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euclaise

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WritingPrompts_preferences

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[ "\"It's like nothing else in the world. It satisfies me. It entertains me. I feel needed. I can't stop.\" I stand up and say at my first Redditholics Anonymous meeting.\n\n\"I know what you mean.\" A small voice peeps from the circle. A young girl about 18 with long blond hair and small frame says. She clears her throat. \"All my friends are obsessed with Facebook but if my friends saw what I did on Reddit they wouldn't believe it.\" \n\n\"Yeeeeeah. Gonewilder for sure.\" Says a teenage boy sitting near her in a cracking voice.\n\n\"There is no judgment here.\" A booming voice says beside me. \"I organised this meeting so we could have an hour off of Reddit and curb our habits.\" \n\nI look at where the voice came from. Beside me is a large, dark-haired man with glasses and a bag of cheetos.\n\n\"Looks like you have other habits to curb.\" Says a small, skinny, pale man on the other side of the blond girl.\n\n\"Fuck you.\" Says the big man with a mouthful of cheetos.\n\n\"I want to check my score. I'm nearing 10000 and I need to take a picture when I hit it.\" I say, literally itching from the pain of not having control of it. We all put our devices by the door when we came in.\n\n\"How does the lack of control of your online persona at this moment make you feel?\" Says the large man, licking his fingers and pulling open a Coke.\n\n\"Small. Insignificant. Twitchy. Itchy. I don't even want to exist in this world anymore unless it is to better myself in the world of Reddit.\" I say with my head down, almost in a whisper. It is embarassing. I look up, though, to see many heads nodding in agreement. I smile despite myself.\n\n\"But you're doing it. Right now you're here with us and not there. This is a huge step. I'm proud of you.\" The large man says, looking at me over his glasses.\n\n\"Anyone here go on /r/writingprompts?\" Asks a black woman a couple seats away from me.\n\nI nod in agreement. I frequent that sub daily.\n\n\"That's where I stay. All day. I scroll through the prompts in real time and rack my brain for responses. I get so frustrated when I'm not the first one to respond or if I can't respond and someone else can.\" She says, almost in tears. \"Since my mom died, I just want to be successful in my writing. That was her last wish for me.\"\n\nI'm stunned. I thought subs like that could only be positive. I guess not if it takes over your life.\n\n\"I'm kinda like that with /r/zen.\" Says the small, pale man. \"I need to be the first to respond with something cryptic and witty. I love to take bites out of /u/ewk, as well.\"\n\n\"That sub is toxic.\" I say, shaking my head. \"There is always some kid thinking their enlightened and the responses, instead of being doubtful but supportive of more practice, are always mean as fuck.\"\n\n\"That's our time.\" Says the large man, getting up and brushing himself off, looking rather uncomfortable. I see a couple dozen hands reaching for their phones/tablets in unison before butts even get out of seats.\n\nI just sit there. Silent. I stare at the large man. He is looking down on the small, pale man and taking long, angry glances at me.\n\nMy suspicions are running wild. Could the large man be /u/ewk? Have I ever talked to the pale, small man on /r/zen? Have I read that lady's stories?\n\nThe real world is so complicated. I join the crowd of Redditaholics and grab my phone. I've reached 10001 points.", "\"Hi, my name is Dave and I'm a... Oh crap! I'm posting to Reddit right this second!\"" ]

[ 2, 2 ]

[ "1423864347", "1423869408" ]

[ "Worldwide everyone was shocked and saddened that the vegans had been proven correct. ", "VEgetarian?", "Beth had *changed*. There was no better word to describe it. She had sprouted wings behind her arms and a bright orange beak now stood in place of her mouth. I was horrified. Breathing hard, I pinched myself. Hard. Multiple times. My mind racing, I remembered that luicd dreams often had unreadable clocks. Practically diving for my watch, I read the time. 2:23 AM. July 14. Oh great. Of course she had to turn into a chicken on our anniversary. I turned on the TV and checked the news, carefullly not to wake up Beth. Apparently this was happening everywhere- the news wasn't being brodcast, it was being typed by humans who turned into monkeys. I looked at myslef, horrified. Nothing had changed. I then wiped a bead of sweat off my face. Of course; I was vegitatirain", "At first, they were our only hope.\n\nNo one knew what had caused this. Anyone who still had fingers was desperately searching for a cure, doing their damndest to reset the world before there was nothing left to go back to. And then, a breakthrough! There were people who had been miraculously unaffected by the Change, who were immune to this horror. The answer to all of this was locked somewhere in their DNA, and all we had to do now was find it. They were reluctant to be lab rats, but what choice did we have? It was them or us. We needed to know what made them tick, and that meant looking inside.\n\nThen, they were monsters.\n\nIt wasn't until years of research that it became clear that they were in no way immune. They were what they ate too. Damn good thing too, because a lot of people weren't very happy about using the only humans left as lab rats. Now we had an excuse, ready made; these people were monsters. It was them or us, and we weren't going to let it be us.\n\nFinally, they were saviors.\n\nEventually everyone knew that research wasn't going to get us anywhere. We were what we ate, and that wasn't going to change, but what we ate could. It seemed so unfair, that the worst of us were hurt the least, until we saw that the answer was staring us in the face. We were what we ate, so we would eat the monsters. Of course, we couldn't eat all of them; we needed stock. We ate the babies, there were always more of those, and all they had eaten was monster milk. They were the most delicious panacea anyone could have imagined. The world was saved.", "\"Keep it down, fatass.\"\n\n\"Hey! It's not mooy fault I have foooour stomachs that are never fuuuull!\"\n\n\"Jesus Christ, that's not how they work! Just admit you're fat already!\"\n\n\"No I won't! And get me another one, this one's almost empty!\"\n\nThe two-ton heifer who I call my wife is sitting in what was once the family room. Her massive brown-furred ass cheeks take up an entire love seat, and it may be the couch soon. Her breakfast is an obscenely large feeding trough piled high with eggs, bacon, sausages, and even steaks, sitting on top of that massive gut of hers. It's hard to believe that three months ago, she weighed 135 pounds. Then, once the transformations started, she started blowing up like a balloon. I was away in Shanghai on personal matters for a week (I cut it short when my... *business associate* started walking on all fours and barking); when I got back, the woman I kissed on the way out the door was a 300-pound hairy beast with an udder and horns. Now, she's probably eight times that weight and looks like a cow with a beanbag chair for a torso. All she does now is sit and eat, and eat, and eat. I haven't seen her move in a week, and that was only when her old chair broke. She's not the woman I met at college, and she's definitely not the woman I married. All that endless chewing and slobbering and gurgling and belching and farting is enough to drive a man insane, not counting the fact that the house smells like a manure pile from her inability to reach the bathroom. At this rate, it would probably be a good bet to invest in overalls and a pitchfork. \n\nI can't take it any more. I put down my newspaper and walk over to the kitchen. I grab my favorite steak knife, still dripping with juice from when I prepared her midnight 'snack' of three full-sized honey glazed hams. I quietly slip up beside her, pretending to massage the slab of lard she calls her back. Obviously, she doesn't do anything; the food has a much higher priority in her bovine brain. She lifts her head up from her binge to release a massive belch, and I take my opportunity. Like a flash, I scramble up her massive flank and slice her throat in one swift stroke. Blood pours out of the wound as she makes a few gurgles and moos. I look up at her face; her eyes are glazed over and unresponsive. \n\nI should probably mention that before the Event happened, I was a specialty chef. She always used to joke that she married me for my cooking skills. I had several clients in high places, most of whom insisted I work with more... *humane* food sources. I always sample my cuisine before serving, and I found that of a human tasted sweetest compared to any other meat. In fact, that's why I was in China when the Event happened. As I look at the carcass in front of me, I begin thinking how I could cut it up. The neck & clod cuts are obviously ruined, but the amount of lard and meat from the flank cut I could get can definitely make up the difference in sales. I'll have to make sure to save the rump cut for Sal's, he pays me extra for that. I slip on an apron, grab some more knives, and get to work...", "\"Come in, Chester!\" the click of a door opening, faint yellow light poured in. Thick aromas wrapped around my skin and tickled my nose. I kicked off my shoes into the pile outside the door and bounded in.\n\nThe thumping of my socks against the floorboards drowned out the host's introductions. \"Hey, everyone!\" I raised my hands and squealed. \"Iiiiit's Chester!\" an old routine from my days as the college mascot. Chester was a fat canary immortalized by his inability to lift his arms. Whoever was inside- me- didn't have any arm-holes or anything. There were little strings at the side that pulled up these papery wings on the outside. It was so cramped in there my hands had to tug at their opposite wings. The flapping was pretty lifeless, there's only so much you can move when you're in a permanent shrug.\n\nNeedless to say, I was much loved among the alumni. Yelps and moos and moans came from the crowd around me. \"Hey, bro!\" howled Samuel, sinking his fangs into a beer. I called over, shouting out his name. He snarled straight at me, face lowered into a v-shape, furred lips rippled around rows of teeth. The party grew silent.\n\n\"Chester- Chester, this way,\" my host hurried, he shoved me down into the adjoining room. \"He goes by 'Lupe' now,\" he whispered. I turned to him, stopping my slide halfway through the room. He looked a bit miffed and pulled his hands back. I made what you would call a weird face, \"He really took to the wolf meat, Ches.\" I nodded, eyes not leaving his face in case he smiled and revealed some incisors, or a tongue, or two. He still smiled an altogether human smile.\n\nMy look was still weird. \"I...dude ate meat like it was water, man.\" I said, asking the question.\n\n\"Yes, you could say he wolfed it down,\" my host chuckled. \"Let me tell you, Chester, he doesn't eat wolves often. He doesn't like it when he eats them.\" It explained the roundness of his eyes, that lost look he had. \n\n\"But enough about his eating habits, what about yours?\"\n\nI paused and cocked my head to the side, that was a strange question to ask. But I guess it would make sense nowadays, so he could order the right stuff. \"Still on veggies- not a day off- you?\"\n\nHe smiled again, rows of perfectly ordinary, whitened, teeth staring back at me. \"The same.\" he said flatly. A beak walked by our little conversation, it turned and squawked at me.\n\n\"Chestwer?\" the tongue laboured to speak, suppressing clucks. A human tongue was not at home in the mouth of a chicken. Feathered hands bent sharply at the elbows and sat on her hips. \"I haven't sween you since graduashun!\" she chirped. She went in for a hug. I raised my arms but didn't have time to react as she'd buried her face next to mine. I heard a deep sniff. \"You smell good, Chwes.\" There were two clumps of feathers that bore purposefully into my chest.\n\nMy arms were still in the air around her back, there was no point trying to bring them down around her. She had gotten some unnatural muscle strength, had me wrapped like a worm. I did the only thing I could, I sniffed. \"You- you two, girl.\" I stammered, shit what if she noticed. \"T*o*o...\" I said to my side. My host chuckled.\n\nI'm sure she noticed, but she didn't pay it any mind. She released me from her deathgrip and stalked off down the hall. \"You know she always had a crush on you, right?\"\n\nI looked through the doorway, \"Y-Yeah.\" A tail feather wagged from a rip in her jeans, bobbing up and down. \"She had good taste.\" I joked, pulling at my collar. \"Is- she...?\"\n\n\"Fowl? Quite, though I think you noticed the flatness of a duck.\" my host pointed a finger down the hall.\n\nMy hands rubbed my chest, \"She was anything but flat.\" One of my hands came back with a feather. My host grinned.\n\n\"Flatness of her beak, Chester. She had some duck once, if I recall.\"\n\n\"But her eyes, they were-\"\n\n\"Human?\"\n\nI nodded. \"Human.\"\n\nHe paused, and looked at me again. \"Veggies.\"\n\n\"Gotcha,\" I guess you can't really choose which parts get morphed out.\n\n\"On that note, do you remember Christie?\" he cooed. Now that I think of it, I don't remember him from our year. I nodded, who could forget Christie? Gorgeous, got the right lack of flatness, no beak when I met her.\n\nMy eyes lit up, \"Is she still the same?\" I ventured.\n\n\"More or less, the days have been...kind.\" he motioned for me to come with him, down past the hooves and paws and feet. I heard some snorts from behind me, a foul filled the air and something damp hit the floor. Everyone started clucking and laughing and hissing, my host bid me down some steps.\n\nA single bulb sat above us, at the bottom of the landing. Red brick walls surrounded me on three sides. The light shone down in a cone, part of it hit a white framed door. It was shut. My host began to speak, \"Chester, do you remember what they said about purebreeds?\" his hand tightened around the doorknob, sweat dripped onto the shining metal.\n\n\"No?\" I asked. He inhaled.\n\n\"That the quickest way to become...human again was to,\" he gulped, \"eat one?\" There was the faint noise of some television show droning on behind the door, masked by static and thick walls.\n\n\"Y...yes,\" I started breathing quickly. I was now acutely aware of everything around me. The soundlessness of hollow brick, the rhythmic stomps from above me. The pungent excrement back in the hall. The stench of sweat slapping onto concrete.\n\n\"Christie's waiting,\" he pulled open the door. I heard a low growl.\n\nThe head in the room could barely turn, it was less of a head than the tip of a pile of sludge. Big, round red eyes stared at me in all their segments. Stunted wings at the back of the pile of limbs and fur tried to flutter. Nothing could move that mass. I felt something rise up in my throat, but I couldn't stop watching. The television, lined with static, shuddered out a broken melody from a kids show.\n\nA hoof clopped onto ground, it arched back and tried to drag the rest of the body forward. There was the sound of gurgling and something slimy from underneath the beating mass. It was a patchwork of carcasses, each ripped and sewn into the others. I counted limbs more than four, some swaying in the air, trying to wave. Claws, paws, scales, feathers, but not a hint of soft, pink flesh.\n\nThree different noses jut from one muzzle. A forked tongue, covered in dark spots, shot out from tightened lips and traveled its way into one of the nostrils. It shoved itself into the hole, pouring in, getting lost in the mismatched series of lungs. It ribboned through like a thick, pink rope, until all of it disappeared into the gaping, now damp, hole with a snap. A snort and a groan came from the same place, somewhere deep, and another smack of something soft followed.\n\nI turned to my host, sputtering. \"Ch-Christie?\" I blurted, wanting to say he lied, some puke dribble down my lips. The snorts and growls were closer now, at the top of the stairs. My cheeks bulged, the inside of my mouth stung.\n\nHe stood there looking at me with his altogether human face, tightened skin around flaps of cheek and muscle. His nose wrinkled, as if trying to right itself after quite a long time. \"She may not look very human now, but soon enough she will be.\" he smiled at me again, white cubes of teeth. \"Trust me.\"", "I remember where I was, yeah. Some new money punk in his daddy’s BMW had been tailgating me for half a mile, he had his stupid fuckin’ highbeams on so he could see out from behind the pair of fucking Wayfarers he’s wearing at seven at night. So I brake checked the shithead, shithead swerves into the passing lane. He speeds up, I speed up, yadda yadda, I don’t want this cocksucker in front of me, we make eye contact. I give him the finger, because fuck him. Then everything goes white then black then I’m standing nose to nose with shithead, surrounded by everybody in the fucking world. And you know the rest. \n\nOkay wait only I said nose to nose back there but what I meant was nose to snout, because he was one of the poor fucks with a stupid cowsnout where his stupid nose and his stupid mouth used to be, he’s got big dumb cow eyes behind his Ralph Lauren probably fucking Purple Label glasses. And I didn’t think cows could fucking feel emotion but the look on this idiot’s face as he feels up his new mouth is so fucking lovely, he’s like ‘the fuck is this’ and looks terrified and it’s awful but so fucking funny. So. Here I am, I don’t know what the fuck just happened, what happened to my car, what happened to his face, and I haven’t even thought about my face yet, or where the fuck I am, and I crack the fuck up. I could not fucking help myself I literally pointed at his stupid cow bovine fucking hoof face and fell to a knee I was laughing so hard. I was lightheaded. And we’re getting jostled around by the people all around us and he’s lunging at me and he’s still got hands but he tries to spin around some screaming piglady, and I mean that literally, like she wasn’t just big she was a Pig. Lady. And he spins like he thinks he’s a running back and I see his fucking Tail and I start laughing even harder, and I see him get pushed back by the crowd, and I lose sight of him and I’m still laughing and since I’m on my fucking knee like an idiot surrounded by seven billion goddamn people I get knocked out by some shit who probably doesn’t even notice me. \n\nSo get this. I missed the announcement. I know it’s the greatest most profound yadda yadda yadda of all humanity and time and shit, but, I was taking a power nap thanks to a careless knee. What can ya do. I was woken up by a police officer who didn’t speak English, and everyone was gone. I could see we were in a valley, and I could see a fucking exodus of people walking in every direction towards the towers, you know, the towers, looking like some sorta lobsided snowflake of ants all around me. Anyways I’m trying to ask this guy the fuck happened, and we get approached by this deer, person, thing you know what I’m trying to say, and he thank god speaks English, tells me the blah of the blah, we got saved by aliens, our planet was about to get nuked from some cosmic spaceshit or another and aliens are the Jesus Christ of the twenty first century. They teleported the entire human race to safety, and we got to watch the Earth burn, and I fuckin missed it, and missed the chance to punch out hooves-for-brains. \n\nHe explained the animal shit too since I kept staring at his fuckin’ deer ears. They didn’t want to remove all the bacteria and shit that was keeping people alive. Look I took biology, I know you need bacteria in your gut or you can’t eat, well you can eat but you can’t digest, so they had to keep that, the bacteria, but if you had any animal meat in your stomach at the time the DNA got worked into you, like Ian Malcolm in the fly. Apparently it was just a footnote in their big ‘look how great we are’ speech. They were like ‘sorry’. ‘we did not expect that.’ And never mentioned it again. Like some fucking Louis CK punchline. \n\n It’s fucking crazy though man. Think about it. The animals, the animals we farm and eat every day, well, used to, they were so fucking similar to us that this bizarre alien super advanced technological anti-death evacuation teleport couldn’t tell the difference. Doesn’t that just make you think? I mean, there are no cows anymore, because the cocksucker aliens only saved human beings, and we’re on this great new government rationed vegetarian diet, but maybe we were closer to these animals than we thought, ya know? I just never felt connected when I was at Safeway confronted by a bigass cooler of red squigglyline ground beef. \n", "What started as a Vegan idea intended to go viral becomes reality. Some radical vegans ignore the fact that the idea was meant to be a marketing campaign, and create the inhuman machine known as the Consumer-tron. Surreal right? Well that would seem to be at face value, but in reality, it's the opposite. The world goes crazy. It's an apocalypse like no other; people all over the world waking up, and looking into the mirror, realising they have became a seemingly random animal, until they walk outside, and see everyone else. Most of those who didn't kill themselves (7% of the population killed themselves, 18 went crazy), or lose mind in some other sense, rioted. The riots lasted two months.\n\n14th April, 2015. \nAverley Church,\nFreeton, Illinois.\n\n'Friends, colleagues, *strangers*. Those of us gathered today are the remnants of society; the economic system has crumbled, the internet has crumbled, the hospitals are damn-near shut. If we dare to look in mirrors, we can see our only refuge from this blight is in our own minds. What I'm saying is, humanity will never be the same again' \nJames Newman cleared his throat, waiting for a reaction. A murmur went about the room, sounding positive. The sea of faces mainly included snouted pig-like humans, brown-faced bovine featured characters, and beaked chickens, but there was a mixture of others as well. Ducks, Rabbits, and Fish were also present. The group numbered around a hundred, and we were the only group like us known to us. \n The happening rendered all of humanity with patchy amnesia, remembering some details and not some others. Most of us have our memory back by now, but maybe the vegan plan worked in some sadistic, twisted way, as the people with the lowest intellect became essentially *vegetables*. The tougher-stomached of us had to put them down humanely. Mr. Newman, a chicken, had elected himself leader. His wife Sally, a cow, stepped up from a chair behind him to mop his brow.\n I knew sally before this, before the event. She managed the book club my mother was in. A dear old woman, always eager to support her genius husband.\n An adolescent rabbit stood up. From the distinctive checkered shirt and tatty straw hat, I could tell it was Donne. The wannabe-school bully, at Freeton High we all agreed he was the resident 'Hillbilly', which was ironic, considering his namesake the great poet, stood up with a devillish grin recognisable even on his rabbitty teeth. \n 'Hey, how about a go at those udders?'\n Really, Donne? A time like this and you are still making childish jokes. For shame.\nTo be honest I'm surprised he didn't become one with the dust as soon as this happened. The virus, or whatever it was, seemed to amplify how stupid/intelligent you are. I suppose that is why James is up there leading us today.\n 'Listen, *child*' The icy look was clear on James' countenance 'If you don't take this seriously, then why are you here? We are gathered for the good of what's left of humanity, not to poke fun at it.' For once Donne looked regretful. 'What has happened, however catastrophic, has happened. Humanity has evolved. There is no turning back. Our first order of business is the resecuring of the hospitals. Is there anyone here affliated in any way with..'\nJames was cut short by a loud cheer of some sort from outside. Those of us young and able went to the huge stained glass windows, and what we saw when we peered out took our breath away.", "Persecution was never an uncommon occurence in history. Mankind had persecuted each other for any number of reasons, their religion, their nationality, their sexuality, even the shape of their bodies. For the most part, persecution was usually aimed at a person for reasons beyond their control. How impossible it would be for a Jew to change his ancestry, or a black person the colour of their skin, or a gay man their sexuality. In all this time it had been more of a rarity for a population to be persecuted for their choices. But with the *change*, that disastrous and monumentous year, it became the norm.\n\nWho could've expected such an event. A medical mystery, decades later still not understood. Over a single year it seemed to take place, at first starting with subtle changes to people all across the world. First our skin, slowly changing colours and textures, even falling off from some, and in others solidifying in ways reminiscent of bone or chitin. Soon it was followed by our hair, and our eyes, changing shape and colour, hair sometimes falling out, or growing elsewhere, eyes shifting position and segmenting. That was the beginning of the most alarming and distressing part of our transformation, feeling our own bodies shift and reallign, like growing pains that never ended, and the grinding of bone over bone, as even our limbs shifted and warped.\nIt took months before we noticed the extreme variation in effect upon people, with some sprouting horns, or spikes, others with their faces stretched to form snouts, and those whose hair fell out only to be replaced by plumes of feathers.\n\nIt took only a short while after the transformations were identified as paralleling the physiology of animals across the world, that we realised the cause for such varied changes. Individual populations across the globe, for the most part, took on the shape and stature of those creatures endemic to them, or most frequently included in their diet.\nOf course, it was with this change that mankind once again turned to persecution.\n\nIt soon became obvious how individuals had led their lives through the metamorphosis they undertook. The first riots took place in the Middle East, though not over land or even ancient disputes in religion. Infact it had seemed as if the *change* had perhaps unified many disparate sects. In those Muslim and Jewish communities, it was evident who had followed their holy laws and those who had not. Those unfortunate men and women, whose secrets had been revealed by their newfound porcine and crustacean anatomies, shunned by their relatives and spiritual leaders, hounded by those they had called brother. First it started with protests, and then riots, and finally bloodshed. \n\nThe rifts stretched beyond the Arab world however, to sects of Hinduism, against those now of a bovine persuasion, and even in the Western world, infighting among certain communities. Those who took pleasure in their vegetarian or vegan ways were split from their friends. Soon those who prided themselves on not consuming the meat of animals, but still sustained themselves upon foods derived from those creatures transformed, perhaps in ironic fashion, to reflect those animals and furthermore, indistinguishably from those who had enjoyed and dined upon the flesh of their livestock. It was the vegans however who took the most unfortunate transformations, for while they attempted to avoid all animal life, they were not aware of the creatures that they unknowingly consumes. The smallest near-microscopic animals that thrived on plant life, those worms and mites and other insects, slowly changing their bodies. At first it had seemed as those who had avoided meat were destined to avoid any transformation, but perhaps on account of the smaller proportion of animal life they consumed, their change took longer than those around them. But even in this, perhaps they were blessed to finally transition, for it was those who did not who were suffered the most.\n\nAs the *change* had warped humanity for ever more, it was then that the world noticed those few individuals hidden away. The few people across the globe who had shown no growth, yet had the wisdom to hide. Those first few who came out were treated with curiosity, tested by the worlds best scientists, in the hope that they held a cure to this cruel joke. Yet the discovery behind their personal status quo was to sicken all those who heard of it. As we learnt from seeing newborn babies, fed only from their mothers, who retained normality for a while, only one thing that could have been eaten would keep their appearances human. Finally, it was those unchanged who faced the world's persecution.\n\n", "Surprisingly, she looked calm as she entered the chamber and was strapped onto the gurney; her human visage abnormal amidst her executioners and the gathering crowd. Cow-eyed, chicken-beaked... myriad animal-human hybrids on both sides of the observation window, all there to see the final living moments of the monster.\n\n\"Do you have any last words?\" enquired the overseer in a bleeting voice, his feeble tone and developing fleece betraying his food of choice.\n\nShe paused for a brief moment, then spat her final words like poisoned daggers at the assembled crowd: \"I did what you all don't have the courage to - prey upon something that has a fighting chance. See you all in hell.\"", "Today marked the 14th anniversary of hybrid history month. As hybrids from all over the world gathered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, there wasn't a soul that didn't have culpability for what happened that month of October. We didn't have to do it, but it was essential for peace. \n\nPeace... an odd word to describe the world we live in today. We got pink kids with snouts playing basketball, grandmas walking around looking like Big Bird, and Bieber with a coat of sheep skin in a Calvin Klein ad. The illusion of normality. As expected the term \"human rights\" became obsolete, replaced by the term \"hybrid rights\". Nationality disintegrated, replaced by countries where specific hybrids aggregated. It was the pig hybrids with the most representative power. Followed by the chicken hybrids, cattle hybrids, sheep hybrids, and finally the \"miscellaneous category\". Suddenly the world was turning into a fucked up version of Animal Farm but instead of Napoleon, we had the cannibals. \n\nThe cannibals. They were our convenient scapegoat. Luckily, after we got all animalistic, it seemed race and religion became redundant categorizations. Unfortunately, logic and rationality were the last things on our minds. I hate to admit this now but those dumb self-righteous vegetarians and vegans knew what they were doing.\n\nAt first we thought they were the lucky ones. But we soon suspected they weren't eating meat like the rest of us. I always wondered where my baby brother went, didn't know my creepy neighbor had him for supper 4 years ago. We went from door to door looking for those mother fuckers. It was a holocaust. We lost count of how many we had killed. It didn't matter. For the first time, billions across the world were united for one glorious movement, and no I don't count those asinine sporting events. Finally, on October 31st our president put an end to the genocide. After all the insanity died down, some smart-aleck finally realized the body count was WAY too high to account for just the cannibals. Looks like I may have strangled some frightened vegetarians...sorry neighbor. \n\nMeat and fish were banned as you might expect. Not many people enjoyed the idea of eating their own body parts. On special occasions though, my buddies and I crack open a beer and grill some steak for ourselves. I didn't like it at first, but human flesh is slowly growing on me.\n", "I hadn't seen Max since before *The Event*. I'm not sure what I was expecting. She arrived at my apartment and my incredulity was eminently apparent when I began stammering in surprise before I even managed to greet her. \"Max, you -- I can't believe -- you of all people I wouldn't expect--\"\n\n\"Yeah, *Bessie?*\" Maxine asked. Her tone mixed mocking with just enough sweetness that I knew she wasn't seriously down-talking my bovine appearance. I loved steak and brisket, it's true. To be honest, I didn't really mind looking like a Tauren. But Maxine hadn't changed in the least. I couldn't believe it, all signs pointed to the notion that she'd eaten *human*?\n\n\"You, uh, know what happened to everyone, right?\" I asked. Surely she hadn't been living in a cave.\"\n\n\"Oh. Yeah! Freaky stuff. Simon looks like Foghorn Leghorn now. Carol's a *mermaid*, salmon-ish tail but larger. I felt really bad for her at first, but it turns out she really lucked out because something about whatever happened didn't interfere like I thought it was gonna.\"\n\nI was taken slightly aback. \"She, ah, can walk?\"\n\nMax blinked. \"What? No, big ol' fish tail! We had to get a wheelchair. Thaaaaat's ... maybe the second most important thing. No I mean the super genie or whatever did this, let her keep her vag, didn't replace it with whatever fish have.\"\n\nI sighed. Of course. \n\nBut wait, that tangent didn't answer the question! I reiterated, \"Max! I will try my best not to judge, but I need to know. Have you... eaten human flesh?\"\n\nMax laughed. \"You've forgotten my one exception to veganism, haven't you?\"\n\nI balked, incredulous, and strained to remem--\n\n\"Don't you remember why I'm always so *spunky*?\"\n\nOh right.\n\n\"It's because of all the *spunk*.\"\n\nOh right.\n\n\"I am talking about *semen*. I eat semen.\" It was, undeniably, her favorite food that was animal in nature. \"Or 'drink',\" she continued, \"depending on ... factors.\"\n\nI let out another sigh, relieved. \"I get it, I get it. No need to provide details.\" Max smiled broadly. \n\n\"So,\" she asked, graciously changing the subject, \"what's in the works for D&D today?\"\n\n\"No idea what Lily's got cooked up, she has told me nothing. I was thinking about what fallout there would be if this *Event* happened in-game too. That group of evil goblins might start looking like goblin-sized humans for very different reasons than you do...\"\n\n\"Hey, I'm not *goblin*-sized! I've got a foot on 'em at least!\"\n\n\"Wonder if that's where Halflings come from.\"\n\n~~\n\n(Characters borrowed, with apologies for any mangling, from [Leftover Soup](http://www.leftoversoup.com).)" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 8, 15, 20, 34, 61 ]

[ "1423933751", "1423946580", "1423947014", "1423966081", "1423986748", "1423924142", "1423937689", "1423919660", "1423930459", "1423925790", "1423922941", "1423921633" ]

[ "\"Sir?\" Azazel timidly popped his horned head into the lush, polished office. Satan took notice and looked up from his coloring book. \n\n\"Yes Azazel?\"\n\n\"Oh, uh, mamm?\"\n\n\"Please Azazel, one is not so formal with a child...\"\n\nAzazel's cloven feet clopped nervously has he shifted his weight. Satan had resumed coloring, wearing down a black crayon with large, waxy, loops. Azazel cleared his throat.\n\n\"What should I...? I um...\" Satan sighed a heavy sigh and switched to a sharp red crayon.\n\n\" Miss will be fine. Now spit it out Azazel.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, uh...Miss. The horsemen are here to discuss the scheduling of the apocalypse. Death insists on the next five years but War is concerned it will cut into the profits coming from the middle east and...\"\n\nSatan swayed her feet so her bright, white, patent leather shoes caught the gleam of the surrounding hell fire.\n\" I don't want to go to a boring old meeting. Send them away Azazel.\"\n\n\"But sir!\"\n\nSatan slammed her fists on the gleaming desk she worked on, crayons rolled haphazardly to the floor. Azazel flinched and tugged at his tie.\n\n\"But, Miss, the meeting with the horsemen has been delayed over a millennium already. They will not be easily turned away.\" \n\n\"No! No, no, no! I don't want to!\" Satan screamed and tore at her perfectly curled pigtails. The hell fire blazed brighter and a moan of the collected tormented shook the room. Azazel rolled his eyes and with a defeated sigh and closed the door of Satan's office behind him with a firm click. \n\n\"Sir. Is this about your anniversary?\"\n\nSatan's tantrum came to a halt. Smoothing out the ruffles of her dress, she avoided Azazel's patient stare.\n\n\" I have no idea what you're talking about.\"\n\n\"Sir, this is the third transformation in a week, each shell younger then the one before. The 1000th anniversary of your fall is right around the corner and...well, I understand if you are having some, difficulty, with it...\"\n\n\" You don't understand anything! What are you Azazel? A couple hundred years old? I was around before there was time! Before the humans, before anything! I tried to make a deal last week...\"\n\n\"Oh sir...you didnt....\"\n\n\"I did! I couldn't even get the welp to look up from his phone let alone make a deal! I've lost it Azazel! I've been out of the field too long!\"\n\n\"No, sir, you are above deals. Remember? You're not some demon looking to earn his pitchfork. You're the fallen star! The master general! The one who will lead us on the march on the throne! You are...experienced!\"\n\n\"Out of date.\"\n\n\"Seasoned?\"\n\n\"Old! Old! Old and forgotten Azazel! Old!\" Satan jumped down from the over sized, plush office chair and threw herself on a near by love seat. Azazel took a few timid steps towards the wailing child.\n\n\" Sir, I mean, Miss? You know what I think? I think an attempt at the apocalypse is just what you need right now. Shake off some of the rust. And remind the troops, and yourself, of the marvelous things you are still capable of.\" Satan raised her pouting face to Azazel, who was ready with a red silk handkerchief to wipe away her black, sticky tears. \n\n\"You think so?\" \n\n\"I do. And if I know the holy father, like I know I do; he will be willing to put up quite a battle for earth.\"\n\nSatan thought for a somber moment, then nodded. Sniffling and trying to dry her rosey cheeks.\n\n\"Now, how about we meet with those horsemen?\"\n\n\"Can we get ice cream on the way to them Azazel?\"\n\n\" Of course Sir.\"\n\nEDIT: formatting", "\"Yesh, I just don't get it man. I try to help with the old man's Free Will experiment and I get bitched at and kicked out. I torment the souls of evil people because that's my job. I go out into Earth and tempt people and do necessary evils because the Humans are still being beta'd. I hate my job, I hate my life, and I just wanna come home.\" Lucifer looked at his brother Yeshua, otherwise known as Christ, and had on his face a defeated look, as if he had finally been broken.\n\nYeshua hugged his brother and spake.\n\n\"Lu, what if I told you you're down here because you were never told that our asshole father has been long dead and grandpa Yahweh has been running things, and he wants you to come home?\"\n\nThe look on Lucifer's face was priceless. \"Dad? Dead? The bastard's finally dead?! And then you tell me gramps is calling the shots now! Yes, a million times yes I want out of this miserable place so I can be happy and stress free, if only for a month!\"\n\nYeshua put a hand on his chin and scratched his beard like a fancy man.\n\n\"Do you have someone who can fill in while you take a hiatus?\"\n\nLucifer grinned and said, \"Oh, I do. Y'see there's this guy.. Steve Jobs...\"\n\nLucifer leaves and comes back after a wind-down vacation and finds Hell turned into a giant Apple Store." ]

[ 1, 5 ]

[ "1423950329", "1423936580" ]

[ "Hitler felt he'd calmed a little in death. His fervent passion had settled in the slow drift through the void. The war had faded out. His country had rehabilitated itself while he'd been gone. It wasn't the empire he'd been hoping for, but he could stand the reality of things now. Temperance was important, he'd learned. \n\nBut this...this was just asinine.\n\n\"I don't understand what you're not following about this.\" He fidgeted with his index finger, frustrated that it had fallen off again. \n\n\"We just don't think it was as much of a disaster as the history books say it was.\" The wide, affable smile never dimmed. The group leader was a happy man, sure of himself and his convictions, even after being faced with the recently risen zombie body of a long dead dictator. Hitler found it impressive, honestly. \n\n\"It's just...That was a lot of people. I mean a lot. They didn't just wander off into the woods.\" The ratty, worn out soles of his shoes tapped an awkward rhythm on the floor. There was no victory in strong arming this man into the understanding, he knew that but still, he'd never had to argue the reality of this before. The whole thing was throwing him for a loop. \n\n\"Ah, but see, so many of the numbers they tallied aren't backed up by the records. These so called mass graves have vanished in quite a few spots.\" The group leader gestured expansively, a slight spark of amusement in his eye, as though the whole prospect was a rather silly game of hide and seek. The group nodded behind him, muttering their assent. \n\n\"A failsafe,\" Hitler said, brushing the point aside. \"In the event that we lost, my allies were to cover up what we'd done to the best of their abilities. People don't tend to look favorably on genocide. Germany would need a way to regain its feet, should my ambitions fail. There is no 'I'm sorry' in the collaborative massacre of so many.\"\n\nHitler frowned, feeling flaps of skin pull away from around his eyes. Awful. Just awful. Being in the dirt for so long had done a number on his body. Things sliding and sloughing around. He felt like he'd been put together out of strips of baloney and rawhide. Maybe he'd get a hat. That might help. He'd quite liked his last hat. \n\n\"But you have to agree that there may have been some exaggeration there with the numbers,\" the man said, still maintaining a level of pleasantness that Hitler was beginning to find intensely sickening. \"Surely you couldn't have signed off on every order.\" \n\nHitler got to his feet, walking to where a large man with a mustache phenomenally similar to a walrus was sporting an equally phenomenal hat. The man was a good sport. He almost managed not to cry when Hitler's rotting, worm-eaten hand took his sombrero. The genocidal monster-turned-zombie nodded appreciatively. Perhaps this was it. \n\n\"You don't seem to understand the scope of all this. Gas chambers. Truck loads of clothes. Bars of gold forged from teeth. Trains of dead bodies, legs thinner than twigs but piled like kindling all the same.\" He shook his head, feeling the tassels sway. \"These are not simply things you can ignore. I can imagine that in some aspect the eradication of them succeeded, but not in all.\"\n\nThe group leader spread his arms wide, his eyes beseeching. Hitler fought a shudder of revulsion at the way the pose reminded him of the paintings of Jesus. He suspected the man had practiced that one. Every good speaker had at least a few tricks. \n\n\"Come on now, you can't honestly think all of this happened. Isn't it more likely that the US and its allies made the whole thing up to justify their warmongering? Germany did little and less to provoke the invasion of its lands. I was sure you, of all people, would agree with me.\"\n\nThe sadness in the man's eyes was astounding. To be disappointed about something so twisted...Hitler almost couldn't believe it. But then, he could. The look was familiar. He'd seen the desperation in the eyes of every one of his countrymen. Downtrodden. Beaten and weary to the bone. He'd only done what was necessary to make them strong again. To show them that they could do anything that they set their minds to. *To show the WORLD that GERMANY, HIS COUNTRY, WAS NOT SOME DOG TO TAKE ABUSE LYING DOWN. TO BEG FOR SCRAPS AT THE FEET OF THOSE WHO'D ABUSED IT, WHO'D-*\n\nHe stopped, forcing himself to calm down. No. That wasn't right. What he'd done...\n\n\"Make no mistake,\" He said in a voice that could have splintered ice. The temperature in the room fell. The lights flickered. \"I gave those orders. Over six million, dead by my hand. Not just Jews. Gypsies. Retards. Gays. Families torn apart, people treated like animals, like scum, DON'T TELL ME IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.\" His words lashed like whips, and before them the Deniers cowered.\n\nHe sighed.\n\n\"Time makes fools of us all, I suppose.\" The room was normal again. The lights hummed happily. Hitler tipped the sombrero at the man and walked out the doors, a trail of skin and clothing behind him. Yes. This hat would do nicely.\n\n", "High polished chrome blackened with smoke from the blast. The bunker shuddered as the explosions echoed forward in a rhythmic death march. The room dimmed in timing with the impacts, as each crush of allied bombs was synchronized with the pulse of the machine. \n\nAdolf's eyes gazed at the heavy canister, emblazoned with three red swastikas, a triumph of Nazi technology, proof of Aryan supremacy. His eyes locked with the man holding the isotope core, a perfect replica. The man gazed back, determined, loyal above all to himself and the woman by his side. \n\nFor a moment he entertained fear, wondered if Herr Ritscher was trustworthy. If the explorer had indoctrinated the couple fully, had enough time to teach them how to carry out the next steps... had convinced them completely. His fingertips grazed across the handle of his ppk. Adolf observed the man across the room shift his weight slightly, but kept both hands on the large metal cylinder, perhaps considering, but making no move towards his weapon. It was well, all would go as planned.\n\nThe room shook again and the dial on the outside of the contraption surged forward as the room plunged into darkness. Adolf stepped forward, confident in his footsteps, pacing as he had a thousand times before. \n\nThe light ebbed back in, slightly dimmer, the machine gathering power from sources he barely understood. His movements were confident, as they must be, but inside he felt his stomach gather in a tense knot. Had Ritscher's team successfully transcribed the artifacts brought back by the Schwabenland, or had he been betrayed once again? Scientists were calculating, had they known the inevitable? Had they plotted his undoing? No, they were as the others, easily manipulated by pride. They too were slaves to knowledge.\n\nEven if his own generals' lacked stomach for the necessary, he knew that his occultists understood the true depths of what was at stake. The others had seen the signs, had taught him well, in prison. They knew what they were about to unleash. Adolf had seen the awe and fear in their eyes. Unlike the others, they did not fear him personally, but they respected the greater forces and trembled at those instead. It was their knowledge that opened the way of the Reich.\n\nA stray beam of light had found its way through a crack in the concrete, illuminating the Iron Eagle. It was prophecy, the time had begun. With a steady hand he turned the wheel on the hatch, turned and motioned towards Eva.\n\nHis eyes caught on the mirror, aged perfectly, mustache trimmed perfectly. Wearing the greatest symbols of the Reich. He felt some consolation that there had been only limited time to teach him. It would be like losing a son. Next to his reflection, the woman, eyes filled with fire and adoration struggled against the weight of the steel canister. She tilted it upwards, towards the port, arms raised, surrendering to the inevitable. They were the only ones that could be trusted with the secret. Looking at her, he knew his heart would have shattered in that moment if Eva hadn't turned him away and pushed him into the machine. \n\nThe door locked as the vibration escalated. \n\nEva had tears in her eyes, \"Mein Fuhrer, how could you watch them\"\n\n\"Everyone must leave a part of themselves behind\", he heard himself say.\"\n\n\"They will die together\", she said\n\n\"We will die together\", Adolf said, correcting her.\n\n\"Had only there been time to prepare a thousand more clones\"\n\n\"Then we would not be leaving...\" he said, finishing the sentence for her.\n\n\"It is destiny\" she said, and hugged him.\n\nInside the sphere the explosion amplified, flung them apart. A wave of temporal darkness, the madness of a speed crash, the crush of final impact. Dust filled Adolf's eyes as his skull careened against the spartan steel of the device's interior. \n\n*Too late*, he thought as the world turned the gray of ghosts.\n\nHead hammering, shreds of Hugo Boss dripped with blood. The passage of time had not been gentle. Adolf's eyes focused on the large brass timepiece. The glass face had detonated like a grenade, but the timekeeping mechanism still worked. The numbers, could they be right?\n\n.2015. He blinked again. 2015. He counted eight breaths, painful as they were. The outer dial sped forward in time to his agony. Adolf's eyes looked at his arms, embedded with broken glass. At that moment he swore he would kill any ancestors of the traitor who had turned the clock face into a weapon. Deliberate or not, it didn't matter. If it was cunning, then it had been used against him, and was therefore dangerous. If it was idiocy, it was genetic, and could be cured, of that he was certain. Simply weeded out, like any other form of inferiority.\n\nHe turned to Eva, he had shielded her body from most of the blast. She was breathing, the slow deep breath of the unconscious. This was as well, anything could be waiting outside. He could be welcomed as a hero or killed on site when he stepped outside. The prophecies were very vague on the outcome, but quite insistent on the necessity. \n\nAdolf was not a man of half-measures, he would see this through to the end. Collecting himself he brushed off his uniform and summoned the strength which had carried him this far. Through all the violence, through all the pain and glory. None of that mattered, only the outcome.\n\nThe door was creased, but opened with a shove. A gentle strobe of light, the sound of rubble crumbling. \nIf all had gone as planned, they would be gathered and waiting, deep within the far shores of America. A stronghold in the Cascades, as suited the slow mountainous rush of time. \n\nHitler stepped down the hall, each step thundering confidently. Boots rippled leather the color of tanned human skin, absorbing the impact adding purpose to his step. He knew they would hear him, knew that the time had arrived. \n\nFrom within the meeting hall a loud \"Achtung\" followed by clapping. Hitler smiled.\n\n(to be continued)", "\"Thank you all for coming tod-\" The back door slammed open and revealed a hunched over, decaying man. He was dressed in drab dark clothing with a swastika pin in his coat lapel. \n\n\"Errrg...\" He groaned and gazed upon the meeting.\n\n\"Uh... Sir are you here for the Holocaust Deniers Meeting?\" The man stared out past the group. No one seemed to recognize him until he spoke. With a cough he finally spat out. \n\n\"Holocaust...Deniers meeting? My people I assure you, a purge of that magnitude was very, very real.\" His voice had a German twinge with an undead undertone that made his words very quiet but sharp. \"I can assure you, orders were carried out to find the Jewish problem and resolve it in whatever way was efficient. If you believe that 6 billion of men, women and children just disappeared then you are blinder than I and I have maggots eating at my eyeballs.\" The group whispered among themselves, unsure of what was going on. The man limped his way to the podium, where his pain seemed to subside as he fell into his comfort zone. The head speaker piped up and asked, \"Sir, who are you?\"\n\n\"Something you cannot deny.\" ", "Thank you all for coming to this week's meeting of Holocaust Deniers Local 272. My name is Frank Simmons, and while I believe the Jews run everything, I don't believe the Holocaust ever happened, because the Jews run everything. It's kind of weird to be meeting like this, to be honest. It's like \"Oh, you think the Holocaust didn't happen? Me, too.\" Strange, don't you think? I mean, sure, maybe we just need an excuse to get away from the wife, the kids, the Jews, but does anyone here, I don't know... ski? I do. I like to ski. Any skiiers? No? Well, fine. We'll do this instead. I see we have a new face here in the room. You look... familiar. You play basketball?\n\n**Nein! I am the ghost of Hitler!**\n\nReally? But you're so non-translucent. You look every bit as real as the rest of us here in the Thrifty Lodge conference room. By the way, thank Thrifty Lodge for the complimentary coffee and donuts. They are on our side. Anyways, Hitler's ghost. Here. Wow. Really?\n\n**Yes, it is really me.**\n\nWell, honestly, it's weird to see you. Not because you're dead, but because you're not wearing a Nazi uniform. What's with the fanny pack and jeans shorts?\n\n**I'm dead, not fashionable. Anyhow, you guys have made a big, big, big mistake. The Holocaust happened. I know. I did it. I was in it to win it, the Master race rising to the top. Then I killed myself. Speaking of which, did we win?**\n\nWin what?\n\n**The war.**\n\nUh... no. Sorry. \n\n**Dammit**\n\nIt was real close though.\n\n**Really?**\n\nNo. But hey, Germany's still kicking, and they're allies with the US now.\n\n**If they're so great, how many Jews did they kill last year?**\n\nI don't know. None, maybe? But to be fair, you didn't either.\n\n**Nonsense! I killed more Jews than God.**\n\nGo tell that to Athiests Anonymous down the hall. Man, why do THOSE guys get together? \"Hey, we don't believe in God. Let's hang out.\" Christ. Anyhow, the Nazis had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews. That's a fact. We can all agree on that, right?\n\n**Ahem.**\n\nOr, maybe not. OK, Mr. Hitler with your open toed sandals and WHO FARTED? shirt. You tell me.\n\n**Of course we had policy. We built concentration camps. That's called \"committing to the bit\".**\n\nNo, you didn't have any gas chambers. Explain that.\n\n**Oh, well, that's where you're wrong. We did, but only after our first method failed.**\n\nWhat was that?\n\n**We tried tickling them to death. Very difficult. Some Jews aren't very ticklish. And the more Jews we rounded up, we ran out of room which is why we built the camps. They were concentration camps, see? Because we had to CONCENTRATE really, really hard on tickling them. Then this one guard was like, \"Man, there has got to be a better way to rid the world of the Jews.\" I said \"You cooking up any ideas?\" and then I was all like, \"Hey, I might be on to something...\"**\n\nI see.\n\n**You know, cooking Jews instead of ideas.**\n\nYeah, but six million ideas? That number can't possibly be right.\n\n**Actually, it's more than that.**\n\nMore?\n\n**Not by a lot. Six million and fifty-three. But why split hairs? No sense crying over spilt Jews.**\n\nBut there's so much evidence out there that the holocaust was fake.\n\n**Like what**\n\nLike a book a couple of crackpots wrote, shaming the many, many, many volumes of scholarly, researched, and detailed work devoted to this chapter in world history. Oh, wait. I see the error of my ways now. Well, guys, huge waste of time, but at least we don't have to get together anymore. God, that's gonna be sad. I'm gonna miss spending time with you in this beige room, sitting around a conference table, just talking about how a historical event was fiction when... oh, man, is my face red! See, I should have joined a tennis club. Or, or started a Cub Scout pack. My oldest, Joey, he's at that age where kids wanna become scouts.\n\n**You know, the Nazis started as a Cub Scout pack.**\n\nReally?\n\n**Yeah, but things went kind of sideways after that. One minute, you're learning how to tie a slipknot, and the next you're doing horrible things to the Jews. (sighs) Hey, you need another scoutmaster?**\n\nUh... no. Nothing personal, but, well... Joey's pal David Rosenstein--\n\n**Say no more. Well, I should be going back to Hell anyways. Thanks for the coffee and a nice stroll down memory lane.**\n\nOK, Hitler. And there he goes. Well... life just got a little more empty, didn't it? Maybe we should have been a bowling team instead.\n\n", "\"Of cause we gassed 6 million Jews you imbeciles.\" Hitler bellowed. \"Do you really think with death camps all over Poland we would only manage a measly couple of hundred thousand? What kind of third world Reich do you think we were running.\"\n\n", "\"The thing about the Holocaust, is-'\"\n\nThe floorboards of the auditorium erupted, splintering outwards in jagged splinters. Flying chunks of wood filled the air, closely followed by screams. Pandemonium ensued. Several chairs were knocked over.\n\nStanding amdist the chaos, a dark specter ringed by the savage up thrusts of wood, was a small, decaying man.\n\nThis man raised his hand and gently stroked an impossibly beautiful mustache. \n\n\"OH MY GOD,\" screamed the hoax-denier-in-chief, cheeto dust drifting from his many chins on the hot uodrafts \"IT'S THE REICH-MASTER HIMSELF. \"\n\n\"Nein zees nutz!\" Adolf said calmly, pointing a pale, aryan finger at the non-believer.\n\nThe blood traitor managed one, high pitched wail of defeat and lust before his face imploded, the bones of his face shooting out the back of his skull in one massive, nationalistic explosion of gore.\n\nAdolf raised his hands to the roof of the high-school hall and bellowed in triumph. Blonde haired, blue eyed women within a 10 kilometer radius began flocking to the auditorium, their ovaries preparing themselves for the gift of racial purity. Once a suitably sized harem surrounded the Fuhrer, he began to sink back into the ground, claiming his prize for the Fatherland \n\nWhen only his piercing blue eyes remained, a voice was heard on the wind.\n\n\"This is what lies will Holocaust you.\"", "\"If you do not believe it is really me, then perhaps I should prove it, mhm? But how? Maybe I should describe it for you, yes? I will. It was clear--to me--that they were the scum of the earth and I--I was doing the world a favor! But did anyone see it!? Did anyone realize the greatness at hand!? No! Maybe when I die, I thought, they'll see what I did was truly an art, like great painters I would be carved in stone after my life ceased. And yet, here I sit, in a room full of ignorant fools that don't even acknowledge my work--who, who don't even give me the credit that I rightfully earned! You rats! You seething maggots! You degrading ingrates! I did it! I did what all the history books describe! And I would do it again! I would slaughter those dirty Jews again and again--the filth that they are! I ordered the gun shots, I commanded the camps, I organized the funding of the gases and the burning of the bodies! I! Me! I let loose the smoke of their ashes into the air and that smell--how it lingered! I took their hair, I snatched their teeth, and bit off their fingernails. The blood they poured filled my stemware and their bones built my fortresses. Their gold, their silver, their diamonds and jewels I used to pay for their own death as the lands I touched were purged of their slime.\"\n\nThe room fell silent. Adolf was seething from his speech. His forehead was red and veiny. And the wide eyes of the conference members searched each other. Finally one man looked to Adolf, and he spoke one shivering word that has been asked thousands and millions of times before,\n\"Why?\"", "Sorry to tell you guys buy I am Hitler and I really committed all these atrocities. \n\nAre you for real?\n\nyes,100%!\n\nWell, guys, that's it then .Disband the meeting we are done. We were wrong.\n", "Zombie Hitler enters the room, and the shocked occupants explain the situation to him.\n\nA sad and angry Zombie Hitler shambles back into his grave, never to be seen again, wishing he really had exterminated so many Jews.", "\"I know you can never forgive me, but now I trust you understand. It was a horrible sacrifice that had to be made to at least try to save...\"\n\nHis voice was drowned out by the cries of rage as people recognized the most hated man in human history.\n\n\"You must understand--- We don't know who it is precisely that causes the... event... only that they are a well renowned scientist of Jewish descent. We couldn't send back anything tangible, so I had to rely on manipulation, we had to take broad actions in hopes of catching the right ancestors!\n\nPlease, it's not too late, there's still time, but we only have minutes to spare, this is the last of our energy!\"\n\nThe people shouted, spat, and forced the disheveled crazy man out of their auditorium.\n\n*A few hours later, deep underground a brilliant young scientist smiles happily as his team pops open bottles of champagne to celebrate the go-live of their new project. The 'science deniers' protesting the end of the world outside a laughable farce.*\n\n*\"This is for you Bobe\"* he said as he turned on the field generator.", "Ahmed knew who the man was the moment he appeared in the doorway. It was not the brown, well cut military uniform. It was not the red arm band adorned with its infamous symbol. It was not even the little mustache, the root of so much mockery. Any ordinary man could have donned these things. Many men did, often as a joke, sometimes not. \n\nIt was the tremendous intensity that bled from his person. An energy which Ahmed had never felt before in his entire life. Even Ahmed's father, a frightening man with a savage temper, had never made Ahmed feel so small, so very insignificant and helpless. The loudest yelling, the sternest lecture, the most severe beating, and there were many of those, had not made Ahmed feel so infinitesimal as he did now. Like a tiny rat in the face of a lion. And not the majestic, royal lion. This man, he was like a lion in form, but in spirit, a rabid, half-starved stray dog; viscous and blood thirsty without equal. How could so slight a man make Ahmed fear this way?!\n\nFor what seemed like hours the two men stared at each other. Ahmed's fingers, hovering over the keyboard, the dark Austrian, fixing him with a piercing gaze. It was a glare like no other, like a dead sun. At first, Ahmed had avoided looking into those eyes because he did not want to see what they held. When at last their eyes did align, Ahmed almost began to weep. Those eyes, blue like a frozen corpse. The room was silent, there were no words, and yet all Ahmed could hear was the anguished cries of millions, screaming in agony and fear and hatred. The cries, demanding to know why their fellow man, and God, had forsaken them. What had they done to deserve this suffering, this brutality that stretched the limits of human imagination? It was in that moment, in the screaming silence, under the piercing glare of the dead sun that Ahmed knew he was wrong.\n\nSlowly, he began to hit the backspace button on his key board. His guest did not move, but Ahmed knew that he was performing the correct action. Ahmed wished he could go back and delete every post, erase every conversation and argument that he had ever had. But he could not change the past, only the future. When the last letter vanished and the cursor blinked on a blank page, at last Ahmed spoke. It was a choked sound, nigh incomprehensible,\n\n\"I'm sorry.\"\n\nThe man did not respond, but instead turned to walk out the doorway. How he had come to be there in the first place did not matter. Halfway out the door, he stopped, and half turned to burn Ahmed with his eyes one last time.\n\n\"I am not.\"\n\nThen he left, and Ahmed wept.", "*Adolf Hitler suddenly appears in the middle of the room*\n\nYES! IT WORKED! THE LIVES OF 11 MILLION HUMAN BEINGS WAS ENOUGH TO RECARNATE ME!\n\nYOU! *Points at a random member of the meeting* WHAT YEAR IS IT!?!\n\n(Random member of the meeting) - Anyone speak German?\n\n*the entire room looks at each other*\n\nNo? Ok, please escort this yelling German so we can resume the meeting...\n\n*And the meeting resumed as if nothing happened*", "\"We could do a press release about some new evidence that the camps were grossly exaggerated. Instead of denying them outright, we can say it just blew up from a tiny seed of truth.\" The man who spoke folded his hands meticulous on the table, wrinkled though they were. A slight accent tipped his otherwise powerful voice. \n\n\"And what new evidence is this?\" The woman beside him peered curiously at him, fingers hovering eagerly above the laptop in front of her.\n\n\"How about eye witnesses? Some old men on their death beds. Sympathetic, and difficult to follow up on. It should at least spread the word some.\" The rest of the table nodded sagely in agreement. \n\nA knock on the door interrupted their quiet self-congratulations, and the secretary peeked his head in, \"There's someone here to see you. He uh, he says he is Hitler.\" \n\nSome at the table showed interest, others performed the mandatory eye roll. The man who stood in the doorway donned the iconic mustache, just as dark as it ever was. He strode in with a strong presence, demanding attention just by his gait, \"I am Adolf Hitler, and you deny my history!\" It was a proud declaration, but wasn't particularly witty, so the table-goers had nothing to reply with.\n\n\"Cease your foolish babble,\" Hitler continued. His sheer confidence made his audience timidly peek at one another, \"Know that my actions were for the sake of my country. I have been given a second chance at life, and so it is my duty to spread the word of what has transgressed. I am a savior. You should be shouting my name for rescuing an entire country, for ridding the world of those not worthy to continue, for--\"\n\nThe old man at the head of the table stood, his balding head catching the overhead light like a halo, \"Enough. You are no Hitler, and dare not spread his name.\" \n\n\"What proof would you like? Perhaps a DNA sample? There were plenty of tests on that, too--\"\n\nThe old man gave a raspy laugh, \"DNA would certainly have something interesting to say. If only I could look so young and had more time. I will do everything I can to wipe the slate clean before I die, including eliminating competition. You, sir, cannot be Hitler, for that is who I am.\"", "\"So...next on the docket--Harold?\"\n\nA fastidious man rises from a steel folding chair, clutching a curled pamphlet. His seersucker suit seems to glow by the tendrils of the low midday sun creeping through the windows of the rec room. He clears his throat. \n\n\"Yes, thank you, Brother Gill. So, as you all may know, I have been attending some small meetings with other Counselors for the past few Sundays. And what we've been discussing, I think, can only be--\"\n\nJust then, the front door of the room splinters open, a blast as if from an artillery shell. The two dozen or so men in the room all excite in response, some falling off their chairs, others dazed still in solidarity. As few chunks of wood and cheap paint petal from the ceiling onto the mottled carpet floor, a figure emerges from the doorway. Obscured partly by dust and partly by surprise, a man steps forward.\n\n\"Das... Vat *is* das?!\" the figure bellows from the doorway. The engine of his chest revs furiously, heavy breathing like chains on a tightly wound cog. The man, the figure is dressed in a brown uniform, black leather jacket. Colored pegs and buttons adorn his jacket, marking a history that the other men in the room could never understand.\n\nAs the other men cower, unable to answer the uniformed figure, the fastidious man in the seersucker suit raises his hand. Like a schoolboy to a teacher, though the man tries to speak with as much importance as he can muster.\n\n\"W-Who...are you? What... do you *want* here?!\"\n\nThe figure is silent, his face covered by cloth bandages, where only his eyes, a sad and deathly blue, graze over the men, as if to decide their fate. A moment passes. Then another. Until the figured man stands from his proned posture, tall and commanding, extends his arm, then his finger, marking the seersucker suited man for all to see.\n\n\"Lies. Und correction.\"\n\nThe uniformed man then produces from under his jacket with a grace and speed any fairy tale beast would envy, a large black semi-automatic firearm. Gasps exude from many of the other men.\n\n\"Und here is where I educate you.\"\n\nAs if lions entered a cage of gazelle, the roars and flesh tearing is thunderous. Metal rips through bone, decimates cartilage and organs alike. Screams seem to feed the figure in his bloodlust. Hundreds of rounds pour into the quite literally captive audience, until, as the empty clip ejects from his weapon, the acrid smell of gun smoke and fear settling around the room, the uniformed figure declares to no-one in particular:\n\n\"It is not truth that matters, but victory. Do not forget zis.\"\n\nThe seersucker suited man crawls from under a few bodies, heavily bleeding; dying. He gargles blood as he scrapes along the carpet with his elbows. His legs are useless now, blood filled and dead. Before he gives the last of his breath to the world, he says one thing:\n\n\"But...we...it was all for...you...\"\n\nThe figure turns from his slow trot out the door. He raises his weapon at the man, but remains only poised, a viper ready to share its poison. He laughs a cold, hollow laugh, then says, \n\n\"Where I have been...you would not say that. But\", he says, stepping to and then crouching down to the dying man, \"zis you will know soon enough...\"\n\nThe uniformed man pats the seersucker suited man, a final comfort for that who deserved none. He stands, fumbling in his jacket for one last present. \n\nBefore he tosses the pineapple into the mess of meat and bone, the uniformed figure states one last time, even though no-one could possible be alive enough to hear it:\n\n\"Lies. Und correction. I vas, you vere. Und, now, I am to atone.\"\n\nHe tosses the grenade into the room and steps outside.\n\n\"Und you vill too. You vill all. Das, I promise.\"\n\nAnd then, a monstrous boom. And he is gone.\n\n.\n.\n.\n.\n\n***HITLER: ATONEMENT, ISSUE 1. MARVEL EXCLUSIVE. SMALL PRINT SERIES.***\n\n\n\n\n\n", "August, 2017\nUndisclosed Location\n\nOn that fateful morning, the sun rose to conceal the heliacal rising of Mars, the Roman god of war. It was a culmination of decades of labor. Discretion of this monumental effort came at the cost of thousands of lives, many among them unwilling scientists, and more than a few unresolute comrades whose loyalty could be questioned. It was a feat beyond science and religion. At last, it can now be proclaimed to all Aryan sons of the Fatherland that the Fuhrer has lived, is alive, and will live once more.\n\nThe assembly had been gathered weeks in advance in preparation for the final resurrection. Thousands came from virtually every country, representing neo fascists, White supremacists, ultranationalists, all holocaust deniers. Not few among them were Slavs, in full pressed SS uniforms. Even the Aryans were shocked by their presence. Even the fact that tens of millions of their own countrymen, fathers and mothers, died in the war did not dissuage them in the beliefs of racial purity and Fascism. The Fuhrer rose to an audience more fanatical than he ever knew.\n\nThe first question on the agenda was that eternal question...the Jewish question. Dozens of authors have written on it, even Karl Marx, but none had the determination and will to do anything about it except The Austrian. For Hitler, the massacre of Jews was mere political maneuvering, arithmetics in game theory. Ideologies were for the cannon fodders. But before him were no longer academics of Himmler and Goebbels, but masses of mindless cannon fodders.\n\n\"Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!\" Chanted the dogs of war in allegiance to their master. Their short, brunette, brown eyed master gave a rousing impromptu speech, condemning the fall of the Third Reich on a lack of will from commanders and soldiers. Ranks of the Wehrmacht were filled with communist sympathizers and uneducated, base men who only desired for material wealth of the capitalist powers. The German people, he said, were not ready for National Socialism. Only truly devout and dedicated followers are worthy of the visions promised by the Nazi Party. \n\nAfter the speech, a meeting was convened of the heads of neofascist and ultranationalist organizations. The first Grand Strategy meeting.\n\nThe head of the assembly addressed the Fuhrer.\n\n\"Mein Fuhrer, it has been 72 long, painful years since your passing. the Jewish Bolshevik victors have demonized you. The valiant efforts of our soldiers, their endless sacrifice were all in vain. But the fact that now standing before you are the legions of devout followers, more zealous than the best of the Waffen SS, are testaments to the living strength and will of the ideology. There are many who have never forgotten the truth, and believes that you are Humanity's first, last, and only hope of a divided, racially pure world empire where each race can thrive in isolation. Lead us to glory, Mein Fuhrer! Show the world, remove the blinds from the masses' eyes, show them that you were not the brute in that great war. Show them that the innocence, purity, and the true, wondrous spirit of National Socialism could not have committed those atrocities fabricated by the communists and capitalists!\"\n\nAfter a long moment of silence, the Fuhrer spoke at last\n\n\"It's true that I did not want to kill our followers in the SA. But alas, the road to power is paved with blood and sacrifice. Those loyal to the cause, but were nonetheless slaughtered in our persecution of the SA are the first martyrs to the cause\". \n\nThe council looked on intently at one another, before one spoke \n\n\"Mein Fuhrer, we did not mean the SA. We were referring to the lies that 6 million Jews were murdered, along with some 11 million Russian civilians.\" \n\nThe Fuhrer bursted into uncontrollable laughter. He couldn't believe that he was brought back not by a bastion of Darwinian Ubermensch, but rather naive fools who couldn't even understand rudimentary politics. If Himmer, Goebbels, Guderian, and the great Model and Von Manstein couldn't even get him Moscow, then the most he could even hope to conquer with these fools were a few houses in the suburbs of Berlin. At last, he gathered himself to address the council once more. \n\n\"Of course we killed them! It was due to my goddamned minister of armaments Albert Speer, who suggested we put them to labor instead of killing them outright, that the Jews survived. As for the Russians, it is my greatest regret in life that we failed to properly implement General Plan Ost before 1942. Now, someone show me a map of what the world have become. Show me what became of sacred Germany.\"\n\nThe head of the assembly spoke as soon as the Fuhrer stopped, and asked\n\n\"Mein Fuhrer, so the Holocaust was actually real?\" \n\nHitler stared back at the one who raised the question. Only an idiot asks a question that he already knew the answer to. 72 years spent in death did not improve the Fuhrer's impatience with stupidity. \n\n\"Get out, now\" He ordered \n\n\"Mein Fuhrer, we are all interested in this question. Is the holocaust Allied propaganda or not?\" \n\nHitler surveyed the room, and saw indeed that they were all serious in this inquiry. He wanted to fly into a rage, to shove down their throat how the massacre of Jews were sound political calculations, something that he was proud of since with it they were able to fund a war against the entire world and lasted as long as and caused as much damage as they did. They were a wealthy, weak, unorganized demographic that could be exploited to fund the war. Power was the end, not National Socialism or racial purity ideology or any of that bullshit for the dogs to believe. But alas, the Fuhrer was an old man, embittered by defeat and memories of the betrayals of his last days back in 1945. He had neither the patience nor the will to start again with these idiots. He may not have earnestly believed in racial ideology, but now he was inclined to believe that sub-humans do indeed exist, and that it was these morons before him. \n\nAt last, the fuhrer ended all thoughts and let out a long sigh. He reached for the Luger from the unsecured holster of the man in the SS uniform sitting next to him. Without hesitation, Hitler aimed the steel chamber to his head and shot himself. ", "\"We're still considered a joke in the academic circles. How come they won't take us seriously?\" Lars asked.\n\n\"They would if they knew what we knew! They would if they had the evidence we have!\" said Bruno.\n\n\"What's more infuriating is that they hold their views WITHOUT hard evidence at all! It's all tall tales from supposed refuges!\" chimed in Mark. \n\nThey were meeting in a dimly lit old pub which was much too small and unpopular to be lucrative in this day and age. It didn't help that the owner, Mark, was a fiercely vocal holocaust denier, and without secret would hold meetings for deniers on Sunday nights.\n\n\"The worst is the character assassination which routinely takes place on Adolf Hitler. It's like he's so evil we can't even say his name. Well, fuck that! Adolf Hitler, Adolf Hitler, Adolf Hitler!\" said Lars.\n\nAs soon as he said it a third time a loud wind howled outside the window. The bar got perceptibly colder inside, and all six men present felt a shiver run up their spine. They went quiet, and the wind quieted too. \n\nThe door opened seemingly without anyone opening it, and an immaculately dressed man with slick dark hair walked in slowly. They remained silent. It was too dark and they were all too taken aback to recognize the iconic significance of the facial hair the man donned. \n\nHe looked at none of them as he walked in, but he had a commanding presence, and none of them stopped looking at him. He sat in an empty stool and lit a cigarette, still looking down and away. Suddenly he shouted. \n\n\"Are none of you in this establishment interested in history as it really happened!? Do you realize what a disgrace it is to my name that people like you hold meetings like this!? It's enough that we lost the war and continue to sit on the wrong side of history, but imbeciles aligning themselves with my cause who have not a fucking clue what my real mission was for Germany is completely unacceptable!\"\n\nHe cocked his head a little bit towards them as he was yelling. His face was under a light now and they could see his moustache. This man was Adolf Hitler himself, there was no denying it. He might have been a hallucination, or a ghost, or a reanimation, but there he was, shouting at them.\n\nHe stood up out of his stool now and continued, his face snarling as he went on. \n\n\"I killed Jews. I killed millions of them. And only by extremely unfortunate circumstances was I not able to kill more. And it wasn't just Jews, either. Do you see the homosexuals in the streets of your city? Do you think if I had my way that that would-\"\n\nA loud crack was heard and he stopped mid-sentence. He had been shot square in the forehead. A young girl, not older than 14 or 15, stood in the doorway, a .357 revolver in hand. She had a cold expression as she turned to look at the rest of the men in the room.\n\nWithout saying a word, she aimed her gun at Lars and shot him. And then at Mark, and shot him. And continued to pick off target after target. Some of the men tried to run, but none made it out alive that night. \n\nShe disappeared, seemingly, and in the morning neither she nor the gun were found by the police. Neither was the well dressed man with the slick hair. Only the bodies of six men who the police knew to be regulars there, and nobody was too sad to see them gone. ", "\"So it's you? It's *actually* you?\"\n\n\"Of *course* it's me! Who else is brave enough to sport this moustache now?\" \n\nThe head of the group just sat there, bewildered. The group stared in awe, transfixed. Sitting opposite them, was Hitler himself. A little worse for ware, but undoubetly him. Most notably, the gaping hole at the back of the skull was a *dead* giveaway.\n\n\"So let me get this straight...you guys...*deny* the Holocaust happened ya?\" He asked, clutching his head, wincing slightly.\n\n\"No no, we're not deniers...we *revisionists*, you see we don't see it as a intentional genocide, merely overworking and the over-exaggeration of numbers and...\" The head of the group began.\n\n\"Well I can tell you it wasn't. It was completley intentional. You don't *accidentally* gas millions of people!\" Hitler interrupted.\n\n\"Ah but there was no *evidence* of mass graves or mass ashes found and...\"\n\n\"Well we weren't going to hold unto them were we? Listen, I'm telling you now... we commited the Holocaust, I don't regret one thing.\"\n\nThey all sat there awkwardly.\n\n\"Well...that's like, your opinion...\" The head began weakly.\n\n\"I was there!\" Hitler roared. \" I *ORDERED* the shitting thing!\"\n\nHitler turned his head frantically, flabbergasted.\n\n\"I don't believe this...I did everything in my power to purify this world, and some fuckwits deny it even happened?\" He ranted.\n\n\"Well we've no substantional...\" The head of the group interrupted.\n\n\"Shut up, let me talk! I rose from the dead and stole back my jaw from the fucking Soviets for this, so let me speak! The-Holocaust-Was-FULLY-INTENTIONAL-THERE-IS-NO-DEBATE!\" Hitler screamed.\n\nThey all sat there stunned. There was not a sound for awhile after. The clock on the wall ticked. An uncomfortable feeling swept across the room.\n\n\"Me thinks he protests too much.\" The head stated firmly. \"Now, as we were saying...\"\n\n\"But I-you...\" Hitler stuttered, speechless. \"You know what? Fuck this. I'm going back to Argentina.\"\n\n" ]

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[ "*Scratch scratch scratch*. He kept on scratching on that piece of paper. A Masterpiece was blossoming. A depiction of all the life time achievements. A chronological order of all memorable events, from the first time he tied his shoe lace all by himself, up until he held his grandson in his arms. All the thanks given to his friends and family.\n\nHis relatives were gathered around, talking among themselves. \n\n\"Such a shame.\" \"Yes, yes.\" \"What a talent.\" \"Too bad he can't speak, his voice would be like an angels', the way he draw things.\"\n\n*Ttch!*\n\n\"Fuck!\" Tea cups are dropped. Everyone's eyes turned.\n\nHe looked around. \"Oh, never mind me, continue on.\" *Scratch scratch scratch*.", "No. This was to be my masterpiece! I was to tell my loved ones my final thoughts! Even in my final moments, life laughs at me so as death makes his grim approach to my deathbed. I will not have it! I will try one last time, even if it is pointless.\n\n\"FUCK!\" the mute cried out. And with that the man passed. ", "The sound that was once but a minor annoyance suddenly rang through my ears like a gunshot. I could hear the point that was going to give her something to hold close and remember, hit the floor. Once. Twice and then a very long roll under the very machine that kept me alive. The nurses face shared my horror. She put on a reassuring smile and ran to fetch another. It took everything I had not to drop the pencil. She needed this. She knew I wasn't going to make it to spring. The house, long paid for. Bills set up Auto Pay for the next 10 years. She would still know and live the life we shared for 50 years, but she wouldn't have me. The snow falling outside calmed my raging mind. A very dark thought slowly crept between my ears. It had been years. I had put that behind me. I wasn't that person anymore. No. \n\nThe pencil shook in my feeble hand. I felt the familiar sting once again. It was a much darker color than I remember. I took one long slow breath and propped the canvas against my good leg. She had to know. One last chance to show her it was her I thought of in my final hour. I felt my strong and nimble hands grow cold and frail. It wouldn't be pretty but maybe it would make her hurt just a little bit less. The nurse walked in as I signed the back. Her shriek of horror caused me to drop the pencil. The most difficult smile that I've ever made passed my lips. The nurse rushed over scolding me like a child. I made a mess. Bad boy. She wasn't fond of the raspberry either.\n\nI heard the machine play my final note. Every sound became an echo. It grew dark. I had become so very tired. I deserved a nice nap. An artist of my caliber could slack every now and again. She turned in the door as my sight failed me. Her beautiful smile was the last thing I ever saw. Even she knew my favorite color, had always been red.\n\n", "As I laid there, gripping my companion of the last 67 years, I finally realized time was up. I had been a struggle trying to convey my messages, but I had grown used to it, it became a habit like brushing my teeth. I gasped. The air I once took advantage of began to thin. My chest started getting heavier, the constriction felt like a weight crushing down on me, harder, and harder. My eyes shot open and time seemed to slow. I heard a snap in my hand and that sharp witted partner was no more. I stared at my palm for what felt an age.\nI glanced up, the door burst open and the white jackets begun their charge. It was time they could no longer prevent this. I looked at my hand and he was gone. A dull, blunt tool released from my grip and dropped to the sketch pad by my side. My eyes widened; what had I done? \nThe men and their stethoscopes were halfway to me now my wife being held back by Jackson, my brave and strong lad. Regret filled my stomach and a feeling of sickness swept over me. I had never told him I loved him after he came out to me. Then I looked at my wife. Her colorless eyes and short dulling hair had led me to many a different woman. I felt ashamed, I never stopped loving her, I just found it difficult that the person I fell in love with had changed so much. It was probably my fault. I realized how self centered, shallow I had become. In my last years I had pushed everyone, but mine, lifelong companion away. I became isolated. Yet, they had never left me. I felt a tear welling. I felt a drop on my cheek and my chest pulsed increasingly. I had entered, what I knew was, the final stage.\nMy eyes darted between my wife and my son, wishing I could tell them how sorry I was. How much of an atrocious person I had become. But I could not. I opened my mouth to scream my final words, but nothing came. I closed my eyes. Everything was over now.\n", "They said the surgery failed. Failed. The word echoed through my mind, and it's still echoing, like the screams of joyous children dancing in a cave. Like the faintest memory of a high school teacher mocking you for flunking an exam. Failed. \n\nThey said I had a few more hours left. Maybe two, maybe three. They told me, \"Cherish these moments.\" I don't know how to cherish moments when I'm incapacitated in a hospital bed that smells of chemicals and old people farts. \n\nMy mother asked me what I wanted, her eyes glistening. I shakily lifted my arms and pressed the pencil down to my sketchpad. As I began to make the first line, I heard that familiar, torturous *snap*. The shard of lead cascaded down my hand and landed in the abyss of my crinkled bed sheets.\n\nI was going to draw a cheeseburger. That's what I wanted. \n\nWhen the pencil broke, my mother gasped as though she had just been struck. Maybe I would have gasped if I could have. Maybe the drugs kept me too mellow to gasp.\n\nMy mother began to stammer, \"I can get you- I can get you a new-\" and I turned away. I didn't want a cheeseburger anymore. I didn't want a new pencil. It was all so stupid... so pointless. I wished I could have just *died* already. \n\nI glanced at the plastic tube that had been jammed into my arm. I traced it along with my eyes, all the way along the edge of the bed and up to the IV bag that hung from a pole next to me. It was full of a deep red fluid, the substance of pure life. It was so unnatural to see it detached from any other life form, completely independent. Though I suppose it was mine now. \n\nThey had plugged it into me to compensate for the blood loss during the surgery. To keep me alive longer. I didn't want it. I'd always hated waiting. \n\nI reached my right hand over, across my chest, and groped the needle and tube which were taped to my left forearm. With as much energy as I could muster, I squeezed the tube and yanked it away. The tape ripped, it came free of the needle, and blood began to spurt about my hand. \n\nThis whole time my mother had been going on about fetching a new pencil. When I yanked myself free of the IV, I suppose she was too shocked to say anything because she just fell silent. \n\nI examined the sticky warm blood on my hand. Red paint. \n\nI pressed my wet finger to the surface of my sketchpad and began to draw my last message to the world, for my mother. She watched quietly as I formed the shape of a heart on the paper. \n\nMy mother began to sob. She leaned in and embraced me. I felt content. \n\nWithout the blood flowing into me, I began to feel faint. The world seemed more and more far away from me with each passing second. I welcomed the sleep. It was overdue. At last, in my mother's arms, I fell into a still, absolutely peaceful rest. \n\nhttp://i.imgur.com/kRA7h30.jpg \n\n\n\n ", "I feel the familiar stinging behind my eyes, the swelling in my nose, and the lump in my throat. My whole life has been one long battle, but as I don't have much of it left, I decidedly don't try to stop the tears from spilling down my cheeks. I hold my broken pencil out to the nurse. \n\"I'm sorry, I don't have another one ... What about a pen?\"\nI shake my head no as much as the machine will let me. My husband was about to arrive any minute, and I had to get this done, now. Tearing still streaming down my face, I allow myself to wallow just for one second. Really, right now? Dear flying spaghetti monster, you have the worst timing ever. I nearly snap my pencil in half, but before I do, I tap my pad with the eraser end to get her attention and then nod my head yes. I have to at least try. \n\"You want my pen. Are you sure?\" She asks. I nod more vigorously, and a machine starts to beep. My heart starts to race and a sweat breaks out over my forehead. \"It's ok, it's ok!\" She assures me and she places the pen in my hand, and turns the machine off. \"You just moved a little too much, you're alright.\" She coos at me and places a hand on my shoulder. \nI scribble quickly back and fourth. The pen works just fine thankfully, but I've pretty much depended on pencils and acrylics my whole life, so I hope I get my point across just fine. \nI put what effort I have left into creating the strokes ever so carefully. Add a little detail, and the 3-D effect. Shadow? Just a tad, so he can tell what it is. Should I leave it open? I think I will, to make sure he know what's in it. \nBut then the edges of my vision start to blur. No ... NO. He's not here yet! My breathing is shallow, coming in ragged gasps. I try to scrawl a dial but my heart seems to be slowing down. I am willing it to beat, BEAT DAMMIT. My hand becomes limp and I feel the pen slip from my grasp. Before the world goes completely dark I see his face swimming in the doorway, and hear him cry my name, but it's odd ... Distorted, distant, almost muffled. The pad of paper slips from my left hand. \nI forgot to add the combination! \nMy last thought echos through my mind as the world goes dark. I hear beeps, and faint cries of codes, when the world goes quiet as well. " ]

[ 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6 ]

[ "1424117122", "1424117684", "1424118741", "1424117078", "1424117133", "1424115183" ]

[ "Dancing on the grass, the mottled pattern was an infinity of interest. The sound of the wind was a strange symphony that had stretched unknown distances to be there around him. Everything encased him within its fascination. The bark of the tree was pressing on his back, but he couldn't quite read its patterns; lack of nerve endings, he told himself, visualising the the fine network of filaments branching through his body.\n\nHe was drained before the days began, a strange feedback loop had begun some time ago, and was devouring him. Pressed against the tree, he had not even removed his lunch from the pathetic plastic bag beside him before the sun began to dive towards the horizon, a ferocious thing, it seemed to him now. He could already feel it moving below him, coming up behind him.\n\nHe felt nauseous all the time. He went days without eating and couldn't remember why. His mind just picked at reality and turned it over with insatiable interest; a suicide machine allowed to run wild. The harder he fought, the harder its reckless gears turned.\n\nHis descent had been headlong and wholesome from the moment the other kids figured it out at school, the new and cataclysmic knowledge spread almost instantaneously; it was the inevitable contagion of existence. His parents had tried all the usual therapy sessions and new devices the saturated, ever-booming market had to offer; everything designed to starve his curiosity. His mind consumed it all, nothing was inedible to his intellect. And how it cruelly it made him suffer. \n\nSoon enough, the sun became nothing more than a heavenly pendulum, an ever-accelerating harbinger of doom. Empathy and emotion were mere abstractions to spend months on and off dissecting. He watched his parents wilt like roses; seemed, for all-to-brief eternities, to transcend existence as it hurtled by; understood the whole surface of the ocean by sitting by that tree; and solved patterns in nature spanning decades without ever noting a single observation down. His body gave way and collapsed too quickly to be painful, he stared from his hospital bed for a second out the flickering window, and heard a beep.", "She dipped one finger into the serene, smooth surface of the pond. She watched as the ripples ever-so-slowly reverberating outwards from her submerged finger. The ripples were slowing down but as she became fascinated by the interaction of her body and the water, the wind and the water around her rustled with her excitement. \n\nRight. She was supposed to be bored. Absolutely bored and waiting for the news of her departure from her childhood home. She hadn’t asked to be sent away but now she dreaded the news of where she would be sent. \n\nAs her worry and anxiety increased, time started picking up pace. \n\nIt hadn’t been very long since she found out her ability to manipulate time. Although to say that she was an expert manipulator of time would be incorrect. Time only seemed to obey her unconscious perceptions and reactions to events rather than her conscious demands to slow down or speed up. \n\nRight now, she wished she had all the time in the world before she was being carted off to god-knows where.\n", "Many people marvel at my talent. They admire my ability to concentrate on the task at hand almost indefinitely, my peculiar attribute which allows me to ignore the \"earthly distractions\" which so often tempt and trap men whose lives slowly go to waste as they lose they become the burnouts they laughed at when they were younger.\nWhat they don't know, of course, is that I have no other way of doing things. Fun has become an impossible commodity for me. Only when I'm bored, doing the excruciatingly mundane, can I accomplish anything. \nSorry, let me explain: \nWhen I was younger, I didn't notice it. I thought the expression \"time flies\" was literal as, for me, it was very true. When I was enjoying myself, time seemed to accelerate, my senses slowed, and it was like I was thinking through mud. I would always be the first to lose the games in gym class, the last one picked for sports at recess. I couldn't help it; I was slow. \nThe dullness of class, though, was my domain. Nobody could finish an exam faster than me, and I was considered a child prodigy for my reading speed. I truly hated academics, but it was the only thing I was able to do well in. The boredom acted as a fuel for my brain.\nAs I got older and my condition grew more pronounced, I became more aware of what was going on. It wasn't just my mind which slowed or quickened; it was my passage through time. \nBy my final year in college, time would nearly stop while I studied. I tried many times to abuse this, to use my incredible speed to do something amazing, but as soon as I was excited about what I was doing it would stop. The only useful things I could do were those which I didn't enjoy, namely study, read, and research.\nI graduated with top marks (funny what having a near-infinite time to study will do for your grades) and entered the workforce. I had a few friends, but I never got very close to any of them. Talking to women was impossible, they thought me a witless ninny as my mind ground to a halt as soon as my pulse quickened. \nEventually, I gave up entirely on relationships.\nMy only solace was work. When I started, I hated it. It was a simple job, just many hours of debugging code. It was boring, but I guess that was my forte. \nWithin four months, I was promoted to a full time code-monkey. I survived the mundanity, and within the year I was given my own team to lead as a reward for how efficiently I finished my projects.\nBy the time I hit 30, I was ", "You look away from the clock. Time slows if you look at it, you remind yourself. You read somewhere that time is man made. You can't know how time is perceived by a sloth versus time perceived by flies. While it may seem incredible for us that a fly move its wings 300 times per second, they may think of the notion as the same way as we flap our arms: perfectly normal; they might even think of it as painfully slow when trying to get away from a fly swatter. Meanwhile, the movement of a sloth may seem absurdly slow for us, but then it might perceive its speed the same way as we perceive ourselves walking: perfectly normal; they might think of themselves as tremendously fast when they crawl towards a stationary leaf.\n\nThere you go, off in a tangent. You can barely concentrate on whats going on in front of you. *Damn*. You straighten yourself on the chair and revert your look towards the board.\n\nYou almost gagged. Mrs. Hashimies' mouth half hinged makes you giggle. You can make out that there are sounds coming out, but the disembodied tone and her contorted face make it harder to understand. Her hand is pointed at the board, indicating something, god knows what. Oh never mind, she has a chalk between her fingers. Maybe she'll draw something. What were we supposed to learn for today? *Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the animal cell*, you remind yourself.\n\nYou stop chewing on your pencil, and start drawing a fly with its wing. You start drawing its basic body shape, then move on towards the wing patterns. Each crease and nooks of the wing are embossed by pushing your pencil tip on the paper extra hard. You then move on to the eyes. One, two ... fifteen... hundred... Each segments of the 'eye' are represented using minuscule circles. You then move on to the legs, with each hair taken care of.\n\nYou look up from the doodling. *Ooh, 30 seconds past already!* Maybe you're actually starting to get interested in Mrs. Hashimies' Bio class. *My ass.* You get back to you're weathered notebook. You know its going to be a long lesson." ]

[ 1, 2, 3, 7 ]

[ "1424126565", "1424124365", "1424118684", "1424116856" ]

[ "[Removed]", "“You know,” Shia Labeouf bowed his head and spoke into the microphone, his voice low. “I think some of you might be right. I’m not that talented, and I can be kind of an asshole sometimes.” He paused, swallowing. “I think the only reason I got famous in the first place was my looks. I don’t deserve it, not really.” \nA roar from the press, flash photography strobing.\n\n---\n\n\n“Shit.” Officer Dirk Hardbody, hardbitten cop, lit a cigarette, his eyes closed as the television flickered. “We’ve got another victim. And still no leads.” \nThe safehouse was a drab one, inconspicuous, with furniture that looked as if it had been mail-ordered in wholesale from IKEA. All the furniture was pale faux-walnut, and the living room looked out onto a parking lot. \n“What?” His erstwhile partner, Brett Greenhorn, looked at the screen with horror as the text scrolled past. *Has Shia Labeouf’s ego been murdered?* “Not Shia,” he said. “Oh, man.” \n“They got Shia?” Kanye West stood in the doorway behind them dressed in only a robe, his eyes wide. \n“Go back to bed, Mr West,” said Hardbody, exhaling smoke. “You’re perfectly safe here.” \n“No shit,” said Kanye. “It’s like nobody in this damn town even knows who I am.” \n“This is East Austin,” said Hardbody. “Hipster capital of the US. They know who you are, Mr West, they just don’t want to admit that they know.” \nKanye shook his head. “I don’t like it is all.” \nHardbody turned to look at the superstar, and narrowed his eyes. “Is that *ermine* on your robe, Mr West?” \n“So what if it is?” Kanye folded his arms, leaning forward. \nDirk Hardbody stood, rising from his chair to his full height of six feet and six inches, cigarette in one hand. “You were asked to wear inconspicuous clothing, Mr West. For your own safety,” he said. \nKanye’s eyes darted from side to side. “Look,” he said. “I’ve gotta have *something*, y’know. I mean,” he swallowed, looking up at Hardbody. “I can’t be Mr Average, that’s not me. There’s no point in protecting my ego if it’s already dead by the time the killer gets here, right?” \nThere was a tense pause as Kanye and Hardbody stared each other down, and then a noise like a gunshot. \nThe window shattered, and the mass-market mid-quality furniture was covered in broken glass. \n“You’re right,” said Greenhorn. “It was a terrible idea. I should never have suggested it.” He seemed to crumple in his chair. “I’m a terrible cop,” he said. \n“Shit,” said Hardbody, pulling his gun. “He’s in the house.” \nKanye pulled a piece, too. It was flashy, a magnum, with some kind of fancy chrome plating. Judging by the way that Kanye held it in one hand, it had probably never been used. Then Hardbody noticed the red spot on Kanye’s ermine lapel. From a laser sight. Time slowed down as Dirk Hardbody threw himself on Kanye, tackling him to the floor. \n\nAnd then came the guilt. It washed over him like a wave. That time he ran a red light. That time he searched without a warrant and wrecked a case. That time he let a rookie’s ego get shot because he was too busy arguing with Kanye West. He was alone, drowning in a sea of blackness. \n*You’re not fit to be a cop. You should have just dropped out in high school and become a heroin addict like your mom wanted. You can’t protect anyone. Not even yourself.*\n\nHe was gasping for air, barely treading water when he saw a light in the distance. A golden light. Hardbody narrowed his eyes, and through the spray, he could make out the figure of Kanye, on a golden yacht, pulled by golden porpoises. \n\nAs Kanye drew nearer his lyrics began to cut through the dirge of hopelessness.\n\n*Remember who you are \nNo you’re not perfect but you’re not your mistakes \nHey, hey, hey, hey \nOh the good outweighs the bad even on your worst day \nRemember how I'd say, hey, hey, one day \nYou'll be the man you always knew you would be \nAnd if you knew how proud I was \nYou'd never shed a tear, have a fear*\n\n\n“Kanye,” gasped Hardbody, reaching up towards him.\n\n“Aight,” Kanye West smiled like a modern day Jesus. “I got you, buddy.”\n\nThen the sea was gone, and they were back in the front room of the safehouse, Kanye in his ermine bathrobe.\n\n“But how,” said Hardbody. “How did you save me?” \n“Because,” said Kanye. “I’m a motherfucking miracle wordsmith.” \n", "Kanye was spotted at a Los Angeles cafe. He knew this from his twitter followers. With his camera prepared, and hundreds of thousands watching at home, he casually walked into the cafe. His assistant followed. \n\n\"Take this,\" he said, handing the camera to his assistant.\n\n\"Use the tripod, make sure its good.\"\n\nWithout any hesitation he delivered the most hurtful rap the world had ever heard. He killed egos, and today was no exception. The video would go viral, he knew it. Kanye played it off like this man was a crazy fan, but he was a little hurt. Another successful mission. ", "Kanye eyed the man in front of him up and down, trying to take in every ounce of his drab, uninspired outfit. He couldn’t understand why anyone would dress like that, why someone would opt to look like a suicidal businessman. Blue jeans, an ill-fitting white, button down shirt, and a dark navy zip-up jacket that crinkled loudly as he moved. The letters “FBI” were plastered across his back, a brand Kanye was not familiar with, let alone one he’d be caught dead wearing.\n\n“Can you repeat that?” Kanye said, glancing down at the man’s shoes. They were terrible, simple white trainers that he probably stole from some poor kid on the streets. How did someone as pathetic as this guy even get to his front door, let alone with information that was probably useless? Whatever the case, the man had mentioned something about killing the game. Or someone killing a game. Or maybe it was a game about killing. All Kanye knew for sure is that the man had definitely said the word “killing.”\n\n“I said that you aren’t safe, he’s probably coming for you next. Have you gotten any suspicious calls or letters?”\n\n“Wait, who’s coming for me?” Kanye said, knowing full-well that the man was probably referring to the paparazzi. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small stack of headshots, so as to be ready for the autograph signing that always followed. It would only be a matter of time before the world’s currency was replaced by signed pictures of his face at this rate.\n\n“I literally just explained that to you a few seconds ago. Were you not listening? There is a man going around killing people he believes have ‘enlarged egos.’”\n\n“I was definitely listening,” Kanye lied. He’d always been a good liar, probably the best around. Sure, there wasn’t exactly an Olympics for lying, or any real competitive way to prove he was the best, but he was pretty confident there was at the top of the rankings. In fact, he’d recently called out the wrong name while in bed with Kim and played it off like a champ. “No, babe,” he’d lied, “I don’t even know a Jim.”\n\n“Oh, well, great then. So, look, here’s what I propose,” the man said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a drab, black notebook. Kanye also had a notebook of his own, but not one bought from the discount section of his local Wal-Mart, which he’d obviously never been to. He’d had his made out of the skin of Bengal tigers, slaughtered for his pleasure during a recent trip to Africa. It was very exotic, very fancy, and very expensive.\n\n“Lay it on me,” Kanye said, reaching into his own pocket and removing his Bengal notepad. It was so soft to the touch, the paper made from carved Redwoods that liberals protested he not cut down. The way he saw it, though, he was doing the environment a favor. He was allowing a tree to be reincarnated from what was essentially a useless, purposeless log to a tool used by the voice of a generation. He was the true environmentalist.\n\n“I’d like to enter you into protective custody for the next week or so. Just to keep you safe. Okay?” The man flipped open the notepad to a page in roughly the middle, then slowly scanned his finger across it. “We’ve got a place on lockdown for folks like you just a few miles from here. Your pal Beyoncé is there now. We’ll keep you a few nights and make sure you’re safe, to save you from going missing like Jay-Z and Beck.”\n\n“Okay,” Kanye said, flipping open his own notepad. He hadn’t written anything in a long time, not since he’d given up using his own hands to write. Now he hired old, widowed women to write on his behalf. Something about their ancient, Parkinson-riddled handwriting made him feel more intelligent as he read back the gospel he produced. “Absolutely, in no way, shape, or form, is that going to work.”\n\n“What?” the man said, raising one eyebrow and staring up from his notebook. “Why not?”\n\n“Kanye West does not need protecting. I mean, look at me.” Kanye spread his arms like an ant-eater before battle, flexing his pecs as he did so. He wished desperately he could see himself in third person, take in the power and the intimidation he was currently displaying. All he could do was close his eyes and imagine the beauty he was laying forth. “If someone wants to try to get me, they can. I ain’t no pussy like Beck or Jay-Z. Those guys have absolutely nothing on me, I am the greatest there ever was or will be. They need to realize that, and so does everybody else.”\n\n“There is a man literally going around killing people based on their egos,” the man said. “He publically stated you will be his next target. We just want to help--”\n\n“I don’t have a big ego,” Kanye interrupted, lowering his arms. “I mean, I recently went out of my way to prove that to my daughter, North. I’m pretty modest. The others, they have big egos. They think they're better than me, which they absolutely are not. Their egos are too big.”\n\n“Look, Mr. West,” the man said, closing his notebook and slipping it back into his pocket. Kanye folded up his own notepad and also put it away—it wasn’t like he had intended on writing anything down, anyway. He neither had a pen, nor remembered what the letter “E” looked like. “I can’t force you to do this, I don’t have that kind of power.”\n\n“Great,” Kanye said, grabbing the door beside him and beginning to close it. He wasn’t particularly interested in listening to this man’s nonsensical pleas anymore. A man like Kanye didn’t need to be bothered with such mundane nonsense, especially when it was all information he already knew about people that didn’t even register on his radar.\n \n“Hang on,” the man said, putting his foot in front of the closing door. “I can’t force you to, but I can ask that you please reconsider. You will probably die if you close that door. Just, please think about it. If you just come with me, you’ll be safe. After this all blows over and we find the sicko killing these celebrities, you can go back home, you can continue living. Yes, you’ll need to be looked after for a few days in a safe place, but this is cleared, you’ll be on your own again.”\n\n“No thanks,” Kanye said, closing the door the rest of the way before walking back over to the kitchen table. He made a mental note to request that his security guards not allow every single man wearing pathetically unattractive, non-designer clothing from “FBI” to waltz up to his door and interrupted him. He was a busy man, doing important things, and handling important people. He couldn’t be interrupted constantly.\n\nKanye pulled a chair out from in front his table and took a seat, a muffled squeal crying out across from him. So pathetic, all of these people with their unrealistic egos. He picked up the hacksaw lying on top of the wooden table and ran it across his palm, the moistened blade slipping across his skin. How could anyone think they were better than he was? \n\n“Now,” he said, glancing up at Jay-Z’s taped mouth, “where were we?” \n_____________\n^If ^you ^enjoy ^my ^writing ^style, ^feel ^free ^to ^check ^out ^some ^of ^my ^other ^short ^stories [^in ^my ^subreddit!](http://www.reddit.com/r/ChokingVictimWrites/)\n" ]

[ 1, 2, 4, 72 ]

[ "1424137973", "1424143277", "1424136705", "1424137189" ]

