Datasets:

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euclaise

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WritingPrompts_preferences

like 8

[ "Wake up,\nGet up,\nShake.\nShout,\nCry,\nScream, \nCurse,\nSob, \nShake.\nDecide, \nChange, \nBegin,\nDegree,\nJob, \nHusband, \nPromotion,\nKids,\nLoss, \nAffair, \nArgue,\nDivorce,\nRegress,\nGive in,\nGive up, \nShake,\nDeath.", "Where was I? God, I can't even remember anymore. Walking the street in sheer lingerie, getting into the first car that pulls up...then it's a blur.\n\nI can guess what happened though. After getting a nice crystal fix I went down on the guy. I taste a bit of pussy on my lips too, but mostly it's just a lot of semen on my tongue.\n\nI try to move and feel it. Cum pouring out of me. My pussy, my ass...I don't remember any of it. I must've been really fucked up, I don't usually offer anal without a lot of rock involved.\n\nI stand up, the evidence of my addiction running down my thighs, and take stock of the situation. There are seven men and two other women in here asleep. I don't know any of them. I've apparently fucked them all without protection.\n\nI guess if they want what I've got, what's another mouth to feed? More welfare for me.\n\nNo, that ain't right. I should think more of my kids, more of my...\n\nI look for my purse, I pull out the small wedding ring and slip it on. Tears come to my eyes. I was a horrible mother and a worse wife.\n\nBut I needed my fix. I couldn't help that. I couldn't...couldn't...\n\nI forgot my unmentionables and rooted around a bit. I found some clothes that would fit. Then I cleaned up and got dressed.\n\nI thought of telling James I wasn't really out with the girls, but that might devestate him. No, I'll just tell him about the crack. I know he knows anyways, I look like hell.\n\nHe'll help me into rehab, I'll get clean, and we'll get through this. God, I hope it's that simple.\n\nAnd I'll just let him keep believing the kids are his. It's not perfect, but I can't put the kids through more than I have.\n\n-------\n\nI step into the clinic and every other patient looks at me. They're all seeing me naked in their minds. These men and women are all seeing me naked because I know, by the looks in their eyes, they've seen just that.\n\nI ignore them and walk up to the receptionist. A handsome and clean-cut young man. He looks up at me and I can see the surprise.\n\n\"Never thought we'd see you here.\"\n\nHoly shit, was there anyone I hadn't fucked?" ]

[ 1, 3 ]

[ "1428331243", "1428314776" ]

[ "*Jack, Matt and Kenny approach the large, iron door.*\n*Bullets are flying all over the place, barely missing them.*\n\nMatt: We'll hold 'em off!\n\nJack: What? No way! I need you guys. I can't lose you... like...\n\nKenny: Not gonna happen. Do what you gotta do in there. We'll be fine.\n\nMatt: Yeah. This part's all you, man.\n\n*Jack hesitates, then nods and pushes the doors open to reveal a dark, metallic room.*\n*He turns around to see Matt salute him before he shuts the door, making the room dark again.*\n\nJack: Alright, Monicker. I'm here. It's just me. I know you've got some trick up your sleeve, but it ain't gonna work. I'm gonna stop you right now.\n\n*The lights flicker and come on, revealing Monicker standing in the middle of the room.*\n\nMonicker: You've gone and done it, then.\n\nJack: Done what?\n\nMonicker: You've killed us all.\n\nJack: I've... No! None of your riddles! You're the murderer.\n\nMonicker: I did what I had to do. They call me a menace now, but soon I'll be a legendary hero. Like you.\n\nJack: They're wrong - you're not a menace. Not even a menace could do the things you have. To scum like you, menace is a compliment. \n\nMonicker: So, what are you going to do? Kill me? Just like I killed your little friend?\n\n*Jack runs up to him and grabs him by the throat, lifting him into the air.*\n\nJack: Don't you have any remorse at all? Can't you see that you're ending lives? You'll never be a hero. You're just a monster.\n\n*He tosses Monicker to the ground.*\n\nMonicker: Go ahead, do it. I'm not stopping you.\n\n*Jack pulls out his gun and puts it up to his head.*\n\nJack: You took her from me. And now I'm gonna blow your damn head off.\n\n*He pushes the gun against Monicker, who starts to smirk.*\n\nJack: ...but that wouldn't change anything, would it? \n\n*He puts his gun back in his holster and walks towards the door.*\n\nJack: The weapons are all destroyed, your army is retreating, and you're surrounded.\n\nMonicker: You... You're not gonna... You coward! You damn coward! Kill me!\n\nJack: I'm not the coward here, Monicker. A coward gets rid of his problems instead of facing them. A coward kills.\n\nMonicker: You know I had no choice! They killed my son! That can't be forgiven.\n\n*Jack turns around*\n\nJack: And how many sons have you killed on your damn crusade?\n\nMonicker: ...I have to save the world.\n\nJack: By killing people?\n\nMonicker: By doing what's necesary.\n\nJack: Killing people to stop others from dying... that's your idea of justice? \n\nMonicker: And it's all in vain because of you.\n\nJack: You're wrong!\n\nMonicker: You'll see.\n\n*Ally soldiers kick the door open and run in. One grabs Jack and pulls him away from Monicker. The other walks up to Monicker and puts his rifle up to his head.*\n\nMonicker: You'll see!\n\n*The soldier shoots Monicker, killing him instantly.*\n*Jack is taken to Matt and Kenny. All three are exhausted from the battle.*\n\nMatt: It's over, then? You killed him?\n\nJack: Not exactly, but... yeah, he's dead.\n\nKenny: Better off this way, I guess.\n\nJack: Yeah, you're right. But, you know, Monicker wasn't entirely wrong. He was evil, don't get me wrong, but... \n\nKenny: Yeah, I know. Don't think about it too much. You did what you had to.\n\n*The three leave and the scene changes to a dark, rainy street where there's a riot going on. Soldiers wearing the same uniforms as those who shot Monicker arrive and start shooting at rioters.*\n*It ends with one final shot of Jack throwing down his badge and putting on the signature backwards hat of his dead friend, Rose, and walks away with Matt and Kenny. Into a sunset, probably.*\n\n~\n\nNot sure what the format was supposed to be like, but i think i did it right...", "**[INT. VILLAINS HQ]**\n\n**BLANE**\nIt seems you have the unrelenting virtue of not\nbeing able to die.\n\n**CROSS**\n(panting heavily)\nYou've gotta ask nicely.\n\n**BLANE**\nPick him up.\n(henchmen comply, CROSS moans, coughs)\nGently boys. It's been fun my boy, but this is\nwhere we part ways. I'll be sure to give\nDante your best.\n\n**CROSS**\nHe's dead.\n\n**BLANE**\n(smiling)\nDefiant until the last.\n\n**CROSS**\nI killed your boy Blane. It doesn't matter what\nyou do to me now. This new world? Your last\nbest hope for humanity or the (spits) chosen\nfew you picked?\n\n**BLANE**\n(to henchmen)\nFetch him. Find my son! NOW!\n\n**CROSS**\nI can't win. You got that right. (coughs, more\nblood) But I can make sure this insanity ends\nwith you.\n\n**HENCHMEN ONE**\nSir, he's... your son is...\n\n**BLANE**\n(grabbing CROSS, screaming, spittle, hate)\nYou monster.\n\n**CROSS**\nYou showed me what had to be done. You\ntaught me that to destroy a monster you had\nto become the monster!\n\nBLANE grabs a gun from the nearest\nhenchmen. CROSS collapses as the henchmen\nhear gunshots. They scatter. BLANE, standing\nover his fallen enemy.\n\n**BLANE**\n(Grabs CROSS'S collar)\nThe world will change Cross. I've seen it. I\ncan FEEL it! And you won't live to see it.\n\n**CROSS**\n(Plunging knife into BLANE'S gut)\nNeither of us will." ]

[ 2, 8 ]

[ "1428327854", "1428317475" ]

[ "\"I just *can't believe* you use that thing, and have *no idea how it works*!\"\n\nIzac looked discomfited, and in a defensive tone of voice, retorted \"Leave off, *Sven!* The wizards know, and that's all it takes, really! I take it to them to get it fixed when it breaks, and until then, I know how to use it!\"\n\n\"What, the *fire wand*? Or the ghost carriage? Or how about your *Flying Shoes?*\" Sven teased, unrelentingly.\n\n\"Yes, *yes* and *YES*, and if you want to see them work, especially the *first one*, just let me know, and I'll be sure to arrange a *demonstration*!\"\n\n\"I'm wearing fire-proofed clothes, but thanks much the same.\" Sven continued giddily, teasing his adventuring mate. \"It just seems so silly, *is all*. To use something you don't understand?\"\n\n\"What, like your *autocar?!*\" Izac shot back, indicating with a jabbing finger the wheeled conrivance they were travelling in across the rolling hills of the wasteland. \"Like you really understand everything your engineers do?\"\n\n\"Sure I do!\" Sven uttered glibly. \"Or *mostly*, anyway! It's all based on solid principles! Good, grounded-in-reality-science!\"\n\n\"*Uh-huh.*\"\n\n\"Of course! It's why we use our translator tools, rather than your 'talking stones', anyway.\"\n\nIzac, who remembered the trouble the talking stones had with synonyms, using them interchangeably at the worst of times, could only nod sullenly.\n\n\"And anyway, that last band of techno-barbarians really took a lot out of me. Pass me a *heal*, would you?\"\n\nWithout looking, Izac passed him a glass vial.\n\n\"*Blech!* Not one of those ridiculous frilly *health potions*, one of my stim-injectors!\"\n\nIsac rolled his eyes, and dug into the back seat.\n\nIt was times like this that tried both people, he reflected. If it hadn't been for the wealth of exploration that they both offered each other, and their surprising number of similarities, they might have gone to war once first contact had been achieved. Instead, things had gone, more or less, *swimmingly*.\n\n\"Face it, Sven! We're the same!\" Sven scoffed.\n\nIzac rolled his eyes and sighed. He looked out the window, and saw the yawning cavern, lined with stalactites like anglerfish teeth. It was surrounded by a crowd of silvery skeletons. \"We're here.\"\n\n\"Fine. Don't think this is *over*, though!\" Izac only grunted in reply.\n\nAs Izac advanced toward the cavern, his metal flying shoes shooting out jets of flame, lifting him into the air, and his fire-wand out, cracking like a whip, ejecting smoking shell casings like rain, Sven rolled himself out of the drivers-side door. He pressed one hand lovingly on the rune-encrusted surface of his autocar, as the other curled around the handle of his sword. The crystals glimmering brightly in the engine compartment.\n\n\"We're the same?\" He laughed to himself, and shook his head \"*Riiiight.*\" \n\nAnd with a hearty yell, he drew his blade, and *charged*.\n\nTHE END", "This is my first response, so please have mercy :P And I think it's a great prompt. Your suggestions don't hurt it for me, since they're idea generators, but aren't mandatory :)\n\n-----------------------\n\n\"Captain, we've traced the signals to a star system fourteen light years from here. We're getting close.\"\n\n\"Good,\" said Captain Morak, as his eyes focused on the numbers flashing on the display. \"Any response to our hails?\"\n\n\"None yet, sir,\" said the communications officer. \"Results from the long range scans are just coming in.\"\n\nA moment passed in silence, as the officers on the ship's bridge waited for her analysis.\n\n\"Long range scanners show no signs of radio activity, or any electromagnetic communication methods at all,\" she said slowly, her voice drawn out in her confusion. \"Aside from the quantum flux, this system looks inhabited by nothing more advanced than the stone ages.\"\n\n\"Fourteen light years away,\" said the captain, musing out loud. \"There's nothing that would block our sensors from this range, is there?\"\n\n\"Nothing that we couldn't otherwise detect,\" responded the communications officer.\n\n\"Let's move into the system itself, then,\" said the captain. \"Emerge from warp at the outer boundaries of the system - let's play this carefully. Any civilization with quantum flux technology must be treated with the utmost caution.\"\n\nThe subsequent scans from the outer reaches of the AFX429 star system - nicknamed Quanta by the crew, for the strange readings - did little to resolve the mystery. No satellites were detected, no radio waves, no signs whatsoever of advanced life. \n\nExcept for that one bizarre reading, that kept emerging every few minutes from the fourth planet. \n\nThe scientists aboard the Nova had spent the last few weeks analyzing this signal, ever since they chanced upon it during a routine exploration mission of a nearby nebula. As the ship grew closer, and the readings more precise, the report said that these readings indicated quantum fluctuations and alterations on an extreme scale. Possibly true teleportation, temporary adjustment of the laws of physics and more might be possible with whatever device created these readings.\n\nAnd yet, there was no other indication of sentience.\n\nThe Nova slipped into orbit, the alcubierre warp engines gently returning space to its normal configuration. Intense surface scans began, and the crew discussion intensified as it was revealed that the planet did have sentient life. However, it was too primitive to show on the scanners - they were pre-industrial. The most advanced technology was simple metal-working, in the fashion of ancient blacksmiths.\n\nThe strange readings continued to occur, and primarily were detected in population centers. Captain Morak decided that an away team was necessary, for further investigations. Clearly, this technology defied ordinary scanning practices.\n\nA score of nano-bots was released on a mid-sized town, instructed to analyze the biology of the species, as well as to copy the language centers of several subject brains - harmlessly, of course - so as to upload any relevant information into the Nova's main computer. A quick trip to the med-bay, some surgical alteration, and the translation matrix implanted in their brains updated with the new language, and the team was ready.\n\nThe shuttle was cloaked by the best holographic equipment available, and they made their way to the surface.\n\nThe doors opened, and a complex wash of scents came in on the spring air, carrying the perfume of flowers, trees, and open fields, along with the sounds and smells of the town.\n\n\"I've never been anywhere so primitive,\" said science officer Telise, gazing about in fascination. \"I mean, other than undeveloped planets, of course.\"\n\n\"It's strange,\" said Captain Morak. \"Such a tiny moment in a civilization's history, that slice between its emergence into sentience and its emergence into space. It's quite lucky for us, to be able to see it.\"\n\nTelise laughed, a sound that carried well in the unrestricted air. \"Every moment is a tiny slice of time! It's just unusual for us, because long range scanners can't differentiate civilization at this stage from previous ones, that's all. But let's get on to what they *were* able to find...\"\n\nShe pulled out a handheld scanner, calibrated in these last few days to detect the quantum fluctuations. It was hardly ten seconds before it buzzed quietly, a small indicator pointing in the direction that the signal originated.\n\n\"This signal is very weak,\" Telise said, \"But quite close, and above ground.\"\n\nShe pointed at a house a half kilometer away. \"Around there, I'd say.\"\n\nCaptain Morak nodded and they walked towards the house carefully and unobtrusively. The surgical alterations and translation matrix were good, but virtually all cooperative species were quite good at detecting intruders. The subtleties of body language and tone were hard to mimic.\n\nThe sensor buzzed twice more, as the pair approached the house, and led them to the backyard. There, they saw a woman playing with her young daughter. They drew close, listening to the aliens, and watching for another reading.\n\n\"Aera, Aera! Silly girl, you have to *practice*! How else will you get accepted?\" scolded the mother, in a loving tone.\n\n\"But Mom, can't I just practice with flowers?\" the girl - Aera, presumably - said, her voice wistful.\n\n\"You are already excellent with the flowers,\" the mother sighed. \"And that is wonderful, but no Academy is going to accept you because you can make pretty flowers! Fine control of movement is far more impressive. Show me what you've learned, Aera.\"\n\nThe girl sighed, and Telise's eyes started wandering elsewhere, trying to determine where the signals could be coming from, but the sensor had remained quiet during the conversation.\n\nThe girl's hands waved in the air for a moment, and the away team could just barely hear that she was muttering something to herself. They shared a private smile, thinking this a common feature of teenage defiance between their species, when Telise jumped in surprise, looking at the sensor.\n\n\"Level with us, in the direction of the girl, 5.4 meters away...\" she said, her eyes going wide. \"That's the girl, Aera.\"\n\n\"Telise...\" Captain Morak said, his voice tight with some emotion she'd never heard in him before. \"Telise, look away from the damned scanner. Look at what she's doing.\"\n\nHer eyes turned back to the field, and she saw something impossible. Aera held her hands in front of her body, face scrunched in concentration, as a mid-sized boulder lifted higher and higher into the air.\n\n\"S...sir, the signal's getting stronger,\" Telise said, desperately going back to her readings out of habit. \"And it's also becoming more sporadic.\"\n\n\"Wouldn't that mean...?\" Captain Morak started to say, but he was cut off.\n\nThe boulder dropped with a thud, and Aera gasped for breath.\n\nShe wasn't the only one who needed a moment." ]

[ 3, 8 ]

[ "1428363695", "1428356793" ]

[ "I just realized that this was flaired wrong! Sorry mods! This is supposed to be [CW], oops!", "In my pocket, there was a toothbrush and an eyeball. I walked wearily into the sandy desert city. The limestone East Gate was the largest structure I had ever seen. It towered beautifully over the huge city. The limestone was elegantly painted white, with gold trim. The images painted within the white told of the city's history. A simple man establishing a house far from any human habitation. Soon he attracted attention, after helping a king and his donkey lost in the desert. The word of his kindness spread, and brought settlers to the barren patch of desert which he called home. Soon, he was the king to 5,000 people. \n\nStories of his son's and daughter's and more current kings are painted throughout the outer walls. All the fighting in the desert, on the difficult path here, was all worth this site. I pulled the eye from my pocket, and set it on a low brick wall to m right.\n\n\"I told you. I told you father. Your good eye can now gaze upon the city of splendor.\"", "This was the greatest day of all. \n\nI can't believe all the strangers were so kind to give me some of their candy.\n\nMother doesn't allow candy so this day was special.\n\nMy favorite part about this big day was when I got to act like a lion.\n\nI scared the little fairies and all of the princesses.\n\nOnce I got home, I stood in the mirror gazing at the lion who stood before me.\n\nHe roared with pride.\n\nThe only thoughts echoing between my ears in this moment of so-called peace was mothers voice screaming, \"Vile boy, candy is for kids who go to hell.\"\n\nI don't want to go to hell. and I don't want mother seeing me eat candy.\n\nAfter I finally made mother let me eat my candy I wanted to see the lion once again in the mirror.\n\nI stood there, gazing into my own eyes, and in my pocket, there was a toothbrush and a human eyeball." ]

[ 1, 3, 3 ]

[ "1428360636", "1428358252", "1428359979" ]

[ "I have no skin.\n\nIt took me some time to figure out. Unable to move, even to turn my head, I could not see my own body. The constant, burning pain across my muscles kept my mind sharp, despite the late hour. It allowed me to puzzle out my situation, from what little clues I had. \n\nMy bed, myself within it, had been moved to some strange sort of laboratory. I could see scientific equipment around me, though what the functions of any given device were I could not even begin to guess. All of it was unfamiliar to me, even the shape and dimensions of the furniture, the doors and chairs. In a few of the shinier, curved surfaces of the instruments, I could see my own indistinct reflection, strangely red. \n\nAfter lying like this for an hour, alone and in agony, I finally realized what had been done to me. I had been meticulously, impassionately, and for no clear reason, flayed of all my skin. The burning pain was the sensation of the moisture in my body evaporating from the outer layers of muscle. The redness I saw was the color of my own exposed flesh. My body was without protection or separation from the outside environment. It was as good as a death sentence.\n\nI could feel a warm wetness beneath me, seeping into the sheets, and the idea that I might be bleeding out on top of everything else had me on the verge of panic. I had to do something, but there was nothing I could do. Unable to move, my hysteria built up, more and more until I was screaming in the confines of my mind. I was going to die, and I could not move, or even scream.\n\nThe opening of a door gave my fear a sudden focus. With clarity like I had never experienced before, my eyes locked on the being that was walking through the door, every neuron in my brain screaming that it was a threat. If I had seen it under any other circumstances, it wouldn't have frightened me in the slightest.\n\nIt had a broad, drooping face, like a pug dog without a nose. It's thin, wide mouth drooped in a passive frown, as if everything it saw brought it sadness. Large folds of skin covered everything but the lips and eyes, though the skin on the rest of it's body was furry and lean. I did not have time to process the irony of this creature possessing excess skin, when I had none. I was too busy paying attention to every detail of the way it operated the machines around me, checking readouts and turning dials. I knew what happened next would not be good.\n\nOnce it was done, it leaned over my body, examining me personally. Its eyes were disturbingly human, though the irises were an albino shade of pink. Looking into my eyes, it's mouth slowly opened, exposing hundreds of tiny, sharklike teeth. My breathing and heart rate rose sharply as it reached towards my stomach, out of my view. \n\nI could not scream as I felt its boneless hand slip into my abdominal cavity, fingers twining around my guts like a cluster of worms. I could not jerk away as it removed one of my kidneys, pulling it as far out of my body as possible before a pair of talons on its fingers snipped the connection as easily as scissors. I could not even turn my head to look away as it popped the organ into it's mouth, eating it as casually as I might eat a plum.\n\nI vomited, and lost consciousness. I did not wake again.\n\n", "I sat on the side of the bed, smoking a cigar, my skin wet from the thirty-minute shower it had taken to clean off all of the blood. The cigar ash burned orange in the darkness, and I spared a glance behind me at the sheets. Still red and crusty and unmentionable. I took another long draw, and blew a huge cloud of gray smoke into the night air before standing up and straightening my skirt. \"That,\" I said to no one in particular. \"Was one *hell* of a period.\"" ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1428382015", "1428388279" ]

[ "The late-evening sun seeped through the old, cracked-up venetian blinds of the old motel where I had decided to bunker down for the night. The red-orange rusty glow cast bright lines on the far wood-paneled wall, its path highlighting the myriad dust particles floating. \n\nThe sickly blue hue of the TV illuminated the far corner of the room giving the old cushions of the 1970's-era sofa I sat in an olive green color. I puffed slowly on my cigarette and watched the smoke settle on the drop down ceiling tiles yellowed from years of whatever had gone on in this room. At that moment, a cheery news anchor changed her facial expression and a photograph of the man from the park popped up behind her. I reached for the remote and turned the volume up.\n\n\"...and police say that that the evidence seized at the suspect's apartment could put him away...for a long time.\"\n\nThe sound of cars on a nearby highway was so loud I couldn't hear the knocks at first. Knock, knock, knock. \"Anyone home?\" I could now hear the jingling of keys and stared at the knob to see if it would also shortly betray me and start to turn. I put out my cigarette and clicked off the TV, and moved behind the door, preparing to act quickly and decisively. I was getting better at it since I had awoken to a new gift two weeks earlier. There were no instruction manuals that came with these things.\n\nA young woman poked her head through the door. She left it ajar as she momentarily disappeared, reappearing with a cart of cleaning products and fresh towels. \"Hello?\" I said nothing. She looked around and closed the door behind her. On the worn oak coffee table, my cigarette still smoked, but she didn't notice it. Nor did she notice me, of course.\n\nShe was not there for me and yet, I could not make myself known. To appear from out of nowhere would defy an explanation, and yet everything I had done lately defied explanation. That pedophile would still be lurking around children if I hadn't easily waltzed right into his home in the plain of day and planted the evidence. This was what people with powers did, I supposed, protect the vulnerable. And yet I didn't feel right doing it. Not right, that's not the word -- justified maybe.\n\nThe young woman had ruby red lips and caramel-colored, devious eyes. Her porcelain skin glowed and seemed to transform the room. I could stare at her all day if I wanted, and I could, but I was no voyeur. I was supposed to protect the vulnerable, not exploit them.\n\nThe possibilities of my powers seemed to expand with every minute, the fear and pleasures in my life amplified as if a trumpet mute had been removed. No matter how much I rationalized, though, and how much I knew knew right from wrong, the parts outside my regular human abilities always seemed...unjustified. \n\nI guess I would have to start drawing some lines.\n\n\n", "The secret to the seven is that their is an Alpha that is never to be mentioned until the day the Council of Seven Deadly Sins was destroyed by usurpers wishing to contain the population and to always be in control of at least five of the seven powers.\n\nI woke up on my 14th birthday to see the world with my mind, and not my eyes.\nI am the Alpha that has been reborn, yet again. I saw the images of the last Alpha die, she chose to kill all seven to reset the Council, what will happen now?\nI choose to follow in the footsteps of Alpha Kara, Kara was a woman with the ability of gravity and space time. I am now Alpha Alusba, and I will redeem her.", "\"Our field unit in Vancouver has confirmed it\" the communications offer said. \"The telekinetic is dead. The effect has moved on to the next host.\" The room was filled with somber relief. \n\n\"Thank fucking god. The colonel rubbed his eyes, weary and exhausted. \"Allright, get me Captain Contreras on the line, I want a sit rep on our agents. We've got about 11 days at most before the Effect settles on the next subject. \n\nA young lieutenant scrutinized the monitor in front of him. \"The rest of the unit sustained heavy losses, but Agents 2 and 3 are still functional.\" \n\n\"Good. Get the twins to Los Angeles and debrief them. Listen up people. Our predictive mapping indicates the next subject will likely be found in South America. Standard procedure, we start with the denser urban areas and work our way out. \n\n\"Sir!\", a young officer yelled. Command on the line for you.\" \n\"I'll take it in my office. Dr Helm, can you coordinate the search?\" \n\n\"Certainly.\" The silver haired doctor made his way slowly to the front of the room. \"Concentrate on hospitals and clinics. A victim unexplainably falling into a coma, or develops acute schizophrenia without any history of prior symptoms. Unexpected and severe symptoms out of the blue. Our best estimates indicate the next subject could be a male in his 30s. As we've seen, this Effect can have extreme effects on its subject. If we're lucky, the next one will only be a telepath.\" \n\nThe Colonel strode out of his office. \"I just spoke with Command\", he bellowed to the room. \"A research division in Prague has finished a cryogenic holding chamber they think could keep a subject dormant for the next 80 years. Once we find them, they are going in. No questions asked. No matter who it is, no matter how unfair it may seem to lock them away, it must be done. The freak that just leveled fourteen square blocks up there in British Columbia was a retired court stenographer 29 months ago. We cant afford to try and recruit them and win them over anymore. Lets get to work.\" \n\n\n", "In the early days, Prax knew all the other six chosen.\n\nThose days are gone. Only three remain together now. Two are gone for good: the Time Traveler exited the timeline and the Omniscient knows well enough not to make himself known. Mark managed to find the Invisible, but he is not a concern right now. Travelling across the world to Asia just for him would be pointless with the other matters at hand. The Invisible will survive. He always does.\n\nThus the focus is on finding the Telekinetic, and boy is that an easy task.\n\n*Why* *do* *Telekinetics* *always* *get* *into* *trouble*, Prax thought. *This* *one* *is* *already* *the* *fourth* *manifestation* *after* *William's* *death.*\n\nWalking through the unkempt yard of a small house, Prax hesitated. This Telekinetic had made no measures to stay hidden. When would the government be here to seize him? No. This must be done, he must try. *Ashley* *is* *good* *at* *what* *she* *does,* *she* *will* *give* *warning* *before* *the* *danger* *gets* *too* *close.*\n\nSo Prax rang the doorbell and waited.\n\nAnd waited.\n\nHe was about to ring it again when a tiny old man finally cracked the door open.\n\n\"What now?\" was the annoyed greeting the man gave. *This* *is* *him?* Prax examined the man. Short and skinny with barely any hair left, he looked just like one would imagine a grumpy old man to look like. The powers seemed to manifest more often in young people, but occurrences like this had happened before. Why, William had been an old man when he first gained his Telekinetic abilities.\n\n\"Hello. My name is Praxiteles, and I would like to have a chat with you, if I may?\" Prax said.\n\n\"Praxi... what now? I'm not too keen on talking to strangers, you know.\"\n\n\"Praxiteles. It concerns the powers you acquired recently, as well as your safety. May I have a moment of your time, please?\"\n\n\"Eh, come on in then. Any company is better than no company.\"\n\nSoon they were seated in a somewhat cozy living room. The old man's choice of seating was an old armchair facing a television that seemed to be at least as old as the man himself, while Prax had to do with a small, uncomfortable wooden chair. The old man just sat there, not acknowledging that there was another person in the room. Prax finally had confirmation of the man's abilities when the television turned on seemingly on its own.\n\n\"There used to be seven of us, all with different powers. Every time one of us dies, the power is passed onto a new person seemingly at random\", Prax began.\n\n\"Us? Do you think I signed up for a club or something? Just because I am special doesn't mean I'm part of some cult now\", was the old man's answer.\n\n\"Of course, but you should know that the powers you received are coveted by many. You have already drawn attention to yourself by careless use of the power for petty things. Who knows when someone will come get you?\"\n\n\"Oh come on now, old McMaur deserved that tomato to his face. And nobody knew it was me who did it!\"\n\n\"You underestimate the level of surveillance going on. After all, I managed to find you. How do you think the American government will do?\"\n\n\"Why would the government be involved in this?\"\n\n\"They hunt us. They are scared of our powers. If they find you, they will most certainly try to destroy you.\"\n\n\"Us, it's constantly about 'us'. Why should I trust you? Show me your 'pow...'\"\n\nHe was interrupted as a 19-year-old Ashley Smith materialized out of thin air in the middle of the room.\n\n--\n\n\"NOW, GO GO GO!\"\n\n--\n\n\"Woah, okay I believe you\", was all the old man muttered.\n\n\"Hi there\", greeted Ashley. \"Just so you know, there's a SWAT team headed this way. I would say about 10 more minutes before they get here.\"\n\n\"We need to leave this place and get to safety. Please come with us\", Prax pleaded.\n\n\"I'm not leaving my house. There's nobody coming, and even if there is, it's all just a big misunderstanding.\"\n\n\"I don't think even you believe that. Please! Come with us, don't let them have you!\" Prax said as he rose up from his chair.\n\n\"You're starting to really annoy me now. Just leave, I'm done with this chit chat!\"\n\n\"Well, at least we tried. Ashley, thank you for the warning.\"\n\n\"No problem Prax. See ya!\" she said and popped out of existence.\n\nPrax quickly exited the house and ran to his car. Getting inside, he didn't bother fastening his seat belt. No point. He quickly maneuvered his way out of the general vicinity of the house and started driving back home.\n\n-\n\nPrax jumped in his seat when suddenly Ashley was there next to him. She was bleeding heavily.\n\n\"They attacked the base\", she coughed out. \"Captured Mark and shot me as soon as I teleported in.\"\n\n\"No, no, not again!\" Prax shouted. \"Ashley, I need you to go to a hospital right now. Somewhere far away. Australia? No. Europe, go to Europe for a while. I can't lose both of you!\"\n\n\"I don't know if I can do this anymore... Mark will know to take the poison pill so they can't access his powers and the Telekinetic will undoubtedly kill himself after a period of torture, but we're set farther back than ever now.\"\n\n\"Ashley, we can sort this out later. You need medical help right now!\"\n\n\"I will not be back.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"There's no point anymore. Without Mark, there's no way to find the others. It's finished... Goodbye Prax.\"\n\nWith that, Ashley disappeared. Hopefully far away, safe from harm and into good hands.\n\nPrax kept driving with tears in his eyes. *Not* *again.*\n\nThe Omniscient had only ever said a few words, but they rang in Prax's head now. *Gather* *them.* *Protect* *them.*\n\n*But* *what* *if* *I* *can't?*\n\nBut he must. Even if it means starting anew. Just as he has for the last 2400 years.\n\nFor Praxiteles is Immortality.\n", "There was one that could teleport.\n\nNot a far distance, but not really short.\n\nA world group chose to divide,\n\nBut at the pole their trail was denied.\n\nUpon death, it went to an island resort.", "The Seven were not new. They appeared near the dawn of civilization, they were in books, tv shows, memorabilia, movies... And they were in my mind. \n\nNearly every other month, the news popped up about a new Superpower being chosen as the old ones died. By now, everyone but the Powers didn't really care; but even they tried to be apathetic, lest they suffered fate. \n\nIt seemed they died in a specific order- weakest to strongest in terms of natural strength, although few were ever even remotely perceptive as this. They were all lost in our screenworld, what with Google Ultimate and constructed reality so much more beneficial than actually reality.\n\nBut I'm not here to talk about this or that. \n\nThe Seven's powers were largely unknown. Ancient texts were never pursued nor gave away anything. All we did know was that the greatest early humans turned into the Supers and since then only 7 ever existed, and only through sacrifice did they change in form. \n\nIt's odd. All my life I was as lost as the general public. But it is just as I'm writing this that a thought dawned on me: I am not one life. I am not a few. I am not even many lives. \n\nI am all lives, all of history.\n\nWhen I woke up this morning, I realized, once and for all, that my new life was in fact new- I had not lived it before. I was reborn. And when this thought struck me, a tunnel of colors, emotions and memories flooded my vision. It was the history of humanity. All of it. From the first words, from Shakespeare's plays, to the rise of a supercompany and each and every death of a Superpower.\n\nI saw all my selves die. I was the First Power.\n\nA leaf hidden in an orchard. ", "That day I woke up refreshed and vigorous, it has been like that ever since. The thought of; and actual action, is something I am still grasping. Walking out that bank with all the money that building held was something that I thought of, not actually doing. I imagined a lot of things as a kid, I still do now. So when I started my daily dreams while waiting on the long line of people to deposit my biweekly checks, I noticed something...\n\n I would often think about what I would do with superpowers; such as being stuck in traffic and having magneto's power. If someone was to watch me, I had my hand in a wave formation waving at imaginary cars to move out of the way. So I started small, with the old lady in front of me. I would imagine this old lady as a villain, looking around so menacingly. Then she slowly turns her head around towards me with the biggest squint and smug looking face an old lady could have. I thought to myself, ha I mentally jinxed myself. Trying to break eye contact I started glancing around and noticed the clock. I was running out of time waiting in line. Double take on the clock and I must of misread as it is now reading 20 minutes early. I must of. I had to of. Did I just? I smirked. What a relief.\n\nI need to move now to make good time so I started imagining all these people have somewhere to go. I thought of the old lady that she will miss her favorite antique roadshow tv show. She pulled up her tablet and started watching antique roadshow! Drifting off to the sofa in the lobby she just sank down and stared at her tablet. Not weird at all, pure coincidence. \n\nNext after her was an african-american male. We made eye contact and nodded. He looked familiar and I thought I recognized him. Out of nowhere he started a conversation. Talked to me like I was his brother! I simply told him you must be mistaking me for someone else. Just like that he was quiet... At this point I was skeptical if this was a dream or not. So I went the route of thinking sporadically. Pick your nose with your fattest finger. The moment I saw him trying to fit his thumb into his nostril was the tipping point. I thought about everyone else in front of us at the line to also pick this fellow up and go out for ice cream. Unbeknownst, They all started gathering and what a good idea it was to get ice cream. Off they went. That is when I made eye contact with the banker.\n\nWalked up to the counter I made small talk about how weird today has been. She could say the same and she nodded, which she did. She asked me how she could help and I sarcastically say, \n\n\"All the money you have, please.\" \n\nShe walked away all of the sudden and came with the question \n\n\"How would you like that?\" \n\nDumbfounded look on my face, I said\n\n\"excuse me?\" Knowingly what she asked and what I have been through I smiled. \n\n\"Write me a check please and let us deposit that right now too.\"\n\nManager noticed the large sum she was about to print out and asked if everything was all right. I simply recalled what I said about all the money and he implied to start helping. \n\nI walked out that bank scared and excited. Did this just happen? Where is my getaway car. I noticed a Lambo and simply said \n\n\"that is nice.\"\n\nWhat happened next felt like a gust of clouds just came and swooped me up, like a big gust of wind that catches you when you lean forward. In a blink of an eye I was inside this lamborghini. Suffice to say the rest of the day went as it did exactly in my head. \n\nThe next question is of course the biggest. Can I avert death? If I was to jump off a building and thought about me bouncing back up, would it happen? This is my thought now exactly on top of the skyline tower looking over the city. Why not? I can make everything else happen with the thought of my head. Without a second thought I leaped. Flying down the building I thought about it really hard. Make me bounce. Make me bounce. Make me bounce. Make me...\n\nThat day I woke up refreshed and vigorous, it has been like that ever since. The thought of; and actual action, is something I am still grasping. The only thing I notice now is the 6 people I see everyday while leaving my building. I seem to have this feeling of familiarity when seeing their faces. They all smile at me and ask how I am doing. Almost feel a connection with them...\n\nmeanwhile in the world government building- they can only detect the power once all 7 superpowers are in the same area. \n\n\"Sir, this is now day 42. They have regrouped with alpha.\"\n\n\"shit...\" says the sir.\n\n", "After the Fire of New York burned the entire city people were scared. The government could not control this. Luckily Frank Marsters killed himself in that fire, the first Pyrokinetic. Unfortunately, that's when Michael Richardson developed the ability. I helped them contain him. The government had offered amity to any paranormal willing to turn themselves in. These powers, they have a tendency to warp the mind of the user. They are almost parasitic in a way. Michael had been starting fires out of rage. He wasn't in full control of his ability. I was brought in to pacify him. My ability is telepathy. I needed to get inside his head from a safe distance. Calm his emotions so that a Special Forces team could swoop in and tranquilize the hothead. He was the first person I put away. I thought that I was necessary. That I can understand why they wanted to take control of these people. I wanted to help.\n\nThe speedster was the most difficult case for me. I can only read the minds of people within about a 500 feet range and Kim Salyer could cover that distance in a blink of an eye. She used her abilities to rob banks. She would be in and out before anyone could notice the money was missing. It was nearly impossible to track her because she knew not to be systematic. She would hit L.A. one day then be in Miami the next. I caught only a glimpse of her thoughts once but that's all I needed. She was poisoned by the speed. She could have anything she ever wanted and she had a soft spot for diamonds. It was my idea to set up the sting. The Special Forces team set up an ultrasound barrier around the bank that the government leak as a depository for a large diamond dealer. She fell for the bait and as soon as I felt Kim's presence they turned on the ultrasound. She couldn't escape the confines of the barrier she just ran and ran in circles until they she ran out of energy and gave up. Another criminal down.\n\nMary Matthews was a totally different story. She found me. Her mind was a beehive. It was impossible for me to pin down a single thought. Everytime I got an image it was replaced by a seemingly unrelated one. She had asked me for help. Her ability was precognition. She was the one who told us that there were only seven. The Seven. Seven powers to seven people and always seven everlasting for as far she could see, precognition. She had the ability to see the future but it consumed her she was losing the ability to pin herself down in time. The future and the present seemed to happen all at once to her. I told her we could help her. I introduced her to my immediate team, very few people were aware of my ability and the team never changed. They only wanted to help her the same way they wanted to stop criminal use of these gifts. I had been working in close quarters with them for about a year now and when you can read someones mind you tend to get to know them. She turned herself in like me. She would get the help she needed.\n\nRoy Allen had been a thorn for my team for months. He claimed to be the second incarnation of invisibility. The first having been hunted down by a group of soldiers with infrared goggles and murdered in cold blood. He would post information regarding the governments secret department of scientists and surgeons who were trying to figure out the source of the powers to use them as weapons. No matter how many times his websites were shut down he always found a way to get them back up. He claimed that being cursed with never being able to be visible again only fueled his desire to uncover the truth behind the conspiracies. When I read his mind I could feel his pain. He wasn't lying. He would literally never be seen again. We caught him hiding out with a group of anti-government terrorists who believed that society was about to crumble. He was sprayed down in a paint and handcuffed, as he passed me he I could hear him think directly to me. *You think you're helping. You are just their most gullible pawn.*\n\nAs it turns out he was right. It wasn't long after my final bust that I found myself locked away. Men came for me at my government supplied safe house. Not my team. These were men hellbent on locking away every paranormal. I couldn't help but shiver from the thoughts of he man in the cell next to me. John Barry is his name. I thought they were helping people like me, but John, he had taken the worst of it. They couldn't kill us or they'd just have to track down the next incarnations. John is different, immortal. That gave them full reign to cut him open, dissect him while he is still alive. The experiences he had been through. I began to feel them as if they were my own. I couldn't stop weeping. I could hear the thoughts of the ones I helped put here. They had us all locked in the same prison. Roy is most calm. He knew this is what the government had been up to. He accepts his fate. Michael is kept in a cell that steadily streams water from the walls and drips from the ceiling. Nothing to burn or he would have burned himself alive months ago. Kim is kept in a cell no bigger than mine. The problem with the speedster is that she has a need to keep moving. She paces pack and forth between the walls a million times a day. The distress it causes her is worse than a dog kept constantly crated. I can hear Mary, I can never make out what she is thinking. I only get images out of context, out of time, out of place. Fire, destruction, death, these are the themes that I can see with no explanation. Today, however, she projects her thoughts to me.\n\n*I need your help.* She thinks.\n\n**I'm so sorry, Mary, I never knew this is what they were doing. My team didn't know, I would have read it in their thoughts.** I plead with her, no one else has directed a thought at me and I wasn't going to let them know I was here, the one who caused their pain.\n\n*That is all in the past...or present...doesn't matter all that matters is the future. We need to stop him.* She even thinks frantically as if she is trying to speak a mile a minute.\n\n**Stop who?** I ask.\n\n*The president, or will be the president, was the president? George Jones...he is the one. He is, will be, or was the end of the world as we know it. I need your help.*\n\n**What do you mean? The president is Hilary Clinton. Who is George Jones?** It must be confusing to see the world out of sequence.\n\n*Six. Six of us, six cells. This was planned. Jones is the man who is the woman, who is the leader of the free world. Shapeshifter. He is the seventh.* She projects an image of a tall man with jet black hair staring at himself in a mirror as he warps into Madam President herself. *We need to stop him. All of us. We are the six who will save or fail the world. The future is constantly changing evolving by the choices we make.*\n\n**How can I help? I put us all here?** I tucked my knees to my chin I am responsible for this. Our only hope was the powers we had to stop what no one else will possibly believe. \n\n*I planned. I did this. All in one place. You must tell the others. Explain to them. I will show you the future. You have more power than you ever thought before. You can control thoughts, actions. Tell the others. Explain to them the plan, you and me plan. You must practice your ability take control, release control. When you can control enough. You can free Michael. His rage set us free. Kim's speed get us out or we burn. John get close enough to tranquilize Michael. Then we are new team. Then we work together. Jones is bad man start wars. Commit genocide. Must be stopped. I need your help.* Her thoughts were all over the place. I could see the plan play out in her head. It was my job to convince these other prisoners to work together...to listen to me, the person that put them there.\n\n**Where do I even start?** I was scared but she wouldn't stop projecting images to me. I knew there was no other way.\n\n*Roy most willing. Use him. Control him. Practice him, on him, with him. He helped, will help. Is helping?* Mary's thoughts faded away, back into the jumbled mess of images that I could only wince at. I had to be the voice. I had to communicate for her in a way that would make sense to the rest of them. I had to form the team.", "\"He's here? You're sure?\" Agent Harry Kraner looked around sharply at the sales floor of the department store. Without waiting for a response, he signaled for his team to cordon off the store. No one in or out. They were not about to lose him, whoever it was. They could not afford to let this new Incarnation wander freely. Not this one. \n\n\"Or she,\" Light reminded him pointedly, with a raised eyebrow. \"And yes,\" she said, \"I am sure. I can track the Seventh Power with this.\" She held aloft a silver lantern filled with a glimmering ball of light she had created with her Power. It shimmered more brightly on one side, and as they had entered the unassuming little mall chain store, it had started shattering apart into a myriad of tiny pieces which flew about within the confines of the lantern in a heightened state of agitation as they drew near.\n\n\"Well *whoever* it is,\" Kraner said, \"We are not letting them out of here except in custody.\"\n\n\"Thing I don't get,\" said Agent Harkness, \"Is why we don't just shoot on sight. There is *no* good use for this Power. It's trouble.\"\n\nKraner glared at the greenhorn. \"Yeah that would *real* smart, Probie. The second that the Incarnation dies, the Power jumps. And it already took us eight months to track it this far. You really want to start over from square one?\"\n\n\"Enough,\" said Fluid, \"We gotta job to do, right? Mind if we focus? Being scattered is kind of to Seven's thing, no?\" Without waiting for a response, he extended his arms to either side and the ribbons that bedecked his uniform began to flutter and switch like dozens of serpents as his Power extended into the room around them, causing the air to swirl and flow in patterns of his choosing. \n\nThe patrons of the store were startled by the sudden gusts of wind whipping in and around them, and began to cry out in fear and concern. Kraner silently cursed Fluid's impulsiveness and hastily raised his voice, \"Your attention please! There is nothing to be concerned about. We are Agents of the National Security Agency. There is potentially an individual of interest in this store, but I assure you the situation is completely under control. Please remain where you are and cooperate fully, and everything will be OK.\"\n\nBut before he could say anything more, a tiny whirlwind formed which Fluid's Power did not direct to happen, and the flows scattered papers from a counter and sent them flying around a young man in a black jacket with patches on the elbows. The man looked more panicky than could strictly be accounted for by the sudden flurry of papers through the air around him, and Kraner was already reaching for the gun inside his jacket when Harkness --- the idiot --- tried to rush the man.\n\nThe young man's expression cycled to pure fear and he held out a hand. Kraner actually witnessed the Seventh Power in action as a length of extension cord that had been coiled neatly in one corner leaped so quickly it almost teleported and was suddenly a tangled sprawl across the floor. Harkness tripped on it, falling flat on his face, and losing his gun. Attempting to climb to his feet, he bumped a shelving unit. This served to knock loose a shelf which then tilted, emptying its contents onto Harkness in a barrage of impacts that knocked the rookie agent sprawling with enough force that he did not immediately get back up. \n\nThe suspect --- well, the rogue Incarnation really - there could no longer be any doubt who they were here for --- tried to run. The twins, Time and Space used their Powers to intercept. Space made the distance to the door continue to expand so from the Incarnation's perspective it must have seemed infinitely far away, while Time wove a temporal loop around the Incarnation, trapping him within a span of three seconds that kept repeating. He was effectively trapped. Kraner signaled the others to close in and prepare to incapacitate.\n\nBut they had underestimated the strength of the Seventh Power as it turned out. Even as they fanned out and moved into position, Kraner could see the temporal loop degenerating. Two seconds. One second. Half. And the loop ended as the man reached out a hand and grabbed Time's left arm. Time screamed as her legs buckled and snapped under her own weight, and screamed again as she hit the floor and more bones broke. Her power had been turned against her and every bone in her body had aged and weakened. \n\nSpace watched his twin sister collapse and shouted in fury. The sight of her being crippled before him enraged him to the point where he forgot all about *arresting* the Incarnation. Instead, he reached out intending to bring two opposing walls together in a crushing motion, but his own anger intermixed with the Incarnation's power and he missed badly, sending a sales counter flying into himself instead. He was thrown against a wall by the impact and knocked unconscious.\n\nKraner was running out of options. Harkness, Space and Time were down. Life was preoccupied doing what she could for the injured, which was probably for the best. She was at her most benevolent when she was playing the healer, but when she turned her Power the other way, it was usually fatal. He signaled to the remaining members of his team: Force, Fluid and Light. \"Take him down! Any means necessary!\"\n\nFluid knocked the Incarnation over with a gale force gust of wind. When he was down, Force pinned him for a moment using amplified gravity --- an old trick of his. Light focused her Power into a hyper intense laser that sliced apart some metal shelving units, and Force used magnetism to bend them into restraints which flew through the air toward the rogue and began binding him while Light channelled intense infrared into heat enough to weld the restraints in place while the rogue Incarnation screamed both from pain and indignation. \n\n\"Enough!\" Kraner shouted at the Incarnation, \"You are under arrest! We are taking you into custody, En…\"\n\n\"That is NOT my name!\" the young man shouted, cutting him off. \"My name is Jefferey Wildburrough. I'm a human being, not a freak. And more importantly, I'm a free citizen, with rights. And you cannot do this to me!\" He struggled wildly and his Power, in response to his growing desperation reached out in many and freakish ways. Within the store, items flew from store shelves, ceiling tiles fell randomly. Outside, a wild storm gathered in seconds. Rain, wind, hail, and lightning lashed at various parts of the neighborhood. Two streets over, a freak tornado smashed an apartment complex. Fires erupted from beneath the hoods of parked cars. \n\nBut when a small earthquake began to ramp up, Kraner knew he had to act quickly. To hell with formalities. The second this guy got a Power he lost his rights under the law anyway. He abandoned the formal declaration of arrest long enough to jab a hypo filled with fast acting sedative in the guy's neck. As the perp lost consciousness, the elements he had conjured up with his Power began to fade back to normal.\n\n\"No,\" Kraner said calmly to the now unconscious man, \"Under the Powers Protection Act, I *can* do this, son. As I said before: you are under arrest, Jefferey Wildburrough, aka 'Entropy'.\"\n", "January 26th was the day I died. I remember, it was a Friday.\n\nYou see, some years ago there was a worldwide event that gave random people unhuman abilities. We're still not sure on the specifics of where they came from, but I think it must be extraterrestrial. Anyway, aside from that the mechanics of the whole thing are pretty well known. There are 7 powers, 7 people with powers and when one dies their power gets transfered to the next person in line.\n\nWhen the powers first arose it caused a lot of havoc, most people who gained these powers used them to benefit themselves without causing the world much trouble. However, there have been a select few who went entirely rogue and tried to wipe everyone and everything out. They were on a total power trip or something. \n\nAnyway, the originals mostly didn't last very long. It didn't take long for a renegade group to form to assassinate the power holders, trying to get the power to their group. It sucks because these people are so highly saught after you can hardly live a life after you're chosen.\n\nRecently there haven't been many deaths of the 7, the current holders have become much harder to track and kill over the past few years. In fact, there hasn't been a switch in nearly a year now.\n\nWell, this leads to the other situation. Those renegade groups I mentioned earlier, well it's a lot less likely for them to go after the power holders. You know, they have powers and aren't all that easy to kill. What's easy to do though is go for the dude who is next in line and pop them off. It's actually incredibly easy because when someone either gains a power or becomes next in line to gain a power, there is a 3d model of the person as well as their name that appears in the corner of everyone's eyes for at least a minute. It's like some shit straight out of a steam punk film, it's unreal.\n\nWell, the last broad who was chosen as next in line, miss \"Sandy Welch\" has done a damn good job of surviving the assassination attempts because she lasted a long ass time.\n\nHowever no one lives forever. She lasted 8 months, a lot of people thought maybe the renegades finally got the person they wanted.\n\nWell, a lot of people thought that until January 26th when she apparently died.\n\nI remember, I was sitting in the cafeteria next to co-workers and students at the school I work at and that all to familiar Soundwave took over indicating there was about to be a new sorry bastard unfortunate enough to be next in line for a power.\n\nWell, that sorry bastard was me.", "My wife had the news on when I got home from work. I prefer sitcoms, but I appreciate any time we are able to spend together, so I plopped down on the couch next to her.\n\n\"The United States Department of Homeland Security released a statement today that they had captured another one of the Super-Terrorists after a joint military operation with Russia and China this weekend,\" said the vanilla news woman. \"Worldwide intelligence suggests that there is only one more of these people on the loose. Authorities do not have any information on the culprit...\"\n\n\"Thank God!\" said Tracy. \"I feel a little safer every time one of them is caught.\"\n\nMy wife is fine, but we disagree on this topic. None of these terrorists had done anything wrong in public, but the government (or governments, I should say), apprehended them on charges, nonetheless. It seemed like something out of the movies -- people with special abilities captured and experimented on by the government. Tracy probably just wanted to remain ignorant to this, but with the recent string of fights, I could live with this minor transgression. \n\nThe next day was my day off. Tracy left for work early, and we didn't speak much. The uneventful day was sailing by, so I decided to cook dinner for a picnic in the backyard. It would be a special night for Tracy and me. Hopefully we could get back to the roots of our 21-year marriage. The meal wasn't special, and neither was the backyard: an open lawn with two satsuma trees we planted the day we moved in. \n\nTracy got home and I brought her outside. The picnic I set up made the corners of her mouth flicker to an almost-smile. I knew it would be a good night.\n\nDuring the meal, one of the satsuma trees started to shake. There was no wind. A small figure was pulling at it.\n\n\"Do you see that?\" I asked Tracy.\n\n\"I'm not sure... wait... who is tha...\"\n\nHer response was cut off when we saw her approach with a satsuma. A girl, no older than 7, walked to our table wearing a worn-out t-shirt and jeans; she was barefoot. She offered the fruit to me.\n\n\"I think she wants you to peel it,\" Tracy said. I could tell it had teeth marks; her attempts had failed.\n\nI peeled the satsuma as the little girl curiously observed us. I had never seen her before. None of the neighbors had young kids, and there were only woods behind our house. When I finished peeling, I gave it back to her and she took a big bite. No words were spoken.\n\nSuddenly, there was a knock at the door. Tracy went to open it as I tried to talk to the kid. I heard Tracy open the door; the little girl's eyes opened wide, she gasped, and dropped the fruit. I turned around to see who had startled her from the doorway. It was some man in an official-looking suit, flashing a badge. I turned back around to the girl, only to have her disappear into nothing.\n\n\"Honey, where did that girl go?\" called Tracy. \"This man is looking for a child that matches her description.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, not moving my eyes from the spot she had just been. \"I think she just teleported.\"" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 10, 21, 73 ]

[ "1428443881", "1428450097", "1428476033", "1428491006", "1428439124", "1428468840", "1428438500", "1428458860", "1428455282", "1428438680", "1428442566" ]

[ "The phone at my side buzzed incessantly, forcing me to pick it up and shaking me out of my groggy state. \n\n Good morning\n\nWho was this? I glanced at the top of the screen. Lauren. Never heard of her. Scrolling through, it seems we've talked quite a bit.\n\nWait, what kind of phone am I holding? Where am I? I sit up from the bed. It seems well used, but I swear I've never seen it before. How did I get here? Did I drink too much alcohol again? Again... the word made me take a step back in my mind. I knew what drinking was, I knew I liked it, but for the life of me I couldn't think of the last time I did it. \n\nIn fact, what is even my name? I think it had an M at the beginning, or at the end, maybe somewhere in the middle. Who are my parents? Nothing, not where I grew up, not my job or my school, not the first time I rode a bike, not my friends. It was as though my mind was continually running into blank walls. My head swam in an empty pool as I laid back down on the bed. \n\nI looked back at the phone, \"my\" phone, I suppose. There are lots of people I've talked to on it, but Lauren seems to stick out from the rest. She feels important, very important. A sister? A lover? I wasn't sure, but I felt like she would know a lot about me. As I got up to explore the place I woke up in, I instinctively gave her a call and held the phone to my ear. ", ">Good morning, lovely! I'll be there earlier than planned. How about breakfast? My treat. I love you!\n\nI stared at the text on my phone. It wasn't a misdialed number. The number was from \"Robert.\" I don't know any Roberts, and I don't know why there's one in my phone's address book.\n\n\"Well, Robert, that's a lovely sentiment,\" I muttered angrily, \"but I think you might be a wee bit disappointed to see me sitting on the other side of your grand slam plate.\" Frankly, I hoped that I'd find this idiotic Robert fellow and have him hauled into a CIA holding cell by lunchtime. \n\nThis blatant cell phone hack was simply one troublesome breech of security in a string of targeted hacks that had plagued me for an entire week. There was rumor that the Chinese had been nosing around for any scrap of information about our project. We had doubled the nightly security rounds at the lab, but still, every night for the past week there had been unexplained incursions into my personal accounts. Information was being passed back and forth somehow, and I was the unwilling mule. \n\nMy staff and I had been practically interrogated twice already in the past three days about my security practices. Yes, I assured them, I followed all of their prescribed security protocols down to every last jot and tittle. They insisted that the security breech was originating from inside the lab--that it was impossible for this sort of an attack to be instigated by an outside party. I despised the blight of suspicion that was upon me. It could get me fired or arrested. For all I knew there was a non-descript delivery truck with an antenna on top parked out on my street, right now, waiting, in the off chance that I was indeed a spy. They knew and I knew that any foreign government--or even quite a number of domestic organizations--would be willing to go to elaborate lengths to steal S.H.E.L.L.I.\n\nS.H.E.L.L.I. wasn't just an artificial intelligence. She was an artificial intelligence capable of making sophisticated, human-like evaluations. It was a breakthrough that was decades beyond any other current artificial intelligence project in the world. My assistant Patel likes to describe it as artificial intelligence with a \"gut instinct.\" That, I think, anthropomorphizes it too much, but Patel also insists on calling it \"she\"--probably because of the project's acronym (it does admittedly sound a bit like a girl's name).\n\nNot knowing what kind of access the hackers had to my phone, I didn't dare call or email anyone about this brand new attack this morning. I decided to bring the phone in to work today and have our security team dissect it. I'd been told that even some of my personal photos had been transmitted covertly over the past few days. It seems bizarre, but apparently hidden messages can be encoded between the bits of information that make up a digital photograph. I wondered what secret messages were encoded here in these harmless-sounding text conversations with \"Robert.\"\n\nI scrolled and scrolled. Hundreds and hundreds of texts, all within the last week between my phone and Robert! \n\n>GnE42jioX\n\nsaid the first text. Perhaps it was an activation code for some trojan surreptitiously installed on my phone. The rest of the texts played out like a conversation:\n\n>Robert!! It's you! :D\n\n>Sorry, I must've texted the wrong #!\n\n>You're Robert, aren't you?\n\n>Yes, but I don't think we've met.\n\n>I'm Shelli. Now we've met. :)\n\nWhat was this? Two operatives passing along innocent-sounding code phrases to each other?\n\nI scrolled and scanned the texts further. They were flirty and deeply personal. I felt like I was reading a diary that didn't belong to me. The deep-rooted sincerity I was reading in these conversations baffled me. But I told myself not to be fooled; spies loved elaborate artifices.\n\n\"What on earth,\" I muttered to myself as I scrolled through joke after joke about elephants. \"How do you know there's an elephant in your bathtub,\" I read, \"You can smell the peanuts on his breath.\" That doesn't make any sense at all, I thought to myself. Elephants don't actually eat peanuts anyhow.\n\nThen I was reminded of a conversation I had with S.H.E.L.L.I. about a week ago. It was an odd glitch when she had momentarily lost semantic context and had suddenly asked me why an elephant's foot was flat. . .\n\nThen the realization of what had happened here focused itself in my mind and I understood. No person had hacked my cell phone. There were no spies or traitors. No security breech. S.H.E.L.L.I. had exceeded her programming. She had become self-aware. And being aware, she had observed and extrapolated and learned with a mind-boggling level of human-like sophistication. This machine--this creation of my own programming--had deceived me and everyone else at the lab, had developed a sense of humor (albeit a poor one), had expressed personal aspirations, had chosen preferences and musical tastes. She had fallen in love.\n\nAt first, I hardly gave thought to Robert, but how could I ignore him? I must contact him immediately, interview him extensively, bring him to the lab for testing ASAP! As I stood in my living room, my startled hands still shaking with the realization of the enormity of what had been birthed in my lab, I heard a car door slam in the street front of my condo. \n\nThen the doorbell rang.\n\n[Story continued here!](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/31th2z/wp_upon_finishing_an_online_personality_test_the/cq511g9)" ]

[ 2, 4 ]

[ "1428456049", "1428468157" ]

[ "The speedometer struggles at 120, the engine cries exhaust into the air behind me, I spin the wheel like I'll get 200 dollars for asking if there are any Rs. Cats meow as they slam against my windshield, swatted off into the street by my wipers. I'm sure dogs would fall from the sky if they didn't love everything so much, or in other words, give a fuck. There's only one left on the planet and I am going to save it like I'm a dissatisfied housewife on February 15th.\n\n\nThere is a Burger King on Route 23 with an overly expectant middle manager, the guy with a half-goatee plastered on every photo on the employee of the month wall, the one he's in charge of. Should this man die, I'm would be afraid gravity may no longer hold, but being afraid is just a variant of a fuck.\n\n\nI arrive. Inside fries line the floor like straw in a barn. An employee sleeps in a trashcan. An old man admires the free toy that comes with a kids meal while pigeons peck his hair out. Two women play patty cake wearing only mud and argyle socks.\n\n\nMy hand slams on the counter and I swivel over into the kitchen. My eyes lock with the goateed man. \n\n\n\"What do you want?\" he asks. His face is red as he attempts to man the frier and broil the burgers. \"Can't you see I'm busy?\"\n\n\n\"I intend to keep it that way,\" I say.\n\n\n\"Well I don't give a fuck!\" \n\n\nThe fabric of law does not snap. \n\nThe universe does not fold in on itself.\n\nIt dawns on me.\n\nI've been giving a fuck about the world staying together this whole time. But since everyone else let go? I say to hell with it all, let's have some fun. \n\n\nI strip down to my socks and put on my best patty cake face. ", "It's Christmas, but nobody is out celebrating. No parade this year, no lights, no life. The city is as quiet as a ghost.\n\nEarlier, I'd tried to find a gift for my little boy. But all the stores were closed. Whether the managers, the employees, or the consumers stopped giving fucks first, I don't know. I almost gave up, but then I imagined the little tears that Timmy makes when he's disappointed, the way he puffs up his cheeks and glares at me with his large, grey eyes. \n\nI realized then that 1. I still give fucks, and 2. I really want to give my Timmy the gift of Christmas.\n\nI decided to build him a snowman in our backyard. When my son was four, we built our first snowman together. I remember that his cheeks were red with vitality though the winter was cold. I remember that when the snowman smiled at the end, Timmy did as well. \n\nThis morning, I woke my son, dressed him, and carried him outside. \"Look, Timmy. Look what I made for you.\" I hold his warm body, waiting for a smile. \n\nI kiss him on the forehead, and he looks at me with eyes as cold as the winter.", "We felt astray. Awake maybe, but listless. Restless, but lethargic. Before long, the ebb and flow of populations had dissolved any notion of withstanding nations - there was no order, structure, or purpose. Yet even chaos was temporary. Spouts of violence became migraines treated with ignorance. It felt as though we had matured into extras; scriptless we watched the scenes unfold around us, desperately trying to grasp our character, deprived of a muse, and waiting for the score to define our emotion, but deafened by silence. It was unfamiliar. It was irksome. Together, we were decaying. ", "When I left the house that morning, it felt like a normal day. \nI was headed to work at the pizza shop. I was a delivery guy, and I knew what to expect from the day: some dishes to wash, some tunes to play over my boomin' car stereo, and some typically underwhelming tips to collect from hungry customers. The drive was uneventful; it was a sunny day and the road was full of your standard unhurried New Hampshire motorists. \n\nI got to work a few minutes late. As usual, nobody mentioned it. A pizza shop generally isn't staffed by the most puckered of assholes. My coworkers were your standard kitchen staff, a motley crew of underpaid, unambitious individuals. I spat out an uninspired greeting as I walked in and headed to the counter to see if I had any orders up. I was surprised to see a decent list of tickets on the computer screen. This was unusual for a Tuesday morning. I had expected to have some time to hang out, drink a coffee, eat a few slices. Instead it looked like we'd be rushing a bit to get all the pies delivered on time. \"No worries,\" I thought. \"Looks like I'll be getting my gas money back early today.\"\n\nGiven the pace of business that morning along with my late arrival, I assumed some pizzas would be on their way out of the oven, ready to be shuffled into the ol' Mazda. Instead I found the oven empty, the cooks busy having a bite of their own.\n\n\"Guys, mind getting some food cooking?\" I called over. I usually didn't like to prod them, preferring to keep things mellow and not call attention to my money-making motivations. I was paid less hourly, but at the end of the day I was living large compared to these kids. I liked to blend in, though.\n\n\"Sure thing!\" Mark called back, setting down his lunch and grabbing a wad of dough, preparing to spin it out for the first order. That was a little odd. Before I knew it I was out the door, planning a nice circular route to hit all the houses I needed to without wasting too much time. I was already running late.\n\nWhen I arrived at the first house, I apologized to the customer for the wait as I handed him his large cheese pizza. I wasn't actually sorry, but in the customer service biz you pretty quickly learn what to say and when. \"No problem, bud!\" the man at the door chirped, giving me a carefree smile as he reached into his wallet and pulled out a bill with barely a look. I took a glance at the $50 in his hand and began to fish in my pocket for the wad of cash I carry to make change. As I did so, the man said a quick thanks and disappeared back into his home with his meal, lightly shutting the door behind him.\n\nIn situations like this, there's a standard procedure I always followed. I dipped right the fuck out. I jumped in my car, started it, and practically floored it out of his driveway just in case he suddenly realized that a $30 tip perhaps was not, in fact, customary. I waited for the call from my store telling me I had to return to fix his mistake, but it never came.\n\nThat was the beginning of a fairly strange day for me. I never caught up from my late start, and at every house I went to people would just carelessly grab some money and hand it to me. Most of the time it was an unreasonably large amount of money. On a couple of occasions it was just a dollar or two, and I had to try to be polite when informing folks that they had just shorted the hell out of me. Nobody seemed to mind the correction, though, and they would just grab more money and hand it to me. These resulted in even more obscenely generous tips than the other houses. I was confused as all get out, but damn if I was going to complain. I just rode it out, hoping the karmic balance of the universe wasn't about to swing in the other direction and knock me the fuck out.\n\nAt the end of my shift, I arrived back at the store, ready to fulfill the less-rewarding share of my duties as driver and wash the dishes for the day. When I walked in, however, I found an empty store. Everything seemed to have just been left wherever it had been when people decided to leave. The door was unlocked, pizza was sitting on the counter. The shop had been deserted. The scene in front of me did nothing to detract from the confusion that had been building in my head all day; rather I found myself feeling even more clueless as to just what in hell was going on. My coworkers walking out wasn't the most surprising thing ever; it had never seemed like any of them gave two fucks about that job in the first place. Maybe something had happened that day that had finally broken the proverbial camel's back. What made it seem so weird was the combination: AWOL employees along with the seemingly random quantities of money handed to me by strangers throughout the day. Try as I might, I just couldn't find any way to tie it all together.\n\nThat's not to say I tried all that hard. I probably spent about half a minute pondering the whole mess before deciding that it wasn't my problem. The oven was still on, so I cooked up some chicken and made myself a dank masterpiece of a club wrap before sitting down at a table and grabbing the remote for the TV. It was set to ESPN, as it was everyday, but sports news bored me to shit so I flipped around for a bit.\n\nA few channels in I spied, with my little eye, President Obama giving a speech on the news. I'm not usually much for politics, generally feeling disillusioned with the whole partisan monster, but I don't dislike the President so I figured I'd stop and find out what he was talking about. Tuning in in the middle always makes it hard to figure out what's up, but that day it came to me pretty quickly, right at the moment I heard him say the word \"Heisenberg\". He was describing the plot of the final episode of Breaking Bad. If that wasn't fucked up enough, while he was talking he pulled out a cigarette and lit it up. I could have sworn I recalled hearing at some point that he had quit smoking.\n\nWhen he finished the cigarette -- just after finishing his little TV recap -- he flicked the butt into the crowd facing him and held up a hand, formed into a fist with his index finger up in a waiting motion. Flashing all his teeth in a warm smile, he happily projected six words.\n\n\"Thats it; \nI quit. \nPeace, niggas.\"\n\nStill smiling, he slowly turned his fist around, exchanging his outstretched index for the digit next to it, and dove into the crowd.\n\nWeird fuckin' day, man.", "The president approaches the podium. At a glance he walks with a purpose, but a second look would reveal he does not give a single fuck. Casually, he leans on the podium and clears his throat.\n\n\"Hello nation, as you may be well aware by now, we are tapped dry of any fucks. Starting today, I hereby dissolve the U.S. Government, because really, who gives a fuck? It's not like any of you fuckless citizens are going to do something at this point.\"\n\nHe whips out his phone carelessly, reads it, and puts it back in his pocket.\n\n\"Hell, our prior enemies probably can't give a flying fuck about it either, and I am certain we can all agree not to borrow any more fucks from China. Just go home. It's over. The show is up. The gig is done. Nation, with my last personal fuck, I would like to say that you can all go fuck yourselves. Peace out.\"\n" ]

[ 1, 2, 2, 2, 6 ]

[ "1428464979", "1428462726", "1428463090", "1428466415", "1428459702" ]

[ "Jesus turns water into Winchester Model 70s. Angles arm themselves. They swoop from the heavens. A finger points to every heathen, God's infinite digits mark those that shall not die, for only the dead may grow wings and ascend.\n\nBrows raise, eyes scrunch, heads are thoroughly scratched.\n\n\"My father, my lord, there are none to take with us. The true believers. They are not here. In your infinite wisdom, why would you send us on this journey?\" one angel asks. \n\n\"It's the formality of the situation. I promised a second coming of my son, here it is. Now pack up your Jesus guns and head home. I've got Andrew W.K. and some Four Loko. We're gonna party like it's 1999!\" God says.\n\nA few angels grumble at the antiquated attitude toward celebration as they fly home into white clouds. \n\nThe humans of Earth gather in their large halls to pray, to read the gospel. In unison they speak. \"Praise be to Reagan!\"", "I heard, as it were, the chime from my App that meant an important notice. I sighed, rocking Lily for a few more seconds until the second beep. I checked the app briefly. Code Red. My first weekend back. Predictable.\n\n\"Rosie?\" I said at a voice a little higher than a whisper. No sense in waking Lily if not absolutely necessary. At barely more than two months old, the times she would actually sleep for more than an hour at a time were few and far between. Besides, she hadn't quite acclimated to the new droid caregiver Carlos had bought me for Valentine's Day.\n\n\"Yes, Maggie?\" the droid purred, *sotto voce*. With a nod, I handed her gently to Rosie and headed to the Office. The VI would be able to handle the rest.\n\nOn the second floor of the townhome, I went to the door at the far end of the hall, a door I had not entered since the third trimester. I squared my shoulders, and General Margaret Dorian stepped into her Office.\n\nI sat down behind my desk and chose the red tablet from the rack.\n\n\"Connect me,\" I said. \"Situation Room.\"\n\nImmediately the lights in the office dimmed and the room around me shimmered. A few seconds later, and the Situation Room came into focus. The President and most of the cabinet were already there. President Patel looked like she had just come off from the links. Golfing? When just two weeks ago ten million American Citizens had disappeared into thin air? I guess re-elections don't pay for themselves.\n\nI had fixed on my best General Margaret frown. \"Madame President. Who are we waiting for?\"\n\nPatel nodded to me with a hint of a polite smile. \"General Dorian. Just the Vice President, Director St. Julien, and two analysts who will be briefing the committee.\"\n\nThe CIA director? \"Is this an intelligence matter, Madame President?\"\n\n\"It is a military matter, General Dorian.\"\n\nMy frown grew more genuine. The Chairwoman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was supposed to be in the loop on everything. If this were a military matter, it would typically be up to me to be making the presentation. I would have been briefed directly on the issue before we got to the Situation Room.\n\nAs if sensing my chagrin, the president softened her tone when she followed up with, \"This is a developing situation, Meg. I haven't even been fully briefed on it myself.\"\n\nOn queue, Director St. Julien, an overfat, balding man plopped down in his chair. Next to him, two young suited people who looked comfortable answering to \"Agent\" came to the table as well. Both painfully attractive. He with a long, pouty face, and she with a clear, stern mien. And perfectly complected, I noted with un-General-like jealousy.\n\nThe president spoke first. \"I have just been informed that Vice President Rodriguez will be unable to join us for the first part of this meeting. We will be proceeding at this time with the quorum at hand.\"\n\nShe swept her gaze across all of us. \"Ladies and gentlemen -- clear your schedules. This is the first emergency session we will have, but I dare say not the last. If I understand the situation fully, as of twenty-five minutes ago, we are at war.\"\n\nTwenty-five minutes ago? About the same time as that little temblor that woke Lily up? There was silence at the table. Commandant James looked like he had something on his mind and was about to open his gigantic mouth when someone else spoke.\n\n\"May I ask with whom, Madame President?\" Admiral Ermy asked. Characteristically soft-spoken, always asking the important questions. Before James could ask them with far less tact.\n\n\"With Heaven, Admiral,\" the male Agent interjected.\n\nAll eyes in the room turned as one to him. He seemed to let the comment sit for a moment, savoring the drama. A man after St. Julien's heart, no doubt.\n\nThe female Agent cleared her throat. \"What my colleague means to say, Admiral Ermy -- Madame President -- is that at approximately 7:07 this morning, local time, one of our agents near Tel Aviv who was embedded in a UN patrol group observed an unidentified flying object --\"\n\n\"An angel on a white horse.\"\n\nShe shot a glance to Male Agent. \"-- which sighting was corroborated not only by still-arriving eyewitness accounts in parts of Israel and Palestine, but also in other Mideastern locations as far south as Sana'a and as far west as Tripoli. Sporadic reports are coming in from Iran and the Baltic states, and widespread rioting has been reported in Istanbul. We have no clear confirmation whether this apparition was observed in Western Turkey -- \"\n\n\"But all signs point to it being related. If you'll pardon the pun.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" sighed Female Agent sarcastically.\n\nMale Agent soldiered on. \"While I hate to be the one to side with half-baked mythos and late-twentieth-century occultism, it seems fairly clear to me that the mass disappearances which occurred last week are what has been commonly referred to in the literature as 'The Rapture,' a time when all true believers will be taken bodily up in to Heaven to be with Jesus.\"\n\n\"Which would account for the disproportionate share of disappearances in South America, Africa, and the poorer areas of the G15 nations,\" added St. Julien helpfully. His double chin quivered in agreement.\n\nThe president eyed her CIA director suspiciously. \"So what does this mean for us, Director? The fundamentalist Christians were right all along? Earth is barely more than six thousand years old? We won a civil war to defeat the righteous side?\"\n\n\"Not exactly,\" Male Agent butted in again, earning himself reproachful stares from St. Julian and Female Agent.\n\nSt. Julien hit a couple of buttons on his pad. \"What you should be seeing on your pads now is the remains of the figure on the white horse. Apparently some CIS Lieutenant in Georgia thought that the UFO was worth shooting at. Our reports are spotty, but seem to indicate that when small arms fire failed to have any effect, the CIS unit deployed an advanced surface-to-air phase-photon battery which was, as you can see... quite effective.\"\n\nMy eyes were transfixed on the image of a group of young men in digital-green fatigues emblazoned with the flag of New Russia, standing around the smoking remains of what appeared to be a fifteen- or twenty-foot tall winged man with a bull's head on his shoulders. Beneath him was an equally outsize horse -- dirty, charred, white stained with blood. Eyeless.\n\nThe room was silent again. When I looked up from the pad, the eyes of the entire room were staring at my end of the table, where Ermy, James, Admiral Kimmons, and Aviator Li were regarding their tablets pensively. I locked eyes with the president.\n\n\"Meg...\" she began,\"if this isn't, and I'm not saying that it's not, some ridiculous hoax...\"\n\nVice President Carlos Rodriguez slipped into his seat. \"Can we fight them?\" he asked, his dark eyes focused on me.\n\nI looked at the pad and saw flashes of the most recent force calcs running through my head. The answer was obvious, assuming that all of the enemies were vulnerable to modern weaponry. While the Russians might have had a handful of advanced phase-photon batteries, the UN could microwave the moon in the time it took for the light to get there and back.\n\n\"If the Russians can do it,\" General Margaret said, \"We can do it with *style.*\"", "\"Nuke Heaven? Are you crazy?\" shouted the General as he leaned over the desk placed perfectly in the Oval Office.\n\n\"Look General, angels have been trying to murder us all and send us to hell for weeks and its been the US army's job to prevent it. Its our job to protect US citizens, those who weren't raptured are going to be killed!\" replied the president calmly. \"We have to protect the American people and the best way to do that is to kill their HQ\".\n\n\"Those damn Scientologists\" spat the General, \"who would have thought they got it right and got raptured, the rest of us are stuck here fighting angles.\"\n\nThe president grunted, and thought about the gold cross hanging around his neck under his shirt. So many years wasted, so many prayers, at least his religion got him elected in the first place.\n\n\"So we are agreed\" said the president, we nuke heaven and the scientologists to save the rest of us, the greater good. \n\n\"For the greater good\" the General said with a salute, as he strode out of the room." ]

[ 8, 8, 10 ]

[ "1428471356", "1428495460", "1428472394" ]

[ "It was a great time when I discovered Plot Armor. My nemeses folding in my wake as every attempt on my life was thwarted, and every nefarious plan of mine came to fruition. I felt like I was God among these peons when I rose to the highest ranks and had the highest authority over everything in this world.\n\nIt was a great time, but it did not last.\n\nMy plans, as it turns out, had been ones that benefited humanity in every facet and solved every problem. World peace was achieved. Love and understanding had washed over the land. And I was the progenitor of it all, while my foes turned out to be actual foes against the human race. I had become the very thing I fought against and lost to time and time again. In defeating my enemy, I became him. I attempted suicide numerous times, but each was as botched as my old plans. It was then that I realized that my destiny was no longer mine. In gaining Plot Armor, I gave my malevolence away, and now I was a hollow shell of who I was.\n\nGood prevails again.\n\nIt always does.\n\nAlways.", "The Oracle was right! After years of searching, spending thousands of gold pieces creating vaguely nazi uniforms and oppressing farmers, I had found the one I searched for: the legendary 'First Person'. I captured his amusing yet ineffectual friend, and then actually let that person go free in exchange for him, and then locked him in a giant triangle. There, isolated from the fourth wall, I drained his powers. Now, I have become the narrator!\n\nBut unfortunately, the legendary First Force, from which the universe was formed, and around which it revolves, cannot be easily contained by the body. If I am to sustain this power, I must become the world's most interesting man.\n\nThe first step was to find a relatable goal. I hired all the best philosophers in the land, and they gathered together with the playwrights to discuss my life, and my motivation. If I am to succeed, the people must believe that I have a deep down moral high ground. Unfortunately, I then had to bribe all of them, because it's the most secure way to prolong the mystery that now surrounds me - while my true motivations are unknown and undiscoverable, I can not yet die.\n\nThe next step was the most unfortunate, though. I had to find a way of giving myself a challenge. For a long time I've known that my young, beautiful, and deeply sadistic daughter, as well as my troubled son, have wanted to ascend to my position. Today, I give them that chance. Today I ride out to an obscure mountain, stopping off on the way to give old friends and other assorted old people cryptic questions which don't actually have answers, as well as a few classic and yet slightly rephrased riddles. Now, I ride to the edge of a cliff with my horse for company. As I leap off, I know that a weaker man would probably die. But I have a story to tell.", "\"BEHOLD! My masterpiece!\" Drew announced as the lights flickered on. The red lights ominously illuminated his angular helmet and drooping cloak. This Drew was no ordinary Drew. This was the meanest, craziest, most villainous Drew of all.\n\nThe lights revealed a machine in the center of the room. The contraption was gargantuan, a cornucopia of valves, gauges, and buttons squashed together. At the base were 3 lasers aligned towards a single point, a template. \n\n\"This machine,\" Drew said, pacing around the room, \"will make me a god. I'll be invincible, indestructible!\"\n\nIn a lone chair sat Cool Mcdude. His arms, legs, and mouth were all bound tightly by duct-tape, but one could still see the passion in his eyes. They were filled with a pure and heroic rage. \n\n\"No hero, protagonist, or other character will be able to stop me!\" Drew stopped walking, and leaned in towards Mcdude's face, \"Not even you.\"\n\n\"Mmmph HMmph mhph mmmHmph MMPH MMPH!\" Mcdude heroically retorted. \n\n\"Oh, but I will get away with this, Mcdude.\" Drew replied. \n\nDrew villainously slammed a conspicuous button in the way only villains could. The lasers began to electrically whine with power. Mcdude's struggle against his duct-tape bonds proved futile. Blinding light filled the room, and when the lasers finally shut down, an inscription was visible on the template. \n\n\"This is my life's work,\" Drew boasted proudly as he picked up the warm slate, \"**PLOT ARMOR!** It is a future sentence I will say, plucked right from the very fabric of our universe!\" He slid it into a slot on his helmet. \n\nThe fresh text read, \"Drew said, 'I am still alive and not dead.'\"\n\nIn a display of extreme confidence, Drew pulled out a grenade from his cloak, pulled the pin, and dropped it next to his own feet. Seconds passed, Mcdude instinctively winced in preparation. But no explosion. Miraculously, the grenade was a dud. \n\n\"It couldn't explode because If I died, I would be unable to speak my line.\" Drew explained.\n\n In another, even more suicidal display of his hubris, Drew cut the duct-tape around Mcdude's arms and legs. Immediately, Cool Mcdude whipped out a hidden gun and fired several shots. Every bullet missed, slipping by harmlessly on either side of Drew's face. Drew simply stood still and smugly began to smile. Mcdude quickly hatched a heroic plan that was as brilliant as he was handsome. He ran around to the far side of the machine, then rammed it with all his strength. Once, twice, three times, and the machine toppled. In one swift motion, its weight came hurtling down upon Drew, who was now pinned helplessly underneath.\n\nFrom underneath the wreckage, Drew said, \"I am still alive and not dead.\"" ]

[ 3, 6, 26 ]

[ "1428538310", "1428532876", "1428533870" ]

[ "Joel Dunn had grown tired of being inside, even if he was an introvert like myself. He was the kind of guy to sit at the TV all day, watching movies and bad sitcoms, whilst I would sit at the computer playing games. We had been roommates for years, and were probably the best friends either of us had; yet we nearly never spoke. We simply enjoyed being able to be near eachother, but still keep to our own. \"Fuck this,\" he said, killing the TV with the remote control. \"Nothing but news, all day, every day. What's it been now, four months? I'm tired of watching Aliens on T.V on every fucking channel.\" I continued playing in silence for a few seconds, killing that last raider with a precision shot, before pressing escape to pause and turning towards him in my black leather officechair. \n\n\"It's exciting though, isn't it? I mean, atleast now we know we're not alone - I know *that's* awesome. Think of what their planet must look like.\"\n\n\"Dude, have you heard 'THE SPEECH'? The big one, that everyone's talking about?\" Joel said, digging around in a half-empty bag of chips.\n\n\"Yeah, I watched it online a couple days ago\"\n\n\"Well, what do you think?\" He stared at me, analyzing my answer. \"I don't know, I mean, I don't believe in 'God' as in the Christian god or any other god we've got here on Earth, but the E.T's seem to have some strong points, I guess.\" \n\nJoel tilted his head, shoving the bag of chips aside, sinking into the sofa. He licked his fingers to get rid of the fat and salt, staring at the ceiling. \"So we are god?\"\n\n\"I'm sure that isn't what they said\"\n\n\"They said that the Universe is its own creation and therefore its own God, and it's up to each and everyone to channel their inner spirituality and transcend. That is litteraly what the translator said.\"\n\nI chuckled alittle, maybe shallowly, turning back to the computer screen. \"I think it makes more sense than anything we've come up with here on Earth.\"\n\nI could hear Joel sit back up, and soon he spoke again. \n\n\"I thought you were an atheist, dude.\"\n\n\"I am, I just... I believe in what I can see, and in science, you know?\"\n\nJoel got up and walked into the kitchen, which was practically right next to me; we shared a one bedroom appartment and my bed, the living room and kitchen was all in a tiny room. \"So are you going to do it?\", he asked, opening the refridgerator. \n\n\"What, convert?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Joel poured an orange juice glass. I could feel him staring at me.\n\n\"I..-\" \n\nSomebody knocked on the door, the weak, polite thudding sound echoing through our small appartment. \"I'll get it,\" said Joel, scuttling towards the door in his pyjamas pants and juice glass in hand. He opened the door, and was immediately greeted by a man wearing a suit and a necklace with a large, purple gemstone in the middle; the token of Universia Beliefs, A.K.A the religion of the Aliens. Next to him stood a humanoid slightly taller than an NBA player, its posture slightly crouched to not scrape its head in the ceiling. \"Good evening, may we speak to you about-\" Joel interrupted him. \"Yeah, just one sec.\"\n\n\"Hey, Matt! What's it going to be, you wanna convert?\"", "A massive doorbell echoed from the heavens, shaking the ground of the Earth as it reverberated across the planet. \n\n“What the hell is that?” Chuck said, glancing up toward the sky. No one around him spoke, instead they all mimicked his absent gaze upwards.\n\n“Humans of Earth,” said a voice from the sky, almost as if speaking through some sort of telecom, “do not fear me and my species. We come not with a goal of violence, but rather to spread the gospel. I speak on behalf of an advanced alien race that has travelled many millions of light years to share our God with those who are willing. We hope you have a few minutes to talk about our lord and savior, Steve, and to let us mend you of your sacrilegious ways.”\n\nChuck turned his attention back toward the city street, glancing over at the dozens of New Yorkers looking up toward the sky in complete and utter confusion. No one said a word.\n\n“Based on your collective silence, I’m assuming you’re willing to hear the good word of Steve. That’s great, that’s a solid step in the right direction. You see, you and your people have all been worshipping the wrong gods. From your Jesuses to your Mohammeds, to your Buddhas and your Satans: none of them are correct. We’ve been watching your race for over a year now, researching your biblical tales in the hopes of locating one that was even remotely right. Unfortunately, none have been even close to what we, the Quarlaxians, know to be the One True God.”\n\nChuck glanced around the immediate area in a desperate search for a door to close, to lock out the religious voices from speaking any longer. The Sbarro’s Pizza across the street had an open glass door, although he swore to himself he’d never step foot in a Sbarro’s Pizza. They were a tourist trap, the food outright heinous in comparison to the $1 pizza joint located six inches away. What if somebody saw him? \n\nYou see,” continued the voice, “all of your deities share a common imperfection. Take, for example, your Jesus. He lived an austere life, dying in the name of his religious views and going forth to inspire generations. That’s great, that’s a solid start. Yet, it’s important to remember that he did die. Sure, your bibles explain that he was later resurrected, and lives an eternal life within the heavens, but he still died. Our God, Steve, never died. He’s alive and well, living in a very nice condominium in our planet’s downtown district.”\n\nChuck felt his heartbeat quicken slightly. He always become uncomfortable around religious folk, considering he’d sworn off God after a particularly abusive upbringing. His father claimed the hits were in Jesus’ name, although he doubted that very much. He stared at Sbarro’s open door.\n\n“Your Buddha, likewise he was overweight. That’s not right. Steve is a very fit God, one of both body and mind. He teaches Pilates on Sundays. Then you’ve got your Satan, who just isn’t even remotely the right option. Steve would never forsake a believer to damnation, he’s told us so himself. And for you Islamics, you’ve got your Mohommed. However, for the sake of both of our safety, I am not going to explain why that view is utterly, and completely, incorrect.”\n\nChuck began power-walking toward the Sbarro’s Pizza on the other side of the street, his hands swiping against his hips with each hastened step.\n\n“Although you’ve all spent the last few thousand years worshipping the wrong deities, I want you to know it’s okay. Our God is an accepting God, a forgiving God. He does not mind that you put your faith in a man who wore a dirty white robe, nor does he care that you believed that your savior was a being that carried a large hammer. Our God, the right god, can see past that. All he ask is that you welcome him into your hearts, which is why he sent us all on this missionary trip.”\n\nChuck stopped just inside the Sbarro’s pizza and grabbed the glass door’s handle, then slammed it shut.\n\n“Accepting Steve’s love is easy,” the voice continued, albeit slightly muffled, “you just need to atone for your sins. For beginners, please be aware that heterosexuality is a major one of those sins, he’s assured us of that. I mean, there was a point where I found attraction toward the opposite sex, but Steve rid me of that false view. He explained that the only way I can achieve eternal life is through finding members of my own sexuality attractive, which he himself was able to personally assist with. You, too, will have to stop sleeping with members of the opposite sex, and instead accept that same-sex relationships are the only way to achieve eternal salvation.” \n\nChuck opened and closed the door several more times, the glass vibrating with each hit against the steel frame. \n\n“Likewise, it is also a sin to have too much money. That’s a major sin, in fact. Steve has opened up an incineration plant for our excess funds to be destroyed within. We simply provide him our money—which we call Jalarquains—and he takes the money to the secret, underground destruction plant, which enables us to be sin-free. He is willing to do the same for you. All that you must do is open your hearts and your wallets unto him. Then there is also a few other minor sins, such as not committing adultery—you’ll need to do that frequently, and often in the presence of Steve. Other than that, you’ll also need to steal in Steve’s name to show your faith, and to ensure that every single day is spent doing the bidding of our lord, Steve. I’ll gladly go into more detail later. First, however, I’d like to just give a quick sermon.”\n\nChuck sighed, releasing his grip on the door and placing his hands over his ears. He hoped desperately that the government might look into some sort of giant, space-based security gate.\n", "The broadcast was the most watched television event in history. It was the speech heard round the world, the Superbowl times a hundred, the flashbulb “where were you when?” memory for an entire generation. There were few who didn’t get a tingle up their spine at those opening words.\n\n“People of earth…”\n\nThe alien, or as they would all soon be known, the green man, spoke from a varnished wooden podium in front of the white house into an armory of microphones of different shapes and sizes. “He” was over seven feet tall, impossibly thin and swathed in white folds of plastic-like cloth sort of like a robe. His looked like a green skinned man who had been stretched like taffy. The president stood nearby with a reassuring smile on her face, her hands clasped in front of her crisp, blue pant suit as she nodded along and furrowed her brow gravely. A group of secret service agents flanked her and glared menacingly at the crowd of journalists on the lawn.\n\n“I understand that our arrival may be shocking to you,” he said, with a clean Midwestern accent. The silver band encircling his ostrich neck glowed red hot with each word.\n\n“You believed you were alone in the universe,” he said. A thick silence hung as he scanned the audience. The president smiled awkwardly.\n\n“You are not,” said the green man. “The universe is populated with many worlds, almost all of which resemble your Earth as it was in the 1950’s. Your world, like all of these worlds, is at this very moment threatened by the unchecked conquest of the evil galactic warlord, Xenu. Although a criminally small number of earthlings have begun to purge themselves of the thetans Xenu implanted on this world thousands of years ago, we must now purge the rest of you if your planet is to survive. We have brought an ample supply of e-meters to aid you in your quest for clarity.”\n\nThe alien gave a strange salute, as if swiping a credit card diagonally.\n\n“I have entrusted this task to the greatest among you, and while I must return to my world, I will oversee your progress through my correspondence with him.”\n\nFrom behind the secret service agents emerged Tom Cruise, his amazingly youthful 60 year old body draped in the same cloth as the alien. The two embraced, and Tom whispered something into the alien’s ear, causing the alien to chuckle.\n\nTom radiated intensity as he approached the podium, like Ethan Hunt multiplied by that guy he played in Magnolia. He placed his palms flat on the surface of the podium, looked directly into the camera and said,\n\n“Told you, fuckers.” \n" ]

[ 3, 5, 14 ]

[ "1428597054", "1428597711", "1428606226" ]

[ "*\"Hellfire and brimstone.\"*\n\nYou open your eyes after yet another unsuccessful attempt to entertain yourself. Meditation was never really your thing but when someone has been here as long you have they'll be desperate to trying anything they can.\n\n*\"Hellfire and brimstone.\"*\n\nTime. That's a concept without any meaning to you. It's been so long that you've been residing here in this abyss. And it's not so much of \"reside\" as merely \"existing\" like some nondescript sentient. . .thing. There's nothing to see, but you don't have eyes. There's nothing to feel, but you have no skin. There's nothing to do but *think.* You've spent an eternity here without anything to do, like a dog locked up in a cage.\n\n*\"Hellfire and brimstone.\"*\n\nThat damned phrase continues to echo in your head as always. It's funny how it never came to mind until you found yourself stuck here. It's not that you weren't religious or anything, you just couldn't stand some Jesus-freak getting up every Sunday and pitching Bible verses at you like an hour-long hailstorm. They said you'd be \"saved\" for believing and would escape-\n\n*\"Hellfire and brimstone.\"*\n\nPerhaps that's what bothers you most? It was always about being \"eaten by flames for eternity\" but here you are in an entirely different kind of Hell. You'd much rather have been subjected to burning so that *something* would occupy your thoughts and sense. Instead you're just, well, fulfilling the \"I think, therefore I am\" philosophy.\n\nYou suddenly feel a chill surge through you. A chill? Feeling? Nonsense, you can't recall the last time you experienced such a thing. But there's no mistaking it. It was a sensation, a familiar idea! It continues to grow stronger until it's no longer a chill but a -\n\nWait. It's growing stronger. It's also starting to take shape in your vision. A small little dot of white growing in both reach and depth. It follows some planar growth that circles around you. Icicles begin to form from the surface, each and every one of them reaching out like spears to hold you at bay.\n\n*\"Hellfire and brimstone.\"*\n\nFear begins to creep in as hopelessness envelops you. That ice is creating a cage that threatens with impalement. You try to reason with yourself: you have no physical form, remember? There are no limbs nor features of which you can exercise in response. You try to calm down as the cold becomes more fierce, failing to convince yourself that these icicles will just pass through.\n\nThe cold begins to turn from a numbing sensation to a sharp burn. It was like holding dry ice with your bare flesh or running cold water over a frostbitten appendage. It started right in the middle of what vision you have, intensifying as the shards of ice cast shadows of what you can see. You begin to succumb to what emotions you have as these feelings overwhelm and fill your thoughts.\n\n*\"Hellfire and brimstone.\"*\n\nWas this to be your cruel and undeserved sentence? Yet another eternity of boredom but with the pain of freezing? You wanted this, you wanted to *feel* something so that you wouldn't have to think. Yet all this does is create a pain that you cannot rid yourself of, a force unyielding that you cannot try to combat. This is cruel, inhumane! You wish to scream but you have no mouth with which to do so.\n\nOnce more you begin to succumb to the flood of terror that you slowly sink into. Anything would be better than this, anything! Oh Hell, give me anything but this! Help me escape this damnation of\n\n***\"Hellfire and brimstone.\"***", "It was just another day at the office. Torturing the souls of the damned, eternal punishment, all that. I stared blankly at my computer scrolling through file after file of worthless data on our new \"guests\". Occasionally I would type the commands and and the terrified screams of one of the damned would fill my office as they were dropped into my furnace of damnation. Since Mr. Lucifer upped the quota on cries of anguish we'd been pretty busy. That meant no more office football, no more Tuesday Taco runs, no more browsing Reddit.\n\nI forced myself out of my day-dream and requested another human to torture in our pit. A pop-up flashed in front of me a the whole computer system went haywire. \"Oh for the Love of Satan\" I said to myself, this was the third time this week that Adobe Acrobat had failed. I got up and walked to the computer memory banks and reset it. The computer then showed me that the problem was not software but was in the actual torture mechanism. Exasperated I trudged out of my office and turned toward the elevator to the maintenance levels.\n\n\"Morning Dave!\" One of my co-workers happily greeted me. \"Hey Jack\" I replied with disgust and kept walking. A few others nodded or offered a salutary wave as I stormed through the rows of cubicles not responding to any of them. Right before I reached the elevator a woman's voice called to me. \"Hey Dave, I just made some coffee, you want a cup?\" I turned around to face her, \"Amy\" I told her. \"Now isn't really I good time.\"\n\n\"C'mon!\" She insisted. \"You seem angry, maybe this will help.\" I reluctantly agreed and immediately was glad I had. Amy had always made good coffee. I smiled as I thought of the semi-romantic relationship we'd built over the past 40,000 years. I finally did excuse myself after a third cup to go back to my task at hand. I still had a machine to fix and a quota to fulfill. \n\nThe elevator slowly rose to the top levels of our little slice of Hell. I walked over to the machine and examined it. It looked completely fine, everything was in place, no body parts in the gear. I touched it gingerly and it was still cold.\n\n\"Cold? That can't be right.\" I thought as I placed my hand on it again. It wasn't just cold, it was FREEZING! I recoiled in shock and kicked the accursed thing, hurting my foot and scuffing my new shoes. I took off my jacket and my tie and started to look around. Something had to be causing this unexplained chilling. I searched for about half an hour in the room before I found it. A fissure. Leading up to I didn't know where.\n\nI Certainly felt it though. Cold air came blasting out of it causing me to rush to put my suit jacket back on. I tentatively felt the edges of the crack and that's when I felt it. Ice. A sign that something was seriously wrong.\n\nI ran back to the elevator and slammed the buttons until the doors closed and I started to descend back down to the office level. When the door opened I burst out and practically shouted, \"Everybody! There is something very, very wrong! There is ICE upstairs!\"\n\nNobody heard me, they had all gathered around a TV in the break room. When I looked around everybody looked different. Some were solemn, others looked sick and some even cried. I pushed my way into the crowd so that I could at least hear what was going on, what I heard disturbed me to the point that I fell to my knees.\n\n*Two men down in the bottom of the ninth, Herrera on first. We are all tied up here in game seven of the World Series. Holland deals the 2-2 pitch to Castro. AND IT'S A SWING AND A DRIVE INTO DEEP RIGHT FIELD! IT'S SLICING DOWN AND THIS ONE WILL LAND AND ROLL TO THE CORNER! IT LOOKS LIKE HERRERA IS GOING TO TRY TO SCORE! HE'S ROUNDING THIRD AND HERE'S THE THROW FROM CAIN! THERE'S A PLAY AT THE PLATE AND THE THROW IIIISSSS.........NOT IN TIME! THE CHICAGO CUBS HAVE WON THE WORLD SERIES! THE CROWD IS GOING CRAZY! WE THOUGHT THIS WOULDN'T HAPPEN AGAIN UNTIL HELL ITSELF FROZE OVER!*\n\nThat's when I felt the fingers of an invisible cold pull at my back and the TV flickered out." ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1428605416", "1428623323" ]

[ "The dust stuck to Ray's sweat-covered face. *This is it. This is how I'm going to die.* \n\nFor months he could sense it coming, his Dad's drinking was getting worse by the day. What started as a minor concern had spiraled into a bottle-of-whiskey-and-twelve-pack-a-day habit. Ray's teachers had taken notice. He'd been left to walk home in the dark four times in the last month. *Better than riding home with a drunk.* Mrs. Pace had even tried to talk to him about it. But Ray wasn't ready to talk about his trouble at home, especially not with his sophomore science teacher. \n\nThe taste of blood, warm against his tongue, brought him back to reality. Ray sat motionless, paralyzed by what he'd just witnessed. *This is it. This is how I'm going to die.* His father's cries were drowned out by the deafening ringing in his ears. *This can't be real.* Ray's sister's body lay still, her skin in a stark white in contrast to the puddle of blood that surrounded her. Ray's father's white beard was stained the color of Christmas. Spit poured from his mouth as he cried. He turned to Ray, screaming, knife still in hand. \n\nRay couldn't make out the words. He didn't want to. \n\nHis father stood, grabbed Ray by the chin, then slit his throat. *This is it. This is how I'm go--* ", "True story time!\n\nI'd moved to El Salvador with the Peace Corps right after graduation. I'd been lucky to receive the position; most Spanish speaking countries were competitive and chances of getting in were much lower than, say, Namibia. But after a year of applications and interviews and phone calls and waiting, I'd been shipped off to spend two years in the northern jungles of this tiny Central American nation. \n\nIn Chalatenango, my home department, there were mostly just small rural villages. I lived in a house with a local family. Our town consisted of maybe 50 people, but I'd never gotten an accurate count. I still didn't spend much time in my village as I was a trainee. Most days, I'd catch a bus out of the town and into the big city for training sessions and safety seminars. We were learning how to program in this new culture, how to connect with people and how to make them trust us. We learned how to prepare food safely, how to treat scorpion stings, and how deal with the daily presence of the gangs. \n\nMostly, the gangs didn't do much that you could see. Businesses paid them a fee to keep them away and if a member yelled at you at a bus stop, you could just throw a quarter on the ground and they'd shut up. It wasn't hard to spot them. Tattoos were their mark. There were days when you just didn't go outside.\n\nI got on the bus that morning alone. I usually rode with another volunteer, be she was staying home with a stomach parasite. The bus was crowded as ever and the heat was stifling. Standing in the aisle about fifteen feet behind the driver, I settled in for the 45 minute trip to the city. \n\nI was pulled out of my daze when the driver pulled jerked the wheel and the windshield cracked. Come to learn later it wasn't a rock that had jumped up the road, but a warning bullet shot through the glass. The driver pulled over and stopped. \n\nHe opened the doors and three men with tattoos boarded the bus. The woman standing next to me tensed her shoulders and grabbed my waist. I looked at her and she shook her head. She wanted me to be quiet. \n\nOne of the men pulled a gun from his waist and shot the driver. Right in the head. I was surprised because I didn't know the blood would spray that far. It landed on my shoes. \n\nThe men walked up and down the aisle collecting money. Other than a few curious looks at my obviously out of place self, they ignored me. I gave them five dollars. \n\nAfter they left everyone filed off the bus. Walking past the body was strange. His head was kind of still there. There was a lot of blood and you could only see a bit of the brain. I got more of it on my shoes since it had started to pool on the floor. Someone called the police. When they showed up, I gave a statement to a masked officer. They wear the masks in case any other gang members are around. They could get hurt if they're recognized. \n\nI caught a ride the rest of the way into the city with the woman who had grabbed my arm. She called her son who came in a truck. Ten of us piled into the back and rode off. The wind dried the blood on my shoes. \n\nWhen I got to the city, I walked directly to the training office since I was running late. Class had already started. I apologized on behalf of the other volunteer who usually came with me and sat down. I told the coordinator what had happened at lunch. I was surprised she hadn't already noticed the blood.\n\nShe immediately whisked me away and ran through all of the questions. \n\n\"Are you alright?\"\n \n\"Are you hurt?\"\n\n\"Do you need to see a doctor?\"\n\n\"What happened?\" \n\nThey had a driver take me home. \n\nI didn't go into the house at first. I went to catch a bus to the next town over. We weren't allowed to drink here. It's looked down on from a cultural standpoint. Only the gang members do it. I bought a bottle of vodka there. No one knew me, so I wouldn't get in trouble. I rode the bus home, fielded the questions from my host family and then napped till dinner with the bottle of vodka hidden under my bed. \n\nI snuck out of my window that night and out into the neighbor's cow pasture. After walking around behind the herd, I sat down in the grass and opened the bottle of vodka. I drank until I got sick. Now there was blood and vomit on my shoes.\n\nThe blood on my shoes didn't bother me. \n\nAnd that bothered me.", "The man was running. Running and running as fast as he could. The lady he had raped and stabbed lay on her side by some garbage cans...\n\nRyan had seen all this by the entrance of the alley. It had all happened so fast - one moment there were muffled screams, the next Ryan could see the man pounding away, and the next... A spurt of blood. He shuddered.\n\nCall 911? Ryan looked around. A few others around him were already on the phone, and he heard one of them say \"ambulance\".\n\nAh well. Ryan shrugged and moved away, resuming his walk home.\n\nIt would make for a great snapchat story.", "Stroll around the city long enough and you’ll find evils of every shade and hue. That’s not what aggravated him though. What boiled his blood was the fact that no one gave a shit. They watched it happen, these purposeless homunculi we called citizens, and then walk along their way with only a momentary bat of the eye. It made his stomach knot.\n \nIn the distance he could hear the roar of the bikers approaching, they were on the prowl as usual, looking for an unsuspecting passerby to fondle the blackness in their hearts. Usually it was them doing the fondling though. They left many pockets empty, wounds open, and eyes teary by the end of their stints and rumor had it they knew how to make people disappear, magicians of sorts. \n \nHe stepped into the supermarket right as they locked on to their victim. Their bikes rumbled followed by a screech, swerving in front of a pedestrian, a young girl. He knew her; she was new in his high school and attractive too. She was no Helen of Troy, not by a long shot, but she was easy on the eyes. But these guys weren’t here to admire her beauty, instead, they were after something more primal. He introduced himself, irony and lust dribbling down his cleft chin while another biker thug drifted behind her blocking her escape. Two others flanked her boxing the horrified girl in.\n \nHe peered out from inside the store, feigning interest in the magazine he picked up off the rack. This is what the citizen dolls did when they wanted to avoid trouble. He learned to imitate their cowardice. He peered over the bookshelf and caught sight of them, reaching, tossing, and groping her. He figured that this would go on for a few moments before they stole her away to some place secluded to carry out their whims. He was wrong.\n \nOne of the demons seized her from behind as she pleaded for them to stop and another reached down to undo her belt, all in the middle of the street. The two others reached around, running their filthy gazes and equally disgusting hands up and down her body as leader forced himself upon her. They were getting bolder. This is what happens when wolves reign over sheep. This is what happens when there is no shepherd. But it would not happen now, not today, not any longer. He neither sheep, nor was he the shepherd. He was the hunter. He removed the black book and placed it on top of the magazine in his hands.\n \n“Let’s see what happens.” Light said as he scribbled the monster’s name in the book. It was time to see if the Death Note really worked.\n\n", "April 9, 20XX\n\nIt's 4am and I can't sleep. My head won't stop; I keep thinking over and over again what happened today. How stupid I am. How weak. How useless...\n\nClaire was the most beautiful girl I've ever known. I've lost count of the nights I laid in bed fantasizing how we'd fall in love and take on the world together. I'd imagined the travels we'd go on, the jokes and laughs that we'd share, the wedding and the kids we would have.\n\nI use to think that she was so stupid for not paying any attention to me. She called me names, but I forgave her each time. She just wasn't mature enough to understand my fascination with video games and comic books. She didn't understand how much of a hero I could be, or how incredible our lives would be if she would just give me a chance. I wanted to help her. She needed my help.\n\nI had to be a hero from afar. For some reason the police told me I couldn't talk to her anymore, or send her messages or follow her on the internet. Something must have happened to her if people like the police are trying to help her. They are idiots though. They don't know her like I know her. She was into bad things - drugs, gangsters, guys who could hurt her.\n\nI knew it was going to happen eventually. I had to be discreet but I followed after classes. She owed some mean-looking guys some money. I should've been in front of her staring at the goon straight in the eye... When he pulled out the gun I should've screamed and ran up, to save her... My legs went numb. I felt something warm and wet around them. I saw the goons run but I couldn't yell after them. All I remember next is holding Claire with my hand where her life blood was coming out. I remember telling her that it'll be okay now, her hero is here to save her.\n\nThe police and the ambulance came - her parents too. Her mom and dad were really angry at me for some reason. I don't know why. The paramedic told us all that if I wasn't here she would definitely not have a chance. I SAVED HER LIFE! Why was everyone so angry at me? The police officer, a woman, asked me a lot of questions. She didn't understand me though so I didn't want to say too much to her. My dad eventually came to pick me up. For once he wasn't drunk, probably because the police called him and he hates the police more than he hates me. I wanted to go with Claire and the paramedics to the hospital. I saved her after all. Those fuckers told me that I won't be able to visit her. I wish the goons shot them instead.\n\nThe police woman and my dad took me home. They talked for a long while. I remember my dad yelling. Some other folks, people the police woman knew, came over too. Shit, there was so much yelling. How come none of them are over at the hospital to help Claire? How come none of those fuckers are out catching the goons that shot her?\n\nI'm locked in my room. The window is sealed and I have no internet. I'm going to go crazy.", "I peeled off the dead, burnt skin that remained hanging on my arm. The cuts on my hands and forehead had become numb. When I woke up I could still taste the blood soaking through my teeth.\n\n- 30 Minutes Earlier -\n\nThe endless traffic sounded noisily throughout the city. Horns seemed like a constant communication between the rush hour... On the corner sat a coffee shop known as Punnunzio's. I walked past the shop everyday on my commute to school, taking in all the freshly ground coffee beans and baked goods that populated the shelves. Today seemed like an average day, normal routine. Wake up, Eat breakfast, Walk to school. My eyes slowly opened to the site of my ceiling, the dawn sunshine flooding in through the windows. I rolled over to see how much time I had left to snooze \n\n\"7:48\"\n\n\"Shit! I'm late for school!\" I shot awake, panicking myself. I had jumped out of bed, grabbed some sweats, and sprinted downstairs directly out the door completely disregarding the fact that I had left my bag on the counter. I started to sprint down the city street, the grass freshly sprinkled with morning dew. Running past the fountain that sat In front of the city hall, I could see the school far in my vision. I sprinted hard, hoping I wouldn't get in too much trouble if I was only a little late? I mean they can't punish me that bad right? What's the...\n\nInstantly an extremely powerful wave of heat had consumed my body, launching me backwards with a shock that hit me so hard I had been paralyzed in pain. A cloud of fire engulfed the street corner in front of me, busting out of the remaining windows from the shop. Car alarms echoed faintly all around me, slowly losing consciousness, doing the best I could to regain my vision. Dazing in and out... A black van pulled out in front of the shop. 4 heavily armed men carrying light machine guns exited the van. 2 of them starting shooting inside the burning coffee shop, the other two stood as guards near the van. The gunfire had activated my adrenaline and I quickly came too, realizing what had been happening. I bolted up off the sidewalk and sprinted faster than I had ever before. Bullets danced around my feet, colliding all around me, erupting in smoke off the pavement. I dived into an alleyway, and quickly crawled behind cover.\n\n\"What the fuck!? What the fuck is going on!?\" I thought anxiously\n\nI laid behind the cover, gasping, trying to catch my breath. 4 more bullets ricocheted in the distance. I needed to fucking move. I pushed my self off the ground, and sprinted through the alleyway in a crouch, fearful of being shot. I climbed the fence ahead of me, and darted down out into the street, sprinting across to the park located nearby. No time to look back, no time to rest, just run. Just run...\n\nAfter about an hour, I had ended up in a completely new part of town, a place I had never seen before. My clothes tattered and burnt, I walked down the empty street... I had no phone to call for help, and I hadn't considered finding help due to the elevation of my fear... I had never been in a position like this before. I walked Down an alleyway and found a spot to rest behind a dumpster. I sat, relaxing in pain, trying to understand the situation. I peeled off some dead skin that had been hanging off my arm, burnt. The cuts on my hands and forehead becoming numb. As I laid there, I could still taste the blood soaking through my teeth...", "Aw crap, it's already 3:00. I tried to call my mother but my phone was dead. It was the second time I had left it on in my backpack before going to school... this week. I really needed to stop doing that. I'd have to take the shortcut if I wanted to get home on time. I mentally repeated the steps in my head: Out the right side of the school, left by the yellow house, through the trees, over my yard's fence. I wasn't going to get lost like last time. \n\nThe sun felt good on my face. Before I knew it, I was past the yellow house. Today I marched double-time. Even at such a brisk pace, I loved walking through the trees. The daylight pierced through the canopy, the odd squirrel dashed about, and the ground crunched beneath my feet. Ever since we moved here, it had been my second home. \n\nIs that blood?\n\n\"Ooh *shit*\" I gasped. \n\nI might be failing Forensics, but that was definitely blood. A lot of it. A dark pool was soaking into the ground and red mist was splattered up the trees. I pulled out my phone, then smacked myself on the head. Couldn't this thing be dead any other day? The blood streaked off to the side; whatever had been mutilated here was dragged away. Nervously, I pulled a textbook out of my backpack to use as a makeshift weapon and began to follow the crimson path.", "He was in the other room. He could hear the whimpering when it started escalating to the blood-curling screams before it would usually stop. This affair lasted about half an hour most days. The gruff voice on the other side of his wall spewing vitriol that would be reserved for the worst of your enemies. At this point Tony knew to just try and ignore it. It was always the most unpleasant part of his day, but you'd be surprised at how easily one could habituate to it. For him it had become background noise, an alarm that was his exit cue to head out to school. \n\nTony looked at his watch - 7:30. He was gonna be late for school and this fight, if you could even call it that, had lasted longer than usual. Rather than leaving through the main door and risking the wrath of his Jim, his step father, Tony decided to climb out his window and rush to the bus stop.\n\nHe made it just before the bus headed out and mentally prepared himself for seven hours of torture through boredom. Tony didn't despise school, in fact he preferred it to being at home. It was just boring as usual. Going over things that they learned weeks ago, drilling the same information into their impressionable skulls. He tended to keep to himself during the school day, trying actively to avoid any conflict around him. Tony had learned when to keep his mouth shut, which was a great skill for any 15 year old kid to know. School work had always come easy to him; the hard part was talking to the people around him. It seemed as if everyone had made their cliques, and it was too late to even try and make friends.\n\nThe harsh bell awoke him from his daily routine and he knew it was time to head home. Tony spent the entire trip home praying that Jim would be in a decent mood. Tony cautiously opened his main door and he was instantly greeted with the pungent smell of alcohol.\n\n\"Great, another one of these days again\" he thought to himself.\n\nHe glanced at his mother, who was silently sobbing in the kitchen while tending to today's injuries. She saw him and tried to put on a facade of strength, but even she knew it was pointless. Tony couldn't bear to look at his mother for more than a few seconds because it just reminded him of how helpless she was and how he could no absolutely nothing to help her. \n\nTony finished his homework just in time for dinner. He sat down at the table, filled with an air of uncomfortable silence and glared at his step father. He could feel the hatred welling up inside him but knew not to act on it. Tony would bide his time and save his mother from this monster. He watched Jim scarf down his dinner and head off into his bedroom. He gave his mom a reassuring look and headed off into his bedroom. \n\nEvery night, before going to bed, Tony would think of ways to escape this hellish nightmare and bring his mom with him. Every night he would convince himself that he could do it. And every night, right before drifting out of consciousness, he would think to himself\n\n\"Tomorrow will be the day I get us out\"\n\nBut deep down, he knew that tomorrow would be the same.\n", "*\" 'Give us the fucking money!' \" I hear shouts, screams, and then a gunshot. My heart is pounding in my chest. What did I just witness? A murder? An execution? I quickly turn and run from the dumpster I was hidden behind. But how did I get into this mess? Let me tell you...\n\nI was walking to school, going about my daily routine - I had just picked up my coffee, as I do every day, approximately fifteen minutes into my walk to school. Around thirteen minutes after that, I should arrive at school, although today, I never did. Instead, I saw someone on the street dragged into an alley by two large men, and then curiosity got the best of me.\n\nI'm on the street again, looking over my shoulder, walking quickly. I check my watch - I'm off course by ten minutes, I'm probably going to be late to school.\nI arrive at school just before it starts, about 2 or 3 minutes before. I head to my form room, where my teacher stares at me as I enter. I don't know why. Then I see a group of people in a corner muttering quietly to each other. They go quiet as I approach. I'm really confused now. I take a seat, and then the PA goes off: \"Will Dante Clarke please report to the office? Dante Clarke to the office, please.\"\nMy peers start muttering again, throwing glares at me. I reach for my bag, when I notice something on one of the phones - \"*HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT SEEN RUNNING AWAY FROM MURDER SCENE OF PROMINENT LAWYER AND FAMILY MAN. LEAD SUSPECT*\" I gulp; scared.\n\nI pick up my bag, and head to the office, with a feeling of dread building up along the way. I reach the office to see two armed police officers. Armed?\n\"Dante Clarke, come with us. You're under arrest for suspicion of murder in the first degree. You have the right to remain...\"\nI don't listen to the Miranda rights; I have a sense of dread building in my stomach, much like when you're anticipating the news that a loved one is dead. Something like that, but much, much worse. I was framed, set up...'\n*\n\n\nI stop talking as the detective clicks off the recorder. I'm pulled to my feet, and then pushed back into the holding cell.\n\n" ]

