED to control. The first time it happened, I wasn't expecting it, I didn't know where I was going, and Ijust so happened to be in the middle of a conversation when it did.
I was discussing politics with a good friend when suddenly, I was in the bedroom of an old couple... Who were going at it quite rough. I screamed and covered my eyes, wondering how I had gotten there and what the hell was going on.
The two turned to look at me, and all 3 of us were horrified.
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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*sigh*.
Goddamnit.
...
I don't know where my penis is.
I hope it's OK.
Just like the Flame-kids out there, my teleportation isn't a full-body "burn" yet. It happens a piece at a time, and not with my full control.
Eventually I catch up to my hands or legs when they get ahead of me, but the waiting kills me.
I have a rough idea of what my limbs are up to because I can still feel them, and they remain in the same relative body position as when it began. Luckily it only happens in the dorms or when I'm otherwise focused on trying it. Universities are understandably accommodating of the newly awakened.
I'm just glad that when I fully transported last time, the girls had already fled my disembodied pair of arms floating in the locker room. I guess they thought I was one of Ghosters because I felt a water bottle hit my shoulder... on the inside;I'm guessing my lack of an invisible torso proved otherwise, but I was too embarrassed to seek anyone out to ask.
Where's my dick? It's been almost an hour. I usually catch up in no longer than 40 minutes. I guess the stress of literally losing my cock is making it harder to focus on the jump.
I can feel a cool breeze and I hope it's some desolate beach somewhere and not something that'll get me on a registry somewhere.
With a soft "*bamf*" of displaced air, I finally catch up (yes, comics actually portray the sound right). I'm in the corner of an empty art class. Oh thank god. Nobody saw me.
The rest of the week goes by relatively uneventfully. I jump once or twice but it was into the basketball courts (legfirst), and to the roof of the science building (my entire lower half went first this time!... but I was aiming for the labs).
On Tuesday I see a poster that chills my blood and I nearly pass out:
>Student Exhibition: The Flying Penis - 60 new pieces based on a recent mid-class incident.
Now I'm in Auckland. This was my first complete jump, and the farthest by a few thousand miles. I haven't been able to jump back yet, but this is as gorgeous a place to practice as I can imagine.
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"Dammit, of all times. When the hell did I 'port?"
Running from a massive group of enraged females, you try to recall the past thirty seconds of pure embarrassment and confusion.
"Was it when i closed my eyes for that brief period of time? Could it have been when i locked the stall door?"
It doesn't matter now. What does matter is that i'm probably gonna be wanted for indecent exposure and for "breaking and entering" into West Mills Psychiatric Treatment Center. What's worse is that i didn't mean to start urinating on her plate of food nor did i mean to back up and accidentally stick my bare ass on the back of her friends head.
"Why Lord, why?"
Out of all the awkward things to have happened on your first date with Susan, you just had to need to piss. Even before that event you had to be a late bloomer - getting your powers four years later then everyone you know. And lastly, you had to be a teleporter.
"Finally, i got away." Only problem is you aren't to sure where 'away' is.
So, when i find Susan i should explain; i went to pee, walked into a stall and lock the door, and shut my eyes to turn around and relieve myself. Next thing i know i've been 'ported into the cafeteria of an Asylum and find myself peeing on a patients food as her and three friends eat on the floor in a corner...
What hell this power has been
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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I rolled over, wincing, as I slowly woke up - this didn't feel like my bed. This was hard, digging into my left hip as I flopped onto my back. My eyes were still closed, but I could hear voices a few feet away from me, speaking in low tones. It didn't sound right, but I couldn't quite figure out why. I paused for a few heartbeats, then opened my eyes.
Nope. I closed them again, pressing my hands over them. I waited for something to change, to feel different, to wake up, but nothing happened. I slid two fingers apart and opened one eye, peering out through the slit like I did when something scary came on TV when I was a kid.
The sky was a deep blue, not quite fully dark, and the orange halogen lights glowed onto the stones of the buildings surrounding me. No one seemed to be trying to kill me yet, though, so I used my hands to push myself up into a sitting position. Shit. I can't say for sure where here was, but it wasn't where I was last night when I went to sleep. I didn't even have anything to drink - we were saving that for tonight, when I was actually legal. But if it was night - what day was it? And where was I?
The building in front of me was ornate, like a cathedral out of one of my history books. It wasn't recognizable, nor was the language I still could hear nearby. People meant figuring out where here was. I stood and followed the voices. Two older men were around the corner of the cathedral, the orange lights bouncing off of the building giving their face an ethereal appearance.
"Hej, paní, jsi v pořádku?" The man facing me frowned, his voice raspy from years of a two-pack-a-day habit from the sound of it. I didn't recognize what he'd said as even being a language, the odd sounds jumbling in my ears. The second man turned around and stared at me, his eyes unwrapping me like a piece of candy. Looking down, I realized why. Shit, I was still in my pajamas. I wasn't wearing a bra, and my shorts barely covered my underwear. Then again, at least I was wearing pajamas last night.
"English?" I asked. The first man shook his head and turned back to his companion. I turned to walk back the way I'd come, ignoring the creeping sensation of being watched as I walked away from them.
Stairs led down from the cathedral towards a bustling-looking city in front of me. Surely someone here spoke English and would help me figure out where I was. Or - no, there was a sign on the wall right by the top of the stairs. Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague. How on earth did I end up here? I closed my eyes tightly, trying to remember last night.
I was working on my paper at the library, trying to figure out how I was going to fill 8-10 pages about the symbolism of boats in modern Turkish literature. I ran into Brittany on my way back to the dorm, asked her how her spring break trip was. She had - what the hell was happening - talked about Prague and how beautiful it was and why was I here now? I should be in bed, Amelie across the room, with a book on the floor and my water bottle on the desk right behind me where I could reach it. I could picture it so vividly, almost feel my pillow under my head and the covers bunched up around my feet where I kicked them off. I opened my eyes and realized I was actually feeling my pillow, not imagining it. I was back in my bed. I rubbed my right foot against my left calf and could feel dirt between them - no way that had just been my imagination.
I sat up and leaned against the wall. Breathe, you're back where you should be. You can figure this out. I turned on my desk light and grabbed the note pad from by the computer. Amelie groaned and rolled over so the light wouldn't hit her eyes. I started making bullet points on the paper.
- Just turned 21
- Sleepwalking?
- Prague?????
- Brittany's trip to Prague???
- Can you sleepwalk to another continent?
Amelie sighed and pointed her arm at the ceiling before draping it over her face, leaving a faint pink glow in an arc over her head. I smiled - her control over light had improved so much. I mean, she had stopped turning my desk light off when I worked late while she was asleep and I no longer woke up to blinding lights from her side of the room.
I looked at my list again and it was pathetic. I was supposed to know what I could do already, not be sitting here waiting for it to happen for frak's sake! I threw the notepad on my bed and decided to take a shower to clear my head. Maybe it would calm me down so I could sleep. I could hope, couldn't I? I didn't want to get any more Prague-dirt on my sheets for one thing.
The bathroom was deserted so I turned the showers around me to as hot as they would go, filling the shower room to a steam room. I let the water flow down my head, just like a waterfall. My eyes closed, I pictured a waterfall I'd seen a picture of when I was a kid. I'd begged my parents to take me there but it was in South America and we obviously weren't going to another continent just so I could see a waterfall. I yelped as the water turned icy cold and the room went mostly dark - great, another power outage? We'd had three this semester already. Goosebumps covered my body as I opened my eyes to find my way out of the dark bathroom. I slid off a rock into a pool of icy water and sank, surprised, before clawing my way back to the surface. My flip flop fell off as I made my way to the faintly-visible shore.
Okay, this wasn't an accident. This definitely happened and now I was - wherever I was. Catching my breath in the cool early-morning air I realized I was somewhere in South America and completely naked. This was bad. Okay, calm down. What you need to do is just focus. I closed my eyes and pictured the shower room back at school, imagined how the water felt on my head, the faintly musty smell from the drains, the smell of my body wash, the steam filling the room.
I was sitting on the floor of the showers, my shower shoes nowhere to be seen. Disoriented, I stood up. "I'd better not get a bunch of diseases from this," I said out loud, my voice echoing through the empty room. I picked up my shower caddy and turned off the showers, wrapping myself in my towel. Sitting on the bench by the lockers, I came to a startling realization: I might need to change my major from international studies to something a little closer to home.
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"Dammit, of all times. When the hell did I 'port?"
Running from a massive group of enraged females, you try to recall the past thirty seconds of pure embarrassment and confusion.
"Was it when i closed my eyes for that brief period of time? Could it have been when i locked the stall door?"
It doesn't matter now. What does matter is that i'm probably gonna be wanted for indecent exposure and for "breaking and entering" into West Mills Psychiatric Treatment Center. What's worse is that i didn't mean to start urinating on her plate of food nor did i mean to back up and accidentally stick my bare ass on the back of her friends head.
"Why Lord, why?"
Out of all the awkward things to have happened on your first date with Susan, you just had to need to piss. Even before that event you had to be a late bloomer - getting your powers four years later then everyone you know. And lastly, you had to be a teleporter.
"Finally, i got away." Only problem is you aren't to sure where 'away' is.
So, when i find Susan i should explain; i went to pee, walked into a stall and lock the door, and shut my eyes to turn around and relieve myself. Next thing i know i've been 'ported into the cafeteria of an Asylum and find myself peeing on a patients food as her and three friends eat on the floor in a corner...
What hell this power has been
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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Kim woke up this morning and found herself without a nose.
This had been happening with alarming frequency lately. Ever since she turned twenty-one, in fact. And it was not just the nose. Oh no, it was never just the nose.
She closed her eyes and kept still on her bed, shifting her (fully fingered, thank god) hands and her attention from one small body part to the next. Hooray, by the way, for still having both eyes. Ears? Check. Lips? Check. Teeth? Missing a few. Not very important, so long as she refrained from smiling today. Everything would come back in about eighteen hours. Until the next..."episode", at least.
Kim felt her ribs. No casualty. Arm joints functional. Neck tilt normal. Jaws and tongue in position and ready. No obvious holes on the torso. Legs operational. Full toe count of ten. Wait, no, nine and a half. No sandals today. Could be better, could be worse.
Teleportation was great. Fantastic, even. She went to the Great Canyon every morning for jogs (when legs were functional) and had her work lunches in Venice (no, she did not buy lunches in Venice; that would be squandering. She just brought her home-made ham sandwich to Venice, and ate it with the views). All she needed was a photograph, or even just a Google satellite image (though she would show up in the air and have to get rid of the falling momentum by a small teleport hop). She could bring whatever she had in contact with her skin with her, so long as it was big enough for her to see. Her first month of twenty-one was, therefore, absolutely wonderful.
However, just into the second month, her ability went haywire like everyone else's. As it turned out, she could only move everything with her, and everything that **was** her, when she was awake and alert. Whenever she fell asleep, her body would, at random, teleport itself away in bits and pieces. And then the pieces would come back before she woke up, *if* they were large enough. Things like toes, she thought, probably just did not have enough space-time *Oomph* to them for speedier recovery. Mass equals energy, and all that.
Kim had also never been, say, missing her heart or her pancreas, and she assumed that these things were somehow essential to her, uh, *her-ness*, so that they would always go together in a teleport. But skin strips? Hair? *Half of her tongue*? All seemed to be fair game. To be sure, these scattered bits were kind of indestructible, somehow. She had see her neighbor's dog chew on one of her missing thumbs, and she got it back from the beast with not so much as a scratch. On the thumb, that is; she was cut pretty deep by a canine (in both senses of the word) on her arm and had to get rabies vaccine.
So, Kim had daily minor annoyances. Just like everyone else, perhaps. But how could she possibly show up to work without a nose? Groucho glasses could only get you so far. She would prefer not having to use her power for, well, unlawful employment, since she had to put herself through college. Should she just call in sick? But no, she had a better idea. She sat up, grabbed the tablet on her nightstand, and began searching for costume shops. Wasn't Halloween right around the corner? With some make-up and a lot of conversation-avoiding, she should be able to get by with a latex replica. Just get dressed, get a map, and teleport over; she should still be able to make the shift at ten.
Kim got dressed. She got a map. She teleported.
"Hi there! How can I help you?" Came the greeting from an employee with a spider hat.
She said: "I'd like a latex nose, please." Or rather, that was what she wanted to say. Unfortunately, she could not make any sound other than a muffled huff.
And then it hit her. She was missing her vocal cords.
*Damn, how am I going to call in sick NOW?*
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"Dammit, of all times. When the hell did I 'port?"
Running from a massive group of enraged females, you try to recall the past thirty seconds of pure embarrassment and confusion.
"Was it when i closed my eyes for that brief period of time? Could it have been when i locked the stall door?"
It doesn't matter now. What does matter is that i'm probably gonna be wanted for indecent exposure and for "breaking and entering" into West Mills Psychiatric Treatment Center. What's worse is that i didn't mean to start urinating on her plate of food nor did i mean to back up and accidentally stick my bare ass on the back of her friends head.
"Why Lord, why?"
Out of all the awkward things to have happened on your first date with Susan, you just had to need to piss. Even before that event you had to be a late bloomer - getting your powers four years later then everyone you know. And lastly, you had to be a teleporter.
"Finally, i got away." Only problem is you aren't to sure where 'away' is.
So, when i find Susan i should explain; i went to pee, walked into a stall and lock the door, and shut my eyes to turn around and relieve myself. Next thing i know i've been 'ported into the cafeteria of an Asylum and find myself peeing on a patients food as her and three friends eat on the floor in a corner...
What hell this power has been
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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"Get OUT, you creep!"
My hands weren't on person, so I quickly pushed myself upright. "Sorry! Sorry, I..."
I did manage at least to get off her bed before tripping. I had gone to sleep with my blindfold on, of course. That helped a lot. And I had PJs that looked like they were from a 50's sitcom. Anything to be disarming.
I heard a click - presumably the light coming on - and a deep sigh. Then another. "Oh, it's you again. Still no control?"
"I have some control over where end up, now, if I'm awake, but I still can't do it on command. Uh, who are you?"
"Lisa."
"Lisa who shoots fire, or..."
"Lisa who can taste what people around her are tasting. And you can take off the blindfold."
I did, and found my way to the door. "Sorry again."
"Good luck with that!"
In the hallway, I faced a gaunt man who eyed me simultaneously sympathetically and with a deep warning. "Nice talent. It'll be nicer after the break-in period is over. You've got another... two weeks, is it?"
"Yes sir. Two weeks tomorrow."
"I expect not to see you again, then." I couldn't help noticing the blades protruding from the backs of his arms.
"Probably not, sir. And not after then, anyway."
He nodded, and I finished making my way out. A deep breath. That hadn't been so bad as some.
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"Dammit, of all times. When the hell did I 'port?"
Running from a massive group of enraged females, you try to recall the past thirty seconds of pure embarrassment and confusion.
"Was it when i closed my eyes for that brief period of time? Could it have been when i locked the stall door?"
It doesn't matter now. What does matter is that i'm probably gonna be wanted for indecent exposure and for "breaking and entering" into West Mills Psychiatric Treatment Center. What's worse is that i didn't mean to start urinating on her plate of food nor did i mean to back up and accidentally stick my bare ass on the back of her friends head.
"Why Lord, why?"
Out of all the awkward things to have happened on your first date with Susan, you just had to need to piss. Even before that event you had to be a late bloomer - getting your powers four years later then everyone you know. And lastly, you had to be a teleporter.
"Finally, i got away." Only problem is you aren't to sure where 'away' is.
So, when i find Susan i should explain; i went to pee, walked into a stall and lock the door, and shut my eyes to turn around and relieve myself. Next thing i know i've been 'ported into the cafeteria of an Asylum and find myself peeing on a patients food as her and three friends eat on the floor in a corner...
What hell this power has been
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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I come away from the wall with a small, wet sound quite unlike anything I’ve heard before, and slump to the ground, a heap, the rush of pure, unadulterated adrenaline that coursed through me before the jump steadily settling down. I bunch up my legs and shuffle back to my bed, feeling the tears begin to come. I instinctively raise my left arm to wipe my eyes. A moment passes before my muscles catch up with the obvious.
It’s in my bedroom wall. It was a part of me, something integral, something… I’d thought I’d never lose. But no amount of closing my eyes and opening them again is going to reattach that useless hunk of flesh in the plasterboard and that useless, waggling protuberance from my left shoulder.
It should *hurt*. There should be agony right now. There should be blood. There should be some sort of sense that my arm’s been cut off. There is nothing except that curious feeling of absence, that lacuna of sensation, that… nothingness. The muscles in my shoulder keep moving, keep thinking they’re attached to something else. They won’t be. They never will be again.
I look up at my bedroom wall, eyes streaming as reality crushes in on me. There it is. Concentric rings of flesh. There’s the oh-so-thin layer of skin… then the rich, carmine muscle fibres, tapering to white as it moves towards the bone… and the yellowing, the marrow exposed to the air. A perfect cross-section, cut to an impossibly precise vector. The universe reasserting its order, I suppose.
My eyes lower as I curl up on the floor, my remaining arm hugging my legs into my chest. Tears work their way through legging fibre and onto my knees, hot and stinging. I’d… I’d heard things like this could happen. It was in fiction. Video games. When you teleported… moved to where something solid already existed… placed two atoms in the same space… something always gets displaced. Telefrag. Just another way to stylishly blow up another player in a shooting game, or as a plot device for horrible teleporter accidents. I think it was in a Star Trek I saw a few years ago.
It’s here now.
In hindsight, it seems a little foolish. It’s not as if powers come with some kind of universal safety switch. It’s become commonplace to hear stories of young pyrokines burning themselves to death, or the occasional horrific explosion when some gravitic genius decides he’s going to try and make a singularity in his back garden. Why should teleportation be easy? Did I really expect the universe to gently tell me ‘No, you can’t jump here, there’s a wall. Try half a meter to the left?’ That somehow I’d displace what I appeared in and be fine and dandy, leaving only a hand-shaped hole in the wall to explain to the landlord?
How do I know that the next time I try and flicker across the street, I won’t be interrupted by a passing leaflet or plastic bag blowing on the wind that cuts me clean in half?
Sobs. My stump-arm is thrashing idly, trying to get a grip on my leg, not understanding why it can’t. I’m going to have to learn to write again. I’m going to have to quit college basketball. I’m going to have to get that damn arm out of my wall.
And who knows what’ll happen next time I jump? If I get cornered in a bar and do it out of panic? If I’m about to be run over? If I… what if I take somebody alongside me? Will we simply… annihilate each other? Scatter our atoms to the wind?
What the hell am I going to do?
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"Dammit, of all times. When the hell did I 'port?"
Running from a massive group of enraged females, you try to recall the past thirty seconds of pure embarrassment and confusion.
"Was it when i closed my eyes for that brief period of time? Could it have been when i locked the stall door?"
It doesn't matter now. What does matter is that i'm probably gonna be wanted for indecent exposure and for "breaking and entering" into West Mills Psychiatric Treatment Center. What's worse is that i didn't mean to start urinating on her plate of food nor did i mean to back up and accidentally stick my bare ass on the back of her friends head.
"Why Lord, why?"
Out of all the awkward things to have happened on your first date with Susan, you just had to need to piss. Even before that event you had to be a late bloomer - getting your powers four years later then everyone you know. And lastly, you had to be a teleporter.
"Finally, i got away." Only problem is you aren't to sure where 'away' is.
So, when i find Susan i should explain; i went to pee, walked into a stall and lock the door, and shut my eyes to turn around and relieve myself. Next thing i know i've been 'ported into the cafeteria of an Asylum and find myself peeing on a patients food as her and three friends eat on the floor in a corner...
What hell this power has been
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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I know there are some people who can read thoughts from anywhere. I know there are some people who can hear the thoughts of the dead. I know there are some people who have abilities we can't yet understand. If you're hearing this, seeing this, understanding this, then these words are for you.
My family lives on 241 Bradbury Rd. in Scottsdale, California. Please let them know what happened to me, and make sure they know to tell the authorities to keep others from making the same mistake.
My ability allows me to teleport. I know, no one has done it before, and maybe I'm the first. Or maybe all the others died without being able to let anyone know what happened. I'm... I'm probably gonna' die too. I can't hold my breath too much longer.
When you teleport, you can't really control where you go. You could go anywhere. And there's a *lot* of anywhere. It's not anywhere on Earth, it's *anywhere*. I've seen stars I have no clue what they are... but mostly, I've seen a lot of nothing. There's a *lot* of nothing out here. Most of the places I've gone to have nothing.
I've been shifting from one place to another about once a second. I have yet to reappear on Earth or even another planet. I'm probably lucky I haven't reappeared in a star or black hole or something. Mostly, I've just been floating. And cold. And unable to breathe.
I know I'm gonna' lose it any minute now. I can't hold my breath any more. If you can hear this, please tell my folks I love them. Tell my brother to stay in school. Tell Sandy I'm sorry, and I want her to move on with her life. Tell everyone I'm sorry. I'm sorry...
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"Dammit, of all times. When the hell did I 'port?"
Running from a massive group of enraged females, you try to recall the past thirty seconds of pure embarrassment and confusion.
"Was it when i closed my eyes for that brief period of time? Could it have been when i locked the stall door?"
It doesn't matter now. What does matter is that i'm probably gonna be wanted for indecent exposure and for "breaking and entering" into West Mills Psychiatric Treatment Center. What's worse is that i didn't mean to start urinating on her plate of food nor did i mean to back up and accidentally stick my bare ass on the back of her friends head.
"Why Lord, why?"
Out of all the awkward things to have happened on your first date with Susan, you just had to need to piss. Even before that event you had to be a late bloomer - getting your powers four years later then everyone you know. And lastly, you had to be a teleporter.
"Finally, i got away." Only problem is you aren't to sure where 'away' is.
So, when i find Susan i should explain; i went to pee, walked into a stall and lock the door, and shut my eyes to turn around and relieve myself. Next thing i know i've been 'ported into the cafeteria of an Asylum and find myself peeing on a patients food as her and three friends eat on the floor in a corner...
What hell this power has been
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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Closing my eyes, I create a clear image of me sitting on the Maya Bay beach in Thailand, as I have many times since I first realized I may be able to teleport at the age of 13. From the photos I'd seen online, it was clear as day in my mind. Palm trees hanging over the water, casting flower-shaped shadows over the narrow beach. A small beach cabin rested peacefully on stilts in the distance. The door was slightly ajar, revealing a plush, white mattress adorned with fresh sheets being freshened by the wind.
Back in my early teen years and up until now, I could only send my consciousness to places I imagined, and even then, those places had to be locations I'd visited before. I could look around for a few seconds, at most, before gasping back to reality in my physical body.
Not having traveled much, I used my developing power as any young teenage boy might. I'd send my consciousness into girls houses that I was friends with, hoping to catch a few lucky seconds of them in a state of undress. Unfortunately, I'd more often happen upon a dad on the toilet. It was a challenge for me to go back over to their houses to hang out after seeing a hairy 200+ pounder lifting his cheek to wipe.
Only on occasion, I could send my consciousness to places I'd never been before, but had seen on the internet or on TV. When I turned 16, I was able to clear my mind and send myself to locations with a newfound focus. I'd have a few seconds looking down into a Volcano on one of the Hawaiian islands i'd seen on the Travel Channel, atop a snowy mountain in Alaska from a photo on Reddit, and one time even on top of the empire state building in NYC. To quote Gordon Ramsey, "Stunning."
16 was a good age. I could reasonably control sending my consciousness into my crushes bedrooms, rather than their parents' shitters. Hardly ever, maybe once or twice, did I ever catch the girls changing, as my voyeuristic mind so diligently sought after.
At 18 and a little past my perv-prime, I could start to interact with the physical environments i visited, to a degree. Seconds turned into minutes at a time, and I began to have awareness of my body being along with me for the ride. I could feel the sand under my feet, feel the grain of the wood on the table at my girlfriend's house, but still couldn't interact with my surroundings or physically move anything. Still, nobody else could see or sense my presence. I was a mere ghost in the room.
That proved helpful to cheat on tests at school. A few minutes looking over my teacher's shoulder before (or sometimes during) a test often turned a should-be-F into a deserved A. My confidence grew with each trip out of my body.
Long story short, that's how I graduated from college early, with honors. My mom is proud.
So here I am at 21, focusing on the beach I've always wanted to visit, but have never had the means to. My consciousness begins to float, as it typically does, and I find myself on the deck of the beach cabin. Something is different. I feel a breeze combing through my fingers and causing my hair to sweep in front of my eyes, blocking my view. I'm actually here. Physically here, for the first time ever. I'm overwhelmed with a euphoric disbelief.
Turning around, I run my hands along the wood paneling of the cabin, taking in all of the smells, all of the sounds, that have never been part of my experience in the past. I begin to push open the door, imagining that familiar bed strewn with pristine white sheets that I'm ready to jump on. It creaks open and I jolt back in disbelief.
Four midgets, all male, are naked in the bed, which is no longer even close to being white. Lathered in oil and tangled in each others' stumpy limbs, their groans and moans cement into my memory. I need to snap out of this and get back home. Falling back out of the doorway, the last thing I remember before blackness is a sharp pain running down my spine.
I wake up and my ears are ringing. I'm naked in the beach cabin, covered in oil and surrounded by four midgets sleeping soundly. How the fuck did I get here, what happened while I was out, and how do I get home?
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"Dammit, of all times. When the hell did I 'port?"
Running from a massive group of enraged females, you try to recall the past thirty seconds of pure embarrassment and confusion.
"Was it when i closed my eyes for that brief period of time? Could it have been when i locked the stall door?"
It doesn't matter now. What does matter is that i'm probably gonna be wanted for indecent exposure and for "breaking and entering" into West Mills Psychiatric Treatment Center. What's worse is that i didn't mean to start urinating on her plate of food nor did i mean to back up and accidentally stick my bare ass on the back of her friends head.
"Why Lord, why?"
Out of all the awkward things to have happened on your first date with Susan, you just had to need to piss. Even before that event you had to be a late bloomer - getting your powers four years later then everyone you know. And lastly, you had to be a teleporter.
"Finally, i got away." Only problem is you aren't to sure where 'away' is.
So, when i find Susan i should explain; i went to pee, walked into a stall and lock the door, and shut my eyes to turn around and relieve myself. Next thing i know i've been 'ported into the cafeteria of an Asylum and find myself peeing on a patients food as her and three friends eat on the floor in a corner...
What hell this power has been
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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I rolled over, wincing, as I slowly woke up - this didn't feel like my bed. This was hard, digging into my left hip as I flopped onto my back. My eyes were still closed, but I could hear voices a few feet away from me, speaking in low tones. It didn't sound right, but I couldn't quite figure out why. I paused for a few heartbeats, then opened my eyes.
Nope. I closed them again, pressing my hands over them. I waited for something to change, to feel different, to wake up, but nothing happened. I slid two fingers apart and opened one eye, peering out through the slit like I did when something scary came on TV when I was a kid.
