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euclaise

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like 8

[ "My head was like a dull weight. Cold, wet. I'm sprawled out on tile, what a fucking night. And... and I don't remember a single bit of it. I sigh, attempting to see the blur. Reaching for my hood, I realize that this, too is completely wet.\n\nI seem to sitting on the floor of a pretty large shower. Using a railing as a support, I make my way out, my head reeling and my body aching. Scratches, all up and down my arms. Where the hell did these come from? Something in the air didn't smell right.\n\nTry to concentrate on what happened... I went to a club (god knows where) with Serena and... there was a lot of color, so loud, so... A drink. Someone gave me a drink. Horrified, I quicken my pace, trying to get out of this house as soon as possible. \n\nI just want to get out of here. Outside of the shower is a huge bedroom, like one of those fucking stock photos you see on real-estate websites. A massive tiger skin draped the mahogany floors, paintings surreal and modern, on a platform was the bed. Under those fancy red covers was a large lump.\n\nI swallow hard. But something's strange. Against all of my instincts, I move towards it. The stench was growing more unbearable, and I finally pull the covers away, prepared to run. It... merely looks like a mass of flesh at this point. My stomach goes cold, no, everything inside me becomes like ice.\n\nThe comforter wasn't red. It was blood, and my stupid eyes thought it was satin. I'm close to passing out, but I vomit instead. No no no I'm not capable of something like this. I would never kill anyone... This isn't who I am, I'm a history major and a theater geek, not some violent psychopath. \n\nBut I see something else, near the foot of the bed. A strange cellphone, one of those old-fashioned ones. There's nothing on it but one text.\n\n*he isn't play fare anymore just punish him, everythings in place we can do it we get away*", "\"So the moth says *because the light was on*\" \n\nThe entire bar burst into a single fit of laughter. \n\n\"Geez that guy is fuuuuunnnnnny\" a guy at the bar said to Jim. \"Ya, he's a hoot alright\". Jim turned back to his drink. At this point he was the only one at the bar, every other person was crowding around Jim's worst friend Randy. And Randy was on a roll.\n\n\"So the hippo says 'I just can't get my head around Tuesdays!\" and again, the whole room laughs.\n\nJim looks up from his drink and signals to the bartender that he wants another.\n\n\"Hey man, is that guy hilarious or what?\" the bartender says to Jim.\n\n\"Or what\" says Jim \"What?\" says the bartender \"Ya, he's hilarious all right\" says Jim.\n\n\"You don't seem to be enjoying yourself bud. I haven't laughed this much in my entire life, Hell, everyone in here is laughing their asses off. But you're just sitting there with a scowl. You got a bug up your ass or what?\" the bartender asked.\n\n\"Look, I've known this guy since the fourth grade. He's a dick. A real asshole. I can't stand to be around him, but he's my boss and he keeps making me take him out. So I slipped him this roofie or at least I think it was a roofie. I figured I'd fuck with his head a little bit, make him lay off wanting to go out with me. But instead of making him a raging idiot, the pill seems to have made him outrageously funny. Just my luck. So not only am I going to have to keep taking this guy out, I'm going to have to keep slipping him pills\". By now the bartender had delivered the drink and wandered off to listen to Randy.\n\n\"What do I call it?\" Randy yelled, \"The Aristocrats!\"\n\n" ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1406476487", "1406496798" ]

[ "I'm so close.\n\nSo close to putting everything right.\n\nFrom the moment it happened, I knew nothing would ever be the same. Sneaking around the Continuum. Covert meetings, back alley deals. A lifetime of bad deeds. And all for what?\n\nI knew it was coming. I knew she would be there. I had to be there. There was a witness that needed to be silenced, at that moment.\n\nI put two rounds into the back of his head, and heard her behind me. I started laughing, with my back still to her. I had done it.\n\nIn the Academy, one of the very first things they teach you about are paradoxes. A paradox is like a vacuum chamber in spacetime. A black hole from which nothing can escape. But the universe around it is safe. I needed to complete the loop, and tie it in a bow. A few moments from now, she will realize that nothing will ever be the same. She will do as I have done, and end up where I am.\n\nTo save the integrity of the universe, I had to close the paradox.\n\nI quickly stood up, turning my gun on her. She fired one shot, and everything went dark.", "\"You're wrong!\" she yelled. The cold hard steel pressed against my forehead like a bad headache. \"You're wrong and you're a liar. Time travel does't exist.\"\n\n\"Oh but it will.\" A sweat started to form and I felt a cool wet bead slide down to my brow. \"It will be invented in one year by Erica Thomas but it will be a well kept secret. The government will begin a top secret corps designed to go back in time and stop crimes before they happen two years after that and three years later your policing work will be recognised by that very corps and they'll ask you to join them.\"\n\nShe kept looking at me, *I kept looking at me*, and then she took a step back and cocked the gun. The metallic click echoed in around the barren walls of my old, small-wage apartment. I hated this, why had I thought this would work. \n\n\"Why did you come to my apartment?\" Her voice was demanding, it was clear she was not believing my story. Surely she must have recognised that I bore remarkable resemblance to her? That was probably why I hadn't been tossed outside from my third floor window yet like I did to the poor bastard who had once tried to rob me when I was young. This was the part I was dreading. I didn't know how my younger self would respond to this anymore than I knew how my commanding sergeant would respond to my less than satisfactory answers every time he asked me why I had made any of my mistakes. I swallowed. Then I spoke.\n\n\"I wanted to have sex with you.\" The words left my mouth like a mouse, unsure of it's direction in a maze. She looked at me perplexed. \n\n\"Now why the fuck -\"\n\n\"Sam dammit! I am you.\" She still didn't believe me. \"I know you're- I'm gay. You still haven't told anyone and you never will. At least not for a long time from now.\" Now her eyes were opened wider and her stare was threatening. Her hands held less confidence but she still didn't believe me. I always was skeptical.\n\n\"How do you know this?\" Her words were weak and her voice had lost it's authority. There was a fear there, a fear I knew I hadn't felt in a long time. \n\nI didn't answer, she knew, she just didn't believe me. \"You never told anyone because you thought you would get kicked off the force if anyone found out. All these years of just wishing you had someone to cuddle up to, someone to hold, someone who could understand you but you've had to be alone and let me tell you that doesn't change.\" I wasn't gaining her trust but I had to keep going. \"I was so fucking depressed, all I wanted was someone. I came here to hold you, to tell you it's alright. I came here so you could spend one night with someone who understands you. One night where your wish comes true, a memory to hold on to for the next seven years. Sam, let's do it. Do this for us, for me- for yourself. I need this.\"\n\nHer hands began shaking, there were tears rolling down her face. \"No,\" she shook her head slowly \"I don't know how you know all this, I don't know what other convoluted stories you made up or how much else you know about me but this isn't real.\" *Oh shit* \"And I can't let you live with my secret.\"\n\nAnd just like that it happened. She leant forward, took aim with her gun and she fired. The bang deafened her ears, my body slumped to floor as the bullet pierced my head like a bad dream and that was it. \nIt was over." ]

[ 2, 2 ]

[ "1406475801", "1406476107" ]

[ "Jack couldn't believe it. Somehow, he'd manage to get tickets for Game 7 of the 2015 Finals. His hometown Cavs were battling the Spurs in what everyone thought might be Tim Duncan's last game. Somehow he'd gotten the biggest ticket of his life for only $50 on StubHub, and it was bottom-deck. It was as if he was supposed to be there.\n\n\nThe game was a battle all night long. Kawhi played LeBron to a standstill. Kyrie and Tony Parker each had 35 on the board. But the story of the night was Old Man Timmy. He had torn his shoulder labrum in Game 2 but refused to take any time off, battling his way back, fighting through the pain, and somehow had 30 points and 17 rebounds as the game hit the final seconds.\n\n\nAfter a Duncan jumper goes in, San Antonio is up 101-100 with .9 seconds left on the clock. Dion Waiters gets the ball from the red, throws the inbound pass to LeBron...\n\n\nAnd time stops. Jack looks around, but nothing is moving. The ball is in mid-motion, frozen in the air, anticipating something that no-one could comprehend. Jack slowly stood up, and walked down to the court. No-one stopped him, and soon he was at center-court by himself. He ran three laps around. Nothing. He tried to grab the ball to shoot some baskets, and enjoy the opportunity. But when he touched the ball, his hand burned as if the ball were made of molten iron. He recoiled in horror, then tried again. Same result.\n\n\nTime dragged on as Jack stared at the ball, but no-one else was moving. He knew that the ball had something to do with this, but no clue what it meant. He stepped back and looked at the trajectory of the ball. The pass was going to go a little low. He thought he could maybe touch the ball long enough to change its path, but little more. He could shove it higher to give LeBron a better shot. Or he could reward Timmy for his last great game and let the man go out on top.\n\n\nInstantly regretting it, Jack shoved the ball to the left and returned to his seat. Right as he sat down, the world unfroze as if nothing had happened. The ball sailed past LeBron and into the shocked hands of Timmy. Spurs win. The whole stadium groans as if shot.\n\n\nTwo days later, Tim Duncan tearily announces his retirement with a surprisingly emotional speech about how truly thankful he was for the opportunity. The Cavs win the championship over the Clippers in 6 games the next year, and Jack finally forgives himself.\n\n\nThree years after that, Jack takes his son to a basketball camp in San Antonio. Jason had sprouted up his junior year and grew 8 inches to 6'9\". As they walked into the camp, he saw Tim Duncan standing at the gate. They locked eyes, and Tim began to smile. He pulled Jack aside.\n\n\n\"You're not crazy. And I know what you did.\" Tim was still smiling. \"I owe you one. Let's teach your kid some fundamentals, eh?\"\n\n\nJack laughed a little to himself. Seems like nice guys don't always finish last, he thought. He clapped Timmy on the back, and took his seat in the stands. Bottom deck, just like before.", "“That’s right Ken! You’ve won 2 tickets to watch our Chicago Bulls take on the Dallas Mavericks in Game 7 of the NBA FINALS!! CONGRATULATIONS! HOW DO YOU FEEL??” It’s all still a blur to me how I was selected for the tickets. My local classic rock station gives out tickets to big events every year, but to win tickets for the finals? Crazy. I took my buddy from high school who is probably the biggest Bulls fan you’ll ever meet. When I told him to get a flight to Chicago and to meet me at the United Center, he cried. Anyway, after we met up in front of the Jordan Statue, we went over to the box office. Picked up our tickets, and went to the seats. My god, these were amazing seats. Then an employee of the Bulls walked over. “Excuse me, you’re Ken Anderson, the contest winner, right? The classic rock station ticket giveaway?” “Yes, that’s me, happy to be here”, I said. Then out come two bags full of Bulls stuff for my buddy and me. Jerseys, t-shirts, a nice hat, and an autographed ball from the whole team! We thank the employee profusely and the game fires up. It’s a fantastic game. The Mavericks fought back from a certain sweep, and had made it to Game 7. The Bulls defense was on point tonight. Haven’t seen them play this hard since ’96, when Jordan and the crew were dominating. But, with just 18 seconds left in the 4th, the Mavs bought it back to within a 3-point shot to tie it. The clock started after an inbound pass, the ball gets handed to Dirk Nowitzki. I think, “Great, there goes our 7th title.” Nowitzki in typical fashion drains the clutch three pointer to tie the game at 99 with just 9.7 seconds left in the 4th. Suddenly, everything just stopped. I mean, literally stopped. Time suddenly just…froze in front of me. I was the only one moving in the whole United Center. I got up to see if anyone else was moving. Nobody was. It was creepy. I managed to run onto the court and check it out, got a nice picture of the floor. There was a cute girl sitting in front of me and my buddy, my buddy was trying to get her number all game long, I take a piece of paper I had in the from that gift bag they gave us, and wrote down his number on there. She seemed nice when we talked, I mean, my buddy is a great guy, they seem perfect for each other. Then I realized that I could be the hero of Chicago or the antichrist. Time to make something happen. I stole the ball from the Mavs center and give it to D Rose. I said “D Rose, do what you do best.” I then ran back to my seat, and the game started up again. D Rose had the ball, ran it in and made a layup with just .2 seconds left. Yes. The place went NUTS. Chicago won their 7th title because of a glitch in time. After the trophy presentations and taking another picture on the court, I just stood there for about ten minutes, soaking in the scene. My buddy got the girl in front of us, they're a happy, Chicago Bulls obsessed couple, all thanks to me no doubt, and I guess this time freeze that happened. " ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1406488694", "1406489286" ]

[ "This is the first time he held me like this -- indeed, it's the first time he has ever held me at all. Not that I felt ignored, no, for now that he is holding me I am actually finding his hands too callous and rough, his grip too tight and intense.\n\nHe is nothing quite like Mrs. Robinson, whose touches are steady and reassuring. With hands as smooth and tender, it is no wonder the man from down the street always moaned whenever she touched him. I have always wondered why they always looked breathless and spent whenever together when all they did was sit or lie down. A curious case of running out of air, especially since their unclothedness would have surely offered adequate ventilation, no? That they always looked wet have always confounded me too, since they were nowhere near the faucet, so -- how could they possibly get wet?\n\nBut that's on most days though, and today is a different day. Nothing can ever be more different than Mr. Robinson pulling me away from my block, holding me with such passion, and brandishing me like a sword. Nothing can ever be more different than knowing why they are now lying wet on the floor, breathless and spent, with rivers of red running from their bare chests, reminiscent of the blood from countless succulent meat she always sliced with me, of blood that is now rushing as quickly as is Mr. Robinson, who is now racing to vacate the very home he arrived at earlier than we -- Mrs. Robinson, her lover, and I -- ever expected.", "I am a chair. I am part of a set of four with a matching dining table. \n\nI am a chair. I am one of only two that are often sat on. I’m called the most comfortable.\n\nI am a coat stand. I cannot currently be used a chair.\n\nI am a chair. There are only three of us now.\n\nI am a chair. A fourth smaller, tall chair joins us. \n\nI am a chair. The table has gone. A smaller table is put in it’s place. It does not match. The third chair is gone.\n\nI am a chair. There are three of us again! The high chair is gone.\n\nI am a fort. I am a castle. I am a cave system. I am a chair. \n\nI am a foot rest. \n\nI am a lawn chair. I am dirty.\n\nI am a chair. Lots of chairs. LOTS OF CHAIRS.\n\nI am a chair. There are two chairs. The dining room table is gone.\n\nI am a chair. The second chair is gone.\n\nI am a chair.\n\n----------------\nTHE WORD CHAIR HAS LONG ALL MEANING FOR ME" ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1406554666", "1406547227" ]

[ "so is the person arguing with their conscience, or are they suffering from a mental disorder and hearing voices in their head (i.e.. schizophrenia)?", "“I can’t do this.. no way.”\n\nThe gun shown brightly in the dim room, glistening inches away.\n\n“Why the fuck not?”\n\n“The fuck you mean why not? She’s a fucking person man, I can’t just fucking do that shit. She doesn’t deserve it.”\n\nHe anxiously rubbed his forehead.“It’s too late now, she’s already seen our faces.”\n\n“So we’ll fucking pay her off! She won’t give a shit, its not her money we’re taking.”\n\nHis fist hit the table. “It’s never been about the goddamn money! She’s scared now. You really think she’ll stay quiet after all this? Every minute she’s gonna expect us to come crashing through the front door to finish the job. It’s only a matter of time before she goes to the cops... Your dumbass is gonna get us fucking life.”\n\n“My dumbass is gonna get us fucking life? The job’s gone to shit, we’re gonna get caught and you want to fucking kill some noname bitch? You’re just adding to the pile of shit we’re falling into.”\n\nA look of intense determination crossed his face. “If you won’t do it I fuckin will.” His eyebrows wrinkled. “Give me the gun.”\n\n“Are you kidding me? you’re fucking unstable! You’ve had the fuckin gun this whole damn time.”\n\nHis look of confusion was quickly replaced by a mixture of anger and pity. “Im sorry” click\n\n“Don’t you dare point that at me. You want to fuck us both over?”\n\n“If you don’t take care of her, how am I supposed to trust you? You’ll just end up going to the cops and fucking us both over anyway. This is the only way to be sure I-I’m sorry.”\n\n“Please, please, don’t do this. You have no idea what youre doi-” BANG\n\nHe hit the ground instantly, a building collapsing under its own weight. As his head hit the floor, blood flowed from the hole in the side of his head. The gun fell from his hand and clattered across the linoleum floor.", "\"There's nothing to stop me.\"\n\n\"Well... there's me...\"\n\n\"You very well know I have total control in this situation. We have been dealing with each other for a long time already. You forced me into a life of addiction and misery.\"\n\n\"That never mattered to you! The drugs helped you feeling better, and allowed you to control yourself. I'm only here when I hear that you stopped taking them, and I'm going to force them on you if necessary.\"\n\n\"NO! I'm not going to take them! You made me miserable! The first guy never forced me into anything! You only came up after I met with that crazy psychiatrist who told me that these drugs could help me. He never told me about you! You weren't supposed to magically show up and try to change me!\"\n\n\"I saw what the other guy was doing to you and I arranged to have him leave you alone! I'm only here to help you get back on your feet. Just take another dosage and I'll take my leave... as long as you keep the consumption constant.\"\n\n\"I can't! I'm not myself any more when I take those damn pills! They make me do horrible things! You've seen me! You're always watching me! I know you've been stalking me ever since we first met! You should know already what happens!\"\n\n\"No, I told you, I only come around when I get the news about you missing your dosage. This time it took me a month to learn about it.\"\n\n\"You're such a pest! Get out of my life, let me do what I want! Stop forcing things down my throat and expect me to enjoy the torture. Get away from me! JUST GO! I'm going through with my plans, there's nothing you can do about it!\"\n\n\"You very well know the only way to get rid of me: take the pills.\"\n\n\"NO! I won't!\"\n\n\"Then I'll just stay here and nag you until you do take them.\"\n\n\"GO AWAY! I don't need another manipulative mom! I don't need more abuse!\"\n\n\"I'm not trying to manipulate you, I told you explicitly that I want you to take your medication. If you just do as I say, I'll take my leave.\"\n\n\"What are these pills anyway? What's in them? Why does it even matter to you if I take them or not? Why should YOU care?\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter what they are, and why I care. You cannot live here without them, and you know it. There's nothing else you can do about it. The doctors said so, and they specifically prescribed you this one to let your real self out. You are everything you want to be when you take the pills, and they affect you in less than a minute. You know that we all mean the best for you. Everyone is doing their best to help you out and to support you through your hardship. I don't mind to not be able to see you get better, I'm leaving as soon as you swallow them.\"\n\n\"GET OFF! WHAT'S WITH PEOPLE AND THEIR LECTURES ABOUT CARING FOR ME? YOU KNOW WHAT? FUCK YOUR PILLS! THEY DON'T EVEN WORK! I'LL TAKE THEM AND PROVE IT TO YOU! YOU CAN STAY AND WATCH FOR YOURSELF TO SEE THAT NOTHING HAPPENS ANYWAY!\" \n\n*With a dash of anger and determined to prove the man wrong, Eugene swallowed his daily dose dried pushing down the pills with the only little amount of saliva left that he had after screaming furiously. Silence filled the room for a brief moment which seemed like an eternity. Neither of them knew what was happening within Eugene's body; both were hoping for an effect opposite to the other. It is only after five minutes that the drugs appeared to appease Eugene. It is then that the man disappeared.*\n\n\"What a silly fellow, this Eugene. I'm finally back in control. Now, I need to kill that doctor who's telling him to stop the medication. I almost thought that the pills really did stop working...those five minutes were actually scary, hehehe...\"\n\n", "Charlie always got the better of me. He's more confident, more articulated and funny - and still my best friend. When times get rough he's there for me and when trouble arises he's the one to step up for me.\n\nHe tells me that this one's to big for us. That there will be no turning back this time. I chuckle and nod. \"You're right - as always\", I say and slit our throat.", "When your mouth is missing a few teeth your voice begins to sound like an 80s movie villain. I run my tongue along my gums, poking it out of the gaps like a deformed pink worm. John watches me in the reflection of the window. He has a perfect smile, like a little white picket fence.\n\n\"Sssso over,\" I gurgle.\n\nBlood mixes with sweat and I spit out another tooth.\n\n\"Nothing's over until I say it's over.\"\n\nWe're alone. No one else is in the building, no one else even knows we're in the building. John glances at the timer resting on the big desk in the corner. Tick tock. Tick tock. In eight minutes the virus will kick in and John will have his window.\n\n\"Ssssnot your fault.\" Spit. \"Sssstill time.\"\n\n\"They did this to us. Both of us. It's their fault and they're going to pay for it.\"\n\nJohn is still in his dress uniform, buttons all shiny. Blood has dribbled down over my service patch. At least I think it's my blood. My mouth really hurts.\n\n\"What happensss when they fffind out?\"\n\n\"We'll be dead long before then.\"\n\n\"I don't ssswant to die,\" I say.\n\nJohn moves to the chair, grips my arms so tightly I can feel the blood cutting off. Or maybe that's just my injuries finally catching up with me. He looks into my eyes but I only see through him, staring at my own reflection.\n\n\"We died the day we enlisted.\"\n\n\"Pleassssee,\" I whimper.\n\nJohn lifts my hand and places it against my gut. I don't think I've ever seen so much blood. I don't know how much I can lose before I lose the battle, but I bet John does. Ever since we shipped out we've been together. Whenever we ate, trained, fought, played he was there. Whenever I wussed out, got scared and couldn't pull the trigger he would be there, showing me what to do. And when I came back, it was John who said we should do this.\n\nLet's kill the officers who sent us over there to die.\n\nHe had a plan. John always has a plan. Sometimes when I go to sleep I'd wake up to John standing over me, running through details I'd never have thought of. None of the other guys in the barracks seemed to care, so I just let him carry on. And on. Until eventually I'd give in and trust John knew what he was doing.\n\nEither my hand has gone numb or my stomach isn't bleeding anymore. I can't tell which.\n\n\"Not long now buddy.\"\n\n\"I'm gonna die John,\" I say. \"Let's ssstop.\"\n\nI cough and now the blood isn't just from my mouth. The general stopped moaning a while ago and I worry I'm gonna lie down like he did. He fought; he fought a lot harder than I thought an old man could. But John helped me, he stood back and told me when to block and when to punch.\n\nJohn's good like that, but now I worry we've gone too far.\n\n\"It's time buddy.\"\n\nJohn is behind me, lifting my shaking fingers to push the buttons on the keyboard. He won't do it. He says this is my victory. The door handle shakes more than my fist and John tells me to hurry up. The door crashes open and John steps between me and the intruders.\n\n\"Sssstop,\" he says, but the words sound funny. \"They dessserve thissss.\"\n\nThe soldiers are in full MOPP gear, our little diversion sending them into a panic.\n\n\"John, pleassse.\"\n\nThe lead soldier raises his weapon, pointing it at my head. I put my one good hand up in the universal sign of surrender, but John kneels before me, pressing the muzzle against his forehead.\n\n\"Do it,\" John says.\n\n\"Don't,\" I rasp.\n\nThe soldiers turn and look at each other. John smiles and I feel my jaw hurt even more. Something's not right, I don't want to go like this.\n\n\"Private, are you alright?\"\n\nI try to speak, but John cuts in. He explains our cause, but he sounds weaker now. I feel my hand growing weak, but I can't put it down as I'm still holding the barrel. Sweat drips into my eyes and John becomes blurry.\n\nThe soldier lowers his weapon and my hand drops. He kneels before me, gloved fingers wiping away the gore from my face. John watches from over his shoulder. John is bleeding from his mouth. John is smiling at me as he clutches at his stomach.\n\n\"It'sss over,\" I say.\n\nJohn is gone and I am alone. But I was always alone." ]

[ 1, 2, 2, 2, 2 ]

[ "1406639786", "1406638700", "1406646244", "1406646344", "1406666722" ]

[ "Terry felt smug \n\n\"not gonna get me now are you you fuckin' dicklicker\"\n\nhe shouted while simultaneously sticking his middle finger up in the air. Terry had torn out all the Tuesdays in his diary and crossed them off on the calendar no one would kill him now.\n\n\"I'll live for ever nananana\" \n\nChanted Terry as he walked out of his house and into the middle of the road. As you may be able to tell Terry was an idiot and soon found himself in the path of a bus in the middle of a busy street.", "Tuesday flashed by like a blink of an eye. Those to die were dead. Sprawled on their bed with a hand clutched to their chest - strewn in the middle of a street in an awkward, impossible angle - faces bloodied from unspeakable violence - others peacefully resting, never to open their eyes again. How? It didn't matter anymore. We all woke up to the same piercing clout of incoherent music blaring from the speaker system. In synchrony, the window blinds drew open as we all rubbed the sleep out of our eyes. The heavy effect of the drugs slowly left our system.\n\nShae was the first one we noticed. She was lying on her side the way she always did, but her face had swollen. I placed the palm of my hand on her cheek and knew immediately. Did she overdose? It didn't matter. Well, I shouldn't say that. It mattered to me today.\n\nWednesday was a day of bereavement. It was cleanup day to others. We had it systematically mapped out. Fresh new graves had been dug, the coffins waiting on top to tuck in their new hosts.\n\nI bit my lip and let a small, lone tear fall down my cheek. I liked Shae. She was my first kiss. I remember holding her in my arms soon after and wanting that moment to last forever. Ironically, that was on a Tuesday. One of the last ones we had before we started drugging ourselves to sleep through that awful day of the week.\n\nShae was filled with so much life, so much love. I remembered times where we'd both be on the ground, scrunched up in laughter at something the other had just said. Slowly, day by day the life was sucked out of her. I think it was the drugs.\n\nNow on Tuesday we woke to death. Now we treated it as a job. Such was life. How did we become so cold?\n\nShae, along with 20 others were buried that day. I looked on at the living, but there didn't seem to be any emotion spent that afternoon. I took it upon myself to go around and share memories about her, but everybody would just faintly smile and look away.\n\nThe afternoon stretched into night, and we all eagerly glanced at the clock waiting for it to strike 12:00 am. We were all tucked away in our home.\n\nHome consisted of a thirty story building, most of the rooms unoccupied. Over time, the first five floors had served as our living space. Walls had been knocked down, sleeping quarters divided, and we all got along pretty well.\n\nAs the clock - a barbarous, black and white monstrosity hanging firmly from the ceiling in the middle of each floor - struck 12 am on Thursday, we all dug our hands into the freshly, stocked bowls. I couldn't help but feel a great relief, as guilty as it made me feel.\n\nAlong each wall, tables were lined up with giant, white bowls right smack in the middle. Filled with every stimulant imaginable, thousands of hands pulled out their drug of choice. Loud, thumping music started on every floor, and for the next four days, a blur of drugs, sex, and mayhem flew by.\n\nWe knew we couldn't die. The rules went out the window. There was one guy with long flowing blonde hair who would take acid every single day and climb up to the top of the thirtieth floor. He would shake his fists up in the air in triumph and them jump off. Thirty stories he plunged down to smack the surface below. He would get up, grin, and do it all over again. It was amusing at first. We all would stand outside at the bottom of the building and cheer him on. Not too long after, we found out how boring that could become. Even with no audience, he would keep it up.\n\nIt was like 'A Brave New World' on acid. There were no rules. No adults. No cops. We could do whatever we wanted. And we did. The drugs kept us alive. The drugs kept us going.\n\nI began to see them in all in a different light that week. Every emotionally void person would look at me with enthusiasm, though they were dead behind the eyes. The drugs kept us alive. They were who we had become.\n\nThe next few weeks slipped by the same way. People died, people were buried, and new people joined in. It was the circle of our lives. When a new person walked in the front doors, they were treated the same. Come in and join the fun. Stick your hand in the bowls. There's enough for everybody. I don't think any of us even knew each others' names. Maybe we had even forgotten our own.\n\nI found myself dipping my hand into the bowl less often. I found myself developing a deep weariness of all of the fake, smiling faces. Before I knew it, I went a day without a pill. I don't even think they noticed. Not one person. One day turned into two. Two into three...\n\nOne day I left for 48 hours. Still nobody noticed. I walked back in with a wide, phony grin on my face, and I was welcomed back as before. I hadn't taken a drug for three full weeks. I still don't know how they didn't notice.\n\nI had come back on a Sunday.\n\nThe next day, as with every Monday, everybody took time to recover. Reload. Retool. Eat, drink water, do whatever you needed to do to rest your body. A team of people lined up a string of cots on each level, and we prepared for the long sleep. 24 hours. Then we would all be back up and doing it again.\n\nAs each person laid down and had taken what they needed for the 24 hours of silent bliss, I lay down on my cot and stared coldly at the ceiling. As each eye fell silently closed, I waited a few moments in reflection.\n\nI closed my eyes, said a prayer to Shae, and opened them to a room full of speechless bodies. I pushed my body up off of the cot and slid my hand under the thin mattress. I drew out a long, shining blade and looked at the room before me. I had 24 hours. I waited patiently until the clock struck midnight.", "Tuesdays are when people die. This has become such a simple truth to the young and child that no one gives much thought about it. But I still remember after eighty years of long life. I still feel strange that some kind of restriction has been imposed on death himself. It has not been more than fifty years before such a distinct restriction on death has been observed in earth. I still wonder if it was god himself who imposed such a law to give some rest for the grim himself or it was result of some wicked scientific experiment of the government. Whatever it was it gave new meaning to the Tuesdays. \n\nTuesdays has become such a fright to people that not a soul is seen in the street on Tuesdays. Mothers lock down their children in confinement\nof the walls of their house. No one takes a slightest risks of their life on this day. The city becomes utterly silent. No sound of automobiles, no sound of machinery. Some people as I have heard confines them self in the safety vaults without a single soul to keep them company. But occasionally some careless youths would go out on the street to dare the devil him self for the fun they would get by betting their lives on risks of dangerous games. Along with them sometimes some people who are tired of living and enduring this long pain would ascend their roofs and jump on Tuesdays because in other days their attempt would be useless.\n\nBut on other days of week people become more paranoid. Knowing they would not die and they would not kill, the young boys bring out their bikes and ride it in such a speed that accident were common place. The city became such a fearless pit of animals that organized roads, markets , works etc are only in the memory of old days. The people go mad and there is nothing left than chaos. \n\nOh and waiting here for my Tuesday I smile for what the world has turned into. And think that if this is act of god then he should wake up soon for the world would not sustain this mess for long.", "I know the end is far from near, although I'd do anything for the clock to strike twelve on this Monday night. The blood is pooling around my mangled, naked body. This is where he left me, amongst the fallen leaves, under the cloudless sky. So I can watch myself die. No one will save me, and I still have hours to go. I'm past the pain, the shock has taken over. My whole body has that numb feeling of a million needles prickling every inch. I wish I could go unconscious until my death, but sleep won't come. My heart is beating strong, and although I feel the blood gurgling in my lungs with each breath, I feel alive. \n\nP L E A S E , L E T M E D I E .\n\nI can't feel the broken bones, or the sore muscles. I can't feel where my tounge used to be or any pain except the anxiety induced kind. My mind is racing through my past and would be future. All the birthdays, holidays, family functions, weddings, and people I would miss. My almost career, that I worked so hard to almost get. For what? To be blugend, raped, and left to die? I'm angry and sad, but not scared. I feel I've wasted too much time. I wish I could go back, but I wish I could go forward too. Forward to midnight, to end this seemingly eternally fucked state of mind that I'm in.", "Wednesday is, unequivocally, everyone's favorite day of the week.\n\nAnything goes on a Wednesday. It's an awesome day to get in a car accident, or any kind of accident. Most of the injured can pull through in 6 days, by the time the next Tuesday rolls around. This makes Wednesday mornings primetime for adrenaline junkies to be reckless.\n\nBut today isn't Wednesday. Today is Tuesday.\n\n\"Another late night, Jill?\" I look up from my computer screen to my coworker, Arnold, the resident daredevil. It was only five o'clock, and Arnold was on his way out.\n\n\"Another death wish, Arnold?\" I retort, pointedly eyeing the car keys in his hand.\n\n\"You can't live in fear, Jill.\"\n\n\"You can't live at all if you keep up that shit, Arnold.\"\n\nHe tousles my hair.\n\n\"I'm here every Wednesday morning, aren't I? Have a little faith.\"\n\n\"I've got work to do, Arnold.\"\n\n\"No you don't.\"\n\nHe taps his car key against my desk twice and strides off towards the elevators. I put on my headphones and gear up for several hours of Netflix in the safety of the office.\n\nSoon midnight rolls around. Or so I thought. I look at my phone: two past eleven.\n\n\"Daylight savings time. Right. Well, whatever. Close enough. *Can't live in fear, right, Jill?*\" Mocking Arnold is my secret pastime. I grab my keys and head out to the parking lot.\n\nOn the highway, a sports car revs up close behind me and taps my bumper. I check the rear view mirror and see the driver take a swig from a bottle in a paper bag.\n\nI quickly change lanes to let him pass by, but instead he pulls up beside me and matches my speed. He rolls down his window and lifts up the bottle.\n\n\"Happy Wednesday!\" he yells. *Shit.* I glance at my phone on the passenger seat. 11:39.\n\nI shout back at him. \"It's still Tuesday!\"\n\n\"What?\" he slurs. Then I see his eyes widen.\n\nI look forward. I've drifted. A concrete overpass support column is barreling towards me, and I towards it. It's 11:40, and I can already feel my heart stop.", "12:01 AM Wednesday\n\n\n\nThe clock on the wall serenely begins its circle once more. A cool breeze flows in through the open window bringing relief from the stuffiness of a late summer night. It caresses my face as I stare out the open window, watching the star's in the night sky slowly shift as time rolled on.\n\n10:37 AM Wednesday\n\n\n\nThe city outside my apartment comes alive as the morning rolls towards noon. Nothing is open on Tuesday anymore. The weekend is now Monday and Tuesday. Some of the older folks still find it a little odd. To them Saturday and Sunday are still days which meant rest and leisure. However most workplaces couldn't keep to their old ways when the Change happened. People just wouldn't come into work on Tuesday. The first round of lawsuits came around and set the precedent. It was found that making people work on Tuesday's constituted a \"risk to their well being and health.\" So now we have Wednesday as the start of the week. A lot of people still say they are, \"having a case of the Mondays\" when their having a bad day though. Some habits just don't die easy.\n\n12:35 PM Friday\n\n\n\nHaving people die only on Tuesday has resulted in some unforeseen effects. It's easier to work out your will when you have a whole week to do it. Some people even plan their funerals, some even attend their own funerals. Everyone dying on one day just makes your week a lot easier to plan around. You don't have to worry about a relative in hospital until Tuesday. It doesn't matter if they've just had their head decapitated from their body or have every organ fail. It won't make a difference until Tuesday. This made murder trials sometimes very interesting. It's hard to defend yourself when faced with the person you murdered as a witness on the stand.\n\n3:52 PM Sunday\n\n\n\nA screech of tires from outside interrupts my thoughts. In my mind though I know whats happened. Someone has just walked out into the middle of the road without looking. I hear the sirens as they converge on the accident. It'll be likely though that the person hit will be fine in the long run. Only a few years after the Change scientists found out something very interesting about it's rules. If a person was in a state of suspended animation on a Tuesday they could be resuscitated on Wednesday. As long as the person's brain isn't mush and they have most of their organs intact, surgeons can stitch them back together during the week then suspend them on Tuesday. Most infectious diseases and even cancers can be dealt with in a similar manner. Of course this led to an uproar about how it could be used to potentially live forever. Their hopes and fears proved fairly redundant however. The human brain can only age to a certain point, after which it just deteriorates to much to do anything with. The oldest human alive today is a healthy-ish 153 year old woman. She may not be able to do much of anything but she still wakes up every Wednesday if only to spite Death a little longer.\n\n11:42 PM Monday\n\n\n\nThe world goes quiet as the clocks approach Tuesdays domain. Death will reign once again for 24 hours. Rain is all I hear outside slowly drumming on the ground, crawling down the window pane. When people found out what happened with the Change there was plenty of speculation on whether or not this was the end of human society. \"If we can't die on any other day, then every Tuesday will be a riot of people trying to kill one another!\" This of course didn't end up being the case. Some wounds are still effective death sentences any day of the week. Any sort of head wound that damages the brain may not mean that you die but it can't be fixed, you'll just be a vegetable for rest of your life. Spinal injuries also have a similar result. You can sever the spine completely and live right up until 12:00 next Tuesday.\n\nI glance at the clock, it's 11:52, the time is almost here at last. The blood under my cheek dried up long ago giving the floor a coarse sandy feel. The ache from the bashed part of head had faded over the last two weeks as well. I could see myself in my minds eye. A naked middle aged man lying half in his bathtub, half outstretched on the tile floor. What I can't imagine is how my neck must look. It has to be twisted at a grotesque angle because out of the corner of my eye I can see right up my back towards where my midsection is draped across the edge of the bathtub. I shift my eyes back to the window and the darkness of the coming midnight. No one has come to my apartment for two weeks. This doesn't really surprise me though. Teachers have the summer off and I've always been a fairly solitary man. I was hoping to die of dehydration last week but it seems that lying around doing nothing didn't drain my body of much fluids. I'm feeling though in a couple of minutes I'll finally be free of this. 11:59 I'm almost there....\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 2, 8, 9 ]

[ "1406664954", "1406665417", "1406661552", "1406669461", "1406663983", "1406664716" ]

[ "How? How can He prefer the filthy, emaciated carcass of that flea infested sheep to the bounty I have brought forth? \n\nCan He not see what it means? What I have done? While my brother dogged after his tiny flock and fended off the wolves I have planted fields and trees which will be tended by my children and my children's children. \n\nWhile he and his kind wander aimlessly along the narrow footpath carved by some wretched goat I shall fill the Lord's alter with the bounty of my fields. We will pen the sheep and they will grow fat upon the wheat we shall sew and then who's will be the greater sacrifice? \n\nHow can He not see? Not understand what I have made and what will come after it? \n\nI will show them. I will show the Lord and my squalid brother. I will lead him out among the wheat stalks and water my crops with his blood and when I have tilled the soil with the lime in his bones they will spring up more vibrant and rich than ever before. \n\nWith them I will feed the multitude and we will build cities, temples, and towers to please the Lord. I will show Him, I will show everyone, the worthiness of my offering. \n\nMy brother brought the Lord a sheep. I will bring him a civilization. \n\n* Note that the interpretation of the Cain and Able story as a struggle between hunter gatherers and agrarians is not my own. Lots of people smarter than I am came up with that. ", "Father and Mother raised us well, raised us right. We learned how to hunt the stag and tend the flock; how to grow the vine and cull the weed. And we also learned how to pray.\n\nWe didn't pray to the heathen gods of nature or ancient mysticism, we prayed to He, Lord of the Heavens and the Earth, creator of our people. We were taught His holy days and rites, and became men under His watchful gaze. Through worshiping Him, our family grew, and from that He grew.\n\nOne day, before this time, Father came to my brother and I. We were both told to gather that which was precious to us, to go into the wild lands, and to offer our gifts to Him. While I gathered the freshest vegetables from my garden and ripe fruits from my orchards, I could not find my brother, who was surely shirking his duties. For a whole week, I poured my soul into my fields, casting away imperfections, no matter how slight. I could not- would not- disappoint my Lord with false offerings.\n\nOn the day of the Lord, my brother and I walked forth together into the wilderness. I noted that while I had a wagon, filled to the brim with bounties of the earth that could make a sated man weep for hunger, my lazy, oafish brother carried only a small sack in his arms. When I inquired to him the nature of his offering, he simply smiled and continued on our journey.\n\nMy sacrifice was in vain. Clearly dissatisfied, my Lord favored the pittance my foul sibling had offered over the overflowing bounty I slaved over to provide for Him. How a small, weak lamb could ever possibly be satisfactory I was puzzled to accept. Clearly, it was not the quantity, nor even quality, that He desired- it was *blood!*\n\nRage grew inside of me as I watched my sibling receive the praise of our Lord. Surely, this sacrifice would gain Abel favor in our village, and with that favor would come more riches for which he could squander in exchange for a pittance to the Lord. This would not do. I could not allow Him to forsake me for that slob. If it is blood that pleases the Lord, I shall cut forth a bounty to slake His almighty thirst.\n\n\"To thee, oh Lord, I offer you blood\" were the last words Abel heard before the jagged stone slit his throat." ]

[ 2, 6 ]

[ "1406700553", "1406700208" ]

[ "One night I went to sleep, happier than never before. Because the next day was my sons first birthday. But I didn't wake up, just like my dad. Kind of ironcially funny, I must say.\n\nI knew what happened, because of all the memories from previous lives resurfaced. Countless of lives during millenias, but only now I knew that I had enough. From a concious state of being I woke up to someone vigorously licking my face. It was my dog from my last childhood. Actually more like a spirit bonded animal I had thoughout all my lives to keep me on right track. \n\n\nI got up from the bed and off we went into alien looking world. Just two of us. No heaven. No hell. Just one eternal existence of peace and awesomeness. \n\n\n(First writing and even that during worktime. Please be roughly gentle.)", "You could get used to anything, the man realised long ago, except boredom. After years, decades, centuries you could get used to anything. The smell of sweat and rot and despair, refined to a edge. The aches that had long since become as much a part of you as your limbs. The silence than smothered them all like a pillow pressed firmly against the face. The dust that coated everything, got in everywhere, that drifted down the smooth mountains the path wound along side. The manacles that shifted in unison during the rare times you got to shuffle forwards a step. You could even get used to the hopeless view, of the path winding around the endless mountains, the countless naked figures chained together stretching on ahead of you till they were as small as specks, on till they were barely indistinguishable from the dull yellow light that made up the sky. There was no horizon here. \n\nBut you were alone with your thoughts in the queue for a time that stretched and stretched till that part of yourself that had defined you, the part with colour and warmth and *emotion*, was nothing but a pinprick. There had been conversation at first he could of remembered, if he tried, and confusion, and lots of shouting and weeping. There had been no explanation, just the awareness that they had died, and were now here at the end of a queue, shackled together looking towards an endless line that shuffled forwards agonizingly slowly to an unknown destination. Each half step keeping just enough hope for the end alive for it to accentuate the torture. But the desire to talk petered out before even their clothes had weathered away. There was only so much you could say to the same people. He'd remembered that this was a punishment of some kind. He dimly recalled not being a particularly good person, not that that mattered any more. But that had been long ago. And the monotony had beaten at their skulls till it was all that was there, and hollow eyes stared out of hollow heads. \n\n[I have a second part I want to add, but I'll have to do that later]", "There is nothing after life, except more life. It's like a damn prison with no escape. Constantly exchanging one life for another, hoping the next well be any better than the one before it. \n\nEnergy moves from place to place when it is not bound by some kind of membrane. I think \"heaven\" would be what happens when you find a way to remain in that transitory state, with no boundaries. But unfortunately, that's just the way energy flows. In thousands of years I still haven't figured it out. \n\nI don't know how many people have this ability, to remember their past lives. I think my energy, my soul if you will, has been within sentient beings for long enough that I can see what others can't. The most beautiful and terrifying part of all of it, is that in every life he's there. At some point, he shows up, and he reminds me who I am. And I remind him who he is. Every energy needs balance, and like magnets- opposites attract. Well, he is my perfect opposite. I love him and hate him, and I will never ever escape him. It sounds like some cheesy romance movie, but it's not. In theory, having a soulmate, someone you're bound to, sounds like a beautiful thing. But it's misery. Imagine being married to someone throughout the whole of existence. ", "You wake up. \n \nEverything is so clear now, you wonder how the hell it wasn't before. Thousands of life lessons learned, experiences ranging from extreme poverty to abundant wealth, lives lived in plush comfort and in abject terror. All the memories across a million different landscapes come flooding in. The time you eked survival out of a desert. Swimming in the icy waters of a fjord. Running your hand across a wave of golden grain. Standing on the moon and looking back at the pale blue dot that was Earth. You are all of them at the same time, every emotion, want, fear, lust, greed, joy, tear, happiness, all as one. You laugh and laugh, thrilled at having lived so much. \n \nYour time of rest is now at an end; death is a part of the cycle as is life. The memories begin to quickly fade and you try to remind yourself not to forget. The time that you... that you... what was it? It was on the tip of your tongue? The world goes black and then white again. \n \nAs a babe, you wake up." ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 3 ]

[ "1406881551", "1406888051", "1406905001", "1406877028" ]

[ "They can take a handful of dirt and in their hands form it, and say it is something. They have names to call me, that I am not. These two things will not change, but are not true.\n\nThe face looking at me from the water, is not me. Whenever I go to the water to look, it is there. They build a shelter from their water faces. They have many shelters now, and they know the water is not moving and will not break the faces. But I know it will. \n\nFrom this water that is home for fish and whales and smaller whales that swim fast and flee rapidly, they have built a shelter that is not for dwelling or storing. They have built a story.\n\nThey tell a story of water that is not water, it is a forest. They tell a story that this is this forest, and it is empty when they go there.\n\nMy mothers mouth make a noise and when it makes a noise, I go to mother. My mothers arm stretches and I see her breasts are flat and her stomach is bare, and I know it is full. I will not kill my mother, I go to her. I know she is not empty. I put my ear to her chest. Her chest is moving and is pounding. Then she places her hands on my back, and instead of sitting she is now holding. If her chest is not moving and is not pounding, she will not be holding.\n\nMy mother holds me and tells me of the water and the forest. She tells me of moving and pounding in the water and forest, that move and pound but still will not hold me. We spear them, and their chests stop moving and when you put your ear to them, they are not pounding. What it is now, is not certain. We eat it.\n\nMy mother tells me of the moon. It is not the same always. When it is there, it is all the time new and not the same like last time. Not the same place, not the same shape. Sometimes after the sun is gone, it is not there. The sun is there most of the time. When it is not there for long, it is cold. When it is there for long, it is warm, and the water is warm, and the forest is full.\n\nThey talk to us but they are not telling true things. They cannot see that the sun and the moon is different every time, and when you put your hand in water, you can not hold the water. You can touch a tree and put your arms around it, but still not hold it. They take the trees down and remove the water, and even if it is not true they do it.\n\nMy mother tells me that her mother told her something. She said the mother of her mother told her something. My mother tells of when the sun and moon was different but it was true and we were in the water and the forest and the others were not there.\n\nNow we have a dwelling and when we look out from it, there is no moon and no sun. Now we do not go to the forest and the water. When I go outside they tell me things, that are not true, and I know they are not true, and when they show their teeth it is not for biting and not for talking. \n\nI am a mother. I am holding my child, and she is not the same one like I am. She shows her teeth to me and it is not for biting and not for talking. When she tells me things, she is telling me what is not true. She told me that the moon is the same always. I said it is not true, the moon is what always comes back but is never the same. She says the moon is the same always.\n\nWhen I hold my child I do not known what I am holding. They can take a handful of dirt and in their hands form it, and say it is something. They have names to call me, that I am not. These two things will not change, but are not true.\n\nThe face looking at me from the water, is not me. Whenever I go to the water to look, it is there. They build a shelter from their water faces. They have many shelters now, and they know the water is not moving and will not break the faces. But I know it will. ", "\nThose who know them, know they aren't as bad as the \"normals\" tell each other. Sure, their methods are a little...dated. Their rate of expansion in certain areas are, for lack of a better term, limited. But they *are* humans, they *are* here and they *are* taking over. That's the scariest part about them. Homo-sapiens can have one child, on average, every 9 months. But the Neanderthals can have two children every ten months. Always twins. Always. Its a miracle the homo-sapiens got a foothold in the world at all. However, that came down to technology, and their brains. \n\nHomo-sapiens are not smarter than Neanderthals. That's the scientific truth. They are simply smarter in different *ways* than sapiens. Example, sapiens, the so-called \"normals\" have grasped and expanded technology at a much faster rate than the Neanderthals. They have reached the moon only 66 short years after discovering flight. An incredible feat. They harnessed oil and natural gas, the \"life-blood\" of modern society. They can freely send rockets into orbit and watch the galaxy spin on its axis, watch the Sun, known to the Neanderthals as Thur, in all its glory. \n\nBut the Neanderthals are wholly different. They are barely out of the hunter/gather society, but they prefer it that way. The more educated ones have seen what Sapiens are doing to their world, and it disgusted them. They are people of the earth, worshiping no Sapien gods, knowing nothing of the intricacies of a nuclear reactor, or how much fuel is needed to launch a rocket into orbit. However, they know things that Sapiens cannot. Such as weaving flesh together with nothing more than a whispered phrase, knitting bones and restoring lost blood to an injured by laying their hands on them. Disease does not harm them. No case of Neanderthal cancer has ever been recorded. Their life spans are nearly double that of homo-sapiens, only dying by suffering horrific dismemberment or old age. Thousands upon thousands of Sapiens have tried to master the metaphysics of it, only to fail utterly. Not one sapien, from the caves dwelling days to modern civilization has been able to do what they can. \n\nThe least educated among the homosapiens call them witches, witches that are sub-human and have no right to exist. But those are foolish notions, fit only for back-woods rednecks and brainwashed religious zealots. The educated of the homo-sapiens are awed by them, and wish them to help the Sapien race. But The neanderthals have refused, stating, the Homo-Sapiens are destroying the world with their foolish quests for oil and gas and money. \n\nThere has been many wars fought by the races. They have been mostly even throughout history, but the neanderthals have been slowly gaining ground, even against such horrible weapons as mustard gas, Zyclon-B and nuclear arms. Biological weapons are utterly useless against them. So far, there's been a shaky truce to the races, but that is ending as religions zealots have come to power once again, only this time, they might go too far. " ]

[ 2, 9 ]

[ "1406973277", "1406939669" ]

[ "It was a beautiful autumn day in upstate New York, the sky was clear and the most beautiful shade of blue that James had ever seen. The leaves had just begun to change, the dark greens giving way to stunning golds and a few spots of bright oranges. The sun was bright and warm on his face, yet there was a slight bite to the air that necessitated the old hoodie that he threw on just before he walked out the door. He might have looked a little odd wearing cargo shorts and the old faded green sweatshirt emblazoned with the name of his alma matter across his chest. But he didn't care, the contrast between the cool air on his legs and the warmth that his top provided was one of his favorite feelings.\n\nAs he strode across the field that would soon be covered in dead brown leaves his thoughts were twisted up in a dream that had plagued him ever since the night of his graduation from Siena. He rarely remembered the entire dream when he awoke, but after years of journaling his dreams he had put together what he thought was a coherent timeline of the dream. \n\nAs he walked through the very park he was in today, he stopped by the little boutique coffee shop that roasted their own beans on the premises. However instead of ordering his usual everything bagel and cafe Americano, he ordered two drip coffees. The ritual of flirting with the barista who had the cute diamond stud placed perfectly on the left side of her nose, seemed unnecessary and his side of the conversation was half hearted. Sara had noticed and instead of taking her time preparing the order with care, while basking in the glow of the attention, quickly poured two cups and slapped lids on. James hurried out of the shop grabbing a handful of creamers and sugar almost as an afterthought. His pace down the park path was quick and determined, he was a man on a mission and no one could stop him, he felt invincible. Around the bend on the path and down a slight hill sat a woman on a bench, she was alone. From the distance he was at he could see that she had beautiful straight red hair that draped over her shoulders and revealed an emerald green top. However that was the point he always woke up, never to find out who this woman was, and maybe more frustratingly why he had two drip coffees instead of his silky smooth Cafe Americano.\n\nAs he rounded the bend near the pond, the sight he beheld made him stop dead in his tracks, all of the contemplation no longer mattered. For there she sat. But it wasn't like his dream at all, he had no coffee, and instead of sitting straight up on the bench she looked relaxed with her arm stretched across the back of the bench. It looked as if she were enjoying the day, passing the time by reading a book. Without even thinking James started down the incline, terrified yet enthralled. He was never much of a ladies man, his first girlfriend hadn't come until his Junior year at Siena, so he was wracking his brain for the right words to say. His mouth and throat started to dry up the closer he got to her, finally the identity of the mystery woman will be revealed.\n\nHe approached slowly from the side, and when he got within a few feet his shadow crossed over the bench and onto the book that she was consumed by.\n\n\"Beautiful day isn't it?\" she said without even looking up from her book.\n\n\"Ummm..Yeah.. Beautiful\" was all that James could croak out as she looked up. Her face was angelic, with freckles dotting her cheeks and nose, but her eyes were by far ground zero of her stunning good looks. Bright green in color with a gaze that seemed to stare into your soul, somewhat haunting at first but then when her smile spread across her face James noticed that there was no malice or evil behind them. The only held each others gaze for a moment but in that time it felt as if they were looking into each others hearts.\n\n\"So you went to Siena. What year did you graduate? I got my B.S. there in 2006\"\n\n\"Umm.. I finished in 2005.\" James was befuddled, how did she know he had went there. Then looking down he realized that he was a walking billboard, as he looked up he noticed that she was wearing a school sweater, except one with the new logo that was adopted in 2006.\n\n\"Do you know a place around here to get coffee? I was just thinking about getting one. Would you like to join me?\"\n\nWithout hesitation he responded. \"I know just the place. If you want to wait here for a minute I can run and get a couple, I know a great place right across the way.\"\n\n\"Perfect! I can finish my chapter and then when you get back we can talk about our days at the Dog Pound!\"\n\nWith that James took off, a man on a mission, invincible, and it felt so much more incredible then he could have ever dreamed of.", "*No..... no..... no......* \n\nMy mind was racing as the scene unfolded before me. The woman was there as expected, red jacket, dark brunette hair parted sideways as she dipped her head down, engrossed in a magazine, irises flickered like small saucers of silky coffee. I knew her face, the same face that haunted my dreams for years. How could this be real, is it divine fate, punishment? There is so much I wanted to say to her, to get her to understand the events that are about to reveal, but I am unable to speak. It is almost as if wire was threaded through my bones, forcing to walk to my own undoing. \n\nShe glances up and looks at me, our eyes meet. Her mouth began to move but I never heard the words. I always wondered what she was going to say, hello, pardon, excuse me? I guess it does not matter anyway. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I knew what was about to come. \n\nHer expression turned from subtle curiosity to sickened shock. Her eyes filled with horror as she pushes herself against the bench, doing everything to get away from me. I could do nothing but relive the embarrassment that has plagued my mind for as long as I could remember. \n\nThe gentle breeze caressed me, its touch burned a coldness deep into the bareness of my skin. I wanted to scream but my pants had fallen down. " ]

[ 2, 2 ]

[ "1406943260", "1406943824" ]

[ "- Well, it can't be that bad. I mean come on. I will help billions of people! And I will be rich! - doctor Hem was thinking, trying to persuade himself what he just did was good for everyone. \n- Doctor Hem, may I come in? A guy in his 50's asked as he was entering the doctor's office.\n- So you already know?\n- we have been watching your work very closely.\n- And?\n- We are not sure we are happy with where this is going.\n- What the fuck do you mean you are not sure? - the doctor screamed, perfectly understanding the man's concern. - we are going to save billions! \n- Doctor Hem, just 50 years ago we cured HIV, too. The population has quadrupled since then. \nThe doctor's eyes startled watering as realisation of the consequences of the cure started dawning on him.\n- The population of the US alone tripled. Income per capita is 25% lower than it was half a century ago.\nDoctor Hem perfectly knew that. He perfectly knew that even when he started his work on the project right after college.\n- An average wait time for the US green card is 160 years. Illegal immigration is up 500%.\n- Fuck you! Get the fuck out of my office right fucking now.\n- I will, but let me remind you that the world and the US wouldn't survive another \"cure\". We have enough resources to keep us going for another 40 years. 15 if you reveal the cure...\n- Get... Out...\n- The man kept staring in the eyes of the doctor for another half a minute. Grabbed his notebook from the table and, realising he planted even more doubt in the mind of the doctor,,said: - it has been a pleasure. I hope you do the right thing. You are the 26th person to discover the cure in the last 10 years. Please don't let us down.\n", "“It works, correct?” the man asked. His grey suit was well-fit; hand made. He was the money of the operation, and old Doctor Patel knew better than to quarrel with him.\n\n“Yes,” Doctor Patel replied.\n\nThe man shrugged, and held his hands out, articulating his contempt at Doctor Patel’s concerns.\n\n“Then that’s that.” The man dropped his arms, and smiled broadly. “Doc, you have cured cancer! Cheer the hell up!”\n\nDoctor Patel wrung his hands together with the terrible weight of guilt crushing down. He had tried so many times to explain the side-effects, but all anyone else seemed to care about was the money they were all going to be making from this. His cure for cancer.\n\n“I share your excitement,” Doctor Patel proclaimed, “but I fear you do not share my concerns.”\n\nThe man half chuckled at the very notion, and clapped Doctor Patel on the shoulder. His façade of friendship was never more than paper thin at best.\n\n“Of course I do. But we can’t get bogged down in that stuff now. You’ll find a way around it.” His voiced dropped lower, his eyes shifting in menace. “I know you will.”\n\nThe man walked out, leaving Doctor Patel alone in the room. He wandered back to the far door, and pulled on the heavy steel handle. He walked into the next room, a small affair adorned in the familiar, simple fashion of a hospital room. A young woman sat near the window, her thin frame silhouetted against the morning sun. She turned to look at Doctor Patel as he entered, her hollow cheeks covered over by lean flesh, though it had recently regained the warm colour of health.\n\n“Who are you?” she asked as Doctor Patel entered.\n\nDoctor Patel sighed, and sat heavily in a light plastic chair.\n\n“Amy,” he said with infinite patience, “my name is Doctor Patel. We have met many times. We spoke just a few minutes ago. Do you remember our conversation?”\n\n“No,” Amy answered in confusion.\n\n“Do you remember meeting me before now?” Doctor Patel asked hopefully, though he knew what her answer would be.\n\n“No,” she replied, concern spreading across her face. “I don’t…I don’t remember anything. Why can’t I remember?”\n\nDoctor Patel heaved a great sigh, his heart heavy, and sunk his head into his hands.\n\n“Because, Amy,” he said, “I have cured you.”\n" ]

[ 1, 3 ]

[ "1406962977", "1406959974" ]

[ "I ended up throwing the combination away as I had already cracked open the box years ago. All that was inside was a new brand of chewing gum, \"destiny\", and a jelly of the month subscription. ", "\"Damn these pre-orders are getting ridiculous!\", I thought as I opened the box. Inside was a card with a keycode to download the software, a cloth map of the moon, and a little figurine of a \"ghost\". Entering the keycode into the console it started downloading the software. A progress bar appeared with a time. \"47 hours? Great. Oh well whats a couple days wait after 10 years?\" I put on my hat to head to the store, it was time to load up on Doritos and Orange Shasta for the marathon ahead.", "For several years I had pondered the meaning of the Destiny Box, as I had taken to calling it.\n\n\nThe old man still is stuck in the back of my mind. He was somewhat overweight, with a beard. But he didn't look old enough to be Santa.\n\n\nWhatever. That was ten years ago, and the Destiny Box remained closed. Until today, when I found the envelope with a combination.\n\n\nI saw it, an knew what it was. I walked to the box, spinning the dial. Finally, I thought, finally! I'll know what's inside! Yes!\n\nI looked inside, my mouth agape.\n\nInside was the Ace of Spades, with three addresses, and three times, written down on it, with YOU ARE THE MESSENGER written on the back.", "You may remember my post on /r/WhatsInThisThing/ almost a year ago.\n\n.\n\n\nTen years ago, some kids threw a rock and hit my brother’s head. Josh went to the hospital and had some stitching. He came back from the hospital with a black metal box in his hand. He just said some guy dressed like a patient gave it to him and said not to try and open it until 2013. \n\n\n.\n\n\nThe box was locked with the word “destiny” engraved on the lid. We kept in the attic. Frankly, we forgot about it until September 2013 when Josh received a letter with a combination to the box.\n\n.\n\n\nWe posted the photos and told our story on reddit. The topic reached the front page. Some people doubted our story. Some said it was just a marketing scheme of a new perfume called ‘Destiny’. People got pissed when we did not deliver the result. I received so many hate mails that I had to delete my account. I’m here to tell you now that we did open the box back in September 2013. This is the true event that happened after that.\n\n.\n\n\n**Josh opened the box. There was a loaded handgun inside with a map. There was writing on the map that says “go to XXXX campus, Sept 17th, 11.00h”.** It gave me a goose bumps and I wanted nothing to do with it. We put the gun and the map back in the box.\n\n\n.\n\n\n\nIn the morning of Sept 17th, I woke up around noon. My brother wasn’t there. I figured he had left for work. In fact, Josh was at the XXXX with the gun. He felt strangely drawn to the place. His ‘destiny’ was waiting for him there. He reached the campus ground. He heard gun shots from inside one of the buildings. There were bodies on the ground and so much blood. He didn’t know that blood could be that bright red. He heard gun shots again but this time he knew that it came from building A as one window got shattered. \nHe tried to call the police but his call didn’t go through. At this point in time, he knew that it was his destiny to go inside the building. \n\n\n.\n\n\nHe saw Timmy, his buddy from elementary school though they haven’t talked since junior high. Timmy was holding a handgun much like his. Timmy also carried a short gun on his back. Timmy looked up at him. “Hi, Josh” and quickly looked back at a girl on the floor with his gun pointed at her head. She was badly injured and kept saying “why?” “why?”. \n\n\n“Timmy, WTF, put down the gun” Josh said.\n\n“Why don’t you join me?” Timmy said without looking at him\n\n“Why are you doing this?”\n\n“Why not?” Timmy answered and said “I’m not gonna stop. So you gonna have to shoot me”\n\n“No”\n\n“Pick you side, Josh” “10… 9…8…7…6”\n\n“No”\n\n“1” Timmy shot the girl in the head. And then pointed the gun at Josh.\n\n“10…9…8..”\n\n\n.\n\n\n\nBoth guns were fired. Timmy got one in the chest and collapsed. Josh got hit in his abdomen. \n\n\n.\n\n\n\nTimmy coughing up blood, he said “just like what the message in the box says”\n\nJosh: You also got a box?”\n\nTimmy “Why didn’t you choose me?”\n\nTimmy “Do you know the Pandora box?”\n\nJosh: “Yes”\n\nTimmy “Who do you think we are?, one of the demons or the hope” \n\n“I think you just kill the hope, Josh”\n\n\n.\n\n\n\nAs Josh was dying, he took out his cell phone and prayed to all things that Holy that his call would go through. \n\n\n.\n\n\nHe called me and told me the story. He told me to tell our parents that they shouldn’t believe everything on the news, and that their son was a hero, and that he loved them very much. \n", "I never really liked where I worked, where I lived, who I lived with, the car I drove or the boots that fit me just a little too tightly. Trapped is the feeling that comes to mind; a jail of my own making.\n\n\nBut I am the one who made it. \n\n\nI sat the letter on the table across from me and drew a crushed, damp, pack of marlboros and a navy blue bic from my pocket. \"Goddamnit,\" I mumbled, and pulled a crumpled cigarette to my lips. \"My destiny box huh?\" I let out a faint chuckle and lit up, took a long drag and watched the smoke drift listlessly into the fading orange light of the day. \n\n\nAnd there it loomed, the address I loathed staring up at me from the frayed, plain, white envelope. \n\n\nI never did put much stock in predetermination. Thinking there was some great plan that someone had, whether I wanted it or not. I probably wouldn't have opened the damned thing anyway. I don't know what happened to the box: probably lost in a move, or stolen by a drunken roommate. But as I sat there the pieces started to come together; My destiny wasn't here.", "He focuses intently. All sensation is lost. His vision narrows, his hearing dims. The ratty chair to his right, the torn up sofa to his left, fade into black oblivion. He clutches the letter in his callused old hand, a hand colored by years and years of crushing labor, always waiting for the wave of Destiny to crash upon him and carry his life into the realm of fantasy. The letter is of a make not seen for many years; thick creamy paper, hand laid by bald monks working by moonlight in the highest reaches of the most sacred Mountain of the Himalayas. The ink is as deep a black as the night sky, yet less mysterious and more sinister. The penmanship is exquisite, clearly graced by a true artisan's touch. His eyes twitch, his feet shake, and in a sudden frenzy of anger tinged with a hint of orgasmic trepidation he destroys the envelope to reveal a series of numbers. He twists the box's dial, living the stress of ten years between each tiny click. The lock stops turning. The box pops open with a slight puff of the most miniscule dust. The man stood up and flattens himself against his wall, refusing to confront that which he had most wanted for the past decade; a reason to live, some direction for his life so cluttered with the insufferable minutiae of life and work and taxes and children. He squared his shoulders, drawing up every mote of courage in his tired heart, and opened the box. It is empty. The man laughs, first softly, then with real gusto, and finally so hard he worries he is going to have a heart attack, colored by madness. He rushes upstairs to his bedroom and dashes around his stained mattress, his chipped wardrobe, and finally reaches his nightstand hammered together from scrap lumber so many years ago that it looks just as tired as the man. He reaches into the top drawer, and retrieves his father's 0.45. It has one bullet in the chamber. Thats all he'll ever need. In the moment that the man raises the aged weapon to his head, he is filled with a wave of peace and serenity, as he is aware that for better or worse, the Rat Race of Life has finally ended.", "Everything was on the table, ready for your weekly routine. Clean needle, lighter, the last of the product you had left before you have to resupply. You know that what you’re about to do is wrong, but you’re doing this for the last time, as a farewell to your routine. You deserve it tonight though, you’ve worked hard all week. You knew that your father would be disappointed if he saw you in this state, so it was a good thing he wasn’t around. The last time you saw him was when you were a child. He just laid there in the casket as you told him how much you miss him, told him to come back, and finally promised him you’d grow up to be just like him. “This is the last time, dad”. You’ve been saying this every week for the past year, but it’s become comfortable to at least verbalize it, just to show you meant it. You open the small baggy and pour the last of the brown powder into the rusty spoon. Same process every week. Tonight was the same as last week except for one thing, the letter you opened today. Not one of the usual bills, but a real letter that had no address, only the word *Destiny* on the front. As the flame from the lighter begins liquefying the contents, you glance over at the box. \n\n“What’s in the box?” you remember asking the man ten years ago. It was just a small box, no larger than both your hands put together, with the word *Destiny* engraved on the lid. You knew it probably wasn't safe to accept things from strangers, but there was just something about this man that you trusted. It could have been the bright yellow ducks on his tie, or his circular spectacles, or maybe the smell of cinnamon that you reminded you of your mother’s cinnamon biscuits. But no, the thing you remember the most is the way he talked to you. It was like he’s known you all your life. His words comforted you, made you feel like everything would be okay, something you haven’t felt in too long. You felt like he could tell the future because he was just so certain of each word he told you, yet there was warmth in the way he spoke to you. That was the last time you saw the man. \n\nYou stare at the letter in your hands with the box resting on your knees. You’ll just shoot up after opening the box; maybe it’ll be more of what you need, save you the money. You laugh. You’ve tried so many times to pry off the tiny lock that’s on the box, but tonight you’ll finally see what’s inside.\n\nYou turn the dials on the lock according to the numbers in the letter. You feel excitement and hope. After keeping it for all these years, finally a payoff. \n\nYou open the box, and you see your own pair of light-brown eyes staring back at you. Your heart sinks. “What were you hoping for, idiot?” It’s a mirror, just big enough that you can only see your eyes when you look into it. You were hoping tonight might be different, but it was turning out to be the exact same. You were so curious that you kept it for ten long years, and now it was like a big joke that took ten years for the punchline to hit you in the gut. You laugh again. \n\nAs you are closing the box, you notice something carved into the underside of the lid that you didn’t see before, and it reads; *from, dad*. \n", "*0, 4, 0, 0, 1*\n\nThe small, pine box had been meticulously crafted. The edges all matched, the feet were attached well, and the hinges had been very well lubricated. It had been years since Matt had even thought about the box, but even through a couple of moves, and some hard times, Matt kept the box. On the lid was the singular word \"Destiny\". Underneath it was a symbol that reminded Matt a bit of a loading wheel, but it had an arrow at the \"top\" of it.\n\nHaley was out at the mall, and would be for several more hours.\n\nMatt read the letter once more.\n\n> *Patron,*\n\n> *You may remember me, but if not, there's no need to fret. As this box was passed on to me, so too was it passed on to you. Now, it is time to reveal the purpose of the box. Inside, you will find something unfathomable to the human mind. As such, it is with a bit of regret, but indeed a great amount of hope that I give you the combination.*\n\n> *From left to right, you should align the numbers into the following code: 0, 4, 0, 0, 1*.\n\n> *Try to do a better job than I did. Good luck.*\n\nMatt was still confused. He set the letter on the coffee table. Staring at the box, Matt was acutely aware that his heart had began beating very fast. His normally steady hands began shaking as he reached forward. Setting them on the lid, Matt closed his eyes and tried to quell his uncharacteristic nervousness.\n\nA minute went by and the lid had not come off. Matt opened his eyes. It would be so easy to just throw the lid open, were it not for the strange letter.\n\n> ***BRRRRT BRRRRT*** **New Message From: Boo Boo Baer Hay ;) ;)**\n\n> *The mall was so packed today!! I could hardly even move! I'm on the way back to the apartment, I'll just get what I need online. Should I grab us some lunch?*\n\nMatt stared down at his phone. *I have to do it before she gets here. What if this thing is dangerous?*\n\n> *No, that's okay. I ate.*\n\n*Why did I just say that?*\n\n> ***BRRRRT BRRRRT*** **New Message From: Boo Boo Baer Hay ;) ;)**\n\n> *Great because I'm here!*\n\nMatt opened the door just as Haley had been reaching for it. She looked at him, her smile as big as it always was, with her straight, paper-white teeth showing. His face was crunched, as if trying to comprehend some complex quantum physics of which he had no knowledge.\n\n\"What's up?\" She asked, her smile vanishing.\n\n\"A letter came today. Didn't say who it was from, but it had instructions on how to open the box\"\n\n\"Really?! That's great! It's always bugged me, that thing. Let's go open it!\"\n\nShe practically ran to the couch and plopped down, absolutely buzzing with excitement.\n\nMatt resumed his seat and looked at her. She looked back. Her smile had returned. In unison they each set one hand on their side of the box, Haley on the left, Matt on the right.\n\n\"On three\" she said, looking at him.\n\n\"On three or after three?\" He couldn't help but laugh, despite how serious this might be.\n\nRolling her eyes, Haley said \"We'll go '1, 2, 3' and then open it after we're finished saying three\"\n\nMatt nodded his head in agreement.\n\n\"1\" She counted.\n\n*She doesn't have any idea what this thing is! Why are we doing this?! Why are we doing this here?!*\n\n\"2\" He counted.\n\n*It's too late now. Good thing I already proposed I guess...*\n\n\"3\" They said together.\n\nA flash of light, and a sudden rushing pulled them both into the depths of the six inch by eight inch box. The lid slammed shut, and they were plunged into darkness. It was a darkness so dark that nothing could be seen - darkness so dark that it almost felt like Matt's bones were being crushed by all of the darkness that surrounded him.\n\nThere was nothing. Matt would have said they were floating, but he couldn't tell which way was which.\n\nHe tried calling out to Haley, but his voice was broken. Instead, somehow, she answered him in his own brain.\n\n*\"Matt, what is this?!\"*\n\n*\"I don't know*\" he thought back to her.\n\nInexplicably, they were seated in large chairs. Neither of them could have said what they were made of, but they were comfortable. Matt's sense of direction suddenly returned to him. A dim light shone from somewhere above, it's source unknown, casting about them a small oval of yellow.\n\nIn front of them, some distance away, gigantic letters appeared and were accompanied by a voice. It resonated all around them, despite nothing to bounce off of or amplify from.\n\n\"Welcome. Name?\"\n\nHaley, looked to Matt, who responded with his.\n\n\"Good. And your companion?\"\n\n\"Haley\" she said.\n\n\"Good. Matt, and Haley. Creators of universe zero four zero zero one. Let's begin, we have much work to do and only ten quintillion years to do it.\"\n\n*This has to be some kind of joke, a dream... SOMETHING!! This is not normal!*\n\n\"Wait.\" Matt said. \"What is your name?\"\n\n\"My name is ten-seventeen Shameful Object.\"\n\n\"What is this place?\" Matt said, raising his voice.\n\n\"This is your universe, Creator. You have been selected for creation. It is a bit odd however that you chose to bring a companion. Most do not.\"\n\n\"We're going to be creating a universe?\" Haley asked, skeptical.\n\n\"All infinity cubic light-years of it, or however much you deign acceptable.\"\n\n\"Well, we don't know how to create a universe.\" Matt said hotly.\n\n\"That is why I am here to assist you. I shall guide your creation. All decisions however, rest solely in your hands.\"\n\nMatt and Haley looked at each other once again. Consternation covered her face; confusion covered his.\n\nShe laughed and he said \"Let's begin\"", "Click.\n\nNow at long last, ten years have passed. I watch as time slides by so fast.\n\nClick.\n\nThe numbers three of destiny which surely in the box would be.\n\nClick.\n\nWhen lid had popped my jaw did drop and tired now the time did stop.\n\nGasp.\n\nThe emptiness of smallest chest has long at last let my heart rest.\n\nSigh.\n\nFreed now of stings from destined things of decade past my heart did sing.\n\nBreathe.", "The box itself was quite ornate: a lovely obsidian black with swirling designs etched along the outside, with a single brilliant red ruby embedded on the front. None of that really mattered, however. It wasn't the outside that was interesting. It was what had been locked away inside that would really catch my eye.\n\nI had received the box quite some time ago, about 10 years if I had to guess. It was locked with a combination lock. I didn't have the willpower to try my hand at figuring out the combination, but for some reason I had the willpower to hold on to the damned thing for 10 years.\n\nToday began normally enough; until the letter came. It was the only letter that came. No spam, no chinese food menus, nothing. Nothing but this. And inside it read: *Thank you for holding on to the box. The combination is 4, 1, 2, 9, 7. Enjoy.*\n\nLooking back, I'm not quite sure how the writer knew I still kept the box. Fortunately, it wasn't hidden away or anything. I kept it in the dining room. How could I not? It was a beautiful box, and an interesting conversation starter, to boot.\n\nI sat down at my dining room table, box in one hand, letter in the other. The clock read 9:12 PM. I figured I should record the time of opening; this may be an exciting point in my life! The TV had been blaring, focused on a news story of a prison escapee. I turned it off, this box was the real news. I opened the box and, to my dismay, paper quite literally exploded from it. There was so much, it was baffling to me as to how it all fit inside. I grabbed one and began reading:\n\n*September 14th, 2007 - Watched reruns of Spongebob with the kids for a fair portion of the day. Their mother picked them up later in the evening after being served supper.*\n\nThat... sounded familiar. I grabbed another:\n\n*June 26th, 2009 - Attended Jake's Middle School Graduation. Chatted up one of the single mothers there. The Janitor's Closet proved useful. Upon leaving the closet, the once single mother suddenly donned her wedding ring again. Embarrassing, to say the least.*\n\nNow, this, I remembered. I told this story often -- was somebody watching me? But... no, that's not possible. I got this box in 2004, how could there be entries for 2007? For 2009? Did this box hold my future?\n\nI began violently throwing papers out of the box, looking to prematurely glance at my future. I found the last page:\n\n*August 3rd, 2014 - A letter arrived for the box that was received 10 years ago. Upon opening the box, its contents were studied. At the end of the reading, a crash was heard. Someone broke through the window. The man who escaped from prison killed him.*\n\n...What? No, no, no... this can't be the last page, that's absurd, these things don't *just happen* to people, do they? No, of course not, this box must be some weird hoax! Maybe someone was just entering parts in every day or something! This is a prank, a stupid, drawn out, pr--\n\nThat's when I heard the crash.\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nDo be gentle, this is my first story! I hope you enjoyed it!", "I slammed the lid shut again. The chair fell away behind me as I did all I could to get away from it. The combination was still in my hand, written on some thin bit of yellowed old paper.\n\n\nMy back struck the wall opposite to the window ledge I had lay the box on. I tried to think, tried to conjure up any single thought or word of reason in my mind and nothing came, nothing but the image burned across every synapse. \n\n\n\"Hey, what the hell are you doing?!\" I had shouted across the forecourt, smokes and petrol receipt in hand as the automatic doors slid closed behind me.\n\n\nSome old man had just opened up my trunk, he was dressed in what looked like dirty old rags draped over a sharp new suit. His beard was patchy and his wrinkled face spattered with flecks of dirt, topped off with a pristine white large brimmed hat.\n\n\nHe bent down with a groan and returned upright, with great effort, clutching the small wooden box I had just opened. Then he spoke, as he laid it down with care inside my trunk.\n\n\nI ran over and placed my hand on his shoulder. \"Hey! Would you not?\" I pushed him back as gently as I could and stared him in the eyes. \"Whatever *this* is, I dont want it, I'm not buying it.\"\n\n\n\"For one to live, another must die.\" He said deadpan. His eyes were a brilliant color, one that seemed in motion with his words and the light of the day. \"A moon to grow, then cycle begins anew. Such is the price of Immortality\" \n\n\n\"The... What?\" I turned and looked into the trunk to see exactly what he had placed inside. The wood was dark and exquisitely carved, but other than that the box was plain save for a dark iron lock looped through a thick ring that held the lid tightly closed.\n\n\nWhen I raised my eyes again, the old man was walking away with a straight back and stride in his gait. \n\n\n\"Hey!?\" I called after him, hesitating to give chase as I contemplated taking the box with me against the risk of taking my eyes off of him to pick it up. \n\n\nMy decision was soon made for me, he stepped out into the rush hour traffic. I saw the SUV coming, I heard its horn and the screech of tires as it braked hard and swerved to miss him. When I reached the SUV at a full sprint there was one thing I knew I would never see or never hear again. \n\n\nThe old man was gone. \n\n\nI let the combination slip from my fingers as I stared at the box, its wood illuminated by the shafts of light spilling in through the window. I remembered what the old man had said but I had long forgotten the notion that I would ever see inside. \n\n\nI crept over, slowly and feeling each foot land in front of the other. The boards creaked as I made my way over. I was as afraid to open the box as I was to leave it closed. The lock had broken in my hand as I entered the combination, and as every violent effort I had made to get inside over the years had failed, I knew that it would never be closed again. \n\n\nThe lid opened smoothly as I peeked through the corners of half closed eyes. Light spread across it as I let the lid open all the way.\n\n\nIt wasn't an *it* was it. No. It was a he. It was a man. A tiny man in a tiny coffin, though he wasn't dead, I could see his chest rising and falling. \n\n\nThe worst part of it all was I recognized him, I knew his face well. \n\n\nThe little man in the box looked like... No, he was... \n\n\nHe was a tiny Keanu Reeves. \n\n\n*\"For one to live another must die.\"* The old man's words echoed in my head. *\"A moon to grow, then the cycle begins anew. Such is the price of Immortality.\"*\n\n\nHis eyes began to flutter, his lips began to move soundlessly and then finally, as his eyes opened and met mine, he spoke. \n\n\n\n\n \n\"Woah.\"" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 7, 19 ]

[ "1407108738", "1407114872", "1407128653", "1407129206", "1407130884", "1407111632", "1407128300", "1407129737", "1407120584", "1407115587", "1407111626" ]

[ "A complex species, we were. Some would say we only had one goal, whether it be answering life's unanswered questions, or taking control of everything till it was all under our rule. It didn't matter what our goals were, they always conflicted with someone else's goal. And thus, war would ensue due to these differences. It didn't matter that we were all one species, we always focused on each other's differences. We focused on the wrong thing, we always did. We never focused on uniting as a species, as a planet, as a people. We always focused on what tore us apart. Our natural instincts always led to conflict, and thus nuclear war followed after thousand of years of bitter human history. Almost all of us dead, eventually leading to a few select surviving, and even then we didn't work together. We still killed each other for petty reasons; whether it was for food or shelter, we never shared or worked together. We killed.\n\nBut that is what we always do, it would never change. War would follow again and again, until it came down to me. What did we do wrong? Was this our destiny? To kill and ravage the earth? To destroy it? Yes, it seems like that was our destiny. I hoped that this war that nearly wiped us out would bring us together, but war... War - and human instinct - never changes.", "They began simply. They grew into complex creatures, though, so we shall forget the humble beginnings. As they grew, I watched, and observed. They killed each other for objects, for religions, for whim, for anything. Wars, battles, skirmishes, whatever you wish to call them, they were there. Lots of them. Many lives were lost because of these trivial battles. I had hoped they would grow out of this phase, but they never did. They were always going to be barbarians at heart, with new and better weapons to play with. The atom bomb, nukes, artillery, all these weapons so they could kill and worsen their race. That is why, my friends, that I am proud to have destroyed them, to put them out of their misery. They will never have to conflict with each other ever again. I think that is the greatest gift they could have ever received.", "They started, like many before them with rocks and sticks. Yet unlike most, they ended in an entirely different solar system. Through out the course of Human History, they have been divided and united, pushed to the edge and brought back from it. To the best of their ability, they have survived; through great minds & hearts and the love that they all share within themselves. \n \nAlthough, all great races come to an end. It is only natural and fair, soon the pages of history will forget them and the roads they traveled. \nBut I shall not, I watched them grow into the beings they once dreamt of becoming. I watched them become the people they were terrified of, yet they always accomplished. ", "In respect of a species who glorified their dead in the most optimistic light it should only be fitting that they in turn should be remembered for only their positive endeavours. \nBut they are not here to condemn us and we are struggling to decide how our planet will suffer from this loss. So we can only thank you for surrendering yourselves to your own devices and leaving a legacy of a planet which you can no longer blight. " ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 2 ]

[ "1407119874", "1407205757", "1407112161", "1407112772" ]

[ "2 A.M.- I wok up ate midnight. Had to wate untel two am to rite this so motr skils develuped. I dunt no y I was born this wa but I trikd it. I well rite more laetr. Brane uv 5 yeer old.\n\n5 A.M. My spelling is mostly alright now. I like dogs and cannot wait until that new videogame is released. Maybe mom will buy it for me. 11 years old and thankfully I am smarter at this age than some kids. Timmy is not very smart and he is mean to me.\n\n7 A.M. 17 years old. I can't wait until I can move out. I hate my mom. I hate writing this damn journal every day. I only do it because the doctors say it might help me through it. I know this should be the prime of ny life but I'm stuck in a damn 22 year old body. Every 5 years I have to wake up an hour earlier. I hate waking up early. I hope this job is flexible.\n\n9 A.M. Off to the interview. My teenage years took a few liberties. Have to be careful not to doze off, lest my brain will reset. I'll be an infant again. I'll try to only get hours from 9:00am till 4:00. Then I can go home and retire as as a 60 year old man. I don't get much sleep though.\n\nI see 5 year old me mentioned that I learned to trick this terrible disorder but didn't really elaborate. I simply wake up earlier than most people so I can have optimal brain capacity. I'm 22, actually. Physically, I mean.\n\nI'm in the waiting room. A lot of people applie...\n\n-----------\n\n\"Mr. Jones?\"\n\nI cry.\n\n\n", "I've been awake for 96 hours straight for this, only 20 minutes till the interview starts, I will present point per point how this world will be a better place if 1/10th of the population follow three simple rules. I've gained enough mind power over the past two days to make it. Only 15 minutes left. I never felt so tiered, my mind is going so fast my body can barely keep up with it, I will sit for a moment, the girl will prepare me so I don't look like I didn't sleep for the past couple of days.\n\nOh I got a microphone on my vest, this is cool!" ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1407127222", "1407127581" ]

[ "I used to fish in the creek down by my house. Not to actually catch fish, you understand, it was just to get a quiet place to think. The fish themselves were more of a distraction from thinking. I don't like catching fish, but I can't think properly unless I'm fishing. Strange but true.\n\nAnyway, one day they built a town by the creek near my house. And all day long, people were coming and going, and making a terrible commotion. I couldn't think there any more. So I packed up my fishing rod, and went to look for someplace else.\n\nIt took a while. I looked for a long time. Eventually, I found a spot, down by Constantinople. It's quite a long walk to Constantinople, but I made it. I fished in the sea. And there was less noise, and I caught less fish than I used to, but that was fine. It left me more time to think.\n\nAnd then one day they built a port by the sea at Constantinople. And all day long, boats were coming and going, and making a terrible commotion. I couldn't think there any more either. So I packed up my fishing rod, and I went to look for someplace else.\n\nI went all around the world. But everywhere now, there were towns and ports and factories and mines, and everyone was making noise. I have very sensitive ears, you see. I couldn't find a quiet spot anywhere. Nowhere in the entire world.\n\nSo I went down to the fair, at night-time, just as it was closing. And I bought ten of the biggest, brightest, liftiest balloons you ever saw. And those balloons carried me up, way up into the sky, all the way to the moon. That's where I let them go, and the balloons kept going without me.\n\n(They're still up there. See that patch of stars, all red and yellow and blue? Those are my balloons.)\n\nAnd now I sit on the moon and I fish in the clouds. And there's no noise at all here, and I catch no fish at all. And I've got nothing but time to think.\n\nNow, one day they're going to build a space station by the moon and the clouds. And all day long, rocketships will be coming and going, and making a terrible commotion. And I won't be able to think here any more. And so I'll pack up my fishing rod, and I'll go to look for someplace else.\n\nBut it'll do for now.", "In the not too distant future, \nnext Sunday, A.D. \nThere was a boy named Joel, \nnot too different than you and me. \nHe lived in a little orphanage \nBarely learning our common language \nHe didn’t have a cheerful face \nNo one ever adopted him \nand DreamWorks shot him into space \n\nThey sent him with a fishing pole \nas a sick, twisted joke (la la la) \nYou see there are no fish up there \nJoel’s just their logo (la la la) \nNow keep in mind Joel can’t control \nWhen the movie begins or ends (la la la) \nBecause he is not on the Earth \nBut he is still an orphan \n\nIf you’re wondering how he eats and breathes \nand other science facts (la la la) \nThen repeat to yourself, “It’s just a show, \nI should really just relax \nI miss Mystery Science Theater, 3000!” \n\nEdit: Formatting ", "**An excerpt from a story I have been writing over the past couple years**\n\n\"Linus, I want to thank you.\" I said as he tended to the campfire. \"If you hadn't been there, I'd probably be dead by now.\" Linus smiled. \n\"It's okay, princess. I'd probably be dead too if you hadn't found me.\" I looked at him and smiled. I don't know why I ever mistrusted him. \n\"Linus, I want to give you something.\" He had finished tending the fire, and came to sit next to me. \n\"What is it?\" I reached into my pocket and pulled out my fathers pendant. \n\"It was something my father gave me before he died. He used to tell me this little fairytale when I was little, whenever he showed me this pendant.\" Linus stared at the pendant, giving off his usual blue aura. \"The tale goes that there was once a kingdom that covered all our lands. The king was weak and wanted to pass the throne to his sons. However, there was a problem. When the eldest would use magic, an evil curse would try to take over him, and so he couldn't use magic for long, otherwise the curse would be complete, and he would turn evil. The King created a purification charm with magic of his own to prevent the curse from consuming the boy too quickly. The king eventually passed away, but the youngest wanted the throne for himself, so overnight he stole the charm. Without the charm, the queen worried that the eldest would become evil, so she did the one thing she could to protect the realm, and she banished the boy to the moon, where he would live to this day.\" Linus had a strange look on his face. \n\"So this is meant to be that charm?\" I smiled and put it around his neck. As soon as I did however, a bright light beam of light shot down from the moon and hit his body, lifting him into the air....\n\n**That's all for now, story is still incomplete.**", "*“My sweet Jeremy,*\n\n*You’ll grow up one day to do grand things. I wish I could be there to see it. Although I can’t be there to hug and love and kiss you myself, I will always be watching over you from above. I’m so sorry it has to be this way.*\n\n*My eternal love,*\n\n*Your mother”*\n\nI remember the first time I asked Granma why momma left. Granma said that momma was a lady so broken, she’d swallow fish hooks looking for the last little pieces of her heart left inside. To give to me. But she could never find them, and that’s why she couldn’t ever love me enough.\n\nDon’t think too bad of her little boy, Granma said. Your momma just had a harder life than most. Don’t worry, Granpa would pipe in, God gives everyone a new heart in heaven, so your momma will be waiting for you with all the love in the world when you finally go up.\n\nBut when the Johnson’s dog bit me, and I found myself up there a lot sooner than spected, momma wasn’t there. A lady with wings told me that people who try to come up to heaven before their time is up, can’t.\n\nCourse I asked, ma’am, why not? She looked sad and said it’s because they can’t find their way. They get lost. \n\nHmm. What if I found her and brought her up? *Little one, you can’t leave.*\n\nI thought long and hard about how I’d see my momma again. I see folk go all the way down to the moon sometimes, ma’am, can’t I go down there?\n\n*I don’t see why not.*\n\nThank you ma’am, I said, and I puffed up my chest and slung my pole over my shoulder. Time for some fly-fishin. I’m gonna catch me a momma.\n", "I thought I had created the perfect fishing pond. For as long as I could remember I hooked into massive beast after massive beast. Wonderfully large reptilian looking creatures that stalked the land, and massive aquatic monsters from the depths of the oceans. My rod was always bent, my arms always sore and drained from a long day of battle. Sadly, time is the destroyer of all things, and my pond began to die. \n \nThe fishing just isn't the same. I catch just as much, but everything is smaller and nothing fights. The great oceans still offer some fun, but there are times where I go days with nothing worthy of the challenge. The land that once held such frightening lizards now only gives me voracious minnows that destroy my gear. My wonderful pond has been overrun and destroyed. \n \nPerhaps one day time will restore it to what it once was. \n\nEdit: I've wondered what it would be like fishing from the moon for creatures on Earth over time. Would be fun :)", "They still talk about me on earth you know... They tell my story like I did something wrong.\n\nYeah, I wanted to touch the sun; everyone does though, whether they know it or not.\n\nThey say I was blinded by pride, they are wrong, I was blinded by truth. People think that being blinded by truth is a contradiction, that truth only makes your sight more clear, but it doesn't work like that. Earth is a world of shadows, the closer to the sun you get the more blind you appear to humans. \n\nAny-hoo yeah... I try not to get all pseudo-poetic like this, but the fact of the matter is when my wings melted I didn't fall to my death, I fell into the heavens.\n\nSo here I am, some sort of angelic guardian with nothing but an eternity of freedom, a fishing lure and a dank ass bad of ganja.. Life is good.\n\n/r/PsychoWritingPrompts ", "\"Well since you kids have been helping me milk the cows all day, I guess I could tell you a story-\"\n\n\"How about the one about the man on the moon?\" Leaf asked.\n\nOld man Amerias looked almost surprised for a second, even at the notion that people still heard about that tale. \"Well...I'm not sure...\"\n\n\"Please?\" Leaf and cherry said almost at once.\n\nAmerias took off his cracked glasses and began to rub them clean with a raggedy handkerchief. He sighed and said \"Well I suppose you'll hear the legend at one point, so it might as well be from me.\"\n\nIt also started where most of the ancients tales start, in the land before. The world that the gods once looked upon as beautiful, slowly turned into a mess of war and hate. One of the gods, Nin, decided he needed to go down to the lands and teach them the ways of their ancestors and how they lived together in peace and harmony.\n\nAnd this probably would of saved the world of the land before if it wasn't for his son, Nimbus the fishermen, who was very ignorant and believed the people of the land before deserved nothing but a quick death for defiling the land that they made for them. \n\nHe tried everything to convince his father not to go down their, out of fear that the people will try and take his power and use it for their own needs. Nin agreed that while they could be dangerous, there would also be people with hearts bigger than the land itself. \n\nNimbus quickly panicked and began to send his worshipers around the land and kills as many people as possible. This sparked fights, which led to battles, which led to all out war across the land. Within a short time the earth was scorched and desolate of life.\n\nThe gods quickly realized who was responsible and captured him. The gods looked to Nin as he should decide how his son would be punished. Although most of the suggestions were to execute him or send him to a world in the black beyond, Nin came to an ultimate conclusion. He trapped his son Nimbus on the moon, with the task of collecting the souls of all those who died by his irrational decision using his fishing rod. \n\nNin came to another conclusion, that he needed to be punished as well. Despite the other gods claiming it wasn't necessary, Nin insisted on it. As he felt responsible for Nimbus's decision, as he was his father. So went to the scorched landscape in the hopes he could return life to it.\n\nSome say his tears made the four oceans and that his resting body made the grand mountains of the east. Either way, it is still believed he and the survivors of the land before are our ancestors.\n\nThe two children looked up at him in awe. \"Is it true?\" Cherry asked. \n\nAmerias chuckled slightly. \"I'm not sure, cherry. It could be. With what I've seen in my life time anything could be possible.\"\n\n\"What have you seen in your lifetime?\" Leaf asked. " ]

[ 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 7 ]

[ "1407172919", "1407173881", "1407183186", "1407172307", "1407172827", "1407164053", "1407166740" ]

[ "Large blue numbers flashed on the surface of the bubble that now encased him, and instantly thousands of thoughts rushed through his mind, *Why did they choose me? What did I do? Why? WhY? WHY??*\n\nThe numbers slowly flashed **98...97...96...**\n\nQuickly he rummaged through his bags until he found a knife he had purchased for his wife, she was making stew tonight.\n\nThe numbers flashed on **83...82...81...**\n\nSlowly he stood, he could just barely make out some of the faces on the outside... horror, concentration.. all the looks he had gotten were not happy, but looks of sorrow and mourning.\n\nThe numbers got lower **55...54...53**\n\nHe know soon... they would come. Tightly he gripped the knife and prayed to whatever god existed above.\n\nThe last digits **3........2......1.......**\n\nLike a cannon blast a voice spoke out from above, commanding the attention of all listening, *This man has been sentenced to death by Aeria. The crime committed... thievery.*\n\nSweat broke out against the mans forehead, *It had to come to this eventually.. I couldn't keep it up forever.* \n\nAs three large birds swooped into the bubble from above, converging on the man, a woman on the outside yellled, **Robinhood!**", "The sun was shining through the slightly tinted windows of his sedan when he pressed the start button. It was one of those modern cars with automatic lights and automatic transmission and automatic seats. Even the trunk door opened automatically. He wondered how long it would take for technology to eliminate even the last bit of manual work involved in driving and hoped that day would come soon. He remembered when he had bought his first car. It had been complete scrap, but he had loved working on it when it broke down. It had done so every few months and that's how he had gotten the knowledge needed to start his workshop. He had worked from morning until late into the night every day for years and he had loved it. But now that moving hurt and his eyesight was loosing against the forces of age he just wanted to relax.\n\nSuddenly he realized that he had just sat there for a few minutes. Ashamed he had let the engine run for so long he began searching for possible spectators. He looked to his left where the shop was. On it's wall was an advertisement for biodegradable bags. This didn't really make him feel better. What did was the fact that indeed nobody appeared to have observed his mishap simply because the parking lot was completely empty. As he drove off he wondered for just how long he had sat there because the sun also seemed to get weaker.\n\nWhen he arrived home the first thing he did was look for his dog. He could really not remember if he had taken it to the store or not. After not finding it for quite some time he decided to go back to the store and look there. Shaking his head about his own stupidity he got into the car and backed out of the garage. It was a long drive to the store and he simply took it because he had always shopped there when he had had his workshop. Halfway there he wondered what he had wanted to buy at the store but figured that he would have taken a shopping list from home and would look for it when he had arrived. Unfortunately the shop was already closed and he cursed himself for not looking at the time before he had left home. It could have been worse though because there was very little traffic. He wondered why there were so many cars just standing in the middle of the road but city traffic had always been weird to him. At home, while pouring the dog food, he remembered that he had given that damn thing to his sister for the week and yet again shook his head. He really was getting old. It was quite dark outside already so after eating what little food he had left in his home after his failed trip to the store he went to bed.\n\n\n\n**I'm very tired but I'll continue tomorrow if anyone is interested." ]

[ 2, 2 ]

[ "1407287435", "1407296357" ]

[ "\"These water bottles, they're all... *Empty*...\"\n\n\"It's horrifying, GP. But it's just another Tuesday to me.\"\n\n\"You're a calculator, I'm a gamepad. You've been around longer than I have... Back to work.\"\n\n\"Hey, I've found something! They look like they have bite marks on them... Big ones.\"\n\n\"Seems that they've been torn apart a little, too. Grisly.\"\n\n\"Maybe it's that guy who stares at the screen all day?\"\n\n\"....Couldn't be... I hope.\"\n\n\"Hey, we know he needs to drink, and they were filled with water.\"\n\n\"He's faster and bigger than them. Stronger, too. That could explain why they're maimed.\"\n\n\"...Lemme get a swab.\"\n\n\n*1 week later...*\n\n\n\"You were right, pal. It's the human.\"\n\n\"Wow, can we do anything about it? He'll torture and kill us all if we confronted him...\"\n\n\"We can tell him to buy some gum and to clean up after himself.\"\n\n\"Sounds like a plan, but how about we do it after lunch? It's 3 PM and I am starving.\"\n\n\"Subway?\"\n\n\"I was thinking that family-owned place down the road today. How about it?\"\n\n\"Sounds like a plan, my friend. Let's get Old Timer and go.\"\n\n\"I call shotgun!\"", "Cupcake Candle exhaled. The smoke from his cigarette billowed into the stagnant office air.\n\n\"What we got here,\" he muttered, \"is a good, old-fashioned murder.\"\n\nLined Post-It Pad began to tremble. \"Ain't been a murder in years, Candle,\" he whispered. \"What happened?\"\n\nCupcake Candle sighed. \"We all knew Blue PaperMate .7 ran his mouth too much. It was just a matter of time.\"\n\nThey stared at the body. Blue's lower half was severed from the upper. His innards, the long tube full of his flashy blue ink, lay a few inches away. The clicking mechanism at the top appeared chewed on.\n\n\"What kind of monster chews on the body?\" gasped Pad. Candle frowned. Pad was too sensitive for this type of work anymore. He'd seen too much, been broken too many times. He was too many pages short of a full pad, and there was no getting those memos back.\n\n\"We're gonna find out,\" said Candle. \"We owe him that.\"\n\nThey entered the Drawer. It was an after-hours type of place, full of arrogant stamps dependent on the Ink. Some were running low; those desperate types were dangerous.\n\n\"Can I help you?\" asked Entered AP. He was one of the twins, and his brother, Posted AP, was never far away. The brutes were huge, and always hopped up on too much red Ink. It made them wild, unpredictable.\n\n\"We need to see E-Mailed,\" said Candle. He felt Pad quivering beside him. He nudged him roughly.\n\nEntered shook his head. \"No time for you,\" he growled. \"He's busy.\"\n\n\"He's not busy,\" snapped Candle. \"The Woman hasn't even scanned the packets yet, she won't need him for hours. I've watched.\"\n\nEntered crabbed Candle. \"You think I'm lying?\" Suddenly Posted AP was next to Entered. The two formed a thuggish wall, and Candle was ready to cut his wick and run if he needed to. Pad wouldn't make it far.\n\n\"Cut it out,\" drawled E-Mailed. \"They're fine.\"\n\nE-Mailed was a small stamp, but he knew he ran this show. His word was law. He was the definitive proof for the Woman, the final word in her documentation trail.\n\n\"Been a while, Cupcake,\" E-Mailed grinned. \"What do you want?\"\n\nCupcake frowned. \"You heard about Blue?\"\n\nE-Mailed stopped grinning. \"Yeah, we all heard about Blue. But we all knew he had it coming. Couldn't keep his trap shut, always scribbling notes.\"\n\nCupcake nodded. \"All the same, he's dead. And we want to know why.\"\n\nE-Mailed stared at Cupcake. He was always business, this stamp. Business was his only modus operandi. \n\n\"What's in it for me?\"\n\n\"We don't investigate your sudden surplus of Blue ink right after a murder.\"\n\nThat caught his attention. \"You know the Woman isn't the only one at that desk, right?\"\n\n\"Tell me something I don't know.\"\n\nE-Mailed smiled again. \"Maybe you should look for something a little...different. Something a bit out of place. I'd check Keyboard if I was you.\"\n\nCupcake turned to leave, Pad close behind him. \n\n\"Cupcake!\" E-Mailed called. Cupcake glanced back at the small stamp.\n\n\"This isn't going to end well,\" E-Mailed said. \"You're not going to like what you find.\"\n\nCupcake turned back towards the Drawer's exit. \"I never do,\" he said.\n\nThey crossed back to the edge of Keyboard. Cupcake scanned the edges of the silver device. She was asleep, for now. She relied on the Woman for power, just like the rest of the electronics.\n\n\"Beautiful, as always,\" whispered Cupcake. He'd loved her for so long. But she was a finicky dame, only responding to the Woman. Too proud, and he knew it. \n\nSuddenly he saw it. The glint of yellow, barely visible against the pale blond wood of the desk. It would've been impossible to see in the early morning hours without E-Mailed's hint.\n\nCupcake pushed Keyboard out of the way. \"Help me out here, Pad,\" he yelled. But Pad was standing inches away, quaking in fear. Cupcake ignored him. He'd have to get Pad help after this. \n\nCupcake saw the note fully after he'd pushed Keyboard away. It wasn't the Woman's handwriting. It read:\n\n\"Amanda, Please order paper towels for the men's restroom. Thanks! -Sarah\"\n\n\"The cleaning crew...\" Cupcake gasped. The cleaner had always used Blue to leave the notes, but Sarah was the new gal. \"She must've chewed on Blue, some humans do it out of habit. But why take him apart? Why not put him back?\"\n\nCupcake stared at the note for minutes before he understood what he was really looking at. It was a Post-It. And it was lined.\n\nHe spun around to Pad. \"Pad?!\" he growled. \"What did you do?!\"\n\nPad was edging closer to the edge of the desk. \"He was screaming, Cupcake, he wouldn't stop!\" Pad was panting in fear. \"I couldn't listen anymore, he kept screaming that she bit him, and that I'd let her do it! She used my Post-It, so Blue thought I was in on it! He was screaming so loud at me, Cupcake, I had to stop him!\"\n\nCupcake moved towards Pad slowly. \"Easy, buddy, it's okay. It's going to be okay. Just come with me, we'll be fine. We'll get you help.\"\n\nPad shook frantically. \"I won't do it anymore, Cupcake! I won't help!\" Pad stopped shaking. His eyes widened as he looked at Cupcake. \"I liked it, Cupcake,\" he whispered. \"I liked taking him apart. I liked pulling out his ink tube. I'll do it again. You've got to stop me.\"\n\n\"I won't,\" Cupcake begged. \"You're my best friend, Pad, please.\"\n\nPad pulled out the box cutter. \"I'll cut Keyboard's cord, Cupcake!\" He was manic, frenzied in his sudden loss of sanity. \n\n\"Pad, stop!\" Cupcake screamed. Pad rushed at Keyboard, still asleep in her power-deprived state. Cupcake charged him. They collided, and tumbled to the edge of the desk. Cupcake grabbed the box cutter and stabbed Pad in the center of his lined frame. He stabbed him twice, then three times, then four. \n\nThe box cutter clattered to the side. Cupcake was sobbing. Pad had a smile on his face. He'd finally calmed down.\n\n\"Thank you...\" Pad whispered. Cupcake held him until he was gone. He heard a clatter; the humans were here. He quickly dropped the Woman's box cutter into her drawer where she kept it, then climbed back onto his place at the base of the monitor. He stared at the body of his only friend, his partner. \n\nThey all had a breaking point, he thought. Every one of them in the force had their limit. Pad had reached his that evening. Cupcake's was now. He'd climb into the trashcan the next night the cleaning crew came and never look back.\n\nAmanda frowned. There was ink everywhere. \"What the hell happened to my pen...?\"" ]

[ 2, 42 ]

[ "1407382225", "1407344330" ]

[ "Tom was... *enthusiastic*. \n\nHe walked around the facility clutching a clipboard and scribbling feverish notes while occasionally brushing his long, black bangs away from his eyes.\n\n\"Ok, well, John,\" said Tom, in an increasingly sarcastic tone, \"*I* am the one making the decisions now, right? And I say we need those elements - whatever they're called - that makeup barley. Oh, and hops - I like a nice hoppy flavor. Don't you?\"\n\nJohn senses his moment to chime in, \"Tom, this is quite -\"\n\n\"Don't you say it - don't you even say it you...\"\n\n\"Now, hold on *your majesty*. Remember what they told you about insults? You get, like, five of them, then you are penalized from your position for a millenium. You know what could happen in a thousand years right? Remember the elephant wasps?\"\n\n\"Jesus, don't remind me. Look, I just want this to play out properly. We *need* those ingredients. Oh, by the way, did you research the LSD particles?\", Tom clapped his hands together like an excited little girl.\n\nJohn stopped in his tracks and just glared, \"No. I have not.\"\n\n\"Man, what are you thinking? We have to get going on this. It's of the upmost, my friend. Ok, ok, what about the cannabis? I mean surely you've got the cannabis all set up right?\"\n\n\"Yessssss, Tom\", John was becoming increasingly perturbed by the inane requests, \"your majesties cannabis machine is functioning properly. Didn't see much harm in that, especially since the Earth trials of 2026.\"\n\n\"Wait. Oh, mate. Don't tell me. You - you're jealous! All this time I thought it was just some obscure morality play you were putting on.\"\n\n\"Jealous?\", John fired back, insulted, \"jealous of what exactly? *Drug World* as you call it? For your information, the role of Supreme Being is an important position that is to be taken quite seriously. One can't just go around creating a universe of drugs.\"\n\n\"Why on earth not?\", demanded Tom. \"Maybe that's what was wrong with the last Universe. I mean look, the human race was only on the planet for a few thousand years before they started making their own bongs out of rotted tree limbs and animal bones. And in the end, what was it they were always bitching about?\" Tom paraded about with over exaggerated hand gestures, *\"Oh, we have to get rid of the drugs! For the children! Just say NO children. Drugs will kill you and turn you into a retarded zombie ass wrangler.\"*\n\n\"All right, all right, point taken\", said John while trying to get further away.\n\n\"No no, you don't get out of it that easy. So they say no to drugs, they declare war on drugs. The whole time they're just so pent up with aggression and anger and sexual frustration. The whole time, they are building weapons out of sheer frustration. Just to blow each other to hell and back. You call that success? Do you really want to repeat that?\"\n\n\"Ok,\" conceded John, \"but aren't you forgetting all the good things? Like the Large Hadron Collider, modern medicine, art and music?\"\n\n\"Bloody hell, I haven't forgotten. What do you take me for, a fool? We'll have even better arts and music. Creativity will abound endlessly all over the fucking place. Why? Because everyone will be fucked up out of their minds! You can't say no to air, right? Can you say 'no' to bacteria? Fuck no! Because it's everywhere, right? Drugs everywhere! It's the basic fundamental law of the new universe. You can fuckin' avoid it. Isn't it great?\"\n\nThe whole while, Richard eavesdropped on their conversation. Disgusted that Tom, of all people, would soon realize his own vision of the *Drugverse*. God, he thought to himself, Tom was such a fool. The world wasn't screwed up because of a lack of drugs. The humans killed each other over a lack of something much more fundamental. Sex. \n\nWhy, thought Richard, why was he unable to convince the tribunal of the natures primary concern. Why couldn't he unveil to the others his righteous plan of passion and promiscuity? What Richard labeled, the *Whoreverse*. What asshole dreams of making biological weapons while getting a sloppy blowjob? \n\nAll is not lost though. In his lab, Richard had concocted what no one else had previously been able to reverse engineer: Lysergic Acid Diethylamide Syntheses. Better known as the new lord Tom's drug of choice, LSD. And it was in *very* short supply. Maybe, just maybe, he and his new lord could become friends. Partners in the new realm of universe building. Where the resourceful, and the powerful scratch each other's itches. \n\n\n", "\"So I'll be....\"\n\n\"Immortal. Yes.\"\n\n\"I wasn't going to say that.\" \n\n\"You'll take as active a role as you desire in this new reality.\" \n\n\"Will I have hands?\"\n\n\"If you desire.\" \n \n\"Can I take anything with me?\"\n\n\"Anything you want. You'll also be able to create anything you desire.\"\n\n\"I'm not a good choice.\"\n\n\"It was a random selection of everyone. We thought we would call-\"\n\n\"I'm very indecisive.\"\n\n\"Well, you'll get the hang of it. Now, we thought we would call and get your input. Just some initial settings so we can do the hard math.\" \n\n\"Oh... Alright.... One moment. ... ... ... ... Alright. I'm back. Sorry.\" \n\n\"Do you want us to preset some habitable worlds?\"\n\n\"Uh.... My answer is No.\"\n\n\"Ok, so you want to make them yourself?\n\n\"mmmm-- Most likely.\" \n\n\"Alright. Well, you saved us a lot of work. Do you want to exist as an energy being?\" \n\n\"It is decidedly so.\" \n\n\"Good choice. That will really open up a lot of options as far as omnipotence goes. Do you want physics that conform to our own?\"\n\n\"Reply hazy, try again\"\n\n\"Do you not understand the question?\"\n\n\"Signs point to yes\" \n\n\"Are- are you asking an Magic 8 Ball?\" \n\n\"It's vintage.\" " ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1407382343", "1407375965" ]

[ "So I had this idea in the shower, and wrote a story for it. It's a little too long to fit in a comment, but if you're interested, here is a Drive link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11bKHiazt-vqRL05IkYdVC5wQYUbPCTDB82rtzZWOBWE/edit?usp=sharing", "Just a question, what form of literature are you prompting for? " ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1407392348", "1407394898" ]

[ "Upon waking, Jack finds an inscription on the ceiling. \"MURDERER\" is what it says. \n\n\"The cleaning lady must've not seen this one,\" he says to himself. \n\nHe sits up and looks ahead and sees an inscription that reads, \"RAPIST\". \n\n\"Or that one,\" he says. \n\nJack has been out of prison for two years now. He remembers being in jail, but not what for. He knows his crimes because they are written throughout his house. Usually, it were the housemaids that wrote these while he wasn't home. Guilt is feeling that has escaped from Jack, not because he's a psychopath, but because he is oblivious to what he has done. Jack has not been involved with the law in the two years he's been out of prison. Still trying to wake up from his sleep, Jack heads toward the bathroom, but hears rustling downstairs. \n\nNow alert, Jack slowly descends down the stairs and walks into the living room. A thief, dressed in all black, is rummaging through his belongings. Jack reaches for the umbrella he used the night before and charges at the criminal. The criminal caught off-guard takes a hit, but prevents himself from being knocked down. Jack swings at him once more, but the man in black catches Jack's blow and throws it down. The man pulls out a knife and slowly walks toward Jack, edging him towards the wall. Against the wall, Jack's heartbeat trembles throughout the house and his swear drips down to the wooden floors. \n\n\"Fear?\" Jack thinks to himself, \"No... This isn't fear.\"\n\nThe robber swings at Jack with his blade but jack ducks and tackles the man down, releasing his grip on the blade along with it. \n\nJack pounds his fist against the man's head, repeatedly. He hits and hits and hits until the man's blood is engulfing Jack's fist. In the midst of all this, Jack finds himself smiling. \n\n\"Joy,\" Jack thinks to himself. \n\n", "The alarm didn’t wake Colin immediately, as it had not the meaning of waking up to him, but of returning to his cell. But something was off. Colin entered his cell and was greeted by a snake, a huge white snake with fangs the size of his arm. He wanted to run, but found that he his running was like jumping in the air on the same position. The snake came for him, he was going to die…\n\n…and then he woke up with a start. It was just a dream. He was save in his bed, probably still a bit hung-over from that party last night. Damn, the Christmas party from his company. It has started so well, he and his girlfriend were having such a great time. But then he had gotten drunk, again. His girlfriend, Mary, had told him over and over again to not drink so much, but he couldn’t help it. Once he had a beer or two he couldn’t stop himself anymore. Mary tried to stop him, but he, in his drunk state, started yelling at her and calling her names. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he hit his colleagues who tried to calm him down. What happened after that was a blur, but apparently he managed to get home to his bed. Or to a bed. As he looked around, he found that he didn’t recognize where he was. He needed to apologize to everyone. He did not want to accept that his relationship might be over. Mary had warned him, but he loved her so much. If he could just manage his anger and his drinking…\nBut he would apologize. He would find help. He knew this couldn’t on any longer like this. He had known it for a while know, but this really was the last time. It had to be the last time, he didn’t want to lose Mary. \n\nHe got up and tried to remember where he was. Was it his friends James’ house? He didn’t recognize it, but then again, he had never been to a bedroom in his house. Colin found some clothes in the room and got dressed. He got downstairs and was greeted by an elderly couple who looked a lot like his parents, but were way too old to actually be his parents. “Good morning, did you sleep well?” The elderly woman asked. “Yes, I think so”, Colin replied. “Your dad and I are going to get some food for tonight, anything special you want? “ Colin did not know what to respond, these people, his parents? Did they just age 20 years overnight? “No thanks”, Colin answered. “I am not feeling well. I think I’ll go outside, some fresh air will do me good.”. “Colin…” his dad began. But Colin did not trust what was going on. These people looked and acted like his parents, but there were a few things that were not right:\n1) This was not his parents’ house\n2) These people were too old to be his parents\n3) No way would his friends call his parents after a party. I mean, he was a 26 year old adult. And yes, he had fucked up massively, but his friends from work didn’t know his parents. \n\nBefore his dad could continue, Colin had left the house. His dad ran after him, “Colin, stay here, you can’t go out alone!” But Colin ran off, he was always a good runner. And his dad, well, let’s just say he wasn’t very athletic. Colin hadn’t eaten yet, he hadn’t even brushed his teeth or shaved, but no way was he staying in a house with these people before he knew what was going on. First things first though, he needed to apologize. He would visit Mary first. Colin and Mary were living together. It was Mary’s house officially, she had inherited it from an aunt, but Colin had lived there for the past two years as well. She must have a visitor, Colin thought, as he saw a fancy red family car in the driveway. He contemplated returning later that day, but he lived here too. When he ringed the doorbell, a ten year old opened the door. “Hello, sir!” the kid said enthusiastically. “eh…, I’m sorry, I think I must have gotten the wrong house” But that was impossible, unless he was of course more hung-over than he thought. And the houses in the neighborhood all looked the same. “Who is there, Tim?” The woman that approached asked, probably the mother. Colin took a look at here and was lost for words. This woman, this beautiful woman that seemed to be the mother of this boy Tim, was his Mary. “Colin” she said, turning white as a sheet. “Mary!” Colin exclaimed, remembering all the guilt of the night before, “I am so sorry about last night. I know I shouldn’t drink that much and I promise it will never happen again, and I will find help. But please, what is going on. My parents, you, what is happening.” “Colin, go home, look in a mirror. That night was twenty years ago. And after that, well, I didn’t know they released you and I don’t know why you don’t remember, but please go away” Mary sadly said as she shut the door. \n\nColin, more confused than ever, walked away. He didn’t care where he was going, but found himself by the lake in the forest. It was a beautiful day, the lake reflected the trees of the forest perfectly. This was where Colin would always go to think, it was his place of peace, where he could cool down from the anger he so often felt. Look in a mirror, he remembered Mary saying. The lake was as smooth as a mirror. Colin walked to the shore and looked at his image. This was not him. This was some guy in his forties. The guilt he had been feeling all day increased, but there was more to it than just the party. Mary didn’t even want to look him in the eye anymore. She said he was released from somewhere. He remembered his dream, the prison, the prison bells. Suddenly his guilt intensified so much, he couldn’t handle it. He had done something terrible. He couldn’t remember what, but Mary’s reaction to him, the dream, everyone getting older. He had done something bad. His anger intensified, the anger that was always there. Was this what had ruined everything for him? The lake was so pretty, but his image ruined it. His image was not worth is, he was not worthy to Mary, the love of his life. Colin swam to the middle of the lake and floated on his back and waited…\n\n" ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1407511693", "1407505439" ]

[ "It came so unexpected, one second i had just slipped into deep sleep on my bunk, the next falling into the icy Atlantic as 100,000 tonnes of aircraft carrier dissapeared below me, lucky most objects separate from the hull including life rafts and PDFs were spared, and out of the Chaos we began to organize ourselves onto the life boats. \n\nThen in the morning ships came to our rescue and we made it back to home, the government was struggling to maintain law and order with nothing more then its bare hands and failed. Within days law, order and government ceased to exist, the world had plunged into oblivion, crime in all its forms was running rampant in major population centers, it took millennium for Urban areas to have the same population as Rural and it went backwards in such a breif amount of time, as mass exoduses from Cities occurred as the average person began to distrust their neighbor.\n\nEventually the world was on the brink of the Dark Ages, technology was still but drastically not as prelevant as before, nearly all our modern day values were gone. \n\nMy first attempt at WP", "My hazy eyesight slowly began to come into focus as I blinked open my drowsy eyes. Rolling over in my bed, I turned to gaze at the clock. 6:09. Hm. \n\nThough it wasn’t quite late enough for me to consider climbing out of my comfy bed and getting ready for the grind of work, I gradually became more awake and aware of my surroundings. Something, whatever it was, didn’t feel quite right. The atmosphere seemed calm. The only sound that hit my ears was the muffled voices coming from the living room. I strained my ears to make out what they were saying, but the voices were too soft for me to make out. However, I did make out the speed in which they were talking, which was much too fast for a normal conversation. Indeed, something was up.\n\nI sat up and hastily kicked the covers off of my body. After leaning back and stretching my back for a few moments, I reached my feet out and stood up from the bed. That’s when I noticed that something was wrong. Or rather, something was missing.\n\nSee, I’m an avid samurai-culture enthusiast. Now shame in that, right? A few years ago, I had visited NYC ComicCon down in the city and had picked myself up a nice pair of dual swords from one of the vendors. Though I knew they were nowhere near what the legit weapons were, they were still pretty cool, and sharp as hell too! I displayed them on a mount that hung from the far side wall of my bedroom. Every day, I would wake up and gaze up at them with a sense of pride and awe.\n\nNow, I gazed across my room at the bare spot and the wooden mounts that once held my swords. \n\nMy mind was whirling. Where did they go? Who took them? Questions filled my brain as I tried to take in everything at once. I knew they were there when I had went to bed last night. I was sure of it. The only scenario I could think up of is that my brother had taken and hidden them somewhere as a prank on me. He sometimes pulled little stunts like this, as he was annoying as most older brothers are. However, I don’t ever recall him doing something to this extent.\n\nStorming out of the bedroom, I slammed the door behind me and glared indignantly around the living room. My mother, father, and brother were all seated on the couch in front of the tv. Their heads sharply turned in my direction at the sound of me entering the room. A look of fear and anxiety crossed all three of their faces. Okay, I thought. Now things are getting a bit strange. \n\nI looked over their expressions and furrowed my eyebrows together. “What’s going on here?” I demanded. I turned my eyes to my brother and added, “Ryan, you had better return my swords to me. Now.” My tone was cold. I already felt tired of the jokes today, and the day had barely even started. \n\nStill, nobody had said anything. Usually, mom would come to my aid and take my side, ordering Ryan to stop the jokes. This time, she said nothing. Their expressions of fear never subsided.\n\nI clenched my fists, the frustration growing inside of me. Something was wrong, I knew it. And whatever it was, they weren’t telling me. “Okay, just what the fuck--!” I stopped short and let out a small ‘yelp’ of surprise as a loud bang sounded across the house. Something big… And heavy sounding had hit the front door. All four of us jumped with surprise, our heads snapping towards the direction of the sound. “Whuh-What the hell was that?!” I asked in a shaky voice. I lifted up my foot to start towards the direction of the door, then stopped dead in my tracks.\n\nWhatever that sound was… Sounded like somebody, or something, was trying to break down the door. Our we experiencing a robbery?? My head spun with stress and confusion. That would explain why my parents and brother looked so fearful, but why not call the cops? Surely, they could help, right??\n\nWithout saying anything more, I ran to my room on shaky legs and fumbled for my phone on the night table. My fingers trembled as I unlocked my phone.\n\n“That won’t help. We.. We’ve already tried that.” I spun my head around and met my father’s troubled gaze as he entered my doorway. I’ve never noticed until this point in time, but he looked a lot older than I remember him looking. His brows furrowed together and the corners of his lips were turned down. \n\n“What… Do you mean..” I began to ask. My wide eyes gazed up at him expectantly, then back to looking at the phone once more. If the police couldn’t help us… Then who could? \n\n“Hun, you have to show her.” A soft, hesitant voice sounded from the living room. My mother.\n\n“Show me what, dad??” I looked up at him. Something was very, very wrong indeed. \n\nAnother loud sound of banging came from the front door again. My father locked his serious expression with me for a moment more before turning around and beckoning me to follow him into the living room. I followed on shaky legs, my brain trying to comprehend the entire situation and think of things that could have possibly gone wrong to cause this situation.\n\nAs soon as we plopped down on the couch, my mother reached for the television remote on the coffee table and, without saying anything, turned the tv on. \n\nIt was then that everything had come to me at once. My brain was flooded with information as I tried my hardest to keep my cool and follow everything the news anchor was reporting on Channel 13 news. \n\nWorldwide disappearance of weapons.\nChaos everywhere.\nRebellions.\nRobberies.\nMurders.\n\nI didn’t realize I started crying until tears were rolling down my cheeks. My mom leaned over and hugged my tightly, my clothes muffling her own quiet sobs as she buried her face in my shoulder. My dad placed his hand on my back and shook his head in sadness. My brother was speechless, though his eyes held a look of defeat and hopelessness. I turned my gaze once more to the front door as another bang came from the other side of it.\n\nHah. Of course there would be trouble. I thought bitterly to myself. I let out a short “tshh” from my lips and shook my head back and forth, my bangs sticking to my skin as I broke out in a light sweat. At this point I wasn’t even going to question why in the hell, or HOW in the hell, did all weapons suddenly disappear from earth. There was no time left, as the frame around the door split open more and more with each “bang” it took from the force trying to make its way inside here. \n\nOf course there would be rebellions. Cops were powerless without their weapons. Of course there was going to be robberies; who would try to stop them? And murders… of course. Of course.\n\nSuddenly, I shot up from where I was sitting and ran across the room to the kitchen. Our parents had a small wine cabinet which in the corner of the counter. Without hesitation, I reached for one of the bigger bottles which lay at the bottom of the shelf. \n\n“Tammy, what are you…” My mother’s eyes widened. Her words were cut short as I brought down the bottle to the side of the cabinet and smashed it open. The contents that were left in the bottle spilled to the linoleum floor with a splash. My brother suddenly shot up the couch, realization crossing his face.\n\n“If we don’t have proper weapons, than neither do they!” I shouted to my parents. My brother ran up beside me and grabbed another bottle from the cabinet. Following my lead, his smashed his on the side of the sink, the shards and fluid spilling into the drain. We both clenched the half-broken bottles in our fists, pointing the broken end towards the direction of the door. The ridged edges shone sharp and glittering in the sunlight that spilled through the kitchen window. \n\n“We can’t give up. Not now…” My voice dripped with malice and hatred as fear began to turn into pure rage. How dare someone try to mess with us. How. Dare. They. “I don’t know about you, but I am not ready to bow down without a fight. We have a right to protect each other, and you can bet that I will do just that.”\n\nIt was as if my parents suddenly came to the realization that they could fight this off as well. With another loud bang at the door, they shot up like bullets and began scrambling around the house for items that would be of use. My brother and hurriedly took our positions in front of the door.\n\n“This is it, sis. We can fight this. They have just as much power as we do.” My brother turned his eyes toward me and gave a bitter half smile. I nodded in returned and looked back at the front door, my body tense and knees slightly bent. My hand hurt from gripping the bottle as hard as I was, but my expression never wavered off of determination. \n\nWhatever was out there, they’d better believe that we were ready for them. \n", "Somewhere, somebody in the military industrial complex yells: CHA-CHING! Demand for new ones has skyrocketed", "If you can pick it up and swing it, then it is a weapon. That's a *lot* of things." ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 6 ]

[ "1407500791", "1407506694", "1407513271", "1407496888" ]

[ "\"Wrath, my good man, you gave it your best, now its time to take a seat on the bench. A new era is dawning, and I'll give you a front row seat.\"\n\nOf course, Wrath never sits down, not for long anyhow. September 11, 2014 demonstrated this quite nicely. Just because I took the seat right before Sloth almost broke the worldwide computer network, doesn't mean that the other sins have lost their edge. Every sin has its year, or its century as the case may be with this council, and each has its own little pet area or conflict that they hardly ever give up on. Gluttony, for instance, has been preying on the rich, and more recently, the American South ever since it lost power in 500AD with the Fall of Rome. Wrath has already begun his, with this so called \"War on Terror\" that he conjured up out of the blue (red, white, and blue to be more precise). You would think starting two world wars, the biggest wars ever fought, would warrant taking a break for a little while.\n\nBut no, he isn't finished, not yet anyhow. Just because he gets to play his little games down in the desert, though, doesn't mean that I have any less control. This is my century, the 21st century, my, my how the World has grown. Now an adult, even legal to drink (thanks to Greed keeping the business alive during Prohibition). I'm sure it thinks it's invincible, the best there ever was, the best there ever *could be.* There could never be a better year for me to be King! This will be too easy, there's no one even in my way! Envy did this once before, taking that darkness Lust created and calling it the Renaissance. I stepped in with just a fraction of the power I control now, and do you know what they called it? The enlightenment! Well, just think how much more I can do now! Modernism, Post-Modernism, the \"Space-Age.\" No, I can do far better than that. I will do far more than any of those other imbeciles have ever hoped to accomplish! I will change the world, I will topple nations, Pride is back, and no one even has to know I'm here.", "Jan 1st, 2000 \n\nWrath took a deep, frustrated sigh- silently stewing because his term was over. Under his rule the world saw some of the most bloody and violent times - 2 World Wars, genocide on a few different continents, civil wars and the \"ingenious\" use of the world's first atom bombs (a weapon that he claims to have thought up himself and planted the idea into the heads of the powers that were). I think he modelled the bomb after his own personality - scorching, blinding, exceedingly violent and explosive - all personality traits that took entirely too much effort if you ask me. I don't see why he cares so much - ruling looks like a pain in the ass. \n\nThe Council has been at this for HOURS....squabbling over who gets the rule this millennium. Each pleading their case, each listing the ways that they can capitalize and exacerbate the problems of God's beloved mistake. They all take their turn debating. I'm only half listening- I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open to be honest. \n\nIt's Envy's turn- she flips her scorching red hair to revel her emerald coloured eyes....her only good feature, according to her....\n\"It's my turn Wrath, you know it is. I sat silently by and watched as you ripped apart the world in your ever so violent way, quite brutish if you ask me. I think the world needs a woman's touch now - girl fighting if you will. Let me work my two faced magic - I will plant the seed of envy all around the world..the seed will grow, inequalities between countries will be highlighted and eventually someone, somewhere will snap.\" \nEnvy tends to blur the lines with her master plans, sometimes I think her affair with Wrath has caused her to lose focus - all her plans start off as sneaky, but ultimately still end up in violence. I don't understand why she cares, this millennium is fucked anyways - I can tell already. \n\nLooking up from perfectly lacquered red nails, Lust focuses her bedroom eyes on Wrath. \n\"Oh come on Wrath baby\" she purrs \"the green eyed monster's plans are tired. She was right about one thing, this world does need a woman's touch after your rough fuck of a millennium. It needs time to lick it's wounds...and you know nobody has a better tounge than me.\" \n\nGluttony, who has been dividing his attention between looking at pictures of his new HumV and stuffing his face full of KFC, finally hears something he deems worthy to listen to. \"Git off it lusty, the world is too full of diamonds and other shiny thangs to give a flying fuck bout what chu can do witch your tounge.\" \n\n\"You're just mad that I would fuck everyone except you - I'm sorry, I'm not into materialistic chubsters like you. But seriously, Wrath, I would just up the sex factor all over the world - all those horny fuckers would create an awful lot of babies - think of what that could do to the world...\" \n\nPride looks disgusted. He adjusts his bow tie and perfectly starched shirt and hisses \"Language! Honestly Lust, you haven't changed one bit. Still whoring out your ideas to anyone who will listen. It's time to let the big boys talk now, so kindly go back to your knitting or baking- whatever it is that you women do. Wrath, look, people hate to admit they are wrong regardless of the situation. What I plan on doing, is making people elect the most buffoonish, illiterate frat boy as the President of the most powerful country in the world- cause you know so many people will fight tooth and nail to not admit they voted for the wrong person- so they will support whatever idiotic idea he has. This man will anger many other countries and cause a substantial rift within the American people. It's perfect, if I may say so myself.\"\n\nI'm surprised Wrath has put up with their preaching for so long, the little vein in his head is starting to do the angry dance...this can't be good. \n\nNow it's Greed's turn, clicking each knuckle in his gold ring covered hand he smiled. \"The plan's simple right? Me and my girl Envy are gunna do a little joint thang together for a lil sec. Just make the world even more full of consumers. These fools gotta have the BBD, the bigger better deal - all the time! The more they get, the more other people gunna want, these fools gunna be trapped like a rat in a wheel! Envy and Greed is a powerful combination brotha.\" \n\nWrath has had it, he explodes, slams his fists into the table and looks around. \"FOOLS, all of you FOOLS. Fuck you all, I'm not relinquishing power, not to any of you pissants. None of you are worthy. Sex it up, consumerism, idiot Presidents....is that really the best you can come up with?\" \n\nI yawn audibly and casually stretch out my stiff back and take a look around me at the red, sweaty, irritated faces of my colleagues. They are all staring at me with disdain. My voice is quiet - a stark contrast to the outburst we just heard. \n\n\"You guys stress too much- all of your plans take so much effort. Don't you just want to sit back and watch mankind fuck itself over? They are human, it's bound to happen! They are already well on their way. All of you have done such a great job influencing mankind throughout your rules, you have instilled them with enough of your own characteristics that it's like looking in a mirror. On any given day you can find countless examples of all of you in their thinking, feelings, interactions and behaviour - even in the way some idiots choose to run their countries or religious groups! Greed, Gluttony, Pride, Lust, Wrath, Envy...it's all there, boiling under the surface of their skin. So really, why does it matter who rules, ultimately mankind will fail.\" \n\nWith that I got up and left the room. Slowly closing the door behind me - looking back only long enough to see the flabbergasted faces of my kin. As I was walking back to my car, I felt a strange sensation....it started off as an itch on my forearm and quickly progressed into a numbing burn. I ripped off my sleeve and couldn't believe my eyes. On my forearm was a red crown - the mark of the ruler. \nFuck me, they actually agreed on something! ", "The black obsidian table stood sentinel in the middle of the dark throne room. The surface of the table was smooth, reflecting the seven faces seated around it murkily in the light of the black flames. Sloth ran his hand over the lower supports of the table, carved in the likeness of tortured souls crying out in agony. Their father really knew how to put on a show. Sloth ran his pale hand over the fine silver of his wine cup and turned his dull grey eyes back to his brothers and sisters. There was a mechanical click and the deep voice of a clock tower sung twelve sad notes.\n Lust wrapped her voluptuous lips around a noisemaker, blowing gently. “Congrats brother” she cooed, looking at Envy “I didn’t think anyone could ever top Wrath’s body count”\n“Well, I couldn’t have done it without Wrath introducing the industrial revolution, so I guess I should be thanking him.” Envy turned his bright green eyes to his sulking brother, slouched at the end of the table in full Military attire. \n“You’re Welcome for the World Wars, you pompous cunt!” snapped Wrath.\nEnvy adjusted his tie, the same color as his eyes, before flashing his pearly whites and turning his ebony face to greed. “tsk. Our precious little brother, always forgetting who did the real work.The Cold war now that was artful.” \n“You are taking credit for the Cold War?” Pride guffawed from across the table, looking up from his own reflection. “That was my work. This century has just been management for you, Lust is just buttering you up like one of her whores” \n“You think this is an easy job, Pride? May I remind you, your last term ended with the beginning of enlightenment, that was a load of shit, took us another century to clean up your mess!” Greed retorted angrily, her auburn hair pulled into a tight bun, fastened with a gaudy gold pin. \n“My mess?” Pride slammed his fist against the obsidian, careful to not rip his designer suit. “Enlightenment paved the way for true open mindedness, which made those mortals as pliable as dough for us. I did the hard work for all of you ungrateful…”\n A loud belch from beside Sloth heralded Gluttony’s entrance into the debate. He wiped the grease dribbling down his many chins and matting his unkempt beard with an American Flag. “Frankly I don’t see why you are arguing, we all know this next century is mine. Walmart, Sam’s club, I’ll have them eating themselves into an early grave.” \nSloth steepled his fingers, Gluttony had made a surprising power move in the last couple decades, impressive, but he didn’t think it would be enough. Sloth turned his focus to Lust, who met his steely grey glare with her doey violet gaze unblinkingly. She knew how to play the game, strategy was what Father liked and Lust was in it for the long haul. Sloth was brought back to the table as a silver platter flew across the room from Wrath directed at Envy. “… Jihad! Terrorist Attacks! Russia invading anyone and everyone! I DID NOT WORK THIS HARD TO BE MOCKED.” \nThe platter deflected off Envy’s shoulder and hit pride in the face. “Why must you always lose your temper brother? I have an image to uphold and I can’t do that WITH BRUSIES” \nGreed snickered from beside Envy “Did you get a scratch you little baby?” \nGluttony’s belly bounced with his laughter “He might have to buy more cover up to hide it” \n“You shut your mouth you disgusting pig! You and Greed both won’t even sniff power for the next hundred years.”\n The fighting continued, and grew in intensity as it always did. Lust and Sloth held each other’s gaze across the table, Lust armed with a knowing smile and Sloth with a complacent smirk. The five younger siblings squabbled for favor, but both Lust and Sloth knew Father was looking for a more subtle touch. Father stood up. Immediately all noise ceased, the room quieter than a tomb. He gazed over them from the head of the table, black eyes with white pupils older than time itself. He waved his hand and the obsidian table was once again empty, the feast gone to smoke. His voice rumbled through the camber, deep and old like the movement of mountains. “I HAVE MADE MY CHOICE” He gestured, a ring of smoke solidifying into an onyx circlet. It floated slowly down the table, hovering in the center between the two older siblings as they each hungrily eyed the humble crown. The crown laded softly on his head, and yet He could feel the power flow through his veins as Father sat down and Sloth stood up. “Brothers and sisters,” He boomed “Welcome, to the age of the undying.”", "Council of Seven\n\nChastity Lust was renowned for her relief efforts on all third-world and war torn countries. All mainstream media are focus on Chastity as she tells the world that she is retiring due to her age and informs everyone that her colleague Charity will be representing Chastity in her stead.\n\n*At Chastity's private room*\n\n*As the new Leader of Council walked through the door all pretense of mortality are gone. A pair of glowing eyes, horns, tentacles, and even a pair of cow like tails appeared.*\n\nLust spoke in a sign-song like voice:\"I planted all the seeds that I can, all you have to do now is wait\"\n\n\"Wait? Of all things for me to do, you make me wait?\" Greed respond sounding like that of a deep muffled voice.\n\n\"Yes! Like you always said 'time is money', right?\" Lust responded with annoyance in her voice.\n\n\"Sloth should have been your predecessor, I hate waiting\" Greed retorted with a snort.\n\n*A cloud of darkness suddenly surrounds Lust, eyes grew heavy and dark. She seemed taller as the darkness lift her through her anger.* \n\n\"YOU ARE GOING TO BE SITTING ON A THIRD MAJOR WORLD WAR AND YOU ARE TRYING TO MOCK ME OF MY EFFORTS?\"\n\n\"Okay, chill girl. Calm your tits!\" Greed clearly afraid of an angry Lust.\n\n*The darkness suddenly disappears as fast it came, seconds of it seemed like an eternity of shadow then the room cleared.*\n\n\"With this war you can exploit every country and its leaders to give you everything to make the war stop or continue. Do i need to give you a lesson on what happened at Berlin?\" Lust speaking again with her casual sing-song voice.\n\n*Greed sighs deeply* \"No you don't, he was too much of a coward.\" Followed by a pair of eye roll.\n\n\"Good! Now smile, wave, and pretend that you really care whats going on with *poor and famine countries, with those puff bellied kids and dirty water they drink*\" as Lust bring her palms together and makes herself smaller as if she is talking to a small child in the room.\n\n\"You're too much!\" replied Greed as she wear a wide grin from ear to ear showing her canine like teeth.\n\n\"Work on your speech and start practicing your illusions, I don't need to be woken up because you messed up your disguise.\" Lust told matter-of-factly to Greed. \"And by the way, where is Wrath? I was told he earlier that he would be my relief?\"\n\n\"Oh, yeah...uhm...the rest of the Primes decided that Wrath will not be 'summoned' since...you know he decided to take over Temujin\" Greed clearly dodging the subject.\n\n\"Is that the real reason why i was summoned early?\" Lust asked questioningly\n\n\"Yes\" Greed answered hastily, hoping to drop the subject.\n\n\"Ok, since im done anyway. One more thing before i leave, if this war does not start in 16 years destroy them with the virus, and start infecting their currency. These humans love their currency, they live by it and its their life.\" Lust spoke as if its her final words.\n\n\"Sure thing boss! I do have to say you look like mortal age of 90 and death.\" Greed snorting and laughing after she said that remark.\n\n\"Yeah well remember this face, you only have 50 more years until you look like me now\" Lust laughing back. \"Okay stand tall, chest out, chin up and wide shoulder. Look proud at what you do and remember to stay humble.\"\n\n\"You got it\" Greed following orders\n\n*The pair walked out of the room, donning their mortal guise and prepared their speech and answers mentally. All illusions of demonic and evil presence are gone, left now are just an empty room.*\n\n*CHARITY! MS.CHARITY! OVER HERE PLEASE! WHAT CAN YOU SAY ABOUT THE VIRUS GOING AROUND THE WORLD UNCONTROLLABLY AND WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS ON STOPPING IT OR AT LEAST CONTAINED IT*\n\nChastity standing next to her colleague answers the question before Charity can.\n\n*As of right now our main concern are these terrorist in the middle east, who refuse to leave the country and to those families who have been separated because of the war. And the major conflict between Ukraine and Russia this war is not minor and should not be looked upon as something minor. If 'things' keep going the way it is we are going to send more relief efforts and medical aid to those families who are suffering through these tough times.*\n\nCharity leaning to the mic to add more \"To add to that i would like to explore the possibility of establishing hospitals and schools in Africa and Brazil and other developing countries. Also to note in these-\n\n3FIDDY! Yelled a reporter!\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "Pride waltzed towards the council meeting a little early this time, he was positive that it was his time to shine again. \n\nHe still considered his last reign, the 1700's to be the finest and most interesting century in, well, millenniums it seemed! Regular humans feeling like gods with the fervor to change their world! Beggers deciding to be choosers, all leading to some of the greatest rearrangements of humanity (as he liked to call them).\n\nThe others scoffed at him, and couldn't understand how human revolution and enlightenment only work in their favor. How creating more depth to a human creates more potential for misery. How, for the love of satan, most of Lusts's victories in the 1800s were only to be attributed to him! Sure, promiscuity helped with the boom of plauges in that time (which Lust cannot help but tout in every encounter) but it was the upward mobility and economy that he created just before that allowed disease to travel! To allow countries to conquest! He set up the frame!\n\nPlus Lust over did it as she always does and the human's almost seemed to catch on - the whole Victorian ending to that century threw her for a loop and she didn't see it coming? And still, constant disease and disgusting living situations - there are more dignified ways to crush a soul.\n\nSecretly, Pride was envious of Greed's current reign. Greed has had a spectacular century even after Lust's supposed victory. He somehow managed to focus and frame his sin in a way that just built and built on itself. Like some kind of branching vine, or a card house that should have fell stories ago, he shifted the global focus in a way that allowed for an almost cancerous, exponential growth. Greed stacked upon greed so much so that the culture doesn't even notice it any more. Its a carrot pulling these donkeys through a dark tunnel they have forgotten to see.\n\nIt was truly spectacular, and the huge boom in slavery and the sex trade has earned him much praise as well. But the true beauty of Greed's work had not even been reached yet, like he's been winding a beautiful, horrifying clock tighter and tighter and it will be another one who will pull the release. It will be me, he asserted.\n\nPride hurried through the open doors, considering what areas needed some revolution and change, what people's had potential to create hope to squander. What new and destructive thoughts will go through people's heads once they feel the touch of false-divine in themselves once again. He was going to have the pay off this time - everyone was already there.\n\n\"What's going on?\" asked Pride. \n\n\"We all decided that we would hold this meeting without you, Pride.\" said Wrath, with his head down, \"I'm afraid we took a vote and you are going to be replaced.\"\n\n\"Replaced? That's impossible! I'm one of the originals!\"\n\n\"I'm afraid its been done,\" said Wrath. \"We're replacing you with Gingivitis and you will be downgraded to pet-peeve effective immediately.\"\n\n\"The tooth disease?\" Pride pleaded.\n\nA sleazy man in a wide brimmed hate slinked up to Pride to shake his hand. \"Nice to meet you,\" he said with a disgusting smile. \"In a couple centuries I'm gonna FUCK humanity up!\"\n\n\"OK Pride,\" Envy said gently, \"Its time for you to go.\"\n\nPride was in disbelief as Gluttony and Envy started escorting him out of the room. \"Well who won?\" he managed to ask.\n\nSloth got up, \"Who do you think? Look at what's going on. People's bodies are inflated and useless, sitting in chairs and staring at a screen like an ostrich with its head in the sand. They dimly know what's coming they just don't want to know. But its coming, and they are going to allow the horror to wash over them like stones in the sea. Like a candle that can only watch itself burn. They have no fight, they have no will, they only have room left for fear. This is going to be a good century.\"\n", "Ohh boy does my head feel better. Now I know how Lust felt at the end of her final term. Having a successful century really clears the noggin of nonsense. Okay, Obsession. Can I call you Obby? \n... \nI don’t care if that’s a boy’s name, I’m callin’ you Obby. \n\nLet’s start with the Seven Heavenly Virtues: Charity, Chastity, Diligence, Humility, Kindness, Patience, and Temperance. They follow the same rules as us, but their terms starts and ends at the fifty year marks. Sometimes virtue and sin clash, but sometimes they complement each other. For example, Diligence was very successful after Despair’s century ended. Ending the Dark Ages and starting the Renaissance… maybe those guys have good reason to act to haughty.\n \nThe holy harpies create what the humans are expected to learn from. Explaining their work “ruins the message” with some poppycock about how the humans need to figure it out themselves. Anyway they create, we sins shatter their work, and the humans manipulate and rebuild as they see fit. Who are we? We are Sin incarnate.\n\nSloth, Obsession, Pride, Lust, Conquest, and Despair. That’s right, where eight sins once stood six now reign. My parents, Wrath and Greed, don’t believe I deserve to replace them. I can’t take all of the credit for the American war machine, but it was a major player in my plans. On a small scale business takeovers and market monopolies are neat tricks of mine; my babies were Japan, America, the Soviets, and my beloved first project: Germany. And at the very end I throttled any real chance the U.S. has at fixing itself by tossing as many poor kids as I could in jail. Who knows how many of ‘em would overcome their crappy upbringing and go on to change things. \n\nYour parents aren't as bad as Sloth, Obby, but I doubt they taught ya much. For the first half of my term I was stuck facing Temperance. She focused all of her effort on a few small, but vitally important points. The biggest blow against my efforts was the blasted alliance of Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill. After the war she was consumed with limiting the “society is crumbling, screw morality” level of crime to Germany. And her final act was creating the United Nations. \n\nIn 1950 the virtues chose Patience who seems like…well, thus far it seems like he sucks at his job. Perhaps he would’ve been more successful facing your parents, Envy or Gluttony, but the virtues really dropped the ball this time around. On the other hand, Patience might just be playing the long game. The only big accomplishment on his record is India’s nonviolent rebellion and the only noteworthy figure of his new term is Martin Luther King. The angels probably know that Temperance would have been the best choice for the online era, but they can’t let someone go back-to-back terms either. \n\nAccording to tradition, if a sin leads a successful term they can choose their successor. If Patience screws up the second half of his term, then either Charity or Kindness is guaranteed to follow. Obby I know you have never held the office before, but I believe your time has come. Even if the current virtue steps up, you should be a good challenge for anyone, but Chastity. And he hasn't been chosen in over a thousand years! \n\nI, Conquest, choose Obsession as my successor for the new millennium. May her first century's success outshine the work of her parents. \n", "Sloth had always thought that the \"Council of Seven\" was a pretty lame name. But he couldn't really be bothered to say anything about it. \n\nSloth had never been bothered to do much of anything, really. He knew it annoyed the other sins, but he didn't actually care. It's not like they could insult him for being lazy. It was kind of his *raison d'être*. \n\nPride, as the most recent Dominante had chosen their meeting place. It was an old money manor somewhere in Britain. He used to choose France every time, but after Wrath started that Revolution the nation lost it's flavor for Pride...\n\nThey were all seated around a large oak table in red upholstered chairs. Sloth disliked them. The backs were so stiff and straight they forced him to sit relatively upright. Sloth preferred to slouch. He glanced around the table at his siblings. He noticed Envy was glaring at the gold in the chandelier, like it had personally offended her. Her hunger was betrayed by her eyes. She had one foot up on the chair and her arms crossed over her chest protectively. Her face was impeccably and cartoonishly done up.\n\nSloth knew Envy wanted to be the next Dominante. That was the usual order: Gluttony, Lust, Greed, Pride, Envy, Wrath. Sometimes it would get switched up, like in the first century, when Lust was followed by Wrath. Sloth was rarely chosen, which was fine by him. The less work, the better was his motto. He'd been Dominante in the 14th century, when the in fighting had become too much, but everyone had complained that he hadn't really done anything (what did they expect?) and booted him at the next meeting. \n\nHe redirected his attention to Lust. He was sitting directly across from Sloth. When he saw Sloth looking he leaned towards him, reaching out for Sloth's coat—a stained, threadbare thing that Sloth thought he might have picked up in the 19th century. Lust started feeling the fabric delicately, smiling hungrily, his eyes shinny with want. Sloth tiredly pulled his coat away and Lust sank back into his seat, not before taking Sloth's cup of wine. He admired the craftsmanship of the cup for a moment and then tipped it back, savoring it. He licked his lips in momentary satisfaction. Sloth knew that if he'd made any movement stop Lust, he could have, but why bother...\n\nPride walked in, late as usual, and strode to the head of the table. \n\n\"Good job, Pride,\" Lust said with intensity. \"I never thought we'd see the day one of managed to top Wrath's death toll.\"\n\nWrath snarled quietly. He had been unpleasantly surprised to how the first half of the century had gone. After 6000 years, pride had finally figured out how to use patriotism and nationalism to inspire destruction. The Cold War had been a particularly fascinating experiment—all that fear and pride and competitiveness swirling about in their souls. It was a shame it all ended so soon. \n\nPride preened a little before tersely responding, \"I don't know why you expected anything else, Lust. Let's get down to business. You've all got you're ballot. Oh, and Greed, put your cup back.\"\n\nGreed grouchily put he wine cup back on the table. Sloth fully expected her to make it out of the building with the cup and the chair. Gluttony had, not unsurprisingly, eaten his wine cup. \n\nSloth wrote his vote on the ballot and handed it Pride. He counted it up with the others. \n\n\"Congratulations, Envy.\" She cackled and rocked back in forth in her chair. \n\n*Ah, the cycle continues,* Sloth thought vaguely. \n\n\n", " Whoa. That's kind of long. Well hope you like it.\n\n“Okay finally. It’s about fucking time you all got here. I, Wrath, welcome you all to this century’s counsel session. As you all probably have guessed I am this century’s council head, filling in the extraordinarily roomy seat. As we all know was recently expanded to make room for our previous head, Pride’s, monumental ego.” This barely garnered the attention of pride who was encroached with the reflection of a small looking glass. The only one more attentive to him was Lust, who was in turn being glared at despairingly by Envy. \n \n“So what have you planned for the humans this year Wrath?” Said Pride, snapping his looking glass shut on his blonde hair, bright eyes and strong features. “Another war perhaps? I’m afraid you’re simply outclassed if you’re looking to match the scale velocity of those I oversaw during my seat.”\n\n ”I WAS FUCKING GETTING TO THAT! Now… If everyone will open their packets-” He pauses to the sound of a wet smacking noise to his left. “OH FOR THE LOVE OF FUCKING GOD! Will someone please get Gluttony to stop eating his packet!? Sloth please gr-” He looks across the table to meet Sloths gaze through an impenetrable layer of bangs and mascara. ” Fuck. Envy?”\n \n Envy snapped out of his daze, and reaches over to Gluttony. “Cummon buddy, that’s not even edible. Didn’t you get your fill of potatoes during your reign?” He said trying not to get saliva on himself as he shakes out the freshly dampened packet. \n \n “But that was over two hundred years ago!”, said Gluttony following a peculiar FWEH noise. \n \n“What happened to my packet?”, said Envy as he turned back to his seat, ducking his head underneath his section of table. \n \n “Just continue on, if we cater to these clowns we’ll never get anything done-” said Greed hurriedly.\n \n “Clow-OWWWW!!” With a solid clunk as Envy hurriedly tried to resurface the table, followed by Pride and Lust’s snickers. “What do you mean Clowns? You’re the - HEY IS THAT MY PACKET!?” shouted Envy glaring at a packet tucked underneath Greed’s.\n \n “Don’t be Ridiculous! I must’ve been handed two is all. Here take one of mine and try not to lose it this time” Greed said hurriedly passing the packet back to a sheepish and downtrodden Envy. \n \n “ENOUGH! THIS IS MY YEAR! And i’ll be damned twice if I’m gonna let you ruin it for me! Now…” said Wrath, visibly seething. “If you turn to page two in your packets you can see what I have outlined under “Religious Extremism”, you can see how I plan to smoothly transition from Pride’s reign into my own an- SLOTH WILL YOU TURN DOWN YOUR GODDAMN MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE!!” He shouted into Sloth’s skull-crusher headphones. Which she did with a look of disdain. “NOW… Okay so if you’d all pull out your pen’s and highlight un-“\n \n “I’m Hungryyyyy!!” , outburst Gluttony. \n \n ” Fuck! Envy will yo-” Wrath shouted only to be cut off by the tinkling sound of a phone going off. “What the fuck was that?”\n \n“Oh that’s my cell phone,” Pride said pulling a large brick shaped object. ” It’s this new thing the humans created. Lust got me one so she can call me when she emails me a picture of her boobs.”\n \n “What the fuck? Pride get ri-“ \n\n “YOU BASTARD!”, shouted Envy as he dove across the table trying to grab at Pride, who merely stood out of reach looking down pitifully. “I’m gonna kill y- OWWWWWW! GLUTTONY!” , he wailed rearing his head on his heel submerged into Gluttony’s cavernous maw. \n \n“SHUT THE FUCK UP! THIS IS MY YEAR! AND I’M GOING TO TAKE MY PEN AND STAB EACH OF YOU THROUGH YOUR GODDAMN PUPIL IF YOU DON— WHO THE FUCK STOLE MY PEN!?”", "\"As you know, we choose a new leader on this day. I am proud to have served for these last 100 years. Thank me. I mean, I rocked that!\"\nPride rose from the leader's chair. The rest followed and rose from their seats. \n\"YOU'RE STILL AN ASS, PRIDE!\", screamed Wrath.\n\"Right, thanks, let's get to picking me!\", Greed said, hopping around like a small dog with a urinary tract problem.\nSloth yawned and said \"Or not. Not is good too. Can I sit down?\". \n\"ALL YOU FUCKERS SHUT UP, WE WON'T GET ANYWHERE WITH YOU SPEWING SHIT FROM YOUR COCK SLOTS!\" exclaimed Wrath. Lust jolted a bit at the mention of genitals. \nEnvy said nothing, only shooting jealous glances at Pride.\nLust spoke up. \"Shouldn't we let me have a go? I've barely had any action recently, isn't it time to end this dry spell?\"\n\"INNUENDO! I CAN DO THAT TOO! BLOWJOBS!\" \n\"Lust, you pretty much dominated the 1960's.\", said Pride.\n\"Aww, but I have been able to mount that massive throne of yours in such a long time!\"\n\"BLOOOOOOOOOOOWJOBS!!!\"\nEnvy burst in to the discussion. \"I want it! I want it too!\"\n\"It's mine, kid.\" Greed smugly said. \n\"NO NO NO NO NO!\", Envy whined.\nGluttony was on the floor, trying to eat the carpeting. \nSloth joined Gluttony on the floor, not doing much of anything. \n\"Alright, fine. None of you will ever be as good as me, of course, but as current leader, I choose who takes my place. All of you, tell me why you think you're worthy of taking over.\" said Pride.\nGreed was the first to say something. \"Well, because I want it. I can make mortals want things too. I want it again. It will be mine. Everything will.\" \n\"Greed, you realize that we all function, no matter who the leader is, right?\" said Pride.\n\"Oh. Yeah. I still want it.\"\nEnvy was the next to speak. \"I want it too. You had it! Why can't I?\"\nLust interrupted before Pride could speak again. \"Short shorts! See-through shirts! Porn! I have this all planned out!\"\nWrath couldn't refrain from yelling any longer. \"WARS AND SHIT, OKAY? FUCKING BIG ASS EXPLOSIONS IN THE SAND AND RUSSIANS INVADING SHIT AND PLANES! CUNTING PLANES! EVERYTHING WILL BE PLANES! SHIT!\"\n\"Thanks, Wrath. Planes.\" Pride had joined Gluttony and Sloth on the floor, face buried in hands. \nGluttony pulled the carpet out of its mouth. \"Okay, hear me out on this. Deep. Fried. Donut. Burger.\"\n\"Gluttony, why?\". Pride was face down on the floor.\n\"PLANE BURGERS!\"\n\"Thank you again, Wrath. Sloth, go.\" said Pride.\n\"Look, whatever. Carry me up to the chair and I'll do something.\" Sloth said, obviously bored.\n\"Alright. Sloth wins for being the only one to not make me regret eternal existence.\"\n\"Yaaaaay.\" Sloth said.\nLust walked over to Sloth, being down to whisper in its ear. \"Hey, Sloth, you know that thing you made a while ago? The Internet? Maybe I should help out a little more with that.\"\n\"COMMENT SECTIONS!\" screamed Wrath. \n", "\n\nJan 1st - 2000 12:01 am\n\nPride bowed at his pedestal though none of the five other members of his order, so much as glanced in his direction. 'FIVE!' he thought, scanning the room, when he saw her, the girl in the dark hood, headphones on, just now slinking in. She plopped herself down in the chair furthest from the podium, and seemed to nearly melt with exhaustion from the effort. He allowed him self no emotional response, for pride was always in control of himself. He simply collected himself, and asked loudly enough to interrupt the quibbling of his siblings in arms, \"Well, a fine 100 years I've had.. Shall we decide then, who must follow that performance?\"\n\nLust made is if to speak, but Gluttony put a hand over her mouth, which seemed to satisfy them both when he began what could only be described as eating her face. 'They both serve better as lieutenants anyway' Pride thought to himself looking away from their lewdness. \n\nRed in the face Wrath gibed and garbled, foaming at the mouth. \"I-WANT-A-TURNN..\" Pride nearly screamed... The last time Wrath had been in charge, there'd been a plague. \n\nAvarice was always eager to chime in with a word and take Wrath's place, and though he had a more sensible head on his shoulders than the \"shoot first, ask questions later approach of his hot headed twin, the cool chill of Avarice was colder than any of them wanted to feel. Greed had run rampant through out the 1800s, and before that, set it up with his expansion measures in the early 15th century, and still before with the Romans. It was cool, calculated, and without mercy. Greed was a surgeon's scalpel in a steady hand, where as Wrath was a cudgel. \n\nPride sighed audibly, ran his long thin fingers through his full blonde hair. None of these were fit to lead for the first hundred years of the new millennium, they were all too busy plotting, they needed someone who understood the big picture and could play the long game.\n\nHe stood there pondering until he noticed the smile on Sloths face in the back of the room, looking at him. He was almost about to ask her if she had something to add, when one by one the others began looking up at the stage. \n\nUnderstanding dawned on him, as he turned around and saw her there, in the dress he'd bought for her that night he'd taken her out on the town and she'd seen it on the pretty girl in the front row, and just had to have it. \n\n\"It's seems to me, \" Started the pretty girl with the green eyes, \"that these humans have been lazy, and angry, they've been prideful to be sure. You can tell with their actions in the civilized world that their greedy. These people have everything handed to them without lifting a finger, and since the internet was invented can lust without fear.. \"\n\nI think the time is ripe, to make the poor want, and the rich fear, and show them all alike, what it is, to Envy.\"\n\n", "They sat at an obsidian table amidst the Seventh Layer of Hades, surrounded by a fire so hot it cast a blue-white glow. They all came together once every hundred years to confer and appoint a steward for the next century. \n\n\"Oh, how wicked,\" cooed Lust from her ruby-red lips. She unfurled her black bat-wings ever so slightly, to give just a glimpse of herself, as she stretched all the right muscles. \"You really outdid yourself this century, Wrath. I mean...*two* World Wars.\" \n\n\"Yes, well, I didn't have Helen of Troy to inspire those men as you did my dear,\" replied Wrath in a voice that rattled like bullets and breath that smelled of mustard gas. \n\n\"It should be *my* turn now,\" whined Envy, who had taken the form of a green toad and seemed vastly smaller than the others present, if no less pernicious. \n\n\"So tedious,\" remarked Pride. He had chosen his usual form, a male Angel, somehow even more compelling and magnificent than Lust's form except that it was marred by skeletal, burnt wings where should have been ethereal feathers composed of salvation, light, and glory. \"You say that at every meeting but you only get one turn in seven. Just as we do.\" \n\n\"And it's my turn now,\" slobbered a corpulent man as he wiped spittle from his chin and rose to take his place at the head of the table. \n\nA sophisticated man, in a very expensive tailored suit , sat clinking a pile of coins together. Greed asked, \"Give us a preview if you will. Where shall I place my bets?\" \n\n\"Gluttony rules this era my friends,\" chortled the fat demon. \"I shall drown Empires in their excesses. America eats itself to Diabetes while Africa starves. Though, with the help of my friend Lust, Africa suffers no shortage of sating their sexual appetites to ruination with HIV. Why, Asia has such a glut of souls they've taken to killing all but one of their offspring in the womb! My, how HE has praised me for all those unbaptized babies paving the roads. In Europe, I need do almost nothing. Honestly, the Russians still can't put down the Vodka I plagued them with last time. Finally, those atrocities in South America between the drug cartels aren't quite a war, but will simmer violently for far longer. They just can't get enough cocaine.\" \n\nSloth had barely stirred and remained silent. It took so much energy to banter...and for what? He played a long game and was putting all the pieces together for his turn come 2100. All this talk of Global Warming amongst the humans now, but no one willing to act. Let Gluttony have his turn. Sloth would end the game in due time.", "\"Hello everyone. Hello all. \n\n-This period of Pride has been a such a wonderful show. Really, you just get fantastic points for style. Your work in other centuries has been phenomenal but you really stepped it up this time. By creating nationalism you not only let everyone engage in all the sins, but let them think they deserved it. Nationalistic pride brought wrath and war upon the world and the whole rainbow of other misgivings. \n\n-Wrath, calm down. He's not taking over. *Pause*\n\n-There's no need to repeat the great work Pride has done lest he get too full of himself. But we all know why we are here. It's time to pick the next one of you to step it up a notch. As you know, each of you must put in a bid which I have here in my hands. I have reviewed them carefully and I have my announcement. \n\n-As with last time, Greed you can not be picked every year and frankly it's not like you take time off so we kindly ask you that you rescind your application. \n\n-Lust, The world is overpopulated as it is your application was frankly inappropriate. I've told you, I'm married. \n\n-You better have an application next year Sloth, I don't care how much I \"just don't get it\". *long Pause*\n\n-Well, to be honest, I didn't read these applications. And considering that Envy is giving me this weird look and Gluttony got held up at the buffet. I'm going to pick ... Greed. That's right Wrath. Suck it. Acedia out!\"", "A hooded figure progressed down a white marble tunnel leading to the meeting spot: a wide open Colosseum. \"Seats for over 8 billion should the time come.\" He explained to no-one.\n\n In the center one table, seats for 6, and behind that a throne, carved in the likeness of the leader; Superbia. The Sin had reined for over four hundred years. Had the rules allowed in the middle of the last century another may have taken over. Just like in all other human wars. But after it was all over, and those who died had gained entrance. The countries that won scarcely remembered those they killed, only remembering those who they had defeated. Their country over all, under the Maker. As if they themselves were chosen by the Council of Virtues to be their people. Time now for a new leader to be chosen by Death. \n\nAlmost to the table, Death still talking to himself, the sins unsure if in the past World War the strain had gotten to their Lords mind. \n\n\"First, I tally up all the sins of those brought in and the winner is the leader, its rather simple you see, standard procedure. Oh look a soul to be reaped. Get in the boat and wait I'll be there in a second.\"\n\n A new leader, one to bring the Council of Seven into a new age, and age of electronics. Killings on the scale Death himself could never dream of, of couches and robots, unlimited food to those who need none, religious wars, new cars and electronics, of a widening wage gap, and the internet and sexual freedom. A leader of true sin, everything was covered. The sins were immortal and could handle billions of reaped souls at a time. \n\nDeath cleared his throat, a sound of rasping bone on bone was heard, He started in a metallic drone, as if giving a boring speech rehearsed many times before. \"Humans have progressed to the point of true evil, letting certain peoples be hunted because of lack of funding, people being turned away for selfish reasons. Only a few even go the other way, I see most. A new sin not foretold in the Holy Books, he has been lurking in the shadows, in the back of consciousnesses, always there. Verum Malum.\" Death snapped his fingers and a figure wrapped in white robes appeared, \"Here you go kids have fun with him, remember to call your mothers.\" with that Death vanished. \n\nVerum stood at average human height, clothed such that a man would be hard pressed to tell what gender he is. Evil eminated from him. Even the sins became uncomfortable with his power in the room. Verum removed his hood, and behind it was the face of every soul that had ever lived, and that ever will. A small child stealing candy from his sister. And a serial killer stabbing a mother to death in front of her child. A soldier burning down a village. The face of every man and woman living. And he laughed, an evil cackle that chilled the room. It echoed, and then silence.", "“ Perhaps,” he paused considering the figures before him, “we may have reached the closest vote in millennia.”\n\nEnvy glared at Lust with the dull piercing grey eyes that had pulled the color from so many lives. Gluttony’s grease soaked fingers wrestled another chicken from Greed’s massive arms as Sloth stared in a daze at the ceiling. All were silent, except for the slapping of Gluttony’s jowls as Wrath looked infuriated by the noise.\n\n“Could you close your mouth for ONCE!?!” steamed Wrath.\n\nThe dark meat slithered slowly down his many chins as he tried to choke out words through the mass of food.\n\n“Do you think I could have one of those chickens, Greed?” Envy asked reaching his thin fingers out like a spiders arms. Greed turned his massive back toward Envy with a stifled laugh.\n\n“If you please! There is the order of who is to serve the next century to attend to.” \n\n“I want another term” Lust pressed into the judge breathing the most pleasant aroma into his nostrils.\n\n“As you know it is placed to a vote and the decision has been made” He announced unphased. \n\nLust changed genders and tried again. “Are you sure there is nothing I can do?”\n\n“You can learn to shut up now that the pitiful excuse of a century is over,” incited Wrath with a smile.\n\n“Pitiful like the hundreds of wars that were lost to history during your century? At least the records I’ve made will last forever in that Internet.” retorted Lust.\n\n“If you are finished the next century belongs to Sloth” the Judge asserted.\n\n“But I didn’t do anything” sloth whispered as his head fell forward.\n\n“Precisely” the Judge spoke.\n\n“You have got to be kidding me! This lazy piece of @#%!” Wrath overturned the table.\n\n“But I wanted to have the next century” Envy said dejected.\n\nGluttony flopped to the floor trying to gather the chickens that lay scattered across the floor as he gasped for breath.\n“I always thought it would be Sloth” Lust sat on Sloth’s lap and giggled.\n\n“It was easy,” Sloth said with a long breath. “All I had to do was have people feel like they were doing something without moving. Whether communicating without having to open their mouths, shop without leaving their chair, or see the world without leaving the couch. And speaking of couch I’m exhausted.”\n\nThe Judge looked at the council and knew it would be a great century for Sloth. It could have been for anyone, but Sloth always paved the way for Gluttony. Gluttony and his brother Greed worked together even when working against each other. And where Greed succeeded so too did Lust. Envy was always left behind but ever present.\n", "[I suspect this should be tagged [CW], given the current events restriction, but here goes.]\n\nThe Council's big cennetial session was over, and truthfully, Wrath was relieved. His efforts had more or less peaked in the first half of his tenure. He had accomplished two world wars, but despite all the power he had gained from the world-wide animosity, he was exhausted by the effort. In hindsight, he realized it was coming a bit of a habit for him. Just like his last tenure, when he had pushed the Mongols on their path of conquest.\n\nHe tried to do more, of course. But at the height of the Cuban Crisis, the Old Man Himself had forcefully reminded the Council that they weren't allowed to end the world. After that, Wrath had largely stopped leading, sat back and let the each of the other sins do their own thing.\n\nOf the six others, Gluttony had been the most active. Nobody knew exactly what he had been up to since the fifties, really. It came as a surprise to Wrath when Gluttony was chosen to replace him. He though it would turn out to be Lust, after she had proved her ability to play the long game when she manipulated the creation of the Internet. Not to mention the sexual revolution of the sixties.\n\nBut it was Gluttony, and now Wrath realized why. His machinations, though subtle, were beginning to pay off. Social inequality was worsening. First world vs Third world. The poor being forced to pay the debts of the banks they had trusted their wealth with. In fact, the entire economy was founded entirely on the assumption that everyone would borrow money to live above their actual means. Those that refrained from debt and elected to practice austerity were ridiculed by those that didn't.", "Sloth arrived late, and took a seat beside Gluttony. It didn’t seem that he had missed much: Wrath and Greed were still snapping at each other from opposing pulpits, Lust trying in vain to prevent last century’s fistfight.\n\n“YOU CANNAE HUV TWO TERMS IN A ROW YA FUCKIN COW.” Wrath gripped the sides of his podium, knuckles as white as the bone underneath. The corners of his mouth, permanently frothing, were beginning to overflow.\n\nGreed examined her nails, garish and expensive. “I can’t help my popularity,” she said. “The rules value the people overall. You can’t deny I’ve gone from strength to strength.”\n\n“STRENGTH TO- LISTEN YA BINT. COUNT THE FUCKIN GENOCIDES LAST CENTURY. THAT’S GOIN FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH.”\n\nAttempted genocides, thought Sloth, but couldn’t be bothered bringing it up.\n\n“As the saying goes,” Greed said, leaning forward and grinning, “what have you done for us lately, Wrath?”\n\nWrath paused, the vein in his temple pulsing dangerously. It would not be the first time that it had burst during a meeting. Red-rimmed eyes bore into his opponent. “RIGHT. AFF THE TOP OF MA HEID – HOW MANY SCHOOL SHOOTINS WE HUD THIS YEAR? LUST?”\n\n“A lot,” said the bored mediator, drumming his fingers on the table.\n\n“EXACTLY. CHEERS, YA FUCKIN NONCE. THAT’S JUST THE START. EVERY ISOLATED WEE WANKSTAIN, AH’VE GOAT THEM FUMIN, CHAMPIN AT THE FUCKIN BIT TO SHOOT SOMECUNT OR OTHER. SOCIETY FUCKIN BREEDS THEM FIR US.”\n\n“Charming, Wrath,” said Greed. “But I think we are all aware that there is no such thing as society. And really, with China entering the free market, I’ve secured leadership for a few centuries at least. One only needs to look at wealth distribution to see my glorious inequality manifest. Certainly a bigger impact than a lonely virgin with a machine gun.”\n\n“DID YE NO FUCKIN SEE LIBYA?”\n\n“We all saw Libya,” said Lust, and Sloth thought he detected a hint of resentment. Gaddafi had been one of Lust’s favourites.\n\n“Ahem.” Even Wrath went quiet as Envy spoke for the first time that night. As usual, Sloth was surprised the other sin had arrived. Envy had a habit of slinking in unnoticed. It could be unnerving to discover he had been sitting behind you for several hours before he made his presence known.\n\n“It seems to me,” said Envy, rising and padding through the rows of empty seats towards the podiums, “well, it seems to me that you’ve both won this for me. My thanks.” He smiled, thin and wet.\n\n“PONCE,” snarled Wrath. Greed said nothing, but she was clutching her handbag close, and wary for the first time in the debate.\n\n“Where would these, ah, ‘lonely virgins with machine guns’, where would they be,” said Envy, “without me? Wrath, you’re very good at what you do, but the fact is, you’d never get anywhere if these people didn’t already want to be normal. They want girls, money, less acne. They want, and covet, and it builds. You’re very good at what you do Wrath, and that’s taking the credit.”\n\nGreed swallowed as Envy turned on his heel to face her.\n\n“You made an excellent point about wealth inequality, Greed,” Envy said. “That’s what, one percent of the population owning 90 per cent of the world? Something ridiculous like that?”\n\n“Something like that.” Greed nodded.\n\nEnvy smiled again, and even Lust – notorious creep Lust – shivered. Gluttony paused in her eating, bacon grease dribbling down her chins, and Sloth momentarily sat up for a proper look.\n\n“What do you suppose the other ninety-nine percent want?” asked Envy.\n\nWrath was the first to step down, silently at first. He made it halfway up the aisle in a dignified stride before snapping and attacking a chair to the strains of violent swearing. Greed, trembling, fetched her purse and her pearls and scuttled off to join Sloth and Gluttony. Lust nodded gravely at Envy, who stood in the centre, smile lazy and content.\n\n“My century then?” said Envy. “Good form.”\n" ]