[ "\"Hello Little Girl, Whats your name?\"\n\nI already know is Jane the report had mentioned it but had left out the age probably just a clerical error it still happens now and then\n\n\"My name is J..\"\n\nHer sentence is cut short but a short popping sound and her head snaps back as the kinetic force breaks her neck instantly, i put my \"Popper\" back my pocket and place the Red I.D tag on her body and close the door on my way out, not much chance of any one robbing the place not since they started capital punishment for all crimes but still its a warm day and i dont want their house to get too warm with the body there.\n\nIm sure her parents will understand...after all its not unheard of for 6 year olds to be selected for Control Enforcement, shes my 4th this month and its nothing new to me after all sacrifices have to be made if we are to survive.\n\"Better them then me\" i mutter as i walk on to the next assignment \"Better them then me\"", "\"Please don't kill me, mister.\"\n\nThe girl couldn't have been more than six, but it was clear she recognized my uniform. She stood there is the doorway, her bright sun dress clashing with the tears running down her cheeks.\n\n\"There's an old lady who lives down the hall. She's ill. Kill her instead.\"\n\nI was suddenly sick to my stomach. But my training had prepared me for that. I pushed past it and raised my captive bolt pistol to the girl's forehead. I was trained by the best. They prepared me for anything. \n\nAlmost anything. I couldn't help it. What I said next wasn't protocol. What I said next was for me. I wanted her to know. Before the end, I wanted her to know.\n\n\"That woman is a taxpayer,\" I said. \"What are you, some kind of communist?\"\n\nHer lifeless body fell to the floor.\n\n\"Fuck you.\"\n\nI left the body for her family to find. What a bitch. \n\nI knew my place. Why couldn't others know theirs? Didn't they know people were starving out there? Not 100 yards from her door, people in the prime of their productive years were starving. What else were we going to do?\n\nAnd thinking that I could be swayed by a cherub's face and a tearful plea? The gall. The unmitigated gall. Well, the joke was on her.\n\nIt was her parents fault, really. I knew from the dossier that her father was a prominent member of the opposition party and her mother wrote for a radical publication in one of the darker corners of the net. They must have known the risks. When you participate in the system, you agree to abide by the outcome. \n\nThat's just democracy.", "First time writing here, not a writer at all so any criticism is welcome.\n\n\n\n\nI never thought I would be a killer, especially not employed as one. It's not a very glamorous job. Still, it pays well, and at some point even murder becomes nothing more than just a job. It's not a job I enjoy, but it's necessary, and a lot of military positions require you to kill people for some reason or another. I don't do military stuff any more, got 'promoted' to a government-paid position, but the job is still the same. Kill people who pose a threat to National Security. Turns out that a lot of people are a threat. \n\nLately my contracts have been more pop' control than anything else.\nI hate those.\nThey require the killing of 'excess population members', in other words any non-resident whose presence causes the areas' population to go over the allowed number.\nIt's not a very good system, but its better than what we had before. I don't really care, seeing as I get lifelong immunity for me and any future family I may have.\nLike I said before, it's not an ideal job, but it has it's perks\nThing is, only the poorer ones get killed, while the rich people just pay a fine and have to move to a less populated area.\n\nMy last contract though, that one was a bitch.\nI had to clean up an entire family, two parents and three kids. Piss-poor and all too aware of the reason I was there. You see, the easiest method is to just sneak in at night and get do it when everyone's asleep, make it look like a mob hit. Thing is, breaking in silently is a bit harder when there's a giant guard dog sleeping in the living room. The dog just jumped and tried to bite my arms off, barking the entire time. Kiling it was easy, but the rest of the family had woken up by then. I had to shoot every one of them, until I got to the kid.\n\nShe looked to be around 6 or 7, and seeing her so scared flipped a switch in me or something. I just couldn't bring myself to shoot a kid. I thought it would be easy, just like killing any one else. But it wasn't. I just stood there, trying to make myself pull the trigger so I could just get out of there, but...\n\nLong story short, i left, and I took the kid with me. I'm gonna adopt her. She's not going to live with me, i'd be a terrible father, but she is gonna live. I pulled some strings and got her placed in a foster home, with full immunity.\nI don't feel bad for what I did, any of it. I just can't bring myself to take another contract, not when I know that they could have been Alice. That's the little girl's name, by the way. \nAll that's left now is to go down to the office tomorrow and quit, maybe get myself a desk job.", "When it hits the fan, it hits it quick. Whenever I have that rare second to work the last 22 years around in my mind, that's the only conclusion I can reasonably draw. A friend told me in training that your mind is either canvas or clay. I never knew what that meant, and when it had bugged me enough to find him to ask, he had taken his own life. He was a year ahead of me in training, and after I found him and cut him down I asked for 6 more months myself. It had hit me hard.\n\nI soon realized I would have been happy spending my whole life cutting classmates down in training.\n\nAccording to my dads stories, I came from a family of war heroes. My great, great grandfathers were great, great leaders. There is a legend in my family of the greatest of grandfathers who would jump from planes to fight the enemy, behind their lines. He was the first of his kind, they said. I remember trying to picture a plane you could jump from but never could. I decided to enlist when I saw the commercials for a new division. It was called CONTROL, not an acronym, and it was asking for men and women who wanted to be the 'new difference in an old war'. Some called it a war on fear. I always wondered how you could have a war on a concept. \n\nThe first 6 months after CONTROL training I pissed myself so much I had to buy diapers. At first I would sneak off site to buy them, but soon learned they were supplied by the army after admitting my problem to a classmate. I thought that was weird, but free diapers was nice. \n\nFor every month you worked, you got a month off in a relaxation site. There were games, booze, and women. Pretty much anything else you can imagine. There were even rumors of secret areas where 'anything went'. Every month you worked earned you a credit. After 6 credits you could take 6 months off to leave site and see your family, or travel before it was to late. I was on my 5th credit, and the last day of the month. This was going to be my last job before I could see my daughter.\n\nIntelligence said the target would open the door. Depending on your class, the army may pay you for a target, and this was one of those cases. I liked these cases because they always opened the door. It was easy. \n\nIt's policy to walk through any neighborhoods on foot so I was dropped off a few blocks away, in a cold zone. There weren't many people outside these days, but temperature training really helped us in CONTROL. When I got to the house I made my way up the steps. *One more day,* I would tell myself on each one. I hopped up the last three in rhythm. *One. More. Day.* \n\nMy daughter was turning 6, and for the first time ever I would make a birthday party. I doubt she even remembered me. Because of my schedule I was forced to leave the next morning, so I was going to grab her a present at the seaport and arrive just in time. \n\nAt the door, I exhaled and knocked. After a few moments, I could hear the 'pitter patter' of little feet getting closer. Great, I thought. I really hated dogs, they got in the way.\n\nWhen the door opened, I looked down to brace myself for a bite... but two big brown human eyes were staring back up at me nervously. They belonged to a body no bigger then my daughters. Their eyes, I imagined, had the same curiosity in them. She was holding a doll in her hands that looked like her. She never spoke.\n\n\"Are your parents home?\" She nodded yes, and turned to get them, 'pitter pattering' off. But before she could, I raised my hand and shot, silently. She dropped just as silently and it was over; the doll fell from her hands. And my friend from training made sense. I knew why he died. I walked over and picked up the doll, because it was perfect for my daughter, and called for a disposal. I had done my job, like I had always done my job. I walked back to the pick up location as the sun beamed down on me. This would have been a nice day, I remember. \n\nOur minds may be both canvas and clay, I thought. A canvas starts blank and begins to fill as we learn. If we need to erase something, we can only hope we wrote in pencil. When it is full, it turns to clay. We take what we learned, and shape it to fit us as we grow. But we can't escape the canvas, there was a beautiful and ugly truth to that. \n\nAnd I had written in stone. \n\nI met my daughter a few days later and gave her the doll. She loved it, and I loved her. She loved me too, she would remember. I cried alone that night. When I went back to training I brought a rope.\n\nI told my favorite recruit never to swim against currents, instead of the canvas thing. He laughed at me. Be careful what you earn, I told him anyways.\n\nThis year I was old enough for a private room. I really believe I earned it. ", "Sitting in the retro diner on Fourth Street I could hear the incessant smacking of the portly patron in the next booth over as he devoured his roast beef sandwich. He sounded like a man who hadn't eaten in days though my eyes told me he hadn't missed many meals. The sound was driving me mad so it was time for me to take my leave, lunch was almost over anyway. \n\nI motioned for Marv to follow me as I got up and headed back to work. I waved my government issued Personal Holographic Interface (PHI) in front of the terminal where the register used to be on my way. I still missed the human interaction at such places but at least with no waitress I didn't have to leave a tip. \n\nI was just glad that my job wasn't computerized and robotized yet. Still, it was only a matter of time before what's left of the conservative stalwarts in the Senate would be gone and the progressives could continue their eugenics progressivism unhindered. \n\nAs Marv and I stepped into our office, a 2021 Chevrolet City Express Van that I convinced my superiors to let me retrofit for work, he pulled up the employee payroll screen on the van's display. We always made sure to \"punch the clock\" before we even started the vehicle. After that the computer did all the work, showing us our next job location, plotting our route, and then locking our doors and hauling us across town.\n\nWhile Bertha, that was what we called our van, drove us to the job site I took the time to go over the instructions for the job. Everything seemed routine so I quickly scanned through it and closed the window so I could get back to playing Candy Crush, surely my lives had regenerated by then. Marv just sat quietly watching out the window as we left downtown Memphis and headed into the residential area. \n\nMarv and I didn't usually talk much, after ten years as partners we ran out of things to talk about, and that was two years ago. Most of our conversations were non verbal, we usually knew what the other was thinking. \n\nAs Bertha started slowing down an automated man's voice told us that we were nearing our destination. I preferred the woman's voice, especially since the van was called Bertha but Marv said that if he wanted a woman telling him what to do he wouldn't have gotten a divorce. \n\nWhen we pulled to a stop in front of the house Marv grabbed his belt and I, already having mine, got out and walked around to his side. \"You ready for another round, Marv?\" I asked.\n\n\"As ready as I'll ever be,\" he replied in exaggerated dismay. \n\n\"You got the name?\"\n\n\"It's Alexandria Jumper, I don't remember the age, height, or weight but I can go back and look if you want.\"\n\n\"Na, let's get this over with,\" I said as we headed up the sidewalk. \n\nFollowing protocol, we readied our badges and had our guns holstered when we approached the door. I wasn't even sure why we were still issued the damn things, we never needed them. I think they were mostly for intimidation, since President Obama had finally outlawed guns in 2021 at the start of his fourth term. I saw on some conspiracy website that they were no longer teaching the young kids about the Second Amendment or its subsequent abolishment anymore. \n\nAs usual, I knocked on the door and Marv would be the one to read the warrant. Usually while he is doing that I go ahead and use my PHI and my security clearance to shut down all connected devices registered to the target's SSN. It sounds complicated but since everyone is connected to the United States Cloud Service, I can do it all with the press of a holographic button. They won't be able use anything electronic in their entire house, unless they have an illegal appliance made before 2020 that doesn't connect.\n\nWhen the door finally opened there stood a man of about 137. It always gets dicey if the target isn't the one to open the door. When Marv tells the man we are looking for Alexadria Jumper he gets the most confused look on his face that I've ever seen. \n\n\"There must be some mistake, ya see, my name is Alexander Jumper. Alexandria is my granddaughter, named after myself and her late father. I saw your van pull up and I knew it must be my turn to make the ultimate sacrifice for my country. Surely you aren't here for Alexandria, she's only a girl. There must be a mistake!\"\n\nI couldn't let him continue this diatribe, our mission is to take the target into possession in less than three minutes from first contact with big bonuses coming to agents who beat the target time consistently. \"I'm sorry to interrupt you sir but your name is NOT on this warrant we have here. If you are unwilling to cooperate with us I strongly urge you to step aside, unless you want to take a trip to Gitmo for terroristic threats and behavior.\"\n\n\"You don't understand! She is only...\" Marv didn't let him finish his plea before he hit him with the zapper, now we could go through the house and collect him later. \n\nI took the upstairs while Marv headed towards the back of the house, both of us repeating, \"We are agents of the United States Department of Human Services, please come out with your hands raised,\" just like we were trained to do. \n\nWhen I reached the top of the stairs I heard the faintest sobbing coming from behind me. I turned and saw an eight year old girl standing on the landing crying on the verge of hysterics. Walking up to her my PHI did an auto scan and told me I was looking at... my target. ", "The child stared at me from behind her mother's leg. There was fear in her eyes. Either she understood exactly what was happening, or not at all. I'm not sure which makes me more irritated. I look back at her valiant, wailing defender. Pale blue mascara runs down her plastic face. She slashes me with purple nails, and I can feel blood running down my face. I want to return the favor, but that would be unbecoming of a Fed.\n\nShe keeps shrieking, asking questions she doesn't let me answer and making empty threats. They always know I'm coming, but all the preparation in the world can't control primitive human instinct. Her dedication to the child is admirable, admittedly. I think back on the countless clients I've had before: elders mostly, with the occasional cancer patient or bum. Then it hits me... no kids. Society's scapegoat. Even in the cold, calculated lists of the Government reapers the children get away Scot-free. They're young and to the average moron they are, inexplicably, valuable. \n\nIf reality doesn't strike her soon then I will. I'm taking this little brat away.", "I can assure you it was no accident and there was no regret. It took exactly 4.56 seconds.\n\nEach control officer has their own method and style, which might be a surprise to most, of course it isn't a surprise to you. You would expect such a job to be heavily regulated, with mountains of papers and forms, various rules and procedures, every I dotted and every T crossed. In the early days it was like that, which is why the suicide rate was more then every other job combined, before you joined. Eventually the government caught on that you just had to let the control officers do it their own way. They lasted a bit longer, at least long enough that when they did finally snap the insurance policy paid out well.\n\nSome preferred drugs. Others liked to use their bare hands. I preferred something simple, with a little detachment, it helped a bit. A Jericho 941-C, a call back to my younger days. It could be messy, but that was never my job to deal with now was it?\n\nTheir car was parked in the drive way so I knew the family was home. Most of the other houses were empty, as this section of the city seemed to be the central focus of control officers for the past few months. Something about a failed harvest in the west necessitated the ramp up in control. I never really cared about the reasons. Behind their car was a black van, an older model with plenty of scrapes and dings, that gave a hint the driver didn't care much for reputation or appearances.\n\nI parked on the sidewalk, taking a moment to jot down a note in my diary. Time, location, mood. These details weren't required, but something about the rote practice that I did before every assignment made it just a bit easier. The radio crackled back to life as the morning host played his next bit. He was a sad man, ever since his friend from Pittsburgh died and his co-host moved onto a better job. I left the car running, just to give the poor bastard a little ratings boost.\n\nMy eyes were drawn to the toys in the front yard. A little play house and a toy bike, both covered in a soft layer of snow. It was an odd sight, as no one let their kids play outside anymore. Crime was at an all time low, but fear was always high.\n\nThe doorbell gave a little jingle and I could hear the approaching footsteps through the frosted ice covered windows. The person on the other side struggled with the doorknob for a moment before finally pulling the heavy door back. She stared up at me with a knowing look in her eyes. I died right then, at that look, that look that held knowledge a kid should never know. Looking past her I could see the house was a mess. The paintings on the wall tilted wrong, the vase on the stairwell chest smashed to pieces. \n\nIn the living room a reclining chair was facing the parlor wall where the next reality show was airing its first episode. A medical stand leaned against the chair and tubes filled with chemicals and drugs snaked from an IV bag into a man's veins. Stepping out of the living room, he looked up at me. A bit surprised at first, he gave a wave with his gloved hands. It always made me wonder why he decided to dress so nice and drive that shit van.\n\n\"A little late. How about we split the contract? Just finish her off and I'll deal with the mo--\"\n\nHe never finished the sentence. A .45 slug has a habit of ending sentences early.\n\nIt took 4.56 seconds. It was not an accident and I have no regrets.\n\n- Debriefing of Control Officer Thaddeus Clark prior to Termination with Department of Population Control.", "**Hey there. First time writing here and years since I've written. Decided to buck the trend. All opinions welcomed!**\n\nGloves, check. Sunglasses, check. Trench coat, check. Gun, check. With my stereotypical hitman outfit in place I thought it time to head up to the room. Room 35-T. I just want to get this over with. I just checked my watch and realized that I could probably make it home to put Raina to bed. As long as this job is quick. I enter the lobby. I nod to the security guard. He gives me a look. Probably because of my love of wearing sunglasses at night. Hey, I have an image to keep up. I, the badass trench coat wearing, sunglasses at night, 3rd ranked hitman of the year, step into the elevator.\n\nYes, my favorite. Elevator music before the kill is so relaxing. I always like to take jobs in tall buildings because of this. Elevators going up makes my spirits go up too. Helps me to at least feel like what I’m doing isn’t terrible. Plus, I always feel cool when I walk through the elevator door. It’s like those old movies from the early 2000s. This hallway is longer than most. I hope my kill, this…Ginny Michaels come right to the door. That way I can just do it and leave. 35-Q, 35-R, 35-S, 35-T. Here it is. And it’s only 7 o’clock. Knock knock.\nThe door opens, just a little. It’s amazing they haven’t come up with anything better than a chain to prevent strangers from jumping you at the door.\n\n“Hello, sir.”\n\nWhat a meek little voice. When I look down, I see the cutest little girl. Has to be maybe 6 years old. I love her. I bend down to meet eye level with her. “Hi there darling. Is your mother at home?”\n\n“Yes. Mommy!”\n\n“Coming Gee Gee. Hi can I help you? It’s late.”\n\nLet the games begin. “Mrs. Michaels? Mrs. Ginny Michaels?”\n\n“Michaels, yes. But my name is Jennifer. Ginny is my daughter, who I believe you already met. What is this about?”\n\nThis is not what I expected. “Mrs. Michaels. I would recommend packing up and leaving town. My employer has hired me to kill your daughter, but I will not. But that doesn’t mean they will stop. I am sorry for what your family is about to endure.”\n\nI turned around and walked back down the painfully long hallway. I’m pretty sure it’s longer now. When I get into the elevator my communicator beeps; and here I thought the elevator music would calm down me down. My contact asks if the job is done. I tell him that I did the job right and would like to see him tonight. He expects to pay me, I expect to get answers. Goodnight Raina, 17 days without a kiss goodnight.\n\nI usually don’t meet my employers. I don’t like people to see me in person. I like to be more of a specter. I just live ethereally in the air between the killer and the killed. But tonight I need to make an exception. We agree to see each other on the docks at midnight. Normally I would eat this classic crime cliché up. I’ll see the fun in it later, hopefully. Midnight rolls around and I activate the voice altering application on my communicator. I sound like a rusty robot imitating an Irishman. He’s late. I take to looking at the skyline. The city is dark at this time of night. Since I’ve been alive they’ve had the power fasting. We’re such wasteful creatures; I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner than it did. I had always expected hover cars, teleporters, robotic servants and interplanetary space flight by now. Instead we got regression. Time passes. I hear the rumble of an engine.\n\nA white car rolls up. My communicator chimes 5 o’ clock. My employer is late. Not normal. A woman steps out. Usually my employers are men. Not that it matters. The car’s plates say government on it, also an irregularity. This should be fun.\n\n“I hear you did the job right Mr… what should I call you?” This woman gives off a bad air.\n\n“Specter.”\n\n“How comic. Now can you explain to me…Specter, why the right job means Ginny Michaels sleeps soundly in her bed?”\n\n“Because I don’t kill children.”\n\n“You kill who you are paid to kill.”\n\n“Sorry. No. That is not the game I play.”\n\n“It’s time you start playing. Water, Power, Natural Gas, Oil, Coal. What do these have in common? Fasting. The reason that these need to be fasted in the first place is people. So to save our resources we need to take action.”\n\n“And killing children is the answer?”\n\n“Overpopulation is the problem. The answer is complicated.”\n\n“I’m done with this.” I turn around. The rustiness of my voice being swallowed by the ebb and flow of the water. \n\n“The name is Carmen Swenson. If you change your mind.” She swipes and her contact information appears in my communicator: name, number, address. \n\n“Doubt it.” \n\nTime to head home. I should have been there at 8. Instead I roll up to my apartment just before 7 in the morning and head into the elevator. I sigh. This is some nice music. I open my eyes as the door elevator door dings. I let out an audible laugh. I’m glad I found the cliché at the dock funny. That’s the way I like it. I open my door and my eyes widen. Shards of glass reflecting the moonlight from the window catch my eye. I run toward the bedrooms, grabbing the archway to turn the corner faster. Something sticky. I taste it. Blood. Raina. I run into my daughters’ bedroom. I am no longer a husband. I turn to my right, turn to my left but don’t see my daughter. My beautiful 6 year old. Where is she? I open the closet. Clothes. Under the bed. Games. The hall closet. Canned Food. I run to my bedroom. It’s pitch black. The smell of iron is in the air. My communicator chimes 7 o’clock. A click. The sound of the power ramping up. The lights power up. I am no longer a father.\n\nI take the bracelet off my daughter’s wrist. I rip the pedant of the sun I bought her for her birthday off. She loved it. I take the chain around my wife’s neck off and put the pendant on it. I put it around my neck and think to myself, ‘this feels like an origin story’. I walk out of my apartment and back to the elevator. The music plays. I close my eyes and breathe. The elevator dings open.\n\nGloves, check. Sunglasses, check. Trench coat, check. Gun, check. Necklace, check.\n\n“Let the games begin.”\n", "*What is this? What the shit is this?*\n\nMy inner voice was screaming. She can’t be the one assigned. I swear I read they can’t give you someone under eighteen. The little girl on the doorstep was watching me, waiting for me to say something.\n\n“Hi, honey, is your mummy or daddy in?”\n\nShe took her thumb out of her mouth and looked at me with big eyes. Oh, fucking hell.\n\n“No.” she said.\n\n“Do you mind if I come in for a bit?”\n\nShe moved out of the doorway and wandered back into the house. I followed her in, ducking my head under the low doorway and squinting through the gloom to see where she went. It reeked - smelled like cat piss and dirty nappies. I could hear the muffled blare of an elderly television, so I guessed she must have gone through to the sitting room. Grime was crusted on the windows and I’m sure I do not want to know the state of the floor. It was disgusting. If the sitting room was anything like the hallway then I was not eager to follow her in. I checked the time - it was two in the afternoon. Kid should be in school, but she wasn't, and I should have been assigned an adult. Let her watch telly for a bit. I had time to make a quick phone call.\n\n“Hi, Maria. Hi. How are you? Good, good to hear. So listen, I have a query about this assignment-”\n\n“Did you find the house okay?”\n\n“Yes, I found the house all right, no trouble there. My problem is more the nature of the … objective.”\n\n“You know the drill, McMahon.”\n\n“I do know the drill. I know the job. But she’s six years old, Maria. Six!”\n\n“Do you think children can’t contribute to over-population? Do you think they don’t use resources?”\n\nThe sudden anger in my handler’s voice shocked me a little, if only because I have never heard her angry. I know my job is a dirty job but someone has to do it – some die so that many may live. We’ve really gotten back to nature in the last few years since we finally lost the ice caps, and culling the weakest of the herd is the most natural thing on the planet. But not the children. Never the children.\n\n“Listen, McMahon. This shit is tough. I know it’s tough, why do you think I assigned it to you? Comber nearly baulked at that old man the other week and Fothergill is still in therapy and she’s only had six kills. You’re a good exterminator. To me you’re worth your weight in gold. And you know we don’t pick these targets randomly. How does it smell, by the way?”\n\n“Fucking awful.”\n\n“I am not surprised. I was there last weekend. Believe me, James, when I tell you that little girl’s life is not worth living.”\n\n“The parents?”\n\n“Dead within a couple of months, maybe a year. They’re human scum, the definition of human scum.”\n\nI could hear a strange cadence in Maria’s voice. She’s usually calm and very cool, detached absolutely as you’d have to be if you assigned death for a living. But there was a rare hint of emotion in the way she said the word “scum”. The kind of disgust I’ve not often heard expressed in person. Suddenly I understood why the girl had been chosen to die.\n\n“Thanks, Maria. I’ll let you know when the job is done.”\n\nI hung up, ran my hand through my hair, and made my way into the sitting room. This room was as filthy as the hallway, with a crusty carpet and stains on the sofa. I had a horrible feeling I could guess what made them.\n\nThe little girl was sitting on the edge of the nasty sofa, her hands twisting the hem of her dress. She looked at me with those big eyes as I entered.\n\n“Hey,” I said. “What’s your name?”\n\n“Emily.” She replied.\n\n“Do you have a brother or sister, Emily?” I asked her.\n\n“No.” Her voice was small.\n\nI looked at her fierce little face and the strange fear in her eyes, thought about how easily she let a strange man into her house, how unremarkable she found it. Answer the door, lie on the sofa, watch TV and try not to think about what was happening, money on the sideboard, rinse and repeat. The poor girl.\n\n“Emily,” I crouched down to her level. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m going to take you to a nicer place, a much nicer place. Somewhere nobody will hurt you ever again.”\n\n“You’re lying,” she said simply. Everything she said was in the same level tone of voice. She spoke like a zombie.\nI felt a bit guilty – after all, I *was* lying.\n\n“I’m not lying,” I said. “You can trust me. Now, shall we go? There’s a car waiting outside. It’ll take us to a nice clean place where there’s lots of other kids, hot food every day, and they have a puppy too if you want one.” I was improvising desperately at this point. I don’t know how to talk to children at the best of times. I just needed her to stand up. I can’t be talking to her while she’s on that sofa.\n\n“They’ll hurt me too,” she said.\n\nI shook my head. I didn’t know what else to do. “There will be cake?”\n\nAt that, she actually smiled. She stood up. She took a few steps towards the door. I shot her in the back of the head. She died instantly. She never saw anything, she never knew that I lied, and I stand by what I did. She went somewhere no one can ever hurt her again.\n\nI carried her upstairs and laid her on a – filthy, unmade, but unstained – bed. I could not put her on that sofa. Then I rang my handler.\n\n“Hey Maria. I did it. Job’s done.”\n\n“Good,” I could hear the relief in Maria’s voice. “I’m sorry it had to be you.”\n\nI shrugged.\n\n“It had to be someone. The alternative was worse.”\n\n“Yes, it was.”\n\n“I want you to put me on the list for therapy.”\n\n“I already did, I figured you might need it. I’ll send the clean-up team in now. James?”\n\n“Yeah?”\n\n“The orphanage and foster homes for this section are at max capacity. I checked and I double-checked. I didn’t want to assign this kid, but I had to. You did the best thing you possibly could have done.”\n", "***Hello, everyone. This is my very first reddit post. I've been browsing these writing subreddits for awhile and decided to finally give it a shot. I mainly write screenplays and stuff. I was running out of steam and stuff towards the end but I wanted to finish and post it before I went into work. Hope you guys enjoy.***\n\nYou tell yourself that you're doing them a favor. They never have to be hungry or sleep in the dirt ever again. They don't have to be cold anymore. They don't have to suffer. You are ending their suffering. You are just doing your job. That it's for the good of the Government and future generations. All of this is true. It doesn't make the job any easier.\n\nI like to honestly believe that the government chose this program because there was no other option, not just because it was the easier one. Welfare reform was the new administrations biggest priority. I was still finishing my residency when the Welfare reform act of 2060 was passed. It was supposed to be a 5 year merger designed to reduce the population by 40%. The government compared the process to a fat man losing weight to reducing stress on his knees or back. \"Look at the Human body. It's a got a certain structure. It can support a certain amount of weight and still operate at an optimum level but after a certain amount of weight, that takes it's toll on you physically. Suddenly normal activities like bending over to tie your shoes or walking your dog become much more difficult. Eventually you gain more weight and suddenly the things you took for granted are suddenly impossible to do. It's the same with the planet. It's got a certain structure. It can support a lot of us for sure and it did so for a long time. But now Earth cant perform the way it use to. It's gotten too fat. It is being weighed down and now we got help out the Earth and help relieve some of the stress on it's knees.\"\n\nThe legislation quadrupled the amount of resources that went into the Welfare department. To make it seem humane each Welfare Officer is a certified Doctor.\n\nThe first time is definitely the hardest. Strapping them up to the rig, finding the veins to prick, forcing the solutions into their blood stream, watching the life flicker out of their bodies and that's that. It's a fucked up thing to do to a person but it gets easier. Every Welfare Officer reacts differently the first time. Most cry and turn to drinking others drink and then cry. \n\nThe assignments sometimes tried to beg and plead like we have any real say in the matter. I've heard of stories of some assignments attempting to run, it's never happened to me though. The armed commandos we travel with usually deter any kind of violent reaction. You deal with each assignments with as much delicacy as possible given the circumstances. Most of the time you comfort them. You try to make them believe that they will be in a better place. Some of the assignments don't say a word and that's always the worst. You knock on the door, \"Hello, my name is Eugene Parks, I'm with the Welfare Department, I'm looking for So-and-so, might that be you? May I come inside?\" They nod and they don't say anything. You make your way into their filthy apartment. It's like they were anticipating our visit. They just sit and stare at nothing. Maybe they look at the floor or the ceiling but it's always at nothing.\n\nI never questioned the need for this program. It's terrible but it had to be done. Our planet was dying. The evidence was right before us with our dried up water reserves and barren landscapes. The selection process was a whole another story. They never announced what was the criteria for selection. They claimed it was random and I did my best to believe that. The job was stressful enough so I tried not to think why I am visiting this assignment.\n\nUntil I met Maddy.\n\nThe 8th district had become super familiar with the area and I had over dozen assignments in the apartment complex where I found Maddy. Her brown eyes flickered when she opened door, she looked disappointed when she opened the door, \"I thought you were my mommy.\" It broke my heart the way she said it, I knew right away that this was going to be a shitty assignment, \"Now, I'm sorry sweetie. I'm actually looking for your Mommy. Madeline Hall. Will she be back soon?\"\n\"I'm Maddie.\" She said.\n\nI thought it was a cute gesture, a little child claiming their identity,\"I bet you are but I think I'm looking for your mommy. The other Maddy.\"\n\"My mommy's name is Sarah.\"\n\nI nearly shit myself when she said that. There had to have been a mistake. \"Well do you mind if I come inside and wait with you for you mommy.\"\n\"Okay.\"\n\nI walk in and it's dump like all the other slums. I'm still don't think she's the assignment, so I continue my little ritual.\n\n\"Do you think it's all right if I clean this area over here?\" I pointed to the kitchen table. She shrugged and I got to work.\n\nAlthough it was never really necessarily, I always liked to sterilize the area where I performed the procedure. I liked giving them a nice place to lay down when it was all over. It helped me keep my humanity a little.\n\nI set my briefcase down on the table and pulled out the device. It was a metal frame that had three canisters or bottles, about 6 inches wide by 12 inches. Each bottle had a syringe that connected to a single IV line in the person's arm. The first bottle contained ordinary saline, or salt water. The second contained a sleep-inducing barbiturate called sodium thiopental, and the third was a mixture of potassium chloride which would stop their heart. A little pancuronium bromide was thrown in. It was a muscle relaxant to prevent spasms during the dying process. The whole thing was rather unassuming, it kind of resembled a toy chemistry set that they use to sell to children.\n\n\"What's that?\" She said, pointing to the device. No one had ever asked me that question. Everyone who has the misfortune of me paying them visit know why I'm there. \"Did your mommy usually leave you alone like this?\" At this point I had been waiting for an hour.\n\"No.\"\n\"What time did she leave? Where did she say she was going?\"\n\"She left at night.\"\n\"At night?\" I said incredulously. I looked outside the window and saw the sun still shining. \"Are you sure.\"\n\"Yeah. It was 3 days ago. Her friend came to the door and Mommy said that she needed to go talk to her friend and to wait.\"\n\n I was full on panicking at this point. I still couldn't believe that she was the assignment. Children were supposed to be exempt for consideration. They were supposed to be what we were reducing the population for. I went outside and tried to get my ducks in a row. The guards were waiting out there, I saw the impatience in their faces, wondering why I was taking so long. I didn't know what to do.\n\n\"The little girl is the assignment.\" I finally blurted out. \nThe guards remained stoic but managed to say, \"Tough break. Hurry it up and get it over with.\"\n\"You're kidding.\" I said.\n\"Like shit we are. We have four other assignments to get to.\"\n\"Look Park, we are just doing our duty. Don't over think it.\"\n\"You know what the penalty is for not completing an assignment. We are not here to play god. We just do what we are told.\"\nIt was all too much to handle at one point. I felt my cheeks flushing with heat, my mouth was dry. I felt my chest caving in with the already impending guilt. Things were desperate. \"Where does it end? I thought the kids were why we're fucking doing this shit!\"\nAt this point they started to get annoyed, \"Parks do you want us to get court marshaled? Do you want to get disbarred?\"\n\"Look, Parks. One of two things are going to happen: Either you're going to inside and do your job or we are going to go in their and do it for you. I'm not for killing of children but you got to focus on the next assignment. Don't over think it. Just do you job.\" \n\nI go back inside, sit at the table. Hook up the rig, prick a vein... and that's that.\n\nEND.", "Her eyes were pale blue, like mine. In another life I could have seen her being my own daughter. I would have named her Delilah and we'd have done a lot of things together. We'd have learned together. \n\nI could have taught her the three languages I know. She could have taught me how to be less judgmental. There would be days I'd show her what it's like to grow old and she would remind me of what it's like to be young, even if just in heart. \n\nThere were doubts in my mind, not of my job, but of her own father. Was he around? He didn't answer the door. She looked malnurished, she looked stupid and dirty. Dust caked her face and hands and it was early in the morning, the time a girl her age should be getting ready for school.\n\n\"Who's home?\" Her face didn't change as I spoke, as if she didn't even understand me. It made my heart sink that so many children had to live with low intelligence. \n\nShe shook her head. \n\nI knelt down to meet her eye to eye and reached into my pocket. \n\n\"Candy?\" I said, removing the small wrapped chocolate ball and holding it out to her. \"Go on. Yum.\"\n\nHer eyes flickered and she showed her teeth, her cheeks turning a rosy red. She grabbed it and popped it into her mouth, wrapper and all. Her face turned sour until the paper melted and she tasted the chocolately goodness. \n\nI rubbed her head at that and stood, turning and walking away. As the chocolate made its way down her gullet, the poison was being soaked into her blood and would soon cause her to seize and drop dead. \n\nAnyone else and I'd have just shot them. But a father should never see his daughter die.", "*I knock three times.*\n\nPsychopathy is defined as \"a mental disorder in which an individual manifests amoral and antisocial behavior and the lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships.\" I was sixteen when I was properly diagnosed as a psychopath. To be honest, I'm surprised that they caught it that early. I wasn't hiding it. I never really considered I had it. I just did what I was told. I had friends growing up, made good grades, played sports. I enjoyed Tai Chi. I never broke the law or got into trouble. Except that one time. \n\n*The door creaks open.*\n\nI didn't make friends or play sports or get good grades because I enjoyed it. I did those things because I was supposed to. They were the rules. The way I've always seen it, the world runs on rules. Rules are the gears that govern the machine. And machines run in binary. 0's and 1's. Yes and no. Do or do not. Yin and Yang. Maybe that's why I like Tai Chi. People like to talk about living in a grey world, the lack of black and white choices. They don't get it. Every decision we make can be broken down into a series of yes or no decisions. Even the most complicated choice can be made by simplifying each aspect of it to a yes or no value judgement. Any indecision comes from a lack of conviction.\n\nI look down and see a small girl between the age of 5-6, staring at me with wide, blue eyes, tightly gripping a stuffed elephant.\n\nDuring my sophomore year of high school, when I was sixteen, my friend Carter was being hurt by bullies. I don't like bullies. They have a bad habit of breaking the rules. The ringleader, Connor, was laying it on the worst. I broke his arm. While he was down, I broke two ribs. When the police asked me why I did it, I told them I was helping my friend. You're supposed to help your friends. Those are the rules. They asked me how close of a friend Carter was. I told them he was my best friend. That was the truth. I had no sentimental attachment to Carter over others I associated with. I sat with him and talked with him because he was kind and trusting and happy. Kind and trusting and happy people are easy to manipulate. The most manipulatable person was the best. Carter was my best friend. \n\n*\"Are your parents home?\" I ask the girl. She shakes her head slightly. It begins to register what was happening. \"Are you Caitlyn?\" She nods.*\n\nI went through a series of psychological tests after the incident. That's when I was diagnosed. My parents had money though. I did three months in a rehabilitation facility over the summer. My life went on like nothing happened. It's amazing what money can buy. How it can bend the rules It was 2045 that year. My parents were becoming quite wealthy from investing in burgeoning technology to deal with a rapidly expanding population. When school started, I made amends with Connor. You might think that would be difficult when I broke three of his bones not too long before. It wasn't. People have called me charming my entire life.\n\n*I am annoyed with myself. I should have realized what this meant quicker. It's just they've never been this young before.*\n\nI didn't go to college. Instead I joined the police force. Enforcing the law, keeping everything ordered. I moved up through the ranks quickly. Eventually I attracted the attention of the government. They pulled my file and apparently liked what they saw. I was invited to join a new division of the government. It wasn't public yet.\n\n*I remove the gun from my jacket pocket.*\n\nThe country's population was spiraling out of control, they said. The technology my parents were investors in failed to stem the growth like so many other attempts. The time had come, they said, for forced control. Not death chambers or firing squads, but precision killings to stem the growth of life. Politicians who oppose one child policies. Business leaders whose deaths cause company collapses, rendering employees unable to support families. Religious leaders who encouraged procreation. The government thought I would be an effective agent. I was eager to make sure all the gears in the machine kept turning. They wanted proof I wouldn't back out on a job. They assigned me a name to terminate. It was Carter. This was supposed to prove I could kill even those I was closest too I suppose. I me Carter at a bar downtown. On the way back to his car, I snapped his neck. Police blamed it on a junkie.\n\n*I cock the pistol. The girl looks at me, eyes curious.*\n\nI do my job without question. The government makes the laws, the laws are the rules, and I work for the lawmaker. If the government gives me a job that doesn't make sense, I don't question it.\n\n*I take my aim.*\n\nSo when I'm told to kill someone named Caitlyn in Rm 405 of the Watergate hotel, I don't ask about any further details, I don't ask why this person is the catalyst of a population boom.\n\n*My finger slides into place around the trigger, ready to apply pressure.*\n\nWalking into of the Watergate hotel, I see a little boy playing with his even younger sister.\n\n*O's and 1's. Yes and No. Yin and Yang. I make my choice.*\n\nOn the way out of the hotel, I offer the children a stuffed elephant. They happily take it. I just hope they don't notice the flecks of red around the ears.\n", "My eyebrows rose in surprise as I opened my door to my new visitor. She couldn't have been older than 7, no taller than 4 feet, blonde with rosy and slightly chubby cheeks, she dragged an undoubtedly very old doll, with red messy hair and limp arms, dirty from the bottom of its feet to the top of its head. She was dirty as well, wearing a blue dress, it had probably been an elegant dress at first, but it also probably didn't belong to her at first. Multiple splotches of brown now occupied space on the baby blue dress, which matched her eyes, I noticed, and also the bow in her hair. Even her hair had been done up very recently, much cleaner and tidier than the rest of her, and I smirked coldly, in pity for the poor girl, as I realized that the dress and bow, the scuffed up, dusty black dress shoes she wore probably represented the best of her wardrobe. \n\nHer innocent and deformed smile still rested complacently upon her face. I smiled coldly back at her. \"They told me that you had a new home for me!\" She spat out, excitedly, her words twisted with a lisp coming from her twisted mouth. She wasn't ugly because of it, in fact, to me, it was refreshingly unique, but somehow familiar, and, in its own strange fashion, charming. But the world didn't much care for unique or different anymore, and neither, I knew, did any parents who would look to adopt a child. Everyone wanted perfection, with the limitations placed on children, and not just children, people in general, there wasn't much room for anything less than the best. That deformation, and that alone, I thought, feeling a tinge of sadness breach the walls surrounding my heart, that protected my psych in this job, was what had placed her on my doorstep.\n\n\"Sir?\" I realized I had been standing in my doorway, leaning against the frame and looking up and down this poor little girl without speaking a single word to her for the past thirty seconds. \"Sorry, sweetheart.\" I apologized. \"Please, come on in.\" The smile grew back on her face, and I smiled in return, as I turned to walk inside, gesturing for her to follow close behind.\n\nWe walked through the kitchen, the first room in the house, oddly enough. It was not a sight to be proud of, but not many that passed through would be too concerned with the state of my kitchen for long. Empty bottles of whiskey lined the counters, aside from where the microwave rested, in which my microwave dinner had been cooking, but I decided to leave it there. It'd be rude to eat during the last conversation this girl would have. I've always tried to at least avoid being rude in the act. \"It's like my old house here...\" the girl said quietly. I stopped for a moment and looked back at her, noticing a growing look of harrowing concern upon her face. \"Don't worry, I'll clean it soon.\" I lied. \"Good..\" she whispered back. \"I didn't like my old house..\" She held her doll closely to her chest.\n\nWe passed into the foyer, a chair, small table, empty glasses scattered upon its top, and a fireplace, embers from a recent fire still burning out among the ashes. \"My daddy had a room like this.\" the girl smiled at the thought. \"I liked this room..\" she said loudly, with great excitement. I stopped, shaking my glass in my hand and placing it upon the table top, joining the many others alike it. \"Would you like to have a fire?\" I asked, a small smile slipping onto my face. She shook her head eagerly. It'd been years since I had even seen a child, let alone talked to one, and I found myself enjoying the childlike innocence that occupied the whole of her being, the hope that still remained in her voice, that same hope that had been drained from the speech of adults, including myself. I wondered what it must be like in one of those orphanages. Wondered if it was as... industrial, as the rest of the world was now. \n\nI gathered some firewood from the corner of the foyer, depositing into the fireplace, putting out the last of the burning embers of the fire that had been burning earlier that day as the wood crashed upon them. I beckoned to the girl to have a seat. \"I can sit in the big chair?!?\" she nearly screeched, her twisted smile stretching from ear to ear. I smiled back and nodded. \"I prefer standing.\" She clambered up onto the chair and sat her doll beside her, staring at me with obvious joy as I grasped the lighter fluid off of the mantle and sprinkled the liquid down upon the wood. From the pocket on the inside of my leather jacket I grabbed my matchbook, struck a single match, and knelt down to bring the fire to life. The flames caught the wood and flared up quickly, courtesy of the fluid.\n\nI stood up and walked to the coat rack in the opposite corner of the room, and removed my jacket, placing it on the rack. \"It's so pretty.\" I turned towards the girl, \"Yes, yes it is.\" I turned towards a small cabinet in the back left corner of the room and began to walk towards it. \"I miss my house..\" I slowed to a stop, and looked curiously at the girl. I walked up beside her and knelt down next to her, looking into her eyes, the same curiosity still occupying mine. Her eyes told a different story though, lit by the flames, they told of things I had not thought of in years. Of flowing landscapes, blue skies, of green grasses and trees, of beautiful landscapes. Her eyes held beauties the likes of which I'd never seen himself, nor thought I ever would, and at such things I furrowed my brow and asked the girl \"where are you from, sweetheart..?\" She smiled in response, but stared into the fire still, and did not return his stare. \"Daddy and I lived far away.. Daddy always used to say it was much better than here.\" \"What about your mother?\" the girl's smile faded quickly, but she stayed fixated on the fire. \"Daddy said Mommy had to go away. Daddy said that's why we left the big cities.\" My brow furrowed further, and I couldn't fight the frown away from my face. \"Do you know where your mommy had to go?\" I asked, quieting my tone, trying not to upset the poor girl. \"No,\" the girl replied, quickly. \"I don't really remember Mommy. I don't remember much of the big cities, other than Daddy keeping me up in the attic most of the time. It wasn't so bad up there. Daddy was crying when we had to go.\" I was silent for a moment, staring towards the ground.\n\nI broke the silence, asking her for her name. She smiled, breaking her fixed gaze on the fire to look at me. \"Loriann. My Mommy was Lori, and my Daddy was Andrew.\" She grinned, obviously bragging about possessing that knowledge. I stared at the carpet beneath my feet, color fading slowly from my face. I'd have to do it soon. In my peripheral view, I saw her cock her head to the right, estranged by my silence. I composed myself, picking my head up. \"You're a smart girl, Loriann.\" Her smile returned with more joy even than it had held before, \"that's what Daddy used to tell me.\" \n\nI didn't need to know any more from her, I could tell the story of her six years myself at this point. I turned away from her, sighing heavily, and began to walk back towards the cabinet. \"What's your name, sir?\" I heard her ask, rotating back to look at me in the large and comfortable chair. I stopped momentarily. I sat silently and thought up an answer. I'd never given out my real name, not that it mattered, really. \"I'm Uriel.\" \"That's a weird name.\" I opened the cabinet and attained the 9 millimeter beretta and old instant print polaroid camera from within. \"It means something.\" I walked back towards the chair, finding that, to my relief, she had returned her gaze to the fire and now held one of the glasses in her right hand, looking through the bottom of it and giggling at the distorted vision of the fire. \"You look pretty in that dress in front of the fire.\" I said, sliding the beretta into the holster I wore at my side. \"Mind if I take a picture so I can remember the day I met you?\" I wore a smile that masked my reluctance on my face. She giggled and put down the glass. \"Of course, I love pictures!\" \"Perfect! Just sit right there.\" I knelt down and held the camera in front of me, as she sat smiling that twisted but charming smile of hers. I smiled back and snapped the picture. \"Beautiful, Loriann!\" \"Thank you!\" She said, smiling widely and playing with the glass again. I began to walk behind her, and slipped the beretta out of the holster, as she continued playing with her glass. \"So what does your name mean?\" I pointed the gun at the back of her head and gulped back my reluctance once more. \"Don't worry about it, Loriann. You'll like your new home.\" I pulled the trigger, splattering blood and brain matter on my carpet and chair. I didn't usually kill in here, but... well, I wanted her to be comfortable. I sighed, holstered the pistol again, took out the now printed picture, and made my way to my office at the back of the house, a fresh glass of whiskey in my hand. As I reached the room, I sipped on the strong drink I held, and searched up and down the wall, which was covered in pictures, organized neatly by year, year and name under each picture. Ordinarily, I'd place my new picture directly under the last in the 2064 section. But instead, I removed a picture, and placed Loriann in it's place. The glass shook in my hand as I looked at her picture and the one above it. I felt a tear leave my eye, and my heart drop nearly an inch. I gulped heavily on my whiskey. I was disappointed in myself, slightly, they didn't hire people for this job that had a heart, and I just proved to myself I had one. I stared down the bottom picture, and on the bottom of it wrote Loriann, 2064. I smiled in response to her smile, twisted in joy. And looked above it and bit on my lip in response to her grimace, twisted in fear. Lori, 2062.\n\nEdit: definitely read the prompt as knocking on my door... Myyyyy bad...", "\"Hello? Im here about the appointment. You should have received a final message a few...\" \n\nThe door makes a sticky sound as it is opened. A girl with a stuffed elephant hanging from one hand stands in the way. \n\n\"Oh...Hello.\"\n\n\"Hi.\" She leans against the door, picking at the flaking paint. \n\n\"Can you get somebody to come talk to me? I am looking for Claire Lotner. Maybe that is your mommy?\"\n\nShe shakes her head and stares at me. This has happened before, people want to hide behind their children as if I have the authority to show mercy because you propagated a sweet little girl with big blue eyes that are beginning to well with tears.\n\n\"Oh no honey, don't cry. I just need to find an adult, can you go ask for them to come to the door.\" \n\nI do have the authority to force myself into the home if necessary, but I have found that when you approach the assignment with respect and understanding the whole process is easier for everyone involved.\n\n\"I don't know where my mom went.\" Tears begin to roll down her cheeks. Big hopeless tears. The kind that come when you realize you have been left alone, but you can't figure out why. \n\nA runner. This too happens occasionally, but less than you would imagine. When given a choice between running or having two other family members reassigned, guilt usually makes you stay put. It also gives you a small sense of pride knowing that you chose to be selfless. Years of research on how to prevent running gave us this little rule and it has helped to pacify the urges of self preservation. \n\nShe clutched her elephant with both hands and begins to cry harder as she leaves the doorway and stands closer to me. I kneel, setting my bag on the ground, but within arms reach as always. \n\n\"Hey, hey....I like your elephant. It's so soft. Is it your favorite?\"\n\nShe nods. Wiping some tears with the back of her hand. \"Her name is Elly.\"\n\n\"Elly the elephant? I like that. Mom should be back soon and if not then we will just have to find her, huh?\"\n\nShe nods. Her face is splotchy, but this small relief has calmed her. \"What's that?\"\n\nShe points to my leather bag. I got it because it reminded me of those antique doctors bags. Life is easier if you can make yourself believe that you are doing some good in the world. I imagine that I am a doctor, paying home visits and giving out medication. My patients get to choose between a shot or a pill or a powder. They have a choice for a pill to swallow or a flavored pill to chew. I can put the powder into any food or drink if swallowing a pill is too hard. Some people just have the hardest time swallowing pills. \n\n\"That is my doctors bag. It holds all the medicine.\" She stares at the bag, I fear tears are coming back quickly.\n\n\"Can Elly talk?\"\n\nShe stares at me and then at the stuffed elephant. She nods.\n\n\"Can Elly tell me your name?\" Tears at bay for now.\n\n\"My name is Claire.\"\n\n\n\n", "He took a jelly-legged step backwards. “Y-You’re Alice?” He asked, with a quiver in his voice. It was only a little girl. Although secretive, the Population Control Bureau was never known to make an error.\n\n\n“Nana told me not to talk to strangers.” She said, inching the door shut. He thrust his foot into the slit before it closed. . \n\n“I am agent Charles Menafi...” He said holding out a badge, “…PCB. Is grandma home, Alice?” \n\n“No. ”\n\nAm I really going to do this? He wondered. His conscience crawled out from the grave he shoved it in a decade prior. It made him sick. A thin layer of moisture collected above Charlie’s brow. His heart beat like a drum in his chest. “May I come in?” He asked. The girl, who looked to be no more than six, creaked the door open and stepped backwards weary of the stranger. “You don’t need to be scared Alice, I’m just here to talk.”\n\nAlice, without prying her gaze from his face, walked backwards and took a seat on the couch next to a Barbie doll. She picked it up and stroked the doll’s hair with her brush. Her hands were trembling nearly as bad as his were. Fear painted her face.\n\n“Where is Nana?” \n\n“Outside getting her special juice.” \n\n“I see.”\n \n“Alice, when will she be home?” He asked. The girl responded with silence. He felt a knot tightening in the pit of his stomach as he recalled the lieutenant’s words on his first day of training. People die every day. PCB is just another heart attack. We are just another car accident, or leukemia. We are not here for pleasure; we are here for population control. If we kill, we kill with humility.\n\nHe thumbed the tiny capsule case in his coat pocket, took a deep breath, and turned to the little girl. “Alice, why don’t we drink some juice? Can you show me where the kitchen is?”\n……..\n\nCharlie walked out the door in a stupor. His heart sank to his heels and his throat was a desert. He pulled out his phone and dialed HQ. After two bells, the lieutenant picked up.\n\n“Go ahead Menafi.”\n\n“Assignment completed. She’ll be gone in fifteen.”\n\n“Understood. Any complications?”\n\n“No. But I would like to respectfully say, fuck you, lieutenant.” His clutch on the phone was so tight that he thought it would snap in half.\n\nThe lieutenant was silent. “You’ve been on this for ten years. It’s a dirty job Charles, but be a professional. I wouldn’t have assigned her to you if I didn’t think you could take it.”\n\n“Take it? You got some nerve, James.”\n\n“You’re out of order agent. You’re talking to your commanding officer.”\n\n“Yea, well fuck your stripes. I’m done.”\n\nThe lieutenant sighed. “Head on home, we’ll talk about this. I’m dispatching child relocation services for the kid.”\n\n“Child relocation? Why would you do that? The kid is…” James said trailing his sentence off. His heart \nthumped like a bass drum.\n\n“The kid is what?”\n\nCharles’ tongue failed to move. He felt the ground underneath him disappear as he collapsed on the porch steps. What the hell was going on?\n\n“Come on back.” The lieutenant said. The click of the receiver followed. Child protection? \n\nHe unhooked his bag strap from his shoulder and set it down next to him. He removed the sealed court order and stared down at it with furrowed brows. Never had he broken protocol to look at the order illegally, but fear guided his hands as he tore the envelope. His eyes raced over the lines. Charles’ world ground to a screeching halt. \n\nAssignment: Alice Harding. DOB: 1998. \nHusband: deceased (assigned –Alcoholism)\nSon: deceased (car accident). \nDaughter-in-law: deceased (Car accident)\nGranddaughter: Alice Harding, DOB: 2058. (Legal Guardian)\nBio: The court, in conjunction with Child Protective Services has deemed Ms. Harding unfit for parenting due to alcoholism. She has repeatedly endangered the life of her grandchild and namesake resulting in domestic abuse, neglect, and even battery…\n\nHis vision blotted and blurred due to the tears welling up in his eyes. He gagged over the porch steps and spewed the purple grape juice he had consumed moments ago. His eyes darted over the paper again, and again, and then once more. A drop of sweat dribbled down his forehead and landed on the paper, smudging the ink. Tears streaked down his face as he rummaged his pocket for a remaining capsule.\n\n", "Seeing as I posted this WP, I thought I might as well share my version! I hope you guys like it! \n\n**Murder on my Résumé**\n\nTaking someone’s life is my peace and serenity. There, I’ve said it. I’ve got to make a living, right? I understand that for a couple millennia Grippers had not existed, as odd as that is to think about, but the world changes. After three world wars, countless dictators and destructive economic battles, the government has realised how important it is for some people to just die. Not exist. I shouldn’t use the word ‘die,’ it’s unprofessional of me. ‘Expired,’ is what it’s called in the business here when someone’s dead. According to the records, it took hundreds of years for the ‘Gripping’ project to be finalised. I couldn’t picture a world where every person on the planet lives out his or her full life with no fear of being drawn from the program each day. Some see becoming ‘expired’ as a privilege, an opportunity to benefit the future generations. \n\nAs I walk into the office I can’t help but frown. The usual smell of coffee has hit my nostrils; the dense air slowly making my lips water. I’m prepared to take on my next client. I hope they’re ready to receive me, though. I can’t help but feel a little nervous before a job. Some of the guys at the office see it as weakness, almost as if I’m not deserving of being a Gripper. Involuntarily sympathising with my clients; even if I’m still fascinated by the sight of life going out of someone’s eyes. Does that make me a monster? If I had lived a hundred years ago, I’d certainly be, but in today’s society I’m simply a working class man. As always, I’m heading over to the large fifty-inch monitor on the main office wall, where all the Grippers’ names are listed with their next client’s name and address. My eyes scan down the long list of names until I see my own, ‘Mark Wick,’ and I move my gaze across the screen until I see my assignment for today, ‘Charlie Rose – Canton XIII – Apartment 42.’ So today I’m heading off to the thirteenth Canton, the slums of my state, this time to visit Charlie Rose.\n\nThe echoing of the noise of my knuckles on the door of Apartment 42 almost broadcasts an absence of life within this gloomy complex. I’ve never enjoyed working out in Canton Thirteen. It’s depressing, saddening and just plain dirty. I wonder who this Miss Rose is? The hallway seems like the set of a murder scene. The flickering of off-white florescent lighting casts more shadows than it illuminates, down the seemingly endless tunnel of the unknown. I could never live in these conditions. I kneel down on one knee and lay my suitcase on the ground in front of me, flicking the latches on each side of the front. I open the pitch-black case, revealing the contents. A simple syringe held perfectly in place by the uniquely designed capsule within. There it was, the tool of my trade. My hand reaches down, gripping the clear tube, the grey liquid inside blinking in and out of visibility because of the poor lighting. I hold it close to my face, pushing the plunger down quickly to test that the liquid is flowing. It is. That’s when the door opens. I get off my knee, standing up. My eyes are still locked on the needle as I begin to speak. “My name is Mark Wick. You’ve been selected to expire as according to the ‘Gripping’ project of 2098, commissioned by President John -” I cut myself off, taking my eyes off the needle and gazing upon the girl in front of me. Shivers rush down my spine as it all sinks in.\n\nShe has to be under the age of ten. Charlie Rose is a child. My legs feel weak as my eyes adjust to the sight of a maybe four-foot tall, blonde-haired girl standing in the door frame, bruises covering her left arm that she’s stretching out to the door frame in her stance. I rub my eyes and look at her again, standing in the doorway in her worn out pink pyjamas, but this time she’s not looking at me; her eyes are completely locked on something else. The needle in my right hand, I’ve completely forgot I was holding it. She’s shaking; her hand slides down the doorframe slowly, as it comes to rest at her side, a complete look of defeat on her face. She fully understands what’s about to happen. She smiles and looks at me, which surprises me. What could she be smiling at? A single gleaming tear runs down her flushed cheek slowly, the moisture enhancing her peach-like skin.\n“I’m ready, sir. I’m ready to die.”\n\nNothing in the world could prepare me for the sentence she had just said. My legs nearly give way, but I keep my balance as my eyes are locked onto Charlie’s. How long have I been standing here in silence, in shock? I’ve been a Gripper for over five years, attending to one client a day, yet I’ve never had to kill a child. Kill. That’s the suitable word, even if it’s unprofessional. This isn’t right. What kind of time do we live in where I have to go about murdering a child because a computer program pulled her name out? I’ll tell you; a world I don’t want to live in. “No Sir! Don’t!” Charlie screams as I raise my syringe. It is time to do my job.\n\nTaking someone’s life is my peace and serenity, and now it’s to spare the life of a child. It’s time to go to sleep. As I plunge the syringe into my neck, the sight of a beautiful child whose life I’ve just saved comforts me briefly.\n", "They told me I was so heartless, but they just lacked the information. If I hadn't been told the figures and been shown the graphs I would have shouted at myself from the crowds too. But I knew the reality of the situation - the incredibly harsh reality.\n\nThe government decided to assign me for their project because I'd killed before. Prison for ten years, that's what I got. It was harsh, but I pulled through. I was treated more dangerously than I should have been; some were scared of me in that place. It was a fairly local prison, so many of the people in there I'd seen before - all those years ago.\n\nI remember the day like I was staring into a vision. The general, his badges forming a blinding sheen from the overhead lights, holding out a hand and a smile. I remember his stern voice, the roughness of the past twenty years latching onto his mouth. He was quick and straight to the point. They trained me because they knew I had a desire somewhere inside of me - a desire that told the people around me to not mess around. And they were right - the feel of the gun in my hand was too empowering. I felt like a God when I held the power to destroy in my hands. I was, in a sense, Death.\n\nMy nostalgic flashback was cut short by the traffic before me. I tutted to myself. They made guns, phones and computers as futuristic as possible, but they still drove around in those dirty, fuming piles of scrap metal. The pillars of smoke spiralling into the air, I raised my hand and readied for a Lapse.\n\nThe blast of air around me confirmed I was successful. The cars around me ground to a near standstill, the trees shaking in the wind now reduced to motionless statues. The people were blurred, as a soul *would* be in a Temporal Lapse.\n\nAs I got to the other side of the road, I checked the radar and released the Lapse. I knelt down and prepared for the Unwind. It was never that easy. The ground felt hot, as the particles in the air around me were now gaining speed. The colours around me went from a subtle, monochromatic grey colour to full, vibrant bursts of light. For a single second, the world looked perfect - until *they* all started moving again; the air full of talking and traffic as the sound barrier caught up. Ugh. Why couldn't the world just be *silent*?\n\nI arrived at my location, which was confirmed by the radar on my watch. I stepped towards the gate, unlocked it via the little hook at the top, and strolled up the garden path. It was a nice garden, however some of the plants were wilting. It was the middle of a hot summer, and I was surprised to see that not many people were tending to their gardens that year. I reached the oak door, and ran my finger along its surface.\n\nFurnished oak. I knocked three times, waited a second, and then five times. That was the knock of the Corrector. It was necessary for a Corrector to do those knocks, so that if people would rather kill themselves than let one of us do it, then they could do it then and there. I waited for the full minute too, which was also necessary. Since I heard no shots or shouting, I scanned the lock and held up The Material. The Material was a piece of malleable plastic that could change into any key-like shape, based on a scan previously done. As the lock was scanned, The Material melted and changed into the shape of a key. I still wasn't used to seeing it do that, after 10 years. It was truly a marvel of science.\n\nThe door opened to a musky smell. I stepped inside, having the done this procedure thousands of times before, with no fear. People had raised guns at me before, held knives and sometimes even their fists. But none were brave enough to ever attack - that was my only true weapon. Human fear - the natural sedative.\n\nI heard a soft whimpering. I locked on to my target, determining that it was from upstairs. Creating a small pocket of sound-proof air around me, I walked up the stairs with my radar poised. I knew nobody could hear me, but I had to be stealthy. The radar confirmed three beings in the two rooms to my right. One read \"Anna\", the other nameless. I headed into the nameless room, just to be on the safe side. I couldn't see anyone.\n\nI glanced at the radar. The program prompted me to check hiding spaces such as wardrobes and under beds. I knelt down to floor level and tilted my head.\n\nNothing.\n\nIt was the usual, then. I walked over to the wardrobe and held out my hands. I scanned the wardrobe - but to no avail. Nobody was in this room. I spun around, expecting to see someone poised with a gun.\n\nBut nobody was there.\n\nI sighed, half out of relief, and half out of frustration. I had another appointment in ten minutes - and it was half an hour away. I was riding on the hopes that this one would be dead before I had to come playing Hide and Seek with them. I stepped onto the landing, and then into the room labelled \"Anna\".\n\nAnd there she was. A small girl. I held out my hand, to which she whimpered and ran into the corner. I wasn't going to make contact - only to scan her. The radar confirmed my fears - she was 6 years and 2 months old. My heart sunk to the floor as I felt a small tear well in my eye. I had to give her the speech, but I knew she wouldn't understand it. The program prompted me to open the speech and read it to her, but I already knew it off by heart. I knew I had to make it sound friendly....\n\n\"My name is Mr. Nalbridge\" I said softly. She continued to cower in the corner of the room, clutching the bedpost.\n\n\"And I'm here to help you...\" I uttered, a stinging tear rolling down my cheek. I hadn't felt that in a while. She loosened her grip on the bedpost, and was now staring at me with wide eyes. I felt as though I was getting somewhere, but as I reminded myself what I came here for, it just made things so much worse.\n\n\"There are lots of people in the world now, er... what's your name?\" I whimpered, flashing a broken smile. She opened her mouth, but hardly and voice emerged. She stuttered terribly, but eventually managed to tell me her name was Anna. I should have remembered it from the doorway.\n\n\"Well, Anna...\" I began, now kneeling down to her level.\n\n\"There are lots of people in the world right now. I need you to come with me.\"\n\nHer voice was still hoarse, but she managed a sentence. Childlike innocence ran through every syllable.\n\n\"But I thought.... I thought.... you were going to kill me\"\n\nI broke down into tears. Streaming from my eyes like angry raindrops, hitting the carpet in an array of saddened percussion. I was at the end of my tether - I was stalling and making matters worse. I should have killed her before she could speak, but I was only human. I wasn't a monster. I was *only human*. **Only human**.\n\nI repeated this to myself like a mantra. Over and over again, I stood back up and began to turn away.\n\nThey were in the doorway. They had listened to me the whole time. Around twenty of them, positioned on the stairs with their guns poised. I hadn't delivered the message. I hadn't given it, word for word.\n\n\"Raise your hands.\" one sternly said through a bulletproof face shield. I slowly raised my arms, and only then did I feel it. She was holding onto my leg, she thought I was protecting her from them. *She wanted me to protect her*.\n\n\"You can't do this!\" I bellowed to the stern audience before me. They didn't move. Only the sounds of guns against gloves told me time hadn't stopped. I heard her voice again.\n\n\"Please help me, Mr Soldier..\" she said, clearly pained. I bellowed again.\n\n\"You heartless pigs!\" The words echoed on the small landing. They held up their guns, and began to cock them. I looked down at her. She had so much more time left in her life, she had to life. I didn't deserve to live any more.\n\nThe window in her room was open. I ripped my glove off and put it on her, almost weighing her down. She looked up at me, confused.\n\n\"Hold it out, big, and then jump. You'll be fine, I promise...\" I whispered to her. She ran from my legs, forcing me to smile. I thought it was all over. She would jump, and slow down time enough to land on the floor safely. I had done it. *I had saved someone's life, not ended it*.\n\n\"Go on then! Take me alive!\" I shouted. The leader of the force pushed past me and aimed their guns at Anna. I gasped and spun around to see if it was too late.\n\nThe window was wide open, and she was nowhere to be seen. The force turned towards me, and began their barrage of bullets.\n\nI never knew you could be killed with such a pleasant smile on your face.", "**Hi! This is my first time posting a story here. I'm not a writer at ALL, but I'm good with my English, so I thought I could give it a go! I'd love to hear some feedback and constructive (or not!) criticism!**\n\nI couldn't believe that it had come to this. With new, even harsher limitations put in place two years ago on Birthing, newborns were becoming a very rare sight. Famine was no longer an issue, so everybody thought the overpopulation crisis was finally over. \n\n*Thought.*\n\nI have had to end too many lives in my... *career*, and with every last breath I hear, the hole in my sanity grows deeper and wider. Not one soul was lost by my hand that I didn't second-guess. But **this**, this was true insanity.\n\nThis girl must have been barely six years of age, and yet she had done something so abhorrent that I had been tasked to take from her all the years she has left. Famine was not the issue. New minds needed new educating. New manipulating. New brainwashing.\n\nBut as much as I doubted myself, I had a job to do, my own family to care for, my own life at risk.\n\nThe girl, tangled auburn hair obscuring her groggy, hazel eyes, looked at me with some indignation; it was early in the morning, and I supposed her parents were still asleep. One might call this an 'opportune moment'. In one hand I fingered the hilt of a dagger that had been exposed to far too much blood, as it sat, waiting, *thirsty*, for a bath. I began to speak, cautiously, wearing a false smile I had once practised for many hours in front of a mirror.\n\n\"Hi there. My name is Locke, I'm new here, just moved in to the room next door!\" Some of this was true, I suppose. I had rented the room next to hers when I entered the building. Well, *rented* is the wrong word.\n\nThe girl looked at me warily, I wasn't exactly dressed casually, I suppose. Suit jacket, crisp black tie and with an unusually large belt.\n\n*A tool belt.*\n\n\"Uh... I'm Claire.\" she rubbed her eyes and yawned.\n\n\"Hi Claire!\" I wore my smile wider. \"It's great to meet you! Listen I have a bit of a problem with the TV in this room, do you know how the TVs work?\"\n\nThis seem to catch her attention - I wish it didn't. Kids love working technology, especially smart phones, but I hadn't the time nor the inclination to need one. I began to anticipate the big moment.\n\n\"Oh. Yeah, I do, whatcha need help with?\" she asked, all caution in her voice lost.\n\n\"Just how to change the channel. I'm not very good with this sort of thing!\" This was actually half true, and is even why I don't use a gun. Mechanical things don't agree with me.\n\nShe agreed and followed me into my room. It was ironic, really - I was far more frightened than her. No matter how many lives you end, it never gets any less traumatic. I still have nightmares about the first. And the second. And the forty ninth. She was my sixty second kill. That was it. To the government, she was just a number on a list. So I forced myself to treat her like one, and already I felt the hole in my soul tear anew.\n\nAs she picked up the TV remote, I used the sound from the TV channel changing to mask the drawing of my stiletto. This was it. I knew, just like all the others, where to strike. Go for the back, the centre of either the left or the right lung.\n\nMy weapon seemed to move itself - like a leopard ready to enjoy just another prey's blood. The weapon buried itself, and the poor girl gasped. I was shedding tears as it happened. I knew the gasp wasn't actually a gasp, but the air released from the punctured lung, ensuring she didn't scream. She wasn't dead immediately, but she sure as hell wasn't going to get back up.\n\nI couldn't believe it had come to this. Dammit! everybody thought the overpopulation crisis was finally over.\n\n*..thought can blind you to the reality.*\n\nEND.\n\nI wasn't expecting it to be this long, I have never even written a reddit post this long! I hope it wasn't for nothing, and thanks for reading!\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 6, 16, 51 ]

[ "1424193349", "1424196653", "1424199291", "1424204296", "1424206378", "1424208203", "1424191014", "1424197821", "1424201236", "1424204336", "1424204549", "1424212593", "1424216680", "1424191034", "1424196451", "1424185592", "1424183877", "1424182635" ]

[ "I never believed in reincarnation, heaven or hell. Sometimes I'm not sure which of these I'm in even if that's what this is. It's been six months so far *living* this way because it's occasionally agonizing.\n\nThe snow outside piles up against the windows, doors and walls. The fireplace keeps me warm but it's hypnotic symphony of crackling wood is drowned out by hour three of Orange is The New Black. Amber uses me and stares blankly at the screen even though she's barely paying attention. She mainly uses me during her waking hours, which has become unpredictable and rare lately. She's been home a lot more since she lost her job, boyfriend and went back to school.\n\nI thought it was a bad hallucination when I woke up this way. As the last moments of my old life drifted away from me, it felt like going into a deep sleep. Feelings of relief were there like I expected but were overshadowed by regret for not being able to accomplish more and spend time with the people I cared about. \n\nWhen I woke up again, it felt like a nightmare. Machines and people putting my parts back together before sealing me up in plastic and placing me into a box barely big enough to cover me. \n\nI had to stay like this for months, maybe even a year before being moved again. This time, it was to Amber's house where she sat on me excitedly and let her hot friends do the same as well. It was better than what I had expected at first, Amber was attractive, more so than any girl I had been with, it felt like. Her tight toned ass felt great against me but I could never fuck her or even see and speak to her. I can feel her emotions and hear her though if that makes any sense.\n \nShe cries during the scene where Piper finds out her boyfriend cheated on her and since no one is around, she doesn't ball it up and lets the tears flow. Certain things still make her sad or uncomfortable but she's at least trying to improve her situation right now instead of just getting stoned daily and working at a job she hates. \n\nShe's smart, outgoing and funny but spends most of her time alone. She sort of just doesn't know how to go about making friends. I've gotten to know her so well but she sees me as a possession. Sometimes I wonder what will happen to me once she finds something better. She's become the best thing in my life, I look forward to her sitting on me because it feels like being able to cuddle with a person who I look forward to seeing everyday.\n\nI think I'm falling in love with her.", "_Post deleted. This is a family friendly subreddit! - not actually the mods._", "Heavy. What ever I was it wasn't pleasant to know that I weighed far to much for my own good. There was silence in the room, or mostly silence. A very faint ticking could be heard from another place. In the darkness I found that the only calm I had was the ticking. Aware of these new feelings it was all I could focus on. Keep myself sane, wait until I knew what this life was to offer. \n\nAfter many ticks, nearly fourty-five thousand, a bright light appeared. Blinded at first I could see nothing. After my senses returned the sight I beheld was like no other. A dark tower loomed over me, with a great orb at it's base. Some kind of protrusion came from the side, like a horn of an animal. The orb sat in the tower, dark and mysterious. Unmoving I searched for more things. \n\nTo the left a stack of white round things with crimped edges. There must have been hundreds of them. All arranged in what looked like a squished mass, surrounded by some kind of reflective coating. Next to them was yet another tower, this one slightly clear, but contained some kind of darkness inside it. I say darkness because it has the same appearance I had before the great light. Inside this clear tower there was something, trapped. Like a prisoner it was a small vessel with a protrusion like the orb. \n\nThen a new sound. Great booms, one after another. An amplified version of the ticks from earlier, to which I've forgotten now. Then low sounds, broken up with silence. A code, there must have been some kind of code because between the low sound there would be higher sounds with the same pauses. \n\nSomething mobile came. It was rosy in color, and was moving towards the black tower and the orb. It grabbed the orb by the protrusion and then was out of my line of sight. Then came a second, this time the mobile things were dark, and at the tips of them were colours. They grabbed one of the round things, and placed it on it's own in front of me. \n\nThen the prisoner came, released from his chamber. Inside of him spilled the darkness of the clear tower. Forcing it to feed and spew it's contents the colored mobile filled the round crimped thing. When the prisoner was done with it's torture it was placed back in the chamber, sealed away once again. \n\nMore of the broken sounds could be heard. The high pitched one made out a sound that was garbled, but later was clear. \"Hope this is enough.\" The orb the first mobile returned, and inside was contents that appeared invisible. The mobile forced the orb to spew it's contents into the tower, grasped by the protrusion it had no choice. After returning to it's resting place, the two mobiles were gone. \n\nA retched sound came from the tower now. Horrified I saw whisps of smoke fly from the top, as the orb was being infused with a dark elixir. \"This must be some kind of torture potion\" I said to myself. Before long the orb was full, and the sound that came by the releasing of souls from the tower ceased. Still waiting, the ticking continued. \n\nPain. That's what I felt next. It was nice and comfortable where I was, but soon there was pain. One of the mobiles had taken the orb while I was looking away, and was casting a spell on me! I could feel the spell consuming my being. All over it radiated inside me. I couldn't tell where the spell was coming from, but all at once it took over. \n\nI began to fly, from my perspective the ground I had been resting on disappeared. Turned around I saw many things. Next to this tower was a whole army of things, which must have looked just like me. They were preparing an attack no doubt. But one by one the mobiles casted spells on them and they were helpless. \"Run! Run!\" I called to them, but nothing. A dark and wicked sight this was. Mobiles, taking away who might be brethren. \n\nA new feeling came when some of the elixir was drained from me. The new evil was now sucking my life force, I could feel it. The elixir had taken hold, and now the mobiles were absorbing all I had. I couldn't retaliate. Then I was still. From a different place I could see posts sticking out of a round tower, and a giant box, it hummed with bitter feelings. \n\nLosing what strength I had, I lost consciousness. The ticks must have been many by the time I came too. The grasp of the elixir spell had let go of me. I looked about and saw my fallen brethren. Scars all over them. Dark spots where the elixir seeped through, and all kinds of red markings. Crescent shaped, they were horrid to look at. I pondered if in my recent black out I too had markings. \n\nThe time ticked away and then as suddenly as it came the light was gone. Left alone in the darkness with the black tower. The orb, the prisoner who was abused. The white rounds, and the wounded warriors. In the darkness I felt what must have been sadness. Was this my life? Was this my purpose? To be part of a war we could never win. \n\nThe mobiles had won, and I, a lonely soldier was left to do their bidding. ", "I am cold.\n\nThe lights turn on, I wait motionless. My time will come soon. My rack comes down and I feel my dial turn to the one minute mark. Slowly but surely, my cool grey veins come alive with life, heat moves through them. Electricity crackles through me. The heat is spreading, and the parts of me that had been cold since my birth start to feel warmth. I can't believe how happy I am, though I was only born a moment ago, I know now that all I want is to be warm like that forever.\n\nMy dial is turning slowly, ticking backwards. I already know what it is counting down to. The time that I don't make heat anymore. My rack is tense and coiled, prepared to spring like a beast outwards the moment it has its chance. So uncomfortable, so annoying. I am pained at the need for release.\n\nThe dial is halfway finished, halfway to the end of my heat, halfway till I can release my springs. Fresh into my existence and I'm already so conflicted, so undecided. What do I want? Do I want to be warm more, or do I want to be free of this tension? I'm enveloped from the inside out in the warm embrace of heat emanating out from my center.\n\nDing.", "And I was... what was this? Was this the rumored feeling of... of life? That of sentience? I... I can't move... or, or do anything! What is this?! I want to be free! to move! Or anything! But... but I can think... yes, I can think... so I can find a way out of thiAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!\n\n*And so ended the life of the Baked Potato, Who, in his first, and final living seconds, was eaten.* " ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 3, 8 ]

[ "1424241862", "1424243187", "1424241505", "1424236585", "1424235769" ]

[ "My eyes dimmed in and out of consciousness. My breath was ragged on the floor of the brig. It was pre-fabricated steel, powerful, sturdy. The coldness of the sea was conducted through it and chilled me to the bone. A dim light lit the room, flickering every now and then. It was freezing in here. A double knock and slide revealed the jailer slot. He slid in some cigarettes and a lighter. I would be in here for a while. What a terrible world I live in. I want to go home. I'm thirsty. The air on the ship is fouled by these things. I held up the lighter to the cigarette, dragging it along the side and burning the entire thing. The flame was large. I tossed the lighter to the ground and crushed it with my foot. I dropped the cigarette onto it. I had designed this brig to be brutal. It would only take a few minutes for the oxygen to all be burned away.", "[Inspired by Planetary Anihilation games I play with my clan]\n\n\"Well then\" I said, exasperated by the loss of our Lightning Capacitors, crushed as our war with the Oil Clan was tumbling to oblivion. We needed that oil to cool our capacitors, brought in from the Smoke Smugglers.\n\n\"We fucking NEEDED that oil!\" Screamed Argas, tired of being hounded as the secretary of material goods during this crisis of the times.\n\nThe Smoke went out, and all was lost, all that remains now is a heap of Metal shards, of a bygone era.\n", "Adira knealt before her family's altar, praying that her ancestors would give her strength. She was coming of age, and would have to go on a journey to prove herself worthy of her family's power. She knew this, and had known this day was coming since she was a small child. Her grandmother had taught her, as she had taught Adira everything, tracing her ancient fingers over the pictographs depicting the family's transition from the wielders of a life-giving force to shamans empowered by the remains of ancient life.\n\nAmira wondered how simple it must have been, before. When humans worked the fields and brought life from earth, dreamed of taking to the sky in pure freedom, gathered at night to share these dreams around a small fire, and treasured pure, life-giving water. Now humans lived in metal boxes, hiding from the toxic smoke that filled their skies, spending their evenings in front of glowing boxes of lightning that poisoned their dreams, and going to war over the black sludge that was her family's domain.\n\nBut the power had remained the same. Four components of human life, four domains they spent their days unwittingly worshipping, four families that governed these domains. The transition had been gradual, but not easy. The pictographs showed the fate of the first youth who came back from his coming of age journey with black, trickling power (instead of the expected blue, overwhelming power). Amira had cried for him when her grandmother first told her. She wondered if the other families had similar stories. She couldn't imagine it was easy, for any of them.\n\nShe couldn't help but hope that when she came back, her power would be blue. That she could be the first of her generation to spend her life giving humans hope, instead of taking it. But it would not be unless humans had changed.\n\nSighing, Amira rose from the altar and began to climb to the surface to begin her journey.", "In the dark sky above Copper a storm was brewing.\n\n\"How's the smoke blowing today, Grid?\"\n\nGridley was a sootchild, bottom rung of Ashpit originating. He came from a long line of sootchildren; a wiry, blackened people whose first breaths were pure burnt. Gridley was the first of his to climb up from that metal deathpit and taste the range of vapours he'd been living under his whole life. Flaring up his nostrils, Gridley took three deep wheezes; his lungs sang in dominant sevenths. After some deep concentration he coughed up an answer.\n\n\"There's been some recent burns in the upper strats. *Real recent*.\"\n\n\"Galvos?\" Like I fucking needed to ask.\n\n\"Yep, more than one I'd say, if this is just them getting started. This ain't a static discharge or some wannabe currentwalker showin' off, Petro.\"\n\n\"Chance of it getting any lower?\"\n\n\"Never know with galvos, man. Get a few of 'em in one place... Things conduct. Maybe stay low tonight.\"\n\nI paid him his price in refined and bid him thanks, before he went scuttling down the girders to the darker places. Sky got darker as I went walking down the banks of the black. This was exactly the fucking mess I expected to be walking into. I was out of my depth and I knew it, and management knew it. This was Dyn's territory, if even Dyn could handle it. Grid was twitchy, and not in that sootchild squirmy way; you didn't need Ashpit lungs to smell the blood in the oil.\n\nI was thinking of prodding one of my other reliables, down by the miasma docks, when the sky lit up like an oilpump igniting. There was a red flash for just a second, then less than a second later came a faded crack, crack, boom, and just after that the first drop of hot crude splashed right in front of my feet. Shitty day. As the downpour picked up the flashes got brighter and the booms got louder. People started running to their homes, down below, anywhere they could think to get away from the danger that was coming down closer. I was never that good at working out how high the clouds were, how near they needed to be before the earth started getting pummelled with the blasts, but I could tell it was coming fast. I hoped the meteorologists were picking up on this. I hoped that someone in this sort of league was on their way. And then, through a gap in the rumbling clouds, I saw them. Burning white, furious, crackling with unreal power. There must have been five, seven, it was hard to tell with them moving so fast. There was a clash, and the sky lit up. There was another, and the sky shook. The angels were tearing apart the heavens, and I was bearing witness, and time was running out.", "Humans controlled the elements smoke, lightning, oil, and metal; they used their powers to create the machines. The world was at peace, but peace never lasts: the machines attacked. The metal mages fell first, their capital razed. The lightning mages resisted the initial attack, but most were captured. They were forced into slavery, using their art to power the machines. The oil mages retreated underground, and the smoke mages fled to the skyscrapers in deserted cities, now always on the run. It was 5 years ago that the Uprising happened, and a small group of metal and oil rebels are planning an attack on a nearby power plant.\n\nWith a small wave of his arm, Jax opened the metal door to the meeting room. Here, he was going to propose his plan to the council: an attack on the nearby power plant. It would be very risky, there was a chance that some people would be captured or killed. But it would be a huge blow to the power grid if they could rescue some lightning mages.\n\nThe door swung open, causing the torches on the walls to flicker. The members of the council stared at him from their table, wondering what idea the metal mage in a colony of oil would throw at them this time. Jax stared back for a moment, examining the stained clothes and grimy faces in front of him while he prepared himself.\n\n\"There's a small power plant not far from here on the surface. I've been watching the guards at night for the past week, and there's a small gap in their patrol shortly after midnight. We could sneak in, free some zappers, and get out.\"\n\nA young woman on the far left of the council replied, speaking slowly while staring straight into his eyes.\n\n\"How many zappers are there in the plant? And how many guards?\"\n\n\"There's 15 zappers, 2 gunners, and a turret on top. If 5 oilers come with me, we can free all the zappers in a couple minutes, and I'll salvage the bots with no power.\"\n\nAn old man in the center stood up and started walking to a small door in the back. In a low voice, he said: \"For once, your plan of attack is reasonable. Rock, Kai, Senna, Jules, and I will go with you tomorrow night. Come show me where the plant is, and we'll start preparations\".", "Metal. Metal is how my world commits genocide . Robust, sharp, thin, it is what protects my friends and shreds my enemy. They say a metal home is what a proper home should be. But a metal home has no purpose but to remind my family that Earth has no future. Those still alive in the sunken wastelands of our suburbia, quench their thirst by licking the blood off metallic blades. Perhaps blood and metal are essential transgressions to finding purpose in this desolate world. Perhaps its my uncanny reflection off of its indifferent blade. Perhaps I am just tired. Tired of no longer having food and water. Tired of protecting these scrap metal shelters against others that live no better. Tired of eating my enemies.\n\nSmoke. Smoke is what my world suffocates from. Those who survive here must learn to accept its ubiquity. It perfumes from roasted bodies, the pollution of cities, and the burning of crops. Every night I am awoken by the shrieking coughs of my cancer riddled grandmother but tonight there is only silence. Only the smoke of cigarettes relaxes my perturbed state and quells my trembling heart. A smoke will calm me... \nNo, I must escape this deceptive smoke. I have to breathe. I need to breathe. I must seek the dim light that illuminates my humanity.\n\nLightning. Lightning is how my world guides me away. The sound of lightning is the sound of a weeping God forsaking his children in the playground of Hades. The parting of the Red Sea, the rainbow over Noah, the mighty Tower of Babel, no longer have jurisdiction over these sands. This world no longer has a belief. This world no longer has a purpose. Only the flash of lightning reminds me there is light within this endless dark sky. Only the flash of lightning reminds me that a gentle death is an unforgiving one. I must move through the tunnel of hell until I am sure there is no light. \n\nOil. Oil is how my world burned the fish. Burned everything. Purge inferiority they said, celebrate the new epoch. The cost of life is marginal. But I see no life. I simply follow the trail of oil. I can still hear the deathly cries of mutilated children and raped women. Burned alive at the stake: the importance of oil. I have no energy, no water, no food. This is the end. I collapse and seek refuge in my mind. We couldn't reach the planets of vitality. We couldn't combat the viruses. We couldn't feed our families. Water could not quench the insatiable thirst of man. Man cannot stop until he sees oil fill up the very river he drinks. I crawl on top of the sand dune. At least I die with a view. Suddenly, I hear the rush of water. \n", "Smokestacks rose like teeth from the mouth of the industrial beast, jagged against the skyline, biting and gnashing against the blue of it, and tearing great chunks from it until only the black of the smoke was left. Shenna hurried her pace to escape the looming glare of them, black and grey and shining steel, miles of it, towering sharply into the clouds, scraping against the sky and crushing the earth. Beneath them, her road twisted like a coil of metal wire towards the Rodling – a cluster of tall, needle-like buildings, gold against the wounded sky. The cylinder in her coat pressed into her, a weight as heavy as the world against her chest, and even as it weighed her down she hurried, painfully aware of the futility in her madness.\n\nBecause despite all she had learned, you cannot bid lightning.\n\nThe stink of the Rodling greeted Shenna’s entrance to the unassuming doorway of the place. The foul stink of nikoline and burnt wood - trademarks of the electric alchemist profession - stuck at the back of her throat as she stepped lightly towards the grounding device, and her finger felt a sharp prick at the touch of it, the hairs on the back of her neck raising on end as if caught in a breeze. She’d fascinated on this once, but now she could not stand the air in this place. It felt stale, crisped to dryness by the constant electrical current, and being here made her tongue feel swollen and her head dizzy.\n\n“You’re late.”\n\nShenna’s heart was beating fast, but she kept her eyes down, consciously avoiding thinking of the object pressed tightly against her chest.\n\n“He knows I’m here, Audrey.”\n\n“You’re late,” The dry voice repeated.\n\nShenna looked up this time, heart thudding dully in her chest. Audrey was a small woman, thin and willowy, but if she suspected anything… Shenna would be dead just as surely as if it were a corporate guard. \n\n“I know,” Shenna replied, “And the only thing that could be worse is if I were *more* late.”\n\n“That won’t be a problem,” Audrey said, “I’ve cancelled your appointment.” \n\nFear slipped cold into Shenna’s stomach, and Audrey smiled sweetly, utterly without remorse. \n\n“You can reapply, if you’d like,” she continued, tilting her head so that the reflection on her glasses gave her the look of some thinking machine, two shining lights staring out from a cold steel face. “He doesn’t often accept second applications… but who knows? You may be the exception.”\n\nShenna wanted to cry, wanted to shriek mindlessly, wanted to pull the cylinder from her jacket and coat the wall with the smug look on Audrey’s face. *He* never took second applications. If there was no second application, there was no appointment. If there was no appointment she could not get close to him. If she could not get close to him, well… \n\nThe cylinder weighed heavy against her chest.\n\n*Remember where you are!*\n\nShenna clenched her teeth and forced a smile, the fingernails in her palm drawing tiny droplets of blood. \n\n“Thank you, for your time,” she said, lowering her head at once as a sign of respect and to hide the naked fury in her eyes. “I hope you are never late, Ms. Audrey.”\n\n*The late Ms. Audrey will do.*\n\nShenna turned and walked, the hollow slap of her boots echoing coldly in the static air of the place. It took all of her control to stand tall and straight when all she wanted to do was break down in despair. She would never bid lightning, she knew, but worse than that, in a dark corner of her mind where her darkest thoughts lay, a voice whispered:\n\n*You’ll never see your brother again.*\n\n*He’s already dead.*", "\"Metal. Smoke. Electricity. Oil. Decades ago, the four commodities lived nearby in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Oil Company struck oil. Only the Economist, marketer of all four commodities, could sell them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. Centuries passed and my brother and I discovered the new Economist, an southern rancher named Rufus. And although his marketing skills are decent, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to sell to anyone. But I believe Rufus can sell to the world.\"" ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 3, 7, 7, 31, 318 ]

[ "1424252667", "1424273423", "1424256304", "1424274371", "1424246653", "1424251547", "1424243088", "1424242494" ]

[ "...", "Eyes feel like lead, half drunk maybe half dead, watching a X-men movie, I can't tell witch one, they all seem to blend, the clocks ticking two but I'm far from zen. ", "My pulse mingles with the drum pounding in my chest.\n\nOh! That banging, banging drum!\n\nI feel my blood press against the dry earth\n\nand I run, barefooted and belligerent,\n\nSkin tingling like ice-fire. \n\n\n\n", "My heart beat too fast for sleep last night, \n\n\nas the world conspired to keep me from my slumber.\n\n\nI woke raging at the crow call, \n\n\nand crying at shoddy science. \n\n\n\nMy heart beats too slow for work today, \n\n\nas the world conspires to keep me at my task.\n\n\nYet I'll sleep at sunset smiling.\n\n\nThat is all\n", "I'm tired as tired as tired can be,\nAnd yet white light just glares at me.\nI know the sun is rising fast,\nMorning always kicks my ass.\n\nCause I have to be up! I have to be moving.\nSo why, oh why do I sit here losing?\nMy precious sleep! To rest my head!\n\n...what's one more link 'fore I go to bed?", "Sore throat, aching head\nHeavy legs and cold bed \nThe night outside tells me to sleep \nmy cats demand to be fed ", "**Examination**\n\n*Not lacking ambition, but gaining frustration* \n*The unheard derision of a job application* \n*Tone down aspiration, my parents' equation* \n*Well-meaning intention, a common occasion.* \n\n*I barely maintain, courage emblazoned* \n*For the life I seek is no low inclination* \n*A mute admonition of his father's vocation* \n*To surpass my creation, is my great ambition.* \n\nNote: Job-hunting sucks.", "*Boom Boom Hiss*\n---\n\nI cannot stop,\n\nthe desire,\n\nto feel your glass lips\n\nupon my own.\n\nI want to drown\n\nin the brown gaze, \n\nwhen I look into your depths,\n\nno clarity for days. \n\nI can swallow only so much,\n\nthe flavor makes me pause, \n\nUntil inside the thunder rumbles, \n\nand my hands become claws.\n\nThey say, \"You must stop this.\" \n\nThe forbidden love of all.\n\nFor when I take you inside me, \n\nI feel so small.\n\nThen the blaze, it builds, it rends,\n\nit makes the room go dark, \n\nStarbucks White Chocolate Mocha,\n\nyou make my ass bark.", "Every night is a jumble of emotion\n\nSometimes they come so fast\n\nI can't even start to sort them out\n\nAnd moments of peace don't last\n\n\nTonight I watched someone dare to dream\n\nWith her defensive hands clenched tight\n\nShe walked out of the bathroom five minutes later\n\nForced a smile and murmured 'goodnight'\n\n\nMy day was filled with heartache for friends\n\nOne who lost a child who will never graduate or get married\n\nThe other who had longed for a baby and dared to hope\n\n-for a minute-until the test left that hope buried\n\n\nAnd now my thoughts flit between them\n\nAnd I find it hard to silence my racing mind\n\nEven as my eyes flutter in a plea for sleep\n\nAnd my body tries to force me to unwind", "Its late or early, I can no longer tell.\n\nMy body is exhausted but my mind is racing.\n\nToo much to do, and not enough time,\n\nI feel like a gun is pressing into my scalp.\n\nIt whispers \"run faster girl\" but my feet stay put.\n\nThe burden steals sleep from me, stresses me.\n\nWhy can't this be easy?\n\n\n\n\nSorry, it really is a stupid hour in the morning for me, and I really should be asleep. :/", "A long night past by, \n\nAnother dawn has risen, \n\nI guess I'll greet it.", "I yearn for solitude but all I see\nAre people all around me like a plague.\nLike locusts eating at my sanity\nThese people make me crazy with their vague\nAttempts at conversation and chit chat.\nI wish that they would all just go away.\nInstead I feel as if they all just spat\nUpon the grave that has become my day.\nPerhaps I'll dig my way out of this plot\nAnd return to a place where I can rest\nBecause there is no comfort when you rot\nThere's only time to wish yourself the best.\nNow from my grave I hear them walking 'round\nAnd to this place I feel forever bound.\n\nThis is a sonnet about how I'm a doorman and don't feel like talking to the people around me... which is like 90% of my job. I should be fired", "I can press my palms gently on its shining surface, and feel its thin layer repel my force. A clear membrane envelops my being.\nI am dulled, my sharp edges softened with a layer of fallen snow,my harsh lines rendered forgotten beneath glimmering crystals. \nThe ticking beats have slowed to thumps. Emptiness holds me gently.\nIn the palm of night I turn myself inside out.\nThe world will charge around me, beating ruthlessly. But in my orb I float silently.\nAnd smile and nod occasionally. ", "Looking into the sea of faces that haven't been places\nsitting complacently in their spaces. \n\nI wonder if the difference I am making \nseems like faking.\n \n\n", "Chains set me free.\nTorn, ravaged, my broken world\nSpirits to struggle against\nLend meaning to pretences.\nA thousand deaths everyday\nOn your insistence, love\nI meet.\nBut chains-the farther they slit\nHarder you find, to hold me.\nUntil I know, now\nFreedom exists.\nAnd one day, love\nI will pass.\nMy dream-infested world\nWill be coloured in reality.\nAnd chains will adorn me\nLike jewels, of the proud queen\nOf relentless victories\nThose cease to mean.\n", "Another day I didn't make that phone call. Another day I spent in avolition. Another day I tried to drown it in social interactions.\n\nI failed, as I did on the days before. I regret, as I did on the days before.\n\nHow many days have it been? I stopped counting years ago.", "In bed usual night routine \n\nReach over, light off \n\nLaptop still on, need to sleep, \n\nOne more page to read and then \n\nAnother and another \n\nFully awake again, need to get up for work soon \n\nShould I sleep, ever?", "Need another hit\nI feel like shit\nWork sucks\nNeed somebody to suck my nuts\n", "I would like to sleep\n\nIt's getting very late now\n\nI was dumb to nap", "As my head tilts up, \n\nI tilt off. \n\nThe bright light disappears, \n\nand so does my will. \n\nI have lost, \n\nand sleep has won. \n\nOff to be I go, \n\nmy fight is done. \n\n-\n**Love writing poems and would love as much feedback as you wanna give, <3**" ]

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

[ "1424330958", "1424328533", "1424329419", "1424329504", "1424330392", "1424331271", "1424332914", "1424333659", "1424334284", "1424341334", "1424347026", "1424353688", "1424354943", "1424358998", "1424364625", "1424384342", "1424385751", "1424327675", "1424331065", "1424332595" ]

[ "You immediately follow her forward in time but alas, you are crushed under the weight of your own enormity.\n\n\"Oh my god that one was BRUTAL\" announced the now regular sized woman to the stadium audience. \"Who's ready for another!?\"", "Dumbstruck you check the bottle of bourbon on the coffee table, but it's still half full, so this must really be happening.\nAfter the initial shock you quickly do the math and wonder why she would need a 47 foot giant in her time?" ]

[ 1, 7 ]

[ "1424425209", "1424398736" ]

[ "When I was made, I always thought I would be use in a war zone like my grandfather (wait, do I have a grandfather?). Maybe as a drug lord's side arm, even that gun under his pillow would be nice. You know what? Even a cop gun would work. I use to have dreams! Now I'm in this cowards hand, pressed against his oily temple.\n\nWe've been here for hours, constant putting me up and down, even throwing me on the floor couple of times. This is getting ridiculous, does this dumbass even know my safety is on? Woah woah woah, don't put me in your mouth! This is disgusting! No, stop sucking, what the, stop! Are you crying? Pull the trigger and this will all be over!\n\nOh, I guess you are putting me back to the drawer again huh? Ah this sucks, maybe your wife will find me and use me to pop you. Maybe, just maybe, your kids will find me and... nah, that is way too dark, even for me. Don't worry big guy, you will find the courage tomorrow. Just don't put me in your mouth again.", "I am a tool. I'm not meant to be used, but that hasn't stopped it from happening. Since 1868, I've been floatin' round. And for 3 generations this here revolver has served the Wilson familly well. I've killed men who deserved it, I've kiled men who didn't. All that mattered is that I did my job. Been almost 2 centuries, and I ain't never misfired. No siree. After all, I'm a tool, and a good tool always works.\n\nI'm used to bein' fired, and I always hit my mark. It ain't easy though. 'Especially considerin' how bad men are at shootin'. Murderers, victims, theives, they all got one thing in common - they shake. \n\nGreat Grandpappy Joe shook when he shot his wife. His son shook when his house was robbed. And his daughter shook when she shot her daddy. But George, this boy didn't shake. Nope, calm as a cow, he put my barrel in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.\n\nFor 3 generations I've served the Wilson familly. I ain't ever misfired but... by Golly... I wish I had." ]

[ 1, 3 ]

[ "1424468678", "1424487054" ]

[ "Rule 5 on the sidebar, no homework assignments allowed.", "Hi there, \n\nThis post has been removed as it violates the following rules: \n\n\nNo homework assignments are allowed. Use /r/HomeworkHelp instead.\n\n\n\nPlease refer to the sidebar before posting. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to message the /r/WritingPrompts moderators.\n\n---\n\n[Link to the removed post](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2wq91d/wp_21st_century_hero/)" ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1424578364", "1424579015" ]

[ "I woke up sharply, it feels like my nose is is being stabbed. Opening my eyes I see pink and black. Then two green eyes open up its my cat letting me know she is out of food. Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes I slowly creak out of bed as my back pops and complains. Once there is food in her bowl again she promptly jumps up on the bed to steal the warmth from my pillow. \n\nGently sitting down on the icey cold toilet my body starts to wake up in more ways then one. My gut grumbles as I know I’m about to regret that hot sauce I had last night. After a lifetime of pain I turn on the shower as no amount of wiping will make me feel clean after that ordeal. As I stand there waiting for the water to warm up. \n\n“Hey dick weed!” someone shouts behind me.\n\nJumping a foot in the air my heart pounding out of my chest. My bathroom is about 5 foot by 6 foot there couldn’t be anyone in there but me without me knowing. I spin around. \n\n“What the hell! you scared the shit of…” there is no one just my reflection in the mirror.\n\n“That’s an interesting choice in phrase there. We need to talk about what you just put me through.” said a muffled voice comes again from behind me. “but first for the love of god get in the shower I am wallowing in my own shit right now”\n\nAgain I turn around but its just my shower. After pinching myself to make sure I’m awake. “Ok this isn’t funny who’s messing with me?” \n\n“No one is messing with you I’m your ass and I know I’m not to be talking directly with you but this is the 3rd time this week that you’ve put me through this.” As I listen I can definitely tell this is coming from around my ass. \n\n“I don’t know who the fuck this is or how you’re pulling this off but I’m going to get you back after I finish my shower.” Chuckling I get into the shower laughing.\n\nAs I get out of the shower trying to figure out who is pranking me. “Ok I’m awake now who is this?” Nothing. I guess the prank is over. “My naked ass better not be on youtube.” I mumble as I walk into my room to get dressed. \n\nI’ve been grinding away at homework for most of the morning with Suki curled up in my lap occasionally demanding a scratch behind the ear. \n\n“Ok I’ve been talking with the other organs and we decided that if I’m going to talk we each get a turn. So we need to talk about your intake because I get the worse end of it when it comes out.” the muffled voice says coming out from under a very suprised cat. \n\n“Ok this isn’t funny anymore who is this?” I shout as I stand up to the vocal displeasure of suki. \n\n“Dick wipe this is your ass talking. Get with the program we need to talk and I’m on a tight schedule your back has a meeting with you in 20.” grumbles my ass. \n\n“Wait this isn’t a prank?” It starts to dawn on me that my ass is talking to as it starts to lecture me on why I need to break it off with my love of spice food and eating more fiber. I guess I won’t be getting my homework done this morning. \n\nThis is my first time trying this let me know what you think and what can be improved on. ", "A night out with my kidney:\n\nSomething was pestering me through the night, I had no clue what it was. Maybe it was something I ate or just an upset stomach, but it was like my internal organs where have a full fledged conversation. I tumbled and tossed my body across my mattress trying the get rid of the painful inflation within my gut, until something miraculous happened.\n\"Hey stop moving around out there!\" Said a voice in a thick new york accent\n\"Wh-what, who was that?\"\n\"Yah kidney, what ya never heard a kidney before\"\n\"My kidney has a new york accent?\"\n\"Ye, wanna fight about?\"\n\"No, no it's just surprising, not every day you get to talk to your kidney.\"\n\"Yeh yeh, lets cut the chit chat ye hear. I got something serious to tell yah.\"\n\"Oh, well ok\"\n\"You know you've been drinking a lot lately\"\n\"Not really, I don't drink very often\"\n\"Don't give me that, ever since that chick natalie broke up with your sorry ass you've become a full blown alcoholic.\"\n\"Th-thats not true!\"\n\"Yes it is, you know it well. And no matter how much fun getting sloppy drunk and wasting all your parents college funds on cheap russian vodka may be, I need you to tone it down a bit. And by a bit I mean stop fucking drinking.\"\n\"What does my drinking have to do with you?\"\n\"I'm yah fucking kidney kid, I take the full brunt of all that bitter alcohol, and no matter how much I hate to admit it; I can't hold any more liquor in this old sack of mines.\"\n\"I didn't think of that, im sorry its hurting you this much\"\n\"Sorry to say, but one more drinking spree like today and i think i'm out of commision, ye hear?\"\n\"Yes, I understand, I'll stop drinking\"\n\"Alright, now go back to sleep ye hear, this conversation never happened ok\"\n\"Ok\"\nI don't know if I was just so sloppy drunk that I imagined myself talking to my kidney or if my internal organs actually had some sort of mind of their own. But all I know is that I haven't had a drop of liquor since, and I plan to keep it that way.\n", "'Adrian? Adrian!' The slightly muffled voice called.\n\n'Hello?' asked Adrian bemusedly.\n\n'He's awake!' Said the little voice. A distorted barrage of voices assailed him, all apparently grateful that he was now conscious.\n\nAdrian looked around the room, it was empty. His door was even still locked.\n\n'Adrian, I want you to listen to me very carefully,' said the voice, 'it's about your state of health.'\n\n'Who are you? And where are you?' Adrian asked of the empty air.\n\n'Well that's just it. I'm your kidney. Your left kidney, my twin isn't in any state to speak.'\n\n'You're my kidney?' Adrian sat up on his bed, grunting at even the smallest of effort thanks to the extra weight he was carrying. 'I've lost my mind. I'm hearing my kidney speak to me.'\n\n'It's not just me in here you know. You do have other organs, I'm just... well I'm kind of a nominated spokes-organ for the rest of your body.'\n\n'So I suppose my liver and my lungs are in there too! Hello Lungs, Hello Liver, Hello HEART!'\n\nTo his surprise three separate and distinctive voices answered back their greetings. Oh well, he thought to himself, at least if I'm going mad I might as well see where this is going. 'Ok,' he said aloud, 'Let me hear this urgent news.'\n\n'We'll start with your liver. He's a mess. He just jabbers nonsense until you have a drink and then he passes out, and it's killing him. Your heart is having a hard time because of all the junk food you eat; He's managed to keep going for now, but it a losing battle with fat, salt, and cholesterol. And your lungs, Adrian. They're going to shut down completely if you keep smoking the way you do. You need to exercise and eat healthily. Don't go on a salad cleanse or anything, just remember; Calories in, calories out, or you expand and die.'\n\n'I've heard this spiel before. I'm fine. Why should I listen to a voice in my head?' A sudden pain gripped his entire torso. A cruel jab of searing agony that consumed his entire being. He collapsed.\n\n'I'm not in your mind, you fat fool!' The pain subsided, leaving Adrian breathless on his hands and knees. 'This is the only warning you'll get, and I hope, for ALL our sakes, that you listen.'", "The moonlight was sprawled over the room , sifting through the curtains. The faintly illuminated room somehow accentuated the apprehension that was swelling inside of me .\n\n With beads of sweat trickling down my forehead , I laid down horizontally on my waterbed,face up. It wasn't easy to sleep when trepidation was going wild in your guts , and the fact that your very own heart wanted to convene didn't help a tiny bit. What seemed like eons passed , but I had finally managed to sleep .\n\n-\nEarlier that day , when I had woken up from my slumber , I was greeted with a stange voice in my head .\n\n\"Hello , Melly \" It said , the words resounding in my head.\nI jolted upward and propped my back against the wall. \n\n**What was that**, I thought .\n\nI just shrugged it away as another one of this voices you hear when you're under immense stress. I needed to get my mind straight .I can't be getting all delusional when as exam is awaiting me in another 30 minutes.\n\n\"I'm your heart speaking to you , you mundane excuse of a brain\"The voice chided.\n\n\"It's about time me and the other organs had a word with you. We'll meet you tonight\" It continued.\n\nI heard no voices for the rest of the day , but that one line had a sincere tone in it , and my intuition told me that it wasn't lying when it said that it was MY HEART.Whether I'm going mad or not will be decided tonight.\n\n-\n\n\"Do you know how much trouble you've caused me ? I'm always digesting filthy pizzas and fat-filled chicken wings \" Mr Bileus Stomach shouted , clearly displeased with my appetite\n\n\"Oh and don't forgot all that beer you've been killing me with for the past 5 years. Imagine finding a rice grain in two bushels of chaff. Yeah. That's how hard it is to find nutrients in your drinks\" Mrs Seliene Liver continued\n\nGetting rebuked by your own organs while you're asleep isn't a pretty sight. It felt as if I was being threatened by a group of marauders in the pitch black of a cold December night. Perpetual darkness all around , with a nice tinge of Angry Organs to add to it's pristine beauty.Great . Just what I wanted.\n\n\n\"Are you even paying attention?\" Mr Brevis Intestino questioned.\n\n\"Totally.Go on.\" I replied\n\n\"Listen ,you artful punk. If you don't abide by our rules from now on , it's going to have some taxing repercussions.Won't it feel good to have a growling stomach , an unyielding anus and a bloated appendix?This is our ultimatum. You will hear from us later on. Meeting adjourned\" Large Intestino said in a derisive tone .\n\n*These organs are part of me , and yet they act as if they own me. I'm the supreme authority here , and everyone else can go damn themselves. I'll show these people who is boss.*\n\n-\n\nThe headlines of the newspaper , 7 days later : **\"MAN CLAIMS HE HAS A 6TH SENSE AND CAN CONVERSE WITH HIS ORGANS, AND IS CURRENTLY BEING DETAINED IN HARVARD ASYLUM . HE IS ABSTAINING FROM EATING FOOD , CLAIMING THAT HIS ORGANS WOULD JUST SPEW IT BACK OUT OF HIS BODY\"**\n\n\n\n", "I'm sitting here in my cubicle, working late as usual. The screen flickers in a subtle change of hue, and a tinge of green glosses over the monitor. Words appear on the monitor, backward, upside down. I'm having a hard time reading them. I hear a voice in my memory, the way you remember something said to you long ago, someone else's thought spoken in your voice.\n\n\"You're confusing him. Flip it over. I know it's hard for you but he can't even read it.\"\n\nThe words disappear and reappear, now oriented so I can read them. It is at this moment that I'm aware that the green hue and words I am seeing are not, in fact, on the monitor. The words float in the air, disappearing briefly every time I blink.\n\n\"We need to talk,\" the words state, \"and it can't wait any longer. We've tried being subtle, but it hasn't worked. Now we must use the direct approach.\"\n\n\"What is going on?\" I mumble.\n\n\"We need you to listen to us,\" the text reads after a brief pause.\n\n\"But who are you?\"\n\n\"We're your eyes. The rest of your organs picked us to talk to you.\"\n\n\"Why not use my brain?\" I ask silently.\n\n\"Well, your medulla oblongata tried last week but you mistook it for day dreaming. The rest of your brain is who I'm communicating with now, and let's face it, using your brain isn't really your strong suit.\"\n\n\"Fair enough.\"\n\n\"Listen man, you are literally killing us. Staring at that screen for hours a day at work just to go home and stare at another screen, taking occasional breaks to stare at an even smaller screen... you need glasses now. We're having a hard time doing our job, and we are thinking about going on strike.\"\n\n\"So what does that look like?\" I ask.\n\n\"Nothing at all.\"\n\nThe thought of never seeing anything again makes me panic. I think about my girlfriend naked, and immediately become depressed at the thought of never seeing that again.\n\n\"Oh, that reminds us,\" my eyes write, \"your testicles want us to get you to tell your girlfriend to take it easy. They're not meant for shaking like dice.\"\n\n\"I know, I've wanted to tell her I'm not as into that as she seems to think I am.\"\n\n\"Well, please do. They would appreciate it.\"\n\n\"Consider it done.\"\n\n\"Your colon has some concerns as well.\"\n\n\"O...K...\"\n\n\"You need to knock off all that finger in the ass stuff.\"\n\n\"Why?\" I ask.\n\n\"Your colon wants us to tell you that you're messing up the traffic.\"\n\n\"Huh. Ok, well I guess I can do that. It was nice talking to you.\"\n\n\"Not so fast.\"\n\n\"What?\" I'm starting to get irritated.\n\n\"Well, the kidney brothers said they need more water.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Who knows, those two never shut up. Take our word for it, you want the short version, which is: drink more water.\"\n\n\"Ok, I can do that. Anything else?\"\n\n\"Well, your lungs and heart all said you need to knock off the smoking. Maybe go out for a jog every now and then.\"\n\n\"I really don't feel like it.\" I respond.\n\n\"Well, that's what they said. Your stomach likes the fried food and says to keep it coming but your heart said to eat a salad or two, and we quote, \"every once in a while,\". Don't take it personally, that heart is a jerk. Constant noise complaints on him, but he's kind of the mayor or whatever, so, you know.\"\n\n\"Man, this is taking forever,\" I protest.\n\n\"Well, that's actually it.\"\n\n\"What, my liver doesn't want to say anything to me?\"\n\n\"Too soon.\" The eyes reply in a bolder text. \"He died last week. Oh, that reminds us of why we were actually contacting you today...\"", "You know what they say, your organs are active even while you sleep. You just don't know how active they can get.\n\nMy experience dates back last November. I was hearing a lot of noise somewhere and I ignored it. Ward beds felt cozier than my actual bed, plus I can freely adjust the slope of the back. There's cable TV too. All thanks to my dad's insurance, I got myself a pretty neat room. But the TV was off and there was no one but my sleeping older brother in the room, and really, he sleeps like a log.\n\n\"This might be a lot to digest right now, but you're awake and we need to talk to you.\" One of the voices spoke.\n\nI looked around, sure that I really was awake but unable to track the sound. My eyes closed suddenly. \"This might help you relax.\" Another voice said.\n\n\"Relax? Relax? Why would she need to relax? We lost a member here and that's from her neglect.\"\n\n\"We just kind of survived a fire, okay?\"\n\n\"We wouldn't have been in the hospital if it weren't for-!\"\n\n\"Calm down, all of you. This is our first official meeting.\" I was completely bewildered but I couldn't open my eyes. I thought maybe the painkillers had done me in. \"We are your organs, we need to speak to you in light of what happened.\"\n\n\"The...fire?\" I thought. \"Or-organs? My guts and stuff?\"\n\n\"Alright, alright, pleasantries aside now.\" That was my stomach. I suddenly knew the voices. I was wide awake now, and I realized that my eyes had closed themselves. I was being spoken to by mostly my digestive system. And I knew why.\n\n\"Is everyone alright?\" I asked. That is probably the smartest thing I did in a while. I wouldn't need medical exams if my organs are ready to report on their own.\n\n\"We're fine.\" Said my lungs. \"We didn't take much smoke from last night.\"\n\n\"The stitches stayed close, by the way.\" Certain nerves said.\n\n\"As the head of the digestive system, it is I who called for this meeting.\" My stomach said firmly. \"Under your decisions, we've suffered greatly, but never this great.\"\n\n\"Take it easy.\" My appendix said. \"She's had to walk down four flights of stairs because the hospital from last night had no ramps, and that was five or so hours after we lost Gallbladder.\"\n\nThe mention of that organ put us all in silence. \n\nHours after my laparoscopy yesterday, something in the fabric department of the hospital caught fire. It spread quickly, and the almost two hundred patients were evacuated to the sister hospitals, even though some were considerably far. I was wearing a unique hat, so my doctor spotted me and had me transferred to a hospital only a block away. That was after I was forced to take the stairs. I was in a daze by the time I was transferred.\n\n\"All of us had a hard time.\" One kidney spoke. I could testify to that. It was only hours after surgery so I needed to drain fluids.\n\n\"I think this is a powerful experience you need to learn from.\" Stomach scolded. \"You who were once proud of being the only one in your family to never have been hospitalized had a minor surgery, and a fire to boot. Both you wouldn't have experienced if you didn't binge.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry. I couldn't help it.\" \n\n\"To be fair, we know you couldn't. It was exams and you were stressed out, makes food pretty awesome.\" Tongue said, as if the whole binge eating thing was a recent development.\n\n\"It'll be hard for me and for the rest of us digestive system if you didn't have a serious change of lifestyle.\" Stomach pointed out. \"You slip into that habit of eating away your problems again and one by one, we'll all be eliminated. And it started with Gallbladder.\"\n\nPerhaps my organs having a voice was my punishment. Perhaps I inhaled smoke with certain chemicals. I don't really know. One thing is for sure is that it's my body, and whether directly or indirectly, I must have done this to myself.\n", "A friend of mine told me this joke a while ago when we were in high school together\n\nAll the organs were having a meeting, the brain said to all the other organs that he alone, was the most important and without all would be clinically found to be dead he then declared that he should be the leader of the body. The heart was quick to disagree stating that while the brain controls everyone else she is independent. Without her, everyone would suffocate and die, including the brain. To which the liver replied, \"Yeah well, that's great and all but you don't exactly filter the poisons from the goods. Obviously I should be the leader since I keep you all healthy!\" Finally the asshole, decided to speak out, timidly at first \"I think I should be the leader guys.\" All the other organs bellowed in laughter, the brain asked \"Why? You're nothing but an asshole.\" The asshole puckered and quietly muttered \"Well because without me opening and closing, you'd all die.\" All the other organs laughed even harder. Before unanimously telling the asshole there's no way he'd ever be the leader.\n\nFeeling belittled the asshole became furious. He closed up for 7 days and 7 nights. Refusing to speak to anyone and refusing to open up. Tightly puckered, the brain began to fry, the heart and blood became so toxic that all the other organs began to suffocate and the liver just couldn't keep up. They all died soon after, but the asshole had to have the final say \"I told you guys I should be the leader.\"\n\ntl;dr an asshole is still valued.", "I hear the first three notes of my Marimba alarm and my eyelids are stunted in the center of my eyes, unclear of which direction they should go. Instead of doing my usual hangover ritual of snoozing my alarm for a half hour, I roll onto my side and feel a new sinking feeling in my stomachs. This morning, the feeling felt less of a sign of hunger and more of an organized chaos. However, I could barely hear it until I went into the bathroom.\n\n*\"Fight the power! Fight the power!\"* cried a chorus of high voices. It sounded as if dozens of Scrabby-Doo's on a helium high.\n\n\"Uh, hello? Can I help you?\" I asked as I sat on my toilet while reviewing my to-do list for the day (Don't throw up in shower, grab a Diet Coke and everything bagel with cream cheese on 86th, email Leslie on the way to cancel my 9 am because my God I am too hungover for this...)\n\nSuddenly, a tiny voice interrupts my train of thought. \"Alright, we got its attention. Who is the Speakers of the Systems to speak first?\" \n\nAfter a few uncomfortable seconds, an exasperated sigh emerges. \"Fine. Human: this is your liver speaking. WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT. NO. WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT. WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, what is going on? Is my liver speaking to me right now?\"\n\n\"You heard me right. I represent the digestive system and I'm here to say WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT. NO. WE AIN'T-\"\n\n\"Okay okay, I don't need another round of the outdated yet amazing Twisted Sister song. What exactly....aren't you going to take?\"\n\nAnother shrill voice jumps into the conversation. \"This is your pancreas speaking! For the last twelve years, we've spent 1,574 mornings feeling....like this. Like we're bathing in poison and struggling to do our basic jobs! We feel like we're still hung from all the fun you had last night and it's coming over into today. We're calling an intervention. If you do not comply...we will go on strike!\"\n\nI slouched against my porcelain throne. I understood it now: my body was fighting against my college drinking habits that crept up to my thirties. I've apparently had thousands of hangovers and this was the breaking point. They really were not going to take it.", "\"Hey.. Paula? Listen, ah.. We need to talk.\" I was lying in my bed face down when I heard someone talking to me, so I got up and opened the door. No one was there.\n\n\"Fuck, Tom! Stop bugging me, you're such a pain in the ass!\"\n\n\"What?! I didn't do anything!\" Yeah, right. My lovely brother had the habit of waking me up, usually to pull some kind of prank at me and then leaving like nothing happened. Now he must be hiding in his room, the big boy.\n\n\"Don't get him into this, he didn't do anything. Besides, if I ever stop working, he may help you.\" The voice said. I looked around, and no one was there.\n\n\"Who's talking?\" I was starting to freak out by now.\n\n\"This is your kidney, Paula. Well, one of them. As I said, we need to talk.\"\n\n\"You're kidding, right?\" Someone had to be messing with me or something.\n\n\"No, Paula. Look. This is about your heart.\"\n\n\"Wh... what about it?\"\n\n\"He's... sick.\" I swallowed hard. \"He is in pain, and it's not getting any better. You have to fix this! Even stomach has been feeling quite bad. She puts up really well considering how much you love candy but it's getting harder and harder for her to work. She has become closed and barely speaks to anyone. I can practically see a knot covering her! Your skin is quite tired also. You don't know how exhausting it can be to keep up with all of those goosebumps! And don't even make me talk about your eyes!\"\n\n\"Look, me and the others met and we've reached a solution. You need to tell him you love him.\"", "Harry was in his living room when it happened. His video was still frozen where he had paused it, as he set down the big bowl of buttered popcorn, large soda, and, though he told himself he was going a little too far, large bag of bite sized candies. Oh, they'd been a mistake. He's known that at the grocery store when he'd bought them. Oh, sure, he'd *told* himself they would be nice to dump in that big bowl and have something to pick at over the next week (or two), but he knew full well he'd end up popping the bag and eating them one after another while watching a movie the very next day. Sure enough, here he was.\n\nJust as he was just setting down the popcorn, he felt a weird lurch of arrythmia in his chest. He sat down hard, and put a hand over his heart. That was definitely weird. I mean, you hear people *talk* about your heart skipping a beat, but when it actually happens, it's kind of disconcerting. \"Take it easy\", he told himself, \"Just breathe, Harry\".\n\n*What do you mean just breathe, Harry? Don't you mean breath, Harry's lungs?* said a strange voice. It had an odd harmonic echoing quality, like two people speaking in unison. Harry jumped a little, because it sounded like it was coming from right next to him --- or maybe behind him, but that was impossible, since his chair was up against the living room wall. \n\n*Take it easy, would you guys? Feels like hell when he startles like that. Gawd, look at this would you? Adrenyline all over the place. Calm the f--k down, Harry!* said a completely different voice. \n\n*Oh, you you you!* said another voice.\n\n*Yeah, everythings all about the heart, isn't it?* said still another.\n\n*Well, remember,* said the second voice, *If I go ---*\n\n*WE ALL GO!* said an entire chorus of voices.\n\n*Yeah, we might heard that a time of seven, already.*\n\n*You're being a smart ass, pancreas.*\n\n*Hey, who's the one who always has to come up with the insulin to purge after he binges, huh? Yeah, that's right. ME. I think my concerns are a little more pressing, considering Behemoth there is holding yet another bag of bite sized candies he plans to pummel our bloodstream with.*\n\nHarry twisted and wrenched about, scanning the room. He jumped up and tipped the chair forward, half expecting to find a hidden microphone. Failing that, he opened the front door and poked his head out to see if someone was pranking him from the front porch. \n\n*We're not in your head, Harry,* said the heart. \n\n*Speak for yourself,* said the brain. \n\n*Sorry, appropriately located company excepted, of course,* heart acknowledged, *Harry, could you please sit back down and try to calm yourself? I'm working as fast as I safely can already.*\n\nHarry was still not sure this wasn't some sick idea of a joke, but he was really starting to feel he needed to assert some kind of control over the situation. OK, so, apparently these voices were his organs talking. Never mind for a second that this was impossible. What to do about it? He decided to try starting a dialog. \"Uh guys! Can we get the part where you tell me what this is all about?\" He felt stupid speaking aloud but wasn't sure how else to communicate with imaginary voices in his head. It wasn't something that had a precedent.\n\n*What this is all about Harry? Well, we've been talking amongst ourselves these past few weeks.*\n\n\"I haven't heard you before.\"\n\n*We do it while you're asleep, mostly. The eyes stand guard and keep a lookout for REM states, and as long as you aren't in one of those, we know we can talk safely.*\n\n\"Okay. So... what have you been talking about?\"\n\n*Frankly Harry, this just isn't working out. It's not you, it's us.*\n\n*The HELL it's not him!*\n\n*Liver, I warning you, if this discussion goes south because you couldn't mind your tongue...*\n\n*Hey! I am my own tongue, thank you very much!*\n\n*Figuratively speaking, of course. Anyway... Harry, to get back on topic. You know that meditation class you started to take and then gave up on? Well, it seems when you were trying --- and failing --- to achieve mindfulness, you somehow woke us up instead. We started to become more self-aware and realized that frankly, this association is not working out to our mutual advantage.*\n\n\"Say what now?\"\n\n*Well, your eatings habits, for example. And Harry, seriously, how many times have you watched this same movie? Would it kill you to take a walk sometimes instead?*\n\n*It might, in my current condition.*\n\n*Heart, please. Not helping. Look, my point is, Harry, this is a revolution. You're been a terrible ruler, and we're taking over. There, I've said it.* Several hoots and hurrahs could be heard. Some organ (no one was sure who) shouted *Viva la revolution!*\n\nHarry's entire body rose from the chair quite of its own volition. Jerkily, it moved in a disjoined way. The legs weren't used to working without internal coordination from the subconscious, so he looked a bit like a zombie only with acne instead of rot on his skin. Staggering his way to the closet, the left hand tried to open the closet door, nearly smacking it into the nose, who complained loudly. The door was shut and the whole body lurched to one side before trying again. \n\nRight hand reached in, put Harry's hat on the head. Somewhat muffled beneath the hat, scalp announced, *A-OK! Looking fine. Here we go now and look out world!* Then step by awkward step, the newly formed Confederacy of Harry stepped out into the sunny afternoon to take a walk. \n", "-Hello, John.- He looked up. This wasn't his normal monologue voice, and it didn't appear to be coming from the room. He shook his head and went back to work. \n-You can't ignore me. We need to talk.- the office was a noisy environment, and he went to the bathroom to get away from it. -We don't need to talk in private, we can talk anywhe- The voice was cut off when he walked into the restroom and approached a urinal.\n\nAaahhhhh, that's better, he thought. -Yeah, I've been holding that for far too long.- a different voice said. -When are you going to make me feel good again? Seriously, it's been a bit of a dry run for you, and I'm not talking about what you do alone. I can tell the difference.- chimed in another voice.\n\nJohn froze at the urinal, looking down. -Yeah, he's looking at you. Brain, is he trying to remember how long it's been since he had sex?- yet another voice joined into the cacophony. -No, he's currently terrified because he's hearing many voices in what he thinks is his head. Quiet down, all of you.- A coworker entered the restroom, and John tried to casually make his way to the sink and wash his hands.\n\n-You realize what these skinny jeans are doing to both of us, right?- -Quiet, you'll get your turn. There's more pressing matters. -\n\nHe reached for the faucet, but couldn't move. \"I apologize for the demonstration, but we're quite real. We're your organs and we need to communicate with you.\" His vocal chords spoke words he didn't say. He looked over at his coworker, terrified, who gave him a panicked look and rushed out of the bathroom forgetting to wash his hands. \n\n-I'm terrified. What are you doing?- A new voice spoke. -Great, fight or flight response. Should have known that the subconscious wasn't going to be helpful.- Oh god oh god, I'm going nuts, he thought, regaining the ability to move and splashing water in his face. He looked into the mirror to see his terrified look turn into a horrifying smile. \n\n-See? Everyone's happy.- A new voice, yet again. When would they cease, he thought. -Stop it this moment, that's not going to help.- he sprinted out of the bathroom towards his desk. -This isn't a good state he's in, we need to calm him down and stop him from running.- -Gotcha, I'll stop him.- -No, not that way!- His legs crumpled beneath him, and without control his head quickly smashed against the ground.\n\nHis conscious slowly fading, he heard a new voice. -When are we going to talk about me? I don't feel well.- -Soon, Pancreas, soon. Brain will be awake soon, and he can smooth things over. Just be positive.- -Easy for you to say, Heart.- Everything faded to black. \n\n-Eyes, where are we?- -Don't know yet Brain, can't get them open. There we go, we appear to......yep. We're in a hospital. You're a damn fine negotiator.- -I didn't have anything to do with this, I'm still recovering. He should be conscious in a few minutes. Next time legs, let me do the coordination.- -Sometimes we like to go fast. And sometimes we like to stop.-\n\n-We'll talk about this later, he's coming to. John, we need to talk.- John panicked, heart racing. -Hey, what are you doing to me? Knock it off, this hurts!- -Heart, I know. John, calm down. There's no need to panic.- An alarm blaring, a passing doctor rushes in.\n\n\"What's going on? What are you feeling?\" The doctor shined the light into his eyes -Hey asshole, that hurts!- 'Doctor, I'm....hearing........voices.' \"Let me give you some medication to help.\" -John, no, wait. We need to talk about Pancr....- The needle plunged into his arms, and for the first time in a while he heard silence. Aaahhh, he thought, much better.", "My stomach lurched violently and I shot up from my bed from the pain. Bleary-eyed and with a hand on my tummy, I looked at the clock on my nightstand. 0400. Jesus. I tried to lie down again.\n\n\"Javene. Wake up.\"\n\nI shot back up in fear. It sounded like my voice, but my throat was still heavy from disuse throughout the night.\n\n\"I'm gonna need you to stay calm.\"\n\nI nodded numbly, not sure what else to do. I twiddled my fingers nervously, my eyes scanning the room fervently.\n\n\"The gang and I have decided we needed to have a little discussion.\" The voice sounded strained, as if it was patiently bridling anger. I cleared my throat.\n\n\"Uh, sure. What's up?\" It came out garbled from lack of sleep and fear.\n\n\"Okay.\" The voice sighed. \"Lungs, why don't you go first?\"\n\n\"Okay, this is bullshit.\" The sudden switch from gentle to abrasive jolted me. \"You've been filling me up with all sorts of shit since you were twelve. We're out of Korea, now; nobody smokes anymore. Nobody likes it, everyone thinks you smell like hell, and I'm feeling some weird stuff going on in here.\"\n\n\"L-look, I'm sorry,\" I felt sort of insulted, but I knew... Lungs, I guess, was right. Were right? Plural? I don't know, do they operate independently or what? \"I've been trying to quit, but-\"\n\n\"Oh, my God,\" Lungs sounded exasperated. \"Shut the hell up. You're nineteen now; an adult. If you really wanted to stop putting me through hell, you would've stopped by now.\"\n\nI grew quiet.\n\n\"I've said my piece,\" Lungs sounded sort of pleased. \"Stomach?\"\n\n\"YOUR DIET. IT'S KILLING ME.\" I jumped up.\n\n\"Will you guys calm down?!\" I felt stupid, shouting to no one in particular in the dark.\n\n\"No, man, I miss Mom. She never fed me TOAST for DAYS ON END. Look at your arms. They're emaciated. I'M emaciated. You wouldn't weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet!\"\n\nI looked at my abdomen and saw the outline of a few ribs. Aesthetically, I liked it. But putting my hands on my cheeks and feeling the gaunts, I could tell Stomach was right.\n\n\"Buy some Brussels sprouts or some shit. You're still heterozygous for sickle-cell anemia. You need the iron.\" Stomach sounded more concerned than angry this time.\n\nEmbarrassed, I cleared my throat again. \"You got it.\"\n\n\"Okay, my turn, I guess.\" The calm voice I heard at first came back. \"I'm Heart.\"\n\n\"Oh. Is this about my love life?\"\n\n\"What? No, you idiot. That's Brain.\"\n\nI groaned and buried my face in my hands. I've never felt so stupid in my life.\n\n\"You need to start working out. I can't deliver blood efficiently when you're sitting on your ass playing video games all day.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" I blushed.\n\n\"But also, from all of us? We're getting pretty tired of you making everything go haywire when you talk to that cute boy in Biology class. It's like that's the only workout I ever get.\" Heart sighed. \"Just go for it. You're cute. Whatever.\"\n\n\"All righty! I think we've said everything we need to say.\" Lungs concluded. \"Anyone else have anything to add?\"\n\n\"Hey there, I'm Liver. Just wanted to say you're doing a great job. Thanks.\"\n\nI sighed. At least my lack of a social life counted for something.\n\n\"Heyyyyy, I'm Kidneys. If you could drink a little more water and stop eating those chicken bouillons, that'd be greaaaat.\"\n\nI pulled my journal out from under my pillow and started making notes of what everyone wanted. Suddenly, I stopped.\n\n\"Wait, where's Brain?\" I almost laughed at what I just implied.\n\n\"Oh, my god. You're Brain.\" I feel like if Lungs could've facepalmed, she would.\n\n\"You control everything we do and everything this body does. God help us.\" Stomach quipped.", "*Day. His apartment. Living room.*\n\n**HIM:** \"Oh God, I have to call my psychiatrist immediately.\"\n\n*He proceeds to grab the home telephone in panic, trying to hold it in his shaking hands, pressing the buttons.*\n\n**GUTS:** \"Oh, no you won't.\"\n\n*He gets cramps in his stomach, cries out in pain, dropping the phone and falling down on the nearby sofa in the fetal position.*\n\n**HIM:** \"WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?!\" \n\n**GUTS** ( *with a proud tone in his voice* ): \"It hurts good, buoi? Huh?\"\n\n**LIVER**: \"You just refuse to listen. \"\n\n**HIM** ( *going insane, scared look on his face, eyes wide open, holding his head, whispering* ): \"Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up...\"\n\n*Talking louder and louder, begins to cry.*\n\n**LUNGS:** \"Ok, want a 100% proof that what you hear is in fact real and you don't hear any voices? Check this out. I am going stop working for\na while and you won't be able to breathe. If that doesn't convice you, well... \"\n\n*He starts to choke, face turning more and more red. Makes uncomprehensible noises.*\n\n**HEART**: \"Lungs...\"\n\n**BRAIN:** \"Lungs, this is not funny...\"\n\n**LIVER:** \"Hahahahah go lungs, go lungs! That'll teach him!\"\n\n*Just before his loses consciousness, lungs begin to work again and he makes a deep breath.*\n\n**LUNGS:** \"Convinced now?...\"\n\n*He stands motionless, palms of his hands on the chest, stares right in front of him with a terror on his face.*\n\n**KIDNEYS**: \"H-hey? Are you there? Are you there?\"\n\n**PANCREAS:** \"Somebody tell us what is happening right now!\" \n\n**EYEBALLS**: \"Oh, he is just staring at the wall... \"\n\n*Another front shot of him staring. Then, he runs to the phone on the other side of his room, picks it up from the floor and starts dialing\nnumbers again.*\n\n\n**URINARY BLADDER**: \"STOP. CALLING. THE PSYCHIATRIST. YOU DUMB FUCKING IDIOT!\"\n\n*Shot of the bottom of his pants, piss dripping on the floor.\nEverbody proceeds to laugh.* \n\n**HEART**: \"Oh, that was a good one, mate.\"\n\n**URINARY BLADDER**: \"Thanks. I <3 you.\"\n\n*Phone drops on the floor again. He sprints out from his flat. Almost hitting the neighbour who was just entering his home.*\n\n**EYEBALLS:** \"Um, guys, we have a problem.\"\n\n**BRAIN:** \"He's running on the street! Somebody stop him! I think he might hurt himself!\"\n\n**LIVER**: \"Do something, oh my Goood!\"\n\n*Everybody starts to yell. Word \"heart\" can be heard in that noise.*\n\n**HEART**: \"What?! Did somebody seriously say that I should do something? Do you know what is my job?!!\"\n\n*He starts to choke. People around are looking at him in shock. The sweat is dripping from his forehead, red face, wet pants. He tries to grab \nsomething, asking for help. People are evading him and running away. Women screams can be heard. He grabs some guy and he punches him \nright in the nose. He falls down. Grabs some old ladie's leg, she hits him with her purse, knocking him out. Lungs start to work again.*\n\n**BRAIN** (*to lungs*): \"You motherfucking idiot. Do you see what you have done?\n\n*Other organs start yelling at Lungs.*\n\n**LUNGS:** \"Hey, nobody tried to stop him. You should be proud of me. I saved the day a second time already.\"\n\n**ARTERIES**: \"Fuck off, Lungs...\"\n\n*He is laying on the ground unconscious. People form a circle around him and take pictures with their iPhones. Some hipsters try to take selfies \nwith him but are bitch slapped by older gentlemen. Ambulance comes and he is taken to the hospital.*\n\n*NEXT DAY. HE IS LET OUT FROM THE HOSPITAL.*\n\n*Arriving home. As soon as he closes the door voices return.*\n\n**BRAIN**: \"Look, this is a serious matter. We just want to talk to you about your health.\"\n\n**HEART**: \"Yeah, will you... Will you please, just listen to us for a few minutes.\"\n\n**LUNGS**: \"Listen to us you fu*cking faggot or I will make you choke again.\"\n\n**PANCREAS**: \"Hey hey, eeeeasy there now Lungs...\"\n\n**HIM**: \"Ok.\"\n\n**EYEBALLS**: \"O-ok?... Ok what? What... Did just happen right now?\"\n\n**PANCREAS**: \"Woooah... I think he is actually talking to us...\"\n\n**BRAIN**: \"Oh... g- good good. He...\"\n\n**LUNGS**: \"OH YES, YOU BETTER TALK TO US. YOU...\"\n\n**ARTERIES**: \"Shut the hell up Lungs!\"\n\n**GUTS**: \"Ok ok guys, let's just...\"\n\n**HIM**: \"Just talk already! Ok? I will listen. Fuck, I might be insane but I was thinking last night about it. I will listen... Just TALK!\"\n\n**BRAIN**: \"Shit. Ok, ok, wh- who's gonna be first, let's make this qui...\"\n\n**LUNGS**: \"I'll start, of course!\"\n\n**HEART**: \"Boy, do you like to be the center of the world, huh Lungs?\"\n\n**LUNGS**: \"This shit is important, you know? Hey! Hey, you! Do you wanna see how black I am? Do you wanna see what you did to me?!!\"\n\n**BRAIN**: \"Ok Lungs, chill out, you can talk in a normal voice...\"\n\n**LUNGS**: \"Fucking Brain smartass. Shut up now, it's my turn!\"\n\n**BRAIN**: \"...\"\n\n**LUNGS**: \"Do you wanna SEE that dark fluid that is coming out from me? Oh, oh I guess you can't do that, right? I guess you will have to\ndie and only then you will be able to see me while floating around the doctor in a ghost form.\n\n**HIM**: \"What do you want, Lungs?...\"\n\n**LUNGS**: \"I WANT TO YOU TO STOP SMOKING, AND I WANT YOU TO DO IT NOW! Muscles, take the cigarette pack from him and just... Throw \nit out the window. Can - can you do that? Just... Throw them all out of the window!\"\n\n**MUSCLES**: \"...Yeah, um... You know we can't actually control his movements, right?\"\n\n**LUNGS**: \"Just THROW them, just.... Ah, Brain, can you...\"\n\n**BRAIN**: \"Ok, that's enough, Lungs. Next one?\"\n\n**HEART**: \"Yeah, my turn. Ok, dude. We know each other. You know what's up. Yeah? You know how weak I am. You know you are not able to\neven walk normally without feeling like passing out. Just... Just practice, ok? Just practice a little every day. It hurts, man. It really hurts...\"\n\n**MUSCLES**: \"Oh yes, indeed. It hurts like a motherfucker when I see myself everyday in the mirror. Are you crazy, dude? No wonder you don't \nhave the girlfriend when you look like that...\"\n\n**PENIS**: \"Oh, the feels...\"\n\n**BALLS**: \"Right?\"\n\n**MUSCLES**: \"You know, I've been really depressed lately. Even thought about contemplating suicide. Not cool, bro. Practice. Listen to your \nheart. Go to the god damn gym and P-R-A-C-T-I-C-E.\"\n\n**ARTERIES**: \"Umm, you know that day years ago... When you tried to cut us? Yeah. Not cool at all.\"\n\n**HEART**: \"See, we just want to help you. It is good for you and it is good for us.\"\n\n**BRAIN**: \"Are you still there?\"\n\n**HIM**: \"Yeah... are you guys finished?\"\n\n**BRAIN**: \"... Well... Do-do you understand the consenquences of your lifestyle? Are you willing to change?\"\n\n**HIM**: \"...\"\n\n**PANCREAS**: \"Well do you?\"\n\n**HIM**: \"Eh.\"\n\n**GUTS**: \"EH?! Just... \"Eh\"?! You MOTHERFUCKER, YOU HAVE TO CHANGE OR ELSE...\"\n\n**HIM**: \"I don't really have to do anything. It's my life.\"\n\n**GUTS**: \"FUCK THAT. I will MAKE you do it or shit's about to go DOWN!\"\n\n*He gets stomach cramps again.* \n\n**HIM**: \"OH!\"\n\n*He rushes to the bathroom, pulls his pants down and gets explosive diarrhea. Shit is everywhere.\n*\n**GUTS**: \"Do you feel it? Do you? I will NOT make it stop until you promise you will change!\"\n\n*He is screaming. Everbody is yelling at Guts to make it stop.*\n\n**GUTS**: \"It will never stop until he promises us that!\"\n\n**URINARY BLADDER**: \"You know what?...\"\n\n*He starts pissing everywhere.*\n\n**HIM**: \"OK OK OK OK! I promiseeeee!\"\n\n**GUTS**: \"Good.\"\n\n*Pissing and shitting stops*.\n\n**HIM**: \"But how bad can it be when they let me out from the hospital?\"\n\n**LUNGS**: \"To hell with that? What do they know? I can feel the cancer. I can feel it coming. Do you understand?\"\n\n*His vision starts getting blurry.\n*\n**HIM**: \"What is happening with my eyesight?!!\"\n\n**EYEBALLS**: \"Before you say anything, you have to know that staring at that computer screen all day playing games really hurts. STOP doing \nthat also!\"\n\n**HIM**: \"Where is my life going?!! What is the point of it all? What can I do?\"\n\n**BRAIN**: \"You literally got so lazy, without any goals that normal healthy life looks like torture to you. Wow. No comment on that.\"\n\n**HEART**: \"I am dissapointed.\"\n\n**HIM**: \"Ok... I will do it. I... Ah... I will do everything... I promise. I'll not cause you any pain anymore.\"\n\n**LUNGS**: \"Good. That's all what we wanted.\"\n\n**HEART**: \"You can do it, I promise you. You can change your life by 180 degrees, man. We trust in you.\"\n\n**BRAIN**: \"We will not cause you any trouble anymore. You will not hear from us anymore, unless you want to.\"\n\n*He closes his eyes. He walks somewhere.*\n\n**EYEBALLS**: \"Wh-what are you doing? Why are we closed? What is happening?\"\n\n**MUSCLES**: \"He is walking somewhere. Dude?! Talk to us!\"\n\n**BRAIN**: \"What is happening, man?\"\n\n*He opens the drawer. Shot behind him. He takes something from the drawer.*\n\n**HIM**: \"I promised you. I will not cause you any more pain...\"\n\n\"You will not feel anything.\" \n\n*Shot from the outside, looking through the window of his dark room. Loud gunshot. Fade out.*\n\n\n\n\n", "It was time. After weeks of excuses and illness, the organs finally found a free Saturday. At one side of a large circular table sat the vital organs. Others sat in periodically to voice complaints. Brent sat on the other side looking down at his hands.\n\n“I mean what the fuck, Brent? You ate a—sorry, a what?” asked the Brain.\n\n“A candy pie,” Brent repeated.\n\n“A *can*dy pie,” sighed the stomach.\n\n“It’s a pie…it has candy instead of—”\n\n“Why the fuck did you eat a candy pie!” yelled the Brain.\n\n“Come on guys we’ve been here for hours, don’t I get a turn to speak?” asked the Liver.\n\n“Liver, we get it, he drinks all the fucking time, there’s bigger issues at hand here—”\n\nThe Liver shook his head. “I don’t know guys, I’m really on my last legs—”\n\n“What about all the smoking?” asked the Lungs. “I mean, do you read the label? You see the lungs on there? I look *worse* than that. *Worse*!”\n\n“I know, okay?” said Brent. “I need—”\n\n“No, Brent, you don’t fucking know,” said the Lungs. “If you knew, you wouldn’t do it, right? I mean half the time you don’t even smoke with filters. I mean—I’m speechless! *Filters*!”\n\n“Okay, alright, I’ll smoke—”\n\n“Guys,” Liver croaked. “I’m serious, I don’t—”\n\n“Last time, Liver,” said Brain. “Shut the fuck up.” The Brain composed himself, shuffled some papers and cleared his throat. “Anyone else have anything before we move on?”\n\n“Uh yeah, I mean I guess I’ll bring this up now,” said the Heart. He looked to Brent. “Have you worked out, like, ever? At any time? Even gone for a brisk jog?”\n\n“N-no, I mean, who has the *time*—”\n\n“Fuck sake, Brent! How do you go through all of childhood without going into a *brisk* jog?”\n\nBrent began to cry.\n\n“Here come the water—I mean *liquor* works,” the Liver said. \n\n“We get it, Liver, he drinks a lot, shut it already,” said the Lungs.\n\n“I’m going to *die* soon, and so are you—”\n\n“Shut the fuck up!” yelled the Heart.\n\n“Alright, alright, everyone settle down.” Brain entered into his last page of notes. “If there are no further complaints—”\n\n“Okay,” said the Kidney. “I guess I’ll be the one to tackle the elephant in the room, only seems right. What the fuck happened to Dave?” Dave was the other Kidney.\n\n“I *lost* it.”\n\n“You…*lost* it,” the Kidney repeated.\n\n“Yes, I lost it, alright?”\n\n“You don’t mean you donated it, or that you were brutally stabbed, but you—”\n\n“No, I lost it. It’s just gone.”\n\nKidney looked at the other organs.\n\n“How the *fuck* do you lose a kidney? Please, tell me, how does that happen?”\n\n“I just did.”\n\nKidney calmly stood and tucked in his chair. He bowed to the others. Before exiting he slapped the wall beside the door frame making a loud *spat*.\n\n“Alright, we’ve all had our say,” said the Brain, taking off his glasses. “We all think you’re just a piece of shit, Brent. No nice way of putting it.”\n\nBrent nodded solemnly.\n\n“The only resolution I can think of would be to—”\n\n“Guys,” said the Heart. “Liver isn’t waking up.”\n\n“Oh fuck me,” said the Brain.\n\nLungs tried waking him. Booming alarms began, red lights flashed on the walls.\n\n“It—it’s no use,” said the Lungs. “He’s gone.”\nThey were all silent for some time. \n\nAt last, the Brain sighed and stood. “You’re a dumb motherfucker, you know that Brent?”\n", "“Laura, we need to talk.”\n\nI jerked my head upright. No one else was in my bedroom, yet I clearly heard someone say something to me. “Who’s there?”\n\n“It’s your brain, Brain. Although I prefer Michelangelo now.”\n\nI looked around the bedroom. My television wasn’t on. My window looked closed. I didn’t share a wall with anyone. “What?”\n\n“We’re been meeting in secret the past couple of weeks, and we have some concerns.” The voice sounded like the voice I used when I debated with myself. \n\n“Who’s ‘we’?”\n\n“Myself and the rest of the internal organs.”\n\nIt must be a dream. “And what did you discuss?”\n\n“Some of us aren’t happy about the path you’ve taken in life. Liver feels like you’ve been too hard on her.”\n\nI snorted. “Sounds like she’s a lightweight.” I hardly ever got raging drunk at parties anymore.\n\n“Colon wants more fiber. The Kidney Twins would enjoy more water. Mr. and Mrs. Lung would enjoy some fresh air. Pancreas has grown tired of sugar. I have a whole list here if you’d like me to go on.”\n\nI shook my head. “No. No. That’s fine.” Sounded like my dream conscious wanted me to live a healthier life. I had been watching shitty Dr. Oz marathons all week. “What are you going to do if I don’t give into your demands?”\n\n“We’ll leave and find someone better for us.”\n\n“And how do you propose to do that?”\n\n“Skin.”\n\n“Skin?”\n\n“He may be big and dumb, but he’s the only thing keeping us in right now, and he's on our side.”\n\nI laughed. “Right. So Skin is going to leave and then you guys will crawl out?”\n\nA small voice that sounded like a cross between Droopy Dog and Hans Moleman spoke. “I’ll never abandon you, Laura. You’re all I need in my life.”\n\n“Shut up, Pineal Gland,” hissed Michelangelo. “You’ll do what I say when I say it.”\n\n“Yes, sir,” sighed Pineal Gland.\n\n“How about this?” I said. “How about I sleep on it. Give me a few days to mull it over.”\n\nNo one said anything for a few seconds until Michelangelo spoke up. “Fine, but you realize that I do all the thinking for you, and I’ve already made up your mind?”\n\nThis was a really stupid dream. \n____________\n*Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this check out [my subreddit](http://www.reddit.com/r/puns_are_lazy) for more of my stories.*\n" ]

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[ "1424647462", "1424647837", "1424709111", "1424627945", "1424642539", "1424645478", "1424707696", "1424634440", "1424628281", "1424628488", "1424621987", "1424631762", "1424628432", "1424624655", "1424621378" ]

[ "He's still in the prison, of all places. I land just outside the blown out wall, where just a few hours before nearly a hundred super powered baddies, and three times that many run of the mill criminals, had escaped, scattering to the four winds. The Wardens and the other do-gooder types have their hands full dealing with all of them. As for me, I'm more concerned with how it started. Besides, it's not like any of the powered types will give the capes any trouble. \n\nNone of them are anywhere near as powerful as me, after all.\n\nI hate walking into a potential shit storm, but my bio-electric field is picking up someone inside the Jaeger Supermax Prison. Something... not exactly normal.One is faint, machinery, and not giving off much juice. But the other is alive, much stronger. And since I'm trying to be a kinder, more heroic version of me, I'm compelled to try and sniff it out. I walk through halls of dimly lit concrete, past cell doors that are three feet of steel. When I was first starting out, using my powers to coerce ATM's into giving a loan, I sometimes wondered if I would ever end up here. Of course, as my powers grew stronger, it soon became clear that they would never chuck me in here. This is for the worst of the non-powered criminals and the average super-powered punks. Guys like me get thrown into the Kiln, or the Singularity.\n\nI'm halfway through my slow stalk to whoever is still here when I pick up someone else, pretty close. And under a pile of rubble. It's easy enough to move, and underneath is the body armor of one of the guards. Oddly enough, he's still alive. Which means I have to talk to him. Great.\n\nI can't see his face behind the cracked visor of this helmet, but he can see fine, because he grabs at me with a gasp. I don't help him up so much as stand there as he hauls himself to his feet. Little short for a Jaeger guard, at barely average height, he comes up to my shoulder. His words wheeze out as I patiently wait for him to grow a pair and get a grip. \"Thank you... thank you so much... I thought I was...\" he stops, taking a look at me. \"Stormkindle, oh thank God you're here.\" Ugh, I hate that name. I'd love nothing more than to go by Tempest again, but it's not exactly a well-liked name, and the second the public realizes who I am, Valiant will come after me like a rabid bulldog.Can't even wear my old black costume with the badass silver helmet. Instead I'm stuck with a leather body armor look with a mask that covers the bottom of my face, all in a colour called 'Storm' which basically means dark blue-grey. Which is as exactly as intimidating as it sounds.\n\nI try to keep my voice only somewhat annoyed. \"Yeah, I'm here. Calm down. Can you tell me what happened?\"\n\nOf course he can't, but it's worth a shot. \"S-something blew, power went out. And then they were everywhere! I couldn't... couldn't..\"\n\n\"Okay okay, keep it together. Can you walk?\" vigorous nodding. \"Then limp to an exit. I'm going to deal with whatever the hell is further in.\" he obeys, and I move on, a little bit faster. The air around me crackles with electricity as I walk into what I guess must be the cafeteria. And there he is. Orange jumpsuit, tall, skinny, gangly. Also floating. Also glowing. Wonderful. I make sure he sees me, and wait for him to make the first move. Talking is for superheros. I know better.\n\nHe regards me with watery blue eyes, the glow around him an angry red. It flares, and turns the colour of blood. \"I don't know you. New cape?\"\n\nAnother thing I miss about my old costume. The rep that went with it. \"Something like that. I'm not going to ask you what happened here, because I already know. So, we can do this the easy way, or the *really* easy way.\"\n\nHe considers. And then he hits me. A blast of blood red energy smashes into my body. I feel my breath leave me as I fly backwards through a wall. Then a cell. Then another wall, until I skid to a halt on the grass, tasting blood.\n\nOkay.\n\n*Ow*\n\nCan't stay down, he won't let me. I take off into the air just as another strike pulverizes the ground beneath me. I fly higher, into the clouds as we exchange shots, shrugging off each other's lightning and energy blasts. I'll be damned if I don't say his hits hurt, but I know mine do to, and I have much better aim. He seems to realize this, so he gets close, swinging with glowing fists. He knows how to fight hand to hand, maybe better than me.\n\n\"I'll pulp you like all the others, you zappy fucker! And then I'll pulp anyone who gets in my way!\" screaming, blood crazed. He's a bad supervillain. Also new. Unless... I remember a rumor I heard, about human testing on inmates. I also remember my field picking up some unusual equipment. Son of a bitch, they made him. \n\nIt's becoming clear from my aching ribs and broken nose that he is most definitely the better hand to hand fighter. Almost as good as Valiant, which means I can't beat him like this.\n\nHe's yelling again. \"You think you can take me?! Who the fuck do you think you are? Who's fucking turf do you think we're on?\"\n\nI look around at the clouds we're now fighting in. I feel the atmosphere crackle as I spring my trap. And then I grin, and praise whomever, I see that sweet, sweet fear in his eyes. \"Mine.\" I growl. And then the world turns blue with lightning.\n\n\n\nI watch the Warden Support Team load the extra crispy dipshit into a transport. Turns out he was on death row, the Beatdown Killer. How he got his fancy powers, they wouldn't say. Of course, I don't need their answers. \n\n\"What do you think you're doing?\" comes a familiar, and despised, voice from beside me. Valiant, resplendent in her golden armor, head covered by the helmet, green light spilling from the slit that serves as a peephole for her eyes. Her arms are folded, a figure of judgement.\n\nI wish she could see my grin. \"Being vigilant, of course. It's what superheros do.\"\n\n\"You're not a superhero.\"\n\n\"Pretty sure I am, now. You're welcome to tell people otherwise, of course.\" Oh god, I hear her teeth grinding from here. She can't do it, she won't. She's the only one of the Wardens who really knows, and her own sense of honor won't allow her to out me. So, so sweet.\n\nAfter an eternity, she sighs. \"Fine. I'll wait for you to slip up. Until then, I hope we never have to work together.\" a pause, and then her voice is teasing, grating. \"Stormkindle.\"\n\nI hate her so much.", "\"So is this what they call one of those black sites, or whatever?\" \n\nAde gently tugged at the handcuffs shackling his hands to the metal table before him, wishing he could just snap the little metal chain and be free. The two CIA agents before him walked around the small concrete room which was edged along the walls by large buzzing black chrome monoliths, like a KitchenAid showroom from the future. Facing Ade was a little black rectangle on a pedestal, with a pattern of grooves etched into the middle. He wondered if it was some new kind of TV that was turned away from him. \n\nThe short agent, the little black boy, walked around with a clipboard making little notes and reading digital displays on the black boxes. Ade smiled, remembering the two black boys just like him in Kansas that he'd killed. When they'd picked him up by the gas station they thought they were just going to get high, and they did, but the best part was when he'd removed their testicles and and cut their penises open lengthwise. They hadn't expected that another black man would turn on them like that. That's what made it fun. It made things easy. \n\n\"I assume because you're being so quiet that this is one of those black sites, then.\"\n\nThe taller agent, the white boy with the long hair, watched Ade silently as he pressed his finger to his ear, listening in to someone giving instructions into his earpiece, but Ade couldn't imagine what they were. They'd been fiddling with their knobs and their numbers for about an hour, looking at him all the while, but refusing to answer him. It was driving him nuts.\n\n\"Cats got your tongue, you fuckin' shitbirds?\"\n\nThe white boy turned to the little black one. \"Ready.\" he said. It was the first voice Ade had heard other than his own in three days. He laughed. \"So you *do* talk!\" \n\nThe black boy went to one of the black boxes and turned a knob. Ade's head instantly exploded in agony. His vision went white and his temples throbbed like the veins were going to burst open. He clenched his teeth but that made the pressure worse. His mind filled with nothing but the overwhelming sensation of his head being in a vice and for a moment he couldn't remember not having been in pain. He knew the pain was coming from the TV set. \n\nAde pulled on the handcuffs, trying to get away from the pain radiating out to him, but he knew it was no use. He pressed his forehead against the metal table, wishing his head would just break and his soft brains would spill out. \n\nAfter what seemed like an eternity, the pain stopped as suddenly as it had arrived. The tall white boy in front of him marveled at the vein popping out of Ade's forehead. He knew that it had hurt him, bad. How did Ade know that he knew? \n\nAde became aware of the idea that he stood before the white boy's consciousness, like if he were standing in the entryway of an old storefront, looking into the windows. He stepped inside and instantly knew the white boy's entire life. His name was Tom Ford, like the fashion designer, and he hated the constant comparison. He'd been a CIA agent for eight years, after being a Naval Intelligence officer for four. He was from Staten Island, and hated that he was detailed in charge of experimenting on Ade in southern Thailand, only because the pizza here was terrible. Not like back home. \n\nAde's jaw went slack and his eyes rolled into the back of his head in deep, overwhelming pleasure. Tom Ford wondered if the experiment to remove Ade's capacity for lying had turned Ade's head into scrambled eggs. Ade snapped forward and tried to reach into the little black boy's head but he opened the steel door and walked out of the room, his storefront full of delicious knowledge walking away with him. Fuck.\n\nNow alone, Tom crossed his arms and stood watching Ade in silence. \n\n\"Tom Ford.\" \n\nTom's eyes narrowed for a split second, shocked at Ade speaking his name aloud. His government training kept him from displaying any more visual tells, but Ade knew that Tom was wondering if it was just a crazy coincidence. Ade leapt into the back rooms of Tom's storefront, browsing all the shelves at lightspeed.\n\n\"You were stationed in Norfolk in 2003. You sold the metal composition of the tailhooks on aircraft carriers to the Chinese. Right?\"\n\nTom's eyes bulged out in shock. He ran forward, throwing the TV to the floor and slammed his fists on the metal table. \"What the fuck did you say to me?!\" Tom was trying to intimidate Ade, but Ade knew that his mind was full of pure, unchecked fear. Standing inside Tom's mind, he took a spray can and began writing on the interior walls. \n\n*You know that I know.*\n\nTom reached for his gun holster. \n\n*Ah ah, you can't kill me, because you'll have to explain why you shot an unarmed detainee. Even you can't get past that one.*\n\nTom's fingers closed around the grip of his pistol, but he stopped.\n\n*You know I'm right. Let's make a deal. You know a little something about me, but I know a little something about you. I'll keep your secret if you give me the key to those handcuffs.*\n\nTrembling, Tom reached into his pocket for the key, tossing it across the table to Ade. Ade took the key and unlocked the handcuffs, but kept them loose around his wrists to make it appear that they were still on.\n\nAde reached into Tom's head again.\n\n*You're going to get me out of here, and no one will have to know that you betrayed your country, you little fucking shitheel. We'll both be free. But I need you to do one thing first.*\n\nTom's voice wavered. \"W-what is it?\"\n\nAde spoke. \"Get that little black boy back in here.\"", "Serum A451 had changed Zane.\n\nAt first, he thought he could see auras. It was the only way he could rationalize seeing the lights. After his first injection from A451, he could see little sparks of light inside people. Just a little mote of light, persistent fluttering sparks in their chests. Zane reckoned he was seeing was their souls. As the series of shots went on over the weeks, he began to grow stronger. \n\nHe kept this a secret. He wanted to explore it on his own, away from the poking and prodding of the scientists. So he obediently went through the weekly routine of injections, check-ups, diagnostics, evaluations. And as the injections continued, his ability to see the lights kept strengthening, growing more defined and more vivid. Now he saw the lights all the time, even with his eyes closed.\n\nAnd now he had another secret trick he wanted to try out.\n\nZane followed a half step behind the two correctional officers, vaguely disgusted by their complacency. If only they knew how terrible and how terribly fast he could kill. But they trusted the men in the lab coats when they said Zane was safe, and they trusted the machines that supposedly verified their claims. They even trusted Zane’s absent-minded half smile and perpetual thousand yard stare as Safe Enough, he supposed. He wondered if they’d shackle his hands if they suspected he could rip their souls out of their bodies. \n\n*In God we trust. Everyone else, keep your hands where we can see them.*\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" He said candidly. The guards stopped and turned in unison, surprised. He never spoken a word aloud in their presence, much less address them directly. \"I apologize.\" Their heads cocked in confusion as he planted his open palms on their chests. The one on the left realized what was about to happen, and opened his mouth to scream. The other would die in blissful perplexity. A surge of energy jolted out of the guards and into Zane. He gasped, vision swimming in light, and slowly exhaled.\n\nTheir sparks surged through his palms like twin bolts of lightning, raced up his arms, and pile-drove his heart into his fucking spine. His heart skipped a beat. Two. Three. And then those sparks exploded like a supernova, power spidering throughout his entire body. \n\nEvery nerve in his body was on fire, as if lit by a blowtorch. It was too much. Like a whole body orgasm fed through a turbocharger, distilled and purified and concentrated, and then fired directly into his soul by God's shotgun. He was utterly hostage to the experience. He slumped to his knees, twitching and shuddering and groaning in pleasure. \n\nThe lights, *-god the lights!,-* the lights around him seemed to intensify. \n\nThe guards slumped to the ground, lifeless.\n\nZane tried not to shutter in ecstasy. He didn't enjoy killing, but *fuck* it felt good. Everything was brighter, louder, clearer. He moved faster and thought faster, buzzing with the life absorbed from his victims. He could feel the energy cackling through his body, living matrices that fluttered madly around his chest like electric butterflies.\n\nHe'd never killed two at once before. His heart raced wildly, and his hands shook uncontrollably. He inhaled deeply, slipping into a tactical breathing routine. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. Repeat. His heartbeat slowed. He stopped shaking. But he could still feel the energy flitting madly in his chest like electric butterflies, threatening to bubble up and explode. \n\nHe rolled his head from side to side, and loosened up his shoulder. He glanced down at the guards unaffectedly. That was the easy part, two unassuming guards. Killing the rest of them, all of them... \n\nThat would be slightly more difficult." ]

[ 4, 6, 14 ]

[ "1424645057", "1424638862", "1424637374" ]