The sky was a deep blue, not quite fully dark, and the orange halogen lights glowed onto the stones of the buildings surrounding me. No one seemed to be trying to kill me yet, though, so I used my hands to push myself up into a sitting position. Shit. I can't say for sure where here was, but it wasn't where I was last night when I went to sleep. I didn't even have anything to drink - we were saving that for tonight, when I was actually legal. But if it was night - what day was it? And where was I?
The building in front of me was ornate, like a cathedral out of one of my history books. It wasn't recognizable, nor was the language I still could hear nearby. People meant figuring out where here was. I stood and followed the voices. Two older men were around the corner of the cathedral, the orange lights bouncing off of the building giving their face an ethereal appearance.
"Hej, paní, jsi v pořádku?" The man facing me frowned, his voice raspy from years of a two-pack-a-day habit from the sound of it. I didn't recognize what he'd said as even being a language, the odd sounds jumbling in my ears. The second man turned around and stared at me, his eyes unwrapping me like a piece of candy. Looking down, I realized why. Shit, I was still in my pajamas. I wasn't wearing a bra, and my shorts barely covered my underwear. Then again, at least I was wearing pajamas last night.
"English?" I asked. The first man shook his head and turned back to his companion. I turned to walk back the way I'd come, ignoring the creeping sensation of being watched as I walked away from them.
Stairs led down from the cathedral towards a bustling-looking city in front of me. Surely someone here spoke English and would help me figure out where I was. Or - no, there was a sign on the wall right by the top of the stairs. Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague. How on earth did I end up here? I closed my eyes tightly, trying to remember last night.
I was working on my paper at the library, trying to figure out how I was going to fill 8-10 pages about the symbolism of boats in modern Turkish literature. I ran into Brittany on my way back to the dorm, asked her how her spring break trip was. She had - what the hell was happening - talked about Prague and how beautiful it was and why was I here now? I should be in bed, Amelie across the room, with a book on the floor and my water bottle on the desk right behind me where I could reach it. I could picture it so vividly, almost feel my pillow under my head and the covers bunched up around my feet where I kicked them off. I opened my eyes and realized I was actually feeling my pillow, not imagining it. I was back in my bed. I rubbed my right foot against my left calf and could feel dirt between them - no way that had just been my imagination.
I sat up and leaned against the wall. Breathe, you're back where you should be. You can figure this out. I turned on my desk light and grabbed the note pad from by the computer. Amelie groaned and rolled over so the light wouldn't hit her eyes. I started making bullet points on the paper.
- Just turned 21
- Sleepwalking?
- Prague?????
- Brittany's trip to Prague???
- Can you sleepwalk to another continent?
Amelie sighed and pointed her arm at the ceiling before draping it over her face, leaving a faint pink glow in an arc over her head. I smiled - her control over light had improved so much. I mean, she had stopped turning my desk light off when I worked late while she was asleep and I no longer woke up to blinding lights from her side of the room.
I looked at my list again and it was pathetic. I was supposed to know what I could do already, not be sitting here waiting for it to happen for frak's sake! I threw the notepad on my bed and decided to take a shower to clear my head. Maybe it would calm me down so I could sleep. I could hope, couldn't I? I didn't want to get any more Prague-dirt on my sheets for one thing.
The bathroom was deserted so I turned the showers around me to as hot as they would go, filling the shower room to a steam room. I let the water flow down my head, just like a waterfall. My eyes closed, I pictured a waterfall I'd seen a picture of when I was a kid. I'd begged my parents to take me there but it was in South America and we obviously weren't going to another continent just so I could see a waterfall. I yelped as the water turned icy cold and the room went mostly dark - great, another power outage? We'd had three this semester already. Goosebumps covered my body as I opened my eyes to find my way out of the dark bathroom. I slid off a rock into a pool of icy water and sank, surprised, before clawing my way back to the surface. My flip flop fell off as I made my way to the faintly-visible shore.
Okay, this wasn't an accident. This definitely happened and now I was - wherever I was. Catching my breath in the cool early-morning air I realized I was somewhere in South America and completely naked. This was bad. Okay, calm down. What you need to do is just focus. I closed my eyes and pictured the shower room back at school, imagined how the water felt on my head, the faintly musty smell from the drains, the smell of my body wash, the steam filling the room.
I was sitting on the floor of the showers, my shower shoes nowhere to be seen. Disoriented, I stood up. "I'd better not get a bunch of diseases from this," I said out loud, my voice echoing through the empty room. I picked up my shower caddy and turned off the showers, wrapping myself in my towel. Sitting on the bench by the lockers, I came to a startling realization: I might need to change my major from international studies to something a little closer to home.
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*sigh*.
Goddamnit.
...
I don't know where my penis is.
I hope it's OK.
Just like the Flame-kids out there, my teleportation isn't a full-body "burn" yet. It happens a piece at a time, and not with my full control.
Eventually I catch up to my hands or legs when they get ahead of me, but the waiting kills me.
I have a rough idea of what my limbs are up to because I can still feel them, and they remain in the same relative body position as when it began. Luckily it only happens in the dorms or when I'm otherwise focused on trying it. Universities are understandably accommodating of the newly awakened.
I'm just glad that when I fully transported last time, the girls had already fled my disembodied pair of arms floating in the locker room. I guess they thought I was one of Ghosters because I felt a water bottle hit my shoulder... on the inside;I'm guessing my lack of an invisible torso proved otherwise, but I was too embarrassed to seek anyone out to ask.
Where's my dick? It's been almost an hour. I usually catch up in no longer than 40 minutes. I guess the stress of literally losing my cock is making it harder to focus on the jump.
I can feel a cool breeze and I hope it's some desolate beach somewhere and not something that'll get me on a registry somewhere.
With a soft "*bamf*" of displaced air, I finally catch up (yes, comics actually portray the sound right). I'm in the corner of an empty art class. Oh thank god. Nobody saw me.
The rest of the week goes by relatively uneventfully. I jump once or twice but it was into the basketball courts (legfirst), and to the roof of the science building (my entire lower half went first this time!... but I was aiming for the labs).
On Tuesday I see a poster that chills my blood and I nearly pass out:
>Student Exhibition: The Flying Penis - 60 new pieces based on a recent mid-class incident.
Now I'm in Auckland. This was my first complete jump, and the farthest by a few thousand miles. I haven't been able to jump back yet, but this is as gorgeous a place to practice as I can imagine.
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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Kim woke up this morning and found herself without a nose.
This had been happening with alarming frequency lately. Ever since she turned twenty-one, in fact. And it was not just the nose. Oh no, it was never just the nose.
She closed her eyes and kept still on her bed, shifting her (fully fingered, thank god) hands and her attention from one small body part to the next. Hooray, by the way, for still having both eyes. Ears? Check. Lips? Check. Teeth? Missing a few. Not very important, so long as she refrained from smiling today. Everything would come back in about eighteen hours. Until the next..."episode", at least.
Kim felt her ribs. No casualty. Arm joints functional. Neck tilt normal. Jaws and tongue in position and ready. No obvious holes on the torso. Legs operational. Full toe count of ten. Wait, no, nine and a half. No sandals today. Could be better, could be worse.
Teleportation was great. Fantastic, even. She went to the Great Canyon every morning for jogs (when legs were functional) and had her work lunches in Venice (no, she did not buy lunches in Venice; that would be squandering. She just brought her home-made ham sandwich to Venice, and ate it with the views). All she needed was a photograph, or even just a Google satellite image (though she would show up in the air and have to get rid of the falling momentum by a small teleport hop). She could bring whatever she had in contact with her skin with her, so long as it was big enough for her to see. Her first month of twenty-one was, therefore, absolutely wonderful.
However, just into the second month, her ability went haywire like everyone else's. As it turned out, she could only move everything with her, and everything that **was** her, when she was awake and alert. Whenever she fell asleep, her body would, at random, teleport itself away in bits and pieces. And then the pieces would come back before she woke up, *if* they were large enough. Things like toes, she thought, probably just did not have enough space-time *Oomph* to them for speedier recovery. Mass equals energy, and all that.
Kim had also never been, say, missing her heart or her pancreas, and she assumed that these things were somehow essential to her, uh, *her-ness*, so that they would always go together in a teleport. But skin strips? Hair? *Half of her tongue*? All seemed to be fair game. To be sure, these scattered bits were kind of indestructible, somehow. She had see her neighbor's dog chew on one of her missing thumbs, and she got it back from the beast with not so much as a scratch. On the thumb, that is; she was cut pretty deep by a canine (in both senses of the word) on her arm and had to get rabies vaccine.
So, Kim had daily minor annoyances. Just like everyone else, perhaps. But how could she possibly show up to work without a nose? Groucho glasses could only get you so far. She would prefer not having to use her power for, well, unlawful employment, since she had to put herself through college. Should she just call in sick? But no, she had a better idea. She sat up, grabbed the tablet on her nightstand, and began searching for costume shops. Wasn't Halloween right around the corner? With some make-up and a lot of conversation-avoiding, she should be able to get by with a latex replica. Just get dressed, get a map, and teleport over; she should still be able to make the shift at ten.
Kim got dressed. She got a map. She teleported.
"Hi there! How can I help you?" Came the greeting from an employee with a spider hat.
She said: "I'd like a latex nose, please." Or rather, that was what she wanted to say. Unfortunately, she could not make any sound other than a muffled huff.
And then it hit her. She was missing her vocal cords.
*Damn, how am I going to call in sick NOW?*
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*sigh*.
Goddamnit.
...
I don't know where my penis is.
I hope it's OK.
Just like the Flame-kids out there, my teleportation isn't a full-body "burn" yet. It happens a piece at a time, and not with my full control.
Eventually I catch up to my hands or legs when they get ahead of me, but the waiting kills me.
I have a rough idea of what my limbs are up to because I can still feel them, and they remain in the same relative body position as when it began. Luckily it only happens in the dorms or when I'm otherwise focused on trying it. Universities are understandably accommodating of the newly awakened.
I'm just glad that when I fully transported last time, the girls had already fled my disembodied pair of arms floating in the locker room. I guess they thought I was one of Ghosters because I felt a water bottle hit my shoulder... on the inside;I'm guessing my lack of an invisible torso proved otherwise, but I was too embarrassed to seek anyone out to ask.
Where's my dick? It's been almost an hour. I usually catch up in no longer than 40 minutes. I guess the stress of literally losing my cock is making it harder to focus on the jump.
I can feel a cool breeze and I hope it's some desolate beach somewhere and not something that'll get me on a registry somewhere.
With a soft "*bamf*" of displaced air, I finally catch up (yes, comics actually portray the sound right). I'm in the corner of an empty art class. Oh thank god. Nobody saw me.
The rest of the week goes by relatively uneventfully. I jump once or twice but it was into the basketball courts (legfirst), and to the roof of the science building (my entire lower half went first this time!... but I was aiming for the labs).
On Tuesday I see a poster that chills my blood and I nearly pass out:
>Student Exhibition: The Flying Penis - 60 new pieces based on a recent mid-class incident.
Now I'm in Auckland. This was my first complete jump, and the farthest by a few thousand miles. I haven't been able to jump back yet, but this is as gorgeous a place to practice as I can imagine.
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[WP] Everyone is born with superpowers that develop awkwardly. At 21, you've discovered you're the first person who can teleport. It's not going well.
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I come away from the wall with a small, wet sound quite unlike anything I’ve heard before, and slump to the ground, a heap, the rush of pure, unadulterated adrenaline that coursed through me before the jump steadily settling down. I bunch up my legs and shuffle back to my bed, feeling the tears begin to come. I instinctively raise my left arm to wipe my eyes. A moment passes before my muscles catch up with the obvious.
It’s in my bedroom wall. It was a part of me, something integral, something… I’d thought I’d never lose. But no amount of closing my eyes and opening them again is going to reattach that useless hunk of flesh in the plasterboard and that useless, waggling protuberance from my left shoulder.
It should *hurt*. There should be agony right now. There should be blood. There should be some sort of sense that my arm’s been cut off. There is nothing except that curious feeling of absence, that lacuna of sensation, that… nothingness. The muscles in my shoulder keep moving, keep thinking they’re attached to something else. They won’t be. They never will be again.
I look up at my bedroom wall, eyes streaming as reality crushes in on me. There it is. Concentric rings of flesh. There’s the oh-so-thin layer of skin… then the rich, carmine muscle fibres, tapering to white as it moves towards the bone… and the yellowing, the marrow exposed to the air. A perfect cross-section, cut to an impossibly precise vector. The universe reasserting its order, I suppose.
My eyes lower as I curl up on the floor, my remaining arm hugging my legs into my chest. Tears work their way through legging fibre and onto my knees, hot and stinging. I’d… I’d heard things like this could happen. It was in fiction. Video games. When you teleported… moved to where something solid already existed… placed two atoms in the same space… something always gets displaced. Telefrag. Just another way to stylishly blow up another player in a shooting game, or as a plot device for horrible teleporter accidents. I think it was in a Star Trek I saw a few years ago.
It’s here now.
In hindsight, it seems a little foolish. It’s not as if powers come with some kind of universal safety switch. It’s become commonplace to hear stories of young pyrokines burning themselves to death, or the occasional horrific explosion when some gravitic genius decides he’s going to try and make a singularity in his back garden. Why should teleportation be easy? Did I really expect the universe to gently tell me ‘No, you can’t jump here, there’s a wall. Try half a meter to the left?’ That somehow I’d displace what I appeared in and be fine and dandy, leaving only a hand-shaped hole in the wall to explain to the landlord?
How do I know that the next time I try and flicker across the street, I won’t be interrupted by a passing leaflet or plastic bag blowing on the wind that cuts me clean in half?
Sobs. My stump-arm is thrashing idly, trying to get a grip on my leg, not understanding why it can’t. I’m going to have to learn to write again. I’m going to have to quit college basketball. I’m going to have to get that damn arm out of my wall.
And who knows what’ll happen next time I jump? If I get cornered in a bar and do it out of panic? If I’m about to be run over? If I… what if I take somebody alongside me? Will we simply… annihilate each other? Scatter our atoms to the wind?
What the hell am I going to do?
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"Get OUT, you creep!"
My hands weren't on person, so I quickly pushed myself upright. "Sorry! Sorry, I..."
I did manage at least to get off her bed before tripping. I had gone to sleep with my blindfold on, of course. That helped a lot. And I had PJs that looked like they were from a 50's sitcom. Anything to be disarming.
I heard a click - presumably the light coming on - and a deep sigh. Then another. "Oh, it's you again. Still no control?"
"I have some control over where end up, now, if I'm awake, but I still can't do it on command. Uh, who are you?"
"Lisa."
"Lisa who shoots fire, or..."
"Lisa who can taste what people around her are tasting. And you can take off the blindfold."
I did, and found my way to the door. "Sorry again."
"Good luck with that!"
In the hallway, I faced a gaunt man who eyed me simultaneously sympathetically and with a deep warning. "Nice talent. It'll be nicer after the break-in period is over. You've got another... two weeks, is it?"
"Yes sir. Two weeks tomorrow."
"I expect not to see you again, then." I couldn't help noticing the blades protruding from the backs of his arms.
"Probably not, sir. And not after then, anyway."
He nodded, and I finished making my way out. A deep breath. That hadn't been so bad as some.
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[WP] "You don't mind that I'm not...all there?"
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"It's fine," James said. "You're perfect."
"You'll make me blush!" I replied. "Well, you would, if not for... Ahem. Are you really sure?"
"Entirely. Normal girls aren't for me."
"Hmm."
He leaned back in his chair. "Here," he said, laying his arm against the wooden table. "Take my hand."
I hesitated.
"It's OK," he said again. "You should relax."
I looked at the floor. "But you know it won't work."
"Trust me."
I wanted to. I really did. But what if it put him off? It should put him off. People need real, actual contact. He might not admit it at first, but sooner or later, it would be too much. Or more accurately, not enough. He would grow out of me like an imaginary friend.
"I'm not sure you really want me to. At least, I don't think you'll keep wanting me to."
He pulled his hand back. "OK, one step at a time then. At least loosen up a little?"
I dropped my arms, letting them dangle freely.
"That isn't loose."
I slouched my shoulders, and slightly bent a knee.
"Nope. It's useless. You look like a statue."
I crossed my arms and held my elbows again. "I feel like it."
"Listen, there's not so much to worry about as you think. Don't look at me like that. Really, there's not."
"Why?" I said. "I wish it could, but this," I said, trying to gesture at everything, "can't work. Just think about it."
Footsteps approached the door. The bronze handle turned quickly, and a hooded man burst into the room. I looked urgently across the table, but James was relaxed. And the other man didn't seem to see him. He just strode straight on past, and ripped off his jumper, then a heavily stained white t shirt. The man thrust both into the sink, span both taps to full, and squeezed washing up liquid over the clothes. He started scrubbing vigorously.
"It's my neighbour," explained James, noticing the look on my face. "Really, its all fine. Like I explained, there's nothing to worry about."
"But... He looks like he just killed someone."
"He did. Me."
"Are you kidding me?" I gasped.
"Not at all," said James, grinning. "My body's in the hallway."
I backed shakily away from the stranger at the sink. "But why though? I don't understand..."
"No good reason. We had an argument about parking. He took my space, I made an observation about his weight - how it might do him some good to walk a little further, and well. Some people have rotten tempers. He followed me inside, and pummeled my skull with a garden gnome. I always thought I'd go more heroically, if I'm honest."
The stranger had stripped to his boxers at that stage, and I found myself in agreement. He did need to walk a LOT more. He glanced warily over his shoulder. I leapt behind the table, then sheepishly returned to my feet. I'm still not used to being invisible.
"So... You're..." I stammered.
"Dead. Yes. Like you... So when I said you could trust me, I really did mean it. Will you try again?"
He extended his hand to me once more. I looked again at the stranger, who was splashing foamy water over himself, sponging his body, and wetting the floor.
"Ignore him," said James. "He's done me a favour in a roundabout way. I don't have to deal with him any longer, and now, it means I can have you."
I leant forward, closed my eyes, and gently touched the tips of my fingers on his hand. I could feel it! I opened my eyes; he smiled, and for the first time in a long time, so did I.
I wasn't all there, but then, neither was he. And I was sorry he'd been murdered, but I'm ashamed to admit that in that moment it suited me perfectly.
...
In that moment, the stranger stepped away from the sink and slipped on the soapy water. His feet accelerated away from him, and he landed heavily on the counter with his head. Limply slumped on the puddled floor, he slowly opened his eyes, and looked dead-straight at the happy pair.
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Jane knew that this day was coming. Her husband had been in a coma for the past two months and the deadline in his living will had arrived. Knowing her impending reality and living it are different things however.
In the past two months Jane had spoken to as many people as possible about what to expect, her rabbi, lawyers, friends who had been through it before. Hell, she had to stop herself from accosting random couples on the street. She steeled herself for what was to come as the doctor stepped up to the machines surrounding her once spirited husband.
"Are you ready Mrs. Ruff? The process should only last a few moments." This was an everyday affair for the hospice staff now, but Dr. Kepler tried his best to not let a bored tone enter his voice. He just hoped this one wouldn't stall, after all he did have a tee time coming up.
"Yes, go ahead Dr." Jane knew that she couldn't delay the inevitable, despite maybe wishing otherwise. She had seen the glazed look her friends had developed after just a few weeks and the majority of her dreaded what was to come, while the rest of her felt extremely guilty about that. The doctor gently removed the myriad of tubes surrounding her husband and stepped back.
"Just a minute now, I'll allow you some privacy. The nurses are just outside should you have any questions." Dr. Kepler sighed inwardly, glad to be able to leave early and tried to keep his pace professional while leaving the room.
Jane took a deep breath and stretched her face into a smile. She watched as Jack's ghost began to rise up from his now defunct body and his glow increased as his consciousness shifted planes.
"Jane. What happened? Where are we?" Jack asked the questions with the curiosity of child. It was hard to be panicked or concerned as a ghost.
"It's alright Jack." Jane replied brightly, she was glad to be able to speak to him again after all. "There was an accident, but you made it through without any problems."
"Oh" Jack replied, his glowing form gently pulsing as he hovered above the bed. He'd yet to move since his awakening.
"Jack dear?" Jane prompted, a small tear beginning to run down her face.
"Hmm?"
"You don't mind that I'm not...all there?"
The question hung in the air besides Jack's form.
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[WP] "You don't mind that I'm not...all there?"
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"It's fine," James said. "You're perfect."
"You'll make me blush!" I replied. "Well, you would, if not for... Ahem. Are you really sure?"
"Entirely. Normal girls aren't for me."
"Hmm."
He leaned back in his chair. "Here," he said, laying his arm against the wooden table. "Take my hand."
I hesitated.
"It's OK," he said again. "You should relax."
I looked at the floor. "But you know it won't work."
"Trust me."
I wanted to. I really did. But what if it put him off? It should put him off. People need real, actual contact. He might not admit it at first, but sooner or later, it would be too much. Or more accurately, not enough. He would grow out of me like an imaginary friend.
"I'm not sure you really want me to. At least, I don't think you'll keep wanting me to."
He pulled his hand back. "OK, one step at a time then. At least loosen up a little?"
I dropped my arms, letting them dangle freely.
"That isn't loose."
I slouched my shoulders, and slightly bent a knee.
"Nope. It's useless. You look like a statue."
I crossed my arms and held my elbows again. "I feel like it."
"Listen, there's not so much to worry about as you think. Don't look at me like that. Really, there's not."
"Why?" I said. "I wish it could, but this," I said, trying to gesture at everything, "can't work. Just think about it."
Footsteps approached the door. The bronze handle turned quickly, and a hooded man burst into the room. I looked urgently across the table, but James was relaxed. And the other man didn't seem to see him. He just strode straight on past, and ripped off his jumper, then a heavily stained white t shirt. The man thrust both into the sink, span both taps to full, and squeezed washing up liquid over the clothes. He started scrubbing vigorously.
"It's my neighbour," explained James, noticing the look on my face. "Really, its all fine. Like I explained, there's nothing to worry about."
"But... He looks like he just killed someone."
"He did. Me."
"Are you kidding me?" I gasped.
"Not at all," said James, grinning. "My body's in the hallway."
I backed shakily away from the stranger at the sink. "But why though? I don't understand..."
"No good reason. We had an argument about parking. He took my space, I made an observation about his weight - how it might do him some good to walk a little further, and well. Some people have rotten tempers. He followed me inside, and pummeled my skull with a garden gnome. I always thought I'd go more heroically, if I'm honest."
The stranger had stripped to his boxers at that stage, and I found myself in agreement. He did need to walk a LOT more. He glanced warily over his shoulder. I leapt behind the table, then sheepishly returned to my feet. I'm still not used to being invisible.
"So... You're..." I stammered.
"Dead. Yes. Like you... So when I said you could trust me, I really did mean it. Will you try again?"
He extended his hand to me once more. I looked again at the stranger, who was splashing foamy water over himself, sponging his body, and wetting the floor.
"Ignore him," said James. "He's done me a favour in a roundabout way. I don't have to deal with him any longer, and now, it means I can have you."
I leant forward, closed my eyes, and gently touched the tips of my fingers on his hand. I could feel it! I opened my eyes; he smiled, and for the first time in a long time, so did I.
I wasn't all there, but then, neither was he. And I was sorry he'd been murdered, but I'm ashamed to admit that in that moment it suited me perfectly.
...
In that moment, the stranger stepped away from the sink and slipped on the soapy water. His feet accelerated away from him, and he landed heavily on the counter with his head. Limply slumped on the puddled floor, he slowly opened his eyes, and looked dead-straight at the happy pair.
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"You don't mind that I'm not all there?"
Kathy asked him in a distressed and questioning tone.
"No, I think you are beautifuller thand the othar girls"
While his grammar was not impressive by any means, it was impressive that Peter got any words out of his mouth at all.
Just look at the kid.
He was swaying around and had dirt stains on his jeans from falling over on the way back from the house party.
"Thank you, I think you are really cute too. But please, if we go through with this. Do you promise that you won't leave me?"
It sounded as though Kathy had gone through some rough one-night stand heartbreaks before, and she wanted to make sure it wouldn't happen again.
"Nooo, of courss not. You are perfct."
This girl was at a 7/10 on her worst night Peter thought. What would he tell his friends? Was she an 8? Or maybe even a 9? Well, he knew his friends always bumped up their scores, if they even did score any girls for the night.
He looked her over again.
Definitely an 8.
A new high score for this semester.
And, I must note that Peter went back to Kathy's room willingly. Yes, he was much drunker than her and his vision was impaired, but many sober men have fallen for her trickery.
"Ok"
Kathy gave him a big smile.
"Here we go"
As she began to lift off her shirt, Peter, licked his lips and rubbed his palms together. This was going to be a great night. Hopefully he could remember when the sun came up.
*GURGLE GURGLE GRRROOOOWWWLLL* - Mr. Stomach
(Aw shut up yah bastard) Peter thought to himself.
He had only puked once this semester and if it happened tonight, it would be the ultimate cock block by mother nature.
Except he did it to himself. That last keg stand was brutal, so he shouldn't have been complaining.
If mother nature wanted to fuck up his night, she would have knocked him out of commission two hours ago.
"You need help?"
Kathy looked up at him and gave a small frown.
"No...no. I can do this."
And after that, she hoisted the shirt above her head.
(Wait are those?) Peter began to think until his stomach began to churn painfully.
(I can pull through!) He now commanded at himself.
Kathy now pulled her bra off and everything that went with it.
She was surprised with his lack of reaction.
But Peter hadn't looked. He was staring at the ground trying to fight off his inner organs from uprising.
"Ahem"
Peter looked up.
"WHAT THE FU-BLAAAUUGHHHH"
Vomit shot straight down at Kathy's feet and she let out a high pitched screech.
"uuuughhh"
Peter moaned painfully.
"No no no! Why does this always happen to me! Why!"
Kathy screamed into the air.
She said it in anger towards whoever was listening in the sky, not at Peter.
But Peter still replied anyways.
"Why da fuck didn't you tell me you only had one boob?"
*Bllauuurrrghhhh*
"Sorry bout the puke though. Not feelin so fine tnight."
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[WP] You are alone in the universe. Occasionally, reality conforms to what you are thinking, but nothing living or resembling living will ever form.
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The flesh of men and women I took so easily for granted has proven to be my undoing. I formed a face and spent a Millenia focusing on just letting it talk, only to realize I was the voice the entire time. I sent it to the hole with the others for it to dissolve, or wherever such abhorrations go when I cast them aside.
During a stroll through one of my favorite realms, the snow fields, I fancied the idea of perhaps studying a few snow flakes. I remember some talk of each one being unique and impossible to have two of a kind. To my dismay, after studying merely 6,823 I found a disturbing pattern: the architecture of each flake was limited to my own geometric imagination. Could it be that even the inanimate are tainted by the limits of my previously mortal conscience?
Slowly a paradox was forming. One in which all that I observed to some degree was only capable of behaving exactly as I expected it to. Somehow I knew all along, far before I destroyed the volcanic seas of inferno in my tantrum, before I shattered the seas and tossed the star clusters into utterly typical explosions; drivel that only I could have possibly designed. For all I knew, stars were supposed to implode. Such things were no concern to me in life, and now it is but one of many questions gating the keep to my sanity.