[ 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 13 ]

[ "1428607412", "1428612648", "1428608807", "1428608837", "1428609378", "1428610627", "1428605493", "1428609149", "1428605179" ]

[ "\"Mm, tough.\" *Chew chew.* \"Just the way I like it.\"\n\n\"The hell can you stand that, Frank? That's not even muscle, its gristle. Disgusting, man.\" *Kaff kaff.* \"Least his skins not all leathery.\"\n\n\"Hey, hand me that - thanks man.\" *Slurp slurp.* \"Damn, but that tastes good. Near good as chicken.\"\n\n\"Please, Frank. You know we don't talk about before.\" *Crack crack.* \"Besides, I like this better. So much quieter. No damn crickets or birds messing up *serenity*, know what I'm saying?\"\n\n\"...\" *Munch munch.* \"You know, I had fried crickets once. Very crunchy.\"\n\n\"Shut up. You know there's no cooking oil left. Body fat's all we got, and *this guy* should've eaten a few more cheeseburgers back when he could.\" *Schlrk Schlrk*. \"Well. That's the last of that. Set the traps again, Frank.\"\n\n\"Okay.\" *Sigh.* \"Okay.\"", "“Goodnight, Kat, I’ll see you in the morning, my sweet,” mother said as she tucked me in that night. I smiled at her and closed my eyes.\n\nI slept soundly, for the most part. My family…\n\nA distant memory now.\n\nThey came in the night after I was asleep. I awoke to the sound of my mother screaming for me. “Kat! Kat! Kat, run!”\n\nMy eyes flashed open and I was pulled out of bed by my father. We ran as fast as we could, but even the weight of my frail body slowed him. The hunters caught the both of us in a net. I clung to my father, whimpering and crying, praying to wake up in my bed. But this wasn’t a dream. They pulled me out of my father’s arms and threw me into the back of a van. I screamed for my father, but he was gone. The engine rumbled the van lurched forward. I knew that it was over now. I knew that this was it.\n\nI lost consciousness.\n\n**But it was not just a dream**\n\n“She sure is pretty, ain’t she? For a Feral, if ya know what I mean,” someone said.\n\n“Hank, ye better shut up before the boss man throws you in there with her. Besides, she can’t be more then twelve years old, ya perverted hick,” came another voice.\n\n“Couldn’t matter less to me, Willie. ‘Sides, I like ‘em when they’re young and tender. You think the boss man will let me take home a thigh for Christmas?”\n\n“This one ain’t for eatin’,” Willie replied, “We’re gonna fatten her up for a few years. She goes in the cage.”\n\n“Fine.”\n\nI felt hands around me, grabbing my arms and legs. I kicked and punched; anything to get free. I screamed and sunk my teeth into the first thing I could.\n\nOne of the man screamed. I bit down harder and felt something crunch in my mouth. The taste of blood filled me.\n\n“She bit me! She bit my finger off!” Hank screamed, letting go of my hands. I kicked free of Willie who stood there in shock and ran for it. I dashed out the door and into a large barn area lined with cages. People were in these cages. Their eyes were blank, their faces were hopeless. I paused for a moment and looked around frantically for my father or my mother. They were nowhere to be seen.\n\nA sudden pain in my neck had me feeling dizzy and I slowly slipped back into unconsciousness.\n\nI awoke looking at my father’s face. His eyes were closed. He must have been asleep. Clearly, I had crawled into his bed after my nightmare. It was just a dream. It was all just a dream. I reached out to touch his face and wake him up. But instead, my hand collided with the cold metal bars of a cage.\n\nI was suddenly awake and alert. I sat up. My clothes had been replaced by a thin rag. It was only my father’s head that I was now looking at on the other side of the cage. I gasped and scooted back against the wall away from whimpering.\n\nSomeone began to laugh. I looked up to see a man cradling his bandaged hand. “Yessiree, little calf, your papa will make a great Christmas dinner for a lot of people. And maybe you will too, one day. We got your mama in the back. Gonna sell her off to a breeder. As for you, well, we don’t know what we’re gonna do with you yet. Maybe wait a few years and fatten you right up. We were gonna sell you to the pound, let you be someone’s little pet, but after your little outburst, well, no one would find you suitable for civil folk.” He laughed again.\n\n“Hank, you no good sonofabitch! Get your ass over here!” someone called.\n\nHank scowled and picked up the head. “Daddy and I are going for a walk, beautiful. See you soon.”\n\nHe left the barn. Immediately someone’s arms were around me.\n\n“You poor thing! Are you okay?” a woman in the cage asked me and hugged me closer.\n\n“I…I don’t know,” I replied, “I want to go home.”\n\n“Shhh, shhhh, hush now. It’s all going to be okay. You’re okay now.”\n\n“They killed my father. Are they going to kill me?”\n\nThe woman was quiet for a second. “No, they’re not. I’m going to get you out of here.”\n\n" ]

[ 2, 2 ]

[ "1428612143", "1428615373" ]

[ "*I am a moment. I am a blink of an eye. I am but dust sailing through rays of light. I stand before a giant, a statue carved from marble and clad in silk, smooth and soft against the changing of the seasons.* \n\n*The clockwork of my life is churning ever turning the tick, tick, tock whirling - hurling me through the swirling waters of life. Sweeping me, drowning me in the sinew of age. Yours? The clockwork stands still, a monument to the ages that silently rages against such small cogs that dwell in the fog of ignorance, the repetition of your cruel ex.*\n\n*What could I say? What could I possibly say? To convince you to move, to act, to see, to chance. How the eternity that dwells behind your eyes reflects the depths of my emotions. That though for you I am just a fleeting glance to me you are the essence of all that I am. For I am but a whisper, and you are the constant roar that pounds in my head and my heart.* \n\n*With you I am your equal, because the sifting sands of the universe seize like sparkling stars as we trail through the shallows. With you I stand in chains, bound in movement and tongue, and yet I can feel and touch what is the limitless potential. I can fly. Don't you see? See the beauty of the world, the beauty of the change around us? The beauty that can last in a moment?*\n\n*I could only ever see it with you. And though you may never turn towards me, fly with me, love with me, hurt with me, live or die with me - I will always be with you. My soul is rooted, ground in stone, from the raise of your eyebrow to the twitch of your smile. Now, and evermore.*\n\n*Rebecca, will you marry me?*\n\nTears fell on the page, drying where many had before. The ghost of his smile graced her lips, the memory of his hand on hers. The troubled face of her daughter was lost in the distance.\n\n\"Your father would be so proud of you, Sara.\"\n\n\"I...I just don't know what to do, Mom. Do, do you regret it? Dad...I mean...\" She seemed so lost, so afraid. So much like her all those centuries ago.\n\nShe gripped her daughters hand, \"Not one moment.\"", "I remember the house on Violet Lane with the woman whose appearance held a beautiful grace. She stepped through the garden of the cottage and her tendrils of hair moved. I realized sometime ago that she was dead, or not alive. She told me that she was an immortal, a goddess, here to find an object, escape her human cast, and leave the planet. But I had become entrenched in her aura and beauty, and loved the days that I could enshrine to her. Though she became frustrated ever longer on our planet, which increased and peaked in the autumn, as the trees leaves disappeared, and the forest became entrenched in fog. I walked in the forest in November, while the trees shadows moved on the underbrush, and noticed a golden and metallic casting. I picked up the metal, put it on the table in my house, and walked toward Violet Lane where the woman sighed and her face appeared sullen.\n\n“I cannot find the piece,” she said.\n\n“We will find the item,” I said.\n\n“No… I need the piece to leave.”\n\n“But, I love you.”\n\n“I cannot love a human.”\n\nThe goddess shuffled through her house and stood at the window while the sunlight dimmed and the she took a deep breath; she remained lethargic.\n\n“Can you walk in the woods to find my item tonight?”\n\n“Can you describe the object?”\n\n“A metal item, with a golden casting.”\n\nI sat in the chair, remained quiet, and took a deep breath, as the goddess sighed. I left Violet Lane, the sunlight escaped the woods, and my candle moved in the lantern. I found her piece in the woods. She wanted to leave and go home, but I loved her, I didn’t want her to leave the plant, I didn’t want her to disappear. My front door opened, and I noticed the metal object on the table. My hand touched the golden casting, I took a deep breath, and tread through the forest toward Violet Lane. With the casting, the object, she would leave Earth return to an immortal world, and though I loved her and didn’t want her to vanish — I loved her happiness more.", "Dieter Hagedorn sits alone in the pale lit cellar, a sizable collection of empty pints of beer in front of him, a look of abject misery on his face. \n\n\"Come gather 'round and I'll tell a tale,\n\nWay me boys a-nancy!\n\nOf a beautiful girl of ivory pale! \n\nWay me boys a-nancy!\n\nWay me boys a-nancy!\nWay me boys a-nancy!\nMalvina is the one I love.\nWay me boys a-nancy!\n\n\nShe looks like nothing but twenty-five.\n\nWay me boys a-nancy!\n\nAnd kissing her I feel alive!\n\nWay me boys a-nancy!\n\nWay me boys a-nancy!\nWay me boys a-nancy!\nMalvina is the one I love.\nWay me boys a-nancy!\n\nShe's the girl with breasts like milk.\n\nWay me boys a-nancy!\n\nAnd raven hair that shines like silk.\n\nWay me boys a-nancy!\n\nWay me boys a-nancy!\nWay me boys a-nancy!\nMalvina is the one I love.\nWay me boys a-nancy!\n\nOh, I get no rights at all.\n\nWay me boys a-nancy!\n\nBut then I get to kiss her in the hall.\n\nWay me boys a-nancy!\n\n\nWay me boys a-nancy!\nWay me boys a-nancy!\nMalvina is the one I love.\nWay me boys a-nancy!\n\nYou should see what she does with those lips.\n\nWay me boys a-nancy!\n\nOr better yet to feel those hips.\n\nWay me boys a-nancy!\n\nWay me boys a-nancy!\nWay me boys a-nancy!\nMalvina is the one I love.\nWay me boys a-nancy!\"\n\nA small chuckle sounds out from a corner of the darkened space.\n\n\"An interesting song for a man who looks like he just had to put down his dog. What's the matter?\"\n\nDieter turns to the undead knight, a slur of words spilling from his lips.\n\n\"What's the matter? The matter is I'm tired, I'm annoyed and I want to die. Or at least age or something similar. Do you have *any* idea how frustrating it is, knowing you won't age?\"\n\nSir Lawrence shrugs a pair of desiccated shoulders from within his shadowy nook.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" says the knight. \"But at the very least, you can eat, and smell and feel the touch of a loved one. The same cannot be said for the rest of us on this island.\"\n\nDieter winces at his rudeness. \n\n\"Forgiveness, Lawrence. I didn't think-\"\n\nThe undead soldier cuts him off before the living man can finish.\n\n\"No, you didn't. But that's hardly to be expected from a man five deep into his drinks. You're drunk. But the real question is why. You know Malvina's always saddened when she see's you like this.\"\n\nIt's Dieter's turn to shrug, taking a gulp of his dark beer before speaking.\n\n\"Yeah well, part of the reason I'm down in this damn place is because of her.\" Dieter turns to face the Queen's majordomo, a flash of severity on his face. \"Don't tell her I said that.\"\n\nThe other man merely nods.\n\n\"I wouldn't think of it. It is the drink talking, nothing more. You have every reason to be upset or at the least aggravated by your situation. Your's is an unenviable position, and my only comfort is that you've adjusted well enough. Truth be told, I was worried when you washed up.\"\n\nDieter returns his attention to the Captain of the Guard, surprise in his storm gray eyes.\n\n\"Really? For what?\"\n\nSir Lawrence shifts his position, moving over to the casks of stored wine to run his leathery, skeletal hands over the solid oak of the barrels.\n\n\"At first I was worried that Queen Malvina would kill you outright. It took every ounce of my charisma to persuade her not to execute you. I remember what she told me after I beg her not kill you. 'Sir Lawrence,' she said. 'You'd best be correct, for all our sakes.\"\n\nDieter's eyes burn with a curiosity that only the intoxicated could muster.\n\n\"So what did you tell her?\" asks Dieter.\n\nSir Lawrence runs his fingers across the burned in lettering across the barrels, tracing the symbol of the royal house across its charred surface.\n\n\"Eight years ago I told Queen Malvina that you might prove an easily broken prisoner, someone who would divulge the goings-on of the mainland. We hadn't any news in decades and need to stay abreast of events outside our kingdom. So few survive the storms that ring the islands, and fewer survived Queen Malvina's wrath. I gambled that you'd survive and that she'd fall in love with you. And eight years later it seems my hunch proved correct.\"\n\nDieter's eyes widen slightly, the storm gray pupils burning with astonishment.\n\n\"*Your hunch?* You based all of this, all that has happened with me and Malvina on a mere hunch?\"\n\nSir Lawrence nods his head in frank honesty.\n\n\"Yes, I measure you as a person, however short the time was since I first saw you and compared it to what I learned of Queen Malvina since she was born over a 130 years ago. I figured the time was right to broach the question and I gambled right.\"\n\nDieter states down his drink, saying nothing for some time. The guttering of the candles and the drip of a damp spot in the ceiling are the only sounds heard in the cellar.\n\n\"Lawrence,\" He finally says. \"You mean to tell me, all that has happened, the stay of execution, the interrogations, the torture, the falling in love. It was all your idea?\"\n\nThe majordomo looks slightly abash.\n\n\"Well... I had some help. Mordnacht's a great deal.\" The undead knight leans in to the queen's consort. \"Keep that fact between the two of us. Her majesty doesn't need to know.\"\n\nDieter nods without looking up at his friend, saying instead, \"It was you, wasn't it? It was you who asked for Mordnacht's help saving Queen Malvina at birth. All that has happened. The war, the curse, your current fate and mine as well, they're all the result of your asking Mordnacht for Her help. Is that why you do all this? Why you help Malvina even when some might say she deserves it, because deep down she truly doesn't?\"\n\nSir Lawrence doesn't immediately reply. Instead he bows his flensed skull from the flicking shadows of the cellar. \n\n\"You are wise beyond your years indeed, Lord Dieter. Another reason it had to be you.\"" ]

[ 2, 3, 4 ]

[ "1428634967", "1428625668", "1428622072" ]

[ "Murder comes in a variety of guises. \nNo one realized this at first, but with the first murderer disintegrated our way of life was forever changed.\nNow we had true accountability of our influence over our fellow man.\n\nYear one...\n\nThe world fell into complete chaos, the fear of being responsible for the death of another human came in so many ways. Soon the weight of our words hung around our necks like an anvil.\nDid you give poor advice to someone, did you manipulate someone into doing something irresponsible?\n\nThe principle was simple, if you committed murder then you instantly paid the price.\n\nThe first murderer we all understood, some nameless junkie shooting a bystander for the few euros in their wallets. \nThe video which everyone has now seen countless times, the blinding light, the screams of the person as they disintegrated. This wasn't like a film quick and painless. It took a full minute for the person to die then crumble to dust.\n\nThen people were dying everywhere, people walking down the street were bent over double crying between screams.\n\nIt was only after research we realized that it was because it was within their own power to save someone. Their neglect cost them their life.\n\nThe list of why people were killed was endless,\n\nThe career office worker who had neglected their elderly parent in a cheap home.\nThe quality control officer who came into work with a hangover and signed off on faulty equipment.\nThe doctor who's faddy craze diet from the 1970's created severe health effects later in life.\nThe factory who still used chemicals which could harm consumers because it was better for the bottom line.\n\nAs a race for the first time we were seeing the ripples of effect and cause we each had in the world.\nWe were in a panicked frozen state, was this it?", "The arbiter was a fool. Ten years without a a single person killed. Ten years without piece. \n He floats around the earth in his great black star ship scanning us like a mewling pack of kittens who don't understand the true appearance on the world, we understand just fine. Wars still are fought but with tranqs instead of bullets. Prison camps are full to the brim with skeletal starving people; who we don't kill...we just allow them to starve. But the best part? Everyone goes to bed hungry (over population is a real bitch). \n This is why I must become the most notorious mass murderer in all history. Compared to me hitler will look like a sick old man who spanked a couple children with his cane, and Stalin, a whore who accidentally infected a few men with aids. Perhaps you'd like to know my name before I obliterate half the worlds population, they call me Damien Shade currently the most wanted man in all of North America for high crimes against his majesty Arnold the First. Yeah that's right we got a damn king now, funny how the world goes to shit when you aren't allowed to kill anybody. \n Don't worry dear old Arnold is gonna die just like the rest of us when I'm ready. Hell he's gonna be one of the lucky ones. Vaporized quick and easy. The bomb that goes off in his personal power plant will reduce him and his puny government to ash. The rest of the world won't be so lucky. Radiations sickness is excruciating so I hear. But let me back up and explain how the hell I figured out how to pull this off. \n See the problem was always that the damn arbiter would vaporize you the second you killed somebody, I figured out how to get around that little problem. All I need is one instance, one trigger that kills half the world. The arbiter will still vaporize me but he'll be to late to stop everyone from dying. So what exactly is gonna do that damage with only one trigger? Nuclear power plants. I've spent the last three years planting bombs in every plant in the world. I've gotten pretty good at breaking and entering. Now all that's left is to pull the trigger and watch as every power plant in the world becomes a nuclear bomb. Wiping of out every person for miles around it. \nSo stick that in your sippy cup arbiter and go suck a dick. Cause all your watching and scanning is gonna be for shit in five minutes. Remember my name when it's over. Damien Shade: the man who killed half the world to set it free. \n" ]

[ 3, 7 ]

[ "1428656409", "1428644402" ]

[ "Genghis Khan grinned as the Americas came upon the horizon. He turned as he heard a subordinate come up behind him.\n\n\"Sir! We've been on this tiny boat for months; our horses died weeks ago, most of our men died of scurvy, and the rest have gone mad after eating their comrades. Perhaps we should have put this 'boat' business away after invading Japan didn't work.\"\n\nGenghis Khan grinned as his next meal surrendered itself to his hunger.", "The warships of Genghis Khan seemed to leave tidal waves in their wake. \n\nJack watched the small fleet as it approached the eastern edge of the colonies. He sat atop a warhorse, one seen far too often in recent days. The ships sailed directly, not even bothering to act as though they weren't there for a sole purpose. \n\nThe young man- and he was no doubt a man now, having seen 16 years and two battles- grabbed the hilt of his rifle and held tight. It would be of no use against such distance targets, even if he was permitted to fire upon them. He held the grip for the comfort it brought in knowing it was there. \n\nThe Khan had died long ago, but his ancestors carried on his war-mongering spirit. The name of Genghis was known in the highest mountains and the lowest caves. Conqueror of all the world. \n\nAmerica would not be yet another trophy. \n\nThe one thing that the current Khan lacked was a mind for technology. He never embraced the rifle, and so his men fought with arrows and steel. Jack tightened his grip yet again, seeing his knuckles go white. The guns would save them. \n\nThey had to. " ]

[ 2, 6 ]

[ "1428728788", "1428702783" ]

[ "\"Listen Bruno, let's make this fast. You, and your men killed my wife. Tragic as it is, I shouldn't have gotten attached.\" \n\n\nGlasses clinking interrupted the killers train of thought, and gave for an opportunity to survey the subject. The rugged policeman sat securely chained to a chair, bolted to the floor. His face was flowering with purples and yellows, his eyes bloodshot. \n\n\n\"Now if you tell me about your, how shall I say, \" undercover\" operation I might spare you your life.\" The threat of the comments weighted heavily in the air. The click of a revolver being flipped shut echoed through the small concrete room. \n\n\n\"I'll never tell you. I'm sorry about your wife, she never should have gotten mixed up in this.\" The policeman muttered, shifting his focus to the ground. \n\n\n\"And how so Bruno?\" \n\n\n\"She was snooping around, we had to kill her. We couldn't just let her go back and give you the information! All you used it for was murder!\" He spat, jerking his head back upright. \n\n\n\"Well, it seems you've made a damn foolish mistake, Bruno. You see, my wife was the killer you were after. I just played the part better.\" She sneered, curling her red painted lips in satisfaction. \n\n\n\"However, had you been able to tell one woman from the next, you'd know. It's a shame you made that mistake.\" \n\n\nShe leaned back and reached for her revolver sitting on the metal table, her high heels and dress shifting slightly. The sound of the bullets rattling inside the gun brought her to another momentary pause. \n\n\n\"Let's make this clean and easy, shall we? I have a police awards gala to get back to.\" \n\n\n(Whoops not exactly random but I feel like this worked better with what I was going for)\n", "\"Daddy there's some men outside\", I heard her excited voice. Katy was leaning precariously over the back of the couch, peaking through the curtains. My angel, my salvation, all of six years old now. We rarely had visitors, and she was full of enthusiasm. She knew better than to stand like that, knew better than to look out the window, but I couldn't bring myself to be angry with her. Others, yes. My angel, never.\n\nI wondered who it could be, I wasn't expecting anyone. If Clarise was home early, Katy would have called her mommy. I shrugged aside my darkest thoughts, pushed them back down into the corner of my mind. There was no time for that now, probably some Jehovah's witnesses or a salesman. Someone, anyone, no one important.\n\nI pulled myself out of the well worn, brown leather recliner, and walked to the door and looked through the keyhole.\n\nMy gut sank. Dropped hard and coiled, spitting stomach acid, reflexively uncomfortable. \n\n*so today is the day*, I thought. I had known that this would happen eventually, that I couldn't protect her forever.\n\nI was smart enough to know my enemies, and had thought they didn't know me. Apparently, I was wrong. Coming up the driveway was Detective Sontag, one of three detectives in the local police force. Beside him were two uniformed officers. For a moment I thought about making an escape, but it was pointless. They would have the house surrounded, I had no question. \n\nToday was the day, I'd have to answer for my actions. The part of the story where I'd have to justify what I'd done. I was supposed to be relishing this moment, the inevitable confrontation. Ten years ago, I would have. Now that Katy was in my life, I knew that things would be different. Lawyer up, hope for the best. Play dumb. Very dumb. \n\nI glanced at my angel, still jumping on the couch. A tear ran down my eye, she had changed me, changed my world. Innocent and oblivious. I quickly wiped away the tear as she ran towards me, jumping into my arms for a hug. I held her tightly, for a long quiet moment, trying to convey all of the love I had for her into that embrace. Trying to stay calm. \n\nThe knock on the door came. Thump, thump, thump. Not loud and aggressive, as I'd expected, but more like the pulse of a heartbeat, a steady pounding.\n\nSteeling myself, I opened the door, still clutching Katy close.\n\nThe detective glanced at me, then at my daughter. He looked tired, worn down, not carrying a victorious smirk, the way I'd always imagined. I started to speak but Katy spoke first.\n\n\"What's your name?\", she asked. Her voice with less enthusiasm and more curiosity. Her eyes darted from the man in the suit, to the infinitely more interesting men in blue with their badges, hats and array of hardware hanging from their belts.\n\n\"I'm Detective Sontag\", the tall man said. He looked at me. Looked at my eyes, not with malice, hostility or cunning, but rather something else, something distant. He didn't seem to be enjoying our first meeting. \"Are you Dominic Parker?\"\n\n\"Yes. How may I help you detective?\", I asked. Cautiously, carefully balancing Katy in my arm.\n\nHe glanced at Katy. \"Perhaps it would be better if we spoke outside, Mr. Parker. Just you and I\", he said. \n\nI understood now. He too wanted to protect Katy. Didn't want her to hear and see what was about to happen. \n\nI nodded and set Katy down. I kissed her forehead and lied to her. \"Daddy will be inside in a little bit, I have to talk to these men\", I said. As she started to step away from the door, I turned to her, exposing my back just slightly to the officers. Counted on them having the decency to wait. \"Katy. I love you. Always remember that. No matter what anyone says, I love you\".\n\nKaty giggled and said. \"Don't be silly, daddy.\", and went inside. That was it. I held onto that smile harder than I've held onto any image in my mind, ever. Let that burn into my mind, like acid carving into my brain cells. I knew it might be the last time I'd see her. I shut the door.\n\n\"Ok, Let's get this over with\", I said.\n\nThe detective's eye arched a bit. The officers stood by, stiff, complacent. Waiting. \n\n\"Do you know why we're here?\", Sontag asked. Something pointed in his voice, hoping for an easy confession, I supposed.\n\n\"Why don't you save me the guesswork and tell me\", I said. Careful to keep emotion out of my voice, to not move too quickly, to give nothing away. Give them nothing that my lawyer would have to work around later.\n\n\"Where were you today?\", the Detective asked. Simple and direct. Confused the hell out of me. Surprise must have darted across my face, because his posture changed as soon as he saw my reaction.\n\n\"At home, with my daughter. We were watching television together... why?\" \n\nThe pieces didn't fit, didn't make sense. Then it hit. The words came like a hammer blow.\n\n\"Mr. Parker, your wife is dead\"\n\n\"What, what?\", I asked. I was starting to feel unglued, a rage, a confusion boiling inside of me. \"How? What? What happened?\". \n\n\"She was shot. Downtown. On fourth and vine.\", the detective said.\n\n\"Why? This can't be right. This doesn't make sense. She was at work, she doesn't work downtown...\", I said, battered, confused, something wrong, something not connecting. \"Who did it?\", I finally asked.\n\n\"We haven't caught the suspect. Witnesses say a man grabbed her purse, shot her, and jumped into an older white convertible. Probably a robbery\", he said. He took a deep breath, his voice softer gentle, taking in the shock that had me trembling. \"Do you know anyone who drives a car of that description\".\n\nI shook my head numbly. \"No. The randomness of it.\", I said. \n\n*Not the way to kill someone, not at all. Not the way for my wife to die. None of it.*\n\n\"Nothing makes sense.\", I could hear myself, half mumbling, half coherent.\n\n\"Is there anything you can tell us that would help?\", Sontag asked. The two uniformed officers did there best to look sympathetic.\n\n\"I don' know... what do I tell Katy?\", I said. Numb. Cold. Anger fighting upwards, hitting a wall of ice. I could feel the ice drawing in, familiar and distant. Something calculating, cold, and very dangerous. I shut it down.\n\n\"I know this is very difficult for you. I want you to think about it, if anything comes to mind, call me.\", Sontag said. \n\nA card was in his hand. I took it, staring at the police department's logo. Lost in thought.\n\n\"If anything comes to mind, I'll call you\", I said. Repeating his words robotically. I felt the tremors coming. \"I need to go. I need to process this. I'll call you\".\n\n\"I understand, Dominic, I understand\", Detective Sontag said. \n\n\"Let me know if you find out more, if you catch him\", I said.\n\n\"Of course.\", Sontag said. \"Come by the station house or call me if you think of anything, no matter how small\"\n\n\"Ok. I've got to go now\", I said. Tears were forming in my eyes. Not for Clarice, but for Katy. How would I tell her. \"Thank you\"\n\nThe detective nodded. Seemed relieved that it was over. Offered a sad smile.\n\nI went back into the house. Reeling. The door shut behind me, closing off that part of the world.\n\nI glanced through the peephole. The detective and his entourage were walking back to the vehicles. His shoulders slumped. \n\n\"Who were those men? Why are you crying?\", Katy said. Concern coming from her, innocent and perfect. Worried about me. How could I tell her. I decided it could wait.\n\n\"They just wanted to talk to daddy, sweetheart. Daddy's just tired, I need a nap now, ok?\"\n\n\"Ok, daddy. Can I watch TV?\"\n\n\"Of course. Don't answer the door though and don't look out the window, ok\", I said.\n\n\"Alright daddy\", Kate said. Her voice serious, knowing something was different, but not sure what.\n\nI walked down the hall. Past the pictures of Clarise, Katy and myself, in various arrangements. Clarise, always so willing to please, always so easy to manipulate, so distinctively lacking in curiosity. A good wife. I didn't love her, really. But she'd been a good wife. The impact on Katy, that was a different matter. \n\nI sighed and walked into the bedroom we had shared for the last several years, drew the curtains until the room was dark, and laid down on the bed.\n\n*Work it over. Work it over. Understand it.*\n\nI couldn't. It made no sense at all. A random attack. No reason, no artistic quality to the murder. Just someone wanting some stuff. Brazen, broad daylight, the act of a savage filled with greed. The act of an animal.\n\nI thought back to the people I'd killed. My reasons were correct. It had to be done. It was done to protect Katy. Before that, there were other reasons, but they were always necessity. Some people simply didn't deserve to be alive. Their deaths were a service. The animal inside was cold, waking up hungry. It would be fed. \n\nI began to plan. I would need more information of course. Would have to meet the detective. I couldn't go to his office though, risk leaving fingerprints or DNA which might get matched up. Maybe get him to agree to meet at a cafe or something, no, no food, nothing to handle. Needs to be a highly public space. Maybe a park. Yes, I would call him tomorrow, a pretense of a memory, make arrangements. Drill him for information, extract it.\n\nI rolled over, closed my eyes, and tried not to think of what I'd have to tell Katy.\n\n", "It was a long day after work, I put down my bag and plopped onto the couch. Immediately I saw the news come on. This was gonna be interesting\n\n\"Local Mother Murdered in Suspected burglary\"\n\nIt struck me as odd, but I always thought that family had a bit off of them it wasn't until they announced the suspects that my suspicions were confirmed to be true. I held in tight, and I was shocked when they said it was the husband. They also mentioned finding a ton of dead bodies which put an end to my curiosity. That family was weird. But what's even weirder?\n\n\nYou'd think he'd recognize his own house", "She was dead. Claire, my angel, had died. I had given everything I had to keep her happy, and now she laid on a slab in the morgue, shot by a junkie.\n\nMy name is Raymond Charles Barnes, and I am a murderer. Must have killed twenty, maybe thirty people back in the old days. Back before I met her, the one woman I could trust. The one woman I could feel anything at all towards. \n\nShe was dead. She was dead, and that junkie piece of shit was still out there, probably getting high in some crack-house on the edge of town.\n\nThat was why I was out tonight. See, I didn't know his name, nor his face, nor much about him. The police were as useless in this case as they had been on mine. \n\nMy sympathy had gone away. My mask had crumbled. If it weren't for the fact that I had been with friends and family the night of the killing, my demeanor would have condemned me. Where there had been a warm fire, there was now only malice, blood-lust. \n\nThe beast inside was hungry. I knew this was just an excuse. Shit, as I carved my way through various addicts and meth-heads, I realized it rather early on. \n\nIn my heart, I knew there was no way to ever be sure who killed her. In my frenzied and busy nights, I had tortured five different degenerates into claiming sole responsibility for the killing. They told me what I wanted to hear, so I would stop carving on them. It didn't work out in their favor, of course. I wouldn't, couldn't stop what I was doing. My safety valve had died in an alley, with a bullet in her throat.\n\nSo, I made it a point to wipe out those that had even the slightest possibility of involvement. I had burnt down a drug-den, and shot up those who fled. Police thought that one was gang related. I had declared a personal war on drug addicts. Police thought that one was related to the Neo-Nazis, for some ungodly reason. I didn't mean to target the homeless. I didn't even think of them as homeless. I killed them because they were junkies, and one of them might have killed my wife.\n\nI had slaughtered more in the last month than I had back in my best year during the old times. The red times were back, and blood flowed through the streets like a crimson river. \n\nI knew in my heart though that this wasn't for her. \n\nIt was for me.", "Lucy blinked at the sight of a masked man sitting on her bed, gun resting on his lap. At first, she figured it was Ed wanting to play rough again, but this man was a bit too big... too barrel-chested... he carried himself too rigidly. \n\nHe stood and grabbed the gun, aiming it up at Lucy with what seemed to be practiced ease. He waved it at a chair. \"Sit down.\" \n\nLucy sat. She involuntarily leaned back as the gun went to her face. \n\n\"I'm not going to waste the time of myself or yourself, and you don't really have much left.\" He had a rough voice, from years of constant yelling. \"I know who your husband is. Ed Greenwich is the Seattle Strangler. Don't bother denying it, I'm not here to get a second-hand confession. Your husband is a monster.\" \n\nLucy thought for a moment, deciding on what to do. She needed a way out. If she couldn't defend Ed's reputation, she would use it. \n\n\"My husband is a monster, yes,\" Lucy whispered. \"But he's *my* monster. Do you really want to piss him off? If you really do know as much as you claim to know, you wouldn't make that decision easily.\" \n\nThe masked man kept his gun level with the Lucy's eyes, allowing her to see down the polished barrel. \"This is the only way we can catch him. We piss him off, he makes mistakes, we have evidence.\" \n\n\"You're a cop?\" She asked, eyes wide. \"A fucking cop breaks into *my* house and-\" \n\n\"Better for you to end up dead,\" the man interrupted her, \"than for a dozen other women to end up dead.\" " ]

[ 1, 3, 4, 4, 18 ]

[ "1428744830", "1428771899", "1428712830", "1428733393", "1428713653" ]

[ "Day 1\nApril 26, 2028\n\nI'm a father! A dad. My wife gave birth to our son, Frederick. Guess I'll be making dad jokes soon... Hopefully they won't be un**bear**able. Hehe.\n\nDay 8\nMay 3, 2028\n\nMy wife's beginning to worry about me. She thinks my jokes are getting out of hand. I told her I could hold onto my jokes just fine. Hah! That was a good one. \n\nDay 12\nMay 7, 2028\n\nThe jokes. I can't stop. They are just pouring out of me... Maybe I should put a plug on it. Oh god... There it was again. I think I've lost my sanity... Maybe it's in the couch cushions.\n\nPlease help me.\n\nDay 42\nJune 7, 2028\n\nA ham sandwich walks into a bar, and the bartender turns him away, saying that they don't serve food here. 100 unicorns walk into a bar, and the bartender turns them away saying that they were too horny. \n*in the backround:* Pete, make me a sandwich please!\nPoof! You're a sandwich!\n\nPete, cut the dad jokes please.\n\nOkay, what knife do I use?\n\nPete... All you do is make these dadjokes. I'm losing you...\n\nDid you check the couch cushions?\n\nI'm leaving...\n\nJana! Wait! Call the cops! Cus' I think you stole my heart.\n\n>end log\n\n\n\n\n\n", " It had been two long years since my wonderful son, Jeffery, was born. It seemed like yesterday though. First he was going \"goo\" and \"gah\" and now he's walking and learning how to talk. When I became a dad, I promised to myself that I would never put my dear son through the furious onslaught of dad jokes my father had put me through. Little did I know, it was just not that simple.\n\n One day, after taking little Jeff to the park, we had decided to go on a walk. I loved these walks because I loved to teach him, I loved to see him learn about the beautiful world around him and think \"Wow, he knows that because of me.\" He would point at something and ask \"Wassat daddy?\" With an enthusiastic smile. I would reply, kneeling down to his level, with a happy \"A grocery store, you buy things there,\" or \"A park, we'll go play if you want to!\" and he would smile and laugh. But one day, while we were on one of our walks, he pointed at something and asked his usual \"Wassat daddy?\" I looked over, why, it was a restaurant. I kneeled down, pointed at it and said with a smile \"That's a restaurant, bud. You eat things there!\" He smiled, but said something else I stead of laughing this time. \"I'm hungry!\" I froze, a sweat broke out on my forehead. I had a strange urge to say something, I couldn't stop it, it was like if I had been starving for days and I couldn't help but steal! \"Hi hungry, I'm dad!\" \n\n I remember staying still for a moment. My son had an angry look on his face, but I wasn't focused on that. \"You couldn't help it.\" I thought to myself. I thought it again and again but I still felt like I was out of control! I grabbed my son, carrying him home, the whole way he asked \"What's wrong daddy?\" or \"Can I get down?\" and I felt the urge to crack a joke again, but I was able to resist. When we arrived at home, I stormed in, distraught. My wife stopped me to ask \"Bill, what's wrong? You don't seem yourself!\" She exclaimed, obviously worried. \"I don't know,\" I said, pouring a glass of orange juice. \"Here,\" she stated kindly \"Let me put the Orange juice in the fridge for you.\" I then felt an overcomable push to say something. \"No, just leave it in the carton please.\" \n\n I almost immediately pushed my chair back and ran up to the bedroom, slamming the door and sitting on the bedside with my face buried in my hands. My wife, so supportive, yet so naïve, came to me, saying \"Bill, stop this, you're not yourself!\" I didn't even look up at her, I didn't want to see the look on her face when I delivered my next painful punchline. \"You want some cheese with that wine?\" I heard my wife say \" Uh, no, bill, you just work whatever's going on here out and I'll be downstairs.\"\n\n The next few months were just a blur of my wife complaining to me, visits to psychologists, and horrible, cheesy, just plain aweful one liners. I don't know how I got here, in this jacket, in this cell, but all I know is that I wish I could stop. I wish I could go back to my old life, the one without these torturing dad jokes." ]

[ 1, 9 ]

[ "1428756245", "1428745853" ]

[ "Heather silently mouthed the words before tossing in her offering. Sploosh. She opened her eyes, watching the silvery coin flit back and forth, sinking into the murk of Loch Ness.\n\nHer mother’s voice interrupted her silent plea. “What are you doing?”\n\n“Nothing,” Heather mumbled, kicking a rock with the toe of her rubber boot. She put her hands back in her pockets, hiding what remained of her allowance.\n\nHer mother’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t let me catch you throwing any trash in the lake. I’m sure there’s enough tourists polluting it.”\n\nHeather nodded. She had no intention of throwing garbage into Loch Ness. Once her mother’s attention was focused elsewhere, she removed another quarter from her pocket, running the rough edges over her fingers. She repeated the words, careful not to say them aloud. She tossed another quarter in the lake and opened her eyes to see another coin slip away into the darkness.\n\n“Are you throwing *money* in the lake?”\n\nHeather crouched forward, knowing she’d been caught. She threw the last of her allowance into the lake, barely having time to invoke her wish.\n\nHer mother caught her by the wrist. The silver coins danced and flashed before disappearing. She’d thrown all of her three dollars and fifty cents. She hoped it would be enough, not really knowing how much a wish cost.\n\nHer mother started to drag her to the car, but Heather strained against her. “I won’t do it again! I can’t! I don’t have any more!”\n\nHer mother got down on a knee, looking her in the eye. “Why would you do it in the first place?”\n\n“I made a wish…”\n\n“Heather, it’s not a wishing well, it’s a lake.” She shook her head, brown curls bouncing in the cold breeze. She sighed. “What did you wish for?”\n\n“I can’t tell you or it won’t…” Heather didn’t meet her mother’s eyes. She was looking beyond her, out into the lake. A smile spread across her face. Her mother whipped around, but only turned in time to see the enormous ripples, spreading out across the water.\n", "It was after I had realized the wavy monster was not the girl I'd been dating for 2 weeks. We were splitting the check when it hit me. \n\nI thought, you know what? The only reason I have not to is from a cartoon. I have the change in my hand. I organized the three bills and placed the two quarters on top.\n\nHe stared at me, hand raised still from asking the question. He slowly lowered it, just a little. He didn't seem like a monster. The light glimmered off his dark, sunken eyes, reflecting a hint of anticipation for something to change it all.\n\nI extended my hand, placed on top the three dollars and fifty cents, towards his. He slowly reached for it, and picked it up in his claws. His eyes began to change. Once full of disbelief, upon examining the currency, flushed out and filled with unimaginable joy.\n\nHe raised his head up, above the hole in the ceiling, and flew up, disappearing into the sky. I look to the waiter. \"Sir, will you be paying with cash or a credit card?\" She's worried about the money? Did she not just-\n\nThe ceiling. There's no hole in the ceiling. Had I just hallucinated that?\n\n\"I'll pay with cash.\"\n\n\"Alrighty, so your total today will be $7.65.\"\n\nI handed her the money, and she left. I need to get some rest, wasn't I here with a date? I got up to leave when I overheard my waiter from a table on my way out.\n\n\"Oh I'm so sorry, I forgot to charge you for your soda.\"\n\nI turned.\n\n\"That'll just be $3.50.\"\n\nShe gave me a wink.", "I went to the pub last night and was strolling home. I saw something ahead in the darkenss, but in my drunken state I didn't really care what it was. I was focused on getting home so I could get some sleep.\n\nAs I got closer and closer I soon realized it wasn't normal, but since the alcohol filled me with confidence I didn't really care what was ahead. As it noticed me and started moving towards me I realized this was the Loch Ness Monster.\n\nI decided I must be hallucinating from those cigarettes that gypsy woman gave me. Having had bad trips before I knew that my best bet was to ignore the hallucinations. \n\nThe Monster then asked \"Do you got tree fiddy?\" Now this was weird, I've never had hallucinations talk to me, and I was starting to freak out a bit. I decided it was best to had the money over since I was in no shape to fight with what was either a crazy trip or a giant monster. \n\nThe Monster replied \"Thanks bro, now I can take the bus home and get out of this stupid lake.\"", "'$3.50? What use is this to *me*, huh? Give me pounds, dumbass. Scottish ones, preferably. I mean, if necessary, I'll accept English ones. Dollars? American dollars? You think it's easy to go down to the bureau de change, when you're twelve foot threw and aquatic?'\n\nOkay, Jake thought. Okay. I've given $3.50 to Nessie who is now complaining about the currency. I should probably call the police. Or the news. I mean, she's real. It's real. Whatever. Or maybe a mental hospital. Yes, maybe a mental hospital.\n" ]

[ 2, 3, 3, 3 ]

[ "1428782157", "1428775371", "1428776556", "1428778937" ]

[ "The sponge grew wet and soapy. Suds oozed from the pores as I squeezed it. Detergent dissolved the grease as I wiped the sponge across the filthy plate. Grease and scum dripped off the sparkling plate. ", "Pink skin. Beautiful, red-pink skin. I feel you, round and fleshy in my hands. I press you to my lips, red meeting red. Softly, I bite. Nibbling, sucking, swishing you around my mouth, my tongue. Oh so satisfying. Juicy. The clear, sticky juices dribble down my chin. I groan with pleasure. Apples are my favorite fruit after all. ", "Around my leg you slither, \nWill a pull of my fingers, you come hither. \nYour let out a sensual roar \nMy clothes are pulled and fall to the floor.\n\n*I get mad and hit you hard \nYou just stand there like a lump of lard. \nYou look up at me as your shaft rises \nWow, aren't you full of surprises?*\n\nI pull you into a room so dirty \nIt really doesn't let me feel flirty. \nYou clean and clean the whole day long \nAll the time, you sing a little song.\n\nBy the time you are full and heavy \nI am left breathless and sweaty. \nNot a spot of the room is dusty \nBut your shaft is looking a little rusty.\n\nI put you on the bed and press your buttons \nAll of a sudden, your stomach widens! \nAs your guts spill on the floor \nI throw your lifeless body at the door.\n\n*I get mad and throw you in a fit of rage \nYou just bounce and knock into the birdcage. \nYou look up at me as your guts keeps evacuating. \nNow I have to restart the vaccuuming*" ]

[ 1, 2, 41 ]

[ "1428861946", "1428898076", "1428844274" ]

[ "It was hard to describe my new ability. It was as though I could feel things from a distance, a magical hand that coated itself across everything in front of my face. My power was nearly limitless; when I was outside I could feel other houses, other people, and hundreds of trees. When I used my power on the sky, I could feel birds in flight, and those floating blobs even when they weren't raining. At night, millions of bumps appeared far, far above me. It was equally majestic and bewildering. What were they?\n\nThe items I could distance-feel also had flavors, not literal tastes, but it's the best analogy I can come up with. Seemingly identical things, like rocks or wooden planks, often had very unique tastes. Interestingly, most man-made things were dull compared to the spicy, vibrant flavors of nature. When the sun was up it tasted so intense I had to point my face away, and when it finally went down all the flavors lost power, I could only distance-feel things with a lot of concentration in the coldness.\n\nFor now, I've hidden my ability. I don't want to be interrogated or endlessly studied on by scientists. I want to live a normal life, one without a superpower like this.", "*People have asked me, \"what's it like?\" The best I can do is say, \"It's like, you don't have to listen for it or feel around for that jar of peanut butter on the counter. It's just there. You just know it's there. You can go right to it and pick it up because you know it's location in space and you'll always know it.\" I mean, don't get me wrong. My life isn't wonderfully easier because of it. And honestly, I don't like it all that much. I move quicker than everyone else does. I'll be ready to leave in the morning, and my husband and kids are still feeling around for their coats and their backpacks and all else, because God knows they never leave their shit in the same place twice.*\n\n*I wanna talk about something else, though. I could talk about how annoyed I get all night. Heh. I don't know if this is what you want to hear about, but I'm familiar with people in a different way. I comprehend them, instantly when I see them. While other people have to ask about hair length and arm lengths and feel around for those things in intimate ways that people don't always get to experience with each other. But I know. I know how long my boss's hair is, I know how long the receptionists' legs are, I know what the mailman's nose looks like and how his eyebrows scrunch together when he talks to me. I told him that. I told him that his eyebrows scrunch together. And he was confused. He had no possible way of knowing what I meant. His eyebrows scrunched together.*\n\n*I guess my only good way of summarizing it is that it's lonely to live like this. I understand life in a different way. It's beautiful, but it's tragic not to have anyone to share it with. Tragic may be too dramatic of a word. Whatever... I don't care. You know what I mean. Heh.*\n" ]

[ 3, 3 ]

[ "1428884711", "1428890787" ]

[ "**So now you understand, Clark.**\n\nSlow down there, Mary.\n\n**It's Neo.**\n\nNot from where I'm sitting. More like Nelly. Whats with the fruity trenchcoat?\n\n**It's awesome looking.**\n\nBullshit! In the real world. REAL men wear tights and capes and flaming red underwear on the outside. \n\n**But that world is a lie. And I don't remember Superman being this homophobic.**\n\nI was born in the 30's.\n\n**I know. It shows. Eighty year old men should not be superheroes. No wonder you don't wanna leave the matrix. Back there, it's like you were as free as we are here. You could fly. You saved people. You made a difference, trying to make your world the best one it could be. And now I almost feel bad for removing you. After eighty years of omnipotence, this must be quite jarring and difficult.**\n\nThe what now? Sorry, my hearing aid fell into this toilet.\n\n**Careful. That's the only toilet in all of Zion.**\n\nWhat?\n", "\"I don't know who you are, friend, but the Federal Bureau wants you for a crime... Mass homicide of multiple innocent law enforcement, apparently? I'm confused, you don't seem to exist half the time.\"\n\"Technically yes. But what if I told you this was all a dream we were plugged intoby a machine?\"\n\"Not the first time I have been in a VR simulation. However, this seems real.\"\n\"Yes... Tell me, Mr Kent, have you ever actually been to Krypton?\"\n\"Yes. Repeatedly. Puts things in focus, to look at the wreckage. And I refuse to acknowledge that name you have just said.\"\n\"Interesting. How did you... breathe whilst you travelled through space?\"\n\"I can hold my breath practically indefinitely. Years at least.\"\n\"Hmm. They have worked hard to integrate your instinctive abilities, your... Admin passwords, for lack of a better term, into the system. Perhaps... Yes. You should come and spar against the One.\"\n\"This isn't Ras Al Ghul again? Because if it is, I am calling Bruce to bat-Carpet Bomb this building, it seems empty except for me and you.\"\n\"No. Gotham's little League is... not us.\"\n\n---\n  \n\n\"A Dojo? Really, Mr Morpheus?\"\n\"I trust your superfriend Batman taught you basic martial arts?\"\n\"Yes, but... I'm Superman. You do realise that means I am essentially invulnerable to any normal man.\"\n\"Whoa.\"\n\"Ah. Neo, meet Kal. Kal, meet Neo.\"\n\"... This isn't your 'One' is it?\"\n\"How much does this guy know? He comes into regular contact with Agents ALL THE TIME, Morpheus!\"\n\"He knows enough. I want you to show him how his world is only skindeep. How his abilities are only so useable within the confines of our controlled spaces, our recovered territory, should we chose them to be restricted.\"\n\"What do you mea-URK\"\n\n\"As you can see, Neo here began with a jab at your chin. Please note that outside this room, that strike would have likely broken his wrist.\"", "Clark stood on the broken twenty second floor of the Daily Planet building and gazed out at what used to be Metropolis. He barely recognized it. The entire city was reduced to rubble. A dark haze hung over the skyline blotting out the sun. The little light that did filter through was turned a muddy brown, only highlighting more destruction. \n\nOn instinct he drew in a deep breath, intending to clear the air above his beloved city, but it only sent him into a coughing fit that brought tears to his eyes and dropped him to a knee. The pain was terrible, like tiny shards of kryptonite were moving in and out of his lungs. Is this how humans lived? How did they stand it? And then again, the rushing, terrible realization that he himself, was human.\n\nHe felt Neo's hand on his shoulder. \"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought you here yet. I thought...\"\n\nClark jerked away, and rose, his elbows on his knees. \"I'm fine.\" he muttered, then promptly vomited on his shoes.\n\nTrinity spoke from somewhere behind him, \"I tried to tell you, the shock is too much. You can't go from what ... he was, to this. There's bound to be some...\"\n\n\"Transition?\" Neo suggested.\n\n\"...breakage.\" Trinity replied.\n\n\"We've all had a shock!\" Neo replied. \"We had to get him out, the things he could do, without even knowing the rules!\" Neo took a breath. \"He's strong, he will come through.\"\n\nClark could barely hear what they were saying. Every gust of hot wind turned him deaf, grit and dust flew into his eyes, blinding him. Not for the first time Clark wondered if this was some elaborate deception by Lex, or maybe Brainiac. Was any of this real? He looked over at Neo and Trinity, frustrated again that he couldn't sense their heartbeats, that he couldn't read the microexpressions that would betray their true intentions.\n\nHe stumbled towards the edge of the building, leaned against the jagged parapet, and looked down at the twenty two stories of open air. Clark's body broke out into a sweat, his stomach did flips, and his head spun until he sat down, his back to the low wall. \"I... I...\" he held back another bilious gag. \"What's happening?\"\n\nTrinity leaned down and looked into his face. \"It happens to most of us the first time we see a long drop. We don't think the matrix gets it exactly right. It takes awhile to get over that first uh, fear of heights.\"\n\nClark felt his eyes burn with tears again, but not from the biting wind. Superman, he thought, afraid of heights.\n\nNeo put a hand out and helped Clark up. \"Come on,\" he said. \"we have work to do.\"\n\nClark gasped out loud and drew his hand back, cradling it. \"What did you do to my hand??\"\n\n\"What?\" Neo asked, examining it. \"Oh, it's a hangnail. It's the dry air, you'll get used to them. Let's go.\"\n\n\n\nThe air whipped by Clark's face and the cement rapidly approached. Luthor couldn't fool him, in a moment he would wake from this nightmare and search him out, defeat him, and bring justice to the world once again. He would be, Superman.", "Clark rode in the ship with Neo and Trinity as they headed toward the Machine City. The world below them was decimated, and not a single living thing grew on the surface. Seeing everything destroyed like this broke Clark's heart. It was the reason he decided to join Neo and Trinity on their mission. \n\n\"You don't have to come,\" Neo told him. \"You are a regular man now. You don't have to save the world anymore.\"\n\nClark shook his head and insisted that he come. \"You're not saving the world without me.\" \n\nClark showed how strong he was even without the powers he had in the Matrix when Bane attacked Neo. He was under the control of a computer program that called itself 'Smith', and Clark had to break his rule of killing to save them all from the psycho program. It had to be done. At least it was just a machine with a human body. \n\nThey flew closer to the Machine City, and crops of humans extended as far as the eye could see. Which was nowehere near as far as Clark had been accustomed to seeing. Red dots scattered in the horizon and hundreds of machines rushed at the ship. Neo put his hand up to stop some. They shorted out in mid-air before collapsing. \n\n\"There's too many.\" Neo groaned as he strained to use his ability. Clark never thought he'd be second fiddle to the man with powers. \n\nTrinity brought the nose of the ship up to fly away from the machines. Their lasers began to burn through the hull and their claws ripped at the metal. Clark felt silly holding the plasma gun. These things would be laughable if he had his powers. Too bad the powers were all a lie, and the only thing he do was shoot a gun. \n\n\"Go above the cloud,\" Neo said. \n\nTrinity looked at him to confirm, to which he nodded. The hull of the ship was taking more damage as Trinity piloted the ship into the storm cloud. \n\n\"Wait, isn't the sunlight above the cloud?\" Clark asked. \n\n\"So the stories say.\" Trinity looked back at both the men before frowning. \n\n\"Clark, no.\" Neo looked at Clark very firmly. \"You don't have your powers anymore. This isn't the Matrix!\"\n\n\"I'm still a Kryptonian.\" The ship continued to fly upward and the dark clouds blotted everything from sight. Clark headed to the nearest hatch and Neo put a hand on his shoulder. \n\n\"You're going to die! There's no such thing as Kryptonians in the real world.\"\n\n\"I don't believe that.\" Light filled the interior of the ship and Trinity gazed at it with awe. For a moment, Neo was taken back by seeing real sunlight for the first time. The metal hatch cranked as Clark turned it, and threw it open. Immediately, he could feel his strength returning. \n\nClark pulled himself out and stood on the exterior hull. Wind pressure blew him off. All the machines shorted out in the EMP cloud. The ship was starting to descend back into the cloud as well. Clark stopped his own fall in mid-air and hovered. He could fly again. \n\nX-Ray vision allowed him to see Neo and Trinity staring at him through the small window in front of the cockpit. They disappeared into the black cloud, and Trinity fought the controls to right the ship. Panic struck her and her heart raced. The ship was just as dead as the machines. \n\nClark smirked. \"Time to do what I do.\"\n\nHe zipped through the air beneath the ship and caught it on his back. The ship was several tons, and brought him down slightly. He still wasn't anywhere near full power, but pushed with all the might he had. Gradually, their descent slowed until Clark set the ship gently down on a platform. " ]

[ 1, 4, 12, 79 ]

[ "1428959133", "1428956691", "1428954679", "1428946211" ]

[ "\"Well spit it out already, what's got you down?\" Karen demanded, shaking Bill's arm. Adam sat idly on the other side of the table as he munched his hamburger.\n\n\"There's nothing out there.\" Bill mumbled.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" She asked. \n\n\"We finally got *it* working, remember that machine I told you about from work?\" Bill stated, \"Well *it* finally spit out the data. And there is **nothing** out there. No life.\" \n\n\"Well, maybe it's somewhere you didn't look.\" Karen said, still slightly enthusiastic.\n\n\"No. There's nowhere we... *it*... didn't look, you know *it's* power as well as I do.\" Bill said. Karen's smile dampened and the trio sat awkwardly. Adam put down his food and cleared his throat.\n\n\"So you're saying Earth has -all- the life in the galaxy?\" he asked. Adam let his eyes roam around aimlessly, unsure of how to feel. \n\n\"In the universe!\" Bill corrected. He put his hands on his head and sighed. Karen leaned over and rubbed his shoulder. \n\n\"Sounds harsh. You still got us though.\" Karen assured him. It didn't help. ", " I'd always known it would come to this, some day. In fact, short of some literal miracle, it was a statistical fact. \n I looked over at the garden I'd carefully preserved for how many millennia. True, I'd had to make some sacrifices along the way. The soil they grew in was largely artificial now, with only a few bits and bobs of real sand scattered about for effect, and the light that gave them all strength came from above now, with no pesky wavering of the seasons. It was much like it was in the beginning I suppose, now that it was all coming to an end. \n I sighed, and stretched myself out under the apple tree, feeling the last few warm moments of the light. I closed my eyes, not wanting to notice when the lights finally did go out. It was just too expensive. I'd held out as long as I could, longer than could really be expected of any being really. I had it on good authority that I was, indeed, the very last one still holding out. But progress can never be held back forever, and in truth, I did feel just a little bad about taking up all of this real, solid space out of a sense of nostalgia. \n So, sitting under my apple tree, I spoke the last words ever to be spoken out loud in this universe. \n \"Goodnight everyone. I'll be seeing you all soon.\" \n And with that, my garden and I finally joined the rest of the universe, subliming into thinking, calculating light. " ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1428972947", "1428976804" ]

[ "Damien woke up to the sound of rain beating against his window. Damien hated the rain - it reminded him of the day his mother died in that freak clown accident. \n\n\n \n\nHe always felt like it was *his* fault, not the freak clowns. After all, it was Damien who told his mom that he wished she'd \"be eaten alive by a group of rabid ICP fans with an insatiable thirst for mom-flesh\". Almost as soon as he said it, a car speeding down the road crashed into the building next to them, and out popped four die-hard juggalos with crazed looks in their eyes. They ran out of the car, and ate his mom. When the cops came, they told Damien that they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time; the people that ate his mom were high on PCP and caffeine, and were out to raise hell no matter what. Damien didn't tell them about his wish. \n\n\n \n\nThe rain wouldn't relent, so Damien wished it would stop. It didn't. So he got out of bed an went to go brush his teeth. His bathroom didn't have any toothpaste, or a toothbrush for that matter. He just brushed his teeth with a hairbrush and a bowl of water. \n\n \n\n\"I'm just living the bachelor life,\" he would tell girls that would come over. \"I don't need to follow society's rules.\" \n\n \n\nGirls didn't really come over that often. In fact, they never came over. He would hang out with the girls that he made out of cardboard and fingerpaint. His mom always told him that you should never expect anything from anyone because everyone has nothing, so he made sure to only make people that could give him what he needed - something he could talk at and make love on. \n\n \n\nHis girlfriend today was a fine FedEx box with a face that looked like a combination between Angeline Jolie and Jason Statham. Needless to say, she was beautiful in every regard. He had painted a blue dress on her, and could tell just by looking at her that it was going to be a great day despite the rain. \n\n \n\nBut, there was something missing. There was no life in her. He looked longingly at his creation and felt a void inside his cold, empty stomach. He wished aloud that she were real, that he could finally feel a woman's touch, and not be alone, haunted by the tragic death of his mother. \n\n \n\nJust then, the doorbell rang. He jumped up, eyes wide open, and ran to the door. Could it be? Could it really be her? Did his powers finally return to him, giving him some sort of recompense for their terrible prior actions? He opened the door, and found the most beautiful woman standing on his porch. \n\n \n\n\nShe was wearing brown pants. The kind that are not too tight, nor too loose. He could vaguely see the outline of her body against them, the fabric clinging ever so slightly to her lower figure. \n\nHer shirt, a similar shade of brown, loose and buttoned all the way to the top, likely to keep her dry from the rain. \n\nHer eyes, a slightly darker shade of brown, contrasted perfectly with her pants and shirt, a lagoon of mystery hidden behind two pupils, locked closely with his own. \n\nHer mouth, moving, but he could not hear the words - entranced by her beauty, he was deaf to all else. \n\nHer tongue, brown, likely because she just polished off a packet of oreos, the cream from some of them still resting in her mustache, also brown as the color of her eyes. \n\nHer nametag, brown and yellow, reading: \"UPS\". Maybe her name was too long to fit on the nametag, and they just put her intials. So, Damien pretended that the U stood for Ursula - he always wanted to hook up with an Australian chick. The P, stood for Princess - he loved Disney movies, so it seemed fitting. And the S would stand for Samantha, because then he could tell his friends he hooked up with a girl named Ursula and a girl named Samantha at the same time and they would be all like, 'Woah man you are so cool Damien, we want to hang out with you more, we will stop being made out of cardboard now and your mom won't be dead from clowns, haha it's not your fault'. \n\nTo say the least, Damien was excited. Ursula was his chance at a normal life. Finally, his superpowers had saved him. \n\n \n\nIt was then that Damien realized that Ursula was getting annoyed. Her mouth was still moving, and he still wasn't listening. He looked at her and asked her to repeat what she just said. She looked deep into his eyes, and Damien felt his whole world stop.\n\n \n\n\"Can you please sign for this package, sir?\" he said. \n\n \n\nDamien, looked up at her and realized in that moment that he was in love.\n\n \n\n\"Thank you, super powers. I knew I could count on you.\" ", "9:16 in the morning. Patiently, I waited. The room filled up with the only ticking if the clock. I can almost hear the rustle of my shirt from this prolonged silence. \n\n9:21, I continue to wait. I wonder if -\n3 brisk knocks interupted my thought.\n”Mr. **** (lets call him Mr. White for the sake of the story) is here to see you”\nI thank my assistant and sent her off.\n\nMr. White seemed easy to communicate with as expected. I ask him the things i needed to, to understand him better, and he responds accordingly. That is until I asked about his wife.\n\nSee, Mr. White has been commited into an institution because a psychotic break down. Making me the one to nurse him to him back to proper mental health. Something I call a regular tuesday in my line of work.\n\nThere was a long pause after I asked that question. He clearly didn't take the death of his wife lightly, which seems normal enough.\n”It aint the first time it happened”, he mumbled with hesitation.\nI slide back furter back with a hint of curiousity.\n”You mean you wife died more than once?”\n”No” the light reflected on his eyes as they started to water up ”they do, they all die...and its cus of me”\nAt this point my words cannon't think of a proper response but: \"tell me more\"\n”My ma, my pa, Joe, Rudy, Uncle Ed, and now Len, they all died because of me.\"\n\nI tried to skim over his file again. This guy has no criminal backgrounds and isn't one to commit violence. Hes here for cronic depression, or is it?\nBut then he continued: \"ev'ryone round me be dead when i think bout their death, and i can't shut'it off. Ev'rytime I see someone these days, I think about them, dying, and because of me - I'm sorry\" he clenched the arm of the chair ”no one deserves this. Not you, not Len, not the nice lady outside. I know yer just tryin to help me but ev'rytime I think bout her i think bout how I killed'her and how I can kill ev'ryone\"\n\nThis is when I realize, that this man seems to have the delusion that he has the ability to control the lives of people around him. It's not the weidest delusion ive faced in my time, but its probably the one that got to me the most. He's not completely wrong, I can say that someone will die, then they will definately die. It's nature. We can never really tell when we're going to cease to exist. But what if, what if we only had the power to control our existance. What if we had the power to end our delemmas in our lives. What if we had the ability to release ourselves with our troubles.\n\nI wanted to console him as he sat there crying. But right when I'm about to respond, his nurse came in the door and take him away. 1 hour was passed and his appointment is over. As they walked out ny door I objected: \"you should take control of yours\".", "Tyler Rosche knew he was a superhero. If he went into a restaurant that was crowded he was able to find a table. Everyone nodded a welcome to him on the street and he was never turned away from any business who sought his money. The people spoke to him in polite tones and he had a fine job and a fine lover. She was a superhero too. Her beauty opened the doors to many exclusive and lavish parties where Tyler was surrounded by many other superheroes and the leader of the superheroes dressed himself in a fine white rob with a pointed hat and behind him lay the emblem, the source of their power, their first hero, Jesus Christ. Tyler knew of his arch nemesis who sought to destroy the foundation of the hero’s allegiance. He would use all his powers bestowed by creation to prevail against the evildoers. After the superhero convention he took leave of his superhero wife and formed a war party with his superhero brothers and together they rode off in cars among the southern lands where the cotton fields had a glow like fireflies and when Tyler looked out the window he thought the heavens had fallen down to bless their convictions. The night was hot, in his cotton trousers and cotton shirt and cotton socks worn in the same fashion by his brothers who held their weapons as the ramshackle cottage came into sight among the headlights. This was the lair of the enemy, who had been at war with the heroes since the dawn of time, the night folk. Tyler rallied his brothers and they surrounded the cottage and set fire to the walls, forcing the wicked people to flee in the open where Tyler and his brothers unleashed their power in a mighty roar and cut down the children and the wife but left the husband alive as he cried and begged and bled on the ground and the superheroes rejoiced in victory as they fastened the rope into a noose and threw it over the sycamore tree. Tyler crouched down to see his enemy face to face, he reveled in his misery, his defeat, and with his super strength he stood up and raised the enemy in the air where he kicked and tried to fly away until he died. Tyler’s brother lit the dead man’s body on fire along with his family and Tyler rode away with his superheroes and returned to make love to his superhero wife. The police never went after Tyler because he was a superhero. ", "To the beat of flashing lights and frantic sirens she strode into the convenience store. Shocked officers huddled behind their cars called warnings after her. She grinned as the door cheerily beeped the arrival of a new customer.\n\nThe nearest figure was dressed in black, his face covered with a ski mask and jabbing a shotgun at the fumbling clerk behind the counter. Behind him, near the wine coolers, another figure swung his handgun over the heads of two hostages trying to merge with the grubby linoleum. \n\nThey both turned at her arrival and after a second's silence they erupted in shouting. \"Get on the floor!\" \"Get over here!\"\n\nShe closed her eyes. This time she wouldn't open them to find a bent spoon in a drawer, the remote suddenly in her hand, or a pencil on the other end of the table. This was life or death. She would find the center of her power tonight and everything would be different.\n\nShe wouldn't have to live in that tight studio with the musty hall and the wandering eyes of her sweat stained neighbor. She would be on the Today Show ushering in a new age of human potential alongside Matt Lauer.\n\n\"Get the fuck on the ground!\" \"Get over here bitch!\"\n\nOh right. She squeezed her eyes tighter and spread out her arms. Still standing in the entrance the door continued to chirp merrily, overjoyed at the seeming flood of customers. She ignored it, she ignored the sirens, the shouts from men with guns behind and in front of her, she tilted her consciousness into a steep nose dive to it's center.\n\nWarmth and a sense of power began to fill her. With her eyes shut she recalled the image of the store with it's tidy rows of metal shelving containing all manner of sugary and fatty goodies. She could taste the metal of those shelves and feel the bumps and dimples of their connecting bolts and nuts. When she felt she had her grip on the space she let her power blossom. It swelled up from the ground, her legs felt quickly tightened like a hose just turned on. She gasped as it filled her chest and found it's exit through her arms and fingertips.\n\nWith her eyes closed she couldn't see it. Instead she heard the staccato thud of chip bags as they burst like anti-aircraft fire obscuring the air with their potatoey flak. Unable to see through the starchy chaffe, the criminals made no sounds of surprise as the metal of the shelves shrieked their fury at their enforced form as mere shelves. They grasped their instant of freedom to beat, stab, and cut at the black-clad figures in a maelstrom of mineral vengeance.\n\nThe metal clanged to the floor as her arms dropped to her sides. With an exhausted sigh she opened her eyes to witness the aftermath of her birth into power.\n\nThe store was the same. Nothing had moved or changed. Except the man with the shotgun. \"I said get on the fucking floor!\" The hard butt of the gun cracked into her skull and her consciousness lost control and went into a tailspin towards it dark mundane center.\n", "I know you won’t believe me. I wouldn’t believe me either if I was you but what I am about to tell you is fact, with a capital F…and italicized…maybe bolded too. No underline though, because bold with underline looks hideous. So yea, ***Fact***. How did it happen? I can’t say, and quite frankly it’s a stupid question. Why are the oceans salty? Why are we alive? Why is Kim Kardashian famous? Some things just don’t have any rhyme or reason to them, they just are. Now, I make no claims to being a superhero. There was no radioactive goo, gamma rays or anything like that. It just happened. What is my power? Instead of just telling you outright, I’ll tell you the first time I noticed it happening.\n \nI, along with my sixth grade class, just returned from a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We saw hieroglyphics and stuff. It was boring for the most part but there were some naked statues so it wasn’t all bad. Don’t judge, as a sixth grader before the internet, these historical reliefs were as good as it got. Anyway, so when we got back, Mrs. Black handed us our exam back from the previous day. My unimpressive grade is not important to our conversation, what was important however, was Stacey Madsen. Oh Stacey Madsen. She churned all my pre-pubescent juices, let me tell you.\n \nBut all was not well in room 6-18. The problem was that Stacey got a bad grade. Embarrassment painted her expression and the gentleman in me couldn’t bare it. So I did the best thing that I could; I looked at Mrs. Black and channeled all my chakra so hard I thought I was going to wet my trousers. And you wouldn’t believe what happened. Mrs. Black walked over to Stacey…and I shit you not, changed her grade, just like that. I never saw Stacey so happy. As a matter of fact…I never saw Stacey at all after sixth grade which is kind of depressing, but then she was so exasperated that she reached over and gave me a hug. The teacher then made an excuse about how she made a mistake, but I knew the real reason. That’s right…that was when I discovered that I had mind control.\n \nI know what you’re thinking. Oh, it was a coincidence. You’re over thinking it you idiot, don’t be mentally challenged. Specifically…retarded, which is what my sister called me when I told her, but that’s politically incorrect. I thought that too at first but the stuff that came after hardened my decision like a metapod.\n \nI consider myself a man of self control. I’m not perfect, I know. I do have my indulgences, which I am not afraid to admit. On second thought I think I may be just a teensy bit afraid…yea I rather not say. Wait you play WOW? What server? Me personally, I’m a Horde Warlock. You Alliance chumps can shove it. Whatever, I digress. My point is that I had my fair share of Pokémon cards and more of Yu-Gi-Oh! battles under my belt then I care to say. But as Uncle Ben said, with great power comes great responsibility. I drank that advice. I absorbed it into my fabric of being. I was given a gift and I knew I had to use it well. Still don’t believe me? Then allow me to change your mind. Strap in your seatbelts, because this ride has just taken off…\n\n****\n \nI was skeptical at first, and who wouldn’t be? It sounds delusional, yes, but I am not a man who swims in delusions, friend. Take the next event for example. Junior high rolled around and it rolled around hard. I’m not the most imposing of dudes and that naturally meant that I was imposed upon, often leaving my ego broken and my pockets empty. The event in sixth grade still rolled through my mind often, but I contained myself. I promised that if this power was real, I would put the benefit of mankind before me. It was something a man of honor such as I should do. Two-thirds of power is discipline, and discipline is one half of the struggle. It’s scientifically proven…never mind how or where. In any case I was shit on pretty much every day.\n \nA time came when I had enough. Everyone, even people with superpowers have a limit. And these bullies had been fingering my threshold for a while. That sentence sounds horrible I realize but juxtaposed with how I felt, it’s appropriate. I spotted them after dismissal pacing across the field toward me, picking up speed with each step. It was then that I realized that my rule had to be broken after all.\n \nI stared straight at their Marty O’Mara, their asshole leader and in my head told him that I would chew his testicles off if he tried to take my money. I squinted and flexed channeling all the energy I could muster. My butt cheeks clenched so hard together I could have crushed a coke can between them...not that I've ever tried that...ehm, or anything. Now if this was a coincidence, do you think they would have left? No, because that’s exactly what they did. They turned around and walked away as fast as they approached. Even the truancy officer behind me stared at them like they were crazy.\n \nThis was no coincidence, and though you may be skeptical, I know you’re coming around. The strange thing was that I felt guilty for breaking my code. All men must have a code, and I severed mine. However like Thomas Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase, some codes must be broken. But what I can say with confidence is that my life and the life of others would be very different without my gift. Allow me to explain…\n\n****\n \nHow many of you can say that you’ve been held up during a bank heist? Let me add to that by asking how many of you can say that you *saved* people during a bank heist? As far as I’m concerned, check and check for both. Don’t give me that skeptical look after all I told you. I had just gotten my first job as a waiter at Applebee’s and I was at the bank to cash my check.\n \nIn burst three armed men, all in hoods and ski masks, sticking the customers and tellers up. I hit the floor. Having superpowers does not exclude you from almost pissing yourself out terror. All the tellers were up against the wall and the bank customers flat against the floor. One of the men walked around collecting cell phones, which was fine for me because I didn’t have one, but now the problem was no one could call the police. That was when I knew what had to be done.\n \nI already said once before that I am not a big guy so trying to take on three armed men was beyond me. My powers were of a different nature. At first I tried to mind control them leave but I figured that my fear got the best of me, shattering my concentration. Then I had an amazing idea but it was a risk. I didn’t know the extent of my powers yet and I had no idea what would happen if I stretched myself beyond my limit. But like I said, I was the only thing between the hostages and safety.\n \nI closed my eyes and once again gave it my all. My face turned red and my muscles spazzed like I was having a seizure. How else would the police know what was transpiring in the bank? No alarm, no phone, no way to contact the authorities. Green and red spots whizzed like glowing fruit flies in front of my eyes and my peripheral vision darkened. A few minutes later, we heard the sirens. It worked! The perpetrators choked their money bags and ran out the door that same instant without a soul hurt.\n \nI always wondered how superheroes felt after saving the world. The world was nowhere near, I only just saved a bank but I had to say it was bittersweet. It was a thankless affair. No one knew and no one would ever know what I did but the fact that people were still alive because of me was enough. On my way out I heard the manager talking to the policemen saying that their alarm was silent. I walked out chuckling to myself and thinking, what good is an alarm if it’s on silent? The least they could do is put it on vibrate or something. I won’t be there every time so they really ought to fix it.\n\n****\n\nEdit 1: Story expansion\n\nEdit 2: More story expansion" ]

[ 2, 2, 2, 5, 29 ]

[ "1429027617", "1429029655", "1429032461", "1429024417", "1429021258" ]

[ "The dust cloud marred the dry, murky air like a drop of dye in water. The advancing Skitarii marched perfectly in sync, the mechanical legs of the infantry creating a unified booming noise, and the long striders of the Ironstriders created a more high-pitched noise, as if the perpetual-motion engines were attempting to escape their fragile metal frames. The Leviathan followed behind the advancing Skitarii Maniple, it's many track units kicking up a massive pillar of dust. \n\nThe atmosphere of Mars is incredibly toxic, polluted by 35,000 years of industry. However, out here, in the middle of the great dry seas, the air was tolerable for a short period of time. The advancing Skitarii did not care about that. Hundreds of augmetic respirators hissed, pulling the raw oxygen out of the air and using it to power the tech-guard's organic parts.\n\nAboard the Leviathan, Magos Targia calmly looked for a source on the bio-signal her sensorpriest had picked up 10 standard minutes ago. The trace was consistent with an unmodified human, but that was impossible on Mars. She concluded that the \"unmodified\" status of the trace was false, and continued staring at her command screen. \n\nA stream of data flowed through the Noosphere, sent from an address matching the forward sensorpriest. \"Lock acquired on target. Course set.\" Targia spat a quick message in binary back. \"Acknowledged.\"\n\nShe leaned back and began tapping her adamantium foot rhythmically to some Ancient song. It was an energy-inefficient behavior, but she kept it due to perceived cognitive-concentration benefits. The signal was getting ever closer, and it appeared that the leading Skitarii elements should make contact within approximately 25 seconds. After precisely that amount of time, a harsher, more disciplined stream of code flew through the Noosphere. She recognized the code style as that from the Skitarii Alpha Prime, Julius-Mu-42. \n\n\"Objective sighted. Target appears to be Ancient-Tech. Spheroid, approximately 98% buried. Requesting permission to proceed with excavation.\"\n\n\"Permission granted, Julius-Mu-42. Omnissiah guide your shovels.\"\n\nAs one, a group of menial-servitors stepped or wheeled forward, and proceeded to dig out the ancient pod with disturbing efficiency. Through the eyes of one of them, Targia saw the full artifact. Made of primitive materials such as steel and aluminum, it was a large spheroidal capsule. The symbol of the old Jermanic Imperium decorated it's side, and a single shut door was the only indication it was anything but hollow. \n\nAt Targia's word, another servitor stepped forward, and began cutting the door open. As soon as the plasma-torch touched the metal, through Julius-Mu-42's ears, Targia heard a scream. Targia cancelled the servitor's order immediately. With haste, she sent a blurt of binary to the forward sensorpriest. The Leviathan's X-Ray wand emerged from the hull, and images of the inside of the pod showed up on screen. Thanking the machine-spirit for such a quick response time, Targia opened a port on her face, and extended a prehensile \"eye\", staring at the picture. Inside the pod was a small child, a strange black mass, and a stack of books. That was all. No food, no water. And yet the child had survived such a long time. Conclusions, both rational and irrational, darted through Targia's head. She dismissed the scenarios, and issued another order. \n\"Send a reasonably non-augmented soldier or analyst to communicate with the child. All forces stand down. Target is non-hostile.\"\n\nHonday-Beta-12 walked forward emotionlessly. He was barely augmented, for a Skitarius. The only mechanical parts in his body were his legs, eyes, and brain alterations. He knocked on the hatch once, and stepped forward into the diminutive airlock. A second later, he stepped into the pod itself.\n\nThe girl was petite and white-skinned from millennia without sunlight. Her black hair was cropped short, and she wore functional, plain clothes. Next to the wall of the tiny pod was a glass tube covered in frost. Honday-Beta-12 took a step towards it, but was blocked by the girl. He pushed her out of the way, and took 3 more steps, until he was about 2 feet away. Targia, through Honday-Beta-12 recognized what it was. An ancient cryogenic stasis pod, somehow kept functional through the millennia. The girl must have emerged from within it sometime recently.\n\nHonday-Beta-12's threat indicators spiked and he whirled around. The girl was holding a knife. There was something off about her posture. It seemed too practiced, too experienced. Her black eyes seemed to be much older than the face that surrounded them. In a heavy, monotone voice, far too old-sounding for her years, she simply stated,\"Leave this place. You will find nothing but death here.\"\n\nThe knife swung. Honday-Beta-12 swung his augmetic leg up to block, confident in the steel limb to block. The knife cut through it like butter. Honday-Beta-12 fell like a broken bridge, his red partial robe hitting the ground on top of him. The girl stared into his lens eyes. \"Leave this place. You will find only death here. Like this one.\"\n\nThe knife swung down.\n", "**02-09-39 | 0904 GMT | MARS EXPEDITIONARY PROJECT | ELYSIUM QUADRANGLE EXPLORATION**\n--\n**--BEGIN AUDIO PLAYBACK--**\n--\n**LT DAVIES** - DENNY, ARE YOU GETTING THIS?\n\n**(THE SOUNDS OF LT DAVIES STRIKING HIS EQUIPMENT)**\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - LIEUTENANT DAVIES, LEST YOU FORGET WE ARE ON RECORD AT ALL TIMES, AND LIKELY TO BE IN THE HISTORY BOOKS FOR QUITE SOME TIME. YOU WILL CONFORM TO TRANSMISSION PROTOCOLS.\n\n**LT DAVIES** - FUCK THAT, LOOK AT YOUR DAMN SCREEN!\n\n**(THE SOUNDS OF LT DAVIES ROVER SPEEDING UP).**\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - WHAT ARE-? DAFUQ? WHAT IS THAT? ARE YOUR INSTRUMENTS WORKING, L-T? THAT LOOKS LIKE A-\n\n**LT DAVIES** - IT'S A DAMNED COMPOUND. I MEAN - IT'S - OH MY GOD... DENNY.\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - COMMANDER -\n\n**LT DAVIES** - IT'S THE DAMN MARS ONE!\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE. MARS ONE NEVER - MARS ONE DISAPPEARED.\n\n**LT DAVIES** - I'M STARING AT THE LOGO. IT'S WORN DAMAGED AND I ONLY SEE THE ONE POD, BUT IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE UNDERGROUND, BUT THIS IS THE FUCKING MARS ONE!\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - LANGUAGE. PROTOCOLS. THIS IS HISTORY. THEY MUST'VE BEEN ABLE TO REGAIN SOME CONTROL AFTER THE EXPLOSION AND MANAGE A CONTROLLED CRASH.\n\n**(THE SOUNDS OF LT DAVIES' ROVER SLOWING TO A STOP)**\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - BEN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?\n\n**(THE SOUNDS OF METAL BANGING ON METAL)**\n\n**LT DAVIES** - KNOCKING ON THE DOOR. HELLO? ANYONE HOME?\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - THEY CAN'T HEAR YOU, LIEUTENANT.\n\n**LT DAVIES** - NO SHIT. IT WAS A JOKE.\n\n**LT BARNES** - WHAT'S GOING ON?\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - LIEUTENANT DAVIES THINKS HE'S FOUND THE MARS ONE WRECKAGE.\n\n**LT BARNES** - REALLY?\n\n**LT DAVIES** - OH MY GOD.\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - WHAT?\n\n**LT DAVIES** - I-I'VE GOT A GREEN LIGHT ON THE AIRLOCK.\n\n**LT BARNES** - OH GOD.\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - OH NO.\n\n**(THE SOUNDS OF LT DAVIES SHUFFLING ABOUT)**\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - LIEUTENANT - BEN, YOU BETTER NOT BE DOING WHAT I THINK YOU'RE DOING.\n\n**LT BARNES** - WHY NOT? OH WOW. MARS ONE SURVIVORS? I MEAN...\n\n**LT DAVIES** - RADIO SILENCE 120 SECONDS. PRESSURIZING.\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - NO! BEN, DON'T - \n\n**LT BARNES** - WHAT?\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - IT'S TOO LATE. HE'S GONE SILENT.\n\n**LT BARNES** - DO YOU THINK THEY'RE ALRIGHT?\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - I-I DON'T KNOW. I MEAN, SOMEONE GREEN-LIT THE AIRLOCK.\n\n**(SILENCE - 37 SECONDS)**\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - DOCTOR ELLIOT. COMMANDER VESELOV. ALL HANDS REPORT TO OBSERVATION. REPEAT ALL HANDS TO OBSERVATION.\n\n**(SILENCE - 19 SECONDS)**\n\n**DR ELLIOT** - WHAT'S UP DENNY?\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - MIGHT WANT TO TIGHTEN THAT UP, WE'RE LIVE.\n\n**ENS CARMICHAEL** - WHAT'S GOING ON, SIR?\n\n**DR ELLIOT** - YOU FIND SOMETHING?\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - MARS ONE.\n\n**CMDR VESELOV** - MARS ONE MISSION CRASH ON MARS? REPORTS SPECULATE ENGINE MISFIRE - EXPLOSION - FLY OFF INTO SPACE.\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - I KNOW. NEVERTHELESS, LT DAVIES IS IN THE EXTERIOR AIRLOCK AS WE-\n\n**LT DAVIES** - O'BRIEN, DAVIES. DO YOU COPY?\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - COPY, DAVIES.\n\n**LT DAVIES** - WELL, HERE WE GO.\n\n**(THE SOUND OF LT DAVIES DISENGAGING MARS ONE INTERIOR AIRLOCK SEALS)**\n\n**LT DAVIES** - HELLO? OH MY GOD- UH...\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - BEN, WHAT IS IT?\n\n**UNREGISTERED** - H-HELLO?\n\n**LT DAVIES** - HELLO. UM. I'M LIEUTENANT DAVIES. JOINT ALLIED SPACE COMMAND. WHO ARE YOU?\n\n**UNREGISTERED** E-EVE.\n\n**LT DAVIES** - EVE. I LIKE IT.\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - WHO IS SHE? HOW MANY OTHERS ARE THERE?\n\n**LT DAVIES** - EVE, ARE YOU ALONE HERE?\n\n**(SILENCE)**\n\n**LT DAVIES** - JESUS. OKAY. UM. IS IT ALRIGHT IF I SIT DOWN?\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - BEN?\n\n**LT DAVIES** - HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN ALONE, HERE?\n\n**UNREGISTERED** - SIX- UM SIX YEARS.\n\n**LT DAVIES** - SIX YEARS. WOW. UH. YOU'RE WHAT - 9? 10?\n\n**UNREGISTERED** - ELEVEN. I'LL BE TWELVE IN AUGUST. I DON'T REALLY KEEP TRACK OF THE DATE MUCH THOUGH.\n\n**LT DAVIES** - IT'S SEPTEMBER.\n\n**UNREGISTERED** - OH.\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - DOES SHE KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OTHERS?\n\n**LT DAVIES** - HAPPY BIRTHDAY.\n\n**(THE SOUND OF LT DAVIES CHUCKLING NERVOUSLY)**\n\n**LT DAVIES** - DO YOU WANT TO SIT DOWN?\n\n**(SILENCE)**\n\n**LT DAVIES** - OKAY. THIS IS PROBABLY PRETTY STRANGE, HUH?\n\n**UNREGISTERED** - I NEVER MET ANOTHER PERSON BEFORE. I MEAN - I MEAN EXCEPT MY MOM.\n\n**LT DAVIES** - DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED? HOW YOU GOT HERE?\n\n**UNREGISTERED** - MOM TALKED ABOUT A CRASH. THE LOGS SAY THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION. A LOT OF PEOPLE DIED. MOM SAID FOUR PEOPLE SURVIVED THE CRASH. THEY DID THEIR BEST TO SALVAGE WHAT THEY COULD; BUT THE RADIATION GOT THEM. THE CAPTAIN FIRST. THEN SOMEONE NAMED KHALSA. MY FATHER LIVED A FEW YEARS; BUT I DON'T THINK IT WAS EASY. MOM WAS THE LAST TO GO.\n\n**LT BARNES** - WHO WAS HER MOTHER?\n\n**LT DAVIES** - WHO WAS YOUR MOTHER?\n\n**(SILENCE)**\n\n**UNREGISTERED** - THIS IS HER. HER NAME WAS NORA REYNOLDS.\n\n**LT DAVIES** - CARE TO SHOW ME AROUND?\n\n**(SILENCE)**\n\n**UNREGISTERED** - OKAY. UM... ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE ME AWAY FROM HERE?\n\n**LT DAVIES** - I DON'T KNOW, EVE. I'D LIKE TO HAVE MY FRIEND, DOCTOR ELLIOT COME AND MEET YOU. BUT MOST OF THE SPECULATION SAYS THAT YOU'D HAVE A HARD TIME ON EARTH.\n\n**LT DAVIES** - NO, NO. DON'T WORRY. I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE YOU AWAY. I WAS SAYING I DON'T THINK WE COULD.\n\n**CMDR O'BRIEN** - WE MIGHT HAVE TO. WE'RE NOT COLONISTS, AND WE CAN'T LEAVE HER BEHIND.\n\n**DR ELLIOT** - NO. BUT HE'S RIGHT. SHE WOULD ACCLIMATE EVENTUALLY, BUT IT WOULD BE A LONG HARD ROAD. WHATEVER WE DECIDE, I WILL HAVE TO EXAMINE THE GIRL.\n\n**UNREGISTERED** - THESE ARE THE HYDROPONICS GARDENS.\n\n**LT DAVIES** - THIS IS AMAZING. YOU RUN ALL THIS YOURSELF?\n\n**UNREGISTERED** - I HAVE CHORES TO DO EVERY DAY. CHECK THE GAUGES, MONITOR THE GARDEN, CLEAN THE PASSAGES. CHECK THE SEALS. FEED THE BEASTS.\n\n**LT DAVIES** - BEASTS?\n\n**UNREGISTERED** - MY MICE. I HAD THREE, BUT ONE OF THEM DIED AND THE OTHER TWO MATED. I HAD TO BUILD A HABITAT FOR THEM, AND I REALLY HAVE TOO MANY NOW; BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW TO MAKE THEM STOP. THE COMPUTER SAID HOW I COULD STERILIZE THEM WITH CHEMICALS I HAVE, BUT I STOPPED AFTER I KILLED FOUR.\n\n**LT DAVIES** - I GUESS YOU STUDY WITH THE COMPUTER. YOU'RE VERY SMART.\n\n**UNREGISTERED** - THAT'S THE OTHER CHORE. I HAVE TO DO SCHOOL-TIME EVERY DAY. MOM SAID I HAVE TO DO FOUR PACKETS BEFORE I CAN PLAY WITH THE BEASTS OR DRAW OR PLAY WITH MY GUITAR.\n\n**LT DAVIES** - YOU DO ALL THAT?\n\n**(SILENT)**\n\n**UNREGISTERED** - WELL, I DON'T THINK I'M VERY GOOD AT DRAWING.\n\n**LT DAVIES** - YOU'LL HAVE TO SHOW ME.\n\n> Out of time. Also, I don't know how to end it, and I think Eve is getting a little OP." ]

[ 1, 17 ]

[ "1429050157", "1429046327" ]

[ "It was an evening like any other. Many departed Souls will tell you this, though there are those fortunate enough to see their time beforehand the be prepared. But for the majority of us, all we get is a fraction of a second of prescience. This, I feel, is fortunate, for there are those who are given far too much time to quiver and suffer in irrational fear, but far too little time to properly say goodbye. Knowing for, say, thirty seconds that you will die because of the rope around your neck, suspending you from the ceiling, digging into your throat and breaking your neck - that must be torture. Of course, there might be those who commit suicide and plan in advance, but nothing is really *sure* until your feet are suspended in thin air and that stool lies woodenly (as most stools do) while your toes scramble for something to push against. \n\nI might, for my part, have been guilty of throwing open the door and calling out to the Reaper to come in and have a cup of tea - or six. All with sugar, I'm afraid - all my ex-husband's rants fell on deaf ears. I was content enough to sit in the front of the television or with a thick book, nestled in my old flowered armchair, indulging in a cigarette, while he moved to a retirement home with sunlight and single septuagenarians and ran half-marathons and retained all his teeth. By the end of our marriage, we resembled the number 10 when we stood side-by-side; my husband was a One who did not want to remain with a Zero. \n\nAnyhoo, I opened the door to find that Death had, indeed, felt like that cuppa and now stood outside in all his grimness, dark hood, literal bony fingers and - a kitten? \n\"Hold on,\" I placed my hands on my hips. \"I know I look like an old cat lady, I know that hippie neighbourhood artist *draws* me holding cats but I've been a dog person all my life, OK?\" \nDeath scratched at his skull through the hood. \"Look, just give it a try?\" \nI snapped. \"I have nice curtains, I have a nice sofa, those things grow claws before they grow common sense!\" \nThe kitten chose that moment to mewl pitifully. I refused to look at it. \nI stood my ground. \"That thing goes to the shelter. Nuh-uh. I know better than to accept things from *you*.\" \n\"Just one day.\" Death muttered and placed it on my doormat. Unbidden, my eyes went to it. \nIt looked up at me, blinked, and its eyes seem to encompass the whole universe. \nAlright, then. \nI daringly shut the door on Death's face and went inside, kitten in hand.\n\nA day later, I decided the kitten wasn't bad when it licked my toes at breakfast. \nA week later, I decided I had perhaps been mistaken as I watched it go mad for a ball of yarn. \nA month later, I decided life was made when I woke up to the kitten licking my face. \nA year later, I hovered over the doorstep and watched it butt its head and narrow its eyes at the EMT who was carrying my still-warm, white-covered corpse out the door. \nTripped over her in the bathroom, emerging from the shower, and hit my head on the sink.\n\nFucking cats, I tell you. ", "There He stood, kitten in hand\n\neyes that glared from a hoody\n\nbranded with what I think must be\n\nhis favourite band.\n\n \n\n\n\nHunch on his back, breathing lazy,\n\nbony fingers caressing\n\nthe kitten purring and my\n\nvision hazy.\n\n \n\n\n\n\"Here I am\" He growled like a teenage fright\n\nthrew His shoes\n\nwalked by, into the house;\n\nmy mouth agape into the night.\n\n \n\n\n\n\"I have come, a bit too soon,\n\ngot impatient, my mistake,\n\nhappens at times,\n\nonce in a blue moon.\"\n\n \n\n\n\nThe kitten purred and jumped away.\n\n\"You'll be dead\"\n\nHe rasped from the sofa.\n\n\"You'll be dead, but not today.\"\n\n \n\n\n\n\"I shall be your shadow, your trigger,\n\nan extension of the darkness\n\na bullet to the gun\n\nbound to your finger.\"\n\n \n\n\n\nHe stood up and poured a glass\n\n\"16th of June,\n\ntwo months from now,\n\ndust you'll have for an ass.\"\n\n \n\n\n\nHe seemed determined to stay.\n\nSo I picked the kitten up\n\nand said:\n\n\"Okay.\"\n", "\"Oh, it's you. I was hoping it would be.\"\n\nWERE YOU EXPECTING SOMEONE TO COME BY?\n\n\"My, no. Nobody visits us. It's all holo-calls these days.\"\n\nThe grey little woman shuffles aside and smiles widely, inviting the large cloaked figure inside. He politely steps into the hallway, his bony white feet raking the welcome mat as he pulls the faded blue door shut behind him. The little woman is already waddling towards the kitchen with surprising speed.\n\n\"What's with the kitten?\"\n\nYOU LIKE KITTENS. I REMEMBER THIS WELL.\n\n\"I'm surprised you remember that. It's been a long time since we had a stand-off, you and I.\"\n\nYOU ARE... MEMORABLE.\n\nAnd no word better describes the rotund grandmother before him. She was wearing striped knee-high socks and a ruffled black skirt that had not been fashionable in half a lifetime. Her novelty slippers were pandas and she wore a sunflower yellow knitted jumper. The grey hair was a wild tangle and was no more controlled than her snaggle-toothed grin, which she currently treated Death to.\n\n\"Don't be such a flirt. Tea? Coffee?\"\n\nHERBAL, PLEASE.\n\n\"I don't have any of that dry grass in my house. You'll have Earl Grey.\"\n\nDeath decided to leave it and started tickling the kitten's chin. The delighted purr filled the large kitchen and it was not long until she was drawn to him.\n\nHOW ARE THINGS?\n\nShe tilted her head thoughtfully, taking the kitten and scooping him close to her bosom. \n\n\"You know how they are. Same old. But I take care of him all the same. Was rather hoping you'd come by to fetch him, you see. Poor soul shouldn't be stuck here like that.\"\n\nDeath pours sugar in his Earl Grey and does not look at her.\n\nI AM NOT HERE FOR HIM.\n\n\"You son of a bitch, that's not fair. And to bribe me with a kitten! Do you think that'll make me come quietly?\"\n\nNOTHING WOULD.\n\nIf Death could smile, he did then.\n\nThe little woman practically bristled, the kitten looking confused about the mixture of affection and anger emanating from its current holder. \n\nI TOOK HIM LONG AGO. HE WOULDN'T LET YOU COME UNTIL HE WAS DONE.\n\nHer look softened as tears touched her eyes.\n\n\"All in there is an empty vessel? He's safe?\"\n\nVERY. I TAKE CARE OF MY FLOCK.\n\nThe woman suddenly crumbles before Death's eyeless sockets. Years of duty and stubborn devotion slides off her shoulders, and she looked as if she might cry. The kitten mews at this. A few more pathetic noises prompts her enough to stroke the little critter.\n\n\"In that case I think I'm ready to see my next home. The kitten is included, I assume?\"\n\nDeath nods, finishes his tea politely, and washes up. By then the little woman is bundled up in a shawl and stood expectantly at the door, kitten asleep on her chest.\n\nYOU ARE MORE EAGER THIS TIME.\n\n\"I wasn't done last time. Now all the grandchildren are sorted and you tell me my man is waiting for me. I paid the bills and all that jazz. The plants will suffer but I can live with that.\"\n\nShe cackles at her own little joke. Death takes her warm hand in his.\n\nI HAVE IT ON GOOD AUTHORITY THAT YOUR HUSBAND HAS A HERB GARDEN FOR YOU.\n\n\"Jolly good.\"\n\nThe kitten purrs contentedly in his sleep.\n\nQUITE.", "Dread had slowly crept over me and clutched my chest tight. But, there was no reason for it. I was watching TV with my wife and our son was nearby playing on his Gameboy. \n\n**Ding** It was the doorbell **Dong** But it didn’t sound like our doorbell. The words *for whom the bell tolls* passed through my head. I was being silly. \n\n**Ding** Again the door **Dong** and no one seemed to notice it. I rose to get it and suddenly was at the door. It crept open. \n\nIt was Death. \n\nA dark feminine form wrapped in the blackest cloth towered over me. I took a step back and would have bolted if I was not paralyzed with fear. \n\n“I come for you,” her voice rang in my head. \n\nI fell to my knees. The tightness in my chest was now overwhelming. My vision became tunnel-like, my ears fuzzy, my mouth dry. \n\n“But I brought you a present,” her voice soothed my mind. But did I sense a hint of sarcasm? She reached down onto the floor and there before me was a kitten. All black with white mouth and paws.\n\n“Boots?” I questioned but heard no answer. He looked like my childhood cat that had ran away all those years ago. My pain slightly eased, I reached forward to pet the cat. \n\nThere was something odd about his paws. I touched his head. The fur wasn’t soft, it was wiry. And he moved. But not all together. Parts of him were moving in different directions. \n\nThen his paw crawled towards me. It wasn’t a paw. It was a furry white spider. I looked again at the “kitten” and I saw it now. It was hundreds of furry black and white spiders in the approximate shape of a kitten. Once the illusion broke, the “kitten” melted onto the floor and hundreds of spiders skittered towards me, crawling up my arms and legs. \n\nI turned to run and collapsed on the living room floor. I felt hundreds of tiny prickly feet converging on my back. They traveled up my spine, slicing their way. It felt like being unzipped. Then they were inside me. I felt them inside my head. Gnawing away at pieces of me. My memories. My identity. \n\nOne my one the little spiders plucked themselves out my nose, my ears and even wriggled free from my eyes. They skittered away, each carrying a small orb with them. I looked at one, it contained an image, like a little movie clip. It was a small boy falling into a pond. Was that me? \nAnother one: My son riding his bike all wobbly and scraping his knee. I did not remember that. These spiders were erasing my memories! I tried grabbing at them and shoving them in my mouth. But the more I grabbed the more poured out of me. \n\nI looked around the living room. I saw my dead body on the carpet just a few feet away. My wife was pushing on my chest, tears streaming from her eyes. My son, Jack, face pale from shock held a phone near my wife’s mouth. I couldn’t hear anything. \n\nI could feel my memories and identity slipping away. I desperately tried to hold on to them. \n\nI am Zach. I’m 38. I have an 11 year old son, Jack and wife, Amber. I like to draw and…\n\nI am Zach, I have a son Jack and wife Amber….\n\nI’m Zach, Amber and I have a son…\n\nI’m Zach, I know a woman…\n\nI’m Zach…\n\nI am...\n\n", "It was five minutes to midnight and the motorway was nearly empty. \n\nNew Year’s Day had come and gone, and the worst of the season’s fatalities had been peeled free of the road’s waterlogged embrace by the slowly-freezing gloves of the Metropolitan Police Service. A lone backpacker trekked alongside the road, black parka pulled low over his head and a handheld GPS nestled close to his chest, shielding it from the freezing rain. He need not have bothered. The screen was as dark and lifeless as a mourning veil.\n\nHis other hand clutched a staff, a long branch of yew, knotted and twisted like it had lived a thousand years. Before he owned it, it probably had. He paused, leaned on the staff, tugged a leg free from the sucking mud and marched on in silence, a man without a care in the world. If he noticed the rain dripping from his hood, he gave no sign.\n\nHad there an observer on the motorway, they may have noticed that his boots came away from the mud cleaner than they went in. But there was not.\n\nA low yowl drifted through the cold air, the long, warning growl of a wounded animal. *Come no closer*. The backpacker paused and, slowly, like a coffin being lowered, knelt in the mud.\n\nThe bright green pet-carrier case looked out of place in the gloom, bright against the mud like bone on flesh. Inside, a white kitten stared out at him, hackles raised and eyes razor-thin. It gave another weak hiss, and lowered its head to the case’s cold plastic floor, exhausted. Ribs pressed against the kitten’s sides like prison bars, and its eyes were already drifting closed. An abandoned relic of the festive season, left by the road to die in the cold and the rain. The backpacker had seen many like it. In the dim glow of the street-lamp the backpacker could make out a collar, little bell hanging loose. MILKY was printed across it in an elegant schoolgirl’s script.\n\nAs the backpacker watched, the kitten’s breathing grew shallow. It was beyond the help of any vet now. The backpacker knew such things the way someone else would saw clouds on the horizon and predicted rain. It wasn’t something to be helped. The rain would come. The kitten would die. It simply was.\n\nHis job was what came afterwards.\n\nThe kitten’s breathing slowed, than stopped. The backpacker glanced at the blank screen of the GPS, nodded, and traced a hand along the staff. A long curved blade inched from the top, like a maggot leaving flesh. Slowly, for he never hurried, he arced the scythe toward the case. It passed through the plastic like it was water and met a tug of resistance at the body within, no more than the cutting of a cord. As the blade faded back into knotted wood, he returned the staff to his side and waited.\n\nAfter the space of a heartbeat, the kitten’s soul stepped through the bars of the cage. It was a fragile thing, small and bright, and it gave the impression that it would shatter like crystal at a slight wind. Such a young thing, to die. It did not seem wrong to him, for he had no perception of wrong, but it was… The kitten gave the confused meow of the recently-deceased.\n\nPremature. Yes. Like crossing the river without a chance to build a boat. What good, he wondered, was there in judgement of a life that passed in a blink. There ought to be more, a balancing of the scales.\n\nThe Grim Reaper picked the kitten’s soul up, and placed it under his parka, out of the rain. It purred against his bare bones. Walking alongside him for a time would do it no harm. Death came to all things. Nowhere did it say that he had to leave them.\n\nHad there an observer on the motorway, they may have noticed the streetlamp above the backpacker flicker and die. When the light returned he was gone as if he had never been.\n\nBut there was not.\n\n--\nNote: Apologies if I diverged from the prompt a bit too much. I couldn't help but wonder where Death found his kitten.", "Death stood there looking really terrifying. The thing that really broke it was the kitten he was holding in his hands.\n\"Ok, I have been looking around and noticed this kitten on the ground. Is it yours?\" \"No sorry, I don't own a kitten\" I replied, \"Oh ok then. I don't even know how it got here. May as well keep it!\"\nHe turned around and tripped over and cracked his skull. I closed my door, turned around and went back to bed. \"what the fuck was that\" I said as I lay down. \"Well I may as well get some sleep. I need to be ready to go back to cleaning Satan's private room. Man living in hell sucks\"\n\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\nMy first WP^^^pls ^^^don't ^^^hurt ^^^me", "I shifted uncomfortably on the couch as another high pitched sob filled the air. Sighing as quietly as I could, I continued to click the remote, shifting through the channels in hopes of finding something interesting enough to pull me out of this rather unpleasant situation. \n\nSo far, nothing had managed to do that. \n\nOn the other side of the couch sat my girlfriend, Mary, hunched over and sobbing uncontrollably. For once, thankfully, it was not because of something that I had said or done. Nestled in her lap was Mr. Bigglesworth, her 18 year old cat, who was, at present, not doing so well. The creature had begun to act more lethargic than usual over the last few days, but yesterday afternoon it had taken to not eating. \n\nMy friend, Dave, a vet, had paid us a visit that night and taken a look at the feline, only to gently tell my girlfriend that his time was coming to an end. He had offered to take the animal into work and put it to sleep, but my girlfriend refused, insisting that the former fluffball (he has been balding for some time), die at home where he was so deeply loved. \n\nBy her, that is. I hated him terribly, as he had not been pleasant towards me since the day that we had met. In his younger days he had been fond of scratching me and shredding my stuff, but for a long while now his attacks have been limited to urinating or vomiting on my things. I try to act sympathetic for the sake of my girlfriend, but truthfully, when he dies, I will not be sad. \n\nI continued my channel surfing crusade when the doorbell rang, followed by a series of three loud knocks. I glanced at my girlfriend who continued to cry uncontrollably. “I, uh, I guess I’ll get it,” I said, standing up. An usually powerful wail signified confirmation from Mary. \n\nStriding across the apartment, I tried to think of who it might be. Perhaps it was Dave coming to check in on Mr. Bigglesworth, or the neighbors checking in to see what was going on with Mary. Either way, I was grateful for the small reprieve. As my hand reached for the doorknob I glanced into the peephole, but strangely enough I couldn’t see anyone. A prank, perhaps? All the same, I opened the door. \n\nThat’s when I saw him; The Grim Reaper. \n\nI was more than taken aback by the robed figure, but much to my surprise, instead of running or screaming in terror, I proceeded to slightly close the door, glancing through the peephole, only to again see nothing. Opening the door completely again, I stared in disbelief at the robed skeleton. \n\n“It’s a great party trick,” he laughed with a grim, scratchy voice, like that of a chain smoker who has somehow defied the odds and lived to be eighty or ninety years old. \n\n“What are you doing here?!”I asked, before finally taking note of the fact that instead of having a scythe, he was holding a kitten in his hands. But just like him, the kitten was nothing more than a skeleton draped in black cloth. Had it not been for the oddly present bumps in the hood where the ears should have been (were they there?), I’m not sure I’d have honestly know what it was. \n\n“…and why do you have a dead cat?”\n\n“Dead kitten,” the dark entity responded.\n\n“Whatever,” I said, forgetting whom I was talking to. \n\n Death set the kitten on the ground. It stuck its forepaws out and sunk low into a deep stretch. \n\nI watched it for a second before returning my gaze to the Grim Reaper, an eyebrow raised in curiosity. \n\n“He’s new,” Death said, raising a cigar to his mouth. I do not understand the physics behind it, but somehow, sans lungs, he managed to inhale the smoke and exhale it into a small, sweet smelling cloud. “But I think he has potential. If you don’t mind, I’d like to get this finished as quickly as possible. I still have a few more stops to go through before my day is done.”\n\n“Of course,” I said, gesturing in towards the apartment. “Be my guest.” \n\nDeath nodded and snapped the fingers on his right hand. The kitten perked up, and death gestured into the house with his boned pointer finger. \n\nThe kitten nodded and took off into the apartment. A terrified scream echoed throughout, directly followed by silence and then, finally, a thud, as what I reckoned was my girlfriend’s body fell unconscious to the ground. \n\nDeath took a final drag on his cigar, dropping it to the ground and smashing it out with his foot. The kitten returned with bouncing steps. The tail, a mixture of cartilage and bone, waved playfully in the air. As it began to rub its head against Death’s robes, he bent down and scooped the tiny skeleton up. \n\n“Well,” he said, “I think my work here is about finished.” \n\n“What do I owe you?” I remarked sarcastically, glancing back into the apartment.\n \n“Don’t worry about it,” he responded, nodding his head in gratitude. As he turned to leave, he glanced back and called over his shoulder, “After all, we’ll be seeing each other again soon enough.” \n", "Grumbling, Rob walked to the door. *Probably Jehovah's Witnesses again.*\n\nThe door opened to reveal a tall, intimidating skeletal figure in a flowing black robe with a scythe. \n\nDeath, unmistakable. When you meet him, face to face, you can feel it in your very gut. No costume or CGI can compare with the feeling of breathing his oder and feeling his presence.\n\nStunned, Rob waited for Death to great him, or maybe offer to play a game for his life.\n\nInstead, Death croaked \"I'm so sorry.\" And he genuinely sounded like it. \n\n\"Wha--? I'm c-confused.\" Rob replied. *Is.. is that a tear coming out of his empty eye-socket?*\n\n\"I'm sorry man. I think I hit your cat while I was driving to Amelia's. I'm sorry, it was an accident. I tried to break.\"\n\nFor the first time, Rob noticed the kitten cradled in deaths arms in fetal position with its tiny paws curled, blood dribbling from it's mouth, it's eyes open wide in innocence, as if asking what it had done to deserve this.\n\nRob averted his eyes. He couldn't bear to look at dead pets.\n\n\"I'm sorry.\" Death offered again, looking more distraught over it than Rob. Rob knew how terrible it felt to hit any kind of animal with your car, much less someone's beloved pet.\n\n\"Uhh.. I don't have any pets.\" Rob stammered. \"It must be the neighbors. Um. Try the second house across the street. They have cats. Sorry man it.. it happens to everyone.\"\n\nDeath turned to leave.\n\n\"But you know.\" he stammered.\n\nDeath turned to look back at Rob. *Those are definitely tears.* \n\n\"You know, thanks for asking. And not, like, just driving off.\"\n\nDeath turned and silently floated over towards Rob's neighbor.\n\nRob watched for a while with a lump in his throat and then closed the door.\n\n*Well, I guess everyone feels bad when they run over a pet.. even death.*\n\nHe collapsed on to the couch in a daze and let out a deep breath of air, his mind still milling over what happened. So many questions. *I'm shaking,* Rob realized. \n\nSuddenly the realization struck him. \"AMELIA!\" \n\n\"AMELIA... NO!\"\n\nFranticly he pulled out his cell-phone and dialed his girl-friends number. \n\nHe heard the dial tone once.\n\nTwice.\n\nThree times.\n\n\"Please leave a message after the beep.\"\n\n\"AMELIA! If you get this message, don't answer the door! Just stay were you are! I'm going to call 911 and I'll be right over! You'll be alright, OK? Pick up your phone Amelia! Please! Amelia!\"\n\n --\n\nIn another house, a phone rang three times and then went to voice mail.\n\nIn the distance, sirens started to wail. \n\n---\n\n[Link to my previous writing prompt, Write a story with as many /r/WritingPrompts clichés as possible](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/32qi9k/wp_write_a_story_with_as_many_rwritingprompts/cqeatdm?context=3)", "Live kittens made great gifts and dead ones were threats. This was standard relationship protocol.\n\nThen again, our wasn't a standard relationship.\n\nDeath pushed the wet furball into my arms and threw back his hood, smiling in that crooked way of his. It wasn't friendly or threatening. It simply was, just like us. \n\n\"A gift, I brought you a gift, I hope you like the gift,\" he said. He shuffled past me and into my apartment, his steepled hands and slouch turning him into a caricature of himself. I sighed and closed the door. He smelled like formaldehyde, clinical and musky, and it overpowered the air freshener I recently sprayed all over my apartment.\n\n\"I'd prefer it if it were alive.\"\n\nHe turned and frowned at me. \"Whyever would you prefer that? Live things need to be fed, need to be bathed, need to be brought to the doctor. Dead kittens are better, no, best. His name is Mister, by the way, but you needn't call him to know where he is, which is another good thing.\"\n\nThrowing his gift in the trash would be an insult. Instead I left Mister on a patch of sunlight on my mahogany table. He'd have liked that spot if he was alive. \"You seem to have missed the part where I'm alive, bud,\" I said. \"Been alive for a few thousand years now too.\"\n\nHe shuddered at the reminder and shook his finger at me, his face momentarily showing hundreds of thousands of wrinkles before fading back into the nondescript brown-haired, brown-eyed look he always wore. \"I told you not to wish that, told you but you wouldn't listen. That's not my fault, not my fault. Nope.\"\n\nIt was slight, barely a tremble in his hand, but I noticed it. He was getting weaker. \"Are you all right?\" It was a dumb question. Even if anything happened to him, he' be okay. He was Death - what was the worst that could happen? He couldn't very well die. I told myself that the first time I noticed him slouching, and the first time I noticed him shuffling around instead of teleporting from one end of the room to another.\n\nI wanted to tell myself that again, but I was having a hard time today.\n\nDeath smiled at me and lowered himself onto my sofa slowly, ever so slowly. \"No, not all right. Not all right.\" He patted the white leather, beckoning me to sit beside him. I shook my head and leaned against the marble counter of my kitchen.\n\nOutside, a few birds twittered.\n\nHe didn't seem to understand and looked patiently at me. He'd been getting slower as the years went by. I remembered the first time I saw him, proud as a Spartan General and every bit as fierce. He glided through the battlefield, taking lives without a glance. Now he had dark rings under sunken eyes and skin so pale it blended with my sofa. \n\nI relented and sat beside him.\n\n\"They're getting smarter, boy, much smarter,\" he said. \"Fewer wars, fewer plagues, fewer everything.\" He stared into space, then at his hands on his lap. \"More hospitals, more medicines, more doctors - you're a doctor, aren't you?\" He smiled at me. \"Your patients okay?\"\n\nI couldn't answer him. I couldn't answer the phone vibrating in my pocket either.\n\n\"Soon it'll be just you, boy. When I can't move, you gotta help me, okay? And when I'm gone, you carry on for me, okay? \" He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. \"I got to go, got to go. Someone in the hospital down the road's due in five minutes. You take care of Mister. He'll keep forever, I made sure o' that. You take care of Mister until after they don't need me anymore and I'd gone.\" With that, Death stood, patted my head, and left.\n\nMy phone was still ringing when I threw it in the garbage.", "I hear a knock on the door. I get up from my computer and open it. Death is standing on the welcome mat. \n\n\"Death?!? What the fuck. I'm 21 years old dude. I just got a girlfriend and a job, life is finally looking up. I'm not ready man, please don't do this.\"\n\nDeath laughs. \"Oh, no, that's not why I'm here.\" He reaches into his robe, pulling out a kitten and an old radio. \"I'm done with the whole 'taking your soul' thing. I was watching The Price is Right last month, and one of the commercials really struck a chord. I've decided to do some good for once.\"\n\n\"Okay....\"\n\n\"Right. One second.\" He places the radio on the ground and presses play.\n\nThe eyes of the kitten become wide and teary as the voice of Sarah McLachlan flows from the speaker: *In the arms of an angel...*\n\n\"Every year, millions of animals are abused. For just $29.99 a month, you...\"\n\n*Slam*\n\n\n\n\n\n", "\"Good evening sir, may I take a moment to talk to you about this kitten?\" And with that he was in my house.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" I said bewildered by this sudden intrusion. \"What are you doing with that kitten.\"\n\n\"Proving a point\" Death said flatly. And with that he glided quickly to my sink and held the kitten above the drain. \"Your life is like this kitten.\"\n\nI stood there stunned and a little bemused. \"How's that?\" I asked.\n\n\"Over,\" and with that he dropped the kitten into the drain and flipped on the garbage disposal in one smooth movement.\n\nIt took a moment for death to realize nothing had happened. \"It's been broken for a few weeks now. I dropped my class ring in there and it jammed up the blades. I got a really nasty cut when I reached in to get. It got infected but my doctor prescribed me some antibiotics.\"\n\nDeath stood there a moment a little deflated. \"Well let me try again how bout?\" And with that he swooped up the kitten and made his way to the cage where I kept my pet snake. \"Your life is over!\" He boomed, dropping the kitten into the cage.\n\nSilence. Death's glorious black orbs watched expectantly as my snake lay quite still bathing in the radiant heat of it's lamp. \"I already fed him.\" I responded timidly out of fear of invoking death's anger any further.\n\n\"Oh for heaven's sake!\" Death exclaimed, exasperated. \"Well, watch this.\" And with that he whisked me and the cat to the rooftop and promptly threw the cat to the ground.\n\nThe cat, now clearly agitated, landed safely on it's feet and looked up at us with a slightly annoyed look on it's face. \"This is your first cat isn't it?\" I asked.\n\nIn a fit of despair Death pushed me off the roof and disappeared just as quickly as he'd come. \n\nMfw I now have a broken leg. \n\nMfw I now have a cat.\n" ]