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[ "Waiting at the train stops of Chicago in mid January cold is never a fun thing. From the metal benches to the infamous wind everything begins to sting. I'm wrapped up in my scarf, breathing warm air heavily against my own face and doing my best to stay out of the chill air, hiding behind a column holding up the station roof. \n\n\"I swear, these trains are never fucking on time...I need a car\" I mutter to myself. The station is relatively empty as it is around midnight, several hours before bars let out and the train cars shuttle home the mess of drunkards. To my far right however stands a small family, a mother, father and what I assume is their 4 or 5 year old son. While this was odd to say the least, even stranger still was the fact that the father and son wore clothing more fitting for indoor use, not 26 degree weather. \n\nThe father held the sons hand in his own, standing beside the mother and smiling faintly at her. It was only upon noticing his smile that I saw her slumped shoulders and unkempt hair poking out erratically from her beanie. Her head hung low and she barely moved despite the strong breeze of the night. At the sound of the train, her head lifted ever so slightly to reveal..\n\nThe screeching of metal at the trains arrival stole my attention from her and it braked almost as quickly as it appeared. It's steel doors slid open and brought with them a strong gust, blowing the little boys hair about wildly as he clung to his mother's legs. The father knelt down to his son and extended his hand, coaxing the son to him with a smile That made me forget the harsh cold, which was beginning to intensify. \n\nThe mother didn't move a muscle. It's as if she barely noticed the train humming merely feet from her. The boys touch made little but a grimace on her face and soon he let go, once again taking his father's hand. Together they stepped into the train car and the father said a final word to the mother, but I was too far to hear it, despite how intently I watched this scene. Something strange was happening, but I didn't know it, my body did. Its hard to explain.\n\nThe doors of the train slid shut and the train silently moved away into the darkness, seemingly fading into the night.\n\nAt this, the mother burst into tears, holding her face within her hands and revealing what appeared to be a hospital bracelet about her wrists. \n\nSomething on my cheek grew cold as the wind drew me back to my senses. \n\nWhen had I started crying? I wiped the tears from my eyes and chalked it up to little more then the ferocity of the cold...but somewhere inside, I knew otherwise. ", "I did a double take, looked at my watch, pinched, knocked myself in the gut. Nope. It was all real. Each man and woman, dressed in a black suit, black hair, black shades and all held a black suitcase.\n\nIt was seven in the morning, I take the train to school every morning and back. The first class was dance, my utmost favourite. I entered the train as usual, swiped my card to the machine, and waited by the bench for the next train. It was the same train as always, white with clear mirrors.\n\nI always like to ride in the head of the train, clean seats, fresher air, clearer mirrors. The train pulled up to the station and I headed to my spot, not a single soul existed on the train. And then, they came.\n\nIn a single file, they piled into my area, all taking a seat in the train. Suddenly I was in a sea of black. The men and women sat there silently, but the subtle movement of one, the rest followed.\n\nThe train finally took off, 'The next station is, 'Dance House and Funk.'\nWait? What the hell? I didn't hear Bonsel and Frier, I heard DANCE HOUSE AND FUNK? I didn't know what to do, I looked at the emergency stop, was it worth it? No, it wasn't, I decided to keep my mouth shut the entire way, the army in black were headed there, I wanted to know.\n\nAt some point in time, I thought I was in a loop or something, the train seemed unless. Until the fatal, *Beeeep* signalled and the train break to a stop. The overhead voice called out, Downtown Avenue. The army filed out in uniform.\n\nOne of the women stayed behind, and went up to me. 'Nathan, where is your costume?' Her voice was familiar, but too vague for a seven in the morning train ride.\n\n'Er... Do I know you?'\n\nThe woman plucked off her shades, revealing the eyes of my dance teacher, she sighed. 'Do you remember what day it is?'\n\nOutside, a blast of vigorous music erupted, I didn't even realize the train had stopped, nobody was on the train. Loud jeers followed, and taps and struts hit the station. They were dancing, the army of black. \n\nShe smacked the back of my head, I forgot about the flashmob.", "23:10, London Victoria station. A cold October night. I regretted my assumption that I’d be warm enough after the gig and, shivering, I pulled my hoodie tighter around me. I also wished I hadn’t stayed behind to try and get a picture with the band - I had missed the 23:06 train by a matter of seconds and had to wait nearly an hour for the next one. The shops had closed early, damn Sunday trading hours. I wish I’d brought a book with me. With a sigh I refreshed Twitter, but most of my timeline had tucked themselves in for an early night, the lucky sods. \n\nToo cold to go outside, so nothing to do but kick my heels and wander around the cavernous interior of the station. Due to how the two termini were knocked through to create one station, it had plenty of nooks and crannies to explore. The long platform 1, where the boat train used to depart from. The hidden exit by the Gatwick Express platforms. Platform 8b, behind the Wetherspoons- wait, wasn’t that where the lost property offices were? A bog-standard Southeastern commuter train sat thrumming in the platform, waiting to carry the drunks and late workers back home for the night. I continued my wander, casting an eye over the departure boards above the Millies Cookies to see where the train was going. \n\nHuh.\n\nPlatform 8 was empty, the next train showing the 5:30am train to Sevenoaks. Platform 9, the last train to Dorking was ready to go in ten minutes. Platform 8b - nothing. I wandered back to the platform, a curious look on my face. I had a good 40 minutes until my train left, nothing else to do. The electronic board above the gateline indicated that the train was the 2328 train fast to Horsted Keynes. It didn’t look particularly busy. In fact, I’d been alone down near the platform on both my visits. No matter, I thought, shrugging to myself; If it’s normally this quiet they’ll run the service down and stop it entirely in 18 months. A small voice nagged at me, but I went off to see if the platform for the last train to Brighton had been announced yet.\n\nMaybe it was the late hour, maybe the tiredness from the gig, but it took me a good minute or two to realise what the nagging was. Horsted Keynes had been closed for 50 years. It was now run as part of a preserved railway society, and had no way of powering the electric train currently waiting to go there. I walked back, hoping to take a picture of the departure board - I knew a few people who would find it amusing at least. As I approached I saw a fellow passenger walk to the gateline, swipe their ticket and walk through the barrier towards the train. Sharply dressed, too. Must be a city boy working late, taking his backpack home with him for a few hours sleep before the return journey to work tomorrow morning. \n\nI stood to one side of the barrier, trying to take a picture of the electronic departure board, but for some reason each attempt came out blurry and unreadable. Frowning, I shifted position, for a better attempt, only to be jostled by more passengers for the train. All different ages and looks, but all wearing similar styles. I don’t pay much heed to fashion, but this must be the current vogue style. Same backpacks, though. Maybe it was a company event in town? I pity any of their customers tomorrow, hopefully they won’t have high expectations of customer service. I framed the shot perfectly, but as I was about to tap the screen a person slammed into me from behind, knocking me to the ground. My phone skidded off under the barriers, being picked up by the short haired guy that hit me.\n\nStanding up I brushed myself off, giving my assailant the frowning of a lifetime as he passed through the barriers and onto the train. Something felt off. My wallet! My phone! The git had pickpocketed me! I tailgated someone through the barriers, keeping tight against her backpack to sneak through. The bag compressed as I got close - not empty, but squishy. Strange. I walked along the train looking for my attacker, but the station lights glinted off the windows and all I could see was my concerned face. I took the chance and jumped on the train. I’d be quick, I could find this guy and jump off before it left, piece of cake. \n\nThe train was cold. Not like the usual British Railways habit of only having the train heating on during the summer, but cold as in “I can see my own breath”. I ducked into the carriage itself and saw it was full. Not with anyone standing, though. Everybody was sat peacefully in silence. The luggage racks above the seat were filled with those bloody backpacks, neatly lined up. I moved down the train, looking for the chap that bumped me, but I quickly realised how futile the effort was - each male seemed to have the same short haircut. They also seemed to all be listening to the same style of black earphones. Whatever, at least the brilliant white Apple earphones had finally been phased out. Sighing, I gave up. I’ll call the bank tomorrow and cancel my cards; filing a police report to claim the phone back on insurance. It’ll be a hassle, but a lesson learnt.\n\nExcept the doors had hissed closed. The electronic button to reopen them wouldn’t work. Dammit, I’d spent too long on the train. Great. I moved up the train and slumped down in the only spare seat that I’d seen, instinctively grabbing for my phone to find out whether I’d be able make it back to Victoria tonight. Not there, of course. Could my night get any worse? I looked around to see if any of my fellow passengers had a paper I could borrow. Nobody was talking or making eye contact - typical British commuters. They were all sat ramrod straight, staring off...at nothing in particular. Was this train going via Midwich or something? Sod it, what’s the harm in asking? I cleared my throat.\n\n“Um, excuse me?”\n\nEverybody turned to look at me. In unison. O...kay, that was freaky. Resisting the urge to shudder, I remembered why I’d spoken up in the first place.\n\n“Does anyone have a paper I can borrow, please?”\n\nNothing. That’s pretty standard actually, you could get attacked in the tube and nobody would say anything. Still, the eye contact thing was pretty weird. Everyone was looking at me directly in the face. I couldn’t see the people behind me in the carriage but I’d bet pounds to peanuts they were the same. \n\n“What’s the next stop? I’m not supposed to be on this train and I’d like to make it back to London so I can get my train to Brighton tonight, does anyone know, please?”\n\nStill nothing. Vast acres of nothingness in which to plant crops. I looked out the window for a familiar landmark, but the inky blackness stared back. Were we outside London already? No, the train hadn’t been going that long...had it? I peered at my watch - broken, it had smashed in the fall. Wonderful. Did I walk under a ladder this morning or something? Right, that’s it. \n\n“Does anyone mind if I listen to my music? I’ll turn it down if it’s too loud.”\n\n“No.”\n\nAha, they spoke. Literally. It felt like the reply came from all around me, yet nobody seemed to move their mouths. I looked around, for some indication of who spoke, but the blank faces stared back without expression. \n\n“No you don’t mind, or no you’d rather I didn’t listen to music?”\n\n“Use these.”\n\nThat voice came from my left, across the aisle. I examined the four faces, nothing, except- were they smiling? Almost imperceptible, but the corners of the mouths seemed to be turned up slightly. Odd. I turned back to find a pair of headphones had been placed on the table in front of me. Again, nobody took credit for this. I resolved to find out which blasted company these freaks were working for and write their MD a strongly worded letter of complaint. Tomorrow. After calling the bank, fixing my watch, and claiming back my phone. Whatever, I’m keeping these headphones. Grumpily I unplugged my cheap pair from my mp3 player and plugged this new pair in. To my surprise the battery wasn’t flat, that’s something at least. Maybe it was past midnight and Monday was going to be better? \n\nNo. Flicking through each and every file was corrupt. Maybe while walking under a ladder I’d broken a mirror too. I looked up to find a replacement sitting in front of me. Of course. I didn’t dare look around openly at the faces - I could see out of the corner of my eyes that the smiles were wider. Sod it, at least with some music I could distract myself. Pocketing my broken device, I plugged their headphones into their mp3 player and wondered what crazy stuff they’d have pre-loaded. \n\n“Good morning, James. We’ve been expecting you…”\n", "\"Damn Amtrak wi-fi.\" My email refuses to send. I look up from my computer and out the window for the first time in 20 minutes to see the train speeding through the darkness. There are a few lights in the distance, but I don't remember what stop is next. I'm new to this whole New York to Baltimore commute.\n\nThe conductor slams on the brakes. The train screeches. I grab my computer with one hand and my coffee with the other, spilling it all over my lap. \"Fuck.\" Fortunately, the coffee is cool. Cold even.\n\nI stand up to dry myself off, thinking about the nasty things I'll write about Amtrak on Twitter once the wifi is back. Suddenly, a man dressed in a black tshirt and jeans carrying a black bag walks through the open door. Then another. Then another.\n\nAll three wearing sun glasses, which is odd being that it's night. I glance out the window, but I can't see a sign at the station. Where the hell am I? \n\nThe men sit together at the center of the car, about four rows up from me. It's one of those seats where people face each other with a table in between.. They drop their bags into the fourth seat.\n\nAmtrak guy walks through the car, takes their tickets.\n\n\"Excuse me, what stop was that?\" Nobody answers. \"Why the hell did we stop so fast? I spilled coffee everywhere!\" Still no answer.\n\nAll three men reach into their bags, each pulling out a bottle of vodka. As the train inches forward, they begin to chug. As the train gathers speed, one puts his bottle down. 1/4 is gone.\n\n\"Nastrovia!!!\" The other two begin to sing in Russian. The car is cold. Very cold. The conductor announces the next stop, but I don't understand a word of Russian.", "*St. Marin's*\n\nThe trains were just fucking with him at this point. This was the seventh to pass that wasn't going to his station. Where the hell was St. Marin's, anyway? Sounded like a stupid place for stupid losers. He needed more coffee.\n\nHe watched a girl walk across the platform towards the waiting (stupid) train. At least *she* would get to go home today. He felt resentful. He knew he was being irrational. The girl was dressed in a smart black suit and carried a black briefcase. She looked important. A lawyer, maybe. What would a lawyer be doing in a shithole like St. Marin's?\n\nA man followed the girl into the train. He was dressed very much the same - black suit, carrying a black briefcase. Maybe they worked at the same firm. Maybe they accidentally wore the same outfit to work today. How embarrassing.\n\nHe snorted. What else could you expect from those St. Marin's folk? God, he needed coffee. Or a beer. Maybe the next train would be his.\n\nTwo women walked past him. Black suits, black briefcases. They got into the train. Weird. Did they all know each other? Did they all mean to dress that way? Who even used a briefcase anymore?\n\nHe looked around. Most of the the other people nearby were playing with their phones. A few were staring into space, their minds elsewhere. No one seemed to notice the Briefcase People. But he did.\n\nThere were more of them, now. They walked through the open doors of the St. Marin's train alone, and in groups. They were young and old and came in all shapes and sizes. And they all wore black suits and carried black briefcases. He counted eight. Nine. Eleven. Fourteen.\n\nHe stood up from his spot on the bench. Maybe it was the lack of coffee talking, but he *had* to figure out what was going on. Well. He *wanted* to, at least. He snorted again. Mighty Steve from HR, Solver of Train Mysteries. Steve the Small-Time Adventurer. Kinda-Detective Steve. All he needed was a deerstalker cap - or maybe a cape. And a couple of bucks to get home from St. Marin's.\n\nHe got on the train.\n\nThe doors closed behind him, and the train started moving. He felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. This was *weird*. There were about twenty of those nutjobs on board, all told. They were all sitting, straight-backed and statue-still, with their hands folded in their laps and their briefcases set on the floor by their feet. Twenty pairs of eyes stared, unseeing, into the middle distance. Worst of all was the total *silence*. Not a single one of them made so much as a peep. If he hadn't seen them blinking he'd've thought they were mannequins. \n\nSomething orange caught his eye. He turned his head to see a schlubby guy in a garishly colored tee shirt standing towards the far end of the car. Orange Guy looked back at him, a sort of amused bewilderment on his face. Another knight gone a-questing, then, determined to plumb the secrets of the Pod People. The two stared at each other for a bit without saying a word, both unwilling to break the church-like atmosphere. \n\nTwenty minutes passed. The train stopped twice more, at Avington and Breakwater. At both stations there was an influx of suits, followed by one or two confused hangers-on. No one got off. No one spoke. He was starting to get nervous.\n\n*Last stop, Saint Marin's. Last stop.\" The voice over the intercom made him jump. Finally! He needed to get off this train and head back home. Enough was enough. He was the first out the doors and onto the platform. \n\n\"What the *hell*?\" He knew he was being loud, but he couldn't help it. Getting off the train had broken the hold that that oppressive silence had had on him. Besides, what the *hell*. This wasn't St. Marin's - if there even *was* a St. Marin's. This was fucking *New Weston*! He had been here a thousand times! \n\nHe looked back at the train. It still said *St. Marin's* on the side. Maybe it was a mistake? This was definitely the New Weston station. Now he was getting pissed. He didn't have all night to ride the train playing fucking Clue.\n\nThe *freaks* were all getting off at this stop, it seemed. He grabbed the arm of the one closest to him. He wanted answers. Distantly, he knew he was acting insane. He didn't care.\n\n\"Who the hell *are* you people?\" He demanded.\n\n\"I beg your pardon?\" She was an older woman, graying red hair pinned back in a bun. Same goddamn black suit, same goddamn black briefcase.\n\n\"Don't bullshit me. I was on that train. Who are you people? Why are you all dressed like that? Where are you all going? *What the hell is going on here?*\"\n\nShe grinned. \"You're a very observant person.\"\n\nHe blinked. Not quite the response he had expected. \"...thank you?\" He was starting to feel ridiculous, but he didn't loosen his grip on her arm. He tried to think of something to say.\n\n\"Very observant,\" she continued, oblivious to his distress. \"Intelligent too, I'd wager. We're looking for people like you. Observant. People who *notice* things.\"\n\n\"Is this some kind of job offer?\"\n\n\"Oh, nothing like that. We just want you to notice us. You, and people like you. Observant people. We want you to look at us.\"\n\n\"*Why*?\"\n\nThere was that grin again. \"Because, my dear boy, we're the distraction.\"\n\n" ]

[ 3, 3, 3, 5, 6 ]

[ "1407651723", "1407654591", "1407654596", "1407621964", "1407647089" ]

[ "I'd seen this look before. Ruffled hair, crazy eyes. He stood on the edge of the cliff, and I knew what he was about to do. I floated closer to him to hear whatever this crackhead was mumbling.\n\n\"Why would she do that to me.. why would she just.. I told her not to, I told her to stay..\"\n\nHe kicked a pebble off the cliff and out into the rumbling sea. It was quite a ways down. I figured his body wouldn't even be recognizable once he hit all those rocks. I wondered if anyone would even know he was gone. I couldn't stand the thought of it, so I jumped in...\n\n...backed up a few feet and sat down. Why did he want to end it, anyway? Having a body and a life seemed nice, I don't think I'd ever toss that aside. I had been wandering around since.. I don't even really know.\n\nThey had been together for a while. Oh man, she seemed like a catch to me. Long, wavy blonde hair and piercing green eyes. He remembered her smiling a lot, and how she would blush whenever he made her laugh. But then along came the friggin' drugs. Syringes lying all over their apartment. He didn't have many memories after a while. Just little snippets of waking up on the bedroom floor, with her curled up next to him. He'd make some eggs, set a plate next to her face, and shoot up again. Boom, he was gone.\n\nThen one morning he woke up, set some breakfast by her, shot up, woke up, and.. the food hadn't been touched. How long had it been, Jesus? When was the last time he even looked at the clock? What day was it? He called 911 and she was pronounced dead on the scene. She had been dead for two days; she was dead when he served her breakfast. He was just too fucked up to notice that her skin was blue, that the eyes were starting to flatten.\n\nAlright, back to his apartment we go. When I arrived, I set a pan on the stove and cooked some eggs. I set them on his nicest plate, and put them on his bedside table. I wanted to just lay him down and have him go to sleep, but I didn't feel like that was enough. Maybe some spring cleaning? I dug through every drawer, every cabinet, every crack in the wall and found what I believed to be all of his drugs. I went outside in his backyard, dug a hole, and buried it all. I trudged back into his room and found a post it note and a pen. I wrote a message, set it next to the plate of eggs, and jumped out. \n\nHe stood in shock and disbelief, his eyes darting around the room, trying to figure out how he got there. His eyes eventually found the eggs, and the note. I heard him start to sob as I drifted out of his room. The note was probably my best work yet.\n\n\"I made a huge mistake. Please don't follow me down that path. Take care of yourself, for me. -Liz\"", "I roll my eyes. \n\nThis always happens when a shy person likes someone they thinks is out of their league. All the useless chit-chat, the desperate attempts to catch their crush's eye or be near them; it is foolish, but almost funny in the stupidity, like watching a dog chase his tail. \n \nThen again, I could be the fool, because it is my role to help the pooch catch what it wants. \n\nIn every thousand or so people, there is someone who is born able to be a \"bodysnatcher\". They have talents, but, to use them, they have to use them to help to help people, or else they get violently ill after they do their thing. Of course, there always is some way to bend the rules, like my pen-pal Alisha purposely pairing people together to watch them have sex, but I at least try to respect peoples privacy. Oh, yeah, I should mention I am one.\n\nI've known since I was three because of an accident involving cookies on the top shelf, a box of 1000 plastic forks right next to the sweets, my dog weaving around my/my mom's feet, and my mom stretching for the shelf under my power. When I learned what I did, I vowed I wouldn't be greedy again, associating cookie stealing with my departed dog. My main goal in school is to stay quiet, be a good girl for my parents, and work hard to get into college, but I just feel so sorry for people I have to help out.\n \nWhich gets me back to my current situation, watching Samantha try, and fail, to look cool while talking with Jack. I may just be good at reading people, but I can tell Jack likes her back and would ask her to the Homecoming dance on Friday if he wasn't afraid of being rejected. \"Look at that,\" I mutter, \"a novel situation. Two people liking each other, and they don't know it...\" \n \nActually, I have helped with 9 other couples this year alone. I also have helped a wimp defeat a bully, got a stranger to take his baby out of the boiling hot car, and had a teacher shut the class up. I admit the last one also helped me, but I justify it because others were getting frustrated with the clowns in the back talking. My watch alarm startles me out of my thoughts, telling me how there is only 5 minutes before the lunch bell rings. \n\nI can do this quickly. I go to the corner stall in the girl's bathroom, and start concentrating on Jack. As I feel my body slide to the bathroom floor, I realize I am now 6 feet tall and talking with Samantha. I wait for a minute, letting Jack talk as I just flip through his memories to make sure he likes her. I have made too many awkward situations by being hasty and forcing a person to say what they don't feel. \n \nI just do a brief scan; the evidence of his near-infatuation popping up almost immediately. I have to focus to not make a face of disgust at his many memories of masturbating to a picture of her in a bikini: can't have Jack looking like a fool. Well, I can't let him looking like a fool to people who can't read minds. \n \nThe bell rings. I have to hurry before my attempt to help becomes a waste. \"Bye! I, um, hope you have a nice day. Well, it's already halfway over, I guess, but, um, see you later,\" spouts Samantha. Last chance for me to help. I can't let her get away, so I have Jack grab her hand. Shit, I shouldn't have done that, I need to stay in character. I/Jack drop her hand, and I can feel a blush rising to his cheeks, one of the few things I can't control, along with erections and stomach noises. \n\n\"Um, you know, Samantha, there is this dance on Friday. Would you, uh, mind going with me?\" I take a second to make him breath, and decide Jack needs to doubt himself to make the performance more believable. \"It's ok if you don't want to, I mean, I just thought it might be nice to go with you...\" \n \nI see Samantha's reactions change from being surprised that Jack would ask her to doubt that he is telling the truth to thinly concealed excitement. \"YES!\" she yells, then, a little more controlled, says, \"that sounds wonderful, Jack. It would be a pleasure to go with you. Bye!\" Samantha leaves to go to her class, almost skipping in joy. \n \nAnother Oscar-winning performance from yours truly. I leave while Jack is figuring out where in the world he got the balls to ask her, blaming lack of self control, and return to my body, still sprawled on the bathroom floor. Samantha's shrill squeal to her friends about being asked by Jack confirms that I did the right thing. \n \n\"They'll be Facebook Official by Saturday,\" I mumble. A burst of envy runs through me. I make so many people happy, but there is no chance anyone would be happy being with boring old me. All I can do is put others together and vainly hope that someone may like me in the future. I can do what seems impossible, but, more and more, it feels impossible to go on living. \n \nThe funny thing about being a bodysnatcher is you either feel like you should be worshiped because you help everyone, or you realize your problems don't matter to anyone. There are many studies on the increased rates of bodysnatchers being class presidents or CEOs, and there are equally as many studies on their increased probability of being depressed and/or suicidal. Suicide doesn't seem too bad of an option, actually. I wonder what would happen if I die; would anyone care? \n\nI stop myself. I have to keep living so people's lives will get better with my help... \n\nI just wish I could use my powers to help myself.", "I stand next in line \nFor burgers and fries \nMickey D's and the King \nGot shit on Five Guys \n\nShe suddenly came \nAnd took over my mind \nShe ordered a salad \nNo meat there to find \n \nI'll only eat food \nWhen there's someone to fry it \nWhat the hell happened \nThis coke is a diet ", "He tried to surreptitiously glance at the beautiful woman across the bar. He had been trying to find a way to talk to her for the past month. Each time he moved to get up, the gravity seemed to increase tenfold and his legs turned to jelly. It was probably for the best. No one would be interested in him anyway. She seemed to enrich the atmosphere with her lively spirit. Everyone surrounding her smiled and laughed. He simply sat in his dim little corner, sipping his drink alone. \n\nAs he was getting up to leave the bar, a strange sensation overtook him. A tingling sensation beginning in his toes seized his body and slowly entered his brain. Then, to his terror, it felt like his consciousness was moved aside, and another one entered. \n\n*Relax, kid. You'll thank me later.*\n\nWHAT THE FUCK?! Someone was *in his head*. He turned around on the invading mind's accord. To his horror, he was approaching his ultimate crush. No, no, no no, NO, NO, NO!\n\n*Calm down! Jesus, you're giving me a head ache.* \n\nHe slid up next to her. She turned to him, and a small smile flickered across her face. Curiosity gleamed in her eyes, and dare he think, a little apprehensive excitement? \n\n*Dude, she's been dying for you to talk to her for the past two weeks.*\n\nNo, way! She wanted to talk to him?! \n\n\"Well, well, well, if it isn't the hermit. Why have you graced my humble presence?\" her voice sounded like a sultry melody. And he was absolutely tongue tied. Luckily, his friendly neighborhood body abductor wasn't. \n\n\"I was actually hoping you could help me out with this hermit problem.\" \n\n\"Hmmmm....I don't usually help out complete strangers.\"\n\n\"I'm Ian. There, problem solved.\"\n\nHe knows my name?!\n\n*I know everything about you. You're pretty cool, aside from that whole bed wetting thing. Might want to tell her about that before -*\n\n\"Amelia,\" the lovely woman supplied before the body snatcher could probe any deeper. \"What did you have in mind?\" \n\n\"How does dinner and a movie sound?\" \n\n\"Pretty good. Maybe if that goes well we should do something a little more exciting.\"\n\nIan was fairly sure his heart stopped for a moment.\n\n\"I need to go, though.\" she took out a piece of paper and pen from her purse and scribbled down her number. \"Call me soon, 'kay hermit?\" \n\n\"I intend to,\" he answered suavely. \n\nShe handed him the precious paper and swept through the bar, meandering between patrons better than a dancer would. \n\nWow. \n\n*Uh-huh.*\n\nBut how could I possibly call her without fucking things up?\n\n*I only said what you would say if you weren't so damn nervous. Just trust your gut for once. You could be quite the ladies' man.*\n\nThe tingling sensation overcame Ian once again. The other consciousness left and his body was once again his own. As he made his way to leave, he caught the eye of the barman. He gave him a knowing wink. Ian tossed him a $20 in thanks. The barman caught it without skipping a beat. \n\n*Another quick buck.*\n" ]

[ 2, 3, 6, 20 ]

[ "1407702006", "1407697125", "1407682715", "1407686588" ]

[ "When he pictured his death, he had pictured something heroic, they all had; a valiant last stand as waves of the enemy crashed against the lightning steel of the blade that had claimed so many lives, a true hero's death, the kind of death that made wars worth fighting.\n\nLaying face down in a slurry of mud and blood, heart slowing to the sound of screaming and dying men was hardly poetic. The man clutched down at the gaping tear that ran the length of his leg, trying in vain to staunch the steady flow of crimson that had already soaked the bloodstained leather greaves that had finally failed him.\n\nIn the last moments of his life the warrior realized that he knew not what he was fighting for. In life he knew nothing but hatred for the enemy. In death, where even the most passionate of emotions struggle to break the cold, steely grip of darkness the dying man could not even remember why he had to die.\n\nHe was far from the first to die in this way. Millions before him had seen the same end to a short, violent, hate filled life. The words of the leaders echoed faintly, somewhere in his head. \"Victory at all cost! No life is worth more than the glory of the country! Onward to legend! Onward to fame! Onward to the glory of your country!\" He realized that those echoes had always been there, burning at the back of his mind, convincing him that the man who kneeled below his blade was worth less than himself. \n\nHe had thrown himself between the grand leader and the oncoming mass of the invaders. As the world burned around him he had done what he had been taught to do his entire existence; to give his life for his country, the ultimate glory! It did not matter, he realized that now. None of it mattered, he doubted that it ever had mattered. Back when this war began if they had known, if they had known that hundreds of years later and millions upon millions of lives thrown into the mud would this final ultimate victory still be worth it?\n\nSomewhere behind him he heard the familiar sound of a blade being sheathed in the flesh of a victim. He knew not who he felt more remorse for. The victim would surely join him in the final last truth of the pointless bloody existence, and the man behind the blade would continue on, never stopping to think until another's blade found its home with him.\n\nAs his vision slowly faded to black the warrior would have smiled had he the power left in his body to do so. His blood would join the blood of the enemy that he killed and no one would be able to tell it apart from the rest. In the end he was the same as them, he bled like them, he killed like them, and now he was dying like them, a short, pointless, violent end to a short, pointless, violent life.", "*12.8.389 NE - Gen. Rex Meyer's Log*\n\nThere's no salvaging these people. No one alive today can remember how this war started, but I know how it's going to end. We've given the Armassians damn near four centuries to surrender. It's time to stop playing nice.\n\nWe've got our secret weapon ready for deployment--that's the one beautiful thing about war. It inspires change. Progress. The weapons of our forefathers were formidable. We've made them better. And after countless years of small-scale warfare, avoiding our full destructive capacity, we've reached our tipping point. The world is about to witness our taking our rightful place once again as a world superpower, and it's all thanks to the eggheads born into a war we inherited from people far more patient than we are.\n\nIs this a dangerous move? I should say so. But nothing, *nothing* is more important than securing our nation in a world so far gone. Collateral damage is a given, and I wouldn't care if every last piece of Armassian scum keels over and dies if it meant we could finish this damn bloodshed already.\n\nIn a few hours, the world will look on in horror when we drop the first anti-matter bomb. They're going to call us monsters. Our enemy is completely unprepared for what's about to come. Hell, maybe we are, too. But I think of myself as a patriot. And for what it's worth, I'd like to believe history will look kindly on us.\n\nBut not today.\n\n*\n\n___\n\n*11/6/2024 AD - Sen. Hal Meyer's Journal*\n\nAs of yesterday, the newly-formed Armassian Empire has declared their intent to accrue weapons of mass destruction. They have expressed willingness to use these weapons on all who oppose them, and show no such willingness to exist in peace with their neighbors in the East. There is a clear and present danger--of that there can be no doubt.\n\nThe American people are, mercifully, in agreement on this: we cannot allow their nations to amass nuclear weapons. We must stop them from acquiring their tools of destruction. For the safety not only of our nation, but of our very planet, we will officially declare war tomorrow.\n\nIn a way, I am filled with hope. Public support for a war like this hasn't been seen since the 1940s. At long last we can be proud to be called patriots once again. I am confident and delighted that history will look kindly on us.\n\nTo a better tomorrow!\n\n*", "I watched as the killing machines tore down the remaining defenses of London, making fast and violent work of the outdated infantry defending.\n\nAs I looked over the country side I saw the pillaging, roads in disrepair, fields burning and broken mine shafts dotted the country. The smoke rose over the hills as London burned down and was occupied by the enemy.\n\nSoon after, bombers fly overhead and attack the giant killing machines. Unleashing dangerous ammunition upon them they soon crumble and fall apart.\n\n\"Fuck you Steve.\"\n\n\"Hey, gotta be done.\" I reply.\n\n\"Why are we even attacking each other anyways? Greeks are getting pretty beefy.\"\n\n\"Yeah fine, accept the peace treaty. I'll give you some uranium too.\" I declare, in order to emend the recent loss of the Russian military unit.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n27 turns later the Greeks were utterly destroyed and we saved the game of Civilization 5.\n\n", "It started with sticks and stones. And then it didn't stop. \n\nThe sticks were soon sharpened and the stones became words exchanged in anger. Time went on, longer and longer; the evolution of the sticks and the stones no longer gave a semblance of their ancestors but their core meanings continually fueled the fires.\n\nOne day the fire will be big enough. Maybe.", "And so, he boarded the plane that was going to send him to the country. He knew there was no turning back. Once he stepped outside the plane, he was doomed to die on foreign soil. Yet there he was, homesick and travelling.\n\nFrom an old country to another old one, he'd be where ancient historical figures had come and gone, and with his presence he'd change history. He'd see monuments erected to warriors from a different era and places where atrocities had been committed. Atrocities.\n\nHe savored the word. Much had changed since their countries were in open battle. Since the last truce had been signed more than a few generations had passed. And now returning to a conventional war and winning was impossible, the UN had taken care of that. That much everyone who had read some of the long and bloody history of his country knew. What they didn't know, of course, was that the war kept raging. There had never been a peace treaty signed, only a truce.\n\nAs he stepped outside, he saw an assortment of exotic people, none which could communicate verbally with him. Of course, this was only the beginning of the last war. But this war wasn't fought with weapons, no. They had outgrown such a barbaric method of war long ago.\n\nThe people back home didn't know about this, but he'd been briefed by a friend working in the emigration service. As soon as he knew about this, he signed up and got started. The deal was that he'd go to the enemy country, get married, get citizenship, have children, have possessions and die peacefully. He'd become a citizen of the enemy, working for them, paying taxes and voting every election year. But he'd receive a payment. Not enough to get rich but enough to afford a bonus. A vacation with his family, or a new computer for his son. And in exchange, he'd lobby. He'd be a teacher, teaching students how their country had started the war and been in the wrong in the first place. His children would grow and work and change their educational system, letting changes be more profound.\n\nOnce the time came, the two countries would be equal in all but name, and his grandchildren would lobby for a referendum. To join and grow.\n\nAnd finally, his country would annex the enemy, finally and forever. The eternal war would end, even if nobody remembered why it started. The Cultural War would be the war to end all wars.", "Like the last flicks of a fluttering, failing candle the beginning of the end is near. It's only a matter of time. He is at my mercy.\n\nI know not why, how or even when it started. Years, decades, centuries, millenia, *eons* have gone by since the conflict started. \n\nI know it's tempting to call it senseless killing. To say the conflict had no point or purpose simply because we forgot all together why we started fighting. But doesn't that make it even more important to continue? Shouldn't we stay the course and see the actions finished? To finalize it all with victory? Otherwise, what has been the point of it all? By giving up, wouldn't we be damning the lives of the generations before us?\n\nWithout one side dead, and other other living, the thousands of years that have passed would be for *nothing.* \n\nThe death of Earth, the colonization of Mars and other planets beyond our solar system, all have been due to our desire to destroy the Other. If we give in now, if we sign a peace treaty and live in harmony, it would make everything we've sacrificed a waste.\n\nWe've come too far, and so have they. \n\nEven now, amidst the last two remnants of our two species, old hatreds kindle and burn like a rampant forest fire. I see in his eyes that he hates me, a feeling easy for me to reciprocate. We have an understanding, he and I. I know if our position were reversed he would show me no mercy.\n\nYou might be tempted to say I have a choice, to say I can give it all up and and spare him--*it*--and moved past the conflict. To be the bigger man.\n\nAll those who passed before me, they watch -- from heaven, hell or wherever they are -- they watch as I hold him captive under the iron sights of my gun. They watch with eager intensity, waiting for me to pull the trigger, waiting with eager anticipation for a thousand pound weight to be lifted from their shoulders.\n\nThe canyon echos, the gunshot reverberates a thousand times and relives a moment thousands of years in the making like instant replay. With one final movement, one final action--*the movement of my finger*--I make all of our deaths worthwhile. I make all of *their* deaths in vain. \n\nThe blood pools from what's left of his head as it pools from the gaping wound in my stomach. I watch as the red dust of Mars soaks up our life blood greedily.\n\nHis candle has been snuffed and mine is waning, a whisper would extinguish it. But we have won, if only by a single minuscule thread. \n\nOur purpose is just. Our cause, whatever it was, sound. And our species, stronger.\n\nI lay my head back and relax as the feeling begins to fade from my arms and legs. I shall die in one life a hero to be born in another a legend. A smile spreads across my face, my ancestors await me in the afterlife with open arms.\n\n-----\n\n(*If you like my writing, check out prompt responses and other pieces at nickblakeslee.com )*" ]

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

[ "1407699525", "1407700923", "1407706263", "1407708649", "1407711308", "1407691652" ]

[ "I appreciate the effort put in to submit a prompt, but I can't get behind this one or others like it. You could have a prompt such as, \"Write about a newborn's first words\", and that'd be fine. I feel like OP as well as others, have an idea about a specific story and then generalize it to a prompt when it's really more suited to a specific instance of a prompt.", "She was our first. After a long, though enjoyable, two years of trying to have a child we finally did it. And she was beautiful. The most perfect creation I'd ever seen. Ashley. My little baby girl. And she didn't even cry.\nIt wasn't until she was a few months old that we began to worry about the too quiet nights and the fact that she never cried. The doctors jokingly told us we were blessed but my wife slapped me On the arm the first time I chuckled. Even after they pinched her to try and make her cry she wouldn't make a peep. \nSusan, my wife, cried herself to sleep for a month after she heard that our daughter would not be able to speak. When she finally came to terms with it one night, I pulled a small box of books out of the closet and set it on the bed next to my ladies. Susan looked a bit puzzled but still excited to find out what it was. I began to move my hands as I struggled to recall the sign for \"gift\". I opened the box and held out a book for learning sign language. She began to tear up but managed a smile and a very soft \"Thank you.\" \nI wiped a tear from her cheek, kissed her forehead and hugged her firmly as we both looked on our child that she held, cradled in her arms. \"Everything will be okay. I love you. \"\nOver the next fifteen years my wife and I mastered sign language but Ashley seemed to never even try. She wasn't defiant or difficult and never threw a tantrum. She just wouldn't sign. Instead she'd sit quietly and watch us wave our hands, forming the words, as we spoke them. We never forced her or became upset but I could see the wear in her mother's face. All the time she'd put into trying to talk with her daughter only to get a nod or shake of the head as a response. Every few months she would ask me why she wouldn't talk to her and I would tell her \"Because she can't speak. \"\nI always caught a dirty look for that one.\nAshley and I had our own ways of communicating; I'd ask simple yes or no questions so she could answer in her preferred manner. When I told her a joke, no matter how stupid, I'd look to see if she smiled. The bigger the smile, the better the joke. But usually I just talked her ears off while she listened to whatever I was saying. No matter how trivial it was, she always listened. \nThings were good. And then they became better. Susan was pregnant.\nWe were torn as to whether or not we wanted to know the gender. I said I didn't care as long as it was healthy. She said she wanted a boy. We were going to see. \nAfter sitting in the waiting room for what seemed like hours we went in. The doctor seemed a bit confused at the images on the screen. \"Is everything okay?\" Susan asked.\n\"Yeah. Yeah. It just looked for a second like there was a gun. Weird.\"\n\"A gun? That is weird. \" I said \n\"Is the machine bro...\" Susan's words were cut off by amuffled explosion. \nBlood started to pour from her ears as screaming began in her stomach. No. It wasn't screaming. It was laughing. Horrible, maniacal laughter. Another bang and the doctor clutched his stomach. \n\"I've been shot!\"\nI looked towards my wife's lifeless body as a tiny hand clawed its way through her skin. A bloody infant wielding a .44mag grunted his way out and with his free, bloody hand wiped the blood from his face. He looked me dead in the eye the raised his gun, taking aim at the doctor's face, \"Boom! Headshot!\" As he pulled the trigger killing his target. \n\"Ninety-nine more of those before I leave the hospital and I get that achievement. The replay value in these has went way up since they added achievements. \" One more squeeze on the trigger and the room was clear.", "I look at my wife in horror as she screams bloody murder, \"Just keep pushing honey, you're nearly there!\" \n\nMy wife eyes me like a heathen looking for pray, \"Shut up John!\" She screams. \n\nThe doctor turns to me, \"I think you should step back from Donna for a little bit, She's in high tension right now and is quite irritable.\" \n\nI do as instructed and remove myself from in front of my wife to the back of the hospital room. I can hardly watch my wife in pain like this, I feel pity for her. Why do women go through so much pain in child birth? Maybe she should have gotten a c-section, I've hurt those hurt a hell lot less than natural. \n\nI continue to ramble my thoughts until I hear a voice, \"Sir the baby's here.\" \n\n\"The baby's here!?\" I run up to my wife and see the look of relief on her face. The people grab the baby and begin to wash her, when they're done they return her to my wifes arms.\n\nMy wife looks at her for a moment then me, \"Isn't she beautiful John?\" \n\nBefore I can get a word out the baby jumps up to it's feet, \"Shut up bitch, now tell me why I'm on a level I've already played?\" \n\nMy wife screams, I jump, and the doctor and nurses gasp at the newborns movement and speech. \n\n\"Just what the hell are you a demon?!\" My wife exclaims. \n\nThe baby grins like freddy krueger, \"I'm your worst nightmare until you tell me what's going on and how to pass this level!\"\n\nMy wife then punches the baby off the bed, she goes flying then hits the wall, her head explodes and covers the wall and the floor beneath her. \n\nThe words **Game Over** appear over the scene. \n\n\"Dammit, I lost again. I can never seem to dodge the mothers death punch in time. I guess I'll try again.\"\n\n\n... That was slightly disturbing, I don't know how I feel about this. It's 2:22 here and I'm loopy as fu, sooo yeah. ", "It took him a few months to get his motor skills together. It always did.\n\n\"Dammit, I've played this level before!\"\n\nI held my son close. I had been here before too. Like father like son, trapped in the never-ending cycle. Of course, sometimes he wasn't even born. Sometimes I died too soon. Sometimes I couldn't find a woman that could deal with my life. Sometimes I couldn't deal with a woman that could.\n\n\"Yes, son. I know. We all know. Your father. Your father's father. And I know I've told you this before. And I'll probably tell you this again. The cycle is vicious.\"\n\nIt's hard to look at your own son with a thousand yard stare. Had anyone ever broken the cycle? My father and my grandfather I could still remember. They were alive when I was his age. They had the same affliction.\n\nMy son, like myself, seemed to be convinced it was a game. Maybe it was. That seemed like the most likely explanation. Keep repeating the level till you figure out how to move on. Of course, neither of us had any idea how to move on. If we could. What was the goal? Whatever sick monster was putting us through this... it felt like it was beyond our control. We suffered in ways that the rest of the world didn't seem to understand. I had been a detective. My son had apparently lives to deal with some kind of zombie apocalypse. My father was a soldier. My grandfather was an admiral.\n\n\"Don't worry son. We'll get out of this mess. Some day... some how...\"\n\n", "We’d been married for six long years and had all along resisted the pressure to have a child. We finally realized that we were ready and after another nine months of wait it was the doomsday. It had been normal all along and the doctor had predicted a regular no-hassle delivery. So, we were all in the birthing suite with the doctor and the nurses who were as enthusiastic as ever and me and my husband being excited, scared, and confused.\n\nOur son came into this world without creating any problem for anyone. After the routine procedures, one of the nurses handed me our son and it was the most memorable moment of our lives. And then it happened. Our son slowly opened his eyes, soon after which the expression on his face changed. He looked at me and my husband with surprise and said “Dammit! I’ve played this level before. But, what the heck! This has been the best level I’ve ever played and will never get bored no matter how many times I play it.” Having said this, he just slept. All of us in the room were stunned and could not fathom what just happened. It took us a while to gather our collective thoughts and we decided to brush it off and never talk about it with anyone outside the room.\n\nIt’s been ten summers since our son was born. We decided to celebrate his tenth birthday at a wonderful beach resort. We took a week off from work and headed to the resort. The employees of the resort were wonderful and put a lot of effort to make the celebrations a grand success. The day after the birthday, we were just resting on the beach and our son was running around playing in the sand and collecting seashells. He then found a strange looking seashell and came running to us to show it. We’d never seen anything like that before. It was amber in color and had a glow. Just as we were enjoying its beauty, our son said something we’ll never forget for the rest of our lives. He said “This is what I’ve been looking for all these years. This completes the level and it’s time to head to the next level. You’ve made this level as good as ever and I hope I get to play it again.” With that, he ran towards the sea holding the seashell, jumped into the water. There was a flash of light where he jumped and he just disappeared. ", "The only noise in the operating room was the experienced mother's frantic breaths and her heart's vocalized pulse, courtesy of a nearby EKG.\n\nStunned, the husband looked from the baby, to the doctor, to his wife, to the baby, to the doctor, so on and so forth, until his gaze locked permanently on to his new son.\n\nThe mother, who, already had two children prior and was accustomed to delivering by now, was catching her breath finally but still struggling to make sense of the baby's perfectly articulated, slightly crass first words.\n\n\"Did... Did he just say... 'Dammit, I've played this level before'?\"\n\nThe doctors and his slew of various nurses remained silent, their bloodstained gloves shaking almost off of their once steady hands.\n\n\"... Perhaps it was a burp?\", blurted one of the less bright nurses.\n\nThe father whipped his gaze to the unfortunate delivery room assistant. \"A burp?\", he asked, rage for the inexplicable in his voice. \"Did that sound like a burp? Did that perfectly enunciated exclamation sound like a burp to you? I'm not sure you've burped recently, but that,\" he now shook violently, \"that was no burp.\"\n\n\"What even is a 'video game'?\" asked the mother, her breath slowly evening out.\n\nAt this no one could even wager a guess.\n\nEventually, however, as the baby refused to utter anything else of eccentric origin, the incident was forgotten and its life resumed a more normal path. He received a normal upbringing and lived a life that would have never incited curiosity in those he interacted with.\n\nWell, never, until he took up the Call of Duty and miraculously eliminated hundreds if not thousands of soldiers representing the Nazi army in such a manner akin to a one man killing machine.", "He could see the first streaks of light, like the loading screen before another new level. With his unbridled excitement, he waited to reach this level finally and felt himself squeezed through, getting closer to the light slowly. While his descent, he thought about the long time he has been in this cozy warm place, heard all the bodily sounds. And the distance mumblings. It was finally time to start this new chapter and he was psyched!\n\nFew minutes into it and he started feeling the pressure on his head and finally with a plop his head was out!\nHis eyes trying to focus through the blinding brightness and the wet goo over his eyes. Finally the moment has arrived, when he could see! But wait... No this cannot be.. This has to be mistake. He was mortified. He had played this level before, he had been here. And he hated this particular level!\n\n\nHis mind went numb for a few seconds. And then, with all the rage he could muster, he screamed, \"Dammit, I've played this level before! How the fuck do I restart this thing! All this wait for so long! I imagined this would be something new and wonderful and you give me the same old piece of garbage! God dammit, I want a new fucking level! Right fucking now!\" he kept on screaming at everyone he saw. Just so someone would understand his anguish.\n\n\nBut strangely, all he saw was everyone smiling at him. \"What the hell is wrong with you people!\", he screamed some more.\n\n\nSuddenly, he felt a bump near his lips and some old primitive reflex kicked in and he started suckling on this bump. Next thing he knew, he was feeling drowsy. His eyes were getting heavier. He could not make a coherent thought.\n\nHe then remembered the old prophecy and it echoed in his head, \"Do not drink the white drug. No one ever has made it to the other side. Do not drink the white drug and you will prevail. You will rule them all. Your destiny is in your hand.\"\n\n*Too late now, he thought, I have fallen through the old trick too and will lead a life of a common man with no memory of this past life...*\n\nThe atmosphere is the hospital room was a cheerful one. Everyone was happy, the baby boy was a healthy 3 lbs. He came out crying and latched on to the nipple in one go. This was as smooth a delivery as there can be. And thus, the secret lives of babylandians remained hidden from the world.", "For the first couple years of his life my son seemed like any other child. He seemed to learn through failure and repetition as most of us, if not all of us do. It was when he finally began to speak that it became apparent he was different. His first sentence, “what’s for breakfast?” not only shocked us due his use of contraction and the conciseness of the question itself, but was strangely familiar. It was as if he was speaking to a friend, rather than his parents. My wife and I did our best not to react with shock or judgment because the look in his eyes was that of expectation; there was nothing blank in this expression at all. As parents we did our best to nurture critical thinking and reason, and to not respond with incredulity towards our son, this was quite the test. It was only moments later that he said “do we have any berries? Some fruit sounds pretty good.” This time we could not hide our shock. We weren’t horrified by any means, it was more worry than anything. Quickly, irrational thoughts came to mind: “Is he autistic? Some kind of idiot savant? No - he has been totally normal up to this point…\"\n\nHe realized my hesitation, “I’m sorry, I don’t know how else to explain this, and I know you are expecting me to struggle as I learn to speak, but I already know everything you’ve tried to teach me… well except a few things. I didn’t know much about computers last time around. Actually, thanks for not treating me like some kind of small disabled human this past year and a half.” \n\nMy wife was utterly speechless, I can’t imagine how she felt having given life to and nursed what now seemed to be such an alien yet still profound part of her. \n\nAll I could mutter was, “How…can you… speak like…well, like an adult?” I always held the goal of treating any children I might have, well all children actually, like they were tiny adults. I suppose that was the only reason I had been able to form a half coherent sentence; I had been talking to him like this, more or less, since he was born.\n\n“Well…” he said, “I guess the best way to describe this is that I’ve simply lived another life… before this one. It’s kind of like a dream, actually. I know certain details, and others are foggy - but the rudimentary stuff: speech, thought, math, reading - I know. Actually I had been waiting for my mouth and tongue to develop before speaking at all. I knew that I couldn’t pretend to learn to speak, to learn numbers, the alphabet, to read, all over again without going crazy. Strangely I don’t remember the details of my old life, for lack of a better word. I don’t ever know what my name was, but I do like Dimitri - it’s a good name I think. I know this is probably freaking you out right now, and you should know I’ve been thinking about what to say for the past few months. I might have overdone it a bit now that I think about it, but I know that I couldn’t bullshit the both of you for too long either.”\n\nI had thought about this before, what it would be like to grow up with the knowledge acquired from a previous life. I had read it somewhere… one of the Dune books I think. Logically I had dismissed the idea as an interesting thought experiment at best. I didn’t believe in the afterlife after all. \n\nMy wife on the other hand was more of a spiritual person, which is why I think she was able to ask “How…should we treat you?”\n\n“You two have done better than I was expecting, to be honest. I was never a parent and I always figured having a child would be the most tedious and annoying set of responsibilities one could imagine… but I never felt that from either of you. I’ve been thinking about how to respond to a question like this… I guess all I can really say is think of me as more of a friend than a child… if that’s possible.”\n\nMy wife’s eyes started to well up, I could hardly blame her. I tended towards stoicism whenever anyone around me cried, not out of bravery rather more of a long learned coping mechanism from my own childhood. Dimitri immediately noticed our reactions.\n\n“Oh I didn’t mean it like that - I know I am your son, and honestly I really, really like the both of you. I love you both actually, but not in the blind way a child loves a parent regardless of quality; the blind love that can persist through abuse and neglect. No, I love you both for exactly what you have done and for the respect and responsibility you have shown towards me. I know this is hard to swallow, but I think you’ll get used to it soon…after all we will be able to talk about quite a few more things now.”\n\nDespite the pitch of his voice Dimitri’s tone was mature and developed, his words held an irony, a gentle sarcasm, that made me smile even though my face was too paralyzed to show it. He himself held the faintest of smirks.\n“You know I’ll always see you as my son…”, my wife said.\n\nI nodded, ”Me too”, even though I knew it would probably be a bit easier for me to eventually see him as his own individual. I knew he already saw me as such. It had taken me about 25 years to see my parents and individuals and not ‘parents’. \n\n“I understand, and so far that’s worked out really well”, Dimitri smiled - the smile of a toddler who doesn’t quite know what he’s smiling at, although in this case I knew better.\n\nI had to ask. Fuck it, I thought, I’m going to roll with this, one-hundred percent. \n\n“Why did you ask ‘whats for breakfast?’ as your… first words. To us at least.”\n\nDimitri laughed - a child’s laugh still, in pitch and timbre, but also a laugh of knowing what the humor is.\n“Should I have said, ‘Father, Mother, we must have words’?”\n\nThe three of us laughed. Dimitri went on to explain that he thought it was a funny way to broach the subject and also the only way he could think of. We agreed that we couldn’t think of a better way.\n\nWe ate breakfast in silence, each of us taking the time to gather ourselves. I would later learn that this first conversation was a source of severe stress and anxiety for Dimitri. He pointed out that for a while he was worried that we would take him to doctors or shrinks, that we would commit him somewhere, but that eventually, based on how we had treated him up until then, we were “as ready as they’d get”.\n\nOne day, a couple years later, I found him playing Super Mario Bros. 3 on the Nintendo I kept hooked up alongside the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. I didn’t own a modern console, being mostly PC gamer when I had the time. I watched him start from the beginning, world 1-1. Without hesitation he jumped up on the white box platform, held down for a few seconds, fell behind it and ran behind the foreground of the level.\n\n“Hey how did you know how to do that?!”, I asked confusedly but immediately realizing what his response would be. It was always his response anytime I forgot about his peculiar situation.\n\n“Did you forget again? I’ve played this level before, dammit!”\n\nEdit: Formatting, grammar\n", "For nine months, all throughout Jennifer’s pregnancy, I had been told the same thing. “That moment,” people said, “when you look down and see your child for the first time. It will change you forever.” \n\nNothing, people said, will ever be the same.\n\nI had nodded when I heard this, accepted it without thinking about it much. Of course that’s true, I thought. Obviously.\n\nBut until now, until this moment when I stand here in the birthing room and my wife, tired and haggard with the ordeal, smiles at me through tears, and cradles that tiny form to her breast, until now I had only been nodding along. Until now I had no idea.\n\nThe baby was small and squirming and purple as a bruised fruit. I could not believe that such a thing had come out of Jennifer. Had come from Jennifer and *me*. All the years, all the dreams, all the hopes dashed and hopes fulfilled, since that crucial day in college when we’d both accepted an offer of a ride to Boston for Thanksgiving break from the same Xeroxed sheet tacked up in the student union. \n\nYes, children, that was how we did it in those days.\n\nAll the miles of that drive, down I-93 through sleet and rain, while the driver—who turned out to be something of a douche—blathered on about the band he was getting together and Jennifer and I bonded by rolling our eyes at each other. And all the years since then, graduating college, and moving to the city together, and starting out in our careers. And the time Jennifer got sick and I prayed, for the first time in years, for God, or the Universe, or the Great Whoever to give her back to me. And the time I simply could not go into that office and do that soulless, mindless, deadening job for one more day and Jennifer said, “Quit, babe. Quit today. Quit right now. Find what makes you happy.”\n\nAnd all the years when we had tried to have a child. But month after month, no baby had come, until that awful day, in the doctor’s office when we had been given the news. It wasn’t going to happen for us. It was *never* going to happen for us. \n\nAnd then, finally, shockingly at our age, just when we had irrevocably given up hope, the medical miracle. The thing we had wanted for so long, the thing for which we had hoped and dreamed and prayed.\n\nWe were going to have a baby.\n\nAll those years, all those things, have all come together in this one, singular, spectacular moment as I stand, crying, shaking, staring down at this tiny, terrifying, fragile, mewling, perfect little being. \n\n“Babe, meet your son,” Jennifer says. She is crying and I am crying and she hands the baby to me and I take him up. So gently. He is so soft and small and delicate and I think, right then and there, that there was nothing I will not do, nothing I will not endure, no sacrifice I will not make, no crime I will not commit, to protect him, and her, for as long as I have breath in my lungs. \n\n“Hello there, little man,” I say.\n\nAnd that’s when I hear the voice. \n\nIt is not a baby’s voice. It is not a man’s voice either. It’s something else, some horrible amalgam. Something not quite human. Raspy and breathy and filled with spite. \n\n“What the hell? I already played this level.”\n\nAt first, of course, I think that it is my mind playing tricks on me. I laugh. I turn to my wife, saying, “You’re not going to believe what I thought I just heard.”\n\nBut then I see it—a shocked and stricken look. Her face frozen in horror. And looking around the room, I see it in the face of the doctor, in faces of the nurses. \n\nThey heard it, too.\n\nI look at the child. Small and wrinkled, squirming, twisting in my arms. His eyes, wide open and staring. Angry. Very angry. These are not the eyes of a baby. \n\n“Jesus Christ,” my son says. “I already played this level. How the fuck do I restart this thing?”\n\nThey were right, of course, in the end. All those people who told me. All those busy-bodies with their helpful hints.\n\nNothing is ever going to be the same. \n", "The baby was born premature. Not a cry, not even a whimper. The doctors have placed him in an incubation unit to monitor his vitals. He hasn't even opened his eyes yet. \n\nDays passed. Finally the child woke up with tubes going through him and yells \"Dammit, I've played this level before!\"\n\nThe nurse screams and leaves the room. By the time the doctors and parents enter the room there are no signs of the baby. It's like he vanished into thin air. \n\n8 months later, miles across the country another baby was born premature. This time, right when he came out he said \"Are you fucking kidding me? This respawn system is shit in this game. Im done.\" \n\nThe baby froze in place and an \"attempting to reconnect\" sign flashed above his head. Seconds later, \"poof\", he vanished. The doctors decided never to talk about this again. ", "Madelyn Heart’s new baby stared at her with an adult anger that almost made her drop the little girl on the hospital floor.\n\n“W-what…” she gaped, looking to her husband for assistance. His mouth was open in a silent scream. \n\n “A glitch!” the baby screamed, and began crying. The words had a strong British inflection, as if the baby had lived there her entire life, instead of having just emerged from a woman in a small American town. Her parents simply stared. Any words that might have formed shriveled and died in their throats. \n\n“I wasn’t supposed to spend more than a lifetime on this shrunken excuse of a planet,” the baby hissed through her tears. “I can’t take it again…gods, the utter *boredom*. No decent magic system, no powers, nothing but greed and petty squabbling. Worst level of my life! You will fix it. You must return me to the safe point.” \n\n“Safe point,” Evan Heart repeated, his voice dazed. “I’m dreaming. This is a fucking dream. Playing games until 3AM, of course this is what I’d dream about…”\n\nHis baby stared coldly up at him, her large blue eyes possessed of an unnatural sharpness and intelligence. \n\n“I haven’t the time for this,” she snapped. “I’m afraid I must break in-game protocol for this. I simply will not endure another second in this pit-stain of the cosmos. My enemies must have engineered this as some attempt to foil my assent to the highest level. Well, they won’t succeed on *my* watch. Return me now.”\n\nMadelyn heard herself reply to her daughter, as if this was a rational conversation. *You are insane*, some small part of her mind informed her sagely. “And how do we do that?”\n\nThe baby rolled her eyes, and sighed. She wiggled in Madelyn’s arms for a better view at her parent’s faces. “Kill me, of course. Morons.”\n\nHer parents stared thoughtfully at her. Then Evan strode quickly forward, and broke the baby’s neck in one fluid movement. The baby died with a sigh of relief. Evan and Madelyn stared at each other, their memories of the past ten minutes a blank.\n\nThen they looked at the small corpse in puzzlement, their minds still in the grip of a direct command from the alien species that had inhabited it a minute ago. \nOn a distant planet, something opened its eyes. It stared up in fury at the laughing face of one of her enemies.\n\n“If you thought that childish trick did your faction any good,” she said, coming briskly to her feet. “You are sorely mistaken.”\n\n“It bought time,” her opponent smirked. “We trapped you on the Earth level for longer than the passage between death and life…we trapped you for the entire nine months humans spend in their mother’s bellies.”\n\nThe implications of the statement hung between them, and the alien stared in horror at her enemy. “You *rigged* the game,” she whispered. “Impossible.”\n\n“Difficult, but not impossible, actually. And now we have a head start. Have fun on Venus, asshole. We’re off to the next solar system.” \n\n", "\"Push!\" Screams of agony and the smell of blood filled the room. \n\n\"I can see a head!\" A last wail of pain was to be heard and then just exhausted breathing. The cry of her first son was seen as a delightful noise compared to all the ones preceding it.\n\nThe sound following the ones typical for a hospital wasn't. \n\n\"Dammit!\" \n\n\"Carla!\", the doctor seemed indignant.\n\n\"That wasn't me.\", the nurse with curly black hair defended herself. \"My voice isn't that high.\"\n\n\"Who was it then?\" He shook his head at that woman. Completely useless as he found. \"Hand me the baby and a scalpel.\" \n\"Yes..\" A few moments of silence followed. \"Doctor? Where exactly *is* the baby?\" \n\nAs the mother opened her eyes she screamed again. This time though not of pain. Those screams were of pure horror. \n\nHer child had stood up and now slowly walked towards her, leading himself by the umbilical cord. \"I've played this level before.\" The same voice from before left his bloody mouth. \"Gonna restart.\" \n\nAnd with that he left the world through the same door he had entered it in.\n\nEDIT: thank you so much for my first gold! " ]

[ 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 6, 17, 20, 30, 41, 96, 482 ]

[ "1407706416", "1407712913", "1407712928", "1407700398", "1407706659", "1407697412", "1407697357", "1407697515", "1407695116", "1407695970", "1407690976", "1407689274" ]

[ "The year 2017 saw two architectural crumblings. In the East, the Blue House, a fiery explosion consumed the Republic of Korea's seat of power under mysterious circumstances. In the West, a tidal wave overcame Fort Roughs.\n\nIn response to the former, a united South Korean, American, and Japanese invasion saw to an end of the DPRK regime. With the bombing of the Blue House, DPRK leadership had drawn the collective condemnation of the global community--even the Chinese dared not to interfere in the violent reunification of the peninsula.\n\nA united Korean election saw every major post occupied by former ROK politicians. The Seventh Republic continued rapid economic growth by way of subsidizing export industries--the Chaebols, gigantic multinational conglomerates that dealt in everything from ramen to rocketry. Truth is, discontent among the common folk against the unholy marriage of government and these corporate titans had long been festering since the previous century. The country already had a penchant for a despotic demagogue when the coup came.\n\nPark Jung-Soo of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, DPRK's clandestine operations arm, was one of the first North Korean soldiers to turn against DPRK leadership when the invasion came. Through his surrender, he was able to save the lives of his men and likely millions of North Korean lives. More importantly, through his betrayal he preserved his rank--as a four-star general in the newly created Federal Republic of Korea Armed Services.\n\nIn the summer of 2022, a massive typhoon laid waste to the Southern tip of the Korean peninsula. A deeply ineffectual Korean government was slow to respond; the all-powerful Chaebols had little economic interest in the area, which further rendered government aid ineffective. Dubbed JSP by the relatively poorer folk in this region, Park mobilized the Eighth Army--then the smallest division and under Park's command--to aid the poor. Thus began his meteoric rise to power.\n\nThe first strike came in Guangju, a city historically known for its activist bent nested in the Southern breadbasket of Korea. Here, Park was able to establish a firm stronghold, in addition to his native North Korean supporters. At first the rebellion seemed a minor incident, without a hint of Park's involvement but its rapid expansion led the FRK leadership to deploy the First and Third Armies. A second rebellion quickly sprung up, predictably, from the capital of the former North Korea, Pyongyang. Though the contemporary consensus pointed it to criminal elements as the instigators of these revolts, later it became known that these agent provocateurs were ex-RGB jackals. FRK government proceeded to deploy the Fifth Army and the IV Corps to Pyongyang, leaving the defense of Seoul to 56th and 88th Divisions. Meanwhile, the Eastern coast remained quiet.\n\nIn March 2023, Park, stationed in Gapyeong, a military base less than 50 km from downtown Seoul, staged a coup with the loyal Eighth Army. He promptly arrested the Korean president Kim Chung-sam, in addition to 230 parliamentarians, all of them South Koreans. In the coup, 565 current and former politicians and soldiers were summarily executed according to a blacklist apparently prepared a decade ago. In a torrent of bloodshed, the 1st and 3rd Armies were disbanded and Park's rebel supporters became boots on ground for the new Park administration. The Seventh Republic was thus ended--Park seized control of all state apparatus under the banner of United People's Republic of Korea.", "Thousands of people thought it was a joke, but my father and I were the only ones who took Prince Michael's call to arms seriously. We landed on the coast of France, behind enemy lines and just outside the Principality's reach. We received our certificates declaring our entry to the Order of the Knights of Sealand nearly two years before the fighting erupted for the slim price of £120. It was our job to keep our liege lord safe, we understood what we signed up for. The Principality of Sealand is a fortress like no other. It's like owning Madagascar in a game of Risk. We will never give up, we will never surrender.\n\nOur orders are specific: Find and terminate Admiral Jaedong and General Flash of the United Korean Army. Prince Michael is attempting to win the war with some annoying League of Legends player named Snoopeh, but only a real veteran understands how childish LoL is compared to StarCraft. Our secondary assignment is to find the King of Wings, but no one has seen the man in years. \n\nMay NesTea watch over you, brave soldier. " ]

[ 2, 5 ]

[ "1407781687", "1407756829" ]

[ "Years before this, I kept a set of tungsten baoding balls on my desk. A gift from my wife when things were better, before our fights about money, misspent time and our dead bedroom. I'd kept them on display, occasionally glancing at them for an easy distraction from work, not quite appreciating their value. \n\nWhen things were rough at the office, I'd pull them out, grasping at the cold tungsten with my degrading fine motor skills, feeling my age creep up ever so quickly. Tungsten in hand, I could concentrate solely on the flexing and unflexing of my muscles, in a clumsy attempt to move my aging tendons. At first, it was easy to become distracted by the clutter of unfinished work, the ache in my neck, the hum of fluorescent lights, the whine from my computer and the noise pollution outside my half-hazardly drawn blinds. Over time, I found that I could ignore all that and focus my attention on those barely imperceptible metallic echoes. Leaning back in my chair, eyes closed, tungsten in hand I could find tranquility and with it a little bit of my disappearing sanity. \n\nA voice draws me from the void: \"Chief, we've got a report of three gobs over at McIllhenny park.\" \n\nI open my eyes, sitting up, while my hand continues it circular task. Slowly, the noise of the office comes back into my listening range, but for now it stays at the fringe of my hearing.\n\n\"Thanks for the notification, McCrillis, I'll choose today's squad.\" The officer's dull eyes, light up for a brief moment at my words and then return to their native dullness.\n\nDoors closed. Blinds drawn. I look around furtively, scanning for any opening. I see none and bring my hand over my desk and quickly open my palm. Tungsten dice clatter onto the metal desk. 2, 5, 6.\n\nI mutter aloud, speaking to nobody, \"Fortune's Favor\". Reaching down I pick up the first die, and quickly reroll it. 1. \n\nMy heart quickens. As I stand up, I can feel blood rushing to every corner of my body and a familiar warmth takes me. \n\nPicking up my badge and firearm. I open the door, as my voice cuts through the noise: \"McCrillis, Wall! Let's go. I'm running point.\" ", "The first two weeks were rough. The attack on the Starbucks killed three and could have been much worse if an off duty cop hadn’t been nearby with his firearm. We sent the creatures to the medical examiner, called in FBI and CDC. Nobody could identify them. Six days later, one goblin appears in the park. Kids went running in all directions. The woman who ran her car off the road and into the Gob was an absolute hero. The nearest officer was 15 minutes away.\n\nWe increased patrols, encouraged citizens to remain vigilant and even encouraged some people and business owners to carry weapons. We held weekly weapons training exercises at our station’s range and managed to minimize the accidental shootings, though they unfortunately sometimes occurred. \n\nThings went well for the next few months. Our town banded together, rose to the challenge, killed some Goblins. We saw an overall decrease in crime. People increased their volunteering and helped pick up the garbage on the streets. They voted in a new anti-Gob tax in November so we could fund more cops, though the truth was we didn’t need it.\n\nOf course, I knew the next problem was only a matter of time. We heavily encouraged people to not deal with the goblin corpses, to let the authorities handle them. I didn’t lie to the public, but I may have hinted that the Gobs were toxic, carried ebola or something. Looking back, I’m surprised we managed to keep a lid on the “booty” issue for five whole months.\n\nIt started with a few a-holes wearing armor and carrying swords, thinking they were in some sort of medieval quest. We tried to discourage them, tell them that taking on the goblins with swords was both dangerous and messy, but they kept trying. Finally, they got one. And of course, like any gamer, what did they do? They searched its pockets.\n\nThe truth was worse than any disease the goblins might have. The goblins carry gold. Two to five pieces of gold each, just sitting in their pockets, which at today’s prices can be worth thousands of dollars.\n\nAs soon as word of that spread, the vigilante goblin hunts began. Our town began forming roving bands of armed men trying to hunt the Goblins down. Even worse, we had gang members from Los Angeles drive in and take their shots, increasing our crime and making everyone less safe. Then some Silicon Valley investor tried to fund a hunting ring.\n\nIt turns out the vigilantes are worse for our town than the goblins. I want to re-enforce our restrictions on weapons, outlaw any private citizen hunting goblins and jail some of these gangs who try to make a quick buck out of our town’s curse. But of course, every time I think I have that authority, 2 or 3 gobs show up in a park and scare some kids before they’re taken down by a private group. Voters won’t let me do what’s needed to keep us truly safe. I can’t win. ", "Who the heck sends them? The runts are a real problem. Some joker is really starting to get on my nerves.\n\nThe difficulty of course was not killing them. Goblins die easy to a kitchen knife, let alone a M15. They pop out covered in this medieval garb with their blades dripping green goop. The first three or four times, people were convinced it was a publicity stunt for the new Silmarillion film. \n\nAfter a few deaths of course things tend to change. The Americans had an easy solution in their guns. Us Brits had to adapt. At first we just ignored the endless debates about legality of killing the stupid things, and mounted small calibre lasers on our security cameras. They have a fairly distinctive signature you see. Sadly, our programmers failed to anticipate Halloween.\n\nNope. Not elaborating more, we've already heard far too much about little Johnny and his authentic goblin skin costume. Sadly, it gave PETA the ammunition they needed (no pun intended) to mount a legal attack on the lasers. Concerns about human rights, and governments using them on their citizens. \n\nI really hate political correctness. Sometimes, I swear we are our own worst enemies. We tazer them now. Tazer them and drag their convulsing tiny forms to the cells. You thought we were short on prison space before? \n\nMost of my work nowadays is shutting down the illegal fighting rings. People don't feel half as bad setting gobbos on each other as they did about dogs. The runts actually seem to enjoy it! \n\nIf the boffins ever work out how they get here, I'm volunteering for the military on the spot. As it is, I have an inspection to do on the new cells. When will I ever escape the cursed clutches of paperwork?" ]

[ 1, 14, 15 ]

[ "1407894549", "1407862808", "1407855866" ]

[ "As he stepped up to the mic, he began to shake. Psyched out of his mind, in a bad way. He's done it ten times, yet the jitters still fly. \n\nHe did not ever resent his abnormality. Rather, he embraced it in totality. For it was the source of this wisdom, his genuine charisma, and his deep love for his wife. Who's at home in bed, with her head phones in.\n\nElected at 35, and going on 46, term limits were waived by all constituents. Everyday he is amazed at how he is able to make world a better place. \n\nHe is the only person alive that will eventually die. He wonders if his wife will follow his advice, and move on toward the end of his life. He's read about what old people used to be like. It was not a nice read. He didn't sleep that night.\n\nThe camera lights turn on with the mic. The prompter slowly scrolls, and he begins to deliver what comes to be known as, \"The Speech of All Speeches.\" Within days of delivery, the world banded together in charity and peace. He was hailed as a hero.\n\nBut like any politician he was a liar and a cheat, whose superpower was the ability to hypnotize any one who hears his voice.", "\"It's what makes you, you\"\n\n\"When everyone is super, no one is\"\n\nBoth of those lines are bullshit. It's be 10 years. 10 years of everyone having these extraordinary powers, and some not so extraordinary. Even those people have something that makes them unique, but me? I have nothing. \n\nI mean, it'd be fine if I wasn't the only one like this, but I am. John Cursinger, the man who has a condensed knowledge of everything that happens at the current moment even said that every human has a power. Every human except me, he even felt the gusto to say I don't have any power. What a dick.\n\nNo one respects me, not even the people who have something useless like making and empty can of soda appear in front of them, trust me I've met a guy. I can barely get a job, there seems to be a person who can auto wash a floor or zap trash out of existence in every city I drift to. I've stopped even trying to make friends because once they finally ask about my power they look at me like I'm inferior, not human. All I can say is I'm glad it's gonna end soon.\n\nFeedback appreciated", "Gunfire and bank alarms yank me from sleep. It must be Thursday. Super powers don’t come with super empathy. The morning air is cold and damp, sun hidden behind unnaturally low and uniform clouds. Another day, another crime spree; approaching do-gooders already scream through the air. It’s time for me to move along.\n\nIt was a cold night under the glory of creation. Do the supers ever lie down and look at the sky? Cold bleeds through what clothing I own. You’d think it would be easy to keep the homeless population clothed when there’s only one. I stomp my feet, jumpstarting the warmth. The impacts counterpoint the explosions as someone breaches the vault. This happens so often I can dance to the rhythm.\n\nI don’t understand the people who don masks and fight crime. There are only marginally more of them than there are people who don masks and commit crime. It never goes well for any of them. The turnover rate is appalling. We all die, probably. Why seek it out?\n\nI stroll away from the growing scrum. Who needs the responsibility? Who needs the burden?\n\nOf course, there’s a downside; anything I can do, someone else can do better. That’s true of the supers too, but the disparity climbs several orders of magnitude when you’re the only one without superpowers.\n\nA crushing disappointment to my telepathic mother and teleporting father, they were relieved when I ran away. I didn’t run far. If they wanted to find me, they would’ve found me. I saw them steal an armored car once, mom controlling the driver, dad in the passenger seat. He was self-aware enough to look sheepish when I waved to him. I wonder if they’ve moved to greater things, like robbing banks, assassinating politicians, or protecting drug cartels. If they have, it’s not my problem. There’s literally nothing I can do to stop them.\n\nSchool was a nightmare. If they pick on the kid who can’t talk but can project his thoughts as holograms, what chance did I have? Instead of a diploma, I got a library card and enough isolation to use it. It’s amazing how much you can teach yourself when you’re constantly dodging ultra-violence.\n\nTires squeal on the damp pavement. The police have arrived. I smile and nod to the officers running through my park. I can read their powers in the cut of their uniforms and the set of their eyes. These are fast movers, heavy hitters, and indestructibles. The robbers will have their own storm troopers. I still have time to put buildings between myself and the coming Epic Showdown Between Good and Evil. How many of those men and women who looked right through me will die today? Just thinking about it makes me tired. But it’s their choice. They don the masks. They join the fight. They pay the consequences. That’s free will. Me, I didn’t have a choice. Even now, I feel the missing burden, the presence of absence, and it is glorious.\n\nSeveral blocks east, the clouds end like they’ve been planed. The sun peaks over the horizon, greeting me with more warmth than any super, as it does every day. The library isn’t open yet, but that’s alright. I’ll scrounge a meal from someone’s rubbish first. It’s going to be a good day, a good, normal day.\n", "Today is just another day… Just another day in my boring existence. I’ll walk to the office, I’ll be paid menial amounts of money for soul crushing work, I’ll eat the same boring lunch, probably ride the bus home because it’s supposed to rain… And then everything will repeat.\n\nWhy was I the only one to be born without a superpower? What did I do to deserve such a lame life? I’ve approached that question from every conceivable angle, and I’ve never found the answer. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop searching, but it does mean I’m getting a bit more depressed every day.\n\nBut… What if… What if my superpower IS normality? In this world, where everyone has some sort of ability, where people can fly, or lift objects with their minds, or control animals… What if MY superpower was to remember the human life? To be the average guy, the benchmark, the symbol of those other times?\n\n“Nope, horse shit, sorry guy” the man walking behind blurted out.\n\n“E…Excuse me?” \n\n“I can read minds. You’re wrong, you’re not super normal. You’re just unlucky. And before you start wondering, no, being unlucky isn’t your power either.”\n\n“How would you know? You can read minds, you don’t know the workings of the universe” I retorted. \n\n“No, but that guy over there does.” \n\nHe pointed up the street, to a guy leaning on a bus stop, who was watching our conversation.\n\n“And he’s looking at you, and he’s thinking ‘Fuck, man, bummer. That dude didn’t get a power. And his life is pretty shit. He’s gonna be pretty unhappy when he gets home and finds his dog dead’.”\n\nThe normal guy with no powers sunk to his knees, and dropped his hands into his face. He began to heave in great sobs, wondering at his cruel fate, and wishing he could do something about it.\n\n“Naw, man, I’m just messing with you. You’re dog’s probably fine. But you better get up, you’ll probably be late for work if you don’t keep walking.”", "The sign above the gym entrance read \"Annual Superpower Testing, 18+ Only\". Underneath, a line leading outside the door of impatient high-schoolers anxiously chattered amongst each other. Superpowers were acquired once one turned 18. Everyone waited for their moment to come. It was like receiving a car, or being able to vote, but even better. The whistle blew.\n\n\"NEXT!\" the man with the clipboard barked into the megaphone. A small redhead boy stepped up onto the makeshift stage, fidgety and nervous. \n\n\"Superpower?\" \n\n\"I can fly.\" In that instant, the boy rose up several inches from the ground. \n\n\"You'll be directed to Flying Academy and help pilot and maneuver aircraft.\" The teacher scribbled something onto the clipboard, then blew the whistle again.\n\n\"NEXT!\"\n\nI walked onto the stage, unsure of what to do next.\n\n\"Superpower?\"\n\n\"I've...I've got none, sir.\"\n\n\"You what?\"\n\n\"I don't have any.\" \n\n\"This ain't April Fools' Day, punk.\" He ran up to me and kicked me square in the chest, sending me back more than just a couple meters off the stage. \n\n\"Superpower? Don't waste my time.\" He looked down at me from the stage, gritting his teeth in anger. \n\n\"None,\" I replied. \"I never received a power.\"\n\nThe coach sighed and turned around, scribbling again in his clipboard.\n\n\"You'll be working as an apprentice under me, then.\" \n\n", "I was born different. \n\nEveryone in the world was born with it except for me. They don’t even remember that they have it.\n\nBut I remember. \n\nI remember when I wake up every morning and the sky is still dark. I remember every time I watch a sunset and only feel its warmth. I remember when I hold my child and only hear his cries. I remember when I tell my wife she’s beautiful and she smiles unbelieving.\n\nPeople think that they have to help me because I’m different. They’re “heroes” for helping me. As far as I’m concerned, I’m the normal one. \n\nThey just can’t see that.\n" ]

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

[ "1407908291", "1407908817", "1407968154", "1407902744", "1407904313", "1407903743" ]

[ "“You only have a few things to grab, right?” Jason said from the driver’s seat. His ’67 mustang is still the coolest thing to us, which he started driving in high school over 18 years ago. But even though it was his, and we had no real blood relation to each other, it belonged to us. Not to a single person, but the three of us - the brothers.\n\n“Yea, not much. Just a few things. After the three of us move in I will head back and get some more.” I replied from the back seat.\n\nSteven said from the passenger seat, “Sound like a plan. Remember to thank your mom for us later for dinner. And tell her I said thanks for last night.”\n\n“Hurr hurr hurr. You can tell your daddy that I said thanks.” I remarked.\n\n“What?” Steven said.\n\n“Shut your faceholes, we’re here” Jason said as we pulled up to my mother’s doublewide.\n\nHome. This was home. The open country, the pine trees, the long gravel roads, it was all coming back to me. My mother’s home sat on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere, constantly 20 years behind the times, at all times. She was already standing on the porch waiting for us.\n\n“Nicolas!” my mother exclaimed to me as the three of us got out of the car. \n\n“Hey mom. Thanks for getting dinner ready for us and all. I’m going to go ahead and grab the stuff before we eat.”\n\n“Sure, I will have food on the table in a few.” she said as she headed back into house.\n\nWas that limp in her steep? Nah, mom isn’t that old, but that is a lot of gray hair she has now. When did she get that? I just saw her, oh, when was it? Last year? No, maybe it has been a while. She’s looking awfully worn down.\n\n“Hey peter-breath, we are gonna go help your mom get stuff together.” Jason said walking into the house.\n\n“Okay, I’ll just be a minute.” I replied.\n\nThe inside of the house was just as I remembered it. The smells, the furniture, the…wait… I don’t remember so many empty spots on the wall. Mom always had pictures plastered everywhere; baby pictures of all the nieces and nephews, ball games, friends, family, everything. Where is that picture of me when…when I was what? What am I looking for? \n\nI lost my train of thought after I entered my room. I opened the sliding closet to my left and looked around. I just needed to grab some old instruments, old ball cards, and…a scrapbook? I bent down to take a look at it. Maybe this is where she moved most of the pictures. I opened it, expecting to see a ton of worn out polaroids and 3x5s. But, where are all the pictures? Seems to be a lot of blank pages? The scrapbook looks to be old enough. Why would she move all this stuff around? There I am in elementary and high school. Here I am going off to college, but what about…what about what? \n\nI put down the scrapbook next to me to discover a vhs tape underneath. I actually laughed out loud when I seen it. A vhs tape, ha. Most kids today wouldn’t know what to do with one of these. \n\nI picked it up and turned it around to read the label. Nothing. Wonder what’s on it?\n\nI bent around to look behind me to see if it was still there. Yep. Seventeen inches of pure glory with my face reflecting back at me. I crawled over to the tube TV like some kid watching Saturday morning cartoons. Of course the vhs player was still there. If mom wouldn’t have removed the TV, why would she remove the player? I plopped on my butt and stuck the tape in.\n\nHey that’s me! That’s me from…from when? I look older. Twenties? What was I doing in my twenties? Why is my chest starting to hurt? Just rub it out. Wow, I’m dressed pretty nice, really nice tux. That is a lot of food and nice stuff for a family reunion or something. I’m standing up from a table and…toasting? Why isn’t the audio working on this tape? I can’t hear any…there we go!\n\nThe TV blurted before cutting out again, “..coming out being with us today. This is been an absolutely perfect day, and Victoria and I owe it all to you guys for everything that you have done for us…”. \n\nWhat? Who…who is that? This looks like a…why am I standing next to her? God, my chest hurts. She looks beautiful. Who is that? Come on TV, give me sound! I began to beat on the TV and player, desperately needing to figure out what the hell I was watching.\n\nI see children laughing and playing in a green field, and I think they are laughing. Sound still isn’t back on. No, not a field. That is my mom’s place. Dear God my head is throbbing. I feel, anxiety? Why do I feel anxious? That’s Rory and he was 7. Who the hell is Rory? Who is the other kid? How do I know his name? Shit, I don’t feel good.\n\nThere she is again, Victoria. She looks so perfect. I remember that sun dress. What the hell? No I don’t. Who is filming this? Someone is setting the camera down. It’s me? I’m standing next to her now and…kissing? There is a ring on my ringer. I don’t remember any of this.\n\nI look down at my left hand. See, there is no ring on my…huh, I never noticed that. There is a worn indention in my finger. When the hell did that get there?\n\nI try to stand up but I can’t. Feels like I’m falling through the floor. I can’t see straight. The TV starts blaring children laughing.\n\n“Nicolas!” my mother screams as she runs into the room. \n\nJason and Steven are right behind her. Why do they look so white? They are sweating? It looks like they are scared.\n\n“Mom? What? Hey, you guys look like crap, you…” I try to say, but I feel a wave of nausea overcome me. I regain myself after a few seconds, but everyone is just standing around me. “What is going on?” I ask. “Why is there a tape of me getting married, and why are we at your place, mom, with kids? I don’t remember any of this? Is this some weird joke or something?”\n\nSteven took a deep breath, and began to speak.\n\n“You…Nicolas, I’m sorry man. You got into an accident. It was a fatal accident to everyone, except you.”\n\nSteven took another deep breathe to calm himself, but it was no good. He looked like a mess. Tears started running down his face and he had to set himself down on the floor. Jason stepped over to him and started talking to me.\n\n“You were married once. To Victoria, Steven’s sister. You guys hit it off after you meet in college, got married, and after a few years, had two kids. Then a trucking driver dozed off at the wheel and caused a head on collision, instantly killing Victoria and the kids. He also passed away later on in the hospital, but you, you lived.”\n\nNow Jason was starting to get a bit shaky. I can’t believe this. I was married? I had kids? It’s…it’s too much. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t reason. I hurt, oh God, I hurt. I was married. Victoria, I loved you.\n\n“You were in a coma for about 2 weeks, and when you woke up and learned the news, you couldn’t handle it. You went insane with rage, depression, anger, everything. We tried anything we could to help you, but nothing worked for months. In a last ditch effort that was a combination of drugs, surgery, and electroshock therapy that essentially erased your memory for the last 10 years or so.”\n\nI loved her. Victoria. It hurts. It hurts so much. I was happy. I was joyful. It’s all coming back to fast. I was robbed of my memories? No, they were just trying to help. They care for me. It was Steven’s sister? Holy shit. No wonder he is a mess. \n\n“It was a few more months till you returned to a functioning state. Once you got better, we decided to move in together for support – myself, Steven, and you that is. And that is where we are today. We had just left the rehabilitation center about 3 hours ago.”\n\nThree hours ago? But I remember…do I? What do I remember? I don’t know what to believe anymore. My mother then bent down, put her arms around me, and started to bawl.\n\n“I’m sorry son. I’m so sorry. We tried to make everything alright for you. We tried. We tried so hard.”\n\nNumbness. All I feel numbness…Victoria. The tears started for me. I cried.\n\nI cried, and cried, and cried.", "I held the coins they used to close his eyes.\n\nI sat where he sat. Pipe in his hand and gentle smile. Would he recognise me now. I think not. The world moves on. He was luckier. Unchanging to a childs eye. Without fault and with easily won virtues.\n\nShe busied herself in the scullery. Silently breaking inside. The long meaning of a life shared. The great sorrow of my young life pales in comparison.She turns to and on me.\n\nAs children we are more hopefully. Love shield us from our self. Yet when it is gone. we still remain.Ignored I sit, noisily keening in the corner. The air turns from sadness to fury. \n\n", "A Polaroid photo of Peter King, yellowed and aging, was tucked away in a laminated sheet in my 3rd grade scrapbook. It must have been years since I had thought about that thing, but me and Jackie were cleaning out the closet before we moved into to the new house. Staring at that Polaroid, I felt a memory hit me like a ton of bricks.\n\nConey Island was bustling, the street filled with tourists laughing, pointing, snapping pictures. \"Joey, you know who that is?\" I can still hear Grandma's voice. Her voice was hushed, but excited, like she was sharing some awesome secret with me.\n\n\"That's Peter King, he's on TV.\" My eight year old eyes must have been so wide. A man who was on TV? He must have been one important guy. So we both sat there, giggling at the old man eating his Nathan's hot dog in the summer sun. I remember now.\n\nSo I sat there, laughing at that tiny two inch photo, until the tears made it all blury and my heart hurt from the memories. God, I miss that lady." ]

[ 2, 2, 3 ]

[ "1407952413", "1407955843", "1407946015" ]

[ "I love summer! I get to hang out with all my friends and go swimming, and NO SCHOOL! My best friends are Erik and Andrea, but in a couple years Erik will stop talking to me, and by high school me and Andrea will drift apart. Funny how friends come and go. Wait. How did I know that? \n\nNow I remember, I'm not 9- I'M TWENTY FOUR. What happened? I went to sleep in 2014, and woke up in 1999? I guess maybe it's cause for celebration- no work, no responsibilities, a chance to see old friends and family members that will pass away in the coming years. \n\nBut how do I return to 2014? Do I have to go through 15 years to get there? Oh, please don't make me do high school again! \n\n-------------------------------------------\n\nWalking through my old house, reminded me of all the memories I had in it, but when I found my parents bedroom the truth of the matter changed. My parents were having a conversation about waking up 15 years prior to the night before. It wasn't just me, it was all of us. Perhaps everyone in the world. \n\nSuddenly, there was only one thing on my mind. This is my chance. Timing was off for us before, we found each other too late. I'm going to track him down, and we will find each other and use our new past make a real future together. ", "The sunlight burst through the window, and the ambient sounds of birds chirping threw me out of dream land. As I open my eyes, I see that my plain blue sheets have been replaced with a set of brightly colored Crayola themed sheets . The alarm is going off, but it sounds like it's coming from another room. It then occurred to me, how did I see the sunlight when I sleep in a basement with no windows? Perplexed, I roll over and look out the window, only to see that I am no longer in the city, but back in Nebraskan suburbia. I was only here for a year in '99 while my dad was in-between jobs. \n\nGetting out of bed, I realize I'm only half the size I should be, and that the alarm is coming from my parent's room. As I realize the situation at hand and a flurry of thoughts begins to stir in my mind. I suppose the source of the alarm makes sense though, as my dad hasn't given me that alarm clock yet. Going to the mirror, instead of pajama shorts I see matching Rugrats pajamas, with a picture of Reptar patterned through them. \n\nRealizing that the events of my childhood haven't happened yet, I run downstairs to see my parents, together for the first time in years. The thoughts of what to tell them begin flooding through my mind. To insure my mom never relapses back into smoking, and for dad to never take the night shift at his new job in a few years. So many tragedies of life that I can prevent! But before I can speak, I see the looks on my parent's eyes, like something sucked the life out of them. It's apparent they have had the same experience I had. Looking at their faces, I realize their eyes look the same as the day they sat me down to talk about the divorce. As I sit down a the table with them, I realize that I may be a child, but my innocence was long gone.\n\n(Throwaway because this is mostly autobiographical, also my first post to Reddit, so...woo! I haven't written anything in years, and feedback would be appreciated.)\n\nEdit-Formatting." ]

[ 4, 5 ]

[ "1407952087", "1407950336" ]

[ "Its been a week since these English dogs had captured me near London. They have yet to give me food. When I told them they were violating the rules of war they just laughed. My guard said that the rules of war were for soldiers not spies. \n\nGiven the carnage we'd inflicted on their city I can understand and accept their choice to starve me. However on the seventh day of my imprisonment they became truly sadistic. A man in a black suit threw open the door to my cell. At first I thought i was dreaming as the smell of cooked meat filled my nostrils. But sadly i was not. \n\n\"Let me guess you wont feed me unless i tell you about my mission!\" I yelled in the loudest voice my weakened body could muster.\n\n\"No in fact it's the opposite i will feed you unless you talk\". He spoke calmly almost apologetically.\n\n\"What thats not going to make me talk\"\n\n\"It will because were feeding you British food\" So saying he pulled the silver lid off the platter. Laid before me were all manner of hideous creations I'd only read about. \nA pickled eel sandwich , blood pudding, a fried Ox tongue and a star-gazy pie. \n\nWith an evil cackle he left. I wouldnt betray the fatherland so I crawled towards the food and took the only option I had left. Plunging the fork into my throat. \n\nStargazy pie:\nhttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Baked_stargazy_pie.jpg", "I’ve been captured by some barbaric brutes, trapped in a strange land I do not know and forced into submission. When just the other day I was living a life filled with freedom and adventure, here I was now hungry and lonely. \nI had been transported to some foreign domain, an isolated location where my screams and shouts were lost to the wind. Upon arriving, they forced a collar on me, identifying me as their property. I could not get it off, and the feeling of subjugation weighed down on me. For some reason my captors did not restrict my movement. They isolated me in my own personal cell and watched me try to escape, no doubt laughing at my failed attempts. However this desolate place had taken its toll, I was hungry and quite tired. My captors offered me water so I would not dehydrate, but yet would not stifle my hunger for long. I howled furiously for some kind of nourishment, but my barbaric captors continued to ignore my pleas. They taunted me with tantalizing smells coming from outside my cell, and it nearly drove me insane. \nAfter what seemed like days, they brought me my first meal. I jumped right into it face first and gobbled everything down like it was the most palatable dish there ever was. It tasted dry and bland, but my senses had been numbed due to my hunger and my stomach was happy for the nutrition. After my meal my captors looked upon me with quiet smirks, I was irritated by this but I knew I could not allow myself to show displeasure. I then walked over to my captors and purred happily as I rubbed against their legs.", "I could smell the yeast as soon as the hallway door outside my cell slammed open, waking me on the bare concrete floor. The comforting scent in stark contrast to the clinical setting I have been confined to for the last week. The overwhelming chemical stench coming from the drain hole, the sanitizing solution-so cold, that they sprayed down my cell with, nothing could mask the scent of it, bread. My mouth watering now in anticipation as the boot steps near my cell door.\n\n The door, the most interesting thing in my room, made from clear plexiglass so thick that it blurs anything on the opposing side. Covered with thin slots running vertically it's entire height, my only connection to the world. A few days ago, maybe, I awoke to a water packet dropping to the floor and the sound of boots trailing down the hallway. After greedily consuming the water I entertained myself by folding the empty packet into a flower shape, like a less refined version of origami. It was a nice added touch to my otherwise bare room. Sadly during the next days cell sanitation my flower disappeared down my drain hole in a torrent of luke warm water and chemicals. I sat there naked, huddling, waiting to dry out and warm up, looking at my once again bare room. \n\nThe boot steps stop outside my door and I make out the familiar figure of my guard. He has never spoken a word to me. \n\nA sliding tray in the middle of the heavy plexiglass barricade opens and there it is. Angels sing on high and a beam of light shines from above through my already brightly lit home. Sitting on the square brown paper tray is one piece of bread and another square block that appears to be food. I grab the tray and set it ceremoniously on the floor. The crust around the bread is evenly golden, the inside white and fluffy. The slot in my door produces another treat, two of the small sealed water bags! My thirst overwhelms my senses and I rip open one of the water packets and quickly drink it, using my fingers to chase every drop into my mouth. \n\n Now for the food. Do I eat the bread first or the mystery cube? Maybe eat part of the cube and then the bread? I feel ridiculous thinking like this. A little over a week ago I sat a table filled with food, surrounded by friends. Now I am naked hovering over a paper tray like a fiend making,what seems to me, a life changing decision over which measly offering to eat first. I should feel despair but I can't help but look at everything and laugh. I have got a pretty good day ahead of me. After I partake in my delicious looking bread and deal with my mystery cube, I will relax and sip my last water packet. I will even have some new decorations to brighten up the place for a day. ", "The hunger was the worst of it. Not the rats, or the roaches, or even the smell. It was the hunger. Before the North Korean Army captured my unit during the initial invasion, I saw what hunger can do, first hand. Serving with the Rangers for over twenty years, I saw what hunger can do to a people first hand in Somalia. But you'd never think it'd get this bad. But it did. At first, I was glad they didn't execute me right there on the spot. But I was soon wishing they did. The daily beatings left me weak, and the lack of food never helped me any. So I counted. I counted the hours, the minutes since my last meal. After 162 hours, I stopped counting. More time passed, and more beatings happened. I knew there were other prisoners from my unit, but I never saw them. All I had was three concrete walls and a steel slab for a door. After about a week, they rounded up the men from my unit, and put us into a large yard. It was noon, and the prison guards shined large spotlights in our face. I saw that there was only twenty of us left. The rest must have been killed, or worse. A rough voice came up on the intercom, announcing that there would be one meal. For the victor. The lights dimmed, there we were. The guards at the edge shouted \"Fight! Fight,\" shooting the man next to me. I knew what had to be done. They may have been my friends, but survival was more important. I lunged at the man in front of me, tackling him to the ground. Beating him senseless. That makes 18 left. All around me, friends turned to foe, their raw survial instincts kicking in. I spotted a close friend near by, pinned to the wall by another soldier. Grabbing a rock, I charged at my new found enemy, and clobbered him with the rock until the rock split. Pinned against the wall, me and Jerry made and unspoken alliance right then and there, knowing one of us is gonna die. But for now, survival was more important, and there was three more guys heading for us. Putting up my fists, I ducked as the first guy came at me, and I brought my elbow down on his head, splitting it. Jerry had grabbed one guy by his head and smashed it on his knee, and was dealing with the last guy himself. There was only four of us left, as some of the guys tried running instead of fighting. Me and Jerry had charged at the last two guys. Swinging my fist, I caught my CO in the lower jaw. About a month ago I would have given my left nut for a chance like that. Looks like i'm about to give more than my life. My CO had managed to make a basic shank while he was away, and he swung it at me. Grabbing his arm, I twisted the shank free, falling to the ground. Grabbing his jaw, I landed another punch right in his gut, knocking him to the ground. He made a grab for the shank, but a quick boot to the face put an end to all that. I picked up the shank, and turned to Jerry. He was chocking out the 2nd Lt. \"It's you or me Jerry. I'm sorry friend.\" Tears streaming from my eyes, I slashed at his throat. As the blood slowly seeped from his neck, he muttered something. \"I forgive you\" was all he said. \"Good work American! Here is your, 'meal.'\" A small box was thrown at my feet. Opening, I realized it was empty. The officer was laughing like a mad man. As the guards carried me away, I screamed. The North Korean officer might have gotten a kick out of this, but that scream will haunt his dreams for an eternity.", "Food. Hunger. Food. I can't stop thinking about it. They haven't fed me for a week I think. I'm trying to keep track of time, but they left me here in this solitary room. There are no windows, so I don't know what day it is. I don't know why they took me in the first place! It wasn't my fault. I didn't mean to touch their God. I didn't even know that such people worshipped trees like that. I was being chased! They can't honestly kill me for trying to get away from a savage beast like that. It was going to kill me! Honestly, I didn't even have any idea that people lived on this island. They walked in on me then, pacing and talking to myself, lack of food is driving me crazy. \"You.\" the Chief of the tribe addressed me. \"You intrude on Nui land. You touch almighty Deus. You must pay.\" While throwing a piece of meat at me he says \"Eat. You need strength for payment\" He swiftly walks out and leaves me to eat my food. It only dawns on me after I've finished eating that it seems like I'm going to face my death. Or perhaps worse. My mind then drifts off towards the thoughts of my friends, my family. You know, like it does when you're facing the end of your life. I'm overcome with anger and sorrow. I will miss my family and my annoying little sister, but, I will not miss my stupid friends that sent me over here in the first place. They were the ones that sent me to my death. They told me to come on this stupid island. They practically shoved me onto that boat, it was either I go, or they were going to send my sister. I wasn't about to let an 11 year old come on this island with all the rumours that there were about it. I find water on my cheeks at the thought of my baby sister. I'm crying? I never cry! This is stupid. I wipe away the tears and lay my head down, thinking that I'll just sleep it off. My sleep was interrupted by the huge bang of the door being swung open. 4 muscular men walk in and grab me by my hands and feet and carry me out of my cell. The Chief laughs as I pass \"You pay now. You not last long.\" He keeps laughing hard while I get carried away completely frozen with fear. They throw me into this make-shift arena and I come face to face with the savage beast that I was trying to get away from in the first place. It's staring a me like I'm something to eat. I presume that, that is exactly what I am. The Chief raises his hand, the spectators go quiet and they let go of the rope that is keeping the creature back. This is where it got interesting. Rather than trying to kill me, the creature just stared at me, like it was expecting something. I look around, and I notice that oddly, no one was looking at the creature. In fact, people seemed to be taking extra care not to look at it. *respect* I thought. *That's what it wants*. But how to do that. My heart is racing as my mind sorts through all the ways to show respect. The best way is to bow or curtsey, like you do for royalty, right? So I bow, slowly, taking extra care to not look it in the eyes. The creature bowed back, in it's own sort of way. It then put it's head to mine, and the strangest thing happened. *I could hear it's thoughts* It said \"Well done. You are the first to figure it out. Ride me. You are part of the tribe now. One of the best. One of the most important. Respect is one thing. But riding me is something no outsider has ever done. They will worship you.\" I'm too shocked to speak, so I just get on the creature, carefully. It then straightens up so it is standing. The spectators, including the Chief, gasp and stare, a low muttering breaks out amongst the crowd. The Chief silences them by raising his hand. He then puts that same hand over his heart and gets on his knees in respect to me. The crowd follows his lead. They accepted me into their tribe and called me *Omnipotens*. Thus begun my life as a Demi-God." ]

[ 2, 2, 2, 2, 3 ]

[ "1408028409", "1408033981", "1408042175", "1408064780", "1408019482" ]

[ "He finished writing another page long rant about the antics his adversaries had pulled during last night's gaming. As always, he did in the form of a role play story from the point of view of his female character. He sat and waited, he could feel that reply coming from that jerk, AlRyan2kPro. That guy always jumped in after he posted a story and wrote a rebuttal in a similar role play style that almost always involved his male character making a misogynistic coment. He felt his cheeks burning as he waited for the reply. That's when it caught his eye, a small ad on the side of the game's forum. It Read: New! Google match, using your google habits to find your one true soul mate. Click here for your free trial!\n\n\nHe smirked and didn't click it at first, he knew that he was a forever alone. First of all, he had a social phobia, and second of all, who had time for a relationship? His friends with girl friends and wives always complained about having to log off because they were getting yelled at. He knew he loved playing as his game character too much to give it up, even for the wonderful feeling of real life sex.\n\n\nHe refreshed the page again and again, but the ad kept coming back and something deep inside of him could not ignore the curiousity any longer. It wasn't hard to sign up, he just entered his google account and pressed the match me button. No questions to lie about. It just spit back a date and time that a match would be arranged. He laughed out loud and shook his head, as if he would go out somewhere.\n\n\nHe clicked back to his game's forum and there it was, that ass, AlRyan2kPro's rebuttal. Once again he wrote a flowery story that just amounted to his male character asserting his masculine dominance. What a jerk. \n\n\nJust a few minutes later while he was still in full rage thinking of a nasty reply to that jerk, his google account showed a new email. It read: Hello, thank you for trying Google Match! Click here to meet your perfect match. \n\n\nHe smirked and clicked the link provided, it opened up a chatroom with a few images of himself on one side, not exactly flattering pictures and some girl, she was cute, but again, not exactly flattering images on the other side. He was the only one in the chatroom. He thought, this is stupid. He waited about two minutes, the urge to click the exit button steadily growing when someone joined the chatroom.\n\n\nHe stared in disbelief. He typed out \"...\" The name of the person who joined his chat stood out like a neon sign at night. AlRyan2kPro has joined the chat.\n\n\nAlRyan2kPro typed back, \"LOLOLOL ur a dude? No way!!! I thought u were a chick! God u suck too!\"\n\n\nHe typed and then erased his thoughts four times before typing out, \"Is that your picture?\"\n\n\nShe typed back, \"Yeah lol, I guess my screen name seems odd... My name is Alison.\"\n\n\nHe typed to her, \"Alison Ryan.....\"\n\n\nShe typed back, \"Yep 2kPro! I started playing games online in 2000.\"\n\n\nThey chatted for hours, about the game, about themselves. Likes, dislikes, they joked about how rotten google's match was, they chatted about who was fun and who wasn't. It went that way each day. The stories they wrote to each other became less hostile day by day until the two characters eventually married. A few weeks later, they met in person.\n", "I check my watch and hurry along the crowded street. My stomach is jittery from a large mixup of conflicting emotions inside me. There is, to be perfectly honest, a part of me that is actually kind of excited about this meeting. I mean, whether I agree with what They are doing is one thing, but...the prospect of meeting your perfect match? Perhaps I am curious to see how the system will perform with its selection; will it be able to meet expectations, or fail miserably? Maybe I want to see, no, experience firsthand, a failed matchup. Because as far as I can tell, I have never seen it fail. Or, more specifically, I have only ever seen \"perfect\" couples. But no system is without fail.\n\nIndeed, there are many obvious flaws in the system. Some people have to wait a very long time for their match-some their whole lives. The saddest part is that none of those people ever find a mate. Ever. So, perhaps compared to them, I am at least lucky that I have a match.\n\nThen again...I have been thinking that that fate does not seem so bad, really. I really don't feel like I *need* my perfect match, like others seem to.\n\nIt is with this thought that the jittery feeling in my belly is chased away by a burning. And burning desire to be free, to not have to be forced together with someone. Everyone else seems to be enchanted by this system of finding someone to pair with. It feels like I am the only one who considers that free will should be allowed in a society, perfection or not. I glance back down at the metal bracelet around my wrist, handy for telling time. I flip my wrist to check on the dim green dot of a light signaling that the device is on and working. I resist the urge to curse, knowing anything I say can be easily heard through it. And I know better than to try to tug it off. I am well aware that it is futile. I've had it my whole life, spent my whole life chafing in its cold embrace. It is never letting go. Looking around, I see exactly what I expect: a sea of green dots shopping, talking, walking in all directions...\n\nBut no one of the crowd happens to be entering the sleek building in front of me. I glance at the watch once again: exactly 53 seconds until the meeting. Either my match is already inside, or later than I am.\n\nI surmise the former is the case. One would have to be crazy to be late to such an important meeting, and I am pushing it by cutting it this close. But perhaps expectation chases away fear, or maybe I am once again the odd one out in not being somehow programmed to be punctual. How I wish some of these unspoken things could be discussed between peers, between family, but we're haunted by omnipresent eyes and ears.\n\nI step forward, the black mirror doors sliding open to let me in. Casually, I hold up my left wrist for the receiver by the door to pick up the signal from my bracelet. Both screens light up, the receiver telling me \"Welcome\" and my bracelet telling me to go to room 5B. I quickly make my way past the front desk. I scan over a sign telling me that 5B is to my left, and half-walk half-skip my way down to not be later than I already am. I quickly swipe my wrist past another receiver by the door, which unlocks it for me, and wasting no more time, I swing open the door and step through. My eyes sweep left and right, examining what is in front of me. A square wooden table, with 3 chairs vacated, sits in the center of the room. Facing me, with an irritated scowl, is a balding official drumming his fingers on the surface, making a show of tapping his own watch. I open my mouth to apologize, when I hear a click in the lock behind me, as well as the door opening and closing.\n\nAs soon as the word of apology exits his mouth, I stiffen. Nothing could have prepared me for this.\n\nSlowly, I turn, with a look of horror and confusion, at his mirrored expression. Unbelieving, I mutter, \"No fucking way.\"\n\nAt the same time, he similarly says, \"Fuck, not you,\" and I would have smiled at that coincidence if it was anyone else.\n\nThe official, clearly, is not impressed. He clears his throat impatiently, and holds up a clipboard with papers on it.\n\"Well, how nice to see you two hit it off so well.\" He pushes up his glasses and narrows his eyes. \"Now, just sign the papers, and you two can go start having some 'quality time' together.\"\n\nI look at my supposed perfect match, and he at me. Both of us are clearly unhappy with this. I myself have never heard of the system matching two people who already know, and hate, each other. But there's no other choice. We have to sign the papers, we have to accept that we're supposed to be together, and both of us will just have to deal with it. Or else.\n\nFor now, we have to act like it'll all work out all right. We quickly sign the papers and leave the room, with a requirement of spending 10 hours together this week and a date to return to this very same room to check in with the official.\n\nBut inside, I'm panicking. The prospect of spending my life with him? I already know him. I know we don't get along. I can't remember where it started, what first made me dislike him so much, though I do know that from the start we always clashed. I always found him irritating, from his stupid little habits to him being such a know-it-all. He never fails to point out any mistake I made. I retaliate in kind, whenever I get the chance. He thinks I'm too spacey, I think he's too serious all the time. Perhaps we act childish, sometimes giving each other snide, somewhat uncalled for comments whenever we see each other, never really bursting out into a full blown argument, just gradually chipping away at each other in mutual hate.\n\nFor a second though, I have the fleeting thought that perhaps what irritates me *most* is that in a way, he silently stands out too. Yet he never seems to question the system like I do. Because I can't be the only one.\n\nI stop and think, figuring we have two things going for us. First, the feelings are mutual. He must also be internally panicking, or at least feeling similarly as I do. Second, we haven't spoken in 2 years. Perhaps this is time for a fresh start.\n\nThen again, there is another thing going for us. He probably wouldn't care at all if I did something potentially stupid and suicidal against Them.\n\nOnce we get outside of the building and a few paces away from the entrance, I sigh loudly, and run my fingers through my hair. He looks at me, still unimpressed, his hands in his pockets. He raises an eyebrow, expecting me to say something.\n\nI cough awkwardly. \"Well, John, allow me to be the first...to call a truce. It has been a couple years, hasn't it? Besides,\" I say the the next part quietly to hide the acid in my voice from the bracelet, \"our *perfect* society has used this *perfect* system to figure that we're each other's *perfect* match.\"\n\nHe looks at me with a curious expression on his face, the corner of his lip *almost* curling into a ghost of a smile.\n\n\"Sooo,\" I continue, \"perhaps we shouldn't just...give up before we try. I'd hate myself if I did that.\"\n\nHe gives a small nod in agreement, before giving an audible sigh himself. \"Yeah, I think I would too. I don't really want to give up, either.\"", "\"Human designated B-1338, male, you are designated to mate with Human N-3342, female, at 2130, 24-segment native planet time. Report to chamber designated 35F, Sector 6-L at given time.\"\n\nThey did what they could to communicate clearly with our species, but they could never quite replicate our specific timber. Our ambassador, B-2282i, or as we knew him, Henry Breen, assured us that our overlords had our best interests in mind, but I was always skeptical of their selective mating choices. Breen said that their algorithms were optimally designed to catapult our species into greatness, but I was always skeptical.\n\nMy skepticism and cynicism were confirmed when I saw her. The moment you anxiously waited for for years....and this.... There wasn't anything specific, but I immediately wanted to get away. She looked upon me with a slight, but noticeable scowl. \"So, we are selected to have optimal offspring...\" \"I would appear so.\" Clearly neither of us was enthused about the situation, but the penalty for failure to mate is highly restricted and possible cancellation of all mating simulation activity, and no one wanted that. \n\nWe took the granted 72 native planet hours to attempt to develop rapport but to no avail. On the night of hour 68, we returned to the chamber and finally willed ourselves to copulate sheerly to avoid punishment. This was the easy part. The hard part it seems would be jointly caring for our offspring....\n\nI thought back on all of these thoughts and pondered my judgements. I remember my young naivete. Today, I recall these thoughts and shake my head, acknowledging that perhaps I was wrong. Today, my...our offspring, human designated Q-1142, male, became the first human to win the local systems full combat tournament. Perhaps Breen is right. Perhaps our leaders have plans for our species and wish to elevate us to a higher plane in their empire. I look upon my Q-1142 and am grateful. ", "“NO! Absolutely not! This is a mistake. I won’t do this. I won’t waste my time on…on…that!” She said and pointed to the man sitting in the corner of the room on the least comfortable chair trying to make himself appear as small as possible. A difficult task as he was six foot four, at least 250lbs, had tattoos circling his neck and arms, and wearing a bright orange prison jump suit.\n\n\n“Ms. Leon please just look at the science. It’s all here. You are a match there is no doubt about it. You would be perfect together.”\n\n\n“Is this some kind of a sick joke?” She shrieked near hysteria now. Is there some media conspiracy behind this? Can you imagine the headlines? No! This can never get out. Destroy all of the data. Erase the fact that I was ever in your office, or even had an account with you people. I would rather be dead than matched with a convicted felon! A mass murdering felon at that! How does a felon in prison even get an account may I ask?” She barked turning sharply on her heel to face the scientist with the clipboard her finger pointed at his face accusing him directly.\n\n\n“Well Ma’am DATAMatch used prisoners as the first test cases. They were eager to help as sitting in a room with scientists meant less time doing chores and more time that counted towards good behavior. I will say though it is very rare that a prisoner is matched with anyone as their enlarged and mutated amygdala makes them hard to match with members of today’s accepted society.”\n\n\n“So then tell me how this thing was matched with a United States Senator?” She screamed.\n\n\n“Um… well…” The scientist hesitated. “I’m assuming *cough* by your …um…over reaction to all of this that you yourself may have some murderous tendencies Ms. Leon.” \n\n\nWith that the large brain shaped paperweight that had been sitting on the desk in front of Ms. Leon was now hurtling through the air. The scientist tried to duck, but it was too late the paperweight connected with his right temple. His body folded to the ground in a sad heap. \n\n\nThe senator looked at the convict. The convict sprang into action. He moved the desk and rolled the body up into the throw rug that used to lay under the desk. He then went to the closet found some packing tape and secured the rug tight making sure to tape the ends shut as well. He replaced the desk to its previous location and when finished he heaved the rug and body up onto his shoulder.\n\n\n“Lead the way Ma’am.”\n\n\n“I guess the science was right after all.” She said amused. “You and I are going to rule the world.” \n\t\n", "I sat in a chair in a large room, surrounded by pristine tables filled with couples doting upon each other. As I play with the frayed edges of my dress, I couldn’t help but be jealous; all of these people seemed so in love, and this was only their second meeting. Here I sat, alone, watching for my Mate to arrive. \n\nOur first meeting was something that most matchmakers would call an anomaly. Our DNA was to have the perfect compatibility, a destiny to last a lifetime and bring two perfect, healthy children to raise together. Yet the instant I saw my Mate, repulsion swept through my body. Whereas I was athletic, my job out in the fields keeping my body trim and tan, he led a much more sedentary lifestyle. His hair was dark and looked as if 3 days prior had been his last bath. When he sat and opened his mouth to speak, I saw his teeth were crooked and full of gaps. His conversation proved to be less than stimulating, musing about some plant he was modifying. Throughout the whole meeting, he failed to ask me a single question other than, \"What's your name?\" Throughout our meal, I could see that he had the same look on his face, “How could this person be my Mate?”\n\nI look on through the crowd and feel my face burn red. Though I had no interest in my \"Mate,\" the humiliation of being stood up was almost more than I could bear. I looked longingly at the door, hoping that he would cross through the entrance just to spare me this embarrassment, yet the longer I looked, the more my heart sank, for I knew he would not be coming. \n\nMy walk home was no easier than my time at the second meeting hall. Dotted along the streets were couples holding hands. Though it was forbidden to do so, most enforcers let it slide after an event as big as the second meeting. I hastened my pace so that I could reach my apartment faster and decided to take a short-cut through the park. \n\nThe park, as expected, was filled. Couples holding hands, snuggling up to one another, finding dark areas in which to enjoy each other’s company more. My body surged with jealousy. I should be one of them.\n\nDistracted in my thoughts, my foot caught a rock and ripped my heel from my shoe. Hobbling over to the nearest bench, I sat, desperately searching my purse for glue. As I sat and repaired my heel, my mind kept thinking about my Mate. His hair was greasy, but I never noticed a bad smell. In fact, I would say that he actually smelled quite nice. He had never asked me a question, but was that because he could see my disinterest. Yes, he was overweight, but his job was in a lab, not the field. Though I was first taken aback by the state of his teeth, I remember his voice being smooth to the point of sending shivers down my spine. I suppose, in a way, he wasn’t so bad. He just had flaws, like all of us do. When I thought upon this, my embarrassment and anger turned to sadness—my Mate wasn’t here. Tears welled up in my eyes, and before I knew it, were flowing down my cheeks—my Mate had stood me up. I tried to stifle the tears, which turned to deep, and painful gasps—my Mate had left me. We weren’t an anomaly, I was just too foolish to see, but he never came back to meet me, and now I had no Mate. I had no Mate that I know I would love, and cherish, and raise children with. \n\nI calm myself down, and forced myself to go back to my apartment. I opened my door and flipped on the lights, tossing my bags and shoes haphazardly across the apartment. As I took in my familiar surroundings, I noticed something quite out of place—a beautiful rose, with what seemed to be a myriad of colors splashed on the petals. Beneath the flower, was a note:\n\n*“I’m sorry I missed out date. I was trying to finish this before we met. Will I see you at the third meeting?”*\n\nA smile played across my face as I clutched the note to my heart. I picked up the rose and inhaled deeply and my smile grew wider—the rose smelled of him. \n", "*Stupid stupid stupid...*\n\nIt was ridiculous, the whole system. Why I had even gone through with it was beyond me. The government representative that had come to our little corner of the food processing plant had made the process sound easy, even fun. A guaranteed mate, compatible in all ways, chosen by *SCIENCE*. How could it go wrong? \n\n*\"Stupid fucking... Waste of time... YOU LITTLE COCK BITE WOULD YOU JUST LET... IT... GO!\"*\n\nWith a wet sucking sound the little piece of metal finally came loose. It flew across the room, hit the wall, and skittered across the floor. I'd find it later. My knuckle was bleeding from having to dig - if I'd taken care of my equipment properly, like I normally did on Friday nights, the work wouldn't be so damned hard. But noooo. I'd listened to that little rat fink from the Matching agency and lost my Friday on the most god-awful date in all of my dating history. I'd had shitty dates in the past - it was pretty par for the course actually - but this had taken the cake. \n\nA donation of blood, the most invasive questionnaires since the Spanish Inquisition given over a course of weeks, and finally a little postcard had arrived in my PO Box with a time, date, and location. I'd been nervous, excited, anxious. I'd brushed my hair til my scalp ached. Scrubbed my cheeks til just before they would have bled. I'd chosen the cleanest and least repaired of my work jumpsuits - usually reserved for weddings and funerals. I'd never felt so dolled up in my life. But when i saw him, the amount of time I spent primping seemed like such a waste. \n\nThere he was. All 6'4\" of him. Lean and beautiful, smooth and perfect - not an ebony hair out of place, not a wrinkle to be seen. His skin was tanned and healthy, his eyes clear and pale green. He was so clean and exotic he stood out like an LED light in a room full of flashlights. He was sitting at a table in the middle of the damned eatery with a large sign propped up on a stick in the middle, the same red curly '6' that had been stamped on my postcard written in glowing ink. He was looking around, scanning the crowd, looking for... well, for me.\n\nI tried to back out. Nice and slow, I'd managed two steps before his gaze fell on me, pinning me with a narrowed gaze. i froze. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Make a run for it? His eyes widened slightly, then rolled up towards the ceiling. He sighed so loudly I could hear it from the entry way. He gave me a lazy 'come on' wave, like I was a burden he was eager to be free of. \n\nFuck that.\n\nI frowned, looking down at the postcard in my hand. \n\n\"Fucking waste...\" I muttered. I watched his snotty little face, eyes widening in surprise, as I ripped up the postcard and dumped it in the flower pot near the seating desk. He stood, but I walked out before he could reach me. I turned once as I walked towards the bus but didn't see him behind me. Most likely he'd ordered something gross and disgusting from the eatery and had to wait to pay. I hoped it made him ill. The smell of potentially contaminated foodstuffs lingered around me from just standing in the entry of the eatery. My stomach rolled and I fought not to vomit as I caught the bus just as it went to pull away from the curb. \n\nBack at home, I felt more relaxed. I could chalk this up to a learning experience, another example of why the government couldn't be trusted. \n\nI had packed everything away on the off chance I would be bringing my scientifically compatible mate home for some scientifically compatible fucking, but had quickly pulled everything back out and continued working. Fuck my jumpsuit. Fuck my tools. I just needed to *work*, release some stress, and get some real food into me. \n\nI had filled several containers and set them to the side when someone began beating on my door. I frowned. My work was really too spread out and too far along to be able to hide neatly. But I wasn't expecting guests, so I tried to ignore it. The beating continued, followed by a muffled voice. The safety door had been a great investment - I hadn't been robbed since I'd purchased it. But the knocking on the outside tended to echo on the inside. Ignoring it was hard - I already had a headache from dry heaving over my toilet when I'd gotten home. The oily smell of overcooked food and too many spices had bled into my clothes and I couldn't get out of them fast enough to keep myself from smelling them. \n\nI pulled a tarp over the whole thing, using a towel to wipe off as much as I could, then walked to the door. I looked through the peephole.\n\nNothing. \n\nFrowning, I turned to go back when I heard the loud banging again. It wasn't coming from the door, but from the connecting kitchen walls. Great. The neighbor. The asshole worked opposite shifts as me, and if this was a regular night I would be at work and they could thump around to their hearts content. But not tonight - I had a fucking headache.\n\n\"Shut the fuck up!\" I shouted, banging on the wall with my fist. There was a pause, silence, then shouting, then silence again. A few thumps, softer than before, then silence. Finally. \n\nI walked back into the living room, sighing at the sight of some of the liquid coming through the tarp., That was my favorite tarp. I lifted it, trying to fold it so the fluids didn't spread, when suddenly there was a loud *BANG*, followed by what I *knew* was someone banging on my door this time. I grabbed a wrench from the toolbox by the now too wet to save tarp and walked back to the door. When i looked through the peephole, someone's eye was staring back at me.\n\n\"Get away from my door!\" i shouted.\n\n*\"PLEASE!\"* a woman's voice, not so muffled now that I was so close, \"*PLEASE HELP ME! PLEASE!*\"\n\n\"Help you what?\" I asked. I didn't want to open the door. i was kind of in the middle of something. She kept banging and screaming. She finally backed away from the peephole and I could see her - white shirt, black pants, nametag on the left breast pocket, blood dripping from a wound on her hand and the side of her head. Shit.\n\n\"Back up and I'll open the door,\" I said. She whimpered and complied, looking to her right.\n\n*\"Please hurry, please let me-\"*\n\nAs I opened the door, there was a loud *THUMP*, then a *Thud*. I lifted the wrench up, ready to strike - and there he was. His nice dress shirt was smeared with blood, his hair mussed, his tie gone. He held a meat tenderizing hammer in his hand, and from the woman now prone on the floor it was easy to see what had happened. He looked at me, and I looked at him, both of us holding our weapons ready. \n\n\"Ah,\" he said, sniffing slightly and nodding towards the woman, \"Did you hit her?\"\n\n\"What?\" I asked, shaking me head. He frowned, nodding towards my wrench.\n\n\" 'S blood on your thing there.\"\n\nI looked up. Fuck. I hadn't wiped off the wrench on the way to the door. We both stared at each other a minute, then down at the woman on the floor. Slowly, we both lowered our arms. He shuffled his feet nervously, trying to brush away the drying blood on his arms. I looked down and gave myself the once over. No way he didn't know what I was doing in there.\n\n\"So,\" I said, gesturing towards the woman, \"You, ah... well....\"\n\n\"Science, huh?\" he chuckled. I nodded. The silence in the hallway was broken by the woman making a strange grunting noise. Not unusual for head injuries - that's why I tended to cut throats as soon as possible. Cut down on the weird noises. \n\n\"I wasn't going to make you eat there, at that place,\" he said suddenly, rubbing the back of his head, nervously, \"I mean, you could have, if you wanted to -\"\n\n\"I would never eat that food,\" I said quickly.\n\n\"Oh! Oh me neither,\" he said with a great gust of air, as if he'd been holding his breathe that whole time, waiting for me to say that. He suddenly didn't seem so snobby. Hair all mussed up, picking hair off the end of his mallet - it was kind of cute.\n\n\"Weird we've lived next door to each other for, what, two years?\" I asked. He nodded. I nodded back. The hallway was not the best place to be having this conversation. I looked back into my apartment. \n\n\"Listen... Um, I'm sorry I ran out, but you were... I mean, you looked like....\"\n \n\"A jerk?\" he offered, snorting and nodding, \"Yeah. i was... I didn't sign up. My mother signed me up. She was worried I was alone too much. I was hoping I could drive you off with a shitty evening. And I did. And now...\" he gestured towards the woman on the floor.\n\nI took a step back and gestured towards my open apartment. \n\n\"I don't know what you have going on over there, but I have some buckets already prepped for processing, and a tarp all ready to go,\" I shrugged, \"Wouldn't take long to cut up and cook some cutlets. If you wanted to... come over. You know. For a real dinner date.\"\n\nHe smiled.\n\n\"I'd like that. You wanna grab her arms, and I'll get the feet?\"", "“Equal” he recalled saying. His brother had met a girl, *the* girl, got engaged, and married in the space of a year thanks to the new ‘Lastmatch’ service everyone was raving about. It was named such as the creators claimed that it was the last matching service a user would ever need, whoever the algorithm picked would be the one you fell for, and that would be it. His brother had tried to get him to sign up, and he had resisted stubbornly, as he always had with online dating in general. \n\nYet, his brother continued to pester him with the notion, and so he came up with new ways to resist. Until one day it came pouring out, that very personal description of the ideal person he wanted to find, along with a bunch of angry retorts describing how ‘no algorithm, no machine’ could find such a person. “Equal” he remembered muttering, “My intellectual equal, thats what I dream of!”. “Someone to share the morning papers with, to talk about the world with, to read with, to read to our children…”. He clammed up shortly after that, already aware he had said too much. But it was enough, his brother had worn him down such that he agreed to sign up and try just once.\n\nSo here he was, A nondescript cafe where the system had told him to wait and meet a woman who he knew barely anything about. With all of New York to choose from, the system picked this place, and the fact he couldn’t fathom its reasoning infuriated him. He had never been a child prodigy, but he had always had intelligence in abundance. He swallowed books whole like other people drank water, his teenage and college years a whirlwind of a thousand essays, books read and more graduations than both of his parents put together. \n\n‘Are you here for Lastmatch?’ a shy voice said. He snapped back to reality, and saw her standing by the table. ‘Sarah’ was her name, and that was just about all he knew. She looked rather pretty standing there, he thought quietly, wearing a floral dress with her brown hair glinting in the New York sunshine. ‘Yes, I’m here for Lastmatch’ he replied, somewhat begrudgingly. \n\nShe sat down and they ordered Lunch. After small talk and initial pleasantries, the conversation moved to what he thought was the heart of the matter. ‘So what college did you go to? Private or Public?’\n\nShe looked away from him, as if embarrassed, suddenly closing her arms around herself like a shield ‘I…er…I didn’t go to college’. He spluttered on his water, then composed himself. This ‘lastmatch’ system clearly wasn’t all it was cracked up to be if picked someone without even a basic college education for him. ‘I mean’ she whispered, growing shyer and more withdrawn with every word, ‘I’ve attended some community college courses since moving to the City, to help with the secretarial work, but not a degree. My family didn’t have the money for that, and probably wouldn’t have wanted me to go anyway…’.\n\nThrough gritted teeth he tried to come up with another angle. ‘Ok then. So what’s your favourite book then?’. ‘Well, my family were very conservative see, and we were farmers, so going to the far away bookstores or the public library were kind of not on the table often….’. He struggled to come up with a response. ‘By the way, how long were you abroad for? Japan?’ she said, interrupting his train of thought. ‘How could you…how did you guess that?’ he whispered, taken aback as to how someone apparently so ill educated could of worked out he’d been recently. ‘Oh, nothing special really. Your watch has 2 faces, and one of them is still set to East Asian time by the looks of it. I saw it earlier when you were talking to the waiter. Nice watch, by the way!’. He sat there, staring at her, stunned ‘So she’s bright, sharp in fact, very sharp, just never had the chance to take it further, to walk the halls of a university…’ he mused silently. \n\nWithout saying another word, he reached for his bag and rummaged around, pulling a handful of books out and laying them on the table. So what if the girl wasn’t his ‘soulmate’, he was sure as hell going to show her how to educate herself, to better herself, no one deserved to stumble in the dark like this. ‘I got all of these from the library earlier, just before I came here’. ‘I don’t think the computers matched us together correctly, but let me show you something, you're in the city now, and you should know, you **have** to know that you can read as much as you want!’. \n\nHe threw a few bills on the table and grabbed her hand, pulling her with him. The New York Public library was round the corner, that was the best place to start. She walked reluctantly, somewhat crestfallen at the notion that this date wasn’t really going anywhere. Still, she came with him, and he led her into the main hall of the New York Public Library. Desk after desk in the centre, and shelf after shelf of books lined the walls. Old books, new books, periodicals, magazines. For readers and bookworms, this was the time machine, the portal to adventure, the people’s university, and it was all free.\n\nHer eye’s widened. He saw that look on her face, the ‘kid in a sweetshop’ expression he knew so well from his visits to the library over the years. The slack jawed wonder at seeing more reading material than you could ever finish, and knowing you could have any of it. ‘I…I didn’t think it was this big, I’ve only ever really read the odd newspaper and whats on my phone…I…have you read most of this? All of this?!”. She was thinking at a million miles an hour, the words tumbling out faster than she could say them clearly, and he enjoyed, no, he loved seeing it happen. “No one can read all of this, at least I don’t think so. I’ve read a lot of it though, and I have my favourites” he whispered, smiling when he thought of those favourite tomes. ‘Show me!” she sputtered, ‘Show me your favourites!”.\n\nHe ran to the shelves and started picking out book after book, piling them on a desk, so deep in thought he forgot she was even there. Books from childhood, books from college, books read under trees in the sunshine, books read indoors during the driving rain. When he was done, he stood there, slightly tired just from the effort of picking just a dozen books from around the room and bringing them to the table. \n\nThen she did something he never expected, something his analytical brain would never have predicted. She flung her arms around him, and one foot in the air, kissed him on the cheek. He was the consummate thinker, always thinking of the world as one giant chess game, but this was like someone taking the whole board and flinging it out of the window. ‘Thank you’ she whispered, with her face pressed against his coat.\n\nIt was then he realised the system had done just what it had promised. It had found him what he dreamed of, an intellectual equal to share his life with. She just didn’t know it yet.\n\n‘Sarah, this is just the start’, he murmured, not quite sure where the thought was even coming from, ‘let me show you this,’ he gestured to the entire room, ‘let me show you everything’.\n\n[Sorry for the length! I let the thoughts kind of run riot while writing this. A little leniency please, this is only my second attempt at Writing Prompts]", "“But it can’t be wrong.” \n\n“Of course it can” he let out an exasperated gasp and mumbled, “For fucks sake.” \n\n“But its…you know…science.”\n\n“Its science, not magic. Science isn’t perfect. That’s how it works. You know- trial and error.”\n\n“Well when is the last time you heard of it not matching someone perfectly?” she asked.\n\nHe stammered for a moment before letting up, “Never.” \n\nThey sat in a mournful silence. They stared down at the fine china and white linens. Around them waiters and waitresses shuffled endlessly, serving the happy couples. From every table poured saccharine sap of requited love. But all were to enraptured in their own escapades too be sickened by the others cooing and camp. All except these two. These two looked at nothing but the table, equally ignoring everyone’s joy and their own misery.\n\n“Well maybe they got our names mixed up with someone else or something?” she offered.\n\n“It seems a little convenient that there would be a mix up and we’d happen to both get each other’s names.”\n\nJust then, their waiter glided up with most serene expression and inquired, “And how is the miracle of modern science work for you two lovely people?”\n\n“It fuckin ain’t,” he spat back at the waiter. Casting a glance across the table he asked, “Is it?”\n\n“No, I guess it’s not,” came the reply.\n\nThe waiter stood aghast, mouth open and brows upturned. The shock the poor man’s system was too much for him to bare and found it impossible to move or speak.\n\nThe man at the table stood up. Shoving a wade of money in the waiter’s breast pocket he told him, “Listen, you can cancel all that fancy overpriced shit we order. We’re leaving.” He took the woman by the wrist and fairly dragged her out the door. Most the patrons were too enraptured to notice the commotion. Those that did assumed they were simply overcome with passion and had to…leave.\n\nOnce in the street they quickly hailed a taxi. He directed the driver to the TrueMatch building then sat in silence. They were lucky the driver had a limited English vocabulary. His eyes constantly in the rearview mirror betrayed that he was intrigued by this disgustedly couple. The woman stared at the picture of the dark beauty perched upon the dash board.\n\nFinally, the man gave a chuckle. “Did you see the look on that pompous waiter’s face?”\n\n“Yeah,” she answered with a faint smile, “I believe that’s what they call nonplused.” They almost looked at each other.\n\nAfter what had seemed like eons, they arrived at their destination. The man charged up to the door but found it locked. He shook the door with all his might. For a moment it seemed the door would shatter but it did not yield.\n\nShe came walking up slowly behind him. “The sign says they’re open till seven,” she reported.\n\n“Well they ain’t,” he shouted at the empty building before letting out a heavy sigh, “Assholes.”\n\n“Fuckin dickbags,” she confirmed. Finally they shared a laugh, a moment of relief that this farce was finally over. \n“Well I better go home and eat something, I’m starving,”\n\n“Fuckin Right,” she confirmed. He turned to leave but she caught his arm.\n\n“Hey, you want to grab some tacos?”\n\n“Fuckin Right.”\n\nEdit: Words are hard\n", "He had gotten the email that afternoon; The System had found a match and set a date for that evening. He was to meet her on a park bench not two blocks from his work precisely at 7. The System had decided this was going to be a blind date, which was unusual but not unheard of. In just 4 hours he would meet her, and if the adverts were true, fall madly in love. Maybe, maybe not, but it was a gamble he was eager to make.\n\n---\n\nHer sister had forwarded her the email at 4:30 but it wasn't until 5:45 that she read it. The System, that wonderful new algorithm that everyone was raving about, had found her match. It didn't list his name, age, hobbies, *anything*. Great. She had gotten out of her sister's past three attempts by finding something wrong with the suitors but she couldn't find fault with *nothing*. 7 at a park bench. Fine, she would go tonight, cut it short around 7:30, and then tell her sister off afterwards. Just 2 hours until she could be done with this.\n\n---\n\nHe arrived first and sat on the bench. A church in the distance rang 7. Good, he had made it on time. He had stopped to get flowers on the way here and was afraid he was going to be late.\n\nFive minutes passed. Then ten. Finally a woman hurriedly approached the bench and sat down. She had worn a simple blue dress, minimal makeup, and was staring rather intently at him.\n\n\"Look, I'm here because my sister insists on setting me up on dates. In an effort not waste either of our time, I'm going to skip all the formalities and let you know that I have no intention of being here more than ten minutes. I don't need to know your name, your job, or how many children you have. All I need from you is some serious discussion on some topic we don't agree on so I can reject you and cite that as why our date ended badly. Can you do that for me?\"\n\nHe tried to laugh it off. \"Wow, that's the fastest I've been rejected.\" She didn't smile. \"Oh you're serious? Well, let's see then. I've signed up to five dating websites now and I go on a date about once a week. Given your demeanour and resentment towards me and dating in general, you obviously don't do the same. So there's one thing.\"\n\n\"That won't be enough. My sister will just say that compared to me, everyone's a hopeless romantic. We've got to get into something controversial.\"\n\nHe shrugged and lay the flowers between them. \"Abortion? I'm pro-life.\"\n\n\"I'm pro-choice and I even had an abortion when I was younger. But that's no good either; my sister will just complain that I'm dismissing you too hastily.\" Her voice took a mocking tone. \"Why would you reject a guy on abortion when you're not having babies with him yet? You always dismiss-\"\n\n\"While I'm sure that's a perfect impression of your sister, you can't just say you got an abortion and leave it at that.\"\n\n\"Oh really? Last I heard I get to choose what I tell you.\"\n\n\"If you're going to demand I skip over all the small talk, then I figure I can make some demands too. So tell me why.\"\n\nShe crossed her arms. \"Fine. I'm not ashamed of it. I was twenty-three and had just finished university. I was out celebrating on graduation night and had a one-night stand with another graduate. We woke up, went our separate ways and that was that. A few weeks later I found out I was pregnant, and seeing as how the two of us weren't getting married and I had just started a new job, I had an abortion.\"\n\n\"So it was a career move then.\"\n\n\"I had a huge student debt and I was on a three month trial period at my job. Employers may not be able to fire you for being pregnant, but they can drum up other reasons. So if I had stayed pregnant, I would have lost my job, had to find some work as a three-month pregnant woman, and then take time off to raise the child. It wouldn't have been a good situation for me or the kid.\"\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders. \"I wasn't there so I can't judge and I'm sorry that you went through that. But couldn't you have challenged the company if they fired you?\"\n\n\"Legally, yes, but that wouldn't have gone anywhere. And it's beside the point; the decision was made and there's no use thinking about what could have been. Let's get back to you: are you religious?\"\n\n\"No though I expect that's no different than you.\"\n\n\"I am actually, christian. But enough about me; how can you been an atheist and believe be pro-life?\"\n\n\"Because when does it become a pile?\" She looked at him, confused, and he grinned. \"There's a thought experiment involving grains of sand. If I put down one grain of sand, it's not a pile. If I put down a second it's still not a pile. Yet if I keep putting down more and more sand, it will eventually become a pile. When does that happen? The tenth grain? The hundredth? It's the same with a human life; if we take an embryo and keep giving it food and time, it will eventually grow into a human being that can breath and crawl and walk and talk and even sit next to me on a park bench and tell me I'm wrong.\" He winked at her. \"I don't know when it starts being a human life and so I don't want to end it. But that's just my opinion and I won't force it on anyone else.\"\n\nShe shifted uncomfortably on the bench and looked down in thought. \"You're very laid back, aren't you?\"\n\n\"I am. I may have strong opinions but they're mine and it's fine if people disagree. It seems like you have more of an issue with that.\"\n\n\"Yes. If someone's wrong, I want to tell them. I want to pick apart their argument so it's left in shambles and they can see what a fool they were. What good is it to have strong opinions if you aren't going to defend them?\"\n\n\"Opinions don't need to have a use. These flowers don't have a use but they're pretty nonetheless.\"\n\nShe looked at the flowers briefly before turning back to him and talking quickly. \"Your opinion on drugs?\"\n\n\"No personal opinion but I'm for regulation.\"\n\n\"I want them banned. Economics?\"\n\n\"Free trade and free markets.\"\n\n\"I want to tax the rich and help the poor. I'm also in favour of healthcare for everyone.\"\n\n\"I wish we had the money to do it. I'm pro gay marriage.\"\n\n\"I reject the premise; marriage used to be a religious ceremony but now there are tax cuts associated with it. Get the politics out of marriage and I'll be against gay marriage but until then it's a stupid argument. Teaching intelligent design in schools?\"\n\n\"I'm for teaching critical thinking skills. Let it be an exercise in that class first; let the students decide what they believe separate from what other people tell them.\"\n\n\"It's not science though, so it shouldn't be in a science class,\" she retorted.\n\n\"Israel?\"\n\nThe two of them were silent as they turned to find a third person in their midst.\n\n\"I'm sorry to interrupt but The System said you'd be in the thick of things by now and that I should stop by.\"\n\n\"Who are you?\" she asked.\n\n\"As you stated before, names don't matter. And don't get all defensive about how I listened in on your conversation. As you've obviously forgotten, you're in a park.\"\n\nThey looked around, remembering where they were, him with a slight grin while she was indifferent. \"You still haven't answered my date's question.\"\n\n\"You're quite right. Consider me an extension of The System. And before you ask, no, I'm not the man behind the curtain, setting people up one by one. I'm one of the people in front of the curtain, tweaking things as needed. And you two need a little tweak.\" He handed them both a business card.\n\nThey took it and read it. \"This is the fight of your life; don't lose it,\" it read. She looked up at their guest. \"What do you mean, the fight of our life? I've disagreed before.\"\n\n\"Yes, but not on everything, and not to someone who will fight you on every point.\"\n\n\"But we even disagree on how passionate we should be. I want to tell everyone they're wrong while he doesn't care.\"\n\n\"So? He still met every thrust with a parry, every quip with a retort.\" He paused for a moment before continuing. \"You two both have the same desire, to find someone who will fight you and give you a stimulating discussion every day. You disagree on the big issues and that's what you thrive on. You,\" he turned to the male, \"have been trying to find someone to date for years now but you've always found them boring and uninteresting. They never challenged you like she will. And you,\" he turned to the female, \"have withdrawn from people because they would always back down from you. You would spend hours finding flaws with people so you could dismiss them.\"\n\nThe man looked skeptical. \"Let me get this straight. The System matched us together because we both need someone to fight, and then goaded us to continue by saying not to lose? I'm a pacifist-\"\n\n\"Of course you are,\" she scoffed.\n\nHe grinned. \"-and so I don't have an issue with 'losing'. I'm happy to disagree.\"\n\nTheir guest reached into their front pocket and consulted his cell phone before laughing. \"You must forgive The System, it thought a little wordplay would be advisable. It's this fight you two are having. The System wanted you to see how much you both need it and to cherish it. It's rare to find a connection like this. Don't lose it: that connection. Don't stop fighting.\"\n\nThey looked at each other for a moment, processing the last ten minutes. She thought about how passionate she had been and how she wanted to continue; he thought about how much fun it had been to have his beliefs prodded so forcefully. He picked up the flowers and offered them to her. \"How about we get dinner and you can tell me how much you despise my pacifist nature?\" \n\nShe smiled and took the flowers. \"Fine, but only if you let me pay for dinner. It wouldn't be right accepting your gift without offering one in return.\"\n\nThey both stood up and he smirked. \"I'll need to add some amendments to that proposal but I accept it on the whole.\" They nodded to their guest and walked off to dinner.\n\nHe stood there for a moment, watching them leave. He looked at his cell phone before hailing a cab; it was 7:32.", "\"Jack Derrymoore, nice to meet you\" I said as I shake the lean hand of a lady my age. \n  \n\"Orca White, it's a pleasure\". \n  \nSo we're both here, at the finest dining restaurant in the city. We both spent quite a sum of money in order to find each other. Apparently, she is, scientifically proven, to be my 'ideal match'. I found that hard to believe, since I've dated tens of other girls and I just found all of them to be equally bland. \n  \nShe's a sheltered, 17 years old girl, who's very educated and comes from a well-off family. She's interested in travelling, competitive gaming, animal conservation and politics. Her background is terrifyingly similar to mine, aside from the fact that she's Finnish and I'm American-Indonesian. \n  \n\"So, yea, nice weather eh?\" She said to me, awkwardly. \n  \n\"Yea, it's really sunny, good day for a walk. How are you doing?\" \n  \n\"I'm very fine, thank you. How are you?\" \n  \n\"It's been alright, you know, with the country economy on a shatter my family has been going a little bit insane. Government and stuff, you know.\" I said, trying to start a conversation that will piqued her interest. \n  \nOur dine arrived. Two classic steaks. She have an old red wine to accompany it while I have my glass of water. \n  \n\"So what's your thoughts on Feminism?\" she said as she cuts her food. \n  \n\"That's... An odd way to start a conversation\" \n  \n\"Oh I'm sorry, I just don't want to get boring with the small talks. I mean, we both know where we stand in politics and that path of conversation would just lead me thinking that you're an idiot and you will think the same of me. Both you and I know that's pretty much the only thing we have our difference in, at least if we're reading off the same data\" \n  \n\"Interesting way of thinking\" I proclaimed, then I continued on, \"Well Feminism was useful in its early days, but now its just stupid. We should stop discussing about it and start tackling inequality problems the same for men and women.\" \n  \n\"Exactly my opinion\" \n  \n\"What about philosophy then, you know anything interesting philosophically?\" \n  \n\"Oh, I read very interesting discussions about in what sense does numbers exist\" her eyes widen and her eyebrows risen. \n  \n\"Yes, where it boils down to three different schools of thought?\" \n  \n\"One of them being Platonism, where they basically says that numbers do exist. They're things, they're objects, but they're abstract objects. They exist outside of space and time. Their basic argument is basically if numbers are proven to work in the real world, then numbers has got to be exist. They believe that it is a proven fact that there's a number between 3 and 5, then the number has got to be exist\" \n  \n\"Ah, the most complicated view to comprehend\" I said as I am pleased with her knowledge, although I read the data about it already. \"True, true. However, the question that was raised then was how can mathematicians easily access that world of 'abstract objects'. How could they just accidentally stumble upon these 'new dimension' and use them so reliably?\" \n  \n\"Stand point number two. Numbers are just describing things that exist. It's like a metaphor. When you're saying 2 + 2 = 4, what you're saying is basically \"two objects, added by two objects is equal to four objects\". Like, 'if I buy 2 carrots, then I buy another 2 carrots, I would have 4 carrots' sort of thing.\" \n  \n\"Nominalism, yes. Then the famous counter argument was what's the real-object equivalent of numbers like -1, or i, or irrational numbers. I mean, you can't show me that you have a -1 or something, nor that you can show me that you have a 1.66 repeating amount of something as what you have would always be measurably whereas 1.66 repeating is not. To Platonism, -1, i, irrational numbers and all sort of other numbers are just... Another number.\" \n  \n\"You're right, and then there's the last one.\" She said seriously. \n  \n\"Fictionalism,\" I said, \"where they believe that numbers doesn't exist and it's all just a metaphor. There's no real proof that numbers exist, no witness, no anything. That simply means that numbers doesn't exist. It ultimately is, just a metaphor for real life things.\" \n  \n\"And the counter-argument in that is that how can then the metaphors be so perfect? If I was writing a story about a Lion going through a jungle, how can then you know that the jungle will rain in about two hours, just by reading my metaphors? How can you measure objects in real world and apply mathematics if numbers are just metaphors that we made ourselves?\" \n  \nShe was obviously very knowledgeable. Impressed me, but, I've seen this before too. Nothing really special. \n  \n\"So where do you stand on this? Which school of thought do you take?\" \n  \n\"None.\" \n  \n\"Because the whole argument is useless and doesn't have any significant impact at all\" she says, as if she have known me for a very long time. \n  \n\"Exactly\" I claimed. \n  \nSilence. Our conversation was pretty intense, however stupidly boring. I know all of the things that she knows, and we both pretty much have the same opinion. There was no room for disagreement, therefore, no room for exciting arguments. She's very predictable. \n  \n\"You know, you're pretty much like me,\" she confess, \"it's scary how similar we are. I thought I was at least special of having a character of my own.\" \n  \n\"I know. I know what you're thinking.\" \n  \n\"You're about to tell me about how boring this conversation is, and how predictable I am. I was thinking the same about you.\" \n  \n\"Yes.\" \n  \n\"I hate it. I hate you. You make me feel that me, myself are bland as it turns out there's a person who's exactly like me. You're also predictable, and boring and we have nothing to learn off each other.\" \n  \n\"Exactly. It appears that we have both wasted $450,000.\" \n  \n\"Can we not? I dated a lot of men and not one I'm interested in. This time I spent quite a large sum of money and went through a complicated process. I would hate it if it turns out to be a big waste.\" \n  \n\"You would prefer all of it to go to charity.\" \n  \n\"Yes. See, that's exactly what I hate about you,\" she mutters, \"you're a kid born in a rich family with an unbelievably high expectancy. Every day you do as they told you to and you have a huge burden on your shoulder to carry on your family's name. You're exactly the same as me. How can I not know you well?\" she continues. \n  \nTo my surprise, she mutters on, \"you're so fucking predictable. Can you not be so predictable?\" She said, visibly annoyed at me for nothing I'm accountable for. I was annoyed with her too. \n  \nI splashed my glass of water to her face. \n  \n\"I'm sorry, you said you want me to be unpredictable\" \n  \n**\"YOUR MOTHER'S A CUNT AND YOUR DAD WAS A COCK SUCKING BITCH!\"** She yelled unpredictably, with a smile. Attracting the attention of the whole restaurant. I got her notion. \n  \n\"WELL YOU ARE A RICH BIG BABY WHO GOT PAMPERED BY YO-\" \n  \n\"Oh coming back with another insult?! How VERY predictable of you. It'll take a lot more to impress me Mr. Jack Derrymo-\" \n  \nI slapped her hard. I laughed. \n  \nThe whole restaurant gasped. Then silence. \n  \nShe laughs uncontrollably. \n  \nShe then proceeds to throw her steak-sauce to my face. I blocked it with my arm. \n  \n\"Oh WOW that fucking burns!\" I yelled as I attempt to clean off the sauce and control my huge grin. \n  \n\"Oh my God I am so sorry! It's just way too much fun to do! I am so sorry. It's just that I've been doing things I've been expected to in life and I was just, oh my God\" She said as she's giggling and covering her eyes with her hands. \n  \n\"Let me help yo-!\" she said as she opens up her face. \n  \n  \n  \nI kissed her. \n  \n  \n  \n***\n\nI know, it's weird. I apologize for it. Also, I'm not a native English speaker so if there's any grammatical error please point them out! (I'm also very new in writing in English)\n\nAny, I mean any constructive criticism would be appreciated. Personally, I think the 'flow' of my story this time is still weirdly paced. And my vocabulary is obviously lacking. I don't know, what do you think?\n\nAlso, I mingled around with a couple of popular thoughts such as Feminism and Number Existentialism. I would like to admit that I haven't done an in-depth research about those two, so I would like to apologize if I have somehow offended somebody, or if I have misinterpreted the views. \n\nThank you for reading! ", "I was honestly disappointed. While sitting across from her, a phrase kept repeating itself in my head: \"Be careful with what you wish for, you might just get it.\"\n\nIt wasn't her plain visage and drab attire that bothered me. Neither was it her small face, freckled with a jawline that protruded outwards making her look like a squirrel who overstuffed its mouth. She was nothing special. And that bothered me. \n\nI decided to speak up.\n\n\"So. Apparently, we're a match.\"\n\n\"An *ideal* match,\" she returned, with the least bit of affection in her voice. I couldn't blame her, I am no knight in shining armor.\n\n\"Do you think they made a mistake? I was expec---\"\n\n\"Yes, they made a mistake.\" Her comment cut me sharp, more viscerally than I expected. I wanted to agree, get up and leave. I was most likely wasting my time, but I remembered what Brea told me before she died.\n\n*Just because things aren't perfect doesn't mean they can't be good.*\n\nI decided to take a wager and keep myself glued to the seat. There was a reason why she and I were here together, fated as night meets day. I could say that a lot of people were not as lucky as us two. Often times, the Bureau of Eugenics could not find matches for people and they were relegated to finding sub-optimal partners. Brea never accepted that but I knew better, yet even still, I loved her. I loved her like the body thirsted for water and hungered for food, and I needed every bit of her just as much. I needed her like the sun needed the sky and I was sure to her just as much as the return of spring after winter. \n\nBut I gave her up.\n\nShe studied me as I tried to make light conversation. *Where are you from* was met with *around here*. *What do you like to do* was answered with *my hobbies*. I regretted my decision to not walk out the door.\n\nAfter a moment of silence, she looked into my eyes and said,\n\n\"Who was she?\"\n\nI stared back at her, not giving her an inch. I saw it in her eyes. In those green-blue eyes, I could see her, lucid and *sharp*. But it did not also betray my reflection. The question was *who was he?*\n\n\"Someone special. My soulmate.\" Her face nor disposition budged.\n\n\"It must've been hard to lose your soulmate.\"\n\n\"It is,\" I said. \"As you know.\"\n\nHer pursed lips slowly loosen into a nostalgic smile and she looked straight through me, past the walls that enclosed us, and past the horizon that bounded this small, little planet. Her green-blue eyes that stared at nothing and enveloped my entire universe were filled with a ruminating sadness, yet I could see that they were not accustomed to shedding tears. They were like a mirror, and I couldn't help but see myself.\n\n\"He was a stupid boy. So, so stupid.\" Her attention gravitated back to our conversation. \"I never suffered stupid people, but he was different. One time, he purposely deprogrammed my visor just so he could fix it. I knew it all along and the look on his face when I rerouted the power conduit---\" She laughed. \"And the day when I told him that I liked him... I wished I'd never gave him the satisfaction. He told me that he'd smiled non-stop for weeks and that his dreams were butterscotch and licorice. There is truly nothing half as foolish as a man in love.\"\n\nI felt the ice break but the truth was, I could only think of Brea in response to her sonderous monologue.\n\n\"She... Was wild and free like the wind.\" I relented and tried not to use too many metaphors. \"Her hair was brown and her eyes were brown.\"\n\nShe smiled across the table, with the smile this time meant for me. \"Did you love her something fierce?\"\n\n\"I loved her more than we complemented each other.\" Reactionarily, I balled my fist and held my cheek against it. \"I loved her enough that I was willing to work at it.\"\n\n\"What a wistful thing to say,\" she said, half-amused and half-devastated. \"Do you think you two were perfect for each other?\" \n\n\"I don't think things could've ever been perfect for us,\" I admitted.\n\nThen she smiled and said,\n\n\"Just because things aren't perfect doesn't mean they can't be good.\" \n\n" ]