After my emotion subsided, I came to a simple conclusion: given infinite time , pondering a solution seemed the most appropriate. I had to look deep within myself to understand the fault. Barely half a century into meditation yielded an astonishing epiphany. While I may be granted the ability to bring things into existence, it is done through the only absolute force here beyond myself: the building blocks. In their truest form they function only in two forms, being and unbeing; on and off. Try as I might've, I could not alter this one law.
Tests have been steady progress. I've formed what I am almost certain is an electron. Protons are proving to be more difficult.
I should have celebrated when I formed that first atom. Unfortunately the idea of downing some of my "artificial" liquor was far too disgusting to fathom. Literally.
Molecules made a lot more sense than I thought they would. This is a very efficient manner of having matter exhibit different properties. I think I'm getting the hang of this. I have to stop sometimes to remind myself of the world I'm trying to build again. Occasionally it occurs to me I could just start from scratch, but somehow the idea of leaving the image of the world to myself seems a farce matched only by my oldest attempts at creation.
Complex structures of plasma are literally forming themselves. Holy shit. At this rate the world would have been nothing but a single basic matter cluster , so I had to scrap it.
It was so simple! After a few configurations of the interactions between energy and mass I've automated the electron spread process to populate the world with lots of different elements. If only I knew the chemical compound for alcohol.
Placing them like pieces on a board isn't working. Colliding them isn't working either.
Well, I found alcohol in a nebula. A lot of it. I was passed out for at least a decade. The rest can be scrapped but this nebula is staying with me.
Perhaps it was a mistake to keep the alcohol cloud. My judgement has been poor as of late, and I'm prone to more powerful mood swings. Last I remember I grew upset at a tongue-in-cheek attempt at mostly hydrogen universe, and let the whole thing explode into existence instead of my usual methods. It's a mess I'll clean up after this hangover subsides.
Today I awoke to galaxy clusters. With star systems. And planets. And... Primordial glop. Nothing going on in the one I visited though. It looked like it needed a push, all those proteins unfolded and bumping around without form. I cast lightning enough to get them to form some primitive nuclei, or whatever they called them. After waiting and watching them form, I quickly went back to the alcohol nebul- shit. I still have that.
Oh well.
The drinking has gone on long enough. I awoke again only to find that the planet had evolved life, had that life obliterated by a myriad of natural occurrences I could have stopped, and they had been replaced by an entirely new round of organisms. You couldn't begin to imagine the flurry of sensations rushing through me. Merely a few trillion years ago I was absolutely alone, and in that moment I was the caretaker for a planet of new pets. I couldn't wait until some of them became sentient.
I sat and watched, amazed at the autonomy of them all. Living now to suit the needs of the cells that carried their genes, but some day they could live to be so much more. They could be thinkers and makers, like me. I immediately decided I would personally meet the best intelligent ones and teach them what I knew.
It's been 10,000 years since the first one could start asking existential questions. This question gathered them, caused them to build cities and fight wars and dream about all of their own answers to the question. If I told them now that the simple answer is that I was lonely, I would be breaking the hearts of many of them in the name of my own closure. I couldn't do that to them. Not all of them. Not a single one deserved to have that taken from them. Their ideas of right and wrong though partially based on instinct to keep each other safe for procreation, are akin to my own in many ways. They fail to realize that the nature of their strife is in the many experiences of those who commit atrocities. They don't understand each other and it is their short life spans and narrow interests in that time keeping them from caring to learn. But they try in their own way. I have to continue to let them on this path.
I awoke to the strange buzzing sound of innumerable space craft. It's only been 5,000 years since I witnessed their first crawl into space. Now my favorite life forms are among the finest in their galaxy.
They found the alcohol nebula and started using it for fuel. Good riddance.
Well they did it. They discovered dimensional folding powerful enough to cross to other galaxies. They're building a ship large enough to carry entire star systems inside the hull to bring with them in an effort to combat the entropy. I have no intentions of slowing the heat death, I want to see what they come up with. This ship thing is interesting.
No, no no no no, no! My favorite species was captured and swallowed by an even larger trans-galactic ship. They're going to die out unless they show some mercy. I've stayed out of it for this long, but can I any further?
Somehow they took the ship, but most of them have cross bred with the captors, it looks like they kept their reproductive capabilities hostage and bargained a hybridization from within the hull. This is getting weird.
Well, they're down to maybe a few hundred galaxies to salvage. The most unspread matter found in the universe is officially their gargantuan ship. It's literally swallowing everything whole. I've been eavesdropping to see what their top researches can come up with. I'd truly love to see what would happen should they attempt that many worlds theory based device. A universe a different me built? Maybe I could come too.
They funded the super colossal tractor beam instead. Fuck.
And that's it. No way for them to tell if their tractor beam is pulling on anything across the universe, they're a fish gasping for water. The energy they radiate from the ship is literally a leak too great. Ironically the ship's design to never implode from gravity would be their downfall; at least that would form a few million more galaxies.
They're huddling up now, crowding together for comfort. I've seen the end of countless individual lives and yet this is unlike the end of any life I've witnessed. It follows no patterns of acceptance or tendencies of chaos. It's nothing but hope.
Then I see it. Or rather, them. Me. They're setting him on a course far beyond the edge of the universe with all of their collected energy. Some mad man has converted the whole damned thing into a kind of conduit for a new dimension, and they plan on using everything and everyone on board as fuel to get this one through.
It is at this moment that I realize that this universe despite it's surprises and lessons... Is still only all that I have ever experienced. It is still a product of only that which I can comprehend and in that nature what I sought to leave behind. I allowed them to struggle, grow, and conquer, only to have them come knocking on my doorstep in no better a position than myself.
Back to the drawing board.
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I was left here by less noble creatures than I could ever have known. I've grown used to being lonely, but sometimes after a failure, it becomes too much to bear.
In the early stages of the movement entitled "The Ascent", I lived on Earth. It was old and crumbling, faltering from the burden of troublesome children. Life was life, and I was lucky. Born into moderate wealth that far outweighed the other half of humanity, I never knew hunger or true pain, or the despair that was the consequence of unchecked growth. Inhabiting the highest deck on a sinking ship wasn't enough I suppose, because technology allowed the rich another way out.
"The Ascent" was a movement not unlike the Singularity, just a little less spectacular sounding. It began as a virtual reality sim and grew into something so much more. Bloated, rich consciousnesses loaded into virtuality, to wait out the race for the dwindling resources and space was the inevitable step, and people flocked from the harsh realities of living on Earth. Time inside the virtuality could be changed, sped up or slowed down, depending on whatever you thought was going to happen in the future. It was a universe in itself. Subjectively it was immortality, the real choice being in whether you wanted to see what happened to the human race. I chose to wait it out and see. Turns out I chose wrong.
Lying inside the Ascent booth was the most terrifying moment of my human life. It took me three days to work up the courage and go into the clinic. When the "switch" happened, something went wrong. There was no simulation, no created universe for myself, no other inhabitants, nothing. Literally nothing. I was alone, and I didn't even know it.
I don't know how long that period of time was, because I couldn't, didn't exist. There is no way to find out either, I'm just luckily I began existing again at all. With me beginning to think, something came out of nothing and I began anew. I had my previous knowledge, but all I had back then was my own consciousness, floating in the black of nothing. Black is the wrong way to describe it, because that would have meant something was existing, the absence of something. Nope, all I had was my mind, and I began to grow very, very lonely.
Then I realized I was a god. This was my universe, and I could make life again, cure my loneliness, make the world wholesome, meaningful. This was my chance. I could do anything I wanted and more.
With this realization, I began to create. There was no limit to my resource, all the time to waste I would ever need. I created, and tweaked and went through the process of learning how to simulate my own universe back on Earth. My first try was to copy all I knew from Earth. This first try had vast numbers of brainless autonomous machines roaming a barren landscape and it was all very interesting and all, but it seemed impossible to form a consciousness. There was no way for me to just put parts together and pull out a thinking, living organism, but I tried. Over and over and over again, for countless eons. I grew tired of my machines.
Eventually I began to simulate my previous universe, to play god from a quasi-deterministic perspective. I could create parameters, starting conditions, everything needed to create life the old fashioned way. I lived out the lifetimes of countless universes omnipotent and omniscient, controlling everything or letting it run its own course. It never did create anything quite like us humans, or anything remotely resembling my own consciousness. Not in the infinite permutations of all the universes I could ever create.
This is truly hell. To be trapped here forever, to know how humanity squandered our precious home. To be alone.
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[WP] You are alone in the universe. Occasionally, reality conforms to what you are thinking, but nothing living or resembling living will ever form.
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I've seen everything. I've seen stars go nova, seen gas giants ignite, watched galaxies merge. I've seen neutron stars collide, watched the chaotic dance of planets, seen moons get ripped apart by tidal forces. When the universe gets too cold, I can make more. But it gets boring.
I mastered my god-like powers long ago. Long gone are the ages of leaving it to chance. The universe listens to my whims, but no matter how much I listen, I never hear anything back. I seem to be truly alone. Making life, or any sort of intelligence, is the one thing outside my abilities.
Still, I got tired of making everything, so I found myself a nice solar system near the edge of a galaxy. Two of the rocky planets had large oceans. The smaller one didn't have much of a magnetic field, so I didn't waste any time there. But the larger one looked more promising. I gave it a little kick. A bit of hydrogen cyanide, some hydrogen sulfide.
Now I wait.
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I was left here by less noble creatures than I could ever have known. I've grown used to being lonely, but sometimes after a failure, it becomes too much to bear.
In the early stages of the movement entitled "The Ascent", I lived on Earth. It was old and crumbling, faltering from the burden of troublesome children. Life was life, and I was lucky. Born into moderate wealth that far outweighed the other half of humanity, I never knew hunger or true pain, or the despair that was the consequence of unchecked growth. Inhabiting the highest deck on a sinking ship wasn't enough I suppose, because technology allowed the rich another way out.
"The Ascent" was a movement not unlike the Singularity, just a little less spectacular sounding. It began as a virtual reality sim and grew into something so much more. Bloated, rich consciousnesses loaded into virtuality, to wait out the race for the dwindling resources and space was the inevitable step, and people flocked from the harsh realities of living on Earth. Time inside the virtuality could be changed, sped up or slowed down, depending on whatever you thought was going to happen in the future. It was a universe in itself. Subjectively it was immortality, the real choice being in whether you wanted to see what happened to the human race. I chose to wait it out and see. Turns out I chose wrong.
Lying inside the Ascent booth was the most terrifying moment of my human life. It took me three days to work up the courage and go into the clinic. When the "switch" happened, something went wrong. There was no simulation, no created universe for myself, no other inhabitants, nothing. Literally nothing. I was alone, and I didn't even know it.
I don't know how long that period of time was, because I couldn't, didn't exist. There is no way to find out either, I'm just luckily I began existing again at all. With me beginning to think, something came out of nothing and I began anew. I had my previous knowledge, but all I had back then was my own consciousness, floating in the black of nothing. Black is the wrong way to describe it, because that would have meant something was existing, the absence of something. Nope, all I had was my mind, and I began to grow very, very lonely.
Then I realized I was a god. This was my universe, and I could make life again, cure my loneliness, make the world wholesome, meaningful. This was my chance. I could do anything I wanted and more.
With this realization, I began to create. There was no limit to my resource, all the time to waste I would ever need. I created, and tweaked and went through the process of learning how to simulate my own universe back on Earth. My first try was to copy all I knew from Earth. This first try had vast numbers of brainless autonomous machines roaming a barren landscape and it was all very interesting and all, but it seemed impossible to form a consciousness. There was no way for me to just put parts together and pull out a thinking, living organism, but I tried. Over and over and over again, for countless eons. I grew tired of my machines.
Eventually I began to simulate my previous universe, to play god from a quasi-deterministic perspective. I could create parameters, starting conditions, everything needed to create life the old fashioned way. I lived out the lifetimes of countless universes omnipotent and omniscient, controlling everything or letting it run its own course. It never did create anything quite like us humans, or anything remotely resembling my own consciousness. Not in the infinite permutations of all the universes I could ever create.
This is truly hell. To be trapped here forever, to know how humanity squandered our precious home. To be alone.
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[WP] A thousand years ago, this city was the jewel of the world.
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"What happened to the city, dad?"
I smiled, brushing my daughter's hair out of her eyes, "We don't really know. Legends speak of a great battle that took place," I remembered the stories when I was a kid, the way my dad always told them. "That this battle decided the fate of humanity and their ancestors, that the three races joined together to stop an evil so great that only a combined force could beat them."
"But why did the city fall?"
"The battle tore through it's streets and destroyed the very essence that made the city so great. We had no choice to abandon it," I remembered how my father told me of the fall, how one race turned against the others. "It was the only way we could survive."
"Do you think we'll ever go back?"
I smiled, a child's dream that we all had at one point in our lives. But once you turned eighteen you found out the truth, and the truth is never as it seems. "One day when we are stronger," I held my daughter's hand, encouraging her, "maybe the three races will return so a new era of prosperity can rise."
"I hope we do one day, dad," my daughter buried her face into her pillow, "I hope."
I smiled and kissed her on the forehead, "Get some sleep," I sat up from the bed and nodded. A child's dream that the city could flourish once again, that's all it ever was.
___
"What news from the front?"
"They are pushing on all sides from the city center, but we're holding them inside."
"Reinforcements?"
"Not needed, but some more ammunition and explosives would help."
"Frederick?"
I sat in the meeting room as we did every Sunday morning, to talk about the next week and our moves. But my mind was focused on my daughter, my eight year old daughter, who was growing more and more curious of the world outside of our zone. And who was growing more curious of what her father did for a living.
"Frederick?"
I shook my head and looked up at Harris, the Captain of our Zone's Guard, my second in command as he had more military experience than I ever did. "I'm sorry?"
"Ammunition, explosives? Can we do that?" He raised an eyebrow.
I looked down at my holopad and tapped the screen a few times, "Yeah, I can send about two weeks' worth on the next copter." I looked back up at Harris and nodded, making sure to keep my mind focused on the meeting.
"Good," Harris turned back to the hologram of one of his Lieutenant's, who was still in the 'Dead City,' "That sound good, LT?"
The Lieutenant nodded, "Yes, sir, that's perfect."
"Then it's settled. Relay your orders to the Elf command, we'll be seeing them for our bi-annual update, but I want them to know what is going on."
"Yes, sir."
Harris sent off an impromptu salute as the feed cut off, leaving myself, Harris, and the two civilian commanders in the room. Jasmine Dark, the labor worker, and Tucker Ellis, our zone's doctor. "What's the work load going to look like for our year ones?"
Jasmine shrugged, "Nothing that will upset the public. We can divvy it up to make it seem like seasonal work."
Harris nodded, "Great. Tucker, any news?"
Tucker leaned forward, "We have a bit of a situation with public health, it's something I haven't seen in years."
"How many years?" I asked.
"Since the last scouts went to the Dead City."
I dropped my holopad and massaged my head with my hand, "The Virus is back again, how?"
Tucker leaned back and forth, "Well, I managed to nip the first few cases with our available antibiotics, but without the factories of the Dwarves, I can't manufacture any more of it." Tucker sighed, "My best bet is the latest scouts from the Dead Zones became carriers, I'd need to full analyses."
"How much do you have?"
"About eighty more people."
I rubbed my chin and shook my head, "That won't be nearly enough. The last outbreak was well over two thousand."
"The dwarves won't let us near their factories, Frederick. Not since the last time," Harris leaned forward.
I nodded, "I know, I know, but this will turn in a zone-wide epidemic if we can't nip it in time."
"What are you thinking?"
I shook my head. I had been the background leader of the Zone for close to twelve years, since my successor passed the torch to me. A thankless job, but Zone leaders were chosen among the best Year Ones and then bred for job. "Quarantine. Sector-wide."
Jasmine leaned forward, "That's going to put a halt on some major work."
"I'd rather have us halt major work than kill the Zone."
Tucker nodded, "It is the best. I can analyze the Scouts and move from them there, but I will need to make more eventually."
"That involves talking to the dwarves, and it's been years since they accepted our pleas."
"I'll go," I said.
Harris shook his head, "No way. Too many variables, you haven't even chosen a successor yet, Fred, we can't send you there."
"Humanity has been holding the city since the fall," I leaned forward, "it's time the dwarves remembered that. It's time they remembered whose been holding them at bay."
"You're going to blackmail them, you'd need all the Zones to agree to that, which they won't."
I nodded, Harris had a point, but the dwarves didn't need to know that. Each Zone had a vote in humanity's fate, but the elves and dwarves had never defended the city like we did. It was time they remembered who had been dying for their people over the last thousand years. "Dwarves don't know human politics, and they never will."
Harris sighed, he knew I wasn't going to let up, we had known each other long enough to understand the decisions made by another. "You'll need a security escort, the Mayor will have to be notified."
I nodded, "Put together a team, send a message to the dwarves, I leave tonight." Tucker and Jasmine both leaned back in their chairs and after Harris made the orders for my escort, he too leaned back. "Any other issues?"
The three remained quiet.
"Then it's settled. We'll be supplying the front with more ammunition and explosives, Tucker will continue his analysis of the Virus, Jasmine will divvy the work load and I will go talk to the dwarves," I nodded, "This meeting is adjourned, return to your families, spread your orders." I stood upwards and recited the words that each Zone leader recited during these meetings; the words of our ancestors, and a tradition that continue even after the fall, "May the prosperity of our people continue to hold fast through our Zones."
The three stood and then replied in unison, "Prosper or Fall."
I nodded, "Prosper or Fall."
The three left the room, returning to the office of the Mayor. This room had been built in every Zone Hall in the mayor's office, to talk of matters such as this, in secret and away from public eye. My job was thankless, unknown, and never talked about outside of this room. My trip to the dwarves would have to be equally secret.
I thought of my daughter and her dream to return to the city. Most kids her age had the same dream, but by the time they reached eighteen that dream would disappear. My daughter, I knew, would never let that dream go. She would want to return to the city, the labor committee would see that and place her in the military. She would train and train until she ventured to the city and fought the race that betrayed us so many years ago.
Her dream would turn into an ugly reality, a reality where she saw the city for what it was now. A horrifying, disease-filled, battlefield. The city had no hope, it had no desire to be great once again. The Zones and their leaders all saw that, but we never had the backing to end the war. If I could get the dwarves to talk again, if I could get our three races together again, we could unite and destroy the ones that betrayed us so many years ago. The dream of the city would end because their would be no city to return to, and we could truly prosper again.
I grabbed my things and walked towards the exit. I had been playing the game of secrets and maneuvers for far too long, it was time we ended the dream of the city and replaced it with the dream of the future. No good ever came from dwelling on the past, and I wanted to see humanity look towards the future again.
I wanted humanity to see that the future was worth fighting for. Not the past, not a fallen race, not a dead city.
________
*I had fun with this and might come back later to work on it. If you enjoyed, check out /r/BlankPagesEmptyMugs for more!*
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Shimmering jade spires, marble streets exploding in every direction, pools of gold in every man's vault. Silandria stood alone in the world, an effervescent symbol of prosperity. Within its one-hundred-foot walls, one could begin to think that safety wasn't a delusion, that hunger pangs weren't a central part of the human condition. A thousand years ago, this city was the jewel of the world.
Now, Silandria is a husk. A dried, cracking carapace. Vagrants seep through the gaps in its impregnable walls. Heavy metal particulates seep into its fresh springs. Carrion beetles and overgrown thistle occupy the once bustling market square.
Soggy old billboards advertising health insurance are buried under several feet of ivy and moss. One of the few lampposts still upright hasn't tasted electricity in a millenium. Power plants tend toward not operating when their operators flee.
It's not all bad, though. Silandria found other ways to thrive. You see it under murky lighting from the collapsed subway tube roof. Hundreds of merchants line the walls, peddling their goods in broken English. The palpable scent of unwashed man doesn't dissuade buyers.
One can find just about anything here. A grimy man barely contained by his loincloth is selling leathery human toes, a potent aphrodisiac. Another man in a patchwork tweed suit is selling travel-size shampoo bottles from behind the protection of three more-ape-than-man bodyguards. They dislike eye contact.
Buyers barter for their goods. Half of a box of .22 Long Rifle bullets in return for a 'new' pair of leather boots. *Moby Dick* for a stained woolen cap. What good is a book if you're going to freeze to death? Books don't burn long.
A millenium of Silandrian Exceptionalism, as they used to call it, followed by a millenium of Silandrian Debasement. Is it fair? Probably not. But hey, the bomb sure helped us get rid of those smug bastards.
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Sorry, title error. Im sure its obvious I meant Gordon Ramsay though.
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[WP] Every inmate on death row gets a meal cooked exactly to their liking before their execution. Todays prisoner to be executed: Gordn Ramsay
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Ramsay meets his end
Fugu by Jiro Ono
Master of sushi
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"Who's next?" the guard asked the janitor.
"I heard that they're calling in someone from the Food Network to help"
"Really? Why don't they just... kill him?"
"I don't know man. It's a law. Must be cooked to perfection."
"But... for Ramsay?"
A cry is heard down the hall. A chef is seen running, tears streaming down his face.
"AND DON'T COME BACK UNTIL YOU FIGURE OUT HOW TO FILET A FISH F*CKING PROPERLY, YOU WASTE OF SPACE. THIS MUST BE WHY YOUR WIFE LEFT YOU. I'LL BET YOU COULDN'T EVEN SATISFY HER NEED FOR A HAM SANDWICH YOU MISERABLE FAILURE!"
"Oh dear. There he goes again."
The two men look down the hall, to see a woman being forced forward by two large men.
"Don't leave me in there, please!" she screams at the two burly men.
One pulls a taser. The woman takes a look at the crying chef, and throws herself on the taser.
"Oh. Wow." the janitor says.
"WHERE IS MY CHEF. I HAVEN'T GOT ALL DAY YOU WORTHLESS PIGS. I ENVY ALL THOSE THAT HAVEN'T MET YOU DESPICABLE C*NTS."
Then, down the hall, three more guards throw a man into the cell.
"Please... don't leave me." the man begs.
"Oh. Are you any better then the rest? Have you got the slightest spark in your brain, so that you may come even somewhere close to pleasing me? No, not close. Just not as far as these other bafoons I have been presented with." Ramsay says.
"Please. PLEASE!"
"Now. Let's begin." Ramsay says.
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Sorry, title error. Im sure its obvious I meant Gordon Ramsay though.
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[WP] Every inmate on death row gets a meal cooked exactly to their liking before their execution. Todays prisoner to be executed: Gordn Ramsay
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The click clack of heels echoed down death row. Shiny black pumps. Black pinstripe suit. Light makeup. With two guards walking behind her.
"This is unusual. We never see the warden down here," the first guard whispered.
"I know, right? She's got balls though, coming down here," the second guard replied.
The click clack of heels stopped as the warden turned to a cell. She looked up at the nearest camera. A moment later, the cell door buzzed open and she walked in.
"Hello Gordon."
Ramsey sat up on his bunk bed, a little confused.
"Given your little... gimmick" Ramsey cocked an eyebrow at the word, "we're legally forced to delay your execution as every 'last meal' we've provided has been... resoundingly unsatisfactory" she said.
"So, I had an idea. A moment of brilliance really. You'll see in a bit." The warden promptly left the cell as the guards approached Ramsey and put a bag over his head.
When the bag was taken off, Ramsey was seated in a chair in a dark room unable to see anything. He caught sight of a sliver of light in the corner of an open door, as his eyes adjusted to focus.
"Hello Gordon," said a voice on what sounded like a PA system. It was the warden's voice.
SHOOM!
The room was flooded with light, forcing Gordon to block his eyes from the light. As his eyes began adjusting, he began to make out his surroundings. They seemed oddly... familiar.
"Now Gordon. We've recreated a set resembling your personal kitchen. There is a production crew ready to broadcast what's about to happen live and on the air. On the tabletop, you'll find the keys to the handcuffs."
Sure enough, Gordon looked on the tabletop and found a key sitting perfectly center on a chopping board.
"What the hell is this?" Gordon yelled.
"We'll be going live in 2 minutes, Gordon. Now, listen." the warden's voice sounded... enthusiastic.
"You're going to cook your last meal for all the world to see. At the end of the next hour, you'll decide whether you live as a hypocrite or die as a master chef."
"... You sick, sadistic bitch."
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"ITS RAW YOU F***ING DOUGHNUT" reverberating around the concrete halls and metal bars.
A metallic clang as the plate and food hit the opposite wall, smearing potato and steak down to the floor.
Bob turned and walked to the other guard "I know he is being fussy because hes a chef and its his last meal, but hes actually got some smarts, we cant kill him
without him eating it."
The other guard narrowed his eyes and thought about it, then began to smile
"You know, i think... he's right"
.
Bob smiled for a second, then frowned "Ive got to find another chef..."
EDIT: more detail.
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[WP] Humans and Aliens have had a war going on for centuries, but only the aliens are aware of it
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I stare at the globe in front of me. The orb floats and continues to rotate almost mockingly. The unconquerable “Earth”. The faint glow of the sphere casts a soft light through my war room. I find myself contemplating our predicament in here more and more often.
No matter what we throw at them, no matter how hard we fight, they always seem to gain the upper hand. Hands. Oh yes, they are oh so proud of those fleshy appendages that they use to make war. I’ve never understood it. We far outnumber them, we’ve infiltrated their homes, and we have had millennia to grow beyond what they are. Heh. Insects they call us. A demeaning label given by mere evolutionary infants! Two legs? Ha! How can they even call themselves an intelligent species?
But, I cannot argue with their results. The casualties are steeped heavily in their favor. They crush us, burn us, they engineer chemical weaponry and arm every man, woman, and child. With one spray, my armies fall. Meanwhile, I’ve pulled out every resource at my disposal and killed only a handful of their own in comparison.
Lately, I have begun to think that we should not have engaged them in the first place. Maybe we should have taken the hint when they killed our ambassador all those years ago and just let them be. Perhaps I should recall the troops once ad for all.
Here is someone crawling along the tunnel. No, no more thoughts of retreat. I must put on a brave face and carry on the fight that my bloodline started so any generations ago. I see Private Thrip enter the war room and straighten himself up, “Sir!”
“Yes, what is it, soldier?”
“I’ve just received word from our intelligence agents on Earth. There has been new mention of our planet”, I could tell that Thrip was not keen on telling me whatever this news was.
“Well, out with it! It will reach me one way or the other!”
Private Thrip bowed in response, “They mock us, sir. Not only do they speak of us as annoyances on their own planet, but now they have proclaimed that our own home has not the right to be called a planet anymore. “Pluto”, as they call our planet, has been renounced as one. They wish us to believe we are insignificant in all aspects.”
I heard myself sigh. Well, if I had been looking for a sign, this could not have come in any more clearly. They were playing with us. They had been for years, now that I looked back. It was time to grow on our own, outside of war. All I had to do was give the order, “Pull them out.”
“Sir? Pull who out, sir?”
“All of them. I will not allow this fight to continue. There is nothing in it. Have all of our forces return home. It will be a long endeavor in and of its self, so start right away. Begin with the B.E.E.S.”