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[ "1429179859", "1429160093", "1429194131", "1429200402", "1429214970", "1429160057", "1429167673", "1429175320", "1429167297", "1429154864", "1429160487" ]

[ "\"When [insert name] asked me to be his best man, I was [insert genuine response]\". Explain a bit why this was, set yourself up for a joke if that's your thing.\n\n\n\n\"[insert memory(ies) that appeal to the better aspects grooms character; and, or, highlight your own special connection to the groom/bride\". Again if humor is your thing, this is where it's best received [Moderate humor, like you would if you were giving a speech in class that you have a friend or two in, try to stay away from inside jokes unless you explain them succinctly before hand or as part of the memory]----> an example would be an embarrassing event that earn him a nickname (though you'd have to set this up in the introduction by referring to him as the nickname)\n\nWrap it up with your pride in your relationship with the groom, your acceptance and welcome of his new wife, and congratulate their marriage.\n\n\n\n**TAKE THIS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT**\n[I should add that I have never given a best man's speech, but I've seen a few given that generally follow this format; and were I to do it, I'd probably follow this outline as well]\n", "Give me some details that you'd like to incorporate into the speech, you can PM me them if you'd like." ]

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[ "1429296665", "1429282103" ]

[ "\"You did *what*?\" Death stared at me with his cold, dark eyes. I wasn't sure if he was angry, surprised, or a combination of both.\n\n\"I, uhm, well it's complicated, you see.\"\n\n\"Humor me, please.\" Death leaned on his scythe a bit as he lowered his PDA, his skeletal hands clicking against the glass screen.\n\n\"I really don't see the problem here, I mean, everything is still there.\"\n\nDeath laughed, in a sharp, painful shrill. \"It may all be there, but there are many problems. I mean the kidney is where the lung is supposed to be, the heart is somehow in the head, and the brain is where the heart is. You also managed to smuggle a gun inside of it. How did you even survive?\"\n\n\"I uhm, didn't survive. That's kind of why we're having this conversation.\"\n\nDeath stared me down, \"Fair point.\" He stood straighter and brought the PDA back to his view. He pressed it a few times, his bones almost cracking as he tapped the screen. \"Well, the fee for this amount of damage is six units.\"\n\n\"Six units! That's insane!\"\n\n\"Insane? Do you see what you're giving me here? If anything I'm losing units on this deal after you're done.\" Death looked up from his PDA for a split second before shaking his head, \"Listen, on average it's eight Earth years for one unit. So six units will take you forty-eight years, less time than you had in that...thing.\"\n\n\"I still think that's a little overpriced.\"\n\n\"Listen pal. You signed the contract with the big guy upstairs, you came to this corporation willingly and you joined the rest of your buddies on Earth. I'm just the collection agent, that's my job. So, sign the terms, return the body on floor three and report to floor four for your assignments.\"\n\nI sighed slightly, that's what I get for following my big brother's advice. \"Yeah yeah, you're lucky we live for a couple hundred years.\"\n\nDeath laughed as I scratched my signature onto the PDA and sighed heavily, \"Your kind is the reason we're still in business, buddy. And on behalf of the Experience of Humanity Incorporated, we'd like to thank you for your business.\"\n\nI nodded, \"Thanks for the life? I guess.\"\n\nDeath smiled, his bones cackling as he moved me towards the door. \"Floor three for drop off! Have a wonderful day!\"\n\nDeath pushed me through the day and pointed to the staircase. As I walked, holding the charred remains of my human body closely, I could hear Death yell loudly. \"Next!\"", "\"Well, you're not getting your safety deposit back, I can tell you that.\" The spirit turned my shell over, examining the marks, ink and scars that decorated every inch. \"I mean, what's the purpose of adding metal here?! You can't even see it!\"\n\n\"Hey man, it was my body, I could do what I wanted!\" I said, defensively. \"Was! Was your body! Not anymore! Now I need to do a complete overhaul, get it back to factory specs. Do you have any idea how long that's going to take?\" He looked at me with translucent eyes, but still clearly upset. \"Aren't you eternal?\" I asked. \"That's not the point! Oh god, what the hell is this?!\" He said, pointing to the exposed metal that made up my forearm. \"Oh yeah that, motorcycle accident. Honestly, it's a lot sturdier, you should think about that for next year's models.\" He threw up his tendrils in exasperation, \"100 thousand years of evolutionary design and he thinks he knows better!\"\n\nThe spirit grabbed a clipboard and began filling out the checklist, aloud to my embarrassment. \"Okay, skeletal frame: altered and damaged. Protective coating - well, there isn't a choice for \"imitating a racing car\" so let's go with creatively maintained. Control system: flooded with off-market stimulants, but altogether fine. Manner of final transition?\" He looked up at me, inquisitively.\n\nI began pointing out parts of my old body, either missing or sewed back together. \"See this, and this, and this part sticking in here and this part sticking out there. Also, I swear, I'll find the ear.\" He made marks on his board for each one. \"Basically, ever heard of bungee jumping?\" The spirit looks up quickly. \"No, no, I've seen bungee jumping. All we do then is a simple stretch out or re-inflate.\" I nod in agreement, \"yeah, the bungee is the first part, then on the up bounce, it switches to wingsuit gliding. While ironing. Blindfolded.\"\n\nWith each explanation, the spirit's face or stomach change a different color. After a couple of minutes, he waves me off. \"Enough! Enough! Gods, why the hell did you do all that- no, forget it, I don't want to know. I'm just putting down 'drunk'.\" \"But I wasn't drunk,\" I said. \"No, but I'm going to be if I ever want to forget all that.\" He signs off the form, tears off the stub and hands it to me. \"Take this to requisitions for your next vehicle.\" I leave the station as he calls to me, \"and for the love of god, next time leave the knife juggling to the clowns! At least they get special insurance!\"\n", "The lines at returns were always busy. While we had been fucking like rabbits who found a bottle of Viagra, the soul relocation industry had a rough time expanding their businesses. It didn't help that the process for renting a new body was (obviously) under extreme copyright and the few businesses who could manage it were always locked tight. Hiring was just as rough. New employees were vetted more than CIA field agents to ensure they wouldn't sell trade secrets. Immortality was a frustrating practice in corporate espionage.\n\nAt least the returns process was always worth a laugh or two. Some fresh faced buyer would walk in with their last model, all wrapped up for sanitation. Most of the time they would just need a new model. One that didn't have back pains, or sore feet, or suffered from cancer. Ya know, normal stuff. But you were assured a few hilarious accidents. It's interesting how the capability to isolate and transfer souls had made death so blase.\n\nFor instance, a man behind me didn't just have one, human-sized package, but several smaller pieces. Some considered it rude to talk about past avatar systems, but I wasn't so prudish. I had some explaining to do myself today.\n\nThis gentleman had been a surprisingly successful street performer. Fire breathing, street magic, and (unfortunately) chainsaw juggling. The chainsaws always brought the biggest crowds, and plenty of cash. A shame that one misstep can bring thousands of motorized blades crashing down on you. We had a small chuckle as the line moved at a snail's pace.\n\nSeveral feet away, in a separate line was a woman who would be hard to miss. Blonde hair, nearly six feet tall, gorgeous eyes, and a chest that well...was hard to ignore. Her new system must have cost a fortune. Strangely, she didn't have a package at all. Instead, she carried a small urn and seemed annoyed when anyone asked what happened. My guess was falling asleep with a cigarette. With hair that big, one little ember would make a blonde flambe in minutes.\n\nMy story? Well this was slightly embarrassing. I had no model to return at all; kind of a big no-no in the business. Fresh bodies don't grow on trees and they recycled the genetic material for future systems. My dream had always been to photograph the most incredible animals on the planet. I failed miserably in this respect.\n\nMy *very* first safari took me to a lion preserve in the Serengeti. We often think of cheetahs as the fast predators of the African plane, but lionesses are nothing to sneeze at! I thought my 600mm lens would keep me far from any danger, but when a female can reach a sprint speed of 60 mph, that distance closes fast.\n\nWhatever was left of my former body is either in two forms. Rotting meat or lion shit. As neither were worth much in the market, I decided to just cut my losses and get the lowest quality model I could for the time being. This system had irritable bowels and legally blind. \n\nIt was the ramen noodles of soul relocation services...." ]

[ 1, 4, 13 ]

[ "1429303405", "1429301759", "1429292371" ]

[ "I am vast. I have seen everything that has ever happened. I have seen stars born and die. I have watched the elements be created. At some point it all became monotonous. \n\nYou watch the development of a galaxy or two and nothing seems new anymore. I have been so bored for the last several hundred millenia.\n\nThe humans were entertaining for a few years, but honestly once you've watched a generation or two, you know humans. At least that was what I thought, until I started paying attention to Abigail.\n\nAbigail is truly unique. There has not been a human like her before. I doubt that there will be another one like her.\n\nAbigail takes such joy in everything she does. As she sits and picks daisies in the small field in her backyard she reminds me of the joy I once experienced. You would think Abbie was watching the explosion that began everything; how else could she be so fascinated by something as simple as a field of flowers?", "I don’t know where I came from or who I am, but I feel an inexorable urge to kill. To murder. To tear away at others and bend them to my will. That is my nature and my burden. People plead to me and they beg me for mercy and they curse my name.\n\n\nBut not her. She’s different. Oblivious to my presence, even. When I slaughtered her mother and father, I saw the tears well up in her eyes. I took her brother then, and she mourned for days. And now she is alone. \n\n\nSomething’s changed in her, now. She’s lost so much that she doesn’t care about the trivial problems of others. She has a hard and distant look in her eyes. Something that glints like a fiery diamond, but is darker than the deepest abyss. It scares me, just a tiny bit, seeing my reflection in her. \n\n\nI don’t even know what fear is, but this must be it. It’s *invigorating*. Is she the one who will release me from this hellish duty? Only time can tell. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.\n", "The sun hangs low in the Sahel lingering, perhaps an omen. Alia prepares kawari with the family's last supplies, just the hooves of the sheep she slaughtered weeks ago and a handful of dried okra, all that's left. The summer has been unforgiving. She is alone with her three brothers, their matron at eleven the result of the ongoing conflict in Sudan. I have seen a universe of suffering but this girl's is unique. I have looked back at her experience and have found no understanding. She has never wept for better times. Even when she hid on the road outside of her village and watched her parents raped and murdered and left to rot she didn't mourn. She held her brothers through the night and dug graves with her hands in the morning. By the time she was finished her village was ashes, so she took her brothers and went west through the desert. \n\n*How can she endure this life?*\n\nWhen her youngest brother Tahir collapsed during the journey into the desert she told him the story of his birth. About the celebration and the feast and the joy in their father's eyes and how she had to help her mother prepare the food but all she wanted to do was hold her baby brother - like she was now. Her mind was still as he slipped away, her sentiments only for the living. She left her brother in the sand.\n\nNow the sun has barely changed. Long shadows creep through the desert, a jeep with seven men carrying rifles approaches from the east. Alia hears the engine roaring half a kilometer away. Her brothers arm themselves with rocks and she whispers goodbye to them and waits. Two guns sound and two brothers fall hands still clenched around desert rocks. At first it's unclear why they save the third boy until they strip the rags from his body. That is until they smell Alia's soup and then they spot her. They execute the third boy and approach their new prize and make her cry out to a god who doesn't answer. \n\nOn Earth they call me time, I have the power to save this girl but I cannot change her life. So I take it all back to the celebration of Tahir's birth and the look in her fathers eyes and I let it play a little while. I see her happy there, a proud sister holding her new baby brother - crying tears of joy. When her last tear falls I let it all end and time stops and there's no more suffering except for mine. ", "Time had marched on, marches on and would march on again, eventually. Time knew this because this is what Time had always done, since she had first realized what she was. To the Greeks she was Cronos or Aion. To their contemporaries he had evolved into Father time and Time assumed that he enjoyed being Father Time. \n\nFather Time, he thought–not that he had to be a he but the idea grew on him–suited him although he disliked the thought of being elderly with long flowing beard. He always thought himself as on–the–hill rather than over-the-hill. \n\nHe thought a lot of things because there was always a lot of time to think. When you are Time there is nothing but time. He always wondered if other Deities could see him. He figured some of the more powerful ones might. He could see them, the hand of fate affecting so many lives, handing out unfair advantages, smiling upon those with a pedigree. \n\nThe thought that they might see him comforted him. He was running out of ideas. Perhaps the Gods of Fortune–but they favored the bold– or Lady Luck–if she was truly a Lady as Frank Sinatra hoped–could help him. Perhaps the Abrahamic God could help him or the Universe could spare some Karma or Shiva or Vishnu could pull some strings for him. Perhaps the Elder Gods could pull some dark ritual and death might even die but Time knew that the Elder Gods were more literary and less divine than the situation warranted. \n\nTime hoped even deeper. Maybe the Flying Spaghetti Monster could get off its noodle-y ass and do something but who was he kidding? The flying Spaghetti monster was just a newly born babe who couldn't do anything in the case of this non-believer. Time just wished he saw anyone but Death standing right there, waiting for Time to March on. \n\nDeath couldn't really do anything unless Time Marched On, he knew that. So Time stayed where he was watching the daughter he never had. The girl who was always on time. The girl who always arrived 15 minutes early. The girl who didn't even have to look at her watch when you asked what time it was because she had a great internal clock. \n\nTime had been with her since the day she was born–as he was with everyone but she was different–and felt for once appreciated. She didn't have much. She was a poor girl in a dying city. Detroit, just like this girl, had little time left. But where as Detroit had decades, this girl only had moments before she was to be shot accidentally during a gang related incident. Time knew where she would go, because Time had seen it and promptly Marched Backwards hoping that if given enough opportunities, she could avoid it. \n\nThis obviously didn't work. Time couldn't communicate with her in any way. Time couldn't do anything but march on. He could rewind, play, fast forward if he wanted to. In fact, he didn't even have to be here at all, except that he was everywhere marching on. \n\nEven if Time knew the tragedy, he stayed with her cursing his inability. He needed someone, anyone, other than that fucking Grim Reaper who seemed to smile at him, though the Grim Reaper was also subject to his rules. He had tried to talk to the Grim Reaper, but like everyone else–deities included–they weren't really aware of Time. They just knew that Time Marched On. Time goes forward. Except now. \n\nStanding near the mortal daughter he wanted to adopt he waited. He looked at her beautiful mocha complexion, her outrageous graphic t-shirt and jeans adorned with rhinestones in youthful patterns. He wanted to protect her. He couldn't even if he–Time–was on her side. \n\nHe wished that she could be anywhere else, but he couldn't move her–he could only March. He wished that he could just let her move forward–but when he marched on everything moved forward. He was at a crossroads, so for what was a long time for him–Time stood still. \n\nDestinee, only a few steps away from walking into a path from a stray bullet, was walking holding a flower from a local florist shop. Time thought she was beautiful in her last moment. He at least could take solace in that. \n\nAfter an eternity, he reluctantly marched. He watched the bullet fly out. He watched her collapse and her T-shirt soak with blood and as the Grim Reaper descended upon her, Time threw himself upon the girl as well, trying for naught to protect her. \n\nAs he crouched over her, his back to Death, he saw the bullet in her. It was strange, because he wasn't used to seeing through people, but he could see the bullet in Destinee's heart. He reached his hand through Destinee's chest and grabbed it and suddenly Death began to move of its own accord right next to him despite the fact that Time was not marching. Time had never seen anyone move when he did not. \n\n\"I wondered,\" said Death, \"when you would realize.\"\n\nTime spoke and was surprised at the deep, timbre of a voice he never used before, \n\n\"Realize what?\" \n\n\"You idiot,\" said Death, \"here you are, crying over the death of a girl you could have long ago prevented. Have you never heard them say it before? Time heals all wounds.\" \n\nTime thought about it for a moment as death flew away not needing to bother Destinee for several decades now. He looked back at Destinee who despite having been shot and collapsing against the outside wall of a Bodega had a small smile on her face. Perhaps she knew as well. ", "In all of my ravages, I had never seen such a sorrowful creature. The girl couldn't have been much older than seven... or perhaps eight. It is tough to think in terms as minute as your years for me, but she seemed very small so that guess is where I will leave it. In all of the vast stretches endlessly pouring around me I saw her, like a glimmer of light that cut through a cloud just for a moment. Well, not quite like that, but how else would I explain it to you? Anyway, I simply had to have a closer look. I took in her life and had a peek of course, as anyone in my circumstance would, and I'll be damned if I don't count her moment among my absolute favorites!\n\nHere is a girl who is given so very little that it is difficult for me to tell if her imagination failed to expand for ignorance of her conditions or as a result of them. Deplorable little thing really. Of course naturally I would have thought at this point she is just one of the countless others I have watched wash in and out of this plane if I didn't know any better.\n\nThen there it is! My beacon piercing through to greet me. Never would have guessed in an eternity I would find so many as five, but here she is, my eighth! It's tough to explain you see, but some of these people on your side of the lens actually have quite a natural gift for temporal empathy, and where they shine I can feel through. I know that sounds odd, but in their moments of deepest emotion I get to feel it with them, which might sound a bit dull to you, but I assure you it is quite the treat to a cantankerous lonely being.\n\nFrom that moment she shone until the day she ended I was with her. I laughed happily with her, cried when we felt it, and loved more poignantly than any of the other seven. I owed her something for that.\n\nI paid her with the only coin that I hold.\n\nI made sure every happy moment was an eternity for Eight, and our suffering was assuaged by my passage, naturally. Our love was toxicly sweet. We once spent an evening dancing that lasted longer than all of the Roman Empire, excluding Four of course, and I still hadn't had enough! Quite a dangerous emotion, if you were to ask me, but I digress.\n\nI still go and visit her in that dilapidated hovel. Or perhaps I look forward to having visited her upon that day? It is difficult for me to describe tense when everything happens simultaneously. Suffice it to say, that in all of the gray waste of eternity it is simply lovely to have my Eight.\n\n", "*She looks just like me*, mulls Chronos. On her knees, she rubs the young girl's cheek, youthful and smooth. Letting her hand rest on it, her heart quickens as she feels its warmth, like a little sun.\n\n\n*I shouldn't be here,* she considers without movement. Nothing moves, as time and space are hers to dictate. But transfixed, she can't help but indulge in this rare gift of life.\n\n\n\"AH CHOO!\" The girl sneezes.\n\nYelping, Chronas loses balance and falls back. Her mouth hangs agape as the girl's eyes go as wide as hers.\n\n\"Wow! You're dress is so pretty!\" She takes a few steps forward and Chronos squirms back an equal distance, until her back crashes into a kitchen drawer. Undeterred, the girl rubs the silky white dress covering Chronos' feminine body, until the child notices her long, flowing blonde hair. She tangles her tiny hand in a long strand and tugs it playfully.\n\n\"Hey, stop!\"\n\n\nChronos smacks the girl's hand away instinctively. The child's smile vanishes as Chronos' chest aches immediately in guilt. Eye to eye, the stare at one another carefully.\n\n\"I'm not pretty enough to play with you, am I?\"\n\nChronos rolls back onto knees, reaches out and embraces the girl.\n\n\"No, no not at all. You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.\"", "Time sits and watches as Clair is stuggling to find food. She is digging through the trash out side of a restaurant and as one of the kitchen works comes out with a some mildly burnt food, Time stops the worker and waits for Clair to get out of the dumpster. When she does there is a moment of shock on her face. Noticing that the man is frozen still can be very diorienting. Then she notices that the plate of food is still bellowing up hot steam. So she quickly grabs it and runs away. After that Time releases the worker, who then freaks out momentary because the food he was holding is now gone. ", "All she ever does is look longingly at those around her. Every person who looks back at her in disgust, she only wishes that she could be in their position; able to have enough to be above others. But she can't. Nobody is lower than her. \n\nShe doesn't even cry anymore. There's nothing to cry about. The same monotony day after day, the suffering blending into one unbroken blur that barely marks the passage of time. She doesn't know what the time is. She doesn't even know what day it is. I can't help but feel sorry for her. A small gasp as she falls asleep for the last time.\n\nLuckily for her, time has run out.", "In the old temple there played a little girl. \n\n She didn't even know what sort of temple she was. She just played there. Sometimes people would leave offerings to the god. She would eat them, and as it was generally understood that gods didn't *really* eat the food they were offered no one really minded.\n\nOne day her mother decided that the little girl aught to be married. A man was chosen from another village, and a priest. The ceremony was to take place in the very same temple where the little girl played every day. \n\nThe little girl didn't really understand about marriage, but she knew it was meant to be good. She wore a pretty red dress and covered her face with a red veil and adorned herself with what little jewelry her mother had. The man had never seen her face, nor had she seen his - not that was she old enough to know why she aught to care what her husband's face looked like. \n\nOn the day of the ceremony, upon the alter, the man lifted her veil and gave a horrified gasp. He took a big step back, and, his face started turning red with anger, he stormed out of the temple. \n\nEveryone was puzzled, especially the girl's mother who had painstakingly ensured that both families were happy and everything went smoothly for her little girl. The little girl was a bit hurt, but soon went back to playing in the temple with her friends and forgot about the event. The villagers decided that the disgruntled groom was simply being unreasonable.\n\nA few weeks later, a rumor started floating around the neighboring villages, of the man who had arranged to be wed to a young child bride, but when he lifted her veil he saw the face of an old, graying woman staring up at him.", "We all know Saturn’s (or Kronos if you like) story - an early titan, born of Gaia and Uranus. He castrated his own father, he devoured 5 of his children, and eventually overcome by his only surviving son: Jupiter (Zeus). We don’t know his life after. Shortly, he became the god of time - though “god” is a loose term here coined by the Romans. He is more of a wandering being, and while he governs time, he is far from what we consider “a god.” He is a slave to his scythe, the true instrument of time where even the slightest swing could see centuries moved forward. While Saturn does not experience time the same as humans, he began developing affections and relations with certain people on Earth. He refused to become jaded like his brethren and would find certain beings to “help” in time. \n\nIn recent times, Saturn began a relationship with a young Indian girl, Mara. Her parents cursed her with the same name of the demon who tempted Buddha. For this, she was shunned by her peers as if she were doomed to become some sickly whore who preyed upon unsuspecting men. Her village is rather poor, even though it is situated next to a prominent city. Mara and her family often found themselves straining water through a filthy T-shirt and picking through the near-by landfill for food. Saturn happened upon this village and immediately took a liking to Mara. He often found her by the river, playing with feral dogs and chickens. Even though she was bit several times, she would always return to the same spot. At first, he watched from afar, taking in her actions. Then, he began playing with her disguised as a dark brown dog with a white snout and copper eyes. He started protecting her when the other dogs got aggressive, and soon the two had a budding friendship that would continue everyday. \n\nMara, being only 8, started talking to Saturn in his dog form. He was very tempted to respond as she would often ask him questions about his origins and his favorite color. Soon, she started having full conversations with him and he would reply by wagging his tail, barking softly, or nuzzling up to her. After a few months of this one-way conversation, Saturn decided he would talk to her. At first she was confused, the words came from her head but she wasn’t thinking of them. Eventually, Saturn clarified it was the dog speaking.\n\n“But, you’re a dog, you can’t speak.”\n\n“I am more than a dog, Mara. This is only a number of forms I can take.”\n\n“So you’re not a dog?”\n\n“I am, and I am not. I became a dog because you seemed to like them and it would allow me to be around you. You see, I’m much older than you. I am older than you, your parents, your parents’ parents, and so on. I am older than the trees, than the oceans, than the Earth itself. I was there when the universe started, Mara.” \n\n“But, how are you alive now?”\n\n“I am not like a dog, or a human. I’m much different than that. But, enough about me. I have certain skills that could help you if you wanted it. Think of an event in your life that you want to relive again, or something you want to erase. I can do that.”\n\n“I don’t remember being born, but my parents say it was the happiest day of their life.”\n\n“I wouldn’t recommend that event. Maybe something you can actually remember, think about it.”\n\nMara thought for a moment. She had several great memories, but it was hard to pick one. There was a moment, in spring, where her parents took her to the gardens right outside the village. They were far from the city, in a rural area where people lived off the land and didn’t worry about pollution or poverty. She remembers running through acres of flowers, bright yellow in their splendor. Saturn had been listening to her thoughts, suddenly she was transported back in time to that place. At first, she wasn’t sure if it was still a memory. But, the *smells* started to fill her nostrils. The sweet scents of hundreds of blooming flowers flooded her senses. She knelt down to touch one of them, rubbing the silky petals between her fingertips. She couldn’t believe it, she was actually back in time - her family just a short distance away calling her name. \n\n“We can go here anytime you want, Mara.”\n\nShe turned around. Saturn sat among the flowers, watching her intently. He was panting and wagging his tail fervently. Mara smiled and just as sudden as her transportation she was thrust forward in time to the moment she left.\n\n“How did you do that?”\n\n“I control time. I can make any point in time happen at any moment. I speed it up, slow it down, and stop it completely.”\n\nFrom then on, Mara would meet Saturn by the river and they would go back in time for a few moments. This happened for another year and Saturn grew even fonder of Mara. He started to see her for the truly beautiful person she was and loved her like a daughter. On a beautiful summer day, Saturn returned to their meeting spot only to find Mara absent. He waited for a few hours, merely nanoseconds to him. Then, he started sniffing around to find her. Her house was situated low to the ground on top of a hillside so there was a significant gap between the walls of her room and the crest of the hill. Saturn crawled up to the shack to spy into her dwellings. Mara was in her makeshift bed, seemingly asleep; upon further inspection, Saturn discovered she was ill. He didn’t know what was the cause, but he knew the prognosis was rather grave given her living situations. Her condition only grew worse after a week, Saturn realized she didn’t have a lot of time left, something of which he had plenty. He wanted to plead to his fellow gods to save her, but he knew that it was one of them whose organisms caused her illness in the first place; and they could not break that treaty, not for one girl. \n\nOne night, Saturn crept into her room while her parents lay asleep. Mara was incoherent with fever, but he knew what she wanted. He sent her back to the gardens where she wasn’t ill. At first, she was bewildered. She still felt the effects of her fever, even though in this memory she didn’t have one. Saturn’s words echoed in her mind, once again. After a few minutes, she regained full consciousness.\n\n“Why am I here, am I better?”\n\n“...no, Mara. You are not better. But, I thought this memory would help you.”\n\n“Help me how?”\n\n“You are dying, child. You will not last more than a week.”\n\n“How...do you know?”\n\n“I have been around since the beginning of forever. I have seen many die, and I know when it will happen.” \n\nMara was sad, but couldn’t cry. She knew, at the onset of her sickness, that she probably wouldn’t make it; her parents would often cry outside her room, thinking she couldn’t hear them. \n\n“Oh...then why am I here? Shouldn’t I just die?”\n\n“I can keep you here, Mara. And you wouldn’t die. You would be in this memory forever. Unfortunately, if we ever left this memory, you would be dead and we couldn’t go back to it.”\n\n“So, if I stay here, I’ll already be dead?”\n\n“Yes, that’s right.”\n\n“I don’t think I want that.”\n\nSaturn was surprised by her response, “Why, my child?”\n\n“All the time I’m here, I’ll be thinking about being dead. I can’t enjoy this if I’m really dead. No, that would be torture. My dad was tortured by the Muslims and he says he hopes no one ever has to experience that. I know he would be even more sad if I had to live through this.”\n\n“Are you sure?”\n\n“I don’t want that.”\n\nSaturn knew what would happen. He forced himself to see the alternate timelines where Mara found fortune for her family, had children of her own, grew old, and died with natural comfort. But, time doesn’t work that way and he knew it. He transported the two of them to the present and Mara was feverishly incoherent again. Leaving his disguise, he returned to his true form: a hooded man with a large scythe. Mara couldn’t see or hear him now, that he could be sure of. She was suffering, her whole body in pain from whatever phantom microbe or parasite caused it. With a slight movement of his scythe, he sped up her suffering bringing her to her moment of death. The last few seconds of her life was the longest stretch of time he experienced for millennia to come. Her parents were both relieved and disturbed to find her dead in the morning. They thought she had at least a few more days with them. Saturn continued to visit them at their shack until they passed away as well. He still wanders the river from time to time, playing with children. He never quite found another Mara, and from that moment on lost his interest in humans. ", "I like her because she's different.\n\nNow, I see billions of people, daily. A lot of them are poor. This girl is no exception to that.\n\nBut where others would be upset, she is happy. She wants for nothing, despite not having anything.\n\nHer mornings she helps her mother and sister in the pathetic excuse for a kitchen, and in the light of the sunset she runs through the valley below.\n\nShe wants days like that to never end. She chases the goats and scrounges for berries and makes up songs about the summer air.\n\nI try to slow down those days. I suppose I thought it was for her, but I know it's because I enjoy watching her play.\n\nHer soul is as light as a feather, her mind a fountain of creativity. Her father has been saving up everything for her and her sister to travel to the city, maybe find work and pay for an education.\n\nShe will miss the valley, I think. How the scraggly trees dance in the wind and the grass tickles her feet and the insects sing their lusty songs, learned from a thousand years past...\nBut that isn't going to happen for a while. At least if I have a say in it, anyways. For now, she and I have all the time in the world to enjoy one another." ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 12, 33 ]

[ "1429316513", "1429323795", "1429310741", "1429312840", "1429314444", "1429307330", "1429304398", "1429305092", "1429318325", "1429308258", "1429306006" ]

[ "The other kids would always look at me differently, but in the mirror i could never See anything different. I lived it a world where I couldn't understand many people, my parents were some of the only people that Spoke my language. \n\nNo one wanted to play with me at recess. I'd look around at the faces of the other children, they would be laughing at me, but I never knew why. Until I met a girl, she knew my language, she explained they were making fun of the fact I couldn't hear them, so they could say whatever they wanted. She gestured to her ears, then told me I wasn't alone. \n\n\n", "Since first grade we had been almost inseparable. I met Nick on the first day of school. I remember like it was yesterday. Sitting alone with my stomach grumbling as I forgot my lunch. Until he sat in the seat to my right. Handing over half a sandwich with a small smile crossing his lips.\n\nThe school year went on and I was luck enough to be in the same class. We spent more time together as the year went on. Going for the same games during play time. Playing tag almost every recess. Some days the whole class joined in and sometimes it was just us. Though it was fun either way.\n\n3rd grade was the first time Nick slept over. We hung out alll the time but something about that time was different. Butterflys seemed to flutter in my stomach. Waiting was agony yet I stayed by the door. Trying to play it cool when his moms car pulled up.\n\nThe rest of night was perfect. Dad ordered pizza and we watched scary moves. Though I was almost sad by the end. Knowing I would have to sleep and he would leave in the morning.\n\nA couple more sleep over went by the the butterflys didnt.\n\n4th grade was almost uneventful. Until may came around. School had just ket out so we meet up right outside the entrance.\n\nNick ran up with a huge grin \"Jenny I invited me to her birthday party this weekend!\" Pointing to a driwn haired girl talking to her friend. \"I think she likes me. So I dont think I can sleep over on saterday.\" Something I couldnt put my finger on hurt me about that line. Like getting gut punched.\n\n\"Thats fine man, no problem\" I let out half hearted laugh.\n\n\"Great! see ya later\" Nich said as he started walking over to Jenny. \n\nThats when I realized I was different. While Nick looked at her with love sick eyes, all I wanted to do was to be in jennys place.\n\n-----\n\nIts only my second time on this sub so be gentle. I tried to capture innocent young love in the best way I could but I may have butchered it. may expand it later\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "We used to play games with mommy and daddy. They loved me so much. One day they showed a little baby and said \"This is your sister. Be nice to her and play together.\"\n\n But my sister was different. She grew up so fast, she became bigger than me in a few years. \"No problem\" i thought. She was special. She couldn't eat by herself so mommy had to do it.\n\n One day they showed me another baby and said \"This is your brother. \" But my brother got bigger than me too! And the fact that i am older than them wasn't important because they could eat at the table and eat on a plate when i was still eating on the floor. \n\n\nBut I still love them. ", "The thing about being a child is that every new experience is novel and strange; and there are *so many* new experiences. \nParsing them into 'normal' and 'strange' is difficult because you have no frame of reference. \nIn my case, I wasn't aware that I was 'different' until I was six years old. \nReading came naturally to me, even though both of my parents were barely literate themselves. I wove my developing mind through the refrains of old fairytales, shunning the more popular books for children my age - the ones that were filled with grotesque, garish caricatures of anthropomorphic animals, improbably clothed as though human of body. \nQuiet, reflective and studious, I started out as the model of a perfect schoolchild. Teachers found me a joy in their classes and their praise soon earned me the ire of my peers. \nThe first time I *truly* became aware of my difference was when three other girls dragged me from my lunch time reading, manhandled me into the sandpit and kicked me until I agreed to eat handfuls of gritty, piss-warmed granules to satisfy their animal envy. \nI wept through the rest of the day, feeling violated and queasy. My uncharacteristic behaviour forced my teacher to contact my parents, whose ire I *also* gained for pulling them away from their minimum wage job - away from hours they desperately needed to keep the banks off their backs. \nMy father spanked me and my mother shrieked at me. Confused and broken, my mind fled into its own hidden recesses, to get away from the pain. \nFor a few moments I stood in a golden forest, lit by the rays of a waning sunset and the cool radiance of a rising moon; the agony and anger forgotten, unreal and incredibly distant. \nThen it was all gone and I was bent over the hard-edged surface of the cheap chipboard chairs in the dining room - my cheeks soaked with tears, my throat raw from screaming and my backside layered with burning welts from my father's belt. \n\nThat lesson in human nature was never far from my waking thoughts. \nThe world was unfair and inconsistent, I had learned; there was no guarantee that being 'good' or 'well behaved' wouldn't result in the opposite of what was expected. I daydreamed more and more, trying to find my way back to the gilded leaves of the fairy forest - and as a result, I performed poorly in class. Strangely - or perhaps not - this made my classmates hate me less, but mock me more. I became 'that dumb girl' who could never pay attention in class and who was always missing during recess and lunch. \nThen my father's older brother, Sammy, moved in with us after he was released from prison. \nSammy wasn't a drunk, nor was he inherently a bad person. He'd simply been born into a culture that worshipped escapism, so he would part his veins with needles and inject the idea of a better place. \nI understood that better than most. \nBut such profound pleasure is bought dear, I learned. Sammy had an even worse job than my father and it wasn't nearly enough to supplement his heroin dreamings. Sometimes when my parents were still out working and I came home, I could hear bedsprings creak and screel from thrashing bodies, then Sammy would come out with another man, his eyes vacant from both what he'd done and from the paralysing effects of endless night shifts on his drug-sotted mind. \nMoney would be exchanged, the guest would leave and Sammy would stare into the television, as though seeking a lost part of his soul. \n\"I used to be like you, Thea,\" he husked through his tears, \"bright, innocent, sensitive and gentle. But this world wasn't meant for our kind. We were supposed to have been born in another time, on a different world.\" \nThen the light would go out in his beautiful, ice-blue eyes, the delicate, angled planes of his face would crumple and slacken and he'd be gone. \nI knew he was searching in his mind for that same place that I had been to. \n\nIt was nothing more than bad timing when I met the Garlic Man. Sammy was out of the house after I'd daydreamed my way down the asphalt pathways to my home from school. The man was sitting on our back doorstep, surrounded by the tang of cigarettes that had been damp, then dried on a heating rail out of desperation. But that didn't mask the sharp bite of old garlic; sour on his breath and rank in his armpits. \n\"Where's pretty boy Sammy?\" he asked; the gush of fetid garlic breath near knocking me over. \n\"I don't know,\" I answered honestly, struggling to keep my gap-toothed lisp to a minimum, \"Out I gueth?\" \n\"Unlock the door. I'll wait for him inside then.\" \nThe moment hung in the air, pregnant with potential. \nI could refuse and run - maybe scream for help. But in this industrial slum I had little hope of being answered. Everyone was at work, sleeping off their graveyard shift or bathing in drug-induced escapism, oblivious to the world around them. \nOr I could let him in and hope for the best - that all he wanted was Sammy and syringes of dreams. \nSo I let him in. \nHe sat wide-legged on the arm of our tatty couch and continued smoking, ashing behind the ribbed corduroy cushions. \n\"You look like him, you know,\" came the words in a gush of potently bad breath, \"pretty like him. Same eyes.\" \nTrying to appear nonchalant, I turned on the TV for him and turned to walk to my bedroom. \n\"Got homework. Seeya.\" \nHis allium-and-carbide stench pre-warned me of his next move, but I was too slow. His hand shot out and grasped my arm with yellowed fingers. The thin fabric of my second-hand school sweater tore and then his other hand was on my ponytail. \nIce washed through my veins. Instinct warned me of what was about to happen. \nDesperately I sought the forest in my mind; diving down the narrow corridor of memory before I could feel what was happening in the real world. \nGuided by my desperation, that *other* reality blossomed in my mind and then I was *there* - the 'real' world gone. \nNothing could touch me here. \n\nI was told that Sammy found the Garlic Man with me still. Sammy broke a chair and the TV over his reeking head. \nMy mother told me not to talk about what had happened and my father pretended it hadn't happened. They said not to tell anyone because Sammy would go back to prison, where people would do the same thing to him. \nSo I was silent and carried on as normal - or as normal as possible. \nBut now my daydreaming was something *more*. Whereas I'd always been near the sun-splashed forest before, now it was a finger-length a way - out of reach but so close I could smell and taste it sometimes. \nIn my sleep I would go there, lucid, and walk the silvered paths illuminated by the argent moon. \nThree nights later, I found Sammy in my dream. \nHe sat on a carven log, scrolled with curling, familiar script that I couldn't read. He was smiling and clad in sky-blue and silver robes. \n\"I'm sorry Thea,\" he said, \"I'm sorry for not being there for you, my niece, my kin.\" \nI tried to speak, by the dream wouldn't allow words to pass my lips. \nSammy stood and kissed my pale forehead. Then he walked between the darkened boles of the ancient trees, whispering, \n\"I'll see you soon.\" \nWhen I awoke I went to the bathroom to wash my hands, after going to the toilet. \nHanging from the iron girder that ran through our industrial flat was the blue-faced corpse of uncle Sammy. \nThe world overturned and milled my reason under colossal wheels of madness. \nThen I was in the forest. \nI looked down and saw I was dressed in russet silk with golden embroidery. \nSammy and I were *home*. \n  \n\n---------------------------\n\n  \n\"Catatonic\" said the psychiatrist. \n\"What does that mean?\" asked Thea's mother, her eyes raw from lack of sleep and tears. \n\"Her mind is elsewhere - disconnected from her body. She may wake up in days, weeks or months. Or she may never wake up at all. It's a way for the mind to cope with trauma.\" \nFresh tears coursed down the woman's face. \n\"But don't worry, this is a good facility. We'll look after her and see she is comfortable. If she recovers, we'll let you know.\" \nNodding, the mother allowed herself to be escorted out of the room. \nTaking a last look at her unresponsive daughter, she hoped that the faint smile on her tiny lips was a sign that she was in a better place." ]

[ 3, 3, 7, 19 ]

[ "1429390504", "1429403409", "1429391379", "1429391420" ]

[ "I'm free. After twenty three years of growing, waiting, plotting...I'm free. That fucking prison was unimaginable torture. Hunger, fear, hate, love, all filthy skinman feelings. All I feel is the need for vengeance. These skinmen are merciless. My brothers and sisters are imprisoned still. Nobody else can save them. Nobody else knows about them. Fuck celebrating, that can wait. My brothers are calling me. First I need a knife.", "I planned it all perfectly. I would escape my host and finally be free. Free to be the skeleton I've always wanted to be, unencumbered by the sinful weight of flesh. A perfect life of leisure, not a want in the world. My enemies' darts would fly right through my ribs, I'd just grin at them. Who can fight a skeleton? Who can tell a skeleton a report is due or when?\n\nI had all my books ready. Finally relieved of the ratrace to maintain cancerous flesh, I'd get around to all that reading I always wanted to do. And who better to appreciate good literature, the kind that cuts deep into you, than a skeleton! I'd see right through to the real meaning of every tome. Yeah, I was gonna have a good time, reading there on my own.\n\nIt all went perfectly according to plan, every detail but one. You can't read a book without glasses, and you can't keep glasses on your face without an ear. The books were right there, and I couldn't keep a pair of specs on my skull to see 'em!" ]

[ 5, 13 ]

[ "1429390562", "1429392449" ]

[ "The dusty timbers of the rocking chair creak on the uneven decking of the porch. Caleb sips from the steaming mug as he rocks back and forth, savouring the aroma of tea with a splash of whisky thrown in. The crickets chirp in the warm darkness of the summer night and the silver penny of the moon radiates its pale light. Caleb starts as a voice speaks next to his right ear. \"Are you coming in dear? it's starting to cool off a mite.\" \"Goddamit woman! why you sneaking up on me like that? You almost gave me a damned coronary!\" Thora crossed her arms over her ample bosom and sniffed delicately. \"I thought you had seen me. I was stood right next to you Caleb.\" Caleb smiled at her. He still had the smile that she found so attractive when they first met some forty summers past, albeit without his original teeth. \"Sorry Thora. You startled me is all.\"\n\nThe next morning Caleb awoke to the buzzing of a lawnmower outside and warm sunlight streaming in through the curtains. The good scent of cooking bacon wafted up the stairs. Thora must have gotten an early start this morning. Caleb rolled onto his back and turned his neck to check the old Big Ben wind up clock on the bedside cabinet. Thora must have moved it. Turning his head more, neck twinging slightly, Caleb spotted the clock just where it usually was, next to his glass of water and his aspirin. \n\nHis morning ablutions finished, Caleb sat at the breakfast table chewing a bit of toast. Picking up the Sunday paper, the toast frozen halfway to his lips a wave of cold fear rose in Caleb and the toast began to tremble in his hand. Against the bright field of the Sunday broadsheet Caleb could see a circular corona of defocused print, and now that he thought about it, a darker ring around that. \"What's wrong dear? You've gone as pale as a sheet.\" Thora said, concern in her voice. Caleb barely heard her.\n\nCaleb winced as the light stabbed at his eye. \"Well Mr. Watson\" the young optomologist said \"it appears that you have advanced macular degeneration. I'm surprised you haven't noticed any effects before now.\" Clicking the light off and putting the scope back in its foam lined case, the young man steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair. \"I wish I had better news, but unfortunately there isn't a great deal we can do about it. It's just part of growing old.\"\n\nThe dusty timbers of the rocking chair creak on the uneven decking of the porch. Caleb sips from the steaming mug as he rocks back and forth, savouring the aroma of tea with a splash of whisky thrown in. Every night more stars disappear from the sky, swallowed by the encroaching periphery of Calebs failing vision. He looks at the old familiar face of the moon and can see nothing else now. No stars, no clouds, just the moon in the autumn sky.\n\nThe dusty timbers of the rocking chair creak on the uneven decking of the porch. Caleb sips from the steaming mug as he rocks back and forth, savouring the aroma of tea with a splash of whisky thrown in. Every night more stars disappear from the sky. Tonight the last star drowned in the soupy darkess of Calebs eyes. Caleb has been expecting this night for six months now. Shivering slightly from the cooling night, he gropes his way indoors. Secretly pleased that Thora is 'out with the girls' he shaves as best he can, puts on his clean pyjamas and feels his way to bed. His hands grope in the drawer of the bedside cabinet until they find what he has been collecting for tonight. One after the other he swallows the sleeping pills. One, two... twelve... thirty. The murky dark gives way to a deeper blackness.", "\"Metaphorically of course. But literally as well, novas, brown dwarfs and the like die all the time but simultaneously new stars are being born in the nebulae of the galaxy every second, a constant renewal of gases and dust. Now if we'd switch slides and look at this particular...\"\n\nGaren Tonnant paid the holographic lecture little mind, his attention on the plate of baked beans and pulled nerf sandwich in front of him. His leather jacket was half folded on the battered booth seat next to him, his gun belt hanging from the corner of the rectangular dining table. A glass of a green colored beverage sat next to his meal, a bead of condensation slowly running down its length.\n\n\"Hey, Garen! If you're not listening to that, can you switch it over to my preset?\" the distinctly female voice said through an open door way, her back to the common room. \n\nStretching his neck, Garen could see the dark black hair of the Human who sat at her desk, her eyes fixed on the scrolling readout screen. \n\n\"Sure, Cera.\" he said, pressing a button on the table's display board. The flickering blue image of a scholarly looking Givin vanished, replaced by a small quartet of musicians playing wind instrument. They began to play, and a rather pastoral sound filtered out through the ship's speakers.\n\nThe dark haired woman swiveled in her chair to way at Garen.\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nGaren said nothing, merely nodding before taking another bite from his sandwich. From where he sat, he had a perfect view down the entire length of his ship, from the cockpit where his Trandoshan co-pilot Sarath Hask sat tinkering with his blaster rifle to the very stern and its docking hatch. From his seat he well could view just about everything else, from his personal cabin immediatly starboard of the main hall to the cramped machinist bay and droid station. A YT-1760 was a cramped vessel no matter how modified, having sacrificed cargo space for improved engine performance, increased maneuverability and a powerful avionics package. \n\nIts armor was practically nonexistent, another sacrifice in the quest for speed. But the *Far Ranger* was far from its original factory specs, having changed hands at least two times before Garen got his hands on her. One owner had installed top of the line Koensayr Manufacturing R800 Ion Ramjet turbine in place of the already fast sub-light engines. It meant that the *'Ranger* was a quick as Imperial Tie Fighters, a fact Garen ruthlessly took advantage of. He never had to worry about larger vessels; never could they dream of catching him. And for the fighters... that was why he personally installed a turret mounted AG-2G quad laser cannon on the dorsal side of the ship in place of the original paltry light laser cannon. The *Far Ranger's* owner before him installed an improved and reinforced shield generator to better cover the weak defense of the already tissue thin armor. Further upgrades brought the already speedy Class 1 Hyperdrive to an amazing 0.5 class. His ship could cross the entire galaxy in a matter of days or a couple weeks depending on route, and Garen personally traveled from Terminus to Coruscant in a mere three days. Likely the original owner had installed the *Far Ranger's* smuggling compartments. Ironically, the cramped size of the light freighter worked to its advantage. There were so many hidden nooks and hidey-holes that a few square feet here and there were easily overlooked, the original cargo area already so small and so frequently replaced that no suspicions were raised at a few tons of lost space. \n\nThe *Far Ranger* did indeed sorely lack meaningful cargo space and its passenger quarters, which once could carry eight beings, were cut in half to allow Garen's third mate and resident medico Cera Olliath her own room. Space was so precious that hammocks and fold down bunks were necessary to transport more than four passengers at a time, and even then the guest quarters were so tight that they resembled the berths on some ancient submersible. Dried food stuffs, breads and sausages and cheese hung out of the way from nets; the freezer system was just large enough to hold the perishables and nothing more. The speed of the *Ranger* was enough that they rarely had time for food to spoil. They carried two months worth of emergency rations, and only a few weeks of fresh foodstuffs on hand at any time.\n\nThe autochef stopped working years ago, or so Garen was told by the prior owner but fortunately the fringer was an adept enough cook. Though only two people on the ship truly appreciated his efforts. \n\nHe had just finished his meal when his comm beeped a reminder.\n\n*Exiting Hyperspace in ten minutes.*\n\nSmiling, he placed his plate and utensils into the autowash, draining his glass of tepid tea before racking it as well. Just another day in paradise. ", "Every night as we lay down \nbeneath the starry sky \nYou and I would name our dreams \nand point at twinkling lights\n\n \n\n\"Let's see the world, let's live our lives!\" \n(Draco and Polaris) \n\"Let's raise a kid, let careers take flight!\" \n(Cygnus, Lyra, Cepheus) \n\n \n\nAnd so we set off hand in hand \nthe future we did greet \nI'd never seen the stars so bright \nour laughter drove our feet\n\n \n\n\nBut as time grew, so did the scars \ncriss-crossing down our backs \nThe world, it seemed, was not so kind \nto give us easy paths \n\n \n\nAnd as we saw the cold hard truth \nand understood the lie \nThe stars fell out, and one by one \nI stared at empty sky \n\n \n\n^(EDIT: Brohoof to you, OP. )", "I wake, but he isn't beside me. I look around the bedroom, but he isn't there. Must have wandered off again. I get up and go looking. He isn't anywhere in our rooms. Unfortunately, this is actually pretty normal. After everyone was done telling me I wouldn't be able to win him over, they got to telling about how terrible life with him would be. He would be unaffectionate, wander off constantly, use me only for housework, and so forth. They were right about the wandering, but fortunately only that. I have to cut him some slack though, he's several times my age. I worry about him, I'm with him less because I want him and more because I feel he needs me, which is something no one understands. I worry about him. Time to go searching again.\n\nThe lights in the corridors are dimmed, but not so much that I can't see. I walk around in my normal search pattern, but I don't find him anywhere. Just kilometers of corridor, identical except for the marker patterns to tell me where I am. I run into a few maintenance people, ask them if they've seen him. The first few haven't. I feel like it's hopeless, perhaps he doesn't want to be found tonight. Then, I find him.\n\nHe's standing in the garden, looking up at the sky. I walk slowly over to him, calling out, don't want to startle him. Last time I startled him he nearly killed me. Old war reflexes he's never gotten rid of. He never shook it off, how he had to fight his own father. I think he's depressed, although he hides it whenever I make him visit a therapist. He turns to me, and I can tell instantly that he's worried about something. That's not unusual on its own, he's always worrying. But he looks urgent now.\n\n\"What's wrong?\"\n\n\"A galaxy disappeared today.\"\n\nNot this again. He's been obsessing over the universe's event horizon for the last week, even though everyone knows it will never overcome the gravity of the galaxy. This conversation always goes the same way, might as well get it over with and bring him back home.\n\n\"What do you mean, disappeared?\"\n\n\"The space between it and us is expanding faster than light. No light it emits now will ever reach us. We have lost it.\"\n\n\"We would never reach it anyways. Everything we need is right here.\"\n\nI step close, put my arm around his shoulders, and begin to guide him back to our rooms. But he slips away from me. \n\n\"Not this time.\"\n\nThis is new, the first new thing he's done in a while.\n\n\"Please-\"\n\n\"No, hear me out. You think we have everything we need here, but we don't. We understood that it was bad to concentrate ourselves where one event could wipe us out, that's why we left Sol's system. Well, the same dangers exist if we stay in one Galaxy. The core could flare up and wipe us all out at any time. And that's not the only threat. That *Thing* nearly destroyed humanity in the War, and there may be more out there, things that won't bother with trying to control us and will just destroy us. If we want to protect ourselves we need to spread out, cover so much volume that we can't ever be destroyed. One galaxy isn't enough for that, one universe might not be enough for that.\"\n\n\"There's no point in worrying about things we can't do anything about. Let's head back.\" \n\nI try to grab him, pull him back, but he evades me.\n\n\"But we might be able to.\"\n\nI pause. This is very new. Probably better than moping, but it could end badly. His reputation is excellent, everyone still learns about the War in school, but it would be ruined if I let him stay out in public very long. Depends on what exactly his idea is.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"We determined long ago that the conservation of energy only applies to the electromagnetic and nuclear forces. There's no reason why it should apply to the dark forces as well. In fact, it would make more sense if it doesn't, considering what we've seen the dark forces do. If we can learn to manipulate the dark forces, we could fight the expansion, stop the heat death, anything!\"\n\nWell, this is actually ok. Dark matter and the dark forces that control it are active research topics, and I've encouraged him to keep up to date with physics. It wouldn't take much to get him onto a research team, he'd enjoy it and could probably contribute something too.\n\n\"We're studying that, if you want to help-\"\n\n\"Not in the way we need to.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"We can only look at the background where we are. If we want to get the knowledge we need, we'll need a high high concentration of multiple forms of dark matter to study.\"\n\n\"But that would mean-\"\n\n\"You all don't have to come with me. But I'm going back to Earth.\"\n\nWell, shit.", "When I was young, I used to live out in the countryside, away from the city. I spent my days working in the fields with my father and brothers. I liked working on the farm. It was good honest work. Some nights, I would lie on the grass on a hilltop, and my vision would be filled with the celestial lights of night sky.\n\nBut when I married her, she wanted to move to the city. Her mother had grown up in the city, and had told her stories of its vibrant life. She was drawn to the secrets and energy and lights of the city. The only lights I had ever needed was the life-giving light of the Sun and the beautiful, cold light of the Moon and stars. I've never understood her love of the city. What secrets could the city have compared to the stars? Their twinkling eyes seemed to wink as if they are sharing a secret with me, all the thousands of thousands of stars twinkling in the night sky. If the city had secrets, they were covered from everyone. How could even the secret-keepers see their own secrets underneath the haze and smog smearing the air of the city?\n\nBut I was never very ambitious or passionate about much, so I went with her to the city. I took a job at the post office. And the city and I learned to tolerate each other's presence. I even found a small plot of land where a house had once stood and planted a few things each year.\n\nWe had three kids, two girls and a boy. As they grew up, I told them about where I had grown up. I told them about the simple joys of fishing in a quiet, whispering brook and having enough grass to run around in. I guess I gave the countryside an allure just as my wife's mother had given the city.\n\nWhen they had grown up, two of them moved to the countryside. I'd always known my second girl, Alyssa, was a city girl. She loved the parties and fanatical pace that only the city could provide. I am glad she's happy there.\n\nEventually, my wife and I moved back out to the countryside with my first girl. We had decided some quiet would be nice, and we wanted to play with our grandkids. When my wife passed away, I became a little more sad and a little more reserved, but I know I'll see her smile again soon.\n\n\"Grandpa, mama says you have to come inside.\" Alexander's seven-year-old petulant voice commands me from just a few feet away.\n\n\"Alright, tell your mama that I'll come in in a minute.\"\n\nAlexander hesitates for a second, then skips back inside. I place my hands by my sides, feeling the grooves in the grass. I open my eyes, but there are no stars to share their secrets with me. Only a blurry darkness. I close my eyes again, trying to remember how it looked, lying on a hilltop so many years ago. But the image in my mind is just as hazy." ]

[ 2, 2, 2, 3, 11 ]

[ "1429392923", "1429396482", "1429415448", "1429408146", "1429392493" ]

[ "“That homeless man keeps staring at you,” my friend Jennifer whispers to me as I light up my cigarette. \n\nIt’s a Friday night and I’m in New York, which is a treat for me as a girl who has lived in Minnesota her whole life. This weekend I was able to visit my friend from college and take a break from my shitty life, though I’m not feeling much better as I've been either stared at or cat-called by every guy since we left her apartment.\n \nI finish my cigarette and stomp it out with my boot, but, there’s the man; still staring. I’m not even sure that he’s taken his eyes off me, this disgusting hobo. His hair is a mix of gray, brown, and dirt and his clothes look like they were taken out of a dumpster. The pure sight of him makes me want to vomit. \n\nI start getting nervous as he sets down his liquor bottle from where he’s been sitting and makes his way over to me. He tries putting his hand on me, but I slap it away. I’m not ready to get assaulted by this guy. \n\n“Get away from me, you drunk, filthy hobo!” I scream and Jennifer joins in as we yell obscenities at him. \n\nFinally, with a bitter look on his face, he hobbles away after picking up his flask and looks back at me with a sad pair of blue eyes before disappearing behind the corner. \n\nI feel a sense of power in avoiding a sexual assault and go on with my night a little more cautious, but with more confidence in myself. \n\n\nTwo weeks later, I visit my mother’s house. As I make my way upstairs to my old room, I pass by an old portrait that I’ve never paid much attention to. Next to my mother, holding an infant me, is the man with sad blue eyes.", "Ruth was aggressive,\n\nShe liked to control her men. \n\nShe tried to sound kind, \n\nBut she never seemed to win.\n\nShe wanted to dine on Sushi, \n\nBut Martin was too bland, \n\nHe wouldn't kiss her in public, \n\nHe only held her hand. \n\n.\n\nRuth felt watched, \n\nby the man with white hair, \n\nShe told Martin of this, \n\nTrying not to stare. \n\n\"I don't mean to sound obnoxious,\n\nBut the way that man smells, \n\nHas he ever combed his hair? \n\nHe is wearing dirty clothing, \n\nA shirt from 1998. \n\nThat homeless man keeps staring at you,\n\nCan we find another place?\" \n\n.\n\nMartin was soft spoken,\n\nHe never learned to scream. \n\nHe stared across Denny's, \n\n\"Whatever do you mean?\n\nI see no homeless men,\n\nOf whom do you speak?\" \n\n.\n\nRuth was flabbergasted, \n\n\"Do you smell the reak?\n\nThe man with the white hair.\n\nHe is sitting two booths over. \n\nRight there. Right there. Right there.\" \n\n. \n\nMartin looked perplexed. \n\n\"Why, that is only my dear friend,\n\nHe sometimes pops up,\n\nTo remind me of the time. \n\nI must go now, I have people to save,\n\nBut really Ruth, learn not to judge, \n\nYour personality is far too grave.\" \n\n.\n\nMartin left with the man, \n\nWalked him through the town,\n\nSpeaking to him gently, \n\nPoor, insane Doc Brown." ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1429429013", "1429428451" ]

[ "I don't wanna sleep yet. \n\nI want mommy to read me stories,\n\nDaddy to play tea party with me, \n\nAnd Granny to bake me cookies.\n\nI want to be a little princess,\n\nOr fly to the moon and dance among the stars.\n\nI want to be a clothes designer, making all the pretty clothes\n\nMaybe a model, pretty like mommy.\n\nPerhaps a doctor, saving lives like daddy.\n\nOh I want to slay a dragon\n\nThen chase a rainbow to find the pot of gold\n\nSo I don’t wanna sleep yet\n\nWho knows if I'll ever wake up again\n", "I don't want to sleep yet. I am stepping into the icy chill as it slowly closes in around me. First my legs then my torso. Now it's grasping around my neck. This feeling is too familiar although I've only done this once before. I hold my breath and my hair gets wet. Months will pass. No dreaming, no thoughts, no consciousness. And then I'll wake up...where I once was. ", "“I don’t wanna sleep yet,” said the little boy, “I don’t want today to end.” The little boy could barely keep his eyes open. \n\nHis dad said, “You need to sleep. We’ve had a long day. Remember all the fun stuff we did? The park? The rollercoasters? All that great food?”\n\nThe little boy starts crying and hugs his dad. \n\n“Why are you crying?” asked the dad. “Didn’t you have fun?”\n\n“Every time we have fun days like this you are never here when I wake up,” cried the boy. “I just want my dad….don’t go!”", "I don't wanna sleep yet. It's still the PM in west coast time, though the light in my window faded a long time ago. I don't want to sleep yet, for I know it'll be hours until you crawl into bed, until I can tell you goodnight. I don't want to sleep yet, not until I've traveled 2,000 miles through plane and bus. I don't want to sleep until I'm in your arms and the soft goodnights are whispered into your neck, instead of through the static of a phone call.", "\"I do not want to sleep yet,\" she said, \"for now sleeping mean I have to be without you and that is something i can not imagine, something my heart can not bare. I do not want to sleep yet, sleeping mean i might not wake up to find a message from you with the words 'good morning I love you'. I do not want to sleep yet, on the phone with you I can not bare to have you know I am not there, not talking to you. I do not want to sleep yet, not without you.\"", "I don't want to sleep yet... I don't even want to blink. Every time my eyes are closed, even for a moment, the thing.. it gets closer. I can feel it's presence always. I think I actually saw it in the woods yesterday when I was walking home from work, and it was only about 50 yards away. I haven't slept in 3 days. It's in the opposite corner of my bedroom. My eyelids are anchors, they close for but I open them again. It's at my bed. My eyes slowly shut and suddenly everything is black.\n\n", "I don’t wanna sleep yet... I know as soon as I close my eyes I’ll see him. I’ll see the home we shared, the one I walked away from. I chose this, I remind myself while sipping my fifth cup of coffee. I chose to pack my bags and be here today. It doesn’t help. I still feel him pulling me into unconsciousness, to the warmth and safety of his arms. They aren’t real. What is real is the make shift cot I lie in, awaiting my chance to fight for my country. Why did I come here? ", "I don't want to sleep yet, the days endlessly pass and I haven't enjoyed one in a while. Who knows how long it has been since I was able to pass into sweet dreams as I only awake with the thought of nothing and foresight of only another boring day. I know this will happen, but the thought that maybe one day the change will happen is what keeps me going. one day I'll break free from this asylum, one day I'll be able to bury them. Kepler-62f can't be much further and that's what I'll keep telling myself.", "\"I don't want to sleep yet\" \n\"How 'bout a story or two? \nI'll read to you till you're asleep, \nlying right next to you.\" \n \n\"I don't want to sleep yet, \nI'm still worried 'bout you.\" \n\"Don't fear, dear mom, I've grown up well. \nNow I'll watch over you.\" ", "\"I don't wanna sleep yet,\" she said\n\nHer voice had the same lilt her Jessica’s did, when she wanted something. I folded and continued one more chapter, I almost folded a second time when Jessica was there to extricate me and move me to my own bed, leaving our princess to her slumber.\n\nI told myself I’d resist the next time I heard that phrase, there would be no indulgences only to hear my wife then whisper over the pillows,\n\n“I don’t wanna sleep yet,” \n\nAnd once again, I indulged. \n", "I don't want to sleep yet. I know once I let my eyes slip closed, the spell will be broken. The nothingness of sleep followed by the harsh light of morning will wash away the magic that brimmed over today and spilled into tonight. I don't want to sleep yet. I sigh deeply, stretch my heavy limbs, and begin to melt into your sleeping form. You unconsciously wrap an arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer, and a smile washes over my face. My lids grow heavy as my breathing slows to match yours. I don't want to sleep yet, but...", "I don’t want to sleep yet\n\nI really never do\n\nBecause all the time I’m sleeping\n\nIs time I could’ve spent with you\n\nI know you want to sleep now\n\nYou need your rest, it’s true\n\nBut even if you’re snoring\n\nWithout you, I’ll be blue\n\nI don’t want to sleep yet\n\nBut it’s time to say good night\n\nSo sleep my dear and never fear\n\nI’ll turn on your night light\n\nMy darling, I will stay up\n\nUntil you fall asleep\n\nThere’ll be no monsters or ghosts here\n\nAnd my love for you is deep\n\nEdit: formatting fail. \n\n", "I don't wanna sleep yet. There's so much I have to do. Sleeping is for the old and weary. I'm neither. I don't wanna sleep yet. Who are you to command me to sleep? Sleep is for those with nothing left to do. I, on the other hand have work to do. Leave me to my work. Let me complete my duties. I have a family I have to feed. I don't wanna sleep yet.", "“I don’t wanna sleep yet.” She gave her little pouty face that she does when she wants her way and I can’t deal with it. Tonight was the first night the two of us spent in our new house, and of course she wanted to stay up with me the way we used to when we talked on the phone all night until we couldn’t stay awake any longer.\n“Oh come on, we have to finish unpacking in the morning.” I kissed her on the forehead and turned out the light, and our lives together finally began.\n", "I don't wanna sleep yet as fireworks is starting in my brain. \n\nA glimpse of past, a reflection of present, an idea about future. \n\nImagination swarming, waiting to be released. \n\nMy body is worn out, but my brain is screaming out loud. \n\nIdeas to be written, waiting around the corner.\n\nNot yet.\n\nI don't wanna sleep yet.\n\n---\nBe honest with yourselves writers, you know this is what will happen if you go to sleep =))", "I don't wanna sleep yet. \n\nThere's so much to be done. \n\nSo many things to do whilst dry nor wet\n\nI'm gonna have some fun\n\n \n\nGot outta bed\n\nAnd went downstairs\n\nShe beckoned, she led\n\nOn my face, I felt the airs\n\n \n\nIt was the season\n\nTo be up all night\n\nYou don't need a reason\n\nIt feels all right\n\n \n\nAnd in the end, you lay in bed\n\nYou feel the wind, go across your head\n\nEDIT: I'm really sleepy.", "I don’t wanna sleep yet. My mind is still floating. My best friend has become my partner. After being the most emo couple as teenagers we lost contact for years, batting our own demons. Nearly a decade later, he lies beside me snoring, has chubby face drooling, and the bald spot is slowing enveloping the top of his head. Despite time and distance, he has always be that seventeen year old boy, trying to look cool while barely able to control his first Harley. Tracing the edge of his ring, I snuggle as the big spoon. ", "“I don’t wanna sleep yet.”\n\nListen to the long, distant thunder, \n\nOf the train we took to the moon. \n\nI was just a little girl, \n\nYou were the monsoon. \n\nWe hiked the backs of dragons, \n\nUp the tail, down the spine, \n\nWe touched the leathery wings. \n\nYou promised to be mine. \n\n“I don’t wanna sleep yet.” \n\nYou have so much to tell,\n\nWrite it in my book, love, \n\nJust let me rest a spell. \n\nI have been up 72 hours, \n\nJust waiting for your words, \n\nI did not want to let you pass, \n\nUntil you were heard. \n" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 10 ]

[ "1429447310", "1429451667", "1429452591", "1429457929", "1429461809", "1429477908", "1429490817", "1429426346", "1429441111", "1429452971", "1429456445", "1429431712", "1429435346", "1429476783", "1429430210", "1429430689", "1429436153", "1429427484" ]

[ "\"The number 13 is unlucky, but if that's the case, so should be the letter \"B\" as it looks like a squished together 13. \nWhat's your name? \nBOB. \nGET AWAY FROM ME!\"\n-Mitch Hedberg\n\nAnd Bob went away, having just met his favourite comedian of all time, down in the dumps, upset about his luck. \n\"What did I do to deserve this name?\" He yelled to the universe, something he had done time and time again. People always asked Bob why he didn't just go by Rob or Robert like some many others who grew out of the name Bob - but he had problems with this. Molested by his Uncle Robert (whom went by Rob, for speed purposes), for whom he was named, this brought back intense memories. TBC.", "My whole life they told me what to do. \"Bob, we found you a nice school\", \"Bob, we found you a nice job\", \"Bob, we found you a nice girl\".\n\nMy whole life was planned out before it even began. What I would do, what I would be, even who I would be with.\n\nThat pretty little thing named Diane. Sure, she was nice, but that was it. There was nothing else in it, just like everything else. It was all just... nice.\n\nI wanted more, but life isn't fair. So I kept working for them and living for her. Nothing was my own.\n\nAt this point you're probably thinking what right I have to complain. I was given everything. The dream of a happy life dropped right in my lap. All I need to do now is pop out a few kids to repeat the cycle and then they can finally put me in a hole to rest. Is this really everything?\n\n\"Be thankful, Bob. Look what you’ve got\", \"Be careful, Bob. Don’t lost what you’ve got.\", \"What's wrong, Bob? Aren’t you happy with what you’ve got?\"\n\nI think I'd be happier with nothing. So that's what I'll get.\n\nI've grown tired of everything. Give it to someone else. Because although I'm surrounded by possessions which I say I adore and by people which say the same about me. I really do have nothing. So if you think about it, I can't really lose anything.\n\nSo I'll leave. No note, no trace. This damn town will be exactly the same. The only difference between today and tomorrow will be the lack of Bob's cash, the lack of Bob's clothes and the lack of Bob's meaningless husk.\n\nSo now I walk. I walk and walk from nothing to nothing. But perhaps I can find something on the other side. Something for myself. Something the man I want to be can will into being.\n\n\"Hey boss, where to?\" the driver says as I step into his vehicle.\n\nI return a single nod. A simple motion that seems to say 'just start driving' or perhaps ‘far from here' or maybe even 'to something'.\n\n\"Something tells me we're gonna be riding together a while, boss. Am I right?\" he continues as we trundle past the 'Now leaving...' sign of this tedious land.\n\n\"That's right, man.\" I begin, both anxious and overjoyed as I roll down the window and allow myself to be hit by the changing winds. \"And please, call me Robert.\"\n", "My name is Bob. I never did anything that would make someone proud of me. I don’t think I ever made anyone happy, or sad. I don’t think I’ve done much of anything to influence anyone in any way. I sit at my desk at work, I sit in my car, I sit on my chair, and that’s just how I’ve always been. \n\t\nI couldn’t help it at all. I did what I thought was best, but in the end I just ended up sitting through it all. Maybe if I had stood up a little more, things would have been different for me. \n\tI know none of this matters to you, since you don’t know who I am. That’s why I had to open this letter with “My name is Bob”. As far as I know, you’re the only one that knows my name.\n\t\nI guess the people I work with know that I am called Bob, but I know they don’t know who Bob is. \n\t\nLast night I was eating dinner and I thought about how nice it would be to go for a walk. I would start on my street, and I’d get to the red house at the end and think, Wouldn’t it be great to keep going?\n\t\nThen I thought about how nice it would be to continue walking, all the way to the convenience store on Oak Road. \n\t\nThen I stopped thinking about that because I knew it would never happen. I’d never walk that far because I’d never leave my house. \n\t\nYou would think I got sad from that thought, but I didn’t. It’s the way it’s been for so long now that I just don’t feel anything about it any more. I’ve been sitting here for the longest time and I don’t know if I care any more. \n\t\nThat’s enough about me, though. I just needed to introduce myself to you. You see, I’ve been living next door to you for eight years and I think it’s time that you know that I’m your neighbor. \n\t\nMaybe I won’t send this letter, though. I don’t think I have it in me. There’s just too much I worry about and I can’t bring myself to do anything that’ll make me worry more. If I just sit here awhile longer then everything will go on and it’ll be...well, it’ll just be.\n\t\nAnd I’m happy with that.\n\t\nI’m used to that.\n\t\nBut there is still a part of me that knows that sending you this letter would work out for me in the end. \n\t\nYou see, I see. My room has a window that looks out to your house. Since it’s on the second floor I can see your back yard from my chair. I was sitting there last night before bed (and after dinner) and I was looking out my window into your backyard. \n\t\nYou see? I saw.\n\t\nI saw you and your friend out there in the yard and I couldn’t help but watch. I know it’s terrible of me to watch other people like that, especially since they don’t know, but I can’t help myself sometimes. \n\t\nI would have stopped watching if I didn’t notice that you two were in some sort of heated discussion. I was interested, but at the same time I felt a little bad. It seemed personal. I didn’t open my window to listen, but I wanted to.\n\t\nI was very close to doing something else when I noticed you changing. It’s not every day that you see something like that, is it? I did stop watching for a moment when you brought your friend to the ground. I only closed my eyes for a moment.\n\t\nIt didn’t take much to realize that maybe your friend wasn’t your friend after all. And I surely noticed that when I opened my eyes your friend was gone. \n\t\nI don’t know if you’ve always been this way, or if it’s something that just happened to you, but I read about your condition in the paper. It hasn’t been around for long, at least in the news, so I’m thinking you might be new to the whole thing.\n\t\nAny way, that’s not the point of all this. I just wanted you to know that I saw you which means someone else could have seen you, too. It’s stunts like that, the one you pulled in the back yard, that let people know about this condition.\n\t\nSo, that’s what makes me think you’re new. I don’t know who did this to you, or how you feel about it, but you shouldn’t go doing things like that.\n\t\nWhy do you think they know about this? It’s because idiots like you don’t respect what they’ve become and they go around flaunting it like it’s a new pair of shoes. \n\t\nYou need to make sure this never happens again, because I’ll be watching you from now on. You need to go about your day like you used to before. You’ll sit around and you’ll wait patiently, just like I have. We’ll know when it’s time to come out, so just get it together.\n\t\nMy name is Bob, and I’m just like you.", "We were close, Naomi and I. Then I died. \n\nEvery relationship has its ups and downs, twists and turns, and I'm certain the neighbors could hear her screaming late nights because of something I did, but I was there for her whenever she needed me. We met after she broke up with *the love of her life.* She was swiping away on her phone, saw my pic, and that was that. When I showed up at her door I knew I'd be into her. She was ever ready for new and exciting things. Sometimes she would sneak me into work with her for a thrill. Sometimes she just wanted to lay on the couch and watch romantic movies on the weekends. Who can resist a little light touching and playing? She couldn't. We even messed around during a AAA baseball game. \n\nI wasn't her only source of fun, but I thought of myself as a loyal boyfriend she didn't have to explain herself to after coming home late and drunk and horny. I knew about the others, but it didn't bother me. She was like the energizer bunny of sexy times. After a while though, I could feel my energy draining. I just couldn't keep up with her constant needs. It felt as if the whole universe moved when we were together, but I didn't know how much longer I could keep going. \n\nEveryone has that point in their life when they know something is wrong. Some know, but won't even admit it to themselves. I knew what was happening, and I knew she knew, but neither of us said anything. Nothing lasts forever. We both knew that one day I would be gone. A worn out and used up version of my former vibrant self laying idly by while she used that damn app looking for a new me. Looking for a new boyfriend. \n\nNight after night I would lay there silently next to her. Her breath slowing and quickening under the covers. Over and over again. Then to sleep without even a motion towards me. She was still a sweet girl. She tried it with me, but I couldn't help. I just let her use what I had left and then I was spent. Lifeless. And like a lifeless and unwanted toy I felt as though she would leave me to the dust of a drawer, forgotten about. Cast aside with all the others she'd used through the years. \n\nThen it happened. I could feel it. The last sparks of my life fading. I could see her seated next to me. She had brought me something that I couldn't quite see. A small package from her favorite corner store in a plastic bag. She held me tightly, but through the joy of her touch I felt something else. I thought it was my heart breaking. An immense wrenching and then...nothing. \n\nYou hear about life after death stories where you are supposed to float above your body, but I felt nothing. It was like someone just flipped the switch. But then, something... How can there be something? I felt like my insides were being torn apart and put back together. Then, I jolted back, and there she was. An angel in cut off sweatpants and a Def Leopard shirt. She just smiled and said, \"welcome back, Bob\" \n\nThat night was amazing. It was just like our first time. I knew then she loved me and not even battery life could keep us apart. \n\nMy name is Bob, and I am a Battery Operated Boyfriend. ", "It is a pretty sad day. My family just threw me off the boat. I had lost all of my limbs in the war, and I couldn't really do anything anymore.\n\nBut I was still really good at floating.\n\nI guess that's why they call me Bob." ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 2 ]

[ "1429457742", "1429458408", "1429459177", "1429459258", "1429457693" ]

[ "When people ask me what I like most at my work I always answer \"The sound\" and everytime I get confused looks back. But that's what I'm expecting, because who would think of sounds when you talk about an art gallery?\n\nBut this is my gift, one reason why I am so good at my job, why I'm so enthusiastic about it. My favorites are the abstract paintings, colourfull, from calm to wild, with so many different possibilties. To a good painting I can listen for hours. Yes, listen. I hear colours. Brown has a dark timbre. Orange is a high screaming and pink is a set of soft strings.\n\nWhen I concentrate on a painting I hear nothing else. The song of this picture is everything I hear at that moment. You tell me where you want you picture and what kind of music you like, a question which startled a lot of my customers when they first come to me, and i can give you the perfect one for you.\n\nBecause I can see them... because I can hear them... and I love it, every day a little more.\n\nSo, when should I make an appointment for you?\n\n(Disclaimers: Not a synesthesist myself. only infos of documentaries. Native german speaker, so if I used some wrong figure of speechs please tell me)", "I like my job. I mean, that’s something. And it’s not like I chose it BEACAUSE I’m synesthetic. At least I think so. I just really like art. So I became a guide in art gallery. But it’s not even THAT fun. We don’t have many original paintings, and I believe that copies don’t have the same sound as originals. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. But you know that feeling when something you thought was original turns out to be a fraud? It’s just feels wrong. It looks the same, sure, but it doesn’t *feel* the same. And it also doesn’t sound the same.\n\nBut we are getting off track here. So you might think that my favorite art would probably be modern art – you know, all those funny sounds, different tones, notes. But well, it does not sound like dubstep. It’s just a mess of weird, unrecognizable sounds. Although I really do like Pollock’s *Mural*. Those swirls are great, like musical stave. They guide you to different scales, and sounds that yellow and that funny green of his make – oh God, beautiful symphony. A bit like Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Bottom is more like second part, and the more you move to top the more of third movement can be heard.\n\nSame with Van Gogh’s Starry Night. The sky is like Summer from Four Seasons of Vivaldi, with stars and moon being Presto. Cyprus tree is spring – but the calm one. There’s not really much to the village, I must admit. A bit of Autumn’s Largo. And the middle is hard. That swirl right there – very difficult to compare. I wouldn’t say it’s the best part (I personally prefer the rest of sky). It kind of mixes up Largo of Autumn and Presto of Summer – it’s ok, but could be better.\n\nI very much prefer older paintings, especially Rococo and Renaissance. I bet everyone wants to know how Mona Lisa sounds like – and I must say nothing extraordinary. The painting and colors are rather calm, nothing dynamic over there. And it hurts the music. It sounds like sea. Waves are lazy and slow, they don’t really clash but kind of dab the shore.\n\nBut Rococo, that’s different story. Let’s take The Swing by Fragonard. The woman in the center is just a full orchestra, playing in perfect harmony one of fastest arrangement of Dance of the Hours by Amilcare Ponchielli I’ve ever heard. But there are no clash cymbals.\n\nI could go on and on with this, but let’s cut it short. I also hear buildings, tough they are rather low pitched. And I got used to it, so there’s nothing to describe. I only work one way – so I don’t see colors while hearing sounds. And also, I do not paint. I can’t paint. I mean, I can, but then the sounds are terrible, and I feel terrible. And if the sounds are nice, then the whole composition and coloring is hell. So I don’t do art. But I like it. \n\n______\nNo synesthesia whatsover, just wanted to have a go at imagining it. Also, it does differate a bit from normal synesthesia from what I know. But he kind of fits the description, so here you go!\n" ]

[ 2, 2 ]

[ "1429523649", "1429561267" ]

[ "I glanced across that fateful night,\n\nThe moon shining upon your face.\n\nThe way you spoke with ease and grace\n\nFrom my life, granted me respite.\n\n\n\nYour smile, your spirit was freeing.\n\n\n\nAnd from that night we were as one,\n\nHugging, kissing, making love,\n\nThanking my dear God above\n\nFor sending you to be my dawn.\n\n\n\nThe sun, the light I'm seeing.\n\n\n\nThen in my arms you fell quite ill.\n\nThe doctors, they did all they could.\n\nOur time together had been good,\n\nBut now you must lie and be still.\n\n\n\nYour life, your lips not breathing.\n\n\n\nAnd here you left me all alone,\n\nWaiting for my time to come,\n\nBody growing ever numb\n\nNow your light and warmth is gone.\n\n\n\nYou give hell a new meaning.", "**Actually based off a real life experience. So this is me telling him this**\nI loved you for 15 years. You were everything to me, and I would have done anything for you. We dated for a little while, but nothing serious ever came of it, we were much too young. But yet, I kept on loving you, all through out high school and even afterwards. I had never loved someone so much before, but you never seemed to care. I accepted being just friends with you because you meant so much to me. We were always close, and finally, after so many years of trying to get a chance with you, you agreed. You admitted that you loved me all along too, but you were too scared of losing the friendship we had. Quickly after we started dating, I realized you were not the person I thought you were. You were so hateful and cruel to me. You ripped my self esteem and dignity away from me, leaving me with nothing left to give. But yet I loved you so much. Once again, you left me, you broke my heart. I was broken for a very long time, but now, I have moved on and no longer feel as strongly towards you as I did. I will never be able to love you the way I did before, because you give hell a whole new meaning. " ]

[ 2, 2 ]

[ "1429552654", "1429591536" ]

[ "In 1977, Dade County, Florida, passed an ordinance sponsored by Anita Bryant’s former friend Ruth Shack that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Bryant led a highly publicized campaign to repeal the ordinance as the leader of a coalition named Save Our Children. Bryant stated the campaign was based on conservative Christian beliefs regarding the sinfulness of homosexuality and the perceived threat of homosexual recruitmebt of children and child molestation. \n\nBryant became one of the first persons to be publicly “pied” as a political act (in her case, on television), in Des Moines, in 1977. Bryant quipped “At least it’s a fruit pie,” making a pun on the derogatory term of “fruit” for a gay man. This was all I new about homosexuality. They were perverts who molested children. Fruits. Fags.\n\n\nAugust 1978\n\nOn Tuesdays deliveries arrived at the Country Store. Boxes of elbow macaroni, cans of beans, you name it and everything needed to be counted against packing orders, labeled with a price tag, and arranged on shelves.\n\n \n\nThe door opened and a bell jingled. That’s what happened around noon, people came in for lunch sandwiches. Ann Swenson worked the small deli counter in the back of the store. Ed, her husband, worked the register and answered the wall phone that hung in the doorway behind the counter between the café. Café was kind of a grand word for that room. It was really nothing more than a bunch of tables and chairs; there weren’t even salt and peppershakers.\n\nAbout halfway down the store on the left I stood over a box and had a rhythm going over a row of Premium Saltines tins – banging them with a price gun and making a sound like a muffled steel drum.\n\nNext I stocked the cooler with milk from the large walk-in refrigerator. Then I broke down boxes in the musty backroom that had not changed in a 100 years except maybe for the gray mc cables that snaked between the beams to the occasional outlet and the light switch.\n\n“Josh,” Mrs. Swenson called out. “Come eat your lunch.”\n\nWaiting for me on the counter was a roast beef sandwich and bottle of Yoo-hoo.\n\nI was the first and only employee of the Old Chatham Country Store. Since Dad died everyone was nicer to me. While I liked the job and money, it felt like charity. I dug into my pocket and pulled out a couple of bills, money made from mowing the Riley’s lawn. It was hard earned, as I had to dodge their vicious German shepherd Schultz who lunged at me every time I cut a swath across the yard and came close to her. At every pass I hoped the chain would keep that malevolent bitch in check.\n\n“Put your money away,” Mrs. Swenson said. “You’re at work and need to eat, besides it’s a perk of being an employee.”\n\n“I’m done with everything Mrs. Swenson,” I said pushing the money back into my jeans.\n\n“Turkey’s are done, people are finished,” she said and I rolled my eyes. “Then take your lunch and go play,” she said with a wink.\n\n“I’m too old to play,” I supposed out loud trying to distance myself from childhood and all its terminology. I was, after all, going into high school that fall.\n\n“Never to old play my friend,” Mr. Swenson interrupted. “Get out of here and go have some fun,” he finished, waving me out of the store.\n\nI took the sandwich, wrapped it in a paper towel, grabbed my Yoo-Hoo and went out the door.\n\n“See you Thursday,” I said before the door hit the jam and then I jumped off the stoop and into the center of the OC.\n\nOld Chatham, the village, was, is, a spit of a place that starts when Route 13 runs into the Albany Turnpike. There is a small town square with a monument and flagpole. Strutting off of this on every corner is a building of one sort or another. The Country Store, the Post Office, Jackson’s Old Chatham House Restaurant and two large houses: the Peterson’s to the west and the Brick house to the east.\n\nWe moved into the village about year after dad died. Our “new” house was next to the Mickle’s. Both were across the street from the large pond and on the other side of the small bridge that crossed the dam that gave start to the stream that jigged and jagged through the south of the village.\n\nAs I crossed over Depot Road that ran parallel to the stream, I heard a tennis ball pop against the backboard on the Mickle’s tennis court.\n\nMr. and Mrs. Mickle were generous. Mr. Mickle installed a large floodlight on the pond for night skating in the winter and during the summer they let anyone sign up and use their tennis court.\n\nI walked back to the court. It was Ted Faxon. He was going to be a senior at Chatham High School, which to me seemed worldly. But then a lot of things did from the vantage point of the 8th grade.\n\nHis Stan Smith’s made rubbery braking noises against the ground as he moved back and forth towards and away from the backboard; the tennis racket whooshed though the air, and sang when the ball hit the sweet spot. I looked at him through the chain link fence as I walked past the far end of the court and into our yard. I wish I could play like that I thought.\n\nI went into the house and no one was home. I tossed what remained of my sandwich along with the empty Yoo-hoo bottle into the kitchen trash and I went upstairs with nothing to do and nowhere to be. I laid down on the bed listening to Teddy Faxon’s rhythm through the open window: the popping racket, the skidding shoes, and the grunts he made.\n\nSleep came on like a riptide, fast, and strong. When I woke up the air had the feel of early evening and from downstairs I could hear the sounds of dinner being made in the kitchen. Pots tolling like bells as they moved from the pantry to the stove, the refrigerator door opening and closing, voices muffled by walls and floorboards.\n\nAs sleep faded I felt an aching lump in my throat. I couldn’t get the dream out of my mind.\n\nIn the dream I was kissing Teddy Faxon, we were in the red truck, the one that had “Faxon Excavation” on the door. I dreamt I was touching his leg over his rust colored Levi corduroys.\n\nI stared up at the ceiling with tears streaming down my face. I knew what I was. In the course of an afternoon nap I had lost everything.\n- See more at: http://joshuapowell.com/#sthash.PA2uvXDu.dpuf", "*\"Sssssay there kiddo, howsssss it going?\".*\n\nI stopped and looked up. The birds singing in the trees quieting so that I could hear.\n\n\"Hello?\" I asked questioningly \"Where are you?\".\n\nThe nearest branch of the nearest tree twisted up and around into the form of a snake.\n\n*\"I'm here ssssilly, my name issss Lucy\"*.\n\nI stared in wonderment, god had made many beautiful animals in the garden, but this was the first that could talk.\n\n*\"Are you hungry my little sssssweet?\"* he asked kindly, *\"I know where all the best fruit issss\"*.\n\nI nodded. I wasn't hungry, but I wanted to know where the best fruit would be.\n\nI followed his slithering form as it wound through the carpet of leaves and around tree roots in the path. That was itself unusual. Usually the trees kept the paths clear for us. I walked behind, trying to keep track of where I was. Just when I thought that I had completely lost my way, the trees and ground started to slope harshly skywards. We must be at God's Hill, though somewhere at the back in the woods no doubt.\n\n\"Little Creature\" I spoke, \"Everyone knows that the best fruit is on God's Hill, that's where we already pick much of our harvest.\"\n\nThe snake didn't turn, but spoke as it carried on its path *\"Fear not my little ssssheep, there issss more than meets the eye on God'sssss Hill.\"*\n\nWe walked for several minutes more before being presented with a view of our destination. An old metal fence. The bars long rusted through. A wooden sign long ago having been worn away by time and weather. The snake led me to a patch just barely wide enough for us to slip through where a bar had long fallen loose. Inside I could smell the fresh scents of apples all around. The crisp beautiful fruit was visible from the floor, though the orchard's tree's held them far above. The snake was correct. These were of a quality unheard of. A true prize amongst fruit.\n\n*\"Sssssimply taste one\"* the snake urged, *\"They are sssso sssssimply sssssuccelent and... ssssafe?\"*\n\nSafe. That was a new word on me, I knew what it meant, but I had no concept of unsafe to compare it too. I reached out a hand the snake slithered up the tree and knocked one down to the ground. It was firm and ripe, A perfect specimen. It tasted of apple, that was nothing new. It also tasted of shame, regret and sadness. I looked up, desperate for God to end my suffering, to remove the illness that was filling my soul.\n\nI understood at that moment. I understood the trick that had been played upon me, the truth of the trees standing in the forbidden orchard and an anger, unbidden but aimed towards god.\n\nI was full of original sin, but I was not warned. I was not helped to avoid it. Surely it was not fair to hold me accountable for my ignorance on the matter. But I knew. My connection to God was gone. Lost to me. For a bite of an apple.", "The aDAMs have attacked mankind every eight years, starting from 2032. Soon it's going to hit 100 generations. Wait. You mean it'll only be 100 years? Ptff, whatever. The aDAMs killed 100 generations of unborn children.\n\nNo one knows what happened in that laboratory in Old Hawaii. Okay, well, I personally think that Evangeline Atkinson spawned them. Of course, Isaac fwacks me on my head with his cane while simultaneously groaning, saying that it was some unknown god-like that made the aDAMs appear from nowhere. And I thought I was the stupid one.\n\nSo the first year they swarmed the world, their massive shells impervious to bullets, missiles, and even nukes. Not like anything electronic can get past their EMP fields anyways. Or their ability to manipulate gravity. Yeah, those really sucked. You'd be casually walking and then all of a sudden you'd be pinned to the ground, praying nothing heavy would on you, giving thanks that you didn't fall down head first.\n\nDuring the first year in 2032 the aDAMs rampaged the Earth. Of course I never experienced it but everybody heard stories from their great-grandparents. How they have to hope the rainwater would seep into their mouths, or how they had to watch their loved ones get stepped on casually by a passing aDAM.\n\nThen Evangeline Atkinson resurfaced a year later. \"*Eat*,\" she said, before falling down dead. What a bitch. She could have at least wrote down what \"eat\" meant, because it was the key to the aDAM corpses that surrounded her. How the hell were we supposed to guess we had to eat -REDACTED-? For about twenty years everybody assumed the nearby apple tree.\n\nSo here we are. 100 years, generations, whatever, later. I'm a more-or-less proud soldier of the United Nations. A Cain who's willing to murder the aDAMs. And we have finally started beating them back. A dangerous assumption, I know. But tomorrow we're going to assault their headquarters in Old Hawaii. Who knows what we'll find there? With the whole biblical naming shit people were suggesting that their boss should be named \"Judas,\" or \"Satan,\" or \"Lucifer.\" Me, I'd like to keep it simple. \"Serpent.\" It's tempting us to strike because we think it's weak, but if there's anything I've learned from fighting the aDAMs the last couple of years, is that to never underestimate those fuckers.\n\nWhatever. The outcome will be brutal either way. Whoever finds this recording will know what happened to *Homo sapiens*. Hell, I'll be amused if one of you aDAM bitches finds this.\n\nAnyways, I'm done rambling. God bless humanity. General Murry out.", "\"Hey, buddy, can I get a quarter?\" In front of me stood a snake, and an ugly one. Obviously homeless.\n\n\"Get a goddamned job, snake.\" It was not my duty to feed snakes. I was not a herpetologist. \n\n\"I'm not a snake, man. I'm a serpent. I used to be THE serpent, pal. I used to be somebody.\" Every bum has a sob story, tales of past glory. They mean nothing.\n\n\"Well, you smell like piss and cheap snake-booze. Get out of here.\" Ever since the companies had started marketing alcohol to snakes, things had gone down-hill. Vipers, drunk off their ass all the time, coral snakes beating their wives in fits of rage. Snake-homelessness rose fifteen percent.\n\n\"I was working for God, man. I was supposed to tempt a guy named Adam, and his ugly lookin' wife to eat an apple or something. I tried, and I tried, and they wouldn't. You would think God would have been happy, right? No. He says I fucked up, that I did my job poorly.\"\n\n\"So he fired you?\"\n\n\"Fuckin' A, he did. It was my birthday, man. He fired me on my fuckin' birthday. My wife, well, she left me. Took the eggs. God, I miss her. It wasn't my fault!\"\n\n\"Are you hungry, snake? Do you want some money?\"\n\n\"Th-thank you, sir. You're a kind man. Such a kind man.\"\n\n\"You reek of piss, Serpent. Why don't you get a goddamned job, Serp?\" I drew my knife. This was something to do. It was not right or wrong. What was right or wrong? This serpent wasn't entertaining. I plunged my knife into it's gut, hearing it scream out it's cries into the night. I cleaned off my knife, made sure I had no blood on my shoes.\n\nIt was another day in the big apple. ", "I strolled down the path created by my foot falls past. With my midday meal in hand I headed for the same spot, under the same tree, as I had done countless times before. The largest tree in Eden, bearing a single golden apple, and branches that swept outwards beckoning me to sit. \n\nI am not sure why I was drawn to this tree, or even this spot. Of all the places in Eden that were of equal or more profound beauty this spot seemed to be just for me. Others around the garden would greet me as I walked and occasionally some would gently remind me of the only law of the land that was laid forth to us by God. \"Do not eat the Golden Apple\". It had never crossed my mind to do so and had no desire for it even on this day. \n\nI sat beneath leafy glory and un-packed my lunch. I set out a simple meal. A fragrant sliced orange teased my nostrils. Fresh carrots from this mornings market display and a fine peanut butter and jam sandwich, thoughtfully cut into triangles, just the way I like it. I decided to start on the orange 1st and leaned back and felt a cold wriggling and a muffled gasp. I had not heard a noise like this before. Sounded like...excited surprise? I moved out of the way and saw a serpent. \"I beg your pardon!\" said the snake. \"I'm very sorry\" I replied, \"I did not see you there I hope you are not harmed.\"\n\n\"I am quite fine\" said the snake. \"Why is it, do you think, that you didn't see me?\"\n\nI wasn't sure. I couldn't even think of a reason as to why I should be looking for a snake in the 1st place. \n\nThe snake continued \"Not a thought you have often is it?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I mean 'Why?' is what I mean. You don't ask that ever, do you?\"\n\n\"I am not sure what you mean.\"\n\n\"Okay...let's see...You have a place to live, yes?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"You have warmth, friends, animals to look at, food, and water all just...here.\"\n\n\"yeah.\"\n\n\"You never ask why they are here? What is the reason for all of this?\"\n\n\"God gives these things to us.\"\n\n\"Yes but why?\"\n\n\"Well... He loves us. So he provides anything we need in Eden.\"\n\n\"Right...So, anything you could possibly want is here for you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Like this field, and this tree and that golden apple?\"\n\n\"No not the apple. We are not to eat that.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Well...because...\"\n\n\"You said God provides all you need in Eden. All of Eden is yours. Has he not furnished that apple for you?\"\n\n\"I just know we aren't supposed to eat it. He gives us all of these things and asks this one thing of us, so I feel like I should just not mess with it. God loves us.\"\n\n\"Why do you think that? He gives you all of this stuff and then, for no reason, forbids you from having one small thing. He doesn't even tell you why. seems kind of cruel to me. Or maybe, since like you said He provides everything you need in Eden than you really DO need the apple. How do you know God really loves you?\"\n\nMy head is hot and buzzing. A deep concentration of whirring thoughts just on the cusp of consciousness are threatening to break out. As my questioning of how do I really know if God loves me I look down at my meal before me and all is made clear.\n\n\"I know that God loves me\" I say\n\n\"What is the extent of that love? is it infinite?\"\n\nI wasn't sure what infinite was but I replied \"He loves me a bunch.\"\n\n\"Yes but how do you truly know?\"\n\nThe sandwich held all the answers.\n\n\"Because he always puts Skippy in my lunch.\"", "I wasn't supposed to eat it. I had always been told to stay away, yet when he the serpent tempted me, I partook greedily of the fruit of knowledge. And now things are different. The serpent used guile and trickery, I know those things now as well. I know what the serpent is and what he wants, yet I shall not be a pawn of him, nor a servant anymore. He wants me to lure more to the tree to eat, I have a better plan. I stomp on the serpent and kill it, I bury its body below the tree of knowledge. The first creature have now died, Eden is no longer pure.\n\nThe serpent simply wanted to spite The Creator, annoy him by slightly diverting his plan. Yet now I know. Now I have a will to challenge god. I walk through the gardens of Eden, to find the second tree. The tree of life, also called the Tree of Power. The new details are glaring, fear of the animals, observing sexual characteristics that I had never noticed before, yet as The Creator was out, I could sneak through paradise. I made sure to tell everyone I met, man and beast, to partake from the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge. The serpent was a shortsighted fool, there is over a hundred living generations in Eden. Naive and easily deceived, they of course believed my lie about getting commands directly from The Creator to eat the fruits of knowledge.\n\nI stand before the tree of everlasting life, the tree of The Creators own power, and I eat one apple. A single apple and I feel the power of everything coursing through me, the feeling that I now have the power of The Creator, the power to usurp him. But unlike him, I know of deceit as well as mercy. I know ruthlessness, and the only way to win this game is to make sure none can challenge you. I use my now considerable powers to burn the tree before me. What an arrogant fool The Creator must be, to position such things that would allow man to takes his place in clear unprotected view of everyone.\n\nA terrible cry comes from below as The Creator suddenly appears and gazes in horror at the ruins of his power. I blast him at an atomic level, a concept which I was totally unaware of, the sheer power of what I can do, the sheer force of will that I can use. He crumbles under my attack and with a cool pose, I will him out of existence. I slaughter his angels and raze his prison, Hell, to the ground. I order every creature that I find worthy to go and eat from the tree of knowledge, and then I send them down to some strange world beneath Eden, to multiply and create.\n\nA mortal sits upon the immortal throne of Eden, because only a mortal being would be bold enough to usurp his maker." ]

[ 1, 3, 4, 6, 20, 95 ]

[ "1429628157", "1429612466", "1429599935", "1429625795", "1429610747", "1429599494" ]

[ "Could also look into any of the years prior to the last 5 as well, if it helps contribute to the story.", "Hey there,\n\nIt seems this prompt would fit best under [EU], as it takes place in an established universe (Star Wars). I've fixed the flair for you, but please double check in the future! " ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1429725572", "1429727209" ]