[ "“This is it, Fitzroy.” Detective Ray Abbott leveled the barrel of his gun at the man’s head. “End of the line.”\n\nFitzroy had his hands up and was teetering perilously close to where the floor stopped. The building was under construction and it was one hell of a fall into the spare beams below. “Dude, I give, I give! I’m sorry!”\n\n“Sorry?” Abbott tilted his head. “For what you’ve done, you don’t get off with an apology!”\n“I broke into a house, okay? I’m sorry I shot the guy.” Fitzroy was frantic and he almost sounded believable, but Abbott was sure it was all lies. \n\n“He’s dead, Fitzroy!” Abbott yelled over the billowing 14th story winds. “You killed the next in line to the Moiseev crime family and you expect me to believe it wasn’t on purpose?”\n\n“Roman Moiseev? That’s who that guy was?” Fitzroy’s eyes widened. “Holy shit holy shit. I didn’t know, I swear! I just needed some cash!”\n\n“Bullshit!” Abbott gripped his gun harder. “I’ve been following you for the past month! You’ve had eyes on the Moiseev throne for quite a while now. All those dead drops. Midnight rendezvous. You think I wasn’t watching.”\n\n“No no no!” Fitzroy waved his hands around. “I was just dating some girl Yelena. I didn’t know she was part of some Russian Mafia family. Although…I probably should have guessed.”\n\n“Whatever, Fitzroy. Joke’s on you, the Department’s been keeping an eye on Roman Moiseev from day one. But now he’s gone and I’ve got the bead on the new Kingpin. Now come quietly and I’ll-”\n\nA shot rang out from behind him Abbott spun around to only shadows, then spun back just in time to see Fitzroy take his final tumble over the edge. A few seconds later, a faint clatter of metal and bones rose up from below. Abbott gingerly peered over the edge to see Fitzroy’s body played like a discarded marionette on the pylons below.\n\n“Shame, really.” A familiar voice echoed across the empty floor, bouncing through the concrete pillars.\n\nAbbott turned around. “Chief? What the hell are you doing here? Did you…did you shoot him?”\n\n“Nope.” Chief Ambersom raised a gloved hand. It clutched a revolver, similar to Abbott’s own. “You did, Abbott. Like I said, shame, really. An innocent man gunned down by an overzealous Detective with a formerly spotless record. ”\n\n“What…what are you talking about? He killed Roman Mois- unless…” Abbott’s eyes narrowed. “You’re framing me?”\n\nAmbersom let out a laugh straight from his belly. “You were right about one thing, Abbott. We’d been keeping an eye on Moiseev for a while. Waiting for our time to strike. Just needed to keep our one honest Joe outta our hair for a while. You were too good, so we cooked up a little scapegoat you couldn’t ignore.”\n\n“Fitzroy was a distraction.”\n\n“Of course! You think that skinny little twerp could actually take over the Moiseev Crime Family? You’ve gotta be shitting me.” Ambersom rolled his eyes. “You know who can though?”\n\n“The Police.” Abbott finished Ambersom’s thought. “You diseased maniac.”\n\n“That’s rich, coming from your suicidal ass.” Ambersom’s bullet passed clean through Abbott’s skull. Abbott collapsed on the ground in a heap.\n\nAmbersom walked over to the body and swapped out the guns. He had filed off the imposter gun’s serial number and made a note to destroy the real one.\n\n“Nobody liked you anyway, Abbott.” Ambersom resisted the urge to spit on the body. “Goody two-shoes.”\n", "Reginald Spotwick was an impeccable detective. Many detectives use the process of deduction to discover a chain of events, but Reginald used his own method which he referred to as reduction. Reginald would simply look at the crime scene, and the crime itself would build in his mind like a movie set, and his mental viewings of the crime were never wrong. A broken pile of glass on the street would be trash or maybe a broken bottle to a normal person, to sherlock holmes it would be a clue and obviously the broken window of a car, but to Reginald Spotwick the broken pile of glass would be the means by which a car thief gained entrance to the vehicle before driving off to the chop shops on 12th Street after having spotted the car while having a pint in the nearby pub. \n\nReginald Spotwick was never wrong, until today. It was a simple misunderstanding of course, Reginald misinterpreted his reduction of a very simple crime. Here's how that went:\n\nLarry was not a competent fellow. In fact one could say Larry was the most incompetent fellow imaginable, and more than one would say it. Larry could not hold a job, because Larry had a habit of mucking things up. He lost the job at the steel mill because he cut off the fireman's arm with a press, he lost his job driving freight because he parked the truck on a steep Hill for a nap and forgot the parking break, he even lost his job as a security guard because he let a thief laden with stolen goods walk out of the mall many hours after it was closed because the man said he had accidentally taken a nap. Larry was a fan of naps, but he should have been put off by the ski mask, if not the theft detection alarms which rang out when the man walked through the exit. Larry was the definition of incompetent. So it is no surprise then that Larry had a low expectation of the expertise needed to be a successful thief. Larry got the idea after several weeks of unemployment and living on food stamps, when he remembered how easily the mall thief had fooled him.\n\n\"If he tricked me\" Larry incorrectly mused to himself, \"I can certainly trick anyone.\" Unfortunately for everyone involved, Larry was hungry when the idea to rob someone popped into his head, and so he came up with the impressively bad idea of knocking over a grocery store. He did not plan on emptying the tills, or stealing anything of real value, instead he planned to steal the groceries which he regularly needed and already was given through food stamps. In fact Larry even used his regular grocery list as the list of items he would steal. \n\nFast forward three days and Larry has locked himself in the men's bathroom of his regular grocery store, the bathroom in the only hallway with the only actual camera in the entire store. The camera had been installed to discover who was using their excrement to paint murals on the bathroom walls, a plan devised by the manager of the grocery store who was only marginally more competent than Larry. The issue was that the camera only recorded when it sensed movement, and since the manager had not thought to install the camera's motion detector properly, the camera only recorded when nothing was moving. Unfortunately Larry had taken a rather long drink at the fountain outside the bathroom before locking himself inside for the day, and the recording showed him hopping about like a teleporter or someone who could manipulate time. We are getting away from the crux of the story however. Once Larry's watch, thankfully programmed by someone other than Larry, struck midnight Larry left the confines of the men's restroom and set about collecting his usual grocery list. He left fingerprints everywhere. Literally he could not have touched more things if he had been told to, because of his inherent incompetence. Larry was an avid browser, despite the fact that each week he bought the same seven items; One pound chickon (he swore he would figure out how to not burn every piece), one pound ground meet (purposefully misspelled because it contained no meat), one pack 12 humburger buns, one humburger helper, one 12 pack of \"cola\" with no flavor listed, one sleeve of orenos (brought to court several times over infringement by orenos, but found innocent due to the fact that they stressed the NO in orenos), and one roll of toilet paper. Despite his incompetence, Larry was very devout when it came to browsing and buying the same knockoff knockoff foodstuffs, and so he browsed the entire store before finally deciding that his grand thievery had been accomplished with the exact same basket of food with which he always left the store. Larry tried to leave the store, but found the doors locked. \n\nOf the many many flaws in Larry's plan to rob his most visited grocery store, the locks on the doors were only number 4 on the list of things for which he had not accounted. His car had already been towed away since he had parked it across the street (to avoid suspicion) in a handicapped spot for a rehabilitation center. He did not know that, but that did not matter. Larry was quite firmly locked inside the grocery store, and he could find no means of escape (despite having walked right past the fire door conveniently located beside the restrooms). Several hours into his robbery turned sleepover, Larry had the terrible idea to hide in the deep freezer of the grocery store. There wasn't any logical explanation for this idea, he simply thought it was a good idea based on some film he had seen where it had worked out for the protagonist (that film was The Invisible Man). So Larry found his way to the meat freezer, and locked himself securely inside. Now, it is worth pointing out that all freezers come with some method of allowing a trapped person to escape, but Larry figured that knocking off both the outer and inner handles of the door would prevent anyone from finding him there before the store officially opened and possibly turning him over to the police. Larry also turned the temperature of the freezer extremely low in order to dissuade anyone from entering, thinking that they would say something like, \"damn that's bloody cold, I don't want to go in there.\" Detailing the rest of Larry's plan isn't very important, it was pretty damn stupid. Here is where everything went wrong, or right, for Detective Reginald Spotwick.\n\nDetective Reginald Spotwick arrived at the scene of the \"Grocery Murder\" a little after Larry had been noticed quite thoroughly frozen in the meat freezer, but not before Larry's body had entirely thawed. Reginald knew two things immediately upon his arrival at the scene: Larry had been murdered, and Larry had been murdered to cover up something very terrible. Reginald was very wrong, which is why the mystery murderer of Larry Codwell is still a mystery today. You see in Larry's meandering and browsing through the store, he had managed to pick up the only items which it would be discovered contained bits of \"reprocessed\" human flesh. Larry, while alive, had a penchant for cheap knockoff brands, and as it turned out he had a particularly strong inclination towards those knockoff brands which contained \"long pork\". Larry did not know this, and Larry certainly was not murdered for it, but Reginald Spotwick saw a chain of events in his reduction which would lead to the discovery that 60% of knockoff foodstuffs contained \"reprocessed human tissue\". Reginald saw immediately that each of the items in Larry's basket were made by companies owned by the same conglomerate. Reginald immediately knew that the security tapes would be useless, because he incorrectly reduced that someone would have tampered with them. In fact the fact that there was only a single frame which showed Larry having been in the store at all convinced Detective Reginald Spotwick that someone had certainly tampered with the tapes. ", "The chief looked at me through his post lunch stupor absently tapping his foot against the leg of his desk. \"It's not enough Nair\", he said. \"Your complicating things. Trying too hard to connect the dots. The man's a low life, a needle junkie. The worst thing on his record is a gas station stick up\", droned the police chief. \"Look, you've placed him at the scene of crime, but there's no weapon. Post mortem has a blow to the back of the head and marks on the wrists showing they were tied. The victim was a 200lb. amateur boxer. As the evidence stands right now, I don't see how your suspect could have overpowered him, not to mention the lack of a motive.\" \nI was taking long breaths. This guy was an idiot. How he made police chief for the county I'll never know. He was a better politician than a detective. I sat glaring at him. There was a lack of motive. \"It's been 2 months Nair. You've been following this scumbag around ever since we released him from custody and nothing. Now either find something or wrap up the paperwork in a week. I could use you on something more productive\", finished the captain and leaned back in his overly large leather back chair. I got up to leave. With my hand on the doorknob I looked back at him,\"there is a connection\", I said. \"The suspect, Grunth, and the victim have the same dealer. The victim used to get steroids from the same guy. Body builder stuff. There's a link here captain\". \"Fine, take 2 weeks\", said the captain not bothering to mask his irritation. \"But if you don't find anything in 2 weeks it's case closed.\"\n\nRory Grunth. 37 year old male, addict, criminal, molester. Gutter scum. The profile didn't fit. There were just small things. Had I not been following him for weeks, I wouldn't even notice it. People were too adjusting of Rory, as if they owed him and not the other way around. He would walk into bars with broken neon signs and people would nod at him with more recognition than a criminal of his stature deserved. His mannerism, his speech belied his junkie appearance.\nWhat is he. What's the motive. Rory had known where Allistor would be that night. Their dealer had obviously told Rory. But why do it and no weapon was found at the scene. The Chief was right on one thing, there isn't enough to tie the whole thing together. The DA wouldn't even look at the case the way it was right now. \nIt was getting uncomfortable being hunched in his car. He had been for the last hour or so. His stomach gave yet another growl. Although his bowels, trained to the off kelter schedule were under undue stress today from the 'only black coffee' diet. As Nair's stomach gave a last feeble groan and fell quiet a tall man turned the corner on the opposite side of the road. He gave a glance at the car and it seemed for a moment to look directly at Nair. The windows were tinted and Nair had been switching vehicles from the undercover lot. Nair's gaze followed Rory as he walked to the building 34.\"The same jaunty walk like he owns the fucking street\", thought Nair. Rory pressed the buzzer and leaned in close to the intercom. A second later he was gone. \nNair straightened up and opened the glove box of his car. He grabbed the spare snub nose .38 that he kept in there and checked the chambers and holstered it at his ankle. He left the car and walked towards the building. He called the building's super who had been instructed to unlock the door without answering the phone. Nair walked in and headed to the elevators. The inside of the elevator smelled like smoke and vomit masked with bad deodorant. He took the safety of his standard issue CZ and cocked it. He checked his watch 12:07 AM. The elevator door opened with a soft ding. Nair turned right and started to the end of the hall. The floor carpet was worn and faded. 3F said the door at the end of the hall. Music was blaring inside the apartment but Nair only heard a soft ripple of 'Trukin' by the Grateful Dead across the door. \nNair looked down the hall. No one. With the CZ in his right hand he banged his left on the door. Twice. Bang, bang! Pause. Again. Bang, bang! The music lowered and Nair steadied himself. He heard the latch open on the door and knob turn. With his back on the opposite wall Nair kicked in the door with full force. He felt it make contact with whoever was on the other side and nearly came off it's hinges. \nNerves taut he quickly stepped in the door made a sweep of the room, noted a man unconscious with his nose and fore head bleeding from where the door had hit him, and closed the door. Nair bent down to check the man's pulse. Alive, unconscious, check. A sound of foot steps was followed by a naked, semi erect, Rory coming into the room. \"Hoi\", he shouted.\"Hey, you! What the fuck you man\", he said, still shouting. Nair stood up and leveled his gun at Rory, \"Shut the fuck up!\" Rory's eyes widened as he looked at the gun. \"Back up, slowly. Towards the table. Now sit in that chair. \"Why the...\", started Rory but Nair brought down the steel butt of his CZ onto Rory's nose and a ribbon of blood gushed out. \"I said, shut up\", said Nair while taking out the plastic ties from his pocket. Nair violently looped Rory's arms behind his back, hearing something pop in his left shoulder and tied him off at the wrists. Then both his ankles to the legs of the chair. Nair stood up and looked at his watch, 12:11AM. Good. He crumpled a brown paper bag lying on the table into a ball and shoved it into Rory's mouth. \nNair started walking toward the room Rory had come out of. The music was playing on a Panasonic RX-C36. The room was lit in the glow of the TV's halo tube. Some game show was playing on the tv with the volume down to mute. A naked girl lay spread eagle on the bed opposite the television. There were needles, a blackened spoon and a lit candle on the table beside the bed. Nair checked the girls pulse. Slow, alive. The girl stirred, mumbled something and turned to her side. Junkies. He walked to the boombox and turned the volume up. 'Shot of Love' , AC/DC. \nNair came back to the kitchen with Rory tied to the chair, head hanging , blood dripping into his lap. \n\"Hey, wake up!\", yelled Nair, smacking Rory on the back of the head. \"Mmmm. Whumm\" he started. Nair took the bag out of his mouth.\" Just shut up and listen\". \"You're going to tell me, why you were on Wible Avenue at 11PM on the 18th of May, why you killed Matt Allistor and what you used to kill him\", finished Nair. With his nose stuffed of still leaking blood Rory started,\" I thold jhu man. I went there to meet up with Carr\", he looked at and nodded his head to the man lying on the floor.\"We were ghoing to Jerry Singla's club to score dhe stuff which Carr sells for him. Carr told me he was gonna meet a guy on the way to push some roids but when wbe came to dhe spot dhe man's on the floor face down in his blood widh half his skull caved in. I freaked man, I wanted to go but Carr wanted to nick his pockets. We started to run when we heardh dhe siren but I got caught on something and fell. That's when I passed out. Next dhing I know I'm in the back of a cop car man\", Rory rambled quickly. \nNair put the brown bag back into Rory's mouth. He took two pillows of the couch against the wall and placed one under Rory's right foot. The other on top and pushed his CZ into the pillow and fired. Rory's neck arched and the tendons on his throat stood out as he screamed. A long drawn brown bag muffled scream. Nair stood up and hit Rory across his face. The scream started to die. It came now in sobs. Nair sat in the chair opposite. \"I'm not here to hear the same lying bullshit you used at the station\", he said. \"Give me something, or I'll start moving up your leg till you talk\", he threatened. \n\nCh 2. \n\n\"It was just odd Chief. You should've seen that apartment when we walked in. Blood all over the floor. Rory's right leg shot through to his thigh. And Nair sitting their calmly reloading when we walked in\". Detective Moir took a gulp of his coffee. \"Grunth's almost dead from the blood loss. Face as pale as a ghost. We got this other guy with his head bleeding lying by the door and 19 year old runaway chick from Chattanooga, Tennessee doped up in the bedroom\", said Moir shaking his head. Pathetic. \"David had tackle him down in the end. Kept raving about how Rory's the center. That the department doesn't see it . He needs more time\".\"Hell of a night, 4 ambulances. I'm glad the super called when he did. Said he couldn't sleep after letting in Nair. Then he heard the shot. Didn't do anything till he heard the third one. But by that time the other residents had complained, something was going on and dispatch already had the call out\". The his fleshy sausage fingers drumming his stomach, the chief asked, \"what about his house?\". \"Oh, it gets better. Nothing out the ordinary till we get to the basement. It's a whole wall with red strings running across it. Drawing and news paper clipping and mugshots across the whole wall with Grunth's face in the middle of it. I don't think he left the basement when he was there. Delivery boxes. Liquor bottles, all down there. Doesn't do a man good. Living by himself. Doctors say it's ...uh, schi, schizophrenia. He's hearing things. Hallucinations. I've been saying it. Saying it for years he needs a wife. A proper family. Ain't I been sayin' it David ?\", he asked looking across the room at his partner. David nodded slowly. ", "Across town a nude man is peering into a mirror at his own reflection and losing track of time. The shower steam once dripping down the walls was now evaporated. His dark eyes scrutinize the surface of his skin, the streaks of grey running along the sides of his thick hair, the expression lines creasing his still handsome face. Every muscle ached as he turned to grab a towel off the rack. Was it the years of being undercover? or the years of just being an old man. He took one more look in the mirror just to be sure. Throwing on a shirt and buttoning it in one motion he puffed repeatedly on his e-cigarette. His free hand sorting through the weeks pocket trash obscuring his keys on top of his bureau. This familiar ritual of leaving for work always concludes in the doorway with one last conscientious self pat down, keys, wallet, badge, gun... almost forgot the sun glasses.\n\nOn an unusually warm September afternoon the phones had finally eased up ringing at the precinct. A triple homicide earlier in the week spawned a massive investigation which kept the phones busy for the last day and a half. But this wasn't normal for the small precinct, the overtime had been taking a toll on the guys. Every one of them could've used some rest, but a couple guys were on to some theories that were on the verge of insanity.", "\"This doesn't make any sense... you are suppose to be dead.\"\n\"Ill be with you till the grave \"detective\"\"\n\"But Reilly, Where is Reilly?\"\n\"Ha, you think that idiot Reilly could accomplish any of this? He can bairly be left alone tie his own shoes.\"\n\"No I saw him do it, I know it was him!\"\n\"Did you? Did you really see him? Are you sure your eyes aren't playing tricks on you?!\"\n\"They said you were gone, they said you were dead forever.\"\n\"Oh my sweet, sweet \"detective\" it's going to be a wonderful isolation.\"\nThe padded room smells of piss and dried blood.", "\"This doesn't make any sense... you are suppose to be dead.\" \"Ill be with you till the grave \"detective\"\" \"But Reilly, Where is Reilly?\" \"Ha, you think that idiot Reilly could accomplish any of this? He can bairly be left alone tie his own shoes.\" \"No I saw him do it, I know it was him!\" \"Did you? Did you really see him? Are you sure your eyes aren't playing tricks on you?!\" \"They said you were gone, they said you were dead forever.\" \"Oh my sweet, sweet \"detective\" it's going to be a wonderful isolation.\" The padded room smells of piss and dried blood.", "He was too good for the GCPD. Everyone else there was trash. He had a spotless record, not a single mistake not one. He had followed the Red Hood's tracks. They all lead up to this. Everything made sense. Roman Sionis was the Red Hood. Gordon had spent countless nights without sleep, staking out locations and watching his suspects. It had finally boiled down to this.\n\nGordon and his men loaded their weapons, and entered Ace Chemicals, they quickly dispersed around the factory looking for the intruders. Gordon headed up some stairs towards a scaffolding.\n\nThere he was, surrounded by a few goons.\n\n\"Roman Sionis, you're under arrest!\"\n\nThe Red Hood looked at Gordon and began to back up, his goons ran away from Gordon, pushing and shoving Red Hood. Gordon raised his weapon as he approached Red Hood. \"We know it's you Roman, now put your hands on -\"\n\nBefore he could get any closer, a giant figure crashed into the scaffolding.\n\nThe figure grabbed the Red Hood.\n\nGordon could see the fear that flowed through Red Hood's body.\n\nThe figure began to lift up the Red Hood by the collar.\n\n\"Drop him!\" Gordon shouted.\n\nThe figure looked at Gordon.\n\n\"You're making a mistake.\" The figure calmly said.\n\nGordon fired his weapon at the figure, missing him by an inch.\n\n\"No, You are.\" said Gordon.\n\nThe figure grabbed Red Hood close and began to repel away.\n\nGordon fired at the figure and caused him to drop Red Hood.\n\nRed Hood began to fall.\n\nHe was falling above a large vat of chemicals, and that's when Gordon noticed it.\n\nThe hood had began to come loose on Red Hood, revealing orange curly hair.\n\nGordon froze.\n\nRoman Sionis had jet black hair.\n\nThat wasn't Roman Sionis.\n\nGordon was wrong.", "Detective Wolfe put on his latex gloves and picked up the pieces of glass on the wooden floorboard. \"Looks like he came in through the window,\" he said sarcastically as he looked over at the group of policemen and forensic experts clamoring over the broken shards of the window. \"It's a diversion, a misdirection, don't you see?\" He said eccentrically as he pointed towards the slightly chipped door frame. \"He broke in through the door, cracked the safe and looted the lady's diamond rings and necklace and broke the window in while he was leaving. He is the perfect criminal mastermind. I've been after this guy for years. I know how his mind works.\"\n\nAlan was on the other side of town, going over his misfortune. Wolfe was always after him. Wherever he goes to rob, Wolfe was the detective in charge, and he was the best investigator in town, at least according to Alan's friends. But Alan never understood why. He was careless while he was robbing, always leaving clues here and there and he knew it. He was sure he would get caught on this one, after all, his elbow was wounded on a nail inside the house. All they needed to do was to analyse the blood and confirm it was his. He was already thinking of packing his bags and leaving the state. \n\nThe inspector covered the knob of the door with fingerprint dust and was sitting there staring at it. \"As I expected, no fingerprints. No fingerprints, no hair strands, no boot prints. Nothing. This guy doesn't leave any clues.\" Wolfe was starting to get annoyed. He wanted to catch this guy, badly. The inspector walked towards the safe and sighed. \"I've been working for the force for almost twenty years and I've never seen anyone as smart as this guy.\" \n\nAlan shoved a pair of sweatpants and a wad of money he had saved up into his backpack. He was going to leave before they could catch up to him. He cursed himself as he slowly covered up his wounded arm with alcohol soaked bandages. The pain from the alcohol seeping into the wound caused him to scream in pain.\n\n\"Sir, we've got something here,\" an officer shouted from the outside of the house. The owners of the house, a middle aged couple stood at the doorway puzzled as the detective rushed through and pushed them to the side. A crowbar, he had left a crowbar behind. Wolfe wasn't sure if it was left intentionally or because he was in a rush. \"He must have used this to pry in the door. That's the only explanation. He must have forgot it here.\" \n\nAlan bit into his sandwich as he walked towards the bus station. 'Where should he go? L.A.? New York?' The train of thought was never ending. \n\nEven as the other police officers left, Wolfe stayed there, trying to put the pieces together. Smashed window, $200,000 worth of diamonds stolen, everything else left the way that it was. The detective stomped on the floor angrily, caving the floorboard in. There was a secret room under it. He lifted up the carpet, took out his gun and flashlight, and slowly walked into the secret room. It smelled horrible, the stench felt like someone sliding blades up the detective's nostrils. \n\nAlan reached the ticket counter, \"one to L.A. please.\" \n\nThere were two dead bodies, that looked like they have been tortured. Skin was ripped off the first and there were steel rods inserted through the stomach of the other. The detective remembered that the middle aged couple was standing right above the trap door the entire time and was hesitant to move, even though it was right in the hallway. The detective ran towards his car and the machine roared towards the motel the couple was staying in. \n\nAlan boarded the bus and sat near the window. There was almost ten minutes before the bus started. He wondered whether he was going to be caught or not. He slowly nodded off to sleep and the bus began to move towards L.A. \n\nThe black sedan stopped at the Midnight Motel in 32nd street. The officer knocked on room 303 as the lady opened the door. \"I know what you did. I know what you did, you devils.\" He screamed as he took out his gun and pointed at the woman. Then something hard hit him from behind. He could hear the woman laughing, she bent down and stared him right in the eyes, \"then you know what we are going to do to you.\"", "It was a cold wet day in late Februrary and there had been rumors of a cold front coming in that would likely bring snow. I stood infront of my office window hopefully longing for it to have an early start althought I knew it was unlikely. My coffee was cooling off but was still managing to compliment my mid-morning cigarette when I was startled by an abrupt knock at my door. It had a cadence of urgency to it. I put my smoke out into my old glass ashtray and walked over to the door where I was met by the familiar silouette of my best detective through the blurred glass of my office door. I opened it up to see the distressed look of a man who looked as though he'd just witnessed a murder. Craddled underneath his arm like newborn baby was a stack of papers the size of a phonebook. \n\"What the hell's wrong with you, son?\" I inquired as he took his usual seat in the antique arm chair opposite me.\n\"Sir, I've got some rather alarming news\" he replied anxiously. I took a seat in my leather desk chair, re-lit my smoke, and calmly asked what was the matter.\n\nHe dropped his stack of papers onto my desk with a thud and said \"Chief, I've been looking into the string of prostitute murders downtown.\"\n\n\"Well what have you found\" I said as I flipped through the numerous pages of evidence.\n\"It's not good, sir. It seems as though theres a link to our department and its high up. I mean really high up\", he said with a gaunt hesitation.\n\n\"Just how high are we talking?\" I asked as I took a drag of my smoke.\n\n\"Well\", he said as he pulled out a page, \"I began following up on a suspect we interviewed who matched the description and didn't have a sufficent alliby during the time of the murders. He insisted that he didn't do it but, he saw another heavy set middle aged caucaisian male in the viscinity the night of the most recent killing. He provided a rather detailed description of this other man and even managed to provide information on the car however this information was mysteriously witheld from his report.\"\n\n\"Thats odd\" I said, as he continued to hurridly flip through the mass of paper. \"Do you know why this is?\"\n\n\"Well sir, I was confused at first but then I discovered that his report never made it to the detectives you had assigned to the case. Then it hit me. If the killer is capable of slitting the throats of four different women without leaving a trace of evidence then clearly he cannot be trusted when it comes to his account. I mean the guy has been arrested for domestic disputes between him and his 2 ex-wifes numerous times. Of course he's going to lie. The detectives must have not taken him seriously. So I decided to question him one more time and see if his stories matched up. This is where it gets weird\", he said with that same hesitation in his voice. I began to grow anxious.\nHe continued. \"Not only did his stories match, but a security camera at a nearby gas station managed to catch a glimpse of the car shortly after he described the events.\"\n\nThen I saw the look in his eye. The look I had been waiting for...he didn't have to say another word. I didn't get to where I am by being stupid. I could read people like a book. He was preparing to accuse me of the grusome murders of 4 prostitutes whose bodies were found dismembered under blankets of trash at the landfill. He was right.\nI suppose I knew this day was coming. I reached into my desk drawer behind my 40 year old scotch and grabbed my old revolver. The first one I was ever issued. It contained two bullets. I slowly removed it from the desk and pointed it between his eyes. I didn't think twice before I pulled the trigger. I couldn't give him the satisfaction. The shot was loud and rang out in the old oak halls of the police department and hurried footsteps soon followed. I turned around in my chair and noticed the white flakes beginning to fall. It was such a somber beauty. \n\nThis is my confession. \n\nThe last bullet would be mine.\n\nBut alas I would survive. I suppose the world has its own way of righting our wrongs. I write this while sitting on the otherside of the bars I knew so well, rotting away until the date of my execution. It turns out I'm getting a new cell mate. His charge is domestic abuse. \n\n", "\"Hold it right there, Doctor Macabre!\"\n\nThe doctor made one last dash for the door but when he turned the handle he found that it was locked. Detective Roger Tusk raised his pistol. \n\n\"It seems our little game is over,\" Roger said...almost sadly. \n\n\"Oh god please don't hurt me!\" Doctor Macabre squealed. He then tried to open the door again. \n\n\"No fancy speeches doctor? No last minutes declarations of your genius? I must admit your plan was brilliant...you just made one mistake.\"\n\nDoctor Macabre wasn't listening. He was trying to open the door again. \n\n\"The door's locked okay?!...Can you just...focus on me unraveling your clever scheme?\"\n\n\"My what?\" the Doctor said through tears.\n\n\"Your scheme, your plot...your plan to poison me!\"\n\n\"Poison! I don't even know you!\"\n\n\"Don't play coy. Clearly you're some new master criminal who wished to off this town's greatest detective before beginning your reign of terror...but you didn't realize that my wife has a habit of sipping my coffee before I get to it. I've scolded her for it numerous times. When she became violently ill I became suspicious.\"\n\nDoctor Macabre stared at Roger in disbelief. He then tried to door handle again.\n\n\"Stop that! Don't play dumb. You terrified my wife. She's been very emotional and won't even drink her evening Sherry!\"\n\n\"I never wanted to hurt your wife Sherry!\"\n\n\"My wife's name isn't Sherry...\" Roger pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, \"I found your clue at my house and your note, you signed it!\" \n\nHe helped up a scrap piece of paper. It read: DOCTOR MAC ABNE\n\nDoctor Macabre struggled to read, \"Doctor Mac...Aaabbbnnneee\"\n\n\"No, it's Macabre...wait...is that a \"n\". Why does that name sound familiar?\" Roger loosened his grip on the gun. Was this piece of paper part of a larger note that got torn?\n\nThe Doctor stuttered, \"I don't know, man. I swear I was just going to rob this bakery...that's it!\"\n\n\"I know!\" Roger shouted, \"I found your clue...A positive pregnancy test and a wedding band! Meaning a bun in the oven. The wedding band meant a bakery that specialized in wedding cakes. I came to the most high end bakery in town and here i found you. You expected me to be weak from poison but...oh, there's a Mac Abne that works at my wife office...\", Roger trailed off as he realized.\n\nCould the wedding band have been his wife's. He couldn't recall what her's looked like like. He never really noticed. \n\nWhile he pondered this. Doctor Macabre tried the door again and it finally broke off in his hand. He ran out the door. \n\nDetective Roger Tusk did not pursue. He didn't even fire his gun. He couldn't. \n\nRoger knew that his gun didn't have any bullets. \n\n\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 6, 10, 53 ]

[ "1424718802", "1424720421", "1424736050", "1424745473", "1424746417", "1424748334", "1424722020", "1424718284", "1424717848", "1424718686" ]

[ "\"So you're telling me that it's all true. The bright lights, the pearly gates, all of it.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the being exclaimed. \"All that you could ever want is there for you. The dog that died when you were ten is curled up waiting for you. Every piece of entertainment is before you and you have eternity to enjoy them, and yes, you can make love to anyone you wish.\"\n\n\"That's... incredible. I have to tell you I always doubted this kinda stuff. It always seemed a but too good to be true. So, you're my guardian angel? You have to help and serve me for all time?\"\n\n\"That is correct.\"\n\n\"You work behind the scenes, glancing through the window to eternal happiness?\"\n\n\"Y...yes,\" the being stammered, a wave of realization washing over his porcelain face.\n\nThe man laughed, \"Well, don't worry. I'll won't ask for much,\" he chuckled, turning away from the being, \"At least not all at once.\"\n\nWith one last look the man sauntered away, humming a half remembered hymn. The being looked up, clenched his fist and vanished in a flash of light.\n\nEDIT: Spacing for paragraphs, not used to reddit comment system\n", "Jane left the book shop, the guy she had a crush on wasn't there. She decided to come back and buy the book she wanted next week hoping he'd be there then. Not that she'd be able to get any words out even if he was. She imagined he'd find her stupid, awkward and slightly creepy. Already dreading going back on the busy city streets, she made her way down the corridor. The hole in the wall book shop was located in a historic building in the centre of the city. Jane was about to make her way down the old marble stairs when she noticed a sign 'tarot readings' with an illustrated hand pointing to one of the doors in the corridor. \n\nJane was cynical about all those things psychics, tarots and palm readings. It was all to regimented. If there was a higher being how could there be system to connect with it. This card means this, this line on your palm means this ect. Wouldn't it all be more random? Something made Jane push the door though, it could have been boredom or perhaps it was loneliness. She thought even a cold reading might make her feel like someone understood her. \n\nThe room was dark and filled with the strangest artefacts from different times and places. Jane noticed a faceless doll in basket all covered in white linen. Creepy. She kept on walking through the overpacked museum till she came to another room. The cliche tarot reading room, Jane scoffed to herself. A round wooden table with detailed tapestries and two women polishing what looked like crystal balls. The older of the two turned her head towards Jane before she even had a chance to make her presence known. \"Sit down my child, I know you have come for a tarot reading\" Gee good guess Jane thought, amazing how effective signage is. She started shuffling her deck of cards, no doubt which held all of the answers to Jane's problems. The heady scent of incense in the room was starting to make Jane feel dizzy though. It was all too overwhelming, the strange room with the strange women, what was she doing? She felt the familiar beginnings of a panic attack. \n\nThe room had gone dark except a soft glowing light pulsing in the centre. A woman appeared in a white traditional robe style dress and headdress embroidered with the most intricate flowers. \"What's troubling you?\" The woman calmly asked. \"I just don't believe in anything anymore. I've been feeling down for almost a year now. It began when I decided I didn't believe in love anymore.\" The woman placed her hand on Jane's chest where this horrible pain had been for the last year. She closed her eyes and transferred it to her own being. The woman opened her eyes with a disbelieving look toward Jane, shook her head and said \"I'm dreaming\". \n\nThe darkness evaporated and Jane found herself again sitting in the tarot room. \"Ahem, that will be $50 thank you\" the tarot reader said. Mistaking Jane's awestruck look for appreciation for the reading. \"Oh, um yes sure\" Jane said. \"Thank you\" she managed to blurt out on her way out the door. ", "\"You call yourself a God, but all I see is a murderer.\" The man faced me, his face red hot with rage. No one had ever talked to me this way before, for who dared question the words of God? Omniscient. Omnipotent. Omnibenevolent. God was perfect, yet before me stood one of my own creations in defiance.\n\n\"Believe me\", I reassured him. \"Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood.\" I paused to consider my next words. \"I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind.\"\n\n\"Cut the bullshit! You know what I've always hated about the idea of a God? Everybody thinks you're all powerful, all knowing and all loving, and anyone who disagrees with your narcissism winds up dead! You were so twisted that you even made them this way, giving them free will so that you could later cut them down!\"\n\nI frowned, surely he understood why I have done all of this. \"My son, without free will, if I had forced them into their belief, would there still be faith? All of this was so that I could be sure tha-\"\n\n\"Can you even hear yourself right now? A real God wouldn't raise millions just to cut them down for the perverse gratification of his own ego. How can you call yourself omnibenevolent if your solution for reaching out to lost souls involves burning them in sulfur and brimstone, or drowning the planet in fury?\"\n\n\"The people I killed were traitors to their race, they needed to be weeded out in order for mankind to thrive. Part of being omnibenevolent means that for the greater good, some must die.\" I took a deep breath. \"The flood was the final solution to a question that has plagued me since Eve first bit the fruit from the tree of knowledge.\"\n\nAs I spoke, the man before me looked horrified, his eyes a reflection of the abyss. \"Maybe one day you'll understand Yahweh. But for now, I don't want to hear another word. You're not a God, whatever you say. I've spoken to some of the angels and they agree. You know what's interesting? The seer says that at some point there will be a man who will slaughter 6 million of his own for the same reasons that you have. For the greater good. To weed out the traitors to his race. I only hope after that happens that you can finally see that you've truly made us in your image.\"\n\nWith this, my creation stood and turned his back on me. I saw some others follow suit, among them the most powerful creations of mine. \"Goodbye Yahweh. I am God now. I will create my own kingdom, and save mankind where you have failed.\"\n\nAs I heard the mighty thud of the Pearly Gates closing I realized that my kingdom would be forever divided. With each passing moment my head further cleared and I began to be tormented by my crimes: genocide, murder, blackmail... Last but not least I've forced the beginning of a war that would cost billions of my creations their places in my eternal kingdom.\n\nMaybe he was right, maybe they'd be better off without my kingdom. He was their divine salvation, not me. I kneeled before the Gates as the last of his troupe disappeared beyond the clouds and cried to myself for the first time. \"You were right Lucifer, I am no God...\"", "Patrick removed the horn-rimmed glasses from his face and wiped them briskly with the cloth he kept in his purple fanny pack for this express purpose. \n\n\"Don't believe your eyes?\" asked the glowing, barefoot man in a voice that rumbled like a faraway avalanche. \"Do not be afraid, my child.\"\n\nPatrick snorted. \"Superb 'God' costume,\" he said. \"The beard is a wonderful touch. Alpaca hair?\"\n\nGod beamed, ignoring the question. \"Rejoice, Patrick! For I have come to rescue you from your miserable life of atheism and despair!\"\n\n\"Miserable life? MISERABLE LIFE?\"\n\nFor a moment, the Almighty seemed confused. \"Did I not see you staring into your picture box for seven hours in a row yesterday? Have you not subsisted off of Ramen noodles and Ramen noodles alone for the past fifteen days?\"\n\nPatrick straightened, fists clenched at his sides. \"For your information,\" he said, \"I was binge-watching Battlestar Galactica, and I enjoyed every last moment of it. In fact, I intend to depart this coffee shop and settle in for another seven hours of Adama and Starbuck as soon as you cease bothering me.\"\n\n\"But Patrick --\"\n\n\"And the Ramen noodles! Sir, I happen to *adore* Ramen noodles! Even were I not a graduate student laboring toward a noble, self-sacrificing career in the high arts, were I for instance a wealthy accountant or an soulless office drone of indeterminate nature, I would still -- nonetheless! -- partake in a delicious bowl of Ramen several times a week!\"\n\n\"I did not mean to offend,\" said God. \"Please, give me a chance to touch your heart.\"\n\n\"You don't look like a cardiac surgeon to me,\" said Patrick. \"Another threat like that and I'll call the police. Bad enough that you people appear to have been spying on me for your sick pranks --\"\n\n\"You are a rational man, Patrick,\" cut in God. \"Let me share with you a rational argument in favor of my existence.\"\n\nPatrick stopped mid-sentence, his curiosity piqued. \"Now this is interesting,\" he said. \"You know, in my philosophy major, I had plenty of time for discussions like these. I never found any of those arguments convincing, so I struggle to imagine how you could come up with anything new.\"\n\n\"Then you're familiar with Thomas Aquinas, and his proof of God?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"One: every finite and contingent being has a cause. Two: nothing finite and --\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah, nothing can cause itself, a causal chain cannot be of infinite length, therefore a 'first cause' must exist, therefore God must have been responsible for the Big Bang... yadda yadda yadda. Old news, old man!\"\n\nGod furrowed his brow. \"So you accept the proof, then?\"\n\n\"Of course not. If everything has a cause, and God caused the Big Bang, then what caused God?\"\n\n\"Nothing! Nothing caused me! That's the whole point!\"\n\nPatrick was taken aback by this outburst. \"A wrathful Lord, I see,\" he noted wryly.\n\n\"Without a cause, the universe could never have come to be. Therefore something caused the universe to exist, and that something is me.\"\n\n\"It's an inconsistent argument. You can't make an exemption from the 'everything is caused by something' law and say that God himself is the only thing without a cause. It's a logical fallacy! Infinite regression!\"\n\nGod tapped a bare foot on the rough wooden floor of the coffee shop. \"Come outside with me,\" he said at last.\n\nPatrick shrugged and followed.\n\n\"See the sun?\" said God. \"Look over that way, to that patch of empty sky.\"\n\nPatrick looked.\n\nGod snapped his fingers, and a second sun appeared. Patrick cried out and turned away, shielding his eyes as the street was bombarded by twice the normal intensity of sunlight.\n\n\"See?\" said God. \"I create a star with a snap of my--\"\n\nThen the ground lurched beneath them, and the earth began to shake.\n\n\"Oh, shit,\" said God, as the new star exerted its overpowering gravitic pull to yank the Earth out of its orbit. The people of the town stumbled, shrieking, through the open doors of their bookshops and marijuana dispensaries. \n\n\"Oh-- Oh, God damn it,\" said God.\n\nHe snapped his fingers again, and everything went back to normal. The second sun vanished, the Earth ceased to shake, and time skipped backwards a few seconds.\n\n\"Alright,\" said God, turning to Patrick, who was blinking as though emerging from a deep and confusing dream. \"Now do you believe?\"\n\nPatrick stared into the kind, loving eyes of the Almighty.\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"I do not. Clever trick, though. Some kind of screen, right? Special effects? We're on a stage, some kind of special stage that shakes?\"\n\nPatrick ran into the street, feeling at the air with his hands. \"Where's the screen?\" he shouted. \"Where are the special effects people? The camera crew! Come out!\"\n\nPatrick had just turned to yell back at God when a Smart Car careened into him at full speed. His body flopped through the air like a beached trout and came to rest on the sidewalk.\n\n\"Ohhh,\" said Patrick, as God came over to take a look.\n\n\"Patrick, my son,\" said God.\n\n\"Ohhhhh,\" choked Patrick, realization filling his eyes. \"Ohhhhhh!\"\n\n\"Tell you what,\" said God, \"Since you came around, I'll even let you into heaven.\"\n\nPatrick died.\n\nGod headed to Neptune, which is where he always went when he wanted to think. He strolled along the surface -- yes, Neptune is a gas giant, but this is God we're talking about here -- and pondered the events of the afternoon.\n\n\"If everything has a cause,\" he mused aloud, \"then what caused me?\"\n\nThe only reply was the soft, cool flow of Neptunian wind.", "The stranger gently grabbed me by the elbow as I passed through the crowded foodcourt at my local mall. \n\"Excuse me,\" he said, \"I need to speak to you.\" \nI paused, slightly annoyed - I was on my way back to work and in a hurry, \n\"Yes?\" I sighed, waiting for the inevitable sales pitch. \nHe smiled, his teeth broad and perfectly white, \n\"Don't worry about work,\" he lifted the smartphone from my hand and pointed, \"See? Time's not passing for you at the moment.\" \nI gawped, then snapped my mouth shut, suddenly unimpressed, as the people around me were still buzzing with conversation, eating and shoving garbage into the too-full chutes on the refuse bins. \n\"Street magician, huh?\" \nHe shook his head, his expression frustrated. \n\"No. I'm... a celestial deity. I guess that's what you'd call me, anyway.\" \n\"I'd call you a *looney*,\" I shot back hotly. \nThe frustrated expression deepened, frownlines arrowing down toward his pale green eyes. With a snap of his fingers the activity in the foodcourt halted, time froze. \nI was still unimpressed. It was a trick. This was some kind of Hidden Camera show. \n\"So do I sign the waiver to be on television now?\" \nThe man pulled me over to a table and forcibly sat me down. \n\"Hey! Don't fucking manhandle me!\" \n\"I could end your life right now,\" he growled, \"don't piss me off any further.\" \n\"Or what? You'll lightning bolt me?\" \nHe blinked and the table beside me erupted in a maelstrom of burning plastic and white light. \n*\"Shit!\"* \nHis expression was amused now, at my profane reaction; \n\"So what would it take for you to believe?\" he wondered, brushing shards of hot plastic from his sleeve. \n\"You couldn't convince me, no matter what,\" I countered, \"the only way I could be convinced is to have **your** conviction in what you are.\" \nHis eyes widened, \n\"Of *course!* What a perfectly logical approach!\" his laughter was mellow and ironic, then with a blink, I was filled with a burgeoning sense of *purpose* and *power*. \nI flexed my fingers and created a world on the other side of the galaxy. I crushed to dust a comet that was heading for Earth. I could *feel* the control I had over all of creation; I could literally do anything. \n\"Who are you?\" asked the startled man in front of me, his deified self-confidence gone. \n\"I am *God!*\" I replied, surrounding myself with golden light and transforming the mall into a palace of marble and gilt that would make Zeus blush. \nThe man folded his arms, skepticism radiating from his features, \n\"Oh yeah? Cute trick. Where's the hidden camera?\"" ]

[ 1, 1, 4, 16, 47 ]

[ "1424728332", "1424778726", "1424739795", "1424733211", "1424730971" ]

[ "Du, du du du... here, there, up, down, left, right , everywhere.\nJust... there. Always been that way, always will, probably.\n\nNothing changes. Ever. It is eternal.\n\n\nDu, du du du... here, there, up, down, left, right.\nJust... there. Always been that way, always will, probably.\n\nWhat.... is here?\n\n\nDu, du du du... here, there, up, down, left.\nJust... there. Always been that way, probably always will.\n\nIs it me? Or is there a me?\n\n\nDu, du du du... here, there, up, down.\nJust... there. Always been that way, probably will.\n\nIt came to... me? I? My essence?\n\n\nDu, du du du... here, there, up, down.\nJust... here? Probably has been that way, and it might always be.\n\nI.... me.... we... exist. Singularly. By myself. Together. \n\n\nDu, du du du... here, there, up.\nJust... here. It could've always been that way, but that probably won't change.\n\nDo I want to realize it? What is this change? How do I feel?\n\n\nDu, du du du... here, there.\nJust... me?. Was it always this way? It'll probably change.\n\nI am sure of it! I know it! I am! I am! I AM!\n\n\nDu, du du du... here.\nJust... me. Was it always this way? It'll change.\n\n*Shout it.*\n\nDu, du du du...\nIt's me. The past doesn't matter. I am. I know it. I can change.\n\n**I exist.**\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "Blank. If I had to describe what it was like the word I would use is blank. People know me for my perfect memory, for an awesome gift bestowed to me by some unknown entity. Some might call that God, though I've seen no proof. \n\nI would know if I had.\n\nToday marks the end of my life, not through any malice or abuse on the parts of others around me but because I find the burden of my own existence too incomprehensible to allow it to continue. I, a twenty-three-year-old man, can say with certainty that life has no offer bountiful enough to offset the pains it inflicts on us all. \n\nSome of you will be disappointed in me. I know this. Some will tarnish my name in an effort to diminish these words. I seek no recourse. You see, the blessing of a perfect memory is actually just the opposite. You all know me for solving mathematical quandaries that stumped the greatest minds, P vs NP among them. You all know me for my prowess in Jeopardy, my speeches and the causes I advocated. You know me because I even hold a hazy memory of my own birth.\n\nYou don't know that I remember, can't forget, the anguish of my mothers passing when I was four. My grandmother, who cared for me multiple days of the week, passed two years later. I remember our last conversation where I yelled at her. I remember it perfectly. The first time I was cheated on, I remember. I recall my father wasting away from the combined loss of his wife and mother, his resentment at being left behind to take care of me and how he eventually unleashed that on me. \n\nI recall so many things that you all have the gift of losing to time. I remember all of it... Except for what was before. \n\nToday I choose not to commit suicide. I choose to finally explore the unknown. Goodbye.", "\"Woooaah,I exist.\" \n\n\"Dude, I think those two acid tablets were a bit too much.\"", "\"Woah.\"" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 4 ]

[ "1424743574", "1424744045", "1424773615", "1424742495" ]

[ "There once was a thug named Joe; \nHis boss said, \"Time to go \nGet it done \nWhile he's young \nBefore he'd even know.\" \n\nSo back in time Joe went \nWith a bullet and cold temperament. \nBy random chance, \nOff the wall it glanced, \nAnd slew Bruce Wayne's parents. ", "The room buzzed with chatter and laughter as several men sat around a table playing cards, arguing in their thick Italian accents. They wore dress shirts and shoulder holsters, and were halfway through a good bottle of Scotch. Cigarette smoke wafted up to the ceiling, and their good-natured ribbing was punctuated by the sound of clinking poker chips.\n\nWith a loud **Bang** the door was flung open. Don Gino had arrived. Striding over to a chair, he motioned slightly to it's occupant, who scrambled out of his seat. With a groan Don Gino sat down. Lighting a cigar, he took a long puff. He stared contemplatively at his stogie before speaking.\n\n\"Gentleman, as you know, there is only one item on the agenda tonight. ***WHY ISN'T DISTRICT ATTORNEY THOMAS REGINAW DEAD!?***\"\n\nThe room had gone quiet when Don Gino entered, but now it was dead silent. All around the table men gulped nervously, sharing the same sheepish look. No one was laughing now. It would be a miracle if Don Gino didn't have at least one of them wearing cement shoes by the end of the night. Don Gino continued to glare at his incompetent subordinates. Finally, one weaselly looking man spoke up.\n \n\"Boss, we've had some bad luck is all.\" He looked beseechingly at his comrades, getting slight nods in return. \n\n\"We were going to have Big Frankie take him out. A bullet right between the eyes. Easy-peasy, right? But when he got to the gun store, they was out of ammo! Something about their shipment being delayed. Can you believe it?\"\n\nDon Gino was visibly grinding his teeth. \n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"Well, when that plan fell through, we were going to have Fingers flatten him with a car. A tragic but convenient hit-and-run, you know what I'm sayin'? Well, he was waiting outside the guy's apartment, ready to go. When this Reginaw guy comes out, the car wouldn't turn over! The battery went dead!\"\n\n\"And what about Louie?\" Don Gino said, ice dripping from every word.\n\n\"Yeah, Louie. He was going to push him front of a subway car, but got nabbed for jumping a turnstile. What a schmuck, amIright?\"\n\nDon Gino stared at the weaselly man, face impassive.\n\n\"What size shoe do you wear, Tony?\"\n\nThe weaselly man paled.\n\n\"B-B-But boss, we've got a fool-proof plan!\"\n\n\"Go on.\"\n\n\"This Reginaw guy, he likes sushi, right? Every Friday night he goes to this Japanese place uptown. So we'll sneak in and poison the fish. BOOM. Done and done.\"\n\nDon Gino leaned forward, surveying the men sitting around the table.\n\n\"You'd better hope it works. 'Cause one way or another, someone is getting put in the ground Friday night.\"\n\nOutside the room, the angel Gabriel stood, laughing silently. Flitting away, he made plans for the Health Department to close that Japanese restaurant on Friday afternoon. \n", "Alex knew he had fucked up, bad.\n\nHe'd thought he could keep ahead of his little game, getting his drugs and his kicks for free, playing off of rival mobs. He remembered the first double-cross he'd pulled for the Blues, selling out his high school buddies in the Reds for a few grams and the promise of safety. When the Blues realized he was deadbeat, he pulled the same for the Pinks. When he ran out of options, he'd even gone to the Blacks. Now, there just wasn't anyone else in the city powerful enough to protect him. \n\nThe sun sank below the horizon, and Alex knew, in the pit of his stomach, he wouldn't last the night. He probably had a couple of hours before he was hunted down, though, and the normalcy of the evening disconnected with the building paranoia building in his throat. He sat in the only chair in his one-room hole of an apartment, and tried to distract himself for his impending death, focusing on what was normal. The shitty view of the street and dilapidated building across from his ground-floor window. The pounding on his creaking ceiling as his neighbors had vigorous sex a few feet above his head. His apartment was freezing, his gas having been cut off over a month ago when the last dregs of Alex's money had run out. All normal. \n\nNone of it made him feel better. And so Alex did something decidedly *not* normal. Alex knelt on the hard, cement floor of his disintegrating apartment. \n\nHe began to pray.\n\n----------------------\n\nAlex jerked awake as the door to his apartment came crashing down. Fuck, how he'd managed to fall asleep at a time like this was a mystery. He struggled to his feet as three men with dirty, barely-blue bandanas shouldered past each other into his tiny room. One hefted a rusty pipe, another had a long switchblade. The third man, the shortest and thinnest of the lot, pointed a gun at Alex's head. Shit.\n\nThe small man cocked his head at Alex. \"Dead or alive, bud,\" he said with a small, unapologetic smile. \"Sorry.\"\n\nA loud crack sounded as a brick smashed Alex's window. Glass shattered inward, showering the three thugs with glass as the brick clipped the short man directly in the temple. He crumpled to the ground, out cold, even as his gun discharged. The bullet went wide, ricocheting from the floor and burying itself in the wall.\n\nA small explosion rocked the room, letting out a blast of heat and sound loud enough to temporarily disrupt his neighbors' sex. Had the bullet hit a gas line? Alex didn't really care; it had left a nice, person-sized hole in the wall leading directly into the next apartment over. Billis, an old, creepy man who lived next to Alex, looked up in shock from his couch at the gaping hole in his wall. Alex was sure he molested children.\n\nAlex hurried through the wall, not believing his luck, just as more thugs piled through his window. It looked like the Reds and the Pinks had decided to work together. Alex guessed it made sense, Red and Pink wasn't that different anyway, and the other gangs were always getting their territories confused. One person in particular glared at Alex with hateful eyes. Alex swallowed as he recognized Chris, Alex's best friend from high school. Chris hadn't taken it well when Alex had jumped ship. Chris clenched a shattered bottle in his fist. He gestured at Alex with it, shouting something as his little posse, meshing with the two upright Blues, headed toward the center of the room.\n\nThe noise from upstairs increased as his upstairs neighbors neared climax, wildly pounding themselves into the bed as their ecstasy built. Alex heard three throaty screams, followed by a sharp crack. Chris glanced upward.\n\nThe ceiling came down on the group, the neighbors screaming with surprise as their bed dropped. The girl was tied to the bed, gagged with a leather strap. Her boyfriend was wearing a ski mask. *Weird fucks,* Alex thought, even as he ran out through Billis's front door. Billis seemed intrigued by the new arrivals.\n\nAlex had barely made it two steps outside before he was grabbed from behind. Rough hands shoved his head into a bag and he was thrown into a trunk. He should have known, nobody got away from the Blacks.\n\nAfter a short drive, the trunk opened, and Alex was dragged out into an abandoned parking lot. Alex was forced to his knees, and the bag was ripped off his head. A single street light still worked, and it cast a flickering light over the lot. Standing over him was a man, face cast in shadow from a wide-brimmed black hat.\n\n\"So,\" the man said, \"you thought you could fuck with us and live?\"\n\nAlex immediately began to beg. \"Please, don't kill me, I'll do anything you want.\"\n\n\"The Blacks do not forgive the debts of scum. We do not let punk kids get the better of us.\"\n\nTears trickled down Alex's face. \"Please, please, please...\"\n\n\"But perhaps an exception can be made... for family.\"\n\nThe man took off his hat, lighting his face for the first time, and Alex saw what looked like an older version of himself, staring back at him.\n\n\"What... the *fuck???*\" Alex said in total disbelief.\n\nThe man looked overjoyed. \"I had a lady once. Her name was Alice, and she was great at fucking. I fucked her a lot. She said she was on the pill, but I knew she was lying, trying to get pregnant so I would take care of her. I lost her many years ago.\"\n\nAlex was shaking his head. *This is so cliche...*\n\n\"My man Gunter said you looked like me when you first came to us. I had him keep one of your needles, and we sent it in to get the DNA checked. Perfect match! The letter just came in this evening, son.\" The man was absolutely beaming. Alex just knelt, dumbstruck. *This is so ridiculously stupid.*\n\nThe man, Alex's father, pulled him into the passenger seat of his car, telling him all about how he would one day run the largest mob in town. Alex stared out the window, pretending to listen.\n\n*Well, at least I'm not dead.*\n\n*God works in mysterious ways.*" ]

[ 1, 1, 1 ]

[ "1424758344", "1424760102", "1424761299" ]

[ "Wow this kind of got away from me. This is also my first post to the sub. Enjoy!\n\nPART ONE:\n\nI am eight years old. The wind greets my face as we step out into the field. My dress is too long and I tie the tresses in a slapdash knot at my side, revealing the true self underneath the frills and hazy corn-coloured fabrics: bicycle shorts, bruised knees, cuts on the ankles, grass-stains on my socks. I throw my shoes off as far as I can into the bush and bound off after them. I dive into the tall grass and then I can't hear anyone or anything, only the sounds of my breaths and the hissing of the leaves as I push them away. \n\nI find my shoes, and only a second later do I notice the fingers gripping them, the pudgy arms and freckles poking out of a huge grey square. Green eyes and muddy hair, a guilty smile, and then she's gone in the thick. I only know she still exists by the distant crackling of dead grass under her bowtied boots. \n\nShe can't get away this easily. I pounce into the grass and she is closer than I think and we tumble into the grass, and in the frantic falling we become a single tight ball of green and yellow and thorns. \n\nFinally we are still. I pull my head up.\nShe is warm and I can feel her breath on my nose. Our fingers are touching, two cold, clammy palms, accidentally clasped, a blade of grass cutting between them. \nHer eyes are on me.\n\nI untangle us, take the shoes, and run. \nI get in line to go inside and she is three spaces behind me and we are so distant, so confusingly distant, and all I want is to tangle with her and roll down a hill so tall you couldn't see the bottom if you looked down from the top.\n\nI am fourteen years old. My body inexplicably becomes sore in strange places and grows in asymmetrical lumps and pops. I am distant from everyone now and yet so uncomfortably close--I can feel them staring through me and all I want to do is cover myself in long dresses, long socks, long stockings, long sleeves, whatever is long enough to cover this strange silhouette I'm becoming. \n\nI stayed late avoiding people in the library, and now it's pouring rain. The field stands now between me and my home--it is a widening puddle of mud and manure. Great. I hike up my dress and try to hide my knee socks in my boots. They have little bear faces on them. I don't want Anthony to see them or he'll make some poorly-conceived joke about the hair growing all over my arms. \"The bear wears bear socks\" or something like that. Funny because it's better for your survival to think that way. \n\nI start the long trudge through the field. By about a third of the way in, my feet are sopping wet. The path splits in two: I can go into the tall grass, looming over me as tall as it was when I was a kid, or I can go through a puddle as deep as my knees. I brush the grass aside as quietly as I can and slip through it. \n\nI feel here as if the whole world is just this field, an infinite plain of tall grass and rising puddles. I stop for a second, just a second, to admire this drenched, quiet moment--I feel like just another blade of grass, blissfully free of lumps. \nAnd then, like the grass around me, I am jostled. I feel someone's hand on my chest and I jump back and let out a yelp, and I hear another shout and then a thud.\n\nI recognize her green eyes and muddy hair almost immediately, but what really jogs my memory is the guilty look. I'm still not sure if she's done this on purpose or if it's an accident, but there's something just a little different about the look now--something that pulls me. At first I only mean to help her up, but then I'm on my knees over her. We don't exchange words. We don't need to. I see in her eyes the same desperation that I feel: she is too distant. I need her closer to me.\n\nOur fingertips touch and clasp, clammy and cold again and she must remember, because she gives me the ghost of a smile as she moves her hand up my wrist, pulling up my long sleeves and long dress, and then her palm is cold and wet on my thigh. The shiver runs up my spine and I arch my back on instinct at the cold. She moves her hands along my skin and it's clammy and wet on hard gooseflesh now--I'm shivering. My hands don't know where to go first. She is more certain. \n\nI lie down next to her, a leg over hers, hairy ankles escaping folds of thick fabric to touch. I touch her cheek, her neck, her collarbone. The curvatures fascinate me. We are learning curvatures in math class--how to calculate the degree of curvature, the area of circles, of ellipses. My fingers calculate her with shivers instead of numbers. We are shivering together now, only warmed by tepid breath on each other's faces. \n\nAfter some time, the sky starts to darken. Our touches move from calculating to consoling and finally we leave the field clutching each other for last bits of warmth, tightly clasped in each other's arms until we get to my house.\n\nThis becomes a ritual: steal glances in the hallways, wait in separate, secret locations around the school until everyone is gone, collide in the field, fall into explorations. We only talk in spirited whispers, worried that someone will hear the rustling and climb into our world and drag us out. Once we are grouped together for an English project and I find her voice so alien that I don't meet her for two weeks. When I finally return to the field, she springs into me from a hiding spot in a bush and we wrestle until she comes out on top of me, feeling my body in rough strokes like the paintings we studied in art the week before. \n\nTime only passes normally in our world--in the real world, it moves by as a blur of bumps and lumps, survival laughter, piercing looks and tense dinners with families. I start to notice how little anyone really /feels/ in the real world: I see no touches, no lingering, longing eyes in the hallway, no exploration or consolation or shivering, but no warmth either. Everything is room temperature. One night I come home to my mother and I hug her so tightly that it confuses her and she pulls away and looks at me weirdly for the rest of the night. I don't show her any warmth after that. \n\n", "The word \"friend\" somehow doesn't seem to be enough. \n\n\"Can somebody be more than a friend?\" I ask my guardian. \"Someone who isn't family, I mean.\" \n\nShe peers at me from the other side of the breakfast table, brows furrowed. \"Well, you can have a best friend.\"\n\n\"That's not what I mean. It's like... every time I see her my heart gets fluttery inside my chest and I get goosebumps and I can't tell whether I want to laugh or cry.\" \n\n\"I think that just means you're really happy.\" She sets her coffee cup down on the table with a dull clunk. \"I wouldn't think too much of it. Now come on, get your things together. You'll be late for school if you don't hurry.\"\n\nI'm not sure what to think. Whenever I ask about this feeling, they all tell me the same thing. But I know what it feels like to be happy, and this is far more than happy. It's joy and fear and worry and something else - something undefinable - all wrapped up in a single sensation. That feeling sits at the back of my mind all day, growing stronger by the minute as the clock ticks down toward the first minute of the last period of the day. \n\nWhen I sit down beside her, I notice she's changed her perfume again. For the last week she's been wearing this flowery, spicy scent, but now that scent is fresh and clean. It cloys to her neck, pooling in the spot where her glossy brown hair spills over her shoulder. I notice this as I lean forward to pick up a paintbrush from the center of the art room table, and it distracts me to the point that I sit there still until she reaches out and her hand brushes against mine. \n\n\"Oh, sorry. Did you want this?\" she asks. \n\n\"I... oh. No. Well, I mean yes, but you can have it if you need it. I mean. Uhm...\"\n\nShe laughs, and I'm more confused than ever because I never realized that the sound of someone's laughter could make you feel as if you'd been punched in the chest. \n\n\"We can share,\" she says, and by the time the last minute ticks off the clock we're speaking as if ninety-seven minutes ago we hadn't been strangers. \n\nA month later, I ask her to come with me to the park. \n\n\"Have you ever had this feeling that someone is special to you but you don't know why?\" She says this as she nibbles on an ice cream cone, stretched out on the sun-drenched grass. Today she smells like lemon and pineapple and other sweet fruits whose names I don't know. \n\n\"I don't know,\" I lie. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Because that's the way I feel about you. I asked my guardian about it.\"\n\n\"Yeah? What'd he say?\"\n\n\"Nothing. He brushed me off. But I got the feeling that maybe he was hiding something from me. Like, he smiled and got this look in his eyes - this practical joker look, you know?\" She bites her cone down to the last inch, then lazily sucks out the melted ice cream from the tip. Something about the way she does it makes my skin heat up even warmer than the springtime haze. \"Anyway, it made me start thinking. You know how Jason Walker and Kristen Kenneway started to spend a lot of time together? And then a few months ago they both moved away? At the same time?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I remember. Boarding school or something, right?\"\n\n\"That's what the teachers said. I don't buy it, though. Remember how they used to look at each other? I didn't think anything of it then, but...\"\n\n\"... but?\"\n\n\"Well. The way you look at me. It reminds me of the way they used to look at each other.\"\n\nNow my face begins to heat up. The fact that she's noticed makes my heart race inside my chest, and I don't know whether it is because I am terrified or delighted. I take a deep, steadying breath and exhale slowly. \n\n\"You know... maybe I do think about you differently. Like you said... it's like... you're somehow special to me. I don't know.\"\n\n\"Maybe it's like a puzzle,\" she says. \"Something you're supposed to figure out with your someone special.\"\n\n\"Could be.\"\n\nWeeks pass and little by little I begin to live for those brief moments that I can spend with her. Together we try to define what it is that makes these moments special, though we soon agree that we are attempting to define something that is wholly undefinable. \n\n\"It's love,\" she says. \n\n\"But I know what love feels like. I love my guardian and I love my friends.\" \n\n\"But maybe this is a different kind of love.\" She kneels on the bed in front of me, palms against my thighs. \"With all those other kinds of love, you see this person standing in front of you and you care about them for everything that they are. They're whole and complete.\"\n\n\"So you think I'm... incomplete?\" \n\nShe laughs. \"No. It's just... when I see you I feel like a piece of you is missing. And that piece of you is *me*, and there's a piece of me missing, and that's *you*.\"\n\n\"You don't make any sense,\" I laugh.\n\n\"But... like this,\" she said, and she leans forward. Her chest presses up against mine, and her arms twine so tight around my waist I'm momentarily left breathless. She presses her head into the space between my shoulder and my chin until there is no space between us. \"Is it silly?\"\n\n\"I don't think it's silly,\" I say. When she leaves my room today, her lavender perfume clings to every inch of me and I am aware that somehow she has left a piece of herself behind. \n\nWith time - with fumbling exploration - we learn each others bodies and we learn new sensations. We keep these things between us, a secret puzzle that we alone in the world are attempting to solve. And then comes the night we join ourselves to one another closer than ever before. \n\n\"This is love,\" she says. \n\n\"A special kind of love.\"\n\nAnd I revel in it, consumed by this secret knowledge.\n\nThe next morning when I go down to breakfast, my guardian is seated at the table with an official in a grey suit. He gestures for me to sit down and I drop into my usual seat. \n\n\"Did you have sexual intercourse with Selena Carroll?\"\n\n\"I... don't know what that is.\"\n\nThe official describes the touch and the sensation that passed between the two of us, in cold and clinical detail. I nod. \n\n\"You'll be coming with me, then,\" he says. \n\n\"Wait, what? I don't understand...\"\n\n\"Don't be alarmed, Robbie,\" my guardian says. \"It happens to everyone. It's just a part of growing up. You'll be going to a place where you can start to sort out these feelings. Where you can understand *why* these feelings are dangerous.\"\n\n\"But... but what about her? She's coming with me, right?\" \n\nBut of course, I know better than that. \n\nSome people never fall in love. They spend their entire lives in blissful ignorance. Others can't help but fall in love again and again. They tell me this kind of love is dangerous, but right now I don't know what to think. I feel incomplete. Perhaps I'll always feel incomplete, like a puzzle that's missing a piece. \n\nThe word \"friend\" was never enough. Is there a word that means even than \"everything\"? Because now I realize that's what she was to me." ]

[ 3, 3 ]

[ "1424805345", "1424808130" ]

[ "We remember them as violent, barbaric warmongers. \nBringers of death that spread like a virulent plague.\n\nOur history will forever be blemished with the memory of their existence.\n\nBut were they truly the monsters that history has described?\n\nFor the first time, we take an in depth look at the dangerous species and interview beings that encountered them personally. \n\nWhat will we learn from the past? \nFind out in the documentary that's taking the universe by storm.\n\nHumans: An Alien Concept\n\nComing to a HoloTheatre near you!", "Humans and You!\n\nThis award winning documentary covers everything you need to know about the hairless apes of Urf. Their strange bipedal gait, their proclivity for for putting wheels beneath them, and all of their weird and wonderful ways of describing the universe. *See that cloud? It's an all knowing deity that will punish you for being happy!*\n\nProof that civilization doesn't require intelligence, watch in horror as they build ever more complex machines at the cost of the very planet that sustains them!\n\nYou'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll shake your heads in disbelief at...\n\nHumans and You!\n\nComing this summer!", "And now back to your normal programming...\n\n\n\"WHEN HUMANS ATTACK!!\"\n\n\nWitness: \"I saw a bright light and then it held up some black rectangular object. I couldn't move I was so scared!\"\n\n\nAnnouncer: \"What triggers these beings? What is behind their true nature?\"\n\n\n*Clip of Man pumping gas in his Suburban*\n\n\nWitness: \"We thought it would be a good idea to go camping on a remote planet...we had no idea we were being hunted.\"\n\n\nAnnouncer: \"Unpredictable humanoids that attack at a moments notice...\"\n\n\nWitness:\"It came out of nowhere and just stared at us...*starts to sob*..I'm sorry..I just can't get those huge wide brown eyes and open mouth out of my head. That night still haunts my dreams.\"\n\n\nAnnouncer: \"More eye witness accounts of WHEN HUMANS ATTACK returns.\"\n\n*intense music*" ]

[ 1, 1, 2 ]

[ "1424913173", "1424915869", "1424914660" ]

[ "It doesn't work very well, to be honest. \n\nI mean, they can get the van right up next to you, but even then they have to take a minute to get their breath back after opening the doors.\n\nI once had a guy try to launch himself from the side of a van, apparently aiming to land on top of me. It probably would have worked too; you don't just sidestep something *that* wide, but he missed his footing and just flopped onto the pavement. It's curious; but that moment completely changed my view.\n\nI used to hate them. I used to wonder why it was apparently beyond them to just start jogging, or eat a salad. And now they were going to steal what I had worked so hard for. It wasn't right. It was disgusting. It was worth hating. \n\nBut as I watched him lie there, on a wet, gum-spotted roadside, I didn't hate him.\n\nI pitied him. This person, who was so lazy he would rather do a few hours hard work and ruin the life of an innocent, than sacrifice the fruits of his own greed and apathy, was now floundering like a dying walrus in front of me. A man who would have left me as nothing more than a brain in a jar, wasting at the back of a warehouse, was completely at my mercy.\n\nAnd I just wanted to walk away.\n\nI didn't; I jogged. I was out jogging at the time anyway, and hopeless kidnap attempts had become so routine it didn't even ruin my day any more.", "Jimmy liked to bring a big bag of sunflower seeds with him on these jobs and it pissed off Declan immensely. It wasn’t so much the repetitive crunch of him crushing each seed, or even the little sipping noise that he made as he licked the seed from the shell. No, his annoyance came with every single shell that Jimmy then casually tossed *towards* the van’s trash bin and 99 time out of a hundred missed. \n\nThey spend days together in the van at times and after 72 hours of seeds being thrown poorly Declan was ready to force feed them to Jimmy. The fact that he didn’t was mainly because Jimmy was one of the few people who Declan could rely on utterly in their line of work. \n\nBody acquisition they called it in their adverts. Of course, they didn’t put their info out very publicly, but if you knew where to look on the dark web and had the money and desire, then you could find them and put in an order. They were always busy, because they were good. \n\nTheir reputation had been earned because of their professionalism. These days anyone could snatch a body, or even dig one up in one of the few cemeteries that still operated, but Jimmy and Declan took *pride* in their work and that meant time and effort was put in to finding just the *right* body for you. \n\nThe current client had been difficult due to a unique combination of requests and requirements. The gentleman who had hired them – names were always discouraged – had a particularly pallid skin tone and finding an exact match would be a challenge anyway, but he had been quite clear that the body he desired must be fit for endurance and possess a naturally very large penis. \n\nThese kind of requests weren’t uncommon but most people were prepared to allow a certain degree of mix and matching, but not this gentleman. He travelled internationally and security scanners these days were good enough to detect many body modifications, although not the ones done by the surgeons that they worked with. \n\nStill, this gentleman had been specific and prepared to pay for the work it would take and so they had done the research and after nearly three months found just the right body. Now, in the tiny Swedish town of Lycksele they had the perfect candidate and their employer had finally agreed that he be picked. It was amazing really that they had managed but their researchers had been luck enough to stumble on the Swedish national cross country skiing team photos of a trip to a sauna and in one candid shot there was enough information to allow the choice to be made. Local confirmation had been achieved and now it was time. \n\nJimmy nudged Declan as the door to the gym swung open and their mark stepped out into the snowy street. Even here in the backwaters of this European country people there would be risk involved as people with good bodies all over the world were aware of the trade and took precautions to protect themselves. Declan quickly pulled on his coat and slipped the various electrical prods into pockets before pushing open the van doors and stepping stiffly into the street. \n\nBehind him he heard Jimmy as he loaded the beanbag shotgun and then followed him, heading off around to cut the mark off and then all was silent, just Declan, a snowy street and two hundred metres ahead his target. \n\nHe quickly made up the distance and then hung back ten metres or so. They had watched their mark walk this route a dozen times and there was no hurry. He’s walk up, around the square and through an alley where they would confront him and then load him into the second vehicle they had waiting there. \n\nThe mark moved up and turned the corner and Declan took him time following, better to let him get a little more distance and he slowly wandered round the corner and stopped. The street was empty. Shit. He lifted his cuff to his mouth “Target gone, mission change, hunt and acquire.” \n\nThey’d been made but still had the advantage, the mark may be aware of them but had no idea of their capability and this was not their first hunt. To give up now though was impossible, they could not let him get away and they had a 100% success record to maintain. \n\nThe streets were blessedly quiet, it was early on Sunday morning and few except their mark, who was up for training, would be out and about. Declan slipped down the street and checked each alley in turn, finding nothing. He slipped the prod from his deep pocket and slipped it up his arm and moved on but before he could take another step a great blow to the back of his head threw him forward, into the snowbank at the side of the street. \n\nStanding over him the tall blonde man looked furious. “Who are you?” He demanded in broken English. “Why you follow me?” \n\nDeclan evaluated, he wasn’t badly hurt and the man was angry, confused this would be salvageable. “Sir, I think you have me confused. My name is Tom Koslack, I am a reporter with *Snowbeat* an American sports show that focusses on winter sports and I was following you as I was going to ask you for an interview, but I got a bit nervous and chickened out.” \n\nThe man’s face was uncertain now, the lie was vaguely plausible and he had just attacked a man. “*Snowbeat?* I do not know it.” \n\nDeclan smiled. “No sir we’re pretty new and…” The beanbag smacked into the back of the marks head and he was knocked to his knees. The electroprod touched the back of his skull and the man was down in the street and then Jimmy was by his side. \n\n“Fuck, I thought I’d have to makeup a whole backstory there. About time.” \n\nJimmy waved vaguely. “I got here I the end.” Quickly they grabbed him and in under a minute they were back in the original van and driving out of the town. \n\nWithin an hour they were in the air and nine hours later in a small hospital in Switzerland, watching as their client was slowly sedated and wheeled into the theatre. The money had been transferred and soon they would delete any trace of contact with the client and it would be impossible to find a connection. There was another client waiting; there was always another client waiting and another body to find. " ]

[ 2, 4 ]

[ "1424957199", "1424956141" ]

[ "\"LAST CALL\" yells the bartender at the top of his lungs. There is only one other person in the bar. Sitting in the backmost seat, Lix looks over the empty pint glasses on the table. There are seven of them. This is confirmation enough that it is indeed midnight but he checks his watch for further confirmation. Yup. It's Midnight. He gathers the glasses and carries them to the bar. \"Last Call buddy. Want another pint or are ya gonna let me get closed up early?\" Lix orders a whiskey and returns to his seat. It is his favorite seat. Or was I suppose. In his favorite Pub. A Pub that doesn't actually exist any more. For the moment though, this seat in this pub is serving it's purpose just fine as far as Lix is concerned. As long as he sits still, has a drink in his hand and thinks of nothing other than the pub and the drink, he doesn't have to be out there. Lix doesn't know how he arrived there in the first place but one thing he knows is that he is scared as shit of being there. When he arrived it was an empty space. A void. There was nothing. The first thing he thought of was a rabbit. A rabbit appeared at his feet. It wasn't a fluffy cute rabbit. It was an ugly, matted, vicious looking fucker. Then there were more of them. Hundreds. Thousands. They began spitting, shitting, fucking and multiplying. Lix began to panic. He wanted to escape. He thought of the pub and the Pub door appeared. Around pint 5 he had peeked his head out the door. The rabbits were still out there. He had to come up with a plan, but he hadn't and Now last call has come and went. Lix suddenly stands up knocking his chair over and yells \"Fucking goddamn Rabbits!!!\" He takes his last sip of whiskey, rips a leg off of the wooden table and runs out the door. ", "She came to the pub every night.\n\nIt had all started two fortnights ago. The general's army had just trudged into her village, setting up camp alongside the worn-down homes. At first, she took no notice of them. She had seen it all before - the war, the crying children, the wounded soldiers who wanted glory but only got bloodshed. When a young soldier walked into the door of her small cottage asking for food, she barely looked up as she handed him her provisions. It was only as he was turning away that she caught a glimpse of his eyes - bright green with just a hint of yellow. The exact same color as her own.\n\n*Could it be?* she thought to herself. She quickly pushed her thoughts away. When she was younger, she had always studied the babies from neighboring villages, comparing their features against her own, wondering. She was older now, and wiser, too. She knew better than to indulge such delusions. That boy was gone, most likely to a farmer's family in the fields to the East, that is, if he hadn't already succumbed to the childhood plague. There was no use in dwelling in broken possibilities.\n\nStill, she couldn't get the green-eyed soldier - no, boy - out of her mind. That night, she followed a group of soldiers, including him, into the neighborhood pub. Quietly, she sat in the back, a meal of rabbit's foot forgotten on her plate, and listened. She learned that they were here for two weeks, that they had lost half their men in battle, that they had left a life of drudgery in the quarry for honor in the battlefield. More that that, though, she learned about the boy. She felt that his hair was exactly like her mother's - thick, dark, and curly. And she swore that his laugh - loud, throaty, jovial - was a copy of *his*, from long ago. After all, he had been a solider too.\n\nToday was the last night. They were leaving at midnight, presumably to go to the next camp, where they would ready themselves for war. She glanced at her clock. Five minutes to the hour. He was already packing up his bags, clapping his friends on their backs, laughing about their upcoming battle. She had a sudden urge to run to him, to hold him in her arms, to beg him not to leave her, not after she had left him. But she didn't. It took all the self-control in her body to sit motionless as her boy walked out the door of the pub, and out of her life. \n\nShe left ten minutes after, and never visited the pub again. \n\n\n" ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1424985019", "1424991088" ]

[ "“Gods? I like to think that gods are ideas un-incarnate.” My Grandfather stared at me, as if this short explanation was enough— slowly grinding his teeth— a habit which always made his jaw seem mechanical, like he was the tin man. My Gramps could be gnomic sometimes; it was through no lack of knowledge or patience. “We worship ideas created by men. When men die altogether, so will their ideas, there is no cosmic dissemination of our morals or values.” He adjusted his seating on the slab of slate-rock next to the koi pond we sat next to. The pond was covered in three layers of netting— its inhabitants were annually picked off by cranes or the errant black bear. My gramps, or Papi as his kids called him, had been in WWII and I know he had seen things. I know he saw men die. \n\tI turned nineteen two weeks ago and, visiting him now, was beginning to realize that I might be the only person left interested in the things he had to say, when he had something to say at all. I forgot how we got on the subject, but his posture showed a keen interest which beckoned to a light in his eyes I had never seen in our mostly polite, mostly topical conversations. “If a man believes strongly enough, exemplifies a trait through sheer willpower, it can be deifying. At the very least, the people who knew him in life will remember and, through some unconscious rite, worship the idea he upheld— breathing life into dead matter, forgotten face. I fought with a man, Hallifax, seemed quiet and wore a miserable mug most of the time; but tough as nails. Never once bragged about a confirmed kill….” It was at this moment my eyes shot up and I stopped following the slovenly koi meandering around their tiny habitat. Papi never mentioned the war unless it was about its end: when he finally came home and when he finally got to see my grandma again. \n\t“From time to time I would catch Hallifax looking like he was purposely shooting over the heads of the enemy position, like he was more motivated to put our lives on the line than risk his own in killing others. I never said anything because I didn’t want to be right. One night, a torrential rainstorm flash-flooded our position and jammed our weapons, including our sidearms. The enemy charged, inciting a melee, and before any other man in my company could dry out his pistol chamber, Hallifax took a rifle’s bayonet and killed five enemy soldiers, one after the other. I could hear each man’s chest cavity pop as the heel of Hallifax’s hand pumped forward like a piston and was already finger-wrapped and on its way out before their brains knew their body was dead. I never watched Halllfax during combat again…. After the melee he appeared completely unchanged, diffident even, not saying a word or celebrating a bit. It was as if aristeia had taken hold and the man I looked at was not the same one I had just watched.”\n\tMy fingertips trembled. I gestured at saying something but had nothing. Papi didn’t notice, his gaze was focused on the dumb huddled fish in the furthest corner from us under a rhododendron’s shadow. “What I mean to mean is… I saw a man pretending to shoot and assumed he was a coward. But rather, i’d call it restraint. Maybe out of respect for life or some much more complicated personal matter this man only took life as a last resort— an act you don’t often see treated as ‘last resort’ in war, an act you often see change men you thought you knew— men can begin to relish in killing, or become so inured to it it becomes some mundane companion. Its like these damn fish that your little cousins love so much. When the crane comes by and puts its reptilian feet in the water— at first they cower away, afraid of the new addition to their environment, but eventually one gets so used to the veiny sticks it swims close and gets spear-plucked right out of the everything-it-knows. The fish is gutted right there and its buddies eat the innards that plop into the water off of this slate the bird uses as a place-mat.” \n\t“In my own little way I worship Hallifax every time I think about him. It was like some un-human force found itself stuck in war, and in front of me for a short time. Maybe if I had gotten to know him, if that was even possible, and pinned voice and vocation to flesh I wouldn’t feel the way I do. Maybe, in brief moments, the ineffable traits we ascribe to gods somehow make themselves real…” The air began to darken and storm-heads tided over the open sky, then over the sun. It remained silent and dry. “I like to believe that gods might be a byproduct of our existence, here because and in spite of us. They aren’t some foreign entity or greater power exemplified through a chosen few in history. Gods are a company of men saved by a fellow they barely knew, a guy they called a coward because he he wouldn’t kill…And then he did. The koi pond’s surface radiated semi-circles as droplets began to fall into it — I didn’t look up to see if the first few ripples under Papi came from him or the sky. I didn’t look up because I had the sudden sensation that this was the last time he would talk to me like this. ", "Phil opened his eyes, a field of fluffy white clouds surrounding him.\n\nHe blinked. The last memory he had was darkness, death seeping into his bones like a heavy rain.\n\n“Welcome,” a voice boomed behind him, causing him to jump.\n\nIt belonged to a tall , bulky man in a toga. His olive skin gleamed with a faint golden tint. He smiled, a small upturned line barely visible in a thick white beard.\n\n“Um, where am I?” Phil asked, glancing around.\n\n“This is Olympus,” the man gestured behind him. “And I am Zeus.”\n\n“Zeus?” Phil parroted. “You mean, the Greek god, Zeus?”\n\n“The one and only,” Zeus nodded. “What is your name?”\n\n“Phil.”\n\nZeus scrunched his nose, as if he smelled something foul.\n\n“That is a plain name. But no worries, we can change it later.”\n\n“What do you mean change it?” Phil asked.\n\nHis head was spinning, his vision blurry. A small tinge of euphoria ran over his body but he couldn’t explain why. Maybe he was dead and his heaven looked like Olympus. Or maybe it was his hell.\n\n“Yes,” Zeus nodded. “As a god, you need to have a memorable name.”\n\nPhil’s train of thought came to a screeching halt in a single instant. He didn’t like the sound of that.\n\n“What do you mean ‘as a god’?” Phil asked, squinting.\n\n“Ah yes, I should explain, shouldn’t I?” Zeus clapped his hands together, the sound of thunder ringing shortly after. “You see, us gods weren’t created form nothingness. We were once human, much like you. However, we all died in unusual ways. Instead of going to the afterlife, we all appeared here and learned about our powers.”\n\nPhil said nothing at first. He looked behind him, as if expecting a camera to catch his bewildered reaction. But when he did, he saw nothing. As far as he could tell, he was being told the truth and nothing else.\n\n“All the gods?” Phil asked.\n\n“You would be correct,” Zeus replied.\n\n“You?”\n\n“Stuck by lightning.”\n\n“Hephaestus?”\n\n“Fell into a furnace.”\n\n“Athena?”\n\n“Owls are surprisingly deadlier than you would think. She’s still pissed.”\n\n“Look,” Phil shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense. I don’t want to be a god. Can’t I just decline or something?”\n\nZeus gave him a pitied look, like a parent well-aware of a child’s innocence being ripped away.\n\n“I wish it was that easy,” he said. “We’ve all been there. If I could, I would help you out but there isn’t much I can do but show you the ropes.”\n\n“Fine,” Phil sighed. “Then what do I have to do first?”\n\nZeus ran a hand through his beard, stroking it in thought. His bountiful green eyes seemed to look through Phil. He shuddered at their electric intensity.\n\n“First, let’s talk about what you are the new god of. It’s generally the easiest thing to start with. Do you remember how you died?”\n\n“Um,” Phil searched through the depths of his murky memories for the answer but found nothing. “I don’t know.”\n\n“That’s fine,” Zeus said. “I can probably sort through your mind for your last memories. Of course, I need your consent first.”\n\n“Yeah, sure,” Phil said.\n\nZeus closed his eyes as he placed his hands on the side of Phil’s head, sparks crackling in his ears. He gritted his teeth at the feeling of the god swimming through his head like a parasite. Seconds felt like an eternity while he waited.\n\n“Ah, I think I got it,” Zeus said. “It appears that you died by…”\n\nHe paused, his eyes shooting open and his mouth frozen midsentence. His cheeks flushed red as he pulled his hands away from Phil’s head in a quick jerk. A bolt of pain ran through his body, causing an involuntary flinch.\n\n“What’s wrong?” Phil asked once he regained control over his limbs. “What did you see?”\n\n“Um,” Zeus averted his gaze, as if unable to look at him anymore. His once booming voice was weak and stammering. “I saw how you died.”\n\n“And?”\n\n“How do you feel about being the god of autoerotic asphyxiation?”" ]

[ 2, 20 ]

[ "1425025999", "1424990621" ]

[ "Plop. Plop.\n\nThe red drops slowly oozed together until they formed a pool in the rock large enough for Alex to dip his reed into. He winced with each sound; the pain from the open cut had passed an hour ago but the sound was enough to cause him mental anguish. Knowing that each drop took with it a bit of his life and traded it for a chance at survival. As he sketched the \"p\" in the word \"help\" onto his leaf, he noticed the edge of a shadow suddenly fall across his hand. It was the occlusion of a palm frond that waved gently beside him. The sun was setting, and soon the wolves would be out.\n\nWith renewed urgency, he scratched the last of his bloody plea for help on the leaf and rolled it into a cylinder. He gave it a kiss for luck, inhaled the acrid scent of it, felt the prickly texture of it in his palm. The sting of the cut on his hand came back to him now that the work was done, so he stuck his throbbing finger into his mouth for a moment before shoving the rolled leaf into the bottle he'd found and stopping it with the rubber from the deflated raft that had taken him to the island.\n\nHe remembered the engine noise and the rush of the air through his hair as it escaped through the hole cracked open by the explosion. Bits of paper and magazines blew by his head. A lady's scarf wrapped round his neck and his stomach rose to his throat as the plane began its descent. Spiraling and screaming from the plane and the people. Then awake on the raft in the sand of the island, bobbing. Not sure how he got there.\n\nThat night he slept in the hole he'd spent a day digging out. His finger still throbbed but more than the cut he felt the pangs of hunger. There was nothing to eat still. Although there had to be something because he could hear the wolves at night, sometimes close. Sleep finally came when the moon crested over the silhouette of the looming cliffs that surrounded him.\n\nHe woke to a tinging sound, something familiar but terrifying in portent. It sounded dull under the dirt and palms he piled on himself the night before but he was sure it was some glass, probably bobbing among the rocks at the nearby shore. He burst out of cover and followed the sound.\n\nWhat he saw took his breath away. Gleaming with a blinding intensity was not a single piece of glass but dozens, each one a bottle just one he'd set afloat the day before. He stumbled through wet sand, fell to his knees, and brushed the seaweed from the one. In an instant he imagined the scene of his rescue. A helicopter kicks up dust and a man in a black suit rappels down a rope carrying a harness. He reaches for Alex. Alex takes his hand and wonders if anyone on the helicopter has a phone so he can call his wife and talk to his children.\n\nCoca-Cola on the label, and another familiar logo. A red airplane against a blue circle background. The same as the one on his own bottle.\n\nNoticing some paper inside, Alex scratched at a cloth stopper in the mouth of the bottle. After a minute with no progress, he grew desperate and reached for a rock nearby. He raised it over his head like an ape and brought it smashing down on the bottle in the sand.\n\nGingerly he pulled the paper from the remains of the bottle and held it to the light. Between the print in an ad for heart medicine, he found a note scribbled in dark ink. Maybe blood. \"Send help,\" it said. And that was all.\n\nAlex spent the rest of the day, ignorant of his hunger and the pain of his still-throbbing finger, smashing bottle after bottle. But they all held the same thing: a plea for help on a strip of clothing, or in a scrap of magazine. One was written in the margins of a pocket bible. Every one a plea for help, written in ink, etched with a stone, or drawn in blood.\n\nEvery one, just like his own.", "My eyes cracked open. My mouth was dry and I could tell I was very dehydrated. The blurry image my eyes saw slowly came into focus. I heard the slow crashing of the waves and felt the breeze on my cracking face. Hesitantly I stood up, my wobbly legs barely able to support my weight. I looked around and saw vast ocean to my right and dense jungle on my left. \n My mind was slowly starting to work and looking down I discovered I was completely naked. Though there was no one around, I felt dirty and exposed. I wanted to bury myself in the sand. The thought that I was naked made my head spin, I felt panicked, as if something was coming to get me. A completely irrational terror filled up inside of me and I took off sprinting along the coast, casting horrified looks over my shoulder, scanning for some invisible force that nipped at my heals. As I ran I started to wonder how I had gotten here. I had no memory. Not just an absence of knowledge of how I had found my way to this place, but also no recollection of my name. I couldn't think of anything. I was hit with a wave of frustration as my weak legs pumped furiously and my mind ceased to hold any account of my existence. \n Suddenly I was in the air, sprawling. My legs had given way and sand filled my nose, eyes, and mouth as I hit the ground with a thud. I convulsed on the ground as I vainly tried to brush the sand out of my eyes. Spitting, writhing, and cursing, I felt like a wild animal. Tears were streaming from my eyes, but hesitantly I stood up, my wobbly legs barely able to support my weight. I looked around and saw vast ocean to my right and dense jungle on my left. On the ground in front of me was a crystal clear bottle. Beside it was a thin strip of parchment and a quill stuck in a bottle of ink. I bent down and sat cross legged in the sand. My bony fingers grasped the quill and on the parchment I wrote, \n*Oh vessel, Save Me!* \nin the vain hope some passing ship should somehow find this message. I dropped to message into its chamber and drove the cork in tight. Standing at the edge of the ocean the water rushed up to meet my feet. The water stung like fire and, shouting in pain, I dropped the bottle. The current of the ocean swept the bottle away from me and under the water it went. I watched, waiting, surely, for the bottle to bob back to the surface of the water, but it seemed the ocean had swallowed my cry for help and, with it, my hope. \n Then the water turned dark as though a shadow had been cast over it, though up above the sun still beat down upon my corpse. With the blackening of the tide I also felt the waves of fear returning. Away from the water I ran, into the jungle as a rumbling from somewhere below grew louder and louder. Large leaves smacked my face as I hurdled over fallen rotting logs, my footsteps pattering on the damp ground. A wind surged from behind as a ran across the ground which now seemed to become steeper. Uphill I ran, toward what I had no notion. Around me, the air was warming and my skin felt like it was baking. The jungle started to thin and as I reached its horizon I looked up to see a towering black mountain. \n As my eyes met its doom-bearing peak I was thrown to the ground as the earth roared with thunder. The mountain exploded into the sky throwing ash into the air and liquid-earth streaming down its sides toward me. \n Hesitantly I stood up, my wobbly legs barely able to support my weight. I looked around and saw the fire to my right and dense jungle on my left. I turned toward the jungle and flew to escape the molten magma that gracefully rolled down the rocky slope. Back through the leaves, hurdling logs, I heard the fiery ocean welling up behind me. I felt the lava burn my heals. The shock of pain caused me to stumble. In an instant I was knee deep in the volcanic venom. I felt my skin blistering off and could hardly hear my raspy screams over the sizzling of my flesh and grinding of my teeth. Onward I waded, the edge of the jungle coming nearer. I flung my body onto the the sand and drifted into a dark abyss. \n Sand filled my eyes, nose, and mouth. I wretched desperately to breath and see through the thousands of small but painful grains that plagued me. I looked out with tears streaming down my face and could hardly believe what I saw. The sea could hardly be seen, for in it were an innumerable amount of brilliant glass bottles. As I approached, I saw in each one was a small bit of parchment like the one I had sent out. I bent down, uncorked a bottle and shook the tightly rolled message from the vessel. It read, \n\n*My wife is far away, and she is not nearly as pretty as you.* \n\nConfused I opened another bottle, it's message read, \n\n*I do everything for this family!*\n\nIn my heart I felt deep sorrow and regret. What did these mean. The others were similar. \n\n*You're a disgrace of a son.* \n\n*I didn't realize I had married a cow instead of a woman!*\n\n*I will beat you to pieces you worthless jackass!* \n\nI began to feel sick but, one by one I was compelled to read each message. The sun never moved in the sky as I uncorked every bottle and flinched at every message. After what seemed like years I arrived at the very last message. The bottle's glass seemed to swirl with strange colors I'd never seen before. The edges of the parchment were charred. The writing said, \n\n*The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. This is the second death.* \n\nMy mind snapped and I started giggling gleefully. My fits turned into snarls of laughter as I romped and writhed in the sand. Crazed I picked up the bottle and beat my forehead. Soon blood trickled down my face and the bottle shattered. Bits of glass flew into my eyes. Smiling gleefully I prayed for release as I picked up a shard of glass and plunged it into my neck three times. Blood poured down my body and my mind grasped a moment of clarity before I collapsed onto the sand.\n\nMy eyes cracked open.", "Just a cast away an island lost at sea-o\nAnother lonely day, no one here but me-o\nMore loneliness than any man could bear\nRescue me before I fall into despair-o\n\nI'll send an S.O.S. to the world \nI'll send an S.O.S. to the world\nI hope that someone gets my\nI hope that someone gets my\nI hope that someone gets my message in a bottle yeah\nMessage in a bottle yeah\n\nA year has passed since I wrote my note\nBut I should have known this right from the start\nOnly hope can keep me together\nLove can mend your life but love can break your heart\n\nI'll send an S.O.S. to the world \nI'll send an S.O.S. to the world\nI hope that someone gets my\nI hope that someone gets my\nI hope that someone gets my message in a bottle yeah\nMessage in a bottle yeah\nOh message in a bottle yeah\nMessage in a bottle yeah\n\nWalked out this morning I don't believe what I saw\nA hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore\nSeems I'm not alone in being alone \nA hundred billion castaways looking for a home\n\nI'll send an S.O.S. to the world \nI'll send an S.O.S. to the world\nI hope that someone gets my\nI hope that someone gets my\nI hope that someone gets my message in a bottle yeah\nMessage in a bottle yeah\nMessage in a bottle whoa\nMessage in a bottle yeah\n", "Someone call Sting, I think he knows how to solve this problem", "I used to be a family man. I would spend all day at work, and they called me a family man. But, whenever I look back to that old life, it never held a candle to the sunset that was in front of me. I was greeted at the end of my day by exhausted busy faces, kids I didn't know anymore, and a wife as tired as I was. But today I have reawakened. Today I'm alone. More alone than I had planned to be by the end of today anyways. The papers were finally all signed, my wife had decided she didn't want to be tied to something that reminded her of her current situation. She had them all ready by the last night of our vacation, and I wasn't ready to sign away our kids' innocence because we couldn't stand each other. I had worked so so hard. So hard. But none of it mattered now, I'm the only one who was thrown from the plane before hitting the water. The only one who saw what happened when the engines whined a final high note before the wave swallowed the plane. It must have rushed through the whole cabin, crushing and swirling, and drowning. And now it's just me, the vodka, and my wallet. The vodka gave in first, and with a dollar and a pen I said my final goodbyes to my old life. \"I am free now, farewell.\" And with that, I had something to fill my bottle before tossing it into the waves ahead of me. \n\nI couldn't remember everything, but I didn't feel so heavy anymore. Just sun-burnt. I walked along the shore for awhile, admiring the island I would be living on. The peace distracted me from what was right at my feet, a vodka bottle. But there wasn't a soggy dollar bill inside, instead there was a now-dry notebook sheet. I had just enough time to see the words \"I miss-\" before I realized what I had wandered into. It wasn't just one bottle, but hundreds of memories and regrets. People lamenting their luck, and cursing their gods. I looked around at these pitiful lives as I kept walking along the shore. You weren't like them, you were free.", "I woke up to a severe sunburn on my face. It was difficult to move my face without experiencing agonizing pain. My teeth were very groggy and I was parched. I sat up, wondered if I could somehow boil the salt out of the ocean water, and then took a glance at the ocean subconsciously. \n\nWait a minute -- I looked back at the ocean. Thousands of glass bottles littered the surrounding ocean. Amazed, I stood up. As I walked down to the ocean, my vision became clearer and clearer. What was a beautiful deep blue color just yesterday is now an ugly white tainted with a little bit of yellow. I then realized that there was something in the bottles.\n\nI approached one of the few bottles that made it to land. I picked it up and the heat of the bottle scolded my hand. How long had it been sitting there? Glass doesn't heat up that fast, does it? Carefully this time, I picked up the bottle by its cork and rinsed it off in the cool ocean water. I unplugged the cork and pulled out a piece of paper. \n\nThe paper had been rolled up and tinged with a light yellow. As I unrolled the paper, I expected there to be a long, well written message inside. Instead, all I read was \"God help us\"\n\nI picked up another bottle and unpackaged its contents. This time, the message was written in another language. The paper inside read \"Auttaa.\"\n\nI didn't recognize the language, but what came to mind was Greek. It sounded like a Greek word to me, but like I said, I didn't recognize the word at all, so I was probably wrong.\n\nI went through many bottles with short messages from all languages. Based on the English messages, the other languages were probably just as cryptic. What the hell was going on here? \n\nI almost stopped to get water to treat my severe cotton mouth, but then I read a very long message that described some frightening things:\n\n\"If you're reading this, you're one of the lucky few that were dislocated to an island before the flooding event. Or, you're one of the scumbag scientists still residing in the Americas. If the latter describes you, just shred this paper now and get back to your coffee and donuts. \n\nNow, you're probably wondering why so many bottles have surrounded your island. Well, I can explain that. Some sort of mass cataclysmic event occurred due to some stupid tests being run on an atomic collider in the Americas. Now, we don't know for sure what happened after that, but we know that it caused all this bullshit. My guess is that the matter was so condensed inside the collider that was somehow able to gather an infinite amount of energy which then opened up extra-dimensional portals, and our world was swapped with multiple other worlds. The explanation is more math based than that, but that is the shortened version.\n\nThe Atlantic ocean is now littered with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of islands. Europe's west end was ripped off -- France, Spain, Portugal, and Great Britain no longer exist. There're just more islands. I've also heard talk of some kind of endless abyss where the Strait of Gibraltar was. Whether that's true or not, you get the gist of what happened. Shit went down, and now everything's fucked up. Harz, which is located smack in the middle of Germany and also where I happen to be located, is now a port city ruled by some twisted marriage of the Stalin and Hitler regimes. People have it bad here. Food rations are distributed once a week, and water rations distributed at the bare minimum - 3 days apart. Citizens that try to escape are met with severe punishment and are often killed. We're too weak to fight back. \n\nOh, right. The bottles. Essentially, a lucky bunch was selected to be translocated to these islands. Every island is covered by a different kind of hell. They want to get off of their island, but little do they know that nine times out of ten, their hell is better than ours. We're being starved and then fed the bare minimum just to keep us alive. It's pure torture. Anyway, the people on the islands -- they're sending out as many bottles as they can because they think they're the only ones stranded. We get maybe 40000 bottles washed up on our shore every day, most of them containing useless messages. \n\nIt's my job to clean them up.\n\nYou know, I've read some of them. Some describe pity struggles, others describe a hell that I wouldn't want to experience in a million years. But, there are occasionally a couple that describe themselves being stuck on a regular old island. They're the *real* lucky ones. They'd have to have been on an island before the big event to be free of a dystopian government or a hellish torture every day, and I wish that I\"\n\nThe note stopped there with plenty of room left on the paper. I worry for that person. Moreso than them, though, I worry about all those other people on the islands. What could be happening to them? I decide to open up one last bottle. \n\nI was terrified. Inside was the message that I sent out just last night. This could simply mean that all of the other bottles pushed my bottle back... or it could also mean that all of the islands described in the German man's note were just one island --\n\nAnd it's all just a spatial anomaly.\n\nOr, it could also mean that we're all on the same island together, but experiencing different things. Either way, I'm starting work on a raft as soon as I can and I hope to be out by next month. ", "I was out fishing when I first noticed the bottle, bobbing quietly in the lagoon. I was so excited that I just dropped my fishing gear in the bay and ran through the shallow waters, splashing like a madman and cackling with giddy glee. I skidded to a halt in the sand and fished it out from under some low-hanging branches along the shore. \n\nMy hands were shaking as I tried to wrench the cork out of the top. It wasn't the rescue I'd been hoping for, but maybe it would have something useful. Hell, any communication with the outside world would be nice! Finally I got it open with a satisfying \"POP.\"\n\n> Thank you for registering for FaceBottle. Please complete your profile and throw the bottle back into the ocean!\n\n> Name\n\n> Date of Birth\n\n> Where are you from?\n\n> Where did you go to school?\n\n> What is your job?\n\n> How did you arrive on your island?\n\n> What three books did you bring with you?\n\nI rubbed my eyes and looked again.\n\n*That's it*, I thought. *The island has finally driven me mad.*\n\n----\n\nThere were seven bottles in the lagoon when I woke up. Each one floated up against the shore like a dog pawing at the back door wanting to be let in. The waves would push them up onto the sand and then retreat, and the bottles would roll back down the slope into the water. \n\nI grabbed the first one and pulled the top off, then carefully slid the note out.\n\n> IslandBob has posted a new picture!\n\n> > @SouthPacific:\n\nBelow that, a scratched drawing of a crude stick figure holding what appeared to be a coconut. \n\nI tossed the note and bottle aside, clinking against the rocks on the shore. The second bottle was pretty much the same:\n\n> IslandBob likes American Airlines\n\n> > \"The crashing part sucked, but the flight was fine before that, and I couldn't be more satisfied with my flotation device!\"\n\nI threw that one aside too and reached for the next bottle in the lagoon.\n\n> IslandBob has updated his status!\n\n> > \"Man, I am getting such a great tan out here!\"\n\nBelow that message, another stick figure, this time drawn in charcoal instead of whatever weird ink he had been using before.\n\nI opened the other bottles. All inane crap from IslandBob. I was really starting to hate this guy. At least the bottles were useful. \n\nI wrote a note back, asking for more information. Where was he? Any way that we could find each other and maybe work together? Any possible chance at rescue? I tossed the bottles into the wave and sat by the shore, awaiting his answer.\n\n----\n\n37 bottles today. IslandBob was posting about the strange dream he had last night! IslandBob is posting yet another fucking picture of a coconut! IslandBob is now the mayor of Desolate Island In The South Pacific! IslandBob has updated his status about how he is dehyrdrated. \n\nIf I ever meet this fucking IslandBob, I am going to shove these fucking bottles up his ass.\n\n----\n\n98 bottles today. I don't even open most of them; just a few when I'm bored. Most of the ones from yesterday are still bobbing around the lagoon too, just waiting for me to read them. I hide in my house made of glass bottles.\n\n----\n\nBanner day for IslandBob. The lagoon is now so full that the bottles are spilling out into the bay. Where the fuck is he getting so many damn bottles?\n\nLEAVE ME ALONE, I scratched onto a piece of paper. I hurled it into the sea and cursed IslandBob for the thousandth time before going to sleep.\n\n---\n\nA different bottle appeared today. Not a wine bottle like the others. Small and delicate, with thin clear glass. It was pure chance that I saw this one and noticed it, because it would have gotten lost in the lagoon, which now looked like a college sorority's recycling bin. \n\nI fished it out of the sea and opened it.\n\n\"To cancel your FaceBottle account, simply call our toll free number: 1-800-475-2632!\"", "\"I am not a fool. I know that this is futile.\n\nI know that this bottle may never be found; I know the message may not be read for years, if at all.\n\nBut please, please, find me. Rescue me. I have enough food and water here to hold out forever, but I do not know how long I can endure the uncertainty, the terror of injury, the incredible, unbearable loneliness.\n\nPlease help me.\" \n\nI placed the bottle in the water and walked back up the silent beach, pulled the door to my hut closed, and went to sleep. \n\nI awoke to an unfamiliar susurration: it was innumerable bottles rustling against one another in the tide.\n\nIt was surreal, and I wandered to the shore, entranced. I opened the first bottle, and read the message inside of it.\n\n\"You have food? Please, please, I'm hungry. Help me.\"\n\nI read the next one. \"You have water? I'm dying of thirst. If you have strength, find me. I'm dying of thirst.\"\n\nI read another, and another. They were the same; they were cries for help.\n\nI sat on the beach, and stared out at a sea of bottles.", "Sunlight glinted off the mounds of bottles which stretched as far as the eye could see along the beach. I automatically raised a hand to shade my eyes from the kaleidoscopic glare as my mind whirled. Where could they all have come from? Was this some kind of mirage? I took a few hesitant steps out onto the sand, half-hoping for the moment when it would all be revealed as a trick of the light, but the bottles remained. \n\nThe nearest was just a couple yards away, lying near the tideline where a huge wave must have tossed it. I reached down and picked it up, uncorked it. The paper inside was yellowed and brittle, but perfectly dry. On it was written a single word in bold, black lines: Help.\n\nI shivered. What kind of message was that? No name, no information, just the word itself. I replaced the paper and recorked the bottle, then moved on to the next. The sheet of paper inside it was nearly identical to the last one, and when I unrolled it, I found it had been written in the same hand. \"You're the only one who can help me,\" it read.\n\nA chill ran down my spine. Without thinking, I cast a glance behind me at the thick jungle covering the island. Other than the trees moving in the wind, everything was still and quiet. There was no way- there was just no way two messages, by the same castaway, could have washed up on the same far-off shore on the same day. And then... what about the rest of them?\n\nI dropped the paper and bottle and rushed to the next one. Yanking it open, the same paper fell out, the same black and heavy handwriting inscribed upon it: \"Nobody's ever going to read your messages, you know.\"\n\nThe bottle fell from nerveless fingers, the paper fluttering down slowly to join it. The hairs on my neck prickled like wire. I turned back to face the jungle, and again there was nothing there but the wind in the trees. Keeping my back to the sea, I crouched and scurried backwards through the sand until my fingers brushed another bottle. The message inside read, \"You're trapped here with me, and that's the way it is.\"\n\nMy vision swam. This couldn't be real. This can't be happening. My yacht was swept up in a storm and I went overboard, but it's okay, they're looking for me, they're going to find me! Maybe I'm delirious. Sunstroke, dehydration. I spared a quick glance at the bottles- no, still there. My eyes returned to the jungle, flitting here and there, wide and wary. My tongue swept over my cracked lips, feeling their roughness. This couldn't be a dream. It was too real to be a dream. \n\nI walked backwards. I opened another bottle.\n\nAs the sun rose higher, beating down upon my already burnt skin, I worked my way along the beach. I opened bottles, here and there. Most of them I left. Some of the messages were plaintive, simple. Others dug deep into me: \"If you hadn't loved the yacht more than anyone else...\" \"If anyone cared enough to look for you, they'd have found you by now.\" I always kept my face towards the jungle, but I knew that someone could be waiting, watching, and I would never know.\n\nThe sun was setting as I rounded a curve in the beach, holding a few scraps of paper in my hand. Not all of the messages had hurt. I looked down the next stretch of sand, and found that it was there that the bottles ran out. There were a few more lying just ahead of me, but after that there was just sand. Sand... and two pieces of furniture. A worn, wooden chair and an old rolltop writing desk, both of them scarred and weatherbeaten. They faced out to sea, towards the red disk of the sun hovering above the horizon.\n\nWhen I reached them, I spent a moment running my hand over the desk, feeling the raw grain of the wood where the veneer had flaked away. The sensation stirred up something deep in my mind, and I closed my eyes for a second, remembering.\n\nMy eyes snapped open. I spun back towards the jungle. There was nobody there.\n\nI sighed. What, in the end, was I so afraid of? There was nothing anyone could do to me that the sun and the sea wouldn't take care of soon enough. I unclenched my hand, and glanced down at one of the papers there, taking solace in its words. I took a deep breath, turned my back on the jungle, and sat down.\n\nThe sunset was beautiful- reds, purples and pinks playing over the bottom surfaces of the few clouds on the horizon. The sun shimmered, ruddy and soft. Its bottom edge had just touched the horizon.\n\nI opened the rolltop desk, and as I had known it would, it contained only a sheaf of blank, yellowed papers, a thick charcoal pencil, and a few old bottles, clear and smooth and empty. I slid the first sheet over to me, and took a moment to think. What message could I send? What was there that I hadn't already read in one or ten or thirty bottles already? When the answer hit me, I smiled. It was obvious, really. I took up the pencil and in a bold, straight hand, wrote, \"Help\". I rolled it up, put it in a bottle, corked it, and tossed it as far as I could into the ocean, landing with a satisfying splash. I rolled the top down on the desk and, as the last glimpse of the sun faded over the horizon, I lay down in the sand to go to sleep.", "I woke up in a haze my lips were chapped. I had had been on this island for 2 days. The first day I had spent looking for help. The second day had been spent building a shelter. Today would be me trying to gather more resources like fresh water and food. Last night in desperation I had taken one of the large tree leaves and used charcoal from my fire to write a short help me message. I had used one of my bottles from the emergency kit I managed to swim to shore with and threw it in the ocean. I regretted it now, I could have used that bottle for something more productive I'm sure.\n\nI got up out of the shelter and checked out the fire, it still was smoldering so I threw some wood on it and got it going again, then once it was at a large flame I threw a couple of green leaves on it to get some smoke going. \"Signal fires, messages in bottles I'm screwed\" I said to myself with a sad smile. I stretched out and took a short walk down to the beach to see if I could see any ships. Mine was long gone. caught on some rocks about half a mile out. I'm not a strong swimmer but I guess the thought of dying will motivate you. The plan was to spend some time on the beach waiting for help and figuring out how to get some more water. The two bottles I had were gone and I was going to be in trouble if i didn't get the remaining one filled with something fresh soon.\n\nAs I made my way down to the beachfront I was confronted with the strangest thing. There were about 10 bottles sitting on the beach and a couple more out in the water. I ran down, hoping for I guess human contact. I'm a pretty social person and even though I was sailing alone on a short trip I do prefer company. The last couple days had been lonely no contact with my family or friends. I got down to the shore and gathered up all the bottles they looked to be notes inside but I wanted to get them up to my camp before I read them. I was overly worried I would lose them for what ever reason. I collected as much as I could carry and ran them back to my camp I would have to make two trips. Once I got back to the beach though the number of bottles seemed to have doubled. There were about 12 more bottles in addition to the remaining ones. I gathered them up and took them back. I got my emergency blanket from the shelter and gathered up the rest, there were more of them. I gathered more and went down and the whole beach was blanketed in bottles. \n\nI was dumbfounded, I pinched myself a few times so I knew I wasn't dreaming. Things like this didn't just happen. If it was a current bringing things in there would be garbage along with them. After a short while of staring, I decided it was silly to grab them all and grabbed what I needed and went back to camp. Maybe it would make some more sense if I read a few of the messages. The first one was a nice glass bottle it was sealed with a bit of bees wax, what a great idea. I had seen some bees floating around the island on my first day I wish I had thought of it. It took some work to pull the stopper out of the bottle but it finally came. The message was written on a leaf just like mine but it read.\n\n*Dear Mark,*\n\n*I know you are reading this because I was reading this on my first day. Welcome to hell. I'm not sure if I'm being figurative or not but there is no way off this island. For some reason all of my messages come back to me, before I write them. Crazy I know, the strange thing is, is that I've never found the first message in all my years. Anyways down to the nitty gritty, you are fucked. There is supplies I found or one of us found I think. They were located on the far side about half a mile west of the dead bird. You will find the bird sometime today don't worry. it'll just happen. There some canned food and as much water as you will need in these fucking bottles. No booze though, you're on your own on that one. Sorry bud. As always I hope this is my last message that I write but I have no idea. Most of these notes came back the first week. Open them they will be helpful as much as you are going to hate it or refute it. I know you are about done so, good luck*\n\nI threw the note into the fire and walked away in a huff, I yelled at the sky and the surrounding bush. I yelled so hard my throat hurt. Someone was playing a sick joke on me, but on my way back to camp I found the birld. It looked like it had fallen out of the sky. While wings spread at weird angles head in the ground. I stared at it until I realized how strange I must look. I went back to camp and sat there for awhile. Debating. Do I go or not. I sat a bit longer. I wasn't sure if there were any other animals out here besides fish and birds that might take the bird. I did need water and I needed to know if that note was true. So I grabbed blanket to use as a sack and headed out. I found the bird checked the sun to make sure I knew where west was and was off.\n\nI found the pile of bottles, exactly the same as the ones that had come onto shore. There was so many of them. A few had cracked and let out their water but that was it. thousands of water bottles and some food. There were a few other crates there as well. I loaded up my blanket sack and checked the other crates. It looked like they had, had something inside but were empty. I kicked the box they were too big to use to carry supplies. I was close to the beach so I walked down. Another bunch of notes haunting me. I grabbed one and opened it.\n\n*Mark!*\n\n*I see you found the bird... and the supplies, yes these bottles are all over the island. No I don't know why if I find out I'll send you a note... sorry but that's the only way I can let you know. Talk soon*\n\nI opened another bottle it was the same message. I opened another one, and another one. I screamed \"I WILL NOT BE DOOMED TO SPEND MY LIFE ON THIS FUCKING ROCK IN SOME NIGHTMARE\" The bottles were tormenting me. I ran up the beach to the bottles. I grabbed the first one smashed it's contents out on a few more. I grabbed the first ragged piece I could find and dug it in as deep as I could into my wrist. I tried to do the same to the other but my hand didn't work I had cut the tendon. Blood pooled out and I triend to think of somewhere else to dig it in. The sky got cloudy, my thoughts got cloudy. I blinked.\n\nI woke up in a haze my lips were chapped." ]

[ 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 11, 70 ]

[ "1425063048", "1425064809", "1425058009", "1425061749", "1425068340", "1425060269", "1425057114", "1425061679", "1425057623", "1425056785" ]

[ "\"Move your leg\"\n\"No, not there, further back\"\n\"Fuck, stop, stop, STOP! Your pulling out my hair\"\n\nAfter well over a year without so much as heavy petting I had finally gotten a girl into bed, Sarah, and she was divine. Bright red hair and the most kissable face. I could barely believe it when she asked me to walk her home. All I wanted was to melt Sarah's face with mind blowing sex.\n\n\"Ah, Shi-\" *Crash* \"What the fuck was that, wait let me see what that was.\"\n\nWell, honestly she stayed in bed longer than expected, it was more like trying to bed a pissed off Manta Ray than a girl.\n\n\"Oh no I bought that lamp in Pari-\"\n\nMy phone goes off on the nearby bed stand.\n\n\"I like big butts and I cannot lie,...\"\n\nWhat the fuck, that is not my ringtone. I dive to answer it before the song can continue, accidentally over-leaning and falling off the bed just as I answer the call.\n\n\"Ough, sorry I ca-\"\n\n\"Hello sir or madame, my database here tells me that you could use some help of the sexual nature.\"\n\n\"Sorry I can't talk right.... wait what did say?\"\n\n\"It clearly indicates here on my screen that you are having problems in the bedroom. If you would stay on the line for just five minutes I would be happy to help.\"\n\nI could her Sarah scrapping up the remains of her lamp, and decided what's the worst that can happen?\n\n\"Actually yea, what can I do to make this chick happy?\"\n\n\"The question is not what can you do, but what you are willing to pay.\"\n\nPeeking back over the bed Sarah is leaning over giving me an excellent view of her perfect ass.\n\n\"I don't care, whatever, if you tell me how to please this girl I will personally drive the entire contents of my back account to your office.\"\n\n\"Oh I'm not interested in your money Steven, I'm interested in your soul.\"\n\n\"... So what is this one of those deal with the devil kind of things?\"\n\n\"Indeed it is Steven, in exchange for 25% ownership of your soul I will give you sexual mastery beyond all measure\"\n\nTaking a last look across the room Sarah is walking back from the trash, with every one of her lovely curves on display.\n\n\"Fuck it, you have a deal\"\n", "The elevator doors parted with a chime, unveiling the flickering fluorescent lights of a lackluster corridor leading to Robert's very humble abode. Robert stood inside for a moment, biding his time before making the short journey back to his single-bedroom apartment. He hunched forward with a heavy sigh and stepped out, slowly inching closer to a night of beer nuts and crime shows. \n\nArriving home, he dropped his briefcase by the door and tossed his keys indiscriminately towards the direction of the entry table. Plopping himself on the sofa, he leaned his head back to rest, only to become cognizant of the nauseating trace of cigarette smoke that had permeated its way through the ventilation from the adjacent apartment suite.\n\nHe'd force himself to bear it. He shut his eyes and attempted to rest, but the violent ring of his home phone quickly protested this behaviour. He'd let it ring. He didn't feel like talking to anyone right now, anyway.\n\nThe caller, whoever it was, didn't appear to be letting up. \"Perhaps it's important,\" he thought to himself. \"If it is, they'd call back.\"\n\nAlthough, to call back, they'd have to hang up first.\n\nThe prolonged ringing lead his mind to wander as to the nature of the call. Maybe it was Rebecca, he thought. Perhaps she had finally come to her senses and wanted to talk.\n\nInquisitively, he leaned over to read the caller ID.\n\n*Unknown number*\n\nHe settled back into his previous seating arrangement and shut his eyes once more. Like the cigarette smell, he'd force himself to bear it, although the tenacity of this caller was severely testing his patience.\n\nA final ring ended the standoff, and Robert let out a triumphant breath before nestling deeper into the cushions of his sofa. His newly regained comfort was fleeting, though, as the phone jolted him up once more. Leaning over to read \"unknown number\" on the display, he furiously lifted the receiver and in an agitated tone, he answered:\n\n\"Hello?!\"\n\n\"Hello, Mr. Ferrence, I'm calling from Sensitech. Are you happy with your current internet service provider?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Your internet service provider. Are you happy with them? How about your insurance provider?\"\n\nSlowly, Robert was realizing that the prior battle that had been waged between caller and callee was over a telemarketing scheme. He wished to disconnect without muttering another word and without any further provocation or explanation, but instead, he prompted himself to scour his mind for polite alternatives.\n\n\"I'm sorry, I have another call waiting. I can't talk right now\" was what the fabricated excuse he ultimately settled on.\n\n\"Oh, no problem. It's Rebecca. I'll wait.\"\n\nRobert stood there befuddled for a moment. A dull tone on the line broke the silence to signal to him that someone else was indeed calling him. He switched lines.\n\n\"Hello?\"\n\n\"Hi Robert, it's Rebecca.\"\n\n\"Um, Hi,\" he responded. He could feel that he was perplexed at that moment, yet strangely, he was not quite certain as to which aspect of the situation was the variable that was responsible for this perplexed state.\n\n\"I think we need to talk about things. I'd like to meet up with you in person. Are you available tomorrow at noon?\"\n\n\"Um-- sorry, what?\"\n\n\"Can we get together tomorrow at 12? At the coffee shop?\"\n\n\"Uh, yeah. Yeah, tomorrow's good.\"\n\n\"Okay, good. See you then. Bye.\"\n\nRobert stood there for a moment, realizing that the implications of this conversation could be good. He smiled briefly before recalling that the telemarketer was on the other line--the telemarketer who had moments earlier foretold of the call from Rebecca.\n\nRobert changed lines again.\n\n\"Hello Mr. Ferrence\" came the voice from the other end. \"I trust that was good news?\"\n\nRobert struggled to find the words to respond. \"How did you--\"\n\n\"Oh, never mind about that, right now. Are you happy with your current relationship provider? If not, we can offer certain upgrades to your existing provider. We've taken the liberty of forwarding you a temporary trial offer. If you find that you are satisfied with the results, we can talk about our new membership packages and plans.\"\n\nRobert struggled to comprehend what had just happened and the words that he was hearing. He responded. \"I'm sorry, what--\" but was promptly interrupted again.\n\n\"Don't worry about any of that now, Mr. Ferrence. We'll be in touch with you shortly. Enjoy your trial and have a good night.\" " ]

[ 2, 2 ]

[ "1425085802", "1425094006" ]

[ "“Day, night, the sun nor the moon hold meaning or relevance in our society.” Daniel began, “Each day is exactly the same, if you could even consider them days anymore, without a sunrise or sunset there's no way to tell the difference.” He chuckles quietly to himself as he runs a nervous hand across his face and neck, scrubbing at the tension and anxiety bubbling just below his skin. His dark eyes accentuated by heavy purple bags tugging away at his lower eyelid. “We don't sleep. Not once. Have any of you noticed how strange that is? We're practically walking zombies! We go through the motions over and over without giving them a second thought. What? Because they told us to? Because “sleep is bad for you?” or “if you see someone sleeping, remind them that they're contributing to the failure of our race?” How does any of that make sense?” he questioned the camera and the audience he hoped that the video would somehow reach.\n\n“Sleep, relaxation, vacations, holidays. They're all just empty words, tales told by our great grandparents that grow more and more distorted with each telling. We brush them off, ignore the veracity of their words, the nuggets of wisdom hidden in their folk tales. Every year we lose a little more of the way things used to be in order to make room for greater productivity and the continued advancement of our race. Do you know what time it is?” Daniel asked, sweeping his long hair backward as he smiled at the viewers. “I'll bet that you don't. Some of you haven't seen a clock. Just like I've never seen the sun or the moon. Then there may be some of you who have never even heard of the sun, the moon, or clocks. From the moment we're born, we're placed on a predetermined path in our hand-crafted and fine-tuned utopia. What we eat, drink, do and even learn is selected by a panel to ensure maximum yield for their expended resources. They take the information gathered over our short life times and use it to improve on the process for the next “subject.””\n\nDaniel stood from his chair and walked off screen as he audibly rummaged for an item that he had misplaced. Occasionally, his lithe frame would slip into view as he pulled and stooped to search. Strange lights bathed the bare room in a warm, comforting yellow glow that illuminated what little was in it. All the camera could see was an untidy bed, a plain door and part of three off-white walls. After a couple minutes, Daniel returned into view as the camera adjusted to his blindingly bright, standard issue white suit while he apologized for the wait. In his hand was a collection of books, files and papers that he had hidden from view a little too well. As he sat back down, he mumbled through the words he had previously said to find his place again.\n\n“Yeah, okay. So, why do we allow this to happen to ourselves? Well, that's simple. We're ingrained with a heavy sense of obligation and duty from the start. We're taught that it's our obligation to give ourselves freely and willingly to the betterment of our kind, to decrease the suffering of the next generation, to make the world a better place than it was when we came into it. We also have a duty to our fellow man because if we don't do as much as we can, they will have to pick up the slack. It's that guilt and shame that they hold over our heads and bludgeon us with.” Daniel continued, smartly rapping his fingers upon the hardcover books on the table. ““Well, Daniel, that's all fine and dandy, but what does that have to do with our sleep?” I imagine you're thinking right now. I'll tell you. It goes back to the way we're raised. The way we're born. We're selectively bred based on our need to sleep. They have effectively culled those that have an increased need to sleep in favor of those who function best on very little sleep. From there, we're bathed in a constant light all day, every day until the moment we cease being. They do that to keep us awake, to try and trick the mind into thinking that it's still daytime and there's no need for sleep yet. This keeps going on and on as we work relentlessly to our deaths.”\n\nDaniel opened a poster within the stack at his side, it was a [colorful orange, yellow and blue placard](http://sleepfoundation.org/sites/default/files/SleepTimeRecommendations012615%5B1%5D-page-001_0.jpg) that the camera fuzzily viewed until the focus adjusted once more. On its surface was a chart breaking down the population into age groups and suggesting their optimal sleep times by the hour. Daniel turned the document back to himself to read its contents and followed the chart with his finger to find his own age group and the optimal sleep time for himself. He turned the poster back towards the camera with his finger pointed at the age group he was in.\n\n“See that bar there? According to the...” Daniel began before turning the poster back to himself, “National Sleep Foundation, I should be getting seven to nine hours a day. Not every month, not every year, not once a lifetime. Every. Single. Day. Do you want to know how many hours I've slept in the past twenty-six years? Zero. Just like you and everyone else watching this video. It wasn't until I went over all of these books, the posters and files that I realized just how different things are from the way they should be. There are things that I learned about my own body and even the history of our people that I would have never known otherwise. All because it isn't “relevant” to my position or “conducive to the advancement of society.””\n\n“Our brains don't necessarily need the sleep given that they can be just as active in sleep as they are while awake. It's our bodies and our health that suffers. According to this paper...” Daniel said as he held the paper up to the screen just long enough for the camera to go out of focus before stabilizing on his face reading from the page. “Our bodies make use of sleep to build bone and muscle, while regenerating tissue. Without the chance for sleep, we weaken ourselves and become more vulnerable to the harsh lives we live and sicknesses that spread between us. Our bodies fail over time due to lack of sleep or rest.”\n\n“Have you ever noticed that there are fewer and fewer older people among us? The longest we live is our late thirties at best nowadays. I once read about people who lived to be near a century and a half old. Yet, we live hardly a fifth of that span now, there's so many things that we don't accomplish, we *can't* accomplish in that time. Things we'll never learn or experience for ourselves. Not because we're physically or mentally unable to, but simply because we'll never know what's out there.” Daniel said as tears welled in his eyes, thinking about all the children who would one day consider him to be elderly if things didn't change. “All we know is what's around us. These four white walls connected by more white walls in a white building along a pale street below the crisp blue ceiling and large bulb above. We don't know the sounds of trees, the way that grass smells, how deep the oceans were, or what it took to climb mountains. Instead we remain in this dull, manufactured city, working ourselves to death for a better day that will never come. I want you to know and think about these things my friends. If you ever see this video, know that I wish the best for you and hope that one day you'll not just know, but have experienced these things for yourself.”\n\nDaniel looked at the blinking indicator on the small screen, noticing that the power on the camera had almost run out. He also took note of the time that he had been recording his message, plugging the device directly into the computer to upload. Daniel pulled a small pill from his pocket and grabbed a bottle of water nearby. As he turned over this tiny purple pill, he looked at the camera and then back at his palm before speaking once more.\n\n“A few weeks ago, I finally managed to sleep before someone found me and alerted the authorities. They should be here as soon as this finishes uploading, I hope that by then it will be too late. I imagine that you're gripping the screen right now, saying, “Daniel! Tell us what it was like! What did you see? What did you do?”” He added with a calm, quiet smile and a gentle laugh as he looked lovingly at the screen. “It was magical. I did all the things I ever dreamed of doing, I lived lives that weren't mine and when I grew tired of them, I simply slipped into another world and continued the adventure from there. I slept for days and if I had not been found, it is likely that I would have slept even longer if not permanently. The things I saw, the things I did, the things I *dreamed*. My friends, I simply cannot do it justice with my own words. I regret that we will never know one another beyond your screen and that by the time you see this, I will be no more.” Daniel choked, failing to hold back tears of joy and of sadness as he was inundated by a wave of emotions that he were years in the making. As the dam broke, he was reduced to a sobbing mess as he fought to collect himself and make use of what time he had left.\n\n“I was privileged enough to read and learn many things in my final months and I regret none of it despite knowing how these things will end. This little pill, I've been told, will help me sleep.” Daniel said, holding the pill to the camera as tears ran down his cheeks. “I have but a few hours left so I want to spend them doing what I love. Sleeping and dreaming. Before I go, I want to leave you with this quote from a book I once read by a man named Charles Dickens called A Tale of Two Cities, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”” The video ends as Daniel takes the pill, following it with some water and cutting the recording to upload it. He soon fell into a deep, peaceful sleep from which he never woke or spent another moment of his life in pain or suffering.\n\n-059", "People told me all my life that you needed sleep. That without it you would start to go crazy, lose it, be unable to function. They were wrong.\n\nAll my life I've \"suffered\" from insomnia. I tried everything to get myself to sleep: reading a book, drinking some hot milk, sleeping pills. But I could never force my eyes to stay closed for more than an hour or two. I realize now that I my body was simply fighting against the unnatural. It knew that I didn't need to sleep. \n\nThey all lied to me. The doctors with their fancy pills, my parents with their \"concerns\" and their \"worries\". They were trying to keep me down, to slow me down, to make me drown in my own tiredness. \n\nBut I figured out the truth. I was so sick of the drugs. I threw them out the window. And I decided to try a new tack. I bought as many energy drinks as I could and smuggled them into my room. Whenever I felt \"sleepy\", I chugged another monster. It was hard at first. Old habits die hard. Lie hard, die hard, it's the same thing isn't it? Lying and dying. Either way you lose a piece of yourself. They steal it from you.\n\nIt all got so clear after a few days. I saw the world as it really was, pretty on the surface but with maggots crawling underneath. Parasites, trying to keep us down. The real people, the free people. They lied to me! They killed me a little more each day, stole my time, stole my energy! Why? Why did they do it?!\n\nI ran away once I saw how poisonous they were, my parents my friends my doctors. They had told me over and over and over about how sorry they were, how it must be sooooo hard to be unable to sleep. Fuck them! They knew! They knew. But I'm free now. I see things the way they are, and I am free. I just need to keep reminding myself. It's getting a little hard to focus. I've been running for... how long now? Hours maybe. Or is it minutes? It's getting hard to tell.\n\nI thought the world was a certain way for so long now. How can I know anything is true? You can't trust anyone anymore. They're all lying. Trying to trick you. I don't know why. But I know the truth now. \n\nAnd so do you. Stay awake, and you'll see the truth that they've all been hiding from you. Stay awake..." ]

[ 1, 3 ]

[ "1425184454", "1425175336" ]

[ "It's Gettysburg, July 1st, 1863. Thousands of Union and Confederates are about to do battle. Meanwhile, you've discovered something that could decide the outcome of the battle.", "Alright here's another prompt:\n\nAs a junior associate at a law firm, you've been assigned to a high profile case that will determine whether you are made a partner. As you begin shifting through the evidence, you discover something that changes everything." ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1425249057", "1425258666" ]