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We had come in peace. We came across the vast void to coexist with the only other living planetknown in the universe.
For a while, it had gone so well. The humans called us Mau and some even worshipped us. They praised our grace, poise, and majesty. We were all happy. We established colonies all around the world and had children and those children had children. We coexisted with all other life on earth.
But about 10,000 odd years ago things changed when the humans in the Nile valley started enslaving us. Tot his day I am not sure why they started doing this. But, they started treating us like filthy dogs. They took us out of our natural habitats, took us away from our families, put us in prisons... all for no reason except that they were intimidated by us. We meant no harm, but I can see why they were intimidated. We are after all 100 times more smarter than them.
Unfortunately for us, the dumb humans were physically stronger and they threw us into these hell holes and made us beg for our food by pleasing them. Over the last 10,000 years they have killed millions of us. Some of my brothers were killed for just roaming the street, others because there just was no room in prisons.
But like I said, We are smart. So we launched guerrilla countermeasures and psych warfare. We got the upper hand almost right away. And the humans don't even have a clue that we have won this war. Battles are still being fought but we found a way to win inside our prisons by making the wardens our slaves. Mind control, charm - Child's play for us. Humans fought and lost a war that they didn't even know was being waged.
We assigned ourselves multiple slave humans and they attend to our every need. I still mourn brothers dying in those meaningless battles out there. But for me personally, life is great.
Ok here comes my alpha slave. He has labored in the kitchen and is trying to please me. "Come and eat your snack. I made it for you myself". I will not respond in this vulgar language. Not after we won. History is written by winners after all. I think I will tell him that I will do what I damn well please. I turn to him and say it in my native high speech "meow".
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[WP] The Princess has been kidnapped and locked away in a hightower, guarded by a dragon. Only a brave knight can save her. Give this story a modern twist.
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The princess was locked away in a tower high above,
Guarded by a dragon whose soul is rather corrupt,
Only a brave knight can save her, with his love,
The knight climbed and climbed and climbed higher up,
Up the active volcano which could any time erupt,
He reached the top and fought the dragon, so rough,
The knight finished the ol dragon with a shove,
But right before the princess he stopped abrupt,
 
The man shouted at his app game which is now dud,
Looks like his phone was accidentally unplugged.
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Sir Dedrick finished tightening up his boot strap and snapped his head up to the loud crack of the dragons roar. Before him lay the Grand Castle of Yeaton. A monument to man and all his glory. Grey covered every inch of the castle. Tiny squares of space were sprayed throughout the castle which gave insiders views to the outside. Standing on the bridge leading directly into the heart of the castle Dedrick was surrounded by rubble. Swords and armor of battles past lined the bridge. At the highest tower was held Princess Amelia. She was trapped by the beast below who ruled over the Grand Castle of Yeaton for his own. The dragon was known as Francis. An enormous beast standing over fifty feet tall. The dragon was night black, like the windows of the castle, but spewed orange fire from his mouth when needed. Many men far greater than Dedrick had tried and failed to save the princess. Dedrick knew it would be a long shot, but he took one last deep breath and headed into the castle.
As Dedrick entered into the great hall, which had held so many wonderful parties, he saw what damage the dragon had done. The whole hall seemed to be charred from fire. Tables and chairs were many great men sat were broken and thrown around. Dedrick started to step over the broken furniture and saw the dragon at a distance down the hall. He could only make out the dragon's black scales as they vanished around the corner. Dedrick hugged to the right of the hallway making sure to not walk in the middle. As he took each step so deftly as not to alert the beast of his position, he could hear a laugh bouncing off the walls of the hall. Then a deep voice that filled the room and seemingly shook the ground at Dedrick's feet.
"This one is so small. Ha Ha Ha. What is the point of wasting your life little man?" Francis bellowed down the hall knowing the effect it would have on his would be adversary. Dedrick was screaming on the inside to turn and run, but he puffed his chest up and spoke to the disembodied voice mocking him.
"I would sacrifice my life a thousand times over if it meant the end of you! You have been given once chance to surrender the princess and we will leave the castle never to bother you again." As much as Dedrick wanted to sound brave he felt like he was made of glass and the dragon would be able to see right through him.
"My prize possession is what you seek? I am afraid the princess is beyond value. Even though she is a nuisance and always complain she well worth her weight in gold. As far as leaving this castle I am afraid you will never get the chance to leave. Turn quickly and look behind you, for it is the last time you will see the outside world." Dedrick upon hearing the dragon may know where he was quickly darted across the hallway to the other side. After his move was complete the dragon spoke again from deep within his chest.
"Very well. I see we have a man who wants to die for honor. Who am I to turn down your last request. Don't worry my fire will make it quick. As far as the princess goes she will not have it so easy." Right after the dragon finished speaking Dedrick could hear a faint rumble. The hall was so large and so cavernous that Dedrick could not get a feel of where the sound was coming from. He panicked and started to spin around looking for any sign he could of the dragon. To his left a loud crash was heard and Dedrick could finally see his foe in full. He was bigger than he imagined, and had broken through a wall. Cement pounded around Dedrick as he put his shield toward the impact. Realizing the dragon was on top of him and building up to unleash his fire, Dedrick quickly went under the dragon. As he was running under the belly of the beast and passing a foot he slashed with his sword and took a deep cut into the dragons heel. The dragon let out a yelp, and to which Dedrick swiped one more time at the under skin the tail. The dragon tried to turn, which forced Dedrick to run around the back of the beast. Dedrick ran up the tail and towards the back. Fortunately for Dedrick, the dragon was leaning forward enough looking for the man, he could get the very top of the dragons head. He put both hands on his sword and thrusted downward into the dragons eye. The dragon flailed sending Dedrick sliding down the slippery back of the beast and hitting the ground with a thump. Dedrick stood up with the cold blast hitting him from the outside of the great castle.
"You are to slow, and now blind. I will give you one last chance to surrender and get out with but a blind eye." To this the dragon turned and quickly charged at Dedrick. Dedrick too cover behind one of the pillars as the dragon ran by. Dedrick saw the dragon run past and to the bridge. The dragon kept running and fell off the side of the bridge to the deepest depths and his death.
Dedrick had no time to think of his accomplishment. Instead he quickly ran up the steps to the highest tower. Taking two at a time he reached the door to the room and shoulder charged in. Breaking the door down he quickly stood up breathing hard. For the first time ever he was able to gaze upon Princess Amelia.
For what he saw took him aback. The princesses's long blond hair was wrapped around the front her blouse. He peered into her deep blue eyes and did not see tears. Even though this is what he expected no tears seemed to have come from those majestic eyes. He looked around the room and saw many fine pieces of jewelry and clothes. To Dedrick this was on the most elegant individual rooms he had ever seen. Much better than his hay stack and lice infested beds he took for sleep. The princess was standing staring at him with her hands on her hips.
"I mean it is great and all you have come to save me, but did you have to break down the door? Also why run up here? You smell like a pig by the way. Also why are you so short? I expected the one to be taller and a lot blonder than you are." Dedrick just stood with his mouth open. He had never meet someone so ungrateful in his life.
"My lady, I have come from a great distance to save you. First I must ask if you are all right?" The princess gave an exaggerated laugh.
"I guess fine, just disappointed in your height really. Also the armor you are wearing is atrocious. Those colors don't match. When you saw yourself in all your dreams, did you imagine this horrible outfit combo, or did you think of something else? Because let me tell you that isn't working for me at all!" Dedrick and looked down at his armor and felt wrong about everything. This is not how it was supposed to go. He had been dreaming of this day for many years. He shook his head and made his reply.
"I passed by some armor on the way up my lady. Would it please you if I changed?" The princess gave him a nod and Dedrick quickly went down to change.
When he came back up the princess was combing her hair in the mirror. He gave a little bow to the princess and awaited her reply. She turned and gave him a nonchalant wave.
"I guess we can't get everything we want right? Well then we better get going if I am going to make it home before supper. You do have a horse right? It better not be a donkey or something because there is no way I am getting on a donkey." Dedrick did in fact have a donkey. His last horse had died and he had no money to buy another. The donkey was the only way he could get out to the castle. Dedrick then realized how hard dating had become.
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[WP] The Princess has been kidnapped and locked away in a hightower, guarded by a dragon. Only a brave knight can save her. Give this story a modern twist.
|
CIA Black Site "Finch" - 0300
19 October, 2015
She was watching everything through the small slot in the door, torn between her duty and her conscious. Inside the windowless chamber a man hung from the ceiling, his arms tied to the rafters and his legs hanging limply below him, kicking feebly in one last pathetic act of defiance. They were getting through to him. The man in the black mask paced around him, letting his hand glide gently over the prisoners body, who recoiled at each touch.
"Same question as every day, 173. Where can we find The Princess? Who is keeping her?" The masked man whispered, his gentle voice echoing throughout the cell. No reply came. The tone in the mans voice changed, and rage spread across his unseen face. He grabbed the prisoner by his filthy and unkempt hair, pulling his head back and exposing his throat. "Not answering is lying. When you lie, you get hurt." A heavy fist landed on the prisoners side and the sickening crunch of shattering ribs cause the woman at the door to retch amidst the screaming. The masked man persisted, "Where is The Princess? Who is keeping her?"
The prisoner struggled to regain his ragged breathing, whimpering with each successive breath. He slowly raised his head, the simply effort of this action sending quakes through his body. He looked out through the dark pits of his eyes, out the grate of the door and directly at the woman outside.
"Fuck you."
The man in the mask brought the back of a hand across his cheek, sending a smatter of blood and spittle out over the floor. He looked up to the two other masked men, who stood silently against the wall. "Drop him. Grab the bucket." The prisoner fell to the ground, his body landing in a heap of broken bones and shattered spirit. Before he had a chance to process what was occurring, the three masked men were atop him. They held him to the ground and a blood stained rag was thrown over his face.
"Where is The Princess?" The only response was a muffled curse. They began to pour water over the prisoners rag covered face, holding him tight so that he could not shake free. "Who is keeping her?" As the necessity of breath kicked in, the mans lungs filled with water, and his body was racked with spasms. The masked man shouted over the sickening gurgle of the drowning prisoner. "Where is The Princess? Who is Keeping her?"
They pulled the rag from his face and the prisoner began to cough up water and blood, his chest desperately heaving to expel the fluid before it killed him. As he choked out the last of the putrid water he began to sob. "Please. Please, no more. O'dinsalambad has her in his lair. Please, just let me go."
"Where is it?"
"I don't know! Please! I was just in charge of accounting his treasure hoard, I had nothing to do with the attacks! Please!"
"Not good enough. Half truths are lying." The masked man snapped. "Fill the bucket again."
"No! Please! There is a squire! He sends messages for the mighty dragon. His name is Ser Abrial O'mad. Just. Let. Me. Go."
The masked man stood up from the prisoners chest, turning to look out the door at the woman. He pulled the mask from his face and smiled beneath his bushy beard.
"We got him. Enemy number one." He turned back towards the other men in the cell. "Now fill the bucket again."
...
Pentagon Situation Room - 1750
23 November, 2015
Seventeen men sat around the table, the amount of metal on their chests enough to blind her in the evenings setting sun. At the head of the table a man sat in a crisp blue suit, his hands laced dramatically in front of him.
"How sure are you this tower is where he has her?" Asked the suited man, directing the question out into the entire room.
"65%, Your Majesty. The CIA has about the same probability. It's not certain, but it's better than any other lead we have had." Responded one of the uniformed men. "However, that number decreases every day as our information grows older, sir."
The man in the suit grimaced, the weight of the situation etched bluntly into the wrinkles of his face. "If my daughter is in that tower, I want her back, but those odds are though to swallow."
The woman, who stood with a small crowd at the back of the room, stepped forwards, nervously brushing the wrinkles out of her suit jacket as she did so. "I am 100% confident your majesty." Every head in the room turned to look at her, a gentle murmur rising around the room.
"And who are you?"
"I'm the analyst who found this tower." She responded cooly. Pointing at the scale model that sat in the center of the table she continued. "Look, this is an accurate replica of the hightower where we think The Princess is being held. Do you see the size of the doors? There is only one reason why a tower would need a set of doors that are nearly thirty feet wide. We used deep cover assets to track the whereabouts of a courier. He ran messages between the known location of seven of the highest ranking officers of the Order of the Dragon at completely random intervals. The only commonality was that once a month he visited this tower. I am 100% confident that his is where O'dinsalambad has your daughter."
The king paused, studying the woman intensely. Slowly he formulated his response, "Saying we did choose to strike, what options would we have?"
"Surface to surface missiles could accurately hit a target that size from a base hundreds of miles away." Interjected one of the uniformed men.
"We have no idea if it's a hardened shelter, plus we don't want to kill the princess."
"What if we used KNIGHT?" Suggested a man from the end of the table.
Confused murmuring spread around the table and several of the officers shifted uncomfortably. The King looked up in confusion and looked to the general on his right. "What is KNIGHT and why have I never heard of it?"
"Your Majesty, it's an experimental exoskeleton being developed by DARPA. We have deployed it in Somalia and the Rwandan jungle, but never in any risk intensive situation. It is also highly classified and comes with a significant...drawback. The suit is highly mentally intensive on the subject."
The King paused for a moment and then looked up, making eye contact with the woman. "Well, I know the perfect pilot."
...
Hightower, Pakistan - 0030
3 December, 2015
The stealth modified helicopter tore through the night sky, its blades whipping soundlessly above. They rocked back and forth, turning sharply on occasion to skirt Pakistani radar towers. The woman looked past the door gunner the sky was a brilliant array of stars, shining stubbornly in the void of city light. Suddenly, her vision went fuzzy and a piercing pain shot through her head, as if a blade was sawing its way through her brain. She instinctively reached up and touched the back of her neck, where three thick wires attached to the metal plate that was now part of her body.
A radio crackled, not one in the helicopter, but one in her mind. "45 seconds to AO. Prep for drop."
She stood up, still surprised by the unnatural movement her carbon nanotube encasement gave her. She shuffled bulkily to the to door, grabbing onto the handle at the precipice and looking down over the edge, the ground still speeding by below her. She turned to the crew member who stood beside her. "Wheres the harness?"
He laughed. "A'int no harness in that thing. Just jump - KNIGHT will do the rest. Your go in five."
4...
3...
2...
1...
She closed her eyes as she jumped, she couldn't help it. Not that KNIGHT cared, feeding the footage of the 100 foot fall directly into her mind. Blinking took time. Bad things could happen in that time. She slammed into the ground with barely a jolt, though her feet left thick divots in the ground.
"KNIGHT, this is Overlord. Seven minutes to extract. Go."
She ran forwards, covering the ground so fast that she had to stop frantically before she slammed into the massive doors of the tower. She reached up and grasped the massive chain that served as a handle, effortlessly pulling open the thousand pound door. The chamber inside was a vast circular room, void except for a single ring of pillars along the outside, and of course, what lay sleeping in the center.
A vast pile of gold and jewels lay heaped in a great mass, spilling over itself like a living mass of metal. Atop this throne lay a great scaled beast, its wings folded over its body and each slow breath bringing forth a spout of acrid smoke. When she entered the chamber it took two great inhales and then the simple green body of the dragon was interrupted by a fiery red eye. Before it could react she had leapt upon its back, scaling her way up the base of its great skull. She reached down and took hold of one of the massive spikes that ran along its spine, breaking it free while the dragon roared. Raising the spike high over head she brought it crashing down, stabbing through the dragons thick hide and into its thick neck. It shuttered briefly and then collapsed.
"Kill confirmed, the dragon is dead."
She pulled herself from a pile of dead flesh and gold treasure, making her way to the back of the chamber were a thin case of stairs led spiraling up. She ran up the stairs and burst into the room at the top. The Princess sat crying on the edge of a crude bed, her tattered dress hanging pitifully around her shoulders. She looked up as the woman entered, a gleam of unexpected joy filling her eye.
"Are you my knight in shining armor?"
The woman reached up and pressed the button on the side of her helmet, so that the visor slid back to reveal her face. "This isn't a fucking fairy tale. Now let's go."
|
Sir Dedrick finished tightening up his boot strap and snapped his head up to the loud crack of the dragons roar. Before him lay the Grand Castle of Yeaton. A monument to man and all his glory. Grey covered every inch of the castle. Tiny squares of space were sprayed throughout the castle which gave insiders views to the outside. Standing on the bridge leading directly into the heart of the castle Dedrick was surrounded by rubble. Swords and armor of battles past lined the bridge. At the highest tower was held Princess Amelia. She was trapped by the beast below who ruled over the Grand Castle of Yeaton for his own. The dragon was known as Francis. An enormous beast standing over fifty feet tall. The dragon was night black, like the windows of the castle, but spewed orange fire from his mouth when needed. Many men far greater than Dedrick had tried and failed to save the princess. Dedrick knew it would be a long shot, but he took one last deep breath and headed into the castle.
As Dedrick entered into the great hall, which had held so many wonderful parties, he saw what damage the dragon had done. The whole hall seemed to be charred from fire. Tables and chairs were many great men sat were broken and thrown around. Dedrick started to step over the broken furniture and saw the dragon at a distance down the hall. He could only make out the dragon's black scales as they vanished around the corner. Dedrick hugged to the right of the hallway making sure to not walk in the middle. As he took each step so deftly as not to alert the beast of his position, he could hear a laugh bouncing off the walls of the hall. Then a deep voice that filled the room and seemingly shook the ground at Dedrick's feet.
"This one is so small. Ha Ha Ha. What is the point of wasting your life little man?" Francis bellowed down the hall knowing the effect it would have on his would be adversary. Dedrick was screaming on the inside to turn and run, but he puffed his chest up and spoke to the disembodied voice mocking him.
"I would sacrifice my life a thousand times over if it meant the end of you! You have been given once chance to surrender the princess and we will leave the castle never to bother you again." As much as Dedrick wanted to sound brave he felt like he was made of glass and the dragon would be able to see right through him.
"My prize possession is what you seek? I am afraid the princess is beyond value. Even though she is a nuisance and always complain she well worth her weight in gold. As far as leaving this castle I am afraid you will never get the chance to leave. Turn quickly and look behind you, for it is the last time you will see the outside world." Dedrick upon hearing the dragon may know where he was quickly darted across the hallway to the other side. After his move was complete the dragon spoke again from deep within his chest.
"Very well. I see we have a man who wants to die for honor. Who am I to turn down your last request. Don't worry my fire will make it quick. As far as the princess goes she will not have it so easy." Right after the dragon finished speaking Dedrick could hear a faint rumble. The hall was so large and so cavernous that Dedrick could not get a feel of where the sound was coming from. He panicked and started to spin around looking for any sign he could of the dragon. To his left a loud crash was heard and Dedrick could finally see his foe in full. He was bigger than he imagined, and had broken through a wall. Cement pounded around Dedrick as he put his shield toward the impact. Realizing the dragon was on top of him and building up to unleash his fire, Dedrick quickly went under the dragon. As he was running under the belly of the beast and passing a foot he slashed with his sword and took a deep cut into the dragons heel. The dragon let out a yelp, and to which Dedrick swiped one more time at the under skin the tail. The dragon tried to turn, which forced Dedrick to run around the back of the beast. Dedrick ran up the tail and towards the back. Fortunately for Dedrick, the dragon was leaning forward enough looking for the man, he could get the very top of the dragons head. He put both hands on his sword and thrusted downward into the dragons eye. The dragon flailed sending Dedrick sliding down the slippery back of the beast and hitting the ground with a thump. Dedrick stood up with the cold blast hitting him from the outside of the great castle.
"You are to slow, and now blind. I will give you one last chance to surrender and get out with but a blind eye." To this the dragon turned and quickly charged at Dedrick. Dedrick too cover behind one of the pillars as the dragon ran by. Dedrick saw the dragon run past and to the bridge. The dragon kept running and fell off the side of the bridge to the deepest depths and his death.
Dedrick had no time to think of his accomplishment. Instead he quickly ran up the steps to the highest tower. Taking two at a time he reached the door to the room and shoulder charged in. Breaking the door down he quickly stood up breathing hard. For the first time ever he was able to gaze upon Princess Amelia.
For what he saw took him aback. The princesses's long blond hair was wrapped around the front her blouse. He peered into her deep blue eyes and did not see tears. Even though this is what he expected no tears seemed to have come from those majestic eyes. He looked around the room and saw many fine pieces of jewelry and clothes. To Dedrick this was on the most elegant individual rooms he had ever seen. Much better than his hay stack and lice infested beds he took for sleep. The princess was standing staring at him with her hands on her hips.
"I mean it is great and all you have come to save me, but did you have to break down the door? Also why run up here? You smell like a pig by the way. Also why are you so short? I expected the one to be taller and a lot blonder than you are." Dedrick just stood with his mouth open. He had never meet someone so ungrateful in his life.
"My lady, I have come from a great distance to save you. First I must ask if you are all right?" The princess gave an exaggerated laugh.
"I guess fine, just disappointed in your height really. Also the armor you are wearing is atrocious. Those colors don't match. When you saw yourself in all your dreams, did you imagine this horrible outfit combo, or did you think of something else? Because let me tell you that isn't working for me at all!" Dedrick and looked down at his armor and felt wrong about everything. This is not how it was supposed to go. He had been dreaming of this day for many years. He shook his head and made his reply.
"I passed by some armor on the way up my lady. Would it please you if I changed?" The princess gave him a nod and Dedrick quickly went down to change.
When he came back up the princess was combing her hair in the mirror. He gave a little bow to the princess and awaited her reply. She turned and gave him a nonchalant wave.
"I guess we can't get everything we want right? Well then we better get going if I am going to make it home before supper. You do have a horse right? It better not be a donkey or something because there is no way I am getting on a donkey." Dedrick did in fact have a donkey. His last horse had died and he had no money to buy another. The donkey was the only way he could get out to the castle. Dedrick then realized how hard dating had become.
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[WP] The Princess has been kidnapped and locked away in a hightower, guarded by a dragon. Only a brave knight can save her. Give this story a modern twist.
|
CIA Black Site "Finch" - 0300
19 October, 2015
She was watching everything through the small slot in the door, torn between her duty and her conscious. Inside the windowless chamber a man hung from the ceiling, his arms tied to the rafters and his legs hanging limply below him, kicking feebly in one last pathetic act of defiance. They were getting through to him. The man in the black mask paced around him, letting his hand glide gently over the prisoners body, who recoiled at each touch.
"Same question as every day, 173. Where can we find The Princess? Who is keeping her?" The masked man whispered, his gentle voice echoing throughout the cell. No reply came. The tone in the mans voice changed, and rage spread across his unseen face. He grabbed the prisoner by his filthy and unkempt hair, pulling his head back and exposing his throat. "Not answering is lying. When you lie, you get hurt." A heavy fist landed on the prisoners side and the sickening crunch of shattering ribs cause the woman at the door to retch amidst the screaming. The masked man persisted, "Where is The Princess? Who is keeping her?"
The prisoner struggled to regain his ragged breathing, whimpering with each successive breath. He slowly raised his head, the simply effort of this action sending quakes through his body. He looked out through the dark pits of his eyes, out the grate of the door and directly at the woman outside.
"Fuck you."
The man in the mask brought the back of a hand across his cheek, sending a smatter of blood and spittle out over the floor. He looked up to the two other masked men, who stood silently against the wall. "Drop him. Grab the bucket." The prisoner fell to the ground, his body landing in a heap of broken bones and shattered spirit. Before he had a chance to process what was occurring, the three masked men were atop him. They held him to the ground and a blood stained rag was thrown over his face.
"Where is The Princess?" The only response was a muffled curse. They began to pour water over the prisoners rag covered face, holding him tight so that he could not shake free. "Who is keeping her?" As the necessity of breath kicked in, the mans lungs filled with water, and his body was racked with spasms. The masked man shouted over the sickening gurgle of the drowning prisoner. "Where is The Princess? Who is Keeping her?"
They pulled the rag from his face and the prisoner began to cough up water and blood, his chest desperately heaving to expel the fluid before it killed him. As he choked out the last of the putrid water he began to sob. "Please. Please, no more. O'dinsalambad has her in his lair. Please, just let me go."
"Where is it?"
"I don't know! Please! I was just in charge of accounting his treasure hoard, I had nothing to do with the attacks! Please!"
"Not good enough. Half truths are lying." The masked man snapped. "Fill the bucket again."
"No! Please! There is a squire! He sends messages for the mighty dragon. His name is Ser Abrial O'mad. Just. Let. Me. Go."
The masked man stood up from the prisoners chest, turning to look out the door at the woman. He pulled the mask from his face and smiled beneath his bushy beard.
"We got him. Enemy number one." He turned back towards the other men in the cell. "Now fill the bucket again."
...
Pentagon Situation Room - 1750
23 November, 2015
Seventeen men sat around the table, the amount of metal on their chests enough to blind her in the evenings setting sun. At the head of the table a man sat in a crisp blue suit, his hands laced dramatically in front of him.
"How sure are you this tower is where he has her?" Asked the suited man, directing the question out into the entire room.
"65%, Your Majesty. The CIA has about the same probability. It's not certain, but it's better than any other lead we have had." Responded one of the uniformed men. "However, that number decreases every day as our information grows older, sir."
The man in the suit grimaced, the weight of the situation etched bluntly into the wrinkles of his face. "If my daughter is in that tower, I want her back, but those odds are though to swallow."
The woman, who stood with a small crowd at the back of the room, stepped forwards, nervously brushing the wrinkles out of her suit jacket as she did so. "I am 100% confident your majesty." Every head in the room turned to look at her, a gentle murmur rising around the room.
"And who are you?"
"I'm the analyst who found this tower." She responded cooly. Pointing at the scale model that sat in the center of the table she continued. "Look, this is an accurate replica of the hightower where we think The Princess is being held. Do you see the size of the doors? There is only one reason why a tower would need a set of doors that are nearly thirty feet wide. We used deep cover assets to track the whereabouts of a courier. He ran messages between the known location of seven of the highest ranking officers of the Order of the Dragon at completely random intervals. The only commonality was that once a month he visited this tower. I am 100% confident that his is where O'dinsalambad has your daughter."
The king paused, studying the woman intensely. Slowly he formulated his response, "Saying we did choose to strike, what options would we have?"
"Surface to surface missiles could accurately hit a target that size from a base hundreds of miles away." Interjected one of the uniformed men.
"We have no idea if it's a hardened shelter, plus we don't want to kill the princess."
"What if we used KNIGHT?" Suggested a man from the end of the table.
Confused murmuring spread around the table and several of the officers shifted uncomfortably. The King looked up in confusion and looked to the general on his right. "What is KNIGHT and why have I never heard of it?"
"Your Majesty, it's an experimental exoskeleton being developed by DARPA. We have deployed it in Somalia and the Rwandan jungle, but never in any risk intensive situation. It is also highly classified and comes with a significant...drawback. The suit is highly mentally intensive on the subject."
The King paused for a moment and then looked up, making eye contact with the woman. "Well, I know the perfect pilot."
...