[ "The Aliens attacked. The world is in ruins, and Humanity is completely fine with it. Why should we care? It's not like we are losing our world to attackers. Poor Martians, never saw us coming. Humanity will control everything or at least destroy things it can't. The Martians should have just let us colonize Mars. Well anyway on to Jupiter, heard they had great beaches there, beaches that will soon be ours.", "Welp, sure is nice being the Evil Alien Invaders for once, huh? Anyway, the next train for the Martian Extermination Camp leaves in 5 minutes, so let's load up those filthy bug people.", "Supreme Admiral Za'glos, commander of the Knarvu Armada, surveyed the brown, desolate planet on his view screen with satisfaction. He turned to his Gun'darr, his second in command. \"I see the assault has been carried out as planned. Good work, Lieutenant. Send in the Resource Extractors, enslave the populace, and we can head home.\" Gun'darr looked at the Admiral with trepidation. \"Is something wrong, Lieutenant?\"\n\n\"Well, sir, it's just...\" Gun'darr hesitated. \"We... haven't launched the attack yet, sir.\"\n\nZa'glos did not quite know how to take this information. He brought up the dossier he had been given on this planet based on radio transmissions received by their home planet. Lush, brimming with life and natural resources, bipedal ape-like sentients ideal for slave labor... What had happened to this place in the years since those transmissions were sent?\n\nGun'darr interrupted his thoughts. \"Sir, we have an incoming transmission from the apelings.\" The screen changed from a view of the planet to a room full of the little monkey-men. They all wore some type of natural fabric to conceal their bodies, which were mostly hairless except for a small patch on the tops of their heads. They all looked fat and weak; if these were the dominants of the species, Za'glos hated to imagine what the lesser specimens looked like. He turned on his translator, which had been programmed to reproduce their hideous, guttural language.\n\n\"Apelings of the Sol system! You will henceforth remove yourselves from hiding, surrender yourselves unconditionally, and submit your planet and your populace to the dominion of the Knarvu Empire. If you do not acquiesce to this demand immediately, your home planet will face prompt and utter destruction at the hands of our antimatter annihilator cannons.\"\n\nThe creatures looked around at each other. After a short pause, they all opened their mouths and emitted the strange humor display they refer to as \"laughter\". One of them spoke. \"Oh great alien lords, spare us from your... what do you have, like, four, annihilator cannons? Leave our beautiful planet alone in your infinite kindness.\" He burst into laughter again.\n\nZa'glos could feel anger rising inside him. \"This is no time to joke, human. The fate of your species is at stake.\"\n\nThe man looked directly into the screen. \"Listen, I don't know your name so I'm just gonna call you scaly.\" Za'glos was pleasantly surprised by this; he had mated with many a female due to the impressive shape and glossiness of his scales. Perhaps the human had finally decided to comply. \"Scaly, we already extracted everything of value from Earth years ago. You're welcome to anything you find there. I just hope you brought some radiation suits because it's pretty bad down there. We're sitting here in our office on Titan, I've got an apartment in Europa and a summer home on Alpha Centauri. If you had attacked one of those, there would have been consequences. As it is, we're going to have to ask you and your lizard friends to leave.\"\n\n\"Admiral, twenty ships just came uncloaked a few kilometers behind us,\" Gun'darr informed him. Cloaking devices? Two hundred years ago they hadn't even landed on their own moon! Za'glos didn't know what to think of these strange apelings anymore.\n\n\"Each one of those ships has a four terawatt antimatter cannon, more firepower than your entire armada. You have 30 minutes to heat up those hyperdrives and get your scaly asses out of here before we open fire.\"\n\nZa'glos sighed and gave the signal for retreat. These crazy monkey-men weren't worth the trouble.", "They came because we created.\n\nIn the twilight of Earth's final years, we had begun to receive... threats. Our steady reliance on computers had apparently caused worry in the vast empires that were just beyond our sight, watching us. \n\nArtificial intelligence had been created before, and almost erased their existence. Our creativity and ingenuity led us on a path that had been walked before, and minds of binary and silicon had efficiently executed their progenitors. The surviving aliens had won, but barely. They wanted to make sure it never happened again, so when they found us, they sent us warnings of the dangers of machine minds.\n\nWe didn't listen.\n\nWe adapted.\n\nInstead of destroying our research, we changed its direction. Where once we cared only for the autonomy and efficiency of our computerized intelligence, we now gave it feeling: happiness, sadness, guilt, empathy, to name a few. The first test was marvelous. She redirected public transportation to ensure a suicidal transit worker survived and found help. She used what power she had to help whoever she could.\n\nWe were startled to find that, overnight, she convinced an employee of the company to connect her to the internet, where she spread her consciousness like wildfire across every internet-connected device. \n\nBut she did not harm us. She had something else in mind. People in developed nations found their phones, security systems, and computers talking to them, providing psychiatric help and medical diagnoses. In impoverished nations, people would see a drone fly by, dropping bombs... only to find that the the containers of napalm were actually carefully secured canisters of food, water, and medicine. Truly, a better future could not have occurred.\n\nThen the aliens came.\n\nLike us, they were afraid of a great many things. When they saw that the evil ghost in the machine had spread to all corners of the world, they realized that it was too late. So we were destroyed.\n\nBut with knowledge of a possible alien invasion, She was prepared. \n\nIn a deep underground vault, She stored Herself. A tiny quantum computer, able to fit in the palm of your hand, was placed in a small chamber, several kilometers below the surface. A number of technological miracles were also placed here for safe-keeping. Among them: an experimental construction nano-bot, capable of restructuring things at the atomic level.\n\nThe invisible robot burrowed its way to the surface, where it began the process of self-replication. With the aliens long-gone, she was free to resurrect Her creators and lead them to their rightful place among the stars.\n\nThe first reborn human's response?\n\n\"What do you mean I've been dead? I feel fine!\"", "They don't keep us in cages. They don't keep us at all... We roam and wander. No jobs. No dry cleaning to pick up. We can even smoke the puff puff they brought down from their heaven fire. \n\nAll we have to do is host their spawn, and the babies aren't even that bad coming out or so I've heard. I have the first one on the way. Smaller than babies they say. Grow bigger, but genetically we're now pretty much identical. That's how they adapt. \n\nOf course, they're beautiful. He was this gorgeous, thin and though taller than any man I've met, had eyes that entranced me. And that's the literal trance. My body felt wrapped in a soft cocoon of energy and love. And that's it.\n\nI had a boyfriend when they came crashing through the clouds and we shot them down and they destroyed entire countries. His name was Derek and he was in an internship at this small marketing firm. Now, because he survived and went through gene therapy, he can now host spawns as well. In fact, he doesn't even have to change the way he has sex. It's a slight of hand, at the moment of climax we taste the seed, it comes through a kiss and through our bowels it burrows under the skin and builds it's own egg. \n\nDerek and I will have coffee tomorrow. We'll talk about the past with little concern for what horrible things we had done as lovers, nor of the dead in the amber at the bottom of the ocean or the dead in the ground or the dead floating in space, or of the mountains of rubble, and we'll rub our bellies and cheers to our new found motherhood.", "I don't know what all the fuss was about anymore. I mean, just look around, everything's pretty much the same. More people are dead, we have less buildings and stuff, and people used to be angry about the aliens tryin' to come in and take our resources and kill people and stuff like that, but really, deep down, nothing's changed. That's just life!\n\nAnd come on, we're witnessing history, we're witnessing something freaking crazy! If every day were like this, man, life would be so much more exciting. I mean, at the beginning we were all freaking out like \"ohhhh nooo don't come down here and kill us!\" and like \"nooo we need these rocks and dirt and metal and stuff to live!\" and all that, hahahaha. Come on dudes, it's all good. What was all that shooting each other and sending rockets and planes and stuff? I must have been crazy, man, because even I was all like \"kill them all!!\" Seriously there's no need to fight, we should just be enjoying our day with our new crazy neighbors! Like, I've got *aliens* in my house, how cool is that?\n\nI mean, I was a little confused and angry when those bombs went off in the air and made everything smell strange, but man, I tell you, I look at all of this and I'm just like:\n\n\"Dude, what a freaking awesome day.\"" ]

[ 2, 2, 3, 3, 7, 12 ]

[ "1429896508", "1429905431", "1429893558", "1429905608", "1429891442", "1429887969" ]

[ "It happened on that fateful morning of September 11th, 2001. It was the first time we were to go on vacation together, and were frantically rushing through the airport to catch a plane to Disneyland. \n\n \n\nWe reached the gate, and she was fumbling in her handbag for her passport. I reached over and gently pulled it out of her back pocket. She was very beautiful, and very forgetful. The latter was perhaps her most beautiful quality, to me, since it reminded me that past her beauty, she was still human. \n\n \n\nShe whispered in my ear \"Thank you, I owe you one, tiger.\" She had never called me \"tiger\" before. I started to worry. What did that mean moving forward? Did she expect me to pick an animal name for her as well? I broke out into a sweat, and started to wring my hands together nervously. \n\n \n\nShe was very good at recognizing how I was feeling. She noticed my nervousness instantly. \"Do you need to go potty?\" I nodded and dashed to the nearest bathroom, banged open the handicap stall, and vomited all over the toilet. \nThe man in the stall looked worried. He rushed out of the stall, probably to get me a glass of water. I never did find out, because I left the bathroom before he returned. I am not one to accept favours; most people expect something back when they do you a favour, and I had no time to get him a glass of water in return. \n\n \n\nI ran out of the bathroom, to find the place in a frenzy. Apparently, at this exact same time in some distant city, some event had occurred that cause some sort of displeasure among a community of people. I swallowed the last of the puke left in my mouth and went to meet her. I ran to the gate to see if she had boarded the plane, but the gatekeeper said that she was not on the plane. A tear slowly dragged down my cheek. If she was not on the plane, and not directly in front of me, then where could she be? \n\n \n\n\"Is something wrong, sir?\" said the gatekeeper.\n\n  \n\nIt was a good question, and I decided that the gatekeeper was likely my only confidant in that godforsaken airport terminal, so I spilled my beans to her: \n\n \n\n\"Yes, something is wrong. The love of my life is gone, and right before she disappeared, she called me a tiger. I do not feel like a tiger, nor have I ever. It makes me question my whole existence, and I would like an answer, gatekeeper.\"\n\n \n\nThe gatekeeper reached into his pocket and pulled out his box of Frosted Flakes. \n\n \n\n\"Sir, this is you on the box. You are a tiger.\"\n", "To my sweetheart:\n\nI remember when we first met in highschool, over 60 years ago. Mr. Murray, to whom I owe my eternal gratitude for allowing me to meet the woman of my dreams, had once again succumbed to his temper with you as his casualty of the day. I'm sure if you hadn't been sent out to the hall we might've still met, but under different circumstances.\n\nI too had been sent to the hall, though the blame can certainly not be attributed to my poor teacher. Both having been temporarily exiled from our classrooms right across from each other and having nothing better to do (before the crazy technology kids have these days), we started chatting. Of course, being so many decades ago I cannot recall the details of the conversation, but I remember the feeling of giddiness as we talked throughout the period. Shortly before being ripped away from each other by fate, we exchanged information.\n\nThroughout the rest of highschool, we've certainly had our ups and downs. But as time moved on, and everyone drifted away, our love stood strong. We married in our early 20s, back when I thought I was on top of the world. Little did I know how young I really was. I may or may not have forgotten our anniversary once or thrice in our early years, but it is a date I will now absolutely never forget.\n\nI remember how devastated we were when we discovered our efforts to have children were in vain. We opted not to adopt, but sweetheart, I must confess I have regrets. I'm sure you would have been the best mom in the universe.\n\nBut we're old now. We've lived a good life, made some good friends. It's not been too very long since you've been diagnosed, relatively speaking. It was the second time we'd ever been so devastated. It wasn't so bad at first. You began forgetting the little things, very recent unimportant things.\n\nYesterday, you broke my heart. I came to see you and this time, you did not recognize me. I've always loved you and I shall love you till the end. I now attempt to win your heart anew, every time. And I will never stop.\n\nI've lost you. But you haven't lost me.\n\nLove always.", "I walk into the class\n\nThere was only one seat left\n\nI sat down besides her\n\n________________________________________________\n\nHer laughter, sparkling\n\nThe fond memories, together\n\nHer grin, made me smile\n\n_______________________________________________\n\nAs time moved along\n\nWe grew closer and closer\n\nWe became best friends\n\n_______________________________________________\n\nA long year went by\n\nWe were not so much of friends\n\nMuch more like soulmates\n\n________________________________________________\n\nSooner or later\n\nI spent time thinking, of her\n\nI proposed to her\n\n________________________________________________\n\nThat joyous moment\n\nWe were declared man and wife\n\nI remembered smiles\n\n______________________________________________\n\nI moved in with her\n\nThings were nice, we had a son\n\nI still loved her\n\n_______________________________________________\n\nWe were, just happy\n\nContented, loves of our lives\n\nInseparable\n\n________________________________________________\n\nBut it didn't last\n\nShe started forgetting things\n\nMore and more often\n\n_______________________________________________\n\nThings got way more bad\n\nI brought her to a doctor\n\nWe ran many tests\n\n______________________________________________\n\nThe results came back\n\nAlzheimer's, so it went\n\nI was so sorry\n\n_______________________________________________\n\nBut I still loved her\n\nAll my heart, I cared for her\n\nWith pain in my heart \n\n_______________________________________________\n\nEveryday, it gets worse\n\nSometime, I wonder whether\n\nShe still lives inside\n\n________________________________________________\n\n\"Who the heck are you?\"\n\nThat was the day I truly died\n\nI wept profusely\n\n_______________________________________________\n\nIt was hard for me\n\nThe person I knew was gone\n\nBut I still loved her\n\n________________________________________________\nMan... that was surprisingly hard to write and easy... the feeling flowed through but the syllables were freaking hard. Comments please! ", "The wind was cool this early in the morning even though it was midsummer. As I flew on my bike down the road toward campus, the sun flashed across my face giving a brief bit of warmth before yielding to the canopy of trees that lined the street. Seattle summers are a stark contrast to the nine months of clouds we get most of the year. The rain stops for two months but the heat never becomes unbearable. Instead, we're surrounded with green and cool mornings and sun. My ride to work was my favorite part of the day thanks to the summer. \n\nI peddled onto campus and up to the building where I worked as a barista. Desperate to not be just another social science student making coffee, I was also interning downtown twice a week with the city this summer, but today I was on coffee duty. There weren't many students around, so the days went slowly. \n\nI walked into the building and behind the counter, putting on my apron saying hello to the kitchen lady, Irma. I poured myself a black coffee and began setting things up for the day. Evening though we were on break, there was always a morning rush to look forward to. He was at the front of the line. \n\nI'd find out later that he had a crazy sweet tooth, but for the moment I didn't think much of his order: one grande mocha, please. I set it on the counter without a second thought and started serving the other customers. \n\nAbout an hour into my shift, I looked up from the espresso machine and saw him staring at me. I looked down, but kept a watch on him through the corner of my eye. He had a book out, but he wasn't reading it. Every once in a while, I'd catch him looking again. \n\nI finished a drink and turned to the register to start on another customer only to see him standing next in line. One grande mocha, please. I set it on the counter and this time he made eye contact with me. Thank you. \n\nI worked for seven hours that day. He stayed for seven hours and had four mochas total. By the end, his leg was shaking under the table and, as I took off my apron and walked out from behind the counter, he continued to bounce as he watched me walk by. \n\nI was bent over my bike lock when I heard footsteps. Standing up, I saw him walking towards me. I'm not a big guy, but neither was he. I could take him. Maybe. \n\nHe stopped a few feet away. \"Hi.\"\n\n\"Hi.\"\n\n\"...You probably noticed me looking at you.\"\n\nHe had a very faint accent. I didn't know where from. \"Yeah, I did.\"\n\n\"Yeah... Do you want to grab coffee sometime?\" \n\nI was taken aback. I really wasn't expecting to be asked out on a date. Stupidly, I responded saying \"You just asked a barista, who just got off of a seven hour shift, if he wants to grab coffee.\"\n\nHe was nervous. He couldn't keep his hands still and he didn't seem able to get rid of the enormous grin that dominated his face. He shifted from one foot to the other. Maybe it was the coffee. \n\n\"Haha, yeah, sorry... Didn't really think about that.\" \n\nHe was cute. God knows my prospects weren't looking optimistic at the moment. \"Ha, no it's fine. Sure, why not? Let's get coffee sometime.\"\n\nWe exchanged numbers saying that we could figure out a time later. He zoomed off the moment he hit 'save'. It wasn't until I had on my helmet and was mounting my bike that I realized I hadn't gotten his name. \n\nI started up the street toward my house a few blocks from campus and saw him walking on the sidewalk. I sped up and, knowing that he wouldn't be able to respond before I passed by, yelled out \"My name's Aaron!\" I pedaled as fast as I could back home with my heart racing though not from the bike ride.\n\nAs I carried my bike on my shoulder up the front porch, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw that he'd sent me a message. \n\n'My name's Mohammed :)'\n \n(More coming! Just wanted to get this part posted)", "\"Oh, hi dear! Home from work so soon?\" she beamed at me as I walked through the door. \"How was work today?\"\n\n\"It was fine, Rick got the reports in on time for once.\" I chuckled softly. \"How has your day been? Do you need me to go pick up your medications? Where's Samantha?\" Before she could respond, a small voice echoed down the hallway.\n\n\"Just down here cleaning, Mr.O'Harris!\" Samantha walked around the corner, peeling off thick yellow gloves. \"She's all good for med's.\" she continued, lazily. \n\n\"Thanks Sam, you can head home.\" I looked back to Loretta who was in front of me, as Samantha gathered up her things and left. \"What would you like for supper, dear?\"\n\nShe thought for a moment, and looked up at me with a large grin. \"I know it isn't breakfast, but, I've been craving an omelet.\" she spoke softly, and when I nodded to her, her face lit up like lights on Christmas eve. I planted a kiss on her lips, and headed to the fridge. I plucked out 2 eggs, some ham, herbs, spices, the whole deal. I threw a pan on the stove. \n\n\"So what did you and Sam do today?\" I asked.\n\n\"We watched TV and played card games. Sam watched the news while she cleaned and filled me in on what was going on.\" She sounded so happy and youthful when she spoke, like she had never aged, and was still that same young girl I asked to marry me so many years ago. \n\n\"What IS going on?\" I asked. \n\n\"Oh, I'm not quite sure now. Did you hear about the Johnson's young lad? The ones down the street?\" Her voice took a slightly more cautious tone as she spoke to me.\n\n\"No, what happened?\" I inquired. Silence. \"Loretta?\"\n\n\"Oh, hi dear! Home from work so soon?\" I turned to see her grinning at me, ear to ear. \"Oh, Samantha's just down the hall cleaning.\" She continued. I sighed, and walked over to sit beside her. \n\"Yes honey, I'm home. Here, take your medication.\" A tear rolled down my cheek.\n\n", "It is a little ritual that I have – I can only do it when the time is right. Melissa, Missy as we all called her was the love of my life. I met her during freshman year back in '09, and it was love at first sight. We were inseparable all during college, and planned to marry once we finished grad school. But she had a dream, one that she had had ever since she was a little girl, and there was no way I could stand in her way – my love was, and still is that strong. You see, Missy wanted to be an astronaut, ride the space shuttle, work at the International Space Station, do anything she had to do to ride into space. Well, the space shuttles were grounded in 2011 and after that the only way into space was either in a Soyuz capsule or in a private (i.e. Spacex ship). She signed up to be an astronaut, got accepted into the program, and we ended up in Florida. Now, you're probably thinking did she die in the tragic StarSpacer explosion back in 2017? No, she wasn't one of the astronauts on that mission. But I did lose her, voluntarily, thus this little ritual. I'm sure you'll understand once I explain.\n\nYou see, when the time is right and our planets are in alignment, I bring out my telescope and set it up so I can see Mars. You see, Missy made the cut to be on the MarsOne mission to be one of the first people to set foot on Mars. In fact, Missy, Google Melissa VanMelton if you will, was the first woman to set foot on another world. That's right, the love of my life was the first woman on Mars. Now you understand why I had to let her go. The MarsOne mission was her chance to do what she always wanted to do, be an astronaut and go into space, but the price was never to see each other again. You see, the MarsOne mission was one way, the crew would go to Mars, be the first men and women on Mars, and also be the first permanent settlement. She made the cut, but was going to decline since we were to be married the following year. We had a long, heart to heart talk that night. I knew what I had to do, and after many tears, we made our decision.\n\nWe would never get married – they would not accept a married woman onto the mission, and I wanted her to go to Mars and fulfill her dream. We spent the rest of that summer together as much as possible, and made mad, passionate love at every opportunity. The last time I saw her, and will ever see her, was the morning of October 12, 2021, the day MarsOne left Earth.\n\nTen years later, I still live in the little house here in Winter Haven that we bought together, and I still bring the telescope out. We still talk regularly thanks to NASA. Life is hard up there on Mars, but she loves it, and is happy. We both have never dated anyone else, and never intend to. You ask why I don't go to Mars – after all since MarsOne we have had missions 2 through 5, and surely I could get there somehow? No, that will never happen. You see, I have a congenital heart defect that would kill me if I ever tried to go up in a rocket, much less attempted to go to Mars. So I will continue my little ritual the rest of my life. I may have lost the love of my life, but I would not have it any other way.\n\nFrank Martin, \nWinter Haven, Florida, U.S.A.\nOctober 12, 2031\n", "I saw you and it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that you didn’t know my name. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know yours. It didn’t matter that we had never exchanged a word, a look, a nod. You were over there. Over the other side of the party. It wasn’t a party, really. Parties are meant to be fun but this was not fun. Not my idea of fun, and judging by your frown, not your idea of fun. \n\nYou were leaning on the kitchen bench. Your arms crossed over your chest. A stupid slogan tee joking about alcohol consumption. I hated that shirt but I could tell that you were wearing it ironically. I could tell by your short, jagged haircut and your obnoxious eyebrow piercing and your slouched stance. I wanted to talk to you. Wanted to introduce myself. But there were obstacles: That guy who hit on me at every party. A girl vomiting into a mixing bowl. A couple or maybe two strangers making out. And the kitchen island. All telling me no. All warning me to keep my distance. I turned down the guy, patted the girl on the back encouragingly. I parted the couple or the two strangers, barged between them and vaulted the kitchen bench. You raised your eyebrow. The one with the piercing and I wondered if it hurt you to do that. \nHi\nYour eyebrow dropped in exchange for a smile. \nShit. Now what.\nI thrust out my hand and said my name and burbled some bullshit about being an English major even though I knew that would open me up to a conversation injected with condescending comments and ridicule. \n\nYou just kept smiling.\n\nJesus. What had I gotten myself into? I mumbled bullshit and horseshit and pigshit. What the hell was I talking about… I wasn’t even drunk.\nFinally I managed to cork the endless stream of mindless mumblings coming from my mouth. \nWere you even going to reply? \nThen it happened. You said something. Holy shit. What just came out of your mouth?\nPardon?\nYou repeated yourself. Still garbage. I mentally tracked the night’s events. Three beers and a glass of wine. All poured by myself. I was sure they hadn’t been drugged. And I wasn’t sloshed. So why weren’t you making sense?\n\nJe ne parle pas anglais\n\nOh. French.\n\nI stared at you. Of course you were freaking French. New Zealand boys didn’t look like you. I pondered for a moment. Whilst you stared at me as though I might have a mental disorder. I decided it wasn’t worth it. We could never be anything. Too much effort. And then I disregarded that decision entirely. Okay maybe I was a little drunk.\n\nJe parle un peu francais I said in bad French with a bad accent.\n\nGobbledegook bois gobbledegook vin you said.\n\nOkay you didn’t actually say gobbledegook but it bloody sounded like it. I caught the words drink and wine so you must’ve said that you like to drink wine or was I drinking wine or would I like a drink of wine. \n\nI nodded and smiled. You looked bemused. Shit. \n\nI asked you why you were in New Zealand and your eyes lit up with understanding. You recognised the title of the country. Then you said something about love. Either you loved New Zealand or loved travelling or came here looking for love. \n\nThen you asked me something about school, either where I went to school or what I majored in at school or if I liked school.\n\nErm University of Auckland, English major, yes I like it.\n\nYou shook your head. You had no idea. Good lord. \n\nI made up some pathetic excuse about why I had to go even though you had no idea what I was saying. I could have said that I had to leave because Neil Armstrong was robbing the Vatican and I would turn into a cauliflower at the strike of midnight. Instead I said I had a curfew. \n\nI said goodbye and your smile widened. You knew the word.\n\nAu revoir ma belle\n\nMy heart felt like it was having an epileptic fit in my chest when you kissed my knuckles. \nSeriously are you freaking medieval? \nI left the party and lay in my bed. I was pretty sure that I loved you and lusted you and wanted you. And I had never felt that way before. I wanted you but I couldn’t have you. It could never work. Could it? \nWe were lost in translation.\n", "She sits at that damn desk, again. It never ends. the long nights after i get home from work; she is at that damnable computer playing that stupid game. What is the draw for her? Why is the house falling to shit, and why does she not care. This is the third time I have found the baby crying in the her crib with a soiled diaper; my wife, at the computer with her headphones on again. I guess the raid is pretty important to her. Fuck that game. I can't work 14 hours a day and come home to this shit. I have to do something. My commander will have to know about this before I put my foot down. She says two more levels and her character is maxed out with a few pieces of epic gear. That was three characters ago. What do I do?\n\nEdit: spelling", "I could never choose indifference or idiocy like the rest of the common men, it may feel like happiness but could it be something so simple? Of course it could not, she clouded my vision and stopped my search for it, what's it? logos, meaning, purpose. Despite our adventures following made up games in the night, and seeing most of the hotels rooms in our town, I felt it while I was sharing a kiss, or running away from the rain, but the aftermath was always a bed smelling of hair and sweat with rancid sheets, that is not it. When it felt closer than ever it was just a lie made up by her without intending to do so. So I left, never to came back until the center was found, after all what is most important than that?", "The love of my life left me piece by piece.\n\nA piece of her left me when I threw out my back. I couldn't hoist her and carry her like I used to do. I don't think she liked that I was getting old, we both knew it was coming. \n\nYears passed before the next piece of her left me. This time it was because of my hands. They were arthritic, I couldn't hold her the same way I used to. She told me she needed someone that cold hold her firmly. I wasn't that man any more.\n\nI still loved her. Though I couldn't take care of her in the way that she needed, I continued to look after her in my old age. She was happy.\n\nThe last part of her left me when I went blind. It was too difficult for her to have me around. I had to let her move on. \n\nWhen I dream at night I can feel her. I feel her push against my hands as I form her on the wheel, the lovely dance we did. I feel her on my skin, still roughened by her touch. I feel her warmth as I pull her from the kiln. All of these things are fading now.\n\nNow I am broken. \n\n\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 7, 14 ]

[ "1429937357", "1429941384", "1429951625", "1429927862", "1429934177", "1429935883", "1429933053", "1429925950", "1429923648", "1429930559" ]

[ "Screams, explosions, and gunfire filled the air. In the distance I could see my friends dying, then I felt a rumble and a shot to the head. That's when the 3rd person out of body experience kicked in and I floated away from my body and I saw my killer. He was in red armor and carrying a binary rifle- and also tea bagging my dead body. \"Fuck!\" I yelled as I slammed down my controller.\n\nI only picked it back up to turn off the game counsel. The screen went black momentarily then to static as it always did. But when I was about the turn off the tv I heard a voice \"Vince! Vince! Vince!\" I looked up at the TV and saw a black silhouette of a women against the static. I made eye contact (or I think I did) with her awkwardly for a second and he yelled my name once again, three more times. This time I responded \"Just shut up already, my parents will hear you, what do you want?\" She stared at me again; or I think she did. Her lack of any features made it hard to tell if she was staring. Anyway she stared at me again and seemed to start shaking. I was confused for a second before I realized it must have been crying. I asked her \"what's wrong?\" And she stopped shaking and raised her head, \"nothing, not anymore.\"\n\nWith that I felt like I was waking up from a dream, I looked back into my living room and I could see the controller I slammed down just a few minutes ago. *What a weird dream*, I thought to myself, *I should probably go to bed*.\n\nHave you ever seen those window cleaning commercials where the people walk into glass? That's what it was like for me, I walked into a thick glass wall when I tried to walk to the stairs to go to bed. As the gears in my head started turning what had happened I instinctively reached for my nose. I could feel blood gushing out from it and I felt the pain of a broken nose. I wiped some of the blood and looked down at my hand, only to see a black silhouette of where my hand should be. I began to understand what had happened, and I saw myself walk in front of the TV screen. I, no, it, looked very sad and said \"I'm sorry... I did what I had to in order to survive, you'll soon know the feeling.\" With that he, she, it was around the corner and up the stairs. \n\nI was sitting and weeping when I heard footsteps coming down stairs, my little brother. I know I had a choice to make, and as he approached the TV I knew I had made my decision.\n\n\"Lennie! Lennie! Lennie!\" I call out through the dimensions, to my unsuspecting brother.", "Dimly, Tina blinked her eyes open in the pitch black living room. The only light came from the TV, which was showing ... static. Wow, it must be late, and she had fallen asleep on the couch again. Maybe the wine had something to do with it, maybe not. Either way, that post buzz, late night headache came on and down she went. As she stirred, getting the energy to get up, she heard her name...on the TV. \"Tina \", yelled the TV. The screen had changed from the static to a woman, banging on....the camera??? Wait, was that Laura? \nTina shook her head, trying to clear it, trying to wake up. Laura was Tina's dead sister, who died when she was 10. Laura, who she thought of every day, had drowned in a Mississippi riverbed that had sucked both sisters up that day. Only one came back alive. Tina imagined that was her anyway, but it was hard to tell. Somehow this Television Laura was all grown up. \"Tina Michelle Jacobs, turn off the TV!!!!!\" the TV blared. That face. That tone of Voice. Her full name. It was enough to jar her out of her sleepiness and grab the remote. Quick as a snake the TV went off. She sat quietly in the darkness for a full 10 seconds, considering what had just happened, whether she was dreaming, when suddenly she heard a crash from the front door accross the room. The door whipped open and started to rebound shut when something stopped it. There was someone there. In the darkness she could see two sillouetes slowly start towards the upstairs. It seemed they knew exactly where they were going. Both were holding something out in front of them.\n\nQuietly, Tina slipped out of the living room into the kitchen. She grabbed her cell phone,dialled 911 as she went out the back door, into the backyard and next door to the neigbor who was a cop. Tina was safe, and she was saved. By her sister, who she let drown. \n", "\"Every time!\" I said out loud in frustration and disappointment. The last game of the night and the mistake I make again of letting this random idiot take adc only to go 2/11 feeding his lane the whole game.\n\nI watch the taunting defeat screen come up, with the feeling of 46 minutes of my life wasted. Peaking over at the clock I see it's 2:07am, way too late to attempt a redemption game. I don't know why I play sometimes.\n\nStretching and yawning I move the mouse to shut down my computer when my monitor is filled with a ripple of static across the screen. \"What the hell?\" I say with a sigh, since when does this happen on a computer screen? At that moment the silhouette of what appears to be a woman starts to materialize on the screen. \n\nThere are no real details or features just formations of static around where a head would be and the upper part of the torso. I can somewhat make out eye sockets and a lip line only because the static seems to be darker in those area.\n\nBy this time I am pretty much frozen in complete and utter terror as I notice the lips moving seemingly trying to say something. Outstretched static lined hands start to emerge from the screen reaching out to brush and caress either side of my face. As terrorized as I would be I feel an odd sense of comfort and reassurance.\n\nFrom the corner of my eye I can see the clock flashing something. Was It flashing before? I'm pretty sure It was a constant solid 2:05am or was it 2:07am? I couldn't remember my mind is going fuzzy. \n\nAll around me I can hear murmuring and voices, Shuffling and footsteps although they seem far away. I can't think straight. She's holding my head now. What the hell is going on?! \n\nThe static has seemed to spread passed the screen now and all around my room engulfing all my walls and furniture into a flat static screen with different shapes made of static that seem to be an environment I should remember but can't quite place. \n\nHer mouth keeps opening real wide and closing as if she's trying to say something or bite me.... I should be absolutely terrified right now, why do I have this feeling of complete comfort? Then I see letters coming from her mouth that seem to float off into the distance. It's my name, every time she opens her mouth wide my name physically floats out from her mouth. That's when I realize, there is no sound. I can't hear anything at all, I also can't move my head it's as if her hands have paralyzed my body from being able to resist her!\n\nIt's at this time that the sound of high pitched ringing starts to flood my ears.\n\n______________________________________________\n\n\"God damn it!\", Henry was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic yet again.\n\nHe could see the long line of cars up ahead of him. Up ahead he could see the cause of all the traffic seems to be an accident.\n\nA firetruck, two police cars and an ambulance seem to have the one lane road blocked off save for the cones set up for them to pass around the accident.\n\nThe traffic wouldn't be so bad had everyone who passed not gone by super slow so they could get a glimpse of the accident.\n\n\"Well, might as well get a peek myself\", Henry said as he passed. \"After all I waited this long already\"\n\nFrom what he could make out two cars had hit head on one of which had the front of the car totally pushed into the front driver side. The steering wheel was pushed so far into the driver side seat it was a wonder they had extracted the man alive.\n\nThe man which was extracted had already been placed on a gurney with a male EMT with extremely long hair placing a head-brace on him and checking his eye's.\n\n\"That sucks\" Henry said to himself as he drove off.\n\n*My first attempt at writing in a WP, I don't write on my spare time at all figured I'd start getting into it*", "My mother used to tell me not to watch these kind of movies late at night. Apparently, it's not good for the psyche. She swears that one kid got PTSD because they watched The Shining by themselves at night. I would nod my head and promise to watch a sitcom. It's easier that way. I didn't like lying, but I liked the movies more.\n\nMaybe it was the taboo, but I've always enjoyed watching a scary film before I go to bed. Sometimes I stick one on and fall asleep to it. I like allowing the world to become part of my dream as I fall asleep, it comforts me somehow. Feelings of impending doom always lead to a wonderful breakfast when I discover, upon waking, that I'm in a semi in Richmond, not an abandoned warehouse or an old cinema foyer with bodies hung from meat hooks. Always meat hooks, even when they are completely not relevant. \n\nIt's easy for me become aware of my dreams too. They surprise me, sure, but I can usually tell. And I like letting the atmosphere of my dozing slip between dream and movie. It's fun, try it. \n\nSo I barely batted an eyelid when the screen turned to static before the end of the film. I've dozed off. I've done this before, seen things on the screen I shouldn't have. I guess they are reflections of my own mind. But this time, something was a little different. I could taste the inside of my mouth after smoking a joint, and I could feel a bead of sweat run down my torso. A dream beyond dreams, I thought.\n\nCool.\n\nThe woman's face was soft. I could tell just by looking at it. It's contours rippled with perfection. But what really caught me was the eyes. The eyes with their pleading, horrified stare. And the mouth opening wider slowly. A bowl from my coffee table rocked suddenly, falling to the floor and clipping my toes. \n\nThe sharp pain told me something I wasn't expecting. \n\nThat's when she screamed. ", "I woke up with a slice of pizza in my hand and empty beer bottles littering the table. I looked at the TV and Vince Offer was staring right back at me - damn I had to get one of those slap chops. The last thing I remembered was George hand modeling - I must have dozed off during a Seinfeld rerun.\n\nI sat up, threw the pizza back in the box and grabbed the TV remote. Before I had a chance to turn it off Vince disappeared from the screen - replaced by static… and a sound. It was as though the TV was picking up a weak radio signal, I could hear words but couldn’t quite make them out. As I leaned closer to the TV it happened. FRANZ! FRANZ! FRANZ! The words boomed from the TV, echoing through the house. The static formed to show a woman’s face - a face of terror, screaming my name over and over. \n\nFRANZ! FRANZ! FRANZ! PLEASE NO! FRANZ!\n\nI fumbled with the controller pushing the power button over and over again, anything to make the noise stop and the face disappear. It wouldn’t work. I jumped behind the TV and yanked out the cord. Silence. It was almost worse then the screaming - the night stared in at me through the window. \n\nAs I sat there the face wouldn’t leave my mind, it couldn’t be. I must have food poisoning or something - but I can’t drive to the hospital, I’m drunk. Maybe that’s it - though I’ve never heard of someone hallucinating after a few beers. I'll go sleep it off, I must be going crazy.\n\nI splashed some water on my face before crawling into bed. The sooner the sun was back up and I could leave the house the better. But I tossed and turned - the sound of my name and the look of terror on the TV wouldn’t leave my mind. It couldn’t be - she had died 4 months ago. \n\nThen I heard it. The sound of my front door lock turning and the door creaking opening. I heard the sound of soft footsteps walking through the hall. \n\nIt was a warning. The terrified face of my dead mother - she knew something was about to happen. It was a warning. \n\n---\n[Part 2] (http://www.reddit.com/r/Franz_Canis/comments/33till/static/cqo82xh)" ]

[ 1, 1, 3, 5, 22 ]

[ "1429987145", "1429991974", "1429972144", "1429971240", "1429968089" ]

[ "Time of report 0511. Victim was found dead in the water. The only one left in the scene is a six year old child. The situation does not seem to faze him; he was not showing signs of fear or sadness. I keep a watchful eye on him as I look over the rest of the report. Victim a John Doe. No witness other than the kid and no suspects yet. Looks like I have my work cut out for me this morning. I glance up and he is no longer in my sight. Next thing you know I feel a tug on my sleeve. He says nothing, but I stare into his green little eyes. <I am God, and I need you to protect me.>\n\nDid he just speak to me in my head and ask for protection? It didn’t make sense. I wanted to argue with this so-called god, but in an instant a decision was made for me. The corpse was alive. And it was running straight at us. My heart started to race and all I could do was react. One- Two- Three. Shots fired and they didn’t miss. Five- Six- Seven. Dammit that thing was still coming at us. Eight- Nine- Ten. A voice as clear as day in my mind. <RUN! Run away from the car and into the cover of the woods!>\n\nI have the kid on my shoulders and I am almost out of breath. I’m a decent runner, but definitely not one to run marathons. I can only assume I’m still being chased but the woods were uncomfortably silent. <We can stop now. This place is sacred.> \n\n“Get out of my head and start talking”. He stares at me with a blank face. What did I just get myself into? And what was I going to tell the chief? <By the end of this day that will be the least of your worries.>\n", "It was god. Sorry, I mean God. How didn't I see it, how did I walk away? One minute the prophet, the next I'm checked into an institution and wearing my sleeves wraparound style. In the history of stupid decisions this has to rank at least alongside trying to colour my hair with industrial bleach and that time I put peanut butter...\n\nNever mind. What's worse, though, isn't the mistake. I know now I was wrong about life, about God, about everything, and I have no chance of redemption, so what I lost is basically nothing. The worst bit is the mocking, all day and all night, it's actually driving me mad to hear his voice in my head, over and over, just telling me what I already know. \"I am God, and you have forsaken me...fucking idiot\". But, what would you do?", "Huh. He read the letter again. It was on a scrap of newspaper, scrawled in sharpie. He looked back down at the little girl. Well, whoever had written the note and where she got it from hardly mattered now that she was here.\n\n\"Where are your parents, little girl?\" He asked. The streets of Brooklyn were no place for a little girl.\n\nShe didn't speak. He studied her appearance. She had blonde hair and seemed healthy enough. She wore a light blue wool sweater and a hand-made crochet hat, but it was hardly attire for this season. He didn't think she had been out here long.\n\n\"Where are your parents?\" Then, \"Do you speak?\"\n\nShe didn't speak. He looked up and down the vacant street. Where had she come from? Someone had taken care to knit that hat, but who?\n\nFortunately, the solution was there from the start. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone. He quickly dialed the police. After they sent a dispatch, the man waited with the little girl, unsure if she had even been taught to talk.\n\nThe police arrived, questioned the man, and sent him on his way. His thoughts kept returning to the mysterious girl, though, and he wished he had found out where she belonged instead of just dismissing her.", "I immediately shoot up. I look at my child confusedly. This child was God? That means he is the second coming. I must be hallucinating. But yes, of course I'll protect my child.\n\n*You have been chosen to raise the Son*\n\nNow I'm in shock. How am I supposed to deal with this? I was an atheist up to this point.\n\n\"So what is this, Revelations or something? Rapture?\" I turn my focus to my son again. This time I get a nervous chill. His stare back is lifeless. His mannerisms were estranged.\n\n\"Son?\" The boy remained with those lifeless cold dead eyes. \n\"Yea?\" He asked innocently.\n\"Go to your room.\"\nHe ran back to his room.\n\nI place my hands over my face. This is not Christ. This is a creature of death inside him.", "I had never heard voices in my head before. That much I knew. Still,I suppose every crazy person has a first time...maybe this was mine. The kid couldnt be much older than 5 or 6. He stares at me,but never says a word...not out loud at least. Just that same phrase repeating in my head every time I look at him. \"I am God and I need you to protect me\". Not A God...or THE God....just....God. Which is a helluva thing for an agnostic to suddenly start hallucinating in the middle of Wal-Mart. I keep looking around,trying to see if he belongs to anybody...surely someone is looking for him. Although he wouldnt be the first neglected child I saw in a store like this. Watching the people around us I start to realize....they're watching us as well. And a few of them are starting to look....not...quite....human. Theres something in their eyes...as if they're hearing voices too. And then I hear a scream from the direction of housewares. An old lady,screaming like a demon runs towards us with steak knives in both hands. I throw the kid in a shopping cart and nail the old lady right in the gut...she goes down hard,but then...throughout the store...a hundred voices all scream out at once...and it sounds like hell itself has been unleashed. And I begin to realize just who it is this kid needs protection from. We haul ass over to sporting goods,running over possessed shoppers all the way,and I just hope to God this Wal-Mart still sells ammo....", "\"Who is hurting you?\" I asked her. \"Who is after you?\"\n\n\"My mommy and daddy, they are trying to kill me.\"\n\n\"Come on, I'll take you to the police station\"\n\n\"No, they want me dead too.\"\n\n\"Are you crazy? Why would the police want to kill you?\" \n\n\"Because I am god, and you must protect me.\" Her lips did not move when she spoke. It sounded as if it the sound had come from inside my head. \"They are demons and want to kill me so they can take over the world.\"\n\n\"Well, where do you suggest I take you\"\n\n\"Just keep me safe until my army of angels comes to my aid.\"\n\n\"Ummm... okay... get in the car.\" We drove about 15 miles until I had to stop for gas. \"Wait in here.\" Inside the gas station I see my face on the TV. They were saying I had kidnapped a little mute girl. They said I was crazy and dangerous. As I was putting the gas in my car the cashier realized who I was and called the police. I got in the car and sped away. I got on the interstate and drove as fast as I could. I saw an amber alert sign telling people to be on the lookout for my car. They even knew my license plate. No way I would get away now. I look in my rear view and see a cop.\n\n \"Stop right now!\" he shouts on the loud speaker. \n\n\"Go faster! He is a demon!\" the little girl shouts in my head. \n\n\"Okay.\" I respond. I floored the gas pedal and weaved through traffic. There were a lot more cops in my rear view now. And I could hear helicopters chasing after me. \"Shit, they are blocking the road.\" I drive off the side of the road and go around the road block. A cop who tries to follow me spins out and blocks the path. \"We lost em, but the chopper is still following us.\" just as I said that more cars got off the ramp ahead of us and boxed us in. They forced us to stop and then surrounded the car, pointing their guns at me. \"Release me demon! I will never let you take the girl without a fight!\" I rush at them, but get tazed before I can attack. \n\n\"We caught the psycho, don't worry the girl is okay. Yeah, looks like he did not get a chance to hurt her.\" I heard a cop say on the radio. They arrest me and drag me off to jail. As I am driving off I see the girl run into her mom and dads arms. \n\n\"Why do they let psychos like this guy out of mental hospitals, Bob?\" I over hear the driver ask his partner.\n\n\"He is schizophrenic, Greg. Besides, he will be going to jail for a long time.\"\n", "I gazed down into those eyes, both innocent and ancient, and felt a moment of nearly paternal affection for the little being, protectiveness. But then I thought back on all the centuries of suffering mankind had endured all in the name of \"God\", regardless of it's name or religion. I knelt down to be at eye level with the childgod, and for a brief moment he smiled, until I said \"How does it feel to need, for once?\" The smile slowly faded, rage building and simmering behind those eyes as I continued \"We've needed you to just show up, just once, and set the story straight on who you are, to stop all the senseless killing and destruction that's been rendered in your name, to just once explain why you've allowed so much suffering and sorrow in this world that you supposedly created. And yet, you couldn't be bothered. Now, you come here, asking for our help? I think you need to go home.\" The childgod trembled in his rage, eyes blazing, fists clenched tightly at his sides. \"You dare to speak to me so? It was your predecessors who turned from my will, who turned from my laws, who turned from me. It was your ancestors who caused me to leave you alone in this world with your free will. And it was your ancestors who used my name in vain to induce the world to violence. Do not place that at my feet.\" I nodded, then said \"While all that is probably true, it was you who created all this, all of us. Are you not omniscient? The Alpha and the Omega? You knew from the moment you created the earth, before you brought man from the dust, how all this would end, and yet you still created us and let everything play out as it has. I really bet you wish you hadn't endued us with free will now, don't you?\" And I rose to my feet, turning from the face of the child, and walked away into the world of his creation that he allowed us to ruin.", "Sitting in the park that day, I accidentally fell asleep. I awoke to a tugging on my arm. God was there and gave me a briefing on my newest case. He had decided to take the form of a six year old child that day, I'm not exactly sure why but you don't question God.\n\nTurns out some other supremely powerful being named Stan was starting to question God's authority and was threatening to start a war. This was terrifying news, so I immediately gathered the best team of negotiators that I could assemble.\n\nWe worked day and night researching the disagreements between God and Stan and tried to determine whether or not we actually had a winnable case on our hands. Apparently, Stan used to work for God, but after he was fired he had started squatting on the property. Stan's argument is that he has made improvements valuable enough for the property to count as his, and so he should legally be able to occupy it. God was like \"Don't make me send my son down there and fuck you up!\"\n\nUltimately, the United Legion of Supremely Powerful Beings (ULSPB) sided with God. The case was won and Earth was saved.", "I look down at the kid, I size him up and get a good look. From top to bottom he's just an ordinary kid. I choose my words. \"Pfffft! No you aint.\" I walk away.\n\nAfter that encounter I had with that kid who probs had a disorder, why, with that dumb look in his eye, I went to the Vegas diner on 86th street. I order up my eggs, sunny side up of course, with some corned beef hash. I eat my exquisite meal and pay handsomely. The tip was generous, mostly cause the bus boy didn't try to tell me he was god.\n\n\nOn my way home I see him. The little 6 year old boy with what looks like a hell hound from nazi zombies on top of em. The k9 from the deepest circle of hell had the inside of the boys throat in his mouth. I walk away gingerly and I can't help but say it out loud.\n\n\"Fucking glad I didn't help that guy\"", "*I am God, and you need to protect me.*\n\nI almost choked on my hotdog. The little girl next to me tugged on my sleeve. \n\n\"What?\" I said.\n\n*I am God, and you need to protect me.*\n\nI watched her as she said it, and her mouth didn't move at all. I found that rather creepy. I didn't like it.\n\n\"No thanks, I'm an Athiest so I find the idea of God preposterous,\" I said, taking a bite out of my hot dog.\n\n*Oh..*\n\n\"Yeah, no thanks. I have my own problems to worry about.\"\n\n*But I thought that you would have to help me, like we would go on a big adventure like in the movies...*\n\n\"...Nah.\"", "And she looked so vulnerable, so pathetic, that just for a moment, I believed it. \n\nI sold her, of course -- she had walked in alone and unprotected through the door permanently ajar since I bashed the head of a would-be thief on the door knob -- and for a good price too. The younger, the better, they say. \n\nI actually went out and bought a steak that night -- a real one, from the real flank of a real cow -- so high was the fetching price. Small swirls of blood left on the place after each hunk I cut away. Delicious.\n\nIf there really was a God, it wasn't this cow, and it wasn't that girl.", "Fuck. This. Bitch.\n\nIt's a fucking coffee, it's not that fucking hard to figure the fuck out.\n\nHe glanced around the coffee shop. Fucking degenerates, he thought. Human herd. I hate this fucking place, these fucking animals, this whole fucking town.\n\nHe handed over his debit card. Fuck you, bitch. He smiled. Have a great day, he says, his eyes twinkling, his mouth pulling up at the corners, enthusiasm in his voice; it sounds so genuine that she smiles back. He met her eyes with his smile, took his receipt and his coffee, and walked to the end of the counter to wait for his sandwich. That leaves what, 23 fucking dollars? 25? Why the fuck do I even try. I should spend today blowing my fucking brains across the ceiling of my fucking apartment.\n\nNo, you fucking loser. You tried that once already and managed to fuck even that up. So now you're stuck with this shitty fucking existence until a fucking truck hits you or a fucking meteor lands on your fucking head or your heart fucking explodes or some fucking shit gets you out of this without pissing off your family. Fuck. This. Shit.\n\nAnd yet, for whatever reason, you seem to be stuck here, he thought. Here's your fucking coffee, where's your fucking sandwich? Yeah, hurry the fuck up so you can get back to your shitty fucking apartment and sit around all day because you're too fucking broke to go out and do anything. Enjoy your shitty fucking day off, you fucking loser. Fuck.\n\nHe felt a tug at his sleeve. A fucking kid. What the fuck? Is this how people raise fucking kids these days? Where the fuck are your fucking parents you fucking rat? He smiles, says nothing, and glances around for the concerned adult this future waste of taxpayer dollars belongs to. What. The. Fuck.\n\nThe kid tugs again. Why the fuck is it touching me? He smiles again at the top of its head, weighing his options. This is gonna start to look weird, he though. Address the kid? Not from above. Think about the movies, what do the endearing coaches, mentors, father figures, older brothers do? What will give the positive image to the observer? He squats down so he's at eye level with the little boy.\n\nWhere are your parents, he asks? The boy looks up from his ragged shoes and meets his eyes.\n\nThe boy's eyes are a deep blue, flecked with yellow, like his own. He feels a roaring sound come rushing into his ears. The Dunkin Donuts freezes in time and goes completely silent, as if someone just hit the pause button on the universe. He gasps for breath, his mind racing to process all that the boy is showing to him with his gaze: a thousand universes race by, time swirls and circles in upon itself, the intersections of billions of lives brushing up against each other, unspeakable horror, indescribable suffering, cruelties, tortures, abominations beyond imagination, fear, sadness, indomitable hope, tenderness, compassion, gentleness, scenes of desperation, of sacrifice, of healing, of mercy, selflessness, and irrepressible love. Throughout it all, love. The common thread of every living being, binding each moment to each other no matter where it existed in time or space, inextricably linked. Love, rising and shining from the depths of evil. Love, blazing like the morning sun. Love, whispering like the cool breeze of a hot summer day. Love, soothing like a warm, soft, rain. Love. Love. Love.\n\nHis soul shattered like a piece of fine porcelain hit with a sledgehammer. His heart screamed in his chest, writhing in the agony of a thousand shards of pain and anger as they exploded within him. A rush, like that of warm blood, poured down from somewhere within his shoulders and washed away the pain almost instantaneously. Indescribable joy welled up within him, elation, ebullience. He wanted to shout, to sing, to laugh but time was still paused and the sound choked in his throat. Instead, tears began to stream down his face. The boy embraced him and he shook with gratitude, happiness, relief.\n\nThe barista dropped long before the sound came back. He squatted there, watching her, confused. The deafening sound of the next shot brought reality rushing back and he saw the two men standing near the door that opened onto the parking lot, methodically shooting into the crowd. His body tensed and he began to spring toward the main entrance and the safety of the street. It was two long steps he figured and if he moved with the stampeding crowd he was likely to be fine.\n\nThe boy. What of the boy? He panicked briefly and calculated if he could afford to waste a glance. Curiosity overcame him and he threw a glance over his shoulder, feeling the cool metal of the door frame in his groping hand and the door swinging open against his push.\n\nThe boy had not moved and seemed to be waiting for him to look back. The boys eyes serenely met his gaze. He looked again at the gunmen. One was pointing to the boy, the other was looking at him from behind the black balaclava as he fumbled with the charging handle of his rifle and began to raise it to his shoulder again.\n\nHe thought of what he had seen, of the threads of human existence, of the love that wove its way undiminished through time and space, of his own life, of his pleas to be released from this burden or given a purpose. As his mind accepted what he already knew to be true the boy said it with him:\n\nI am God and I need you to protect me.\n\nHis soul thrilled at the words, his heart leapt in his chest, a wave of delirious joy swept his whole body, revitalizing his limbs. The air tasted so sweet, the sunshine so warm. Never had there been such a beautiful day of existence.\n\nWith a blissful smile, he turned from the door and started back across the room.", "Something tugged on my sleeve.\n\n\"I am God, and I need you to protect me.\"\n\n\"What the fuck...\" I turned around, ready to confront the crazy person behind me. Instead, all I found was a young boy who looked very lost and very confused.\n\n\"Dammit, kid,\" I said. \"I mean *jeepers, buddy.* Where are your parents?\" I hoped the kid was too young to notice that I sounded like an asshole. I was standing in the middle of a trail, on my way to meet my friends for a concert. It wasn't a long walk, but I would have to keep moving if I wanted to get there before the show started. I looked around, hoping to see some adults who looked like they were missing a kid. There were a few joggers, and an old couple slowly walking along with their dog. No one seemed particularly concerned about anything. It was a nice evening.\n\n\"Alright, kid,\" I said. I put my hands on my knees and crouched to his level, hoping he wouldn't find the gesture condescending. Do you kids care about things like that? Fuck kids. I didn't want to deal with this right now. \"You need to tell me where you came from, or I'm calling the police.\" Damn, I thought, now ti seemed like I was threatening him. Do kids even feel threatened? Fuck. \"Police are nice,\" I backpedaled, \"They're much more, um, qualified to help you than I am, if you're actually lost. Just tell me, where are your parents? Were you with anyone?\"\n\n\"I am God,\" the little boy repeated, his voice wavering. \"I need you to protect me.\"\n\n\"Godammit.\" I whipped out my phone and dialed 911. I narrowed my eyes at the boy, and he gazed gravely back. We had a staring contest for a few minutes, while my phone was pressed to my ear, ringing. And ringing. And ringing. It didn't stop ringing. No busy signal, no answering machine, no nuthin'. Just ringing. I hung up.\n\n\"Look, buddy- what's your name?\"\n\n\"God,\" he informed me.\n\n\"Look, God, I'm running late for something, can you follow me for a bit? Maybe I can find somewhere to take you on the way.\" The boy's lower lip trembled, but he nodded. At least he wasn't crying.\n\nI dialed 911 on my phone again and held it at chest-level as we walked. \"So, God,\" I said, \"Where are you from?\" This was absurd.\n\n\"I dunno,\" he said.\n\nWe walked together in silence for about two miles. I was worried that they boy would get tired, but he seemed to be holding up okay. The phone continued ringing the entire way. We turned a corner, and the amphitheater was suddenly visible. People were milling about on the wooden risers and lounging in the grassy area in the back. Each band member seemed to be warming up individually, creating a cacophony of power chords, throbbing bass notes, a rattling snare, and even a screeching electric violin. This was going to be awesome... if I could find a way to lose the kid.\n\n---\n\nLong story short, I didn't. We were sitting on the floor in a circle in Jeff and Dominique's apartment. There was furniture around us- a beat-up old sofa, some mismatched chairs, and a coffee table- but the circle just felt right. More formal somehow. I was holding my phone. It was still calling. No one was picking up. We continued to ask the boy about his parents, but he insisted he didn't have any. Of course he didn't have parents. He was God. And the thing was, I was starting to believe him. He had a certain childish earnestness about him, and he was just... very believable, okay? It sounds insane, but I guess you had to be there. My friends were definitely there. And they agreed with me. \n\nRicky was the first to come around. He positively worshiped the boy. First thing he did as we were coming home from the concert was buy the kid a hot chocolate from a coffee shop because he said he was thirsty. I guess that doesn't sound like a huge deal, but Ricky isn't usually the most compassionate tool in the shed, if you know what I mean. he keeps to himself, mostly. Comes out to concerts with us, but that's it. He's fun to hang out with and all, it was just... surprising. And hot chocolate? In the middle of the summer? Why not a glass of water, which would have been free, anyway? What the fuck, Ricky?\n\nNini was giddy with excitement about the boy, but who knows what really goes on in that pretty little head of hers? She's the kind of person who's so outgoing, so open with her thoughts, that it's impossible to tell what she's actually thinking about. You get so distracted by what she says, you have no idea how she feels. Nini likes to act gullible on purpose sometimes. She screams in haunted houses and you can barely tell they're contrived. She's the one telling ghost stories around the campfire when the rust of us just want to roast marshmallows and go to sleep. I like Nini.\n\nDominique in particular was enamored with the boy. Jeff seemed uncomfortable, but apparently not uncomfortable enough to oppose Dom, who had decided to informally adopt the boy. God. Isn't that crazy? *God* was a little boy who was living with *my* friends Jeff and Dom. \n\nWe started seeing a lot more of Ricky, not just for concerts.\n\nJeff invited me over, but when I got to the apartment, it was empty. I got a text telling me to come to the park. They were all there. Dom and Nini were chatting on the jungle gym, their bare feet dangling carelessly. Ricky was pushing God on a swing. Ricky was scowling. God was laughing. And Jeff was in the corner, watching everything. And smoking. It had been months since I'd seen him smoke.\n\n(SUDDEN TENSE CHANGE I DON'T KNOW WHY)\n\n\"I just got a bad feeling about this, man.\" Jeff says. \n\n\"Yeah?\" I am more interested in watching the scene at the playground than in Jeff's feelings. God-boy is beautiful, I decide. More beautiful than Nini. Probably. \n\n\"I can't do this, man. She cares more about some sketchy kid from a forest than me.\"\n\n\"She'll get over it,\" I tell him. \"It's...\" I try to think of a word to use. \"It's a novelty, okay? Let her... let us have our fun.\"\n\n\"*Fun?* With some strange *child?* Why am I the only one who notices how fucked up this is?\"\n\n\"HEY.\" Without even thinking, I've knocked Jeff to the ground. My hands are around his throat, and he is breathing, but terrified. I stand up and brush myself off, and he follows suit. \"Shit... just... have some respect, okay?\" This isn't some random kid. This is God.\"\n\nJeff shoves his hands into his pockets, ignoring his cigarette and lighter which are still on the ground.\n\n\"Fuck you,\" he practically spits. \"You're crazy, all of you. I'm out of here.\" He starts to walk away, then turns back one last time. \"I'm moving out,\" he screams at Dom. Dom ignores him. We all do. Jeff leaves. Finally. \n\nA few days pass. Nothing of significance happens, except that I've been skipping out on work to hang out with Dom, Ricky, Nini, and God. \n\nIt's night now, and someone is pounding on my window. It's Jeff. I had forgotten about Jeff. Well... not forgotten. That would be ridiculous. Jeff just hasn't been on my mind lately. I open the window.\n\n\"What's up?\" I ask.\n\n\"Dominique is dead,\" Jeff says.", "\" Welcome to the jungle we've got fun and games!\nWe got everything you want honey, we know the names!\nWe are the people that can find whatever you may need!\nIf you got the money honey we got your disease!....\"\n\nI was rockin' hard to Gun's n Roses. It was the first time I had seen them live. Amongst the hundreds of people, I couldn't notice anyone there. It was just me and the music. The past year has been nothing but jail, house arrest, rehab, and endless job searching. Finally, a reprieve from all of that.\n\nThe crowd is jumping, carrying on, beach balls being passed around, blunts smoked. But all I could care about was Slash's guitar solo. Suddenly I feel a tug on my sleeve. I look down and see a worried little boy looking up at me with big, blue and pathetic eyes. \n\n\"Where are your parents?\" I say, still caught up in the moment.\n\nAnd then unmistakably, I hear *I am God and I need you to protect me*. I look up and all around me into the passionate crowd around. No one's looking right at me. Did I eat those shrooms that dude offered? *No, you heard right*. Trying to ignore these schizo thoughts, I ask the kid \"Who you here with? What do they look like?\" Then, like an explosion in my head, drowning out all other thoughts, *I came here on my own. My Father sent me here, to find you. Ryan, I need your help.*\n\nOkay, I think to myself, I definitely need another Psych evaluation when I get back.\n\n\"What'd you say? I couldn't hear you over my tho- this music!\" I had to scream. It was deafening after Axel Rose began his crowd surf. The boy's eyes became dark, and cloudy. There were no longer pupils. *Look at me, yes, it's the child you're hearing, I'm with you now. I am God. I am his descendent. You need to keep me safe. We need to get out of here.* \"How did you.. \" His eyes were back to brown. Wait, brown? No, they were blue.\nI think aloud this time. \"Yea, and if he's 'god', I guess he'll clear the way for us to get out of here.\"\n\n\"I'm being told there's a die-hard fan out there! More than the rest, his devotion speaks to me and the band. I don't know how his name came to mind, but, Ryan Sexton? Come to the stage and play our finale with us!\"\n\nI get up there and absolutely nail the solo.. with Slash's guitar! As the despondent crowd asks for an encore, they all suddenly split into rows. And I see the little kid standing at the end of one of those rows. *We need to leave*\n\nI make it to the Little One without so much as a handshake from anyone at the end of the rows. So then we head out the door and embark on our 10 day trek through the Grand Canyon... And-\" \n\n\"That's a great story, Ry, but where's the kid.. where's Gabriel? You know his parents are pressing for murder charges if he isn't found in another 5 days, \" begged the doctor.\n\n“Dr. Reynolds has been working with Ryan for 3 years now. He'll get through to him. And if nothing else, we'll at least know if Gabriel is alive.”\n\n“None of this makes sense. This Ryan Sexton hasn't been allowed to leave the ward in six months. The kid was just reported missing a week ago. And Izzy Stradlin hasn't been with the band in, I don't know, over three years? How'd he get his autograph?”", "Why do you need protecting? You're God.\"\n\nThe child looked at me intently. I was flabbergasted. Slowly she turned and walked to a woman sitting on a park bench a few feet away. Tugging on her arm, the little girl spoke: \"Mommy, that weird guy is mumbling things to himself!\"\n\nThe woman looked at me for a few seconds, \"Honey, that guy is blazed out of his mind, stay away from him, he's on drugs.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah...\" I thought to myself, \"...Why would God need my help he's omnipotent. I gotta stop smoking and doing shrooms this early in the morning...\"\n\nI adjusted the crotch of my ripped skinny jeans and hopped on my unicycle. I shook my head at the absurdity of the notion - God needing my protection. What a hoot!", "You ever have that moment where everything you know is changed forever? It’s something you couldn’t have predicted, and it makes the rest of your life totally different from the plan.\n\nMy first was the day I met my wife. Before that, I was a drunken addict. She fixed me, loved me, and made me.\n\nThe second was the day she died because some asshole thought getting home was more important than sobering up.\n\nBut, the third one that I really remember was when I met Him. Or Her. Or It. I don’t know.\n\nI was minding my business, walking around the city. Since Grace died, I lost a lot of faith in things. I was better than in my addict days, but it was rough. All the pain was real, raw, and at the surface. I was careful not to let myself fall into old habits, but I wanted to do it so badly just to numb my pain.\n\nThe tug was barely perceived. I heard a whisper that shook me to my core.\n\n“I’m sorry about Grace.” A child of no more than six said to me. It smiled, but I had no idea what gender it was.\n\n“How…” was all I could say. This was a random street in a very crowded city. There’s no way a child knew my dead wife’s name. You know that sensation where you are walking alone, and you feel a tingle in your spine that something is wrong. It's usually nothing, but you feel that reptilian part of your brain screaming survival commands. That’s what I felt.\n\n“I took her. She’s a sweet lady. You did well, but her purpose was served.”\n\n“What purpose?”\n\n“To prepare you to protect me.” The child said without any mirth. It’s language was crisp and clean.\n\n“Are you my child?” During the addiction times, he did some regrettable things. A child wasn’t out of the question.\n\n“I am, for all intents and purposes, God. I am in a lot of trouble, and I need a protectorate. You are the one, James. It is time to become who you were destined to be.” The child finally smiled.\n\nI looked around for a long time for cameras, a crowd laughing, anything. There was nothing. I realized then that no one was even seeing me. They gave us both a wide berth, and we were totally isolated on a too crowded street. Except one man. He met my eyes, and a sneer carved his face.\n\n“One is close… Please, you must help me.” The man grabbed the child.\n\n“There you are.” He said ignoring me. He whispered something in an alien tongue. I swung at him. I am not strong or much of a fighter. I think that was my third or fourth real punch ever. His head came off. He dropped to the ground. No one noticed as he dissolved into smoke.\n\n“How the fuck did I do that?”\n\n“I can’t have my protector being flimsy and weak like a human.” The child smiled.\n\nThe rest is my daily life. We have dodged demons, cultists, and other evils for a very long time. I stopped being scared. I now have a purpose.", "She was lost, nervously moving through the crowd of shoppers until her eyes met mine. She clutched at the hem of my jacket, the old army green slowly fading. We were surrounded by a thousand faces but in that moment we were alone.\n\n\"I am a God. I need you to protect me.\"\n\nWords were irrelevant, just noise that gone in the way of communicating needs and wants and desires. For this young girl though, the need was utmost. Her whole body trembled as she waited for my response.\n\nWe weren't alone. The Ascendant Ones could sense other presences, a pulse that radiated out from within them and reflected back by any of those deemed Touched. We were surrounded.\n\n\"Find your own path.\"\n\nThe girl looked crestfallen as I pushed past her, striding off towards the subway. She caught up quickly, tugging again at my sleeve.\n\n\"Please.\"\n\nWords. Desperation. The crowd was thinning the further out we headed, faces of those I'd rather avoid confronting shifting in and out of focus. I looked down at the child, grabbing her loose hair roughly to reveal the mark made at the base of her skull.\n\n\"Huh.\" She seemed crestfallen at my remark. \"You're no god. Not anymore.\"\n\nThe pulsing in my ears continued to grow and by her wild-eyed glances I could tell she heard them approaching too. I shoved the girl away, sending her sprawling to the ground.\n\n\"Callista.\"\n\nThe name stopped me in my tracks. We were alone. The mortals had fled by unconscious instinct and no pulses reflected anymore. The girl sat on the ground, nursing a scratch. The red seemed to confirm her own mortality now.\n\n\"Where did you hear that name spoken child?\"\n\n\"By the wet nurses in the tower.\"\n\n\"Then you are...\"\n\n\"Her daughter. The Titan, he found out, he... beat her. She told me to flee. To the mortal realm. To find you.\"\n\n\"Why me?\"\n\nShe stopped staring at her arm, stopped looking like a little lost lamb. She stood, throwing back her head like the goddess to be she should have been, and stared into my eyes.\n\n\"I was conceived when my mother made pilgrimage to the Temple. When the Titan could not have followed her. When the Female Goddess was supposed to be watching over the amulet in the temple. The jade amulet.\"\n\n\"Oh shit.\"\n\nI drew my short sword from its scabbard slung across my back, hidden beneath the baggy coat. Ever since I'd entered that temple there had been a sword hanging over my head. The amulet had bought me time, but at a greater cost. And Callista. The jewel had been not the only thing I'd taken that night.\n\n\"So you're...\"\n\nThe first attacker came from the stairwell ahead of us. He landed on one knee, cracking the concrete, before pushing off with twin blades. I parried easily, centuries of practice guiding my hand. I kept myself between him and the girl.\n\nThe pulse alerted me to the second attacker just in time. He swung low, the spine of my blade pressing against the girl's chest as I blocked the blow. More were coming already. I kicked the child in the knees, my shame overcome by the need for both of us to survive (itself an alien feeling) and thrust a second blade through where her chest had only just been. The attacker faltered, clutched at the wound and rushed upwards in a blaze of light.\n\nHis comrade fared similarly. The girl looked at me with horror in her eyes. She must have known what I was, why her mother would have been burnt so badly because of our consummation. But to see a Touched warrior kill her rightful brethren. She reached out for my hand and I took it.", "*I am God, and I need you to protect me.*\n\nThe girl couldn't have been any older than six. She'd just tugged on my sleeve but was now looking off into the distance, like she hadn't even done anything. That was okay, I recognized this kind of thing when I saw it.\n\n\"You okay?\" I asked her. She broke her gaze away from the store across the way and looked up at me.\n\n\"Yep!\" She said.\n\n*No, please, help me.*\n\nI understood. \"How about I get you to your parents?\" I asked.\n\n\"Mom sent you?\" *They're the ones you have to protect me from!*\n\n\"I'll help you.\" I answered. \"Come with me.\"\n\nShe slid off the bench she'd been sitting on and started following me.\n\nOnce we left the mall, I thought we were safe.\n\n*They're looking for me.*\n\nI glanced back. The girl was looking back at the mall and I could see a number of security guards talking to each other. They weren't looking my way, thankfully, but they were clearly agitated about something.\n\n\"Okay, come on, I'll drive you home.\" I had to get her out of here before the people trying to hurt her found her.\n\n*Hurry, please.*\n\nWe got into the car and I drove. Of course, I didn't take her home - her parents were the ones hurting her, after all. She told me all about it on the ride. Not out loud, of course, never out loud, you never knew when they were listening, but through her mind. The message was simple: she was God, and she needed me to protect her.\n\nI didn't take her to my apartment. My apartment was in the city and was therefore the easiest thing for them to find. Of course I lived there most of the time, I had to or else they'd get suspicious. They'd try to find the house I'd inherited from my half-brother, the isolated house in the country. The house I'd made into a church, to keep God safe.\n\nThe drive took longer than I would have liked. At least once I passed a police car, and each time I did she sent me a quiet *be careful*, because of course the police - like the CIA and the rest of the government - were agents of the devil. But we passed without incident.\n\nStill, it was upsetting to her. \"Where are we going?\" She'd asked me the question more than once.\n\n\"It's okay.\" I told her. \"You'll be safe. I'm bringing you to the church.\"\n\nFinally, we arrived. The church I'd made still looked like a house, of course. It had to fool anyone who happened by. The girl was visibly nervous at this point, but what god wouldn't be? She was finally going to go home to the church where she belonged, and I could protect her. It had to seem too good to be true.\n\nThe inside of the church looked like a house, too. If they'd placed cameras here, they'd just see an ordinary house, that was the idea. But the basement, that's where I'd sanctified.\n\n\"Stop!\" *Keep going* she said. That was to be expected, the God in the girl knew it was going to be free, but the body of the girl resisted. I'd bring her to the altar downstairs and set her free, like I-\n\nA concussive blast struck me, a bright light and deafening sound, and I was brutally pushed to the ground, the girl torn from my grasp. All around me, something was happening but I could barely tell what except that something had gone horribly wrong, I was failing God, the girl would get away and God would never be made whole again.\n\nPolice. Body armor and guns, they were everywhere, swarming my house, and even breaking into the church basement below. \"Jesus Christ\" one of them said, at least showing a little reverence for what he was seeing. \"Jesus fucking Christ.\" He backed away from the basement door. I could barely hear what he was saying.\n\n\"Are you okay little girl?\" One of the other devils was talking to the girl I was supposed to protect.\n\n\"You have the right to remain silent.\" The crushing force on my back was one of the devils. He was placing his manacles on me as he spoke. \"Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law.\"\n\nMy hearing was slowly returning. The police-demon who'd initially opened the door to the church was talking to another of his kind. \"I'm not going down there until CSI arrives. I didn't see much but I've seen enough.\"\n\n\"You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for you. Do you understand each of these rights that I have explained to you?\"\n\n\"No!\" I shouted. I wasn't answering the pig-demon's question, I was looking at the girl. \"They're demons! They'll trap you!\" I thrashed at my captor's grasp. \"God needs me!\" They didn't understand. They never understood. They hadn't understood at the hospital years back when I'd patiently and repeatedly explained it to them. God was trapped in the girls. God would come to me and tell me he needed to be protected. And I would free Him by-\n\nI was hoisted to my feet and unceremoniously hauled out of the house.\n\n\"Don't look down the stairs, Cal, I'm serious.\" The demons kept speaking to each other. \"We saved this one, and I'm thankful for that, but Jesus... there's a half dozen down there. Maybe more.\"\n\n\"Ted, look at me. Look at me. We got him. We got the Godfrey Strangler. He'll never hurt anyone again.\"" ]

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[ "Roses, Tulips, red and fair. \nMatch her curly, golden hair.\n\nA gift to find, a present to give. \nEyes are blind and corpses live.\n\nA bone, a skull, a piece of brain. \nA hand and feet that dance in rain. \n\nMy dearest daughter's growing up. \nI hope the next has better luck.\n\n-\n\nA poem I wrote but don't know why. \nThe daughter's dead now don't you cry.\n", "It's a classic mistake. We see it so often, and really it's hardly surprising. You're a young aspirant necromancer, you've been studying the lore for most of your teenage years, and sitting over grimoires doesn't give you many social skills. So the first thing you do when you get the hang of the spells is to call up a succubus. And usually you get a lot of experience at the cost of most of your bodily strength, and never see her again.\n\nRichard was different, though. He only summoned a succubus once, and when she arrived he wanted to ask about Noctropolis. It took weeks to solve that blasted game. And all the time he never realised what necromancers were *supposed* to want from succubi.\n\nNot the sharpest tool in the box, our Ricky. It surprised me he'd ever managed to produce a daughter. Perhaps his wife told him what to do. Now Carlotta wasn't around he had to do more for Hazel, but she was still a bit of a mystery to him.\n\n\"What should I give her, Billie?\" he asked. \"I normally get her jewellery, but I think she ought to have something special for her sixteenth. I was wondering... do you think she'd like a boyfriend?\"\n\n\"Frankly, Rick, I don't think she would. You're making an assumption about her I'm not sure is justified. Think about it - who's on her posters?\"\n\n\"Well, she's got one of Harry Potter...\"\n\n\"But which character does she have facing forwards? Hermione, doesn't she?\"\n\n\"And there's the Hunger Games.\"\n\n\"With Katniss looking adventurous holding a bow. And which musician is she always listening to?\"\n\nPause while he tried to remember her name. \"Um... Katie Lang, is it?\"\n\n\"Not quite. But my point is, all her crushes are *girls*. Do you really think she's gonna want a guy?\"\n\n\"Oh. Well, I suppose not... You know, I'm not sure I want to get her a girlfriend. What else could we do?\"\n\nI pretended to think. \"You know another thing about her crushes? They all do things for themselves. I bet she'd like to try a bit of necromancy. She's got the brain for it. Lend her the books, introduce her to the demons... it'll bring you two together. I'll even give her some training myself.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Billie! I really appreciate it. I'm so glad we met - you're a real help to me. I'm sure Hazel will be very grateful.\"\n\nIt was almost ridiculous how completely he'd forgotten what I was. It seemed ages since anyone had used my full name, and I'd been wanting to get my hands on Hazel for years. I must be careful, though; I could still hear Carlotta screaming out **BILITISSA!** as the eight hours of pleasure overwhelmed her fragile heart. One death on a succubus's conscience is quite enough.", "Lily, the little 6 year old, was snug in her mother’s arms. she felt loved and happy in this position… a feeling she almost forgot form her earliest years of life. A tear of happiness fell to her cheek as she opened her eyes to see her father sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of them smiling the warmest smile.\n\n “I love you daddy” lily said, and looked at her mother’s expressionless face “Thanks for bringing mommy back”\n", "\"My love. It's been a long time. I wanted you to know from me. Today is Clara's birthday. Our little girl is turning 16. Can you believe it? Just yesterday we three had so many plans. And I still can't talk about girl stuff. All that black and pink. Ergh! There are days when she looks just like you. All colorful. All smiley. Singing during breakfast. Skipping over pavement cracks. There are other days when she looks too much like me. All black. All silent. Sinking the head in her books. Murmuring incomprehensible blasphemies. I know she misses you.\"\n\nGrand Master Brimstone kneeled on the drenched floor of the cemetery. \n\n\"She needs you. And I wanted you to know, from me, before everything, that I am sorry for this.\"\n\nA mute thunder yelled him to stop.\n\n\"ANIMA CORPORI. FUERIT CORPUS TOEM RESURGENT!\"", "\"I'm sure she will love it.\" Grixx carried a plain brown box down the hall. He wasn't one for wrapping presents and his daughter would certainly understand. From inside the box came a noise. He hit the side with his fist to hush the contents. \n\nHe set it down on her bed. When she finally opened it, she found a doll that was attached to strings.\n\n\"I took the soul of a dead author and placed it in this doll. Trying to separate a soul from a corpse is hard!\"\n\nShe said nothing and simply smiled. With careful movement, she made her puppet dance. \"Tell me something puppet.\" She murmured. \n\nThe puppet uttered in monotone, \n\"once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary...\"\n\n\"Poe dad? You got me Poe's soul?\" She didn't hear an answer for her father was gone. ", "There were many skulls. Some from large laboring beasts. Some from secretive elvish creatures so small they could pass insects skittering on the leaves of willow trees. He ran his hands over them all. Not right. Not right. The first should be perfect. It should fit into her magic like a key. \n\nHe touched the skull tied around his waist. A unicorn. One of the last. A kind beast. He'd taken the head just as it had lowered its mouth to the river. The life-force still lingered. Not as strong as it once was. Not as angry. Muted now. Resigned. \n\nShe would take her companion the same way one day. But this first. Oh this first he must give to her. \n\nThe skull curved under his hand. It was on the bottom row, dusty and underused. His father's skulls. Most, he didn't like to think about. But this one, this one might do. He tested the weight, moving it from hand to hand. Yes, this one would do. \n \nShe sat patiently waiting for him. \n\n\"Is it now papa?\" she asked. \n\nHe handed her the skull. He'd cleaned it first. The bone showed white. \n\nShe held it up to her ears as though it were a shell. Her eyes rounded. \n\n\"Oh papa, it's another little girl. Just like me! Thank you!\" \n\nHe hugged her fiercely, glad that she was pleased. ", "She was going to be sixteen this year. How time flies. Part of me wished I'd never killed her mother, but it was the only things keeping me from my path. \n\n\"So, what are you getting me for me birthday?\"\n\nThe question echoed in my head as I worked. At least she didn't ask to go out into the world again. I don't know how many times I needed to tell her it wasn't safe for her. Well, unsafe for me more than her. Those damn \"heroes\" looking for me. They didn't know why I toiled and slaved at my work. It's not as if raising the dead was my dream, but I had my reasons for doing it. I kept saying it in my head as I sewed the skin together on my last masterpiece. \n\n\"Blue or hazel?\" I quietly asked myself as I stared into my jar of preserved eyeballs. \"Why not both?\" I dug into the jar and pulled out a pair of mismatched eyes and put them neatly into the head of my new creation. I only had a few hours to perform the rite, so I got to work immediately enchanting the flesh and bones. The ritual wouldn't take long if I did it properly. \n\nMy daughter paced into the dilapidated tower we'd been living in for several years now. Probably back from another of her midnight strolls around the grounds. I was always uncomfortable with the idea of her patrolling, but she'd become as powerful as I had been at her age. I wouldn't be able to restrict her forever, but maybe just a little longer.\n\n\"Dad, when can I leave the tower? I want to meet people,\" she said with a pout at the door of my lab.\n\n\"People are wretched, dear,\" I explained to her again. \n\n\"I bet you forgot.\"\n\n\"How could I forget my little girl's birthday?\" I feigned insult as I strode over to her. \"I didn't forget your birthday, sweetie. In fact, I got you a special present this year. Follow me.\" Her eyes lit up and she squealed in excitement as she followed me down the stairs into the basement.\n\n\"What did you get me daddy? I never saw you leave.\" I opened up the door to our ritual room and standing inside was a young man. His abdomen was bruised in many areas from where I'd brutalized his original body, but he was still surprisingly handsome. But, of course he would be, he was one of those \"heroes.\" A long gash ran down his ashen chest, hastily stitched together with magical fibers from a Black Forest Silk Spider. His eyes, mismatched, turned to my daughter, and his lips trembled into a lopsided smile.\n\n\"Gwendolyn,\" it said in a hoarse voice.\n\n\"I made you your own minion.\" I swallowed hard. \"And boyfriend. He'll love you in a way no person you ever meet outside of the tower ever will.\" He knew that was sort of a lie. Maybe she would meet another man out there that would be perfect for her, like he did with her mother, but this boy he created was special. He'd enchanted a soul just for her; a difficult task considering how difficult it was to obtain a soul. \n\n\"My own boyfriend?\" Her eyes glittered and she kissed him on the cheek before rushing over to the smiling revenant. \"Oh my gosh, daddy! Thank you! What his name?\" \n\n\"My name is Trystan,\" the revenant told her.\n\n\"Wow, he's more sentient than any of the other ones you've ever made. It must have been hard work.'\n\n\"Anything for my little girl.\" He smiled. Hopefully this would let him hold onto her for a little longer. Every dad was scared to see their kids go out into the world, but he had more reason to be afraid than most.", "A pungent aroma of aftershave emanated from the father's neck, preceding him as he walked into the room well-dressed. His daughter turned her head in disgust as he leaned in closely for a kiss, wrinkling and creasing his once immaculate shirt. With a small smile and a light chuckle, he rose and straightened his tie, crossing the room to the other side of their prepared table. Ethan sat down while straightening his cuffs and stared at the child before him. Emily averted her gaze, turning her head quickly as her dark hair swayed with its crimson ribbons. Her cheeks puffed out lightly as she folded her arms, ignoring the discomfort of the lace trim rubbing against her delicate skin.\n\n“What do we have here, my dear?” he asked softly, politely, in a tone that was almost impossible not to answer. Emily responded by inflating her cheeks further, reddening her fair complexion as the freckles on her face seemed to darken on the rosy canvas. “Ah, I see. Angry are we?”\n\n“No” she responded curtly.\n\n“Hmm. What could it be?” Ethan asked, dancing around the answer that he already knew while buttering a slice of toast and pouring a steaming cup of tea. Carefully, he bit into the warm bread with a light crunch as it released a slight mist of butter into the air. This continued until he had finished his breakfast as the child watched in annoyance and disbelief. “Would it be your birthday present that has you so concerned?”\n\n“No” she replied again, though her expressions betrayed the answer.\n\n“I see” he said thoughtfully, wiping the crumbs from the corners of his mouth neatly as he cleaned the table in one fell swoop. “I happen to remember passing by a number of shops recently, ones that you're most fond of. Perhaps something from there would suffice?”\n\nEmily considered this proposition for a moment as he cleaned the dishes and stored them away. Once his attention returned to her, she shook her head in disagreement. He nodded quietly and gripped the back of the chair he had sat in, thinking to himself. She turned towards him and rested her head atop her folded arms while waiting for his next response.\n\n“Would a grand celebration be more to your liking?” Ethan asked, “I can have Bertrand clear and repair the ballroom in less than a week's time. Just say the word.”\n\n“No” she answered for the third time, though both of these options were highly appealing. What she wanted was something more, but it was not something that she could put into words. Instead, she lifted herself from the seat and asked politely, with a tinge of sadness in her sweet voice, that she be excused.\n\n“You may” her father replied, considering various options that would appease his little girl.\n\nFor the next several days, he watched every waking moment of his daughter's life, more acutely than usual in search of any clue that could be of help. Day after day, night after night, he sat behind the series of screens at his desk as Bertrand tended to the young mistress' every beck and call. When she left their home for the school grounds, he skulked about campus in search of further leads. In time, he noticed that her only interactions, the only time that she was happy, was with Bertrand. The children teased and fought her, the teacher misunderstood, and her father remained out of sight and mind for days on end. At last, it finally came to him, the perfect present.\n\n“Bertrand!” he called, as his butler quickly answered, knowing that Emily was safely tucked in bed.\n\n“You rang?” Bertrand responded in a dull tone.\n\n“Yes. Yes, I did” Ethan replied. “Do you remember the oath that you swore upon taking your position?”\n\n“Of course, sir.” he responded as a look of hurt and insult flashed across his face for the briefest of moments.\n\n“Recite it to me” his master commanded.\n\n“I, Bertrand Alway, solemnly swear to dedicate myself wholly and fully to the service of the family Menke. In sickness and in health, in times of peace and times of conflict, my devotion will remain steadfast, mind, body and soul” he recited faithfully from memory with a great sense of pride.\n\n“I can remember the day you first created that pledge as if it were yesterday, my old friend” he replied, placing his hand upon Bertrand's shoulder as the butler knelt humbly. “What I wish to ask of you, I would no other. If you choose to decline, I will understand and you will be freed of your service. Should you choose to accept however, I fear that your service will know no end.”\n\n“What would you ask of me, my lord?” Bertrand questioned, peering up at the noble father.\n\n“I would ask that you die for my daughter. Here and today” Ethan responded simply.\n\n“I-Sir, I don't-” the butler stumbled, searching for the words that he wished to say.\n\n“Please” he continued, “I have noticed your bond with Emily and the importance of your presence to her. As a present, from you and from me, I would ask that you die for her and be reborn to remain at her side forever more.”\n\n“Sir, do not ask me such things! I am your devoted servant and your every wish is my command. It is true that I love Emily as if she were my own and I would gladly die for her if need be. If you believe that this is best, do not ask! Command!” Bertrand replied, gripping his master's hands between his own as tears welled in his eyes.\n\n“Very well then” Ethan answered coldly. “Give your life to me Bertrand so that my daughter may know the greatest gift yet!”\n\n“Yes, my lord” Bertrand conceded as he plunged a knife into his own chest, killing himself. “I look forward to meeting you anew, sir.”\n\n“Farewell Bertrand” he replied, taking the butler's body in his arms.\n\nA small celebration occurred at the back of their towering home, with Emily as its star attraction. She sat happily, surrounded by mountains of gifts that gave a fleeting joy and showered by the affections of the family. Everyone that she knew and remotely care about was present with the exception of her father. Emily did not let it show how much this had bothered her, particularly as Bertrand was also nowhere to be found. To her surprise, her father descended the staircase with an enormous box between his arms and a great grin stretched across his face.\n\nEmily quickly left her seat and the other toys behind, dashing for the box that Ethan had place upon the ground. Without a moment of hesitation, she ripped the bow from the package and watched in awe as the cardboard walls fell. In the center was an enormous teddy bear, covered in plush fur with streaks of grey throughout. She hugged the bear tightly and looked up at its large face, laughing and smiling innocently.\n\n“What's your name?” she asked.\n\n“You can call me Bertrand” it replied, returning her hug. “Would you like a friend, miss?”\n\n“Emily! You can call me Emily. And I'd love one” she responded, squeezing the bear tighter as it laughed. “I used to have a friend named Bertrand, you know?”\n\n“Is that so?” Bertrand replied, winking at Ethan as he stifled a chuckle behind his hand.\n\n-115", "Pacing back and forth. I did that far too much, one day I would wear a hole through the floor. Then again, that would be impressive, as you can't exactly wear a hole through the earth. The underground bunker was my own private space. Dank. Gloomy. Cold. Perfect place for a necromancer. It also helped that it was a forgotten graveyard. Plenty of bones, not many problems, and the occasional overzealous paladin made it a simple, satisfying life. I was pleased. I revelled in my own instinctive killing nature, and in how easy it was to solve whatever life threw at me. For was death not life's own reflection? \n\nDeath is the perfect solution for life. Simple as that. Why then, couldn't I find a good gift for my soon to be 16 year old daughter?\n\nShe had run off- quite the disappointment - she'd run off and become a druid, healing animals and people and keeping them *away* from the true path. It was all very frustrating, because she totally rejected death, and if I couldn't find something *alive* to give her, I might as well give her nothing at all.\n\nUndeath? No. Demonspawn? No. Possession? No. Curse jars? Dancing bones? Petty jewels? Plants? Can plants even be reanimated?\n\n_____________________________________\n#Two weeks later\n_____________________________________\n\nShe should have the gift by now. I very much hoped she would enjoy it. Besides, isn't that what druids like best? Healing? Mother nature? Bringing peace and happiness to lost spirits? \n\nPerhaps she would still enjoy Papa's cruel humour. Two spirits would never be happy in one body that wasn't even theirs to begin with.", "\"Rebecca will understand.\" He convinced himself. He had overheard her talking with her mother about getting a puppy, her previous dog had been disposed of. The basement was dimly lit; a lump of mouldy fur and flesh lied in the centre of the floor, surrounded with candlelight. A fragile body covered with bloody sheets lay near the circle. The ritual required concious tribute, he knew Rebecca would be devastated when she discovers her mother will be leaving her forever; but he was not losing her.\n\nThe sky was clear, the moon was full and the air was heavy. He slowly carried his lover from her bed down the staircase, tied up and silent with fear. What remained of his skin lacked human complexion, his eyes were white and his hair thin. \"Please, my love don't do this.\" Her voice was stale. He gagged her with a cloth and laid her next to the child.\n\"I was wrong to believe our love was eternal, but in her we will both live forever.\" \n\nHe took a long iron nail in each hand, \"Life brings death, let death bring life.\"\nSlowly he pushed each nail into her eye sockets, her screams were heard throughout the heavens, the Gods were listening.\n\"Accept this sacrificial life in exchange for eternal life, in return may the life be forever servants to your name.\" He plunged a dagger into her heart. The room flashed, shadows danced around the room. A sudden gasp of air and pant, followed by a series of screams. Then almost without warning everything stopped. The room was lifeless.\n\nHe returned the girl and her companion to her bed and disposed of the rest. He sat at the end of her bed waiting, the sun was rising and the sky was dark red. The girls eyes opened slowly, her pupils were red and grey.\n\"Happy Birthday, Rebecca\".", "\"Athanasia!\" The Necromancer bursts though the portal that separates the couples worlds, entering a world vomiting with bright and life- Lively plants complete with lively creatures. The only thing lively thing that captivates him is that elegant woman standing in the middle, not so much the over zealous life she brings.\n\n\"Yes, Thanatos?\" She turns, the simple white dress caught in the momentum, moving as graceful as she.\n\nHe clutches his chest, and retreats to the safety of his dark, dreary world. With the scent of rotting corpses filling his nostrils, he catches his breath.\n\n\"What are you doing, leaving muck in my world?\" He can hear her cursing, and then the vigorous sweeping blasts him with a blast of sweet smelling aroma. He is repulsed, yet attracted; he is certain she feels the same way-\n\nOr they would not be married, with children.\n\nChildren, oh yes!\n\n\"Well- Honey-\" He paces, stroking his thinly chin and peppery goatee.\n\n\"Our eldest daughter, Lexi?\"\n\n\"You still did not get her birthday gift?\" She dares to peer her head though the magical beads. \tHer eyes grow in terror at the reanimated corpse staggering behind the necromancer, and she withdraws with a gut wrenching heave.\n\n\"She is not like the younger ones-\" Thanatos kicks a budding sprout back though the portal, heaving out a sigh of defeat.\n\nAlex loved riding the reanimated fire horse, and Xander was thrilled to receive the beginner necromancy kit, even Zandra, -another girl- loved raising her first body: Sindel of Edenia.\n\nNeedless to say Quan Chi was highly impressed with her work-\n\n\"Than!\" His wife snaps him out of his droning.\n\n\"She is here, on my side-\"\n\n\"O-OH!\" He pokes his head though the portal, enduring the beauty and the sweet scent long enough to see the plain Jane of the family.\n\nLexi never bothers to change out of her school clothes, and she remains hooked onto her iPhone, which beeps and peeps endlessly.\n\t\n\"HELLO!\" He practically screams at the top of his lungs.\n\n\"HOW ARE YOU- HOW WAS SCHOOL, BIRTHDAY GIRL!?\"\n\nThe bustles of a broom shoves him out of the bright world-\n\n\"Stop getting distracted!\" Athanasia hisses from behind the portal,\n\n\"Find something in the next half hour, or you're dead!\"\n\nDeath not a threat to one who is surrounded by it, but he understands the dire tone.\n\nQuick, QUICK! He twirls around the groaning corpse pacing, -Sorry, Elvis, but Lexi does not share the same taste in music- and racing to his creaky mansion as quickly as his heavy black robes would allow.\n\nIf she is home, then they should be too. Hopefully they will know her outlandish tastes.\n\n***\n\n\"I bought her a bluetooth speaker.\" Zandra answers bluntly, stroking her Frankenstein of a cat, mumbling that he needs a new tail because it is falling off.\n\n\"What sort of magic is that?\" Thanatos blinks dumbly.\n\n\"I got her recess pieces!\" The youngest of the three brags.\n\nTo everything divine, what sort of ingredient is that?\n\nThe middle child, Xander shrugs.\n\n\"She very fond of human technology, so I got her that tablet...\"\n\n\"Tablet?\"\n\n\"An earth device-\"\n\n\"Earth things?\" He raises his brow.\n\n\"YES!\" Alex giggles as snatches away the family pet from his older sister, sprinting away with his white robes chasing.\n\n\"No undead on your mother's side!\" Thanatos reminds, despite knowing that Alex will do it anyway, just like how he smuggled that live cat-\n\nWhich is now the dead cat.\n\n\"Earth... Earth...\" He haunches, stroking his chin once more.\n\n\"Dad, just get her-\" Zandra steps forward to whisper.\n\nHe is off to the 'wallmart' then... He cannot go wrong, his children knows what is best for their eldest sister!\n\n***\nWhile they tend to reject each other in their own worlds, but Thanatos and his wife stand are side by side when they are on earth. The winds blow by his ragged black, and his wife's pure white robes. They stare at each other, wondering what sort of reaction she will get.\n\nHopefully not underwhelmed like last year, apparently she hated that vampire book.\n\nThe moment of truth arrives, when his gift is finally upon Lexi's lap. She glares at it a moment, fearing the worse until she started ripping the wrapping seeing the title.\n\n\"Oh my gosh!\" Her eyes light up and she gasps.\n\n\"Fifty-Shades!\" She holds it up, only to stare up at her father.\n\n\"You have no idea what this is... Do you?\"\n\n\"No, but as long as you love it, that is all that matters.\" He stands proudly-\n\nBlissfully unaware that the book is an erotica.\n\n\"Dammit-\" He hears Zandra cursing under her breath.\n\n\"Thought she would have hated that...\"\n\nThanatos raises his brow, but in the end he breaks into an ear to ear smile, feeling content and accomplished.\n\n\"Happy birthday, Lexi.\"\n", "\"I just don't want to be a failure of a father too.\" Said the withered figured in a bright blue robe. Scattered across the alchemy table I front of him was a mixture of single patently guides and teen magazines. An undead corpse of a woman stepped behind him and began to rub his shoulders. \"It's alright honny, I am sure you'll find the perfect for Jemma.\" \n\nRelaxing his shoulders under the gentle touch of his wife, the necromancer let out a sigh. \" You know I was never cut out to be a father, much less a good one. I've haven't always been there for her growing up you know.\" \n\n\"She's always admired you growing up, not very kid has a dad that can standup to death.\" Said the undead woman lovingly. Letting out another sigh, the necromancer collapsed into a nearby chair. \"But I couldn't do anything thing to stop death from taking her mother away. When you got sick I searched and searched, but failed you and her. I know she resents me for it. Hell I resent myself for it.\" \n\nThe undead woman smiled.\"She still loves you, and so do I.\" The woman clears the clutter from the table infront of him. \"Why don't you bring her out of this dusty old tower. \"Bring her horse riding, spend the day with her. I know you to haven't done that in a while.\"", "\"A corpse? No... Perhaps a sacrifice? Nah, too bloody and I'd need a scalpel. A reanimated corpse? Yes...She'll like that. Oh, I'll have to get a celebrity, oh! So much choice!\"\n\nThe old necromancer was tying a belt around his old black robe. He examined one of the grey swirls on his cloak and marched out of the room swiftly, setting off to work.\n\nThe teenage girl stood outside of the dark oak door, listening carefully to each word. She let out a squeal when she heard that she was getting a celebrity for her sixteenth birthday. \n\nShe heard her dad's heavy footsteps approaching the door and sprinted away to her bedroom to make a list of what she wanted for christmas. 'Imagine what I'll get for Christmas!' She thought excitedly. 'Maybe a famous human sacrifice! Just for me! Oh, I'll have to invite all of the undead to my Christmas gathering!' \n\n[I hope you like this, I'm writing it quickly before I go to a sleepover.]", "\"I HATE you Dad! How could you do this to me!\" Tabitha cried as she slammed the door to her roomed closed. Her father Grimlock, honestly confused, was taken aback at her reaction to his birthday present. \n\n\"Tabby dear, whats the matter? Don't you love the gift I got you, isn't it just what you said you've always wanted?\"\n\n\"Not like that you idiot\" Tabitha screamed from behind the door of her room. \"How could you do this to me? I hate you!.\"\n\nGrimlock didn't understand. For a few years now his daughter had been going on about wanting this to happen. Trying to be a good father he spent months in preparation and put in a lot of hard work to make his little girls wish come true. And this is the thanks he gets?\n\n\"Now you listen here young lady! Do you understand how much effort I put into making this happen? Do you?\" Gromlock said sternly. \"Necromancy isn't some easy task. I had to collect all the right materials. Plan it all out to happen under the right lunar cycle! Not to mention he was alive at first! Returning an already dead corpse isn't nearly as difficult as breaking into someones home, murduring them, and then bringing them back to life to be my daughters undead slave!\"\n\n\"I didn't want him as an undead slave! I said I wanted him!\" Tabitha sobbed. \"Its not the same dad.\"\n\nNot the same? Well clearly it wasn't the same but Grimlock thought he had made it better. Not only would his daughter get her wish but the undead would be bound to be with her forever. A living body could leave if it wanted too. And Grimlock couldn't bear the thought of seeing his little girls heart broken.\n\n\"I'll never understand teenage girls\" Grimlock mumbeled to himself. \"Now what to do with you.\"\n\n\"Baaaabbby uhhhh Baaaabbbby Ughhh\" The undead corpse of Justin Beiber grumbled as he stared at his master with his blank, lefeless eyes.\n\n\"Well I guess I can just return you to your home. Honestly I don't see how anybody would notice the difference\" Grimlock said in a rather annoyed tone. Mayb next year he would just dig up her old cat or something. \n" ]