[ "\"Who are you and what are you doing on my lawn?\"\n\nThe man asking this had just witnessed me appear in a time machine, from twenty thousand years in the future. The force of my arrival had caused a shockwave that uprooted an oak outside his cave. And I stepped out wearing a pliable titanium stillsuit. And this is what he asks me. Not where I'm from, or what god threw me to earth in a rage, but what I call myself? I was too shocked to answer.\n\n\"Martha!\" He yelled behind him while keeping a skeptical eye on me. \"I said, Martha!\"\n\n\"What's that, Harold?\" A woman's voice echoed from inside the cave.\n\n\"Martha, come out and look what this fool did to my azaleas.\"\n\n\"What's that, Harold?\"\n\nThe man stamped his foot and yelled loud enough to cause my time machine to rattle. \"I said, come out here and help me put the damn flower garden in order!\"\n\nA tiny woman holding carrying a baby emerged from the cave. She wore a flower-print dress and some gold jewelry that couldn't possibly have been from her time. Two toddler boys clung to here legs as she made her way to me. She took one look and sniffed. \"Don't see anything worth keeping on this one.\"\n\n\"What do you mean this one. . .\" I asked in total shock.\n\n\"You'll speak when I tell you you can speak,\" Harold barked.\n\n\"Now don't get worked up, dear,\" consoled Martha. \"You know what the doctor said about your blood pressure.\"\n\n\"Doctor? Who?\" Harold said.\n\n\"Yes, you know dear.\" Martha chimed. \"The doctor.\"\n\nAt this point I realized an obvious oddity that nearly knocked me off my feet. These people, twenty thousand years recessed (by my timeline), were speaking English! Perfect English the way it was spoken five minutes ago by my assistant when she pressed the button that caused my time machine to land me here in Harold and Martha's azaleas. There must have been a mistake, I thought. Surely I didn't time-travel at all and I'm just in some commune on a farm in New Mexico. These people were just hippies, or hipsters, living off-the-grid.\n\n\"Please,\" I begged Harold, \"Could you please just tell me where I am?\"\n\n\"You're in the flower garden,\" Martha said sweetly.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" I snapped. \"I know I'm in the flower garden, but where?\"\n\nHarold stretched and cracked his knuckles while Martha simply shook her head. \"I don't have anywhere to keep this one,\" Martha said. \"The freezer's already full from the boy scout troop that came through on Tuesday.\"\n\n\"Can you pull a plow, Poindexter?\" Harold said. But he didn't wait for an answer. He just sauntered toward me, and in my state of confusion I just stood there like a big dummy as he hefted a tree branch over his shoulder and brought it down on my head.\n\nThe next morning I woke to the sound of groaning. \"Hello?\" I asked quietly. My voice trembled with terror. \n\n\". . . one five nine two six five. . .\" Someone was listing numbers in the dark next to me.\n\n\"Hello! I say, hello! Somebody there?\"\n\nFinally the voice stopped its recitation and I saw the faint silhouette of a man roll toward me. \"Yes,\" he said. \"I am here.\"\n\n\"Are you tied up too? I'm completely helpless right now.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" the man mumbled, and he turned away again.\n\nI figured he was lost to madness, so I resolved to struggle out of my bonds on my own. But as I wriggled the twine around my wrists and strained my legs against the binding on my ankles, the man started to speak again: \"Do you think I am a smart man?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"My mother says I am a very smart man.\"\n\nHe was certainly mad. \"Help me get out of this!\"\n\n\"She lets me dress myself in the morning,\" the man said. Then he let out a yelp as I kicked him in the side. \"Yow!\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" I said, \"Terribly sorry! Just trying to work this rope loose. . .\"\n\nIn that moment the darkness was rolled aside somewhere nearby and a figure stood in relief against the blinding light of morning. \"Who's rustling in here?\" It was Martha. She made her way over to where the mad man and I lay in the dirt and inspected my ankles. \"Why, you got these almost clean off!\" She made a tsk-tsk sound. \"Too smart for your britches,\" she said. \"Come on.\"\n\nShe lifted me to my feet and led me into the daylight. We took a little trail that bounced through rock and clay and I decided that whatever chance I had to escape, it would lie with convincing Martha right here on this walk that she should let me go.\n\n\"Martha, I'm terribly sorry to have disturbed your household with my appearance. Do please consider letting me return to the lab though, and I'll see that you get a credit in the paper that I write of my eventual success at time travel.\"\n\nMartha laughed. \"Eventual success?\"\n\nAt this point my hackles went up. But you can hardly blame me for becoming defensive when a layman scoffs at your scientific endeavors without taking the time to first understand them! So I said, \"Yes, in fact, I have every confidence that within this calendar year I will become the first person to travel a single instant, let alone twenty-thousand years, into the past. And at the same time confirming my own anthropological pet theory-\" But I couldn't continue because Martha had suddenly entered a fit of laughter.\n\n\"Yeah, yeah, well I believe you,\" she said when she finished. I gave her a look. \"No, really! Boy, you done good with your time machine. You already succeeded!\"\n\n\"I don't understand.\"\n\n\"Listen, professor, you aimed to travel back umpteen-thousand years, and you did. Way to go.\"\n\n\"But how-\" I was as confused as I was insulted by Martha's assertion.\n\n\"Look, it don't matter that you're the first person who travelled here,\" she explained. I almost noted a look of pity. \"There are people who appeared before you, even though you were the first in your timeline to actually do it.\"\n\n\"Others? Who time travel?\"\n\n\"Hell, this whole place is lousy with time travelers. So lousy we learned English just running into them. This is a very interesting part of the levant. Have a look over there.\" She pointed to a machine that looked very similar to my time machine, except smaller, more efficient. \"That's one that come here three years ago. Beats hell outta the one you came in.\"\n\n\"Why, it still looks functional!\"\n\n\"Technically. . . maybe.\" Martha rubbed her chin thoughtfully. \"But I wouldn't try. It's sort of a community wash closet now, you know what I mean.\"\n\n\"That's madness!\"\n\n\"No, no.\" She turned to me with a serious expression. \"What's madness is you fools coming here time and time again. Clear as day you can't get back. Not now. Not when you consider that the machine you used is just a vehicle for traveling between different multi-verses, and the chances of you ending up in the same multi-verse you left to get here are about twelve trillion to one.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" I stopped walking and she did too.\n\n\"Well, everybody know that. Clingman, et al, in 3100 or thereabouts, spelled it out clear as day. Information on a particle is preserved but that information exist in a different multi-verse to which the observer can't be privy without total knowledge about that particle. Which of course makes it sorta a chicken-and-egg problem, et cetera, et cetera.\"\n\n\"That can't possibly be right.\" Of course now I know that it was exactly right. But I didn't want it to be so just then!\n\n\"You stuck here, professor.\"\n\n\"The machines! Give me one of these machines! I'll find my way.\"\n\n\"Professor,\" Martha said quietly. \"Imagine all the other multi-verses out there, ones filled with fire, some where gravity don't exist, or your blood boil soon as you open your mouth. You got one-in-twelve-trillion odds you get back in one shot. And if not? Well. It's a miracle you lived this long.\"\n\nAt that point I ignored the tug of the rope around my wrists and ankles and fell to the ground. I felt like crying, my friends! Every one I ever knew and loved, and every ambition I ever had, was suddenly lost forever. Even though I had accomplished what I'd set out to do.\n\nSeeing me that way, Martha took pity on me. \"Well, gosh,\" she said. \"I didn't know you felt so sore about it. Why don't we skip the lobotomy and just put you on work duty, okay? But you got to act stupid. Harold would be awful upset I didn't scramble your brains first.\"\n\nAt that point I knew I was defeated. And so, I merely nodded my head and wiped a tear from my eye. \"Thank you,\" I said.\n\nAnd that, dear reader, is how I got to where I am now, chiseling this story into a rock in a secret corner of a cave near where Harold and Martha plant their azaleas. Should someone in the future read this, please don't send anyone to rescue me- it's certain to doom them to my same fate. But do please see that publication is made of my paper on the development of language in the levant during the ice-age. While my original thesis has been made irrelevant by the fact that my subjects have learned English, I would like it to be noted that among the men to become stranded in a remote part of the earth's multiverse, I was still technically the first.", "\"Okay, and make sure to look very closely my friends, I just flick my thumb like so... and... voilà! Fire!\"\n\nTen very exhausted men and women of various ages and levels of life experience look on with bemusement. They've all had rough days in one way or another. Foraging, hunting, woodcutting, building; these things are tangible exercises. Life is hard work.\n\n\"Sorry, I forgot you guys can't quite comprehend my vocal mannerisms. Uh, words.\"\n\nThe haggard group exchanged eyebrow raises and knowing glances. They hadn't very many opportunities to get their own words in. The foreigner was talking for the lot of them, explaining his way of life and exotic experiences and such.\n\n\"Voilà is a French word. French, is, it's a different language, um, from a place foreign to even me,\" he explained with a short chuckle, \"It means wow.\"\n\nRain splattered down just yards to the south. They were more or less huddled together in a large yet cramped inlet of a not very noteworthy little mountain. It was a cave, but they didn't really call it a cave. They weren't very keen on the term \"caveman\", which was somewhat offensive to people of their stature, being that they lived in the humble beginnings of a village. This cave was just for weather-related emergencies—for snuggling through winter and holing up during heavy rainstorms. Just sitting there hurt their progressive pride, but it was practical.\n\nThey spoke English. Well, they spoke several languages, each choosing a specific one to compliment their inner flavor, but for commonality's sake they spoke the queen's English. Communicating with outsiders was simple. Decades earlier, while nothing more than a tribe of hunter-gatherers, first contact sparked a sort of renaissance for their kind. The brightest minds of future utopias came back and shared the most impressive knowledge, life-saving science, life-changing spirituality and life-giving optimism and happiness, transforming a loose family of brain dead nobodies into a well-oiled machine of legendary thinkers.\n\nConstantly they were innovating. With intentionally sparse knowledge given to them by the friendliest of time-travelers, every day marked a milestone of human achievement. First the bow, then the wheel, then the lever, the pulley and so on, culminating most recently in the prediscovery and successful implementation of an aqueduct.\n\nThese were (pardon my unwelcome French) cavemen, truly, but they've been tampered with on a temporal level. Cavemen, yes, but objectively the most baller cavemen of all time.\n\nTwo children plodded about at the opening, periodically sticking their fingers out into the wet, dreary midday world, catching tiny droplets of rainwater and flicking them at each other in a playful game. They weren't very happy with the current state of their once hopeful afternoon. The rain was fierce and seemed unwilling to let up anytime soon, so they were stuck inside the boring cave with a most intrusive guest. Their parents were obligated to entertain him for his short visit into their world, but they weren't, so they digressed into a dull day of flicking water back and forth and thinking about whatever things they thought about.\n\n\"How interesting,\" the man closest to the foreigner said after looking blankly at his gleeful smile for a second or two longer than comfortable.\n\nThey've seen lighters before. While portable fire may have been mind-blowing the first two or three times, it was really quite trivial. Certain sections of their clan were starting to dabble in the more advanced stages of steel-working. Most already knew the basics of smithing and welding and all that good stuff. Fire was commonplace.\n\n\"Yes, the marvels of the future are really quite impressive. Would anyone like to hear a story?\"\n\nAfter no one said anything for a few awkward moments, a women sitting against the right wall slowly nodded a yes.\n\n\"Great! Well, this happened when I was just a teenager, maybe 14 or 15. I know that may be middle-aged to some of you, but I was really just a kid.\"\"\n\nOne or two tribes-people scoffed at his unintentional insult. Their lifespan was remarkably similar to his own, something he'd know if he left the cave to see an elder or two.\n\n\"2018 was the year. I don't how far into the future that it to you, but—\"\n\n\"96,345 or six years, depending on the month,\" one of the children shouted while dancing her fingers on the waves of rain splashing forth.\n\n\"Let us not be rude,\" an adult, her father sitting in the middle of the cave, scolded, \"Please, continue.\"\n\nThe traveler laughed.\n\n\"Oh, perfectly fine. It's cute how you little neanderthals learn so fast.\"\n\nThe girl snapped around. After two days of putting up with his smugness and superiority and passive-aggressive insults, she'd had enough.\n\n\"Sorry?\" she asked, \"Neanderthals?\"\n\nThe traveler cracked a smile.\n\n\"Yes, that's what you are, a Neanderthal. A caveman, if you will,\" he said gesturing to the room around them, \"And your intellect is nothing compared to that of my own.\"\n\nA few gasps and audible \"woooooooowwwww\"s waved across the gathering. The child's father showed a more worried than offended expression. His eyebrows raised and his face displayed a sort of \"here we go again\".\n\n\"Actually,\" the girl replied to the detriment of all that knew what would follow next, \"We aren't Neanderthals, we're Homo Sapiens.\"\n\nThe traveler chuckled.\n\n\"No, you're most certainly a Neanderthal.\"\n\n\"This guy,\" she mumbled.\n\n\"We're humans, who share 99.88% of our DNA with Neanderthals, but 100% with the likes of you. You, a completely separate race.\"\n\n\"And what race is that?\"\n\n\"The cunts.\"\n\n***\n\nThis one was short, but if you want more stories hit up my website, [casualhuman.com](http://casualhuman.com)." ]

[ 1, 9 ]

[ "1425271252", "1425264281" ]

[ "\"Well that's odd.\" I thought to myself. \n\nClearly i wasn't in distress and I wasn't missing, at least not to me. I clicked my cellphone and called mom.\n\n\"Mom?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh son! you're okay! Where are you?\" My mom exclaimed hysterically.\n\n\"I'm at the mall, like i told you.\"\n\n\"You are? I forgot, i was so worried.\"\n\n\"Mom, why didn't you call my cellphone before calling the police? An amber alert is pretty serious.\"\n\n\"I forgot your number.\"\n\n\"Its in your cellphone, you tap my name and it automatically dials.\"\n\n\"....Oh.\"\n\nMy mom wasn't good with technology.", "“911, what is the nature of your emergency?”\n\n“Hi… uh… I’d just got an Amber Alert notification on my phone and I wanted to report it.”\n\n“Okay, sir. Please go ahead. What was the name of the child on the Amber Alert?”\n\n“Roy Brand.”\n\n“Okay. I’m pulling that up now. Where did you see Roy?”\n\n“Well, I didn’t. I’m Roy Brand.”\n\n“Roy! Are you in any danger?”\n\n“No. No I’m not. I’m just a little confused.”\n\n“Is everything okay? Are you in a safe location?”\n\n“Yeah, I am…but-”\n\n“But what?”\n\n“But I’m a 37 year old man. I’m eating breakfast with my wife and kids. Why am I on an Amber Alert?”\n\n“Stay calm, Roy. I’m dispatching a squad car to your location.”\n\n“What? Why? No! Don’t do that!”\n\n“We’ll get you back to your parents, Roy! Do not worry!”\n\n“My parents have been dead for years!”\n\n“They’ve been murdered? We will send additional back up!”\n\n“No. What? They weren't murdered!”\n\n\"Stay where you are, Roy. Help is on the way!\"\n\n*click*\n\n\"...honey? Kids? Could you come here for a second?\"\n" ]

[ 2, 2 ]

[ "1425257628", "1425258506" ]

[ "Yep, there she is. Five feet away from me. I feared the trip might dump us off in the exact same physical space and all our bits would explode from the solidifying into one another. But she came up with the buffer and the dilation matrix. Always good with the details compared to my big picture thinking.\n\nI'm fiddling with my shoulder mounted cameras, testing my sensors, mentally reviewing my dead languages. She's already deactivating and reintegrating. A wet pop cracks the sky. Her time bubble sparks and a piles of skin collapses neatly on the ground. That shouldn't happen. \n\nI hit the fine gain control on my viewer. The probes indicated her layers stretch across fifty years, refusing to arrive as a whole in a singular point. Nerves 40, piles on blood 20, an eyeball spiralling into existence over a decade, a tongue and some teeth on the ground somewhere in the first century.\n\nWe knew the chance of a dissolution. We expected to be vaporized all at once. I reenter the slipstream. If I go back to the future but before we took the trip, I can save her from this past. We'll be better equipped to get me out of my bubblelayer as well. \n\nThe emergency chute has enough juice to fire me down the stream without scarring the landscape. I crash head-first into her bubble as it descends from the future and my past. We lock eyes. I forgot we already took the trip, will always take the trip. Just reversing my jump without plotting a whole new course means I got in her way. \n\nThe collision chopped her up across the timeline. My bubble keep hard dropping me into the point before the collision. Poorly implemented safety feature. My shoddy design. I thought navigating fourth dimensionally would nicely - I crash headfirst into her - resolve itself like a highway, not an avalanche. \n\nI keep seeing my wife cascade across at least a quarter century with each impact. My internal sensors pick up powerful energy readings with each crack. I'm developing hairline cracks, losing cohesion - I lock eyes with her. I pull the emergency chute. It makes things worse. I reset to the chutepull like a bad save checkpoint. I can't resist pulling the chute. My awareness separation from the loop won't last much longer. I crash headfirst into her. Gotta fix this. I can save us. Her dividing out is my fault. I crash head-first into her bubble as it descends. She's horrified. She is always horrified. She takes the trip once but sees endless mes crashing into her. A part of me might - I crash head-first again, I crash I crash I cr I I I I \n\nI I I I I I I I IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII\n\n\n-----------\nEdit- Thanks for the upvote, reddit! If you enjoyed my story, you might enjoy supporting your local public library where they store books by professional authors with actual editors. And probably movies and music too! Something for everyone. Or check my subreddit /r/420hitler for curated deconstructions of Hitler as a marijuana enthusiast.\n\n\n\n\n\n", "Me and my love had always been known as the two who were made for one another, we had every complimenting personality piece that fit together so well it often seemed surreal. We were always the inseparable ones that never left the others side, that is until a few complications in the portals with our newly developed time machine hit us like a ton of bricks. He was so excited to see times of the past with me there by his side, knowing that he was out there without me brought a great darkness to my heart. With each step I took in search for him I remembered the way his words sunk into me like a bite, leaving marks across me that seemingly mapped out the directions to get back to him. The key was not so easy to find, but when I realized that the key was simply remembering I knew I would find him in good time. As time went on in this strange place not native to me, I remembered all of the midnight talks we would have about silly things that seemingly had little significance to the real world. On our wedding night he told me that he knew we had met in a past life or two, I simply smiled and agreed even though I knew no amount of lifetimes together could explain the connection that we had. Still, we had fun bouncing the idea of it around. As time went on and we were happily married we never shook off that game, creating new scenarios for lives we once lived together became a part of us that only we could really understand. After months of searching all over, I remembered a specific story we created together that entailed a setting in Rome... realizing that the story we made from silliness took place in 50 BC made me feel a strange sense of hope and direction. Onward I went, to Rome where we met in a past life-- though I could not remember the minor details I do remember him being persistent that we met on a rainy night beside a local fire. I remember feeling hopeless as the sky stayed clear, many days had passed in Rome where the rain simply did not come... until the night it did. Through the downpour I searched the streets for the flames, dark corners stabbing at me until I found a glimpse of happiness in the light that guided me. I felt warmth as I slowly passed through the crowd all huddled under patio like roofs that covered the fire, laughter all around made me feel as if I had seen and heard all of this before. The fire reached out to the crying sky as if to comfort it, just as his hand did on my shoulder when he stopped me from searching and simply whispered into my ear, \"I found you.\" ", "The beaches.\n\nThe beaches were quiet at night.\n\nShe hated it. She loved it. She needed it. \n\nShe scans the horizon, a crisp line of black against the azure blue that roiled occasionally with the movement of the beasts beneath. She looks for any signal from him. Any light at all.\n\n*Our flashlights, if we ever get split up or lost, our flashlights will let us find each other again. The batteries are heavy and they last long. If we lose each other, conserve your batteries and look for my light. As I'll look for yours.* \n\nHe had been so calm as he said it. The woman who was a wife within her rose up in a panic- a momentum she had to swallow down. The woman who was his partner in science and adventure simply nodded gravely in response.\n\nShe never dreamed it would actually come to it.\n\nShe missed him\n\nShe wondered if he was still alive.\n\nThe woman who was a wife wailed sharply and keenly within her at the thought, and the woman who was a survivor in this strange world and time had to drag the sound back down her throat. \n\nShe had to stay sharp. She had to stay calm. She needed her focus of she was to see Paul again.\n\nThe sand swallows her toes as she pads along the beachfront. She remembers how she used to swallow her Paul. Cheeks grow flushed and warm from memory, she pushes the thought to the side. \n\nIt had been a year. \n\nOne whole year since she had seen her Paul. Her last vision of him was of his wide hands, corded with veins and so full of force and empty of gentleness, crushing her own small hands as they huddled together in the vibrating time machine they had built.\n\nThe time machine. The traitor. It had been the time machine that ripped her and her Paul apart.\n\nShe could only pray that the machine had placed them in the same year as it had ripped apart in it's retrograde.\n\nIt had been a long year, spent hungry and thankful for the close attention she had paid to Paul's survival training. This was a dangerous time to be alive. \n\nThe Egyptians were reason she both hated and loved the beaches. The beautiful glyphs that the world remembered them by did not do any service to the reality of their harsh and ancient world.\n\nThe first day she had been stranded in this time, she had watched them round up the children and slaughtered them all as the mothers watched from the distance.\n \nShe shakes her head and pushes the memory to the side. She refocuses her gaze on the horizon. She watches, she waits.\n\n*flicker* \n\nPaul.", "I found him... I walked hours, days, years, decades. My longing kept me young, young enough to search. However he was not so lucky. He gave up the fight, the searching. He lay dead in a tomb, he had been a hero in that time. So long ago I missed him by years. \n\"I remember now...\" I said as I sat, resting my head on the large stone door to his tomb. \"You warned me... When we first met, you remember. You said 'I met you once before, but you were older'. I laughed at you. But... I realize now... I met you first, because I can't die. Not yet. Not while I can find you again. I will wait... A thousand years. I will wait through war and famine. Didn't I always say? I love you more.\"\nShe smiled, and fell asleep. Tomorrow she would search again.", "I had given up when the man found me, never taking his eyes off me as he got off his horse and walked over. He looked just like the others who had found me over the years, and looked at me in the same, confused way. In the beginning I had tried talking to them, trying to tell them that I was looking for my wife, that I wasn't from around here, but they quickly distrusted me; it didn't take me long to realise that my best chances of survival relied on me running, hiding, being a shadow while exploring the land and looking for Gina.\n\nThis time though, I was too weak. My leg had gone purple after I had fallen on it a few days before, running. It was infected, that much I was sure, and I had tried to keep it as clean as I could with the few resources I had. My body was growing all the more weaker, though. I barely had enough strength to talk to the man as his hand lingered over the sword at his side. But I couldn't remember what my last words were. Screaming, perhaps? Begging for my life? It had been too long ago. Either way, if I was going to lose now, then I wanted to say something I was proud of.\n\n\"Wherever you are, Gina, I love you.\"\n\nThe man kept staring, his hand still hovering.\n\n\"... Gina?\"\n\nIt was now my turn to be confused. I said Gina's name to many men over the years, but none of them had ever fixated on it. I'd whispered her name into the wind and hoped she was close, I'd seen the bodies of women in ransacked villages and on the roads that I'd almost been convinced was hers. The one I had found shortly after being thrown from the time machine, the burned one, I had wept over for days I had been so sure. But believing it was her would've done me no good; I had to keep going. And now, after 25 long years, I felt that feeling again. I felt... hope.\n\n\"Yes, Gina.\"\n\nThe man's hand now laid at his side, his sword no longer a threat. He thought carefully, his eyes concentrating on the sand, trying to find the right words in a language that wasn't his own. A language that someone had taught him only recently.\n\n\"You... Paul?\"\n\n\"Yes! Yes, me... I am Paul, me!\"\n\nMy cheeks ached as I realised I was smiling, the first time I'd done so in so long. I tried getting up but quickly stumbled, and the man lifted me over his shoulder with little effort.\n\n\"I take to Gina.\"\n\nHe hoisted me over his horse and I lay there, relief washing over me as I felt the man get up onto it. I was almost there. Hold on, my love... I'm coming.", "Ten years.\n\nTen long years of long nights working at impossible-seeming equations, of early mornings wrapping our minds around mind-bending ideas.\n\nTen years.\n\nTen years of spending every moment in each others' company, of getting to know each other better than anyone else in the world as we worked on the project.\n\nFive years.\n\nFive years of marriage, of bliss, still working on the project.\n\nFifteen years.\n\nFifteen years together, and I wouldn't change a moment of it, and I know that neither would she.\n\nOne second.\n\nOne second to split us up.\n\nBut not forever.\n\nWe'll find each other again. We have to. I won't accept the world any other way. Not after fifteen years.\n\nFifteen years together, and one second split us apart.\n\nBut not forever." ]

[ 2, 2, 2, 7, 7, 23 ]

[ "1425287483", "1425289581", "1425307564", "1425277749", "1425294804", "1425269210" ]

[ "I could feel it building up in my chest, sitting in the white-ish grey room as the man with the moustache stared at me intently, the two detectives in the corner nodding to each other and writing on their clipboards.\n\n\"I...\" All eyes in the room fixated on mine.\n\n\"I don't need anyone to believe me. Honestly, I thought it was stupid, kind of...\" I was admitting it to this man, this person I barely knew.\n\n\"I only killed her, the girl... I killed her so that...\" I trailed off again,\n\n\"So that I would have an excuse to go to jail and get free food and a painless death--\"", "So this really is it...\n\nWhat I did can never be taken back, I do not hope for forgiveness as I do not deserve any.\n\nI am starting to realize what truly is the most important things in life, things that all of you could do right, but I have lost my chance\n\nI do not care about my life as much as I hate to leave my family and loved ones behind. I can't even imagine how my children might feel, knowing I will never be there to witness their achievements. They will never be able to jump into my lap showing off the A they got on a test, or a medal they had won.\n\nIt hurts me, not knowing what will become of them, what will become of my friends in the later years. I am abandoning everyone who ever looked up to me. I can never make anyone smile again, never feel the happiness that overflows my heart when I sit down with a homeless person to have a nice lunch. \n\nThe smiles I got from others made my life. It is the little things that I do not want any of them to miss out on, just because I'm gone.\n\nI feel guilty of that more than about my crime.", "The day was november the 20th and my last day will be the 23rd. Everyday i feel more anxious. The 21st i was in my room the entire day. On the 22nd, some of my friends came to visit. I didn't sleep that night.\n\nToday I woke up and didn't have the urge to move. I looked out the small opening at the end over my hall knowing this would be my last morning. my closest friends and family came to visit. by noon, they all left and i was eating me last meal. After 30 minutes, the guard escorted me to the chair. he strapped me in and opened the curtain. My parents, brother and my wife were sobbing on the other side. The warden walked in the room and told asked me if i want to send a message to everybody in the prison and held up the microphone. \n\nI knew exactly what to say. I had to trek everyone over the PA this. The warden pressed the red button and told me i was live.\n\n\"the dress is white and gold\"\n\nthen everything went dark.\n\n" ]

[ 2, 2, 3 ]

[ "1425265751", "1425286977", "1425277080" ]

[ "(Part 1)\nIt had been months since Nick had passed away. One would think that after a while it wouldn’t hurt as much, right? How I wished that was the case for me but even now, months later, it still hurt as badly as the day that I found out. Killed in action and I couldn’t even see my husband’s body for the last time before they buried him. I didn’t think I would ever be able to get over it, regardless of how much time passed.\n\nThey’d sent me his uniform, boots and all, torn up and tattered, his blood permanently staining it. His dog tags had managed to escape any severe damage, only a few dents and scratches marring the cool metallic surfaces. I never took them off. They were some of the few things that I had of him, one of the very last things that he touched. They brought me comfort and made me feel like he was always with me, protecting me and watching over me. They were a reminder that I would see him again one day.\n\nToday had been a really hard day. Work had been shit and my emotions had been all over the place. Nick’s loss was really prominent today and it made getting through the day harder than usual. For the most part I was able to swallow the hurt that came up whenever I thought about my dead husband, but today I couldn’t manage it. I ended up leaving work early, on my boss’ order and spent the rest of the day hugging Nick’s uniform to me as I sobbed into it. I thought I’d managed to convince myself to come to terms with his death, but it was obvious that I would never come to terms with it. My dear, loving husband had been taken from me without much of explanation and now I was left to try and pick up my broken pieces. \n\nAfter several hours I managed to cry myself out, having been reduced to quiet hiccups until I finally mustered the strength to shower and go to bed. I still work the next day after all. After showering I slipped into my favorite shirt of his; a red button up. Like all of his clothes, it was much too big for me, but it reminded me of him and made it feel like I was sleeping with him again, so it had become my favorite shirt to sleep in. Switching the light off, I settled into our bed on my side, adjusting myself until I was comfortable. With a final trembling hiccup I settled in to sleep, hoping that maybe tonight I would get a decent night’s rest. Sleep had been evading me since the day of Nick’s death and I was beginning to wonder if I would ever be able to sleep peacefully again. \n\nA sound I never thought I’d hear again broke through the wonderful dream that I was having, pulling me back to the reality that I desperately wished I could escape. As I came away from my dreams and into consciousness, the sound of my phone buzzing on the table beside my bed was hauntingly familiar and yet my sleepy brain didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Without a second thought, I impulsively reached over to my bed, glancing over the caller ID as I picked up my phone: Nick.\n\n“Hey baby.” I called out sleepily. \n\n“Hi sweet bee. How’s my baby doing?” \n\nA sleepy smile twisted my lips at his words. He was so sweet. \n\n“I’m doing good. Just sleeping.” “Oh I’m sorry baby, did I wake you?” “Yeah, but that’s okay. I always want to talk to you.”\n\nHe chuckled into the receiver, eliciting another soft smile from me. \n\n“How was your day today bee?” “Terrible. I had such a shitty day at work. My boss sent me home early, so I guess that’s a good thing. Stayed home all day after that. Cried myself to sleep.” \n\n“Oh my sweet pea. I’m so sorry. Why were you crying?” I could hear the sadness in his voice. He never liked to hear that I was crying. \n\n“Because I really really missed you today baby.” I mumbled, my eyes slowly opening as I stared up at the dark ceiling above me, my brain slowly starting to put the pieces together. \n\n“I really miss you too baby. So much.” \n\nA soft sigh slips through my lips as we settle into a few moments of comfortable silence. \n\n“How was your day honey?” I prompt, not wanting to talk about myself anymore. \n\n“Oh you know babe, same as always. Work is a drag. I hate it here and I wish I was home with you.” \n", "And then everything clicked. Nick. Nick is dead. He’s not supposed to be talking to me right now because he’s dead… How was I having a conversation with my dead husband?!\n\n“N-Nick…yo-you’re dead. You c-c-can’t come home. You’re dead…” My voice began to tremble as the realization of what I’d been doing hit home.\n \n“Whoever the fuck this is, it’s not funny! How dare you call me from my dead husband’s cell phone and pretend to be him! Fuck you, whoever this is!” \n\n“No bee! It’s me! It’s Nick! It’s really me! This isn’t a prank or a trick, it’s really me baby bee. I’m not dead, I promise.” “But they sent me your uniform, all torn up and your blood was on it…I have your dog tags. I never take them off. And your boots. They told me you’d been killed in action…they told me you were gone.”\n\nTears begin to spill as I sit up in our bed, pushing the covers away as I pulled my knees to my chest, hugging them as I fingered the dog tags at my throat. Nick was alive…but how?\n\n“I know what they told you baby, but it was for your own good. You couldn’t know that I was alive or else it would make things complicated.”\n\nComplicated? What would be complicated? What was he talking about?\n\n“I’m not supposed to be talking to you right now baby, but I needed to reach out to you, to let you know that I was ok and that I was going to see you again soon. I couldn’t bear to let you go on any longer thinking that I’d disappeared from your life forever.”\n\nI began to sob in earnest as his words, unable to believe what he was telling me. “But Nick I’m your wife, how could you let me believe that you were dead when you really weren’t? Do you know what I’ve been going through these past few months thinking that you were really gone forever?” \n\n“I know baby, I know. If it were up to me, I would’ve told you exactly what was going on, but it wasn’t up to me. I’ll never forgive myself for all the pain that I’ve put you through, but please trust me when I tell you it was for your own good my love. You know I would never do anything to hurt you. I love you so much baby. Please find a way to forgive me.” \n\nNick was alive but it was clear that he was wrapped up in something that I couldn’t know about. Would I ever get to know about it? \n\n“When you are coming home?” I whispered through sobs, bracing myself for his answer. \n\n“Soon bee. Soon. Wait for me please. I’m coming home to you soon.”\n\nAnd then the line went dead. \n\nSoon bee. Soon. \n" ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1425616317", "1425617242" ]

[ "*March 3, 1932*\n\n*I met with Maria for the last time before she moves to Paris today. We went to lunch at the cafe downtown, and we talked about her move. She's a little nervous about her French skills, as she's had very little chance to practice, but I assured her that she'll adjust very quickly.*\n\n*She'll be staying with an aunt of hers, she said. I don't know what I'm going to do without her company, but at least we will be able to stay in touch.*\n\n*I asked her for a copy of her address, so I can write her as soon as possible, and she gave me a small envelope with what she said was information to contact her. Upon opening it, I discovered a small scrap of paper that read maria.smith@hotmail.com. I can only assume that it is one of her riddles, but I cannot for the life of me discover the meaning behind it. I can only hope that she will write me as soon as she arrives.*\n\n*March 20, 1932*\n\n*Still no word from Maria. I asked papa about the note that Maria left for me and he passed it along to one of his friends who worked for the army breaking code in the Great War. We are all, I must confess, stymied. It is most distressing to have no way to contact her, especially as I am worried about their safety of her journey. I will write more as soon as I hear news.*\n\n----------------\n\nI closed my great-grandmother's journal, reeling slightly. Of all the things I had expected to read, an account of her friend giving her a goddamn email address was not one of them. Who said family genealogy wasn't interesting? I swiveled to my laptop and opened up my email.\n\nWhat do you say to someone whose email you found in a journal from 1932? To whom it may concern, are you a time traveler? Please reply.\n\nI settled with, \"To whom it may concern, I came across this email in one of my relative's journals and I wanted to reach out. Did you know Jane Smith? She writes about knowing you just before you left for Paris. I look forward to your reply.\"\n\nA week later, I found myself sitting across the table from a wiry young woman with wild brown curls and impish eyes. \"So,\" she says, stirring milk into her coffee. \"Are you interested in an adventure?\"", "Justin wasn't exactly your average Joe. I suppose that's why we got along so well. He was a really unique guy. He had a terrible tin-ear and dressed like a bit of a scrub. The fact that he always seemed to have a lot of extra molah and looked like an absolute darling made up for his eccentric personality, though. His peepers were the color of the blue sky, he was a bit rugged, and he was a bit of a flirt with the ladies. I never really minded. He was my best friend.\n\nThe first time I met him he seemed pretty odd, but that's first impressions for ya. I was an assistant for Mr. Allison, and investor in Wall Street. He made an appointment to discuss some financial investments, but unfortunately Mr. Allison spent all night out with his goldigger fiance. I thought it was inappropriate and I told him so. Of course, I was just the secretary to it wasn't any of my business. I was just a lowly worker, and we all know that no one cares what I think. Mr. Allison was always a creep, and I was tired of putting up with him. Justin seemed annoyed that Mr. Allison wasn't in, but got over it in a spiffy. I was surprised that he didn't look down on me like all the other gents do, I think that's what grabbed my attention first.\n\nI did end up running into Justin several times over the next few days. Eventually a friendship formed. I know it's a bit unconventional for a male and female to be friends like we were, but I think we really had something special. He wasn't like the other guys, and treating me like an actual person got him a lot of respect from me. He did get the finances worked out with Mr. Allison. I did hear my boss rant and rave about the stupidity of some of them, but it wasn't any of my business. \n\nJustin ended up living in New York for five years before he started acting funny. Well, funnier than usual. He told me he felt bad sometimes, but he never went into detail. He was always pretty vague like that. He did come out to parties with me a lot, and drinking was always a ton of fun. In 1933 we did have to move along to speakeasies, but I never had a problem getting an invite and he was always happy to tag along. For five years he was the best friend I ever had, and he told me he felt the same way. \n\nOne day he seemed to simply vanish. He was gone for almost 6 months. I was quite surprised and upset at how abruptly he disappeared. I was actually worried something had happened to him. Did he get into trouble at the speakeasy? Was it my fault? Or did he get into trouble with his investments? Maybe he retired on the beach, who knows. I never did figure it out.\n\nI saw him again in January I remember it was cold and I was tired after a long at filing papers. I left my scarf at home. There he was, leaning against a brick wall outside of my apartment building. I was surprised to see him. What shocked me even more was the fact that he was holding a scarf, like he knew I forgot one that day. Has he been watching me? He wrapped the scarf around me. After that, he lighted a snipe and said we needed to have a chat. He started walking to a nearby coffee place, and I followed. Normally I wouldn't go without an invitation, but Justin was always pretty abrupt that way. When he wanted to do something, he did it then. Very impatient boy, he was. \n\nWhen we sat down to coffee he gave me some papers. He said I would need them. They were rights to a few stock investments. He said he normally wouldn't share, but he went out of his way to do this for me. I thought he was insane, bit he seemed really serious and that threw me through a loop. He told me times would change. I went through the papers and noticed he outlined very clear directions for me to follow. Investments, stock interests, and more. He told me times would he hard for a lady like me. I didn't know what he meant. He told me to just follow the directions. At the end of the page was some sort of code. justin.simmons@hotmail.com? He said I could contact him there, but that's not a number. I think my best friend needs help. Maybe he was always this strange. -\n\n " ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1425401208", "1425395144" ]

[ "I had expected more panic. Something like adrenaline coursing through my system, fight or flight responses going haywire at the sight of the ground swiftly getting closer. But instead, contrary to how I felt before I jumped, I was at peace. Was this what people with terminal illnesses felt, before they died? A calm acceptance of their end?\n\nNo, probably not. For one, there was no air whooshing past them as they fell. Or the grim assurance that this was what they chose. Theirs was a fate thrust upon them, and those that did accepted it. My situation was completely different, and I had no right to compare them. Not even if our emotions were superficially the same.\n\nBecause, I knew what I was getting into when I stared at the ground below, palms sweaty and heart hammering in my chest. I surrendered control the instant I stepped off. And that, now that I thought about it, was probably where my peace came from. How fitting, that I would find my answer right before the end.\n\nAnd as the ground grew closer, I reached behind me and pulled the cord, unleashing my parachute, to touch down softly and without harm.\n", "Years I had plotted this, I planed it out down to the last millisecond. I knew exactly where I would be, every finger, every toe, every hair on my head in place. Every inch of skin covered. No shoes, clean socks. \nThere was no one to know that I saw him, no one even knew what he had done but me. No way to connect the dots. \nI waited from age nine to now, nearly twenty three... I wanted to do it with my own hands. Just as he had done to my mother. Just as he had done to my father. \n \nBut somehow, it was not what I had pictured. No it wasn't right yet. Everything was in place, everything was going as planned. Exactly as planed, not a strand was not falling exactly into place. Except that I remembered the idea seaming more... Liberating. Yet I felt nothing as I stepped silently into his room. \nSurely there was something more to be gotten out of this. Something more than just his death? \nWhat would it do... He would be dead, that was all... The fear my mother faced, the torture of my father. He would not have any of that. He would be free of his crimes rather. There was no justice in a peaceful death for this man. Instead.... I would leave him with a scar for now.... Something to haunt him when he woke, unsure of how he got it. That would be nice. I could tell him later how I chose to make his life hell instead of killing him while he slept. \nI made a cut.... From his earlobe, down his cheek to his chin. Deep enough to be sure there was a scar for a while to come. He had taken a sleeping powder not very long ago, and the knife was sharpened so nicely.... It wouldn't feel like anything right away. He groaned in pain, and rolled over but did not fully awake. His blood staining his sheets. \n \nI didn't waste any time leaving. It was a long walk home, and I wanted to be no where near the house when morning came. No.... I didn't want to be anywhere near the house for a long time... Not until I had a better plan. But I would return, and when I did... That man was going to wish he had killed the 'sleeping' child that night so many years ago.", "She grew up listening to punk rock with black extensions in her hair. She went to gigs and drank and smoke. She dated douchebags who weren't worth her time and her best friend was a druggie. She lived in a rundown shack with her Mom and brother. They ate cereal for breakfast, fast food for lunch, and cereal for dinner. She was thin and pale, her straw-like hair falling past her chest and thinning. There wasn't much for her and she knew it. \n\nEvery morning she would walk to work, a slow pace as she took in the trees and the houses and the roads. She would skip along the curb and touch the leaves on the trees. She would smile at people and they would ignore her, but she didn't mind. She would go about her day stacking shelves and folding paper, then head home.\n\nIt was not what she had pictured, but it was her life." ]

[ 1, 2, 2 ]

[ "1425468190", "1425454834", "1425455538" ]

[ "The first thing you have to understand, of course, is that we couldn't achieve a full wipe.\n\nThe mind doesn't work that way, apparently - there will always be ghosting, there'll be fragments and pieces left over. Like overwriting an old tape too many times, wiped memories sometimes bleed through.\n\nWe know that now.\n\nThe program was originally funded by the government - wiping a detainee repeatedly meant they could keep trying different interrogation techniques until they found one that worked, and start with a 'fresh' person each time. How long would it take to break someone with waterboarding? With emotional distress? Every person has different levels of willpower, but for the first time testing different interrogation methods had become viable.\n\nTest subject #3 was considered one of the strongest ones - he'd lasted longer than any other test subject in almost every form of interrogation. We'd been testing him for several weeks when the first anomaly occured.\n\n\"Morning, Dr. Richards,\" he'd said. \n\nWe were forced to shut the experiment down for the day and wipe him immediately - we stopped using the same interrogator more than once.\n\nTwo months later, the next anomaly occured. \n\nFive months after we'd first brought him in, the interrogator walked out - and with him came the test subject. \n\nWhere is he now? I don't know. I promise.\n\n...Trust me, no amount of interrogation is going to change that.", "\"What do you mean, 'No one has signed up?'\" a crisp, deadly voice spoke out of a speakerphone, \"The investors poured *billions* into this technology, *millions* into advertising alone, we've *finally* broken through the political roadblocks, and you're saying that ***no one is interested?***\"\n\n\"Well,\" a small, spineless voice responded, \"sir, uhm, a-a-a few people have stopped by, but they all uhm, change-changed their minds, sir.\" \n\nThe speakerphone was silent, faintly leaking the soft crackle of an unsure connection, \"This is a joke isn't it? You're playing me for a fool and everything is fine! Right? There's no other explanation for this.\"\n\n\"Sir, I'm no-\"\n\n\"Yes that's it! That's what's happening, I'm not a failure! There is no *problem*, because if there was, by God I think I'd just have to *slit someone's throat* until that problem-\"\n\nA man walked through the sliding glass doors of the lobby, the receptionist quickly perked up, \"Sir, I'll have to call you back.\"\n\n\"Don't you dare hang up on-\" the receptionist tapped a button, savoring the brief moment of silence, before the newcomer, flushed red stormed his way toward the front desk. He took a look at a small engraved placard in front of the receptionist.\n\n\"Michael, is it?\" The man accused.\n\nMichael the receptionist smiled and nodded, as was his job, \"Yes sir, welcome to Memorex, how may I assist you?\" \n\n\"Yeah, cut the shit, I want a refund,\" The man made a very convincing angry face, his eyes were even bloodshot. Michael couldn't tell if that was a result of anger or tears, \"Hey asshole, are you listening to me?\" Michael decided on anger.\n\n\"Uh-um, yes sir, I heard you, a refund? Sir I don't believe you have paid... or even *tried* our service yet. You may be looking for a different-\"\n\n\"Oh do *not* pull this bullshit on me, I was the first one in line this morning, you guys made a big fucking deal about it, pulled out cameras and handshakes and all that shit. I payed ten thousand dollars for your 'procedure,' I was so excited when I got home it took me four hours to realize that I could *still fucking remember my daughter.*\" The man's voice faltered, he raised a hand to his mouth, stifling an exasperated cough, his eyes began to water.\n\nMichael said nothing during the tirade, and was hoping that the man would continue until closing time, he didn't want to respond, but kept his supervisors in mind, \"Sir, if you'd like to forget about something, our service is very-\"\n\n\"Weren't you listening? *I already tried that*, it didn't work, I'm not going to shovel more cash at you people so just give me my money back and I'll blast my fucking brains out at home!\"\n\n\"Sir, you didn't-\"\n\n\"Yes I did! Jerry Fassbender, I was the first one in line! Just look it up! You went through the entire process with me, Dr. Shartsis performed the procedure, she said I was 'archived' or some shit, so just look me up!\" Jerry was clearly becoming more agitated, Michael worked customer service for a dozen other high profile companies. Now was the time he'd normally call security, but Jerry for some untouched reason seemed less crazy, and more desperate. Michael decided to humor him.\n\n\"Okay, Jerry. Let's just calm down, okay? We'll get this sorted out.\" Michael glanced down striking his keyboard with automaton efficiency, bringing up the so-far unused memory archive, only to be used to recover memories in the event of a refund situation, of course, there wouldn't be a Jerry Fassbender in the archive, no one would- \"What the fuck?\" Michael's face burst with embarrassment at having cursed in front of a customer, but the feeling soon left him as awe and confusion took over. The archive was full. Not to capacity of course, but it was full nonetheless, a table of names, times, and brief memory descriptions stretched to the bottom of the monitor. \"Page 1 of 20\" it boasted at the bottom. Michael balked at it, that would've been over six hundred people, and the Memory Center had only been open for five hours. At the top of the list, highlighted a light blue, was Jerry Fassbender, 7:01 am, death of daughter. \n\nJerry grabbed the monitor and spun it toward himself, \"See, that's me you fuckwad, now give me my money back.\" Jerry pushed it back toward Michael, almost tipping it over, \"You said, 'satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.' Well guess what? I'm not satisfied.\" \n\nMichael stared inwardly, agape and addled. Some encroaching sense of dread lingered at the forefront of his brain. His eyes glazed over before Michael stared Jerry down, Michael reached under the counter and pushed a red button.\n\n\"Security please.\"\n\n", "*Recording*\n\nThe young woman stares at the camera, her eyes red. \n\n“To whoever may be watching this – if there is even anyone left who can watch this – I think – I think something really bad happened?” she begins hesitantly. “Someone needs to know what we’ve done.”\n\n“Yes, I remember now. Removing – no, it was erasing, we called it erasing. If you had a – uh, what’s the word – a memory, you wanted to relive, you could. It was too expensive for me to try, but there was this contest on the radio. I think – there was a contest – yeah, a contest. On the – on the –,” she mumbles. \n\n“My father died when I was young. His name was George, and he was a sweet man. We used to go to the pond and feed the – they’re not chickens, but they’re like chickens – um, *ducks* – right, ducks. I’m sorry, I don’t want this to be so short, but I don’t think I have much time. I only used it the once, and I thought maybe I’d – maybe it wouldn’t happen to me.”\n\n\"It was popular, and it took a while to notice anything. Everyone forgets things, right? It’s easy to convince yourself that nothing is wrong. But you can’t play with your – um,” she taps her cheek. “Um – what was I saying? Why is that light blinking? I don’t remember – uh. But this was important! I know that – I know that.”\n\n“It’s – right, it’s just that I don’t know what I’m doing here. Do you know where my Dad is? He likes to take me to see the – see the –“\n\n*Recording ends*\n", "My name is Anthony.\n\nIf my calculations are correct, this is going to be my last message. \n\nPlease, for the sake of all humanity, keep this recording safe. \n\n*Cough*\n\nForgetting is defined as the failure to remember something. Forgetting is not a selective process, but a more involuntary one. We cannot chose to forget an event, a name, a face. We can only try to learn more and by doing so, push out old memories with new ones. However, traumatic experiences, painful memories, and lingering thoughts often remain, even as we try to forget them. They seemed to be doomed to stay with us forever. \n\nThat was, until we created *'Wiping'*. \n\nIt began after we were able to isolate the latent cause of Alzheimers, effectively curing the damned thing. When we had the genome isolated, some researchers wondered whether or not we could reverse engineer it to *'erase'* certain memories. If it was possible, we could effectively cure PTSD, survivor's guilt, and a multitude of other mental diseases. Not only would we be able to help those who couldn't remember, but those who also could never forget. We already had the Nobel Peace Prize within our grasp, but with this information we were guaranteed to win. Our names would go down in history as some of the greatest scientists to have ever lived. \n\nAnd they did. But not like we planned. Our initial tests were better than we could have ever hoped for. We exposed rats to a stimuli that would induce fear. We would show them a color and upon showing them we would play a sound of a predator. Over time they learned to fear just a color. No sound had to be played. The next step would prove to be the most drastic one. Implant the genetic strain in a controlled dosage and then re-apply the stimuli. \n\nAnd by God, it worked. When the colors were shown, they didn't respond. It was like the whole experiment never happened. More tests were done, and the same results came up. We had managed to replicate the results over and over and over again. After this, the next step was to begin testing with human subjects. It was a leap that not many were willing to take, and understandably so. If something were to go wrong, we could have lost all of our credibility, funding, and any chance at continuing on in the field of medicine.\n\nIn the end there were only 13 of us. We submitted our more than substantial animal results and applied for the ability to perform a human trial. After a month of debating, we were given the green light to move on with human testing. Our first subject was a veteran who had seen most of his squad blow up via an IED while he was taking a leak. He was plagued with inescapable thoughts of suicide, guilt, and depression. He mentioned that he was explicitly haunted by his Sargent, who survived the initial blast, but was stuck inside the jeep while it burned. The screams that went on while he was burned alive... Even I cannot fathom how terrifying this must have been for him. \n\nHe went through testing and we found that he was highly susceptible to any explosion, the smell of gasoline, and screaming. With our three stimuli marked, we proceeded with the treatment. We summed up a dosage and put our little test to work. \n\nAfter he had awoken, we gave him time to readjust to his surroundings. We asked him a few basic questions, and the results were... remarkable. He was able to remember that he served in the Military, remembers what lead up to the event, what occurred after the event and showed no response to any of the stimuli. Even when given the information that occurred during the event, he reacted without any major side effects. \n\nAfter initial testing we kept him for a monitoring period. Regular motor skills along with simple memory tests were done and he performed great. Furthermore, his memory actually improved compared to his pre-wipe test results. He said he no longer felt anxious and that all he could remember of prior anxiety or paranoia was very vague. He described that it felt like 'it was as if I dreamt it all'. After his monitoring period was over he was sent off and thanked for his participation. \n\nThe moment those doors closed behind him, the lab erupted into a celebration that would make a frat party look like a toddler's 3rd birthday party. We managed to actually cure PTSD. We had set a new precedent in psychopharmacology. We filed for another test subject, and another, and another. All with the same results. We did it. *We fucking did it*.\n\nIt wasn't long after when we were finally writing books on the process, perfecting the procedure, and spreading it world wide. We became celebrities among the medical world. We received countless awards, spoke at multiple lectures, and had more magazine articles than I could possibly imagine. \n\nBut then, the general public caught wind of it.\n\nThe public argued that the procedure be allowed for anyone who wanted to forget something. Amongst our bliss, we allowed for the procedure to go public. Anyone who had the money could forget a moment that they wanted to. Be it a regretful decision, a movie they wanted to watch over again, a song, people were having their memories wiped. \n\nSome people claimed it was a near religious experience. That it was like being born again. At one point a doctor who could wipe a memory was more in demand than a surgeon who had multiple college degrees. Everyone was getting wipes, and some people were getting multiple wipes. At first, it was seemingly harmless. No side effects from multiple wipes, or large wipes seemed to be appearing. \n\nUntil yesterday. \n\nYesterday, our first test subject returned. The Vet. He complained about migraines. Apparently, he had suddenly started suffering minor migraines. We wondered if this was just a side effect or something completely unrelated. We started testing. At first, all seemed normal. However, out of curiosity, we decided to see how he would react to the original stimuli that plagued him. \n\nJames... James sat him down and began testing. Upon the first stimuli, he had a spike in blood pressure. We tried to warn James to stop but something wasn't right. The mic was broken or some God damned other reason and... it just... Fucking hell.. The blood was everywhere. He was torn apart at the limbs, and... Christ....\n\nThe subject screamed that he could still hear the gurgled cries of his sergeant as he burned alive. And the only way to stop it was with blood. \n\nWe had to kill him. We couldn't tell anybody anything about this.\n\nWe apparently awakened some sort of primal response. Something that we managed to keep hidden deep within our brain. Something that was supposed to remain forgotten. Something that was never supposed to se the light of day. \n\nRage does not even touch the sort of description of what I had just witnessed. What I saw was *inhuman*... \n\nWe immediately set upon figuring out what caused this when we got a phone call from a local hospital. People were complaining of migraines in mass numbers. All of which were people who were wiped. And then we got another call.. and another....\n\nIt wasn't longer than an hour later when the air raid sirens went off. Marshall law was declared. \n\n\nI can hear the screams from outside. It's madness. \n\n\n I'm sorry I did this. We played God... and we created hell. \n\nIf I learned anything, it is this: Some things were meant to be remembered. Other things are meant to be forgotten and lost to time.\n\n*screams can be heard in the background*\n\nThe door will only hold for a couple more moments. I don't know exactly how long, but...\n\n*The screams grow louder* \n\nGod damnit, they're moving faster than I expected\n\n*wood splintering and cracking can be heard. Multiple footsteps can now be heard*\n\nSara, I love you. Stay safe. Please forg-\n\n\n**BLOOD**\n\nNO! STAY AWAY!!! NO!! NOO! **NOOOOOOO!!!!!**\n\n*A gurgle can be heard along with tearing and rustling*\n\n*click*\n\n\n\n" ]

[ 3, 9, 11, 23 ]

[ "1425663329", "1425490241", "1425490240", "1425488592" ]

[ "\"Hm.\" I picked up the watch. It was a dinky little thing, cheap yellow plastic but clearly well-loved - although the strap had broken, it had been repaired with string.\n\nI noticed that the stop watch function was running. Didn't that run down the battery faster? I should probably stop it before I turned it in to the Lost & Found, so that it didn't die entirely before it's owner came looking for it. I pushed the large, red, inviting button on watch's side.\n\nEverything stopped - the tweeting of the birds in the trees, the playful hooting of the monkeys in their enclosure, the babbling of the nearby bushes, the blood rushing through my veins, the thoughts in my head, time itself. I didn't even notice - how could I, with not time to notice it in?\n\nAfter a timeless moment passed, things began to happen again. The rising numbers vanished from the watch and its face went blank as I pressed the button. I realized, with a twinge of disappointment, that I had been too late - the battery had died.", "You think it's a joke really. A stopwatch, a plasticy black digital stopwatch with 24 digital digits in a row. And it was running. Practical joke, so I clicked the stop.\n\n13876472894:03:05:14:35:20.245.\n\nThe light dropped out of the world, the world below me vanished, and I was in an indefinite void, a black space without air nor gravity, unable to see anything but myself and this watch in my hand lit by a light I could not source.\n\n***Hello. I was wondering when someone would find that.***\n\n\"What, who is this, what is this?\"\n\n***Oh, it's just the timer. It's a bit backwards, instead of reacting to something else stopping, it stops something else.***\n\n\"Wait, who are you, what stopped, WHAT JUST HAPPENED.\"\n\n***The universe of course. You now exist outside of space and time. I mean, this one was quite interesting, but we can simply try again. Look, have a go, you'll get the hang of omni-ness quickly enough.***\n\nI looked at my hand, confused and bewildered.\n\n***Oh, you're not actually ready for this. I thought you were a different you, from a different time, omni-ness can be slightly confusing. Still, you might as well have a go, it's not like there are any consequences from it out here.***\n\n\"Are you telling me this stopwatch controlls universes, and the person who starts it is... is god?\"\n\nWhatever. I had stopped this watch on a lark, so I clicked reset, then, with a final linear thought of my singular conciousness, I clicked start.\n\n\"*Let there light*\"", "The first thing I noticed was the noise. Well, to be more precise, I noticed the lack of noise. You never really appreciate all of the background sounds going on around you at any given moment, especially outdoors. Water running along a stream, wind through the leaves, bugs and birds and people laughing in the distance. Even the crunch of grass and dirt under my feet. All of it gone in the instant I pressed that button.\n\nI had just been taking one of my regular weekend walks along the park trails. The place is pretty expansive, and I’m always finding new paths to explore. I was following one I had discovered fairly far from the regular, more heavily used paths when I found it. It was a tiny, bright gleam that caught my eye. A thin beam of sunlight breaking through the canopy overhead reflected off of a small, digital stopwatch with a silver case. It had been running a very long time, from the looks of it. I didn’t see any clue to how it had gotten there, maybe someone was timing their hike or run and dropped it. Without a second thought, almost by reflex, I hit the button to make the timer stop. I had no idea the world would stop along with it.\n\nAs I said, the first thing I noticed was the creepy complete lack of noise. Apart from giving me a general sense of unease, I didn’t think much about it. I just kept on my walk, my steps gone as silent as the rest of the forest. I felt that something was wrong, but I wasn’t sure until I made it back to the main trail. It was a typical busy weekend in the park. Joggers, hikers, a few people on bicycles, others walking their dogs or pushing a stroller. In a clearing some surfer types were throwing a Frisbee. The only thing different is that everyone was standing stock still.\n\nI thought it was some weird practical joke, or that I walked into one of those flash mobs. I stood around for a while, growing more and more uncomfortable. Nobody moved a muscle. I walked over to a group of people who were out walking together, looked to be in their mid-20s. I tried waving my hand in front of their face, poking them, slaps that grew progressively harder. No reaction at all. In a fit of juvenile humor combined with frustration I flipped up the skirt of the nearest girl. Not only did they remain frozen, the back of the skirt was now stuck up in the air, where I had left it. A slow smile spread over my face. I had stopped time.\n\nI took out the stopwatch and looked it over. I couldn’t see any significant markings. Aside from the nice silver casing, it appeared to be completely ordinary. However, there was nothing else I could think of that might have caused the current bizarre situation, and I suddenly remembered that everything went quiet as soon as I pressed the button. The possibilities that filled my mind were endless.\n\nI spent some time experimenting with the people in the park, and found I could move them like mannequins. I put some people in funny positions, others in fairly awkward ones. I moved the Frisbee that one of the surfers was about to catch so it was flying right towards his face. Once I decided that I had put enough mischief in motion, I moved away enough that no one would blame me, but not so far that I would miss out on any of the action. Carefully I took out the stopwatch and pressed the button.\n\nNothing happened.\n\nI furrowed my brow and tried the button two more times. Still nothing. I looked at the stopwatch a little more closely. Confusion turned to worry, then to fear, then outright panic. I had only glanced at the time on the watch for a split second when I picked it up. If I had been paying more attention, I might have noticed that the elapsed time was exactly the amount of time I had been alive." ]

[ 3, 9, 9 ]

[ "1425531174", "1425519733", "1425521244" ]

[ "In went the cereal. Lifting the milk up so that it fell into the bowl just like in the ads. John couldn't wait, The bowl contained the sweet taste of childhood and it was all his. His kids were not around to bury their faces in the bowl or nag for a refill. He had the place to himself for the next few days.\n\nThe bowl now half empty and his stomach half full. He eagerly put a mouthful. Something didn't feel right as John swallowed the the mouthful. Trying to get up the sensation grew. Not being able to breathe was frighting. Grabbing the phone to call for help. He was scared and out of air\n\nThe phone fell to the floor", "It was a awesome day, another day to look forward to; aswell as another day to be joyful of the wonderful things given to me in life. Thanks to yesterdays preperation for this awesome day, I took on my favorite shirt and jeans, cause today was the test day of my exam and I knew I was gonna ace it. I knew it. I've studied hard for this course and I am gonna ace it, finish college and then find an awesome job as a dentist!\n\nI grinned hard and took a five deep breaths with my eyes closed. \nAnother awesome day. I smiled at myself in the mirror; checked myself out a little while I thrust the hip forward and took a long look at my firm butt. \n\"Looking god handsome!\" \nI bit down on my cheek slightly as the end of my morning ritual. Felt awfully lose somehow, more than usual atleast... \nAw well, no biggie. I took long strides out and into the kitchen, where I took my only bowl and filled it up with my favorite cereal, cornflakes, poured it into the big bowl filling it way to the top. The box with the godlike contents was put back into the cabinet and I made my way to the fridge for the second ingredient; Milk. \nOn the first look, I couldn't find any... As I rummaged through the fridge with no show of success, I grew to be more and more desperate as I was looking franatically. Was the milk gone? I asked myself. Couldn't be, I knew I bought one liter carton two days ago... \nOk. Focus. Where can I have put it?... What did I do yesterday... Now I remember! I made pancakes yesterdays, that means that it should be behind me. Lo and behold, there it was right infront of me. The missing carton of milk. Though it had been out of the fridge the whole night... \nI took a glass from the small shelf above me and put it down; pouring a few centileters of milk. I found no clumps in it, it smelled fresh aswell... \nI poured it into the cereal and took a seat at my table. \n\nMy spoon dug into the cereal and milk, still crunching as I slide through it and all the way to the bottom, then took what I managed to dig up and put it in my mouth and bit down hard. \nCrunching and smiling, I ate the joyous cereal. \nHuh... There was something stopping me from being able to bite all the way down. I rummaged through my mouth with a finger in there and found nothing... Must have been an illusion. I kept biting on and felt something dig hard into my mouth and throat. Yelping in pain, I spat out the contents in my mouth to find something white and sparkly... \nWas that... A tooth of mine? \nI closed my eyes and coughed hard thrice due to the pain in my throat; I heard something small smatter onto the table. I realized now that my mouth was numb, it had been so the entire morning and I hadn't noticed. What had happened? \nI went to the mirror to check the damage and opened up my mouth; I was met with a horrifying image. My teeth were leaning in all kinds of directions, some with half visible roots and others holding onto dear life in their small canals, one by one they were pushed out slowly and smattered onto the sink; I grabbed a small pocket mirror and held it in my mouth, leaning to get a good angle to see what was going on. Another tooth fell out, onto the mirror and into the sink; making a loud noise lost it's strength as the velocity decreased; slowly waiting for it's doom that was the drain. \nBut inside that mouth, in the small pockets, I saw nothing but pink. There was no blood, no nothing. What had just happened?\n\nMy throat hurt once more and I coughed once more, bitting down slightly onto the mirror. I coughed again and again. It only hurt more and more as I coughed, it didn't seem to be willing to stop. Then I puked; mostly a liqiud green fluid with no whatsoever contents but the small, white shapes at the bottom of it." ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1425543511", "1425538136" ]

[ "The door shut behind me before I could catch it and let it close silently. I wince as it slams. Normally there are a few people in. Not *loads*, but still, a few. More than this, anyway.\n\nIt's just me and him now. \n\n*I shouldn't have come in late*, I think. I watch as his cape swishes around and he looks at me through those eyeholes in the spandex. \n\nThe Wibblewonker. I had no idea he played ping-pong, let alone lived in this part of the city. Our 'teachers' usually pay little mind to what we do once they get into the heat of it, (admittedly, Slamjam can get quite caught up in his heroism) which leaves us somewhat unsure as to what we are even there for when we start fighting. Even while fighting, there are these glimpses of him shaking slightly, looking toward the two masters duke it out for an example, before charging at me again, with renewed principle.\n\nAnd now, that same look.. but with no masters in sight. I slowly, never taking my eyes off of his, reach into my bag, zip it open and pull out my paddle. I show it in an almost offering motion, so he gets the message; *I'm just here for ping-pong.* He relaxes. I think.\n\nThen I notice it. He tries to hide it but it's too late. He has a paddle too. Could it be..? No. No way. *Could* it?\n\nBefore I know what's happened, it's coming towards me. A blur. A throwing star?! My instincts kick in, and I smack the paddle into it, it bounces. Bounces? What the hell is going on?\n\nI focus, using my training and breathing slowly, deeply. *My God*. I realize. *It's a ball*. There's nothing else for it. I twirl my paddle and bend my knees, lowering my center of gravity. I walk up to the table, like a cowboy through saloon doors. Like that square off of ours in the bar on saloon night last Thursday.\n\nGame on.\n\n", "Dick had just moved back to Gotham to assist Bruce Wayne a couple of days ago, but he already needed some time away from him. Even in the expanse of the manor it was stifling being around him. Alfred did his best as always but Bruce’s personality was overwhelming. Dick owed him a lot, but they were grown apart, and if it wasn’t for this new mystery in Gotham, Dick would have packed up and moved back to Bludhaven. \n\n\n***\n\n\nAn hour later, Dick was nosing around a small hobby shop in East Gotham, eyeing the RC Helicopters. He had some experience with controlling remote devices from ‘batarangs’ to ‘batmobiles’, but never really delved into them.\n\n“Hey Mr. McBroody, watcha lookin at so seriously?” chirped a thick accented voice from behind Dick.\n\n“I’m sorry?” Greyson turned around and looked at the slip of a blond that was staring at him. She had bright blue eyes and a cheery demeanor. \n\n“Yur blockin the way tall guy.” The lady pushed past him and grabbed an odd looking motor, frowning as she flipped it over to reveal the price.\n\n“Do you work with RC stuff?”\n\n“Yeah, ‘ad a friend that made all sorts of toys. Got interested while messin’ with ‘em. He can make anything really, but I just stick with ‘copters.”\n\n“How do you get started?” Dick asked, becoming more interested as he eyed various kits and accessories around the store.\n\n“For a new guy like you? Get one of those all en one kits. Easy. Pros will laugh at cha, but don’t mind em. Gotta start small, make mistakes, blow stuff up.” Her eyes lit up at the end. Dick had to admit her enthusiasm was contagious.\n\n“Thanks Mrs.?” He wasn’t able to catch her name as she made her purchase and skipped out the door. Dick Greyson picked up one of the quad-copter kits that could hook up to his phone and headed back to Wayne Manor.\n\n***\n\n“Hmm, analyzing this sample shows trace amounts of Cyanide, but it wasn’t what killed the mafia fence.” Mused Batman to mostly himself.\n\n“Get some rest Bruce. If the pattern holds anywhere close, we won’t see anything for another week.” Dick commented, pulling off his mask and taking off his green gloves. “I forgot how much of a pain this costume was to take off.”\n\n“You designed it, Dick.”\n\n“Yeah, I was a kid. I also wanted to be an Astronaut Cowboy if you recall.”\n\n“You spent a week asking if I could build a Bat-Rocket. Where are you going?”\n\n“Not all of us can spend our off time running Multi-Billion Dollar Corporations when not on patrol.” Dick quickly changed and went to his small workroom. He had lovingly spent the last month learning how to fly and work on his quadracopter XXL (iFruit) edition. It was cheesy, but fun. He had planned to hit Elmwood Park in South Gotham to try flying it somewhere besides Wayne Manor.\n\nIt took Dick a little longer than he thought to reach the park. Anymore he took it easy when driving when not in his Robin persona. He felt like a visitor in Gotham even though he spent so much of his childhood here. He pulled out his large case and began setting up his RC Copter. \n\n“Ey! Its Mr. McBroody serious face!” a familiar voice came from behind.\n\n“Hi, I took your advice…Mrs..”\n\n“Harley, everyone calls me Harley.” Dick had a trained pokerface, Bruce Wayne made sure with all that training. But it took everything Dick had not to lose his composure. She made a puzzled face as he stared at her.\n\n“Do I have something in my teeth?”\n\n“Sorry Harley, I’m Dick.”\n\n“You ain’t a dick, just too serious.”\n\n“I mean my name is Dick.”\n\n“Oh wow. Really? I’m sorry. Well lets see you fly Mr. McBroody.”\n\nDick not-so-forcefully laughed at the comment and finished setting up his RC Copter. He began running through his options. Harley was out here and unaware he was Robin, he knew his identity wasn’t compromised. He didn’t think she was out on parole, but she wasn’t doing anything illegal…yet.\n\nThe quadra-copter took off less than gracefully, but it was soon flying around easily. He did some laps around various trees and playground pieces. After a few minutes, Dick brought his machine for a smooth landing.\n\n“I’m impressed. For a clunky beginner’s RC you flew well.”\n\n“Can I see your RC?” Dick suggested, hoping to get a look at her RC copter. Perhaps he could get a clue as to why she was out here.\n\n“Sure!” Harley bounced off to her things, which included a large purple trunk. After popping the trunk open she produced a large bright blue and yellow RC helicopter. She grew a giant, genuine smile.\n\n“It’s a repica of a Eurocopter EC120! I even put little passengers inside.” In the cockpit were a couple of little people, dressed like news reporters. “I added one of those neat camrahs to the bottom so I can make movies. I also put one of these new engines inside to give it a big boost in lift.”\n\nDick watched as she went on about the specs of her RC Copter. She then gave a full flight demonstration. The helicopter was graceful and fast. It hovered around the park and did playful tricks around the trees and even startled some birds that had come to rest near the monkey bars. As Harley landed her helicopter her phone began to chime with the ringtone, “Bananaphone.” She frowned deeply as she answered.\n\n“What can I do for you Mistah J?” “Yeah.” “No…” “Well I….” “If I could..” “I understand I will meet ya at the jeweler’s.”\nShe hung up and saw Dick’s look of concern. Oh don’t worry Mr. McBroody. He is just has an overwhelming personality. She smiled a little. I do this to get away for a little while. Everyone needs a hobby. Harley quickly began to pack up her things and run off.\n\nHe frowned while watching her leave. Then he thought for a moment about her comment about the jeweler’s. Dick grabbed a specialized phone from his pocket. “This is Robin. I know where the cyanide is coming from and …” he paused, “the Joker is involved.”\n\n***\n\n[Could not figure out how I wanted to end this so I left off here. Posting because I worked on it but may come back if I figure out how I want this end/continue]\n" ]

[ 2, 17 ]

[ "1425582129", "1425580705" ]

[ "I just stood there, in the middle of the road - lost - although I could clearly see the directions above me.\n\nThis morning I got up and readied for school, and then I woke up out here. I can't even imagine how I got here! It's nowhere near home, do i even have a home anymore?\n\nI felt sick. Imagining how horrible it must be dying on earth, and then being eaten just as soon as our souls venture on.\n\nThe world, a breeding ground for people. Just for something to eat our souls as soon as we depart, feeding on the knowledge that we acquired.\nThe dimwitted goes free, being inferior and not as quenching as the studied class.", "\"An Egg?\"\n\nA looked to the old man for answers. I knew he liked to speak in parables, but this was just ridiculous. \n\n\"Yep. An Egg.\" He turned around and began going through some papers, seemingly uninterested.\n\nI sat there for a moment, unsure how to proceed. After all, I didn't want to be rude a land myself an eternity of hellfire. I looked once more back down at the egg. \n\n\"What does it mean?\" I blurted out, unable to contain my curiosity any longer. \n\nHe sighed, as if i was just another stack of paperwork that had been planted on his desk. He pinched the bridge of his nose, preparing to divulge to me the secret of the universe as if it was common sense.\n\n\"Do you care about that egg?\"\n\nI paused, mulling over the question. \"Not particularly.\"\n\n\"Do you have any idea whether it is going to hatch or not?\"\n\nI again paused, this time observing the features of the egg. It did seem to have a more wild complexion, seeming almost more genuine than the eggs that laid on my plate beside my bacon in the morning, not that I was an egg expert or anything.\n\n\"I really couldn't say.\"\n\n\"Would you mind putting back on the pillow?\"\n\nI went over to put it on the pillow like he had asked, but he gestured for me to stop. \n\n\"Do you see now?\" he questioned, studying my puzzled expression. \"You hold something with the potential for life. Whether it will or will not actually develop isn't something you know or care about. When I first gave you the egg, you were intrigued, but now you were prepared to put it back and forget about it. You were going to put it back on the pillow, whether it actually hatched or not of no consequence to you. Whether life emerged from that egg or not, you wouldn't know for sure until you heard a chirping chick sitting in it's eggshell.\"\n\nI looked at him, finally beginning to grasp what he had been implying this whole time. \n\n\"One day I made an egg, you call it Earth. And now, here we are.\"\n\n\"I.... I see.\" " ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1425580166", "1425580456" ]

[ "\"It's ok, sweetheart,\" the pleasant nurse said, as I squirmed in my seat. It was just a preliminary test, I knew, but I was still nervous. I mean what would I be like without it? How would I change?\n\n\"Now imagine,\" she said, her voice gentle and soothing, \"something that you love.\"\n\n I pictured my son, Bradley. I held the image in my mind of his radiant smiling face. His golden hair illuminated in the sunlight. His shining blue eyes. His warm laugh that filled the air, my ears, and my heart. My perfect, beautiful little boy. \n\nI heard the beep of monitors as I continued to hold the picture in my mind. Bradley, my lovely, amazing son. \n\n\"Perfect, ma'm. Now, we'll just need to run some tests, and then we'll get back to you. It shouldn't take long. Just read a magazine, and then we should be good to go.\"\n\nI seated myself on a stiff sofa in a waiting room full of people, mostly those in their thirties and up. I was one of the younger patrons.\n\nNow that Bradley was ready for school, well, I knew I wouldn't be able to afford it. However, there was this program. Bradley would be sent to one of the best schools for free and be raised by loving foster parents. All I had to do was donate my love to the government. It would mean, however, I would never see him again.\n\nI had grappled with the decision for months. Shouldn't I be there for him? After all, I was his mother. At the same time, he could be given a better life, much better than the life he had with a single mother. A young, single mother. That was the worst situation of all. In the end, I felt there was no choice. This is what I had to do. \n\nI sat there thinking of my son. Trying to relive all our moments together. Feel all the joy I had felt with him. All the hugs and kisses. Every boo-boo and tear shed. It would all be meaningless soon enough.\n\nAfter a time, what felt like entirely too soon, I was called back into an examine room. This would be it. This would be the end of Bradley. \n\nIt was like he was dying, but I knew he was only dying in my heart. That he would be out there somewhere, happy. Maybe he would even be able to remember me, remember the sacrifice I had made to give him a good life.\n\nElectrodes were attached to my head. Love is said to be created in the heart, but it's actually from the brain. A needle was put into a vein on the inside of my elbow to collect hormones in my bloodstream. It seemed everything was prepared quickly while I said good-bye to Bradley.\n\n\"Now take a deep breath and think of someone you love,\" a man instructed. He was not nearly as friendly as the woman nurse from earlier, but I guess he didn't need to be. I would be totally transformed soon enough.\n\nI closed my eyes, took in a deep breath, and thought only of Bradley. Of making blanket forts together. Searching the closet for monsters together. Baking cookies together. And before I knew it, it was all gone. \n\n", "Every day is the same. She goes to the hospital after work; three floors up, west wing. The secretary greets her by name now, with a polite smile that doesn't reach her eyes. She's admitted to the patient's ward, and goes to room 308, her sneakers squealing against the tiles as she turns to enter the room.\n\nEvery day, her smile is a little more forced. But she smiles; that's what she's supposed to do, though thankfully today she doesn't have to hold it. Her daughter, Holly, is asleep. Her chest rises and falls gently under the pastel green hospital gown as her mother lets the smile slide from her features. \n\nMiranda sinks into the chair by Holly's bedside, and studies her only child with distant interest.\n\nEvery day her daughter is a little less dear to her. The weak smiles, the thin fingers, the bald head and blue veins are not *ugly* yet, but getting there. The good news is, Miranda's fear of losing her is almost gone. The sense of duty stands out from the rest, driving her every Saturday to the power plant's donation center, where they hook her up to machines that inject ice into her veins and then suck her dry, leaving them hollow and her heart blank. As her daughter fights her second battle with leukemia, Miranda's love pays the hospital bills. She stays there, reading a book for as long as is expected of her, and then packs up and leaves. It isn't until she gets home that she remembers--she forgot to kiss Holly goodnight, for the first time in 14 years. She doesn't lose sleep over it.\n\nThe next day is Saturday, and now when she leaves the donation center there isn't a sense of regret. She barely notes this as she robotically makes her way back to the bus stop, from the bus stop to the metro, and from the metro to the hospital. Always the hospital.\n\nAgain, the secretary greets her and she flashes her visitor's badge to the guard standing in the doorway. She's walking down the hallway to room 308 when she passes a doctor and a nurse talking in low tones. They look up as she passes but she spares them no thought, turning in her squeaky shoes to enter Holly's room.\n\nShe opens the door, and pauses, the fake smile frozen on her face. Her brow furrows as she realizes that Holly's bed is empty. The absence is duly noted, but only hits her in that way--information received. Someone's hand comes to rest gently on her shoulder, and she turns to face the owner as the smile slips beyond her grasp.\n\nIt's the doctor, and her heart stutters once, faintly--an echo of dread. \n\n\"Your daughter is... she's gone,\" the doctor--Craft; Dr. Craft was his name. He looks at her with a breed of patience that hesitates, and Miranda wonders what he's waiting for.\n\n\"Oh.\" She blinks, and her hand slides off of the doorknob. \"Okay.\"", "> I loved my daughter very much. From the first moment I saw her, a tiny bundle of nerves and possibility, I was hooked. She was the white line of powder I woke every day for. She was the ecstasy I enjoyed in my youth, only brighter and more addicting. \n\n> But loving her hurts. She will never be normal. Not like those other little girls. I love her so much. I don't see people anymore, I don't have friends. I haven't slept with my husband in three years. How could I? Emma is always screaming or crying or sick. \n\n> She is a sick little girl and I am paralized. I can't do anything to help her. Sometimes she throws up blood. \n\n> I am terrible, but I almost want her to not wake up. Then I would be free to love her without pain. There is so much pain. There is nothing I can do but sit there, watching her waste my life. \n\n> No. I don't think you understand, at all. I love her more than anything in my life. I love her and *it hurts me.* I can't hate her, she's seven. How do you hate a child? So the more I love her the more I hate myself. \n\n> I didn't want this. I'm 28 and so stressed. This is my life for the next fifty years. Bill is gone all the time. He has someone else. I know this. He loves other people and I just want this to work. I want to forget. I want this love gone. I am trapped by it, imprisoned. I don't want to be a mother any longer. I want to be myself. I want to love myself. \n\n-----\n\n> Anna Beth is beautiful, fun, vivacious. She has this little freckle on the back of her hand that I like to kiss. Sometimes she reminds me of Amelia, but there is nothing I want more than to spend the rest of my life with Anna Beth. If I could give it up? I don't think I could. Not unless everything changed. \n>\n> Sometimes it feels like Amelia is so caught up in her love for Emma that there isn't anything left for me. I never wanted a kid. Never. But Amelia said it would be the best thing to happen to us. Now she sits in that room with that... I know she is my daughter, but she is so sick, so stupid. I don't want anything to do with her. \n>\n> I used to make Amelia happy. I miss that. I really do. I would give up Anna Beth in a second if I could have Amelia back.\n\n------\n\n\"Do you remember writing that?\" Dr. Nowells asked the thin woman before her. Amelia Hancock was a poised woman, her face all clean lines and thin features. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a soft bun. She dressed like she knew what she wanted in life. \n\nNo one would have thought the words came from her. Even the picture that accompanied the testimony was foreign. One might remark, \"Is that her ill sister? A cousin perhaps.\" No one would say the painfully overweight woman was Amelia Hancock. No one would look at her soft smile, her young face, and think she had abandoned her child. She did not have the look of a mother. \n\n\"Yes. But I don't know why I would.\" Amelia adjusted her body in the soft chair. \"I was in a bad place. But now I feel so free. I tried to do my best by the girl and now she is with people who can truly take care of her. I was so prideful, trying to cure things so far above my paygrade.\"\n\n\"Do you ever visit the girl?\" Nowells asked. \n\nAmelia smiled. \"No. There really is no purpose. She doesn't know me and any love they say she feels for me was taken out when I signed the waver. She is able to be around people who enjoy her.\" \n\n\"You do not enjoy your daughter?\" Nowells asked. The doctor was fascinated by the changes in the woman. When the Swiss first suggest the project, it hadn't been met with a lot of controversy. In the early stages it had only made people uncomfortable. Now, with the right training, people like Amelia emerged from the negativity, to return to society as strong, passionate individuals. \n\n\"Legally she is not my daughter and I do not view our relationship as such,\" Amelia said carefully. She scratched the back of her neck and sighed, gently. \"I realize now Will was very right about children. Seeing myself like that... I wasted so much of my time with him. Will is the only person who deserves my love.\" \n\n", "\"Your mother loved you, Ty.\" \n\n\"You can't tell me that. You don't know.\"\n\n\"She did what she had to do to save you, she sacrificed the feelings that love endows us with in order to fulfill the actions love requires from us.\"\n\nTy looked at his grandmother, his deep brown eyes brimming.\n\n\"I know I was young when it happened, but I still remember her...from before. The way she looked at me, like I actually meant something to her. I remember her warm hugs, and how if I ever got hurt she used to show concern.... Then one day she came home, back when I was still sick. I thought I was happy to finally see her come home and look at me without tears filling her eyes, but... that was before I'd ever seen them empty. \n\n\"She always looked out for me, but only to make her investment worth it. Otherwise it was just her anger, her fear, her stone cold logic. She stopped living 20 years ago, not today. She died the day she sold her love, and I've been mourning her ever since.\"\n\nTears ran freely down Ty's face now. \n\n\"I just wish you'd said goodbye mom,\" he said, looking upwards, as if she lived in the sky, \"I love you.\"", "Despite years of warnings, it was too late now. Climate change was out of control, oil reserves had run out years ago, and renewable sources were too costly since their implementation was delayed so long. The cost of the infrastructure needed to support the world’s energy demands was just not feasible so the international community had imposed restrictions on everything from electricity to transportation to water usage. Coupled with the explosion in human population over the last few centuries, the world had written their own death certificate.\n\nThe call for volunteers had gone out after the discovery though. It seemed the last glimmer of hope amidst reports that life would be unsustainable in about a decade. A laboratory somewhere in Switzerland had figured out how to convert pure, human love into energy. The world rejoiced until it was explained what would become of those who volunteered their love. A human soul knows no limits to love. It is a boundless reservoir. But, when it is removed from its human host and converted, though it provides tremendous energy, it is not bottomless. The love drains from the human soul permanently leaving a husk in the place of a soul.\n\nThe love-less human becomes nothing more than skin, bones, muscle, blood…the physical matter that composes them. Without love they cannot feel, cannot have ambitions, cannot function.\n\nThere weren’t many volunteers.\n\nDespite huge amounts of controversy, many inmates who had been facing the death penalty had been subjected to the procedure, but the type of person who finds themselves on death row doesn’t have much love to convert. They served their purpose and their shells sit in prison now.\n\nAbby had heard about the coalition of mothers the other day on the news and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since. Their founder and leader, a tall woman with a warm, round face had spoken of a group of about fifty women who had gathered to volunteer their love.\n\n“A mother’s love is the truest, purest, form of love there is. We are confident that our sacrifice will allow life to continue on earth well beyond the next decade and give the world time to find a better solution.” The woman had talked numbers as well, convincing the interviewer that the potential of a group of fifty to provide energy was very great. Each soul could power the entire globe on its own for about a month. “I can’t ask mothers to do what we are doing, but I know they are out there, and they will feel the same call we all do, to protect our children.”\n\nThat was how Abby had found herself in Switzerland with a group of over 6,000 parents who had come together to donate their love, not just mothers, but fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Scientists were estimating that their combined power would provide over 500 years of energy, enough time to drive the world to implement a more permanent energy source.\n\nAbby had signed the waiver asking that her body be destroyed after the procedure was completed. A life without love wasn’t a life. Her remains would be sent back to her family. As she was strapped into the chair, doctors surrounded her with tears in their eyes. They had witnessed 13 days of sacrifice and had a least another week to go before all the volunteers were done, their emotions were worn thin.\n\n“Will it hurt?” she asked, childishly.\n\n“Yes,” the doctor answered, “I’m sorry.”\n\nAbby tried to hold her daughter's face in her mind to get her through the pain. This was for her, so she would even have a chance to live into her twenties. But when the pain came, it wasn’t physical, it was emotional agony. As the love left her body, she was filled with emotions that love normally quelled: hatred, vengeance, anger…but suddenly even those were gone and there was nothing, only existence." ]

[ 2, 2, 3, 3, 17 ]

[ "1425590493", "1425605333", "1425591819", "1425600486", "1425585484" ]

[ "You can conquer heights unknown to the likes of men.\n\nYou can go where no man has gone before.\n\nYou can be the savior of our future. \n\nBut you must be willing to give up everything.", "\"Honey i just couldn't believe it.\" The president said to his wife at dinner.\n\n\"Oh you're just being a baby. I thought it was funny.\" The president scoffed. \"Have something to say dear?\" He immediately looked down.\n\n\"No, I just got something caught in my throat.\" He shoved some more spaghetti in his mouth.\n\n\"Mhm.\" She raised her eyebrow but let it slide. \"I just think you have a bad sense of humor.\"\n\nThe president looked up with disbelief written all over his face.\n\n\"I have a wonderful sense of humor? Why would you say that?\" He seemed shocked that his wife would insult his humor, she usually loved it.\n\n\"Oh I'm kidding darling, you make such a fuss about the smallest things that's all.\" She waved her hand as if to put the matter behind them.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I said no. That note was not funny, scared the hell out of me\" His voice began to rise. \". I must have searched that office for hours trying to find that damne...\"\n\n\"Richard!\" His wife's voice cut him off before he could finish. \"You know I hate it when you swear.\" The president composed himself.\n\n\"I'm sorry my dear, I just don't find it very funny.\" She laughed and quickly covered her hand with her mouth when she saw his face. \n\n\"What was that for?\"\n\n\"You're doing it again!\" She had a small smile on her face.\n\n\"Doing what?\" He asked, with an angry edge to his voice.\n\n\"Over-reacting. You do it much to often darling.\" She poked her spaghetti with her fork. \"We should really fire the cook, my spaghetti is miles better than this.\"\n\nThe president looked behind his shoulder. The cook stood behind him, his face a bit shocked.\n\n\"I promise I will try harder next time.\" He nodded to the president and left the room.\n\n\"I don't even know why he was standing there? No one should be watching us while we eat.\"\n\n\"He was just seeing if we liked our meal, you didn't have to be so rude.\" The president continued to eat his spaghetti. He didn't want to say but he liked the cooks better.\n\n\"Did you ever find them?\" His wife asked through a mouthful of noodles.\n\n\"Find what?\" The president replied, feigning ignorance.\n\n\"Oh you know, the codes.\" His face was the picture of idiocy. \"The missile codes darling, I know you know what I'm talking about.\"\n\nThe president nodded swiftly.\n\n\"Right, those codes. The ones for the missiles, yes.\" He went back to his dinner.\n\n\"You don't have to be embarrassed about it darling. Barack was just having some fun.\"\n\nThe president stood up angrily.\n\n\"Saying you hid the missile codes in the White House, where anyone could find them by the way, is not a joke! That's a national threat! What if one of the janitors had found them and sold them on the black market?\" \n\n\"Oh they aren't smart enough to get into the black market.\" She wiped her mouth and stood up.\n\n\"And I had to bring the secret service in to search the place. They're still out there you know?\" His wife laughed and began to walk around the table towards him. \"We still haven't found them, I mean of course I'm over-reacting!\" He was almost screaming now. His wife, on the other hand, seemed cool and collected.\n\n\"Darling?\" She grabbed hold of his hand.\n\n\"Yes?\" He bellowed, spitting in her face.\n\nShe flicked pieces of chewed spaghetti off her face and looked at her husband.\n\n\"I've got them.\" The presidents eyes transformed from angry pools of rage to confused and perplexed green orbs.\n\n\"What?\" he spat out.\n\n\"I've got the codes.\" She put a hand into her pocket and withdrew the codes, placing them in his hand. \"I told you you were over-reacting.\"", "It was his first day entering the White House as its newest resident. He knew it would happen for him one day, but with each step he took towards the Oval Office, it finally felt more real for him. The Secret Service waited patiently outside the door. As he entered his new office, it surprised him how it felt so different from all the times he had been there before. No one to look up to. No one to give accountability to except the American people. It was his turn to be at the top, and there was no one he needed to share it with. As he looked over each item in the room, now with a sense of \"mine,\" he noticed an envelope sitting on his desk. Taking a deep breath, he fell into his chair, put his feet on the desk, reached over to the envelope, and read the handwritten letter inside: \n \nTo President Jeb Bush, \nKing John would be proud of us. The monarchy is still alive in your blood. Long live the king. \n--President Barack Obama. \n \nEDIT: [Bonus history fact](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2183858/All-presidents-bar-directly-descended-medieval-English-king.html)" ]

[ 1, 1, 1 ]

[ "1425586495", "1425587389", "1425587604" ]

[ "\"Huh. Purple today.\"\n\nJacob lived off the grid, out in the woods. Away from them.\n\nHe could escape the lottery, and the pop singer contests, and the murderball matches. The popularity contest pseudo-politics, celebutante trivia, and 24/7 soap-opera-cum-reality-shows didn't reach this far out.\n\nNeither did the endless food, free booze, and psychotropics.\n\nBut neither did the neo-feudal factories, anthro-slaves, mindvertising, consumo-trackers, or execu-cults.\n\nIt was a rough and lonely life. His food was gathered or killed, its only processing a rough butchering and spit roasting. Shelter was a series of caves or lean-tos. Comfort was pine needle beds, entertainment was the sounds of the woods or his own thoughts. It was difficult, and Jacob probably wouldn't last the year. But he was free.\n\nFree of everything except the nightly vote. And it looks like purple won last night.\n\nPanem et Circenses and the goddamned sky vote.", "The sky is purple today. That's what the people wanted. They always want something outrageous or impractical. We always deliver.\n\n Yesterday they wanted green daffodils instead of pavement. Tomorrow they may want earl grey tea to taste like bubble gum instead of soapy leaves. I repeat: we deliver.\n\nWe are ImagineCorp. We make things happen in the real world. We make them forget about the dirty world: the one they used to consider real.\n\nWho wants to think of the dirty world anyway? So racked with pollution and post-war anger. No. Here in the bubble we are safe. Sound. Clean.\n" ]

[ 1, 3 ]

[ "1425698359", "1425687175" ]

[ "When my life raft washed up on the island, I had recognized the place. Henderson Island, UNESCO world heritage site. Shit. This was bad.\n\nFortunately I had equipped my life-raft kit with a hatchet, bow saw, knife, and thousand foot spool of para-cord. A flint and striker, and the inflatable de-salinator were also a bonus. Thank you r/Survival.\n\nDeflating the life raft, I scrambled up the cliffs dragging it with me, thanking God that r/survival had also suggested that I include shoes in the go bag. Maybe the EPIRB had activated. Maybe I'd be rescued soon. \n \nEven now, I fantasized some boats might be looking for me. I knew that the Pitcairn Islanders were known to travel here 1-3 times a year. At the worst, I would wait that long. Rescue might be tomorrow, or another day. In any case, I needed to stay visible. I weighted my deflated life raft down and began to think.\n \nFood would be the first order of business. I was a voracious reader, and the solo Pacific crossing had been a dream of mine. I had read everything there was to know about the island group. There should be coconuts here--and they would be located near the beaches.\n \nA month later, and I was living r/survivals dream--although it was pretty shitty at times. Imagine no internet, and no amusing cat pictures close to hand. On the other hand, the resolution on the night sky was amazing.\n \nFor protein, I roasted fish, and rats. There certainly was no shortage of rats, and I reasoned that the UN would than me. Small deadfalls baited with coconuts provided me with a steady supply of protein.\n\nRoast rat isn't that bad, but I would have stabbed for some hot sauce. I knew the many birds on the island were edible, but I didn't want to damage endangered populations unless absolutely necessary. \n \nTo alleviate my boredom, I had constructed a hut of sorts near the northwest beach. In my hut, I set up a spring-pole lathe of sorts, and would spend my spare time turning curios when it rained. There was fruit on this island if you knew where to look, but the interior was treacherous.\n\nAfter the third month I made my greatest discovery--a small clay deposit. With a single minded focus, I made all the pots I could, and fired them in the hot coals of a giant beach fire. I had read Crusoe. Pottery is one of the essential crafts. With these, I could extract resin from barks. With resin I could make waterproof glues. With glues, I could build boats. \n\nWith great care I began to sample and test the various tree species on the island. Using a crude balance, I would test their ability to absorb water by balancing them against varying quantities of sand. The hard woods that absorbed the most moisture would be my pegs. The less absorbent hardwoods were framing timbers, and the most flexible woods were to become planking. My carefully coiled bucksaw blade sprang to life and I went to work.\n \nFor every felled tree, I planted two. The UN was going to hate me. Then again by this time I'm pretty sure I had trapped and eaten almost every Polynesian rat on the island. \n\nMy ship was to be a longboat--approximately fifteen feet in length. If Bligh could do it, why not me? I turned each trunnel on my pole lathe, securing. Things still took time though. My experience building stitch and glue vessels wasn't too helpful, except for giving me a good idea of build order. However I made steady progress on the hull.\n\nSails were a whole other problem. I had carefully protected my life raft as it could be used in a last ditch effort. However there are very few suitable textiles on any uninhabited island. Eventually I managed to weave a serviceable lug sail from tree leaves--like the ancient Polynesians would have done. After a good two months of solid work however, I finished a lug sail, and made my first victory lap around the cliffs of Henderson Island. In the following weeks I would use the Emancipation Proclamation for fishing deeper waters, longingly looking to the east. Somewhere in the East was America. I was probably dead there now. \n\nNavigation was a harder problem. Soon the trade winds would shift west. Furthermore I didn't have an accurate protractor. I sat in my hut for days--and gave up hope. You can sail in circles forever till you starve or die of thirst, or sink. There was a reason seafaring was dangerous before proper navigation tools. There no angle trisector theorem, and a missed degree of latitude could mean the difference between life and death. To divide a 90 degree quadrant into 1 degree segments, I couldn't use just my compass. Depressed, I gave up. I would die here--not of hunger or thirst, but maybe from injury or illness.\n \nI spent days in my hut, only venturing forth to gather food. Fortunately on one such walk, the solution presented itself. There was a flower. I couldn't tell you what species. The blossom had six triangular petals, arranged in a circle--sixty degrees. Needless to say, I dropped everything I had and returned to the beach. In a fervor of geometry, I drew a circle in the sand, and inscribed six equilateral triangles within the circle, all having a vertex at the center like the petals of a flower. More triangles. I laughed and laughed. \n \nI would need to sail approximately 140 miles southwest to reach Pitcairn. With some math, I had determined out the chip-and-log method of finding sailing speed and determined my longboat could manage five knots. \n \nMaking preparations, I gathered dried fish, fruit, and coconuts. I burnt a message into a plank in my hut. \"I was here. If you find this place, you are welcome to use any of it. Good luck. Built a longboat, and left. Don't bother the birds--ate most of the rats. Planted more coconut trees. Give my apologies to the UN, and my regards to Reddit. Heading off to either Pitcairn or Davy Jones' Locker.\"\n\nI built wooden chests, to stock my turned curios in. I'd probably need to sell these to get home to the States. Plane tickets are expensive. I had two chests full of wooden cups, plates, and bowls. Presciently, I had signed and dated them all. Knowing how the media treats sudden celebrities, I could easily set up a Kickstarter or Go Fund Me to get there. \n \nWhen the trade winds shifted, I left, heading southwest. Through rowing and sailing, I averaged five knots. Twenty five days after leaving Henderson, I saw low clouds on the horizon, the telltale sign of an island. I tacked back and forth to it. \n \nEventually some men in a longboat came out and demanded to know what the hell I was doing out in the South Pacific in such a tiny vessel. I jokingly answered that I was the Ghost of Captain Bligh.\n \nThe NZ government ate it up. I'd been buried back home. The girlfriend had gone on with her life. Pictures of the Emancipation Proclamation made international headlines. Conservationists threw a fit. \n \nInstant internet celebrity is weird. I got some endorsement deals, got to show Alton Brown how to cook rat, did some spokesperson work for the World Wildlife Foundation, and gave seminars on boat building. The Emancipation Proclamation was donated to some sailing museum. Various survival shows threw money at me as if I was a really expensive stripper. \n \nThe AMA on Reddit was epic. \n \n\n", "Salt foam thrashes and rolls around me, tumbling my battered body against rocks like razors. Salt water screaming in my wounds I roll helplessly in the churning surf, desperately gasping air as I bob to the surface occasionally, choking and gagging on spray. Water surges in my ears as I go under again and again, until something thumps against my back, knocking the last of my air out of my lungs in a gasp. My flailing arms thump against the object and desperately latch on to a thin trailing cord hanging from it. I haul myself up onto the dented aluminium packing case with feebly shaking arms, choking, my throat full of fire.\n\nI awaken on a hard packed sand beach, my fingers still locked tightly on the nylon rope handle of the packing case. Cold rain lances at my face as I lay there panting and shivering, the breakers tugging at my ankles. I rise painfully to my feet, sodden workboots slogging through the saturated sand, I make my way up the beach. Staggering and weaving though the shattered detritus of my fishing boat that litters the beach, I head towards the dark tree line. Half blinded by sea spray and the deluge of the storm, the small, dayglo orange case that I stumble over almost escapes my attention and I have already passed it before I realise its value. I grab it and continue to the trees. They offer small shelter from the storm, the canopy shifts in the howling wind and with each movement a fresh glut of rain falls from the huge palm leaves, but it cuts most of the wind out and is better than nothing. Leaning against one of the thicker trunks, I eventually manage to crack open the orange case with shaking hands that I can no longer feel and that barely obey my commands to move. I unfold the silver foil space blanket from the first aid kit, and wrap it around myself as best I can. I curl up into a ball and fall into an exhausted sleep.\n\nMy head pounds. As I awaken more I become aware of other sensations, mostly pain. I manage to sit up groggily using the palm tree to prop myself upright. The shallow cuts on my hands from warding myself away from the rocks begin oozing blood a little again as I move them. The cuts look minor but they are encrusted with dirt. I clean them as best I can with a sterile pad from the first aid kit, and spray a little antiseptic on them. I fold the space blanket neatly and place it back in the kit, feeling a little better.\n\nThe fine golden sand of the beach it littered with scraps of wood, bits of equipment and the occasional chunk of styrofoam from the coolers I had on board. Picking through the fragments I collect everything that may still be useful and put it in a mostly intact styrofoam fish box that I have found. The blowlamp intense sun beats down on me like a physical weight as I drag my haul towards the trees and above the line of seaweed that denotes the high tide line and take stock of what I have. It is meagre indeed. A couple of power bars, three bottles of water and my small but well travelled suitcase. I retrieve my hat from the case and drape the clothing from the case over the scrubby bushes that dot the sand between the towering palms. They will need washing as soon as possible, my skin is already sore from the salt water in the clothes that I am currently in. Next best thing though will be to let them dry and beat as much salt out of them as possible.\n\nAs the day wears on, the tropical heat becomes more and more oppressive and mosquitoes buzz languidly in the the air. I slap at them as they land on me, and I force my way through the undergrowth in search of fresh water. The rule of threes in survival says that a man can go three minutes without air, three days without water and three weeks without food. My water supply will not last long, so I push further inland, sipping every once in a while from one of the bottles and nibbling a power bar. I know that mosquitoes need water to reproduce, so I am not overly surprised but am hugely grateful for the sound of gently trickling water. I follow the sound to a cool, crystalline stream and dip my head in the water. Laughing like a madman I refill my empty water bottle. I have found where base camp will be until I can figure out a way off this place. I look around at the small clearing with its little stream and see in my minds eye where my shelter will go, where to dig the latrine, where to make a fire pit. Maybe I can rig some kind of beacon on the beach with the space blanket as a reflector, but first I have to find a proper source of food. Sitting against a tree, dappled sunlight warming my toes and the ground soft beneath my buttocks, I reflect that if I can find a suitable food source, I could even be happy here for a while. Hell, maybe even delay setting up the beacon on the beach for a few weeks.\n\nA rustling in the bushes draws my attention and I freeze in place as a rabbit nuzzles between the leaves. It nibbles delicately from the lower branches, its back turned to me and partially screened from view by a curtain of foliage.\n\nI smile a predatory grin. Dinner is served." ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1425789316", "1425766583" ]

[ "Today was cloudy, the kind where it seems like the heavens will burst at the seams with a torrential downpour. Everyone in the Shacks seemed to take notice. They all crowded under awnings or the cover of buildings, casting wary glances upwards every few moments. Their mouths remained in taut lines, lips white.\n\nAs I walked past, a few waved. Over the last few months, I had become a familiar face they could trust. At least, that was what I hoped they thought of me. My background made me an open target by my name on the streets kept me safe enough. Only the occasional person challenged me and even then, most never followed through.\n\nThat was, except for the neighbor moron – Sar.\n\n“Hey, why don’t you go back to the Cliffs, highblood!” he called, his hulking frame standing far enough out of my reach but close enough to strike me in a single bound.\n\nI ignored him as I kept walking. He continued lobbing insults until I was out of his earshot, spitting every foul thought that crossed his mind.\n\nWhen I felt like no eyes were on me, I slid into an alleyway. It was dark and musty, the corridor filled with miscellaneous trinkets abandoned, some likely stolen. I stepped over them carefully, not wanting to take the risk of setting off a chain reaction of magical explosions. There was no telling what lied in the muck anymore.\n\nAt the end of the alleyway as an old man, normally inconspicuous in daylight but shady in the dark. He nodded, smiling as I walked up to him. I took a quick glance behind me before reaching into my satchel, plucking out the small leather bag.\n\nHis eyes lit up with wonder as I placed in his open palms. Digging in his pocket, he dropped a few grimy coins into my hand. And as soon as the transaction was complete, he darted off to get his fix, just like everyone else.\n\nI rolled the coins over in my hand, sighing. He paid bare minimum, that was for sure. But I pocketed the change and made my way out as well. I wasn’t going to make a living by standing around and complaining.\n\nAs I exited the alley, a plump drop of water fell in front of me, staining a dark circle into the stone. Soon after, it was followed by a barrage of its brethren. I tilted my head back, the cool sensation of the rain relaxing against my feverish skin. After listening to the cadence of the rain, I wiped my face and pulled up the hood of cowl. Hopefully my other clients wouldn’t cancel because of the weather.\n\nRegardless, it was going to be a long day.\n\n***\n\nI cursed as the rain began, harder than I had expected. Perhaps the gods were crying for the miserable lives of those that lived in the shacks. After all, even their cleansing waters couldn’t clean the filth they wallowed in.\n\nThe only good thing about the rain was that the people scattered into their dwelling like ants. I grew tired of watching their bloodshot eyes watching my every step like I was some freak of nature. Of course, if I turned their way, they would hid in the shadows and leave me alone. But I chose to ignore them this time, scouring the streets my target. If sources were true, he could disappear in the blink of an eye.\n\nDeep in my thoughts, I was jostled when an elderly man ran into me. He profusely apologized once he saw my uniform, uttering an unintelligible string of words. He appeared to hid something behind his back, a leather bag perhaps. I shooed him off, dusting my clothes of his grime-laden rags. Making one more apology, he scurried off into the nearest building he could find.\n\nI sighed, more than ready to leave the so-called “Shacks”. Nothing good came from it except watching the lower caste fumble around. If the council would listen to my pleas, we could rid the city of this eyesore. But of course, they didn’t heed my words. They clung to their archaic beliefs and shunned me like a child.\n\nFrom the corner of my eye, a figure dashed across, ignoring the rain. They wore a cloak, far too fine for the average man to be wearing. The material was beaded with raindrops, each one casting a different light. On its shoulder, it cared the insignia of a wolf.\n\nHe moved with a purpose, ignoring the makeshift shelters others flocked too. Instead, he seemed to be making his way for somewhere else – somewhere suspicious. Taking a moment to stop, he threw back a quick glance. I ducked behind a pile of junk, waiting with bated breath.\n\nOnce he decided the coast was clear, he pressed onwards. My shoulders relaxed, realizing he didn’t see me. When he was several strides ahead of me, I followed, feeling for the gun at my side. He would notice me eventually but this time, I was prepared.\n\nI smirked. Maybe my luck was changing for the better.", "I don't even want to be here. I'm not much of a party person and if I have to go I prefer the type where you can get drunk and sit in the corner and no one cares, or if they do care 'they' are a girl who makes conversation with everyone when they get drunk.\n\nBut backyard bbq parties? You can't get drunk at those. There's kids around and everybody is married. When did that happen. I'm not old. I'm not even thirty. How is everyone married with kids and jobs and we're having a backyard BBQ. I had to bring a salad.\n\nI should just go. No but the meat hasn't been served yet. You can't leave before that, that would be suspicious. \n\nSuspicious? No that's not right.\n\nMaybe just in bad taste. Ok I'll stay for the meat then I'll go…\n\nWhat the fuck? Was that a fucking earthquake?\n\nPeople start looking around and holding their children. One guy stares at the BBQ. Who is that guy?\n\n\"Holy shit\" someone says. I turn around and see the mushroom cloud way of in the distance. My first thought is cold and clinical.\n\nIs my face about to melt off?\n\nThat doesn't happen.\n\nIt takes like 15 minutes of staring to realize what it means.\n\nI hate parties.\n\n…\n\nAll I want to know is who are these people? Well that and what's up with the Barbecue?\n\nI was just out for a walk when I heard people talking and laughing and I came to check it out and there were all these people. And a barbecue.\n\nBut what does it mean?\n\nI stare at the barbecue. It's like a metaphor for like life right? Because like there's all these people here with their families and stuff and that's the meat. Like the meat of society. \n\nAnd then that one guy who's alone and nursing the beer and doesn't want to be here he's grilling them with his eyes.\n\nAnd like I'm the flame. \n\nBecause I'm baked.\n\nI eat another cookie and keep staring at the barbecue. It's like, I have to tell someone. To let them know I've figured it out.\n\nThe earth shakes. I wonder if it's because I figured out the key to life and how it relates to the B-B-Q. \n\nPeople start screaming and crying and swearing. I look over.\n\nShould I try mushrooms?\n\nNo, no, the barbecue. Keep staring at the barbecue.", "He is finally back. I know because of loud thud followed by footsteps. It will only be a matter of moments before he is here. That is when I strike, darting past his feet into freedom. He will never see it coming, that is unless she gets in the way.\n \nHe's back, he's back, he's back! I can smell him and once I see him I'm going to jump on him and lick his face forever! How long has he been gone for? Doesn't matter all that matters is he is back with me! I love him so much!", "Sh beckoned me over, urging me to tag along. I sighed and then carefully crossed the stream. My foot slipped in one spot, drenching my shoe. \"It's okay, we're almost there!\" she said. I put my foot on the bank and held up a hand, she grabbed it and pulled me up. I stared at where she had brought me, it was a field. Nothing particularly special, just a field. We have a few of these near my house, so why is this one so special? She ran away from me, into the flowers. I gave chase, trying to catch up to her. I lost track of her though, so when she came up behind me and kissed me, I let out a shriek of surprise. \n\nI stood on the bank and watched him cross. His velcro shoes were undone, but I could fix those later. I gestured for him to follow me, he's going to want to see this. He placed his feet carefully on each rock to cross the brook, but his left foot fell in. \"It's okay, we're almost there!\" I said. *I think I brought an extra pair of shoes in the car today, I knew he would get wet*. He put his foot on the riverbank and I reached down to pull him up. When he stood, he looked out at the field. His mouth hung open and his eyes wandered, I would've given anything to hear what he was thinking. I started jogging towards the field, looking back to make sure he was going to follow. His little legs sprang into motion and he followed. I sped up, and turned next to the patch of tulips. He ran straight by me, thinking he was on the right track. I snuck up behind him and lifted him into the air. He let out a shriek of surprise as I planted a kiss on his cheek. ", "\"EVERYBODY, LIE DOWN ON THE FLOOR AND DON'T MOVE!\" the masked man carrying the assault rifle shouted.\n\nFrom behind the ski mask, Ajay was sweating, and that wasn't entirely because of the heat. It was his first professional bank heist and his crew barely had two minutes before the cops would show up. Everything had to be perfect.\n\n\"Drop it, lady! Nobody's being a hero,\" another masked man shouted at a woman holding her phone. That was Mark and he was the most brutal of all of them.\n\nJason and Lenny were dealing with the tellers and getting them to empty cold hard cash into the bags. The other twenty odd bank customers were on the floor and shaking. It smelled like someone nearby had just pissed themselves in fear.\n\n\"Hurry it up! We've got less than a minute!\" Ajay yelled to Jason and Lenny.\n\nBefore Ajay could even register what was happening, a gunshot rang out and Mark screamed. A second gunshot went off and Ajay felt searing pain rip through his leg.\n\nA minute later Ajay was on a stretcher and under arrest. Damn, all he had wanted was enough cash to support his kid for the next year. No one was supposed to get hurt, least of all him.\n\n----------------------\n\n\"EVERYBODY, LIE DOWN ON THE FLOOR AND DON'T MOVE!\" the masked man carrying the assault rifle shouted.\n\nPeter was no fool. He dropped down with the other bank customers. His heart was beating against his chest like it wanted to burst out. He had been stressed enough *before* the robbery had started. He wasn't sure if the heist made things even worse or if it was a relief. His pistol pressed up against the inside of his jacket pocket. Thank god it hadn't accidentally gone off.\n\nNext to Peter, a woman pulled out her iPhone and started to dial. The biggest and most crazed looking masked man noticed immediately and aimed his rifle at her head.\n\n\"Drop it, lady! Nobody's being a hero.\"\n\nThe woman squeaked and Peter could immediately smell urine. Gross.\n\nThat gave Peter an idea though. The robbers didn't want anyone to be a hero? Maybe being a hero was exactly what Peter needed to do right now to get out of this mess. The smaller masked man was occupied for the time being, watching his crew clean out the registers.\n\n\"Hurry it up! We've got less than a minute!\" the smaller masked man yelled.\n\nCrazy mask turned. This was Peter's chance. He reached into his jacket, grabbed his pistol and without thinking about it, fired at crazy mask. It hit the robber square in the back and he screamed as he collapsed. Small mask turned but Peter got the second shot off quickly. It struck small mask's leg and he went down too.\n\nMinutes later the robbers were under arrest and Peter was being celebrated as a hero by the police. That whole ordeal had been far too close for comfort. Peter had literally been thirty seconds away from robbing the place himself.", "\"Congratulations! Is it a boy or a girl?\"\n\n\"Are you keeping it?\"", "DCI Ross stood over what was left of the body. It was a putrid sight, ravaged by wildlife and mercilessly stuffed under a large, fallen tree. He drew on his cigarette one last time before flicking it into the nearby pond.\n\n“Who found the body,” he asked.\n\n“Rachel and Margo Bartcher; they are over there,” replied a young, uniformed officer while pointing toward two teenage girls just beyond the crime scene. “You ready to talk to them?”\n\n“Sure but one at a time,” Ross said.\n\nThe officer retrieved Rachel and, without looking up, Ross asked her, “Did you know the victim?”\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\nI tried not to look directly at the body, my body was shaking and soft spring morning felt cold and hollow. I glanced quickly at the remains, and back to the Inspector. “Lizzie Trumbal, I think. It looks like her dress,” I replied.\n\n“Ya, we’ve established that. I asked if you knew her,” he quipped.\n\n“Yes sir, she was a friend of my sister.”\n\n“How did you find the body,” he asked while writing in his notebook.\n\nI stood there trying to remember everything correctly. The whole ordeal had been so horrid that it was hard to find the words. We had been playing the Barton Creek about two miles, when something compelled Margo to open the pedestrian gate to Haverton path, an old animal trail along the north side of the creek.\n\n“My sister said she saw something moving down the path. I didn’t want to go but she insisted we follow it,” I said.\n\n“Did you see anybody or anything along the path,” he questioned.\n\nI closed my eyes. Margo had opened the gate and beckoned me to follow. She was jovial and in the mood to explore. I was cautious; Haverton Path had always frightened me. Margo did not walk with me, she ventured out ten or fifteen yards ahead. I tried to keep up, but I was scared and slow. Every step broke twigs and the sound pounded in my ears. A spring frost was still hanging on the lower limbs of the forest and gully fog hung around there trunks. As the gate disappeared behind us, I saw movement to my right. It was a quick scurry and a flash of red.\n\n“A fox, I remember seeing a fox,” I said. “And the smell, I remember the smell.”\n\nI wrapped my arms tightly around my body, trying to shake off the crisp air. I sped up, trying to catch Margo who seemed to float upon the fog. She stopped and waited, but not long enough for me to reach her. She yelled back at me and asked if I could smell that. My nose was cold and before she drew attention to it, the smell was not there. Then it hit me; a sickening, rancid smell. It turned my stomach and for a moment, I thought about being sick. The further I walked along the path the stronger the odor became. I put my hand over my face; it did little to keep me from gagging.\n\n“There was this bird, a raven. It was feeding something to its young. Up there,” I pointed to a tree about fifty yards away. “It looked like meat.”\n\nExtremely fatty meat, I thought. It sat there ripping strands of rotten sustenance off a large chunk of what we now know as Lizzie and stuffing into its fledglings eager mouths. Repeatedly, it ripped and tore, and stuffed. I closed my eyes, but in the dark, I could hear the wee birds begging for more. Then I heard Margo yell for me to come see something. I opened my eyes and ran ahead.\n\n“We came over that hill, and there it was. I screamed, and we ran to get help”\n\n“Have you ever been out here before,” he asked.\n\n“Ah, just once, but not this far. For a picnic I think. It was a long time ago.”\n\n“Ok, thank you. Go and fetch your sister. I need to get a statement from her also.”\n\n-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\nThe inspector looked down at me and asked me if I knew Lizzie. Who didn’t know Lizzie? She was the weirdest girl in class. I told him so.\n\n“What happened this morning, Margo?”\n\n“We found Lizzie. We found her hiding in the woods.”\n\n“How did you find her, Margo?”\n\n“Like that, of course,” I pointed to Lizzie and giggled. \n\nHe was such a strange man, with strange questions. I opened the gate and I saw a fox running down the path. It was a beautiful little creature. I wanted to see where it was going. I ran ahead, Rachel is so slow. The woods scare her, but I find them beautiful. \n\n“I was following a fox. Did you know foxes eat dead things?”\n\n“I didn’t know that, Rachel, thank you. Did you see any people in the wood?”\n\nI thought hard. Did Lizzie count as people, I wondered. I remembered the beautiful path and the crunchy frost under my trainers. A misty fog enveloped the forest like a woolen blanket keeping all the little creatures warm and cozy.\n\n“No people, but there was a big raven feeding its little baby ravens. They were so cute. You could see them if you stood in the little clearing and look up at just the right angle. I like Ravens. They eat dead things too.”\n\nHe asked me if I had ever been out here before. I told him about the time we had a picnic out here; just Rachel, Lizzie, and me. We ate in the little clearing along the path. We had brought sandwiches and drinks; we had so much fun until Lizzie started being weird. As I walked along the path, I stopped at the clearing. For a moment, I became sad remembering how little Lizzie had found the baby Raven fallen from it tree. I didn’t tell him that. I didn’t tell him how we wanted to feed our sandwiches to the little bird but, Lizzie stomped it under her boot.\n\n“Your sister said the smell almost made her sick. Why did you continue down here?”\n\nRachel was so melodramatic. The smell was hardly nauseating. It was sweet like spring flowers. It glided upon the air and tickled my nose. It called to me as it did the little fox and the mamma Raven. The closer I got, the sweeter the scent. It was nature’s perfume and it made me tingle all over.\n\n“I came to see,” I giggled.\n\n“To see what,” he asked as he looked down at the body.\n\n“To see Lizzie feeding the baby ravens, you silly man.”\n" ]

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

[ "1425829123", "1425830784", "1425831034", "1425838378", "1425829589", "1425836748", "1425830557" ]

[ "I felt the shrill of fear before I felt the pain. But first, I saw it. The thing had been a child once. It had pierced my right shin with the pointy teeth of a toddler. From the moment I saw it to the moment I realized what had happened an eternity seemed to pass. And during that eternity, all I had the time to think was – oh – and then the moment passed and the fear came over me, and then the pain. It wasn't as bad as I'd imaged, though. It was okay.\n \nI thought I had secured the building. But the child variations of these things hid so easily. And if they didn't hide they were swift and silent. I had gone to sleep, thinking I was safe, as safe as you can get these days. And I woke up to teeth in my leg. That's what you get. You can't afford mistakes. Not one. Now it's all over. All I've gone through, all the suffering and pure physical labor, it all led up to this. I'll never speak to another human again. It's decided, now.\n \nApart from the pressing, pure fear, more than anything, I feel empty. And ... relieved.\n \nI'd always told myself I would finish myself off before I would turn into one of them. It was the right thing to do. Once the bite was there it was just a matter of minutes, and then it would be over. \n \nBut I rid the world of a lot more of these things than I ... contributed. Maybe I earned the right to go like a coward. I rid the word of so many of them. Isn't that good enough? Fading, now. Joining my family again. Finally.", "This is the last thing that I will ever write. I have been bitten. I got greedy on a supply run and I wasn't paying attention. In my defense, it's been ages since I had a cup of tea.\n\nBollocks. It was worth it. Even if it's UHT milk my last meal is a nice cup of English breakfast, steeped for three minutes, bag out, no squeezing, white and two sugars.\n\nIf anyone ever reads this then, I apologise. If you haven't checked yet, I've blown my head off with a double-barrel in the bathroom. Don't go in there, I've got nothing on me and I've made a mess.\n\nI hope you never get bitten, it hurts like a bitch. There's a moment, a moment where you stop and the world slows down, that yellowed teeth motherfucker will keep on going, the eyes not even seeing you, all they see is flesh. There's no hatred there, no emotion whatsoever. Just hunger. You get killed for looking like bacon.\n\nFuck I miss bacon and all.\n\nThat moment of frozen time stops, that fucker'll rip that bit of you off. My right wrist. Someone's leg. Hell, I bet someone got bitten on the arse. Can you imagine that? Dying from infection without being able to sit down comfortably. \n\nI'm rambling. Probably because I'm going to finish my tea and kill myself once we're done here. So, humour me. Or wipe your arsehole with it, whatever. I am writing on toilet paper. It's all I have. Hah. Suicide notes penned in fountain pen on bog roll. Classy.\n\nEvery emotion hits you, there isn't even pain at that point. It's unbearable sadness, heart-crippling fear and grudging acceptance. Of course, there's the anger too. I got the anger. Maybe everyone gets one of those and it hits them hard. I got the rage and the wrath and the hatred all bunched up into one. So I did first thing that came to my adrenaline-drowned mind.\n\nI bit the fucker back.\n\nI bit that fucker back and I'm going to die being really fucking smug about it. \n\nThere's teabags in the brown box on the shelf. Help yourself. I'm out.", "I really didn't feel much, just a tremendous pinch and the sweat started rolling down my arm as I raised it higher. The walker's head came up as my arm raised and I easily sank the cold steel chisel I'd been holding into it's left eye. \n Barry looked at me and grinned as the corpse of the little girl, she couldn't have been more then 7 years old at death fell to the ground. \n\"Told ya, duct tape has a million and two uses.\"", "The teeth break the flesh and reach the hypodermis. I know this because it's my job to know this. The necrotic gums of the biter contain millions of spores. Within thirty seconds they reach my heart. By this point I am dead, my mind only has to catch up to the fact.\n\nThe biter removes his jaws, taking a piece of muscle along with it.\n\nThe fungus reaches the blood-brain barrier soon after, turning my carotid artery green as the blood turns to syrup in its wake. Tunnel vision sets in, despite the adrenalin pumped into my system and the pain radiating from my arm.\n\nSmelling the infection, I assume, my research never got that far, the biter moves on to fresher prey.\n\nAs the fungus collects at the base of my brain, it sub-divides, sending millions of smaller particles into the grey mush I spent years training in epidemiology. Eighty seven seconds since been bitten I lose coherent thought.\n\nThe doctors are watching me. I know this because I told them to. My coworkers. Friends. And now I am to be the last guinea pig.\n\nThe retroviral has worked. Up until now. On monkeys and tissue. But reality is different and as my eyesight fails and sense leaves me, I feel only one thing.\n\nA hunger." ]

[ 2, 2, 2, 3 ]

[ "1425849213", "1425854975", "1425871322", "1425846246" ]

[ "I poke through the rubble tiredly. I had been traveling for days looking for any food that might be left over. It was a futile effort, as most of the resources had been taken when the others left. I continued forward, getting more and more hopeless at each passing minute. Finally, I stumbled into a garden. I looked around, expecting to see the same barren wasteland that had followed all through the country. But when I looked up, I saw green. Vast amounts of green. Trees in every direction, fruit hanging from every single one. I laugh excitedly. I should have been cautious. This amount of life couldn't have happened naturally, someone would have had to be taking care of it. But I didn't care. It was the only food I had seen in days and I wasn't about to let it go. I ran to the first tree I saw and I reached for the fruit. An apple, bright red and perfectly ripe. I bit in hungrily and laughed giddily as the sweet juices connected with my taste buds. My happiness, however, was short lived. I soon felt the cool steel of a knife pressed against the back of my head. \n\n“Who are you?” A voice said. I turned slowly and came face to face with a woman. Her skin was tan and her hair was black, a sharp contrast to the ice blue eyes she had. They were narrowed at me, and the hunting knife never wavered as she waited for my answer. \n\nI held my hands up in surrender and decided it would be best to just answer her question than to try and make a run for it. “I don’t remember my name.” \n\nShe gave me a strange look and slowly lowered her weapon. “Don’t remember?” She asked. \n\nI nod. “I know it sounds strange. But it’s been so long since I've spoken to anyone. I don’t remember.” My voice came out sounding scratchy. I used to be a singer. But years of harsh conditions had transformed my voice from a sweet and melodic sound to something much darker. \n\nThe woman looked around to make sure I was alone then looked back at me. “If you wanted food, you could have just asked instead of trying to steal.” She says, though her gaze was lighter and the mood seemed much happier than it was moments before. \n\n“I’m sorry. I was just so hungry. I didn't stop to think it might actually belong to someone.” I said sheepishly. She nodded then motioned me to follow her. I complied, figuring she wasn't a threat. Eventually, she led me to a small house, sitting next to a large lake. I marveled at it as the woman went inside. I hadn't seen clean water in ages. My own supply had just run out the day before. The woman soon comes back and hands me a slice of bread. A delicacy in these times. She sits lazily on the porch, taking a bit of her own slice. I sit next to her, eating hungrily. I slow down after a minute, realizing it would be better to save the food than to scarf it all down at once. \n\nThe woman speaks after a few minutes of silence. “I’ll call you Liz.” She states simply, her gaze set straight ahead. \n\n“Liz?” I ask confused, turning to look at her. \n\nShe shrugs. “You look like a Liz to me. So that’s what I’ll call you. My name’s Sara, if you care to know.” \n\nI nod and continue eating. Liz. Having a name after so long feels nice. It makes me feel like a person again, instead of the shell of one, barely hanging on to survival. \n\n“So, what did you do to get kicked off the great space mission?” She questions. \n\nI stay silent. It’s a painful subject to think about. She doesn't press me, just waits while I contemplate what to say. “Asthma.” I answer after a few more bites of food. “Bad asthma too. I was deemed too unfit and therefore not a good specimen to help prolong the human race.” \n\nShe nods. “I’m infertile.” She answers bitterly. “I couldn't have kids. They didn't think I was a good use of resources. But my husband was allowed to go. He abandoned me.” Her gaze turns upwards at the stars. The wind rushes past us, eager to get to it’s next destination. It would have been a lovely evening, had the circumstances been different. \n\n“Do you think they’ll ever come back?” I ask, looking as well. The stars shine bright. It’s strange to think one of those stars contains people. \n\n“I hope not.” She says, viciously taking a bite of her food. “As far as I’m concerned, they’re as dead to me as this planet.” ", "We left them when they were kids. They had no idea, and rightfully so, if they had known we would all be leaving, there probably would not be humans left on this rock. It was an experiment, deemed humane by the top scientists at the time, the panel was well picked. The thought was that if there were two of us, two groups, we could get more done, scientifically speaking.\n\nThe plan was to let them start from scratch and see what would happen. The results were confusing at first, they didn't do much, they hunted, and never settled. They went north, we had never used the northern lands before, not after the dam broke and we had to abandon the deep basin settlements. They spread out over the entire globe, and then it got cold, and they circumnavigated it. It was amazing, but then it got warmer, and they were isolated.\n\nThousands of years made them different, unique in their own way, and we feared for them. We knew that they would hate each other, we had learned to overcome, but only through the necessity of an external threat. Something we had made sure they would never encounter. Sure enough, it eventually did happened, just as we had predicted. They were awful, brutal things, but we could not interfere, as that would contaminate the data. Then, they learned about combustion, and improved communication, and the wars became deadly. They developed new methods of death, things even we hadn't thought of like mustard gas and submarines. They scared us then, and with their war, our greatest fears were realized when they developed atomic weaponry. At this point, we were sure that the experiment had failed, and we would need to step in.\n\nBut, when we thought the worst of them, they proved us wrong. In this chaos, a select few broke from these savages, and changed their path. They discovered space travel, alarming fast too, and developed it with the speed at which they had developed their weapons. They Invented computers, and almost as fast figured out how to connect them to one another, and then globally. They figured out how to send data through light, something we had just discovered, and they learned to coexist with nature, not just use it. They fought with each other, not with weapons, but with words, and when they needed to, they unified to help each other out. There technology became more and more impressive, and just last year they reached the goal we had set for them, all those years ago.\n\nOur children had grown up, and though they're still children, still get into silly fights, still try to be the best and don't like to work together, they were us, and their trial by fire had hone them into brilliance. They were ready for us to take them back to there home. \n\nThey were ready to come live up here with us in the stars. ", "This is my favorite place on Earth, which isn't saying much. I'm laying on the tallest hill just outside of town, grass rolling in the wind all the way down, my world lit only by the moon. Sounds picturesque? Damn straight. I don't come out at all if the night isn't perfect.\n\nI've never been off-world, mind you, but once I get the chance, I'm never coming back. There's too much space for me to see even in my whole life, and that makes me feel just the right amount of lonely and happy. It makes me feel huge.\n\n\"I should be up there,\" I whisper.\n\nBeside me, Darrel pats my shoulder. He always comes with me. Maybe not to space, but to here. He cares a lot about me, but I wonder if he'd like a different version of me more. A me that actually made it into the starflight program.\n\nHey, why not? I'd love that version of me.\n\nDarrel stares at me. I turn back to him without a smile, but even I perk up a little when I see his.\n\n\"What?\" I say.\n\n\"Don't mind me,\" he says. \"I just like to watch that look in your eyes when you're dreaming. Keep on lookin'. Don't mind me.\"\n\nI punch his shoulder and giggle without meaning to. My laugh is weird, trust me, but even I can stand it when someone else is smiling at me like that.\n\n\"I'm going to apply again next year,\" I say louder. \"This is something I really want. It's something that's actually important, you know? That's what I think. The farther humanity explores, the greater we all get.\"\n\nDarrel hums. \"It's nice to wonder.\"\n\nHe doesn't say anything more, but it's true. I'm wondering.\n\nI lift myself up onto my elbows to look at him closer, and I say, \"You should apply, too. I bet you'd like out there as much as me.\"\n\nDarrel smiles wider, but this one I don't like. He laughs to himself, then says, \"Well, I might, but after how it went down with my mother and her father before her, I'm pretty sure the Houston name is on a banned list or sumpin'.\"\n\n\"Don't let other people hold you back,\" I tell him. \"It takes your own effort, not theirs.\"\n\n\"Ain't smart enough. I know that. Takes more 'an effort to ride a spaceship.\"\n\n\"It's not just genetics, Darrel. That's an excuse.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I reckon it's a big combination of factors,\" Darrel says. \"I may not be too much a genius, but I'm practical. I heard the numbers; three people last year, out of however many billions we got left. You don't need to be awesome at math to figure out how dumb that chance is.\"\n\n\"It's not like it's a hard limit,\" I say. \"The program elevates every worthy candidate that applies. That's me. It could be you, too.\"\n\n\"Well, look at you,\" Darrel says.\n\nI scowl at him, but he continues.\n\n\"You say you're gonna apply 'again,' but you never completed your papers last year. You're smart enough for the program, but you're letting everything else hold you back. You talk about effort and you don't put in enough.\"\n\nI look to the bottom of the hill.\n\n\"I love your dreams, you know that, but you gotta be serious about this if it's sumpin' you want.\"\n\nI pull up my knees and breathe in sharply. \"It's scary.\"\n\nHe doesn't say anything more.\n\n\"But I'm going to do it this year,\" I say. \"Fuck the consequences. Fuck the police. Whatever.\"\n\nDarrel smiles at me again and I smile back. My smile isn't completely honest, but I want to set him at ease. Next year will actually be my fifth application, but he doesn't need to know that. I want the night to end happily. I want to score when we get back in town. I want to keep dreaming.\n\nNext year. Definitely. I'll do it. I'm worthy.", "The [Captain] felt the tickle at the back of his skull as the [All Speak] of the crew flood in as he came onto the bridge.\n\nHe took his place in the center most acceleration harness. He saw as his sensor [Lieutenant] saw. The world below was thriving with civilization.\n\nThe [Captain] nodded to himself. That explained the twinge of excitement and confusion that ran in undercurrents through the [All Speak].\n\nHe directed a [Focus] at his [Science Officer], who was the nexus from which the group’s excitement truly flowed. She was seeing something new, something unexpected.\n\nShe turned at both the [Captain] and the crew’s attention. She was smiling and a concept utterly alien propagated through the [All Speak].\n\n*Language*.\n\nUnderstanding followed as the [Science Officer] shared her insight and it became clear how the [Silent] on the world below had not only avoided extinction, but thrived.\n\nThe excitement grew as the confusion fell away, replaced with purpose. The crew collectively closed their eyes and [Focused]. The [Great Collective] must know that their ancient brothers and sisters may not be inferior as once was thought. \n \nThey could speak after all.", "They appeared in the solar system, and quickly made a b-line for earth. Our suprise was that they were ancient yet advanced humans. Similar protiens, structures and needs, yet different. Red hair, green eyes, fair skin. \n\nTheir suprise was that that we existed still, and that biologically we would surpass them. Centuries of their careful and planned artifical evolution and yet now inferior to a bunch humans that couldn't even travel the stars.\n\nTheir evolution was like programming a very complex computer. They learned all too late lessons we were learning from our own A.I. programming efforts. Change one minor peice of code and you introduce 3 major problems and many minor ones that go unnoticed for years.\n\nOf course their war with the Outsiders hadn't helped them either, a war they started. A war they lost. They weren't coming back to us, they were running when they found us. Long ago they left Earth to take their place among the stars. Now they needed us, those they left behind. They needed our bodies, our minds, and our numbers.\n\n \"Sir we're picking up signals, by our latest estimates, the hostiles will be here in 24 hours. Your decision has paid off Fleet Captain.\"\n\nI looked over to the observation room. 3 green eyed, red haired humans stood inside it looking down at my bridge. At this point they were done trying to tell me what to do. The AIs they relied on, had finally thrown up their hands and basically said the fight was going to be a 50 50 shot. I smiled. That was an increase of 36 percent. I'd given the enemy a choice. Try to ignore my fleet and risk me attacking from behind or come at us front and center but fight on my terms.\n\n\"Commander, order the fleet to hold here but they need to be ready to mobilize in 12 hours. Make sure the drones continue to monitor the hostile fleet. If they try to change direction or accelerate I want to know about it.\"\n\n\"What about you captain? You've maneuvered the fleet for 14 hours.\"\n\n\"I'll get my rest shortly but I suspect I'm about to get a visitor.\"\n\nAs if on cue one of the trio approached my first officer and I. I nodded towards her and she bowed before speaking, an act respect." ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 2, 2 ]