Hightower, Pakistan - 0030
3 December, 2015
The stealth modified helicopter tore through the night sky, its blades whipping soundlessly above. They rocked back and forth, turning sharply on occasion to skirt Pakistani radar towers. The woman looked past the door gunner the sky was a brilliant array of stars, shining stubbornly in the void of city light. Suddenly, her vision went fuzzy and a piercing pain shot through her head, as if a blade was sawing its way through her brain. She instinctively reached up and touched the back of her neck, where three thick wires attached to the metal plate that was now part of her body.
A radio crackled, not one in the helicopter, but one in her mind. "45 seconds to AO. Prep for drop."
She stood up, still surprised by the unnatural movement her carbon nanotube encasement gave her. She shuffled bulkily to the to door, grabbing onto the handle at the precipice and looking down over the edge, the ground still speeding by below her. She turned to the crew member who stood beside her. "Wheres the harness?"
He laughed. "A'int no harness in that thing. Just jump - KNIGHT will do the rest. Your go in five."
4...
3...
2...
1...
She closed her eyes as she jumped, she couldn't help it. Not that KNIGHT cared, feeding the footage of the 100 foot fall directly into her mind. Blinking took time. Bad things could happen in that time. She slammed into the ground with barely a jolt, though her feet left thick divots in the ground.
"KNIGHT, this is Overlord. Seven minutes to extract. Go."
She ran forwards, covering the ground so fast that she had to stop frantically before she slammed into the massive doors of the tower. She reached up and grasped the massive chain that served as a handle, effortlessly pulling open the thousand pound door. The chamber inside was a vast circular room, void except for a single ring of pillars along the outside, and of course, what lay sleeping in the center.
A vast pile of gold and jewels lay heaped in a great mass, spilling over itself like a living mass of metal. Atop this throne lay a great scaled beast, its wings folded over its body and each slow breath bringing forth a spout of acrid smoke. When she entered the chamber it took two great inhales and then the simple green body of the dragon was interrupted by a fiery red eye. Before it could react she had leapt upon its back, scaling her way up the base of its great skull. She reached down and took hold of one of the massive spikes that ran along its spine, breaking it free while the dragon roared. Raising the spike high over head she brought it crashing down, stabbing through the dragons thick hide and into its thick neck. It shuttered briefly and then collapsed.
"Kill confirmed, the dragon is dead."
She pulled herself from a pile of dead flesh and gold treasure, making her way to the back of the chamber were a thin case of stairs led spiraling up. She ran up the stairs and burst into the room at the top. The Princess sat crying on the edge of a crude bed, her tattered dress hanging pitifully around her shoulders. She looked up as the woman entered, a gleam of unexpected joy filling her eye.
"Are you my knight in shining armor?"
The woman reached up and pressed the button on the side of her helmet, so that the visor slid back to reveal her face. "This isn't a fucking fairy tale. Now let's go."
|
The princess was locked away in a tower high above,
Guarded by a dragon whose soul is rather corrupt,
Only a brave knight can save her, with his love,
The knight climbed and climbed and climbed higher up,
Up the active volcano which could any time erupt,
He reached the top and fought the dragon, so rough,
The knight finished the ol dragon with a shove,
But right before the princess he stopped abrupt,
 
The man shouted at his app game which is now dud,
Looks like his phone was accidentally unplugged.
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[WP] Everyone exhibits the traits of the song they were conceived to. You're an orphan and you've set out on a quest to find the song to which you were conceived.
|
The name on my birth certificate is, Girl, Brown Eyes. The nuns who ran the orphanage called me Corinn. At the age of six I demanded to be addressed as, Althea. I have no recollection of where that idea came from. It just felt right.
We were sent to public school, the other children at The Home of St. Judes and I. We were told it was to help us 'develop social skills'. It was nothing more than a daily reminder that we were parentless. Unwelcome, unwanted, and meant to learn our real place in the world as unimportant.
Constantly surrounded by other kids who knew their origins.
Maria, a beautiful blonde who sang as effortlessly as one might blink, was the most popular girl in my grade. She would proudly tell the story of how she was conceived to, 'I could have danced all night, preformed by Julie Andrews'. And she would showcase her gift of song immediately after, as proof. Everyone knew their stories and correlating talents. They wore them with pride and berated me for not knowing mine. But it was Maria who said what haunted me for many years.
'Your parents probably didn't even pick a song. That's why you don't have a real name! Or a gift. They didn't love you.'
We were 9 when she said that.
Childhood cruelty is true torture. I spent many nights, lying awake in the bedroom I shared with six other girls. Restless with more worry than grief. I had never known my parents and that made them difficult to miss. But if they hadn't picked a song to bless me with a great gift to discover...could they have been so dumb?!
I managed to make it out of elementary and middle school mostly intact. I put all of my energy into learning to paint. My free time was spent mimicking the masters and teaching myself everything from color theory, to shading and depth.
By high school I considered myself an artist. I painted from imagination. I invented places, like one of my favorite pieces, 'Terrapin Station'. I made more creative works, like the one I called 'A box of Rain'.
When I was 17 a met a boy.
He was a poet with a love of all things macabre. He told me his parents were fans of Nirvana 'back in the day' and he was conceived over a greatest hits album. My teenage self was in love.
He drove me home to St. Jude's everyday after school. He has a beat up Honda Accord with only a radio, no CD player or iPhone connection.
It was a grey, fall afternoon when I heard it. He started the car and the radio immediately turned on. The sound the came out of the crackling speakers washed over me in warmth. I could feel the song filling everything inside of me. It felt like we were listening to my heart beat.
He reached for the knob to change the station.
'Leave it!'
I shouted. And I didn't know why. I needed the song to keep playing.
'Please...' I added softly.
'You like the Grateful Dead?' He asked me, surprised and slightly alarmed.
'It's Althea,' I said, 'it's...me.'
I leaned back, eyes closed, and smiled.
|
I set out on an adventure, An adventure that would take me accross hill and valley. Through monsters and evil, peril and love. It would be amazing. I set off and I look bravly for my song. Many other got in my way but I had no time for them. I hastened my way along the countries finding what I needed for my quest. I battled dragons, set up a family, and became a king of one of them. This was all in vain however because I had not found my song. I set fourth again, to battle once more. I traveled to the southern parts of my country and found a young man with a genie in his possession. I asked for it, and he said yes as long as I did some tasks. I did them with speed and fortitude. I did not stop for any man. As soon as I returned he gave me it, and I asked the genie one question.
WHAT IS MY SONG
He constructed a computer and sent me to YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guIaCocnNaw
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[WP] Everyone exhibits the traits of the song they were conceived to. You're an orphan and you've set out on a quest to find the song to which you were conceived.
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Every child had their song. For Brad, his was a mystery.
Brad was a frail boy. The nuns at the orphanage had to sequester him away because when he was hurt he would cry for hours and hours. Bumps and scrapes and bruises that other kids would get over in a day took him weeks. The doctors didn't know what's wrong with him. They said it could be some sort of disease in the blood that slowed the healing. They tried everything to fix Brad, but nothing could be done.
Brad was also always itchy. It felt like there were always bugs tickling him, and they skittered across him day in and day out. No matter how much Brad tried, they would never go away. The nuns had to put gloves on him, so he wouldn't scratch too hard and risk hurting himself.
Yes, Brad is the saddest boy you could ever meet. But one day, Brad managed to escape the orphanage. He knew that he must find his song. So he traveled the states, his story touching the hearts of many. They would give him food, shelter, warm clothes. They would share with him their music, all that they had, but it didn't seem like Brad would ever find his song.
But then, one fateful night, it happened. Brad was walking in the city, and some tough-looking kids with black hair and earrings were listening to the radio. Brad hadn't heard the tune that they were listening to, so he stepped in closer to hear.
And sure enough, it was his song.
"CRAAAAAWLING INNNNNNNN MY SKIIIIIIIIIIIN! THESE WOOOOOOOOOUNDS, THEY WILLLLLLLLL NOT HEAAAAAAAL!" yelled the man.
|
I set out on an adventure, An adventure that would take me accross hill and valley. Through monsters and evil, peril and love. It would be amazing. I set off and I look bravly for my song. Many other got in my way but I had no time for them. I hastened my way along the countries finding what I needed for my quest. I battled dragons, set up a family, and became a king of one of them. This was all in vain however because I had not found my song. I set fourth again, to battle once more. I traveled to the southern parts of my country and found a young man with a genie in his possession. I asked for it, and he said yes as long as I did some tasks. I did them with speed and fortitude. I did not stop for any man. As soon as I returned he gave me it, and I asked the genie one question.
WHAT IS MY SONG
He constructed a computer and sent me to YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guIaCocnNaw
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[WP] Everyone exhibits the traits of the song they were conceived to. You're an orphan and you've set out on a quest to find the song to which you were conceived.
|
Every child had their song. For Brad, his was a mystery.
Brad was a frail boy. The nuns at the orphanage had to sequester him away because when he was hurt he would cry for hours and hours. Bumps and scrapes and bruises that other kids would get over in a day took him weeks. The doctors didn't know what's wrong with him. They said it could be some sort of disease in the blood that slowed the healing. They tried everything to fix Brad, but nothing could be done.
Brad was also always itchy. It felt like there were always bugs tickling him, and they skittered across him day in and day out. No matter how much Brad tried, they would never go away. The nuns had to put gloves on him, so he wouldn't scratch too hard and risk hurting himself.
Yes, Brad is the saddest boy you could ever meet. But one day, Brad managed to escape the orphanage. He knew that he must find his song. So he traveled the states, his story touching the hearts of many. They would give him food, shelter, warm clothes. They would share with him their music, all that they had, but it didn't seem like Brad would ever find his song.
But then, one fateful night, it happened. Brad was walking in the city, and some tough-looking kids with black hair and earrings were listening to the radio. Brad hadn't heard the tune that they were listening to, so he stepped in closer to hear.
And sure enough, it was his song.
"CRAAAAAWLING INNNNNNNN MY SKIIIIIIIIIIIN! THESE WOOOOOOOOOUNDS, THEY WILLLLLLLLL NOT HEAAAAAAAL!" yelled the man.
|
The name on my birth certificate is, Girl, Brown Eyes. The nuns who ran the orphanage called me Corinn. At the age of six I demanded to be addressed as, Althea. I have no recollection of where that idea came from. It just felt right.
We were sent to public school, the other children at The Home of St. Judes and I. We were told it was to help us 'develop social skills'. It was nothing more than a daily reminder that we were parentless. Unwelcome, unwanted, and meant to learn our real place in the world as unimportant.
Constantly surrounded by other kids who knew their origins.
Maria, a beautiful blonde who sang as effortlessly as one might blink, was the most popular girl in my grade. She would proudly tell the story of how she was conceived to, 'I could have danced all night, preformed by Julie Andrews'. And she would showcase her gift of song immediately after, as proof. Everyone knew their stories and correlating talents. They wore them with pride and berated me for not knowing mine. But it was Maria who said what haunted me for many years.
'Your parents probably didn't even pick a song. That's why you don't have a real name! Or a gift. They didn't love you.'
We were 9 when she said that.
Childhood cruelty is true torture. I spent many nights, lying awake in the bedroom I shared with six other girls. Restless with more worry than grief. I had never known my parents and that made them difficult to miss. But if they hadn't picked a song to bless me with a great gift to discover...could they have been so dumb?!
I managed to make it out of elementary and middle school mostly intact. I put all of my energy into learning to paint. My free time was spent mimicking the masters and teaching myself everything from color theory, to shading and depth.
By high school I considered myself an artist. I painted from imagination. I invented places, like one of my favorite pieces, 'Terrapin Station'. I made more creative works, like the one I called 'A box of Rain'.
When I was 17 a met a boy.
He was a poet with a love of all things macabre. He told me his parents were fans of Nirvana 'back in the day' and he was conceived over a greatest hits album. My teenage self was in love.
He drove me home to St. Jude's everyday after school. He has a beat up Honda Accord with only a radio, no CD player or iPhone connection.
It was a grey, fall afternoon when I heard it. He started the car and the radio immediately turned on. The sound the came out of the crackling speakers washed over me in warmth. I could feel the song filling everything inside of me. It felt like we were listening to my heart beat.
He reached for the knob to change the station.
'Leave it!'
I shouted. And I didn't know why. I needed the song to keep playing.
'Please...' I added softly.
'You like the Grateful Dead?' He asked me, surprised and slightly alarmed.
'It's Althea,' I said, 'it's...me.'
I leaned back, eyes closed, and smiled.
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[WP] Everyone exhibits the traits of the song they were conceived to. You're an orphan and you've set out on a quest to find the song to which you were conceived.
|
Every child had their song. For Brad, his was a mystery.
Brad was a frail boy. The nuns at the orphanage had to sequester him away because when he was hurt he would cry for hours and hours. Bumps and scrapes and bruises that other kids would get over in a day took him weeks. The doctors didn't know what's wrong with him. They said it could be some sort of disease in the blood that slowed the healing. They tried everything to fix Brad, but nothing could be done.
Brad was also always itchy. It felt like there were always bugs tickling him, and they skittered across him day in and day out. No matter how much Brad tried, they would never go away. The nuns had to put gloves on him, so he wouldn't scratch too hard and risk hurting himself.
Yes, Brad is the saddest boy you could ever meet. But one day, Brad managed to escape the orphanage. He knew that he must find his song. So he traveled the states, his story touching the hearts of many. They would give him food, shelter, warm clothes. They would share with him their music, all that they had, but it didn't seem like Brad would ever find his song.
But then, one fateful night, it happened. Brad was walking in the city, and some tough-looking kids with black hair and earrings were listening to the radio. Brad hadn't heard the tune that they were listening to, so he stepped in closer to hear.
And sure enough, it was his song.
"CRAAAAAWLING INNNNNNNN MY SKIIIIIIIIIIIN! THESE WOOOOOOOOOUNDS, THEY WILLLLLLLLL NOT HEAAAAAAAL!" yelled the man.
|
It was a strange phenomenon that I had bore witness to.
It wouldn't be a far stretch to say that music was my only friend growing up, although it seemed to be a pattern with every person I had ever talked to. Perhaps it is an obvious truth considering how ubiquitous music is in our lives, but the amount of influence it had in our development was frightening. Everyone advertised their music tastes immediately upon meeting one another, working to figure out not only what genre was their favorite, but also the songs that they felt fit them the most.
A good friend of mine growing up was a loud and boisterous boy, always moving quickly from one interest to another. His father was a conductor of music from the Romantic era, and a man who had no end of trouble reining his boy in. He privately confessed to me that he believed his son was conceived at a night where he and his wife made love to, of all things, the Thunder and Lightning Polka. One could only imagine how that turned out.
As another example, my adoptive mother was a lonely woman. She adopted me in part because she had never been able to marry. She would take lovers every now and then, but they would always leave before they would get too close. Some would privately confide to me that she was more in love with the idea of marriage and making a family, rather than for themselves as people. It hit me once I listened to her parents' old records. They were big-name Beatles fans, and as soon as the lyrics came up, there was no doubt in my mind that my mother was connected to them.
~
*Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been.*
*Lives in a dream*
*Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door.*
*Who is it for?*
~
Jenna, an ex-girlfriend of mine also seemed to provide evidence to this idea. A woman whom I had no idea how and why she was interested in me. She seemed to live each day as if it was her last - always taking opportunities that came her way, and always lending a helping hand to others. It was tough to date her initially, since she was always busy at one event or another, but somehow we made it work. I always joked that she would try to bring about world peace. Her reply?
"Just watch me."
I loved that woman.
Of course, there were also bad times in that relationship. In hindsight, she was a woman who was very hard on herself. The stress from all the work she felt that had to do got to her more often than she would admit. After particularly depressing days, she would sometimes do nothing but curl up against me and cry.
"I don't know what to do, Rob," she heaved. "I feel like that I'm lost in a maze, not knowing where I can go. Every time that we make progress, something else comes in to stonewall us."
"What happened today?"
"We needed funding for our next project. They're blaming me for not getting anything done, but I'm trying my hardest, and..."
I knew better than to pry further. I turned on my stereo and played the first song that came from it. It was some recent alternative stuff from some artists that I didn't really know or care about, but the lyrics seemed to fit the mood of what happened.
~
*Yeah, you never said a word*
*You didn't send me no letter*
*Don't think I could forgive you*
*See our world is slowly dying*
*I'm not wasting no more time*
*Don't think I could believe you*
~
Almost as if by magic, at the song's end Jenna curled up again on my arm, seemingly soothed.
"I just want to help people."
"We all do, dear."
~
Jenna was an ex not from any intervention on my part. A truck hit her car on the highway during a ferocious storm, killing her instantly. Hundreds showed up to her funeral, each with a unique story to tell about her. Elton John's Candle in the Wind was my guess for the song that influenced her life. It was played at her funeral. The song itself is common for such events, but it hit me as I looked over at her body on that day.
~
*And it seems to me you lived your life like a candle in the wind.*
*Never knowing who to cling to, when the rain set in.*
*And I would have liked to know you, but I was just a kid.*
*Your candle burned out long before your legend ever did*
~
A wave of wistfulness accompanied me as the remnants of Elton John's almost maudlin voice rang through my ears. My eyes began to water, in part from remembering the person Jenna was, and from the realization that every person had *clues* to who they were.
Few genres of music, on their introduction, really gripped me like they would have for most ordinary people. My adoptive mother, living a quiet life, either played little music at home or latched onto the tastes of her boyfriend of the time. Folk appealed to me a little bit more than the others, but perhaps it was Jenna's influence that drew me to the genre. Still, it gave me some direction to pursue my personal mission. It was a question that I wanted to answer about myself. What made me this way? What made me this sentimental about the past, and about music in general?
I put on my headphones and got started. There were many songs out there that I had yet to listen to, but I had to accomplish this for my own sake, and for Jenna's.
--
This is my first shot at creative writing. Hopefully it's enjoyable.
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[WP] A technology is invented that allows anyone and everyone to alter their appearance at will. If you can imagine a face, you can wear it.
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The film buffs went for the Bradd Pitt model, the Quentin Taratino model, etc. Some Star Trek buffs tried to look like Spock, but they were (rightly) derided for being "too soon." Me, I went for the Jenna Coleman look the first time around. Then I did the Britney Spears look. (Speaking of which, you should have seen the "Selena Gomez" craze among the crazy Beliebers. Sheesh.) Then I did the Michael Fassbender look. Then I threw up.
See, you think it would be all simply "switch-and-play", right? Take a body and play around with it? Life's never that easy. The body-dysphoria people--you know, the transexual rights activists and feminism and such---used to be looked on as crazy, but then we realized they had the right idea, probably around the time everyone started having hallucinations and feeling all icky inside ourselves. Our bodies are wrapped into our identities. You change our bodies, and it starts screwing with our identities. In fact, the creator (who was trans) told us this might happen. But no one wants to listen to the person who rains on the "20 Britneys and 20 Tom Cruises and 35 Angelina Jolie" parties.
Speaking of feminism--the first time I walked around as Sally Sparrow, I got "Hey sweetie"'d a bunch of times. Unfortunately for them, body-switching doesn't change sexual orientation, so they never had any dice with me. Try telling them that.
Anyway, back with identities. Yeah, so being Sally Sparrow did weird things to my head. Apparently, the process doesn't actually change you inside, per se--it just brings out to the fore what's already there. I had specifically asked for an inquisitive character, and I was hoping I would be like a British Harriet the Spy. I was more like a British "creepy neighbor who may also be crazy conspiracy theorist" when I tried snooping around. Basically the same, just British and a chick this time.
Nevertheless, the process did give me some benefits. I was one of the early adopters, so I got to meet my friends without them knowing. None of those friends watch, in their own words, "nerdy crap", so they didn't recognize my character. It was nice (or not-so nice), seeing what they really thought of me. And seeing how they treated a stranger. Have to admit, I lost a few friends after that day.
(Also, getting hit on by your dad is never cool.)
What's funny, to me, is how many people kept their original bodies. I mean, even after the whole "new tech scares me silly" effect, some people still won't go. Those people just liked the way they are. I kind of respect that, although sometimes they're accused of "morpic-shaming."
[That's our name, by the way. Morphics. Makes us sound like mutants or something. In fact, some people did try and become superheros. Kansas had about 6 Supermen at one time. A few heros are still around. )
Now, I usually stay in my normal form. We eventually got a "body-identity" matrix, that helped minimize the nausea of forms you take. It was found that Michael Fassbender was too far from my self-identity to be compatible as a morph. I'm pretty certain that's a lasting blow to my ego, but apparently Sally Sparrow is actually pretty close to my self-image. (So is Kaylee from Firefly, Supergirl, and Abraham Lincoln.) That means I can be her for extended periods of time without any lasting damage. I don't always walk around as her, but it's nice every now and again, plus it helped me realize maybe I want to be a real life detective.
Oh, and reddit and 4chan had a riot with this. The Celebgate 2.0 was an absolute travesty.
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"Have you guys met my girlfriend, Jennifer Lawrence?"
"No way! My girlfriend is Jennifer Lawrence!"
"Mine too!"
"How weird is it that all of us Chris Pratts got together and dated Jennifer Lawrences?"
"Not that weird, my neighbors are a couple of Jennifer Lawrences, they're really cute together! Everyone loves a Jennifer Lawrence!"
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[WP] You are a superhero with an evil supervillian twin sibling. For your powers to remain balanced, for every act of good you do, they must commit an equal act of evil... and you just saved their life.
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I stared down at my twin sister. Her eyes had glazed and her anguished expression stayed frozen to her face. In the background, the sound of sirens and of rushing people - though near, sounded muffled and distant. She raised the gun to my head...
I was the good one you see, and she was the evil one. We were both bound to an ancient curse of balance, inflicted upon us from birth for reasons we did not know. For every act of good I did, she had to do an act of evil, and for every evil act she did, I did one good. It was prophesied that the only way to break the curse was for one of us to die, but there was no way for this to happen. If I killed her, I would be committing evil, which I am incapable of doing. She couldn't kill me either, because I had to commit an equally good act in order for her to counteract it. The death of one of us could only break the curse if an equal number of good acts and evil acts had been committed.
My sister is not a bad person. She cannot help her actions, just as I cannot help mine. On several occasions, she attempted suicide to try and break the curse, but failed every time, because suicide is not in itself, an evil act.
After I had saved a man from being killed by a armed assailant, my sister had to kill someone. Her victim was a mid 40s stock broker. He had done nothing to deserve it, but as usual, she could not prevent this from happening. She emerged from the dark alleyway shaking, trying to fight off the course of events that she was now bound to. It was for naught. Her arm reflexively raised the gun to his head and she pulled the trigger. The barrel was empty. "Shit!" she mumbled. As she began loading the gun, the startled man pulled out his own weapon in defense.
I remember watching helplessly from the other side of an impenetrable force field that stopped me from intervening. And then something strange happened! As the man pulled out his weapon, I felt the force field dissipate! I didn't stop to think why it was happening, because my instinct to save her life had already kicked in, and I rushed to her aid. I tackled him in the very moment that he pulled the trigger, changing the aim of his gun and causing the bullet to hit her in the leg. She dropped to the floor in agony. The man started running away but by now she had loaded the cartridge. She aimed and fired the gun at him. A perfect shot to the back of the head, killing him instantly.
"Why did the force field break?" I wondered to myself. "Is the curse finally over?"
But as I stared down at my sister, I had my answer. She had begun to raise the gun to my head. I could see her finger twitching, trying to fight the curse. "I'm so sorry!" she sobbed. The tears were streaming across her face. She knew that since I had saved her life, she now had to end mine. Good for bad, right for wrong, Yin for Yang. That was how it had to be. As I reached down to hug her, the gun followed my temple as though it was electronically locked to a target. "Remember me!" I whispered. "Always!" she whispered back. I could sense her grip on the gun tighten...
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He blinked, eyes searching through the swell of dust. The roar still lingered in his ears of the falling metal and stone. How had he survived? The moment replayed, he shouldn't be alive. The jerk to his body and lunge that wasn't his action. His plan had gone wrong him too close to the debris, a miscalculation.
The ringing stopped with the clearing air and he heard it, another person breathing. Sirens started in the distance they'd arrive soon. He needed to evacuate the area. But who was so near him and where were they? The breathing played off the rubble drawing him to and fro over the same ground til he stopped at the pile it must emanate from.
Rock tossed aside he recoiled at the dusty face he found. "Brother? It was you that saved me?" The squinting of the other man's eyes and attempt at a smile his response. He'd never be forgotten after this. One built a housing complex the other's duty was to destroy it they were the constant equal forces and inevitable synchronization of life and the knowledge that you woke up knowing you would die. They'd never forget him. He squatted and then hefted the large stone overhead slamming it down with all his might. He listened and heard only his own pulse in his ears and the nearing sirens.
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[WP] At 00h00 tonight, all bank accounts on earth drop to 0$. Explain what happens after.
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It's funny, I didn't really notice it. I'd just graduated not too long ago, blew almost all my money on moving to a new area, and thus had almost nothing saved in my credit union to begin with. On top of it, it was my second payday at a job that gave me altogether too much money to know what to do with. Already, I was developing an unhealthy obsession with cosplay. Obsession with Undertale as well, but I felt it would become another Homestuck when a convention came.
But back on topic! It was the day before Halloween, and it began with only a single clue to that something was amiss: the gas station down the road from my apartment was almost empty.
Honestly? I didn't even find as unusual. I simply thought it was a combination of one of my month-end turns of luck and getting out of work an hour early - as was the case on payday Fridays.
And it was totally normal as I continued on my way onto the freeway out of Tampa. The freeways were not as heavy as they had been last time I made the trip, which was curious considering it was a Friday. Everybody should be on the way to Orlando, shouldn't they? The 98FM rock station - old stuff I grew up with that my dad listened to, and new stuff that I enjoyed, really enjoyed the station - had a commercial-less block of music which wasn't really atypical either. It was the time they always had their no commercial block, for the poor sods stuck on Howard Frankland bridge.
I got to the range of the Orlando rock station. They just were coming off the end of some sort of talk show.
"Can you imagine it? What Donald Trump will do without any money?"
"What do you mean? He had no money to begin with!"
I chuckled, but changed the radio to the first station with Jazz I could find. The drive was hot, my temper was rising as I approached Orlando, I was forced to pass many people going twenty under, and I remembered why I preferred driving at night. I needed the Jazz to stay cool.
Cool as a cat, I arrived in Daytona, stopping on the driveway of a friend's house. My friend and I had a wonderful Halloween-Eve of cooking. Pies, cookies, and a failed soup - apparently she didn't like stew. It was very busy, nonstop, tiring, and very sweaty. I borrowed her family's shower that night.
After getting out of my friend's Daytona shower, I landed on the bed in the guest room. It had been quite a busy day, atypical for my job, though typical for non-job happenings. I hadn't gotten a chance to check the news. I fiddled with my phone, and got locked out, the screen asking for my twenty-seven character password. Whatever, it didn't really matter. News just made you depressed anyways.
In the middle of that thought, my phone rang. I received a peculiar question from my mother about ammunition.
"I thought you didn't approve of guns?"
"Medium son, just give me the damned thingy. You know how the neighborhood here in California been getting, ne?"