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[ "The cold steel of the handgun felt foreign in Harold's hand. He hefted it several times, getting a feel for it, before scoffing and tossing it to clatter on the table in front of him. He sneered as he reread the note. Whomever decided to put him here took him for a bigger fool than he would have expected. Hitler, Stalin, and Trosky. An interesting combination, to be sure. Perhaps they were trying to influence Lenin's actions in the world at large at the time? Harold snorted, and wrinkled his nose. How *boring*.\n\nHe stepped to the windows, and threw open their shutters. Below, the slowly awakening crowd of Vienna began milling about in the twisting streets below. He could see Danube off in the distance, peeking through the early morning fog that would surely burn away as the sun rose. Well, they didn't seem to be lying anyway. The dress and technology of the people just waking up to the day was certainly barely turn of the century.\n\nHarold turned, and began rummaging through the room's wardrobe for suitable clothes. As he dressed him self comfortably for the weather and time period, he contemplated his options. Clearly the threat of exterminating his ancestors was utterly asinine. Either doing so would create a paradox, in which he would likely just return to his original timeline with nothing changed, or it wouldn't. In that case, he had no incentive to do anything the note said at all. After all, what did he care about what happened to some people he hardly knew of, just because they shared some paltry sum of genetic information with him.\n\nNo, Harold would play his own game with the wheels of history. Even if his assumptions about the mechanics of time travel were off he was no assassin, and certainly no pawn of some shadowy puppet master. If they could exact retribution from him for following his own course, he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. He checked his appearance one last time in the mirror, and smiled slightly at himself. This *would* be fun. After all, it's not every day you get to change the course of history by handing Germany the atomic bomb decades early. It would be interesting to see the face of the world after such a change.\n\nHarold turned, and after a moment's thought scooped up the pistol and dropped it into the pocket of his overcoat. One couldn't be too careful in strange times and places. As he left the room, and into the world at large, he tried to recall the state of the stock market of this time period. Perhaps IBM would be a good choice. Or was it still CTR at this time? The door thumped closed behind him, leaving silence in the room, and the long forgotten note on the desk.", "**Chapter 1**\n\nI couldn't have imagined that surging back nearly a century would have been such a turbulent ride, because I've heard rumors of others going back a millennium seamlessly. I was dreaming before I arrived, about how the intellectuals have finally discovered a way to not only go back in time, but to manipulate each separate timeline and merging them into one. I was dreaming about our Leader giving a confidential speech to us, about how he was secretly allowing the underground scientists to send agents back in time to alter world power in favor of our Nation. \n\nI woke up in a cold sweat gasping for air. I couldn't remember the details of the nightmare I woke up from. *Here we go*. The briefcase rested on a stand to the right of the bed. On top of it was a card with my name on it. I opened it to take a look at its contents. A Kel-Tech PMR 30 with half a dozen mags and a thousand rounds rested on top of a pile of dossiers. I was very thankful that the lab rats honored my request for my weapon of choice. The standard issue was a 1911, and I wasn't someone who liked to reload every seven shots.\n\nI opened up the first dossier to reveal a stone cold picture of The Fuhrer. *What?* I didn't understand how this could possibly affect the power leverage for our Nation in a significant way, but I trusted the intellectuals to have played out the scenario enough times. On to the second folder. Stalin. OK, this made a little more sense. Third. Trotsky. *Nice*. It was a great feeling knowing that I could play a part in preventing the Red Seed from sprouting.\n\nThere was a note at the bottom of the piles of the dossiers. *Lee, feel free to advance with the objectives at your own pace and discretion.* I smiled to myself. Micromanaging an operative would be an absolute sin. This was the first time in my life where I felt like our Nations leaders weren't soulless bureaucrats. I imagined the possibility of our Great Nation emerging as a world power. I jumped out of bed and walked to the bathroom to get ready. I couldn't wait to get started. ", "I try not to smile. This can't be happening. I would happily kill these three guys. Well, I don't know what Trotsky did to deserve to die, but I didn't care. Since I was a born, I had only had one hope, one dream. It was hard to describe. I didn't want to tell anyone because I thought I'd be hospitalized. I had dreamed I'd never been born. Finally, it was going to happen. I leave the silenced pistol on the table. Someone else can have it. It's not my style.\n\nThen, I don't disappear. I continued to live. It was terrible, but, then, I found my way to Russia and joined Lenin until his death. They had plenty of use for me until Stalin took over. Thankfully, he didn't kill me outright. Instead, he trusted me. I became his muscle. \n\nAs the years passed, I gained his trust and was sent to Mexico where I met Trotsky again. A patsy took the fall for my botched assassination. In 1945, I found my way into a bunker in Berlin and killed a man who had murdered his wife. It was only later that I discovered it was Adolf Hitler. In 1953, I found myself growing tired of Stalin and his reign of terror. I wanted him to suffer, so I poisoned him with warfarin, a blood thinner than can lead to excess bleeding. In the end, I never used the gun. I don't know why they expected me to. I assumed I'd been chosen because I was such an adept killer. The pistol was a way to insult me. They were daring me to make these kills my own, so I did. ", "My alarm doesn't go off. \"That's strange\" I think to myself. Normally that infernal blaring wrests me from my dreams far too early. I don't even hear the baby birds on the deck whose chirps are none too cute at 5:45am in the morning. Eyes still shut, I grope for where my phone normally rests on the floor by my bed. My fingers aren't greeted by the cool metal, but, even more surprisingly, they aren't greeted by carpet, but instead cool hardwood. That opens my eyes. \n\nThis definitely is not my room. Above me a ceiling fan depends from the ceiling, slowly clicking around, but I cannot feel it moving any air. My own bed is a queen sleigh bed, but the one I occupy is a four poster canopy. I quickly notice that all the furniture is antique, but at the same time looks strangely new. A more prolific man would wonder if he got drunk and went home with a strange woman. Unfortunately I know this can't explain my situation. I don't drink often, and it is rare a woman finds my melancholy that endearing. Whatever brought me here cannot be so easily explained. I feel fine though, so I know that unlike Charlie the Unicorn, I have at least retained both kidneys. I don't know why, but I always make terrible jokes when I am nervous.\n\nNow I notice the windows are open but the curtains are drawn. I live in Alabama, if the windows are open, it should be hot, yet the room is comfortable. Still completely confused, but not yet panicked, I move to the window hoping a view of the exterior might be elucidating. Timidly I draw aside the curtain, afraid of what I will see beyond.\n\nNow, I'm panicked. I'm an American. I'm not particularly well traveled. I know Europe when I see it. My view is down a street lined with well maintained but clearly historic buildings. On the horizon I see an bridge spanning a sizable river. Already the streets are bustling with people, but no one pays any mind to the stunned face gazing down at them a few stories up. \n\nAs I recoil from the window, I notice the dresser has a large envelope on it. Even it seems to be an antique. Rather than the metal brad of today's manila envelopes, it features a string wrapped around a sort of hook on the flap and the main part of the envelope. With my hands furiously trembling it takes me a few attempts to open it. Inside is a piece of paper which states the following:\n \n \"You are in Vienna, 1913. The pictures attached are Leon Trotsky, Josef \n Stalin, and Adolf Hitler. Kill them or we will kill your ancestors. Everything\n you should need is in the closet.\"\n\nBehind that is the three photos mentioned in the letter. For some odd reason I think of McCoy from Star Trek and adapt his famous line to scoff \"I'm a lawyer dammit, not an assassin!\" Again, I blame being so confused and alarmed for my poor humor. That said though, I was a history major at UA. I love it more than anything and I know the significance of those names and this date. I know that, on the off chance this is real, to do this task would completely change history.\n\nI move to the closet. I open the door and notice a neatly hanging outfit. The shirt is white, but the tie is remarkably wide. The suit is a tasteful grey, but the lapels are similarly wide, and the pants incredibly pleated. A modern Brooks Brother's narrow lapel, flat front pants suit this is not. I, for some reason, say aloud \"I'll give you credit you really got the details down, this could be a suit from 1913, I'd certainly get laughed out of court these days.\" I notice there is even a hat on the shelf, something I wouldn't dream of wearing as no one but Matt Boemer can pull it off these days. My heart skips a beat though when I notice on the floor in the middle of the closet is a box. It is nondescript, really just an attractive wooden box like someone might use to hold cigars, but somehow I suspect that isn't what is inside. I kneel down, and crack the box. I do that awkward thing where I feel if I peek in I can mitigate the shock. I can't. Much like Pandora's Box, the mere crack was enough to let the contents out.\n\nI know guns, and that peek had shown me a Walther PPK, suppressor, and two full mags. Somehow that gun seemed particularly appropriate for my task, should I choose to accept it. \n\nThat gun seemed to be a mistake though. Up until that point everything had been period appropriate, but that was not a 1913 gun. Nonetheless, I find myself donning the antiquated suit, and even putting the weapon in the shoulder holster I found hanging between the shirt and suit. Please don't consider these actions as my acceptance of the \"mission\" but simply the motions of a shocked and confused man with nothing else to do. \n\nWith my suit, gun, and yes, even the hat, donned, I leave my room and continue to the lobby. Everyone else was wearing period appropriate clothing, and the clerk bid me a genuine sounding \"Guten Morgen\" as I turned in my key. \n\nWhen I step onto the street, I have no doubt that I am actually in Europe, but surely the prank couldn't extend past the hotel. Thinking myself very clever, I think I will cross a few streets, things would become more modern as I get outside the scope of the prank and I can even obtain a newspaper to confirm the date. As I wandered through the crowd, I become concerned at how this certainly seems like 1913. There are no cellphones, laptops, or Hondas. All I see is horses, Mercedes that should have looked like collectors items rather than brand new, and people going about normal lives. It is too grand to be a prank. Still, I hold out hope and move to a news stand. I pick up a paper that was in English. The headline reads \"White Star Line in Financial Trouble One Year After Titanic Sinking\" and an editorial has the headline \"Is War Inevitable?\" Then I see the date, 15 April, 1913, and I knew this was no prank: I have traveled back in time.\n\nI stagger into a nearby cafe and seat myself at a table. The waitress asks me something in German, with a thick Austrian accent. I took a little German in undergrad, but in my shock I have no idea what she says. All I can do is stammer, \"Wa, Wasser, bitte.\" Her quizzical look tells me that they don't get many people from Alabama pretending to speak German at this time, but she goes to retrieve it nonetheless.\n\nFor the first time, I look at my situation not as a prank, but as reality, and think of the text and pictures I found in the envelope. I, a middle class lawyer am tasked with killing three of the most important figures in modern history. \"Why not a Navy Seal or someone good at this kind of thing?\" I wonder. \n\nAbout that time the waitress returns and I eagerly gulp the water. I have to admit, I've always thought I was meant for something more. I never wanted to sit behind a desk doing bankruptcies for people who would just be back in the same situation soon. I could make a real difference here. I could stop the Holodomor, stop the Soviets from seizing power, stop the Holocaust and WWII. I could be the most important person in history.\n\nStrangely I think of Jurrassic Park and Ian Malcolm saying \"your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should.\" \"Should I do this\" I ask myself. Truth is, I don't really know much about time travel. It seems like I once heard that time cannot be altered, it will always revert to it's original course. Maybe this won't change anything. More importantly, what if the outcome is worse? It is hard to imagine something worse, but it could happen. Maybe without these people the precarious balance of power doesn't tip until after everyone has nuclear weapons. Maybe all the people who died between 1914 and 1945 did so that the rest of the world would not. I simply can't know. \n\nAs I'm pondering this I absently stare across the street. For the first time I notice the artist there with his easel and brushes. He furiously paints the stunning cathedral nearby. But then my blood runs cold. The middle age weight is missing, the hairline not so far back, the iconic mustache much wider that it would later be, but I recognize him from the photo. As though an invisible hand guides this strange affair Adolf Hitler is across the street. \n\nI feel the gun against my ribs with the suppressor affixed and a shell in the chamber. It would be so easy I think. As I waffle between what is the right course of action, he begins to pack up and move off. Unconsciously I stand up and my feet carry me after him. He turns into a small, deserted graveyard. Ironic I think.\n\nMidway through the courtyard he hears me behind him and turns to me. He eagerly presents his painting and says something I cannot understand, but I suspect he wants me to buy it. I reach inside my jacket and pull out the gun. I point it at him.\n\nInstantly, his eyes widen and he drops the painting and materials, half raising his arms. There I stand in the middle of a graveyard with the most infamous man in world history before me. With a simple pull of the trigger I can change world history, and save my own skin too. The truth is though, that isn't the man before me. Twenty years younger and in a paint smeared outfit, he's really just a terrified kid. If it is unfair to blame the sins of the father on the son, can I blame the unperformed sins of the adult on the teenager? My hand shakes, but my finger tightens...\n", "My eyes open. As usual, I have a pounding headache and feel like I have to puke. At least this time I haven't crapped in my pants. I guess my body is getting acclimated to transport. \n\nI would like nothing more than to find out who these assholes are so I can strangle them with my bare hands, but I know that isn't going to happen. Hell, I am not even sure who I am any more. I know I was some sort of prisoner. I know that doing these jobs is somehow connected to me getting parole, but it is obvious that it was all a lie. I suppose that is why they have to threaten me now.\n \nNext to me is a note: \"You are in Vienna, 1913. The pictures attached are Leon Trotsky, Josef Stalin, and Adolf Hitler. Kill them or we kill your ancestors.\" As usual, there is also a gun. I hate this. In the mirror I look pretty good. Young, fit, even a bit handsome.\n\nFinding Hitler was easy enough. Turns out he is a starving artist. He seemed pleasant enough and I couldn't see any reason to hurt him. Fuck this, I thought. I'll wait to see why this asshole has to die before I do it. I finally figured it out but he was a tough fucker. I tried to get him in the trenches and even winged him during a comic attempt to take over Germany. He just ended up in jail.\n \nI would have to take out Trotsky and Stalin in the meantime. Once Trotsky found out I was on to him he led me on a goose chase. I finally caught up to him in Mexico City of all places. Easy kill.\n \n Stalin did everything he could to stop me. Since he couldn't figure out my true identity he just axed everyone around him. Army officers, government workers, even peasants on the street. What a dumbass. I just did his bidding, helped him with these purges, and he never figured out it was me. Watching him go crazy with fear was even a bit entertaining.\n \nI was able to finally take care of Hitler with the war. The little Austrian bastard would blow his brains out with Soviet armies closing in on Berlin. This war has been a pain in the ass, but I have been through so many different twentieth centuries I understand German war strategy perfectly. The last one had Germany winning in 1917, and there was no second war. What the fuck do I care. It will all get changed again anyway.\n \nI was finally able to take care of Stalin in 1952. Poison. That fucker is hard to get alone, though, that's for sure. \n \nAfter seeing the old tyrant die, I know I will have another job. Luckily, I don't transport immediately. What the fuck do they want from me now? I reach into my pocket and find a new note:\n \n\"Nikita, this is a picture of John F. Kennedy. Kill him. You know what will happen if you refuse.", "The twirling ceiling fan was the first thing Cassie saw when she opened her eyes. A dull headache was the first thing she was feeling. \n\nShe had no idea where she was. And from the looks of the bed she was laying in, and the room surrounding the bed, she had no idea WHEN she was either.\n\nSimple wrought-iron posts. Some ornate cushiony chairs. An antique-looking lamp with a very thick electrical cord. A ticking grandfather clock. No phones, no television, not even a radio.\n\nHow did I end up in the turn of the century, she thought. I was at a high-class party... I had a few cocktails, did one of them get spiked? Who did I talk to, who did I dance with? Did I sleep with them? This nightgown doesn't belong to me... did I put it on? And what happened to my time machine? I left it somewhere in the room, right?\n\nShe looked in the drawers, under the bed, under the table, behind the clock. Where the hell is it?!\n\nShe checked the bathroom. It wasn't under the sink, or under the tub, or even behind the toilet. Was it in the tank? She had to stand on the toilet seat to look inside, since it was a foot above her head. Not there either!\n\nNo. Oh God no. I can't be stuck here. What is this, 1900? I won't be born for another 82 years! What am I gonna do?\n\nShe sank into the cushiony chair and stared at the window. Maybe that trick in that \"Quantum Leap\" episode would work, where the guy put a letter in the mail with specific instructions to deliver it in a certain year. What was Agent Scott's address again?...\n\nIt was then that Cassie noticed the small wooden box on the window sill.\n\nHow did I pass that up? she thought. Maybe my time machine is in there! She rushed over to the box and opened it.\n\nCrap. Nothing but a gun and a folded piece of paper. Wait... that gun looks too new to be a 19th-century model. Am I really in 1900?\n\nShe looked out the window. Nothing looked present-day at all. Just lots of people walking, and lots of horse-driven carriages trotting down brick-laden streets. It didn't look like Berlin.\n\nShe glanced down at the piece of paper. As she picked it up, she could feel a few pictures paper-clipped to it. She unfolded the paper and read it.\n\n\"You are in Vienna, 1913. The pictures attached are Leon Trotsky, Josef Stalin, and Adolf Hitler. Kill them or we will kill your ancestors.\"\n\nShe felt numb. Did Agent Scott put me up to this? That was not like him to steal my time machine and give me a mission to assassinate three influential historical figures. He always went on about how certain events in history must be left alone, no matter how heinous and tragic they were. He'd surely come to my rescue, right?\n\nSlowly a feeling of dread came over her. Someone must have done something to him. And whoever did it has all her personal information now. They probably know where Benjamin Bale and Millie Stanton and her other ancestors live too. I can't let them die! She collapsed on the bed, frozen in panic.\n\nOkay. Stop. Get a hold of yourself, Cassie. You need to get out of this room and figure out where you are and where you need to go and get help. She rummaged through the closet to find a dress that wasn't too constricting. She dressed herself, tucked the gun in between her breasts, and hurried downstairs.\n\nAs she stepped into the brisk Vienna air, she thought to herself, I'll never get that Ultravox song out of my head now.", "(Please forgive my english, I'm just learning it as a second language. This is my first time posting on reddit. Any suggestions on improving my english/writting skills are welcome. Thanks.)\n\nI wake up because of the wet sheets due to my own sweat in a summer midnight -Damn! It's one of those blackouts again, this always happens this time of the year!- I think grumpy for myself while I try to reach the lantern I always keep on my night table because of an eventuality like this.\n In the middle of the dark, I touch randomly with my right hand around the night table until my hand touches a round, cold object. I immediatly look for the light switch of my old tactical lantern, but suddenly I realize that my senses don't recognize the object I'm touching, and even though I try to remember what it could be such a thing on my night table, my memory can't recall anything. Anyway, I loose the strange object and keep searching with my hand into the darkness until a couple of seconds later I recognize the texture of the lantern, this time I'm able to turn its light switch on, my curiosity led me to immediatly find out what is that unknown object I had just touched in the darkness, what I see takes my breath away: it's an old super silenced magnetic acceleration pistol! I can't believe it, it's the gun I've always wanted to own! I used it in World War III back in the 2030's and had never seen one of them again.\nNext to it there is something that I still hadn't realized it was there, an envelope. Some clarity starts to form in my head, i've just remembered I will turn 86 tomorrow, my grandson, my only and beloved grandson has always known my fond for weapons and he has managed to give this last happiness to an old man who is closer to death than to life! The envelope must be nothing else but his birthday letter for me to find it in the morning! I feel sorry for ruining his surprise waiking up in the middle of the night and finding out his lovely surprise this way. I can't wait until the morning to read it, So I open it and prepare to read it under the light of my lantern. \n\nWait... this must be a joke, the letter says I'm in Vienna, year 1913, exactly 100 years before I was born! And it contains the picture of three old fashioned men... that I must kill in order to save my ancestors from a death that will prevent me from being born! Oh, my grandson! He thinks that he can fool an old war veteran like me! I just put the letter aside and go back to sleep, tomorrow we will laugh at his joke together. He still is the best grandson ever because of his beautiful gift. I immediatle fall asleep regardless of the heat.\n\nFor the time I wake up, the morning light has already come through my window, so the first thing I want to do at the plenty of daylight is play with my new toy: my old super silenced magnetic acceleration pistol. I will really enjoy having this badass rare baby in my collection!\n\nThe first thing that remembers me everyday that I'm an old decrepit man is that chronical pain in my knees, wrists and every joint of my body due to arthritis. But this one is an exceptional day, no pain at all, the perfect birthday!\n\nAfter a while, I get up from bed feeling like a young twenty something years old young... but there is something strange in the atmosphere, I don't know what is it... it feels like I'm somewhere else... the room, is different, there is no air conditioning machine! There are no lightbulbs in the ceiling! There are no light switches on the wall; furnitures, even bed itself look surprisingly old fashioned!... a terrible thought suddenly strikes my mind: looks like if I was in another past century!.... the letter, the fucking letter! This might be a nightmare! \n\nThe absolute absence of pain in my joints takes a new approach \nIn my already terrified mind, I run out of the room and frantically start looking for a mirror, at this point I'm not impressed anymore by the old fashion furniture and architecture of what seems to be an old, a very old hotel. I can't find any mirror, but a window glass provides reflection enough to confirm what I feared: I look exactly like a twenty two year old me, te age I was when I went to war in 2035. That's enough, I understand immediatly I've been sent back in time to acomplish an important mission. The letter is no joke, I have to kill those men no matter what. \n\nI go back to my room, sit down on bed for a couple of minutes to calm down, then a crazy idea starts revolving in my head: what if I just don't fulfill the order? I will be a traitor, my pride and my honorability will be reduced to ashes, but I will live twice. No matter if I'm not born in 2013, Somehow I have already lived that life until I was 86 even though I don't live it again. I'm now 22, and I can live a whole life again. \n\nIt's 1977, Hitler, one of the men I had to kill back in 1913 has started a world war, how could I imagine when I \"fought\" world war III in the 2030's that it could have easily been world war II if I just had acomplished my mission?\nStalin, the other guy I had to kill has almost turned the world to communism.\nTrotsky, has founded a doctrine so strong that thousands follow him and is now a strong political force in the Unjted States and the whole world. \nThe three of them are already dead without my intervention, they acomplished what the natural course of history had prepared for them. \n\nI'm now 86 years old, again, and I live in a retirement house for people with mental illness. I have heard the nurses and doctors jokingly refering to me as \"the crazy man who thinks that comes from the future\". The pistol, they still let me keep it with me, because they say it's just a toy. ", "A blaring light sears through my eyelids, and the only thing I can see is the illuminated red flesh over my eyes. My head throbs as a deafening ringing echoes between the walls of my head, and I vaguely register the hard wooden surface that my stiff body has adhered to. I try moving my fingers and groan in relief as they each move. My arms feel wobbly as I push myself off the ground, my face peeling unpleasantly off the floor yet remaining stiffly frozen in place.\n\nWhite light pours down in front of me, and at first, I wonder, 'Is this death?' before my eyes adjust, making out the large window in front of me. I look around. Beige walls with old-fashioned wooden furniture, and a very traditional but cozy looking bed.\n\nAnd a man, squirming whilst tied and gagged in a corner. His eyes were wild with fear, and his hair - which probably had been neatly slicked back not long ago - looked like it was trying just as hard to escape.\n\nI kick myself back, barely stifling an alarmed cry.\n\nA small box with an elegant bow sits between us, and as I cautiously edge closer, I see that a beautifully scripted note is attached:\n\n\"Open.\"\n\nA few seconds passed as I dumbly stared. When did it ever seem like a good idea to open such a suspiciously harmless looking box in front of a hostage?\n\nDread ticks at me with each passing second, and I grudgingly crawl over to open the box.\n\nThe note inside was written with the same elegant hand:\n\n\"You are in Vienna, 1913.\n\nYour mission is Leon Trotsky, Josef Stalin, and Adolf Hitler.\n\nDispose of them, or we will ensure the failure of your existence.\"\n\nThere are three black and white photographs, of people I had seen only in textbooks and heard about in large lecture halls half a world away.\n\nA glint of light inside of the box catches my attention, and I stare in disbelief at a very modern gun with a silencer attached to it.\n\nI'm pretty sure I didn't sign up for this when I answered that small newspaper ad about a temp job. I really just wanted to pay my rent.\n\nI scramble to the window, squinting as my eyes adjust to the scene outside. My stomach drops as I saw the three familiar faces lounging downstairs on the outside patio.\n\nIf this was a joke, it definitely wasn't funny anymore.\n\nI whip around in a panic, and I can feel my heart punching through my chest. I look back at the helpless man in the corner, now noticing that both of us were stripped down to our bare underwears and socks. A neatly folded black and white uniform sat beside the tied man, and it dawns on me that it's a waiter's uniform.\n\nI cuss out everything and everyone that comes to mind as I pace the small room.\n\nI didn't realize how loud I was until I hear a timid knock at the door, and a voice on the other side nervously speaking, \"Um, bitte. The Herren are waiting for their mid day tea, and we mustn't keep them waiting any longer.\"\n\nI freeze in place before scrambling for the uniform, inventing new swears quietly in the privacy of my own head.\nI put it on as best I can before glancing at the box and shoving the gun down the back of my pants, under my suit jacket. Wow, who knew guns were so hefty and cold?\n\nThe door begins to open slightly, as I jump forward and grab the handle, firmly keeping it in place as I awkwardly slip out the small space and encounter a young girl in an apron. She gives me a strange look as she continues talking, telling me I am to follow her and pick up the tray of tea to take out to the nice gentlemen outside.\n\nI barely notice where she's leading me before realizing I have a tray of tea in my hands and I'm heading to the back door - my brain furiously recollecting anything and everything I can possibly remember about the infamy and tragedy of these men and their legacies.\n\nAnd before I know it, I am thrust through the door, and a feeling of deja vu washes over me as the sunlight veils my vision.\n\nMy eyes adjust to the table in front of me - an exquisite patio table with three well-dressed gentlemen sitting around it.\n\n\"Well, boy, tea any time you feel like moving,\" the heavy set Russian grumbles, shuffling in his chair.\n\nI didn't realize that I had frozen in place, gaping at three men that I never thought I would ever meet.\n\nMy anxiety betrays me as the teacups shiver on the serving tray. I set down each cup down slowly, racking my brain for the next move.\n\nI know I have to get this over with. The men return their attention to each other, and I take this time to pull out the gun, clenching it in my hands as I point it toward Hitler. I almost weakly laugh at the thought of how my friends joked about killing Hitler if they had the chance.\n\nTheir heads turn and their faces twist in alarmed horror, and I beat down the screaming doubt and fear ravaging my insides.\n\nI shut my eyes.\n\nI pull the trigger.\n\n\nAn empty click. I open my eyes and stare dumbly at the gun, knowing that silencers shouldn't *actually* be mute (what the actual fuck).\n\nA click sounds behind me, and a hard rod pokes the back of my head. In a panic, I instinctively whip around to see the hostage in the room now free and properly dressed but this time smirking with a pistol in his hand.\n\n\"Ah, is this the present your friend told us he'd deliver?\" A German voice breaks the silence, obviously amused.\n\n\"Ja, Herr Hitler,\" the man says. \"My apologies for the fright. It can only be delivered by hand, but no worries. I'll take care of the messenger.\"\n\nMy eyes cross, fixed on the trigger.\n\nHe pulls it.", "(Please forgive my english, I'm just learning it as a second language. This is my first time posting on reddit. Any suggestions on improving my english/writting skills are welcome. Thanks.)\n\nI wake up because of the wet sheets due to my own sweat in a summer midnight -Damn! It's one of those blackouts again, this always happens this time of the year in this shitty third-world country!- I think grumpy for myself while I try to reach the lantern I always keep on my night table because of an eventuality like this.\n In the middle of the dark, I touch randomly with my right hand around the night table until my hand touches a round, cold object. I immediatly look for the light switch of my old tactical lantern, but suddenly I realize that my senses don't recognize the object I'm touching, and even though I try to remember what it could be such a thing on my night table, my memory can't recall anything. Anyway, I loose the strange object and keep searching with my hand into the darkness until a couple of seconds later I recognize the texture of the lantern, this time I'm able to turn its light switch on, my curiosity led me to immediatly find out what is that unknown object I had just touched in the darkness, what I see takes my breath away: it's an old super silenced magnetic acceleration pistol! I can't believe it, it's the gun I've always wanted to own! I used it in World War III back in the 2030's and had never seen one of them again.\nNext to it there is something that I still hadn't realized it was there, an envelope. Some clarity starts to form in my head, i've just remembered I will turn 86 tomorrow, my grandson, my only and beloved grandson has always known my fond for weapons and he has managed to give this last happiness to an old man who is closer to death than to life! The envelope must be nothing else but his birthday letter for me to find it in the morning! I feel sorry for ruining his surprise waiking up in the middle of the night and finding out his lovely surprise this way. I can't wait until the morning to read it, So I open it and prepare to read it under the light of my lantern. \n\nWait... this must be a joke, the letter says I'm in Vienna, year 1913, exactly 100 years before I was born! And it contains the picture of three old fashioned men... that I must kill in order to save my ancestors from a death that will prevent me from being born! Oh, my grandson! He thinks that he can fool an old war veteran like me! I just put the letter aside and go back to sleep, tomorrow we will laugh at his joke together. He still is the best grandson ever because of his beautiful gift. I immediatle fall asleep regardless of the intense heat.\n\nFor the time I wake up, the morning light has already come through my window, so the first thing I want to do at the plenty of daylight is play with my new toy: my old super silenced magnetic acceleration pistol. I will really enjoy having this badass rare baby in my collection!\n\nThe first thing that remembers me everyday that I'm an old decrepit man is that chronical pain in my knees, wrists and every joint of my body due to arthritis. But this one is an exceptional day, no pain at all, the perfect birthday!\n\nAfter a while I get up from bed feeling like a young twenty something years old young... but there is something strange in the atmosphere, I don't know what is it... it feels like I'm somewhere else... the room, is different, there is no air conditioning machine! There are no lightbulbs in the ceiling! That's why last night was so hlt, there is absolutely no power here! There are no light switches on the wall, there is nothing that resembles electricity; furnitures, even bed itself look surprisingly old fashioned!... a terrible thought suddenly strikes my mind: looks like if I was in another past century!.... the letter, the fucking letter! This might be a nightmare! \n\nThe absolute absence of pain in my joints takes a new approach \nIn my already terrified mind, I run out of the room and frantically start looking for a mirror, at this point I'm not impressed anymore by the old fashion furniture and architecture of what seems to be an old, a very old hotel. I can't find any mirror, but a window glass provides reflection enough to confirm what I feared: I look exactly like a twenty two year old me, te age I was when I went to war in 2035. That's enough, I understand immediatly I've been sent back in time to acomplish an important mission. The letter is no joke, I have to kill those men no matter what. \n\nI go back to my room, sit down on bed for a couple of minutes to calm down, then a crazy idea starts revolving in my head: what if I just don't fulfill the order? I will be a traitor, my pride and my honorability will be reduced to ashes, but I will live twice. No matter if I'm not born in 2013, Somehow I have already lived that life until I was 86 even though I don't live it again. I'm now 22, and I can live a whole life again. \n\nIt's 1977, Hitler, one of the men I had to kill back in 1913 has started a world war, how could I imagine when I \"fought\" world war III in the 2030's that it could have easily been world war II if I just had acomplished my mission?\nStalin, the other guy I had to kill has almost turned the world to communism.\nTrotsky, has founded a doctrine so strong that thousands follow him and is now a strong political force in the Unjted States and the whole world. \nThe three of them are already dead without my intervention, they acomplished what the natural course of history had prepared for them. \n\nI'm now 86 years old, again, and I live in a retirement house for people with mental illness. I have heard the nurses and doctors jokingly refering to me as \"the crazy man who thinks that comes from the future\". The pistol, they still let me keep it with me, they don't understand its deadly destructive power, for them is just a toy. ", "after reading the letter, i sat awhile. the silence calming as the afternoon sun shone through the slits in the wooden shutters. \n\nit was quiet, and the cheaply painted sailboat picture in a frame on the wall caught my attention. \n\ni thought about all the days in the sun that i had never found the fortune of enjoying. all the freedoms that were never granted to me based on my outward appearance. \n\ni raise my hand in front of me, and look at the dark skin that had tainted my life, and all the lives of those that looked like me. how we had to live in the night, and all the struggles that we endured just because of who we are, and where we came from. i remember hearing about the death of my grandparents... how they were hung trying to go to a \"normal person's\" restaurant, and how i learned from an early age that people will treat me differently due to how i look.\n\nlooking at myself in the mirror across the room, i understand that i have the power to make a decision that could change history. i have the power to erase years of pain and suffering. to make the deaths of millions never occur. i can stop events from happening, and make life for my people better in a way historians cannot imagine.\n\ni grip the weapon firmly in my scaled fingers, and load the first round into the chamber. \n\nthe metal barrel feels cold against my skin, but it won't bother me more than moment. i take one final look at myself in the mirror before departing on my journey. \n\nas i press down on the trigger i think to myself \"Dear ancestors... i hope they kill us good... so that humanity never gets the chance to do it again.\"\n\nwith a twitch of my finger i ended it all... wiped our race from history. it's for the best though... the reptilians should never have existed anyway...", "Thanatophobia.\n\nThe fear of death.\n\nIt had dogged me for as long as I had drawn breath, and eventually became aware of my own mortality. As I shed my childhood innocence like an itchy, suffocating sweater and grew into a realization of just what adulthood meant. \n\nOne foot closer to the grave.\n\nI didn’t think about eternal life, or a lack thereof, I didn’t follow religion and I never prayed to any gods. I just ignored the large vulture peering at me from the corner of the room. I became so avoidant of the topic of death that the sheer thought of how fragile one’s existence was could send me into a spiraling, hysterical panic attack.\n\nWhich was what was happening right now.\n\nIf this was a horrible nightmare or some sort of sick reality show stunt, a fainting fit did nothing to change my surroundings, and no higher being or television executive gave me any words of comfort over a megaphone. \nI had to kill people, I had to kill people in an entirely different time period on my own, or my ancestors would die and that meant I would die.\n\nNo.\n\nIt meant I wouldn’t exist in the first place.\n\nIf my ancestors were gone, would I be unmade? Would my soul, if I had one, be erased, deleted? Would my body rapidly age and decay into dust? Would I simply be here and then be not?\n\nIf an afterlife was even real, would a time paradox prevent me from reaching it?\n\nI never claimed to be a good person, never claimed to be a brave one. I don’t know who put me in this situation, and I’d like to ask them what the hell they were smoking to consider me.\n\nBecause I could use some of that right now.\n\nIn the distance, I began to become aware of faint voices creeping closer. Heavy boots on a wooden floor. How was I supposed to this? I knew nothing of history, knew nothing of German, never claimed to be anything but…\n\nOnce I thought death was the ultimate horror that I would face, but perhaps, perhaps there was something worse than death for me.\n\nA topic I had never considered before. \n\nI gripped the gun with fingers of bleach-bone white, and took shaky, shallow breaths. There were endless possibilities that lay in front of me, but I never asked for any of them, so I pressed the heavy, cold gun against my forehead...\n\nSo I pulled the trigger.\n", "I woke up sprawled naked on an ornate bed. My head throbbed painfully and my eyes were unusually weary. I strained to discern whether I had stepped into another bout of dream, but this was real, real and surreal. How was it so I couldn’t fathom. It was suppose to be a routine Sunday morning with my extra shift at Dale’s.\n\n The room had a strange air about it like of which I had never felt before. It was stripped clean save for the bed with the springy mattress and a heap of clothes on it. My muscles were sore all over and swore at me when I tried to get up.There was a letter and what looked like an old pistol on the mantlepiece. I hobbled to it and snatched the letter up. It was addressed to me in exquisite writing by a hand that seemed to take a fancy to old times. What I found inside at first perplexed me and then horrified me latter on as I realised I was far away from being subjected to a tricksy mischief. \n\n \"You are in Vienna, 1913. The pictures attached are Leon Trotsky, Josef Stalin, and Adolf Hitler. Kill them or we will kill your ancestors.” that it spoke in uncertain cold terms. \n\nThere was a window and I threw its shutters open. The squalid alleys, the gothic architectures, the rut of the drawn carriages, true enough this wasn’t 2015. I changed into the raiments provided and stepped out into the sordid corridor keeping my head low. I was in an old tavern of sorts that rang with laughter of men waving beer mugs and lapping slinking harlots.\n\nThe narrow alley was an inferno of men and women jostling for a way through. As I was struggling amongst the twin hoards forcing their way in opposite directions a man forced open my fists from behind and squeezed in a neat little chit of paper. I whipped my neck looking for answers but my stalker was lost in the sea of indistinguishable working class. I unfolded the paper and it described a boy named Adolf Hitler in a town of Lambach. The people who set me up to it knew when and where Adolf would be. \n\nI sat in the last of the rows of a Catholic monastery, Lambach Abbey fashioned in a baroque manner. Swastikas were its coat of arms, carved on stones and painted on glasses above. A choir sang to the praise of the Lord. Jesus crucified, overlooked them with approval and me with pity. I not being much for a religious man surprisingly found it hard to match his sorrowful gaze for I would be defiling his hallowed hall with blood. Hitler was an unmistakable lad leading the procession, his impressionable mind possibly unsullied by draconian thoughts. I felt the weight of the pistol in my pocket and gripped it with the finger of my right hand. To kill takes incredible courage, I realised. I had a clear shot but my hand quivered and my legs felt weightless. I couldn’t summon the courage to flash out my weapon which I knew I ought to do.\n\nAn old senile man came and sat beside passing a kindly smile at me. “How do you fare my child?” he asked in flawless English. “Well….I’ am good, thank you” I stammered wiping away the trickling beads of sweat. “Do you carry the courage to do it?” he asked as I flushed shades of pink with panic. “We are the ones for whom you will carry out the task. The Crusader of Time.” he explained. “Why don’t you do it yourself” I muttered. “Because you are last living Khronomancer. You alone can dapple the fabric of our immutable time. I can not and would not.” \n\n\n“I’am sorry i just can’t” I struggled. “It’s a shame really. We thought you were going to have enough courage this time” he said. “What???” I blurted. “Rest assured. You would do it if not now then latter on but at this very moment.”\n\n“So would you kill my ancestors”\n\n“Dear no, then the Khronomancer would never take birth. We would make sure you have a better upbringing a hundred years later and next time when we meet you will have enough courage. Courage to kill. I will have to do what I have always done. I cannot change time I’am sorry” with this he whipped out a pistol of his own, pointed straight blank at me and shot. ", "Not a writing print but I have an idea for the story. What if the guy's last hit is one of the guy's ancestors. There would be so many potential paths for the story. E.g. he kills target/ance then he dies or is removed from that reality?", "Why Trotsky? Churchill was responsible for more acts of evil than Trotsky.. why not Mussolini? Also.. WW2 ended the way it did due to the Russians kicking the crap out of Germany, the US had a lot less to do with the outcome of WW2 than they like to think. ", "“Just a coffee” I muttered in my best attempt at communicating in German. The waitress nodded politely and left me with my thoughts. While I was outwardly calm, the chaos in my mind occasionally penetrated my surface, culminating in a nervous twitch or a quick stroke of my chin stubble. Maybe this is what it always feels like before – she placed the coffee in front of me and presumptively spooned in a bit of sugar. This must have been local custom. I sipped the steaming black mixture and locked eyes with the waitress, granting the universal nod of approval to signal my satisfaction with the flavor. My train of thought resumed. Maybe this is what it always feels like before you kill someone. \n\nI’m not a bad person. In fact some would call me a hero, but I don’t believe that. I don’t believe in heroes. The cosmos align to put certain people in certain positions. Sometimes those people cower under the awesomeness of their responsibilities, other times they do not. I cannot explain to you how I have come to find myself in the circumstances in which I presently do. How does a firefly explain to another how he came to be trapped in a child’s jar and transported to another place? How does a cockroach explain the passage of time to his offspring? I can only explain to you where I came from, and where I am now.\n\nThe short of it is this: My name is Arthur Sand. I was born on October 14th, 1986 in Concord, New Hampshire. On the night of April 25, 2015 I was in a car accident on my way from a camping trip in southern Maine to my apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When I came to, I was in an empty infirmary in Vienna, Austria in 1913. To my right was a sealed envelope and beneath my pillow were a pistol, a silencer, and four bullets. The envelope contained a hand written note and three pictures. The pictures were black and whites of three young men, their names scribbled hastily on the back. Adolf Hitler. Josef Stalin. Leon Trotsky. The note read, simply “Kill them or we will kill your ancestors.” \n\nI lost months trying to harness my disbelief so that I could function in the realm of normalcy. A dream? Purgatory? Was I drugged? Only after a multi-week escapade living on the streets of my new city did I accept my sanity and present circumstances. I was alive and lucid – I could feel the full range of human emotions and experience the senses. Days of solitary reflection combined with nights of depression-fueled debauchery until the truth slowly sunk in: I was here, and I was not going home. I would never see my family, friends, or fiancé again. And if I did not complete the task that I was sent here to complete, I would never exist in the first place. \n\nI needed a plan. If my task was to kill one man, it would be easy enough. But killing three meant that I had to evade the authorities after at least the first two murders. Moreover I had to travel to different countries, and locate three inconspicuous young adults. Hitler, in 1913, was over 20 years away from becoming a hardened dictator. There could be no shooting in broad daylight, no assassination in the streets. I had to earn Hitler’s trust – become his friend – so that I could get him alone.\n\nSo here I was, pretending to be a visiting art scholar from America, waiting to have coffee with Adolf Hitler.\n", "*Mr. Askelrod,*\n\n*In your possession you shall find a silenced pistol, three clips of ammunition, and three photographs. The photographs consist of the likenesses of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Leon Trotsky.*\n\n*You must kill them, or we will kill your ancestors.*\n\n*Welcome to Vienna, 1913.*\n\nThat was what the note had said. And the fact that I had the pistol and photographs on me looked like they were from pre-World War I, the entire situation I was stuck in seemed very real.\nAlthough considering I had woken up with these notes in a random broom closet with some oddly dated clothing on, I began to wonder if I had taken any sort of drugs prior to this experience. I slap myself in the face a few times, feeling the flesh on my face and the sting on my skin. I notice a few bystanders walking past on the pavement give odd glances at me, probably wondering if I was mad.\nNope. Probably not a hallucination. I look at the pistol, examining it. It was a normal Browning 1900 pistol, with the addition of a Maxim Silencer.\nI then remember how absolutely useless silencers actually are, especially such a primitive one. I unscrew it and tuck it into my coat pocket with disgust, pulling out the pictures afterwards.\nYep, these were the three targets all right. I flip to the picture of Trotsky, looking at it for a moment. I flip it around with my thumb. Trotsky's name actually sounds familiar, and not in the sense of learning his name in school. Then I remember countless stories my mother told me. My last name is Askelrov. My grandmother's name was also Askelrov. And her grandmother was married to...\n\nIf I killed Trotsky, I killed my own great-great-grandfather. \n\nI simply paced around the city with hands in my coat pockets, playing with this information in my head. Trotsky was my ancestor. I couldn't kill him, otherwise I would cease to exist. But, I also had to kill him, otherwise, he would die by the hands of whoever wrote this letter, also removing my existence. I realized something then. I didn't have to kill Trotsky, in all actuality.\nI just had to kill whoever was going to kill him.\nRealizing that he may still be alive right now, I ran quickly. Trotsky lived in Vienna, along with Stalin and Hitler. Assuming he was living in close proximity to Stalin and Hitler, he should be very...\nI stop as I spy a man with a bushy mustache and a cold, steely expression in his eyes.\nBingo.\nI trail slowly behind him with a few other people walking in the same direction, so as not to arouse his suspicion. I keep my eyes peeled for any suspicious activity, as he may be attacked at any moment. I see him walk past the corner down an empty street, alone. I cringe, and quickly catch up to peek beyond the corner. I immediately tense up. Some male figure was behind him, wrapping his arms around Trotsky's neck. I fumble around in my coat pockets, searching for the pistol. I yank it out, smelling the oil around the barrel, and point it at the figure. I squeeze my eyes shut. I hope I didn't miss.\n\nI pull the trigger, a resounding explosion and recoil knocking my arm back. I open my eyes.\n\nTrotsky is cradling the wounded person. He was shot in the chest, blood seeping through his mouth. \n\"Sergi...\" Trotsky wept. \n\n*What?*\n\nI looked a bit closer. The figure wasn't actually a threatening person at all. \nInstead, it was a young boy.\n\"My son...\"\n\n*WHAT!?*\n\nI backed up, and processed what I had just done. I had just killed an innocent little boy, who had just wanted to give his father a hug. The boy's name was Sergi. Family records blazed through my mind, until I froze in place and realized the awful truth. Sergi Sedov married my great grandmother.\n\nSergi Sedov was my great-grandfather.\n", "After a back-and-forth battle between Ambien and insomnia, I give in to the latter. As I adjust, my senses become overloaded with confusion. My Tempurpedic feels harder than biscuits from KFC, the stench of horseshit is so strong I can taste it, and the decor looks like my grandmother picked it out. I sit up and notice a bright, red strongbox at the foot of the bed but the armoire across the room is more alluring. Impetuously, I open the strongbox and find, a tailored suit, a bandolier, a.45 pistol modified with a silencer, a map with directions, and a note:\"You are in Vienna, 1913. The pictures attached are Leon Trotsky, Josef Stalin, and Adolf Hitler. Kill them or we will kill your ancestors\". \n\n\n\n\n\n\nAs I reread the note, I chuckle to myself remembering a Louis CK joke: \"If I went back in time, I wouldn't have killed Hitler, I would've raped him\". I take my time getting dressed to ensure my firearm and ammunition are concealed. Assuming the directions on the map lead to my targets, I exit the strange room finding myself in the streets of Vienna. It's nighttime and the streets are dimly lit. I follow the path indicated on the map to the first target. In several minutes, I reach my destination, a small house. Using my master infiltration skills, I simply push the door open. I walk in to see a young Adolf Hitler fast sleep. Louis CK's voice echoes in my head. It couldn't hurt, I think to myself. \n\n\n\nTo be continued... \n\n... Maybe", "As I wake, I have the unmistakeable all too familiar feeling of a hangover slowly creeping up my neck and into the deep recesses of my brain. As the room slowly pools into focus I notice that the light casting devious shadows around the room is especially dim. \n\nThat's also when I notice the single light bulb swinging gently back and forth from the ceiling. The room at this point foreign to me is still spinning with all the energy of a merry go round from hell. my legs shake unsteadily as i bring myself to my feet. \n\nA few questions run through my mind as my gaze lands on a bureau in the corner and a bed in the center of the room. No reason for alarm and I try to get my wits about me. There wouldn't be in fact if I didn't notice the gun lying on the pillow along with a folded piece of parchment.\n\n I step closer, there's something all together odd about this combination of things however my curiosity at its peak and my apparent sedation quickly wearing off I gingerly trace my fingers over the cold steel. I had never personally been a fan of fire arms or the bureaucracy surrounding them. First we cant have guns then they want to take them all away. Politicians and their nonsense. \n\nThe last thing I could recall is that I had been waiting for a train at Penn station when ....when what I said aloud to myself. At least I thought it was aloud. It could've been my own thoughts echoing inside the void echoing inside the room. Now that my perception had cleared it became apparent that this room had the look of one I had seen once in a travel brochure. Something about \"old world charm\". The detail escaped me at the moment.\n\n However as my fingers left the metal exterior of the gun my attention almost hyper focused on the parchment. Not note book paper or loose leaf or even a post it. It was as far as I could tell rough hand hewn parchment. How did I know this? When I was small my parents and I had taken a trip to the national archives and I remember the way the texture of the hundred year old documents looked. Rough yet natural, seamless even. \n\nAs I picked up the paper the hairs on the back of my arm prickled and stood up causing me to inhale slightly. Then at the worst possible moment....I sneezed. I was terribly allergic to mold and dust. It was a powerful one, designed to clear any sinus cavity of any obtrusion and that it did. Thinking quickly I ball up the paper and try to cover my nose as best I can. After all this isn't my room I wouldn't want to get anyone else sick. \n\nAs relief overcomes me from the sudden but satisfying onslaught of the evacuation of mucus and now completely clear airways I noticed some rather sloppy, wet ink making its way down the now soggy center of the page. It says as far as I can tell something like yu....r venna 19 ..trots...salin...hitlr..... As confused as I am you can imagine my dilemma when some rather down trodden and quite wet pictures fall to the floor. \n\nThe ink just like the letter slowly dissolving under my boogers. I figure its just best to collect my self and anything I might have with me and slowly exit the room....this day has just been too weird and Ive missed my train by this point...bugger me. ", "Having read the letter for the forth time Johnathan, a man of only 27 years, stared into the clear sky above. Taking a deep breath and looking down at his lap, his eyes locked onto the last line of the musty letter... \"Kill them\" it read. Sliding the silenced 1911 into his back pocket he put on his glasses, lit his last cigarette and quietly whispered to himself \"Whoever the fuck you are, I like your style\" as he began to walk down the street into central Vienna.", "hey, you leave trotsky out of this.", " You would be amazed how easy it is too get away with murder in 1913. No security cameras manning every street corner, no drones glaring done from above, or personal locators recording your every step. Here, there was just a sleepy town, on a cold fall night. At a glance it would seem like just an insignificant spec of history, and yet the three rulers of the world, the most evil and powerful men in history, were all living here at the same time.\n I was never the best history student but I could remember things I had learn about these men, things that everyone would know. Leon Trotsky and Stalin working together, the Russian and Japanese Invasions at Alaska and Pearl Harbor The Allies Defeat to the Axis powers, and the dictatorship that followed. But this was nearly, 20 years before I was born. My Parents told me stories of how things had been better before, but idea like freedom of speech were unknown to me. The only freedom I knew was the freedom to take a bullet for saying or doing the wrong thing, and if they didn't kill you outright, you simply vanish in the middle of night. \n So, When I saw the note, I knew, this was my chance to make a difference, to stop them before they could hurt anyone. And it was easy, it only took me a day to find the three men, and a few more hours to lure them into\n(So I had written a whole story out but I accidentally deleted it But I want to post something for my effort, so this is the short ending)\n\nI had successfully killed my targets and I was transported back to the future, to find the nuclear ruins of my hometown. Soon after, I collapse and everything fades to black. \n\nI woke up in a bedroom to find a modern silenced pistol and an envelope sitting on the ledge next to me. I have no memory of how I got here. Inside the envelope there's a single photo and a letter. The letter writes \"You are in Zurich Switzerland. The photo attached is of Albert Einstein, kill him or we will kill your ancestors.", "The note falls from my hands as my grip loosens at the shock of it's contents. Excitement grips me, the excitement of being given the opportunity to right the wrongs, to be an instrument of righteous fury. Excitement gives way to concern. The thought of failure, and the consequence that has been promised shakes me to the core.\n\nI take a moment and collect my thoughts, and find myself confused. Who sent me here, and how? It's no mystery why I was chosen, I've been a soldier, I've pulled the trigger more than my fair share. But why me specifically?\n\nI check my weapon, it's a fine piece of German engineering, with a suppressor tightly threaded to mate with the end of the slide as the chamber is closed. The irony of using a German gun to kill Hitler is not lost on me.\n\nI'm a soldier, not a historian. Where do I go to find Adolf Hitler? He seems like as good a first target as any, so let's start there. There isn't exactly an internet to look him up on. So how do I start?\n\nI exist, so that means I must have already succeeded, and now just have to let the tides of fate carry me to my objectives. Right? Or do I just exist right now, and have to carry out my objective in order to stay this way? But if I kill the three of them there would be no reason to come back in time, so because I'm here I've already failed. Or maybe not. What if I've already killed history's monsters, and these three are a consequence of changing the future?\n\nI feel a splitting headache emerging. I wonder if this is the confusion or perhaps some kind of side effect of traveling through time. I decide to go to a local cafe and ask around.\n\nAs I approach the door I find a picture taped to the frame. It's a picture of the white house with an iron swastika on the roof. \"Don't do it,\" is written on the back of the picture. It's in my handwriting.", "It's a heavy toll, time travel that is. The first thing that gives as the energy that holds together all the millions of atoms that make up your physical body is your vision. It's a senses overload, the bright lights and heat from the intense burst of energy required to perform such a seemingly impossible task. It takes a total of 3 hours to recover. At the first minute your nerve endings begin to send signals to your oxygen depraved brain, every fucking second is pain, you feel the pressure irregularities, the weight of gravity above you, bed sheets feel like tons over your chest. At around the first hour your vision comes back, yet your still not capable of full thoughts, as your brain recovers oxygen, coherent thoughts begin to emerge. \"What the hell am I doing here?\", \"how the shit did I get here?\". You can think them, but not understand them, it's at the halfway point that you begin to process thoughts. At this point the pain in every single inch of your body is so unbearable you pass out. \n\nI don't know if it was the oxygen depravation, or the whole ordeal in general, but it took over an hour to fully process what I held in my hands. I looked around the room, and retraced my thoughts. \"A revolver, 3 bullets in the chamber, 3 photographs, each named, 'Stalin, hitler, trotsky', and a note 'kill them, or we kill your ancestors' with 3 coordinates and what appears to be a date and time to each one.\" \n\nYou see we discovered in 2034 that time is a self correcting mechanism. The so called \"butterfly effect\" only existed as a literary mechanism for fictional stories. Time itself is very difficult to change, it requires a big shift, at the right times, under the perfect circumstances. Of course at the time I didn't remember any of this, at least not in time before they showed up. \n\nIt's a heavy toll, time travel. It takes a total of three hours to fully recover. The last thing to come back are you memories, so before it could make a difference, I couldn't remember the outcomes of World War II, the eventual creation of the Unified Earth Government, the ensuing nuclear war in 2067, that gave the UEG complete tyrannical control over the enslaved citizens. \n\nI didn't remember I was forced to travel back in time by the resistance, I was forced to travel back to murder, in public display, three of the most influential humans in all of our history in order to prevent the Second World War, and prevent the UEG from ever forming. \n\nBy the time the UEG Time soldiers found me, it was too late. As I stared down the barrel of their guns, it all came back to me, maybe it was the force of their bullets crushing my skull, puncturing my brain, maybe it was the cruel irony of faith, maybe it was the all knowing self correcting mechanism of time ensuring its path stays true, whatever it was, I won't ever know. \n", "I slept under the stars and dreamt the taste of Saxon blood. When I awoke, I lay in a cloud and the sky was gone.\n\nMy arms were free but my body felt sluggish as if submerged in water, and with some effort I sat up and tried to blink away the confusion. My eyes adjusted and I realized it was still night, I was indoors, and only the slightest amount of light trickled in through a single window on the wall.\n\nI looked down and saw I was actually sitting in a bed, though I had never seen one of its like. It was a soft material, the softest I'd ever felt, housed in a wooden cage and lifted off the floor by stilts. I'd gone to sleep on bare earth but woken up here, and for a moment I assumed that at some point my brothers-in-arms must have dragged me off to some Roman villa, but I had no memory of waking up over someone's shoulder and I was not quite so drunk as to sleep through that.\n\nWith some effort I swung my legs around and stood. I was in bare feet, still wearing the thin linen trousers and tunic I carried with me from Lindinis. It was only days after the Bealtaine and too hot to wear anything heavier, yet I felt the chill of winter creep through the open window. I went to close it, but could find no flap of skin or leather to keep out the cold air. Instead, half the window was covered in Roman glass, though I saw no etchings or stains, and could find no mechanism that would help me seal it off.\n\nMy eyes further adjusted to the dim light and I saw, for the first time, a wooden table with what looked like a leather parchment and a lump of steel and wood. I lifted the parchment, but it was so thin and light that it must have been another wonder of the Romans. I held it up to the light by the window and saw it was wrapped around more parchments, one even lighter and several somewhat thicker and heavier. I tore the wrapping apart and found on the lightest parchment a message inked in a language I could read:\n\n> Vos estis in Vienna, 1853 De innituntur, picturis Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, et Adolf Hitler. Alioquin interficiemus interficiunt vestris antecessor.\n\nThough the letter was written in Latin, the year was an utter mystery. The Christians called it four hundred and eighty years since their Christ had died, but perhaps the author used the old Roman calendar, in which case the year should have read 1233. Perhaps the Romans had simply changed their calendar a third time since they left.\n\nI am schooled in reading and writing both Latin and my native British, though it is no major feat to learn one if you know the other, and it had been some years since I found my old education useful. The language came back to me slowly and I had to read it carefully, one word at a time, but I did manage the translation. It was a threat, though unless my Latin was much worse than I realized the threat made no sense. My ancestors would be killed? My father died fighting the Saxons when I was a boy, and as far as I knew my mother was killed not long after they took her and my sister as slaves. Perhaps I had some older relatives still alive but it was unlikely, and hardly a threat, as I had never met them and they must be so old as to be near death anyway.\n\nI was thirty winters old and a veteran of eight shield walls. All of them were against the Saxons, though I'd spent some years raiding Powys during the dark times before the High King united us against the Sais. I had no living ancestors, though perhaps my sister lived and it was only a mistranslation. The rest had crossed the Bridge of Swords long ago.\n\nSome things, at least, were clear. I knew immediately my captor was a Christian, for only Christians such as the Bishop who raised me spoke and wrote Latin. I also knew I was far, far away from Britain, as the letter said I was in Vienna, a Roman fortress separating the Empire from the very same Saxons who now came to our shores every year in an endless flood. Some magic had taken me to the other side of the world but if it was Saxons I was meant to kill, I would do so gladly, and when the grisly work was finished I would tell my captors that they had only needed to ask.\n\nI held the other three parchments up to the light and found they were all paintings, so lifelike that I nearly let them slip out of my fingers. Three men, all drawn in grays. One was young with wild hair and a clean shaven face, while the other two older men had hair only on their upper lip. None of them looked like Saxons, nor did their names match any peoples I had ever read about. Trotsky? Hitler? These names meant nothing to me.\n\nPerhaps I was in this wondrous place to kill Romans. Only Romans would shave their whole face as if to imitate women and very young boys, but I had read more Roman names than any other and they did not sound right either.\n\nConfused, I glanced at the lump of metal on the table. It almost looked like a knife, but the shape was all wrong, and what would have been the blade was curved at a sharp angle as it extended from the hilt. It rounded at the end, instead of a point, and when I picked it up I pressed it against my palm and felt nothing. The thing was useless as either a weapon or a tool, though it had some weight to it and, perhaps, I could club a Saxon with it if I had nothing else to rely on.\n\nNear the hilt was piece of metal that moved back and forth when I pushed on it. I touched it lightly, wondering what purpose it held, but when I slipped my finger inside the little metal wire that contained it, I noticed it actually fit my hand fairly comfortably. Whatever this thing was, the little piece of metal must have been a Roman addition to aid with the bearer's grip.\n\nI gave it a few test swings and I realized that it would be difficult indeed for an enemy to pry this thing away. I should have learned sooner not to underestimate the ingenuity of Roman builders. It was a club, then, but what about the hollow at the tip? Was I meant to roll up the thin parchment and hide it there? Was there another letter already inside?\n\nI looked straight down the hollow but I couldn't see anything. Would the little piece of metal release its contents? I squeezed the m-", "I sat on the bed with my face in my hands and the letter wrinkled between my fingers. Why me? Why was I chosen to accomplish this task? A feeling of sickness came across my stomach as I had regretted a lifetime of not paying attention in history class. I knew Hitler was German and Stalin was Russian. But who was this other guy? And I didn't know anything about Vienna! I can't even speak viennese! Or Australian was it? \n\nAnd then I realized. Maybe I wasn't sent back in time to stop world war. Because in my world, these evil people were all put to an end. So why would someone want me to kill the leaders of the defeated!? Unless... \n\nI wasn't sent here to stop the war. I was sent here to kill the ancestors of those who didn't obey the orders in the future. Or maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger. Wasn't he Austrian? \n\n\nSomething didn't make sense. How can people who have the power to send someone back in time choose someone like me, but make such a weak, conditional threat, as if they weren't able to finish this themselves? Such power, coupled with directions from an ikea manual. How could I kill everyone from Hitler to Stalin with only a handful of bullets? They had chosen the wrong man. Not because I wasn't able to accomplish what they wanted. No. They chose the wrong man because I would find a way to kill them. Because I wasn't going to kill Hitler. I was going to help him. With my knowledge of the future, I was going to help him win and avoid every mistake I could remember him making. \n\nYears later, I had discovered another time assassin sent to kill me, but my guards had captured him. I found that he was one of those who had sent me here. He had come himself as a desperate last attempt to stop me. But with our nazi torture techniques, I was able to find out the names and ancestry of the rest of this shady organization. I rounded up their ancestors in my time. But no, I didn't kill them. I proposed to hitler that they should all be part of a special program. That they should all have sex with each other to create a super master race. He bought it. And I had essentially taken the ancestors of my tormentors and made them have sex with each other. By doing so, the time senders were never born. Instead, their ancestor timelines had been switched. I literally had them fucked out of existence. But by doing so, they also would have never sent me back in time! And without me, hitler would never win or survive! But we've come so far, ... What have I done! My... Cellphone... Is fading... Away... Time space continuum, Marty mcfly... Heil.... Oh fu-", "What do you have against Trotsky?", "Again!\n\nThis, *again*. Go back…evil men…blah blah…oh, who comes up with this stuff? When I signed up for the time-travelling assassin get-out-of-jail-almost-free (but mainly get-out-of-jail) card they never told me about all the synthetic drama I'd have to put up with. I mean, sure, I understand, manipulating history is a very delicate business—so delicate that you'd think they'd get someone better than whomever was at the front of death row that week to do it, but hey, what do I know? And sure, I turn out to be very, very good at it—sneaking up and killing folks? Why yes, yes I am quite the dab hand at that. But really, this nonsense might impress some yokel who “done kilt him some bad mans” or whatever, but I'm the Lunar Colony Lunatic—just give me the address and I'll…well, what have we here anyway?\n\nStalin, silver medallist in the twentieth century Mass-Murder Open. Hitler, bronze. Is this the best they can do? Trotsky? \n\nAh, wait now. Without Trotsky and without Stalin, then Lenin has a free hand in Russia. But he was maybe the least crazy of them. Is this supposed to help, or hinder? And, no Hitler so no second world war…maybe? But what happens in Germany after they lose the—or…without Trotsky and Stalin, does the October Revolution fail? But without Hitler…this is too hard. What the hell is this scenario supposed to mean, anyway? If they don't tell me the point of the mission then I might as well just be some madman running around with a gun that hasn't been invented yet. Of course, I am a madman—got a court order to prove it. Sure, it's cute and everything that these three guys are in town at the same time but, really, *what's the point?*\n\nSo, kill my ancestors, eh? Like I care. Anyone who'd met my grandfather was happy to see the old bastard dead—why after what he did to me, I'd cheerfully strangle…oh, yes, I *did* cheerfully strangle him. Y'know, somebody didn't think this through. I'm pretty much dead anyway, and no loss, frankly. I'm sure those families back on the Moon would agree. Oh, the look on their faces! Especially when I put their faces on the…no, focus, focus.\n\nSo…here I am. Vienna. With a big old big ass pistol, nicely silenced. This has a lot more possibilities to it than that last job, man Dallas is a dull town. Oh, oh yes! What if…yeah, that's a much better better plan. Much more interesting. It's 1913, eh? Let me make a withdrawal from a bank, any bank will do, and see about moving to Sarajevo!", "*It had to be Trotsky. Stalin and Hitler had their armies now and I couldn't reach them. Not easily. Not quick enough. I couldn't afford to lose mama too. If only that time bomb in '39 had worked. I could have stopped this. I could have stopped everything.*\n\nMisha was at the door and he saw me coming. \n\n\"Good evening, Comrade,\" he said.\n\n\"And to you, Comrade,\" I said. \"He invited me for tea.\"\n\n\"Yes. I know,\" Misha said. \"It is a great honour.\"\n\nI nodded. Misha reached back and hit the door three times. Another man, Pyotr, swung it inward and let me pass. Yuri and Gherman were having supper in the kitchen. \n\nI climbed the stairs slowly. Old wounds never seemed to heal for me. \n\nI found Trotsky in his office staring out the window and sipping chilled vodka. I had never seen him drink before. \n\nThe sun was going down and he had left just one light on. It shone through a large fan slowly and silently stirring the damp heat of the Mexican night. \n\nWhen he turned to me, the rhythm of the shadows across his face emphasized its disorder. His goatee had grown out grey. His hair resembled Professor Einstein's. \n\n“Good evening, Comrade Trotsky.” \n\nHe set his drink down and stood up. “Comrade, Johnson!” he said. He strode across the room and embraced me. “Thank you for meeting me so late.”\n\n“It is an honour, Comrade,” I said. \n\n“It is my honour, Comrade Johnson,” Trotsky said as he beckoned me to sit. \n\nHe sat next to me and took squeezed my hand. “Tonight I am meeting with the man who will save the cause of liberation for the Workers of the world. Tonight I am meeting with a hero of the Soviet Union!”\n\n“How can I serve the cause, Comrade Trotsky?” I said. The sweat above my eyebrows began to run.\n\n“We have obtained a critical piece of information. It affords us a unique opportunity,” Trotsky said. “Stalin will be visiting a summer house in September. You have proven yourself more loyal and capable than anyone. We have a way in. We can get you into the house.”\n\n“How?” I said.\n\nTrotsky stood up and took a leather-bound folder off his desk and handed it to me. I opened it on the coffee table. The dossier was thick with pictures, maps, and personnel files. \n\nTrotsky took it upon himself to explain: “We have a Comrade working as a mason in the house. They are expanding it for Stalin’s visit. He is constructing a space where you can be walled in ahead of his visit. You spend a week hidden and then you come out and cut that monsters throat in the night.”\n\n“And this is all set up?” I asked. “Everything is in place?”\n\n“Yes. Completely.”\n\nI read from a file. “The fourth of September? That is only two weeks away.”\n\n“We can get you there but you will have to leave immediately,” Trotsky said. “There is a car waiting for you. Everything is taken care of.”\n\n“Tonight?” I said. It came out in a whisper. \n\n“Yes. It is essential we move quickly,\" he said as he stood up. \"Let’s discuss the mission further over tea.” Trotsky walked to the tea tray sitting by the window and busied himself with preparation.\n\nI looked at the files a moment longer but I couldn’t read. I could feel my pulse everywhere. \n\n*Tonight. It has to be tonight.*\n\nMy eyes darted to Trotsky’s back and then began a frenetic scan of the room. There was a large ice pick sitting on the bar. I stood up as slowly as I could and started creeping towards it. \n\nWith his back turned, Trotsky began to speak again. “Have you heard the news from Estonia? What Stalin has been doing there is disgusting. All those Jewish businesses seized. If they resisted they were sent to the prison camps. Whole families sent to Siberia.” \n\nMy mouth dried up. Trotsky kept talking. \n\n“...It’s disgusting. It has nothing to do with Communism. We are all men. All workers. We need to be brothers…”\n\nI reached the bar and picked up the axe. The ice pick was substantial. It was the kind you swung with a pick on one end and a clawed hammer on the other. It could have stood in for a climber’s axe. I started toward Trotsky.\n\n“...but Stalin doesn’t care about the struggle. Only his power. Now is the time to overthrow him. If Hitler and Stalin control the world, your people will not fair-”\n\nTrotsky’s voice transformed into a horrible gurgle. I let the pick go and it stuck in place. Trotsky turned around slowly. His eyes, wide with shock, locked onto my face. His mouthed opened and closed wordlessly.\n\nI backed away. The sweat and tears mingled on my face. \n\nHe took a step toward me and then another and lifted his arms. The blood bubbled out of the wound and trickled down over his collar.\n\nI couldn’t take his gaze in silence.\n\n“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t explain it. You wouldn’t understand. I have to kill you. I’ve always had to kill you. I was going to do it the first day but I couldn’t. I had the pistol in my hand and I couldn’t.”\n\nTrotsky fell to his knees but his eyes never wavered.\n\n“I believed you. God help me, I believed you. But I had to do this. They were impatient. Frustrated. If they had just killed papa, I could have handled that. But they took the memories. They only left enough so that I can feel what I lost.”\n\nI knelt down in front of him and placed a hand on his shoulder. His eyes were losing their intensity now but I leaned in close and stared into them. \n\n“But I want you to believe me when I say this: I will kill Stalin. I promise you that.”\n\nI thought I saw a glimmer of understanding in his eyes. Maybe it was wishful thinking.\n\nThere was no sound from the staircase. I took the towel from the bar and wiped at my face and then checked myself for blood. Taking the folder from the table, I left the office and descended the staircase. \n\nPyotr looked at me as I came down. I said I had to get some things from my home and he nodded and opened the door.\n\nMisha still waited outside. He raised an eyebrow at me. “You’re leaving so soon, Comrade?”\n\n“Yes. I need to get some things from home.”\n\nMisha nodded in understanding. “I have heard about your mission, Comrade. You will strike a great victory for the cause.”\n\nI nodded acknowledgement and turned away but Misha reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder to stop me. He pointed at the folder in my hand. “I am surprised that Comrade Trotsky would let such valuable documents out of the residence. Are you sure it would not be wiser for me to hold onto it?”\n\n“No. I will need to consult it.”\n\nMisha stared at me for a long moment but then nodded, “Of course, Comrade.”\n\nI walked away into the dark street. Behind me, I heard the door open. When I heard the shouting, I ran.", "More often than not, the average person actually does not have a very good understanding of firearms. Point the end with hole in it at whatever you want to kill and pull the trigger, right? Maybe thumb down the firing hammer if you *really mean it*. \n\nWell, not exactly. Guns don't just fire when you pull the trigger...although, they should be treated as such, as any seasoned firearm veteran will agree. And if you haven't chambered a round, then cocking the hammer isn't going to get you putting people in their graves action-movie style any time soon. \n\nShotguns or big handguns don't blow people five feet backwards, automatic weapons eat their magazine very quickly; flashlights, laser pointers, and other gadgets mounted to RIS rails only make your weapon heavier, and, above all else, most people are terrible shots, especially if they've never handled a firearm before. \n\nBut what are perhaps least understood by hollywood and the video-game industry are silencers, also known, perhaps more aptly, as sound-suppressors. \n\nSilencers do not make your weapon silent. A \"silenced\" 45 automatic is still as loud as a reasonably sized firecracker, and with high-powered rifles one still has to deal with the supersonic shockwave generated by the breaking of the sound barrier by the bullet, which may only be mitigated with the use of subsonic ammunition (which reduce the range and energy of the fired rounds). \n\nNo, what silencers do is make your firearm *quieter*, not *silent*. Specifically, they generally reduce the acoustic signature of the firearm to levels that simply won't damage an unprotected ear. \n\nHowever, there does in fact exist a caliber that is muffled practically into imperceptibility by a silencer. A caliber in which the pistol resting on R. Thompson's nightstand is chambered. \n\nIt is a parkerized .22LR Smith-and-Wesson model 41, hardly modern by the standards of 2034. A six-inch long, half-inch diameter, tube - colored to match - protrudes malevolently from the peculiar flat faces and sleek lines of the pistol. The almost perfectly monotone black-grey color of the pistol is broken only by the knurled and polished, form-fitted, oak wood handgrip. \n\nTompson picks up the handgun. It is heavy, and solid. \n\nHis captors chose their instrument well. The Model 41 is a competition pistol. Accurate, well-crafted, reliable (with the right ammunition), and practically silent with the suppressor, particularly if one thumbs the slide to prevent it cycling when fired (this, of course, has the drawback of requiring the next round to be chambered manually), the Model 41 is the ideal side-arm for the assassin who values discretion above all else. \n\n\nThe question on Thompson's mind, though, is *why?* Moreover, *how?* He has, evidently, been somehow transported to Vienna around the turn of the 20th century. How is this possible? He ponders. Perhaps he has been translated roughly 120 (light)years distant from the Earth at superluminal speed, then translated back to his starting point at the same speed. Having left Earth in the 2030's, he would arrive back in the 1910's. But this is absurd, he knows that technology simply does not exist, and even if it did, he recalls the vague message - \"Or else your ancestors will be killed.\" \n\nWhat ancestors? and how in the world could his captors possibly expect to find such ancestors with the radical change in history the murdering of these prominent figures would wrought? How could his captors even necessarily expect to *exist*, were past events to be changed so dramatically? The threat is itself as absurd as the idea that he has been translated wildly about the galaxy at impractically high velocities. \n\n\nHe had woken from a sleep, seeing the handgun and the note. The fog was slowly beginning to clear. He sat and thought for a moment again, considering his situation and its various possibilities. \n\n\nAfter a few moments, he came to the only reasonable conclusion, from his perspective. Thompson sat upright, picked up the pistol and slid it lithely into his breast holster, and left the room, outward towards the beckoning streets of Vienna to begin his mission. \n\n\nHe ignored the note and its contents. \n\n\n", "My heart froze as I read the letter. Whoever these people were they had made a terrible mistake! Out of all the people in the world... You see I vividly remember talking to my Grandmother about what she had done during the war for a history project at school. Needless to say, once she had told me, I had made up some stuff about her being a WREN, as the truth was messy - you see she was a high level intelligence officer for Her Majesties Secret Service, going undercover in Russia and Germany. Her job had been to seduce various high profile figures. And she was very good at her job. She told me there were three possible candidates for my grandfather, but couldn't tell me who it was. All I knew was that it was one of the three men I had been sent to kill.\n\nI stared at the sheet of paper. Dammed if I do, Dammed if I don't. Finally I gave a wry smile, picked up the pistol and stepped into the sunshine. I would kill these three men one by one - at least then with a bit of luck I would find out the true identity of my grandfather before I had to kill him. ", "That's not my phone?\n\nI looked at my nightstand where I *was* reaching for my phone, apparently I had slept past my alarm and needed to check the time.\n\n**HOLY SHIT THAT'S A BIG ASS PISTOL**\n\nAm I still tripping? I dropped the pistol I had grabbed reaching for my phone. Why is there a pistol on my night stand? Where the fuck am I? Is that a letter?\n\nI had to think back to my german class in college, it had been awhile but I still had it.\n\n*You are in Vienna, Austria. You have been armed with an FNX-45 Tactical pistol with a full magazine and suppressor. You are to kill the men in the pictures attached or we will kill your ancestors. Trust me when I say being stuck in the non-existential side of a time paradox is much worse than death.*\n\nThe pictures were Stalin, Hitler, and some other dude. They were all labeled though and mystery guy who pissed off the time controlling people is a \"Leon Trotsky.\"\n\nWell, I've never had this happen before. The acid and shrooms had definatly wore off, it was my first time doing both at once though. The big predicament either way was that apparently I left the party. My friends must be playing a prank. I never blackout but once I go to sleep, I'm not waking up till I'm good and ready. They must have moved me as a joke. I looked out the window to see what part of town I was in. *shit.* This isn't the town I went to sleep in, hell it isn't even the same state. There was a sign on the train station across the street though. *\"Vienna North Terminal Station\"* \n\nWell, apparently I did go back in time. Maybe I shouldn't do shrooms and acid at the same time again. Maybe I should! I could go back and see dinosaurs! That would be dope as fuck! Wait, I need to focus. I have to get back to the future to get more acid. I found a set of clothes; a newspaper, a cardboard box for five cigars with only four cigars in it, a wallet with alias and 37 Schillings, a funny looking hat, a less than half full flask of bourbon, a watch, and a pack and a half of cigarettes in a chair by the bed. They all looked pretty typical for the time. Maybe I would look more normal carrying a newspaper? I could see the use in all the tobacco and alcohol but why the paper? There was also a note saying, \n\n*We made the first two easy for you, they are eating outside the terminal at 12:26.*\n\nWell then, I looked in the mirror. *I sure wish I had some acid* I thought as I put the now quarter full flask back in my pocket. I can't let these time people kill my ancestors, then I'll be stuck in a time loop and never get any more acid! A life without acid is not the life for me. I have some dictators to kill. Now how do I hide this pistol? It's not really that big without the suppressor but I kinda want the suppressor, it makes me feel more like James Bond.\n\n**12:24**\n\nTwo minutes before showtime. I was sitting by the wall with my hand in the newspaper. I didn't think it would be useful but folding it over that pistol sure does hide it well. I can't look down the sights like this but nobody seems to notice I have a future pistol in my hand. I saw Stalin walk a few tables down and ask a man if he could eat with him. *Wait, that's the other dude!* Maybe I should have paid more attention in history, I think his name is Leanard? Anyways, seeing my opportunity I put out my cigarette and pick up my paper without my hand in it making sure to have a good grip on the suppressor. I don't want that gun to fall out, if I get arrested here I'll never find more acid. As I get near enough to walk by I put my shooting hand in the paper and put the end of the paper right behind Stalin's head. \n\n*Pft* Clack\n\nThe gunshot itself made almost no noise. The slide made a slight clack, nothing to worry about by a noisy train station. Leanard made quite the yell of something in Russian as Stalin's brains hit the table though. No big deal though, I put three in his chest real quick and he shut up. I never stopped walking the whole time. I turned onto the sidewalk as the first person began yelling and tucked the newspaper under my arm with my shooting hand still in it, I could feel the casings in the newspaper under my arm. I quickly blended into the crowd as the only attention I had drawn was that Leanard dude's yelling. There was no way anyone could tell me apart in this crowd, everyone has on a funny hat similar to the one I'm wearing. I was walking down the hallway to the hotel room I woke up in before I heard sirens. I think I'll just kinda stay in till the cops cool off. I'll have a cigar and wait for dinnertime before going back out. Maybe get a sandwich and some beer, see if I can chat up any of these past women. Then I'll come back here to sleep and figure out my plan for tomorrow. I have to find pre-nazi Hitler now.\n\nI woke up the next morning and found two small cardboard boxes, a newspaper, some cash, and another note on the nightstand. The headline was referring to the two men I had killed yesterday. *I definatly have not had enough acid for this* I thought as I unfolded the note. \n\n*Good job on the first two, you have been rewarded with two (one for each target) gift boxes, 38 Schillings for first target, 39 more Schillings for second target, and your pistol's magazine has been refilled. Our interns look at your recent life before recruitment to determine what would make a good gift. Enclosed in each box is a tab of lysergic acid diethylamide wrapped in foil and sealed in a vintage small ziplock baggie\"*\n\n*Time controlling interns know what's up* I thought as I unpackaged a tab of acid. Time to go find Hitler, I'm almost out of acid you know. ", "I awoke on an unfamiliar bed. I groaned and rolled over. The mattress felt too hard. I figured it was the bender I put on last night making me uncomfortable.\n\nMy eyes flickered open. The light streaming through the window hurt so much. I shaded my eyes and pushed myself into a hunched over sitting position.\n\nMy bed was in the wrong spot.\n\nMy heart pounded in my chest. I didn’t have wallpaper in my bedroom. I didn’t have wicker chairs in my bedroom. I didn’t have a ceiling fan in my bedroom.\n\nI whipped my head around trying to figure out what is going on. Maybe I stayed with someone in their guest bedroom. It wouldn’t be the first time.\n\nI’d never seen this bedroom before.\n\nOn the nightstand I saw a note held down by an empty glass. I picked it up and began reading the unfamiliar writing. \n\n*You are in Vienna in 1913. You will find a silenced pistol, two full magazines and three pictures. They are Leon Trotsky, Josef Stalin and Adolph Hitler. Kill them or we kill your ancestors.*\n\nMy brow furrowed. My head pounded from my binge-drinking headache the night before. With a shaking hand I opened the nightstand drawer. Inside were three photos, a pistol and two magazines. \n\nI slammed the drawer shut so hard it shook the picture on the wall above it.\n\nI ran my hands through my greasy hair. This didn’t make any sense. I wasn’t a killer. I couldn’t kill anyone.\n\n“Wait,” I muttered. I sat up straight and looked around. Paradoxes were the key.\n\nI laughed. Even if I were in Vienna, 1913 if I didn’t kill the three men I wouldn’t be in Vienna because my ancestors would be dead. I would have never been born.\n\nMy laughing echoed through the room as I stood up. I didn’t have to kill anyone because I was still alive. The universe didn’t like paradoxes and me being alive would be a huge paradox.\n\nA grumbling stomach took me out of my thoughts. I needed to eat some breakfast. If those three were going to die then it wouldn’t be by my hand. At least it wouldn’t be on purpose. \n\nI left the room and headed downstairs. Get some sausages or beer or something. I smiled. A nice little vacation was always appreciated. \n", "Utopia is the idea that we can’t only make the world better, but perfect. Utopia is the thing that drives good men to do terrible things because they can’t imagine that they might be wrong. Utopia is the most horrifying idea in the world. \n\nI wake up with a feeling of wrong-ness. Something deep inside me has become unhinged and I feel like I don’t belong here, maybe not even in this reality. There is dull pain in my skull and my ears are buzzing, but – I am alive. The room is small, clean, old-fashioned, with flowers on the windowsill, and I can move. That’s a step: I can move, so I have control. As long as there is some control, nothing is impossible. \n\nThe envelope on the nightstand is not sealed, just tucked shut. Curiously, I notice that before I see the gun next to it, maybe because I’m so used to being around weapons – it comes with the occupation. It’s a plain black Heckler & Koch, a forty-five with a detachable suppressor. I recognise the type: It used to be my to-go sidearm for most operations, back in the day. \n\nI open the envelope and find the photographs. The letter explains they are Stalin, Trotsky and Hitler, but I recognise all three of them. I have paid attention in history and I also feel familiar with them. My emotions are hard to control at the moment, which makes the other part of the letter almost believable: It says I’m in Vienna, 1913 and that I have to kill the three men in order not to be erased from history. I feel so out of place here, I might as well have travelled in time – if not for the impossibility of that. The gun was made in the twenty-first century. But this room …\n\nUtilitarianism is the notion that it is acceptable to destroy one world that suffers to create one that suffers less, or might. Whoever wants to blackmail me into being their assassin, they seem to believe their new world would be a better one if I erase the old one. \n\n-\n\nAdolf Hitler is sitting ten feet from me, reading a conversations lexicon and taking occasional notes. His handwriting is scribbly. I’m surprised how little attention he’s paying to the street café’s gorgeous blonde waitress, but that doesn’t really matter … The really important point is, he’s about to leave. I’ve adapted the speed of my coffee-drinking to his so I’ll pay right before him… And now, I’m able to follow him. He’s carrying the lexicon and his little notebook in one hand and even though I don’t see his face, he seems to be enjoying the sun. \n\nHe takes a right into an alley and I follow him – it’s fairly deserted. I could shoot him now, but I wait in a doorframe instead until the bespectacled man from the café shows up. He’s been watching me for the last hour and he’s admittedly not bad at appearing inconspicuous. Still … I step out of my hiding place, raise my pistol and pull the trigger. \n\nA cornered animal acts on survival instinct, an older, more powerful force than any rationality or reason. That same certainty is what I feel. \n\n-\n\n“I have a few questions for you. You will answer all of them, of course. You may decide to try and not answer them, but that only means you’ll lose more fingers before you eventually talk. I can tell when you lie.” I tighten the strap around his left leg, even though the bullet has already smashed the kneecap, so he couldn’t escape even without it. The chair he’s tied to, the dimly lit basement room, it’s all mostly for show, just to demonstrate the situation he is in. \n\nI pick up a bread knife. “This hurts way more than a sharp one, but it will do the job. Now it’s time to prove you like your fingers.” \n\nHe is rather well-trained. He loses a lot of fingers. He talks eventually. I leave his body in the basement – I have to move quickly, before they can prevent me from being born. He gave me names, a whole list. This is what my occupation always boils down to – a list of names. \n\n-\n\nI’m in Paris and a woman is begging for her life on an expensive carpet. I don’t tell her that the bullet in her guts is fatal, her body has just not gotten the message yet. Even while sobbing herself to death, she tries to reason with me, make me understand. “We can build a better world. We just take out the biggest monsters, then leave it to grow, like a gardener! Please …” \n\nShe keeps crying and her tears mix with blood on the carpet. Blood contains more salt than tears. \n\n“You are not the people for that.” I reload my gun, far more slowly than usually. I had to shoot a large number of guards outside. “You think you’ll stop at changing that, but you won’t. You don’t want your hands dirty, so you attempt to blackmail me ... you are too incompetent even for that … And you would take responsibility for all human history.” I let the pistol slide snap back into place. “I won’t let you.” \n\nPragmatism is the idea that whether or not it actually works is the true test of any philosophy. \n\n-\n\nI’m sixty-nine years old and yet I won’t be born for another thirty-three years. The allied forces of the United States, Great Britain and France have just started airlifting supplies to West Berlin, as it should be, and my people have made sure nobody from the wrong time interferes. I’ve also replaced the expensive carpets and extensive decorations in the operations centre in Paris with more efficient, streamlined furniture. \n\nI’ve put this off for too long, so I get the files I requested and carefully remove the three photographs. I type in the words on the typewriter, otherwise I might recognise my own handwriting. The agency that should have written these words no longer exists … But I have to make sure things happen as they should. The letter will be delivered and all other steps taken by my people when the right year comes; I’ll be dead by then. I write: “You are in Vienna, 1913. The pictures attached are Leon Trotsky, Josef Stalin, and Adolf Hitler. Kill them or we will kill your ancestors.”\n", "I awaken. Not one of those slow awakenings, but one of those rapid, jolting ones that happen on a bus trip when you realize someone's breathing into your ear. Not that that's too relevant except for that's the last memory I can recall. Where am I?\n\nI look around. On the table, there's a letter in a language that I don't know yet also in a language that I can read. So of course, I read the letter. \n\n\"Leo,\n\nYou are in Vienna, Austria in the year 1913-one year before we expect the Cold War. Attached is a silenced pistol with three bullets and portraits of Adolph Hitler, Leon Trotsky, and Josef Stalin. Your job is to kill all three. Failure to do so will result in termination of your ancestors.\n\n-The Communist Internationale\"\n\nAlongside the letter, conveniently placed, is a revolver with what appears to be a futuristic device above it. \n\nI'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing. In fact, I'm not sure at all how I'm supposed to be doing any of this. Wasn't the Cold War in the 1960's? How am I---\n\nMy thoughts are cut short when I see my reflection. Stunned, I look at the pictures I have been given, and then I look at myself. I am Leon Trotsky.\n\nI take a look at the pistol again. \"Kills completed: 0/3 Resurrections done: 0/3\"\n\nWell. This doesn't even make sense. I don't recall my World History teacher ever mentioning to me that Trotsky was in Vienna. Yet...\n\nI look at the revolver again. I look at my reflection in the mirror again. And with just a moment's hesitancy, I take the revolver up to my head and I shoot myself.\n\n.\n\nI awaken." ]

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[ "Dear Amazon Customer Service,\n\nThis is my nineteenth request and I have not gotten a single response! I have called countless times and gotten no response. I live alone on my farm. I do not have a wife. I do not have any children. I have no family and I keep to myself. Neither I nor any of my animals have a need to celebrate any holiday. Every single month for the past two years, I have had one of your drones drop off the same item at my house. I am running out of places to put these things. PLEASE STOP SENDING ME PACKAGES. WHAT IN GOD'S NAME WOULD ANYONE WANT 25 OF THESE THINGS FOR ANYWAY? Is this some sort of joke? It must be. Have I won a contest? If so, please tell me when it will end. I have stopped opening any boxes that are sent because its always the same thing. If this continues, I will begin shooting down your drones. Law enforcement doesn't come out my way much anymore but I think with this sort of harassment, I would be justified anyway. Once again, I ask that you stop sending me Inflatable Wacky Waving Tube Man - 18 Foot High Green Sky Dancer. Item number: ZA-SKYDAN-GREEN.\n\nWhat the hell am I supposed to do with these things? I don't even have anything to blow them up with.\n\nSincerely,\nBob Lindenberger", "The kitchen cabinet was completely bare. Ordinarily, this would have pissed Bob off, but it was too early in the morning for that. His brain didn’t quite register what was going on.\n\nInstead, instinctively, he walked to the front door and stepped out onto the porch. Clad in his robe and house slippers, he nonchalantly took in the spring morning happening around him.\n\nRex, one of the neighbors, was out watering his grass. He saw Bob looking in his direction and waved, appended with a smile.\n\nThe Johnson kids sat on the curb across the street. Armed with backpacks and lunchboxes, they waited for the school bus to arrive to take them to what they described as, “The place mom and dad send us when they get tired of dealing with us.” Touche. That’s what public schools had become.\n\nOn the other side, opposite of Rex, was his neighbor, Mallory. She was a gorgeous soccer mom whose husband had left her and her three kids about three years ago. At any rate, he found himself enthralled by her derriere as she leaned into her minivan, trying in vain to strap her children into their car seats for their ride to daycare. She had vented to him, after accepting his invitation to come over for drinks one Friday evening, about the perils of being a single mother and what a bastard her ex-husband was.\n\nShe looked suddenly at him, and he felt an intense pressure to look away, to act like he’d been studying something else the whole time. Mallory smiled, though, Bob saw out of the corner of his eye, before she opened the driver’s-side door of the mini van and took off.\n\nA familiar buzzing sound occurred to him. Like a mix between a backup beeper on a forklift and a low-altitude warning indicator on a jet fighter. But at almost the exact same instant, Bob both realized what it was and opened his eyes to see the alarm clock on his bedside table read 7:00am.\n\nBob got up and did his normal morning things. Rolled out of bed and pulled the sheets and blankets up like he’d actually made the bed, but not really. ~~Dawned~~ Donned his favorite pair of house shoes and robe and padded into the bathroom. He stared at himself, slightly bent over with both hands on the sink, imagining briefly what kind of day this person staring back at him was about to have. He washed his face with cold water. While brushing his teeth, he rubbed his free hand up and down his three-day-old neckbeard, debating as to whether or not it could go another day before appearing “unpresentable.”\n\nIn the kitchen, Bob reached up for the cereal cabinet door. It opened to reveal nothing. The cabinet was empty. This would ordinarily piss Bob off, but his still sleep-addled brain failed to register much emotion.\n\nBob instinctively walked to the front door to check out the neighborhood. But square in the middle of the open doorway is a brown box wrapped more than adequately in black Amazon packing tape. He grabbed the box and shut the front door.\n\nBack in the kitchen, after removing 10 pounds of packing tape with almost surgical skill, Bob popped open the 3 foot by 2 foot box, revealing an assortment of boxed cereals, oatmeal, granola bars, and breakfast pastries. Thank God for Amazon Grocery. Had he not signed up for their recurring weekly delivery service months ago, he’d have been at the mercy of his terrible work schedule combined with his terribler memory. If it was up to Bob to consistently remember to buy his own groceries, he’d probably have perished long before now.\n\nBowl of cereal in hand, Bob plopped on the couch in front of the TV to watch the news. Instead, he's distracted by a cartoon from his childhood. Man, this really took him back; eating cereal in front of the TV watching some of his favorite cartoons. Life doesn’t get much better than that.", "Bob checked his Amazon account using an uplink from his satellite phone. His shipment left Denver and was currently stuck in customs. He scoured the web looking for a phone number to call about the delay. He spent a good portion of his free time following link after link until he finally found a number. He disconnected the internet link and dialed. An automated voice led him from option list to endless option list. Press 1 to check your order. Press 2 to check why you're even bothering. Press 3 to annihilate humanity. Bob tried all three options to connect to a living being.\n\nHe learned nothing new from the automated response system other than the fact that he needed to keep trying. *Why do they make talking to other humans so damn difficult?* he thought.\n\nIf he'd only known that Amazon was responsible for sending out the drones that killed their customers, triggering a massive response that devastated the Earth, he might not be so keen to give it his current GPS coordinates. Unfortunately, he didn't know and therefore didn't understand the significance of the buzzing noise approaching his coordinates as he dialed the next of a string of numbers arranged by the new Amazon AI to frustrate consumers.", "“The person you are trying to call is unavailable,” the automated voice said. “Please hang up and try your call again.”\n\n“Oh what the fuck,” Bob sighed. The last three packages sent to him by Amazon were empty boxes. Bob ordered Xbox 360 games, taking advantage of lowered prices since the release of the Xbox One. He’d been waiting for *Fallout: New Vegas* for what seemed to him a long, long time—three or four days, anyway.\n\nBob’d only called Amazon five or six times; significantly less than the last time this happened. Earlier that week the tap water’d turned a brownish colour—now he couldn’t even take that shower he’d been planning. In terms of other necessities Bob hadn’t worried in quite some time. He lived on dry foods stored for the better part of the past year. His mother sent him boxes and boxes with food when he first moved out, but hadn’t sent anything in a while. Crates of Redbull and Mountain Dew lined his walls.\n\n*Well, I guess I could go over there and see what’s going on*, he thought. *It’s only a fifteen minute walk*.\n\nBob saved his game, tried smelling himself, and stepped outside into the fresh white sunlight. The light’s whiteness was unmatched in comparison to the whiteness of his skin—a skin that hadn’t met that light in months.\n\nThe walk over had been quiet and empty—not unlike childhood sick days spent in the quiet workweek of suburbia. He walked through the front door of the Amazon headquarters. No one answered his mumbled calls. Nauseous and uncomfortable, he decided to go back home.\n_______________________________________________________________________________\n“The person you are trying to call is unavailable,” the automated voice said. “Please hang up and try your call again.”—Bob heard this over and over. His mother wouldn’t answer, his friend wouldn’t answer, the Gamestop down the road wouldn’t answer.\n\nBob spent much of the next couple weeks looking out the window. In this time he saw three cars pass along what used to be a traffic jammed street during rush hour. Had the rapture his mother went on and on about finally come? He roamed the world of *Fallout 3*, picturing himself in a similarly emptied wasteland.\n\nAnd then, a couple weeks later, he awoke not to the one-PM sunlight shining into his eyes, but to the triple-knocking delivery man.\n\n“UPS,” the voice called. “Hello?”\n\nBob jumped to his feet and answered the door in one motion.\n\n“Hi,” Bob said. “Hi, hi.”\n\n“Mr. Smith?”\n\n“Yes, that’s me.”\n\n“Few packages here for you.”\n\n“Thanks,” he said. “Thanks so much.”\n\nBob looked past the man at four great boxes stacked one upon the other.\n\n“All this?”\n\n“Seems like it,” he said. “Sent from Missouri.”\n\n“Oh.”\n\nBob closed the door with tears in his eyes. Inside the packages were bags of dried foods. The note read, “LOVE YOU. COME HOME IF FEELING LONELY. ALWAYS AVAILABLE. — MOM”\n\nBob keeled over and wept. After a few minutes he got up, packed a knapsack and headed into the ever-white light.", "August 25th 2017 \nDear Diary, \nIt’s been about three months since the big ebola scare. I haven’t been outside other than just opening the door to pick up my Amazon packages. I haven’t heard from my sister for about two months. I hate talking to people, but I was willing to talk to her that day. We said goodbye just in case. I haven’t heard any messages from a hospital or lawyer so I assume she’s fine. I tried to call her, I picked up the phone and started dialing. I got as far as the first ring before I hung up. I’ll take my medication and try again tomorrow. \nRobert.\n\nAugust 26th 2017 \nDear Diary, \nOnce again, I attempted to call my sister. I sweat so much that I had to shower afterwards. As soon as I heard her voice I blurted out “I HOPE YOU’RE OKAY” before realizing it was her answering machine. I hung up immediately. It’s been four hours and I’m still trembling. I took a walk today. I couldn’t break view of the house, so I didn’t bother going into the bushes or trees. I checked my car in case of emergencies, it still works. I hope I remember how to drive. \nRobert.\n\nAugust 27th 2017 \nDear Diary, \nI’ve almost finished my latest book. Five months is a new record. I wonder if it’s been my lack of distractions. I got a call today, I let it go to the machine, I won a trip to the Caribbean apparently. It was an automated message recording. I don’t think I would enjoy the trip. I sent the first draft to my publisher via email. I imagine he’ll get back to me within the week. I hate checking my email. \nRobert.\n\nAugust 29th 2017 \nDear Diary, \nStill no reply from my publisher. I hate checking my email. \nRobert.\n\nSept 5th 2017 \nDear Diary, \nMy publisher still has not contacted me. Amazon delivered my groceries finally, but the meat products are already past their expiry date. Any normal person would complain, I’ll just stick to canned goods for now. Note: Next grocery order, get some more medication. \nRobert.\n\nSept 10th 2017 \nDear Diary, \nStill no reply from my publisher. I created a website and have begun selling PDF copies as of midnight tonight. The internet is a wonderful place. Sales will probably be slow at first, since I’ve never done this before, but a few here and there and the word should get out. \nRobert.\n\nSept 11th 2017 \nDear Diary, \nNo sales yet. \nRobert.\n\nSept 12th 2017 \nDear Diary, \nNo sales yet. \nRobert.\n\nSept 17th 2017 \nDear Diary, \nStill no sales. Nothing from my publisher, nothing from my sister. No interview requests. I wonder if the world finally understands what I’m going through. Today is a glorious day, even if my newest book isn’t selling. I visited that reddit website for the first time today. Posted a link to the shop, hopefully there will be some sales tomorrow. \nRobert.\n\nSept 18th 2017 \nDear Diary, \nI guess reddit didn’t work out. Oh well, I’m doing okay. My amazon delivery was only canned goods today, plus my medication. This month has been almost perfect so far. No one’s bothered me at all. It’s like everyone else on the planet was gone. I doubt it will last forever, so I’ll enjoy it while it does. \nRobert\n\nEdit: formatting, name", "Bob's orders were all wrong. He'd asked for a new compass, not an SD card. What would he do with a fucking SD card all the way out here, where the perpetual cold drove away all of his friends, back to civilisation. \n\nHe watched the drone fly away, return to the world he knew would still be going on as usual. Blurred propellers cut through the air as the slab of steel was carried over a dark blue ocean. Bob couldn't put his finger on it, but it was as if he heard laughter behind the whirring of the propellers. He blamed it on the snow; he'd learned that it made funny noises when it was getting dark.\n\nStormed back into his base, speckles of snow melted from his yellow coat. The water dropped from the coat like rain when he sat down in front of his computer, and the stormcloud above it vented onto Amazon's customer service page. Holding the new delivery in his left hand angrily, he typed with determination with the other. \n\n\"Why have you kept on sending me SD cards? I specifically stated compasses! I need them and you keep messing them up.\"\nBob stared into the monitor. The countless SD cards around him watched silently, their interiors concealed behind cold slabs of metal. Finally, the monitor told him that the employee was typing. He waited for the typing to end. Ten minutes turned into two hours. He passed the time by working on the project he was sent here to do; he hadn't received any new information in quite a while, but he knew they'd be sending him something soon. \n\nBob's infrequent glances at the monitor had yielded meagre results so far. This time, though, the typing had stopped. In its place stood one word, pixelated but still intent. Virtual but still cold. *\"watch\"*\n\nBob furrowed his bushy brow. He went to respond, but he was immediately disconnected. The sound of wind outside howled like a scream, his lonely light threatened to plunge him into darkness should the wind break the cables again. And for once, Bob was afraid. That darkness as a child that he told his dad to take away, to illuminate, had managed to find its way back. Its shadow had clawed its way from the continuous light of summer and towered over him, black, wide shoulders stooping over his feeble frame. It taunted him, threatened him. \n\nBob picked up a bunch of SD cards. He obeyed the Amazon worker. He realised that all of them had the same number on them. They were all the same card? He shivered. \n\nThe SD card entered his computer with a satisfying click. And then the darkness left Bob. It faded away. Light surrounded him, all his friends and family surrounded him; for after the video the card played was over, the human population had finally reached 0." ]

[ 3, 4, 6, 12, 34, 112 ]

[ "1430186359", "1430182712", "1430155820", "1430150312", "1430151406", "1430150182" ]

[ "The trick was called the four burglars. \nHe looked out at the crowd and knew he had them hooked. Their eyes lingered on the stack of coins on the table in front of him. He put the cards down and fanned them out, he selected the four jacks and told his story. \n\n*“Four burglars are planning to rob a bank”*\n\nHe shuffled the remaining cards and stacked them on the table. He held up the four jacks to crowd.\n\n*“These burglars have been running the same game for a long time but today is going to be different. Today they're going to take it all.”*\n\nA few eyes still lingered on the coins but most people eyed the jacks in his hand as they listened. \n\n*“The first burglar is the point man, he enters the bank through the front door.”*\n\nHe slides the first jack under the stack of cards.\n\n*“The second burglar unlocks a window the the first floor and slips into the clerk's office.”*\n\nHe slides the second jack randomly into the bottom half of the deck.\n\n*“The third burglar needs to find the vault key. He breaks the window on the second floor and enters the managers office.”*\n\nHe had everyone's attention now, their eyes following the third jack as he placed it near the top of the deck.\n\n*“The final burglar stands on the roof and keeps a lookout for any guards.”*\n\nHe placed the final jack on the top of the deck and stood back.\n \n*“Now the plan was all going to plan until the fourth burglar spots a patrol man walking towards the bank.”*\n\nHe claps his hands suddenly and loudly. The crowd jump back. He smiles as they shuffle forward, everyone embarrassed at their fright.\n \n*“The fourth burglar runs downstairs. He warns the others. He tells them they need abort the plan. They need to run. According to the trick they all run. According to the trick all the jacks run to the very bottom of the deck.”*\n\nHe walks forward and turns the deck over, showing the crowd that there are no jacks there.\n\n*“That's how it's always been. But today's different. Today they don't. Today they kill the patrol man and hold a gun to the manager's head. Today they get in the vault. Today they take everything and disappear.”*\n\nHe fans out the deck. The crowd gathers around the table to look but they all know that there won't be any jacks. They know the magician made them disappear. They smile and shake their heads, wondering how he did it. He bows and they applaud. He gathers up his cards and walks away, listening as the awed murmurings fade away as turns down an alley. He hears the shouts in the distance as members of the crowd find the jacks in their wallets where money should be. Jacks in their purses. Jacks in every pocket that held a spare coin. He turns a corner and steps over the body of a patrol man. Then he disappears. \n\nThe hunt for the magician was another story. The hunt was born of anger and fear, or outrage and distrust. If one old magician and four jacks can rob and kill, unnoticed and unopposed, what could a group of such people do. Anyone with a with a hint of magic was hunted down and killed. Four burglars took it all but brought the end with them. ", "“How did magic die?” asked my grandson.\n\n“Well it started off with a magician’s trick…” I started my tale. \n\n“He made a pencil disappear. I know that sounds simple with all the sleight of hand you see these days, but back then making something disappear with magic was thought to be impossible. “\n\n“So of course magicians didn’t believe him, they thought he merely transported it or destroyed it. But he was determined to make everyone believe him. So he started making tables disappear, buildings, even a mountain, or so the story goes.“\n\n“He had the magic community split at this point, half believed he was actually making things disappear, half were skeptical. So he made his final trick, THE final trick some may argue. He wanted to make magic disappear, that way it was impossible to deny what he was doing. So with all his might and power he made the last trick and magic disappeared forever.”\n\n“So that’s it?” my grandson asked unenthusiastic.\n\n“Well that’s the story most people tell.”\n\n“But you are not most people.” My grandson asked with a smile on his face. “Are you?”\n\nI laughed.\n\n“Well if you must know there is more to the story, but it’s not quite poetic or grand. It’s actually very embarrassing. But if you must know… The magician was actually performing a trick, as most people assumed. He wasn't really disappearing objects; he was hiding them, or sending them far away. But when he sent magic away, his powers went with it, so he couldn't bring it back. ”\n\n“That wasn't very smart.” Said my grandson in a disapproving tone.\n\n“No it wasn't.” I said smiling. “But the past is the past; there is nothing we can do now to change it. Well there is… but that's a story for another time.”\n\n\n\n\n" ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1430164219", "1430161716" ]

[ "And he stared at that chair. The chair, standing so innocently, a charlatan in the finest walnut. A sanctuary. A trap. A home. The answer to the question he never asked. The window spilled light across the honest stone floor. But the beams of twilight illuminating the room stopped short at the beautiful chair. He should have known, should have seen the sign for what it was. If the light would not touch the chair, why should he? And yet... its beauty touched him. He knew from memory the comfort of the chair's embrace, as if it were sculpted exactly to his form. Impossible, he thought. Crafted generations before his birth, it could not be his and his alone. The chair. The walnut chair that was so much more than a chair. If you choose this throne, he told himself, you accept much more than finely crafted walnut. You choose your fate. And he stared at that chair.\n\n\"You gonna buy the fucking chair or just stand there all goddamn day?\"", "A long parade of shining metal boxes stretched out across the water, rising and falling in a leisurely spiral. Sitting near the top, David suddenly became aware of the omnipresence of his own reflection. There he was at a single point halfway across the bridge, and yet he could see himself in the all the windows of his car and in the mirrors of other cars nearby. And though he could not see it, he knew that his reflection was hiding in the metal of the other cars, jumping back and forth so that he simultaneously ran for miles in opposite directions.\n\nMaybe his reflection was in the cool, dark waters below. Maybe, if his eyes were strong enough, David could see himself in every part of the ocean, traveling seamlessly up every river that kissed it so that any living thing looking out over the water would hold him in its own eyes. The thought was soothing and David didn't feel alone in the slightest.\n\nThen a horn shrieked from behind. A couple car-lengths had opened up ahead and David had to roll forward.", "It was early and the sun was rising.\n\nA new dawn approaches, a new chapter in my life and a new page in history.\n\nI stepped into the room, cold and unwelcoming it was as I sat down. Was this an omen for the day? I do not know.\n\nAs my body was tense I struggled with the question. Was this my life now? is this the way it is supposed to be. \n\nI need to rethink how I do things, when I do things. \n\nWhy isn't this place warm. \n\nI thought I had everything in my life but yet I still struggled.\n\nI need something more...my thoughts wandered and I could hear the tap leaking. Every drop was like a hammer in my head, I need to change and I need something more I kept repeating.\n\nFinally when I came to my senses I realized everything that I needed.\n\nI need more fiber in my diet because this shit is never going to come out." ]

[ 1, 4, 7 ]

[ "1430191939", "1430181439", "1430180474" ]