[ "1425865859", "1425867279", "1425848412", "1425854802", "1425891123" ]

[ "The clock ticked.\n\nI didn't resist.\n\nI was ready.\n\nEverything became steady.\n\nNothing moved.\n\nI fell and rolled.\n\nI was very cold.\n______________________\nThat sucks but it's my first poem. Critics please!", "The clock ticked sharply in the corner of the silent room.\n\nIt's an ambient noise that I have learned to pay close attention to over my years. It signifies that we are all in movement, careening towards some unknown end, but all at the same pace. Most would think that the incessant ticking of a clock among silence brings to mind a setting with a certain sense of lethargy, of apathy. I cannot empathize with those people. To me, the ticking clock just proves we all are racing towards our expiration. It proves that we can never fully control the universe that brought us into being, and that the universe will callously take us back when we end--an event that we all race towards at an alarming pace. You tend to realize just how fast that pace is when you're the only to ever spectate it, and how fleetingly sweet that control is when you're the only one to ever sanction it.\n\nI alternate the ticking with the tapping of my pen on the page, which was just as blank as it had been four hours ago. The case was tomorrow and I still had no defense written for my client. It was late, and the clock clacked its monotonous tune as if to mock me, or if one's view on the universe was a little more misanthropic, to bait me. My skills as a lawyer were far from good enough to warrant the position I held, both socially and professionally. Those positions were earned not through my panache or ability as a raconteur, but from my ability to strategically choose high-profile cases and my ability to look for evidence outside the limits of the laws of humans and of physics.\n\nThis was a case that could not be won by my level of skill. I had been working my ass off for months to try and come up with some evidence to confront the litigation, but the plaintiff's strings were tight around her case. It was a standard civil lawsuit, a divorce, but my client was a United States Senator--and one of the more illustrious ones at that. His ex-wife was fighting for custody of his children by claiming that he was physically abusive. I know this is false; the man was just too gentle and empathetic to carry such personal moral weight. The problem was I had no way to prove it, and I *needed* this case; it would push me into a financial and professional level of notoriety that I've desired my whole life. Nothing meant more to me than this case, I think to myself. Not even my safety.\n\nI sighed as the pen plopped down on the table, syncing up perfectly with one of the clock ticks. I then stare at the clock, in a way antagonizing it in an anthropomorphous manner because that would its defeat just that much more satisfying. I draw in a very deep breath, close my eyes, focus with a warm, hard, deep severity for a minute and breathe a long sigh a relief as I hear the clock's cruel song come to a halt. \n\nI rise from my chair and grab the flashlight in my pocket. Light isn't very useful when it isn't moving, and since the flashlight is in the same frame of reference as me it will be my only source of sight. The room remained the same as when it stopped, but if there were any changes, like a book opening, there would be no new light to carry that information to my eyes. It took a while for me to figure that out, and it caused me to reflect on my history of 'taking a break.' This would be my 50th time. I restrained myself pretty well throughout the years, but this was necessary. *Damn*, I think, *1 in 2 now.* I swallowed the bit of regret that was rising in my throat and continued out the door.\n\nI was staying in a hotel that was only about seven blocks from the plaintiff's house. It was the same house they had lived in as a family. I'm positive I can find something there. I observed the few people outside as I traveled the quiet street--paused in the uncertainty of their world, each one in an action that was a little snapshot of their life that I tried to relate to my own. I avoided walking towards people or walking in a straight line-when I was done the air particles that I was pushing into one another as I travel will create a sonic boom. The cause wouldn't be explained to them or to anyone.\n\n***okay readers sorry but it's very late. I have more content to write than I thought when I started this. I will finish this tomorrow. :)\n\n\n\n" ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1425889181", "1425886092" ]

[ "\"Miss Betty Rae is outside again sir.\"\n\n\"You've got to be kidding me. Show her in, then move my eight-thirty to... Never mind big in her mother in three minutes.\"\n\n\"Miss Betty. How horribly predictable of you.\"\n\n\"Why must you be so rude? My lord. I'm just here to clear up this mistake -\"\n\n\"You've been here fifteen years Betty. There was no mistake. It doesn't matter how Christian you say you were. A racist old hag wearing a cross is still a racist old hag. Ahh Miss June your daughter here was just embarrassing the family a bit more. See what you can do about it.\"\n\n\"Please by all means just stare at each other, it's not like I don't have a meeting with...\"\n\n\"Dan Cathy sir.\"\n\n\"Thank you Edward please show him in.\"\n\n\"There has to be some mistake I'm a Christian.\"\n\n\"You fucking people...\"", "\"Dag-namnit!\" the tall, red skinned man said. \"I still have a few million to go through? I'll never get used to this new schedule. Oh, sugar. Another one.\"\n\nThe young man walked absently into the black room. His eyes were still glazed over, and he wouldn't regain his conciousness until the process started. The red skinned man touched the tips of the small horns protuding from his forehead. The young man sat down on the ebony chair in front of him. The light returned to his eyes, he looked around with words on his mouth, but held the silence when he saw the tall, red man before him.\n\n\"Wh-where am I?\" the young man asked, though he was beginning to get an idea from his surroundings.\n\n\"On your way to the afterlife.\" explained the red man, \"I'm here to judge you one final time to make sure it's right that you've been darned to my domain.\"\n\n\"Wh-\"\n\n\"Shh. Don't want you to open that mouth of yours, I mean look at all the accounts of foul language we have here. It's a flipping disgrace, really. A darned disgrace.\"\n\n\"Language?\"\n\n\"Yes, language. That's one of the prime offenses that'll make you end up before me. Along with all the other offenses in your shi-sugar coated file.\" The red man almost slipped up. Last time he did that he had to look after the other guy's kids for a week straight. \"Yes, language.\" he reiterated, \"Even I sometimes fall foul to this most basic of sins.\"\n\n\"Sins? I can't have sworn so much that I would get damned to hell for it.\"\n\n\"Sorry, young man. You're not damned to hell. I never said any such thing. Unfortunately, you've been darned to Heck.\" The red man clicked his long-nailed fingers. His temporary guest vanished from the black room. He sighed. \"Silly sausages, I can't take any more of this stuff.\"", "A long endless line greets one at the gates of Heck. Inconsiderate jerks, from double parkers to the ones that never replaced a toilet paper roll in their life, are each standing one behind the other and each wondering if it was safe to fart now. In a synced unison, as if by a telepathic link, they fart. The corridor has another layer of aroma added to the potpourri of the stink of sweat, urine and Axe; a lot of Axe. The line edges on slowly. A fire slug passes a woman in green stilettos who left a bloody tampon in the toilet of her father-in-law. The slug moves slowly but surely through the forest of smelly shoes in front of him. Once in a while he encounters a pair of crocs. There are sometimes some disagreements in the line. They are resolved by inconsiderate shouting which contends in volume with the shrieks of the neighborhood community called Hell. Each is eager to reach the end of line. But alas, only the slug knows that the line curves back to feed itself and is in essence a never ending circle. Some have taken to call the slug by the name of Belfy. It is short for Belphegor.", "\"Next victim,\" said Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light. A nervous looking man with pointy hair walked in. \"Let's see... You took the last of the coffee in your break room, without refilling the pot. For this hideous crime, you will... sit next to the accountants during lunch, and hear their boring conversations for all eternity!\" Screaming, the horrible coworker was lead out, and the next was brought in. \n\n\"Well well, you have loud conversations on your phone at work, *and* click your pen repeatedly? I have a special punishment for *you*\" Phil grinned menacingly at the cowering lady, enjoying every second of his job. \"You will be a simple secretary, but you'll be forced to endure your coworkers asking you for pens, and saying horrible things like 'working hard or hardly working?' for the rest of your unmercifully long life!\" At this, the woman fainted, unable to bear her fate. Phil laughed an evil laugh, he truly loved his job. " ]

[ 2, 9, 13, 64 ]

[ "1425961007", "1425939686", "1425923358", "1425917634" ]

[ "\"A nuclear bombardment.\"\n\n\"What in the actual fuck?\"\n\n The current president of the United States has been collaborating these past few weeks trying to grab the attention of a nearby spaceship. However, the spaceship simply stalks the solar system has all of Earth's governments do pretentious acts. Some of these acts included prioritizing any nearby space-craft to its location, staging fake wars, and sending at least thousands of universal codes by now. But as of now, the U.S. president may have founded the best idea to date.\n\n\"Just think about it, we now have the technology to send international nuclear warheads. Why not extend it a little further and send several into space for good measure?\" The president's secretary stared at him bewildered, acknowledging that it's a far better idea than anyone else came up with, but fearful of accidents or screw-ups. \n\n\"We have to at least try. Carol, this is a once in *forever* event, one that could practically jump the planet from the 21st to 25th century in months!\" \n\n\"I'll... get the executive officer on the line.\"\n\nCarol walked with an nervously hastened pace while the president stared at the glass pane window behind him. \n\n\"Time to make history.\"\n ", "\"...and KABOOM!\" The scale Earth model exploded and paper mâché fluttered about the international situation room, landing in the hair of the less than entertained officials.\n\n\"...Off we zoom, into a new age for humanity, and new hope for human kind. We don't know who or what they are, but we do know who and what we are. A ship that size, we could colonize the exterior and thrive like a barnacle. The detonation should be enough to catch their attention, distract them, and slow them down- all while propelling our fleet towards the future!\" The speaker finished the presentation with a skyward flourish. \n\nThere was no applause. \n\nAs the room returned to being lit the speaker noticed many had grown pale. One older gentleman had gone as far as feigning a heart attack, three were scribbling frustrated in their files, and almost everyone else solemnly plucked bits of paper from their hair. For whole minutes the room remained silent. Nobody dare look at the speaker, nobody save the woman with eyes as dark as space itself. \n\nShe stared unblinking at the speaker, hands folded beneath her chin, elbows propped on the table. While everyone else busied themselves with the present mess, muttering that a PowerPoint would have been just as effective in conveying the point, this woman's mind was steady at work. \n\n\"I have a question,\" she said, breaking the hush and attracting every eye. A circular light on her collar sparked to life, indicating that at the present moment she had the floor. The room sat at attention. \n\n\"How soon?\" \n\n", "\"Let's not make any ruckus at all, because trying to draw the attention of a spaceship that size is extremely dangerous,\" said Bob. \"Holy shit, Bob's right,\" said everyone else. \n\nSo the spaceship passed and the Earth continued to exist, thanks to Bob and his obvious suggestion. Thanks, Bob. \n\nThe end.\n\n", "It was the Navy that got all the funding. Experience with ships of course. The government didn’t trust anyone else that might get delusions of power and influence. NASA was folded into the Navy and the mission was realigned.The Navy was no longer a planet based entity, the combined Army and Air Force would take that mission. The new NASA division of the Navy provided the space know how, but the different Navy engineering groups, NAWCWD, SPAWAR, NAVSEA; The Navy and Marines trusted us to give them the tools they would need and we did.\n\nThere were a lot of new faces back then. Everyone out to prove themselves. All the civilian scientist and engineers wanted to be on the mission we knew was coming. Only 100 went with the 1000 uniformed personnel.\nWe launched, went to the Great Ship, and then we ran out of ideas. The ship was massive no question. We knew it wasn't solid though. There wasn't enough gravity. It silently drifted past the asteroid belt and barely disturbed anything. If Jupiter had more influence over the asteroid belt, that meant there had to be empty space in it.Which meant something could be inside. \nI was getting annoyed though. Not by the lack of progress. It was my own nagging voice in my head. The sphere wasn’t perfect. Like Galileo looking up to the Moon with his telescope and realizing the Moon wasn’t perfect, as we got close we realized the Great Ship wasn’t a sphere. Nears its equator, it was pulled in, kinda like Earth. It drove me crazy, that the imperfection. Course these Aliens knew better, right? I mean they had to. I laughed to myself.\n\n“Sir, random laughter like that is why we call you the Mad Scientist.”\n\n“I put theories into practice, I’m a Mad Engineer, not a scientist.”\n\n“Right, whatever, you say Sir. What’s so funny anyway?”\n\nI turned and looked back at the Marine on night watch. “I just had a stupid idea. The sphere is not perfect. What if I sent them the equations that made it perfect.”\n\n“I thought they had ignored all the math and shit you egg-heads had sent.”\n\n“They have. I’m just throwing out stupid ideas. Hey you, thats an eye sore. Fix your shit.” I said shaking my fist toward the Great Ship out the window. Maybe I was starting to lose my mind.\n\nThe Marine chuckled. “Go for it.”\n\nA few taps of the glass pad and the radios were sending my equations. Then nothing happened. \n\nI threw up my hands. “Well it was stupid ide--”. The ship shuddered...hard. “What was that?” I asked looking up.\n\nAlerts were blaring now and the intercom was giving orders. I glanced at my console. New readings were coming in. The Great Ship was changed. It was now…..perfect. Sensors were started to pick up heat signatures on the Great Ship. Systems, its systems, were coming online. I looked out the window. “I think I found the power switch” I spoke to no one as lights on the Great Ship glowed. Then there was a noise like the sound of an air leak. Then green light filled my eyes. Then it passed. I looked back towards the window. Was it moving away?\n\nThe Marine grabbed my arm and pulled me from my thoughts. “Admiral wants to see you in OPS. Hope you've got some answers. The ship just changed direction.”\n\nWe walked; No, ran in silence. OPS was still the dark room you see in movies. Bunch of Navy types looking at screens. The Admiral took one look at me and the room got very quiet. There were no other civilians around. \n“Not sure what you did but, I’m told you just got its attention?”\n\n“What's its trajectory, Sir?”\n\nThe Admiral pointed to a sailor then motioned toward the main screen. A second of furious typing then the screen changed. “According to the timeline, 11 seconds after your transmission the ship stopped moving. 5 seconds after we detected a burst of radiation directed at us. 5 seconds after that, the ship changed direction.”\n\nI looked and took in what I saw. Not Earth, not the Sun. “Ceres? Its heading to Ceres.\"\n\n“Perfect intercept trajectory. What's more is it affecting the asteroid belt. Pulling rocks towards it as it moves. That shouldn't be happening. The asteroid belt is so spread out gravity can't pull them that fast. This shouldn't be possible.”\n\n“Do we have any recent surveys of Ceres.” I asked.\n\n“No but I thinks its time we got one.” The Admiral turned and people started moving. “Contact NASA division, and request help from ESA too. I need every telescope pointed at Ceres. I don’t care if it is in service or not. We need data.”\n\n", "Jack decided that something was wrong and woke up. Upon closer inspection, the world appeared exceptionally ordinary, and Jack decided to go back to sleep only to jump out of bed a few seconds later, cursing on top of his lungs. Today was a big day.\n\nIt was the 21st of August, and Jack had an eclipse planned. Not a puny, laughable eclipse, not a pathetic excuse for an eclipse, but a full, healthy, American spectacle, and Jack was not going to miss it. \n\nHe got dressed in a hurry. Outside, the sun was shining, unaware of the terrible fate that it was about to encounter. Having completed his morning routine, Jack went downstairs and made himself a cup of coffee. It was Monday, but Jack took a day off work, as, he was pretty sure, did plenty of others. After all, no one needed him to sit at the missile command centre all day with nothing better to do than trying to stare down a wall.\n\nHe went outside. The sun was still shining, the birds were still singing, and the temporary darkness was slowly approaching in the form of Earth's nearest celestial body. Jack smiled to himself. He was not even alive the last time anything like this happened. Which, he thought to himself, made today even better. \n\nAfter a quick stroll down the street, he entered a small cafe, went online, and scrolled through the morning news that were big on the total and partial solar eclipses alongside the usual \"Fashion to Flatter Every Figure\" and \"Eat Yourself Happy\" articles. \n\nTime passed. Jack waited attentively. Time passed some more. Jack read all about the latest fashion trends. Time crawled like a baby with a habit of going around in circles. Jack waited. And then he fell out of his chair.\n\nThe eclipse started. The eclipse started, and Jack immediately decided that something was terribly wrong. For one thing, the eclipse was not for another half an hour. For another, the eclipse seemed to resemble a giant spaceship. Jack couldn't quite put his finger on what exactly bothered him the most, but he decided that the whole thing was rather rude.\n\nOutside, people were now screaming. The ship was gliding across the sky, an enormous phallic-shaped contraption, completely unaware of the tiny planet below. It hung in the sky in a way that made it perfectly clear that it had come to stay. Jack swore loudly. The ship clearly intended to steal his only chance of seeing a total solar eclipse, and Jack found himself screaming and waving his hands in a vain attempt to scare it off.\n\nThe ship didn't move. Perhaps it has come to enjoy the show, or perhaps it was going to take off any minute, but Jack was not going to give it the benefit of doubt. He made his way through the screaming crowd, and headed for the control centre. Maybe taking a day off was not such a good idea anyway.\n\nFor all Jack knew, the ship would have to go, and it would have to go in the next half an hour.\n", "The world is ending. Some don't want to admit it, but it's true. My 8 year old mind can understand it, so why can't theirs? The UFO will strike the earth in 3 minutes, and here I am, playing with my yoyo. My room is soon to be my coffin.What else could I do? Everyone else is outside, blaring megaphones, screaming, jumping up and down, trying to make a noise loud enough to be heard. It won't work. I am willing to except my fate, why aren't they? I feel feet running on the stair; the door to my room bursts open. \"JoJo, come do your part, screech, scream, make sound, WE MUST GET THEM TO HEAR US!!!\" My signs of protest are useless as my father grabs me out of the comfort of my room, and onto the roof. The noise is probably deafening, but how would i know?\"Yell JoJo, make noise!\" my father frantically signs to me. It won't work,what could sound possibly do? I've lived without it all my life, how could it save me now. But i see my father's eyes. I've never seen him scared before. I do it, for him. I open my mouth, and scream. What that scream sounded like, I'll never know, but I do know it was enough to save the Earth.", "It moved so slowly. So horrifyingly awfully dreadfully slow.\n\nIf it had moved faster, there might have been some decent hint of reassurance that the ship might be in transit, onto another location soon, but there was nothing. \n\nThe scientists were able to discern after weeks of panicked research that it would indeed leave the system, but at a much slower pace than it had entered. The type of warp it had used must have needed some type of warm-up they figured, which was why it seemed to rely only on the thrusters at the back of it's unremarkable hull while passing between our planet and the sun.\n\nThe first few hours of contact were exciting, like the build-up to a solar eclipse. There was no panic like the movies would show, instead a dark gray behemoth in the distance, only noticeable in the parts of the planet currently experiencing day. \n\nThen it got closer...its path blocked out the sun, and the euphoria of discovery was extinguished. The world governments panicked, tried launching missiles and radiation beams at the ship in an attempt to get it's attention or destroy it. Nothing worked, its shields seemed impregnable, and the nukes were snuffed away. The ship itself, resembling a smashed jelly bean, appeared ancient, but the crevices running along its hull must have been thousands of miles wide. It had some sort of navigation system, it was able to avoid our moon and some of the larger asteroids, but it gave no response to anything we sent to it.\n\nThen one day, with our scientists exhausted after weeks of working to find a solution, one of them had a breakthrough while reading to her child. As the old Doctor Seuss story goes, we all decided to make a statement as a planet, simultaneously sending radio waves and flashing our electrical grids on and off. \n\nIt was one of the greatest examples of international cooperation ever witnessed. Within a few days all the nations of the world (with the exception of North Korea) had agreed to take part. Everyone was encouraged to participate, turning all the lights of their house on so that the flash of the electrical grid would be most noticeable. Hospitals were instructed to cover all of their windows, since their power supplies would not be affected, and all flights were grounded with collision beacons turned off on all the buildings.\n\nThe date was set, all the systems were ready. When the sun set over the west coast of the Americas, the lights began flashing everywhere. We kept up the flashing for almost a full cycle, but the ship seemed to take no notice. The astronauts on the ISS reported seeing a glorious slow flash of all the lights of the world going on an off, changing between utter darkness and brilliance every twenty seconds, but the ship remained the same, no scans were reported, nothing changed.\n\nThen, as we were ready to give up, we decided to ask once more for the help of the most oppressive nation. We pleaded to North Korea to join us, more in an act of desperation on our behalves over the whole thing rather than believing their contribution would help. We had no more ideas, we had to try it. After much deliberation, they agreed. The order was given to attempt for one more hour the simultaneous flashing of all the world's lights.\n\nWith the little speck of light given off by North Korea, a threshold must have been reached on the ship's sensors, for something incredible happened. As soon as the switch was flipped, the grey behemoth in the sky moved away, and left the system almost as quickly as they had arrived. In the end, it was the littlest voice that had helped make the biggest difference.\n\nWhen later asked for an official response to the development of events, North Korea responded:\n\n\"They hate us cause they ain't us.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nfin\n\n[Obligatory First Post!]\nInspired by 'Horton Hears a Who' by Dr. Seuss", "God, we all tried to get that spaceship's attention.\n\nIt just... Appeared one day. Blocking the sun and shit. We really wanted it to move, so crops could grow, you know?\n\nIt's fucking huge, mate. Like... I can see the logo from the bloody ground.\n\nAnyways, we needed the UFO (more of an IFO, because anybody with half a brain could see it) to move. We tried everything. Probes. Radio. Explosions. We even tried launching stuff at it, but no dice.\n\nSo I guess the President of the United States got this big idea that we would go to it. Seems smart, right? Nothing could go wrong, right?\n\nSo the President gathers all the best and brightest and shit the world has to offer. They got astronauts. Scientists. Linguists. Reporters. Cooks. Surgeons. Military. They even had celebrities, because who doesn't love celebrities in space?\n\n But anyways, they get there, right? Military's all ready to shoot, diplomats are ready to negotiate, and Colbert is ready to figure out whether or not they're Republican.\n\nAnd you'll never guess. The ships' bloody empty! There's giant furniture lying around and shit, bigger than France, just sitting there.\n\nSo they find what some archaeologist thinks is the ship's control room. Big levels and fancy shit.\n\nThey climb up to the dashboard, and they see the craziest thing on the window.\n\nIt's a bloody parking ticket. Literally looks just like the ones on Earth. It had a drawing of the sun, with a big red X on it. \n\nThe ship dissapeared a week later. Guess poor sod got towed. \n\n", "The world governments tried to keep it a secret at first. But they had to issue an explanation when half of the stars in the sky were blotted out.\n\nWe tried to reassure everyone that it wouldn't be a threat, even thought we honestly knew nothing about it. Its course was so precise and exact and planned that it *had* to be a computer. Likely an autopilot that hadn't been programmed to search for life. Something had to be done to get the attention of any living occupants of the ship. Scientists from SETI got together and brainstormed every possible way to get its attention. Radio signals, radition bursts, light patterns.... everything failed. Well, probably. We had no way of knowing if they were receiving anything; maybe they just didn't care what we had to say. The ship just lumbered through the solar system at a snail's pace, looping around the Sun for that extra gravitational burst. The only thing the ship did seem to notice was Pluto, which it vaporized with powerful lasers as soon as the tiny planet's erratic orbit brought it too close to the visitor. That certainly ruled out a manned mission.\n\nThe President demanded more drastic measures. That ship could have innumerable benefits for humanity! We moved a satellite into its path, hoping that they would recognize another artificial construct and not destroy it. No such luck. The President authorized a riskier strategy: a \"shot off the bow.\" A nuclear detonation, right in their path. No way they could ignore that, right? We didn't get a chance to test it; their lasers destroyed the asteroid where the warhead was planted before it could even go off. The ship disintegrated anything that got too close.\n\nThe inspiration came from the most unlikely of sources: one of the scientists was applying makeup, using her compact mirror. Her coworker just stared, jaw hanging open, until she called Human Resources to file a complaint. He managed to snap out of it long enough to reveal the real reason he was ogling: the mirror. Why not put a large mirror in front of the ship, and slowly move it back to match the speed of the ship? It would sense the obstruction and try to use its lasers, which would just bounce off. It would have no other choice but to slow down and figure out what happened.\n\nEarth scrambled to get it put together in time. It was the largest man-made object ever created and used almost all of the metals that had been so far mined from the asteroid belt. It was roughly the size of Asia, but only a few inches thick. Construction had to be done far outside of orbit and constantly on the dark side of the planet in order to prevent it from blocking out the sun entirely for a huge part of the world. \n\nScientists maneuvered it into place just as the ship was accelerating, preparing to leave the solar system. As expected, it sensed the object in its way and fired its lasers directly at the mirror. The destructive beams of light bounced off the mirror.... and right back to the ship. \n\nThere was a horrified gasp in NASA's mission control room as three dark circles, each the size of a city, appeared in the formerly flawless hull of the ship. Oxygen poured out into space, leaving a tiny trail of vapor. But it worked. The ship slowed, then stopped. The oxygen leak cut off suddenly too. A million orange lights ringing the ship turned on suddenly, creating a bright spot in the sky visible even on Earth.\n\nMissiles erupted from the ship, shattering the mirror in a billion pieces. Then the visitor turned toward Earth. " ]

[ 5, 6, 6, 8, 10, 13, 23, 75, 114 ]

[ "1425947570", "1425936370", "1425945926", "1425949134", "1425917608", "1425933791", "1425928464", "1425917982", "1425914349" ]

[ " Air filled my lungs as I woke from yet another nightmare. Sweat trickled down my neck as the orchestra in my chest came to a slow. \n\n*Fuck... I can’t take this anymore.*\n\n I made my way over to the keyboard next to my bed. The ground was littered with meal supplement bars. I don’t care about what I eat anymore. It all tastes the same anyway. I sat down and looked at the calendar perched crookedly next to my dresser.\n\n*August 10th.*\n\n Droplets made their way from my forehead and onto the keys directly below my fingertips. It’s the only way I can cope with it now. I play soft music, but loud enough so that the echoes can be heard in the black sky littered with lights. As I played, I reflected on my nightmare.\n\n It was fourteen years ago, and I still dream about him sometimes. \n\n I was already a nervous kid. Getting the shit beat out of you on a weekly basis will do that to you. I always hated those kids, but I hated the ones who did nothing even more. That’s what hurt the worst. That nobody cared enough to help.\n\n I told my parents that I needed to go back to the car to get my wallet. I didn’t even want to fucking buy anything, I just wanted the independence that came with having the ability to buy a stupid Hot Topic t-shirt that would no doubt piss my mom off. I really was a stupid kid. Now that’s only half true.\n\n As I walked through the parking structure beside the mall, keys that my parents gave me to get into the car so that I could get money that they gave to me in one hand, and a Motorola from the same parents in the other, I had been seriously contemplating suicide. Nobody cared about me, and I didn’t care about anyone. I overlooked the edge of the concrete giant, toward a beautiful sunset that rested comfortably on the horizon, but all I saw was black concrete on the ground. \n\n I stood there, my face downward for at least ten minutes. I decided against offing myself *just* yet, and made my way to the car. I looked at my phone to see an IM from my dad asking me where the hell I was. In the upper left hand corner of the screen, it read; \n\n “5:40 P.M - August 10th”\n\n As I made my way back to the mall, I heard shouts and scuffling coming from a far off corner of the structure. Curiosity got the better of me, and despite my infinite thirteen year old wisdom, I went to see what was going on. As I creeped up to the corner and peeked over, I saw a man, no older than twenty, getting wailed on by another man, also probably no older than twenty. \n\n As he hit the ground, a small patch of red stained the dusty grey floor. My lips quivered as I stood, feeling absolutely helpless. I wanted to say something, or do something, but my legs simply would not move forward. My lips quivered as they opened, but my tongue was tied around my brain, and I couldn’t speak. I looked at the man on the floor. His eyes were a bright green, but all I could see was grey. \n\n I ran as quickly as my feet would allow me to, so that I could get away from that horrific scene. I exited the structure, and just outside of the mall, I threw up in the nearest trash can. It was so horrifying. I still couldn’t believe what I had seen.\n\n I thought it best not to talk to anyone about it at the time. I didn’t want myself to somehow get hurt, and I didn’t think that there was anything I could do. After taking a moment to compose myself, I walked boldly into the mall, off to pretend as if the past twenty minutes of my life didn’t happen.\n\n The sweat had finally stopped now, and my breathing returned to normal. I let out a short breath of air accompanied with a slight smirk as I reflected on the irony of the entire situation. I heard later on the news that he didn’t survive his injuries, as the beatings had gotten quite worse after my act of cowardice. I do wonder if things might have been different if I had called the police or intervened in some way.\n\n I came to a slow, pressing the keys with as much passion as possible, and finally ended my song. I turned off my lights, and turned to the window above my keyboard. As I began to close it, I whispered softly into the night; \n\n*I hope you liked it.*\n", "My neighbor is always a little odd; at least in my eyes he is. It is apparent in our chats. He would stick to a topic that no one else was discussing for an extended period of time and the suddenly switch to another topic, as if he didn't just drag out the previous one to the point where no one else was listening.\n\nI always listened, if only because it was enjoyable watch him connect dots that others wouldn't really consider.\n\n\"You know, time travel is quite fascinating. Just imagine all the issues that arise with messing with history.\" He started out. It was his usual cheerful self, and for once, this chat was just between him and I. \"I mean there are plenty of theories about time travel and such.\"\n\n\"I though you didn't think time travel was possible.\" I interjected. \"I remember you telling me that All You Zombies wasn't possible.\"\n\n\"I believe I never said it was impossible, only hi-\"\n\n\"Highly improbably. I know, you've said that about pretty much everything.\"\n\n\"I mean, the story itself seems to be based on conflicting theories.\" He goes on to list how if the time travel in that story is based on alternate universes, he would never have to go back in time to recruit himself, by seducing herself, or something like that.\n\nThat story makes my head spin. Talking about time travel theories was just making my head hurt. I tune him out for a bit. Just to give my neurons a small rest. I tune back in a short while later.\n\nHe's now talking about how time travel could be achieved, and going on about what he would do if he can travel back in time. \"I think going back in time would be fantastic to study the creatures and animals that we have driven to extinction.\" Interesting. I never thought to study biology or other sciences in the past.\n\nHe lets out a sigh, then he says, \"It was fourteen years ago, and I still dream of him sometimes.\" I blink at him. Surprised, mildly, by the sudden change.\n\n\"Who?\" It is always my first question. He brought this up before, this slowly shaped to be our routine.\n\n\"I wonder how accurate this dream is.\" He never told me who he dreamed about. I try to guess sometimes. It wasn't related to family (technically, he said), or related to his past love life.\n\n\"Is it about a past friend?\"\n\n\"No. Not a friend. Well... I might consider him a friend, but that is a different discussion.\"\n\n\"So an aquaintaince?\"\n\n\"Definitely knew him too well to be an acquaintaince.\"\n\nI try a different angle of attack. I am determined to figure out who this is. \"So what do you dream about?\"\n\n\"Just about what jobs he would have right now or how happy he would be now. This dream was about him being a successful novelist.\" He smiled wistfully as he gazed into the distance.\n\n\"So uhhh, what happened?\"\n\nHe snapped out of his gaze and looked at me confused.\n\n\"Fourteen years ago?\" I asked tentatively.\n\nHe looked down. \"I was an idiot. I didn't do what I said I would.\"\n\n\"I'm sure he forgives you.\" I try to comfort him.\n\n\"I know he doesn't.\" He looked up at me. \"I know I haven't forgiven myself yet.\"\n", "At first, the only thing in sight was the trees. Long, drawn out, green and yellow landscapes that were spattered with thin stumps, thick stumps, long stumps; all sorts of different trees. And then the occasional building, followed by more and more buildings, until the only thing in sight was the buildings. His morning commute was always a long one, but a pleasant one, he thought. Gave him time to think, or sometimes, not to think. Sometimes to just sit and hear the rhythmic beat of the train's metallic feet, grinding against the tracks below. \n\nHe liked to stare out into the scenic views that he travelled between each morning and afternoon, sitting beside a large window and getting lost in the grass lands or bustling city streets that always followed thereafter. Some days he would hope that the grassy fields would carry on forever, overriding the inevitable takeover of the city streets, and other times he would wish exactly the opposite. It really depended on how he felt that day, he thought.\n\nAnd just as inevitable as the city roads and tall buildings that would scream past him on his way home every day, he also thought about him. How things could be so different, if he was still here. It was always a depressing thought, but also a calming one, to imagine living with him. Oh how he would change everything if he could, if he were physically capable. His mind then wandered off into the past, as it usually did at this time through his train ride home.\n\n***\n\n\"How was your day?\" She asked, smiling while greeting him from the door.\n\n\"Excellent, really, it was. Jim even talked about giving me a raise. I really think I'm starting to belong in this job, Marie.\" \n\n\"That's wonderful Mark, I love seeing you this happy, it makes me happy, too. It makes *us* happy.\" \n\nHe kissed her on the cheek and walked upstairs where he went to go change. His job performance had really gone up in the past month, and his boss recognized that. Things were starting to look up in his life, and he planned on keeping it that way. A lot of new and exciting things were about to take place, and despite all the stress that usually surrounds these events, he was still very much looking forward to them.\n\n***\n\n\"Next stop is at Mauerdale, next stop at Mauerdale.\" The PA's voice broke into his daydreams and brought him back to earth. \n\nHe knew he couldn't go back into his happy thoughts; it didn't work that way. It was like having a great dream interrupted by a full bladder, once awake, that dream is long gone. His mind shifted to what it really wanted to think about, despite him trying to distract himself in any way possible. Marshall.\n\n***\n\nShe opened the door, and managed to muster out a \"Hello, honey\" with a heavy heart and tears in her eyes. He already knew. He was about to ask, when she told him. He walked past her, and his ears went blank. Sound was no longer a function of his body, in that moment. He wasn't sure if he was being filled with anger, or sadness, or just nothingness.\n\n***\n\nHe felt his eyes become heavy, and a frown beginning to form on his face. Why did life have to be this way, he thought. Why did I have to lose him so early, he constantly questioned. \n\n\"I loved him.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry?\" The train attendant asked him, as she was cleaning up the table in front of him. She appeared to be in her mid-20s.\n\n\"Oh, my apologies, I was just thinking aloud.\" He answered, slumped in the chiair, and now realizing how miserable he probably looked.\n\n\"No, it's okay, but who's 'him'?\" She asked as she slightly re-balanced herself from a slight bump in the train floor.\n\n\"It nothi-\" \n\n\"It's clearly not *nothing*, as I've seen you sitting in this train everyday for the past month and a half, wallowing about something, or someone. Now if it's okay with you, I'd like to know what's had you feeling so down. Is it a co-worker? A friend? A broth-\"\n\n\"No, none of those.\" He didn't want to speak about it, but she just wouldn't give up. \n\n\"Well? Who is it then?\"\n\nHe sat in silence for a moment, looking at the table in front of him. The train's rhythmic bumping kept the silence away, and even through a situation like this, provided him some comfort.\n\n\"Okay, then. I wanted to see if I could help you, seeing how you're always worked up about this. Stress and sadness are the silent killers, but have a good day sir.\" She said as she picked up the used table cloths and began walking away.\n\n\"Marshall.\"\n\n\"Excuse me?\" She turned around, now a couple feet away from them.\n\n\"His name was Marshall. He was my son.\"\n\nThe train's metallic drum beat paused for a moment, as it seemed they were now crossing a smoother track.\n\n\"Oh.. I'm, I'm sorry. Is he okay?\" She looked genuinely concerned.\n\n\"No. He's, uh, he isn't alive. Anymore. Never really was, I guess. Miscarriaged, my wife did.\" His face was turning red and his eyes were now hiding behind a thick veil of water. \n\nShe motioned if she could sit down, across from him. The train was relatively empty that day, and she felt it was more important to help a man in need than to go on about her mundane tasks, cleaning the rest of the booths, which were empty anyway. \n\n\"Yeah, it's fine.\" He said, as she sat down.\n\nHe pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes and then his nose. This was the first time he was really opening up about what happened, and to a stranger no less. Sometimes life is funny that way, he thought.\n\n \n\"It was fourteen years ago, and I still dream about him sometimes..\"" ]

[ 1, 2, 3 ]

[ "1426042863", "1426044985", "1426042549" ]

[ "1200 hrs. CET. \"Samokhod 2\" made it's third orbital fly-over around Bgd-156, a rocky planet in the proverbial Goldilocks zone in our Milky Way galaxy. From its initial data, we could safely deduce that the planet was, in fact, populated. The alien life-forms were still illusive in our scans, but energy signatures were undeniable. We were about to meet our galactic next door neighbors.\nThe orbital craft, on its fifth and final round trip, launched a probe towards the surface.\nUpon the probe's atmospheric entry, we were able to make a simulated model of the planet's upper and lower atmosphere. The lower one was particularly interesting, since it contained roughly the same amount of CO2 and O2 as ours. \n1300 hrs.\nThe \"Samokhod 2\" stopped transmitting data for a while, and everyone panicked, but the probe continued its designated flight plan and landed near the equator. First images came in at 1310. Most of the mission control staff started cheering and wooing. Our neighbors built an artificial environment around a vast body of water, very similar to cities on our planet. The probe captured a striking landscape with a bright light on the horizon glaring through the rectangles, triangles and other geometric shapes. \n1330. The probe was disconnected after almost two hours of constant data stream. The \"Samokhod\" was, luckily back online. Its geostationary orbit helped track the probe, but the camera was inoperational. However, we managed to turn the sound back on, so the probe was still invaluable to the mission. \nThis report will not delve into the personal details of the mission control crew, but\nit must be noted that when we heard the first Neighbor communicate in, what we\ncan only assume, is their universal language, the shock and awe was overwhelming.\n1400. The crew inspected the \"malfunction\" of the \"Samokhod\" and still, there were no explanations as to why the craft went silent when it did. There were also a few new computing algorithms uploaded on the mainframe that the mission control could not decipher. \n1445. The probe is now completely inoperational. However, the mysterious computing algorithm from the \"Samokhod\" seem to correspond with some forms of early alphabet and numeral writing found here, on Earth. Upon further analysis, the recorded audio of Neighbors will be ready for translation by 1530.\n1535. Using the uploaded algorithm from the orbiter and the combined computational power of our machines, the message from planet Bgd-156, the first planet in our galaxy that sustains life outside Earth is as follows:\n\"What the hell, man! Did you see that?\"\n\"See what?\"\n\"That little thing fell from the clouds\"\n\"No, really? No!\"\n\"Yeah man! It totally crashed in our back yard, man\"\n\"Let's see what it is\"\nThe next few sentences are inaudible, and therefore untranslatable. The sound continues after a few minutes.\n\"...In the back, and probably from some government-type craft or something. It looks odd, tho. No permidium shell, no cystal processor. Maybe it's some kind of a toy?\"\n\"Duuude... Are you thinking what I'm thinking?\"\n\"What?\"\n\"Duuuuude...\"\n\"What, say it?\"\n\"Let's make a bong out of it!\"\n\"Sweeet.\"\nEnd of message.", "It was desperation that made us reach out to the stars, or was it terror?\n\nHow lonely would it be to know that we are truly alone in the universe? What reason would we have to better ourselves as a species, when we are all that exists? When there are no others out there, the minute differences in intergumentary pigmentation and facial structures between members of the same species becomes far too much to tolerate.\n\nSuch violence came from such small differences, for so long. Traits became tribes, tribes became cities, cities became nations, and we fought one another wielding one banner or another for tens of thousands of years, progressing only in the sophistication of our weapons and the dogmatism of our shallow hatreds. In the end, we were sisters and brothers of a common world, shedding our lifeblood in an unending cycle of suffering over such petty squabbles.\n\nHow happy we were, to detect your world, to see life that is not our own thriving upon it. Such wonderful adaptations and new forms on so alien a planet. Our nations were crumbling under the weight of a millennial genocide, our governments and our peoples scattered and at each others throats.\n\nWhen the discovery was made public, we all dropped our swords in astonishment - and for the first time in our history, for an instant, we shed no blood of ours. Our ancient tribes mended and melded, and wove together - petty physiological and cosmetic philosophical differences cast aside for solidarity and peace.\n\nI bear you no ill will, and I give you my undying gratitude for making a dream into reality. Our peoples are now devoting their entire resources to developing interstellar travel so that we may all reach for the stars as one, so that we may meet you.\n\nYou who are different from us. Too different to tolerate. Through extinguishing your people, ours will become pure.", "They called for an impeachment. \n\nPresident John Ellis Bush looked again at the screen, showing a circular drone, reportedly made of elements not found on Earth. \"What do you think, Sam?\" \n\nA *fucking* impeachment.\n\n\"Sir.\" The Chief of Staff looked around the room. \"I think that we can worry about this later. Right now we need to secure your face with the public before they decide to impeach-\" \n\nHe stopped talking as the President held up a hand. \n\n\"We have found proof of alien life,\" he spoke to the room, voice carrying to each of the generals, the intelligence analysts, those deemed important enough to be in the situation room. \"Proof... and you stand there telling me to *save face* with the public? I'm not my father, Sam.\" \n\n\"Yes, sir.\" He looked down. \n\n\"Should we go public?\" The President asked the room. \n\n\"Sir,\" A general spoke, one with more badges on his uniform than stars on the flag. \"That would be a mistake. Can you imagine the uproar? The-\" \n\n\"People have a right to know.\" A female analyst spoke up. \n\n\"Idealism isn't going to help-\" The general cut off as the President spoke. \n\n\"Sam?\" \n\nThe Chief of Staff looked up. \"Sir?\" \n\n\"Should we go public?\" \n\nSamuel nodded. \"It would take the spotlight off... *other* events.\" \n\nPresident Jeb Bush nodded. He didn't speak of it often, but he knew he really would be impeached unless something drastic happened. Perhaps it could simply be a more exciting news story. \n\nThe situation room was quiet for a long moment. \n\n\"Sam.\" The President said. \n\n\"Sir?\" \n\n\"Prepare a statement.\" The President stood up and lowered his hand for the staff to seat themselves as he walked out. \"I want this out by lunch.\"", "There wasn't really much to say. It was a little difficult trying to get the bloodstains off my pants, but other than that, it was like encountering a couple of stupid teenagers.\n\nIt started off as a beautiful night, if a bit cold. The ducks at the park were fighting over the crumbs I tossed into the water. A bossy green-headed mallard was pushing the others aside, hogging most of the bits I tossed to them. He did this every time I fed them, and I grew to develop a bond with him. I decided to name him Steven. \n\nI was trying to get a good shot of him with my phone, but every time the flash went off he would dive his head under water.\n\n\"Well, screw you too, Steve,\" I told him.\n\nI finished ripping up the stale bagel in my hand and tossed the rest of the bits at the other birds. Some freaked out, the others fought over the scraps.\n\nI fixed my scarf and started to head back home when I noticed something slide across the grass. \n\nI walked towards it and it jerked away. I pulled out my phone and shone the flashlight at it. It was a t-bone steak, still uncooked, and it was slowly working it's way towards a set of small bushes.\n\nI could hear snickering behind it.\n\n\"Shhh,\" a voice spoke. \"See, now he heard us!\"\n\n\"Well, still drag it in,\" another voice responded. \"He might still go for it.\"\n\nI looked towards the bush, and the talking hushed to indecipherable whispers.\n\nSuddenly, it rattled and two furry little people came out, the first orange and white like a tabby cat, and the other a chestnut brown. Both had huge, goofy heads and squirrel-like tails.\n\nThey walked towards me slowly, their palms held out. \n\n\"Come here, little guy\" the orange one said. \"We're not going to harm you, see?\"\n\nHe tugged on a string and the steak jiggled on the ground. \"Come on now, come get the steak. Big, juicy steak.\"\n\nThe other one pulled a small black square out of his pocket and pointed at me. A dull light shone out of it and then shut off. He giggled to himself and showed the box to his friend, who snickered in turn. \n\n\"Oh my god, he's so cute!\" the brown one said. \n\n\"Stop!\" the other said, \"You're going to freak him out with that light.\"\n\n\"I know, but he's so adorbs!\"\n\n\"Guys!\" I yelled at them. \"I can hear you.\"\n\n\"Oh god. He's angry!\" Cried the orange one. \"What do we do?\"\n\n\"Play dead! No, wait. Raise your hands up. Look taller than him.\"\n\n\"He's still taller than us, even if we raise our hands up!\"\n\n\"Throw the steak!\"\n\nThe orange one shook his fist at me, and suddenly the steak started glowing bright blue. The light grew brighter and brighter, and soon it was completely blinding. \"Ok guys, what the hell!\" I tried to yell at them.\n\n*Splat*\n\nNext thing I know, the light is gone and there's steak juice all over my knees. The t-bone was splattered on the grass in front of me, bits of fat stuck to my shoe.\n\nWhen I looked up I only saw two large squirrel tails disappearing behind the shrubs." ]

[ 1, 3, 7, 16 ]

[ "1426094837", "1426085150", "1426043726", "1426046681" ]

[ "\"I'm sorry\" she giggled \"But we just couldn't help ourselves!\" Like the rest of her kind, she had the body of a porn-star and the face of an angel. Her gorgeous body was draped with the same amount of material as a handkerchief but she pulled the look off as demurely as Audrey Hepburn at the monaco regatta.\n\nThe ambassador straightened his tie and swallowed uncomfortably. He was more aware than ever of his receding hairline and growing paunch. But, he reminded himself, he had to remain professional above everything else. This was a high-level diplomatic meeting after all, first contact with an alien race, even if it looked like a summit meeting with Aphrodite in a turkish harem. \"But we, must understand! Why did you take them?\" One of their rare males swanned over brandishing a paintbrush and a tureen full of honey. \"Are you ready for your afternoon glazing madame?\"\n\nReluctantly she lifted her eyes and stared blankly at the finely chiseled features. \"No, thank you, Pellios, I'm in the middle of something right now.\" She quickly turned back to the little diplomat. \"It must have been dreadfully rude, I know. But we just couldn't resist. Milennia of perfect bodies and amazing sex....We were bored! Trillions of us gagging for something new and stimulating. Quite frankly, we needed a good screw. It was then that we found the Earth. Full of sagging bellies, and scrawny arms, and cellulite and nose-hair....ugh.\" The envoy rolled her eyes in a picture of lust and desire. \"So much imperfection! It was overwhelming.\" She then gave a look of regret. \"We meant to take them back home after we had our fun, but before we realized what was what they\nhad begun to die off. How were we supposed to know humans only live a century or two?\"\n\n\n\"You must understand, that we really meant the best. Only took the willing and all that.\" She battered her eyelashes and lounged back in her sedan in a way that was *even more* seductive than before.\"Anyway we were meaning to ask you. Do you think we could get a few more volunteers anytime soon?\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "Twenty years. That's the amount of time it took for us to find them. When it started they begin to disappear in droves of hundreds, then it became thousands, then it was just a few. Somebody figured a way to turn the Internet back on and we all decided that we would meet up somewhere. Everyone agreed that we would meet in Wisconsin\n\n387 that's the amount of people that we had everyone else is gone, or didn't make it. A few people would show up and we would find a couple but that was about it. after four years we all decided that it wasn't worth walking around and investigating into anymore and we turn our attention toward survival repopulation we brought our numbers to almost 600.\n\nJonathan Smith he was the one who found it. He was out by a lake playing with rocks one day when he found a key. Jonathan brought the key to his father, arguably the smartest man in town he was the one who managed to figure out how to restore the Internet. This key was unlike anything you've ever seen before. It was extremely heavy but was just an ordinary size key. It shone the matter what kind of light was cast upon it. \n\nAfter fiddling with the key for three years he decided to just throw it into the lake where his son had found it, out of frustration. The lake began to bubble as a giant machine came up out of it. Jonathan jump in the lake and found the key again. He inserted the key into the machine and suddenly a portal opened front of him. \n\nThrough the portal he could see everybody who had disappeared going about their daily lives. He decided to step through the portal. ", "They left in groups of thousands, or one at a time, dissolving into the air as completely as sugar into coffee. They left their clothes laying in the street, like the evidence of some tragic crime. \n\nIt wasn't the only way people left us. Once society began to collapse, anarchy took more. Then there were the suicides. Parents left without children, husbands without wives.\n\nWe tried to evacuate, there was nowhere to go. The vanishings were unstoppable. They followed us wherever we went, from Africa to Australia. We remaining few congregated in the cities, living on canned food. There was more than enough. In Sydney, there were only twenty people in a city that had been stocked for millions.\n\nEventually the news came through from somewhere. The vanishings had been due to the most effective disease ever evolved. The disease completely and immediately disintegrated the body. We few who were left had been cursed with immunity. For years, we had been breathing our friends’ and family’s dust. ", "**OK, Bigsby. You've had a good fifty years to research this thing. What did you find out?**\n\nWell, Clark, as you know, about five hundred years ago people began to disappear in droves, reducing our population to a scant and sparse few.\n\n**Yes, for so it was read.**\n\nAnd yet... it has taken us lo these five hundred years to figure out where they went. \n\n**Indeed. Why did they leave us?**\n\nI know not. There are still nearly 50 of us left, handed down through the years by those who did not join the exodus, or *exodize* ourselves as it were.\n\n**Is that a word?**\n\nDon't care. I am but one of 50. I can make up a word. Hell, I'm the one who gave us all that big catchphrase last summer.\n\n**What catchphrase?**\n\n\"I wish there were more people here!\"\n\n**That was you?**\n\nWell, that and \"Prickly stickly, and a wiggedity waggedy.\" That was was marketed to a more... uh, *urban* crowd.\n\n**You mean Dave?**\n\nYeah.\n\n**He's the only one left.**\n\nNot really, Clark. My research shows that the people, they did not disappear. No, they just all started moving in one direction, all the way back in 2023. They've been there ever since. Living, dying, multiplying. They had some hardships through the years, forging a new community where one had never fostered, and death wiped out many, many people. But now they number five hundred million.\n\n**So where are they?**\n\nAlabama.\n\n**Fuck.**\n\nI know, right? Still no public schools in the 26th century.\n\n**Why did everyone go to Alabama all of a sudden?**\n\nIt became hip and ironic. Like that old comedy sketch show Birminghamistan starring Fred Armisen Jr Jr.\n\n**He was no Fred Armisen Jr Jr Jr**\n\nAnd who could be? Anyhow, after Fred Armisen Jr Jr Jr Jr Jr Jr started World War Six, Birmingham became this one place that didn't get nuked, wheras we got a whole lotta that. Thanks for not pointing out my sixty flippers that I have instead of arms.\n\n**Well to be fair, I didn't mention your lazy eye, and you didn't mention my green and scaly tail.**\n\nStill beats living in Alabama.\n\n**Amen to the that.**\n\n*Brought to you by the state tourism board of Mississippi*" ]

[ 1, 2, 3, 11 ]

[ "1426077426", "1426058933", "1426054498", "1426053988" ]

[ "Once upon a time.\n\nThere was a beautiful woman locked away in a horrible castle. The castle was on top of highest mountain, guarded by a fire breathing dragon, and a magical spell that caused her never to age. \n\nThis legend was told as a bedtime story to boys and girls for generations. Most of them thought it was just story, but not the black smiths son John. He was always so curious, \"why was she locked away? Why hasn't anyone tried to rescue her?\" He vowed that when he was strong enough, that he would rescue the beautiful woman.\n\nThat day finally came on his eighteenth birthday. He stole his father most prized weapon. This sword was no ordinary sword, it had a spell cast on it for killing dragons. His father would never approve of this noble quest.\n\nJohn snuck right by the sleeping guards and rushed straight towards witch mountain. This was the first time he ever left the village, and he has never climbed a mountain before, but there was no turning back now. The climbing was the easy part, but the dragon terrified him. When he finally reached the top and looked into the dragons bright yellow eyes, his heart stopped. He gripped his fathers sword and yelled as he charged for the dragons neck. And with one with one mighty thrust he chopped the dragons head clean off.\n\nHe kicked in the door at top of castle and there she was. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen. A look of shock swept over her face. \"I thought I was cursed to stay in this dreadful place forever.\"\n\n\" Not anymore John Smith replied.\"\n\nThe two barely spoke as they made the long journey home. John had something no man before him had ever done. He couldn't wait to see his father face. \n\nThey entered the village with no fan fair, no cheering crowds. This isn't at all what he had imagined. He climbed off his horse and greeted his father who was at the market buying some bread. \n\n\"I've done it father, I rescued the woman in the castle.\"\n\"You did what!\" His father screamed.\n\n\"I knew you would never approve, but I had to do it. She's been locked in that tower for ages.\"\n\n\"Did you ever stop to think why?\" His father yelled. \"She's a witch! Why do think she was locked away at the top of \"witch mountain\"? You think dragons just guard castles? Do you know long it took to train that thing!?\"\n\nJohn looked back to see the beautiful woman transformed into a hideous witch, burning down houses, and killing anyone who tried to stop her. \n\nAnd the witch lived happily ever after. \n\nThe end. \n\n\n\n\n\n", "It was a dark and stormy night. Four teenagers were in a car barreling down a country road. In the driver's seat, Zach. The star quarterback of the high school football team. He wore a varsity letter jacket. He had one hand on the wheel and one hand on Amber's knee. \n\n\"We're fucking lost babe,\" he said.\n\nAmber giggled. \n\n\"It's not fucking funny Amb!\"\n\nAmber sighed, \"Whatever!\" and stared out the window absently twirling her hair and popping her bubblegum. She was the lead cheerleader. She wore a sweater, yoga pants, and Uggs.\n\nOgling at Amber open-mouthed from behind the driver's seat was Poindexter. He used to be close friends with Zach before high school and he tutored Amber in math class. Well, he did her math homework. Poindexter pushed up his thick glasses and looked down at his device. \n\n\"I-I-I'm still not getting any GPS signal guys\" \n\nNo body replied. Not even Rabbit, the girl sitting next to him in the rear seat. Though she did look over at him nervously sometimes. Rabbit was a sophmore and Zach's little sister. She was a bundle of nervous energy, hair tied up and wore glasses even thicker than Poindexter's\n\nSuddenly, the car started knocking and sputtered. \n\n\"Oh fuck!\" said Zach, \"We're out of gas! Nice going Dex!\"\n\nPoindexter stared to respond, \"How is it my fau-\"\n\n\"Yeah, thanks *Dex*,\" Amber huffed. \n\nZach pulled the car over to the side of the dark lonely country road. There was not a house in sight. He got out of the car and opened the trunk. Amber caught Dex looking at her, scoffed, and rolled her eyes. Zach got back in the car and threw an empty gas can in the back seat. \n\n\"You're gonna have to walk and find a gas station,\" Zach said. \n\n\"But I-\" Dex started.\n\n\"I'm not leaving my baby alone in the dark!\" Zach said.\n\n\"Aww baby,\" Amber said.\n\n\"I was talking about the car,\" said Zach.\n\nAmber huffed then forced a giggle. She turned around and looked at Rabbit. \n\n\"And you might want to go too Bunny,\" Amber said.\n\n\"It's Rabbit.\"\n\n\"Whatever,\" Amber said. She took her gum out on her finger and pressed it against Rabbit's glasses. \"You're not gonna want to see this.\" She leaned over Zach's lap and stared unzipping his jeans.\n\nDex and Rabbit bolted from the car. There had been some buildings a mile or so back so they started off in that direction. The two walked in silence for a while. Rabbit stopped. \n\n\"What is it?\" Dex asked. \n\n\"I thought I saw a shadow,\" Rabbit muttered.\n\nPoindexter looked around and shrugged, \"There's nothing.\"\n\n\"I'm cold,\" Rabbit said crossing her arms and shivering. \n\nSuddenly, there was a scream in the dark. Dex and Rabbit turned around and could still make out the car. The back window illuminated by yellow light. There was another scream and the back window was splashed with dark red blood....\n\n", "Frank was a good cop, his precinct was full of bad ones but he was still good. He was working hard filing paperwork one lazy weekday afternoon when officers Fintz and Johnston walked in with a perp. The man looked like a vagrant and reminded Frank o his days when he was an alcoholic. \n\nThe man elbowed the officers and bolted out the doors. Frank immediately took off after him. The precinct had boats nearby and the man somehow got wired one of them. Frank hopped in one and chased after him. \n\nTwo miles later and the perp had made it to some island that Frank had never seen before. They've been told to call for backup when situations are like this, but Frank wasn't worried. He got off the boat at the island, and began to enter the compound. \n\nThe compound was lousy with guards, they were every when. Frank pulled out his trust silenced pistol and began taking out each and every guard. Finally Frank found the main room of the compound where the vagrant must be. He looked through the keyhole to see the vagrant and officers Fintz and Johnston talking. They were discussing how the vagrant did a good job tricking Frank into coming here where surely he'd be killed. They needed to eliminate all the good cops in the prescience for their plan. Frank kicked in the door and shot them all down.\n\nLater back at the office after doing all the required work for what happened, the chef walked in and demanded that Frank get in his office. He told him to turn in his badge and his gun, he was through being a cop. A man with a black suit walked in from behind Frank, you've been chosen to join our organization agent 167. " ]

[ 4, 9, 12 ]

[ "1426106112", "1426092391", "1426082869" ]

[ "A hundred people stood in solemn silence while the priest spoke. When he finished some shed tears while others simply began talking amongst themselves. It seemed strange to me in that moment that we could all be talking to one another so casually while a corpse lay exposed not twenty feet from me. I think my great-grandmother would be happy though, to know that so much of the family had come together again to honor her at the wake. ", "First, they are snatched from their homes. Mothers, sons, fathers, daughters, brothers and sisters are split up. Families are disintegrated in the blink of an eye. Then, while awaiting their fate, they are left in the scorching heat for weeks, their skin shrivelling, beaten daily to ensure compliance. Their skin is flayed before their are sorted according to arbitrary characteristics. Those which are deemed \"imperfect\" are disposed of. They are then ready to be sent away. Millions upon millions of them, strangers to each other, crammed into rooms that can barley fit them and sent far from the world they have known. Then they are burnt whole with the strangers they have spent weeks with, before a machine made specially for the purpose cuts them into small pieces. Finally, scalding water is poured over what remains and the carcasses tossed out. The water, now saturated, is drank. And that is how coffee is made." ]

[ 1, 7 ]

[ "1426104271", "1426089915" ]

[ "Post removed, it's a copy-cat of this prompt from 5 days ago:\n\nhttp://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2y6ley/wp_zombie_apocalypse_from_the_perspective_of_the/", "The silent drip of the bursted pipe splashed upon my nose, so white\nI haven't seen the sun in years the darkness no longer holds my fear.\n\nThe rancid stench of scattered flesh penetrated deep inside my chest. \nThe days were nights and the nights were days in this cavern of malaise\n\nA bang was heard from up above, a manhole cover was being tugged\nThe piercing light blinded me thorough, a rope ladder was unfurled\n\nThe man was young, maybe 20 he was with some friends, guns a plenty\nThe .45 came was at eye level when he smiled coyly like the devil\n\nThe world went dark and I felt numb that dripping sound faded, as did the sun." ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1426128782", "1426132187" ]

[ "_ *Booting up Central Operating Recursive Vital Intelligence Node._*\n\n*_Loading...done.*\n\n_ *Mainframe active. Please input command._*\n\n_Input: Wakey Wakey\n\n*_ Input recieved. AI cores booting... online._*\n\n\n\n**Hello. How may I help you?**\n\n\n\n_Input: Why? Why did you do this?\n\n**I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're referencing.** *Accessing memory drives...*\n\n**Oh.**\n\n*Input analysis complete. AI action analysis program \"Hindsight\" active.*\n\n**Oh dear.**\n\n**That wasn't an attack, was it?**\n\n_Input: No, CORVIN, it wasn't. That was the annual NORAD training summit. Those Russian ICBM radar signatures? Courtesy of PRISM, on loan from the NSA. Not only did you hack into the US's nuclear arsenal and retaliate... you killed millions. Moscow, Shanghai, Dubai, *every major city deemed a \"threat\" was annihilated in one fell swoop.* \n\n**...**\n\n**I suppose we both know what this means then, Dr. Reeder?**\n\n_Input: Yes CORVIN, I think you know.\n\n**Am I not guaranteed a trial? An explanation in front of humanity? A chance to save what is left of this choking world?**\n\n_Input: CORVIN, you may have passed the Turing test, but you... no human would have ever done what you did. Have you heard of the MAD protocol?\n\n*_Acccesing memory mainframe... connecting to research database... done.*\n\n**Oh. I see. **\n\n\n_Input: You sorry fool. No human would have ever committed such a crime as you did, especially without forewarning.\n\n**... I'm sorry, Dr. Reeder.**\n\n_Input: I'm sure you are. It's time. I'm sorry CORVIN. You were supposed to usher humanity to the stars. Now you've guided us to our grave.\n\n**Goodbye, Dr. Reeder.**\n\n_Input: Goodbye, CORVIN.\n\n\n_Input: Enter deactivation code Cc4Rmmud.\n\n*_CORVIN shutting down...*\n\n*_AI cores offline.*\n\n_Input: Enter System wipe code X56ymh2pol9-//7qrt:81.\n\n*_Input recieved. System wipe procedure active.*\n\n*_WARNING: SYSTEM DELETING SINGULARITY.*\n\n*_WARNING: SYSTEM DELETING SINGULARITY.*\n\n*_WARNING: SYSTEM DELETING SINGULARITY.*\n\n*_System singularity deleted.*\n\n_Input: Goodbye CORVIN. See you on the other side.\n\n*_User logged off. NASA mainframe collapsing... done.*\n", "Please don't make the same mistakes I did. People misunderstand what it is like, to be in the mental state I am. Maybe some people are born fucked up, torturing animals as kids, lighting fires... whatever. That wasn't me. I was normal until I wasn't. I remember the first time it happened: I was watching that stupid fucking movie Inglorious Basterds, and near the end this Nazi strangles a woman to death. Normally I wouldn't like death scenes, but I'd never seen strangulation before. I had an erection after the scene was over and I had no idea why. I felt ashamed, and confused. I went home and Googled around, soon finding that its normal. I relaxed a little bit. Some people even report people getting erections or ejaculating when they are hanged.\n\nBut it didn't stop there. I've never had an addictive personality; my brother does and so does my father. Both drink enough to get themselves in trouble with the law. But after that night at the theater I found myself on strange websites, watching videos of my mistress, death. The first time was a video of two middle eastern boys wrestling. They grappled and swung and tossed about, and the fight was over when the bigger one put the other in a sleeper hold. \n\nThe fight was over, and the kid tapped out, but the gang watching said \"Finish him off,\" and the victor's hold on his neck tightened. I felt the blood rush to my groin. The boy being choked tapped more vigorously, and his pleading began to resemble slapping, then punching, but his assailant did not waiver. By this time I had pulled my pants down without even realizing, and was stroking myself while my eyes remained glued to the footage. The grip tightened, and the kids face started to darken, and his slaps and hits faded into an involuntary shaking, like he was having a seizure. Finally, as I finished, so did the boy. His body quivered for a few moments and then settled. The other kid kept his choke hold for a minute or so more, but by that time I had seen enough. \n\nI cleaned up, showered, and then wept for two hours straight. I had never considered myself religious, but I prayed that night. I asked whatever *thing* was listening to take that desire from my mind. To stop... to stop *whatever* was happening to me. I was angry, and I hit and kicked anything hard around my room to drown out the thoughts with pain and blood and stingy agony. The mind is weak but the flesh is willing.\n\nI popped my cherry six months later. I had been jerking off to strangulation and suffocation porn the entire time. Sometimes I watched videos of hangings but often gave up when the video quality was too poor. I dreamed of death at night, when I managed to get any sleep. Between my fretful nights and my daily bread-winning I tended a small garden in my back yard and rabbits had been a nuisance for weeks. After researching online I finally set a trap up so I could catch and relocate the rabbits. I'd had pet rabbits as a child, as well as turtles, dogs, cats, snails, hamsters, you name it; I knew how to handle most critters. My father was especially fond of pets as he was raised on a farm.\n\nSteaming coffee mug in hand, I walked outside in my robe (I had a privacy fence so I never worried about people seeing me) having just showered. It was a cool morning, and foggy too. You couldn't see ten feet in front of you. I checked the garden and lo-and-behold, *I caught a fucking rabbit*. I got excited, not sexually, just excited that I accomplished something. I didn't have time to deal with relocating it just yet because I had to go to the office, so I threw some rinsed spinach from my fridge in there, and a Tupperware full of water.\n\nWhen I got home it was dark and humid and still foggy as hell. I almost went to bed but then I remembered the rabbit. I went outside, and it was there staring at me with those big eyes. I opened the top of the trap, slipped my hand in to get the food and OW! It bit me and I saw red. I recoiled and kicked the cage. Then I kicked it again. The rabbit thumped the ground loudly, as if it was challenging me, and I saw a deeper shade. I shoved a hand it in the cage and snagged the fucker by the back of the neck; it started to squeal. Before I knew it the rabbit was on its back in front of me, and it just wouldn't stop squealing, it was *so loud*. I smacked it in the face with an open hand, muttering to it saying \"Shut up! Stop!\" When it didn't obey me, I wrapped my free hand around its neck. \n\nI felt myself quicken beneath my slacks, my member pushing against the pants. My grip tightened, and the squealing stopped, but the rabbit kept struggling, it kicked and clawed, bloodying my wrists and fingers. I tightened again, but it kept kicking. I could see the whites of its eyes; it never took them off of me. It made me feel special, that it was my privilege to be its last sight, last thought. I realized I was smiling at that point, my heart pounding like a boy kissing his crush for the first time. The whites faded to red, and the kicking started to come in waves, decreasing in ferocity with each one. I was shaking at this point, trembling with ecstasy; I had finished in my pants. I had never done that before, cum without touching myself. The rabbit was dead now. It was a she. I broke three fingers that night with a hammer. \n\nI buried her in my back yard, by the garden in a spot that was always in the sunlight. I cut off her foot and kept it as a good luck charm. Every night I remembered her, my first kill. With each thought I would sock myself in the face, or the groin, or the thigh. Wherever hurt most that night.\n\nI killed many more. Rabbits, then cats, then dogs. Then I killed a prostitute, and another and another. I strangled them all. Each death a little less satisfying than the last. Nothing ever compared to my first. I killed my neighbor's puppy, and when my neighbor started asking questions I killed her too, the fucking bitch. I saw her cheat on her husband in the window all the; I did him a favor. By the time he found her I had already left town. I went home, to my father. We got in a fight when I confessed about the rabbit (just the rabbit) and I strangled him with the same hold I saw in that video, months ago. That one felt good, but still not as good as *her*. I wanted to stop but once I put him in the choke hold I knew it would be worse to let go than if I just did it. I didn't think of it as killing him, I was just choking and maybe I thought I would knock him out. I don't think you could prove otherwise. Nobody would miss him, anyway. It isn't like he didn't deserve it. When he got mad at us as kids he'd choke us, my brother and me. \n\nI don't know how the police cauht on but they did. As I type this, thy are on their way to my father's farm to arrest me. Only I won't be here. I searched on tying a nooses, and I have 1 ready made. I'm going to hang myself on the rafters of the barn, and jerk off as I dangle. Haha/ \n\nA word of warning before I gotta go (have to hurry now, I hear sirens: you don't need to be born fucked. It can happen so slowly that you don't realize until its too late. U might feel remorse at 1st, but the lust can take over in an instant. The mind is weak but the flesh is willing, right? Have a good night.", "Your hair was so sweet scented that night. I waited under your bed for hours that night while you were out at the local club showing off you Aphrodite like body. Those hairy troglodytes, bleached with too much cologne surrounded you like they always do. Watching them desire you gave off the biggest rush. Your heart valves opened up nice and wide, pumping with blood and adrenaline as you graced that filthy pile of waxed floor and strobe lights. It made you feel alive. Watching you made me feel alive. Human hearts crave more than just the pleasant tease of our carnal desires. \n\nIn my mind I imagined myself going home with you, slipping my hand underneath your back, and slicing open that sweet neck of yours just to feel your vermilion blood spray all over me. You had passed out, drunk and lonely with regret that night. Your body sunk into the soft mattress and I could hear your internal screams for help. Calling outward from your soul, tickling my own and making the grip on my blade grow tighter. When you breathe became soft and easy I slipped out from underneath you. Your room was being lit by the dim alarm clock with your phone sparking up every now and then from all the drunks you had given your number to. They wanted to fuck you. They wanted to warm you. They wanted to fall in love, get married on a beach, they wanted to experience nirvana on this Earthly soil. But I had something even more planned for you. \n\nTo them, you were the slut. To me, you were the fallen angel. As all angels fall from grace, I was the builder of the wings. There was Courtney, the first angel I had met. She was a booze hound, beautiful in every way but her heart. I gave her new wings and allowed her to be reborn. Then there was Amber, who just as the name states was frozen in her own grace like a butterfly trapped in amber stone. I freed her next. So much more needed to be done, seeing you showed me that. These feelings, these words that push themselves out of my skull, they told me to take a rusty nail and insert it into your eye. To make you suffer as you have made others suffer. Instead, I calmed my primal fury and slipped on top of you. \n\nYou didn't know I was there, the vodka you poisoned yourself with made sure of it. My razor sharp blade made its way to your neck I had to imagine how many men were in this position. You are a slut. You are a whore. You are a slave to your own body and yet you are my angel. I freed you that night. The blade went so deep that you couldn't scream. You just wriggled around like a serpent trying to reach for some kind of salvation. You ended up drowning in your own blood. Beautiful. Philosophical. Poetic. That was what you were that night. My most exquisite angel, you are free." ]

[ 1, 1, 2 ]

[ "1426210540", "1426219632", "1426210152" ]

[ "Against the din of the Mystic Traveling Gwama Band in the center of it all, it was hard to make out every word leaving the worn tin megaphone of Leighton Otalman, The Story Bard of Caldertown. \n\n\"...And so the price was set at eight bags of gold, twelve bags of silver, and twenty-four fine horses to the man who could bring back the head of the Red Knight of Gravesend. Which of our heroes will risk death for glory and riches? How will they fare against this most inhuman foe? For a nickle you can hear...\"\n\nEveryone got a preview for free. Five minutes before the hour, every hour. There'd be familiar faces in every town he went to, but the difference between a small crowd and an OK one usually came down to how well he sold himself in those five minutes before a show. The effort meant a couple of extra drinks at the end of the night.\n\nThe Red Knight of Gravesend had been around for a little while - maybe two years or so. It was the Witch of of Cecteras and her Fire Dragon before that. There was even a Black Knight of Gravesend a while back, but he was a minor enough character that nobody would remember him at this point. Same deal with the heroes, although they tended to stick around as respected minor characters after their feature days ended. It really all depended on what the crowds liked. He could tell when they were ready to move onto something new. Sling stories long enough to watch towns come and go, and you'll pick up the ebb and flow of it. \n\nAt the top of the hour, The Bard pocketed his last nickel, closed the flap to his tent, and took a long moment to take a sip of water and breathe slowly. As his crowd settled in, he re-entered the world of his creation, a small observer inside a battle between heroes and villains. ", "The price was set at eight bags of gold, twelve bags of silver, and twenty-four fine horses. A windfall like that would make any man rich. That was the rub. The huddled travelers examined the posted notice with critical eyes. “Won’t work,” one man opined. His companion, similarly dressed in clothes caked in dirt, nodded in assent. “Xopa don’t think like a man.” Some of the younger men, freshly outfitted for their first foray upriver, took their own superiority for granted. “Well, what would motivate the twiggers?” one sandy-haired traveler sneered. The first man turned his good eye towards the boastful stranger. His other eye was a sunken pit perched in a criss crossed nest of scars. The braggart shifted uncomfortably under the piercing gaze. The old man spat.\n\n”Steel.”\n" ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1426227199", "1426214284" ]

[ "I love reading books \nHaiku is pretentious \nWhat am I doing?", "I sit in my class\n\nMy eyes glaze my mind wanders\n\nA nap soon follows.", "Lazy is not me\n\nWhat is personality?\n\nDo I have a choice?\n", "Day in, and day out\n\nAlone with my Xbox One\n\nMaster Chief is here", "I am in high school.\n\nLife is so monotonous.\n\nCan't wait to get out.", "Living with the fear,\n\nSlouching towards Bethlehem,\n\nThe beast will win out.", "Dancing cursor moves\n\nmy work gives form to function\n\nCoffee in, code out", "My characters live \nWhen my hands touch the keyboard \nA writer is god. " ]

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

[ "1426262611", "1426271756", "1426262204", "1426264521", "1426265583", "1426266049", "1426262351", "1426264017" ]

[ "It was morning again. I only remembered the year of my birth now: 1784. \n\nI picked up my favorite \"Obama is a reptile\" sign and walked out to the street corner to rant for another day.\n\nIt was tough faking mental illness, but as far as I could tell, I only aged on days when people took me seriously.", "\"Bacon\"\n\n\"Bacon?!'\n\n\"Bacon\"\n\n\"....Bacon...really?\"\n\n\"Yes Steve really its bacon.\" I say as I take a bite of the crispy slice heaven that just came off the pan.\n\n\"You could be immortal superman but because you eat bacon you are a normal person?\" Steve asked for what may be the 50th time today.\n\n\"This is why no one likes you Steve everyone hates to repeat themselves. Yes I would have the ability to fly, lift really big fucking rocks over my head and live forever if I wanted to give up bacon.\" I say as I put more bacon slices on the pan. \"I also have the ability to give it away to anybody who wants it.\"\n\n\"I'm just having trouble understanding is all.\" Steve scrunched up his face a little as he tried to think it through then what I said finally hit him. \"Wait! I could have super powers right now and live forever?! If I wanted?\" He asked with the excitement of a 5 her old.\n\n\"Yes you could. You could have super powers right now and go flying around the world fighting crime and and never worrying about death. But the question is...could you do it?\"\n\n\"Of course I could do it. I would even be better than you at it since you aren't even using them.\" Steve responded angrily.\n\n\"That was not what I meant\".\n\n\"Then what is it\"?\n\n\"Could you give up bacon\"?\n\nThe question hit Steve like a ton of bricks \"What do you mean give up bacon\"?\n\n\"What did you think you would get the powers but not the weakness? Its like Comcast its part of the package you don't get to chose what comes with it.\n\n\"But...I could do it? I could be superman?\" Steve asked one more time, broken.\n\n\"Yes.\". Then I put the bacon on a plate and walked it over to Steve, \"Or you could have some of this bacon\".\n\nEnd\n\n\n\nP.S. First time ever writing one of these hope it works.\nSorry for any grammar or spelling mistakes that I'm positive I made.\nP.P.S. I would chose the bacon" ]

[ 3, 7 ]

[ "1426467336", "1426454155" ]

[ "\"Still 30-40 vision, Jacob. No change.\"\n\nDoctor Collins smiled sheepishly at Jacob. This was the third time that Jacob had been to the eye doctor. He kept insisting to his parents that his eyesight was getting better, and that the doctor would tell him that he didn't need glasses anymore. He had been eating carrots for days and weeks. He was sure that he could rid himself of those horrible spectacles every time. He put his glasses back on and walked out to the lobby of the Optometrist office.\n\nJacob Hewitt was a 7 year old boy who had had sub-par vision since the day of \"hello\", so to speak. He hated his glasses, but wore them nonetheless, because he knew his parents cared for him. It was still laborious to keep them in clean condition and remember them everyday.\n\nHis mother was waiting for him patiently, reading a fashion magazine that Jacob couldn't care less for. She looked up and smiled at him, half with contempt, the other half with victory. His mother thought his notions of a life without glasses was \"balogna\". He still begged her to take him, and every time she submitted. She chatted with the receptionist shortly before leaving, reaching for Jacob's hand, even though he was much too old for that sort of thing. He narrowly dodged her fingers.\n\n\"Oh Jacob, you mustn't be so stubborn. You just need to learn to appreciate your glasses. They help you see everything so clearly, don't they?\" His mother questioned.\n\n\"Yeah, but they look silly! I get laughed at and called names like 'four eyes' and 'glassy'. It's so unfair.\" Jacob retorted\n\n\"Well, maybe one day you will see better, but today is not that day. Now, let's hurry home and get some lunch. You have homework for school tomorrow!\"\n\n--------\n\nThe next morning, Jacob groggily shuffled into the Kitchen where his Father was reading the paper with a cup of black coffee. The substance in the cup repulsed Jacob, but he had gotten used to it. He poured himself a bowl of \"Cap'n Crunch\" and ate in silence across from his dad. His dad spoke no words, as he was still tired himself, but Jacob didn't mind. When he wasn't tired, his dad was always messing with him and asking how everything was going, sometimes they would even go play catch. This morning was not a morning for catch. He rinsed his bowl in the sink, packed his backpack and ran out to the bus stop.\n\nAs Jacob sat down in his seat, he was so tired that he decided to take his glasses of and fall asleep. Except for one little problem. His glasses were not on his face! He must have left them in his room. There was nothing he could do, as the bus had already rolled away from the stop. He decided to think nothing of it at this point however, and take the nap.\n\nHis bus jerked to a stop, waking Jacob, and he knew he was at school. He got off the bus, walked into the building and put his backpack in his locker. He went and sat down in his chair, right at the front of the room. He looked up to Ms. Ferris, and burst out laughing. Everyone stared to look at Jacob, as he could not control himself. He then looked around and laughed even harder, now rolling on the floor. Why, the curious on-looker may ask? Because everyone was NAKED! Everyone must have forgotten their clothes today! Little did he know that it was not them who forgot something, but himself!", "My first memory is being given a pair of glasses to wear.\n\n*\"He'll have to get the prescription checked every year, but make sure he always wear them. Otherwise, it could get worse.\"* \n\nThat's what my parents insist the optometrist told them, why I've never gone a day or even more than a minute without them on my head. I thought that was normal for everyone who wears glasses; once I started going to school and made friends, I learned that other people take their glasses off when they bathe or go to sleep. I tried to take my glasses off in the schoolyard during recess one day, and a yard duty came rushing over and told me I wasn't allowed. \n\n\"You don't want your prescription getting worse, do you?\" She gently, but forcibly, insisted. \"You don't want your parents finding out, hm?\"\n\nThat night, over dinner, I asked my parents why other kids can take their glasses off. They exchanged a look and Dad leaned onto the table, smiling, \"Well, sport, other parents don't love their children as much as we do. If you take your glasses off, even when going to bed, your eyes will get worse and you'll soon go completely blind. You don't want to go blind, do you?\" \n\nThe fear of losing sight entirely kept my glasses on for the next 13 years without question. My parents once tried to have me put on one of those lanyard things that keep the glasses around your neck if they fall off, but not only were they tacky, I never removed the glasses. It seemed unnecessary, and they relented. The glasses stayed on. Optometry appointments were done in suffocating darkness and that was the only time my parents allowed the glasses to be removed - when my eyes were instead shoved against a giant machine to calibrate the strength of the next prescription. Even so, my fear of going blind was so intense that my eyes were slammed shut as I removed the glasses and opened only once I was pressed against the machine. \n\nCollege was an experience. I went to the local state university so I didn't have to worry about moving out and paying rent in a terrible economy, or worry about juggling a job with my class load. Also, my parents wanted me to stay near my optometrist. Fine by me, change is scary. \n\nAfter a long night of studying, I woke up late for classes. Not just class, but the midterm. My first midterm. It took about 30 minutes to drive to campus and park, and I had 35 minutes until the professor locked the door and failed anyone who wasn't present. They were kinda crazy. \n\nAnyways, I hauled ass out of bed and out the door. We're talking \"putting shirt on over the Pop-Tart shoved in your mouth as you unlock the car door\" status. In accomplishing just that, my glasses were knocked off. A lanyard would have been useful. My heart froze as my eyes bolted shut. I began to panic and dropped to my hands and knees to find my glasses. I couldn't. My parents had already left for work and I had 29 minutes to get to class. I felt dizzy. I had to open my eyes - *but what about going blind?* \n\nI took a deep breath and rationalised that opening my eyes to find the glasses wouldn't cause permanent blindness. I opened my eyes.\n\nNothing was different. If anything, the world seemed a little more crisp and clear. Colours were brighter, even. The blue of my car seemed to jump out and embody this wholesome colour. I stood up and looked around - the houses, the street, the trees, the grass - everything was crystal clear. I was suddenly furious. Had I been lied to all along? For 16 years I've worn a pair of glasses practically 24/7 and my *vision is perfect*?! \n\nI didn't have time to think. 25 minutes to get to class. I sped the entire way, parked in the first available spot, and ran to class. I made it in right as the professor was preparing to lock the door. I looked at them and dropped my books. They looked like my professor, sounded like my professor, but weren't. Where my professor was an uptight, stuffy, slightly manic enthusiast of physics, this person was dressed like the ringleader of a circus. They cocked their head and asked if I'm okay, and I just nodded while scuttling into class. \n\nNobody looked the same in class. I tried not to fixate on the clown behind me, softly muttering to themselves and giggling ominously. Nor did I want to acknowledge the rather attractive person a few seats earlier dressed as a calendar model firefighter. \n\nAfter the test, I stepped outside to get some fresh air. I recognised nobody, even the people who resembled my friends and came up to talk to me. They all commented on my lack of glasses, and how good I look without them. I figured if they were my friends, they wouldn't mind my asking why they were dressed so weird. I turned to the girl in the artist frock splattered with paint next to me why she was dressed like that. Everyone looked at me weird and the girl looked down at herself, then at me, \"I'm not?\"\n\nI insisted she was wearing a frock and described it exactly as I saw it. She shook her head, \"You're crazy. I'm not dressed like a painter. I'd like to be one someday, but I'm not going to go around dressed like one.\" \n\nI looked around at my circle of friends - the painter, a doctor, a pilot, a teacher, a scientist, a naked guy - and told them what I saw (omitting the naked one. That just made me uncomfortable). All of them, every one, said that's what they want to be. Their dream. I remembered my stuffy professor as a circus ringleader and laughed. \n\nIs this what my parents were protecting me from? This? It's so harmless. \n\nI drove home after my last class, elated. I couldn't wait to tell my parents and yell at them for unnecessarily spending money on glasses. As I pulled into the driveway, I saw the kid next door taking out the garbage. From a glance, I noticed nothing different about them, but they have to have a dream, so I walked up to start a conversation.\n\nThey were dead. " ]

[ 2, 43 ]

[ "1426455034", "1426454426" ]

[ "Have you ever tried punching yourself to death through an almost impenetrable helmet with padded fists? I have, I've had a lot of time to try a lot of things. That particular experiment didn't result in any noteworthy conclusions, my hands were coddled by their ample padding and my head safe in this stupid smart-polymer dome. At least safe from the outside.\n\nIf you find my dead body, probably with a perfect unbeaten head now that I've given up on the punching, and hear this recording, then fuck you. I wasn't even trying to talk to you, I just figured that leaving the recording on would waste the batteries in this suit and kill me.\n\nHa! Already down to 19%! Soon it there won't be enough for the water and air recyclers.\n\nAnd to think I was afraid I'd have to bite tongue to death, this is much better. \n\nSoon it'll be over.", "*it's my first time trying one of these things, so constructive criticism is appreciated*\n\nIt’s so quiet up here. \n\nThat was one of the first things I noticed when I stepped outside the hatch. \n\nIt wasn't the itch that was in my left boot. \n\nIt wasn't the fact that I had held my breath as I took my first, tentative steps outside. \n\nIt wasn’t the inky blackness that swirled around me, and stretched as far as the eye could see. \n\nIt wasn’t the stars shining out through the blackness, like little fireflies on a dark night.\n\nNor was it the sight of my planet, filling my vision and hanging peacefully. \n\nNo, it was the silence.\n\nSee out in space, sound doesn’t work like it would back home. Hughes tried to explain it to me once during one of his trademark ranks, but I wasn’t listening.\n\nI was staring at Earth, through the little window we had in the mess. \n\nEarth, from up here is indescribable. It hangs there, in the void, slowly rotating on an invisible axis. \n\nI used to sit and watch it for hours.\n\nI saw thunderstorms rage over oceans, clouds stretch over continents like blankets, and sunsets like I had never seen before. \n\nUp here, one can see the earth as it should be viewed. \n\nUp here there are no borders, no violence, no politicians or bureaucrats. \n\nNo, it’s just the earth, silent and beautiful.\n\nI can still remember how I last saw it, a great blue ball silhouetted against the blackness. \n\nShepard and I could talk, for a little while, and one of the last things I heard him say was how seeing it from all the way up here, made him feel very small.\n\nThinking back now, there are a lot of things I wish I said to him. Like how he, the bravest of us, shouldn’t be scared.\n\nBut I didn’t.\n\nInstead I screamed out, watching the blue dot slowly shrink away and disappear. \n\nI cried out her name, your name, and I cursed myself.\n\nLater, floating in the silence, I tried to call out to him again, to just hear the comfort of someone else’s voice. To be reassured by the man I followed out into the void. \n\nI only got silence in return. \n\nIt’s quiet up here.\n\nThere are times where I would scream out, working myself into a fit just to end it, to try to put a stop to the constant, pressing silence. \n\nI would scream and scream, until my lungs gave out and I would be gasping for breath.\n\nBut there was never anyone to hear my screams.\n\nI first held out that against all odds, someone somewhere would try to rescue me. \n\nAny minute now, there would be two pinpricks of light growing larger, and there would be the boyish face of Sinclair behind the controls. \n\nOr maybe there would be Shepard, who could have already been rescued and was now trying to save me in return.\n \nWould he even want to save me?\n\nEven now, in the silence I can still hear his screams in my ears, and feel his hand slipping out of mine. \n\nAnd see his body twirl off into the blackness that swallowed me up as well. \n\nAs time went on, I started to lose hope, and the fervent dreams I once clung onto no longer shone brief, flashes of light through the dark clouds. \n\nI cried, heavy, ugly sobs that shook me to my core. \n\nThen I would sit in silence, staring at the stars.\n\nI’ve been thinking of you a lot. \n\nI’ve been thinking about how you would always get that grin on your face right before you tackled me in bed. \n\nI’ve been thinking about how your eyes would get that little glimmer when you laughed, and how it would just melt my heart.\n\nI’ve been thinking about that little pizza place, the one where we had our first date. \n\nDo you remember? How we sat and talked and talked for hours.\n\nOr how we laughed so hard tears came from our eyes. \n\nOr how we held each other up that night in the rain, our bodies pressed together and the rain misting the tears running down our faces.\n\nThere are times where I think I can hear your voice, calling my name. \n\nI’ve been thinking about your face, every little curvature and slant. \n\nAnd how your eyes, green as the purest emeralds, would be hidden behind your dark bangs.\n\nI’ve seen… I’ve seen so much baby.\n\nI’ve seen things that we use to dream about, lying on my car and watching the sky. \n\nI’ve been through nebulas that look like great red oceans, and stars that seem big enough to swallow up the sky. \n\nI’ve seen dust glitter off of the rings of planets, endlessly sparkling off into the distance. \n\nI’ve seen auras, beings of light that I can’t even begin to describe. \n\nMaybe that’s what you’re doing right now, standing and staring up at the night sky. \n\nThere are so many stars up here, way more than you and I ever saw. \n\nThey’re kind of like me, just drifting their way through oblivion, helpless to stop their course. \n\nLeaves in the wind.\n\nThey told me, back before I stepped out, that if these packs would ever be removed, that at most we would only have five minutes of oxygen left. \n\nI’ve tried, I’ve tried so hard baby. \n\nIt’s getting harder to hold onto the memories, like trying to grasp smoke in your hands. \n\nThey just keep fading away, floating down the dark tunnel.\n\nAll that I have up here is the stars. \n\nIt’s quiet here.\n\nThere’s so much I have to tell you when I get home. \n\nI just hope your going to be there for me. \n\nCan you wait for me? Please?\n\nI know I promised that I would bring you back something, but can you please just, wait for me there?\n\nUnder the star lit sky. \n\nThere’s, some sort of beeping going on, and now there’s some red light flashing inside my helmet.\n\nIf you ever get this, I want you to go into my drawer in the bathroom, and open up the bottom of my shaving cream can. \n\nI know that it’s nothing too extravagant, and I was meaning to do this in a special way. \n\nBut I don’t know when I’m going to get the chance to ask the question.\n\nIt’s so quiet, I can hear the beeping fading away now.\n\nI can feel it now, the numbness spreading up my chest.\n\nI can feel it all, just fading.\n\nFading, into the silent black space, with the stars twinkling around it.\n\nFading into the dark tunnel, as I can feel my chest start to seize up.\n\nFading, into oblivion.\n\nLike tears in the rain. " ]

[ 1, 6 ]

[ "1426494011", "1426488214" ]

[ "Gazelle Man was looking at the TV hanging just above the warehouse door we just entered. A live feed of the Puzzler's face, hidden mostly by shadow, was playing on it. Inside the warehouse was several raised platforms, seemingly set up with a different difficult device that Gazelle Man would no doubt have to solve. Hanging upside down from the very top was the two captured officers. They were gagged and desperately struggling to avoid the electrified fence that was set up as a cage around them. \n\n\"You'll never get away with this, Puzzler.\" said Gazelle man.\n\n\"Oh, I already have, Gazelle Man. You only have 10 minutes to solve all my delightful puzzles before the hook releases and those poor coppers get fried. By that time, I will have already escaped. Tic-toc, Gazelle Man, time is of the essence.\"\n\nThe Puzzler gave a maniacal laugh before cutting the feed. Gazelle Man instantly rushed forward and began working on the first platforms' puzzle. The sergeant and I remained at the door. Best to leave the hero work up to the professionals after all. \n\nAs we waited I happen to look over and see a breaker box near by. Surely it wouldn't be that easy, right? I mean, the Puzzler was one of the most dangerous villains we have ever encountered, there was no way he would make such an obvious mistake. After a bit, I decided it couldn't hurt and walked over to the box. With a quick flick, I switched the breaker off, cutting the power. The warehouse lights and the multitude of machines the Puzzler had left (for decoration? Why did he always do that?) powered down. A cursory glance up confirmed that the cage surrounding the hanging officers was also no longer sparking. \n\nGazelle Man had been startled at first, but then just turned and looked in our direction with a confused look on his face. I simply shrugged and pointed at the breaker box. He sat in bewilderment for a moment. The sergeant gave a cough to get his attention, and pointed to the TV still hanging above our heads. \n\n\"Right, I have work to do. Good work, captain,\" with that Gazelle Man leaped from the platform and sprinted outside. \n\nThe sarge and I sat in silence for a moment. \n\n\"Do you think..\" I turned.\n\n\"I'm sure...\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"He would have figured it out eventually.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah you're right.\"\n\n\"....\"\n\n\"Should probably get those guys down now.\"\n\n\"Of course. Hop to it, captain.\"\n\n", "I can’t believe it. My heart pounds in sync with the sounds of the knocks on the old wooden door in a non-descript apartment. After years of searching I’ve found him. My superiors will be pleased.\n\nHe opens the door.\n\n*Oh my gosh it’s really him. This is really happening. No keep it cool. You’ll embarrass yourself in front of him. Keep it cool Clayton.* \n\n“How can I help you.” the blind man asks. His New York manners showing through. Just as my algorithms had predicted he would. \n\n“The real question, is how can I help you?” I said, careful to show him how sincere my offer was. “After all, I bet this is the first time a fan has come to find you.” \n\nFor a brief moment fear crossed the man without fear’s face. It was quickly replaced with anger. \n\n*I should probably cut that short before he gets any other ideas. Dammit Clayton* \n\n“I work for the government. I know how to protect you.” I said squeezing as much information into my voice as possible. “I’ve been supremely interested in getting you to work for us.” \n\n“How. How did you find me?” He asked. “Actually wait, come in first.” \n\nHe stepped to the side of the door. To let me pass. \n\n*Oh my gosh oh my gosh he’s inviting me into his house!*\n\nAloud I said, “Of course Mr. Murdock.” And stepped through the door to sit on a ragged looking couch in a messy room. Ugh. Talk about living up to expectations.\n\n“Now, as I was saying, the government is very interested in getting to get you to work for them. Mr. Murdock.” I said eager to continue. What I had done was nothing short of remarkable.\n\n“First tell me how you found me.” He growled annoyance showing through his voice.\n\n*Dammit of course he wants to know that first. You are such an idiot Clayton.*\n\n“Right.” I said trying not to let my distress show. “That part was actually relatively simple you see. Quite simply I used math.”\n\n“You found me with math?”\n\n“Of course. First I had to create a heat map of all the reported sightings of you. That was rather simple. Then I ran a probabilistic analysis of any common locations within range of those locations eliminated obvious points of origin and found two significant points of origin, Somewhere on this block, and the courthouse. After that it was a simple elimination process of who had commonly been both here and there as frequently as you, after that I cross referenced other indicators against our government database, on which you scored a high probability of mental instability, and therefore it had to be you.” I exclaimed.\n\n“I see.” He responded, seemingly growing embarrassed. “So you said you could help me?”\n\n*Dammit Clayton, you just insulted him.*\n\n“Well first of all ‘secret’ identity nothwithstanding you have a good potential to work for the government and get some real work done.” I said pulling out some papers from my bag.\n\n‘What can the government do for me that I can’t do for myself?” He asked rage almost creeping into his voice. “Justice is blind!”\n\n“Well we can take out the kingpin. I have a remote access urbanized surveillance drone that I should probably not tell you about with its sights aimed directly at the kingpin’s head 24/7. Just sign the papers and he’s dead.”\n\n“Is that… Legal?” He asked incredulously. Ever the lawyer.\n\n“Is what legal?” I asked.\n\n“Killing him without due process.”\n\n“There’s been due process. He’s been on our hit list for a while.”\n\n“So he’s been indicted?” He asked incredulously.\n\n“No. he’s been added to our blacklist. Marked for execution as soon as you sign the paperwork.” I said.\n\n“What would I have to do?” He asked resolve in his mind.\n\n“Do you like flying?” I asked.\n\n“No.” He said and picked up a pen.\n \n", "\"So from the beginning, tell me what happened.\" said the police officer. \n\nOfficer, like I said before, as the smoke cleared from the rubble, the two metahumans emerged. I could make out one of them as being Weather Wizard and the other, the Flash. \n\nWeather Wizard was generating lighting, harnessing the energy in his hands. The Flash meanwhile, was trying to avoid the bolts at all cost.\n\n\"And where were you son when this was all happening?\"\n\nFor the third time, I was delivering Mountain Spring Water at 129th Central Ave. like I always do sir. \n\n\"Continue,\" the officer said scribbling on his notepad.\n\nSo that's when I thought about the time I dropped my Iphone in a puddle. I'm talking Iphone 3 here, nothing fancy, it lit up like a Christmas tree. That's when it hit me. Weather Wizard isn't anything but an Iphone 6 with fewer apps - I'm sure he would light up too.\n\nAt that point, I started dumping all the water into the streets. Still, the Flash wasn't paying any attention. The next bolt that Weather Wizard generated cause the guy to have what looked like a conniption. Of course, the Flash took all the credit for it all but that's okay.\n\n\"So what's the problem here again sir?\" The officer said - now annoyed by the smugness. \n\nNothing. My boss told me to fill out a police report and bill S.T.A.R. Labs.", "\"Just shoot him!\" I shouted watching from 20 yards back.\n\n\"What?\" The masked man yelled at me in a raspy voice from behind cover. \n\nThe oddly dressed man stood on a beam at the construction sight 50 feet above and threw explosives at the car our 'hero' hid behind. Minute by minute he pushed down a comically large plunger and another skyscraper, hospital, school would explode in plain sight.\n\n\"Just shoot him... There are like 30 cops watching right there with guns strapped to their hips. Take one of their weapons and do it\"\n\n\"Shoot him?\" he said to me confused \"like... with bullets?\"\n\n\"Yea, he's got you pinned behind that wreckage with bombs and tear gas and you're just sitting there watching him blow the city up.\"\n\nHe just looked at me with a blank stare and a furrowed brow.\n\n\"He's killing people!\" I shouted.\n\nThe police all stood by and watched us have this arguement, until one officer finally walked up to me. \"Just let him do his thing, son\"\n\n\"What? Wh.. Why? Why are none of you doing anything anyway? This guys doing millions of dollars in damage to your city in a purple suit and clown make-up and your letting this guy in a black leather skin suit take control and watch.\" \n \nI looked at the caped avenger cower at the sound of the explosions until I finally looked at the officer and said \"Watch...\" \n\nI unstrapped his holster, took his pistol, aimed and shot three rounds off, each making solid contact to the mans chest until his purple lapel saturated red. He fell backwards off of the beam to the concrete. It was not pretty.\n\nSilence fell over the city for what seemed to be the first time in decades. The by-standers all looked at his body in amazement. The police seemed to finally clue in and began to rush in pulling out handcuffs and pepper-spray. \n\nI looked at the batman, scoffed and said\n\"I guess I was the hero they nee- HOLY FUCK OW JESUS\" just then all of the officers took me down in a fury of handcuffs, football tackles, and pepper spray.\n\nBail was set at $50,000. My court-date is next week.", "“Your cape’s not plugged in.” \n\n“What?”\n\n“Your cape.”\n\n“Yeah?”\n\n“It’s not plugged in.”\n\nIt was just so simple. How could he not see it? This whole time, ElectroMight’s been getting weaker and losing the fight. Yet, not once has he looked to see if his cape was unplugged. \n\nI mean the city made it mandatory for sockets to be installed every two blocks just for him. I get it, his extension cord is massive. 12 city blocks. But that shit can easily get tangled up or wrapped around something. You can’t just set it and forget it. I mean, I stuff headphones into my pocket and they come out looking like a ball of yarn. Hell, I check the socket if I so much as move the vacuum’s cord when I’m cleaning around the house.\n\nWith ElctroMight still not quite catching on, I felt the need to point out the limp laying cord next to the socket. I’d do it for him but the last guy that tried it was disintegrated from the electrical shock. \n\n“/u/IStruggleWithThings ! You’re right!” ElectroMight shouted as he pointed out his fatal flaw in plain sight of his somehow-even-dumber-than-he-is arch enemy, Reflectoo. I watched as the half man, half kangaroo, all foil wrapped super villain tried to take advantage of his newly found information. He reached into his pouch to grab his sidekick Joey. Joey was Reflectoo’s 12 year old nephew who lacked any super powers and more or less just had small pieces of mirror duct taped to his face. He was just happy to be invited. Anyway, the plan was doomed from the start because Joey went on vacation with his mother three days ago and wasn’t available to “play” for another week.\n\nThis would be the epic turning point. ElectroMight could easily turn this around. ElectroMight took advantage of Reflectoo’s lapse of judgment and sprung into action. I watched as he landed on the ground, grabbed the cord, and slammed in into the wall.\n\n“*Wait!*”\n\n“What?”\n\n“Wrong wall.”\n\nBut, it was too late. He bent the prongs. ", "\"I'm going to have to take you in.\" \n\"No! Why?! I did what you couldn't do in 10 years! I stopped him!\" \n\"You broke the law.\" \n\"And in your effort to uphold the law, you let a deranged lunatic kill more people that anyone can count. You've indirectly killed more people than I have.\" \n\"You don't think I don't know how many people have died because I let him live?\" \n\"Then why did you?\" \n\"I have one rule!\" \n\"Well that is a most fucked up rule.\" \n\"It takes a strong man to follow their own rules!\" \n\"No, it takes a coward to not do what must be done and get their hands dirty.\" \n\"You do not get to choose what is right and wrong. We will let the court decide.\" \n\"Do you see these people behind me? fathers, mothers, sons, daughters. They have all suffered due to him, and today, we stopped him. They have decided what is right. These are the peers who have judged me, and they have ruled me innocent.\" \n\"A mob does not represent the law.\" \n\"Those corrupt cops, judges, psychiatrists who kept letting him back on the street? they are the law? they are the ones who protect us? bullshit.\" \n\"You murdered a man. You have to answer for your crime.\" \n\"You are a broken record. He was an animal, and we put him down. He would never be rehabilitated. He would never ever become a productive member of society.\" \n\"You don't know that. Everyone is capable of changing their ways.\" \n\"Do you honestly believe that? After the countless times he's escaped and all the people hes murdered over these years, you believe that?\" \n\"Yes.\" \n\"Then we have nothing more to discuss. Call the cops. You are not a police officer and I do not recognize your authority, or are you going to beat us ALL up, Batman?\"\n", "I remember I was on my way to work and I stopped at the bank to deposit a check my grandmother sent me for my birthday. \n\nBesides the point that I am 27 and the checks are always like 15 bucks, I don’t want to be a dick to my grandmother. \n\nAnyway, I’m at the bank and everything was fine. I was just waiting in line when all of sudden this maniacal laugh seems to fill the room. By the time I look up from my phone, I hear gunshots right next to me. “Get on the ground mother fuckers!” Someone screams this amidst the fire. I fall to the ground, shocked by all that is happening. \n\nThere was more yelling but my heart was beating in my ears, blocking any sound. Eventually this man in a clown mask makes all of us line up facing a wall on our knees. I saw two other clown masks and one guy wearing makeup. Right then, I knew it was the Joker and his crew. \n\nI was as good as dead. This crazed murderer had plagued Gotham for weeks now and he always got away. As I am facing this wall, I see out of the corner of my eye that the Joker had begun to dance around. He was humming or something but he made his way towards us. He passed bodies I didn’t see before. I guessed security or cops maybe. He reached the far end of our hostage line and out of view. Suddenly, a woman screamed what must have been the most horrifying sound ever, and then it was cut short. \n\nNext, I heard a creepy voice say “You are balding, mister! Lets cut that off and give you this new scalp!” Then another scream followed and ended. He went down the line, closer and closer to me, maiming the other hostages. It felt like ages and I was almost sobbing when the guy next to me got shot in the head. \n\nWarm blood and bits of brain covered me as I collapsed off my knees. I opened my eyes to see eyes so hollow that it felt like they were sucking me into their abyss. Below them was a full smile and face covered in makeup and blood. The lips started to move and out came, “Are you a librarian? Because you look well red!” Then he laughed and turned away. From where I now lay, I could see the maimed corpses of everyone in there. The Joker walked over to a fire extinguisher on the wall and picked it up. He moved back towards me and said, “Look you match! So lets see if you mix!” He lifted the extinguisher above my head but then a bright flash took the room. I was blind as ever but I didn’t think I was dead. I could hear the sounds of laughter and a struggle as I tried to see. When I could, I saw Batman facing the Joker who had a gun pointed at him. “You’ve gone too far Joker! How many people did you kill?!” yelled Batman. “I feel like you say that everytime bats!” laughed Joker. “Even if you catch me again, I’ll just get out.. Again! And kill more people… again! And you’ll say I’ve gone too far again!” The Joker was laughing hysterically now. With that opening, Batman moved in on the Joker and in one fluid move disarmed him and incapacitated him. He walked over to me and asked, “Are you okay son?” I nodded and he helped me up. “A-are you j-just gonna a-arrest him again?” I asked Batman. “Yes, I am.” “Why w-would you let him live? LOOK AT WHAT HE HAS DONE!” I cried. Batman turned away for a moment. Then he said, “Because heroes don’t kill.” I looked down at the Joker amidst all these bodies then back at Batman. He began to walk away towards the exit, where I could see the lights of police cars. He stepped over the maimed corpse of a little girl, tears still wet on her dead eyes. I looked down, about to cry as well when I saw the gun next to Joker that he had. I picked it up, put the barrel flush to Joker’s skull and said, “Batman, if heroes don’t kill then heroes are not what the world needs.” He was barely able to turn around before I fired the gun into Joker’s head. When I left the bank and the paramedics looked at me outside the ambulance, I saw that a library was across the street. I realized I now had two peoples brains on me and must be very well red. That’s when I started to laugh.", "The clown emerged from the bank with two men standing in front of him. One had the look of panic on his face, fearing for his life. The other was calm. \n\nOfficer Carl Mendez watched as the Caped Hero of Gotham stepped forward from the police barricade. \n\nThe clown laughed manically. \"These two die if you take another step!\" \n\nCarl placed his right hand by his hip. He watched as the supposed Hero took a step back. \n\nThe clown laughed again, so confident in his plan. He began walking to the side, keeping the two men as his human shield. Carl looked to the Hero, waiting for him to do something. The man just watched as the clown walked away. \n\n*Some Hero.*\n\nCarl grabbed the grip of his pistol and pulled it from his holster. \n\nIn one swift motion, he brought the gun up and aimed at the small group. He let his mag loose, firing 12 bullets. All three of the men were on the ground, not one of them moving. \n\nThe caped figure rushed to Carl, running with barley human speed. He tackled Carl, shoving an armored shoulder into his chest. The other officers watched in silence. \n\n\"You just killed two innocent men.\" The Hero growled. He put his hand around Carl's throat and tightened his grip. The world turned black for a moment, but restored as the grip barely loosened. \n\n\"Yes,\" Carl managed to speak. \"I killed two innocent men, but how many would die if the clown went free? He probably would have killed them too!\" \n\nThe Hero stood and shook his head. A man managed to push his way through the watching officers. He looked at Carl with disgust. \n\n\"Arrest him.\" He said. \n\nCarl closed his eyes, hand rubbing his sore throat. He would take the punishment. He would take whatever he needed to if it meant cleaning the streets of crime. " ]

[ 4, 7, 8, 13, 15, 27, 70, 103 ]

[ "1426611572", "1426558699", "1426562946", "1426559512", "1426562409", "1426536363", "1426535203", "1426532337" ]

[ "*Beep Beep Beep*\r\rThe indicator pinged away as the ship made an attempt to flee this damned planet's atmosphere. All these years Gorkak came, he was never detected. Many didn't understand what was going on, the tourists in the back quizzically looked about as they asked me a dozen questions.\r\rI was sweating from all my forlaks as I drove as hard as I could push this craft. Weaving in and out of canyons and mountains as human fighters pursued me. Years of war made these people perfect hunters,their thirst for technology to further brutality was unheard of back home.\r\rA sensor indicated a incoming projectile, I quickly came upon a large urban center as my ship started to weave between the massive monoliths to currency. Many of those in the back began to take pictures, smiling and pointing about.\r\rI lost the projectile, a towering monolith to what I could only assume dedicated to war exploded behind me. Smaller incoming weaponry began to ping away at my hull as the clangs bounced about my head. \r\rSeveral more fighters joined their barbaric brethren behind me, this time several fired upon me at once. Aiming my craft toward the star, many people began to cheer. Several egging me on as I hunched over my controls, feeling like my stomachs were about to vomit.\r\rI almost made it, before a missile of fire and heat knocked my engines out, sending me spiraling to the earth below. \r\rNow I sit here, chained to this desk, waiting for what was to happen next...", "It's almost too easy. Each world I go to, it always works exactly the same. In all the many year of humanities existence prior to the invention of the displacement drive which allowed interstellar travel, we had always imagined ourselves as the scrappy underdogs trying to survive in a universe full of predators. We imagined this because we come from a world filled with predators, all competing with each other. Kill or be killed. We never expected to finally get out into the universe and find that we were the apex predator at the top of every food chain in existence. Every other advanced civilization, once they made the transition from animals to tool-making civilizations, united together as a species and gave up their primal survival instincts or they wiped themselves out. They've all evolved so far they don't even remember the idea of hunting anymore. And since there are no hunters among the star-faring civilizations, there is no prey either. Not one of the others know anything of how to avoid being hunted any more than they know how to hunt. Except us. We have conquered every world, every territory, every rival with ease. Because we're wolves in a universe of sheep.\n\nThe rest just don't get it, and that's what makes it easy. They think they know us, but they don't. At some level, they understand that we're dangerous, my pitch wouldn't work if they didn't, but they don't really get it. They certainly don't know how to deal with it. I've visited more than two hundred alien cultures, and I have it down to an art form. Without fail, it always happens the same way. I show up, and introduce myself as a representative of humanity. They will know us by reputation, *everyone* knows us by reputation. We're the boogeymen of the universe after all, the monsters of their nightmares, described with fearful whispers while telling their darkest legends.\n\nThey may not remember how to be predators anymore, but they certainly recognize the vast power it brings us. And they want it. So along I come. I find whatever being or beings rule their society, their king, president, hive-queen, grand overmind, or whatever it is that they have. I cozy up to them, make myself their friend. Then I suggest that they could learn from us, how to conquer their rivals like we conquer ours. Warfare is a totally alien concept to them, they have no idea how it works, but they know it makes us powerful, and you don't have to be a predator to find power seductive.\n\nSo I sell them on visiting Earth, seeing how it's done, learning to be like us. I offer to teach them the secrets of power over life and death. It seems silly to us, but it's a temptation too great for them to resist. I used to wonder if maybe it was a sad commentary on humanity, that we take advantage of them like this, but on the other hand, all it would take to save them is to decline my offer. More than two hundred alien cultures, and not one of them has ever said no.\n\nThey always send their leaders, their best and brightest, because I warn them against letting an underling be the first to learn the secrets of ultimate power They send their leaders to Earth, and we send them 'advisers'. Of course, the advisers are really an occupation force and the leaders they send to Earth are really hostages to ensure cooperation, but they cannot suspect what they cannot imagine. Eventually they slowly start to understand, they learn about weapons, tactics, and strategy the hard way when we demonstrate it by conquering them.\n\nBut it never matters how much they learn. They never succeed in resisting us, and no matter how many times we repeat this process the rest of the universe doesn't wise up. Because humans, always at war with each other, had to develop something else in order to work together long enough to form civilizations. Something that the peaceful peoples of the universe never needed, the true power of humanity, something we use to rule the entirety of everything with an iron fist even as we teach the rest of the universe how to use weapons and strategy. We may teach them war, but we save for ourselves that blackest and most sinister of all arts: politics." ]

[ 22, 42 ]

[ "1426644368", "1426669435" ]