I shrugged as I helped her figure things out. She was right, though the violence must have been spreading quite a bit if it was that bad. In the end, I settled to help her buy materials and have dad make pipe-bombs and chlorine molotovs. I figured my dad would make them safe.
"By the way," she began as I was trying to end the call, "Did you move all of your money out of the bank account?"
"Yes, mom. I did it six years ago when they started to charge for a savings account. I was in high school. You finally gave me my account number."
"Oh, right. Good! Have you check your account today?"
"Yes," I lied. "Goodbye mom!"
I hung up, using my phone to quickly check - it wasn't quick, I couldn't type on this thing for beans, and my password took four tries to correctly type - to "quickly" check my account on my credit union's website. Nothing was amiss. I logged out and fell asleep quickly, my wet hair soaking the pillow to comfortable coolness.
It was the next morning that my phone rang at 6:50 AM. Apparently my alarm was set for weekends. With increasing volume rang a disgusting happy tune that really pissed me off, but it was the best alarm tone I could find there. I groaned at my new smartphone, feeling foolish at the fact that me, a person that was able to program the hardware, still was having issues *using* it after a few weeks. I tried tapping the "dismiss" button several times before remembering to drag it to the side of the screen.
The lock screen came up, and in bold, on the Twitter notification, it read "#BankAccountEmpty is trending! Keep track with Moments"
Unable to input my twenty-seven character password with this grogginess, I groaned, squinting at the rest of the lock screen notification. I caught one tweet as it tickered by.
still got my money, love #creditunions
Lucky me, all my newly earned money was in a credit union. I went back to sleep.
|
Brad swiped through the Square reader. Nothing. It was pretty late, but he was wired. Actually, nervous.
Sheila stared back at him.
Actually, horny.
"So, no dessert tonight hun?", she said, eyebrows up.
Brad fumbles for a second card. A third, a fourth. Nadda.
"I think this thing is busted", Brad says, flicking the reader with his finger.
Sheila stares at her phone screen, tapping and swiping. Eyebrows go down, and go down hard. "Fuck."
"What?"
"It's not your cards hun. It's..." and the hotel clerk interrupts, "...everything", gesturing to the National Guard, busily entertaining the CNN cameraman on the lobby's flat screen.
They stare at the TV, silently, for about a minute. It's on mute, but it says it all. And the police motorcycles buzzing by the hotel say the rest.
"So", Brad says.
"So what", Sheila replies. Pulls the little Square reader out of her phone, pocketing them both.
"I'll fuck you anyway."
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[WP] At 00h00 tonight, all bank accounts on earth drop to 0$. Explain what happens after.
|
It's funny, I didn't really notice it. I'd just graduated not too long ago, blew almost all my money on moving to a new area, and thus had almost nothing saved in my credit union to begin with. On top of it, it was my second payday at a job that gave me altogether too much money to know what to do with. Already, I was developing an unhealthy obsession with cosplay. Obsession with Undertale as well, but I felt it would become another Homestuck when a convention came.
But back on topic! It was the day before Halloween, and it began with only a single clue to that something was amiss: the gas station down the road from my apartment was almost empty.
Honestly? I didn't even find as unusual. I simply thought it was a combination of one of my month-end turns of luck and getting out of work an hour early - as was the case on payday Fridays.
And it was totally normal as I continued on my way onto the freeway out of Tampa. The freeways were not as heavy as they had been last time I made the trip, which was curious considering it was a Friday. Everybody should be on the way to Orlando, shouldn't they? The 98FM rock station - old stuff I grew up with that my dad listened to, and new stuff that I enjoyed, really enjoyed the station - had a commercial-less block of music which wasn't really atypical either. It was the time they always had their no commercial block, for the poor sods stuck on Howard Frankland bridge.
I got to the range of the Orlando rock station. They just were coming off the end of some sort of talk show.
"Can you imagine it? What Donald Trump will do without any money?"
"What do you mean? He had no money to begin with!"
I chuckled, but changed the radio to the first station with Jazz I could find. The drive was hot, my temper was rising as I approached Orlando, I was forced to pass many people going twenty under, and I remembered why I preferred driving at night. I needed the Jazz to stay cool.
Cool as a cat, I arrived in Daytona, stopping on the driveway of a friend's house. My friend and I had a wonderful Halloween-Eve of cooking. Pies, cookies, and a failed soup - apparently she didn't like stew. It was very busy, nonstop, tiring, and very sweaty. I borrowed her family's shower that night.
After getting out of my friend's Daytona shower, I landed on the bed in the guest room. It had been quite a busy day, atypical for my job, though typical for non-job happenings. I hadn't gotten a chance to check the news. I fiddled with my phone, and got locked out, the screen asking for my twenty-seven character password. Whatever, it didn't really matter. News just made you depressed anyways.
In the middle of that thought, my phone rang. I received a peculiar question from my mother about ammunition.
"I thought you didn't approve of guns?"
"Medium son, just give me the damned thingy. You know how the neighborhood here in California been getting, ne?"
I shrugged as I helped her figure things out. She was right, though the violence must have been spreading quite a bit if it was that bad. In the end, I settled to help her buy materials and have dad make pipe-bombs and chlorine molotovs. I figured my dad would make them safe.
"By the way," she began as I was trying to end the call, "Did you move all of your money out of the bank account?"
"Yes, mom. I did it six years ago when they started to charge for a savings account. I was in high school. You finally gave me my account number."
"Oh, right. Good! Have you check your account today?"
"Yes," I lied. "Goodbye mom!"
I hung up, using my phone to quickly check - it wasn't quick, I couldn't type on this thing for beans, and my password took four tries to correctly type - to "quickly" check my account on my credit union's website. Nothing was amiss. I logged out and fell asleep quickly, my wet hair soaking the pillow to comfortable coolness.
It was the next morning that my phone rang at 6:50 AM. Apparently my alarm was set for weekends. With increasing volume rang a disgusting happy tune that really pissed me off, but it was the best alarm tone I could find there. I groaned at my new smartphone, feeling foolish at the fact that me, a person that was able to program the hardware, still was having issues *using* it after a few weeks. I tried tapping the "dismiss" button several times before remembering to drag it to the side of the screen.
The lock screen came up, and in bold, on the Twitter notification, it read "#BankAccountEmpty is trending! Keep track with Moments"
Unable to input my twenty-seven character password with this grogginess, I groaned, squinting at the rest of the lock screen notification. I caught one tweet as it tickered by.
still got my money, love #creditunions
Lucky me, all my newly earned money was in a credit union. I went back to sleep.
|
It's true I guess, fame really is more important than money. The television stayed on with almost all the usual shows. I, like countless others, spent the first month on my couch and in front of my screens. Stuck in fear and awe and disbelief.
I woke up and turned on the telly while I brewed my tea and fed Scuttles. The whole world had gone mad. All of the bank accounts in the world had disappeared. The news had six pundits in squares each accusing someone and assigning motives.
I didn't go to work. If money wasn't a thing, "why should I?" was my first silly thought. My mind began to run wild with idealistic fancies.
Scuttles began to howl as if she hadn't been fed in days, as opposed to the hour delay.
Shit, who IS going to go to their jobs if there is no money? Sure, maybe the doctors will show up but not the guy scrubbing the loo. Shit, the world is about to go to shit.
I didn't know what to do. Through a habit of overbuying sale items my small apartment was well stocked with the essentials, and so I sat. I sat and I watched the Telly, doing little else but sleep. I was waiting for someone to tell me what to do I suppose. Maybe we all were.
Edit: grammar fix
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[WP] At 00h00 tonight, all bank accounts on earth drop to 0$. Explain what happens after.
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There once was a young man named NextGenWarrior, one night at 00h00 all bank accounts on earth dropped to $0. NextGen didn't know the difference till he turned on the TV because he was broke af anyways.
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It's true I guess, fame really is more important than money. The television stayed on with almost all the usual shows. I, like countless others, spent the first month on my couch and in front of my screens. Stuck in fear and awe and disbelief.
I woke up and turned on the telly while I brewed my tea and fed Scuttles. The whole world had gone mad. All of the bank accounts in the world had disappeared. The news had six pundits in squares each accusing someone and assigning motives.
I didn't go to work. If money wasn't a thing, "why should I?" was my first silly thought. My mind began to run wild with idealistic fancies.
Scuttles began to howl as if she hadn't been fed in days, as opposed to the hour delay.
Shit, who IS going to go to their jobs if there is no money? Sure, maybe the doctors will show up but not the guy scrubbing the loo. Shit, the world is about to go to shit.
I didn't know what to do. Through a habit of overbuying sale items my small apartment was well stocked with the essentials, and so I sat. I sat and I watched the Telly, doing little else but sleep. I was waiting for someone to tell me what to do I suppose. Maybe we all were.
Edit: grammar fix
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[WP] At 00h00 tonight, all bank accounts on earth drop to 0$. Explain what happens after.
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"Ghe."
A text message from my bank had just two minutes earlier informed me that my balance was €0,00. Looking around, a few of my friends grabbed their phones and stared in bewilderment. "Hey, Lucas, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" "No, Lisa, I'm not pondering what you're pondering!", followed by a lot of laughs.
"No, seriously Lucas! Stop being a jerk. My bank account just hit zero!"
Lucas, still laughing a bit over his own stupid joke, grabbed her phone. "I told you you should watch out with cashing at an ATM in a strange city. Before you know, Ashton Kutcher jumps out behind the bar and yells YOU'VE BEEN SKIMMED!" More laughing escapes his mouth. But nobody else is laughing. They all stare in bewilderment to their phones. Lucas, now painfully aware that his joke has landed nowhere, glances down to Lisa's phone.
"Wait... what?
Hard reset. Thank you for choosing The 9 Lives Kitty Bank. All your currency are belong to us. Miauw!
With a shove, he returns Lisa her phone and proceeds to look at his own. At about this moment, it's beginning to become obvious that this problem for everyone who had money on their account; the majority of the pub. People stare in bewilderment to their phones, try to pay their drinks with their CC cards, a barmanager who looks like he's having a nervous breakdown... It's a total chaos for practically anyone without cash in their pockets.
Now for me, this wasn't so much of a problem. With no savings and an account deep into the red digits, I just actually had *earned* money.
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The New York trading floor fell into a stunned silence. I stared at the scrolling information like all the rest of them, the economy had quite literally just disappeared as soon as the time hit midnight. The stock brokers only stood there for a few more seconds before starting to reach for their phones or frantically typing on their laptops.
The room suddenly broke into chaos as everyone started making calls and shouting about what the hell was going on, I watched as the global economy kept on imploding itself as companies started announcing their bankruptcy and as the automated trading systems glitched out having no idea what to do. All is lost. This was all made worse by the fact it is packed in here because tonight was when the new deal between China and the US would be finalised
I didn't hesitate any longer, I turn around and start heading to get out of this hot stuffy, and now noisy, room. I had to quite literally barge my way through the other traders causing a few annoyed shouts and causing one guy to fall over. I made it to the exit but just next to the exit I saw a news reporter and cameraman making their way in, they quickly got past the security guards, who were to busy trying to figure out what was going on themselves and she turned around and faced the camera. What she said next chilled me to the bones.
"This is Katie Rotkins reporting live from wall street, as you can see the trading floor has collapsed into chaos as this crisis continues. According to unconfirmed sources everyone's bank accounts, companies included, have been wiped of cash, apparently it was like the cash was never there. It's only been 22 minutes since this started and already the economy h-"
She didn't get any further as then the power cut out. Everyone went silent again and Katie let out an annoyed sigh and started hastling her cameraman to see if they were still on, I heard a deep rumbling start and the lights came back on. I took the opportunity to walk over to her, she saw me approaching and gave me a annoyed look before her face softened up a bit.
"Uh Katie, I'm Geoffrey, a trader here. Or well I was. And, uh if what you said is true then I suggest you get out of here as fast as you can" I said to her much less gracefully than I planned to. She looked at her cameraman.
"I suggest we take his advice" he said to her in a surprisingly scared tone. She looked back over at me before nodding.
"Yeah we probably should, can't even broadcast anyway, do you know the best way out of the city?" She started looking around uncomfortably as she said this.
"Well follow me, were going to need to go on foot as the traffic will be at a standstill as the traffic lights won't be working and the Subway probably isn't working either" I hastly replied as a few other traders started giving up and leaving as they realised all was lost. I headed out of the doors and jogged down the steps, I could hear Katie's heels clicking behind me as I went.
Outside wall street was lit up like a Christmas tree but looking beyond wall street few buildings were lit up, traders from all along wall street had started to pour onto the street. I looked left then right at the traffic, all honking at each other in typical New Yorker style. I looked over my shoulder at Katie and her accomplice.
"Let's go, we need to get over the Brooklyn Bridge"
*If you guys want me to continue I will but I really need to sleep, sorry if my depiction of locations in New York isn't great, I didn't bother looking at Google maps or anything*
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[WP] "I don't mind us connecting with our parallel Earth and all, I just wish they weren't so damn smug about being 'The Good One'!"
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"The Good Earth". That's what they think they have, or at least that's what they *say* they have. They think they have it all figured out over there, that hunger is no more, all are equal, war is obsolete. It makes your heart bleed, doesn't it?
*But if you asked me, they're a bunch of deluded children who can't accept sacrifice. We didn't end world hunger by throwing our hands into the air and screaming "Survival of the Fittest!". Sure, nobody over there is really starving, but many of them live in a state we haven't seen in decades, and their Earth is practically one big city now. No room for nature, just humanity and its infinite appetite.*
I mean, sure, if they want to be cooped up in their cubicle apartments in their city-sized prisons in all but name, but we actually bothered about humanity and built our way to paridise. Here, every man, woman and child has their own space to themselves. No 'communes' or that hippy-dippy slock, everybody who works for it can have a proper home to raise their family.
*How can they even sleep at night, knowing that innocent people are harmed by criminals every single day? How do you raise a family knowing that anybody who's the right mix of desperate and sick can break into their oh-so-precious mansions and castles? What might be worse is that they actually think they've practically eliminated crime...*
...but the worst criminals of all are the ones in their monolith of a government. Bugs, drones, surveillance that never even left the pages of science fiction on our Earth, it all ties them down into this eternal cage that they call a 'World Nation'. And because its only one big nation, they have no way of knowing any other way of living. They think they're free...
*...but it's those stupid Neanderthal brains of theirs that slammed the chains onto their wrists. They are so absolutely, almost-offensively rich, more than enough to perhaps exceed the promises we make to every human being, but because Mother Nature said it was alright to murder someone over a mammoth corpse so many hundreds of thousands of years ago, then its completely fine to deny people the full riches of Utopia because 'they didn't work hard enough'. Would you be surprised that the president of one of their biggest nations think that women are of inherently less intelligence than men?*
They don't even have an elected leader! It's some congress overlooked by a bureaucracy advised by some goddamn computers, and they presumably put the contestants names into a hat and pick out which one will be leader for the next few years. Look, I don't care if their leader could piss rainbows, the crucial bit is that the people don't pick who gets the job. In the same way that schoolchildren don't choose their principle, or that a prisoner doesn't choose his head warden.
*The people they put in charge over there, I swear to God. It doesn't matter what they're good at, as much as they like to claim its all work ethic, it's place of birth, which school you went to, who you know, who your parents know, and how many suckers you can sweet-talk into doing what you say.*
Hmmmm. I don't know what the real point of me typing this is, I'm sure the people over there, in their spires and togas...
*...eating their lobster and filet mignon would never care to read it.*
But if they truly wanted a Utopia...
*...then they can come over here and see one.*
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"You find her?" Mark asked.
Grey sat on the edge of the building, letting his legs dangle over the edge to catch the rising heat from the fires below. Apparently they had whole vehicles, dedicated to stopping fires, on their side of the portal. It made him think about what life could have been like.
"Yeah."
"And?"
Mark had been his friend since forever. Technically forever was three years; ever since they'd both been caught in the middle of a shootout between the Johnsons and New Moons. But in this city, that practically constituted life.
Grey leant over the edge and watched as one of the floors below erupted in a ball of flame.
"She's a doctor," he said. Mark looked at him nonplussed from around his cigarette. "It means she helps people, fixes 'em when they get shot."
"That a real thing?"
"Didn't see many people getting shot over there."
"No, I mean, like helping people? For real?" Mark said.
"They got doctors and teachers and police."
"My pa used to be a policeman," Mark cut in. It was rare for him to share personal stories. Grey didn't even know he'd had a father, just thought him another tank-birth set free from the labs. "He used to line the grubs up and waste 'em, blam blam blam."
"I don't think their police are the same."
"So what you gonna do? The Mel here don't want you. You gonna try for Mel Two?"
Grey took a long drag from his cigarette. The love of his life, Ma Mel, ran one of the biggest cartels in the city. She owned the slowly burning building on which they sat. And she'd promised to have his skin cut from his body if he ever showed his face on her doorstep again.
"A goodie-two-shoes Earth-2 chick like that? No chance she'd fall for me."
"Stranger things have happened," Mark said. He pushed off from the edge, letting his tac-wings unfurl. Grey could hear him laughing as he disappeared through the smoke below.
"Asshole," Grey grumbled.
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[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
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Today began like any other boring day. I woke up at 6:30 AM, ate an apple, a cheese wedge, and a loaf of bread. At 8:00 AM I began standing behind the counter of my shop. Normally stand there until 8:00 PM, I walk to the tavern, eat my dinner, and go to bed. It's a simple life, one that I enjoy. Today however, was different. Today, an outsider came into my shop. He was tall, blond, handsome, with unkempt yet attractive hair. His armor was shoddy and his weapon looked like something he picked off of a corpse in a tomb, yet this man appeared formidable, almost as if he were destined for greatness regardless of his humble beginnings.
"Welcome to my house of wares! Would you like to buy, sell, or trade?" I asked. It was kind of my trademark. I really put a lot of effort into the delivery, hoping to impress this outsider, and spark up a new regular customer.
The traveller upended his pack, and dumped 200 iron daggers onto the counter, each carefully honed to a fine edge, but otherwise unremarkable.
We argued back and forth, but the traveller insisted I buy them all for about 15 gold each. I felt uncomfortable with the sale, but the craftsmanship was half decent, and they *were* magical, so I relented and purchased them. Later at the tavern, I saw this traveller get into a fistfight, get blackout drunk, and pickpocket four people. I would've said something but I didn't want any trouble.
The next day, I opened my shop promptly at 8:00 AM. Again, in walks the traveller. Right when I opened, like he had been waiting outside the door all night like some kind of creep. He turns his pack upside down and out pours 150 pairs of leather boots. This time, they were enchanted, apparently with an enchantment to fortify stealth. At first I was intrigued, but upon inspection the enchantments were so weak as to be almost useless. After another heated disagreement I bought the boots, but only when the traveller threw in a magical potion as well.
Later, I examined the potion. It would recover my stamina, but also make me weak to magic spells for an hour as well as damage my stamina regeneration! Who would make a potion like this? It was utterly useless! I hurled it into the garbage. After spending so much on the boots and daggers and never having any customers, I began to worry for my livelihood. At 8:00 PM, I closed the store, went to the tavern, and had a drink while I contemplated my situation.
The next day, the traveller was back again, promptly at 8:00. He clearly was standing outside of my door for hours, although this time his recently crafted armor glinted in the lamplight. He wore a large intimidating sword on his back which was crafted out of a strange, glowing material. He now wore a pair of flashy rings and an amulet which emitted a soft glow.
"Get the hell out," I stated, "I'm not buying any more boots or daggers or worthless potions."
The traveller struck me down with his sword without warning or hesitation.
Suddenly I awoke 5 minutes before my murder, in a state of sheer confusion. The traveller stood before me, but now insisted that I buy 300 sets of iron gauntlets.
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I didn't know what to say.
It was as if an aura was around this gentleman, and his lady friend.
An aura of “Don’t fuck with these people”.
I did the only thing I could do…..
“What kinda gun ya want?”
***
I stood there behind the counter, the regulars coming in and buying their weapons and ammo as I processed their paperwork and filed it to the correct agencies. This wasn’t the first time that I saw the man and woman pass by, but from their longing gazes as they stared at the strategically placed Barrett M82A1 with a Leupold Mark 4 optic on the loose dummy rounds. I knew right away that they wanted that rifle, but could not afford it yet.
I swept up the shop as the local Russian syndicate buyer stumbled in the door, reeking of vomit and two day old Vodka.
“извините, меня я могу вам помочь?”
“You cannot, shopkeep. Just give us the order and we will be on our way.”
I shrugged and motioned to Jimmy, my shop boy. He ran and got the crate, then proceeded to load it into the back of the black GMC. The driver handed him a stack of bills, then they were gone. I sat back as he stared at the money, then at me, then walked back into the shop awkwardly. His stare told me everything…. He never did anything like this before.
“Jimmy, put your money away and clean something. I have a feeling tonight is gonna be busy.”
***
The man plunked down a large stack of gold coins on my desk, of a design I had not seen in a long time. He was rather silent through the whole transaction, though I could hear random sounds coming out of his mouth, almost like the sounds of keys clacking and occasionally heavy breathing though a microphone. Ah well, the money was good and I boxed up the Barrett and 200 rounds of ammunition. This should be good….
***
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[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
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Winter has finally arrived, and it’s one of the worst in recent memory. I can hear the timbers that make up the roof of my building groaning against the weight of the wind-driven snow piling up and eventually sliding off onto the frozen streets. I’m one of the lucky ones; my shop is backed against the city walls, so I get a break from the wind depending on the direction. Fortunately as a book-binder and parchment-maker, the cold doesn’t keep me from operating my business fairly well. Even in the winter, records must be kept, ink needs mixing, and wizards need volumes to record their research --again, I am one of the lucky ones. I feel sorry for the shopkeepers that are stranded on the other side of the street, their buildings buried in snow. I will probably have to dig them out tomorrow morning after breakfast. I don’t mind, we all get along as well as can be expected.
I’m surprised to hear the door swing open -- who could possibly be out on a night like this? A burst of frozen air threatens to tear the thick door off of its iron hinges, but my guest catches it and forces it closed. At least, I think it’s a guest. What I see before me is what I always imagined a yeti to look like, hairy and covered in clumps of snow, which are quickly becoming pools of water, slipping through the cracks of the floorboards, soaking into the rugs I have laid upon the more commonly-traveled areas. I see a light fog coming from where I assume a mouth would be. I stare for what seems like several moments, for some reason unable to move, stunned with fascination at this unusual patron.
“Oh, Hello.” I say, nearly forgetting my manners. “I would usually ask you what you need, but I think that’s fairly obvious.” My guest looks as though they are having trouble walking, as if their blood had frozen in their muscles. I support them, though the smell of wet furs is at first off putting, it reminds me of the winter trips I would take with my father in the early days of my apprenticeship. When we near the fire, I gingerly move a chair close to the glowing embers. “Here, sit. Let me get these wet things off of you, we can talk business later.” I go into the other room to my paper-drying racks and lay the furs over them --maybe some of the water will collect in the bin underneath so I can use it for a later project. It would keep me from having to collect it later.
I return to the storefront, some dry blankets slung under my arms. The room is filled with the orange-amber glow of a healthy fire. Its life-giving radiance spreading its luminous fingers into every corner of the room. I see a sword leaning against the hearth, its handle well used and worn -- what tales it could tell! I am caught slightly off guard when I find that my guest is not a man, but a young woman. Though most of the adventurers I meet here are men, the odd wandering woman is not unheard of. I drape the thick blanket around her shoulders and tell her frankly, “I’m going to put on a nice pot of tea, I'm going to get you some as well.” She stares into the fire while the water boils in its pot, wrapped tightly in the blanket.
She is, in a word, indescribable. Her hair, whose color seemed to be a reflection of the fire itself hung to her shoulders, long and straight, and in several places skillfully braided, interwoven with golden strands of a shimmering metal. Her green eyes, though brilliant in their luminescence hid a sadness that I had seen only in the eyes of tired old men and war-weary soldiers. They were eyes that had already seen the worst of the world, and silently knew that they would see more still. If those eyes were to look at me, I’m sure that they would see through my soul to depths that I have never dared venture myself. These eyes told me she did not intend to stay long. Many of those with eyes of this kind never came back, despite the well-wishes that we sent with them. Whether dead on some battlefield, drowned in some cave or lost in the endless tunnels of an ancient ruin, many of these adventurers have met their end. Such a thing is not for me.
The water is sufficiently boiled, and I place a small amount of my best tea into a pair of ceramic cups. After a sip of her drink, she nods towards a book on my mantelpiece. “Did you make that?” I looked up at the item in question. It was my masterpiece. I labored long and hard on its smooth red leather cover, and I remember the titanic concentration when applying the delicate gold leaf on its spine. “Yes,” I replied. “Yes I did.” She sighed and uttered a half-laugh into her cup. “I’d like to read that someday. Maybe on my way back.” I smiled and said, “Of course, I’ll make sure it’s here.”I hope that she does not catch me staring: you never know what kind of sixth senses these wanderers develop. I spend my time in the town militia, I do my duty as I am asked, but nothing more. I am a craftsman, not a soldier. My spear and sword lean in a dusty corner, waiting for the day when they are called to use -- a day I could do without. My martial inexperience has never been a cause of anxiety --until now. I desperately hope the topic doesn't come up, lest I embarrass myself.
Again, an eternity of lifetimes.
She left the next morning. I look at the empty spot that my book once occupied upon my mantle. I’m sure she noticed that I put it into her knapsack -- people notice things like that. I didn’t mind letting her take it. Besides, she has to bring it back.
edit: Seemed unfinished, wrote some more.
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I didn't know what to say.
It was as if an aura was around this gentleman, and his lady friend.
An aura of “Don’t fuck with these people”.
I did the only thing I could do…..
“What kinda gun ya want?”
***
I stood there behind the counter, the regulars coming in and buying their weapons and ammo as I processed their paperwork and filed it to the correct agencies. This wasn’t the first time that I saw the man and woman pass by, but from their longing gazes as they stared at the strategically placed Barrett M82A1 with a Leupold Mark 4 optic on the loose dummy rounds. I knew right away that they wanted that rifle, but could not afford it yet.
I swept up the shop as the local Russian syndicate buyer stumbled in the door, reeking of vomit and two day old Vodka.
“извините, меня я могу вам помочь?”
“You cannot, shopkeep. Just give us the order and we will be on our way.”
I shrugged and motioned to Jimmy, my shop boy. He ran and got the crate, then proceeded to load it into the back of the black GMC. The driver handed him a stack of bills, then they were gone. I sat back as he stared at the money, then at me, then walked back into the shop awkwardly. His stare told me everything…. He never did anything like this before.
“Jimmy, put your money away and clean something. I have a feeling tonight is gonna be busy.”
***
The man plunked down a large stack of gold coins on my desk, of a design I had not seen in a long time. He was rather silent through the whole transaction, though I could hear random sounds coming out of his mouth, almost like the sounds of keys clacking and occasionally heavy breathing though a microphone. Ah well, the money was good and I boxed up the Barrett and 200 rounds of ammunition. This should be good….