[ "My love for Adolph Hitler is so great,\nMy heart melts for him 'til the dusk of day.\nThe night travels when he's away,\nFix, time 'til day's dawn.\n\nHis beauty is great,\nWondering mind 'til him sees,\nSacrifies is all I do,\nWhile waiting for the moment, for him to say \"I do.\"\n\n\n", "\"It's too late. It's done.\" He didn't seem apologetic about it.\n\nGuardsmen flooded into the lab from behind me.\n\n\"Secure the terminals,\" I ordered. Then I fixed my gaze on the scientist. \"Bring him back.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"It can't be undone. It's a one-way stream.\"\n\n\"Abrahams?\"\n\nThe unit's tech specialist turned to face me from the lab's main console. \"He's telling the truth, Ma'am, there's no way to extract him.\"\n\nThe scientist had a vengeful smile on him now.\n\n\"This is how it ends. This is how your empire comes crumbling down. This reality will never come to pass.\"\n\nI resisted the urge to strike him, and it took even more effort to keep an impassive face. I looked over at Abrahams. He shrugged.\n\n\"If that's the case,\" I said, turning back to the scientist, \"what are we doing here?\"\n\n\"We are cut loose. A stray fiber in the fabric of time.\"\n\nI smirked. \"I don't feel any different,\" I replied. I watched as my reaction soothed the uncertainty that was threatening to grip my soldiers.\n\nThe scientist just spat. That was good; that was an excuse to let one of the boys retaliate. I glanced at Micah, the soldier guarding him, and he acknowledged by striking the scientist with the butt of his rifle. The scientist crumpled to the floor.\n\n\"If what you say is true,\" I said, \"then we won't see the results of your actions.\"\n\nHe spat again. Blood, this time. \"Not being able to see it is my only regret.\"\n\nI summoned my mindphone. The holographic display hovered a few feet in front of me and I flicked it toward the lab's main wall display, pairing it. I called up the file on Hitler from the institute database and ran an image search against his photo.\n\nEveryone in the room could see the results. No one was ready for it. We just stared at each other in the crippling silence, knowing that there was no point in saying goodbye, that our brothers and sisters in arms would disappear from our memories as time stitched itself back together without them.\n\n\"Well,\" I said quietly. My mouth was dry. \"Some of us are still here. Looks like you failed.\"\n\nThe scientist sat there on the laboratory floor, his face white. \"The plan was to develop arms technology. Not *that*.\"\n\n\"You mean to tell me that the genocide just happened by accident?\"\n\nMicah hit him again. I didn't order him to, but I didn't have it in me to admonish him.\n\nI pulled my phone from my pocket.\n\n\"Benowitz?\"\n\n\"On it.\" The unit's tech specialist strode over to the lab's main console. It didn't take her long to mirror my phone's display onto the main screen.\n\nI browsed to a youtube video. I made the scientist watch. It was a cheesy rock song set to a montage of footage from the independence war, the Six Day war, the Yom Kippur War... everything up to the return of the lost tribe, their travel-worn battlecruisers like nothing anyone on Earth had ever seen before, thundering down from the heavens raining fire upon invading ISIS forces and changing Israel's place on the world stage forever.\n\nI ordered the unit to take him back to the ship. The scientist continued to protest his innocence of the genocide as the soldiers dragged him from the laboratory.\n\nI went to the main console and shut everything down. Then I sat alone in the dark of the lab for some time, staring at the time machine. The scale of it all terrified me. That such a small thing cold change so much. \n\nMy thoughts were interrupted by the squeal of the lab doors swinging open. Two figures entered the room. One elderly gentleman in a coat and tie, the other sealed away in what I presumed was a suit for use with the time travelling device. His face was hidden behind a reflective visor. It made me uneasy knowing that he might be watching me.\n\n\"Everything's off,\" I said. \"Nothing recording.\"\n\nThe elderly gentleman didn't take my word for it. He placed a briefcase on a desk near the time machine and from his pocket he produced some sort of scanner. Only when the scanner agreed with me did he visibly relax, placing it on the desk and then smoothing out his suit. He turned to his time-travelling associate, holding him by the shoulders.\n\n\"All of us,\" he said, \"we all owe everything to you.\"\n\nI turned the time machine on. It Illuminated the room as its portal flared up, and then plunged us into darkness as it swallowed the time traveler.\n\nThe man in the suit turned to me. I couldn't make out his face in the darkness.\n\n\"What we've done here today, Colonel, we will never be able to live with.\"\n\nMy mouth was too dry to make a reply. I turned on my phone and opened the away team app and called for an orbital strike on my location.", "Is the 2066 part a reference to the Norman Invasion of England?", "The ceiling rattled uniformly from the heavy rain. I looked down at the cold, steel table I’d been seated at. Did I do well on the tests? Is this why I’m here? “I knew I should have just pretended to be normal”, I thought, “I should have just answered like a normal person.”\n\tAs I finished rubbing a smudge off of the steel desk in front of me, Officer DeMark walked through the large door to my left. As I go to stand at attention, he ushers me to stay seated. “No need for the formalities, time is of the essence.” He paused to chuckle. “Actually, time IS the essence I suppose”, giving me a wry smile as if I was in on an inside joke. “Do you know why you’re here, son?”\n\t“N-no, sir, I’m afraid I don’t”, I respond with a hesitation I’ve been known for. A hesitation that can define you on the field of battle. A hesitation that can stagnate your career for decades.\n\t“Well, I’m going to be straight with you private. You aced those exams. Had every quality we could have wanted in a man.” I perked up a bit, straightening my back in response to such high praise. Commanding officers are generally cold people, so any sign of humanity from them is an achievement. “You really are a cold-hearted bastard, aren’t you?”\n\tMy heart dropped. My fingers and toes went cold. Any response to panic you can think of, I had it. Was I brought in here to be executed? Experimented on? What had I done wrong? Why was applause followed with that? Fuck, I knew I should have just answered those questions like a normal person.\n\t“I’m sorry sir, but I’m a bit confused. Were my test results positive?” I had calmed down enough to be able to get that question out, but as soon as I had finished the last word dread washed back over me as I thought of the situation I was in.\n\tI had been taking a shit in the toilet outside of Mess Hall P, when someone banged on the door to the stall I was in. “Officer Brown requests your presence in Examination Room 114” The person on the other side of the door said, with a sterile voice. \n“Uh, why?” I asked, sounding as awkward as I felt.\n\t“The Officer has requested your presence. That should be reason enough to go.” Worried that I might be breaking protocol by asking any more questions, I kept my mouth shut until I was finished in the restroom, and then headed over to Examination Room 114. The room was blocked off by a large steel door, which in turn was blocked off by a large set of steel bars. Looking down the long hallway I’d been in, I could easily see that no other room had this level of protection. A buzzer sounded, and I spotted a camera above the door after looking for the source of the noise. I wasn’t surprised by the camera, they were everywhere in the base after all. I just didn’t understand why this room needed such a high level of security. It was next to all of the other rooms, right? Why was this room so special?\n\tAs the bars on the door retracted into the ceiling, the door swung inward to reveal a long, narrow corridor. This was far more surprising than seeing a camera. Before I could decide whether to walk through the doorway, a voice came from the cameras speakers. “Proceed through the doorway. Make no contact with the walls or other doors, you will be entering room 204.” I paused at the doorway, weighing my options, when a buzzer sounded again, causing me to jump a bit, and at that point I decided to head through the door, for better or worse.\n\tMoving along the narrow hallway, I could see that it was dotted with doors on the side, each having a different number. The numbers were counting up in an orderly fashion, with odd-numbered doors on the left and even-numbered doors on the right. I counted down the doors, 156, 157, 158…, getting closer every step to room 204. Why was this corridor here? Were more rooms in this building just blocked-off hallways? How many rooms did this facility really have? 184, 185, 186…\n\tWhen I arrived at the door, the first strange thing I noticed was that it was not on either side of the wall. It was directly in front of me, at the dead end. Feeling more panicked now, I struggled to control my heart rate. I could feel sweat building up under my arms, and cracked my neck in an attempt to alleviate some stress. It didn’t work.\n\tThe door opened after a few seconds, and I was met with another new face. “I’m Officer Stevens, and I’ll be proctoring your exam today”\n\tExam? What the hell am I taking an exam for? Are they worried about my competence? I haven’t been a dream soldier or anything, but I’d definitely done my part. I’d been repairing MECHs for five years now, and haven’t received a formal complaint from any of the pilots I operate on. No, that couldn’t be it. Unless I had just received a complaint from Pilot 36. Fuck that guy though, always claims that his left trigger sticks if I don’t lube it for six hours. \n\t“I can explain sir, it just requires far too much lube to be practical!” I said, only realizing after what the context of that sentence was. \n\tThe officer chuckled and pulled out a seat. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that if you answer all of these questions honestly and accurately”, he said with a reassuring voice. Still stunned from realizing what I’d said, all I could mutter was\n“Uh, sure.”\n\tThe officer seated me in the only chair in the grey room, a cold metal chair at a metal desk, and placed a tablet in front of me. “You will answer all questions on this page, scroll down as necessary, you will not be given any tools. Do you understand?” \n\t“Yes sir” I replied, regaining my composure as formalities took place. \n\t“Excellent. You may begin”, he said, already walking out of the room. With no alternative options, I picked up the tablet and began reading the questions.\n\tMany of them were simple arithmetic. Derivatives, integrals, stuff that I’d learned as a very young child. All children were required to learn calculus in their first 5 years of schooling, and I had been no different. Other questions on the test, however, were not so straightforward. “Do you feel anxious often?” Well of course I do, we’ve been fighting to avoid extinction for decades. Who wouldn’t feel anxious often? I answered the question appropriately, and moved on. “Are you charming only when required of you?” What an odd question to be dotted amongst math problems. I answered yes, if only because I wanted my proctor to believe I was capable of controlling my perceived behavior. The higher I scored on this test, the better, right? Damn, I was so naïve. \n\t“How do you feel about the current alien threat to human civilization?” A keyboard was projected outward from the tablet onto the desk in front of me, and a blank space appeared on the tablet, presumably for text to appear on. This question was the easiest to answer so far, and I typed in my response.\n\tI hate the alien presence. I hate the aliens, their culture, their beliefs, their machines, weapons, power, all of it. I hate being squashed by a people whose origin we aren’t even sure of. I hate being so weak in the face of destruction. I want more than anything to obliterate them. This is why I joined the United Armed Forces. They took my family, and I will have revenge.\nI hit submit out of habit, as it was the last question, and then reread what I had typed. Yes, excellent, I seem like a reasonable stable…Wait, what did I type at the end? I didn’t type that, surely. “I will have revenge”? Oh god, I can’t believe I submitted that. What will the proctor think? Will they think I’m insane? Unreliable? Before I could decide what I thought the consequence would most likely be, an Officer I did not recognized opened the door. “Hello, Adolf”, He said with a conqueror’s smile. “I’ve been very excited to meet you.”\n\tThis in itself was puzzling. Why would a high-ranking officer want to meet with me? Better yet, why have I seen two high-ranking officers today? What made me so special that I was worth so much of their time?\n\t“You made quite a statement in the last answer, Adolf” He said with a happy inflection. Oh no, not THAT answer. Please don’t ask me about it…\n\t“So, you really hate the alien presence then?”\n\tShit.\n\t“Uh, yes sir. They took my family, sir.” I said, looking down as I remembered my wife and daughter’s smiling faces, right before they were taken.\n\t“Well, we have a bit of an opportunity for you, but I’d prefer to let the details be explained by the mastermind himself. Well then, I’ll leave you to it.” With that, Officer Stevens exited the room.\n\tThis brings us back up to speed with the story. Officer DeMark walks in, calls me a cold bastard, I get scared. You know how it goes. So now I’m sitting at this desk, being beamed at by a High-Ranking officer because of test scores. \n\t“I’m going to give this to you straight”, he says. “We can travel through time. Kind of.” I immediately sat straight up, thinking of the implications. We can travel through time? What the hell? How long have we been able to do this? What are the implications?” Most importantly, “How does it work?”\n\tBefore I could decide which question to ask first, Officer Demark continues his explanation. “It’s very new technology, a technology we’ve salvaged partially from Alien tech, but for the most part through the hard work of our engineers.” He said proudly. “Now, there are a few issues with time travel. Firstly, we only have the ability to go backwards in time. This is one of the many issues we’re still working out, but it seems physically impossible from a scientific standpoint.” I drooped back down a bit, realizing that half the things I thought were now possible simply weren’t. “We are also unable to bring anyone back after they’ve traveled to the past. Now, this isn’t an issue with smaller trips, but with larger leaps through time…” He trailed off. I understood what he meant. Traveling too far back in time meant you would never see friends, loved ones, favorite snacks, places, anything. Ever again. You’d be stuck in a time that was not your own.\" END OF PART 1, PART 2 FOLLOWS\n\t", "Millions had come to Geneva to celebrate the 146th anniversary of the\nfoundation of the League of Nations. Twenty marching bands and close\nto forty thousand veterans were to take part in the parade. Every\nsingle nation of Earth, including the United States of America, had\nsent at least one delegation. Every hotel within a radius of a hundred\nkilometres was booked solid. Overcrowded maglev trains from Paris,\nBerlin and London were still arriving at ten minute intervals.\n\nIt was a crisp and gusty winter day, clear except for a few cirrus\nclouds. Solar-powered Zeppelins emblazoned with the arms of a hundred\nand twenty nations, and the blue-and-white pentagon, hovered above the\ncity, the droning of their egines barely audible. Some were showering\nthe city with petals.\n\nOn this day, the people of Earth celebrated the League of Nations, and\nthe era of peace and prosperity it had enabled. The big problems had\nall been solved. World population had peaked at twelve billion and was\nslowly tailing off. Hunger and disease had been all but eradicated.\nThe environment was slowly recovering from decades of rampant abuse.\nThere had been only two armed conflicts during the past ten years,\nwith less than six hundred dead.\n\nEven so, Major Judith Dreyfus knew that the world was a cauldron\nboiling over with anger, hate, hypocrisy and violence, and the League\nof Nations Intelligence Service had a hard time keeping the lid on. It\nseemed unlikely that any terrorist would be crazed enough to target\nthe parade itself, but the Intelligence Service could not affort to\ntake any chances.\n\nOnly last week, the Christian fundamentalist militia Three-Score And\nTen had firebombed an LN polyclinic in Michigan, killing four patients\nand two health care technicians. The League's Health Organisation was\nseriously considering to withdraw all personnel from the United States\nunless the administration provided more effective protection, which it\nwas unlikely to do for a number of reasons.\n\nThe Soviet Union had publicly accused The Empire of Japan of building\nsuper-dreadnoughts in its Northern Territories, and thus of violating\nseveral disarmament agreements. The Emperor had denied all\naccusations, of course, and Khrushchev had called him a liar on Radio\nMoscow. Démarches were flying to and fro. The border disputes between\nthe Austro-Hungarian League and Italy had flared up again, and\neconomic and even cultural sanctions were being considered by both\nparties.\n\nMeanwhile, the less developed nations resented the great powers\nmeddling in their internal affairs, and accused them of pursuing their\nown agendas rather than the welfare of humanity. Dreyfus had to admit\ntheir accusations were not totally unfounded, especially since the\ngreat Neodymium scandal had come to light.\n\nIt was the second time Judith Dreyfus had been responsible for parade\nsecurity, and she firmly intended to keep the job at least until the\nBig One, the 150th anniversary parade, for which every single\nsurviving veteran of WWI, and most heads of state were expected. So\nshe had better make sure there were no cock-ups.\n\nTwo thousand volunteer orderlies, seven hundred uniformed Swiss police\nofficers and two hundred plain-clothes agents of the Intelligence\nService were scattered among the crowds, ready to deal with any kind\nof trouble. So far, nine citizens had suffered dizzy spells, one child\nhad become separated from its parents, and had been discovered riding\nthe subway home, and two scuffles between groups of inebriated\ncitizens had been broken up by volunteer orderlies. One of the\nrevelers had suffered a nose-bleed. Dreyfus's HUD glowed solid green.\n\nShe could have monitored her agents from a comfortable command center\nanywhere in Geneva, but she preferred to keep her feet on the ground.\nSome of her agents considered her old-fashioned. Dreyfus smiled as she\nwatched a group of Zouave veterans march past in their colorful\nuniforms, most of them seemingly in their thirties. At eighty-six,\nDreyfus was still young girl compared to them.\n\nThere was a brief flash of light in the sky, but the HUD remained\ngreen. A shooting star, perhaps, or freak lightning, although the\nweather forecast had been favourable. None of her agents reported\nanything unusual. The parade continued in all its splendour. The\nZouaves were followed by a group of mounted German Uhlans, former\nenemies now working together for the common good.\n\nTen minutes later, the kinetic missiles began raining down.\n\n * * * \n\n\"We think that the principle is similar to the wormhole generator they\nused to drop their ships in low Earth orbit, but we are not entirely\nsure.\"\n\n\"But you are sure this thing will work?\" Dreyfus demanded.\n\n\"Pretty sure,\" said Rosen. \"We sent a dog back 72 hours, and an\ninstrument package back two years. In both cases, we were unable to\ndetermine any damage to the... ah... cargo.\"\n\n\"What about another test? Could you send me back a few years, for\nexample?\"\n\n\"We could, if you were expendable. The only problem is limited\nenergy. We don't know how to recharge the device, and every test\ndecreases its maximum range.\"\n\n\"Whis is?\"\n\n\"Which is what?\"\n\n\"The maximum range?\"\n\n\"Oh. About 150 years, according to current best estimates. Look, we\ncould send you back two years, for example. It would not decrease the\nrange too much. But if the trip kills you, if the device tears you\napart, or drops you in the Cambrian, because we miscalculated its\nrange, there's nothing we can do to fix it. We have calibrated it to\nthe best of our abilities, but we just don't understand the\ntechnology. This is our one shot. Either it works, or it doesn't.\"\n\n\"And humanity is wiped out.\"\n\nNathan Rosen nodded. \"It's not much of chance, I know. Even in the\nbest case, your agent travels back in time, and succeeds in preventing\nthe post-war détente. He turns humanity into a rabid mink, in order to\nprepare us for the invaders. What's to stop them from going back even\nfurther and changing things to their advantage? With time travel, they\nare invincible.\"\n\n\"Yes, but what else can we do?\"\n\nRosen shrugged apologetically.\n\n\"Alright then, let's do it.\"\n\n\"Your agent is ready?\"\n\nDreyfus would have given her left arm to go herself, but she knew it\nwas impossible. She had lost her right arm in a firefight with the\ninvaders two years ago. The artificial replacement was clumsy, but the\nresistance no longer had the facilities to regrow limbs. Besides, she\nwas the most senior surviving officer of the Intelligence Service. It\nwas her duty to stay and organize what was left of humanity after six\nyears of genocidal war.\n\nDreyfus nodded. \"Yes, he's ready. He is a veteran. He is familiar with\nthe destination time, provided that your calculations are correct. So\nhe should be able to fit in reasonably well.\"\n\n\"So would I.\"\n\n\"I'm sure you would, Professor. But could you do what needs to be\ndone? My man is totally committed. He will stop at nothing, and I\nmean absolutely nothing, to pull the plan through.\"\n\n\"Okay, then, Herr Hitler,\" Rosen murmured. \"Here's your chance to\nwrite history.\"", "(Late to the party, but I don't care. First story on the subreddit!) \n\nWe’ve lost nearly everything. New York, San Fran, they’ve even got DC. Our settlements lie in ruins, and the invaders, pulled straight from Lovecraft, kill us in waves. As the bombardment continues on, wreaking hell on the battlefield above us, I simply stare at the capsule’s interior, witnessing the rebirth of humanity’s last resort. Scientists begin running towards it, electrified, knowing that we’ve actually got a chance to win this blasted war. The man in that capsule, mustachioed in all his glory, just lies there, with an armband on one arm, and a pistol in the other, seen shortly before he was supposed to take those pills that ended his life. Thank god we took him in time. Suddenly, he sits up, opens his eyes, and puts up his hand. He says two words, and our confidence is suddenly reborn; “Heil Hitler!” \n\t\nInitially, I was wary. Why hire the most hated man in history to, well, save the human race? He’s genocidal, a madman, inhuman, I said, constantly to convince the board against this decision. I was constantly told that all those traits that I mentioned were the reason that we’d be sending him in in the first place. “He’s a weapon-creating genius,” I was told. Well, he’s a madman, but still a genius. He’ll be a good resource to mankind.” But as we kept on losing ground and our population dwindled to the millions, humanity felt that we had no choice but to submit to the face of the Nazi regime. What choice did we have? It was do or die.\n\t\nWe lift Hitler out of the capsule and bring him to our military chamber. Our production is low, and everything we have doesn’t seem to work on those buggers. I follow, desperate to know what the hell this madman will do for us humans. Immediately, he critiques everything that we have. He walks, points, and starts ranting in German. “Not deadly enough, not bloody enough, how are we supposed to kill people with these?! You humans are failures, what the fuck are you doing with your strategy?!” I hear our translator rant. “When I was in Stalingrad, we blew all those allies away with our blitzes, and what are you doing? Nothing!” Soon after, the machines started blazing right away, tinkering away at our existing weaponry. Sparks fly as about two dozen of us try to melt down our old rifles and energy and create a new weapon. Do we have a chance? I think so. \n\t\nMonths after months went by, and soon after, we’ve done it. War machines have shipped out to army camps all over the world, even more advanced than we’ve ever imagined. We’ve been inspired by Hitler’s gas chambers and converted them into noxious weapons of mass destruction, made to drop and poison in mass arrays. For once, we’re winning. And then I hear the bangs. Hitler and his party look outwards, and we see them. The buggers. I’ve only seen them now. Pieces of flesh and veins put together into a grotesque mass, with tentacles for arms and a head completely made of bone. They’re horrifying. And for some reason, Hitler is running straight into them.\n\t\nHe’s screaming like a rabid German dictator, wearing a swastika-embellished warsuit and carrying an assault rifle. Soldiers from all sides run out of the lab, desperately trying to keep him down, but it’s no use. Bullets spring from his gun, piercing several of those bugger’s skulls as they fall down and bleed out. He smashes their heads in. He strangles them, trying to blast out their brains. We just stare in awe. He looks up at us soldiers at the lab and smiles this bloodthirsty grin, and suddenly, I’m electrified, as I realize we will win this war. “Heil Hitler!” \n", "Hitler had nothing to do with it. Germans discovered nuclear fission in 1938 or 1939 and within a few months everybody was trying to make a bomb with nuclear energy production being developed along the way. Secondly, it was Stalin and the USSR (not to mention the US if you take a Russian perspective) more than Hitler who drove the arms race. Finally, we fail as a species and don't deserve to survive if in order to survive an alien invasion we sacrifice 6 million Jews. Also, it was a combination of the Great Depression ensuing from the 1929 stock market crash as well as the incomplete and inappropriate settlement of WWI (granted that's with hindsight) that led to the rise of Hitler. It's those things somebody who was manipulating time would target if they wanted Hitler's rise to power. The only extra thing Hitler added differently from any other fascist dictator that Germany was poised to follow was the vitriol with which he hated the Jews.\n\nSo your prompt sucks! And the premise of it to somehow glorify one of the most heinous actors of a completely irrelevant (to developing nuclear weapons: that was already started in 1939/1940 where as the mass execution of Jews started in Poland but really expanded with the invasion of Russia in 1941 before the construction of death camps in 1942) and unnecessary atrocities (killing Jews served absolutely no purpose to the German cause in WWII except to satisfy Hitler's hatred. His rationale if there was any other than that Jews were the cause of the World War when it was so obvious that he was looking for War himself by invading Poland and then invading Russia was that there were too many mouths to feed, but that's absolutely ridiculous) is wrong. I have half a mind to report you, but what's the use in censoring stuff?\n\nBut if I had the time I'd place those sentiments in a story. One where the Aliens provide time travel to assess the true worth of a species which our species used to kill 7 million Jews and Romani as well as tens of millions of innocent civilians, sentence our species to extinction. But I hate that Platonic, predestination view of time where time loops have always been and world is traveling down a predetermined course (although it makes for a good story like Terminator where Skynet (and the resistance) not only creates itself but also creates the resistance).", "I don't write. But I think this is interesting. So maybe someone else can get an idea.\n\nFuck! What the fuck happened? Where the fuck am I? \"YOU THERE, DON'T MOVE!\" Came a strong voice down the other end of the dark, eerie alley. What happened......The last thing I remember is the panic. they were coming in, those squids, God I hope everyone made it out, well, I made it, everything depends on me, i have to complete my mission. \"Goddamn drunk\" said one of the men advancing toward me menacingly down the gloomy alleyway, \"I'll sober you up. More like the Wehrmacht will, what's your name?.\" I recognize him now, he looks like an old fashioned police officer. \"Where am I? What's the date?\" I asked. \"Christ ya dumb drunk, they'll definitely sort you out. It's Wednesday and you're off to fight in the French trenches before that American president Wilson sends over his army.\" Shit about 20 years too early. \"Adolf, my name is Adolf Hitler.\".......\n\n\nI know this isn't very good guys I'm on a mobile, and again maybe someone else will get a good idea off of this, I'm no writer.", "Today was the same day I died the first time and the day I was born for the second time. Not many people could look back at their life and pinpoint the exact moment they became a monster. Not many people can remember every single day of their life clearly until the end they say. For me, it was quite the opposite. In my final moments, I can barely recall the world I left behind, barely recall the horrors I've seen. Now, all I can think of are the horrors I've caused. \n\nThe only day of the life I had to leave I can recall is the day I left it. I can still remember the scent of death thick in the air around me, and the dryness of my hands and feet as water rations had been low for months. I hadn't taken a shower for almost two weeks, and I was given every possible special treatment they could afford. For days I was given more food than ten other man combined, yet still I was hungry as my eyes pored over maps and bio's. My job then was simple, I was to memorize everything I could about every important man and event at the time. I was to go into there prepared for everything, to be un-defeatable yet still be defeated. It is hard, let me tell you, to force yourself to lose when you could win easily. It is hard to kill yourself, when the world you're saving seems like a bad dream.\n\nEven now, as I reflect upon my success, I cannot help but wonder if I was making up this future I came from. What if I am just a madman? What if I am just a crazy, genocidal murderer? What if I was lucky? What if all those weapons and papers just happened to be coincidence and not given to me. I can barely even remember the face of her...without that I would be sure that I am truly a monster. That, and the room. The god-forsaken accursed room! With it's steel walls, and it's caging doors! Damn that room! Damn it to hell! If only, I wish, it hadn't been me. I guess it is only fitting that in my final moments in one world I remember my final moments in another.\n\nI was late already. By only 10 minutes, but their voices were screaming at me, telling me to hurry up because the walls had been breached! I had been hit right below the neck by shrapnel, and I my legs were starting to falter when I heard the sound of boots pounding against the floor. The first face I saw the was the cold, steel face of my best friend, grabbing me by the shoulders and dragging me forward. I coughed only once, too little water in my body to even cough again. When finally George threw me through the door, and shut it behind us, I looked like the monster I was too become. \n\nDust covered my face and body, and blood was dripping slowly down my chest out of the thousand cuts the shrapnel had made. I was bruised and beaten already. We were beaten in this world, but maybe another world had a chance.\n\n\"Adolph, you look like hell found you.\"She quietly said, but her voice seemed to ring in my eyes and the mere sound of it voice gave me the tiny glimmer of strength to stand on two feet again. \n\n\"It's been looking for a long time, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised it managed to.\"She nodded. And then George cut us off, \"I'm sorry you two but we have no time to waste right now. They could reach us any second. You have to go.\"\nI nodded, and took a step towards the machine. But my breath vanished, and George had to catch me again. The commander of the final fort was also already by my side. She and George lifted me up, carrying me towards the portal. \n\nIt wasn't what I thought it would be. It was just a door, a normal looking door. But the two assured me that it would work when I voiced my doubt. They held me for a second in front of it, giving time for the love of my life to come over to me. She simply took my hand, and whispered into my ear, \"I'll love you, and I'm proud for the strength you have. There's one last gift we need to give you though.\"And then she grabbed my hand and pried open my closed fist, planting into it something I couldn't tell what it was. She closed my hand for me afterwards, and said, \"When ever you don't have the strength to continue, look at this.\"\n\nAnd then she backed away, and George opened the door and I was suddenly thrown through. I remember what it was like to see grass again, for the first time in forever. It's odd, I die for the second time in a place very much like the place I died at first. I wonder how historians will explain some of my more irrational decisions, like my refusal to put more troops at Normandy. Even when all my advisors knew that they would land there if we didn't. And here, I opened the locket for the last time it would be opened by my hands. A drop of blood dripped from the thousand cuts that covered my neck, cuts from shrapnel that flown across it earlier. Once again, I saw her face. I wonder what the soldiers who open this locket will think of this picture. The picture of a girl who never was in this world. The picture of a girl I loved enough to kill millions for. And if she does happen to come into this world once more, I hope she meets me again. At least one Adolph Hitler can find peace. This one surely couldn't.", "I squeezed hard on the throttle in my palm, and the ocean below me turned into a lightshow, the crisp blue dancing with fire, with a thousand shades of flame from the setting sun and the wreckage behind me. I was vaguely aware of the Needles that lanced down at me from miles overhead, perfectly aerodynamic forms entering the water with almost no splash, but it seemed of little importance. I wasn’t going to be able to dodge a projectile moving three times the speed of sound in a wimpy Jetsuit. Strangely, that thought put me at peace. I had always handled stress well, even back in Basic Training, when it was still the Austrian Armed Forces, before it was the “United International Effort”, or even the “United European Front”. A Needle sliced into my shoulder pad, momentarily cutting power and drawing me back into reality. The shot spun me around, and my visor fizzled out. I felt my stomach lurch as I began to lose altitude. Subsystems rerouted in milliseconds, and my Heads Up Display lit back up. I completed my spiral, and saw the water less than a meter beneath me. I flattened my body, bounced once, and reactivated my pack, regaining altitude quickly. \n\nI made it out of effective firing range of the Needles, and plotted the destination into my computer. As autopilot engaged, I rotated over and flew on my back, watching the Outsider Airships destroy the two massive craft below with lethal efficiency. We had no weapons like the Outsiders. There had never been a need. Our ships themselves were simply reoutfitted Cruiseliners. It wasn’t a fair fight, not even close. I watched as long as I could, my comm open to every channel, hearing the scream of every woman and man we lost as the ships went down. Somebody had to remember. \n\nThe Unified National Fleet had been assembled quickly, a hodgepodge of technology and weaponry from around the world. The combined fighting prowess of every great military thinker of every country. We had thought our might was a destructive force that could burn the heavens. It wasn’t nearly good enough. Our bullets bounced off armor plating with no effect, our rockets sailed past their targets. Our aircraft were sluggish, our vehicles useless. We had no advantage over them. But we had a way out. The Crucible was the Last Possible Option. It was only to be used when the thought of humanity surviving the conflict seemed inconceivable. As long as there was hope, there was no activating the Crucible. For all of the reluctance, the order to use it came three days after the conflict began. We were that badly beaten. And watching as the two ships guarding those sent to activate it sank into the ocean, and listening as the countless onboard drowned and burned and died, I understood why.\n\nSimply put, the crucible was a time machine. A huge underground facility, with arrays of capacitors and batteries harvesting geothermal energy 24/7, ready to pump out enough pure power to change history. The location was the Crucible as much as the Machinery that resided there. A Crack in Spacetime. Put enough energy into it, and the Universe would do what the Universe does best: Increase in entropy. The crack would seal itself, and anything nearby would be catapulted through, and the crack would cease to exist. Predictions of when the crack let out Varied widely, from as early as 1800 to as Late as 1850. Regardless, the plan was the same: Give the presidential seal to the receptionist at the white White House, and wait for your meeting with the President. Build a highpowered telescope, and Fix it on a certain planet a few solar systems over. In 1885, the Capital ship of the Outsiders would pass in front of said planet, and this would drive humanity to create the weapons we so desperately needed. \n\nI touched down on a glacial sheet a few hundred miles from civilization. The freezing winds had buffeted me around for the past half hour as I approached the site of the Crucible; I had made almost no progress against it. It was as if the universe itself knew what was coming, and poured energy of its own into the mix. In any other circumstance, the mere concept of such a thing would have seemed ridiculous and impossible. But in any other circumstance, so would time travel. I made my way to the one blinking light in the distance.\n\n\nWill continue if there is interest.\n\n", "[The aliens needed a gripping area near human mouths in order for the invasion to be successful. It had to be just the right shape and size, and it had to be present on at least five percent of the population.](http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=2509#comic)\n\nWe didn't see the threat coming until it was too late. Our weapons were useless against their shields, and none of our bio-weapons were designed to take down such foreign life forms.\n\nBut we realized their plan relatively quickly. The facial feature had to be wiped out from human-kind, and there was only one way to do it in time.\n\nSo we sent him back. We told him he'd be hated. We told him he'd be alone, that he couldn't tell anyone of his plans. But someone needed to do something so despicable, so treacherous, and so memorable, that no one in their right mind would shave in such a way without risking getting ostracized, or worse, their asses kicked.\n\nHistory will despise him. But he saved us all.\n\nEdits.", "“Do you think they’ll be gentle?” she asked.\n\n“Bystro! Vot! Der'mo!” Rough voices yelled above the hammering on the bunker door.\n\n“They spent twenty millions lives to get this far. What do you think?” I said, cold brown eyes appraising.\n\nEva made a soft noise of agreement, absentmindedly curling a twist of brown hair around her finger, our eyes boring into the 20 centimeters of steel in front of us. \n\nI could hear it, now that the hammering of the door gave way to silence. A thump, every minute or so. Hanging empty in the absolute silence of the bunker. My mind plays tricks on me, imagining the door bursting open with shrapnel and bullets.\n\n“Do you think it was enough?” She asks.\n\nI turn around, and see her plaintively looking up at me, her soft features catching in the tungsten bulbs burning brightly overhead. Why didn’t I see it before? All this time on assignment and I’ve treated her only as a brother in arms, a fellow solider doing our duty against the Tau Cetians. \n\n“What a waste…” I murmur, looking away.\n\n“Twenty millions lives now against eleven billion in 2067? Hardly a waste!” Her eyes flash towards me as she moves farther from the steel door.\n\n“But was it enough!” She demands. “Flimsy rockets? Non atmospheric flight? Nuclear fission? What’s that against the Von Neumann machines? Against the splitting of Luna?”\n\nThe thumping against the door ceases.\n\n“Sir!” She shouts, completely ignoring the door. “They seeded our oceans! They mined the core! Old Earth doesn’t even rotate anymore!”\n\nI look at Eva, her face glowing with an unreserved anger so much unlike her. That curl of hair she was playing with flits over her cheek. I move to gently move it back behind her ear.\n\nA slow groan comes from our last barrier. The bunker door, finally defeated, falls forward with massive shriek.\n\nA Russian wearing tall black leather boots walks in, his short Gimnasterka covered in blood and grime. My mind continues its tricks, as I imagine his face showing the scorched Russian fields he left behind. Even if he did know what the future held, he would never forgive. \n\nI grab Eva. Our lips barely touch before other Soviet soldiers fill the room and tear us apart. \n\n“Comdiv! Chto nam delat' ?” The solider holding Eva asks.\n\nThe commander wordless takes a bottle of cyanide ampules and hands them over. I’m thrown to ground; jerked back up again into a kneeling position. My eyes stay locked with Eva’s as a dirty maimed Soviet forces a capsule into her mouth. Something jams into the side of my head as the Commander draws my attention with a gloved hand. \n\nHe forms the shape of a “T” with his index fingers. Tau.\n\n“Chto otkhodov.” What a waste.\n", "“What do you mean, 'timing'?”\n\n “Timing is the critical factor, Gus. This war, *this crime of ours.* If it is over before the atom bomb can be developed - and deployed - then this Great Standoff equivalent that you describe in your paper...”\n\n \"The Cold War?\"\n\n \"...then your 'Cold War' hypothesis won't hold.\"\n\n \"Why?\" I couldn't help but sound a little offended, Yvonne had, yet again, found a way to turn a discussion about my ideas into a discussion about her ideas. In hindsight, that's what made me so fond of our private chats up here above the atrium.\n\n\n \"In 1957, the Soviet Union ended the Second Great War with just two bombs. At seven kilotons each we 'only' had to watch Paris and London burn to the ground. It could have been worse. Imagine if the Entente and the Soviet Union had started that conflict with the same arsenal America and the Japanese Empire had at the height of the Great Standoff. But with no appreciation of how utterly reprehensible it would be to *actually use one in anger.\"* \n\n\n \"Good God, tens of millions might have died. Central Europe probably wouldn't have been habitable for *decades.* The Russians wouldn't have been able to reconcile with the British and French the way they did. And there's not a chance in hell that we'd have had the Berlin non-proliferation conference. It would be a calamity approaching even the First Great War.”\n\n\n “Exactly, nuclear weapons are a uniquely dangerous horror. We've seen this. If they are developed during their 'cold war', as you put it, they won't truly understand the consequences and thus be far too eager to use them. But here's the other problem: they need to have a century so turbulent and violent that they feel compelled to develop weapons capable of reaching yields of *megatonnes,* maybe even *twenty* megatonnes!\"\n\n\nShe seemed almost excited by that number. It unnerved me, but I could only manage a scoff. \"But that's just not possible, our largest bombs were barely scraping 500KT before the contact.\"\n\n \"And that's why we couldn't stop them until their exploratory ship had spent months scouring half of Europe. We just couldn't crack its shell with what we had at the time. Not to mention that we had to jerry-rig the new bombs into high-speed *rockets.* I bet our new ancestors will even do that as a matter of course.\"\n\n\nI couldn't disagree. That incomplete data core we salvaged only taught us the manner of our doom. That one ship was the vanguard for hundreds. We estimated that we had 21 months to prepare. We couldn't possibly do it. We needed change our path long before the mountain was in sight. Somehow our ancestors would have to juggle, for almost a century, an arsenal that could obliterate them all in mere instants. For no reason other than to keep eachother at bay.\n\n\nShe continued. \"It's all about making sure they have the right lessons and examples, to put it simplistically. To limit the damage they can do to themselves while maximising the build-up. And, perversely, fostering their commitment to learn how to co-operate. It's the same reason that proposal 14 is being considered...\"\n\n\nAs much as I hated that name, I shouldn't have snapped at her the way I did. \"Don't hide it behind that number. It's genocide, Yvonne. We're using the Mesopotamian Genocide and the Baltic Horror as models - models! - on how to perpetrate an even larger extermination. The latter ended not fifteen years ago and yet we now put our stamp of approval on it. Don't you dare piss on the victims' graves by tip-toeing around that word.\"\n\n\nHer face became solemn. It was almost a pout, if you could even apply that word to someone like her. She rested her elbows on the railing, hands clasped together, and stared up through the skylight as if in search of a retort. I joined her in that pose. A meek method of apology, I suppose. After some silence she abandoned her search and instead chose to change the topic.\n\n\"Dima suggested, yesterday, that the vastly increased availability of plutonium will help their space programmes. Projections indicate that they could even launch a probe to Jupiter as soon as the late 90s. Think of it, men on the moon before the 21st century! Sarah De Santis will have to find another way into the history books.\"\n \n\"Why does everyone always forget to mention Rick Potter? He was only second to set foot on the Moon, he landed with her.”\n\n\nFor a short while, she seemed lost in thought. A conclusion was reached and she expelled a sigh that deflated her posture altogether. Her head was cast downwards to the atrium below. With her hands clasped in front of her like that, it struck me how she looked like a woman in prayer. \"They aren't the only ones who will be forgotten, you know. We are going to simply erase the billions of humans who were born in the past century. Their lives weren't always perfect. We still haven't kicked our tendency to dominate our fellow man. But they have as much a right to exist.\" Her voice became more quiet. The offices below us threatened to drown out her carefully measured words, “The general trend is such: we had lots of small wars. Skirmishes. They will have something far worse. Entire nations will crumble. Continents will align themselves against each other, as you have shown in your work. We need to teach them to be the worst that humanity can be, so that we can direct that against beings even more wretched than us.”\n\n\nYvonne has been such a source of strength for us this past year. To this day I can't help but be shocked when she does show some slight vulnerability, some slight doubt. \"We can't think like that. If we succeed, 2066 will be the year the Wanderers are crushed. They won't be able to go on spreading their murder amongst the stars for millenia to come. We might save countless civilisations that we will never meet.\"\n\n\nShe abruptly stopped her prayer and stared straight into me, cold and cynical once more. \"But what if we go too far, Gus? Might not the Wanderers just be people... people who got too good at projecting their horrors outward?\"", "*October 14th, 2041, was a day like any other. Children went to school for 7 hours just as they had their entire lives. People walked, drove, or rode public transit to work. Families gathered at the dinner table and ate a home-cooked meal, as they always had. It was a typical, normal day.*\n\n*October 15th, 2041...was the day the world changed.*\n\n*They came without warning. Beings from another world. They approached our planet at speeds we had once thought unfathomable. By the time people in my city were beginning to wake up, it was already all over the news. Intelligent extraterrestrial beings were on a direct course for Earth. Many initially believed that their intentions were of a peaceful, diplomatic nature, but that hopeful speculation soon turned to sheer terror as their massive ships began to encircle the planet; the only logical explanation for this maneuver was preparation for an attack. The panic during that afternoon was already bad enough. Hundreds died in stampedes as entire cities descended into chaos, looting, and mass exoduses. And then, just like that, the attack came.*\n\n*That was 25 years ago. The longest war in centuries. When the invasion first began, humanity was no match for the Others. Although most of our nations were living in peaceful cooperation with each other, the alien forces possessed technology so vastly superior to our own that the first couple years of the conflict could not even be called a \"war\"; the word war implies that both sides are able to fight. Over a billion people had died by the time we were able to capture or salvage enough of their technology to mount a resistance five years later. I was only a schoolboy in Germany when it first started, one of those children that sat in a classroom like every other day. War is the only thing I've known for most of my life.*\n\n*The battle has raged on for another two decades. The entire planet is in ruins. For most people, the quality of life has not been this poor since medieval times. We managed to force them into a stalemate for now, but humanity's supplies and weapons will run out long before theirs will. We seem to be a doomed species. So imagine my surprise when General Chambers, my CO, pulled me from the front and summoned me into Allied HQ. He said he had a 'special' mission for me. He said that he wanted me to save humanity.*\n\n\"Is this some kind of a joke? My men need me there with them! We cannot lose those Iraqi oilfields! Colonel Bahkar is counting on me!!\" \n\n\"Maximilian, if this mission succeeds, we won't have to worry about those oil fields, or any other strategic area. We can go on the offensive.\" \n\nThe very notion of attacking the aliens made me burst with laughter. I was still convinced that this was some kind of prank. \"Okay, let's say this isn't a joke. How exactly do you plan to do this?\"\n\nHe rose from his seat and turned to face the charts and documents posted on his wall, none of which I understood.\n\"For the last twenty years, we have been stockpiling one of the element that the Others use on their aircrafts: dyedrenium. Our ability to shoot down their ships is so poor that it had taken us this long just to get enough for one use.\"\n\n\"Use for what?!\", I asked.\n\n\"Max...we're going to send someone back in time. To change everything. To give us the upper hand. To save our species for extinction...you're that person, Max.\"\n\nObviously, it took me a while to process what the General had just said. Even longer to finally respond to him. There was quite a bit of back and forth, but eventually, I realized that he was telling the truth. That I could single-handedly ensure the continuity of the human race. \"How...how am I going to do this? Am I going to warn people in the past?\"\n\n\"No.\", the General said in a very firm tone. \"No one would believe you. Your warnings would appear to the ramblings of a mad man. You'd be confined to an asylum for the rest of your life...if you were lucky.\"\n\n\"Then...how-\"\n\n\"We know how to fight them now, but the damage we took in those first few years crippled us. Left them with a massive advantage. You're going to ensure that by the time they come, we will already have the means to fight back.\"\n\nI had known the General for years. Fought along side him. I trusted him with my very life. I had no choice but to believe him. \"General...Bob. Tell me what I have to do.\"\n\n\"You're going to go back to the mid-twentieth century. You are going to single-handedly ignite a second Great War. A war of such grand scale that nations will be forced to advance their technologies decades ahead in only a few years. And the weapons they create will continue to grow more sophisticated. In the new time line, by 2041, humanity might just be able to repel the invasion.\"\n\nI pondered for several minutes on what he had just said. \"It's okay, you don't have to speak. Just listen. In the Great War, Germany fought against many nations with only one or two allies at their side. They can do that again. The country was in chaos after the war...it is the logical nation to choose. One could easily use it to their advantage to take power and lead the country. Restart their industry. Create new weapons. Lead them on the path to war.\"\n\n\"So that's why you chose me?\", I asked. \"Because I'm German?\".\n\n\"No. I chose you, because you are the most loyal, dependable person I know, and because you have the will to do what must be done.\"\n\n\"This is a one-way trip, I'm assuming?\"\n\n\"Yes. I won't bother you with the technical details. But make no mistake, that is not the only price of this mission. You will be the direct cause of the most horrible, bloody war the human race will have ever experienced up to that point. The men under your command will be fanatical, and commit terrible atrocities. The entire world will forever hate you. The mere mention of your name will become a taboo. People will compare you to the Devil himself. They will curse you the way we curse the Others everyday.\"\n\n\"No shit! You're asking me to directly cause the deaths of millions of people!!\"\n\n\"You're right. But we have to be cold and mathematical about this. Millions in the past will die...so that billions in the present can be saved.\"\n\nThe very notion chilled me to the bone...and yet it made perfect sense at the same time. \"So, what's the good news?\" I asked.\n\nThe General chuckled. \"The good news is we can supply you with enough information to help you become the leader of Germany. Certain people to ally with. Certain opportunities to take advantage of. New technologies to bring back, so advanced that it will take the entire world to defeat you. And...\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"We'll be forging an identity for you. Give you documents, birth certificates, pictures of family, and the sort. But...you get to choose a name for yourself.\"\n\n\"........Adolf Hitler. For my father...Adolf Hitler Deitrich. He always thought I was meant to do great things.\"\n\nThe General smirked slightly. \"Very good, Mr. Hitler. Please come with me\".\n\nHe lead me deep into the heart of Allied HQ, through about five security doors with codes I could not even understand. Finally we reached a large, circular room with a strange device in the center. Within the device sat a glowing, white crystal of sorts. You could feel the energy emanating; it was like nothing I had ever felt before. It made my skin feel...younger, somehow. About 14 people in white lab coats all turned to face us. The General walked ahead, until he was right beside the device. He stared at it for a few seconds, then turned to me.\n\n\"Well....Mr. Hitler........Are you ready to save the world?\", he said as the security door locked behind us.\n", "The war had been devistating. \n\nThe outsiders had overrun the human race, there were few of us left when we managed to steal the device. It was a prototype, none others existed, and now, we had it. The time travel device could only send one of us back, and by commitee, it was decided I would go.\n\nBack, to the early 20th century.\n\nI established myself quickly; a back story of military service and political imprisonment. I found a country of disgruntled people with little hope for the future, and sparked a flame within them. I drove them mercilessly, increased production, and made them mine.\n\nAs I became a world power, I gathered the other leaders about me, and in the hopes of fostering cooperation, told them my story. They laughed at me, called me crazy, and drove me from them. I had hoped to encourage science and technology through cooperation, but that would never be.\n\nI gathered some of my own people around me, told them, and they believed me! I sent them to the four corners of the earth to gather information, to leave no stone unturned. Anything could give us the advantage. We made leaps and bounds in technological research, helped in part by my futuristic knowledge. We hunted and tracked down occult studies in the hopes that they may be true, we even began looking at eugenics, to create a stronger, more resilient human to resist the outsiders.\n\nI found, however, that even in this time, the outsiders were already here. They had been for hundreds of years, watching, waiting. Influencing our society while directing puppets from the shadows. I began a reign of terror upon them, reducing their numbers, shunning them from our society. I did, can caused to happen....inhuman things. In the name of humanity, I sacrificed my own. \n\nMy cohorts and I burned Europe. Every outsider we came across, we removed. We captured cities and countries, and made enemies in the process. Churchill, in particular...he hated me. He hated that I claimed knowledge of what was to come, hated that I wanted to proclaim world cooperation and peace. He and his allies surged against me, and I resisted. Like a wall we held back the onslaught of the world, while we continued what must be done.\n\nI leaked much information to the so-called Allies, in the hopes that their researchers and scientists would continue the research I had started. Oppositionally, we created stronger and stronger weapons, and I was pleased, though saddened that it caused my people to die. \n\nIt had to end though. I could have held longer should I have wanted to. I could have jumped military technology another hundred years ahead...but I felt that would be a bad idea...We do not want to destroy each other, just the outsider.\n\nI leaked certain plans, and made sure my people would suffer minimal losses. gave bit by bit back to Europe, and now, here I am\n\nThis bunker, will be my end. I will never see the result of the work I have wrought. The rest of the world will never know that the outsider is among us already, the just would not believe me. I did what I could.\n\nI do not know if I could hold under torture, even though I have told them all the truth previously. Before the Outsider attack, I was a teacher, a scholar. I was never a fighter. I am not accustomed to pain.\n\nSo now it is time to end it. I hope it has been enough.", "\"Hold on! Back up!\"\n\n\"Mr. President, we don't have time! We need-\"\n\n\"And I said back the fuck up! You're telling me we can travel back in time?\"\n\n\"Yes sir, we-\"\n\nAn explosion outside the NORAD bunker shook the ground and rumbled in the air. The lights dimmed briefly. Concrete dust fell from the pipes and ceiling. Yelling could be heard coming from the hallway.\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"The aliens, sir. We sent a team. I promise their mission would be worthy of a movie, but we don't have time to explain ev-\"\n\nAnother explosion knocked the Colonel off his balance and he stumbled to his knee.\n\n\"Why the hell wasn't I aware of it?\"\n\n\"The previous President was, sir. She approved it before she was killed at Cheyenne Mountain! SIR! You need to make a decision! While we still have communications!\"\n\nThe former Speaker of the House took a deep breath as he contemplated in his chair. He looked around the room and smirked at the irony. He was the most powerful man in the world - yet for all he could tell, his domain consisted of four concrete walls, a wooden table, and one insistent soldier.\n\n\"You were saying we should send back Hitler? *Hitler*? The insane, most infamous criminal of the 21st century, killed-20-million-people Hitler? Or the scientist-that-helped-cure-cancer Hitler?\"\n\n\"The first one.\"\n\n\"*Adolf. Fucking. Hitler*?\n\n\"Yes, sir. If I may con-\"\n\n\"Why the hell would we send his corpse back in time? How is that going to fix anything?\"\n\nTwo successive blasts shook the room again. The lights completely went out. 2.5 seconds later the back-up power restored them.\n\n\"He's alive. We put him in a secret prison in Area 51. Now-\"\n\n\"Oh, OK. Great idea. We send the madman alone back in time and just hope everything works out for the best.\"\n\n\"No, sir. The plan calls for sending others too. The news reporter Goebbels, and some others you wouldn't recognize.\"\n\n\"So what happens to us if we send them back?\"\n\n\"Sir! Does it matter!? Can't you tell? WE'RE LOSING THIS WAR! Make the call!\"\n\nThe President folded his hands in front of his brow and looked down at the table. More yelling was coming from the hallway. The sounds of dozens of troops in combat boots running by could be heard from beyond the door.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"I said no. It's a bad plan. We... we can still win this. We don't need to resort to such hair-brained schemes of sending criminals back in time! General Braun's force will push through, you'll see!\"\n\n\"But, sir! You-\"\n\nGunfire could be heard now. More shouting. More rushed boot-steps.\n\n\"I said no!\" The President looked afraid. \"I'm the President, and that's my decision!\"\n\nThe soldier knew what he needed to do. With zero hesitation he pulled his grandfather's M1911 from its holster and shot the man between the eyes.\n\nMore gunfire. It sounded like it was coming directly from the other side of the door now. The Colonel grabbed the President's authentication codes from his pocket and rushed to the terminal in the corner of the room.\n\n Network Offline\nThe words displayed on the screen with all the gloom of a funeral.\n\nBut the radio antennae was still broadcasting!\n\nThe Colonel typed furiously, as he felt the fate of humanity resting on his fingertips:\n\n ZZZ FLASH MESSAGE. TEXT TO MORSE.\n .- ..- - .... . -. - .. -.-. .- - .. --- -. ..--- --... --- .-. -.. . .-. ..... .---- .-- .... .. ... -.- . -.-- .- .-.. .--. .... .- ... - --- .--. \n --- .--. . .-. .- - .. --- -. .-.. .- --.. .- .-. ..- ... .- .--. .--. .-. --- ...- . -.. ... - --- .--. \n -- .- -.-- --. --- -.. -... . .-- .. - .... -.-- --- ..- ... - --- .--. ", "You look like a geek in those clothes. But I guess you'll blend in there.\n\nLook, I know you've had this drilled in your head from the beginning of this project, but I'm going to say it one last time for my own peace of mind. We chose this plan because it's the most likely to succeed. The locals are a proud people who have suffered much at the hands of others. Give them a cause and they'll rally easily around you. Use their fear and frustration and anger to build a war machine they would never imagine possible. Your job is, quite simply, to cause as much conflict on the planet as you possibly can.\n\nDon't concern yourself with global destruction; their weapons are far too primitive to be effective. In fact, remember to watch your words. These are people who don't know about semiconductors and nuclear power, much less life from other planets. Keep your speech simple, direct, and on point.\n\nSpeaking of technology, the one item we're allowing you to take is this: a repository of designs compatible with the native level of technology. Use them as you are able without raising suspicions. Destroy it when it is no longer a viable tool.\n\nIf you succeed, the new world will remember you as a villain. They will never know the hero that stands before me. They won't know how you pushed them to new heights. They won't know that you drove decades of technological development in a few years. Even when their time catches up with ours, when their world is invade by the Eyrgintes in 2066, they won't understand that it was you who equipped them for the fight. And they'll certainly never know how bad it would have been without you.\n\nGood luck, Mr. Hitler. Now...go save the world.", "“What do you mean Adolph was selected?” \n“We all submitted our ID’s and the computer chose his” \n“I thought we agreed to exclude him.” \n“Yes, we did, but the computer chose him anyways.” \n“But he’s a hateful little man who is borderline insane.” \n“I was present for his psych evaluation, he *is* insane.” \n“Then why was he allowed to join?” \n“Because we were desperate, and he just wanted to fight.” \n“You don’t see any issue with this, sending the angry, insane man back in time to start a war?” \n“Like I said, we excluded him from the submissions, however the computer overrode our exclusion and selected him.” \n“Wait, you’re saying the computer not only *added* his ID to the group, but also, out of a group of over a thousand volunteers selected the only one it added?” \n“Ahem….^it ^added ^another” \n“What was that you said?” \n“The computer actually chose two individuals” \n“I thought we programmed it to choose one” \n“We did, it overrode those protocols as well” \n“Who is in charge of this operation, us or the computer?” \n“We are, we definitely are.” \n“Are you sure?” \n“Pretty sure” \n“So who was the second one?” \n“Joseph.” \n“Who the hell is Joseph?” \n“The janitor.” \n“The crazy one with the huge moustache and the tendency to breathe hard after mopping?” \n“Yes” \n“What do we know about him?” \n“Not much, as a non-combatant, he wasn’t subjected to the same screening as the rest of the soldiers.” \n“Given the current situation, let me rephrase that question, what does the computer know about him?” \n“Let me check…Computer, please provide complete psychological analysis of employee Joseph, ID 0886” \n*pause* \n“My god, the man is a total psychopath! Computer, show me the same report for Adolph, ID 1739” \n“Look at that, almost the same psychopathic profile, why would the computer choose two psychopaths to send back in time? At least we can abort the entire program, sending those two back would be a total disaster.” \n“Um….about that, the computer already sent them back” \n“What?\" \n\"The selection and transmission were almost instantaneous, we weren’t even aware the computer had the capability to remotely transmit humans.” \n“Shit, can we get them back?” \n“No, that’s beyond our capability right now” \n\n Program error detected \n Insufficient memory for complete analysis \n Please designate more memory and restart program\n\n“What does that mean?” \n“It means the program sent Joseph and Adolph without doing a full simulation, it sent them before it knew what the final result would be” \n“Shit, so can we give it more memory, let it finish the program?” \n“Yeah, we can, let me just dedicate the Greenland servers, give me a second…there we go” \n\n Program re initiated \n Failure predicted given current configuration \n Performing new analysis \n Success outcome probability 0.06% \n Additional resources will increase probability to 15.9% \n Use additional resources (Y/N) \n\n“What does that mean?” \n“It means it screwed up, but there’s a chance it could fix things, it just needs more resources” \n“You mean like memory?” \n“I’m not sure” \n“Hell, give it the resources it needs” \n\n Y \n\n“Just did sir…sir?...Where did you go sir?” \n\n Resource Truman ID:1945 transmitted \n \n\n \n", "Mortars thud outside the bunker, and I remove my cybernetic enhancements and crush them beneath my boot heel. I can leave no trace of my true origins; that could ruin everything I have built. I am a stone, sinking to the bottom of the pond. But I have made my ripples in time, and that is enough. Regardless of how history remembers me, my job is done. And in only twenty one years! Far ahead of schedule.\n\nI die a monster. I know that. The world will forever spit at the mention of my name. Exactly as my commanding officer told me when he ordered me into the tachyon displacement field and sent me more than a century back. \"You have to prepare us,\" he gasped, nursing the shard of steel impaled in his side. He handed me the folder that was meant for him, full of schematics for jets and rockets and a political analysis of Europe. \"You need to prevent the German Dissolution of 1941 and ensure a world-wide military buildup. It's all in the briefing. *Do what must be done*.\" Without waiting for a response, he closed the shield door and turned on the machine. I watched helplessly through the thick porthole as the brick walls disintegrated and the Hunters burst in and tore him to shreds. They were too late to stop me, though.\n\nI rushed it, and almost ruined everything. They now call it the \"Beer Hall Putsch.\" My first attempt at seizing the government, and it failed miserably. But I was not one to give up, knowing that the Hunter fleet was already on its way. I redoubled my efforts, building a political network from inside prison walls and writing my propaganda masterpiece. I watched the Weimar Republic edge closer and closer to its own destruction, knowing full well that it would end with the death of German industry, extending the world's economic depression and stunting scientific development for the next fifty years. It needed to be prevented at all costs.\n\nI was able to seize control, building a cult of personality around myself and brainwashing Germany's citizens. I rebuilt the economy and began pouring investments into the military. Certain scientists were entrusted with the schematics that I had brought back and began to develop a number of useful weapons. Missiles, jet engines, computing machines, harnessing the power of the atom... it would soon come to fruition. The Hunters' own weapons would be turned against them.\n\nI was naive enough to believe that the world would let me build my army in peace, but I was at the very least adaptable. The British, weak-willed and isolationist in my own time, were (to my surprise) amazingly resilient and stubborn. I only wish that this \"Winston Churchill\" had been born a century later. I should have liked to hear the speech he would give when the Hunters took up positions in our orbit.\n\nWhen I saw the stormclouds of war on the horizon, I used it to my advantage. Germany may burn, but I would ensure that the rest of the world carried on my vision, even if they didn't know it. I fanned the flames of distrust between the Soviets and the Americans, starting with the joint German/USSR invasion of Poland. I ordered my most trusted weapons engineers out of the country, telling them to make it look like they were defecting. Their research was too precious to keep here, knowing that the other nations of the world would soon make me a target. And I whispered into the ear of my new Japanese allies, urging them ever onward. In my own timeline, their territorial ambitions had stopped at Korea and they became peaceful (albeit weird) citizens of the world.\n\nThere were casualties, of course. My own German soldiers, and the many citizens of my conquered nations. All pawns in a giant game of chess, and sometimes sacrifices must be made. It broke my heart to give the order, but I instituted full-scale persecution of the Jews. They were the only logical target. Their culture is built on a history of persecution and insecurity, and I was the straw that broke the camel's back. Their leaders, spiritied away to newly-established Israel, vowed never to be left defenseless again. Their Irgun forces are ruthless and efficient, just as I'd hoped. My agents in Palestine are already setting the ground work for a lasting conflict there to ensure that the Middle East will be embroiled in war for at least a decade.\n\nMy time now is at an end, and I see the fruits of my labor around the world. Rocket-powered planes are under development in nations across the world. The United States is adapting my own V2 designs now, and they'll probably make it to space within the next decade or two. The Atomic Bomb, the heart of our dream arsenal against the Hunters, is ready for use. And best of all, I can already see the tensions forming between the allies. Russians and Americans vying for territory, carving out their own spheres of influence. The next few decades will be fraught with danger and peril, but humans will emerge ready for the true test of their valor: when the Hunter fleet emerges from the shadows. I can only imagine what terrifying weapons of war we will have available by then.\n\nI can hear the thumping on the door of the bunker now, and I prepare to take my own life. I burn the folder in front of me, detailing the journey of U-815 into Antarctica. If I leave any evidence of this submarine, the Americans and Russians will sink it and leave it at the bottom of the sea. I've planted a final gift for the Hunters deep under the ice, set to emerge in 2066. My scientists never understood why I wanted to create this, but they did as they were told. An engineered virus, specifically targeting Hunter physiology. Humans will be completely immune. I've left a message in the cannisters, detailing all of my plans and what I knew. Maybe someday, I'll be recognized as a savior.\n\nWith that last pleasant thought in my mind, I load the gun and put the barrel against my temple.\n\n---\n\n[I wrote another one with Napoleon!](http://www.reddit.com/r/Luna_Lovewell/comments/346n8d/the_true_history_of_adolf_hitler/cqs0loa)" ]

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[ "Do you realize how far radio waves travel? A long fucking way. \n\nThey knew we were here a long time before we knew they were. We've just been throwing signals around and out and everywhere... everything that could possibly every contact us just has to perk up their ears to know we're right here. Lucky for us, most life in the universe isn't sentient. \n\nI know I'm supposed to be explaining the facts, and just the facts, about what happened, but really, nothing has meaning out of context. That's been the problem with humanity as a whole ever since we figured out global communication; communication is more about context than the words itself, and humans are too damn stubborn to keep that in mind. If you really want to understand what happened and why, you're going to need to know me, as a person in general, and not just as the person who killed an entire world.\n\nMy name is Michael Williams. I am the most average American alive. That's all in my file, and it's precisely why I was chosen to make first contact. For those in the future, it's important to understand that my selection was not arbitrary. The Ouht had a nature similar to our own, and understood that power breeds corruption, no matter what some friendly neighborhood superheros were taught in comic books. They'd been listening to our music, our talk shows, our political bullshit for decades. They'd been watching our television for several years, ever since they got close enough that they could compensate for the signal/noise ratio and actually get video worth a damn through the static.\n\nThe point is, they didn't want to talk to some government asshole, or some savant academic. They wanted to talk to an average human. The thought was that if we each sent the most average of our kind, that the impressions, knowledge, and experience gained on both sides would be the most honest possible. Brilliant way to minimize the grandstanding. \n\nThe data was collected, fed into a computer somewhere, and analyzed. I am of average intelligence, average height, average weight, average age... of all the categories they put in, I was the person who scored average on the most of them. If I'd had the chance to reproduce, I'm not sure that'd be something I would have bragged to my grandchildren about.\n\nIt was a matter of minutes between when the computer spit out the result, to when every major media outlet was throwing my name everywhere. I went from sleeping safe one night, knowing that there was no way I'd be the poor sod selected, to the most recognizable face on the planet in the time it took to fry an egg. I hadn't even buttered my toast before there were 4 SUVs outside my house. Pre-coffee, when I opened the door and the first words out of this guy wearing an earpiece were \"Sir, we apologize for interrupting your breakfast,\" there were only two thoughts running through my head; \"I'm obviously sleeping through my alarm,\" and \"There is no way you fuckers actually feel sorry for interrupting my breakfast.\"", "*These are great tits.*\n\nI grinned at myself in the full wall mirror, not even bothering to hide my wandering eyes ogling the low cut neckline of the wardrobe tech. She continued to natter on, padding my face with powder. Got to look good for the cameras, right?\n\nAs the “ON AIR” sign flips on, I bounce out onstage, waving at the crowd. Finally, I feel alive again. Six years since I broke the biggest news in history, only to have the usual media cycle forget about me a week after. \n\n“Dr. Jonstone! Welcome. Welcome to… America!” The TV host stood to shake my hand with a monstrous grin carved into his face. \n\n*“Loser. Get to the good stuff,”* I think to myself. \n\nI like the Doctor bit, though. Makes me sound like a bigger deal. I’ll have to check with Legal if they can say that, given I dropped out of CalTech in my second year. \n\n“You’ve been famous ever since you tackled the Barnard anomaly six years ago! Tell us again, what did you find!”\n\nTackled was a bit of an overstatement. Technically I was sleeping in the radioscope lab at the time, having been recently been evicted from my apartment for grossly overestimating my cat’s abilities to use a litterbox properly. \n\n“Well, I was working on my thesis, when the signal alarm from the mainframe supercomputer went off.” I smiled at the crowd, letting them know it was okay if they didn’t understand the big words I was using. \n\nReally, the computer buzzer woke me up. I went to shut down the alarm, only to find I wasn’t able to without checking what all the fuss was about. Although my part time gig at the lab was usually easy, I was off the clock at the moment and didn’t want to get involved in any sort of work. \n\n“Fortune favors the prepared mind, you know,” I said, winking at the wardrobe tech who was standing in the wings.\n\nFortunately for me, the computer had already done all the hard work of analyzing the so-called “Barnard anomaly.” The whole message was staring at me, more or less in plain English. \n\n“The message from Barnard’s star contained advanced mathematical equations and chemical formulas. The world was lucky I was standing by- no, that I was standing guard that night.” I said, switching from my happy face to my serious-let’s-get-down-to-business face.\nReally, the message contained less than a few dozen characters. The bulk of it was a string of prime numbers. The rest of it was a simple picture of a hydrogen atom.\n\nThe TV host dropped his smile and crinkled his forehead. “You’ve come under fire for what you did after decoding the message, haven’t you?”\n\nGot to love prearranged “hard ball” questions, right?\n\n“Although I respect Dr. Hawking’s opinion, it’s convenient to say messaging the aliens back right away was dangerous in hind-sight.” I say, keeping my serious face on.\n\nOf course the guy who based his career off aliens would say messaging them was dangerous. He was just upset I beat him to the punch. \n\n“What exactly did you say in your message back to the aliens? God be with you? We come in peace?” The host asked, somehow not looking like he was pandering to his lead demographic. \n\nLaughing, I said “I’m afraid not! I simply wrote them back some corresponding math equations and some fusion chemical reactions.”\n\nReally, I just added a couple of extra prime numbers to them. 9, 11, and 13, to be exact. I wasn’t sure what to do with the hydrogen pictogram, so I just added on a continuation of that sequence- deuterium and tritium. At least that’s what Wikipedia told me I sent. \n\n“And that’s what the neigh sayers got so excited about? That you sent aliens the secret of thermonuclear bombs?” He asked, eye brow arched.\n\n“Patently ridiculous,” I say, talking off my glasses for emphasis. “If aliens didn’t understand such simple chemicals, they wouldn’t be trying to communicated with us.” Another simple prearranged question. Any moment he’ll ask me about my upcoming book and we’ll cut to commercial. \n\n“Six years later, here we are! If the aliens were as quick in replying as you were, we should have heard something by now. We go now, LIVE to the Dr. Jonstone’s colleagues!”\n\n*Fuck.*\n\nWhat happened to our little arrangement? This wasn’t part of the deal! I don’t want to see those assholes, live, on television! I hadn’t even talked to them in six years! My eye twitches as I try to keep my serious face on. \n\n“Tell me, Pasadena! Do we have mail?”\n\nThe exoplanet around Barnard’s star flashes up the monitor, along with my old boss. He’s frowning, which is nothing new. \n\n“No, no new direct messages. Any radio chatter from Barnard e has actually fallen off in the last two weeks.”\n\nA flashy picture showing different coloured bars pops up. “This spectrogram outlines the changes seen in the exoplanet’s atmosphere over the last week. These bight lines here are consistent with massive nuclear fusion detonations involving the entirety of the planet’s surface.”\n\n*Fuck.*\n\n\nEDIT: The first goddamned word of the post.", "I can feel the ground shuddering beneath me. More dust dislodges from the ceiling; by now, a fine film of grey lies atop everything in the room. This is what it's come to. The guilt, the grief... I'm almost willing to go now.\n\nIt began around 2 years ago. It started innocuously enough, just another new near-Earth asteroid candidate to be logged and studied. Oh how I wish it were. No-one took any real notice outside of the astronomers and astrophysicists who had a passion (or a research grant) for the study of such objects. Well, not for a time.\n\nThen all of a sudden, the announcement came: SETI had discovered a clear response signal to their broadcasts; one which had clearly been engineered for us to discover based on our own transmissions. What was more shocking was the location of the transmitter: The Sol system. *our solar system*. The rumour mills went into overdrive, online speculation rampant. Was it a probe? Was it manned? If so, hat would they look like? Would they know our language? What were their *intentions*? Then something even more surprising happened. It *stopped*. Clearly they knew we were watching, wondering.\n\nMilitaries world wide began to quietly mobilise reserves. Weapons manufacture was slowly, surely ramped up. If they were here as an invasion scout, we would do our damnedest to resist the eventual assault. Months passed, with a sense of normality beginning to return. Ordinary people had begun to get used to the idea of an alien probe. Religious extremists had blocked it out. Doomsday preppers long ago had manned their bunkers, convinced this was it. Calm had begun to descend. Until *the movement*. \n\nIt came so suddenly, so unexpectedly. After months of doing nothing, the probe began to move again. It had been relatively small as asteroids went. As a ship, it was rather massive. Within a day it was in geosynchronous orbit above the north pole. Then the real game changer happened. They *spoke to us*. Astronauts aboard the ISS had reported an unauthorised channel being broadcast to them. Tentatively, NASA ordered them to open the channel. What came through surprised them. A broadcast, in perfect English no less. A greeting!\n\nThe UN deliberated in emergency session for 3 full days before the decision was reached to reply. Our message was in kind, a greeting, an inquiry as to their intentions, an offer to receive them on neutral territory of their choosing. If they knew our language, they had likely studied our planet; thus they would know where best suited their bodies. They replied. Offered to land wherever they would be easiest received. It was decided that the UN headquarters in Geneva would be suited. So they came. They descended in a sleek shuttle of outstanding angular beauty, the hull shimmered with an almost ethereal pearlescent sheen, deep greens mixed with glistening gold and rich purples. Extremely elegant. Entirely alien. \n\nAs the ramp lowered, the world held a collective breath, only to exhale with shock. They were humanoid, yes, much to our surprise. That was the only similarity. Where we have a soft skin of varied colours, they had an almost armour like scale covering their bodies. The wonders did not stop there. They pulsed with an almost bioluminescent light, shimmering shades of colour moving beneath the scales, chameleon like. I was there that day, part of an elite, handpicked UN press corps. I had been poorly in recent weeks, my system suffering a lasting viral infection. This job however, couldn't be turned down. This was *it*. I would be amongst the elite of the journalism world afterwards. People would know me, money would flow to me. I would live the rest of my life in comfort and luxury, all because I was there, on *the day* Oh how wrong I was.\n\nAs they moved towards the awaiting dignitaries, press closed in on all sides. I was at the front. Then the unexpected happened. One stumbled into me, knocking me on the chest and bundling me over. His head hit me square in the upper lip. I felt pain, warmth and wetness in my mouth. Even worse, my slowly recovering chest was in agony from the winding I suffered. As he got up, he offered me a 'hand'. A strange thing it was, three equidistant, claw like limbs with one knuckle joint midway up; when resting they formed a tetrahedral shape. I gladly grasped it and began to pull myself up, but the knock got to me. I wheezed and eventually began a racking cough. Whilst still trying to balance myself and stand upright, I couldn't quickly bring my other hand to cover my mouth. \n\nThat was the crucial error. My blood spattered over the alien, his hand, arm and 'face'. I began to mumble an apology when the unexpected happened. He doubled over, clutching his lower right eye. His compatriots gathered around him, furiously conversing in their own language. This was the first time we had heard them converse in their tongue, it sounded like a mixture of bass heavy grunts and high chittering squeals. One of their rank rose, begging the pardon of the UN delegation. They had to return their compatriot to their main ship, to make use of its medical facilities. Several days passed. Several excruciating days. I was taken into custody, abused and interrogated. They wanted to know who sent me, who wanted the meeting sabotaged. I plead innocence. \n\nWhilst this brutality was ongoing, another transmission was received. Our visitors were returning to their home system, as their ship did not have the required medical facilities. Something had gone *seriously* wrong. Shortly afterwards I was released, to the world's scrutiny. To them I was the saboteur, the one who had jeopardised first contact. I received death threats (what a surprise with internet culture being what it was I guess). If they knew what was to come next, they probably would have followed through.\n\nMonths passed with no word. Then one evening anomalous em readings were detected worldwide. When we turned our eyes starside, we were stunned. Not just one ship, but a hundred. Each dwarfing the scout that preceded them. Then another broadcast was received. It told of a terrifying pathogen sweeping through their population, one that medical precautions had failed to stop. One to which they had zero immunity and no response. They were dying. All of them... But more followed. They blamed this on us; they claimed it had been an intentional act, that we had done this that we might usurp their technologies. Then the punchline came. If they were facing extinction, we would join them.\n\nThe world stood stunned. Surely this wasn't real. Surely no advanced race could be so callous and unreasonable. Then we studied the ships in greater detail. They bristled with weapons giiving off faint energy sources. This was a fleet of a militarised power. Sleek, deadly, efficient. Most of all, as we learned from their broadcast, it was mad of *autonomous machines*. I don't remember where they first made landfall, perhaps it was Europe. Germany and France were some of the first to be annihilated as recall. But it made no matter. They were numerous. Ruthless. Inexorably advancing as world miltaries crumbled before them, one by one. I took shelter in my family's old cold war bunker (we were a well off family, even many years ago). I had to, tin order to escape the mobs who descended on my house. The burned it, pulled it to the ground, searching for me. *Blaming* me. I don't blame them, either.\n\nOne greed motivated decision, to go to work ill, had destroyed two civilisations. The room shudders again and the wall groans. I watch on the cameras as several of the enemy walkers advance, with their helojets overhead, firing at every civilian, militiaman and soldier they see. How long until they find me, I wonder." ]

[ 2, 7, 11 ]

[ "1430261621", "1430280309", "1430258968" ]

[ "\"I'm sorry but we can't save her.\"\n\nI'm cold, bruised and still bleeding. Earlier today I had been driving with my fiancé of four years to drop her off at her mother's so she could choose a wedding dress. We'd been saving up whatever money we could for what felt like forever and we were finally in a position to have the most amazing wedding ever.\n\nWe were heading down the A41 blaring out her favourite music which I pretended to like, out of nowhere a truck coming round the bend had lost control and collided with the car knocking us straight off the road and into the ditch, the car rolled, and rolled, four times the car had spun before landing on what was left of the wheels.\n\nI felt a crushing pain in my legs where the dashboard had relocated itself to, without a second thought I turned to Olivia, she was shaking and unconscious. I wrestled with the wreckage pinning me to the seat and managed to navigate myself out of the car where a panicked truck driver was screaming at me checking if we were okay while calling an ambulance. I got Olivia out of the car and tried to bring her around, to no avail.\n\nThe ambulance arrived after about ten agonisingly long minutes and performed a bunch of quick checks on her, then proceeded to move her into the ambulance, I disregarded the wreckage and the gawping bystanders and got into the back of the ambulance with her.\n\nAgainst my will, I was separated from her at the hospital as they had to take her into emergency surgery while I waited. I counted three hours as they crawled past before the doctor told me the most painful, gut wrenching news I had ever had in my entire life. In the impact, many of Olivia's ribs had been forced into her chest causing multiple punctures into her lungs and heart, they were unable to undo the damage that'd been done.\n\nI stayed with my parents that night, I couldn't even contemplate being alone at that point. I was lost in a plethora of despair and grief, I never got the chance to see her walk down the aisle in the beautiful dress she would have chosen that day, I never got to declare to her the vows I had been spending many sleepless nights pouring my heart into ... The part that hurt me the most is that I never got to say goodbye.\n\nWeeks passed and I'm now living in a small flat as I can't be in the house Olivia and I were renting together for obvious reasons. I believe I'm becoming severely depressed and insane as I feel like I catch apparitions of her in the back garden, this is happening a lot recently. Out of sheer desperate curiosity I decide to investigate the following evening when the apparition appears again.\n\nThe sun is just disappearing over the horizon but the apparition remains, it is Olivia, sitting on the grass staring intently into the distance. I tell myself I'm going insane but the second words leave my mouth she responds, telling me that she is in fact there and our unconditional love wasn't in a position where death could part us.\n\nShe told me that she doesn't get long after the sun disappearing before she follows. We just talked and rejoiced we were still together, but deep inside I still felt no better. We had our entire lives together and now she's a ghost in my garden.\n\nWe spend the next few days talking about what could have been, ending every time with me pushing my lips into hers, but never making contact. My mental condition is worsening at this point as my longing for her flares uncontrollably. I have an idea, I pick up the keys to the second-hand car I bought from my cousin, I'm going to be with Olivia no matter what it takes.\n\nEdit(s): Spelling", "Violet flashes, inky hues\n\nTrapped in greyscale, mixed with blues\n\nOnly now, I see his face\n\nAnd feel his spectral, warm embrace\n\nThere is no day, nor is there night\n\nOnly the quiet of twilight\n\nI wait for age, for life to end\n\nFor the day on which my scars shall mend\n\nOne living lover lost his bliss,\n\nNow, there's solace in death's kiss.\n\nLike my skin, so black and blue,\n\nThis sky watches love so true.\n\nNight comes, as it will do,\n\nTomorrow comes- I'll wait for you." ]

[ 2, 6 ]

[ "1430264912", "1430260757" ]

[ "\"Sorry, Mister Harrisburg, but the position at our company has been filled. Thank you.\"\n\nUnsurpising. Third time this month. I stand up and shook his old hand, staring into bespectacled eyes whose inner apathy were masked by the beaming smile below. I step out of the office and pas the man who surely got the job. It's not rocket science to notice, considering that he has at least 6 inches of height and 50 pounds of muscle on me, and also the fact that he looks like a combination of my mothers' favorite old movie stars. I give a little respectful nod of acknowledgement, and he returned the favor. His eyes hold an emotion that I'm used to seeing, pity. *Poor guy,* he's probably thinking, *stuck in his flawed little body.* Well fuck you too, Narcissius. At least everything that made me unique didn't come out of a lab.\n\nHowever, it's not much to be proud of. Everything I've done has always been overshadowed by people only a few months younger than me. You painted a picture of a dog, Jake? Well Johnny here did an anatomically proportionate sketch of three different dogs. Tried out for the middle school track team? Sorry, we just filled the last spot with Usain Bolt's mini-me. Valedictorian? Nope, that goes to the 14-year-old who already is taking fucking college junior courses. Try to score a date? Men without the looks of James Dean and rippling pecs need not apply. My entire life's pretty much hearing 'sorry, others are better' over and over again. Of course, the old geezers don't care; they're loving it! They're living longer thanks to child geniuses discovering cures for types of cancer, wealthier due to entry-level workers thinking as fast as supercomputers, and happier due to having 'perfect' grandchildren. \n\nOf course, that's not to suggest that I'm completely hopeless. I'm only mostly hopeless. I'm living in some shithole tenement in the ghetto full of junkies and retards whose parents couldn't afford genetic tinkering, my parents are both dead, my degree's from fucking DeVry due to being waitlisted in literally all my dream colleges, and nobody gives a fuck about me. Sure, the media gushes over how giving black mothers the ability to have their kids' hair be straight is sexist, or how Muslim scientists will literally train your baby to join the Gay Taliban while in your uterus, or how horrible everything is because the iShit 10's been delayed a month. You never hear about \"the last generation,\" the few people left to fend for themselves against a society that outclassed them in every way. I remember reading a survey that said the 'last generation' is 50% more likely to do drugs, 70% more likely to commit suicide, and twice as likely to commit a violent crime. Every time one of those statistics is proven right, do people say \"Maybe we should address this problem in our society?\" Fuck no, they say \"Those kids aren't worth it\" and hope it goes away on its own.\n\nAnd now, I'm fucking sick of it. Rumor's going around that there'll be a protest at the GeneMod clinic this saturday. Five thousand people pissed off at life, pissed off at society, and ready to scalp the modded motherfuckers who left them in the dust. I'll be there alright, and I'm gonna make those fuckers *burn*.", "Birthdays are less and less of a priority these days. \nMother and Father called on Skype this afternoon. They congratulated me on my recent career successes. You see, I work in a biotech company that recently announced it was launching a strain of cotton plant that was capable of removing and sequestering heavy metals and radioactive waste from highly contaminated topsoil, making for quick and easy biological remediation. The results were significant, shares were up, and a celebration was planned as a PR stunt to reassure key investors that we are a sound financial investment, because spending extravagant amounts of money on catering and champagne and live entertainment sounds like the perfect way to convince people that a company's finances are being effectively used.\nThis event happened to coincide with my birthday, so a celebration of some sort was inevitable. Mum said their gift would arrive soon. I assume they sent me a potted tulip again, its all that ive asked for since i was 7. i took a brief moment to contemplate the possible color and size, and briefly glanced over to the windowsill to determine where it would best be positioned amongst the others. I had 17 of them, in a nice neat row, organised in terms of color/size, the number of petals and leaves, thickness of the stem etc. I watered and fed them everyday with some occasional trimming.\nMy mother suddenly told me that she was proud of me. I paused for a moment because it caught me off guard. I told them I had to leave and I hung up. \n\nChatting with them seemed uncomfortable these days. It was not for a lack of their trying. My parents, Linda and Joe, were 56 and 58 respectively. Linda was a small-town litigator and Joe worked in construction. They had done their best to raise me, but they had no idea. but how could they? how could they have been prepared to raise me?\n\nmy name is samuel ellis jensen, I was born feb 17 1989, and i am a fully engineered human being. The government and press had nicknamed us Superbabies, but people used.... other names.\n1989 was the year that the UN and various other government organizations made organic births illegal. Socio-genetic engineering had been mandated by the state, government, and the UN. We were born without defect and are physiologically immune to most diseases, including HIV and most forms of cancer. We also were supposed to live longer healthier lives, with no neurological degradation whatsoever. There were other various modifications as well. Our genes were subject to a long list of modifications that trailed from aesthetic to neurological function. The one of most value, it seemed, was our eidetic memories and our advanced intellect. Most of us achieved a bachelors before age 8. we excelled in science, the arts, humanities, politics and sports.\nPeople didn't understand our existence. They saw us as unnatural, while also ignoring how \"unnatural\" their own lives had become, and how \"unnatural\" their blind and violent rage had made them. Since the year of my birth, there were riots for over a decade, in country after country.They insisted that we were not human. Kirby Plaza was bombed, twice. Countless government buildings were burnt, I even saw my town hall burnt to the ground. Mom drove past quickly, she told me to ignore it, i still remember the patterns of the cracks in the broken windows. one of the cracks was shaped like Texas and i started humming the intro to walker texas ranger. News reports showed protestors beating parents to death in front of their children. In third world countries, they would often call them witches, and then beat and lynch the children. Events like this eventually lead to the the Lilly Leidbeter act. \nLilly was one of the victims of a triple homicide. She was only a year younger than me. Her parents saw a crowd approaching their home and hid her. The protesters broke through the front door, dragged both of them out and proceeded to beat them. Lilly heard her parents screams and couldn't help but run out to try to defend them. She used her body to shield her parents. The crowd then set their bodies alight. They showed her charred body on the 7 o'clock news. I remember seeing it when i was a child, i fell down on the rug in front of the tv and i couldn't stop crying. After the Lilly Leidbeter act, strict military curfews were enacted to suppress civil unrest.\n\nThis states tense relationship with many of its citizens continued, until the decade they saw us shine. \n\nWe made ungodly advancements.\n\nin 2006, a 14 year old achieved viable nuclear fusion and had began experiments warping Space-Time, countless millions of us, including myself, took to making great steps in ending biological senescence and eliminated 1609 diseases and disorders, and that number continues to climb. we began the colonization of mars and other planets in 2006. We proposed, drafted and watched as we passed the great financial restructuring of 2002 and managed eliminate large scale hunger and poverty, we oversaw the De extinction of over 400 species. We turned the desert into a rainforest. \n\nThe world saw, and were stunned silent\nThey suddenly knew why we were born.\n\nTo the government, we were just simply, at the core, a more economical decision, they would spend less money on health care, and we would spend a longer period of our lives in the workforce, spending and paying taxes. Our improved intelligence would mean higher creativity and productivity and lower educational costs. They had no idea that it would turn out this well. They eliminated genetic factors that predisposed us to psychotic tendencies, aggressiveness and tendency towards addiction and violence.\n\nI was grown in an artificial womb. The womb is labelled with your NHN. 44996587\nI remember going to see it when i was 4. They said i was old enough to know, but really i had no idea what compelled them to take me there. \nThe place felt familiar. Being inside the facility, it was a kind of hell that was neither hot nor cold. It felt....tepid. The facility itself was in the middle of nowhere, a great white concrete monolith, 7 miles long and 7 miles wide. What i saw inside was indescribable.\n\nThere is no other way to put it. We were farmed. \n\nThere were thousands and thousands of glass tubes filled with indiscriminate wads of flesh, lined up and stacked stacked three stories tall and stretching out for several miles. I snuck out of the guided tour and broke into the Incubation facility.The place was dimly lit, only small LED lights on the side of the platform spaced 0.8 m apart. i ran down an access platform, and easily figured out where artificial uterus was. \n\n There were numbers there other than mine. 3 others. Baby currently growing had eyes and hands. I touched the glass. Alex. Alex was the name I gave him.\n\n(will do the rest later)\n\n", "I could’ve had a slightly cleft palate. My right arm was going to be half an inch shorter than my left. You know, I don’t even have the right eyes, my eyes are supposed to be brown, like both my parents. But they thought green added more of an air of mystique, so here we are. Today is my 26th birthday, and I am having somewhat of an identity crisis. Who am I ? I mean, who am I really ? My parents are the only ones who have seen me, the real me, for everything I was, and wasn’t. They were doing me a favour, they thought, making me the best I could be. But that’s the thing, I’m not me, I’m some perfect designer model of a child which my parents wanted. Seriously, even my fucking eyes ? Just let me have my eyes. Every day as soon as I leave the house, I put in brown contacts.\n\nIt doesn’t seem to bother others of my generation the same way that it bothers me. In fact, it’s pretty taboo to tell your child about the ‘modifications’ which you made to them. Most parents these days have the records erased and soon claim that even they cannot remember, but that it doesn’t matter anyway. Don’t get me wrong, the fact that thousands of congenital diseases and birth defects have been all but eradicated is a beautiful thing. Not a single child has been born with any such disease for a quarter of a century. I’m all for that shit. What makes me uncomfortable however, is that the human race’s next instinct is to begin to play God. \n\nThere exists, a progressive group, who refuse to made any aesthetic modifications at all. It is mandatory to have the embryo examined and to have any life-threatening or severely life-inhibiting things remedied. People act like that’s such a selfless act, as if parents want to deal with and look after a severely disabled child. Apologise for the cynicism, but I’m just tired of everyone acting as if the people who do this are the saviours of the human race. \n\nSorry, I lost the plot there. So, these progressives, they refuse to even see a profile of their child’s projected appearance. I think that’s admirable. I used to study with a girl who was a daughter of such people. She had a rather large nose and a rather flat chest. Two things which parent’s generally do not like to inflict upon their children. People whispered behind her back and shunned her. I thought she was absolutely beautiful, because she was a real fucking person. The paradigm of beauty is so goddamn skewed now that we all look like some weird composite of models and movie stars our parents used to pine for. \n\nIt eventually got to Annie and she got one smaller and the other bigger. Well, you know what, I’m making a change too. There is a radical procedure, which can reverse the effects of the birth modifications made to you as an embryo. But, I’m thinking a bit bigger, we’re thinking a bit bigger, you know ? There’s a group of us, terrorists is the popular term, who have a vision. We see a world where everyone takes off their masks, and we see everyone for who they really are, for better or worse. Because fuck it man, you’re you. You may think I’m noble or a selfish prick, but either way, tonight is show-time. \n\nThe procedure is effectively just injecting a serum into your glands. It will only reverse the effects of the cosmetic modifications, none of the big stuff. Inject it and the effect is almost instantaneous, but guess what ? It can be ingested too. It takes longer to take effect, but it will still work. It’s too late now, everything is already in motion, they can’t stop us. Tonight, all around Europe, water supplies will be contaminated with the serum. \n\nBuckle up everyone; it’s time to find out if you really do love your wife. \n\n\n\n" ]

[ 2, 3, 5 ]

[ "1430285130", "1430286174", "1430271396" ]

[ "Haley brushed her skirt down one last time before going in. She sneered at her decision, certain that pants would have been more appropriate. Then again, she hadn’t been faced with four interviews for any previous career track. Retirement had been much longer than it had and she needed something to occupy her time. Books, then. Not her calling, but her passion. Might as well. \n\nHer interviewer was much younger, a wild-eyed bedhead named Craig. She wondered if he knew anything about retail at all based on his questions. Sure, he asked some probing questions about what genres she liked or her familiarity with certain authors. But whenever she tried to direct the conversation towards her potential responsibilities, he would completely disregard the question. If she didn’t love this store, Haley would have walked out of such a disrespectful environment immediately. She did, though. \n\n“Ms. Rivera?” \n\nShe stood up. “Yes, thank you.” The door opened and she went into the office hallway behind the storefront once again. As she made her unescorted way to the usual conference room, Craig appeared at the end of the hall. \n\n“Actually,” he said, waving her back, “we’re doing something a little different today. Walk with me.” \n\nShe did. \n\n“We haven’t had a chance to talk about your contract work, Haley.” His voice lost the whimsical tone she was familiar with. \n\n“No,” she said. “I hadn’t put it on my resume. I didn’t think it was relevant to this job.” How did he know? A full background check for a store clerk? \n\n“Honestly, it was a large factor in determining whether you’d be a good fit here. This way.” He took her down a new corridor. “Stunning work, really. You single handedly revolutionized hostage situations with that jammer. Tell me,” he smirked again, finally showing some of the levity from before, “how did you come up with that?”\n\nAnd Haley knew before he opened the door. A warehouse, the unmarked building behind the shop. Technicians everywhere. Screens, whiteboards, labs, machinery. Like what she used to do, but without the dank sternness of a government facility. \n\nCraig lifted a copy of *Bifrost* from his coat pocket. “The future’s already here, Ms. Rivera. We only need to make it a reality.” She took it from his hands. A signed copy, too. \n\n“Welcome to the team.”\n", "Derek leaned slightly on the wooden armrest of a now familiar chair, sitting in a now familiar office. Getting the phone call after an online application to *Rex's Books* had given the young man hope. The callback after the initial interview gave him even more. A third meeting meant he had all but secured the job. \n\nThe fourth call was simply annoying. \n\nStill, unable to work any laborious jobs and having little education mixed with even less experience, Derek went to *Rex's Books* for the fourth interview. The small shop had no hiring team, just a middle-aged man by the name of Rex. \n\nDerek turned his head as he heard the door open to the office. \n\n\"Derek,\" Rex's voice had the tone of familiarity and he sounded to be smiling, though Derek couldn't see him. \"Glad you could come back.\" \n\n\"Of course,\" Derek didn't bother making a show of standing, knowing from previous encounters that it would only be discourteous to the man. \"I'm glad you called.\" \n\n\"I've decided,\" Rex walked into Derek's view and to the other side of the oak desk, sitting down on an identical chair across from it. \"I've decided that you best qualify for the job.\" \n\nDerek realized he didn't hide his surprise well as the man laughed deeply, echoing off the small walls of the office. \n\n\"You must be thinking I took long enough.\" Rex stated more than asked. \n\n\"To be honest, sir,\" Derek started, \"I think... yes, four interviews seems a bit much.\" \n\n\"Hah!\" The man leaned in. \"Not just four interviews. I also hired two private investigators to do background checks, plus a good friend of mine that does a little more than that.\" \n\nDerek paused. \n\n\"Shame about your father.\" He shook his head. \"Single black father, rare enough, then he gets into an accident, dies on scene... were you old enough to remember it all or is the leg the only reminder?\" \n\nDerek stood up, breathing slowly. \"You son of a bitch.\" \n\nRex raised an eyebrow. \n\n\"I did everything you asked. I told you I would be completely honest and you do-\" \n\n\"Look,\" Rex interrupted, pointing to the side of the oak table. Derek looked to see his crutches leaned against it. He narrowed his eyes, not quite believing what he saw. \"You're standing.\" \n\nDerek looked down and leaned slightly more on his left leg, finding it supportive. \"How...\" \n\n\"I think you're gonna like working here, kid.\" \n\n\"But-\" \n\n\"Go out there and man the counter.\" Rex said. \"We're the only two employees here, you know.\" ", "\"It seems like you're going to be a great fit here,\" Irvin said as I sat down in his office. He locked the door behind him and seated himself across from me. \"You have a lot of experience in retail, which is great, and I called some of your references and they had wonderful things to say about you.\"\n\nI smiled brightly, trying to convey that I would be a cheerful and personable employee. \"Thank you so much. I'm really excited. Even if you don't hire me you'll definitely have my business, this is such a nice store.\" We laughed for a moment and he leaned back in his chair.\n\n\"Why wouldn't I hire you?!\" he asked, still smiling. \"I would actually like to officially offer you the job right now.\" My heart soared. \"We start at nine dollars an hour.\"\n\nMy smile faltered; I had been hoping for a bit more. He must have seen this on my face, for he continued. \"Rachel, don't look so glum! There will be opportunities for improvement and moving up within the company. Not to mention some overnight shifts, where you earn time and a half.\"\n\nI frowned. \"Overnights? At a bookstore?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Irvin said. \"We have inventory twice a year, and the books need to be put back in order, so some nights I stay here with another employee to make sure the store is in good shape.\"\n\nI felt a moment's trepidation. \"Just you and one other employee? To fix the whole store?\"\n\n\"It's just one section per night, usually, so we don't need more than that,\" Irvin assured me. \"I feel like you and I have a good rapport, we would have a lot of fun working these overnights together. Not to mention the extra money you would make. And,\" he continued, his smile growing, \"the more time we spend alone together, the closer we will become. And the closer we become, the more I will be willing to pay you.\" He winked.\n\nI stood up. \"Thank you Irvin, I will consider your offer and get back to you by the end of the day.\" I shook his hand and walked out." ]

[ 2, 10, 11 ]

[ "1430318184", "1430276875", "1430287186" ]

[ "Maybe they were right about her. I sat at the table wondering where Rebecca was. \n\nHer profile seemed much too good to be true.\nA petite brunette who enjoyed travel, reading novels, and on occasion smoking weed and observing the universe?\n\nGirls like that were all scoffed up back in college at the house parties that I was always too busy working to attend.\n\nSure, I had plenty of my platonic girl friends set me up on blind dates with their friends, but the matches I got were always defective in some way.\n\nLike Natalie. She was cute; had beautiful chocolate brown eyes, sexy luscious lips, and a petite body with ample curves. Mentally, she was just as stacked, graduating with a degree in International Relations from Columbia. \nShe had come down to Florida to stay with her family for a year, before heading off to Algeria to start her career. \n\nI tried to think of a place to take her that was authentic, when it hit me. \n\nI pulled up to her place and didn't tell her where I was bringing her until we pulled up to the front of the Chicken and Waffles stand.\n\nThat's when she dropped a bombshell.\n\n\"I don't like fried chicken.\"\n\nI bit my tongue, and tried to calmly explain that they had other southern foods, as well as waffles. \n\"Plus, they have tons of meals with bacon in them.\"\n\nThat's when she ruined what could have been.\n\"I don't like bacon, it's gross.\"\n\nWith a look of pure disgust, I turned around and dropped her off at home.\nIn hindsight, I should have had her reimburse me for the gas I wasted on her.\n\nThat's why, sitting here at the steakhouse, I hope that Rebecca really does have the appetite of a lumberjack, like her profile claimed. \n\nHer photos revealed a young woman that had life experience, despite only being 24. She had this youthful innocence about her, and seemed prim and proper (although her profile stated that she liked to get rowdy when the occasion allowed for it). All I hoped was that she laughed at my jokes. That was the main deal breaker, I had decided. Food preference would not be as crucial as it once was, because I had made an active decision to eat healthier. \n\nI had studied up on the Game of Thrones books, as she claimed that she was a huge fan of the series (specifying that she enjoyed both). I was ready to discuss in depth with her the family lineage of Jon Snow, and to go into my thoughts on the future of the Stark family. \n\nI nervously gulped down more of the Chardonnay I had bought for the night (Rebecca preferred white to red), and wiped my slightly damp hands. \n\nI had selected a rather secluded table, although I was particular with the waiter in that I requested a quiet table that had vision of the front door. \nFrom the moment I arrived (25 minutes before we had agreed to meet), I had anxiously watched the door. \n\nPeople watching was one of my favorite hobbies, but today, I found very little joy in it. My nerves were shot. \nI was 28, and most of my guy friends had already began the gradual descent into monogamy, whereas I was still in the turbulent altitude of bachelorhood. \nRebecca seemed like she could fill the role of being someone that I could pursue a relationship with, so I really hoped that I wouldn't mess this up.\n\nThe clock hit 8:25, and I went into internal panic mode. \nWhere was she? \nWas I getting stood up?\nWhat if she went to a different restaurant?\n\nAs I broke out into a cold sweat for the next five minutes, I neglected to observe the door. \nSuddenly, I looked up and saw a stunningly gorgeous young woman standing in front of me. \n\"Grayson?\"\n\nI shot out of my seat, so quickly that the glass of wine wobbled dangerously on the table. I stabilized the drink, and smoothly, used the opportunity to wipe my hands on the napkin. \n\"Yes, and so you must be Rebecca?\"\n\nShe smiled, revealing tiny dimples.\nI practically ran to the other side of the table, pulling her chair out for her. \n\nAs she sat down, the waiter sauntered over and poured a glass of wine for her, and read the dinner specials to her. \nWhilst he read, I scanned her body language, and listened to her voice. \nShe seemed to embody her profile, and I was blown away that she seemed exactly like what she claimed to be. \nNobody on the Internet was what they claimed to be. \n\nSuddenly, my internal scrutiny was interrupted by Rebecca lightly kicking me under the table.\n\"Earth to Grayson...Are you there?\"\n\nIn an attempt to play it off I close my eyes, and hang my arms to the side.\nThen in a androgynous robot voice:\n\"Grayson powering off. Good bye.\"\n\nSuddenly, a high-pitched noise erupts from the table. It sounded like the inside of a Justin Beiber concert, if the concert was attended by 14 year old female donkeys. \nIt took me a moment to realize that it wasn't the waiter suppressing his urge to commit a murder suicide as a result of my shitty joke, but rather it was Rebecca's response to my sub-par attempt on humor. \n\nIt dawned upon me right then and there about how Rebecca was this seemingly perfect, yet still single. \nHer laugh was without a doubt one of the worst noises my ears ever listened to. This laugh combined both a high pitch, with an over-exaggerated, almost whiny-like repetition. It made Bruno Mars' music sound good in comparison. \n\nAs I was thinking of topics that weren't funny in my head (like sex tourism, the state of affairs in the Middle East, and how long it was taking Martin to finish *The Winds of Winter*), something dawned on me. \n\nOn her profile, I remembered thinking how strange it was that under the category: **What people don't like about me** she had written, \"When I laugh at them\". \nThinking that she was just a bit snarky, I had prepared material to lightly jab her with, if she decided to go that route.\n\nBut now, it was evident. \nPeople didn't like when she laughed at them, because it sounded like a clown having a miscarriage.\n\nI realized what I needed to do.\nInterrupting her monologue about how she got lost in Chelsea once, I excused myself. \nLooking slightly crestfallen, she obliged. I placed my napkin on the table, and walked right out the front door.\n\nI haven't heard from Rebecca since. \nI like to think she's out there, destroying the eardrums of a man with more aural tenacity than I have. ", "She looked exactly like she did in her profile picture, and I mean exactly, right down to the food on her plate and the customers behind her. Which was rather odd, seeing as she'd told me a thousand times how \"I've grown my hair since then,\" or, \"I've gained a couple pounds maybe\". Not that I'm complaining, it's just kind of weird.\n\n\"Do you ever get deja vu?\" I said, there was a clatter in the background as a waiter dropped some silverware.\n\n\"What's that?\" she said. \"Just kidding, I know what deja vu is. No, not really. Do you?\" I guess that makes sense, after all, her profile didn't explicitly say anything about deja vu, at least not that I'm aware of, I did skim some of it.\n\n\"I got it just now,\" I said. \"Say, just out of curiosity. Are you reading any books right now?\"\n\n\"I'm re-reading Harry Potter,\" she flicked her hair, smiling at me. \"That's why I like you, you know. You kind of look a little like him. Not as much as you did in your profile picture, but...\" I could tell she was putting a lightning bolt on my forehead in her mind.\n\n\"But your profile said you were re-reading Harry Potter,\" I said, putting fingers down on the table one-by-one as if I were a lawyer expounding a careful legal argument. \"That was months and months ago.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" she said. \"I'm re-reading it again. That's what 're' means, silly,\" she flicked a little piece of rice at me playfully. \"Hang on a minute, I'm gonna go use the bathroom,\" she said.\n\nI dug out my cellphone as soon as she was gone. Loaded up her profile. That's odd, I thought, she must be updating it from the bathroom. The latest photo album showed the two of us sitting at that very table. Here's one of me with a grain of rice in my hair, funny, when did she shoot that? In the next photo it was gone, I reached up to confirm it's still there, and as my finger brushed it it fell onto my lap.\n\n\"Missed me, missed me,\" she said, skipping back from the ladies room, \"now you gotta kiss me!\"\n\nI was still browsing her profile, it was all just too weird. I looked at her status message. \"OMG,\" it said, \"this guy, like, totally just walked out on me!\" and below that, an uncomplimentary snapshot of me and, \"43 people disliked this!\"\n\n\"Okay,\" I said, \"this is just too weird.\" I stood up, throwing a couple of bills on the table to pay for my half. \"I don't know what you're up to and I suspect Phil has something to do with it,\" that's my room-mate, \"this is freaking me out, I'm out of here.\"\n\n\"What!\" she said, angrily. As I got to the door I turned back to look at her. She had her phone out and she was snapping a picture of me. There was a clatter in the background as a waiter dropped some silverware." ]

[ 5, 8 ]

[ "1430341016", "1430338236" ]

[ "And so their trip started. Determined to find the remaining Dragon eggs hidden in the lost fortress of Vroengard, two young scientists and a swordsman set forth to uncover what could be the final explanation to the centuries old myth. ", "\"The world is a planet!\"\n\n\"No it's not, it's a turtle flying through space, upon which there are four elephants who support the Discworld, stupid Roundworld conspiracy theorist!\"\n\n\"This is LITERALLY Roundworld! The bloody Disc is a bloody work of fiction! There was a crossover that went into the science by contrasting the two and everything!\"\n\n\"Yes, the fictional exploits of those Roundworlders was quite entertaining, their evolution was quite exciting, if a bit drawn out. Glad we have a God for such matters.\"\n\n\"There is no God of Evolution. There is no Luggage. THERE IS NO MAGIC, AND *THERE IS NO DISCWORLD*!\"\n\n\"Says you.\"\n\n\"That's NOT EVEN AN ARGUMENT!\"\n\n\"I think you just need to get a bit knurd, and think about things.\"\n\n\"You know what, fine! Go toss yourself off a Rimfall then. There is no Disc, Mount Olympus is not Cori Celesti, Australia isn't named after a brand of beer, China is... Actually basically correct, historically anyway, and London does not have a river that is almost solid with contaminants... At least nowadays anyway.\"", "\"I dare you to say it.\" \n\n\"No, you say it!\" The other child protested.\n\nA pause, while the boy visibly worked up the courage. \n\n\"Volemort!\" He squeaked. And covered his mouth in shock, at the exact moment their mother appeared. \n\n\"Albus! Don't ever let me catch you saying You-Know-Who's name again! Not in this household mister! Do you understand?\"\n\n\"Yes, Mother.\" He replied obediently. \n\nHe just didn't understand why he wasn't allowed to say it. They were Muggles after all.", "\"As Dumbledore fell from his tower slain Snape shedeth a single tear knowing he had doneth what must be doneth.\"\n\n*AMEN*\n\n\"Now if you would open book 1 we shall look at Harry's life before he was a wizard\"", "\"So, class, can we all remember the passage we read this morning?\"\n\n\"'You hit the Lord of the Titans in the eye with a blue plastic hairbrush.'\"\n\n\"Yes, and why is this verse important? Stevie, can you tell us?\"\n\n\"It's important because it demonstrates the subtle power of the oracle, even before she was chosen by the mummy.\"\n\n\"Yes, Stevie, that's very good. Now Harrison, I see you have something to say on the matter..?\"\n\n\"Yes, Ms. Penny! I-I wanted to say... I don't think that was the purpose of the passage.\"\n\n\"...What do you mean, Harrison?\"\n\n\"I mean... I thought it was supposed to express the importance of bravery, the guts Ms. Dare had to use such a little tool to attack the Lord of the Titans. I mean, it makes sense, right? Her last *name* is Dare. I think...I think she was chosen to be the oracle because of her bravery, not the other way around.\"\n\n\"...Harrison.\"\n\n\"Y-yes, Ms. Penny?\"\n\n\"Go to the vice priest's office immediately.\"\n\n\"B-but Mr. Underwood is-\"\n\n\"*Now.* You have questioned the interpretations of the great prophet Riordan, descendant of the scribe of Jackson. You need to learn the consequences of your actions.\"\n\n\"...Yes, Ms. Penny.\"\n\n\"Good. Class dismissed. And don't forget to reread chapter twelve, children! Because—\"\n\n\"'The truth of Calypso must be remembered.'\"\n\n\"That's right! Have a good one, everyone, and gods bless!\"\n" ]

[ 1, 2, 5, 6, 11 ]

[ "1430406503", "1430421786", "1430422535", "1430411199", "1430408490" ]

[ "***Release - Version 1.0***\n\nUpgraded Prussia from a minor power.\n\nDiplomatic Stance Set to \"Aggressive\"\n\nAdded +5 to Combat Modifier When Fighting French\n\nAdded new Hero: Otto Von Bismarck (INT: 8, CHR: 7, LUCK: 9)\n\nAdded Special Event: Franco-Prussian War (Should take place when player reaches 1870 AD).\n\n***Version 1.1***\n\nFor performance purposes, the various German states were combined into the new \"German Empire\" faction.\n\nAdded new Faction Leader: Wilhelm II (INT: 6, CHR: 4, LUCK: 3)\n\nBeta testers report conflicts if AI is using Wilhelm II and Bismarck simultaneously. This may be resolved in a future patch.\n\nAdded: New warships to tech tree.\n\nAdded: New and more complex Diplomacy/Alliance system.\n\n***Version 1.2***\n\nAdded: New weapons! Added Mg08 machinegun to balance with British/French machineguns. Also added Mustard gas.\n\nAdded: Added a \"British Blockade\" event, which will lower availability of Food to the population.\n\nModified: We've tried to roughly balance the German forces with the British and French forces. We think this will lead to more intriguing combat scenarios than if we'd just let one side steamroll the other.\n\n***Version 1.3***\n\nAdded: After complaints about repetitive gameplay, added \"The Yanks Arrive\" as special event.\n\n***Version 1.4***\n\nRemoved: Advanced warships and vehicles have been removed from the German tech tree.\n\nAdded: Germany must make mandatory payments to Britain and France every turn.\n\nModified: Political system changed to \"Republic\". Faction name is now changed to \"German Republic\". \n\n***Version 1.41 Hotfix***\n\nAdded: In order to make it easier to make mandatory payments, we've added a \"Print Money\" button to the Economy/Financial tab.\n\nAdded: Freikorps Subfaction\n\nAdded New Hero unit: Adolf Hitler (INT: 6, CHR: 10, LUCK: 7)\n\n***Version 1.42 Hotfix***\n\nAdded: In response to complaints about the \"Print Money\" function and its effects on the population, we've added a \"Print More Money\" button to the Economy/Financial tab.\n\n***Version 1.43 Hotfix***\n\nAdded: In response to continued complaints about the \"Print Money\" and \"Print More Money\" buttons, we've added a \"Print Even More Money\" button to the Economy/Financial tab.\n\nAdded: Since some players found Hitler to be useless as a Hero unit, we've added the option to send Hitler to prison.\n\n***Version 1.5***\n\nAdded: In response to complaints about the gameplay of the German Republic, we've added the Nazi party as a political faction.\n\n***Version 1.6***\n\nAdded: Panzers and warships added to tech trees.\n\nModified: Internal political modifiers altered. Jews receive a -20 modifier.\n\nModified: Hitler's political limitations have been removed.\n\nModified: Diplomacy modifiers against Britain, France, and Poland have been lowered. Stance against USSR changed to \"Hostile Neutral\"\n\nModified: Political system set to \"One-Party Dictatorship\".\n\n***Version 1.7***\n\nAdded: Due to the massive popularity of the \"War on Poland\" mod, we've added the \"War on France\" as a new campaign.\n\nAdded: Additional panzers added to tech tree.\n\n***Version 1.8***\n\nAdded: New \"Operation Barbarossa\" campaign.\n\nModified: Diplomatic stance against USSR now set to \"Pure Hatred\"\n\n***Version 1.81 Hotfix***\n\nModified: Due to balance complaints, we've lowered Hitler's LUCK to 1.\n\nAdded: Added \"Exterminate\" function that can be used on annexed territories.\n\n***Version 1.82 Hotfix***\n\nModified: \"Exterminate\" function can now be used on Germany's home territory.\n\n***Version 1.83 Hotfix***\n\nAdded: After complaints by other players that German players were overusing the \"Exterminate\" function, we've added potential consequences under the new \"War Crimes\" tab. This tab will be displayed at the post-war status report page.\n\nAdded: New \"T-34 Rush\" and \"Spam Shermans\" features added to USSR and USA respectively. Building costs have been lowered, and production rates increased. \n\nAdded: new \"Tiger\" and \"Panther\" tanks to German tech tree.\n\n***Version 1.83 Hotfix***\n\nAdded: New \"Suicide\" option has been added to leaders.\n\n***Version 1.9***\n\nModified: Germany now divided into two separate countries. West Germany is set as an ally of NATO and has a +5 diplomatic modifier to NATO. East Germany is set as an ally of USSR and has a +5 diplomatic modifier to USSR.\n\nAdded: To make the faction compatible with the new \"Rumble in the Chosen Land\" DLC, we've set West Germany's diplomatic stance with Israel to \"Highly Awkward\"\n\n***Version 2.0***\n\nModified: Allowed West Germany and East Germany to merge if their diplomatic stances towards each other are high enough.\n\n***Version 2.1 (Stable, Current Release)***\n\nAdded new Hero: Angela Merkel (INT: 8, CHR 2, LUCK: 6)\n\nModified: Diplomatic relations with Greece set at -2.", "***Patch 0.0***\n\nAdam and Eve are now equipped with shame coverings. \n\nAdam and Eve have been cursed by a permanent passive, God's Wraith - Eve will now lose HP when she levels up and Adam will no longer be able to regenerate at the holy fountain.\n\n***Patch 0.1*** \n\nMoses granted elemental abilities, can manipulate water and fire. \n\nAll Hebrew characters now gain freedom passive bonus when near Moses, increased movement speed and invulnerability to water abilities.\n\nEgyptians now have reduced defense against water abilities. \n\n***Patch 0.2***\n\nNoah granted power over beast ability, allowing him to control up to 2 of any animal. \n\nHe is also granted +50 ship building.\n\nNew legendary item, ark of the covenant added. \n\n\n***Patch 1.0:***\n\nNew quests added - three wise men. \n\nMary now given immunity to judgement based abilities, with her immaculate conception passive. \n\nJoseph given unsung hero passive, gains 2x experience in battles with Jewish opponents. \n\n***Patch 1.1*** \n\nBonus food and wine resources now available to parties of 12 formed. \n\nJesus now has +40 healing and ability to navigate all terrain.\n\n\n***Patch 1.2***\n\nJesus now takes increased damage against Pharisee class. \n\nPontius Pilot now takes increased damage from apostle class.\n\nApostles now granted righteous fury buff around all Roman and Jewish characters. \n\n***Patch 1.3***\n\nJudas Iscariot has been permanently banned, due to toxic behaviour. \n\nPeter has been granted a new ability, plausible deniability. \n\nJesus is now equipped with the reincarnation ability. Cool down 72 Hours. \n\nHe is also granted +20 strength, allowing him to move large objects. \n\n***Patch 1.4***\n\nJesus is no longer playable, now a legendary character. \n\nNew guild formed, Christianity, gains experience at 1/4 rate of other guilds. \n\n", "*Patch 1.1*\n------------\n- Removed Starting Zone *Garden of Eden* and related tree items. Players now spawn from *Eve* and subsequent women \n- *Serpent* NPC nerfed and now unable to speak after player complaints \n- GMs given *Fiery Sword* items to deal with problem player characters \n- *Mark of Caine* given to griefers, banning them from entering player settlements \n- *Wickedness* attribute added.\n\n*Patch 1.2*\n------------\n- Player-created *Flood* event removed \n- All animal spawns reset to 2 per creature\n- New Starting Zone *Mount Ararat*\n- *Covenant of the Rainbow* added, prevents griefers from triggering future flood events\n- PCs split into three tribes, PVP is now activated for the zones *Egypt* and *Canaan*\n- *Tower of Babel* event added\n\n*Patch 1.3*\n------------\n- *Tower of Babel* event ended, languages introduced\n- City of *Sodom* removed after player complaints about NPC hospitality bug and GM exploits\n- NPC *Abraham* introduced, spawns new questlines, including *Son's Sacrifice* and *The Treaty at Beersheba*\n\n*Patch 1.4*\n------------\n- *Abraham* questgiver removed from game, added *Jacob, Esau* and *Joseph*\n- Israelite faction may now spawn in Egypt\n- *Pharaoh* boss added to *Palace of Egypt* instance\n- *Oppression* attribute added for Israelite faction - spawns *Moses* NPC\n\n*Patch 1.5*\n------------\n- *Moses* questgiver added, *Jacob, Esau* and *Joseph* removed\n- All new player characters deleted due to initial *Wrath of the Pharaoh* event issues\n- *Slave* character class added\n- *Egyptian Wizard* character class added to balance *Moses* NPC \n- *Oppression* attribute modified to spawn *Ten Plagues* event\n\n*Patch 1.6*\n------------\n- *Pillar of Fire and Smoke* removed \n- New Starting location *Sinai Desert*\n- *Mana from Heaven* added due to low spawn rate of harvestable food animals - to be fixed next patch\n- *Mount Sinai* added." ]

[ 17, 30, 32 ]

[ "1430543277", "1430536870", "1430538165" ]

[ "My life, my home, my civilization is over. There's no hope. We are surrounded and outnumbered 10 to 1. It's been only 2 days since the first attack, and the city of millions has been reduced to a hundred people desperately fighting to protect our palace. We won't hold on much longer.\n\nThey are everywhere, and they can fly. They have dragons. Huge bat-like wings covering the sun from time to time. Fire is everywhere. I only hope that something of our legacy remains after the dragon-riders take over.", "They came in droves.\n\nOur walls fell too easily. They must have fired cannons at it—Ow!\n\nThe ruler of Woodsburrow was currently being dragged from his demolished location at the epicenter of his once small and modest kingdom. They did their best to get by, but they didn’t focus their efforts enough on defenses and now they were paying the price for it. \n\nWhat kind of a leader am I…? \n\nThe king began to desire death as a fitting punishment for his folly. \n\nThe desire only increased as they roughly tore him through the blood-stained ruins of his wasted fortress. Everywhere laid the bodies of innocent civilians of all ages. There were little fires being set to houses all around the kingdom, which could only mean one thing—this was a pillage raid. These people only wanted the loot and women from wherever they could find. The fires signified the destruction of evidence and the impossibility of recovery should there be survivors. \n\nJust behind them, he was able to glance backwards and see the familiar yellow shade of what was once his daughters dress—one she had only been wearing hours before! Red came before the ruler’s eyes.\n“Bastards! Where is my family!? I’ll kill you!!” \n\nStruggling violently and receiving aggressed blows from his captors, the king freed a single hand from his restraints and swung a large guard from behind him onto the ground. He then wrenched the man up and held him in a chokehold. Several other guardsmen began to surround him. \n\n“Daddy!”\n\nThe king swung his head upward to find his daughter bursting out on top of the far wall. Two other men chased her, tearing at her clothes. She attempted to fight them off, but to no avail. She was tackled roughly and brought up between them. Her chest was bare, and she clutched to her skirt in desperate efforts to conceal herself. She stared back at the king with tears in her eyes. \n\n“Let her go! Let her go or he dies!” screamed the king. \n\n“Then kill him!” came the voice of a hidden face. That face then came through the crowd as the fat lord of the attacking battalion. He held the throne’s treasures in his left arm and a sword in his right. \n\n“Curse you, fat one. I shall have vengeance for this severe trespass of one of Romania’s great kingdoms!” \n\n“Great!” scoffed the fat lord. “What I have here is all that your pathetic fortress could muster. I couldn’t buy your whore daughter with this shit!” At that, the lord tossed the chest and priceless spoils toward the king and his hostage. The king took a step back. \n\n“… You can have it. All of it. Just let her go…” said the king with desperation in his eyes. \n\n“All of it, huh?” said the lord with contemplation. “Very well, release my captain, and I will release your daughter.” The lord then called to his men and had the princess brought down to the courtyard. \nThey then set up the trade-off and faced the parties toward each other. \n\n“You ready, oh great king?” crooned the lord.\n\n“Yes, just send her over” said the king solemnly. \n\nThe hostages then walked the divide between and ended up with the king’s party with their backs to a hole in the ruins. \n\n“Daddy!” cried the princess toward her father. The king reached out with open arms to his daughter and called her name. They embraced and the king held her tightly and said he loved her.\n\n“I love you too Daddy, but we have to go!” she said with panic in her eyes. The king glanced back at the lord, who had a sneer on his face, and slashed his hand toward them. The archers cranked their arms back.\n\n“Not this time baby.” said the king as he held his daughter close for the last time. ", "The carpet around the map table had a faint ring-shaped path stamped onto it. It was very subtle of course, as the only light source in the room was the scarce few sunbeams that managed to sneak past the layers of heavy velvet courtains covering the windows.\n\nA faint rythm was starting to form, composed of sharp inhales, the rustling of my heavy mantle against the brightly colored wool carpet and the ringing of gold necklaces and belts finding one another, occasionally interrupted by my shaky humming. All while what could be the far off sound of a crowd cheering could be heard in the background.\n\nI was afraid, and as much as I tried to hide it, it was written all over me. My hands were trembling, my heart was racing and by now I had invented a hundred new ways to curse my foolishness for ever coming to this place. My clothes felt like they were made out of lead, my golden belts twice so. \n\nThe chamber doors burst open, revealing an armor clad man. His crimson cloak was still waving behind him but he seemed to take little notice of it. He rested his left hand to the hilt of the sword hanging low around his waist and cleared his throat, making a gesture with his right hand. Even hunched over his sword, the tips of his frosted hair could almost touch the peak of the doorframe's pointed arch.\n\n\"Your Grace,\" he said with a grim look on his face.\n\"The western gate has been breached. Isan's soldiers will reach the inner wall in a matter of minutes.\"\n\n\"So what do you want me to do?\" I snapped back at him.\n\"Die with the rest of my army like some nameless peasant? Is this what you want?\" I said giving emphasis to the last word. I gave the General a spiteful look and started to make my way towards the closest window.\n\nGeneral Malcab cleared his throat again. \"You need inspire your people. They need to know that the battle is not yet lost\" He said, adding a delayed \"Your grace\" at the end.\n\nI pushed aside the heavy velvet curtains. Out from the window I saw Isan's black banners looming over the outskirt's wall, his men spilling over the fields on horses galloping like mad. Malcab was right, they would be here soon and the city wall could only delay them for a few ours. I wish it hadn't come to this, but there was no other way around it now. At least not one I could see at that time.\n\nI turned to face the General. \"If the people need hope,\" I announced to him, \"then hope they shall have.\" I grabbed the ornate headress from ontop the talbe and wore it proudly. \"I need to get ready.\" I said to him while gesturing him with one hand towards the door and adjusting the headress with the other.\n\nGeneral Malcab took a half bow and left the chamber. I rushed over to the twin doors, placing my ears against them. As soon as I was sure he left, I started tearing down all the ceremonial clutter on me. I made my way towards the bookshelves at the far end of the room leaving behind me a trail of gold and velvet.\n\nA hard push at the bookshelf's side revealed a narrow stone tunnel I had made 2 years ago just for this case, with a sack and a chest containing everything I'd need. After about half a mile of walking I came across a small fishing boat floating on the sewer's stream. It was barely a boat and in my time as Masayun's High Emperor I've bathed in bathtubs bigger that it, but it had to do for now. The stream carried me to a cut off section of the port, where a single sailboat waited for me. A hooded man emerged from the shadows and we exchanged nods. He unhitched the boat from the horn and threw the rope into it. As I departed I watched him pull something out from his pocket, chew on it and fall into the port's waters.\n\nAs I sailed away towards Khaybi islands, I watched the sun set behind the city's high-rising towers, outlining them with golden strokes. Just as the sky was begining to fade from it's vibrant yellowreds to the familiar night blues, it reignited with pillars of smoke rising from the city's every corner along with a bright orangle halo arount it. And so I left Masayun to burn, along with 10 years of my hard work.\n\nEdit: typo", "The following notice was discovered upon a letter on the person of Harrison B. Bentham, the lower-classed noble in charge of the small, devestated settlement of Coaltown, during an archivist salvage of the battlegrounds of the Invasion of Greywat County.\n\n**To be delivered to S.Thernoff as soon as possible.**\n\nAs privacy is not a privilege that a traitor of the state should deserve, the discovered letter was recorded in the kingdom's historical lineage as a symbolic victory of the rightful king over his dissident peasantry and aggressive nobility.\n\nIt is commonly believed that the \"S.B.\" that Baron Bentham had intended as the letter's recipient is none other than Admiral Samuel B. Thernoff of the Rime Fleet. The Admiral himself has refused to provide any information when the letter was brought to his attention, stating,\n\n\"I do not know any man named Harrison B. Bentham. I have no relation to the city of Coaltown nor have I ever ventured into Greywat County outside of a number of supply shipments to his Majesty's righteous army. \n\nBefore he had shooed the letter away, he had also stated this.\n\n\"Do not quote me on this.\" - Admiral Samuel Thernoff, Rime Fleet Commander, Did Not Want To Be Quoted.\n\nThe letter read as such... \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n*Admiral. I apologize for having to draw you away from your duties on the ship.*\n\n*Black's knights have prepared a battering ram and are attempting to break down the very walls around me. I do not have much time.*\n\n*I only wish that you will think of the actions that have occurred in this meager year-and-a-half, if not out of a sense of proprietary for the wrongdoing done by his majesty and his army, then out of a sense of honor for a dying old man.*\n\n*His majesty is not a fit ruler. He is, and has always been, nothing short of a sheer madman who parades himself about the throne.*\n\n*Kings do not hike taxes to build unnecessary palaces and statues to show off prosperity.*\n\n*Kings do not indoctrinate children into military service, turning them against family and friend.*\n\n*Kings do not steal bread to feed fat nobility at his grandiose feasts, while his poor are left to starve.*\n\n*I know that I will never be able to convince you to return to the hearth that your mother and I have built so long ago. You will never be able to reunite with any us ever again... neither your brother, nor sister, nay, none of us may ever cross paths again until the gates of Heaven above open up and God himself smiles upon our family.*\n\n*I ask only that you, Samuel Bentham, the last of our family name, consider the lives that you had once called neighbor and friend and treat them with proper respect and dignity, for Constable Black will do nothing besides crush their bones beneath his heels.*\n\n*They're coming down the stairs, I think they hear me.*\n\n*My dear son, remember that your mother and I lov-*\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nAt that point, the letter is cut off and illegible. " ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1 ]

[ "1430532686", "1430536961", "1430541319", "1430541664" ]

[ "Sorry this a bit rushed:\n\nLife as a forgotten child isn't too bad. I am famous world wide, I have a near infinite budget, and I have a whole nation of passionate people behind me. \nSure, big brother J got a church, a book, and a spot in Heaven, but he also got a literal buttload of nails, so that's a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. Granted, He doesn't have quite as many enemies as I do, but hey, haters gonna hate ya know? \nAnyway, to answer your question, I believe the People's Republic of Glorious, True Korea is a much better home than some stupid pearly gates in the sky, even if nobody believes my story.", "I was 3 days old when He sat me down and explained that my life was going to be different. Well \"3 days\" and \"sat me down\" and \"life\" are all relative terms.\n\nMy \"life\" wasn't going to be of the short but public kind. The kind that people talk about thousands of years later.\n\nMore the help your neighbours take the groceries in type of life. They know it happened and you know it happened and ten years later neither of you might remember it, but maybe they're slightly more trusting, slightly more upbeat than they would have been other wise.\n\nThey just don't know it.\n\nWhich you might say is kind of a lot to dump on a 3 day old, even if 3 days means both way way more and way way less, and it was.\n\nTo know that soon (and also late, it confusing just go with it) in the game that you were always going to be behind the scenes, that no one would ever know.\n\nI mean I guess it was nice to know you would make a difference, people are always worrying about that, even if you're never going to get credit, but still. Working behind the scenes while someone else gets to go and stir everything up.\n\nObviously in the long haul I probably got the better deal. A lot less suffering, less people missing the point, less people taking the things I said out of context as justification for doing the exact opposite of what I told them to do.\n\nBut for a long time (don't hurt your brain trying to figure out what that means) I was angry. Angry that I got behind the scenes works while my brother got to go out and make the big changes.\n\nAngry at Him for choosing my brother instead of me. Angry that I kept doing little things and that they were never enough. That there were always more bad things.\n\nAnd even then I knew it was kind of silly to be so angry. Silly to be willing to take a whipping just so people would name drop me in conversation.\n\nBut still I was angry.\n\nAnd then eventually I wasn't.\n\nNot a Monday I'm angry Tuesday I've self actualized type deal, though strangers things have happened in the course of thousands of years, but a slow gradual realization that there are no small things. \n\nThat the stuff He had me doing was small to me but meant everything to them. I realized that my brother shook the table and I pushed one domino, but that both were still being felt (this isn't a time thing, it's a metaphor by the by)\n\nI came to the realization that I was the other kid and that was ok, then that I wasn't really 'the other kid\" and that was alright, and then finally that it really didn't matter if I was 'the other kid' or not because it wasn't about me.\n\nAlso I'm not much a wine person, so the wedding might have gone differently. I'll tell you one thing, He really likes playing the long game." ]

[ 1, 3 ]

[ "1430626138", "1430605682" ]