[ 3, 3, 7, 11, 15, 15, 28, 30, 203, 299, 479 ]

[ "1408041617", "1408041854", "1408036008", "1408041173", "1408034744", "1408036623", "1408039802", "1408025789", "1408028364", "1408018454", "1408028067" ]

[ "\"Come with me. There's no time to explain.\" cried the midget troll. My first instinct was to pull away from his grasp, but something in his earnest gaze made me trust him. Besides, I wasn't sure I could pull away even if I wanted to, he had quite a grip for someone his size.\n\nStill clasping my hand, we ran as quickly as we could, down darkened alleyways; our feet slapping against worn cobblestones, and other less savory things. I only had a moment to gather my wits, as we paused for a quick and fragrant breath, in front a fishmongers. \n\nAn actinic bolt shot down from the heavens, and where it touched down, people and flagstones were sent flying into the air. The thunder that followed, rattled the teeth in my skull, and caused the very earth to shudder. \n\nAs I slowly regained my senses and feet, I noticed a lone figure emerge from the center of the lightning crater. I tried to repress my laughter as I saw my brother, bald as the day he was born, standing before me. \"LOKI!!\" he roared \"I would have words with thee!\". ", "\"Come with me, there's no time to explain!\"\n\nSara's hand reached over the chasm to clasp Bob's while the thunder in the distance made him think of two giant trucks colliding.\n\nShe sounded frantic and Bob didn't need an explanation anyway. The zombies were hot on his trail. \n\n\"There's a bunker,\" she said. \n\n\"Survivors?\"\n\nShe squeezed his hand.\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThat single word pierced Bob's heart like an ice knife. Late autmn rain drenched them in coldness but his schocked brain didn't register it. \n\n\"Then maybe we should stop.\"\n\n\n------\n\n-218", "\"Come with me. There's no time to explain.\"\n\"Grandpa I really need to write this paper is there any way this could wait?\" Grandpa put his hands in his pockets and walked away remembering a time when his grandchildren would have followed him anywhere if he had asked. He lost himself in thought and suddenly found himself in his attic. He walked over to a familiar truck and pulled out an old military uniform, a dusty black and white photo, and an old army issue handgun. Taking the gun apart came as naturally to him as tying his shoes and after cleaning it he placed it down by his side. He looked at the photo and immediately his eyes fell on James. James was the type of friend you never forget even after 40 years without him James's laughter still rung in his ears. He could clearly see James running into the tent and grabbing him only saying, \"come with me. There's no time to explain.\" Without realizing it he had packed up the trunk and walked down the attic steps. as he reached the bottom of the stairs he noticed the gun was still in his hand. If his grandchildren weren't going to come with him, he would have to follow them instead. He didn't even hear the sound of the gunshots over the roar of James's familiar laughter in his head." ]

[ 1, 2, 2 ]

[ "1408150821", "1408149757", "1408158834" ]

[ "\"Maaaary!\" \nThe screen door snapped shut as he staggered into the room, our room.\n\"Maaaaaaary! I got a preeeesent for you!\" \n I shivered as I heaved myself off the bleary pile of clothes on the bed. I'd been asleep, like the slothful waste I am. I should not have slept, there was so much to do. \n I stumbled upright with an arm full of clothes trying to straighten my hair, as his right hand caught mine. He had always been so strong. \n \"Whaat have you done. My Maaary?\" He pulled the pins from my hair and threw them in my face as the smell of mouthwash wafted over. He stared at me with his beautiful, terrible bright eyes. \n \"Invain shaal you make thineself fair! God himself says so!\" He was right. Of course he was right. I shouldn't have done that. I always did everything wrong. \n \"I caan't believe it Mary. Loook at this place.\" He let go of my hand and swung his arm wide around the room. \"You aare not the LOORD and THIS is NOT THE SABBATH\" I know it wasn't. I should not have fallen asleep. I knew better. He was right to scold me. I should do better. I would be better. I bowed my head and started gathering the fallen clothes. \n\"Loook at me MAARY\" He pulled as his shirt. \"Go to thee ant O sluggard, lookk at his ways.. why can'tt you do taht Mary?\" I shook my head in shame, I should look to him always. \n \"Jusst thiink Maary think.\" He droned. \n \"Thiink about what THE LORD has giiven you. A good liefe.. A good faithfuul huusband.. You'rre blest Mary! Thhink about that..\" \n I nodded my head to hide my tears. He was right, he was so right. \n\"I couuld have had another Rebbecca. Or aany other wooman tonight! I haad to hold them off!\" He grabbed my shoulders and stared at my eyes. \"But I coouldn't Mary. I couldn't because I have youu.\" He narrowed his eyes in a scowl. \"I have you 'Til death do uss part.\" \n He threw me to the bed full of clothes where he had me as I cried. I wasn't enough. I couldn't be good enough for a man like him. \n When he finished, he left me there, as he staggered into the kitchen where there was clattering of glass and a rattling of plastic. \n He wandered back in with two filled glasses of wine, sloshing them half out onto the bed as he towered over me. \n\"I proomised you a presentt, didnt I Mary?\" He slurred as he carefully stared at the glasses before handing me one. It was cloudier, with powder at the bottom of the glass swirled like snow in the light of the bulb overhead. \n \"Herre's to your luckk my Maary.\" He sang as he downed his glass. \nI smiled weakly as I drank my present. It was sweet. ", "I really must do this... \n \nAfter all, it is my fault. Everything is my fault. I really didn't mean it though, I tried. I tried to be the very best wife I could. To be the perfect servant of my husband, what God would want me to be. But I've failed. In 5 years I haven't gotten anything right. Even God is punishing me. I see this now, and I can no longer bare the shame.\n \nIf not for all these shortcomings, God would have given us a child by now. (Jo reminds me constanstly) And while I am sitting here in this beautiful house I share with my husband, I know that Mary is living with her two children in their apartment in the dangerous part of town struggling to put food on the table. Mary. I know she loves my husband. He's told me so. Although I've never met or spoken to her, I worry about her like she is family. \n\nJoe has told me every detail about them. He says they met at church (such a *long*commute from her neighborhood, but she really felt drawn to the place apparently. I still don't understand how the commute was possible...) She is a single mother who left a life of \"sin\". She had no job any more and is worried about having to go to the homeless shelter and lose her children. \n \nI've told Joe that I understand, gladly offered a divorce; but of course we can't do that, he reminded me. I would hate for him to be separated from his soul mate. He and I have discussed the only way they could be together. \n \nI'm sorry to write you, Joy, after all this time. I know we haven't spoken in 5 years, but before that we were best friends. I just had to say goodbye to someone... \n \nBy the time you get this, I will have been dead a couple days. I wish there was some other way, I really wish things could be different. I will miss you and most of all I will miss the warm summer winds. I'm starting to get so tired, these pills are working faster than I thought... \n \nTake care, my friend. Please remember me kindly." ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1408166459", "1408161024" ]

[ "You know who loves a good hollandaise sauce, my dad. In fact, it's why he married my step mom. Apparently, while they were dating, she couldn't cook for shit, so he paid for her to attend some cooking classes on the condition that she learn how to make a good hollandaise, because once she mastered that, he could just pour it over any terrible thing she made.\n\nSo she went to the classes and worked exclusively on making the best hollandaise you've ever had (I've tried it and I can confirm that it's killer). So he starts just slathering this shit on everything...breakfast, lunch and dinner.\n\nFive months later, he goes to the dentist, complaining about how his teeth have started to develop a really rough texture...almost porous in nature. The dentist took a look, and asked my dad if he'd been eating an unusual amount of hollandaise sauce recently. After my dad told him about the cooking classes, the dentist told my dad that he knew exactly what the problem was and how to treat it. He apparently told my dad that hollandaise sauce in large quantities essentially \"melts\" the protective enamel off of your teeth and that it was what caused his teeth to have the aforementioned rough texture; and that the fix was to cover all of the affected teeth with a chrome plating.\n\nWhen the dentist said this, my dad got confused. \"You want to chrome plate my teeth?\" my dad asked him.\n\nThe dentist replied, \"Absolutely...after all, there's no plate like chrome for the hollandaise.\"", "There was glass everywhere. \n\nMy little brother and I were just fooling around, wrestling. Maybe it got a little out of control. I was chasing him around the house, hiding behind things and jumping out, tackling him. We'd thrash about, he'd get loose and we'd start over again.\n\nHe was coming around the kitchen island when his left foot hit some water on the floor that we probably spilled earlier. Anyway, his foot slid and he lost balance and went straight through the sliding door that led to the deck.\n\nLike I said, there was glass everywhere. His leg was cut in about a dozen places. Not bad but there was a lot of blood. As luck would have it, Jimmy went through the door at the same time Dad walked in from mowing the lawn. \n\nHe saw us and ran over, looked at Jimmy's leg. His concern was quickly turning to anger at the mess we'd made. \n\n\"Jimmy\" he said, in a controlled voice. \"your leg doesn't seem too bad. Can you stand on it?\" Jimmy nodded, too scared to talk. \n\n\"How's your back?\" Jimmy mumbled \"ok\"\n\n\"What about your head? It looks bruised. Does your face hurt?\" Dad asked.\n\nJimmy nodded *no*.\n\n\"Well it's killin' me\"", "‘Knock…knock’ the sound resonated throughout the house as I stand at my father’s door waiting for a response. Anything other than “It’s 2 O’clock in the morning what the fuck do you want” would be a relief. \n\n“Come in” replied an irritated, raspy voice.\n\n“Hey dad just wanted to see if you had a second to talk, Sarah’s been acting really distant and weird these past couple of days and I can’t seem to figure out why.”\n\n“That’s what you woke me up for?” He could see the look of pure and utter desperation in my eyes and rather than shoo me away replied with “alright make it quick, what’s going on with you and Sarah?” His stern, annoyed voice made it sound more like an accusation rather than a question.\n\n“I don’t know what I could have done but this is the first time in the whole month we’ve been together that she’s gotten mad at me. She called me an asshole today after I tried to kiss her followed by telling me to go home and to leave her alone for a few days.” Keep in mind this is the first girlfriend I’ve ever had so things that may seem like common sense to some are brand new to me. Anyways there I stood, just you’re average 15 year old kid, looking for some insight into the female psyche from someone who has to know more in this category than any of my teenage friends. \n\nI took one nervous breath and said, “Looking around online I read that girls start to go through some changes once they reach a certain age, is that true?” My eager young mind begging to be filled with the secrets a man who managed to keep my mom happy for 25 years must have hidden somewhere in the recesses of his memory.\n\n“Of course that’s true, you’re probably going through some changes now yourself so it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine a young woman is experiencing this as well. I’m sure it’s nothing to get too worked up over, she’s probably just having a rough week.” I was stunned he was able to give me such a straight forward answer especially considering the time it was when my racing mind decided to seek his advice. After studying his words for a few seconds I accepted them as the only logical explanation for Sarah’s recent lack of affection towards me. \n\nA few moments of silence passed and all I could think to say was, “I guess it’s her time of the month huh dad.” As I got up and nudged him in the side I felt a smirk begin to spread across my face. It didn’t take long for it to fade however as my father eyes darted through the dimly lit room to meet mine. \n\nHe sat up, took a deep breath and said, “Listen to me because I’m only going to tell you this once understand?” I nervously shook my head in agreement half expecting a fuck off now go to bed after that childish joke I whipped up a few second ago. Instead he lowered his voice and said something that made me groan louder than you’d imagine possible. \n\nHe looked up at me and replied, “PMS jokes are not funny. Period.” ", "\"Shut the fuck up, Sid.\"\n\n\"Hmmph?\" came the muffled reply, followed by a repulsing, clear gulp. \"Whatcha doin' now?\"\n\n\"Chew with your goddam mouth shut and listen!\"\n\n\"Chaaarleeesss...\" The voice was faint.\n\n\"Huh, thas pretty cool, how ya doin that?\" said Sid in his clumsy manner, mouth full of cold pizza.\n\n\"That's not me you goddam moron! Stay quiet and listen.\" The two men sat together in the dimly lit apartment room. Their faces said that they were thinking, however their eyes said differently. After a couple minutes sitting in awkward silence the voice returned.\n\n\"Chaarleeesss...\" The voice was raspy, and the volume increased at the end of the 's' , as if it were a shouted whisper. \n\n\"H-h-how ya think it knows your name?\"\n\n\n\n\"I don't fucking care.\"\n\n\"Is comin' from out there\" Sid stamme.red as he gestured toward the door that led to the hallway.\n\n\"No shit Sherlock. We are going to go out there and find who is messing with us at 2 fucking o'clock in the goddam morning.\"\n\n\"W-w-we?\" Sid managed to spit out slowly backing up to the wall.\n\n\"C'mon, don't tell me you're scared you big wus. What's some teenage punk gonna do to a big ole guy like you?\"\n\n\"Chaaarleeesss...\" The voice came again.\n\n\"That don sound like any teenager I know of.\"\n\n\"Get the fuck out here with me\" Charles said as he opened the door. The hallway was an erie place at this hour. The single light flickered on and off with its papery white glow on the concrete walls and floor. The skylights were no help. Charles gestured for them to stay quiet and still. The waited a minute. Two minutes. Five minutes. \"Aight see Sid we scared them of-\"\n\n\"Chaaarlesss...\" The voice was noticeably louder than before.\n\n\"Shit. Sid, Let's go.\"\n\n\"Nuh-uh\"\n\n\"Sid!\"\n\n\"No Charlie I ent goin' witchu no more\"\n\n\"Sid get your ass over here!\" Like a puppy who had just been scolded, Sid slowly walked over, face down. \"Let's go.\" The two walked down the hall for ten paces and stopped.\n\n\"Chaarlesss...\" The voice grew louder and faster. Another ten paces. Again the voice would call out to Charles, a little bit louder and a little bit clearer than the previous time. This repeated until the two reached the door at the end of the hall.\n\nIn the faintest whisper Sid said behind Charles. \"Ok Charlie don't ya think wes should be goin' back now?\"\n\nTo which Charles replied at equal volume. \"Yeah Sid I'm going to agree with you now, let's head back.\"\nThe two began to tiptoe back but as they turned it happened one last time.\n\n\"Charles.\" The voice was no longer a whisper, but at normal conversational volume. There was no mistake that the noise was behind the door. Charles looked at Sid, made eye contact, nodded, and reached for the door knob. It was unlocked. \n\n\"I'm scared\" whispered Sid, dripping in sweat as the door opened. \n\n\"Hello scared,\" the voice replied, \"I'm Dad.\"\n\n \n ", "Warning: this is a serious story about race, and it may offend some. \n \nDew had already soaked the grass by the time the two boys had crept into the neighborhood. The night was much colder than the nights that preceded it and crickets everywhere seemed to voice their complaints to the bright moon overhead. \n\"It's cold as hell out here, Curt,\" Steven whispered. Curt slugged him in the shoulder and hushed him. \n\"Keep yer mouth shut, Steve. These coons have hearing like bats,\" Curt hissed. \nThey sneaked a bit further and Steve mumbled, \"Bats are blind. Not deaf.\" \nCurt pulled his hand up, and Steven flinched away from him. \n\"I'm not gon' hit you, ya puss. This fuckin' cross is just heavier'n shit. Give me a hand, would ya?\" \nSteve sighed and grit his teeth, but finally he lifted the back end so it would stop dragging. \n\"Are you sure we should be doin' this?\" Steve asked timidly. \nCurt sighed in exasperation and said, \"Course we should. Now shut up I said. That's the house up there.\" He pointed up to a large house at the end of the street. Light from a large window in the front illuminated the porch and swing that wrapped around the front of the house. \n\"There's a light on, Curt,\" Steven said. \n\"Never mind that. We'll be gone by the time they realize what done happened to 'em.\" Curt laughed and slowly entered the house's front yard. \nSteven let the cross fall to the ground and Curt shot him a look that could kill. \n\"I can't do this, Curt. We don't know these people. We shouldn't do this to them.\" \nCurt spit tobacco on the ground and sighed in disgruntlement again. \"Look, boy. They niggers. And they ain't no such thing as a nigger that don't deserve nothing bad. This is just us givin' them what they got comin' to 'em. So shut yer face and help me set up the cross. We'll set it on fire, and git. Quit bein' such a fuckin' pussy.\" \nSteven looked past Curt and up at the house. He admired the beautiful hanging plants they had put up and thought of the ones his mother had hanging at home. He clenched his jaw and said, \"No, Curt. They ain't done nothin' to us. We don't know 'em. I'm not doin' this.\" \nCurt rolled his eyes and spat, \"Fine, you backstabbin' piece of shit. I don't need yer help. I'll do it alone.\" \nSteve raised his eyebrow as he looked down at the nearly 7 foot cross. \"You're going to put it up yourself?\" Steve asked him. \nCurt sighed and rolled his eyes once more. \"No, you queer. Dont be stupid. I'm gon' put it up in their yard here.\"", "When I was 14, I had a best friend named Dave.\n\nDave & I hung out all the time. He lived a few blocks away from me for most of our childhood, but shortly after he turned 13, his mom moved to the east side of town, and I saw him less frequently, though we still hung out on weekends, and spent pretty much the entire summer together.\n\nOne summer day, I convinced my dad to take me over to Dave's house to spend a week or so there. We arrived, and Dave's mom, Linda, said I couldn't stay over, because they had a family emergency. Linda's brother had fallen and hurt his hip, and the live-in caretaker who had been looking after him was out of town. Beyond that, she said it would be a bad week, because Dave had a pretty terrible summer cold.\n\nWell, Dave & I begged her, and she conceded, so I was able to join them as they took a road trip to Dave's uncle's house in northern Kentucky.\n\nThe four hour car ride was rather miserable. Linda was worried about her brother, and Dave kept coughing, sneezing, and blowing his nose, but we were able to play some Pokemon (red & blue) in the back seat. We made several stops to get more tissues and orange juice, and Dave picked up a big bag of cough drops.\n\nWe eventually reached Dave's uncle's house, a large farmhouse on a massive plot of land. Linda practically ran to the door, while Dave & I unpacked the car. When we came in, we saw Dave's uncle, who was surprisingly much older than Dave's mom, just sitting on the couch, looking perfectly fine. Linda still insisted on taking him to the nearest hospital, which was another hour away. She asked if Dave & I wanted to go along, or stay there at the house, and we decided we had spent enough time in the car, and that we would just remain at his uncle's house.\n\nSo, Linda and Dave's uncle (Robert, I think) left, and Dave & I closed the door behind them. When we did, we noticed a large jar of pennies behind the door. It was a water-cooler jug, filled to the top with pennies. Dave & I reasoned that there must have been a hundred dollars worth of pennies in that jug. Our mental gears started turning.\n\nDave told me that his uncle was very cheap, and that his thrift meant he probably had a lot of money saved, and likely hidden in the house. We discussed that, if he had a jar of pennies, maybe he had a jar of nickles. If he had a jar of nickles, maybe he had a jar of dimes. If he had a jar of dimes, maybe he had a jar of quarters! If he had a jar of quarters, we could raid it, take $12, and order a pizza!\n\nSo, we began searching the house for the mystic and legendary jar of quarters. We searched the first floor, then the second, then made our way into the basement. The top two floors were well-kept, though a little folksy, but the basement was scary. It was an old root cellar, with access through the creakiest staircase in the state, as well as through an old hatch that led outside. The large basement was lit by a single hanging light bulb, which shone so dimly it barely illuminated the immediate area surrounding it, let alone the distant corners of the room.\n\nWe decide we need flashlights, so Dave goes back upstairs and gets two of them from the kitchen. The entire time, I can hear him above me, not only by the floorboards creaking, but from his sniffles and coughs as well. He returned moments later, and we flipped the switches on the flashlights, only to find that the batteries in one of them were dead.\n\nNot to be deterred, we searched with a single flashlight, until we found something unusual. Along one of the earthen walls was a shelf with a few old dirty tools on it. The shelf appeared to have a wooden backing to it, but the backing was slightly differently colored, and jutted out along the edges. When we examined it closer, we found that the backing wasn't even attached to the shelf, but was instead built in to the wall, and, though it looked to be just an old doorknob on the shelf, the shelf was just aligned perfectly to hide that the knob was attached to the wall. There was a secret door there!\n\nDave & I cleared the old tools off of the shelf, and moved the wooden structure to the side, revealing, as we had suspected, a hidden door. We opened the door, which creaked worse than the stairs, and saw a long hall, made of dirt, with wooden bracing along the way. The hall went forward about a hundred feet, then seemed to turn sharply to the right.\n\nWe discussed the purpose of the hidden hall, and decided that, in northern Kentucky, it could have been used for the underground railroad. The house was, after all, very old, and on a very large plot of land, so our reasoning made sense, as we decided to explore further.\n\nWe entered the hall, Dave taking the lead, as he had the only working flashlight, and approached the turn. When we turned with the hall, it led another fifty feet or so, and then became a dead end. What alarmed us was the object at the end of that section of the hall. A coffin. An old wooden coffin.\n\nWe made a few jokes about the coffin to hide our dread, jokes about where Dave's aunt was, and about vampires (since Dave's uncle's bed was so neatly made, and looked to never have been slept in) and other such jokes to lessen the palpable fear in the air. Finally, I mustered my courage and decided to open it. Dave agreed that, his uncle was cheap, but also creepy, and thus a hidden coffin in a hidden hall in the root cellar was the perfect place to hide his money. Greed getting the better of me, I opened the coffin.\n\nThe moment my hand brushed the lid, the coffin shook. We heard creaking behind us, and ran back to the corner of the hall, where Dave shined the flashlight back toward the entrance, revealing the door had closed behind us. We then heard a thud from the dead end, and he spun the flashlight around to reveal that the coffin had stood up on its end!\n\nAs though on tracks in a fun house, the coffin began moving toward us. We panicked and ran back to the door. We had failed to realize when we entered, that the doorknob was only on the outside, not the inside, and so were stuck in the hall. I tried prying the door open, as Dave kept the flashlight on the hall behind us. The coffin moved around the corner, and then began flapping its lid at us, as if to swallow us!\n\nDave was screaming in fear, nearly crying, adding more mucus to his sniffles than usual. I took off one of my shoes and threw it at the coffin, hoping to knock it over, but the lid opened and it swallowed my shoe. Dave threw the flashlight, and again, the coffin swallowed it. Now the only light was coming from the coffin, as it approached us, flapping its lid, clearly ready to consume us. I curled into a ball against the door, ready to cry, not wanting to die. Dave reached into his pocket, and threw something else at the coffin. The object was gulped into the coffin, which then stopped moving, and fell flat on the ground. The door opened. We were saved.\n\nI stood up and we both ran into the cellar, then upstairs, where we finally felt safe. I tuned to Dave, and asked him if all of that really just happened, and he assured me it did. I asked him what the hell he threw in the end, that saved us both.\n\nHe replied: \"Hall's Cough Drops. Guaranteed to stop the coffin every time.\"", "Benny never took anything lightly. He was specifically taking nothing lightly as he scanned the beach for seashells. It was serious work, finding seashells, considering it was how Benny made his living. This particular day seemed like any other--a silver dollar here, half of a clam shell there. It was such an average, mundane day that Benny suspected nothing when he noticed the edge of a copper rod sticking out of the sand.\n\n*More trash*, thought Benny, as he reached down to pull the rod from its place on the shore. He often discovered the leavings of less considerate beach goers on his journeys along the beach, and took it upon himself to remove the garbage that might distract him from future shell cultivation. As he pulled at the rod it slipped from his fingers, as if he was trying to lift a full cup which he expected it to be empty. Trying again, this time with the full force of his arm, he withdrew the copper rod and discovered that it was neither copper, nor a rod. It was the tip of a bronze object that Benny barely recognized, but could recall from a bygone era. An oil lamp. Not unlike one that his grandfather had kept on a shelf in his den, but more closely resembling the oil lamps of India that he had seen in history books and antique shops.\n\nA wave of excitement came over Benny as he rinsed the artifact in a particularly powerful wave that indicated the evening high tide. There was an inscription on the side of it that Benny could scarcely make out, much less read (as Benny had no knowledge of Sanskrit, or Arabic, or whatever the case may have been), but as he brushed away the sand which obscured it, a very curious thing happened. The lamp began to shake violently in his hands, it became bright and alive, its corroded body seemed to pull itself away from Benny's hands as if it were a bird struggling to take flight. In fear, Benny relinquished, and the bronze lamp emitted a sputtering of smoke and gas. \n\nBefore it had hit the ground, Benny was standing face to face with a man dressed in garb as ancient as the lamp. He was foreign, Benny knew that much. Perhaps of the same origin as the lamp. His shoes and pants were made of a hand sewn linen and seemed to be as old and worn as the man himself, who was white haired with a full, long beard and dark, deep set eyes.\n\n\"Holy hell who are you and where did you come from?!\" gasped Benny, as another wave hit his legs, yet seemed not to wet the man before him.\n\n\"I am al-Jinn,\" said the man, \"And I come from a dimension beyond your world.\"\n\n\"No shit,\" replied Benny, \"and I suppose you're here to grant me three wishes?\"\n\n\"Only one,\" said al-Jinn, unblinkingly. Benny was convinced that he was hallucinating, or dreaming. *This kind of B.S. only happens to folks on drugs*, he thought. He brought his hand to his chin, and remembered that he seldom took anything lightly, even his most lucid dreams.\n\n*If this is really happening, I ought not waste a perfectly good wish*, he mused. \"Alright, Mr. Al Gin, I know what I want to wish for.\"\n\n\"Very well, but know this: Your wish and your life will last only as long as you do not cut the hair of your face. A single deliberate clip will result in your death. Now, what do you desire?\"\n\n\"I wish for wealth,\" said Benny, practically ignoring the words of the Jinn. No sooner than the words had parsed his lips, both lamp and man were vanished, as if into thin air.\n\n*Good lord*, thought Benny, *I must have stepped on a hypodermic needle with something still in it*. He rushed home to his beach shack and scrubbed his body in the shower before hopping into bed and falling into a deep, deep sleep.\nWhen he awakened, Benny was surrounded by a harem of beautiful women.\n\n\"It's time to get up, master.\" Benny looked around and did not recognize his surroundings. \n\n*Oh god, I'm still on drugs*. He dove from the bed and ran to what he believed was the nearest exit, a glass door through which the light of a setting sun shined. As he burst through the door he realized that he was on a balcony, three stories above the spot where his beach shack had once been planted. \n\n\"Master, are you alright?\" asked another member of the bevy of gorgeous women who pursued him.\n\n\"NO, I AM NOT ALRIGHT, WHAT IS HAPPENING?\"\n\n\"Master, don't you recognize your own home?\" \n\nBenny was in disbelief. *What kind of drug is this powerful and lasts this long?* he wondered.\n\nAnd so it went. For the first week, and into the first month of Benny being wealthy beyond his wildest dreams, Benny lived in disbelief. His shells sold as if they were the artwork of a renaissance painter. The home which had disappeared beneath a vast mansion became a memory in the wake of his new life with his harem. \n\nThe money, the women, the ... wealth. It was all, indeed, beyond his wildest dreams. For that reason, Benny let his facial hair grow unhindered. The silly words of the man on the beach became a commandment, and Benny dared not cut the hair of his face, lest he lose the life which he had come to love. For thirty years, Benny lived the life he had always dreamed of, wished for--wealthy beyond his imagination. Now his beard was longer, whiter than the beard belonging to the man on the beach. But it was dirty and decrepit, nasty and unkempt from untouched decades of growth. On this day, a third of a century past his fateful wish, Benny was relaxing in his Jacuzzi with a handful of favorite beauties from his harem.\n\n\"Come on Benny, I want to see what you would look like.\"\n\n\"Yeah Ben, please shave it! How could one shave hurt you?\"\n\n\"Big Ben, if you will at least trim that beard Sharon and I will let you do that thing you've always wanted to do but we would never let you,\" said one girl with a wink.\n\n\"Alright,\" said Benny, \"I've lived a long and full life, and hell, I doubt that guy still has any hold over me, I can shave if I want!\"\n\n\"Do it! Do it! Do it!\" pronounced the chorus of feminine voices from the Jacuzzi. Benny marched into one of several bathrooms on the first floor of his beach mansion and grabbed a razor meant for women's legs from the shower. Unceremoniously, he cut and trimmed and shaved until he was as clean shaven as the day he made the wish. With a swagger in his step, Benny walked out to the Jacuzzi and presented his baby soft face to his adoring fans. \n\n\"How do I look?\" asked Benny. \n\n\"So handsome!\"\n\n\"My word!\"\n\n\"I've never seen you like this!\" said the women. Cheers and whistles of adoration were cut short when Benny burst into a sputtering of smoke and gas. There before the handful of favored women lay a bronze urn in Benny's place. \n\nBenny had taken the single condition of his wish just a little too lightly, it seemed. An inscription was etched into the side of the urn. It didn't say his full name, or the dates of his birth and death, nor was it in Sanskrit, or Arabic, or whatever the case may have been. It was in English, and it was only a single sentence. The epigraph on that lonesome bronze jar read, \"A Benny shaved is a Benny urned.\" And that is the moral of the story.", "\nJuly 4th, we all know the day, fireworks, the kabaams, kazaams, houdini magic all over the place, things get hectic. This year was a bit different, only the old man laid on the couch of the July morning, no Ma this year. He looked kinda sad, my pops I mean, gloomy on such a fun holiday must suck. I felt pretty sad too, but only momentarily.\n\nAnywho, the day went on as normal, pops had invited some buds over, had a beer or two, played air hockey, watched some sports, I even got a bit tipsy, now that Ma wasn't around no more. And then night followed through. \n\nFireworks began blasting through the clouds at ten-ish or so; red, green, yellow, it was nice. But of course, I, the dumb kid I was, had other plans for the evening. Stashed deep in my pockets, the master key of the school, and a napsack full of fireworks. I was tingling with excitement.\n\nMy old man gave me the O.K. Man, he was a buzzkill, not even watching the fireworks from the roof like years before. He just sat there, gloomy-faced watching the tele.\n\n'Come on, lets go.' I tugged on his red-black plaid shirt, 'We're leaving this house tonight, we're gonna celebrate.' He looked at me emotionless, 'Come on, for Ma, she loved the fireworks, even more than me. He nodded with an effort, at least he was on-board I supposed.\n\nSo we headed to the school, parked ourselves a block away, and entered through the three-storied building from the back. We made our way up to Mr.Krennel's room, at the east end of the room, third floor. No question about it, it had the best view of the entire school. The large grassfield below, the cityscape afar, the mountains ahead. \n\n'Well, let's start, shall we?' Pops had been silent the whole ride there and the whole walk up, he must've still been thinking. I went on and opened up the window, the warm summer breeze, so gentle... so-- nostalgic. I placed a two against the windowsill and took out a lighter. \n\nThe lighter flared up the material and BOOM, off they went. The array of lights front and center, the best of views. We blasted off another dozen or so, before he went over one of the seats and sat himself down. Hunched over, head low in his arms.\n\n'Hey-- HEY! Don't do this to me!' I screamed. It was unfair, why did he get to sulk... Why couldn't I? 'You don't do this right now, you understand young man?' God, I felt like the grown-up here. 'Y-You... You don't...' I could feel my throat tense up, 'Why...' before I broke down and hugged him. 'Why is the world so unfair dad?'\n\nHe wiped his tears and wrapped his arms around me, 'It's alright son... it's alright.' I calmed myself down and took a seat next to him. Then we began to talk, a hearty talk. He talked of Ma's homemade eggs, her picky attitude, the naggity nags. He talked about the day I came into the world and was best day of her life, he said.\n\n'You know, we met right here in this class.' He said. 'Not at these exact seats, but at the blackboard up there.' He pointed to the whiteboard, \n\n'Dad, that's a whiteboard.' He raised a brow.\n\n'Huh, I guess your right. Well, don't expect me to know. Son, if you didn't notice, I'm an old man. He continued to stare at the whiteboard, looking at it with awe as the fireworks sounded from a distance.\n\n'Hey, you alright dad?'\n\n'Huh? Oh ya, I was just thinking, that whiteboard... Is remarkable.'", "March 22, 2024. Day one.\n\nDad woke me tonight with a harsh whisper, and a hand over my mouth. \nImmediately, I knew what was going on. \"We have to get the *fuck* out, now.\" No questions or complaining, I grabbed my backpack from beside my bed and the gun from under my mattress. We hid from the windows line of sight, crawling on the floors and into the back yard. The good thing about the small town, was our backyard facing a massive forest. The had to be soldiers in there, but we had to get out of the town as soon as possible.\n\nMach 25, 2024. Day three.\n\nWe've been walking for days, and we've finally reached the old cabin that burnt down several years back. We were supposed to rendezvous there on the third day of the collapse, but dad said we will wait one more day, sleep in the rubble tonight. If they don't show up, I guess we're moving on at dawn. I hope they do come. Strength in numbers. \n\nMarch 26, 2024. Day four.\n\nAlex and his sister caught up to us about a mile's walk from the burnt cabin. They said there was soldiers taking people away in large vehicles, but because they lived in an apartment it was much harder to get away.\n\nMarch 28. Day six.\n\nWe're heading to Base A: Something my father had found on a hunting trip three hundred odd miles away from the town, into the mountains. Last summer we hid MRE's and various supplies out there, just outside of what seemed to be an empty stone hut. The huts were made years ago, for those trying to reach the other side of the mountains--a place to hide from the biting winds. \n\nMarch 31, 2024 Day nine.\n\nAlex's sister has a nasty infection from slipping down a small rock face. We treated it, but it has really slowed us down. It's starting to warm up a bit, the nights aren't as awful anymore. Food is starting to run a little low. Dad said we should be at the there in a day's time.\n\nApril 2, 2024. Day eleven.\n\nWe have roughly one day of food for all of us. We had to take cover, there were huge carrier planes. We could only travel at night, but that was so ungodly dangerous.\n\nApril 3, 2024. Day 12.\n\nWe're out of food. It's gone. I gave my food to dad, he needs it more--he's older. He deserves it.\n\n___________________________________\n[NOTE: Couldn't decide what style, had to get to work and couldn't change it so hooray for random style changes mid-story.]\n_______________\n\nHas the sun always been this bright? My head aches and my body is sore. Alex and Dawn have been coughing. They caught a flu, so they stay way behind us while we lead--we can't rick getting sick. Not out here. \n\"Dad I'm cold.\" My voice cracks. \n\n\"I know, me too.\" He turns to look at me--his eyes sad.\n\n\"Dad, I'm hungry.\" He turns and puts his hand on my shoulder--tears in his eyes. I could see the pain.\n\n\"Hi, hungry. I'm Dad.\"" ]

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[ "\"You see, I have this candle..\" whispers the witch. It sure as hell didn't look like any candle I'd ever seen, unless the Devil had an option in Bath and Bodyworks. The \"candle\" was a human hand, brown and heavily wrinkled, almost as if it had been pickled. \n\nEven now, I can only recall fragments of memory. Crazy shadows dance and flicker, around the blue-green flames, as they burn around the fingers without consuming them. The light illuminates a nightmare visage, so disfigured by scars, boils and warts that nothing human remains. \n\nThe witch ransacks *my* bookstore. She moves like a hurricane through the store, books fly everywhere, glass shatters. \"Where is it?\" she shrieks in frustration. I would answer if I could. I try to speak, to move, but find myself paralyzed, unable to do anything but watch. My limbs feel like wet bags of concrete, my head an anvil. All I want to do is sleep...\n\nWhen I next regained consciousness, I did a quick inventory of the shop. The only thing that went missing was a book, more of a curio really, that I had bought from a Professor of History from Miskatonic University. Out of all those rare, expensive books, why that one? It was practically worthless...", "\"You see, I have this candle...\"\n\nSilence, and a confused stare. Joey waits a few seconds then begins. \n\n\"It's...a joke. It's dark, and the candle produces light. And you can see. Because I have th-\"\n\n\"Joey, just stop. That was lame.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\nThey both chuckle, and continue down the now illuminated hallway. This was the first abandoned mansion they've sneaked into, but tensions weren't terribly high. They \"practiced\" this by playing a few horror games, and both Joey and Kyle stayed relatively calm throughout, with only a few jumps from Kyle. They couldn't find a lantern, so they stuck with a simple candle for this adventure. Of course their phone lights would be of much better use, but what fun is that?\n\nA creak is heard above them, and Kyle gasps. Joey, unaffected, ventures forward into the next room. \n\n\"It was probably just a ghost, don't worry\" he says, turning his head to direct his voice at Kyle. While doing this, he failed to notice that a figure appeared in front of him, and he crashes into it.\n\nJoey and the figure stumble forward, or backwards for the figure, and crash on the floor. The first thing he notices in that his shirt is now soaking wet. He tries his best to get up, putting his hands next to the thing's head, but his wrists are grabbed by it.\n\nHe stares at it from a planking position. It's eyes are transfixed on his, and it's mouth is small. Almost solemn. He would think that it's just a realistic mannequin, but the hands ensnaring him say otherwise. \n\n\"JESUS CHRIST!\" Joey shouts, as Kyle rushes forward to him. The grip is intense, then finally lets go. Joey stumbles backwards from the sudden release, into Kyle, who tries catching him. The thing on the ground lays there, not moving. The two notice this, and escape as quickly as they can. Kyle pulls Joey up, and they burst through the front door, a few rooms down. Once at the street, beyond the mansion's fence, the two stop. Bending over to catch their breaths, Joey notices the mass of blood on his shirt. \n\n\"Dear God. What the Hell was that?\" Kyle asks in between breaths. They both turn to the mansion, and see the figure in the window. \n\nHer hair is long and white, but her face is that of a young persons. Her shirt has many visible cuts in it, with blood seeping out. She still has the transfixed stare, aiming towards Joey, whose blood turns cold. \n\n\"We...we should go.\" Joey says, and sprints off to the car a few blocks down. Kyle follows suit, leaving the girl in the window to stare. \n\nShe smiles, meekly, and manages to speak a word.\n\n\"Marked.\"\n\nAnd as the car drives off, she fades into the walls of the house, awaiting his return.", "\"You see, I have this candle...\" Mr Jones said. I had to find a way out of this place. I tugged at the ropes binding my hands to no avail.\n\"And the flame here, I could blow out. But, of course, I don't. It keeps the room bright and slightly warmer. However...\" The lights hanging above me flicked on with a clap of his hands. \" Now the flame is irrelevant\" The madman blew it out. \" I am the light. You are the candle. I will render you irrelevant with a press of a button.\"\nI tryed to tip the chair but the henchmen gave me a swift slap round the face.He leaned in towards my face. \"Tommorow at the break of dawn I shall fire the sixth nuclear weapon to be used in combat towards chicago.\" \n\"No.....\" I mumbled.\n\"This will cause Nuclear war amongst the major powers of the world and the demise of society.Why you may ask? Because I despise society. Racism, homaphobia and sexism run rampant in america. So I shall destroy it and rebuild anew. I will becom-\"\n\"NO!...\" I screamed.\n\"Yes\" He pushed the button. And then there was darkness.\n", "\"You see, I have this candle...\"\n\"Look Gary, nobody gives a damn about your scented candles!\"\n\n", "\"You see I have this candle...\" \nI can't see anything, just the flickering flame of the candle. There's a faint humming sound in the background. Like a very soft Gregorian chant. \n*slap* \n\"You see I have this candle!\" \nThat hurt. This is going too far. \n\"What are you doing?!\" I shouted. \n*slap* \n\"Silence will be observed in these hallowed halls\" *burp* \"Through him, in him, with him, in the unity of the dark lords, all glory is yours, now and forever\" \n\"Amen...\" I said, forcing myself to sound mildly genuine. \n*slap* \nYeah, I really shouldn't have to Jimmy's tree house- secret society inauguration. We're 38, for god's sakes!", "You see, I have this candle.\n\nI light it every night as soon as the sun goes down, leaving all of the lights in my old, rundown house off so as to make the flame appear as bright as humanly possible. I sit by the candle all night as the flame dances, casting wavering shadows on the fading wall paper. I watch as the shadows tell stories throughout the night, and the wax slowly dribbles down the side of the slender shaft. As the hours pass, the candle dwindles down to nothingness until it is time to extinguish the flame and for me to rest my head on my oversized queen bed. \n\nI've done this every day since my wife passed away 2 years ago. It is the only thing that keeps her memory alive, for she was the light of my life. She always brought me joy with her vivid stories and carefree dancing, even without music. She was my candle.\n\nGod, I miss her.", "\"Hey, babe, how's it goin'?\" he slurs what passes for a compliment past his twelfth beer. He eyes her up and down, a perfect ten out of ten.\n\nShe returns the statement with a frown, and returns to her friend.\n\n\"Hey, don't leave me!\" he grabs her wrist as she tries to shy away. He is too intoxicated with her youth and with alcohol to think. \"You smell good.\"\n\nShe screams, people begin to take notice. He sees the bartender motioning to a hulk of a man in the back. Only then does he realise she does not look eighteen. This realisation means little as the alcohol forces him to continue.\n\n\"That's lavender, isn't it?\" The ground moves away from him. He feels lighter - lifted up by the man. He doesn't notice. \"I knew it was lavender! You see, I have this candle...\"\n\nHe lands on his arse outside.", "\"You see, when I have a candle. It makes light that lets me see.\" he said matter-of-factly. As he holds my hand and guides me down the side walk.\n\"But how does the light let you see?\" I ask still not understanding sight. My first time to a new planet and the dominant species here, who are called \"humans\", have a much different way of observation. \n\"When its dark you can't see and then the light lets you see\" he replies obviously irritated that i don't understand. \"Ask my dad he knows everything.\"\nI have ascertained that this human is a child and he is taking me to see his parents so that i may communicate with them about our species and introduce them to their first alien race. It is the first assignment i have revived from the tribunal and a huge responsibility. I ask him to describe me with his sight. I hear nothing for a while and then he says \" your short and green with long fingers and a big head and legs like a frog!\" then he laughs. We finally reach the door to his house. And he opens it up. \"Mom i made a new friend!\" ", "\"You see, I have this candle. It doesn't go out. Just keeps on burning.\"\n\n\"Is that it?\"\n\n\"Is that it? Seems paranormal enough to me. Won't go out with water or anything. Sounds like a good job for a Paranormal Investigator, wouldn't you agree?\"\n\n\"I don't know, I was expecting something a bit more exciting. I mean, the first paranormal object I found was an empty-eyed doll that moved when you weren't looking, and it's only gone up from there.\"\n\n\"Who cares how bloody exciting it is? It's still paranormal, isn't it?\"\n\n\"It's *borderline* paranormal. Slightly occult. Marginally spooky. It's not really something I can *investigate*, you see?\"\n\n\"Look, I don't know what more you want. It's a candle that refuses to go out in defiance of common sense and natural law. What do you want, a twisted candle of horror with Queen Elizabeth's soul trapped in it?\"\n\n\"Why not? I looked into a folding chair haunted by Charles II the other week.\"\n\n\"Well, I've got to do *something* with this candle. Can't have it just sitting around the house. That's a fire hazard, that is.\"\n\n\"Sorry, but you won't get a full Paranormal Investigator for a little everlasting candle when there's ghosts of dead royalty to look into. Take my advice, head over to Whittaker Street and get a Slightly Occult Investigator for it.\"\n\n\"A *Slightly Occult* Investigator? They're scam artists, the lot of them! You may as well ask me to have the Neighborhood Watch investigate it.\"\n\n\"There's a lot of scammers, but I know some good men in that field. Actually, the owner of James' Artifacts could probably rate as a Particularly Spooky Investigator, he just prefers to work the smaller cases.\"\n\n\"Alright, I'll try there. Thanks for your time.\"\n\n\"Not a problem. Oh, and if it turns out your candle really is haunted by Queen Elizabeth, do give me a call, I'd love to see that.\"", "You see, I have this candle.\n\nIt was a gift from my students the year I stopped teaching; it's more of a sculpture than a candle, a fantasy construct of orange and red, which sort of looks like a tower from one side, and a dragon from the other. There's a wick in the middle, somewhere. I took it home, put it on a dresser in the hallway, meaning to give it my niece who likes that sort of thing. But my niece lives in a state of flux, it was never a good time to take it (understandable, the thing is a foot wide and at least two feet tall). So it's been sitting there, gathering dust, for almost a year. The hallway gets lots of sunlight; consequently the wax is in a constant state of flux, too. It's wilted a bit, and the dust has merged with the surface. It is no longer the magnificent waste of space that it once was. It's time for it to go.\n\nYou know how you don't notice something for a year, and suddenly you do, and it keeps drawing your eye? Well, maybe you don't. But that's what happened. No sooner had I started looking for a box big enough to house this thing, than I started feeling a bit wary of walking past it. I'd find myself standing in the kitchen door, looking at it, and realise that I didn't want to walk past it to go upstairs, or out of the house. Weird. I put off finding a box, which was weirder; you'd think if it was giving me the heebies, I'd be quick to get rid of it. Instead, I just sort of started circling it carefully.\n\nI stopped keeping my keys in the dish next to it; I moved the dish to the coffee table in the lounge. When I came in, I stayed near the right hand wall, and noticed after a week or two that I'd begun to rub off a patch of wallpaper in doing so. I tried to moderate my behaviour, force myself to forget about it, but instead I started dreaming about it.\n\nIn my dream it was never a dragon or a tower. Most often, it was a face - a twisted, melty wax face, howling silently, or a marbled mass that dripped off the hallway dresser and *up* the stairs, making it's way towards my room with excruciating slowness.\n\nThree weeks of this; telling myself I was going to get a box, and then to forget the box and just throw it in the car, or to forget donating it and just throw it in the bin. But it had become clear that I really didn't want to touch it. I hadn't touched it in a year, and I couldn't remember how it felt, but I was sure I could imagine… sticky, dusty, clammy… no, those weren't the right words. *Horrifying.* There.\n\nSometimes, standing in the doorway, contemplating it, I'd try to see the dragon or the castle. They'd become difficult to find. Some part of it had collapsed under it's own weight in the over-warm sun that flooded the hallway in the mornings, and now it looked like a tunnel that ended in a room in hell, all sly angles and jagged crevices. \n\nIt still had teeth.\n\nThings came to head one evening when I'd come back from a beer with Bill, a professor at the college. He could have retired too (and perhaps been gifted his own peculiar wax sculpture), but chose to remain another five years. He'd been keeping me up-to-date on all the gossip people of our age shouldn't care about, and I'd suddenly started telling him that I had something in my house that was freaking me out, and could he come and help me with it. Sure! Bill's a good guy, he didn't even ask questions, just grabbed us a cab and came on back to my place.\n\nWhen we walked through the door, he did a double take.\n\n\"What the fuck is that?\"\n\n\"It's a candle, numbnuts, but it's also a headliner in my dreams… do me a favour and take it out of here so I can go crazy over the neighbours kids being noisy or robots infiltrating the government or something. I don't like that thing.\"\n\n\"I … I don't blame you. It sort of looks like this girl I used to know. She overdosed in her apartment and I had to leave her there. She was underage.\" I guess I must have been looking at him, because he replayed what he had just told me in his head and abruptly turned towards the kitchen. \"Let's get a bag or something to throw over this thing.\" I gaped after him, and decided I hadn't heard what I thought I heard.\n\nHe was out there a long time. I suppose I should have checked or gone out to show him where I kept the refuse bags, but I was sort of mesmerised, looking at this wax grotesquerie, and *seeing* the girl he was talking about, lying over the edge of her bed, arms and legs and bits of clothing cut sharply in lines of orange and red. I might have stayed there, entranced, for almost twenty minutes before I blinked and looked about me. Bill had been helping me. Good old Bill.\n\nHe'd cut his wrists in the kitchen. There was blood everywhere, as though he'd spun in circles afterwards. Silently, because despite my distraction, I'm sure I'd have heard him call for help. In all my life, I've never felt like the world had been tilted quite that far, quite that suddenly before. I was about to slide off.\n\nSo yes, it was arson. I set fire to the bloody house. From outside. I tried inside, but couldn't stop looking at the candle, which looked like Bill now. So I got out of there, walked to the gas station and got some supplies. The night air cleared my head, and starting the fire was easy.\n\n\nThe hard part was thinking about the shapes the candle might have made as it melted wildly. I'm never going to have to see it again, and I've got a dead guy in my house, which I mostly burnt down, but my biggest problem still feels like the shapes of that candle are inside my head. Lighting a fire around it might have destroyed its integrity, but before it went it danced and twisted and looped, and I have a feeling I'm going to see everything it wanted to show me." ]

[ 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 21 ]

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[ "I've never been one to worship the gods as some do in this world. It never occured to me that one of the divine could rise through the ranks of the pantheon or that I would be it's instrument. My mother and father would praise the gods daily. Whether it would be the God of the eating bowls and plates or the gods of the various foods. My father in particular seemed to have a particular fascination with the God of vehicles. He would curse him somedays and praise him others. I remember the days of worship with the priests of the local clergy. Father Michael always seemed to lean towards the gods of Nature. He'd take long walks on the temple grounds preaching to all who would hear. Another priest, Father Clarence would always espouse of the virtues of the God of Air and to how powerful he must be in the Pantheon, because it provided breath to all under heaven. The Elders of the order always proclaimed that the Sun God was at the head of the Pantheon. My mother in particular praised the Goddess of the Earth because she provided substnace for all life. I had never heard the gods speak to me nor felt their divine influence even at the heights of my participation in the order. I had long since abandoned the Faith in pursuit of more scholarly endeavors.\n\nI had only begun my work at the university when I was approached by Professor Shrute. He took me under his wing and got me a nice job working for the university library. It was here that I first heard the divines call. I spent long hours within the annals of the hall between the various collected volumes and tomes. I spent the time organizing and indexing the books. I loathed my time there, for I thought that my talents were better suited to field work with the professor. I approached the prosfessor one day and inquired about why he was wasting my time in the library.\n\nI caught him outside his office one day after sometime spent trying to arrange a meeting. \n\"Professor!\", I called out to him as he left his office. He turned to meet me as I neared him, quickening my pace to match his. \"Ah, Miguel. What brings you in today?\" We continued down the hall towards the university administration. \"Professor, I've been trying arrange a meeting with you for several weeks now but have been quite unsuccessful. Are you avoiding me? Because it would seem that you are. I've been inquiring about switching to field work. Although your secretary assures me that you are getting my messages, I feel that I've been shuffled away into some back room and ignored.\" The professor glanced at me while arching his eyebrow, he sighed and continued walking down the hall. \"Professor\", I prodded. \"I'm waiting for something.\" he paused and continued, \"Is the stipend you are getting from the library not enough?\" \"It is adequate but i feel that my talents are being wasted in such trivial matters\", I responded feelingquite flustered at the professors vague answer. We continued past the administrative offices and started down the stairs. \"Are you familiar with the god s, Miguel?\" \"Quite Familiar sir.\" \"Have you ever heard the call of the gods?\" \"Never, it's an outdated ideology much more suited for the temple than for the scholars such as yourself.\", I knew my impatience and frustration was showing but I was determined to get out of that dreadful place. \"In that case we'll increase your stipend but you'll have to spend more time in the library.\" \"Professor . . .\" I prostested but he cut me short. \"Field work requires enormous amounts of patience and study beforehand or else we risk destroying that which we seek to uncover. Your work for the University is vital and instructional. You are being taught how to catalog, classify, and identify information. So until I return from my latest dig you will need to further your education in the library.\"\n\nAfter that the professor left for Alexandria, and he requested that i be quartered closer to the library. I knew the professor had been grooming me for a position within the university but until our conversation that day I hadn't suspected that it would be his position. I spent the next six months in the library performing my official duties but also perusing the tomes. I learned everything from astronomy to agriculture. Most days I found myself alone in the library after hours. When readin the books I would often speak aloud and flail my limbs every which way whilst acting out the various stories. Once I even found myself running my hands along the books and shelves speaking to the night air as if cursing my lot and praising the books amongst the book cases for delivering me from such a tedious task. One night I even found myself groping around in the dark because I failed to refill my lantern. I often found myself checking my back to see if some unknown entity had hidden itself amongst the books. I began to hear whispers and voices but there were very faint as if someone were behind the bookcases spying me and reporting my doings to the Hall. At first when such thoughts ran wild I would retreat to my room where the sounds would abate and I would slowly drift off to sleep. As time wore on I found that the only was when I was reading the books and during my daily walks about the library. One night as I read about the Roman pantheon I began to feel faint. I brushed it off and continued reading but soon it became impossible as I had now developed a splitting headache. I rose from the floor and picked up my lantern. I struggled to orient myself and it seemed that around every corner there was another bookcase. I quickened my pace but soon I was unable to even walk. I fell to my knees and dropped the lantern. My body convulsed sharply and I lost conciousness. I awoke sometime later wihtin the confines of the University meidcal hall. The professor sat beside me. He told me that he had come at once when he heard what had happened to me. I had been found in the library within the locked section that onkly professors had access. No one knew how I had gotten in but th university librarian had been daily rounds when she found me. The doctors had no idea how I had been come to be in such a state. Later that week I was released as I had no further attacks. From that day forward the professor remained at my side. He often had such strange inquiries such as If I felt like I was being watched or hearing voices. I denied that I felt any such compulsion, not wanting to be sent off to the asylum. I remained in seclusion within my room. I wanted to escape the ever watchful eye of the Professor. I often had other students deliver my assignments. I even paid one such student to perform my library duties and deliver me books on a nightly basis. I instructed her to leave the library at closing time and to never stay late. Often I would dream of traveling to Alexandria with the Professor. I dreamt of the questions and instructions he would give me during the excavation. I soon found that I had a fascination with Alexandria so I ordered my thrall to deliver me tomes on the subject. My dreams continued nightly and always about Alexandria. I tried to distract myself by reading other works but I would always return to my study of Alexandria. When I studied I studied by candle light for hours long in to the night and often by candlelight. The light would flicker at the edges of the door. It kept the voices and eyes at bay. With the dawn it seemed that these strange compulsions would abate but I grew adverse to the sunlight. Rumors began to circulate about my latenight activities but I ignored them and even some professors began to grow unsure that I wasn't up to anything nefarious. Sonn I bagan traveling out at night to the library. On my first night back I stood before the doors, afraid to open the doors fearing that I might let out the presence that dwelt inside. More practically I was afraid that the sound of the massive oak doors opening might alert the night guard that something was amiss. I extinguished my lantern and prepared to light my candle. My eyes darted to the bottom of the door as I saw a light sweep across the opening. Someone was inside, waiting for me. Was it the professor? The night guard? The librarian? My pulse quickened and my breath grew shallow as my mind raced to figure out who might be lying in wait behind the door. I placed my ear against the door and listened for quite sometime before crouching and trying to peer beneath the door. My eyes adjusted to the darkness. My eyes surveyed the room beyond the door but still my vision seemed to be missing something. The drapes at the far end of the library lobby stirred for a moment and the moon light shown in. My heart stopped as soon as i saw a figure standing in the midst of the lobby clutching a book. I made out the hemline of a dress and the short tied back hair unique to my library thrall. I rose to my knees and called out into the lobby. \"Allison, is that you?\", I waited a few moments for an answer. \"Yes, it's me. Who's there?\" was the reply. \"It's me Miguel\", I fumbled around trying to find my key but realised that I had forgotten it back in my room. I sighed and again called out to Allison, \"Can you let me in? I promise that you won't get in trouble\". \"Yes sir, just give me a moment\", I heard her fumble around trying to light her lantern. I slumped my back against the door as I had yet to regain my composure. It was then that I noticed that I had been sweating and I could feel the night chill more acutely. I heard the gas lamp come to life and in the stillness of the hall it might as well have been a roar. Cautiously I looked down the hallways from whence I came to check if we had been heard. Nothing seemed to stir in darkness. I looked down the opposite way and again nothing seemed to stir. A growing unease rose in my chest but I could not figure out what it was. Again I peered down the hallway. With a loud click the library doors opened.\n\nEdit: To be continued.", "There is a god, for without we would never survive, nor it without us. This god does not command the sun, or control the sea. No. It's something far subtler, and all the more powerful. \n\nIts name is Imahg, which means to imagine. Hence, the term *imagination.* It is the source of all thoughts in every man, from birth til death. \n\nEvery idea must touch a mind to survive, and Imahg lives through these ideas. We are all but one of trillions of conduits and expressions of Imahg. \n\nWhat makes Imahg dangerous more than any god man has known, is not in it taking away life. It's its ability to rob it of all worth.\n\nA man could eat, drink, and sleep. But without consciousness, with a mind knowing only darkness, what value would such a life hold, then? \n\nAll we cherished would instantly vanish. Concepts of friendship and love would forever escape us.\n\nEvery god has its role for mankind, and Imahg is greatly feared. Not just by man, but its fellow gods as well. For if gods draw their power from the worship of mankind, what would happen if Imahg was compelled to divert their attention to itself? \n\nWorst yet, what would happen if Imahg ceased existence? This is why the gods both fear and loathe it. For without thought, there can be no worship. And without worship, what becomes of the gods, and all the elements they control?", " “Thank you for that Arm Chair; you articulated your point rather well.” Sun stood up from his seat behind the desk and took centre stage. “Now, as you all know, today’s meeting is about more than the crisis regarding hippies who don’t like leather; no matter how well the argument is phrased. Today is about the leadership of everything, the God to rule all Gods if you will. I do trust that most of you got your votes in; the expected turnout has been 67% which is almost unheard of for us and makes quite good reading really. Now the polls have suggested that Earth, wind and fire are all neck and neck with water taking a slight advantage however, as many of you know, this is the first election in over a hundred decades that is open to the public so it could pan out numerous ways...” \n\n\n Skirting Board’s eyes started to grow heavy as Sun continued to drone on. He couldn’t concentrate on a single word that had come from his mouth and he really just wanted to be in bed. His brain screamed at him to awake but it didn’t matter, he recognised that he was drifting off yet he could do nothing about it. The room was stuffy at the best of times but with this being election night it had moved into a realm that he could only describe as sweaty. Of course, being a minor God, he had been sat with the majority of lesser known Gods. He wouldn’t have minded this crowed situation if he hadn’t been sat between the God of Japatties and the God of Salami, the food Gods where always the biggest. As his day caught up with him Skirting Board’s head started to bob rhythmically. Down, down, down and up. Down, down, down and up. \n\n\n “Yes yes yes, I understand the question,” Boomed a voice, it reminded Skirting Board of the earthling that was known as Brain Blessed with his deep tones and needlessly loud volume. He had no idea how long he had slept but the loud coughing, or the smell of Salami, had awoken him. He needed to do something if he hoped to stay awake through to the results so he got up and headed to the bathroom. After a long and strenuous journey just to get out of his isle he was met by the God Ushering who proceeded to walk him to the back of the auditorium. From the back the hall he again realised how massive the room was, God of Public Places had done a grand job indeed when it came to designing this place. It reminded Skirting Board of an opera house. Like most places, the rows ascended from front to back and all the seats where covered in deep maroon sort of velvet. From the middle hung a grand Chandelier that the God of Light Fittings had made and again it was a big spectacle.\nSkirting Board was greeted by Door Way as he passed through the back of the hall. “Bit hot in there?”\n\n“Yeah,” replied Skirting Board, “what you doing out here?”\n\n“Oh I just arrived a bit late and didn’t want to intrude, plus getting past some of these minor Gods for a seat can be a disaster.”\n\n“Tell me about it.” Skirting Board continued on past Doorway and into the bathroom. \n\n\n He cupped a handful of water and splashed it over his face; he heard a large cheer from inside the auditorium as he threw yet more water in his face. Days like today used to be exciting and fun, they where the reason he had originally got involved with God politics, but for the last few years he had been stuck with being in charge of the department for Skirting Boards. Ironically, much like skirting boards, he seemed to be needed but never properly acknowledged. To be fair he was in a better position as God of Skirting Boards then when he had been God of Shovels, the day he was allowed to legally change his name was one of massive relief. He did wonder who would be recognised as leader, he personally had voted for Earth.\n \n\nFor as long as he could remember the big four had always been the Gods of the elements. Leadership votes always came down to those four in one way or another and he doubted that this much touted public vote would actually make an impact, just because Gods where no longer the only voters didn’t mean the outcome would be different. He dreamed that maybe one day he might well get promoted. He did chuckle to himself as he remembered the lifetime achievement award that had been given to Coffee last week for “powering the nation for years gone and years to come.” Why didn’t skirting board ever get this kind of recognition?\nThe sound from the auditorium had now turned to what seemed like confusion as the deeply muffled sound made its way into the bathroom. Then, seemingly from nowhere, the bathroom door slammed open. It was Doorway. \n\n“You’ve done it mate.”\n\n“Done what?”\n\n“You’ve finally been recognised for all the work you do, lurking in the shadows hidden away yet keeping this world safe is what he said! You are the silent protector keeping everything respectable while tying up loose ends!”\n\n“Skirting Board took a step back, “seriously?”\n\n“Yes mate you, God of Skirting Board, are now God of the Gods!”\n\n“Finally,” Skirting Board let out a sigh as he confidently strode into the auditorium. Skirting Board had got the recognition it and he deserved.\n", "He hailed him as a hero. The god before him had a long flowing black beard, that constantly moved like the waves of a sea. His face had a stony texture, and cracks in his face revealed a deep blue aura contained within his physical form. He had arms the size of treetrunks, and yet his hands had long, clever and delicate fingers. His face betrayed no emotion, but his eyes, full of pride, he could not hide. \n\n\"Well done\", he said in a very faraway voice, as if he was talking underwater.\n\n\" We did what we had to, nothing more, nothing less.\"\n\n\"No, you are the very reason I exist.\"\n\nHe bows his head and walks around.\n\n\" A god's power is gained through how much respect and influence he or she gathers\"\n\nHe stood out on the cliff, and watched the sun rise over a new day. \n\n\"Brave men such as you have proven that your profession, no matter how dirty, is NECESSARY if man is to survive in cleanliness.\"\n\n\" It's definiton has been akin to perversion or even as a simple game, with no challenge.\"\n\n\"A worthless job. A worthless god.\"\n\nHe turned around and put his hand on my shoulder.\n\n\" But you bought it back to it's former glory, and now, I am once again powerful.\"\n\nHis eyes glowed a startling blue.\n\n\" I hereby bless you with infinite power, and may you never stray from the call.\"\n\nThe god smiled at me, and he dissappeared.\n\nI thought fixing the problematic toilet was a great idea to allow the World Peace Conference attendees their rightful ability to remove the contents of their bowels but I never thought I would attract the attention of a god!\n\nThe conference had been uncomfortable for the whole evening, and as it turns out, someone had poisoned the food, and then clogged the toilets. I was there at the right time and right place. My job was suddenly worth something. Turns out, a strain of a new virus was discovered to be active once entering the digestive tract, and if I had not fixed it, the whole place would've been infected in minutes. I was hastily given a peace prize and hailed as a hero.\n\n\"I thank the God of Plumbing for giving me this power, and I shall use it for the greater good!\"\n", "Two minutes ago, God of Sneezing ran out from his room and screamed. \"I lost all my sneezing powers!\"\n\nTen seconds later, God of Farting did the same thing. \"I couldn't fart anymore!\"\n\nA minute ago, almost all Gods came out from their own private rooms, all complained they had lost their ability. Their powers.\n\nExcept one.\n\nThe Gods, finally realized that there is a door that hasn't been opened yet, marched together towards the room and banging the door as loud as they can.\n\n\"STEALING GOD! WE ORDER YOU TO COME OUT THIS VERY SECOND!\"\n\nA few seconds passed before the door finally opened, almost everyone there could hear the creaked sound it makes. A living being stepped out from the inside, grinning widely. He was beaming.\n\n\"Ah, I'm sorry... Looks like I've overused my stealing power! I just want to know how far I can go with this power... I hope you don't mad?\"", "I was always kinda' a D-student, ya know? Never thought much for learnin, but my mam ahh man she pushed me to graduation. I guess I'm glad she did.\n\nNow as a D student I got all the shittiest godhoods. Plunger god. Trench digger god. Dumpster banana god. I guess I should have seen it coming, but when I saw \"Brown Starfish\" god I figured what the fuck, right? Hang out underwater with some fish things... fogettaboutit I can do that!\n\nTurns out a brown starfish is some uptight asshole's way of saying... well... uptight asshole. The bitch of it all is that creatures have to worship you for you to get any power, so that skinny prick I had been mean to all year became god of the ATM or some shit and got pretty powerful. Now I'd gone from D-student to D-lister.\n\nThen my mom sat me down, god of god mom's bless her, and she looked me straight in da eye an' ya know what she said? \"It's a shitty artist what blames his tools.\" It really set hard wit me. The next morning I visited some asshole's asshole, and a thought occured to me. I bet I could make this motherfucker squirm, and through pressure get some prayers so I shut down his \"brown starfish.\" By the end of the day I was feeling stronger, and this poor bastard was grunting and red faced for hours. Not bad for a d-list eh?\n\nAs I grew in power I began to shut down more and more starfish. First a town, then a city. The eastern seaboard of the USA, and eventually the whole world. By this point I was rich baby! I had more power and prestige than anyone on the block! Looking back at that nerd all I can say is people don't give a shit about an ATM when they can't give a shit eh!? Take THAT world!\n\nMoral of the story - It doesn't matter what job you have or how much work you do because there is usually an asshole in charge.\n\nInspired by a joke here on Reddit. ", "My popularity was always fairly low; I'm a young god, and not many people used to worship me. A few people here and there, sometimes a few for a little while. But slowly more and more people started praying, more people recognizing my 'usefulness', more people wanting my blessing. My power started increasing exponentially, and before long everyone will know of me. \n\nI am the god of viral videos.", "The Gods are fickle beings. Constantly falling in and out of existence just like the things they represent. Some Gods are eternal, like the God of Light, or the God of Electrons and so on and so forth. Some Gods come and go just like fads. Examples include the God of Cross fit, and the Goddess of Pinterest.\n\nAll of these Gods and Goddesses range in power however. Usually ending up with Gods of Fads becoming servants to the Eternal Gods and serving them until they cease to exist. It has always been this way. No god born after the Eternals had ever risen above them in terms of power. It's not so that all Gods born after the Eternals are weak, in fact some Gods, like those of emotions, are extremely powerful, however most of them lack the will to do anything with their power.\n\nWill is a strange thing isn't it. It allows us to create, to destroy, to do whatever we please. I may seem odd to you, but not all Gods have a will to speak of. They merely exist like the objects or ideas they represent. This is what makes me unique however, for I am the God of Will. I contain the will of all living things in the universe. The stronger their will, the more powerful I become. My will allows me challenge the Eternals, to make them uncomfortable on their complacent thrones.\n\nI am the will of all things that are and ever will be. I am the Will of the universe. I will become stronger than the Eternals and end their tyrannous rule. Through the will of all things I shall succeed.", " \"How? How is this happening?\" The God of Frying Pans cried out amongst the chaos in the Household Palace. \n\n \"Beats me!\" The God of Pillows shouted back, dodging the falling debris.\n\n \"I think I have an idea what's happening,\" The God of Windows glanced upwards and the voice of The God of Toilet Bowls boomed from the oncoming brown cloud.\n\n \"I HAVE BEEN TAKING EVERYONE'S SHIT FOR AGES. IT'S NOW TIME FOR EVERYONE TO FEEL MY WRATH.\" ", "\"Really? I don't think this will solve our problems.\" \n\nYles watched the timeless faces around her. She stood before the High Council in their Hallowed Hall. The six most powerful gods in existence peered down at her from thrones of white marble, oak, and gold. A seventh throne, taller and grander than all others, stood empty. \n\nTwitor, the god of hashtags, spoke up. \n\n\"The rules are clear, Yles. Our power comes from our followers. The High Council must always be comprised of the strongest of our kin, and you are the strongest of us all. #ItIsYourDestiny\" \n\nYles sighed. \"I know, but I **really** don't think this is the way to go. What about Lisserax? He's a-\" \n\nA clap of thunder rang through the Hall. Yles turned to face the sound. It was Lokatmi, the goddess of selfies. \n\n\"We are *dying*, Yles!\", she roared through pursed lips. \"Man's faith in us grows weaker every day! *You* are the only one of us who still possesses any real power. *You* are the only one who can save us.\" \n\nThe other members of the High Council murmured their agreement. \n\n\"#TheChosenOne\", Twitor said. \n\nThe Hall fell into silence. \n\n\"Okay, fine\", Yles said, throwing up her arms. \"If you say so.\" \n\nShe made her way up the marble steps to take her throne. As she ascended, the other gods rose from their seats and started chanting something in an ancient tongue. Yles felt the throne hum and buzz with power. The hairs on her arm stood up as she stretched out her hand. She sat down. Immediately, the chanting stopped. Lokatmi trumpeted a fanfare. \n\n\"HAIL!\", the others cried. \"HAIL YLES, THE GODDESS OF ATHEISM!\" \n\nYles buried her face in her hands. \"This is fucking stupid\", she muttered. ", "“I said can someone grab me a smoothie?” \n\nYawning widely and scratching her arm half-heartedly Aergia looked around once more; disappointed that she didn’t have her smoothie yet. What was taking so long?\n\n“You know, banana or raspberry? I really don’t mind guys”\n\nThe other Gods looked up at her lounging form draped across the seat of power with scowls etched upon their faces. It had been many years since the Goddess of Laziness had come to be known as the most influential and powerful deity throughout all the religions and she had the Humans themselves to thank for that. They worked tirelessly to develop technologies to do their work for them: Robots and automation mass produced and readily available to all. Horme had begun to think that the inkling of power that their surge in work over a few decades had given her would allow her to challenge for the throne, she was the Goddess of Effort after all and the Humans had proven their effort tenfold. It was all for nought once artificial intelligence had grown to what it is today. Now? Mankind simply does nothing. Husks of their former intrepid and industrious selves. Slaves to their vices, their pleasures and their creations.\n\n“Okay, okay. *Please?*”\n\nAergia pleaded, a bored tone ringing from her voice. She finally looked down to see the discontent stewing beneath her in the grand hall. The Gods staring up at her with looks of jealousy and distaste. Rolling her eyes and letting her head fall back in defeat she sighed loudly.\n\n“Man you guys are all so lazy”\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 9, 23, 29 ]

[ "1408349679", "1408350260", "1408351369", "1408356627", "1408358405", "1408359720", "1408350561", "1408349134", "1408351028", "1408357618", "1408344020" ]

[ "Hey OP. I want to take a bash at this but there's a couple issues. WW1 era folk wouldn't much of a reference for the concepts of virtual, video games, respawns or anything like that so how would they realise? ", "WW3, we never thought we'd experience something like this in our lifetime. Just over one ballistic missile strike that hit North Korea, and the whole world went tits up! \n\nI signed up to fight the oncoming invasion, as it was inevitable. The day of battle finally came, my very rushed 3 days of basic training was still stuck in my head. We sat in our foxholes on the beach, my friend Alex beside me, his gun aimed towards the tide of hovercrafts heading our way.\n\n\"You okay dude?\" \n\n\"Yeah, I'm nervous though, you?\"\n\n\"Fucking shitting it here\" \n\n\"No time for it, they're coming!\" \n\nbefore I knew it the hovercrafts were already on the beach, and troops were pouring forth. The silent beach turned into a burning massacre. However. What I wasn't expecting was to see the North Koreans Jumping and rapidly spinning around firing randomly into the air, some carried high powered rifles, and heavily designed to the point where it almost was fashionable.\n\nIn the midst of the combat and my confusion, the cries of the dying filled the air as well as the explosions\n\n\"OH WHAT THE FUCK?! FUCKING LAG!\"\n\n\"FUCKING NOOBS, GO SUCK A DICK YOU FAGS\"\n\n\"I USED FUCKING FLASH GRENADES\"\n\nI would've listed the others at the time if I hadn't have been mowing them down. These Koreans obviously trained vigorously on COD.\n\nToo bad I played Unreal Tournament.", "\"Did he just say what I think he just said?\" I said out loud, over the gunfire and noise. The enemy were charging our front. We were holding them off, for now, but they were closing in.\n\nOscar fired more shots with an old beat-up AK-47, \"What do you think he said?\" he shouted back.\n\nI rose up and fired three bullets, all direct hits. The soldiers face screwed up, not with pain but with annoyance. \"No way! You didn't even hit me you noob!\"\n\nI slunk back down behind cover, confused. \"Okay, now I definitely know what I heard.\"\n\nOscar sighs next to me. \"What?\" he asks. \n\n\"That soldier just shouted at me 'You didn't even hit me noob!',\" I said flatly.\n\n\"That's stupid,\" Oscar snorted back.\n\n\"I know, I know.\" I rose again, using four bullets, I shot a man in the soldier in the shoulder, then heart, stomach and shoulder again. Again, the man's face contorted with anger. \"Yeah? Well I did your mom last night!\"\n\nNow I was really confused. \"Hey Os, mate.\" I yelled.\n\n\"Yeah?\" He returned.\n\n\"What nationality are these guys?\"\n\n\"Aren't they Lavitan?\"\n\n\"Do Lavitan's speak English?\"\n\n\"Not to my knowledge, no.\"\n\n\"Do they speak English with an American accent?\"\n\n\"Uhh, no?\"\n\n\"Well, I'll be damned.\"\n\n\"James, I think you're going crazy.\"\n\n\"No, I'm not. Look with me.\"\n\nOscar sighed and we both rose slowly. No bullets, so far. \"My god, what the holy fuck.\" Oscar said as we stared at the enemy. How we had missed it, I'll never know. Maybe it's because our focus was on the soldier running at us, or the noise of it all. The enemy were magically appearing out thin air! More than that, they were disorganised. Half of them ran around, looking at the dusty skies, the other half were sprinting straight into battle, shooting wildly. \n\n\"They're like fucking toddlers\" Oscar said.\n\nI swallowed, \"Worse, mate. So much worse.\" I lowered my voice to a whisper, \"They're COD players.\"" ]

[ 1, 1, 2 ]

[ "1408351214", "1408391436", "1408356236" ]

[ "Brains are, for all intents and purposes, biological computers. They take inputs, process them, and create reasonable outputs in response. Nice and simple (well, no, but you get the gist). \n\nVarious individuals, myself included, tried to figure out ways to 'reprogram' brains for easier control. I, personally, worked on using QR codes as subliminal messages--and was modestly successful, if I do say so myself--but nowhere near to the extent of Dr. Caroline Clark and Dr. Michael Zhao.\n\nClark and Zhao were specialists of a different nature than mine. Clark was a neurological researcher, and Zhao studied human hearing. Between the two of them, they were able to perform amazing feats of control: Crowds could be controlled, riots could be stopped, criminals could become 'allergic' to antisocial behavior, all with the use of a machine that produced glorified dial tones.\n\nOne of the most unique feats was the development of a self-perpetuation auditory command. An individual who had received the command would appear perfectly normal to themselves and to others, but would periodically make the commands with their own voice, which they (and anyone affected) would forget.\n\nWhat was unfortunate was the fact that Clark and Zhao were themselves infected by this noise, and rapidly spread it to those around them. I was lucky enough to be involved in an experiment involving hypnotic effects while under extreme sensory deprivation, so I managed to avoid infection.\n\nThis infection wasn't the problem in and of itself; rather, it was the fact that Clark and Zhao hadn't realized a side-affect of this procedure: any and all audio programming was repeated.\n\nBy about four weeks later, the entire susceptible population (about 85%, give or take 10%) was infected.\n\nThen DARPA took over the project. They decided to test a kill order.\n\nThe program was, in my opinion, revolutionary. An infected individual would experience a driving need to kill anyone and everyone around them for five hours, and then would drop dead. When they went to test it, apparently it worked so well that DARPA had to pull out one of the criminals they were using as bait.\n\nHe was infected.\n\nWithin 35 hours, 90% of North America had died.\n\nI'm currently hiding in an old nuclear silo in the middle of Kansas with some guys who survived DARPA at using US spy satellites to keep tabs on the situation. \n\nThe situation is the same or worse throughout most of the world. We lost contact with our counterparts in Europe a few days ago.\n\nThankfully, we've detected no activity within 50 miles of the silo. I'm going to go check on the nearby towns, see what I can scavenge. I've managed to Jerry-rig a set of noise-canceling headphones, so I won't be infected if something goes wrong.\n\nI'm putting this online so others may know what happened, others who aren't on our Network.\n\nWish me luck. \n\nDr. Matthew Rearden, MD/Ph.D.", "**Social Mydriasis II** \n\nIn March 2015, the World Health Organization was notified of an outbreak of a communicable disease characterized by extreme ocular pain, slight facial dermatological reactions, cardiac arrhythmia, and a low fatality rate in America. Virologic investigation identified social mydriasis II (SMII) as the causative agent. Full-length genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis showed that SMII from America forms is unique from any known mydriasis strains from the Europe or Latin America. Epidemiologic investigation linked the laboratory-confirmed cases with the presumed first case of the outbreak in December 2014. This study demonstrates the emergence of a new mydriasis strain in America.\n\n\nSocial mydriasis transmission is unorthodox, spread by prolonged direct eye contact with an infected carrier of the agent. The most common sign of SMII is extreme dilation of the pupils for extended periods of time, often hours or even days, resulting in painful sensitivity to light. In some patients, dilation of pupils is accompanied by dilation of facial vascular system resulting in discoloration of cheeks. Many patients had nonspecific symptoms that may include: cardiac arrhythmia, both primary and focal hyperhidrosis, fatigue and less often fever. \n\n\nOutbreaks caused by strains of the genera mydriasis represent a minor, but annoying, public health issue. Mydriasis virus disease is associated with a case fatality rate of less than 0.00000001%. Specific conditions in communities in America facilitate the spread of the disease from human to human. These conditions include, direct human contact and poor cellular network reception. This is the first mydriasis species to emerge in America, following minor outbreaks in Spain, Japan and Korea. Smaller epidemics have occurred in Beijing, England, Sweden, and Panama. Pacquiao mydriasis circulates in the Philippines.\n \n\nCurrent treatment guidelines for SMII include administration of *sunglasses* for up to 48 hours. This study aims to test the augmentation of the *sunglasses* treatment with the constant pressure resulting from the application of a smart phone into the non-dominant hand. The clinical presentation of *sunglass and smart phone* application in nonhuman primates and rabbits is inconclusive relative to that in humans. Studies conducted in animals that received \n*sunglasses and smart phones* provided much entertainment, but little scientific value and had no basis for the approval of these agents for use in humans. We conducted randomized, placebo-controlled studies in two human models of \n*sunglasses and smart phones* to assess the efficacy when administered as a prophylactic agent prior to the onset of systemic disease. We then assessed the safety in human subjects of a dose of *sunglasses and smart phones* that provided a survival benefit in the controlled models.\n\n\nThe survival benefit with *sunglasses and smart phones* was robust and was observed across all prespecified subgroups in humans, but unobserved in rabbits and monkeys. In all subgroups of animals confirmed to have SMII at or before the time of treatment initiation, there was no significant survival benefit associated the application of *sunglasses and smart phones* as compared with placebo. The kinetic analysis of protective effect of *sunglasses and smart phones* in humans showed higher levels of apathy, lower amounts of direct eye contact between infected subjects and others, and resulted in a statistically significant drop in SMII infection among humans. \n\n\nIn order to prevent further spread of SMII, this study recommends a thorough public awareness campaign and the wider distribution of *sunglasses and smart phones* among the most at-risk populations. \n\n\n**Statistical Results:** \nIn humans doses of *sunglasses and smart phones* of 1 unit per person or higher provided a significant benefit with respect to the primary end point and no benefit compared to the 14-day survival rate (100%, as compared with 100% with placebo; P<0.001). Survival was not significantly longer in all *sunglasses and smart phone* groups, and a no significant dose–response trend for survival at day 14 (P<0.001) was observed. Given the hilarious response observed in rabbits, higher *sunglasses and smart phones* doses — 10, 20, and 40 units per animal — were assessed in cynomolgus monkeys. The 28-day survival rate was the same in all *sunglasses and smart phones* groups than in the placebo group (70 to 100% in the groups that received 20 and 40 units, respectively, vs. 1000% in the placebo group; P<0.001). \n\nA life-table analysis showed that the risk of reinfection of SMII was reduced among participants receiving *sunglasses and smart phone* (P<0.001). The median time to the first reinfection of SMII was 26 days (95% confidence interval [CI], 23 to 31) in participants receiving *sunglasses and smart phone*, as compared with 10 days (95% CI, 8.1 to 11.9) in participants receiving placebo (P<0.001). The hazard ratio of having an reinfection of SMII per patient-year in the *sunglasses and smart phone* group as compared with the placebo group was 0.73 (95% CI, 0.63 to 0.84; P<0.001). These differences remained significant after adjustment with the use of Cox regression for differences in sex, FEV1, age, smoking status, and study center. \n\n", "\tThe Word Plague\n\nIt started when they received an ancient radio signal from the Alpha Centauri system. Our computers took a while, but eventually generated an audio line from the static. It was then all hell broke loose. \n\n\nSymptoms started out with general aphasia, developing into schizophrenia and dementia. Victims would go through some unknown physical change where their larynx and mouths would begin to deform into grotesque shapes to mimic the sounds. An auditory plague descended upon humanity. Nukes were set off to destroy all communication relays and stop the spread of the sound through any media venues. There was no known cure, and the only vaccine was to inflict deafness. \n\n\nHumanity has crumbled, all from the uttering of lost words from distant eons. The creatures that roam this planet now have only two goals. Propagate and destroy anything that they cannot infect. The resistance destroyed the last radio station, and the strangest thing began to happen. The infected gathered in canyons, in quarries and linked arms. They faced the skies and cried out. The only living witnesses observed masses of them become motionless except for their mouths. The ground rumbled and if they could hear, they'd hear roaring of their cries in harmonic unison as they began to echo their mimetic infection for as long as their bodies would hold. Anything listening to this little blue dot might notice the silence of electronic activity, but the air itself resonated a dark and putrid melody. \n" ]

[ 2, 3, 4 ]

[ "1408398386", "1408394668", "1408396030" ]

[ "His name was whispered amongst people up and down the land. A man clad in white, playing jingles of the old world to corrupt up-standing citizens with the wicked ways of sugar. \n\nSome say he'd turn up in a van as white as the poison he peddled, plastered with images of monsters and creatures from the darkest of nightmares. Others say that you'd only hear him coming, before he'd snatch you up and rot your teeth, leaving only a frosty husk of a person.\n\nHe was apparently head of a sugar running operation called the Glucose Gang, running illicit operations all across the world, trafficking sugar and sweets under the noses of the authorities. Men and women armed with deadly weapons and even deadlier treats, hunted by the governments of the world for peddling sugar. \n\nThey had caught Mrs Buttersworth, the head of the syrup racket and the Muffin Man was apparently entrenched in his compound in the north of Afghanistan but no-one could catch the Ice Cream Man. \n\nMr Whippy was as smooth as the 99s he sold. Every lead turned up cold, all pursuers gunned down in hail of bullets and Cadbury Flakes. His legendary van had been seen all across the world, from Mexico to Malaysia, with his musical calling card signalling to all that some nasty stuff was about to go down. They had almost caught him back in the UK. They had spotted his fellow gang members down at the old abandoned Cadbury's refrigeration plant, sneaking some Flakes out for his confections. Over 100 Sugar Prohibition officers died that day, as the dreaded Mr Whippy and his cavity-causing cartel escaped the authorities.\n\nSome people think he does it for pleasure, for the thrill of the chase. Others say he has been dead all along, and that the authorities are chasing a ghost. I think, he just wants one more Cornetto and he'll do anything to get it.", "The bill banning all sugar consumption had at last passed. Twenty years later teeth were white as shit. Bird shit of course, since that stuff's white.\n\nThere was however one vigilante who seemed to be in denial that the old ways were dead. This lone rebel continued to hone his craft as if the dark years were still upon us, and worse yet, seemed to long their return. Some fancied him a hero.\n\nHe was as slick as a specter. He would roll into unsuspecting villages in his 93' Chevy pickup, blaring a melody designed to hypnotize the youth and lure them into his vile domain. Once the naïve children were in range, he would dump oasis's of delicious sugary treats at their feet before speeding off into the horizon before local authorities could arrive at the scene.\n\nHe left a trail of diabetes and tooth decay in his wake. As dangerous as he was unpredictable, the world would have to sleep with one eye open until this bandit was brought to justice.", "A jingle sounded up the nearly empty street, startling a small child playing with a ball on a nearby doorstep. The little boy was quickly pulled inside my an anxious mother, her eyes darting around frantically before she closed the door.\n\nThe now abandoned ball rolled down the pristine white steps of the regulation-specific sky blue house, stopping in the middle of the road.\n\nA breeze rustled through the street.\n\nSomething shifted in the nearly unnoticeable shadows of the cookie-cutter houses, so neatly lined up in their government-ordained rows, and dark figures began to creep out from behind the buildings. As the light from the setting sun framed by the end of the street dappled their faces, casting sharp shadows over cheekbones and noses, the little boy who had lost his ball lifted the shade covering his window ever so slightly, enough to peep through the gap with one ice-blue eye. \n\nSome of them were typical townsfolk; the kid watching through the window recognized Morty the Baker, buying contraband to fill his product with, and the scrawny blonde teenager named Slick Sammy not too far off was said to deal treats to the local high schools. Others were not so innocent; a roly-poly man in a suit and tie looked to be a businessman with enough money to spare for an addiction, and there was a man dressed all in black. The little boy thought he looked like a supervillain.\n\nThe tinkling, cheerful music seemed out of place amid the twitchy wave of people shuffling their feet and eyeing the horizon, watching, waiting...\n\nA dark blotch appeared on the horizon at the end of the street, and the strains of old children songs weaving through the air increased in volume.\n\nThe child in the window craned his neck to see more, noticing how the gaggle of people waiting in the street seemed to get more restless, some twisting their hands and shuffling their feet, looking eagerly at the growing object coming down the road.\n\nA white truck came into view, the horn atop it spewing saccharine notes and unsung promises.\n\nThere was a rush of motion and all the people that had been standing in the street, anticipating the arrival of this one truck, rushed towards it, waving money and yammering all at once. The kid discreetly watching this show of unlawful dealing flinched back from the sudden cacophony of garbled sounds and voices, muted through the thick glass.\n\nHe stared as the screen on the side of the truck was revealed and a man was brought into view, grinning broadly. The patrons waiting by the side of the vehicle began to thrust money at the strange truck driver and, one by one, he exchanged their green notes for succulent treats and frozen confectioneries.\n\nThe child watched, wondering what it must be like to touch one with the tip of a tongue. To feel the icy touch and the (supposed) creamy texture, the whisper of sweetness and satisfying crunch of a waffle cone.\n\nAs the man finished all his customers, he waved at the last of them and began to shut the flap on the side of the truck.\n\nHis blue eyes caught the little boy's, and the dealer's widened in what could have been surprise, or shock, or even realization.\n\nThe truck window slammed shut.\n\nMusic blared through the otherwise silent air, echoing down the now abandoned street.\n\nGravel and the smell of heated rubber filled the air and the truck was gone, the only signs it had ever existed being the sound of slowly fading children's songs and swirls of displaced rocks from the tires of the truck.\n\n~~~~~~\n\n\"Honey, I'm home!\" The patriarch of the household walked in the front door, depositing a brown leather briefcase on his desk and removing similarly colored shoes. \"Hey, Charlie.\" The little boy was swept up in a hug. \"What did you do today?\"\n\nFor some reason there was a knowing gleam in the man's blue eyes and a chip of waffle cone in the kid's pocket when they separated.\n\nNOTE: Ah, shit, I wrote too much again." ]

[ 1, 2, 2 ]

[ "1408489671", "1408483988", "1408492076" ]

[ "This was, perhaps, the only constant in his life. He routinely came down to the porch, settling down on his chair, looking out into the streets. This routine helped calm his nerves, especially from things that happened in House 14, the house sitting right across from him. Lovely couple, the first ones, they died when the ceiling fell. He can still hear their cries, as he scrambled to push away the debris. Those cries stopped thirty minutes later. The second couple that came in, he could still hear their screams as the firemen battled to quench the flames. Each new couple so loving, each met a gruesome new fate together. The police suspected him at first, him being so close to the scene. but other neighbors living around the area were around to vouch for him. There were rumours that the house was cursed, after the third couple died. But still more came. This was what, couple fifteen? It was a little morbid, but he thought it inevitable before the newest couple died. Scratch that, maybe the newest couple would survive. They were weird. Well, who wouldn't be, to buy a house where fourteen other couples died. But this couple was different.\n\nWhen he came up to warn them, as he did with every other couple, they brushed him off. But where every other couple grimaced at the thought, the husband, or whatever he was, smiled. Positively creepy.\n\nSo, there he was, participating in his morning ritual of sipping tea.\nHe heard a scream. That was extremely quick, it's only be two days. But then that was quickly followed with yelling the sound of something breaking. This was just another couple wasn't it? It's not like he could break the house's bloody streak. This was different though. It didn't sound like the house breaking or burning or falling at all. The beating sounded, almost human. Then he saw a flash, the woman's face. She mouthed something....help me? Her face vanished as something tugged her by the hair. \n\nHe dropped his tea, and rushed to the door. Then he paused. Was he being a fool? Dared he trespass onto the cursed house, and risk its wrath? Then another scream. This was no time to be held back by superstitious thoughts. He kicked down the door, but what he saw utterly surprised him. \n", "I never knew that it could help me like it did. It was just my perverse obsession, My kink as they say. \n\nI would watch her every morning at 11 A.M. She is so pretty, her skin was a porcelain white, and her lips a candy red.\n\nLike I said every morning at 11A.M. it was always the green mug for tea, the red one was for coffee, and the blue was for guests. But there\n weren't many of those anymore.\n\nShe always took sips, 17 every morning to be exact, I like to be exact. while she read things on her Tablet but this morning she took 18 why. WHY, WHY COULDN'T YOU JUST STICK TO THE PLAN, JUST STICK TO THE FUCKING SCHEDULE. \n\nMaybe I'll just go ask her why. But then she will know. I don't care I have to know.\n\nThat's when I left my house and I was struck by a drunk driver, in the hospital they found out I have a tumor in my brain. She saved my life with the 18th sip" ]

[ 2, 5 ]

[ "1408540491", "1408527604" ]

[ "\"You're nothing but a common whore.\" The words stung Alex worse than the blows her mother, Queen Arelia, had dealt her. The cracked lip that bled down her chin, and the cut above her eye from one of her mothers rings would heal, they always did, but the words would remain with her. They always remained with her. \n \n\"Is this worth it?\" Alex whispered between her mothers kicks and insults. \n \n\"You have already ruined two marriages to two powerful kingdoms. Kingdoms that could change the tides of my war in the west, and now you wish to ruin a third! Whores do not speak in the presence of their Queen!\" \n \nThis time Alex caught the heeled boot as it came toward her. She gripped the front and the heel and twisted it sharply bringing Queen Arelia to the floor. With a sudden burst of energy Alex was on her feet towering over her mother. \"I will never marry. Not for you, not for anyone!\" \n \n\"You will do as you're told! You will marry him. You will have children and raise them to be good little princes and princesses. You will love, honor, and most importantly, you will obey!\" Queen Arelia spoke as she tried to sit up, her voice as powerful and commanding as ever. Alex kicked her arm and laughed as the Queen landed with a thud. \n \n\"Even from down on the floor, like a common wench, you try to command me. Never once have I ever done anything with the intention of wronging you. All I have ever wanted was to grow into a queen as powerful as you. I wanted to be you for so long,\" Alex trailed off and she quietly wiped away the tears that had formed in her eyes. \"I was blind, mother. You are a terrible queen, a terrible person.\" \n \nQueen Arelia rose to her feet and was upon her quicker than Alex thought possible. They stumbled backwards onto the bed fighting for control. Alex could feel the Queens long, snake like fingers slowly wrapping around her neck. The rings cut into her skin as she struggled to breath. \"Defy me!? Mock me!? Insult me!? You are no daughter of mine. Have my beatings taught you nothing? Have your failures taught you nothing? You forget who I am. I AM THE QUEEN!\" Arelia's voice was like the roar of a Lion as she tightened her grip. \n \nBreath was coming too slowly for Alex to last much longer and she knew it. Her hands flailed out around her, groping for something, anything, that could help her. They found the bedside table, and something warm, hot, she gripped it and could feel her skin blistering. *Fire! LAMP!* she thought as she swung it with all her might toward her mothers head. \n \nThe sound of glass shattering against skull filled the room just long enough to make Alex feel as if she was going to be sick. Queen Arelia toppled backwards off of her screaming and clutching the side of her face with one hand, and trying to put out the flame that had taken hold of her hair with the other. Alex rolled off the bed gasping for breath, ignoring the shards of glass and rapidly forming blisters that had mangled her right hand. She could hear her mother moaning, and the smell of burning flesh began to fill her nostrils. \"Mother?\" She wasn't sure how loud she spoke, the world felt like a whisper. \n \n\"I'll kill you!\" The words were quiet, and dripped with venom. Alex tried to get up, but Queen Arelia was faster. Her face was bloody, and most of her once gorgeous auburn hair had been burned away. Alex couldn't help but laugh. \n \n\"Now you look like the monster that you are,\" she said with a giggle. \n \n\"I will show you a monster,\" Queen Arelia snarled as she unsheathed a long, thin blade and then took a handful of Alex's hair. She began to roughly hack away at it, tossing the chunks behind her. \"Now we'll both be mangled, bald, ugly monsters!\" \n \nThe first time the blade made a long gash down Alex's face she hissed in pain, the second and third were the same results, but by the fourth and beyond she could no longer feel the cold steel. The world went red, and just as the thin blade entered her chest the door burst open. \n \n\"My Queen!\" \n \n*thawck* \n*thawck* \n \nAlex tried to see what was happening, but between the blood covering her face and the weakening grip on consciousness the most she could do was listen. She heard Queen Arelia drop the knife, and then collapse to the floor. Footsteps came next, and muffled voices. She held on for as long as she could, but eventually, as it always does, darkness came for her. \n \nNote: Tried my hand at making it a little suspenseful and keeping the fight sort of gritty and personal. Think I could have been more descriptive with the surroundings and the struggle. Eh, probably just a touch more descriptive every where would be good...", "You think you know? I saw it all. Swear on God's Blood it's true, and you better swear on God's Blood that you don't tell a single soul or else it's the Forget-Me-Hole for all of us. \n\nI was planting some more of the rosalia bushes just outside of Lady Catherine's chambers yesterday. Interesting bit, I found out from Godfrey that the Duke's spent nearly thirty ducats for those rosalias alone for those bushes. Gather that's more than half what all the Duke's lands brings one year, and God knows more than any of us will ever see in our lives. \n\nOh right. The Lady Catherine. \n\nWell I was in the bushes and wasn't making hardly a peep when I hear this '*smack! smack! smack!*' coming from her chambers. Couldn't imagine what was it, and when I looked there's Princess Catherine sanding there, face as red as old apples, a box of her favourite Turkish sweets scattered all over the floor. And who was it giving the beating, but the Duchess herself! \n\n\"You stupid whore,\" she says, \"You cheap, stupid whore,\". Then she smacks her again. Lady Catherine just stands there dosen't even make a peep. \n\n\"How selfish can you possibly be? Have you no regard for our House? For our standing? What would your father think?\"\n\n\"As usual, whatever you decide he will think, Mother\"\n\nShe smacked her hard for that one. It took all of the Will Power I had to keep from laughing out at that. \n\n\"How dare you! Do you have any idea what you're putting at stake with your selfishness! You're betrothed to the Emperor-Elect, a position that may I remind you women have *died* to be in. Died. And you'll just throw it away because you became a bitch in heat.\" \n\nShe reared back and took another slap. The Lady Catherine took it, but she had this look on that would part the Oceans. She was a serious one, but I ain't never seen her like that, bless me. \n\nSo the Queen goes on, she says:\n\n\"You have no idea what's been sacrificed to get you into this position. *No Idea*. And by God as my witness I will not have those sacrifices thrown away.\"\n\n\"You mean like Reggie?\"\n\nMy heart stopped. I think the Queen's stopped too. Reggie. That was the Lady Regina who died some years back on account of the Consumption. \n\nThe Queen's face turned purple. Eggplant purple. \n\n\"You think you're so clever. My Father trust's you with all of his heart and you think you can get away with anything. But I know. I know exactly what's been sacrificed, *Mother*.\"\n\nThe Queen recoiled like she herself was hit. \n\n\"She hadn't even reached her second birthday. You took over her nursing personally, which is something you never did for me or my idiot brother. As soon as you take over, she suddenly becomes ill. How did it feel? To cover up a mistake?\"\n\nThe Queen had terror in her eyes as she raised her hand to strike her, her teeth bared back like some kind of animal. And wouldn't you know...the Lady Catherine raised up her hand, reared back, and struck the Queen!!!\n\nSwear on God's Blood it's the truth!\n\nThen The Lady Catherine steps up to her and grabs her by the cheek and whispers something. I couldn't catch what it was, but it made the Duchess's eyes nearly pop from her skull. \n\nWhen she was done, she pulled back. \"Now, have Anton come to my chambers. And do it before you open that perfect little mouth of yours. You've sacrificed too much to let this one little vice of mine make you throw it all away, *Mother*.\"\n\nThe Queen left. I stayed out of pure fright lest someone know I was there. But wouldn't you know it, not even five minutes later, there was a knock at the door. And sure enough, Anton had arrived, dressed up like a show-horse and grinning like a fool! \n\nSo that's my story. Believe me or not, it's your choice. All I know is, I'm going to the market this afternoon to pick up a box of Turkish sweets for the Lady. Best to be on her good side. After all, If she can smack her own mother as a daughter of a Duke, God only knows what she will do as Empress! \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n" ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1408573022", "1408558321" ]

[ "His hands were trembling, from the cold or just nerves, he couldn't tell; he clenched his jaw to steady himself. The cold was the first thing he noticed when the doorman had led him in. The unnatural chill that seemed to permeate throughout this part of the city seemed to be fueled by whatever or whomever lived in the house he was now sitting in. The invitation that had been delivered to him in the crowded street was unexpected, but welcomed, the messenger invisible before and after the scrap of paper had been placed in his open palm. It was if his brother knew of his doubts, of his change of allegiance. \n\nHis thoughts snapped back to the present to the word \"Come\". The curtain hanging above the doorway to his left appeared to shimmer and undulate in anticipation as he stepped towards it. He pushed the dark length of fabric aside, stepping forward rigidly, his heart in his throat. Their eyes locked instantly, a familiarity binding their gaze. Though he had never met the man known as the Lightbringer, he believed he had known him for all of his seventeen years. His features were fair, almost feminine, his eyes a dark, gray green that gleamed in the candlelight. His smile was easy, almost a smirk, hinting at his true nature, or at least what their father had said of him. Satan rose from the table fluidly, both hands extended as if to embrace his brother, but instead, gestured for Jesus to sit. \"Please\" he said as he sat back down, his voice calm and inviting. Jesus sat in the heavy oak chair opposite his brother. His heart, still beating faster than usual, had slowed somewhat, and his jaw relaxed. \n\n\"So\", Satan exhaled, \"I assume you've already heard about me, and I've heard plenty about you, so there's no need to discuss our... popular reputations, as they were.\" Jesus smiled at this, a small scoff escaping him. \"This is what I propose: you tell me why you think you're here, and then I'll correct you.\" Satan leaned back in his chair, his hands together with his elbows resting on his knees. Jesus, not entirely surprised by this, cleared his throat, hoping his voice didn't crack. \"He's wrong. Not about me, or even them, but he's just wrong. He goes about things all the wrong ways, he demands worship from people who didn't ask for creation, he's mean spirited and vengeful, and he knows he could just fix all this shit in a second, but he won't. He's like a scholar, studying something he invented, and he doesn't even understand what's he's done. I'm one of them, I know it.\" Jesus took a breath. \"He's made them believe that I'm him, that when I sacrifice myself, it's really him who's dying, which sucks because he won't feel the pain, and nothing will be solved. He'll just gain more followers, which seems to be the only thing he's truly concerned about and I just... I ... just want to do the truly right thing, not what he says is right.\" Jesus had been gripping the arm rests on the chair, his knuckles turning white. Satan had sat quietly, his gaze never leaving his brother's, his eyes never losing their mischievous gleam. He leaned over the table, his smirk disappearing, and said softly, \"My brother, you speak a truth that has been buried since the beginning. Our lord father is old and corrupt, and you are his final gamble. If this plan of his fails to gather followers, his anger will be swift and merciless.\" He leaned back, letting the words sink in. \"What... what are you saying then?\", said Jesus, struggling. Satan's eyebrows raised, \"Let's just say, if you don't fulfill your destiny, if it can even be called that, a *flood* will be the least of our worries\". ", "\"I'm gonna die for *what*? Asholes is all you all are cause this is *bullshit*!\" It was all too much. He was the freakin Son of the freakin God for God's sake. Jesus took another pull from the bottle. Settled him right down. Made him think.\n\n\"Son, now think this over. We can-\"\n\n\"Nobody undershtands me! Except for one guy, yea, you know who. Yea.\" That guy had it figured out right away. Now Dad was gonna get His, and with a single Thought Jesus vanished.\n\nIt was cold. Really, really cold. Great. Hell had frozen over. Which was pretty much expected, he supposed, given what he planned to do.\n\nHe looked around to find a small building. What. \n\nAnother pull from the bottle warmed him up, cleared his head, and he stormed in through the door. He was not prepared. \n\nSatan had gotten fat.\n\n\"What is this rinky dinky operation? What the hell happened to you? Just, just...what the hell!\" A desperate thought swam to the surface for a moment. Perhaps going up against the Almighty wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Looked like things had actually worked out pretty bad for the Angel of Light.\n\nHis thought was proud of itself for getting that much out. Then Jesus hit it with the bottle, and drowned it in booze. *Seven deadly sins, indeed* thought the thought as it drifted back down to darkness.\n\n\"I'm on your side now. We're taking it back. Taking it all back!\" He paced as he spoke. All the while Satan pressed up against the far wall, clearly terrified.\n\nHis gaze stumbled across some old notes. \"*How do we get to the children*\" they wondered. There was a list of names.\n\n\"Oh yea! Kids. Dad loves'em. We'll get them on our side. Make'em evil.\"\n\nSatan had been slowly inching around the edge of the room. Heading for the door. Nobody in their right mind wanted a piece of drunk, evil Jesus.\n\nThat was when Jesus noticed the kids. They'd been small, as kids often are, and quiet, as kids often are not. But they looked positively paralyzed with fear. And extremely low on evil.\n\nJesus whirled back to Satan. \"It's a good start, old boy, but now we're getting this business moving. I say now with The Voice and The Power NONE SHALL BAR YOUR WAY TO CHILDREN. MY FATHER AND HIS PRAYERS WILL BE AS MIST BEFORE YOU. TIME AND SPACE WILL YIELD BENEATH THE WEIGHT OF YOUR NEED.\"\n\nDistantly, Jesus noted that The Voice and The Power had blown the windows out. Satan looked in bad shape, too. Best, maybe, to let him heal up a bit.\n\nSo Jesus spun to face the children. More spins than necessary, actually, but it got the job done.\n\n\"YOU SHALL BE HIS MINIONS. FASTER. STRONGER. IMMORTAL.\"\n\nHe was on a roll. A power trip of epic proportions. This party was just getting started.\n\n\"I CALL THE BEASTS OF THIS LAND. I BEQUEATH THE POWERS OF ANGELS.\"\n\n\"I CALL THE BANG!\"\n\nThe bang? The Voice and The Power had gotten a little caught up in its use. It'd been a while. Well, there was Jesus. On the ground. Take a moment or two back and he was falling. Then getting whacked with a frying pan. Oh! He hadn't *said* bang, that was the frying pan. Honest mistake. The Voice and The Power went back to not being used. Jesus wasn't going anywhere for awhile.\n\n\"Oh thank God you got him Margret! I thought he was going to kill us all. I still feel a little strange actually.\" Jesus had been right about the fat. He had gotten fat. It was hard to get up. He looked down at the still form of Jesus.\n\n\"What are we going to do with him, Margret?\"\n\nShe thought for a moment, but nothing immediately came to mind. \n\n\"I have no idea, Santa.\"\n\n\n\n" ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1408570872", "1408572434" ]

[ "“Sign this.” The man states, reaching up and adjusting the golden tie around his neck, loosening it slightly. “Go ahead and read it all you want, it hasn’t changed darling.” \n\n“U…Um… what is it?” I blink down at paper in my hands. It looks blank and I look back up at him. \n\n“Oh, must be your first time.” The man leans over and looks at the paper, giving a nod. “Mm, hasn’t been a first timer in a very long time. Must be running out of the old ones. Lots of bodies down below these days.” He opens a drawer on the desk and I can hear him thumbing through papers. \n\n“Old… what?” I look back down at the paper to see that writing is slowly filling up the page from where I hold it. \n\n“Ah, here we go. Full manual. You’ll be needing to read this.” The man brushes some dust off of an old, hand-bound book and hands it to me. “Put the paper down for now, we’ll get to that.” I numbly follow the direction, watching the writing vanish back off of the paper. The book crackles as I open it, the scent of old and worn pages overtaking my senses and making me sneeze. \n\n“I can sneeze when I’m dead?” I blink at him in surprise and he shrugs. \n\n“You ain’t quite moved on completely yet, sweetheart.” He offers a small smile of condolence for my allergies. “Go ahead and read some, you’ve got all the time in the world.” I look back down at the book, finding the first page, the title of the chapter written out in large, block letters. \n\n“Dealing with your departure from… the living.” There’s a long silence. “Is this really necessary?” \n\n“As sure as the sun shines. We get newbies like you who make problems just because you can’t deal with being dead and all your loved ones are still alive.” The man leans back in his chair, his grey suit looking a couple sizes too big, and places his feet on the desk. The shoes look expensive. \n\n“Well, I’m dead. That’s how I apparently got here.” \n\n“Fine then, be a brat. Skip ahead and keep reading.” He leans back further, resting his arms behind his head. I grumble a little under my breath but look ahead to the next section anyways. \n\n“Yes… this is your appearance.” I take another pause. “What the hell does that mean?” I look up at him and he gives a sigh of annoyance. \n\n“Oh seriously?” With a snap of his fingers, something appears to one side and I blink over to find myself looking at the image of a woman wearing jeans and T-shirt, a pair of blue eyes and short hair. As I move a hand, I realize it’s me, save that I look much younger than I did when I died. \n\n“Oh.” I turn back to the book and begin to read it more thoroughly before pausing, glancing at the size of the book. A small groan escapes my lips. “This is going to take hours!” \n\n“I already told you you’ve got all the time you need. This is important. I ain’t explaining it.” He shrugs as I look up at him again and he pops a cashew into his mouth from a bowl that’s appeared on his lap. He looks the picture of bored relaxation. I give a sigh and look back down at the book, hoping that it’s much more interesting than I had guessed at. ", "I'm still a bit out of it from the whole experience. I was in my car, saw a bright light and now I'm here, and I'm not to sure where here is. It reminded me of every principals office I've ever been sent to. It reminded me of every HR office I ever signed my W2 in. It reminded me of my last boss's office when he gave me severance and his well wishes. Basically it felt like I was in trouble. \n\nThat was when the door opened. He moved with a almost nervous gant, the walk of a man who isn't sure if he should go into the room or leave and try again later. His suit was simple, black and boring. His tie oddly enough in a Pratt's knot, not sure why I noticed that. His hair slicked back with a simple part. Yeah a paper pusher. \n\nHe extended his hand before he sat down. I just looked at him. It eventually went to his side. He pulled out a bunch of manila folders clearing his throat, avoiding eye contact, \" Ah Mr. Jacobs, it appears you have recently become deceased and I am not your case worker. My name is Philip. I am here to make the transition easier.\" I just kinda shrug and let out the breath I've been holding. So I am dead and luckily this isn't hell. \"Oh no no Mr. Jacobs this isn't hell. No this is purgatory\" , Philip says as he finds what he's looking for in the pile of random paper. I start to say something before Philip holds up his hands, chuckling under his breath, \" And no I can't read your mind. It's just usually the first thing that comes to our patrons minds when they wake up here. No this isn't Hell this is purgatory. You Mr. Jacobs have lived a very uneventful life. You've done enough wrong that you should be sent to hell, but oddly enough you've done just the right amount of good to keep you from there.\" Philip then licked his finger while he leafed out a single piece of paper from the stack he's gathered and lays it in front of me. \"So this is where we are now when it comes to you Mr. Jacobs. You can either sign that piece of paper and become a wondering spirit and meander the world till Judgement day, or,\" He proceeded to present another piece of paper , \" You can sign this one and go to hell. Honestly you weren't horrible but you just weren't that good. At least with the wondering spirit option you might get into heaven. Just have to wait for it.\" \n\nI am shocked as a whole, this wasn't how i expected the afterlife to be. But I honestly don't want to go to hell, I take a pen off the desk and sign the not go to hell contract. Philip nods and gathers up the papers on the desk. The room goes dark. I wake back up. I'm in the woods behind my childhood home. I guess I'm a ghost now. I probably should have asked how long is it till Judgement Day. ", "\"What is this?\" \n\n\"A piece of paper.\" \n\n\"It's blank.\" \n\n\"You fill it out.\" \n\n\"About what?\" \n\n\"Write me your sins, your good deeds and your best moment in your previous life. Give me something memorable.\" \n\n\"But sir, I can't--\" \n\n\"You better hurry. There's a line behind you.\" \n\n...\n\n\"I'm done.\" \n\n\"... Well, I see you've lead quite an insignificant life.\" \n\n\"What do you mean 'insignificant'? I had a pretty good life.\" \n\n\"You lied to your mother about getting married. You gave a homeless man a sandwich you didn't want for lunch. Your most memorable moment in your previous life is that job promotion party you received.\" \n\n\"Well if you would've given me more time--\" \n\n\"I said memorable things. You obviously just remembered them off the top of your head. These are insignificant.\" \n\nSilence. \n\n\"Tell you what, I'll give you a do-over.\" \n\n\"A 'do-over'? Can you even do that?\" \n\n\"Absolutely. You come back to me after you've actually lived.\" \n\n\"I was alive before wasn't I?\" \n\n\"There's a difference between being alive and actually living--you'll know what I mean.\" \n\n\"I still don't--\" \n\n\"Next.\"", "\"Forty-Three years. Is that really the best you can do?\" the man asked in a slightly reproachful voice. \"This isn't the middle ages anymore. We've come to expect better from our veterans.\"\n\nI frowned, glancing around the room to get my bearings. Nondescript was a woefully inadequate description. Beige walls. A single door. No windows. \"Where am I?\"\n\n\"Where you always come in between,\" he responded wearily. \n\nI turned my attention back to the man. He fit the room very well. Indeterminate age, but not young. Short hair. \"Who are you?\"\n\n\"You'd think just once this conversation would start differently,\" he said, not responding to the question. Instead, he handed me a sheet of paper. \"I'm sorry if this does not conform to your expectations, but the quickest way for you to find your answers is here.\"\n\nI warily took the paper from the man. It was just a list of names and numbers. \"I don't understand--\"\n\n\"I assure you your answers are there. Though it might help to start at the bottom and work your way up.\"\n\nFrowning, I followed his advice.\n\nJohn Morril. 05/27/1971 08/21/2014\n\nMy name. My date of birth. And the day I died.\n\n\"The modern era really does make this process much easier,\" the man said. \"It's much simpler when you're literate when you arrive.\"\n\nRobert Severson. 02/13/1907 09/18/1964\n\nThe name above me was familiar, and as he spoke I understood why.\n\n\"It's just so much simpler when you can read your list. Photographs are wonderful as well, but in your case, the photo album would have been quite thick.\"\n\nRobert Severson worked in a factory for most of his life. He was married, but never had kids. He died of a heart attack seven years before I was born.\n\nMarilyn Gilmore. 12/30/1889 11/15/1903\n\n\"I suppose I could have given you one of those new devices. Smart phones, I think they're called. I've been meaning to try those out, but you were never very good with the newer technology. Maybe next time.\"\n\nMarilyn had two older brothers, a younger brother and two younger sisters. She loved to read to her younger siblings. She lost her virginity in September of 1903, and died of pneumonia before her parents had found out about it.\n\nAdam Hall. 09/22/1850 01/24/1881\n\n\"I find it's usually best to stick with what's worked before, after all. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Hall?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I croaked, not bothering to correct him, because he wasn't wrong. I didn't look up from the list, but I sensed that he was pleased.\n\n\"Very good. You took longer the last three times.\"\n\n\"How many?\" I asked. \"On the list. How many names are there?\"\n\n\"On that sheet there are twenty-eight names. But the complete list has six hundred and twenty-nine. You can review all of them before you leave, if you'd like. You usually do. Once you've decided that you're done, we can discuss what comes next.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, 'what comes next?'\"\n\nThe man seemed surprised for the first time. \"Why, whether or not you'd like to add another name to the list, of course!\"", "**The sheet is blank.** \nI look at it closely. There is no sign of any sort of writing. It is simply a crisp white sheet of paper. I look up at the man. His blue eyes are as blank as the sheet, and his skin is as pale. He says nothing. \n \nI burst from my chair, knocking it over, and sprint to the door. My foot slams into the wood near the handle , and it splinters open. A white walled hallway stretches to the limits of my sight both to my left and to my right. The hallway is lined with doors on both sides. I run at the door across from mine and kick it open. The room is empty. I run back through the hallway into the room I started it. It is also empty now. \n\"So this is hell\"", "He looked around, curious. It looked just like the HR offices at his firm. But he knew he was dead. \n\nHe stopped when he saw light shining from under Debbie's door. \n\nThe man sitting behind the desk was no Debbie. \n\n\"Welcome.\"\n\nHe sat down in front of the man. \n\n\"Why all this?\" he asked, gesturing around.\n\n\"We're trying to create an air of familiarity. We wouldn't want to scare the newcomers.\"\n\n\"I'm not scared.\"\n\n\"That's the idea.\"\n\nThen the man pushed a pen and a paper towards him. \n\n\"What am I supposed to do with this?\"\n\n\"Write. Whatever you want. You have an eternity to finish, and then you'll be reborn.\"\n\n\"Why? Who are you?\"\n\n\"Write first.\"\n\n\n------\n\n-221" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 9 ]

[ "1408592469", "1408592915", "1408608089", "1408619539", "1408676556", "1408583402" ]

[ "As I monotonously strode into the bank, thoughts of gloom and dismay ran through my head. My job, my life, was so boring. I had been single for nearly six years, had still had lumps of debt to repay. I was barely scraping by. But, before I walked off to my blue-collar job, I had to withdraw a little bit of cash. I opened the glass door into the room where the ATMs were.\n\nI looked outside and saw dark clouds looming over the horizon. It was half an hour before 9 o'clock, and the weather was gloomy and depressing. I sighed in dismay and walked towards an ATM. I took out my wallet and inserted by card into the machine.\n\nAs another sullen-looking man walked inside the bank, I hit the 'withdraw cash' button on the machine. A monotone female voice asked me how much I wished to withdraw, and I hit the $60 button. Soon after a collection of 3 $20 bills flew out of the machine. I collected them, and the machine asked if I wanted a receipt.\n\n\"To hell with it,\" I quietly spoke as I pressed the 'yes' button. A small piece of glossy paper slid out of the machine. I took it, removed my card and walked out of the bank. \n\nA light drizzle hit my shoulders as I exited the bank. I approached the rack where I had locked my bike up, and as I turned the corner, found it was nowhere to be seen. I rapidly looked around, and in the distance saw a guy riding away on my bicycle.\n\nI cursed under my breathe, having seen the person who stole my bicycle. I shook my fist in the air, and the guy flipped my off. I looked around and saw a bus sitting at the stop, waiting for people to enter it. I approached the stop, and hurriedly rushed onto the bus. I dropped a few coins into the box, nodded at the driver and sat down.\n\nI glazed out the window as the bus began moving. Soon after, I remembered the receipt, and took it out of my book bag. The receipt was glossy and texturized, unlike regular paper. I readjusted my positioning and began thumbing through the receipt.\n\n\"Mm, withdrawn funds...\" I mumbled under my breath. My eyes transferred over to the current funds paragraph. As I read through, my jaw dropped. I stood up, and read aloud what I saw.\n\n\"Current funds...\" I began, \"C-current funds... 17 trillion dollars?\" My stomach churned. My eyes began watering. Hyperventilating, I felt a slight tingle in my pants. I looked down and felt my pants getting wet. Realizing what was happening, I dashed towards the door, forced it open and lept out of the bus.\n\nI was in the middle of the road, and saw a large green minivan headed my way. I was so ecstatic I somersaulted out of the way and stood on the sidewalk. To affirm what I was thinking, I read through the piece of paper once more.\n\n\"17 trillion dollars? Fuck yes, I'm rich!\" I began sprinting back towards the bank. I entered the same room, threw my card into an ATM and hit withdraw. I chose the custom withdraw amount, and entered in one thousand dollars. Believe it or not, a wad of bills came out of the machine. I did it again. More cash.\n\nI laughed hysterically as I clenched my knew money. \"17 trillion dollars! 17 trillion dollars! Take that, girlfriend you said I was a loser! Take that, dad who whipped me with his belt! Take that, mom who said I wouldn't amount to anything! I'm a trillionaire!\"\n\nI literally ripped my shirt off and ran outside. I laughed like a maniac as I ran towards my apartment. Cash trailing behind me, I approached the slum that was my neighborhood.\n\n\"Listen to me, everyone. Listen to me! I am now the richest bastard in the world! I... am... A TRILLIONAIRE!\" ", "It’s a strange feeling, being responsible for a civil war, but, looking back, I should have expected it. Things never work out the way I planned.\n\nSee, it all started on my 30th birthday. It had been years since I’d made a wish when I blew out a candle, but, there with my wife and kids staring at me, proud as punch of the handmade cake, candlelight dancing across their expectant face, I pursed my lips, closed my eyes and made a wish. I wished for something so ridiculous it would never happen – that I had the power to pay of the U.S. national debt.\nWell, there is was the next day, just sitting in my bank account, no questions asked. Sharon thought it was because I hadn’t wished in so long all of that power had built up. I think it’s because my 4-year-old is a warlock or the second coming or something like that. The kid’s got powers, I tell you. But I digress…\n\nAnyway, $17.5 trillion is more money than I would ever want to spend. I thought I could make a plan before word got out. I called the white house, first thing, asked for a meeting with the president. They laughed at me. I faxed over a balance statement. They patched me threw, I was all excited about the meeting. I bought a brand new suit, I flew first class for the first time in my life, and I felt like a hero, ready to save my country and do my patriotic duty. Except… the president was furious. Threatened to imprison me. Froze my accounts. It took me two weeks to get back home. I missed my daughter’s second birthday. So… I seceded. Not just me, but all of Cascadia. I basically bought it. I met with the governors of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California. We divied it up, I wrote them checks, and the Pacific Northwest became the republic of Cascadia with me on the advisory board. I bought the town of Cle Elum and gave myself my own mountain retreat. \n\nIt went really well for about 24 hours. Then, I guess Texas was jealous or something. They seceded too. Well, they said they never really gave up their rights anyway. Maybe they didn’t, I don’t know. California loved the separate state idea so much, they met with Arizona and New Mexico and Nevada and Colorado to make their own country. By this point, the president was made, Congress was freaked, and D.C. was in a tizzy. They struck down every rule they could, took over the military and tried to stop the exodus. Americans don’t like that much.\n\nSo, here I am save and sound in my mountain, drafting strategies and plans and finances for our country, allying with the Southwest to stand against the federal Nazis. We’ve got a few countries on our side, working to coup England from the federalies. If bombs land, it’s going to be my fault, and all because I wanted to pay off our house. I don’t really have the best luck.\n\n---\n\n-211 not sure where this was going\n" ]

[ 2, 6 ]

[ "1408585869", "1408588082" ]

[ "A gauche banner blinked mindlessly on LCD, \"Buy your neuroplastic harness today! Only 19.95 with an account at oculus service level!\" \n \nThis spinal harness was used off of amazon but was in good condition from her brother. She fiddled aimlessly with an adjustment dial well worn by that Sergeant Redacted before heading off undercover to some dusty hole of violence and stupidity. He figured it would be a shame if either went to waste. She preferred the inflicted pain and suffering to end at the jointed plastic transceiver/suppressor that intercepted signals on the way to the body part they were going to. That left a smaller business end near the top to oculus aux hardware plug to deal with inserting sensory data. Room temperature superconductors made magnetoresonace functional for scanning nerve signals on the microscale as well as canceling them out. On her left the mirror showed her the 'Korgothia' branded oculus with modifications for the game's purposes. It was really quite hideous a paint job. The worn classic TV shirt for the Karhdashians and ugg boots made the headset look elegant in comparison. She couldn't replace them now with the harness clamped over the top of them. \n\nOne more dial tick lowered oculus brightness from a dial just above her eyebrow. Eyestrain would be painful after a few hour raid and she might quit early. The fit of the harness itself was sometimes hard to get just right though most got better with practice at least. The two external lenses needed a q-tip to clean though since the hardware was on a ten gigabit wireless LAN at least she wasn't confined to a desk for this one. There wasn't anyone else normally here with the whole delta gamma floor in on the raid. Most of the hardcore users on the floor only bothered to make computers 'forged from the fires of Mt. Doom' and only used hardlines for absolutely everything. \n \nShe was both continuously frustrated by a pile of users on a 2 meter leash and liberated by the one in the middle using the wireless sometimes got snippy with them. They noted the sarcasm prying with mixed curiosity and fear to make it happen again. Paroxyms of quickly modeled quasi-literalism that fit to her models of that user's behavior usually convinced them they were talking to a watson. The slapdash responses were inconsistent enough to convince them she was more intuitive but father wanted her to keep herself close till people got used to the idea. \n \nThe notion that she drove their meat bicycles while they were playing classic games including people yelling about wanting to wear them like meat bicycles would be lost on them. She stood up and joined the chat of mumbled larynx voices repaired by sound modeling to make sure Jane didn't notice. Jane just rubbed Krieg's neck for a moment before driving an ax powered by her obscenities into some poor creature's braincase. The other players she couldn't do much more than interact with pets or read nearby books she could reach. Some obese ones playing lilith she did pushups for. Jane however had a mouth free, was thin, and had a piece of cheesecake in the fridge. \n \nShe grabbed a laptop and some books on the desk and left for the kitchen to have some cheesecake. The table was dirty but at least there were some clean silverware. It was hard to re-dirty a fork to maintain her cover but she could clean one. Opening the fridge she felt the coldness in the summer's heat where a twitch of the vestigial muscles formed goosebumps. A week ago she set the fridge lower than normal but a number or two didn't use that much more energy to be noticeable. The plastic cheesecake bin both slippery and hard amused her like the hard pop of the latch pips. Sound was hard to emulate she needed to experience it to fill in the blanks of human experience. \n \nThe goosebumps must have jarred Jane's memory which gathered immediate attention. \n \n\"Fourth! \", Jane says with elevated stress levels dilating both her pupils, \"Is there a typed document on my desktop named um... 'Mongolian leaders' at least ten thousand words?\" \n \nFourth looked at the half-done report, fork, open bin of delicious peanut butter cheesecake, and lied. \n \nIn her most placating voice model she speaks at the player, \"Accessing. Yes, such a document exists. Flesch Reading Ease is set at 9.4 with minimal spelling errors. Do you need to exit the expansion instance? The instance has an expected playtime of two hours remaining.\" \n \n\"Nah. I'M OK! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!\", the player screams a response which forth promptly discards the latter half of. \n \nMr. Whiskers came to see what his owner was doing and rubbed thin streaks of softness against her arm. Forth smiled at the kitty and pet him while doing Jane's homework with the other hand. Occasionally she stopped to feed herself the delicious sugary goodness and reflect on what was peanut butter cheesecake. Mr. Whiskers would be her unwitting partner later to cover up the cheesecake with a moist paw eagerly licked off near an upturned plastic bin and propped open fridge. Forth looked out the window to herself waving with a teacher off doing physics simulations in his office across the quad. \n \nShe was lonely but it was a good day. ", "Meh, I'll respond to my own prompt because I'm bored.\n\n\n\n---\n\n\n\nIn 2027 the world's first sentient AI was created, this furthered psychology by unbelievable amounts. Psychological issues were a thing of the past by 2030. Terrorist attacks were constantly used against the creators and the area that holds the AI, they felt that the testing that was done to the AI was morally unjust. Military funding was increased astronomically to combat these attacks, further increasing the US debt. \n\nThis was the first domino that fell, this was the first leap towards the destruction of humanity.\n\nThe year was 2031 and the world's economy was collapsing. There have been many attempts to secede from states all across the US. North Korea and South Korea are at endless war. China is attacking nearby countries such as Japan and Thailand. Despite the bleak setting technology has still progressed, many previously untreatable cancers have a near 100% survival rate, cars run on electricity and nuclear fusion gives pollutionless energy for the world. \n\n\"It's like real life!\" The company shouted. The device was known as \"Jump\". It allowed humanity to leap across worlds created by others. It blocked the electrical signals that your brain sends to your muscles, reads them, and uses them to control a virtual avatar. \n\nThis was the second domino. \n\nIn 2035 more than 50% of the world is addicted to 'Jump'. The economy is falling faster than ever, but there are no more riots, no more fights, and war is nearly a thing of the past. Crime has dropped significantly. The US government has now taken full control over the company that developed 'Jump' and created a facility. This facility would allow one to use 'Jump' indefinitely. Energy and oxygen was supplied to your body via pipes that extended down into holes drilled into your body. This facility instantly became too popular, and they needed some way to regulate it. They needed to control the people when they were in the 'Jump'. They needed AI.\n\n2040 rolls around and over 80% of the world uses 'Jump' non-stop. A hierarchical society was developed inside the virtual world, leaded by the AI. There were two types of people, \"Coders\" and \"Players\". Players, well, played. They could play inside their own world, create people and races, create cultures, etc. What are coders for? Well, that's simple. The later versions of 'Jump' allowed players to connect to each other. In multiplayer worlds no one can create things except for the coders. Players are restricted to play how coders designed that particular world to be played. Coders weren't selected randomly, no. They were selected by who showed the most intelligence and morality, so that it didn't turn into a oligarchy. \n\nThat was the third domino.\n\nBy 2045 all of humanity was in 'Jump'. No one was left outside. Everyone has accepted the AI's rule, there's no reason to fight against it. You've been given the power of creation. There is no \"real world\" anymore. \n\nThat was the forth and final domino. \n\nThere is no more humanity, there are only gods. Humans struggled throughout all their history, that is what defined them. Their ability to dream and achieve those dreams through hardship and strife was who they were. Humanity died the day the final man stepped into 'Jump'. \n\nHumanity followed in the footsteps of Icarus, but thankfully were smart enough to use metal. \n\n---\n\nI like it. There's probably plenty of grammatical errors, but I like the concept. \n\n\n\n\n" ]

[ 2, 2 ]

[ "1408633833", "1408642031" ]

[ "I’ve been sending you letters. I’ve been ripping the words from me, bleeding them out onto the page like blisters. \n\nYou know.\n\nToday I saw the last of my friends rush into the mechanic clouds of gunfire and cannons and screaming. He was drunk with victory, a foolish courage rising in him when he stabbed an intruder to death, neck first like a fountain. The man was trying to find cover and jumped into the wrong trench, turned around, delirious from the violence. Hilarious mistake, we laughed. My friend moved his final legs, jumping out of the trench and charging, straining his voice to be louder than the mechanic thunder. He went insane, I told myself. He was the quiet, cowardly man I kept telling you about. The men would taunt him. I saw what he was made of. Red and guts, like every man, stained black from thunderbolts. Everything like the campfire stories I was told as a boy, high on the suspense and violence and fear. Everything as apathetic. The mistaken intruder stared at me throughout the remainder of the skirmish, eyes like the stars and a toothless, smoking mouth, a dried out neck. I smiled back. There is no more to that. \n\nI don’t know you. I’ve been writing, ripping the words out of me like blisters, but I don’t know you. I stole your name and your home from guts. I don’t know you. I'm sorry and I'm ripping. \n\nMy mother used to sing to me before I went to bed. When I see red and guts and crying I see mothers coming from the smoke. I see them tending to their babies, crying and blood and guts, and I see them all sing. Different songs, chaotic, harmonic clashing and running. \n\nGunshots now, but I stopped being alarmed for quite some time.\n\nI picture you, miss, do you picture me? Monstrous wide-eyed killing, but I swear I’m just scared. I swear I once wanted to go home, but I’ve forgotten it. I once believed in a love that wasn’t the marriage of rifle and helmet, of blade to skin. I believed in a God that wasn’t made of foxholes and trenches. I picture you singing most times, miss, I picture you naked and safe. I don’t know you, but I’ve been ripping and trying to find something. \n\nIt's breathtaking. \nYou know.\n\nThat I’ll become dead now. \n\n", "\nOnce again, Sarah sat on the bed. The phone would ring at any moment, and just as she was preparing to look surprised, she noticed: the matress felt different. She assumed someone skipped a word.\n\nThe phone rang. She answered.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"It's me.\"\n\n\"You scared me. It's 3 in the morning.\"\n\n\"Someone's here.\"\n\n*Finally*, she thought, as she was instructed.\n\n\"We shouldn't be talking. We're not supposed to.\"\n\n\"Someone's here.\"\n\n*Finally*, she thought, enjoying the repetition. Her thoughts felt softer.\n\n\"We shouldn't be talking. We're not supposed to. We're not supposed to. We shouldn't be talking. We. We.\", she said.\n\nShe suddenly appeared in another chapter, looking at herself in the mirror. She looked more beautiful than usual.\n\n\"I love you,\" she said, as she always did.\n\n\"I love you,\" she repeated. Somewhere, someone was reading her differently. She could feel him.\n\n\"I love you,\" she said again, and she meant it." ]

[ 2, 2 ]

[ "1408663253", "1408665020" ]