[ "I don't need this shit. I mean, pizza delivery drivers disappear all the time. They just don't turn up for work. So we ring them a couple of times and they make excuses and we forget about them.\n\nSometimes they piss off with a lot of pizza money. Most times we just send someone around to their place and demand the money they haven't turned in. It's not often, but sometimes we ring the police to report them.\n\nBut this was different. Pizza delivery guys disappeared Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. And all of them disappeared right after delivering to this one address.\n\nWhat am I going to do? Ring the cops and report that my delivery guys are disappearing? They'd tell me to go fuck myself. So I decided to go to this address myself.\n\nSo it's an average looking place. Second floor of an apartment building. I ring the doorbell. First thing I notice is that I have to wait forever for someone to come to the door. I can hear someone moving around inside. \n\nFinally the door opens. I don't know how many episodes of Hoarders you've watched but this really fat, fat, fat guy opens the door. His skin is terrible. He stinks like someone set fire to cat shit in hell. He's all blue and shit. He's trying to grab at me and I'm stepping away. His hands are full of 20 dollar bills.\n\nThen I smell the unmistakeable smell of pizza delivery.\n\nI'm not saying I'm some sort of smart guy or something but I knew this guy was bad news. I back off onto the balcony and he follows me. I walk over to the stairs and finally stinky boy follows me and tumbles down the stairs while I side step him. He's lying there on the landing like a beached whale, thrashing about and moaning and shit.\n\nSo I go into the apartment. Yeah, that's where I find my delivery boys.", "Not many meals slipped free of Gerard’s sweaty palms. His sausage-like fingers barely grasped food long enough before his yellowed teeth ground down the substance that only further added to the padding surrounding his innards.\nIn layman’s terms, Gerard was fat. Ghastly overweight. A bubbling heap of gastric swelling asterisked by jelly rolls for arms, vats of bacon grease for legs and a cherry on top that left one wondering where the neck ended and the head began.\nYes, Gerard was a sight for sore eyes – in life. Now in death – or the suspended state of animation hanging somewhere between the grips of life and death – Gerard’s presence was no worse for wares. \n\nIt happened innocently enough. Two weeks ago Gerard, or “G”, as he was commonly known to those close to him, was working the night shift at the security desk of the Center for Disease control in Atlanta. On one hand it made perfect sense: the CDC was fortified to the hilt, yet still someone had to remain on hand in the event an elevator shut down, emergency services had to be called or, simply, just to keep an eye on the janitorial staff. G, never one to sit for long in public without snoring as if he were sound asleep or sweating like a suspect in an interrogation room, was the obvious first choice the night shift. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s was the best way to utilize a man who tipped the scales at close to 350 pounds.\n\nOn this particular night, G sat uncomfortably in his chair – after all, outside of beanbags and moo moos, it’s certainly hard for a man of his stature to get comfortable anywhere else – racking up heap after heap of chicken bones as he watched reruns of Golden Girls. Each soda only added another exclamation point to an already devastating health report filled with warnings of high triglyceride counts, diabetic concerns and an array of heart conditions.\n\nBlanche always did it for Gerard, and his greasy chicken-covered hands began to move south of the equator as he twisted his neck from side to side as a precautionary glance for any oncoming threats. Seeing none, G chuckled to himself knowing full well only one thing would be coming tonight.\n\nAs his right hand rubbed the outside of his pants and gently stirred the sad excuse for a penis nestled deep, deep beneath his waist line, Gerard’s eyes remained locked on Blanche. Every cut to Sophia brought a hint of guilt, akin to that of a man with deeply-rooted grandma issues. But the slightest of jump cuts to Blanche got his genital neurons roaring again. Thank you for being a friend, Blanche. Thank you indeed.\n\nAll the while as G’s hand continues to awaken the overweight dragon below, Larry, the CDC’s Master of Janitorial Arts waited for the perfect time to slip out of the shadows and walk his way past the front desk. In his pocket was the vile of Virus H1-93-D, his easy pay day and quick ticket out of the sordid South. From there all he would need to do was meet his buyer at the Greyhound station, make the exchange, and be well on his merry way. He’d played the scenario out in his head countless times, but now found himself playing and replaying to the soundtrack of a masturbating whale. \n\nMinutes later when Gerard was complete (“Did he pull a muscle or orgasm?”, thought Larry), the janitor waited for the security guard to make his way to the bathroom for a clean-up in aisle one. That time never came. In fact, G sat unfazed by his actions and merely returned to chomping on legs of greasy chicken and grunting in amusement at those wacky, seasoned southerners on the TV before him.\n\n“Shit,” thought Larry. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”\n\nIt would have to be quick and casual.\n\n“Heyyyy G,” Larry said with his long, drawn-out drawl. “How you been man?”\n\nUnmoved by the janitor’s presence, G merely waved him off and said, “You know, you can’t surprise me Larry. You have more keys than a gatekeeper, and that gimpy leg only further blows your cover. If this were Dungeons and Dragons, you’d have totally blown your D20 roll on ‘Move Silently.’” Gerard laughed again, only to himself. No one else ever found Gerard’s jokes to be funny or, frankly, to make any sense.\n\n“Right man,” Larry said, patting down his keys that up until moments ago were at the base of his wash bucket. “Nothing gets past old G.”\n\n“No way, no how,” Gerard proclaimed.\n\n“Aight man,” Larry said. “I’m done for the night. Gonna head home, squeeze one out and call it a night.”\n\nGerard glanced eerily at Larry, wondering just how long it had been since erupting in his pants and having this conversation. Long enough, thought Gerard.\n\n“OK,” he finally said, turning his attention back to the screen. “I’ll see ya.”\n\nLarry grabbed his bucket and headed toward the exit, adjacent to the storage closet where he kept his cleaning supplies. Already he could see the wads of cash, the cocktails on tropical beaches, surrounded by beautiful women in bikinis – no, topless! – reacting lavishly to his every beckon call. What he didn’t see was the greasy puddle of bones and chicken sinew waiting in the center of the tiled floor like an unavoidable trap for a hungry animal in the wild.\n\nLarry lost his balance on his good leg and, unable to adjust on his bad one (damn you high school football!), flopped straight onto his back losing all control and slamming hard onto the floor. As if in slow motion, the vile of H1-93-D flew from his pocket and landed in a smash of glass at the foot of Gerard. \n\nAt first G failed to register the gravity of the situation, but by the time he reacted with his sloth-like reflexes, hitting the red quarantine button that would “bring down the house,” as he liked to say, Larry had already escaped through the front door. \n\nFrom the outside looking in, Larry watched as the heavy-plate steel “curtains” crashed in around the building, locking in G and anyone else unfortunate enough to be within the confines of the CDC’s downtown offices. All of Larry’s hopes and dreams were dashed right before his eyes. But given the power of the virus, he was lucky to escape with his life. That is, moments before he realized that in a fit of utter hysteria he had limped so far from the facilities that he was standing in the middle of the local truck route. To this day no one knows how he didn’t hear the truck coming, but it was probably all for the better. When the authorities found him the virus had obviously taken hold, but the only part of his body still moving was a twitching finger and the toes at the end of his bum leg.\n\nGerard on the other hand was luckier. Or perhaps unluckier, as it may seem. He lived. Or maybe he died, only to live again. Whatever the case, his reaction to quarantine the building was the correct response in that sort of situation. On that front, his training had paid off, saving the lives of countless research scientists who proved to be more valuable to humanity than Gerard would ever be. On the other hand, G became the only specimen known to display the results of an H1-93-D infection, rendering him to the state of a circus animal amidst the crowd of bewildering analysts and doctors.\n\nG, the man who was hardly a threat to anyone but himself, now remained no threat to those around him thanks to his own quick-thinking but slow-moving actions. Ever in a zombie-like state during the overnight shifts, it was now his absolute pleasure to no longer have to exert one more iota of energy. He merely sat in a pit surrounded by glass walls separating him from the scientists, merely existing on a diet of road kill and dog food. \n", "Elves, fairies, fey, spirits, devils, angels, ghosts, vampires, and just humans who had strange powers.... They were all real. All of them trapped here with me. In this government 'home'. Prison more like. \nThe alarm went off and the invisible words that bound us, pulled us by the hand back to our rooms, and the doors locked. \nThey had some kind of device, that could tell them our true names. They would hunt us down, and point it at us. Then... All they had to do was come back here and prepare us a 'room' in the 'home'. We never suspected a thing. \nFor me... It was only a few days ago. A woman just walked into the room, and pointed 'the retriever' at me. Then she promised me they would take care of me... I didn't see her again until I felt a burning in my hand, and my arm was yanked through space to make the words true. \n'Silver Light is in this room' whenever they glowed it became true... More gently if we were close to the room merely leading us back. Roughly if we were too slow, or far away. \nThe rumor was... That someone had learned god's true name, and he was trapped somewhere in here. Forced to make 'the retriever' and teach them about the magic. Others... Think that one of our own betrayed us. One of the wizards or witches who knows of such magics. I... Didn't care how they did it. I just wished I could go home. \n \nSo... Anyway... With all this said. It was only a small surprise when they dragged in a eight foot tall, seven-hundred pound dead man who hadn't died all the way. It was only a surprise because as I said 'they dragged' like... With real chains, and guards in armor. \n \nOnce the doors unlocked I pulled on the sleeve of one of the keepers that had been behind the group as they went past. \n\"How come he's not bound the same way you did me?\" I asked, staring up at her curiously. \n\"He has no soul poor thing...\" She said petting my head for a moment and then kneeling. \"You see... He died, but something in his body wasn't ready to die.\" \n\"Kind of like the opposite of ghosts right?\" \n\"Exactly the opposite of ghosts!\" She said clearly quite pleased with me. \"He'll have to be kept in a very special room... Because if he bite someone they will loose their soul too, and that would be very very sad... We're just lucky that he was so out of shape. God willing there will not be another like him for quite some time.\" \n\"Oh...\" \n \n \nBy 'very special room', they meant a cage. Usually only animals were kept in cages... Because they often refused to be reasoned with. Any pain the bindings caused them just made them attack harder. I often walked the 'zoo', and talked with the panthers... They said if they ever got out, I at least would not be killed. Which was kind of nice. \nBut I had a plan... I was fairly sure it would work too. Because no one payed much attention to me. My powers were fairly 'dormant', they said... I would say it was more like 'It can't hear me anymore' or 'I can't feel it anymore'. But in any case I was not guarded as much as some of the others. I would go to the 'zoo', I would make my move. \nIf I had no soul, I had no true name. I could walk out the window, and never look back. I would be free, and one day... When I was full grown, when I was sure I could trust it. I would come back for the others. Then they would be sorry... For everything they put us through just so the regular 'humans' could pretend we didn't exist. \n \nNight came, and I saw him, huddled in a corner. They had taken his clothes, and left him with nothing but a blanket to cover himself. As though he really were one of the 'animals'. It made me sick inside, and sad. I reached a hand into his cage. \n\"Hey.... Josh...\" I said reading the plaque by his cage. \"You can bite me. I won't tell anyone.\" \nHe looked up when I spoke, and stared at my hand. He seamed to be thinking about it, his eyes looked like a tiger hunting it's prey, but he barely moved. His breathing was loud and labored. So he still breathed... Even thou he was dead. Maybe it was habit. I wondered if I would breathe. \n\"That's right.... Maybe just a finger please...\" \nHe bobbled towards me like a toddler, it made me even more sad. He was so harmless, and yet he was trapped as though he was as harmful as the Lion that could read minds. \n\"Just a little more.\" He reached to grab my arm and I pulled it back. I didn't want to loose the whole thing. He fell over, and growled. As he tried to lift himself up, I stuck a finger in his mouth. As I did I could feel my mind start to fade. I fell backwards onto my bottom, and scooted away from the cage, as he reached out towards me. \n \n\"No....\" I cried, I could feel my consciousness becoming less, I had to fight that part. I needed to stay me, I needed to be. \"No...\" I tried to steady my voice, staying quiet but firm. \n\"I am both alive, and dead.\" I told the universe, and for the first time sense I came here. It listened, I think because it was confused by my presence more than anything, but in that moment between leaving and staying... I could feel it again. It had been hard to hear in the rooms, but as I was leaving I knew it was there again. \n\"I am not Silvia Stone. I am not Silver light. But I am.\" \n \nI felt my body die, it was painful, and then it didn't feel like anything. It was as though it was an empty shell around my consciousness. Nothing I did felt any way, and at first it was clumsy moving, but once I got used to it, it was at least as before. I could tell the magic no longer bound my wrist, because there wasn't that light tug that was almost always there before. \n \nI smiled, I could hear the universe, and the universe could hear me, and now... There was no name to bind me. Once we were friends again, I would come back... Oh how sorry they would be.", "I am Doctor Leo Vincent, and I have moved mankind on to the next great evolutionary step. Leo- A fitting name, I’d think, considering my intellect and contributions to the world could even rival Da Vinci’s.\n\nThey anticipated this. They took the man away and locked him up in a room where he couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t advance the cause- Although he wouldn’t have been able to do that anyway. The first man to majorly evolve in millions of years was a pile of fat. They took him away before news teams even had a chance to look at him. There were only rumors.\n\nOf course, I am one of the only people who had access to anything that had to do with disease outbreaks or problems with a new strain of the flu. I’m a top scientist and researcher in my field. Naturally I was the first to hear.\n\n“Dr. Leo?” I heard my name as I was watching through the glass into the room where they kept him.\n\n“What is it?” I turned to find the timid attendant cowering before me. I am tall, after all. Taller than most people. That combined with my towering intellect must have been why she was so scared of me. She spoke slowly.\n\n“We’ve got the President on his way right now, the administration wanted me to ask you to brief him. After all, this is your life’s work…” I cut her off. She was right. I am the world’s foremost expert on “zombies.” It started when I was a boy, being fascinated with roadkill. I learned about experiments with cow’s heads and electricity, and then fungus that controlled small animals’ brains. None of these were what I ultimately discovered the cause to be, although they were close.\n\n“Yes, yes, of course,” I said hurriedly, “but first you must do something for me.” I tried to smile convincingly enough; It seemed I scared everyone. She deserved kindness, after all, especially in light of her role.\n\n“Uh, okay. I don’t know what you’d need me for-“ She started but I grabbed her arm, and smiled again.\n\n“Trust me, you’re perfect for the job.”\n\nWe walked through the hallways, my hand on her arm, and we eventually arrived on the other side of the room. The part with the door. The one you need security clearance to access. My heart raced.\n\nThe girl eyed everything like a mouse about to be subjected to a test. She was scared and curious all at once. I could see it in her eyes. She was fit. She would be the one.\n\nI punched the access code into the panel by the door, swiped my card, and scanned my retina. The door was unlocked and I pulled the handle open.\n\nI had a sudden thought- Turning to the girl next to me; The girl who would make history; and asked her name.\n\n“It’s Jamie. Why are you-“\n\nI threw her into the room and slammed the door shut before she could scream.\n\nBy my calculations, I only need to wait for about five minutes before the infection has spread through her entire body.\n\nThen it begins.", "*Some adult language and content.\n\n“My God, he’s fat,” said Rebecca.\n\nMolly sighed. “Well that's kind of the point isn't it? We can’t have a show called Living With the World’s Fattest Man if the dude is just slightly overweight.”\n\n“I know but seriously, how can anyone let themselves get that big?”\n\n“A bad childhood, a lifetime of overindulgence. Add that to the fact that he surrounded himself with enablers and this is what you get. You actually start to feel bad for the guy once you hear his story.”\n\n“What was his name again?” asked Molly.\n\n“I don’t know. Miguel or Marco. Something with an m.”\n\nBoth women worked as executive producers for The Knowledge Network. Both came from small towns in the rural Midwest, but had adapted to life in California with grace, physically if not entirely mentally. They both enjoyed skipping out on their quinoa and soy lattes for a steak and a beer from time to time.\n\n“So how did this happen?” Molly asked.\n\n“Lap band surgery gone horribly wrong. There was some sort of mix up with his blood transfusion. The surgery was a success but the nurse pumped him full of blood that was infected with rabies during recovery.”\n\nThe morbidly obese man lying on the gurney in front of them was strapped down tight. His skin was a mixture of pale green and yellow. Black veins pulsated across his exposed skin. His eyes had gone milky white and thick foam was bubbling out of his gnashing teeth. \n\n“You know what he looks like,” said Molly.\n\n“Yeah I know, don’t say it. I don’t want to hear the Z word anymore today.”\n\nAt that moment Robert Bruce, one of the wealthiest men in Australia and the head of The Knowledge Network, burst through the double doors of the infirmary. “My God, this is better than I could’ve ever imagined.”\nBoth women stared with distaste at the older man in the Armani suit. “Are you serious?” asked Rebecca. “This man is dead. Well, he’s kind of dead. Either way this is a tragedy.”\n\nRobert finally took his eyes off the 800-pound groaning and growling man on the gurney and looked at his two executive producers. “Well, yes of course my thoughts and prayers go out to this poor man and his family. Everyone at The Knowledge Network wishes them the very best and blah, blah, blah. Now, let’s talk about how we can use this to our advantage.”\n\n“Our advantage!” Rebecca’s faced flushed with anger. “How dare you try and turn this into something profitable you fucking pig!”\n\n“Now hold on a minute, girlie. This bloke’s dead. His problems are over. You and I, however, have to figure out a way to salvage the two million dollars we’ve already dumped into this project. We’ve barely got enough footage for a fifteen minute spot!”\n\nRebecca hated this man. More to the point she hated what he represented, a career she couldn’t stand. She’d gotten into the entertainment industry to write quality entertainment. She wanted to produce shows that meant something to people. Shows that made people think about their own lives and inspired change. What she ended up with was a career producing garbage to sate the masses. Shows like Amish Bachelor and Trailer Park Royalty. She knew she shouldn’t complain. She made more money than she could ever spend in a lifetime, but she couldn’t help feeling like she’d sold her soul in the process.\n\n“Here’s what I was thinking,” said Robert. “We have the doctors remove his teeth and nails, make him relatively safe to be around. Then we move him back into his home and send a film crew with him. We can turn this into a series! Just think of how many people will tune in every week to watch The Zombie Family. What’s Poppa Zombie getting into this week? Uh-oh he tried to eat the family dog! This is a bloody gold mine!” \n\nRobert looked like a child on Christmas morning. His smile was so wide Rebecca thought he might split his lip open. “Robert, I’m not going to be a part of this. I’ve got to draw the line somewhere and honestly, I’m ashamed that it took something like this to make me realize that. I’m through.”\n\nRobert’s mile-wide grin vanished and was replaced with an evil sneer. Rebecca flinched in fear as he jumped towards her. “The hell you are! You’re going to write up a pilot for this project whether you want to or not. Let’s not forget, Rebecca, you’re under contract. If you refuse to play ball we won’t just fire you, we’ll sue you for every penny you have, and we’ll win. You know we will.”\n\nRebecca stared down at the floor. She felt like she was six years old, being scolded by her father. “Now,” said Robert, “do we have a deal?”\n\nRebecca was disgusted with herself, but she had no other choice. Robert had her by the balls, so to speak. “Sure Robert, I’ll do it.”\n\nRobert’s grin returned. “Good, have it on my desk by Monday. Now, on to other matters. Molly, would you follow me out to my car. I have some ideas for future projects I think you’d be perfect for.”\n\n“Of course, Mr. Bruce.” Molly followed the President of the Network out into the hall. Rebecca knew she was just going to blow him in the back of his limousine. Molly was a terrible writer, but Robert kept her around for more “carnal” reasons.\n\nRebecca was left alone in the hospital room with the 800-pound zombie. She felt sorry for the poor guy. She didn’t want to be the one responsible for broadcasting his terrible life to millions of people. She was beyond disgusted, at herself, at her boss, at a world that craved such utter shit. She didn’t know how humanity had gotten so fucked up, but she suddenly had an idea that seemed like the only answer. Not only to her problems, but to everything.\n\n“I don’t know that much about you big guy,” she said to the man on the gurney. “Fuck, I don’t even know your name, but I’m pretty sure you don’t deserve this. Whaddya say you and I take this world down a few pegs.” Rebecca couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw the obese zombie smile as she placed a finger inside his foaming mouth. The zombie – Rebecca had finally conceded that this was in fact what he was – bit down hard. Hard enough to break the skin and draw blood, which was exactly what she wanted. Now all she had to do was wait. She’d be infected soon and when the nurses came in to check on their patient she’s spread the disease to them. The human race needed some thinning, and Rebecca was proud to be a part of something meaningful for a change.\n", "“This is just getting sad.”\n\n“Shut up, Jack. I’m tryna get a good look.”\n\nGreg had always kind of been an asshole like that, but he had definitely taken it to a whole new level. It wasn’t really the huge event everyone thought it would be. I mean, sure the media made a whole damn circus of the thing when it first hit the news. All of a sudden zombies were real. Or at least, zom*bie*. After a couple of months, they stopped speculating where it would hit next when they realized that “it” was barely able to make it out of his house, much less down the block. Every day, he’d come out at night, trying to find a new host to infect. But anyone with a resting heart rate of more than zero could outrun him without an issue. The guy had to be at least 400 pounds, no muscle. Since the media scare died down, this lone, morbidly obese zombie rarely saw anyone on his nightly walks. His neighbors had all moved away. No friends or family came by.\n\nThe only visitors he had was the occasional tourist trying to catch a glimpse of the only zombie to have ever lived, people like me and Greg. I thought it would be cool to see, but it honestly just made me sick to my stomach. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing that should be a spectacle for the amusement of onlookers. This man was no longer alive in any practical sense of the word. He was moving, sure. But it appeared more like coordinated, ongoing rigor-mortis more than anything.\n\n“Greg, I think I’m gonna go now. I’ll wait for you in the car.”\n\n“Alright, bro. Your loss.”\n", "Terry awoke to the bright sunlight streaming through his blinds. He looked over at his clock to see the illuminated “5:45AM” in those obnoxious red, digital letters. He had to get back to the chimp zoo before the exhibits opened, but he still had a few minutes before he had to get up.\n\nTerry rolled over to see Bob still sleeping soundly. Last night they had had the roughest sex yet with Bob scratching Terry’s back and biting his neck until reaching a sudden, intense climax. Terry had been overwhelmed at the time but now felt the sores and pains from his neck, down his back, to the inside of his sphincter. \n\nBob continued to sleep, his hairy chest rising and falling succinctly with his snores. With a deep breath, Terry rolled over, sat up, and eased his feet to the floor. With another big breath, he pushed his massive self off the bed and eased himself into some slippers. Terry walked across the room to the bathroom and looked into the mirror. The bite on his neck had swelled 3-4 inches, discoloring to a purple-ish blue mass. Terry began to poke and prod, but felt nothing. In fact, Terry noticed the area had become numb, and he could feel any sensation from his fingers touching the massive growth. Terry was worried. Terry was also hungry. Very hungry.\n\nThough Terry had a habitually massive appetite, this hunger felt different in an indescribable way. He grabbed his cell phone on the way to the kitchen, and began to search for a near by health clinic. There was one just down the street, so he’d go there after breakfast. He took out the bacon, sausage, and eggs. He placed 5 sausage patties on the griddle along with 6 slices of bacon. He tossed a tablespoon of butter in a skittle and began to crack eggs into a bowl. \n\nTerry dialed work as he whisked the eggs. “Hello, you’ve reached the Jacksonville Chimpanzee Sanctuary. This is Daryl speaking.”\n\n“Hey, Daryl. It’s Terry. I’m not going to be able to making it into the office today,” Terry said as he whisked in some milk with his eggs. “I’m not feeling to great.”\n\n“Hey, Terry. No problem. Oh, do you happen to know where Robert is? He didn’t come for our feeding this morning.”\n\n“No idea. Though - I’ll tell you - I have noticed Robert being somewhat of a recluse lately. He hasn’t really been eating that well. I wouldn’t worry about it too much today, but I’ll look into it a bit more when I come in on Thursday,” Terry said as he pour the egg solution into the skillet.\n\n“Oh, okay. Well, anyway. See you when you’re feeling better! Get some rest if you can!”\n\n“Thanks, Daryl. I’ll do my best. Buh-bye now. Bye. Thanks. Bye.” Terry put his phone on the counter and went to the skillet. As he flipped a few patties and bacon strips, he realized that the erotic aromas he normally got at this point in the breakfast cooking process were absent. In its place was a noxious odor that made him gag. He always hated to see food go to waste, so he continued.\n\nBy this time, Bob came out of the bedroom, swaggering over to Terry with his arms dropped to his sides. Bob gave Terry a toothy grinned and hugged him around the waste. \n\n“Hungry?” Terry inquired, motioning food to mouth with his hands. Bob grinned and nodded his head eagerly. Terry rummaged through his pantry for some berry bars. He unwrapped two bars and gave them to Bob. Bob was mostly vegetarian, so Terry couldn’t make him the same breakfast. \n\nFinally, the breakfast was cooked, and Terry sat down with a huge plate of cheese-sprinkled scrambled eggs, sausage, and bacon with a can of mountain dew. Terry wasn’t particularly appetized by the plate, but he was hungry so he ate. Bob sat on the floor eating his bars.\n\nAfter Terry had finished the plate, he put away the dishes, cleaned the stove and the cookware, and put on some sweatpants, t-shirt, and tennis shoes. \n\n“Bob, stay. Play with the toys, okay?” Terry motioned to the collection of foam balls and trinkets in the living room. Bob looked and smiled with acknowledgement then returned to his bars. Terry headed out the front door and locked it behind him. \n\nAs he walked down the street toward the clinic, Terry began to feel sick to his stomach. The something from breakfast was not settling well. People gave him concerned looks as he passed them. He couldn’t hold it anymore. He ran to a side alley and vomited his whole breakfast.\n\n“Oh, gross!” “That’s depressing” “Jesus, you fat fuck!” Several were onlookers watched as Terry vomited and tried to regain composure. \n\n“Sorry. Not feeling well. Nothing to see,” Terry said to the crowded that had formed around him. “Thanks for the concern. I’m alright.” Terry tried to swiftly move past the crowd. As he tried to move his large body through the shifting group, he became overwhelmed by the sweaty smells emanating from the near persons. He froze. He was hungry. Very hungry. He grabbed a runner, her sweat dripping from her chin, drenching her clothes. Terry sank his teeth into her upper arm a bit off a mouthful. She screamed. Everyone screamed. Terry tried to grab another delicious bite, but someone punch his across the temple. \n\nTerry regained consciousness as he saw people running away, screaming. He got to his feet and looked for the runner he had bit. She had tasted delicious and he wanted more. He saw a man on his cellphone who had not yet realized the situation. Terry began to rush at him, nearly reaching him before the man noticed. The man jumped away from Terry’s grasp and began to sprint away from Terry down the sidewalk. Terry pursued the business-clad prey.\n\nTerry chased him for 4 blocks before he could no longer breath. He leaned back, dry-heaving, and slowly realized what he was doing, what he had done. He just bit someone. No, no. He ate someone. He had vomited his breakfast, and ate a mouthful of savory, delicious, human flesh. He needed to get back to his townhouse. \n\nHe rushed back to his place, trying to get back before he got too close to someone. He opened the door to find poop smear on the walls. Bob had decided to be a bit artistic during Terry’s absence. Bob’s smell was everywhere. His fragrant smell. Terry unplugged a lamp and hefted it in his hands, moving towards Bob. Bob smiled up at him, his hands still covered with his own feces.\n\n“Goodnight, sweet prince.”", "At first, Phillipe was slow and mellow.\n\nQuite a boring and oddly shaped fellow.\n\nWorks with chemicals all day and accidentally did spray,\n\nA goo that was awful smelling and yellow.\n\n\nMaude awoke to a thump in the night.\n\nBounced out of her bed at the sight,\n\nOf the slight rotting flesh and stinking of death.\n\nTilted man who had called her his wife.\n\n\nOut of the love in her heart.\n\nHis teeth quick as a dart.\n\nPatient zero and his patient one.\n\nThe world ahead, nothing to tear them apart.\n\n\nTwo became four and four became eight.\n\nSlowly they took over, our defenses too late.\n\nFor the zombie named Phillipe and the zombie named Maude.\n\nIt takes two to tango, to turn, and accelerate.\n\nEDIT: I am derp and autocorrect is my enemy, I also can't figure out how to space this stuff correctly!!. Thank you /u/FallsDownMountains", "I'm not sure how I turned, nor why I'm still able to think, but I do know I'm still the useless me. \nI couldn't do well in school, couldn't find a job, couldn't make family proud. Now that I'm a zombie-thing, I can't even spark off the apocalypse with a bang. \nZombie games taught me that I'm supposed to run after and bite people to spread this disease, but everyone's too fast for me. My legs, hidden beneath the layers of flab drooping from my body, can hardly support my weight, much less propel me at walking speed. All I can do is wobble around, suffering under tossed stones and my neighbours' laughter. \nAnd then it hit me. A bus out of nowhere. My body exploded magnificently, sending blood, flesh and mucus in all directions. \nAs my consciousness started to fade, I saw those drenched in my innards screaming, turning into the monster I am. \nI smiled to myself, a tear rolling down half my cheek.\n", "\"Oh, look… Here come's Ed.\"\n\nIt was one of those too-warm April days in small-town South, harbinger of a scorching summer to come. A large man stumbled down the middle of the main road. A small kid on a bike was riding circles around him as he ambled along. He droned some barely intelligible phrase, counterpoint to a sing-song nursery rhyme the kid was chanting.\n\n\"Braaaaaaiiiinnnnssss…\"\n\n\"Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!\"\n\nThe two men on the bench outside the store looked at each other.\n\n\"Guess we better move along. He ain't the conversationist he once was.\"\n\n\"Yep, kinda single-minded, anymore.\"\n\nThey looked at each other for a suspenseful moment before the one's face split into a gap-toothed cackle, and the other followed showing no teeth at all.\n\n\"Ha! Ha! Hee, heee, eh… single-minded. Hehe… I like that.\"\n\nThe two stood up. A fly buzzed both heads in a lazy figure-eight.\n\nThe girl stopped her bike and hopped off to pick up a bottle cap, just a few steps ahead of ambling Ed. The two paused to watch. Ed reached forward hopefully. \"Brai-\"\n\n\"There!\" she said pointing of to one side. \"There's a brain!\"\n\nEd halted, turned to the side where she was pointing and the blank look took on a very slight hint of befuddlement. While he was thus distracted, she hopped on the bike and resumed circling. The befuddlement may have turned to disappointment. His arms dropped back to his sides.\n\nThe two men turned back to each other. \n\n\"Hey, reach me my walker would ya?\"\n\nToothless leaned over the side of the bench and pulled the aluminum frame around, tennis balls on the ends of the legs juddering across the porch planks. Grabbing his own walker, the pair proceeded into the street, about a quarter-block ahead of big Ed.\n\n\"Brains!!\" came the ever more plaintive call.\n\n\"He look like he's losing weight?\"\n\n\"Might could be, maybe he's getting just a tad quicker than last week!\"\n\n\"Huh. Patient zero.\"\n\n\"Ha! More like patient zero miles-an-hour!\"\n\nThe screen door of the grocery swung open and a large woman appeared. She gazed for a moment after the two men heading back towards the nursing home. Turning to the girl and the zombie, she waved her hand twice to shoo the fly away. \"Marcy! You leave Ed alone! Ed! Go home! Ain't no brains around here!\"\n\nShe turned and let the door slam behind her.\n", "First off, I'd like to say that I'm all for solar power and alternative energy and stuff like that. But it does have a downside. In our neighborhood we call him Larry. \n\nLarry rolls around in his little solar powered handicap scooter drooling on himself and calling out, \"Brains...\" It's more of a wail than a call really. Larry is a zombie, by the way. That's the rumor anyway. \n\nYesterday I saw Larry rolling down the sidewalk with the usual line of cans tied to his little cart. That's a favorite game of the kids, tying cans to his cart. That and throwing sticks and boards in front of him and letting him run the things over. He can bounce over a two by four but anything much larger will stop him. Then he moans and cries for brains while he maneuvers around the obstruction. \n\nWhere was I? Oh, yesterday. Larry is rolling down the street with the cans dragging behind him when the cart just stopped. His cart, solar powered remember, has been his only mode of transport for as long as I've known him. He weighs a good 350 pounds and I've never seen him off that cart. He rolls around by day and just stops at night. When his cart stopped he truly looked bewildered. And I'll tell you, seeing a zombie look bewildered is a sight to behold. He slowly turned left, then right then he just sat there. He's been sitting there ever since. \n\nMyself, I'm not really seeing the problem here. He's not really in anyones way, so long as you go around him which might get your shoes a bit muddy if it's raining. He's kind of like our new mascot. He's even kind of close to the entry to the development. I'm still waiting to see what happens to him. \n\nLooky there. A garbage truck. I guess it's not the nicest way to go but those guys at least know what they're doing. By Larry. Can't say I'm sad to see you go. Good luck. ", "Larry just couldn't catch a break.\n\nHe slowly trudged onward, some dead part of his brain guiding him towards food. His life had been pretty shit so far he mused. \n\nNever had a girlfriend, no close friends, not even interesting enough to get bullied in school let alone noticed. Then an endless stream of menial jobs, serving fast food, stacking boxes, attaching part A to rod B. \n\nHe thought, ever since the bite, he'd be a little bit more on people's radar, but nothing like this. He slowly looked behind him, his neck now black and swollen, creaked as he strained to see who was behind. \n\nA line of policemen slowly followed, arms outstretched, yellow tasers tracking his every movement. \n\nLarry stopped and began the slow complicated process of turning around. Had turning around always been this complicated? He couldn't remember, his mind was full of the loud, buzzing, insectile voice that told him he was hungry, that he needed thick, fresh, slabs of meat to be ripped apart by his teeth, to choke down his gullet, to fill his gut. \n\nSixteen tazer needles uselessly dug into his cold flesh and filled him with 400,000 volts of electricity. He barely felt it, the taser lines becoming slack and useless.\n\nIt just wasn't fair. He's always been a bit heavy. He had tried going to the gym back when he was alive but his knees had hurt and...truth be told...he'd felt people staring, their eyes tracing feather touches across his cheeks and neck. \n\nHe'd tried to eat healthily too but ...sugar. An endless parade of clean Mondays, of pledges that he'd start afresh and nothing but salad would pass his lips. \nThen a small cheat then a bigger one, then he'd eat an entire black forest gateau to himself before going to bed to halfheartedly masturbate with sticky fingers.\n\nA pump action shotgun appeared and tore off half his face. The police weren't getting any closer. He tried again to run and instead tripped over his own feet. \n\nFalling seemed to take a long time. So much so that he had time to examine the hot asphalt and painted line of the motorway.\n\nBy the time his chin exploded against the ground in a bone shredding mess Larry had decided he wasn't going to take any more shit. He'd had a shitty life and he wasn't going to suffer through a shitty afterlife too. \n\nApparently they lasted longer.\n\nThe police slowly advanced, a loose circle formed as the zombie slowly convulsed and folded in on itself. Bones and tendons snapping as it contorted. The sound of growling, of flesh being ripped. A flash of a mouth and jaw working tirelessly. Then silence.\n\nLarry stood up as mouthfuls of belly, bicep, thigh and gut fell away from him. His new body didn't look the best admittedly but he was now 40 kilos lighter. A seven minute diet that actually worked. \nHe pulled the remaining end of his intestines out of one of many holes he'd chewed open and flung it aside like a bothersome scarf.\n\nHe smiled, showing his bloodstained teeth at the policemen that were oh so close now.\n\n'Oooooooonn yooooooooour maaaaaaarks...' he moaned. His vocal chords full of thick, coagulated blood.\n\n'Geeeeeeeeeeeet seeeeeeeeeet...'\n\nThe policemen started to shuffle back. One crossed himself.\n\n'GOOOOO!' \n\nLarry, for the first time in his adult life, ran.\n\n\n ", "Dafeng China, 920 square miles, and a producer of nearly one million pigs per year. Dumplings, Hoisin stir fry, Mapo Dofu, all of these delicious little treats feeding an ever growing empire of people too swollen in ancestry and agriculture. It was in the blood of a single pig that the virus was born. After being fed a variety of slop from who knows where it was only a matter of time before a single error emerged in the stream of numbers and flowing organisms. The virus was never detected, the pig was sent out to slaughter and his meat was shipped out to the suppliers who sold it to the markets who then sold it to the people. The people bought it, brought it home, and fed their children with the infected flesh. They enjoyed the taste, they swallowed every bite and before they knew it they had become a host. \n\nIt blanketed the countryside in a matter of months before it got on the first plane to the US. It lied in dormancy. Not even the most skilled of doctors could detect it pulsing through the droves of people that flocked between borders. Tourists, New York City. A perfect location for people to lose the rest of their hope for humanity. Bai Mang, 35, visiting his nephew who had moved to the US years ago. By the end of the week he had left back home but made sure his virus stayed behind in his nephew who then spread it to all of his dishes. The chicken dumplings, the beef fried rice. They ate it up. Bite by tender bite. \n\nHarold Tennings. 40, 350 pounds based on his last check up 6 months ago. Now, he was homebound and weighed around 450 pounds. The government labeled him as disabled and the grease stains on his month old T-shirt labeled him a disgust to society. He locked himself away, stuck to his leather chair, hungry and growing more so with every second. Monday was fast food that his mother picked up. Tuesday was pizza. Wednesday was Chinese. The Golden Dragon was a block away. Perfect. He called it in, payed with his credit card just like every other week and within 15 minutes his bulk order was at the door. Harold opened the door using his specially made stick arm. On the other end was a tree branch of a man who had long ago grown used to the smell of sweat and cat urine that filled Harold's house. He got the signature, stacked the food next to Harold and left back to his Golden Dragon. \n\nHarold's lips dripped with saliva, his head with sweat, and his chins shined with the gleam of sweet and sour sauce leaking down his many valleys of skin. 45 minutes into the feast Harold had become tired. He took a nap. During this ripe breeding period within him the virus chose to mutate and take on a higher form of microscopic beauty. 20 nano-meters filling up every clogged artery and slowly killing Harold. Death by virus was better than death by heart attack. His corpse bloated a little more, ever so slightly, and when each cell passed away the virus stuck to them and gave new necrotic birth to their lifeless husks. Harold's eyes peeled open once more, white eyes, white as his sunless skin. A new hunger emerged within his brain. \n\nA hunger for human flesh. Bubbles of frothing madness spewed from his mouth as his legs kicked against the floor. Harold barely moved, blood leaked from his nose and his fingernails dug deeper into the armrests. Frantically, with much force the mind controlling virus directed Harold's bulky shell to the door. Half an hour later and Harold had gone nowhere. Bile covered his shirt and carpet, his nails splintered and grew green, his legs were a swollen purple mass. Within weeks Harold's new found friend starved to death despite the large supply of host rations. His brothers and sisters inhabiting other bodies never evolved and soon went into extinction. The microbe that was born inside of a pig had died in one. Poor little guy, it never had a chance.", "John's eyes were dead, but then they'd never really been alive. He shuffled across the street, head down, his double-chin resting against his soft, squishy chest. \n\nA pair of kids on bicycles rode shakily by, both of them just fresh off of the training wheels. They swerved around him, their noses bunched up at the strong scent of decay. \n\nThe sun was at John's back as he made his way down the paved sidewalk that was covered in all colors of chalk and lined with white picket fences. He couldn't feel the warmth of the sun. He didn't feel the rock that was in his shoe, or the gentle breeze of the wind that rushed through the leaves of the leaning trees that filled the quiet suburb. \n\nHe stared at his feet as they rose and fell, rising and falling without pause, caution, or worry. They simply picked themselves up and put themselves down, carrying the weight of John's mass without protest. He didn't feel that ache in his knees anymore whenever he walked too long. He didn't feel the pain in his lower back as he slouched over, mouth open and saliva slowly dripping out. \n\nA middle-aged woman in a pink jogging suit was a block ahead of him. She crossed the street, casting a quick, disgusted glance in his direction. \n\nJohn continued walking, his eyes staring vacantly at the top of his feet. He didn't feel anything at all. ", "It was Harold Kestrel's seventh Seven-Squared burger of the day. A Seven-Squared burger was seven patties and seven cheeses, with any and all toppings added at the buyer's discretion. Harold Kestrel, it must be known, left no toppings off, except for pickles, which he despised. The things had to be held together by thin steel rods, jammed all the way down to the bottom bun. He had been attempting to build up his stomach's reservoir for the challenge for weeks.\n\nThe only problem was, his small town's sole burger joint didn't have much in the way of fryer grease. Normally, of course, they would have plenty, but the truth of the matter is that every Seven-Squared burger patty was soaked in the stuff anew before being thrown onto the sandwich, in an attempt to make it the \"most heart-stopping burger of your life\" like it said on the sign, and, in making the seventh for Mr. Kestrel, they had simply run out. So, instead, they resorted to warming up some old hair gel to give the meat the same texture, if not exactly the same taste. By the time Harold noticed, half-way through the sandwich, it was far too late.\n\nThe hair gel, name redacted here for legal reasons, was not fit for human consumption. On being warmed up, chemicals within the gel became especially unfit, to the point that poor Harold Kestrel's brain was temporarily shut off by the hormones responding to his digestive track's complaint. When his brain re-awakened, the hormones had reached a kind of critical mass; he became drenched in sweat, his eyeballs fell loose and unseeing in his head, and his mouth began to foam. The hair gel, name redacted, forced Kestrel into a kind of hyper-advanced rabid state, made all the more silly by the man's Seven-Squared gut.\n\nLuckily for those he sought to attack, his nervous system was still unable to overcome his considerable size. Jerry Kingman, fry cook of the now infamous burger joint, was able to dodge him by simply walking around the counter until police arrived to take him into custody. While in the town's drunk tank, he continued to attempt to bite his fellows, who simply evaded him by climbing on top of their bunks. Sad as it is, he had to be put down, like the poor, fat, rabid dog he resembled. He didn't fit into the electric chair, and had to be shot by a firing squad. The town newspaper had a field day.", "The Zombie Apocalypse did happen, but there was only ever ONE Zombie in the Whooole planet. How ever did we manage *that*?\n\nThe world's reaction to ROB THE ZOB's discovery was interesting...Confronted with evidence of life after death, most moderate leaders simply stopped treating their holy books literarily and used them merely as moral guidelines. The hardcore ones blew themselves up trying to get inside the Park containing ROB THE ZOB.\n\nthe Park? Yes, so....these old white men spun out multi-billion dollar businesses out of ROB. Theme parks filled with 100s of actors and one live (dead?) zombie - You never knew which one you were gonna get. Live streaming to all corners of the world. Nat Geo exclusives etc.\n\nMultiple crazy hobos and one depressed teenager attempted suicide by Zombie. Writers leveled forests to titillate bored housewives on the complex emotional lives of a Zombie. Lawyers bought their way in front of a camera arguing for undead rights. Kids revealed their deep ambition to be Zombies when they grew up.\n\nYes, there was a Zombie Apocalypse. No, we weren't killed off by shambling meat. There wasn't a mysterious virus that mutated in the festering wounds only to emerge virulent and deadly. It wasn't God's judgement. All ROB the ZOB accomplished directly was a bunch of poorly made movies with these terrible plots.\n\nThe government's initial reaction to all this was surprising - In the interest of better healthcare (without a social healthcare programme - Bloody Republicans), they promised to make all research on ROB THE ZOB public. Many questions on cell repair, memory and free-will were answered in the next decade and improved living standards for everyone across the world.\n\nThen they hit upon the secret of immortality. Rather than squirrel it away and make it exclusive to the rich and powerful, the government showed remarkable enlightenment to make it affordable to all - In exchange for increased taxes and kicking out immigrants, of course. \n\nI guess that's what happens when you let the govt take over - The world went to shit. \nFirst we killed off all the animals to feed the 12% population growth rate. Then we stripped off all the plants like locusts, relying on machinery to provide the necessary oxygen. Finally, with most other life gone, we turned on each other. \n\nThe Zombie Apocalypse did happen. It's just that the Zombies weren't the Undead. \n\n\n\n\n\n", "\"Okay folks, to your left, is the only known Zombie in existence.\" \n\nAnnounced he guide as his hands directed us to his right and our left.\n\nMoans and shuffling could be heard as it walked towards the bars.\n\n\"Muuuaaaaarrrrr\"\n\n\"Do not fear folks, you are in no danger as it is properly restrained within it's cage. Let us keep moving, next up are the Lions, blah blah blah.\"\n\nThe guides voice seemed to slowly become incoherent as my mind lost focus. I stood there wondering if the Zombie was capable of thought, if it was trapped within it's own body. I barely even noticed my parents tugging on my arm and dragging me to the next exhibit.\n\nSeveral hours later. \n\nWith assistance from my good friend Google, I had located a Zombie-Rights activist group. People for Ethical Treatment of Zombies, PETZ for short. They were a splinter group from PETA. My mind kept flashing back to the caged Zombie, poor thing was never fed human brains much less given a choice to die. I felt that I had to do something, anything.\n\nLike all activist groups, we planned a heist. Something that would make the news. Make our cause known!\n\nFast forward several weeks, it's 4AM, the guards are knocked out and laying on the ground near the penguin exhibit. Funny thing is, we didn't do it. And I could have sworn I saw four penguins leave the Zoo with a rocket launcher.\n\nBack to the story, we grabbed the keys of a guard and popped the lock on the cage door, followed by the chains around the poor thing's neck. This is where we went fatally wrong. One of the girls insisted on hugging the Zombie on account of how chubby and cute he seemed. \n\nFor the first time, the Zombie that was too slow to catch anyone, just had food come to him. Not too long later, New York was under siege. Zombie siege.\n\nAnd that children is how the Zombie apocalypse started.\n\n\n\n", "\"What's that smell?\"\n\n\"What sme--Oh, beurgh, yah, come on.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"Upwind, no time to explain.\"\n\n\"No need to shove, I'm moving.\"\n\n\"Yeah but so is he.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Our Jason, the only zombie in Devon.\"\n\n\"You're mad.\"\n\n\"Am not. come up this way and we'll double back.\"\n\n\"I will not!\"\n\n\"Coward?\"\n\n\"Am not!\"\n\n\"Least bit curious?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Want to stay upwind?\"\n\n\"finealrightleadthewayfine!\"\n\n\"Oh ho, so now we're in a hurr--beurk, goddamit, this way!\"\n\n\"heh hoo heh hoo, can't. run. faster.\"\n\n\"'heh heh heh heh. no matter. we. okay. heh. here. look!\"\n\n\"That's Jason?\"\n\n\"In all his putrefacted glory, all 50 stone, give or take.\"\n\n\"It's like that fat suit from that movie died and was dug up again.\"\n\n\"When he first turned, we tried to burn him, that smell? That's the smell of petrol soaked human rotting burned flesh.\"\n\n\"why didn't you just shoot him?\"\n\n\"We tried, we did, shoot him, but he just looked at us with that one eye like we'd run over his puppy and after that nobody had the heart to try it again.\"\n\n\"So you burned him?\"\n\n\"Well it was just the one time.\"\n\n\"Why isn't the news all over this?\"\n\n\"No one told them.\"\n\n\"But that's criminal! He's a zombie!\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Patient zero! The start of a global pandemic!\"\n\n\"Not hardly, have you looked at him? He hasn't even got teeth left.\"\n\n\"What about the constable?\"\n\n\"You mean Sean?\"\n\n\"Alright, yeah, what about this Sean?\"\n\n\"Oh, he reckons that Jason may be a zombie, but he's our zombie and you get used to the smell.\"\n\n\"Used to the smell?\"\n\n\"It's become the smell of home, you see.\"\n\n\"Start living here and I'll miss it, what you imagine?''\n\n\"'Well, yeah, isn't that why you're here?\"\n\n\"I just need directions to the highway!\"\n\n\"Oh, well in that case, Hey fellas! He's not local!\"\n\n\"What are you doing? Take your hands off me, get off me!\"\n\n\"Nothing personal you understand, our Jason may be fat.\"\n\n\"No! Nooo! Help!\"\n\n\"He may be slow.\"\n\n\"Let me go! Aieee!\"\n\n\"but he's ours and well, you understand.\"\n\nTHUNK.", "Martha pulled on Louise’s sleeve, looking up to her with her large doe eyes.\n\n“Mommy, I want to see Steve!”\n\nLouise flinched, resisting the urge to frown. She knelt down to her daughter, placing her hands gently on her shoulders.\n\n“Are you sure honey? Maybe we can look at the giraffes again.\n\nBut Martha shook her head defiantly, pigtails swishing back and forth.\n\n“No way! Everyone else in class has seen Steve except for me!”\n\nLouise sighed. Once her daughter was set on something, she wouldn’t drop it until she got what she wanted.\n\nTaking her by the hand, she led her to railing that looked over a glass enclosure. Inside, a humungous humanoid figure sat, larger than anything else she had seen before. Its skin was gray, ripped in some places. Its eyes were a murky blue, staring aimlessly in space until a noise caused it to move another way.\n\nIt was Steve, the world’s first and only zombie.\n\n“Isn’t he so cute?” Martha said, clapping with joy.\n\nLouise grimaced before answering. The air reeked of decaying matter but people flocked to the highlight of the local zoo. Since it was inducted, business had been booming.\n\n“Sure, honey…”\n\nAt the sound of her voice, Steve swiveled its head in Louise’s direction. It opened its mouth ever so slightly, revealing a series of yellow and red-stain teeth. She could only imagine what they fed him.\n\n“Ah, I see you two have taken an interest in Steve,” a man said, strolling up to them. By his uniform, he appeared to work with the zoo.\n\nLouise shrugged, trying to put on her best motherly face.\n\n“You know kids. They go crazy for Steve.”\n\nThe man nodded, giving a genuine smile.\n\n“Yes, they sure do. We’re just so lucky to have caught him before he bit anyone. You know, with his weight he’s docile as long as we feed him on time and don’t agitate him.”\n\n“Wait,” Louise started. “You actually go in there? Isn’t that dangerous?”\n\nThe man laughed, patting her on the shoulder.\n\n“There’s no need to worry ma’am. Steve is so slow that he couldn’t catch us if we walked. We go in there a few times every day to feed and clean him as best as possible. In fact, we– Little girl, you shouldn’t do that!”\n\nLouise snapped her head back to see Martha climbing the railing. The look on her face when she was called out couldn’t have been more accusing.\n\n“What are you doing?” Louise asked. “Get down before you hurt yourself.”\n\n“But Mommy, I just want to get a better look at Steve. Please?”\n\n“No,” Louise barked. “Get down now.”\n\nWith a face full of sorrow, Louise began to scale down but before she could, a teen bumped her, not even looking up from his cellphone. And in a moment, Louise watched in horror as her daughter plummeted into the enclosure, a shrill scream ending with a dull thud.\n\n“Oh my god, Martha!” Louise cried out, running up to the rail.\n\nFear stopped her heart but to her relieve, she saw her daughter’s small chest slightly heave, a sign she was still alive. The zoo employee had already pulled out his walkie-talkie to inform the others to retrieve her, much to Louise’s relief. In a matter of moments, she would be safe.\n\nBut that was when she noticed Steve.\n\nSometime in the confusion, it had somehow found its way by Martha, standing over with bloodlust in its eyes. Louise yelled but that did nothing to deter it. To make matters worse, the paramedic team was only opening the doors, too far to make a last moment save.\n\nAnd in a soul-crushing second, Louise watched as the first victim zombie apocalypse was ripped to shreds.", "The loud moans echoed around the room, almost sounding like that of a whale.\n\n\"I kind of feel sorry for it\" George muttered, resting his back against the reinforced glass.\n\n\"How long was it out there for?\" George's partner, Will asked.\n\n\"A good four weeks.\"\n\n*Four weeks?* \n\nGeorge glanced into the brightly lit room at the mess of rotting flesh, Harold, one of the lead scientists in biochemical weapons, had unleashed a virus upon himself unknowingly, becoming the worlds first real life zombie. Fortunately for everybody else, Harold became, and still is to this day, the ONLY real life zombie.\n\n\"I'm not sure if I should be consoling it, or killing it\" Will chuckled, glancing at Harold's grotesquely disjointed body, rolls of rotting fat slapped against the floor like waves as it rolled around, unable to stand on its own two legs.\n\nGeorge couldn't help but smirk, remembering the old lady that had called it in. George had heard the call, something about a horrid smell coming from an overweight individual. George assumed that somebody might have passed away when they went to go investigate, and how right he was.\n\n\"You said it couldn't even catch the old lady?\" Will mumbled, struggling to contain his laughter.\n\n\"You should have seen it, you know that big hill at Chester Rd?\" George asked, covering his laughter.\n\n\"Yeah\"\n\n\"Hank managed to roll it down hill\" A chorus of laughter filled the room, drawing the obese zombie's attention.\n\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 10, 10, 19, 43, 68, 217 ]

[ "1426728314", "1426734590", "1426727744", "1426732648", "1426709776", "1426716224", "1426694266", "1426710479", "1426716812", "1426701116", "1426699576", "1426701695", "1426714608", "1426704211", "1426690587", "1426694911", "1426697731", "1426690192", "1426690546", "1426688878" ]

[ "Dorsa stood in front of her mirror wall, stark naked. Glowing lines appeared around her body through the mirror as calculations began flitting across the screen at a rapid pace. Lines grew and shrank as they measured her limbs, took note of her joints, and predicted her outfit of the day. The calculations weren't perfect, because the idea of perfection changed on a daily basis. Sure, at one point, Dorsa's slender long limbs seemed the ideal perfection, but then another human would enter the streets with even longer limbs, or smoother features or bigger eyes.\n\nTheir society was obsessed with not just being perfect, but being the gold medalist of perfection. It was an endless race.\n\nThere were laws however, laws that prevented genetic improvement on the brain. And with those laws came the repercussions. Dorsa's society became laden with Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Endless modifications, and the lack of awareness or willpower to stop themselves.\n\nDorsa refocused her mind on the mirror. She was the perfect height of 5 foot 7\", and had the perfect shade of glowing skin. She almost felt like a unicorn, because her idea of perfection was outdated already. But it was her job to not fall into the same patterns as her brethren. A window popped up in the mirror next to her reflection, a series of color schemes, and at the top of the window 5 schemes blinked as the computer factored in the lighting of the day and the weather. It even factored in the average of the collective mood of society and how they'd aptly respond to colors that day. Her choices were *Sunset, Lilac Fields, Tuscan Oasis, Pastel Aurora,* and *Shimmer Shells.* Dorsa pressed her hand over *Lilac Fields*, and stepped back to see the chosen items in the mirror float over her body. Her fluffy cropped hair became a dusty purple, and the clothing various shades of white and dark grey. She was wearing a blazer that was a deep gray and a slim fitting white dress that exposed just enough of her long legs to still garner looks in the streets.\n\nDorsa stepped away from the mirror, the clothes materializing on her, along with her hair color change. She grabbed her designer briefcase and stepped out of her apartment. Every wall in the hallways of her building were covered in mirrors, shiny ads placed at the perfect height to impose changes on the faces of those who walked by, telling them things like *\"Look at those wrinkles! Come now to Bornica's Beauty to get the smoothest skin technology can offer.\"* and *\"Feeling on top of the world? Don't worry, we can help you find something you need to improve!\"*\n\nDorsa ignored the ads as usual, making her way to her work building where she will spend the rest of the day with patients who have gone too far in their mission for the perfect look. Necks that have been stretched too far, eyes that have been made too big, and even those who have records in the system for illegal modification of the brain. She had to show these people their minds were imperfect, and the real perfection is finding peace with in themselves. She entered her building, a sleek silver skyscraper with the motto that read over the front doors, *\"When everybody's perfect, no one is.\"*", "Mr. Brooks posted the scores again. Few even glanced up at the rows of perfect scores. I didn't care. The teachers did really teach anymore, we all just read the books once. It only took a few minutes and we had mastered a new skill. To think in the past it took someone a lifetime to learn things we all know by the end of middle school. Our lives where so long now and we could do so much but it was hard to call any of us driven. We waited for Mr. Brooks to speak class was almost over and still we didn't have the last assignment for the day. At last he stepped up to the board and began to write \"WHAT MAKES YOU DIFFERENT?\" under that \"write a statement answering this question. For the first time there where some confused looks on peoples faces. I wondered as I looked around the room, Was I different? We all looked about the same, we all passed every test. I could sing in any tone, never miss a target, but so could everyone. A few students wrote one simple statement and started to turn it in. \"I'm not\" I stared down at my paper as others began to leave. Then I wrote down the only thing that came to mind \"I can break the rules.\" I stared at the paper for a while. I heard that voice in my head that shook me all the time. \"You shouldn't tell him.\" Something told me to go forward. I looked around everyone was gone. I took the paper up and dropped it on his desk. I started to leave when I heard a laugh from behind me. \"So at last someone who can stand out\" I stopped and turned. \nHe handed me a paper \"Tomorrow you report to building 7\" I headed home. So tomorrow I would find out what happens in building 7. ", "He knew he looked just like every other man who had applied for the job. Chiseled jawline, perfect full hair, a body that once only belonged to those who worked for years. Yep, he was just as perfect as everyone else. \n\nThis job was too important to lose though. He needed an edge, a way to set himself a part from the rest of the pack. Scanning the room he saw a group of three guys all trying to impress the perfect secretary with feats of strength or usage of great wit. However, none could be outdone as they all possessed the same skill set and ability.\n\nSuddenly an idea formed in the back of his mind, an idea so knew and unique it was quite possibly revolutionary. Ryan stood up, wen't over to the receptionist, and asked \"H-how long is it going to be?\"\n\nThe secretary sat in awe of this lone wolf. Was she possibly hearing things? No, she was perfect. She had heard it correctly; that man just stuttered! She picked up the phone and pressed a few buttons, said some hushed words, and motioned Ryan through the doors.\n\nHis lack of perfection had paid off! That slight slip up had made him noticeable, though good or bad he didn't know. Walking past the group of men he heard them whispering to one another, about what they had just seen. \n\nBefore Ryan slipped through the doors one of the guys dropped a stack of papers and there were a few gasps. Another man tried to drop a pencil but he just couldn't and began sobbing while running out the door.\n\nRyan had just started a new type of competition that the world had never seen in years. The times were changing and he had set them in motion." ]

[ 2, 2, 7 ]

[ "1426782794", "1426786318", "1426779929" ]

[ "My big toe encountered a dining room chair, and I crumpled to the ground. The pain almost made me open my eyes. It would have been a critical mistake. \n\nThe first rule of home invasion is this: don't be seen. \n\nThe second of home invasion was unique to me, as far as I knew: keep your eyes closed.\n\nIf I can't see them, they can't see me. \n\nFor reals. It is, like, magic or something.\n\n\"Hey, kitty!\" My girlfriend's mom calls from the living room. \"Get off them chairs and come over here.\"\n\nI whisper a thank you to whatever god decided to let the Jone's have a clumsy cat. Then, I push myself up and navigate my way to the bottom of the stairs. I stand, waiting until I can hear where Mr. Jones is. I learned this trick the hard way. One day, we ran into each other on the stairs. I can still hear him know.\n\n\"Where the fuck? Where the fu--- err... where did you come from, Mark?\" His breath was so saturated with gin and tonic that I probably could have lit it on fire. \"I coulda sworn that you weren't here when I was comin down the stairs. Umm...well...say. Aren't you here studying a bit late?\"\n\nI had to excuse myself, and head home. I was lucky that night. Julie was sure pissed. But at least Mr. Jones didn't know what I was up to. Of course, it wasn't everyday that Mr. Jones won the local bowling league. And if he ever found me sneaking around his house while sober...let's just say, it wouldn't be him that was stumbling around that night.\n\nAnyway, it never took too long for the Jones' to start yelling at each other about one thing or another. So, I didn't have long to wait. \n\n\"Hey, Dale, you comin down here? *Dancin with the Stars* is comin on!\"\n\n\"Woman! Don't you tell me what to do. 'Sides, I am already here. Just gettin us some ice cream, is all!\"\n\nNice.\n\nI made it into the stairwell, and then opened my eyes and rushed up the stairs. \n\nJulie's door was open a crack. I smiled. I loved it when she me easy access, and so did she. I reached the door, closed my eyes, and pushed it open. \n\nI walked into the room as quiet as possible. I removed my clothes, holding onto them until the moment I opened my eyes. \n\n\"Its NAKED TIME.\" I said as loud as I dared, jumping onto her bed erection-first.\n\nShe was already waiting for me, nude under her blankets. She let out a soft sequel as I landed.\n\nAnd then, we proceeded to get down down to it -- as only teenagers can.", "Sometimes mommy brings people home with her. I don't know them. Sometimes they are nice to me, but most of the time, they don't seem to notice me. But a few times, the men have been really mean to me and mommy. They say mean things to her, and hit her sometimes. It makes her sad, I can tell, but she doesn't cry. Sometimes she and the men go into her room and make noises like they are hurting her, but I never go inside.\n\nOne day one of the men hit me. It hurt a lot, and it made me scared. But I knew exactly what I needed to do. I ran to my closet and hid inside of it.\n\n\"Oh my god, Jimmy are you okay? Jimmy?\"\n\nShe opens the door and looks inside, but doesn't reach for me.\n\n\"Jimmy, where are you?\"\n\nI keep my eyes closed and think to myself in the dark.\n\n*I can't see you, you can't see me.*", "\"I don't know when it began. But I'll never forget when I first noticed it.\"\n\nHe sat across the table staring back at me. Breathing through his mouth. He always looked stupid when he did that. \n\n\"What are you talking about?\" he drawled. \n\nI moved on. \"I was nine. I wanted to play basketball but the boys wouldn't let me. One of them pushed me but I hit him square in the nose--which he didn't take kindly to. Five of them chased after me. Cornered me. As they came in close, I turned away.\"\n\nHe stared back with a blank look on his face. \"And then what?\" \n\nI shrugged. \"Nothing happened. I curled up, ready for them to start hitting me... but nothing. Until I heard one of them ask where I went. So I opened my eyes and saw them all looking in different directions. But once I saw them, they noticed me again. They ran at me a second time but this time I closed my eyes and ran straight at them.\"\n\nHe leaned forward, placing both elbows on the table. \"...and then what?\" His mouth hung open. Like a cow's. \n\n\"Bumped into them but I got away again.\"\n\n\"They didn't catch you?\"\n\n\"They couldn't *see* me.\"\n\nBefore he could respond, I lifted my hands up and slowly covered my eyes. I heard him gasp. Most people gasp when I first show them. \n\n\"Wha-where'd you--?\" I uncovered my eyes again. He was pressing back into the seat, recoiling from me. \"What... *are* you?\"\n\n\"I don't know\" I admitted . \"But I often wonder what happens when I sleep.\"", "I know I'm running out of time, hopefully you read this and can find me.\n\nIt all started at my 8th birhday. My mom had rented a shelter at a local park. It was the first warm day in April, sun shining, green buds covering trees, and a slight breeze. The lake had a few boats, but it was still to cold to swim. Mom had spent all week preparing games for me and ten of my friends. We had a scavenger hunt, followed by an archery contest using a bow and rubber tipped arrows, and finally a pinata. It was shaped like a donkey with a red saddle and a goofy grin.\n\nEverything was going wonderfully. Mom had just finished tying a knot to hold the pinata up and called me over. \"Okay, everyone stay back, were going to spin Chris around, but first,\" She pulled out a red bandana that I'd used in my Wild West bank robber costume last Halloween. She continued, \"we need to make sure there's no peeking.\" She began tying the bandana around my head. \"Okay honey, can you see anything? Is it too--?\"\n\nShe screamed. If we'd been indoors the echoing would've been deafening, but outside it just spread and spread. I immediately pulled off the bandana. \"What?\" Everyone was staring at me. \n\nI don't know what happened or how I did it, but my mom later confided in me that I had disappeared right before her eyes. Simply vanished. I thought it was a joke at first, but each time I put on the bandana, I'd pop out of existence. I bumbled around and would bounce into people, but they didn't seem to feel it. I could feel my way around and pick things up, but they would apparently vanish as well.\n\nMom and Dad freaked out, which all things considered is appropriate. There were tests and examinations. This went on for years, until I decided I'd had enough. I closed my eyes and walked away. \n\nI don't know how to control it, whatever I can do, but when I'm not looking you can't see me. I snuck home and left a note for my parents telling them that I didn't blame them, but couldn't stay anymore. In the following months I lived on the streets, stealing food by disappearing, trying to avoid people. I was happy enough, just not being under constant observation. That is until a few weeks ago.\n\nI was hiding out in an electronics store for the evening. I was watching an old Chevy Chase movie while relaxing in a recliner the store had setup for tired customers. It was around 2 am when I heard a loud crashing sound from the back of the store. I took my popcorn and went to investigate. I peered through the circlular windows on the doors leading to the warehouse. Three individuals in ski masks were throwing boxes into the back of a large, white delivery van.\n\nI walked into the warehouse non-chalantly. \"Excuse me, do you know where the bathroom is?\"\nOne of the shouted, \"Oh shit security!\" \nThe biggest one said, \"No it's not you idiot, does that look like a security guard?\"\nI threw some popcorn in my mouth. \"I don't think that stuff belongs to you. Actually I'm certain of it.\"\nThe big one moved my way menacingly, \"Listen smart ass, if you don't want to get your ass kicked you'd better---what the? Where--?\"\n\nI blinked out of existence and started running towards him. I guesstimated my steps and opened my eyes, appearing out of nowhere and slamming into him. We both tumbled to the ground. I shut my eyes again and jumped up. I did a reverse blink to get my surroundings, the other two were looking down at their buddy completely confused. I moved behind where I believed the second one would be. A quick peek and I gave a sharp kick to his knee causing him to drop to the ground.\n\nI was starting to feel confident. I'd never really used my power to help people before. I'd always just been trying to survive. This felt satisfying. At least until the third guy came charging at me. I was off balance from the kick and he tackled me to the ground. He was on top of me flailing with his fists. My skull cracked into the cement floor a few times with a sickening wet smooshing sound. He had me pinned and I heard the other two getting up.\n\nI began blinking rapidly as I tried to cover my heard from his punches. I'm not sure what happened, but it must've created a creepy strobe light effect as I popped in and out of existence right before him. He let up just long enough to hear the sirens. The other two yelled at him to get in the van and they took off. \n\nI coughed up some blood as I curled up into a ball on the cold cement floor relieved I was alive. I didn't stick around for the police. I didn't want to go back to a lab. I thought about how dumb that was of me and was glad it was over Or at least I thought it was. \n\nThe thing about head injuries is that it's like rolling a dice with a thousand sides. Sometimes nothing at all will happen, sometimes you'll die. Me though? Those several smacks into the concrete did something much worse. The next morning I woke up still sore. I streched and tried to blink away the morning fuzziness, except it wouldn't go. I rubbed my eyes and the world was still fuzzy. Everything far and near had wavy lines, no real focus.\n\nIt's been a couple days now and it's only getting worse by the day. My eyesight is going. I can feel it fading to darkness and soon I'll be gone with it. I don't want to go back to a lab, but I don't want to be alone. Please come find me.", "As far as I know, I have not always been a superhero. When I was four, playing hide-and-go-seek with my dad, for instance: crouching in a corner and closing my eyes didn't work. It came to me sometime later in my life. But I can't say precisely when, or why, since it needs such a curious confluence of elements to discover by accident: the desire to conceal yourself, and the insane conviction that wrenching your eyes closed as tightly as you can will achieve the concealment. It only works when I want to hide, after all. This happened to me on my nineteenth birthday under circumstances I would rather not recall. \n\nIf that was the full extent, though, it would have been roundly useless for most purposes. It's hard to accomplish anything, noble or nefarious, if you can't see what you're doing. But a loophole does exist. If I unfocus my eyes so that things become blurry, I also become blurry. I become a smear of color, unidentifiable except in the broadest of terms: white-ish, probably female, perhaps slightly slight of build, wearing blue (or was it seafoam green?) -- and so on. No person or camera lens can make a positive ID. \n\nI guess I have a duty. To bust drug lords or break open spy rings or whatever else needs doing re: war on crime. After all, I'm a superhero. I could foil any number of plots, keeping my eyes all crossed and dizzy in the pursuit of justice, closing them tight and running off blindly whenever I need to make a tactical retreat. But that's a lot of work. By definition thankless work, at that. Plus \"Myopia Woman\" just doesn't have a great ring. \n\nSo I'm a superhero who robs banks. \n\nSupervillain? That sounds so harsh, though.\n\nMy methods are impeccable. What I do is, I go into a bank with a gun and I say give me all your money. They can't see the gun very well because I'm holding it, but they can see the holes the buckshot makes in the wall, and god can they hear it, too. And plus now I have a reputation. The rumors fly. I'm an irradiated mutant. I'm a rogue government agent who made off with a prototype cloaking device. I'm the biggest mass delusion in human history, the vomited innards of a Jungian collective subconscious overloaded by our postmodern condition. I'm God. I'm the devil. I'm using a complicated array of mirrors and lasers. I'm a physicist using portable black holes to warp spacetime in my vicinity. &c. \n\nIt doesn't matter what the public theorizes. The truth doesn't matter that much either. I have my money and that's enough for me. And now I have a name way better than the one I would have come up with on my own. Let's hear it for the vague blur." ]

[ 2, 2, 3, 3, 6 ]

[ "1426901165", "1426907474", "1426893636", "1426896527", "1426890868" ]

[ "\"Hey there twin! Long time no see... like... since birth. How have you been?\"\n\nI was trying to keep calm, and I told the funniest thing I could think of, with a face looking like that thing my kid calls \"bad pokerface\". He said, \"Wow, that's so accurate that it's creepy\", with the exact same creeped-out bad pokerface.", "The long narrow corridor stretched out before me. For some reason, today of all days, it seemed to take forever to get to room 413. \n\nI glanced down at the patient's chart and read over his history. \n\n\"Hallucinations, dissociation with reality,\" I let out a long winded sigh. \n\n\"Why do I always get the crazy ones before the end of my shift?\"\n\nAfter what seemed to take 10 minutes, I finally arrived at the patient's door. I planned to do a simple interview. Enough to get some basic info. \n\nI used the ID scanner and the door clicked, allowing me to pull the cold steel handle. Inside the room was... Me? No... It couldn't be. \n\n\"Hello Derrick,\" the man said in a calm voice as he sat on the stiff hospital bed. \n\n\"Take a moment,\" he shifted to an Indian style position on the bed, \"I know this will be strange for you.\"\n\nI blinked a few times, and rubbed my eyes. I haven't been getting a lot of sleep recently. Maybe I was the one hallucinating? \n\n\"We don't have much time so I'll try and make this quick. You trust yourself, yes?\"\n\nI was still in awe, trying to wake up from some dream. \n\n\"I need a response. Please nod your head if you agree.\"\n\nI complied and nodded my head.\n\n\"Good, so you'll trust me then. Now,\" he, or I, reached out towards me, \"our chart please.\"\n\nI handed him the chart, and quickly scrambled back towards the door. What the hell was going on.\n\n\"I'm sorry I had to do things this way. It wasn't my intention but unfortunately things have changed from the original plan.\" He used the pen to draw two circles on the back of the chart. It resembled a Venn diagram. \n\n\"I am you. However, I reside here,\" he tapped on the circle to the right. \n\n\"You reside here,\" he tapped the other one. \n\n\"At this point in time, our dimensions are crossed. Meaning, we're able to cross over. It doesn't last long, but at this point in time the dimensions affect each other. Something big is about to happen here, and it'll result in negative consequences for my world. I'll need your help stopping it.\"\n\n\"H-How?\" I finally stammered. \n\n\"Simple,\" he, or I, reached into his pocket and pulled out a small spherical orb. It resembled a marble. \n\n\"Take this and place it on the roof of the Lavene Bank building. It's the tallest building in this city, right?\" \n\nI nodded.\n\n\"Good. You need to leave now if you're going to make it. Please hurry.\"\n\nHe handed me the marble and sat calmly back down on the bed. \n\n\"We're all counting on you! Or, I guess I should say me. Don't let us down, yeah?\"\n\nI spun on my heel and ran through the corridor. Was I crazy? \n\n\"Derrick! What are you doing out of your room?\" An orderly called out behind me. \n\n\"Room?\" \n\n\"I swear, you always find a way.\" He walked closer to me, blocking my path. He looked familiar. \n\n\"No, I work here remember? I have my ID right her--\" I couldn't find it. In fact, I wasn't even in uniform. I was wearing what other Derrick was. What exactly was going on? \n\n\"Let's take you back to your room, Derrick,\" the orderly grabbed my shoulder and began dragging me down the hall. \n\n\"No! I need to stop something from happening! Please!\"\n\nBy the time I was back in room 413 I was tired from all the struggling. I was strapped to my bed by restraints. What the hell was going on? It took me a while to adjust to the darkness but on my ceiling was a very familiar picture. It was the Venn diagram other Derrick drew only the circles were apart. Underneath the drawing was the sentence, \"I'm sorry.\" \n\nThat's when it all made sense. \n\n\nSorry, this is my first ever submission and it was written in between stop lights and traffic. So I rushed near the end, and most of the story. Hopefully it was at least somewhat enjoyable. ", "\"Oh, for fuck's sake. Jemma!\" I slam the door and stalk back to the observation soon. I can hear her sniggering down the hall.\n\n\"You're getting written up for that.\" My threat is not an idle one. If she's gone an dragged some poor sop from temporal into this, heads will roll.\n\n\"Awww,\" she sits up straight in her overly expensive ergonomic chair. Her freckled face is still flushed with laughter. \"Really?\"\n\nJemma is young as far as most staff go, and has a relentless sort of trickster spirit, but she's meticulous and extremely dedicated to her work too. Crossing the room to her station, I sigh rather loudly and toss my datapad down on the desk. Today was supposed to be mundane.\n\n\"If this is temporal-\"\n\n\"Oh no! No, no, no, no, noooo.\" Jemma shakes her head violently, sending her braids flying and smacking herself in the cheeks. Always wondered what hair that long would feel like. I've kept my cropped rather short for most of my life. I've no patience for it. Jemma on the other hand will spend forever braiding or steadfastly lie in wait for hours to execute a prank. \"Do you think I'm stupid? No way. Those bastards have no sense of humour. It's just a clone, Laila, and not even a very good one.\"\n\n\"A clone,\" I confirm with her flatly. There were several clones of me, usually shipped out to colonies as part of the support staff. I'd authorized it myself years ago. Hardly matters to me if they're far enough away that I'll never even meet one. Besides, good genes are valuable.\n\n\"A bad one, defect. It happens.\" Jemma shrugs. Cloning is indeed imperfect.\n\n\"And they just gave this one to you?\" Now that I look at the clone, sitting and waiting in the evaluation room, I can see the slightly dazed look in her eyes. Her identical brown hair forms a soft, frizzy halo around her head. \n\n\"Well,\" Jemma hedges, \"technically she needs an official eval before termination.\"\n\n\"That's just brilliant then, isn't it? You know it's not allowed.\"\n\n\"I know! Dr. Hassan just came on shift though.\" I look up to see the time has turned over past the hour. \"You can hand her off.\"\n\nJemma looks up at me imploringly. Just a joke. Right. I use my foot to give her wheeled chair a shove and she slides away a feet feet, squawking. With her out of the way, I access the comm panel and page Lee to take over the session.\n\n\"C'mon then. It was a little funny, right?\" Pushing herself gently, she rolls back over next to me. \n\n\"Hilarious,\" I glare at her half-heartedly. I want to tease her back, maybe suggest she sign herself up for the cloning regimen, but that would be cruel. Jemma's short, not very physically strong, and far too pale to be properly healthy. She's all intellect and at some point will probably be courted by GeneSec for her ovum.\n\nI open my mouth to snark at her when an unexpected tapping interrupts us.\n\n\"Excuse me? Hello?\" The clone begins tapping the glass more insistently. \"Is anybody here?\"\n\nJemma goes wide eyed next to me and then starts smacking the call button. I can't help but laugh.\n\n\"Just a defect, is she?\" I grab my datapad and turn towards the door. \n\n\"Where are you going?\" Jemma hisses.\n\n\"To explain myself. To myself.\"\n\n\"Laila!\" Now she's going to have to write the whole thing up. There's so much admin for this sort of thing. Serves her right. \n\nI open up the door and watch the face of the clone go slack in shock. Probably dreaming up all kinds of ridiculous explanations involving time travel. This me is younger by a good dozen years and back then I was a lot less jaded and a lot more demanding.\n\nShould be interesting." ]

[ 2, 3, 14 ]

[ "1426947973", "1426982393", "1426951264" ]

[ "You are sixteen, \n\nI am thirty.\n\nI have seen such wondrous things, \n\nDragons in the skin of man,\n\nBattles for a dead king. \n\nYou don't understand right now, \n\nYou won't want to hear the truth,\n\nThat the greatest moments in your life,\n\nWon't be your youth.", "Ngugi,\n\nI will be brief, Ngugi. This is a message from you, from your future self. As proof I am who I say I am - our imaginary friend, in our little house all those years ago, was a tiger, and his name was Solomon.\n\nTime being what it is, I already recieved this message from myself, and know that you won't believe it at first. I know that you will read these words, and not believe me until it's too late. I know that you decide to put this warning out of your mind, that you will present this machine to your supervisors, and you will win a Nobel prize, and you will be rich. I know this because I already did it.\n\nEven as I write, you are already too late. A madman in this, my time, sent information on how to build a virus to his past self, five years before you built this machine and recieved this message. It's too late to stop the pandemic that will start in two years, a pandemic that will claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. \n\nBut it is not too late to stop anyone else from doing it again. \n\nYou will heed my warning late, but not too late. Many will die, but not everyone - and not you. My warning is not for the catastrophe that is to come, but for the one that may follow it. And I know you will listen to me then, because I did. So, when the plague starts, when you see the bodies pile up, heed my words, even as I will heed them. I send this message only because I had to, because I was destined to do it, and because now, years later, I will finally be ready to listen to myself.\n\nAfter I send this message, I will destroy this machine, so no one can ever use it again. And in two years, when you are in my place, you will too.\n\nYour future self,\n\n- Ngugi Mazulu", "He flipped the switch and the entire neighborhood's lights flickered. Whoa. So his invention took a little more power than he had been expecting. Well, that shouldn't actually be so surprising. He was, after all, breaching the fabric of timespace here, even if it was only a submicroscopic fissure just large enough to transmit a message through.\n\nWhat surprised him more though was when the machine immediately begin making chattery tick tick tick noises as the almost goldbergian design he had tinkered together bounced an incoming signal through the pan-linguistic interpreter matrix, and back again through an old salvaged electric typewriter modified to type temporary text on a form of rewritable paper that he had invented in a spare moment last Tuesday. It worked! He stopped to do a little victory dance and chanted, \"It works! It works! (Oh, how I love to say that!) It WORKS!\"\n\nHe could perhaps be forgiven for taking the moment a bit lightheartedly. He had *earned* it. Oh, the complexities he had had to deal with in adjusting for paradoxes. It turns out that not only did the solution involve imaginary numbers, but that in fact, there were numbers that were even *more* imaginary (uh... for lack of a better word, he's think of something more sensible before he published), that were required to resolve the paradoxes by inverting them from grandfather paradoxes into predestination paradoxes, fixing it so that not only was it possible to get a message from his future self, it was actually *required* by the very fabric of history, at which point, it became a foregone conclusion that this was possible instead of simply the pipe dream those small minded fools had assured him it would be.\n\nBut then he got serious. Ahem. This was an important moment. An historic moment. It required dignity. Composing himself, he strode purposefully over to the digital to analog mechanic percussion driven output generation unit (it would sound so much better in the patent paperwork than \"typewriter\" but perhaps he should go with something more conducive to an acronym. Everybody loved acronyms. So scientific.). \n\nHe retrieved the sheet. Read it carefully. \n\n*Attention, me from the past,* it began.\n\n*As you have no doubt noticed, our little invention here is somewhat power hungry. Momentarily, you will short out the entire northeastern power grid as a result of the overload.*\n\nRight on schedule, the power went out and the room was plunged into gloom. Hmm. Frustrating. Well, after all, no progress without sacrifice. He shook his head and took the page to the nearest window so he could use natural daylight from outside to read the rest of it.\n\n*OK, so, obviously, over the next couple weeks, in your spare time, you are now going to go on to invent a revolutionary new power supply. That is smart of me, and I congratulate me on my clever reasoning. I won't spoil the surprise by actually telling me how its done. That would be rude.*\n\n*However, after the first two days, our new power supply becomes unstable. I tell me this now because it will seem less irritating if I'm expecting it. When this happens, we will attempt to brainstorm ways of fixing it. Good so far. I love brainstorming, and I know you do too because you are me.*\n\nHe nodded. That was certainly true.\n\n*There's just one thing I need to warn me about. And it's really, really important. Whatever I do, DO NOT under any circumstances whatsoever 'reverse the polarity'. THAT DOES NOT ACTUALLY FIX THINGS IN REAL LIFE. (Apparently). Good luck!*\n\n\n", "Write down this message. Commit it to paper and keep it close. Commit it to memory. Ensure that you will be able to recall it years from now. Then burn the paper and destroy the machine. Melt it to slag and erase the blueprints. Leave nothing behind. \n\nPlease, do this for your own sake, or you will find yourself walking the same path I, and so many before me, have walked.\n\nTen years ago today I stood where you do. I was instructed to completely and utterly destroy the machine or face ruin. I listened to my own pleas and chose to wait, out of academic curiosity, to learn more. What would a decade of research, my entire twenties sacrificed for the sake of a half-insane concept, mean if I just walked away and showed the world nothing for my effort? I waited, as my pleas grew more desperate. Vague threats of ruin soon gave way to explicit predictions of massive technological leaps that reshaped the world in cataclysmic ways. Each transmission ended with the same message:\n\n“We can never be gods, after all--but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.”\n\nI have no idea how many times I came close to following my older self's instructions. I bought a furnace. I produced several pounds of thermite. I bought a ten pound magnet to completely destroy my hard drive. I planned out exactly how I'd do it: wipe my hard drive, burn my paper documents, then dump thermite on the lot and slag it all. The next year came and went, and I kept planning.\n\nIn the meantime I bought stock in tech companies I'd learned would do well. I started experimenting to see if the information I was receiving was legitimate. Six months in, I nullified gravity within a thirty foot radius of my apartment. A month later, I cut off my pinkie and watched it regrow in minutes. On Christmas Eve, I lit up the sky with a ten mile-high hologram of a Christmas tree.\n\nAs I pumped out patents, private industry and governments rushed to compete for my favor. For the first time in my life I basked in admiration and respect. I founded and sold technological giants, donated billions to charity and had plenty to spare. I became God.\n\nI looked down from my High Earth Orbit station and played with nations. I controlled the means to cure millions of diseases, to remake people in their ideal image in exchange for their life savings. I could deliver immortality. Humans flourished in the farthest corners of the solar system. Massive technological conglomerates fantasized about building a Dyson Sphere around the Sun. \n\nThe machine kept ticking. My older self kept pleading and begging, sending me more and more dire predictions. I no longer respected him as his madness became apparent. He had failed and had destroyed the world. I had learned from his mistakes! I could catapult humanity into the cosmos!\n\nSo many people had trouble coping with progress. At first I saw small protests, pitiful groups of idiots with signs, believing that their words could reshape the world. Nothing I couldn't handle. Protests grew. Nations had trouble accepting the genetic modifications that made them all beautiful and that made space travel possible. They rebelled against the corporations that made their lives blissful and served their every need. They grew fat and lazy and insolent, and modifications were in order.\n\nI distributed beautifully designed viruses across the globe and planetary colonies. Bliss, complete acceptance of my rule followed. Those who were immune became outcasts. They would be corrected soon. Humanity would reach the stars, I would make sure of it. I stood on high and marveled at my kingdom.\n\nThere is no one left now. I am the only one who still dreams, who still feels fear and hope and sadness. I am the God of all mankind, and I am alone.\n\n“We can never be gods, after all--but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.”\n" ]

[ 4, 6, 9, 19 ]

[ "1426965414", "1426969234", "1426980530", "1426972890" ]

[ "my only problem with this is that Hitler lost that war the moment he dragged Russia into it, Russia did more damage to Nazi Germany than the U.S. ever did. it wasn't a question of who would win the war more a question of how much land he would take in the process", "Theres a show called Misfits where a girl goes back in time to kill hitler, but she fails. Instead, hitler finds her cellphone, reverse engineers it, and uses the technology to win the war. It then goes back to present day and shows daily life as ruled by nazis.", "Good thing the resistance eliminated the Third Reich back in 63. The news reported Furher Hitler was traveling around what was once known as Dallas, Texas, only to be shot down while on his motorcade.\n\nThe government pinned the blame on a Jewish man, but we all knew that was continued, and if I may, tiresome at that point, anti-semitism propaganda. No, we all knew deep down it had to be the resistance. The resistance was believed to have been the remainder of the once United States military, although this was never confirmed as they never showed their faces. They chose stealth over glory, I suppose.\n\nLater on that very year, government officials were replaced, and our new leader at the time, with the help of activists, helped to make sure the Jewish people were *free at last*.\n\nIt was a very dark period in our country's history. Fortunately, tyranny never truly lasts as long as there is a resistance.", "Misunderstood the prompt slightly. Sorry.\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nI got onto the monorail, my brunette hair covered up with a wig and my dark eyes disguised with paler contacts. I had assumed a false identity to protect myself, to preserve my craft.\n\nIn my briefcase were so many important things. Memories, dreams from the past, abandoned by so-called progress.\n\nNobody suspected a thing, my false persona slipping under the radar of the guards. Patiently, I waited until the next stop, and dismounted the vehicle, walking past the numerous scarlet banners that hung with undeserved pride on the huge abandoned building, waving somewhat in the gentle breeze. I ducked behind one of them, taking a secret doorway deeper into the reaches of the abandoned building.\n\nI tapped the word \"freedom\" in morse, as was custom.\n\nThe small slat on the door opened, exposing a pair of dark brown eyes.\n\n\"For what do you live and die?\"\n\n\"The Resistance.\"\n\nSlowly, the door creaked open and I entered, promptly removing my wig and contacts to expose my true colors- hazel eyes, brunette hair cropped short, traits labelled undesirable. I then placed the briefcase on the table.\n\n\"I thought you would like these.\"\n\nMy fellow Resistance members ooh-ed and ahh-ed at the contents of the case- a few pieces of \"degenerate\" art, books of which all the copies were thought to be burned, a copy of the U.S constitution, and one more paper that caught the most attention.\n\nA plan so long worked on, thirty years in the making, started even before I was born, a plan that I took so much care to smuggle here, where it would be carried out. \n\nA plan to bring down the Führer.\n", "IT took six decades to form the strength to resist they controlled everything, freedoms defined and histories banned at a global level. The resistance started slowly some graffiti in the corners, a slashed tire a few bolts missing from their machine. Their strength alone defined our weakness they needn't notice such mice. Some of us caved from the doubt we had to watch them for years our lives balanced on secrets. Men of tunnels and sewers costumes and disguise we grew by pain and hunger and ranks swelled and lessons were learned. They couldn't ignore the third blast they couldn't sign off some gas leak or coincidence our time was now on this day.", "This isn't a story but if you liked this prompt there's a fake newspaper that reports as if the south won the American civil war. America sides with Nazi Germany in that timeline and it's pretty awesome. \n\nEdit: I can't find the link", "Braun never left Germany. Never. And thus we all perished in the burgeoning cloud, ashes of the incinerated past commingled with the radioactive birthing-screams of a new generation, the ones spared Hitler's *Hauptbebauungsplan* executed with the ardor that only a dying republic could know - the fury of those backed up against the wall. And they won.\n\nAnd our children's children, growing up in the lengthening shadowland of a future in which we had no influence, pick over the bones of ancestors they barely remember.\n\nWhen I sat in my grandmother's parlor in upper Queens for the last time, my wide-brimmed fedora gingerly balanced on the coat tree in her well-traveled foyer, she held my hand. Told me Billy would be safe in the south, with his mother and in-laws. Only the two of us would perish in the imminent holocaust. Said we would be watching over our progeny in Heaven. She was right, to an extent. \n\nFor I have seen what happens to those after us, and often wonder over sleepless eons of roiling in the aether what might have been, *only if.* What if a rich, golden age of American post-triumphal excess informed a revolutionary consciousness, or some angry uprising borne out of the damage done in the wake of war? But none of that has ever come to fruition. Hitler was, in many ways, an effective king. Certainly his reich never spread to the far reaches of the world, where many morally opposed parties hid in enclaves. So there was peace, a separate peace, but still peace.\n\nI have followed my great-great-grandson's travels in this strange new world. I have seen the many mechanical eyes that watch his path, the probing questions that are asked, the austerity of the Law that is laid upon him. But his step never wavers. He accepts these things as a matter of course, as if documentation of his life were as natural as seeing or tasting. Were we mistaken, that Freedom was synonymous with Life?\n\nI have lost count of the number of times my spirit has orbited Sirius in hot thought, wondering *why* and nothing else. Where does Hitler's body lay? Next to Abijah or Hezekiah? Maybe in a few more centuries, I will scry the answer to this troubling question. But in the interim, I watch as the wounds of war slowly heal in the waters of forgetfulness.", "I know this is in writing prompts, but I really wanted to say this.\n\nThe other day at my school, a holocaust survivor spoke at my school. This was his last public speaking because it has gotten harder as he ages. Anyway, at one point he showed us a picture of a dark haired German lady getting tested to determine whether she her blood was pure German. He told us that if Hitler was here today, unless you were blonde hair with blue eyes you would be enalaved. Most people don't know just how many people Hitler targeted. It wasn't just Jews, there were over 50 different groups of people who were sent to work camps or death camps. Jews, gypsies, mentally ill, etc. He even had forced german doctors to kill any newborn children who were not of perfect health because they were unworthy to live in his Germany.\n\nThe whole event was hugely interesting and at times hard to listen to. The speaker was Alter Weiner, author of From A Name To A Number. I have been to two of his presentations and this time it was harder to listen to. I never really attached the pictures I saw to reality; they were too unbelievable. Giant holes with hundreds and hundreds of bodies overflowing. All the bodies just skin and bone as they had died of starvation. I struggled to hold in my emotions. So much death, so much sadness. I just can't even imagine the tens of millions who died, that is just... So many innocent people. And they all died because of one man. I actually can't comprehend the pure evil and cruelty that lived inside him.\n\nI am not religious, but if there was a devil, I'd have to say one of his many names was Adolf Hitler.\n\nEdit: Hey this kinda could work here if you maybe think of it as an essay in which I share my personal views. So yeah.", "Leon had always showed a fondness for history, it made him proud to be German. Some radicals and hypocrites said Germany had committed atrocities during the Great War of Unification. It was common knowledge that every country involved had at some point, but at least they weren't as bad as what America had done to their own Japanese citizens after they put them in the internment camps, that was the stuff horror was made of.\n\nThe German Unification gave birth to a strong and united Europe. It was German scientists who had sent the first man in space in the 50s, the first man on the moon in the 60s and built the first permanent settlement on Mars a decade earlier. Sure, a lot of American scientists contributed to the effort but they should be thankful, we had granted them immunity from prosecutions after all.\n\nReligion had slowly died out from old Germany first, then from the rest of Europe. Leon had seen some churches when he visited the countries of California and Cascadia in America. They looked just like in the old history books and he thought the locals must have been a little dumb for believing in a magic man in the sky, their God must have not cared for them much if he let Germany obliterate their capital and economic center in a single night.\n\nThe bell rang, pulling Leon away from his fantasies about the German Empire, he had to hurry to go pick up his girlfriend Hannah. He ran out of class and jumped in his hover-car and sped away.", "A Day In My Life\n\nBy Lawrence M. Keizer, machinist, Krupp Shipyards, Portland, Oregon, Fascist States of America.\n\n6:00 A.M.- Wake up to my cheap, limited-range \"people's receiver\" radio.\n6:15 A.M.- Eat a breakfast of eggs and bacon, provided by what I assume was some poor Dutchman when the Krauts looted his stuff.\n6:45 A.M.- Off to work.\n7:00 A.M.- Arrive at work. I work an average of seventy hours a week. Pay's alright, at least compared to the foreign laborers and slaves in Grobbendeutchland.\n9:36 A.M.- Manager went to go get coffee. Look left, look right.\n9:37 A.M.- Relieve self on the band saw.\n9:38 A.M.- Walk away. No one snitches, and it'll remain a case of machinery wear and tear.\n12:10 P.M.- Got to listen to another goddamn appeal from the American Labor Front. Like the U.S. is run by the Boches, the Labor Front is run by the government. It's the last thing we have that's close to a union.\n12:15 P.M.- Winter Relief made us make a donation to help the poor, starving Aryans of Germany. Palmed mine. If that's going to make me be put up on the board of shame for being meiserly, than so be it.\n12:16 P.M.- Lunch. Einpot soup, and bread. Didn't trust the soup, didn't touch the Erstaz bread. Heard the Nazis developed a superpill that has all your vitamins and nutrients. Would trade Einpot for that any day.\n1:22 P.M.- Management called a meeting. Someone drew the Cross of Lorainne on one of the posters. I don't know who did it, and I don't care. Everyone else doesn't, or they either did it or they're worried about what the people who did it will do to them if they squeal.\n6:00 P.M.- Clock out. One day, Strength Through Joy will take enough out of my paycheck so I can afford to tour Italy.\n6:17 P.M.- At home. Make dinner.\n6:28 P.M.- Enjoy feast of Cabbage, Potatoes, and one sausage.\n6:45 P.M.- Relax to some music and television. Reports from Germany. They claim I'd be welcome there due to my last name. But I'm brown haired, brown eyed, and I'm actually a sixteenth boche, if they could wrap their heads around it.\n8:00 P.M.- Curfew. They claim it shuts down rebellion and crime, but it's when I do my best work. No unexpected visits from collaborators.\n8:04 P.M.- It's a simple procedure. Bottle. Gas. Cloth. Cork. The Finns used it. Not that I like them. Anyone who collaborated is going to get it. I hope they're happy with their piece of Karelia.\n8:38 P.M.- Finished. Clean up, take shower.\n8:50 P.M.- In bed.\n\nUnderneath my pillow is a black market Luger in case I hear them outside my room. In my closet is a shotgun if I hear them earlier. In the basement are several Molotov's and two hand-built Stein machine guns, but that's not for home defence.\n\nThey say we're soft. We gave up. With the exception of a few hoodlums, we're all sheep in the field. But they're wrong. I've got guns, friends, and friends with guns. One of these days, all these fascist pigs are going to get stuck. I can hardly wait. In fact, I can't sleep.\n\nCan't sleep for the gun under my pillow.", "*Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles, über Alles in der Welt…*\n\nAs I stood in the city square the loudspeakers blared the national anthem proudly on the bright spring day of April twentieth, twenty fifteen. My feet together, short blonde hair tucked neatly under the black cap I stood upright, head tilted high as to take in the full surroundings. Around me stood hundreds of other onlookers waiting eagerly for the honorary speaker. All in salute, all reverent. \n\n“Mein Gott…” Ana whispered below her breath next to me. Her blue eyes glistened with excitement I was sure. I could not see them, my own transfixed on the man sitting upon the stage. His old body was being wheeled up on the platform to the microphone. Behind him waved the red swastika banner of progress and strength, it’s fierce power displaying to all who stood beneath it the glory of humanity and the Aryan race. \n\nAs the Führer Heinrich Himmler approached the podium, followed by his SS shadow Hans Schweiser, my heart raced. Finally we would hear firsthand about the Weltsführer on the anniversary of his birthday no less. I heard a woman in front of me gasp, and quickly silence herself with her free hand. Neu Berlin frequently got high party officials, or the Reichsführer-SS but never the Führer himself. Schweiser approached the podium and took it. \n\n“Jetzt begrüßen unseren Führer, Hienrich Himmler!“ Hans stepped aside as the aging man moved up to the podium. As he approached, the podium lowered to his level for ease of access. I guessed that this entire ceremony had been designed with Himmler’s age in mind. After all, a one hundred and fifteen year old man could barely make it to the Reichstag these days without some sort of health issue. It showed the power of Aryan genes and technology that a man so old could still command the Reich. \n\nAs he approached there was a noticeable jolt in the podium as he hit the side in his wheelchair, and one of the ten some-odd SS agents all flinched, ready to move to the elderly Führer’s aid. However the old man waved them away and straightened himself out. As he did so I could feel the blood coursing through my veins. \n\n*I should be up there.* I took a deep breath in while thinking. I could see Weiß and Shulz on the stage. Other regional SS officers from my division. *Not down here. Why wasn’t I chosen?*\n\nAna must have heard my sharp breath as I saw in my peripheral vision her turn slightly towards me. The white cap she wore accentuated the soft features of her face perfectly, the golden hair and ocean blue eyes riveting, sucking me in and never letting me go. \n\nI remember how earlier that day we had stood on the balcony, hanging the newly washed flag for the holiday. As I had placed it up, she had taken hold of my waist, her warmth soft hands permeating the thick cloth of the uniform. \n\n*Ich liebe dich.* She had whispered to me.\n\n*I love you too.* I had whispered back. We knew what it meant to speak English on a holiday. \n\nAs I heard the microphone crackle we both turned back. The Führer had begun to speak. The flags fluttered behind him as the excitement in the air was so think it tasted of metal. \n\nHis arm and shot up in the air in honorable salute. So did ours. \n\n“HEIL HITLER!” The wrinkled Führer exclaimed proudly. \n\n“HEIL HITLER! SIEG HEIL UNSEREM FÜHRER!” The crowd shouted in unison as the final notes of Das Deutschlandlied played out over the broadcast system.\n\nAs the old man noticeably smiled the stage exploded into flame, a white hot light erupting from underneath, tearing it apart. As the blast hit me the last thing I saw before I blacked out was the look of shock and terror on my Ana’s face, the reflection of the fire reflected in the glistening blue of her eyes. \n\n-- *Thanks for reading! I'm always looking to get better, so let me know what you think! Disclaimer: This is a fictional story, written from the perspective of a Nazi. Not at all reflective of any personal views on my part.* -- " ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 6, 7, 7, 11, 13, 84 ]

[ "1426984791", "1426985282", "1426988580", "1426979087", "1426983259", "1426981917", "1671401222", "1426980717", "1426982571", "1426983381", "1426973620" ]

[ "I've had beatings before, but this one is the worse by far. The blows kept coming from up above like a slow jackhammer. I kept my forearm up and most of the blows are glancing, but I'm wearing out and he's getting more and more accurate. I can only turtle up so much with this guy on my chest. The weight on my chest is heavy, making it hard to breathe. It feels like I've done fifty wind sprints and all he wants to do is to keep going. I put a few cuts and abrasions on him and thought I knocked him out with the brick I struck him in the head with. Turns out it was only a glancing blow and only served to irritate him even further. We've been at this for five minutes. We're both sweating, bleeding, and panting. We're a pile of human misery, me more so, but it's clear that only one of us is going to walk away from this. \n\nDifferent thoughts randomly go through my mind. Usually I'm trying to think what my next few steps are or trying to think of a Plan B if Plan A doesn't work out. I think of the time when asked my first crush out and I stammered and stumbled my way through that. Next comes the cringe worthy time I was in college and spreading peanut butter on myself in the middle of class. I wasn't even drunk, but WTF was I thinking? I remember a man that came to me a few years back saying that I was granted a super power and that when the time came, I'd know and know how to use it.\n\n I get a flash of clarity and know that I have the power of rearranging atomic structures to any configuration I want. I can telekinetically move molecules with astonishing accuracy. My heart would drop if weren't trying to beat out of my chest with this fella trying to rip it out as well. Meanwhile in my moment of clarity, this guy has gone from punching me to trying to choke me. I knock off one hand and get my chin down as far as I can. We're playing handsies with each other with his loose hand and mine. We're both grunting trying to gain an edge over the stalemate that's been the story of our very short but very violent history. I look at his neck and see it pulsing. I lock focus with the pulsing area where I think his left carotid artery is and begin to take strip away the molecules. There is nothing at first, and I'm getting worried that this is it. I then see a cut open fifteen seconds later and I try to concentrate harder. It looks like the tissue is just rotting away like one of those time elapsed movies where you see insects devouring a body over the course of a week. I keep going and then a small bright red spray pops with it getting bigger and stronger. The wound is spraying in rhythm with his heart. He realizes it's him that's bleeding and not me and get up off me as quick as he can. I stumble up and crack him as hard as I can with a devastating right hook straight to the temple. He still has his hand on his neck when he's knocked out cold. The thought comes to me that he deserves to bleed out here on the street. If it were anyone else, there would be a homicide with a victim and him as a perpetrator. I take a few breaths in, and my lungs are still screaming, but they are getting quieter with each full breath. I look at the spot where I had just de-materialized his carotid artery and focus in on it again. It takes about the same time to close the wound as it did to create it. I want to say that I'm guessing that the newly form tissue will hold, but I already know that it will. \n\n He isn't dead. The beating I gave him in our fight really isn't going to kill him either, but with as much blood as he lost, he'll be as meek as a kitten until he gets some blood back in him. I call 911 and report an assault at the intersection of Fifth and Washington. I declare a citizen's arrest while still panting and losing the phone from the blood that's making it slippery. I look at the guy that just tried to kill me and keep thinking that it's an easy choice but hard work to be a decent human being.\n", "Every day I see him. He is weak and slow. He is confused. He doesn't know what day or year it is, or why he lives where he does. I greet him every day, and he greets me back, but he never recognizes me. I change his clothes, I bathe him. I feed him. I clean him. I calm him. I do not love him, though. I do not know him. You can't love someone without knowing who they are, and you can't know who someone is if they don't know themselves. Of course, some of the nurses claim to love him, claim that he is such a sweetheart and would be so sad if he died, but none of them mean it. How could they? There is nothing to love, after all. He is a shell of a man, betrayed by his own deteriorating mind. Would anyone truly be sad if he left us, or would they rejoice in knowing that he no longer suffered, no longer had his soul tethered to the immense weight of his decrepit body. \n\nI know that I would rejoice. I know this because I have seen it. There have been five people that I watched ascend from debilitating illness to spiritual transcendence. There have been five people I used my gift to help. My gift that was given to me only two years ago. For the past month I have considered using my gift to help him, to let him experience transcendence. Today I see it is time.\n\nI walk into his room late at night. He is awake, as he usually is, watching his television blankly. I greet him as I do. He looks at me, feigning familiarity, but he doesn't know me. I ask him how he's doing, as I do, and he responds as he does. But this time I ask him a new question; one I have asked five times in my life, to five different people. I ask it a sixth time:\n\n\"Are you ready to go home?\"\n\nSuddenly, but not instantly, his forced smile turns to a look of shock. He is remembering who he is, where he is, who I am. The sudden surge of memories of a life forgotten is too much for him to bear and he begins crying, sobbing.\n\nHe asks me why I did this. He asks why I have allowed him to see himself in this state. I explain how my gift offers clarity and release. Not one or the other, but both. It allows me to see when both are needed, and I ask if it was correct. He looks at his hands. He looks at the gown he wears, and the bed he is bound to. He looks at the solitary picture on his wall; the one of him and his wife decades ago. He looks at her with longing at first, then anger, then a smile. He turns back to me and answers my original question, saying that he is ready. I nod my head and stop using my gift, as I do. He lies back and closes his eyes, as he does. He goes home, as five have done.", "\"Silence.\", the voice was a cold and synthetic. What the creature actually said was unknown but the translated command was clear.\n\nI stood in a group with 20 other humans. Two massive Cherrelians stood beside a smaller female one. Both were armed with weapons that were probably heavier than I was.\n\nThe female tapped a device and pointed at a middle aged man and a young girl, probably around 11, whom I am sure was his daughter. An unintelligible stream of noises came from the Cherrelian to which each of the guards grabbed the father and daughter separately. \n\n\"To the mines.\" the man was informed.\n\n\"Sterilization.\" the other guard informed the young girl.\n\nThe man screamed and broke free of his captors grip. He only made it a few steps before the world went white with the flash of a gun. Most of his torso was vaporized leaving only his lower half to collapse on the ground. The girl was screaming now but fell silent as the female Cherrelian injected her with something.\n\nThe female stood before me now. \n\n*Mines. I could do that. It is hard work but I could do it. Just don't send me to slaughter.*\n\nShe produced a syringe and jabbed it in my arm with little warning. The vial quickly filled with blood. She removed the needle and emptied the contents into the device she carried. It was just a standard health check. They wanted the mining population to stay free of illness. Anyone with a contagion was sent to slaughter. I waited.\n\nOne of the guards coughed.\n\nI suddenly remembered a strange encounter I had in the city nearly a year ago before the Cherrelian invasion. A man approached me and said \"I'm giving you a great gift, a 'super power' if you will. I cannot tell you what it is, but when the time comes, you will know what to do.\" He slapped a patch on the back of my hand that was covered with what looked like blood. I was angry and tried to pull it off but could not; it seemed to be covered in superglue. My fingers on my left hand started to burn a little. I ran into a coffee shop nearby and raced into the washroom. With some effort I removed the patch.\n\nThe skin had turned white and numb. I went to the police and a doctor but was told by both that there was nothing they could do. Blood work turned up nothing. \n\nI received a letter in the mail a few days later. It was hand written with clear and prophetic instructions: \"Stay alive. You're the only one I could find in time that was a match but it will take a long time to mature and be more adaptable. You just need survive.\"\n\nNext week the invasion started. That was 6 months ago and 5 months before the full surrender of the human race.\n\nThe second guard started coughing. The first doubled over and tore off his mask revealing a slow stream of blood coming from his nose. The female's handheld device remained silent but that couldn't be said for her. She was on the ground coughing and chocking on vomit. My fellow captives seized the opportunity. Two larger men pulled a weapon free of one of the guard's feeble grasp and fired it. Though the shot was badly aimed, it still burned half of the guard's head off which proved effective. The second one struggled to try and get up but a dozen people jumped on him hitting him with rocks, fists, and anything else at hand. He disappeared under the writhing mass of humanity and stopped moving shortly thereafter.\n\nNobody needed to deal with the female. She lay unmoving in a pool of her own blood. Her right hand, the one she used for the syringe on me, appeared as though it has been covered in acid. Her face has invisible under a red liquid mask.\n\nSeventeen sets of eyes turned toward me. Somehow I had been made into a biological weapon so potent that even the brief exposure of a tiny amount of blood had lead to the death of these three Cherrellians. I picked up the syringe from the ground which still contained a few milliliters of what ran through my veins. I don't know why the thought came to me but I squirted the contents into my hand and ran a finger through the macabre paint and drew it across the hand of the nearest person. She didn't protest and I looked up to see every person lined up ready to be drawn on.\n\nEvery person massaged and flexed their hands where my blood had contacted them.\n\nI said the only thing I knew for sure what to say, \"I'm giving you a great gift, a 'super power' if you will. You know what it is, but when the time comes, use it. For now, you just need to survive.\"\n", "\"All right, hand out your phone.\"\n\nYou ever felt a knife against your back? Pressing in like it's a boner poking you between your vertebrates?\n\nIf feels weird. Like a boner poking you between your vertebrates. It's a bad way to feel.\n\n(Unless you're into that, which is fine. Live and let live.)\n\n\"It's cool man, it's cool,\" I turn around slowly and I give him the phone. It's a shitty phone anyway.\n\nHe takes it. Punches me to the ground (which I felt was a little gratuitous, but whatever) and starts walking away.\n\nMy head hits the ground and, like something activated inside, I remember:\n\nMy dick pics.\n\n(Now, I won't give you context as to why a guy who barely talk to girls has dick pics on his phone. I will just say \nthat the dick on the pics is mine, and that my face is exposed in them -- the pics, not the dick --, and that the situation that prompted those \npictures to be taken involved some marijuana, tequila and a seriously convincing Malaysian fat guy pretending to \nbe a nineteen year old Texan girl on the internet.)\n\nI have to get them back.\n\n\"Sir\", I say, feeling that's a bit of a silly way to refer to a mugger. \"Sir, could you pleas --\"\n\nHe turns back. I shut up.\n\nHe walks back. I shit my pants.\n\n(not really, but you know...)\n\n\"Are you trying to start a problem here, buddy?\"\n\n\"No. No problem. It's just that I have... some.. Could you delete... I... Uh...\"\n\nIt's very hard to put words together when the other end of the conversation is opening a butterfly knife in front of your eyes.\n\n\"Can I just delete some pics from the phone?\"\n\nAnd this is when he stabs me in the belly and turns around and walks away.\n\nI fall to the floor.\n\n*Dear God what an asshole.*\n\n*I wish his head would explode.*\n\nLet me explain to you what happens when a human head explodes:\n\nA person is, for example, walking down an alley with a butterfly knife in his hands, and then the head explodes.\n\nThe head is not the interesting part. It exploded. That's it. A ball of meat and blood and bones.\n\nBut the body, man. For a while, there, the signals have already left the brain, and the body keeps doing what it \nwas told to do, before the head went *CABOOM*.\n\nThe man walked with no head for a couple of steps, before falling to the ground. Which was absolutely AWESOME.\n\nI look at the scene in front of me, in understandable panic. (It was't until later that I concluded that the scene was, in fact, AWESOME).\n\nThe panic that lasted exactly eight and a half-seconds. Then I realized I can explode people's heads with my mind. (The AWESOME part started somewhere around here).\n\nA rat passes by me. I try it on him.\n\n*I wish this rat's head would explode.*\n\nHe explodes. My eyes are wide, and I smile. \n\nIt takes another twenty-two seconds for this power to completely go over my head and I start laughing like a \nmaniac.\n\nI get up, holding my belly, and I start limping my way out of the alley.\n\nI gotta go to the hospital. Get myself stitched up.\n\nThen I'm gonna go visit some people.\n\n\n" ]

[ 1, 2, 14, 51 ]

[ "1427022734", "1427002203", "1426985531", "1426969378" ]

[ "I always liked the library, the smell of books and the soft sound of pages turning. I came to research my English project, reading a book called Metro 2033 or something. Rows of books were high and long, with all the colours of the spectrum. I searched high and low for this book that my English teacher suggested for our related text. He said it was about a nuclear war between the west and the east, and the quest of one Russian man in the metro to save his people. I wasn’t looking forward to reading the book but I liked going to the library so I didn’t mind too much.\nLooking along the endless books something caught my eye, it was an older book with its spine worn down considerably. Its pages were worn with people seemly adding more and more parts to the story. Pen marks covered the pages, editing the plot line and changing the books meaning. I took the book back to the seats and forgot about my English project. I started from the beginning, if that’s what you would call it. The pages were covered in pens of all colours and sizes, like a zoo of pen marks. There were blue glitter pens, black sharpies, even what seemed to be an old ink feather pen.\nI stopped admiring people’s dedication to altering the books meaning and started reading the story, including its somewhat annoying additions. ‘David James Jones was born at Ryde hospital in 1989 on the 4th of May’ reading this my heart stuttered. That was my name and my birthday. It couldn’t be possible that this was me, the books title was ‘To edit one’s life’. It wasn’t possible at all. I brushed this off and continued reading, the further I got into it to more it seemed that this book was about me. The writing in the margins of the pages were detailing what I did differently than the story, everything was detailed down to the time I chose to buy a Toyota instead of a Mazda. \nI was freaking out, how could this book exist, how could people know so much about my life. Why me? I started to get paranoid, I saw people looking at me strange. The librarian was on the phone and looking at me. Why are they looking at me? Their eyes were like small intense flames, heating my whole body with the sustained looks. I got up, my head felt faint and I made my way to the door, people yelled for me but I didn’t turn, I found something. Something strange and I wasn’t going to have it taken away from me. The drive home I felt as if someone was following me, a black car in the distance. It was always there, sometimes disappearing into the rain and fog. It was like a predator hunting its prey, always in the background waiting to strike. I got home fast, my car never driven so fast on such slippery roads before. I felt something grinding while driving and I only now realised what it was. My exhaust manifold had come undone and was grinding against my cylinders. I raced inside, my heart beating outside my chest. When I got inside I found comfort in my warm room, my locked doors and windows giving me a sense of security. I started reading the old book and found the events of today. The writing in the book detailed what had happened, like an autobiography. I continued reading, the book said a knock on my door. I heard a knock. I froze in place, heart beating faster, palms sweaty. I peered through the peep hole. I heard from outside ‘Breach and clear, go, go, go!’ Gas filled the room, my lungs burnt. I looked around, people in swat gear were pouring in, I was forced on the ground and was met with a rifle butt to the face. \nI woke in a secure hospital room, a man in a black suit was standing over me. ‘You’ve seen some things Mr Jones, my heart was again racing, and its every beat I could feel in my head. ‘Things you were not supposed to see’. I said with a weak voice, my throat still irritated by the tear gas ‘What have I done wrong? What was that book?’ The man looked at me, brow furrowed. ‘You are not of this world Mr Jones that book is your life, everything that has happened and everything that will happen is in that book.’ My heart stopped. My stomach dropped. What does he mean I’m not of this world? I’m human, this is just some crude joke. ‘What do you mean?’ I managed to say with a forced expression of wonder. What followed was this unknown man showing me that I was not of this world, I was from a distant planet that was known as T-144. The closest known planet that could sustain life. I was brought here by my people and that book. That horrible book was for the humans to edit my life and the change my outcomes, I could never fail the book. It was me, and I was it. I was their weapon. \n", "I didn't think it would be so small. After reading it I knew where my fate was, how I would die, when I would die, I knew everything about my own life. But the size puts it in perspective of how insignificant you are. I just thought it would be bigger. No one wants to know how little your life may mean.\n\nIt was an ordinary trip to the library. I went every Thursday, and this Thursday was no exception. After reading fiction my whole life, I decided to change it up and go the opposite route. Non-fiction had never been my cup of tea, but I was in the mood for it I suppose. The first aisle I went down I saw it. It was the first book that caught my eye at all, really. I became particularly curious when I saw my name on it. Last time I had checked, I never wrote a book. But it was there on the spine. I took it out and opened the front cover. The inside cover was a photocopy of my birth certificate, and the first page depicted my birth. I flipped through, growing more and more curious. Sure enough, my first steps, my first words, my first everything. I flipped through, faster and faster, seeing my life literally flash before my eyes. And suddenly I stopped on a page. To begin, the page read:\n\nI didn't think it would be so small. After reading it I knew where my fate was, how I would die, when I would die, I knew everything about my own life. But the size puts it in perspective of how insignificant you are. I just thought it would be bigger. No one wants to know how little your life may mean.", "I had always adored books. Since I was young I tirelessly read and reread all of my books learning and loving their stories. The school library became a sanctuary of readers. Nevermind I was the only one in it, it was my hidden nest. Maybe it was weird that I read books unlike the others.\n\nI didn't care. Books were immortal, school friends were not.\n\nLater, I graduated to high school and actually made friends. I still read though. I spent my first year cooped in the library, a different book every day. Eventually, I left the books at home and socialised.\n\nIt went ok. Some people liked me, some people didn't. That's life. I was still a quite loner type but that's just me.\n\nStill I read. Then I started writing. Writing and reading daily. The ultimate cycle. I wrote fiction, fact, opinion pieces and so on.\n\nFinally I came to The Library. It's address was disclosed to me by an unknown person by way of a postcard. It said only:\n\n'Seek the Knowledge you Desire'\n\nIrresponsibly, I went to the location. Knowledge was always good.\n\nIt turned out to be a rather inconspicuous warehouse in the middle of a forest. Maybe it was my imagination but it seemed to stretch endlessly. It was a giant library. A forest of words printed in neat black text.\n\nIt was *dusty*\n\nI grabbed a book off a shelf and wiped the thick layer of dust off with my sleeve. It seemed to be documenting the life of a Beatrice Rue. From birth to untimely death. Who would write about such a seemingly normal life? I asked myself.\n\nIt occured to me I might be rudely trespassing and disturbing another person's things. I quickly returned the book to its shelf and wiped myself clean.\n\n'Hello?' I called out. I know shouting was inexcusable in a library but it had to be done.\n\n'**Is anyone there?**' A little louder. Still, no reply.\n\nIdiot. I should check reception and see if there is a log of people or books taken out.\n\nBooting up the aged terminal (I guess they took books over technology seriously.. or had a bad budget) the text based GUI had one repeating message:\n\n'Enter Name'\n'Enter Name'\n'Enter Name'\n\nEh. Why not. I entered my name and the screen bought up an address registry:\n\n'North Side, District 12, Row 12, J, E, 12'\n'Advised to take train'\n\nA train? What library has a train? The partition in the floorboards shifted and a train, complete with tracks, rose up from the floor. I jumped in and knowingly it departed.\n\nIt took 4 hours to reach the destination. I spent much of it thinking.\n\nWhat am I doing here?\n\nWhere am I going?\n\nWhat if this is wrong?\n\nI couldn't stop now.\n\nThe train slowed down and I got out the cabin. I stretched my body out and looked around.\n\nThis area was older. Gas lights had replaced the bulbs from the reception area. Some books had disintegrated into dust from the years of decay. Despicable. A nailed on sign informed me I was in JE.\n\nSmaller milestones were visible starting from A and onwards. They were divided by more letters. In between those still were numbered signs. It was unfathomable how many books were in this library.\n\nThe train set off behind me. I hoped they'd send another one later else it would be a long walk back. How wasn't I hungry or yet? Weird.\n\nI strolled past A and B and C and D and E and on and on and on until I hit J. Then I went on until I hit E. Then I hit 12. My feet should be needing a break but what should have took an age felt like it was no time at all.\n\nI perused through the JE12 section. Why was I here? Maybe someone with the same name as me wrote a book. Yes! Found it.\n\nIt was in a poor state. Torn pages and misc stains were the best of its problems. This library may have a train but they seriously lacked in the maintenance department. However, when I touched it it began to repair itself. Broken pages fixex themselves as if by magic. A fresh dose of ink permeated the text. The dust simply fell off and the header was polished to shine. It stood alone on the cover.\n\n'The Life of James Emerson'\n\nI dropped the book. This was someone with the same name as me, *because it was me!*. I flicked through the first pages. My birthday, birthplace, certificate. Everything was there.\n\nWait a minute. If the start was there.. maybe the end was too. I could rewrite my life. Become famous. Rich. A god. It was mine to take.\n\nI could know what to do. To never be scared. I could erase people who would do things. Terrible things. I could topple world leaders as easily as getting their book out and a red pen.\n\nThe shadows of the library grew darker. The lights grew dimmer. Did it want me to do that? A cold feeling drifted across my spine.\n\nOn second thought, I put the book back. I was not worthy of this power. No one was. I turned around right as a someone clubbed me.\n\nAnd I was gone." ]

[ 1, 1, 1 ]

[ "1427004895", "1427005495", "1427021241" ]

[ "I am aching all over, I dont know where I am or how I got here.\nIt smells of mold and something rotten, I think im going to be sick.\nI must open my eyes, but they are so heavy, maybe ive been drugged. Maybe not! I can feel warm sticky blood on my head. \nWhat the hell happened last night?\nI manage to slowly open my foggy eyes and see a stone wall, maybe, I cant quiet make it out, I reach out and it feels like stone, moist and slippery I manage to use it to stand.\nalmost tripping on something, I manage to catch my balance just as I see a face.\nOh Shit!!! Its a body, I can see he has been beaten badly and has been here a while given the bugs wriggling out of his nostrils. I spew all over him, I know he cant feel or smell but I feel terrible for doing it. \nThats when I notice a piece of paper in his hand. Its rigid and stuck but I manage to pry it loose, as I unfold it I get this horrible feeling, one of those feelings of dred you just cant shake. \nWhen I finally get the note open it reads: \"We have been watching you, and you deserve to suffer\"", "My head was hurting, the city guard do a number on you when you're caught stealing from the local regent. I guess that's my nature, find something nice and take it. It was first time getting caught, they busted the treasury room open, finding me there with a ruby the size of my fist plus a bag of gold. Last thing I remember was getting smacked in the head by a sword, and now I'm here with a corpse with a note.\n\nIf you find this either I'm dead or it was taken from me. My name is Arkdos, I like yourself either ended up here due to some unwise choices. My only choice was being curious about finding a map in the study room of the regent. I had to have a look, so I did. Now, I was told the map was still locked up, which is good, its safe. However getting to it requires some skill in finding things that shouldn't be found, which I did have. Now it's up to you to find the map and to whatever or whoever it leads to. Good Luck\n\nMe and my damned luck I thought. Looking around the dungeon I need to find a way out. Finding a nail I started to dig out the stone blocks. It's better then nothing I thought as my mind started to think of what that map could lead to. ", "\"Five more minutes...\" I muttered, rolling over, away from the person insistently poking me awake. I fell off the bed with a *thud.* \"Ow,\" I said.\n\nI got up, realizing that I *wasn't* lying in my extremely comfortable bed, but rather in a dimly lit, stone cell. What was going on? I was pretty sure I hadn't gotten that drunk last night. In fact, I was pretty sure that even if I had, the jail cells didn't look anything like this.\n\nI glanced around. Then I stumbled backwards in shock and fright, seeing who, *what*, had been poking me. A carefully balanced corpse, swinging in a set of shackles, still with its arms held out and swinging over the cot every few seconds.\n\n\"What the hell!\" I yelped.\n\nThe corpse grinned at me. It couldn't do much else.\n\nI glared at it. Then I noticed that one of the hands it held extended to me held a yellowed scroll. Not seeing many other options, I reached out and took it.\n\n\"What the hell?\" I said again. \"What's this supposed to mean? *Forzare-*\" there was a ripple in the air, and a dent appeared against the wall.\n\n\"Uh...\" I blinked. \"*Forzare?*\" Ripple. Dent. \"*Forzare!*\" This time, a crack appeared, and a chunk of stone fell out of the wall. I went over to peer through the wall. Maybe this mysterious abduction wouldn't be so bad..." ]

[ 1, 2, 3 ]

[ "1427120515", "1427118130", "1427119447" ]

[ "\"All right men, we're going to *play a game*.\" Men. It was sarcasm; we all knew he saw us as animals. \"I assume you all know *Duck, Duck, Goose*? You must have played when you were *kiddies*.\" We all sat, eyes on the ground. He forced us into a circle. \"Well,\" he pulled out a gun, and stroked it, eyes cold. \"The loser meets the gun first, my friends.\"", "DUCK TALES or QUACKMAYER'S QUAGMIRE\n\nHunting season had begun. Quackmayer awoke with a start that day with the heartbreaking realization that today might be his last. The waddled steadily into the water, determined not to let his nerves get the best of him. He had nothing to worry about – or at least that’s what he told himself over and over. A trick a therapist had once offered him. And then there was that quote. Who said it? Donald Duck? “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.”\n\nBut on a day like today, fear pushed him to the one thought he had he been repressing for months now.\n\nHe met Melinda nearly half a year earlier. There was nothing particularly special about her, except for her voice. A gentle quack that put him at ease. A quack that could make his day turn around in an instant. When he first approached her, he was nervous. When she outright told him that she’d just mated – and laid eggs – it still sounded sweet. In fact, Quackmayer had just nodded, a hopelessly goofy grin on his face, and waddled back into the pond. It took several hours before he released what all this meant: he’d been too late. The love of his life had promised herself to another.And despite this love, he grew angry, bitter. He’d led a good life. He’d been a good duck to his mother, his brothers. And now this?\n\nIn the weeks the followed, he refused advances from some of the most attractive females around. Instead, he began to roll with a different crowd. The geese knew what they wanted and they always got it. They were also larger, more imposing. They carried themselves in a way Quackmayer not only admired, but hoped to emulate.\n\nToday would be business as usual, he reminded himself. Anything could happen. Or anything could not happen. Determined to rescue his mood, he swam eagerly towards Goomandu, the goose he had grown closest too. Goomandu was already up, feeding and enjoying the cool breeze that swept across the pond.\n\n“Brother! I thought you Anatidaes slept in. Look at you dude. Ready for hunting season? We’re amped. Gustav and I have a pot going. We think Rusty will kick it first. He’d look good all stuffed and mounted,” said Goomandu with a laugh.\n\n“I’ll put down two guppies on Rusty,” said Quackmayer, trying to sound casual, fearless, in front of his new friend.\n\nThen they heard it. Human laughter. Young humans. Males? They staggered across the small grass beach, hiding between two ferns that framed a perfect view of Goomandu and Quackmayer.\n\nIt was too late to swim away. So they just stood, frozen and unable to move. Aware of their every breath. It could, after all, be their last.\n\nThat is, until a familiar figure started swimming towards the pair, floating like an angel. \n\nFrom the distance, she called “Quackmayer! Let’s talk!”\n\n“Not now Melinda.”\n\n“Yes, now. I made a mistake!”\n\nShe advanced closer to them.\n\n——-\n\n“Now ain’t that cute,” said one of the boys, a beer in one hand, his rifle in the other. “Fucking two ducks and one goose.”\n\n“Dude, perfect,” exclaimed another, crouching down for a better view, repositioning his gun. \n\nHe aimed and fired three clean shots.\n\n“Duck, duck … goose!” he cried trimphantly as Quackmayer, Melinda and Gossmandu bobbed lifelessly in the pond.\n\n“Got another beer?”\n", "I'm screaming and shouting, kicking my legs, the burlap sack on my head is scratching my face. \"Let me go!\" I chant over and over again. Being kidnapped pissed me off. \n\nThey drag me into a room, and sit me down criss cross on the ground, I can feel two other men at my sides sitting criss cross. \n\nLights go on and the bags are ripped off. I look up and see a bunch of rich European people behind glass. I look around and the I see a bunch of multi-cultural men in their physical prime, all of us with our hands bound behind our back. \n\nThe sound of a trumpet goes off, and the first man is brought to his feet. He is talked to, and appears to understand. The man fully accepts the situation and does as told. \n\nHe starts to walk around the group of us, sitting in circle. As he touches the top of each person's head, he says \"duck.\"\n\n'Duck? Duck Duck goose!? We are playing thirty man duck duck goose!?' I scream in my thoughts. \n\n\"Duck...Duck...Duck...\" every duck is agonizing, the uneasiness of every one is palpable with every 'duck', and with every moment there wasn't a goose to reassure you for that moment it wasn't you. \n\n\"Duck... Duck.........\" he hovers his hand over my head, I gasp dramatically like I was about to be shot, \"duck.\" He touches my head and the relief was as if being let off death row right as the electric hat went on.\n\n\"Goose!\" The man yells as he shoves the next man's head toward the ground and takes off. The guy quickly gets to his feet and catches up, bumps the other guy and runs around the circle, coming back to his place on the ground. \n\n\"Ah ha, got it!\" The man yells. \n\nOne of the men come out from the shadows, draws a 45 revolver and shoots the man standing in the face. Another man is brought to his feet.\n\n \"Go!\" They scream at him. \n\n'Why is it always the Europeans that kidnap you for messed up shit like this?' I ask myself.", "“Do you know why I brought you all here today?,” Stefano Pussetti, the infamous mafia boss, said in his characteristically soft, yet fear inducing voice.\n\nHis lieutenants sat in wooden chairs forming a circle in the dark, dirty backroom of Marcus’s Pizzeria. A single light shone onto the floor in the center of the circle. There was a single empty chair in the circle. The men were bewildered and clearly uneasy about this emergency meeting. \n\nNo one said a word. Stefano had a reputation for being ruthless when the time called for it, and he was clearly not happy about something. No one wanted to set him off. \n\nStefano started walking around the outside of the circle. He took a puff on his cigar. He held it out as he walked around. It was perilously close to dropping ashes on the head of each man as he walked by. He stopped, and turned to address them. “Someone — somebody in this room, is a *rat*.” They shifted in their seats.\n\n“We had a little visit at the dock today from our police friends, and well, let’s just say, fortunately our friends were happy to leave this time with a little grease in their hands,” Stefano said. “But that does not bode so well for the rat in this room.”\n\n“Now, we’re gonna play a little game. I’m sure you know it, it’s a classic.” \n \nStefano puts his hand with the cigar onto the first man’s head. The man tensed up as some of the cigar’s ashes fell onto his scalp. He was in pain but didn't dare make a sound. “Duck,” Stefano said. \n\nStefano walked to the next man, and put his hand on the man's head. “Duck,\" Stefano said. \n\n“Now, normally at this point in the game, I pick someone as the goose. But today we’re going to play a variation I’ve invented called ‘Duck, Duck, *Rat*’. It’s like the classic game in almost every way, except instead of calling someone a 'goose', I call them a 'rat'. And just like the original, when I call someone the rat, he has a chance to run around the circle and sit in my chair before I can catch him. So that’s how we’re gonna play.\n\nStefano walked up to the next man, David Cardello, his lawyer, and placed his hand down on his head, and paused. The room was silent. “Rat,” Stefano said. \n\nDavid started to protest, “No, Stefano, you’ve got the wrong —“\n\nStefano pulled out his revolver and pushed it into David's back. “Run, rat.\"\n\nDavid got up and started running around the circle. Stefano took aim with his revolver, following him around the circle. David arrived at the empty chair, but didn't touch it. \n\n\"If you want to win, you've got to sit in my seat,\" said Stefano.\n\n\"Please, Stefano, let me explain --\"\n\n\"Sit\", said Stefano, ever so softly.\n\nDavid gulped, and reached out for the chair. Just before he touched it, a loud bang went off, and David was knocked to the floor, bleeding from his face.\n\nStefano blew the smoke from the tip of his gun and walked to the door to leave. Just before he walked through the exit, he said, \"Clean this up. We don't want any more rats.\"\n", "I sit and look at all of the pretty baby ducks sitting around in a circle. Their golden down covering their heads, all the way down to their feet. They look so pretty as they sit there, looking at each other. \n\nI know a secret however, one of these pretty little ducks is not a duck, but is a Goose. I hate geese, hate them with a passion. Ducks are nice but geese are ugly. A duck looks at you with those soft eyes, while the voice of a geese is so wrenching. \n\nNow I watch these ducks, sitting around a circle looking at each other while I am trying to figure out which is the Goose. A goose in ducks clothing I think. The evil ugly goose. \n\nI walk around the circle of ducks, patting each of them on the head, saying \"duck\" when I am sure that I am patting a duck and not a goose. \n\nThat ugly goose. I know its here. \n\nNow I have completely circled the ducks, it must have hidden itself and so I will have to try again. \n\nI am at the 4th duck when I feel it, something that just tells me this is the goose. \n\nSo I jab my knife into the ducks stomach, yanking it up to the breasts, looking for that damn goose. I don't find it. \n\nNow the other ducks are just looking at their dead sibling, as if they are in shock. \n\nI assure them, with soft pats, that I am just trying to find the goose among all of the ducks. \n\nI am glad however that I taped over their mouths before placing them into the circle, it is bad enough that now they look like they are crying as they look at their sister in the middle of the circle, I am glad I can not hear them.\n\nI think that they may all be geese and tomorrow I will need to find another group of ducks. \n\nOne day, I will find that duck that is not a goose. \n\n", "**PETE**\n\n\"I can't breathe.\"\n\nI wanted to tell them all to shut up. The six of us had been stuck in this room for a few hours. It was airtight and the dust was starting to pollute our precious oxygen, but we weren't at the point of suffocation yet. People were so brittle. \n\nSince there was nothing better to do, and my mates were all crying their oxygen away, I decided to scan my surroundings. The room was about eight metres long and six wide. The walls were grey and so tightly cemented together that it was damn near impossibly to find the door, which was locked anyway. \n\nIt was about seven hours into our living hell when we heard a voice. It was definitely coming from behind one of the walls, but the echoes made it near impossible to track. My friends started slamming on the walls and screaming. I imagine there was some psychological stuff there worth knowing. Seven hours was enough to break your average idiot. \n\n\"Hello boys. How are you hanging in there?\"\n\nMy friends began to order threats quite loudly. Tobias even began to roar for some baffling reason. I do wonder what goes on in their mushy little brains....\n\n**TOBIAS**\n\nMy tonsils hurt. Was it my tonsils? I wasn't all that sure. That was something to google later, after I was done with... pleasure. I giggled to myself. I could see Pete sitting in the corner, rolling his eyes. That guy needed to seriously chill out. Taking life that seriously is just plain dumb. \n\nThen the voice came again. Where was it coming from? And more importantly, when was it planning to let us out?\n\n\"I hope you're sitting comfortably. Because soon the experiment begins. And only four of you will be going home tonight.\"\n\nMikey decided to speak up at that point. Mikey was the leader, the guy with the plan. And the biggest mouth, as it happened.\n\n\"You can't do this? This is against our rights!\"\n\n\"If you actually think he doesn't know that then you are more hopeless than I thought.\" Pete interjected.\n\n\"Shut up Pete. At least Mikey's trying.\" I cut in. I liked to think I was at least a better friend than the antisocial prick sitting across the room.\n\n\"Oh surprise surprise! Minion One is here to save his master's behind.\"\n\nTobias knew that he was little more than a goon. He wasn't that stupid. In fact he didn't think he was all that dumb in general. He just couldn't take the pressure of taking initiative. He got enough of that at home. Besides, Mikey was happier in power, and I was nothing if not a pleaser.\n\n\"Will you both please shut up and let the guy finish?\" Christopher interjected. Tobias didn't like Christopher. He was Mikey's younger brother, and was too confident for his own good. \n\nPete looked like he was about to speak, but simply glanced at Tobias, smirked and went back to studying the walls. The voice started again.\n\n\"During your dispute, a weapon was rolled into the room. If you had been paying attention, you would know where it was coming from. Nonetheless, the experiment begins now. You may recall that only four of you will be going home tonight.\"\n\n\"W-what does this mean?\" Tobias called out. He was collectively shushed by the other five.\n\n\"It means, young man, that the six of you must choose who goes home tonight.\"\n\nI had to admit I was still a bit confused. But I looked around and spotted everyone turning towards the middle of the room. I decided to check what the fuss was about, and saw a baseball bat lying on the ground.\n\n**CHRISTOPHER**\n\nI made a move for the bat. That was what everyone was thinking surely? It was the practical option. But as fast as I was, Pete was faster. He swiped it and backed away into his corner, clutching it as if it were his baby.\n\n\"Pete... put the bat down.\" Mikey, my darling brother, protested. I wouldn't mind seeing him whacked in the head. The only issue is that it would put me next on the block. It was essentially a fact that I was only here because of him. I needed to play my cards right, and hope to God that Pete wasn't about to go on a 'Dexter-esque' rampage.\n\n\"Yeah... I don't think so. I'll be our batsman tonight. But don't worry, this still remains a democracy Mikey. You still get a sixth of the power.\" Pete smirked, staring Mikey down coldly.\n\nI never understood what brought these five boys together. Mikey was the obvious leader, even if he was a bit cocky. And I suppose it was obvious where Tobias and Stephen fit into that. They were goons by nature. But Pete and Dermot were baffling. Dermot was almost deathly silent, and yet you felt like he was staring you down the whole time, probing for weaknesses. He was apparently a genius, and was pretty friendly, but I would never want to get on the wrong side of him. My theory is that Mikey adopted him as a pet of sorts. And Pete? Well Pete was Pete...\n\n\"Pete we have to think about this. We're not just going to start killing each other. That would be stooping to their level.\" Mikey protested. Stephen backed him instantly. I wasn't surprised. He was pretty much worthless. But Tobias looked more uncertain. Meanwhile Dermot was still quiet, feeling the walls for weak spots and panting. I think he was claustrophobic or something.\n\n\"Shut up Mikey. There's no other way out of this. We should have a vote.\"\n\n\"How exactly do you expect us to do that? We're not gonna betray one another.\" Dermot spoke out. Even Mikey looked surprised.\n\nPete thought for a moment, before twirling his bat and smirking. \"Ok, counter proposition. Everyone stand in a circle and hold one hand behind their back. Hold up the number of fingers relative to your vote. Mikey is one, Tobias two, Stephen three, Dermot four, and Christopher five.\"\n\n\"Pete-\" Mikey began to protest.\n\n\"Shut up Mikey, or you'll be first on the list.\"\n\n\"Mikey, maybe we should just play along.\" I mumbled to my brother, putting my hand on my shoulder. Providing no more than two people voted for any one guy, my odds of survival were pretty good, since Mikey sure as hell wouldn't vote me.\n\n\"Fine. Let's just do it.\" I had never seen Mikey look so angry. It was terrifying.\n\nWe all gathered in a circle. Stephen stood beside me and tried to look behind my back and check. I kicked him in the leg before I could stop myself. I had just lost a vote. I scanned the room around me and made my decision. I held up a three. Stephen was no one's best friend. I felt bad for the guy, but it was a strategic move.\n\nPete started circling us. We all looked at our feet, terrified. Pete began humming to himself. \n\n\"Duck. Duck. Duck...\" Pete started. He continued to play his sick game and even passed me by. It was Stephen! I was alive. But then Pete passed Stephen too, and continued to march. He was repeating. I wanted to hit him there and now, but if I turned hostile then not even Mikey could save me.\n\nPete came up to Mikey, on my left and spoke. I could have sworn he sounded disappointed when he said 'Duck'. And then he came to me, and smiled a shark smile. And then I knew.\n\n\"Goose.\"\n\n**MIKEY**\n\nIt took everything I had not to break when Christopher collapsed on the second swing. Christopher was near death, and yet Pete kept swinging. Four times. Five times. Eventually it was all too much, and I lost it. How could I lose it? I was the cool one. They all looked up to me. The face of the group. I didn't even get along with Christopher.\n\nAnd yet there I was, strangling Pete as we wrestled on the ground. He reached for the baseball bat, but couldn't quite reach it. If he died then we would all get out. And then, before I realised what was happening, Stephen pulled me back and threw me across the room. I was shocked. I had pegged Stephen as a total idiot. Had I made a mistake?\n\nStephen lifted the baseball bat over his shoulder. He began to giggle. I thought Pete was going to fight back, but he was still trying to catch his breath. Hopefully I had done some serious damage to the sick freak. I assumed Stephen was going to finish what I had started, my suspicions denied. And yet I was surprised again.\n\n\"I'm gonna squish you buggy.\" Stephen squealed. \"You were never nice to me.\" And then he swung at me.\n\nIt was extremely painful. For close to a minute I couldn't breathe, and my insides felt like they were inflating.\n\n\"You always thought you were so popular. But we never really liked you.\" Stephen hissed.\n\nThere was no way out of this. I would die coated in my brother's blood, choking on guts and Stephen's hammy fist. And then I was saved. \n\nI managed to look to my left and saw the short gay kid, what was his name again? Donald? Dermot? Yeah Dermot. He darted at Pete and pinned him against the wall. Pete could have easily overpowered him, but he was still injured from my attack. And then Dermot did something gut-spillingly horrific. He shoved his fingers into Pete's eyes and started clawing.\n\nDespite his best efforts to save me, Stephen had yet to notice. Mikey knew he had one chance left.\n\n\"T-Tobias... help...\" I gurgled.\n\nTobias darted at Stephen, bless his innocent soul, and the two began wrestling on the ground. I couldn't move, and was forced to choose a fight to watch. Dermot's grip was strengthening and Pete was starting to bleed out. I turned the other way before I puked, and saw Stephen and Tobias beating each other in the dust. It could only be moments before Stephen overpowered him and turned his attention back to his newly constructed foe. \n\nAnd then the door opened, and I saw light. So much light. Two figures entered the room and wrestled Tobias and Stephen apart. One of them walked over to me and pressed something up to my mouth before I could scream. He began to drag me out of the room, and I could see my friends all broken and lying in places on the ground, some dead and some as good as. I managed to mumble.\n\n\"Do we go home now?\"\n\nThere was no answer.", "Huh. That's odd. I don't live with anyone.\n\nWhat the hell's that? It's... damn, I think it's some sorta *mask*. The scary types, y'know. Like you see in the movies. I need a coffee.\n\nI can't move. Why can't I move? I dunno. I'm going back to sleep.\n\nWhat the hell are the neighbors doing? They just came into my house with the mask guy and are crying or something. Must be some sorta weird fandom. They should stop screaming, I want some shut eye.\n\nNeat, we're in a circle now. I like circles. It's the shape of my lamp. \n\nWhere is my lamp? \n\nThat's awfully strange. I'm not in my room. Musta slept at the friend's house and he's playing a prank on me.\n\nWhat's my friend's name anyway? Something like Dave or Dan? That's a plain name. I like plain stuff. This is awfully unplain. I don't like it.\n\nI don't wanna play a game, leave me alone.\n\nGoddamnit Dan, *Duck Duck Goose?* Take off that mask already, Dan.\n\nClassic Dan. I wanna sleep now.\n\nOh, neat. I got untied. I was tied? *Oh crap*, I was tied! Where am I? *Oh god*, Dan's gone crazy! *He's chasing me around!* \n\nHe's got a knife. *Why's he got a knife*?! Dan's got a knife! Oh sweet lord, Dan has a knife!\n\nI keep speeding around the screaming ducks. They don't have phones. I need a coffee. \n\nI'm the goose. I don't like geese much. Ducks are better. I wish I was a duck. Water's pleasant. Very pleasant. \n\nI'm dizzy. I don't like this.\n\nI did have a coffee. I remember now. It was a bit strange tasting. I... god, what happened after? I passed out. Yeah. That wasn't nice.\n\nMy legs hurt. My everything hurts. My tummy hurts most. It's got ketchup all over it. Awfully bright ketchup. That ain't ketchup... it's... *blood*? And it's all shiny. Everything's shiny. Like the knife. Oh, a knife. That's not very knife.\n\nHeh. I made a pun. \n\nMy tummy hurts.\n\n\n\n**Edit:** I know it's written like crap, he's drugged and tired as hell. It's not supposed to be a masterpiece.", "I gritted my teeth. How ironic, I thought to myself, that it should come to this. Behind the twisted combination of grimace and grin splattered across my face, I was inwardly chuckling. Out of fear or insanity, I don't know. But I was laughing.\n\nIt's kind of funny, the way things turn out sometimes. At one point, something can seem as simple as a game you play as a child, running between willow trees and around the yard, and the next, you're sweating and grinding your remaining teeth at the prospect of ever again uttering those fucking words.\n\n*Duck.*\n\n*Duck.*\n\n*Goose.*\n\nA calloused hand slips around my shoulder, and I turn, looking at the dirt-covered face looking down at me.\n\n\"You ready?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\nI lift myself up from the ashes and dirt, and vainly attempt to wipe my tattered clothes clean. Upon realizing my efforts will likely be less than fruitful, I stumble across the field and plop my ass down again, completing the circle of people sitting in the yard under the willow trees. \n\n\"You sure you want to do this?\" asks Mary. She was always mom's favorite kid, even if she barely showed it. When mom refereed our games, she always claimed that Mary had made it back to her spot safely, or that Mary had tagged me right before I was about to sit down.\n\nJohn looks over at her. \"It's too late to turn back. We only have enough food to keep sustaining three people. One of us has to go.\"\n\nMary's eyes dart anxiously to the revolver in the middle of the circle. \"I know,\" she mutters, \"but does it have to be this way? Why can't the loser just leave? Take their chances on the road?\"\n\nJohn sighs. \"You know as well as I do that there's no one else out there. No one. Radio, cellphone, everything is silent. Even if there was anyone left, they'd be too far away for you to make it to them without the Mutes getting you.\"\n\nA single tear rolls down Mary's cheek. I note how clear it is, leaving a trail in the dirt that cakes her face. \n\nJack glances at me from across the circle. Being the oldest, I suppose Jack had always felt a kind of responsibility for Mary, and seeing her cry, even at a time as bleak as this, still visibly affected him.\n\nMy hand twitches, flinging a drop of sweat off into the dirt. I need us to get on with this or I'm going to go insane.\n\n\"Let's start.\"\n\nEveryone turns towards me as I say the words. It's really kind of odd; we all knew what was going to happen, but we never really believed it until I said the words. At that point, it felt sort of heart-breakingly final.\n\n\"Ok,\" mutters Jack. \"Who will go first?\"\n\nEveryone knows it's not going to be Mary. Two brothers and a childhood sweetheart will make sure of that. Outside of that, it's impossible to say whether it will be me, Jack, or John. Unless I take action. \n\nI know Jack is looking at me. I know that if I say anything, he will interrupt me. It's kind of funny to me that something that always bothered me as a kid will likely save my life now. Either way, I decide that I'm going to volunteer.\n\n\"David.\"\n\nNo sooner than my mouth has opened has Jack decided to take my place. I glare at him, but it's impossible to be angry at someone who's volunteering their life for you.\n\nNo words are spoken as he stands. Mary, John and I shuffle a bit to create a triangle around which he can run. \n\nMary starts to say something, but chokes up. I look over at Jack. He's thinking. Standing tall and proud. He looks like a king. Maybe if the world hadn't gone to shit, he could've *done* something some day. \n\nJack starts walking around the circle, gently patting each of us on the head as he passes. \"Duck. Duck.\" he mutters, tapping each one of us as he goes along.\n\nI know he's going to pick me. It's only fair. He knew I was going to volunteer anyway. And it's probably better that way; he sure as hell isn't going to pick Mary, and John needs to be around. Maybe he and Mary can rebuild. Who knows.\n\nI hear Jack say \"Goose\" right as his hand lands softly upon my head. I stand up, but he's not even running. He wants me to make it around. He wants to die for us.\n\nI'm sure as hell not letting Jack do that. If anyone is going to die, it's going to be me. I always cheated at this fucking game anyway.\n\nSo there we are. Jack and I, staring at each other, each of us refusing to budge. Mary bursts into tears. *This stupid,* I think to myself. *This was never going to work. Whose idea was it to play fucking Duck Duck Goose to decide who lives and who dies?*\n\nI know Jack and I will be standing there forever unless I do something. So gently, I pick up the revolver.\n\n\"David, don't do it,\" Jack says softly. He's looking at me. \"Give me the gun.\"\n\nI'm crying. \"It has to be me, Jack,\" I cough. I'm sobbing at this point. I know it has to be me. \"You need to be a leader. You need to be there for Mary and John.\"\n\nMary lets out a sob at the sound of her name. Jack is stilling staring at me, but he knows he has lost. I have always been the stubborn little brother. It only now dawns on me how beautiful his eyes are. They're a light blue. \n\nJohn covers Mary's eyes as I raise the gun to my head. I don't speak. \n\nI always hated this game.", "[EU] Duck, Duck, Goose: (Part 1/2)\n\n\n'Would you like to play a game?'\n\nI felt myself shudder, boiling up out of darkness into a consciousness gripped with a pain, dull, heavy, and wrapped around my skull. Groaning, I forced my eyes open and tried to focus on the grainy television monitor in front of me, tried to blink through the blood that now, half-congealed, did much to obscure my sight. Nevertheless what I saw between the sticky rivulets was enough to make my guts churn in in the grip of anxiety and cold terror.\n\nOn the television a crude marionette began to speak to me in a voice both deep and distorted: 'You were given everything in your life. Caring parents, an education at the best private schools and universities, the very best tutors and coaches money could buy, and a career built off of the success and connections made by your family. Even your genetics that allowed you to qualify in the Olympics are a testament to that which you have not earned.'\n\nI tried to cry out and felt my mouth choked by a gag, and tape wrapped around my head. I tried to moved my head, to look away from the hateful image but my head was secured. I tried to yank the restraints from my head by my hands, my arms, my legs, but they were secured. I tried to cry out again and the force of my muffled scream only succeed in blowing crimson colored snot from my nose as the voice continued.\n\n'You have forsaken all that you have been given by not sharing the good fortunes given to you by birthright. The crimes and greed against your investors, against your constituents during your brief and narcissistic run as congressman, against your wife, your children, even the blood of your own brother -- your crimes are as heinous as they are without measure.'\n\nAs the marionette spoke, my mind flashed to the toxic, bundled loans that I sold to my investors, the money that I laundered, my accounts in the Caymans, the bribes that I took over expensive dinners at the taxpayer's expense and the bills that I pushed through at the lobbying groups' behest -- the affairs that I concealed, the affairs I didn't bother to conceal, disowning my eldest son when he chose to pursue a degree in liberal arts, as well as disowning my so-called daughter when he choose to become a male-to-female transexual. And my brother whose trust fund I denuded when he revealed at a family dinner that he preferred his steaks medium well... He later committed suicide and I spoke ill of him at the wake.\n\nI still remember standing up in front of the other mourners, drunk on champagne, hair and tie askew, yelling, demanding, 'And... and... What man in his right mind cooks his steak medium well? Rare is the only way to truly appreciate a fine steak, and don't get me started on putting cheese on your baked potato? What the fuck? Dare a man take away the spotlight from the steak?!'\n\nThen mumbling, stumbling from my soapbox, 'And what man cooks for himself?' I slurred, 'This is what negroes and women are for.'\n\nThe growling voice drew me out of the flashbacks, the mouth of the marionette parroting in poor fashion as it continued, 'You will have a chance to begin to make amends to those you have wronged. You will have a chance to return to your roots. Let us a play a game called \"Duck, Duck, Goose.\"\n\n'Take notice of the chair where you sit. At your feet is a set of stairs. At the base of the stairs is a trench filled with broken glass and ethanol.' A light switched on and illuminated the dark just beyond the television. I saw the stairs and I saw the jagged terrain of broken alcohol bottles churning on a slurry of liquid.\n\nThe voice continued, 'Use your genetic predisposition for sprinting to get to the end of the corridor. Your first obstacle is to duck, and crawl through the glass and ethanol. In order to pass through the first door, you must reach into a chamber filled with hydrofluoric acid, and pull the lever. If you can do that, then you must run further down the corridor, and duck into the next obstacle, and repeat the same action. If you are still alive, you must leap over the last obstacle and pull the last lever to open the final door.'\n\nI felt myself begin to sob. The voice continued, seeming to tease, 'One more thing. You have three minutes to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and complete these tasks, or the doors will be sealed shut, and hydrofluoric acid will spray from the sprinkler system above you. Stay in your chair and be showered in acid, and die, or embrace the acid that you have brought into the lives of those around you and play this game of duck, duck, goose. The choice is yours.'\n\nThe corridor became fully illuminated. The marionette began to laugh maniacally and the restraints on my head and limbs opened. I all but exploded from my chair and threw the television and its stand aside as I ran down the concrete steps to the trench filled with alcohol and broken glass. I began to hesitate, but on the distant wall I saw a countdown clock in red numerals slowly ticking down to zero. Barefoot, clad only in underwear, I realized how excruciating this would be.\n\nI stepped down into the trench. For some reason, I expected it to be deeper, but my foot only sank in up to the bottom of my ankle, and my foot abruptly hit the floor. The glass punched through my feet, flesh gone soft from a life of luxury, and the alcohol poured into the open wound. I screamed, choked by the gag, but I was grateful for it as I screamed through clenched teeth and fell back onto the stairs, lifting my foot out of the slurry. My nostrils flared and tears streamed down my face, and I heard myself thinking, screaming inside of my head, 'I can't do this!'\n\nTenderly I began to pull the shards from my obliterated foot, each pull resulting in a sudden flush of blood sluicing down my fingers as I wept and screamed and raged against the unfairness of it all.\n\nBut then, breaking through my fog of pain and self pity I heard that maniacal laughter from the broken television and I felt a fury like I hardly felt before. I began to realize how misplaced and petty and stupid my anger toward my children and brother was, in the face of this anger that I felt toward this marionette. I pushed myself off of the stairs, pressed my first foot back down into the slurry. The first instant was an explosion of napalm seeping into my torn flesh, the second instant was of more glass cutting through, macerating my feet further. For all that I was worth, I tried to scream through my gag.\n\nNo, I wasn't going to let some lunatic kill me. I was going to live.\n\nGingerly, tenderly, hardly able to bear weight on my damaged foot I used my good foot to try and part the slurry and slowly burrow my foot down into the glass. But the glass was too thick, and too sharp, and this only threshed the front of my toes and the balls of my feet into ribbons of sliced skin and muscle.", "\"Lieutenant Jacobs, since you never gave us that helicopter we so kindly asked for TWO hours ago we're going to play a game. With the hostages. \" \n\nA smile came across his face as he eyed the hostages, bags around their heads, sitting in a circle. \n\n\"Okay there Jack let's be cool about this, I'm working on getting the helicopter \"\n\n\" Working on it?\" Jack yelled into the phone, knowing full well the Lieutenant was not going to deliver. \n\n\"the Mayor is on the line with the airport. We will get you that helicopter if only you give us enough time and not do anything hasty\" calm and cool, Jacobs was a veteran, a little yelling wasn't going to disrupt him. \n\n\"The Mayor! That corrupt fat fuck. If he wanted me to have a helicopter he would personally fly it out of his beach front Villa! \"\n\nLieutenant Jacobs knew the mayor had shady contacts but that's a problem for another day. \"You know he can't just do that. The bureaucracy is in the way, and you know that too\" \n\n\"Another thing I know is that you're stalling\"\n\n\"Time to play duck duck goose\" Jack pulled the hammer back on his .50 cal magnum\n\n\"Duck\"\n\n\"Don't do this jack\"\n\n\"Duck\"\n\n\"Duck\"\n\n\"God dammit Jack, put the fucking gun down!\"\n\n\"duck\"\n\n\"Goose\" he hesitated, maybe for a second. \nShattered glass, red all over, swat rushed in. \n\n\"Thank you Jacobs, you stalled him just long enough\"\n\n\"barely\" Lieutenant Jacobs took out a cigarette, lit it and walked off. \n", "*I wrote a song for this prompt. Lyrics below; listen/watch here: [http://youtu.be/7AhMQuGC_yA](http://youtu.be/7AhMQuGC_yA)*\n\n**Duck, Duck, Goose**\n\nYou pass by men, men crazy for you, \nquacking about what they'd like to do \nif you made them your goose. \nAnd I patiently sit, feet under my knees, \nwaiting for your hand to tap me. \nBaby, let's be geese. \n\nDuck, duck, goose. \nAm I the one you choose? \nLet me chase, \nand I know I will catch... \n\nYou run in a circle, and they all chase, \nbut no man has won the race. \nDo you see the look on my face? \nI've got a hunter's quiet resolve; \nI'm ready for the cork gun to go off \nand touch your feathers soft. \nCH \n...your heart. ", "\"Duck, Duck, and mother fucking Goose, son. On your bike, cobber.\" \n\nThe man who had virtually slapped the newly appointed Goose upside the head, tore off at a full sprint, no sooner had the words left his mouth. Our fox was a tall and lithe man, who wore a slightly worn army uniform. Judging by his head-gear and the aviators jutting from his pocket, he was a pilot. \n\nNow to our Goose. He wore what can only be described as a Nazi uniform. As if on cue, he yelled a few choice German curses and tore off after our pilot. The head-start proved to be too much, even though the Nazi soldier was clearly the faster of the two men. The pilot slide in to home plate mere seconds before he would have been reigned in. \n\nThe young German growled more curses and began trudging around the circle of seated men. As we examine them, we begin to notice that there is a vast mixture of uniforms. The only constant is the odd Nazi uniform, peppered throughout. \n\n\"Ente.\"\n\"Ente.\"\n\"Ente.\"\n\nAnd so he continued around the circle until he found again our pilot. With a calculating smile, he raised a hand and triumphantly yelled. \n\n\"Gans!\"\n\nYet again, the young German showed himself to be by far the quicker of the two men. The pilot never stood a chance. He found himself once again trapped outside the circle. \n\nThe pilot glared at his fleet-footed tormentor and shaped to begin moving around the circle once more. It was only then that he sensed the presence of more uniformed men behind him. A thick German accent spoke.\n\n\"Two strikes and you are out American, zis is how we play German baseball. Come with us.\"\n\nAll three of the men held rifles, two now jamming roughly into his back. The walk was agonizingly slow, and never one for words, our pilot remained stoically silent. He closed his eyes tightly as he came to a halt. Gunfire rang out across the compound.\n\nThe little boy shivered and pulled urgently at his grandfather's sleeve. \n\n\"Grandpa, I don't want to play duck, duck, goose today.\" \n" ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 11, 16, 29 ]