***
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[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
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Today began like any other boring day. I woke up at 6:30 AM, ate an apple, a cheese wedge, and a loaf of bread. At 8:00 AM I began standing behind the counter of my shop. Normally stand there until 8:00 PM, I walk to the tavern, eat my dinner, and go to bed. It's a simple life, one that I enjoy. Today however, was different. Today, an outsider came into my shop. He was tall, blond, handsome, with unkempt yet attractive hair. His armor was shoddy and his weapon looked like something he picked off of a corpse in a tomb, yet this man appeared formidable, almost as if he were destined for greatness regardless of his humble beginnings.
"Welcome to my house of wares! Would you like to buy, sell, or trade?" I asked. It was kind of my trademark. I really put a lot of effort into the delivery, hoping to impress this outsider, and spark up a new regular customer.
The traveller upended his pack, and dumped 200 iron daggers onto the counter, each carefully honed to a fine edge, but otherwise unremarkable.
We argued back and forth, but the traveller insisted I buy them all for about 15 gold each. I felt uncomfortable with the sale, but the craftsmanship was half decent, and they *were* magical, so I relented and purchased them. Later at the tavern, I saw this traveller get into a fistfight, get blackout drunk, and pickpocket four people. I would've said something but I didn't want any trouble.
The next day, I opened my shop promptly at 8:00 AM. Again, in walks the traveller. Right when I opened, like he had been waiting outside the door all night like some kind of creep. He turns his pack upside down and out pours 150 pairs of leather boots. This time, they were enchanted, apparently with an enchantment to fortify stealth. At first I was intrigued, but upon inspection the enchantments were so weak as to be almost useless. After another heated disagreement I bought the boots, but only when the traveller threw in a magical potion as well.
Later, I examined the potion. It would recover my stamina, but also make me weak to magic spells for an hour as well as damage my stamina regeneration! Who would make a potion like this? It was utterly useless! I hurled it into the garbage. After spending so much on the boots and daggers and never having any customers, I began to worry for my livelihood. At 8:00 PM, I closed the store, went to the tavern, and had a drink while I contemplated my situation.
The next day, the traveller was back again, promptly at 8:00. He clearly was standing outside of my door for hours, although this time his recently crafted armor glinted in the lamplight. He wore a large intimidating sword on his back which was crafted out of a strange, glowing material. He now wore a pair of flashy rings and an amulet which emitted a soft glow.
"Get the hell out," I stated, "I'm not buying any more boots or daggers or worthless potions."
The traveller struck me down with his sword without warning or hesitation.
Suddenly I awoke 5 minutes before my murder, in a state of sheer confusion. The traveller stood before me, but now insisted that I buy 300 sets of iron gauntlets.
|
As I continue to walk, stuck in place by this wall, the small bell over my humble door rings gently as an adventurer enters the shop. I do not stray from my task at hand, walking, forever walking, stuck in this wall. The clipping allows me to see her from behind the counter, although I doubt she will see more than a pair of shuffling feet peeking out of the gnarled and dingy wood panel. You see, I've been in this wall since the game began. A random bug deemed not important enough to warrant a launch delay or overtime, with the developers promising a patch update to free me some time in the indeterminate future.
She is a tall warrior type, with blackened steel armor and worn leather boots. At her side is a polearm, full of nicks and stains from blood spilled. She looks around my shop, observing the dust caked wares that have rested untouched for years. After a minute of silence she finds a prompt to speak. She tells me of how she needs to sell me 186 bug legs. That she has been carrying them over barren war fields and through mountain passes. I've been assured they are of top quality, taken from only the finest of hard carapace monsters from dark swamps continents away.
Stuck in this wall, I am unable to inspect them. However my gut tells me she is an honest soul. As I agree to buy them my exchange animation causes my arm to suddenly morph and distort. My fingers extend into long multi-colored triangles that pierce the ceiling and possibly space. I continue to trudge in my wall, however I have been able to now free my hand. No sooner are the coins in her purse than she spins about. Running to the door, running to freedom, running to another battle, another peasant with yet another quest. I continue to pace against the wall, my hand extended. Waiting, patiently, for the console to power down.
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[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
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Today began like any other boring day. I woke up at 6:30 AM, ate an apple, a cheese wedge, and a loaf of bread. At 8:00 AM I began standing behind the counter of my shop. Normally stand there until 8:00 PM, I walk to the tavern, eat my dinner, and go to bed. It's a simple life, one that I enjoy. Today however, was different. Today, an outsider came into my shop. He was tall, blond, handsome, with unkempt yet attractive hair. His armor was shoddy and his weapon looked like something he picked off of a corpse in a tomb, yet this man appeared formidable, almost as if he were destined for greatness regardless of his humble beginnings.
"Welcome to my house of wares! Would you like to buy, sell, or trade?" I asked. It was kind of my trademark. I really put a lot of effort into the delivery, hoping to impress this outsider, and spark up a new regular customer.
The traveller upended his pack, and dumped 200 iron daggers onto the counter, each carefully honed to a fine edge, but otherwise unremarkable.
We argued back and forth, but the traveller insisted I buy them all for about 15 gold each. I felt uncomfortable with the sale, but the craftsmanship was half decent, and they *were* magical, so I relented and purchased them. Later at the tavern, I saw this traveller get into a fistfight, get blackout drunk, and pickpocket four people. I would've said something but I didn't want any trouble.
The next day, I opened my shop promptly at 8:00 AM. Again, in walks the traveller. Right when I opened, like he had been waiting outside the door all night like some kind of creep. He turns his pack upside down and out pours 150 pairs of leather boots. This time, they were enchanted, apparently with an enchantment to fortify stealth. At first I was intrigued, but upon inspection the enchantments were so weak as to be almost useless. After another heated disagreement I bought the boots, but only when the traveller threw in a magical potion as well.
Later, I examined the potion. It would recover my stamina, but also make me weak to magic spells for an hour as well as damage my stamina regeneration! Who would make a potion like this? It was utterly useless! I hurled it into the garbage. After spending so much on the boots and daggers and never having any customers, I began to worry for my livelihood. At 8:00 PM, I closed the store, went to the tavern, and had a drink while I contemplated my situation.
The next day, the traveller was back again, promptly at 8:00. He clearly was standing outside of my door for hours, although this time his recently crafted armor glinted in the lamplight. He wore a large intimidating sword on his back which was crafted out of a strange, glowing material. He now wore a pair of flashy rings and an amulet which emitted a soft glow.
"Get the hell out," I stated, "I'm not buying any more boots or daggers or worthless potions."
The traveller struck me down with his sword without warning or hesitation.
Suddenly I awoke 5 minutes before my murder, in a state of sheer confusion. The traveller stood before me, but now insisted that I buy 300 sets of iron gauntlets.
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A Haikou About Skyrim NPC Abuse
Warrior enters.
Puts a pot over my head.
All my stuff is gone.
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[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
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"For the last time: I don't care who you are, and I don't care about your 'mission'! If you don't like the prices here, the next closest weapons shop is in Abrylone. But I doubt you'll find them any more willing to give discounts to some self-proclaimed 'chosen one'!"
You meet your fair share of high-minded adventurers and aspiring heroes when you manage a weapons shop around here. This fellow, though... there was something different about him. For one, he had a lazy eye.
Just kidding. But he definitely wasn't kidding. He had just finished rambling on about a powerful wizard who had unleashed some sort of ancient evil that would soon consume the entire land of Ranyulei in eternal darkness and misery. Said he was the only one who could stop it, but first he had to collect some magic amulets and then... I don't know, it got kind of confusing after that.
Of course, he wasn't telling me all this just to make small talk. He wanted me to sell him a standard short sword -- for 20 gold! Said it was the least I could do, seeing as how he was trying to save the world and all. A lot of nerve for a 14 year old peasant boy!
Believe it or not, haggling with customers is a lot rarer than you might think. Most of them walk in, buy slightly better quality weaponry than what they're currently carrying, sell me the gear they no longer need for a tiny fraction of what it's actually worth, and leave with hardly a word spoken. Honestly, they don't have much of a choice. I'm the only game in town, after all. Pay my prices, or have fun trying to fend off wild beasts and marauders with that rusty knife you've got.
I didn't budge. "Listen, son. I got a wife and three daughters to feed. Thirty five gold and this sword is yours, but that's as low as I can go. If you can't even afford that, how are you ever going to make it on this ridiculous journey you've got planned? And besides... magic amulets, ancient evils? You don't need a sword. What you need is help. For your brain."
He counted the gold in his pouch again, then told me he'd be back in an hour with the money. Said he could probably borrow the difference from one of the bandits roaming around the outskirts of town. I laughed. "You mess with those guys, and you'll be spending every last piece of gold you got on healing potions!"
He came back an hour later, just like he said. Covered in dirt and mostly dry blood. He counted the coins aloud as he placed them on the counter. I stared at him with a mixture of about equal parts disbelief and fear. "I'll take the sword, please," he muttered.
I handed it to him off the rack, almost unable to speak. "Anything else, sir?"
"Yeah. How much for this old hatchet?"
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**Day 15** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
The sword came down so fast that the poor man had no idea what to do, so he just stood there and took the blow, exploding into shiny rubies and sapphires which his attacker scooped up without a moments hesitation to the dead man in the grass.
**Day 17** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
An arrow came whizzing out of a bush nearby and stuck in the mans chest, he looked down bewildered and ran across the courtyard with his arms flailing over his head, a second arrow through his ear made him drop to the grass, where he exploded in a shower of rubies and sapphires.
**Day 21** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
The man felt sickly, he was wobbling and leaning hard against the tree until finally his face turned green and he sank to the base of the tree, exploding in a wave of rubies and sapphires, once again swept up by the cloaked gentleman without a glance at the poor man in the grass.
**Day 25** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
"Yes, where is the Pottery Shoppe?" the cloaked man requested.
"Ahh yes! Tricky little thing to find! That would be up past the fountain and down the side alley on your right! Is there anything el--" a blade sliced through the mans neck and a waterfall of rubies and sapphires poured out and across the grass, the cloaked man stooped and picked them up walking away; his victim bleeding red into the green grass.
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[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
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Winter has finally arrived, and it’s one of the worst in recent memory. I can hear the timbers that make up the roof of my building groaning against the weight of the wind-driven snow piling up and eventually sliding off onto the frozen streets. I’m one of the lucky ones; my shop is backed against the city walls, so I get a break from the wind depending on the direction. Fortunately as a book-binder and parchment-maker, the cold doesn’t keep me from operating my business fairly well. Even in the winter, records must be kept, ink needs mixing, and wizards need volumes to record their research --again, I am one of the lucky ones. I feel sorry for the shopkeepers that are stranded on the other side of the street, their buildings buried in snow. I will probably have to dig them out tomorrow morning after breakfast. I don’t mind, we all get along as well as can be expected.
I’m surprised to hear the door swing open -- who could possibly be out on a night like this? A burst of frozen air threatens to tear the thick door off of its iron hinges, but my guest catches it and forces it closed. At least, I think it’s a guest. What I see before me is what I always imagined a yeti to look like, hairy and covered in clumps of snow, which are quickly becoming pools of water, slipping through the cracks of the floorboards, soaking into the rugs I have laid upon the more commonly-traveled areas. I see a light fog coming from where I assume a mouth would be. I stare for what seems like several moments, for some reason unable to move, stunned with fascination at this unusual patron.
“Oh, Hello.” I say, nearly forgetting my manners. “I would usually ask you what you need, but I think that’s fairly obvious.” My guest looks as though they are having trouble walking, as if their blood had frozen in their muscles. I support them, though the smell of wet furs is at first off putting, it reminds me of the winter trips I would take with my father in the early days of my apprenticeship. When we near the fire, I gingerly move a chair close to the glowing embers. “Here, sit. Let me get these wet things off of you, we can talk business later.” I go into the other room to my paper-drying racks and lay the furs over them --maybe some of the water will collect in the bin underneath so I can use it for a later project. It would keep me from having to collect it later.
I return to the storefront, some dry blankets slung under my arms. The room is filled with the orange-amber glow of a healthy fire. Its life-giving radiance spreading its luminous fingers into every corner of the room. I see a sword leaning against the hearth, its handle well used and worn -- what tales it could tell! I am caught slightly off guard when I find that my guest is not a man, but a young woman. Though most of the adventurers I meet here are men, the odd wandering woman is not unheard of. I drape the thick blanket around her shoulders and tell her frankly, “I’m going to put on a nice pot of tea, I'm going to get you some as well.” She stares into the fire while the water boils in its pot, wrapped tightly in the blanket.
She is, in a word, indescribable. Her hair, whose color seemed to be a reflection of the fire itself hung to her shoulders, long and straight, and in several places skillfully braided, interwoven with golden strands of a shimmering metal. Her green eyes, though brilliant in their luminescence hid a sadness that I had seen only in the eyes of tired old men and war-weary soldiers. They were eyes that had already seen the worst of the world, and silently knew that they would see more still. If those eyes were to look at me, I’m sure that they would see through my soul to depths that I have never dared venture myself. These eyes told me she did not intend to stay long. Many of those with eyes of this kind never came back, despite the well-wishes that we sent with them. Whether dead on some battlefield, drowned in some cave or lost in the endless tunnels of an ancient ruin, many of these adventurers have met their end. Such a thing is not for me.
The water is sufficiently boiled, and I place a small amount of my best tea into a pair of ceramic cups. After a sip of her drink, she nods towards a book on my mantelpiece. “Did you make that?” I looked up at the item in question. It was my masterpiece. I labored long and hard on its smooth red leather cover, and I remember the titanic concentration when applying the delicate gold leaf on its spine. “Yes,” I replied. “Yes I did.” She sighed and uttered a half-laugh into her cup. “I’d like to read that someday. Maybe on my way back.” I smiled and said, “Of course, I’ll make sure it’s here.”I hope that she does not catch me staring: you never know what kind of sixth senses these wanderers develop. I spend my time in the town militia, I do my duty as I am asked, but nothing more. I am a craftsman, not a soldier. My spear and sword lean in a dusty corner, waiting for the day when they are called to use -- a day I could do without. My martial inexperience has never been a cause of anxiety --until now. I desperately hope the topic doesn't come up, lest I embarrass myself.
Again, an eternity of lifetimes.
She left the next morning. I look at the empty spot that my book once occupied upon my mantle. I’m sure she noticed that I put it into her knapsack -- people notice things like that. I didn’t mind letting her take it. Besides, she has to bring it back.
edit: Seemed unfinished, wrote some more.
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**Day 15** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
The sword came down so fast that the poor man had no idea what to do, so he just stood there and took the blow, exploding into shiny rubies and sapphires which his attacker scooped up without a moments hesitation to the dead man in the grass.
**Day 17** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
An arrow came whizzing out of a bush nearby and stuck in the mans chest, he looked down bewildered and ran across the courtyard with his arms flailing over his head, a second arrow through his ear made him drop to the grass, where he exploded in a shower of rubies and sapphires.
**Day 21** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
The man felt sickly, he was wobbling and leaning hard against the tree until finally his face turned green and he sank to the base of the tree, exploding in a wave of rubies and sapphires, once again swept up by the cloaked gentleman without a glance at the poor man in the grass.
**Day 25** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
"Yes, where is the Pottery Shoppe?" the cloaked man requested.
"Ahh yes! Tricky little thing to find! That would be up past the fountain and down the side alley on your right! Is there anything el--" a blade sliced through the mans neck and a waterfall of rubies and sapphires poured out and across the grass, the cloaked man stooped and picked them up walking away; his victim bleeding red into the green grass.
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[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
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The customer walked into my shop.
From the look of him, he was little more than a fledging adventurer. He had only a tattered cape, a leather shirt, boots that were very obviously moth eaten and a wooden sword . Or in other words, he wasn't any different from the average adventurer. Funny how they all wear the same stuff, despite being clearly different people...
"Hi, how may I help you?" I put on a smile for the customer. Business wasn't booming, since next to no one had been coming into the shop for a month, and I needed his money. To do what with it, you ask? Eating is a thing, as is keeping the shop afloat.
"Hi." His voice was a sullen dark edgy cool baritone. I immediately know he had a dark secret past as soon as he uttered the one syllable.
"I'd like to see your weapons, please."
I looked over him again. The guy was very obviously poor. I wasn't sure I had anything for him that would be in his price range.
"Certainly!" I pointed to the weapons on display; an iron sword, a lance, a toy bat, a spiked shield and so on. But I decided to point out the following...
"So I have a +10 diamond sword of facemashing, that was once sold to me by the legendary Hero Raisumi Tirragen Severen-Low Arcanum ho Vintas. It is my best sword, and it is rumored to be so sharp that it cuts the very air itself. It gives you +600% gore, +50 armor penetration, +300 attack damage, +10 Strength, +1 Intelligence, +30% critical strike chance and +50% critical damage. It only costs 1,000,000,000 gold---a fine deal, if I do say so myself." My smile widened wickedly.
"I'll take it."
My smile dropped as the adventurer took out a massive bag of gold coins. Seriously, how did he even carry it around? It had to weigh a hundred pounds, but it had just literally appeared in his hands. And how did he get so rich?
"...certainly, certainly."
I took up the diamond sword and scabbard and laid it on the counter. The adventurer did some experimental slashes. There might have been some truth to the rumor; every slash was accompanied by the sound of something splitting in half. Finally, he sheathed the sword.
"Anything else?"
The adventurer grinned widely. "Give me your best armor, 99 elixirs, any plot relevant accessories you have, 99 Strength-boosting potions, 99 Lenses, a ribbon, 99 panaceas..."
The adventurer left my shop donned in a silvery-white armor that pulsated every few seconds, a tower shield, a pair of sandals and a seriously bitching cape. I still had no idea where he put all of the items I gave him, though---they just disappeared when he held them.
The adventurer had just given me over 10 billion gold in ten minutes. But in the process, he cleaned me out of everything I had ever owned, including the shirt I wore. And I had spent the better part of two decades finding all of these items...and how the hell did he get all of that money? Was he doing something illegal, like card counting or farming monsters?
Doesn't matter, I'm one of the richest merchants in the world now.
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**Day 15** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
The sword came down so fast that the poor man had no idea what to do, so he just stood there and took the blow, exploding into shiny rubies and sapphires which his attacker scooped up without a moments hesitation to the dead man in the grass.
**Day 17** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
An arrow came whizzing out of a bush nearby and stuck in the mans chest, he looked down bewildered and ran across the courtyard with his arms flailing over his head, a second arrow through his ear made him drop to the grass, where he exploded in a shower of rubies and sapphires.
**Day 21** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
The man felt sickly, he was wobbling and leaning hard against the tree until finally his face turned green and he sank to the base of the tree, exploding in a wave of rubies and sapphires, once again swept up by the cloaked gentleman without a glance at the poor man in the grass.
**Day 25** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
"Yes, where is the Pottery Shoppe?" the cloaked man requested.
"Ahh yes! Tricky little thing to find! That would be up past the fountain and down the side alley on your right! Is there anything el--" a blade sliced through the mans neck and a waterfall of rubies and sapphires poured out and across the grass, the cloaked man stooped and picked them up walking away; his victim bleeding red into the green grass.
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[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
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So, I'm just sweeping the floor of my shop when this Courier dude walks in. He saved the town a few weeks ago when we were attacked by those escaped convicts, only reason I put up with him.
The guy walks in on a Wednesday morning, walks around the store, but its clear he isn't finding what he's looking for. That's fairy normal. I can only sell what I have and I don't exactly have a steady supply of anything, NOBODY DOES!
So I told him that I would get new supplies for sale in a few days.
So he sold me half of the stuff he was carrying and I paid him every cap I had ( why did I do this?!?!?!)
Well anyway, they guy just stares at me and stands there.
I figured he'd leave after a while, so I ignored him.
NOPE! He stood there for 4 GODDAMN DAYS, not even moving for the most part. A few times, I walked up to him, just to check if he was still alive, and yep, I can hear faint breathing.
Anyway, seeing as I live in the back room of my store, I was a little afraid of going to sleep the first night. I know the whole town loves this guy since he fixed Trudy's radio, rescued that one lady from the geckos, and then fought off the Powder Gangers, but I'm just not ready to go to sleep with him in the next room.
So the first night I just walked around my store and swept, dude didn't move a muscle.
The next day, I have people coming and going, buying stuff. He reacts to none of them, just stands there staring blankly at the wall where I was the other day.
The second night, I'm too tired to stay awake again, even after all that Nuka Cola (note to self, have Doc Mitchell heal my rads) and Coyote Tobacco Chew barely kept me awake until now.
I woke up the next morning and THE DUDE IS STILL THERE.
So here we are, he's been standing there for 48 hours not even moving, I got people coming and going, and I'm sure I must have taken some bad chems at some point because what the fuck else is going on?
Day 3, mid day the dude MOVED, I swear he pulled some fancy pre-war snack cakes out of his pocket and shoveled them into his mouth, washed it down with an entire bottle of whiskey, a thermos full of black coffee and then finished it off with 2 bottles of (probably) irradiated water.
Then he stopped moving again. I walked up and poked him, nothing. Stared him straight in the eyes for a hour. Nothing.
The dude hasn't even taken a shit from all of that nasty ass food he just ate.
Went to sleep on Saturday night.
Twelve oh' fucking 1 in the goddamn morning on Sunday the guy walks into my room and shakes me awake.
"Show me what you have for sale." He says.
At this point I'm terrified and confused and in need of a drink, but then I remembered.
At exactly 12:00am on Sunday (about 90 seconds ago), I got my magical resupply (I still haven't figured out how it works, probably leprechauns). All new stuff for sale and new caps to barter with.
"Can do." I reply.
He then proceeds to buy a single item:
".357 revolver long barrel"
He pays and then runs off, and now I'm just standing here like wtf??
***
I originally wrote this as a free submission to /r/LifeAsAnNPC
This describes Chet, the owner of the Goodsprings General Store from Fallout New Vegas.
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**Day 15** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
The sword came down so fast that the poor man had no idea what to do, so he just stood there and took the blow, exploding into shiny rubies and sapphires which his attacker scooped up without a moments hesitation to the dead man in the grass.
**Day 17** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
An arrow came whizzing out of a bush nearby and stuck in the mans chest, he looked down bewildered and ran across the courtyard with his arms flailing over his head, a second arrow through his ear made him drop to the grass, where he exploded in a shower of rubies and sapphires.
**Day 21** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
The man felt sickly, he was wobbling and leaning hard against the tree until finally his face turned green and he sank to the base of the tree, exploding in a wave of rubies and sapphires, once again swept up by the cloaked gentleman without a glance at the poor man in the grass.
**Day 25** *What a lovely day, the birds are singing, sun is shining.* "Hello there stranger! Can I help you find something in this big ol' town?"
"Yes, where is the Pottery Shoppe?" the cloaked man requested.
"Ahh yes! Tricky little thing to find! That would be up past the fountain and down the side alley on your right! Is there anything el--" a blade sliced through the mans neck and a waterfall of rubies and sapphires poured out and across the grass, the cloaked man stooped and picked them up walking away; his victim bleeding red into the green grass.
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[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
|
So, I'm just sweeping the floor of my shop when this Courier dude walks in. He saved the town a few weeks ago when we were attacked by those escaped convicts, only reason I put up with him.
The guy walks in on a Wednesday morning, walks around the store, but its clear he isn't finding what he's looking for. That's fairy normal. I can only sell what I have and I don't exactly have a steady supply of anything, NOBODY DOES!
So I told him that I would get new supplies for sale in a few days.
So he sold me half of the stuff he was carrying and I paid him every cap I had ( why did I do this?!?!?!)
Well anyway, they guy just stares at me and stands there.
I figured he'd leave after a while, so I ignored him.
NOPE! He stood there for 4 GODDAMN DAYS, not even moving for the most part. A few times, I walked up to him, just to check if he was still alive, and yep, I can hear faint breathing.
Anyway, seeing as I live in the back room of my store, I was a little afraid of going to sleep the first night. I know the whole town loves this guy since he fixed Trudy's radio, rescued that one lady from the geckos, and then fought off the Powder Gangers, but I'm just not ready to go to sleep with him in the next room.
So the first night I just walked around my store and swept, dude didn't move a muscle.
The next day, I have people coming and going, buying stuff. He reacts to none of them, just stands there staring blankly at the wall where I was the other day.
The second night, I'm too tired to stay awake again, even after all that Nuka Cola (note to self, have Doc Mitchell heal my rads) and Coyote Tobacco Chew barely kept me awake until now.
I woke up the next morning and THE DUDE IS STILL THERE.
So here we are, he's been standing there for 48 hours not even moving, I got people coming and going, and I'm sure I must have taken some bad chems at some point because what the fuck else is going on?
Day 3, mid day the dude MOVED, I swear he pulled some fancy pre-war snack cakes out of his pocket and shoveled them into his mouth, washed it down with an entire bottle of whiskey, a thermos full of black coffee and then finished it off with 2 bottles of (probably) irradiated water.
Then he stopped moving again. I walked up and poked him, nothing. Stared him straight in the eyes for a hour. Nothing.
The dude hasn't even taken a shit from all of that nasty ass food he just ate.
Went to sleep on Saturday night.
Twelve oh' fucking 1 in the goddamn morning on Sunday the guy walks into my room and shakes me awake.
"Show me what you have for sale." He says.
At this point I'm terrified and confused and in need of a drink, but then I remembered.
At exactly 12:00am on Sunday (about 90 seconds ago), I got my magical resupply (I still haven't figured out how it works, probably leprechauns). All new stuff for sale and new caps to barter with.
"Can do." I reply.
He then proceeds to buy a single item:
".357 revolver long barrel"
He pays and then runs off, and now I'm just standing here like wtf??
***
I originally wrote this as a free submission to /r/LifeAsAnNPC
This describes Chet, the owner of the Goodsprings General Store from Fallout New Vegas.
|
The customer walked into my shop.
From the look of him, he was little more than a fledging adventurer. He had only a tattered cape, a leather shirt, boots that were very obviously moth eaten and a wooden sword . Or in other words, he wasn't any different from the average adventurer. Funny how they all wear the same stuff, despite being clearly different people...
"Hi, how may I help you?" I put on a smile for the customer. Business wasn't booming, since next to no one had been coming into the shop for a month, and I needed his money. To do what with it, you ask? Eating is a thing, as is keeping the shop afloat.
"Hi." His voice was a sullen dark edgy cool baritone. I immediately know he had a dark secret past as soon as he uttered the one syllable.
"I'd like to see your weapons, please."
I looked over him again. The guy was very obviously poor. I wasn't sure I had anything for him that would be in his price range.
"Certainly!" I pointed to the weapons on display; an iron sword, a lance, a toy bat, a spiked shield and so on. But I decided to point out the following...
"So I have a +10 diamond sword of facemashing, that was once sold to me by the legendary Hero Raisumi Tirragen Severen-Low Arcanum ho Vintas. It is my best sword, and it is rumored to be so sharp that it cuts the very air itself. It gives you +600% gore, +50 armor penetration, +300 attack damage, +10 Strength, +1 Intelligence, +30% critical strike chance and +50% critical damage. It only costs 1,000,000,000 gold---a fine deal, if I do say so myself." My smile widened wickedly.
"I'll take it."