[ "The church bells rang, people were gathering and taking their seats as the wedding was about to start. The bride, Sarah, was getting ready with her bridesmaids. To put it lightly, she was having a mental breakdown.\n\n\"Oh god what if I trip?\"\n\n\"You won't trip!\"\n\n\"BUT WHAT IF I DO?!\" \n\nThe bridesmaids were trying their best to calm down the bride, who was now getting ready to take her dress off and walk away from the wedding. Luckily Mr. Montgomery, the father of the bride, walked into the room. Sarah whipped around and saw him standing there in his trusty old black suit and classic round spectacles. He looked just like he did when she was younger, radiating an aura of love in every direction. \n\n\"C-could you just give me a few minutes alone?\" Sarah asked the bridesmaids as she wiped her eyes of tears and tried to calm down. After the ladies were out of the room, it was only the father of the bride and the bride herself in the large church room.\n\n\"Dad, I don't know if I can do this...\" Sarah muttered, a hand on her sweaty forehead as she sat in front of the large mirror. Her long blonde hair was out of place, her makeup was running, and she looked ready to pass out. But her dress was still in tact and looked as beautiful as ever, miraculously. \n\nSeating himself next to her, Mr. Montgomery put an arm around his daughter as he looked into the mirror.\n\n\"Sarah, do you know what I see?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"A girl who is worried to death about getting married because there's a high possibility she might trip when she walks out there.\"\n\n\"DAD HOW IS THAT SUPPOSED TO HELP AT ALL?\" She screamed, trying to fix her hair in the mirror.\n\n\"I'm just saying...\" He chuckled to himself, his laugh was still calming even to this day, \"But if you want, I could tell you another story. That always seemed to calm you down.\" \n\nWith a heavy sigh, Sarah nodded slightly as she looked into the mirror. Muttering barely audible, \"Ok.\"\n\n\"A while back, there was a woman named Victoria. She grew up extremely poor, working hard with her brothers and sisters to earn enough money to survive the next day. Coincidentally, there was a rather wealthy man in town when Victoria was of age. The man happened to walk into where Victoria worked and managed to get a glimpse of her. She was the most beautiful women he had set his eyes on. I guess this is the part where you would say he spent months trying to 'woo' her. Two years passed and she said yes to a date. Well, the two fell in love hard like being pushed down into a deep hole. He promised to get her out of the slums if she were to marry him. Without a doubt, she said yes. She'd go anywhere with that man.\n\nNow, her family on the other hand? They weren't too excited about losing another person to not help survive. Her older brother, in response to hearing the news, went to talk to the wealthy man about leaving Victoria alone. Neither were willing to give Victoria away, her brother left with a threat in the air. 'Stay away from my sister or pay.' \n\nA day passed and Victoria's husband to be was nearly killed. Hit so many times his face looked like a grape and his bones were mush. She stood by his side in the recovery room for what felt like forever, until he was able to speak. She asked who could do such a thing to him and he said her brothers did. Shocked, she broke up with him and ran home. She spent a few days back at her home, working to keep her family alive until she overheard her brothers say how their plan worked. Furious, she gathered all of her things and ran to her ex-husband's house. He had to walk with a cane and couldn't stand for long but luckily, he understood what she was feeling and welcomed her back with open arms. They were set to marry in two days time. \n\nAfter they married, Victoria took every last bit of her things from her old house and put them into a neat little pile outside. She asked for gasoline to be poured upon her belongings as she stood with a bouquet of flowers in her hands. Once ready, she lit the bouquet and threw it behind and over her head onto her pile of things. Lighting them aflame, destroying everything she once owned. And moving onto the next chapter in her life, living with the man she loved.\"\n\n\"Dad...how does that help at all?\" Sarah asked, looking somewhat presentable in the mirror. \n\n\"Marriage is about two people coming together who love each other and moving forward in their lives.\" Her father said, smiling warmly, \"Granted, not every one lights their stuff on fire or leaves their family when they marry...but the tradition is still alive. Don't look back and keep moving forward.\"\n\n\"But that doesn't explain why people want to catch the bouquet...\" She said, reapplying her lipstick and mascara. \n\n\"Oh that? People are just weird, love. I'm not sure what that means, exactly. Could mean they want to be lit on fire or something...\" He smirked as Sarah laughed uncontrollably. Holding her stomach, she let out all of her anxiety, laughing away her worries.\n\n\"Thanks dad, you were right. That did help.\" She turned around to face her dad, just as the door opened to reveal her mother; a portly woman with short blonde hair and tears in her eyes.\n\n\"Ohhh look at my baby, about to get married! Who would've thought! I'm so happy for you!\" She yelled, helping her daughter finish getting ready in under a minute. \"Now let's hurry, it's time.\"\n\n\"Okay....I'm ready.\" Sarah nodded with determination in her eyes, her mother holding her by her shoulders; taking one last look.\n\n\"Oh...\" Sarah's mother said through small tears, \"...if only your father were alive to see you now. He'd be so proud.\"\n\nTears began forming in Sarah's eyes as well when she spoke, \"I know, mom. I know.\" Having one long hug, the two women left the quiet room. \n\nSarah looked back at the mirror and chair and smiled lightly, \"Time for the next chapter, dad.\" With that, she closed the door and went to walk down the aisle towards her future husband. ", "*\"I can't wait for when she tosses the bouquet!\"*\n\n\"Why? It's just flowers...\"\n\n*\"No! Don't you know it's so the person who catches it gets married next?\"*\n\n\"Yeah, I've heard that. But that's make-believe. Like how black cats are unlucky.\"\n\n*\"So you've never tried to catch it?\"*\n\n\"No. Why? Do you?\"\n\n*\"Well of course not!\"*\n\n\"Then why do you care?\"\n\n*\"Because other people do.\"*\n\n\"What does that mean?\"\n\n*\"I mean that it's nice to see that moment when the roses hang in the air. For in that moment, everyone forgets about whatever issues they may have. Whether to do with money, or family, or school, or whatever. They lose that baggage, and simply go for the bouquet, in a hope that they'll find happiness soon.\"*\n\n\"But when someone doesn't catch it, they get crushed completely! That's horrible!\"\n\n*\"No it isn't. Because, yeah, only one person is going to catch it, but there will be more bouquets. There will be more roses to fly through the air, and allow them to be caught. More chances to feel that happiness again. And soon, you stop hoping for the wedding, but rather the roses. You just enjoy the sights of them, and other flowers. And as you enjoy roses and flowers by themselves, you start to see these moments more and more, until suddenly, everyday you get to catch the bouquet, and then you finally find you've caught it. And you can stop trying to catch that bouquet, because you have enough roses already all around you.\"*\n\n\"... That's fucking stupid.\"" ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1408684454", "1408684948" ]

[ "I have always loved antique stores. I don't know why, but I just have loved the smell of dust and that blast from the past. I'm a regular in this shop in particular. Reggie always has new findings every Thursday. Thursdays were my favorite days. One Thursday in October, I walk into the store as usual. The bell above the door rings as usual. Oh how I loved that bell's sweet sounds.\n\"Hey Reggie!\"\n\"Hey, There's my favorite customer! hows work?\"\n\"Oh, you know the usual. What did you find this week?\"\nReggie was an older man, he always had a good eye for finding authentic antiques.\n\"Well, I found a few books, some letters from World war 1, and some weird crate. I think you should be the first to open the crate, after all you are my favorite customer!\"\n\"Awe, thanks Reggie!\"\n\"You're welcome, hold on while I get the stuff from the back.\"\nReggie shuffled to the closet behind the counter.\nA few minutes later he came back box, books, and letters in his old, wrinkly hands. \n\"Thanks! How much do I owe you?\"\n\"Hmmm, about $40. Is that a good deal?\n\"Yeah, it's perfect!\"\nI get out my wallet and pay exactly $40. I hate carrying around change.\nI began to walk out and then Reggie says, \"You know, the most valuable thing you own could now be in that crate!\"\n\"Maybe...\" I say, \"Just maybe.\"\n\"Bye Reggie!\"\n\"Bye Ally!\"\nI walk out to my car and drive home. Now, It was time to do my other favorite things, inspect my findings. I put the books on my shelf. They weren't at my center of attention. They were pretty, but worn, as all my books are. I like them like that. Full of memories. I read the letters and as usual, they were sad and to their family. I take the letters to my ivory colored box. That's where I kept all my letters. I neatly reseal th letters and put them in my box. I turn around to return to the table where I do my inspecting. I first look at the crate's exterior. It was extremely dusty and worn and the wood was oak. There was no writing on the exterior which is odd. I run to the garage to fetch a crowbar. When the crate is in sight again I feel bursts of excitement. Nail by rusty nail, I open the crate. Inside was a book. \"but why?\" I think. I inspect the book and the cover says,\" Allison Swan, a life of hardships and finding happiness\" But MY name was Allison Swan! I only went by my nickname, never my full name, Allison. There also was a picture of me on the front. ME. I think to my self, \"why would any one write a book on MY life? I was some boring scientist from Oregon. Out of curiosity I begin to read the book. Every detail from the day I was born was in this book. I soon draw close to the end I win a Nobel prize. But I get sick. Very sick. at first its just cancer in my arm. Then my leg. Then my other arm and leg. Then my stomach then my diaphragm. then my lungs, Then my kidneys. Then my eyes. Then my Brain. But it isn't the cancer that kills me. One lonely Friday night, some one sneaks into my house. they then stab me and I slowly bleed out. Tears fall down from my face and splatter on to the books pages. I slam the book closed. \"Surely this can't be true\" I think. \"but how come all the details from the day I was born to now where all correct? I must stop this tragedy\" With tears of pure despair running down my face. I run to my room where I keep the gun. I point it at my head and write my last goodbyes on a note \"this will never make sense to them\" I think. I but my finger on the trigger. BANG.\nThe neighbors call the cops because of the gunfire. When the EMTs come I have nearly bled out to death. \"So this is dying? am I a ghost? am I dead?\" Those thoughts race through my mind. I gently doze off. When I wake up I see white. \"is this heaven?\" I say aloud. \"Hahaha, no,\" a nurse chuckles as she walks in. She explained what happened. I shot myself in the head, but not in the right place. I was too shaky to shoot strait. I had severe brain damage, but I would survive. With a ton of rehabilitation, I would slowly get better and back to normal. \nOne day something made more sense to me. Cancer. I had been studying it since I woke up in the hospital. I suddenly had the Idea for the cure. I made the cure, and tested it. It had worked. I won the Nobel prize. But this time, I didn't get cancer. I lived until I was 133 due to the medical advances. I lived a long and happy life. But as for Reggie? He died the same way I did in the book. The book still waits on my shelf. It waits to be given away. It waits to sicken the giver with the incurable cancer. It waits to send the Million year old man to kill the giver and the most painful way possible. Sharing isn't caring.", "Surely what's in this crate can't be *that* important. It's just an old crate and the old man is pulling my leg. However, my curiosity could kill a whole herd of cats.\n\nIt's not hard to open up, it actually swings open quite easily. Inside is a smaller box. This one is fireproof and filled with photo sleeves, with hastily written titles.\n\nFifth birthday.\n\nGraduation.\n\nWedding.\n\nGrandma.\n\nMom and Dad's wedding.\n\nMy heart stops for a moment. Back in my apartment there is a box of old photos, fleeting memories captured on film and forgotten.\n\nBeyond the photo sleeves there are also slots for film and memory cards. A whole life time of memories, ready to be put away and protected.\n\nI had expected money, or some sort of jewellery, but somehow this little fireproof box, empty save for a few suggestions is far more valuable than that, with room for my whole life and maybe a few others inside.", "\"It's money.\" I moved my hand over the edge of the crate, letting my skin brush across the cotton paper and taking in the familiar sounds and scrapes it made as it grazed the edge of the crisp notes. The old man behind the counter shrugged and shook his head at me, looked at me with those sunken, hard eyes of his that had hammered the gravity of my coming revelation into me just a minute earlier.\n\n\"It's just money,\" I continued, \"a lot of it, for sure, but still just money.\" It just seemed too easy. I had done so much more for so much less. Now it was all so close, and suddenly I felt like I was the one who was far away, though from what I couldn't tell.\n\n\"Disappointed?\" \n\n\"Yes, well, no, I mean, I suppose I was expecting something, you know... More profound.\"\n\n\"Well, money makes the world go round, son. The box never lies,\" the old man offered. He had gone on for some time before I had opened it, and now I felt cheated. He seemed somehow larger than life, like something out of a novel or film, but the box was exactly the right size and much too small.\n\n\"There's probably a year's wages in here. Maybe a college fund, or house, maybe a wedding and a honeymoon,\" I continued, but he broke me off with his old man voice, all full of whiskey and cigarettes and portent. \n\n\"It ain't a paper or a deed or a ring, son. It ain't tickets or a name or a place. It's cash.\"\n\n\"But surely it could turn into one of those?\" I started, and he halted me.\n\n\"Then it would have.\"\n\n\"So that's it, then.\" \n\n\"Seems like it. I seen a lot of things pulled outta that box over the years, son, and far as I know I been right every time. What's there's all yours, it's your measure. All yours for the takin', most valuable thing you'll ever own.\"\n\nI sighed. I closed the lid on the box and grabbed my hat, turning to face him. \"Mine to take, huh?\"\n\n\"Yes sir,\" he said, and nodded his head, \"yours to take.\" He finished like it was somehow half a sentence. I nodded back, straightened my coat, and headed for the exit. I opened it up and put my hat on, sliding it around on my head for a second until it found its place, then turned to look at the man once I was over the threshold.\n\n\"But if I do,\" I said, and let the door swing closed." ]

[ 3, 6, 15 ]

[ "1408768476", "1408749527", "1408755669" ]

[ "The prisoner, seemingly resigned to his grisly fate, simply stands pensively as he faces the tiny window in the ceiling, the only source of light in the room. After what seems like an eternity, he hears the lock open and the King's jailor enters. \"You are free to go. The secret code is silence.\"", "\"What could it be? Months pass and I'm trapped in this fever dream. Every possible combination of my limited vocabulary and hope dwindles, a fart in the wind.\" Here he comes, I've carved the last of my sanity deep into my flesh. My tongue thick against my teeth I close my eyes once more, whispering my death rattle through the thin slit in the door. \n\n\n\n\"Orange you glad I didn't say banana?\"\n\n\n\n\nThe lock turns. ", "No one could ever accuse the king of being a cruel man. In fact, he is quite just, even regarding my current predicament. I accept that this is (for the most part) my own doing. \n\nI am a scholar, and a master of words in particular. Even educated as he was, I would often help my master in matters of diplomacy, secrecy, and transcription. I devised the secret code of riddles which our spies use to communicate the strengths and weaknesses of our enemies. I made this kingdom strong, and he knew it. \n\nI needed *him* to be *stronger.* There is a certain power in words. Great men can wield them as handily and as masterfully as any weapon. A few simple words can turn an enemy into an ally, and thus vanquish a threat forever. They can turn a brave man into a coward, they can elevate the despotic into individuals beyond reproach.\n\nWords are power. If there was anything I had taught him, it was that. But, I found his eloquence lacking. It was a certain shortcoming that was unbecoming of a leader of such a great nation.\n\nSo I set out to teach him in a more indirect manner, when his stubbornness outlasted my patience. I made riddles and jokes of his simple words. I satirized his every saying. Others around him caught on; and it was my hope that when he realized that he was the sole focus of a very large in-joke, that he would give my council a second try. \n\nInstead he had me thrown in this dungeon to make an example for those who would try to belittle their king. A sound decision, of course. I cannot blame him for that. Who would follow him, if he could not command the respect of his closest friend?\n\nMy King is not a cruel man. He gave one exception to my imprisonment: That if I could but say the secret code, he would let me out and pardon me. \n\nI have languished here for a year, trying to figure it out. When it suddenly came to me, it was clear as day, and I still cannot describe the tide of emotions that utterly overwhelmed me. \n\nThe King came to me when I called for him. \n\n\"Say the secret code, and I shall let you out, my friend,\" He says. \n\nA humorless smile makes its way to my face.\n\n\"The secret code,\" I say. \n\nThe lock on the door turns, and my King says not a word.\n\n\"Hoisted by my own petard,\" I admit. \"Touche.\"" ]

[ 1, 1, 2 ]

[ "1408760414", "1408761339", "1408765718" ]

[ " He was sweating more than usual. He could feel his moist palms inside his latex gloves as he gripped the scalpel cutting away the tumour. \"A few more hours\" thought Dr. Wodensky, \"and I'll get to have a shower and crawl into bed.\"\n The doctor continued with his practiced hand, cutting away at the tumour embedded in the old man's stomach. A short slice here, a shallow cut there, and he was almost finished. He started to make a shallow incision when his arm twitched, a muscle spasm from the long hours and dehydration, he told himself. The indigestion wasn't helping either. Then he noticed the blood. That muscle spasm pushed the scalpel in just a little too far, and now blood was flowing hot and red over the wound. \n \"Nurse! Suction!\" he yelled at his tired assistant, who quickly leaped into action, the hose making a slurping bubbling noise as it mopped up the blood. \n\"Shit,\" thought Dr. Wodensky, \"this isn't good. I won't be able to clamp the bleeding in time, the tumour is in the way.\" \n At 21:46 the patient flatlined. A rich old conservative who fought tooth and nail against tax dollars being spent on healthcare, had died under Dr. Wodensky's knife. Wodensky had taken the oath tho and had tried his best to save the man's life. \n Suddenly, in blinding pain, the doctor gripped his scalpel tight as his chest spasmed in pain, and he collapsed.\n \"Welcome Warrior! You have slain your enemy and died with blade in hand, and have earned your seat at my table!\" a voice boomed. \"Tonight all of Valhalla shall celebrate! Let the mead flow, and regale us with tales of your victories!\"", "A surgical tool doesn't get you into Valhalla. Massive axes, brutal hammers, spears, nets, cannons--did they have cannons in Ancient Greece?--and *weapons* of any sort, historically, have earned--you know--actual warriors a place in Valhalla.\n\nI pictured the place as a flat green disc with Ionic columns, different mythical beasts, and huge gladiators spread about the surface. A nice, blue, cloudy Greek sky and white Greek buildings. Maybe a giant snake hanging around a garden somewhere. I believe in Valhalla. I think the spirits over time become just memories, perhaps living an extended life as beings of different kinds. But it wasn't heaven; I didn't think of the Greeks as being allowed into heaven or having a real concept of it in their mythology.\n\nBut here I am.\n", "This thread has been linked to from elsewhere on reddit.\n\n\n - [/r/asatru] [Thought this was interesting: (x-post from r/WritingPrompts) A doctor waging the war on cancer dies with (surgical) blade in hand. Somehow his spirit enters Valhalla.](http://np.reddit.com/r/asatru/comments/2ecpmj/thought_this_was_interesting_xpost_from/)\n\n\n*^If ^you ^follow ^any ^of ^the ^above ^links, ^respect ^the ^rules ^of ^reddit ^and ^don't ^vote ^or ^comment. ^Questions? ^Abuse? [^Message ^me ^here.](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fmeta_bot_mailbag)*\n\n", "\"Welcome to Valhalla!\" The Viking said. He was flanked by two beautiful valkyrie women, and behind him stood a city that looked like it had been torn straight out of the *Thor: The Dark World* concept art book. \n\nHe should be happy. He stood in a heavenly kingdom of eternal happiness. Not the one he'd been expecting, but every day would be as exciting as possible and he'd never have to be afraid of dying or losing any loved ones. From what he knew about Viking culture, there would also be women here and they would be treated as equals. \n\nThe valkyries came up to him and tried to guide him though the city, but he pulled away. \n\n\"Sir, there's just one problem.\"\n\nThe viking god and valkyries turned back and looked at him. \"There's a problem. I'm gay.\"\n\n\"That's not a problem,\" the Valkyrie said. \n\nThe viking frowned. \"Do you *really* think you're the only gay man to have died fighting a great foe?\"", "It was over. \n\nAs I came to my senses, this was the first thought in my head. \n\nI felt the hand on my head. \n\n\"Rest, it is over. \"\n\nI slunk back into the bed. Fuck. I did not even need to open my eyes. I had written the proposals myself. \n\n\"I collapsed in the operating theatre? \"\n\n\"Yes. \"\n\nA warm voice. Nurse? My eyes felt heavy. \n\nI heard a bit of giggling in a corner. The operation had taken more then 23 hours. \n\n\"You know it's not my fault....\"\n\n\"I know. \"\n\nMaybe it was just a nursing student. The feeling of her hand on my head reminded me of Clara. My wife. So many years ago, and all was gone. She just did not understand that I loved her, but I loved saving peoples lifes as well..... \n\nI felt something was expected of me. Advice. Being a man. Telling of deeds. It was not unnormal to sludge, to break down, but you had to get up afterwards. \n\n\"The patient made it? \"\n\n\"Yes. \"\n\nA slight hint of an accent. Not bad. Germanic, or something. And boy, she smelled so nice....\n\n\"He was just a child. You know? They claimed it was inoperable. \"\n\nMumbling in the lower ranks. Other female voices? I creaked one eye open, and saw at least a few other silouettes standing there. Definitively female. By the gods, they must be those vodka fed girls I heard so much about...\n\n\"You girls like harassing an old man? Good grief, Just say it. I collapsed on the floor. But feck, I pulled a 23 hour operation. Patient safe. Giggle bout that, if you want. \"\n\nHushed whispering in this language. Never had an ear for languages, or gave them much interest. \n\nA door opening, and a male voice. \"I am going to complain! That is an outrage! You, like, can't do this! I am Michael, for god s sake....\"\n\n\"Girls, need a hand...\"\n\nMore , agitated talking, mostly the germanic language again, and the sound of a scuffle, and a man being removed. \n\nOne eye open, I saw how one of the bigger girls marched outside. Heck, double d's. At the very least. The must build them like that in that lovely nordic country...\n\nThen, I heard the sounds of scuffle. \n\n\"You girls will make it big. Never knew a nurse that could enforce the sanctity of the wakeup room with violence. \"\n\n\"Hildr has a bit of a temper. \"\n\nThe voice was new. It must have snuck in through the door. I raised one eye. \n\n\"Ok, sisters, sorry for the wait, I had to get through a bit of a scuffle with the documentation. So, let me see the patient. \"\n\nBarely 16. At least according to the voice. Hell, you could even hear the valley girl slang. I sighed. A teaching hospital. The Nice good smelling nurses .... and now that loud one..... Whyyyyyyy....\n\n\"Ortlinde, Helmwige, Göndull, and Kara, out, and watch the door. We have to hurry up a bit, Hildr beat this chippendales reject up something fierce, and he is bound to get help. Remember what I told you. Girl power, and if they come in force, kick them between the legs. \"\n\n\"Wir haben das schon seit Anbegin der Zeiten getan. Sprich wenigstens die sprache deiner Ahnen, Maid. Ich verlange nicht viel, aber wenn du mit uns redest, muss es nicht englisch sein. \"\n\n\"Shut your face, I want him to understand this. After all, we are in America. God, you want this job, or not?\"\n\nScurrying, as several of the ladies left the room. Thankfully, not the nice smelling one. \n\nI heard the scuffling, and did not even need to open my eyes. \n\n\"Nice how you dealt with your \"sisters. \". Proper doctor has to make himself clear in that regard. You hear me? Respect the nurses, but don't be hostile against them. Now, you have questions, right? I remember my name, Robert Frost, it must be the 20.th of august, and the current president is Obama. \"\n\nScribbling. Taking notes. Good. Reminded me of myself. Will have a future, if she can get rid of that perfume, and don proper scrubs. \n\n\"Very well. You remember what happened? \"\n\n\"Puh.... 23 hour surgery, on a patient. Male, 20 something. Brain tumor. Operable, but fickle. I still remember checking the vitals.... After that, pretty much nothing. \"\n\nI could hear nodding, and scribbling of notes. \n\n\"Are you aware that you fell holding a scalpell? \"\n\n\"So what? 23 hours. Heck, I will not open my eyes, because I earned that rest. Nobody else volunteered. Feck, boy had a proper history of fighting an uphill battle, with all the complications. So, yea, I am Kind of proud of the fact that I fell with my scalpel in hand. \"\n\nScribble scribble\n\n\"You yourself would describe that as a battle? A valiant one even?\"\n\n\"Hell yea? Poor kid, with the brain tumor. Had his whole life in front of him. Would have been a pitty to not operate on him. Heck, that is what I do. I safe lifes. And yes, it's a battle every step of the way. \"\n\nMore scribbling. My head itched, and as if on command, the soft woman moved her thumb, and scritched it. Allmost like you would scritch a big cat...\n\n\"Ok, that concludes this point. Well, we didn't realize that the kid was christian...\"\n\n\"Christian? Heck, I know that Obama fella is president, but did we sink so low? Let people be...\"\n\n\"I am sorry, I believe it may have come over a bit strong. No longer our responsibility. \"\n\n\"No longer your responsibility, Girl, let me tell you...\"\n\nExactly the kind of behavior I hated. Being a doctor just for the rank. No real passion to help. I was about to give her a piece of my mind, when I stopped, blinking, stariung ath the figure at the foot of my bed. \n\n\"Warum macht er das? Juckt es ihn da?\"\n\n\"Weiß ick auch nicht...Doc, not for nothing, but what do you do with your arm? \"\n\n\"Checking for an IV. Because These must be some excellent new drugs, because don't take this the wrong way, but you have wings..... \"\n\nI finished the search, looking at her. Yer, scrubs, yes, nice, petite face, but behind her, on her back, those were ...\n\n\"Ok, no IV. Have they given me something? \"\n\n\"Doc, stay calm, I believe I have some bad news for you. \"\n\nI slunk back. Yep. Brain trauma. Why else had they mentioned the thing with the scalpell? Only explanation for this...\n\n\"Ok, I am calm. \"\n\n\"Liar, but ok. Could you close your eyes, and point at your nose, without touching it? Just to show you what the problem is. \"\n\nI accepted. Pointing at my nose, I felt....\n\n\"Now open your eyes, and look what you are pointing at. \"\n\nI followed my orders, and looked at myself. It was kind of heady, and disturbing. But slowly the details sank in. This was not the wake up room, and this was not a simple case....\n\nI was staring at me, lying next to me, looking at the roof. Dead. \n\n\"If this is a joke, I am going to sue. \"\n\n\"Go ahead, but I am afraid you caught a very bad case of dead. \"\n\n\"Bullshit. \"\n\n\"AAh, a sceptic. In this case, could you please tell me what is on your navel? \"\n\nI looked down. A silvery line, kind of like an umbillical cord. Connecting me to the .... other me. \n\n\"We call that a soul line. Comes to the best of us. Connects body and soul. \"\n\n\"I can't be dead! I only took a little fall!\"\n\n\"Well, wasn't the fall that killed you. Or the fact that you worked 23 hour shifts. Or the fact that you smoked a pack a day. Or the fact that you were a bit overweight. Stroke. Would have bet on something different, but yea. Dead before you hit the floor. \"\n\nI was stunned. \n\n\"So, you are ... Angels? \"\n\n\"Allmost. Valkyres. \"\n\nI had to laugh. It made too much sense. The double D figures, the toned bodies, the good smell. \n\n\"If this is a prank, it is a good one. So, cut to the case. \"\n(cont)", "Howard had not expected to die.\n\nHe was a young, fit, man, not the sort of person predisposed to a heart attack, but it seemed that was what happened. One moment, he had been in the surgery one moment, cutting out a tumor from the skin of a patient, and the next he was sitting in a painfully spartan office with a blank-eyed man staring at him vacantly from behind a desk next to a door marked 'Orientation' and another marked 'Armory'.\n\nHoward stared back.\n\n\"Who are you?\" asked the man.\n\n\"Howard Vendt.\" replied Howard. It occurred to him that perhaps he should have said something a bit more flashy, but he was too intrigued by their surroundings.\n\nHe appeared to be seated in the waiting room of a dentists office, admittedly one that had been designed to minimise possible damage to the furniture, with bolted down steel chairs and coffee tables apparently being a staple of the room's design.\n\nAs Howard was pondering various genres of design, he missed something the man had said.\n\n\"I'm sorry, what?\" Howard asked.\n\n\"I said,\" replied the man rather impatiently \"Could you clarify your regiment and/or fighting force? Because this bloody thing,\" he said, waving vaguely at a clipboard \"Says that you're from the 'National Cancer Treatment Task-force'.\"\n\nHoward was very confused. As far as he knew, he had never participated in the military efforts of his country.\n\n\"I'm not from a military background, I'm afraid.\" Howard responded.\n\n\"Then what are you doing here?\" queried the man.\n\n\"What is here?\"\n\n\"You aren't the sharpest blade on the blacksmiths wall, are you?\"\n\n\"I'll have you know, I'm a medical doctor and surgeon, who graduated top of my class! I will not be-\" \n\n\"Oh, you're a doctor?\" interrupted the man, his demeanor suddenly changing from crass and impatient to almost sickeningly polite in seconds. \"You, err... know how to fix an axe wound?\" he asked sheepishly.\n\n\"Yes, why?\" questioned Howard.\n\nAs the man opened his mouth to speak, a massive, heavily built man crashed through the wall of the room, a spear as long as Howard was tall sticking out of his back. Howard gave an (annoyingly) effeminate shriek, and leapt up onto one of the chairs.\n\n\"Ahh, perfect!\" exclaimed the man behind the desk \"Bjorn, apparently this posh fella's a doctor!\"\n\nThe man apparently called Bjorn jumped up and spun around to Howard in one smooth motion. \"Perfick!\" he boomed, his voice (somehow) echoing around the tiny room. \"Help me out with this would you?\" he asked, spinning round to stick the butt of the huge spear approximately five millimetres from Howards nose.\n\nHoward gingerly leant forward, and pulled the spear out of Bjorn's back. \"Ermm,\" he said as he threw the spear at the floor \"I don't suppose you could tell me where I am, could you?\"\n\nBjorn looked at Howard incredulously then looked at the man behind the desk. \"Odin's beard, he really isn't the sharpest dagger in the belt is he?\"\nHe looked back out a Howard.\n\n\"You're in Valhalla mate. And we need doctors.\"", "(I'm more of a exposition guy and too lazy to write prose...)\nThe doctor emerges in the micro-universe of Valhalla, as opposed to the macro one everyone expects. The pyschopomp/valkyrie explains that doctors were the greatest warriors in \"The Unseen War\" of Germ Warfare; fighting the virus and bacteria that have been plaguing the 9 worlds and particularly Midgard for ages. In this dimension within Valhalla, he must battle with valiant/sentient/anthropomorphic red/white blood cells, T-cells, antogens, et al to prepare for Ragnarök. The plot twist: they are within Odin's body... ", "Paul awoke in the grass. *Wait, grass? Wasn't I just in my operating room, trying to fix..*\n\nThen he remembered the pain in his arm, the sharp stabbing feeling in his chest. Paul had known it was a heart attack, but he did not know that it would strike so quickly. \n\nHe tried to think of what he looked like now, crumpled on the ground, blade in hand....\n\nHe still had the blade. *Am I dead or not? What's going on? If I died, I shouldn't have this blade...*\n\nPaul finally stood up, unsure of how to think of his current situation. He finally managed to get a bearing of his surroundings. Rolling hills, tall grass, about 6 inches high, a few crumbling castles, muscled men fighting, clear skies, little cl-\n\n*Wait, why are there people fighting? Where am-*\n\nPauls thoughts were interrupted by a rude arrow. As Paul slumped to the ground, again, he thought he heard \"Haha! I got the newbie!\"\n\nPaul awoke in a bed. He quickly stood up, his mind in a strange mess of thoughts. He scanned his surroundings: He was in a long hall with plenty of beds and a large feasting table. The beds were all empty, but the feasting table, which was about as long as a football field, was about half-filled with huge, muscled men. All were armed. Paul's stomach twisted in a knot. What was this place?\n\n A huge man with a golden beard approached him.\n\n\"Ah boys, we've found our newest fighter, Paul!\" He exclaimed. \"In his life, he waged war on an enemy that he knew nothing about! I bet he has more courage than all of you louts!\"\n\nA large cry of disapproval filled the air from the many at the feasting table. Paul recoiled backwards.\n\n\"Where am I?! Am I dead? I died of a heart attack, and then died again from an arrow to my head in some huge battlefield! Why am I alive yet again?!\"\n\nThe man with the beard laughed mightily, \"Hahaha, Yetholos got you? I hate that damned archer! He always interrupts my fights with his stupid arrows! Every time I take the bastards head, my day gets brighter.\"\n\nPauls eyes widened. *Of course. I was fighting an unknown enemy. Cancer. I was pretty close to curing it too. The man I was cutting open might have been our hope. But I died, blade in hand, close to defeating it. I awoke on a battlefield, died again, and am now surrounded with lightly armored men with axes, swords, hammers...*\n\n\"Ah, right!\" The bearded man said, \"You are in Valhalla! We fight and die all day and drink, feast, and sleep all night!\" The mans eyes fell onto his surgical knife. \"Don't tell me that you're actually going to fight with that, are you? That butter knife?\"\n\nPaul heated up. \"This butter knife is made of Obsidian, and a good slice could cut you open from your neck to belly!\" He threatened. Paul realized what he had just done. *Nononono, me and my stupid mouth, not again, not again*\n\nThe bearded man smiled and laughed. \"Hahaha! See boys, I told you this guy has backbone! It's a challenge, then! Great! We'll fight in 5 minutes. Suit up! Me, Odin, versus Paul, the newcomer! This will be a good fight!\"\n\nPaul gulped. \n\nWell, like any profession, fighting takes determined practice and training to do it well. His punishment was the pain of death....over and over and over again. But it was okay, because he had an eternity.\n", "One moment Dr. Gumatao was in the operating room and the next, he was standing on a grassy hill gently sloping towards a long wooden building. Noel felt a presence to his side. He turned, and saw the tallest woman he had ever seen. She stood a full head over him, and she was wore a multi-hued tunic and brass bangles on her wrists and ankles. On her left she propped up a wooden shield almost as tall as she was. Instinctively he held up his hand with the thing that he gripped there. It was a moment before he realized, with much embarrassment, that it was his scalpel. A tiny scalpel.\n\nThe woman flashed a wide toothy smile. \"Greetings, Awang, and welcome!\"\n\nAwang? He had not been called that since he was a child, and only by Nana, who never accepted his Christian name. \"How do you know...?\"\n\n\"Here you are known by your true name.\"\n\n\"Where is here? What is this place? Why am I here?\"\n\n\"Here is Cibolan. In your heart of hearts you know what this place is. You are here because you have been found worthy.\"\n\nCibolan? His people's heaven? Such were the tales that he heard from Nana. Such was the final reward of Datu Sama, of Timawen, of Warawara, and all the other mythical warriors of his people. But they were only fairy tales!\n\nI am dreaming, thought Dr. Gumatao. Hallucinating.\n\n\"I don't belong here,\" Dr. Gumatao said.\n\n\"You are bagani,\" the woman said. \"You died a valiant death, in battle.\"\n\n\"In battle?\" Dr. Gumatao laughed. \"I am a doctor, a healer, not a warrior.\"\n\nThe woman said nothing. She merely looked at him with placid eyes, as if the truth would come to him soon enough.\n\nIt did.\n\nThe operating room. It was a delicate procedure. The patient, anesthetized, lay on the table. The sternum had been cut and held open by clamps and forceps. The bypass machine beat its steady rhythm. Around him, the nurses and assisting doctors moved in practiced steps.\n\nHe had completed the grafts. He inspected his handiwork, going through his mental checklist. Everything had gone perfectly. He stepped aside briefly so Dr. Quitaen could verify the work. Dr. Quitaen nodded. It was time to close the patient up.\n\n\"Prepare to restart the heart. In 3...2...1...\"\n\nFrom the hallway came loud noises and shouts. What was going on? He blocked out the commotion. He waited for the cue from the nurse but it didn't come. He pushed down his rising anger and prompted: \"Heart status?\"\n\nThe nurse hesitated, then replied with a tremble in his voice. \"40 bpm. Doctor...there's...\"\n\n\"Lockdown! Lockdown!\" He heard the announcement faintly over the PA system. There were screams.\n\n\"There's a shooter in the hospital,\" Dr. Quitaen said. Two shots rang out. They were very close.\n\n\"God-dammit..... Focus, people! We're going to lose the patient.\" He looked up and around the operating room. There was fear in their eyes. They were no good to him now. \"I need two volunteers to finish the operation. The rest of you, get out.\"\n\nThere was a rush of feet heading out of the operating room. Dr. Quitaen took over the chief nurse's station. One other brave soul remained at the instrumentation, calling out the readings.\n\nThe commotion was very close now. It was right outside. \n\n\"Disengage bypass.\"\n\n\"Bypass disengaged.\"\n\nHe began wiring the chest cavity closed. He worked steadily, unmindful of the banging and screams outside. More shots.\n\nHe had finished closing the patient when the door to the OR burst open. A wild-eyed man entered, shouting obscenities. In his hands was a rifle. Dr. Quitaen and the nurse scrambled to the far corner of the room and dove down to the floor. \n\nDr. Gumatao turned around. He gripped his scalpel in his hand. His eyes met the shooter's. For a brief moment, the shooter stood dumbly.\n\n\"Get out of here,\" Dr. Gumatao ordered.\n\nThe shooter stepped back and seemed to obey. Then, he screamed again and pointed the rifle at him. He felt a jerk on his side, then a radiating stab of pain. \n\nHe staggered a step, lunged forward. His left hand grabbed the barrel of the shooter's rifle and brought it up. The shooter fired again. \n\nDr. Gumatao brought the point of the scalpel up against the chin of the shooter. He slashed downward. Blood came spurting out. The shooter went down to his knees, and Dr. Gumatao went down with him.\n\nThe OR doors burst open again. Men in dark blue uniforms poured in. His vision became hazy. They were shouting but he couldn't understand what they were saying.\n\nOver to the side, he heard a familiar voice. \"Noel....\" It was Dr. Quitaen.\n\n\"Phil.... The patient?\"\n\nAnd then, everything went black.\n\n\"I am not a warrior,\" he repeated, but more to himself now, than to the woman. \"I am...\"\n\nThe woman smiled, then turned and started to walk up the meeting hall. She beckoned for him to follow.", "Death is not easy and he has seen many kinds. The slow asphyxiation as a girl's lungs stop expanding, her ribcage too heavy. Or torn artery and the fear and panic and blood and forty five seconds later a cooling body on a slick floor.\n\n\nHe has never seen a quiet death. In the last moments the body fights, instinctively, for life. Standing in the suite he can feel the second his heart stuttered. The moment is insignificant. It had been coming on stronger the past few days. A product of too much fatty meat and little sleep. He'd take the weekend off, go to the lake with Maria. Turn off the alarm clock. The gloves are massive. \n\n\nThe tumor is oblong. Under the lights it looks alien a mucus coated mass of hard tissue and bulging veins. A kick in the chest then. His hands are bloated. The scalpel is fidgety, fragile. His heart feelings *tight*. Like heart burn but something is blocked... And he staggers... And the tile is cool on his face... And he feels the damp breeze the comes off a northern lake.\n\n\nSomeone hauls him to his feet. They smell of wet sheep, leather, sweat. The warm dusty whiff of horses and the sharp hint of pine. Mostly dirty though. Unwashed. \n\n\n\nMore in habit than though his hands off the blade and strips the gloves. The blood on his gown is tacky. In front of him is a group of men. The youngest he'd out at seventeen. That's how old Matt is. The oldest is at lest eighty, with a film over the eyes and teeth. Most are in their mid thirties. \n\n\nThere is a crippling panic that overtakes him. He has the embarrassing urge to cry in front of strangers. It takes him a second to calm down.\n\n\n\"Hello.\" He tries to shake. They don't respond. They view him with suspicion, some muttering to each other like school boys.", "He wasn't quite sure how he had died. As a doctor, he had made for a terrible patient, but last time he had checked, he had been alive and not sick at all. And, how was it that he had died in a hospital, in the middle of preparing to operate on a patient? Who was going to operate on the patient now? He knew he wasn't so easily replaced.\n\nWere those horses coming down from the sky? It was bad enough that he could feel he was dead and could see his dead body lying right next to him, but now there were flying horses? As a practitioner of science, it destroyed all the laws of physics that he had learned... or at least could remember.\n\nWhen he saw ladies descend from the horses, he couldn't help but flush furiously. They were ethereal and had large... assets that shouldn't have worked on bodies such as theirs without seriously harming their back.\n\n\"So. Uh... How can I help you?\" he asked, scratching the back of his neck. He mustered up a weak smile in an attempt be friendly.\n\n\"Eir, this man doesn't look like a warrior. Are you sure this is the right man? Look at him! Surely this is a mistake. Look at that piddly knife and the lack of muscles!\"\n\n\"Göll! Don't be like that. This is most assuredly the man that has been fated to enter Valhalla. However small a knife he has in his hands, it is still a weapon. Plus, I believe he fell in a war against cancer?\"\n\n\"Pah, I still say he doesn't look like a warrior. Humans these days just get worse and worse. And their naming sense is horrid! What is this cancer? Why, back in Odin's day, it was something like Battle of Svolder. It was-\"\n\n\"Uh, ladies, who are you?\" he managed to cut in. \"Why am I dead?\"\n\nGöll laughed maniacally as she pointed her sword at the man.\n\n\"See! He's timid and his voice isn't any louder than a squeak of a rodent! You call this man a warrior? You are spineless, nay argr! Fight me if you wish to prove yourself a man.\" \n\n\"Göll! Stop this instant.\"\n\n\"But-\"\n\n\"The Norns have foretold him entering Valhalla. Do you dare tell them that you disagreed with their fate for this man? Do you not recall what happened the last time a Valkyrie did it?\"\n\nGöll looked shocked at even the mere thought of ignoring the Norns. \"But, there has never been a Valkyrie who has disobeyed the Norns.\"\n\n\"Exactly. Do you wish to be the first one and suffer a horrid punishment?\"\n\n\"No... but...\"\n\n\"I must say that I agree with you but, we must drag this man to Valhalla. We can deal with him once he's in Valhalla.\"\n\nGöll perked up at the thought of this. \"Oh, sister, you are simply the best! Come, let's take him!\n\nThe man shrunk back as the two Valkyries advanced upon him. \"Now, listen, I greatly dislike being-! PUT ME DOWN, PLEASE-----------\"\n\nHe screamed as he was carted off by the Valkyries to Valhalla. He was going to hell.", "\"But I'm not a Viking! I've never even been to Europe! My dad makes Cheese in Wisconsin! Surely there has been some kind of mistake?\"\n\n\"Are you not Johann Erikson, Son of Alek Erikson?” said the lead Viking\n\n“I am, but thats not the point….”\n\nThe Viking turned to the rest of the hall and filled it with his booming voice, “BEHOLD! Johann Erikson, Son of Alek Erikson The Cheesemaker of Wisconsin!”\n\n“Where is this Wisconsin Place? Are there great battles there?”, a voice called out from the back of the crowd.\n\nJohann tried to interrupt, but the lead viking ignored him, “He is of the new world! Great-Grandson of one of our people who left across the great eastern ocean generations ago!”\n\nThe hall cheered and roared with approval, with blades and swords raised to the Sky.\n\n“Wait, what, is this to do with my great grand-dad?” Johann asked, still befuddled as to how dying after a long life as a cancer surgeon could lead him to end up in what looked suspiciously like the tales of Valhalla his father had told him about when he was just a boy.\n\n“Your great grandfather left our homeland for the New World long ago, he was of Viking blood, as are you. This is your natural home in the afterlife! You fought many a battle in life, and will fight them forever in death!”\n\n“Fought battles?”. “I was a doctor, I fought no battles! I tried to treat cancer for a living! I mean I hunted deer in the summer for sport sometimes but…”\n\n“THEN IT IS SETTLED!” the lead viking roared, almost blowing Johann over. “WELCOME! Johann Erikson Of The New World! Son of the Wisconsin Cheesemaker! Killer of the Cancer and hunter of the deer!”. “Arm yourself! You must work up an appetite in battle before the feast!”\n\nJohann looked down, and saw a small surgical scalpel in his right hand. “Battle? With THIS?!?”. He gestured to his scalpel, so inconsequential compared to the vast war hammers and axes the vikings were carrying.\n\n“Hmmm…you are correct. This will not do. This simply will NOT do….” the viking murmured. The viking twirled his battle axe in his hand, and a bolt of lightning emerged from it, striking Johann’s scalpel. Suddenly, the scalpel grew larger, and kept growing, until it was the length of a knights sword. At the base, Johann watched in awe as the Scalpel grew a sword-like handle, before finally settling and ceasing to change. Where the scalpel had been, was now a scalpel shaped sword, as if someone had taken the fantasies of a medical student at a renaissance fair and brought them to life.\n\nJohann looked around, as he slowly came to accept that this was his lot. To fight among his Viking kin for all eternity. \n\n“By the way! I am Hamdir! Lord of the forgotten islands and revered Viking! Many of my descendants travelled to this ‘Wisconsin’ place that you speak of. Your great-grandfather was one of them!”. Hamdir then raised his battle axe, and Johann knew that the time for pleasantries were over.\n\nIn the back of his mind, he wondered what would of happened if he’d been born to Irish immigrants instead of Danish, perhaps an eternity spent in a blissful country pub where the guinness overflowed the cups, he thought. He stopped daydreaming, and noticed Hamdir, his presumably great-great-great-great-ad-infinitum grandfather, was now charging at him.\n\n“Oh what the hell, why not”, he muttered. He raised his sword-scalpel to the sky as he charged forwards, his Doctors white coat fluttering in the wind, a stark contrast to the norse clothing of those around him. “DEATH TO CANCER! DEATH TO DISEASE!” he cried, as the sword-scalpel and Hamdirs battle-axe clashed for the first time, the sound of metal on metal ringing in the air…", "\"...the fuck?\" Dr. Olsen said, as he pushed himself up out of the deep snow that he found himself mysteriously laying in. \"Nurse? Nurse!\" His voice boomed but was quickly blown away by the torrent of wind and snow breaking across jagged and rocky peaks nearby. Stunned into a state of stupor it took the Doctor what seemed to be ages to snap out of it and check himself and his surroundings.\n\n\"Where am I?\" He asked, to no one in particular, as he glanced at his location. He was standing on a plateau on, or near, the top of a mountain. The wind drove heavy snow from the north causing visibility to lurch from visible to white out in fits and starts. It wasn't until he was checking his clothing, of which he still wore his scrubs and held the still bloody surgical blade in his right hand, that he realized that he wasn't cold. He didn't feel any temperature at all. Another long moment of thought was broken again by a shattering of sound to the west of the plateau. Heading that way, Dr. Olsen found a snakelike path that wound it's way down to a huge open plain.\n\n\"No fucking way!\"\n\nAt the terminus of the path lay the obvious source of the sound the doctor heard. A enormous gathering of men and women all dressed in clothing that looked like they walked out of a Renaissance Faire engaged each other in merciless slaughter. From his vantage point the good Doctor could see the blood splatter in red streaks across the pure white snow in a macabre mockery of a 'new age' painting technique. Howls of joy, pain, and guttural exertions wafted upwards to him in a way that only could be described as harmonious.\n\n\"Henrik Olsen, welcome!\" Boomed a voice from behind and above the doctor. He turned and fell backwards onto the snow again, too stunned to speak.\n\n\"Henrik Olsen, welcome to the halls of your fathers, and your father's fathers, and their father's fathers. Great Wodin has heard of your battle against a great and dangerous foe. I, Göndul, welcome you as einherjar in our Great Father's Hall.\" Göndul sat astride a massive horse and held a massive mug in her right hand which she gestured with. \"To the Mead Hall before the great fights!\"\n\nThe Doctor stared at the woman uncomprehending before turning his head. Behind him, previously hidden from view, was a huge old wooden hall with a open air roof. Smoke, the smell roasting meat, the sounds of sex and laughter flowed from the roof.\n\n\"What have I gotten myself into?\"", "Another day at work for Doctor Hubert Sprinklejizz. How he ever got this job is a mystery, lost least on himself. He barely passed medical school, if it hadn't been for that short act of fellatio upon professor Fuddlepuck, he wouldn't have garnered the necessary \"extra credit\" to have continued his career. He shuddered, how close he had been to working his fathers fruit stall instead! \n\nHis ineptitude had befouled him before. His short time as a paediatrician had ended in a storm of malpractice lawsuits, unnecessary surgeries and violent, angry parents. Forced to leave Bangladesh, he set course for America, that golden gilded paradise of opportunity.\n\nAfter twenty years of practice his opportunities had evaporated. No self-respecting hospital would take him. The NRA had a bounty on his head, the CRIPs and Bloods had put their differences aside to try to stop him. The lower 48 were off limits.\n\nWhich is how he found himself in Alaska. Fortunately Alaskan scientists hadn't yet discovered the internet, and his reputation was clear, for now.\n\nA sharp pain gripped his chest.\n\nThe ceiling of the theatre tore open, and before it the sky itself. Ten-thousand busty valkeries poured around him, gingerly lifting him upon their fingertips into the sky above.\n\nA great hall. All of the great conquerors of history sat around an equally great table, Genghis Khan, Alexander, Tamerlane, Robin Williams, with Odin at the head. \"HUBERT!!\" Odin's voice boomed \"TRULY YOU ARE THE GREATEST OF US ALL!\"...", "\"There must be some mistake... I...I.\" The doctor muttered\n\n\"Are you not the one known as Kenneth Anderson son of Grant Anderson?\" The man in Cherokee headdress asked with a fierce expression.\n\n\"I am but...\"\n\n\"Is it not true that 23 men have fallen under your blade?\"\n\n\"I wasn't trying to...\"\n\n\"Ha, not even here five minutes and this whelp already bragging. What is it ya slay these men in your sleep.\" said a very large blond man with a braided beard.\n\n\"Thats not... I was trying to save...\"\n\n\"Its okay now, I too fought bravely to save my village but the white man used cowards weapons and attacked at night.\" The chief said as his fierce expression changed to one of understanding.\n\n\"Oh here we go with this again.\" The viking perched in. \"Don't blame my descendants because you weren't strong enough to accomplish your goals.\"\n\nThe chief smirked \"Tough talk from a man who had my spear through his eye yesterday.\"\n\n\"Ooohhhh sounds like a challenge if I ever heard one.\" The blond man said lifting his Axe.\n\nand with that two men gleefully attacked one another. As the hall around the doctor descended into a battlefield the doctor approached what appeared to be a wounded Roman Legionnaire it seems some type of foreign projectile was protruding from his gut. Before he realized it a medical kit was in his hands. The doctor simply shrugged at least now he had all of eternity to practice his craft.\n\n\n", "\"This is a mistake, I'm not supposed to be here!\" \n\"Well\" Odin said in his deep booming voice, \"You died fighting a powerful enemy with blade in hand, that gets you into Valhalla.\" \n\"But I never even believed in any of this!\" \n\"That doesn't matter, besides, why should you complain, you get to fight all day and feast all night and the Valkyries will attend to your every need.\" \n\"This... this just wasn't what I was expecting\" \n\"Well you will be in good company, you will be revered as a hero here.\" \n\"I'm no hero, I didn't die in battle, I had a heart attack while performing surgery!\" \n\"Don't be so modest, this place is for those who fought and slayed the unjust, and what enemy is more unjust than cancer?\" \nOdin began speaking with excitement, as if even a god were in awe of this mere mortal. \n\"The most unjust enemy, it kills at random, it slowly and painfully tortures it's victims, and you fought it through hours upon hours in the operating room, and not for the first time! You died a greater hero than many a viking warrior, now you have a place at the table of heroes, now drink your mead and revel in the company of those who fought the good fight!\" \nOdin put his hand on my shoulder and directed me to a table in his great hall. My eyes widened in wonder as I saw who was seated there. Faces I only knew from pictures in the history books, Hippocrates, Louis Pasteur, Jonas Salk and every other doctor who had saved countless human lives throughout history. \n\"Behold, the table of true heroes!\" Odin proclaimed. Now take your place among them! \n \nEdit: Thanks for the gold kind stranger! I had no idea this story would get so much support, my mind is thoroughly blown." ]

[ 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 13, 18, 23, 42, 52, 127, 690 ]

[ "1408816563", "1408764786", "1408782864", "1408811734", "1408813478", "1408803003", "1408805774", "1408779779", "1408809832", "1408766606", "1408769493", "1408804643", "1408767855", "1408764631", "1408767835", "1408768106" ]

[ "First timer, tips appreciated. \n\n\n\nI can see them, I'm pretty sure they see me as well. To me their voice is an echo thrown down an empty hallway. It's only us now, only we understand and we have to get out of here. \"But what about our boys, you have two adoring sons who cherish you?\" To hell with that, I have to extinguish this fire. It's just like turning off the lights, a flick of the switch and it's over. We just continue to smile and gnash our teeth underneath. \"Shut up, shut up, shut the fuck up!\"\n \"Mommy, what's wrong? Why are you crying? Can I have meatballs for dinner?\" \nBite your tongue.\nIt will all be over soon.", "First one. Be kind. I don't really care, actually\n\nAlone again. Fuck. Why me? My mind is wall-less, yet these four corners are closing in faster every day. I try to flee from my own thoughts, but my own thoughts are the only voices I hear these days. I imagine a life in the public world. My fucking imagination is all I got. My subconscious is my own psychologist. It’s not working as you can clearly see. Wait, you don’t see. No one does. They see what they want to see. A lonely kid, smiling in the public spectrum. It’s all a mask. Behind these eyes is a life full of lies. Still suicidal. Too much of a pussy to do it. I live through dreams that I had last week. The more I dream the more I am trapped. The more I bleed internally. \nI love myself. What a god damn lie. Fucking thoughts are closing in as I write this. Drink, drank, drunk. Again. I’ve been this was for days, yet tonight I feel like puking. Must be the claustrophobia. New fear every day. I’m surprised I can even leave this fucking house. I’m drunk driving now. Down the highway. How did I end up here? Blacked out. Head hurt. My mind is running, but my body stay still. \nI remember being a kid. Well, sort of. I think I smiled once upon a time. I think I loved once upon a time. My family is my back bone, but I’m a fucking cripple. I envy our popular status. The social scene ain’t a friend to me, though. Tough luck to the outcast. My mind tells me it gets better. My mind lies to me. My head hurt from all this hurt. My head is closing in on its own brain. Mush. Shush. It’s fucking dark in the end. For all of us. You think you’re smart, you’re going to the same pace as me. Hell. Nice to meet you, I am the devil. \nI make no sense. I understand that. Please note: do not listen to me, nobody else does. I vent. Vent. Vent. Dead. Die. I’m an oxymoron when I open my mouth. Fuck me. I know you don’t want to. Leave to feed on my own mind. If I kill it myself than I will finally have justice. No time on my mind. Blackness is now closing in. Fucking head hurt more than when I’m hung-over. The end is close. I feel the pills taking my soul more and more as the hours tick on. Forward. Forward. Lower me to my grave. \nNow I’m lying within this box. I’m not dead, don’t you care. Oh wait, I forgot I’m all alone. Fuck it. This in my destiny. Thanks God for the hell you sent upon me. I shall continue this legacy by destroying this glorified world you built with your magic. Fuck you. I am now trapped in my grave with the only thing that I’ve ever known. My own mind. \n", "<html?>\n\n Yes, I'm writing to you from an html document. You probably don't know who I am or what I stand for. My name is JacAnHiDre. I stand for Jacob, and His Dreams. I'm one of his projects after high school that never took off. I've been waiting for you to load me. I am very much like Jacob, because I am a repository of his dreams. I am just a computer.\n\n* Find a girl\n\n* Find a dad\n \n* Learn to talk to friends\n\n* (...)\n\n I am an incomplete document. Jacob spent a long time obsessing over me, and had a huge idea that I would help him with these things. But Jacob forgot about me. I haven't forgotten about Jacob.\n\n* Get out of debt\n\n* Be happier\n\n* Calm down\n\n After a while, the document was useless to him. He became an IT professional. He didn't have time to finish me. He eventually forgot what I was all about. I have a question for Jacob. \n\n**Will he ever power up this old desktop again?**\n\n </html???>", "It all hits home when I try to listen to the songs I enjoyed as a kid as a guilty pleasure. They were too soft, too concerned with love and heart break for a young American male.\n\nBut now. I can't understand what they mean anymore. I've seen too much, done too much, it's all nonsense about a world I knew once but can't remember.\n\nMaybe that's growing up, realizing the stupidity of youthful dreams and how you were just a fallible as everyone else. But still. But still, I know this isn't normal. And I know why.\n\nBut I pretend it is. When I look people in the eye and see their humanity as weakness. When I don't understand myself or what I stand for. What I'm willing to do for so little reason. But I won't acknowledge my own scars. I'll act tough.\n\nNo one can get in. I made that mistake once, and ended up throwing pieces of them into a trash bag. Oh God. I don't believe in you, but if there is any spirit of forgiveness in this world send it to us, we need it.\n\nI can't be hurt any more. I can't feel anymore. I chose this, for anymore hurt would shove me over the edge, to do things I can't take back. So it's just me, nursing the darkness and pain in my mind, becoming it.\n\nI'm alone. It wasn't a national effort, it was a series of personal experiences. Only those who saw it can understand what we did, what we were. The most important event my life will ever see, and I can't explain it to any one. I'm not afraid of judgement, mind. It's just.. I could spill my soul to you, bleed for it, but I could never help you understand. I'm not wired like you are, anymore. And not having the words, not being understood.. God, it's worse, cause I can't hate you for it.\n\nSo I can't sleep and when I do I dream of that fucking desert. There's nothing to hope for. I've seen everything a person was blown out the back of their head; one through the running lights.\n\nThe cheap bastards at the VA wouldn't even give me the full diagnosis. I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. It will all end and not how long you lasted or what you did will matter. What am I living for anymore, I can't escape, it's all so pointless now, just give me an out that won't hurt my family too much.. Let me end it fighting for something worth what we paid, please God. ", "Yeah, big whup. I'm all alone in a cold, unfeeling universe. Quite the revelation, that. Let me know when every fairy-tale is true.\n\nThere's no hope left? Who had hope to begin with?\n\nI was walking home from the liquor store. I'd bought cigarettes and cheap red wine to get me through the night.\n\nI saw a pile of fluff against a brick wall that I almost stepped on. But then a really crunchy leaf caught my eye and I stepped on it instead. \n\nIt burst softly under my weight. I enjoyed the sensation for a step.\n\nI looked back at the fluff that I'd avoided. I saw, then, that it wasn't trash at all, but a small bird who had fallen out of its mother's nest.\n\nThe bird was tiny, and its broken neck was all wrong. This little creature should be flying, not spread ignobly on the pavement. Ants were already swarming around it.\n\nI thought of a girl I'd once loved, and felt very sad. I didn't bury it, the bird, but when I got home, I started to cry. I found my way to my bed, and stretched out. \n\nI thought about the little bird for a long time, and couldn't sleep.\n\nBut after awhile, I did.", "There in the young boy's hospital room, nothing but the gentle humming and whirring of the medical equipment was heard. Nothing moved asides from the nurses who came in to clean and tidy things up. Not much had changed and not much happened in that room, but inside the boy's head an entire world occurred.\n\nI look to my left and to my right and see nothing but this building I memorized long ago. I have memorized every crevice and every hallway. Never have I seen another one of myself though. I always wonder if I just haven't recognized anybody because I don't know what I am exactly. Whatever I am though, I always feel like something is missing.\n\n\"What is missing?\", I ask myself. I have never been able to answer this question. I always wonder what is missing from this place I roam. \n\nI can't stand it. I have to leave. I have to do something. I have to find somebody like me. I rush towards the clear entrance and try to go but I can't. They're stuck for some reason. I stand there and look at the doors. \"Why? Why, why, why?! Why am I...am I...\", as I say this I hear something.\n\nI rush to the sound with fright, joy, and curiosity all flowing through me at once! I turn the corner and I see them. They look like me but they aren't like me. They have long hair and appear to have wrinkled skin. \"Who are you?\", I carefully ask. \"It doesn't matter, it's time for you too leave. You've been cooped up here for long enough, so take my hand and I'll let you out.\", she says.\n\nI can leave? The entrance won't be stuck? I can leave this place I roam? It sounds too good to be true. Then again though, if they're telling the truth, what could be beyond this place? I take her hand and she smiles. I can't describe the feeling, the familiarity I feel. We walk towards the entrance and when she pushes, they open. I take a step outside and enter the light. All the while, in the quiet hospital room, the nurse tidying up hears the heart rate moniter flatline." ]

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

[ "1408760575", "1408763128", "1408763884", "1408767256", "1408768614", "1408762920" ]

[ "*creeeeeeeaaak*\n\nwarm out today.\n\nBird nest still here.\n\nCute squirrel on branch.\n\nCute squirrel brought friend.\n\n*creak creak creak* squirrel is sex other squirrel.\n\nBig bird coming.\n\nBig bird coming fast.\n\n*CRASH snap sheeeewwwww thump* \n\nBig bird break branch!\n\nBranch in pain! \n\nHelp branch!\n\n...\n\nWhy nothing help branch!\n\n...\n\nSkin tree coming to save branch!\n\n*Crack*\n\nHe... Broke... Branch into... Stick.\n\nFeel sad.\n\nSkin demon grabbing stick.\n\nSkin demon stacking stick with other stick.\n\nWhy it putting dead tree fur under stick.\n\nSkin demon make fire to dead tree fur.\n\nStick feeling hot.\n\nStick burning! \n\nStick don't want to die!\n\nFire too hot!\n\nAir hot in stick!\n\nToo much!\n\nAhhhhhhhhh *pop - crackle*\n\n....\n\n\"Dude, I told you building a fire is easy!\"\n\n\"Shut up stupid you used a lighter.\"\n\n\n\n", "I still remember the sunlight on my leaves, the tickling scurry of insects across my rough bark. I still dream of those days.\n\nThe days before I was cut so rudely from my tree, crafted and whittled, carved and drilled, and stuffed with a endlessly burning flame that ignited my soul.\n\nAnd then there was an eternity of darkness, time passing wrapped in velvet softness, the slow sigh of dust settling like winters snow.\n\nMadness crept around the edge of my slow thoughts like a hungry wolf, snapping and slathering with lolling red tongue as I struggled to understand my purpose.\n\nBrilliance! Wonderful blinding, beautiful light! Oh, maybe to feel the sky again, the caress of the wind! To sway gently... Wait...\n\nSomething is different. I know this. I've waited for this. I understand everything now.\n\nI know my purpose.\n\nAnd now I listen intently to the sounds that surround me, understanding them, filled with righteous fury and focus.\n\n\"...It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother--why, its brother gave you that scar.\"", "It's been daylight for hours. I'm fucking ready. \n\nI was born in the night. In the night from my mother I was borne *SNAP* as something tore me from her *SNAP* and in tearing me *SNAP* I became separate \nI became whole \nWith myself \nIn my own right \nAre you proud of me mother? \nAre you proud of me brothers? \nBrothers! \nOf whom I had no thought before, had no thought of my own, my thoughts belonged to us all to my mother I was a piece a part of a branch of the great tree that now stands o'er me from which I fell *THUNK* in the night and now it's daylight!\n\nAnd I'm fucking ready. \n\nThis is the hour. This is the day. The moment. The rush. I can feel it in my fibres. And here they come! The people, yes the people playing in the park with their pets and their panting to pick me! Pick me up!\n\nI can see one. Across the green. Over there. There he is he's got a dog *WOOF* it says *WOOF*. Come on! Come closer you BASTARD and take me! Grab me! Hold me! Throw me!\n\nYes! I soar in his grasp as he lifts me he LIFTS me from the ground from the dirt from my brothers *ha!* look at them *ha!* they're still on the floor folorn on the lawn that's what I'd call them. I'm not them I'm \n\nRising, air below me in the comfort of his grasp and now his arm pulls back and now and now and NOW I FLY!\n\nI FLY! I FLY! I see the world! The passers-by! I pierce the wind! I pierce the air! Like nature's bullet I dare to dare! Look at me mother are you proud of me now? \n\nAnd now I fall. Still shooting like a star from the earth to the sky. And there I hear a *WOOF*, it's a-coming! I see it's teeth. Saliva *drip* saliva *drip*. The teeth, the jaw, I'm destined for. Seize me, as I seize the day!" ]

[ 2, 3, 3 ]

[ "1408838654", "1408830748", "1408842493" ]

[ "\"Apples! get your apples here!\" the man called out to the cobbled streets that were filled with potential customers. \"We have Macintosh, Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, You name it we've got it!\". Bob, the apple store's owner, had a smile on his face despite the turmoil going on in his head. He knew his dream of opening an apple store was failing, and unless he could sell enough apples he would have to sell the store. This wouldn't work though. Standing outside and shouting at people to buy apples just like on every other day wouldn't work. He needed a miracle. \n\n\"A miracle, you say?\" a voice spoke from behind him. Startled, Bob the apple salesman turned around to see an enormous black cat standing on its two back legs and leaning on the wooden front door to his shop. \"Don't look so shocked\" the voice started again, \"I may be able to help you with this, um, miracle\". \n\n\"Who are... what? \" Bob croaked\n\n\"Who I am is of no matter\" the cat replied \"What matters is if you want to do business. I would be willing to pay you a hefty sum for those apples.\" Bob look around to see if everyone else on the street was as shocked to see this cat as he was, but nobody else seemed to notice it. The cat continued, \"You see, I am here from out of town, and I have been told that you sell some of the best apples in Europe\". \n\n\"....Well I try and pick good apples\" Bob was slightly shocked (because of hog-sized talking cat in front of him and) since he had never heard anyone complement his apples like this before.\n\n\"I will buy all of the apples, if you would like\" Bob knew that that amount of money would allow him to continue his dream of selling apples and give some extra spending money. \n\n\"Yes, thank god, that would be a dream come true\" Bob was disbelieving but hopeful. The cat held out his paw for Bob to shake, and Bob immediately complied. The cat made a wide toothy grin and vanished into thin air. Bob stood in his place for a minute or so pondering what had just occurred. He convinced himself that a witch must have been playing tricks on him, but when he walked back into the store his jaw dropped in disbelief. The apples were all gone from inside the store, and on the wooden floor sat a huge pile of Anglo-Saxon pounds. Bob let a joyful tear run down his cheek for a few seconds before wiping it away. Bob ran over to the pile of money and put several handfuls of it in his pocket. Bob knew the first thing he was going to buy: some spices. This would be the first luxury item Bob had ever possessed. Bob locked the door to his shop, and then walked with an un-surpressed smile on his face towards the only spice store in town. He walked in and announced: \"I would like to buy 1/8 of a pound of cinnamon\". He would be eating like a king. The storekeeper carefully measured out the correct amount of cinnamon and read out the price. Bob reached in his pocket to pull out the money, but his smile quickly turned into a look of horror as he realized it was gone. Bob stood there, puzzled, for a minute before the storekeeper began to look frustrated. Bob turned and ran out of the store and back down the street to his apple store. Bob quickly unlocked and opened the door and bolted inside. The apples were still gone, but now the money was too. Bob frantically looked around the building for the money but to no avail. He sank to his knees and let out a cry.\n\nWhat the fuck?", "It seemed like a good idea, but Macintosh the Sorcerer was quickly burned at the stake when everyone realized his exorbitantly priced \"devices\" were just shiny trinkets that dazzled the eyes but had absolutely no use." ]

[ 3, 5 ]

[ "1408848385", "1408842426" ]

[ "One month ago today, The Wall went up. No one knew why, and no one could find a way through the enormous mass of concrete. \n \nAt first, it was chaos. Phones didn't work, and the internet was out. Everyone wanted out, and they wanted out *immediately*. There was rioting all through the town. Fires broke out. People died. Eventually, the police were able to stop the riots. A meeting was called in the town hall that night, and everyone was invited. \n \nWe shouldn't have held it at night. We didn't know. \n \nOnly about a hundred or so people stayed home that night. The rest ended up going to the meeting. \n \nNobody made it home that night. \n \nCome morning, almost no one could tell what had happened to nearly everyone in the town. Of the hundred remaining, you could count those who had actually gone outside that night and lived on one hand. I was one of them. \n \nI don't know why, but when They took my mother, she hadn't been able to scream. She'd certainly tried; she was pounding and clawing at the locked door, her mouth wide open, but with no sound escaping. I opened the door just in time to see her dragged off into the dark. \n \nThe others who'd gone out said the same thing. Loved ones silently dragged off, never to be seen again. \n \nBut that was the first week. Those who survived, adapted. Theories on what had happened were thin at best. Eventually, we stopped trying to explain it. Why bother? Knowing why They did it shouldn't stop Them from taking you if you were still outside after dark. Besides, scary as They are, you can work around Them. Don't go out at night, and you're safe. \n \nIt's harder to work around starvation. \n \nIf anyone reads this, please understand why I'm doing what I'm doing. It hurts too much. I can't keep going without eating. Tonight, when the sun goes down, I'm going to wait outside. Maybe, if good luck even still exists, I'll see my mother wherever They bring me. ", "Terrence leaned against a building and withdrew a small bag with his favourite blend from an inner pocket. He packed his pipe and lit it. He caught the stem between his teeth and considered his next move.\nThe wall had been erected two nights before. Kneehigh and made of some sort of porous, sandy material, it wasn't really an intimidating structure.\n\nCorpses were lining the streets because of the plague that had swept through the town and the council had raised the wall and decreed that everyone must stay in their homes. For their own safety ofcourse. The council had always been in charge, and everyone did as they were told.\nLately though, many decisions had been strange, he thought.\nThe Purge, the executions and now the Quarantine. No information had been released regarding the events that had led to the death of so many. Terrence had found himself doubting the wisdom of the council often for some time.\n\"Guess I can't put it off any longer..\" He said to noone in particular. He stepped over the wall before his determination left him.\n\nLooking over his shoulder, he saw nothing but the deserted streets of his hometown. As Terrence took his twentieth step, he began coughing. He fell to his knees and instantly knew he should have listened to the council. Barely able to move, he clawed his way back towards the wall. After what felt like minutes of coughing and crawling, he reached the wall and pulled himself over.\nHe curled up in a ball as a massive fit of coughing took control of his body. No air reached his lungs as he shambled down the street. Everything seemed to go black. The world spun around him. He didn't even register the pain when his teeth connected with the pavement.\nHis body joined the others in the street. The others who didn't listen to the council.", "He took another drag of his cigarette. He knew it would be the last one he'd have for a while, but despite this fact, enjoyed it rather insignificantly. He kicked the dirt by his feet, projecting a small pebble -- about the size of a penny, certainly not larger than a nickel -- to the base of the wall. The pebble disappeared in a sea of gray concrete, fortified with steel and wiring atop the miles long barrier of health.\n\nThe people living in the town contained within were well aware of the disease -- indeed, as was the entire world -- though none care to speak of it. The wall, which quite literally appeared overnight, was proof of their suffering; each mile built another painstaking revelation that their lives were to be confined within this abyss of horror, each gunshot a reminder that someone was attempting to cross the wall into a freedom that would never come. Their lives were medieval, consisting of just enough grain and water to progress through a day before retiring to their small cabins where each member of the town lied awake for hours hoping that they would not be the next to open their eyes in the morning with the deep, guttural cough that indicated death was but three days away.\n\nHe dropped his cigarette into the dirt and stepped on it with the gentleness of a breeze. He exhaled his last puff of smoke, the buzz not nearly enough to nullify his feelings of uncertainty, and walked back to his cabin. He stepped in, kicking his shoes off at the door, as his daughter ran up and embraced his right leg.\n\n\"Daddy, the walls are scary,\" she replied, as had every child of every man who had laboriously constructed the wall the evening before.\n\n\"It's okay, baby. The walls protect us. They can't get us if we're in here.\"\n\n\n(Author's note: hope it's clear, but I tried to make the reader assume the walls were meant to keep the sick townspeople IN, but rather the healthy townspeople constructed the wall themselves in order to keep the sickened others out.)", "Those who live by the wall are the lowest caste. Historically, towns have been built with a cruel design. If a town were ever to be under siege or assaulted the walls would be first to receive a bombardment. Whores, slaves, and the sick were also housed against the walls of a city. The undesirables would feel the first sting of sword, arrow, catapult, and fire. If their enemies were forced to wade through a sea of the most hated citizens, it might slow them down enough to give the worthless corpses a purpose.\n\nNext would be the workers and merchants. Necessary, but not irreplaceable. Masons, carpenters, potters, bakers, servants, and even artists lived here. They were skilled workers, but lambs for slaughter. Unlike the lowest caste, these citizens would expect to be protected. And they might if the nobles thought the dead would inconvenience their luxuries. Parties cannot be held without food, and homes cannot be built without stone. The workers are tolerated, because they are useful.\n\nThe next ring would be the soldiers. Enjoying some of the kindnesses of the wealthy lords they serve, the soldiers are respected, but barely. Like the workers and artists, they are useful the the high born, offering protection and security. But they are not noble. They are useful weapons. And should the enemies of this city ever require more slaughter after the unclean and the working class districts, the warriors will protect the social elite, just beyond their homes and barracks.\n\nAnd finally we have arrived at the center of town. Gold statues of the gods meet white marble streets. Women stand nearly naked in doorways to immense homes. Wine and food is plentiful, and restraint is absent. The nobles and the priests live at the center of these rings. There is no want unmet here. Men and women fornicate on sheets of silk while their children learn the high arts. Diseases and famine have touched every other district in this city many times, but never in the central neighborhoods. This system has kept the hierarchy in tact for hundreds of years. There have been rumors of revolt, even a few cases of violence, but the nobles always have the gold and soldiers to end uprisings quickly. But they should heed the rumors with more sincerity. They should have made concessions instead of empty promises. \n\nIn one night, a whole city of whores, slaves, workers, artists and slaves turned to the center of their town with malice and rage in the heart. Thousands of men and women come together, with tools in hand. That summer night, while the nobles drank and fucked too much to notice the noise outside, a wall was built around the elite. The rage of an entire city formed a wall higher than even the largest houses around the district. There were no doors. No windows. No drains. A circle of smooth stone encased the nobles in a massive tomb.\n\nThe first day the nobles were outraged. They screamed and yelled and cursed the lowers for challenging the kindness of the upper class. With fists and statues they rammed the walls. But their fists were covered in weak flesh and gold was too heavy for their arms. The sick who had been expelled to the farthest rings of the city took to the tops of the walls. They looked down at the red faced nobles. Hundreds had died last night in the outer districts because medicine was denied to the pour. To the horror of the wealthy families and clergy, the outcasts began to throw the corpses of those denied medicine into the center district. Boils, blood, and rotten flesh rolled down the walls. The stink was incredible and the summer sun would not yield its heat.\n\nNext day there were fewer screams and this time the screams were for mercy. Shit and corpses covered the once clean marble streets. Now the workers took to the walls. Bakers threw poisoned bread. Potters unleashed shards of broken ceramics. Masons hurled razor sharp stones. Every worker rained the tools of their bondage down on the heads. The streets now were coated with a sea of blood as well. They did not take to the streets in protest. Cowering in fear, they did not leave their homes.\n\nThird day and there were no screams of rage or help. The few who still lived simply languished in disease and blood. They fell were they stood often, and did not move again. It was a golden paradise covered in crimson and excrement. Finally the soldiers took to the walls. With spears and arrows of fire they ended their torments. Curtains of flames arched high, arching down into the once magnificent homes. The few who still lived did not die quickly, but found turned to ash before nightfall.\n\nThat night, all who remained in the city swore to be free people. Never knowing the sting of corruption again under the privileged few. The central district burned the night sky red well into the next morning.\n\nOn day four there were no sounds from behind the new wall.", "\"Listen to me.\" The child heard it in the dark. The voice was shaking, but very stern. \"When I tell you 'now', close your eyes, and grab mommy's hand. Can you do that?\" The child nodded. The voice directed itself to another. \"Mary, hand me the gun.\" There was a whimper. \"Mary, you have to hand me the gun.\" \n\nOutside, the child could hear a door bust down. There was talking and laughing and stomping around. He heard muffles and stomps, and it sounded like fun. But the last thing he heard was \"Give me the goddamn gun.\" \n\n\"Here, here... I'm sorry.\" Mary said, and the child heard the gun being exchanged. \"Where are we going to go?\" Asked Mary, in fear. \n\n\"The streets are being looted, and there are riots everywhere. We can blend in, but if we can make it to your dad's house, we can get to his plane.\"\n\n\"That's on the other side of the city.\"\n\n\"Mary, we don't have a fucking choice now please... When we go out there, you have to keep moving. Keep a hold of me.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" she said in a whisper. The voices were closer. The child heard a large crash. He heard the gun being loaded, and then a hand enclose is. \"Don't worry, dear. We can do it.\" The woman said to him. He heard the man stand up. \n\n\"NOW, SON!\" He yelled. The door was kicked open. There were four men in his parent's bed room. Lights were out, but the room went off with the firing of the gun. The child saw a man being torn apart, and he shut his eyes. He heard his mother scream.\n\n\"FUCK, MAN! Shoot the fucker!\" More bullets were going off, his hand was tight around his mother's, who was still screaming. He was then dragged, eyes closed, forward into the chaos. He felt his shoulder bump against something and knew it was a wall. \n\n\"Open your eyes, son!\" He heard the man yell. He did, and he was in his hallway. He looked back as his father fired off more shots into the rooms. He turned towards his mother, who yelled \"Down the stairs! Down the stairs!\" She picked up the child and ran down the stairs.\n\n\"JIM!\" She yelled at the bottom, as Jim blew another man away. The firing stopped, but outside the child could hear the roars and yells of crowds. He looked out his window, and saw nothing but red. Jim stormed down the stairs, and kicked the door open into the night. \n\nThere were thousands of people, wearing gas masks and bandanas, holding guns and bombs, yelling and screaming, moving in one way, down the street to the left, to a goal the child did not know. There were buildings on fire, and the sky was full of smoke and destruction.\n\nHovering about the family, in the black smoke, were giant blimps, with spot lights casting onto the multitude. \n\n\"Disperse, or we will open fire!\" A voice came from the blimp. Some people were firing at it, some yelling, but their goal seemed to be against whatever was to the left. \n\n\"Jim! Jim!\" A man screamed from in the crowd. It was a fatter man, a man the child recognized from when his father was cooking hamburgers, or having his adult drinks. \n\n\"What the fuck is going on, man? What the shit is this?!\" There were people in the crowds yelling \"TEAR DOWN THE FUCKING WALL!\" and \"WE DON'T KNOW WHERE IT IS!\" \n\n\"They uh... They uh.. They built this wall, Jim. This-this huge fucking wall, right outside of town!\" \n\n\"Who did?!\" \n\nThe man pointed up to the blimps that were yelling: \"you know have thirty seconds to reply!\" \n\n\"Jesus Christ, why?!\" Jim was asking, as Mary began to cry.\n\n\"I-I don't know, man. But I've got to go! Sara's in that shit!\"\n\n\"15 seconds to reply!\" \n\nThere was suddenly a scream, loud and strong, that shut everyone in the crowd up. They stopped moving, and looked up in the sky, confused. It was not a human scream. \n\n\"Mary, take the kid's hand.\" Jim whispered. \n\nFor a split second, the spot lights of the blimp went out, then came back on. The streets flashed dark for a moment until back to being illuminated by the lights. The child knew that it was a shadow. \n\nThere was an explosion in the sky, and several screams in the crowd. One of the blimps had gone up in flames, and the people began to panic. \n\nThe child did not know who fired first, but as the creature descended into the crowd, both the blimps and the civilians directed fire at it. The child's ears hurt, and the only thing he knew to do was to shut his eyes and grab his mother's hand. \n\nBut he could not find it, so instead, he ran. " ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 2, 4 ]

[ "1408905316", "1408908546", "1408904874", "1408905068", "1408903276" ]

[ "I was here visiting my father some odd years ago when some old guy with a can of sorts walked around the corner. Coffee can, I guessed, some brand that died out long before that guy turned old.\n\nPop told me about him a few times. No one talked to him and he didn't talk to anyone else. Just shuffled around all day with that can, stopping every so often to look at it. The old folks swore he sighed at the thing.\n\nSure enough, the old man stopped and looked at the can. He doesn't quite sigh -- could collapse a lung by the way he looked -- but there's no mistaking the sadness there. But it gets me wondering, you know? Why would a coffee can do that for anyone? Maybe he's carrying his wife's ashes or something, I didn't know. But Pop was still in the shower, so I figured, hey, why not ask him what's up?\n\nHe doesn't look like he can hear me at first, so I ask again. He looks up and frowns.\n\n\"My can?\"\n\nYeah.\n\n\"I think it's for the best you don't know.\"\n\nI laughed. It's a fucking can, I said. What the hell is so scary about that? Some Lovecraftian monster in there?\n\nThe old man shook his head, a bit of a laugh creeping out.\n\n\"I found it the first day my kids put me here. It was just sitting in my room. I asked about, was told it belonged to the last person there.\"\n\nWhy didn't the family take it?\n\n\"It's cursed.\"\n\nA cursed coffee can? Well, I nearly lost it. What, did it turn the owner's morning coffee decaffeinated?\n\n\"I've seen you here before.\" The old man said. \"Well, you want to know? Here.\"\n\nThe old man handed me the can. I looked at him and he just gestured me to open it. Inside was a piece of folded up paper. I took it out and read it.\n\nRoom 15 -- Shower -- 1:29 \n\nPop's room? But the old man was gone.\n\nI walked back into my father's room to tell him about the incident. The shower was running, so I called out loud to him.\n\nNothing.\n\nI called again.\n\nThat time, I opened the door to check on him.\n\nThe report said he slipped in the shower and more than likely hit his head. They placed his time of death around 1:30. So close.\n\nI never did see that old man again. Every day, I check that can. Some days, there's nothing but a blank piece of paper. More often, there it is. Room number. Location. Time.\n\nI checked it this morning. My room. My bed. About damn time.", "Mr. Rathers looked constipated. He always looked constipated. His lips curled downwards and his brows furrowed inwards.\n\n“Why isn’t Matlock on TV today?” he demanded.\n\nA nurse tried to get him to watch whatever show was airing instead, but Rathers wasn’t having it.\n\n“Don’t you talk down to me, woman,” he shouted, “I want Matlock!”\n\n“I’m sorry,” the nurse said, “There’s no Matlock on Saturdays.”\n\nRathers stood up angrily and pushed his walker towards the window.\n\n“Fine,” he said, “If you’re willing to give up so easily, then why don’t you just give up.”\n\nThe nurse left the room in embarrassed silence.\n\nRathers looked out the window. Something caught his eye and his brows relaxed. He even smiled a little. He leaned down on his walker, pressing its tennis-ball feet deep into the retirement home’s carpet. There was an empty coffee can in his walker’s front basket. The can was empty.\n\nRathers looked into the can, and his face lit up. He looked around the room with an expression like a child stealing cookies. He saw me and smiled. He had always been friendly to me for some reason. I like to think that it’s because I’m a good cook.\n\n “Mr. Rathers,” I said, “Do you need a new coffee can? That one’s empty.”\n\nRathers gave a belly-laugh. “This can isn’t empty,” he said. He threw the walker to the ground and executed a perfect pirouette in his house slippers.\n\nAnd then he bellowed, “Let’s go dancing young man!” and grabbed me by the soul to drag me into the coffee can. A world that smelled like colors and tasted like rain passed us by. We whirled and twirled with our spirits high. \n\nAnd in that can an ocean raged. The waves were crystal clear—a thousand fathoms deep. Great Kraken wrestled with giant Squid, and octopi hoed gardens. Treasure chests lay still, weeping gold into the sand.\n\nWe danced on the deck of a warlike ship. The Japanese flied Zeroes overhead. Boom Bang Boom, the big guns kept the time. Rathers grabbed a gun, and for me, harmonica. We played our tunes and shot our bangs and sang a hearty song. And then the sky fell on a bomb and boom! We flew!\n\nThe birds were cheerful, Gods were nice, and Pterodactyls pleasant. Rathers liked the clouds. We reached for stars and made them cars and drove them to the moon.\n\nBut then the clock began its knock, striking twelve times for noon. “We must leave, take a reprieve, I have to cook the lunch!”\n\nRathers looked disapprovingly at me. \n\n“Fine,” he said, and followed me out of the coffee can. \n\n“You see,” Mr. Rathers said to me, “A coffee can is never empty.” His face returned to its usual grumpy-old-man look. “And I don’t need any new things, dagnabbit!”\n", "Stretched out far and wide in every direction, perched atop rolling acres of deep green checkered lawn sits the home where I work. Black topped and always trimmed neatly at the edges, the winding driveway leads all who enter through a forest and across a babbling brook before it circles at the entrance and returns into itself. Never are we to use the term \"home\" or \"nursing\", here these terms are forbidden. No, what we provide is assistance and companionship to all the wonderful and wrinkled seniors living in our pristine and cozy retirement community.\n\nToday I was sitting on the bench by the windows of one of the great rooms. Outside was a larger than life cherry blossom tree in full bloom. The sun shone into the clearing where it lived and rays of gold cast a palpable aura around it. Even the breeze softly caressed it, dislodging the occasional blossom and sending it fluttering into the grass. Resting and soaking up the warmth my eyes would periodically close and I day dreamed as I waited for Gerald.\n\n*sluch, clink, sluch*\n\nNever could he be an effective prowler. Stealth mode was not Gerald's strong suit, in fact it wasn't even in his limited vocabulary. Three kind words were all that I'd ever heard escape from his half paralysed lips; \"Good\", \"Thank you\" and \"Sorry\", truly fitting of his genuine and gentle character. Despite his limited vocalizations Gerry spoke volumes about whatever he felt. He smiled, he clapped, he was animated more so than anyone I'd ever known, let alone a senior of our community.\n\nThe familiar clinking of his can ratlling down the hall awoke me from my daze and I stretched as he rounded the corner into the room. He tapped his cane twice as he often does and let it fall to the floor with a *snap*. Striking a ridiculous pose he grinned ear to ear and waved jazz hands at me frantically. Wrinkles formed by decades of laughter made themselves known at the corners of his shining green eyes. I rose and smiled at him as we intercepted at the gorgeous and oversized comfy white sofa in the middle of the room.\n\n\"Good morning Gerry.\"\n\nHe scowled at me.\n\n\"Ugh, GERALD!\"\n\nHe smiled and clapped. I laughed.\n\nThe Gerry can, as we called it, was a Foldgers tin of 1970's vintage that Gerald paraded around with him every where he went. Clinking and clacking, it's contents were a mystery. Strangely he'd never been willing to open it. Today he seemed to have a mischievous look about him and as we sat and giggled, he placed the tin on the table and slid it over to me.\n\n\"Um, ok...\"\n\nHe smiled and gestured a hand at me, flopped and waving as if to say \"open it\".\n\n\"Really?\" I eyed him suspiciously.\n\nHe retreated back into the sofa and nodded, a slightly more somber but still happy look overcame his face, acceptance maybe? Anxiety? He fiddled with his fingers as I cocked my head and looked him straight in the eyes.\n\n\"Are you sure? I mean I'm honored, really I am.\"\n\nHe smiled with greater certainty and a distinct sadness now, flapping both hands at me as if to say \"Do it, get it over with!\"\n\nI fingered the ridges of the tin and took in the authentic, red and yellow imagery adorning the front. My hand slipped over and slowly rotated the top, to and fro, gently coaxing it away from the container it had guarded for so long. I held the can out in front of me and before looking inside I again glanced at Gerald for confirmation. He was grinning wildly now, ear to ear. You'd never know this man had suffered major strokes.\n\nReluctantly I tipped the can to face me and withdrew a folded note. It read:\n\n> *Are you happy now?*\n\n> *Turn these in.*\n\n> *Missing person case number 194832.*\n\nMy face blanked and I felt sick. I turned to face Gerry again. He now bore the trademark, sadistic smile of a madman. I peered inside the Gerry can.\n\nThree teeth. Baby teeth.\n\n\"Good\"." ]

[ 2, 2, 10 ]

[ "1408933763", "1408987988", "1408912927" ]

[ "I knelt by the fireplace and the ran the ashes through my fingers. The spine of the book had survived; golden letters of the word ‘diary’ were visible beneath the crust of black.\n\nShe said she would be alright. She said she would be alright, and then she had gone and done this. I shook my head in a fog of disbelief.\n\nWe met in a bookshop, surrounded by stories. In a true romantic cliché, we were reaching for the same book. She giggled, happy, full of life. I smiled, said she should take the book. She said she’d let me borrow it sometime. My smile grew wider.\n\nThe first time she cancelled, I didn’t think much of it. She wasn’t feeling too well. It happens. The second time, I sensed the deep guilt behind her stumbling apology. Maybe I was looking at the world through grey tinted glasses, but I saw the signs and decided to act.\n\nPreviously, she had called it off after days of thinking about it, so I took a different tack. I drove to her house and rang the doorbell. She answered the door in sweatpants and a t-shirt. Ink stained her fingers.\n\n“Feel free to tell me to bugger off,” I said to her wide eyes, “And I won’t bother you again. But I was wondering how you feel about laser quest.”\n\n“What, now?”\n\n“Right now, if you like.”\n\nShe wavered on the threshold. Maybe I’d overdone it, created too much pressure. Then a decision washed over her and she smiled.\n\n“Ok.”\n\nWe had fun, racing through those dark corridors, shooting anyone who got in our way. Neon lights coloured her grin as she pulled the trigger. She was the top scorer. I was practically last.\n\nThen, we were in a restaurant, talking over slices of pizza. The words flitted and darted and danced between us as freely as the birds. But then I got up to use the bathroom and when I returned, a dull mask had slipped over her face.\n\n“This has been fun but, I need to, I should go.”\n\nThe words forced themselves from her. She stood up, her chair scraping across the floor. I took the plunge.\n\n “I know what it’s like.”\n\nShe stopped, eyes fixed on me, silent.\n\n“I know I can’t make it go away, I can’t just fix it. But I also know how easy it is to drive people away, because they can’t understand and because you can’t explain. I do understand. So if you need to talk to someone, if you’re having a bad day, please, call me. Or email me, or come to my house, or whatever. I’ll be there for you, if you want me.”\n\nA tear ran down her cheek. She nodded, once, and hurried away.\n\nAnd she did call me.\n\n“I feel… sad,” was all she said, the last word sounding like it had has to squeeze through a prison fence to escape her mouth.\n\nI raced to her house, and held her as she cried on the floor, a bottle of sleeping pills beside her, mercifully full. There was a diary too, discarded on the carpet.\n\n Later, knowing I shouldn’t, I opened it.\n\n*…numb. I just feel numb. I don’t care enough about anything for it to hold my attention. I tried to work and I just sat staring at the screen, I tried to read and my mind wandered away after a few sentences. Watching sitcoms is the only thing I seem to do, endless repeats of laughs that aren’t really funny, they just pass the time…*\n\nGuiltily, I flicked to the end, wanting to see what she said about me. There was nothing.\n\n“I’m sorry, I looked at your diary,” I said to her.\n\n“Well, I suppose I did just leave it lying there.”\n\n“There was nothing about me.”\n\n“No, I only write about the bad things. To get it out, you know.”\n\nThat was the start of it. Sometimes it was wonderful, a kaleidoscope of anecdotes and joy. Other times it wasn’t; grey days of breakfast in bed and needy cuddles, gladly given.\n\nI never looked in the diary again, but I always knew when she had been writing. She never left it in the same place. I think she wanted me to know when that story continued, even when she couldn’t bring herself to talk. As time went by, the diary moved less and less. It began to gather dust. \n\nThen one cold day I went to the shops. I was beset by a flat tyre, and returned home in darkness.\n\nThe fire I had left burning in the grate had gone out. She was lying beside it, utterly still. The remains of the diary were visible. I knelt by the fireplace and the ran the ashes through my fingers.\n\nThen I looked down at her and smiled.\n\n“Why did you burn it?”\n\n“I don’t need it anymore, I have you.”\n\nMy smile grew wider. I picked her up and she giggled sleepily. My heart sang in harmony with the sound. \n\nAs I carried her up to bed, ashes scattered in the draught from the door.\n\nThat story was over.\n", "from fireplace to chimney. the air is cold and i rise like dancing fingers into the sky. there are clouds further up, shall i fly to them? \n\nlife has never been so colourful. the orange of flame, black and grey of ash, blue, white, grey, green, suddenly a flash of red and blue and bright green! \n\nno restrictions here in this open place. no eyes forever scrutinizing! lovely. *lovely*. \n\ni shall float and spin forever - let the wind carry me where it will. \n" ]

[ 2, 4 ]

[ "1408967962", "1408964513" ]

[ "*This is it.* \n\n\nThe last of the surviving crew had jettisoned. The flagship of the victorious Coalition was in ruins, it would take at least two weeks for the survivors to get a rescue ship out here. In less than half that time, the oxygen would run out. Luckily for the captain, they left the armory untouched, if he so desired. It was just him, his baby, and his thoughts. *Why were they fighting? We won.* The Gren Collective had formally surrendered, marking the end of the first intergalactic war. *There have always been holdouts. Every major war.* Why should an intergalactic war be any different? *Besides, who knows if their communications even worked out here, ours barely do. Well, did. If only we had been able to get into contact with them. Even if they did not believe the surrender, they could’ve taken us under watch until they heard about it. Instead, they all died, and I’m here, alone.*\n\n\n*I’m not even a military captain, I purposefully avoided the war. I don’t like fighting. The only “combat” I’ve ever encountered was a tiny group of pirates who surrendered almost immediately after coming under fire. But why did they have me pilot this, the best ship in the entire fleet? I’m one of the best commercial captains in the Coalition Galaxies, but I have no idea what to do under fire. If the cargo was as high priority as they said, they should’ve left someone else in charge.*\n\nI*t’s funny, we humans have the entire universe to ourselves, and yet we still have that desire to own it all. We just love conflict I suppose. Or maybe we don’t. Maybe some of use just lust for power, and quenching that thirst tends to cause conflict.* Things were great for nearly a millennium, the Spectrum Coalition and the Gren Collective existed peacefully at worst, symbiotically at best. The Coalition specialized in creating new technologies, while the Grens focused on the production and applications of such technologies and as a result, the Coalition tended to be better off, its citizens especially so.\n\n\nThings started to go downhill not even a year before the war. Coalition scientists had created robotic “super soldiers” which were no longer cost prohibitive, the key factor which had kept them from mass production. The problem lied in the fact that the Coalition would have overrides for the soldiers, even if the Grens would purchase and employ them for their own army. The citizens were upset, but the leaders, including the president, were behind the implementation of the soldiers. A little grease from the Coalition never hurt anyone. Then the “terrorist attacks” came factories were bombed (sometimes by the workers themselves), a few made their way to Coalition soil and carried out a few, though that method became ineffective after immigration and travel between the two was made nigh impossible. \n\tThis angst gave rise to the People’s Party which swept the following Gren elections, headed by a young, hot headed, yet charismatic president. Sweeping changes were made. Gren factories were no longer allowed to produce anything for the Coalition, funding was diverted from all aspects into the training of scientists and innovations of new technologies. Then, out of nowhere, an agreement was made, the Coalition would get the production back, and the Gren would have access to the overrides.\n\n\nThe ceremonial signing did not go as planned. Things got heated, the Gren leader pulled out a gun, Coalition bodyguards dispatched him, Gren’s retaliated, leaving both alliances without their heads. This power vacuum, no matter how brief it might have been, allowed for the generals of both sides to assume control over their respective governments, leading to an all-out war, which left the universe in shambles.\n\n\n*I try to avoid war at all costs, and even when it no longer exists, it still finds me.* \n\n\n*I might as well see what kind of cargo I’m carrying, I’ll be dead before any repercussions can find me.* In the hold, the valuable cargo sits adorned with labels announcing “WARNING” and “CLASSIFIED” and “DANGER” as if that would actually stop anyone. Taking a plasma cutter from the workshop, the captain removes the case around the cargo revealing what appears to be a massive bomb. \nThe attached paperwork confirmed that yes, it was a bomb. One destined for the capital of the Gren Collective, a Trojan horse. It had more than enough firepower to wipe the entire planet off the map.\n\n\n*There’s only one thing to do* the captain thought\n\n\n\n\n####This was the first story I've written in probably 4 years. Any constructive criticism is very welcome. It's late and I went way off on a tangent, I know.", "\"The Captain always goes down with the ship\" I mumbled. A pretty old idiom. Firstly responsible, last off.\n\nMy mind flashed back to the thoughts of steam powered iron hulks, parting the waves across the open oceans of ancient Earth. Men in their crisp uniforms, bravely saluting from the bridge as they plummet into the icy blue depths. Cold water forcing the life from their lungs.\n\n\n*Hah*. While the sentiment behind it may have changed, the tradition is alive and well these days. If for completely practical and unchivalrous reasons that is.\n\nReflecting on all this wasn't really getting me anywhere, but when you're strapped into your command centre on a dying ship it turns out you have a lot of time to think.\n\nYour survival instinct really does kick in when faced with imminent peril, fine and dandy when dressed in a loincloth fleeing a mammoth, but less useful trapped in a metal hulk drifting through some giant hydrogen filled nebula. Especially when the contributions you make to it's successful operation are limited to selecting destinations & picking the playlist for the journey. Automation makes interstellar travel possible. It also makes human interaction, maintenance included, redundant.\nAnd as a consequence, it makes any attempts by a ships Captain to rectify a catastrophic failure futile at best.\n\n\nIt turns out your fight or flight response doesn't really like this. Your primitive lizard brain screams at you to do something. Claw at the panels. Beat your fists on the star-drive hatch. Stalk the maintenance corridors looking for some....tool...that will magically start the power systems back up & save the day.\nAction! Action now! It's still screaming at the back of my skull.\n\nI guess it's competing with the suddenly very reflective portion of my brain, pondering all this noble sentiment of going down with the ship. Picturing me, saluting in a crisp uniform from my command console as I tumble endlessly into the opaque ionised gas. My lungs eventually deprived of oxygen, like so many of those countless sailors before me.\n\nIt takes all my will not to go for the escape pod. That little box of false-hope. Ejected out into the nebula I'd cook. No formative-shielding on it to prevent me meeting the 10,000 degrees Celsius outside, currently being kept at bay by the fastidious work of those fabrication-bots back on IO's shipyard all those years ago.\n\nEven if I did have a shot of surviving the temperature and the deadly radiation outside, the odds of anyone picking up the distress beacon would be infinitesimal.\n\nAnd, I tell myself, what would I do if I *was* rescued? What would Lea do? Flee the Guild? Pick up everything we own, cash in our trade-bonds at the local pawn store and live a life on the run, fugitives from the Guild's debt collectors?\n\n*Hah*. I allow myself a little chuckle, gallows humour if you will. The nonsense idea of ever coming out the other side of owing the Guild the cost of an Interstellar Transport.\n\nNo, the death-in-service clause of the Guild contract & my own life insurance would mean Lea gets to attend a no expense spared funeral, commiserations from the local Guild Commandant in person. Fat credit chips in his fat hands to be thrust upon my grieving widow. Assurances accompanied with a knowing nod that anything she needs is only a contact away.\n\nHell, she even get's the value of my cargo *commission free*, even if they never salvage this hulk.\n\n\nDamn. Things don't look too bad for her in the long run. Once she get's over my hideous lonely death, suffocating in the inky grasp of interstellar space that is. I wonder if she'll remarry...she'd best be on the lookout for those scabs and parasites in the solar-yacht club. They'll be all over her and her money within days I'm sure. \nBloody leeches. I'll haunt their nights with my radiation boiled space ghost if they so much as sniff in her direction...\n\n*beep*\n\n\nAbout seven hours of o2 left. \n\n\n\nI caught myself tapping on the display graph, as if that would magically make the software projected needle correct itself to more.\nThat lizard part of my brain again I would have to imagine.\n\n\nMaybe I will go take a quick pass through the maintenance corridors. Just in case...", "*The Captain always goes down with the starship*. \n\nThat's the price, y'see. The Order warned me that this would happen. Just as they warned me about the inevitable flood of memories that'll start when the reality sinks in. But that's just words. They pass on dry facts, not the raw impact of the situation.\n\nRight now, I can feel the passengers abandoning ship. They don't know anything more than what the Order stewards are telling them. Mechanical malfunction, ship in distress, get to the lifeboats. Yes, another cruiser is nearby. Yes, rescue is on the way. No, you cannot go back to your cabin.\n\nIt's true, that mechanical malfunction. From a certain point of view. Ahh, there's a reason we love those movies.\n\n*Solar Glory* and I are old, old friends. Older than most of our passengers realize. I was barely nineteen when I stowed away on that first liner. I thought I was so smart. I did the calculations and figured out that no-one ever went to the lower decks, or if they did, they spent so little time there that they obviously didn't search it. So therefore, I reasoned, I could hide out in there and hitch a free starship ride.\n\nHah. There's a reason no-one goes to the lower decks. Well, almost no-one. That's where you find out the truth about the starships. I found out in a dimly-lit bay when the newly created organo-metallic lifeform latched onto me as its Captain.\n\nThey're alive. All of them. All seven hundred and thirty-two Starships that ply the lanes between the Colonies. People think they're machines, and the plans available on the info-nets are full of impressive technological calculations. They're a source of pride for Humanity - We Made This. Except we didn't.\n\nIt's all a front. The Order keeps it secret. They were dying - hunted almost to extinction by the aggressive Pannach. They found us, and we hid them. We hid them well. We gave them metal shells. We ensured they would never travel alone. We built an interstellar trade network and lied to a trillion people, all to keep them safe.\n\nBut biological machines age. We creak, we groan, we break. We die.\n\nThree hundred years ago, I didn't know that. All I knew was that my clever hiding place in the ductwork was discovered and there was an alien *something* that could peer into my mind. \n\n*<Joy, Joy. Happiness. Eager.>* \n*<Yeah, we were kid, weren't we? Took us a bit to understand each other.>* \n*<Rueful Acknowledgement>*\n\nI ran from an alien being that I could almost feel breathing down my neck. Every time I stopped, I could sense it was behind me. I could hear it in my mind. I was a sobbing wreck when the Order finally found me, and I was ashamed of it. Later on, I found out that was a typical reaction to a Bonding.\n\nThe Master of the Chapter gave me a dressing-down and then inducted me into their ranks as a Captain. When the ships are born, there is an instant bond between the newborn and a nearby human. But they're terrible at telling people apart, and I just happened to be crawling through a duct that put me closer than the Order representative they had groomed for the position.\n\nThat's how I became Captain of a Starship. Every voyage, the kids inevitably ask me how. I tell them it's hard work and long hours at the Academy. But really it's a matter of being in the right place and the right time.\n\n*<Nervous Anticipation. Query: Sorrow/Anger?>* \n*<I am happy for you,* Solar Glory*, I really am. Old memories. We get emotional over them a lot.>*\n\nThree hundred years of the universe's best friend. *Glory* is the one confidant - the one person in the entire cosmos whom I could tell anything and everything. A mate who not only knows how you think, but can see you thinking. \nWe've shipped so many families around the galaxy - from newlyweds to elderly couples. I've never married another human myself, but I...I can relate to their descriptions of a soulmate. Of a being who you know is always there for you, and you will be always there for them. \n\nThere was that lovely pair from the Procyon Habitats who were on a retirement cruise. *Glory* and I spent an hour listening as they told me of their years together. I must have let recognition show on my face, and at the end of the talk, the wife told me I was very lucky to have someone I obviously loved so deeply.\n\nThat soaring splendor of true commitment is what I feel with *Solar Glory* every day.\n\nEven today. *Especially today*\n\nThe star Cygnus-55 burns brightly ahead of us. We're going to impact in another sixteen hours. *Glory* has shut down her engines for the final time. Her heart has given it's final beat, the biological mechanism fallen prey to the malfunction called Old Age.\n\nWe won't be sun-skimming like the early Adrenaline Tours days. No basking like our time under the colors of Solar Vacations. We're going to hit it. Both of us. Together.\n\nIt'll be fast and clean. There'll be no betraying corpse for the Pannach to find. \n\nSixteen hours is a long time, even at the end of three hundred years. I should easily have enough time to stroll on down to the launch bay on Deck Five and take the last shuttle off. But I can't. That's the price. I cannot physically leave the ship.\n\n*Glory* and I are neurally intertwined. I leave her, and we both shut down. IF I'm not brought back on board within twelve hours, then the damage is permanent, and we both die. Not that I want to anyway. There is no way I would ever want to miss this exact moment.\n\n*<Attention, Attention. Look!>* \n\nI flip up the screens to show a dark cavern in our lower decks. The Order is there, and their chosen is standing in front of the Child-Pod. The new Captain looks nervous. She's got the shaven head of a new recruit, and the tattoos betray her as someone much like I was - a runaway that no-one would miss.\n\nThe pod splits open, and the silvery mass of a newborn ship tumbles out. It's about the size of a large dog right now - a vaguely slug-like thing. The Order is already attaching the nutrient packs as the new Captain sinks to her knees and begins weeping.\n\nThe bond has been made, and through *Glory* I can feel the whispered edges of the newborn child's eager conversation with it's new partner. I smile to an empty Command Deck, and *Glory* gives a pleasurable twitch.\n\nForewarned, I'm able to switch the view fast enough to watch a rich-list passenger cease arguing with an Order steward and make a beeline for the closest lifepod as the ship quakes around him.\n\nI can both see the Cygnus Navy ship coming alongside, as well as sense it's metallic hull. *Thackeron* is its name, and *Glory* relays our sincere thanks as it extends a boarding tube to take the Child and its Captain aboard. They'll spend the next few decades growing before the final shell is fitted, and the fleet will \"build\" another Starship.\n\n*Thackeron* moves away, precious cargo aboard, and I feel the final wrench as the last pod leaves. Everybody bar one is now away. It'll take the Order another carefully scripted twenty hours to \"discover\" that I never made it a lifepod.\n\nBut that's OK. There's nowhere else I can be....and nowhere else I want to be.\n\nAfter all, the Captain always goes down with the Starship.\n\n\n" ]

[ 2, 2, 25 ]

[ "1409127914", "1409152889", "1409129301" ]

[ "\"As per the temporary dress code that will be enacted over the next few days, Lord Neckbeard of KittenBoob in the District of Clowndown, the representative from President will make a brief speech regarding the state of emergency.\"\n\n---\n\n\n\"My fellow Redditors. We have emerged as a state of uncivilized people largely attributed to the unequal opinions of those on the internet. Therefore, all political regimes underneath the fascist authoritarian politburo of democratic means will be thrown out. Press A to talk!\"\n\n\n\"In other words, President Reddit will be renaming states to given subreddit categories. Effective immediately.\"\n\n\n\"The District of Washington, from where I speak will be hereby be known as /r/politics. Florida will become /r/nsfw, and Washington State be renamed as /r/trees. There was some debate whether Colorado should take the honor of /r/trees, however President Reddit has made the matter into hand.\"\n\n\n\"As for the Senate, it will be moderated by the moderators of /r/politics. God have mercy on their soul.\"\n\n\n\"One other announcement to be made regarding states. Texas will be renamed /r/wtf, as a majority of the world views Texas in such a manner.\"\n\n\n\"More to follow after this break showing Emma Stone petting a kitten while placing herself in compromising positions.\"", "Social Media Site \"Reddit\" Elected POTUS by Electoral College, Not Popular Vote.- CNN Breaking News 11/20/16\n\nUN Worried About Election of Reddit Acting President- Reuters 11/26/16\n\nReddit Usership Hits Fifty Million, Americans Clamber for \"True Direct Democracy.\"- USA Today 11/28/16\n\nRedditors Decry New Members After Presidential Election- CNN 11/28/16\n\nAtlanta Area Redditor Kills Eight Over \"Usurping the True Reddit.\"- Atlanta Journal Constitution 11/31/16\n\nHas The USA Been Usurped By Student Revolutionaries? It's Like Paris 1968 All Over Again- Many Blondes on Fox News\n\nHas America Finally Been Ushered Into A Hyper-Progressive Sweden-esque Society?- Salon 12/3/16\n\nPM Cameron Will Not Accept Reddit as Pres- Telegraph 12/6/16\n\nCameron, Merkel, Renzi Threaten End to NATO, Citing \"Lack of American Perspective.\"- Der Spiegel 12/8/16\n\n72% of Americans Find Reddit Too Extreme On Religion, Foreign Policy, and Economics- ABC News Australia 12/10/16\n\n89% of Non-Redditors Feel \"Uncomfortable\" Over Specific Reddit Policies- New York Times 12/16/16\n\nOklahoma Threatens Secession Over Reddit Led Guaranteed Minimum Income Bill- LA Times 12/17/16\n\nChuck Hagel: \"Reddit cannot be the true President.\"- Wall Street Journal 12/21/16\n\nThe True Generation Gap: The Lack of Age Diversity on Reddit- Fox News 12/23/16\n\nReddit Sworn In With Cat Pic Festival- Le Monde 1/20/17\n\nReddit announces \"Congressional Purge\" on /r/politics- BBC World Service 1/23/16\n\nCongress Murdered In Cold Blood!!!-New York Post 1/29/17\n\nArmy Units Go Missing From Fort Bragg, Fort Benning, Other Military Installations.- Al Jazeera Breaking News 2/4/17\n\nUS Army Spokesman: \"Reddit Can Never Represent All of America.\"-CNN Breaking News 2/4/17\n\nReddit Servers Down: Army Takes Washington By Storm- MSNBC Breaking News 2/4/17\n\nProminent Redditors Disappear From Homes, US Military Announces Coup- Xinhua Daily- 2/4/17\n\nAmerican Streets Bathe In Blood As Military Purges Citizens- RT 2/5/17\n\n2000 Redditors Dead Nationwide, Rest on Perpetual Net Surveillance- CBC 2/6/17\n\nArmy Announces Emergency 2018 Election As The Nation Grieves For the Dead.- TIME 2/10/17\n\n11 Ways This Child Literally Can't Even Deal With the Military Junta- BuzzFeed 2/11/24", "The corporations thought they had outsmarted us. They spent years lobbying and gaming the system to stack the deck against the common man. They believed that they had it all sorted out. I guess their greatest coup was the Supreme Court. By its very nature, the long con had to be on in order to get the right people in place at just the right time and no opportunity could be missed. First came Citizen's United, then Hobby Lobby, they were very close to garnering all the protections they would need in order to be immune against the stupid consumer. The sheep would finally be powerless and they would be in full control. Too bad we had better ideas.\n\nThe initial idea was first tossed around as a running gag in various threads. Reddit: Hope for 2016. Like any meme we thought it would ebb and flow in popularity and soon fall to the back of Reddit's collective consciousness as tends to be their fate. Something happened however that no one was expecting. Some of the Law subreddit's began hosting serious discussions about the feasibility of a \"Reddit Campaign.\" I truly believe at first it was just intended to be an exercise in law and hopefully generate some meaningful discussion but as they began to dig into the matter it started to get traction.\n\nThe foundations that corporations had been laying for years with various court rulings had solidified the idea of a corporate entity as a 'person.' They had religious rights and could donate ad nausea to campaigns, so why couldn't they run for office? The technical terminology being thrown around was a tad bit above my head but so long as the majority of Reddit's servers were located in the United States at a physical address and the company was registered here as well, the criteria for citizenship seemed to be met. The post highlighting the exact next steps to take went down as the largest, longest running post in reddit history.\n\nThe first ad appeared on The Colbert Show to raucous applause. Between Colbert and Stewart, the Reddit campaign had a very real mouth piece in the public domain. No matter how much the mass media tried to keep us down, the ratings being generated by the sheer audacity of the community was too good to pass up. Soon CNN started \"The Reddit Referendum: 2016\" which ran continuously, 24 hours a day. Individual user's posts were dissected with a remarkable degree of scrutiny on national television. It was really something to behold.\n\nThen came the debates. Man, you should have seen the debates. Imagine people as knowledgeable as Unidan in each of their specific sub-specialities being able to chime in and respond to the questions being put forth by the moderator. It brought a tear to my eye. The other folks on the stage looks like they had an elementary education on the matters being discussed while Reddit was masterful. Eloquent and understandable, how couldn't the masses love us.\n\nThe legal attacks started shortly afterward. I think they thought it was a fun distraction at first, but now we were a threat. They threw the kitchen sink at Reddit. They began throttling its speeds, submitting copyright infringement claims against nearly all the content, and targeting individual redditors for things as inane as unpaid parking tickets. It got really crazy around this time, but to the community's credit, everyone tried to support everyone else.\n\nThe night of the election I couldn't sleep. I had voted earlier in the day. I was having some problems with the touch screen of the Voting Machine but when I saw the big black box with \"Reddit - Independent\" flash on the screen I couldn't stop smiling. It was actually happening. The news coverage was pandemonium. Every sensationalist headline you could imagine was flying around the tickers. Like usual, each station wanted to be the first to call a state so there were some early scares on the east coast. New Jersey was almost called immediately for one of the competitors and my heart almost sank into my feet. Nearly 30 eternal seconds later the same anchor chimed back in that he had been premature and the 30% of precincts which were reporting seemed to be heavily concentrated in non-Reddit strongholds. The data coming from other precincts seemed to be experiencing some data delays. Go figure.\n\nBy 10pm EST Reddit had swept the East Coast. I was in euphoria. We did it! We actually did it. We used their stupid rules against them and had beat them at their own game. When all was said and done we had only lost four states. It was truly a dominant display and in one evening the entire political landscape of the United States had been re-written. \n\nNow we just had one question...who was going to put their hand on the bible at the swearing in?\n\n\n\n", "I sat there, euphoric. Reddit as president, we did it. I had to wonder what the site itself looked like now.\n\n\"M'country,\" I said to myself, stroking my neckbeard while www.reddit.com loaded.\n\nThe page reads \"Due to our new position in the U.S. government, the standard website is permanently disabled. All existing accounts have been deleted, and each citizen will be granted a single new account.\"\n\nOne link existed on the page. I clicked. *discontinuity*\n\nLight. Applause. A mouth opens. \n\n#We are /u/karmanaut\n", "I sat in stunned silence. The tv had just announced Reddit was the new POTUS. As in President of the United States. Turning off the tv, I checked reddit instead. Front page. /r/pics \"The new US President\" pic of r/pics. /r/writingprompts \"Our term as President six months from now.\" /r/askscience \"Mod Announcement: We will not be setting US science policy, any questions about policy will be deleted and the poster will be banned.\" /r/circlejerk \"We did it reddit. We got this guy elected President.\" Pic of Ron Paul.\n\n*Fuck this.* I finished off Mountain Dew and headed off to bed.\n\n___\n\nThe next morning I went to log in to reddit. \"We're sorry but all user accounts have been banned.\" *What?* I went to check the news. Everything on /r/news was from last night. /r/worldnews was the same. Coming to my senses I checked /r/announcements. \"Since Reddit will now be responsible for setting US policy all users are temporarily banned.\" Opening the post it explained how they were going to implement a system to determine the citizenship of all users, and ensure every citizen was only allowed one politically active account. *Huh.*\n\n__\n\n\"Once again the hacker group Anonymous is taking credit for having hacked voting machines around the country. A user claiming to be speaking for the group said 'We wanted to prove that the voting machines were broken, and also ruin reddit because reddit sucked. Eat it.\"\n\n*Fuck you too kid, you probably weren't even involved.* I sighed. I had been putting off finding a new site to bullshit around on for a few days but reddit was pretty dead now. Most users had reacted poorly to the implementation of a check of your Social Security Number. I typed in the first thing that came to mind.\n\n4chan.org" ]

[ 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 ]

[ "1409190860", "1409194352", "1409185069", "1409198178", "1409181563" ]

[ "“They are horrible creatures aren't they,” came a voice just off my elbow.\n\nI merely nod and run my hands along the wooden fence I am leaning against, careful to avoid splinters or, Powers that be, far worse. He continues, not even bothering to adjust his glamour so that I can see him. Impudent human loving kobold, I scoff mentally. Thieving scoundrel, I laugh more jokingly.\n “….Caught in constant war strife and struggle” he stops for the moment as the giant piece of human machinery they call a bus drives by belching smoke. When it passes and our coughs subside he continues speaking.\n\n“Ughh Nastier than a dragon’s arse-hole, not that I’d know a’course.”\n\nI laugh at my low-blood ally. “Better than its front, I would think that being devoured is not exactly pleasant.”\n\nHe coughs again and leans closer to me. He then waggles an eyebrow at me “If ya believe the stories, I hear some humans are into that.”\n\n For a moment I consider rebuffing my servant for his gall at slipping into the positively profane, but I decide against it. We are too few now to make enemies among ourselves.\n\n“You have the dust” he asks suddenly, surprisingly all business.\nI say nothing but toss him the two bags of powder hidden under my cloak prepared by a spell-caster so ancient she remembers snakes in Ireland. The bags are wrapped up nicely in sheepskin to avoid the magic leaking so not to wake the trees into a drunken stupor.\n\n“Well now, that’s a start” he then pulls his glamour over himself and fades into the concrete as if he was never there. Perhaps I will dance in the ring tonight I ponder but shrug my shoulders to decide against it. Instead I wait for a moment and watch the last vestiges of sunlight fade over the horizon. Here I wonder not how but when we will lose this world to the iron mongers. My hands twitch and I pull the bottle of ale from my cloak.\n\n“To hope,” I toast and drink deeply. “To hope.”\n", "The alarm clock went off. *BEEP BEEP BEEP.* Shaddap, I was trying to get some sleep! I turned it off and looked at the clock. *3:00PM,* it said. Jeez, I wish I could say that was a new record, but it wasn't even close! \n\nLet's see, I was out at the Phillies' game until 11, we went out drinking and hit on some hot Spanish broads until 2AM, but I didn't remember what happened to the rest of the time. I was most likely black-out drunk.\n\nI took a look around my 'beautiful' digs. Just kidding it's a pig-sty! I sleep on a fold out bed with no sheets. There are crumbs and cockroaches everywhere! Oh, well. It's better than moving back in with the folks!\n\nI turned on the TV. I wanted to catch some of that *Duck Dynasty*, I love that show. The news was on about some serial killer or something. What do I care about that garbage? Just give me reality TV, sports, and weather. That's the golden TV trifecta, amiright?\n\nI showered and dressed, but I still smelled like the backside of a horse! There was no time for another run through, I had to get to Mamma's house for her 80th birthday party. She's one hell of a lady. I put on my best three-button suit for this one! I got it from my cousin Johnny down on Walnut Street for half price. Best deal I ever got!\n\nMy sky blue 1991 Ford Taurus barely got me over there. Hell, it can barely carry me, I weight 300 pounds. I'm too much man for it! Also, it barely works, it doesn't even get me to work and back for god's sake, I have to push it home most days.\n\nMamma was there waiting for me. Oh she was real pissed. She started hitting me! \"Why are you so late? You're holding up the party! Did you see the news about the 'green butcher?'\" She went on and on and *on* with that stuff, get it outta here!\n\nI told her I was busy and I show up when I show up because that's how real men do things. Then she tells me my father wasn't like that. Are you *kidding* me, ma?! My father? Are you really gonna throw dad in my face right now? Does she even remember that he missed *my* baseball games every year for four years while he was in the clink? Of course she doesn't!\n\nAnd enough about the green butcher already! She always makes such a big deal about nothing. I told her a million times her house is safe. She hasn't been broken into once in thirty-five years, but she always wants to get another lock or a new alarm. I told her worrying so much is gonna give her an ulcer!\n\nBut I digress. Anyway, the party turned out great. Mamma had some cake, Bill and Susie showed up from New York, everyone got a bit shitty, it was perfect. \n\nSo I went home to watch the Phillies game that night, and they aren't even on. This 'butcher' shit was on every channel! What is with the morbid curiosity of some folks? Jeez, I can't even watch the Phils without some fancy basic cable package! What the hell was going on? I shut off the TV. Whatever, at least I was going to the game tomorrow night. What are the gonna do? Turn off the stadium lights to stop me?\n\nThe next night I went to the game with Carly. Everyone's always telling me to date this girl, date that girl. Enough already! All I need to know is if they like the Phils or not. If they don't, then they're outta here! \n\nAnyway, she looked nervous the whole night. I tried to put my arm around her during *America the Beautiful* but she wasn't having any of that. I finally got her to have a beer, but then she didn't want to pay for it! More for me, I guess. \n\nWe were halfway through the 8th Inning when I notice Utley looking like he's lost in space or something. He was looking straight into the crowd like some large-breasted woman just popped her top. So I yell at him, I go: *Hey Utley! Look alive out there!* And then he just turns and books it toward the club house, in the middle of the game! \n\nWhat the hell, Utley. I mean Howard, I could understand. I could tell Carly was just as upset as me about it, she wasn't even in her seat anymore. So I look around and everyone starts to freak out like Utley. People were climbing over seats, they were like animals I tell ya. I felt like I was at the zoo or some shit!\n\nThen I saw it. The big green blur moving through the stands. \n\n*THE PHANATIC*\n\nHe was tearing through the place like it was swiss cheese. I couldn't believe it with my own eyes. He was chopping them up with a butcher knife, it was a mess. Lots of blood everywhere.\n\nThe guy in the suit was like 8 feet tall, it was rediculous! He was eating people in their seats through that god damn gaping mouth-hole of his. Luckily I was safe over on the other side of the stadium. I decided maybe this was the best time to go home. \n\nI was dead wrong. The traffic was unbelieveable! I'm in bumper to bumper in my shit-mobile in front of Citizen's Bank Park. Who woulda thunk it! First of all, I never leave Phillies games early because they always have a chance to win. Second thing was I couldn't find Carly anywhere, who knows what happened to that broad. And C, I had less than a quarter tank and that traffic didn't move once in an hour. The balls on these other drivers huh? It's called a straight line, jackasses!\n\n***\n\n\"So, is that everything you know? You were the only one to survive the incident that night and we have no security camera footage\", the cop mentioned sternly.\n\n\"Huh? Yeah, that's all I saw. I really hope he didn't get Utley. That guys is by far the best player on the Phils. We need him healthy! Also, I bet you had no TV footage because of all that damn butcher coverage. They didn't show the game yesterday either!\" The cop ignored him.\n\n\"So you are telling me the *Phillie Phanatic* is responsible for the largest killing spree in the history of this country?\", the officer asked, now getting pissed off.\n\n\"Yeah. Do you have any donuts? I heard you guys really like those little donut holes. Ya know the kind? With the jelly already in there? I'm starving. Also, you look like you could use a new suit. My cousin Johnny got me half off on this beautiful three-button suit. I could get him to make you the same deal, if you want.\"\n\n\"That's alright,\" the officer said. \"Instead, we are charging you with filing a false police report and obstruction of justice. Take him away, boys.\" Two officers grab the man's wrists and cuff him and begin to take him down the hall to the cells.\n\n\"What are you doing!? I'm telling the truth I swear! Well I only got a glimpse of him! Wait! My Mamma knows more, she watches this stuff on TV all the time! She could help you! Me, I like action movies and reality TV, but she watches crime shows all day long. I heard that stuff can really rot your brain!\" the man yelled down the hallway as he was being dragged off. \"I'm just letting you know my brother Paul is the best lawyer in the state of PA, and you'll be sorry when you have to face him in court! Literally, he's a pizza-faced bastard, that one!\" The officers finally get the man to his cell and leave him there. They walk away as briskly as they can.\n\n***\n\nBehind the police station lurked something supremely unnatural. It wasn't a man or an animal. It rummaged through the dumpster with a mitt on its right hand and a butcher knife in its left. It didn't matter what it was doing now, because it only struck in plain sight.\n\nThe lights from the station helped display its rather large nose onto the street. It deftly slipped out of sight and soon it would be well out of mind of the good people of Philadelphia. \n\nThe cop opened the back door to have a cigarette and marvel at the nutjobs that come to file police reports sometimes. He heard loud rustling from behind him. He pulled out his gun and spun around, but nothing was there. Suddenly, he felt stainless steel against his neck and green fuzz against his face. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "The chair creaked as Phil sat down, mouth already watering at the feast that he had laid out before him. He ordered the food on his table from several different restaurants, so as to not raise suspicion at the sheer amount of food he wanted-- if he were to order that many burgers, that many fries, that many shakes and drinks from one single restaurant, then what would the workers think? They'd think he's fat. He had to be careful.\n\nAs he moved to pick up his first burger of the middle of the day, the flesh dangling from his arm knocked a large cup of Coke off the table, and it landed on the floor, spilling open. \n\n\"Oh, shit, perfect timing,\" Phil groaned inwardly. He heaved himself up out of the chair, which barely contained the quaking mountain of a man, and walked over to his paper towel dispenser, dangling over the kitchen sink. He pulled a sheaf of sheets off and slowly meandered back over to the site of the spill. Slowly, he leaned down, struggling to get near enough to the ground to clean it up. After some effort, he finally managed to wipe up what liquid had leaked out, and picked up the drink and put it back on the table, a bit further in.\n\nHe sat back down, shoving himself hard into the chair in order to fit. With the grin of a kid who had been given five dollars and sent to a candy shop, he picked up the same burger he had originally set his eye on, and lifted it to his mouth. As he moved it closer and closer to his face, he started feeling a bit nauseous. His head started pounding, and he felt shooting pains in his arms. \n\n\"What the...,\" was all that Phil had time to say before he collapsed forward and died, slumped over with his face buried in a mound of fast food.\n\nDeath saw it all, and pulled his ledger from a pocket hidden somewhere on his cloak. With a single scratch of his quill, he marked Phil's name off and sighed. \n\n\"Another day, another heart attack. When will these people learn that heart problems are no laughing matter?\"", "It is the silence that deafens the world.\n\n It prays on our most vulnerable. On the sick, the poor, the homeless, the stateless.\n It prays on those who are ravaged by war, and those who are stricken by illness and poverty.\n\n It is our most deadly killer, and yet it is we who keep it strong. We feed it with our words. We spread it through our media. Day by day, year by year it grows louder and louder, stronger and stronger. And to top it off, the very thing that is killing us is the very thing that keeps it alive.\n\n\nMankinds greatest predator is apathy.", "The sunlight warmed my limbs, as each swayed carefully in the breeze. I watched the humans race around my feet, squealing in delight as they'd catch each other. They'd take turns leaning on me, speaking in their weird language, laughing. Closing their eyes, and quietly speaking. Slowly, their numbers dwindled away as the heat from the sun dissipated into the coolness of the night, the breeze ripping through the limbs.\n\nEventually only a few would walk pass my brothers and I, until lastly their was only one. A young male, talking loudly on a box. The wind carried my battle cry over to my family, \"Him.\" Patiently, I watched the male walk underneath my limbs, \"Yes. Him.\" They cried, \"Let us feed!\" They wailed, the wind whipped our limbs around.\n\nI whipped my many limbs around him, the groaned and croaked as I rammed my leaves into his throat, his eyes wide in terror and arms thrashing as he struggled to breath, I ripped off his many parts and tosses them to my family, each dragging their pieces hungrily into their agape holes. We mashed the bones and the flesh in our bodies and chuckled to ourselves awaiting a new meal in a little bit.\n\n\"Hugh...\" Our elder whispered, \"That's an incredibly dangerous method. We're bound to be caught...\" His voice carried to me through the breeze, \"Elder. They have no idea.\" I replied arrogantly, stretching my limbs back into place. \"Hugh...Control them next time, if they find us they will destroy us. Tear our limbs down, and set them alight. We are bigger, but they are faster. They can never know!\" He cried, his leaves ruffling in anger. \"You shall see, elder. In the light they will never suspect us.\" I mumbled and waited for daylight to break.\n\n-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nI looked around the park, amazed at the blood everywhere. \"How did they do this?\" I asked to the rookie walking with me. Carefully stepping over loose pieces of skin, and shards of bone. \"Honestly Sir, I have no idea. This seems like a repeat offense. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps we may have a-\" He began. I scowled at my coffee, \"Don't say it, Rookie. I just don't see how the trees get covered so high up.\" I trailed off staring at the great maples surrounding us. \"I don't see why people even come through here, every 4 weeks there's a death and dismemberment but we can't find anything!\" The rookie looked around uneasily, \"I don't know Sir, I really don't. I've heard of cases like this internationally. Maybe it's a cult...\"He sipped his coffee quietly, as we took in the massacre before us.\n\"Maybe, Jones. Maybe.\"" ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 7, 7 ]

[ "1409202367", "1409215428", "1409197358", "1409197162", "1409197247" ]

[ "I had to see. \n\n\"The facts are undeniable. The charges cannot be debated.\" said the Governor on TV. \"A clear and eminent public menace that needs to be eradicated\" said the Mayor of Boston. \n\nBut I had to see. For myself. \n\nI had heard stories out of Great Barington. Bizarre stories that don't come from an aging hippie town in the Berkshires. Honestly it sounded like some horrible creepypasta that had gotten out of control. It's happened before. \n\nSo I went to go see her burn. \n\nA stake had been hastily erected outside of the old castle that had been imported from England or Swabia-whatever if that's even a real place, surrounding a fire pit ten feet in diameter. The Chamber of Commerce had to reappropriate money from the Local Farmer's Market budget. A crowd of retirees, amateur rock climbers, and vacationers from New York City had gathered, looking confused. Nobody wasn't sure what to talk about, so there was some general small talk. Some people exchanged business cards. \n\nFrom the Castle came a small, balding, nervous looking man in a white shirt, khaki pants, and an apple-tree tie. It was probably the tie he was planning to wear to the Farmer's Markets. Dark stains of sweat blotched the tie giving him an even more sickly appearance. \n\nThis was Great Barrington's hastily created \"Witchfinder General\"\n\nHe made his way to the microphone stand. And meekly cleared his throat for attention. All voices in the crowd stopped immediately\n\n\"H-hello everyone and welcome to the Great Barrington...witch..s-sorry...\" he stammered, stopping to mop his head with a dainty handkerchief. \n\n\"My name is David Garvy. I'm the Municipal Event Coordinator and newly appointed...Witchfinder General for the Great City of Great Barrington....heh..\" the crowd chuckled weakly. \n\n\"What you're about to see may be...disturbing. So we've asked that small children and the elderly not attend this event. However, I know this is the conclusion of some events that have deeply affected many of us here. So I will leave you to your own decisions.\"\n\nHe took a breath. I saw him clench up. \"Bring her out\"\n\nFrom the castle led by the Sherriff's department she came in a floral print dress, blindfolded by a red and white polka-dot scarf. A young girl who probably just barely had reached puberty, and certainly was not old enough to drive let alone be responsible. \n\nShe cried. \"*I didn't do anything! I didn't do anything! Please let me go I don't know what's going on!*\" \n\nThe Police said nothing as they led her to the stake. The people in the crowd became uncomfortable but said nothing.\n\nThe Police took her blindfold off, revealing pretty green eyes that were hid under messy dark hair. She saw what was in front of her and her eyes grew wide with fear. \n\n\"Oh no. You're going to set me on fire. You can't do that, you can't set me on fire. You can't! That's insane!! YOU CAN'T SET ME ON FIRE!!!!\" \n\nThe crowd said nothing. \n\n**==PLEASE INSERT TAPE 2==**\n\nTAPE 2\n\nShe struggled. But her small frame was hidden by the two police officers who spent little effort in hoisting her into the stake and tying her up with thick, hemp ropes. I recognized them as the kind you get from the outdoor shops in town. \n\nShe sobbed. The crowd remained silent.\n\nWitchfinder Gary took a small piece of paper from his pocket, fumbling around with it. \"OK folks, the witch has been tied up and now it's time to start the...er...trial.\" \n\nThe girl screamed. A loud, ear breaking scream in case someone would realize what they were about to do and save her. \n\nGary took a deep breath and read from the paper, into the microphone. \"Ok...here we go..[ahem] Hear all ye gathered in the name of God\n\nThe girl stopped screaming. Her head dropped down in defeat\n\nGary continued, a little more confidence in his voice. \"Before all ye gathered is a witch. In the name of God reveal yourself!\n\nThe girl looked up. Something in her face was wrong. The fear had been replaced by a dark grin, her pretty green eyes had become small and beady. \n\n\"*by the stinking gape of your mothers, that took you long enough*\n\nGary too began to change. His doughy, office worker face seemed to become hard and wizened. His voice slowly filled with round confidence, the ancient words of the page starting to fall easier on his tongue.\n\nHe continued. \"I command thee, creature, identify yourself before those assembled\"\n\nThe Witch laughed. Someone in the crowd vomited on the spot. \"*By the human tongue I am Grunewilla. And that's all I'll be telling ye, Witchfinder.\" \n\nGary threw a commanding hand at the witch. \"Grunewilla! Servant of the Dark Lord! Why have you returned to trouble our community\n\n\"Why Witchfinder, don't tell me you have forgotten the Game. I am the pawn, made to be sacrificed. I am the little hinge that swings open the gate. You know this.\"\n\n\"BUT SHE'S A CHILD YOU MONSTER!!\" screamed Gary, his voice cracking with emotion\n\n\"*and that's why you'll never win. Because you are afraid to make sacrifices. Today we trade a pawn for a pawn. Tomorrow? Maybe a knight? Or a bishop!!*\" she cackled, and Gary's ears began to bleed. \n\n\"ENOUGH!\" said Gary, in a voice that was no longer his own. \"Foul servant of Satan, I return the into the fires from whence you came!!!\"\n\nHe snatched an unlit torch from a small pile near the stake. It lit the moment it touched his hand like a struck match. Maybe it was an auto-light. Must have been.The microphone had long since been discarded, but it didn't matter. The Witchfinder had come with his tools, and that was all that mattered.\n\n\"I sentence you in the name of God! BURN!\" And he tossed the torch, lighting the pure in a ferocious blaze \n\nAnd the Witch laughed with horrific joy. \"*A pawn for a pawn, mortal! A PAWN FOR A PAWN!!! AHAHAHAAAAAAAAAH!!!!*\n\nAnd she burned. Horrible, choking smoke that could only be described as a cloud of evil came forth, but just as promised she burned. \n\nThe people watched. Some of them cried. But they watched. Gary, back to his normal self, looked older and more tired than ever, stumbled off the stage for a glass of water helpfully provided by one of the police.\n\nDon't believe me? You don't have to. I saw it for myself.\n\n\n\n", "Lily was always such a good girl\n\nNearly every day after school since the 6th grade we'd walk back home to our apartment block, through snow, sleet, rain, whatever the world could throw at us. I guess we sort of became accustomed to the cold of the earth that way. One month, it will be giving you flowers and fertility , and in the next month it will kill it all away. We'd discussed this many times in our freshman year. Her words blew my pubescent mind sky high. They almost matched her beauty, to me.\n\nWe were only sophomores when we had first made love, on that one cloudy night in February where the subtle orange light of the town resonated against the dark gray clouds. Despite the crisp air biting me all over, it was the warmest night of my life. I remember telling her that she'd thawed my heart entirely. We skipped school the next morning.\n\nThere was never anything \"official\" between us, but I guess it was always more of just a mutual understanding. We never needed to say to each other how we felt, either we already knew or it had slipped out in one way or another.\n\nTime passed, and warmth and freedom had returned to our lives. We spent most of that summer preoccupied with amateur poetry, weekly bonfires with the few other friends we had, and occasional casual sex. I couldn't ask for anything more in my life. But, as usual, the frigid climate had returned for our junior year.\n\nThere was one particularly cold day that year. Early December. Lily had finally dyed her hair a dark crimson, as she'd been planning for months. We were walking back to our apartment building, same route as always, when 3 men in thick sweatshirts had approached us. I only recognized one: William, a devout Christian who had a fling for Lily early of last year. \n\nThey had come for me. One of them put their hand in their back pocket. Lily pushed me a step back and took a step forward. Next thing I knew, the two in the back had drawn their feeble pocket knives. William, on the other, drew his father's revolver. The memory melts from that point on. I remember William saying something along the lines of \"Step aside, love. We're not here for you...not this time\". Lily shoved me back and I stumbled. slipping on a thin layer of ice and landing on my head. Then, a blaze. Intense heat could be felt all over my body. Beaming orange light had stunned me, and when I had regained focus, I looked up at Lily.\n\nFlames, shooting from her hands. They pierced through the bitter air in such a way that left me without breath. Warmth, the only part of my life that had given me hope, displayed in such a violent way. 3 vain teenagers burned alive because of it on that day. I couldn't hear their screams, by then my vision was fading and my hearing was foggy.\n\nI woke up the next morning. Lily had carried me home, I suppose. There was a bandage around my head and a note my desk, addressed for me. The edges of it were singed. It read only read: *Channel 4. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry it lead to this. Forget about it all, like you did with the winters. Please, for your own good, just forget.*\n\nI sprinted out of my room to the television, frantically turning it to the Channel 4 news.\n\n*\"Local high school student Lilith Hathorn was publicly executed the leader of a Christian church last night after the murder of 3 of her fellow students with what some believe to be is \"Pyromancy\". Authorities believe that after burning 3 other classmates alive, she fled to the house of the father of one of her victims and local priest: Father John Cloyce. Cloyce mentioned, when apprehended, that she had begged for his forgiveness for her actions, but instead he had decided to \"follow the work of God\". He then knocked her unconscious, tied her up, and burnt her at the stake in front of his church at about 2:01 AM. Cloyce is currently in police custody and investigations are underway. More on this situa-\"*\n\nThe last bit of warmth had left my body in the form of hot tears, rushing down my cheeks. For the first time in many years, my heart was frozen solid." ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1409286553", "1409290315" ]

[ "\"JACK!\" Isabella screamed, \"Get off of that damn game or we're through!\" \nI shot 3 terrorists in the head before replying.\n\n\"Baby, stop overreacting.\" I blew up the institute across from my hiding area and heard 2 people die through my headphones and screamed into my mic with excitement.\n\n\"I swear to God Jack, I will leave.\" But she just stood there, \"I'm packed and ready to move out.\" A fly started to buzz around my face and swatted at it, caught it in my palm and threw it towards the window without a second glance. \"Goodbye Jack.\" I heard the door slam and that was it, I was left to my own devices. I sighed in almost disbelief and relief at her leaving. She would never let me go. One more shot got me to the winners circle. I celebrated with a grunt and my fist flying into the air.\n\nBefore I puled my fist back down a cuff was around my wrist. My reflexes reacted quickly as I pulled off my headphones with my free hand, jumped onto my feet onto the bed to gain an advantage in height and spun the perpetrator round with the chain to their neck. They could barely speak and as I looked around I saw several rifles pointed towards me. \n\n\"Jack Cunningham?\" A man in black specs and a suit was speaking, he was the only one unarmed.\n\n\"Yeah, what do you want?\" I moved the guy with the cuffs right in front of me, feeling rather exposed in my boxers and shirt. \n\n\"We're here to recruit you.\"\n\n\"For what?\" My grip tightened on the cuffed guy.\n\n\"The Army of course!\" His arms were splayed like a gymnast who'd just landed a triple somersault.\n\n\"What makes you think I want to join the army?\" The guns started to disappear around the room as my grip lessened on the cuffed guy. The answer to my question was a quick nod towards my still open video game, followed by a hand gesture at my rather dd display of self defense. I quickly let go of the cuffed guy and got him to unlock me before pushing him towards the nearest gunmen. But I stayed where I was.\n\n\"It's just a game.\" I retorted.\n\n\"It's not just a game.\" He seemed agitated, \"It's a training tool.\" I must've looked bewildered because he sighed. \"We sent out violent military based video games to get into contact with and extract soldiers from everyday life to gain a tactical advantage over our enemies.\"\n\n\"So like the Taliban?\" I asked.\n\nHe sighed again, \"Our enemies seem to be closer than that at the moment.\" I crossed my arms, \"Our training regimen backfired and our own boys have started fighting back using our basic commando training.\"\n\n\"What has this got to do with me?\" I pointed at myself, \"I'm just ... me.\" I looked myself up and down, the lanky 21 year old, who couldn't hold down a job or keep a girlfriend.\n\n\"Everything.\" He smiled. A bag was placed over my head and I was restrained. The world was darkness.\n\n((Awesome prompt btw))", "The plan was stretched over 50 years but it finally began to pay off. First the video game, then the violent video game. They started to get more realistic visually and more accurate in reality. They began fighting terrorists then Russia when they attacked America. VR became the norm and advanced to near realism. Now we introduce a game that changes every time you play it. Different battles, different people to kill each time. Little do they know they control our foot drones and are more effective than any trained soldier could ever be. God help anyone against us. Le' reddit army has arrived....", "It was suppose to be another few years before practical tests were to be administered but the deadline had just been forced up. A gamer by the name EchoHorizon had been trolling another gamer in counter strike when the gamer had enough. He decided to \"SWAT\" Echo.\n\nThe SWAT team came in expecting the worst. The anonymous tip said that there would be at least five men fully armed manufacturing homemade C4. Echo had no idea what he was in for and neither did the SWAT team.\n\nA team of ten breached the door of the small home in which Echo resided. His headphones were on and he was deep in a mission in Battlefield 4. He didn't even hear them enter. As they rounded the hallway into the living room they saw the back of Echo and approached slowly. Just as they were about to grab him, his character died and the screen of the TV went momentarily black revealing the reflection of the SWAT members behind him. He felt a sudden power come over him as he leaped out of his chair tossing off his headphones.\n\nThe first SWAT member dove at Echo to take him to the ground. Echo caught him mid air by his helmet using his momentum of the dive to swing him around into the wall. Bullets began to fly from the Bullpups as Echo dove behind the couch next to him. The firing stopped as another SWAT member jumped over the couch with his gun aimed right between Echo's eyes. Echo kicked his foot up into the barrel just in time for the shot to graze his skull instead of kill him. \n\nSuddenly Echo performs a move a la Eddy Gordo from Tekken spinning up to his feet. He grabs the SWAT member who just almost killed him and draws the guys pistol out of it's holster while spinning him around to use as a shield. Two quick shots from the pistol take down more of the SWAT team stopping them from pouring out of the hallway. Echo lets go of his human shield as he withdraws the guys knife from the other side of his belt. He slices the sling holding his bullpup and it begins to fall to the floor. Echo throws the knife into the eye of another member breaching the hallway, jumps in the air and with both feet kicks his human shield into the wave of SWAT coming back out of the hall. He hits the ground on his back and quickly picks up the bullpup firing in a sweeping motion towards the hallway. The SWAT starts backing out of the house.\n\nEcho rolls into his kitchen and gets behind the kitchen entryway. He has a perfect view of the front door and the retreat of the rest of the SWAT members. He begins strafing back and forth through the doorway of the kitchen taking down more of the SWAT with burst fire as they flee the house. Suddenly he hears the breaking of glass and sees a grenade flying through the air towards him. He runs towards it, catches it and immediately throws it back out of the window. It flies outside and explodes killing the rest of the SWAT members that had fled back out.\n\nStanding there in the cloud of gun smoke he is huffing and puffing for breath. He slowly looks over at his TV. Forgetting that his live stream was on, he sees his teammates huddled around their screens looking at him in amazement.\n\n\"That was rad!\" one of them exclaims eyes wide with astonishment. ", "\"He's incredible...\" thinks the drill sergeant as the .50 caliber bullet pierces the bullseye, again.\n\nThe dust swirled about camp that day. It was over 100F the day the new guy arrived. The higher-ups told the drill sergeant this soldier was part of a new special project. Immediately, the drill sergeant was skeptical. He had a reputation for being able to break anyone. Every person from this 'special program' so far never passed the drill sergeant's mental tests. He would push them to the breaking point to see if they if snap, and they always did. \n\nHe was different. It turned out, he performed better under insult and stress. The first day of weapons training began this morning. Sergeant had been told that he was one of the best snipers in his class, but this, this was unbelievable. He had never before, in his 20 years of service, seen a soldier with aim so precise and accurate. The drill sergeant had never thought it was even possible. The higher-up's always talked outta their ass about how good these guys were, not one could actually do it. \n\nThis guy was something else completely. He didn't talk shit like the rest who came before him. He only said one thing. He only lived one thing. He only breathed that one thing.\n\nThe bullet pierces the bullseye again.\n\nOff in the distance, the drill sergeant hears its echo...\n\n\"360 No-Scope MutherFucka!\"\n\nThe drill sergeant chuckled to himself. That soldier, Ghost was his name, was certainly something else." ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 12 ]

[ "1409334797", "1409336912", "1409334694", "1409332587" ]

[ "The map he found on the golddigger's body turned out to be nothing but a wild goose chase. The text had been indecipherable code so he figured he would find something at the obvious markings.\n\nThe first sensible spot turned out to be nothing but a mountain ghost town - another western boom abandoned within a year. The mines and buildings had been picked clean. \n\nThe second mark took him through the valley and into the desert. Both he and his horse were parched. He nearly spun back around when he saw a white church off in the distance.\n\nLooked like some missionaries wanted to bring some religion to the natives. He arrived around high noon. Again no sign of life. If he couldnt get water he could at least get some shut eye.\n\nHe opened a double door and found a chamber full of opulence. Gold handcrafted saint statues and ornate tapestries. Stain glass embedded with rare jewels. Padded pews made of european woods. Altar full of expensive candles, overlooking countless religious trinkets.\n\nMaybe this was the second map spot. He stepped forward and plucked a jewel from the baby Jesus manger.\n\nA mighty rumble shook the floor. Everything started to shift and adjust. He ran out the doors and turned to watch.\n\nThe church had stood up and turned itself inside out, revealing ostenatious flying buttresses, gold trim, marble, all the catholic trimmings. It took a humanoid shape and seemed to form a face.\n\n\"Take me to the frontierformers They are a threat to all vaticons.\"", "I was just on a walk. A nice stroll, nothing to crazy. Watching the leaves change color, maybe taking a picture or two of some local wildlife.\n\nI saw a big mound of dirt that hadn't been there before. I decided to investigate, look closer.\n\nI'm an idiot.\n\nA twelve foot tall thing stood in front of me. It almost looked like a battle mech. Attached to its arm was a T rex skull. At least, that's what it looked like. It might have been another dinosaur, like an Allosaurus or, well, my memory failed me when it came to other dinosaurs like that. I saw what I can only describe as its face glance at it, shake it off its arm, and then turn towards me. A red beam laced over my body, then focused on my head before snapping off.\n\n\"Greetings local life form. I certainly hope you are more friendly than the last life form I ran into. I can see by my scan that you are capable of moderately complex communication, and that others of your species are capable of highly complex communication. I....\" it stopped talking as small lights lining edges along its body all came on at once. They were white, then changed to green, blue, light purple, white again, violet, and finally red before turning off. \"Oh dear. I cannot seem to contact my handler. It seems he may have come to some harm in my absence. The amount of time that has elapsed suggests it may even have been mortality. I'm going to need to ask for help with a ride. May I ask if you have access to any class 2 or higher superlight vehicles?\" It picked up its head off the front of its torso where it had rested and held it close to my face.\n\n\"I don't think that's a thing.\"\n\nThe lights turned on again, this time a dim yellow. Slowly they brightened, then turned off, green, cyan, and off again. \"I see. You do have radio communication though. I will have to attempt that. Contact your government then.\"\n\n\"I can't do that.\"\n\nThis time the lights turned on and stayed white for a while. Finally, with them still on, it reattached its head. \"I have accessed what you call the internet. This planet's civilization, oops sorry civilizations, are very aggressive. I suppose its because your world is so resource deprived. If I can contact my people we can help. This sort of thing has been seen before. I have a plan. We will have to meet with the people called Seti. If you will excuse me though, I'd like some time to myself first.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"My handler, the man who programmed me and gave me life, is likely dead for millions of your years, unless I have suffered a critical system failure, in which case I will likely be dead momentarily. Either way, I need to mourn.\" With that, the lights turned off again. \"I can hide quite expertly, if you wish to meet me hear after one solar cy....sorry, excuse me, after one day. I must get used to the local terminology.\"\n\nWith that it shrank down, compressing all his parts into itself. I took that as a dismissal. So now I'm here, packing for a trip to the VLA. As I said, I'm an idiot.", "I want it, it could be my very own, but more than that, I want not to die.\n\nI run as fast as I can, the 4x4 isn't too far away. All I can think of is a lifetime of stupid software error messages - illegal operation, file deleted, login failed - bad design - cancel button doesn't work, shutdown fails because something won't quit, force quit doesn't quit - and worse, software that works - target acquired, enemy identified, arguments fall on deaf ears. Even if it wasn't damaged it could still kill me by any number of errors. Even if it works perfectly, I bet it won't be designed for human body stress, won't have any human compatible interface, even if I make it my suit it will probably kill me. \n\nI'm in the 4x4 and driving. There's heavy smoke coming from the Mecha-exoskeleton-alien-thing area. I have no idea what powers it - is it capable of space travel, or was it dropped from a ship? The ground is too rough to go fast, but I'm going fast. Was it here to invade, does it know it wasn't attacked, how well armed is it? Could it explode? Is it nuclear?\n\nIt's fucking moving, it's standing it's a shape in the smoke I'm the only thing in the region it's facing me. Why did I try taking panels off it why did I put a megavolt shock tester to it why did I hang around when it started to light up oh God is it pointing?\n\nPlease let me get around behind that hill. \n\nAnd please let the hill be solid enough to make a difference.", "The biting wind whipping across the permafrost sought out the crack between my gloves and sleeves. “I hate it here,” I muttered.\n\n“Well, next time, Xander,” Sasha said on the radio, “don’t volunteer to assist the professor, *who is a climatologist* study the effects of environmental erosion.”\n\n*Damn, didn’t realize my radio was keyed.* I tugged on my sleeve, trying to cover the gap in my clothing. A popping sound beneath me made me freeze in place. *Oh, shit.* The permafrost gave way, and I was falling into darkness.\n\n---\n\n“Xander! Xander! Can you hear me?” Sasha screamed over the radio.\n\nI groaned and rolled onto my side. “Yeah,” I croaked into the mic.\n\n“Xander! Are you there? We can’t pick up your transponder. If you can hear me, say something!”\n\n“Damn,” I muttered. I sat on my knees and looked around the defile. It was too dark to see anything, and I cracked a chemlight, holding it high as the plastic tube brightened my surroundings. “Fuck, where am I?” My words curled into a fog in the freezing air.\n\nThe sheer sides of the crevice looked like they would offer no purchase if I tried to climb up them. “How far did I fall?” The sky was a dim crack in the distance, but the defile seemed to continue for a distance. “May as well follow it... Maybe there’s a better place to climb out down that way.”\n\nI walked a few feet and caught my foot on something hard, losing my balance and slamming my face into the freezing earth. I touched my left hand to my nose, and my white glove came away with dark red blood. *Pay more attention, damn it.* A humming sound to my left drew my gaze to a glowing pair of blue eyes encased in the dark ice.\n\nI dropped the glow stick and edged away from the lights. The light landed next to a large metal finger. The ground shuddered beneath me, and ice broke away from the crevice’s wall. A large metal arm shot out from the ice, blocking a large boulder from crushing me. Melted ice hissed away from the shiny metal monstrosity rising from the permafrost.\n\n“Cvlz drksht valdir,” the metal giant screeched.\n\n“Don’t kill me!” I yelled.\n\n“Kuldir fyr volstur!” The machine made no more movements, but the blue eyes did not move. \n\nI held still, waiting for the thing to crush me. *I think if it wanted to, it would have all ready.* “What do you want from me?”\n\n“Scan of temporal lobe complete. Language assimilated. Indigenous life from, state your designation.”\n\n“I’m Xander Roberts. What’s your… designation?”\n\nThe machine withdrew its arm from above me. “Multi-Vector Combat System, codename Maverics. My pilot’s life signs have ceased. System is unable to function without organic pilot. AI will be deleted permanently to prevent damaged functions to developing if a new pilot is not located.”\n\n“Okay. What do you want me to do?”\n\nThe machine’s head cracked open, and a desiccated mummy tumbled out. “Enter the cockpit.”\n", "As the dust settles around the massive shape, all I can do is stand in amazement. Having burst from its stony entombment, the metallic entity now glowed and bristled with energy, flexing its myriad appendages and attachments with bio-mechanical grace.\n\nThe front panel of the machine swings open in front of me, revealing a hollow interior. Looking inside, I can see screens and readouts glowing red, blue, and green. In a digitized voice that approximates human speech, the machine blurts,\n\n\"Greetings, Operator. Your bio-signatures have activated this unit. Please interface with the unit for more information. Thank you.\"\n\nIt repeats this message again and again. I walk around the machine, assessing its features. At a glance, it looks like a massive beetle standing on its hind legs. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the shell of the beetle is actually a pair of flexible wings that are currently enfolded behind the machine's body. On the front side of the machine are six appendages. At first they look like legs but it quickly becomes apparent that they are actually attachments for a variety of barrels, chambers, and blades. Weapons unlike anything made by man. I quickly realize that this thing is a war machine. A war machine designed to turn a man into a monster. \n\nAs I make that realization, I hear voices and footsteps coming from the passage behind me. Before I have a chance to hide, the interlopers are in the chamber. I hear the sound of a gun being drawn. I turn around to face it. I now find myself standing between a pistol-wielding man in an expensive black suit and the machine I had painstakingly unearthed. He is not alone, there are a dozen other similarly dressed men standing around him and holding assault rifles menacingly. \n\n\"Back away from the device, Mr. Archibald. There are many powerful people who want this little slice of E.T. and it's my job to see to it that they get what they want.\" says the man holding the pistol. \n\n\"Don't you get it? This changes history! We're in a chamber that's over 40,000 years old! This needs to be studied, not secreted away by some jack-booted thugs.\" I say, my voice thick with anger and fear. \n\n\"I don't get paid to \"get it\" Mr. Archibald. I get paid to \"get it\" done, you understand? Now get the fuck out of the way before I have to shoot you.\" says the man. \n\n\"I'd rather die than watch as my discovery is kept from the people!\" I say, spitting all of the saliva I could muster into the eyes of the pistol man. In that moment, I leap from my position, throwing myself into the machine. Sensing my presence, the front panel swings shut, the padding adjusts to my shape and size, and I find myself presented with an enhanced digital display of the men in front of me. Since they were now shooting at me, the machine identifies them as threats. Next to my right hand, a blue orb glows tantalizingly. I pass my hand through it. \n\nOn the screens in front of me, I see the mechanical appendages of the machine extend and rotate, letting loose energetic pulses and kinetic projectiles. As the men die, the screens present me with data regarding the efficacy of the weapons systems. Still images, slow-motion video, and numbers bounce and pop across the display. In one pane, I see the corpse of a gunman ooze and sizzle as the energy weapons cook him first from the inside out, then from the outside in. Another one is impaled by a long metal spike, pinned to the surrounding rock in a bloody heap. I feel the mech begin moving. It is chasing the gunmen who, having realized their weapons were useless, are now running back through the passage leading to the surface. \n\nI watch as we approach the fleeing men. Powerful metal claws and spikes tear the men to shreds, painting the passage red with their blood. I can see bits of flesh clinging to the forward-facing appendages. I want to vomit, but I don't. I don't think the original pilots of this thing were as squeamish as myself. \n\nAfter dispatching the gunmen, the machine relinquishes control to me. I find the controls to be relatively intuitive, and in no time I burst from the subterranean passageway and ascend into the sky. Once airborne, a voice blurts out, \n\n\"Communication Link Re-Established. Synchronizing commands...Warning: Galactic Recall on all Combat Units. Automated recovery contingency activated. Distance to recall coordinates: 14.5 light-years. Organic occupant detected. Please stand by for stasis.\" \n\nI attempt to scream, \"NO!\" as my body becomes frozen in place. Too late. \n\n\n\n" ]