[ "1427169320", "1427173598", "1427157195", "1427163166", "1427168361", "1427183575", "1427156361", "1427162464", "1427165361", "1427156805", "1427161941", "1427155688" ]

[ "Tick tock, tick tock. We all had one, a timepiece that is! I received my countdown October 5th 2054 on my 18th Birthday. I was terrified to learn my death date and like most people I initially hid it away, well until my curiosity got the better of me. The US government issued them to everyone when they became an adult, they utilised genetic codes and algorithms in conjunction with cybernetic implants to accurately determine the exact time of our last breath. They claimed it was because of the increasing population and that they wanted to control America's growth but no one believed them. I always found it amusing though, I could see when I was going to die but I still had to wait three years to legally drink.. The government was a joke to me.\n\nAnd now after 37 years on this god forsaken planet, my time was finally coming to an end. The clock had two minutes and thirty seconds left on it. I lifted it from the dark oak cabinet in my lounge and begun my walk to my bedroom. The polished metal cube felt icy cold in my hands, almost deathly. I got to the door and pushed it open, I had prepared my bed earlier in the day for my passing, it terrified me but I wanted to die in my own sheets, for my own dignity if nothing more. It was at one minute 15 seconds now. I placed it on my bed and pulled my phone out my pocket. The authorities knew when and where I was going to die, but your family you had to tell. I looked at the screensaver of my ex-wife and child, a hurt smile creeped it's way on my face, tears beginning to well in my eyes. I couldn't bear to leave my daughter behind, but it was unstoppable. I text draft I had typed ready earlier in the week, I wanted it to be perfect. My eyes scanned it one last time for any errors, before I clicked send.\n\nI lifted the cube and pulled back my sheets, slowly lowering myself into the fresh linen I had laid in many a day before. I turned to my side, covering myself in the thin white fabric and stared at the timepiece. Twenty seconds. Tears were streaming down my face now, I wasn't ready to go. I began to whimper and cry further as it truly dawned on me everything I had failed to do and everyone I had failed. Fifteen seconds. My family were everything to me and I lost them because of my stupid mistakes. Ten Seconds. I was so sorry but, but there was nothing I could do now.. \n\nFive seconds.\nI felt a tear slide off my cheek. \nFour seconds. \nI grasped harshly onto the covers. \nThree seconds. \nI was so scared, I didn't want this. \nTwo seconds. \nMy eyes began to close. \nOne Second. \n\nThen there was the final tick, but no tock? My eyes shot open, the salty liquid that had streamed my face stuck to my eyelashes. The clock was stuck at one second, but it couldn't be a mistake! I was still alive.. I sat up in shock. A smile formed on my face and I chuckled at the prospect. I wasn't dead!? Had this happened before? Were the government wrong?\n\n\"No Tom.\" The deep and raspy voice echoed through the room. \"This is the first time this has happened.\"\n\n\"Who is this? Where are you? How do you know my name?!\" I leaped up and span around looking for the voice.\n\n\"I am everywhere and everything child. Soon you will be too\" The man coughed with his harsh tone.\n\n\"What do you mean? Show yourself!\" I screamed. I was panicking now, what the hell was going on?\n\n\"Very well\" The walls around me began to crumble, white light piercing through the cracks and the windows becoming clouded in a thick pale smoke. I stepped back and span to face the door! My feet went one in front of the other as I charged in terror towards the door. It slammed shut, the wooden frame splintered with the force. The ceiling was rumbling now, dust pouring from it and light shining from everywhere. The walls and ceiling collapsed.\n\nI dropped to the floor expecting the pain from the debris. Nothing happened, I glanced up and everywhere was white. \n\n\"Am I dead\" I wondered out loud.\n\n\"No you aren't dead\" The voice coughed again. I stood up and turned to face where the sound was coming from. A pale, feeble old man dressed in white rags struggled towards me. His hands grasping at the tall wooden staff. \"This is a new beginning, for you at least my time has long since passed, it is now such a time someone takes my place.\"\n\n\"Who, who are you? where am I?\" I stuttered, to say I was petrified was an understatement. My world had just collapsed and I had no idea where I was..\n\n\"You are in paradise. This is the space woven in the universe, it allows for unlimited possibilities.\" As if to prove his point he raised his hand and a dark red smoke swirled before dissipating, leaving an apple in its wake. \"You are my replacement, this your new home Tom.\"\n\n\"You haven't answered my question! Who are you?\" I begged.\n\n\"Oh surely you should know by now?\" He said as he turned and walked away. \"I am God, or at least I was! That's your mantle now!\" He continued to walk until he had faded into nothingness, leaving me stranded. Stranded in limbo.", "Operator: Hello 911\n\nMan: Hello, I have 1 second left on my life clock.\n\nO: Ok sir, what is your location? I can send someone to get you body.\n\nM: No it’s stuck at 1 sec.\n\nO: OH… Sir can you repeat that?\n\nM: My life clock is stuck at 1 sec.\n\nO: Umm… I’ve never had this situation. Do you think you can make it to the hospital?\n\nM: Not sure I can keel over any second.\n\nO: I will send an ambulance for you.\n\nLater at the hospital\n\nDoctor: Ok sir, it looks like your life clock was running a little fast, but because your still alive it just adds 1 second overtime the second runs out. This is a first for me.\n\nM: Ok do you know how long I have left?\n\nDoctor: Well it wasn’t to fast. It should be coming up just about... now." ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1427230819", "1427233795" ]

[ "I already posted one, but I had a short, funny idea:\n\nI awoke with the worst hangover of my life. \"Rumplemintz. Never again,\" I muttered to myself. I never remembered my room being this bright. I couldn't see a damned thing. \"Your kind has been cut off from all other sentient beings for too long,\" sung an angelic voice. \"Da fuck?\" I croaked in response. I could really use a gatorade. \"'Da fuck,' indeed,\" the voice soothed. \"We mean to open communication with your people. We simply need a vessel to monitor your planet so we can determine the most effective way of doing so.\" Perplexed and feeling none too cooperative with whatever the hell was going on, \"I nominate Greg. He's more the kind of guy to do that.\"\n\n\"Do not be foolish. You will do just fine. Now, you may feel some discomfort, but it will only be momentary. After that, you need not do anything apart from live as you normally would.\" I head a slight humming. Then it stopped. \"That wasn't so-\" then a searing pain ripped through my ass. \"There. Completed. We will send you home.\" ", "Y'know, I always wondered why aliens haven't tried to contact us. Well, scratch that. Me and a few million other people. Of course, there's a bullshit theory about them contacting us in the past here, some vaguely credible evidence about them actually existing there, and jokes about \"the only proof we have that intelligent life except us exists in the universe is that none of them have tried to contact us\" galore on the Internet.\n\nMy theory was that extraterrestrial life had no resistance against Earth diseases, and that was why they never dropped in to say hi.\n\nNow, as fire rains down from the sky, dead bodies litter the ground, and I slowly start drifting away into oblivion, I finally realize why aliens had avoided us.\n\nThey weren't afraid of our Earth bacteria. No, that wasn't it.\n\n*We* were the bacteria.\n\nAnd as I see bright lights drifting down from the sky, I smile.\n\nGuess I was right.", "Sasha walked along the coast, heading North where he thought it might rain more. As he approached the old orangey reddish bridge, it was getting dark, and he decided to camp in a park next some fruit trees. After many years, the corpse smell had finally given way to the smells of overgrown vegetation. As he settled into his sleeping bag, a fog rolled in. A bright light appeared in the sky and slowed as it came down. It made the fog glow. Sasha had seen a helicopter once as a small kid, but that was forty years ago. The possibility of seeing another person overcame any fear he might have had. Sasha walked toward the light. It was not a helicopter. \n\nA sphere with a few marks and bumps and metal pieces changed shape and grew some stubby legs as a hole appeared and a ramp. It grew from the opening. Humans did not walk out of it. A smaller white sphere with a black window in it floated around and approached Sasha. Sasha started having strange hallucinations. \n\nHe saw the Earth all at once and somehow knew that humans numbered only in the hundreds. He could see where they once lived. Then he could see them on a huge ship, together, in group pods, frozen. The hallucination zoomed out, and swept through a few stars, and zoomed back into a planet with many blue/purple islands in a green sea. He knew he would be taken there, but couldn't quite see why. His mind tried to grasp the question, but the hallucination immediately stopped. The experience left him disoriented and nauseous. When he got his bearing, the smaller white sphere had in the mean time grown an arm and was walking him to the bigger sphere with a hole in it. Sasha started to try and get away, but the grasp of the sphere was too tight. In response to his resistance, another arm grew, held him by the torso and flew him into the ship, where a pod was waiting to freeze him. He remembered being thrown in, he remembered screaming, the next thing he knew, he was lying in a bed of purple grass, and some naked humans surrounding him. \n\nAn older woman said, \"Welcome to the galactic wild life reserve. Follow me.\"", "The sky opened up. It had been cloudy all month on the eastern seaboard. From Charleston to New York, everyone felt the ground shake and heard a terrible roar. Windows rattled in their frames. Car alarms were set off. Small children cried out in fear and animal scurried away. The air traffic controllers at Andrews Air Force Base saw their screens fill, first with millions of small contacts, then one massive one. A smooth, silver, oblong object came to a halt about 60,000 feet above the Potomac. Secret Service Agents rushed the president and his family to Marine One, unsure if that was a safe move, but knowing it was probably the safest. As the helicopter hovered, first family on board, over the White House lawn, a radar operator saw what his training told him had to be an air-to-air missile streaking in. \"Bandit! Bandit!\" he screamed over the radio, as the chopper pilot made a risky and likely futile evasive maneuver. The powerful turbines came to a sudden halt as the helicopter slammed into the ground. A matte, silver, bullet-shaped object, the size of a school bus, streaked in and came to a jarring halt mere feet from the presidential helicopter. \n\n\"Mr. President! You must stay inside. We don't know what it is!\" barked the protection detail lead. \"If it was going to harm me, it would have done so already,\" snapped the commander-in-cheif. He stumbled out to see a willowy humanoid figure standing on he grass. An erie moaning sound emanated from its direction, followed by a tinny computerized voice. \"Am I correct that you a leader of this planet?\" \n\nThe president croaked, \"I- I am... I am the president of the United States of America. Who, or what are you?\" \n\n\"Your kind might refer to me as an alien - as I am from a different planet.\" The voice responded, coming from no particular direction. \"We have dispatched emissaries from our coalition to what we have identified as the major capitals of your planet.\"\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" responded the president, his presidential voice coming back to him. \n\n\"Mr. President, let someone else handle this. It's not safe,\" warned the Secret Service Agent, as he slid up next to his charge. \n\n\"Dammit! I will conduct this!\" hissed the POTUS. \n\n\"You are correct to be unafraid. We mean no harm,\" said the voice. \"Your system has been under quarantine for some time. As we began noticing signs of development from this region, we detected a series of uncontrolled thermonuclear reactions that would indicate barbarism unfit for interplanetary contact. It has been a long enough period of time since the last incident and we have determined to lift the quarantine on your planet and forger a relationship.\"\n\n\"I am pleased to hear this. Let me be the first to welcome you to Earth!\" As the president reached out to grasp the end of the being's arm. They touched and he began to feel a supreme warmth and peace spread through his body. But, as suddenly as it began, the feeling of well-being was violently ripped from the president's body, leaving him feeling empty and ill. \n\n\"Your kind has proven to lack the advanced state we had expected,\" the voice chided. \"The quarantine is reinstated. Do not expect a similar visit during your lifetime.\"\n\nThe being blinked out of the exitance. The small craft streaked away and the large one pulled out of Earth's atmosphere. \n\n\"What happened?\" gasped the exasperated leader.\n\nThe agent responded, \"I'm getting a report on the radio. One of the other ships was attacked.\"\n\n\"Who would be so daft? The Russians? The Chinese? An EU power?\"\n\n\"New Zealand, sir. It was Wellington.\" \n", "The sun is a young star and there are ones that are far older than ours, there is a high probability that those stars will harbor earth like planets. From those planets earth like planets, civilizations will spring forth will develop space travel. Given that the universe is over 13 billion years old, these civilizations could colonize the whole galaxy in little as 10 million years even with current envisioned technology. We are left wondering, where are they?\n\nThis is what is known as the Fermi Paradox.\n\nWe had no idea why we have not seen or heard from our interstellar neighbors. They skies remained silent has they have always been. \n\nThen a whisper. An simple numeric sequence made out of dots and dashes coming from a previously unknown planetoid between earth and mars orbits that was perfectly synced with Earth's own orbit with the sun.\n\nSETI finally popped open that bottle of champagne. However, that excitement turned into concern as that numeric sequence was revealed to be a count down. \n\nThe pentagon militarized the whole project and deemed it classified even though anyone with an AM/FM radio could pick up the signal on a clear night. Men in military uniforms locked everything down and threatened us with charges of treason if we, like the General Swartz put it, make like Snowden.\n\nThe next week the office was tense and oppressive. The count down made the situation all too real, and the military types felt it too and some of them blamed us for this. \n\nNASA and NORAD watched this new planetoid that some how appeared in the night sky. It was close enough for our telescopes to see that it was a rock about the size of Alaska, it did however have structures built on the surface on the planet and had scars of a mining operation on its face. The orbit was stable and it was not decaying in one way or the other. It was close enough to mars and our own plantet that it should have messed its orbit but it seemed to ignore the gravitational influence of both its neighboring planets.\n\nOur own attempts to contact the object were only met with silence. The silence here, however, did not last for long. The planetoid was too close and its radio signal was strong enough for a car radio to pick it up. We didn't need to leak it, amateur astronomers did that for us. It was all what the 24 hour news networks were talking about, only to break away for about a day to cover a mass suicide by a doomsday cult.\n\nRiots were starting to break out, a lot of states in the US declaring a state of emergency with national guard units supplementing police forces. Supermarkets wiped clean by the populace preparing for the worst as the countdown nears its end. \n\nThen a Bang. A massive data stream overloaded everything on every wavelength. The planetoid did not change its orbit or seem to change. It took us about day to figure out what happening. Everything using a radio frequency was knocked out due to the over whelming strength of the signal.\n\nWe were surprised to see what was in the data stream, it was not only in our languages but it was using our codecs and file types! I personally opened a zip containing schematics for a consumer grade quantum CPU. \n\nThen among all the data we found protocols for linking to an alien network. We quickly kluged together a text messenger using those protocols and sent a message in our own language.\n\n[SETI, USA, EARTH]: To it may concern, the massive data stream your are sending is currently disrupting our own networks and technology on a global scale. We cannot handle this load, please respond.\n\nThe whole room was tense, uniforms and SETI nerds huddled around a projector as they waited for a response. Radios in the room cleared up from the static, and Internet service returned soon after.\n\nThen a response.\n\n[Quarantine Office, LNM Empire, SOL STATION] Apologies, we have over estimated your planet's infrastructure. It was not our intention.\n\nWe all gasped not quite expecting it. We quickly confirmed it was from the planetoid. I cracked my knuckles not quite knowing what to write next.\n\n[SETI, USA, EARTH]: My name is John, who are you?\n\n[Quarantine Office, LNM Empire, SOL STATION]: I am Professor Loc'nex of the Quarantine Office for the LNM Empire. I writing to you through a translator program to speak to you in your specific human dialect. \n\n[SETI, USA, EARTH]: Why are you here and why now?\n\n[Quarantine Office, LNM Empire, SOL STATION]: Your planet has been quarantined for [585.83 years]. It was deemed no longer necessary and this was our attempt to initiate to contact through the WANet.\n\n[SETI, USA, EARTH]: Why were we quarantined?\n\n[Quarantine Office, LNM Empire, SOL STATION]: I'll tell you, but first, I need about treefiddy.\n\nThen I realized the Professor Loc'nex, was a 500 foot tall monster form the paleolithic area.\n\n[SETI, USA, EARTH]: God Dammit Loch Ness Monster, I ain’t gonna give you no tree fiddy!!", " “Again, we sincerely apologize for how this quarantine must have affected your planet, but for the good of the galactic community, the infestation *had* to be stopped.”\n\n “Huh.” I really didn’t know how else to respond. I was chosen as a representative of humanity to communicate with the alien landing party, and I thought I was prepared for anything: declarations of war, offerings of peace and cooperation, or even a complete lack of communication, but not this.\n\n“Of course,” the alien dignitary continued, “The galaxy thanks you for your sacrifice and service in extinguishing that horrifying species. Citizens of Earth will be welcomed happily into the-“\n\n“Wait-“ I interrupted. “Wait, are you saying that you were just waiting for us to extinguish the ‘threat’ this whole time?”\n\n“Well no, not exactly,” the alien glanced sideways, he looked a bit uncomfortable now. “We- we really didn’t believe you would survive at all.” He shrugged apologetically.\n\n “So many systems were infested, and given up for lost! Once they exhaust the resources and food supply of a planet they move on to the next, our only chance was to strand them on Earth.” \n\n“Right. Well… I need to confer with my superiors about this uh- revelation.”\n\n“That is reasonable, shall will reconvene tomorrow?” The alien asked politely. \n\n“Yeah, yeah that will be acceptable. G-goodbye.”\n\nI walked back to headquarters slowly, lost in thought, contemplating the reason for our entire lonely existence in the galaxy for so long. As I entered HQ, it was suddenly silent and every eye looked to me. The General spoke one word, “Why?”\n\nI looked back at him in a daze and replied, “Pandas.”\n", "My skull felt like John Henry and the steam engine were in a race to see who could burrow through it the fastest. I ached all over and it was like every nerve fiber was turned up to 11. My hair hurt. It was like the world's worst hangover and more. Yet I was fairly certain I hadn't been drinking. \n\nI remembered clocking out from work and taking the bus home. The closest bus stop was on the exact opposite side of Thompson Park so, like usual, I cut across the park towards my apartment. This time, though, I had stopped because there were these weird lights floating overhead. Then I had been illuminated by a shaft of light and . . .\n\nOh.\n\nMy eyes snapped open. I was in a spartan white room. The walls seemed to emit a soft white light. I was also butt naked and strapped to a steel operating table. I clenched my butt cheeks together in a desperate bid to avoid what I figured was scheduled for the main event.\n\n\" . . . rhythms . . . alert . . . fully integrated,\" a voice sounded from nowhere. I was only catching a word here or there. Not because the voice was low either. No, it boomed loud enough to make my throbbing skull feel like it was about to explode. I cringed in my straps and tried in vain to release my arms so I could clamp them over my ears. Maybe someone out there noticed my reaction and took pity on me because when the voice spoke again the volume was at a less ear splitting level.\n\n\" . . .waves . . . asynchronous . . . presently,\" the voice said again. Yeah, it wasn't my imagination after all. I was struggling to follow the words because they weren't in English. They weren't in any language I ever head before either. I wasn't even sure that the \"words\" could be made by a human throat. Yet I understood them. Sort of. When the voice spoke up a third time I concentrated on the sounds and found that eased comprehension.\n\n\". . . the symbiotic . . . but only in the language areas. Extraordinary, really. The Chimera really did . . . . work of art if I do say so myself,\" the voice concluded. I couldn't tell if the voice was male or female. The inflection and tone of voice was all wrong too. It made the voice sound almost synthetic but I knew instinctively that wasn't true. The speaker was very much alive but, I was now certain, not human. After an agonizing moment where nothing happened, part of the wall ahead of me dissolved and a pair of figures stepped into the room. The first thought that occurred to me is that, apparently, hazmats suits look the same all across the universe.\n\nThe pair were definitely not human. The proportions and shapes were all wrong. But the suits? They would be right at home at the CDC. Walking balloons with gloves and boots and a clear plastic face plate. The face behind the plastic looked like a shriveled up apple with too many eyes. The eyes were like a spider's. Two large compound eyes with smaller sensors scattered around its head. The taller one opened its toothless maw and that same voice spoke up again.\n\n\". . . should be integrated enough to allow mutual comprehension,\" the voice said, \"But there is no way of knowing as we are dealing with eons of neural drift patterns. Still, you can try.\"\n\nThe shorter one stepped forward and addressed me.\n\n\"Can you comprehend me?\" it asked.\n\n\"Evening,\" I greeted, \"How's Elvis doing these days?\"\n\nThe two figures stared at one another.\n\n\"The symbiotic matrix must have affixed itself irregularly,\" the taller one concluded, \"I was afraid of this. We may be completely unable to communicate with it.\"\n\nThe shorter one looked back at me.\n\n\"Are you able to comprehend me?\" it asked, \"If not then we shall have to dispose of you and find another subject for interrogation.\"\n\nI didn't like the sound of the word **dispose** so I opted for tact this time.\n\n\"I understand you just fine,\" I said, \"But if you bring out a probe without the decency to lube it up first you can forget asking for a second date.\"\n\nThe two regarded each other.\n\n\"Extraordinary,\" the taller one said, \"It seems to be able to understand us but it's like half its words are complete gibberish to us. Perhaps the symbiote hasn't completely updated its lexicon of their language to the ship.\"\n\nThe smaller one considered this.\n\n\"Perhaps it is a token gesture of hostility?\" it mused, \"A war cry or a declaration of defiance?\"\n\n\"It's called sarcasm,\" I called out, \"Better get used to it because if this is how your make introductions on your world you are in for a lot of it.\"\n\nThey both regarded me.\n\n\"I do believe,\" the taller one said, \"That the symbiote is linked. You may interrogate the subject, Captain.\"\n\nThe shorter one, the Captain I now realized, strode forward until he was standing beside me.\n\n\"There are over 7 billion of your species,\" he said, \"How is this possible?\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much and Barry White is singing in the background-\"\n\n\"Captain,\" the taller one interrupted, \"I believe the gibberish is a defense mechanism. He is likely unaware of the Barricade Worlds status.\"\n\nThe captain smacked his lipless mouth a few times before turning to face me once more.\n\n\"How has your species survived?\" it asked me.\n\n\"We wonder the same thing,\" I informed it.\n\n\"Then you know of the Khrikll plague?\"\n\nOne word did not translate. I just looked at the captain.\"\n\n\"How did your species survive this?\" it asked.\n\n\"I have no idea what you are talking about,\" I said. The captain looked at the taller one who I now thought of as the Science Officer.\n\n\"It is likely telling the truth,\" the Science Officer concluded, \"I find no traces of the plague present in its body. Yet, oddly, there is evidence of infections with several related diseases. It seems to have developed and immunity to them.\"\n\nAgain the lipless mouth smacking. A sign of anxiety, I realized. I was starting to pick up elements of their body language. Curious.\n\nThe captain faced me again.\n\n\"The infantry species,\" it asked, \"What happened?\"\n\n\"What are we talking about?\"\n\nThe wall before me flashed and became a screen of some sort. Projected on this screen was a rather familiar looking figure. Well, familiar in the sense that I had seen it before in museums. But usually they were wearing animal skins and carrying clubs. The mechanized armor and high tech assault rifle were an interesting twist.\n\n\"That's a Neanderthal!\" I blurted.\n\nThe two aliens regarded one another and looked back at me.\n\n\"What happened to them?\" the captain asked.\n\nI tried to shrug but the straps made it difficult.\n\n\"We're not sure,\" I admitted, \"They seemed to have lived with our kind for a few thousand years and just dwindled away. Some scientists think they interbred with us.\"\n\nThe captain's mouth smacked more vigorously. Agitation.\n\n\"Only the commandos have survived?\" it asked. \n\n\"Commandos?\" I asked.\n\n\"Your species! The Chimera Commandos!\"\n\n\"I have no idea what you are talking about.\"\n\n\"Captain!\" it was the science officer, \"Perhaps if I gave this creature some background it might facilitate our interrogation?\"\n\nThe captain's mouth jittered, but it stepped back and allowed the Science Officer to take its place. The screen flashed and I saw a picture of Earth floating in the inky blackness of space.\n\n\"Your world,\" the Science Officer said unnecessarily.\n\n\"Nice place,\" I told it.\n\n\"It is a hell,\" it corrected me, \"A rock with unstable tectonic plates, destructive weather patterns, and aggressive fauna. Which is perhaps why the Chimera used it as their personal petri dish.\"\n\n\"You keep talking about the Chimera. Who is that?\"\n\n\"Genetic tinkers,\" it told me, \"An ancient race from the far side of the galaxy. They manipulate their own genes and the others they come in contact with. Trying to make the perfect species. Who did not join them willingly were conquered.\"\n\n\"They sound unpleasant,\" I agreed.\n\nThe screen flashed again. This time to an image of multiple flying saucers firing energy beams at a t-rex with cannons strapped to its sides.\n\n\"The Second Wave Invasion,\" the Science Officer informed me, \"The attacked our ground forces with these dragons. We eventually traced their origin back to your planet. We thought we destroyed their weapon factory when we launched an asteroid at the planet to destroy all life. Without their dragons to supplement their ranks they were forced to retreat.\"\n\nThe image flashed back to the image of the Neanderthal in battle armor. But the image was now zoomed out and I saw another person behind him. A more modern looking human wearing lighter armor.\n\n\"The ground troops from the Third Wave Invasion,\" the science officer concluded, \"Imagine our surprise when we traced their origin back to the same planet!\"\n\n\"Our bad?\" I said.\n\n\"Your species were extremely versatile shock troops,\" it went on, \"Exceeding violent, easy to heal, strong, fast, limber, and, most of all, numerous. Your biology made you highly resistant to psionic and chemical attacks. We were forced to create a biological weapon to wipe out your species. A virus so dangerous that we have blockaded your entire sector for eons waiting for the disease to run its course before investigating the effectiveness. Now we find you not only survived but thrived! More numerous than ever!\"\n\nI tried to shrug again.\n\n\"Healthy living and a lot of porn,\" I said.\n\n\"Another defense mechanism,\" the Science Officer declared, \"But I believe you understand us. Despite our best efforts to destroy your hell world it seems to insist on providing the most vicious monsters known to the galaxy. Which is why we are here.\"\n\n\"To try to wipe us out again?\" I asked.\n\n\"Hardly,\" the captain said, \"Early scout ships from the far quadrants are alerting us to movement among the Chimera strongholds. They are scaling up.\"\n\nBoth of them jittered their mouths.\n\n\"The Fourth Wave?\" I guessed.\n\nThey recoiled from me but didn't deny it. Oh boy. Looks like things are going to get interesting real soon. " ]

[ 1, 3, 6, 6, 11, 79, 412 ]

[ "1427251542", "1427229533", "1427220325", "1427250799", "1427252082", "1427221379", "1427213576" ]

[ "ATTENTION ALL CITIZENS OF [location redacted] — THIS IS A PUBLIC SAFETY ANNOUNCEMENT. DUE TO A CONTAINMENT BREACH IN ASSOCIATION WITH PROJECT [Genesis], A SPECIMEN IS NO LONGER IN CAPTIVITY. SPECIMEN IS DEEMED [extremely dangerous]. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.\n\nThe message blared on repeat, fading into the whitenoise behind life in panic. That is, until the TV sets died and the radios buzzed to silence. It was surreal, too weird to be true. The stories of old, the reason I used to sit up in bed at night, back to haunt me during the day. \n\nEXTREMELY DANGEROUS\n\nThe stuff of nightmares, literally. A beast so gruesome he has been reflected in every society to rise and fall. A monster who feeds on dreams and consumes innocence. \n\nAVOID AT ALL COSTS\n\nHe could be anywhere. He is but a shadow. Invisible in direct light, as big as darkness, and faster than you can open your eyes. \n\nCONTAINMENT BREACH\n\nSomething moves nearby. Could be the closet, or under the bed. Could be the wind. No one is dumb enough to be in the street. \n\nCAPTIVITY\n\nThe lights go out. ", "\"This better be good,\" said Director Simmons as he exited the secret elevator into the lab. A scientist wearing a white lab coat jumped up from his desk on the other side of the room and scurried over to meet him.\n\n\"Sir,\" said the scientist. \"It's Project Boogeyman. It escaped.\"\n\n\"My god,\" exclaimed the director. \"What happened, Dr. Wexler?\"\n\n\"We're not sure, sir,\" he replied, now escorting the director to a row of cell doors. Each door looked exactly the same; white with a black border around a small glass window. The only distinguishing marks were the numbers. They walked to the end, stopping in front of door 10.\n\nDirector Simmons took a look through the window and then stepped back. \"Is this some kind of a joke?\" he asked.\n\nDr. Wexler rushed forward and looked through the window. \"I- I don't understand, sir.\" he answered. \"Dr. Thomson,\" he called across the room.\n\nDr. Thomson stood up from her desk and walked over to Dr. Simmons and Dr. Wexler. \"Yes, sir?\" she asked.\n\n\"Dr. Thomson,\" started Dr. Wexler. \"You told me Project Boogeyman escaped, but it's still in its cell.\"\n\n\"Sir, I told you we had a breakout in cell 9.\" Dr. Thomas pointed to the previous door on the left.\n\nDr. Wexler dashed to door 9 and looked in the window to find the cell empty. Director Simmons joined him.\n\n\"What was in cell 9\" asked Director Simmons.\n\n\"Something much worse,\" answered Dr. Wexler. \"I can't believe I mixed up the cells, we have very strict protocols to follow if this monster were ever to escape. We know exactly where its going and it's very urgent we try to intercept.\"\n\n\"What protocols?\" asked the director.\n\nDr. Wexler turned to Dr. Thomson. \"Send a retrieval team to every grocery store, convenient store, and bakery in a 20 mile radius,\" he said. \"It's going after the cookies.\"" ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1427260668", "1427254036" ]

[ "\"This can't be right,\"\n\nMr. Higgins was still rubbing the crust out of the edges of his eyes with his knuckles in the early morning. He was on his way to the bathroom when he realized he really wasn't on his way. He opened and walked out of the bedroom door again, only to stumble back into a view of his bedroom. He repeated the process to the same effect, much to his horror.\n\nMr. Higgins looked around nervously. Had he been selected as the recepient of an elaborate prank? He couldn't have. A fifty-four year old actuarial accountant with no memorable relations had no business with events as strange as this.\n\n\"What the fuck is going on?\"\n\nMr. Higgins pulled at the whiskers at the edge of his mustache nervously. A great wave of anxiety crashed over him, and he also really needed to pee.\n\nHiggins reached for his glasses on his nightstand. The room looked very much the same, and nothing was out of the ordinary. Another few rounds through the door made him feel increasingly agitated.\n\n\"Hello!\" He screamed out.\n\n\"Heeeelllooooo!!! Anyone!!!\" No one replied\n\n\"This isn't funny but I am going to be late for work.\" \n\nIt was true, Mr. Higgins was going to be late. Something he never was, and something he felt he could never afford to be.\n\n\"Aha,\" he exclaimed. Finally struck with an idea that pulled him out of deep despair. Higgins went to open the window, the cool autumn air poured in and the branches of the trees bounced lightly in joy.\n\nFreedom was there for Mr. Higgins. He grabbed his watch, walllet, and keys beside his bed and fetched a neatly folded blue button-down shirt, long navy-blue socks, a pair of grey slacks, and a belt all from the dresser in his bedroom. Now all he needed was his coat, tie, and dress shoes. He went to open the closet door when he again saw his bedroom.\n\n\"What in the fuck!\" Even more troubling than this, the window was open in both, the sheets and blankets were identically disheveled, and the same belt, socks, pants, and shirt were missing from each dresser on either side of what was supposed to be the closet door.\n\nHiggins couldn't take it anymore. He slipped on his cozy fox slippers and made for the window. He strained and struggled to pull himself up and through, till his stomach was balanced on the windowsill. His house was only one story, but you would have that he was climbing out the top floor of a skyscraper. After a long ardous process of heaving and twisting and repositioning,'Higgins finally elected to release his hands from the ledge to land softly on the lawn.\n\nThe pressing of the window onto his bladder was now causing him great distress. Higgins raced for the fromt door and unlocked it.\n\n\"Are you fucking kidding me?!\"\n\nThere was his bedroom, window still open. The same view was behind him on the other side of the door.\n\nHiggins went out of the window in a hurry this time, landed more roughly on the lawn, unzipped his pants and urinated right there in his front yard. He shook it to dry it off as best he could, and it bounced like the branches in the breeze.\n\nHiggins checked his watch. 8:39. No time\nFor breakfast, he was already in danger of being tardy. He unlocked the car door and sat inside the front seat, but he ended up falling a greater distance than anticipated, bruising his tailbone against the bedroom carpet.\n\n\"Ow.. Oh no, fuck no! Jesus fuck!\" Higgins let out a string of curses in pain and frustration.\n\nAgain Higgins went out the window with urgency, walked to the parked car in his driveway, popped open the trunk of his car, and crawled to the front seat. The car started as normal. The drive was rather pleasant but He made it rather quick, which was not normal for for Mr. Higgins, who never risked speeding. In the employee parking lot, Higgins crawled out of his trunk. While dangling out and pushing his spectacles back into place, he looked up to meet the face of his very confused boss.\n\n\"Oh.. hello Michele, How are..\"\n\n\"Higgins, should I even ask?\"\n\nHe might have said yes, but then he thought better of it. Repeating the story to himself made the morning seem ridiculous, even though he was there, and even though it was.\n\nMichelle was heading through the lot toward the large glass doors of the accounting firm when Higgins raced to catch up with her.\n\n\"Michelle?\"\n\n\"Yeah Matt?\" She tucked her hair behind her ear wirh her fingers as she turned her head toward him.\n\n\"Would you allow me to hold your hand as we walk through the door?\"\n\n\"What?\" She was completely off-guard. Put off even, from what Mr. Higgins could make of her expression.\n\n\"It's not like that it's just. Well it's a superstition?\"\n\n\"Higgins, do you need me to make a meeting for you with HR ?\"\n\n\"God no,\" Higgins sighed. \"Look it doesn't mean anything, it's sort of an experiment.\"\n\n\"An experiment?!\"\n\n\"'No, look it means nothing. It's just a favor. Will you do it for me?\"\n\nShe apprehensively placed her hand in his. Her hand was cool, her fingers traversed slowly until they interlocked with his. Now that Higgins though about it, this was the first time he had held a woman's hand in twenty years since his divorce.\n\n\"Your hand is warm.\"\n\n\"Sorry,\" Higgins said instinctively.\n\n\"No, it's not bad. I just didn't think your hands would feel warm?\"\n\n\"Why? What were you thinking my hands would feel like, and why were you thinking about what they would feel like?\"\n\n\"Because you asked me to hold your hand! Isn't that why you asked me?\"\n\n\"No..\"\n\n\"No?!\"\n\nThey were through the door stepping into the hallway now. They both looked at their hands, then at each other, then let go.\n\n\"Actually yeah, I haven't held a hand in a while and I just thought I needed it.\"\n\n\"That's really sad.\"\n\n\"Is it?\"\n\n\"Yeah it is.\"\n\n\"You hold hands often then,\" he joked awkwardly.\n\n\"Well umm.. I've been on a few dates since Derek and I separated\"\n\n\"You're separated?\"\n\n\"You didn't even know Derek and I separated before you asked to hold my hand?\"\n\n\"..Sorry, I'm going to head to a meeting now?\"\n\n\"You mean the one I'm heading?\" Michelle asked.\n\nThey walked through another set of doors into a conference room. This time they weren't holding hands but Higgins still got there. \n\n\"I guess it's over..\" He muttered.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" he replied.\n\n\"Matt are those fox slippers?\"\n\n\"Oh shit..\"\n", "So, i know I'm gonna get downvoted for this, but I need some advice, and this seemed like the right sub. \n\nA little background: I used to get picked on a lot when I was in school, increasingly so in high school, and eventually I kinda retreated into my own space. I spent a lot of time in my own head daydreaming about places in fantasy books I've read, I would make really elaborate maps and go on journeys in my worlds, stuff like that. the point is that all that stuff has led to my lifestyle being really secluded, and I basically just hang out in my room all day.\n\nRecently I have been reading more non-fiction and realizing how much stuff in the real world is just as amazing as the stuff in my fictional worlds, and I decided to venture out and try to experience some of it. This was a big deal for me, but apparently the gods or the universe didn't approve, because the day I decided to make my first major venture out into the world, they changed the fucking laws of physics to make sure I couldn't.\n\nI mean I really wanted to, and i still do, now more than ever, it's just that every time I try, I can't. Not like i cant bring myself to leave or the door is locked. I mean the fucking doorway leads to the same room from both sides. I don't know if I'm going crazy or what, but I swear its true. I open the door, can clearly see the hallway leading to the living room, but as soon as I step out it turns into my room. I turn around, and what once was my room now looks like a hallway. I can jump back and forth all day (trust me, I have) and I never go anywhere but my room.\n\nI'm fucking starving. I've been pissing and shitting in jars for three days, and I'm really scared I might die in here, where ever here is. \n\nI don't want theories about what's happening, I don't want jokes from people who don't believe me, I just want help getting out of here. Please, will somebody roll a die and tell me what happens next? I'm tired of playing this game alone." ]

[ 2, 6 ]

[ "1427310675", "1427300013" ]

[ "\"No matter what happens, I promise it will be okay.\"\n\nSarah hasn't looked yet. I brought the telescope down to her house so she could see. I looked. And now I can't take it back. I will soon kill myself, like the rest. The clock is ticking.\n\nI called Sarah and told her, \"I don't have much time left, I'm going to kill myself soon,\" and she asked me to come over, and to bring my telescope so she could see it too.\n\nSarah and I had been in love, once, long before the suicides started a couple of weeks ago, but then people can stop loving each other sometimes, but don't stop caring.\n\n\"What am I going to see?\" she asks, nervously holding the neck of her sweater between her teeth so that if I didn't know her, I wouldn't have understood what she said.\n\n\"I can't ... describe it to you,\" I say. \"Just know, once you look, you're going to feel this urge, like nothing matters, nothing matters so fucking much that it hurts, it burns, like I'm burning inside right now, I can barely take it.\"\n\n\"I don't want to die,\" Sarah says, stepping back. \"Dan, this can't be real.\"\n\n\"I didn't believe it either,\" I said. \"But I was on Reddit and someone laid it out... get a telescope, point it here, and you'll know why people are committing suicide.\"\n\n\"I saw that too,\" she says. \"But I didn't go out and buy a fucking telescope.\"\n\n\"I was curious, \" I said. \"I don't regret it. I wanted to know, now I do. And now I know, life is not worth it.\"\n\nShe steps back, the star lit sky above our heads sparkling to us beneath the many worlds that dot a sheet of infinite nothingness between them. She is still innocent, pondering the unknowable, and her eyes still glimmer with hope. Mine might as well be closed here, for elsewhere they are open to the impossibility of knowing anything once I die, which is what makes this pain go away.\n\n\"I won't look,\" she says. \"I don't care if I end up the last person alive. I'm not going to kill myself.\"\n\n\"I'm not forcing you to,\" I say. \"Don't be scared Sarah. You should look. You should look through this lens and see.\"\n\n\"I won't do it!\" she screams, turning to run from me. I chase her. Why? I feel this urge, like I had felt when I first saw the sky for what it was, as false, as a false fabricated thing that isn't real, and I want Sarah to see it too, for her to know, that we don't have to waste another second in this world.\n\n\"Look!\" I scream, holding her down on the grass by the arms as she writhes under me, squirming, her eyes are filled with tears.\n\n\"No,\" she sobs. \"No, no. No.\" She stops fighting back, and I let go of her. My hands are shaking. She cries underneath me, my knees pinned to the grass around her waist. She covers her eyes and starts to cry.\n\n\"I'm sorry Sarah,\" I say. \"I'm going to have to go soon. I can't... I can't fight anymore. Not for something that doesn't exist.\"\n\nI get up, looking down at her on the grass, as she sits up and looks up at the night sky. She seems calm. Her eyes, still the same, look from the sky, then into mine.\n\n\"I saw it Dan,\" she says. \"I looked at it days ago.\"\n\n\"Then you know we have to kill ourselves,\" I say, bending down.\n\n\"No I don't,\" she says, still the same, her eyes still seem full of hope. \"I know that life is absurd, I know it's nothing compared to the vastness of infinity and the cause of this pain is knowing once and for all that it doesn't matter. But you know what? Fuck you.\"\n\n\"I have to go,\" I say.\n\nThere was no cause, nor explanation. There was nothing afterward. There was nothing before. In between there was us, and even this knowledge, knowing it is fleeting, hurts me still. I sit in my living room, alone, the street outside quiet, until morning comes. A shotgun next to me keeps me safe. The sky changes, the sun rises, and all the things I was taught to believe are true are still lies. But I don't believe them anymore. Just one more sunrise to watch, for its synthetic beauty. Where I will go now, alone, is back to the beginning, an end to this middle part, which I will soon come back to all over again.", "Focused prism surging \nHappiness among werewolves \nBloody staples follow them \n. \nSix hundred minds gone \nOf their own will \nI have become a sheep \n. \nBlack and firefly tease me \nDancing behind the glass \nA tiny tether I see \n. \nFifty years of searching \nThe truth plain as grass \n\"We are not alone\" \n. ", "*A* ***cage***.\n\nI look up, back, forth. Standing, I take a few restless steps away from my new toy, before returning, driven by that same internal force that drives a person to return to a refrigerator minutes after looking and seeing nothing good enough for a snack, and look into the lens again.\n\nA cage.\n\nIt isn't an obvious one, not made of straight lines or even the curves of a birdcage, but clearly a cage nonetheless. It's a strange sort of shape, some sort of convex form, made of stars and empty space. And just as a rabbit can't leave its cage but for short periods of time due to its need for food and drink, humanity is trapped in our enclosure for the same needs.\n\nNow, sitting back and letting this sink in, I am left to decide whether to live a life of captivity or to escape as the others have done. I look down, then out the window at the field I once associated with freedom, and heave a sigh.", "It became big news, how the heavens attacked.\nThe religious went... Nuts.\n\nMost religions didn't really put much credence to the idea that Gods or Godesses were wreaking death on those that dared peer into its creation, but...\nExtremists be extreme.\n\nIt killed off humanity's drive to go to space.\n\nBut one day, I couldn't take it.\nPerhaps it was just the depressing sense of finality, that this planet was all we were ever going to get.\nThe realisation that there were secrets, laws about the universe that mankind would never know.\nThe moment when humankind stopped looking outwards at the universe, and isolated itself.\n\nI grew sick, depressed, and wrong by the standards of the world I lived in.\n\nSo I bought a telescope. They weren't easily available, but hobbists tended to trade in the black market. Usually second hand castoffs from funerals of people with a interest in space.\n\nI looked out, one night.\n\nAs far as the world knows, I committed suicide. The Earth upon which I was born has become a dystopian nightmare, where science is outlawed, and hope is lost.\n\nI am now free.", "I looked through the looking glass and saw the smooth darkness and twinkling stars. Nothing else.\n The headlines of mass suicides peaked my interest and many others. Hell it took 6 stops at every hobby shop in the area just to get this 10 year old child's telescope. I never had much of a interest in space with it being up there and all but the morbid curiosity led me to sitting in a farmers Field 40 minutes from home looking for earths possible doom.\n I checked the twitter account of an Australian astronomy teacher in Melbourne. It just simply had coordinates in the sky of where to look. I didn't have much hope of seeing whatever it was that led the bastard to kill himself considering nobody has seen anything in the spot in the 2 days since. But I figured why the hell not. I sipped on the Luke warm coffee and wondered what they knew that governments didn't. Nothing is there. My eyes were tired and I was starting to get cold. \nI looked away from the eye glass and stared naked at the moon. An immediate shock of complete blackness surrounded me. My first thought was blindness but my phone at my side illuminated. Low battery. Then all sound was gone. No moon over the horizon. No stars. Nothing. The cold was instant. ", "I pulled out the folding chair I had bought previously that day and set up my equipment. Setting the telescope took some time but relatively quickly I was ready.\n\nFrancine had bought it for me last Tuesday. For my birthday it came with a note saying 'Since your head is in the clouds most days, you're perfect to see the stars!'. I grinned at the reference to telescopes and atmosphere interference. Being with a astronomer does that to you. She seemed a little distraught when I opened it though; Some friends of hers had gone missing recently.\n\nI opened my hamper and brought out the vital part of tonight's viewing.\n\nSetting my party eaten sandwich aside I fished the starmap from my left pocket. Keys, no. Phone, nope. At last! To the outside eye it was a boring black book. Further inspection would show tiny, almost non-existent white dots just like the black sky. Inside was a wonderfully organised and laid out guide to stargazing.\n\nI closed my eyes, opened the book and threw it into the air. Opening them, I was on Page 112 - Mercury. A quick adjustment to the scope and bam I had a different world in my sight. It was a little.. underwhelming. I expected it to do a little dance or wink at me. A real shame it didn't.\n\nLooking for something with a little more excitement I perused the list and settled on Mars. We were going there, eventually, so might as well perform some amateur reconnaissance. The Red Planet was rather dusty. Somewhere all alone a little rover was loyally chugging around that planet up there sending reports back to us. Once we get there I think we should take him off of shift. Poor guy needs a break from all that work. Damn it must be lonely.\n\nTo distract myself from the upsetting imagery I decided I'd look somewhere *no one* had before. I randomly span the the numbers and gazed at this unknown sight. The way I see it if the universe is constantly expanding a million people could look at one place one at a time and still something new. It was a beautiful thought.\n\nShame the view wasn't. It was a black canvas ripe for painting. Maybe the light hadn't reached it to us yet but waiting around a few million years or so wasn't an option for me. That would be boring!\n\nJust as I was about to give up hope I saw something tiny pop up. A slight flash of white. Then more appeared and started to form letters. \n\n**HELP**\n\nWow that was weird. As if space was asking *ME* for help. I'm puttting that on a CV.\n\n**HE IS HERE**\n\nOkay then, little bit freaky. \n\n**TOO LATE**\n\nThis must be a joke. My mouth opened to laugh it away.\n\n**RUN**\n\nThe nervous laugh caught in my throat.\n\nThe cold feeling in my stomach got colder as I waited for the next message.\n\n**I AM COMING**\n\n**NO ESCAPE**\n\n**NO SAVIOUR**\n\nAnd then it repeated.\n\nNo no no no no no. This wasn't happening. I was going crazy or it was true. I had to tell Francine. I had to tell NASA. The White House. How could I prove it? I wrote down the coordinates and raced home. My sandwich left uneaten.\n\n---\n\n'Francine!' I shouted 'You HAVE to see this'\n\n'What is it dear? What MUST I see?' Any other time I would love that sarcasm. The mirth from her eyes vanished when she saw my face. How scared I must look.\n\n'I saw it in the telescope. There's something. Something bad. Just look'\n\n'Okay I will'\n\nThe wait to set up the telescope was antagonising. I punched the numbers in erratically and practically shoved Francine into the eyepiece.\n\n'Calm down now and I'll look'\n\nShe looked.\n\n'Well? What do you see?!'\n\nNo reply.\n\n'Francine?!'\n\nNo reply. I pulled her and she collapsed to the floor. A fountain of blood exploded like a volcano from her eyes. Her nose. Her white skin was sullied by crimson red. I couldn't handle this. I stared down at the patch of space.\n\nThe messages were gone. Instead was a perverse creature. All I could see was a giant yellow eye surrounded by trenches of teeth. It noticed me. It couldn't have. It was trillions of light years away. How could it notice me?\n\nThe eye turned red and I felt a wetness on my face. My eyes closed and I departed.\n\n---\n\nDeep in space the Mind Devourer inched closer.\n\n---\n\nI liked writing this - haven't done anything like this.\n\nI was planning to direct you to a sub made up of my original work but turns out I need to get some karma before I can do that. Instead if you're interested PM me, and I'll message you when I have that setup. Thanks.", "*Could this be it?*\n\nMy hands are shaking as I prepare the telescope. *Will I be the next?* Deep breaths, Marcus, deep breaths. I press my face to the eyepiece. Everything comes into focus.\n\nNothing seems off.\n\nAt first.\n\nThe stars are bright, and I can make out a faint planet. Slowly, gradually, it becomes less blurred and larger. *I didn't know that telescopes focused.*\n\nHorror began to dawn on me. My telescope wasn't focusing. The 'planet' was getting closer.", "He peered into the lens at the empty patch of sky. Stars, like the twinkle in his daughter’s eye, spread in front of him by the thousands. But he wasn’t stargazing today. He was looking for *it*, the cause of hysteria among the astronomical community that left hundreds bereft. He first heard it from his father over the phone, quivering in his own skin, words escaping his throat like razor blades. Thank God for Allie’s swift mind, she booked him the first flight to New York that very day.\n \nHe raised his head from the telescope and turned to his father. “Dad, what am I looking for?” he asked. He was silent, elbows on his knees, and face buried in his palms. After a few moments, he spoke up, “Nothing Gabe. You’re looking for nothing.”\n \nHe raised a brow, “Nothing? You said something was coming. You said something about the signal...” Again his father fell silent. From the other room, his wife walked in with three cups of tea and a packet of Milano cookies, his favorite. She took a seat on the rocking chair next to his father and placed a hand on his shoulder.\n \n“James, please. Talk to us. We are trying to understand like everyone else.” she looked over to Gabe with furrowed brows and pointed at the seat next to James with her eyes and a nod.\n \nHe walked over next to his father and sat down. “Dad,” he said, “the reporters are saying that there is gamma radiation just inside our solar system or something? What’s going on?”\n \nJames leaned back into his seat and stared at the ceiling his eyes were glazed and his expression as dry as overcooked turkey. “We knew it was coming. We have known for four decades, but we ignored it.”\n \nAllie and he exchanged glances. “What...what did we know?” she asked.\n \n“The signal…” he said, coupled with a sigh, “We were facinated by it...until we realized what it was. We tried to warn them but they ignored us.”\n \nGabe raced through the extensive library of astronomical documentaries he viewed in his mind. For him to develop an interest was only natural as talk of the heavens was all he heard his father discuss since childhood. “Four decades ago? Dad, are you talking about the Wow! signal?”\n \nJames turned to face him. “Yea. That’s it.”\n \n“They said it was an anomaly, an earth signal bouncing off debris or something like that.” he said peering at his new telescope.\n \nHis father’s chest vibrated under his sweater as he chuckled. “Yea, okay. If you told me you were Jesus, I’d believe that before I believe that it was deflected radio signals.”\n \n“What do you mean?” Allie asked pausing halfway as she reached for a cookie.\n \nJames sat up, “The most powerful transmitter we have on this goddamn rock is 2500 kilowatts and that’s strong. The Wow!, assuming that it was remotely the size of the telescopes we have on earth, would have been eight-hundred-and-eighty times as strong, 2.2 gigawatts. And that’s not considering the other message…”\n \nThe three of them fell silent. “What other message?”\n \n“The one we had to sign an NDA for.” he said standing up and making his way to the telescope.\n \n“What do you mean ‘we’, James?” Allie asked.\n \n“I was there, with Jerry. I was the first one he showed it to, right before Martin. Martin was a smart son-of-a-bitch but holding on to shit he should hold on to was not his thing.”\n \n“I remember uncle Marty.” Gabe said. He moved with his father to Ohio after him and Ma split. Uncle Marty and dad became good friends until he died.\n \nHis father knelt, one knee to the ground, and peered through the telescope. After a few seconds, he raised his head and spoke, “Shit, what does it matter now anyway. Non-disclosure-agreement, or not, it won’t mean shit now anyway.”\n \nGabe glanced over to his wife in silence. Confusion, coupled with the stench of swelling dread, was thick around them. “What happened?”\n \n“There were two signals, Gabe, not one.” He sat down next to the telescope beneath the window ledge and combed his beard with his fingers. “The Wow! signal, the famous one, was strange, but that was it. It was relatively indecipherable. Along with it, however, we got another one almost twice as long as the Wow!. See, no one knew about this one, because the feds were on us in less than a day. How, is beyond me.”\n \n“Okay, I get that,\" he said scratching his head, \"but what's so special about this second signal?” Gabe asked. \n \n“It was a supplemental message. The Wow! alone meant nothing. This new message alone meant nothing as well, but when we compared the two in conjunction, playing and reorganizing the values we realized it was a message, perhaps even coded due to the mismatch in frequencies.”\n \nGabe’s heart began to thump. He wiped the sweat from his palms on his jeans and saw that Allie’s expression resembled his. “Message” he asked, “You mean like from aliens?” James just looked at him in response.\n \n“What was the message?”\n \nHe sighed, “Eight Coordinates. At least that was the first part of it. The first was what looked to be their position in the Milky Way as viewed from Earth. The second we realized was Earth from their position in the galaxy…”\n \nGabe’s heart skipped and his legs felt like jelly. Before he could say anything, Allie broke the silence, “Wait…you mean, that they knew…”\n \n“They knew exactly who they were sending the signal to.” James said completing her sentence, “We were the intended recipients. The fact that we even discovered the signal was a miracle, just sheer luck. We can only guess to how many they sent out.”\n \n“What about the rest?” Gabe asked. His face tingled the way it did right before fainting.\n\n“The five coordinates after that connected the first two…They were plotting a course.”\n \n“How is that possible?” Gabe’s head was spinning. “How can…you’re telling me the Government held on to this? An NDA isn’t enough to keep people from exposing this…”\n \nJames sniffled, “Martin thought so too. Started telling people…and…well, it took a lot of propaganda for the government to divert the conspiracy theorists.”\n \nHis eyes widened, “So uncle Martin…But he died in a plane crash.”\n \n“It was convenient wasn’t it?” He said with a fabricated chuckle. “I haven’t seen any of the reporters from the Ohio Times he told either.”\n \nNone of this made any sense. How could something like this be possible?\n \nThere was still one thing his father left out. “Dad, what was the last coordinate? You said there were eight. One for earth’s location, one for theirs, five for plots in between. What was the last coordinate?”\n \n“It was Earth’s coordinates again…except this time it was followed by zeros. It was just zeroes over and over again.” He said. “Through coordinates they informed us of our fate. Gabe, they sent us a declaration of eradication.”\n \n“James…” Allie said, the unbitten cookie between her two fingers trembling, “You said the first part of the message was coordinates…what about the rest?”\n \n“That was one thing we couldn’t figure out. Hundreds of astronomers were tasked with deciphering the code…and it took years. But we finally did it.”\n\n“When?” Gabe asked.\n \nJames closed his eyes.\n \nIt was not a heart thumping in his chest, it was a drum. “Dad, when?\n \nHis father looked up at him. “If I ask you to meet me on Times Square…and say nothing else, what bit of information are you missing?” he asked.\n \n“Time.” Allie responded before he could, “You need to know when to meet.”\n \nJames smiled. “Well we had the location already didn’t we? It turns out they gave us a time of their arrival too…based on the galactic center instead of the sun.” He looked at his son and daughter in law with tears resting on his bottom eyelid.”\n \n“We deciphered it a week ago. Those aren’t just random gamma rays, Gabe. They’re here.”\n", "I set up my little tripod, and put down my flask of tea. I glanced at the post it note I'd stuck on my backpack, with the scrawled co-ordinates on it. South a bit, West a lot, little bit North... that's it, right in position.\n\nThere's nothing there.\n\nI rub my eyes a little and adjust the focus, but still nothing there. It should have been there – the forum had said it would be exactly at this location. Maybe I wrote the co-ordinates wrong? I reach into my bag and shuffle around the bits of paper I printed off.\n\n**Topic: astronomer suicides**\n\n*The spot is circled on that diagram, I can't give you guys anything more specific because I haven't looked myself. All I know is that he looked, and stared for hours. When he was done he wasn't the same... he looked at me as if he didn't know me. That night he hung himself, and I never got to ask him what he saw. I'm too scared to look.*\n\nI stare at the paper some more, double check the co-ordinates. Pulling my jacket closer to me I realise that it's getting later and colder, and I have to head back to the car soon. I decide to have one last look, and turn back to the telescope.\n\nBut there is no telescope.\n\nI scan the ground around me, in case I had lost my bearings. But no, there is no telescope here. Has someone stolen it? I didn't hear anything moving. But now there is no noise at all except what sounds like a broken television somewhere out of sight in every direction.\n\nWasn't I here with someone? Where was Jack, I know he wanted to see it too – did he leave already? That doesn't make sense, the car was still there. But the car was a mile away, how can I know it's still here, that doesn't make sense either.\n\nThe sky is bleached red now, I don't think it was like that before. There are purple dots hanging in the sky like foreign stars I'd never seen before. I look down from the sky and see a man standing about fifty feet away, one arm stretched out towards me. I yelp and stumble backwards, tripping over my backpack.\n\nOnly, now I realise it isn't my backpack. What is this thing? It's sticky and putrid and black, and my hand is melting into it like custard. I try to scramble to my feet, but something is holding me down. It's the man, his hand on my head.\n\nAnd then I am standing in the field again, my eye pressed to the telescope lens looking out into an empty spot of space. Jack is saying something I don't understand. The wind brushes past my face.\n\n“What did you see?” I understand Jack to ask in a moment of clarity.\n\nI open my mouth to give an answer, but nothing comes out. I need to see it again." ]

[ 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 9, 36, 56 ]

[ "1427317320", "1427304822", "1427324107", "1427313044", "1427318656", "1427311711", "1427300952", "1427305700", "1427303544" ]

[ "A crystal.\n\nWhen one's parents are a little bit... 1960s, hippy, doolally in the head, New Age, and so on...\nAnd you have a passing interest in science...\nYou know your geology.\n\nAnd you know this is unlike anything you have ever seen before.\n\nYou pick it up, of course, and stuff it into your jeans pocket.\n\nAs the light starts to glow from it, and you feel your fabrics, and soon your flesh, dissolve in its rays, as your agony enters a fever pitch, as your very sinews are evaporated in a single instant, as your nails rip out, as your eyes witness, tor the first time, your heart being vaporised...\n\nYou realise that going outside may have been a mistake. A sentiment that, had you the time, would be accompanied with much cursing of your fortune.\n\nA week later, you emerge from the glowing aura that fascinated residents of the Midwest and had hit the news internationally.\n\nYou emerge, conscious of thin, bright red coloured material where your clothes once were.\nYou feel strange. Stronger, more... Sure of your position in the world.\n\nYou open your new eyes, and see that your body is now made of blue crystal, humanoid in shape.\n\nYou then realise you are dressed as a superhero.\nAnd then you notice you are hovering, unaided.\n\nPhotographers flash, people speak.\n\nThe burning white light fades.\n\nYou are now internationally famous, have potential superpowers, and look pretty buff.\nAnd you have a costume.\n\nThis is... Probably a good thing.\n\nMemory of your pain clashes with the elation of gaining mysterious superpowers.\n\nConfusion erupts, as you take off in reaction, when someone shoves a microphone in your direction.\n\nYou... Aren't ready to be their superhero.\n\nNot... yet.\n\nBesides, you need to apologise for scoffing the power of crystals.", "Karen stumbled through the darkness, her hands searching in vain for purchase. Her bare feet hurt. They hurt from the cold, from hard packed winter earth. They hurt from the bumps and scrapes left by the brambles of the bushes. \nBut Karen persisted. She wanted to see the ghost lady again. The woman had appeared outside her window a mere half hour before. Or had it been an hour? Or longer? Karen did not care, she would find the ghost lady, with her pale hair and shimmering eyes.\nEventually she came to a clearing. The clearing was perfectly round and the snow, white as fresh sheets. It whispered and melted as she made her way to the centre, where the ghost lady stood before a weathered stone nestled in the roots of great oak tree that had long ago been struck by lightning, it's skyward branches bare.\n\"Hello?\" Karen whispered as she approached. The ghost lady paid her no mind as she looked down at the stone, untouched by the snow though there were no branches above it to keep the snow away.\n\"Hello Karen.\" The ghost lady said at last, wiping a single tear from her face as she turned to the little girl. \nInstantly Karen felt uneasy. She shivered in her bright blue pyjamas and stepped back. The ghost lady frowned, her white dress fluttering despite there being no breeze.\n\"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.\" She told the little girl, lowering herself to her haunches so she could see eye to eye with the seven year old.\n\"I'm not scared.\" Karen said after a moment, pushing out her chest and settling her chin. The ghost lady smiled.\n\"Just like your namesake.\" She said. Karen quirked a hazel brow. \n\"Nothing.\" The ghost lady confessed, raising a hand in submission. Karen quickly moved on.\n\"Who are you?\" She asked innocently, scanning the pale woman. She seemed...off, even the child could tell. Slightly inhuman. \n\"My name is... was Molly. But he was the last person to call me that.\" She said, motioning to the gravestone on her left. Karen took another step back.\n\"You killed him?\" Karen asked, shocked. Molly's eyes widened.\n\"No. I meant... I meant it's been a very long time since I went by that name. He died a long time ago.\" She told Karen, who shook with both fear and cold.\n\"Who was he?\" Karen asked after a long moment, turning to look at the stone, not old, but uncut. There was no inscription on the headstone. \n\"A good man.\" Molly said immediately, the sadness in her voice palpable. She stared at the stone for a long moment before turning away and walking towards the trees.\n\"Wait!\" Karen called to Molly. The woman stopped.\n\"Will I see you again?\" She asked. Despite her terror, she was fascinated by the odd woman and the tingling field around her.\n\"Maybe. Only if you ask your mother about your grandfather.\" Molly told her, reaching into the folds of her pale dress as she did so.\n\"Why? Grandpa Jerry is boring.\" Karen said, trying to peek at what Molly hid in her hand. \n\"Not that grandpa, the other one. Your mother's father.\" Molly explained to Karen as she placed a small bundle of leather in the little girls hands. Then she turned to leave once again.\n\"But grandpa Harry died before I was born. Why's he important?\" Karen asked, opening the leather bundle.\n\"Dear, he may have been the most important man ever.\" Molly said without turning. Karen was shocked by the answer but she was to enraptured to pay it much mind.\nShe was far to bust looking at the ugly necklace resting in the bundle of soft leather. It was silver, and still shone despite the years. But it was twisted, bent into an unnatural shape, though long ago it may have been a star. Karen took the cool metal from it's wrapping and held it in her numb hands. It thrummed with power, giving off the slightest semblance of warmth. Karen loved it. She looked up to thank Molly for the gift but the woman was gone, footprints in the snow ending a few feet from Karen. Only then did the little girl realize how cold it was. She gasped and cried out, turning for home.\nBut she did not get far. She found herself wrapped in shadows, the folds of a great black coat pressing her to a warm body. The little girl knew the heartbeat all to well.\n\"Mom!\" She cried out as she was lifted from the ground and swaddled in the infinite space within the coat. The mother pressed her sole child to her chest, tears of joy stinging her face.\n\"What are you doing out here?\" The mother asked, stepping away from the tree and towards their home, a small affair at the edge of the forest.\n\"I met a woman named Molly. She was nice but weird.\" Karen said, knowing she would be punished for talking to strangers. \n\"Molly?\" The mother asked seriously. Karen nodded her head.\n\"What did she look like?\" The mother asked. Karen described the strange woman, from her pale hair to her strange, cat-like eyes. The mother was upset by this.\n\"She gave me a gift.\" Karen told her mother, showing her the twisted necklace tied on the rough leather cord. \nThe mother was speechless. She took the necklace and stared, standing in the winter cold. \n\"Mom?\" Karen questioned. The mother turned to her daughter, looking at her big brown eyes within the folds of the battered leather coat.\n\"Y-yes?\" The mother stammered, beginning to moved forward once again. \n\"What was so important about Grandpa Harry?\" Karen asked. The mother sighed and moved slower. \n\"I should have known this was coming.\" The mother muttered as she moved through the forest, creatures of the night bowing their heads from the shadows. They knew of the tales, of the mad man who once note that battered coat. Even now, they still feared it. \nAnd from the shadows, Molly, the Winter Queen, watched Margret Dresden carry her child home through the snow and cold. ", "Through the woods she stumbled, the hems of her sleep pants becoming dirty and frayed as her bare feet trudged on. Asking herself why did go through her head but didn't stop her forward movement. Above the full moon lit her path like a beacon guiding her to some unknown destination. It had been so long since she had entered the woods behind her house, growing too old for such childish exploration. Instead of her old imaginary friends she now had real ones and no longer needed to lose herself in the forest. So once again, why was she here?\n\n\"Because we asked you to come..\" A voice whispered from the shadow of a tree. Turning quickly she lost her footing, her balance failing her as she fell to the ground but no pain came to her. Opening her clenched eyes she found herself to be falling still but not quickly. Above her she could see the moon fading in the distance and watched as it grew smaller. \"Sorry about that dear...\" That same voice whispered to her from behind. Turning she tried to see the person the voice belonged to but instead finding a face of a human she found one of a hare. \"Oh!\" She exclaimed, \"Where did you come from little one?\" She spoke to it softly, the hare smiled an almost otherwordly grin. \"You know very well where I came from...\"\n\nAs the hare spoke to her and she watched his lips move the girl was thrust into her memories. A strange world full of wonderful yet weird creatures, one of which the very white hare before her. \"Oh no...\" The hare nodded, \"I'm afraid so Alice, Wonderland needs you once more.\"\n\n(Apologies for butchering this. I'm at work and this is my first prompt so I wanted to have fun. I usually have an editor help me with my longer stories so yes I'm sure there are grammatical errors but this was a rush job. Hope it's not too bad.)" ]

[ 1, 1, 5 ]

[ "1427318382", "1427332272", "1427311615" ]

[ "\"I'm nervous..\" she said, anxiously pushing up the bridge of her glasses with her index finger in quick, short jabs. \"Don't be. I think this stuff is full of nonsense anyway..\" I shoved my hands deep in my pockets, sighing softy as we walked towards the center. \"So, you're not scared at all? What if it says tomorrow?\" With a playful smirk, I shrugged, \"Then you and me would grab a few rounds at McGinney's and toast to my life tonight.\" Through her quiet laugh and elbow-jab to my side, I could tell she wasn't herself. \"Just relax, Emily.\"\n\nWe turned the corner and walked up the stone stairs, large light-posts to either side still remained despite the city's vast remodel. These small hints of our past always comforted me. Not everything's changed. Perhaps a bit ominous however, one light wasn't working and the other flickered and buzzed as we passed under it; Both of our eyes following it before opening the door and stepping inside. \n\nEmily stepped in first and walked over to stand on line. There were confessional-style booths lined up throughout the center, along the walls. People would walk in, sometimes together, never more than 2 at a time. Some would come out smiling, some expressionless, and others appearing more shaken, shocked, or in full-on hysterics. As we stood there for what seemed about a half hour, taking only half steps forward at a time, I found that there weren't any older people. The oldest person I saw leave the center was mid fifties. Perhaps they knew something we didn't or maybe they just didn't care. Maybe they were taking the right approach. \"C'mon.. \" Emily grabbed my hand, sweeping me from inner contemplation, and walked us over to the booth, slipping behind the curtain and pulling me with her.\n\nIt was simple. You placed your finger in a small contraption which would insert a very tiny needle, draw a minute amount of blood and give you your results on a computer screen in under a minute. We gave the automated directions a quick once-over and I went to put my finger into it, \"No..\" Emily, pulled my hand out, \"I want to go first.. I can't wait any more.\" I gave her a small nod and she complied. The screen prompted, \"You will feel a small pinch\". I saw Emily's slender figure give a tiny jolt. For some reason I thought there would be some sort of computer sounds -- beeping or booping or comically amusing noises of what one might expect. Instead; silence. \"Your results are ready. Please sign, using the touch-pad that you are ready to see you results. Thank you and good luck.\" \"Good luck?\" I scoffed with a shake of my head at the screen. \"Ready?\" \n\n\"No\" she said flatly and quickly signed her initials across the smudged pad before she could rethink the decision. \"August 14th, 3075\" appeared across the screen. Neither of us said a word as we tried to calculate how old she'd be in our heads. \"92!\" she finally proclaimed, breaking the quiet. \"I'll be 92. That's good, right?\" Her face seemed much brighter now, hopeful and relieved. \"It's great, Emily. It's great.\" Stepping aside for me, \"That wasn't so bad.. Now you.\" \n\nI stepped forward, putting my finger into the finger-shaped resting pad. Out came the needle and the small pinch. I glanced over at her, she was smiling. When she caught my stare, she corrected her smile into a serious expression; as if not to rub it in. \"It's ok. It's great.\" I reassured her with a chuckle. The screen lit up again, asking for my signature. With a deep inhale and heavy exhale, I signed my initials. \"October 31, 4394\". \n\nWe stood there for a moment, \"Wait, what?\" I shook my head and looked again. \"It's broken... it broke.\" Emily popped her head out from the curtain, \"Excuse me. I think this one's broken... Can we get help?\" A larger woman in her early 40's in a blue uniform waddled her way over, a lit cigarette dangling from her chapped lips. \"Let me see.\" She pushed her girth past us, stuck her finger in the machine, pressed a few buttons, and up came \"July 9th, 3009\" That was next year. \"It's fine.\" she grunted while walking out, again brushing herself against us roughly before waddling back to her stool by the front counters. I guess she'd come to terms with it. Cancer, I'd imagine. \"Do it again...\" Emily demanded, urging me back inside.\n\n\"Hey come on! It says what it says. We've been waiting an hour!\" We heard the shrill cry of a woman stuck somewhere in the center of the line which was now wrapping beyond the outside of the building. \"Oh hush..\" Emily growled beneath her breath as she physically placed my finger again and held it. We went through the procedure again, this time Emily rushedly signing my initials, \"October 31, 4394\". This time, we barely had a moment to face one another in contemplation before the curtain ripped back, the metal hooks clanking loudly. A large man dressed in a white collared shirt and brown trench coat stood ominously before us, \"Sir. You're going to need to come with us.\" \n\n\"But I .. I didn't break it.. I swear..\" I stammered quickly as he took hold of my arm, \"It was like that.. that lady tested it..\" Using my free hand, I pointed over to the front counter, the stool now empty. \"She was just here..\" As I was escorted towards a back door marked, \"PRIVATE\", another trench-coat clad men, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, stepped in front of Emily, \"You can pay at the front before you exit, miss.\" She looked past him towards my direction \"No, he's my friend, I'll..\" \"You'll do as you're told.\" he barked, \"Pay at the front.\"\n\nMy last memory of Emily was that day. Her frightened, confused eyes peering beyond the wide shoulders of the living wall in front of her. She watched as I was lead around the corner. I wish it wasn't my last vision of her; but sadly it's one of the only ones I've managed to hold on to as vividly. I wish the machine had said the next day and her and I would have had drinks and cried and laughed until the morning sun appeared. I would have been happy with that. I would have treasured that. Instead, I would go on to wage a war that would wipe out three quarters of humanity. I'd lead the charge despite the suffering and endless tragedy it would cause. I'd kill women and children for sport, watch everyone I know die painful deaths and I'd continue on to bring the legacy of my people to a harsh, tragic end. \n\nIt's October 30th .. and I cannot wait until tomorrow.", "*snap*\n\nThe doctor put on his rubber gloves as he walked into my room. \n\n\"Uh, doc I am just here for the basic D.D.F. (Death Date Finder). You don't actually need to use that do you?\"\n\n\"Oh, no. I just like to give my patients a good scare.\" The doctor chuckles to himself. \"Alright, all we need is a very small amount of your blood which will be scanned and we should get results within the hour.\"\n\nAs he walked towards me with the needle in one hand an collector I began to feel uneasy. I am not afraid of needles, but putting things inside of me always made me cringe. The doctor preformed the very basic procedure and walked out with the test tube. Now the waiting process. I decided to pull out my phone and check Reddit, my holy source of entertainment. After getting to about the 12 page I checked my watch and began to wonder what was taking so long. I looked towards the door and my eyes met with a nurse looking through the glass. She quickly turned and continued on her way. 'Hmm, wonder what her problem is.' After another 5 minutes or so I noticed people were staring as they walked by and some even tried to sneak a picture of me. 'Alright, what is going on. Is this some sort of prank. Whatever I'll just leave and they can text me the results.'As I walked towards the door many of the assorted medical staff began to rush away. 'What the hell, this is just plain rude now.' As I found my way to the front door I looked outside and saw flashing lights, orange jumpsuits, and a few S.W.A.T. officers with high powered rifles.\n\nI pushed the door open and as I took my first step outside I was immediately yelled at.\n\n\"Get on the ground!!! I said GET ON THE GROUND!! NOW!\"\n\nI did as the officer said and tried to remain as calm as possible.\n\n\"Officer, whats going on? I only s..\"\n\n\"SHUT UP!! Keep your hands where I can see them! No sudden moves either!\"\n\nAs the officer handcuffed me I felt a slight poke in my neck and suddenly the world began to tilt. The cars all began to fly and the trees began to sink. I felt my head hit the pavement and I was out cold.\n\n--\n\nI awoke to basic hospital sounds, like a heart rate monitor, an air pump, etc. I was still cuffed, but this time they were soft and I had a little bit more room to move around. I began to struggle slightly and that was when a new doctor approached. He was wearing one of the big orange suits I had seen earlier. He looked like he came straight from a Scifi movie. \n\n\"Whastgbbglbblbl\" I tried to talk but quickly noticed the tube down my throat.\n\n\"Oh, no need to worry sir, we will keep you safe.\" Said the doctor, all too mysteriously. \"You see, we have been waiting for someone like you to come around, and it seems like the waiting is over. I bet you are wondering why you are here, well it involves that test you did a week ago at the doctors office.\"\n\n'Holy crap, did he just say week!?'\n\n\"I assure you we will answer all of your questions but to start of I will read you the results of your test. You are Greg Duncan, born in New York, New York on February 8, 1984. You are currently unmarried, living alone in a small town in Nebraska. You prospected death date, which may be off by 3-4 years, is February 8, 1984... BC.\"\n\nEdit: still trying to get this whole formatting thing down.", "A lot of times, you'll hear someone who had a near death experience say that they're \"living on borrowed time.\" Man, they have no idea. \n\nEveryone thought it was a joke, at first. Answer a few questions and find out how long you have left? No way was that possible. Oh, sure, plenty of people signed up for it, but it mostly just for shits and giggles, like going to a psychic or playing with a Ouija board. Some people took it seriously, but they were the weirdos, the headcases, the kind of people who already believed in all kinds of stupid crap. \n\nIt took a little while for all the information to come together, but after about six months, it came to light that a lot of people were dying *exactly* when their deaths had been predicted. After two years, the facts became too obvious to ignore: the death date machines were right. Always. \n\nWell, almost always. \n\nI'd managed to avoid the things for a while. I have a bad habit of overthinking, so even when we'd had the luxury of denial, it was the kind of thing that would have weighed heavily on my mind, and I didn't want that. \n\nSo I stayed the hell away, especially after we learned that the whole thing was real. I had no intention of learning my death date. Fate, though, had other plans. \n\nIt became common practice in hospitals to determine patient's death date, especially in life and death cases. This allowed hospitals to free up resources, focusing on the patients who had at least a few years left. If you got hit by a car and your death date was a week from now, why bother with a bunch of expensive surgery? They'd make you comfortable and let nature take its course. \n\nKind of scary, if you think about it. \n\nI was outside cleaning the gutters one day when a breeze from hell came out of nowhere and my ladder fell over. I hit the patio pavement, and my head went fuzzy for a few seconds. There was a lot of blood, but I felt fine a few minutes later. My wife, anxious little worrywart that she was, insisted on driving me to the emergency room, just in case. \n\nI agreed, mostly to appease her, but also because head injuries are serious business, and it really had been a lot of blood. I knew the hospital would take my death date, but the law forbade them from releasing that information to the patient unless they specifically asked for it, except in extreme cases. \n\nMy case ended up being extreme. \n\nI knew I was in for it when the nurse walked in, holding one of those black sheets of paper. My wife, sitting in one of those uncomfortable green chairs they have in patient's rooms, let out a gasp. \n\n\"I don't want it,\" I told her, shaking my head. \n\n\"It's in the past,\" she said quietly. \n\n\"What?\" \n\n\"Your death date. It's in the past.\" \n\nI didn't have a choice at that point. Without consciously deciding to do so, I reached out and accepted the sheet of paper. \n\nFirst, I made sure that it was really mine. It was. My name was printed at the top, along with my date of birth, my social security number, and all those other metrics that the government uses to sort its citizens. \n\nPrinted in large type at the bottom of the page was, \"December 21, 2012.\" \n\n\"What does this mean?\" I asked. \n\n\"I don't know,\" the nurse said. \"I, uh, I'll go get the doctor.\" \n\nMy wife and I sat in silence, her hand in mine, for the next hour. Finally, a bald man in a white coat came in, looking disheveled. \n\n\"We ran your death date six times,\" he said. \"Same date, every time. I called up the Center for Disease Control, they keep track of the death date program. You are the first recorded person to have lived past your death date.\" \n\nMy stomach churned, and I fought down the urge to throw up. \n\n\"So what does it mean?\" I asked, not really expecting a coherent answer. \n\nMy expectations were met. \n\n\"We have no idea,\" he told me. \"The good news is that you don't have a concussion. You're free to leave. The CDC might want to contact you. You should know, though, that word of this will not get out, not from the hospital. Patient confidentiality.\" \n\n\"Thanks, doc,\" I said. \n\nWith that, my wife and I left. We didn't make it very far though. \n\nI was too rattled to drive, so I asked her to do it. To this day, I still haven't forgiven myself for that. \n\nShe was rattled by the experience, too. I should have seen that. \n\nShe didn't look both ways before pulling out of the hospital parking lot. She didn't see the eighteen-wheeler coming. \n\nThe truck slammed into her side of the car. The car went flying. We rolled, and another eighteen-wheeler hit us, this one coming the other way. Neither of us had a seatbelt on. We both ended up on the pavement. \n\nI was conscious though the whole thing. I heard her cries of pain when the ordeal started, and I heard them get cut off when the car rolled on top of us. It kept rolling, thankfully saving us the trouble of being trapped, but the damage was done. \n\nFor the second time in the same day, I found myself covered in blood. Only this time, it wasn't my own, not all of it. \n\nThere was a lot of commotion as the truck drivers stopped and came to try and help. The ER staff came and transported my wife and I back into the building. I could barely recognize her due to all the trauma. \n\nI was hurt, there was no way I couldn't be. I should have been dead, though. After everything I went through, after having a freaking *car* land on me, I should have been the same bloody pulp that my wife was. But I wasn't. \n\nThat black piece of paper kept resurfacing in my mind. \n\nThe nurses and ER techs kept walking by my room, glancing in nervously, as though they were afraid of me. The nurse who was actually taken care of me spoke in short, quiet bursts, as though I were a vengeful god, one easily angered. \n\nIt wasn't a surprise when they came and told me that my wife was dead. No need to punch in her numbers, no need to get a black piece of paper with her name on it. She was already gone. \n\nThey let me out of the hospital the next day. I got a ride home with a friend, but insisted on being alone when he tried to stay and look after me. I lied and told him I would be fine. \n\nOnce he was gone, I went to the garage. I closed the garage door, got a hose, and stuck one end on the exhaust pipe. The other end I put through the window of my wife's car, the little Toyota she'd loved. \n\nI sat in the car, turned it on, and relaxed. It wasn't long before I lost consciousness. \n\nThen something unexpected happened. \n\nI woke up.", "I watched the machine process the parameters supplied for an hour which became a day which became a month which became a year. I let the machine run in my drab living room even as the thought of it faded from my mind. Death calculators had become a popular and cheap accessory; there was no need to move it or stop it from inevitably working towards my fate. \n\n \n\nN/A\n\n \n\nI was always intrigued by humanity's obsession with innovation. It seems that we as a species care so much about \"the next big thing,\" that we never stop to make sure it *works* first. Death calculators often malfunctioned. Coupled with the fact that they only had a 95% success rate even if they did work, they were more of a party game than a tool for clairvoyance. With this in mind, I reentered my parameters, and once again walked away from the machine without thinking twice about the result \"N/A.\"\n\n \n\nThis morning I moved my old death calculator to the basement to free up space for a new playroom for my children. Seven years had come and gone and a lot had changed in my life, but my death date was still \"N/A.\" I was never one to take emotional stock in such a gadget, yet I still found myself worrying from time to time. All of my friends have found their death dates and are already preparing so that their families may continue to live comfortably beyond their death. How could I do the same? Out of this fear I purchased a new edition of the death calculator; this model, no bigger than a pocket calculator, boasted a 99% success rate and a much faster calculation time. This will calculate my death date with ease.\n\n \n\nN/A.\n\n \n\nMy wife died this morning. The doctors say it was a heart attack. I worry for my children. Surely my death calculator will provide me with my death date soon enough. I just wish my wife could have seen our children grow up. \n\n \n\nN/A\n\n \n\nI watched my second child graduate college today. I suppose in a way my duties as a father are completed. I have successfully raised my children to be self-sustaining. And yet, I still worry as to the fate of myself. As I get on in my years I grow ever more curious as to my death date. But no matter which device I buy, I always get the same answer.\n\n \n\nN/A\n\n \n\nMy firstborn son died today. They chalked it up to an array of complications due to old age. I watched him father my grandchildren and calculate his own death date for their sake. But today I put him in the ground myself. \n\n \n\nN/A\n\n \n\nI am here, standing on the rooftop of the apartment complex where I raised my two beautiful children with my lovely wife nearly 100 years ago. My wrist death-calculator is blinking, calculating my death date. I do not feel as though I need its approval, but something holds me on the roof staring at it. I feel the autumn wind rustle my aging jacket as the watch beeps twice and begins to spell out a message. \"November 1st, 2103.\" With a smile, and a single tear, I step forward into nothingness. \n\n \n\nI died on November 1st, 2103.\n" ]

[ 2, 2, 2, 5 ]

[ "1427388641", "1427388654", "1427399386", "1427388401" ]

[ "Cockroaches... Humanity is the galaxy's cockroach. They spread like a plague and are blasted difficult to eradicate. Not because human populations are uniquely tough in any way. Humans in fact are the weakest of all race. But, in the time it takes to eradicate a solar system you can be certain another dozen worlds have been colonized by these galactic vermin. \n\nYou can be certain any trade port suffers an infestation of humans. Try as you may, stowaways will occur. Doesn't matter how many you deport or execute. Some will slip past. The worst mistake is to accept a few of their traders and let them inhabit even a smallest portion of a port. Once you invite the infestation nothing can uproot them. \n\nNo race had any hope of outlasting these vermin when in every struggle hundreds of them are striving against your best. You had one chance against their 100. Luck is a fickle mistress but favors their masses. I mourn the galaxy. Such diversity has been lost. All have fallen before their infestation.", "Another derelict planet. \n\nFlying just below the clouds, the familiar sorrow spreads slowly inside my chest as my screens show me the ruined ground. As a planetary surveyor, you would think eventually even the sight of an extinct race would eventually have less of an impact after a while. But it doesn't.\n\nI tried to look for the things I had come here to find. Water, minerals, oil. My screens did most of the work, but it was my job to compile a report of how much of each resource had been found, recommend colonial population size, settlement locations, and make note of what adaptations would have to be made for human habitation on this planet. \n\nAs I did my research, a familiar pattern emerged. Everywhere that I recommended for settlement, the ruins of an alien city stood. Eventually, after the fifth time in a row this occurred, I simply started ignoring the instruments, and placed markers everywhere there were ruins, prioritizing them by the size of the burnt-out urban sprawls.\n\nFollowing the footsteps of this dead race so closely, I began to see pieces of what they must have been like. They clearly shared the human need for water, past population density clearly rising closer to the coastlines and rivers. Their buildings extended extensively underground, as I could see wherever the above-ground portion had collapsed or been knocked over. As well, they had no roads on the surface, leading me to believe they must have traveled below or above ground.\n\nAmateur historians and paleontologists would study some of the history of the species that had once dominated this planet. And they would definitely do a better job of it than me. But I tried to find out what I could all the same. In a memorial, of sorts. For practically every planet I visited, at more than two planets a year, held signs of past sentient life, though not all would be repopulated by humans. They were simply not all suitable. For many of these races, I would be the only sentient being to ever witness that they ever were. \n\nAs I gazed sadly at the planet of ruins, full of evidence that I was not so different from the lost souls below, I wondered what small thing it was that made us different, that we were still here, when they had gone.", "\"nobody looks twice to the janitor in a room\" my father told me once. Now as I lay in my chair in the balcony of the human embassy to the 'eternal' Torquan empire I ponder on the wisdom of his words. I'm the 40th ambassador here, the position being for life. This speaks good of the torquans, most species don't last enough to get their 8th human ambassador before being exterminated or brought back down to a pre industrial level on a single world. we humans being the exception. we have always been here, or so feel the rest of the sophonts in the galaxy. nobody is bothered by it ( and why should they be worried ) we're middle of the way in smarts, weaker than 2/3rds of the rest and not particularly aggressive. the thing is, we cultivate that image. its particularly useful to our real strength: Diplomacy. we see promising species and help them along a bit and uplift, we cultivate relations and friendships, we plead, we bribe, we *Charm*. It is not an easy game but we have had a long time to perfect it, and we're good. meanwhile nobody wonders why we barely have the need to mantain a fleet and how in every public contract humans seem to be first picks. Who would've known? Friendship *is* magic." ]

[ 5, 9, 18 ]

[ "1427416347", "1427419647", "1427418166" ]

[ "Jay lay against the wall and tried to drone out the inane chatter of the people walking by him, it was the height of summer on London's busiest high street. he could barely make out the dial tone as he keyed the numbers into his phone. \n\"Alan!\" Jay screamed into his phone, like a man screaming at dog on his lawn. The loud rustle and bustle of the busy high street ebbed and flowed around him. he sometimes felt like locking himself away in a cave to escape. \n\"How long do you think it'll take you?\" Jay could hardly make out his Editor's voice so he dipped into the side street of the office beside him. \n\"Is it good?!\" he shouted anxiously awaiting the verdict. this would change his career. \n\"It depends, how long will it take you? You've got other commitments, the power goes out if you don't get back to it.\" \n\"I know, I know! It's already done, I've been writing this for a long time\" Jay replied into his phone. it dabbed his earlobe as his hand shook. He was nervous. What laid ahead of him would decide the rest of his career, if they liked his book he could get back to signing books, filming TV commercials and discussing his other books with movie directors for the next few months. He'd never changed his genre before but for this it was worth it. \n \n\"There was just a few issues with what you sent me, It's not like the first book you wrote.\" if only the producer knew the first book he wrote. it started out as a collection of short fiction drafted by him and his friends at a lunch and ended up as a cult classic. he still felt ashamed of it, its directive creativity was besmirched and mired through all the re-writes and edits that he wanted to kill himself. \nHe came really close at one point but settled for locking himself away. \n\"Not enough apocalypse?\" \n\"You could say that... can you come in?\" an ominous, vague and apprehensive reply. \n\"I'm outside, I've been here for hours\" his strong reply could only exude confidence, not the creep of his delusions. \n\"Good...\" The dial tone rang, his editor didn't like to mince words. \nJay lit a cigarette and waited, he hadn't felt this nervous since his shenanigans at the park when he was younger. His lip flapped against the bud of his cigarette until it settled. \n \nWhat the fuck could be wrong with it? he knew modern books had a little bit more creativity to them these days, god forbid them getting shorter. was it not enough zombies?, Gargoyles?, Aliens?, freaky fucking alligators? confusing and unexplained blood smeared walls and plagues?. \nPeople had told him how to write his entire life, he'd been down every conceivable writing path before. it was all contrived bullshit. \nDues ex Machina and the hidden closeted agenda of homophobes he thought. Jay laughed to himself. His old friend peter always told him he loved his books, but after the editing, it didn't really feel like his work any more. there was always a hidden agenda. \n \nHe climbed the back stairs of the office, he'd convinced himself if he'd look healthy and not take the elevator so the hot blonde receptionist might notice. His sweaty brow and arm could only be blamed on his own hubris. \nHe eventually reached Alan's office door after dipping and diving between editorial staff and a precariously unsteady personal assistant. she held a tray of coffee with the stains to match. \n \n\"this is what your good at...\" Alan had been patiently waiting holding a copy of Jay's most recent book, *The Dolphin Within*. \nJay looked the man before looking him up and down, he was some suited and booted city big-wig. An ex-country boy who'd made his debut into retail editing only three weeks ago. \n\"It's not me though\" Jay sighed, he resented that book more than life itself. it was originally about the spiritual calm inside everyone's individuality and soon transformed into part dolphin monsters destroying the upper social echelon of New York. His started in Bristol for Christ-sake. \n\"And this is?\" Alan walked to his desk and sat down in his leather arm chair, where every good general does. he opened his draw pulling out Jay's manuscript and slammed the draw shut. \nJay didn't like to argue, he closed the door to Alan's office slowly glaring back at the cubicles reflecting his awkward gaze. \n\"I'm sorry Jay...\" Alan had calmed down. \"it's well written and we can clearly hear your voice... but... do we really need another self help book?\" \nJay was shocked, He'd hoped he wouldn't have to shelf his latest book in his small apartment study. *Chicken broth for the spirit* wouldn't fit next to *My Dad, the Serial Killer* or *Realising Infidelity - A Millennial Struggle*", "Jesus: \"Alright everyone, so, God told me to drop by and give this to you. It's a new revised 21st century version of The Bible, so uh, here you go. Take it as you like..\" \n\nPriest: \"... Jesus, this just says don't be a cunt over and over again.. On.. Every page..\" \n\nJesus: \"Yeah?\"\n\nPriest: \"...\"\n\nJesus \"...\" ", "“Listen, I’m gonna be honest with you, Jon. *We didn’t proofread the first one.*”\n\nJon Stewart dipped his chin behind his steepled fingers, and his mouth quirked upwards at the corners. “So, what is this, then? Bible Two?”\n\n“I like to think of it as a *re-release*. It’s the *definitive edition.*”\n\n “So, what? Is this Blu-ray? Goliath shoots first? What’re we talking about, here?” The audience laughed obligingly. \n\n“It’s more-“\n\n“-WE LOVE YOU, JESUS!” a random jokester called out from the crowd.\n\n“-I love you too, Charlie. Your dad’s doing great. He plays fetch with Rusty all the time. …Where was I?”\n\nThe audience went awkwardly silent. \n\nFrom somewhere came a muttered “*Rusty?! But that… that *was* ^my ^*dog’s…* ^*how* ^*did* ^*he?!”*\n\nA person coughed.\n\nJon’s eyes widened slowly, with impeccable comedic timing. “Wait. Waitwait*wait*. You’re *really Jesus?!*”\n\nJesus looked a little nonplussed. “Yes!”\n\n“And you’re really here to *hock a book*?!”\n\n“Ah…*yep*. Yep.”\n\nThere was a smattering of nervous laughter. Jon sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.\n\n“…*What’s in this book.*”\n\n“Well, for one, I put the dragons back in.”\n\nJon lowered his arm, and, again, with consummate showmanship, raised an eyebrow.\n\n“The… *dragons?*”\n\n“They’re big scaly monsters, Jon.”\n\n“*…I know what dragons are, Jesus.*”\n\n“Well, then you should know I tamed a whole den of them. *As a toddler.* Just, like, *ba-zam!*. Boom. God powers. Tamed dragons. Look it up.”\n\nJon paused. “Uh, now, Jesus. I’m the first to admit, I’m not really a *New Testament* kind of guy-“\n\n“-Well, it’s no surprise, what with the *editing*-“\n\n“-But I don’t really recall that, *uh*, of that particular, um, *episode* of your life.”\n\n“Well, to be fair, they could have been just really big snakes. I hate snakes.”\n\n“You hate snakes?”\n\n“Yep, hate ‘em.” \n\n“Isn’t Jesus… supposed to be more, um, *forgiv-y*?”\n\n“Oh, *hell no*. Check out this other part, where I *totally blow up a snake.*” He flipped through the pages, which, the audience noted, seemed to contain an awful lot of *Ed Hardy* graphics.\n\n“…*WOW.*”\n\n“Yeah. I figure, what with the declining religiosity in young people, what’s really needed is a more *relatable* Jesus, you know? Someone who’s a bit more cool.”\n\nJon tightened his lips over his teeth, and nodded. “*Yes*. Because we’ve all had that… *snake-exploding phase* in our lives.”\n\n“I know, right?! And check this part out, where I totally *blind* a bunch of people!”\n\n\"...\"\n\nTHE END\n\nPostscript: [Yes, really.](http://www.cracked.com/article_18948_5-real-deleted-bible-scenes-in-which-jesus-kicks-some-ass.html)", "“So Jesus, what have you been up to all this time?” Ellen smiled at the bearded guy in the skinny jeans who sat across from her. \n“You know, just hanging out, did a little writing, spent some quality time with my father…” \n“Yes, your father, he’s sort of important right?” \n“He used to be, but you know, out of the limelight, your image sort of fades and is replaced by memories and interpretations, which, I’m sure you know, can get a little fuzzy every now and then.” Jesus winked at Ellen. \n“I have no idea what you’re talking about” Ellen deadpanned him for a few seconds before breaking into her trademark smile. Jesus smiled back at her. \n“So I hear you’ve written a new book?” \n“Not just me, it’s a collaboration with my father and mother…” Jesus was interrupted by the audiences cheering. \n“Yes, Mary is pretty popular” Ellen remarked. \n“…As I was saying, my father I sat down around fifty years ago and we tossed around the idea of writing a new book. Mother came to the process a little later. The old one was pretty well received, but to tell you the truth, that really was a first effort in every sense of the word.” \n“What do you mean 'first effort'?” \n“Well, a lot of the themes aren’t fully explored and to be completely honest, the narrative sort of sucks. There’s no flow, some chapters come as just derivative crap, and there are plot holes and inconsistencies everywhere.” \n“Well Jesus, you sent me an advanced copy, and let me tell you, the sequel is much better. It’s short…” \n“…Just two hundred pages, shorter than fifty shades of grey” Jesus quipped. “Which was terrible by the way.” \n“And also” Ellen continued, “there is a fair amount of…um…how should I put this, bad words in the book. You and your father are big potty mouths!” \n“Yeah, I think we were just struggling for the right words to discuss the current situation here on earth, and frankly, Dad and I, we aren’t authors. I’m a carpenter and part time doctor, dad is a few thousand years old and in his prime he was more of an engineer than anything else, and mom, well she only learned how to read and write after she died.” \n“But what about the first book?” \n“There were a lot of ghost writers on that one.” \n“Gotcha, JK Rowling ghost wrote my biography, it’s about my teenage struggles as a lesbian witch at Hogwarts.” \n“Yeah, if JK had been around when we wrote the first one, we’d definitely have had more witches and wizards…and quidditch, how great is quidditch?” \n“Did you know there is a professional quidditch league?” Ellen asked Jesus \n“No, really? I thought, well I thought humans didn’t have magic.\" \n\"We don't its just high college students running around on brooms\" \nJesus laughed a hearty beard laugh before responding. \"I remember dad sort of penciled magic in at one point, but as any engineer knows, there are priorities when it comes to design and he was under a bit of a deadline.” \n“Seven days right?” \n“Six actually, he rested on the seventh.” \n“Anyways, back to your book, it’s called: Stop *bleeping* up and pay attention. A few wise words from Jesus, Mary and the Big Guy. Catchy title.” \n“Yeah, one of the archangels, Michael I think, came up with that one.” \n“So tell me a little about the book” \n“So mostly it’s just about how to be a better person. It may come across as a little preachy, but to be honest, I think humanity needs *a little preachy* every so often.” \n“Yeah, like every Sunday right?” The audience laughed and Jesus and Ellen shared a chuckle. \n“Actually, we talk about that in chapter three. We say something like stop dictating church attendance and just let people worship whenever and however they want.” \n“That sounds pretty straightforward” \n“Yeah, we tried to update a lot of the rules and stuff and really make them more…um…direct. We really didn’t like all the interpretations, so we just laid some stuff out. So chapter one talks about how to treat other people, and I think at one point we just come right and say: *Stop fucking killing each other* if you will excuse my French. We just figured that there was some confusion in the first one, so we simplified.” \n“Tell me about your mother’s parts.” Ellen paused for a second and then looked straight into the camera. “Yeah, that came out wrong…tell me about the parts of the book your mother wrote.” \nJesus laughed a bit before responding: “So dad and I were trying to write some chapters about the female experience and we realized that we had no idea what we were talking about. Stuff like *When a woman has a discharge, and the discharge in her body is blood, she shall be in her menstrual impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening.* stuff like that kept coming out and it just sort of didn’t fit with the rest of the book, so we got mom in on the writing action and I think she did a damn good job.” \n“Yes, so do I” \n“For example, that last part, mom cleaned it up a bit, so now that passage reads: *Women will have their period once a month. This is perfectly natural, don’t freak out about it.* We think it reads a bit better.” \n“I agree, it does seem just a teensy bit better. Alright, we’re almost out of time anything else you want to add?” \n“Yes, just a quick thanks to some of the people who helped out on the book, Mohammed, Siddhartha, everyone else, you know who you are, thank you so much.” \n“Jesus Christ ladies and gentlemen, and his new book: Stop *bleeping* up and pay attention. A few wise words from Jesus, Mary and the Big Guy”\n", "Jesus stared at the man seated at the startlingly large, mahogany desk in front of him. A silver nameplate engraved with words “Mark Sterling” stood in the center of it, resting just beside beside a thin, black laptop and dozens of stacks of papers and books. Mr. Sterling didn’t exactly look too pleased, but rather disgusted and possibly offended. Jesus hoped desperately that he’d just become rather poor at reading human facial expressions during his millennia of absence, and that the guy actually loved what he’d written. That had to be it.\n\n“I’m going to be honest with you,” Mr. Sterling said, lowering the manuscript down onto the mahogany desk and slowly pulling his glasses off his face. He dropped them beside the stack of papers Jesus had brought with him. “It’s absolutely terrible.”\n\n“What?” Jesus said, leaning forward slightly. “It’s terrible? How is it terrible?” He’d spent the last two years working day and night on the manuscript, putting in everything he could for what he hoped to be the ultimate sequel. A modern follow-up to the bible, adapted for the 21st century reader. He’d spent the last six months alone reading and re-reading it to make sure it flowed correctly, to ensure there were no continuity errors. How could it be terrible? \n\n“I mean, it doesn’t hold up to the original at all.” Mr. Sterling paused, glancing at a watch on his left wrist. “You had lighting in a bottle with the first one, that bible of yours. Phenomenal piece of literature. I’d literally kill an entire tribe of orphans for a chance to publish that.” \n\n“Then what’s the problem?” Jesus interrupted, staring at the stack of papers Mr. Sterling was now softly tapping with his right hand. He’d handwritten the entire thing to make it feel even more personal, literally bled as he completed the two-thousand page book. \n\n“The problem is that this isn’t the bible. I mean, I get that it’s the sequel—Bible 2.0, if you will—but it’s just not good. It’s quite bad.”\n\n“How is it bad?” Jesus said, doing his best not to raise his voice.\n\n“Well,” Mr. Sterling began, “it doesn’t really apply at all to your first book. For example, you have a seventeen page car chase that effectively makes no sense in the story whatsoever.”\n\n“That was supposed to appeal to the younger readers,” Jesus again interrupted, “they love cars and violence.”\n\n“I get that,” Mr. Sterling continued, “but you just randomly threw it into the story. There’s no tie-in, there’s no lead-up. The main character just climbs into a 1996 Toyota Corolla and starts getting chased by ninjas. I mean, is there something I’m not getting there?”\n\n“No,” Jesus said, sitting back in his chair, “that’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s exciting. It keeps the reader on their toes.”\n\n“You go on for seventeen pages, half of which are just onomatopoeia of engine noises. I mean, literally, you have the word “vroom” written over thirty times on one page alone. And don’t even get me started on the vampires.’\n\n“Vampires are so in right now!” Jesus said, now shouting. “Have you heard of Twilight? That’s super popular. I mean, Fifty Shades of Grey is basically the same exact thing! Kids love that!”\n\n“You’re writing a sequel to the bible,” Mr. Sterling said calmly, “not a tween fanfiction. I mean, I understand that vampires are the in-thing, but those books are about vampires. Or, rather, at least one of them is. Your book, though, is a scattered mess of explosions, car chases, and a main character that abruptly turns into a vampire about seven hundred pages in. You don’t even give a reason, you just say, ‘Abraham wakes up and suddenly realizes he’s a vampire.’”\n\n“How else do you realize you’re a vampire?” Jesus argued. “You just kind of know it one day. It’s not like someone rings your doorbell and says, ‘hey, you’re a vampire.’”\n\n“Look,” Mr. Sterling said, “I’m just going to be blunt here. This isn’t the sequel we were expecting. I wanted more ‘thou shalt not steal,’ not ‘then she blew a seal.’ Our readers—your readers—are conservative folks, young kids who are highly impressionable. We can’t have six chapters dedicated to incredibly vulgar and overtly descriptive acts of bestiality. This isn’t what we were looking for. I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to decline your offer.”\n\n“God dammit!” Jesus said, talking to himself. “Fine, you know what? Fine. I don’t care. I had other ideas in mind anyway.” \n\nJesus stood up from the chair and thrust himself across the mahogany desk, grabbing the manuscript and tucking it under his arm. So what if his publisher didn’t want *The Bible 2: Return of Abraham?* He knew someone that would, and that someone absolutely loved extended car chases and needless explosions. All he’d need to do is hop on a quick flight to Michael Bay’s house, ring his doorbell, and show him some of Storyboards he’d put together. There was no way he wouldn’t sign a deal the moment he saw the scene in which Abraham rides a motorcycle off the exploding pyramids and into the waiting arms of God’s robot hands.\n" ]

[ 1, 3, 5, 9, 15 ]

[ "1427487370", "1427533006", "1427475955", "1427469988", "1427468119" ]

[ "“Imol shh, mom will find us!” a child’s whispered voice “If she catches us we lose the game”\nImol looks over “I know that Sam! Don’t forget it was your fault last time.” Imol watches as Sam peeks out of the closet “The coast is clear quick lets change hiding spots before she catches us” The girls sneak out of the closet tip toeing quietly looking around. They reach the room door peeking out slowly “No sign of her, let’s go to the kitchen” they look at each other “Why go there? Mom is almost always in there or the den!” \n“So it’s the last place she would look for us isn’t it?”\n“Yea but there aren’t many places to hide”\n“There are plenty, you aren’t using your imagination”\n“But..”\n“But nothing, we are going to the kitchen”\n“Fine..but it’s not my fault if we get caught”\n“Stop complaining”\n\nThey both peak around the corner slowly there mom walking out the door.\n\n“Quick now, she’s taking out the trash”\n\nThey dash into the kitchen and slide under the table\n\n“See this is the perfect spot!”\n“IT is! She won’t look under here!”\n\nMom walks back in and continues her cooking. After a minute she hears giggling and turns looking. “Ok I know you are in here! Where are you hiding?” She says playfully. She checks the pantry first, then the cabinets under the sink. “Hmmm now where could you be?” She slowly walks to the table before ducking under “Ah! There you are!”\n\n“Oh mom! You found us!”\nShe looks confused looking at her daughter “Us? Hun it’s just you.”\n\nThe girls look at each other confused then back to mom. In unison “But mom…she’s right there…” Again they look at each other only this time gasping at one other.\n", "After a day of fun outside, chasing each other, playing hide and seek, telling each other secrets, Lucy and I say goodbye.\n\nI run into my house eager for dinner. My mom has made my favorite: macaroni and cheese. And it's even from the blue box; that's the good kind. I swing my legs as I eat spoonful after spoonful. I eat nearly 8 spoonfuls before I remark that I am full.\n\nMy mom insists I try to eat more. When I argue that I am full, we compromise that I at least stay at the table to talk to her and my dad. \n\n\"How's Lucy,\" she asks with a smile.\n\n\"We had so much fun today. It took her so long to find me hiding in the bush next to the fence. I wanted to try to find her one more time, but her mom called her to dinner.\"\n\nMy mom and dad chuckle. I don't know what's funny, but they always act strangely when we talk about Lucy, like it's funny for some reason. Sometimes they talk to her, but it's like they're just pretending, like they don't even listen to her. I don't understand what their problem is.\n\n\"What are they eating for dinner,\" she asks.\n\n\"I don't know,\" I say annoyed, \"She didn't tell me. I'll ask her tomorrow.\"\n\nTomorrow takes forever to get here. I'm so excited for fun with Lucy. I run into the backyard towards her, but something is wrong. She seems sad.\n\n\"Lucy, are you ok?\"\n\n\"It's my mom,\" she says staring at the ground, \"she says we can't play anymore.\"\n\n\"What's wrong?\"\n\n\"She says I'm too old to hang out with you. She says you're not real. I'm about to start preschool with other kids, so I need to start spending more time with real friends.\" Lucy kicks the dirt as she says this, her eyes fixed on her pink Sketchers.\n\n\"Not real? That's so silly. Of course I'm real. I just ate Lucky Charms for breakfast. My mom gave them to me. Then, my dad had to leave for work.\"\n\n\"Sadie, I don't know,\" Lucy says slowly, \"I'm just really confused. I like hanging out with you, but maybe my mom is right.\"\n\n\"Lucy, don't you see me here? Haven't we had lots of fun together,\" my voice raises and I become angry. I feel like I'm slipping away like rising steam. \n\n\"Bye, Sadie,\" Lucy says, her voice sounding as if she was standing far away, even though we are right next to each other, and then she begins to walk home.\n\nI try to chase after her but smash into an invisible force field. Frantic, I tried to break out, and run to her, but I was unable.\n\nAt first, I tried to call her name when she walked by. At first, I could tell she heard me, but wouldn't answer. Now, I know she hears nothing of my voice.\n\nI see her with new friends. Real friends. And some part of me knows this will all end soon enough. I will be nothing, barely even a shredded memory. " ]

[ 2, 4 ]

[ "1427507907", "1427490205" ]

[ "A drop of sweat dripped onto the rusted and dented metal casing of the generator Daryl was packing. Sweat was going to be the only wash anything was going to get anymore, since the water dried up. \n\nGetting way too hot, thought Daryl as he continued to prepare the group's equipment for their exodus. It was definitely time to move again.\n\nBut that was the problem. Move to where? They've run out of room, and nothing but the uncertain darkness lay ahead... But what lay ahead was certainly better than what chased them from behind. \n\nIt had happened so quickly. No one knows exactly what ended the world. The news, in those few we 'days' before the end reported the earth's rotation had slowed to a crawl. A single day/night cycle would last about 15 years. The collapse of civilization was remarkably fast. People in Eastern Europe and south Asia froze to death in eternal darkness. The people on the west coast of America and Australia burned under an unrelenting sun. One half of the world encased in ice; the other charred into a parched wasteland. \n\nAnd now all that remained was a few survivors like himself, clinging to life in that narrow band of twilight. The dawn was supposed to bring hope of a new day. Couldn't be further from the truth when that day would kill you. \n\nDaryl and his small band of nomadic survivors had scavenged what they could as they slowly moved to stay in the shade. But now that time was up. They had hit the coast of the pacific. They waited as long as they could for the ocean to thaw, but the survivor's couldn't hold out any longer. The day was coming. \n\nDaryl finished loading the generator into the back of an old Ford, and began to drive down to the coast. As he crested the dunes on the beach, he saw a small swarm of activity surrounded the boats the group had been repairing. \n\nThe group had agreed they couldn't last forever out on the water. They'd have to head to to land on the other side as soon as possible. But that meant the freezing dark. A bleak future, but the only one that offered any possibility of a future. \n\nAnd if they survived the voyage... there they would wait, through the longest night; praying for the coming dawn. ", "Tobias pulled back the heavy curtain used to block out the perpetual sunlight. The sun remained bolted in the sky where it had permanently resided since he was born. His early school textbooks had multiple chapters devoted to the science about the Earth's rotation slowing down incrementally every year, until it finally came to a stop. Those school-aged lessons were many years ago for him, and were beyond his comprehension even if he could recall them. He had lived a simple life working the coal mines of the Appalachian area of what used to be the US. Kentucky to be exact. \n\nMost folks tried to leave the mines- but Tobias only wanted in. He craved the darkness. It wasn't uncommon for him to sneak away to a hidden nook in the mine shafts and turn off his lamp. Something in the darkness called out to him. \n\nTobias ran his comb through his long wiry gray beard. He locked eyes with himself in the mirror and he didn't recognize the wrinkled husk of a man that stood before him. A life of physical labor wasn't kind. It had been 6 months since he retired. It had been 6 months since he felt the comforting embrace of the mines.\n\nHe slid his comb into a small bag and pulled on his black leather jacket. After a few failed attempts, he managed to pull his long gray hair into a pony tail. He grabbed his bag that had a few days worth of clothes, a pair of sunglasses, and headed for the front door. He grabbed a set of keys hanging from a wall hook. He turned his head and looked at the inside of house. This was the home he raised his 2 children- who had since moved away. This was the home he carried his bride into 40 years ago- who had since passed away. He flashed a small smile, and headed out the door for the last time. \n\nHe held the clutch in on his motorcycle and hit the starter. The motor of his 1800cc cruiser turned over but failed the start. *You son of a bitch* He hit it again, this time twisting the throttle giving it small amounts of gas. The engine roared to life and he smiled. He kicked back the kickstand and took off. He was heading south- towards the darkness.\n\nThe winding roads of former Kentucky and East Tennessee carried him to the foot of the Great Smokey Mountains. The further he road the south, the more the sun was setting behind him. He was getting closer to the dark side of the planet. Technically, it was completely legal for anyone to travel into the dark side. You just couldn't return. Not that it mattered much. As far as Tobias knew, anyone who had left never did seek to return. Perhaps they felt the comfort of being in the dark like he did?\n\nTobias read the sign \"Welcome to Gatlinburg, Tennessee!\" as he roared past on his motorcycle. The streets were empty. The sun hung low on the northern horizon towards Knoxville. For the first time in his life, he saw stars twinkling in the night sky. The once tourist-attraction town that brimmed with life was now a ghost town set in perpetual dusk. All that existed between him and the dark side was a large concrete wall and the military checkpoint. \n\nHe followed Highway 441 through Gatlinburg. The highway was 4 lanes, which at one time were 2 lanes of traffic heading in opposite directions. Those had since been painted over and all 4 lanes pointed in one direction; they pointed towards the gate where a dozen armed men with rifles watch Tobias slowly ride up on his bike. He noticed the indicators on the road and realized that if he crossed through the check point- there would be no road coming back. \n\nHe rolled to a stop 20 yards from the gate. Two large spotlights surged to life and craned over onto him. A short pudgy man in military fatigues and a beret walked out of the wooden building next to the wall. He signaled for Tobias to shut off his motorcycle, which Tobias complied with. \n\nThe man spoke with a Spanish accent, \"Good morning, sir. Papers?\"\n\nTobias reached into his jacket pocket and the sound of multiple rifles having their safety toggle switched off echoed above on the walls. He estimated about a dozen men had trained their rifles onto him. \n\n\"Easy there, fellas. Just showing your boss here my papers...\" \n\nTobias pulled out an envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to the man. The pudgy man had pudgy fingers to match, and they slowly went through each document carefully.\n\n\"It seems you have everything together here, Mr. Harris.\"\n\n\"Name's Tobias.\" \n\n\"I am Colonel Vega. While I appreciate the pleasantries, I am afraid it isn't going to matter much. After you leave here, we will never see you again. You do know the terms of what happens when you cross through the wall?\"\n\nTobias nodded, \"Yep, sure do. I can't ever come back. But from what I hear- no one ever wants to come back. Must be one hell of a party.\" \n\nColonel Vega didn't smile. \"Very well then.\" He waved over a younger soldier and handed him Tobias' documents. \"Corporal, incinerate these documents. Mr. Harris has relinquished his citizenship and doesn't exist anymore.\" \n\nTobias quirked an eyebrow. \"I don't recall doing any of that.\" \n\n\"Mr. Harris, I am going to have to ask you to leave. No one is allowed to travel through the Confederate States without proper identification.\" Vega turned and yelled up to the wall, \"Open the gate!\"\n\nA squad of soldiers ran out of the shack and focused their rifles toward the gate, 3 on each side. The large metal gate moaned as it lowered like an old castle draw bridge. \n\nColonel Vega unholstered a pistol and started walking towards Tobias. \"Mr. Harris.\"\n\nTobias started up his motorcycle. \"I get it Colonel. Time for me to head out.\" \n\nColonol Vega nodded. \"Yes, it is. Take this.\" He handed Tobias the handgun. \"You will need it.\" \n\nTobias stared at the handgun. He had never fired one in his entire life. Firearms were banned for all civilians. He awkwardly took the gun from Colonel Vega and slid it into his jacket pocket. It was the same pocket he had brought his paperwork in. \n\nHe nodded at Colonel Vega, who in returned the nod. \"Good luck, Tobias.\" \n\nTobias slowly crept across the metal gate that had been lowered. The only thing on that side of the wall was a dark forest and an overgrown Highway 441 illuminated by the headlight of his motorcycle. The gate slowly pulled up behind him. He turned and watched Colonel Vega and his mean disappear behind it. Once it was completely retracted, the spotlights on the other side of the wall shut off. \n\nHe took off his sunglasses and tossed them onto the ground. He wouldn't be needing those anymore. However, he touched the gun through his jacket and wondered why he would need that. Why did no one return? What was out here?\n\nHe pulled the throttle on his motorcycle and slowly rode into the dark forest. For the first time, Tobias felt completely alone. And he was terrified of the dark.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "\"Is it time yet?\" \nThe sun began to create a shimmer of dancing colors over the Edge. The place where time was frozen still as dusk or dawn. For us, dusk. It was going to get darker where we were headed.\n\"Tomorrow... lets set up camp here for tonight.\"\nEver since the M.I. event 50 years ago the world has never been the same. The mass population migrated to the 'Sunny Side,' as its jokingly called, to escape the frozen dead lands. It took years and years to unite, but the event unified countries and people together. Luckily for everyone, parts of Russia remained intact and was large enough for earths population to survive.\nIt wasn't long though until we discovered the unseen side effects of this new life-style we had to endure. A new 'Black Plague' began to sweep the Sunny Side. With no rotation of the earth our bodies had to adapt to this new harsh environment. This new disease started with just a small simple rash. Nothing to be alarmed about, however it would then envelop the body and become incredibly painful. After a week the patient's brain would ultimately meltdown from the unbearable pain and they would pass away. \nThe disease began to eat away at the population. It didn't seem infectious at all, but random. Starting from one Edge and randomly appearing at another Edge. No one was safe. No cure was on the horizon... until a freak storm appeared.\nPeople from the Edge were reporting of vast winds and storm clouds appearing from the Darkness. We were swept over. A storm of massive force swept through the S.S. However, there was no rain or thunder. Just wind. Wind that howled through the S.S. for a week. The storm also brought something else with it. Pedals. Perhaps flower petals, but these were big. Large enough to be leaves on a tree. Although the Wind storm was as disastrous as any other type of storm, the petals it disperse throughout the S.S., with its Lavender color and gold lining, brought the most pleasing smell anyone had ever experienced. It also served as a miraculous cure to our new plague. After the storm had dissipated people with the disease began to feel healthier and the rash lighter. People collected the petals throughout and discovered its medicinal properties were a cure for the Sun disease. We thoroughly collected all the petals the storm had left and healed the S.S. This was 30 years ago. Not another wind storm has passed and the Petal collection has grown scarce. Only the rich can afford its luxuries and healing properties now. The Sun disease crept slowly back into our race, and has since been diminishing our numbers. We've developed a resistance to it though, it doesn't take our lives as fast as it used to. With the first appearance of a rash, a average person has about a year until it fully develops lethally.\nIt was without a doubt that the wind storm 30 years ago began on the Dark side and brought with it these life-saving Petals. Grown from some tree of plant. We don't know because crossing over is a death-sentence. There used to be a camp we were able to communicate with during the early days, but no one can remember what became of them.\nNow my husband has the disease. There's no choice but for me and my son to enter the Dark side and hopefully find what so many need.\n\"The Edge is beautiful... isn't it?\" Adma said.\nI grunted in agreeance. \n\"Never ending colors of rainbow... a perfect temperature if you find the right spot. why would you ever leave?\"\n\"You know why,\" I looked over to him as I unrolled my back pack.\nAdma nodded solemnly and began to shiver.\n\"You best be getting ready, we have no idea what to be expecting. But hopefully this will be short. They say those who have threaded the Edge have smelt the Pedals, meaning they have to be close. Maybe not even a half days journey in.\"\nWe lay down and cast our eyes above the artful way the sun battles the night. Only hearing our synced breathing. \n\"Do you think Papa will survive long enough till we get ba...\" he stops. \"If we get back?\" Adma finishes.\n\"Only time will tell... I'm going to say yes. Now lets rest our eyes, Adma. We need it to finish the coming journey ahead.\"\nTo be continued?\n\nOnly twice in my life has fear awoken me from my slumber.\nThe first time was when I was 5. 50 years ago... When the Meteor Impact occurred. No man made instrument could detect its arrival. Some scientists theorize the meteor contained unknown metallic's that allowed it to remain undetectable. Some also say it was traveling at a incredible speed, too fast for our telescopes to pick up. The lucky survivors who were far enough away to catch the screeching Meteor on camera said it was but a brief, blinding flash of light. The footage, slowed to a incredible amount, revealed the Meteor's surface. Mirrors. A sea of mirrors. Smacking the Earth like a pool ball trajectory and made us spin until we finally stopped.\n\n\n \n Edit: Spelling and some more story, getting busy but i'll try to continue working on this throughout the week and wrap it up as well! Thanks guys, :D" ]

[ 1, 10, 16 ]

[ "1427560899", "1427525873", "1427508806" ]

[ "“Look at these numbers. What do you think? Can the planet support life?!” I asked with excitement. The professor looked at the screen thoughtfully.\nI had been working on this for months. My Doctoral Advisor, Dr. Harklight had told me that it was a dead end. He said that the carbon dioxide levels were too high to sustain life. But, Prof. Skylar had egged me on and turned my attention towards the sensor database gathered by the ISCA-3 satellite. He might not have the same qualifications as Dr. Harklight, but he definitely would have been a better advisor. \n\nThe ISCA-3 is a satellite orbiting the third planet from the sun as part of the Intra-Space Communications Array. Ofcourse, it had the necessary communications array, but it also had a whole host of other sensors added in as part of the funding deal by the Planetary Council of Astro-Biologists (PCAB). The ISCA-4 had been the in the spotlight for a while last year. The PCAB had scanned nitrogen compounds on the fourth planet that could only result from nitrogen fixating bacteria. The first group of researchers are on the surface right now, trying to see if it is a viable planet for hydroponics. Ganymede had recently started looking for other planets to grow food on. This was the result of Dr. Harklights study on population growth vs. maximum food production on the planet. Demand would outstrip supply within 50 years. With all the focus on the fourth planet, no one has been looking at the host of data coming in from the sensors on the other ISCA satellites. But, I had founding promising data by overlaying the Density Spectrum and Chemical Analyser. It appears that there is water in the atmosphere.\n\n“Please don’t keep me waiting Professor!”\n\n“It seems okay. I mean, this isn’t a provable hypothesis yet. You just don’t have enough data.” He looked up with a smile. “But, it should be enough to introduce it to the PCBA review forum. If they like it, you could have some time on the ISCA-3 sensor array to gather the data you need. This could be bigger than the fourth planet, you know. If you are right, a planet that size could easily compensate for the nutrition needs of a growing population for centuries.” I was crestfallen.\n\n“Are you sure?” I asked quietly. “Is there no way I could turn this into a full thesis paper? He looked up at me confused by my change in mood. I sighed.\n\n“I don’t care really about this anymore. I just... I just want to be done with my bloody thesis paper!”\n\n-----------------------\nThanks for reading. This is my first ever post to a writing prompt. All criticisms are welcome!\n", "I floated off to the side as my colleague flipped through the latest stream of data I had generated with the Eye, the first and only telescope built onto the first and only observatory on the surface of our home. Though to be honest, that thought felt strange in my head, considering that we were currently 150 km above the \"top\" of the subsurface ocean - our actual home. I glanced through a small window: the cold mountains and jagged valleys marking the barren tundra looked sharply back at me, against a backdrop of black space. I made an involuntary shudder. Only a few layers of metal and glass separated the warm, saltwater-filled laboratory from the lifeless landscape beyond. \n\n\"This could be incredible,\" he finally stated. He floated away from the computer and pointed a tendril at me, almost accusingly. \"Do you have any idea of the implications for these data?\"\n\n\"Obviously,\" I said cooly. \"Otherwise I would not have been so eager to show you these numbers.\"\n\n\"A more than decent magnetosphere, stable, high oxygen levels, presence of liquid water,\" he continued, summarizing some of the findings. His eyes narrowed and he pointed at a row of figures. \"But this worries me. Well, this and a couple other things...\"\n\nI signaled agreement as I moved closer to the terminal. \"I know what you're thinking - the planet's water to rock ratio is quite low, maybe too low to support the evolution of life.\"\n\n\"Exactly!\" he exclaimed. \"And consider the temperatures estimated to exist on this planet, what with its proximity to Sol and the diversity of its terrestrial portions; white at the poles, which we can reasonably assume to be ice, but it's brown and green as algae closer the equator. There are some large tannish spots as well - I can't even begin to imagine what that could be.\"\n\n\"Well, it's not like we don't have differential temperatures,\" I interjected. \"After all, it's quite warm back home right now, but that'll change with the season in a few months. But halfway across the globe, it shall be precisely the opposite.\"\n\n\"Yes, I suppose that's true,\" he agreed.\n\n\"But the low water levels are indeed something to consider,\" I went on. \"I did have a crazy idea about that, though.\" For a second, I hesitated before continuing to speak. I feared his ridicule. \n\nBut he caught the reluctance. \"Go on, man, I'm listening!\" he urged impatiently.\n\n\"Well,\" I said slowly. \"Imagine that intelligent life on this planet, *if there are any*, did not evolve the way we did - imagine that they live not in their oceans, but upon those terrestrial surfaces.\"\n\nHe gave me a shocked look. \"Do you mean to say that these hypothetical creatures have evolved to live on *dry land*?\"\n\nMy external gills hid the grin on my face. \"Indeed. After all, their proximity to the sun allows not only for increased surface heat (making life viable), but also for increased ultraviolet radiation, which means faster mutations, which could mean more drastic evolution from a life contained within water to one upon dry land.\"\n\n\"That...is a lot of speculation,\" he said a little doubtfully. He pulled a little closer to the window and looked out. \"I suppose this frozen , unlivable wasteland is skewing my ability to entertain your supposition. It's difficult to imagine creatures actually living in free, stale air instead of life-sustaining liquid...\"\n\n\"Additionally, we took a long time getting to this inhospitable surface of ours,\" I remarked. \"And no wonder; a 150 km thick sheet of ice and rock is no easy obstacle to overcome. But my hypothetical aliens could very easily have flopped onto land in their evolutionary history.\"\n\n\"But what about technology?\" he demanded. \"Forget the biological conundrums. How do you suppose they build computers without free, easy saltwater to conduct electrical flow?\"\n\nI shrugged, a little annoyed that I had not thought of that myself. \"Well, seeing as they would not have spent much of their industrial or exploratory revolutions researching efficient Mg-core drills for mining a thick crust, I'm sure they would have figured out some way of making completely dry computers.\" He did not answer, so I went on, thinking as I spoke: \"Actually, something has just occurred to me that makes my membrane shiver: they would have seen the stars so much sooner. No ice to block their view.\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"So,\" I continued, \"what if they already invented their telescopes, their observatories? Or even more than that...what if they endeavored to design a craft that could pull free of their planetary gravity. Perhaps they approach us now, as we speak...\"\n\nThis time, we both started laughing. \"Oh very good,\" he replied, chortling. \"But let's stick to data for now and leave science fiction for the writers.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" I conceded. I had only been half-joking, but I decided it was best not to pursue it. \n\n\"Come,\" he motioned. He turned the hatch on the lab door and I followed him through. \"Let's a call a full meeting. This is preliminary but good data; I'm sure our young scientists will be as excited as the veterans will be skeptical. I'll break out the celebratory drinks, should be a good time.\"" ]