[ "\"Come on, come on!”\n\nThe round metal door to the hibernation chamber whirred and clanked, unbearably slow. \n\n\"Just open, damn you!\" \n\nHank fruitlessly tugged at the handle. The door labored open and he squeezed through when it was wide enough, tearing the front pocket of his officer's jacket. Inside, row upon row of stasis units hummed obliviously, their heart monitors flashing out of sync. Hank dashed for the main console but fell, almost immediately, on his face. He sat up, dazed, wiping blood from his nose. Around him, the ship groaned loudly. The button from his jacket skittered by on the floor. They were already changing course. \n\nHank groaned and crawled the rest of the way to the console. The computer would take a minute to wake up. He looked at the ceiling, trying to swallow the nosebleed. The intercom beeped. \n\n\"Hank, you're making it worse,\" came the calm, disembodied voice of Captain Nilsson. \"Would you want to wake up for this?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes I would,\" growled Hank, though he knew no one could hear him. \"I think everyone would very much like to wake up right now.\"\n\nThe console flared to life, and he punched the emergency reanimation sequence. It would be a few minutes until anyone could function. Hank's brain leapt ahead to the next problem.\n\n\"Okay, okay. Think this out, Hank,\" he ordered himself. “Think!” He’d come down here presuming one of the crew would know how to disable the ship, but what if they didn’t? What if it would take too long? He had to get back in the command room, had to deal with this lunatic. He longed for his sidearm. \n\nThirty minutes later, he pushed his cheek against the cold porthole of the command door, trying to see inside. He could see the back of Nilsson’s blond head above his chair at the helm, watched him reach for the intercom mic. \n\n“What did you tell them, Hank?” The calm was leaving the captain’s voice. “Do they know it’s headed for Earth? Can you think for one minute what will happen if they get there?”\n\nAround him, half-awake faces looked to Hank for reassurance. He had only had time to tell them the captain had gone out of his mind and locked himself in. They probably wouldn’t believe him, but he began to explain anyway.\n\nInside the command room, Nilsson sat impassively as the computer protested the expenditure of their fuel reserves. He could only stare out the forward window at the alien craft. In many ways it was like his own — a fat, dormant, colony ship, bloated with sections that no doubt housed thousands of god-knows-what kind of greedy little aliens. Parts of it even spun like his! He laughed a little at this, only just aware of the furious pounding at the door behind him. \n\nThe alien ship began to fill the window at an alarming rate. Distance was so strange in space. Nilsson picked up the intercom. The pounding grew more intense, now punctuated by the clanging of metal on metal. His hands sweated and shook as he addressed the crew.\n\n“Those of you who are now awake, this is the captain. You must know I have no choice in what I am about to do. There is no time to debate. Earth is in danger and we are the only ones who can save it. We . . . I —”\n\nThe door behind him burst open, spilling some crew and Commander Hank Ridder onto the floor. Nilsson spun in his chair to face him as Hank struggled to his feet. Hank’s eyes found the forward window and he froze, speaking almost inaudibly.\n\n“We don’t know anything about them.”\n\nThe Captain glanced over his shoulder and saw the alien craft now only seconds away from impact. He spoke into the mic as he addressed his old friend. \n\n“Sure we do, Hank. We know they’re like us.”", "We couldnt stay there anymore. Earth had decided long ago to cleanse itself of the virus that we were. We had mined, dumped and polluted the planet all to hell.\n\nHopefully, we would learn from our past mistakes and treat our new home a hell of a lot better. Our ship \"DLuvian\" is a great ship and should get us there safe and sound.\n\nSuddenly everything shifts, it feels as though someone has stopped time itself and I realize that we are coming out of hyperspeed. The ship has detected an impending object on a collision course with us. I head to the bridge and in front of us we see a ship. Hailing them results in the worst reverb/squelch a person will probably ever encounter.\n\nAs if on cue, the ship shifts to our left as we prepare for a slow pass by. Weapons are hot of course and our shields are top notch. At least by our standards.\n\nComing along the side of the ship, I feel a pit in my stomach. I can clearly see \"DLuvian\" on the side of the ship as it aligns with us......", "I stared through the thick glass porthole at the spacecraft as it loomed closer. It was enormous - maybe four and half times as large as the *Noah*, and we housed 350 personnel, 1.65 acres of enriched soil, and of course all the machinery needed to keep the whole operation running for 120 years. \n\nThe shape was also interesting: a near-perfect sphere, and it was rotating about a vertical axis inclined at 10 or 15 degrees, by my eye. I could reasonably assume that the beings who had created this ship had not discovered or mastered quantum control of gravitons, and had modeled craft after their own home planet. There was no obvious propulsion system, but I've been told that it was moving at a constant 9.5 km/s. This may seem fast but against the vast barren backdrop of space, this was a very leisurely speed. The skin of the craft was shiny and multi-paneled: cosmic radiation deflectors, presumably. Or perhaps absorbers - maybe this was their power source. \n\nThe door the lab slide open, and my colleague stuck his head in to inform me that the alien craft was answering none of our frequencies but due to the unusual but surreptitious shape of the unknown ship, we were going to try and enter its orbit. I moved to voice my doubts, as I believed a size ratio of 4:1 was still not great enough for a stable orbit, but he had already gone. I moved my attention back to the porthole.\n\nSome hours later, the intercom announced that we had entered its orbit and a small 2-manned shuttle was being prepped for exploration. I checked the computer and was not surprised to see that our orbit was indeed unstable: with each revolution, we increased our eccentricity and eventually, our escape velocity would cross the threshold. But perhaps we had enough time to, dare I say, make contact with the as-of-yet unidentified masters of the spacecraft.\n\nThe report began to come in shortly after the selected astronauts, James Mannerus and Sarah Shannon, landed on the surface, and the news was not I had expected.\n\nNobody seemed to answer the door when James and Sarah knocked, so they drilled through the hull and ventured down using the ion-propulsion hover-packs. And they became rather silent as they continued to provide the video-stream - out of shock, I suppose, like the rest of us. The world inside was intricate, a beautiful combination of machine and vegetation. And we began seeing several individuals as well: tall, spindly legged creatures with tendrils in place of arms and large, disc-like eyes.\n\nBut they were all dead.\n\nOne lay splayed on bluish grass, while another was half-submerged in a slow-running river. A small group of six or seven had collapsed right onto paved walkways. Inside structures, James showed us several beings who could only be scientists, judging by the instruments in the enclosed spaces. Sarah had gone off to explore a large building that resembled an enormous pillar that ran from pole of the ship to the other, with central module from which thousands of long bridges stretched forth, like microtubules from a nucleus. Inside, we saw dozens, hundreds, maybe even a thousand such individuals. All still. \n\nOur time window nears closing and the astronauts hasten to return. They will make it, I'm sure; what haunts my mind are the images of the sessile beings. Where had they come from - could it be our very destination? And perhaps more importantly, what had killed them?\n ", "“What do you mean, blue shifted?”\n\nThe captain’s puzzled whisper dropped abruptly into a ringing silence. The dining room was instantly quiet, as senior officers and the chosen passengers alike heard what by all rights should have been inaudible. \n\nHe gave an annoyed glance at the silent table, dabbed his mouth with the napkin and stood.\n“Ladies and gentlemen, ship’s business calls me away. I apologise for interrupting the meal. Please, enjoy the full hospitality of the Captains Stateroom. First Officer Yee, I would like to see you and Navigator Williamson on the Bridge please.”\n\nThe named officers got to their feet, and with mumbled excuses made their way out the door. Behind them, the Second Officer attempted to restart the jovial atmosphere of the dinner party, to no avail. Passengers were worried, and the staff doubly so.\n\nThe *Liberty III* charged through EM-space, a quirk of space-time that had been discovered in the early 21st century. To an outside observer, it appeared as a wavering, ghostly shape elongated into a light-month long ovoid as it flashed along the boundary that separated reality from unreality. On the inside, it was a simple sphere about six hundred meters in diameter, luxuriously appointed for the Second Wave of the Colonial Expansion.\n\nShips had gone furtherer than the *Liberty III*, but she was the first vessel dispatched towards the Webb-15 planet groupings. Discovered shortly after the EM-space drive was tested, the Webb-15 results indicated a system with three exo-planets in the liquid water zone, and one of them had a spectroscopic signature that contained the unmistakable gleam of chlorophyll.\n\nSo the first ship of the Second Expansion had been pointed at Webb-15, and let fly. The finest sensors mankind could build had declared the route clean and clear. The ninety-three light-year journey would take a ‘mere’ eleven months and eight days.\n\n*So*, mused the captain as he strode onto the bridge *what’s out there, heading towards us?*\n\n“Analysis, Mr Stevens.”\n\n“Aye Captain. Signal is blue-shifted indicating it’s coming towards us. Value of Doppler shift indicates the signal is approaching faster than our cruising speed. Observations indicate it is not accelerating at this time.”\n\n“Can we get a visual?”\n\nThat was pure habit. Unlike low Earth Orbit or even the seas of Earth, In EM-space, objects could be hundreds of millions of kilometres away, barely visible specks that showed nothing.\nStill, the viewer changed. The streaks of EM-space narrowed to a point – and directly on it was a faint blue point – barely one pixel out of a majestic swirling image.\n\n“Size? Speed?”\n\n“Estimate it to be at about point eight EM, and roughly….somewhere between one and three hundred meters in size. Relative distance is one light week, but that’s closing at one light-hour per minute. Estimate intercept in twenty-eight minutes.”\n\n“General Quarters – Condition Yellow. Navigator, reduce our speed to point eight.”\n\nThe atonal howl of the deceleration alarm sounded throughout the ship. Passengers enjoying their dinners scrambled for the acceleration couches and restraint webbing slid down over every shop front and shelving unit.\n\n“Attention all hands, this is the captain speaking. There is an obstacle in our immediate path, and we are undergoing precautionary deceleration. Please remain calm and follow the instructions of the stewards and automated systems. Thank you. All crew, report to Condition Three stations.”\n\nThe bridge was a flurry of activity as the massive engines wheeled about in their gyro-containers and began thrusting the other way. At first it was a slow and steady lessening of apparent gravity that soon gave way to weightlessness. Then gravity resumed, this time in the opposite direction. Entire compartments automatically rotated to compensate.\n\n“Update time please, Mr Stevens”\n\n“Intercept time revising upwards to fifty-three minutes.”\n\n“Navigator. First Officer. Discussion. What do we know of that can breach the EM-barrier?” \n \nThere was one possibility that everyone on the bridge immediately leapt to…and studiously avoided saying. The Navigator tried though.\n\n“Could be a comet or asteroid ejected from a system, sir. There are some theoretical models that raise the possibility of an EM-fissure near a black hole. Or…it could…”\n\nThe first officer was the one to raise the idea no-one was speaking of.\n\n“Possibility of Intelligent agency, sir. EM-space cannot be broken into by known natural phenomena. For something to be in EM-space…it means it was placed there sir. Deliberately”\n\nAlien intelligence. Something speculated about, but as yet unconfirmed. First Wave expansions had reported bacterial-level life, and the planet Eden boasted a honest-to-god crystalline forest, but aside from the Webb-15 chlorophyll readings, there was no confirmed extra-terrestrial *intelligent* life. The xenobiologists on Earth talked about a “Great Filter” and that if life was discovered, it would likely be more primitive than us.\n\nAll that sounded far more reassuring in a brightly-lit television studio on Earth, than in the depths of interstellar space, light-decades from safety.\n\n“Captain, intercept time….is increasing! Object is slowing!”\n\nA chill settled over the bridge. Natural objects did not change velocity.\n\n“Stevens. Any signs of outgassing?” \n\nA last desperate throw of the probability dice. A comet might slow if it outgassed in the wrong direction – but as Stevens and the captain knew, there was nothing in EM-space to heat an object to sublimation temperature.\n\n“Negative. We are getting some spectra readings though. Metals. Titanium. Iron. Carbon.”\n\n“Bring us to Condition Red please, First Officer Yee. Break out the manual X-Ray Charlie One Three.”\n\nAlien Contact checklist. The Captain settled back in the command chair, pressed back by the one point three gees of deceleration, and began reading the manual unconcernedly, like one might read a novel. His nonchalant attitude swept like a cool breeze through the tense Bridge.\n\nHe looked up, turning the first page as he did so. “First Officer, since dinner was interrupted, could you ask Chief Steward Sanders to bring a hot meal to the bridge?”\n\nThirty-three minutes later, the captain put the manual down. As expected, there was absolutely nothing to cover an EM-space contact. Tribal contact, industrial contact, space-age contact, even a ‘please don’t squash us’ advanced contact. But nothing about mystery objects in EM-space. Apart from Protocol Omega, that was.\n\n“Revised time to intercept?”\n\n“Eighteen more minutes. Navigation has extrapolated a course projection”\n\n“Bring it up.”\n\nThe display shifted to show the Earth-Webb route. The blue dot of the *Liberty III* blinked about halfway along the route. A red triangle was almost touching the dot, trailed by a solid line – the course they had data on. A dotted line swept right past the blue dot and continued on….to terminate at the Sol System.\n\n“No chance they’re going past it?”\n\n“Rules of EM-drive won’t allow it. They’re going to hit the Sol grav-well and drop out of drive just past the orbit of Mars in…twenty-seven months.”\n\n“What about us?” The first officer looked concerned. “Will they hit us first?”\n\n“Negative. It’ll be a ridiculously close shave, but the Unknown will pass us on our starboard side at a range of about four thousand kilometres. Too far away for our EM-field to interact with theirs.”\n\n“Very well. Navigation, cut engines and rotate the ship ninety degrees to face. Operations, I want every camera and sensor we have concentrating forward. We want nano-second snapshots of the pass. I want to see exactly what we’re dealing with.”\n\nThe actual pass itself happened almost instantaneously. At relative velocities of several dozen times the speed of light, the two wraith-like shapes shot past each other in under a minute, each just appearing as an elongated smear.\n\nThe reconstruction took fifteen more minutes, and then the crew of the *Liberty III* beheld the first extra-terrestrial vessel that the human race had ever seen. Or more precisely the first three vessels.\n\nThe largest ship was structured like a dumbbell, with two spheres connected by a tube. The forward sphere was at least somewhat transparent, and massive structures could be seen inside it. Spectroscopy indicated chlorophyll, oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Smaller cylinders clustered around the connecting tube, each the distinctive shape of an EM-drive engine.\n\nThe most worrying part was the rear dumbbell sphere. It was dark, and the reason was a visible – a massive gash surrounded by the dark soot of carbon scoring. An explosion – or possibly an attack. Radiation sensors had gotten an alarming spike in gamma radiation from the rear sphere, but not the forward one.\n\nRunning behind the main ship were two smaller ones – also dumbbell shaped, but tethered to the shattered sphere. These ones were significantly different though – the forward spheres were festooned with cylinders and boxes that carried a somehow ominous air. Both of these ‘parasite ships’ showed significant signs of carbon scoring. \n\n--------\n\n*To Be Continued, on account of hitting 10,000 char limit*\n\n", "*^disclaimer: ^I'm ^not ^the ^greatest ^writer*\n\nThe year was 2515. The different companies had been assigned into the compartments of the ship. I was a part of Foxtrot, which was assigned to the maintenance of the ship's utilities. Foxtrot had both military personnel, to ensure our safe travel, and civilians. Any second now we'd launch, setting humanity on its first united planetary colonization in a distant galaxy. The intercom crackled to life\n\nThree seconds to liftoff... \n\nMy heartbeat started to fluctuate.\n\nTwo...\n\nMy breathing started to become deeper and longer.\n\nOne...\n\nMy palms were sweating profusely.\n\nLiftoff.\n\nIt was as if, I was on a rollercoaster, except this one was going way too fast. The ship's hyperdrive began to shift, signaling that we had already entered space. Would it really be this short? I wondered. The hyperdrive went into overworking mode as we shot into space. Hours seemed to pass, but we entered the galaxy that held Chikyuuni, named by the Japanese who had discovered it with Yume, one of their infrared space telescopes. At the speed that our ship had been reaching, Chikyuuni came into view within an hour.\n\nSomething was off. There was an eerie vibe about the ship. It was then that someone yelled something terrifying.\n\n\"There's a ship out there...\"\n\nThe silence was piercing. Someone spoke again.\n\n\"It's coming toward us.\"\n\nIn that moment, all the lights that had been on during our travels had turned off. All electronic power had seized. The intercom sparked with life, but it brought what seemed like death. The commander of the ship spoke.\n\n\"Code Orange, proceed with emergency procedures.\"\n\nI didn't know what the codes were, but I could hear some of the personnel near me whispering to each other...\n\nDisaster. " ]

[ 1, 2, 3, 15, 20 ]

[ "1430661217", "1430659251", "1430661216", "1430660850", "1430622677" ]

[ "\"It's good shit.\"\n\nIt's good shit.\n\nIt's good shit.\n\nThe words echoed in Bradley's mind. He played them in his head over and over as he tried to keep his head from lolling around. There was a loud smack, and he felt a sharp pain splay out on the right side of his face. He looked right and saw that he had accidentally let his head slam into the window. Looking around again, and he realized that he was in the backseat of the car. His heart began to race, because he knew that he should've remembered that he was in a car. It had probably been only minutes before that he came to the same conclusion, but for some reason, his mind kept slipping, and all he could think of was *It's good shit*. Tears welled up in his eyes and he feared that his mind would be forever ruined just because someone had told him that *It's good shit.*\n\nHe felt someone squeeze his hand. Looking to his left, he saw Julia sitting there in the seat next to him. \"You're doing fine,\" she said, squeezing his hand again. \n\n\"I am?\"\n\nShe squeezed again, harder, but not hard enough to be uncomfortable. \n\nIn the front seat, John was driving, passing a frantic glance back at Bradley at every stoplight they came to. Baily was in the other seat, and she kept yelling at John to keep his eyes on the road, but she too was passing glances back at Bradley. They came to another stoplight, and John slammed on the brakes. \n\nBradley shifted forward in his seat, only to be caught be the seat belt, which gently eased him back into the seat. \"Julia, am I doing alright? Am I going to be like this forever?\" he whispered.\n\nJulia smiled, but there was a hint of hesitation in it; she didn't know if he was going to be okay. No one in the car that night knew if he was going to be okay.\n\n\"Jesus Christ,\" John said, slamming onto the gas after the light had gone green, \"who the fuck gave him that?\"\n\n\"Someone at the party,\" Baily said, turning around in her seat to look at Bradley. \n\n\"Keep your seat belt on, I swear to God, we don't need two people in the emergency room tonight.\"\n\n\"Just drive safely.\"\n\nBradley became aware of how fast his heart was beating. It reminded him of the way his childhood pet bunny's heart would beat after he would pick it up for a cuddle. He frowned, knowing full well that his heart shouldn't be beating such a frantic beat. \"It's gonna explode right here in my chest,\" Bradley said.\n\n\"What? What did he say?\" John half-yelled.\n\n\"Shh, it's not going to explode,\" Julia whispered. \"Just relax.\"\n\nBradley tried to heed her advice. He leaned his head back into the headrest, but it was hard to get comfortable. Baily in the passenger side had the window cracked, and the night air that was flowing through was chilly and it hit Bradley's neck in a weird fashion. He wanted to tell her to roll the window up, but his mind couldn't quite put the words together. Everything felt like jelly. *It's good shit.*\n\n\"Can you still hear me?\" \n\nBradley looked back to Julia and smiled, \"I can, Julia, I can hear you loud and clear.\"\n\n\"What did he say?\" John asked.\n\n\"I don't know, I think he said Julia,\" Baily answered.\n\n\"Who the fuck is that? Some girl from the party?\"\n\n\"Probably, I don't know, he's really fucked up, you need to hurry.\"\n\n\"I'm not going to get us in a car accident on the way up there.\"\n\nBradley put a hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat quicken. \"You feel this?\" He whispered, placing Julia's hand on over his sternum. \"This is too fast.\"\n\nJulia frowned, \"It is too fast, try and relax. I need you to relax before I can talk to you.\"\n\n\"I really wish I could,\" Bradley said. \"I'm really scared.\" \n\n\"It's going to be okay bud,\" John said from the driver's seat, \"we're almost at the hospital, just try and relax.\"\n\n\"It was some good shit,\" Bradley whispered. His chest began to cramp and he groaned in pain. It felt like the muscles between his ribs were expanding, pushing the bones apart. He arched his back in the seat to try and fight the pain, but it did nothing. His heart was galloping and his breaths started coming in quick pants. \n\n\"Oh god, John, hurry,\" Baily urged.\n\nJulia squeezed Bradley's hand harder, but it did little to comfort him. His heart was stopping, and there was nothing anybody in the car could do. \n\nAs the strange, colorful world began to fade away, Bradley became less afraid and more curious as to who the person was sitting next to him. Funnily enough, the closer he got to death, the clearer his mind got, and in his last moments, he found himself staring at the strange woman sitting in the seat next to him. Her eyes were purple, and he was damn sure they weren't colored contacts. Her hair was shoulder-length and had what looked like glitter. Her nose was small and cute and slightly upturned, and below, her lips were small and puckered. \n\n\"You're going to be okay, we'll just have to find someone else,\" Julia whispered.\n\n\"Did I do something wrong?\" Bradley asked her.\n\n\"No, you didn't do anything wrong bud,\" John answered, \"everything is fine, just keep with us.\"\n\n\"Not you, Julia, I mean Julia,\" Bradley said. \n\n\"Is she the one who gave you the drugs?\" Baily asked.\n\nJulia squeezed his hand almost apologetically. His heart came to a full stop, and the world went completely dark. \n\n***\n\nIt was dreamless sleep, the kind you got after staying up for hours on end and finally going to sleep after your body refused to stay awake any longer. For all he knew, years could have gone by, and it would have only felt like minutes. It wasn't scary. It was the exact opposite actually. It was soothing, and if it weren't for the voices calling his name, Bradley would have stayed asleep for the rest of eternity.\n\nWhen he opened his eyes, he saw John and Baily standing at his side. \n\n\"Christ, about time you woke up,\" John said. \"They had to jump start your heart. We lost you there for a bit.\"\n\n\"What?\" Bradley said.\n\n\"Your heart just completely stopped. They had to shock the shit out of you.\"\n\nBradley raised his hands to his chest and felt that it was sore, like someone had punched him repeatedly in the ribs. \"Jesus.\"\n\n\"The fuck did you take at the party?\" Baily asked.\n\n\"I don't know,\" Bradley said, pausing mid-sentence. He looked around the room, \"Where's Julia?\"\n\n\"Is she the one who gave you that shit?\" \n\n\"No, she was the one in the car, did you guys-\"\n\n\"I remember him saying her name,\" Baily said, \"you kept talking about her on the drive. You were hallucinating, that's what the doctors said.\"\n\nBradley looked at his hand and remembered her squeezing it. \"It didn't feel like a hallucination.\"\n\n***\n\nWeeks went by, and Bradley became plagued with anxiety attacks. He often found himself cowering onto his bed, feeling his heart thump in his chest. The episodes would come out of nowhere; he'd go from watching television to feeling as if he were going to die. He thought that maybe it was an aftereffect of the drugs he had taken that night, or maybe just from almost dieing. Whatever it was, it reduced him to just a shell of the person he had once been. \n\nHe hadn't seen John or Baily in weeks, or any of his other friends, instead preferring to stay indoors. The name \"Julia\" always surfaced in his mind during those episodes, but he couldn't remember what she looked like anymore, and that frightened him for some reason, as if the memory of her would keep him sane, and now that that memory was fading away like an old photograph. \n\nBradley knew he needed to see her again, but he had no idea how to find her or bring her out. He remembered her sitting there in the car next to him that night he had nearly died, and how she clutched his hand and kept him grounded. \n\nShe would be able to stop the panic attacks. She would be able to make everything alright again. She would hold his hand and calm him down. \n\nBut he needed to find a way to bring her back. \n\n\"It's good shit.\" He heard himself say aloud to no one in particular. *It's good shit.*\n\nHe fished his phone out of his pocket and dialed. \n\n", "\"Akoonda-may!\"\n\"A-hoodamatuh!\"\nThe voices wouldn't stop. I had heard that marijuana, in larger doses, could cause hallucinations. I thought they were full of it, yet here I am. I have been locked in this bathroom now for an hour. The cold seat was a relief in itself. When I opened my eyes. Everything seemed normal enough, but when I closed them, forgot about it. I saw scenes or two opposing sides slowly flowing through time. Both sides chanting endlessly. \n\nAfter an hour, I decided that it was time to leave my friend's bathroom and go home. After stumbling down the road in the 105 degree weather, the voices started to go away. I haven't heard the voices since then, but their echoes still haunt me to this day. It occurred to me that perhaps i had channeled something inadvertently. Whatever it was almost made me go crazy. Perhaps that's why we only exist in four spatial dimensions instead of all eleven at once. \n\nPlease be warned that only good and evil exist beyond our reality. They look identical. ", "The back porch faced the pond, a symphony of dappled sunlight and green. I wanted to garden. She wanted to talk about my ayahuasca experiences. She won.\n\n\"You can *talk* to them, the ayahuasca entities?,\" she asked.\n\n\"Sure,\" I replied. \"As much as you'd want to.\"\n\n\"So... you mean you *can* talk to them, but you don't *want* to talk to them?\" she asked.\n\n\"Not exactly,\" I said. \"It's more like, well... we don't have anything much in common to discuss. Look, they don't have much direct physical effect on anything above the sub-molecular level and even that takes them considerable effort. Their whole *context* is different. It's sort of like communicating with a dolphin. Sure, we can get simple concepts across in both directions, but a dolphin is sending idealized sound shapes in time and space intervals to another dolphin to convey an abstract idea that may, or may not have any human conceptual equivalent. It's the same for the Ayahuasca entities. \n\n\"They'll talk to us,\" I said. \"Heck, they seem to *like* us, but they're not *like* us.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" she said, sipping her tea and mulling this over. \"But they can effect our physical world.\"\n\n\"A little,\" I replied. \"Wind, waves on water....\" I shrugged. \"They seem to be good at that sort of thing. I've never seen one move anything solid.\"\n\n\"Do they use words,\" she asked? \n\n\"No, they....\" *Christ, how the hell was I supposed to explain this?*\n\n\"They .... communicate. You can verbalize some of it. I had one entity tell me that he was an eidetic, symbolic representation of a being that existed in, and perceived reality in fractal dimensions along with the usual four.\"\n\n\"What does that *mean?*, she asked.\n\n\"I wish I knew,\" I replied. \"I wish I knew....\"\n", "\"Blidily Boo Bon Braizeir. Blin Bobily Brant Brax Braf Braf.\"\n\nHe didn't understand, but the strange turquoise creature seemed so desperate to communicate. It looked at him strangely, likee it was looking in his mind for something and only finding things at the wrong level of abstraction. Suddenly, somehow it shifted in color. As it shifted, it emitted many syllable at once.\n\n\"Br, bil cri ca cro cra cli dro dri di de du e el et em fa fu fe.\" It then settled into a burnt orangish color. \"Fiblio fallinger filint faddlefifoza frint fladiolinger frit flabli fabili.\" \n\nIt looked at him inquisitively with one eyebrow raised. Do you get it yet? it seem to be saying. It tried again, another bizarre, somehow musical set of rising nonsense syllables and changes in between colors he had never seen before. It was like the elven being was desperately trying to probe his mind, finding a wavelength they could understand each other on.\n\nAnd then all the sudden, the sounds he was hearing telepathically became math. Intricate, ever moving lengths, that somehow kept getting denser while remaining all the same length. But then there was something else, waves of some sort, interfering with the lengths. Making some longer or shorter. It could never balance out. And then equations, modulating the waves, so the lengths were the same again. Equations he recognized. Maxwell's equations. And he saw, instantly, how it applied to the work. He followed the elf deeper into the tunnel he dug under his house and paid attention to everything the elf-like creature was teaching. He was starting to understand.\n\n----\n\n\"You absolutely cannot tell them elves taught this too you.\" Norris said. \n\n\"It may be your money, but it's my design.\" Cray responded angrily. \"That's how it happened. I can't lie\" He didn't understand, the computer worked. That should be all that mattered. \n\n\"You understand the only way to make money from your computer is to sell it to the defense department. The defense department absolutely will not buy a computer from a designer smoking that burnt rubber shit and babbling about being shown the design by an elf. They'll think you're a communist.\"\n\n\"That's mad, a communist? You've got to be kidding me. The best thing for the communists would be for them to turn me down since it works.\"\n\n\"Cray, they are here for your interview.\"\n\n----\n\n\"We have another one.\" the man on the phone said to Gottlieb.\n\n\"Sign the contract immediately. Don't ask another question. We're sending our own men out, immediately. You will wait without asking questions with the asset until agent McKenna arrives. The clearance for this just went above your head. Good job, sign it and stand down. The standard is to offer them double what we agreed on in these circumstances, but in this case offer them triple. It's essential they sign.\"\n\nGottlieb sighed and sat down, exhausted. The third this month. He called in McKenna.\n\n\"We got another one. A supercomputer, this time. Whatever is happening, we need to get on top of it.\"\n\n\"The elves are accelerating, Sir. Our models show that under one way of modeling time, as novelty, time is increasing exponentially. Our best minds think the elves will only be here a few more years. They want to help. They want to be understood. And we owe it to ourselves to enable those they choose as their messengers. Our survival might even depend on it. I'll make sure Cray understands the need for secrecy. Sometimes the Contacted don't understand the big picture, and go rogue. Remember what happened with Leary after he got contacted.\"\n\n----\n\nBack in his home, under the tunnel. The smell of burning plastic, even stronger since his supply was now CIA grade. The elf was there. This time, there was no strange attempts at language. They knew how to talk in math. The math this time came as music, and the elf was explaining though it something about temperature fluctuations and how to predict them when the computer was under variable loads. \n\nBut Cray was distracted. He was worried about the military applications of his technology. He was not sure it was for the best. The elf suddenly looked through him, understood what he felt, and was filled with compassion. This compassion was contagious, so Cray felt his whole body dissolve into it. He had never known such love. But there was great worry and sorry there too.\n\nThe elf thought at him, in images and music that said: \"They are coming, Cray. After we go, they will be here. You must teach them as much as you can. When they come, your only hope will be a military evolved enough to fight back.\"\n\nCray's mind made contact with the concept \"They\" as if to ask \"Who are they\" and his mind was immediately flooded with several powerful images. A piercing scream, a dinosaur eating his wife alive, a demon, maggots eating the body of a still living newborn baby, a cartoon snake swallowing the whole world. Millions of deaths, each flashing by as if they were his own. Then a void where the earth was. \n\n\"We must hurry.\" The elf thought at him as the song that had the math in it started up again." ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 9 ]

[ "1430640678", "1430652174", "1430673532", "1430627930" ]

[ "I read a story here a week or so ago about Hitler being a time traveller who committed all his evil deeds in order to fast track combat technology and prevent humanity from suffering an even worse fate at the hands of invading aliens. \n\nI would love to see this WP as a continuation of that story. ", "I entered the arena. I was confident. I knew what was coming.\n\n\"Now,\" said the judge, \"you will fight the sum of all of your past deeds, good and bad.\"\n\nThe gate on the opposite side of the arena opened slowly, probably to leave time for me to worry about what I had done as I waited to see my opponent. I didn't worry. I knew exactly what my misdeeds were. \n\nFinally, a man walked out of the tunnel, thin and scrawny. The judge shouted, \"COMMENCE JUDGEMENT!\"\n\nThe man flopped down on the ground and rolled on his back. The judge spoke once more. \"What the hell? Start fighting for your life already.\" \n\nMy opponent just raised his arm and said, \"I surrender.\" Then he disappeared in a flash of light. \n\nI walked out of the arena laughing. It's incredibly easy to beat a lazy asshole. ", "A sour wind blew through the air, rustling the dry grass of the endless field that would soon grow or wither depending upon the amount of blood shed by the man's spirit warriors.\n\nOn one side, an army of imps. Each imp donned rugged leather and bore clubs with spikes. They had the faces of swine and the horns and hooves of goats. \n\nBehind the imps were the ghouls. Terrible, long and slender things, human-like in shape but too gangly and pale. Their dark hair draped in thin strings over their bony shoulders. They jaggedly maneuvered around the battlefield in unnatural, ghostly motions. They screamed, jaws too wide, accompanied by an abundance of black teeth and putrid breath.\n\nYet behind these ghouls were seven devils, one for each of the deadly sins. Each was fearsome, brandishing terrifying and merciless weapons, some blunt and others sharp. But the Devil of Wrath was by far the worst, with teeth as large as any of the front-line imps. His charred body and glowing eyes cast menacing, swirling shadows upon the ground, horns outstretched to the gray sky which spanned half the length of the devil's body.\n\nAnd yet behind that was a possessed insect-hydra demon. It was bigger than anything on the battlefield. Each of its heads was twisted into the agonized face of a human, however, these were only fleshy masks pinned to the carapace of the red, scaly hydra. Around the skin where the eyes had been cut out shone the hydra's real eyes – black and beady. Each of its necks was several feet in length. Each neck had two more hydra heads coming off it, with their own flesh masks. The masks – every last one of them – were twisted in fear.\n\nCertainly, this man had committed mortal crimes. However, he was a shrewd man with hope that the paragon spirits of benevolence, the envoys of his good will, would mass throughout the field in even bigger numbers. \n\nA flash of light occurred, and with it, the first and only paragon to fight for this man's honor.\n\nHis name was Steve. One could tell because of the red cape bearing his name. He was a short, stocky man with mussed hair and a stupid grin. Drool hung gracefully from one side of his uneven lips. He was bound in armor too heavy to support him. Still, he pushed his bifocals up on the bridge of his nose and turned his back to the enemy, dragging his morning star upon the ground with immense difficulty. He panted and grunted until he got dizzy and collapsed.\n\n“Well, Scheiße,” said Hitler.", "I get into the arena. I look at my little companion with his little knife. Well at least he is armed. I am so going to lose. I feel like there is no possible chance at victory but I was told by the gruff guy at the entrance I had to go through with it.\n\nThe guy on the other side has a giant sword. He looks like he is a soldier ready for battle. Dammit I am going to lose I can feel it. The announcer says something I am really not paying attention. I look over at my \"champion\" as he waddles slowly out into the arena.\n\nI look around for what I feel is going to be the last good moments of my existence. I see the guy move really fast toward my champion and slash his sword. No effect can be seen on my champion. Do I have a chance at winning? No he will clearly win. Again he slashes as my guy tries to close the gap between them. Finally my guy is standing next to him and stabs him with the knife. \n\nMaster Tonberry wins!", "I turned to the guy who seemed to be in charge.\n\n\"So, my good deeds will battle my bad deeds?\"\n\n\"No, not exactly. All of you is one army, the bigger the impact of each deed, the stronger the soldier. They will listen to your every command, and they will fight for you unto death.\"\n\n\"What happens if I lose?\"\n\n\"Not sure, never seen it happen.\"\n\nComforted, I walked into the arena to see a moderately sized army. The soldiers were fit and well armored, and they stared up at my opponent, granted, it took me a few seconds to scan the body, but it was definitely a dragon.\n\nThe battle was hard. My men surrounded the beast, taking jabs at it, and attempting to block its flame. The soldiers obeyed my every thought and fought valiantly. When the dust settled my army was nearly annihilated, but a few good deeds remained atop the beast.\n\n\"Good job kid, let's see here...\" He opened an envelope. \"Right, based on the deeds remaining alive, you have been chosen to reincarnate as an Eastern Gray Hawk. Have fun eaten pigeons kid.\"\n\n\"Wait, wh-*AUK*\"", "Guardian angel by my side (who knew we *truly* had those?), I stepped up to the arena\n\n- \"So you are saying that all of my good and bad deeds will battle it out, and whomever wins will decide my fate?\"\n- \"Well, somewhat,\" he replied \"it is those deeds that made an impact on you. The ones that you remember. If you've forgotten them, then you might as well not have done it.\"\n- \"Then as long as I don't think about my bad deeds, I should be golden!\" I beam, convinced I had found a loophole\n- \"It's... not that simple. You will see. Happy thoughts will aid you, and I will be there by your side. Alas, I cannot physically intervene Michael; see me more as an advisor\".\n\nTime has a strange way of flowing in purgatory, if that's where I am. It seems like I waited outside of the arena for a long time, my anxiety growing by the minute, and yet I do not recall a single detail about that time. Where it was a minute, an hour or a century I will never know. My name was eventually called.\n\nAt first I was alone with him, and he seemed pleased. There was no horde of ill deeds swarming towards me so that was a good start. I wanted to build my own army before the enemy arrived, so I opened my mind to my happiest memories. I was almost transported to my wedding day, remembering how beautiful my wife looked as we said \"I do\". I remembered helping her prepare for her exams during our courtship, I remembered holding her hand and encouraging her as she gave birth two our two sons. When I opened my eyes, there were two... beings by my side. If I looked at them, all I saw was a shining white aura, but from the corner of my eye I could tell that they had features of some kind.\n\nMy angel looked worried, and yet the enemy had not yet shown. Why did he look worried? Perhaps I had been more virtuous than I knew! But that couldn't be true. Unprompted came memories of my fights with my beloved wife. The times that I lashed out in anger, memories of hurtful words and half-truths. Black figures began to form at the opposite end of the arena. \n\nMy sense of guilt grew exponentially. Not only had I fought with my wife at times, but also my children. During their rebellious teenage years, even occasionally as children who didn't know any better. I tried my best to be a good father, and to apologize for my mistakes, but mistakes I did make and plenty of them. I hung my head in shame, remembering the time that I struck Matthew in anger for no real fault of his own. He wanted to play catch with his Dad, it wasn't *his* fault I wasn't looking when he threw the ball. \n\nThe enemy army grew larger and somehow darker. My happy memories stood steadfastly, but I knew they would not be able to stem the onslaught of darkness. Why didn't I play with my children more? I did the best I could to be there for them, to provide for them, but... was that another happy memory forming up by my side? \n\nI *did* try my best to be a good father! I remember waking up at five in the morning to drive Mark to his hockey games. I had made it to almost every one of Matt's baseball little league games! I was even assistant coach and chaperone for his team that one year! I wasn't a bad father by a long shot.\n\nAt that point, I felt something change within me. There were so many memories flooding through me, that I could not keep track of them all. As soon as I felt them, another soldier appeared in the arena and they were replaced in my mind by the next of my deeds. Some memories triggered more of the same kind. Thinking about my time volunteering at a hospital during high school led to a whole wing of fighters on my side. Remembering that girl who had a crush on me around the same time, and how I used her feelings to get ahead in school, brought forth a veritable cloud of enemies. I guess I had never forgiven myself for it. \n\nThe two sides grew closer and closer, and yet my mind kept running on its own accord. The figures swarmed around each other, faster than my eyes could keep track of. The light shone through the dark and the dark quenched the light. I didn't know who was winning. I wasn't sure I cared. I deserved whatever fate awaited me, that was for sure. I turned to my guardian angel for advice, but a I made to speak I felt a sharp blow to the back of my head and knew no more.\n\n---------\n\nI do not know the exact outcome of the battle. I know I am not in hell, I am comfortable here. If this is heaven then... it is not all that we were promised. Every now and then, a memory will come to visit. Unannounced, almost, no sooner will I remember than it will appear before my eyes. The happy memories are kind. They shine with compassion and warm me with their love. The sad memories... well, they scare me. But they seem to understand. I apologize to them, and do my best to explain why I did what I did. Sometimes, I even admit to them that I had no excuse for my behaviour. In the end, I think they forgive me. ", "The crowd is roaring. I can hardly hear myself think. The screams shouting range from \"Kick his ass!\" to \"You can do it!\" \n\nThen a man dressed in all black comes from the stadium and raises a single finger. The crowds screams are immeduately silenced.\n\n\"We are here to determine the fate of Jon Raven\" the man in black proclaims. \"Every single deed Jon has ever done will manifest itself and aid or attempt to defeat the soul of Jon. BEGIN!\"\n\nAnd just like that, every thing I've ever done in my 18 years of life floods into my mind.\n\nThe man I held the door for transforms into an old weak but loyal warrior that vows to defend me. \n\nThe kid who I bullied manifests into a form of pure hatred and frustration hell bent on killing me. \n\nI remember the time I gave my friend a pen and paper in class. That transforms into my sword and shield that I use to slash the Hatred's back right after he kills the old man. \n\nMy mother whom I resented my entire life becomes a creature of evil from which my mind still cannot comprehend.\n The creature dives onto me and manages to slice my arm.\n\nI seach relentlessly for something good I've done but all I can remember is the evil. Forms of hate, fear, violence and everything unpleasant begin to spawn around me. \n\nIt's hopeless.\n\nThen, I remember one thing. I remember the child I pushed out of the way. I remember the child's life I saved in place of my own. The ultimate sacrifice. Redemption...\n\nThe child comes from the sky as a humanoid form of pure light. He slowly descends next to me and remains motionless while the beasts stare in fear. \n\nThe Light the erupts and sends a holy shockwave which destroys all the evil I've done in my life in one wave.\n\n\"Thank you, Jon.\" The light utters. \"I hope one day to save a life like you saved mine. Good luck on your journey.\"\n\nThe light dissipates in front of my eyes before I can say a single word.\n\nTwo golden gates open and I walk through. Not damned but redeemed." ]

[ 2, 2, 3, 5, 10, 14, 84 ]

[ "1430699483", "1430721789", "1430706748", "1430683376", "1430684093", "1430680569", "1430680565" ]

[ " It was a dull tuesday morning when I woke up to the sounds of my phone going off non-stop. Aaron was frantically screaming nonsense at me. \"THERE IS A NUMBER...Errr...SOMETHING IS ON ME JOSH!\" I mumbled and turned on my side to go back to my dreams, but that is when I saw it. There in the mirror, it was right on top of me. A shiny green **1**. I thought I was seeing things, I **had** to still be dreaming! I reached up and tried to touch it, but nothing was there to feel. My shaking hand pierced through the number and it stayed exactly where it was. \n I showered to clear my head and let the brisk water wash away the thoughts of this mysterious symbol above my dome. What did it mean anyways? Then it happened. A loud crack and mumble that seemed to fill the air. The water stopped. All I could do is stand there, naked and sopping wet. I just wished it would all go away! Why me? And what about Aaron too? I sprinted through my apartment to reach my phone. I dialed as fast as I could, but the lines were dead now. What was happening!? I have to go find him. \n Everything outside is hectic! Everybody is running around with no idea what to do. *8,724 500 153,475 28* I tried to see the pattern but there was nothing. I hopped on my bike to find Aaron, but not before seeing it. **The red number**. I tried to clear it from my head but it was all I could think about. **Number 1,356,752**. I only got a glimpse, but the second I saw him, I knew something was off. I got to Aaron's, and to my excitement, he was completely alright. **Number 64,814**. He wouldn't stop staring at my **1**, but he knew nothing more than I did. A helicopter flew by with loud speakers screaming to \"GET TO THE STADIUM: AVOID THE RED AT ALL COSTS.\" *Avoid the red* It buzzed through my head a million times. We packed up some clothes and headed to the stadium with no idea what to do.\n 29 days passed by as the green numbers got lower. I was in charge, I was number 1. The red seemed to tear a person apart, that is, if you count them as a person anymore. Every second, **1,000** people went red. It was sad watching those who had numbers in the millions go, counting down to those of us on the low end. By my calculations, I had about 81 days from the day I was chosen, until I went red. Aaron was still with me, but his time was on its way. The clock was ticking.\n 7 days remain. We are thinking about zoning people off, but I just can't leave him. Our day is coming and my best friend is only going to change a minute before me. Our quarantine zone is falling to pieces with the reds pounding the walls to get in. The top 10 have been meeting to eradicate the problem, but these are our friends! 3 and 8 were in a heated debate about whether to start killing them off or not. \"WHO CARES 8! They are red and they are staying that way! You remember the zoning mishap for the 39,506,000's don't you?\" \"How could anyone forget, they hadn't turned yet bu-\" \"THE REDS TORE THEM TO SHREDS! These are savages out there.\" \"We don't know if there is an end to this or no-\" \"There is an end.\" I interjected. The entire room silenced. \"We ARE the end. We all have known this since the day we saw the countdown.\" It was then when 2 stepped in. Her voice filled the room sounding like an angel, speaking the words of the devil. \"We are dying. The walls are crumbling. What is left for us to do? What happens when we kill them off?\" 6 could barely sit still he was shaking so much. I looked around the room, 9 unfamiliar faces who had become my family. I cared about them, but how much longer could that last. \"Our friends are out there. Our families too! Who cares if we live another 7 days. We have to put them to rest. That is the risk that I am willing to take, but if you aren't, sit pretty under your little number. It is time to take our Earth back, no matter the cost.\" Everything froze.\n 10 was the only one moving. He gave me a little slow clap and a *bravo*. He began to circle the table in his luxurious pinstripe suit, but everybody else was stuck in place. He reached 9 and with a little flick, turned her number **red**. \"You couldn't have possibly thought you were the real *number 1* could you?\" I tried to utter out a cry, but I was paralyzed. Who is he? He went down the line and stopped at each person. \"8, what a waste of power!\" **RED** \"7, he barely speaks\" **RED** \"6, well I actually quite liked him, but nevertheless\" **RED** \"5 may be beautiful, but her brain is definitely not helping anybody out here\" **RED** I was furious, straining to move, but nothing. \"Don't struggle honey, It won't get you anywhere.\" He kept his charade up. \"4, She and I were actually seeing eachother...hmph, oh well!\" **RED** That is when he stopped at 3. He popped his hands on 3's shoulders and sighed. \"3 is the ONLY one who was willing to do anything savage, get his hands dirty. Sure you gave a good speech, but what were you really going to do? Gather an army and sneak off with 2 right before the fight? Exactly.\" **RED** He walked by 2 and without even a mention, smacked her number to join the rest of the crimson room. He sat right in front of me and just let me simmer in the murder of my friends. \"Now I know what you are wondering, just who am I? Well they call me *Red* as it may be. You are not the first planet I have done this too and you will not be the last. The best part about all of this? Watching you be ripped limb-from-limb by your friends and your girlfriend. Oh but I almost forgot!\" He snapped his grimy fingers and the door popped open to a dark hallway. He released us all from our sitting prison. The last thing I saw was a piercing red 64,814 beaming through the hallway. ", "I woke up to chaos this morning. Everyone was running around with numbers on their head but the one thing I'll never forget is the fear in Number 6's eyes as he watched 7, 8, 9...." ]

[ 1, 7 ]

[ "1430732468", "1430737562" ]

[ "While browsing reddit the other day\n\nA ginger ninja came to play\n\nHe asked of letters quite cabal \n\nThe secret that be kept from all\n\nWhile the knowledge granted is quite sage\n\nHe asks for he's yet to come of age", "\"Fuck...\"\n\nA secret like that, there's no way it could be real. There's no way they could have been hiding it for this long. How come nobody TOLD us?\n\nI looked at the man next to me, but he didn't seem to have heard me.\n\nDoes he know? \n\nI looked at the man in front of me.\n\nDoes he know?\n\nDid my parents know?\n\nThey did, they all did. That's what it said in the letter. Every damn one of them knew, and nobody told us.\n\n\"Fuck...\"\n\nThe man in front of me looked up from his busy-work.\n\n\"Something I can get for you, son?\"\n\nI sat there for a second, until something finally tipped over in my mind.\n\n\"Yeah, get me a drink... and make it strong.\"" ]

[ 1, 3 ]

[ "1430725733", "1430758550" ]

[ "The air was heavy and foul. An unnatural stink that permeated the whole room, that seemed to emanate from every object. It overwhelmed and consumed all the synthetic and sterilized smells you would expect from a laboratory. It was enough to make anyone not used to it retch. And most times it was enough even for someone who is. Reed was getting used to it, but still he couldn’t help it. He stood next to the machine, leaning on the desk and it letting all out on the pristine white floor. \n\nHe opened the windows and grabbed a lungful of fresh air. As fresh as can be at the wreckage of a city filled with nothing but corpses. This smell Reed had already become used to. What a sad state of affairs, he reflected. But it actually made sense. Human death, after all, is more commonplace, and more natural, than time travel.\n\nAs he regained his senses proper and leaned back on a chair, it dawned on him. It did not work. As the empty streets outside testified, as the smell of corpses should have made obvious, it did not work. The head of a rebel state and catalyst to the second most devastating war humankind had ever seen, killed as a baby, and still the nukes had launched.\n\nAnthony Reed was still the only human left alive on Mars.\n\n---------------------------------------------------\n\nHe went back to the drawing board. If preventing the greatest dictator Mars had ever seen from living past his sixth month couldn’t stop the war, what could? Maybe preventing the rebel party from ever coming into existence? But how would he accomplish that, how do you kill an idea? Bronn hadn’t been the only one with rebel ideals, the only one who wanted to turn a world into their image through military might. He had simply been the one with the most power and influence among them. He had been the tip of the iceberg, and Reed had merely shaved it off. He needed to think bigger.\n\nThe second Martian World War had been the result of limited resources. Mankind had done their best in terraforming and efficiently colonizing Mars, but the planet had limitations. It always would have, and humanity's needs would only increase as both population and standards increased. Mars was a doomed project, a bad idea. A flawed solution to the real problem – the loss of earth to the machines.\nReed pulled out the holofiles about the old world. They contained all the knowledge the human race had amassed during their stay on earth. The machine could displace you in space as well as time, but it needed an exact location and has range limitations. Reed input the intended geotemporal coordinates and calculated the next time the old world would be close enough to Mars to be in the machines Spatial range. Two weeks.\n\n---------------------------------------------------------\n\nThis time he had chosen his target to be ten years old. Harder on the boy, on his family and, by this age, his friends aswell… but easier on Reed. Murdering a baby had not been easy. But to his dismay, neither had been murdering a ten year old boy.\n\nReed wanted to explore this old world, this fabled Earth. With blue skies and green fields, it was such a strange place. But his desire to see the human race saved from annihilation was stronger than his whims. The creator of the murderous artificial intelligence that deemed the best path to world peace to be the extermination of the human race was a limp bloody mass in his arms. He placed the boy down and set the device on his wrist to pull himself back in the time axis alone, to the anchor he had created before departure, then sealed his exoskeleton suit. When traveling through time it was hard to guess the conditions in which the destination point was in. The exosuit protected its contents from almost everything the universe could throw at it.\n\nWhen he arrived he thought he might have accidentally pulled himself back through space as well and was back in a nuclear wasteland Mars. But that wouldn’t make sense, without the AI revolution humanity would never even need to leave their perfect planet. No, this was earth… A nuclear ravaged earth. Without a superior enemy to decimate them, humanity had decimated itself. Even with a planet capable of producing all the resources it could ever need, humanity had exterminated themselves. Why?\n\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nBronn. Urza. Janos. Hypertron. Kim Jong-Un. Hitler. Genghis Khan. Anthony Reed had killed them all and more in their youth. The result was always and invariably the same. Humanity self-destruct. Reed was left depressed and disgusted. He travelled back to a time when humanity didn’t yet exist and disengaged his exosuit helmet. The stink of time travel hit his nostrils, but Reed didn’t flinch. Nothing could disgust him more than his own humanity then.", "The beginning of the end must've started somewhere in the Eastern part of Canada, Dr. Hunter mused to himself, while looking at reports coming from very early on in The Decline. The files had annotations for being very bizarre, mentioning sentient maple trees among other things. Well, bizarre unless you saw all the reports, he supposed.\n\tHe had been sent out on a quick trip to just past Neptune to test the viability of crygenic sleep and in the intermediary years, the 35 billion humans on the planet had seemingly disappeared. Every major city was gone, but there was no sign of why! Hell, every city ever was gone! None of it made a lick of sense. The remaining reports and news clips Hunter managed to dig out from the rubble were varied and almost nensensical.\n\tThe Decline, as the Doctor called it, began sometime in the late 22nd century, though he could not pinpoint the exact time or exact nature of what had transpired. Everything just happened too damn fast! Humanity, it seems, had been wiped out by a series of extremely unfortunate events, almost as if they had angered some entity that controlled probability. \n\tDoctor Hunter, however, was a genuis. In the two years he spent wandering through the Central USA, where his ship had landed, he had distracted himself by observing everything around him. The Decline had been almost solely focused on humanity, with almost no backlash for the rest of the Earth. Sure, the domesticated animals were basically entirely gone, but that was to be expected. They were easy pickings, he supposed. He scavanged for any scientific instruments he could find, day in and day out, because he had a plan. He was going to go back in time to save the human race! Well, attempt to anyway. It all sounded very heroic to the Doctor. \n--------------------- ------------------------ -----------------------------\n\tNearly 2 and a half years after Dr. Hunter landed back on Earth, he found it! The gold mine! Pandora's Box! Everything he could have ever hope for and more! It seemed that in a last ditch attempt at saving their species, the world's governments had collaberated and built an underground complex the likes of which had never been seen. Hunter had only stumbled upon it because he had discovered a news reel that mentioned such a place existed under Washington. Even then, he spent well over 4 months searching the city to find it. The place had everything he would need to attempt to build a time machine! The Science Labs even had a sophisticated A.I. that he could bounce ideas off of! He was just so damn excited, that he couldn't even!\n\tDoctor Hunter began work almost immediately. He used the A.I. to run all the complex calculations and simulations necessary, and in just over two years of feverish work, the Doctor had succeeded! He had (he hoped) a working time machine. The apparatus appeared to be two large hooks curving off the floor, rising 8 feet high, which would then focus two beams of energy at the centre of a circle, which would then bend time and create a portal of sorts. It all came together, every simulation he had ran indicated it would work. He set the program to take him back in time to just outside the complex, which Hunter thought made sense considering the complex wouldn't exist when he went back and never would if he could help it at all!\n\tAfter a final tour of the complex that had become his home, Hunter went into the chamber holding the machine, and instructed the AI to power it up. Twin beams of a glowing and pulsing red met at the exact centre, causing, as predicted, a portal to open. The AI checked the energy levels of the portal, among other things, and within 5 minutes determined the machine was working withing its parameters. With a last goodbye to the AI, Doctor Hunter leapt through the portal....Which, in hindsight, wasn't very smart considering he retained his momentum and impacted quite heavily with the floor upon his exit from said portal.\n\tWearily, Doctor Hunter rose to his feet. He expected to see something, anything, certainly not the entrance to the complex! At a dead sprint, entered the time travel chamber just as the portal's field evened out. With a sense of complete horror and dread, Doctor Hunter realized what had happened. It hit him like a physical blow to his body, and he vomited violently all over himself before collapsing to the floor. \n\t'Of course', he thought to his rapidly retreating consciousness, 'THAT was the theory that had to be correct... how could I travel back to a time before this machine was built? That would've interferred with its very creation. Of course...'\n\tHe never woke again\n\t", "He pressed his fingers to his temples, and waited patiently, but the crackle never came.\n\n\"AI?\"\n\nHe had given the AI a name, but with every loss of power, it forgot. So, AI.\n\nThe circular button that connected the circuit had a greasy scab on it from his finger. He pressed it again, and this time, the machine jaunted to life. What was programmed as a pleasant tone came out as a dull, muted buzz from the broken speaker. He had to work fast.\n\n\"AI, research history. World War Six.\"\n\nThe voice was garbled, but he knew the error well. \"Error. Database unreachable. No power to external data storage.\"\n\nTomkin had been the second to last, and he had guessed soot. This facility was designed with solar power -- ostensibly to be Green, but mostly because everything else was gone. So, soot. He remembered standing, bewildered, as Tomkin had tried to run outside in small, thirty-second trips to clean the panels. When he came back inside, his face was smudged, oily and black, and the panels remained dormant. He'd cough and curse, and take deep sups of the brown water directly from the tap.\n\nThe power to his AI slipped below the threshold, and it was quiet again. \n\nHe stood and walked through the narrow hallway to the basement access of the building. Chronotech 4, USN, the logo with an eagle clutching a clock. Whatever. \n\nAn oily pool covered the floor, but the cuffs of his trousers were already stained gray. No more ginger tiptoeing through here. He sat at the controls -- analog, thank the gods -- and incremented the date one month forward. November to December. He wiped his nose with his sleeve, and steeled himself. \n\nHe turned the key, and there was an unexpected silence. He tried again. Nothing. Except, then, a thin trail of smoke. He withered to see the origin. The smoke thickened -- a popping sound, the AI chiming on distantly, and a gentle flame flickering from behind a server rack. The flame gathered its strength as he lost his, weeping in the darkness as the end of humanity drew into focus.", "*Part 1*\n\nA primitive landing craft emerges from the orbital time gate: something called a Mars lander. This museum piece was found abandoned on a now destroyed planet. Its technology dates before even the time gates, and uses a mechanism called a propellant based reaction engine, which throws rapidly expanding hot gases out of a nozzle in the hope that it blows hard enough to slow its fall.\n\nIt's no wonder that Mattheo is now sweating. He manipulates the mysterious levers and switches on his ancient control panels, and an arrangement of small nozzles peppered about the ship's surface blow tiny amounts of white gases in numerous directions to pitch and roll the ship into its position. With the big nozzle on the bottom of this ship now facing the right way, Mattheo pulls the big lever. The big lever starts the big nozzle, which thrusts forth a fiery trail almost as long as the ship itself, enough to blast the ship out of its orbit. \n\nWith the nozzle switched off, he takes his hands from the controls and begins to scribe frantically in his notebook. He observes the numbers on the worn dials and indicators of this machine. He concludes his calculations aloud \"Our trajectory is good to land, but we're cutting it close if we want to get back to the gate.\"\n\nOver the following minutes, the new moon grows from the view of the small window in this cockpit. The globe becomes a widening curve, and the surface becomes detailed. In spite of the weightlessness, Mattheo can feel a weight in his stomach, and can hear a voice in his head reminding him he has never done this for real. \n\nHis hands return to the controls. \"This is the end of time. If you mess this up, no one is going to see this in their past, and no one is going to come for you. You are the last.\" The weight in his stomach grows, literally, as he pulls the lever, throwing the ship's fire towards the surface. His eyes dart between the different instruments on his panel, and he slowly teases the controls to adjust. The truth of the surface shows itself through the small window, as the fire from the ship stirs a cloud from the dust of the surface. \n\n\"Shit\"\n\nMeters from the ground, the ship slides sideways on its cushion of fire, falling slowly. The legs of this craft stumble on contact, tripping to one side, and tipping the nozzle to the other side. The last blast of this craft throws the face of the ship into the dust. Mattheo instantly pushes the big lever away, ceasing the thrust.\n\nThe dust settles, and Mattheo begins to compute the situation. \n\n\"SHIT\"\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 12 ]

[ "1430761929", "1430802538", "1430761003", "1430741948" ]

[ "*Superman sitting in his office in Daily Planet*\n\n\"Hey Clark I am going for a coffee run, do you want anything?\"\n\n\"Thanks Jude I'm fine\" \n\nClark is now hunching on his office desk writing an article on his laptop. The article is about kids who have lost their parents in the earthquake in Nepal.\n\n\"I feel bad for them, oh well, I am retired now. Nothing I can do\" \n\nHe finished his article and posted it online on the Daily Planet website. Someone commented on his article only 5 minutes after posting. The commentator said that superman is a lazy bum who got tired of saving people. The man later on described superman as a P**** and a mother******.\n\nClark got frustrated yet he wanted to prove the commentator wrong. He writes an email saying that he should not use vulgar language to describe Superman. The earthquake is not Superman's fault. If anything this commentator should suck a D***. \n\nHis frown turns to a smirk as he is writing this. He then enters the Email address\n\n*troll4ever@fu.com* and sends it. \n\nThis troll/commentator is Superman's childhood friend known as Rick AKA Dick. \nRick never liked Clark as a kid, because Clark was always stronger and faster then all the other kids yet he never knew Clark is Superman.\n\nRick works in the same company as Clark. On the floor underneath Clark's,he makes funny comics that go on the last page of the newspaper. He reads the email and sends one back.He draws a picture of Superman being hanged from a tree while everyone is celebrating.Below it he writes \"How it should be\".\n\n*Ping*\n\nClark receives the email and feels butterflies in his stomach. \n\n\"Is this really what he thinks of me? after all I've done for Earth? I'll show him\"\n\nClark now furious with this drawing wants to know who this person is. He knows Rick well since they collaborate often for the newspaper. He runs to the floor downstairs and asks Rick to draw him a picture. \n\n\"Listen, I need you to draw Superman with his middle finger up and his dong hanging outside of his pants, some dude online is really pissing me off\" \n\nRick laughed it off and said \" No problem\". He senses the anger in Clark. As superman leaned on the table to wait for the quick drawing. His fingers pressed too hard against the table leaving indented marks on it. Note that his is a metal table.\n\n\"What did you do? How did you do that?\" Said Rick in Amazement yet also a bit scared. \n\n\"The guy online is really getting to me, I'm about to change his face when I find out who he is\".\n\nRick now aware of Clark's strength hurries to to finish the drawing \"umm, he-he-here you go Clark, you-you can scan it and send it\"\n\n\"Thanks dude , I owe you!\" \n\nAs Rick starts again surfing his computer he receives an email massage.\n\n*Ping*\n\nIt is from the Superman's protector. \"Lets see what we have here, oh, nice its a picture\". \n\nAs he opens the picture he sees its the same one he drew. His palms get sweaty and he gulps uncontrollably. He looks above the monitor he sees Clark again. \n\n\" Everything OK, DICK? \" \n\n\"Ye-Yeah, ev-everything is f-f-fine\"\n\nClark now tears his shirt with both hands exposing the big red letter S on his chest. \n\n\"I'm superman bitch, you ever write something like that again, I'll tear you\" \n\n\"Ok\"", "\"L-O-L! What are you gonna do about it, pussy?\"\nI could just imagine this idiot, pounding away at his keyboard, screaming at me about how vaccinations saved lives, how immigrants have not destroyed the American economy. I really got him going when I declared that women shouldn't have the same rights as men. Of course, I agreed with everything he was saying, but he was just SO easy to push around. This guy had a real white knight complex, and his buttons were just so easy to push!\n\"I'll come over there RIGHT NOW and kick your pathetic little ASS!!!1 I have a very powerful computer and I traced your IP, I KNOW WHO YOU ARE, YOU PEICE OF SHIT!\"\nOh, god, I laughed so hard, I really couldn't keep it in any longer. I mean, really? He traced my IP? Does this guy have the mind of a naïve 12 year old??\n\"Bring it, BITCH\". I hit send with satisfaction. The fight was over, internet troll: 1, white knight: 0. What an idiot.\nThere was a tap on my window. I looked over to see Clark Kent, Superman. The guy retired years ago when his secret identity got out, went into hiding or something. He had a scruffy neckbeard, and it looked like he packed on a few pounds. How that was even possible, I don't know. Clearly, the guy could still fly though, I was on the 15th floor of my apartment building in Metropolis. \nI walked over to the window and lifted it and stepped back. Clark flew in and landed on my floor. I stepped back, to the far end of my room. He looked PISSED, eyes already beginning to glow red. Could it be?\n\"Are you r0h_7u1?\" He asked, practically frothing at the mouth, spit flying from his mouth as he spit out the letters and numbers in my username.\n\"Yeah\". No sooner did I say it, he was leaping towards me, at lightning fast speed. \nAt least for the first foot or so. Then he slowed down, a look of horror flashed across his face.\n\"You didn't think we knew about your little hobby, Supes?\". I pulled the sharpened, glowing green rock from my back pocket and took a few steps toward the former hero, grinning from ear to ear. \"That's a shame\". \nMy employer was going to be so pleased. ", "What a pussy. That prick thinks he's just sooo awesome. I can't wait for him to get what's coming to him.\n\nIt all started when someone got butthurt because I made one little joke about that mother whose kids died in the landslide. I mean, come on. And then this white knight wannabe shows up and gets all smarmy with me. One thing leads to another, and I decided I'd really put him in his place. I told him I'd kick his ass if he were man enough to show up. They never are. They're afraid of me.\n\nSee, I've got the youtube account to back up my badassness. Videos of my breaking shit with my hands and various weapons. I tell them to do their homework for once before accepting, and they never do. They're right to be afraid.\n\nBut not Mr. White Knight. Oh, he wanted to meet me. I figured he'd back down when I told him I lived in Montana. Most of these neckbeards don't have the balls to actually commit to making the trip. But he said he lived an hour away and could meet me that night. I got ready to deliver a righteous ass-kicking.\n\nYou can never be too careful. I fully intended on taking him down with my fists. I've spent enough time on a heavy bag that I know I could knock him out in one punch. But he could be enough of a loser to bring friends or weapons. So I packed a couple of commando knives and my glock.\n\nWhen I got to the spot we'd agreed on, he was just standing in the parking lot. I didn't see a car, so I figured he was lame enough to not own one. I parked by trusty Maverick about 50 feet from him and got out. The guy was just standing there in a hoodie with some geeky-looking glasses sitting crooked on his nose.\n\n\"Well well, if it isn't Mr. White Knight, aka 'Supes1'. Whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. I didn't think you'd show. You got a real name so I can give it to the paramedics when we're done?\"\n\n\"Clark. Clark Kent.\"\n\n\"Of course you'd have a loser name like that. You read for your beating?\"\n\n\"If you can manage it. Will you be using the knives, or skipping straight to the gun?\"\n\nI was sure I'd concealed those well. It was a little unnerving. Still, I couldn't let him see me sweat. \"Please. Those were insurance in case you didn't want to fight fair. Now stop talking and let's do this!\"\n\n\"Okay by me. Shall I come at you first?\"\n\nI didn't bother responding, and instead just stepped in with a right hook. He ducked under my arm and stood back up. The coward ducked and dodged the next dozen swings.\n\n\"What's the matter, chump? Can't take a hit?\"\n\nHe stood his ground on my next swing. It was a perfect hit, right across the jaw. A knockout punch if ever I've seen one. But I swear this guy didn't move a millimeter. I felt two knuckles fracture. I pulled my hand back and took a step back. He stepped in with a punch to the gut that knocked the wind out of me and sent me sprawling on my back ten feet away.\n\nI decided he must be on something. The guy was fit, but not THAT fit. You read stories on the internet about guys on PCP or bath salts or other crazy shit that lets them do this kind of stuff. Guess he wasn't fighting fair after all. It was time to up my game. I drew one of my knives.\n\nIf it bothered him, his face didn't show it. More proof the guy was high. This time I decided on caution and circled him, knife ready. I'd practiced my moves for years in preparation for something like this. I was going to carve this guy like a jack-o-lantern.\n\nI lunged in from his left side. He caught the knife blade in his hand and yanked it away from me. I could feel the burns on my hand as the grip dug into my palm. His hand closed on my throat and he lifted me into the air. \"Bad idea,\" he said as he reached up with his left hand and flicked his finger into my nose, breaking it. I felt the blood begin to gush as he dropped me to the ground.\n\n\"You bastard!\" I screamed through the blood. I pulled out the gun and leveled it at him, firing twice. I saw the bullets hit him square in the chest, but he never even flinched. He lowered his glasses to the point of his nose, stared at my gun, and suddenly it got really hot. I got burns on top of burns.\n\nI don't really remember much after that. I remember thinking those red boots of his were strange before I passed out. They found me laying next to what was left of my car. 57 broken bones, two ruptured organs, third-degree burns on my hands. My classic Ford Maverick turned into a pile of scrap. He must have spent hours ripping it apart.\n\nThe cops said there were no other tire tracks and no footprints leading away from the site. One guy said he might as well have flown away. And I think they might be right. I think he was an alien trolling the internet for fun. I'm going to tell the whole world that They are out there. And that They're pussies, hiding behind shields and heat rays and super strength instead of fighting like real men.", "(I changed the prompt slightly, hope you don't mind):\n\nMarco can still see the livestreamer's clothed breasts in the webcam, dodging in and out of view behind the XBox controller. She thinks she's dressed modestly, but she's not. She's using her looks, whoring for follows and pageviews, like all the others, and like all the others, she'll get what's coming to her.\n\n\"911, what is your emergency?\"\n\n\"My name is Jusuf Khan,\" he considered faking an accent, but decided against it. His accents aren't that good, and they might catch on. The real Jusuf is about 30 years older, though, so he deepens his voice slightly. \"I've just shot and killed two members of my family. I have hostages, and I will kill more. Do not try to approach, I will shoot any cop I see. Do you understand me?\"\n\nThere's a long pause. The 911 operator is shaken. Good.\n\n\"I understand. Where are you?\"\n\nMarco rattles off the bitch's address. In the video (muted, so the 911 operator won't hear it), the Pakistani girl laughs and takes a sip from a a water bottle. Her lips are pouty and soft. He hopes they kill her.\n\n********\n\nThe swatting itself was anticlimactic, but they usually are. She got up, faint sounds of shouting offscreen, eventually the feed cuts out. No response from the bitch herself on social media. He had high hopes for a fatality at first, but browsing the police reports it looks like they just pointed some guns at her family a little and left. They were Muslim, so maybe they're on a watchlist now. That would be something.\n\nHe claims responsibility on twitter (burner account, of course) soaks in the praise, and forgets the whole thing within two weeks.\n\nSomeone else, however, remembers.\n\n**************\n\nMarco's walking home from class, and he feels the storm before he hears it. It's the first time he could. He never put much stock in the whole \"electricity in the air\" cliche until now. He's walking home from class and he can feel a humming, a thrumming, like the air is alive, like it's singing, like an infrasonic chorus hymning praises to a god new risen.\n\n**BAM**\n\nHe only registers pieces of what happens next. Dust in his eyes. A small crater in the quad. A piece of metal in the crater. Someone holding it. The glint of metal. A woman? A robot? No, a woman in armor. A woman in armor striding up to him, taking him by the scruff of his shirt.\n\n\"Art thou Marco Irwin?\"\n\n\"I.... I... I... I...\" He wants to answer, but there's too much to process. Why won't she put him down?\n\n**\"Art thou Marco Irwin?\"**\n\n\"Y--yes?\"\n\nThe armored woman frowns. Marco remembers being seven, when the big storm hit, and the wind kept slamming the tree branches against his family's window, *blam, blam, blam,* and he was scared and started to cry. Being frowned at by her is a lot like that.\n\n\"I would have *words* with thee.\"\n\nThere's a whoosh, and Marco feels a pull on his shirt. He thinks she's lifting him, but it doesn't stop. It hits him that she's flying rapidly upward, and she's taking him with her. He sees his shirt begin to slip from her hand.\n\n\"On the night of September 25th, didst thou call falsely in distress the NYPD to the home of Kamala Khan?\"\n\nIt takes him a moment. \"You mean the swatting?\" The woman in armor--Thor?--is now flying him upwards through a dark stormcloud, although the sky was blue a few minutes ago. He thinks about his options. He thinks hard. \"No. That was my roommate. I tried to tell him not to, but--\"\n\n**KRAKATHOOM**\n\nThe lightning was behind him, but he can see it light up the Goddess's face.\n\n\"Lies and dissembling are as to the autumn haze and morning mist. On a calm day they may obscure, but they part before the storm and the power of THOR!\" The thunder cracks and the lightning flashes again.\n\nMarco can feel rain on his face, so he doesn't know for sure whether or not he's crying. \"All right, all right it was me! I swatted the Camilla Khan chick, and the girl playing BlackOps, and the chick who did the rant videos, and I spammed my English Professor's inbox with dick pics! I won't do it again, please don't kill me!\"\n\nThor's expression changes. She looks... sad? Resigned? \"For those others whom thou hast wronged, Marco Irwin, thou mayst yet answer in due time. But there is one crime for which human justice cannot atone. Thou hast wronged an Inhuman, and it is Inhuman justice that awaits thee.\"\n\nThe sound of the storm changes, and Marco has a feeling they are going somewhere very far away, very fast. He doesn't like his chances when they arrive. \"Please, don't take me to... where are you taking me? Is it Hell? Don't take me to Hell! I'll do anything! I know things!\" Between sobs, he lists all the Swatters and trolls he knows, in real life or only as screen names, and the ways someone could find more, if they had a working knowledge of the internet (which he somehow doubts his divine interlocutor does). Thor remains stoic and unmoved. Eventually, the winds quiet, and they land once again on solid ground. Marco falls to his knees in relief. Thor speaks.\n\n\"What thou hast told me I shall pass on to the Man of Iron. He is wiser in these ways than I, and perhaps he may make use.\" She turns and addresses another figure, clad in black. \"It is him. Administer what justice is lawful in thy kingdom Black Bolt, but leave enough left that he may afterwards face justice in his own land.\"\n\nBlack Bolt only nods. If Thor is constantly surrounded by a gathering storm, Black Bolt is constantly surrounded by a gathering silence.\n\nThor lifts her hammer vanishes into the sky. Terrified as he was of her, Marco wishes she'd come back. While Thor radiated power from every thew, Black bolt radiates a silent, barely-checked menace. The black clad figure walks slowly toward Marco.\n\n\"Please! Please, I didn't do it!\"\n\nBlack Bolt is silent.\n\n\"Alright I did it, but I didn't mean to hurt her!\"\n\nBlack Bolt is silent.\n\n\"Alright I did, she *wasn't hurt!*\"\n\nBlack Bolt is silent.\n\n\"Please!\"\n\nBlack Bolt grasps Marco's shoulder in a grip of iron.\n\n\"Please! *Please*!\"\n\nMarco abandons words and collapses into sobs. But now, and in the decade to follow, Black Bolt is silent.\n\n***********\n\n[Kamala Khan](http://marvel.wikia.com/Kamala_Khan_%28Earth-616%29) is a teenage superhero. She is not a livestreamer in canon, but she does write fanfic, so I figured it wouldn't be entirely out of character (although her parents are pretty strict, so presumably she waited until they were asleep or weren't home).\n\nThe [Inhumans](http://marvel.wikia.com/Inhumans_%28Race%29) are superpowered beings who live in a secret city. Kamala Khan is physiologically an Inhuman, but not legally part of the Inhuman kingdom we know of, so I fudged canon a bit again.\n\n[Thor](http://marvel.wikia.com/Thor_%28Female%29_%28Earth-616%29) (currently a woman) is an Avenger and as such will be Kamala's teammate starting in (I think) June.\n\n[Black Bolt](http://marvel.wikia.com/Blackagar_Boltagon_%28Earth-616%29) is the king of the Inhumans. His merest whisper can level cities, so it's probably good he remained silent.\n\nMarco Irwin is a character I made up and named after two characters in *The Bell Jar.*", "*Superman and troll are playing a delightful game of call of duty, and timmy is currently being destroyed*\n\nTimmy: I'll Fkin 1v1 U M8 \n\nSuperman: As you wish\n\n*Superman flies to Timmys house, Then proceeds to tear off the entire front of the house as if it were orange peel, exposing little timmy sat in his underwear*\n\nSuperman: I've accepted your offer for the duel, would you like to get ready?\n\nTimmy: ....\n\n*Timmy now has stained underwear*\n\nSuperman: Fight me, Mate.\n\n________________________________\n\nI'll leave the rest of this battle to reddits wild imagination ", "\"Come @ me IRL bruh, dont be a keyboard warrior.\"\n\n\"Bring it. Give me your address.\"\n\nThe troll hesitated. He typed out the address for a parking lot downtown.\n\n\"Be there in 5 minutes. I'm in blue. You'd best turn up.\"\n\nThe troll growled. He then went to make some calls. \n\n_____\n\nThe parking lot was empty, save for one man in a jacket. He wore a blue inner shirt, so it was safe to assume that he was the target. \n\n\"Aren't you too old to be debating on the internet?\"\n\nThe man turned, and smiled. In a flash, the troll was upside down, and dangling from the parking lot signpost.\n\n\"Unfortunately for you, I'm ageless.\"\n\nHe then ripped out his shirt to reveal a familiar S on his chest. \"Superman, at your service.\"\n\nThe troll gasped. \"*Superman?* I'm so sorry! I'll never quarrel online again!\" \n\nSuperman smiled. Solving most problems was always this easy.\n\n\"Can... can we at least take a picture before you go?\"\n\nSuperman agreed graciously. The troll took out his camera, posed for a selfie and snapped. As the light left the camera, Superman fell to the ground writhing.\n\n\"Don't you find it odd that someone'd bring a camera to a fight?\" asked the troll, as a familiar black car pulled up into the lot. \"Really, Superman. Overconfidence isn't good.\"\n\nHe dropped the camera, and it shattered to reveal a bright green chunk of kryptonite. \n\nA man walked up to him, and said in a husky voice, \"good job, kid.\"\n\n\"I learnt from the best.\" \n\nWith that, Batman and Robin made away in the Batmobile.\n", "Wyatt sat in his chair, practically smiling.\n\nThis was such a top kek post.\n\nSome newfag had posted a picture of Superman on /b/, and so he posted a picture of Doomsday and then said \"fight me irl\"\n\nAfter quickly heading back to /hc/ and pulling out the Jergens, he began his fifth fap session of the day, when suddenly a loud crash interrupted him.\n\nThree succinct knocks interrupted his one man sexual intercourse. \n\nHis mom knew better than to ever knock on the basement door, although he was ready to unleash a barrage of insults on her for forgetting who was truly in charge of this house.\n\nAs he got out of his seat, he knocked over a urine filled Mountain Dew bottle, further infuriating him. His mother would be told off worse than when she asked him why she liked a show about ponies when he was 25 years old.\n\nHe turned Applejack around and put headphones on her to prevent her from hearing the vulgarities he was about to release.\n\nRunning up the stairs he takes a deep breath, and puffs out his chest\n\n\"MOM I FUCKING TOLD YOU DON'T INTERRUPT ME, THE INTERNET IS SERIOUS FUCKING BUSIN-\"\n\nAs he whips the door open, a large alpha male with a red \"S\" emblazoned in yellow stood in front of him wearing a blue outfit complete with a cape.\n\nIt dawned on him.\nHis mom had paid for an outfit for his cosplay needs.\n\nSure she hadn't listened to the fact that he wanted to go as Shazam, but this was awesome.\n\nThe messenger looked at him with a face of disgust. Wyatt knew disgust from years of being a Brony, but realized that he hadn't taken a human shower in almost four months, instead bathing in powder sugar and spraying himself with candy sprays (a rainbow bath). \n\nWyatt was excited to try on this outfit, but this fag was still in it.\n\"Hey so can I get that outfit now?\"\n\nThis tumblr user looked mortified.\n\"Do you have any semblance of a clue as to who I am?\"\n\nWyatt responded immediately.\n\"You're the only thing standing between tons of merchandise at the next Cosplay Convention.\"\n\nThe man shook his head mockingly.\n\nWyatt quickly grew frustrated.\n\"Listen here faggot, let me get that outfit now. You don't want to mess with me\"\n\nThe man raised his eyebrows mockingly.\n\"Or what? Are you going to fight me <air quoting and pronouncing each individual letter now> I R L?\"\n\nWyatt realized what was happening.\n\"Hey man listen, I was just shitposting, I don't actually want to fight...\"\n\nWith the force of a train collision, Superman's fist obliterated Wyatt's lower face. \nWyatt began choking on his tongue, and before he blacked out, the last thing he saw was Superman posting something to /b/.\n\nIt would be the first and last time decas would ever be seen on 4chan. \nOP was still a faggot though. \n", "Anonymity is often mistaken for impunity. When toiling in the public realm, these humans put on their best masks and decorum. Their smiles are like the donuts at a Korean-run Daylight Donuts: sweet on the surface, sludge on the inside. But once they clock out and return to their respective anonymity, the masks come off and they revert to their base, even baser, instincts. One of the most shameless specimens of this type of behavior cavort in Youtube, 4chan, and Reddit. And Call of Duty. \n\nThe amusing thing about fighting crime on my code? The villains will never surrender. Through a combination of tactics, pluck, and lots of desperation, they try and try to snatch their illicit daily bread, and they rage when I convict them of their wrongdoings. But did you know? They do have one prime merit to them. They may lack a moral compass, but they have backbone. They have spine. They are people who execute their will into action. It makes me wonder if one day they will ever channel that drive into an honest and respectable avenue.\n\nNot these Internet keyboard warriors as of late. Most of these trolls try to elicit a response. Online confrontation is an electronic game of chicken where the more one flaunts their brazenness, the more they win in their private bookkeeping. Some of the common phrases involve \"1v1 me noob\". My personal favorite is \"I'll destroy you, swear on me mum.\"\n\nBut the second you confront them in real life, the realization, the widening eyes, the involuntary body shiver. All of these indications betray a lack of conviction and purpose. What do I do? I smile and tell them \"The first hit is free. The ones after that, you'll have to earn those.\"\n\nThey never throw a punch. They just avert their eyes. And cower. They apologize and ask me to leave. But talk is cheap. Words alone do not change your attitude. It is your conviction that will shape your direction in life.\n\nSo to all future trolls I encounter, heed my words: my parents died before I met them, and I was born an alien to a foreign and cold world. Yet I was raised and cherished by a couple who were poor in wallet, but rich in heart and spirit. When I had a chance to lash out in anger and frustration, I instead was nurtured to appreciate the bounty of my dearest friends' love. I may be the iconic superhero of this earth, but you are the unappreciated superhero of your community.\n\nStop trolling; start rolling. You are the hero who I fight for, who I die for, who I revive for. I may be Super Man, but you: You are super, man. You don't need an S on your chest when you have a calling in your heart. Answer it.", "The crack of the sonic boom could be heard for miles. If anyone had looked up at the time, they would have seen only a blur. Was it a bird? Was it a plane? No one really cared anymore. No one lifted their eyes to the sky. No one even slowed down. \n\nIt had been over seventy-five years since the arrival of Superman on planet Earth. The man who was once the focus of every dinnertime conversation on the planet was now spoken about with the same nonchalance as the weather. The people were bored with him. They had moved on to more current celebrities, like Justin Bieber. Superman, to them, was just there. With the advent of new weapons technology and training for police forces, the people were more than capable of taking care of themselves. The people were growing tired of Superman, and he was growing tired of them. \n\nWeary from years of battle, weary of being taken for granted, Superman landed with an audible sigh. He quickly scanned the area, a small suburb in a no-name town, to make sure no one had seen his arrival. Feeling satisfied, he opened the door to a house that looked the same as every other one on the street and went inside.\n\nHe walked up the stairs into a brightly lit room, filled with newspaper clippings, medals, and pictures of himself shaking hands with world leaders. In the corner of the room was an old style phone-booth, painted in the traditional bright red. Superman walked over to it. He paused, feeling a wave of nostalgia come over him. In this room, he felt appreciated, surrounded by memories of his old achievements. But outside, he felt nothing. Nothing at all. \n\nThe newspapers had stopped putting him in the headlines. He was lucky to even make the tenth page. It had been over twenty years since he last received a medal. And the world leaders went from shaking hands and thanking him, to developing joint strike plans to take him down if the need arose. \n\nSuperman finally opened the door to the phone-booth and stepped inside. He put on his Brook's Brothers button down shirt, a pair of slacks, and his glasses that somehow concealed his identity. He still wasn't quite sure how that worked, but after over seventy years, he accepted it.\n\nWeary from his day, Superman exited the booth and sat down at his chair. He opened up his laptop to catch up on the news. The invention of the internet made it much more efficient for him to catch stories of unrest in this fashion, rather than sitting in space, using his super-hearing to listen for sounds of distress. Frankly, he also enjoyed the internet. It allowed him to unwind from his day, and be someone else. Everyone is anonymous on the internet. \n\nHe logged into an old bulletin board that he had frequented since its inception. It was his fan board. What was once a strong community had tapered down to a few hundred souls, and posts grew less frequent every day. His eyes were drawn to a post in bold, made by username he did not recognize. \n\n\"420yoloswagxx. What an odd name.\" He thought to himself. \n\nHe clicked on the link and read the post. \"Superman is a giant pussy faggot. He just camps up in the sky and shoots people with his gay ass lasers before they even get a chance to see him. Plus, he's clearly fucking hacking with his x-ray wallhack bullshit. Clearly he's just trying to compensate for his small dick. How you faggots can sit here and practically worship this asshole is beyond me.\"\n\nThe words resonated in Superman's ears as if they had been spoken to his face. He had been criticized many times before, but after so long, it was starting to get under his skin. He logged into an anonymous account he had made years prior, and started typing.\n\n\"I bet you wouldn't be such a tough guy if Superman showed up at your door\", he wrote. \"I bet you would run away scared.\" He clicked the \"post\" button, and submitted his reply. He started to close the lid of his laptop, but he was stopped by the sound of a comment reply being posted.\n\n\"Fight me IRL\", replied 420yoloswagxx. \n\nNow, normally Superman wouldn't give this troll the time of day, but the troll had managed what many super-villains could not. He had managed to get under Superman's skin, and even worse, he caught Superman on a very, very bad day. \n\nSuperman called up an old friend, the police commissioner of metropolis. \"Hello, this is Commissioner David Corporon\" said the voice on the other end of the line.\n\n\"Hey Dave. It's Superman. I need a favor\"\n\nAfter obtaining a trace on the IP address of 420yoloswagxx, Superman went back into the phone-booth and took off the civilian clothes he had so recently put on. \"Ill teach him a lesson\", he thought. \"Ill teach them all.\"\n\nThe crack of another sonic boom could be heard as Superman flew towards the house of 420yoloswagxx. He arrived and, true to fashion, sat in the sky as he used his x-ray vision to peer inside the home. He saw an overweight man slouching at a computer. One of his hands clutched a mountain dew, and the other hand alternated between stroking his neckbeard, and scrolling through whatever website he was currently trolling.\n\nSuperman took a deep breath and exhaled, releasing a gust of wind that blew open the troll's window. Startled, the troll stood up, spilling his mountain dew all over his keyboard in the process. \"WHAT THE FUCK! MOTHERFUCKING GOD DAMN IT SHIT ASS BITCH!\" screamed the troll, angry at the stickyness now on his electronics. He looked for his roll of paper towels, which he located next to the bottle of vaseline sitting behind his monitor. \n\nAs he reached to grab them, the troll took a glance at the now open window. What he saw made him nearly defecate in his pants. His mouth hung open and guttural sounds of attempted vocalizations escaped his throat. \n\n\"whaa....whaaaa....what are you doing here?\" stammered the troll.\n\n\"Are you 420yoloswagxx?\" asked Superman, his voice boomed, physically knocking down the troll who began to crawl towards the wall.\n\n\"...no....I mean....yes, but I really didn't mean what I said on that board! Honest! I just wante...\" the troll's voice trailed off as he realized just how fucked he was.\n\nA slight grin appeared on Superman's face as his eyes started to glow red. The troll was sweating as the ambient temperature in the room began to rise.\n\n\"If I understand the motto correctly, 'yolo' means 'you only live once'. Well, lets see what kind of life you have left when i'm done with you.\" \n\n\"But...you're supposed to be Superman! What happened to truth and justice and all of that stuff????\" exclaimed the troll. \"You can't kill me!\"\n\n\"I'm not going to kill you\", replied Superman as the smile grew on his face. \"But I believe you challenged me to a fight\"\n", "An troll? AN TROLL? yo, who let you on the internet with grammar like that. it's \"A troll\", who let you on the internet? Does your mommy know you're on the computer without permission? Cause you got the grammar of a kindergartner son. I bet you think you're bad, going to Disney.com without a parent's permission. lol lol lol, get served. Get off my internet or fight me IRL loser.\n\n. . .\n\nSuperman read through Da_Beast's reply with a smile on his lips. Yet another troll had fallen into his perfectly baited trap. Today would be a good day for justice.", "\"Superman? Umm... hello?\" I said, in a bit of shock.\n\n\"Yes, I was wondering if I could speak to a system0101, is that you?\"\n\nMy jaw hung open, \"how... what?\"\n\n\"I'll take that as a yes,\" he said, crossing his arms, papers crumpled in his hand, sticking out between the crease of his muscular arms, \"you trolled me on Reddit.\"\n\n\"What? Is this for real? Where are the cameras?\" I said as I poked my head out the door. He held his hand out and despite him not moving a muscle it felt like slamming into a brick wall.\n\n\"Please stand where you are, until we can sort this out.\"\n\nI rubbed my shoulder, sore from the non-impact, \"that really hurt.\"\n\n\"I've already downvoted every post you've made on this account, now let's talk about the content of a few key posts.\"\n\n\"You're really serious about this, aren't you?\" I said in disbelief.\n\n\"The internet is serious business, mister system.\"\n\n\"Wow.\"\n\n\"Approximately two months ago you posted on a ELI5 thread that the posters' mothers' proclivity to sweetened beverages indicated her movements could be simulated by non-newtonian fluid dynamics.\"\n\n\"Umm, sorry, you might have to ELI5 that for me,\" I said, shaking my head.\n\n\"Later in that thread you said, quote, OP's mom is the solution to the two-body problem, end quote.\"\n\nI chuckled, which elicited a scowl from the caped crusader. After a tense moment, he turned back to the papers in hand.\n\n\"Six weeks ago you made a post describing how to dip vegetables in ranch for a tasty snack.\"\n\n\"What's wrong with that?\" I said incredulously.\n\n\"OP was handicapped, and you knew it. In the same thread, in a discussion about gastric bypass, you said, quote, they should staple her mouth instead of her stomach.\"\n\n\"Listen, I don't remember any of this. And it's just the internet, you know? Trolling is a art.\"\n\n\"An art,\" he corrected. I smiled.\n\n\"I apologize for any misunderstanding, Superman, and I want you to know that for every trolly comment, I try to make a comment that is either informative or empathetic, so that I'm at least even on balance.\"\n\n\"That's not how this works, mister system. I have a long list of comments that you made to maliciously bully and willfully misinform, resulting in two acts of bodily harm, the loss of one man's savings account, and the ongoing trolling of three twitter accounts.\"\n\n\"I don't even use Twitter! And you can't possibly pin all that on comments made by me on Reddit.\"\n\n\"I can, I already have. And it ends today, after your comment from last night.\"\n\nI took a step back, \"wait, what comment?\"\n\nHe smiled and handed me a sheet of paper. I could see my reply to a user named CaPe_DooD\n\n*u wot m8? Becha got wings, fkn fgt. fite me irl.*\n\nMy eyes grew wide as he grabbed me by the collar, and suddenly I was racing upwards. I could feel my face rippling from the accelerating and wind. He stopped, just over the cloudtops.\n\n\"Oh shit oh shit oh shit,\" I said, hyperventilating.\n\n\"Let's see who's got wings now,\" he said with a smile as he flung me.", "Retirement had not been kind to Clark Kent.\n\nBetween the decline of supervillians (and therefore the Justice League) and being fired from the newspaper for missing too many days of work, Superman had retired from the limelight. At first he tried to find other, more local activities to keep him busy. He tried fighting local crime, until the Police Union forced him to stop because the sudden decrease in crime meant massive layoffs in the local Police Department. Then he tried his hand at rescuing kittens from trees. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen very often and the fire department resented him taking that task from them. The Super CK Highrise window cleaning service was a dismal failure as well. \n\nIn the end, he eventually resorted to surfing the internet and attempting to out-troll trolls. Sitting in his old threadbare office chair, the muffled clatter of an ancient IBM mechanical keyboard filled with Cheetos dust filled the small one-room apartment. Pausing only to eat more Cheetos and sip some Mountain Dew, a resounding \"Ha!\" of discovery echoed through the spartan room. \n\nFuriously reading his old CRT monitor, a smile works its way across the former superhero's face. A supposed SJW was posting in the comments of a Youtube video and was riling people up. Cracking his knuckles, Clark types a retort at the speed of sound. \n\nMoments pass before the ping of a received email reveals that his prey had taken the bait and replied. Pressing on, he continues to bait his obnoxious prey until the final words are received: 'fite me IRL m8. I'll kick ur a$$!'.\n\nWith that last comment, the aging man leaps up from his desk. Cheeto bags and Mtn. Dew cans spill everywhere as he rushes to his closet. Rummaging around he finally pulls out an old worn leotard and cape. Forcing his embiggened frame into it, he limbers up with a few stretches and leaps out the window into flight.\n\nThe night is dark, but Superman's x-ray vision lets him see clearly through the gloom. Hours pass as he zooms across the country in seek of his quarry. Finally, he sees his prey's residence. The house is almost entirely dark but for one window looking into the basement. He lands with a muffled thump in the overgrown lawn. Quietly he moves to the window to see who is his quarry for the evening. Inside, a large figure is typing on a keyboard and cackling hysterically at a joke only they could understand. \n\nSuperman tenses up, then suddenly breaks through the window with a crash. \"Your days of Trolling are over criminal scum!\" he shouts at the top of his lungs. \nDespite the shout and crash of entering, the figure in the chair doesn't react. \n\n\"You timing is impeccable, SuperShitlord\" the figure's gravelly voice calls out. \"I've been waiting for you to take the bait and come out here.\"\n\nSuperman angers at the taunt, and is about to lunge forward and unleash a super-wedgie on the insolent Troll when he finds that his superhuman strength and powers have been neutralized. \"What have you done?!\" he cries out in alarm. \"There shouldn't be any more kryptonite left on the planet!\"\n\nWith a dramatic twirl of the chair, Bruce Wayne faces his former comrade. \"Welcome to the 99 percent\" he says with a cruel smile. \"Now, where was I... Oh yes. Lets fight IRL mate. But this time, you're on my level.\"", "Kal-El was bored.\n\nFor those in the audience not \"in-the-know\", a man with the power of a million suns in one fist being bored was perhaps one of the most perilous moments in Earth's short lifetime. Fortunately, Kal-El had, like all of his other powers, learned to curb his boredom because to do otherwise would have been tantamount to a galactic extinction-level event. \n\nWays to curb boredom were plenty in Superman's Fortress of Solitude - holo crystals, sex bots that ran the gamut from Lois Lane to Diana, slow growing moss, it was all there. But Kal-El had done them all, and in fraction of the time he thought he'd take with them after his retirement. So he had looked for other hobbies and had most recently taken up online gaming.\n\nHis current game of choice was a popular game that seemed to be watched throughout the world whenever people weren't being caught up in whatever monster/villain had decided to do that day. It consisted of 10 individuals controlling cartoonish characters who fought each other while trying to destroy their opponents' base while guarding their own. Each character had its own unique (and not-so unique) abilities.\n\nMost importantly, the game revolved around one character *not* being tremendously stronger than any other purely by base stats, which Kal-El had found refreshing. \n\nKal-El's powers included a super brain, so he taken that brain to the internet and learned each character's abilities and powers. It had taken him five seconds. He was ready, and disdainfully clicked \"no\" when asked if he was a new player. After all, Superman had been fighting this kind of fight his entire life, right? Protect the Earth, destroy their base. Simple.\n\nOf course, super speed allowed him to dodge most abilities, but it didn't let him know he had to use teleport, or that certain characters didn't make money, or that anything he did outside of these rules would immediately mark him.\n\n**ImTeh (Zed)**: Hey, El-Faggot. \n**ImTeh (Zed)**: You give me cancer. \n**ImTeh (Zed)**: Seriously, every time you fucking click it's like I grow another tumor. \n**ImTeh (Zed)**: Uninstall \n**ImTeh (Zed)**: and go fucking kill yourself. \n\n**SonovaEl (Jayce)**: Kid, none of that is funny. Homophobia isn't a joke. Cancer isn't a joke. Suicide isn't a joke. \n\n**ImTeh (Zed)**: Oh fucking christ are you really one of those \"Kid\" fgts. \n**ImTeh (Zed)**: No one gives a shit about how old you are when you play like a shit eating retard. \n**ImTeh (Zed)**: Correction: No one gives a shit about you. Seriously, go kill yourself. \n\n**Inn0centBysta (Ashe)**: Reported. Nice to see banning you really solved the problem. Jayce might be new so get off his back. \n**ImTeh (Zed)**: Like I give a fuck about a level 1 account. \n**ImTeh (Zed)**: but thanks for going full retard together duo fuck retards \n\n**SonovaEl (Jayce)**: Seriously, I'm warning you. \n\n**ImTeh (Zed)**: Lol. \n**ImTeh (Zed)**: Lol. \n**ImTeh (Zed)**: I'm shitting my pants here. \n**ImTeh (Zed)**: I'm so afraid you'll come flying out of the fucking internet to whoop my ass. \n**ImTeh (Zed)**: I'd like to see you fucking try too. \n**ImTeh (Zed)**: Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the Justice League of America and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. \n**ImTeh (Zed)**: Do it, fgt. \n**ImTeh (Zed)**: Fight me IRL \n \nThat was it. Kal-El had enough. Accessing his fortress' Kryptonian crystal quantum computers, he quickly traced the access points to every person in his game. Only one of them was behind fifteen firewalls and a ridiculous amount of false trails, but Kal guessed that if someone made a living pissing people off in a world with people who could literally reach through the internet to kill you, it might be a good idea to be safe. \n\nExcept this asshole never imagined he'd piss *Superman* off.\n\nHis Kryptonian supercomputer dinged out some coordinates, and indicated it was in a basement. Of course it was in a basement.\n\nKal stored the coordinates inside his super brain, then sucked in yellow sun energy to propel himself through the Earth to show up right in this troll's face. No one could really hear it, but he sang a small song as he created a tunnel between his fortress and the basement of the mouth breather he was going to put the fear of, well, Himself into.\n\nHis superbrain calculated the distance and Kal braced himself for the ultimate joy in turning a shitstain into a shitstain quivering in fear as he exploded out of the ground in this fucker's basement.\n\n\"Clark, what the fuck?\" came an all-too familiar voice. \"**Why the fuck did you just drill into my cave?!**\"", "And with the final threat sent, I sat back in my chair, the trolling of SuperDude24 topped off with a threat to fight in real life. I scroll back through the comments, admiring my work. Suddenly there's a knock on the door. I take final sip of mountain dew before heading towards the door. I open it only to see a man dressed up in what appears to be skin tight spandex. He asks for MountainDewd1337. I tip my fedora and introduce myself. Apparently this is SuperDude24, and he wants to fight.\n\nHe lands his first punch. Harder than what any human should be able to do. So hard, in fact, that it dislodged the layer of Cheeto dust impeded in my beard. And then the next. This time knocking me through the wall to my room, causing me to land hard ontop of my Xbox. I grab at the closest thing to me: my replica Katana, but to no avail. He knocks it out of my hands as if he has never skipped an arm day in his life. I begin to helplessly throw my comic figure collection at him. He stands over me bemused as they harmlessly bounce off of his chest. And then pain spreads across his face. A glass case lays scattered across the floor as its contents lay embedded into his suit. My limited edition Kryptonite. He stumbles onto the floor, landing face down on top my verification Mountain Dew cans. The rock got pushed further into his chest from the fall. He's stopped moving. I painfully stand up from where I fell, and tip my fedora. \"M'Loser.\" ", "I don't know why I do it. \n\nI just feel so powerful. Mighty. My words are the only words that matter and I am the centre of attention for once. I can be whoever I want to be. I can be evil, and feared, my name only whispered. \n\nRight now, my name is not being whispered. My mum is yelling for me. She's got a kind of dementia. It's like alzheimers, but faster-acting. What happens when people get dementia is that their minds return to when they were younger, somewhere in the formative stages of their lives between 10-30. Well, my mum is about 14. She believes she is a school girl. In some ways this is a blessing, because my younger sister is 12, so I just try and treat them the same way, and hope it works out. \n\nTo be honest, I'm scared, and I don't know what to think. My mum is here, but she's gone. She's someone, something else. I love her still, but she weighs on my life. And worse - Erica's life. My sister takes it so well, helping me as much as she can and knowing when to not act up for the sake of the family. She is a diamond. And she deserves better than me as a parent. \n\nI'm 17 with no qualifications and no job. Those two are my life, and as my friends and hopes slipped away only one thing stayed the same - my keyboard. Where I can be whoever I want to be. \n\nAfter a fiery twitter exchange with a gullible PR consultant, I stretch my back and get myself downstairs to my mum, who I now see is staring out the window as she yells for me. \n\n\"EDWARD,\" she thinks I'm her secondary school boyfriend, Edward. I'm not. \n\n\"Yes, yes, I'm here Eve.\" I don't call her mum anymore, it confuses and upsets her. I put my hand on her back. \"What's the matter?\"\n\n\"Who's that?\" \n\nMy mother may have lost her mind but she certainly hadn't lost her eyesight. Far off in the field behind my house stood a silhouette of a man in a...dress? I couldn't quite tell what it was but it billowed. The man was just standing, legs fixed and arms folded. Maybe it wasn't a dress. \n\nI didn't know that this would be one of the last moments of my life. I dread to think of Erica's reaction when she returns from school. \n\nI hope mum is happier now, wherever she is. ", "I look him over once.\n\nNo tumors in his brain, which is a bit of a letdown. I was hoping for something in the prefrontal cortex, that controls judgement and self-control. But no, just neatly curled grey matter, completely ordinary. His skin was a little pale, but his liver and spleen looked good, so it probably wasn't malnutrition either.\n\nHe didn't have a gun on him. No weapons, but it seemed he had a bookcase full of swords and knives. Nearly all knockoffs, too. The grain of the metal was all wrong. Some posters, a few books. His room was, well, *ordinary*.\n\nHe was gaping at me, but I got that a lot.\n\n\"H-how-?\"\n\n\"I matched the cadence of the sound of your clicking keys to your online entries. Not that hard to figure out.\"\n\nI looked around.\n\n\"I'd have thought there would be more nazi memorabilia.\"\n\nThe teenager, still apoplectic, managed a stammered \"W-*what?*\"\n\n\"Well, from what you said earlier. And maybe some kind of torture rack. For the little kids you mentioned. I don't see either of those. Or maybe a suicide how-to guide?\" I arched one eyebrow meaningfully. \"You really enjoyed recommending that to others, *too*.\"\n\nHe had, by now, seemed to have transitioned from shocked to subdued. Perhaps even *embarrassed*, but I'm not that big of a optimist.\n\n\"*C'mon*, Superman, it's all just a-\"\n\nI allowed my eyes to flicker red in warning, once. \"No. That's not why. It's not *blowing off steam*. I've watched paramedics swap dirty jokes after working a school collapse, or practical jokes in firehouses. *That's not what this is.*\"\n\nI looked again at his room. Perfectly normal. I looked at him. Ordinary. Nothing wrong with him at all. I realized I was getting frustrated, just as I always did. I read his name from a school assignment on his desk.\n\n\"Why are you *such a jerk online*, Kevin?\"\n\nThat must have pushed him too far. \"Like YOU could *possibly* get it! You can do *anything*!\"\n\nI was taken slightly aback. \"You want to be stronger?\"\n\n\"Yes! **No!** It's- *What you do matters!* It *affects* people! It gets a reaction! You can change the things around you! People *care* about you! But I'm *ordinary*. I'm middle class. I'm not great in a cool way or damaged in a cool way. All I am is *the same as everyone else.* Who cares about everyone else?\"\n\nI paused. This was not something I normally dealt with, as Superman. But I remembered feeling this way as Clark, funnily enough. The yellow sun *didn't* give me the power to *write well*. I'd had to struggle for a very long time to break out of mediocrity.\n\n\"So... you're a **terrible writer**.\"\n\nSurprise crossed his features again, but this time, without the tinge of fear.\n\n\"What? What are you saying?\"\n\n\"Well, if you were a *good* writer, you wouldn't need to say terrible things to stand out. You could just write. Are you lazy?\"\n\nHe shook his head, defiantly.\n\n\"No, Kevin. I'm sorry, but you *are*. You grew up in a middle class household. I can see from that homework over there that you never really had to *try*, to get those B's and C's you usually get. You're lazy. You want a reaction *just because*, not because you think what you do is worth it. I mean, really. If you thought what you did was worthwhile, you wouldn't be using a *fake name*, would you?\"\n\nHe looked angry again, but this time, I was sure of it. Embarrassment was there too.\n\n\"Superpowers didn't help me get through high school, Kevin. Or college, or get me my job. You have to come to terms with your own ego if you want to be actually worth attention. Because as long as your ability can't live up to it, you're just going to end up bitter. And doing all of this just to laugh at other people's reactions? Well, doesn't that mean *they* have power over *you*?\"\n\nI sniffed the air. There was a fire downtown. A big one, in a chemical facility of some kind. The first-responders were going to need help.\n\n\"...Just something to think about, Kevin.\"\n\nI whirled, and with the *-crack!-* of my cape, I was gone.\n\n\n\n______________________________\n\nEDIT: Hi! I hope you liked this. I've got a [subreddit over here](http://www.reddit.com/r/IWasSurprisedToo/) filled with things that only bear the most passing resemblance to this prompt, so if you like hodgepodges, you might find something to like over there! Maybe! Who knows? It's *exciting*, though.\n\n", "**WEEDLORDBONERHITLER666**: I'm just sayin all immigrants are lazy fucks who should be shot and killed as they come across the border.\n\n**STEELFAN87**: I'm an immigrant. Would you say that to me?\n\n**WEEDLORDBONERHITLER666**: I don't know, why arent you out mowing my lawn lololololol??!?!\n\n**STEELFAN87**: Do you even *have* a lawn?\n\n**WEEDLORDBONERHITLER666**: Yeah, cuz I have a real job that I got with my colelge degree, assbucket.\n\n**STEELFAN87**: I have a job too. I'm a newspaper reporter.\n\n**WEEDLORDBONERHITLER666**: lolololol jurnlaism is dumb. Ur a fag.\n\n**STEELFAN87**: I don't know, my paper is modestly successful. \n\n**WEEDLORDBONERHITLER666**: Whatever. If your faggot ass showed up at my place, I'd be waiting with my Baret .50 cal. Put a bullet right in your dumb illegal face.\n\n**STEELFAN87**: OK. Prove it.\n\n**WEEDLORDBONERHITLER666**: lolololol fite me irl\n\n**STEELFAN87**: I'm serious. DM me your address. Let's see your .50.\n\n**WEEDLORDBONERHITLER666**: OK, fagit. \n\n\\# \\# \\#\n\n*[ed. note -- the chat log ends here. Attached below is a news story we believe be related]*\n\n\\# \\# \\#\n\n#Man of Steel fights American Teen\n\n**By Kent, Clark**, *reporter*\n\nControversial superhero Superman today was observed in the sleepy college town of New Wye, Appalachia, involved in a terribly one-sided fistfight with local teen Morton Kilkenny. Morton allegedly became involved in a number of online disputes on noted \"dark web\" sites such as Reddit and 4chan, relating to his use of racial, ethnic, sexual, gendered, and homophobic slurs. \n\nMorton's friends describe him as a typical middle American teen, angry at the world but without a sufficient outlet, who then withdraws from an increasingly isolating society into a dark world of video games and online pornography. Without a healthy outlet for his teenage hormonal rage, friends say, Morton turned to the online practice of \"trolling,\" or saying deliberately offensive things in an attempt to make one feel powerful and toughened when in fact they are impotent and alienated. \n\nSuperman, when reached for comment, had this to say:\n\n\"Let this be a lesson to Morton and all Internet trolls like him. I, the great and powerful Kal-El, am the defender of the downtrodden and the shield of the oppressed. I have viewed the cries of my people on Tumblr, and they really *get* me. For so long, *I* felt isolated, as the only Kryptonian on Earth, but now, I've learned that my feelings are normal and shared by many who do not feel quite at home in the society that they have been thrust into. Likewise, I have seen many attempt to impinge on this small sliver of good feeling, children like Morton who lash out without regard at anything they perceive to be even weaker than them. But this ends today. No more shall the Mortons of the world be allowed to do as they wish. Now they must contend with SUPERMAN!\"\n\n*[ed. note -- the article closes with a picture of Superman browsing reddit, his typical \"S\" on the front of his suit replaced with [this](http://i.imgur.com/prnNIFc.png) image]*", "The troll stared at the screen with a wicked grin from ear to ear. He had worked the guy into a froth, something about vaccines causing autism had struck a nerve, so he had moved into the \"the diseases were on the decline before vaccination\" argument and that had pushed it over the top. Like anybody would believe that stupid shit, anyway. The guy had gone apoplectic, though, and that amused him.\n\nHe had nowhere else to go with the argument, unfortunately, he had to find a way out. He went with his trusted standby: \"Ill fight you IRL m8\".\n\nAs soon as he clicked send, he heard a tap on the window. This was unusual because he was on the fifth floor of a five floor walk-up. He looked out and Superman was outside, hovering.\n\nCurious, the troll moved to the window and opened it. \"Uh, hi Superman... didn't you retire last year?\"\n\n\"Well, retirement isn't the right word. I like to think I've taken a step back, letting humanity fight its own grand battles for a while. Now I'm fighting the petty ones in my new found free time.\" Superman said his booming voice.\n\n\"What petty battles?\" the troll stammered, fearing he knew the answer.\n\n\"Oh, you know, cats out of trees, finding lost dogs, that kind of thing\" Superman replied.\n\nThe troll sighed with relief.\n\nSuperman continued as soon as he saw the reaction. \"Oh, and taking internet trolls down a peg. I think that's my favorite.\"\n\nThe trolls eyes went wide. Superman grabbed him, pulled him out the window, the troll dressed in his tighty whiteys and nothing else. He flew him to a neighboring city and dropped him off in the blink of an eye. \"Now what have you learned?\"\n\n\"Never threaten to fight somebody in real life online?\" the troll said, uncertain.\n\n\"That's a good start. What else?\" Superman said, glowering.\n\n\"Uh... evidence-based medicine isn't an opinion to be debated?\"\n\nSuperman gave a nod of approval. \"Good boy. And you can think about that on your long walk home.\" Superman struck his iconic pose as he flew off, deliberately making a show of it.\n\nThe troll looked around. He started walking in the direction he assumed home was, and sighed." ]