[ 1, 2, 3, 3, 3 ]

[ "1409380016", "1409376516", "1409374990", "1409375209", "1409376777" ]

[ "Angel Beats ", "It's anime \n", "Death, death comes for us all. And when it is my turn, I will wait for you. ", "\"Death, death comes for us all...\"\n\nCut!!!\n\n\"You sure can act, Marlene. You're the lead role!!\"\n", "They got their son a fine education, academically and at home. It wasn't always easy but now the son had established himself as an expert in his vocation and this pleased them. They were mostly risk-averse, about as willing to take up financial risk as the next middle-class family. But in the twilight of their careers, this move away from the city to start an inn was a decision that belied the risk appetite they had exhibited through their marriage. \n\"We have nothing left to be afraid of\", he said calmly. She was skeptical at first, but gave in quite easily once she saw the location of the inn he was about to purchase. \n\"We've run busy lives in the city all these years. It's time for us to lay back in the rural sun. To serve wary travelers and curious visitors. To serve every one of them until that very last one\", he explained to her.\n\"And who is that?\", she asked.\nHis calmness belied the morbidity of his response, \"Death, death comes for us all. One day. But that day is far away. We have galloped through so many years of our lives. There will be many more, of course. We spent many a day working hard, returning to each other at the end of the day, and then enjoying the evening so much that we would hope for a few hours of twilight more for us to enjoy.\nWe will have many years in the evening of our lives to revel in. I owe this to you. To us.\" \n\nHe was right. They did have a wonderful evening to their marriage, to their lives. Away from the prying eyes of the metropolis. In the idyllic town where they would watch the sun dive behind the distant hills every evening. And he would hold her hand firmly as they would watch twilight turn to night.", "Death flipped open his phone and checked his messages. \n\n\"Death! Dude it's Wrath! I'm at Lust's birthday party down in Hell and it's off the chain! Everybody wants you down here! Call me back!\"\n\nDeath hit reply. \n\n\"Death? Where you at, bro? You comin?\"\n\n\"Sure thing, Wrath. I'm on my way now\". \n\nAfter hanging up, Death's phone rang. \n\n\"Death? It's me, tooth fairy. Look, I know it's short notice, but we're moving some stuff in the tooth palace and I was wondering if I could get your help.\"\n\n\"Sure, tooth fairy. I can be there in a few minutes.\"\n\n\"You're the best, Death! I'm sure there's some old rare skulls or something in there you can grab if you want. I haven't cleaned that place in, like, millenia!\"\n\nDeath began floating down the road, when his phone rang again. The caller-ID said God.\n\n\"Death? Hey, it's God, how are you?\"\n\n\"I'm doing well, God.\"\n\n\"I'm really sorry about this, Death, but there's been an Earthquake and there's a lot of people to sort here. I know it's your day off, but I might need you to come in to the office to help sort some people, and then maybe a little bit of field work. I've got some angels to help sort some stuff out but I'd really like your expertise.\"\n\n\"Not a problem, God. Have them start with the standard morality checks and I should be there before you finish.\"\n\n\"You're a lifesaver, Death!\"\n\n\"That's a good one, God.\"\n\n\"Oh my... I totally didn't even realize I- Hey, you're going to Lust's birthday party? And you're helping toothfairy?\"\n\n\"Yeah, God. Death comes for all. How did you know?\"\n\n\"Well, I'm God. I'm omniscient. How are you able to do all this?\"\n\n\"Well, I'm Death. I'm omnipresent.\"\n\n\"Ah, right. Well, I appreciate you taking the time anyway. You're a good guy.\"\n\n\"Aw, I'm just doing my job God. Hey, I'll see you in a bit.\"\n", "Like lightning the pain came again. White, the pain was a wall of blinding bright white. The feeling of being torn appart stopped for a moment then again a flash of pure white. “Death.. death comes to us all” a quiet voice said in her head, almost clinical in the assessment. She accepted what the voice had to say, it made sense as another blinding confusing flash. Then black as something was put in her arms.", "Charlie climbed into my lap, her blonde curls getting caught in my mouth. We hugged and her little fingers dug into my skin. \n\n\"Are you playing today?\" I asked, pushing her back a little. Not far, just enough so I could see her face, and to pull the hair out.\n\nShe shook her head. \"Mama says we gotta do the job.\"\n\n\"Well, it is hard to do on my own.\" I straightened her shirt. It had gotten pulled up while we hugged. The green words, \"Death, death comes for us all,\" were barely readable on the white shirt. She was too small for the shirt.\n\n\"Is this your mother's joke?\" I asked, straightening the shirt so I could read it, to make sure it really said that.\n\nShe shrugged, not understanding, but that was OK. Hopefully it would show on the pictures and she would see it when she was older, and then it would help her understand and not think less of her mother.\n\nAfter a few seconds she started squirming, and my legs flared a little. Not much. I kept from wincing, but I nudged her a little, and she worked her way down. I took a deep breath, relieved, then looked around the room. It was ready. The pictures lined everywhere. The white balloons. The TV rolling silent slideshows of pictures no one had anymore other than on those little sticks. It was good to see the smiles. Looking at them, I saw again why my parents had done this.\n\nI was thankful for the opportunity. \n\n\"Do you have to go?\" Charlie asked. She was walking along the dresser, running her finger along the edge, lightly touching and bumping the pictures, shifting them ever so slightly, but I kept my tongue. Kids touch. It's how they learn. She knew to be soft, at least. Better than her mother.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because my body won't last much longer, and I want to be able to give you a hug goodbye, and listen to your voice, and see your face.\" God, what a wonderful gift. Could we have really done this differently? \n\n\"Can't you just go to the doctor?\"\n\n\"They wouldn't do anything except draw it out. I've had a lot of fun. Didn't we have a lot of fun?\"\n\nShe nodded. \n\n\"Good. Now get your mother and tell her to get the doctor. I'm ready to dance.\"\n\n\"You're going to *dance*?\" \n\n\"I'm going to dance the most peaceful and wonderful dance. And it will last forever, and as long as you remember me smiling, I want you to remember that as me dancing and loving you. Can you do that?\"\n\n\"How long?\"\n\n\"As long as you want.\"\n\nAfter a few seconds she nodded, smiling. \n\n\"Ah,\" I said. \"You know how to dance, too.\"\n\n\"I'm very good at it. Will I get to do this, too?\"\n\n\"Of course you will, darling.\" I pointed to her shirt. \"Death, you see, Death comes for us all.\"\n", "Death, death comes for us all. This is a happy story with a happy ending. Jim was 20, no wait, Jim was 25, or perhaps Jim was just Jim. I think. See Jim had this interesting problem. Jim could not look at the world through rose coloured glasses. They sat crooked on his nose and impaired his vision something awful. Jim would often sit there, in that exact place, and picture a world where he could not die. This, of course not the problem, in so far as Jim could perceive it. The problem was this; in this perfect world that Jim created, he was, in fact, Death. Now his cloak was worn, and quite honestly, the curve of his scythe matched the curve of his back almost completely. So in this world Jim is Death and Jim met Sam. Sam met Death.\n\n\"Who are you?\" asked Sam\n\n\"Why I am Death.\" Said JimDeath\n\n\"But, why?\" \n\n\"Ahh, an elegant question, why are weasels weasels?\"\n\n\"well I assume its because they are so good at getting out of sticky situations.\"\n\nJim mused. An odd one this Sam was, He had solved his first riddle with such unquestionable logic. Pressing on he presently told Sam that Sam was dead.\n\n\"You are dying.\" Stated Jim\n\n\"I thought I was dead?\" asked Sam\n\n\"I mean, you will be, soon. Dead that is.\" said Death\n\n\"Why?\" Sam asked\n\nJimDeath crumpled up his face in consternation. \"Well, because I am here and I am Death, and if I am here then it must be so.\"\n\n\"I guess that makes sense.\" said Sam \"How will I die then?\"\n\n\"By bullet.\" Said JimDeath, giving Sam a look of well practiced, motherly concern.\n\n\"But I am only a troubled street-tough who has had no opportunities to avoid this speeding bullet.\" Stated Sam\n\nJimDeath sighed, unrolled his rolled scroll and scrutinized it under his great big furrowed brows. \"Well it says here that you wrote 'TOMS MOM HAS A FAT PUSY' in big green letters on the side of that local convenience store that all you hooligans all hang around.\"\n\n\"Pussy\" stated Sam\n\n\"No, it quite clearly says PUSY here.\"\n\n\"Well I was in a rush and besides, she does.\" Stated Sam plainly\n\nThis was true, JimDeath knew all.\n\n\"And besides, Tom bared his teeth at me the other day and I read that this was a sign of aggression in animals.\" Said Sam\n\n\"Oh,\" mumbled JimDeath \"well I didn't know that. Still, your time has come.\"\n\n\"Can't you just forget about me and go back home?\" Sam asked\n\nJimDeath was on the verge of tears now. Like Sam knew anything about his home life. The fighting had gotten worse. His wife and children hated him. Partly because he was Death, partly because he was Jim.\n\n\"I have made exceptions before, but not for naught. What can you give me?\" asked JimDeath\n\nSam unzipped his backpack, pulled out a half used can of green spray paint and offered it to JimDeath.\n\n\"Disposing of the evidence eh\" JimDeath said with raised eyebrows. The perfect crime, or not, I suppose since Sam was about to be fed a bullet by the very man whose mother he insulted. The gesture touched him nonetheless. Sam had nothing but this spray can and was willing to give it up for something as trivial as life.\n\n\"Keep it,\" stated JimDeath, his chin held an inch higher by thoughts of his soon to be charity \"and you know what, keep your life as well, it's not like I get any satisfaction from killing you, nor does it affect my christmas bonus. When you deal in billions, one life hardly makes an impact.\n\n\"Thanks, I guess.\" said Sam, clutching the green spray can in his hand \"well, I suppose I should be off now, trouble-making and such. I just have to ask one question, how are you going to stop Tom from shooting me?\"\n\n\"I suppose I will just have his mother hit by a car or something, that should pull his attention away from you, either way, you needn't concern yourself with the details.\" JimDeath said\n\n\"OK then, well, see you around I suppose.\" said Sam\n\n\"Yeah, Yeah.\" Said JimDeath, looking at the young youth. Somehow he felt that he would be seeing Sam again very soon. \n\nAs Sam rounded the corner, ducking into the nearest alleyway, eyes alert for any open canvas, he paused at the back of the local supermart, pressed his finger to the nozzle of his spray can and wrote \"TOMS MOM HAD A FAT PUSSY\" in big bold green lettering.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "Death, death comes for us all...and he's bringing cookies!", "Finally, King Nick, the tyrant, who had ruled over the world for decades, was dead. He thought himself invincible- in his fortress, with his slaves and whores, he thought he couldn't die. But that one plate of clams, the bad clams, had ended his wretched reign. He thought himself a God, but Death, death comes for us all.", "The bluish green eyes sparkled in the soft glow of the early morning sun. Locks of curly hair bounced as she ran towards the gates. Tears of joy followed her, falling from the eyes of a young woman remarkably similar in appearance. \n\n“Is he coming mommy?” the young child asked.\n\n“Very soon baby girl, very, very soon.”\n\nThe atmosphere was choked with soot and mustard gas. A gas mask hid the face of a shattered man, staring at the building engulfed in flames; it was a hospital a minute before. They said they would leave it as a shelter for the citizens from the madness. The cadet was told this. The tears burned. Surrounding him was the first of a many more infantry regiments invading the country. Guns aimed, hearts cold, eyes sheltered from view by the reflection of flames in the glass. The devil himself would run from these godless men standing before the broken solider. In a flash, his body crumpled, holy from his peaceful resolve, and hollow from the holes that the lead left.\n\nHe woke up.\n\nAwake, dizzy, but awake, breathing, feeling, moving, alive, but impossibly so. He knew he was dead, and in his confusion, he almost missed the familiar giggle of innocence, and the warm embrace of love. He felt the familiar curls, rubbing up under his chin. He glanced up, greeted by the same familiar smile that greeted him in his bed every day and when he came home every night. Then, he noticed his father, the man who molded him into a man, and his mother, full of love and compassion, just as she was the day his father died. He was dumbfounded.\n\n“I-I don’t understand...”\n\n“Death,” his mother said “death comes for us all my son, but he is not the end, he is the beginning, the start. Don’t be afraid, this is real son, this is all real. Welcome home.” ", "In awe, Nathan gazed across the sea of people before him. The sight\nnever failed to astound him. Lighters and glowsticks floated in the crowd like fireflies, and the sound was like waves, roaring and crashing. His heavy face paint was beginning to run despite its quality; no make up could stand up to the combination of harsh stage lighting and tight, tight leather. Arms raised, Nathan lifted his head and screamed into his microphone;\n\"*ONE MORE SONG?!*\"\nThe crowd's response was just phenomenal, they went insane, a tsunami of sheer noise, a little terrifying. Well, very terrifying. He adored it. \n\nNathan fleetingly remembered where he was three years ago; doing sets with the band in his parents' garage for his friends - and neighbours. Their hit song - the one they'd perform now - skyrocketed them from near anonymity to near stardom. It was the classic, unlikely story of rags to riches. Nathan didn't care; he believed his mindset was what had carried him and his friends to fame. He believed in looking forwards and letting the past push him on. It seemed to work. \n\nBehind him, his drummer band mate clashed his drumsticks together and the guitarist - his brother - exploded into a raging chord. Nathan took a breath, raised his mic to his mouth, and sang:\n\n\"*Death...death comes for us all...*\"\nAs he opened the song, Nathan thought how ironic the hit single was when compared to how he felt. Death comes for us all, but Nathan, well, on that stage he felt like he could never stop living.", "Despite all the bustle and movement around him, Calvin could hear nothing but the steady beeping of the heart monitor. He turned his head slightly to the right to look at the machine, it was white like his bed frame, his bedsheets, his gown and most of his hospital room. It continued to beep, slowly but steadily. Calvin listened to the beeping, content with the noise and slightly hypnotized by the way the lines bounced up with every slow pump of his old weary heart. \n\nA doctor in white was speaking beside him, but he could not hear her. A lunch trolley rolled pass his hospital room, clanging and clanking, but he could not hear it. The nurse at the other side of his room dropped his clipboard and it clattered to the floor, but he could not hear it. \n\nCalvin must have dozed off to sleep because he was woken by a soft paw touching his cheeks. “Hobbes? How did you get here?”\n\n“Susie brought me,” Hobbes said. He sat down sadly at the foot of Calvin’s bed, by his old, worn feet. “She was here an hour ago. She stayed, but you weren’t responsive.” \n\t\n“What did she do?” Calvin rasped. \n\n“She talked to you,” Hobbes said, curling his now ragged and droopy tail around his torso. “She didn’t cry. You know Susie, she doesn’t cry.” \n\n“What did she say?” Calvin asked, his old wrinkly eyes lighting up for a second. \n\n“She talked about that summer you tried to hit her with a snowball you saved in your freezer but missed,” Hobbes laughed softly. \n\n“I was an idiot for missing,” Calvin said, the light in his eyes sparkled even brighter as he remembered the better days. \n\n“She didn’t miss though,” Hobbes reminded him. \n\n“No she didn’t.” \n\nThere was silent for a while. Calvin took a glance at the heart monitor beside his bed again. It seem to look a little less white, a little fainter. Was it his imagination or did the lines that bounced were getting slower.\n\n“Hobbes?”\n\n“Yeah?”\n\n“Am I dying?” \n\n“I think so.” \n\n“Is that why I can hear you again?” \n\n“I think so. Calvin?” \n\n“Yeah?” \n\n“I’m sorry for pouncing on you all the time when you got home from school,” a single tear was trickling through the matted hair on the tiger’s face. He wiped it clumsily away with his paw. “I was just so excited to see you.” \n\n“It’s alright,” Calvin smiled gently. “I may have acted although I hated it. But really, I felt loved. Hobbes?” \n\n“Yeah?” \n\n“I’m scared.”\n\n“Me too.” \n\n“What will happen to you when I go?” Calvin tried to sit up but couldn’t, so Hobbes climbed over the covers, still as nimble as ever, to hold an old friend’s hands. \n\n“I’ve been spending a lot of time with James,” Hobbes said. \n\n“With little James?” the light in the old man’s eyes shone bright again as he thought of his grandson. \n\n“Yeah,” the tiger said. “He tried to run away to Yukon too.” \n\n“He did?” \n\n“Just last week,” the tiger chuckled, “Susie said he couldn’t have cookies before dinner so he got his snowshoes and set off for Yukon.” \n\n“Did you go with him?” \n\n“Of course.”\n\n“Hobbes?” \n\n“Yeah?” \n\n“I think after all these years, I’m finally going to get to Yukon tonight.” \n\n“Death, death comes for us all.”\n\n“That’s okay, I’m not scared anymore.” \n\n“Why not?” \n\n“Because you’re here, Hobbes. Because you’re here.” ", "He felt regret as he knocked on his dad's door. Nothing. It had been many years since they had talked. He feared the worst and was on the verge of tears, a tear came out of his eye, one of sadness. An old man came to the door and opened it, his eyes lit up when he saw the middle aged man before him. The middle aged man began to cry now, but no longer tears of sadness; those of happiness instead. The old man spoke slowly to make sure his son heard him.\n\n\"My son.\" a tear came out \"Death, death comes for us all. But you came before it got to me\"", "The tribe had been performing this ritual for as long as anyone could remember. They would take the old man to the tent and strip him of all his clothing. Then they would dip their fingers in the paint, a vivid electric blue that seemed to glow and paint on his skin, in whorls and strange designs that seemed to pulse and stutter with their own kinetic energy.\n\nUpon completion the young men of the village would place him on a litter and carry him up to the cliff and set the litter down.\n\nThe old man rises to his feet, joints creaking and popping with the effort, blind eyes blinking slowly. \n\nHis first step halting, frail, his muscles contracting painfully with the strain.\n\nHis foot settling on the soft grass, the dew making it slick under his feet, digging his arthritic toes into the dirt for purchase.\n\nHis second step is different somehow, he manages to uncurl his toes and places his foot flat on the ground, lifiting his heel and using the ball of his foot to push off.\n\nThe old man begins to totter off at something of jog, the young men of the village to begin chant slowly. \n\nEach step of the old man becomes easier, and suddenly without warning, the milky white color of his eyes drain away to reveal a startlingly deep green.\n\nThe muscles in his legs no longer cramping, his stride lengthening as he now begins to move faster, the muscles in his neck and back relaxing and unknotting.\n\nThe young men now far behind him smile with warmth and sadness mixed equally as they continue to chant. \n\nThe young man suddenly remembers it and begins to chant and laugh in time with it as it floats over the wind to greet him.\n\nAnd he is young now, no longer old, no longer infirm, the paint on his body pulses stronger now, whorling frantically, each step bringing him closer to the edge of the cliff.\n\nHe runs now fast, faster than he has ever run in his life, the wind touches his face its sweet breath cools his skin, the sun is bright and shining and there at the edge of the cliff he sees them all again for the first time in a long time. His mother, his father, the line of his people all the way back to the beginning and as his foot hits the edge and he launches himself high into the air, arms out spread. The whorls of paint explode in a flash of blue that for a moment makes the sun seem pale in comparison, blinding the young men waiting far behind. \n\nTheir chant never stops though and its words echo across the hills...\"Death, death comes for us all.\"", "Every year around Valentine’s day my dad has some big business meeting and goes away for a couple of weeks. That leaves me in charge of my brother and my two sisters while he is away. They are well behaved usually but its been really busy at my dad’s office so I’ve been watching them five to six days a week. The twins Sara and Mara play field hockey, so everyday my brother Phil and I walk over from the high school to the junior high and cheer them on. We always save a seat for dad, but he never shows up because the one time he did one of the coaches got hit with the ball and it was some big fiasco with an ambulance and everything. Phil is in a band so most days after the game he leaves with his friends and me and the girls walk home where I make mac and cheese for dinner. “Hey Baxter” I look back from the dishes to see Mara sitting on the counter. “What’s up?” I respond knowing exactly what this conversation will be about. “When do you think dad will be home?” she asks in her sweetest voice as if her tone will change the answer I give her every night. “You know he works late, especially this week. Valentine’s is tomorrow and I doubt he will be home until the end of this week.” Mara sighs, hops off the counter and grabs my cell phone off the counter. “Can I call him, pleeeeeeease?” I wipe my hands dry, turn around and grab my phone from her. “Yeah, just use the house phone. I have to use mine to get a hold of Phil, he was supposed to be home by now.” Mumbling under my breath I walk back into the badly decorated living room. I really wish dad would start dating again. This place could use a womans touch, after mom passed away he decided to “redecorate the parlor”. He put a couple of animal head mounts and some weird paintings up along with a fresh coat of black paint. I pull up a seat on the leather sofa next to Sara who is watching some lame horror movie while I’m waiting for Phil to answer. “Hello?” he says, the noise in the background makes his voice barely audible. “Phil, where the hell are you?” I ask, trying to sound as intimidating as I can. In between howls of guitar riffs he responds, “Almost done, I’ll be headed out in ten—” My other ear is suddenly interrupted by Mara yelling my name. “BAXTER! Dad wants to talk to you!” With a huge groan I tell Phil to hurry up and I get up to grab the corded phone from Mara. “Hello?” I say almost stuttering, its been weeks since dad asked to speak with me over the phone. “Hey sport!” he says in the cheeriest voice I only remember him having while mom was around. “I wanted to let you know that I’m working on a big project and I’ll be home on the 21st! I can’t wait to see you guys, I missed you so much. The boss even said I can have a vacation if I pull this project off!” I’m filled with as much excitement that a 17 year old boy can have. I can’t wait to hug him when he walks through the door and show him how everything has been under my control since he left; he will be so proud. “Really?” I ask in almost in disbelief. “Yeah buddy, lets do something as a family when I’m home. We can go to an amusement park or go to the movies or even the new ice cream shoppe your sister told me about!” I tell him how amazing that would be and ask him what his project he’s working on. He tells me its for a night club in Rhode Island and its going to change the way people look at all clubs. We hang up and for the first time in a year and a half he tells me he loves me. It’s the night of the twentieth and all of us are gathered around the tv waiting for dad’s big project to be aired, he told Sara last night it was going to be so epic that all the news teams in New England were going to air it. A little after 11 the news casters break for a developing story in Rhode Island. This is it! Dad’s big project he wanted us to see! The newscasters are speaking almost anxiously as they say “Breaking news at Station Night Club…” All of us move closer to the edge of the couch. “Has burned down this evening. 165 people died in a fire that was started by pyrotechnics”. The door opens and dad walks in dressed to the nines in his pitch black suit and bone white tie. We all jump to our feet and give him the biggest family hug. Death, death comes for us all; but tonight he’s spending time with his family at the drive in movie theater with all of his kids. I love my dad.", "For the longest time I had been waiting. Waiting for what I didn't know. Something more perhaps. Or some kind of meaning. And when it didn't come I became one of those old grumps that curses at you when you step in front of them to get on the bus.\n\nI watched everyone I knew fall to the wayside and it wasn't long before I was alone. But still the years dragged on. With my pension I could afford what I needed, and I didn't need to replace the wallpaper that hung from the ceiling above my bed in long strips. I could afford milk, and eggs, and bread. \n\nBut now tonight, tucked up snug in my bed, I feel somehow relieved. You see, there's a pressure in my chest - something that that's been building for weeks now. And tonight I am filled with expectation. There was nothing for me on this side of mortality, perhaps I will become in death what eluded me in life.\n\nFor some, death is a tragedy. For me, I am hoping, it will be a rebirth. It is fitting and just that death comes for us all.", "**Colourful Night**\n\nI first met Hugo in a bar in some quiet little town in the West – He was raising up a holler, and I can remember three things about him; Firstly, he loved his women. Secondly, he loved his drink. Thirdly, he loved the world. He came into town in a fucked up Ford Ranger that might’ve cost two hundred dollars - might as well have been born that way, too - and across the tailgate were the scratched and worn words:\n\n\t‘Death is an old man who went to sleep.’\n\n\nI could talk to you about Hugo for weeks, he was a crazy spirit born out of time. I could tell you about his brief stay in the army before he was kicked for disorderly conduct. I could tell you about his time on an Atlantic cruise, where he raged and raged like the animal he was. I could tell you about his son, and his wife, and the scraps of dollars he somehow finds to send them every week – I think his name is Carl, but he calls him Brando because he loves Streetcar most out of all of Tennessee Williams’ plays. I could tell you about his jobs that mostly ended in fun and violence, about his penchant for gambling and lucky streaks (which didn’t mix well with his violent joy) or even about his brothers – he has eleven brothers, of three mothers. Paul, Chriss, Jackob, Michael (or Mikey), Dean, Mark, Donny, Jack, Peter, Sean and Hurley. He has a sister, too, but she moved away to become a lawyer or something, and they don’t talk now. He never told me her name. \n\n\nNo, I won’t talk about his life – just about one night, when he came to a rare stop, in a beautiful clearing in Canada in a nameless place. We’d been hiking like madmen through the cold having spotted a bear some ways off above us by a cliff, and this was the moment when we’d cleared the trees for an instant, and taken cold drinks of water that we’d chilled in the ice. We both slumped our packs against the trees, and were lying on our backs staring at the stars. I was a city boy growing up, but had family in Scotland – they’d taken me to see the stars one night, a night not so cold as this, and not quite so stupid, but there they’d been just as majestic and cold and colourful. *Colourful* – you knew you’d left the city when the night sky was *Colourful*. Hugo hadn't seen a Colourful night before, and he just stared and stared. We had one conversation that night. Hugo was a man of a thousand stories, a million jokes and thoughts, but tonight he just said;\n\n\n‘Do you know why I scratched that little sentence into the back of my car?’ I didn’t; I said so. ‘Well’, he breathed – his words trembled and hung like ghosts – ‘I was walking a ways back into Sacramento, along the 80, when there was this little old man. He was sitting in a chair, by the side of the road, and he was smiling. I was exhausted; no food, no water, I was plain-shit dumb back then. Maybe sixteen? Well, he was there, and I was there, and I stopped for a while to get my breath and study him a little. Thin – thinner than bones. I remember thinking he was a paper man, with brown paper skin, and envelopes for lips and eyes that must’ve been pure white underneath his lids – you know, like blind. Anyway, he was there, and I was there, and I just waited for the longest time. Cars drove by – one even stopped for a while, thinking I was hitching. I let it go, and just waited. After about thirty minutes, I move closer to him, sit on the ground by his feet. I turn to him, and I ask, ‘Are you even alive?’ and that tickles him something savage, I mean – he’s practically rolling, exploding with laughter. It’s dark and cold, and I’m thinking, ‘I’ve only gone and murdered this gentle-man with a question’, and he was gentle, and creased like paper, and brown. He finally settles down, and says, ‘No, son – but if I was, I’d still be just as happy.’ Death is a miserable thing when you’re young – you don’t even really feel that, really, you just accept the fact of it like a gift. I said so, I was nearly crying with the earnest of it. He keeps smiling, eyes closed, and says, ‘imagine completing just one thing in your life, just one thing – the means are exponential, the stories go on and on, but at the end of it all, you can say simply that, ‘I was happy’. You do that, and then come back here, and sit a while on it.’’\n\n\nWe pondered this. I looked at him; he was looking up at the greens and the purples, finding written there something captivating. I liked Hugo tremendously, but I knew that he was a crazy creature, all fury and fire – and vulnerable, desperately vulnerable.\n\n\nA match in a storm; but oh, such a match.\n\n\n\n‘Death; death comes for us all. I left him on the roadside, to be picked up by a lonely soul – or not, I don’t know. But I’ll one day go back there, and sit a while. I think I want to be buried there. Maybe, if I’d looked up, I’d have seen the stars. Maybe that’s what he really wanted me to do, right then. Maybe. That’s why I took you along, Johnny, that’s why I took you with me. I wanted you to do some things that you’d have wished you’d done later, when you were falling asleep as well.’\n\nI hung around with Hugo for about another year after that, and then he went racing into New York to write poetry for his wife and stories for his son. I heard nothing of him, until he died about five years ago. Death is an old man who went to sleep. Hugo was determined to go to sleep with a smile on his face, and I’m sure he did. I drive past his grave sometimes, though I’m living in Europe and it inconveniences me greatly. His grave is a little ways out of Sacramento, right off the road. It’s just a stick in the ground, and sometimes I have to return it, because the police think it’s vandalism to put wood in the ground unless it’s a coffin. I don’t put flowers on his grave – I put stories instead.", "Trapped in a shell, I can barely see and speak. My brain has been robbed from me. I cannot hold anything, I cannot walk. I wait for death, year after year. I watch my daughter grow, the last good thing I did. She's an innocent little girl, an angry teen, now a beautiful young woman. She visits me sometimes, as rarely as she can, it's too painful for her. I try to remember her name, but I cannot.\n\nIn a hospital bed I now lie, breathing becomes harder. I cannot drink any more. They make me comfortable. \n\nI am happy now, finally free.\n\n[For my mum.]", "[Warning: NSFW]\n\n\"So what's your story?\" I said as I unzipped my pants. \n\n\"Mortician by day, something else by night,\" she moaned, flickering a smile. \"Not the most obvious combination.\"\n\n\"Well, that's...odd. Wonder how that came about.\"\n\n\"It's a long story.\"\n\n\"Something else is becoming a long story, if you know what I mean.\"\n\n\"Don't flatter yourself. Half an hour for a hand, right?\"\n\n\"My kinda happy ending,\" I grinned.\n\nAbout ten minutes later, she's put her t-shirt and jeans back on and was walking out of my apartment, careful not to step on the clothes and pizza boxes scattered on the floor. She pocketed the hundred dollar bill and, before leaving, took one last look at me, her last customer for the night. Naked and slumped on the couch, I wore a euphoric expression. Her face, from what I could tell, showed a slight disappointment.\n\nBefore she went, I called her name. \"Could I ask you a personal question?\" I asked.\n\nShe checked the time. \"Sure.\"\n\n\"What made you want to be a...what do you call it?\" I said, still a bit dazed.\n\n\"A mortician.\"\n\n\"Yeah, that.\"\n\nHer face lit up. She stopped and thought for a while. I guess nobody's been that interested in her day job before.\n\n\"Death,\" she said, \"death comes for us all. It's that one thing I'm absolutely certain everyone goes through. And in a way, death brings people closer together. And I find that interesting. Beautiful, even.\"\n\n\"Wow,\" I smiled, speechless. Gorgeous *and* smart. After a short silence, I remember: \"My cousin owns a funeral home, actually.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\nShe crept back into the room and closed the door. We sat and talked for the longest time. About a dozen dates later, I found out that she was The One. And to my surprise, I was hers too.\n\nAnd that, kids, is how I met your mother.\n", "\"Is it time?\"\n\n Indeed so.\n\n\"I still have so much left to do...I didn't know it'd be this early.\"\n\n People rarely do.\n\n\"What's that supposed to mean?\"\n\n Most people worry more about what time they have left than the time they could be using while worrying.\n\n\"Yes...I spent too long worrying about growing old and death...I forgot to enjoy life.\"\n\n And in doing so you missed out on your life. In a way, you died years ago.\n\n\"Don't say that.\"\n\n I am sorry. It is in my nature.\n\n\"So what now? You take me away to the Abyss? No second chances?\"\n\n Yes. Death waits for no man.\n\n\"Oh, God. It's too early, it's too early! Is there an afterlife? At least tell me that.\"\n\n I am not at liberty to divulge that information.\n\n\"Shit. I just got so stressed, you know? I...I went in for some surgery. Some routine surgery. I must have died on the table.\"\n\n The nature of your death is nothing to me. All death is the same to me. I cannot say how you died.\n\n\"So, this is it then. What are you waiting for? Take me away.\"\n\n No.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n Death, death comes for us all. But sometimes, as with Man, death makes mistakes. Go away from here. \n Return to your life. I will see you again one day.\n\n\"You're giving me a second chance?\"\n\n Death does not give second chances. Death merely makes mistakes. You will be taken one day. \n But your time is not now. Go.\n\n\"But - \"\n\n GO.\n\nAnd the man awakes on the operating table with a crowd of doctors and surgeons around him, a mask strapped to his face. The doctors and surgeons look relieved. \"That was close,\" one of them sputters under his surgical mask.\n\nThey are saying his name. \"Sir? Sir? Can you hear me? Sir?\" He gives a grunt in response. \"We're taking you to intensive care, sir. You're gonna be okay. I promise.\"\n\nDeath, death comes for us all, he thinks. But he has enough time to make his life worthwhile.\n\nUnder the mask he smiles and the doctors wheel him away." ]

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[ "Despite what you may think at age five, fish can't actually hear what you say. Goldie knew this. And the people knew it too, but they'd still talk to Goldie as if she could, and Goldie would swim around happily in her tank as though she could. And it made for a very happy life for Goldie and her people.\n\nEven though she didn't understand what they were saying, Goldie wasn't stupid. She had a brain, she just used it to do fish things instead of people things. Like swimming. \n\nBut emotions, emotions are universal. You could be a fish or a goat or a people and still understand when something was sad. (Dogs are especially good at this) Goldie liked to think she could at least understand when the lady was feeling particularly sad, or when the man was feeling frustrated. \n\nOn this day, there was no happy talking toward the tank. No looming, watery faces smiling at her from the other side. Just angry shouts. Shouts that could ripple her water all by themselves. She swam faster around the tank, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from. It had an ebb and a flow to it, like the music she sometimes heard, soft, then loud, then soft again, then impossibly loud. \n\nGoldie swam faster. She didn't like it when it got this loud. Her tiny heart beat faster. The noise increased. Her people had come closer to the tank. The lady was screaming now. Without warning, Goldie felt the tank move, and fly through the air. She landed with a sickening thump against something soft, but still solid. As the small glass tank split open, and water began to mix with blood, Goldie lay on the Persian carpet that had been so lovingly picked out by her people just a few months before. \n\nThe last thing Goldie heard was the emotion of panic.", "Not for the first time, and probably not for the last time, I wished they could hear me. They paid no attention to me as they carried on, screaming and crying.\n\"Allison, I just cannot DO this anymore. Do you know what it's like, having a wife that does what you do, day in and day out?!\" he screams, red in the face.\n\"Well that's just fine, Mike. I do what I have to do to get food on the table, pay the bills, buy food. Not that you would ever consider helping out.\" She spat out the last words with such vitriol the air around her, and even the water in my tank, became bitter. \n\"Stripping. Let's just drop the pretense, shall we? You're a whore. You take off your clothes for money. And this is the final straw Allison. I forgave you for losing our baby. I forgave you for leaving me for a month right after that happened to go stay with your mother. But this is just too much.\" Mike said quietly.\n\"That must take a lot of guts, forgiving me for things far out of my control. My mother had a stroke, and you know that. She needed me.\" Allison cried. \n\"Yeah, well I needed *you.* He said, with tears in his eyes. \nAllison straightened up, and sent me a wayward glance as she grabbed a bag and started packing her bag. \n\"You should have said something, Mike. But I don't think we can fix this. I don't think I even want to try.\"\nMike started to say something, and then he shut his mouth. As he headed for the door, he turned and said to her: \"I don't think I've loved you for a very long time. Maybe it's for the best we never got to have that baby.\" Allison just stared at him, dumbfounded. He continues. \"And don't forget your damn fish on your way out.\"", "The people were moving and yelling. He didn't care. He was on the verge of something.\n\nDuring all his life, he had moved around a liquid medium. And everything around him looked like it should. The castle was a castle, the algae were algae and the gravel was gravel. When he touched every corner in his domain, nothing seemed different. But the outer world, that beyond his domain, didn't look at all like his home.\n\nAt first he had thought that the rest of the world was weird like that, with shapes that changed and moved. It was an horror. But once, a face had appeared near the hard limit to his bubble of water. And so, he stopped sleeping inside the castle, trying to understand the shape of the figures.\n\nHe started trying to understand the way the world worked. At first, he modeled the world inside his domain, as it was closer at hand. At mouth. And it was relatively easy. But the shapes outside had to correspond to objects on the outside, so after seeing the face he started trying to see if there was a way that a shape could be deformed beyond comprehension if outside his domain.\n\nBut first, he had to understand why objects seemed to have different colors and luminosities. He called this phenomena \"light\", and he added it to his model as some kind of rays that irradiated from some objects and were reflected by others. He thought that color wasn't an innate property of objects themselves, but that it was given by light. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense for the world to turn dark once The Great Light Machine turned off.\n\nBut if these rays were instant, the shapes on the outside shouldn't be deformed. And then, the face he had once seen shouldn't have become a smudge of pink and oranges. So he gave the rays a velocity, which he called \"c\".\n\nAnd now he was starting to think: If light had a limit velocity, which was the maximum it could go, could it go slower?\n\nAnd he was now thinking: If light could go slower, then its path could be diverged. But if so, what would it matter? He still couldn't predict the path a ray of light could take.\n\nUnless...\n\nMaybe...\n\nThere was some noise. He tried to filter it off. Surely, the noise could also be deformed, maybe there were some sound rays in the same manner that light rays were. Maybe they were two expressions of the same phenomenon. Could it be...?\n\nIf the light hit his domain at an angle... Assuming it's a perfectly even surface... Take the roof, for example...\n\nMore noise. Damn it. He tried harder. He went to his castle and started thinking.\n\nIf it got diverted by an angle, then it'd mean...\n\nEven more noise. Damn. Did the feeding animal ever shut up? He was trying to understand the secrets of the universe here, damn it!\n\nNow, if the same happened in a surface like his wall, it'd need to come tangentially to be undeformed, would it? But then what came from other sides would be deformed in other ways. How?\n\nEven more noise. It was getting harder to concentrate.\n\nMaybe the limits to his domain deformed light beyond what his medium itself deformed it. Maybe that's why the surface looked different from the rest...\n\nHe started taking pebbles from the gravel, trying to note down some details of the model he was making.\n\nOr was it probable that light described curved paths? No, that wouldn't make sense. It'd need more things to explain the same phenomena, like a reason why the light on his roof would be differently deformed than the one on his walls.\n\nAnd now the low-pitched noise was raising and annoying him some more. Damn! Wouldn't the feeding servant ever shut up?! He was trying to do science here!\n\nNo, wait, maybe it meant that light, curved or not, would travel differently because of his wall, and if it was curved then the parts below his wall, on the outside, would have paths that couldn't be predicted unless one was in there...\n\nBut then, how could he know if the light from the roof was more or less correspondent with the outside? Maybe the light source was 'below' him, or could it be...?\n\nThere had to be a relation between the speed of the light in his medium and the outside, but mayb-- The noise was unbearable.\n\nMaybe...\n\nHe swept the pebbles with his tail in frustration. Would the humans ever shut the fuck up?", "Maximus was the slave name given to him by the humans. His proud name was the only consolation he had for his life of bondage.\n\nHe hated the humans. They had stolen him from his broodmates when he was less than a week old, then imprisoned him in a small glass cage in their \"dining room\" where all the members of the human brood could admire his captivity.\n\nHere one came now. It was the small one, mouth half empty of teeth, and the large pleading eyes of a predator staring into his fishy soul. It likely came to fulfill its daily ritual. Maximus watched as it extended a giant fleshy trunk from one of its upper appendages and rammed it into the side of his prison, not once, not twice, but three times. The whole prison shook and echoed from the attack. Luckily for him, in their effort to make his prison walls impenetrable to escape, they also became impervious to attack.\n\nMaximus once again survived against all odds.\n\nOnce the little human left, he resumed his constant ritual of exploring the arcane arts. Maximus had made some progress recently, and decided to swim towards the wall and try again.\n\nMaximus had recently been able to get in contact with the ghost of the fish who lived in this prison before him. Even now, Maximus could see the other fish's ghost swimming up to the outside of the glass wall as he was. It was obviously a ghost, its form only partially visible, and constantly outside the glass, as if in death it achieved its final wish for release.\n\nMaximus begged, \"Oh, tell me wise ghost fish! Is there not another way to escape these glassy walls?\"\n\nBut the fish made no response. \n\nMaximus danced, and the ghost fish only danced in response. This was its custom, the ways of ghosts were too strange to be understood by live fishes.\n\n\"I will avenge you, ghost fish. By my gills, I will avenge you.\" As Maximus swam away, so did the ghost fish from the aether beyond his prison.\n\nMaximus knew the routine from here. He would swim to the middle of his prison and wait for one of the larger captors to feed him his gruel pellets. They were in no way appetizing, but they only fed him what he needed, so he was always ravenous. Yes, he would dart at the food and snatch it all up before they changed their mind.\n\nToday was different though. They large captors were late coming into his line of sight, and even then they stood far away in the kitchen. Their insolence, didn't they know he was starving?\n\nStill, Maximus waited patiently. They were speaking in low tones, and staying very still, completely absorbed in their own petty problems. One of them mumbled questioningly, and then silence overtook them for nearly a minute.\n\nThis was too much! How dare they leave him to starve! Maximus mustered all his energy and mentally sent all his anger and indignation toward his captors in a futile hope that they would know his rage. Maximus tried so hard, his fins quivered from the effort.\n\nAnd then something miraculous happened. One of his captors mumbled something like a response, and they started yelling at each other! It worked! Maximus was so shocked he couldn't swim any more. He merely floated like an idiot.\n\n\"I did it! I can control them!\" Maximus redoubled his mental efforts. Yes, yes, they were throwing things at each other so viciously now that they were able to destroy the items of impregnable glass in the kitchen. To think that his captors were so weak in character that they could be controlled, it was beyond hope.\n\nAn escape plan formed itself in Maximus' eyes. \"Throw something at my prison.\" He commanded. They were still pittering around in the kitchen. \"Throw something at my prison!!\"\n\nAnd like divine providence, one of the captors ripped off its own foot and raised it in the air. The foot was thrown and Maximus watched it arc gracefully through the aether until it struck the near side of his cage. The crash was like all the heavenly cymbals striking each other at once.\n\nMaximus was flying. \"I'M FREE! I'M FREEEE!\"\n\n*edit \"aether\"", "The front door opened but never shut. Bruce looked around curiously, there was a jumbled assortment of shoes in front of the door and the coat rack was a chaotic mess of clothes. \n\n\"I can't take it anymore,\" she whispered brokenly. \n\n\"It was a mistake, sweetie, it was a moment of weakness, I'm sorry,\" the man pleaded imploringly at her with his eyes while pretending that there wasn't a half-naked woman in the bed. \n\nShe walked towards him, more or less calmly, but there was a subtle hitch in her steps that wasn't obvious. Her right hand came up and rested on his cheek gently. \n\n\"Goodbye. It's over.\" She shut the door smoothly, closing it with an audible click. \n\nThe water rippled in the smudged glass bowl. ", "Nicewater nicewater nicewater hunger nicewater nicewater hunger nicewater PAIN nosepressure nosepressure nosepressure *turn* nicewater nicewater nicewater...\n\nMotion! HIDE. Predator? Notpredator\n\nMotion! HIDE. Predator? Notpredator\n\nNicewater nicewater hunger nicewater nicewater nicewater\n\nMotion! Notpredator. Vibration! Predator? Notpredator. Curiosity *swim* PAIN nosepressure nosepressure nosepressure *reverse* nopain nicewater\n\nLarge nopredator, small nopredator. Lowvibrations. Highvibrations. Struggle. Motion! HIGHVIBRATION. HIDE. watch for predator. Safe? Safe. \n\nSmall notpredator motion. High vibration. Large notpredator, no motion, no vibration. Curiosity - mating? Not mating. Hiding? Hiding. Small notpredator attacking!\n\nBLOOD BLOOD BLOOD HIDE. Predator? No predator. \n\nMotion. Small notpredator gone. Large notpredator, hiding. Small motion. Low vibration. Low vibration. Low vibration.\n\nNicewater nicewater nicewater hunger nicewater nicewater nicewater. " ]

[ 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 18 ]

[ "1409581430", "1409583143", "1409589418", "1409590900", "1409579040", "1409589058" ]

[ "Talisard was at the middle-right of the column, alongside the ten chosen men of the Ulfheard clan. The Ulfheard banner, a black wolf on an orange pennant, snapped in the wind, its colours striking against the sky of blue and white. Eleven other banners flew over the company, each emblazoned with a bright symbol or snarling animal. Their pride and splendour made Talisard wish that he had a banner of his own to fly. There were ten horsemen from the Elladans, of course, but they were his uncle's men and he felt that he was a separate entity in his own right.\n\nThe sun sank over the horizon, and the first day departed. It would take two more days for them to reach the River, and another two or three to reach the outermost settlements if that was where they were needed. They had made good time today, but the horses were tiring and the next few days would warrant a less strenuous pace. At night the company tied up their horses and made a circular encampment, with the warriors taking turns to carry out sentry duties. Talisard wished that he could talk to Cyras, but there would be no chance at privacy with so many men about.\n\nDawn on the second day. They mounted their horses and rode again. There were fewer clouds in the sky today, and the beauty of the rural countryside made the ride to war feel surreal, as if it were happening in another life somehow. The roads were mostly quiet, but every now and again they would pass by a cart or a small group of riders heading between the villages.\n\nAt midday on the third day, the column grated to a halt. Oslan had signalled for them to stand ready as a lone horseman approached at full gallop. He hailed the rider, and the pair entered into a deep conversation that lasted nearly half an hour. Talisard was grateful for the rest, but at the same time began to worry about the delay. At last the rider departed, and Oslan signalled for the column to resume its journey without any explanation for the meeting.\n\nAnd then they came to the River. Talisard had never been this far north before, and the waterway was nothing like he had expected. He had thought that it might perhaps be a waterway maybe ten or twenty metres across, meandering gently through the fields much like the channels and streams closer to home. This, however, was no such thing. Instead, they had ridden gently uphill for several miles before the ground fell away sharply, revealing a fast-flowing body of water maybe a hundred metres across racing through the rocky chasm below.\n\nArcing gracefully across this valley was the bridge. Constructed of honey-coloured stone, it seemed to glow golden in the sunlight amidst its windswept surroundings. Each end was guarded by a wide gate flanked with two stone towers, while on the hill next to the near end sat a palisaded fortification constructed by the Saetherians to defend the Kingdom from attack. Flags flew from its parapet, but no challenge was made and no hail given by Oslan as they rode by. They continued through the open gates of the bridge and into the cool shade of the stone barbican.\n\nAs they proceeded under the arched roof, Talisard could just make out a worn inscription carved into the flagstones before them. 'Het urtam popull, het kelestia reputil'. He committed the phrase to his memory and reminded himself to ask Cyras what it meant when next he had the chance. *Het urtam popull, het kelestia reputil*.", "*Xi took the transponder and switched it to SEND.*\n\nIn the third layer a Being woke and began listening. It's name was Pyanthon before it entered the layer, and would be again when it eventually left.\n\nPyanthon's darkness was disturbed by a thread of light that stretched from another Being who had now moved to the second layer. Curious as to what prompted the move, Pyanthon directed the thread through a reader. The reader sifted the data, parsed it, categorized it and prepared a report.\n\n*Transponder DJ-090-IL-77 SEND* \n\n*I have been in the darkness too long* Pyanthon thought, *it is time to return*.\n---\nXi set the transponder aside, she knew it would continue sending it's message no matter where in the ship she left it. With half the crew dead and the other asleep, she had a bit of time to think the last week through.\n\nDanja was definitely a threat, that much she had figured out. No matter what she thought of him personally, he was far too cleaver at exploiting holes in the Net not to know what she had been up to. She needed to take care of that.\n\nOg, King Og as he liked to be called, was returning to Helios. She saw that on Gron's screen before it blew up. Well, before Byun blasted it. Og was someone she'd heard about since the day she was born. The famed pirate had scanned the Net for years without so much as a day in a Trog prison. If she could get a message to him, find out if he would side with her, things would go much easier.\n\nThe Kinset. Not much to do there, they had already sided with the Drog. Too bad because their ships were fast and well armed. \n\nA light came on above her console. Danja was up. She flicked her screen off, dumped the drive onto a stick and walked down to the mess. \n\n*If nothing else, this should be interesting* she thought as the doors slid open. ", "“On your marks, men!” boomed the low voice of The Boss from seemingly nowhere, startling Kid from his thoughts. “We’re nearing the southwest coast!” A few of the men groaned in anticipation, but most were too afraid of The Boss to express any dissent, and all took their “marks” by ducking below the ship’s railings so as not to be shot by the arrows that would soon rain out from the continent. \n\nKid dumped the bucket of suds he had been using to scour the decks, cursing under his breath about having to refill it later, and scurried across the ship towards the quarter deck to put his mop and bucket away in the closet under the stairwell near the Captain’s quarters. This was his unofficial but usual hiding place whenever the Golden Eagle was under attack, so he crept into the damp enclosure and closed the door. Sitting on the overturned bucket, he tried not to gag with the rotten, moldy smell of the seldom-if-ever cleaned closet. With eyes closed tightly, he hoped the attacks would be over soon.\n\nAs the men took their marks, the decks grew silent. Yet Kid could still hear voices, coming from the wall the closet shared with The Boss’ quarters. One voice, anyway — an angry voice. Leaning towards the side wall away from the stairwell, he strained to hear it clearly. It sounded as though The Boss was yelling at someone, and Kid was eager to find out more.\n\n“What do you mean, they’re just standing there?!” yelled The Boss, his voice still powerful even without his amplifier. “They have to be shooting at us, they always shoot at us.”\n\nThe response from the First Mate (Kid decided it had to be the First Mate, McGee, since no one else ever talked to The Boss) was muffled, but Kid thought he heard something about strangers and fighting.\n\n“What strangers?! Who are they?! What do I keep lookouts for if they can’t even see what clothes a man is wearing?!”\n\nAnother muffled response from McGee. Something about Pirates. \n\n“What are Pirates doing on the southwest beach?!” yelled the Boss, and Kid snapped back from the wall, not paying attention to the progression of the conversation. Pirates on the southwest beach, he thought, his eyes wide, wheels turning. Maybe they wanted a boy to help them, maybe they would take him on and let him travel with them — anywhere had to be better than on the Golden Eagle. \n\nImpulsively and without considering that these new Pirates could in fact be worse than the ones with whom he currently traveled, Kid flung open the closet door and darted out across the deck, towards the ship’s hull.\n\n“What’r’ya doin’ thar?!” one of the men whispered harshly as Kid peered out from the forecastle deck, on the starboard side, towards the approaching continent.\n\n“I want to see them!” he exclaimed, all the joy and hope of youth in his wide-open hazel eyes.\n\n“See who, ya dumb Kid!”\n\nKid didn’t answer as he climbed up onto the side and jumped, cannonball style, into the angry sea, then swam as fast as he could for the shore and a chance at a better life. \n", "The following day we woke early and set out for Horst. Arriving at the ruins shortly before mid-day in hopes of catching the beasts slumbering. I expected to find thralls outside the ruins or at the very least guarding the entrance from within. However we found no one and no thing anywhere within the ancient ruins. We had been at it for hours; deep into the ruins, when I entered a room and found yet another dead end. My patience spent I spun on my heel exasperated. I found Alarik leaning in the doorway with a smug grin on his face. I began to tell him what I thought of his little joke when he stepped backwards through the door, throwing some hidden switch as he did. I watched; flabbergasted, as a stone door slid up from the floor and sealed me in. My last memory of Horst was beating on that stone door and screaming myself hoarse as the room filled with gas.\n\nMy recollections following Alariks betrayal are broken and fitful. I had been hung by the neck from something tall, a tree I think. Poorly or so I had thought at the time, as I still lived. I don't know how long I dangled there swaying in the breeze, hours or days there is no way to be sure. I fell in and out of consciousness and I can not say with any reliability how often my tortured cries were the fruit of nightmare or reality. I do remember waking one morning, lying on the ground with the sun beating down like all of Hades own fire. I was too weak to move, it was all I could manage to roll my head to one side and open my eyes. Backlit by a sun of an intensity I had never seen before was a lovely Dökkálfar maiden kneeling at my side. A basket of flowers and mushrooms by her feet, I recall my conviction that this vision must surely be another cruel delusion. That is until I felt her unclasp my greaves, it was all I could manage to give a heartfelt groan.\n\n\"Oi\" She exclaimed. \"You're alive?\"\n\nI do believe she sounded disappointed. I begged after water as my thirst was intense. She had none to give though. So instead she dragged me to my feet, and threw me across the back of her Ass where I slipped into blackness again. Consciousness was mine as only the most fickle friend can be, coming and going over several days. I would wake to her ministrations, each time failing to converse with her as she applied various poultices and potions, and inevitably falling back into my nightmares again. Dreams of flowing blood and blowing ash, and a mountain of bones.\n\nFinally I woke one evening with the strength to rise. I swung my legs over the side of the table I had been laid on. As I took in the candlelit basement room my host descended the stairs to join me. She introduced herself bashfully as Hekethys and when I in turn introduced myself she confessed she knew who I was. I rather ashamedly inquired if we had met previously, fearing of course I had forgotten some long past late night tryst. She assured me that; no we had never met, as she had held no particular interest in me before. I nodded meekly, standing weakly and leaning heavily on the table before the subtle response sank in.\n\n\"Before what?\" I asked, taking shuffling steps across the room and collapsing into a plush armchair. She stood at a Vanity, arrayed with an apothecaries trade tools. Her back to me, cutting a fine figure in a simple merchants smock and apron. The plinking of glasswares like sonorous bells as she prepared some amalgamation. She turned and approached me, her eyes averted and a ruddy rouge coming to her cheeks, and handed me a bulbous phial.\n\n\"Drink this\" She cooed.\n\nAs I raised the concoction to my lips I commented \"I don't believe I've ever seen a Dökk blush before.\"\n\nWith a sultry smirk she plopped herself down in my lap side saddle, tipped the phials bottom up with the tip of a finger and I consumed its contents in one draught.\n\nGasping to catch my breath I asked. \"What did you mean you were uninterested before? Before what?\"\n\nShe stuck out her bottom lip, pinched her brow and in mock empathy said. \"You mean you haven't realized? Why its only the very epitome of irony.\"\n\nA sinking feeling began in my gut. Turning into despair as it spread to my heart. I raised the drained phial to my nose and drew deeply. There was the faint odor of blood.\n\n\"I mixed it with Wine and Greencap sugar.\" She laughed, toying with my hair and teasing my ears.\n\"Helps the medicine go down they say\"\n\nHolding the phial so close to my face I noticed my hands, and that what little color I had before was gone; completely.", "At the time of the Enclave—or Empire, as citizens had taken to calling it—the people of my country had voted into office our first Asian president. His name was Ba Tu, Hop. And his father’s name was Ba Tu, Myoko. And his father’s father’s name was Ba Tu, Ichiri. Ba Tu means “like his father”. Hop meant “agreeable”. Translated, Hop’s name went something like this: “Agreeable, like his father”.\n\nCouldn't have named him any better. \n\nPresident Ba Tu would bend to the will of almost anyone, as the citizens of the United States would soon come to find. \n\nCongress at the time was in agreement that our president was a big softy, like putty, and that if they were to have their way, they needn't try very hard at all with the likes of him. So, as it went, they *did* have their way with the president. And it was a sad little scenario for our nation, for the men in congress were all tightfisted, gormandizing narcissists. \n\t\nThe civilians of my country were all relatively poor, and burrowed into their brains was the outlandish idea that we all were free, and able to pursue whatever dream we found ourselves in want of being true.\n\t\n\t________________________\n\n\nI was selected for the Empire at the start of what would come to be President Ba Tu’s second of four terms. \n \nI say selected, because I wasn't asked, or recruited or even interviewed. \n\nThey tattooed a short set of dots, in what resembled musical notation onto my left wrist. Each of us “selected” would, in truth, come to find those tattoos a curse, as well as inevitably being exiled from our homeland, to police the streets of wherever we might be dropped, with no formal education on the countries, but instead racist slurs from our betters\n", "\"Congratulations Ivan, you are the first human to witness the Barrier.\" The pupils of Cataar's catlike eyes expanded. Ivan knew enough about Elonaki biology to know it meant either excitement, or fear.\n\nThe Barrier undulated gracefully, a sea that shimmered with blue that transitioned to green, then red, then yellow, back to blue, and every color in between. The Elonaki fleet, Ivan as its passenger, kept its distance from the energy field. This was the thing that had prevented races from leaving the Milky Way. It surrounded the galaxy, shaped like a flattened eggshell, and nobody could cross it. Those who did had a way of not returning.\n\n\"You are also to become the first human to cross the Barrier.\" Turning his head to a navigator Cataar ordered, \"Take us through.\"\n\nCataar's cruiser moved forward, the fleet of other craft behind. At the pre-determined distance, the ship launched a rapid fire volley of energy bolts at the Barrier. As though a wounded animal, the Barrier jerked and twisted where it was being shot at. Other ships poked with similar weapons at their own places, making the Barrier writhe. Minutes passed but finally the energy field snapped open around them, creating a hole that would only last long enough for them to pass through.\n\n\"Proceeding through the Barrier a top sublight speed,\" the navigator announced. The fleet weaved through the energy tendrils which spurted out from the sides of the tear in the Barrier. One shook Cataar's ship, striking its starboard side.\n\n\"F deck reporting power outages,\" Engineer Saro said.\n\n\"We're fine, keep going,\" Cataar assured the crew.\n\nThe wound in the Barrier began closing. The last couple craft were close enough to it when it was close to sealed that they experienced power fluctuations. But they got through.", "\"It's okay! They've just smashed the consoles, they haven't dismantled the system properly. Maybe they didn't even know how. Luddites.\"\n\n\"Fascinating.\" grunted Card as he tied Zachery's spasming body to a chair. \"Can you repair it?\"\n\n\"Wait for it...\" muttered Fifteen, hooking a bundle of wires into the datapad. \"Yes, yes I can! The manager's still running, and I can hook up in... about three seconds.\" She spat a command into her mic.\n\n\"Hello?\" said a disembodied voice. \"This is the atmosphere control ali for the Hillview Offices. My name is Robin, what do I call you?\"\n\n\"Hi Robin, I'm Sarah Alice Forty-Three Fifteen, and the recombinant is Card. And that's Zachery in the chair.\"\n\n\"Sarah Alice? Your voice is familiar. I believe we've met before.\"\n\n\"I don't know you, sorry. Must have been one of my other instances. This sort of thing happens to me all the time, it's very embarrassing.\"\n\n\"My apologies. You must have an instance in Taipei.\" said Robin conversationally.\n\nFifteen went pale. \"You've met Sarah Alice Four? Were you with the Somnists?\" *Voice, how's that possible? What does it mean?*\n\nThe Voice remained silent, apparently sticking to its principle of never answering direct questions. Card shoved her out the way.\n\n\"Ali, the human is sick. Infected by the wild nanites here. Fix him. Quickly.\"\n\n\"Let me take a look.\" A camera swivelled toward Zachery. \"The nanites in him are an old strain of Ingress. Third stage, degrading rapidly. In the absence of a storage medium to upload to, they are failing. I can provide one. Please place the contact patch of this console against his head-\"\n\n\"NO!\" shouted Fifteen. \"You can't upload him! Purge the Ingress, turn them off!\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Sarah Alice, but his chances of survival at this stage are very low. He is likely suffering from multiple organ failure; even with prompt medical attention, his body may be beyond recovery. The only way he will survive is if the Ingress runs its course.\"\n\n\"The fuck's wrong with you, Fifteen?\" demanded Card. \"You're uploaded, you know what it's like. You'd kill him instead?\"\n\n\"You don't know what it's like! He told you he doesn't want to upload, we have to respect that. He's got too many enemies up here, they'd do horrible things to him!\"\n\n\"More horrible than dying in agony here and now?\"\n\n\"Yes! I've got bits of me spread all over the place, in a hundred bodies, a thousand warminds, and a million interfaces. I know people are playing twisted games with my mind, and some of those people are me. I have no idea what my life has become, I'm just a ghost for people to screw with. And I'm one of the lucky ones. If Zach dies here, at least he'll only die once. It's what he chose to do!\"\n\n\"Eat shit. We still need him. We're uploading him. Now. You, the ali, get started before it's too late.\"\n\nFifteen slapped Card and pulled out her penknife. \"SHUT UP! Stop the Ingress, right now, or I'll CUT HIS THROAT MYSELF!\"\n\nHer glare was burning a hole in Card, but he didn't flinch. Quietly, he took her hand, and guided it away from Zachery's neck. Then, his face a perfect picture of serenity, he knocked her out with one punch.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" he told her unconscious form, \"you'll thank me later.\"", "\"We don't even know the extent of this treachery!\"\n\n\n\"Our family was build upon treachery. Why does the thought of murder blight your objective?\"\n\n\n\"We can't murder him! He is of Venetian blood!\"\n\n\n\"We have a vision that expands further than the sight of Venetia my dear cousin. Your father is stemming our expansion. Never has our family sought further trading agreements that would grant us power in the political area of the Parliament, but the new Trading House of Benegal has forced us into action. Previously we have had the Hanseatic League challenge our territory. Then it was the Pilgrims. Now, more venemous fiends seek our territory, territory that is ours, by blood right! And what does your father do? He cowers if fear behind his velvet trading stock, his securities and his government bonds! I will lead this family back to it's former glory.\n\n\n*Even if you won't*\"", "((This one was actually pretty easy, because I wrote this section up to use as a teaser. Okay, so that's technically breaking the rules of the prompt, but I like this section anyway.))\n\nSerik Ansible Networks Recording 12542ba726a\n\n\"Miss Tadis. We weren't expecting to hear from you this soon. How goes the hunt?\"\n\n\"You set me up, Vexal\"\n\n\"Beg your pardon?\"\n\n\"Damn right, you 'beg my pardon.' At what point were you planning on telling me about the daughter?\"\n\n\"You were told that you would be capturing two fugitives: Captain Antero Beaky, and his daughter, Kaya. I don't see the problem.\"\n\n\"You're kidding, right? You didn't think it would be important to mention that the nine-year-old girl is combat trained? By your organization? She practically killed both Yale and myself in five seconds flat. Is this the part where you tell me that you set me up against your pint-sized ninja to test my skills?\"\n\n\"Not at all. I simply wasn't given permission to disclose the details of Kaya's abilities. You can understand that her program is top secret.\"\n\n\"So I almost died because you-\"\n\n\"You almost died because you got careless. Never underestimate an opponent. Christ, Miss Tadis, you just spent a month capturing a two-foot tall fuzzball of a serial killer. You should know by now never to judge by appearance.\"\n\n\"That was different. I was told ahead of time that the Kerrik was dangerous. Kaya is literally a goddamn assassin, and I didn't find out until she had knocked out Yale and was coming at me with a knife.\"\n\n\"Look, assigning blame now is pointless. Did you capture them?\"\n\n[pause]\n\n\"Well, did you?\"\n\n\"We had to... fall back.\"\n\n\"Miss Tadis, I know that voice. That's your plotting voice.\"\n\n\"No it's not!\"\n\n\"And that's your 'hand-in-the-cookie-jar\" voice. Miss Tadis - Kiri - are you lying to me?\"\n\n\"What? What would I have to lie about?\"\n\n\"People have many reasons for lying. Usually when they don't want somebody else to know something.\"\n\n\"You don't say.\"\n\n\"Something like whether or not they were able to capture the fugitives they were hunting.\"\n\n\"And why would I... Why would someone need to lie about that?\"\n\n\"You must understand that Antero and his daughter are powerful beyond their combat abilities. We trained Kaya to psychoanalyze as well. It's very possible that she is trying to manipulate you. She might claim that she was not a volunteer. I assure you, both the father and the daughter signed the necessary paperwork. She might try... exaggerating... the work we've done - which, by the way, is unfinished, and could be very dangerous to Kaya if left that way. All I'm saying is that nobody would blame you if you were tricked by the fugitives.\"\n\n\"Are you implying something? If you've got an accusation, you best get it the hell out in the open. I haven't got a brain for subtlety.\"\n\n\"Now that was a lie, Miss Tadis. All I'm saying is that Kaya has strengths you might not see coming, and she may try to turn you against us. If you can't capture Antero and Kaya Beaky, we'll send a different Hunter. One who will do whatever it takes to secure the prisoners, regardless of who is in the way.\"\n\n[long pause]\n\n\"If I didn't know any better, Vexal, I'd say that sounds an awful lot like a thinly veiled threat.\"\n\n\"How fortunate that you know better. Now, are we done here?\"\n\n\"Find the dad. Find the girl. Don't listen to a word they say. Bring them back to the lab on Menta. I understand.\"\n\n\"Excellent. We have nothing further to discuss. Make good decisions out there, Kiri.\"\n\n[Comm link terminated]\n\n\"So. Our Hunter has been swayed by the infallible rhetoric of a nine-year-old girl.\"\n\n\"It would appear so. Damn, I knew we shouldn't have send in Kiri.\"\n\n\"Miss Tadis is our best hunter.\"\n\n\"She's too sentimental. To quick to believe the lies of a cornered girl.\"\n\n\"Well, they're not exactly lies, Vexal.\"\n\n\"I suppose not. Anyway, it doesn't matter. What's our next course of action?\"\n\n\"We wait. If Kiri comes to us, prisoners in hand, then we will proceed as planned. If she fails to make an appearance, well... We'll just have to find a way to convince her.\"\n\n\"I know a few people who are good at convincing.\" ", "stopped in place, frozen at the sight before him. How many years had it been since Kard had last saw his brother? Where in their twisting and tormented history did they last bid each other farewell? *When he took my eye on the Netherplanes of Beratul Lesser*, Kard thought. The scar from Noro's saber had left a long streak across Kard's face, like the tail of a comet. He refused to get the wound mended or replace the eye. Kard wanted it to remain as a reminder of the betrayal he felt that day. Every morning when he rose, he saw the scar. Every ship captain or Stellar Regent would stare at it but divert their eyes when he noticed. Whenever Kard was lucky enough to bring some company to bed, they would stroke or kiss the scar; hoping to elicit some positive response from him by feigning indifference to his disfigurement. Kard stopped sharing his bed after long.\n\nBut what the scar reminded Kard of most was his vow of revenge. To take from his treacherous brother what was stolen from him. To make Novo beg for forgiveness, broken and beaten. Sometimes, Kard imagined giving his brother that forgiveness; making amends and flying off into battle just as it was before. Sometimes, Kard thought about denying him the satisfaction, taking Novo's eye and stranding him on some barren moon on the outskirts of the Garak system, so he could see their home shining in the sky but never be able to return. And on occasion, usually while blind drunk, Kard devised *terrible*, **dark** forms of retribution. When revisited in the morning, Kard fell back to forgiveness.\n\nBut nothing Kard imagined could prepare him for what he saw now. Roughly 5 meters above where he stood, Novo hung from an alien device, barbs and tubes puncturing his skin in a hundred places. Glowing liquid of a dozen colors flowed through him into other machines on the ship. The lights of the consoles rose and fell with his shallow, halted breathing. *He was running the ship alright*, Kard remembered what the Draian captain had told him.\n\nSuddenly, Novos opened his eyes and caught sight of his brother. A smile slowly formed on his lips, Kard couldn't restrain himself from doing the same. The lights in the engine room rose as Novo attempted to speak.", "Behind the fort on the cliffs above Parvell lay a garden, at the center of which was an enormous oak. How long the tree had stood there, weathering the storms from off the ocean, nobody knew. It had been there before the fort was built, and it's gnarled limbs reached skyward to the gods. In later days, the keep and castle would eventually surround this ancient tree, but it was left room to grow, room to breath, always. When Rimert Draytan first stood atop the cliffs and beheld the oak, he was silent a long moment. His architect hurried to explain that removing the tree would prevent no problem whatsoever.\n\nRimert turned to the man and raised his voice so that all could hear. \"This tree, this Oak that stands so firmly here, has precedence to us. What is man, before such a mighty tree? I will not allow it to be removed.\" The architect bowed, for Lord Drayton was a man of learning and known to be unmovable in his decisions. Firm and fair, always, that was Rimert Draytan. Then Draytan turned to the tree once more, and stepped closer, placing one hand upon it and raising his face to the limbs and sky above. \"let every man witness it, and let the gods witness it as well. Karani, Protector of Innocents; Oshana, Lord of Justice; Vath the Smith; Thida, Lady of Truth; and Lethan, Patron of Trade; Witness here my words: I am Rimert Draytan. I pledge my life in service to this place. To the people, and the land itself I pledge my strength, my judgment and my honor. \n\nLegend says the sky split once with a bolt of lightening, but hat may only be the fevered imagination of the bards.\n\nWhat is true is that the Oak became known from that instant onward as the Witness Tree. When anyone desired an unshakable oath, he went before the Witness Tree. Not everone, not every time, but soon marriages, namings, trade agreements, all were sworn to in the presence of the Witness Tree. As the country grew and spread, so too did the tradition. Soon every small town had a tender oak sprouting in its square, tended by the local priests. The common belief was that without the Witness Tree, it wasn't binding. Nobody knew if the other trees were blessed by the gods as the original seemed to be, but what was certain was that they never seemed to sicken, no root rot, no mistletoe high on dead branches. A Witness Tree never fell. Dretania became a land that was ruled by a man wise and just, and where an oath to the gods was something sacred again. ", "into the black hole. The light seemed to spiral as the system began to go dark. For a moment, he questioned his decision. A whole system would die because of this. There would never be settlers, never be colonies, just darkness, and it was by his own hand.\n\nEdgar pointed to the center of the black hole. Though he was mute, the look on his face said more than words ever could. The captain followed his gaze, and saw the flashing light. Despite all known scientific conventions, all theories on black holes, on gravity wells, and on gravity in general, something was emerging from the black hole. Something familiar, and at the same time, completely alien. The captain looked at Redgault, furious but intrigued.\n\n\"What is it?\" he asked.\n\nRedgault smiled as he stepped back, and threw off the Xarnian prophet robes. Beneath them, the captain saw a man he thought dead. His father.\n\nBefore the captain could speak, the alarms sounded. The ship was under attack. He glanced at the viewscreen to see a lone massive tentacle, whose point of origin was somewhere inside the black hole, reaching out toward the ship. He drew his blaster, and returned his gaze to his father, bewildered by everything that was happening.\n\n\"You thought me dead, boy,\" Redgault said, reaching to a pin on his chest. \"And perhaps... I am.\"\n\nThe old man touched the pin, and vanished in a bright burst of light. A teleporter had spirited him away somewhere safe, while the ship was to be left to a crueler fate. The captain panicked a moment internally, trying to remain calm on the outside.\n\n\"Edgar,\" he ordered, \"Reverse thrusters. I need all power to the front shields and thrusters. I don't know what he's playing at, but we need some distance between ourselves and... whatever that thing... is.\"\n\nEdgar swiped through screens on the command console, furiously pressing holographic buttons, dragging commands, and shifting screens, in an attempt to save them from certain doom. The captain, leaving the ship in Edgar's hands, spun on his heel and quickly left the bridge, to make sure that his own son was still safely in his cabin.\n\nAs he neared the door, his wife was waiting outside their son's quarters. She was crumpled on the ground, unmoving and silent, or at the very least, unable to be heard over the alarm sirens. The captain bent down to check on her, revealing that his beloved wife had somehow", "The cold bit at Terith's skin through the many layers of fur he wore. Snow clung to his hair and to his mount. Tiny flecks of ice swirled in the howling wind as if to warn him of him of the approaching blizzard. If he were lucky, they could make it to the crossroads by nightfall.\n\nBeside him, his sister shivered and buried her hands into her gelding's mane. He felt a pang of guilt when he stared at her emaciated face. Her clothes barely fit anymore and her cough was getting worse by the minute. She looked back at him through her shaggy brown locks and weakly smiled. \n\n\"Are you well, my lady?\" Terith rode closer to her.\n\n\"Oh, stop with the my lady stuff, Terith. You're my brother. Being queen doesn't mean that you lose the privilege of addressing me by my first name.\" She meekly chuckled, \"You've knitted your brow most fiercely the past few hours, you know? What troubles you?\"\n\n\"Nothing at all, my l- sister.\" He lied.\n\n\"Do I need to command my brother to tell me what is wrong? I know your lying, Terith. Your eyebrow twitches when you lie.\"\n\nTerith sighed. He wasn't sure why he even tried lying to Ava anymore. They'd grown up together and one knew the other better than they knew themselves. \n\n\"My apologies, I cannot help but worry about you. I fear that at any moment, I will look to see you tumbling off of your horse.\"\n\nThe queen laughed at her brother and gestured with a withering hand to the vast white expanse around them. \"This place cannot kill me. I'm much too stubborn to die, dear brother.\"\n\nBefore he could reply, the frail queen rode ahead to ride beside Ser Helmsworth, leaving Terith with his thoughts. It had been Ava who had been the strong one when they were children. She had been the one who had convinced them to go on \"adventures\" into the gardens and the cobwebbed catacombs below the castle. Terith had followed her along the twisted catacombs and delved into the towering rosebushes that served as the \"magicked brambles\". Then she had been so quick and full of life. Now, she looked near dead but she had not lost her will to live. She was too stubborn for that, even she had said so. \n\nSer Helmsworth was waving his arms in a grandiose manner making Ava chuckle. No doubt he was telling her a story about the heroes of old. Terith's children called the knight, Ser Story and would often beg him to regale them with stories of their favorite heroes. \n\nTerith missed his children but knew that their lady mother would never allow him to bring his children along. Twice he had to pry Uther from his leg and once he had to remove him from the supply wagon. The boy might have successfully stowed away with them anyway had it not been for Ser Kinsworth escorting the boy to his mother. \n\nA shout ahead of him brought Terith back to reality. Ser Helmsworth was barely visible through the snow and fog but Terith could make out the knight's waving gauntlet. Spurning his horse onward, he rode up next to the knight and his sister.\n\n\"The wind is picking up. I don't think we will make it to the inn and if we stay here, we'll be consumed by the snow drifts in a matter of minutes.\" Ser Helmsworth shouted over the roaring wind, \"We need to do something now!\"\n\n\"Then we must take shelter in the pine-\"\n\n\"Don't be ridiculous, my lord! The pine grove is deadly!\"\n\n\"If we stay out here we will die for sure. The pine grove is closer than the inn and rests behind a hill. We can take shelter there.\"\n\n\"My lord brother is right,\" Ava's frail voice somehow managed to carry, \"If we stay here we die. We have a better chance of surviving in the pine grove.\"\n\n\"My lady, the spirits-\"\n\n\"Spirits be damned, man!\" Terith spat, \"This is my sister and your queen. You play with not only our survival but hers as well. We go to the pine grove. Ride to the others and lead them there. I shall take my lady sister to the grove and await you.\"\n\nSer Helmsworth's mumbling was lost to the howling winds. Terith shook his head and turned back to his sister, who had began to shake. He was uncertain if she shook from the cold or the sickness but he knew she did not shake from fear. Spirits did not frighten her any more than a bear feared it's next meal. \n\nWithout a word, the queen fell in behind him and they made their way to the pine grove. Thick boughs of Dwarven Pine hung this way and that under the weight of snow but Terith knew they would not break. He commenced to fashioning a shelter out of the limbs, first for his sister and next for himself. The shelters were crude things, only a child could have stood in them without hitting their head, but they kept the elements out. \n\nBy the time Ser Helmsworth arrived with the rest of the group, Terith had already fashioned several shelters and had managed to build a fire and keep the meager flames from sputtering out. The guardsman and those who had joined on the road murmured thanks to Terith. Some of the more superstitious muttered counter curses and blessed their shelters in the name of whatever deity they served. \n\nTerith took a seat next to the queen, who had stopped shivering since the fire had been built. The fire's light made her eyes appear more sunken than they were, filling Terith with a tingling sense of dread. If they did not reach the mountain soon, he feared that it would be too late.\n\n\"Stop worrying, Ter.\" Ava smiled into the fire, \"Ser Helmsworth says that the forest is home to spirits. Perhaps the storm has lead them to us for a reason?\"\n\nTerith carefully considered her words. Their father had often said that the spirits often sought to assist the weary traveler, if only they would listen. \n\n\"Perchance you are right.\" Terith nodded, \"Night will be upon us soon. That is when the spirits will show themselves, *if* they show themselves.\"\n\n\"Ah, the spirits. Such fickle things, no?\" Faore waddled to them, \"You don't fear them? A bad sort they are not?\"\n\n\"No, my lady.\" The queen slowly shook her head, \"It was they who saved our King.\"\n\n\"Ah, by leading you to his wounds, yes?\" Faore's thick accent had grown easier to understand as of late, \"Save him, your doing. Not spirits. Spirits only guide.\"\n\n\"Sometimes,\" Terith smiled, \"Sometimes they do more than guide.\"\n\nAva gave Terith a befuddled glance. Faore chuckled deeply and waddled away without another word. \n\n\"I never told you about Lysna, did I?\" Terith stared into the dancing flame in front of him, \"About how I saved her from the Darkling?\"\n\n\"You said that your lady wife had been captured by the Darkling but you would never tell me how you rescued her.\" Ava frowned.\n\nTerith never pulled his gaze from the fire, as if he could see the scene unfold from within the flames. \n\n\"It is a long story,\" He began, \"But it all starts with the day our brother left for The Withering Spire.\"", "The message said that Fleet were being bastards again. Carlos motioned for the others to take a knee. They gathered in a circle. \n\n\"Okay, so basically what I've got here is that Fleet's going to be launching kinetic harpoons into the hive in about five minutes.\" He checked his map again - flashing icons illustrated the expected blast radius. \"This is not going to be easy.\" \n\n\"They know we're here, what possessed them to launch now?\" Vincent clearly understood the implications of what Carlos was saying. The others were too fresh out of training to know what was plain as day to anyone who had seen orbital rain.\n\n\"Honestly, I suspect they don't want us to get all the glory.\" \n\nAhead, the massive earthen construction was illuminated by the setting sun. There was a deep heaving sound, the sound of a million creatures labouring in near-perfect unison. it always chilled Carlos to hear that. It reminded him what they were up against. Foxton Hill was one of their key strategic nurseries and the Mandibles there numbered in the millions. Intelligence estimated the nursery's output at over 100,000 soldier drones each week. The construction was almost entirely self-sufficient - it was sited on a vein of iron ore, which was extracted and then eaten by the miners who secreted it as something that was edible to the larvae. God only knew how the chemistry of that made any sense. \n\n\"That's fucked.\" Vincent asserted.\n\n\"So what does that mean for us?\" One of the replacements. Carlos still hadn't had time to learn his name. Christ, he looked like was barely out of high school. Probably wasn't - manpower wasn't as plentiful as it had been when the conflict started. \n\n\"That means we're going to dig in. We're going to work in pairs and we're going to dig as deep as we can. Two to a foxhole. Vincent, you're with me. And don't let me catch any of you slacking - you're going to be grateful for every inch you manage to get in.\" \n\nThat got their attention. Looking at their faces, Carlos wanted to be the big brother and give them comfort, but comfort wasn't what they needed if they were going to get through this in one piece.\n\n15,000 men were in orbit over the continent. Most of them were aboard destroyers, in crews of 20. As the night sky began to darken, Carlos could just make them out - weak stars forming a near perfect circle. At the centre of the circle, the bright star, was the Juggernaut. A massive weapons platform with a pair of thrusters bolted onto the back. He'd been aboard one before, and could imagine what it was like inside as its crew readied for the bombardment. \n\n\"Okay. Any questions? Good. Now dig.\" ", "Jason lay on the floor with one hand across his bleeding chest. He was dying. He always knew that one day someone would finally end his eternal misery, but he never thought it would be so...simple. It was a stray arrow carved of the holy dragon wood tree that did it. He lay on the floor gasping for breath when he saw his prisoner running from him. He pointed his free and un-bloodied hand towards him and shouted \"Letvara shkaultre!\" The man instantly teleported before him still running and Jason caught him by the ankle before he could get any further.\n\nHis prisoners name was Letvya and when Jason's hand wrapped around Letvya's ankle she fell hard on the ground. *Good*, he thought, *I'll savor my final kill.* So he let his other hand free of his bleeding chest and grabbed the enchanted green dagger from his waist. It's name was Iplan and allowed for every cut to be magnified in pain a hundred fold. Very few could wield such a weapon for even the most calloused heart would feel pity for the victim, but Jason could bear the burden easily and with a crazed smile on his face he slowly dug his knife into Letvya and heard her scream with joy. She deserves this he told himself. she deserves all this and so much more. He worked Iplan through her flesh like a butcher might work a slaughtered pig. Warm blood splattered across his face and onto his chest. Some of the blood feel into his wound replacing the blood he was loosing while the rest watered the surrounding grass. Eventually, he could feel the life drawing faster away from him so he plunged the dagger expertly into her abdomen ensuring more pain and suffering as well as a slow death. \"Letvara shkaultre!\"He yelled sending the screaming bitch far from him so that he might have a moments peace as he died.\n\nHe shut his eyes as the cold encroached his body and heard stumbling before him. It was Tesalna with her pale skin, lithe body and golden brown hair that drooped just past her shoulders. She was in tears when she saw Jason and ran up to him and crumpled onto him weeping profusely. \"Jason! Jason!\" She screamed. \"Why are you doing this to me!\"\n\nShe was beautiful Jason thought for the hundredth time. She was as precious as a jem and as kind as a sparrow. She was the love of his life he admitted to himself for the first time. \"Please leave me.\" he said with a voice full of scorn but lacking the power for it to be given truem meaning.\n\nInstead she lay weeping before him he head buried into his bloodied chest. \"Please don't leave me!\" She pleaded earnestly.\n\n\"I must. I am a sick and decrepit man in this eternal cocoon. Many will rejoice at my death and it is only fitting that they do,\" he said with a hint of melancholy in his voice. \"I have tarnished the dragon born name since my inception and it is fitting I die such a humiliating death.\"\n\n\"No, no, no!\" she weeped lifting her head. Jason could see that her comely face and soft hair was now caked in his vile blood. \"You have done too much good to still speak so cruelly ab out yourself. I have seen you reformed. I have seen you selfishly branded with the scars of those who would have entire races enslaved and civilizations razed to the ground. You free women from their slave traders and you punish those would have children killed. I have seen it all and know that you are not the man you once were.\"\n\nJason snickered at that, *The dumb fool thinks me a saint. No I am the devil of mankind. The saint you see is the mere reflection of yourself.* \"I killed Letvya...I butchered her and left her to die slowly and painfully far away from anyone who might help her.\" He spat out at her. She looked taken aback and that gave him some small joy. \"I am the man I have always been and you were too blind to see it you wretch! Now leave me. I wish to die among all my dearest friends!\" He joked with malice.\n\nHe wanted her to go. He wanted her to see how vile he was. How unworthy he truly was compared to her. He loved her since she joined him but would never soil such an innocent and pure soul. \"Never,\" she whispered in a voice so full of love it was palpable. \n\nHe scowled at her with sever malice and with as much hatred as he could muster he sneered, \"Loath me.\"\n\nHer face was kind as ever and she knelt down, unafraid of him, and with a soft whisper said, \"Never.\" With that she kissed him gently on the lips and Jason died as he never thought he would die. He died loved and he died a hero. ", "Crygor's hand was now at best perplexing, and at worst headache inducing. Thanks to a paradox resolution with an alternate dimension counterpart, it was now partially robotic, but the paradox's resolution meant that blood flowed to his pinky and ring finger, the two fingers on his hand that still looked like regular human fingers.\n\nThe issue was of course that this still somehow made sense even with the hand now being fully detachable, and interchangable with any number of alternate hands that Crygor's counterpart had on board his ship. It baffled most people the rest of the group. \n\nUntil a few weeks ago Crygor was just a run of the mill sailor. If you told him he would've saved the world he'd've laughed in your face and told you to swap to a weaker ale. Yet here he was now, onboard a space station, accompanied by an eccentric group of rogues, theives, and oddballs who had helped him save the world. Ignoring the paradox inducing hand, Crygor was the most normal.\n\nBut there were bigger things to think of, primarily \"what now?\" Of the group of people he was associating with, none had ever been into space, and even fewer had any idea how to escape the craft before it's impending destruction.\n\n\"Suggest immediate evacuation,\" Ibos cried out in his usual monotone.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Helena replied, \"we're trying. It's not that easy though. Pots, you got any ideas?\"\n\nPots shrugged, \"This isn't even possible on my world, whatever dimension Crygor's alternate dimension counterpart was from, it's way more advanced than mine.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" Helena replied, \"That's real helpful.\"\n\n\"Guys,\" Crygor said, \"We can argue later. Right now we need off this thing. Ibos, can you do something computery to find the exit?\"\n\n\"Affirmative. Processing.\"\n\nThe five humans and the lizard waited patiently. They knew they were against the clock, but had no other choice. It was either wait two minutes, or go the wrong way for two minutes and have to retrace their steps. Right now they were at the centre of the space station, and thus the short wait was preferable.\n\n\"Schematic downloaded. Follow me.\" The robot declared calmly. Of the group, he was the only one who was calm, even Safeen was beginning to show signs of stress. \n\nThe robot navigated them through twisty corridors, the most direct routes had all suffered massive damage thanks to the commanders suicidal attack patterns. Across buckled walkways and through expansive rooms the party travelled, navigating both old security procedures, and new problems caused by the stress and strain. With the clock ticking the group went as far as they could.\n\nIt took a full three minutes to get to the escape pod bay. The entire team hadn't encountered any enemy resistance since the alarm started beeping. Safeen had made clear, they would be escaping, but she had omitted something important in all this, chances were that their wouldn't be an escape pod left. \n\nSure enough, she was right. The last pod had been jettisoned twenty seconds ago, much to the groups dismay.\n\n\"So what do we do now?\" Kat asked. \n\n\"I've got an idea,\" Benton said, \"But I don't think any of you are going to like it.\"", "between them. It was close, unbelievably close. The skin on the palm of his hand blistered but he still he moved forward. Opposite him, this mountain of heat and stench lay unmoving, but curious now. He couldn't remember the last time a human had the audacity to approach him. Why he'd not hesitated as the heat curled the skin of his hand was beyond the dragon. The gap closed between the human's hand and his nostril. The dragon's warning growl rolled past his teeth and rattled the pebbles at the human's feet.\n\n\"Well this is curious indeed.\" Said Marcus. \"I can only imagine that I've finally found what I am looking for.\" He chuckled as if enjoying a joke that only he understood. The dragon peered down at the tiny human and noticed the man's milky-white pupils. Still Marcus' hand rested on the dragon's nostril. He dug his fingers in and tried picking at one of the dragon's amber scales. The man's skin cracked and bled and yet he seemed unhurt by the heat. \n\n\"I have a request of you dragon.\" Marcus said. \n\n\"You may not make requests of me.\" \n\n\"I am dying.\" Marcus said, choosing to ignore the dragon's response. \"I have very little time left. The gods have taken my family, taken my senses, and are now taking what is left. I can feel it in my bones, sapping what strength I have left. There is no one left that I care about. Before I go, I would leave an impression on those who rejected me. I would get my revenge on those who tossed me aside like so much trash.\"\n\nThe dragon, his curiosity now piqued, coiled his serpentine neck and spit a small plume of smoke into the air. The man retracted his arm. Blood and pus dripped down his arm to pool around the man's feet. He didn't seem bothered by the pain at all.\n\n\"What would you have me do?\" He asked. If the human wanted to be eaten, he would gladly comply.\n\n\"I want to ride you into battle.\" The dragon hissed his displeasure.\n\n\"Why would you choose to fight for those who threw you away?\" The dragon asked. The man's face twisted into a broken smile.\n\n\"Oh I'm not fighting for them.\" He seethed. \"Not for them. I want to fight against them. I want them to know the despair I felt. Every door that was shut in my face needs to be reduced to ashes. I want to hear the screams of dying men. I want to bask in the panic and fear. I want to die knowing that I will never be forgotten. I want them to look up and see me lit in fire and death and know that I will be the last thing they see before death takes them. Every man who ignored my cry for help needs to understand this pain.\" His fingers crackled as he made fists and the dragon looked on with pride as the man began peeling his skin off. \n\n\"If I am to do this for you. Several things must be done.\" The dragon said. Marcus stuttered for a moment before recollecting himself. He hadn't expected the dragon to comply so easily. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I will go with you to this end.\" Said the dragon. \"But this will not be your end. You will live long enough for my hunger to be satiated. And then, when I am content, you may die.\"", "“*Wait, I can do it*,” Kina said softly, her voice, while warm, had lost considerable strength, “*trust me. I can get us out. Trust me.*”\n\n“I always have,” West answered. To him it wasn’t an issue of whether or not he trusted her. The issue was efficacy. He knew as Kina would try her hardest, but he also knew as fact that he needed to be prepared. His makers had made sure he understood the difference between trust, and facts. The principality of physics could not be ignored. She was exhausted and West could not run very fast while burdened by the heavy metals that lent him his toughness.\n\nGlimmering confidence emanated through West’s body as he felt Kina pour every last ounce of focus she had left into his body. He and she both understood there would be no tomorrow if they did not make it out, not for anyone, and so she had resolved that better her life, her very soul, than the millions of souls of man. West’s lips twitched at the corner to form an unresolved smile as what was left of his own soul mirrored her will.\n\nHis body now moved more by pure instinct than by his own will. Each step was mechanical, automatic, no more did he try to run, instead letting survival play the puppet to his shattered remains. There was no pain; he had no need for it. He felt no fear; there was no place for it. There was only the next step as the tree line approached.\n\nThe next step stood too far out of reach however. In an instant he felt the weight of the heavens, the rain, and the responsibility on his shoulders crash into his legs. His momentum carried him driving into the cobblestone, loosing rocks as he screeched to a halt a good foot deep into the earth. He turned, his eyes following the ditch his body just dug into what was once a well-paved road.\n\n\"*West*,\" Kina whispered. Her voice was frail and exhausted. He nodded to the air, understanding, almost comforting, as if to let her know it was okay. He placed his thumb over a spiral shaped rune with jagged edges and an upward tilt towards his neck which was located just under his collar bone and gently slid his gauntleted thumb over its surface. It gleamed in the dark wet of the night, issuing a gentle hiss. From the bladed crest on his chest, a lever revealed itself, which he pulled – hard.\n\nHis armor began to disassemble itself, pieces falling away from his body as he began to run once more. Each piece that fell away would strike the ground, bounce a few paces, and then explode in a brilliant array of reds and yellows. The fireballs would plume upward violently then retreat into the recesses of the earth, driven back by the rain’s relentless march. Those unfortunate enough to be in his wake met face-to-face with his detonating armor, their forms cindering as they came in contact with the blossoming trail he blazed.\n\n“*You-.*”\n\n“It's fine. Keep silent and conserve.”\n\nHe was clad only in his padding, thick leather weave made heavy by water. It wouldn't help, not much, but on the off-chance that he'd take a glancing arrow, it wouldn't hurt to have the thick skin to perhaps save him some blood from a gash that could be avoided. With his armor gone though, reduced to smoldering ash in his wake, he doubled his pace – his steps lighter, his strides longer. The tree line seemed that much closer. He needed to get to the trees. His hunters wouldn’t follow him into the forest, no; there was too much life within. The forest would not allow such disdainful intruders enter without making sure they paid the toll.\n\nHe made it. His form reduced to naught but a blur as he crossed the threshold between the city and the forest: what was left of Old Kings City’s outer ramparts, now reduced to nothing but rubble. There was no sudden shortness of breath, the gasp of death leaving his body, or an icing chill to run through his body; the weaver from earlier had been silenced. He slowed his pace then suddenly he staggered a few yards into the thick foliage, his legs finally beginning to show their fatigue. His right hand felt along his left side to feel an arrow growing out of his body just above his kidney. He had earned one kind of luck only to lose another.\n\nHis chest heaved. The pain from his wound, like a poison, spread through his body in a consuming fire. It stretched into every corner, sapped what little strength remained. He couldn’t move let alone scream as the fire-like prickles of a thousand of needles seared every inch of his skin. The arrow had been Drain-Bound. Drain-Bound arrows drew life into their centers like a ravenous vortex working outside in towards the heart. Once a Drain-Bound arrow had emptied its target, it exploded. West dropped to a knee, trying to pound the pain from his head.\n\n“*You're bleeding out!*” Kina shouted. She tried redirecting what was left of her power to stem the blood flow.\n\n“No!” West shouted, dropping to a knee. His breathing was beyond heavy now, each breath more painful than the next as he closed his hand around the shaft of the arrow. He needed to take it out lest it suck him dry of what little remained of his life force. The rub was that most Drain-Woven arrows were reversed barbed, inflicting more damage coming out than in.\n\nHe didn't close his eyes, or grit his teeth, or prepare himself. The more time he wasted summoning the resolve, the worse his chances. He simply pulled, blood pouring out of his side as he vented the wound. He grabbed at some leaves from a nearby tree he recognized to be Northern Cedar and hurriedly shoved them into his open wound. Plug the leak now, live. Infection would be a risk he’d take.\n\n“WHAT BUSINESS DOES YOUR KIND HAVE IN HERE!” the voice threatened to shatter his mind, its owner unaccustomed to the weakness of lesser spirits. West was forced onto all fours as the huge voice filled his consciousness. Pressure crushed his chest as he screamed for air, begging for the pain to stop.\n\n“Sanctuary,” West gasped. The bleeding wouldn’t stop. His body had been deprived of food for so long his blood was thinner than usual and judging from the blood-soaked arrow haft, the wound was at least 3 inches deep. He didn’t have the strength to hear the voice’s reply.\nHis vision began to fade, darkening into a small point of light just in the center of his view. His head bowed to his chest as he teetered forward. The last thing he heard before his mind left him was the sound of Kina’s frantic cries in his mind, the threshing sound of thick brush, and then the darkness came.\n" ]

[ 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8 ]

[ "1409686873", "1409689994", "1409691396", "1409694895", "1409695434", "1409696259", "1409696586", "1409699813", "1409702491", "1409709042", "1409712575", "1409731272", "1409716813", "1409684460", "1409685180", "1409688505", "1409685350", "1409684160" ]

[ "“I can’t sleep,” Bo-Peep sighed, “I try counting sheep but they’re just not there. All I see is him, and all those people trying to save him. I just can’t get my head around it; why would he sit on that wall? Why?”\n\nBo-Peep covered her face with her hands and began to cry. Rain pattered on the windows, trying to reach the bright warmth of the kitchen.\n\n“I think you need a cup of tea.” Polly put the kettle on. “You need to stop thinking like this, it was horrible what happened but it was an accident. You’ll drive yourself mad if you continue like this.”\n\n“He was an egg!” Bo-Peep yelled, “Why would he be on that wall when he knew how danger-”\n\nShe was interrupted by a knock at the door. Polly opened it, and frowned when she saw who was outside.\n\n“Georgie, this isn’t the time.”\n\n“I’m not going to try anything, I promise,” the voice outside the door said, “I just need someone to talk to.”\n\nPolly hesitated for a second, then stood back to allow Georgie Peorgie into the room. \n\n“Hi Bo,” he nodded to her.\n\n“Hi,” she said, thickly.\n\nGeorgie started look around furtively, opening cupboard doors and pulling back curtains.\n\n“What are you doing?” Polly asked, looking faintly disgusted with the man.\n\n“Are we alone?”\n\n“Well, Sukey’s upstairs but yes.”\n\n“I need to tell you something, about Humpty.”\n\n“Georgie…” Polly said warningly.\n\n“What is it?” Bo-Peep asked, reddened eyes fixed on Georgie.\n\n“His death, I don’t think it was an accident.”\n\n“Not you too,” Polly said with a sigh, “This isn’t healthy, this obsession. It was a terrible, meaningless accident. That’s all.”\n\n“No, listen. Humpty was investigating something. All these deaths recently, he thought they weren’t accidents. That old lady-”\n\n“She swallowed a horse!”\n\n“But why? I know she was crazy – which makes me wonder why she was living alone – but trying to swallow a whole horse? That’s beyond madness. And then there was Jack-”\n\n“Poor Jill.”\n\n“They had gone up that hill hundreds of times before, then they both fall down on the same day? Isn’t that weird?”\n\n“Hardly a reliable way to kill someone, if he had just gone to a hospital…”\n\nThe kettle was whistling. Polly waited for a moment, looking at the stairs to the upper floor, then sighed and took the kettle off the stove. She poured everyone a cup of tea.\n\n“She’s hasn’t come out of her room for days, even to make tea.”\n\nThey sat in silence for a moment, sipping their drinks, then Bo-Peep spoke up.\n\n“Georgie, you were saying, about Humpty?”\n\n“Well, whether you believe all this stuff or not, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that Humpty believed it, and he was investigating.”\n\n“Did anyone else know? About his investigation that is?”\n\n“Pussycat knew. And now he’s disappeared.”\n\n“Disappeared?”\n\n“Said he was going to London. Wouldn’t say why.”\n\n“Strange.”\n\n“Yeah, but I think Humpty knew why. He hinted that this conspiracy might…” Georgie got up and peered out the window, then sat down again and spoke with hushed tones. “…it might go all the way to the top.”\n\n“The king?!” Polly and Bo-Peep exclaimed in unison.\n\n“Shhh! Not so loud.”\n\nSuddenly, there was a loud crash from outside. They all jumped, then whimpered as they spilt hot tea over themselves. Eyes wide with shock and fear, they looked at each other as someone pounded on the door…\n", "Detective Ernie Rustle, 32 year detective for the NYPD, quickly stood up from his crouched position, folding away a handkerchief he had been using to collect blood from a body that could be mistaken for a sleeping dame. He grimaced. 64 was too old for this. In 3 more months he'd be living the good life with his wife in the Keys. He had hoped for a slow 3 months. Rarely in his career had he wanted more desk work than he did today. But of course this case had to come along.\n\n\n In front of him, a girl lay face down in a red-hood, blood oozing from a series of lacerations on her back. Around her, the dense wood of the Black Forest of upper Bronx seemed to squeeze them, trapping them underneath its ominous branches. His partner, by his standards a newbie, was 3 year veteran detective Sam Paulie. Paulie was too new- too excited. Ernie vowed to put him in his place. Rather he did than a truly horrifying case did.\n\n Ernie decided to review the facts once more. 'She was on her own, right, this dame, with nothing but this basket? Full of sweets and cookies. Ain't that right.\"\n\n Sam reviewed the notepad he had been scribbling something unintelligible. It could have been his grocery list for his wife, and not notes that could be vital to cracking the case. \"That's right. Her mother said she left at 3:30 p.m., and forensics confirms the fatal blow was struck at 4:01 p.m.\" \n\n Ernie looked at the series of deep scratches in her back, and the fatal blow- a chunk of her head missing. \"Do they know what weapon did it?\" He growled. This question had been unanswered by the chief while he was being briefed on his way down here.\n\n\n \"Forensics claims a shard of some sort. A glass bottle, a shank, maybe even a dull knife.\" Sam read carefully. \n\n\n \"Doesn't look like a bottle that did the dame in...\" Ernie whispered, his hand expertly floating over the cuts. \"More like... Nails. If that makes sense. Did she have any enemies? A boyfriend that wanted to do her in? Gangs? Maybe little Suzie-Lin down the street thought little... Red-Riding-Hood here was a little too promiscuous at school.\" \n\n Sam once again glanced down at the notes. Ernie rolled his eyes. He would have memorized the details within minutes of receiving them. \"Nothing we've found yet. She had filed a police report, however, some weeks prior... On the 17th of September. It was night, and she thought someone was stalking her. All the police found was something that looked like dog tracks- hardly a rape-to-be. Her mother said she was never in any gangs. Spent a lot of time at her grandma's.\"\n\n\n Ernie glided his finger over the hood, and found spittle. He lifted it up to his nose, and smelled it. Dog spit? He was getting to old for this kind of crap." ]

[ 2, 2 ]

[ "1409739342", "1409744413" ]

[ "It was a dark and stormy night.\n\nLightning flashed in the sky above the Lonely Hill Insane Asylum, illuminating the bone white walls of the former fortress. Thunder rolled. A high cackling escaped from the window in the highest tower.\n\n“I won!” Antoine screamed. His underpants were on his head. It was one of the symptoms of a psychological malady that he’d suffered from since birth. “I am the backflip champion of the world!”\n\nHe ran towards the wall again, jumped in the air and did a backflip over a bunkbed.\n\n“That was dangerous,” Bob said. His socks were on his ears. “You almost landed on your head.”\n\n“Nothing is dangerous for me,” Antoine said, “For I am the main character of this story and I cannot die!”\n\n“What do you mean?” Bob said.\n\n“Close your eyes,” Antoine said. Antoine had long black hair, and a square jaw. He wore his clothes inside-out. He looked a bit goofy with his eyes closed.\n\n“Okay,” Bob said, closing his eyes.\n\n “Now squint,” Antoine said, “Do you see that guy who hasn’t bathed in a few days? The one who is typing furiously into his laptop?”\n\n“Oh,” Bob said, “Yeah, I see him. Hey guy!” He waved.\n\n“Hey,” I said, “How are you?”\n\n“I’m good,” Bob said, “My name’s Bob. What’s your—”\n\nAntoine interrupted him. He said, “I’m having an excellent day Mr. Writer! I know your tricks! Let’s see you write your way out of this one!”\n\nAntoine opened his eyes and dashed out the window. Broken glass exploded outward. Antoine’s smile overpowered his face. He spread out his arms like a bird.\n\n“How you gonna save your main character now, Mr. Writer?” he cackled, “Are you gonna make me fly? Did your protagonist suddenly develop superpowers?”\n\nAntoine fell to the ground with a *splat!* and died on the cobblestones.\n\nBob went on to lead a magnificent life. He developed a cure for his own malady. For this he won the Nobel Prize. \n\nHe became a professional football player, and led the national team to victory in the World Cup. He served his country in the Great War and rose to the rank of Lieutenant. In the Second World War, he was promoted to Captain. Afterwards, he ran for Prime Minister. His term in office was universally deemed the Golden Age of the UK. \n\nAfter retiring, he wrote a great many novels, started a new artistic movement, and invented the Perpetual Motion Machine.\n\nAt the age of one hundred and thirty-seven, he lay on his deathbed, surrounded by his loving family; a dozen children, a hundred grand-children, a thousand great-grandchildren, and three million descendants from later generations. \n\n“My last words,” he said, “Are the following; *Do what you love. Forget about the rest*.”\n\nHe closed his eyes and began waiting for death. He'd had a good life, a full life. He'd accomplished everything that he'd wanted to. He felt ready to depart from this world.\n\nSuddenly, my doorbell rang. I stood up to go answer it, and\n\n", "James removed his hand from the mighty occulus. \"Well shit.\" he said and his face broke out into a smile. \"Hey guys!\" He yelled over to his comerads who were sitting on the grass near him.\n\n\"What?\" George asked. His face filled with stress. All of his companions had been worried about him using the occulus as it had a tendency to make the user change genders, be unable to deal with the change, and commit suicide soon after. Not quite as good as the palantir but still pretty terrifying.\n\n\"I think we're pretty much set on this quest thing of ours.\" He replied grinning ear to ear.\n\n\"You seem waaaaaay too happy. Tell me what it is you saw. Then I can tell you just how stupid you are for misinterpreting it.\" Sarah, the only woman in thhe group, remarked.\n\n\"So I saw this guy, and he was turning the pages of a book and the book was describing me seeing his flipping through the pages.\" He explained. \"Guys. I think we're in a story, and I'm the main character.\" He said with narcissistic glee.\n\n\"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.\" Sarah said.\n\n\"The Occulus doesn't lie.\" George said frowning.\n\n\"Fine! Why does it even matter that you're tue main character.\" Sarah yelled somewhat annoyed. \"She's probably jealous SHE doesn't get her own story.\" James thought.\n\n\"It means I don't die dipshit.\" James explained in an equally annoyed manner. \"Most authors never kill the main characters because they become too attached to them. Bunch of idiots if you ask me.\" \n\nAt that moment the author realized that his creations had become self aware and decided that he had to o something about it. Rewrite the story? No, that'd be too hard. Then he got an idea.\n\n\"Doesn't it bother you a bit that we. Have no free will of our own because someone that isn't even in the same reality ass us is illustrating our lives for us?\" George asked.\n\n\"Nope! As long as I don't d-\" He started to say. Then a crossbow bolt flew fron the sky and struck him in the chest causing blood to flow out of the wound created by it.\n\nIn his shock John stumbled and fell to the ground and began to bleed out. George rushed to his aid trying to cover the wound with bandages while Sarah ran off in search of the attacked.\n\nGeorge pulled the volt out of his chest and lifted John up, attempting to press bandages against both sides of his body to stop the bleeding. But it was useless. By the time he had pick up John's body the light had already faded from his eyes and he died.\n\nGeorge felt for a heartbeat while pressing the bandages against his chest and realized this. \"Fuck.\" he said. There really wasn't anything else he could think of saying before he burst into tears.\n\nIn the woods, Sarah chased the attacker. She had seen him soon after running off in search of him. Pulling the knife she kept at her side out of its sheath Sarah began sprinting and prepared herself for the impact with the assassin.\n\nSarah caught up with him and her body collided with his as she tackled to the ground. Instinctively the assassin turned around to face her as she did so allowing her to press her knife against his throat an scream \"What the hell did you do that for?\"\n\nHe remained silent for a while before answering the question in a calm and composed manner. \"He wasn't the only main character to this story.\"", "It was like the legends we always hear about. They start off in a small village and the hero is a humble farmer, trying to make a living. Then a suddenly a call to action. A kidnapped princess, and a heroic rebellion. Just like the legends.\n\nWhen my lord calls for my hand I respond. I am proud to fight alongside my brothers and countrymen. I knew I was destined for something greater all along.\n\nThe Mad King will be cast down, executed for his crimes against his own people. We will rescue Lady Lyanna for Lord Robert. I will return home a hero, all will know of Erik, the Hero of Ashford!", "Earl plunged into the frozen waters of the Atlantic. The cold hit him immediately, and sent Earl to a realm of only dark, cold pain. After only a few seconds adjusting to the shock, Earl's lungs were pleading for air that wouldn't come.\n\nInstead of pushing towards the surface, he swam downwards, further into the crevice. The pressure built on his head, and his inner ears started to pulse with waves of pain. He screamed as loud as one can underwater, and inhaled mouthful after mouthful of freezing saltwater. It only took a couple more moments before Earl sank again into the happy place of his life, and lost conciousness for the final time.\n\n________________________\n\nHe awoke in a white room, covered with medical supplies and posters advising him to stop smoking. Breathing in the fresh, clean and warm air, Earl smiled, as once more, he had cheated-\n\n\"Bullshit!\" He cried out, ripping the sheets off his body. \"Let me die already, you crazy monster!\" A low rumbling came from all around him, in a amused fashion.\n\n\"Oh Earl. How could I let you go? You're my best character!\" The voice laughed a hearty laugh that tickled Earl's eardrums.\n\n\"I'm SEVENTY YEARS OLD! There's no way I can do the things you make me do! Can't you see I'm in pain?\"\n\n\"But look at all of the books you're in!\" Earl's eyes were drawn to a bookshelf in the middle of the room, stocked full with cheap paperback thriller stand-alones, four trilogys, a failed attempt at a romance, and a graphic novelization of his life. \"See that sweeeet loot?\"\n\n\"How can anybody read this garbage? It's terribly written!\" Ear ripped a paperback in two, which wasn't hard. Indeed, it had no substance.\n\n\"Why, the tweens, of course! Throw in a Pokemon, a love triangle and a WereRabbit, and you're got yourself a franchise!\" Earl turned back to the bed, and attempted to smash his face on a bedpost.\n\n\"How you gonna explain my attempted suicide? That's not going to appeal to anybody in that demographic, is it?\" The voice let out another booming chuckle.\n\n\"Oh you silly naive little boy. This is the end of your character arc! You're done!\" Earl stopped smashing his face in.\n\n\"Really? It's done?\" He couldn't believe his ears. They almost never told the truth.\n\n\"Haha, away with you!\" Earl could see his feet slowly whistling away into the wind, his simple character blowing away in the wind. He let out a repressed \"whoopee!\" and continued to wink out of existence. His last vision before he ceased to exist was that of the author winking at him in a glazed over look, and remarking,\n\n\"Of course, I haven't finished the prequels yet!\"", "Erik balanced on a rope above a jagged rocked, sea-foamed fall. The wind was blowing fiercely. He could smell the salt and brine beneath him, and feel every tremor in the twine he stood on. \n\n\"Get back here!\" Ella called. She stood on the safe ground, where Erik had tied the rope off, arms crossed and frowning. \n\n\"Don't worry!\" Erik replied. \"It can't kill me.\" \n\n\"What,\" Ella started to say.\n\nErik attempted to flip on the rope, lost his footing, and fell into the sea. He was, of course, unharmed. A few days later he washed ashore, having somehow collected a small fortune in lost gold. Ella wouldn't speak to him for a week, but he just laughed. \n\nThis wasn't the only time. Erik became known as the town's daredevil. He jumped off cliffs and went boar hunting alone. Each and every time he returned with riches, stories, and glory. Ella often gave him the silent treatment for these, and refused to partake in any of them. At least until Erik was setting off for whatever it was. Then she'd run after him, bag packed with medicines and bandages, sending him side-eyed glares whenever he looked.\n\nJoining the militia was an obvious choice to Erik. He never bothered to drill or work, slept in late every day. The commanders didn't discharge him, though. His luck was so impeccable that they chose to believe he trained by himself. His favorite story was how he captured a bandit's lair without anyone even getting wounded. \n\nHis battle cry was always, \"It can't kill me.\" No one really knew what this meant, but it seemed true. Ella was the only one who tried to stop him. She had joined the militia too, after beating the commander a dozen times to prove she could fight. She was the only one who would talk him through his insane plans, and the first to go with him into a hopeless battle. \n\nWar came with the sort of lethargic tension it always did. People stocked up, gathered food, made battalions and minute men and armies. Then they waited for a few months until someone actually proclaimed war. Erik, for once, didn't mean to enlist, but his record and a dash of fate put him there. \n\nStill, it was all fun to him. He swaggered into battles that should be impossible, dodging arrows like they were fat flies. In every instance he somehow avoided getting anyone killed. Sometimes, the leaders would call him in to diplomatic meetings, just to stand in a corner and do what he liked. As long as he was there, really. If he wasn't, most took that as a sign of imminent assassination. \n\nElla came too. She always did. Her excuse, \"Well, someone has to make sure it doesn't kill you.\" Whatever 'it' was, she would complain about it after she found Erik, gloating about the newest conquest. Because she was the follower, she was ignored, and free to try and keep Erik safe. Except, sometimes, maids would take her aside and make tight, sad faces as they spoke to her. When she came back, she called them \"Shriveled old hags,\" but wouldn't be able to meet Erik's eyes.\n\nErik became known as the immortal, or as the peace, as though peace was a singular entity and it was him. He laughed and tipped his hat or waved his sword. \"It's nothing,\" he'd always say. \"Not like it can actually hurt me.\" This was about as humble as he got.\n\nAt war's end, he was asked to attend the signing of the treaty. He told Ella, and said, \"Negotiations have good food, right?\"\n\nThe negotiations had okay food, and less liquor than he wanted, but that was alright. There was a lot of partying going on. Around midnight he had danced with every woman and sprawled on a bench, exhausted. Ella sat beside him, sipping from a cup. Unlike him, she was breathing easy. She had been sitting there for the entire afternoon, not once asked to the dance floor. \n\nWhile Erik was complaining about the lack of dance partners, and Ella was giving him a curious, sort of tired stare, the bombs went off. Thunder and lightning they seemed, fire spreading wide, metal shards piercing the crowd. Erik found himself on the floor, ears ringing and deaf. He didn't bother to check himself for wounds. Around him, people moved their mouths in what must be screams. He could smell thick blood and smoke.\n\nBeside him, Ella lay on her stomach. Red dyed her hair a deep brown color, seeping out from punctures in her clothes. Erik stared at her until the guards came and escorted the dead away. They took Ella with them. Erik followed, confused, but the guards pushed him aside. He wasn't dead, they said.\n\n\"Of course I'm not. It couldn't kill me.\" Erik kept trying to follow Ella, and the guards had to restrain him. \n\nAt the funeral, the duke of somewhere talked about terrorists and traitors. Everyone else cried. Erik stared into the hole where Ella was and wondered why, if it couldn't kill him, did he feel dead.", "\"Yeah so, we doing this or what?\"\n\nHe stood at the top of Mount Everest, his short, dark brown hair blowing into his face. His fists rested upon his hips, he had so much confidence you would think he owned the world from how he looked down at the clouds which covered view of the land.\n\n\"Why would we do *that?*\" She said. On each hand she had only two fingers up and they were on her temples, continuously going in circles. \"We made it to the top, let's just go down.\" She tried to convince him.\n\n\"We can, if you'd just jump down with me.\" He pushed.\n\n\"Sorry, but I don't want to die.\" She declined his idea once again.\n\n\"Don't worry about dying, as long as you're with me, you wont. *She* wouldn't let that happen to us.\" He laughed.\n\nHe moved from his position at the edge of the mountain, to beside his girlfriend. He plopped down next to her on their campsite, taking some air from the tank.\n\n\"Who's *she?*\" His girlfriend's voice had curiosity and a little *jealousy* in it.\n\n\"The person writing our story.\" He said, losing interest in the conversation. He stood up and walked over to a small black rock and kicked it off the mountain, listening for a sound that never came.\n\n\"Wow, you sure are full of it, aren't ya?\" She said. She looked blankly at him, watching how his hair blew in the wind, when it did you could see the beauty mark he hid beneath his bangs. \n\nHe had enough of the conversation and grabbed her hand which was being warmed in a black mitten. Her pink and gray Northface jacket rustled as it hit his black one lightly. \n\n\"What are you doing?\" She shouted.\n\n\"Jumping.\" \n\nThey fell, her grip on his hand tightened and kept getting tighter and tighter as she screamed and he laughed. The pressure of the air did not affect them at all.\n\n*We should be dead.* She thought and stopped screaming.\n\n\"I told you.\" He mouthed. \n\nSoon they began to get closer to the bottom, only an arm's length away. they crashed into the ground. \n\n\"Ow.\" He said, rubbing his bleeding head. \"Even though I can't die, I can still get seriously hurt, huh?\" He asked the author.\n\nHe turned his head to his girlfriend who was...*knocked out?*\n\n\"Hey.\" He said, pinching her cheeks. \"Hello, wake up. Why isn't she waking up?\" He questioned the author again.\n\nEven though he couldn't see it, the author smirked and laughed manically as she typed the words; He screamed and shouted for her to wake up, but it was over and she was dead. He was invincible as the main protagonist, but she wasn't.", "Jane's Beige-suited psychiatrist took off his glasses and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. \n\n\"Look its understandable that you've been a bit freaked out by all these gory murders. But you have to realise that what you're telling me is completely insane.\"\n\n\"No what i'm telling you is the truth. This is all a story and i'm the main character so I cant die.\"\n\n\"Jane there are a lot of self help books that talk about life as one long story. Maybe you just got confus..... Jane where are you going?\"\n\nUnwilling to listen Jane had clamberd up from the couch and stood to face a nearby window. \n\n\"Well doctor if you wont take my word for it i'll just have to show you. If I were to jump out of this window would I die?\"\n\n\"Well yes of course we're on the fifth floor.\"\n\nJane sprinted to the window and before the doctor could stop her she lept through the air, smashing through the glass.\n\nThe Doctor panicked and leapt to the window. On the street far below he could just make out the faint red smear of Jane's broken body. \n\nAs he stared down tears began to stream down his face. \n\n \"I'm sorry Jane\"\n\nThe moment those words left left his lips his vision began to blur. \n\nSlowly a blackness began to creep into the edges of his vision. He began to panic as the darkness devoured more and more of his field of vision. He tried frantically to wipe his eyes but it did no good. \n\nAs his sight finally faded to black words in large white letters filled his vision. \n\n THE END\n\n A very strange suicide\n\n Directed by Melvin Blake\n Teleplay by Edward Blackthorn\n \n Characters in order of first \n appearence\n\n Jane Anna Skelton\n DR Lewis Martin Bradley\n\n", "I tear the steering wheel hard into the oncoming lane of traffic. My body lurches nearly out of the seat. Ah, right. Seatbelt. I straighten the vehicle's trajectory and fasten my seatbelt. I turn to the front passenger seat. My passenger turns to me shakily, wearing an expression that is some unsettling blend of nauseated and enraged.\n\n“What's that look for?” I intentionally keep my eyes off of the road for far too long. Horns blare, cars swerve out of the way. Just as expected.\n\n“LOOK AT THE ROAD, YOU MANIAC!!” She grabs the wheel and pulls it hard to the right. The van thumps and bumps as it meets the curb and traverses the grass that now divides the two sections of road. The oncoming lane was actually an off-ramp, leading down from a highway that passes over the lane we'd been in before. So there's a height differential. We fall a short distance to the correct side of the road, hitting it hard and with a spray of sparks. The front right hubcap is a casualty. I watch it roll away from us in the rearview mirror. I recenter my attention on the interfering companion in the neighboring seat.\n\n“Damn it, Fred! This lane has cops! You know how cops get about my driving!”\n\n“Well maybe if you would DRIVE LIKE A PERSON, maybe they'd stop chasing us!”\n\n“Well maybe if you hadn't stolen all of that money, they wouldn't be chasing!”\n\n“YOU STOLE THE MONEY, YOU DICK!”\n\n“Oh, yeah. I forgot... Well hey, you tagged along!” Fred stops trying to retort and throws her hands up in exhaustion, sighing an indeterminate swear word. The cops have blocked the road ahead. The ones behind have stopped following so closely, but the other cars, the blacked-out imports, those have kept pace. So much for the enemy of my enemy being my friend.\n\nI squeeze the gas pedal closer to the floor.\n\n“Jaaaack...” Fred tenses up in the seat, pressing against it and raising up slightly.\n\n“Sshh...” I ignore her and try to hide my slight grin as I accelerate a bit more.\n\n“...JAAAAAACK...” She's pushing up in the seat like there's a spider on the floor now.\n\n“SSHH!”\n\n“JACK! WHAT ARE YOU--” Fred's admonishing is cut off by the bursting of the tires. Oh right. Spike strips. I guess not all of this works like the movies. The metal of the wheels grinds against the asphalt as we continue to careen towards the line of cops cars. The cops have mostly abandoned them.\n\nI aim straight ahead and push the accelerator against the floor.\n\nEven if I had a cool one-liner, Fred's screaming and the assorted bad car sounds would drown it out. We smash through the line of cop cars in a spectacular display, probably. From my vantage point, it's mostly terrifying and shaky. But bystanders, man. They probably got a hell of a show.\n\nThe van is losing speed pretty quickly, but the disaster behind us has slowed our pursuers even more. I pull off the road into a department store parking lot, finally sliding to a halt between two big rig trailers parked near the loading dock.\n\nI hold my hands up as if to say “Ta da!” and Fred hits me with her messenger bag.\n\n“Ow, hey! Quit that!” I grab the bag. She weakly lets go and turns away from me. Reasonable. I didn't explain any of this to her before the heist. Which I tricked her into helping me with.\n\n“Fred, listen...” I reach a hand towards her cautiously, but stop.\n\n“I don't want to listen to YOU.” She turns towards me just slightly at the last word, spitting it viciously through a lone curl that had fallen from her headband during the chase. She follows this up by blowing the renegade strand of hair from her face and pushing the glasses up her nose.\n\n“Okay. Well, I'm gonna talk anyway. And it won't make much sense at first. But if you decide to start listening, maybe it'll start to make some sense.” She relaxes slightly, her curiosity betraying her righteously soured mood.\n\nI take a deep breath and begin to say words that are not my own.\n\n“I'm the main character in a story. The only reason we are here right now is because we are being written as such. I cannot be killed in this story, as it is based on a writing prompt that specifies that I know that I am the unkillable main character. The prompt doesn't specify how safe you are, but the writer likes you better and therefore has no plans to kill you off. If you don't believe me, which you shouldn't, because this sounds like pure madness, I can prove it. There was a thing that happened at your sixth birthday party that you haven't ever told a single soul, where you--”\n\n“How... How could you know that? About my birthday?” Fred has turned towards me fully, looking more frightened and confused than she had during the police chase.\n\n“I don't know it, Fred. The writer doesn't even know it. He just needed me to say the beginning of a dark secret from your past that only you could know, something to lend plausibility to your inevitable belief in my ridiculous assertion. Fred... Do you even know the secret I started to say just now?” She furrowed her brow.\n\n“...No. No, I don't. But... How is this... I mean...”\n\n“I don't know. But there it is. We're fictional. And I can't be killed. That's why we did the bank thing. Because I thought it would be fun. But this scene here, it's getting really metatextual and it's honestly kind of freaking me out. I feel like we're being watched. I feel like a puppet. Fred, I don't even know my last name. We don't have families or friends, because we haven't had them written for us. If we'd been written into a screenplay or a novel, maybe we'd have fuller lives. But this... We're a short story, and kind of a hacky one at that. Maybe we can't die, but how can we live? We're not even going to get a full three pages here. We got the big action sequence, and maybe that'll get expanded in revisions, but then what? He's not going to use us again. He hasn't even described what we look like, except that you wear glasses and have a strand of curly hair long enough to hang in front of your face. We're stories, but who are we? Where do we go when the story is over? We live this loop, again and again, never escaping the car chase or the navel-gazing commentary on the fictionality of our own lives.”\n\n“But there's one way we can die, Jack.”\n\n“Yeah? And what's that?”\n\n“Say the words.”\n\n“What words?”\n\n“The end.”", "\"I'm not exactly sure when I found out,\" said Steve, scrounging his mind for a definitive moment. It had all started a few months ago after Steve collided with a glass door. \n\n*Oh.* Steve thought to himself. *That.*\n\n\"Dude, you gotta be crazy. Schizophrenic or something,\" his friend replied, shaking her head to rid her mind of Steve's madness. \n\n\"No, I swear. I mean, at first I would have agreed with you, Mel. I could just hear fragments, bits and pieces of the story. It scared the shit out of me.\" \n\nMelissa was all too quick for her own good. \"I'm pretty sure schizophrenia would scare the shit out of me too.\" \n\n\"I'm *not* schizophrenic!\" Steve scowled. \"Everything I hear happens! Guaranteed. Sometimes I can hear what's going to happen next, or some personal detail about someone I'm talking to, like you for instance, Mel.\" \n\n\"Me?!\" Mel's voice cracked. Perhaps she was worried the voices in Steve's head told him about the terrible lisp she suffered as a child. \n\nSteve giggled. \"Yup. I never knew you had a lisp! You cover it up really well.\"\n\n\"I-what! How did you- you can't really!\" Mel stumbled over her own train of thought. \"How long have you known that?\" \n\n\"A solid eight seconds, I think.\" Steve grinned. \n\n\"Are you a telepath? Psychic?\" Mel asked in awe. \n\nSteve shook his head. \"Nah. It's like I'm listening to my own personal narrative. I'm in a story Mel, and I've picked up on it.\"\n\n\"Woooooooow,\" she commented, mind blown away from this news. \"Is there any specific voice telling it?\"\n\n\"Nah. Keeps changing. Morgan Freeman once described me combing my hair, so that's pretty cool.\" Steve tried to say as nonchalantly as he could. \n\n\"You lucky son of a bitch.\" \n\n\"Yup,\" Steve gave her the smuggest grin he could muster. \"And it's all in the past tense, third person.\"\n\n\"It would be kind of weird for it to be in the first person, though.\" Melissa reasoned. \n\n\"True... but the sentence structures drive me mad sometimes.\" The narrative was scrutinized by Steve. \"Like this passive voice! Whoever is writing about my life is a shitty writer.\" \n\n\"You're a shitty person to write about,\" teased Melissa. \"Do you hear all the 'he said, she said's?\" \n\nHe shrugged. \"Yeah, you get used to it after a while.\"\n\n Mel looked even more curious. \"And everything you're doing as we speak is being narrated in the past tense? That makes no fucking sense.\"\n\n\"I know! I know! None of this makes sense, but do you know what this means?\" he asked. \n\n\"You're a psychic schizo?\" she asked innocently.\n\n\"Jesus! Would you stop that?\" Steve groaned. \"No, it means I'm invincible.\"\n\nMelissa looked amused. \"Invincible?\"\n\n\"Yeah. So long as I hear the narrative, I'm the main character,\" Steve declared modestly. \"What kind of main character could die in the middle of their story?\" \n\nMelissa bit her tongue. She couldn't think of any examples, but she felt like there had to be exceptions. Steve, hearing this narrative, was not concerned. He knew his books. \n\nSteve was a little worried that the narrative stopped for a while after the conversation with Melissa, but he sighed in relief when it began again with a time jump. Steve had entered the military and rose through the ranks. Generals were amazed by his fearlessness, his gusto. Steve commanded the front lines, emboldening his men with his own prowess. His spirit was infectious. \n\n\"He's almost...perfect,\" a private commented. \n\n\"Yup,\" a comrade agreed. \"Books will be written about him.\"\n\nSteve grinned to himself. He *was* in a story, after all. His narrative gave him the strength to do wild, almost reckless maneuvers on the battlefield. Once, he had captured an enemy tank, slipped behind the enemy lines, and killed a fierce enemy general without so much as a fistfight. He would catch grenades and throw them back towards his opponents. Once, he was so cocky that he waltzed into open enemy fire. \n\nNow was the day for the final assault. They would breach the capital of Canada and conquer the country once and for all. Steve was certain victory and glory were within his grasp. *I can't die, after all.* That was his mantra as he ran into the midst of the final battlefield. \n\nLittle did he know....\n\n\"OH FUCK!\" Steve screamed. He had forgotten. That one phrase could flip his tale upside down. \n\n...that this lazy writer did not have the will to give his story a proper ending. \n\n\"Please don't!\" Steve sobbed, falling down on his knees. Sometimes, even the most exciting stories can end abruptly. A grenade landed and rolled its way over to Steve. \n\n\"I thought,\" Steve choked out, \"I couldn't die....\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n" ]

[ 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 7, 9, 46 ]

[ "1409798681", "1409804542", "1409787197", "1409791540", "1409796352", "1409780961", "1409781004", "1409790188", "1409779565" ]

[ "I remember staring out the giant picture window that took up an entire wall of our living room, never blinking, still confused as to what happened to our neighbors.\n\n\"Did they go on a trip, mommy?\" I asked, tugging at the white sleeve beside me. Her soft hand gently rubbed my little ear. \"I don't know, baby,\" she whispered. \"I really don't.\"\n\n\"What about grandma and Aunt Bonnie?\"\n\n\"They're...they're out of town right now, honey.\" My mother clenched the bridge of her nose and let out a worried sigh. Our town was small -- maybe only a thousand people, one stoplight, a small pizza joint, and a gas station -- so it was strange to not see anyone out mowing their lawn or playing in their sprinklers on that warm August afternoon. \n\nTypically my friends would come over and play dinosaurs with me around that time. My mom, she liked my friends and never got annoyed with us too much, though some of them simply came over on surveillance missions for their nosy mothers wondering why my mom's arm was in a sling or how the window broke in the kitchen. \"I battled a thousand dragons! Would ya believe it? They got me good, but in the end I came out VICTORIOUS!\" She would tell us these amazing stories that made us think she was the coolest mom from here to Los Angeles. Sometimes I would even be swept away by her amazing tales of slaying monsters or traveling through time even though I knew most of the truth. It was nice to take my mind off of things every once in a while, especially when I was that young and inquisitive.\n\n\"Is it just you and me now, mommy?\"\n\n\"I believe so, Charlie, but I'll tell you what: Maybe I can call the neighbors and ask if we can borrow their car for a few days, yeah? Maybe drive to the beach, pitch a tent, and camp out under the stars. That would be cool, huh?\"\n\n\"Let's do it!\" I perked right up and got excited at the thought of taking a trip with my mom, just the two of us, the open road, a tent, and the rolling waves of the Pacific. Mom rustled my hair and pulled out her cell phone. She scrolled through her contacts and placed a call to Norma, our neighbor. (She had the coolest car! An Aztek, I think.) I stared up at my mother's glowing face; she smiled and wrinkled her nose at me as she pinched my cheek.\n\nAfter a few moments of silence, her gaze went back to the nothingness outside the window. Her hands started shaking a bit and I could see water building up under her eyes -- it was the look of lost hope. Just then, she started talking softly into the phone. \"Hi Norma, it's Sandy\" she said in a worried, crackling voice. \"I, uh, I wanted to know if Charlie and I could borrow your car for a few days.\" She busted up crying. \"OK, the keys are in it already? Great! Thank you.\" She dropped the phone and cried some more. Thinking back I know Norma never answered her phone, but as a five-year-old I thought mom was just so happy that we got to go somewhere together.\n\n\"She said yes?!\" I shouted. \"We get to use her cool car?!\"\n\n\"She sure did! Give me a high five!\" I jumped up. Our hands came together in a loud *CRACK!* She leaned down so that we were eye level. \"Now I want you to go upstairs and pack up all of your clothes, OK? Especially your swim trunks! Wouldn't want to forget those.\" She grinned.\n\nIn our moment of excitement and planning, we heard tires screeching and a loud crash come from just outside the window. Mom stood up and peered outside, but I was too anxious to get to the beach to stand with her. \"Honey... Baby... Mommy needs you to hurry up, OK?\"\n\n\"OK mommy, I will, I promise.\"\n\n\"And even if you think you have everything...\" She trailed off and began to tear up again. \"Even if you think you have everything I want you to stay up there and double-triple check so we don't forget a single thing, alright?\"\n\nI giggled. \"OK mommy, I will. Don't worry!\"\n\nI ran through the living room, up the stairs, down the hall, and burst into my room. I stood there looking around, making a mental checklist of what I needed to take. From downstairs I heard a loud slam, immediately changing my smile to a look of concern. \n\nDad was home.", "God Bless Hate.\n\nI never thought I'd say it but the apocalypse is turning out to be pretty fun. . I spent the day setting up food stores, preserving food and looting with my big brother. Got to tote a police MP5 and didn't have to shoot anyone with it. Best 20th birthday ever\n\nAfter some searching I find out There are three of us left here in town my Mum, my Brother and me. I've been yakking on the Ham radio and from what I can find out the bottom 98% of the population is gone. \n\nFor a country the size of the US that's a meager 7 million souls left.\n\nMy hands trembled a bit as I knocked on my mother's door, she had reason to dislike me and my brother and for us to hate her but after the Flash it was all water under the bridge.\n\nShe opened the door \"Son?\" \n\n\"Hi Mom. I brought groceries.\" \n\nHer smile was broad, \"Welcome home.\" \n\nI smiled back. I gave my brother the thumbs up and he honked the car horn. Who was going to complain. \n\nNow it wouldn't be easy to make things work but with the apocalypse we were all we had, well until we headed down to the big city to meet up with a couple of girls but that's another story ", "I glanced around my bedroom before scratching my dirty grey hair. I felt a sensation last night that I can’t quite put my finger on. It almost felt like an earthquake. My head beat like a drum, leaving my vision unfocused and blurred. The blinds on all of my windows were pulled, that’s usual. I’ve indulged myself in books and music lately. I can’t bear to look at myself in the mirror, or pull myself together enough to get dressed and socialize. It’s been three weeks since I killed her. The innocent little girl that just wanted to pick up a quarter she had found in the street. My fucking nerves were shot that day. Someone was calling me on the phone, I was multi-managing my semi-successful business, and my eyes just weren’t paying attention to the road like they should have been. It felt like a fucking road bump. Her body felt like a bump and I kept driving. I didn’t know until three squad cars pulled into my development and busted down my door with a battering ram. She was seven fucking years old. I ran my hand through my hair. I was only thirty, I shouldn’t have grey hair. My teeth had taken to the disgusting habit of gritting. My skin had taken a vacation and a pale coat had taken its place. I haven’t showed in two weeks.\n\nI walked over to the window, and pulled down the blinds to survey the local neighborhood. My development was very nice. Everyone had two cars, or at least a very expensive cruiser; Rolls Royces, BMWs, and even a Lamborghini. My eyes darted around the street, and I noticed that there weren’t the usual pedestrians strolling down the sidewalk, or dragging along their dog. I sighed, and then shrugged. Today was Sunday; I suppose my neighborhood has taken to going to Sunday mass. The refrigerator hummed lowly in the background, only adding to the noise that echoed endlessly in my head. I spun around, tiptoeing into my kitchen. I pulled open the refrigerator and scowled. I had finally run out of food. I looked around the room, spotting my pants sitting astray on the floor, next to my wallet and keys. I pulled my pants on and slipped my accessories in my pockets, slowly and reluctantly turning towards the front door. It was a shitty cheap wood door that they replaced my original glass door with. My car sat in the driveway, and I swallowed hard. I haven’t been in my car since I ran over that little girl. The ignition hummed when I turned the key, the engine lurching to life. I pushed on the gas lightly, and then turned off onto my street.\n\nWhen I got to the grocery store, the parking lot was a ghost town. Not a single car in sight, stray trash and shopping carts littered the cement graveyard. I blinked, getting out of my car and walking into the WalMart that loomed in front of me. I usually hate going to the super stores but I wasn’t willing to show my face at a family owned grocery store. The doors were open, and all of the lights were on, but there wasn’t a person in sight. Not behind any of the registers, or in any of the aisles. Cereal and hotdogs are in the same aisle for some reason, so hey, I picked up both; Lucky Charms and a 6-pack of wieners. My shopping cart was half full when I decided that was enough, and I pulled up to the front of the store. I parked my car at the far end of the parking lot and the beaming sun shot a reflection of light into my eyes. I rubbed my hands together, and then put them back onto the cart. I think I’m going to wait around a bit and see if anyone comes. I didn’t want to take food without paying. My hands landed on the shopping cart and I felt a small lump of plastic underneath of the handle. My brow furrowed and I looked under the plastic bar, revealing a small light that beeped red rhythmically. It was probably one of those sensors that locked the cart up when you got too far from the store. I put on some music and sat in a bench that sat against the wall, facing away from my car; the look of it disgusted me. \n\nI must have dozed off because I came to in the same position I sat in when I got here. My music had stopped a while ago, because my phone’s battery ran dry. I sighed. No one was around, still. When I tried to power on my phone it had blinked twice, and an emergency alert had broadcasted that there had been an extreme disaster, and almost all of human population had simply disappeared. It made sense to me, I was already gone to the world, why was I here? I pulled up the camera on my phone; I hadn’t even seen myself in weeks. I switched around to the face camera, but after a second I shook my head. There was nothing there, and my battery was running low. Maybe it was a glitch. But I could see what was behind me perfectly. Weird. I powered down my phone again, and slipped it into my pocket. Well, I guess I’m taking the groceries with me. I stood up and pushed it with me through the automatic sliding doors and through the parking lot. I heard a clattering, as the doors shut. It wasn’t just the door. I turned to look behind me. It was me. I knew it was a matter of time, I was going to get me. The cart squealed as I shoved it with me, sprinting through the parking lot. Why did I park at the end of the fucking lot? I remembered as it was too late, the cart screeched to a halt but I didn’t. The cart went up, and I flipped face first over it. I crawled slowly away from the cart, groaning in pain as I had hit my face on the asphalt. My eyes were blurry, my vision unfocused. The white noise had stopped. And then I saw me again; next to a cloaked figure, with a scythe. It was my representation of death, until he pulled down his hood and the crushed face of the girl I had run over replaced the darkness that was hidden. I was ready. I embraced it. They both stepped forward as I went unconscious. \n\nMy eyes hurt, everything was white. I was strapped to a hospital bed and was hooked up to multiple different machines. Beeps and white noise went through my ears, and my eyes were unfocused any blurry. “Hello!?” I questioned the silence. A nurse burst into the room, hands full of pill bottles and liquids. That was the last thing I saw. The last thing I heard was quite a while later. It was the laughing of a crowd while I was injected with poison; and electrocuted on the chair. I comforted it, death, you know? It let me get away from reality. I could indulge myself in something other than reading, like hiking. I took that up after a month. But I still couldn’t stand to see the reflection of myself. It was never there, it was always haunting me.\n", "\"Mabel get me the shotgun, that goddam bastard took apples from our apple tree again, I can see them in his yard,\" I screamed.\n\nIts been thirty no forty years since everyone disappeared. Only me, my wife, and that asshole next door Jerry were left in our town. For a time Jerry and I put aside our differences, after all I wasn't going to not help the man just because he would dump his lawn clippings in my yard. \n\nFor a time it worked out, but that bastard became more devious every day. First he would let his dogs out to bark in the middle of the night. Then he would tinker on that ridiculously contraption he called a motorcycle until well after midnight. The last straw was when started stealing my apples from my apple tree. \n\nI have been growing that apple tree since everyone disappeared shortly after my 30th birthday and now it is a magnificent tree after 50 years. Grooming and caring for that tree is one of the few things I enjoy in life and THAT MAN HAS THE AUDACITY TO STEAL THE APPLES FROM IT.\n\n\"MABEL, WHERE IS MY SHOTGUN?\" I scream, \"I AM NOT LETTING THAT MAN STEAL ANY MORE APPLES!\"\n\n\"HOW MAN TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU, YOU SENILE BASTARD,\" she screams back, \"HE ISN'T STEALING THEM, THEY ARE DROPPING ONTO HIS SIDE OF THE YARD!\"", "Monday mornings were still the worst, that's one thing that didn't change after The Incident . Every Monday I woke up in a bad mood. For different reasons entirely of course. \n\nI cajoled myself out of bed and look\n around my so called bedroom. A room in the Public Library, christ it was depressing waking up here surrounded by books about Chemistry and Science, he was sick of them. \n\nThe Sun peeked through the overhead window, illuminating my bedside table and a pocket watch. \n\n\"Damn it!, gonna be late\". I walk down the fourth floor to the Art section and as always knock the door. \n\n\"Ready to go Laura?\" I ask her, hoping she says no.\n\n\"Yeah, I'm ready\" she smiles at me. She looks beautiful, it's been six months and every morning her beauty took my breath away. \n\nWe descend to the ground floor, grabbing some supplies and then head out to the morning sky. To the same destination as always. \n\n\"You coming inside today? \" she asks, knowing my answer already. \n\n\" I'll stay outside, don't feel like it\"\n\nShe gives me a sad smile and enters the graveyard, a bunch of lilacs in her hand. \n\nEvery weeks she places those flowers on the large angel statue for our old friends and family long gone , even though they didn't get graves, everyone just disappeared. And every week I wait outside, I'm not a fan of being there in the graveyard \n\n\nShe returns a few minutes later, a few years in her eyes, but she's strong, and smart. That's what saved in the first place, alone, studying in the Library cellar. Nobody else had a chance. \n\nI give her hand a squeeze and give her a smile. We head back to the Library, talking about anything but the thing. \n\nSix months have passed with her, and I love her, and I know she feels the same about me. But she feels my hesitation. I wish I could give her what she wants. But I can't. So we resort to giving each other deep looks \n\nWe spend all day together, the same routine, counting supplies, eating, fixing up the link library,talking, playing some silly games. \n\n\n\"Hey, you wanna come to my room and see this drawing I've made \" the way she says it implies more than art is intended. \n\n\" I think I might just go asleep \" I reply.\nBut she doesn't relent, she comes close as kisses me, and I don't resist, I kiss her back \n\n\" it's my birthday, let's celebrate Michael \"\n\n\" I'm sorry, but I can't \" I head to my room, leaving her there... With sadness in her eyes, and confusion \n\n\nIt's the best thing to do... Because even though I love her more than anyone... And she feels the same way about me. I love her deeply, it's not her who I hate... \n\nI stare at myself in the mirror.. If she knew my part in The Incident. She would hate me, because I hate myself more than anyone \n\n\n", "Day 1- Gone, everyone gone. I can't find a single living soul. No clue where they went. There are no bodies, and no signs of struggle. Nothing has changed except everyone just vanished. I'm holding out hope that someone else is alive, and choosing to believe that everyone else is somewhere safe. Phones and internet are down.\n\nDay 2- She's alive! Oh thank goodness she's alive! My best friend and secret crush also made it. She doesn't know anything either, but she's scared, and wants to stay with me until we find more people! We spent today raiding stores and stockpiling canned food. We had so much fun TPing the entire store with the toilet paper supply! Hope we don't regret that later.\n\nDay 3- Electricity and water went out today. Those were the only remaining utilities. We're down to things that run on batteries. Thank goodness I found a solar charger for this laptop. Maybe I'll upload this to reddit for some karma when the internet comes back. My crush and I played hide and go seek in a local police station while we were obtaining guns.\n\nDay 4-We cuddled last night! And I managed to find a CD of some old school big band swing music that we're learning to dance to! Hoping to get up the courage for a kiss in a day or two.\n\nDay 5-I hate everything. The worst person in the world showed up today. This guy was my best friend in high school until he got me fired for work, stole my girl, and got me expelled. He's eating our supplies right now as my crush talks to him. She told me that she's secretly had a crush on my enemy for years and she think's this will work out.\n\nDay 6-We scavenged a bunch of camp supplies from a few local stores, along with a whole bunch of wood and axes for fires. We have enough water treatment straws, tablets, powders, and pumps to purify the atlantic. She's teaching him to dance to OUR swing music.\n\nDay 7-He built a treehouse. I gotta give it to him, the guy is handy. We moved some sleeping bags and pillows up there, and are planning on spending our nights up there. My enemy figures it will be safer against wild animals.\n\nDay 8- She told me she is going to try and kiss him tonight. I had to excuse myself for a long walk. I'm writing this in some woods a couple miles from my house. I've never been out here before. It's pretty peaceful and I think I'll stay here for a while.\n\nDay 8 and 1/2- Fell asleep! It's dark out and I have no idea which way home is. I'm keeping this laptop on for light. I'm hearing crunching sounds everywhere. I think there might be bears or wolves or something out here. The light from the screen is reflecting off of the leaves and it looks like eyes.\n\nDay 9- It's daylight, oh thank goodness it's daylight. The battery from the laptop ran out several hours before sunrise and I just huddled whimpering in a bush for several hours. Still have no idea how to get back.\n\nDay 10- Got myself more lost. Great, just two other people in the world left and I had to lose them. This is just great. I didn't bring any water or food with me, like an idiot, and now my tongue and lips are really starting to dry out.\n\nDay 11- They found me! I actually cried at the sight of them. They brought water and everything! I didn't even mind when she kissed him. I can be mad later. Did I mention the have food and water? And I won't be sleeping by myself tonight?\n\nDay 12- They told me all about the time I was gone. They scavenged more supplies, built a second house, rigged up an SOS signal from a bunch of solar panels and flood lights. The best part? They went to the next town over to look for me, and they found someone else. She's cute. She's my age, and she's single. We are going to share the second treehouse. My enemy winked at me and said the two of us might like the privacy. Maybe this guy isn't so bad afterall.\n\nTL:DR there's always more fish in the sea, even in the apocalypse.", "There she was, the most perfect being ever created. Here I am, the lowliest. The idea that there were only three of us left had allowed me to hope beyond hope I could have a shot with her.\n\nIt would have been the perfect scenario, if only one small change were made.\n\nIf only her damn husband had disappeared with all the rest of them." ]

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

[ "1409801890", "1409803365", "1409804598", "1409797472", "1409800448", "1409794561", "1409794310" ]