My smile dropped as the adventurer took out a massive bag of gold coins. Seriously, how did he even carry it around? It had to weigh a hundred pounds, but it had just literally appeared in his hands. And how did he get so rich?
"...certainly, certainly."
I took up the diamond sword and scabbard and laid it on the counter. The adventurer did some experimental slashes. There might have been some truth to the rumor; every slash was accompanied by the sound of something splitting in half. Finally, he sheathed the sword.
"Anything else?"
The adventurer grinned widely. "Give me your best armor, 99 elixirs, any plot relevant accessories you have, 99 Strength-boosting potions, 99 Lenses, a ribbon, 99 panaceas..."
The adventurer left my shop donned in a silvery-white armor that pulsated every few seconds, a tower shield, a pair of sandals and a seriously bitching cape. I still had no idea where he put all of the items I gave him, though---they just disappeared when he held them.
The adventurer had just given me over 10 billion gold in ten minutes. But in the process, he cleaned me out of everything I had ever owned, including the shirt I wore. And I had spent the better part of two decades finding all of these items...and how the hell did he get all of that money? Was he doing something illegal, like card counting or farming monsters?
Doesn't matter, I'm one of the richest merchants in the world now.
|
|
[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
|
So, I'm just sweeping the floor of my shop when this Courier dude walks in. He saved the town a few weeks ago when we were attacked by those escaped convicts, only reason I put up with him.
The guy walks in on a Wednesday morning, walks around the store, but its clear he isn't finding what he's looking for. That's fairy normal. I can only sell what I have and I don't exactly have a steady supply of anything, NOBODY DOES!
So I told him that I would get new supplies for sale in a few days.
So he sold me half of the stuff he was carrying and I paid him every cap I had ( why did I do this?!?!?!)
Well anyway, they guy just stares at me and stands there.
I figured he'd leave after a while, so I ignored him.
NOPE! He stood there for 4 GODDAMN DAYS, not even moving for the most part. A few times, I walked up to him, just to check if he was still alive, and yep, I can hear faint breathing.
Anyway, seeing as I live in the back room of my store, I was a little afraid of going to sleep the first night. I know the whole town loves this guy since he fixed Trudy's radio, rescued that one lady from the geckos, and then fought off the Powder Gangers, but I'm just not ready to go to sleep with him in the next room.
So the first night I just walked around my store and swept, dude didn't move a muscle.
The next day, I have people coming and going, buying stuff. He reacts to none of them, just stands there staring blankly at the wall where I was the other day.
The second night, I'm too tired to stay awake again, even after all that Nuka Cola (note to self, have Doc Mitchell heal my rads) and Coyote Tobacco Chew barely kept me awake until now.
I woke up the next morning and THE DUDE IS STILL THERE.
So here we are, he's been standing there for 48 hours not even moving, I got people coming and going, and I'm sure I must have taken some bad chems at some point because what the fuck else is going on?
Day 3, mid day the dude MOVED, I swear he pulled some fancy pre-war snack cakes out of his pocket and shoveled them into his mouth, washed it down with an entire bottle of whiskey, a thermos full of black coffee and then finished it off with 2 bottles of (probably) irradiated water.
Then he stopped moving again. I walked up and poked him, nothing. Stared him straight in the eyes for a hour. Nothing.
The dude hasn't even taken a shit from all of that nasty ass food he just ate.
Went to sleep on Saturday night.
Twelve oh' fucking 1 in the goddamn morning on Sunday the guy walks into my room and shakes me awake.
"Show me what you have for sale." He says.
At this point I'm terrified and confused and in need of a drink, but then I remembered.
At exactly 12:00am on Sunday (about 90 seconds ago), I got my magical resupply (I still haven't figured out how it works, probably leprechauns). All new stuff for sale and new caps to barter with.
"Can do." I reply.
He then proceeds to buy a single item:
".357 revolver long barrel"
He pays and then runs off, and now I'm just standing here like wtf??
***
I originally wrote this as a free submission to /r/LifeAsAnNPC
This describes Chet, the owner of the Goodsprings General Store from Fallout New Vegas.
|
"Oh, hello! Are you just here to browse, or--
Oh, you--you actually want to buy something! You're my first customer in ages--actually, the first one since I opened this shop! Other people have come and wandered in from time to time, but none of them bothered buying anything. That guy over there, he's been standing in front of our shelves "perusing" the items for seven years. Never moved an inch!
I tell you what--you must be this 'chosen one' that everyone is abuzz about these days. You come in here and you actually *buy* things? And nothing like groceries or cleaning products either, no, you're only interested in medicine and curative items...you're something special, aren't you? Going on a big adventure, buying everything you can carry...
I see now. Seven years ago, the word of the gods told me to put a shop here, and I obeyed...and today, the saviour of the waking world comes to my establishment. All this time, this shop was meant for you.
Well, you're always welcome here, kid. Buy what you need, and good luck out there."
[The shopkeeper in mind is inspired by the ones you find in Pokemon games. There are a few NPCs standing around, but you're the only one who actually buys anything. And even then you only exclusively buy healing and adventuring items.
The "word of the gods" is the developers, coding the shop in. The shop is only meant for the player to use...]
|
|
[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
|
*Oh thank the gods, a player! It's been weeks*
Nothing was visible just yet. The door had opened, but the player was still loading. I was stood by a fire place, pretending to warm up. Truth was, I was boiling hot, sure I've been here for weeks. I was a co-owner of a small shop in the middle of a small thatched town which in turn was in the middle of nowhere. The other owner, Darma, stood behind the counter. We didn't talk much, thank the gods again.
A figure formed at the door, *IT IS a player...*, I thought with relief. Normally it's another damned NPC who is on an endless cycle of wandering around the town and sometimes stumbles into our shop. That guy is so frickin' annoying though. He just comes in and declares how nice it is outside. He's a prick.
The player looks around the room and sprints full speed over to Darma. "Shop keep!", he shouted.
"Welcome to my humble store, how can I help?", she asked with a smile. I frowned at the fireplace, *Our shop... OUR fucking shop*
"I want to sell these four hundred rotten pounds of rat meat please"
*The fuck... you'd think this is strange, but it's not. How does he carry four hundred pounds of it AND, what use do WE have for rotten rat meat... She'll buy it anyway, no doubt*
"Oh course, we'll buy it for two hundred gold coins", she says with her stupid smile.
"Good. Bye!", he turns, I doubt he even made eye contact and he sprints out having put the two hundred gold coins into the tiniest little money bag you'll ever see.
"Come back soon"
As usual, the player totally ignores me because I don't have a mission icon floating above my ugly head. I don't even know what my dialogue is... and now our shop fucking stinks! I really do hate Darma.
|
"Oh, hello! Are you just here to browse, or--
Oh, you--you actually want to buy something! You're my first customer in ages--actually, the first one since I opened this shop! Other people have come and wandered in from time to time, but none of them bothered buying anything. That guy over there, he's been standing in front of our shelves "perusing" the items for seven years. Never moved an inch!
I tell you what--you must be this 'chosen one' that everyone is abuzz about these days. You come in here and you actually *buy* things? And nothing like groceries or cleaning products either, no, you're only interested in medicine and curative items...you're something special, aren't you? Going on a big adventure, buying everything you can carry...
I see now. Seven years ago, the word of the gods told me to put a shop here, and I obeyed...and today, the saviour of the waking world comes to my establishment. All this time, this shop was meant for you.
Well, you're always welcome here, kid. Buy what you need, and good luck out there."
[The shopkeeper in mind is inspired by the ones you find in Pokemon games. There are a few NPCs standing around, but you're the only one who actually buys anything. And even then you only exclusively buy healing and adventuring items.
The "word of the gods" is the developers, coding the shop in. The shop is only meant for the player to use...]
|
|
[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
|
MERCHANT: Welcome! I heard that you defeated the Behemoth! It's an honor to have you in my humble shop!
*****
[CONTINUE](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/3ri2rj/wp_you_are_an_npc_the_player_has_entered_your/cwoc6pf)
[CANCEL](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/3ri2rj/wp_you_are_an_npc_the_player_has_entered_your/cwobzxc)
|
"Oh, hello! Are you just here to browse, or--
Oh, you--you actually want to buy something! You're my first customer in ages--actually, the first one since I opened this shop! Other people have come and wandered in from time to time, but none of them bothered buying anything. That guy over there, he's been standing in front of our shelves "perusing" the items for seven years. Never moved an inch!
I tell you what--you must be this 'chosen one' that everyone is abuzz about these days. You come in here and you actually *buy* things? And nothing like groceries or cleaning products either, no, you're only interested in medicine and curative items...you're something special, aren't you? Going on a big adventure, buying everything you can carry...
I see now. Seven years ago, the word of the gods told me to put a shop here, and I obeyed...and today, the saviour of the waking world comes to my establishment. All this time, this shop was meant for you.
Well, you're always welcome here, kid. Buy what you need, and good luck out there."
[The shopkeeper in mind is inspired by the ones you find in Pokemon games. There are a few NPCs standing around, but you're the only one who actually buys anything. And even then you only exclusively buy healing and adventuring items.
The "word of the gods" is the developers, coding the shop in. The shop is only meant for the player to use...]
|
|
[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
|
The first time I met him, it had been a sunny day in the middle of the seven-hundred and fifteenth year of Faulk. He was younger then, brighter--whatever lack in the weapons and shoddy clothes he had was made up for in the ambition that coloured his eyes and in the way he so carefully counted his coins before handing them to me. He wasn't the first person to walk into my shop and surely he wouldn't be the last, but as I handed him his set of potions (all fifty tied up in a leather bag), he was the first to say 'thank you' before leaving.
And all the others hadn't said thank you before.
--
The second time we met, it was sunny again. He entered my shop and the weapon at his hip was bigger now, longer. It wasn't from anywhere in town, certainly, and I imagined it was something that came from whatever faraway area he might've travelled to become stronger. His clothes were different; they were heavier now, made for defence and protection against the elements rather than simply to hide his nudity. This time he bought mid-potions (all fifty tied up in a leather bag), and he counted his coins faster than he did the first time we met. I handed him the bag, he took it, and he said 'thank you' with a sheepish curve to his smile.
This time, I had the ability to smile back.
--
The third time we met, he was dressed in armour, brilliant and blinding and glittering from the orange of the fire in the room. He had a shield and a sword and power in his stance, and when he took his helmet off it looked as if he'd seen many things. He had something rare to sell today--something from the depths of a cave no-one else would dare to challenge--and while I fumbled with the first sac of spider eggs I'd ever handled in my life, he made his order. Between the two of us we exchanged high potions, my most prized and most effective creation, and he handed me his coins with a more mature edge to his eyes I hadn't quite witnessed before. Something stretched between us: a moment, a pause, a breath of air, and for some reason I felt as if perhaps he had more to say. I couldn't speak beyond what I normally said, couldn't say anything after I finished my 'thank you for your patronage', and though I wanted to ask, my lips wouldn't move.
He looked at me with something drenched in nostalgia, both tragic and fond all the same, and when he addressed me again I found myself hating that all I could respond with was a 'how may I help you'.
His gaze fixed onto something specific on my face I couldn't put a pin on: was it the beard? The thick brows? The smears of charcoal from all the time I spent before a cauldron?
He smiled, said 'nothing', and then 'thank you'.
He held the bag of high potions--my greatest creations, my magnum opus, the best thing you could buy in town--in a gloved hand.
"Goodbye," he said.
And all the others hadn't said goodbye before.
---
The fourth time we met never came.
EDIT: Whoa, thanks for the gold, anonymous! This is my first submission ever and I'm literally sitting here floored. Thank you, thank you!
|
"Oh, hello! Are you just here to browse, or--
Oh, you--you actually want to buy something! You're my first customer in ages--actually, the first one since I opened this shop! Other people have come and wandered in from time to time, but none of them bothered buying anything. That guy over there, he's been standing in front of our shelves "perusing" the items for seven years. Never moved an inch!
I tell you what--you must be this 'chosen one' that everyone is abuzz about these days. You come in here and you actually *buy* things? And nothing like groceries or cleaning products either, no, you're only interested in medicine and curative items...you're something special, aren't you? Going on a big adventure, buying everything you can carry...
I see now. Seven years ago, the word of the gods told me to put a shop here, and I obeyed...and today, the saviour of the waking world comes to my establishment. All this time, this shop was meant for you.
Well, you're always welcome here, kid. Buy what you need, and good luck out there."
[The shopkeeper in mind is inspired by the ones you find in Pokemon games. There are a few NPCs standing around, but you're the only one who actually buys anything. And even then you only exclusively buy healing and adventuring items.
The "word of the gods" is the developers, coding the shop in. The shop is only meant for the player to use...]
|
|
[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
|
So, I'm just sweeping the floor of my shop when this Courier dude walks in. He saved the town a few weeks ago when we were attacked by those escaped convicts, only reason I put up with him.
The guy walks in on a Wednesday morning, walks around the store, but its clear he isn't finding what he's looking for. That's fairy normal. I can only sell what I have and I don't exactly have a steady supply of anything, NOBODY DOES!
So I told him that I would get new supplies for sale in a few days.
So he sold me half of the stuff he was carrying and I paid him every cap I had ( why did I do this?!?!?!)
Well anyway, they guy just stares at me and stands there.
I figured he'd leave after a while, so I ignored him.
NOPE! He stood there for 4 GODDAMN DAYS, not even moving for the most part. A few times, I walked up to him, just to check if he was still alive, and yep, I can hear faint breathing.
Anyway, seeing as I live in the back room of my store, I was a little afraid of going to sleep the first night. I know the whole town loves this guy since he fixed Trudy's radio, rescued that one lady from the geckos, and then fought off the Powder Gangers, but I'm just not ready to go to sleep with him in the next room.
So the first night I just walked around my store and swept, dude didn't move a muscle.
The next day, I have people coming and going, buying stuff. He reacts to none of them, just stands there staring blankly at the wall where I was the other day.
The second night, I'm too tired to stay awake again, even after all that Nuka Cola (note to self, have Doc Mitchell heal my rads) and Coyote Tobacco Chew barely kept me awake until now.
I woke up the next morning and THE DUDE IS STILL THERE.
So here we are, he's been standing there for 48 hours not even moving, I got people coming and going, and I'm sure I must have taken some bad chems at some point because what the fuck else is going on?
Day 3, mid day the dude MOVED, I swear he pulled some fancy pre-war snack cakes out of his pocket and shoveled them into his mouth, washed it down with an entire bottle of whiskey, a thermos full of black coffee and then finished it off with 2 bottles of (probably) irradiated water.
Then he stopped moving again. I walked up and poked him, nothing. Stared him straight in the eyes for a hour. Nothing.
The dude hasn't even taken a shit from all of that nasty ass food he just ate.
Went to sleep on Saturday night.
Twelve oh' fucking 1 in the goddamn morning on Sunday the guy walks into my room and shakes me awake.
"Show me what you have for sale." He says.
At this point I'm terrified and confused and in need of a drink, but then I remembered.
At exactly 12:00am on Sunday (about 90 seconds ago), I got my magical resupply (I still haven't figured out how it works, probably leprechauns). All new stuff for sale and new caps to barter with.
"Can do." I reply.
He then proceeds to buy a single item:
".357 revolver long barrel"
He pays and then runs off, and now I'm just standing here like wtf??
***
I originally wrote this as a free submission to /r/LifeAsAnNPC
This describes Chet, the owner of the Goodsprings General Store from Fallout New Vegas.
|
Day 47: The zombies broke into Arnold's house last night and turned him. Fortunately world generation has favored my house and left a 2 block gap below my doorstep, leaving my dwelling impervious to those vile beings. It also means I can't leave for fear of not getting back in, like Harold, who did leave on day 4 and was turned that very night. It's been pretty boring, as nobody will trade me emeralds for 12 wheat stalks. I really think it's a good deal, especially since Harold disappeared, and his bargain basement 15 wheat stalks for 1 emerald. I'm not saying that I forced him out of the house but...it's just good for business that he's gone.
Day 49: A player entered the village today! ReelSamus3222... I watched in anticipation as he walked around the village, no doubt admiring our fine home. Then he harvested all our carrots. I'm sure he's going to replant them at some point. He built some stairs to my doorway and entered! I couldn't believe it, until he started breaking all the bookshelves that had beautifully adorned my walls. Really it's ok. I wasn't using them anyway, and all I was really hoping for was that perhaps he would give me an emerald...just one...
Day 50: ReelSamus3222 left and burned Arnold's empty house on the way out. That really wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't entered the church and killed Pablo. All I wanted was to trade some wheat for emeralds, but oh well, life just sucks I guess. I can't let that get me down though, I mean even as I write this I see another player has entered our village in full diamond armor. He looks rich, and that enchanted diamond sword! No doubt he carries stacks of emeralds. He's coming up to my house now. I will write later of the trades I will make!
|
|
[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
|
*Oh thank the gods, a player! It's been weeks*
Nothing was visible just yet. The door had opened, but the player was still loading. I was stood by a fire place, pretending to warm up. Truth was, I was boiling hot, sure I've been here for weeks. I was a co-owner of a small shop in the middle of a small thatched town which in turn was in the middle of nowhere. The other owner, Darma, stood behind the counter. We didn't talk much, thank the gods again.
A figure formed at the door, *IT IS a player...*, I thought with relief. Normally it's another damned NPC who is on an endless cycle of wandering around the town and sometimes stumbles into our shop. That guy is so frickin' annoying though. He just comes in and declares how nice it is outside. He's a prick.
The player looks around the room and sprints full speed over to Darma. "Shop keep!", he shouted.
"Welcome to my humble store, how can I help?", she asked with a smile. I frowned at the fireplace, *Our shop... OUR fucking shop*
"I want to sell these four hundred rotten pounds of rat meat please"
*The fuck... you'd think this is strange, but it's not. How does he carry four hundred pounds of it AND, what use do WE have for rotten rat meat... She'll buy it anyway, no doubt*
"Oh course, we'll buy it for two hundred gold coins", she says with her stupid smile.
"Good. Bye!", he turns, I doubt he even made eye contact and he sprints out having put the two hundred gold coins into the tiniest little money bag you'll ever see.
"Come back soon"
As usual, the player totally ignores me because I don't have a mission icon floating above my ugly head. I don't even know what my dialogue is... and now our shop fucking stinks! I really do hate Darma.
|
Day 47: The zombies broke into Arnold's house last night and turned him. Fortunately world generation has favored my house and left a 2 block gap below my doorstep, leaving my dwelling impervious to those vile beings. It also means I can't leave for fear of not getting back in, like Harold, who did leave on day 4 and was turned that very night. It's been pretty boring, as nobody will trade me emeralds for 12 wheat stalks. I really think it's a good deal, especially since Harold disappeared, and his bargain basement 15 wheat stalks for 1 emerald. I'm not saying that I forced him out of the house but...it's just good for business that he's gone.
Day 49: A player entered the village today! ReelSamus3222... I watched in anticipation as he walked around the village, no doubt admiring our fine home. Then he harvested all our carrots. I'm sure he's going to replant them at some point. He built some stairs to my doorway and entered! I couldn't believe it, until he started breaking all the bookshelves that had beautifully adorned my walls. Really it's ok. I wasn't using them anyway, and all I was really hoping for was that perhaps he would give me an emerald...just one...
Day 50: ReelSamus3222 left and burned Arnold's empty house on the way out. That really wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't entered the church and killed Pablo. All I wanted was to trade some wheat for emeralds, but oh well, life just sucks I guess. I can't let that get me down though, I mean even as I write this I see another player has entered our village in full diamond armor. He looks rich, and that enchanted diamond sword! No doubt he carries stacks of emeralds. He's coming up to my house now. I will write later of the trades I will make!
|
|
[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
|
MERCHANT: Welcome! I heard that you defeated the Behemoth! It's an honor to have you in my humble shop!
*****
[CONTINUE](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/3ri2rj/wp_you_are_an_npc_the_player_has_entered_your/cwoc6pf)
[CANCEL](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/3ri2rj/wp_you_are_an_npc_the_player_has_entered_your/cwobzxc)
|
Day 47: The zombies broke into Arnold's house last night and turned him. Fortunately world generation has favored my house and left a 2 block gap below my doorstep, leaving my dwelling impervious to those vile beings. It also means I can't leave for fear of not getting back in, like Harold, who did leave on day 4 and was turned that very night. It's been pretty boring, as nobody will trade me emeralds for 12 wheat stalks. I really think it's a good deal, especially since Harold disappeared, and his bargain basement 15 wheat stalks for 1 emerald. I'm not saying that I forced him out of the house but...it's just good for business that he's gone.
Day 49: A player entered the village today! ReelSamus3222... I watched in anticipation as he walked around the village, no doubt admiring our fine home. Then he harvested all our carrots. I'm sure he's going to replant them at some point. He built some stairs to my doorway and entered! I couldn't believe it, until he started breaking all the bookshelves that had beautifully adorned my walls. Really it's ok. I wasn't using them anyway, and all I was really hoping for was that perhaps he would give me an emerald...just one...
Day 50: ReelSamus3222 left and burned Arnold's empty house on the way out. That really wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't entered the church and killed Pablo. All I wanted was to trade some wheat for emeralds, but oh well, life just sucks I guess. I can't let that get me down though, I mean even as I write this I see another player has entered our village in full diamond armor. He looks rich, and that enchanted diamond sword! No doubt he carries stacks of emeralds. He's coming up to my house now. I will write later of the trades I will make!
|
|
[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
|
The first time I met him, it had been a sunny day in the middle of the seven-hundred and fifteenth year of Faulk. He was younger then, brighter--whatever lack in the weapons and shoddy clothes he had was made up for in the ambition that coloured his eyes and in the way he so carefully counted his coins before handing them to me. He wasn't the first person to walk into my shop and surely he wouldn't be the last, but as I handed him his set of potions (all fifty tied up in a leather bag), he was the first to say 'thank you' before leaving.
And all the others hadn't said thank you before.
--
The second time we met, it was sunny again. He entered my shop and the weapon at his hip was bigger now, longer. It wasn't from anywhere in town, certainly, and I imagined it was something that came from whatever faraway area he might've travelled to become stronger. His clothes were different; they were heavier now, made for defence and protection against the elements rather than simply to hide his nudity. This time he bought mid-potions (all fifty tied up in a leather bag), and he counted his coins faster than he did the first time we met. I handed him the bag, he took it, and he said 'thank you' with a sheepish curve to his smile.
This time, I had the ability to smile back.
--
The third time we met, he was dressed in armour, brilliant and blinding and glittering from the orange of the fire in the room. He had a shield and a sword and power in his stance, and when he took his helmet off it looked as if he'd seen many things. He had something rare to sell today--something from the depths of a cave no-one else would dare to challenge--and while I fumbled with the first sac of spider eggs I'd ever handled in my life, he made his order. Between the two of us we exchanged high potions, my most prized and most effective creation, and he handed me his coins with a more mature edge to his eyes I hadn't quite witnessed before. Something stretched between us: a moment, a pause, a breath of air, and for some reason I felt as if perhaps he had more to say. I couldn't speak beyond what I normally said, couldn't say anything after I finished my 'thank you for your patronage', and though I wanted to ask, my lips wouldn't move.
He looked at me with something drenched in nostalgia, both tragic and fond all the same, and when he addressed me again I found myself hating that all I could respond with was a 'how may I help you'.
His gaze fixed onto something specific on my face I couldn't put a pin on: was it the beard? The thick brows? The smears of charcoal from all the time I spent before a cauldron?
He smiled, said 'nothing', and then 'thank you'.
He held the bag of high potions--my greatest creations, my magnum opus, the best thing you could buy in town--in a gloved hand.
"Goodbye," he said.
And all the others hadn't said goodbye before.
---
The fourth time we met never came.
EDIT: Whoa, thanks for the gold, anonymous! This is my first submission ever and I'm literally sitting here floored. Thank you, thank you!
|
Day 47: The zombies broke into Arnold's house last night and turned him. Fortunately world generation has favored my house and left a 2 block gap below my doorstep, leaving my dwelling impervious to those vile beings. It also means I can't leave for fear of not getting back in, like Harold, who did leave on day 4 and was turned that very night. It's been pretty boring, as nobody will trade me emeralds for 12 wheat stalks. I really think it's a good deal, especially since Harold disappeared, and his bargain basement 15 wheat stalks for 1 emerald. I'm not saying that I forced him out of the house but...it's just good for business that he's gone.
Day 49: A player entered the village today! ReelSamus3222... I watched in anticipation as he walked around the village, no doubt admiring our fine home. Then he harvested all our carrots. I'm sure he's going to replant them at some point. He built some stairs to my doorway and entered! I couldn't believe it, until he started breaking all the bookshelves that had beautifully adorned my walls. Really it's ok. I wasn't using them anyway, and all I was really hoping for was that perhaps he would give me an emerald...just one...
Day 50: ReelSamus3222 left and burned Arnold's empty house on the way out. That really wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't entered the church and killed Pablo. All I wanted was to trade some wheat for emeralds, but oh well, life just sucks I guess. I can't let that get me down though, I mean even as I write this I see another player has entered our village in full diamond armor. He looks rich, and that enchanted diamond sword! No doubt he carries stacks of emeralds. He's coming up to my house now. I will write later of the trades I will make!
|
|
[WP] You are an NPC. The Player has entered your shop/house/lair
|
MERCHANT: Welcome! I heard that you defeated the Behemoth! It's an honor to have you in my humble shop!
*****
[CONTINUE](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/3ri2rj/wp_you_are_an_npc_the_player_has_entered_your/cwoc6pf)
[CANCEL](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/3ri2rj/wp_you_are_an_npc_the_player_has_entered_your/cwobzxc)
|
*Oh thank the gods, a player! It's been weeks*
Nothing was visible just yet. The door had opened, but the player was still loading. I was stood by a fire place, pretending to warm up. Truth was, I was boiling hot, sure I've been here for weeks. I was a co-owner of a small shop in the middle of a small thatched town which in turn was in the middle of nowhere. The other owner, Darma, stood behind the counter. We didn't talk much, thank the gods again.
A figure formed at the door, *IT IS a player...*, I thought with relief. Normally it's another damned NPC who is on an endless cycle of wandering around the town and sometimes stumbles into our shop. That guy is so frickin' annoying though. He just comes in and declares how nice it is outside. He's a prick.
The player looks around the room and sprints full speed over to Darma. "Shop keep!", he shouted.
"Welcome to my humble store, how can I help?", she asked with a smile. I frowned at the fireplace, *Our shop... OUR fucking shop*
"I want to sell these four hundred rotten pounds of rat meat please"
*The fuck... you'd think this is strange, but it's not. How does he carry four hundred pounds of it AND, what use do WE have for rotten rat meat... She'll buy it anyway, no doubt*
"Oh course, we'll buy it for two hundred gold coins", she says with her stupid smile.
"Good. Bye!", he turns, I doubt he even made eye contact and he sprints out having put the two hundred gold coins into the tiniest little money bag you'll ever see.
"Come back soon"
As usual, the player totally ignores me because I don't have a mission icon floating above my ugly head. I don't even know what my dialogue is... and now our shop fucking stinks! I really do hate Darma.
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