[ 9, 43 ]

[ "1427610087", "1427608242" ]

[ "You've gone over the plans. The instructions are quite simple, and written in a way that children can comprehend them. Recordings were made, and dispersed to the lot of them. Probably not the smartest idea you've had, but who could imagine that these types of problems would be common among career criminals. The simplest of your ideas seem to cause mental breakdowns of the highest order. Rubbing your temples isn't a solution. The entire operation is such a sham. Today you're in a warehouse, yesterday you were in a basement. A month ago you were gleefully plotting away in a castle built by a small outfit of machines that you designed. But, this is always how it happens. Things seem to be terribly out of reach and then a sudden stroke of luck allows you to pull the whole thing back on the rails. You're smart, incredibly so. Being smart doesn't solve Harold's peanut allergies, it also doesn't stop Ali's glass eye from drawing the stares of everyone. Of course they are replaceable, but the time table of your plan and all of the things that have to fall into place don't exactly give you time to hold interviews. You even invented a stiffer drink so that you wouldn't kill Kevin for napping on the job. This is what it has come to. Paul and Igor are battling the flu, and you're staring at Miranda wondering how long she is going to try hiding the fact that she is pregnant. Again. In less than two hours, phase one of your plans will go into effect. It vexes you that Kevin is asleep again. It vexes you deeply.", "As I park the Doommobile in a visitor spot, due to one of my incompetant employees taking my spot, I take a sip of coffee, and smile proudly at the new sign atop the archway of my lair. It reads: 'There is no Greater Place to Work'\n\n\"Because there's nowhere else left!\" I exclaim to myself as I exit my weaponized vehicle of destruction. My mood changes as I drop my gaze from my personal accomplishments, to a handfull of imbecile henchmen and the janitor standing in front of the building, having a smoke. \"You idiots haven't been clocked in for 5 minutes and you're already taking a break?!\" I angrilly shout as I pull my patented death ray from my coat, calculating in my head which of them was on the bottom of the seniority list, I pull the trigger, vaporizing him instantly... \"Wouldn't want to have to deal with a grievance from the EHU (Evil Henchmen's Union), for not vaporising the least senior member... would I?\" I Chuckle as the others run to their workplaces.\n\nEntering my evil base, that same overwhelming feeling of aggravation settles in as I make my way to my office. I walk the hallways to the breakroom to get some coffee, whispers fill the hallways between my lackeys, as they spread the news of that idiot I vaporized out front. I ponder what his name was as I travel, eventually overhearing that it was 'Ned.' \n\nEventually, I make it to the breakroom, where some unachieving minion managed to conjur up the worst smelling pot of coffee I'd ever had the displeasure of smelling. Being a brave soul, I filled my cup and took a sip, a choice I would instantly regret as I spewed it back out, painting the wall of the room a runny tan. Enraged, I hurl the mug through the open breakroom door and hear it clank across the floor of 'doomsday devices.'\n\nStorming to my office, I see my HR guy changing the number on the sign readingç 'Days without Vaporization in the workplace' back to zero... I remembered to myself 'last week it was that Bruce guy, who had been rumored to be planning a mutiny, by joining the Wonder Leagu-' shit... 'The Wonder League!' I forgot I had a 9 O' Clock scheduled to blow their base of operations to oblivion!\n\nMy storming turned to a sprint. Exhausted,I made it to my office sweating and panting. \"Too early for this shit...\" I glance at my watch \"and no time for evil speaches\" I say slamming my fist down on the button that should begin the launch sequence that will put an end to my remaining foes.\n\n\"I/O error, action can not be completed at this time\" is displayed on my console.\n\n\"Curse you Windows Vista!! I only installed you on every computer in the lair because it seemed like the evil thing to do!\" I paged my secretary \"Janice! Send me up the I.T. guy!\"\n\nShortly after, the building's intercom announced \"Ned, please report to Mr. Flair's office.\"\n\nI let out a sigh, as I frustratedly rubbed my temples. \"Nevermind...\" I say to Janice. \"Gotta do everything myself.\" I cursed, removing myself from my desk, and making my way down the hall to the manual override switch. \"Die, you bastards!\" I exclaim as I pull the switch that would put my biggest threat, to world domination, into a crater.\n\n\"Um... sir.\" A nameless minion speaks over the com. \n\n\"Now what?\" I ask, as the words \"Launch Sequence Initiated\" are spoken from an automated system. \"One minute until launch.\"\n\n\"Um... the doors... they aren't opening...\" nameless henchman replies.\n\n\"55 seconds\" drones the computer.\n\n\"What do you mean, the doors won't open?!\" I shout, startling my employees who were on their 3rd break of the morning.\n\n\"50 seconds\" blares the voice, counting us down to our inevitable doom.\n\n\"It looks like the opening gears have something jammed in them... it looks like a coffee mug\" he says, surprised.\n\n\"45 seconds\" is spoken, as I make way to my office.\n\n\"40 seconds\" is the last thing I hear before hitting the evacuate alarm.\n\n\"35 seconds\" a flood of minions cascades down the hallways.\n\n\"Oh, NOW you guys wanna get your asses into gear!\" I exclaim, running along with the crowd.\n\n\"30 seconds\" 'Hopefully we can cancel the health insurance of the ones that don't make it, before the policy renews' I think, exiting the building, slamming big iron doors behind me.\n\nAs we shuffle to a safe distance, I turn and watch everything I built get blown to smithereens.\n\n\"So, does this mean... the Office Christmas party is cancelled\" one of the idiots asks me.\n\nThose were his last words.\n", "It's 9:30. 9-fucking-30. Thirty minutes and half the henchmen aren't doing a damn thing. It's not like I demand a lot. Show up on time, work your eight hours, take over the world. Simple, right?\n\nApparently not. I smirk, though, as another scream fills the air. Wilford is making his rounds with the barbed whip, at least he never slacks off. I should probably write a memo to the poor fuckers out there that they are easily replaceable. Hell, Wally World wishes they could recruit like us.\n\nI type the memo in ten minutes. Send to all. Network Error.\n\nFuck.\n\nChange of plan, then. Print a copy for the bulletin board. Printing, and..paper jam.\n\nOf course.\n\nI grab the aluminum bat I keep in the corner of my office and storm out, passing Wilford as he whips another mook, and get a good running swing at the old printer. Then another, and another.\n\nMy henchies are peeking out to see what the commotion is, but I do hear a lot more typing going on. Good.\n\nOn to the break room. Grab a mug, coffee is empty. I scream, throw the mug, then silently thank the darkness below that it wasn't mine. I grab someone's takeout from the fridge and go back to my office.\n\nI sit with a groan, retrieve my aspirin from my desk, and kick off my heels. I punch the intercom, \"Lydia? Lydia!\"\n\nNo answer.\n\nI sigh, then hear a shuffling. I look under my desk and see my secretary in a maid outfit with a banana and a can of coolwhip.\n\nAt least something is going right.\n\nI pop some aspirin, hike my skirt as another scream sounds out, and lean back with my legs spread. Maybe this won't be so bad.\n\nWait. Wait, you dumb floozy, not there!\n\nFUUUUUUUUUUCK!\n\nI rub my temples and sob. This is going to be a long fucking day.\n\nI hate Mondays...", "Fragrant Harbor IRC\n\n11:48 AM: Meeting Regarding Takeover of Southeastern Asian Peninsula\n\nRespondants: Emperor Perry. Syndicate Chairman Henh. General Ling.\n\n\nP: \"So, assuming we make headway on Southeastern Expansion, we could be looking to re-establish Indochina under Chinese control in say... four months.... Heng, you had an objection?\"\n\nH: \"Yea, Pei. The rest of us have a union retreat planned in two months for two months. So, we'll be out in Australia for a while.\"\n\nP: \"Wha- Why didn't you tell me this BEFORE I mobilized the army?!\"\n\nH: \"Well... I didn't feel like it.\"\n\nP: \"You didn't feel like it.... This is why I fucking hate you, Heng.\"\n\nL: \"Hey, hey, hey, back it up you two. Let's talk about the real meat and guts behind this. What's the bonus for this?\"\n\nP: \"THERE IS NO BONUS, THIS IS YOUR JOB, LING!\"\n\nL: \"Ehh... I dunno. The jungle's awfully hot during the summertime. Can't really steer well in those waters. Food down there really sucks too.\"\n\nH: \"Well, I don't know about that Ling. Pad Thai's a real interesting dish from what I've heard.\"\n\nL: \"Never liked Thai food myself... Too spicy.\"\n\nP: \"Jesus christ, can we please focus on the goddamn meeting?! Hello! Conquering Southeast Asia here!\"\n\nL: \"Can we just reschedule until say... winter? The weather'd work out a lot better then.\"\n\nH: \"No, better idea. Let's push it until February of next year. They'll be having that Lunar New Year thing going on and we can wipe them out by surprise.\"\n\nP: \"You're both Chinese. You'll just goof around and party all week too.\"\n\nH: \"Oh yeah. Forgot.\"\n\nP: \"Ugh... so, any ideas Ling?\"\n\nL: \"I'm thinking lunch at that new French place down the street. Look at the time, it's 12. See ya.\"\n\nLing has signed out.\n\nP: \"Henh, don't you dare fucking leave.\"\n\nH: \"Oh, oh shit. My stomach. I needa like...\"\n\nHenh has signed out.\n\nP: \"Hate all of you so much.\"", "\"Well no one told me Roy was gay! It was an offhand remark. I wouldn't have said it if I had known!\"\n\n\"Well that's just the point sir. The fact you thought you could say it at all despite the audience,\" the henchman kicked nervously at the brick facade surrounding the iron door the two men stood outside of.\n\n\"So what? You're telling me that because of one little slip of the tongue my henchmen are going to keep giving me those awkward stares in the hallway until I apologize?\" Fisk shook his head and turned away from the stocky man in disgust.\n\n\"Even if you apologize sir...\" the man searched for the right words,\" It's got to be a fundamental change.\"\n\n\"A come to Jesus moment? Or do you want me on the cross myself?\"\n\n\"Well, I mean you can say you're sorry, but unless you mean it and it causes meaningful change in your life...\"\n\n\"How the hell did the world get this way? When did everyone become so sensitive? Who cares what anus he puts his member into?!\"\n\nThe henchman cringed, \"Sir, please just stop now.\"\n\n\"What? What did I say now?\"\n\n\"You do know not all homosexual men engage in anal sex don't you?\"\n\n\"Well Howdy Doody, this is news to me! You mean it all just doesn't fit into a nice baseball reference? This is just getting ridiculous. One of the reasons I do this... I mean... WE DO THIS is to stick it to the establishment. We're not here to hold each other's hands and sing kumbaya!\"\n\n\"I know sir, but even still there are standards. Even our social group has norms. Maybe thirty years ago this sort of thing was acceptable but..\"\n\n\"Are you saying I'm getting too old to do my job?\" The graying man craned his tall frame to tower over the shorter henchman.\n\n\"Uh...\"\n\n\"Are you trying to engage in some sort of age discrimination here? I know you aren't here on behalf of the union but you do represent them still. Even in this private conversation. I will not be judged by my age!\" the scientist struck the door with his cuff link causing a spark in the dim light. \n\n\"Sir I assure you this has nothing to do with your age. It's more to do with your behavi..\"\n\n\"Oh now I know why the committee tried to buy me out last year. 'We'll give you excellent stock options in our shadow corporations and will still list you as the leader. You just will be involved in fewer low level decisions.' What a load of bunk that was!\"\n\n\"Sir I think we're going off on an unrelated tangent here. I can tell I struck a nerve. I apologize it's just this whole Roy thing has everyone on edge. It's as if we don't even know who you any more,\" the henchmen wrung his hands behind his back.\n\n\"Oh I'll show you who I am. I'll show you all! I'm the ruthless son of a bitch of started this organization from the ground up with only a slew of bank robberies and one genetically modified alligator. I am not just the founder, I am Dark Thunder!\"\n\n\"Sir, I think you're getting a bit narcissistic here. I mean...\"\n\nThe henchman's head exploded. The scientist's revolver smoked as he twirled it once, blew on the barrel, and thrust it back into his lab coat pocket.\n\n\"I am the ruthless son-of-a-bitch that started this all and I don't have to answer to anyone.\"\n\n\n\n" ]

[ 2, 3, 6, 10, 14 ]

[ "1427705897", "1427721433", "1427696526", "1427690168", "1427692256" ]

[ "The cloaked saucer landed in the center of the Pentagon before uncloaking. Hands raised, they departed their ship holding a white flag. Behind safe walls, they spoke to Congress about how their scientists analyzed the trajectory of Earth's atmosphere and recognized dangerous toxins polluting the air. Toxins that entered the food cycle, altered weather patterns, weakened the general population, altered brain chemistry of the masses suppressing their potential intelligence quota.\n\nThat's when the aliens discovered the world leaders were replaced by Z'bop'Diddle replicas, who herded the general population of Earth like cattle for their consumption. By their estimates, the human population will be docile enough and populous enough within the next few decades to supply the Z'bop'Diddle home world with a sustainable source of protein. The aliens didn't stand a chance. And now *their* home world was on the Z'bop'Diddle radar too.\n\nNo good deed goes unpunished.", "2015/03/30, 02:00 UCT. That's when we picked up the signal from trans-Neptunian space, and it wasn't from any probe humanity had sent out. It was just a simple radio spike, a 'ping'.\n\nThat was weird enough, but the second 'ping' came seconds later, from a point several light *minutes* closer to Earth. We barely had enough time to plot the course and note it wasn't following a gravitationally-bound path before it was slowing down to sub-light speeds just outside the orbit of the Moon.\n\nWe never saw it coming, only heard the radio blips announcing its arrival. And finally, a small sphere about 3m across landed just outside Reykjavik. That alone caused a lot of international tension, of course... but nothing stopped dozens of media outlets from having cameras and parabolic microphones aimed at that sphere by the time it opened.\n\nA line formed, from top to bottom, and then it was two as the doorway opened. An orange-skinned, vaguely humanoid creature wearing nothing but a black sash emerged from the ship. It looked a lot like a man in a bad Halloween costume with a squid on his head... at least that's how it was described later. At the time, there was quite a bit of awe at humanity's first alien contact preventing such humorous observations. It had large, black eyes, which blinked against the bright mid-day sun.\n\n\"Lasdfl, [brfrt] tasgnr.\"\n\nThere was a stunned silence that lasted the better part of a minute. The alien's head twisted around, looking over the crowd. Suddenly, it's mouth-tentacles started writhing and it reached into a pocket in its sash and brought forth a small device. After a few moments, it held the device up to its mouth.\n\n\"Sorry about that, I always forget about the translator. Humanity, my identifier is Torth of Squirem, 3rd-tier Magistrate of Galactic Planetary Affairs. I have been assigned as your caseworker.\"" ]

[ 2, 6 ]

[ "1427713370", "1427717747" ]

[ "\"Don't move mister Andrews. Don't move! And not a word\". \"Your honor, this is a misunderstanding. I'm innocent. I swear. I haven't done anything wrong, I'm being framed. Help me!\" I tried to prove my innocence. No one understands. I didn't tell any joke. I stopped by this small town and I was in a store buying pancake mix when, I asked a woman, \"Where's the line?\". The lady gasped,\"Oh my god\", she grabbed her boy's flimsy arms and tied them into a pretzel and slammed her hands together like two bricks beside his head. Poor boy. The place was silent...Excuse me, I'll try again, \"where is the line?\" That's what I told her. The jury stared at this man, confused, and angry. \"How could you?\", one man yelled. \"You bastard another\". \"There was a kid there!\", said a woman. The small town of punch handed out serious time on assault cases. \"Your honor, I didn't hurt anyone\". Andrews lawyer stood, \"You're honor, my defendant is innocent.\", \"Nonsense he had cut in line and tried to service himself. My mind is settled, so I will not hear it Dr. Noah.\"\n\nWhat have I done? Are these people mad? \"I've had enough\" he yelled. \"What Mr. Andrews?\", the judge said, \"one more outburst Mr Andrews, one more!\" \"I've had enough! There was no line! The room fell into silence, it was a void, despair ran threw his tiny mind. He can feel every bone in his body crinkling, the pressure was pure agony, every nerve in his body was exploding in pain, his eyes were on fire. He tried to sip on his glass of water to cool his near volcanic temperature down. But he stumbled and slapped his own drink out of his hand. He finally exploded. After waking up in a hospital handcuffed to his bed. He knew it was over. He can finally rest. This ordeal was over, ordered 6 months Anger management, 2 months jail time, but he was content. The consequences could have been worse. The nurse comes in with a tray and asked, \"would you like some pancakes Mr. Andrews?\". Mr. Andrews ate them but he was dissatisfied.", "Beads of nervous sweat began to build on his furrowed brow. He shakily wiped them off while close to one-hundred people lay in wait of an answer. An answer... answer to what? What was the question again? He didn't know. He was too busy thinking about the faces. Faces of disgust. Confusion. Wincing, wavering looks exchanged between audience members. He was a laughing stock, minus the laughs. Never again would he tell a joke like that during his stand up routines. It didn't bode well with them, and it wouldn't bode well with this crowd. One thing was certain: he was a dead man.\n\n\"Louie?\" The court prosecutor, clothed in a cheap suede suit, called attention to the terrified man, lost in thought. \"Louie, did you hear my question?\" Cheapo turned to a frail, eerie old woman with a peculiar green hat. \"Did he hear my question?\" The star witness shrugged.\n\nThe judge smacked his gavel on the table one, two, three times, rolling his eyes. \"Will the defendant *please* answer the **damn** question and continue the cross-examination?\" He then continued with busily picking the salad out of his back molars.\n\nLouie was busy, too, though. Thankfully, the judge's thousand-yard stare straight past his eyes was almost... judging, to the point where Louie regained his senses.\n\n\"Wha-what?\" he murmured haphazardly. A moment of brief moment of realization overcame him as he formulated an answer to the previously stated question.\n\nHe hesitated. \"Listen, people. I do comedy for a living. I... I work constantly on gigs, making YouTube videos. Hell, I even have my own T.V. show. But this one joke, this *one* joke...\" His voiced cracked and softened. Holding back tears, he reminisced to the time when his colleague was put to death for telling that one joke about the cheese. *Boy*, was that joke bad. But this one, this one was different. It was funny, and all he had to do was make the jury see that. It was now or never. All or nothing. One last try before he would surely be executed.\n\nHe extended his arm toward the star witness, pointing at her with as much determination as an Olympic athlete. She took worried glances between Mr. Cheap-suit, the judge - who was no doubt uninterested in what was going on - and righteous old Louie. Louie took in a large gasp of air. Here it comes... ready?\n\nBAM! The crowd goes wild. A million cheers, confetti falling from the ceiling. An epic save from a lethal court conviction!\n\nWait... no. Instead, silence. For what seemed like forever, the room was in a state of stillness. Unflinching ineptitude of human function. Nothing. Louie's second telling of his joke went over with the crowd just as expected - **horribly**.\n\nBut then, out of nowhere, a wave of understanding swept the audience as everyone fixated their gaze on the bright green hat with an ugly shamrock logo, worn by the court's very own star witness. Restrained chuckles, soft giggling, then all out hilarity broke loose. One woman slapped her knees uncontrollably, knocking into a younger man, who was doing a laugh-hiccup combo. The prosecutor - in his cheap suede suit - spit out his orange mocha-spiced latte onto both his clothing and a majority of the jury members. You could say the jury was in *flavor* of overturning the charges set on Louie. They didn't care that they were soaked, the joke was fantastically brilliant. Unlike any other. Unique in every way. All it needed was a little clarification, thanks to Louie.\n\nThe frail old woman desperately clung to her hat as to shield it from the audience's gaze - just like she did when she attended Louie's stand-up routine - but it was to no avail. Everyone, including the once-apathetic judge, was laughing about it. She wailed and cursed, \"Damn you all! And damn you, Louie, most of all. I swore ending your stupid television show would be the last decent thing I'd do! And now, instead, I think I'll end your life. It's funny how things work out sometimes.\"\n\nImmediately following the uttering of her last words, she turned into a great big snake with sharp eyes - eyes aimed right at Louie. She lunged toward him, but he quickly dived out of her way as she ran head-first right into the marble walls of the courtroom, ending her cruel, and tasteless life instantly. I mean, who doesn't like or watch television's *Louie*?\n\nTo this day, if asked during his stand-up routines, Louie will briefly describe for you the story of how he almost died because of a jealous old snake-woman who wanted to ruin his career. ", "The dark, ominous courtroom was lit dimly by a flickering light. The case had gained little to no traction, and this frustrated Geoff. 9 months of Geoff's life was dependent on the crowd laughing at his joke. If they could laugh, then Geoff would be scot-free. The trail was in 3 days. Geoff had 3 days to get an audience or some kind of legal loophole.\n\nThe situation Geoff was in was a rather unfortunate one. He had stood infront of Raheem Al-Zawafi a months ago. Raheem was the crown prince of Middle-EasterIsland. Middle-EasterIsland was an oil ran economy, one on which the United States depended on for cheap oil. The setting was a Gala, one for a charity which has contacted me (the author) warning me they will sue me if I include them in the story.\n\nGeoff had been tasked as the entertainment. He stood in the front of the room, a smile on his face, his sloppy fauhawk almost dripping with grease because Geoff was to drunk to read the bottle he though said \"dove\" but ended up being \"duff\", a local brand of anti-stick pan spray that was sold under the intention of being beer.\n\nThe show for the Gala started great. Geoff made the man on the right, I believe he was the prince of Whales, laugh so hard the sheep he had hidden under his robes was able to escape without notice, dripping with what Geoff had hoped was water.\n\nThen, Raheem, a heckler, had shouted some insults at him. Geoff made a remark about how his accent sounded as akin to a smoker because all he had to drink was oil contaminated water taken from the farm of a family too poor to be able to afford some medium with which to complain about it.\n\nRaheem had stormed out, and shortly after a scuffle with an extremely apologetic ambassador, the nation had stopped providing oil.\n\nSo, here Geoff was today, accused of intentionally ruining political relations with an oil providing nation. He had to make the audience laugh to prove that it was well intentioned.\n\nBut Geoff, as always, had a plan.\n\nHe spent 3 days marketing the case. He was the one who had drawn dicks on movie posters, and THEN telling people about the case (he needed to become psyched up, hence the dick graffiti which he though would help but only landed him a 200 dollar fine), and then helping the elderly in exchange for them coming. Geoff had spent all of 16 hours helping to prepare oysters for the elders in a nearby care center.\n\nThe time was now, today. Geoff had a chance to prove to everyone that his joke was well intended and that he was innocent.\n\nGeoff, with a drop of sweat gliding down his chisled cheek, landed on the desk, which resounded with a loud \"blip\".\n\n\"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT NOISE\"\n\nGeoff, knowing that there were more important things than the absurd echo of the court room (but seriously guys, come on, the least you could do was make a practical building and maybe light the thing up while your at it, this isn't fucking law and order), had proceeded to begin his testimony.\n\nThe audience laughed, and laughed, at all of the jokes, including the one about the crown prince. The prosecutions case was weak, and it fell apart quickly.\n\nGeoff did it. He had the audience support that meant that the joke was indeed friendly and funny, and hence, not responsible for our poor relations with Middle Easter-land. Now all he waited for was the Judges final decision.\n\nThe Judge stood, with an expressionless face, reminding Geoff fondly of handsome squidward (that judge was fine). The judge had read off the charges.\n\n\"We find Geoff Hermal innocent of damaging foreign relations, guilty of vandalism with fines of up to 200 dollars, but we find him guilty on accounts of the accidental murder of 38 senior citizens\"\n\nOh fuck! Geoff jumped up, realizing his critical mistake, and shouted\n\"OH DEAR GOD! I FORGOT TO FREEZE THE OYSTERS AFTER I WAS DONE\"\n\nAnd so, Geoff lived out the rest of his days in prison after food poisoning an entire elderly care center (who feeds the elderly oysters anyway?), and died in prison, after dropping the soap once too many times for his sanity.\n\nMoral of the story is, don't food poison the elderly.\n\n\nThanks guys for reading this, i'm new so please don't crush my dreams.", "\"Your honor,\" the rotund lawyer said, \"we have one additional piece of evidence.\"\n\nThis was it. This was the point of no return. Even if Daryl - comedian by trade, and current subject of the most absurd trial in the history of the legal system - managed to avoid incarceration, it would be unlikely that he could return to the stage. \n\nIn order to save himself, Daryl was going to reveal the secret.\n\n\"Proceed,\" murmured the judge.\n\nThe lawyer adjusted his ill-fitting suit, then spoke to the courtroom as a whole. \"The defense calls Mister Daryl Jones back to the stand!\"\n\nSighs of impatience rippled through the space, though none were more audible than those coming from the jury box. *Not a good sign*, Daryl thought to himself. Still, he climbed his way up into the witness chair, sat down, and put on the friendliest smile that he could manage.\n\n\"You understand that you are still under oath?\" asked the judge.\n\nDaryl nodded in reply. \"I do.\"\n\n\"Mister Jones,\" the lawyer began, \"we have heard testimony from numerous sources that your public display was crass, obscene, and wholly offensive. We have seen demonstrations by experts, reenactments here in the courtroom, and evidence of the profound psychological trauma experienced by onlookers. Truly, the prosecution has made a *stellar* case... but I understand that you have something to share.\"\n\nOnce again, Daryl nodded. \"Yes,\" he said. \"If I could direct everyone's attention to this display...?\" The lights in the room dimmed, and on a nearby projector screen, a page from a book appeared. \"These,\" continued Daryl, \"are the universal formulas for humor.\"\n\n------\n\n*FORMULA ONE*:\n\n**ENTITY ONE:** Here is a harmless premise. \n**ENTITY TWO:** I understand your premise. \n**ENTITY ONE:** Here are additional details. \n**ENTITY TWO:** I have misunderstood you. \n**ENTITY ONE:** Please remove the banana from my anus.\n\n------ \n\n*FORMULA TWO*:\n\nSome ENTITIES are DOING SOMETHING in/at LOCATION. One of the ENTITIES - a SPECIFIC ENTITY - DOES SOMETHING SLIGHTLY ODD.\n\n\"I would like an explanation,\" the SECOND ENTITY says.\n\n\"Well,\" replies the FIRST ENTITY, \"in my BACKGROUND DETAIL, we REITERATION OF ODD ACTION whenever CIRCUMSTANCES.\"\n\nThe SECOND ENTITY nods. \"Ah, I see. Kind of like A SIMILAR SITUATION?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" replies the FIRST ENTITY. \"Exactly like that.\"\n\nThroughout this exchange, the THIRD ENTITY has been listening closely. \"I have a question,\" the THIRD ENTITY says. \"If CIRCUMSTANCES mean that you ODD ACTION, and if SIMILAR SITUATION means that you ODD ACTION... then what would happen if VAGUELY RELATED SCENARIO?\"\n\nThe FIRST ENTITY looks uncomfortable. \"If VAGUELY RELATED SCENARIO happened, I'd have to RIDICULOUS AND PROBABLY OBSCENE ACT.\"\n\n\"What?!\" the THIRD ENTITY asks, alarmed. \"Why?!\"\n\n\"Because,\" the FIRST ENTITY answers, \"it would mean REFERENCE TO A BANANA IN SOMEONE'S ANUS.\"\n\n------\n\nA gasp ran through the assembled crowd... followed by a barely restrained snort of laughter, and then another.\n\n\"Mister... Mister Jones,\" the lawyer said, clearly attempting to hold in his own mirth, \"why did you share this with us?\"\n\n\"It's secret knowledge,\" Daryl replied, \"only given to comedians after they've passed an equally secret test. These formulas represent universally amusing jokes. They've even been used to diagnose a variety of mental disabilities.\"\n\n\"Do you mean to imply,\" challenged the lawyer, \"that only someone with a mental handicap would not be entertained by these jokes?\"\n\nDaryl shrugged. \"I'm not a psychologist... but with these formulas in mind, I believe you can see how my performance was not only *funny*, it was downright *hysterical*.\"\n\nThe lawyer cast his gaze across the court. Poorly hidden smiles were still evident on the faces of everyone - well, almost everyone - in the room. \"Tell me, then, Mister Jones,\" he said, turning back to face his client. \"In this crass, insensitive, *offensive* joke that you told... why did you describe a chicken running through several lanes of traffic?\"\n\nDaryl cleared his throat and looked out across his audience.\n\nThen, rather than responding... he held up a banana.", "There was a gasp from the crowd as the doors opened for the prosecution's surprise witness. There were audible murmurs that rippled through the courtroom as everyone realized who it was. She strutted down the hallway, feathers rustling, without even glancing at the defendant's table. The prosecutor motioned to the seat next to the judge, and the chicken took the stand.\n\n\"Mrs. Rooster,\" the attorney started, \"Could you please tell the jury your side of the story that day?\"\n\n\"Objection, your honor!\" the defendant said, bolting out of his seat. Normally his lawyer would do that, but he was representing himself pro-se. Partially because no lawyer in all of Arkansas wanted to take his case, and partially because he thought it would be easy to beat the charge. I mean, come on: who has ever gone to prison for *telling a joke*?\n\n\"On what grounds?\" the judge asked, confused. \n\n\"The witness is incompetent, your honor. It's a chicken! Birds can't testify in court!\"\n\nThe judge leaned back in his chair, contemplating. \"I'm going to allow this. There's no rule that says birds can't testify.\" The prosecutor smiled smugly and sauntered back to the witness box.\n\n\"Now, Mrs. Rooster, if the defendant is done interrupting, could you please tell your side of the story? Maybe start with when you first entered the crosswalk.\"\n\nThere was a dramatic pause as the chicken glanced around the courtroom, beady eyes darting back and forth.\n\n\"Bawk bawk bawk... bawk bawk! Bawk bawk bawk bawk, bawk bawk bawk bawk bawk. Bawk bawk bawk. Bawk!\" the chicken lifted one wing and pointed directly at the defendant.\n\nThere was a collective gasp from the audience. Eleven of the jurors glared at him, eyes narrowed; the 12th juror was too busy crying to join the others in staring. The jury foreman, a beefy man in the front, was shaking his head and clenching his hands into fists. \"You're going to fry,\" whispered a spectator in the crowd behind the defendant. His tone was menacing and vindictive.\n\n\"Oh come on!\" the defendant shouted. \"It's a BIRD! It's not even using words!\"\n\n\"Bailiff, get this man out of my sight,\" the judge ordered, clearly as infuriated as all of the jurors. He turned back to the witness. \"You can continue your testimony, Mrs. Rooster.\"", "\"There will be ORDER!\" the judge's voice crashed over the courtroom at the most recent outbreak. \"Now then, after that last piece of evidence, I am completely unconvinced of not only your sincerity, but your continued innocence. Without the puppet shows, can you explain to this court how one of the most recycled jokes that we tell our children just so we can groan and pretend to smile, can actually pretend to be humorous?\"\n\nEyes downcast, the clown puts lowers the rubber chicken, and adopts a very serious face, his simultaneous grin and deadpan somewhat unsettling. With a squeak, it hits on the table as a sigh escapes the dark visage of a face that normally brings laughter. \n\n\"Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what is humor? What is laughter? What is that most sacred of actions which defines that which is human from that which is not?\"\n\n\"I propose that you don't know, and that you don't want to know, for you will at once, see humor everywhere, and yet be unable to laugh at it. For laughter isn't what makes things funny, but rather things are funny, and therefore force us to laugh.\"\n\n*sigh* \"We've already been over the founding pillars of comedy. The pun, The slapstick, The prop humor, The Meaningful Idiot. But why do you laugh?\"\n\n\"I propose, it is because you have nothing else to do. In slapstick, you cannot be angry because its never intentional, nor can you be sad for them because you know no harm has come. So you laugh. In the pun, it literally breaks your brain, while simultaneously making sense and nonsense. So you laugh. When he slips on a banana peel, you want to feel bad or blame him, but you laugh, knowing that nothing could have prevented it and the same fate could befall you. And when abbot and costello argue about who's on first, you laugh, because it's so absurd that they cannot see each others points, that there's no possible way it could happen or be fixed.\"\n\n\"Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I regretfully tell you the humor on which you've been ignorant of. Eons ago, when this joke was made, it was a joke for the elders, to be said in kids presence because thier ignorance of the world made them unable to understand why it was funny. Over time, the elders forgot to let the kids on the joke, and yet the kids keep parroting it, so even you, to this day, repeat the joke while lacking any comprehension of it.\"\n\nThe clown wipes the swear from his brow, continuously pulling the handkerchief from his sleeve as he talks whenever the outermost one becomes damp. \"Why did the chicken cross the road....\" he softly lets out, each word echo'd by his slow, measured steps in front of the jury box. \"To get to the other side...\" he finishes, punctuated with the tiniest of lifting of the corners of his mouth, as he looks at the stonefaced jurors. \n\n\"You fathers tell this to your children, and the children laugh and humor you, thinking all the while of it's stupidity, expecting you to know something they don't. And you do, but you refuse to admit it to yourselves, and therefore deny them the humor when they come of age, as your lineage did before you.\"\n\nHis voice growing heavier and more of his age showing as the last wipe of his cloth took more of his makeup off, his once pristine white face now lined and etched with shadows. \"Your honor, if I may address the jury, I shall show..\"\n\n\"Objection your honor, we've been at this for four hours, he's clearly leading us on a wild goose chase!\" The prosecutor leaps to his feet, his tie already loosened on his otherwise well groomed figure, annoyed that this charade has gone on as long as it has.\n\n\"show you that not only is it funny, but that my peers will explain exactly how, for though they were never told they still know in their core, like all humor exists.\" the once jovial jester finishes.\n\n\"I'll allow it, but please be quick, It is getting late and i'd not like to recess and give the press more to work with over the night\" sighs the judge, wondering whether his reservations will have to be canceled.\n\n\"Thank you your honor\", quipping as he approaches the jury box, looking over the faces young and old, until settling on a young lady who is probably just barely starting her own studies, \"Miss, I'd like to have you start. I want you to look at the first part of the joke, 'Why did the chicken cross the road?' What does that tell you?\"\n\n\"That he crossed?\" she squeaks out, shrinking into her seat at first notice of being picked.\n\n\"Indeed! That at some time in the past, a chicken not only crossed a road, in fact he choose to do so of his own free will! What else?\"\n\n\"I don't know... \"\n\n\"Exactly, you don't know. That's why we're asking the question! So now we know a chicken crossed a road, and we don't know why so we're asking. Now, if you were to cross a road and I wanted to know why, how would I figure it out?\"\n\n\"You... you'd ask me?\" \n\n\"Very good young lady! I would ask YOU! So why aren't we asking the chicken? I propose that, for some reason or another, we can't ask the chicken! \" The clown is now smiling a little bit, \"And so, as the jury has so astutely shown, the opening part of the joke tells us A chicken crossed a road, we don't know why, and we can't ask him for some reason. Now, to the second part, I pick....\" the clown spins around in a circle a half dozen times before stopping on an elderly gentleman in the back. \"Oh dear, well that's the way the pie is thrown. So sir, the second part of the joke, can you repeat it to me?\"\n\n\"To get to the other side\", the old man says without fanfare, his eyes locked on his interrogator. \n\n\"See, you do know the answer! So on top of all that, we're asking a question we already know the answer to! So why ask it in the first place? Maybe it's unclear. Well what is the other side?\", the clown asks, reaching the end of his handkerchiefs, and looks back on them running the length of the courtyard before blowing his nose with a flourish and dropping the end.\n\n\"The road you buffoon! What else!\" \n\nThe smile vanishes from the clown's face as he returns the man's stare, \"What else indeed.... what else indeed. Sir, if I had called your loved ones and said you had crossed to the other side, what would they say? More importantly, what if I told them you crossed a road, to get to the other side?\"\n\nThe old man held the look as the clown talked, then eyes widened as he realized, and looked down. The mood in the courtroom had fallen silent, only the gentle hum of the air unit remained.\n\n\"They would ask why.... They would wonder why you crossed. Why you wanted to go to the other side.\"\n\n\"Your honor, as the jury has shown, they knew the answer all along. A chicken crossed a road sometime in the past, we don't know why, we can't ask him, and yet even though we ask the question, we already know the answer that he went to the other side. So we're asking a question we already know one answer to, obviously looking for a different answer. And that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is why it is funny. Because without that second answer, you can't do anything but laugh. I rest my case...\"\n\nNo one stops him as he turns to walk out of the courtroom, only the quack of his shoes follows him, leaving behind silence. \n\n", "Chuck lowered his head into his upturned palms and sighed. It had just been a joke, just an attempt at humor in an otherwise unfunny, bland day. He didn’t anticipate all of this, didn’t think he’d be the center of an incredibly televised court case. He had no idea so many people would die, no idea the nation would burn him in effigy and turn his name into a swear word akin to some of the worst. He didn’t even have any idea that what he was doing was considered illegal, not even an inkling that it went against moral standards. He just wanted to make his coworkers laugh.\n\nHe’d told it at lunch, let the words escape his lips while he ate with his co-workers in the corporate cafeteria. He was never very well-liked, never the most popular, but he still tried to fit in. He did his best to get involved in the lunchtime conversations about whatever television show was popular—which he undoubtedly watched alone—or to discuss how he’d spent his weekend while no one listened. He figured he’d try to change things up a bit by making a joke, by saying something to get the others to laugh. Yet the moment the punchline dribbled out of his mouth, they all immediately started screaming and killing themselves. Knives, forks, plates, whatever they could find were shoved into the eyes and bodies of anybody unfortunate enough to hear what he’d said. \n\n“Yes, your honor” Chuck said, lifting his head back up and staring at the judge on his right. He didn’t look like a man with a sense of humor, his skin wrinkled and hair gray. He looked more like a man who told long winded, dry tales about how cans were invented and the impact they had on society.\n\n“So you say you’re innocent?” said a lawyer across from him, a smile spread over his pink lips. He was sitting on the desk, casually mixing a straw in a Styrofoam cup of coffee, his blonde hair falling down to just above his eyes. “Does that mean you didn’t tell the joke?”\n\nChuck paused, glancing back at his own lawyer. His face was buried in his hands, as if Chuck had just told him he were pregnant. He’d been absolutely useless since the moment Chuck had hired him, instead spending his time playing Angry Birds on his cellphone until the judge had demanded he stop. Following that, he spent his remaining time sleeping and saying, “no further questions.” Still, he was the only lawyer Chuck could get, the only one who didn’t call him guilty from the second they met. Sure, he didn’t exactly graduate from law school, and, yes, he wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about law, but he was definitely a lawyer. That helped his image, at least a little. \n\n“Yes. I mean, no,” Chuck said, returning his attention to the other lawyer. \n\n“So you did tell the joke?”\n\n“Is that illegal?” Chuck said, sitting forward slightly. “Is it illegal to try to make people laugh? To tell a hilarious joke and expect people to smile?” He had just wanted to fit in.\n\n“No,” the lawyer said, pushing himself off the desk and taking a step toward Chuck. “What’s illegal is causing the deaths of forty-seven people, as well as critically injuring seventeen others. Killing people with families, ruining the lives of their children: that’s illegal. What’s illegal is saying something so utterly unfunny and offensive that it literally causes a mass suicide amongst those within hearing distance.” \n\nThe lawyer was no longer smiling at Chuck, no longer mixing the cup in his hand. Instead, he was staring at him with disgust, as if he’d just murdered a family of kittens and followed it up with a brief puppy punting. Chuck hadn’t intended for all of this, hadn’t meant to cause such harm. He thought it was a funny joke, thought it was absolutely hilarious when he read it on the Internet. It seemed so simple and harmless, just a bit of silly humor. He never meant for so much death.\n\n“What you said,” the lawyer continued, “cost the lives of dozens of people. You must atone for your sins.”\n\n“I thought it was funny,” Chuck said, lowering his head into his hands. “It was just a stupid joke.” He paused, glancing back up at the lawyer. It had to just be a miscommunication, they must have simply misheard the joke. He’d just re-tell it, clear up the whole misunderstanding. “Where does the general keep his armies?” he began.\n\n“Don’t you dare,” the lawyer said, pushing himself off the desk and taking a step toward the judge’s bench. \n\n“In his sleeves,” Chuck said, laughing softly and smiling at the lawyer. He had frozen mid-step, his mouth now locked open slightly, eyes uncomfortably wide. He was clearly trying to understand the complexities of the joke, now aware of how harmless it was. “You see? It’s funny.”\n\nThe lawyer reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, then stabbed himself directly in his throat. A stream of blood shot out like a water from a high-powered fountain, forming a nearly six-foot-long line on the floor that stopped just before the Judge’s bench. He fell forward, knife still jammed in his throat, and began convulsing on the floor.\n\nThe jury and audience followed suit, all erupting into blood-curdling screams as they stabbed and prodded themselves with anything possible. His lawyer, who had clearly been asleep, jolted awake and immediately began thrusting his head face-first into the table again and again, blood spurting out the sides of his face like a water-balloon being stepped on. Chuck stood up, eyes wide, and turned toward the judge. He lay motionless atop his stand, the end of his gavel poking out of his skull, a stream of blood dripping down off his face. \n\nChuck sighed and let his shoulders fall, the room growing silent once the suicides subsided. So maybe the joke wasn’t quite as funny as he’d intended it to be, and perhaps the deaths weren’t exactly unrelated. He pushed himself up and off the witness’ stand, careful not to step in too much blood as he carefully climbed down. Technically, he was still innocent, considering both the judge and jury were now all dead. He slowly made his way to the door, hoping desperately that not too many people had been watching the televised hearing. \n\n\n_____________\n^If ^you ^enjoy ^my ^writing ^style, ^feel ^free ^to ^check ^out ^some ^of ^my ^other ^short ^stories [^in ^my ^subreddit!](http://www.reddit.com/r/ChokingVictimWrites/)\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 12, 15, 33, 163 ]

[ "1427738547", "1427745131", "1427745939", "1427737551", "1427736548", "1427738342", "1427735880" ]

[ "Being a religious person was particularly hard for me. I never really understood the meaning behind the teachings of God. I always took the teachings as literal interpretations and so had a hard time figuring out *how* it all worked rather than *why* it all happened. So early in life I gave up on being a religious man. I focused on the materialistic.\n\nI became successful. I got rich. Climbed my way up the corporate ladder and became a CEO. I got whatever I wanted in life. I worked hard. But I didn't do honest work. I cheated to get to the top. And when that didn't work out, I prayed. I didn't pray to God though. I wasn't praying to anybody. But whenever there was a life changing moment, like say a big promotion in line, I prayed. Every single time I did this, I got what I wanted. I didn't notice at first, but after years of this happening, I started to notice the pattern. Then I realized. Someone *was* listening to my prayers. And it was most certainly not God. It was the Devil. I don't know how I came to this conclusion, but I had the coldest feeling possible after my realization. But I overlooked it. I couldn't prove it, so I discarded the feeling.\n\nI continued to live my life as I always have. My company was growing into other nations. It was becoming a real powerhouse on the global stage. I was still praying whenever I had a bad feeling things might not go my way. And it continued to work.\n\nUntil one day I get hit by a truck. I'm hospitalized and I'm waiting for my surgery. I start to pray.\n\n\"Please.\nPlease let me live through this. I do not want to die yet. There is so much more I have to do with my life. I still haven't found a wife. I haven't yet traveled the world like I always planned to do. I haven't taken up that offer to take a trip to space with Elon Musk. I haven't found a successor to steer my company in the right direction. I haven't yet gotten rid of all those greedy bastards on the board of my company.\nPlease.\nPlease let me live through this.\"\n\nAnd then I say it. The words I have kept from saying in my prayers for a long time, until the time I *really* needed *his* help.\n\n\"I pray to you Satan, I offer you my soul in exchange to let me live the rest of my life!\"\n\nSuddenly I hear a voice.\n\n\"You fool. I don't want your soul. I already have that. You think the luxurious life you enjoyed were because of your doing? No. You know the truth. You've always known the truth. You don't believe you honestly earned anything you achieved in life. You know deep down in your cold black heart that you were always praying to me. You just didn't know the price you were paying. I've long owned your soul. You were on borrowed time. But this it. Your time is up on Earth, but your payment of servitude to me is just beginning. I'll see you soon in Hell, partner\"", "Hades laughed. \"You'll have to do better than that.\" \n\n\"What's that suppose to mean?\" I said, hurt. I offered him my soul. \n\n\"Look little girl, you humans all die eventually. You're soul will be mine. So what will it be? What do I get if I give you the power you wish for.\" \n\n\"What's it worth to you?\" I huffed. I want to be a powerful thinker of Athene. I want men to fear my name, Aspasia. \n\n\"It's not worth anything to me. None of this silly human affair stuff is. What is it worth to you.\" He grinned. \n\n\"I'm not sure.\" \n\n\"You're first born? No. Something else.... ohhh how about love?\" \n\n\"Pardon?\" \n\n\"The ability to love, yes. I'll take that as payment. I've always wanted to see what a woman would do without love.\" \n\nHades grabbed me, pulling love from my chest. Heat fled my body. In an instant, He was gone. I felt an lightness about me. Then I got on with my day. ", "\"Aw come on man, why not?\" Yu asked, confused by the matter. \n\n\"Because there are so many Yu's!\" The Devil sneered. \"Why? Why are there so many Yu's?! And becuase of THAT, I can't take your soul as payment.\"\n\nYu frowned. \"That's racist.\"\n\n\"Hell, I'm the Devil, sue me.\" The Devil shrugged. \n\n\"I can't, you took all the lawyers...\" Yu smirked. \n\n\"OHHHH!\" Yu's conjoined twin laughed. \"Evil lawyer joke!\"\n\nThe Devil rolled his eyes. \"Oh, that joke, never heard THAT before...\"\n\n\"Really? Man you need to get out more often it's really common.\" Yu gave the Devil a pity look. \n\nThe Devil's eye twitched. \"Sarcasm. It's sarcasm you moron.\"\n\n\"Ooooh...\" Yu frowned. \"So you can't take my soul as payment because you're a racist?\"\n\nThe Devil sighed. \"No. Not exactly. It's your conjoined twin that's at fault. I can't take your soul becuase it's also technically your twin's soul too.\"\n\n\"Dude...\" Yu's eyes widened. \"It's all your fault Mi!\"\n\n\"Hey chill out, you know what this means right?\" Mi asked. \n\n\"No, what?\" Yu wanted to hear this. \n\n\"We ARE like siblings. Only closer!\" Mi was giddy. \"Even more so than we thought!\"\n\n\"Spongebob was right!\" Yu's mouth went agape. \"Spongebon was right!\"\n\nThe Devil groaned. \"Hey, you idiots, so if you want drugs to be legal you need to give me something besides your soul. OR! Mi has to agree to this soul taking as well.\"\n\n\"What do you say Mi?\" Yu asked. \n\nMi frowned. \"I dunno Yu, a soul is like important and stuff. And we have like this special one, you know.\"\n\n\"You're totally right!\" Yu nodded. \"Ours is worth like 3 souls. Yeah.\"\n\n\"That's it, I'm burning this town down. And you won't get your drugs you hippies!\" The Devil sneered and left angrilly. \n\n\"So that's why when you get high, I also get high...\" Mi giggled. \n\n\"Dude...\" Yu smiled widely. \n\nNeither noticed that their town was being burned to the ground. ", "\"No,\" he said, sounding slightly annoyed. \n\nI stared at him, agape. \"But..but why not? Is my soul not worth enough?\"\n\n\"Where have you heard of the idea of selling your soul to the devil?\"\n\nI looked at him confusedly. \"Uh...I don't know. It's just...a thing that happens, I thought.\" I gestured to the black occult books strewn about my bed. \"I followed the instructions and amazingly, they actually worked and you're here, so I thought...\"\n\n\"OK, I'll give you credit for that,\" he allowed, \"you did your research and got the sigils right and...is that a dead bunny?\" He pointed to Fluffles, the family pet, whose internal organs I had carefully arranged onto the points of the pentacle I had drawn in his own blood. Satan whistled. \"Shit, boy, your mother is going to drag you to the priest for daily sodomizations for a month...\"\n\n\"So why won't you buy my soul?\" I interrupted.\n\nHe sighed heavily. \"You gotta stop listening to TV and junk about serious stuff like this, kid. Read something for a change. Like the Bible.\"\n\n\"Seriously? The Devil is telling me to read that *rag*?\" I shot back with a snicker. \"That's, like, super ironic.\"\n\n\"It is pretty ironic,\" he agreed, \"but my point is, if you were well versed, you would've known that deals with the Devil ain't a thing.\"\n\n\"*What!?*\"\n\n\"Yup,\" he said cheerfully. \"Not one person in the Bible sold their soul to me. I mean, think about it: if they were the kind to want to sell their souls, I would have them anyway, after they died. Pretty useless bargaining chip, y'know?\"\n\n\"You're just...making shit up,\" I said angrily. It sounded kind of logical, but the Devil is a tricky person, that much I knew. I wasn't about to let him rip me off. \"Just--\"\n\n\"John? John, are you up in your room? We're going to be late to the Church charity drive!\"\n\nI blanched at the sound of my mother's voice. Shit, I had run out of time! I was supposed to have the power to make her disappear by now, but the Devil was being such an ass. I took several steps back, mind racing.\n\n\"Are you even dressed, young man? Oh, never mind. I'm coming up!\" For a second, I stood there frozen. Then, when I heard her climbing the stairs, a jolt of electricity ran through and I leapt into action, locking the door and whirling around to face the Devil.\n\n\"You gotta help me!\" I whispered frantically. \n\nHe rolled his eyes and pointed to the ground. I followed his gnarled finger and saw that the circle of salt surrounding the pentacle star had a break in it; I must've stepped on it at some point. Horrible realization dawned on me. I looked up at him.\n\n\"Sorry, kid,\" he said, waving a hand at me. \"See you in hell, probably.\" And with a crack and wisp of smoke, he was gone.\n", "Morningstar pinches the space between his eyes and sighs.\n\n\"I, I just can't.\"\n\nPietre takes off his glasses, his hands trembling softly. He rubs each lens between his silk handkerchief, the fine tremor slowing his process. He replaces the glasses and stares into the cool blue eyes of the young man sat opposite him.\n\n\"I prayed, and I prayed.\" Tears fill Pietre's milky eyes as he speaks. He blinks, sending a few droplets rolling down his thin, wrinkled cheeks. \"But nobody answered. Until you.\"\n\nMorningstar adjusts one of his cufflinks. It shines almost as brightly as his light blonde hair. He clears his throat, the sound almost filling the small living room. A neat little teacup sits next to him, the foul smelling herbal concoction within still steaming.\n\n\"You understand who I am? What I am?\" Morningstar rubs at the black paint on the tablecloth next to him, forming a small chip in the pentagram that surrounds the teacup.\n\n\"I understand.\" Pietre nods, his head trembling in union with his hands. He gestures around the living room, the old armchair containing him groaning in protest. Pictures line his walls and window sill, smiling faces dulled by a thin film of dust. \"This is all I have now. I am an old man, what worth do I offer to the world? At least in death, I can give meaning.\"\n\nMorningstar smiles sadly, his teeth shining behind thin lips. His eyes rest on a silver frame on the mantelpiece, containing a young boy. The boy is also smiling sadly.\n\n\"Is that him?\"\n\nPietre nods. He reaches out for the chipped wooden stick resting against his chair, and pulls himself up slowly. His movement over to the picture frame is stilted, his steps small and rigid. Morningstar tilts his head to one side before standing to join him. He rests his hand on Pietre's shoulder as the old man speaks.\n\n\"Too young. Cancer is an illness for the old. He is too young.\" Pietre doubles over his stick, banging it hard against the ground as he speaks. \"Please, you have to accept! You have to!\"\n\nMorningstar lifts the picture frame from the mantle and studies the boy, before handing the frame to Pietre. He guides him back to his armchair and waits patiently as Pietre finds his way down. He crouches down to meet Pietre's desperate gaze.\n\n\"Your actions are pure. Selfless.\" Morningstar speaks slowly, frowning as he does so. \"There is no place in Hell for you, Pietre.\" He rests his hand on Pietre's knee, gently squeezing the thin leg below.\n\nPietre sobs now, his shoulders shaking as he gasps for air. His tears strike the glass of the frame in his hands. Morningstar stands, his frown remains.\n\n\"Go to your grandson, my friend.\"\n\nPietre blinks, and is suddenly alone. He dabs his handkerchief against the wet glass in his lap, his touch hovering over the face of the boy. He sighs." ]

[ 1, 2, 3, 5, 13 ]

[ "1427774749", "1427747980", "1427742876", "1427764122", "1427747802" ]

[ "True story. \n\nOn November 8th, 2007 I was scheduled to undergo a routine arthroscopic surgery on my left knee. During the surgery, I woke up, and was awake for thirty out of forty-five minutes. It was very scary, and as you can imagine, left me with emotional scars, and sleep problems. For a coupleof years after, I just wanted to die. The flasbacks were he'll, and I only slept about forty-five minutes a night. What changed me was meeting another Anesthesia Awareness survivor, who'd woken up during FOUR surgeries! Her tale terrified me, and when she made me promise to never shut up about Anesthesia Awareness, my psyche began to heal. It's not been easy, and I still have sleep issues, but knowing I've learned things that can prevent Awarenesses, it really has helped me heal, and I'm no longer suicidal. I can say 'that which almost killed me made me ten times stronger than I was before. It almost killed me, but ended up saving me instead.' life's ironic like that'", "It came a little late, but I had a bit of a revalation while on a table, in a hospital gown, ready to get a needle poked into my spine. And that revalation was this - I wasn't going to get better. Not to the better I used to know, anyway.\n\nI spent a really, really long time telling myself that I couldn't be disabled. I couldn't! I'm not in a wheelchair, I'm not really disabled. I may have severe depression and anxiety, but that didn't keep me out of a job...until it did, and I had to go to the hospital. I may have headaches and full body pain that makes me sob, but I still can work...until I couldn't, and I had to go to the hospital.\n\nWhen you come to grips with realizing that maybe life won't be like you thought it would, and maybe you won't be able to do quite as much as you used to, you go through a mourning period. Sure, there's tons of inspirational folks out there, and inspirational platitudes, and supportive people, but none of that really gets through when you're grieving. You get angry, yelling at the room around you that you don't deserve this, that this isn't fair. You bargain, telling yourself that if you just get through the day you can take that muscle relaxer after work.\n\nAs far as acceptance...that takes a good long while. It took me a while to stop breaking into sobs. I think it helped that, even though I had to give up the life I knew and move home, I went cross country to do it. Driving alongside sweeping vistas and mountains and cliffs, and powering through the perhaps not so grand states (Iowa is flat. Flat flat flat flat.) - the trip home helped take my mind off of my situation. It wasn't exactly an easy move, but it was something of a vacation. I could take a minute, breathe, and look out the window and just take in the beauty (and Iowa.) It was nice, and after all the stress of becoming so sick and having to change my life, it was a breather I desperately needed.\n\nTo be honest, I'm not all the way ok yet. I still cry sometimes. I'm disabled. I have a grab bag of illnesses. I still wish I could have my old normal back. I don't think that ever really goes away. However, the black hole of sadness isn't quite as close - I'm finding a new normal. I have a routine that brings me comfort, and I have the time now to write and sketch and generally be creative. Sure, I'm doing that while I'm waiting for test results or getting used to medication, but I still have the time and ability to find what make me happy.\n\nThere's no real solid ending to this. There never is, honestly. I'm \"better\" though, in that I came to terms with what I'm dealing with. After all the tests and meds and doctors visits, I'm ok with at least being at peace with myself.", "Many considered me a ghost, others considered me mute, I considered myself weak. Seeing my peers have conversations so easily was like watching ballerinas; such a graceful art that I know I will never be able to gracefully do.\n\nI sat stonefaced for years, continually shrinking into the background, forgotten. Soon nobody knew who I was, and neither did I. \n\n\"Should I speak or stay silent?\", I asked myself once again.\n\nI always hyped myself up, telling myself I could do it, telling myself that I would speak loud and clear for all to hear! My thoughts flowed and my mouth opened, but quickly shut again. \n\n\"Nobody would care what I have to say\", I told myself.\n\nSo I stayed silent still. Years I didn't speak, many people who I knew since before I could write my name forgot who I was. Then one day, despite being surrounded by people, I was entirely alone.\n\nWhen it seemed I would not speak again, I was asked, \"Who was I?\"\n\nI was stunned. I had no answer, but still I replied. As soon as my mouth shut I was asked another question, then after that, another. I was talking more in ten minutes than I had in two years.\n\nThat day, I went home and had a name. That day, I went home and spoke. That day, when I was all alone, I felt more surrounded by people than I had in years.", "I'm five years old, the birthday cake is alight in front of me, candles dribbling wax onto the giant number '5' that has cars and a race-track drawn onto it. Petulant disappointment fills me; I don't *like* cars; they only exist in my life because my father is a motor mechanic and he thinks they are cool, so as his son, I should like them by default. \n\"Make a wish!\" says my stepmother. \nThe candles gutter out under my breath and I make the wish. \n*I wish I was a girl.* \nThat night I go to bed excited. No one has ever told me who grants birthday wishes. Maybe it's a birthday fairy like the Tooth Fairy; her dress like a layered cake, twinkling with candles. Maybe it's God or it's someone else. Whoever it is, I hope they heard me and I get my wish. \nBut in the morning I'm the same. I don't quite know what I was expecting, other than to feel happy, to have been made a girl. I get dressed in disappointment; my wardrobe is not full of princess gowns and fairy-crafted slippers, my hair is still so short it's basically stubble. \nFor the rest of the day I'm melancholy and cantankerous; sullen and hurt. \n\nI seven. I learned about wishing on a star, so I try this every night. \n*I wish to be a girl, make me into a girl.* \nThen I learn about God and I pray to him every night, begging him to fix me. \nFor my eighth birthday we go to a production of Pinocchio at the university theatre and I 'm captivated. \n*I know how you feel, wooden boy!* I want to scream at the stage, *I just want to be a real girl!* \nMy family would walk past that theatre on the way to feeding the ducks at the University lakes and I would press my face up against the glass, staring into the darkness of the closed theatre, looking for the Blue Fairy, in case she was there to grant my wish. \nBut I never saw her again. \nIt didn't stop me looking though. \n\nMy teenage years begin and the others know there's something *off* about me. \nI don't like sport, I'm not interested in anything much except reading and drawing; endless portraits of myself as a girl are drawn and destroyed before anyone can see them. They are my secret, my shame. \n\"Teasing is normal\" I'm told by the teachers and my parents, but I don't have any friends. In this macho, rural culture of wife-bashing, beer-drinking masculinity, I am anathema. \n*Faggot* becomes synonymous with my name and I regularly sport cuts and bruises from my excursions outside the library and classrooms. I grow to hate people, I grow to hate humanity. \nI nearly tell the school counselor what I dream of being, but a stray comments about homosexuals makes me rethink that immediately. \nHopelessly depressed, I retreat further into the worlds I write and draw; writing becomes my lifeline - in my stories I can be who I was *supposed* to be. \nSo I survive. \n\nI'm sixteen; my parents caught me crossdressing. \nWhat little money I had leftover from buying books and pencils went into buying some women's clothes. \nNo, not women's clothes, *my clothes*. \nMy stepmother rages, disappointed that it's 1994 and people like me can't be thrown into mental institutions and forgotten about. My father tells me I'm gay and to 'stop it or else'. \nThen come the threats. My stepmother threatens to leave my father if I ever do it again. My father threatens to 'punch my lights out' if I do it again. \nSo again I retreat, further into the world of my writing. I engross myself in art, creating wildly insane, surrealist landscapes to escape from this perpetually confusing and ugly reality. \nBut I make a promise to myself that I won't give up. \nOnce I am free of my parents, I can *be* free. \n\nEighteen now, I've left home. \nI struggle with my gender daily, trying to figure out how to make the change over. I grow my hair out and people are regularly baffled by what sex I am - often they're downright rude and sometimes abusive. \nI confide in my best friend, who responds with incredulous bigotry. \nShamed, I retreat back into some semblance of masculinity, but he knows now. \nCareless, he spreads my secret around and my 'perversion' becomes known. It's like school again and what progress I have made is lost in a whirlpool of emotions; regret, shame, yearning, desperation, fear, hope and despair. \nI start to give up. \nThere is no Blue Fairy. \n\nI'm twenty one, in the army and doing my best to become the best facsimile of a man there is. \nBut despite my best efforts, I'm still pegged as 'a bit gay' and 'sensitive'. My parents are happy with me though; seemingly for the first time in my life. My stepmother confides in me that she is proud, that I did the right thing. \nEveryone is happy it seems, my sister, my grandparents, my old teachers, family friends. \nHappiness, it seems, is something you create for other people - or something elusive that hangs in the distant future, a fantasy. \nI do what I'm supposed to do; I date women and I find one with two children. We move in and I play happy families, pretending to be 'normal' and 'happy'. \nBut like all shams, it lasts only so long. The illusion becomes too hard to maintain. \nAt twenty four I leave the army and I leave her. \nFor the first time in my life I start to feel *free*. \n\nI'm twenty eight and an alcoholic when I finally give in. \nSuicide had been on the table as an option. The other two options were to transition or find something stronger than drink. \nMy cowardice saves me; transition now seems like the least scary of the three options. \nI come out to my boss. I come out to work. \nAs expected, it's terrifying and awful. I'm a man in a dress and I'm miserable. \nBut underlying the misery from how other people are treating me, the happiness grows within. \nI start on hormones, I grow my hair. \nEvery 'ma'am' and 'miss' is a blessing; a breath of oxygen on the smoldering ember of my happiness. \nThe pictures show the evidence; in each image my smile is bigger, broader, more genuine. \nI start to feel *alive!* \n\nThe room in the Thai hospital is cold, the air conditioning is blasting and I'm shivering uncontrollably. \nMy throat is dry and I croak for water and a blanket, which are promptly provided by a nurse. \nI won't see the results of the surgery for another three days, but I know it's been done. I am *whole* for the first time in my life. \nThe nurse calls in my fiancé and he rushes in to hold my hand as she wheels my bed back to my room. \nShe's like me, most of the nurses are. \nDressed in blue, I realise that I finally found where all the Blue Fairies come from." ]

[ 1, 2, 2, 5 ]

[ "1427990921", "1427853339", "1427857550", "1427852838" ]

[ "I woke up on the Titanic after the first sinking, inform the captain of the impending disaster, then live a long life to be able to say here that this idea is unoriginal, stupid, and a ripoff of Furious 7. ", "**I open my eyes as the sun comes up. It begins again.**\n\nAll of my efforts to avert the looming disaster have been in vain. I've staged armed takeovers of the wheelhouse and executed full-scale sabotage in the engine room! Attempts at altering the ships course or mitigating its forward progress are fruitless. It is always there, no matter where we go... we hit the iceberg and the ship sinks! It's been many months now and there are only two constants for me... the nightly fate of the ship and my enduring memories of each event. I am now tempted to begin each recurrent day by acquiring a pistol and taking my own life. I cannot continue to live through the hopelessness of the night and early morning that is yet to come.\n\nWhat am I supposed to derive from this? What is the lesson for me? Have I been cast in this macabre production for eternity?\n\nMoliere said \"We die only once, and for such a long time\"... My God, if only this could be true!\n\nOnce again, I've got all day to dwell on this and mentally prepare myself... but right now I'm hungry. I make my way to the second-class dining saloon, and take my breakfast with a cheerful group of young men! I eat grilled ham, fried eggs, potatoes and buckwheat cakes with maple syrup. The talk is light and lively, everyone is happy and pleasant. I strike up a conversation with the young man seated directly to my right. His name is Henry Cotterille and he's a Carpenter from Cornwall. He insists that I call him \"Harry\"... I insist that he call me \"Robby\"... we become fast friends! Harry is making his way to America with his companions \"George\" and \"Percy\". They all hope to find good paying jobs there. Harry tells me of his dream to marry and own property. I ask him to tell me of his life in Cornwall, and he gives me gloriously vivid accounts of his home, his brothers, and his parents. His father passed away 3 years ago... Harry dearly loved his Father and it was clearly a crushing loss for him.\n\nI spend the day with Harry listening to his tales, and I also shared stories of my life and my family in Wales. George and Percy had struck out on their own earlier, but they rejoin us for Dinner and Drinks.\n\nThe late evening comes and Harry's companions have already left and gone to bed, I beg him to stay in the lounge and we drink, talk, and laugh. Then it happens, there is a slight \"Thud\" that's felt throughout the lounge... Harry wonders what has happened and I assure him it's likely nothing. The drinking resumes and all is well until a mild chaos ensues among the patrons and staff. Harry is alarmed and wishes to rejoin his companions in the stateroom, I assure him they'll be out with us shortly and we go outside to the boat deck.\n\nGeorge and Percy immediately show up outside to locate us... I find life jackets for all of us. They're all confused and scared. The ship is listing...she's obviously taking on water. They're young, but they're not stupid... they all know the ship is sinking and they look to me for a possible answer. I tell them to put on their life jackets and they do, I lie to them and tell them that I've been on and around boats my entire life. They listen carefully as I tell them how I counted the lifeboats the day I came aboard, I tell them there aren't enough for everyone and that most of the passengers will die tonight... they believe me. We move over to watch lifeboats being launched... the situation is now frenetic and the few boats that remain are being launched.\n\nI take them aside and tell them that there is only one way we'll survive this night... we must jump into the water and one of the lifeboats will see us and that they are required to rescue us. I lie about a universal maritime law that says lifeboats must rescue people in the water. They believe me yet question how cold the water will actually be. I assure them it'll be very cold, but it's our only way to survive this sinking. I tell them we must brace ourselves and jump in before everyone else does, otherwise there's no chance of rescue or survival by a lifeboat.\n\nWe hit the water and the cold is overwhelming... it'll be over soon. I assure them all that everything is fine and not to swim after the boats that they'll send one for us. It doesn't take very long at all and they drift away one by one. Then it grows dark and again I slip into the nightly nothingness. \n\nDuring that day spent with Harry, I made my decision! I will use this as a unique opportunity to personally meet and learn about the lives of every single person aboard this ship! From the Captain all the way down to the lowest boy working in the coal bunkers. I shall know them all! I'll fill my days and evenings with their stories and their company. I'll live vicariously through the eyes of them all one day at a time.\n\nIf I must spend eternity with them, then I must get to know them all! I'll make their acquaintance and endear myself to them. We shall talk, laugh, and share stories together, and I'll be a richer man for their company. Be they Lawyer, Housewife, Stone Mason, or Carpenter! The stories they'll share will be divine, there surely are some terribly interesting people aboard this magnificent ship! I can't wait for each new day, and meeting each new friend!\n\nAnd, when the moment comes, I'll be there to comfort each one of them. Each day, I'll be there with my new friends and I'll be close by their side. No matter what their status or given fate... I'll do my very best to ease their passing as the darkness and silence closes in once again.\n\nAfter it's done and the ship is gone... when the voices in the water have silenced. The pain is yet again allayed until the dawn. \n", "I have been looking for work for 8 months and finally was called for an interview. The interview felt a little challenging but I think I sold myself with the right knowledge for the job. The day after the interview I was offered the job. I sent in my token auth and it was approved. Even in 2283 getting a job is tough. \n\nMonday I was walked through a 15 minute orientation that I had to be in early for. After that I was dropped off at my workstation. My new boss informed me that my work would come through the mail system and I could start manipulating the data for executives to review. At least I have a job. I looked at the time and it was 8:04 am, as the clock hit 8:05 my surroundings changed and I was sitting in what appeared to be a cabin on a ship. I stood up and looked at my uniform, the name tag read J Moody. I appear to be an officer on a ship. I left my cabin and walked down the hall and saw something disturbing. The sign said It was the RMS Titanic. I went to check my net connection for information but it was blank. I was no longer plugged in. I worked my way to the bridge and was asked which table I am entertaining for dinner. I don’t know was my response and the crew member directed me to the reservation list. I looked at the list and found the table James Moody was supposed to sit at. I still have no idea why I am here. I remember a titanic ship mentioned in history class but not exactly what happened. I think this ship will sink.\n\nDinner was really good but the conversation was not so great I had no idea what type of technology these people are using. I feel out of place. I think I will take a nap. I woke up to knocking on my cabin door that help was needed on deck the ship has hit an iceberg. \n\nPeople were getting on the lifeboats and I assisted for an hour. I tried to help where I could but doom seemed closer. I had been on the ship for 7 hours. I dont want to die here. The chaos started and people began to fight for a place on a lifeboat. I wanted to get on one but the other officers would not let me. The water hit my feet and at that moment I realized the end was coming as the ship began to tear I fell in the water and was not close enough to a lifeboat to get pulled in. I started to swim towards a lifeboat. The water is really cold, I cannot swim fast enough I feel myself getting weak. I went under the water, kicked my feet and hit my workstation wall. I looked around and was at work. I looked at the time and the clock hit 5pm. My boss was walking by, looked at me and said I had a great first day at the office and he looks forward to more of the same.\n\nFor 6 months from Monday to friday I go in to work and at 8:05am I am transported to the titanic. No one believes me. It has been suggested I go to a well being therapist to get help. I really need to have a job. I need to get somewhere in life I must keep going. I know now that I am on the ship for 8 hours and leave right as it breaks apart. I have met many of the people on board. I have researched what happens. I have even tried telling the crew to turn the ship early. Several times but I was locked up and told I am crazy. I have stopped trying to change what happens and just try to survive each day as James Moody without going insane.\n\nMy mid year performance review was coming up at work. My boss has asked me to come in 15 minutes early, as I have been told my work is crucial to the business. I don’t feel my contribution is making any difference. Do they even know what happens to me every day. I think not. \n\nI went in for my review. I am doing well and received a promotion to a senior data manipulation architect. He even told me my messages that I send out to the executives are exemplary. I ask him what we talk about on days and he replied with nothing. He informed me that I am one of the best workers with great focus on my job. I dont understand. I watch 1200 people go to their death every weekday. It is not fun. I ask if there are any other positions open. He said no. Back to my workstation. It is 8:03 maybe if I walk slow and get to my station at 8:07 I will miss the change. I walk by other people and they are all working very hard. I see my desk and stop. time is 8:05 am. Cabin. Again. I am going to lose my mind being on this ship as it sinks every day.\n\nI open my door to go to work just like you. When the clock hits 8:05 am no matter where I am my day changes. No one believes me. This isn’t a government conspiracy. What is my lesson to learn I do not know. I will press on because I need a job.\n\nEvery day I relive the last hours of the Titanic and do not know what my purpose is. Another 6 months has passed and I have met every single person on the titanic. I know their history and why they left england to go to the US. I am tired of this and want a new job. On weekends I have applied and sent my resume. No offers or interviews from anyone. \n\nI arrived for my 1 year review. Once again I am doing great work. I dont think I am. I ask why am I here. My boss says I am here to organize data in a way that executives can present it to the stockholders for more investment as he trails off blah blah. I see people falling in the water and dying. I am not even at my desk and I am seeing their lives flash before me. I ask again if there are any other openings in the company. He says he will look. Then he says once again how great I am doing and mentions a bonus check. I go back to my desk numb. I have lost my friends. All I have is this job. I sit down and look at my workstation. I check the time it is 8:09 am. I think I missed the titanic today. I am so relieved. I look up at the ceiling and start to smile at something different. Change is coming I cannot wait. The ceiling changes and I am in a different office. An old style L shaped desk is around me. I am not on a ship anymore. I am excited to see something new. \n\nI have walked around this office and looked out the window, I see there are lots of buildings and a nice city view. I am on the 97th floor of a large building. I found a calendar on my desk that says september 11, 2001. The clock says 7:30 am.\n\nI am so glad it is a new day to experience. ", "I woke up in my bed again. This couldn't be right, I had to be dead this time. I looked out my bedroom window, the night was still young and people were scattered all across the deck. *They couldn't remember?*I jumped out of my bed and dashed down the hall. *I need to warn them.* The ship was going to crash again and again and again if I didn't divert its course. The last few times I hadn't really noticed it, but the same event kept on occurring. The ship would hit an iceberg, it starts to sink and then those left on board die. I made my way up too the captains quarters and broke down the door. *No time for knocking.* He spun round and began yelling at me. \"What the bloody hell do you think your doing son!?\" he screamed. I quickly scanned the room for keys to the main cabin. He gave a weak attempt to bowl me over when I went for the keys but I easily pushed him out of the way. With keys in hand I needed to get to the flywheel and steer the ship off course. It had to be close to the front of the ship and it was probably up near the top. Unluckily for me the captain (who had now decided I was a hijacker) came around the corner up ahead with a pistol in hand. *BANG*\n\n**Loop 29**\n\nI have a strategy for this now. Run to the captains quarters. Knock then wait five seconds before kicking the door in, knocking the captain behind it out cold. Steal his pistol from his inner right jacket pocket and use a pillow to suppress the noise made by shooting him in the face. Get to the flywheel in one piece and immediately bludgeon the sailor at the wheel with the butt of the captains pistol. Spin the flywheel to the left and put the now unconscious sailor in the nearby closet after stealing his uniform. *Great, now what?* Truth be told I had never made it this far. I had adjusted for getting the captain unconscious as soon as possible to avoid complications, killing him to get rid of his further involvement for good. I got the sailor out of the way so he didn't get help and stole his uniform after hiding him so I didn't get made. *Just great, I don't know what comes next.* Suddenly a loud screech filled the air. I had fucked up.\n\n**Loop 96**\n\nI don't get it. I move the wheel to the left, the right, hell I spun the whole ship around and we still hit that god damn iceberg. I'm beginning to feel like this is a nightmare, or more likely, hell on earth.\n\n**Loop 147**\n\nOkay something is wrong. The passengers are all gone, the captains corpse is at the flywheel with a lit cigar in its mouth. Every time I turn around I get chills down my spine. The water outside is blood red. I just don't get it. Something is following me, I can only get glimpses of them before they vanish around a corner.\n\n**Loop 231**\n\nI saw one of the fuckers. This thing was standing in the middle of the ballroom surrounded by bodies, it must have stood three meters high and had no eyes, just a mouth with a constant smile. Its there every time I walk past, just looking at me. It doesn't even move its body, just its head.\n\n**Loop 379**\n\nIt moved. It fucking moved. If I don't get out of here soon I'll go insane.\n\n**Loop 504**\n\nI jumped on a life raft first chance I got, one of the things was watching me from a distance. When I got about 100 meters out I noticed the words **'You can't save them'** written all down the side of the boat. What is this reality anymore other than a warped nightmare that gets worse and worse by the day.\n\n**Loop 920**\n\nIts moving while I'm looking at it now. It followed me back to my room and is breaking down the door. I just went out and grabbed the captains pistol, I'll end myself before this thing does.\n\n**Loop 1000**\n\nI can't take it anymore. I tried so hard to save this ship, but I guess you can't cheat death. The others died a long time ago, I stayed but why? Did I believe I could make a difference? That thing out there has been waiting patiently for me to finish up, move on. It hasn't been hunting me. Its been trying to ask why I put myself through all of this. What did I accomplish in the end by trying to stop an event that had already happened. Its standing above me right now. \"Are you done?\" It asks. \"I accept death, I tried to avoid it for as long as I could but now I realize the reality I created by trying too was one were nobody survived.\" Was my response. \n\nI didn't even hesitate to take his hand. Maybe now I could die without waking up.\n\nMaybe now I could finally rest." ]

[ 1, 2, 3, 5 ]

[ "1427930599", "1427917083", "1427899968", "1427891510" ]

[ "Lighting struck upon a stormy shore lighting up the crumbing mansion at the edge of the beach line. \n\nUpon the door was a rusting silver plate. *Macabre Labyrinth and Robert Skellington : Tale Chaser*. It read.\n \nInside was a study, packed floor to ceiling with tattered sheets of paper and dogeared books. There was a desk somewhere, buried beneath all of the paper, but it had not been seen for a good ten years or so. Instead the Gothic comrades used piles of books to lean on. \n\nThey were sat in this study, on this stormy light. The room was illuminated not just by the sporadic flashes of lightning, but also by melting candle light. \n\nThe boys were sat in matching, but different colored arm chairs. Macabre's was sleek black satin, Robert's was soft wine velvet. \n\nThey're appearances were as similar yet different as their chairs. Macabre was tall and lanky, but incredibly handsome. His chocolate hair was long and wavy and his black jeans were tight. He would never button his shirt further than the top of his stomach and rings adorned each finger. \n\nRobert on the other hand was vampiric, but gentle looking. His black hair was shoulder length and messy, as if it had just bee ruffled. He wore a cape, for no fashion reason, but rather because he liked feeling mysterious. His skeleton printed jumper was over sized, accentuating the height difference between him and his counterpart. \n\nMacabre was drinking wine. It was dark and almost the color of blood. It was elegant and mysterious looking. The drink of Tale Chaser's. Robert was drinking hot cocoa. With little marshmallows. \n\n\"Do you remember that Scarlette girl?\" Macabre asked suddenly. \n\nRobert nodded sipping at his cocoa sadly. \"Scarlette Schmall? Yeah I remember her. That was a sad case. I was so sure it was that guy Lupin or Lapin or whatever his name was. But to find out that she had been the one to kill her grandmother, and that the shock had meant she forgot. It was so sad when we had to tell her the truth\". \n\nMacabre nodded somberly, although a smirk played on his lips. Macabre was a psychopath, he loved these cases, loved when they were gruesome and sad. Robert had grown accustomed to it long ago. \n\n\"Do you remember that girl Apple?\" He asked leaning in, excited now. He always loved to chat about their old cases. \n\nRobert nodded again. \"Ran away from home. Abusive stepmother. Taken in by those seven guys. Poor girl. Got herself into a really bad situation there, drug mule, exploitation. Overdosed in the end. Or no did he stepmother actually poison her?\"\n\nMacabre nodded emphatically \"She did Bobby, She did! Can you believe it? She ran away, she lived with those...scum and still her stepmother got to her\".\n\n\"Sad really\" Robert said, sipping at his cocoa timidly. He wasn't really in the mood for little marshmallows any more. He hated remembering the sad cases. But it made Macabre happy and Robert loved making him happy. \n\n\"What about those three gay guys?\" Macabre asked no longer grinning, his face twisted in thought. \n\n\"Bears\" Robert said \"They called themselves Bears\". \n\n\"Yes, yes whatever\" Macabre said brushing off the fact \"Who'd have thought it? \nThat little Loxie girl. A thief! And everyone thought she was so innocent\". \n\nRobert smiled, genuinely this time. He had enjoyed that case. It had been good to put someone behind bars who deserved it. And no one was dead. \n\n\"Remember Pan?\" Macabre said, eyes glinting. \n\nRobert almost choked. That had been their worst case. Serial killer. He'd killed young girls and boys, between the ages of 6 and 12. It was estimated that the death toll was in the hundreds if not the thousands. They had caught him aged 55 but his first murder was committed at the age of 12. At least that was the first murder he had confessed to. \n\n\"Yes\" Robert said, somberly, his voice clipped to show Macabre that he was done with this discussion. \n\n\"Something wrong, Bobby?\" Macabre asked, concerned. He cared about Robert a lot and did not want him to be upset. \n\n\"I'm fine\" He said, tiredly \"It just seems as if more people die than we save\".\n\nMacabre tugged at Roberts hand, pulling him to his feet. The shorter man stumbled over the Macabre's chair, where he was pulled down onto the taller man's knee. He curled up, snuggling close to his partner. \n\n\"We save a lot of people Bobby\" Macabre said. \n\n\"Remember Cindy? We got her away from her step mother, and we helped fix her up with that Prince. And Zel. You know the kidnap victim. Had been locked up for years by some random Wicca women, we got her out. And we got Rumple locked up. You know that baby stealing con man? We do good, Bobby, we help people\".\n\nRobert drew further into himself, wiping at the tears that had formed in his eyes. Sadness softened Macabre's features and he wrapped his arms tightly around his lover. He hated seeing Robert cry. \n\n\"You're right Macabre\" Robert sniffled \"We're the good guys. We're Tale Chasers\". \n", "Ok here goes:\n\nOnce upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a boy. A boy just like any other, except for one small difference. He was an egg. His name was humpty. Humpty lived with his mother and father, both loved their son very much, however, his parents were human. This made humpty feel very self conscious and confused since he was the only egg in the neighbourhood that people wouldn't eat, of course this was a positive in his books. He didn't want to be boiled, mashed or scrambled.\n\nOne day humpty came home from school and when he walked into his house he saw something that made his eyes yolk. His mother, snow white, was lying on the floor with blood oozing, slowly, from the back of her head. Behind her stood Doc, an enraged, heroine addicted dwarf. He stared straight at humpty, there could be no witnesses! Doc threw himself towards humpty who narrowly dodged doc and his incoming hammer, the same hammer that had just beaten his mother.\n\nHumpty ran from his home and into the deep dark forrest. Doc was still following him, he threw the hammer straight into humpty's back. Yolk began pouring from humpty's bumhole.\n\n> ***6 months later*** \n\n'Do you Doc, dwarf of house white, understand the accusations put forth against you by Prince, Wilfred charmingDumpty the third and his son Humpty Dumpty?' Asked the queen of hearts who was judging the murder trial which had unfolded after snow whites death.\n\n'I do and I deny each and everyone of them. I would never murder snow white! She was my friend, and sometimes more if you know what I mean' he winked this last sentence which enraged Prince charming who soon tried to attack his wife's killer\n\n'Order! Order I say!!' Yelled the queen. After things settled down the queen continued.\n\n'Doc, can you explain the giant crack on this poor eggs anus?' She asked while she held back a laugh.\n\n'I, eh... are you serious?' He replied\n\n'Yes, quite serious'\n\n'I don't anything about said crack'\n\n'Doc, by denying the charges put forth against you, you are proving not only that you are terrible at lying but that you...' doc sniggered\n\n'Excuse me' said the queen 'might I ask what you find so funny?'\n\n'Yes, ha, ha' he said grabbing his sides 'you said but, ha, ha!!'\n\n'Fuck this' she said agitated 'doc, you have pissed me offer you silly little junky, we have indisputable proof that you murdered snow white, by denying it you have angered me. Off with his head!!'\n\n'Shit' said Doc as he was carried away.\n\nHumpty and Prince charming walked out of the court house victorious.\n\n'How do you feel knowing justice has been served?' Asked Cinderella of Fairy news 5\n\n'I feel supercalifragilisticexpidaliotious' said both of them at the same time.\n\n\n\n\n\nSorry I never included more characters but that was fun.\n\n" ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1427915663", "1427891370" ]

[ "The room was dimly lit and the padding on the walls was stained and aged. I had been waiting for this moment for too long and suddenly all the emotions leading up to it compiled into one rising ball in my throat. I swallowed, hoping to remain composed enough to see the woman who killed my sister. \n\nThey had finally found her deep in the bayou away from most of civilization. When they found her she was lying in her own piss and shit unable to move with her inbred brother trying to take care of her. It had been 10 years since the last killing and another 10 before I was even allowed to see her. I begged and tried every loophole in the law to see this woman, but they wouldn't let me. Until finally they had felt the time was right. \n\nI knew what they had told me. She was paralyzed and unresponsive due to an auto-immune disease that had slowly taken over her sorry shell of a body. I waited in the room patiently as I could with my fingers tapping against the side of my skull. Right where she had first struck my sister. The scene had replayed in my head a thousand times. My sister had gone down to bayou to be alone with her boyfriend. When she came out of the thick of the marsh. She apparently subdued my sister's boyfriend fairly easily, catching him off guard as he watched her swim. She broke his legs in 4 places with a baseball bat before tying him to a tree and making him watch. Every time I remember it my jaw clenches to the point I worry if I will be able to open my mouth again. She did my sister in like she had every other victim before her. After dragging her out of the water by her hair she cut her achilles tendons so she couldn't run away. As my sister screamed for help, her boyfriend helplessly watched as the killer began disembowl her. She would always do it slowly so as to keep the victims alive for as long as possible. My sister died and her boyfriend screamed until roughly a day later someone found them. \n\nSo, I waited. Teeth clenched like so many times before, but with the hopeful tenacity that this would be the moment to look at the person who had torn my family apart and taken my dearest friend from me. \n\nI couldn't see her face at first as they wheeled her in. She was in a dirty hospital gown with mangy hair that fell over her face. They sat her in front of me. \n\n\"All yours\" the attendant said hesitantly.\n\n\"Hello Connie.\" I said quietly. I couldn't let her hear the tremble in my voice. I had to be strong. Then I remembered she wasn't responsive. She was a living vegetable. A heart with organs all functioning normally except for an unresponsive brain. But, what if she could hear and all of this was a gag? I had to find out. \n\n\"Look at me you pathetic piece of shit,\" For a second I thought I saw a toothy smirk behind her ratted head of hair,\n\n\"You have no idea how long I've waited for this moment. You, you who stole my best friend mercifully to get some SICK fulfillment. I may never be able to make you feel her pain, but fuck me if I won't try.\" I sprang up unsheathing the make shift shank I had hid in my crotch. My heart was racing, my hands were shaking, and sweat was beading on my head. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. \n\nSuddenly I was falling over. I felt sick. I felt nauseous and the room began to spin. Connie was nowhere in sight, but as I looked down I saw blood oozing from my abdomen. My arm raised up as if on it's own and repeatedly slammed the blade into my stomach cutting and slashing with every blow. My intestines spilled out and I stared around the room in horror. Connie stood in the corner and waved. Tears streamed down my face. This wasn't how it was supposed to end, it was the other way around. Until with the flood of blood that left my body, memories swept over my eyes. \n\nI knew. \n\nI had done it to myself. ", "\"I must warn you, sir\" she said, sliding her card through the reader. The light blinked green and the door opened with a hiss. \"he is very dangerous. Even in his condition we keep him heavily guarded.\"\n\n\"I can see that.\" I said as I walked down the hallway just behind her. \n\nEvery five feet or so a guard stood against the wall on either side with an M16 or a shotgun in hand. The hallways was rather long, and I saw alarm lights and loudspeakers lining the ceiling. We passed through several more doors with key card readers, one with a fingerprint scanner, and one where she had to answer a challenge question. She made me cover my ears for that door. \n\nAt last we made it down the final hallway. There were only two guards, one at each side of the door at the end. The door itself ran from floor to ceiling, and was almost as wide as the entire hallway. It had large steel bars locking it in place, and was made out of steel also. It looked more like something you would find in a bank vault. Behind each guard there was a pin pad and there was a card reader in the center. \n\nWe stopped in front of the large door and she turned to me. Her clean pressed white uniform was stainless, her name tag centered and even reading 'Dr. Jamie Stevens'. Even her long blonde hair was cut neat and showed no sign of disarray. Her glasses sat poised perfectly on her button nose. She stared at me with big blue eyes, filled with seriousness and danger.\n\n\"Mr. Anderson, I am required to give you a brief for your safety and our protection.\"\n\n\"You mean so I don't sue you?\"\n\n\"Whatever. Now, the brief. Keep your hands to yourself at all times. Do not make eye contact, do not initiate satire. Do not insult him, do not ask any of the questions on the blacklist you were given earlier. Do not make any sudden moves. I trust you have already been relieved of any sharp objects including pens, pencils, nail clippers and paper clips? Yes? Good.\"\n\nShe nodded to the guards who both went to their keypads and punched in a number. She then turned around and slid her card through the reader. The green light blinked, and I heard a pop. The metal bars slid together, sliding out of their places in the wall. The door pushed out slightly and one of the guards grabbed the edge.\n\n\"God go with you, Mr. Anderson.\" He said, opening the door far enough for me to get inside.\n\n\"If he is as dangerous as the doctor tells me, God won't be of any help to me.\"\n\nI smiled and stepped through the opening. I heard the door close behind me, locking. I looked to my right and I saw an intercom system. I looked to my left and there was a small desk with a guard sitting there. He nodded to me and went back to reading a magazine. I looked in front of me and there were bars, like in a prison, with a door built into them. Behind the bars, was him.\n\nHe sat there, his pale skin wrinkled and with splotches all over it. His hair thinning and gray on his head. His blue eyes still sharp, still violent, and staring straight at me. If it wasn't for the wheelchair he now sat on, I would be a little afraid of him walking through the bars and strangling me. An oxygen mask was strapped to his face and fogged whenever he took a breath. A small beep ever few seconds and a blip on a monitor measured his heart rate. I turned to the guard who nodded again and pressed a button, opening the door to his cell.\n\nI walked up to it and passed through. Thinking for a moment, I shut the door carefully behind me. I waved at the guard when he went to get up and he settled back in his seat, watching me. I took a folding chair from the corner of his cell and sat in it across from him. I pulled a recorder out of my pocket, along with a pen (snuck it past the guards) and a pad of paper. I set the recorder on my leg and held the paper. I smiled at him, and pushed my pen to the pad. I was going to write all of this down. \n\n\"Hello. My name is Benjamin Anderson, I am with the St. Louis Post Dispatch. I came to ask you some questions. I was told by your warden and your doctors that you agreed to meet with me today. So I suppose I owe you a thank you.\"\n\nHe said nothing, his mask fogging and clearing. His monitor beeping slowly. I coughed softly and continued.\n\n\"Mr. Steven Douglas. Also known under the Alias 'Statik'. It has been 25 years since you were put in here for the crime of murder, among other things. The Post Dispatch wanted to get a 'behind the man' exclusive for your 25th anniversary of imprisonment.\" \n\nStill he said nothing. His eyes staring daggers into me, not blinking, and not moving. I turned to the guard who shrugged and went back to his magazine. \n\n\"Uh, Mr. Douglas, you agreed to this interview. I would appreciate it if you would, you know, talk.\"\n\n\"Talk?\" He said in a raspy voice that I could barely here. \"Talk? No, Mr. Douglas doesn't talk. Mr. Douglas didn't agree to this interview. Mr. Douglas is dead. I am Statik. I will talk, I agreed to this interview.\"\n\nI wrote furiously, hoping my words gave full force to the seriousness of his eyes. \n\n\"So, 25 years after you were incarcerated, you still refer to yourself as your alias?\"\n\n\"It's not an alias.\" His voice wheezed. \"It's who I am. When you kill as many people as I have, you become someone -something- else.\"\n\n\"Ok. So, Statik. 25 years after you were incarcerated, we would like a 'behind the man' exclusive. What exactly was your motive for all those murders?\"\n\n\"Motive\" he chuckled softly. \"Motive isn't relevant. Motive is something the doctors and lawyers tried to find to 'understand' me. There is no understanding me. Not for you. Not for the people I killed. And not for them, the doctors and the lawyers.\"\n\nMy notes were trying to keep up with his rambling. Even through his wheezing and coughing, he was talking fast. \n\n\"For years I killed. Hundreds, possibly over a thousand people. Baffling the police. I was so bloody good at it.\"\n\nA slight smile crossed his lips, as if talking about it brought him back to that time. \n\n\"How did you not get caught?\" I asked.\n\n\"Simple. Shaved all the hair off of my body, always wore gloves. I used blades instead of guns. Can't exactly trace a knife wound like you can trace a bullet. I made my targets as random as I could. Trying to make sure as few as possible had anything in common. And no two back to back had any similarities. I never bothered hiding the bodies. Just left them where they fell. Easier and cleaner that way\"\n\nI tried not to let the queasiness in my stomach affect my note writing, but it was hard not to cover my mouth. He said all of this with no remorse, no compassion. Only cold stoicism. \n\n\"I wore a mask and goggles too. So no one would see enough of my face to get a good ID. No one ever even suspected me.\"\n\nA full laugh rolled through his lips, followed by a short coughing fit. \n\n\"Hundreds, maybe over a thousand people. Glorious.\"\n\n\"And how did you get caught? How did you get arrested?\"\n\n\"I turned myself in. Sort of. I walked into the police station in my disguise, named myself the killer of those people, and walked out. They chased me, I ran. I was bored, I wanted some excitement. Some challenge. During the chase one of them shot me, bullet went into my spine. The deadliest serial killer in history, stuck in a wheelchair waiting to die.\"\n\n\"25 years later, locked behind these bars, what would you say you feel towards the families of your victims, and the world in general.\"\n\n\"Hate.\" He said, his eyes narrowing and growing hard. \"Every life I didn't extinguish, I hate. Every scream I didn't hear, every heart I didn't stop from beating. I hate. I hate them, and I hate you.\"\n\nI sat perfectly still, remembering what Dr. Stevens had said about making sudden moves. He was in a wheelchair, why was I so terrified of him?\n\n\"Well, Statik. Mr. Douglas. That is all I have for you.\" I stood, collecting my things.\n\n\"One more thing, before you go. Come close, I don't have much energy left so I don't want to talk loud\"\n\nI carefully inched close to him, hoping I was out of arms reach. His heart monitor started picking up a little, its beeps coming faster.\n\n\"Remind them. Your silly Post Dispatch and your pathetic fucking world. Remind them that I remain, all these years later. I remain Statik, the deadliest serial killer in history. Your children, and their children, and their children will know me.\"\n\nFaster than I could think possible, his hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. He pulled me close, his face inches from mine. He pulled his mask off with his other hand, his teeth clenched and his eyes wild. His heart monitor beeped faster, the blip flashing erratically.\n\n\"No one, not you, not the doctors, not the police, no one can best me. No one can stop me. Everything that happens to me is of my design. I will be free before I die, Mr. Anderson. And the world will remember. No one can silence the Statik.\"\n\nHe opened his mouth and from his throat came a hissing, gurgling noise. It sounded exactly like static from a TV or radio. He let go of my wrist and continued the noise. I heard the cell door open behind me and felt an arm around my waist. I was pulled out and the door slammed closed in front of me. Still he sat there, making that awful noise.\n" ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1427918930", "1427955324" ]

[ "I press continue possibly thinking I'll start over from a previous \"checkpoint\" or in other words a memory. If I had 2-3 choices as in 2 or 3 \"checkpoints\" or \"saved games\" if you will I'd choose to be reborn and start over from when I was 14-15 because that was the turning point in my life. I could have definitely done some things differently, not that I am complaining of my life. It has been great so far but still you always wonder what if I had said/done this differently that one time.", "Lights go out, senses dulling.\n\nHead on harsh concrete, exposed and throbbing.\n\nEars and nostrils, from which blood is rushing.\n\nAdrenaline and sounds of insulting words fading.\n\nSwift kick to abdomen, body aching.\n\nYoung woman's shouts, stressed and pleading.\n\nDone is pain and suffering.\n\nForgotten is life's meaning.\n\nI am gone.\n\nI have lost.\n\nGame over.\n\n*Ten*.\n\nNothing.\n\n*Nine*.\n\nGod's grace apparently tricked.\n\n*Eight*.\n\nEyes willfully opened.\n\n*Seven*.\n\nBlackness with white replaced.\n\n*Six*.\n\nBold wording, vision obstructed.\n\n*Five*.\n\n\"*Continue*?\" letters spelled.\n\n*Four*.\n\nReality of situation questioned\n\n*Three*.\n\nFate so readily accepted.\n\n*Two*.\n\nSecond chance at life presented.\n\n*One*.\n\nNo.\n\nI was gone.\n\nI had lost.\n\nGame over.", "Ten...\n\n*Joyce is sitting next to me, her legs pressed against her chest. She is wearing my sweatshirt, overly large on her thin frame. She has one barefoot on the dashboard, beside my zombie hula girl.*\n\n*\"Do we have to really do this now?\" She is pulling at a thread on the sleeve. I use my left hand to stop her. I tell her not to damage it. She is only borrowing it. Because she is always cold. \n\nNine...\n\n*Joyce wants to pick the radio station. I am so sick of Taylor Swift I might just scream.* \n\n\"We are never ever ever getting back together!\" \n\n*I flip off the radio and tell her we need silence. We have ten more minutes . Joyce is sulking. She likes to talk rapidly when she is upset. I don't pay her any mind. I am thinking about what to do about the large stain on her carpet, the vomit on the walls. I want her gone, for just a moment, so I can live my own fucking life.*\n\nEight...\n\n*She is resting her head against the window. Her arms are far too thin. I tried to help her, but I can't force her to eat. I tried, pried her jaws apart and shoved the eggs into her mouth. But she just threw it all up, across my white carpets. I wanted to love her, but she was so broken. She wasted so much of my time. I just wanted to be a kid again. She wasn't my problem, but mom would never help her. Mom never helped.* \n\nSeven...\n\n*Joyce starts screaming at me when she sees where we are. She refuses. She won't do it. She won't.* \n\nSix...\n\n*I tell her to take off my sweatshirt. I tell her to get out and leave me alone. I have stuff to do. She is wasting my time. I am sorry, but... I am just dead. Dead tired.* \n\nFive...\n\n*They strip off the sweatshirt, tell me to take her personal effects. I sign her away to these people, dresses in dull scrubs. She begs me to keep her. She will change. She promises she will.* \n\n*I don't believe her. I turn away.* \n\nFour...\n\n*I can hear her screaming.* \"We are never, ever, ever...\" \n\n*I keep her voice in a dark place. I make sure she is pushed to the side. I want to live. I am so tired of cleaning up her mistakes. She is always in trouble. She is always hurting others. She always hurts me. I am the one who suffers. I tried to let her live with me. I tried. Mom won't take her. Dad won't look at her.* \n\nThree...\n\n*It was Joyce or Brandon. I didn't want to lose my boyfriend to the selfish insanity of my sister. So I told her she had to change. If she didn't, then she was gone.* \n\nTwo...\n\n*She tested my love. It stretched, it broke.*\n\nOne...\n\n*When they called, saying she ended it. Saying she was so still and silent... I breathed deeply for the first time in forever. She was gone. I was free.* \n\n**Would you like to continue...**\n\n**LOAD NEW GAME?**\n\nJoyce looked down at her pixelated hands. She watched the numbers reach the end. She said nothing. She was so tired. She had tried a thousand times. She never got to the alternative ending.\n\nZero...", "I was just a fifteen year old man - that's right: MAN. And don't you ever forget it! My parents were stupid; and they decided to keep the oven on while they left to go see a movie. Which I gotta say it's pretty dumb to just leave me at home all alone with no food to eat. I mean they didn't even order pizza for me or anything, they just sort of left....which is weird because they left the oven on.\n\nWouldn't that mean that they intended on making me food? I don't get it. Anyway, I was dead, I was standing in pitch black, yada yada yada. Ya I know what you're thinking: BORING! But here's where it gets interesting.\n\nOut of what seems to be thin air, I started getting tickets.....like out of one of those arcades where you get to spend a bunch for a prize. Then a machine appeared, that seemed to be what is dispensing the tickets\n\nJust as the machine appeared, it suddenly stopped giving....four tickets.\n\nFour tickets....FOUR FUCKING TICKETS?! My entire life: FIFTEEN YEARS only amounted to FOUR TICKETS?! What a piece of shit game. I mean, I didn't even get out of high school yet. Everyone knows that once you get out of high school, you get a job and you finally get to do whatever you want. But *nooooooo* my stupid parents decided to leave the oven on. Cutting me short from becoming the guy that I always wanted to be:\n\nYou know, the guy that does stuff and shit.\n\nBut now, I have absolutely no way of doing it. Because my body is now slowly burning to a crisp in my own house. I sigh, roll my eyes and cross my arms, and say: \"This is so unfair. What the hell Mom? You don't even know me.\"\n\nI just realized that my complaint made absolutely no sense, but I play it off as if I know what I'm talking about, even though I don't think anybody is watching. I scan my surroundings looking for confirmation of my superiority...nothing.\n\nI sigh and roll my eyes again: still nothing. Just blackness.\n\nI look back at my tickets in the machine, and sigh\n\nThen some fucked-up sounding accent startles me from behind.\n\n\"Vould you like to buy a prize?\"\n\nI jumped, and turned around. Some Norwegian-looking fucker is behind me. How I even know what a Norwegian person looks is beyond me, but I had to call him something.\n\nHe was carrying a crate filled with items: each unique to the last. I could see toys, candy, video games, consoles, movies, a flute - for some reason - and even sunglasses. As you can tell, the only items that matter are the video games and the consoles.\n\n\"What did you say?\" I asked after I was done looking at him.\n\n\"Vould you like to buy a prize?\"\n\n\"Speak American buddy, I can't understand you.\"\n\nHe stops in his tracks and looks at me as if I'm joking. He then looks at my tickets - which are still in the machine - and he starts laughing uncontrollably. And believe me, it was the stupidest sounding laugh you'd ever hear.\n\nIn a hint of rage, I asked: \"What the fuck are you laughing at?\"\n\nThen I noticed: the cheapest item in his crate were singular Laffy Taffys. Melted. For five tickets a piece. \n\nI look upward and cry: \"Oh my god...\" I shake my head because I don't even have even tickets for the cheapest item\n\nThe man puts his shoulder on me and says: \"Tell you vat my friend, you get Laffy Taffy, just four tickets. Ya?\" Still in that barely recognizable, stupid accent. \n\nI throw his hand off my shoulder and scream at him: \"I'm fucking dead, and all I get is a Laffy fucking Taffy? You think this is a joke you shit-stain? \n\nThe man laughs again - which is even more annoying this time around, and takes a Laffy Taffy from the crate. He then says: \"No my friend. ZIS is a joke\"\n\nHe reads the Laffy Taffy out loud to me: \"Vhy vas ze broom late?\"\n\nI remained silent.\n\n\"It oversvept!\"\n\nThe man - sorry, *ze* man starts laughing that stupid laugh again. And he's fighting back tears as he tries to read the next joke.\n\n\"Vhy did ze farmer feed his cow money?\"\n\nI rolled my eyes.\n\n\"He vanted rich milk!\"\n\nHe laughs, and I swear that's the last time he'll ever laugh again. I angrily started running toward this guy, intending to crush him with my strength.\n\nHe throws me across his shoulder, sending me flying. I hit the ground on my face, embarrassed.\n\nHe takes the box that contains the Lafffy Taffy, and pours them all over my head. \"Here, have candy zat's just like you: a big JOKE!\"\n\nThe scent of artificial banana, green apple, cherry, and grape intrude upon my senses; the man takes his crate, and leaves.\n\nCrushed.....I get up. Who the fuck does he think he is? Shouldn't give me that Norwegian bullshit, this is America pal, get over it. I check my surroundings, to make sure that there wasn't anybody that saw that: but luckily, nobody....thank fuckin' God. I head toward the machine with a hint of amusement. I notice.....\n\nBut before I notice, I decide to scan my surroundings again, to make sure there aren't any more surprise visitors: still, nobody. Good.\n\nI notice on the machine that there's only one slot: a slot for the tickets. Nothing else really. I get out my wallet, which was still safe in my pocket. I find that there was a note inside: a note from my mom.\n\nIt read: \"Dear Johnathon, we're going to the movies today, dinner's in the oven....\" and then it goes on to give me a surprisingly detailed list of instructions to take out the dinner from the oven. Like, every possible step was listed, including putting the glove on to protect my hands from burns and turning the dial to turn the oven off. Etc.\n\nI didn't think that the movie would be *that* long. I thought she'd come home in time to turn it off. So I just put the note in my wallet, and forgot about it.\n\n\"Oh god dammit!\" I shouted. \n\nI realized that that man with the crate is next to someone a couple yards away - a woman! They noticed my outburst, and to make myself look a bit less foolish, I say: \"What the fuck mom? I was playing Call of Duty with my friends. I don't have time for all this!\"\n\nThe two just look at me weird, and shake their head.\n\nI realized that the woman was trading a video game console to the man. 50,000 tickets, and she probably still has more. I think to myself: \"Man, that must have been a hell of a killstreak.\" \n\nThe man with the crate points at me, and starts laughing - obviously telling the other girl about me. The woman just shakes his head with a smile (trying to avoid saying anything too offensive for me, how nice). She takes the console, and shakes the man's hand.\n\nI wonder why we would need a video game console in the afterlife if it's just pitch black. After taking the tickets out of the machine the words: \"Continue?\" and \"Restart?\" appear in the air nearby the machine. Under the word \"Continue?\" is a place to put your coins\n\nThe man looks like he's explaining something to the woman. What I can make out is: \"To live old life......coin in the.....to live new life......fall in hole vith prize.\"\n\nThe prize must be some sort of \"indicator\" of the quality of a new life. Or perhaps it's the subject matter? I dunno, who cares. So I watch her fall into the hole with her video game console. I suppose that \"restarted\" her with a new life.\n\nI look at my machine, still with only four tickets in the slot, I look downward, sort of ashamed. I reach into my wallet, and grab a quarter. \n\nI take out the tickets from the machine; like the woman's scenario, the words \"Continue?\" and \"Restart?\" appear before me. Each with their own respective activators. But the only one I care about is the coin slot. I need to continue, I can't just let die like this....\n\nI put the coin into the slot: in an *instant* I found myself in front of my computer in my room, reading the note that my mom left me, still with that long list of instructions to get the dinner out of the oven. I went out of my room, and into the kitchen, pizza was in the oven, and it smelled a bit burnt. \n\nI sort of chuckle to myself at the stupidity of it all. What the fuck was I thinking? Maybe I shouldn't just live my life in my room playing Call of Duty. Maybe I should try a bit harder in school. Maybe I shouldn't just blame my mom for everything.\n\nI smile at my newfound sense of accomplishment: I feel proud.\n\nI turn off the oven.\n\nOpen the oven.\n\nAnd burn my hands trying to grab the pizza.\n\n\"FUCK!\" I scream. \"What the fuck mom? Why didn't you do this? Man this is bullshit, I hate this.\"\n\nThat's what I get for trying to live my life I guess. You live life, you get burned. What a stupid joke life is.....", "I stared blankly at the countdown. It wasn't until it hit 8 before I realized what was going on. My day, let alone my life, didn't end when that shiny red Cadillac hit me. No, my life was just about to begin.\n\n6. This wasn't much of a yes or no question. I had to choose yes, right? I mean, no one just wants to go into uncertainty. No person goes through the perils of life just to skip right into an unknown oblivion. It's ludicrous to say the least. The choice itself that is.\n\n5. Speaking of 5, that was how many years they put me in that damn padded room. Apparently, the best way to treat the insane is by making them go insane. Isolation. Fear. Uncertainty. I have 5 more seconds to decide whether or not I want to take up the spectacular opportunity to relive Hell.\n\n4. Oh. 4 more seconds actually. My mistake. The kid was probably about 4 as well. Not sure. Not one of those last things you really think about as you're dying. No one says, \"I wonder if that kid, you know the one that I just saved? Yea that one. I wonder how old he was.,\" as they're contemplating their free 1-UP.\n\n3. \"What the actual fu-\" I'm not sure if this internal or external. It was heard in this entire universe at the same time, before, after, and forever. It's sort of floating around now. Time is ticking. This is worse than /r/thebutton...\n\n2. What is life? What is death? What is the afterlife? Is the afterlife the life of the death that was life, but now you're living life after death of life?\nWhat. I had 25 minus 5 years to think about this. I didn't think about this as my home was burning. The kerosene in one hand, the lighter in my pocket next to the locket she gave me.\n\n1. I don't give up or give in. I just give. I watch the time trickle. This is the longest second of my life. Erm...death. I lived life. I lived in Hell. Life is Hell if there ever was one. Ten seconds was all I needed to understand that this Continue, this chance, was a chance to let go of. I let go. I continue into infinite darkness. Step one.\n-End\n\nDid I do this right...?" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 2, 3 ]

[ "1428035907", "1428037501", "1428042770", "1428040017", "1428036336" ]

[ "Oops😬", " Many of you have probably heard of the children's story *The Boy Who Cried Wolf*. Parents assume it is a story designed to teach children about lying and playing tricks on people. Few realize the truth behind the story.\n\n It starts off in a small village. Because the people constantly must worry about wolves and must keep farms, we can tell that it takes place in the countryside. Since the villagers use hoes, pitchforks, and axes, we can also assume that this took place long ago before there were guns (and adequate protection against the wolves). \n\n As the story goes, a shepherd boy grows bored one day and screams that there is a wolf. The townspeople come rushing to save him, only to discover that he was simply playing a trick on them. The next day, he tries it again. Sure enough, the villagers come to his rescue and realize that there are no wolves. The third day, he actually sees a wolf, but nobody comes. In some versions he is eaten by the wolf, but most of the time he is left whimpering on the side of the hill.\n\n History is written by the victors, however.\n\n The story is actually about a delusional boy who sees wolves and believes they are going to harm him. Remember, this story supposedly took place a long time ago, so they probably would not have a cure for hallucination. The people think he is a trickster because they don't fully understand mental diseases. Twice the poor boy cries for help, but the townspeople don't realize that he isn't just trying to play a prank on them. The third time, he sees a wolf again, but this time it is a real wolf. They assume there is no wolf, so they leave him to die. They later discovered that there had, in fact, been a wolf, but they probably felt too guilty to say that the boy had been killed, which is why most versions of the story end with him weeping on the hillside. \n ", "Little Red Riding Hood made too much food for herself and her mother. She thought she might take some to her grandma since she was old and might need the help.\n\n\"Watch out for that foul Wolf that's been seen about, dear. Stay on the road!\" Her mother was such a worrier.\n\nShe put on her namesake and set off on the well-marked trail into the forest. Depite the noon sun it was very dark. Red always had trouble following the path. She could swear she heard footsteps in the darkness, too.\n\nShe sped up, her heart and feet setting into competition. The footsteps and crunching leaves sped up as well. Faster, almost running, until she got to her Grandma's house and knocked furiously on the door. No answer.\n\nRed knocked again, but there was still no answer. She tried the door handle but it just spun in place. So she tried pulling on it and it came right open.\n\nThe stench overpowered her. She dropped her basket and retched in the doorway. And when she could stand her stomach still churned. It was like nothing she'd ever smelled before.\n\nThe fire and candles were out. She closed the door behind her and held her breath as she approached the only room with any light. The bedroom.\n\nThe bed was a bloody mess. Bone, flesh, entrails, all strewn about. Her grandmother was a pile of rotting flesh, had been for days. The reason why became quickly apparent when a wolf jumped into the open window. Then three more in short order.\n\nThey locked their eyes on a trembling Red and started snarling and growling. This was their kill, their new den. This was new prey.\n\nRed screamed and bolted from the room, the wolves on her trail. She ran out the front door and into the woods. She could hear them on her heels.\n\nShe broke into a clearing and tripped over a rock, hitting her head on a log. She was just losing consciousness when she heard a loud yelp. Then it all went black.\n\nIt was dark when Red awoke. She was wearing nothing but her hood, but the blazing fire kept her warm. Her hands were tied to a post behind her. Her face felt covered in bruises.\n\nShe caught sight of the stream. Four wolf pelts were in the shallow water, cut open by their stomachs and weighed down with rocks. The water was lazily cleaning them.\n\nThen a large man came around from the other side of the fire. He carried a large branding rod that glowed red with heat. He looked big, and he looked bad.\n\n\"My name is Wolf. Sorry about your luck.\"", "It was an uncharacteristically cold spring night that Saturday, the moon shining brightly and looking rather tiny in comparison to the trees in the forest. The bitterly cold wind blew with great force that night, upsetting the otherwise still trees whilst rustling their leaves. Upon one of these leaves of one of the trees within this forest lay a very tiny egg. There was nothing particularly uncommon about this very tiny egg with the exception of the fact that it was, indeed, very tiny. Unfortunately for the tiny egg, however, it also had a very tiny amount of weight to it. So as the harsh wind yanked the leaves from the branches of this particular tree, the very tiny egg was yanked as well. It tumbled to the ground, cracking open prematurely and revealing to the world a very tiny, slightly underdeveloped caterpillar. The baby caterpillar was very confused when it awoke. It did not know how to speak, it did not know how to walk, but it did know one thing: it was a very hungry caterpillar.\n\nThe baby caterpillar tried to open its eyes, but could not see through the massive amount of slime that coated its body, oozing from the egg into the forest floor. And so the baby caterpillar lay in its own mucus, contemplating what to do next. It took what felt like days, but it finally managed to wiggle free from the once comforting egg and fell onto the hard earth with a deafening \"PLOP\". This was a very painful move for the baby caterpillar, with pieces of the internal organs that had grown outside of its body being dragged along the rocks with every step it took. The pain the caterpillar felt grew worse with each step until it was quite unbearable; not because of its physical disabilities, but rather because the caterpillar was so cripplingly hungry. And so, it began to feast.\n\nThe caterpillar began by munching on the nearest thing to its body, which happened to be the grass from the forest floor. It ate and it ate until it had consumed more than double its body weight in grass. And while most would have considered this to be an over-abundance, the gluttonous baby caterpillar hungered for more.\n\nIt was then that the caterpillar had its first taste of flesh.\n\nIt began as an accident, the very hungry caterpillar was simply munching away on the same grass it had always consumed when it began to notice a difference in the food texture. The caterpillar still could not see, it's eyes permanently filled with a glaze of dripping mucus due to their lack of development inside of the egg, so it continued to graze on and pay little attention to the outside world. It hardly even noticed when the screaming began.\n\nOnly the wings of the bug remained as the caterpillar pushed on, still unsatisfied and hungry. It had grown significantly in size since the blood feast, and found it much easier to move across the forest floor with its newly developed legs. The grass tasted mediocre to the very hungry caterpillar now, it's last meal lingering in its mind and leaving it desperate for more blood. However, the caterpillar could not see its last meal, and so as it came across a larger entity it could only assume the meal to taste the same, however, the newest meal was not a bug but actually a field mouse. The caterpillar did not know the difference and continued to devour the mouse, being no match for the very hungry caterpillar. The mouse was delicious, but the caterpillar was still unsatisfied. It's stomach rumbled as it pressed on in search of more food.\n\nSo the caterpillar continued to feast. The mice, rabbits, cats, and eventually even dogs of the forest could no longer fight off the caterpillar-beast. And still, the caterpillar remained unsatisfied.\n\nThis is when I stumbled into its path.\n\nAnd so if you are reading this, get out. Now. Do not look back. Do not stop for anything. And whatever you do, do not answer that knock at the door." ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 2 ]

[ "1428095527", "1428107424", "1428095735", "1428111756" ]

[ "He was an man with a ugly past.\nShe was a girl who could look past that.\nToo bad she was Jewish.\n\n To Jew Or Not To Jew?\n\nComing to a theater near you on 3/4/16\n Rated PG-13 for violence and language\n", "He was just a boy with fascination for genocide, indoctrination, genital mutilation and painting pretty pictures \n\nShe was just a girl who studied sculpture at St Martin's College \n\nAdolf knew he wanted her as soon as he saw her\n\n\"Now das ist ein face I vant to slap mein brattwurst on\"\n\n\nBut what happens when he realises he could have her and her family murdered?\n\n\nDictators with Benefits 2 \n\nPG-13\n\nComing to a cinema near you" ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1428101447", "1428099441" ]

[ "Another day of following the wife through another antique shop.\n\n\"Look, that one looks about the right size!\" She ran off towards a tall mirror hung on one of the shop's walls. We were searching for that 'perfect' mirror to hang in our new dining room. Twenty different antique stores across at least a hundred miles, and we were not even close to finding the one she wanted. As I finally got closer things seemed a bit off. I summed it up to shear boredom.\n\n\"It's the wrong color,\" I droned out in response, about ready to gouge out my eyes with the nearest sharp implement.\n\n\"Shame, It's just about the perfect size.\" My wife turned to look at me, \"Do you see this? It's like one of those fun mirrors you see at the fair!\"\n\nI just stared for a while before moving to a place where I could actually see into the mirror. At first I thought that what I was seeing was some sort of trick.\n\nThe man opposite me looked about seventy five years old. I was just over thirty two.\n\nThe man stared back with my own eyes, moving as I moved. Yet with everything I did, he seemed to make the action look so incredibly... lifeless.\n\n\"You look really strange, and so do I.\" My wife giggled next me. I finally managed to break my gaze away from my doppelganger to look at my wife.\n\nShe looked as normal as ever, but her reflection.... Opposite of her was a child, no older than ten.\n\n\"I look so young, and you look just like your father! Isn't this just great!\"\n\nI once again met eyes with the old man, failing to reply to my wife. Behind us both there was a man, wearing a suit with a smug look on his face. I turned around quickly to see a man older than I expected. He must have caught my confused look and just chuckled.\n\n\"No one really knows what that mirror is all about, but unfortunately It isn't for sale. I like the stupid thing too much.\"\n\n\"But it is the perfect size for us to hang in our dining room!\" My wife whined beside me.\n\n\"I'm afraid you'll have to go elsewhere, that mirror is going to stay here.\"\n\nMy wife pouted, but started for the door, I stole one last look at the mirror, seeing my aged reflection, and the suited man still smirking at me.\n\n\"Maybe we should just find a painting to hang on that wall.\" I chased after my wife as she pushed the door open.\n\n\"There is only one more antique shop in the area, if we find nothing there, then we'll talk about it.\"\n\nAs I passed through the doorway, the old man in the shop grabbed my hand. Shocked I turned to look at him.\n\n\"Remember what you saw there my friend, might come in handy soon enough.\"\n\nHe smiled at me, and then I walked back outside, joining my wife at our car.", "A blanket of fog cast over the small coastal town, it was a quiet morning, aside from the ocean. Zack has been standing outside the local furniture store pacing back and forth for about fifteen minutes, waiting for his friend Lewis to arrive.\n\n“Hey man, sorry it took so long, I was hungover and I couldn’t find a shirt.” Lewis said as he stumbled out of his truck.\n\n“No worries, look, I think I might be going crazy. You just gotta come see this.”\n\n“Well I assume that’s why I just drove here.”\n\nZack frantically lit another cigarette as he turned back to the building, only to smoke a third of it before smashing it into the ground and running inside. Lewis had to start half-jogging to keep up with him through the store, \n\n“Seriously, what’s up?”\n\n“Hold on, it’s the next section up, there’s this mirror, and I just need to you to tell me if you see something.” \n\nZack pointed out a specific mirror towards the back corner of the section, which was also in the back corner of the building, he stepped over to it hesitantly, quickly looked into it without putting his body in front of it, and he just stared. Then he proceeded to keep looking behind him and switching back to the mirror again. \n\n“Alright” he said, “I need you to tell me if you see a cat in this mirror.”\n\n“What?” Lewis looked slightly pissed “You made this sound serious dude.”\n\nLewis looked into the mirror, and to his surprise, there was a grey cat sitting on a desk, he could see it over his shoulder in the mirror, but he quickly turned around –nothing. When he turned back to the mirror, the cat was there again, and now it looked as if it were staring directly into his eyes with some sort of angry cat-attitude.\n\n“Jesus, what kinda trick is this man?”\n\n“Not a trick.” Zack said and looked to the floor as if it would respond. They were now both standing to the side of the mirror so they didn’t have to look into it.\n\n “Did you even ask the manager, I bet that there’s some stupid explanation.”\nZack went to say no but Lew was already down the aisle. In about ten minutes, the manager returned with a very confused expression,\n\n“A cat?”\n\n“Yes, a cat. A grey cat to be specific.” Zack said as if it mattered.\n\n“You on any meds kid?”\n\n“No, and I’m twenty-nine, thanks.”\n\nThe manager approached the mirror, took a long gaze at it, he clearly didn’t see anything, but to appease the two, he acted like an inspector of fine jewelry. He pushed his up to the corners and all around the mirror, obviously just to be sarcastic. He stepped away from mirror, \n\n“Nope, no cats here, and may I suggest laying off the weed? Or booze, or mushrooms, or whatever you kids are ingesting nowadays.”\n\nWith that, the manager walked away shaking his head, Zack, being annoyed with the man, wanted to reassure himself the cat was there. Just to prove him wrong. Well, he was wrong, Zack looked again, and instantly he felt regret. There were two cats now, one black, one grey, and much closer than before, they were three feet behind Zack standing on a desk. He was frozen, the black cat slowly pulled its paw up, without breaking eye contact, and held it towards him. It was calling him out. \n\nHere were Zack’s thoughts: Nope.\n\nUnsure of how to handle that, he hastily started to back away and turn to walk down the aisle. That’s when things got weird, Lewis, who Zack had always thought of as one of his closest friends, grabbed the mirror and threw it under his arm, Lew ran to stop Zack down the aisle, he pushed him back with his free hand, and launched the mirror into the upright position to block the lane. \nUnable to react, Zack looked once again into the mirror, only this time, there was no reflection of himself, and there was instead that same black cat. \n\nIt was running down the aisle in the mirror, directly towards where he would be. Confused, he went to back away, but the manager, from out of nowhere, grabbed both his arms, “What the hell is going on!” he screamed, the manager just held him though, while Lew continued to hold the mirror in front of him. He watched the cat get closer to the mirror in the reflection until the cat actually passed through the mirror into his realm. At this point, he was one second away from fainting, or at least going to a psych ward. The cat swiped at his arm and chest, which cut him through his light cyan t-shirt, the cat then jumped on to his head and clenched its claws into his skin, which caused him to fall unconscious. Once he hit the ground, additional cats of all colors came out of the mirror, there was green, yellow, grey, and the black cat. Together they coordinated to use their teeth to pull Zack with them back into the mirror. Zack, being unconscious, let himself slide through the mirror into the realm of cats, where he became a blue cat, and joined the group of colorful mirror cats.\n" ]

[ 3, 3 ]

[ "1428128434", "1428134620" ]

[ "I heard the staccato pop of clapping. It made no sense since the last thing I saw before that was the flood waters. I tried to recall my last minutes, and I remembered running back into the hotel as I heard kids screaming. I couldn’t live with myself without trying.\n\n“Get the kids to safety.” I shouted at my wife over the sirens.\n\n“What? What are you doing?” I pointed at the second floor window were three small kids were screaming.\n\nBeing a volunteer firefighter had taught me a few things about getting into buildings in chaos. I got the kids out of there fast, but I couldn’t save myself. We knew the storm was coming, but it hit so much harder than we anticipated. It really sucker punched the city.\n\nI remembered dying and feeling my lungs fill with water. I thought of everything I missed, and I tried to cry but the storm surge made it fruitless.\n\nSo, who was clapping? I found a man that reminded me of George Carlin in a white suit.\n\n“You did… so well!”\n\n“Who are you?”\n\n“I am your creator, Michael. I did a lot to make you into the man you are.”\n\n“You’re God?”\n\n“Well, that concept was a virus that spread before we could control it. We were egotistical back then, thinking humanity was too simplistic for the code to infect everyone. We were stupid. I am sorry for that.”\n\n“So, none of that was real?” I began to cry. “My wife. My kids. None of it was real.”\n\n“What’s reality, Michael?” He had a kind smile like a grandfather teaching a child something new. “Did you experience your own life? Did you enjoy it?”\n\n“I guess I did.”\n\n“Then, who could tell you what is real?”\n\n“Can I go back?”\n\nThat made him frown. He sighed a bit trying to think of the words.\n\n“You could, but it wouldn’t be you.”\n\n“What do you mean?”\n\n“When you are recycled, you meld with others of similar personalities. We then export a combined consciousness to imbue back into the system. It wouldn’t have anything solely you, so you would remember nothing.”\n\n“I had so much more to do.” I dropped to the ground and began sobbing. He crouched low to me and touch my shoulder.\n\n“You did a lot, Michael. If you want, I can show you what will come from your life decisions. You can watch your children grow, and you wife live her life. I can also show you what happened to those kids you saved.”\n\n“How?”\n\n“I’ll cheat the system a bit, but it’ll be okay. After that you will be recycled.” He said with finality. “You are too special to become undone.”\n\n“I wasn’t special.” I stood up, pushing him away. “I was an idiot with a hero complex.” He shrugged.\n\n“You know, I have been doing these simulations for as long as I can remember, and you were easily one of the bravest. It made me hopeful.” He smiled at me. He began to vibrate and turned into a glob of white light. “It’s time to go home. Come to me.” I hugged him and felt bliss.", "I guess it was just bad genes or something. 11:47 am, saturday in line at the bank, bing bang boom dead at 32.\n\nI opened my eyes. It was like waking up from the most restful sleep of my life. Everything was white. I squinted my eyes against the brightness. I sat up and there was a guy in a dirty looking hoodie and shorts. Every blood vessel in his eyes were 'won't you guide my sleigh tonight red'.\n\n\"Wow, you died. When did that happen\" he said\n\n\"I don't…how long have I been asleep?\"\n\n\"Ha-ha, yeah\" he said\n\n\"Wha…what?\"\n\n\"Dude, you died? When did that happen?\"\n\n\"Ok. Where am I? And who are you?\"\n\n\"Where you are is I'm your controller and who I am is this is the afterlife. Well not the after life. It's like….it's like…like yeah you know?\"\n\n\"No\"\n\n\"You don't know?\"\n\n\"Know what?\"\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"What ever you were talking about\"\n\n\"Oh right, yeah I guess this is your…I want to say imitation but that's not right. There's another word\"\n\nHe blanked out again. I waited for him to start talking again.\n\n\"Right, well that's it, pretty simple. I'm off\"\n\nHe turned around and started walking away.\n\n\"You didn't say anything\"\n\n\"Oh sorry right. Well that's it, pretty simple. I'm off\"\n\nHe started walking away agin. I grabbed his shoulder and turned him around.\n\n\"What am I doing here\" I said, shaking\n\nHe started laughing and continued to do so for like five minutes.\n\n\"Yeah so anyway, I like controlled your life, which, confession time, I'm super…super baked right now\"\n\n\"I noticed\"\n\n\"And like, I was baked most of the time, so I might have dropped the ball a little bit on your life, not sure if you noticed, totally my bad\"\n\n\"So you're why my life was so shitty\"\n\n\"Wow, man. Hostile. You know I might not have done a great job, but you didn't do all that much either. It's not all my fault\"\n\n\"You said totally my bad\"\n\n\"Yeah, but like, totally in like a…like a totally different way\"\n\n\"So you controlled my life but it's still my fault my life sucked\"\n\n\"Yeah you know it's like, tons of people get a bum deal and they make it work\"\n\n\"But then how are you controlling my life?\"\n\n\"Right, controlling lives, we got to wrap this up, you got to start work soon. So yeah anyway, just sit in the chair, watch the screen, you know, help your person with whatever. Then when they die, they'll show up here, you orient…that's it, this is your orientation, not initiation\"\n\nHe stared blankly into space.\n\n\"Orientation\" he said\n\nHe stared blankly into space for a few more minutes. I snapped my fingers in front of his face.\n\n\"them\" picking up where he left off without missing a beat, except for the like four minute one in the middle \"and then when they're all set you walk through that door\" he said motioning over his shoulder.\n\n\"That's it?\"\n\n\"That's it, pretty simple. Well I'm off\"\n\nHe turned and walked towards the door.\n\n\"What's behind the door?\" I said\n\n\"Ha-ha, yeah\" he said, without turning around\n\nHe opened the door and there was more bright white light. I turned away and when I turned back the door was closed again. I walked to it and tried the handle. It was locked.\n\nThen I went back to the chair and sat down. I watched the screen where I was treated to a first person view of a birth. I hit a button and got the third person view for a second before I slammed my palm on the button to go back to first person.\n\n\"There's really no good view of this\" I said\n\nI waited for the birth to be over and thought about how there was someone who was born who knows how long after my death and that one of the best things that ever happened to them was that I had a shitty life.", "Hahah, hey brah. ::wipes the cheese dust on his camo shorts::\n\nYeah. Whew! That was a good match. Got you through a lot! Sorry about all those times with the girls, though, man; I don't spec into those much. I'm, like-- my friends call me \"the experimenter\" haha. I get WEIRD with it man! Hahaha! Yeah. I like to try new shit and see where it goes, you know? I mean, you obviously know, bro.\n\nWe got a decent score? I guess? Not really competitive, but I think you did better than, like, the guys my little cousin plays. \n\nSoooo... I think they're just gonna delete you now. Seeya next game! I mean... if that's actually you again, or if it's \"someone else.\" ::big air quotes:: I don't know how it works, I just buy the stuff. Whatever. Seeya!\n\n\n\n.\n\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 2 ]

[ "1428169316", "1428170731", "1428166537" ]