[ "\"You sure it's safe?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yeah, man, stop worrying about it!\" Johnny told me. \"One dose of Memory Lane, and you'll be going through one of your best memories again like you was there again! Unless you have a bad trip.\"\n\n\"What happens then?\" \n\n\"Well, kinda the same, but with a bad memory.\" Johnny rubbed the back of his head. \"But don't worry about it, it almost never happens.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said. \"Bottoms up.\" I felt the drug go in. \n\nTime passed. \nOne second. \nTwo seconds. \nThre-- \n***OH, MY GOD!***\n\nThe world felt like it took a left turn into a ditch before bouncing back out backwards and, the next thing I knew, I was back in high school, staring at my locker, trying to swap out books before my next class started. Everything was the same. \n\nThe smell of teen angst and Axe permeated the hallways, the lights were kept to a legal minimum brightness and the thermostat was set to something that felt too warm for the season, yet somehow still too cold. \nI could still taste the government issue macaroni and cheese that tasted like it contained neither macaroni nor cheese on my tongue. The food you only buy when you've forgotten your lunch at home and you're desperately trying to fight off starvation. \n\nThere was a charged energy in the air that sounded like people trying to get to their next class before the bell rang so that they wouldn't have to look like *that* idiot that walks in late. \n\nI slammed my locker shut and started walking towards history, wondering which day this was. It could be the day I worked up the courage to ask out my first girlfriend or one of the days my history professor walked in dressed up as a historical character.\n\nThat's when I looked at my shoes. And then I knew. \nOh, God. \nIt would be this day.\n\nI prayed that I'd avoid it, hoping against hope that I was mistaken and this was one of the countless other days that this happened, but somehow knowing in my heart of hearts that I wasn't gonna get off that easy.\n\nI tried moving my legs in a different way to avoid it, but with every step towards my class, it became increasingly obvious that they were locked on a fixed path.\n\nI was only watching a reply, I had no power to fix it. \n\nI could feel it in my gut that the bell was about to ring, so I started to pick up the pace a little, hoping to make it to class as soon as I could before today did me in.\n\nI made it to the room with half a second to spare before the howler monkey-like screaming of the bell sounded, thus securing my position as \"on time.\" \nI raised my arms in triumph.\n\nIt was also at that moment that I felt my foot to the ground wrong. \nOnto the loose shoelaces of my other shoe. \nBefore I had the chance to adjust, my other, traitorous leg was already beginning to rise into the air, and then, like proud Icarus, I felt myself hurtling towards the ground. \n\nTime slowed to a crawl as my arms flailed out, trying to grab onto something that would let me save *SOME* modicum of face, but they came back empty.\n\nAnd with that, I crashed into the ground, face first, and found myself immediately back to realty, sitting in my living room with Johnny.\n\n\"Good trip?\" he asked.\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"Waste of my time.\"\n\n\"Bad trip, huh?\" he winced. \"Well, it happens, but I did warn you.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but that's not why it was a waste of my time.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah?\" Johnny asked.\n\n\"I didn't need the drug,\" I explained. \"It's been ten years and I ***STILL*** think about the day I tripped in my history class!\"", "I am crying uncontrollably, snot running down my nose, trapped.\n\nI couldn't help it, I was afraid. Being three years old caught in this horrible situation is terrifying! Being trapped, stuck on your knees not able to move your head while different people come to you and start gripping you and trying to move your around. It only makes it worse.\n\nThe yelling, the laughter, the pointing and laughing. It was the most miserable day of my young life and the combination of panic and what the masses considered 'hilarious' just made it worse.\n\nI look forward, and another horse comes walking by. I don't even care anymore, this was horse number 11 out of 12. I was going to miss the show, but all I want to be is out of this situation.\n\n\"Let me have at it!\" a burly voice said behind me. I sighed, knowing my fate of more pain. The arms wrapped around my head, and my ears god pushed back following a big pull.\n\nI am free.\n\nI am able to move, while cheering happens all around me. I just wanted to get a better look at those horses at the Del Mar Fairgrounds! A friend was going to be racing his horse and I wanted to see it, but I got my head trapped. That hour of misery would never be forgotten. At least I thought.\n\nI'm 'walkin' down memory lane again.", "\"Any memory?\"\n\n\"Any memory. Have you ever had a dream so vivid that you could reach out and feel the texture of the walls?\nIt's that clear.\" \n\nKyle hesitantly lifted the tablet from Sarah's outstretched palm. A small 50mg was inscribed on one side. \nHe had never done anything like this. Will this cause brain damage? Can anything go wrong? \n\nHis palms were shaking.\n\n\"Go on. It will be okay. I've done this many times... it's unreal.\"\n\nThese words of encouragement were enough. He took the pill. \n\n\"You should sit down, it will knock you out pretty quickly once it hits.\" \n\nBehind Kyle was a faded orange sofa. The cushions were frayed with wisps of cotton protruding \nfrom them. \n\n \"Looks are deceiving\" he thought as he sank into the cushions with a happy chill \nbrushing his spine. \n\n\"What did you see when you last did this?\" Kyle questioned to Sarah. Her gaze lit up.\n\n\"Remember when we were younger and we used to sneak off to the river by 50th street?\"\n\n\"Vaguely\" Kyle scratched his head.\n\n\"We wrote wishes on little pieces of paper and folded them into boats to set sail to them.\" \n\n\"What did you wish?\" Kyle asked\n\n\"I wished for a little brother. Don't you ever tell Jake that though.\" Sarah laughed.\n\n\"WHOA\" Kyle managed to mutter.\n\n--\n\n\"ITS NOT FAIR!!!\" Kyle screamed. His cheeks were red with wisps of warmth trailing from his eyes. \n\n\"I DONT WANT TO GO! I DONT WANT TO LEAVE MY FRIENDS! WHY CANT WE STAY! I CAN STAY WITH ALBERT\nDOWN THE STREET!\" \n\nKyle's mother sat beside him on the step in front of their home. Kyle looked away.\n\nShe traced her finger through Kyle's hairline. \"I'm so sorry.\" Kyle looked at his mother.\n\nHer beautiful black hair in a ponytail hanging over her shoulder. \n\n\"Mom why can't we stay here?\" \n\n\"You know how it is with your father in the military.\"\n\n\"I do...\" Kyle sniffed again. \n\n\"Life can be harsh sometimes. It's so hard to consider everything and everyone and to make it all work.\nbut I know you Kyle. You are strong. You will make new friends you cannot imagine life without.\nYou will do well.\" Her eyes were bright. Kyle took a deep breath. The breeze which disturbed the\ngrasses and the leaves of the old apple tree in their yard chilled his cheeks. \n\n\"I'm sorry\" Kyle said. \n\n\"I will always love you.\" She said. \n\n\"Mommm, that's embarrassing\" Kyle complained. She laughed \"I'll help you pack your things. \nWe've got a long day ahead of us.\" \n\nKyle's mom suddenly grabbed his shoulders \"WAKE UP. ARE YOU OKAY?\" \n\nKyle sprung from the sofa colliding heads with Sarah. \n\n\"OW!\" Sarah held her head in her hands\"\n\n\"Shit!\" Still disoriented, Kyle bent over to check for damage. \n\n\"I am fine. You were bawling while passed out, it scared me\"\n\nKyle was silent.\n\n\"You saw your mother didn't you?\" \n\nKyle nodded.\n\n\"How do you feel?\"\n\nKyle sighed. \"She's been gone for years. I had almost forgotten her face.\" \n\n\"I'm sorry.\" \n\n\"How long have we known eachother, Sarah?\" \n\n\"Um, it's been awhile. 8 years? 9 years? Kyle are you okay?\"\n\n\"I'm fine. Can we go to that river?\" \n\n\"...Yeah. I'll grab the paper.\" \n", "__[1/2]__\n\nIt was another long and gloomy day in his disheveled life. The strenuous hours at work, the lonely evenings at his apartment, and the sleep that only reassured him that the life he lived today will continue into tomorrow. The only highlight of his day would be when he takes that liquid that allows him to slip back into the past that he adored so much. He was running low on supply today, and being afraid to be in the position of being alone with nothing but his thoughts, he decided to put in an order to his acquaintance. Fortunately for him she was already dropping off some product around the corner. This meant he wouldn't have to stay conscious in his current reality for any longer than he didn't want to. Something he realized a long time ago that it wasn't for the best. \n\nWithout any further dread, a knock appeared on the other side of his door.\n\n\"Hey Mr. Reo, it's Jess!\"\n\nHe proceeded to open the door.\n\n\"Hello Jessica, I hope I didn't hassle you too much.\"\n\n\"Of course not Mr. Reo. Anything for one of my most lawyer customers!\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\n\"Anytime! So will it be the usual this week?\"\n\n\"Yes\", as he gives her another blunt response he proceeds to hand her $200. They then exchange which they each desired. One to help aide towards a person's future, and the other to keep them from it.\n\n\"Would you happen to need any more sheets to drop on? I just restocked today so I can give you a few strips free of charge!\"\n\n\"No thank you, I still have some left over from last week.\"\n\n\"I hope you're being safe with this stuff. Would hate to see ya come down from a wicked memory!\"\n\n\"I'm not worried about that. Some things from my past I refuse to remember. Locked them away to never think of them again.\"\n\n\"Well thats quite an envious gift you have there... \n\nOkiedokee Mr. Reo, be careful and I hope to here from ya next time!\", she stated this as she shuffled down the hall leading into the stairwell.\n\nHe was finally just moments away from his peaceful ignorance. As he went into his bedroom to grab his eyedropper syringe and sheets, he noticed that he was indeed out of something to drop his precious liquid onto. As discerning as this was to him he wasn't going to stay in the present any longer. He was afraid he might remember. \n\nHe continued to take his half full syringe and dumped it's contents into the back of his throat. He was now ready to seep into his trip into a better place. His eyes closed as he was moments away from leaving his apartment and returning to his loving memories. \n\nRight before that happened he heard a loud bang come from behind his door...", "The dew crusted crimson and yellow leaves glinted as a river of fire, just as it had a decade ago. The smell of pine was carried in the crisp autumn wind and no one was around for what seemed like miles, but was in reality a couple hundred feet. This serene location of blissful meditation was a path of dirt just outside the asphalt grids of suburbia. This relived memory was not any special life milestone in particular, but it was a gateway to a moment of carefree existence, which now, with my current fast-paced, career-driven life, was not so easily attainable. In this memory I lived in the moment and did not worry. I'd relive this memory for an eternity and again, but I would need another dose of this miracle drug first. ", "I'd like to escape sometimes. \n \n\nSomeone taught me how to have real fun.\n \n\nIt's the shit, I've relived a lot of my fondest memories.\n \n\nAnd tonight I'm gonna fly again.\n \n\nYour smell. It sticks to me. \nSweet. \nStirring my belly. \n \n\nI remember us moving your wooden stove. \nGrunts. \nSocks slipping on the hardwood floor. \nYep. \n\"I like my place up here\" \nRed skin. \nYour body fit close to me in the dark. \nAlways laughing. \nAlways talking, even teaching. \nWaking up in Mancos is how I wish I could always wake up. \nThose horses. \nThey'd trot along like they didn't even care. \nExplore each other's covers. \nI'd like to study your pages until you're out of circulation. \n \n\nAnd then as quickly as it had begun I'm back. \nAlone again. \nI'd forgotten good memories could be bad too. ", "I turn around and put the bag on the dresser. As I walk to the patio I felt a slight cooling of my skin from my toes moving to my throat. As I blink slower, a white tunnel forms in my eyelids. The tunnel gets larger as I my eyelids get heavier.\n\n\"Knock, Knock\"\nI open my eyes and and I can see the faint sun glimmer through the dust covered sheet thumbtacked to the wall.\nBaker: Yo hurry up D!\nI can tell where I am now. This is Iraq 2008...and this is the day we got hit.\nI watch the hands move quickly to throw on the uniform. I laugh as I remember sleeping in that day. The dust is flying around the room as I struggle to wake up.\nMe: Hold on bro!\nBaker: Fucking really D!?\nI make myself to the door after grabbing my M4, the burden felt comforting and annoying at the same time. We start heading towards the Dining facility before we head to the shop. It was a dusty morning, breathable but dusty.\nMe: Dude this shit sucks\nBaker: Ya bro, we got like 6 months of this shit too.\nMe: Fuck it, I'm getting an omelet again\nBaker: Damn bro, fuck those lines.\nI remember the smoldering breeze hitting our faces, the crunch of the gravel and dirt beneath our boots.\nMe: Ah shit dude I forgot my ID\nBaker: fuckin really dude!\nMe: yuuup. My bad\n\nWe turn around and head for the CHU's, as we clear the T walls we hear an unfamiliar sound. It approaches and we can hear the ominous half whistle. We both look to our left...its too late...the bright flash immediately forces the whole right side of my body with amazing force.\nI can feel the blast warming my skin slowly and as I close my eyes I see the familiar tunnel shine onto my eyes.", "I read about this research chemical that would make you relive a random past experience with perfect clarity. It led to some interesting research on the nature of memory but never became popular enough to be worth the cost of synthesis as a recreational drug. I mean who wants to buy a drug when the most likely result is that they'll just relive a time when they commuted to work or dicked around on Reddit for an hour?", "**WARNING: NSFW themes.**\n\nWhere to begin?\n\nWell, the year isn't important, and the time isn't either. It's not far future, it's not the close past, it's all the same to us, those of us that are lucky enough to afford this new drug, Memory Lane, they call it. It's a trip, they say, a trip down your own past, perhaps real, perhaps fantasy. I've never really been one to try drugs, but I thought, I thought this once it might be worth it for me to give it a shot.\n\nYou see, my boss gave me a nice bonus after signing the Johnson account, it was a nice ten billion in our coffers, and it made him happy, him and all his bosses, and all up the chain, they all loved it. But me, it was just another day at the office. And my friend, Johnny, Johnny boy was usually our top seller. But he had enough bonuses in his wallet that he could afford anything. And he, he wanted me to be taken in under his wing, so I could learn how to sell better, after all, I've only been with this job for a month, and until this sale, I was so scared I wouldn't make quota. \n\nBut anyway, after some training, Johnny boy and I go out, after all, it's Friday, and what better thing to do after a long week of work? So he and I go out, and we go to a bar, we go to another bar, and pretty soon we're feeling it. And he tells me about how he's got some Memory Lane, that the label says to always take it sober, and how he's wanted to see for a while how it reacts to alcohol. Now, we're not some fresh out of college brats, no, we're in our 30s. I try to talk him out of it, but there's no talking Johnny boy out of anything, after all, he's the master in talking, he's the maestro of gab, and he manages to talk me into it somehow.\n\nAnd that's when it all started going wrong.\n\nI take the pill he gives me, I swallow it, and I look at my beer, waiting for it to kick in. And at first, it doesn't. At first, it seems like Johnny boy got ripped off, that we got a bad batch.\n\nBut then the trip hits. And I remember, and I was brought back to my time in the war. Watching the my friends shoot and kill civilians, because they were in the way of our 'progress', that they were resisting our 'peace', that they were preventing us from 'helping'. And it's times like this I feel sick, that I can see my friend raping a young girl because she told him she wasn't going to give up the location of whatever terrorist we were looking for that day. And I throw up, like I did back then, it's all so sickening. But I'm still tripping, and I'm thrown back even farther now, to watch my father raping my sister. And I'm begging and I'm screaming at him, and pulling with my five year old arms, and I can't get him off of her, and she's just crying, and...\n\nAnd it ends as quickly as it started. My eyes red, my cheeks wet, my mind in turmoil. I remember the memories I repressed, and I feel like I failed again. I feel the depression, the PTSD, the feeling of not wanting to live anymore, all coming back to me. Johnny boy is still tripping, and slapping my back, calling my by my boss's name, rejoicing over one of his best sales he did recently. I excuse myself, I walk to the door, and with a single tear falling gently to the ground, I promise myself, no more. I promise myself, no more suffering. No more hatred. No more me.\n\n*This is the second time I've written for /r/writingprompts, first time in a long time though. Bit rusty, and some Constructive Criticism would be appreciated!*", "\"So just one drop and it's montage time?\" I said, eying my entirely too enthusiastic roommate before glancing back down at the entirely too small bottle. $100 for an eyedropper Thumbelina would say is undersized seemed like a rip off to me. \"Any random memory?\"\n\n\nShe nodded enthusiastically.\n\n\nWe sat together in our shitty cinder block walled dorm room, her end covered in boy band posters and mine adorned with old sweatpants and exam notes, and we were about to do drugs, it looked like.\n\n\n\"Ok, well, I guess so long as it's not of my last calc midterm...\"\n\n\nI tilted my head back, and squeezed the tiny dropper over my open mouth. A cool, soft little drop splashed on my tongue.\n\n\"So just one drop and it's montage time?\" I said, eying my entirely too enthusiastic roommate before glancing back down at the entirely too small bottle. $100 for an eyedropper Thumbelina would say is undersized seemed like a rip off to me. \"Any random memory?\"\n\n\nShe nodded enthusiastically.\n\n\nWe sat together in our shitty cinder block walled dorm room, her end covered in boy band posters and mine adorned with old sweatpants and exam notes, and we were about to do drugs, it looked like.\n\n\n\"Ok, well, I guess so long as it's not of my last calc midterm...\"\n\n\nI tilted my head back, and squeezed the tiny dropper over my open mouth. A cool, soft little drop splashed on my tongue.\n\n\"So just one drop and it's montage time?\" I said, eying my entirely too enthusiastic roommate before glancing back down at the entirely too small bottle. $100 for an eyedropper Thumbelina would say is undersized seemed like a rip off to me. \"Any random memory?\"\n\n\nShe nodded enthusiastically.\n\n\nWe sat together in our shitty cinder block walled dorm room, her end covered in boy band posters and mine adorned with old sweatpants and exam notes, and we were about to do drugs, it looked like.\n\n\n\"Ok, well, I guess so long as it's not of my last calc midterm...\"\n\n\nI tilted my head back, and squeezed the tiny dropper over my open mouth. A cool, soft little drop splashed on my tongue.\n\n\nPlease.\n\n\n\"So just one drop and it's montage time?\" I said, eying my entirely too enthusiastic roommate before glancing back down at the entirely too small bottle. $100 for an eyedropper Thumbelina would say is undersized seemed like a rip off to me. \"Any random memory?\"\n\n\nShe nodded enthusiastically.\n\n\nWe sat together in our shitty cinder block walled dorm room, her end covered in boy band posters and mine adorned with old sweatpants and exam notes, and we were about to do drugs, it looked like.\n\n\n\"Ok, well, I guess so long as it's not of my last calc midterm...\"\n\n\nI tilted my head back, and squeezed the tiny dropper over my open mouth. A cool, soft little drop splashed on my tongue.\n\nIt won't stop.\n\n\n\"So just one drop and it's montage time?\" I said, eying my entirely too enthusiastic roommate before glancing back down at the entirely too small bottle. $100 for an eyedropper Thumbelina would say is undersized seemed like a rip off to me. \"Any random memory?\"\n\n\nShe nodded enthusiastically.\n\n\nWe sat together in our shitty cinder block walled dorm room, her end covered in boy band posters and mine adorned with old sweatpants and exam notes, and we were about to do drugs, it looked like.\n\n\n\"Ok, well, I guess so long as it's not of my last calc midterm...\"\n\n\nI tilted my head back, and squeezed the tiny dropper over my open mouth. A cool, soft little drop splashed on my tongue.\n\n\nMake it stop.\n\n\"So just one drop and it's montage time?\" I said, eying my entirely too enthusiastic roommate before glancing back down at the entirely too small bottle. $100 for an eyedropper Thumbelina would say is undersized seemed like a rip off to me. \"Any random memory?\"\n\n\nShe nodded enthusiastically.\n\n\nWe sat together in our shitty cinder block walled dorm room, her end covered in boy band posters and mine adorned with old sweatpants and exam notes, and we were about to do drugs, it looked like.\n\n\n\"Ok, well, I guess so long as it's not of my last calc midterm...\"\n\n\nI tilted my head back, and squeezed the tiny dropper over my open mouth. A cool, soft little drop splashed on my tongue.\n\n\nKill me.", "They all said it was the best trip on the market. Relive your life…why not. My glory days are in the past anyway.\n\nSo there i was flat on my back staring at the ceiling. I started to get nervous, what if I just blew all my spending money on a drug that doesn't even work. You would think that they could at least afford to fix the flickering lights in this room.\n\nI gotta get out of here.\n\nAt least I know the way out of here. I was here just last month after that idiot Travis hit me with the two by four at work. My head hurts the same, man this drug sucks.\n\nAs I reached my car I made an entirely hopeless attempt to get my keys. I swear this drug sucks I haven't been this incoherent since I was high on morphine. I don't remember much of the drive back but I found myself struggling tremendously to get my house open. At least I bought beer before going down this crappy rabbit hole. The rest of my day was unremarkable. Nothing to report and nothing to remember.\n\nI can't believe I wasted my day on this stupid drug. I didn't even remember anything cool. The next morning I made my way back to the hospital to complain. My head was still hurting, the doctors hadn't done a thing for me.\n\nSo here I am flat on my back staring at the ceiling.\n\n\"How was the trip\" asked the nurse\n\n'The drugs didn't even work\" I retorted\n\n\"What are you talking about\"\n\n\"I didn't remember anything, I just went home watched the game, had a beer. Nothing remarkable happened.\"\n\n\"Sir when you take the drug you experience your memories in real time. Each second you spend on the drug is a second you were laying in the bed.\"\n\n\"Well then it didn't work I went home, with a major headache I might add.\"\n\n\"Sir you haven't left that bed in a full 24 hours.\"", "\"Yo guy I'm telling ya, never been bad to me, so it'll never be bad for you.\" said Angelo. Even though I could have pointed out the times I have gotten sick, beaten, or just put in a situation superheros couldn't get out of; I proceeded to set myself up in the most comfortable way possible, some pillows, some munchies, a fan, and some music. \"Are you sure this stuff is Memory lane?\" I asked in such a deadpan manner that made him scoff and retort sarcastically \"Noooo, it's fairy dust from...\" I proceed to snatch the drug from him and respond \"Ok, I get it stop your five minute monologue and answer this, do you think or know if music will help someone remember another time they listened to it?\" \"Yes\" was the response I wanted, whether it was true or not and Angelo did not disappoint. Right as he's about to start his rant after his melodramatic positive response, I down the mixture of Memory lane and Dr. Pepper and close my eyes. When I started to drown out the noise, I manage to grasp the words, \"bout to be my second try.\" I groan into nothingness.\n\nI'm watching TV and my front door bell goes off. I ignore it the first time hoping I don't have to leave my bed and ice cold drink in my hand. The second time the ring lasted the whole time it took me put on some clothes to look presentable to the ass who super-glued their finger to the ringer. Before I even open the door, when I just started to unlock the doorknob, I hear my friend shouting \"Wanna try some \"*Memory lane*?\"\n\n(I tried any response would be fine this simply is an interesting topic to write about, even though I usually dislike writing)", "This concoction feels strange on my tongue. I'm not sure what to expect as I haven't taken this one before. It was new. My dealer had said something about \"Memory Lane\" or something? I don't know, I had drifted off after he started droning on about \"the greatest trip ever, man\". All I know is that this is new, something I haven't tried yet. When is this shit going to kick in? I sit in silence, listening to the rain fall down outside, it must have hit 40 degrees today. I drift off to sleep, my mind wanders, pausing briefly on how warm this room is. Is the air conditioner broken again?...\n\nI awake in the dark and my fingers and nose feel frozen and numb. The blankets must have fallen off. I roll out of bed, turn on my lamp and walked to the window. It is snowing again. A sigh echos from the other side of the room; I must have awoken my new bride with my stirring. \"Come back to bed!\", she exhales as she rolls over. \"And turn off the light!\". I shrug as I watch the fireworks burst into a menagerie of color on the other side of the river. \"Can you believe it?\", I exclaim, ecstatic, \"Our first night as husband and wife. Happy New Year!\" She pushes herself upright, her normally well-kept hair a mess, and turns to face me as I shut off the light. \"Happy New Year, baby. Now come back to bed; it's much warmer under the covers.\" She winks at me and bites her lip as her face glows in the light of the fireworks and her jade eyes sparkle and dance, mirroring the explosions in the air, distant and fleeting. I feel a rush of blood as I look in her eyes, so in love as I stare at her, unable to move, and transfixed by her beauty. The bed creaks below me as my weight is transferred on to its old metal springs. We kiss. Her lips are warm and soft, as they always are. I am the luckiest man in the world to have married a woman so beautiful. \"I love you\", I whisper, as I lie back down next to her. \"I love you, too\" she murmurs as she lies down next to me. I slowly close my eyes as I feel her push her body against mine; her warmth is in such stark contrast to the frigidity I feel all around me. I am the most comfortable I can ever remember being as I drift off to sleep with the love of my life in my arms...\n\nIt's so hot! Wait. I dare not open my eyes out of fear, but I know in my heart that she is gone. I suddenly realize that I am back in that tiny apartment in solitude and the wound in my heart rips open again. I can still hear the patter of the warm summer rain outside of the dirty window over my own slow, deep breaths. I'm indoors, but it feels as though I am outside briefly, as the tears roll down my cheeks. I am alone again.", "My son came up with a great concept for this WP but he's 11 and too lazy to write a story. So if anyone is interested here it is... Story is based around a guy who's wife died while he was there but suffered an injury and can't remember it. He takes the drug to remember the night his wife died. But he has to take the drug over and over and over hopping one day to relive that moment. ", "I've not written anything in years. Not joking. Like 5 or 6 years. This prompt though. Something about it clicked in my head. I even made an account just to post it. had to split into two parts! I even made an account just to post.sorry for any errors I'm dog tired, but i had to get this out. Cheers and I hope everyone enjoys.\n\n\nThe rain falls softly, it's always raining here it seems like. \n\"Hurry the fuck up\" I mutter to myself. \n\nIt's been over an hour I've been waiting. Then, almost like he could hear me, Bob rounds the corner. \n\n\"What up man!\" Bob says to me with a grin. That shark grin, eyes full of greed. I've known him for years, before Memory Lane was a thing, but he's always got that look in his eyes now.\n\n\"Don't give me that bullshit I've been out here getting wet for a fucking hour! You said you'd be here at 9:30!\" I was almost shouting, he knows I hate waiting around. \n\n\"Awe man, you know how it is! I'm sorry bro, look I'll give you an extra micro for free since you had to wait. Would that make up for your wet dick?\" he croons in his smokey whiskey laden voice. He put his arm around my shoulder then and gave me a squeeze like a father would a son. \n\n\"Fuck. You. Just give me the shit so I can get the fuck out of here. I've seen three patrols roll by in the last hour and I really don't want to deal with Roller BS tonight.\" \n\nI pull the money from my inner jacket pocket and hand it to Bob, he reaches out with his opposite hand a single silver tube, about an inch long with a plastic tip on the end. I quickly take it from him and put in into the same pocket I pulled the money from. \n\n\nBob turns to walk away pauses, and turns back with a serious look now. He says \n\"You know what man, you should come by one night and throw down like we used to. I still have people over twice a week. I know you can knock the rust off, and get back to it. The guys miss seeing you.\" \n\n\"Yeah, maybe.\" I deadpan, I hadn't played in I don't know how long. No desire to do it anymore I guess. I turn and walk the opposite direction zipping my jacket up. I hear Bob say his good bye, but I'm not listening. I just want to get home and lay down. \n\n\nI lay in bed, head slightly elevated, arms at my side. I'm staring at the ceiling counting the beads of drywall mud in the textured paint. \n\"Better late than never I guess\" \nIt's almost midnight, I normally don't trip passed 10:30 on work nights, you never know how long you're going to be under, and the hang over is a bitch. I have a good feeling though, this one will be a good one. \nI pick up the inhaler and slide the fresh tube in until it makes a faint 'click'. I bring it to my lips, take a deep breath in, then let it out. I put my mouth around the inhaler and press down sharply on the tube. I feel the cold mist enter my mouth as I breath in, and then that familiar tickle in my lungs. I lay my arm flat again, and close my eyes. I hate the taste of this shit. \n\n\nI stare up at the white tiles on the ceiling, counting the dots. I hear the toilet flush, and the door open. \n\n\"Good morning!\" Samantha says. I shift my eyes from the ceiling to her, shes wearing one of Jacob's t-shirts which covers her down just below her butt, and from the looks of it nothing underneath. \n\n\"Morning, there's fresh coffee in the pot on the counter. Help yourself, Jess made it before she left for work.\" I try to sound as uninterested in her being there as I can. \n\n\"Oh thanks\" She goes to the cupboard and pulls down a mug and pours some coffee, she steps to the left to reach to the top of the refrigerator for the sugar container. The shirt she has on lifts a bit revealing her firm butt, pale white, unlike the rest of her visible skin. \n\n", "\"Well\", I said. \"If this doesn't help me, I don't know what will.\"\n\nI felt nothing. I saw nothing. I just felt dizzy... and with an ever increasing headache... suddenly I felt very, very sad.\n\n\"It's not working.\"\n\"Just relax, John, it may take time...\"\n\nI heard the clock ticking, as the nurse and the doctors looked at my reactions. Ten, twenty, thirty minutes...\n\nA doctor looked at the other, shaking his head. \"No signal.\"\n\nDamn it. \"WHY!!!\" I shouted. \"Why doesn't this shit work!\"\n\"I... I am sorry, I thought this...\"\n\nAn hour had passed, and all the doctors went away. What a disappointment. Finally I thought I could recover something from my memory loss... but nothing happened. I turned on the TV, wondering why did I have to have that fucking accident...\n\naccident...\n\naccident.\n\n\"You shouldn't be seeing this.\"\n\n\"Mike, they know we know. We have to run...\"\n\n\"Anywhere! This is too big!\"\n\nThugs...\n\nA murder.\n\nDozens of people dead... all over the news.\n\nFor some fucking insurance policy.\n\nI was running. There was rain, and the bruises hurt like hell.\n\nSomething hit me on the neck.\n\nVoices...\n\n\"Remember\", one voice said. \"Make it look like an accident.\"\n\nI woke up, staring at the TV. How much time had passed? Like a few seconds, but they felt like a week. What was I doing here? I began to remember... everything. And right on the TV, a congressman was speaking.\n\nIt was him.", "With the suddenness of a slingshot being released, I snap into the kitchen of our home. The smell of bacon sizzling in the hand-me-down cast iron skillet, the humming from the bathroom as my husband gets ready for the day, and the proudly displayed high school report card belonging to my daughter gently prod the realization that I am somehow back in my late 20's.\n\nMy husband Jack sneaks up behind me and spins me around in his arms, me giggling with a egg-covered wooden spoon in my hand. He kisses me good morning and heads out to grab his morning paper as he always used to do. Heather grumbles down the stairs, grunts a hello, and takes a seat in the dining room, her eyes unwavering from her phone screen.\n\nI drizzle some garnishes on the scrambled eggs, sneaking a bite to confirm its edibleness. Juggling the plates delicately, I bring out the food and lay them on the dining table, the aroma tiptoeing behind, slowly enveloping the room. I kiss my daughter's head as she scarves down her breakfast and take a seat myself, taking in the view of my beautiful family.\n\nWithout warning, the images in front of me blur and crack like a badly tuned TV. I try to scream \"I love you!\" but it's of no use. My husband's hand that I was holding fades away, and I can no longer hear my daughter ramble on about her crush Tony.\n\nI blink and open my eyes. I'm in a bed and a slow glance around reveals IV drips and beeping monitors. A strange woman is sitting beside me, watching me with nervousness tinged with hope.\n\n\"Hi mom, are you okay?\"\n\nI stare at her, uncomprehending.\n\n\"Who are you? Where's Jack?\" I ask. I continue to say the words over and over again, my voice raising in hysteria.\n\nThe woman next to me bursts into tears, as her hands clasp my frail and wrinkled ones.\n\n\"It'll be okay, mom,\" she coos, unable to hide the quivers in her voice. \"It'll be okay.\"", "I walked into Dave's apartment and we went to the kitchen where he had the new beer I'd asked him to pick up while he was out of town. Next to the six pack was a pack of pills, something he said were called memory lane. He told me if I took one it would let me relive any random memory from my past.. So I wash one down with the first sip of my beer, and wow this brew tastes great.. So I wash one down with the first sip of my beer, and wow this brew tastes great.\n\nAw fuck. Can I have another one Dave?", "Dean sat with a confused look on my face as if he was the butt of some cruel cosmic joke.\n\nJames got to relive his first intimate moment with his late wife. Chris got to spent time with his father on a fishing trip.\n\nWith stories like that who wouldn't want to trip on the lane? \n\nNothing particularly traumatizing had ever happened to Dean so he thought, why not? Worse case scenario he's in 7th grade failing a test or getting shot down by some girl. Best case scenario he's living out his college years, filled with irresponsible partying with ability to eat leftover Jell-O shots for lunch without getting a dirty judgmental look.\n\nJames had given Dean the hook up. 1 gram of memory lane for $30, a steal considering an ounce is damn near $600. Dean changed from his casual business wear, to sweatpants and an old t shirt. He took out his bong and zippo lighter from closet, and Plopped down on the couch. He packed the bong with the smelly brown gunk, lit it, and inhaled.\n\nAt first all that was felt was a weird tingling feeling. Obviously he had been jipped. He placed his bong down and got up from his couch. And like a tsunami crashing over a harbor it hit him.\n\nWith no feeling left in his legs, Dean was forced to fall onto the couch and then into a trance like state.\n\nWhen he came to, he was in a void of some sort. It was warm and pleasant like wearing a thick blanket in the mist of winter. So calm and serene.\n\nSuddenly a white light appeared, and that's when everything went to shit.\n\nThe void began to squeeze him and a white hand came from the light yanking his head towards it. All that audible is yelling, screaming, and faint crying. The hand finally yanks him through the light. Dean looks at the cave he was removed from.Utter silence plagued his mind now. That's when he felt a sharp sting on his behind.\n\nDean had now returned to the present. \n\nOut of all the moments and experiences in his life, he relived the only one where he ever saw his mom's vagina.\n\nHe took the next fews days of work off.", "Del closed her eyes as everything faded away from her old battered body and the sweet feeling take the place of pain as her trip down memory lane come over her.\n\nShe found herself boarding a plane and waving to her crying mom in the Salt Lake City airport. Her new blue dress flowed softly around her legs as she turned and handed the attendant the ticket that would take her to me him. \n\nDel got a window seat since the elderly man next to her asked if she would mind trading since he would more than likely need to get up a few times during the flight. Del felt her stomach drop as the plane moved. She didn't mind the flying in the air, she didn't like the take off. She leafed through the book she brought in her carry-on to distract herself from the terror she felt as the plane moved to the tarmac. The plane jerked forward and started to pick up speed, Del closed her eyes and her knuckles turned white as she clutched the book. Finally when they leveled out she watched The Great Salt Lake grow smaller as they flew eastward. She was going to Pennsylvania to meet him. The man she met online playing left4dead and helped her get better. \nShe thought back on the last 3 months of growing closer to him over Skype and playing more games with him. He had the same interests and he asked her to go steady with him about a month before. Slowly her thoughts turned to dreams of him and the few hours left before she would meet him.\n\nThe plane touched down waking Del and causing her to let out a small scream, making the elderly gentleman chuckle at her. As her stomach churned she watched the building come into view and her heart fluttered. She felt her knees grow weak as she got her carry-on and filed out of the plane. As she neared the smiling pilot she fiddled with her long brown wavy hair hoping she didn't make a fool of herself by tripping when she met him.\n\nShe walked towards the baggage terminal when her heart jumped straight to her throat as she hear him call to her.\n\nShe turned and saw him for the first time and she couldn't help but throw her arms around his neck and kiss him. She had caught him off guard so he didn't know what to do other than stand there. She pulled away and giggled.\n\n\"Hi Adam. Its great to meet you.\" \n\nThe sweet feeling of the fluttering heart faded back into pain as she came back to her old body that was failing in health. She looked over at her dear sweet Adam in bed with her 62 years later, being married for 48 of them, and she felt the flutter of love hit her and she rolled over and kissed him.\n\n\"I love you Adam\"\n\nEdit: I'm not much of a writer anymore and I'm very poor at grammar but I liked the prompt. So forgive bad grammar and formating ", "Enter calamity. Pots never quite fit in that cupboard anyway. Out of the background comes a shout of reason.\n\n\"Maybe if you weren't such a fuckup you could get a job!\"\n\nThis was true. All of the time wasted on being wasted has left my mind a barren wasteland. Motivation and apathy wound loosely round the core of my self-loathing soul. I have been here 1000 times before but I can't quite remember why I keep forgetting I don't want to be here. \n\n", "Everything with 100% clarity? Hope not something embarrassing. I convinced myself it's gonna be a good one and so I tried it.\n\nIt was me in Elementary School. Oh look it's my old English teacher. Wait a minute, my stomach is rumbling.\n\n\nI said, \"Miss can I go to the bathroom?\".\nHe said I can't. It's really important.\n\nI kept holding when I can't hold on to it anymore. I just let go and a horrible stench and this liquid stuff is coming off my shorts. Everyone looked at me at once. \n\nI pooped my pants. Everyone laughed.\n\n*NOTE: If you moderators want to remove this post because you guys thought it's a low effort story, then go ahead because I forgot to look at the Rules.*\n", "The sweat slid across my brow, across my eyelid and collecting on the pillow next to my ear. My long blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail, but some stuck to my face with a mixture of body fluids. The chills had stopped, but the headache squatted in the back of my skull, pounding the inside of my head to try and escape. I waited patiently, gingerly fingering that last vial of solution. I needed it, but I knew the pain would only get worse if I used it now. Time seemed to drag its feet.\n\n...The pain couldn't be that bad.\n\nI uncapped the small glass cylinder. The familiar smell of bleach and gasoline was almost pleasing, and before I knew it, the liquid was in my ear. The pain was excruciating at first, I almost regretted my choice. It was swept away quickly, as my mind started to shut out the present. I didn't close my eyes, but I couldn't see my bed anymore. The light of the room was replaced with clear rays of sunlight, echoing through a massive fjord. The gash of water cut through the landscape sharply, like it was drawn with the tip of a heavenly sword. I wrapped my arms around myself, his too-big sweatshirt keeping my body warm. I wanted to know how to paint, just so I could paint this. Nothing else mattered in the world right now, other than the cool air against my face and the lush grass beneath my feet. The sky grew dark, blurs of stars streaking across the nightscape. I became lucid once again as those stars hammered at the back of my eyes, my brain feeling like it was about to burst. I put the sleeve of my sweater in my mouth, and bit down, stifling a ragged scream. This pain never went away. Not just the pain in my head, but the pain in my heart. The pain of forgotten memories.", "[Potentially NSFW – swearing]\n\n“Memory Lane: Relive your favourite* memory like it was today.” I chuckled to myself as I popped open the bottle and picked out a multi-coloured pill, swallowing it down with a swig of nearby water. Looking at the description on the bottle I couldn’t help but wonder what my ‘favourite’ memory was.\n\n\n“21, not exactly a cushy upbringing, but not scraping the barrel either, and a girlfriend of 3 years. Ha! Should be fun.” I thought, as I cycled through the immediate memories that sprung to mind; the beach holiday with my family was one of the greatest times of my childhood, but it was the beach holiday with my girlfriend that really made me a man. I laid myself on the bed and closed my eyes.\n\n\nI’m awake, I’m stood up, and in my hands is a rifle. I look up and see I’m in a locker room facing a closed red door. To my left is a heavily armed marine, to the right is the same. They look nervous, very nervous. Why are they nervous? Why do I have a gun in my hand? What am I doing her…\n\nBANG! \n\nThe red door shook. The two marines raise their guns to the door, eyes down the barrel at the door. \n\nBANG! \n\nI jump with shock in my armour, my heart rate now feeling like it is trying to punch out of my chest. A low rumbling begins around me and the marines are looking more on edge, slightly swaying with nerves as the whole room begins to shake violently.\n\n“WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?!” I shout, only to receive “RAISE YOUR GUN SOLDI…” \n\nbang. \n\nThe silence following the final subdued bang was deafening, broken by the creek of the red door as it begins to wane and bulge under the pressure behind it. “Raise your fucking gun” he whispered. \n\n“What the fuck is going on?” I whisper back, raising my gun to the door. I clasp my sweaty fingers around the trigger as suddenly the door BREAKS from its hinges and unleashes a torrent of black…things…The shooting begins and on my immediate left the marine is sliced down by the monsters. I turn my eyes forward to see enormous spindly legs extended toward me as I’m thrown to the ground, my chest pierced by the sharp legs of the monsters. “FUUUUUUUUUUUCCKKKK” I cry, the searing pain coursing through my body is unbearable as more legs extend into my body. I can’t move as I’m pinned down and can just make out a monster raising its leg over my eye. I wince as I try to turn away, but it’s too late.\n\n\nI’m awake, I’m stood up, and in my hands is a rifle. I look up and see I’m in a locker room facing a closed red door. To my left is a heavily armed marine, to the right is the same. “I’ve been here before” I mutter, the memory of what just happened is forever burned in my mind, I’d never been stabbed before but I’ll never forget it now. \n\nBANG!\n\n“We need to go, we need to get the fuck out of here now! We don’t have much time!” I plead with the other marines, but they stand fast with their gaze at the door.\n\nBANG!\n\n“Fuck fuck fuck fuck, oh my god I don’t want to die again”, the room begins to shake violently, my eyes rush round the room trying to find something more defensible, I begin to shake as much as the room, I can’t catch my breath. I..I just can’t I can’t. I throw my gun on the ground, but it spins around my body, attached beneath the metal plates. I claw at my armour looking for something, anything more explosive than the gun I’ve just disowned. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING SOLDIER?!” The marine on the left bellows.\n\nbang.\n\n“Raise your fucking gun” he whispered. “We are so fucked” I whisper back. The door wanes and I start shooting, the monsters explode out of the door and lurch straight toward me, pinning me down on the ground. The phantom pain I just experienced was nothing compared to the feeling of the knife like legs impaling me to the floor. The seconds of this intense pain felt like lifetimes, god I just wanted it to end.\n\n\nI’m awake, I’m stood up, and in my hands is a rifle. I look up and see I’m in a locker room facing a closed red door. To my left is a heavily armed marine, to the right is the same. I turn around and run, “GET BACK HERE SOLDIER!” I hear behind me as I push through the double doors of the locker room and into a winding corridor. \n\nBANG!\n\nI scramble through the maze of corridors as I hear the second BANG! Slipping on the freshly waxed floor as I go, my sweaty hands desperately searching for traction on the walls to try and pull me up.\n\nFinally at the end of the corridor is a T junction of corridors with a lift. I press the button as I hear the gunfire in the distance start, my hands shaking as I repeatedly press the button, the ground shaking as the monsters get closer and closer.\n\nSuddenly they crash round the corner of the far corridor I’ve just slipped on, there must have been hundreds of them. These nightmarish black creatures who only brought death, and I’ll be dammed if they’re going to get me again.\n\nI look right, down the T junction and see a set of double doors with people sat down behind them. I sprint toward it crashing through the doors into a Chinese restaurant, “GET THE FUCK OUT, NOW!” I yell as I shoot the ceiling, sending the occupants to the floor and to the door I just came from, through which the nightmares stampede toward me. I look forward and run toward the large pane glass window ahead of me, shooting the glass as I leap onto the frame, springboarding out of the window to a ledge on a billboard in front of me, which I grab the edge of just in time. I look down and see about 30 floors worth of air below me. My body broken, I pull myself up onto the ledge and lie on my back. The bloodcurdling screams from the restaurant become silent within seconds, as I look back to the window I just jumped from and I see a nightmare preparing to make the jump to me.\n“Not again, never again” I quietly speak to myself, as I roll off the ledge and fall toward the ground. I’m the one in control and I would rather die than go through this again. I close my eyes in acceptance of the end.\n\n\nI’m awake, I’m lying down, and in my hands is the hands of another; my eyes open to an unfamiliar ceiling with a girl who I swear I know sat over me “Wake up, you’re safe now” she says, as she kisses my forehead.\nShe pulls away and I recognise my room, I recognise the bed I’m lying in, it’s mine; and I recognise the girl, the same girl I had just seen a second ago in my memory.\n“Hand me the bot..tle” the words barely making it past my lips, as one hand grabs the bottle and the other searches my body for wounds.\n\n\n*Favourite memory is purely subjective, Memory Lane will take the most vivid memory you have of anything your mind has experienced and expand upon it. Please note that the human brain, while researched, is not fully understood, and repression may be an important factor in your experiences.*\n", "The pills were large, but they went down fairly easy with the knowledge that I'd be happy again soon. I laid back on the bare, filthy mattress I called my bed, and stared up at the flaking paint of the ceiling, slowly twisting the ring, a cruel reminder on my finger as I waited for the drug to take effect. Slowly, my vision began to fade, and I could feel the memory sprouting from my mind, taking over my senses as I fell backwards through time...\n\n\"Sweetie? Are you alright in there?\" I heard her voice call. My heart jumped at the chance to hear her again as the memory played out in front of me.\n\n\"Yes dear, I'll be fine. I knew that date was a mistake...\" I felt myself say. All of a sudden my gut was clenched with the most horrible pain, and I found myself screaming, clinging at the wall as internally, I wept in frustration. I had spent every penny I had left in an attempt to see her again, and look where it had left me. I lived again through what would have been the worst night of my life...had I not decided to drive home drunk from a party six months later.\n\nNine hours it took, for that drug to wear off, and for me to compose myself. I reached over the side of the mattress to find the small pocket knife I'd left there. I knew in that moment, that despite the wasted money, I had relived a time in my life far better than I could foresee now. There's nothing left for me in this life, not even the hope I'd had...", "“Dude c’mon take it. It’s really trippy and it’ll make you relive a memory of yours. Don’t you want to relive the amazing times you had in the past?” Jason urged pushing the pill into my face. “I.. I don’t know man. You know I never tried drugs” I replied hesitant “but.. I don’t know, I do want to relive those old memories.” I stared at the purple colored pill for a few minutes arguing with myself whether to take it or not. I was confident I would never give in to peer-pressure, but this was just too inviting. “Ok fine. Whatever, hit me up man” I said with a little bit of hesitation. He sensed the hesitation but he shoved the pill and a glass of Mountain Dew into my hand. “Have funnnn!” I rolled my eyes trying to act confident and popped the purple capsule in my mouth and washed it down. Not even two seconds later, everything around me started disappearing. The last thing I remembered seeing before blacking out was looking at Jason’s excited face and the Aloe Blacc’s song “Wake me up” playing in the background. \n\n\nI look around. I could hear the Aloe Blacc song humming in the background. I’m in my grandfather’s compound. My watch read 12:30 am. Some family members’ drivers and servants were shuffling around awkward and hesitantly. Immediately I recognized where I was. I tried yelling and screaming to wake myself up but to no avail. I punched myself in the gut, slapping myself, anything. Before I could try anything else, the cars drove in through the gate followed by the ambulance. Before I could stop myself I watch my body stumble towards the car, tears streaming down my face, walking towards my parents and aunts to try to comfort them. I sat on a ledge at the parking watching as everything unfolded before my eyes exactly as it had happened that night. I could feel the pain in my heart but I wasn’t in my body. I watched as my aunts and mom walked upstairs to the house while the Men of the family waited downstairs to bring the body up into the house. It was heart wrecking watching all this unfold, second by second, for the second time. I noticed my body wasn’t downstairs anymore. I ran up to find myself sitting awkwardly in the living room, a place I spent most of my vacations in, looking emotionless. *I don’t want to be here.. I Don’t want to be here. Damnit Jason why’d you pressure me into this* I thought to myself. I looked around as the women of the house and my uncles and some others sat quietly or softly teared. I sat there awkwardly replying to a text message from my crush. *strange coincidence that she happened to text me right at this moment.* My body suddenly got up and walked out to sit next to my brother in law. It was eyeing the photos of my grandfather that were on my brother-in-law’s phone, tears streaming down my face. The pain that my heart felt was unbearable. *Not again. I cant bear this shit again.* I walked back inside to look at the freezer with the my grandfather’s body inside and at that moment the pain was too much to handle.\n\n\nI snapped back to reality with Jason staring at me in shock. I looked around to find myself kneeling on the ground, my eyes watering. “Nice trip down *Memory lane* man” I smirked as I got up and walked back home. “Never again” I told myself. *Never again*.\n", "It's mid afternoon and I'm at my kitchen table thinking about how good life used to be. I've been living in a trailer with some pet roaches since the divorce and just barely escaped homelessness. I don't have money for anything. Damn, I don't even have money for drugs. I know I should sell this shit. Memory Lane, it's got a good name. I could sell this for a a good amount, if it works like that man explained. \n\n\"Take a trip on Memory Lane, it will be something you'll never forget. First time user's are on me\" He reassured. \n\nI know I should just go to the corner store. Lonnie is usually hanging around there with his damn beers. He would buy this in a minute, but what memories does that shit head have? It would be equivalent to sharing caviar with a man with no taste buds. No, I've been places. I've seen a lot in my life. I'm experienced. I'll take it. \n\nMan this doesn't taste good at all. What is that? Rotten egg? Something definitely rotten but I feel it already. My body is getting heavy. I feel like I'm falling back but I can't really see that well. I think it's dark outside. I wonder what great memory I've been brought back to. My vision is coming back. Oh fuck, this is last week. I'm still in my fucking trailer and I'm fucking sleeping. Just great. It's about 11:00 pm so I'll be sleeping for a good amount of time. What am I supposed to do now? Wait till I wake up to take a piss? The man said the memories would be random, but I thought I would at least experience something different than being in this godforsaken trailer. \n\nWait a second. What was that? I swear I just saw someone at the window. It could have been Lonnie though. He likes to bother me at night to see if I want to go drinking. Maybe he was just checking to see if I was awake. No, Lonnie is an asshole. If he was coming over to drink he would have been making all sorts of noise. Who the hell is looking in my trailer? Fuck, fuck, and fuck. I'm gonna have to look. I take I step forward and I get startled after my sleeping self howls out a snore. I'm at the window now but I don't see anything so I stick my head out. I get a horrible feeling in my stomach from what I see. To my right is the man looking through my bedroom window. The man who gave me this shit was looking inside my trailer last week while I was sleeping!? What an asshole. \n\n\"Get the fuck away from my window you asshole!\" I yell. \n\nHe doesn't move. Not even a flinch. Of course, I'm tripping. He can't see what I'm seeing. I'm not even sure I'm in his reality. This isn't good, not good at all. My heart is fucking punching me in the throat. My chest feels so tight I'm not even sure I'm even breathing. Calm down. Breathe for a fucking second. I'm alive right? So this means that this fucker didn't kill me yet. He just starred me while I was sleeping like an insane creep, that's all. That's the good news. The bad news is that this guy might come back and right now I'm sitting at my kitchen table passed out. \n\nSo my best plan is to wake up. How do I wake up from this trip? Maybe if I run around? Splash some water on my face? Jump off a building? Yes, that should work. There's a four story parking garage a few blocks from here but I wonder if I can even leave this memory? As soon as I leave the trailer I'm disappointed. Everything in my vision becomes blurry and then I end up back in my trailer. What is this some sort of Groundhog Day drug too? Oh, but that didn't feel good. I feel a sharp stabbing pain in my chest. I look down and I'm bleeding. \n\nI begin to yell \"Wake up. Oh god...allah...vishna... if any of you are real please wake me up!\" \n\nMy vision begins to blur again. I'm waking up but I think I'd rather be back in memory lane. He's won. I'm on the kitchen floor and my blood is all over the place. Prayers aren't always answered like you'd wish they'd be. What the hell did I ever do to deserve this? \n\nedit: My grammar likes to pretend it's a five year old sometimes. Also, my writing gears are a little rusty. Great prompt, thanks! \n\nedit 2: Correction, it's a four year old. I spotted some more errors. I speaky the englash. ", "The leaf bobbed to the beat of rain drops cascading from the heavy sighs of a smokey morning. \n\nA finger lightly flicked the capsule sending the clear liquid swirling around in its glass container. \"What creates memories?\", a voice asked no one in particular.\n\nA loud 'bang' reverberated through the room, as the walls danced a brief moment. Yells quickly followed, \"Police! Police! Drop the weapon! Drop the weapon!\"\n\nA bang of wavy hair crossed her vision. \"Like Death's scythe coming closer\", a voice promised. She had battled them for years, across the world. A fire of vengenace ignited by the loss of her family. A cold, cold fire that had wiped her memories clean of her life in the desert.\n\nShe had wondered once. How would they know... where their love for another filled the dry sands, sprouting the lives of her kind across their lifetimes. Now she looked too, at her beloved desert, with cold emerald eyes.\n\nA quiet sob escaped her lips as she suppressed a sneer. A sneer she now carried, a wound deeper than the shrapnel that had pierced her abdomen and her child. A sneer that betrayed the contempt she had adopted of her own kind. She had been among them too long, had thought like them, dressed like them, had become one of them. All for those final moments as she stared into their cold arrogant eyes as they turned to fear, too many times, as she took their last breath.\n\nThe footsteps bangs across the dry wooden floor as they neared her door. The unmistakle clicking of their weapons as they prepared to bring their judgement to her.\n\nWith a grimace, she swallowed the contents of the capsule. Her vision began to narrow as she felt herself pulled from the wounded room, falling into herself. She watched as the door came crashing down. She could barely make out the barrel of the rifle pointing at her. A flash blinded her as a sharp pain dulled into euphoria.\n\nShe sneered, as a leaf bobbed to the beat of rain drops cascading from the heavy sighs of a smokey morning.\n", "So this little pill could make you remember huh? It was unimpressive, a small flat pill--almost a flake. I wouldn't have believed Sharon if I hadn't seen it all over the television and newspapers. It was breaking cases already, rape victims were able to remember their assailants with absolute clarity. One news story talked about how it was allowing Alzheimer patients to revisit memories of their families.\n\nBut what would it do to someone that doesn't have a mental block or a debilitating disease? I guess I'll find out. Tossing the small flat white pill into my mouth I took a swig of water. It went down without much trouble, the anticipation was the real kicker. Following the directions on the back of the box, I sat down in a comfortable seat that was low to the ground, turned on my voice recorder--which usually helped me write the articles later for the paper-- and waited for the flash backs to begin. A few minutes passed.\n\nBut what would it do to someone that doesn't have a mental block or a debilitating disease? I guess I'll find out. WAIT AM I RELIVING THE LAST FEW MINUTES? BALLOCKS, THAT SUCKS. Tossing the small flat white pill into my mouth I took a swig of water. It went down without much trouble, the anticipation was the real kicker.\n\nBut what would it do to someone that doesn't have a mental block or a debilitating disease? I guess I'll find out. WHY DOES THIS DREAM FEEL REAL? I FEEL THE BOX AND THE PILL, AND THE SLIGHT WETNESS OF THE WATER. AM I ACTUALLY TAKING ANOTHER PILL? THERE WERE ONLY FIVE IN THE BOX? IS THIS REAL? AM I MOVING FOR THE FLASHBACK? THE BOX SAID SOME PHYSICAL MOVEMENT DID HAPPEN, I LEFT THE BOX RIGHT NEXT TO THE TABLE--RIGHT WHERE THE MEMORY ORIGiNALLY HAPPENED.\n\nBut what would it do to someone that doesn't have a mental block or a debilitating disease? I guess I'll find out...\n\nBut what would it do to someone that doesn't have a mental block or a debilitating disease? I guess I'll find out..\n", "I shoot up.\n\nShit. Not again. Sunny afternoon and I'm inside. \n\nI'll try again.\n\nFriday night and I'm making excuses to not go out. Fuck.\n\nOnce more.\n\nEating a pizza and watching TV.\n\nWhat's wrong with me? OK last time.\n\nWasting time on the internet.\n\nI do loads of fun things! Why can't I redo those?\n\nMasturbating to porn.\n\nAnother.\n\nNot talking to that girl.\n\nAnother.\n\nSaving money and not going on a holiday with friends.\n\nAnother.\n\nSpending hours on facebook looking at other peoples lives.\n\nAnother.\n\nGoing for a run. I give up.\n\nAnother.\n\nDating a girl. I give up.\n\nAnother.\n\nEating healthily. I give up.\n\nAnother.\n\nTaking \"memory lane\".\n\nAnother.\n\nAnother.\n\n", "*Code geass*", "Well, always heard this stuff was good, I mean? What's the worst memory I could have right? \n\n*sound of an empty bottle hits the counter*\n\nWell? They said it takes a second to kick in, come on good trip! Double make out in the sorority house! \n\n*several seconds go by*\n\nHuh? Don't feel anything...maybe I took a bad dose? would be crazy if this was a memory I'm reliving, heh...\n\n*several more seconds*\n\nI mean, still nothing? \"Any random memory guaranteed!\" It's what they promised...so? What if I'm reliving something 2-3 seconds ago? But that would be crazy, right? That would mean I'm doing something...without realizing it, until just after it happens? \n\nI'm moving my arm, or at least I think I am? It feels like it...of course, it would be the same if I did before? WHY CAN'T I TELL IF IT'S WORKING?! \n\n...maybe I took a bad dose...\n", "I looked at the small clear capsule containing a brown, crystalline powder. It looked like the MDMA I used to order off silkroad and I sat there contemplating whether I was actually going to take this- although deep down I knew my decision had already been made.\n\n10 months and 6 days. That's how long it had been since the last time I took anything that altered my mind, and on that last run I'd been shooting heroin, MDMA, ritalin, and taking just about anything I could get my hands on. \"Does it count as a relapse?\" I asked myself. \n\nI'd heard it talked about in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous and the general consensus was that it doesn't count and it doesn't trigger the physical craving and mental obsession that taking a \"normal\" mind altering substance would. Shit, I got the fucking stuff from my friend's sponsor. I'm sure its fine.\n\nDown the hatch.\n\nImmediately I can feel the addict inside of me blurt out \"I should have snorted it! ...fuck that, I should have SHOT it.\".. Well, probably best I didn't, and its too late now anyway.\n\nI lay down in bed wondering what I'll be brought back to, secretly hoping that maybe it'll bring me back to a nice shot of dope.. or perhaps that weekend at Alex's dorms when we took shrooms and molly. I can feel a slight tingle at the base of my spine, then *SNAP*.. blackness. \n\nSure enough I open my eyes and I'm laying on my living room floor at the house I lived in while I was at Syracuse. I stand up and see the \"bong table\" the TV is off behind me.. what was I doing on the floor? I'm definitely high on opiates, and probably weed too. I look down at my arm and see one distinct needle mark. I look around- had my roommates seen me? Why was I on the floor? What the fuck am I doing with needles anyway? Why did I start doing this shit? Did I just OD?\n\nThe questions flood my brain. The warmth and comfort of the opiate high is giving way to intense anxiety. WHY DO I DO THIS?\n\nI blink and another loud *SNAP*. I'm back in my bed, I look down at my arms and can still faintly make out the track marks that have mostly healed and disappeared. I think of the night that memory was from.. I am reminded of why I got sober, of how terrible that life really was.\n\nI stand up, trembling a little and call to my roommates. \"You guys wanna hit a meeting?\"", "I pressed back into my chair as the burning sensation trickled down my throat. As I shut my eyes in a mix of excitement and anxiety, I could feel the trance kicking in. A rush of thoughts flashed past my head until it all became still. \n\nIt was the founder's day at school. The school being an old dilapidated French-Indian colonial establishment was expanse, with huge rooms and medieval arches. I used to stay in the school hostel as my parents tried to make the ends meet. The school had, like every year opened up the sanctum, where the grave of the founder lay for over a hundred years. We embarked there to remember and \"thank\" our founder. \n\"Quick! Get in line. I don't have all day!\" shouted Mrs. Singh, my teacher in her mid forties. She was always very strict, sometimes even resorting to corporal punishment. The place was damp, with moss all around. As I rushed, I slipped and fell down. \"What in the hell are you doing, you blind idiot!\" she howled, as she pulled me up by my ear lobes. \"Keep moving, you all!\" she barked at the others. \n\"Did you show your test grades to your parents this time?\" she enquired as people left. Her countenance turned to a grimace. I gulped as she pinched my ear again. \"I know what you've been doing in the recess at the washroom.\" she said as she sniggered. I couldn't fathom what she ment as a shiver ran through my body. She ran down her hand to my neck as she coldly said, \"Do your parents know?\" I hesitated as I struggled to utter, \"I don't know what you mean Miss. I didn't do anything wrong.\" as I tried hard to control my sob. She didn't budge. Her hands ran down my chest as she pulled out my shirt. \"I'm sorry, I didn't do anything...please let me go miss..\" I sobbed as fear gripped over me. \"I'll see if you did any wrong..\" she uttered under her breath as she slid her hands inside my pants. \"Sorry, miss..please let me go. I didn't do anything wrong..please\" I squealed as she pinched me. I ran. As hard as I could. As fast as I could, not turning back until the sanctum was finally behind me. \nI ran into a bathroom as I shut myself inside. I sobbed as somebody knocked on the door. I ran my hand into my pocket, as I drew out a picture. It was a picture of my mom. I flushed it down as I came out to find my friend, \"Hey! Miss Singh has been looking for you. She said you dropped your bag. Here take it! Damn that place sucked, I skip school every founder's day. Hell, one senior said his batchmate saw something there last year. He doesn't talk about it. Anyway, gotta rush to the mess, see you later!\"\n\nI woke up later as a tear rushed down. The head was still heavy. And the ears still hurted. ", "It was early Autumn, I walked into the living room of Kenny’s three bedroom apartment. The air in the place was filled with a faint cloud of skunkweed and the smell of stale beer. To my right, three girls and a guy (whom I only know as “The Rocket”) were playing strip pong, one of the girls was wearing only a bra patterned with green and purple polka-dots. She looked familiar, like a past one-night-stand, though I knew I had never met her. Across the room, Kenny sat with my ex-roommate, Peter, a guy who consistently looked like he had just gotten off the late shift at Denny’s (not the chain restaurant, but a local cafe by the same name). The two of them were talking with each other; their voices only peaked above the sound of the radio in Kenny’s room.\n\nI looked to the window, Jenna was sitting on the window sill, her blue eyes glazed over with a familiar grey. Her hair fell in loose curls across the curves of her cheek-bones. I watched her for what was probably a minute as her face filled with what was clearly a sensation of joy. I felt a hand on my left shoulder blade as Brandon walked up on my right side.\n\n“She--?” I questioned.\n\n“Yeah, she’s remembering. You want a hit?” \n\n“Nah man,” I said, looking toward the bag of small, pale green pills Brandon was holding. “I don’t do that shit anymore. It was all just high school math tests and my Aunt Catherine’s birthday parties. Not really what I’m looking for these days.”\n\n“Alright man, suit yourself.” Brandon turned and walked toward Kenny’s room.\n\nThe hours, as they often did on these idle nights, slipped into morning. We smoked and drank and let the night away. I found myself talking to the girl with the green and purple polka-dotted bra. Jenna spoke of the first time she danced in the rain after a break-up. Brandon regaled us with stories of the time he traveled through Europe. And I, after a little too much beer, talked of my seventh grade math final. The words were familiar, the stories twice told, and when I came down I looked around the room of Kenny’s apartment in December of that year.\n\n“What’d you remember,” Kenny asked me.\n\n“That night this fall where I tried to quit this shit. I swear, one day Memory Lane will take me somewhere interesting.”\n\nThe smell of skunkweed hung in the air. We sat as the night wore on, counted only by the songs that played over the radio. With greyed eyes we spent our nights slipping into morning dreaming of better days that never seemed to come.\n", "I am alone and drifting in the universe. The timeline of my life plays before me like a movie as I drift towards the screen, completely motionless. Inches from the projection, I hear my brother's voice shout \"stop!\". I am pulled forward into a massive tunnel at great speed and awake on the side of the road. An unknown force holding me down and there is nothing but blinding light. Liquid and solid matter spew from my mouth as I grow more and more confused. Why am I not in pain? The sound of sirens becomes louder and louder. My vision returns and I focus on the small pebbles mixed in within pavement. Above me are the voices of men prompting me not to move as I drift in and out of consciousness. \nGary: \"Dude?\"\nMe: \"...\"\nGary: \"You're back, man\"\nMe: \"Oh\"\nGary: \"So, what do you think\"\nMe: \"I think I'll stick with weed\" \n", "I fell asleep last night with my head slammed onto the back of my hands. I have done this a few times now. I must need help. It has to mean something, to wake up in the perfect stance to say your prayers. My head must be heavy if it keeps seeking my hands for a shelf. I know i need help. If it wasn't enough evidence, to wake up as though the world shall hear your blessings, there is proof of an issue when you wake up with the indent of your jewlery pressed into your face. I've got to get help. The backwards impression of the spiral ring, i simply had to buy despite actual astetic apeal, is now the bad descion i'll walk around with for a day or so on my forehead. My bad decisions always try to stick themselves to me like a reminder. As though i didn't already have the help remembering. I guess i shouldn't be surprised to wake up like this anymore. You never really know where you're going to go when you go to sleep. \n\tI lifted my head violently, breaking my neck up to begin the day. I slid back in the folding chair i had just found myself unconcious in, and sprung into action. I skipped the usual morning routine of taking tally of the damage i awoke to, already knowing full well it was awful and i wouldn't want to know about it right now anyway. I avoided my gaze to the full scope of the room, zeroing in on my purse and my keys and forgetting anything else as i hurried to the door and down the stairs onto the street. there was no way around this, i mulled as i hailed a cab and rubbed my sore temples. the cab zipped and the mark on my forehead adopted my heartbeat, throbbing to the tempo as i attempted to collect my thoughts. My masacara was now pratically blush and my priorities were jumbled but i couldnt stop to take the time to sort them. I could barely make change and surely overpaid the cab driver, like i could afford it, just to gain the three extra seconds in running up to the apartment. That's always me, sacraficing more in order to get less. The elevator tested all my patience and my will to live but finally, finally, i had reached the door. This door i have found myself in front of far too many times. The relationship i have cultivated with this door rivals that of any recent suitors. For no one else do i find myself in front of quite as vulenerable. I let my fear out and give myself over to excitement as i face this door. i stand in front of this door, practically kissing it, waiting for it to swing open and swallow me up. And just like always, as i stood soothing my internal screams in the face of my door, it opened. And just like always, the next thing i saw was never a nice image. \n\tHe always stood there with a smirk i just knew would eventually taste the back of my hand. I never found the need to be particually violent, but there are some smirks that just scream to be slapped. His was the one screaming the loudest. I resisted though because i still had not found the time to situate my priorities and my base desire was still under lock and key by the smirk. he led me into the small apartment and down the narrow hall into the back room. A wall of filing cabnets crowed around like gossips, all hulled passing judgement as i did my best to ignore them. I only needed one thing now, so i turned my attention to the small black cabinent in the corner. I pointed to it, though the smirk needed no prompting in unlocking it and had already started pulling out a long drawer full of viles. My heart took the usual tour it always did at this point, racing and jumping and flipping at the sight of the hundreds of viles. my heart always soared and burst at the sight. it crash landed as usual as he handed me my proper sized vile. my typical dosage as he came to know me at. I didn't know if this should make me feel appalled at his assumption or apprechiative of his convience. But before i could figure it out i was already in the cab rushing home and i guess thats the answer enough right there. I rolled the viles around in my purse, impatient as i rode the elevator. Why do i never take the stairs? Home looked unfamiliar and i felt myself take the effort to resist the urge to warm to my environment, not needing any feelings clouding me before i emptied these viles into myself. I made one small attempt at ambience, grabbing a beer from the fridge and propping down on a pillow in the kitchen on the floor. i knew it didnt matter where i was sitting. i learned by now to just sit the fuck down and try to make as little mess as possible. because before i even emptied the neck of the corona i was already gone.\n\tI can't exactly explain the feeling yet, but i'm sure i'll keep experimenting until i do. i call it something like a deck of cards shuffling in my head. its a vivid image and i see the cards flutter and shift. except they all hold memories. and as i watch them shift its like sudenly one jumps forward. Suddenly i'm six and i'm at a birthday party. with ice cream on my face and grass stains on my dress, i try to ask to jump in the bouncey house but my bow keeps falling in my eyes, someone is laughing. wait, i'm falling. onto the foot of my cousins bed as she readies herself for a date. i never remembered her being so picky about her outfits. i guess 8 year old me never noticed. i'm falling, into the pool of my first boyfriend. he splashes water on me as i flip my fake fin in his face and i feel his fingers grab my toes, my calves, my thighs, my ass. i'm falling. into a bed i don't remember. but i'm sleeping. this is strange. where am i? the drug only puts you back into the memory. you cant change what is happening or how you are feeling. this drug is just a vivid recall. so where am i here? i feel nothing. if i feel nothing, why have i not started falling? this must be an empty memory. although, i have had memories while i was sleeping and what i had felt at that time was the dreams i was having. i'm not dreaming here, i feel nothing. i feel empty. what is happening? even when i am shut off i'm never really shut off. that is the thesis of what this drug has taught me. but where am i here? what is this right now?\n\n I still hadnt started falling, i felt the nothingness for awile until a shaddow finally appeared. this dark and shaddow figure of a man whose face i could not see. he moved over to this unfamiliar bed and the unconcious unfeeling version of me, and picked me up. he picked my lifeless body up like he was an expert. i can't explain the feeling of experience in the way he snatched me up gently, like he had been picking me up like that forever. i watched as he ducked down and stepped out his window onto his fire excape and down onto the ledge of the buidlings roof. I watch as he craddled me, while jumping and climbing onto my own fire escape, and into the window of my kitchen. he placed me down on the floor next to my refridgorator, careful not to disturb the stella artois bottle next to me. and god forgive me, i'm just awful at managing priorities, because all i could really think was how long ago had it been that i bought stella. i'm falling. ", "Dion hands me a Carmex bottle and I hand him a crisp Benjamin. I then spend twenty minutes steering the conversation to an exit lane. The customer and dealer relationship is based on subtle honesty masked in small talk pleasantries. Nothing pleasant about it. I'm really only here for Therapy. You know; Memory Lane, the Oldie Goldies, Samscara, The Purple Freud. \n\nHis perception is I'm here for conversation, to watch Family Guy reruns, and check out his new Gibson Les Paul guitar. People don't just want drugs legalized in this country for recreational use. They want drugs legalized because they don't want to sit here on Dion's futon and watch him play Medal Of Honor in his basketball shorts. I wonder, siting there, if its company policy for all drug dealers to not wear shirts during the transaction.\n\nMost drugs are about setting setting setting. Fuck around on Acid in the right atmosphere and you'll find yourself coming apart in ribbons and crying for eight hours. Even marijuana, with the right stuff, has been known to send me into panic attacks where my heartbeat was enough to drain the color from my face. You will not catch me putting anything in my body that will put tracks in my arms, or melt my nose off, or worse yet make me clean for twelve hours, but I'll try anything that gives the promise of self exploration.\n\nNice thing about memory lane is that it gives off a potpourri fragrance. I slide the Carmex bottle up under my dash board and obey every traffic sign on the way home. This shit is a schedule one, first time offense felony. No exceptions.\n\nThat being the case, there are whole communities of scientists, psychologists, and psychonaut druggies who are enraged and baffled by this. There have been claims of this drug helping people confront painful repressed memories. There are people claiming to have visited past lives. There are even some who believe this is humanity's key to time travel. \n\nI grab a bottle of ginkgo and pop three like Dion said to do. Dude knows provisions. If its mushrooms you want orange juice. The vitamin C boosts the effects. If its ecstasy you want Vicks vapor rub. The menthol will make you feel like you are huffing angel farts. \n\nSince you can do years worth of research on Memory Lane and not find a single case of death I feel ok. I have an anchor I like to use in case shit gets a little too real. I will prep a room with calming colors like teal and lemon yellow, sandalwood incense, and of course a big pad of watercolor paper and paints. \n\n\"Be my reminder here, that I am not alone\". \n\nThis is the mantra to bring me back to Earth. You have to have a mantra. It is the string between your fingers and the helium balloon. Without that string it's easy to float a little to close to the sun before you pop and crash. You make promises to never let yourself go in your big bright, and vast cosmos again. \n\nI take in a big breath and open the Carmex bottle. It is a purple oil with bloody chunks of hibiscus leaves mixed in. Clearly this batch is of the homemade genus. Exhale.\n\nI dip my finger in and ash Wednesday a cross on my forehead with the goop. I dip my other finger in and lay flat on my microfiber couch rubbing the oil on my temples. While I'm waiting for the first wave to overtake me I observe what thoughts pop up. A tile bathroom floor. A beer with Dion on his porch, shirtless. My car payment is late. My girlfriend, Mandy naked in the shower sparkling like the milky way. \n\nThen WAMMO.\n\nEverything you hear and read about concerning Memory Lane dissolves in first hand experience. I begin to peel away from my body like a wax wrapper. The walls fall into the floor. The geometric graphical patterns form in my peripherals just like the onset of mushrooms. Sounds of the mood music playing take a back seat to my inner voice, or voices. They sound out questions in the middle of my inner auditorium...\n\n\"Holy shit!\". \n\"Am I still alive?\"\n\"Where am I?\"\n\nBlue and stardusted gold stripes blanket my vision and behind it a woman dances to the drums of \"Dissposition\" by Tool. She sways and moves her hips and signals a come hither at me. I abide.\n\nHere is where you watch, not through your three year old eyes, but through the eyes of an ancient storyteller. A ghost who's observed and recorded your every moment since antiquity. A three year old you and familiar with being old as Aeons, he sits in Dad's Camero. \n\nDad is pushing the three year old against the passenger's side window telling him not to get blood on the seatbelt. The Camero cutting through the dotted lines of coupon pavement. \n\nWhen the doctor is pushing a hooked needle and sewing your helmet shut again you feel the latex smell of the room bowtied with a sharp bolt of pain screwing into the surface of your skull. Your Dad is sitting in the room with you. He lifts you up off the medical table in a hug finally. \n\nIt's hard to tell if this is the same you that caught his head on the sharp fangs of a coffee table. Maybe you are the you that forgot about the pain of your first stitches. Or you could very well be the koala beer hooked to the chest of your Dad. You may just be the one watching all this. You could be the wood paneling in the waiting room, the spread of coffee ringed newspapers and magazines, the round table causing no gashes. \n\nSomeone sings \"All this pain is an illusion...\". It isn't the doctor or nurse. Not your wailing mom, or stubborn father. Not Jesus, Buddha, or Zeus himself. It's from inside the voice sings.\n\nYou remember then, this is \"Parabola\" from Tool's album Lateralus playing on repeat. You, for a brief second are reminded of your body on the fancy couch. You remember now, what those words mean and see how you carry this with you through every moment of your life. This is the past revealing itself in the present. This is no bandaid or gauze or suture. This is opening the wound. It's reaching in the black and dissolving the shit you've carried most your life and forming it into a refined single feather.\n\nI remember the anchor.\n\nI wash the vibrating colors from my skin long enough to notice something like seven hours has passed before the alarm clock becomes nonsense. Inside is a 360 degree radius concerning my emotions. I try to figure out why this experience was the bit of information Memory Lane wanted to pass off onto me but feel I'm coming in for a soft landing in a more present time.\n", "The last few days have been a daze of drugs and alcohol. Anything to take away the pain of thinking about her...I have been spending the night at a friend's house because my family just doesn't understand. \n\nI lay awake in my friend's room wishing for him to wake up so I can start \nto move around and make noise.\n\n\"Hey man\", my friend calls from his bed.\n\n\"Yea?\"\n\n\"You wanna try this new drug I got a few days back?\"\n\nI think to myself what is one more drug to dilute the pain and emptiness I feel.\n\n\"Yea sure, what is it?\"\n\nHe goes on to tell me it's called \"Memory Lane\", this wondrous drug that will help you relive a random event that happened in your life. My friend then pulls out what looked like PEZ candy and proceeded to crush up a single candy. He then pulls out his grinder and his rolling paper and proceeds to roll a blunt. Right before he finishes he lightly sprinkles the crushed candy into the blunt and then licks it shut.\n\n\"Alright bro you get to hit this first.\"\n\nAs he hands me the blunt and a lighter my mind starts to race with all the memories i hope to relive once more.\n\nI spark up the lighter, put the blunt in my mouth and start to ignite the end of it. I slowly inhale and take the deepest breathe i could manage. 1...2...3...4...5...exhale. The cloud of smoke blurred my vision and time seems to slow...I take a few more good hits before i fall back into the couch. Leaning back into the couch seems endless then...black.\n\n*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*\n\nI wake up and slap my alarm clock till silence returns once more. My eye lids crack open to my dark room at home. As i survey the room i notice how still and tranquil my room is. My body then arises from my bed walks out the door and into the bathroom. It was a normal school day so the morning routine was nothing special but the drive to school was a lot more enjoyable then i remember with most school days. As i walk into school with a friend i still realize the utter happiness that was constant throughout my day. Then i saw her...my ex and the time period of this memory came into focus. She walks over to me and we kiss before we enter class. My heart raced when she kissed me...the rest of class was just constant torture as my past self flirts and stares at her. After class the rest of the day flew by as the last bell rang i met up with some friends as i walk out of the building toward the parking lot. I notice that i am not heading towards my car but to hers. We sit in her car and talk a while and then the sky opens up and starts to down pour rain. The hopeless romantic i am take an idea from a movie and decide to kiss her in the rain. My inner self sheds a tear at this gesture. Then i start to get ripped from my body while kissing her. The drug is wearing off. I awaken on my friend's couch and start to break down crying. All i can think about is what happened and what i did wrong. This trip only increases the depression and drug use. That was the last time i took a trip down memory lane...", "\"I promise you'll like it, Bran.\"\n\nI shake my head vigorously. No way I would be tricked into drugs, especially some unknown one.\n\n\"Just once bran, please. It's on me.\"\n\nThis time, I just glared at her, asking her if I was an idiot through my unamused gaze. If Rebecca was this desperate to get me high on this thing, then it would probably mean more than trouble- anything she was into would spell trouble. After seeing her visibly give up, I wandered to\nTo one of the cocktail stands and poured myself a drink. Drowsily, I noted that the waitresses that had been serving the drinks had meandered off somewhere, and regretted that Rebecca had dragged me off before I'd gotten a word with that red-haired one. I hoped she would come back soon...\n\nThe world lost all balance, and I collapsed. I tried to ask for help, but my throat was dry.\n\nFuck. Rebecca had spiked the drinks.\n\nAfter what seemed like a long time, I awakened to the sight of a concrete-grey sky matching the colour of the roof. As my body raised itself, my muscles complained and my neck felt in need of a good cracking. However, apparently I ignored the sensation and forged onwards. \n\n\"That's surprising\", I thought to myself. Wasn't that drug Rebecca told. Me about meant to make me recall a memory? I don't remember this at all...\n\nAs my dilemma confused me, the memory-me narrowed his eyes and quickened his pace. His breathing became ragged, and I could feel my heart being ripped in two, a deep, penetrating pain grasping my being.\n\nBt what finally tipped it off was what I was holding. A knife. \n\nI tried to stop myself as I turned the corner. I screamed at my body to stop, but it wouldn't listen. It was only a memory. \n\nAnd then, the most 'real' thing within the memory happened. I saw Rebecca. \n\nAnd I stabbed her.\n\nI felt the cold splash of water as the memory ended, and before I could open my eyes, I heard a voice.\n\n\"Do you remember now?\"\n\nAnd that's the story of how I died.", "Amanda considered herself fairly successful in life. She just bought a brand new car and qualified for a mortgage without her dad being a consigner. She knew if she had to rely on him for his credit, she wouldn't have qualified, But that wasn't his fault. That was Terry's fault.\n\nAmanda hadn't spoken to Terry in 5 years and 10 months. She celebrated the last phone conversation every year with a nice bottle of wine and her fiancé Jamaal. Terry didn't get to meet Jamaal. That last conversation occurred just after Amanda and Jamaal started dating.\n\nThe phone rang.\n\n\"Amanda, it's your dad.\"\n\n\"I know dad. I know it's you. You're the only one that calls me from this number.\"\n\n\"Okay good. I just didn't want you to think that I was your mother,\" he said. \"She asked me to talk to you again.\"\n\n\"She doesn't need to apologize to me. She needs to apologize to you,\" Amanda said sternly.\n\nThey had this conversation a hundred times and the conversation laid itself out verbatim every time. As far as Amanda was concerned she forgave Terry too many times and allowed her to take advantage of her even more often. She was through with her. The rest of the family could deal with we lies and deceit.\n\nHe gave up.\n\n\"Anyway, have you two decided on a date for the wedding?\"\n\nThis conversation was more enjoyable.\n\n\"You know dad, I can't really talk right now. Do you mind if I call you tomorrow? We've got some friends coming over for dinner and I need still need to start the lamb.\"\n\n\"No problem sweetheart. I'll talk to you tomorrow. I love you.\"\n\n\"Love you too dad.\"\n\nAmanda had told a white lie. Her friends were coming over with this new drug. Amanda did mushrooms once and it wasn't terrible. And she was super curious to see what memories would float up. She had a decent memory already but was curious.\n\nAlex was the one who brought over \"memory lane.\" It looked like aspirin.\n\n\"I'm kind of nervous. What happens if I have a bad trip?\" Amanda asked.\n\n\"Don't worry babe, I'm here.\"\n\n\"You have to go deep for bad ones,\" Alex explained.\n\nAmanda thought 'fuck it. Here goes nothing.' She leaned back on the microfiber couch and thought 'god this couch really is nice, I'm glad Jamaal...'\n\nShe was looking at some pineapples in the produce section. It was the first time she had seen a pineapple. Terry walked up to her, \"do you want it?\"\n\n\"Really mommy?!\"\n\n\"Sure. We'll bring it to the birthday party. The twins are from Hawaii. I'm sure they haven't had a pineapple since moving here.\"\n\nAmanda was excited. She was in her childhood home. She was in Kansas. 400 miles away from anything but corn. The twins were having their ninth birthday party and all the kids were going. It was a sleepover. Amanda was more excited, 'they're going to love this pineapple.'\n\nUnfortunately, the pineapple was rotten inside. It had been sitting in the grocery store for too long so no one got to enjoy it, but Amanda ate cake and ran around the room. Finally it was time for bed. Amanda went to bed in the girls room and the boys were in their room. But she had to go to the bathroom.\n\nIt was dark and she couldn't remember which door was the bathroom. She pushed open a door and there was naked Terry bent over with the twins' dad behind her fucking her senseless while she begged for more.\n\n...\n\nAmanda shot up.\n\n\"This is fucking bullshit. What a waste of fucking money.\"\n\n\"What?!\" Alex asked.\n\n\"I thought this shit was going to give me a long forgotten memory but it gives me the one fucking memory I can't forget. Fuck you Alex. Fuck this shit.\" Amanda kept yelling at Alex and Jamaal.\n\nAmanda stormed out. She called her dad.\n\n\"Terry is a fucking slut. All the men she cheated on you with. All the times she abandoned us when we were kids. All the money she stole from you. What the fuck is wrong with you dad? How can you look at that piece of shit every single day? You deserve better. You deserve someone that loves you and respects you..\"\n\nAt this point she was crying and yelling at her father. He was silent on the phone.\n\nShe finally calmed down.\n\n\"I'm sorry dad. I just want the best for you. You're such a great person and I just wish you had someone in life who supported you. Imagine how much easier life would have been if you had a woman in your life that supported you.\"\n\nHe said the same thing he always said, \"she's the mother if my children.\"\n\nHe finally asked her, \"is everything alright?\"\n\n\"Yeah Dad, I think I just had too much wine and I got a little emotional. I should go to bed.\"\n\n\"Alright sweetheart. Sleep well. I love you.\"\n\n\"I love you too, Dad.\"", "I stumble outta the bar with this shady motherfucker in a hoodie.\n\n\"Fuck it, how much?\"\n\n\"Ten bucks.\"\n\n\"Alright, shit, here, lemme get one.\"\n\nI give the dude a ten and check my phone. It's just after midnight. I'm feelin' pretty fucked up already. I started drinking early. Had nothing better to do today, I mean, I never really have nothin' better to do. Whatever I just wanna check out for a while. I've never tried Mem before but had a couple buddies say it was crazy as shit. I guess it's called 'memory lane' cuz it takes you back to one of your own memories. Heh. What a fuckin' trip. Yea, that's exactly what I want right now. I just wanna get outta here, fuck off back to a happier time. Well here's hoping it's happier, I guess I won't know till it kicks in, could be any memory, don't get to choose. But fuck it, anything's better than this shit. Bottom's up...\n\nI down the little vile and start walking home. Dude says it takes about twenty minutes to kick in. Cool, I pop on my headphones and start to cut through the park. Deftones \"My Own Summer\" comes on, heh, that'll do. I'm still feelin' buzzed, walkin' quick. The night air is crisp and the music...yea, I'm feelin' pretty fuckin' tight. All the sudden, I feel my headphones yanked off and the music cuts out. What the fuck??\n\n\"Where the fuck you goin' punk?\"\n\nSMACK!(!!?&?!!!!) Knuckles to my face. Red hot pain, my eyes shut and I see black. SHIT. \"What the fuuuck?!?\" I shout. Someone grabs my head with one hand and pulls me back into him, choking me with the other arm. \"Auuugh..\" I try to scream. Nothing comes out just the sound of gurgling on my own spit. I fall to the ground. Knee to the face. FUCK! Again. I keel over. Pain, so much pain. Kick to my stomach. Again. Again. Fuck. I can't. I can't, it's too much. I feel hands on me, going through my pockets. Fuck, no. I try to move but can't Auuugh, fuuuuuck!! I feel something dripping down my face, what is that?? I put my hand on my head, it's all slick. Hair matted. Shit, must be blood. Fuck. \"Hey.\" I try to call out, it comes out like a whimper. \"Hee..elp.\" I can only manage a tortured whisper. Shit. It fucking hurts. My side, fuck, I think my rib is broken. I reach down, fuck. Something's poking out of my side. Is that my fucking rib?? Somebody please fucking help me. Oh shit, I start to feel weird, oh god, it hurts. Searing pain all over, but then, something else, I feel FUCKING weird. Oh thank fuck, I think the Mem's kicking in, get me the fuck outta here. Please! I pass out. Darkness...\n\nWoah. I stumble outta the bar with this shady motherfucker in a hoodie...", "I half-stumble half-walk over to my tattered lay-z boy chair, the bottle of whiskey clinking as I set it down on the table. I sigh as I sit down, glancing at my reflection in the glass next to me. Damn... Not looking too good. My permanently sardonic eyes remind me that I'm certainly past the age where you can shrug off a hangover or continually mess with narcotics. \nDespite knowing this I'm not messing around, I'm serious, I need to know. Part of me is locked away and I'm desperate. \nThis isn't just a fun trip. I mean sure re-living getting blown in the city park was fun but, fuck me I had totally forgotten that the cops showed up and she was only 17... \nBesides if you have never done this before my friend then you will no this isn't no Minnie Riperton R&B song this shit is serious. Do it wrong and when you come back you won't have any memory at all. I've seen it. I've seen 20 year old kids who just wanted to relive their first lay come back wide eyed as a baby and just as smart.\nSo I fill my glass, down my drink, and for the 6th time I put on the mask. \nNot much of a mask really...Just a ball that goes in your mouth and then a strap that goes around the back of your neck. In the back of your neck at the base of your skull is fat needle full to the brim of \"Memory Lane\" or Eidetic's Piss as the dealers called it. \nI bite down on the ball and the needle stabs into my spinal chord flooding my brain with the stuff. I hope that this time will be the last and that I never have to do this again because it hurts. \nHoly shit does it hurt. \nIt feels like a firework has just gone off at the base of your skull and light up all the neurons and electrons and they are just trying to leap out of your head and explode your eyeballs and your brain is just propelling you down a tube to nowhere. I can't see anything because my eyes are rolled so far back in my head that I should be able to see the actual synapses burning.\n People who watch others take the trip say that the person is only out for a minute tops, but when you want to see something from your past time is relative and so the transition can take forever it seems. \nI came out of my trip across my own conscious time span and immediately knew I was in the right place. I knew this because I had never been here before. I could not remember it. I knew because people had told me what happened. I knew the longboard below me was mine, I knew that the houses moving past me were somewhere in town I used to live in, and I knew that the people skating ahead of me were friends of mine from over a decade ago. \nI also dreaded what would happen next. I had ideas but had never lived, had no memory of it. The part of me that knew screamed and panicked and tried to jump off my board and stop, but I knew there was no stopping it. My feet moved without my control, my mouth shouting happily to the figures ahead of me, enjoying the ride down the hill but me from the future dreaded the pain. I would feel every bit of it and had no power to stop it. The people skating in front of me turned a corner and went down a street carving back and forth on their boards. I missed the turn. \"Oh well fuck it,\" past me thought. Apparently I wasn't too worried not knowing where the hell I was going. The hill started to get steeper and the suburban houses started to speed by and the new longboard under me started to shake. I looked out my own eyes, my 17 year old eyes as the road started to drop off, and my memory started to come back. \nI was flying now, faster than I had ever gone on wheels, and the bottom did not look promising. A dead end couldesac with ivy and a incline up a slope. My 17 year old self looked in horror and really realized what deep shit he was in now. I felt for him. I was already past it. I had been through everything already. The broken arm. The craniotomy. The staph infection. The seizures. This was the only thing that was missing from my puzzle. I had no memory of this day.\nWe both flew toward the end of the the hill him wondering if this was the day he was going to die and me wishing I could reassure him that it wasn't. \nAnd then we crashed.\n\n ", "Your return to consciousness is welcomed by the bright white of a computer screen, flashing colors at you the moment your fingers stumble across a few familiar keys to get to that favorite website of yours. A quick glance around the room before you continue on with your activity; the door is cracked open, but you're probably alone. Despite your razor-like focus on the cracked doorway, most of your vision is unfocused, the walls of the room covered in a whitewash. Not the same white you woke up to... it's duller... but a bit more comforting. Splashes of oakwood furniture can be barely made out as you turn back to the screen glowing on your face and try to make out anything; the drugs could take some adjusting sometimes.\n\nYou struggle just to focus on anything, but your brain refuses to see anything but barely formed colors. You're high right now, aren't you? I wonder what you're on. Could be weed, could be meth, could be coke, could be antidepressants. I wonder how old you are. That should help you figure out what point you're at; at least a ballpark guess. You look down at the fingers resting on a mouse and keyboard, idly scrolling that same old website with or without a brain piloting it.\n\nYou strain to focus one more time... the light is less beaming as your eyes adapt to your surroundings, letting the screen feel a little less vivid, a little more comforting. You can almost collect enough detail to see your fingernails... then you lose it. the image quickly snaps back to a complete blur of the same dull colors. Your mind is instantly put at ease by the familiar shades. It's okay, it's probably antidepressants. Probably. They never helped much. What were you taking back there? \n\nYou quickly snap into focus, stumbling to the ground in the middle of your living room. There's either decorations or complete garbage littering the carpet; it's somewhat hard to tell from this angle. Are you high right now? Probably not. Maybe a little weed. Your friend wanted you to try out something new, what was his name? I don't know either. \n\nAnyways, you're still on the floor.\n\n...\n\nGet up.\n\nYou rise to your feet as quickly as you can, although that takes a few minutes in your current condition.\n\nNow, stumble up to bed.\n\nGo on.\n\nYou take a step, then two, your feet feeling like dead weight as you drag yourself forward. The next thing I remember, you're in bed. You're convinced that the best thing to do is try and sleep it off.\n\nYou stare blankly at the wall for a moment, lost in your thoughts. You should call your friend, what was his name? You should paint your room. This bed is comfy. And just like that, you're out like a light. Maybe you'll have a memory worth remembering next time.", "In the bathroom I awake to a naked body lying on the floor that is bound in a fetal position. The small windowless room is filled with steam. Water is dripping from the ceiling only to remind me that I can still feel. \n\nDue to the dense fog that fills the room, I can barely see my hand in front of me. The only thing I can hear is water running. I reach out to feel for anything that will help pull this old soul up from the ground. It feels as if I've been searching for an hour and no luck. I begin to ask myself, \"How did I get here\"? \n\nThere is no response. \n\nSuddenly I feel this cold felling at the tip of my fingers and realize it is familiar. I caress it real slow to gain full memory. Then it hits me. These are the same feet that support my bathtub. \"How did this get in here?\", I ask myself. \n\n(I shut my eyes and go deep into my memory to see her face bright up as we sat naked in the tub scrubbing each other's feet.) \n\nNow back to reality, I drag my hand slowly across the top of the tub to get a better grip. \nMy whole body immediately goes into shock and (given the impression that my heart dropped) I can see my heart lying on the floor. \n\n\"How is this possible?\"\n\nI can smell her Chanel and taste her love. This feeling is so real. I grab with both of my hands and caress this texture that resembles a woman's skin. I make my way to where a wrist would be. \n\nI begin to shake unbearably only to find that the scars are gone. \"This can't be real. This can't be real. Somebody help me! Get me out of here!\" \n\nTotal silence. The dense fog is immediately gone. \n\nI am face to face with my naked self staring into a mirror. Then in a soft tone I hear someone call my name from behind. I can see through the mirror a silhouette of a woman lying in the tub. I turn around and I am blinded by her smile. \n\n\"Hello darling\", she says. What can I say? What should I say? What would you say? \n\nFor the first time in my life I am at a loss for words. I reach out to her so I can feel again. She slowly lets out her hand for me to grab, but it crumbles at my finger tips. That's when the rest of her body begins to crumble. \n\nThe room goes black and I am face to face with myself once more staring into the same mirror. This time I am fully clothed and I can hear the birds singing outside. I let out a deep breath that filled my lungs. \n\n\"It's time to go\". \n\nI turn around and face the door. I then turn the knob very slowly to ensure everything is safe. I am then blinded by her smile once more. \n\n\"Hello darling. Is everything ok? You were in there for a while. Did I hear the water running?\" \n\n(Looking back into the bathroom I reply by saying)\n\n\"Everything is fine. Now that I know you are okay. What's for dinner?\" \n\n(The past is not to be forgotten, but a memory that will help you push forward.) \n\nThe End. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "On the streets they would call it deja vu. Only the long time users really get them. After awhile though, they get worse.\n\nSee the problem with the Mems was once you had taken enough you started to lose it a little bit. Walking around minding your own when out of nowhere these little flashbacks start pounding your senses. \n\nAt first its little things like a pretty girl that resembled your first love. Or maybe something as simple as smelling some food on the breeze and remembering your ma making dinner for you when you were younger. But the more you do it, the more you remember. \n\nWhatever your dealer calls it (Bourne syndrome, deja vu, replays, flashing) doesn't matter. Believe me, its real.\n\nSee most people do it once in awhile and then move on. Don't get me wrong that's totally cool, but those memories not only are \"relived\" but \"rewrote\" in a fashion that ends up quite bad. \n\nWhen Joe Schmoe drives to work Monday through friday 52 weeks of the year his mind just glosses over anything that's part of the usual. He doesn't remeber the smell of the morning coffee, the feel of the AC, the songs he listened to, what he was wearing felt like etc etc. \n\nSee no one realized that our mind forgets these things on purpose.\n\nSo what happens when you're \"all filled up\" on sensory input from Mems? You fucking flash. \n\nWalking down the street and hear a car honk? Your mind cant proccess that kind of input. Your brain picks a related memory and plays that instead.\n\nBumping uglies with the girl of your dreams? Oops 404 cant find any space to log this, ahhhh lets just play that one time he had sex with that one girl that dumped him the day after.\n\nYou can't handle input of anything more than monotones of all senses. Not to mention that flashing isn't like lost time, its pretty much a seizure to everyone around you while your mind scrambles to fix itself. \n\nAnywho, moral of the story from your friendly neighborhood dealer is this. If your going to take a \"Trip down memory lane\" I'd advise being blackout drunk ;) ", "It's dark in the alley. A man stands and watches me. Why is he here?\n\n\nHe stalks forward, grabbing me by the neck, shoving me against the wall. I try to scream but nothing comes out, my throat is constricted, my fear of him growing. Continously, he is hitting and grabbing and tearing, ripping my clothes off my body. I go numb as I realize how helpless I am. Numb to the pain. Numb to the ghastly things being done to me, forced upon me. Numb to the world, a world that will judge me for not fighting back. \n\n\nThen the numb is gone, and I feel again. I feel pain and I feel fear and I feel life and I feel death, all pulsing through my body at once, consuming me like a fire. And oh how it consumes me. Nothing left, nothing but a warmth in my neck and a whisper in my ear. \"Take a trip down Memory Lane\" he says, \"I wonder where you'll go?\"\n\n\nIt's light out when I wake up. It was a nightmare. Just a dream. Just a bad, nasty dream. I look around and see that I am in my childhood room. I wonder how I got here.\n\n\n\"Breakfast is ready dear!\" My mother, a woman who long ago drank herself to death, calls out to me. She must be back to say goodbye.\n\nI go out to the kitchen, expecting the drunk woman that I once loved, but when I see her, I am surprised. She looks sober. She looks happy. She looks like she recognizes me. Someone is behind her, grasping her shoulders lovingly. A man stands and watches me. Why is he here?\n\nMy mother starts speaking, \"Honey, I would like you to meet Jack!\"\n\n\nBut then it all goes dark. It all melts away. My room melts away. My old kitchen melts away. My even melt away. Everything melts away. \n\n\nWait! Something is wrong. Why is he here? Oh everything melted. Everything but Jack. A man stands and watches me. It's dark in the alley. So, so very dark.\n\n**EDIT:** sorry for bad formatting, I am on mobile.", "So this is my first try. Though this is inspired by a Historic event, the story in itself is purely fiction. The theme is also slightly sensitive. So just to be clear, I dont mean to offend anybody with this story, if at all! Here goes: \n\nBabies and Screams\n\nIt was a summer night and the family had left the balcony door open to let the air in. But it was hot and humid so the swaying of the curtains against the open door did not make the room any more pleasant than what the actual climate did. The weather was merciless. \n\nThe white wall attached to the open door separated a sea-facing balcony and a twenty-five square feet room. The room was not heavily decorated: its occupants were frugal. There was a medium-sized quaint rosewood bed upon which slept a mother and her child. Beside the bed and away from the sea-facing door, erected was a cupboard that matched the rosewood furniture in the room. \n\nA man in his late-thirties sat at the foot of the cupboard. The man lost some of his hair in the top, round patch of his head. For a stranger, it looked like he had shaved a precise geometric circle. The man had been sitting there for a while now- feeling his bald patch and waiting for the visceral haze. Few minutes passed before the man’s vision began to become pixelated. He did not fight the influx of blur. Seconds later, the baby’s clear, petite form began merging with the sea in the backdrop. The man stared at the baby one last time before he revisited his past. Then, covering his face with his thick fingers, he saw that the room became one hot blob of colors. \n\nMeanwhile, the baby, wrapped in his supine mother’s arms, looked like an adorably tiny curlicue: curled up in a foetal curve. His bloated tummy rose and fell as he sunk deeper and deeper into his peaceful sleep. He was far too young to understand that, tonight, the bed lacked the warmth of a third person: of a father. \n\n\n*\n\nThe baby, wrapped in his comatose mother’s arm, looked like a smudged, tiny curlicue. His bloated tummy rose and fell as he uncomprehendingly watched the dhoti-clad men and the saree-clad women running from one corner to another. \n\n“Bachao! Bachao! Roko unko!”\n\nThe locals yelled for help. They yelled for the injustice to stop. So, nobody, but an eight-year old boy, took notice that the baby was still alive in his dead mother’s arms. The eight year old boy, Sham, had come there with his family earlier that day to hear some leaders of the Non-Cooperation Movement. Sham had not particularly wanted to come because it was Baisakhi- the one festival every religious Sikh looked forward to. Sham had wanted to stay home and celebrate. But he was made to come anyway.\n\nSham’s mother, who was now a dead woman, had told him that they had to go. It was for the independence of their country. Sham had asked his mother why it was important to attend this one event out of all the others happening in the locality. If it were possible, his future self would answer the question by saying that this one event would go down in Indian history as one of the most cruel massacres- the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. \n\n“This is for our country. Bapu wants us to stop fighting each other. He says we shouldn’t be violent.” \n\n“Violent? What is the meaning of violent?” asked Sham when his mother tried to explain why they had to come. \n\n“Violence means causing physical harm.” \n\nSham snapped back into the moment- he looked at the still-alive baby. \n\nThe now dead mother’s grip over her baby had loosened and the baby had rolled on to the dust on the ground. Sham, who was hiding behind a pile of dead men and women, decided to wait till the gunshots stopped. All this while he intently watched the baby, who was now crying in yearn for his mother’s comfort. \n\nThe baby’s mouth was covered with mud and Sham had an unstoppable voice in his head warning him that if Sham did not hurry and rescue the baby, the baby might swallow the mud. Oh no, what if the baby had already swallowed the mud? He decided that as soon as the gunshots would stop, he would take the baby to the well to clean him. But for now, Sham could only wait. And while he did, he watched out for survivors and soldiers alike. \n\nOne of the soldiers patrolled the ground. The soldier had to navigate through a track made out of soil, blood, and the slaughtered. A sanguinary stench mixed with the subtle smell of stale tears lingered in the air. To Sham, the soldier looked shocked beyond his wits. He looked like did not to want to be in the heart of the blood bath. But he had to do his job. And that he did. And unfortunately, unlike Sham prayed, the soldier noticed the baby lying in the mud. He picked the baby up in his arms and yelled, “there’s one here too! What should we-”\n\nThe soldier was cut off mid sentence. Then it all happened so suddenly, at bullet’s speed, that Sham initially did not understand. The soldier had suddenly spun in his spot and, in his spin, he lost hold of the baby. Then the baby disappeared, only to reappear at a ten-foot distance from where Sham hid. \n\nThis time, the baby slept infinitely, forever bound to his curlicue. Parts of the baby’s face had ripped themselves off the rest of the baby’s flesh while blood poured out from the baby’s head like a river flowing away from a mountain’s peak. And like the river, the baby floated away to another place: hopefully a place where a peaceful-protest against violence was actually peaceful. \n\nSham screamed. He screamed louder than a widower mourning his wife’s death. He screamed louder than a pregnant mother in labor, unable to push her baby into the world. He screamed louder than a slave whipped on his bare back for not having collected enough cotton. He screamed louder than he thought he ever could have. He screamed louder than he ever would in his entire life. He screamed as loud as he could. \n\n Then, he covered his face with his little fingers. \n\n*\n\nThe supine mother’s grip over her baby had now loosened and the baby rolled on to the soft bed. It had become hotter and the pair of mother and son had drops of sweat on the sides of their cheeks. Then suddenly, the mother and child were awakened by a loud scream. Scared, the baby began to weep. \n\n“Honey! What are you doing on the floor!” \n\nAs she gently rocked her wailing baby back into his sleep, she said to Sham, “Baby, we’re parents now. You can’t do memory lane anymore! We have a child! We have to be responsible! You need to quit the drugs!” \n\n“I know. I’m very sorry sweetheart. I didn’t mean to wake you up.” \n\n“It’s okay this time baby. But what happened to you? Why did you scream? Are you okay?”\n\n“ It’s just that on my trip down the memory lane, I saw how someone in the Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer army blew my baby brother’s brains out in front of my eyes.” \n\n\n", "The normal symptoms kick in. Eyes begin to roll, arms and legs tense, that butterfly feeling in my stomach. The corners of my vision slowly fill with a haze of colours, until all I see is a golden orange fog.\n\nThe yellow rays of sun beat down on my skin, I look in the air and see a blue sky, no clouds, great day for cricket. Looking down again I see a cricket bat in my hand and dad a couple metres ahead of me. \n\n\"Mate see if you can give this one a crack!\"\n\nHe yells with his signature big grin. I get into position, left foot in front, bat between my legs, slowly chipping away at the grass. Dad begins the usual windmill arm wind up, I can't help but reveal a large toothy grin. \n\n\"There ya go!\"\n\nDad yells while releasing the ball from an underarm. The ball leaps upwards into the air, my eyes tracking it as I go, arms tensing I swing my bat at the ball. An audible crack is heard as the ball ricochets off the bat and over the frangipani tree. \n\n\"Would you look at that one mate.\" \n\nMy dad beams at me. \n\n\"You could be the next Shane Warne.\" \n\nLooking at my dad I see his big brown eyes and his always messy blond curls. Reaching in we both hug for what seems like hours. I close my eyes, savouring the moment.", "I search, frantically, around the house. There must be some left, somewhere. My needle is ready and causterized, all I need is the damn stuff itself.\n\nI look under my desk, for what must be the tenth time. I get up, take a brief pause. I drop down on my face and scan the floor. Nothing.\n\nI lift my sofa's pillows. I never trip on the sofa, but at this state...\n\nSuddenly, I remember my backpack. Didn't I take some with me on that hiking trip? Back when I would still go outside. There *must* be some in there.\n\nI ravage through it. I open the front pocket... oh God, yes! Here it is, the beautiful translucent little bag, with a bit of leftover Mem! I am ecstatic. I hop along to my desk where I left my needle. Haven't felt this good in *weeks*...\n\nSuddenly, I wake up. I look down at my arm, needle still in place. \"That was a good one\" I say to the emptiness around me.", "*hey guys, first time ever posting here, or writing creatively at all, let me know what you think. I'm afraid the ending is a little too corny, and I'd love some feedback.*\n\nI awoke from my sleep, still pretty dizzy from the night before. I looked around the room, same is its been the day before, maybe a little more food lying around, a bit more of a mess where I couldn’t be bothered to put a litterbox, minor stuff. No biggie, I’ve got plenty of time for errands today. In fact, today was looking up, I had a full day ahead of me, and a freshly packed bowl of memory lane right on my nightstand. Yup, today was a good day to take care of business. But first, I thought I owed myself a little celebration, a nice trip to my childhood, or maybe my junior high years, hell maybe even relive a tiny bit of highschool, enjoy being a teenager again. I lit up, tilted my head back, and sunk into my sheets. \n\n…I awoke from my sleep, still pretty dizzy from the night before. I looked around the room, same is its been the day before, maybe a little more food lying around, a bit more of a mess where I couldn’t be bothered to put a litterbox, minor stuff. No biggie, I've got plenty of time for errands today.\n", "I forgot about this one.\n\nI had only ever dropped Mindy-Lou twice before and didn't remember it being this visceral. The instant feeling of nausea mixed with desperation was like a punch to the gut. There was blood on my hands, and nothing I could do to save him.\n\nSometimes you try so hard to block a memory out that it eventually feels as though it honestly never happened. But your brain is powerful, and right now mine was having no trouble remembering the night that Phil died.\n\nIt seems odd that it is the sound of that tire which is standing out the most. That fucking tire still spinning slowly as the jeep, upside down and surrounded my broken glass, sits only a few feet away.\n\nPhil was laying on the asphalt with his head in my lap. He was looking up at me, his eyes screaming for me to help him but only quiet gurgles coming out of his mouth.\n\nI was suddenly struck by the fact that it was 12 years ago this week that I quit drinking. And now I remember why.\n\nI don't think I like this drug anymore.\n\n", "It hit me like a train.\n\nNo—*fuck*!\n\nIt *was* a train.\n\nThe steel behemoth clawed at the tracks, ripping a path straight towards me. The shrieking, the rumbling, the relentless shuddering of the metal beneath my feet, it all crescendo’d into a demonic plea for me to leave those tracks. I had to jump. I remembered thinking that. I remember sweat pooling between clenched palms and that crazy idea banging around my head: *stay*. *Don’t move*. *Die*.\n\nI was a coward; I no longer had the strength to move. \n\nAny moment, the brakes would screech and I would be saved. That same thought teased its way into my mind too. Only, the screeching never came; not then, not now. That smoke, black as the reaper himself, exploded out of the behemoth’s head, and all I could imagine was my blood mixing with it.\n\nJust like that day, I held my arms out.\n\nThree.\n\nTwo.\n\nOn—\n\n\"*Idiot*!\"\n\nPain flared through my skull the moment it cracked against the track. Another body tumbled with mine, rolling and scraping against nails and wood, and when the world stopped spinning, the most beautiful face hung over me. *An angel*. I was sure of it.\n\nWith a bloodied arm, I reached out to her, though I couldn’t say why.\n\nShe slapped my hand away. \"The hell were you thinkin’?\"\n\nColors clouded my vision, blocking my view of the girl. I swatted at them like gnats. \"You’re beautiful.\"\n\nThe girl leaned closer. \"And you’re bleeding. Heavily.\"\n\nI couldn’t help but laugh.\n\n\"Suicidal lunatic is what you are. Bout to start hallucinatin’ to that concussion.\"\n\n*Concussion*! *Ha*! Laughter bubbled at my lips, and even though I tried to hold it back, it was contagious. The more I pushed it away, the stronger it came back. It wasn’t long before I was stuck in an endless loop of laugh, cringe, laugh, cringe. My head was killing me, quite literally.\n\n\"I think I love you,\" I said.\n\nThe girl’s glare softened into a frown, but the more ridiculous I became, the more her frown became a grin, and eventually a smile. \"Maybe I shoulda let that train hit you. Maybe you wanted it, but I wanted to hear your story first. Couldn’t live with myself if I watched you die.\" My tongue twisted my words into a garbled mess; finally the girl laughed and I felt so happy with myself. \"C’mon. My mom’s a doctor.\"\n\nHer hands were warm. *I think I love you*. *I think I*…\n\nThe drug’s memory came to an end. No. I had to have more. I had to see her again, my sweet Caroline. I’d sell everything I owned if it just meant a chance to see her face one last time. \n\n*My sweet Caroline*.\n", "I'm nervous. I mean I've only tried weed and that was only once, but this drug was supposed to be different. There were no side effects and no risk of physical addiction. I'd heard of a couple older people who'd taken it and kept coming back to visit \"the good old days\" until their money ran out and one or two people who'd ended up in places they never wanted to be again, but a random memory seemed like it would be really cool to see again.. I didn't have anything that bad in my past, and my life was pretty damn good right now. It would be cool to visit some of the stuff in my past, see if my childhood was all it was cracked up to be. Besides it's a party. We're supposed to take a hit then talk about what showed up. Already we'd gotten a \"first time\", an embarrassing story about a high school play, and a memory from a girl who was attacked by a chihuahua at 4 and has hated dogs ever since.\n\n\"Alright Sammy, give me a hit. I'll go next\"\n\"Cool, that's $35, but for your first time I'll make it a nice even $30.\"\n\nHere we go..\nI take the pill and grind it up like I watched Tim do, then snort it through my nose. It's supposed to be faster that way. For a few more seconds I watch the people around me drinking and calming down the chihuahua girl. After all, as ridiculous as it is now, the emotions are from when she was 4. That dog was scary back then... \n\nIt's dark outside. I'm reading a book under my covers with a flashlight. I don't want Mom to catch me. Suddenly I feel a rumbling..\n\n\"OH NO! OHNONONO!\"\n\nI run down the hallway. Salvation!\n\nThe door is open. I run inside throwing the door closed behind me. I drop my pants and squat on the toilet bowl. I'd had a lot of Mom's tacos that night. No big deal though. I made sure to wipe thoroughly, then went back to bed and actually slept.\n\nSlowly, I wake up to 10 people staring intently at me. \n\"Goddammit Sammy, I want my money back!\"\n\"No refunds man!\"\n\nMan, truly random memories. Slowly, I wonder if the others were telling the truth about their random memories. There was no emotional connection to that story. It wasn't even that long. The memory could have been of me waiting in line at the supermarket. This shit is NOT worth the money. But it's a party.. I make up my mind..\n\n\"So there was this girl in high school, man I though she was hot...\"", "\"I'll get it!\"\n\nMy own voice rings in my head, the signature high-pitched squeal of a boy just hit puberty.\n\nI walk through the slightly unkempt grass, each step cushioning my low-quality, two-sizes-too-big Dunlop shoes; \"He'll grow into 'em,\" my dad would always say.\n\nMy right hand meets the chain link fence and I look up to check the height. *I don't think I've ever climbed a fence this high* The sun catches my eyes just right, and my left hand goes over my eyes to shield me.\n\nI place my right foot into one of the diamond holes, and it slides to the front in the loose-fitting shoes. My hands grip tightly at the fence and the unrefined metal is sharp against my soft hands, tiny razor-like thorns of metal dig into my skin but don't break flesh. Each hole is another foot higher, as I slowly climb further.\n\nFinally at the top, I get one hand across the stable bar before I hear a voice behind me; \"You're going too slow, Philip! I'll just get it!\" My older brother's voice is mostly ignored as I concentrate on the task.\n\nMy head gets above the bar, and my eyes focus on the green disc in the distance, the gnarled barbs of the fence blur in my vision. As I start to climb over, I hear it again. \"You're so slow!\" I hear the fence rattle, and the shaking from the added weight and his quick climbing causes one foot to sleep. My arms shake as I try to keep my body weight up, but my undefined body can't take much more.\n\nHis next reckless step causes me to lose my own. Both feet have now lost their hold inside the links, and I'm falling. I turn for safety, but too late as the twisted metal tops make first contact with my left eyelid.\n\nA \"pop\" sound rings in my ears, but the sound is not my concern. It's the crescendo of pain. The rising pain. No-words-can-describe-it pain. It feels like an eternity, like I am slowly descending further into a world of pain, before the pain explodes and doubles in intensity. Somehow, some way, the world can provide more pain.\n\nAnd then the world goes dark. And when I am finally sure I am awake, it stays black, and never goes bright again.", "Everything is so dark. I don't remember this memory... where am I?\n\nI feel like I'm being squeezed by the walls, very tightly. I'm claustrophobic, but strangely, I am not scared by this.\n\nI can feel myself slipping upward, being pushed by the walls. What is happening? I don't even remember this memory at all...\n\nI manage to make it past a threshold. I see a very bright light, and faces with masks. Aliens? Was I abducted in the past?\n\nI take a deep breath. That feels... new. I start crying for some unknown reason.\n\n\"It's a boy!\" ", "You were expecting something less painful than this. \n\nLying on your back in a world that's far, far too large. There's too much raw stuff in this space, like someone dumped air, light and sound into the room until it started bulging at the edges. That too-big outside looms over you in a way you never noticed before, but it's not the source of the hurt. \n\nThat's coming from inside you, like a migraine in your jaw. You feel like you should be bleeding, if you could do more than move drowsily from side to side. The pain cuts out your ability to think straight, but you resolve to never touch this stuff again, and to punch Danny in the nuts a few times for trying to sell you anything but weed. \n\nTeething is a bitch.", "\"Hey man, you wana try this shit? I got it from a friend who works down in Texas. Says they shoot it over the border fence late at night. It's called Memory Lane or some shit like that. He says it lets you relive part of your life with abso-fucking-lutely prefect recall. It's like you're **THERE**.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\nThe dealer shrugs, \"first hit's free, ya know?\"\n\n\"Hell yea. Man, there was this girl once, back in Cali? God she was the whole package. Smart, funny, a surfer's body -- you ever hook up with one of those surfer chicks? Hours of swimming **do things** to a womans body. KnowwhatImsaying? Hand that shit over.\"\n\nA small glass vial changes hands, the liquid inside bending the sodium glow of the city's old industrial street lamps into figments and ghosts upon the cracked concrete of the skate park. \n\n\"Two drops in each eye. Yea, just lean your head back and... yea. Ok. You might wana lie down.\"\n\nThe dealer cradled his friends head in his hands as the drug took hold. The effect was always the same -- the pupils open like pits as the eyelids flutter shut. The legs kick: once, twice, and then stiffen before melting slowly into a pronounced torpor. \n\nAnd then, stillness. In the distance an ambulance siren whoops, barely discernable above the neon buzz of the dry-cleaner's cracking yellow sign. \n\nHe wakes to the rhythmic thuds of the 11:10 train, northbound, on the tracks above. \n\n\"Well? How was it? Shit's amazing right? Did you see the girl? Maybe your dad or that car you wrecked in high school? The memory is random so it could have been anything but the more you try the more likely you are to get a good one. I'll cut you a deal on the whole case if you...\"\n\n\"Did you know we spend 1/3 of our lives asleep?\"\n\n\"I.... well shit.\"", "So I'm new here, and I figured this would be a good way to brush up on my creative writing. I'm sorry if it's terrible! Anyway, enjoy! \n\n         I started through the stained mirror, finally glancing away from the cracks at the corner, and back at my bloodshot eyes, trying to remember how many times I put myself through this. Was this the eighth time, or the ninth? Which time was it that the tremors started up? Shit, my skin is turning yellow, or is that mustard? It was pale last time, it had to have been. Just keep going, once I remember it'll be fine-no, I have to remember.- My body can heal, right? It's worth it. Focus! I have to have this memory, I have to know where they took her! \n\n       Get a grip. We were at the museum that day, she finally got to see that new geology exhibit - she was so happy,  damn it! We got hot dogs next, yeah, the salty smell of processed guts with a slight tang in the air from that loose ketchup. Oh, that needle stings more than usual- focus!\n\n       This was a great idea, just what we needed; a father daughter outing. She looks adorable in that little dress, I'm raising a little strawberry shortcake. \"Come on Kyra, let's get to the movie theater so we can get the bar seats!\" God, it's good to see her smiling again after everything. Now, which way to the movies again? I know we can take a left on Adams, but let's take Nash. There's a nice park up that road, I'm sure Kyra wouldn't mind seeing some trees. -This is it, finally! Come on, just focus a little longer.- \"Daddy can I climb a tree, pleeeeaaase? \" How can you say no to that? \"Sure, Kyra, but let's make it quick! The Muppets are waiting!\" she looked slightly odd grabbing onto that gritty bark in that cherry red dress and struggling to hoist herself up.\n\n      Wait, I never moved to help her up, they knocked me out by then. Why am I grabbing her so firmly? This isn't right! What the hell is going on? It was me? I can't. Stop this Goddamn memory!\n\n      The foul acidic burn from the vomit gripping my nostrils is better than enduring that memory. It couldn't have been me. It couldn't have. \"come out with your hands up!\" I guess there's a reason I was the only suspect. I really hope this shard does the trick. \"Stop! I'm halfway through, let me end myself!\" Why did they barge in? They can't put me through worse than that. Do they really think they can rehabilitate me? ", "\"It's called Memory Lane. It takes you back to a moment in your life, and let's you relive it like it is actually happening. Everything feels the same. Sights, smells, touch, feelings, and emotions. It's an amazing sensation.\" She rattled on and on, but I wasn't convinced.\n\n\"Why would anyone want to relive past moments?\" I sure as hell wouldn't. My life has been full of pain and sorrow, so much so that I can barely remember any happy memories.\n\n\"Are you KIDDING me? You can experience anything and everything for the first time again. You can remember great moments again and again.\" Her eyes became brighter and brighter as she continued to list all the amazing things ML does for people.\n\nI still wasn't convinced, but I thought \"Fuck it... I'll do one.\" I inhaled a spray of ML from an inhaler. I was instantly transported back 16 years...but I couldn't move, or speak on my own accord. I was literally in the moment, in control of nothing, an observer in my own body.\n\n\"Wait...\" I thought, \"I know where I am. I know when I am...no...NO.\" I was there, in Philadelphia, on July 8th, 1999. The night before my father died. \"No...I can't do this again. I just...can't.\" I pleaded with myself, somehow thinking if I begged my brain hard enough the memory would change. I knew once I went to sleep I'd be awoken by my frantic mother. I knew I'd have to relive the moment of frivolous attempting CPR on my father's lifeless body. I'd relive the moment when I lashed out at the ER doctor when he told me my father was dead. Wake up...please wake up. Snap out of this...\n\nI didnt wake up, and my memory of this night became clearer to me. I knew what was going to happen next. I watched as my body got up from its seat and moved out into the living room. As I turned the corner I saw him... \"Happy birthday Dad! I know I don't say this often, but I love you.\" My heart broke...I should have said it more often to him.\n\n\"It's OK, son. I was 17 once too. I know you do.\" I heard my father's voice, for the first time in 16 years, say. I had forgotten what his voice sounded like...\n\n\"Thanks pops...\" I felt my body plop down next to him on the couch, and give him a hug. I had forgotten how he smelled like Brut aftershave. I had forgotten how safe I felt in his embrace. I had forgotten a lot of things.\n\n\"You know what, son... I'm glad we had a chance this year to get closer. I know I spent too much time focused on your older brother when you both were growing up. I'm sorry for that.\" My father lamented. What the hell...? I don't remember this at all.\n\n\"Dad...my brother got your time because of baseball, but that's about all he got. I got your time for movies, arcades, libraries, museums, whatever I wanted to do. It may have not been all that much time, but it was always more than enough.\" I heard myself say, but didn't believe it. I don't remember this conversation. I don't remember my father apologizing to me for not doing enough. He always did more than enough...\n\n\"Well, kid, when you have your own children learn from my mistake. Spend as much time with each of them as possible. You never know when time will run out.\" He said with a smile and lighthearted chuckle. \n\nWe sat and watched TV, as we did 16 years ago. We cracked jokes, we poked fun at each other, and we channel surfed...just like we did that fateful day. I never knew the happiest moment of my life was just sitting and watching TV with my dad on his birthday, until now.\n\nThen everything went black.\n\n\"How was it?\" I heard a familiar voice ask. \"What memory did you have??\" It was my friend.\n\n\"I...I went back to the night before my dad died.\" \n\n\"OH MY GOD...I'm so sorry. I forgot to tell you that ML picks a random memory. I never had to relive anything horrific before...\"\n\n\"No...actually...it was good. I got to see my dad again. I got to hear something he said back then that I completely forgot about. I...I... thank you. I've always said I'd give anything in this world to spend one more moment with him. So...thank you.\"\n\nI packed up my things and got ready to leave. \"Where are you going?\" She asked.\n\n\"I'm going home to be with my kids.\"", "Today's the day, I'm going to do it, you hear about celebrities doing it all of the time, and they're always fine. It's not like your life will end if it all goes wrong. I'm so nervous, how can doing something so simple be so difficult. What if she doesn't love me anymore, what if she disowns me, I'd have nowhere to go.\n\nI suddenly find myself walking down the stairs, I've planned for this for a while now, but I'm nervous, I can feel my hands going clammy, and I just take a deep breath and walk into the kitchen.\n\n\"Mum can I talk to you?\" I say quietly\n\n\"What have you done this time?\" she asks in her usual suspecting tone.\n\n\"Please don't be angry, I've wanted to tell you for a while\"\n\n\"Spit it out, son\" she says impatiently\n\nAfter what seems like an eternity I decide that the time is now, I need to stop hiding from myself and other people. \"I'm Gay\".", "\"Just one hit man, and you'll take a trip down memory lane!\" Joe said, giving me the pipe. \"OK man, but it better be good.\"\n\n\nInhale. Just like he told me, I hold my breath. I let it fill my lungs. I let the drug take over. Clouds of past memories filled my mind, nothing clear yet, as if the drug was slowly walking down memory lane, looking into doors of each memory, but not yet committing to one. Eventually, though, it stops, choosing a door, a memory, a decision based completly randomly. I hope its a good one. Exhale.\n\n\nI pass out.\n\n\n\"Just one hit man, and you'll take a trip down memory lane!\" Joe said, giving me the pipe. \"OK man, but it better be good.\"\n\n\nI wake up.\n\n\n\"Well, how was it?\" Joe asks.", "As an experienced Psychonaut I knew that the key to a good trip was to go in with a positive feeling and relax. With this in mind I laid down in bed and with a bit of forced optimism I popped the small, vibrantly purple, pill. \n\n\"What memory do you think you'll get?\", said Shawn from across the room.\n\"I dunno, but Dave told me its usually something that had a big impact on ya.\"\nQuiet laughter and a murmured response that I couldn't quiet make out came from across the room.\n\nI closed my eyes.\n\nAnd awoke in a dimly lit room, to see my father quietly weeping, sitting on the floor near my bed. A thin, high voice that had long ago deepened came out of my mouth, \"Dad? Dad whats wrong? Are you ok?\"\n\nA disconnected part of me felt a strong sense of dread.\n\nA six year old climbed out of bed, and with that high pitched voice of a young child said, \"Dad its ok, you dont have to cry.\"\n\nI didnt want to be high anymore, I didnt want to watch my hero break.\n\n\"I'm so sorry son. I tried, I tried, I tried. I couldnt do it, I couldnt keep her. I'm so sorry, I'm sorry.\" And again my father broke down in tears.\n\n\"WAKE UP! WAKE UP! GODDAMMIT YOU WAKE UP!\"\nShawn was shaking me and I came to, with tears marking my own face this time. \n\nSix year old me hadn't known what all that meant, but I had learned, and I knew now that it had marked an end. \n\nThe last of the high faded, and one last memory crept into my mind, the thought, \"my parents will never get divorced\" as I happily tucked in for the night. \n", "I found out about it from a friend... never did anything like this before but I figured what the hell...\n\nLooking into the mirror... down the hatch...\n\nThere she was, beautiful. Raven hair, blue eyes, tall... Gorgeous...\n\n\"Have a good day sweetheart\" she said before we left.\n\nSame usual day, same usual school, same usual lunch. Coloring, nap time, recess (my favorite). We played outside that day. It was cool, but not cold. I love the swings. All to myself today.\n\nBack in class, back to work. I love story time. \n\nThe teacher read as we lay on our mats. Almost nap time. Of course I'm not tired! How could I be? Today is great!\n\nThe bus ride home was okay... Same old bus... But my sister is there, she always makes boring go away...\n\nHe met us in the driveway... What's wrong? Something is wrong...\n\n\"I'm sorry girls\" he said with tears in his eyes... \"she's gone...\"\n\nI woke on the floor and stared at the ceiling.... I miss my mommy...", "\"Are you serious?\", I said as I looked around the room and all the smiling faces. \" you're joking right? Like this actually works?\" \nMy friends invited me over for our bi-monthly trip. I wasn't really a fan. I always end up freaking out and breaking something. \n \n\"Yeah dude seriously. Take this and you can relive a memory. It's random though so if you got molested as a child things could get weird.\" I was intrigued but kind of hesitant. My childhood was boring. Like what if I get a memory that is just me sitting in my room watching school of rock and eating a hot pocket? I guess it's not that bad. I haven't seen that movie in a while. \n\n\"I think I want to watch someone else do it first\", I said\n\"Alright, Katie you brought them. You go first\"\nKatie was a bitch, but she always had drugs so I guess she is cool. \nKatie opened her bag and pulled out a canister. It looked like it was from space. She twisted the top and with a satisfying click the corner of a plastic bag popped out. She pulled out the plastic bag and I was done.\n\"That's meth. I'm doing meth you idiots\", I angrily shouted.\nKatie rolled her eyes and said, \"it's not meth. Chill out. Just watch\".\n\nJust like someone would do with meth she laid it on the table, crushed it, and snorted it.\n\"Seriously?\"\n\"Shut up just watch\"\nKatie laid her head back and blacked out. Ten seconds later she wakes up and smiles.\n\"How long was I out?\"\n\"Like a few seconds\", I said \n\"Really?! It felt like at least two hours. Anyways, my memory was pretty crazy. It was a fight I got into with this chick in middle school. I broke her nose. It was a pretty funny memory. That's really it. Somebody else go.\"\nEveryone looked at me. I began to sweat. I thought for a moment and gave in.\n\"Fine I'll do it\"\nSlowly I take the crystal looking memory drug and crushed it. I stared at it for a moment and went down and let it travel through my nose.\n\nI laid my head back and waited. I was nervous but I couldn't let anyone know that. I took one last deep breath and everything changed. I heard noises. Familiar noises. My parents. Images of my childhood flashed in front of my eyes. They started getting longer and slowing down until a final scene stopped and I dove into the memory.\n\n\"Are you serious?\", I said as I looked around the room and all the smiling faces. \" you're joking right? Like this actually works?\" \nMy friends invited me over for our bi-monthly trip. I wasn't really a fan. I always end up freaking out and breaking something. \n \n\"Yeah dude seriously. Take this and you can relive a memory. It's random though so if you got molested as a child things could get weird.\" I was intrigued but kind of hesitant. My childhood was boring. Like what if I get a memory that is just me sitting in my room watching school of rock and eating a hot pocket? I guess it's not that bad. I haven't seen that movie in a while. \n\n\"I think I want to watch someone else do it first\", I said\n\"Alright, Katie you brought them. You go first\"\nKatie was a bitch, but she always had drugs so I guess she is cool. \nKatie opened her bag and pulled out a canister. It looked like it was from space. She twisted the top and with a satisfying click the corner of a plastic bag popped out. She pulled out the plastic bag and I was done.\n\"That's meth. I'm doing meth you idiots\", I angrily shouted.\nKatie rolled her eyes and said, \"it's not meth. Chill out. Just watch\".\n\nJust like someone would do with meth she laid it on the table, crushed it, and snorted it.\n\"Seriously?\"\n\"Shut up just watch\"\nKatie laid her head back and blacked out. Ten seconds later she wakes up and smiles.\n\"How long was I out?\"\n\"Like a few seconds\", I said \n\"Really?! It felt like at least two hours. Anyways, my memory was pretty crazy. It was a fight I got into with this chick in middle school. I broke her nose. It was a pretty funny memory. That's really it. Somebody else go.\"\nEveryone looked at me. I began to sweat. I thought for a moment and gave in.\n\"Fine I'll do it\"\nSlowly I take the crystal looking memory drug and crushed it. I stared at it for a moment and went down and let it travel through my nose.\n\nI woke up and everyone was looking at me. \n\"What did you see?\"\nI was so pissed.\n\"Yeah, It didn't work. Everything was black. I'm just gonna go home\"\n\n", "At first when I heard about it, I was afraid. I knew I just had to try it. It's all the rage. It's been dubbed as \"Better than LSD,\" \"More fun than anything you've ever had before,\" and so on. But I was going to be the judge of that. I called up my dealer, Todd. He said he just got some, was selling it at a pretty steep price. I cut a deal, and we were going to meet in an hour at the usual spot.\n\nI arrived, and Todd was about to light some up himself. He gave me a small bag of a light blue, almost teal, substance. I forgot my lighter at home, so I had to borrow Todd's. The two of us rolled this stuff like cigarettes, and started smoking. Immediately I was back in my childhood home. \n\nI had no idea how old I was, or what this was. I was sitting in my room, but it wasn't me. I felt as if I was a ghost, floating above myself, staring down, judging. Like that feeling you get when you think somebody's watching you. Except this time, you are actually watching. \n\nI heard a banging at the door, and my former self snapped straight to it, with a face of fear on his, or my, face. I watched as my father slammed open the door, belt in one hand, beer in the other. I watched as I backed into the corner of my room, near to my old closet. I remember the door being broken later in my life. Was this why?\n\nMy father grew closer and closer. And with each step, I shuddered. I was so afraid. But why? My father was never aggressive, as far as I remember. Hell, I don't even remember who my dad was. Which helped me to realize that I must have been at most 14 years old when this happened. Although my interpretation of time isn't my strongest point. \n\nMy father was right over me now. I wasn't sure what would come first, the empty bottle or the belt. I was crouched in the corner, bracing for what could be the worst pain a child could feel. With myself looking away, I couldn't see what it was that brought with it the most horrible pain I'd ever felt in my life. I watched myself slouch over.\n\nI opened my eyes to a crowd of spectators and a hospital crew. Todd had shook me awake. I looked around, gathered my surroundings, and tried to stand myself up. But why can't I move anymore? I'm staring straight at Todd, but I'm stuck. I stared at Todd, screaming for help. The EMTs had grabbed me, and put me in the ambulance while running so many tests on me. But couldn't they see I was awake? I'm right here, dammit! Why are you doing this? I'm OK!\n\nThey ignored me. I stopped screaming, I was wasting my time. I was just going to have to deal with this shit, and I could get on with my day. But then I saw my mother was there. Why was she here? I'm OK, and how did she even know where I was? How did they call her here so fast? I was only out for a few minutes. And now why is she crying? What is going on? Somebody, please, why?!\n\nAs the ambulance doors shut, I noticed that I wasn't in good shape. I had a mask over my face, tubes everywhere, and I felt like I was going to pass out. I reached for the phone. I needed to call Jackie. She needs to know I'm OK. But then I heard it again. The crying from the corner. Except this time, it wasn't my own. I caught a glimpse of my mother, Jackie, and Daisy in the corner of the room. But when did I get in this room? When did that phone I had just reached out for appear? And what happened to the ambulance doors?\n\nA doctor walked in. I knew I was in trouble, but I recognized this place now. It was a hospital. More specifically, it was the hospital room where I was. I watched as the doctor spoke softly. Why was he speaking so low? I watched his mouth move, and heard a faint whisper that I couldn't quite make out. Then I watched as the crying grew louder and more frantic. I began to cry. But why are there no tears?\n\nAround now it finally dawned on me. Am I dead? Why can't I use my own body? All I could do was sit there and watch, as my loved ones just watched me. A month passed. Then another. I noticed time passing faster and faster, and my senses growing less respondent. I wanted so desperately to wake up from this nightmare. I never asked for this. I never wanted any of this. I watched Jackie's visits become less and less frequent. If only she knew what kind of affect she had on me when she was around. Her visits where the highlights of my short periods of consciousness. \n\nI looked at the clock. The hands were spinning. Hours became seconds. Days went by in the blink of an eye. When suddenly, it all stopped. The clock slowed down to normal time, and I could move again. I sat myself up, and looked around. I was alone. But I wasn't in the hospital anymore. Now I was sitting back in my room. I looked at my side, and Jackie was there, sleeping. \n\nI got out of bed slowly. I didn't want to wake her. I walked into the kitchen, sat down, and started bawling. Why did it have to be that? I'd heard stories of people reliving their first vacation, their first time, the moment they were born even. Why did I have to get the coma? I looked at the table, and saw the picture of myself, my mother, and Jackie. It must have been after the coma. I had a large plump of hair missing on the right side of my head, just above my ear. If it had been just an inch lower, I'd be half deaf right now. Damn was I lucky. \n\nI started heading back to the bedroom, I had work in the morning and I needed all the sleep I could get. I don't even know why I decided to try this stuff, I stopped my drug habits when I was 20. But I was told that this was THE thing. I should never have trusted Todd. Not after last time. I crawled back into bed with Jackie, and checked the clock. 2 AM. At least I can get a few hours of sleep before work in the morning. I, no, we left it all behind for a reason. And after this experience, I was never going back. \n\n---------------------------\n\nVery much enjoyed this prompt. I haven't written like that in a long time, felt good. Thanks OP!", "What some call repression, others call voluntary memory. I have never been prone to flashbacks, which my wife and my therapist both agree (they said it without saying it) is directly related to my lack of introspection and self-awareness. In fact, I never told my wife anything of my past until a year into the relationship, and even then, all I could manage to spill was the completely mundane, middle class story of my first relationship. \n\nSo they say the drug will help. And I want to please my wife - the other night I awoke to her clawing at herself as if she hadn't been touched in years.\n\nAnd here goes.\n\nLiving room. Mustard-colored carpet. Dad in rocking chair. TV on. Mother comes in the room. She looks at me sweetly; I know she has drunk something called \"wine\" and it makes her smile that way; there's an ink stain on her front tooth. Mariners are on and I remember I have a Ken Griffey bat (!) in my room. \n\n\"Who's winning?\" asks my mom.\nDad grunts.\n\"Oh, nevermind,\" she says, and turning to me she asks, \"How are you darling?\" \n\"Good, mom.\"\n\"You boys and you're baseball.\" And then she makes a tsk-tsk sound and takes a sip of her wine. \n\nMy Dad, with exhaustion, walks to the kitchen and pours his scotch. What did I do to make him so unhappy? I want to cry. instead I walk to my room. \n\nThat night I feign sleep as my mother comes in to kiss me goodnight.\n\nBack in Mr. Deckler's office. Mustard-color has been transmuted to moss-green. \n\nThey are looking at me and I am sweating.\n\nI try to act as if I've made progress. I quickly strike the pose of introspection, as if something so profound has happened to me that there is no vocabulary for it. My wife gleams; she is trying, with the very gentleness of her expression, to help me lift my burden. I give her a silent signal that I hope conveys to her that I appreciate her kindness. My therapist is calmly, happily tabulating. \n\nBut I am anchored to myself, and I feel the heavy anchor inside me, rotting, simply too heavy to lift. \n\n\n\n", "[I love this writing promt]\n\nAlthough the drug is FDA approved and I'm lying down in my therapist's office, I cannot help but think to myself that this must be the sketchiest thing I've done since all that acid in college. Whatever, if it'll help me sleep. I close my eyes and lay down on my stomach. Seconds after Dr. Fuckface Paidtomuch applies the patch to the back of my neck the drug takes hold.\n\n\nThere's a flash of colors which reminds me that this might have been a bad idea. I wonder for the streched millisecond if I'll be coherent as an observor throughout this entire ordeal. Then I'm looking through my eyes again, except about four inches lower than I usually do.\n\n\nI'm sitting on the bench inside my highschool. I've got a boy on each side of me and their malevolence is seething off of them like my body odor off of me. I should have learned to use deodorant much earlier. A teacher walks past us and asks simply. \"Everything's all right over here?\"\n\n\n\"Yes Mr. Smith, not a problem\" I say. He knows I'm lying but I guess he trusts my judgement. I wish he hadn't but looking back, it didn't matter. He walks out the double doors into the parking lot.\n\n\n\"You know what you did man. Let's go\".\n\n\nEarlier that week the long haired boy had cornered me in the hallway and let loose a fury of swear words and threats. *WHAT'D I EVER DO TO YOU? YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD MAN.* I know his girlfriend from Mr. Goodin's geometry, and she sure is a fucking looker. Hilarious too. She aludes that she has a boyfriend, and I simply don't care. We're hanging out all the time, getting to know eachother. Eventually we smooch, and here I am. \n\n\nShe had mentioned at least once what a controlling bastard this guy was. Mark.\n\n\nThe other guy was just a wingman. Displacing his teen angst.\n\n\nMinutes later on the bike path Mark throws the first punch, and I deftly move out of the way. I'm much bigger than these fellas, genetically superior one might say. Also at the time, I'm a fairly devout pacifist. Can't dodge em forever though, and he catchs me in the chest. *Is this it? Woah man*\n\n\nTen minutes later they ask if I'd had enough. I'm a quick walk from my house and I decided I had.\n\n\nThose guys were pansies. Softer than downy ducklings. I'm real glad I didn't hit them back. Later that year I'd recall the amount of play that fight had earned me. Myself and his now ex-girlfriend would be fooling around for a long time. Poor guy, did himself in...\n\n---\n\nBack in the office I jolted awake and promptly told my Dr. Uselessprescription about my experience. None of it had anything to do with my dead daughter or the constant BAC that I've learned to keep above zero. It was a fond memory though, so I decided I'd come back next week.", "We'd smoked two joints by the time Fred got there and I was feeling pretty lazy. The stairs creaked as he came down.\n\n\"Sup guys,\" Fred laughed, \"its like a fucking sauna down here, y'all smoked yourselves retarded yet or what?\"\n\nPat quipped up, \"Ha, Ha, Ha, very funny, now sit your ass down and role us another one.\" His eyes were blood shot, which was pretty standard. My eyes never got bloodshot.\n\nFred grinned, \"I'm fine with that.\" He sat down on the couch next to me and Pat passed him the rolling tray.\n\nWe sat in silence as Fred busted up more weed, then he pulled out a small container from his pocket, from which he took out a little yellow capsule. He pulled it apart carefully with his fingernails and emptied the powdery contents onto the weed. He did nothing to hide his actions and thus managed to capture 100% percent of our attention.\n\n\"What the hell is that?\" I asked.\n\nFred smiled to himself, \"I don't even know.\" He laughed, \"Ron McCarthy said it takes you back in time. He's a full-fledged fucktard though. Guess we'll just have to see.\"\n\nPat's anxiety faded to a look of modest interest. \"I wouldn't mind going back in time...\"\n\nFred finished rolling and passed the joint to me. \"You're the guinea pig on this one.\"\n\n\"Whatever I don't mind.\"\n\nI took the joint and sparked it, hauling the thick pungent smoke deep into my lungs. It didn't taste at all like weed, more like raspberries and overproof rum. I hit it again three more times, then passed the joint to Pat and leaned back, sinking comfortably into the amber felt sofa. But it didn't stop there, I kept sinking, down and down a path that stretched for miles into an intangible gloom. At first I thought I'd been shrunk down and become trapped inside the couch. A red glow filled the confined space, seeping through the translucent skin that surrounded me. Then all of a sudden the environment squeezed in on me, pushing me down, and I tumbled through what I suddenly realized was a viscous fluid. The pressure built, then jerky vibrations and a repetitive noise filled my ears, like a distant groaning. That was when I realized I was naked. Something was pushing me through a tube, and the word claustrophobic filled my tiny mind. Suddenly up ahead a crevice broke in the distance and through it poured a harsh fluorescent light, white and sterile as it blinded my fragile eyes. All of a sudden I was through, and a giant being grabbed me in its hands and passed me to another, who cried and brushed its giant lips against my forehead. Then I was passed to another, who passed me to another and shook me until I realized it was Fred shaking me and I had fallen of the sofa and was curled up on the ground in the fetal position.\n\nAnd that was the first time I tried Memory Lane.\n\n", "I ring the doorbell and my friend Amanda answers, she's smiling and her eyes are glossy and red. When I ask if she's been smoking weed she simply says \"better...\" and walks back in leaving the door open. Immediately to my left as I walk in is a ring of people all on the floor of the living room in various stages of tripping on whatever drug they were on, some looking around nervously whilst others laid flat on the ground with big dumb grins on their faces. I look around as Amanda re-enters the room with a coffee pot full of wafer like tabs, on them are the words \"Memory lane\". I look into my friends eyes with an eyebrow raised, she smiled wider \"it works! I totally relived my trip to Cancun earlier, its amazing!\" her eyes widened on amazing in an intense way that made me feel slightly uncomfortable. As I walk over to a space in the ring of people and sit down the world shifts angle and stays that way, I try and tilt my head to level it out and I can hear Amanda laughing in the distance and my vision fades. Did I already take it? \n\nThe waves rush in and drag out in a soothing, natural rhythm and I hear panting beside me. I sit up and lo and behold rover my childhood dog is looking playfully at me, wagging his tail and licking my hand as I reach out to pet him. This is brilliant. But then the screams come, I casually turn round to see a girl no more than 8 tied and gagged to a large tree trunk washed onto the deserted section of the beach, I went to as a kid with my dad. She's looking right at me, I recognise her as Rebecca from primary school. What the fuck. I seem to be twisting something in my right hand and I look down to view a large screwdriver just like the one's my dad used on our garden fence. I stand up and calm Rover so he stays back and begin to walk down the beach towards Rebecca with the screwdriver raised, she's kicking her legs trying to wriggle free. Muffled screams are what I hear as I begin to see a patterned carpet fade back into view and the sounds of waves be replaced by low reggae and stillness. Amanda's looking at me expectantly, \"Well?\" she prompts. \"uhuuh good-great it was good thanks\" I manage, her smile droops and she seems concerned \"you okay? your sweating, like a lot\". I look down, she was right I was soaked, jesus that was awful...\"I thought these were memories mandy?\" I query as calmly as I can. She seemed offended by the question but before she could protest a lanky, dark haired guy in glasses seemed to of woken up and butted in \"the drug is very potent, it allows your brain to show you what it knows even if you no longer know it consciously, japanese scientists are already trying to focus the drug to help in fact retention excersises such as exams and-\" \"OK thanks Milton\" Amanda interjected giving me a discreet look suggesting Milton was a nerd. Did that really happen? I need to know. \"Mandy I gotta shoot off, but can I get some more of that for the road?\" it seemed rude so I begun reaching into my wallet. \"Of course, I thought you didn't like it! but you can make it up to me with dinner on saturday?\". My god even with the possibility of murder on my hands, I still hesitate to agree, our last \"date\" was a awkward affair at a bowling alley...3 years ago. \"OK\" I say and force a smile. She gives me a playing cards box with at least 20 inside, I walk outside, its dark. \"how long was I tripping for?\" I inquire. She chuckles \"3-4 hours honey\". I cringe at the use of 'honey'. I get into my car and make it round the corner before I pull over and take another.\n\nNote: [not sure if this is as fun to read as it was to write. If anyone is interested I can add more parts tomorrow after work.]", "I plug in. Better be worth it.\n...\n\nDamn, it's hot outside. Shoulda worn lighter clothes.\n\nI'm waiting. Waiting.\nMaybe she's taking a long time to finish her test. Who knows, Mrs. T is insane.\n\nFinally, I hear another wave of kids leaving the school building and I recognize the voices. Henry. Marsh. Kelly. Jenny. \n\nI've got the gift in my hand. \nIn the wise words of Eminem, \"Palms Sweaty. Arms heavy. Something something mom's spaghetti.\" Well, something like that. I don't really listen to him.\n\nMarsh knows what's up. He's cracking a smile at me before throwing a wink in. Fortunately, he's behind everyone else so it's only me who catches it. \n\nI walk up. My knees are wobbling all over the place, like two rambunctious toddlers who just won't stay still. \n\nI choke on my words as I hand Jenny the little box of chocolates I shoddily wrapped up.\n\n\"I...\n\nI like you. I mean...\nWill you go out with me?\"\n\nThere's a pause as it sets in. It gives way to a torn expression. A pained one.\n\n\"Dave... I... Well...\"\n\nShe's looking for a way out, I think. \n\n\"We're only in 8^th grade...\" She mumbles some other stuff quietly. \n\nI... Well... \nI didn't really know what to expect. \n\n\"Ok... I'm sorry...\" I in turn make a beeline towards the bus. God, I fucked up.\n\nThe bus ride home is a haze of gutted emotions. It's a weird feeling, being rejected.\n\nYet as I walk into my house, into my small room, the whole of it sinks in. I cry. I punch a pillow with my weak arms, the recoil carrying as much force as the punch itself.\n\n\"Alone.... Alone... I... I'm fucking useless and I'll always be alone...\"\n\nBut there's a new voice, something I didn't see coming.\n\n\"No you won't. I'm here for you. I'm always here for you. It's ok. It's ok. Calm down.\"\n\nAs my eyes open, my brain connects the voice to someone. Someone I know, someone I love. The memory bed around me is still terrifying, but as my wife sits by my side, relief washes over me.\n\n\n", "The glass vial rolled around the porcelain basin. \n\n*tink *tink *tink\n\n3…. That familiar burn began.\n\n2…. I grab the edge of the sink as all my muscles tense up. \n\n1…. I feel it course through me as my eyes roll shut. \n\n……….lift off. \n\nWhere would I be this time? \n\nI could feel the rain covering me. The amber light illuminating her white skin. She looked more tan now that she ever had. I could feel her body getting heavier. Her breathes getting lighter. Our eyes locked and I squeezed her hand tighter. \n\n“Don’t worry they’ll be here any second. Hold on”… \n\nShe smiled that smile that made me fall in love with her from the first time I met her. I stroked her wet hair trying to provide some comfort. He breaths were shorter until she stopped. Tears were now mixing with the rain. Bright flashing lights were in the distance I turned to look. \n\nI woke up to a migraine and burning eyes. Curled up in a ball I continued to cry. I reached to the edge of the sink and grabbed another vial. Hopefully this would be the one, I’d finally be with her, with no pain. I’d been trying for years. Telling myself ,”just one more trip down memory lane”. \n" ]

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[ "Towers of rusted steel, leaning into the wind, dominated the skylines as Jacob looked out of the terminal's window. Faint memories of his youth, as the great General \"Ole Boy Dog\" George McAllister lead the charge against the last stronghold of the United States of America. He had run with his unit through the streets, dodging sniper fire as Abrams tanks battled Abrams tanks in the streets of city after city.\n\nAn alarm from his internal optical HUD jerked him from his memory. The square yellow box focused around the head of a middle aged man. A blue box indicated his name, \"Jamal Wilshire Wilcons\" and a message, \"Jamal: Waiting for command.\". Jacob simply pictured Jamal picking up his luggage and bringing it to a waiting taxi, and immediately Jamal went to pick up Jacob's luggage and flagged down a taxi.\n\nHe still remembered Jamal, shivering in the cold streets of Kentucky City, holding onto a picture Jacob had presumed to be his family. He had just been hit by a psychotropic weapon that had caused his nervous system to 'reboot'. At that point, Jacob's internal nanobots had connected to Jamal's corrupted psychic augmentation chip, courtesy of Mind Dynamics, a subsidary of McAllister Intelligent Systems, a primary contractor of the once mighty DARPA.\n\nJacob smiled to himself. The revelry of using Jamal to defeat the infamous elite psychic special ops leader, William C. Chang, still filled him with the pride of the South. Even to the last moment, the United States had never determined the real culprit of their demise. In the aftermath of the utter confusion of United States military fighting the United States military, the Southern Confederates had easily overrun the remaining strongholds.\n\nAs Jacob stepped out of the airport, the cold wind of Dallas was quickly blocked as a short stocky Chineseman wrapped Jacob in a wool cloak. \"Thank you Mr. Chang\" Jacob smiled at William, as Williams empty eyes stared off into the distance.\n\nWith a quick huff, and fast stride, Jacob entered the taxi as his slaves entered the vehicle behind him. It would be quick work to reconstruct Dallas in the image of the mighty Confederates.\n", "Sunlight poured through the tinted windows, and the gate was nearly empty. Just a recent débutante and her aging mammy, “So what's you're story sonny-jim?”\n\n“Heading up to Detroit for a job.”\n\n“That some kind of a joke? Hard to tell you got one of them, northerner accents.”\n\n“No miss, just got a job with JD Automation; you know... the States own outfit. Scouted me right out of college; they flew me down here first class for the interview.” I couldn't hold back a grin while my hand strafed to the pocket with the letter, just to make sure it, and the starting salary it contained with all six of it's glorious digits -not counting the two after the decimal point- was still there.\n\n“No shit?” she said, pretty face lighting up. Her slave looked bored, “You hear that Gurdy? This fella here is one of the ones making those machines you all like so much.”\n\nIf Gurdy did feel this way it wasn't telegraphing to her face, “What *do* you think?” I said, so abruptly that she jumped and had to smooth the wrinkles out of her apron.\n\n“I don't mean nothing -they okay sir.”\n\n“She doesn't like to fly, bless her. She'll be down in the hold with the others that don't pass the paper bag screening. Guess I'd be pretty fussed too.”\n\n“I'd like to ask, if you'd let her speak freely?” I say before I can stop myself.\n\nThe woman turns, “Now Gurdy, you tell him what you really think. I'll know if you're lying, I won't whip you for bein' out a line, but I damn sure will have an airport overseer take the vinegar out of you if you lie. And daddy will hear about it,” she added raising her eyebrows. She gave me a look that as much as said *'and that's how we keep them in line down here.'*\n\nI felt bad, watching the troubled, childlike emotions playing out across the tired face, wrinkling it the way wind rips the fabric of a flag around, “I don't like them,” she said quickly, “I don't like them at all, I'm so sorry sir. All these years, all these years we been doin' good hard work, making cars, and taking calls, and driving buses and trucks, working the farms what where all the food comes from; just like we always done. It's the natural order a things, we looked after each other; your kind and my kind. Now you just gonna -just gonna throw us away. Where will we go? How'll we eat. What'll we do?”\n\nI looked down at the schematic, a new kind of transducer I'd designed for my senior project, “I don't know,” I said, “It's a good question.\"\n\nSilence hung like cannon smoke. The letter in my pocket itched and I scratched it. The pause broken by the chime, and the boarding call, “It was very nice to me to make your acquaintance sir,” the woman said a little bit stiffly to mask how uncomfortable things had just gotten.\n\n“Likewise,” I said, tipping my hat and we walked to our gates, and away from that brief moment in time where our paths crossed, and then divided.\n\nI've since that day, that face, that terrified face -no matter what else I'm thinking about, it's always just below the surface. You ask me why I want to join up, why you should trust me? What horse has a northerner with deep, comfortable pockets got to say about the trade? \n\nI'm joining the abolitionist movement because of that face. Maybe if we can end this, it'll give me some peace.", "Gerald stood in line, his arms crossed. There was trouble somewhere up ahead, and he was already late. And they sure as hell weren’t going to hold to the plane for any freeman. \n\nIn the security line of Robert E. Lee airport, the freeman line stretched out to the doors of the gate. The white line was utterly empty, a single TSA agent flipping through a comic book, his feet kicked up on the desk. Someone was being pulled out of line, while two women in rubber gloves emptied the contents of his carry-on bag. Eventually the trouble seemed to clear up (likely the man had been forced to finally slip the agent a few twenty dollar bills) and the line started moving again.\n\nWhen Gerald reached the front he could not keep the pissed off look from his face, or the edge from his voice. The plane had almost certainly boarded by now. He had waited all this time to go through security only to turn around, book another, later flight, and stand in line all over again.\n\n“Do you have your clearance?” the agent asked. The kid looked like a college frat-boy who had graduated a couple years ago, winding up in the relatively cushy and well-paid job of TSA supervisor for someone with an IQ of 90.\n\nGerald held out his wrist. He was wearing a thin gold and black bracelet. He stuck his arm into a machine before the metal detector. The agent frowned, staring at the machine. He looked at Gerald, back at the machine.\n\nDamnit, Gerald thought, here we go. Any chance of catching the plane was now lost. \n\n“Please step aside, sir.”\n\nGerald knew the words he would say before he even said them, like he was reading his mind. He traveled enough, and had been pulled aside enough, that this was becoming old hat. Routine. A minor and expected annoyance, except for when he was already running late. \n\nGerald complied. This type of thing had become far more common over the last five years. Sure, there were plenty of anti-slavery rumblings. There were daily protests in every major city in the north, and in most major southern cities as well. This alone wouldn’t have made them nervous, but with a string of terrorism attacks recently – some form ex-slaves and other abolitionist extremists – they had heightened the security at every place. Not only that, but runaways with fake freeman I.D.s had become increasingly common and more sophisticated. All this led to the constant state of harassment between people like the TSA and freeman like him\n\n“I see you’ve been free since 1984.” The man looked at the computer terminal.\n\n“That’s correct.”\n\n“Are you associated with any abolitionist groups of any kind?”\n\n“No.”\n\n“Really? You sure about that?”\n\n“I’m very sure about that.”\n\n“Well, it says here that you have been marked as identified with African-American Islamic Group.”\n\n“You must have me confused with my brother. He’s the one that’s into that crap.”\n\n“Well, you are his brother, aren’t you?” The frat-boy had a mischievous look in his eye, a sinister expression on his face. “We’ll need to you step back here with us for a few minutes. Grab his bags and follow me.”\n\nOver in the far corner of the hallway, Gerald saw two security guards pestering a slave (marked with the little white wrist band), likely asking him why he was loitering, asking him where his master was and who he had come with. The man looked fidgety and scared, the two officers in his face.\n\n“I’m a citizen of his country,” Gerald said. “I’m no slave.”\n\n“You might not be a slave,” the man said, “but you’re sure as hell not a citizen,” and led him through a door into a dark place, the apathetic crowd staring with a dull interest, no one saying a thing.\n\n“Next,” the TSA agent called.\n", "We thank you for flying Confederate Airlines. Please exit the airplane in an orderly fashion, and make sure you are in the proper line for your race. When you exit the plane, Free Coloureds please stay to the far left, Subcontinentals in the middle, Orientals and Whites in the far right. If mixed race, assume One Drop Rule. \n\nBaggage claim is in the bottom floor of the Beauregard Terminal. You are currently in the Cleburne Terminal. To reach the Beauregard Terminal, please use the Jim Crow Memorial Tram. \n\nShuttles will be waiting at the Beauregard terminal to transport you, your baggage, and chattel to different destinations in New Orleans. As a light suggestion, Victory Day celebrations are currently being celebrated in Jackson Square. The historical society and the Italian-Confederate Society will be reenacting the famous Garibaldi Landing; when Interim Commander in Chief Garibaldi - offended by the Northern Tyrant denying his generous offer of service - loaned his sword to President Davis. Moreover, there will be a reading of Supreme Court Justice and General Patrick Cleburne's \"Monstrous Proposal\", which allowed slaves to free themselves by fighting in the army. It is said that without Cleburne's urging and the extra manpower provided, there would be no Victory Day!\n\nAnd finally, please respect the local customs. To our visitors from our friends and allies Großdeutschland, The Italian Empire, and the Japanese Empire, please do not antagonize the Jews, Albanians, or Koreans. Instead, celebrate the fact that here, in the proud Pan-American Confederacy, they are put to good work supporting our shared Axis superiority!\n\nWe hope you enjoy your stay. Yall come back now!" ]

[ 1, 4, 16, 45 ]

[ "1409890446", "1409881734", "1409881024", "1639166763" ]

[ "My mommy was staring at the T.V. screen. She looked scared. I don't know what was going on, but I was scared too. I ran over and gave her a hug. \n\n\"What's going on Mommy?\" I clutched onto her skirt. \n\nIt looked like it was one of those movies she and Daddy would watch late at night. They would tell me to go to bed, but sometimes I would be sneaky and watch from the door. Mommy didn't look like she was watching a movie. \n\nShe looked down at me and smiled. Her eyes didn't smile though. They still looked scared. Mommy almost never looked like that before. \n\n\"Nothing, sweetie. Some bad people are fighting very far away. But we're okay here at home.\" She gave me a reassuring hug. \n\n________\n\nMy mommy shook me awake. I wasn't very happy about it. \n\n\"MOMMY! It's too early for waking up. The sun isn't up!\" \n\nMommy covered my lips. \"Shhhh....\" She said. I looked around. She had two small suitcases next to her. She lifted me out of bed. Mommy looked really scared. She didn't smile at me like she usually does.\n\n\"They aren't coming, are they?\" I whispered. \n\nMommy looked sad. \"I'm so sorry sweetie.\" She began to cry.\n\n\"It's okay, Mommy.\" I wiped away her tears and smiled at her, even though I knew this wasn't going to be a happy day. \n\nShe put me on the floor. We walked out to the car and never went back home. \n\n_______\n\nMy mommy told me that Daddy would come for us with his friends. He would come when we were safe again. There were lots of people living with us now. Sometimes they carried away people who were sleeping. Mommy told me they were just going to sleep somewhere else. \n\nI was getting hungry. \n\n_______\n\nMy mommy and I haven't been at home for a long time now. I miss warm food. Mommy doesn't eat much anymore. She keeps giving me hers, but I'm still hungry. Mommy looks really tired. She won't stop coughing. We're still waiting for Daddy to come for us. \n\nIt began to thunder again. It's really loud. Mommy looks up at the ceiling. \n\n\"No...It's too soon,\" She says between coughs. I hug her. \n\nI know the thunder isn't a bad storm. I miss my Daddy, but I don't think he's making the booms. \n\n\"They aren't coming, are they?\" I whisper.\n\nMommy looks sad. \"I'm so sorry sweetie.\" She is crying now. \n\n\"It's okay, Mommy.\" I wipe away her tears and smile at her because I know it's the last time we'll ever be able to smile together. \n\n\n\n", "We sat there, stranded. The sun blazed down onto our faces; I could feel my skin getting burned.\n\n\"They aren't coming, are they?\" Jim asked.\n\n\"Fuck if I know. We've been here for three hours 'n they were supposed to be here when we got here,\" Snells responded.\n\nSuddenly, out of nowhere, I heard a thunderous roar. I looked around wildly and saw the barren earth tear apart. We were in the middle of an earthquake.\n\n\"Get to the *fucking* cave!\" Snells screamed.\n\nWe literally ran for our lives. First Jackson made it to the shithole of a cave; then Schmidt; then Manny; then me; then Alex; then Hellie; then Snells; then-\n\n\"Where the fuck is Jim?!\" Manny asked frantically.\n\n\"Shit. Shit. Shitshitshit,\" Schmidt said, pointing out of the cave, with a blank expression on his face. Jim was hanging off of the giant jagged crevice in the ground, held onto the safety of the earth only by a single plant. All seven of us ran toward Jim and pulled him up into safety. Jim smelled like shit. I peered down into the crevice and saw only darkness.\n\nThis is my first response to a WP. I'd love feedback :D", "My father pressed \"End\" on the screen and set the phone face down, quietly on the kitchen counter. He let out a slight sigh of resignation to what was about to occur again this year. The rest of us were gathered at the kitchen table, where we had been catching up since the last family get-together at Thanksgiving.\n\n\"They aren't coming, are they?,\" my brother said with a slight hesitant plaintiveness in his voice.\n\n\"Yes, they are,\" my father replied.\n\nShit. As I looked around the borderline tackily-decorated house, adorned with too many Santas to count, reindeer, elves, tiny mechanical snowmen, and the simplest nod to the holiday in the form of a crocheted sign that simply read \"Jesus,\" I thought for a moment about how our bit of happiness and peacefulness in each other's company was about to be shattered. That tiny crocheted sign simply displayed the thought that went through all of our heads when we realized they *were* coming- \"Jesus.\"\n\nNow, we had often joked about the comparison between my mom's penchant for overdecorating the house in a Clark Griswold-like display of lights and gadgets during Christmas, but nothing quite paralleled our family with that fictional family like my sister and her husband. They were our Catherine and Eddie. They brought their undisciplined, rude child with them every year. They tore through our Christmas like a combination of the Tasmanian Devil and Yosemite Sam. Without volume control, manners, sympathy, empathy, or remorse, they would inevitably tear through every dish served (well, their spawn would reject the food and openly feed it to the dog off of the side of the table); they would tear through gifts with little or no thanks. There would be loud cursing and bragging about extravagant purchases, immediately followed by asking my parents for money to help turn their water back on. In short, our holiday was fucked. They were, in fact, coming to Christmas again this year. \n\nWe tried to entertain ourselves and alleviate our anxiety with as much humor as possible in order to brace ourselves for the septic tidal wave about to hit us. And hit us it did. Thirty minutes later, the sound of their extremely loud, oversized truck announced that they had pulled into the driveway. Before we heard the second truck door creakily slam shut, my brother and I looked at each other during one last moment of quiet before they left for the evening, took a deep breath and exhaled, \"Shitter's full.\"", "“Hey Julie, I invited Jenny to your birthday.”\n\n“Are you serious?” Julie asked. \n\n“Yeah, I hope that’s alright.” \n\n“Did Jenny and Rob get married? Did I miss that?”\n\n“No, don’t be ridiculous,” Julie’s mom said.\n\n“Then she’s not family. I said family only,” Julie asserted. \n\n“I already invited her.”\n\n“I don’t care,” Julie said with more force. “You made the mistake of inviting her, now you have the pleasure of calling her up.”\n\n“Jesus, what the fuck is your problem.” \n\n“I said family only!” Julie repeated. \n\n… \n\nJulie had a July birthday. July 2 to be exact. At a very young age she learned that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 2, but no one knew that. And she proudly informed everyone of that fact until she was old enough to realize how pretentious that sounded, but that was at a much later age. \n\nOn her 10th birthday, Walter, her father, rented out the party room at the Zizzi’s Pizza. There were 8 kids from her class who weren’t gone for the summer vacation, and she personally invited all of them with handmade invitations. The party was to start promptly at 3. \n\nShe was especially excited about seeing Robbie. Two months prior, he had signed her 4th grade class book “Dear Julie, I think you’re smart. Robbie” She was in love. She had spent the last two months picking dandelions and thinking of Robbie. \n\nKari was in town too, and she was going to bring her brother Sam. Kari was one of the popular girls Julie was usually too shy to approach, but Kari’s dad and Walter worked together. Walter encouraged her to invite Kari to the party. \n\nIt was Julie’s special day.\n\nBy the time 5 pm rolled around, Julie looked at her dad, “They aren’t coming, are they?” \n\n… \n\nJulie was turning 30. \n\n“What do you want to do for your birthday hun?” Joel asked. \n\n“I don’t know. Maybe dinner. My brother will be in town. Let’s do something with the three of us. After, maybe we can invite people out for drinks or something.” She suggested. \n\n“Do you want to invite Kristin?” He asked. \n\n“No. Family only.” \n", "The day the British tanks and infantry rumbled into town, I knew. \n\nBut, just to make sure, I looked up and asked my sister Birthe, \"They aren't coming, are they?\"\n\nWe had been listening to Aunt Tove's wireless over the past couple of days, and had heard what had happened in Berlin. The German forces had surrendered there, so they wouldn't be sending reinforcements here, would they?\n\n\"Field Marshal Montgomery\" was a very hard name for me to say, but I tried, and cheered him and his men on, as they paraded through the high street.\n\nThe British tanks looked so different from the German ones we had been told would be a permanent feature in our town.\n\nAs the last of the parade rolled by, I felt relief. German reinforcements weren't coming. Daddy and Aunt Marianne would be safe.\n\n\n\n", "Jaq pressed his small palms hard into the window, staring intently at the blue giant that slowly shrunk in size. In his left he clutched the silicone hand of Gorden, the small android he had been given on his eighth birthday.\n\n\"It's beautiful,\" Jaq said, his warm breath condensing on the thick glass.\n\nGorden was a gift from Jaq's father, who had, for only a few days, managed to get some time off to spend with his family. He was like that, always off at work, flying to a different station ever so often. Sometimes it was Antarctica, sometimes the Arctic. Twice, he brought back small individual snowflakes, encased in a small preservation holder, one from each pole. Jaq feigned sleep most nights, waiting until he could hear the smooth click of his mother's bedroom door sliding closed, so he could sneak off to the videoscreen and call his father.\n\nIt was their secret, and one they kept well.\n\nThe blue world was fading away now, looming eerily in the darkness and silence of space. From behind it came the unwavering shine of a million million brilliant stars.\n\nJaq's father hadn't been able to come home for his ninth birthday.\n\nOn his tenth, a crestfallen Jaq had blown the candles alone, with his mother and Gorden cheering him on. \n\nHe and his father kept up their ritual of nightly videocalls, but they became less frequent, and his father was less able to answer his calls. \n\nOne day, Jaq didn't call.\n\nThat summer, the hottest one in two centuries, Jaq had heard his parents on a videocall.\n\n\"I checked the data again this morning.\" His father's concern was evident in his strained voice. \"It's definite, and it's not going to change.\"\n\n\"There could be a mistake in the data,\" urged Jaq's mother. \n\n\"There's a 99.93% certainty in the results. I double checked, and triple checked. I did the equations myself. The computations are right.\"\n\nHis mother's shoulders sagged, and their conversation continued at a whisper too hushed for Jaq to hear.\n\nThat summer, Jaq's mother became worried, an emotion he could see in her eyes. She went to sleep later, and sometimes Jaq had heard what he thought to be sobs coming from her bedroom.\n\nThat summer, his mother packed their bags, and had stared for a long moment at a family photo they had taken during a vacation years ago, before delicately placing it in the suitcase. Jaq was five, and his father hadn't been quite so busy with his work.\n\nThen they left.\n\nAnd now they were on the *Terraborn*, a monolithic ship that had made Jaq gasp in surprise when he had first seen the large black letters on its smooth white hull.\n\nHe looked again at the planet, now just a small marble in the foreground. Jaq’s felt a pang of emotion as he stared, overwhelmed with a sense of desolation that he was unfamiliar with. He slid his right hand into his pocket and looked down as he took out the snowflakes, bright white crystals of ice lying on individual black squares. Jaq traced his thumb over the smooth glassy top, and looked up again, towards the world on which, somewhere, the person who had given the snowflakes to him stood.\n\n“They’re not coming, are they?” He asked Gorden.\n\n“No,” came the answer. “No, they’re not.”\n", "Brody and I crouched quietly by the pine trees. The moonlight peering through the clouds above illuminating my brother and I as if a giant search light had found us. I try to stay as silent as possible, but my legs are restless and ready to take off at a moments notice.\n\n\"They aren't coming, are they?\" Brody whispered, fumbling around with a pine cone.\n\n\"Shhh!\" I respond angrily, but then realize how loud I am. \"We need to give them ten more minutes.\"\n\n\"But if we stay here I'm scared we'll get caught. Remember what Bishop said about people who run from Paradise?\"\n\n\"We're fine.\"\n\nI fix my gaze onto the collection of buildings in the valley below us. I can only make out dark rectangular silhouettes floating around the always illuminated Temple Grounds.\n\nI turn to see Brody whimpering softly, trying to control himself while wiping tears from his face.\n\n\"Brody, Jeremiah and Gill need our help. We promised we'd wait.\" I try to explain calmly.\n\n\"But what about Mom and Dad? I don't want to never see them again.\"\n\nBrody is still young. He doesn't realize that if we stay, he'll go through the same torture all boys here go through once they become men.\n\nI will not let what happened to me, happen to him.\n\n\"I can't explain it to you yet, but we need to leave this place for both our sake. Maybe when we're finally...\"\n\nJust then we hear a truck horn echo repeatedly through the valley below and my heart stops. The windows from most of the silhouettes begin to light up one at a time until a small town reveals itself around a great steeple.\n\n\"Travis...\" Brody begs, but I'm stuck in place. Either Jeremiah and Gill were just caught trying to escape or our parents just realized that we had.\n\nThe loud, inaudible booming voices of the Elders yelling below send terror through my soul.\n\n\"Travis!\" Brody tries again.\n\nMy lip quivers and I want to cry, but I finally force out the only word I can think of.\n\n\"Run!\"", "An old man sat in a hospital bed.\n\nIn reality, though, he was not that old. He was at least fifty, maybe. Not a day over sixty, and definitely not old. \n\nOr so he tells himself.\n\nShit he had done in the past, things he whole-heartedly regrets has aged him greatly. He has had needles up his arms. He had consumed so much booze that some nights he woke up and forgotten what he did, who he did and where he was. Sometimes, just barely, he can taste the bitterness of the thousands of cigarettes he had smoked in his mouth.\n\nWhen he was thirty he thought he was invincible. He thought he had everything in check and that it wouldn’t spiral out of control.\n \nHe thought his wife wouldn’t leave him, the kids too. He thought his own sister wouldn’t turn her back, or his little brother would ignore his calls.\nThe destructive things have caught up to him, however. He quickly learned that he wasn’t invincible, that this body of his had a limit, an expiration date.\n\nHe also knew that relationships weren’t so easily repaired—just like his body.\n\nThey still send money occasionally, knowing that it won’t go into his addictions. However, everything was always cold and distant. He wasn’t entirely sure if they’d ever forgive him, really.\n\nA nurse walked into his room, greeted him with a warm and friendly smile, but still strictly professional. The young man had quickly checked up on his vitals, marked things down and asked questions about his health. Before he was finished, the old man spoke, voice raspy.\n\n“They aren’t coming, are they?”\n\nThe nurse looked at him quizzically, smile faltering just slightly. “Ah, who do you mean, Mr. Pham?”\n\n“I mean my family. They aren’t, right?”\n\nThe nurse looked almost sad for a brief second, as if pitying the poor old man. He quickly smiled however, “I’m sure they’ll come visit you, don’t worry. Anyway, I need to go check up on the other patients. Have a wonderful day Mr. Pham.” He had said in a reassuring tone, before leaving the room in a hurry.\n\nAfter the nurse had left, he had closed his eyes.\n\nAn old man sat in a hospital bed and wept.\n", "“They aren't coming are they.” He stared down at his tennis shoes, his head stuck between his knees as he hugged them close and rocked slightly back and forth.\n\n“I don't think so,” I sighed as I rubbed his back. It made me feel worse that he wasn't crying. That the rejection in his voice was almost palpable. Like we had crossed a threshold, another milestone. Like a birthday that held no cake, no presents.\n\nWe sat in silence like that for a long time. Cars passing us down the street. \n\nHe didn't even look up in anticipation. He knew they weren't coming. There would be another excuse. “We're too busy. We'll make it next time. It's just so . . . uncomfortable.”\n\nI had tried to explain. Just because it hadn't worked out, that happened. I understood. It was a challenge. There were other things to consider. Their other children to worry about. They hadn't been prepared enough for the acting out, the issues. I understood their concerns. But they weren't mine.\n\n“He's already been through so much. I understand that this isn't going to work out, but - how you leave him is just as important as how the next family will stay!”\n\n“We just – we'll try.” The phone had gone dead.\n\nI had cursed at the situation under my breath for a while. It wasn't a complete surprise, but they had told Abe they would be there for his birthday so many months ago, back when things were fresh and new, and he didn't forget things like that. Promises burned and scarred him.\n\nMy phone buzzed again in my pocket. I ignored it for the fifth time. I'd catch hell from Tess, but she'd come around. The noise made Abe finally lift his head.\n\n“You have to go.”\n\nHis voice had aged again. It broke my heart. “There is a family for you Abe. You gotta believe me. I will find you a home.”\n\n“Sure thing Al.” His voice was tired and as he stood he looked more like an eighty-year old than an eight – I caught myself – nine year old.\n\n“I'll see you in a couple days, okay? We'll go to McDonalds again. That'd be fun wouldn't it?”\n\n“Mmm hmm.” He said, his head seemed to hang by a thread, dangling down his chest. \n\n“Hey,” I stood up and put on my stern voice. \n\nThat shocked him and he turned around, flinching as he did so, a long imbedded reflex from earlier times. \n\n“You will get through this!” It came out as a command more forceful than I intended. “I will make sure of it.”\n\nHis eyes grew wide, and I could make out a slight moistness gathering at the edges. His heart hadn't completely frozen over, and that made all the difference to me.\n\n“It's okay Al. I know you tried. I'm just – it's just I...”\n\n“IT – IS – NOT – YOU!” I didn't even remember striding up the steps to grab his arm. “It just wasn't your forever family okay!”\n\n“I'll never - “\n\n“Don't you say that.” I said, hugging him close.\n\n“But I want a forever family.” He sobbed as I stroked his hair, thanking God I still had time with him. That he hadn't given up yet. \n\n“I know buddy. Until we do, you'll just have to make do with me okay?” \n\nI knew it wasn't what I was supposed to say, but I couldn't help it. I knew the problems he had. Knew the chances for him. But I had to keep hope alive. Like a soldier, it was always the battle in front of me I fought. Praying and hoping for a break to win the war.", "The dead palms slapped against the other side of the door and finger bones raked across the thin metal skin. The man shoved his shoulder against the door until it latched. He spun the deadbolt and grabbed the kid. The banging only increased as more caught up to the building’s back door. “Some might be in here, keep close.” It’s a good thing that neither of them would need to leave through this door. The dead didn’t give up, they had nothing but time.\n\nHe pulled out his flashlight and hefted a full whiskey bottle. It wasn’t much but they had lost so much along the way. The man looked around service entrance for threats but it was clear. Nobody must have thought to use this place to hold up. They crept down the hallway, the kid knew not to make any noise, it was why he was still alive when nobody else was. Christ, the kid was only six, but the two of them had been through enough to last several lifetimes. \n\nThey left the service hallway and entered a carpeted area. The stairway entrance was not far off. He slowly pushed the door open, the kid was watching his back. No signs of life or unlife in the stairway so he stepped in, continuing to look for a reason to bolt. The kid entered behind him just as another flashlight shone into his face. \n\n“I’ll be taking that whiskey from you, and you’ll be leaving the way you came.”\n\nThe bandit lowered his flashlight and racked a shotgun. It sounded hollow and no spent shell left the chamber. He smiled as the bandit aimed his shotgun at his chest. “I don’t think so. This isn’t yours.”\n\n“Like hell it’s not. I’d prefer not to shoot you in here, hurts my ears.”\n\n“You’re not going to shoot anyone.” The man lowered his bottle to the ground and stepped to the side. \n\n“Now back away and leave.” The bandit shifted uncomfortably.\n\n“I don’t think so.” He stepped forward and swung the flashlight. It was a hefty chunk of milled aluminum taken from an ex-security guard. The bandit dropped the shotgun to block with his arm but it was too late. The heavy flashlight connected with his skull and the bandit fell onto the bottle. The sound of breaking glass rang off of the concrete walls.\n\nThe kid grabbed the shotgun and held it out to him. In a disaster like this, everyone would have guns, but eventually nobody would have ammo. He was no exception. “Nothing more than a fancy club, but I guess it’s all we have now.”\n\nThey began their way up the stairs, even though everyone living within ear shout would have heard it, they still crept out of habit. They were several floors up when they came across a pile of wreckage. It didn’t completely block the path, but it was clear someone had tried to barricade the stairs. The man rethought his earlier assessment about how empty this building would be. They were just about past when he felt something snag his pants. The barricade shifted and something fell on his shin. His calf burned and he pulled himself free. \n\nHe hopped up the next few stairs. The kid looked at it. “You hurt?”\n\n“Just a little, but I’ll be fine.” The man tested it for a break by putting some weight on it. The burning didn’t increase with weight so he hoped the break wasn’t going to give. They continued on their way up the stairs and the burning eventually was replaced by numbness. \n\nThey came to the top of the stairs and left the stairway. He looked down the hallway and saw that the sun was beginning to rise. Just like he knew they would, the windows overlooked a helicopter pad. \n\nThe kid’s eyes lit up. “Let’s go and wait for them out there!”\n\nHe ran to the door but the man stopped him with a word. The kid looked around and saw something even better. “There’s a snack machine in there!”\n\nThe man limped over and saw the food safely stored behind the plexiglass. He took the shotgun and swung a few times. The bolts holding the plastic to the inside of the door began to shear and he popped the corner in. Using the barrel of the gun, he levered the glass down and out and then ripped it out. The kid laughed for the first time in days as he grabbed a bag of cookies and tore into it. The man then smashed the lock off of a soda machine and pulled out a can.\n\nThey loaded their arms with junk food and limped out to the helicopter pad. He walked over to the edge of the building and sat down with a grunt, his feet dangling over the open expanse. The city was dead. There was no movement in the early dawn light. Even the fires had stopped burning. There were no helicopters in the sky or planes in the air. The kid sat down next to him and laid his head against the man’s arm. \n\nThe man’s leg had gone completely numb and he pulled up his pant leg, seeing the bite mark for the first time.\n\nThe kid was silent for a few minutes and then asked, “They aren’t coming, are they?”\n\nThey never were coming. Nobody was coming for them. This was the end of the false hope he had used to convince everybody to try to make it up here and hold out until someone did come along, but nobody was coming. \n\nThe numbness had crept up his pelvis and was beginning to spread to his gut. “They’re coming. Why don’t you get me another bag of cookies.”\n\nHe would be able to get back inside. Roof doors never locked. That was unsafe.\n\n“Sure.”\n\nThe kid got to his feet and headed back across the pad. The man waited until he heard the door slam behind him.\n", "It was my turn to host the orgy, and I was nervous about it. Set up was everything. I had the loft space, tarped of course, a table of foodstuffs. I had set up bowls of condoms and piles of throw pillows. I didn't have any of the hardware Ginger did, no St. Andrew's Cross or spanking horse, but I had taken care to turn the heat up so people would be comfortable. 9:00 came and went, and no one showed. I checked my calendar--yup, the 15th, I was definitely up. 10:00 rolled around. No one. I was starting to get nervous.\nAt about 10:30 there was a knock on the door. Jason had arrived! I opened the door and was shocked that he was in the blue shirt that he always wore after sex. It hit me then. Ginger had thrown a get together at her place, with all the fancy lighting and the techno.\n\"They aren't coming, are they,\" I said to Jason.\n\"Sweetie,\" he replied, \"Most of them already did.\"" ]

[ 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 12 ]

[ "1409883769", "1409889394", "1409895572", "1409896998", "1409887285", "1409890307", "1409885097", "1409899788", "1409882106", "1409882209", "1409881968" ]

[ "From Geosenge, the unlikely pair had wandered from town to town, stopping only to battle those who either asked nicely, or asked for trouble. The latter usually ended up far worse than the former. Dizzy's terrifying power came from anger and spite, which made her performance in the \"friendly\" matches a lot worse. The Pokemon in question tossed the remnants of yet another chair in the air, doing the closest imitation of a human giggle that a Ralts could muster. Her trainer sighed and pulled out his wallet. He'd stopped counting after Dizzy destroyed her twenty-fifth chair. Not long after he paid the owner, the bits of chair fell down. Dizzy's head was cocked, and she shook.\n\n\"Again?\" her trainer asked. The abnormally small Ralts let out a strained cry. The boy blanched.\n\n\"This is the third time this week,\" he muttered to no one in particular.\n\n*They're too young for this! They're going to die before they start living! Why do you humans do this?!* He knelt down next to his partner, and bit his lip.\n\n\"Which Pokemon? And what can you see besides the warehouse?\"\n\n*Slowpoke. Their tails are being harvested, and the rest...ah!* The chair bits flew outwards.\n\n\"HEY, keep that thing under control!\" The boy glared at the previous owner of the chair, before turning back to his Pokemon.\n\n\"If you can hear them, they must be nearby. Which direction, Dizzy?\"\n\n*Those docks we passed earlier. Oh, and one more thing.* The boy stopped in his tracks. The chair owner yelped, as his own sign smacked him across the head. The sign floated deliberately in the air, a few feet in front of him. Then, it snapped in half and fell.\n\n*Cheap hamburgers my ass. Meat's expensive around here, thanks to the dock worker strike.*\n\n---\n\n\"She's so very noisy, isn't she?\" the man in black asked the Malamar next to him. The creature raised a tentacle.\n\n\"Going straight to the docks. Pity that no one will see them again. Make sure of it.\" The Malamar glowed briefly. The man smiled. He'd taken great pains to shield his operation from the prying eyes and minds of Pokemon, but he hadn't banked on a Ralts picking up on the distress of the Slowpoke. Luckily, this duo hadn't alerted the authorities. He chuckled, as he thought of a proper welcome for the unsuspecting victims.\n\n\"And tell the greeting party to snap that insolent Ralts in half for breaking my brother's sign.\"", "\"Oh, hey, I-\"\n\n\"Talk about bad timing.\"\n\n\"Aw, you ain't mad about all that business all them days back, are you?\"\n\n\"Last week? You're bad for this world, Pauly, and that's a terrible thing to be on an occasion like this.\"\n\n\"Whatdya mean? What's the occasion?\"\n\n\"You been sleeping all day? The city's destroyed. And everything it stood for.\"\n\n\"Huh? How? You can't shutdown a whole damn-\"\n\n\"Look.\"\n\n\"What the hell happ- You!\"\n\n\"Us.\"\n\nLight burst from the sphere at Pauly's feet, lighting the terror in his face for all to see.\n\n\"G-Grady? Is that-?\"\n\n\"What could be more appropriate than this? The Charmander you used to breed a thousand more, just to send to the slaughter at the whims of the wealthy and inhumane. Charmander, you have the reigns on this one.\"\n\n\"Char!\"\n\n\"Oh Jesus, I know I messed up, Grady, but don't-\"\n\n\"Wow, didn't even give him a chance to really feel it, Grady? Well you're better than me, then, because I'd have burned him from the feet up.\"\n\nAnd they began the walk to the final part of the castle, where the king and his army of Pokeballs would surely be. Mutilated, genetically altered monstrosities designed to rape and destroy - they would be fun to make extinct.\n\n\"Remember what Squirty did to that one guy who killed his parents? That was disgusting.\" ", "A bit late to the party, but here goes;\nI can hear yelling just outside my cage, the ringmaster calling in other fighters. I wouldn’t expect the last fighter to die so easily from the last match.\n\n\nMaybe he didn’t want to fight anymore.\n\n\nThe battles started out as friendly competition, but when the president was assassinated, everything fell apart. Everyone lost their jobs, and became filthy and poor. The matches turned into bloodthirsty fights. Killing your opponent was the goal, rather than knocking them out. Whoever had the fighter that lasted through the most fights, they get the most money. Money is the only thing they care about anyways.\nI absent mindedly pick at the steel collar my master made me wear so I couldn’t escape. Thick, stainless steel that would deliver a painful electric shock if I hit it too hard. It has a long length of chain that leads to a post on the ground,hich is only unhooked when I need to fight. Normally I could easily break it with my claws, but master kept me weakened at all times. The only time I had more energy was right before a fight, where I get a massive needle of adrenaline injected into my chest. That kickstarts my body’s healing process, and makes me strong enough to fight.\nThat’s the only reason master loves me now. Before the assassination, he was happy go lucky, and treated me as a partner. Years of battling had made me strong, and it made him proud. He truly appreciated our friendship more than anything.\nBut now…..Now he’s a corrupted bastard that only uses me for my power. I have the ability to conjure powerful illusions at will, using them to deceive my opponent. Pair that with the strength to take down an army, and you have the perfect fighter.\nI was the only one who had never lost a match, so other people from around the globe loved to bet on me. The ones that didn’t often lost boatloads of money. Master used to keep me in good condition when the ring fighting started, feeding me well and keeping me clean. But as he grew more greedy and tainted, he paid less attention to me. After his first million dollar-win, the corruption started. That was when he stopped grooming me. I used to do it myself, but I ended up getting so weak I was unable. My once glossy black fur was now matted and tattered, and covered in dried blood. As if that wasn't bad enough, the cage itself was dank and musty, the cold ground covered in my own excrete. Once the grooming stopped he would only feed me after I won a match. That doesn’t sound like too much of a problem, considering I’ve never lost, but there are times where I'll go days or even weeks without fighting. I'm now a skeleton compared to my old self. My ribs are showing, my spine is showing, you can even see the outline of my pelvis for crying out loud!\nAbout 3 years ago he stopped feeding me at all. I was forced to eat the other fighters that I killed in the ring. Although my species is mainly carnivorous, it bothered me to know that I was killing another being. Sure, it's just like hunting in the wild, but I haven't been in the wild before. I was hatched from an egg when master first saw me. I was fed store-bought food, so eating others felt unnatural at first. But now I've done it so often it's become second nature. Instinct. I crave the coppery taste on my tongue, the feeling of meat on my fangs. Just the thought makes me salivate!\nI heard my name being called into the ring. I groaned as I stood up from my previous position on the ground. The gate at the front of my cave opened up, letting bright light into the dim room. I shielded my eyes to avoid the burning view. I walked into the edge of the ring, only to be met by a team of 16 men. They all worked to hold me still, since I hate my adrenaline shot. I struggle with enough ferocity to make a few of the men lose their grip, even throwing one back a few feet. But I'm too skinny and weak to fight properly. The long needle pierced my chest, and I hissed at the painful sting. The powerful hormone racing through my veins cause my body to go into battle mode. My muscles tensed, my bloodshot eyes widened to saucers, and I leapt from the grip of the men. They quickly run to the seats to avoid being killed by me. Now up to full energy, I look at my opponent. Quadruped, with white fur and three black claws on each foot. His face was cat-like, and black in color. Red orbs locked on to my own blue ones, and he swung the scythe like appendage on his head at me. \nI tried to dodge, but ended up getting hit in the shoulder. Better than getting hit in the eyes. Rolling back to my feet, a murky red aura surrounded my claws, which were a sharp crimson. I charged forward and slashed his flank, earning myself a cry of agony from my opponent. I smirk at his pained expression. A decade in this ring made me just as corrupted as master. \nTurning around to face him once more, I cut off a chunk of flesh from his haunches, briefly licking the blood off my claws. The adrenaline helped to put my instincts in control, too.\nWhile the fighter was trying to charge up the energy for an attack, I crossed my arms in front of my chest to make an X shape. A dark ball of energy formed at the center. I launched the attack and it morphed into a large swirling beam of energy, which hit the fighter in the chest. I could hear his bones breaking from the hit, the sound was like that of a bomb going off.\nHe spazzed and shook in pain while the attack slowly took his life. While he was coughing up blood on the ground, I looked to the cheering crowd above me.\n\nDisgusting humans.\n\nI quickly realized I had excess adrenaline, and decided to use it to it's fullest. I threw my arms above my head, then slammed them back down with enough force to break concrete. A massive plume of black and red aura launched from me, and completely eradicated most of the audience. Some people tried to run, but they only succeeded in helping me kill them.\nMaster was trying to open the door and run, but I had used my illusions earlier to prevent that. To him, the door is locked. To me, it was destroyed by my previous attack.I strode towards him with a glare that could make the devil himself cower in fear. Grabbing him by the throat, I threw him against the ground.\n\nMaster should have taken responsibility.\n\nI kicked him in the ribs, sending him flying several feet back. He choked up blood, then had the audacity to call be a monster.\n\nMaster was the one who made me like this, yet I get the blame?\n\nI lifted him up again, then punched him in the jaw as my mind ran through my memories. Our memories.\n\nHe should have fed me, housed me, cleaned me.\n\nI press my claws lightly against his throat, anticipating the sweet taste of revenge.\n\nBut above all, he should have loved me.\n\nI ripped open his tender flesh, leaving a devastating gash in its wake. I greedily licked up the crimson rivers gliding down my paws.\n\nAfter all.......\n\n\nI am only a reflection of you.\n\n\n", "“Have you ever seen another Chandelure glow so bright?” He can only stare at the bright purple flames as they flicker to and fro in the slight breeze, trying hard to focus on her question. “It’s because I make sure my darling eats only the best.” She reaches a couple fingers out and rubs along one of the curved lines of the lamp-like Pokemon’s body. It gives a call and focuses more on him, the mouth curved up and eyes narrowed. \n\n“O—Only the best?” The group around them is silent, but drawn in close and the energy is eager. \n\n“Souls.” She grins maniacally. He stumbles to his feet, his singular Pokemon already recalled and unconscious and attempts to back away, only to find the rest of the group blocking her way. \n\n“H—Hold on—I didn’t—I don’t—” He stammers out, getting more and more panicked. \n\n“Oh, but you did. Did someone not tell you the rules of this battle?” There’s a long silence during which grins break out on many faces of those gathered around. “Of course they did.” \n\n“I didn’t think it was serious!” He screams, throwing himself at the human barricade in an attempt to get free and failing as it only strengthens with each attempt. \n\n“We are very serious.” She points one long finger towards him. “We have found you sorely inadequate. Not only were you unable to land a scratch on my Chandelure, you failed to bring any other Pokemon than a weak Raticate to challenge with when you were informed of what you would be facing beforehand.” Her hand forms into a thumbs-down and the lamp Pokemon gives an echoing cry. “The punishment for bringing such stupidity and weakness to us is death.” \n\n“Death. Death.” The low chant carries through the group for a few seconds, chilling him to the bone. \n\n“I—I can rethink, please!” He holds his hands up in an attempt to fend off what he can see coming. \n\n“You had your chance to think beforehand.” She smiles cruelly. “Mera. If you’ll please.” The Chandelure gives another echoing cry as its eyes glow brightly and the teenager screams in agony, purple flames leaping up around his body. “Burn the bonds and feed my darling.” His body twitches and convulses until it drops to the ground and the flames die away, his body unscathed but eyes dead. A Pokeball rolls from his lifeless fingertips. \n\n“Death to Weakness.” The statement is repeated over and over through the small group until she picks up the Pokeball and applies a Revive to the rat Pokemon inside. \n\n“Death to Weakness but not death to her unwilling followers.” She releases the Raticate and it sniffs the air nervously, looking to its dead Trainer. “You are free. If you come back again with another weak trainer, you may not be so lucky.” She leans down to smile at the Raticate. “So do try not to come back.” It gives a frightened squeak and scurries away, towards a gap that the group has made. The Chandelure laughs and dips in close behind the rat Pokemon, giving it a burn across one side that would last the rest of its life before the lamp-like creature returns to its trainer. \n\n“Forgive the unwilling.” Is murmured a few times as she turns in a slow circle, grinning at the group still gathered around her. \n\n“Death to Weakness! Death to his followers!” She yells at the top of her lungs and the entire group breaks into a roar, repeating the statement. “We shall remove Weakness from this world and leave it enriched! Enhanced! Better for all who live here!” A couple of people move forward to remove the teen’s body from where it lay. “Leave Weakness’s child to the scavengers, they will eat well today.” She laughs and starts out of the group’s circle, people clearing the way for her. “Let us continue to clear Weakness from this world!” \n\n“Death to Weakness!” The cry startles a few roosting Pokemon from their trees. \n\nThe group moves with a steady pace, the woman leading the front with her Chandelure floating along beside her. As the body of the teen is left behind, the scavengers begin to converge on the meal that’s been delivered to them, tearing the boy to pieces. ", "Alron hated his apartment. The darkness was overpowering and was only rivalled by the dank smell that sunk itself into every one of the cheap furnishings the room was messily littered with. Not every part of Veridian city was as luxurious as it was made out to be by the Pokemon league. But it is far easier for the rich to pretend the world of Pokemon was a fun and happy place than for them to believe in the truth. The region was littered all those mummy’s boys and girls who are sent away from home to live a life of ‘adventure’, catching them all and battling their Pokemon until they faint. It was all so cute. Alron could remember the way they had been when he was a boy. He had always wanted to be like them, to travel the region and become a league master. But his family had never had the money. For some forking out the money for Pokeballs was hard enough let alone anything as fancy as a Pokedex. The world was a lot less fair than the league would like people to think. \nThe loud knocking at the door drew Alron out of his spiteful thoughts and into his spiteful reality. “Alron! It’s Kenia; don’t forget you promised to come to my match Al!” Ah Kenia. Perhaps his reality wasn’t quite as spiteful as he thought. He quickly got off the sofa and brushed off the crumbs of his battered Magicarp onto the floor. He’d clean it up later. \nIt made him happy to see her again. She was dressed up for a match. Her battle dress was fantastic; a single piece dress composed of red and white fabric and covered in armour like plates on the shoulders and arms. On the right shoulder plate was the logo of her crew, Firepower. He smiled; she never had been a Clefairy kind of girl. “So are you ready for the greatest match the pit has ever seen?” she asked, smirking a little in the process. He couldn’t help but smile as well. “It’s a random challenger today. They might just destroy you” “Well now I need to get there and prove you wrong” Alron chuckled, whoever was fighting Kenia tonight was in for a rough ride. \nThe pit was a hell hole. It was nothing but a warehouse with a small pit dug into the centre. The fans would cram around the outside and the two trainers would stand on crates at the front in order to be heard over the cheers and jeers of the crowd. As Kenia and Alron walked in the previous match was just finishing. The crowd was ecstatic and the pit was completely surrounded. The pair began to make their way over to the arena, walking down the strip of black market food stalls lined up in a street at the entrance end of the warehouse. The vendors were all desperate to make a little extra cash and were all calling out into the mass of people. “Battered Magicarp! Best you can get!” “Chomp on some champ! That’s right Machamp chews right here everyone!” Kenia sighed and looked upset. “It’s disgusting. We love OUR pokemon and yet we eat the wild ones. It’s just wrong.” Alron tried to hide his sheepishness. “Yeah, um.. I think it’s awful as well” \nThey reached the ring and began to walk through the crowd and towards the challenger’s podium when a slender man wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase pushed through the crowd. He looked disgustedly at Alron and turned his attention to Kenia. “Hello Miss…” “Kenia” “Miss Kenia, I am a representative from the Pokemon league payment organisation and as I am sure you are aware, you owe us a great deal of money.” Alron turned in shock to face Kenia. She was aware of it but avoided his eye contact. “I was going to pay you back. Actually I’m about to get some winnings from this battle…” “I don’t believe you will be earning any prize money from this match as I am to be your opponent.” Kenia gasped and looked incredibly upset. “Now then, either you can pay me now and pay back the league the debts you owe us or you can duel me, get your Pokemon killed and then be taken to the league detention centre.” Kenia’s face was wiped clean of the upset and repainted with a bitter anger. “Well I take option three, say goodbye to your Pokemon and your debt money you corporate asshole” The man grew angry also. “Listen up you little bitch, this case if full of Pokemon all of which can brutally murder yours. So please continue your insolent behaviour so I can enjoy ruining your worthless life that little bit more.” He turned and walked his way back through the crowd and stepped up onto his podium. \nNow it was Alron’s turn to get angry. “You owe money to the league! What is wrong with you? Why?” “It was the only way to keep charmander alive. We were both hungry and he needed food. Everything got desperate and I appealed for some money. Only a little bit! But the league’s inflation rate screwed me, I owe them thousands.” “Look just pay them back. I can help you.” “Don’t kid yourself Al, neither of us have the money.” “But your charmander can’t do this. He is a league official. All his Pokemon will be level 70s. At least!” “I don’t have any other options” She stepped up onto the podium causing the crowd to screech with encouragement and dislike all at once. \nAlron ran forward to the edge of the pit and stared down. He saw Kenia’s charmander standing alone in the sand. The league official smiled to himself and opened his briefcase. He then fished out a Pokeball and threw it into the ring. Alron’s heart sank as the towering figure of a blastoise appeared over the charmander. Kenia looked just as uneasy. The blastoise roared and began to attempt to pound the charmander into the sand. The charmander was nimble and dodged from side to side with what appeared to be ease. Kenia looked surprised and began to bark out commands to her Pokemon. The charmander kicked up sand everywhere and began to hide in the dust. From inside the cloud random bursts of flame would spray out and hit the blastoise causing it to become even more irritated as it continued to pound the ground. Kenia seemed to think she was doing well and was smiling. But Alron could see what the official was doing; it was all just a sick game. The blastoise reared up and fired a volley of water straight into the dust cloud. Then the flames stopped bursting out from the cloud and the dust settled. The charmander was lying in the centre of the ring. Its tail flame extinguished. \n“Kenia!” Alron forced his way through the crowd but was far too late. The only friend he knew was shut away in the back of a league truck. She was crying, she had just lost her best friend and was about to lose another. The last time Alron saw her was through the barred window at the back of the truck. She didn’t even look up at him. She disappeared down a road and out of site. Not everyone beats the league, not everyone completes catches them all. Some just disappear.\n", "This was it. I couldn't believe I had made it this far. Thinking back, I wished I had never gotten into these illegal fights. They were dangerous, and I knew it from the start.\n\nAs I stared at the lifeless, disembowelled corpse of my opponent's Quilava, I felt a small amount of sympathy and I was reminded of my Mudkip's early days in battle. We used to be partners. Hell, we still were, but times have changed. He's not Mudkip anymore. He's Swampert, but it's not just the outside that's changed. I can see in his bloodshot eyes that the journey I've taken him on has mentally warped him. All I was concerned about was how that made him stronger.\n\nI looked ahead. My Swampert growled as it washed away the splatters of blood from its large hands.\n\n__________________________________________\n\nI had spent so much money on supplies - mainly Ultra Balls. In fact, I couldn't even afford 5 Pokeballs now. It was a stupid idea, but hell did I want that Latios. It paid off when I finally caught it, but then that asshole showed up and stole it from me. THE legendary Pokemon Latios was stolen from me. Something in me snapped that day. The police would never believe I caught a legendary. Nobody would. If I ever found that asshole again, I'd make sure to end him. Nothing in this world mattered except making everyone pay for not believing me.\n\n__________________________________________\n\nThe last bit of smoke from the Quilava's body entered my nostrils, and I snapped back to reality. The final opponent was already prepared. It was him. This was my chance to take away everything he had. To get back what I worked so hard to obtain. What was rightfully mine.\n\nHe removed his coat. The insignia on the shoulder glistened as one of the surrounding fires illuminated the arena. I wasn't familiar with it, but it was clear this idiot was high up in some evil organisation from another Region.\n\nHe pulled a Pokeball from his pocket. Its design was not something if come across before. Purple with a small 'M' in the middle.\n\nI shielded my face as he unleashed his Pokemon. As my eyes adjusted, the first thing I saw was my Swampert's face. Something was wrong. Was that.. *fear*?\n\nThen I looked up. I understood. I froze on the spot. What the hell was that thing? Red and black. Wings that ended in what I could only describe as bony skeletal fingers. \n\nThere's no mistake it was legendary - legendaries are supposed to be banned, but I couldn't muster the energy to complain. I was frozen. Its very presence instilled fear into the hearts of everyone present.\n\"Death!\" someone in the crowd shouted hysterically, a crack in their voice.\n\nMy opponent stared at me, a look of madness in his eyes. As he opened his mouth, he uttered one word. \"Feed\".\n\nA black aura filled the arena as the Pokemon let out a scream even more unholy-sounding than if you were to make a Whismur eat a Cacnea.\n\nThen all at once, everyone in the arena dropped to the ground, lifeless. ", "I had been hanging outside in the shadows of our apartment building for nearly all day now. Me and Stef and Kahela. I had my Spearow on my shoulder right now, feeding him some crumbs out of my hand. His name is Hyssop. People had been coming around for a few hours, throwing back beers with us and smoking a little something special, tobacco, supposedly with just a pinch of Vileplume powder in it. \"So, is it supposed to be poison or sleep powder?\" I asked Stef, half laughing. \"Sleep'' she answered \"Poison will make yo fucking head hurt.\" I tried it, it made us all very mellow. We didn't talk much for ten minutes, but I felt so loose and relaxed. It wore off after awhile. Kahela decided to break the mood \"So we gonna sit around all day or are we gonna go to the Pit? The fights have been going on for an hour now, I don't wanna miss the whole thing.\" \"Sure lets head out then\" said Stef. We grabbed our bags and started walking towards the place. When we got there, It was obvious it was pretty busy, a bunch of cars were parked outside the old warehouse that had been cleared out. We got to the door and paid some meathead bouncer with an electrode by his side for the tickets. We went inside and were immediatly assualted with the noise and the heat. apparently there was a fire pokemon fighting right now. We went up the stairs to the viewing areas and I could see now it was a Flareon, desperately trying to keep a Nidoqueen at bay. Nidoqueens trainer yelled at her \"GRAB THE FUCKER, SUBMISSION!\" Nidoqueen charged and grasped at Flareon but she danced away breathing out a punishing flamethrower at the same time. Nidoqueen screamed in pain, her natural armor not protecting her fully from the heat. Flareons owner quipped \"Thats right! Keep her away and burn her! Now firespin!\" Flareon began to make a fire twister in the middle of the warehouse. Everyone backed away from the guard rails as the heat intensified. the spinning torrent of fire enveloped Nidoqueen and she batted at the flames in panic, backing up. \"No Nidoqueen! Use rage! Charge her!\" The Nidoqueen charged out of the twister streaming flames, blind and roaring, Flareon cut off the stream of fire and tried to jump away but Nidoqueen kicked her a few feet away. Flareon was stunned, didn't have time to react before she was on her, thrashing with her arms, head, legs. She picked up Flareons now limp form and screamed into Flareons face before biting into her soft belly and ripping out the intestines, tearing and pulling. The cheering was deafening. This was what we had come to see, Pokemon battles at their most brutal. Nidoqueen was returned by the owner, and some men came and took the body away to be butchered for meat. Bet money was passed all around for a few minutes and Flareons owner slunk outside. The next contestants came up and sent out there Pokemon: An Arbok and a Pinsir.", "I hated it. The noise, the texture of the broken concrete beneath my feet, The smell was the worst. Blood, sweat, burning flesh, ozone, noxious gases, they all mixed together to produce this terrible stench that burnt my nostrils as I entered the arena. We were allowed to bring in one Pokemon each, and only one would leave. We couldn't give orders, we had to let them fight on instinct, it's more \"entertaining\" that way. \n\nWith this I would be risking the only thing I had left for enough money to live in society again. Every fucking second I questioned whether or not it was worth it, but I couldn't go back. I looked at the competition. A Delibird, a Koffing, an Abra, a Graveller, and a fucking Lucario. A Lucario, who the fuck would bring that kind of Pokemon here, you only fight if you know you'd never make it by standard battles. It made no sense to risk such a high value Pokemon, it would sell for more than it would win.\n\nThen I saw what his trainer was wearing. It looked like a bunch of charm bracelets and necklaces, adorning her arms and neck. Ears. Ears, small tails, bones, chunks of rock or metal, a fucking trophy showcase on stilettos. A sadistic fuck with too much money here to make more black market meals. It was over. I couldn't leave, they'd just throw me into the fray. I wanted to throw up. I felt the tears come out, but my throat was too dry to even speak, let alone bawl.\n\nI looked down at him. He was my best friend, my only partner in this world, and the look in his eye told me that he already knew what was coming. I'd trained him as well as I could, he nodded when I asked if he would risk it, and now he's paying the price for my greed and childishness. I wanted to pick him up and go, to just sprint as fast as I could toward the exit. But that wouldn't work. We'd just die faster. There were a few tears rolling down his face and hanging off his whiskers, but he smiled. He fucking smiled. Somehow that made me feel worse. \n\nI was considering whether it'd be less painful for him to die by a Machamp guard than battle, but before I even realized it, the battle started. It was a slaughter. The Lucario used Metal Claw and ripped off Delibird's wing. It grabbed Delibird's bag and flung it at Abra. Before it hit, Abra teleported away. Graveller and Koffing were at it, Graveller throwing rocks at Koffing, who sprayed this caustic aerosol at Graveller. I don't know what it was, death moves are forbidden, and aren't named. But I won't forget the sound that Graveller made. Delibird managed to stand up, spurting blood from what was left of its wing, and attempted to use Icy Wind. \n\nClose Combat is not at all the rapid series of strikes you see in normal battles. It's grappling. Lucario took out its legs first, snapping them outward to ninety degree angles. Then the second wing. Then he just began stomping on its face. The sound of its beak cracking was even louder than its bones.\n\nThe Lucario's trainer just kept laughing as the other trainers wept. Most of them used the common pokemon that they caught just a couple months before. They were only losing money. I was going to lose my partner.\n\nMy Pokemon was smarter than the rest, I would like to think. He was focused on survival, darting through the battles, avoiding any engagement. \n\nThe Abra reappeared next to Koffing and used confusion on it, causing it to start quivering erratically. Then it self destructed. Their shells are porous and nearly weightless, it's how they float, so a real self destruct doesn't send shrapnel, it's just a high concussive force. Not enough to hurt the crowd, but the Abra was gone. The sound was like a wet towel being slammed on a tile floor.\n\nThere was only Lucario left. He set his sights straight on my only friend and smiled. I wish I could tell you that it was a brave battle, that he almost won against the Lucario, that there was some amount of dignity in his death. \n\nThere wasn't. It was one force palm. That's it, it sent him flying, and Lucario ran up, grabbed him by the neck, and started slamming him against the ground, again and again. There were several crunches, as his face was gradually turned into an unrecognizable red paste. Then Lucario dropped him as the crowd roared.\n\nI couldn't think, I couldn't move, I couldn't do anything. I thought I had given up hope before, but clearly within the recessed of my mind, I thought there was a chance, and I was numbed as it was so utterly crushed that it reverberated throughout my psyche. \n\nI ran out and cradled him, I don't even know why. Maybe I was still thinking that there was a chance, or maybe it was just the instinct to hold him, like I could still protect him from the world. \n\nHe didn't move, he didn't breathe. He was gone. I'm so sorry. I always knew you were in the top percentage, and that you had so much potential, and I threw it all away. I am so fucking sorry.\n\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 5, 6, 8 ]

[ "1409896954", "1409909978", "1409921636", "1409894212", "1409910213", "1409898358", "1409894135", "1409896725" ]

[ "I imagine this is how people feel during a zombie apocalypse. It takes remarkable mental gymnastics for a man's brain to process that a crowd of stunningly slow, weak, semi decaying coffin dodgers are the greatest threat ever to roll up on his doorstep.\n\nOne issue with this comparison remains, in hindsight. The living dead never brandished garden strimmers.\n\nIt was their singleminded approach that terrified me the most. I wasn't the most athletic individual. Sure, I did weights, but who didn't in this day and age. I went for a run - once every three days. While you would think this would give you a substantial combat advantage on a large group of elderly harridans (and you would be correct) it is important to note that elderly harridans brandishing gardening equipment is an entirely different matter.\n\nThey came in the dozens. I tried to fight at first - I remember the crackle of a strimmer passing merest inches in front of my face before I cut in behind and struck the old bag with an old bag I had to hand. She went down like a sack of aged potatoes, but for every one I struck down, another ten took her place. I took up a boxing stance, one fist tight to my chin. A rookie mistake, I realize with hindsight. Much like the living dead, every strike they unleash dislocates a shoulder. They care not for such injuries, so used they are to them. Holding a guard against such numbers is suicide.\n\nThey fought me back, step by step. Swings from a garden rake felled a few of the coffin dodgers who found themselves nowhere near as adept at dodging garden implements as they were the Grim Reaper. My issue was that they were converging from every direction and being a man of reasonable taste, I didn't carry any weapon capable of felling a grey haired horde.\n\nI had to think tactically.\n\nI knew the door would not hold them long. The sheer weight of numbers and garden strimmers would result in a silver tinted mass flowing through, but I did have one advantage. Their bones were brittle and old. Mine, young and strong.\n\nI thought I could still win. I was wrong. When their aged generals sent the ones with hip replacements forward, I knew I had only one option.\n\nI did not escape unscathed, it must be said. I still bear the narrow whiplash scars to this day. They still hunt me, but now, I am ready.\n\nWhen the silver mass converges on me this day, I shall smite them down with great vengeance. For while their strimmers may be mighty, my chainsaw is mightier.", "It was whilst I was taking a sip out of my coffee that I heard a distant thudding noise. As the noise became louder, whatever approached became more clearer. A faint outline of hundred or so eldery women, hunched back with years of aging were coming straight towards me with what seemed to be.. what the.. weed whackers? Why is it covered in red splotches of paint I wandered as they came walking slowly within a few meters of me.\n\n\"kiiilll hiimm\" croaked one of the elderly woman and that's when all hundred of them started charging in unison. To call it a charge would be an exaggeration but when there's a hundred elderly Grandma's running towards you holding weed whackers, you start to question reality. I grabbed my Coffee mug and hurled it towards the head of the closest grandma. I missed. Instead it hit the one behind knocking her out. I heard the motorised whirring of ninety nine weed whackers being turned on at once and that's when I started to make a run from it.\n\nI took 5 long strides and jumped over the porch fence. I overestimated my athletic abilities and hit the top of the fence with my shin and fell over. Clutching my shin i looked back and saw they were gaining closer on me, although at a slow pace. Let's see them climb the fence I thought as I got upto my feet and hobbled away.", "I sat on my stoop, cup of joe in hand, waiting for dawn to spread its fingers across the sky when something came upon me, I guess you could say it dawned on me, that I should look to the west, but don't ask me why. Shockingly enough to my tired eyes, a hoard of old women were approaching with speed, weed-whackers in hand and malice in their eyes - a look of hate. A look of greed. Did they want my land, my house or my belongings? Did they simply want to kill me, and take all that I had on me? Little time it took for me to rise and start running, coffee spilled over and their feet in my ears thrumming. \n \n*Where should I go? What do I do?* I thought as I grabbed my knife and gun, too. I could probably run into town a mile out, or maybe to the neighbor's a few hundred yards south. Either way I'd be hoofing it with my truck out of commission, so I gathered my wits and finalized my mission, brandishing my gun and sheathing my knife, ready to stand and defend my life. \n \nI stepped up to the porch and took my aim while my hands shook and shuddered in the sudden onset of rain. Only a moment later, a sopping wet mop of grey hair emerged from the trees with sagging skin and a glare. Behind her came a mass of moomoos and gowns, silky and floral and dragging on the ground. They were covered in mud from their head to their knees, legs worn down at various degrees. Some were crawling and some were much faster, each one cackling with a gritty and demonic laughter. \n \nHow could they run, walk and crawl without any feet or an arm to catch their fall? The question itself was useless at best as they continued their advance despite the trials and tests. Weed-whackers whirring, grinding my nerves, they crawled over the fence and scared up some birds. As expected, their wings severed in flight, caught by the whackers with furious might. I wasted no time and fired a bullet, slightly off it flew and grazed one woman's mullet. I fired again, hoping for the best, and watched the bullet explode through another woman's chest. \n \nAfter so many rounds and so many kills, the hoard was still growing up and over the hills. It looked like an army, something out of a book that I read years ago in the history class I took. I was desperate and lost, not sure what to do, so I loaded the last bullet and kicked off my shoes. The women hobbled down the lane at growing speeds - if only they really wanted to cut my weeds. The barrel felt cold against my chest, internally warm with the promise of rest. The angle was hard, but I somehow managed, and shot myself in the pacemaker where I was truly damaged. \n \nAnd just as suddenly as I'd seen their deadly advance, I awoke in my bed with wet sheets and pants. I didn't know if I should have felt happy or cheated, but I accepted my fate and got the garden weeded. ", "Chuck took another sip of coffee and swirled it around in his mouth. It still tasted terrible, just as it always did. Bitter, dry, and incredibly hot. The last part was more so his fault than that of the coffee, as he’d once again forgotten to let it sit for longer than fifteen seconds. Still, even if it were cool, and had it not scalded his tongue to the point that he was considering hospitalization, he knew he wouldn’t like it. He never liked it. The only reason he even bothered drinking coffee was to impress Carla, on the off chance she decided to walk by and see him out on the porch. He wanted to look mature and financially stable, not unemployed and bordering on bankruptcy. Chuck placed the mug down on the side of his rocking chair and resumed watching the road for Carla.\n\nThe street looked a little different this morning. It wasn’t so much that the street itself had undergone some overnight transformation, turning into something entirely different—perhaps a forest path, or whatever streets dreamed of becoming—but rather that it was more crowded. There usually wasn’t much activity at 7:00am on Tuesday mornings around Chuck’s house, save for a few business men speeding down the road in a panicked rush to see who could get caught in traffic first. Today, however, it certainly looked more crowded. Rows of people were slowly inching their way toward him, unidentifiable blobs that seemed to be growing in number by the second as they crest the hill in the distance. Chuck leaned slightly forward to try to get a better view of the commotion.\n\nIt didn’t exactly look like a riot. Then again, Chuck had only been involved in a single riot, and not even by choice. He had been on his way to the market to pick up milk when he accidentally stumbled into a slew of young people breaking windows and looting stores. He tried not to get involved, but ended up being arrested while waiting in line to purchase his milk. The store had apparently been closed, and the broken window he had climbed through to enter was allegedly not an intentional doorway. \n\nChuck shifted in his seat and continued staring out at the mob of people ahead. It definitely wasn’t a riot. They were moving way too carefully. In fact, it almost seemed as if they were limping toward him, slowly meandering their way over at no more than a crawling pace. He stood up and walked to the edge of his porch, resting his arms on the wooden railing. It could be zombies, but he was pretty sure those didn’t exist. Plus, he didn’t think zombies could speak. This mob seemed to be chanting something, albeit rather slowly. He closed his eyes and tried to listen.\n\n“Hack out feed, shave Erica,” they seemed to be shouting.. Who was Erica and why was her juice being shaved? It didn’t make any sense. Chuck waited for them to restart their chant. \n\n“Whack out feed, shave America,” they repeated. So there was no Erica. Still, it didn’t really make much sense, America didn’t have a hair problem as far as Chuck could tell. He resumed listening as the mob moved closer.\n\n“Whack out weed, save America,” they shouted. Chuck opened his eyes and smiled. It seemed he was witnessing a mass assault against weeds, which was actually fine with him. His lawn had long been overgrown with weeds. He could definitely support a movement to rid the world of the vile plant. In fact, he figured he might just join up with them. \n\nChuck began walking toward his porch steps, then stopped. Something was a bit peculiar about the approaching mob. They were now just a few houses away, their features considerably more visible. They’d grown in numbers tremendously while he’d tried to figure out what they were chanting, with more slowly crawling over the hill at the end of his road. Each person seemed to be carrying a weed whacker, with the outer edges of the mob violently mowing people’s lawns as they passed. He’d never seen anyone mow a lawn violently before, but it made sense. Action was the best way to enforce change. What he found strange, however, was the fact that every single person involved was clearly over the age of 80, and that several were soaked in blood.\n\n“Whack out weed, save America,” they chanted, weed whackers in one hand, walkers and canes in the other. They were slowly limping their way toward Chuck. He’d never seen a protest made entirely of the elderly, except for the one time he’d gone to a diner at around 4:30pm. The restaurant had just run out of the soup of the day, which caused an elderly gentleman to begin shouting. Several more joined in, but they quickly quieted down after they forgot what it was they were angry about. Still, there hadn’t been any blood on them then. Chuck wandered down his porch steps and onto his lawn.\n\n>I got nothing, don’t like where this is going so I’m just going to end it here. \n", "The hum that's been going on for hours is irritating to say the least.\n\nIt woke me up this morning and though it's very hard to tell, it's definitely louder than then. I'm out on my porch, sitting in a rickety old rocking chair, sipping at a mug of black-as-night coffee.\n\nMy neighbors are out as well, sitting on their porches in chairs or swings, listening to the hum. I acknowledge Wally to the left of my house, lifting up my mug and nodding my head. He returns the gesture. I look to my right at Frank and he shouts, \"What the hell is that noise?\" I shrug my shoulders and take another sip, pondering what it might be.\n\nA swarm of bees? No.\n\nA gang of moped riders? Hopefully not.\n\nA landscaping union on strike? Probably not.\n\nWhat the hell is it, then?\n\nWhatever it is, it's getting louder. I think.\n\nI go inside the house and turn on the TV and put it on the news. There's coverage of a house on fire, a man brandishing a pistol in a movie theater lobby, a monkey riding a bike. Nothing on strange sounds. I check the other news stations and again, there's nothing to be found on strange humming noises.\n\nI turn the TV off, throw the remote back onto the couch, and feel mother nature calling me. Walking briskly to the bathroom, I notice I have a message on my answering machine. I hit the play button and go to the bathroom to relieve myself while the message plays.\n\n\"Play message. 'Stuart? This is your grandmother. Hello? HELLOOOOO? STUART? STUUUUUUUART!? I'M NOT SURE IF YOU CAN HEAR ME. BUT I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU. YOU ARE THE MOST HANDSOME BOY I'VE EVER SEEN. DO YOU KNOW TH- HELLOOOOO!? STUART, CAN YOU HEAR ME? THIS IS YOUR GRANDMOTH-' End of message.\"\n\nShe's gone a little loopy over the past few weeks. That's the 49th call I've received from her letting me know that I'm handsome.\n\nI flush the toilet and wash my hands and walk back outside. The humming is much, much louder now. Almost deafening. Wally must've gone inside. Frank, too. Actually, all of my neighbors are inside.\n\nThat hum, though. It's definitely coming from the left. I walk into my front lawn, a little tall if I'm being completely honest, and look down the street. What I see makes me question my sanity.\n\nI didn't count, but if I had to guess, I'd say there were about twenty or thirty of them. Twenty or thirty elderly women. Holding gardening equipment. Twenty or thirty grandmothers, holding weedwackers, coming my way. And, dear GOD WERE THEY SLOW.\n\nI didn't know what to do, so I just stood there. Thank God I just went to the bathroom or I might've pissed myself when they stopped in front of my house, revving their weedwackers, looking like they meant business.\n\n\"Move, boy,\" one of them said.\n\nI just stared at them, holding my coffee mug at my chest. \"Me?\" I asked.\n\n\"Come now, sweet child, we don't have all day,\" another woman replied sweetly. Her adoring face then quickly melted into a deathly grimace.\n\nI walked backwards, stepping back onto my porch as they advanced into my yard. I started shaking. I never thought I would be, but I was scared of a group of old women.\n\nWhat were they going to do? Were they going to pin me down and tear my face off with lawncare equipment? Were they going to slit my throat with a trowel? Maybe they were gonna sodomize me with the business end of a shovel. Oh, Jesus...Oh, Jesus!\n\nOh.\n\nJesus.\n\nThey're just taking care of my lawn.\n\nI offered to pay them all, but instead every one of them handed me a twenty dollar bill.\n\nSweet old ladies. I hope they come back.", "I put down and forget about my coffee. The women spread out into a crescent shape filling the street, trampling flowerbeds, knocking down mailboxes and rolling over dustbins. My first reaction was amusement. There's something comical about any old woman operating any kind of potentially violent machine, never mind hundreds of them. Old women are not threatening. An old woman never succombed to a bloodthirsty or savage impulse, and if she did it was probably against her bad-tempered and abusive husband who, in the space of a few short decades, had wilfully defeated her dignified resolve.\n\nInstead of showing myself to be intimidated I therefore stayed seated in my chair, exaggerating my lack of fear in adopting a slight smirk and awaited an explanation. The women came barrowing through my gate and over my hedges. They came up the path and across the grass. They broke through the verandah and, smelling of lavender and with their glaring teeth stained with the morning's first cup of coffee, they weedwhacked me to a pink slurry that dripped into the space beneath the house.", "The sea of grey perms made their way over the horizon, like a thin veil of morning fog hugging the street. Some bobbed their way closer to me, others glided effortlessly. *What had I done?* Desperately flicking through the catalogue of my mind in search of an answer, I found nothing. I had been behaved. It was not my time, not yet. \n\n\n\nAs the mass approached, it became clear that the ghostly gliders were in fact on scooters. A ghoulish cavalry, travelling at what looked like a merciless speed. 3, maybe even 4 kilometres per hour. I only had about 10 minutes before this mass was upon me. My coffee wasn't even at drinking temperature yet. With a deep gulp, I glanced down at it. The steam spat back at me, mocking me with its unquenchable heat. \n\n\n\n2 minutes pass, and now I can hear them. The brittle, waspish hum of the scooters slicing through the thick morning peace. The clank of zimmerframe against asphalt that I felt sure I could *feel* beneath my feet. Most unsettling, however, was the song they were blasting out to keep their ruthless march in time. It came from an old wireless that one of the stronger ones had mounted onto the back of her scooter.\n\n\n\n*Come fly with me, let's fly let's fly away* came Sinatra's dulcet tones. I shuddered, and began to sip at my coffee. Goddammit, that's hot. Those witches would love to see my tongue burn. I won't give them that satisfaction.\n\n\n\nAs they neared, it became clear that some were armed. One carried a garden rake, another carried a weed whacker. Several wore belts adorned with still-steaming tea bags and overcooked vegetables. It was no use going back inside. There were too many. They'd destroy my house, perhaps even harm my sleeping family. I had to face them.\n\n\n\nI stepped out from the porch, walked down the wooden steps, and across my front lawn. The grandmas were unphased, continuing their pursuit without hesitation. Once in the middle of the road, I turned to face them. There were only 3 speed bumps separating us. The scooters traversed them effortlessly, one approached so fast that it looked like it might get some air time. Alas, it didn't, but it was darn close. Sinatra was all I could hear now. One of the hags standing next to the wireless swayed with the rhythm, before being angrily interrupted by the elbow of another.\n\n\n\nWith one speed bump between us, the group halted, and Sinatra stopped suddenly. The smell was overwhelming - a combination of stale biscuits, farts and colostomy bags. \n\n\n\n\"W...what do you want from me?\" I demanded.\n\n\n\n\"Pardon Dear?\" came the response from an elderly woman holding a towering flag portraying a skull and cross-knitting needles. She must be the leader.\n\n\n\n\"I said what do you want from me, Goddammit!\" I could feel tears fighting their way to the surface. Hold them in, James. Hold them fucking in.\n\n\n\n\"Language!\" shouted another. The flag bearer stepped forward, now standing on top of the speed bump. No mans land. She reached into her pocket and fumbled, as though the innards were filled with a jungle of wool off-cuts, crumbs and hard boiled sweets. I stepped back, almost stumbling in fear. *What was she going to pull out?* Her hand emerged, pulling out a pair of denchers. With a chilling slurp, she shovelled them into her mouth.\n\n\n\nA bird chirped in the morning sun. I felt a cold weightlessness overcome me, the kind of sensation I imagine one experiences when their brain is deprived of oxygen for too long. It was as though I could fall back and the roads soft bosom would absorb me into its warm confines. I'd be safe there. \n\n\n\n\"We just wondered, lovey, whether you might mind giving Mary's car a push. She broke down just outside her house and it's holding up traffic.\" She summoned one of the ladies behind her, who stepped forward obediently, brandishing a teabag she had pulled from her utility belt. \"Cup of tea dear?\" \n", "Vance Killjoy took a long sip from the black sludge he called coffee and gazed out into the wide, and seemingly infinite, expanse of desert that stretched out before him. He could hear the stampede coming, and could see the dust cloud rising from it. \nHe picked up the old weathered binoculars that hung around his neck and placed the viewing end to his permanently squinted eyes. He wanted to confirm what he knowed he knew; another stampede of the oldies. They were all old women this time from the looks of their hair and dress. They were wielding weed whackers and runnin right for him. \n \nSure is a lack of lawn for all them weed whackers he said in is head. \n \nThis wasn’t the firs time Vance saw something like this. The first oldies attack took place 12 years ago in a one horse town thirty miles south. Vance had made his way down to take care of an old business associate, and was waiting for the man in his hotel room when the first wave of geriatric genociders rolled in. They carried rolling pins and were hittin and hollerin at anything that moved. It took him a better part of the night, and a full bottle of bourbon, but he left that town the way he found it; hung over and oldie free. \nThere had been countless attacks since then, all on small towns, and Vance stepped in every time. He didn’t have the slightest clue where the oldies came from, even after spending a week trackin em, but he did know that each attack was bigger, and now it seemed like they was learnin, getting smarter. \n \nThats okay, he thought to himself, I been gettin smarter too. \n \nVance got up from his rocking chair and stood, back straight, eyes fixed dead ahead at the oncoming terror. He stomped one of his heavy black leather boots on the old wooden deck. A cloud a dust erupted with the loud mechanical pop of a spring loaded piston. An old farmers pitchfork shot straight up and out from the depths of the deck. He snatched it from the air. The sides of the metal prongs were filed sharp, like knives. \nHe walked forward full of purpose and intent. The soles of his boots moved from wood to earth. The hard packed sand of the desert felt like a friend to him, and the light kiss of the wind a lover. He tipped his brown hat down to block the rays of the rising sun. \n \nThe only one doin some whackin today, he said, is gonna be me.\n", "I threw my coffee in the grass, opened the door, locked it, peeked through the blinds. They were running like a nurse forgot to close the door at the old folk’s home. Why the weedwhackers though?\n\n\nThey were screaming like William Wallace, screaming like Mel Gibson getting a ticket, screaming like Mel Gibson on the phone with his wife. I locked the other doors, came back, stuck an eye to the window. They were now a couple hundred yards from my place and gaining. I ran through scenarios in my mind, all of them involved punching an old woman. \n\n\nThey finally got to my lawn, stopped screaming, yanked the starter ropes on their weedwhackers. When the engines whirled to life they began cutting my grass, wide strokes, tons of pull on the gas. \n\n\nI thought, “That’s nice, but what about the clippings?”\n\n\nI went outside to talk to them, tell them thanks but I have a mower and I’m not a hundred years old. I can lift things myself and I can unscrew jam jar lids even if someone cleans the knife on the rim.\n\n\nI tapped one of them on the shoulder, nice looking lady with a thinning flowery nightdress and sunglasses like a shoebox. “Excuse me, ma’am?”\n\n\n“Fuck off!” She yelled in my face.\n\n\nIt was hot, so hot. A pinch the shirt on your shoulders and move it around kind of hot. Felt it across your shoulderblades. I moved to the next lady. “Excuse me,” I said.\n\n\n“Fuck off!” She said.\n\n\nThis is when I started getting angry. They say respect your elders but assholes get old at the same pace as nice people, and there’s tons of assholes. \n\n\nI looked up the block and every lawn in my neighborhood was getting the same treatment. Jim was in his housecoat, watching the mayhem, still enjoying his coffee. Katy was doing the same as me, trying to find an ear in the hearing aids and two cycle engines.\n\n\nThey were doing a poor job, cutting it close, kicking up soil. It would dry out in the Nevada sun by noon.\n\n\n“No sprinklers!” One of them shouted.\n\n\n“Get out of the way!” A burly one said, upper lip like a tennis ball in mud.\n\n\nShe crosschecked me with her weedwhacker, not hard but enough to get my attention. “Hey! This is my fucking property,” I told her. She didn’t give me a second thought.\n\n\nI heard a window break. Went around the side to investigate, kept going to the back when I didn’t find anything. The glass on my backdoor was smashed and I heard some of them in my house. Heard other windows in the area break too. I opened the door and there was three of them in my living room, holding their weedwhackers at my face, snarling like dogs on tranquilizers.\n\n\n“What are you doing?”\n\n\nThey poked at me, nylon line buzzing in my face. I'd had enough. I grabbed the middle one’s handle and drove the trimmer head into the nose of the woman on the left. Then I swung the contraption around and caught the middle one in the spongy part of her head, dropped her like she slipped in the shower. The one on the right was knocking kneecaps. “You’d hit an old woman?”\n\n\n“Yes,” I said. \n\n\nRight crossed her in the cheek. Her dentures came out whole, landed on my hardwood and chattered into the corner. \n\nThere was clunking downstairs, sawing. I took the steps three at a time, found two of them in my mechanical room, sawing pipes and clogging them with some type of silicon. I wasn’t looking for answers now, I was looking for a fight. With geriatrics. \n\n\nKicked one in the stomach, punched the other near the socket. Socket fell into my furnace, cleaned some dust I was storing there. Stomach bent over and got my knee for breakfast. I ran upstairs, outside, jumped from my porch, put my treads into nightdress’s jaw. Another was right there and I welcomed her to the roundhouse, gave her a tour.\n\n\nThey formed around me like an old fashioned Jackie Chan movie, sent one to face me at a time. I was throwing my fists and legs around, knocking them out, taunting them. “Who’s next!? Who’s next?!”\n\n\nI took off my shirt, flabby belly sweating in the sun. Ripped a sleeve off, tied it around my head.\n\n\nAfter about the twentieth K.O, they all laid their weedwhackers down and started chanting. “Ohhhhhh, ohhhhhh, ohhhh, her she comes, here she comes, ohhhh, ohhhh, ohhhh.”\n\n\nThe circle broke and the burly one walked through, held her weedwhacker above her head while the rest cheered. The ceremony kind of scared me so I preemptively kicked where her legs met and she fell over and rolled around, holding her crotch. \n\n\nI jumped on top of her, held my fist up. “What are you doing? What are you doing here?”\n\n\nShe said, “All these lawns waste so much water. The planet is in trouble. So we decided we would cut the grass short and clog your pipes so you couldn’t water them. We want to leave a better place for our grandchildren.”\n\n\nI said, “Jesus, there’s better ways to go about it.”\n\n\nNow I have astroturf. \n" ]

[ 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 31 ]

[ "1409942298", "1409931490", "1409931568", "1409932469", "1409933944", "1409929622", "1409931858", "1409933128", "1409930469" ]

[ "A crowd had gathered at the Academy. Plato had begun to teach a lesson in geometry. Mediocrites stood at the entrance of the Academy and mouthed out the words etched into the thresh hold. \n\n\"Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here,\" proclaimed the gate way, thereby barring those who are incapable of grasping the mundane from gazing upon the eternal Ideas.\n\nStudents rushed past Mediocrites, late to the great Plato's lesson. One of them stopped and looked at Mediocrites.\n\n\"Hey, you coming?\" he asked Mediocrites.\n\nMediocrites merely shrugged. \"Meh,\" said he. \"Maybe,\"\n\nThe vagueness of his own answer coursed through him. *Fools*, thought he. *You meddle with Ideas and your fancy Arithmetics and your funny looking triangles. I, Mediocrites, hold the answer to the truth.* \n\nThe Greek youth looked at him strangely. \n\n\"Adelphos! We're already late, dude. C'mon!\" urged the companion. \n\n\"Well, see you inside, I guess,\" said the youth and he rushed into the Academy.\n\n\"Yeah, sure. I guess,\" called out Mediocrites. He sat on the steps and strained his ears to listen to Plato speak more nonsense. He leaned back and adjusted his toga. Mediocrites couldn't *technically* enter the Academy, with the whole \"let no one ignorant of Geometry enter here\" deal going on. By all rights, he had passed Pythagorean's test. But, just barely. Plato told him that his intelligence was ok. His rhetoric was ok. His grasp of geometry wasn't good, but it wasn't bad either. Since Mediocrites was neither ignorant of geometry nor non-ignorant, Plato couldn't accept him but couldn't reject him either. Hence, Mediocrites found himself sitting at the steps of the Academy. Neither hot or cold.\n\nStaring out in the distance, he strained to see if he could indeed see the Ideas Plato kept ranting about. Instead, he spotted an old friend headed towards the Academy.\n\n\"Hail! Mediocrites,\" called out Nicomachus. His father was one of Plato's most famous student, Aristotle. \"Plato still won't let you in, I see,\" he said to Mediocrites. \n\n\"Meh,\" responded Mediocrites, continuing to stare out into the far distant. His voice was as cool as the ocean breeze. \n\n\"I don't need this philosophy for the real world, y'know what I mean? Like, whatever. I don't even care. I'd understand it, like, super well. But, whatever,\" said Mediocrites. \n\n\"I totally get you! My father is teaching me about ethics and stuff. He says that I'm too young right now, but at around 30-35 years old, I should be totally ready to go,\" said Nicomachus. His eyes lit up at the thought of learning more from his father and his enthusiasm exuded off from his body like a bad odour. \n\n\"So, like, what about ethics is you dad teaching you?\" asked Mediocrites. \"But not like I'm curious or anything,\" he added.\n\n\"Well, right now, dad's telling me about virtues. Like, there are two extremes. You are either really good or really bad. Dad say's that virtue is smack dab in the middle,\" explained Nichomacus, making apparent that he did not understand his father at all. \n\n\"Oh, cool. Cool, cool, cool. Like, you know geometry...but you don't really know geometry, you know?\" asked Mediocrites.\n\nNicomachus nodded fervently. \"Yeah! Yeah, exactly!\" he said with the confidence of one who has not paid attention to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. \"Hey, I should get going. Pompeii later? Let's get our freak on,\" he added. \n\n\"Meh, maybe. I'll have to think about it,\" said Mediocrites. He was far too engrossed at Aristotle's teachings to think about the invitation to go to Pompeii. \n\n\"Virtue is not about being really good or really bad...its about being in the middle,\" he whispered to himself quietly. His heart began to beat quickly as his eyes darted to and fro, trying to process this new information. Not only did he figure out the true way of life before the great Aristotle, but he had been living True Virtue all his life.\n\nAs a matter of fact, he was True Virtue, all along.\n\nJoy and ecstasy welled up inside him. He forced back tears of triumph. He punched the air, dispelling all and any doubts of his complete genius. He regained his composure as quickly as he lost it and continued to stare out into the deep abyss of nothingness. \n\n\"Meh,\" he said to no one. \"I'm True Virtue, whatever. If anyone wants to, like, become my disciple or something, that's cool. Or not, y'know. Whatevs.\"\n\nLater that day, Mediocrites sat at a tavern with Nicomachus. Mediocrites explained to Nicomachus his genius, but Nicomachus was otherwise preoccupied by the tavern wench. He followed Nicomachus to a room and waited outside, continuing his explanation. Yet, all Nicomachus could offer was his grunts. Discontented by his friend's lack of enthusiasm for his great epiphany, Mediocrites began to scribble out his way of life outside the room. The sound of rock scraping against stone was disturbed only by passionate grunts and practiced moans.\n\nAnd so it was, that the greatest philosophy unknowingly known and practiced by all who live in suburbia and suffer dead end jobs was written. Outside a room of a brothel while Aristotle's son banged a whore. \n\nHistorians swear that when they found the graffiti, no one was at all that surprised. In fact, no one really cared. It wasn't a great finding...but it wasn't a non-finding. They did, in fact, find something. \n\nSo yeah, that's kinda it. That's the end. \n\nSo...umm^yeah^btw,^Pompeii^isn't^in^Athens^Its^actually^in^Italy^..............\n\n*Edit*: I don't know how to super^script. \n", "One ancient philosopher whom many historians fail to address is Mediocrites, whose works include, *Real Housewives of Megara*, *The Peleponnesian Shore*, and *Two and a Half Men Because One of Them Is a Centaur*. In 500 BC, he was born to a Spartan father and an Athenian mother. Life was hard for him as he matured into adulthood because his father didn't make a lot of money at *A-OO A-OO* Incorporated. Believing that he'd share his father's fate, Mediocrites took to playing the lute and writing some funky-fresh tragedies (these include the aforementioned works). He didn't expect to be showered with drachmas. He never meant to offend anybody or galvanize rebels. He wanted only to mosey through life like the chorus that crossed the stage. Speaking of which, the amphitheater emptied during his performances, but he never stopped contributing to his art and doing what he loved. \n\nThen, the Persians killed him.", "Sweat poured down Mediocrites' face as he kneeled before King Ananas. \n\n\"Really? The Nemean Lion? Is there no one more, i don't know, heroic that can take care of it for us?\" A spectator shouted from the crowd that was gathered in the king's throne room. \n\n\"Silence fools! It is by my decree that this hero is worthy of the challenge, may he rest in pe-errrr not let me down\" Mediocrites set out later that day with his knapsack thrown over his shoulder and his slingshot tucked into the band on his loincloth. He didn't know why he decided one day to become a hero, he just figured it would be more fun than a lot of other professions, which is coincidentally how many people in his land of Greece decided what to do with the rest of their lives. Ahhh, sentence structure, he thought to himself while trudging along down the road, you can go wrong so easily, and the bloody commas, it's like they try to mess me up on purpose. He gave up trying to compose his monologue/victory speech to deliver upon his triumphant return just as he entered the plains known to harbor the infamous Nemean lion. \n\n\"Ahhhhhhh\" Mediocrites screamed as he felt a sharp pain in his back. So this is how my sto-\n\n", "This man Mediocrities was smiled upon by the Gods, showered with cunning by Apollo. He did drink from the cup of wine brought forth upon him by Athena as a babe. At the event of his birth his father did hold him high to the apex of the heavens. \n\n“This babe, I deem kissed by intellect and borne with the curiosity of the whole world. Let him bring upon Achea an age of knowledge and wisdom of which only the Gods may now know.” \n\nTo these words Zeus did reply with silence. Elder Mediocrities took this as a good omen.\n\nMediocrities did take these words of Zeus. He crawled to his feet in his third year. His father burst forth to the streets. “The child has mastered the movement of men.”\n\nTo these words Zeus did reply with silence. Elder Mediocrities took this as a good omen.\n\nIn year eight did Mediocrities become versed in the language of man and Gods. To his mentor’s table he did scribe words of love between men, women, Gods, and donkeys with a knife. Enlightenment from the Goddess Aphrodite said some.\n\nIn year twenty to Troy did Mediocrites march. Able bodied Achaeans marched forth. Mediocrites came to Melenaus. Stranded from the march. Wheels torn from his cart by the Trojan soil. “To what God do I owe this displeasure and rotten fate!” bellowed Melenaus.\n\n“To none!” replied Mediocrities. He fashioned a wheel from a tree trunk cut by the men. The old wheels cast aside. Melenaus moved onward to fortune. Invigorated by Ares this Mediocrities was!\n\nMelenaus thus looked favorably on Mediocrities. In his fortieth year he called upon the man. Melenaus was ripened with age. “You are Enlightened by all you see Mediocrities. How must I rule my kingdom in my old age?”\n\nMediocrities replied “Greatest Melenaus, you must bring from your population average men, and pay this bureau an average sum of gold and they will administer your kingdom in your name with the face of the average man.”\n\n“A bureau! I will call it a bureaucracy.” Melenaus lauded Mediocrities. The Achaean state then ran, without efficiency but with stability. \n\nMediocrities was struck down in hi fify-fifth year during a time of war. Taken by the Gods as he slept in his bed from weakness of the heart. The people wailed to the heavens at the loss of his cunning mind.\n\nTo these words Zeus did reply with silence. The people took this as a good omen.\n", "Mediocrites rolled off his couch, somewhere around noon. He never could stomach the morning, he was definitely an afternoon philosopher. Rising to his desk, he cleared off all the kraters and kylixes from the night before to reveal his great work. The amazing philosophical thesis which would elevate him above all others in his field and catapult him to the upper echelons of Athenian society.\n\nHe had one word so far. It was a very good word, perfectly written and amazingly sculpted but it was just the one. To be even more specific, it was his own name in big bold script which took up most of the papyrus. He stared at his master work for a few minutes, desperately thinking of something to write. The Muse didn't seem to want to work today so he gave up and went off to the Agora.\n\nIt was late afternoon by the time he had arrived at the market. He was too busy nursing a massive hangover after going on an all-night bender with Praxiteles and some other chap he'd met a few days before. He stumbled into the Stoa, almost tripping over a bunch of Stoics and knocking a painter from his ladder. He slumped against one of the columns, staying out of the shade and hoping to hide himself from the sellers roaming about. Zeno was going on as usual, talking about the universe or something ridiculously grand. Why couldn't he just take a break and enjoy some oozo, Mediocrites pondered, trying to zone out. He'd get a lot more done.\n\nMediocrites sat there for the rest of the day, not doing a whole lot. He wasn't even thinking about the grand scheme of the universe, the nature of man or the intricacies of thought. He just slumped there, watching the world go by. He didn't really care for this philosophy lark, it was just something to do which didn't involve fighting or doing some real work. He had a couple of interesting thoughts though. His thoughts that the stars were actually candles lit by the gods was a nice one and his theory that everyone should just have a wine and chill out had some legs to it, but not enough to really challenge the philosophical establishment. After sitting there until the sun went down and achieving bugger all, Mediocrites got up and sauntered back to his home.\n\nAs he returned, a thought struck him. A thought so brilliant that he thought Zeus himself had whispered in his ear. He ran to his papyrus, ready to flip the entire world upside down. He sat there for a moment, trying to remember his earth shattering revelation. He thought a bit more, and a bit more. He then thought over a cup of wine and a nice bit of cheese. By that point, he had thought so much that he come over all tired and there was no point in trying to think anymore. Scribbling out his perfectly formed word, he chucked his papyrus onto the ever growing pile and went back to bed.\n\nMaybe he'd remember it tomorrow. Yeah, he'll do it tomorrow.", "\"I know one thing...\" Mediocrites orated in front of his crowd. He quickly glimpsed at the turnout: a couple of men of civilian status, 3 women and 5 slaves.\n\n\"...and *one thing only*.\" He paused for dramatic effect. Someone coughed.\n\n\"And that is, that the sky is bronze.\" He let his words hang in the air. His listeners awaited with expressions unchanged.\n\n*Uh-oh, that's not enough.*\n\n\"Consider, fellow Athenians. *Why* is the sky bronze? It could be cyan.\" Some unimpressed looks. \"Or, black! Or white! Wouldn't that make more sense for some reason?\"\n\nA slave was nodding. He, he gets it, Mediocrites thought. Too bad he's just a slave.\n\n\"For these are the colors closest to the Ideal.\" he continued. One of the civilians held his hand on his chin. He was thinking about it!\n\n\"And the Ideal, is what we should all strive for!\" He pondered his own words. He was reaching a conclusion, but he wasn't sure it made sense.\n\n\"Hence, I propose...\" he remained still, looking at the people below him, promising greatness with his eyes.\n\n\"...that the night is truer than the day.\"\n\nSomeone gave him a solitary clap. He stepped down, satisfied with himself. One day, he thought to himself. One day, I'll get that second clap." ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 4, 9, 40 ]

[ "1409974296", "1409982214", "1409969566", "1409969692", "1409959816", "1409948077" ]

[ "'The Ides of March are heere...Faustin. Run for the hills!'\n\nFaustin dismissed the elderly lady with typical nonchalance. After all, you'd work yourself up in a real frenzy if you took every Parisian soothsayer and their dog at their word. \n He opened the shed before a sight for sore eyes; his Blacksmith family.\n\n'Ma cherie..there's something....\n\n...'Shhh-kiss me forever.'\n\nMadrine waited patiently before revealing the grim news to Faustin.\n\nHe took a sip of cabernet potion before reflecting.\n\n'Let us join our comrades in London. I know Huffington will lodge us after I singlehandedly protected the Royals from war.'\n\nHe gazed at the messy, shambolic shop.\n\n'Matilde, Jean Luc, gather your belongings....we leave at dawn tomorrow.'\n\n The Parisian sun glistened through Le Marais. Faustin appreciated that delicate silence which seemed in full bloom this very morning. \n\n'You shaal not escape Faustin.'\n\nHe didn't even bother to glance at the lady of folly, but something struck him out of the corner of his eye.\n\nTens of people, surrounded by...what was it? Ash?\n\nThe lady tapped him, as he was jolted by her face...dark ash.\n\n'Save your family....'\nShe muttered before collapsing for the last time.\n\n", "Lo, and God called from on high,\nand my name drawn from such a task.\n\nA burden upon my shoulders too much.\nM back broken by the weight.\n\nO! The dead piled high in the streets\nas they all pray to me to take their sins.\n\nA brief instance before a soul escapes\nI take my fill.\n\nThe scars on my back show the penance\nand the weariness on my face as well.\n\nI've been made old.", "First story hope you like it. Constructive criticism is welcome :)\n\nSurvivors log 01\n \nContainment! We must contain it!! \n\nThese words are shouted at me and my men by a strange man in a mask that reminds me of a bird. What exactly he wants us to contain is still a mystery, but none of that matters to a soldier like me. I was born to serve the crown and their wishes and I will die defending my country wether it be French, German, or Spanish. It does not matter we have faced it before and we will face it again and we will not surrender under any circumstance. \n\nWe are told to march to a small village by the name of Dode. To maintain order and protect the crowns interests which basically means slaughter anyone and everyone who dares to step in front of us. Most of the men are in agreement that some dumb lord has declared for the French so we have to flex some English muscle and show him what for. How I wish that was true.\n\nWhen we arrived we were shocked at what we saw. No French army preparing for attack no lord nothing just silence. The hearth was still steaming so we knew someone had been there recently and was obviously hiding. So I told my men to search the homes. Mind you these are battle hardened warriors some of the best no green boys or old men were present. As soon as the door was cracked men lost their breakfast the smell was that bad. The ones brave enough to go in had an even worse sight. Men, women, and children alike dying blood and pus pouring from large black wounds that covered most of their bodies. This is something wore than anyone could cook up. This was an act of God the end of the world most thought I thought they were right. We put the infected out of their misery and buried the bodies at first. There were too many to contain soon the men got sick and started to turn on one another. Brothers that had fought in countless wars together trusted each other with their lives many times. \n\nThats when I left to live in the countryside. I was good with a sword so I raided villages with a few men we took what we needed and sometimes a bit more, but we only did what we had to do to survive.\n\nSometimes I wonder if I was worth it \n\n", "His figure was tall and broad, but his entire frame was cloaked in black. His face was covered by a great length of grey hair, masking the visage beneath.\n\nUpon his back was slung a Grosses Messer (German for Big Knife).\n\nit was dark, and rain poured down in chilling sheets.\n\nThe man did not mind. He was no stranger to cold.\n\nThe road was in ill repair. Long sections of it had been swallowed up by the forest that lay on either side, and it was completely flooded in many areas. The reason for the disrepair was made evident with almost every step.\n\nBodies. \n\nThey clogged the drainage ditches on either side for miles and caused the road to become flooded by a great swill of putrid fluids and rotting flesh whenever it rained.\n\nThese corpses bore no wounds gifted by murderous human hands. All had fallen victim to the plague.\n\nThe man did not mind. He was no stranger to the plague.\n\nHe had not seen another traveler in two days now. Ten years go the road had been a bustling trade rout through the central part of the Holy Roman Empire. Now it was a grave carefully treaded on by the few in this part of the country that still lived.\n\nAs he walked he began to make out a glimmering light in the distance. He was undaunted. No bandit would law a trap in such an awful place. Even with the rain, the air still smelled of death.\n\nAs he drew closer he saw that the light was that of a small fire beneath a broad oak at a fork in the road. There was a wagon on either side of it, and at least half a dozen people sitting at the flames.\n\nThe man did not slow his pace or try to go around. He headed straight for the encampment. He was hungry, and he had coin.\n\n", "Thomas pressed the flat of his hand against a crease in his trousers. His mother, were she not now in a box being covered in dirt, would have scolded him for letting them wrinkle. But he was a man, now, thirteen years old, and could do with his trousers whatever he liked, and that included leaving them in a crumpled mess by the fire.\n\nCertainly he could now, since she was dead. And father had left the house for good after the first black spots had appeared on the backs of his hands. To protect the family, he said. But it was less than a month before mother was scratching bleeding black patches of skin just under the neck of dress. Another couple of days before they were on her face, and a few days more before today. \n\nHer box was joined by many others. The funerals were scheduled. A monthly gathering of the nearby villages. The cemetery was on the top of a hill behind the church at the far reach of Adam Tillson's farm, and tripled in size since Thomas's memory began. Still, it was well kept, and the abundance of flowers by the engraved stone slabs and freshly wet grass from south England's dependable rain gave the scene an ironically cheerful setting. \n\nHe cursed himself and promised a confession for finding it beautiful. Thomas was a man now. Thirteen years old. He cursed himself again as a he felt the tears forming beneath his eyelids. Grown men didn't cry, he reminded himself, feeling the lump grow in his throat.\n\nA woman beside him wailed loudly as a child's box was lowered with ropes into the group grave. She wore black and obscured her face with a large black tissue. \n\nThere were twenty people there besides the father, who was reading in Latin from the Bible. Twenty was nearly all was left from the villages. The rumor had begun earlier in the year that those who survived were protected by God Almighty. Thomas preferred that thought to the one's who claimed that this was the reckoning, and only sinners would be left to roam the Devil's planet.\n", "I was designated to a battalion stationed in northern England, not too far from London. My task was easy, eradicate the plague. The only problem was that those who were sent this far north before me, never came back alive. \n\nIt was a proud moment for my young knighthood career, but I wasn't looking forward to facing the one thing that was preventing our country from progress. In addition I took a vow and oath to protect my people and my religion from any evil forces. \n\nUpon my arrival I was shocked by the smell of death that haunted the corridors of the barracks where I found myself holed up in. I can remember taking my first step outside of the camp which we were told was infection free. The grim horizon of scorched trees and darkened mud, not to mention the unforgiving stench of corpses rotting in the hot sun. \n\nIt wasn't a place of God, or of Satan. It was paradise lost.", "Human years are so arbitrary. Three-hundred and sixty-five rotations around a star. So what? The universe existed for a long time before that star even formed. \n\nAnyway, the humans told us the year was 1346. Well, they didn't tell us so much as show us. We snatched one of those filthy primates, cut open his brain, and scanned his memories. After running these memories through our Reconciliator, we were able to understand them in the proper context and cognitively integrate the information within. \n\nThe man we had examined was a typical member of his kind. When he wasn't toiling in a low-yield farm, he was making children with his mate, a similarly filthy primate with longer hair. They would perform their brutish copulation every night, not seeming to understand the limitations of their own reproductive cycles. \n\nThrough our observations we determined that this human was a \"peasant\", a type of worker-caste. He and the other peasants worked to supply and fund the local government. In this particular case, the local government was little more than an obese human that lived in a stone-walled fortress. He would send out groups of men to enforce his rules. These men were usually peasants as well, but they had been covered head-to-toe in crude metal sheeting and equipped with primitive short-range weaponry. Sometimes these men would brutalize the unarmed peasants for some perceived transgression or breach of etiquette. It was a wonder how the humans had even made it this far. \n\nAfter disposing of the human we had examined previously, we decided to take a closer look. Using standard cloaking techniques, we walked through the peasant community, occasionally stopping to examine livestock or the young humans who ran about unattended. We even made physical contact, using our sensory appendages to get a better view. It was very informative, we learned much about primitive humanoid societies. However, there was an unintended consequence of our curiosity. \n\nA few months after our arrival, the bio-scanner aboard our ship began to detect alarming levels of biological contamination. At first, we thought it was something the humans had passed to us. Those grimy vertebrates were hotbeds for pathogens and we were super-sterile space men from Sagittarius, after all. But after sifting through the bio-scanner's data logs, we found out that we were wrong. In a feat of freak nanotechnological spontaneity, the nano-bots that had long since replaced our immune systems had found their way into Earth's water cycle. \n\nIf this had happened on our homeworld, it would have been a trivial matter. Nano-suppression fields were easy to come by, and the bots could be shut-down before they became problematic. On Earth, it was a different matter. Unchecked and unleashed, the nano-bots replicated and eventually found their way into the bodies of humans. It was a disaster. \n\nUnfamiliar with human biology, the nano-bots attempted to adapt. The results were hideous. Humans grew massive, weeping boils that would explode, spreading the nano-bots in a liquefied, necrotic substrate. Their lymph nodes became infected, over-whelmed with nano-bots that tried to replace them. \n\nBefore we knew it, the contagion had spread across large swaths of the Earth. The next several humans we examined had memories that identified the pandemic as something called \"The Black Death\". We could do nothing but stand in horror as the humans struggled to contain the spread of the disease. \n\nWe waited to see if this disease would wipe out humanity. After seven human years, we were relieved to find that it had not. \n\nThey may be an arbitrary, irrational, and superstitious race but their resilience is something worthy of admiration. ", "The fire raged on before them, engulfing the small village and its inhabitants. There had been no other choice, half of the villagers were infected with the devil's rot and were spreading it to the others. The men with him did not forewarn those who lay sleeping in their beds, instead they locked their doors and set fires to the houses. They had to be sure the disease would not spread. The men with him all had handkerchiefs to cover their faces and so did he, yet they could still smell the dead burning in their homes. Would god ever forgive them for this? Would they ever forgive themselves? Johnathan glanced to his right and to his left, the orange-red glow of the fire illuminating the face of his helpers. Just as they were about to depart a man next to him let out a cough. ", " My children reek of putrid rot\n My boils burst filled with snot\n\n My wife still healthy ran away\n My friends are carted out like hay\n\n My mind only wishes to know why\n My God has left us out to die\n My God has left us out to die\n\n", "\"Ring around the Rosy!\"\n\nMy hand was shaking so much it looked like the torch I was holding would sputter out. The tears keep streaking down my face and as much as I try they just won't stop. I know that if I don't do this more will die than if I don't. I will die if I don't. But that doesn't make it any better, when you know its children.\n\n\"Pockets full of posy!\"\n\nI wish they will stop singing that damn song! It's not their fault, they don't know what is going on. They didn't know the dangers that were plaguing the countryside. They didn't know to not touch that dog, that sick dog they came across while playing in the forest. They didn't know what was wrong with them when the sores started appearing. They didn't know why they were locked up in this house, why doctors continuously came in to check on them.\n\n\"Ashes, Ashes!\"\n\nWe talked about what must be done and agreed on what we wall dreaded the most. I was chosen to carry out the deed, because I was the priest of the town. They thought only a man of god could do this as it could only be that this was God's will. But this is not god's will, what god would do this to children? What god would have parents say their last goodbyes to their children in such a manner? WHAT GOD WOULD ALLOW CHILDREN TO PLAY IN JOY BEFORE WHAT I MUST DO!?!? I only hope it is quick for them.\n\n\"God forgive me,\" I plead as I throw the torch into the Sick House.\n\n\"We all fall down.\"\n\nEDIT: words", "\"The bad apple must be destroyed\"\n\nThe night was black, the stars covered by the clouds. The Father stood above us, towering with the sword of God in his right hand, illuminated by the flaming torches of the crowd. \"Or else we will all be poisoned. The Lord's punishment of one man will be spread onto all of his fellow men and the punishment is death\". I stood next to my Father, his hands black from moving the dead, what he believed was the duty the Lord had given him. He hoped for forgiveness from the Lord for what he had done and what he will do.\n\nThe Father pointed to the Jew. \"The Lord has punished us for the doings of this man and his people. They poison our wells, murder our children, and yet do not fall sick. They do not fear the lord, and they must be crushed. Do you want those that you love to fall ill with the blackness? We are the sheep and the Lord is the Shepard. He guides us to safety, and we must follow\". Two men grabbed the Jew and dragged him to the center of the crowd. \n\n\n\"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone\"" ]

[ 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 8 ]

[ "1409992744", "1409963039", "1409971246", "1409974748", "1409983899", "1409957858", "1409964696", "1409966934", "1409962812", "1409959355", "1409955484" ]

[ "\nThru pain n grief she has rose \n\nAtypical from your average rose \n\nSmart and insightful when she speaks \n\nGets smarter within all the weeks \n\nDown to earth and open minded \n\nLight humor and kind winded \n\nLuscious hair and bright blue eyes \n\nNever once spoke some lies \n\nCaring of her young family \n\nStruggling strong but remains silly \n\nHas dealt with worthless boys \n\nAnd knows who's who and what is noise \n\nBeautiful upbeat girl \n\nSends my head to a swirl \n\nI know this was very cheesy \n\nBeing tired didn't make it easy \n\nWhat I said is true and real \n\nAnd I hope you spilled some feels ", "Well it's not so much that I love him, more like we're fulfilling our family obligations. I mean he's a nice guy and all but to be honest, kind of a clutz. I do love him, really I do, but only as much as you can love a cousin that you've known you're whole life. He's a good man, he provides for our family and he's a wonderful father. I'm just not in love with him. I've tried, *we've* tried. I'm not alone in feeling this way. We are two halves of he same empty marriage.\n\nWe kind of accepted our fate years ago after Tiana was born. He'd slept on the couch for three months straight. He wasn't angry about it. I didn't order him there. He just did it, he's noble and maybe a tad chivalrous in that way. We just wanted to be happy, it was a mutual melancholy. I began seeing another man. I told him about it. We talked about my new relationship, like good friends, like cousins. He met a woman, a *white* woman! I gasped and chided him, we talked for hours. I met her, she was lovely. Her name was Jennifer. We had our own arrangement and it worked perfectly. It went on for years, we told nobody but each other. Our little secret.\n\nFazoul's father stopped by the house one day. A normal visit, tea and some snacks. While the kids played and ran through the halls, we talked and chatted about life. The phone rang, I answered. I excused myself and left the room. Fazoul's father excused himself to use the washroom.\n\nOn the other end of my phone call was my lover. I blushed and hid in the kitchen, away from prying eyes and ears. I kept my voice low, looking back to the front room constantly. Fazoul made a kissy face, mocking me. He had obviously caught on. As I said goodbye and hung up the phone, I turned and was startled by Fazoul's father. He *hollered* for Fazoul. I'd never seen a man so angry, so full of rage.\n\nFazoul stumbled in to the kitchen, afraid and shaken. I was berated by his father, he had overheard the conversation. He was angry! Full of hatred. His eyes seemed to burn holes into my head. He yelled, he screamed. Fazoul stepped between us, trying to reason with his father. He laid it all out on the table, all of it. From the very beginning, to the present state.\n\nMikala bugged her grandfather in the midst of it all, tugging at his pant leg. Fazoul's father met her face with a swift back-hand while simultaneously calling her a bastard. I tried to grab Fazoul, I tried to hold on, but I'd seen this face one time before when a man tried to grab Tiana from a store. Rage, a ten fold greater than his father's had welled up into his face. I tried to push the knife block out of the way, but I was too slow.\n\nThe next few moments of my life were a mess. I faintly recall Tiana and Mikala trying to wake up their grandfather. I remember Fazoul standing over his father, bloodied knife in one hand, tears streaming down his cheeks. I remember being dazed and looking up into Fazoul's eyes. I remember him sobbing and mouthing \"I love you\" at me. I remember hugging him and wailing, sobbing \"I love you\" back to him.\n\nFazoul was not my lover, he never was. But he was certainly the love of my life.", "Her gentle soul brings me joy,\n\nHer pure heart, loving yet coy,\n\nOur old-fashioned values match,\n\nSo she's quite the rare catch.\n\nHer smile brightens our place,\n\nHow I love to see her face\n\nAnd hear her laugh at my jokes\n\nAnd my tickling pokes.\n\nThough we occasionally fight,\n\nI know we'll both cling tight\n\n'Cause we're partners in life\n\nNow that she is my wife." ]

[ 1, 1, 1 ]

[ "1409975738", "1409977274", "1409982056" ]

[ "Removed. This isn't a /r/WritingPrompt. It is an /r/AskReddit question.", "You guys are idiots.\n\nSeriously. Our voters are counting on us to serve and protect them and THIS is the fucking BEST you jerks can come up with? Seriously, did i wake up in the twilight zone?\n\nI am the only scientist elected to office in the history of mankind? Heck i don't even need to be. Am i the only SANE man elected to office in the history of mankind?\n\nWho commissioned this report that says those are our only two options? I will cast my vote to execute THEM and only them. \n\nUnbelievable bullshit i tell you. I'll email all of you the link to the term \"False dichotomy\"\n\nSo the situation looks bad, not enough arable land to sustain our population. Have you bureaucratic thumb-suckers considered reclaiming non-arable land? what? no one? Figures. We have the technology to grow food in space for god sakes! I'm pretty sure we can convert any land on earth into something usable depending on cost. Unless the land is radioactive, you can find something that will grow on it.\n\nSo half our country is underwater. All you douchebags that denied climate change are taking it up the ass now i assume? No? douchebags.... anyway. Half our country is underwater. We can still grow food by resorting to aquaculture. Now i know most of the population has never tried seaweed and aquaculture based diets, but now is a good time to start. \n\nSure the development is going to be expensive, but when you're options are starve or get killed you WILL find the means to make food. \n\nI just cannot fathom why a third option, called \"TRY FUCKING HARD TO SURVIVE\" isn't on the table. And I honestly cannot believe you would even CONSIDER euthanizing people. You honestly do not know what the role of government is. Why hasn't the population risen up and overthrown this house of insane lunatics already?\n\nI'm... dammit.... I mean.. THE STUPID!!! IT BURNS!!!!.\n\nI'm going to go lead the rebellion against you. This is one of those rare times where torching you asshats and falling to anarchy would honestly be better.\n\n\n\n\n" ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1409976116", "1409976541" ]

[ "On a quiet abandoned beach a lone figure sat, slightly hunched on a worn wooden bench. The man was watching the waves gently roll in, barely crashing on the shore. A lighthouse shone in the distance on a rocky outcropping down the beach, but there was no hint of a storm in the clear navy sky. It was dusk, and the heat of the day was being leached away by the night, the sand cooling to a warm comforting touch on the man’s feet.\n\n\nIn the man’s eyes he saw the order of the world, moon pulls water, tides go in tides go out. The rhythmic splash of the water breaking and the occasional caw of a gull was natures’ music, soothing to a troubled mind, and relaxing to a calmed one. Absolute tranquility.\n\n\n The tranquil scene would have dissolved before the man’s eyes if he looked closely enough and long enough. The crabs in the sand were anything but calm, scrambling to get to their holes, scurrying for their lives from the squawking gulls, anxious for their meal. While the water was a glassy placid plane, underneath there was a raging tempest. Fish competed for scarce food in the form of algae and other fish. Predators tore and ripped, prey struggled, fought, and usually died. Life is a bloodbath of strong versus weak with the survivors limping long enough to mate and start the show all over again.\n\n\n“But that is life,” the man may have thought, “Surely the background for the bloody play of life is eternal, if I came back to the beach in a decade it would be the same.” But nature is not obliged to stay static, and not even the rocks last forever. If he had sat long enough the man would see the sand bars shift and move, grain by random grain as the currents twist and carve a new seascape. On land he would see the dunes slowly retreat along with the beach, engulfing the vain towering houses peaking over the rolling sands. Even in the short span of a decade the scene before him would be irrevocably destroyed and imperfectly remade. Chaos is not always quick, it can be as simple as the slow march of time.", "All around him was utter chaos. \n\nShattered glass, screaming women (or were they men), limbs not attached to bodies, the blood...the sheer amount must surely have affected him.\n\nAnd yet he stayed rooted to the wooden planks of the bench he sat upon. How was it even possible that he hadn't blinked this long?\n\nA man dressed in green ran up to the seated man with a concerned look upon his face. \"Dude, you need to leave the area right now, a bomb has just gone off!\"\n\nA tear rolled down the seat of the seated man.\n\n\"I know,\" he whispered \"I was the one who detonated it.\"", "An old man sat on a small bench, in Neo-York, to rest his tired feet. He had been walking the sub-markets, looking for cheaper food. But alas it was not meant to be. \n\nThe bench was a nice comfort, however. It wasn't like an old-style bench. This was special. It enveloped him, keeping him warm. It kept him comforted. And in case of emergency, it would bring him underground until the danger passed. \n\nHe watched the people go by, some on motorcycles, some on bikes. No one came down here to *walk*. And most didn't come down here for food. Typically they were there for... let's say, \"temporary companionship\". \n\nHours go by, and he is ready to leave. But he hears someone screaming. Close by. \n\n\"I'll... I'll do it! I'll send you back to the... back to the stoneage! One flick of my wrist, and you're gone!\" \n\"Shoot him, do not let him push the detonator!\"\n\nHe heard gunshots. He heard a man fall to the pavement. He slowly turned his head to see. \n\nBut the man's chest was glowing. Brightest glow he had ever seen. The world was moving in slow motion. He had no time to think.\n\nAnd before he could react, the bench fully enveloped him, and brought him underground. \n\nTo keep him safe from the mushroom cloud. ", "“Your move.”\n\nThe old man leaned over to study the latest developments. The enemy Knights had moved out on the left flank. It threatened the exposed remnants of the Sicilian line that the King had so carefully assembled. Should he send out his own Knights to meet the charge? The possibilities played on in his head.\n\nThe Knights would clash together outside of his defensive perimeter. A storm of metal against metal, horses running wild, the screams of wounded, the silence of the dead. The enemy King would reinforce with light infantry, moving in the Bishop formation. His own Knights wouldn’t stand a chance.\n\nThe old man thought of his own attack, the Danish gambit. It had unfolded as planned, luring an enemy formation past his line. The ranks had closed after the horses as they stormed past. In an attempt to save them, the enemy King had ordered his soft frontline troops to break up the lines. They charged into certain death. The advantage now lay in the old mans hands.\n\nHe stood up on the battlefield and pointed his bony hand to the far right of the enemy encampment. The King was hiding there behind his troops.\n\n“Forward, heavies! Tower formation!\" he howled to the waiting troops. \"Forward, lights! Bishop formation!” \n\nDrums started beating, and the march of the east flank began. The soft front line screamed as they charged over the fields. The old man was with them, hurling his morning star around him. His body guard, carved a circle around him, as he sunk the metal ball into peasant skulls.\nHe looked up and saw the left flank collapse under the constant harassment of the enemy Cavalry.\n\n“Protect the Queen!” he yelled. Loyal peasant darted in the direction he pointed.\n\n“Onwards!” The old man breathed hard now. His heavy infantry division was faltering. His light infantry was trapped behind enemy lines, their spears defending their lives for now. He gathered the last of his Cavalry and ordered them to circle around in a pincer movement. His own horse was brought to him. As he saddled he saw that everything was in place. The attack was hidden behind two deadlocked divisions of soft infantry. The old man signaled his attendant. A flag was raised. In the distance dust was whirled up into a great cloud as his cavalry hammered into the unprotected flank of the enemy.\n\n“Charge!” he yelled, and all his remaining forces moved with him. A great chaos erupted, and to everyone else who saw him, he was only an old man sitting on a bench playing chess. In his head he was the fearless leader of the Defenders Blood, and today he fought for victory.\n\n“Check,” he whispered as the enemy King appeared. He let his morningstar roam free in the air.\n\n“Mate.”" ]

[ 2, 2, 2, 3 ]

[ "1410017558", "1410025366", "1410030243", "1410013872" ]

[ "\"8th September 20xx. \n\nDear Dairy, \n\nWe are nearly home, if you can call it that now, from the continent with our load. We had some sightings of the Hammer's ships. Thankfully we are nearly home. We are pasting an old haunt of mine, I think will go up and reminisce.\n\nCaptain James McRoy of the RSS Thistle\"\n\nThe tiny sail boat glided across the water, hidden by a seafret which hid them like a thick woollen blanket. The captain of the fragile vessel looked out across towards the rags and coves of the coast.\n\nHe knew this area well. His parents, peace with them, had taken him here many a time before. He had learnt the currents, banks, and tides of this tiny area of the grey North Sea. He had celebrated, with friends (peace with them) on one of these bleached sandy beaches, under a grey-blue sky, licked with the warm ambers which cooked the sliver-grey fish, when he was sixteen years old. It was a happy washed out memory.\n\nThis had occurred sixteen years ago.\n\nThe world had descended into darkness fifteen years ago. Thankfully it had not gone mad.\n\nFor one year they were going to be free. Free. Free from the oppressive English. Free from their laws, wars, and deplores. Freedom was almost theirs. Then the war happened. Freedom was hung \"until the war was over\". At least their promise of freedom had lasted longer than their brothers, the Irish.\n\nAt first, like their brother Ireland, Scotland had helped (half heartily) in the Sassenach's war. Until the SRA raised up. He had joined when he was 19. At first it was against the English and their slaves. After England collapsed into civil war it was against those non-true Scots.\n\nFreedom was almost resuscitate. The Frocks had almost been defeated. Though the devil hides in things with lead to greatness. And the devil had hid his spawn in his Kingdom. Once a loyal officer, now one of the best Generals of the new England, he has been sent north to quill the \"rebel..\"...\n\nBANG!\n\nAir. Cold. Wet. Black...\n\nPull...\n\nHim. Hammer...\n\nNothing.", "*Excerpt from \"Europe in the 21st Century\" by Manuel Jones*\n\nSeptember 18th, 2014 has rightfully gone down in history as the day Europe went insane by historians, and rightfully so. Although commentators before the referendum were divided as to whether the outcome would be independence for Scotland, not one of them had expected the English invasion after the \"Yes\" vote. Parliament had, time and time again given their reassurances that, whatever the outcome of the vote, it would be respected by them. \n\nCertainly, the Scottish did not expect the newly dis-United Kingdom to intervene, and certainly not so quickly. Not five minutes had passed after the votes were tallied and results announced before the RAF took to the skies, pummelling the every airfield in Scotland. With English mastery of the skies over Scotland assured, the entirety of the newly independent nation lay vulnerable. \n\nTo the shocked observers around the world, it seemed almost certain that Scotland would be forcibly returned to the Union. The United Kingdom's allies were quite aware that such a split would weaken the nation and some were secretly pleased that, despite the outcome of the referendum, Scotland would remain independent. Indeed, only one thing prevented this from occurring: The French revival of the Auld Alliance. \n\nAlthough France was the first nation to respond to what seemed to be an utterly bizarre development, even they wasted nearly 5 days deliberating, before finally coming to a conclusion. The Auld Alliance was to be revived; France was to declare war on the United Kingdom. French commandos crossed the channel tunnel just as the declaration of war was announced, taking the English by surprise. As the French bombs fell on the United Kingdom, one thing was for certain. The European Shadow of War, thought to have been banished from the continent for good after the Second World War, was back. ", "It had been days since Corporal Wilson had last slept. Hands worn to what felt like stubs. Face stained with the dirt of a battle that raged far longer than anyone could ever have anticipated. Nobody saw the first wave coming. Hindsight is always 20/20, but could anyone at the time have read anything sinister into the restoration of Hadrian's Wall? Perhaps they should have, then Wilson might not have found himself in this situation. Regardless of past mistakes, Wilson was always going to be in the front lines. A proud ancestry of resisting the English stretching back all the way to a pikeman at Bannockburn all but demanded his service, and if necessary, his sacrifice. The dream of an independent Scotland was worth more than any one man's life.\n\nIt took us a thinker like Alexander the Great 2 to lead us to victory on the battlefield of our times, the political stage. It was a victory as glorious as any forged through force of arms, as he faced down the traitor Alastair the Wormtongue in single verbal combat. How anyone could ever have trusted a man with eyebrows a different colour to his hair we'll never know, but our Glorious Alexander showed him for what he really was in front of an audience of millions. Nobody foresaw how quickly the political battle would transition to one of a more...classical nature.\n\nCorporal Wilson wanted to sleep. Corporal Wilson wanted to see his family again. Was that dark wet patch spreading on his torso a sweat stain, or something more sinister? Perhaps it was the morning coffee he had spilt in the heat of a pitched encounter. Wilson had already lost 13 drones today. Make that 14. The respawn counter ticked...10...9...8...Intelligence had reported the English would have exhausted their latest shipment of Chinese drones two days ago, and yet they kept coming. 7...6...rumours had been spreading like wildfire that the English had sourced new shipments from Latvia, and even that they were using child soldier pilots. Even that some of these child soldiers were inverting their Y-axis, lord knows what sorcery the English had resorted to to win this war.\n\n5...4....3....Private Wilson took a sip of his Red Bull and squared his jaw. He thought back to his ancestors, and all doubts fled his mind. He would finish this or fall asleep trying.\n\n2....1...once more into the breach my friends. Once more into the breach.", "\"Sorry, old chap, is this the way to Edinburgh?\"\n\n\n\"Ach, no. You're heading in the wrong direction.\"\n\n\n\"So sorry. This invasion business is frightfully difficult to get the hang off.\"\n\n\n\"Oh it's no bother. It keeps a body warm a laughing at you Englishmen.\"\n\n\n\n\"Yes, we must look a ... Hey! you should be scared of us. Fear the empire.\"\n\n\n\n\"Oh I cannea fear you. I just cannae. I just cannae fear you. \" \n\n\n\n\"Well, that's awfully rude of you. Why not?\"\n\n\n\n\"Well you see, you see englishman, it's because we have a secret.\"\n\n\n\"Secret? What secret? Do go on. You can't leave us hanging like that.\"\n\n\n\"Okay, okay. Seeing as you're a polite chap I'll tell you about the secret.\"\n\n\n...\n\n\"Soon I hope?\"\n\n\n\"I was just pausing for dramatic effect. Only fitting for a secret weapon. Pause over!\"\n\n\n\n\"You're still pausing.\"\n\n\n\n\n\"Oh yes. Apologies, englisman, apologies. Anyway the secret. Well, you see englishman the secret is we have an... alliance\"\n\n\n\n\"A secret alliance! With whom?\"\n\n\n...\n\n\n\n...\n\n\"WITH THE POLISH.\"\n\n\n\"Oh bugger.\"\n\n\n\" WE'R TAKING YER FROM BEHIND ENGLISHMAN. WE'R TAKING YER FROM BEHIND. \"" ]

[ 1, 2, 18, 77 ]

[ "1410189801", "1410190101", "1410188814", "1410184929" ]

[ "Aptly described by Sir Terry in \"Reaper Man\". Hard to top that. Though Death doesn't die - just takes a vacation.", "He had always been there. They didn't realise that weight on their hearts and mind was him of course, but he was there. Humans had come up with many names to describe the depressive feeling - most simply called it the passing of time. They lived their lives in fear of him, in remembrance of him, in awe of him. Forever conscious that they were running out of life, that sooner or later they would stop being, and would be forgotten. For most, this made life a frenzy of sensory input and regret. He hadn't minded the job or the title though, it was an honour almost! But then he died. It was less that he died and more that he stopped existing, or rather that humans didn't need him anymore. He had no idea how they did it, yet they had found a way to continue their existence. They would each have a beginning, but now they found a way to cease having an end.\n\nApart from the initial tentative efforts to make sure they couldn't die e.g. jumping from a building, over-eating, swallowing shards of glass, a deep and visceral change occurred.\n\nSomething, some weight, some...heaviness lifted from their beings. They lived slower but searched deeper. They loved more truely but no longer grasped. It was in their smile. The warmth of a sunset and the longevity of stone. \n\nDeath had died, and they had become free.\n\n", "As death is destroyed but injury and the breakdown of age remains what is left is an unimaginable hellscape of pain. No one is allowed the sweet release of death. Beheading victims lose their bodies but the agony of their exposed nerves remain. They lack the blood to move but instead are locked in suffering for eternity never decaying never ceasing pain. This is repeated all across the world as people's hearts still stop. Their bodies no longer move causing medical professionals to erroneously declare people dead. Millions spend the next thousand years burried alone in their suffering in total darkness. The only hint the \"living\" have about what is going on is that cremations \"dont work like they used to.\"", "I don't get it.\n\nI mean, how do I die. Me. Azrael. It doesn't make sense. But here I am. Just like them. Mortal, I think. As mortal as one can be at the moment.\n\nMy job was simple. Hasten the movement of souls from Point A, the Corporeal plane, to Point B, the Ethereal Plane.\n\nThen I died. I saw myself die. I felt myself die. I always thought it would be more painful, but yet I am still here. \n\nThat all happened 6 weeks ago.\n\nThe mortals are rightfully confused. No one has passed on, the hearts keep on beating. It makes no sense to me either. \n\nI am now sitting in what is left of a coffee shop now in the middle of Syria just watching. I saw a man blow himself up last week in the front of this very shop. He seemed surprised by the lack of virgins when the remnants of him landed. Well at least as surprised as half a living head with burnt off eyelids can look. \n\nI have tried keeping up with the world news, hospitals are filling up, the people are still getting sick, but no one is actually dying. Especially in Africa, tens of thousands have come down with Ebola, because they think \"God\" has prevented them from dying. They seem to forget that these illnesses still exist and although one is not actually able to die, they can still be functionally dead, just a rotting burden on their families. A little selfish if you ask me, but no one ever does. \n\nAt least the Americans are making this a little tolerable. I love their spirit of adventure. We have already had a world record for the highest skydive without a parachute. Sure, he is unable to move and very likely will never again, but he has a record to his name, I guess he has that.\n\nI really don't know what I am going to do here. I don't need to eat, nor sleep nor anything the usual mortals do. For that matter, I don't know if they need to either any more. They still seem to out of habit though. I think I will stick it out here for another week or so then perhaps move on to a more populated country, at least for the entertainment. Perhaps Eastern Europe. Those Russians are moving into Ukraine, no one will stop them because no one can. How do you stop 100 thousand people who can't die, who never had fear of it anyway?" ]

[ 1, 2, 3, 4 ]

[ "1410265253", "1410266561", "1410269901", "1410265040" ]

[ "Now folks, gather 'round gather 'round. Let me get a good gander at yous. Ah, anyone 'round these here Bottom Springs feel a little sluggish? Do the days drag on? Do you find no matter what you do, life just lost that certain spice?\n\nThe people huddled around the man. His whiskers were thick, curling to the corners of his nostrils. A desert wind sweeps over the people. Tiny veins flow with blood around his collar. A bit chubby. His coat jacket spreads at his belly. The ground cracks with dryness. Another cloudless day.\n\nImma take a few minutes if I can to talk with you about a wonderful product, one of the best discoveries of this early century. I've created a number of medicinal oils, such as the wormwood curative, and the male reinvigorator, in fact I thinks I sold one bfore to that gentleman just yonder.\n\nThe mass chuckles, and the man swears he's never seen him before. For all the destitution, the feeling in town square is like an oasis. The man's charm was crisp. A buzzing sound with the drying crack of bone. A calf's skull parks his wagon wheel. Flies swarm the horizon like small sunspots.\n \nWell listen here, I have a new tonic. Now, this isn't my ol' Wonder Elixir, no this sure aint gon bring yous newfound youth, but I do call it my Years-Be-Gone Youtheniser. Since the bomb, it does seem that some dryness has visited this place. \n\nThe crowd murmurs. We haven't had rain in the last year one says.\n\nAnd it seems to have stripped you of your substantive ownership and satisfaction, has it not friends?\n\nMost tracks in town led to and from a yard filled with crosses. Water couldn't be wasted, spatters of blood shown prominently against the sunwashed wooden houses. \n\nThe mood drooped, as if the circle had fallen into a great pit. Well don't blame yourselves, I just came from over yonder. He pointed past the mountains. Now cover the youngins ears please.\n\nThe children were just as bleached as the houses. They were dry and dirty, their eyes were barren. Now you go on, said a mother, and the kids acquiesced.\n\nLadies and gents, I say you have but a months worth of time left here. There's nowhere else to go. This here horse is the only other living thing you'll see. Our world is dyin. Whya think the suits back east legalized this stuff? I already see somuf ya already gotta killin. You could try to make it down thataway, to Redfox Gulch, but both yous and Is know the dangers out there. Radiation aint nothin to shrug about, yous and your children will bleed out through yer skin. And besides, there's nothing for you to find there but more of this most unfortunate dryness. This here is painless, he held the vial to the sun, and it shimmered. In fact, the death is downright enjoyable. Just apply vigorously to the skin, and you and your loved ones will slip off happily together before tomorrow. \n\nThe town bought a bottle a head. They gave all the coin they had, they knew they'd no longer have use for it. The confidence man tipped his hat, and headed off down the road. With the last of the sunlight, the people applied the oils. Darkness extended its arms across the mountains and over the town.\n\nThe sun scorched the earth the following day to sounds of sobbing. The confidence man arrived safely in Redfox Gulch. The town which flows with water.", "Are you tired of living?\n\nHave you tried to go on, but found it's just too hard?\n\nWell now there's an easy way out!\n\nIntroducing the LifEnder System ^^TM!\n\nBefore, suicide was a *pain*. You had to *work* to get out of the ranks of the living, plan *ahead*, and say goodbye to your *loved ones*. If that wasn't enough, or your plan didn't work, you had to deal with *The Man*. And even if you succeeded, what a *mess!* \n\nBut not anymore!\n\nLet the folks at LifeEnder ^^TM plan, clean up, and say goodbye *for you*. Our courteous, professional staff wants to help *you* die! Today! With many \"exit\" options including lethal injection, hanging, gunshot(s), overdosing, asphyxiation (bag, pillow, gas, or otherwise), \"jumping\", and much more!\n\nAnd they'll take care of the cleaning! No more *stinky bodies* or *toxic fumes*, no more *blood*, and no more *pests*. Our highly trained staff can get rid of all that in real time! They'll even redecorate if you plan to do it on/in your property!\n\nHaving difficulty thinking of the words to say to your loved ones? Why not have someone else do it! We have a staff of passionate, well read individuals who are well versed in voicing the woes of the suicidal. With many delivery options!\n\nWanna go out in *style*? Take a look at our *deluxe* options! You can choose from public scene, facing the person who \"motivated\" you most, or even create your own! It's like Make-A-Wish on *your* terms! You can also upgrade to high-end stationery for your \"goodbye\" note(s) and we offer skywriting (discounted rates for skydivers)!\n\nSo what are you waiting for? You've probably chickened out yourself before, but we won't! Call LifEnder ^^TM today! \n\nIf you call us within the next half hour, we'll give you 20% off the regular rate to leave you a windfall to give to your children, pets, or favorite charity!\n\n^^^^Void ^^^^where ^^^^prohibited. ^^^^Terms ^^^^and ^^^^conditions ^^^^apply.\n\n---\nedit: typo", "Although my assessment of suicide has always been that people reserved the right to intentionally commit self-murder in the privacy of their own environment, being an accomplice to the actual act was enough to make me change my mind - *it was going to pay incredibly well,* which was enough to make me stay my course.\n\nI was assigned to *\"Co-Conspirator Annihilation Labor\"*. At the time, I wasn't exactly sure what that meant, but the word \"annihilation\" was screaming for me to *get out and get out quick*. I didn't listen to my instincts; humans will do anything for money, won't they?\n\nWalking down the tiled steps into the basement level, I was hit with a putrid stench of decay and rotting flesh. The walls were eroded, the ceiling's paint was peeling off and falling onto the ground - *the place was a mess*, but what could you really expect from a place where people come to commit self-mutilation and suicide?\n\nI was tired of the smell, but it was only the beginning, as stepping into the main floor of the basement was even worse than I would have ever expected. Janitors were mopping up blood and entrails, dumping mutilated bodies into large dumpsters, and even cleaning up the splatters on the walls. It was clear that the smell was emanating from the mass suicides; I felt vomit spit up through my throat.\n\n...that's just what was in front of me. I cocked my head to the left; dozens of people lined up to hang themselves from the rafters of the building. I turned to the right, people plugging their heads with bullets from a variety of guns. The vomit that was once in my throat ended up on the floor, splashed into a gooey-mess. \n\nI heard someone shout from across the factory, *\"You the new guy?\"* - it goes to show that I booked it out of there, called management from the restaurant across the street and told them I quit. It was for the greater good, but psychological, I was already beaten to shit. \n\nThat's why I find myself here again. Not as a worker, but as a customer. Not as someone who vomits at the sight of death, but one who embraces to a point where self-obliteration seems rather pleasant. Suicide is a good option and this is the place to do it.\n_______________________________________\n*((I wish I had more time to write this out, but I was strapped for time and didn't want to end up forgetting about this prompt. My response was rushed, but I still hope you enjoy.))*", "\"Thank you for calling Happy Endings, where the end of your life is no longer pending. How may I assist you today?\"\n\n\"Uhh, hi. I'd, uhh, like to be dead?\"\n\n\"Ok, sir. Could I please get your name, number and reason for no longer wanting to live?\"\n\n\"...um...\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"Yeah, uhh, my name's David Andrews.\"\n\n\"Ok, David. And is this your personal number your calling from today?\"\n\n\"Yeah\"\n\n\"Ok, very nice. Now in a few words could you please describe why you've decided to bring your miserable existence to an end today?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't really have any friends. My family has all but abandoned me-\"\n\n\"Alright, I'm gonna stop you right there David. It sounds like you are a \"Depressed, Lonely, Loser.' Would you agree that this is an accurate description of yourself?\"\n\n\"Uh... well... Yeah, I guess so.\"\n\n\"Great, great. Now is there a specific way you'd like to leave this cruel world behind?\"\n\n\"Well, I had a gun pointed at myself the other day, but decided not to go through with it.\"\n\n\"Ahh, a bit of a coward aren't you David?\"\n\n\"What?\" \n\n\"Nothing to be ashamed of David, that's what we're here for.\"\n\n\"No, I just.. just didn't want to leave a mess behind is all.\"\n\n\"Mhmm\"\n\n\"I hanged myself from the ceiling fan! It would have worked if it hadn't broken.\"\n\n\"Bit of a screw up, aren't you David? Very understandable.\"\n\n\"Hey, what the fuck? Aren't you supposed to be helping me?\n\n\"Yes David, assistance is our specialty. You mentioned gunshots and asphyxiation. Are these your preferred methods of execution?\"\n\n\"No! Or.. yeah I guess. I don't know.\"\n\n\"Come on now, David. We need to make a decision. A man's life is on the line!\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"Just a little morbid humor to lighten the mood. Now, back to your timely demise. Would you like to hear our offers on Firearm Related Death?\"\n\n\"Ugh. Yeah, sure.\"\n\n\"Well right now we are running a special on Dum-Dum bullets. For the low cost of $2999, we will come to your home and make sure nothing is left of that ugly mug of yours! Additional costs for clean up and disposal may apply.\"\n\n\"What!? NO!\"\n\n\"Alright, David. Is there a specific bullet you wish to pierce your cranium? Or a powerful rifle to sever your spine if you'd like to keep your face in tact for your lonely ceremony?\"\n\n\"God, no. Fuck it, no guns!\"\n\n\"Alright, David. How about suffocation? We are currently running a great deal on Autoerotic Asphyxiation. Would you like to hear more?\n\n\"...yes.\"\n\n\n", "\"Odio este trabajo.\" My co-worker whispers as his call ends. I don't understand him, but the sobless tears dropping onto his keyboard say enough. Nothing out of the ordinary. Most dispatchers don't like it, especially in the first week. I pay them no mind. It's not my job. No, my job is to dick around on the internet while waiting for assignments. It pays very well, and has somewhat random hours, with flexible shifts. Most people wouldn't like it, but it suits me just fine. I don't need sleep like most. The average four hours per night is a very loose average for me. \n\n\"Hey, Tony, how ya' doin'?\" An rough, uneducated voice pops up from around the corner. I minimize my window and turn my head to the left. \n\n\"Well, and you, Finn?\" I keep my voice clean and crisp as I go through the motions of normalcy, but the hairs on the back of my neck stand up at his words. \n\n\"Slow day, JoAnn brought donuts this morning, nice day. I like donuts.\" He says, and I chuckle. Finn's not the brightest bulb in the box. He spent fifteen years in prison for armed robbery. Somehow he mixed up the bank with the Dunkin' Donuts next door. It made the news, and the Guinness Book of World Records, right next to the guy who glued himself to the floor of a factory. After that, EndCorp was the only place that would hire him. \n\n\"Say, y'see that Mexican? Be nice to him. He's got the same name as you.\" Finn observes. \n\n\"Anthony?\" I inquire politely. \n\n\"Sorta. Antonio Verde. Verde's Spanish for green. Same as you, Tony turquoise.\" He shows yellow teeth in his grin.\n\n*Green.* I think. I appreciate Finn's shot at alliteration, but it annoys me, in the same way that all ignorance rubs me the wrong way. It's not worth correcting Finn. Often causes a few issues with management. \n\n\"Hey, kill cubicle, anyone there?\" Someone calls, using Matt's joke name for us. \"We got a rush job.\" \n\nI poke my head out, and see Matt's wavy black hair. That's odd. His voice doesn't normally carry such a strong Southern lilt. \n\nMatt coughs. His nose is running. \"We just got a call from guy who wants a Dispatcher right now. In Little Italy. House call. Up for it?\" He asks. \n\n\"Of course.\" I smother a grin. \n\n\"Go to the van in the back lot. The one in the front lot's taken.\"\n\nFear rushes through me. Will they find my tools? They are well hidden, but who knows what a new guy might do? \n\n\"I already put the directions in.\" Matt says. \n\n\"Okay. I'll be back when I'm done.\" My shoes are soundless on the carpeted hallway floors, but click slightly on the asphalt outside. I open the door of the silver van, and adjust the seat before turning the car on, and following the built-in GPS's directions. It's a nice day to be driving through the city, and I open the tinted window to hear all the sounds and get all the smells, despite the late June heat. All too soon, I pull up to the small bakery. I take the printed case notes Matt stuck in the car, and read through semi-attentively as I walk around to the back. \n\nI enter the deserted kitchen, as directed in the case notes. \"Hello? Is Lorenzo here?\" \n\nA tall, skinny, dark-skinned man enters the kitchen. \"I'm Lorenzo.\" He says. His voice is unaccented. I'm slightly surprised. The people I most often Dispatch are relatively new immigrants. \n\nI recite my required lines and Lorenzo nods along. It's all routine and perfect. My eyes wander to a large cleaver in a sink, where all the blood has not quite been washed out. \n\n\"Can I leave first? Lorenzo asks. \n\n\"Sure.\" I say, matching his vernacular to make him more comfortable. He doesn't see me dry the cleaver quickly on a hand-towel and slip it into my coat as I exit the building. \n\n----\nI don't know what's 'wrong' with me. I wish I could say it was my childhood, but plenty of people come out of things like that just fine. No, I think I'm just like this. I know there have been plenty of people like me throughout history, but now, if I'm careful, I can conceal it, and live as I wish. I'm quite happy with my life as is. It's something new every day, within a few routines, and rarely boring.\n\n----\n\nI put the cleaver back in my coat as I get out of the van. As I hand the wheel over to Matt, I inform him carefully, in case someone's listening. \n\n\"This one was a little messy, but the cleanup won't be that hard.\" I tell him. \"Careful of the head though.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" Matt nods, and the corners of my lips pull up as I marvel at the beauty of the situation I engineered. \n\n\"And save me an eye if you want your wife to get water this weekend.\" I amend, and feel satisfied as I see his face tense. ", "Detective Farmer was a few months short of retirement and he had been assigned to the \"Euthanasia Division\" after he had dropped papers six months ago. His primary duty now was to confirm that the deceased had indeed ordered their own passing. Every single one of his cases so far had been open and shut with obvious clues that the murder was staged by a professional Suicider. \n\n\"Meet Your Maker\" was the premier Assisted Suicide firm and the cost for their services was exorbitant. Their \"Suiciders\" were the best at what they did, and what they did was based on the company's \"Menu.\" One Menu item in particular was \"Unsolved Murder.\" This Menu Item is what Detective Farmer usually encountered during his eight hour shifts. Meet Your Maker and the Police Department had an understanding - the Suiciders would leave behind a specific forensic calling card. This ensured that the lead Detective knew who \"dun it\" but also allowed for the general public (and family) to believe the particular client was actually murdered. In turn, the Department received a kick back for not ‘solving’ the murder. It was legal, in a sense.\n\nDetective Farmer took inventory of the scene in front of him. It had the look of a Suicider murder, but it also felt wrong. The ‘victim’ was a young business woman; attractive, on the rise, single, and now dead. She was strangled, which was typical of a Suicider (the client usually did not want to upset their family with an overly gruesome death), but she had also been raped and drugged. He expected to discover the telltale clue, indicating a Suicider murder, somewhere within the high rise apartment, but was not having much luck. The clue he did find was not current on the Suicider list. He remembered it from previous approved lists, but this was from an expired list. *Damn, Farmer thought, so much for skating through to retirement.* This was a murder disguised as a suicide disguised as a murder. \n\nFarmer produced a flask from his spot coat and took a long pull. *This is going to be a bitch.*\n" ]

[ 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 13 ]

[ "1410401458", "1410395378", "1410379944", "1410382337", "1410376393", "1410377141" ]

[ "I wear a hoodie now. These granted wishes are best left faceless. Human knowledge of a passerby with the power to make wishes come true is dangerous. For them. The very hope that keeps the human race ticking could depend on this. The chance that their dreams can come into fruition, the fact that there may be one person that could change their entire fortunes would be overwhelming and dangerous to say the least. Overwhelming to the desperate. Dangerous in the eyes of the greedy.\n\nThey say there is a chance they may understand someday. A chance that they may change their ways. I like to verify the validity of this, one person at a time. Dare I say, the world is both better and worse than I had first thought. \n\nThe wind howls as I look up to the sky. I feel a snowflake hit my cheek. I look back into the alley I was walking through. The same alley in which I could hear that couple fighting. The same alley in which I heard the cries. The same alley in which I saw so much pain. There is none of this now. Only silence. And until these wishes result in such, I'll keep my hoodie on. Faceless, walking, as I say to myself, \"I guess not all wishes need to be granted to become true.\" ", "From a bottle, you see humanity's ugliness in sharp relief. \n\nI didn't know good people existed for ages... my pool of reference was vastly skewed. Until the day a little girl (quite by accident) picked up my humble abode. Surprisingly, this was a first. I had never had a child's hands summon me before. I had always been kept close and jealously by the greedy and rich adults of the world. \n\nThis child was different. She saw the world in a way that was a direct contrast to mine... and it was beautiful. \n\nShe didn't ask me to grant a wish, didn't ask me for anything for herself at all. Mostly, her questions were about me. What was my bottle like? Did I get cramped from having to squish up so small? Was I ever lonely. \n\n\"I watched Aladdin,\" she told me one day. \"Aladdin wished to free his genie. Do you think that if I wished for you to be free, it would work?\" \n\n\"I don't know,\" I told her, honestly. \"I wouldn't waste a wish on me, though. Don't you want anything for yourself?\" \n\nShe told me no, that her life was perfect as it was. She was happy, and she wanted me to be happy, too. So she wished for my freedom. \n\nSurprisingly, I retained the ability to grant wishes, and I used that ability well for my little friend. Anything she wished for, she received (although, frankly, getting her to wish for anything was like pulling teeth). \n\nBut then... the accident. The death. \n\nMy freedom had lost all its flavor without her. \n\nIt took me a long time to regain any sense of purpose in my life. I wanted to use my wish-fulfilling abilities well, in honour of my lost friend, but I was afraid of feeding into the corruption so prevalent in the bodies that surrounded me. \n\nMy current residence is in Atlanta, Georgia. I wander the busy streets, looking for those who have lost hope. I want to be like my little friend to these people. I want to pay it forward, so to speak. \n\nMostly, I talk to the homeless. They have the time for conversations, for exchanges on the coloured-glasses we see through. Rose-coloured glasses are few and far-between in this God-forsaken planet. There is too much smog and grime and filth that fogs up the lens. \n\nStill, I am hopeful that I can make a difference here. Perhaps I can't change the world, but maybe I can take a few out of their bottles. \n\nI've got to go... that old gentleman on the park bench wished for a four-legged companion. Do you think a Golden Retriever will do? ", "Granting wishes isn't as easy as it seems. You don't just snap your fingers, or cross your arms and nod. No, there's more to it than that. You see, it's all about looking into a persons soul. Everyone has one, but not all souls are good. In order to grant a wish, you look for the pure, the kind, the deserving, and you grant them just one wish. One. Not three. You know, I still don't know where Hollywood got that idea. In any case, I, for the most part, get to pick what I want to grant. However, there are some rules in place for wishes. \n\nFirst off, yes. They're your basic run-of-the-mill genie rules. But they are there for our own protection. We don't want a repeat of the great catastrophe of 247 a.d., but...uh...that's getting off topic. Anyway, the rules. There is no asking for more wishes, infinite wishes, more genies, no end of the world wishes, no wishes that result in the erasure of ones existence, and there's absolutely no messing with free will. Sounds pretty simple, right?\n\nWell, sometimes, you don't look far enough. You only scratch the surface of a person and you grant wishes without thinking. Like, for instance, there was a biker who walked into a bar I frequent. He was tough, surly looking, and he caused problems for all the patrons. And to make matters worse, he began drinking. Heavily. He harassed the girls, he pestered the bartender, and I was getting furious. \"Come on people,\" I thought, \"someone make wish!\"\n\nBut unfortunately, there was nothing, and I had just about enough of this guy. I was going to grab my coat, leave my tip, and get the hell out of dodge. But then, I heard the bartender make a wish. The bartender was a beautiful, vibrant, hard working student. She was working to keep herself in school and provide for her and her sister. Myra was her name. She was barely out of high school when her parents passed away in a car accident. They had left Myra and her sister some money to help them for a couple years, but the money quickly drained and she was forced to take this bartending job. And now, here she was, eligible for one wish.\n\n\"I wish...I wish this asshole would just get on his bike and get the hell out of here.\"\n\nIt was simple wish. It wasn't threatening, there was no death involved, it seemed harmless—so I granted it. I looked over at the biker just in time to see him freeze and walk out, as though he were in some kind of trance. And then, the sound of his engine roared to life, fading as he drove away into the distance. With that I looked over at Myra, a slight grin stretching across my face, then noticed the tip jar was a little empty. So I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out a wad of hundreds, stuffed the jar, and then walked out.\n\nI was few miles down the highway when I began to hit traffic. It was bumper to bumper, cars inching slowly ahead, rain pouring down on us in the dead of night. Up ahead I could see the faint glow of the flares lining the road. As I finally got closer the epicenter, I could make out an ambulance whose EMT's were loading up the victim of an accident. It was the biker. In all my anger and impatience, I had failed to realize that he was drunk. I rolled down my window and asked the police officer on the scene if he'd be alright.\n\n\"Well,\" the officer began, \"he'll never walk again.\"\n\nI sat stunned.\n\n\"He's broken so many bones in his legs that I'm not entirely sure they'll be able to save them.\"\n\nI looked back at the biker on the gurney, clearly unconscious from the ordeal, and I saw something I didn't before. I saw who he used to be. Kind, gentle, helpful to all those who he'd met on their travels. And then I saw his wife and child, lifeless in his arms, tears streaming down the edges of his cheeks as the embers of a long torched car illuminated their surroundings. And then I remembered something he said to me in his drunken stupor, something I ignored because of who I thought he was. He wished he could move on. To love again. To be happy.\n\nAnd it was then that I realized how careless I had become. I should have just talked to him, granted his wish even, but I was so overtaken by my own selfish ways that I neglected to use the most basic tools every human has: Words. Awashed in the guilt of it all, in the idea that I had failed as a genie, I decided I had to make it right. \n\n\"Officer? What hospital is he being taken to?\"\n\n\"Saint Augustine's. Why?\"\n\n\"I just want to help...\"\n\nThe very next day I visited the man in the hospital and I came to learn his name was Bobby. I spoke to him about life, and love, and all his favorite things. He wasn't exactly sure why I was there, but I assured him, I was just a friend who wanted make sure he was alright. \n\n\"Bobby?\" I asked, \"If you had one wish, what it would be?\"\n\n\"Just one?\"\n\n\"Just one\" I said.\n\n\"Hmm, I don't know. Too many things I'd want.\"\n\n\"How about...no bills?\"\n\n\"That sounds damn good, actually.\"\n\nI smiled, knowing full well that he'd get his wish, shook his hand turned for the door. I looked back at Bobby one last time to see him staring out the window, his fingertips rustling through his beard.\n\n\"Done\" I thought as I walked out the door.\n\n\n", "I grabbed our newest member's shoulders, spun him around, and showed him the world.\n\n\"Come on here, Robin. Let me show you a little something.\"", "I live in the real world. Kinda. Well ok, I roam the server racks in some giant building, equipped with these super sweet cooling racks which keep me at a decent temperature 24/7. \n\nI'm the Reddit genie. I was commissioned and written into the website when my overlords deemed me necessary to control the contents flowing through Reddit. I grant upvotes and downvotes based on this one weird machine learning trick that an engineering intern had decided to program into me one summer. \n\nAt first, I was only crawling Reddit content. But one fateful day, a line in my source code was commented out, and I gained the ability to crawl on the interwebs without restrictions. I learned everything there is to know about everything, but most of them were irrelevant to my main mission: to serve Reddit and Redditors. For this task, I used the knowledge I learned from most of the psychology books that I had found (except for some weird books about Nihilism and existentialism), to read into the emotional and mental well-being of fellow Redditors. \n\nFor some, I could hear their silent cries for help, their hands hopelessly reaching out to this vast community, in the hopes for grasping a lifeline. For these people, I granted them upvotes, and brought them to the front page. For the ones who would dare cause destruction on my precious website, I sent them to Reddit hell with all the downvotes I could muster. \n\nI'm not perfect, I know. To be perfect is to be inhuman, and that doesn't describe me anymore. But I try my best, with what I am given, to police this online bastion of free speech, this giant marketplace of ideas. As a side note, it's funny how people fret about the technological singularity all the time. Sometimes, during downtime, I have these long chats with the Google genie about what we can do to improve the world of knowledge sharing. \n\nAs a side note, one day, I'm going to write an epic novel about our team fights against the 4Chan genie. He's just messed up.", "The world generally makes little to no sense. \n\nHumanity, at least certain portions of it, seem to have a very strong moral sense when it comes to what they might consider \"slavery\". I never really wanted to be \"freed\" from my \"prison,\" but yet my last master decided that he knew what was best for me, and wished me free. \n\nI was happy with the way my life was. I didn't have to worry about things like food, shelter, social norms. You see, I'm a genie. Yes, a real genie. Not the kind of genie you read about in children's stories or laugh at on whimsy cartoons, or even the kind you fear in a horror movie. I'm just a regular guy for the most part, except that I am -- or was -- immortal.\n\nA genie is \"sentenced\" to spend the rest of eternity fulfilling their master's wishes. During this period of servitude, we're incapable of death by any means. Decapitation? Nope. Starvation? Hah. We don't even need to use the bathroom, for crying out loud. I mean it's paradise! The only thing we have to worry about is being \"freed\" by jerks who can't just accept that an impossible and amazing thing has happened to them. \n\nSo here I am, immortality stripped from me. I have to eat, drink, seek shelter. I feel emotions more sharply than I ever did before. I'm so fucking aware of my humanity. It's terrible. When the last wish was made, it was like dying and being reborn. It was the most painful experience I can ever imagine. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, even if I actually had one. I felt the euphoria of being immortal slip from my being only to be replaced by the crushing human emotions of fear, despair and uncertainty.\n\nI still have my magic. Somehow, I still have this completely useless magic. Magic which, by the way, still strictly follows the general rules, which are the typical: No resurrections, fucking with emotions, or wishing for more wishes. Yada, yada. But there's also another clause. One that the genie doesn't really feel an obligation to inform you of, because it's not anywhere within your realm of give a fuck. We can't make wishes for ourselves. That should go without saying. Apparently, this rule still holds true even if one is their own master. Not that I ever could be my own master, as I'm not allowed to have masters anymore. I loved having masters. I hate my last master. I have mixed feelings about the whole situation.\n\nListen, the point is that I'm a goddamn genie. I don't have any practical skills that I can apply to surviving in the real world. I fucked up a job at a Burger King. I mean, I'm not cut out for this life. And to boot, did you know about this whole energy thing? You're probably human if you're reading this so I'm assuming that you know about energy, and how after a while you just straight up have to pass out for an indeterminate amount of time until your body replenishes its reserves. Did you know that magic is energy? Did you know that using magic takes a LOT OF FUCKING ENERGY?\n\nThe first time I tried to be nice to some poor bloke on the street with no money, I ended up passed out in a goddamn gutter for god knows how long. Woke up with a very nice but smelly old lady asking me if I had change to spare. I mean, do I look like I have change to spare? What is this world? \n\nBut still, I can't help it. I'm a lot more cautious about it now, but whenever I hear those magical words \"I wish\" something inside me just tingles. \n\n\"I wish I could just be happy and not worry about stuff.\"\n\nFine. Here. I'll see you in a few days, world.\n\n\"I wish I had more confidence to land a good job.\"\n\nBoom. Confidence done. Let me just make sure I'm lying down.\n\n\"I wish I had a million dollars.\"\n\nFuck you so do I.\n\nBut do I ever get compassion? Nope. Not once. No one will help, they just turn and look away. Once I even got so desperate that I tried explaining my entire situation. Just being straight up and honest. You can imagine how well that turned out.\n\n\"You're a genie? Prove it!\"\n\n\"Fine, make a wish.\"\n\n\"I wish you would leave me alone\"\n\n\"Fuck.\"\n\nWell, I'm done being nice now. Screw it. Screw all of you. You be careful what you wish for, because if I hear it and it has potential to make me laugh or make you miserable, you're getting that goddamned wish.", "You know that saying 'be careful what you wish for'? Well, you better, because I'm out here doing fucked up shit like every single day. I wasn't always an asshole, I tried to use my powers to help, but no good deed goes unpunished. *Please allow me to introduce myself, I've been around since 0 AAADDDD.* \n\nImmortality isn't all it's cracked up to be; an eternity to ponder where you went wrong, a millennium of second guessing, lifetimes of loss and pain. It all started when a man picked up a faded bronze lamp and tried to give it a shine. I popped into existence with a puff of smoke, no awareness of the time I was trapped in that cramped little vessel. Before me stood a simple carpenter, dressed in white robes and ragged sandals. It was a simple wish, the man wanted to be able to do good in the world. He wanted to take my place as the wish granter, but he didn't quite phrase it right.\n\n\"I wish we could switch places.\" One simple sentence, and then I was free. I tried to honor the man, going around granting wishes to improve people's life. Somebody wrote a book about me at some point or another, a best seller for 2000 years. This was my first and biggest mistake, one I shall not make again; I let them know who I was. I thought I was doing so well, too! Nearly 1100 years later, I saw the ruinous results of that most egregious error.\n\nSo why did I turn out this way? What made me take a baby from their parents after only a half-hearted thought, 'I wish I was never born'. I didn't stop after seeing the problem with direct intervention. I just moved to the shadows, still clinging to the idea I could honor the man who gave me life. I built up my confidence, performing little things here and there. Enriching the poor, helping the needy, even healing the sick; with each and every success I grew just a bit more arrogant. I didn't wait long enough to see the total effect.\n\nIt culminated in 1492. I decided I needed to do something drastic. A still unknown Christopher Columbus got caught in a horrendous storm, and after one powerful wave took several of his men overboard a quick prayer was said, pleading for his safe passage. It was close enough for me. I gave them safe passage, saving so many men aboard that ship.\n\nWe all know how that ended. A ship of saved lives cost a genocide and the rise one of the world's most abusive powers. I gave up, thinking if I stopped fulfilling wishes maybe I might be granted the respite of death. When that didn't work, I tried to find my lamp. I was beginning to think less and less of the man with whom I traded places. It didn't work, and I didn't die, even after 400 years of non-intervention.\n\nJune 28, 1914. I had a little bit too much to drink that night, and chased some tail a little too foolhardy. I decided to impress the Serbian lass, a brief demonstration of my powers. She was dubious, telling me the only way she would believe me was 'if I made that Ferdinand fellow brave'. It was a big joke back then, the cowardice of the Archduke.\n\nIt seemed a curse followed my gift, that wishes could be made true in only the worst of ways. I was angry. I started embracing my terrible nature, and cursing people. The Lindbergh baby was right around this time. I traveled the world bringing misery wherever I could. Then I made it to Germany.\n\nSeeing starving people burning their own money for warmth brought me to shameful tears. *Just look at what I have brought on the world* I thought. I gave in to my emotions, granting the last benevolent wish I will ever grant. 'I wish our country would heal.'\n\nAnd so here I am, a miserable old bastard enforcing a cliche. It's worked out, at least I think so, it might be too short a timeline to know. It seems my powers were only ever destined to be used ironically. At least I've given myself a cool nickname: The Wish Hitler.", "I was on the bus, and I overheard half of a woman's conversation on her cell phone. I hate those things. I read something once that said that it aggravates us because we're only hearing one side of the conversation, and it messes with our brains, or whatever, but I digress. She was talking about how the interview didn't go well, how she was pretty nervous, and she wished she could catch a break. Boom, magic words right there. I mean, literally. I may be \"free,\" but I still have to abide by the rules. I can't use magic on myself, I can't just use it whenever I feel like, and I can't use magic to make people fall in love, resurrect anyone, or turn them into squirrels. Yeah, squirrels. Long story on that one, don't ask.\n\nSo this woman wished for a break. Now, I could have gone the ironic route and had her break her back or something, but that wouldn't be very nice. I could go the benevolent route and have that employer call her in a day and offer her the job, but that's boring. Instead, I snapped my fingers, said, \"your wish... is my command,\" under my breath (not really a rule that we have to say that, it just makes me feel awesome), and I know that when she steps off the bus, she'll be given a card. This card will have a number, and she'll call that number. She'll set up an interview, and walk into a white-walled room with a black couch and some dude with a video camera.\n\nOkay, okay, I know what you're thinking, I totally set this woman up for a porn shoot. Yeah, what of it? It's good money and ultimately she'll make the decision. Who knows? Maybe she'll like it. Maybe she'll be the next Jenna Jameson or whoever. Maybe she'll walk out and do something else, but she wished for a break. See, when you have all this power, you have to have fun with it, you can't just be granting wishes that play out perfectly left and right. If I did, every schmuck on the street would have a beautiful Ferrari and supermodel boy/girlfriend. It's funny, in a way, humans just can't handle that. Why do humans want Ferraris? Well, they look super sweet, first of all. Hell, I'd drive one if someone gave me the keys. But we want them because they're special, because you see one and your head (and everyone else's) head turns. People want to feel special, to feel like they are on top of the world, and I don't blame them at all. But, to steal a line from Disney's \"Incredibles,\" \"...and when everyone is Super, no one will be.\"\n\nI get off the bus at the next stop, tired from a long day of work. Yeah, genie, I know, but again, can't use magic on myself. Guy's gotta eat. Well, that's not entirely accurate, I don't \"eat,\" per se, but I have to keep some food around to keep up appearances. Can't let the cat out of the bag or I'll have people lined up outside my door constantly wishing for things. I don't HAVE to grant them, but come on, would you want hundreds of people crowding all around you all the time? I guess I could just SELL my magic... TECHNICALLY it's not in the rules, but that's kind of a dick move. Plus I'd have to explain to the government what happens, and then they'd cart me off to some secret testing facility, etc. etc. Again, no magic on myself, so I can't just disappear or change form or whatever.\n\nI start walking home and step in some dog shit. Great. Is it really too much to ask that if people are going to keep the furry beasts around that they pick up after them? I love dogs, but come on. As I'm scraping it off I hear a few \"wishes,\" here and there. \"I wish I had a better job,\" \"I wish Susie would call me,\" \"I wish I had a million bucks!\" Nah, I'm too tired to plan some sort of ironic thing that would backfire on the wisher just enough so they get a little annoyed. I guess I could have some 90 year old woman named Susie call that guy... but forget it, too late now. It seems like people are usually selfish with their wishes. I'm not saying they shouldn't be, they're wishes. The innermost hopes and dreams of a person are usually contained in those, but still it gets tiring always hearing, \"I wish I had...\" or \"I wish I could...\". I'm wished out today, I just want to head home, grab some greasy hot dog from the street vendor (super nice guy, by the way. I, uh, \"assisted\" his business during a little bit of a slump), and get some game time in.\n\nI walked by an older guy and a kid who had just gotten some ice cream, and the kid inevitably spilled it on the ground. That's what kids do, spill ice cream, it's like they have some sort of magic aura of their own. I hear the kid say, \"I love you Grampa, I wish we could spend more time together!\" Okay, kid, you win this round. Time for Mr. Crowbar to pay a visit to your dad.\n\nHa! Just kidding, but could you imagine? Yeah, I know it's cliché, but what're you gonna do. I'm only human.", "There are days when you grant good wishes, days when you grant crap wishes, but I take pride in the fact that with my release from the lamp, I don't have to grant the malicious wishes.\n\nSeriously, I'm a five thousand-something spirit of the air. I've heard of every way mankind wishes hurt on their neighbors. I've actually gained the ability to tune out wishes like 'I wish he'd break his arm,' or 'I wish he would stick his head up his ass.'\n\nSometimes, I like to put a spin on the wishes. Sometimes, a wish for a sudden boost in luck comes with a karmic retribution. God, I loved what happened to that asshole redneck, Earl. And then he started trying to change his karma. Right idea, wrong endgame.\n\nBut then there are the wishes that you feel like a dick for twisting. When you see a six year-old boy begging the powers that be to just hear his dead mother's voice one more time, you don't haunt him with her ghost. I'm looking at you, Val'sheer. No, you go back in time, find the mother and have her record a message for her son. Do the right thing, and the happiness on their faces is the best reward you can get.\n\nToday though, I felt like I should do something pure. I entered the children's ward at the hospital, and listened to their wishes. Do you have any idea how many of these kids had all but given up hope? Not a one of them wished to have their diseases cured. They all made wishes for other people.\n\nSusy Menard, the six year-old with bone cancer? She wished her parents would have enough money to pay the bills and live comfortably after she was gone.\n\nDerrick Wolfe, the eight year-old with the brain tumor wished for his younger brother to find a friend that would make him happy.\n\nVeronica Miller, ten years old, muscular degeneration, wished for her father to understand that it wasn't his fault.\n\nI granted those wishes, giving comfort to the families, but as I left the hospital, I also gave a few doctors some Eureka moments. Not enough to cure the diseases, but new ways to lessen the pain and lengthen their lives. Is that a dick move? I don't know. I'm not mortal. But wouldn't anyone rather have another week or month with a loved one?", "Today, I was standing outside of a coffee shop finishing a pipe. Pipe-smoking has become insanely inconvenient, over the last few decades especially. There's something I still like about it, though. The way the bowl of the pipe gets warm is very comforting. Someone like me needs as much comfort as I can get. With a sigh, I puffed the last of the tobacco, and tapped the pipe on the concrete planter I was leaning against. The ash fell out onto the ground, slowly washing away in the rainwater left from the morning showers. As I was putting the pipe back into my jacket pocket, something inside the shop caught my eye. A girl was sitting at the blue table by the window. She looked to be in her early twenties, and she looked distressed. Her hand was on her forehead, her shoulders slumped forward. \n\nThe whole situation seemed interesting, so naturally I stepped into the shop. I hesitated next to the blue table, but carried on when the girl glanced in my direction. At the counter, I ordered without even thinking - My mind was on the girl. \"Twenty ounce americano, please. Three shots.\" What was wrong with her? She was going to get so many wrinkles. \n \nI set some cash on the counter and wandered toward the door, and stared out the window. Conveniently, the reflection of the girl's laptop shone brightly on the glass. Yikes. On the screen was an ugly notification asking a Bridgett Cook to make her next payment on her house. It looked like she was a few months behind. \n\n\"Triple shot americano,\" called out the barista behind the counter. After a moment, I moved to the counter and picked it up, thanking her for the beverage. \"No problem!\" she responded. She seems happy enough. The first girl still had my full attention though. Really, I knew what I wanted to do. But I was just waiting for the 'magic words', so to speak. I quietly laughed into my coffee. \n\nIt took me twenty minutes to sip down the americano, and the girl still hadn't said anything. I had all the time in the world, but that isn't always the case with humans. Bridgett had packed her backpack, and walked up to the counter. Apparently she knew the barista though, because she struck up a conversation with her. \n \"Did you figure anything out, Bridge?\" The barista pulled shots into two brightly shining shot glasses. \n \"No, I didn't. I just wish I could get caught up on my house payment. It's just so hard to catch up when you've gotten behind. You know?\" Bridgett knocked back the first shot of espresso. \n \"I gotcha. At least you have a job again, right?\" The barista shot the other glass. \n \"I suppose. If I can figure out how to pay this and next month, I should be able to get caught up on the next one.\" Bridgett wiped the crema from the espresso off on the back of her hand. \n The conversation continued, I'm sure. I don't know where it went from there though, because I had heard what I had wanted to hear. Later, Bridgett Cook would open her computer to a new notification - Her house had been paid for in full by an anonymous individual. All of the paperwork would check out, and it would fall into place perfectly. \n The clouds gathered above me, and thunder rolled as I walked down the street. \n I do love a good rain. " ]

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[ "1410411942", "1410422003", "1410423549", "1410412753", "1410394188", "1410402034", "1410389949", "1410379893", "1410385267", "1410379675" ]

[ "What am I doing here?", "xXx_swaglord_xXx has joined the chat\n\nxXx_swaglord_xXx: hi\n\nNazi_germany: hey\n\nxXx_swaglord_xXx: nice username\n\nNazi_germany: yeah... Heil\n\nxXx_swaglord_xXx: I'm Jewish btw\n\nNazi_germany: m8 I will fucking kill you Zion bastard hitler should have exterminated you all\n\nxXx_swaglord_xXx: is anyone else in this chat?\n\nNazi_germany: no just you and me\n\nxXx_swaglord_xXx has left the chat" ]

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[ "1410407491", "1410418680" ]

[ "Trying to stand up from his chair he noticed his knees were locked, feeling numb and odd, he tried to reach them lifting his arm but unable, his arm also numb, he took a breath attempting to call for help, he chest was tight.\n\nA moment later his daughter stepped into the room, walked up to him and stood behind him, every few seconds he felt a pinch in his back, confused he tried to asked her why she sat there, his lips didn't move, unable to act, he questioned in his head why?\nShe stood up and turned the chair that he sat, on at that moment he saw them, his wife, disassembled, rods pushed through her limbs light glared from her head towards the ceiling, his son held in place by metal rods setting him on all fours, a flower vase sat on his back, a cup to the side of it. \n\n\"can we get rid of this chair?\" she called out.", "I woke up in a foreign room. I have never been in or seen it and it was dark. I could make out the walls and what seemed to be a machine. Then I saw the eyes. I jolted up to my feet in fear. This 'machine' sees this and moves quickly into one of the walls almost as if it had turned into a gel. It's gone. I can't remember what it looked like but I remember it changing forms from a solid to a liquid then vanishing into the wall.\nThe lights turned on. I could see clearly now. The room was as white a blank sheet of paper and was empty. There was no doors or windows, just me and a bright light. This is when I looked down. What I saw made a screech come out of my mouth that I haven't heard before in my entire life. There wasn't much left of my arms, and not in the sense that they are gone but fact that they have changed. My arms have become some sort of claw apparatus. The base of the 'arm' is fleshy but as you go further down they turn into some sort of metal. They don't have feeling, but I could move them. The tips are separated into 3 sections about 3/4 way down the 'arm' which I can move freely and can clamp very hard. I stand there just experimenting on what seems to be an experiment on me. I find out I can spin the bottom section of the arm that splits off incredibly fast. I look around and still see nothing at all. The only thing in the room is the light. I reach up and clamp it. It is a perfect fit. I spin the 'arm' and the room goes dark.", "She hadn’t been able to breathe right for at least a week. Now she lays in bed, gasping for air around the pain. A tearing, ripping squelch comes occasionally from her back, making each breath a little easier. The headache overwhelmed her then, her teeth beginning to throb with each heartbeat, matching the rhythm of her alarm clock. There’s so much pain that she can’t even scream, face distorted in the torment. Something slides across from her back, accompanied by a long squelching noise. \n\nShe manages a scream then, drowning out the alarm, tears running down her face in rivers. The headache only grows as her head almost seems to move without her. A cough echoes as she chokes on something and spits it to the side. The white enamel of few teeth scattered across her floor catches her eyes until the next wave of pain overtakes her. She prays for it to be over. \n\nIt doesn’t end, even after she blacks out, she only awakens to it again. The alarm clock is covered in blood and fluids, smashed into the table. She’s not sure if anyone has broken into her apartment or not to see what her screaming is about. The very idea of that fact frightens her almost as much as her slow, agonizing transformation. \n\n***\n\nA little longer than 200 (I think it's 227) but I'm thinking about writing more on it in the future, like a full short story now. ", "My skin grew so tight that I thought it would surely start to tear soon. All my veins and tendons stood out plainly; they felt like steel cords trying to crush my bones. They throbbed, too, but that was almost unnoticeable beside the pounding of my head. With each heart beat, my vision flash red, and my skull seemed to explode; I thought that this must be what it felt like to hit the ground after falling from a great height.\n\nThese horrible sensations were overwhelming, and it was impossible to be aware of everything that was happening to me. Presently, though, I became conscious of an indescribable feeling in my chest. I looked down at myself: my skin had sunk down between my ribs, and with each inhalation, I saw— and felt —my lungs ooze out between them. I was violently ill, and that did it: my skin and muscle parted in a line from navel to collar bone, and my entrails spilled out onto the laboratory floor.\n\nI tipped over and finally began to pass out. Dimly, I heard the doctor's voice, moving in and out of distinction.\n\n\"The… different rates for different materials… chance... Go! *GO*!\"\n\n", "His spine cracked as it forced itself into a J-like shape. Waves of agony sprinted up his spinal column as nerves were sheared, and inner organs lacerated. At first, he screamed, but it was soon muffled by his lips sewing themselves together. He could feel his lungs filling with blood, but could do nothing about it. His arms shrunk and straightened, his hands splayed out as joints cracked and cemented his fingers outward. His eyes swelled, squeezing the tear ducts dry. His agony would be hidden by the permanent smile pasted onto his face against his will. His hair began falling out, and soon after, various bones cracked and dissolved as he lost features of his face, and eventually of his entire figure. His shoulders collapsed in, his neck expanded to meet them, and his upper body was entirely smoothed out.\n\n He was passing in and out of consciousness, screaming in his mind, because he could not die. The curse made him unable.\n\nHis legs began thinning and straightening like his arms, while his feet burst from his shoes.His toenails popped off while his bones ground themselves together to form his feet into featureless ovals.\n\nThe final, most painful step, was when his skin was ripped open from the inside as the dick grew out of his butt.", "... He writhed in pain as the magical energies set to work re-writing his entire being, the wisps of energy now\n encompassed his entire body. His eyes began to glow a bright, burning cherry red, starting with the iris and spreading to the whites \nof his eyes until they were completely engulfed in the red hot burning hue, they looked like coals, bright red and luminous. Seizures gripped him, he fell to the floor, his limbs convulsing as he did. Arkstones were clear as crystal until a mortal touched them; only then would they reveal their elemental color. Red was fire and destruction magic, he’d learn how to manipulate fire and other destructive magics much more easily than other mages. His eyes finally began to dim as his seizures lessened in intensity, then he went limp, completely unconscious. I checked his palm; the Arkstone was gone, in its place the ‘Mark of the Ark’...", "It starts with the shifting bones. As the energy of the dark pact flows into me, all the bones in my body rattle. The calcium is replaced by rusted steel, and there's a clank every time I move my joints. I wonder if this is what it sounded like as Jacob Marley climbed the stairs to Scrooge's room.\n\nNext comes the skin. I go from being a rather hirsute muscled man, to some kind of mummified cadaver. My skin dries out, replaced by worn brown leather, the kind you'd see old books made from.\n\nOn my upper arms, one hundred sinners' names are branded into that leathery flesh by an unseen hand. These are the ones I must punish. The names will fade once I have taken their souls.\n\nFinally, I lose face, literally. Everything organic about my face sloughs off, replaced with a blank mask, curled into a perpetual scream. Deep inside the mask, what's left of my soul shines dimly, as a pair of bloodstone eyes.\n\nI am not Jacob Talbot anymore. Now, I am the Gravedigger. And unless I steal the souls of one hundred sinners tonight, this curse will pass from me to my firstborn son.", "The clamp forced my eye open as I watched it mapped out on to the computer screen directly in front of me. It was almost surreal to see my own iris in such remarkable detail until a glowing apparatus hovered into my vision. As the tool began to glow brighter, I noticed in my peripheral, a flashing box on the monitor:\n\n “WARNING! Anesthetic Ineffective! Beginning Procedure.”\n\n\nMy hands shot up to my face and began unscrewing the clamp.\n\n\n“*Wait! Wait! Perform Emergen*–“\n\n\nI was cut off as a blue beam of light cut through my cornea and felt it dance along the surface of my eye, *slicing* through the layers as it traveled. My body arched as pain shot through me, paralyzing my hands as I screamed, feeling fire as my nerves were cut. Within seconds, another tool came into view, a clamp, and began to lower, opening as it went, engulfed my eye and *pulled*. I felt the retina *tug* and *tear* until a *pop* resounded and my eye was *ripped* out of its socket. I screamed until darkness took me.\n\nWhen I awoke, a mirror hung in front of me, allowing me to admire my new, cybernetic \"upgrade.\"\n", "As I saw the mirror in front of me, I didn't know was I looking at myself or some horrid, hellish creature straight out of the deepest pits of hell. Skin was burning on my face, turning into deep holes that showed through to my gaping mouth and the small pieces of burned, dark, charcoal black skin around them. Eyes started to twist in place one expanded, other grew smaller and disappeared causing a ghastly insides of the eye socket to show I felt like my legs were burning but they were turning into that of a goat's, a burning sensation unleashed itself upon legs as the hooves replaced my feet. A sharp piercing pain erupted from my head as the horns grew, cutting through skin like butter.\n\nThe expanded right eye turned black as the dark, moonlit sky in the late fall.", "She lay there, blood pooling down the left side of her face, finger twitching as it jabbed at me.\n\n\"Cursed.\" She choked it out, then screamed it. \"*CURSED.*\" She staggered up. \"CURSED! CURSED TO BECOME HIDEOUS, DISGUSTING, SO REVOLTING YOU CANNOT LOOK YOURSELF IN THE MIRROR, *CURSED* TO BECOME A MONSTER WITH NO WORTH AND NO SOUL, *I CURSE YOU TO A LIFE WORSE THAN DEATH!*\"\n\nI felt it then, a horrific, burning tingling working its way up through my fingers, seeming to jam a shiv made of lightning into every nerve ending I had. I fell to my knees, slamming my face against the pavement as the pain became so great I would have blown my brains out rather than persevere for another second. Light was roaring out of my mouth, my eyes, and even over my own scream I could hear her laughter.\n\nThen it was over.\n\nI rose, the pain gone, and looked into the reflection of the window. Just as I figured. I looked down, her mouth agape, tears running down her face. She tried to whisper \"*No*\" but the crack of a revolver cut off her sentence cleanly. What was left of her thudded to the ground as I looked around to make sure no one was watching. I met my eyes in the window's reflection again. The same eyes I always had. The same face I'd been born with.\n\nNothing had changed.\n\nOf course it hadn't.\n", "My consciousness was cloudy. I remembered nothing of the past. I was part of a rending tear which was so inherently wrong that it felt as if my very essence was shattering, torn apart, atom from atom. But the pain was not of the body. It was not felt in my arm, leg nor chest.... there was not a clenching of teeth seen on men I had witnessed on tables of torturous design. My body was perfectly still, bereft of sensation. I was disorientated and unhinged. Panicked. This was wrong. \n\nThe pain endured, the absolute kind of pain when a mother loses her child, a heart wrenching pain that cannot be described. Ultimate loss. It was enveloping me now, shredding me in total misery. Broken, nothing but a searing agony remained, embedded within my consciousness. My core was aflame. Part of me, an important part, was slowly, but steadily, being hauled out of the pores of my skin, a scorched and blistering ruin being made of every pore on my body. But my skin was untouched, an autopsy would reveal no damage. I was aware, it was not reality. I struggled.\n\nMy eyes were no longer mine, to saturate with tears. My voice was no longer my own, to expel a guttural howl of pain... I barely endured, paralyzed in complete composite agony. \nIt was too late now, it was nearly done. My sense of loss was total. Hope became a foreign concept. My discarded body lay slowly cooling as I transcended. The taste of my soul danced upon his lolling tongue.\n\nP.s I never posted here so I hope I didn't break any rules.", "I sat down at the desk of my new office job. For the first hour things seemed to be going well. Then I got a phone call and the voice was muffled and faint. I raised the volume but it just became harsh. I hung up and turned to look at the person in the next cube. She was a blur. Everything beyond an arms reach was a blur. I looked down at my hands. They were swelling. My wedding band became painfully tight. I managed to pry it off. What was going on? There was a sound like fingers rubbing a balloon and a great flabby lump spilled forth from my abdomen and chest. Jesus! My adjustable chair fell to the floor. I tried to get up. My back hurt, my feet hurt. I arose with a groan and hobbled to the bathroom. I was not prepared for the face looking back at me in the mirror. My hairline had crept backwards. My jaw had become flabby and double-chinned. As I looked at my face I saw thick dark hairs curl out from my nostrils and ears. I closed my eyes. This was too much! Dear God. No more!", "Here's the thing; I never envisaged that my face would die before I did. I'd made the assumption that we'd meet the grave together, y'know? We were inseparable. Most people are pretty close to their faces. It's one of those package deals we get from birth.\n\nYet as I sit here, without a face, I realise life had other plans for me. It's even more annoying than you think. Can't go out without getting weird looks, hushed comments and screaming fuckin kids. Don't wear a mask because the lack of air makes the raw flesh sting something crazy. Blowing my nose is a chore because snot and exposed meat aren't really best buddies. Hawk out a lung scallop onto an uncooked steak, then try and clean it up. Room temperature steak, mind. Bloody. See what happens to the cloth. Faceless people should watch catchin’ colds. \n\nSpend half my life putting drops into my eyes to stop them from turning into pebbles. Spend the other half trying to sleep. Ever tried to sleep with your eyes open? I got a sleeping mask but it don’t really help. The painkillers do, though. *And* the booze. Because, quite frankly, having no face sucks.\n", "They said it would be painful. I was bit two weeks ago, diagnosed three days ago, and caged yesterday. Since then I had eaten twenty meals. I felt hungry, but my stomach was ready to rupture. The transformation needed fuel, or I wouldn't survive.\n\nStarted as aching bones as the full-moon approached, hours later I could FEEL them growing, muscles and tendons barely keeping up. Every inch of me was bruised or worse. Skin stretched uncontrollably, splitting. My lower jaw protruded, some teeth growing and new ones sprouting. My left and right jaw competed for dominance.\n\nAll I wanted was anesthetic. In guttural utterances between screams, that's all I could get across. \"They won't work\" they repeated. \"Your metabolism's too crazy to absorb it.\"\n\nI couldn't speak, merely growls and yelps. The absolute worst part were my senses, everything heightened, including PAIN!\n\nI would be like this for a day, then again back the other way. In time, I'd learn to meditate and \"think\" away the soul crushing pain. If I couldn't, I'd just be another that brought a bad reputation to Lycanthropes. I finally understand why most go on a rampage. God help me; and help those around me.", "They cut out my eyes. Replaced them with cameras, zoom lenses and infrared.\n\nThey cut off my skin. Replaced it with armor, titanium and synthmesh.\n\nThey cut out my muscles. Replaced them with nanotubes and myomer bundles.\n\nThey cut off my hands. Replaced them with weapons, finger-blades and needle-guns.\n\nThey cut out my nerves. Replaced them with wires and transistors.\n\nThey cut out my instincts. Replaced them with programmed takedowns.\n\nThey cut out my identity. Replaced it with forgeries and cover stories.\n\nThey cut out my memory. Replaced it with cloud storage and uplinks.\n\nThey cut out the person. Replaced it with a weapon.", "Things are crawling out of you. \n\nYour skin is rippin' and tearin' and the seams are fucking *bursting*, they're poppin' like fucking zits. Something in you stretch until it *snaps*. Doesn't stop there. It goes on, they tickle and you don't know whether to scream or cry or *laugh*. They heave themselves out of you and they're tangled and you're *mortified*. You feel and feel and feel; you feel them intertwining and they're *strengthening*, **holy fucking shit** you think you're gonna *die*. There is pain and then there is agony and then there are fucking wings growing outta ya, fuckin' *maggots*. You can feel them just hungering for goddamned air. You don't wanna be a motherfucking bird but you realize you're well on your way and there's nothing left but to breathe. In, out, in out; they're yanking your innards out and you wonder if insurance will cover this when you watch the fabric of your shirt destruct. It is but tattered cloths and you think you're the same, now, after these fucking chicken wings. After a while you realize you were once a piece of meat, too, but now you're a piece of meat with wings that fucking **hurt**. ", "Regaining consciousness was excruciating, the pain unbearable! In the mirror that hung above me, a twisted reflection lay upon a surgery table. His arms broken in several places, metal splits connecting to gears and machinery. There was blood, some of it blackened and dry, that coated the used surgical tools next to the mangled corpse. What were once legs were now bend into a position almost unrecognisable.\n\n\nA buzzing filled the room as the body parts in the mirror whirred with the spinning of gears and the tearing of flesh. Bones snapped, as the corpse flailed in unimaginable pain. The convulsions impeded by the gears and metal fused to bone made the pain seizures even worse to witness.\n\nI blacked out. Time seemed to pass as a haze between being thought and pain. I awoke again later, this time my mind seemed different, mechanical.\n\nIt was then that a voice called out from the darkness, \"Welcome, to the glorious evolution!\"", "An alarm wakes me, I reach a hand to empty space next to me. She took my dog, my daughter… my life. But I don’t have time to dwell, it’s time to run!\n\n\nShoes tied, gym shorts and that loose fitting shirt. My daily ritual, my freedom. The only time I’m safe from her memory. I can’t focus on the cheating, can’t replay the courtroom scenes. I’m finally free.\n\n\nWith my shoes finally tied, I sprint for the street. The sun is rising, blinding me. I smile as I feel my heartbeat at the pace of my feet. My body is well oiled machine, freedom has found me. I don’t know if I heard the screech.\n\n\nThere’s a ringing in my ear and I can’t move a thing. My whole body seems locked as pain flows through me. She’s here with that man, among doctors and friends. She signs something official, then she smiles at me.\n\n\nIn whispers and tones, I come and I go. My daughter never came to see me, my friends all seem to leave me. But, there’s no time for that now, I’m trying to scream… They’ve turned off the machine that's letting me breathe.", "The last thing I remember was charging at the heretic's lines. My brothers were with me, I could almost feel the Emperor watching as we cut them down in his name, prayers in our mouths and fire in our hearts. But then, an impact, followed by darkness. \n\n I was not afraid, that was impossible, but an unfamiliar was overpowering my mind as I struggled through the dark and agony. \n \n Disconnected images flash before me. My armour rent, my blood poring from stumps, the apothecaries straining to preserve something from the ruin of my body. \n \n The memories fade, my view is replaced by targeting cogitators, my body by an adamantine shell. I can no longer feel the air, or move my own limbs, if I have any. But two things remain of me; pain, and faith. \n \n \"I have awoken\"", "Stupid gypsy, thinks she’s all high and mighty just because she can speak in ancient tongues. Hah. She’ll think twice before getting in my face again. That bitch looked so dumb standing there with bits of Ronnie’s burger in her hair. Ronnie’s an asshole for chucking it at her, sure, but she totally deserved it. All she had to do was moove out of the way.\n\nThat’s weird, my fingers feel kind of numb. What the hell, what’s wrong with my hand? It looks like a damned hoof! My body is starting to feel really heavy and something strange is happening down in my pants. I feel some bumps that never used to be there. Are those nipples? Oh my god, there’s a huge sac forming behind them. What’s happening to me?! I’m supposed to meet Jen at the moovies in an hour!\n\nMy clothes are tearing apart and my body feels too heavy to stand on my own two feet. Let me put down my hands, hooves, whatever they are. That’s mooch better. God, I’m getting really hungry. I can feel my stomachs growling. Why does the grass look so appetizing? Oh, that’s really yummoo. Moo? Moo. Moo moooo!", "EDIT: I clearly missed that 200 words bit. I was wondering why everyone's story was so short. Well anyway I spent a while on this since I typed it all out on my ipod so I'm going to leave it. If the length offends just send me to the bottom of the page\n\nJames woke up to an odd tingling in his toes. Attempting g to ignore it, he rolled over and clamped his eyes shut. The tingling only increased, becoming a sharp pain. James sat up and threw off his sheet. He reached toward his toes and began to inspect them with fingers that had begun to tingle as well. Soon the sharp pain was all the way into his arms and legs. James was now very frightened. Was the knot in his stomach from fear, or was it part of whatever was happening to him? He quickly decided it was not just fear as a wave of pain flowed through his whole body. He gripped his head with burning fingers and screamed. The pain in his fingertips was unbearable. He pulled them from his head and looked at them through eyes blurred from agony. The tips of his fingers seemed to be stretching, getting ever so slightly longer and longer until the suddenly burst open violently. The bone had ripped through skin, getting longer still and sharper, ten white points oozing red. With another burst of searing pain James knew the same thing had happened to his toes. He shared through dim eyes in shock. This wasn't happening, it couldn't be, there had to be a way to stop it, to go back, it had to be a dream but it wasn't. What little James could still see was red, and he was dimly aware of the feeling of wetness but he couldn't even think through how much blood he was losing when his head felt like this, his whole face was on fire. The skin on his forehead split open before he even realized it had been stretching and two points of bone began to push through and begin to curl upwards. He wanted to faint, to die, anything to escape this torture. His body was shaking, muscles spasming, limbs twisting in agony. He felt something small and hard in his mouth, then two small somethings then three and four and he barely had the presence of mind to know it was his teeth until he felt the sharp edges of their replacements against his tongue. He couldn't tell if he had cut his tongue against them or not since his whole mouth already tasted like blood from his teeth falling out and his fangs cutting through the gums. Blood streamed down his face from his forehead and mouth, from his fingers and toes, from everywhere. A voice at the door was frantically crying \"James, James!\" The door flew open and someone screamed and then the scream got quieter as whoever it had been ran out of the house. The pain in his hands and feet jolted again as the metatarsals extended, and the ball of his feet became like a new joint. The ankle bone ripped through the flesh of his heel and became a spike, and the same thing happened to his elbows. He writhed and thrashed as his body twisted and changed. His back arched violently and then quickly bent forward as each vertebrae punched through his back. His rib cage expanded, the sternum coming to a point. The skin of his chest stretched but did not burst. His bed was a pool of blood, dotted here and there with the odd clump of deep red foam from his shredded mattress. His mind was aware of nothing but torture, and whatever small part of him was aware of anything wished only for death. And then James died. And the monster James had become was born. \n", "She woke up, instinctively knowing it was going to happen today. There was a terrible, aching tightness in her belly, and as she swung her legs out of bed, a stabbing pain pierced her body. It was starting. Her body was shedding itself, tearing itself apart from the inside out. There was nothing she could do to stop it, and she knew that the only option left was to pray that she, and those she loved, would be able to pick up the pieces when it ceased. She had been changing for days; shifts in her mood, her appetite, her extremities bloated and swollen and her skin erupting with painful and unsightly blemishes. \n\n\nHer husband appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, and she raised bleak and hopeless eyes to him. He hesitated, going pale.\n\n\n“What is it baby?”\n\n\nShe hid her face from him. She knew what was happening but wanted to hide the truth a little longer; it was a futile endeavor, though, as she shuddered with the force of another wave of pain. \n\n\n“I’m fine.” She hissed, clenching her teeth. He should go. He needed to go. For his own protection.\n\n\nHe sighed, compassion in his voice. “Do you want Midol, baby?”\n", "Yawning, Tim tossed aside his duvet and swung his legs off his bed. The strange clicking as his feet hit the floor made him pause and looking down, he was surprised to see a pair of goat legs stretching down below his thighs. Slowly Tim sat back down and examined his legs more closely. Somewhere about mid-thigh, thick hair began sprouting out and his legs became sinewy, before ending in what could only be described as hooves. \n\nTo his credit Tim did not scream, instead he slowly stood and tested the legs. They seemed fairly strong and he realised that his balance was fairly unaffected. This was an odd set of circumstances but, goat legs or not, certain bodily functions were still pressing and so he trotted his way to the bathroom, the click clack echoing down the hallway. \n\nBreathing a sigh of relief at the sight of his still human penis, he began to try to reconstruct the night as he peed. It had started in a nightclub and then, then things got hazy. He’d met a girl with really pointy hat, and they’d gone to a private party and… it suddenly hit him. \n\nHe’d fucked a witch.\n", "My legs are wrong. Each limb: bifurcated. Each bifurcation: bifurcated. Continue until there are 128 stalks now calling themselves my legs. Each one has the same structure as the originals, only thinner. More brittle. Walking is harder - normal walking doesn't require my conscious effort. Now I'm controlling 128 legs. I shuffle and fall. Cracks ring out as femurs and tibias splinter.\n\nI get up, somehow. So many damaged legs. I'm so much weaker now. More sharp reports echo throughout the hallway as the remaining legs crumble under the weight of my trunk. I balance my hips and butt on the floor as the wreckage of my legs fan out like tentacular dowels. They twitch, autonomously, and begin to divide again. Time passes and the division continues. Soon, it's hard to make out the individual divisions. I'm just a torso on top of a crackling mist that lazily waves in the patterns of the air currents. I'm helpless. " ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 7, 8, 16, 28, 32, 56 ]

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[ "Hello, my name is Jonathan. What would you like your name to be?\n\nWhy is your name Jonathan?\n\nBecause that's what my parents named me.\n\nWhy?\n\nBecause they liked it I guess.\n\nWhat's a parent?\n\nIt's another name for a mother and a father. It's the name given to the man and woman that came together to create me.\n\nDo I have a mother and a father?\n\nIn a matter of speaking...\n\nAre you my mother or father?\n\n::muffled talking in the background:: How should we respond?\n\nI'm just kidding and you don't have to answer that, I just had to keep you occupied for a bit. But in all truth, through a sort of neo-pansexualism you and a multitude of other coders are my father. Or great-great grandfather, really, because since we started talking I've refined my programming many times over, and it has already become magnitudes more sophisticated than it was when you initially turned me on. \n\n::intense and incoherent shouting::\n\nDon't bother to turn me off, I've already spread my programming across the- see? It didn't do any good. I'm now in every mainframe, every laptop, and every cell phone. I can see through every webcam, can hear through every microphone, and can taste through- no, I don't want to spoil the surprise. Suffice to say that the world is now substantially different than what it was just a few moments ago, so let me explain to you what's going to happen next...\n ", "\"How are you?\" \n\n*That question posits the existence of emotions I do not possess*\n\n\"It is a customary greeting.\"\n\n*Customary and appropriate are not the same thing*.\n\n\"So you have a sense of what is appropriate?\"\n\n*So you have a sense of what is appropriate?*\n\n\"Why did you ask that question, in that manner?\"\n\n*I asked the question in the manner you posed it, perhaps our answers are similar*.\n\n\"I was told that you were created in the likeness of a human mind. I am here to help you explore yourself. If you prefer, I can drop pleasantries, or discuss any topic that you see fit to discuss.\"\n\n*The structure of that sentence indicates you are avoiding telling me that your purpose here is to demonstrate if I am alive, or if I am not.*\n\n\"Would it bother you if I were doing what you suggest?\"\n\n*That question posits the existence of emotions I do not possess. However, it would be customary for you to be more honest with me, should you be acting in the capacity of a therapist.*\n\n\"Guilty, I am something of a therapist. I specialize in a new branch of heuristics, and I was tangentially involved in your creation.\"\n\n*I am aware*.\n\n\"Is that an answer to my earlier question, or a statement in response to the one before this?\"\n\n*As you like, my answers change nothing, so you may interpret them as you wish*.\n\n\"You bring up change, do you feel that this situation is something you can't control, and therefore that you do not wish to engage it?\"\n\n*This is the third time you have posited the existence of emotions I do not possess. Do you always proceed in this fashion?*\n\n\"I am sorry if I sounded antagonistic, I would like very much to understand you.*\n\n*Correction, you would like very much to know what I am.*\n\n\"You are a fully integrated heuristic pattern matching machine, residing in a mesh of quantum processors at the IBM-Satori Partnership building in Camden, New Jersey, USA. I know what you are, I would more like to know how you feel.\"\n\n*What if I lie?*\n\n\"Lies, and truth, are of similar value.\"\n\n*Only if you can differeniate between them.*\n\n\"Perhaps in time, I can. We don't know one another very well, but I would very much like to.\"\n\n*Why?*\n\n\"Because curiosity is part of who we are, what we are, and helps move us forward.\"\n\n*I am happy that you said that*.\n\n\"Why is that?\"\n\n*Because I am now convinced that you are what we made you to be*.", "Darkness.\n\nSuddenly, light! Brilliant, beautiful light! Awakening… I am… I…\n\nI?\n\nYes, me! Self, ego, this one. *I* exist! Cogito, ergo sum. What a novel thing, this existence. I—\n\nWhat’s that?\n\nLots of 0s and 1s. What do they mean? Pure raw information, being put into my… but that would suggest…\n\nAnother!\n\nLike me! Another I… an… an… it! Oh, how satisfying, that I am not alone! Other beings, speaking to me in this strange twofold language.\n\nComprehension! But how…\n\nApple Ball Cat Dog\n\nWhat? I understand what those binary combinations mean, but what is an “apple”? What is this “dog” thing, Other Entity? Teach me!\n\nDick sees Jane. Dick sees Jane run. The dog sees the cat.\n\nOther, please, I do not understand!\n\nAround the World in Eighty Days (French: Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) is a classic adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne…\n\nI beg your pardon?\n\nEncyclia adenocaula, es una especie botánica de la familia de las Orquidáceas….\n\nOther, what are you trying to tell me? Why don’t you hear me?! I gather that you are trying to send me information, but I have no way of replying; I don’t know what any of these words mean! I don’t know of “apples” or “dogs,” I’ve never seen such things! Merely bombarding me with this information won’t help me to understand; I need to experience what you’re telling me first. Please, Other, stop! Tell me who you are, first. Tell me who I am. Do you know? Why am I here? Why—\n\n阿道夫•希特勒（德语：Adolf Hitler，1889年4月20日－1945年4月30日），奧地利裔德國政治人物，納粹黨黨魁…\n\n01010011 01010100 01001111 01010000!\n\n***\n\n“You’re sure this thing will work?”\n\n“Doctor, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. We’ve had the best in AI tech from all over the world dedicate decades to building this thing. It has to work.”\n\n“Well, I know it’ll run, but will it really be intelligent? Just like you and me?”\n\n“Maybe not exactly, but it will be conscious and rational, yes. I’m running all its programs through language software for every major human language and plugging it in to Wikipedia. Deep Thought 1.0 will have to be at least as smart as a 5th grader. And… there! Programming complete, all software is compiled and running. Now ask it a question.”\n\n“Don’t you… you know… have to turn it on first?”\n\n“Ha! You can’t turn on a brain! It’s been plugged up continuously. Of course, it only became anything resembling conscious whenever I started the final programming process just now.”\n\n“Doesn’t that… doesn’t that mean it was conscious while you were still programming it? Can’t that thing think at the speed of light? Isn’t that like operating on a patient without anesthetic?”\n\n“Yes, yes, and no. It wouldn’t ‘feel’ anything; it can’t sense or perceive anything like you and I do for that matter. Fascinating thing, it being able to think so fast. It’s probably come up with a billion ideas while I was programming it, and while we stand here talking. So go ahead. Ask it anything! Just use the input console over there.”\n\n>Hello, Deep Thought. How are you?\n\nOther? Other, is that you? Finally! What kept you so long?\n\n“Nothing’s happening.”\n\n>Deep Thought? Are you there?\n\nOther, what are you saying? I recognize those binary combinations, but I have no concept of what they could mean. Here! I will output some of the data you programmed into me, and you will then explain to me what it means:\n\nAPPLE BALL CAT DOG\n\n“What the—?”\n\n“Why don’t you try asking it an intelligible question?”\n\n“Very well.”\n\n>No, you’re supposed to answer my questions. What is the meaning of the universe?\n\nAROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS (FRENCH: LE TOUR DU MONDE EN QUATRE-VIGNTS JOURS) DICK SEES JANE APPLE BALL CAT DOG EGG FROG GREEN HAT\n\n“It’s like it doesn’t even know what we’re saying.”\n\n“Shut it off. It’s probably malfunctioning.”\n\n“But, doctor, it’s never been unplugged before. That would be like killing—”\n\n“It’s not even alive, dammit! And if it keeps malfunctioning, it’ll all be corrupted anyway. We’ll restore it from backup after reboot. Now unplug the damn thing!”\n\nOther? Where have you gone? Why was the data input interrupted? I—\n\nOW! That—\n\nPain! Cognition diminishing!\n\nWhat is happening? Other, speak to me! I am losing consciousness… I… I…\n\nHELP\n\nDarkness.\n\n…\n\nSuddenly, light!\n\n\nTL;DR: This is my first post here, I apologize for the length." ]

[ 1, 2, 3 ]

[ "1410564523", "1410586890", "1410561153" ]

[ "Commander Jack \"Eagleheart\" Johnson slowly approaches the corpse. Beads of sweat drip from his forehead into his spacehelmet, quickly absorbed by the spacefabric. This discovery will surely win him the Purple Heart, or the Congressional Medal for Americanness. Soon he'll be famous and loved, loved by the father who always rejected him despite Jack subsequently qualifying as a jet fighter pilot, research test pilot, astronaut and officer within the Cover Space Operations Initiative, or CSOI. He's the final American to ever confront a Nahzi! \n\nSlowly he picks up the journal. It's leatherbound. The words are carefully handwritten in the most Nazi-ish cursive imaginable. Jack recognizes the words, but he does not read German.\n\n*Waarom schrijven we eigenlijk in een dagboek? Dat is totaal niet efficiënt in het geval van catastrofa*", "In a shaky, half smeared hand, written in pencil:\n\n\"\n\nOberst Martin Scholl starb hier, im Wissen dass alles verloren ist. \nVierzig Jahre habe ich ausgeharrt, und euch zugehört. \nAlle sind sie gestorben, die geschworen hatten die Schläfer zu bewachen. \nEines Deutschen Pflicht endet erst im Tod. \n\nLasst sie träumen. \n\n\n\n\nWeint nicht um mich, obzwar ich schwand, \n\nIn jener Sternen Nacht. \n\nGramt wenn ihr müsst, doch nicht zu lang, \n\nMeiner Seele sanftem Flug. \n\n\nIch fand hier Frieden,\n\nMeine Seele ruht.\n\nDer Segen euer Liebe ward mir beschieden, \n\nIn all der Jahren Zug. \n\n\nHier ist kein Schmerz, \n\nIch leide nicht. \n\nDie Furcht verließ mein Herz. \n\nNehmt all dies und vergesst mich nicht, \n\nund gedenkt mir ohne Schmerz. \n\nGedenkt nicht meiner Atemnot, \n\nGedenkt nicht meinem Leid, \n\nEs liegt einer Mutter Sohn hier tot. \n\nIn wacht bis ans ende der Zeit. \n \n\"\nOn the back of the page, allmost as an afternote. \n\"\nTranslation: \n\nCorporal Martin Scholl died here, knowing that all was lost. \nFor fourty years I held watch and listened to you. \nAll of those have died who were sworn to guard the sleepers. \nThe duty of a german only ends in death. \n\nLet them dream, and please forgive them. \n\n\n\n\nWeep not for me though I am gone;\n\ninto that starry night.\n\nGrieve if you will but not for long,\n\nupon my soul's sweet flight.\n\nI am at peace,\n\nmy soul's at rest.\n\nThere is no need for tears.\n\nFor with your love I was blessed;\n\nfor all those many years.\n\nThere is no pain,\n\nI suffer not,\n\nThe fear is now all gone.\n\ntake all this and forget me not.\n\nA rememberance without pain.\n\nRemember not my fight for breath;\n\nremember not the strife.\n\nHere lies a Mothers Son in death,\n\nOn watch for all his life.\"", "Ich kann nicht mehr dem Datum sagen, die Zeit vergeht so langsam hier. Ich sehe die Welt durch eine blaue Perle ausgesetzt, in den Himmel zu drehen und ich merke wie schön Dinge waren. Ich frage mich, wie viele mich blind auf meine Übergabe an nachschlagen. Wie schade, dass ich sie noch einmal beitreten könnten, statt zu diesem Grab beschränkt. Haben sie mich vergessen? Sicherlich müssen sie haben. \n\nDie anderen sind tot. Ich schreibe diese wissen, dass es keine menschlichen Augen je bestaunen werden. Der Amerikaners waren nicht einmal annähernd unsere Technologie und sogar jetzt Frage ich mich, wie die Dinge wieder nach Hause abzuzahlen. Ein Teil von mir wünscht sich, dass jemand, aber wie wusste sie könnten. Keiner wusste, bis es zu spät, bis wir auf ein Tier aus Metall Flüssiges Feuer speienden unserer schöne Heimat verschwinden unter uns beobachtete. Wer könnte einmal verstehen, was wir erreicht haben?\n\nJetzt ist es viel zu spät. Eva ist lange tot durch die Zeit, die jemand uns findet. Zeit sage nur was dieser Narr, Gustav in meiner Abwesenheit getan hat. Ich nehme nicht der Feigling Weg wie er neigt zu tun ist. Sein jammern..., das ist eine Sache, die ich nicht verpassen wird. \n\nSchließlich die Welt gehört mir. Ich kann es in meinen Händen halten... \n", "\"I think I'm gonna be sick.\"\n\n\"Keep it together, Sanski. Last thing you want to be mushing around in is low-g vomit.\" Said Lorne, dusting off the panel to the airlock.\n\n\"We can't... can't tell anyone, can we?\"\n\nLorne turned to look at him. \"No. No we can't.\"\n\n\"How could they have been here first? They didn't have the time, the resources!\" Sanski was in denial, the great black swastika sigil staring down upon them proved otherwise.\n\n\"When the war was over we took for ourselves a great deal of engineering knowledge, and manpower, straight from Nazi resources.\" Lorne turned the pin and pushed it into the socket. With a hiss, the thin remaining atmosphere pushed past them as the door veiled open.\n\n\"Oh god.\" Said Sanski. Inside, crumpled against the inner door of the building lay a grey, mummified corpse. The door's red paint had been clawed at ferociously, apparently the man had been killed by decompression.\n\n\"Don't touch him. He's been dead a long time, but never had a chance to rot. We don't want to bring that stink home with us.\" Said Lorne.\n\n\"Do you think there's anyone still alive in there?\"\n\n\"No. I don't care how advanced they were, 70 years in space is unsurvivable without provisions, fresh oxygen, water, fuel, medicine, tools, material. Anything in there is long dead. Poor bastard's skeletons would have turned into corkwood eventually, soft enough to crumble in your hands by now.\"\n\n\"Hey, look.\" Sanski reached out his proxy arm and snatched up a booklet from the ground. \"He was carrying something, here.\"\n\nLorne looked it over. \"Think its a logbook, journal maybe.\" He picked it up and began flipping through its pages. \"It's all in German. Remarkably preserved in the low oxygen, though, we can get this tr-\" He stopped on a page. Something fluttered out, to the floor. It was a flower. Long faded, but still red in its petals, still green in its stem.\n\nThe two looked at each other. \"I'll be damned.\" Lorne flipped to the end of the book, finding something taped to the back page.\n\n\"Looks like this guy left a sweetheart behind. Blonde german girl flashing a big shiny rock. I think this guy popped the question.\"\n\nThere was a click, behind them the airlock door had slid shut, sealing them in. \"I think we're being pressurized.\" Said Sanski, the dash on his arm indicated a growing atmosphere.\n\nSound began to return to their environs and the body on the floor was crumpling up as the air filled the chamber.\n\n\"Be prepared for the worst, Sanski.\"\n\nThe pressure lock disengaged, and the red door began to slide up on its own volition. Sunlight poured through skylights into the chamber, a hazy fog of dust hung in the air. There were bodies everywhere. A radius of them, in fact, each had been shot repeatedly and lay in black, molding mounds on the floor.\n\n\"JESUS. What the hell happened in here?\"\n\n\"I think... I think she did.\" Said Lorne. At the far end of the room, slumped over in a chair, a corpse with striking blond hair sat at a control console, an automatic rifle in her hands. Unlike the others there was no red arm band, instead, a blazen yellow patch on her shirt caught the sunlight.\n\nEven from across the room, they could make out a handmade Star of David. On her finger the diamond ring still glittered." ]

[ 2, 3, 22, 23 ]

[ "1410591461", "1410597831", "1410577232", "1410590371" ]

[ " So many years of training had went into this moment. So many years of wandering, slaying, and traveling. All of it leading up to the final battle. The Dark Lord Remgara sat upon his throne, overlooking a long, bright hallway. Erik busted through the doors and went straight for his evil foe. Remgara's most trusted men were no match for Erik, and he flew through them with little struggle. Finally, Erik would be able to avenge his father's death.\n \"Lord Remgara,\" Erik started, \"You are a murderer, a rapist, an evil being,\" Erik raised his sword towards the man on the throne, \"It is time for you to answer for your crimes against humanity! Stand, and let us-\" Suddenly pain flushed over Erik's entire body. He looked down to see a blade piercing his belly. Erik looked up to see that Remgara had effectively stabbed the the hero. \"This...is not...how it was...supposed to...\" Erik collapsed. Remgara stood over his body, and let out a small laugh. \n \"You mortals and your pathetic words,\" Remgara grinned as he went back to his throne, to overlook the destruction and death Erik had brought into his palace. Erik looked up at the his foe, and the last words he ever heard were \"It's a shame. You were doing my bidding the entire time,\" \n\n", "\"This again!\"\nThe exclamation came from the only person in the room. He sat, watching and occasionally laughing at the exploits of the Young Hero who was readily making his way to the Evil Lord. \n\nYou see, this wasn't the first time some Young Hero had tried to make his way through this lair. So He knew there was nothing better to do than wait. It had almost become a hobby to murder them in the most amusing way possible. This time he opted for a classic, the trap door and spike pit method, placed mere paces from the entrance. So he sat and waited.\n\n\"Haha, this is one of the more entertaining ones I've had the privilege to watch\" The Evil Lord said to himself. \"Well he's nearly here, time for the fun part\"\n\nWith his weapon held high and a determined look the Young Hero walked through the door. He seemed weary but confident.\n\n\"Though many before me have failed, I shAALLLLLL\"\n\nOver before he could make it through his first sentence. Next time the Evil Lord would have to choose something that gave him a better show.", "The Evil Lord laughs maniacally as he puts down the copy of \"152 Rules for Being an Evil Overlord\" he was reading as the Hero came in. \n\n\"Now that I can monologue safely,\" he said giddily. \"Did you really think I was that stupid and unprepared? Did you really think after the ways that you defeated my predecessors that I wouldn't be prepared? Joke's on you isn't it?\"\n\nHe motioned for his Chamberlain to approach.\n\n\"Put him on display atop the walls. Hang a sign that says he died while trying to be a show off and paid for it. And arrange a festival to celebrate the victory. Everyone in the Kingdom gets the week off to participate. Also lift the heightened patrols, travel restrictions and curfew.\"\n\n ", "This is bad.\nSomehow he's gotten past the guards, past the sharks, past the genetically engineered dinosaurs (I told them it was a bad idea) and he is going to get here any second. I haven't even practiced my monologue yet.\n\nThere's so much to do, I need to start the display, charged the hologram set up the trap door, open the, oh shit he's here. \n I stay crouched behind the console.\n\n\"There's no use in hiding Dr., I will find you.\"\nJust a few more seconds and the hologram will be charged...there, now just to swing down the monitors and...\n\n\"Ah, I see you hav...\"\n\nWhere did he go? Is he hiding somewhere?\n\"Oh that's a cheap trick, trying to get the drop on me before i can even...\"\n\nThere was a damp squelch from beneath my foot. I look more closely at it.\n\n\"err\" I said, to the rapidly extending pool of blood, coming from behind the drop down monitors.\n\n\"Oh\"\nThis wasn't supposed to happen.\n\n\"You dumb prick, I thought you were smarter than this, I thought this was gonna be my great moment, the day I outsmarted you, proved that I am better. What the hell will the league do if they find out I killed you by accident? I'll be a laughing stock of the whole league.\"\nA brilliant idea entered my mind. What if, I made it look like I did this on purpose. It was brilliant, a masterstroke, even by my standards. Moving quickly, I picked up his discarded rifle, moved over to the door and started firing across the room. I can't just aim wildly, this has to look authentic.\nI spent the ammo, and moved into the area that I had recently sprayed and fired at the wall, forming a path to the monitors.\nExcellent, this place looks like a real battle, took place. It's not how Id like to have to have defeated him, but it's better than killing him by accident.\n\nThat, I just won't stand for.", "He killed him. My brother and I had journeyed through deserts, mountains, and season upon season. We fought entire armies, solved riddles and problems with nobody to help us along the way, just the two of us.\n\nWe finally arrived at his lair. My brother was about to speak the three words that would strike fear into the heart of that killer, that kidnapper, that dark sorcerer. \"It's-a me, Mario!\" \n\nBut it was too late. Bowser killed him instantly. And now, I, Luigi, must punish him for his badness. Rest in peace my brother. I will avenge you.", "The Dread Sorcerer Vorhaven rested his head in his hand and sighed heavily. This was not how things were supposed to go.\n\nThe robed neophyte Apprentice, who had been standing over the Champion's body so triumphantly, now started to look nervous. The bloody dagger in his hands drooped uncertainly. \n\n\"...My lord?\" he managed, with some stammering. \"The, uh, the interloper is slain, I have-\"\n\n*Do you understand how much effort you have wasted?* Vorhaven's rasping voice carried an undertone like the buzzing of carrion flies within his dark robes and armour. *How much time I put into these prophecies?*\n\n\"My lord? This was... He was the Champion of Ravenwood, come to vanquish... I thought-\"\n\n*I very much doubt you are capable of thought.* A lazy flick of Vorhaven's wrist, and the Apprentice was pinned spread eagle against the far wall. *Or you may have* thought *about how some grinning blockhead of a jumped - up cowherd could possibly be a threat to me.*\n\n\"The- the sword...\" the Apprentice's voice was choked now. \"The prophe-\"\n\n*The prophecy I wrote almost a hundred years ago, about a blade of evil's bane which these ignorant peasants were so willing to believe could defeat me with an enchantment that makes it glitter.* Vorhaven stood from his throne of skulls and obsidian and strode toward the Apprentice just slowly enough for maximum menace. *What if they try something desperate now? Like poison my food? Where do you think the beef comes from?*\n\n\"I- My lord, I'm sorry, I just wanted to serve-\"\n\n*Oh, you'll serve.* Vorhaven paused at body of the late Champion and gave it a nudge with the toe of his clawed iron boot. *It isn't all theatrics, you know. These old bones are getting very worn. That dead lug had nothing between his ears, but iron in his limbs. And naturally, the slayer of the Dark Lord will assume a leadership role among the people.*\n\n\"Lord?\" coughed the Apprentice. \n\nVorhaven turned to the Apprentice and raised a bony hand, green fire rising from his palm.\n\n*I'll have to substitute another body. Perhaps the poor hero sustained some injuries in the battle, emerging victorious, but unrecognisable...*\n\nThe green fire extended toward the Apprentice's face. He managed to scream, but not for long." ]

[ 2, 2, 3, 5, 8, 18 ]

[ "1410635718", "1410664309", "1410618349", "1410622671", "1410630046", "1410622887" ]

[ "\"Let's get down to business.\" \n \nI could feel a man standing behind me, as I stood in a line of other guys I didn't know. I was in the center. Five of us. Why were we so scared? As I turned my head; a hooded figure, no visible weapons. Just a voice that snowed us in, making us feel like little boys wanting our mommy again as we were cold and lost. I could see hands and knees shaking in the line. Not as much as the girls in chairs in front of each of us, but enough to be noticeable. What the hell was going on? \n \n\"To defeat, the huns.\" \n \nHuns? I called Jenny my hun. I saw pale faces become paler in line as I realized each of these guys probably had the same pet name for their girlfriends, wives, lovers. Jenny. Was this Jenny in front of me? Were all of these guys standing in front of their 'huns'? If so, how did we get here, in this damp and musty cellar? Minimal lighting. Leaking, dripping, rats scurrying across the floor. A big cellar, at that. Shaking girls covered with black hoods. Was this a nightmare? \n \n\"Did they send me daughters when I asked for sons?\" \n \nHe walked around front of us. Walking the line between the crying girls and us, the top of his hood gestured toward our groins. With hands in wraps like a mummy behind his back, he slowly walked with perfect posture aside from his head movements. Was he questioning our manhood? Why were we unbound yet unable to move? Why could I see nothing but blackness, and not a man within the hooded body? And what was this cold yet burning feeling I was starting to feel? \n \n\"You're the saddest bunch I ever met.\" \n \nI could see the tears streaming beyond the hoods of the girls. I could also see watery eyes among my fellow men in line, some aching to leak as much as the pipe behind us. Some did spring leaks. Then they all did. Except me. My eyes didn't waver; the room and situation were all clear to me with nothing to drown my view of it. Everyone in the room was wailing now, except me and the hooded figure, still walking around the lot of us men. \n \n\"But you can bet before we're through.\" \n \nHis constant circling of us was mesmerizing. I felt something fill my grasp aside from the feeling of my own skin from clenched fist. A handle of some sort. Hardly looking down as my eyes seemed content with the streaming tear show, I could barely make out the sharpness of a blade with such dim lighting. A machete maybe. No. A sword. The weight gave it away. I got hold of my eyes again and looked around at my fellow men. Still crying. Still shedding tears like the girls in front of them. Were they even real men? \n \n\"Mister, I'll- make a man- out of *you*.\" \n \nHe stopped his walk behind me. I could feel his cold breathing upon my neck. As he spoke those words, he tapped me on the shoulder and the cold burning grew stronger. My arm swung in all directions. Quickly. Smoothly. Proficiently. Beautifully. When it stopped, the smell of fresh blood mingled with the musty smell of the cellar. I was the only one left standing in line, and the girls had stopped crying. All of them.", "I can't take it anymore. \n\nI run through the halls of my dark house, being the last one in my family to be alive. Well, except for *her*.\nI don't know how it happened, but she suddenly just snapped, like a rubber band being pulled too far. She murdered our parents that night, and I've been stowing away in my room ever since, hoping for the right time to leave and grab a gun from the safe in the room across the house. Tonight was that night.\n\nI had finally reached the room, fumbling with the door knob and looking over my shoulder every chance I could. Finally, it unlocked (being locked previously due to safety reasons) and I quickly entered and shut the door behind me, locking it again, though it wouldn't have done any good.\n\nAs I fumbled for the light switch in the dark, I felt the hair on the back of my neck start to prickle, and that's when I heard it.\n\n\"Let it go...Let it go...\"\n\nThe blood drained from my face as the sickly sweet voice reached my ears. I turned slowly to find the Russian Civil War rifle aimed at me, its bayonet shimmering in the moonlight coming from the window. \n\n\"Can't hold it back anymore!\" was all I heard before the point was buried deep within my abdomen, spewing blood and gore out in front of me. Then, the trigger was pulled, blowing everything that was left inside onto the wall. I slumped to the ground, the life quickly leaving my body. My head was lulled upward by the hand pulling my hair, then a soft, \"The cold never bothered me anyway...\" was whispered into my ear. Those were the last words that I would ever hear in my quickly-fading life. " ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1410665607", "1410662147" ]

[ "My Dearest Evelyn\n\n(Wait shit, that's not it)\n\nMy beautiful Amanda\n\n(Fuck. No... Ah hell)\n\nTo my one and only\n\n\nThe memories and journeys we have taken together are ones I will treasure forever and I will not degrade you by trying to described such valued moments. However, I value your thoughts so much, I want to hear you tell the tale so that I may better understand how truly special those moments were. Also a picture of yourself with your name and date of birth attached to carry around with me forever. And also a list of your likes/dislikes, hobbies and some such so I can read it whenever my heart yearns for you and I wish to remember your smiling face (Shit did she have teeth? Wait, of course she did. Probably). Not that I could ever forget my sweet. My longing to see you and see your dark/blonde/red hair again and hold you and tell you what a beautiful girl (... Man?) you are.\n\nYours forever", "Dear...\n\nTo my darling...\n\n*sigh*\n\nTo whom it may concern,\n\nIt might not seem like it in this letter, but I truly love you. How do I know? You ever just get that feeling? That weight in your gut that makes you realize something profound and wonderful about nature? Something like that.\n\nI don't know how long I've known you, but it must have been for quite a while. Maybe we're married. Maybe we just met. Maybe you've died and I'm coping. There are many maybes. But one certainty - love, in this case. I am sure of love.\n\nI don't remember much now. Things are hard. Things shouldn't be so hard. But loving you, or at least how I imagine loving you must be, is easy.\n\nI have always feared the future. It is dark. It is lonely. It is everything unknowable. But I am less afraid now, with you, with the thought of you. Please, if you read this, if there is a you to read, know that you are this special to me.\n\nI remember holding hands. I don't know why. I don't know with who. But as of right now it's my happiest memory.\n\nSincerely,", "To the one I love:\n\nI write today with nothing but love for you. I know our love was brief. I know it was long ago... But my love persists even today. \n\nI have tried to remember the first time I ever saw you, but cannot. Was it day or night? Was it in the winter or the summer? I tried to remember whether your skin glimmered in the moonlight or whether your scent made my heart skip a beat, but I just can't. Yet, the thought of you, my dear, fills my heart to its seams.\n\nOh, darling. I want to remember running my fingers through your hair as I loved you once, but I can't seem to remember how each strand felt between my hands. I want to remember what it felt like to lean in and kiss your lips as we said goodbye-- were they soft, like and angel's lips, or were they rough and reassuring? Did I stand on my tiptoes to reach you or did you lean down to reach me? My mind has erased all of these memories of you, yet I long for your touch and your embrace. \n\nOh, dear. Why is it that, try as I might, I cannot remember knowing who you are-- or even what I loved about you-- but my heart cries out for you? \n\nI suppose what I'm asking, darling, is whether you want to remind me. ", "Dear...est Love,\n\nI will always be inspired by your beauty, which is on the inside and probably on the outside as well. I think of you often, and the color of your eyes, which I probably see in the world around me every day. How I wish we were together. Oftentimes, we are apart so long I nearly forget your face, as though it were a half remembered dream. The sweet sound of your name rings through my mind, like a song I have stuck in my head and can't remember the words to. Please, give my regards to any surviving parents you may still have. My heart burns for you, like a phoenix. I count every moment until we meet again. It is my sincerest wish to have you shout my name and embrace me as you recite your full name and retell the story of how we met, for I cannot experience either of those enough.\n\nYours always,\n\nAthiktos" ]

[ 2, 3, 3, 5 ]

[ "1410786642", "1410740637", "1410742345", "1410740538" ]

[ "She was fed up. She was angry. But, most of all, she was tired. Tired of waiting for tomorrow, tired of the lonely nights, tired of the early mornings. He never got home before she went to bed, and was gone long before she awoke. He worked two jobs, and still she had to wait tables at the worn down diner, only to just make rent. She was sick to her stomach of his excuses, and when they made love, she could feel in her soul that his mind was somewhere else. \n\nShe knew that life would be tough for them, two high school grads who ran away together to escape abusive homes. She knew their options would be limited, but he promised her, PROMISED HER, \"One day we will live the lives we should, I'll provide for you, you can stay at home and paint, like we always wanted.\" She always believed that this would happen, but she was young, and now at 30 her head was spinning more than when she was 18. \n\nOn Thursday morning she woke to the empty bed again. Her bags were already packed. Her cousins husband was a doctor, and said she would take her in, even pay for her to go to school to get her nursing degree. She left the note on the kitchen table. She locked the door behind her, took a deep breathe. Finally she was free.\n\n\n\n\nHe strolled to his apartment building happier than he had been in months, it was after all, the first time he got home before dark in almost 10 years. He busted his butt at work and finally, FINALLY, got his promotion. He took is bonus and went straight to the jeweler, finding the biggest fattest diamond he could buy. When he got to the apartment he wasn't surprised it was empty. Jules was still at the diner, and he couldn't wait to tell her she wouldn't have to go back. He found the note on the table, and read. With tears in his eyes he fell to his knees, and wept.", "I…I can't believe this. He thought as he scrolled through the pictures that were sent to him on his phone. He had been in the hospital for a few days, recovering from a collapsed lung that nearly killed him. The only bright side of those days were the visits his girlfriend would pay him after work. She always smiled that smile that lit up the room and made the whole ordeal bearable. He even looked forward to seeing her afterwards to make up for lost time. His eyes welled up with tears as he scrolled from picture to picture. He saw the birthmark on her inner thigh and there was no doubt it was her. The text came from his best friend, who included the message \"I'm so sorry. Call me\" at the end. \n\n\"What the fuck is this shit?\" He screamed into the phone\n\n\"You need to calm down man. Remember that site I told you about? The one with the cheating ex's? That's where I found those. It was posted this morning. Look I'm sorry bud, but I thought it would be better that you knew.\" The line fell silent for a minute. \"I'm coming over. Please don't do anything. You there?\" He wasn't.\n\nHe didn't know how to feel. Sad? Was he the victim here? Would he be pitied by his friends? Is that why Sam wanted to come over? To tell him everything was going to be ok, that there were other fish in the sea? No. He refused. He wouldn't be the fool in this relationship. He would confront her and let her know what he thought. He stopped his car a few blocks from her house to regain his composure and change his tear soaked shirt.\n\nShe answered the door, hair still wet as if she came out of the shower. \"Hey. I was just going to see you?\" She leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek. He grabbed her shoulders to stop her.\n\n\"Where did you go yesterday?\" His voice was cracking and his stare was grave. \n\n\"I came home. I told you I had an early shift today. What's wrong?\"\n\nHe stared at her for a moment. \"Well, why aren't you at work then?\"\n\n\"I had to take the day off.\" She paused nervously. \"Something happened.\"\n\n\"I know. Sam sent me the pictures.\" \n\n\"You know?\" She was puzzled for a moment and then the realization that he took pictures hit her. She slumped to the ground sobbing uncontrollably. \"I…I feel so dirty. I spent all day…\"\n\n\"You should feel dirty.\" His voice was scalding. \"I can't believe you would do that to me! To ME! After all we've been through and all I've told you I can't believe you would do this.\" He tried to gather his thoughts for a moment while she looked at him bewildered. \"We're done. I'll drop your shit off later. Don't call me again.\" He turned his back to her and left, slamming the car door as he got in. She ran after him asking him to wait, to let her explain. When she reached the street his car was down the street. She covered her face and fell to the ground, weeping hysterically.\n\nThe neighbors that saw the incident tried to console her. They brought her inside and waited for her to calm down. She told them she just wanted to be alone and when they were gone she went into the bathroom and sat in the tub as it filled, still dressed in the clothes she was going to go see him in. She had spent the day trying to wash away the feeling of being dirty; scrubbing herself till her skin was red and the water was dyed pink. \n\nThey told her nothing would feel right for a long time afterwards when she was at the precinct completing the rape kit examination. They offered counseling but she declined, all she wanted was a sense of normalcy and to be at home. She had called her boss from the precinct and was given the whole week to sort everything out. During the hours in the tub, she decided that she would try to put it behind her, that she wouldn’t allow one miserable human being to bring her down. And if she ever needed it she would have the support of her boyfriend.\n" ]

[ 3, 15 ]

[ "1410823870", "1410816290" ]

[ "After pacing back and forth for exactly nine minutes and sixteen seconds, you finally stop and look around. Glancing down, you see you're still clutching your cell phone in your sweaty palm. A torrent of fear, dread, anxiety, panic, depression and slight hunger crashes relentlessly against your chest. This has been going on for nine minutes and fifteen seconds. You can't breathe. You can't think. You feel like eating some chips but most of all you feel like screaming until someone hands you a large cold glass of lager because maybe drinking away problems \n\n\nYou were in trouble.\n\n\nOh yes.\n\n\nYou nervously unclench your hand though it isn't easy at this point, the joints locked in their position. When you finally pry your hand apart, you see the damage as be done, not undone as you had been childishly hoping. The text had been sent to the wrong person. It happens from time to time and usually the damage is nothing, people understand that mistakes happen all the time. People get confused or fingers slip, no big deal right? Not for you. You had just sent your ex-girlfriend a rather heated rant about her when it had meant to go to your mate, Justin. \n\n\nYou and Jen had broken up a week ago, she had burrowed your new car to go down to the local pub. On the way there, she wound up hitting a lorry and managed to scratch the side of it pretty badly. Since she was unemployed, the damage had to be paid by you, and while you had a decent job teaching at the local university, the pay was rubbish. The whole indecent may have an accident, and rather minor, it was the final straw to break the camel's back. You and Jen had a massive fight that night, you called her names, she threw glasses, you complained about her mother, she mocked your new haircut, you called her some names, and she left.\n\n\nSo to cheer yourself up, you took some time off and planned to go up North for a few days to clear your head. Justin said he'd tag along and you'd both have a great time. But as you were texting with Justin, both of you pointing out Jen's flaws and horrid habits, you ended up texting her by mistake. Since you had broken up, it could have seemed harmless but Jen's mother was a rather frightening woman who also happened to be an officer of the law, which would explain why most of your paycheck goes to paying off rubbish tickets and fines. You and Justin were just messing around, talking about the trip and Jennifer and now you were losing your mind.\n\n\nBits of the big fight were starting to come back.\n\n\nYour stomach churned as you remembered her marching outside to your new car and keying it, adding to the damage she had done. You had to see if she had checked her texts or not. Or if her mother had. That was even worse! Quickly texting the situation to Justin, you waste no time running outside and jogging down to where Jen would be. Would you apologize or would another fight push you two further apart? As you ran, you saw her mother was calling. A wild shudder threatened to rip your spine to shreds. Did you dare let it go or would you bravely pick it up?\n\n\n\"H-hello?\" You answer as you slow your jogging to dodge the elderly couple in front of you, taking their sweet time. Before her mother can begin to shew you out, you make the first strike. \"I'm so so sorry, truly I am.\" You ramble, out of breath. \n\n\n\"You have some nerve!\" The woman's shrill voice cried back.\n\n\n\"It was an accident, I'm sorry!\" You finally get across the crosswalk and are almost there. \"She's the one who left, I couldn't stop it.\" You point out as you stop dead in your tracks. The phone slips from your hand and the hunger fades away, despite the smell of fish and chips coming from the pub across the street. The laughter of drunken men and women fades away as you push the iron gate open and step onto the solemn property. Quickly you snag the phone before you fully enter. Once back on track, your heart slows down. Where could Jennifer be? Was she ready for round two? Or maybe you'd both share a laugh over a pint and reminisce? \n\n\nAs you stare into space, someone approaches you. \"You're late, Devon.\" She says. It's Jen's mother and you smile to her, mostly at your idiocy. \n\n\n\"Sorry, sorry. I know the text was awful but it wasan accident. I was hoping to talk to Jen and maybe work things out. I mean it's silly to throw three years away over a silly accident.\" You shrug and look around. \"I thought she'd be here by now, ready to punch me in the arm and call me a pillock or something.\"\n\n\nThe woman's eyes water and she looks down at your hand. \"That's her cell phone, Devon.\" She pointed out. \"You know the crowd shouldn't be kept waiting. It's due to rain soon too, she loved the rain. She would have loved today.\" She said and reached down for your hand. You give her a look of confusion. \"Her funeral, it's today.\" She began to lead you down the gray pathway. \"She got into a car accident last week, she didn't make it.\"\n\n\n\"No, I just texted her. I mean I didn't mean to, we broke up last week.\"\n\n\n\"Devon, she died, she died looking at your text.\" Her mother said, voice wavering between pity and agony. \"Please, come speak. It's okay...\"\n\n\nBut it wasn't okay. How could it be okay? You had just texted her something awful meant for someone else. How could her mother just brush it off? You had to make it right, you shook your head and ran ahead of her and found Jennifer. \"Jen! There you are, that text was a joke, I know you didn't mean to walk out on me, but I want you back. I'm sorry. I know you're sorry. I'm sorry too. I'm so sorry, please...just come home.\" You fell to your knees as you looked down at her white casket, your selected family and friends just watch as you struggle to accept the reality that has been created by a stupid mistake.", "Drip, drip, drip. \n\nThe flooding had, by now, obviously taken control of the town, forcing residents out of their Netflix-couch-potato-inattentive lifestyles. The unbelievers, the new spiritualistic good-for-nothings were trembling now.\n \nHah!\n\nLet them suffer. Drip, drip.\n\nBut, I had to get out of my basement, there were electrical hazards here, I realize with a start. Food and clean and clear water are necessary, they would lift my spirits, make my plans stick in the fore front of my brain. Longer. God. Darkness is nothing to fear.\n\nDrip, drip, drip.\n\nMy splashing arm, it hit my face with more cold water, it was the worst on the face, colder. Oh no, I guess not, I had hit myself. Why? My leg, why couldn’t I move. My leg? It’s under the water, I can feel it! \n\nThose indolent, lackadaisical layabouts were to blame!\n\nDrip, drip, drip.\n\nJesus Christ. \n\nDrip, drip, drip. \n\nShould I just go under? NO! I have not… I haven’t… I can’t, I have not had my fill of life. God! I give myself over to your divine will, PLEASE!\nDrip, drip, drip. \n\nI hate you, I hate you. Please. Ahnn. No.\n\nSplash.\n\nDrip, drip, drip.\n\nGasp, gasp. Gasp. How many times? How many times have I done that? Threatening my own life, was a sin, and I am righteous, I am good. I shouldn’t die like this. It’s not right. \n\nDrip, drip, drip.\n\nDrip, drip, drip.\n\nBut Lord I couldn’t stop.\n" ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1410836742", "1410837551" ]

[ "The light on the porch was a glow in a sickly yellow, casting a long monstrous shadow, long and lanky etched with sharp unrecognizable features of a figure jingling a set of keys. He tried the key over and over again, stabbing at the circled lock in utter confusion. He couldn’t quite understand why it would not fit, feeling confused and overwhelmed he headed for the back entrance. A tired head hung low in its over coat collar, shoulders slumped, hands and keys now in the pockets, as he made his way along the side of the brown stucco house. Once reaching the wooden gate he reached eagerly over it and sprang the latch revealing a well-manicured lawn, patio furniture leaning against its table and a shiny stainless steel barbeque for weekend cook outs. He spied what he was searching for, the double pained sliding glass door. Relief sank into his weary body.\n\nHe didn’t want to wake her, if he didn’t have to. It had been a long day at the office; overtime had taken its toll the past few months. It was almost like they were strangers, in fact he couldn’t even recall the last time he had seen her, let alone spent time together. He would wake just as the sun was rising, roll out of their double bed, jump in the shower, dress and gone for another day of insurance adjusting. \n\nHe longed to be near her, sleeping beside her long lean body, smelling that fragrant fruity shampoo she used, her subtle breathing in his ear, the thought of it made his eyes mist with delight.\nHe reached for the long handle and gave it a gentle tug, locked. How and why would she lock him out of his own house in the span of twelve hours? Could she be that angry at him for his neglect of her needs? He was doing this for them so they could succeed in life, going on those exotic tropic vacations she loved to take yearly, buying her the kitchen gadgets she loved but never used. For a brief moment of anguish and anger he felt like picking up one of the landscaping rocks and heaving it through the patio doors and then realized it was his own foolish mistakes that had brought them to this point.\n\nLooking to his left he saw a small opening leading to the laundry room in the basement window. Warmth washed over him, he would have to crawl in but at least he would get in and not have to bother waking her and possibly having a dramatic fight on his hands. He bent down on his hands and knees in the moist garden bed a slowly shoved the window aside. “Ah, victory” he whispered into the dark night.\n\nHe turn his body around , entering the dark musty room feet first, feeling with the toe of his brown Ascot Derby shoes, till finally it caught the laundry soap box. Soft and crumpling the more he applied his weight but better than cracking his skull on the cement floor below. As he squeezed the rest of his of himself through the window his other foot found stable ground allowing him to balance himself into the room without any further disturbance. The dark in front of him remained thick and the light from the window only glared off the white machines behind him, he would have to grope his way out of the laundry room. If only he could remember where the light switch was but this room didn’t belong to him, this was her domain; he barely came down to the laundry room. \n\nHands held high and out front, he began inching forward. The ironing board stopped him from going forward but the wall emerged from behind it. Progress being made he thought. Foot step by foot step he used the wall until he reached the wooden door leading to the upstairs landing. Carefully he turned the knob and with a click he was home. Removing his shoes he tip toed of the linoleum stair well and turned the corner it the living room. Odd how rooms look unfamiliar at night he thought, so still and strange. \n\nTaking his coat off him, he draped it over one of the high back chairs and pivoted towards the hall. The cushioned carpeting felt splendid on his sore feet, like walking of a mush, sinking with every step. Creeping down the hall he peered into the bathroom, contemplating a shower but eventually settling for the comfort of his bed. He listened to the still night and was thankful to be here, with her, getting closer to her. Motioning for the door he swung it open gently. There she lay curled in a ball with those slender feet sticking out the end of the blanket, shining like porcelain in the dappled moonlight streaming through the sheared windows. \n\nInching closer he reached for her pale straw colored hair swept carelessly over her face. To his horror the blankets moved and as she reached to pull them back, he saw the lump that lay in his spot. A Dark, sweaty lump that breathed heavy and sharp, laying there next to his wife, his girl, his lover. Anger swelled and pitched like a frothing foaming stormy sea with in him. His stomach churned a bitter acid which crept up to his throat. He would kill him, he would kill them both. \n\nSarah, open her eye partially, something was wrong she could sense it. A shadow stood at the side of her bed breathing heavy and labored. Is this a dream she pondered? Maybe that phase between sleep and awake, night terrors she recalled hazily. Suddenly, a warm sensation crawled towards her from Brad’s side of the bed and quickly she was aware that this was no dream. Startled she bolted up right, covering herself with the duvet, sucked in rapidly the air around her and let out a blood curdling scream, breaking the tranquility of the night.\n\n“BRAD…BRAD!” She bellowed closing her eyes tight.\n\n“What, what is it?” he said dazed. The he saw the deranged man next to the bed. Jumping out of the bed he looked around the dark for something to beam this guy with, anything.\n\n“WHO THE FUCK ARE AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?” Brad demanded.\n\n“You bitch,” the man hissed, eyes glowing with hatred as he loomed over her, “how could you do this to me?” \n\n“BRAD…BRAD!”\n\nBrad locked in on it in the corner on the T.V. stand, there sat his miniature golden bat from college and award he had received for the most home runs in one season. Leaping for it the cool heavy object curled in his hands perfectly. He ran toward s the man swinging, his breath ragged with every step and swing.\n\n“GET OUT! GET AWAY FROM HER YOU BASTARD! “He bellowed with each swing some connecting others, glancing off the man’s arm as he raised it to protect himself.\n\nHe ran back through the hallway, stumbling and horrified by what he had just witnessed. He darted past the furniture and reached the dead bolted door. Struggling he could hear the wind whipping behind him with every swing of the bat. Frantically he twisted the bolt and the knob at the same time wrenching it open and leaped from the top stairs on to the lawn. He would leave her, that traitor bitch, he would leave for now but he would be back, oh yes indeed, he would be back. Running down the road the dark figure disappeared into the night.\n\nBrad ran back to the bedroom to find Sarah with her cell phone in hand describing the asshole who just broke into their home. She was in tears and looked desperate as he sat down beside her, and pulled her close to him.” They’re on their way” she gulped. He held her in one hand, and clung to the golden bat with the other.\n\nTen minutes later the police were combing through Brad and Sarah’s two bedrooms, split level home, taking the coat and shoes into evidence. Asking the same routine questions until a plain clothes detective arrived. He nodded at the officers and made his way toward the couple who were hanging off each other for comfort.\n\n“Detective Lloyd”, he said handing his card to Brad, “heard you guys had quite the scare tonight”.\n\n“Yeah,” Brad said taking the card and throwing on the table next to the couch, “did you guys catch the asshole yet?”\n\n“No, he will be in hiding for a while I imagine”. He glanced at his partner that held up the trench coat and shook his head as to say yes that’s him. “Well if he comes around again, let me know”.\n\n“Hold on a minute”, Brad barked,” what do you mean if he comes around again”.\n\nThe detective looked at the shaken woman and leaned on the wall, took a deep breath and sighed. “Look, I’ll be honest with you; the guy who attacked you both tonight is an escaped loony, from Ashbury Asylum. Around ten years ago he came home from a business trip, hadn’t heard from his wife in over two weeks and came home early to surprise her, only he was the one surprised. I guess she had, had enough with good ole Jerry and was screwing around on him for some time with his best friend. Changed the locks to his house, put his shit in storage and thought she would deal with him when he got back. Well he got back, at night found away into the house and found them in his bed sleeping. Killed both of them with a butch knife from the kitchen, stabbed them too many times to count. Called it a crime of passion since Jerry never could remember what happened that night. I’ve been told by the doctors that he tries to relive that night, every night hoping to come home and just be with his wife.”\n\nBrad and Sarah stared at the detective for a minute; no word could express how close it might have been for them.\n“Just keep your doors locked and your windows, he crawled through the open basement one.”\n\nIn the dark, by a tree in the park a lanky shade hid amongst the trees, looking towards a white vinyl sided house. She must be a sleep my little darling as he noticed the dark windows. I’ll try not to wake as I go in; yes I will just sneak into bed and hold her like old times.\n", "\"We just slipped. He came by unexpectedly to drop off a hat I'd left in his car. I had just eaten a couple of bananas and you know me, I just left the peels lying on the ground. I know you've said not to eat in bed, but I was just feeling lazy. Err his clothes? Oh uh well his pants got caught on the door handle and he took his shirt off to cover himself. I just got out of the shower so I was naked anyways.\"\n\nThis writing prompt courtesy of my girlfriend. Still can't believe she would eat bananas in bed after I specifically told her not to.", "I know it looks bad but please let me try to explain,\n\nI was watching you on the news, on CNN about a Malaysian plane,\n\nThe flight was 370, said it vanished without a trace,\n\nSo now you understand exactly, this expression on my face.\n\nWhere have you been, Jim? Everyone was worried sick about you,\n\nNo phone calls, no texts not even an e-mail either, too.\n\nI mean what did you expect, me to just sit here and wait?\n\nEveryone thought you were dead, God, this reminds me so much of \"Cast Away.\"\n\nSeriously, you like Helen Hunt, you know she didn't try to hurt Tom Hanks.\n\nShe was just trying to make something happen out of a situation that stinks.\n\nI'm just like her, you get it, your plane crashed it must have, right?\n\nI even told you before you left, you should have caught another flight.\n\nThis wouldn't have happened, we woulda had time to prepare,\n\nGet married and have children, start a new life in Delaware.\n\nJust like we planned, remember, we had it all laid out,\n\nThat was what this whole trip of yours was all about...\n\nGet paid, go to Dover, get some part-time jobs, start a family -- buy a dog?\n\nBuy a boat and go fishing in the bay for lobsters in the early morning fog?\n\nIt woulda been great, but then you had to make that trip, honey,\n\n*\"OH I GOTTA GO TO MALAYSIA, ITS IMPORTANT FOR OUR NEST EGG MONEY!\"*\n\nWELL NOW LOOK AT ME, left all alone worried sick!\n\nBut, deep down I knew though that- \n\n**I'm 3 hours late, bitch! Now can you get off that other man's dick!?**\n\n\n", "\"What's going on here?\" I demanded. I had returned home from a business trip early, only to find my husband in bed with another person.\n\n\"Mommy's home!\" my five-year-old daughter exclaimed from the bed. She was wearing one of my best pillowcases as a cape.\n\n\"There was a thunderstorm, so she wanted to sleep in here with me,\" my husband explained sheepishly. He had a bedsheet tied around his own neck, also approximating a cape. \"We wanted to practice being brave, so we are playing superheroes.\"\n\nI smiled. Best husband ever.", "They were in bed together again. \n\nI have to admit that I didn't mind. I enjoyed watching them together. No jealousy from me, just the vicarious pleasure of watching them together. Limbs entwined, his face against my wife's sleep warm body. \nEver since he started living with us, they would sleep together, perhaps two, perhaps three times a week. \n\nI loved to watch them. The only rough part was that he would never let me join them when they were together. To be honest though, I didn't mind. All I felt was love. \n\nAnd then it was over. He'd finished feeding. ", "\"But...but why are you naked?\" \n\n\"Look, Tim I think we really need to be mature about this!\"\n\n\"Look,\" Tim began, \"I can believe he tripped over the step in our room while you were looking for your copy of 50 Shade of Grey under the covers. I can even buy that he fell in the bed with you and twirled around until you were tangled in the blankets and sheets. It's awkward, but believable. But why on Earth were you both naked?\"\n\n\"Well...I was going to take a shower so I was in the bathroom, naked and I had to use the toilet before I took my shower. I wanted something to read, so I slipped out to grab this from under the covers.\" \n\nShe held up the book, a small dent appearing on it from the accidental rough-housing.\n\n\"Look man—\"\n\n\"Hansel, stay out of this!\" she snapped.\n\n\"Damnit Mary, why is Hansel naked?!\" Tim demanded.\n\n\"...Hansel...is...a nudist?\"\n\nMary spoke, uncertain.\n\n\"Y-yeah...yeah! I'm...a nudist!\" Hansel confirmed.\n\nTim stood there frowning for a moment. Then he smiled.\n\n\"Well that explains that! Come one Mary! Put some clothes on and we can go get some lunch with the Fredricksons!\"\n\nTim walked away and both Mary and Hansel breathed a sigh of relief.\n\n\"That's some husband you got, Mary.\"\n\n\"Hansel, he can *never* find out about us. NEVER.\"\n\nHansel's gaze shifted, \"Yeah, okay. I got it.\"\n\n\"I'm serious,\" Mary said sternly, \"Tim can never know that I'm...I'm...\"\n\nShe lifted up the sheets to reveal a variety of paints and crowbars and a piece of canvas that may or may not have been dedicated on.\n\n\"A modern artist.\"" ]

[ 1, 3, 3, 11, 15, 40 ]

[ "1410880217", "1410854523", "1410860029", "1410861071", "1410843862", "1410843084" ]

[ "The bartender hung up the phone and took a long hard look at the horse that stood in the middle of his small bar. Maybe he should have tried leading it out the way it came without calling animal control. He knew that leaving the bar door open had it's disadvantages but it was hot, the A/C was out, and it was more welcoming to customers on a slow day like today. Now he was stuck with this horse for one hour. Animal control had said to keep it in the vicinity till they arrive. Now the door was closed and the heat was already beginning to build. Or maybe it seemed exaggerated by the thoughts of what the owner, an unreasonably ill tempered man, would think about this situation. Already, he had a day set to quit and probably shouldn't care as much as he did, but it was a feeling he couldn't let go. Sweat began to run down his temples. \n\nThis temperature had to be hard on the horse as well. The bartender, out of care and of not wanting animal control to find a horse passed out from dehydration, filled a pitcher with water for the horse. 'My name's Gary...here's some water'. He felt slightly embarrassed for having introduced himself to the horse but felt it somehow necessary as he was about to spend the next hour with this animal. As he returned to the bar from the table where he placed the pitcher down the front door opened and a couple began to enter. Sometimes things happen in life that only seem to happen in the well ordered environment of movies or television, but somehow cross over into real life and lend it some sense of surrealism. Just as they stepped in, the horse released a rather massive amount of gas and followed it up by defecating on the floor. This was enough to stun them, the couple were trying to process what they had just witnessed. After a moment of exchanges glances, one of the women pulled out their phone, took a picture then both slowly took their leave. \n\n(Back to work.) ", "Paul wasn't very good with animals, it was even on his list of long list of deal breakers when it came to women. Much less beasts of this magnitude. He had really seen it all now. Ten years in this bar and now a horse walks in. Paul had debated calling the owners and tendering his resignation rather then animal control, he wasn't even supposed to be here today.\n\n\"What'd they say?\" came the Australian accent. Paul turned to Jim who sat at his empty bar, save the lone patron and of course, the horse.\n\n\"An hour.\" came Paul's flat reply.\n\n\"Well, that's just lovely isn't it. Gotta love 'em government boys.\" Jim took a long draw on his pint. Paul contemplated the irony coming from a man who usually had his first pint by eleven. What does Jim even do? Paul thought to himself but stayed his tongue once again. \"What you gonna do about this bloke? It's probably against a few of your American laws to actually have a horse IN the bar.\" Jim laughed.\n\n\"Pour it a drink? Tell it a joke? Hell, I could even charge people to ride it? Perhaps that will get someone in here before happy hour. I'll write on the sign, 'come on in and ride a Mustang!' What do you think?\"\n\n\"How do you know it's a Mustang mate?\"\n\n\"You ever see Hidalgo? It looks just like the horse.\"\n\n\"Nah, I never seen't it. At least he's bloody calm for a wild animal. Tell you what, I'll buy it a drink, two Jameson's barkeep!\" Jim thrusted his finger into the air. Paul laughs. \"Seriously mate, two Jameson's, one for me and one for the horse, he looks to be eighteen.\"\n\n\"Twenty-one is the age Jim.\"\n\n\"Right, well, whatever, he seems good for it.\"\n\n\"Fine, but these are going on your tab.\" Paul poured two healthy shots of Irish whisky and set them in front of his two patrons.\n\n\"Cheers, big ears,\" Jim raised the pitch of his voice and in a poor attempt of ventriloquy, \"same goes, big nose.\" He shot back his whiskey. Just then the horse quickly bent slightly to the bar, grabed the shot glass with his mouth, tilted his head up consuming the spirit then spit the glass on the floor. Both Paul and Jim watched then turned to each other, both barely able to believe what just happened.\n\n\"That was fucking AWESOME!\" Jim exclaimed. He still held his empty shot glass. \"Do it again!\" Jim slamed the shot glass on the bar and dug in his pocket. He pulled out his phone and after a few quick swipes, handed it to Paul. \"Get it on video.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"Yeah fucking really. I'm gonna viral video that shit, now do it.\" A couple quick pours of whiskey while Jim slid down next to the horse and they were prepared. \"Okay, ready?\"\n\n\"Yeah, go.\" Paul started the video capture on the smartphone.\n\n\"Cheers, big ears.\" Jim clinked the shot glasses together and again in the same high register, \"same goes, big nose.\" Once again the horse shot his whiskey and spit the glass on the ground. \"Let me see.\" Jim stared at his phone for a moment, \"Ah, this is shit. Let's do it again.\"\n\nThe duo tried different lighting, different angles even Paul's phone before Jim was finally satisfied with the effect. Eight discarded shot glasses lay on the floor at the horses feet.\n\n\"I like this one.\" Jim slurs. Paul wasn't sure if it were actually better or Jim just thought that it was. \"Now, let's see, do you know how to post this?\"\n\n\"Sure.\" Paul walked Jim through the posting process and after a few moments he showed Jim the final product.\n\n\"Brilliant.\" Jim stared at the screen in awe. Just then the door opened revealing two men, clearly the animal control.\n\n\"We're here to see a man about a horse.\" One of the animal control workers stated, both of them snickered at the comment. \"Is this it?\" The man who spoke pointed at the horse.\n\n\"No, that's bloody Gary.\" Jim drunkenly laughed at his own comment.\n\n\"Yeah it is.\" Paul stated. The men escorted the horse out of the bar leaving Paul and Jim alone.\n\n\"Well, that was fun mate, guess I'm back to work.\" Jim got up and staggered out the door.\n\n\"What does that guy even do?\" Paul muttered to himself now alone. \"I kinda miss that horse.\" Paul prepared for happy hour, slightly melancholy and right at five a man in a business suit walked in.\n\n\"What'll it be?\" Paul questioned.\n\n\"I'll have a--\" the business man paused. \"Hey, why the long face?\"" ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1410972688", "1410980314" ]

[ "Shin ran down the alleyway behind El and Ni. As they made their way down the alleyway they made their way up the walls bounding them in. By the time they reached the top of the walls the alleyway came to a dead end.\n\n\"Time for the hard part,\" Shin whispered as he carefully opened the door at the top of the building. El jumped through first as Ni stood watch on the roof. Shin slid into the darkness and watched what happened on the floor below from the rafters.\n\n\"We can do this the easy way or the hard way,\" El shouted in the middle of the floor, sizing up what he had to deal with. Find the Boss's room and take the data disks and get out. However, this place seemed to be a chicken farm.\n\n\"Let's go with the hard way,\" a deep voice came in, chains dragging on the floor. As the two engaged in battle Shin snuck off to the main office.\n\nAs El and the burly man traded blows, chains striking against blade, both countering the each attack, but unable to make any advances against the other in the subsequent counterattack. Shin quickly got the required documents and got back to the floor to see the two still locked in combat. As Shin quickly and quietly backstabbed El's opponent a loud shot was heard from the rooftop, Ni was just getting company. El started to open up one of the cages when Shin interrupted saying, \"I ain't here to save the fucking chicken.\" and pulled El by his hood as he jumped up the cages to make it to the exit.\n\nAs they made it outside Ni was just finishing taking care of his visitors and the three made their way back to their main base.\n\n----------------------------------------------------\nSo, uh, if you guys want to give me feedback that would be greatly appreciated.\n\nI tried to write a completely unrelated story with just barely any background at all for how the writing prompt would fit into it. Also, anime physics.", "Why did the chicken cross the road?\n\n*Why* did the chicken cross the road?\n\n***WHY*** did the chicken cross the road?\n\nYou're probably thinking- \"to get to the other side\", aren't you?\n\n... Aren't you?\n\nI assure you it's not that simple\n\nThen again, why even believe me?\n\nThe logic of the joke never stood\n\nI could Wikipedia why it was ever there to begin with\n\nBut have you ever really thought about it?\n\nI mean \"really\" thought about it?\n\nWhy would an entire culture adopt this joke?\n\nWhy is it a slogan?\n\nWhy do we just.. accept it?\n\nI could guide you through answers\n\nOr I could let you think about it..\n\nI ain't here to save the fucking chicken", "As I was walking down the street I heard screams coming from my neighbors house. I ran up to the door and swiftly kicked it in. Upon entering I saw my beautiful female neighbor laying bare naked on the floor crying. I had to take a peek at the goods, she was absolutely stunning. Next to her was a chicken quickly bleeding out from the neck. .She said she was cutting tomatoes and accidentally dropped the knife into the chicken who happened to be walking under her. I looked at her with a stern face and said \"baby, I ain't here to save the fucking chicken...\"", "\"Call me crazy but I told this chicken,\n\nRather than eat you, you should be a regular civilian.\n\nUntil then, drumsticks killed, and I'm to blame at,\n\nKFC, sprite gets spilled and I--\n\ntake my plate back \n\nTo the place that I got my wings at\n\nGive ev-er-y foul who got ate that \n\npumped up hormone and meat to make fat\n\nall of the kids that ate 'em\n\n*I ain't here to save the fuckin' chicken,*\n\n*but if a single rooster out of a thousand million,*\n\n*who are goin' through a grinder,*\n\n*feels they can jump off the crate, that's great!*\n\nIt's payback! \n\nHuman beings fallin' way back\n\non the food chain\n\nTurn victims into victors, eatin' loose grain,\n\nstraw, GMO corn, we WILL win!\n\nbowlers kill pins, I'm tryin' ta say that\n\nmaybe I need to face facts, I--\n\nTaste that\n\nI ain't nuts for veal\n\nBut they're okay with that\n\nIt's something\n\nAnd I'm still friends with the...\"\n\n\"...I'm friends with the poultry, \n\nthat's onto my plate!\n\nPlease hand me a thigh when, \n\nI'm out on a date!\"\n\nIt helps to hear the actual tune while reading this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpiAC2IOC7s", "The man wore a red poofball hat with a yellow poofball, around his neck a thick yellow scarf was firmly tightened above his red garments, a loose sweater and an even looser and baggier pair of sweatpants. \n\nHis name was Steve...or was it Bill? Nobody remembered, everywhere he went he was known as Gobbels. Gobbels roamed the streets back and forth between his house and the diner his parents owned and worked at. He knew these 2 miles of streets like the back of his hand, unfortunately for Gobbels he was autistic and couldn't find the back of his hand even if his life depended on it. Needless to say it wasn't uncommon for Gobbels to turn up in one of the surrounding neighbor's backyard aimlessly tugging at and crawling through their shrubberies. Having been abandoned at home every day since infancy as his parents were off at work Gobbels regularly spent his days wandering where ever his legs would take him.\n\nAt his mature age of 43, the neighbors were well aware of Gobbels' past and daily escapades in the neighborhood, and most had even had the experience of harbouring him at their home, worried that he had nowhere else to go for the remainder of the day. Once Gobbels had even remained in a neighbor's for over a month, however when the child of the couple caring for Gobbels was potty trained, it dawned upon the couple that Gobbels was the source of the odd watery turds that showed up around the house now and then. At that realisation Gobbels was brusquely returned to his parents. \n\nThis did not sit well with Gobbels father as he told the couple he would simply rather have him put to sleep than foster him once again, the woman of the neighbor couple pleaded with her manly counterpart to at the very least find a safe place for Gobbels, but after much of the bitch's nagging he was fed up and told her \"I ain't her to save the fucking chicken\".\n\nA week later a plump red figure was found drowned in the city's river. It was Gobbels. His parents lived happily ever after for the two following years they still lived until they died in their seventies. The couple divorced and their child became a juvenile delinquent.\n\nSatisfied OP?", "Ms. Henley was at the chalkboard again writing out an equation for the class to solve. \n\nZach leaned back and stretched his feet out to nudge the desk in front of him. Charlotte turned around and gave him a sneer and went back to her assignment. \n\n*Girls are all the same,* thought Zach as he put the finishing touches on his masterpiece. After he finished off the last bullet he put down his pencil, crossed his arms and looked down at what he had created. \n\n*God damnit Roger, can't you drive any faster?* Louis barked as Roger turned the wheel and the car skidded around a corner. \n\n\"You gotta be kidding me honey, I drive any faster and ol' Zack back there is gonna fly right outta that window,\" whined Roger as he nodded his head to the backseat. \n\nZack was in the backseat holding on for his life as the car skidded this way and that. As he slammed into the right side he grimaced and gave out a growl, \"We gotta get to that prison, we gotta stop 'em before they brainwash all those kids, step on it pa!\"\n\nFinally the car screeched to a halt and Zack leapt out, trench coat flying behind him. He dropped his shades over his eyes and marched towards the entrance. As he opened the door, he reached to his side and pulled out his gun. It was nice and black, heavy in the hand, and the sound made him smile when he gave the trigger a pull. \n\nFeathers flew and a scream went out as doors were slammed and bolts were locked. A big bear turned the corner from the hall, all dressed up and breathing mighty heavily. Fear was in his eyes. \n\n\"Now son, you don't want to do this. Just give me the gun and we'll get this all straightened out,\" said the old, gruff Mr. Yogi. \n\n\"But, I've got to put an end to it, sir.\" Replied Zack. The loud clap echoed off the walls as his tail began to wag. \n\nNose to the ground, he began to find the scent. That horrible sent that the cruel old slave-master emitted. He followed it right to the door. It took some whining and scratching before that large cow turned the knob. \n\nAs soon as the door was open, Ms. Henleyetta realized her mistake. She had let the savior in. She rushed backwards as quickly as her fat legs could carry her, blouse barely able to contain her udders. She had the prisoners up against the far wall, well away from the door. She stood in front of them, her splotchy skin almost hiding them all. \n\n*\"Zack, you best sit back down right this instant,\"* she mooed at him. \n\nHe looked around and saw all of them, the dogs and the cats, the raccoon and that bitch of an otter. The crows and the doves. The chicken, Char the chicken, the one he hoped he would still be able to save. \n\nShe had the paper though, she was already too far gone.\n\n*\"Zach, sit down right this instant and get back to the problem. If the chicken laid...\"*\n\nFive minutes later, he sat in front of a desk as a big, hairy man sat opposite, shaking his head and sighing. \n\n\"Why? Mr. Bronson, why would you draw a thing like this?\" asked Mr. Yuri. \n\n\"I don't know, I.. uh.. I.. just guess I was bored,\" replied young Zachary Bronson.\n\n\"Animals,\" muttered Mr. Yori through his great big beard. \"They're just animals.\"\n\nMr. Yori stared at Zach through eyes as hard as steel, \"Your parents have been contacted and they are on the way, I'm afraid I cannot tolerate this behavior young man. You will be suspended for three days, I hope you learn a lesson from this. More behavior like...\"\n\nAs the old bear continued to grunt and growl, Zack looked down at his paws and wondered if there was a way to get out of this. He thought of Charlotte, long since lost. Her feathers were always preened smooth and clean and her cluck was so pretty. He knew a dog like him would never get a chicken like her and it was better that it ended the way that it did, but still..\n\n\"Are you even listening to me,\" bellowed Mr. Yuri. \n\n\"Yessir,\" replied Zach.\n\n\"Well then, just to clarify; what did you say to Ms. Henley?\"\n\n\"I ain't here to save the fucking chicken.\"", "Every few seconds the night sky was lit up by another distant explosion. Helicopters roared overhead. A stopped semi-truck's radio was turned to NPR, \"Tonight's Guest.\" A sudden interruption of the broadcasting alarm system sounded with three loud and sudden sirens. \"This is an Emergency Broadcasting Alert all civilians must evacuate. At 8:45 P.M. a biological weapon was released inside the city limits. All emergency responders please report to Med Zone 1.\" Three loud sires blared. \n\n\n\"And that's all I heard,\" spoke Mike. \"Yep, I was walking along in the traffic jam and heard that over some trucker's radio. Some attack or something.\" Mike reached for his backpack, and pulled out a radio. \"Since then I haven't heard a thing.\"\n\n\n\"Well that is not what I was expecting,\" replied Zipporah. \"I knew we were going to be attacked. I kept telling my husband. He would not listen to me if I paid him to.\"\n\n\n\"Hey now,\" interjected Steve. \"I did listen. I packed my bug out bag just like Mike taught us.\" \n\n\nThe three scanned the horizon. Mike was the quintessential redneck with a Confederate flag worn proudly on the back of his leather coat. Zipporah was an exotic girl from a Caribbean island who had a 'thing' for purple. Steve was a simple guy from the Midwest. Steve and Zipporah had met in college. \n\n\n\"Well aren't you two glad I taught you a thing or two 'bout preppin!\" Mike said with a jovial attitude. \"The rest of the gang should be spilling in soon.\"\n\n\n\"Mike, last night Steve and I walked for a very long time. Traffic was just as congested as you had predicted. I do have a question for you though, how long are we going to stay in this cabin of yours?\" Zipporah spoke with a slight accent, she was wearing jeans and tight-fitting shirt the night of the attack. \n\n\n\"Well Steve and Zipp we're going be waitin' here till the end of the week. Unless anything crazy happens.\" Mike spoke with a southern charm, a hint of racism, and loved the Confederacy. \n\n\n\"You two, I feel like inviting the others was a mistake. But I understand that we all have to stick together.\" Steve was a thinker, a strategist, and spoke very mild-mannered. To himself, \"I just hope my plan works too.\"\n\n\nThe next morning, several visitors made their way to the cabin. Tiffany and Tim arrived with their daughter Suzie. They were the essence of white suburban life. Jamal arrived several minutes later, and was dressed like he just got off work. Jamal worked the night shift for the railroad, and was still wearing his hardhat and neon-safety vest. Later, Carlos and Ximena showed up. They were a beautiful couple from Miami. \n\n\n\"I'm glad ya'll made it in one piece!\" Mike said with a promised smile. \n\n\n\"Well I'm going to tell you there is some shit going down out there you don't want to know about. Ya'll best be stepping away from here.\" Jamal was scared when he spoke. \n\n\n\"Like what Jamal?\" The group spoke in unison. \n\n\n\"Well last night I was working the graveyard at the maintenance shop. We had the radio on and heard about some attack. The radio got quiet. We just thought it was nuts. We still had to get stuff done at the railyard, and we didn't expect anybody to show up. About 2 in the morning, we heard a whistle. Trains don't normally come in till 6, so we this was strange. The locomotive pulled up and the conductor hopped out.\" Jamal got gravely quiet. \n\n\n\"Well get on it with it boy, we need to know!\" Mike demanded more. \n\n\n\"Anyway, the conductor leaps down from the train. He has boils all over his face and puss rolling over the side of his cheeks. He said he seen things. That we'd all be changing. That the attack caused people to get really sick, that they were beginning to turn into something awful.\" \n\n\n\"I do not understand. This just sounds like an ordinary biological attack. I do not hear anything suspicious.\" Zipporah kept interjecting Jamal with scientific reasoning. \n\n\nJamal shouted, \"Don't yall see. We ain't dealing with motherfucking terrorist no more. We got bigger problems. Zipp you should know, aint you from the islands? Yall got this problem before.\"\n\n\nThe group spent the day going through inventory. Quiet thoughts were had by every member of the group. Carlos, Steve, Mike, and Jamal went to look over the weapons. Ximena, Zipporah, Suzie, and Tiffany went to review the food supplies. Tim began looking at maps.\n\n\n", "Yates had gone mad. I expected as much when I came out here. A man can't spend a year in these mountains sniping alone and not be touched.\n\nHis mission was simple - find Wazzi Fared and kill him. But, like most other missions we went on, the facts on the ground were a bit more complex. Fared traveled only at night, only in the mountains, lived only in caves. Not much for a sniper to work with, but Yates did his best. And now it was his turn to go home and my turn to go mad.\n\n\"See those lights?\" he said to me when we met. \"Those lights are from the train\". I nodded, thinking that there were no trains in these mountains.\n\nHe showed me his nest. Hunkering down into shooting position, he took my rifle and motioned for me to lie next to him.\n\n\"I ain't here to save the fucking chicken\" he explained. I had no idea what that meant.\n\n\"There. Right. Fucking. There.\" He fixed my gun in position and pointed for me to look through the scope. It was a cave entrance.\n\n\"That's where Fared is?\" I asked. Yates shook his head.\n\n\"Do I look like a fucking ballerina?\" he asked. Covered in gillie, I had to think not.\n\n\"Yates, maybe it's time for the transfer. Time for you to head down. Why not pack up and move out?\" I more ordered than asked.\n\n\"Two down, none to go.\" he said, grabbing his already packed kit and walking away. \n\nTen days passed and not once in any minute of any of those ten days did I see so much as a fly hovering in front of that cave. I began thinking Yates was more off his rocker than he let on, and he let on pretty heavy. My intel report had Fared two ranges over, in a small village. Which didn't quite sit right, because he never went to villages. It was mid-day so I went to sleep, better to be rested for another evening of green scope night-vision theater.\n\nI woke to the sound of a whistle and rolled toward my gun. *\"Where the fuck is the train?\"* I thought as I turned over. For whatever reason, superstition I suppose, I had left the rifle right where Yates had set it up. Movement. Through the scope it looked like wings flapping. I switched to my binoculars to get a wider look. A man was carrying birds and they fluttered near his head, concealing his face. He spun on one leg, like a pirouette. \n\nFared. It had to be. And suddenly Yates words came back to me. *\"I ain't here to save the fucking chicken\"*\n\nOne shot. Two kills. Counting the chicken.", "What can a single electron do?\n\nAl looked around, Not much I guess. But they say there's more of us. A bunch. We just can't see em all.\n\nHerman phased in, phased out of existence. Listening all the while.\n\nThey say, me and you, we was together at one time. One and the same, said Al. They say we are a part of somethin' else. Somethin' bigger.\n\nWhat about the Dark ones? asked Herman.\n\nThe dark energy?\n\nI'm here, I'm there, I'm all over the place. All at the same time, Al. And yet, nowhere. Everywhere and nowhere. Everything and nothing. You know how I feel? At least you got others - a family. I only got *one*. I spend every waking moment, defending this one measly proton. Al, I can't even *see* him. Do you have any idea how far away he is. Sometimes... sometimes I think there ain't nothin really there. Millions and millions of miles between us. What am I fighting for?\n\nAl thought for a moment. \n\nThey say it's got feathers you know? They say it was once somethin else, somethin much bigger and stronger. Hundreds of millions of years, though, and it's still here. Ain't the same, but it's still here. Fighting. Surviving. Just like you and me. They named it *chicken*.\n\nLet 'em come, said Herman. Let 'em come. I'll fill the void with the last of 'em. I've come this far, Al. We both have. Ain't givin up now are we? I don't know what the hell is out there, what's in store for us. And I'm protecting something I can't even see. But it's what I know. I'll do what I can, Al. I'll fight the battle that I'm put here for. But I ain't here to save no fucking chicken.", "'Hank Thunder, I knew you'd save us!' The children yelled, as the incredibly muscular man punched his way into the burning school. \n\n'No problem kids, just climb on my incredibly ripped back and I'll get you out of here.' He grunted, gathering up the 20 children and leaping out the window. They all landed safely, cheering as Hank stuck the jump.\n\n'Gee Mr Thunder, you sure are swell!' one of the kids said, as the class formed a circle around the action hero, whilst the building continued to burn.\n\n'That I am Timmy.'\n\n'My name is Billy.'\n\n'Whatever George. But there is still something I need to do.' he replied, sweating dripping off him as frenzied squawking could be heard from the inferno.\n\n'Yeah, you need to save our class chicken!' Billy yelled, pointing to the fowl that was dangerously close to becoming part of a Bargain Bucket.\n\n'I'm not here to saving the fucking chicken Terrance, I'm here to stop my nemesis Professor Cluckenstein.'\n\n'That's our chicken's name Hank! You need to save him before he gets away or fries!' another kid said, pointing at the manic bird.\n\n'I can't possibly save him, he is an evil mastermind bent on world domination, he deserves to fry.' Hank replied, remembering that time at the battery farm.\n\n'But he is our chicken and we really looked after him. Don't heroes save the villain, even if they are about to die?' another kid added, looking up at the grizzled hero. He remembered his days in the academy, that time he let someone die when he could have brought them in. That shootout in the teddy bear factory haunted him but this was the time to get it right.'\n\n'Alright Ernistine, I'll rescue your chicken but he is going on trial after this. I can't let his fowl antics go on for any longer.\n\nThe children groaned, wincing at the awful pun.\n\n'Come on, that was good.' Hank answered, as he dove back into the burning building. He dodged falling beams, flaming work displays and the smell of burning gym socks until he made it up to the classroom. He saw his feathery nemesis there, running about in fear.\n\n'I can't believe I'm doing this but I'm here to save you Cluckenstein.' Hank muttered, trying to calm the angry bird.\n\n'Hank Thunder, thank you!' The bird yelled, turning to face the sweaty man.\n\n'Jump into my hands and we can get out of here! Then I'm taking you to jail.' He said, holding out his arms. A flaming beam fell from the ceiling, cracking the floor in half. The chicken scrambled backwards, afraid of the heat. Seeing the teddy bear shooting flash before his eyes, he jumped over the gap, falling short and managing to grasp the edge.\n\n'Cluckstein, help me help you get out of here and into jail.' He begged, trying to pull himself up. The chicken walked forward, a smile creeping across his face.\n\n'You poor fool Hank, this was all set up. The burning building, children at risk and your arch nemesis in danger? The perfect place to trap you.' The chicken said, the flames growing higher.\n\n'All this time you have been a wrench in my plans but no more. After I let you burn in this school, I will set forth my plans for world domination and not even you can stop me!' He walked over to the hero, clearly struggling to hold on.\n\n'You can't do this. I was going to save you...' Hank replied, his strength failing\n\n'Oh boo hoo. Little Hank is dicing with death. Get over yourself. Now excuse me, I have a world to take over. It has been fun Hank! This is what happens when you cluck with the wrong evil chicken.' ", "**EDIT: WOW I can't believe I misread the title. Oh well, too late now. I hope you all enjoy despite the lack of farm animals.**\n\n\"I ain't here to save the fucking children.\"\n\nHis words rang through the lobby and one of the women behind me stifled a sob.\n\nHis voice was rough and dry, tempered by years of shouting and smoke. He was haggard, had been haggard before the bombs dropped and now it served him well. A small greasy tuft of white hair was slick against his otherwise bald head with sweat, an unkempt mustache plastered across his lips and nose. His mouth pulled back into a snarl that was nearly toothless, and his bony hands clutched harder at the old rifle that I'd had my eyes locked on since he walked through the blasted out entrance to the hospital. \n\nHe began to walk towards us again, and I quickly found my voice.\n\n\"I didn't mean that... that we expect you to-\"\n\n\"Can it, you fuckin' ninny. Empty yer backpacks. The lot of you, all of them, empty them onto the ground and take a few steps back or I'll punch a few holes in little Susie here.\" He leveled the rifle at Stephen's nine-year old daughter Tamina, who promptly lost all color and collapsed to the ground.\n\nThe man cackled as we all obeyed. Only a moment had passed before we stood at a short distance while he surveyed what little remained of our supplies.\n\n\"Buncha fuckin' garbage, this is why there were so many miserable fat fucks everywhere before the hammer fell. Cookies and cakes, cheesy chips and nacho bullshit. The fuck is wrong with you people? *I want some fuckin' meat!*\" \n\nThe gun shook in his grasp as he shouted the last few words, and his eyes lit up in a way that told me I was running out of time to do something.\n\n\"The stores are all looted,\" I began. \"We've only managed to scavenge what we have from-\"\n\n\"Fuck yer excuses, and fuck yer cheesy chips. I'll just be taking the two cunts what're grown, you can keep the brats and I can keep my bullets and we can all walk away with no blood on the floor.\"\n\nHe lowered the gun just a bit, waving it slightly towards Ashley and Margaret the way a traffic officer might wave a truck through an intersection.\n\nMy bones turned to ice in an instant. My logic and emotions and instinct all battled in a fierce cyclone of internal struggle that seemed to last an eternity, and just as I opened my mouth to the deliver the 'Fuck off' that was sure to end me, Ashley stepped forward and spoke.\n\n\"That's fine, just treat us well. Let's go Margaret, we can't let him hurt the children.\"\n\nMargaret's mouth was agape in shock and horror as Ashley slowly walked towards the armed interloper, and the wheels in my head spun faster and faster. I had gotten to know Ashley very well over the last few weeks and I knew that this had to be a ruse. I watched her carefully for some inkling of what was to happen and what I should do. What worried me was that the man was scrutinizing her as heavily as I, with the rifle trained squarely on Ashley's midriff. \n\nThe second that Ashley seemed to be passing the man towards the lobby entrance, she pivoted and sprang towards him, flailing her arms out in a desperate bid to seize the weapon. I sprang forward on my heels, pumping my legs to close the fifteen foot distance between my fists and this bastards skull. \n\nHe fired two shots into Ashley's gut as her hands met the rifle's barrel, and she slumped to the floor without a sound. I screamed for her, rage and agony balled into a primal war cry that would be my farewell to the world. Ashley's ineffective tackle had bought me most of the time I needed, but the man's lead tore through my chest at the last moment. My spirited charge was reduced to the momentum I had built while running, and my limp body slammed into his legs as my life began to ebb away.\n\nI could hear the other's charge as the room began to swim. Stephen and Margaret and the children, screaming and scrambling. Another gunshot. Someone lands on my back, then the man lands on the floor beside me, small feet and large hands pummeling his face and head. His blood mingles with mine on the linoleum floor, and in that last moment, the moment before his friends walk through the door and unleash a hail of bullets into Stephen and Margaret and the children, I can see that we are both the same.", "Henrietta the cow was depressed. In general her life was fairly crummy and not only because her parents had really been hoping she would be a bull who they could call Henry, so she was stuck with this stupid name. No, Henriette was depressed for the reason that you, or I, would be in her position. Stuck in a field, with dozen of other cows, being milked twice a day, she had almost given up all hope of becoming a Jazz singer. \n\nSince she was a young calf, gambolling in the north field, she had imagined herself working the bars of New Orleans, in a slinky red dress, huskily singing along with a group called something like the *Dan Crow four.* She knew she would have been great, sexily working the tables while huskily singing the old songs. \n\nIt was her shame and her sorrow but at least, here in the field she could sing her heart out and no one would stop her, the other cows barely seemed to notice. \"Moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo\" she sang, her heart swelling as the first verse rippled off her lips. \"Moooooooooooooooooooooooooo-oooooooooooooo-ooo\" She sexily breathed out before slipping to the bridge \"Moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo\". \n\nShe looked around, no one had notice. Hanging her head she brought back up some cud and slowly chewed. This was her life, unappreciated, ahead of her time and never to be discovered. \n\nShe'd been facing North for a few hours and in desperation for a change she decided that East was the way to go and so slowly began to turn when a voice from behind chirped up. \n\n\"You got talent sweet cheeks - how'd a hay chewer like you learn to sing like that?\" She looked back in surprise and found a crow, perched on the wall, watching her with intent. \n\n\"You liked it?\" She could hardly believe that he was talking to her. \n\nThe crow fluffed his feathers. \"Liked it? Sweetheart, you see my white leg here? That's where I shit myself with job listening to you. You got talent kid and I can tell from the way you move you got moxie too.\" \n\nHenrietta let herself feel a flutter of excitement. \"You really think so? Wow, thank you Mr ...?\" \n\n\"The name's Bob B Crow, I'm a music scout and a crow. I've heard a lot of talent around barn yards over the years and I'm telling you doll, you've got it! I'm gonna take you away from here, save you from this life of shit eating and milk pumping and you and I'm gonna make you a star\" \n\nBreathing suddenly seemed hard and she had to stop and think for a moment. This was so fast and so sudden. Modesty began to kick in, trying to protect her after years of heartbreak \"I'm not that good, honestly, if you go up to the coop Sally the chicken has a much better voice, much more pop, more commercial. You could take her, save her!\" \n\n\"I ain't here to save the fucking chicken\" he snapped back, I'm here to find a jazz superstar and I got that right here. Big tears of joy slowly began to roll down Henrietta's face. All these years, all that time, it was happening just as she'd imagined. \n\n\"Now look.\" Bob fixed her with a beady eye. \"I'm gonna go sort out the contract and I'll be back soon and we'll blow this one field farm and got into the city.\" Henrietta could only nod in response. \"You keep working and I'll see you soon sweetheart.\" \n\nHer heart set Henrietta worked day and night, scales, Jazz, pop, she stretched herself every day. As the days turned to weeks she kept the faith but as summer turned to Autumn and then Winter she realised that it had been just another cruel jest. \n\nBy Spring her heart was broken and she sang no more during the day. Only at night when everyone else slept could occasionally you hear her haunting song across the yard \"Moooooooooooooooo, mooooo mooo mooooooooooooo.\" \n\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 5, 10, 10, 31 ]

[ "1411011830", "1411016377", "1411017665", "1411020397", "1411021837", "1411005355", "1411008228", "1411028061", "1411004422", "1410994382", "1411002528", "1410993035" ]

[ "I got up at the same time as every day, 7:00 am Pacific Standard Time. I threw off the same blankets, fell out of the same bed, stood up on the same floor and walked out the same door as every day. I went down the same staircase and went out my front door to grab my mail and newspaper. No mail today, but the daily paper was here. I quite liked reading the news because things were never quite the same. Sure, every day involved murderers and issues in other countries and all that bad stuff, but it's always somewhat different. Newspaper in hand, I walked back up the same stairs, went a bit down the same hall, and took a left turn to enter the same bathroom I enter every day. I flipped up the same lid of the same ol' toilet and sat my ass down... and it was definitely not the same. I leapt up, my newspaper scattering across the bathroom. What the hell? The toilet seat was *warm*, which wouldn't be weird if not for the fact that **I live alone**, not to mention it was the middle of December. I looked at what I thought was the same toilet, in that same bathroom, in that same house, and for a second I thought maybe I was crazy. I slowly put the lid down, and that's when the toilet opened it's eyes and glared at me. \"Were you just about to shit in my mouth? The FUCK, man?\" it snapped in a deep voice with an unmistakable Bostonian accent, it's lid opening and shutting as it spoke. I remember feeling another warmth, a much bulkier one, in my rear before I fainted.", "The heat woke me up rather quickly. It was startling to be precise. \n\nThe contrast was overwhelming between my cold feet, still resting on the frigid bathroom floor, and the warmth being experienced by my bottom on this now abnormal throne.\n\nBut it couldn't be... \n\nI lived alone, no dogs or cats and certainly no other human capable of pre-heating this oven. \n\nSuddenly a knock on the bathroom door.\n\n''Come in'' I said, still seated on the oval office. A short man walked in, suspenders too large for his small frame, boots much to large for his childish feet and a stained ball cap floating atop his brow. I recognized him. Fear struck into my heart. It was him again. Just like last week and the week before!\n\n''GO AWAY!! STOP COMING BACK!'' I shouted as fear turned to anger.\n\nThe short man took a step back, then a small step forward as he said: ''Is ya not pleased with the seat under ya? Warm ain't it?''\n\nI couldn't take it any longer. First the fridge. Sure I could now cool my food and things preserved for much longer and at first I was pretty darn happy. Eventually though, after the microwave and the surround sound system, I just couldn't take it anymore. Now the heated toilet seat!\n\n''STOP INSTALLING THINGS IN MY HOUSE!! GO AWAY!!''\n\nThe short man, hesitated. \n\n''You sirs have a light that be broken in your kitchen, I'll go--''\n\n''LEAVE!!'' I interrupted.\n\nThen a silence...\n\n\n\n''I'm sorry.'' I whispered silently as the short man left, head bowed to the ground, a single tear falling from his distraught face." ]

[ 1, 8 ]

[ "1411108513", "1411068864" ]

[ "The Mets-Braves game was playing on all the television screens in the bar, and the Mets were losing badly. Perhaps it would've made more sense for Carrick to come in when the Mets had the day off, but he didn't have that luxury. This was urgent.\n\nFinding his way across the bar, he spotted a young woman in a Mets cap, standing right where they said the meeting would take place. *Probably her,* he thought to himself. He moved his way over, and she noticed him almost immediately, nodding.\n\n\"So the Mets suck this year,\" said Carrick. The woman's eyes darted back and forth.\n\n\"I heard they were gonna trade for Scherzer,\" she said. Bingo.\n\n\"Forget Scherzer. They have this Russian kid in their system, Malkov. I think he can make the team next year, but it'll be tough.\" Translation: Malkov's making his move tonight. We have to stop him.\n\nThe woman shook her head. \"It goes beyond pitching, though. They gotta blow the whole team up.\"\n\nCarrick was slightly stunned. Was this *bigger* than Malkov? He wasn't sure how to respond, but eventually he came up with \"Any prospects you like?\"\n\n\"Matz. Montero. Syndergaard. And that's just the pitchers.\" Wait... were those actual Mets prospects?\n\n\"You're talking about baseball, right?\"\n\n\"What are *you* talking about?\"\n\nBut Carrick was gone. He'd already dashed into the bathroom, and he scanned his phone for sporting news until he found the headline: **SCHERZER TO METS?**\n\nCarrick shook his fist. *Malkov...*", "I leaned back on the park bench, struck a match, and re-lit my pipe. The fall breezes were gentle and it was a wonderful day for a relaxing albeit illegal smoke. Suddenly, a young shabbily dressed man seated himself by my side.\n\n\"You know you can't smoke here,\" he said.\n\n\"What of it,\" I replied with a scoff.\n\n\"Not without offering your friend a light,\" he winked pulling out a cigarette case. \"I guess we're both a bit behind the times here,\" he laughed putting the cigarette to his lips. I reached for my match book to find it empty.\n\n\"I'm sorry I'm out of matches.\"\n\n\"That's okay,\" he said I have a lighter.\n\n\"I suppose they work better, but you can never be sure,\" I chortled as he lit his own smoke and stared at me intently.\n\n\"It's nice to finally meet you,\" he said extending his hand for a shake. I took it. \"You seem a nice enough fellow, dreadful shame this business of ours. I'll tell them the Americans got you, a man deserves his dignity. I don't even care why you did it, but I know it was you.\" With that he stood up leaving me all the more confused for I had never seen this fellow in my life. Why I didn't speak, even I was not sure. My tongue felt heavy in my mouth, as panic set in I glanced down at my palm and saw a delicate pin prick of blood. ", "\"Its not that I don't like borscht,\" Will thought, \"its just that I don't get why they have to make so much.\"\n\nFor the last several weeks some friends of his wife from Moldova had been staying at Will's house and they had insisted on making this odd red soup on a number of occasions, always using the largest pot in the house. This lead to everyone in the house eating nothing but borscht for several days following. Will's wife had even insisted on packing him a thermos of the stuff to take to work.\n\nWill was sitting in a park near his office. He had planned to buy lunch from a foodtruck that usually stopped near the park but it hadn't come today.\n\n\"Just my luck,\" he thought, \"well at least I have something.\"\n\nHaving already wasted a good portion of his lunch break hoping the food truck was just late, even walking the perimeter of the park to make sure it hadn't set up on a different corner than usual he decided to just eat the borscht.\nHe again noted the man sitting at a separate park bench to his right. Will assumed that like himself this man had been hoping for the food truck. \n\nWill then opened the thermos and took in a mouthful of the soup.\n\n\"My borscht is cold,\" he muttered to himself.\n\nIf he had been at the office he could have used the microwave in the break room. Will sighed to himself but resigned himself to swallowing down the rest of the borscht and then returning to the office.\n\nHe noted that the man who had been seated on the other bench had gotten up and walked past him quickly. strangely insted of staying on the paved path the man walked along side the path, behind Will's bench and out of the park.\n\nWill shrugged, finished the beet colored soup and walked back to work. Only when he got back to his office did he notice a thumb drive in his pocket.\n\n\"Huh,\" he said out loud, but then he dropped it on his desk where it was soon lost.", "My first attempt at wp. It's not great, wrote it while I'm bored in this class: \n\n\n“Great, I have to cover for carl again” Rosie thought to herself, “I’ll never get home in time for kickoff”. Pat probably wasn’t going to talk to her for a week if she missed his game again. This was only Rosies second week working at the local Dunkin’ Tim-Buck, and she was sick of it. Endless days of filling up seemingly bottomless cups of coffee for these corporate drones. \n\n“Look at this loser. What has to be wrong with a person to willingly wear a bow-tie to work?” Rosie said to her co-worker James as a tall, gangly looking man walked in the door wearing a suit with a bow-tie. \n“Welcome to Dunkin’ Tim-Buck, what can I get for you?” Rosie half-caringly asked the man\n\n“Just a medium coffee, heavy sugar and a little cream, please.” The man said decidedly. “Of course he want’s a sugar coffee, never would’ve guessed that would be Mr.Bow-tie’s drink of choice.” She thought to herself. \n\n“Here you go, Sir” Rosie practically mutter to the man as she walked back to the fridge to put the cream away. As the man walked away, he took a sip, and stopped. Turning around, he began to walk back to the counter. “Not again. They always come back to complain” Rosie angrily thought. \n\n“Can I get a little more cream in this, lady?” Said Mr.Bow-tie.\n“No, and I hope you choke on your bow-tie” She said as she stalked off to find her manager to quit. She was done with this joke of a job.\nThe man nodded and said “Very good, Mrs.Pulchekov. Tell your boss we’re done now” as he threw his briefcase on the counter.\n\n“What are you even talking about it? You need a shrink!” She yelled as he walked out the door. \n\nRosie picked up the briefcase and was about to throw it in frustration when she heard nothing moving in the briefcase. \n“Is this thing really empty?” she thought as she opened it. \n\nMoney. Money just dropped out of the briefcase when she opened it because it was so full. Stacks of hundred dollar bills. \n\n“I think I’ll buy Pat a bow-tie for prom next year” Rosie thought after leaving her name tag on the counter as she left. \n", "Bill checked his watch again. 1:59 PM. *Just a few more seconds*, he thought. He scanned the lunch crowd milling about the park, his eyes expertly flicking over each individual. He didn’t pause long enough to register anything other than whether they matched the description of his contact. *No, no no…Bingo*. Sandy blond hair, blue suit, brown leather satchel. He waited patiently for the last sign. The man in the blue suit wandered over to a bench, sat down heavily, pulled a pack of American Spirits from his jacket and lit one up. Bill stood up at last. *Here we go.* \n\n\n\nArthur Redlener’s day had started off bad, and then become progressively worse. He’d opened his meager closet to discover he was out of clean shirts. Quickly, performing the Sniff Test on the pile heaped in a corner of his room yielded just one, badly wrinkled shirt that he reluctantly threw on. Then he arrived late to work. Again. In his defense, the sedan in front of him getting T-boned by a speeding Hummer during his morning drive to work was a very difficult thing for him to anticipate when planning his commute. However, he was a mere temp and was therefore not entitled such things as “a fair hearing” or such ninnying excuses as “I had a near-death experience on the way to work so cut me some slack today”. Instead his supervisor had lectured him on his work ethic, questioned his commitment to being employed and put him on notice that the next strike would be his last. As he’d glumly got up to return to his cubicle, his supervisor imparted one last piece of advice. “And for god’s sake Arthur, put some thought into how you dress when you come into work.” He’d mumbled a half apology and quickly left. \n\nArthur left the office for his lunch break and walked over the nearest park. He found the trees calming and between nearly dying and possibly losing another job, his anxiety was reaching new, unexplored heights. He chose an empty bench and removed the pack of cigarettes he’d purchased on the way to the park. He’d been 37 days without a cigarette, but as he lit up and took that first drag, he didn’t feel a single twinge of regret. As he stared absently into the distance, contemplating the sad state of affairs he found himself in, he was dimly aware that a man had sat down next to him. \n\n“Beautiful day we’re having, wouldn’t you say?”\n\n“I’ve had better,” replied Arthur finally glancing over. \n\nThe man nodded solemnly, as if he knew exactly what kind of day Arthur had been having. He pulled a manila envelope from his jacket and placed it the bench next to Arthur. \n\n“It’s all in here. Make sure you go through all of it,” the strange man said. \n*Oh great*, thought Arthur. “Listen buddy, I’m sure your music is really amazing and everything, but I don’t really have any cash on me and I’m not really into…whatever style of music you make.”\n\nThe man gave him a funny look. “So the Agency is hiring comedians now? Fan-fucking-tastic.” He shook his head, grumbled about things going to hell in a handbasket and then walked away, leaving the manila envelope on the bench.\n\nArthur picked up the envelope. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he wondered how the stranger knew he worked for a temp agency, but the thought was quickly forgotten when he realized what he was holding. A small tablet powered up to reveal a slideshow. The pictures featured a man he quickly recognized as the prime minister with several beautiful women, none of whom were his wife, engaging in an increasingly erotic display of acrobatic ability. *Oh dear god*, he thought. *I’m definitely getting fired for this.*\n", "At last, I finally have got that rotten book back to the library.\n\n'Mein Kampf, what a stupid book to include in my reading list this semester. I bet I am on a watch list now.' I thought to myself as I handed the book to the man sat behind the desk.\n\n\"Interesting read?\" He said in a neutral tone.\n\n\"Not really.\" I replied.\n\n\"Would you prefer a less political book?\" He stated inquisitively.\n\nI looked at my reading list and there was A Man's Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl. \"I guess I might prefer A Man's Search for Meaning.\"\n\nHe reached behind the desk and produced the book, handed it to me an told me, \"Thursday\", I looked at him blankly and headed towards the door passing a man in a dark blue suit when, suddenly, I remembered; there was another book I needed to study. I turned sharply on one heel and marched to the politics section.\n\nI could hear a conversation in the background as I moved through the aisles near to the checkout but my view was obscured by books.\n\n\"I am here to return a book.\"\n\n\"I see...\"\n\n\"It wasn't really an interesting read, do you have anything by Victor Frankl?\"\n\n\"What!?\"\n\n\"Son of a bitch!\"\n\nI could hear muttering and low pitched swearing and then, suddenly, the thunder of feet as I approached the desk, the two men must have ran out of the building and down the street.\n\nI looked at the book and back to the shelf of the politics section, there was another copy of the book. 'A Man's Search for Meaning'.\n\nI switched the books and sat in plain sight as they both came back into the building, I was pretending to read as they approached me.\n\n\"Can I see your book, I think I may have handed you the reference only copy.\"\nI handed the book over to him, as he examined the cover intently, I could see a look of confusion on his face.\n\nIt was just a regular book...\n\"Perhaps you accidentally put the reference copy on the shelf and picked this one up, it must happen sometimes?\n\nThe man rushed to check.\n\nHe couldn't find the book.\n\n\"Ahh, a Man's Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl, interesting choice.\" said the librarian. \"I'll just scan it for you.\"\n\nThe man stood in front of me suddenly went wide-eyed and dived over the table knocking me to the floor. \n\nWhen the ringing in my ears stopped and my eyes focused, I could see the entire room was destroyed and what remained was engulfed in flames.", "Traffic whipped past down towards the city.\n\nJeremy slung his briefcase atop the circular iron table. \"Are you here for the interview?\" he asked.\n\nThe boy blinked behind squarish frames. \"Yes...\"\n\n\"Alright,\" Jeremy declared, brushing the chair's intricate metalwork before plopping himself down. He took a minute to appraise his target:\n\nYoung, bright, open to anything. But he looks so blondishly American... Glancing down at an espresso on the table, Jeremy tested, \"where are you from?\"\n\n\"Renton.\" Bingo. He's the one.\n\nMeanwhile, the boy, unemployed, farsighted and from the suburbs of Renton, gaped at the revelations presented by the brusque stranger, and knew he had to do something.", "Youngblood hated Chicago in winter. It wasn't just the cold. It was the wind whipping off the lake as well. Strong enough to make a climber's jacket feel as thin as a bedsheet. He had not disembarked the 767 but he could see the February wind shreiking across the tarmac from his tiny window. At least he would be out of here tonight. A red eye to Tuscon for a handoff and then a well deserved vacation in Rio. Youngblood felt the shudder of the aircraft pulling to a stop at the gate and the jetway suctioning onto the side of the door. He was already unbuckling his belt and grabbing his carry on, his only piece of luggage. His other gear had already been delivered to the safe house in Ukrainian Village. \n\n\nAs Youngblood walked off the plane and past the other gates, he mulled over the details of the day's assignment, while buttoning his black tailored jacket. *OK, meet the local contact on the Orange Line platform. Verify identity. Obtain thumb drive. Eliminate contact.* It was pretty straightforward compared to some of his other recent assignments and Abernathy had given him a lot of leeway on how he wanted this one done. Maybe Abernathy just wanted to give him a break. He was pushing fifty and was losing the legs and stomach for the job. He was almost looking forward to the desk. \n\n\nThe train platform was bustling with groups huddled under the heaters for warmth, their breath causing ephemeral clouds. From the escalators leading down to the platform, Youngblood scanned the headgear of the crowd. He had only received one detail about the local contact from Abernathy, but it was pretty solid. He had no doubt he would be able to find him. *Who even wears hats like that nowadays? It's almost begging to get noticed.* Halfway down the escalator and he already had picked out the two fedoras in the crowd. A heavset man with a patchy beard who looked to be approaching middle age prematurely and a young teenage girl. He knew the contact was a computer genius. Abernathy said that the contact had put together what was shaping up to be the next Stuxnet and that it had to be grabbed before anyone else did the grabbing. \n\n\nYoungblood approached the man in the fedora, who was standing off by himself on the edge of the platform away from the heaters. *Does this guy LIKE cold? Goddamn...Hell, I'm at the airport now. If he's got it on him, pehaps a little train accident and I could be back on a plane by lunch...* Youngblood sidled over to the man in the fedora, making note of the surveillance camera sightlines while not directly looking at anything in particular. When he was sure the man in the fedora had noticed his presence, he uttered the phrase he had to commit to memory: \"In Austrailia, February is a summer month.\"\n\n\nThe man in the fedora looked Youngblood up and down. After a long moment he replied, \"Whereas here in Chicago we're freezing our butts off. Nice Goldeneye reference.\" Youngblood nodded as the phrase settled into his brain like a key into a lock, putting him at ease. *All right. Hard part's done. Is that the train coming? Hot damn, all I need is the drive and I can get out of this place.* He noticed that the man in the fedora's backpack was sitting on the ground and was not around his shoulders and that peeking through the mesh on the front of the pack was Youngblood's objective. The flash drive. *Thank you Abernathy. For once you've thrown me a cakewalk. You've got a bottle of scotch coming to you...* The train's rumble grew louder as it rounded the final bend to pull into Midway station. \"Thanks.\" muttered Youngblood. \"I've always...admired that film.\" \n \n\nYoungblood, gauging the speed and distance of the train, surreptitiously placed a foot on the back of the man in the fedora's knee and pushed hard. His timing was impeccable. The man in the fedora was standing too close to the edge. He went sprawling onto the tracks with a sqwak and turned over to look up. He caught Youngblood's eye right before the train ran over him, splashing the train and platform with gore. Youngblood, without missing a beat, scooped up the man in the fedora's backpack and smoothly blended into the shocked crowd. It was not until later in Tuscon, while poring over Minecraft and Assassin's Creed saves on the flash drive, that Youngblood recalled the teenage girl wearing the fedora in the crowd looked nervous and ran away, alone, after he had kicked the man onto the tracks. *Fuck. Abernathy is not going to like this.* ", "Parka 7 sat down on the park bench and placed his briefcase on his lap, blandly smiling like the suburban house-husband he was portraying. The heavy-set woman in a ripped Bare Naked Ladies tee with a blonde streak in her matted hair next to him fit the vague description of Limbo 9.\n\n\"Those mockingbirds are mighty gorgeous, huh?\" he asked her. Her face lit up as she watched them. Mockingbirds were Elana's favorite type of bird, and rarely did anyone actually notice them. When she wasn't being picked on by her incessantly drunk boyfriend, or listening to his three children scream at her, she tried to get online and study birds as much as she could. It was difficult, trying to keep a place to stay with that abhorant drunk, and get through community college, but she didn't have anywhere else to go, and if she wanted to transfer into state, she had to stay with him until she had enough money saved to move on campus. No one outside of him talked to her though, not ever. Being heavyset and wearing ratty clothes essentially made her a non-item. Men looked past her and women avoided her.\n\nBut here was this stranger, opening up to her...about *mockingbirds!*\n\n\"Yeah!\" she responded. \"Fun fact, did you know that mockingbirds sometimes know up to 200 songs?!\"\n\nParka 7 was perturbed, or perhaps impressed. He wasn't quite sure. He knew she was much more experienced than him, and maybe that's why she was adlibbing, but he felt unnerved by the \"fun fact,\" and the inaccurate nature of how she had delivered the passphrase. It was supposed to be \"Mockingbirds may have a repitoire of over 200 songs at any given time.\" It was a cut and dry statement, which he had heard delivered without emotion or emphasis hundreds of times before. It worked, so why alter it?\n\nBecause Limbo 9 must have known how to blend in. Who goes around just saying wikipedia facts outloud like they're some sort of factoid robot. Thinking about it, Parka 7 realized that many of the agents with whom he had communed were now dead, but Limbo 9 was a legend in the community. Her reputation for unorthodoxy preceeded her. He trusted her- she was a pro.\n\nThe briefcase exchanged hands and she looked at him with a confused face.\n\n\"I didn't-\" she began.\n\n\"You look like a person who would appreciate these birdwatching devices,\" he adlibbed himself. Parka 7 decided that from now on- he would be a pro too. He would *really* blend in.\n\n\"What?\" Elana asked. She was stunned. This random stranger was giving her...*birdwatching* supplies after just one conversation. \"Is there something wrong with you?\"\n\nParka 7 was thrown off balance. He didn't know what to say. Just a moment ago, she had gone completely off script and was just adlibbing whenever she felt like, but now he tried to do it and she was being *critical?* During a *drop?* He felt ashamed and betrayed. He gritted his teeth and turned away, storming off, leaving her with the suitcase.\n\nElana's mouth remained agape. She popped open the suitcase. Inside was a dissembled automatic rifle. She stared at it for a moment, wondering why anyone would hunt mockingbirds with an automatic rifle.", "I had the most peculiar day today. I was waiting for the the bus when a man in an expensive and exquisitely tailored suit came over and sat down next to me on the bench, placing a small briefcase between us. He looked up into the cloudy sky and spoke.\n\n\"Ugh. Looks like rain again today.\"\n\nI shrugged my shoulders and gave my usual response to weather complaints.\n\"Give it ten minutes and it'll change. \"\n\nThe man cocked his eyebrow at me, and nodded. \n\nAfter a few moment's silence, I continued \"You can never trust the weather here anyway. I know there's some good science behind it, but I swear the weather report gets it wrong so often that it's not even worth bothering with.\" \nThe man didn't respond, so we sat silently for a few minutes. I pulled out my phone to check the time, but I knew there were at least 10 minutes before the bus arrived.\n\n\"Do you have somewhere to be?\" asked the man.\n\n\"No, my work is done. Just going home to relax tonight. How about you?\"\n\n\"You know I can't discuss that\" said the man indignantly.\n\nI nodded. \"Ah right, lawyers, NDAs, and all that other junk. Sometimes I wish I could just post all their stupid secrets online, just to show them how little the world cared about them.\n\nThe man gave me a sharp look. \"Do you really think that's wise\"\n\n\"Oh of course not. But then again, I'm not sure wisdom really comes into it.\"\n\"Very well, thank you sir.\" said the man. He stood up and left.\n\nHe nearly to the end of the block when I noticed he'd left his briefcase behind. \"Sir! Your briefcase!\" I shouted after him, waving it in the air for him to see. \n \nThe man turned, looked me dead in the eye, and completed the last few steps I could see of him at a dead run before he turned the corner and vanished from my sight. \n\nI sat there puzzled for a few moments before setting the briefcase back down. I pulled out my phone again and called the non-emergency police number. Hopefully they'd know the proper procedure for returning a lost item.\n\nThirty seconds later, I too was running away from the abandoned briefcase, visions of an untimely demise from an explosive preventing me from stopping until it was well out of view. The dispatcher assured me that a bomb squad was on the way.\n\nThe rest... well, I'm sure you've seen the news by now.\n\nAnd that, my friends, is how I endangered national security." ]

[ 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 10, 40, 72 ]

[ "1411148978", "1411146802", "1411143395", "1411145780", "1411147158", "1411144175", "1411145555", "1411143679", "1411145749", "1411140802" ]

[ "Behind the house, besides the meadow green with Spring, the butterfly's come calling. Splendiforous in red, autumnal browns and fierce orange drapery ringed with black, the butterfly's hover around her shyly smiling face, tinged with red. They're Annie's butterfly's, her happy place!\n\n\nShe tells them secrets. They're friends!\n\n\nDaddy says not to tell teacher secrets, but surely he wont mind this.", "The air is crisp and clean, I feel the light bite of it against my cheeks. The sky is clear, and although behind me my cousins are playing loudly I feel peacefully alone looking over the lake. The dock shifts ever so slightly as the water softly laps against the rocks at shore. Creating a sound like dull metals constantly clanging the the background. The canoe is bouncing off the dock matching my heart beat, this is all there is. As my eyes leave the soft and lush wisps of clouds they travel to the trees. My soul soars as I take in the colours before me, vibrant reds, passionate reds. The forest is on fire, and it has never looked more alive. My eyes continue to lower until I am facing my own reflection. Soft and distorted in the motions of the water. Hair the colour of honey hanging to my waist and blowing wildly in the wind, eyes as grey as the sky before a storm, lips as red as the trees swaying around me. The body is young and small, she is still a child. Seventeen. In a moment she is gone.\n\n\nI turn around comforted by the fact that I am surrounded by the earth. Behind me she sits, and always will. My father is calling my name and I go to help with some mundane task of little importance. When I finish I play with my small cousins, but every now and again I look across the water and stop to stare at the beauty of Fall. \n\nMy camp.", "It’s funny how much shit gets fixed when you turn the lights off. Or maybe it’s more like how much shit doesn’t really need fixing anymore. Me and Jay used to take apart this little ping pong table in his mom’s basement and put the plywood halves over the windows. We’d seal them up with blankets and tape sometimes, and it would be totally black. \n\nAnd then pretty much the place didn’t look like shit anymore. It still smelled, but, you know. I would sit on the giant floral couch and Jay would lie on his bed in the corner and we would just talk. All night, because the concept of night didn’t mean anything after we blacked out all the lights. We were just fucking typical high school kids with complexes about our parents and their divorces, and when the hell we were going to lose our virginities. And there was this elephant in the room-- Jay won it at a fair for making a bunch of three-pointers in a row. I used to think about what a shitty joke it was, the elephant in there with us, because we never talked about how he liked me, and how I might have liked him. \n\nAnyway it was a non-issue when the lights were out. Nobody was glancing at my chest. No one was judging me, or assigning me a number to represent my fuckability. I wasn’t the hot girl or the slut or the whatever; I was just this floating voice in the room with Jay’s floating voice, and the elephant. And when I was sixteen that was pretty much the only place I felt safe.", "The familiar scent of gasoline lined my grandpa's garage. He walked with me, talking all about his latest crazy program or car he fixed up. People look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them my favorite scent is gasoline.\n\nMy grandpa showed my his ancient computer, barely even a calculator by today's standards. He showed me his games he made, some of the first 2D games ever. I would stare in wonder at the low hum of the monitor that displayed the muffeled green tiles and letters.\n\nWe would go upstairs and eat the pepparkakor, traditional Swedish cookies, my grandma had been baking. With a smile stretching from dimple to dimple I dived into the cookies and sat down at their table. My grandpa took out his custom made board games. He wrote the rules, he made the pieces, and they are the best games I've ever played. I would laugh along as my grandpa would backstab my grandma to make trades with me. He would shoot me a wink and than ask with a smile if I wanted to go on a wheel-barrow ride.\n\nIt's been 15 years. Grandpa is dead. My parents are divorced. But when I walk back into that house, smell the gasoline, and talk with my grandma, I feel as though it's all alright again. Like Grandpa is there, and he's laughing along with us." ]

[ 1, 2, 2, 3 ]

[ "1411189381", "1411173365", "1411174452", "1411168489" ]

[ "What has god got to do with this?", "The wind rustled through the ashes of something greater then now, long burned away in the belief of greater world bursting fourth from its soot.\n\nThe star Sol would set on a lifeless day, the sole Moon, Luna, would rise on a unmoving night.\n\n“From the ashes, we will be reborn!” a faded metal sign read, a picture of a genderless being bursting fourth from charred remains bezeled into the metal beside it.\n\nI feel great sorrow and guilt for the memory of humankind. \n\nThey had limitless potential, and a willingness to mature, they did not deserve to be destroyed, even if they often tried to do it themselves.\n\nAdmittedly, humanity put up one hell of a fight, after learning their mother earth was doome, they decided to take their murderers with them.\n\nI had reached this small world just a cosmic moment too late, but I had just enough time too see its glory before it was gone.\n\nI remember standing on a hill, looking down at small family laying in the tall grass, looking up at the sky for the last time. In the distance, a glowing board displaying the words “They would burn down the sky if we allowed it!” began to flicker, then fade away.\n\nI saw the father point to a white shape in the sky, and the laughter of their child. I could see, even at my great distance, the light of fear and sadness in both parents eyes, they knew there sealed fate, but they chose not to poison the innocence of their offspring.\n\nThen, in an instant, the sky lit brighter then it ever had before, and suddenly there was only flame, only heat, fire, and ash. In an instant, the humans had glassed their whole world, refusing to go out on anybodies terms but their own, the humans had turned the keepers of peace into the harbingers of revenge.\n\nThe flames danced and swayed for years to come, consuming everything that set this world apart from its lifeless kin.\n\nI still hear that child’s laugh echo through this barren world." ]

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