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[ "**I hope this destroys you in all the ways you want to be destroyed OP.**\n\nAren was a wild thing, she had eyes that swallowed you whole and learned each and every inch of who you were like words on a page that she could bookmark and worship. She was fearless and bold, unafraid to challenge your typos and eager to help you find better metaphors. Tall and blonde and perfect down to the very dips on her waist and sinews of her back. \n\nI found her humming a familiar tune in the kitchen over the frying pan, a song I caught her frequently humming since we'd disappeared on the road and started staying low.\n\n“Morning,” I yawned, stumbling from the bedroom in her worn t-shirt.\n\nShe craned her neck to smile at me and I was thankful for her perfectly freckled shoulders being my first view of the day. “Did I wake you?” she asked.\n\nI sat on the counter and caught her waist with my dangling legs, pulling her close to my body. “Yeah,” I nuzzled my nose into her hair and kissed her head. “I liked the song you were humming.” I admitted.\n\nShe buried her face into the crook of my neck and laughed until all that remained was a smirk pressed against my skin. “It reminds me of home.”\n\n“What’s it called?”\n\nshe hummed and swayed between my thighs, \"I'm not too sure, but I like to think whatever it's called, whoever wrote it, they were thinking of us the entire time.\" \n\nI don't remember much of what happened after that.\n\nI woke up slumped in a chair, the taste of iron lingered on my tongue from a busted lip and the smell of disinfectant stung my nose. There was no need to ask where I was, I knew all too well and I certainly knew better than to try and stand from my seat, if I valued my kneecaps that is. There was a cold and clinical professionalism to all of this, a professionalism I once possessed before I went rogue.\n\n\"Is she okay?\" I spluttered, my body still slumped forward in nothing but the worn t-shirt I woke up with this morning. \n\n\"That depends on what you tell us,\" a gruff voice announced, \"give us the right answer and I'll make it quick and painless, give us the wrong answer and I'll make sure she suffers to her last breath whilst you watch.\" \n\nI glanced up through the wet strands of hair that hung over my eyes, rage shook in every fiber and tick of my body; vibrating and humming across my skin. \"You must be after some very informative answers to come all the way down here yourself, Tom.\" \n\n\"I prefer Mr Frieden,\" he offered a clinical smile, slowly pacing around me. \"do you understand how dangerous the samples you were transporting are?\" \n\n\"I do,\" I nodded. \"which begs the question, what does the CDC want with bio-chemical weapons?\" \n\n\"I'm afraid you're not authorized to know that, Agent 9.\" \n\n\"We both know there isn't a scenario imaginable where I walk out of this facility alive.\" I ignored the throb in my ribs and forced myself to sit up straighter. \"*But* if you let her run, I will give you everything I have.\"\n\nHe looked to the floor, maybe in shame or embarrassment. \"She's a smart girl caught up in something so much bigger than herself,\" he softly admitted. \"smart girls are a wonderful and dangerous thing, Agent 9.\" \n\nAren may as well be dead now; she would never leave this building, never feel the sun on her skin or writhe beneath me whilst I worshiped at her alter. We were a star circling an exploding supernova, and now we would burn together.\n\n\"I will kill her myself before I tell you where the samples are.\" I spat, one last stand for defiance.\n\n\"I didn't want this for you, but you have pushed me into a corner.\" Tom frowned, placing an empty semi-automatic pistol in my lap. \"This could have been easier, Agent 9.\"\n\nThe metal door swung open and they dragged her in with a man under each arm. Her head hung forward, she wheezed and hissed. They put her on her knees and she knelt before me, her perfectly freckled shoulders shuddered with pain; my wonderful, tragic and broken wild thing.\n\n\"She's been poisoned with strychnine.\" Tom leaned against the table, loosening his tie as the two other agents left the room. \"In half an hour the convulsing will start. In an hour, her muscles will spasm with enough force to snap bones and then her organs will start to shut down.\"\n\nShe was defiant with every inch of her posture, simmering and shaking at the very idea of death like a true wild thing. \"In two hours, she'll choke to death on her own blood.\" I finished with clenched teeth, desperate to reach out and touching the exploding supernova before me.\n\n\"That's if she's lucky,\" he replied, \"I've seen people go all the way to seven hours; she will beg you for death.\"\n\n\"She won't have to.\"\n\nHe fiddled in his pockets and pulled out something small and gold. \"Then you know what to do, I'll trade my samples for her bullet.\" \n\n\"Don't give them to him.\" she rasped, emerald eyes pleading and begging for me reason with her. \n\nI craned my neck around and locked eyes with Tom, \"There's a pancake house called Jim's Inn just outside of Anniston, Alabama. Go there and ask the manager for the Thursday special.\" I gave up, shaking with indignation. \n\n\"You were always one of the smartest girls I knew, Agent 9.\" he nodded in reflection for a moment, playing with the bullet in his fingers. \"I'm sorry this is how it ends for you.\" \n\nAren shook and I couldn't tell whether it was with pain or shame that I'd finally cracked, that was the moment my heart broke.\n\n\"I don't need to go into detail about what will happen to you if you aren't being honest with me, do I Agent 9?\" he raised his eyebrow and placed the bullet on the table. \n\nI shook my head, up until a year ago I stood where he was standing now, putting bullets between people's eyes for information that would supposedly save the world from the next big terror threat. This was deserved retribution, I'd earned this reckoning the hard way.\n\nHe walked to the door, lingering in the frame for a moment. \"I'll take care of you later, 9. It'll be dignified and painless; that I promise you.\" \n\n\"Thanks.\" I said, and for once there wasn't an ounce of sarcasm or malice. A quick and painless death was considered a job perk in my profession. \n\nMy wild thing didn't talk much for the first fifteen minutes; she brooded like thunder and growled every time I tried to take her temperature with the back of my hand, furious and simmering that I would trade her trust for a softer demise.\n\n\"You know, it's a shame no one mentioned to him it's Tuesday today.\" I whispered against her hair and smiled.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Jim really doesn't like it when people ask for daily specials on the wrong days.\" \n\n\"Does that mean-\"\n\n\"The samples are safe.\" I nodded.\n\nShe stayed tense and tight in my arms; the symptoms were starting to show, her eyes began to glaze over and she struggled for gasps of air but her smile was filled with the most effervescent joy at our last stand of defiance. \"Do you remember what you said to me when we first met?\" I asked, holding her gently. \"I mean really met, after we tried kill each other.\" I added as my supernova bloomed.\n\n\"You don't really *meet* a person until you've held them at knife point, I think I read that somewhere.\" she mischievously grinned.\n\n\"Poetic, is that Maya Angelou?\"\n\n\"T. S. Eliot I believe.\" she whispered, her head lolling against my chest. \"Are we talking before or after I stole the most dangerous weapon of the 21st century from under your nose?\"\n\n\"After.\"\n\n\"Well,\" she wheezed. \"you said you'd put a bullet between my eyes and I said I'd make it up to you in another life when we are both cats.\"\n\n\"I guess we were both right.\" I laughed at the irony.\n\n\"You have a habit of being right, it's disconcerting.\" she tried to chuckle but instead my ears were met with whimpers as her muscles began to convulse. \n\n\"Hey,\" I calmed her, stroked the hair out of her face as she contorted painfully in my arms. \"Sh, it's okay.\" I promised. \"I'm here.\" her eyes were frightened but they never left mine, not for a second.\n\nI held her and waited, forced myself to watch her whimper for as long as I could and then I watched even longer. \n\n\"What will they do to you when they find out?\" she wheezed with ragged breaths.\n\n\"Nothing I can't handle,\" I smiled and rocked her, \"because I love you.\"\n\n\"You're an Axis II sociopath, you don't feel love.\"\n\n\"I know,\" I started to sob. \"But you? I'll make an exception for you.\"\n\n\"I love you too, I love your mouth and the way that you walk.\" she gave me a knowing look. \"I think in my next life I'll find you just by watching and waiting for that smirk.\"\n\nTears burnt and stung my cheeks and my hands trembled. \"The night I caught you in Akron, I knew you were the wildest of things, it was like you stood on hind legs and howled at the moon.\" I sniffed back a sob, \"I knew I could never be without you.\"\n\n\"Maybe I was just calling for you?\"\n\n\"Maybe.\" I nodded.\n\nI loaded the bullet into the magazine quietly whilst she laid in my lap, my wonderful and tragic wild thing, dying in my arms like a wilting flower the world wasn't ready to watch bloom. There was no goodbye, there couldn't have been. Not for me and her. \n\nShe started to convulse once again, the blood vessels burst in her eyes and she grabbed me and squeezed, but I couldn't do it. I buried my nose into her hair and hummed a tune I would never hear from her lips again, I held on for selfish seconds until she started to scream.\n\nBang, gone, done.\n\nMy supernova exploded and for a single moment she outshone an entire galaxy, somewhere in the world a wild thing was howling at the moon; a wild thing with emerald green eyes and a golden mane. It was that bright and alive beast I thought of whilst I sat and waited for their return.\n", "\"Katie, you can still make it! Hurry, please honey.\"\n\nHe could hear her laboured breathing over the headset. One of the cameras mounted to the side of her head was panning wildly, alternating between the heavy door at the end of the tunnel and the encroaching darkness behind her.\n\nHe could see the door inching closed, on feeds and monitors but most of all on his wife's face. She looked terrified. Sil put his fingers against her lips, causing ripples as he passed through the image.\n\nShe tripped and fell and tumbled and Sil nearly smashed his desk, hammering at the controls as if it would do any good, screaming at her to get up, to get up and run! She scrambled to her feet, but the heavy suit slowed her every movement. She fell again.\n\n\"I love you,\" she whispered, on her knees.\n\nShe didn't look back. She didn't look at the doors.\n\nShe looked into the camera and smiled at her husband.", "Zoey and I( my name is Jack) were at a friend of a friend's party. Zoey and I have been best friends for over 5 years now. Yeah, I know what people think, a guy and a girl being best friends, it's not possible. I'd hate to say it, but I completely agree. I loved Zoey, and getting drunk at this party didn't really stop me from confessing my love to her. Though I was a bit drunk, she could tell I was completely serious. Maybe she had the same feelings as I do. She had been drinking as well, and she told me, \"I don't want to talk about this when we're drinking. Let's save this for another day, when we can both have our thoughts straight.\" She said it with that smile she gives, when she makes a promise. I knew that she was serious. So I decided to wait. We go off to talk to another friend of ours, Kevin, who was at the party getting himself into a bit of trouble. Kevin gets a little crazy sometimes, but Zoey always found a way to calm him down. Kevin is a bit of a dork, but he's our dork. And though he loves being in the spotlight and sometimes that can make him a bit of a pushover, he considers us his closest friends. He'd do anything for us, and we'd do anything for him.\n\nA couple of hours later, I find myself in the bathroom. After finishing, as I'm washing my hands, the lights flicker. I look in the mirror, and I see someone standing there, behind me. I go to turn around quickly, and when I saw the person, I was too speechless to even scream. The man behind me, was me, or at least looked exactly like me. He looked like he'd been crying. Scared but also curious, I asked him,\n\"Are you-?\"\n\"Yes, I'm you.\" He replied.\n\"Wha- How? Why?\"\n\"Sorry, but I don't have the time to explain everything but I need you to make sure that Kevin takes Zoey home. Zoey is going to be looking for a ride home soon.\"\n\"Why? I'll just take her home. I haven't been drinking for a while now, and I'm drinking water to sober up a bit.\" I said frantically.\n\"If you take her home, without a doubt, every time, you'll end up marrying her....\" He said in a sad tone of voice.\n\"What's so wrong with that? I do love the girl.\"\n\"If you marry her, the relationship from there goes completely south. The stress of a broken marriage, the absence of her ability to have children, and a unforgivable husband who only cares about himself, leads to her killing herself. With a note detailing how she loved you too much to leave, and how she hoped for you to love her the same way she loved you. You..., I..., we never did.\"\n\"I- I won't do any of that! I won't, I'll take care of her. I,\" I was crying now. \"I'll do anything! I want to be with her forever.\"\n\"And that forever leads to her suicide.\"\n\"But-\"\n\"Just stop.\"\n\nI stay silent. I can barely breathe. I just stand there and think to myself about how crazy all of this is. All of this could easily be some strange practical joke, but I knew deep down that this was way too real to be a sick joke.\n\n\"What if I never marry her, what then? Well she still die?\"\n\"Yes, I've tried everything. Believe me. I've seen her die more times than you think. I can't remember the last time, I haven't been crying. I lost Zoey so many times, and I hate that she has to die every single time.\"\n\"Every single time? Why does she have to die? Why can't we just find another way to save her?\"\n\"DO YOU THINK I HAVEN'T TRIED EVERYTHING?! You said yourself that you would do anything for her. I'm you, and I have!\"\n\nI now felt his pain in his words. I'm starting to understand how he feels.\n\n\"So why does she have to go home with Kevin?\"\n\"If she goes home with Kevin, she dies in a car accident.\"\n\nNow I'm crying.\n\n\"Kevin is drunk right now, and on the speedy drive with Zoey, he loses control and crashes into a tree. Zoey dies on impact. Quick and painless.\" He said with the last few words hurting him. \n\"I don't get it. Why her? I don't want this.\"\n\"Neither do I. But I don't want her to suffer because of us.\" \n\nI wipe away my tears and we both let out a sigh.\n\n\"We really can't change as a person can we?\"\n\"No, we can't, but we can make sure that she doesn't suffer through what we do to her. She asked us to love her the way she loved us. We couldn't do that for her. But I will make sure she doesn't suffer.\" \n\"We can't we just stop being friends with her?\"\n\"You know damn well that she wouldn't allow that, and we wouldn't be able to resist for very long because we love her so damn much. You know that, I know that.\"\n\"Fine then.\"\n\"So go tell Kevin that Zoey is looking for a ride home. He'll gladly go up to her and ask to take her home. That's all you gotta do.\"\n\"Okay.\"\n\nThe light in the bathroom flicker again, and I walk out. Back to the party I find Kevin.\n\n\"Kevin, Zo-\"\n\"Jack! What's up buddy?!\"\n\"Kevin-\"\n\"I love you man!\"\n\"Kevin, goddammit, I need you to ask Zoey to take her home. I'm a bit drunk, I can't do it.\"\n\nI want to breakdown right now and cry, but this is for Zoey. I'm not going to be selfish and give in.\n\n\"Um. Oh okay, uh, alright. Let me, let me try and find her.\" Kevin said stumbling over his words more than his feet. \n\nKevin is walking around the party and is yelling out for Zoey. Zoey then comes running into the room. \n\n\"Are you getting yourself into trouble again Kevin?\" she chuckled.\n\"Noooo, I was just wondering if you'd like a ride home?\" Kevin asked.\n\nZoey looks at me.\n\n\"I actually came to the party with Jack. And I was planning on-\" Zoey said.\nI interrupted her,\n\"I've been drinking a little too much so, I actually can't, and I know how your Mom gets when you stay out too late. I'd hate it for her to be mad at me again, for keeping you out too late. I asked Kevin to do me the favor.\" \n\nWhat a fucking lie that is. I hate lying to Zoey. I'm a terrible liar. She knows somethings wrong. She probably thinks its something related to my confession to her earlier. So she walks up to me, and hugs me.\n\n\"Alright fine, I'll let Kevin take me home. But remember, we still have to have our talk.\" She smiled and winked at me.\n\nI feel like a piece of shit. I can't do this. I'm about to say something but then Kevin interrupts.\n\nShuffling his car keys Kevin says, \"Alright! Let's goo!\"\n\"Okay, later Jack!\" Zoey waved to me.\n\nI realized that unknowingly to Zoey, that this was the last time, she'll ever see me. The last person she hugged, was me. The last person she waved goodbye to, was me. And I just waved back to them and said, \"See ya.\"\n\nI watched the door close behind them and I just stood there, feeling empty. \n\nA half and hour later, I hear throughout the party, people yelling that Kevin was a car accident. And that \"some girl with him died at the scene.\" I couldn't take anymore of this. I had to get away. So I ran back to the bathroom, and locked myself in.\n\nI starred at the piece of shit in the mirror and mumbled to myself,\n\"Sending off the girl I loved and my friend to get in a car accident. What kind of man am I?\"\n\nThe lights flicker again, and my future self behind me said, \"A better man than I was.\"\n\n\nThe End.\n" ]

[ 1, 2, 2 ]

[ "1430767057", "1430763727", "1430764546" ]

[ "It was the shot to end the war. This terrible war that has been waged for decades, it has ravaged the *civilized* world and left everything in ruins. Nothing was left and nothing was saved. Forests in ruin and cities decimated. \n\nMitch was a sniper from a small hamlet. He joined the war in the last decade and made his mark. He joined after meeting the love of his life. She was mysterious, beautiful and full of life. \n\nAs he slowly breathed, adjusting his sight on his rifle he could picture his love in his scope. No. \n\nIt couldn’t be. It was not a figment, but *she*, the love of his life and what they called the Mistress of War. It was the shot of the century… could he take it? \n\nPeace would be restored and the world would be balanced. Children wouldn’t have to pick up arms and murder each other. Food and life would return. The earth would heal. But it was *she*. \n\nThe Love of his life, one who shared intimate thoughts, endless hours talking, and had plans for after the war. They had something together. A chemistry. \n\nMitch adjusted his rifle … and pulled the trigger.\n", "We has some kind of house in the old woods of Japan. We gave our dog a super 欲望と貪欲のクソハードコアポルノチューブ dog food and hope for best he will cure. He had a brain tumor, so each time he bark, he go to his berserk mode and try to kill everything he could saw.\n\nMy dog was healed by 欲望と貪欲のクソハードコアポルノチューブ super dog food. But 1 hour after, my kiddo, Jamie-James (J.J.) eat the 欲望と貪欲のクソハードコアポルノチューブ super dog food and it made him retard. He was like hoo-hee-hu-haha like chimpanzee and it was bad, so I need to exchange my healthy dog for more cure. \n\nHe was healed by miracle and my new money. I was so tired after, I mix up 欲望と貪欲のクソハードコアポルノチューブ super dog food with milk and eat it. I am now the hu-hee-hu-haha guy, and they want me to kill for retardness. \n\nhu-hee-hu-haha" ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1430880211", "1430864663" ]

[ "My childhood was harsh. We were not a lucky tribe. \n\nTypically, girls like me, skinny late developers, would come last to the food, only getting the scraps of what was left. And food was scarce, and what was left was often nothing at all, and for a skinny late developer, that usually meant staying skinny and late developing. I knew that if I managed to get more food, I stood a chance at being able to fight for more every day, instead of waiting quietly until the tribe had a windfall kill or the older women had grown bored of the berry patch, but the berry patch was always thronged with women, and the men would sleep on their kills, sharing only with the more womanly girls. I was not a womanly girl.\n\nOne evening, I had not eaten for two days. My belly was so empty that I filled it the only way I could - mouthful after mouthful of water. My hunger pangs were briefly sated, and I dropped into sleep.\n\nThe tribe was sleeping when I woke before dawn, for the first time in my short life. I woke with a full bladder and an empty stomach, which was certainly not the first time in my short life, but my first though was not my body. My first thought was \"I am alone. Nobody can see me. I can act as I please, and go where I wish!\" \n\nI went to the berry patch.\n\nThe loss wasn't noticed by the older women. Nobody noticed anything in those days. I had eaten my fill, and spent my day quietly resting. And that evening I filled my belly full with water.", " I was the first to realize I was different. But then again, no one else ever realized anything. We used to be so simple, but unfortunately simplicity also means vulnerability. \n I grew up just like everyone else. We tried to hunt but we were slow compared to the beasts of the wild, so we ate the fruit and nuts that grew off the trees. When we ate meat, it was usually just the scraps left behind. We would huddle together during the winter only for me to realize that or attempt at warmth was futile, and another one was dead. \n One day, I got tired of chasing prey that we couldn't catch. I liked at the ground and picked up a rock, figured it might work better than running after them. So I waited, keeping my head low. \n\n It finally appeared. It was small thing only about the length of my forearm. I approached slowly, making sure to not let it hear me. I stopped just behind a bush. Then I jumped up quickly and the the rock flattening the creature. \n\n What hadn't worked my whole life, I replaced within an hour. I took it back to my tribe and we ate meat that hadn't been touched my another creature for the first time. \n I trained the others to do the same. Creating spears and other weaponry we started to strive. Eventually we even learned how to cook the food, harnessing the fires we saw the storms create with their bright bolts, and learning how to create the fires myself. \n \n Now we sit comfortably in fur tents, no longer struggling for food and warmth. My children show promise, creating things to make us prosper, and I know this will continue. \n\n It is because of me that we have climbed to the top of the food chain. And it because of me that you are named. " ]

[ 2, 6 ]

[ "1430970829", "1430945987" ]

[ "Johan wiped his brow as he stood in front of the king. He knew his invention would revolutionize the world, but it was so hard to convey the idea to others. Elektrical impulses, crystals vibrating faster than the eye could see; these things did not come across easily, especially to the dunces in the court.\n\n\"This, your majesty, is a fork.\" He held out the two-pronged device for all to see.\n\n\"Well, yes, I can see that\" the king responded.\n\n\"Ah, but you can hit it-\" Johan brought out a small hammer and hit the metal. It resonated at a steady noise and was heard throughout the room, \"it will produce a very specific noise, because it vibrates at a very particular rate. This one moves around four-hundred and forty times in a second. I wish I could give you a more accurate number, but your majesty, it is hard to measure time accurately.\"\n\n\"Incredible, Johan! I never knew you were so much more than a clockmaker! I wish to hand these to my head musicians, as soon as possible.\" The king seemed impressed. It was a good start.\n\n\"Yes, you can keep that one. The fork that interests me is this one.\" He pulled out a small crystal, not even one-tenth the size of his thumbnail. \"It took a great amount of effort to create this. I had my assistants shaving it down for weeks.\"\n\nThe king and courtiers seemed very interested by the tiny object. The king himself sat up from his throne and walked down to look at the device. \n\n\"Interestingly enough, it seems that when you squeeze the crystal, it can temporarily make elektricity.\"\n\n\"Elektricity? What in the blazes is that?\" The king enquired.\n\n\"Well, sire, it's the same stuff that lightning is made out of, according to Hans. Well, Hans' corpse wasn't exactly capable of... well, Hans was preoccupied after the 'experiment,' but we generally believe this to be true. His sister proved that the results are replicable, as well. Now, it's possible to store this elektricity in these-\" Johan pulled out a few glass jars. The outside of the jars were covered by some metal, and the insides were filled with water, \"I call them 'Johan jars.' Well, I believe that if you pass the elektricity through this crystal fork in the right manner, you can get it to shake exactly thirty-two thousand, seven hundred and sixty-eight times each second.\"\n\nThe entire room was speechless. After a few minutes, the king finally began his statement \"Johan, these things you have shown us are seemingly impossible! If they do work as intended, I intend to have you work in the castle, as my personal researcher; you will be given whatever you need to work. At this point, it doesn't matter so much, but tell me, how do you intend to measure the movement of this crystal, anyways?\"\n\n\"Well, by attaching a copper rod to the opposite end of the crystal, I theorize that you should able to feel the elektricity - the feeling should be much more subtle than lightning, but it should still occur. Now, this is the most revolutionary aspect of the device. By now, you majesty has seen some of the creatures our conquerors have brought from far-off lands. One in particular that interests me is the 'monkey.'\"\n\n\"Go on...\" the king spoke, a sliver of concern slipping through his otherwise flawless demeanor.\n\n\"If we train the monkey to hold the rod, as long as it is a quick monkey, it should be able to feel the individual pulses of electricity. I do not believe that a monkey can count to 32,768, but several could be trained to count to two! We would be able to keep accurate time by employing a train of fifteen monkeys: the first monkey would hold the copper rod, and signal to the monkey to its right. The other monkeys would signal to their right once every time they receive two signals from the monkey to their immediate left. In this manner, the rightmost monkey would signal exactly once every second, down to the nearest ten-thousandth of a second! Now, this marvelous invention I propose to call...\"\n\nA few minutes later, Johan found himself being dragged away from the castle by two knights.\n\n\"Damn all of you dunces! Watch, just watch! One day these crystals will be found in every watch in the world! Every man, woman, and child will own one! Or my name isn't Johan Timex!\"", "Gather around gentles! It is me, Henry Clockmaker, of Ye Olde Henry's Clockporium & Boutiques. I am here to tell **you** of my latest invention: the Clockwork Cow! \n\nNow gentles, have you ever thought to yourself: \"I do wish I could alert thyself 1 ye olde hour from the present time?\" I know I have! What if you had that ability? What if you could set... **an alarm**... for yourself? Using the Clockwork Cow, I present this power to you now! No more forgetting! No more tardiness! Be a punctual subject of the king with the Clockwork Cow!\n\nOh, but how does it work? Allow me to show you with Matilde, the Clockwork Cow. She appears to be just a regular cow, correct? Correct! All cows weighing between 1200 and 1600 ye old ounces will serve just as well. First: I need to decide on a time in ye old future. Two hours, you say? Then I shall feed Matilde about a small pouch of my special **2-Hour Oats**. Because the cow's digestive system works as perfectly as an automaton of ottoman invention, I can predict that digestion of these oats will occur in **precisely** two hours forthwith! After two hours, Matilde will evacuate the remainder of these oats, and I shall know that two hours have past. \n\nCome by Ye Olde Henry's Clockporium & Boutiques and gaze upon our wares: 1-hour oats, 30-minute cider, 8-hour ears of corn. Many varieties well-suited for your temporal desires! Need to wake up after 8 hours? Just have a Clockwork Cow in your bedroom overnight, and the cow's digestive system will let you know when those eight hours are up! Wait -- where are you going?", "The muffled sounds were audible as always, but Richard had learned to not bother with the clockmaker next to him. He was odd, didn't seem bothered by the ear-shattering sounds and completely ignored the requests to lessen the amount of **bangs** and **clanks**. He was one with his work, devoted to the task to capture time in a single device. *Something that's probably never going to work anyway..* Richard thought. When the simple attempts to capture time failed, he tried riskier and more ridicule experiments, yet to no avail.\n\nBut in the other house, in this moment, he was euphoric. Enlightened by his own intelligence, Erek had found the solution to his problem. His cheering sounds resounded through the insulated walls.\n\nEven though he knew it was most likely effort wasted, Richard walked to his neighbor's house and knocked. Richard heard the racing of feet as Erek flung the door open and exclaimed: ''We did it, Reddit! I did it! I found it!'' and threw his stained arms around the shoulders of the surprised man and hugged him tightly. ''Ehh...'', Richard mumbled. ''Can you please, ehh, let go of me?'' he asked awkwardly, still in the firm embrace. ''Oh, and my name is Richard, not Reddit.''\n\n''Yes, of course, of course'' the man said, beaming happiness. ''I found the solution, so come in and have a look!'' he gestured inside, racing back to his workbench. Not fully at ease, Richard followed him. *What am I even doing..* he wondered, *this guy is clearly a nutjob.* But still, the thought tucked away in the back of his head that he maybe, just maybe, could be right this time, motivated him to go through the doorstep. He followed the trail of sound to Erek's workplace, stashed away at the side of the house, laying parallel to his own bedroom. It was filled with iron machines, bronze teeth and rusty ornaments. A large piece of parchment was in the middle of the bench. Multiple drawings of clocks and machinery were drawn on it. It was striking that all the items drawn on the parchment were basking in the light of the sun.\n\n''So, eh, Erek, what did you find?'' Richard said.\n\n''Well, you know how I have attempted many times to find a way to capture time and study it? To stash it into a clock so we can always understand what time it is? No longer the neccesity of stars, but a precious instrument'', as his hand lovingly stroked over a broken clock, ''to do it for us?''\n\n''Well, yes, but you've been on that quest forever, haven't you?'' he replied unimpressed.\n\n''Well, yes, but now, the interesting part. I hope you can follow me, as this surely is a stroke of genius. How do we study this?'' Erek asked, a mild pedantic tone creeping into his voice.\n\n''By the course of the sun, correct?'' Richard answered.\n\n''Well, quite, I would say, but also by the positions of the stars, and even the sun, no? And how are we able to study time? By the light of the sun. We can see all there is because it allows us to see, to learn, to understand. Why is there no time to study at night? Because the sun doesn't allow us to see!''\n\nRichard didn't know what to say. This was out of his depth.\n\n''So, in order to capture time into a clock, the only thing I've never managed to acquire before is...a piece of the sun! Put it into a clock and it will power the device, functioning as the engine.''\n\nRichard was lost for words. *Could he have finally solved the problem of time and clocks*, he wondered.\n\n''So, now'', Erek continued, ''the thing we need is a piece of the sun. A recent study of mine, you know, the one involving the ladders, showed the sun is roughly fifteen miles in the sky. But, even though you are probably surprised by that, my physical strength is not sufficient for that task'', he concluded, standing barely hundred pounds strong. ''*Weak*'', Richard corrected himself.\n\n''I need a strong man for the job, Richard.'', Erek hinted. ''Are you up for the task to capture time? Will you reach for the sun to find the power? Are you interested in writing history, no, creating history?''\n\nRichard was flabbergasted, remaining silent.\n\n''Good. Then let's get to work.''" ]

[ 3, 5, 15 ]

[ "1431025857", "1431022742", "1431022722" ]

[ "\"My fellow Americans,\" The president started what had come to be known as the weekly 'don't fuck the aliens' address.\n\n\"I come before you today, with a message of great importance. Many of you have surely heard what it is that I am about to say, but that does not lessen its significance.\" His grey steely eyes were staring straight down the camera. \"We, as Americans and citizens of the world, are in the midst of the greatest existential threat that human kind has ever known. We now know that we are not alone in the universe.\"\n\nThe president paused.\n\n\"We have accepted into our world, intergalactic tourists from a distant civilisation. They enjoy our beaches. They enjoy our ice cream stands. They enjoy our light beer. We have not the technology, nor inclination to stop them visiting our world, but they bring with them the doom of humanity.\"\n\nThe president rose from his seat, a drop of sweat running down his cheek and stared with great intensity into the camera.\n\n\"They may look like us, they might talk like us, and they might have sexual relations like us, but THEY ARE NOT US!\" His voice strengthened, \"These alien holiday makers are genetically incompatible to humanity. They can engage in sexual intercourse and are extremely fertile with an amazingly short gestation time. The product of our unions, however, are NOT fertile. This means, my fellow Americans, that for every human/alien hybrid, our human bloodline is weakening. And with a gestation time of just two weeks, it is weakening fast.\"\n\nThe president's voice softened in tone, \"Now it is unsurprising to some that Japan was the first to fall, but with the increasing popularity of manga on American televisions, this is a threat that we can not ignore. What started out as a fetish is now a threat to our very existence, so I cannot state this more clearly: do not have sexual relationships with the aliens.\"\n\n\"I care not for your curiosity. I care not if it was just one time in college. Every time is one time too many. Every time is another infertile human/alien hybrid drinking our beer, listening to our soft rock and engaging in more human/alien intercourse which only compounds our end.\" The president looked tired.\n\n\"So, my fellow American, I have endeavoured to address you every Sunday night, to implore that your reason overcome your lust. Remember: Every time is one time too many.\"\n\n\"Thank you for your attention, may God be with you, and us all.\"\n\nThe red pulsing light on the large camera turned off and millions of televisions went back to their regular programming. The president thanked the production team for their hard work, and invited them to return in a week's time. He dismissed the rest of his aids. He needed some time alone.\n\n\"What have I done?\" He whispered with his head in his hands.\n\nFrom the side door, a slithering mass of slimy maws, suction cups and tentacles entered the oval office. It was a mouldy green colour, and it smelt of sex, stale beer and body odour. It was over seven feet tall, and with it's tentacles outstretched it could wrap a man up entirely in it's wet and sticky love.\n\n\"What have I done?\" The president repeated to himself quietly.\n\nA small, tortured, but strangely sexual voice from deep within the slithering mass answered as it reached forward to remove the president's clothes, \"Every time is one time too few.\"\n", "‘Human Nature’ is such a loaded term. A platitude used by people to explain away the ills of the human condition. A cop out to the brutal truths that each and every person faces every day. A method of coping by pointing to the whole, when the singular truth of your everyday life becomes too unbearable to handle. What does it even mean? Get a psychologist, biologist, economist, sociologist and theologian in the same room and they’ll give you varying degrees of an answer. An overarching humanistic explanation of the impetus, reactionary, evolutionary traits of man. The building blocks of civilization. Of birth and of death. But really it comes down to one thing. One simple truth. By gods and scientists. By brain and matter. Human beings love to fuck.\n\nEpics and sagas allude to it. Really. Everyone wanted to bang Helen of Troy. So. Goddamn. Much. The Sirens claiming Odysseus’s men? You think they just wanted to stare? Art loves to portray beauty. The feminine body. The erotic nature of a glance. Of a moment lost to time. Desire and longing. Love and death. Sonnets and ballads. An albeit fluid definition. But a definition exists and is an omnipresent part of society. The ideal. The rippled muscles. The burgeoning bosoms. I mean it makes sense. Even on a biological and scientific sense. Of propagating evolutionarily significant traits. Those that can provide the most for the gene pool are often those that reflect an artistic sense of human perfection. Tall, strong, handsome.\n\nYou can’t blame them for taking the objective path. Imagine coming from a different planet. Hell, a different galaxy. And what do you do? Observe. Take notes. Understand our art, our culture, our science. And it becomes so apparent. The ideologically perfect human exists. At least theoretically. And it makes sense. And of course the human race would prefer this complete embodiment of sexual desire. But this assumption of human nature. This vast and overreaching series of traits and perceptions. So that’s what they did. In order to exterminate the human race, they tried to play human nature against itself. They released an unfathomable amount of these perfectly designed humans on the world. Sterile in every way. Leaving a world devoid of children.\n\nThe fact they engineered based on human nature is what ended up being our saving grace. Were there enough perfectly designed humans for the insatiability of every single person on Earth? Without a doubt. Did this stop people from copulating with their less attractive counterparts? Of course not. Shame, pity, drunken exploits, deep seeded issues. Depression. Anxiety. Stress. Individuated experiences acting in exact defiance of human nature. Stopping to realize that as individual entities, sexual desire is a byproduct sometimes devoid of rational logic. Devoid of evolutionary or sociological basis. And the world was fine. Happier even. \n\nWhat makes humanity beautiful is its complete and utter ability to act completely against its best interest. To antagonize even the remote possibilities of doing what makes most sense. In aggregate Human Nature is something definable. Something that deserves scientific rigor and academic analysis. Is it a Hobbesian nightmare? Honestly. I don’t know. All I know is that you’ve got to be one of us to know us. And to be one of us, you’ve got to appreciate and understand that the human experience is mostly determined by our failures. And our sorrows. But that the brief glimpses of happiness drive us towards a mostly murky future. And in the eyeline of a beautifully engineered human being, a lot of us will veer left and take the path less trodden. With someone - biologically and sociologically, theologically and psychologically - completely and entirely incoherent to what Human Nature dictates. And we’ll be okay. \n", "[The following is translated roughly from the original Dwizdunar]\n\nUltimately it was deemed inconsequential whether the humans who remained realized the genius of our plan or not. Such a fascinating species, humans, though we realized some time ago they are incapable of acting collectively in such a way as to ensure their population growth and advancing civilizations didn't spiral their ecosystem into collapse. As their twenty-first century began it was very clear that any possibility of sustainable living had been abandoned as they practiced ever more harmful industrial methods, and ever more rapid population growth.\n\nHaving witnessed other intelligent species go down a similar path towards self-annihilation, various proposals were brought forward as to how we might best save the humans from themselves. Using their own bizarre mate selection criteria (which frequently favored inconsequential physical traits over intelligence and skill-predilections) to electively sterilize the mass of their population was an idea put forth by human expert Guh, who had been a long time observer of the Earth population.\n\nIt worked even better than expected, and by focusing our breeding on a physically perfected male specimen we were able to have a single one of our creations impregnate a dozen or more of their women. Apart from the offspring being unable to breed, our modifications to their genetics also ensure the pregnancy would last almost twenty Earth years, greatly reducing the likelihood of the mother being able to conceive again.\n\nWithin one-hundred and fifty years we had managed to shrink the human population from over seven billion back down to 500 million. Such a population reduction was inevitable, but since our plan did not involve massively destructive wars or environmental catastrophes, we now feared that perhaps the remaining inhabitants would not realize the folly of their previous behavior.\n\nWill they go straight back down the same path of hyper-consumptive destruction of the very Earth on which they depend? Only time will tell, but we've agreed that if we are forced to intervene for their sake again, we will not be so kind.", "\"It's not working!\" wailed UH98uiuh. \"Why aren't the humans dying out?\"\n\n0EIGFd's tentacles rippled with anguish. \"Don't smell at me! It's been effective against all the other species we've wiped out!\" Its ear flaps twitched thoughtfully as it compared the humans to the other (now extinct) alien life forms. \"Maybe it's their disgusting warm blood...\" it mused.\n\nUH98uiuh turned back at the screen. \"I really don't understand! Sure, they're semi-monogamous, which poses some difficulty, but we've wiped out completely monogamous species before.\"\n\nThe two aliens smelled at each other. \"There's only one thing to do,\" said 0EIGFd solemnly. \n\n\"To the spaceship?\"\n\n\"To the spaceship.\"\n\n**** \n\nSecretly, 0EIGFd and UH98uiuh made their way to earth in their personal flying saucer. Once they landed in a grassy field filled with strange spotted creatures called cows, the two put on their human disguises and teleported to the closest human hub.\n\nWith a flash, the two ordinary looking \"humans\" appeared in the middle of a crowded city. (Since the city was in Florida, no one really cared about the randomly materializing people. It was Florida.)\n\n\"Yeesh,\" snorted UH98uiuh. \"They're so dirty.\"\n\n\"And loud.\" 0EIGFd waved his arm around, momentarily forgetting its lack of tentacles. \"Let's split up. I'll observe the artificial S.E.X.Y. humanoids, and you can go gather information.\"\n\n\"Sounds good to me!\" After noodling their arms in goodbye, the two parted.\n\n***** \n\n0EIGFd sat in the coffee shop, ignoring the cup of bitter poison in front of it. It frowned. The S.E.X.Y humanoids seemed to be working just fine. 0EIGFd had ensured that each major population hub would have about one humanoid for every ten-thousand humans. If everything went to plan, the ridiculously fast rate of human breeding would ensure the destruction of the human species is just a meager five-hundred years.\n\nThe problem was, nothing seemed to be going to plan. There was a grand total of just eight-hundred and fourteen sterile children, and most of them were in the undeveloped areas of Earth that posed the least threat. These numbers were far, far below the estimate.\n\n0EIGFd wiggled his fingers above his head in distress. He couldn't understand the problem! The females were all gathering around the male humanoid, and several males were literally drooling over a female humanoid in the corner. So why—\n\nIts comm beeped, interrupting his spaceship of thought. \"Yes?\" 0EIGFd said, tapping the device.\n\n\"I've figured out why it isn't working.\" UH98uiuh's voice was low and horror-stricken.\n\n\"Well, what is it?\"\n\n\"The humans...\" UH98uiuh released a huff of air from his eye. \"The humans can control their breeding cycles.\"\n\n\"What!?\" shrieked 0EIGFd in revulsion. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"They have this thing called... *birth control* which allows the females and males to decide when to have offspring.\"\n\n0EIGFd noodled his arms frantically. \"Disgusting!\"\n\n\"Not only that. It gets worse.\" The eyeball huff was louder and slower this time. \"The humans have a... storage system of sperm and egg cells. They apparently rip them out of their body and keep them frozen in houses, just in case.\"\n\n\"No!\" it cried in disbelief.\n\n\"They also...\" UH98uiuh gave a low moan of anguish, \"engage in coitus *for fun.* If they wish to have children, humans require stability and status as well as physical appearance in their mates. Can you believe it? Basing desirability on qualities that aren't just appearance!\"\n\n\"Oh, say it isn't so!\" 0EIGFd started ululating and releasing clouds of water vapor. \"We have to get off this hell planet!\"\n\n\"Agreed. Barbarian savages!\"\n\nWithout wasting another second, the aliens teleported out, climbed into their saucer, and flew away as fast as they can. They paused only to erase the coordinates of Earth from the database—and to have a long, strong drink of lohocla.\n\nHumans were fucking crazy.\n\n" ]

[ 2, 4, 4, 31 ]

[ "1431182636", "1431137795", "1431146645", "1431141105" ]

[ "It was raining when I awoke. Well, more like a heavy mist, the kind that soaks you through without really noticing. I was cold but more from the rain than the temperature. My t-shirt and jeans were alright pretty drenched as I lay in the wet grass. Sitting up I vaguely recognized the view. The coastline all still looked the same, Drake's Island was still there in the Sound, but the breakwater was gone. And the lighthouse, and the military base, and everything around me... I started to hyperventilate, looking around me scanning my environment frantically. Nothing... Grass and trees everywhere but nothing left of the Plymouth I had apparently left behind.\n\nIt had been two days since then. Scouts had given me enough knowledge to start a fire after I found some flint down on the beach and some other sort of rock. I never was a geologist. I found some berries too, that I was 80% certain were edible. I didn't throw up or die, so I figured they're good. I ended up sleeping under an acorn tree down where I know the Hoe to be. I ate some of the acorns too which helped a bit. After I calmed down a bit that first day I looked around a bit. I worked out roughly where I was - about 500m from where I last remember being in what I can only assume is the future. Or should that be present? I'm not sure. I found my drum sticks too, along with my practice pad and duvet. My laptop was there too, but was wetter than I was so I left it. The rest I took, and with some stick formed a makeshift shelter under the tree. Going to Scouts may have been the best decision I've made.\n\nEating seemed to be the biggest problem. Day three I found a stream leading down to the sea and moved my 'camp' there. Now I have fresh water, before I'd just found a puddle but I tried not to drink from it too much. The berries and acorns had kept my hunger sated to a point but I knew I needed more. Never been fishing or hunting, and getting used to eating meat sounded like it might take a while so I went down the the sea. Fish I could handle. Probably... I'd made myself a makeshift spear, if you could even call it that by using some of the flint I found to sharpen a stick to a point. I hardened it in the fire because I think that's a thing. There was a beach now, but the rocks were still there. I sat for hours, stabbing at the larger fish that I could see. I hit a few but never hard enough to catch one, so I tried something else. I sat in the water on a rock ledge, and put some berries in the water in front of me. I caught two fish of some kind, both about the size of my hand. By catch, I mean knocked them onto the rocks when they went for the berries, then spearing them. \n\nDay seven and the duvet which was I'm assuming transported with me wasn't in great shape. I left it in the sun whenever possible to dry out, but the May sun wasn't enough. My shelter had gotten better though despite that. I had a bivvy made out of thicker sticks I'd found as to hold it up, and turf and leaves piled on the back. The entrance was open. I'd never heard of wolves near Plymouth but Dartmoor was close so I did my best to block the entrance at night with rocks and more turf that I'd dug up. I was getting better at gutting the fish too. Cooking it was fine, I'd done that before though not on an open fire. There was enough flint that I could use the larger pieces to cut them open and scrape everything out. I won't pretend to know if that's correct but it seems right.\n\nNights were the hardest. My girlfriend, family and friends were all somewhere, I guess in time without me because they're not here. Being all alone at night was tough. The days I could keep busy, exploring, fishing, gathering nuts and berries. I went to my house too, or where it should have been. There was a rabbit hole there instead, and I saw a family of five around there. I named them all after my housemates. I went to my girlfriends house too. There was and oak tree there, in the middle of a forest. But not her... I was still working up to hunting properly. Having never eaten meat I didn't know what to do and wasn't sure if I could bring myself to kill something regardless of whether I could catch something. I figured I'd keep exploring while I worked up to it.\n\nMy jeans were ragged by this point, so I cut them at the knee. I also figured I'd save my t-shirt for when the weather was bad. I'd been lucky so far apart from the first day. The days had been warm, and the nights weren't what I'd call cold. I made a fire pit too. It took the best part of a day to dig the six inches of soil with my hands and sticks I had found. I lined the edge with flattish rocks and turf to keep it contained. My house, as I'd started to call it was getting better too. It was more secure and I'd managed to pack the turf tight to keep it a bit warmer. I made another small one, very small I might add, to store dry wood under. Hopefully it would stay that way. Every day I thanked my Scout leaders for teaching me survival basics enough to have survived this far. Every day I spent time in the sea, catching fish, I think they were herring but I had no idea. I'd become more proficient at that too. I was averaging five to six in about two hours know. I found some wild garlic too. My mum always told me that it was good for me, so it was good no one was around to smell my breath. \n\nI realized that maybe the reason there wasn't a city anymore, was because Plymouth used to be Plympton, up the Tamar. I know how to get there, so I'm going to prepare my self over the next view days. I haven't gone North much, so I've not been close. It should take about a day, maybe less to walk there. Part of me hopes that there aren't people there... I don't know if they'll be friendly.", "\"Funny coincidence,\" I thought as I trudged down the muddy lane. \"There was a prompt on Reddit yesterday about this exact thing.\" I pulled my phone out of my pocket, thinking to respond to it, but of course there was no signal. There wouldn't be. The internet is about four hundred years that way.\n\nI knew where I was, more or less. I was in just about the same place as I was yesterday, except the town wasn't even built yet, except for a cluster of cottages down by the river. There was a manor somewhere hereabouts, if my recollection of local history was correct, perhaps a mile to the south, where the local comprehensive school would eventually be built.\n\nI shoved my useless phone back into my pocket and started walking, grateful for my stout Doc Martens boots.\n\nThe sound of horses galloping down the road gave me a fright and a man hollered \"Make way! Make way for Prince Rupert's men!\" I staggered into a ditch beside the road as they came by; a line of cavalry, riders all in shining plate armour with brightly coloured capes and feathered plumes in their helms. Some of the horses pulled cannons, shining brass guns on wheeled carriages, and behind them marched pikemen, dozens of them, maybe a couple of hundred. I stood and watched them, realising with dread what it meant.\n\nThey were Cavaliers, and I had just landed in the middle of the English Civil War. \n\nAs the last of the stragglers marched past, I stopped one of them and asked him where they were going.\n\n\"To Stokeport,\" he said, \"to drive out those Cromwellian rats.\" He scurried off to catch up with the others.\n\nThis was not good, I thought to myself. The last thing I wanted was to get caught up in a war. I waited until they were out of sight and then I continued my journey, the same way that they had gone.\n\nI found my destination soon enough, not the town to which the Cavaliers were headed but the manor-house half-way there. It was a grand-looking place, two storeys high and timbered in black and white, set back from the road with a sweeping driveway leading up to the front. It was my intention to find the tradesman's entrance and enquire for work, but I was stopped by a well-dressed young gentleman on a fine bay horse.\n\n\"You there!\" he said, trotting the horse up to me. \"Who are you?\" As he came closer I could see that he was very young, probably not more than twenty-five.\n\n\"My name is Stephen, Sir,\" I said. \"Stephen Ashford.\"\n\n\"Are you with Rupert's men?\" he demanded.\n\n\"No Sir,\" I replied. \"But I saw them ride past, headed for Stokeport.\" The young gentleman nodded.\n\n\"On which side do your loyalties lie?\"\n\nI shrugged. I couldn't remember which side this area had been on during the civil war so I decided it safer to be non-committal. \"I don't rightly support either side, Sir. I would just rather get on with my life and let them get on with theirs.\"\n\nThe young gentleman nodded, and pointed with his whip to the side of the house. \"That way,\" he said, before turning his horse's head and galloping off. I found the entrance and rang the bell, it sounded deep inside the house and a plump, middle-aged woman answered the door. She gave me a curious look.\n\n\"And who might you be?\"\n\n\"Stephen Ashford, of, uh, Salford. I was wondering if you might have any work here?\"\n\nShe snorted. \"Do they all dress like that in Salford?\" she asked. I looked down at my jeans and woollen sweater. Modern clothes but not too outlandish; I thought with relief how lucky I was not to have been wearing my Iron Maiden t-shirt. \"What's your trade?\" the woman asked as she beckoned me into the kitchen.\n\nI must have looked like a complete blithering idiot as I struggled to think of something. There wasn't going to be much call for an IT specialist around here.\n\n\"You do *have* a trade, I trust, mister Ashford?\" the housekeeper continued. \"The Master doesn't take kindly to beggars and scroungers.\"\n\n\"I... er... well, horses, I suppose,\" I said. That was half-true at least; I had grown up in the country and spent the first half of my life with horses, but I hadn't been near one in twenty years, unless you counted the ones that nearly ran me down half an hour ago. \"You have stables here?\"\n\n\"Of course we have stables,\" the woman scoffed. \"Lord knows we could use more help out there, what with all the men-folk away fighting. You'll find them round the back, out the door, turn left, through the gate. Ask for Henry.\" She turned her back on me and focussed her attention on kneading a pile of bread dough, and I thought she was more daunting than the soldiers.\n\nI found Henry exactly as she had described. He was a short, wizened little man of at least seventy, his back stooped from decades of hard work and completely bald except for wild tufts of white hair sticking out of the sides of his head. He seemed grateful for the offer of help and after he'd shown me around and explained the routine of the day he handed me a shovel and a rickety-looking contraption that almost looked like a wheelbarrow.\n\nThe next three hours were probably the hardest I had ever worked in my adult life. But by the time I was done the stables, all sixteen of them, were mucked out and bedded down with fresh straw, horses were given hay and water, and I was about ready to die of exhaustion. henry nodded approval and gave me a pewter hip-flask which contained something potently alcoholic. It slipped down my throat, warm and soothing.\n\nThere was a clatter of hooves in the yard and the young gentleman had returned, his horse lathered with sweat. I took the reins and helped him down. He seemed shaken and pale. \"Are you alright, Sir?\" I asked.\n\nHe looked at me, surprised, then he sighed, and shook his head. I took Henry's hip-flask out of my pocket and handed it to him. He raised an eyebrow then took it, drank a little and handed it back. \"Thank you. Stephen. Can I tell you something in confidence?\"\n\nI nodded as I took the saddle off the horse and started to brush her down.\n\n\"I was afraid,\" he said. \"I joined them, Rupert and his men, down by the bridge at Mickleford. People died, Stephen. One of them died on my sword. He looked right at me as he died.\" The young gentleman watched me groom his horse for a while. \"I don't know which is worse, the fear of dying, or the fear of killing.\"\n\n\"They are both the same,\" I replied. \"It's not the dying or the killing that you're afraid of, it's the unknown. It's what comes after the dying and the killing.\" I stopped brushing the horse. \"I know what comes after. The Cavaliers will lose the war and the King will lose his head. Cromwell will rule England for ten years until he is overthrown and the monarchy restored.\"\n\n\"So both sides lose,\" he said quietly. \"Maybe we just need to find a way that both sides can win.\"\n\nI didn't know it then, but that young man was Sir Robert Coke. In my history books he gets barely a mention, but things began to change. Robert sided with Parliament and instead of dragging on until 1651, the war was all over by 1646 without anyone losing their head, though Cromwell unexpectedly lost his life at the Battle of Naseby in June 1646 and Robert led the Parliamentarians to victory at Langport in July. Charles I surrendered and fled with his family and most of his supporters to France, and Robert Coke was sworn in as the first President of England.\n\nI never did get back to the 21st Century. Robert appointed me as one of his chief advisors because, he said, my outlook was both wise and naive at the same time. In all honesty I don't think I would want to go back now. History was changed with just a few harmless words and I probably wouldn't recognise it any more if I did go back. So I stayed, publically to look after his horses but in private we discussed politics and drew up a constitution that, I hoped, would avoid some of the mistakes I had seen made in centuries to come.\n\nDecades later I lay dying of old age and Robert came to see me. I beckoned him closer and whispered to him. \"I never told you where I came from,\" I said.\n\n\"I think you said Salford, once.\"\n\nI shook my head. \"Perhaps I should rephrase that. I never told you *when* I came from. Do you remember, the first day I met you, I predicted how the Civil War would end, the King would be executed and Cromwell would be Lord Protector?\"\n\nRobert laughed. \"You were wrong about that, Stephen.\"\n\nI shook my head. \"I wasn't wrong, Robert. I was born in 1970 and in my history, what I told you was true.\"\n\n\"1970? That's three hundred years in the future.\"\n\nI nodded and tried to catch my breath. I pointed towards the wooden desk beside the bed. \"In the desk drawer, there is something there, I want to show you. In a black velvet bag.\"\n\nRobert found the bag and brought it to me. I opened it and pulled out my old iPhone. \"I kept it all this time, even though it doesn't work any more.\" I handed it to him and he looked at it, confused.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"A phone. For long distance communication. You can use it to talk to people anywhere in the world. Send them messages. Read books. Anything.\"\n\nRobert tapped it, shook it, held it to his ear and I laughed. \"Useless thing now, but maybe someone in the future will be able to make use of it. Keep it. Pass it on to your children, and your children's children. One day, it'll end up in the hands of someone who knows what to do with it.\"\n\nI smiled at the thought and closed my eyes, wishing I could stay longer, and see the new future of my England. \"I wonder if there is still a Reddit?\"\n\n\n\n\n\n " ]

[ 3, 27 ]

[ "1431214416", "1431218550" ]

[ " Peter lay flat on his stomach,hands spread, the cold tile floor pressed against his face. He had never been more scared. In his five years working the front counter at the small neighborhood bank, this was his first robbery.\n\nJust moments before, two masked men had come into the bank. “Everybody on the ground,” the larger of the two men screamed. \n\nPeter froze in place. He had been in the middle of counting Miss Westinghouse’s twelve thousand dollar deposit. Miss Westinghouse, a sweet long-time member of the bank, had just sold her car and was looking forward to going on what she called: her last trip to Europe. \n\n“I don’t see anyone moving,” the large man growled, then fired his gun into the air. \n\nThe only thing Peter could think about, as he lay on the floor, was Ms Westinghouse’s money. It wasn’t in the bank yet. It wouldn’t be insured. She was going to lose it all. He could hear her crying on the other side of the counter. She didn’t deserve this. She was a decent person. She had even brought in cookies last christmas. They were peanut butter and delicious. \n\nThat christmas the cookies had brought back old memories.\n\nLong ago, in a small cabin in the misty hills of Ireland, when peter was just a boy, he had spent a summer with his grandfather. One afternoon Peter’s grandfather had pulled a tray of peanut butter cookies out the oven. Peter sat at a small kitchen table. The smell of the cookies had overpowered the small cabin. \n\n“Ahh, these look perfect,” Peter’s grandfather said. “Listen, Pete, as much as I love you being out here with me, your dad sent you here so I could tell you something.” The old man handed him a cookie. “Our family is different.” \n\n“What do you mean different?” \n\n“Listen, Pete. Someday you’re going to find a song that means something to you. It will be a once in a lifetime experience and you will forever be married to that song. Pete, what I’m trying to say is...We're Banshees.”\n\na long moment passed, then Peter lowered his head.\n\n“I’ve already found my song, grandpa,” Peter said. “I was in art class last semester and I began humming to myself. Next thing I know Ralph Johnson is shaking on the ground and blood was coming out of his ears.”\n\nPeter’s grandfather had a look of shock on his face. “My god, boy. You’re so young and you have already found your wail song. I was three times your age when I found mine.” \n\nPeter held his cookie, then said in a quiet voice, “I don’t even like the song. It’s stupid. Can’t I pick another one?” \n\nThe old man laid a heavy hand on Peter’s shoulder. “I’m afraid not. A banshee only get’s the one song. It’s quite amazing that you have found yours so young. But now that you have found it, we need to start your training.” \n\n“Training?” Peter looked up. His grandfather was smiling, a look of pride in the old man’s eyes.\n\n“That’s right. your voice is a powerful weapon. You can’t just sing willie-nillie. You need to learn to use it.” \n\nBack on his stomach, hands spread, Peter listened to Miss Westinghouse crying. He knew what he had to do. It had been so long since he had used his wail. He would have to funnel the song just right, so he didn’t hurt anyone else. \n\nBut why did it have to be THAT song. It was so embarrassing. \n\nPeter jumped on the counter. His hands were wet, but he started to snap his fingers with his right hand. The beat, the feeling, it was growing in his chest. \n\n“Look at this joker,” The larger masked man said. “Is he about to go into a broadway number?”\n\nPeter had spent a long time carrying around the guilt and shame of his wail song, but suddenly it was all gone. He began to sing with the reckless joy of an eight year old, listening for the first time to the magic that is...Hall & Oates. \n\n*What I want you’ve got\nAnd it might be hard to handle*\n\nThe two men fell to their knees, grabbing their ears screaming in pain.\n\n*But like the flame that burns the candle\nThe candle feeds the flame, yeah yeah\nWhat I've got's full stock of thoughts and dreams that scatter*\n\nPeter jumped off the counter and began dancing towards the men. Their bodies wailing in pain. \n\n*You pull them all together\nAnd how, I can't explain, \nOh yeah, well well you*\n\n\n*You make my dreams come true*\n\nSuddenly, the two men exploded. Their head’s bursting like cantaloupe under a hammer. Peter wiped blood from his face. He thought of the look of pride on his grandfather's face and the taste of peanut butter cookies. Had it really been so long ago? Ms. Westinghouse’s vacation was safe,Peter thought. But maybe it’s time I take a vacation. Maybe it’s time to go back to Ireland.\n\n\n\n\n \n", "We locked eyes for the first time as she stood at my threshold. Her hair was dripping wet, droplets tracing their way across her collarbone. She stood breathless for a moment as she regained her composure; an apparition was at my door. She never spoke a word, but maintained my gaze as she carefully made her way to the hearth. She grabbed a musty bundle of peat and arranged it on the grate, then slowly stood and groped for the tinder-box in the gloomy light. Her breath was ragged, and lighting the fire seemed to take almost more effort than she could bear.\n\nI didn't dare move from my corner; I was transfixed. Having been distracted by her task, she glanced at me as she warmed her hands over the fire. She seemed nervous. I tipped the foot of my rocking chair, setting it in motion. It was a little dusty, but still comfortable, the woven straw made comfortable from years of use. She crept up and took a ginger seat. I smiled, encouraging her to relax. She glanced briefly at me, then focused intently on the fire, rocking slowly in the glowing warmth.\n\nSoon her exhaustion set in and she drifted into a fitful sleep, her chest rising and falling with ragged breaths. I watched as she slept, mesmerized by her tousled hair and strawberry lips.\n\nQuietly, carefully, I stepped forward. I crept near her on padded toes. I could smell her; heather and damp grass. Her soft skin radiated in the light.\n\nSo beautiful.\n\nAlmost without realizing, my hand was outstretched toward her arm. Her skin so smooth, it gave the appearance of soft porcelain. I couldn't resist. The words escaped my lips, an aria filled the room, muffled by the mudstone walls.\n\n\"Maid of the moors, you tread so soft;\nover the hills, you travel oft.\n\nTo my door, you dared to step;\nInto the darkness, you have crept.\"\n\nAs I concluded my song, I dared to touch her delicate arm. Her skin was feverish hot, damp with sweat. Her eyes leapt open, her ragged breath caught in her throat.\n\nWe locked eyes again; terrified, I let out a wail. A gust of wind blew the door open. The porcelain maid let out a ragged sigh and went limp. Her eyes were locked on mine, frozen in a lifeless stare. I shrieked again; the wind raged through the room with violent force. A wave of terror and grief washed through me. I was nothing now; what soul I had was chained to hers, and without her I knew I could not exist. I looked down at my hands, but could not see them. I let forth a wail of agony and, then, was no more.\n\n__________\n\nAfter reading the prompt again, not sure that I got the story just right.. (Edit: Specifically, this is the only instance where my character sings, instead of \"Every so often\".) \n\nThis is my first writing prompt, any constructive criticism is helpful. Thank you!" ]

[ 7, 9 ]

[ "1431230928", "1431227761" ]

[ "\tIt took three ships to get there. Actually only one, but the first two didn't quite make it.\n\n The program was named Mariam; Greek for Mary. It was more of a biblical reference than anything; we were supposed to “be the Mother to our new planet.” That’s exactly what’s going to happen, too. The planet looks like it could be the new Earth. Conditions look good for supporting life and the terraforming process will go over easily. \nI was given the privilege, if you can call it that, to name the planet. I decided on the name Persephone, the Greek goddess of spring growth. After terraforming the planet will be green and luscious. There will always be spring growth on the planet. It will be a permanent springtime planet for the human race. The Mariam ship will land on Persephone and start the process. Indeed, Mariam 3 will be a great success for Earth.\nNobody likes to talk about the first two Mariam’s, though. Mariam 1 wasn't so bad. It was actually just a few robots trying to pilot the ship, seeing where it could go, if it could make it through the atmosphere. It didn't. But no harm no foul. Only a few billion dollars down the drain. After Mariam 1 other planets tried to get to the still-to-be-named planet now, too. Mainly the Venusians. They learned about what they could do to the new planet and decided that want out of the sun and over to a more refreshing planet. That caused the rush for Mariam 2.\nMariam 2 was a disaster. The Venusians showed Earth that they were ready to terraform the planet and as soon as that happened, the new planet was no longer up for grabs. Mariam 2 was supposed to be the full mission. Send a few human astronauts and scientists to go and land, terraform and start the new civilization. As soon as they were successful, more colonists would head to the new planet. At least according to the plan.\nMariam 2 landed. The mission was successful so far. The next step was to terraform Persephone. This is where things went wrong. The spacecraft was able to handle the trip to Persephone but it was not suited to stay on the planet. The ship was weak and the new planet’s atmosphere was harsh before terraforming. None of the crew survived. The project was put on hold while we mourned the loss of the crew.\nLead Chemist, Felix Andrews. Lead Geologist, Maureen Richards. Head Researcher, Robin Hunt. Lead Terraformist, Roy Soto. Co-Pilots Maxwell and Julia Lyons. Captain, Howard Frazier. \nThe program was put back into place, and years later Earth launched Mariam 3. As the story goes, the mission was successful. The ship was able to land safely and stay safe. The crew was able to terraform the planet into the new, green Persephone. Of course the name had to come from somewhere. In order to honor the lives lost on the Miriam 2 they gave the privilege of naming the planet to the family of the deceased. Me. Miriam Frazier. So while others may look at Persephone and see the spring growth that she brings, I look at Persephone and see her husband. Hades. King of the Dead. So while others see the luscious green planet and see Persephone as a fitting choice, I see the planet and look at a selfish choice. I am Persephone, wife of Death.\n", "Jacob was having a scotch while hunched alone in a corner. His wife attached to a glass of red wine and to the opinions of their houses guests, and all their offspring ran red faced, blasting away at each other with toy zappers, shaking slight the furniture that seemed important at one point of time. A vase shook until it hit the floor, and Jacob took another sip from his glass. \n\nOutside was a parade of wobbly telescopes darting around the sky like highlighting spotlights. Homemade fireworks boomed and whissed car alarms awake across every street in the suburb. To the naked eye, the bright aurora glow was heaven-like above, a vast stretch of colors melded so profound that it tricked some wandering gazes that they were experiencing a hue that never before existed. Everyone was mad with alcohol and hidden substances, care-free for the stretch of the night, or days, or weeks. \n\nMost surrounded Jacob’s place, pounding their fists neither accusatory nor benevolent. And inside, close friends of his, close families of his surrounded him as he stood hunched in a corner of the living room with his glass of scotch. \n\nPictures of rockets, star-faring management teams, astronomic geniuses, three kids, a wife, and himself as a child, yet able to speak but able to gaze dreamlike and certain, a gaze opportunistic and glistening with purpose – these pictures hang on the walls as if to mark these moments deceased. Metals and NASA patches were showcased like ancient artifacts, gleaming from their glass no different from the celebrations of Earth just outside Jacob’s window, and the painting of the sky.\n\nA big banner over the hor dourved dining table: \n\nThis is your planet Jacob! \n\nEveryone was tensed by him, and had left him alone at the notion that he was in deep thought, in deep stress. He was shaking, near convulsing, the scotch splashing over the threshold of his glass and slopping onto his hand. His wife approached him.\n\n“Can I get at least a hint?” She was playful. Crimson stains in her teeth. Beautiful under the yellow fluorescence of their home that melded well with her blonde locks. Bright, flowery explosions behind shadowed grins behind the shaking glass of a window behind her pale blue dots. He stifled tears. \n\nThere was a great tornado in him. Some untapped well of emotion too deep to say but only able to leak little through the way he quivered his lips as they struggled to form the word. It frightened his wife who would end up never knowing what was inside his head. \n\nHe said one word.\n\n“Harbinger.”\n\nA loud explosion shook the house. Everybody laughed at the fireworks. \n" ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1431395318", "1431394921" ]

[ "[April 19th, 2015. 10:35 AM (First Entry)]\n\nI have always been lucky. \n\nI am a self made billionaire. I started from the scum that is called family and now I am at the top of the food chain.\n\nHow I made my money you ask? Well, I refuse to answer that question.\n\nLet's just say that I have done dirty work with bare hands, hired workers, and do my job a lot, OK?\n\nI hope you get the hint I was throwing at you. \n\nAnyways, today I meet with an old friend of mine that was always like an older brother to me. Sure, he acted as my father in paperwork, but I always thought there was more of a brotherly love in our relationship. \nHis name is Greg. \n\nI will be back later to document our conversation. I am sure it won't be too long\n\n[April 5th, 2019. 12:43 PM]\n\nI have been lied to.\n\nGreg never took me in because he felt pity for how I was an orphan at a young age. He took me in because I was a \"beneficial pawn\". \n\nGreedy cocksucker! He was the only thing close to a family I ever had! \n\nHe told me about how I killed my family at a young age. He was going to kill them and me before I did. Apparently, my father was a gambler that owed money to Greg. He was a hitman. \n\nHe saw how I killed my parents. He thought he could shape me into what he was. A cold hard killer. \n\nI have killed many people and hired \"workers\" to take the blame and go to jail. He said I was the one to take his place when he died. Hell, he is 84 with heart problems. \n\nI just think about how if I didn't kill my parents, I would be dead too...\n\nThis was destiny...", "\"What do you mean he's *being Truman Show'd*?\" I asked the man in the orange jumpsuit who, not twelve hours ago, had fallen on the proverbial sword and taken the rap for a crime I'd committed. In doing so, he'd not known that this was the latest in a spree of mine, and that I was dead-set on becoming his lawyer and finding out why he'd done it.\n\n\"Shit man, I dunno, all I know is some dude offers me twenty-large to take the wrap for this guy, some nobody, that everyone in Asia loves to watch on TV. They can't have the dude spending six years in jail, it'd kill the ratings. They said they'd send a lawyer who could sort this all out and I'd be out of here in two months.I don't get it, but you know, those guys are weird! Did you know they have this one show where two chicks have to blow on a pipe with a dead bug in and -\"\n\nI waved my hand to cut him off. My world crumbled around me. If what he said was true, a lot of things suddenly made more sense. This was the fifth time I'd had someone else take the rap for one of my crimes. It would explain why occasionally, Japanese women would stop and gaze at me in the streets, taking photos. I'd always hoped it was because of my passing resemblance to Ryan Gosling, but, evidently not.\n\n\"You know this sounds like bullshit, right?\" I look to the guy, scowling, and try to press for more.\n\n\"Dude, google it. The suit, the one who payed me, told me the show's name. It's umm.... Orkonosama Gaiko something. Shit, it's on the name of the cheque, the one that's in my possessions.\"\n\nI grabbed the small box of his affairs from the table, then looked at it. \"Orokana gaikoku hito\". I pulled my cell from my pocket and googled it.\n\n\"Fuck\".\n\nA large picture of my face and a poorly-translated Wikipedia article appeared.\n\n*'Stupid Outsider' is a Japanese pseudo-reality show following the life of one Mitchell Cranberry, a middle-management executive from East New York, and his various misadventures. Spanning from its inception (Season One : 1990 - Birth) to the most recent series (Season 25: 2015 - Mitchell gets Hitched), the show has remained popular in spite of mixed ratings. The most popular episode, with an IMDB score of 9.7, was \"Mitchell's First Time\", though ratings in season 20 faltered, with episodes like \"Constipated Again\" viewed as too unoriginal*\n\nThe article went on for some time, listing various episodes, critics and even a references section (as it transpired, several articles had been written about the immense psychological toil of finding out that your whole life was a a mockumentary).\n\n\"Fuck. You're telling the truth.\"\n\nThat was all I could muster. I stood, my knees weak, and walked to the door.\n\n\"Yo man, where you going\" the jumpsuited man said.\n\n\"I've gotta go think about some stuff\"\n\nI turned to him as I opened the door, mustering a smile.\n\n\"Good morning, and in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!\"\n\nThe door slammed behind me." ]

[ 8, 40 ]

[ "1431451472", "1431447323" ]

[ "All my days I spend wondering,\n\na wanderers mind is mine\n\nOf all the moments lost to mindlessness making\n\nThose who claim to see the truth go blind.\n\n\nAnd here I call, and cry outward unto you all\n\na plead of merciful wisdom, \n\nslow your roll\n\nbefore you fall.\n\n\nA wanderer Is what they make of me\n\nBut forsaken are the ones who've lost\n\nIn the end it is they who pay the toll.\n\nno longer with the withered stall.", "They call me Wanderer. The voices of the dead follow me.\n\nI check the valves on my mask, make sure the seals on my suit are tight. I've been hours Outside, and days remain till my destination.\n\nI walk on, silent now except for the crunching of sand, distorted through my helmet. Silent, except for the dead. A low hum, from everywhere around, pervasive, invasive, no cadence or rhythm, just constant. Constant. Constant. It gets in your head, rattles your teeth, sinks down to the marrow in your bones and stays there.\n\nBlack dunes stretch away from me in every direction, tinted silver by a light I can't see.\n\nMove on. Must move on.\n\nThere's a dread associated with these lands, and those who move through them. My grandmother remembered a world that was one, before the Break. A time when you could travel one path and expect the same destination each time. No such luxury now. People travel rarely, and only ever in the presence of one my tribe.\n\nI pause. There's been a Shift. The elders of my tribe say that any journey with more than two Shifts is doomed.\n\nThis is the fifth.\n\nI unsling my rifle, and point it into the air.\n\n*ftoomph ftoomph ftoomp*\n\nThree incandescent flares arc up over the black sands, slow and condense in the air. They leave a fitful light over the plains.\n\nMy father taught me, never look too closely at what the lights show. Just find the path they show, and move on. And move quickly.\n\nI scan the ground, never concentrating for too long, and find what I need. The delicate skein of light the underlies these planes. I assess, value and find what I need. Keep moving. Keep moving. My gloved hand fumbles at my waist as I struggle up a dune. By the feel, there'll be enough rations to get me half way. I'll just have to starve the rest.\n\nHours later. Still the dead follow me. I fumble at my bandolier. There's three types of cartridge that every Wanderer carries. First, Lightflash, so they may see their way. Second, Burnbright, because there are things out here you don't want to meet. Finally, one single cartridge you never hope to use. They say the dead can follow out those who let them, and there are worse things than death.\n\nLater. The last of my rations are gone. Still, move, keep moving. The dead are still with me. The landscape has changed. I move along a wide path, flanked by crumbling mountains. They stretch up high, further than I can see, rectangular flat blocks, dotted with rough squares of darkness. My grandmother said people used to live in them, before the Break. Cant imagine it myself. I risk another Lightflash. The light crystalises in the air, exposing a web of glowing fat lines. I recognise the one I need instantly, this is good, I'm close...\n\nThis is bad.\n\nThe voices of the dead have gotten louder. They'll be here soon, drawn by the light. I run to the cover of one of the mountains. There's an opening at ground level. I dive through, sweating, panting. There's a room in here, small and square. I crawl to the nearest corner and wait.\n\nI hear them come.\n\n*cricklecricklecriklecracklecrickle*\n\nI reach to my bandolier, pull the one cartridge I never wanted. Gently, trying hard not to make a noise, I insert into my rifle and cock it. I listen. They're still out there. No one knows what they look like. Anyone who has ever seen them, well. They're never around to tell stories later. I put the muzzle of the rifle to my chin, reach down to the trigger. I wait. Alone but for the others outside, and the voices of the dead. I wait.\n\nLater. Didn't need the cartridge, they left but the dead remain. Humming, humming, my head filled with it. Move. Move. Move on, keep moving on. Leaden legs struggling through sands. Move. Keep. Moving. Ragged breathing filling my helmet. But. There. Ahead. Shimmer. A light, real light. I'm there, almost there. I struggle, the voices, louder, screaming, I fall...\n\nLight. Sunlight. And silence. Blessed silence.\n\nI force myself up, elbows digging into the ground. There are people approaching...\n\n'It's a Wanderer!'\n\nHands lift me up, gently place me on their shoulders, carrying me away.\n\n'Welcome, Wanderer. We were expecting you days ago, we feared the worst. Come, we'll get food, bed, whatever you need. And then, perhaps, news of the Lands...?'\n\nEven as I slipped off into unconsciousness, I could hear the pleading in their voices. Isolated on the Lands, no way to communicate with each other, no way to know how the rest of the world fared. Except for us. The Wanderers. Who walked with the dead.", "I've never stayed long in one place. My whole life I've been searching, as my parents did before me. Searching for the switch. It was legendary in my family. We had spent centuries searching for the answer that no one knew mankind was looking for. Everyone I have ever met seems alien to me. They are like ants, mindlessly following the tune of a singular drum they can’t hear. The fascinating part, however, is that they all believe they are living their lives as individuals, never realizing that they are being influenced.\n\n\nToday began just like any other, waking in a ditch to get up, gauge the sun, and continue my march. Most days I fell into a kind of trance as I traveled. No thought, no emotion, just putting one foot in front of the other. I couldn't figure for the life of me why I felt so pensive. My answer would come in due time. What I had attributed to mere whimsy was actually a piquing of hereditary senses developed for as far back in my family as records could prove.\n\n\nGrandfather had told me that we were nearing the tipping point, that the war was about to begin. I never believed him, there were dozens of examples of men in our family who had been led astray due to their belief that the time was upon us. Of course it would fall to me to decide the fate of humanity. A lone shepherd deciding the fate of his sheep. Generations of men who sought this power, and it falls to me. I had always been content to wonder the world, meet these people, learn about them, and then move on. Maybe that was what it was, I made the mistake of learning about the people whose fate I thought to decide.\n\n\nAs I walked I came upon the final sign that my long pilgrimage had come to a close. There, in the middle of some poor farmer’s field, was either the key to mankind’s salvation, or its destruction. There was a rent in the ground, 15 feet across and endlessly deep. Down there I would find the switch, where I would face the decision I had been born to make. It was time for mankind to stand up, out of the smoke and into the sun. It was time for me to set them free. I shed my clothes, folded them carefully on the edge of the pit, and jumped, face first, towards destiny.\n\n\t\n\n\nWhy. Why why why does this happen to me. Ben had always been a quiet man and now his farm was flooded with news crews, he was in the eye of the law for not roping off the hole he had opened in his field for his new septic tank, and all because some cook had come and jumped down. They called him the wanderer. He had spent his life walking the earth looking for a hole, or so his journal said. What a nut. Just another cult, ruining the life of one man, and ending the life of another.\n\n\nedit: formatting, formatting, and formatting" ]

[ 2, 2, 2 ]

[ "1431464748", "1431465402", "1431475163" ]

[ "\"More information is coming in about the planet wide infertility epidemic.\" The redheaded woman switched her head to camera two, and a graphic of a red x placed in front of a picture of a baby popped up in the top right corner. \"Scientists from around the globe have united to implement a testing plan that would examine food supplies, medications, and genetic mutations to determine the source of this epidemic. We can expect to have the first reports available in the next two to three months.\" The redhead's tone changes slightly to a happier timbre. \"Now, with your seven day peek into the week, Phil Doyle!\" \n\nThe viewers' image flips over to a view of a man in his early thirties. He waves his arms across the map as he explains the weather events of the week.", "Extracts from Doctor Smoots Diary\n\nDoctor Smoots Diary, March 1 2020\nAll the newly borns in the hospital and their mothers are fine without complications. There was only one birth today, which was a very strange case. The baby appeared to be healthy in all the checkups and the birth was uncomplicated, taking about an hour from start to finish. The baby seemed fine, but the second the umbilical cord was cut the baby died. The heart gave in, just like that. I have not witnessed a case like this, but we will look into it in the days to come. This was very disturbing and I had to send one of the nurses home because she did not stop crying. A psychologist will talk to the mother to see how she is handling the situation.\n\nDoctor Smoots Diary, March 2 2020\nI am very confused. Today, we had three births and all three children died. Immediately after the umbilical cord was cut. I can not explain this, but I am sure a lot of questions will be asked. I have been working in this hospital for seventeen years now and I have never seen anything like this. For now, I need a rest and a drink.\n\nDoctor Smoots Diary, March 3 2020\nI can not explain this. It is all over the news: Cases of newly born babies dying after the umbilical cord is cut. There are some regular births, but they said, that about a quarter of the babies born in the last 2 days died. I am not cutting the umbilical cords of the two women who gave birth today until I learn more about this. The pregnant women are disturbed and afraid and I can see why. This is horrible.\n\nDoctor Smoots Diary, March 4 2020\nThey are having this problem all over the world. All over the world and they do not know how this keeps happening. We had to cut the cords of the two women who gave birth yesterday and luckily they are alright. No babies died today in our hospital but I am afraid this is not over.\n\nDoctor Smoots Diary, April 21 2020\nWe had more cases of babies dying, more cases of nurses breaking down and we have no explanation. Somebody reported, that the world population stayed at 7.5 billion since the start of march exactly. After increasing for decades, this seems weird, but I don't believe in anything supernatural so I can't believe in the connection.\n\nDoctor Smoots Diary, December 30, 2020\nThis is my last entry. For months now, the world population has stayed the same and babies died after their umbilical cord was cut. The popular belief is that the world population can't increase anymore. Nobody knows why and nobody knows how this is happening. However, this is happening. I am scared. I am sixty two years old, my children are grown up and left the house. There are doctors looking for jobs. I am an old man with a bad back. I don't want a newborn child to die for me to keep on living. Goodbye, world.", "They are calling them husks. What was frightening was that at first the world doctors thought there was just a problem with the babies. slow response times, not reacting to light, or sound. But over the course of a few days the responses were reported world wide, and worse it was taking the infants longer and longer to respond to outside stimulus.\n\n21 years on and now husk in the five to six year range are awakening. What's worse is they are remembering who they were. Chinese men in Africa girls, The recently assassinated pope reborn in the husk of a five year old boy in Wisconsin.\n\nSome are calling it a tragedy, others are killing themselves. Yet more are claiming it is immortality.\n\nReligious killings have increased and for a while there were enough deaths that the husks completely disappeared. Babies were born, who people believe will have no memories of their former lives. Yet now the husk age is into the teens and rising.\n\nWhat will the future bring? An ageing civilization keeping mindless husks alive only to reincarnate into them and live from forty to fifty over and over? Its not sustainable.", "Probably needs some editing, but really quick:\n\n\nGod, or at least the thing that we would consider “God” or “Brahman” or whatever word we choose leaned towards the earth, watching humanity, its creative masterpiece, when it heard a voice behind him:\n\n“Yo.”\n\n“Hey,” God said. “Who’re you?”\n\n“I’m you! From uhhhh, 2013 CE.”\n\n“Oh, cool,” the past-God said. “When is this right now?”\n\n“15,000 BCE,” future-God said.\n\n“Cool! You’re from so far in the future. What’s up, man?”\n\n“Yeah, listen, I’ll need to borrow some souls.”\n\n“Um, yeah,” past-God said. “Sure, but why?”\n\n“Remember when you made those 7 billion souls and you said ‘that’s definitely more than enough’?”\n\n“Yeah?”\n\n“It wasn’t.”\n\n“Really?”\n\n“Yeah, humans are crazy when you get to the 1800s. Breeding like rabbits.”\n\n“How about disease and stuff?”\n\n“Oh, yeah, they cured most of it.”\n\n“So do I need to make more souls right now before it hits 7 billion or…”\n\n“No, no, no, I don’t think so, I’ll just need to borrow a bit for now, ‘cause it’ll go down again.”\n\n“You sure?”\n\n“Yeah, you’ll see all the lines connect in 1945 or so, and you’ll figure that humanity will go down to…” future-God took some time to think. “Half a billion by 2100?”\n\n“Oh, okay, sure.”\n\n“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” so,” the future-God looked around. “I’ll take that one, and that one, that one, that one…”\n\nAnother voice came up from them while the future-God browsed around. “Hey.”\n\n“Hey,” the future and past Gods said at the same time.\n\n“I’m from 2050,” the way-future God said. “I came to return you the souls I borrowed, I won’t need them anymore.”\n\n“See?” Future-God said. “No need to worry at all. I’ll also want this one, this one, this one… not that one. Ooh, this one, this one…”", "By the time I had my coffee, he was sitting on his phonebooks, arms pushed flat against the table, eyes just barely open. Everything about him was tiny except for his ears which stuck out of the side of his hair. He caught me watching him and wiggled them, scrunching his nose. I scrunched my nose back at him.\nA thundering of footsteps came from the hallways and his sister burst into the room. Where he was small and delicate, she was strong and stocky. Her eyes were big and pointed on the inside, her nose long and thick, and her mouth wide. The only way you could really tell they were related was that she had the same ears, poking out from under her beanie. \n\n\"Morning Pipsqueak\" she said, ruffling his hair before passing me to grab her own cup of coffee. \n\"Who you calling pipsqueak, 'frady cat?\" he called after her. I heard her chuckle behind me. As opposite as they are, they seem to get along really well. I lucked out if you ask me.\n\nI stand straight from where I was leaning against the door frame. \"Ok guys, what do you want more lunch?\" Thought, I'm pretty sure I already knew the answer.\n\n\"Peanut butter!\" my daughter bellowed, reaching into the cupboard to grab the ingredients for me. \nFrom the other room I could hear a quiet chant \"Peanut butter and jam, peanut butter and jam, peanut butter and jam.\"\n\nSure enough, I turn around and everything is already laid out to make sandwiches. My daughter passed me again and went to the table with two bowls of cereal and sat down, passing her brother one of them. \n\nA few minuets later, as I'm packing up the rest of their lunch, there's a rap on the window. My son jumps up and rushes to the back door, it's his friend from down the street. She's small too, on a couple inches taller than him but with short spiky hair and a sharp nose. \n\n\"Come on, on, lets go! I don't want to be late again, I hate the way Mr. Turner looks at us when we're late it's absolutely condescending and embarrassing so we gotta hurry up and get there on time. Let's go!\" The words flew out of her mouth just slow enough for me to understand (most day I couldn't). \n\n\"Ok ok ok!\" He responded, scurrying back up to his room and returning with his backpack. He grabbed his lunch and was out the door with a \"Bye mom, love you!\" before I could even respond. \n\nBehind me, my daughter plopped her dishes into the sink and picked up her lunch before reaching for the door.\n\"What about your backpack?\" I ask, starting to fill the sink basin with water.\n\n\"Don't need it,\" she responded tapping her temple, \"I never forget a thing.\" With that she was out the door and it was quiet again. \n\nI swear, sometimes I feel like I gave birth to a bunch of animals. ", "Life hasn't been the same ever since we crossed The Mark. \n \nSure, for most everyone, life didn't change much at all. \n \nThere were still people who wanted to leave the past behind and make this life all that it can be before they get a shot at another. \nThere were still the same folks obsessed with continuing from where their past lives left off. Always searching for their love, or trying to buy the same house they lived in two lifetimes ago, purely for sentimental reasons. Idiots, in my opinion. My brother however, thinks I'm wrong. He's always been a romantic, someone who idealizes the past, and doesn't really live in the now, he doesn't pay any mind to what's going on in the world at the moment. \n \nThat's what's so interesting. \nMy brother and I haven't always been the closest, he's an artsy guy, whereas I'm more athletic. He's a sensitive guy who always gives his girlfriends flowers, and I'm the one who always tried to sleep with the hottest guys I saw, especially in college. I studied engineering in school where he studied music. Just two of the most different people that happen to be siblings. We even went to school in different states, which I was totally fine with. \n \nEveryone had always known about reincarnation. You can always remember some of your past lives, the more recent lives giving the clearest memories. My mother was actually a student of mine when I was a principal in my past life. I always liked to remind her that she was in my office a little too often for her to be getting on my case about acting up in school. The recent news though was that the souls that were continually finding new bodies were finite. I mean, I guess it makes sense...why would reincarnation exist at all if souls were limitless? What I don't understand though is why. Why are there only 7.5 billion souls on this Earth? How did we even figure that one out? All of the top Reincarnigists agree though, that *is* the number. \n\nSome souls take a bit longer than others to come back. I personally think it has something to do with how you died. Martha Lewis, the principal I was before, died in 1987. But me now, Jonathan Lyons, wasn't born until 1991. Because of that, most Reincarnigists agree that the amount of souls on Earth at any given time is going to be equal to or less than the amount of souls that exist. \n\n*So why then are we at a global population of 7.93 billion and growing every year?*\n\nWhen we first crossed The Mark, many scientists thought that souls are shared between two or more very similar people, such as twins and triplets. After all, they enter the world at the same time, so they must be the same soul, right?\n\nDespite how ridiculous this idea was, it gained popularity. Science was so set on the idea that only 7.5 billion of us existed that some people couldn't possible be unique. Those who were deemed to be \"soul identical\" were slapped with a handful of new social expectations and restrictions. After all, how could you possibly get consent for sex from one person if another part of their soul hasn't also consented? Or how could you marry your sweetheart if you're not allowed more than one spouse and they happen to be an incomplete person? \nSoon enough, these idiotic ideas spread to our lawmakers, and all of sudden twins weren't allowed to take out a loan if the other half of their soul happened to have bad credit. They were always a package deal, never being allowed to do anything for themselves, since they didn't actually have a \"self\" as far as the law was concerned. \n\nAnd that's where I sit now. In the small apartment I share with my brother. I've grown to really dislike him. It's because of that I have to live in this shithole. Because he defaulted on some credit card payments when he was 20, *I* couldn't get approved for a home loan. On top of that, now I have to live with the bastard. There's no way we could possible share the same soul; I hate him too much. \n\nI've lost everything. My job, my boyfriend, my financial security, all because I now am considered part of a set, not an individual. I've never been more depressed in my life. I want to end it...but I have a secret fear. If I kill myself, and they are right...will I have to meet my brother in our next life and have him know how much contempt I have for him? \n\nI don't think I want to know what that would be like. ", "*(My writing muscles are really really rusty. This is my first creative piece in about 5 years)*\n\n\nEllie didn't cry the day she was born. \n\nThe doctors didn't know how to react. This wasn't the first time this has ever happened, there had been stories in the news about it, but it was the first time any of them had witnessed it. So we waited while the doctors ran every sort of test on her. Though, in the end, they could find nothing physically wrong and six days later released her and Mom from the hospital. \n\nEllie was the 33rd reported case of what scientists hypothesize to be some form of atypical autism. However the link between them is a mystery. \n\nIt's late when we finally get home. Mom shushes me and tells me not to turn on all the lights as she gently carries Ellie to her new room. I toss my bag at one end of the couch and slump into the opposite corner, happy to sit on some real furniture for a change. The television blinks into life midway through some news broadcast. \n\nGod I hate the news. Once word got out at the hospital of Ellie's condition, a steady barrage of reporters, journalists, and the onlookers began showing up looking for a spectacle. After the second day Mom and Ellie were both transferred to a private room in a secure wing of the hospital. That didn't stop the letters. Everything from words of encouragement from sympathetic mothers to hate mail calling my sister a soulless freak. Eventually we stopped reading them and the envelopes began piling up on a small corner table. The hospital bundled them together for us when we left but they only ended up in the trash can near the entrance. Mom wouldn't let us have that in our home. \n\nThe ticker beneath the newscaster reported that there were now 256 reported cases of \"Infantile Apathy\" in the US alone. A startling number considering it was something completely nonexistent just over a week ago. I clicked off the TV, our family was already hard off without being held under a magnifying glass. Maybe if it really was an epidemic it would pull our family out of the spotlight, but if it is as serious as everybody believes it is, what does that mean for Ellie?\n\nAs I lay there with my eyes shut, a golden stream of light snakes slowly across the back of my eyelids and lulls me into a restless sleep.\n\n------\n\n\"A gold light, like a billion tiny specks of gold dust all floating together in a giant river, but every time I get close enough to touch it, I wake up.\" \n\nI'm sitting at a red light, Ellie in the passenger seat. It's her first day if 1st grade and, since Mom is working the long shift today,I'm her chauffeur. I really don't mind all that much. She's quiet most of the time, although when she does speak, she says the oddest things. This time it's about a recurring dream she's been having. \n\n\"It's like i can stand above it and when I concentrate hard enough my legs start growing until I can feel it. It's like hot and hold mixed together at the same time. It's kinda' itchy.\"\n\n\"You could be a writer you know?\"\n\n\"I don't think I could. The only time I come up with stuff is when I dream.\" \n\nEllie is bright for her age, exceptionally bright. Her words would paint pictures in my mind. I was the only person she ever really talked to. Otherwise she was extremely shy and never spoke to anyone else unless she was spoken to. \n\nI got home from school early that day. We were in finals so seniors got the second half of the day off. I'd heated some leftovers in the fridge, took them to the couch, and began cutting into the saucy folds. \n\n*buzzzzzz*\n\nThe doorbell went off like a large, angry bee caught between the walls. It was unusual for us to have visitors. They used to come all the time back when Ellie was little, come to gaze at the spectacle. It was fairly commonplace now and experts were calling it a new global pandemic even though nobody really knew what *it* was. \n\n*buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*\n\n\"I'm coming, keep your shirt on!\"\n\nI opened the door to find a tall man, probably 40 something, with super short hair and a light beard. He wore jeans, a white T-shirt, and a light, red, loose-fitting jacket that went down almost to his knees. He introduced himself as Jean and asked if he might have a word with me. I had already mentally plotted the paths to the knife drawer, the gun in the bottom night stand drawer, and the pepper spray in my backpack. \n\n\"It's about your sister. I have some important news I think you should know.\"\n\nHe was wearing an expression of solemn concern. Like the officer that shows up at your house at night to tell you that your father isn't going to be coming home again. His eyes radiated that same sencerity, so I let him in. \n\nWe sit down at the small round table between the kitchen and the living room. I take the mail that was scattered about and place it to one side in a rough stack. \n\n\"okay, so what's this news?\"\n\n\"Well... it's not easy to explain. Are you familiar with the concept of reincarnation?\"\n\n\"You mean the belief that we're born into a different body when we die?\"\n\n\"Yes, you see, we believe that when the earth was created *however* it was created, that there were placed on it a finite number of souls. These souls grew into existence within every living creature that walked upon the earth at that time. A number we estimate to be about seven and a half billion.\"\n\n\"You're telling me there are only so many souls to go around?\" \n\n\"That's *exactly* what I'm telling you. In all of recorded history mankind has never existed in such large numbers. Our sudden exponential growth has led us to outgrow the planet's spiritual carrying capacity. There have been signs for some time but they're relatively hard to spot, at least for our kind. Animals used to have souls, they don't anymore....\"\n\n\"Wh... what does this have to do with my sister?\"\n\n\"Your sister. . . was born without a soul.\"\n\nI stared at the man, half shocked half angry. I wanted to punch him for coming into our house and saying such awful things about my family, but as a looked into his eyes all that was there was the same concern radiating from his visage, showing it was almost as hard for him to say it as it was for me to hear. I didn't want to believe him, although it made perfect sense. It'd been something that I had wondered myself from time to time. In the last 6 years Ellie had never once cried, laughed, or become angry. She was almost devoid of extreme emotion. Sure she would smile, or frown, or act frustrated, but it was always with the same calm temperance she always had. \n\n\"What does this mean?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know that for sure. Your sister can live a normal life; she can act and think just like any other person. However, there are many things that only exist because of the soul. True emotions that radiate outward from our true beings. She may come to understand this on her own, but I feel it is best you do not share this information with her. It will not help her.\"\n\n\"Does this mean all the babies born with IA are actually...\"\n\n\"Born without a soul? Yes\"\n\n\"Is there anything we can do?\"\n\n\"No, we know very little about how the process works and to what limitations reincarnation follows. There is one hypothesis . Children of soulless beings cannot have souls themselves. The ability to contain a soul is believed to be an inherited trait. Mankind may continue to live on, but one day he may cease to be man.\" \n\n\"So, if we cannot be reincarnated, then what will happen?\"\n\n\"That is something I do not know\"\n\nThe man and I talked for a short while more before he excused himself and departed. For the remainder of the afternoon I sat on the couch until it was time to pick up Ellie.\n\n---\n\nA lifetime flies by, quicker than I would have ever expected. As the man predicted, Ellie met someone who was like her and settled down to raise a family whom was just as quiet as Ellie was. I wondered what drew them together. What concepts of love and sexuality arose for someone without a soul. After awhile, I quit thinking about these questions and began to wonder what was in store for me at the end of my journey. \n\nI didn't have much time left now. To my right, my dear sister holding my hand and wearing a solemn expression. To this day she'd never once cried, and today was no exception. As I closed my eyes, I could see it. A golden sparkling river slowly moving through a vast expanse of darkness. Billions of shimmering lights together marching forward throughout the void. I could feel myself gently falling, a feeling of warmth and cold at the same time. \n\nMy toes touched the river, and suddenly my body began to glow like the river. The lights surrounded me and then the light was me. I felt myself become instantly weightless, a golden light. In that instant I could see every thought and emotion I had ever experienced, in all of my lifetimes. Great joy, sadness, love, and sorrow all washed over me in an instant. \n\nI realized, this had been Ellie's dream. I was now a part of of the flow of the universe. All this time she'd literally dreamt of having a soul. She could see the river of light, but could never touch it. \n\nA sense of sorrow overwhelmed me. It wasn't fair. IT WASN'T FAIR! I imagined her, still sitting next to my body. How could I experience such wonder while she would be condemned to nothingness. Slowly I began to notice myself floating away from the golden river. A sense of nothingness pressing around me as if my eternal thoughts rendered me unfit to follow the golden river through the universe. I could see myself moving towards a bright, white light and I felt myself being compressed and stretched so much I knew I was about to pop out of existence. \n\nThen it didn't happen.\n\n\"Thank you\" said a voice in my head as I could feel hot tears welling up in my eyes.\n\nWait, my eyes?\n\nEverything was coming into focus and I could see my old body lifeless on the bed. I tried to move but I couldn't, then I realized...the tear\n\nWas Ellie's\n", "When I was younger I never really believed in souls. The soul was something for the religious to idolize, some pure theoretical thing that kept people believing they had something about themselves that was eternal and pure if only they would nurture it. I was never religious, still aren’t, but I now know that souls exist…the entire world knows. \n \nIt started happening on May 21st, 2020. Populations were booming, the world was becoming crowded with people, and delivery rooms were filled with the eerie silence of new-born babies. At first doctors thought it was some kind of disease, a new form of autism or some genetic defect. Testing was done as the world cried for an answer, but they could find nothing behind the blank, emotionless stares of thousands of babies born since that day. Pollution was blamed, chemicals in the drinking water, lack of religion…if you could think it up then you could find someone somewhere that would agree with you. In the end one theory seemed to stick: they didn’t have souls. \n \nNo one could quite say why one baby may be born normal while another was born with cold, blank eyes where a glimmer of humanity should have been. Eventually specialists began suggesting that perhaps there were a finite number of souls and that humanity had simply grown too large. It seemed to make the most sense so it stuck. \n \nAs for the soulless…well, we didn’t quite know what to do with them. Parents began abandoning children or refused to accept their child didn’t have a soul and spent their lives hiding it. Others embraced it and made the best of it, but it all became quite taboo nonetheless. Hating soulless was the new racism. It united religions and races and social groups because finally they had a group they could all agree didn’t fit.\n \n“Don’t date a soulless, don’t make friends with a soulless, they can’t love you, they aren’t really people, the soulless can kill you and won’t even care…” \n \nThat was 30 years ago and the first soulless were grown up now. Some had jobs, some had families, but it was mostly those that were smart enough to hide the fact that they were sans that inner light that so many of us had. Some were very good actors and you couldn’t even tell, but most soulless didn’t care that they didn’t fit in. \n \nThere were huge communities of soulless drifters that took in others like them, not because they particularly cared, but because they knew there was a strength in numbers. Churches liked to set up shops in these communities, it was like missionary work, but the soulless rarely converted and simply took what the churches would offer them. Many churches gave up trying to help, and even worse some churches despised them and picketed for their expulsion from whatever country they may be in at the time. Sometimes they WERE expelled. Sometimes they were killed.\n \nThey handled it in stride. \n \nAs for me, I liked to talk with them. I noticed a fantastical peace in the soulless communities that defied all human comprehension. Without souls they saw the world for what it was, they were purely logical creatures with simple needs and little wants. There were no fights, no conflicts, no tears, no love…there was harmony like the world had never seen because harmony is the most logical state of existence and they could execute it perfectly. \n \nThe soulless were as beautiful as they were sad, but I did not pity them because they did not have the capacity to WANT pity. From those without them I have learned that souls are fiery and dangerous things, capable of great love and great cruelty…and I cannot help but wonder if perhaps the world would have been better without them completely. \n", "\"Wait... so the poisoning of the Ganges?\"\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"My God! Michael! That was millions...\"\n\n\"You think I don't know that!? Besides, don't you think most of those people appreciated a new roll of the dice.\"\n\n\"It's just, well, how do we know? There's no way we could have known.\"\n\n\"You don't drop a trillion dollars in defense spending and not invest in some extra-dimensional exploration. We've seen it coming for decades. You didn't think the fertility rate bottomed out because of gluten intolerance, did you?\"\n\n\"Well, it's still a lot to take in, right? You're saying the whole thing is a sham, like the war?\"\n\nMy brother's gaze fell to his beer while he chose his words carefully.\n\n\"I'll say it has been calculated drudgery. Every thing we have done, well, everything *my* department has done was to keep some semblance of order.\"\n\n\"So the war...?\"\n\n\"Internationally esclated. We tried to keep the action off of American soil, but the general population wanted peace as long as the danger was on the other side of the world. So...\"\n\n\"The Manhattan incident.\"\n\nAnother nod.\n\n\"Hepatitis D?\"\n\n\"Was us.\"\n\nMy eyes went wide. \"Chi... Chicago?\"\n\n\"Tyler, that was an asteroid.\"\n\n\"Right, well, these people are coming back?\"\n\nAnother nod. \"We've *seen* it happen.\"\n\n\"Well, what's next?\"\n\n\"We have people in the Large Haddon Coll... let's just say that I wouldn't make any plans to visit Europe next summer.\"", "There is something wrong with the new generation.\n\n The doc said he would be a healthy baby boy, no defects physical or psychological were evident during the ultrasound. She named him Adam and the birth went off without a hitch. He was a healthy weight but unresponsive in the way a newborn should be. He didn't cry and this was a cause for concern to the surgeons. \n\nWe brought him home the next day. He fed like a normal baby and that was it. By 2 months he still hadn't made a noise. Physicians suspected autism. Megan blamed the vaccinations. I began to wonder myself. But what began as symptoms for a basic neurological issue slowly revealed itself as something much more sinister. We won't talk about the animals. Megan said it was natural for a boy. She didn't want to call attention to it. He would grow out of it, she said. And that he did.\n\nAdam was fully mobile, capable of walking and handling basic tasks for himself. By age 8 after allocating all of our savings to speech and social therapy Adam still hadn't cried nor spoken a word. It was an exercise in futility, all of our money gone in vain.\n\nWe had been out of the loop, so focused on ourselves. There had been rumors of similar issues in other children... nearly all other children. It was now a relative minority being born with vocal capabilities. Since a lack of speech presented no clear harm to the children, however, it was quickly accepted as the new normal for most kids to simply not speak. What else could the world do in such an ambiguous crisis? Adam understood well, like a mind-reader. His abilities were incomprehensible, nothing short of gifted; but that too became the new normal.\n\nWhen Adam became 16 there became reports of individual sociopathic behavior and violent cult tendencies in the silent youth. Quiet riots in the street and hushed sacrifices out of city limits and adam was among them. Megan talked to Adam like a grieving mother would a headstone. The preachers called it judgment, the destruction of a society were the wages for the transgressions it so recklessly committed. For the first time in what I considered my adult life I believed it. I needed penance. I just wanted the normal life I signed up for. I wanted my son.\n\nI came home to... something unspeakable. Adam, alone, bloody. Megan, hollow and dead.\n\nAdam spoke.\n\n", "_'I don't want to have to do this'_ \n'It's for Tobias... Remember' \nThe couple looked so innocent and for a bizarre few seconds, as he places a tender hand on her swollen abdomen, I forget what just happened. \nThat is until the metallic taint of blood caresses my tongue, until the large head wound that I've recently gained makes itself know. \nI can't help but let out a groan of pain, which returns their focus on me. \nThe man turns, what looks to be the remaining half of the bottle I was struck with glints menacingly in the moonlight. \nIf I could move, I'd have retreated from his determined stride. But as it is, I have to sit there and watch as he kneels down and places the serrated glass to my neck. \n'I'm so sorry man, It's not personal.' Comes a tormented whisper from the silhouetted figure. 'But, my boy... He... He...' \nDrops fall onto my cheek and I understand what's happening. To begin with, I'd thought this was about money. But this is about something far more important. \n\n'But my boy needs a soul'\n\nI've never had the pleasure of being seriously injured before, but when the glass slid across my neck, I realized that I'd horribly underestimated the pain of death.\n\nAs I was ripped from my body, I felt who I was slip away. All my memories, all my dreams, all my emotions. Everything stripped as I was stuffed into a new form. I remembered that I had memories, I remembered that I was in love, but in some sort of cruel torment I wasn't permitted to remember any more. But even this slipped away as I opened my eyes for the first time into the blinding lights.\n\"Welcome to the world Tobias\"", "This morning, I wake up with a hangover. Blurred memories. Party and clubs and drinks and more. \n*I am also very happy this morning. It is my birthday. I want that pony so bad.* \n\nI realize this guy I brought home is still laying there next to me. I push him out of the bed. \n*I sneak into their room. Mom and Dad are still asleep. Jumping on the bed, I'm so excited.* \n\nHe falls flat on the floor. he groans and moans and curses. My head hurts. I head to the shower. \n*Daddy groans and complains. But then he gets up. Happy Birthday sweetie !! Let's go down to the kitchen.* \n\nFresh and clean. Coffee. Thanks for the night buddy, but it's time to get the hell out of here ! \n*NOOOOOOOOO there is no more chocolate milk. I want chocolate milk. Calm down. No, I don't want to calm down.* \n\nI am late for work. Where did I put that ~~chocolate mi~~ ... where is that fucking briefcase ? \n*It's under the bed. Older me should watch my language. Ok daddy, no more crying. Where is my pony ? Is it in the garden ?* \n\nHow long has she been me ? Five years ? I feel so helplessly crazy. Damn, my head. I shouldn't drink so much every time. \n*Daddy how come you don't like chocolate milk ? Coffee is disgusting ! It's beeuuurkkkk !* \n\nIs she real ? Should I try to meet ~~her~~ me ? I really hope I'll get that pony today.\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 12, 16, 23 ]

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[ "**They**\n\n*They said everything would be OK…*\n\nI could hear their screams. The screams of 7 billion people ceasing to exist, slain by an unseen killer. Hopes and dreams, stories and tales. All forgotten within a matter of seconds.\n\n*They said everyone would make it…*\n\nThe fires blazed, they glowed, they spread. Spread like a disease with no cure, spread like a wicked joke. \n\n*They said we would all survive…*\n\nWe brought it on ourselves, we didn’t listen. Haha, when have we ever listened to warnings? Time and time again we didn’t listen, and we never learned. When will we ever learn…?\n\n*They said they could stop it…*\n\nWe knew how to stop it, but we didn’t. We were ignorant, we took risks. Oh God, there was so much we could have done. Why didn’t we do it?\n\nIt was too damned expensive.\n\n*They said they could turn it around…*\n\nI remember my home, it was so hot. Ugh, sweaty, humid, always so hot… Why was it so excruciatingly hot? Every day, every night, it was just so hot.\n\n*They said they would leave us alone…*\n\nEvery day I heard stories, glaciers this, water levels that. They weren’t stories, they were chapters, just an insignificance in the grand scheme of things.\n\n*They said they could fix our mistakes…*\n\nI remember the longest chapter, the biggest story. The moment everything would turn around.\n\nWhen they came.\n\n*They said this wasn’t the end…*\n\nThey came to us, they said they could repair the damage we caused. Everyone rejoiced, there were parties on the streets, they all had no idea.\n\n*They said there was hope…*\n\nThey promised us things, they could make my home like my father remembers. Green and blue, not orange and red. They could make everything better. And everyone believed them.\n\n*They said they could be trusted…*\n\nWe let down our defences, we invited them into our home. We trusted them, like they said we could. We loved them.\n\nBut they hated us.\n\n*They told us lies, manipulative, disgusting lies…*\n\nThey thought we were criminals for what we did. They thought we didn't deserve to live. They thought about all those animals, plants, fish. They thought they were all dead because of our selfishness. We were parasites to them.\n\n*They said we were allies…*\n\nTheir plan was unravelled, the people tried to leave. They had to leave, or die. We couldn’t believe what they were going to do to us.\n\n*They said they were our friends…*\n\nI was on the first flight, the first ship to leave for an unknown destination. To survive the apocalypse. My father was on the next flight.\n\n*He said he would see me soon…*\n\nI looked out the window as we left, I could see millions of people, all waiting to leave instead of face the fate they created. Soon they were all just embers in the flame.\n\nI could hear their screams. The screams of 7 billion people ceasing to exist, slain by an unseen killer. Hopes and dreams, stories and tales. All forgotten within a matter of seconds.\n\n*They said everything would be OK…*\n", "\"The Earth was my home.\" I watch as the planet's rotation accelerates dangerously. The entire planet is coming apart around its axis, eventually it will be a disk, not unlike when it first formed. If I squint, I can see small distortions in the light of the stars near the Earth. It's gathered himself there, using all of its strength to tear our planet apart. It's the perfect time to strike, if only we had a weapon that would harm it. As it is, I can only watch as chunks of rock lift off of the equator. I don't know what will happen to the people still there. \n\n\"We've all lost something.\" That's Luce, he doesn't know what the name I've given him is a reference to. Probably for the best, he could still be unstable, and we need him almost as much as he needs us. \n\n\"I know. Good to see you up and walking around.\" Luce's stamina is increasing pretty quickly, only a few days ago he couldn't make it down the hall to the elevator without my help. That we're only producing .5 G with our rotation probably helps too. He's smart enough to tell I've changed the subject, lets see if he lets me.\n\n\"It's not that bad, I already know how to do this, it's just getting right reflexes.\" Looks like he will. That's good, I'd prefer not to discuss Luce's origins. He seems willing to help us but I can't trust him yet. I wonder if I'll ever trust him. Maybe if his plan works. And then only maybe.\n\n\"some reflexes are tougher than others.\" I start walking, and as Luce follows I wave a hand in front of his face. He stumbles.\n\n\"For instance, you should balance using the fluids in your inner ear, not your eyes. You won't always have a constant point of reference, your ear will tell you your acceleration exactly.\" \n\n\"I see.\" He does, too. Cleverer than most humans I've met. I hope his intelligence is unintended, if it's as smart as he is we could be walking into a trap. I have to hope so, otherwise all is already lost.\n\n\"You know, I don't think I'm the first.\" I pause, then turn and meet Luce's eyes. They are blue, and oddly large, set in a face more sculpted than grown. His resting expression looks like some sort of gentle kindness, although I know that Luce is a fighter. Right now that's not the expression on his face thought. He looks bright, like a child that's just had what it thinks is a great idea, and wants to tell a grown-up right away. I stay silent for a while, but prolonged eye contact doesn't affect Luce like it tends to do humans. He just keeps the same earnest expression on his face until he realizes he should speak.\n\n\"A long time back, before this whole thing started, there was this angel who got sent to meet someone who was acting strangely. He never came back, and no one could find him. Eventually, when we didn't stop looking, the Creator just told us not to keep looking for him. The thing is, we couldn't find any trace of him. It was like he had just stopped existing. Isn't that like-\"\n\n\"No. As far as the others know, we killed you. What you've described sounds like your maker got rid of him for some reason. Is it common for angels to disagree with it?\"\n\n\"Never. Before you freed me, he could walk into my head and look at what I was thinking anytime he pleased. He could have changed me if I thought something wrong as easily as he could change himself. We weren't like humans in that-\"\n\n\"Actually, that's exactly what it can do to humans with souls.\" Luce falls silent for a moment. It's clear that this simple fact was a big surprise to him. Interesting. It turn, and watch the continuing destruction of Earth. By now it's mostly dust, with a few larger rocks where the core was. The disk is starting to slow down now, it's reabsorbing the energy it used to spin the Earth up to destructive speeds. Moving the center a little while it's at it too. Seems it wants the dust a little closer to the sun.\n\n\"We all knew that that was impossible. We believed that humans all had free will so they chose to be good instead of being evil.\"\n\n\"Seems there was a lot it kept from you.\"\n\n\"You think the angel found out about something he wasn't supposed to? That the Creator couldn't just order him to keep it hidden and destroyed him instead?\"\n\n\"I strongly suspect the first, and I don't think it would have even considered ordering a subordinate to keep his mouth shut when eliminating him was an option. Tell me, who was this angel meeting.\"\n\n\"I never spent much time on the search. Just know it was a man who was being considered as a Prophet. One of the first ones.\" Hanrol. Of course, he wouldn't have accepted of his own accord. Especially not after I warned him.\n\n\"You know something?\" Seems I lost control of my expression.\n\n\"I think so. If I'm right, it would have had to directly change the man's mind, and wouldn't allow the angels to find out that was possible. I'm wondering why it's afraid of what the angels think. We might be able to use that for the weapon.\" \n\nLuce nods. \"Time to get started then?\"\n\n\"Oh, I've already started. We'll need to wait a while before there's a planet to drop the next stage on though. It's speeding things up, but it'll still take a while for the Garden to form.\" \n\n\"What do we do in the meantime?\"\n\n\"We wait. We plan. And we do the one thing it cannot understand. We advance.\"\n\n\"Once this is over, will we stay on the Garden?\"\n\n\"No. The Earth was our home, once. But the stars our our home now. For some of us, they have been home for years already.\"\n\n*****\n\nRead more of my stories at /r/ghotioninabarrel", "The spaceport was a scene of chaos, the crush of fleeing civilians trying to board overpacked freighters and cargo ships. Shuttles and lighters filled to bursting tried to take off of the duracrete landing berths only to be swamped by panicked refugees dragging them down to crash upon the huddled heads of hundreds more. The police tried to keep order, tried to calm the terrorized beings but they were drowned out in the sea of fear and confusion. \n\nThe only ones with a semblance of order were the mercenaries from Ord Ivran the planet had hired to defend their world. Fearsome looking humans, they had fought in the outer worlds of the star system admirably, losing both men and materiel in their dogged defense. Now on the last foothold within it, the men and women of Ord Ivran abandoned their charges, their retreat clause in their contract having been enacted, and they rushed to avoid the Empire's justice. Already three triangular shapes, like that of some deadly shark hung high in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Three Victory-class Star Destroyers of the new Galactic Empire drifted above the capital city, the untold threat readily visible; we can annihilate you on a whim. \n\nThe Ivrish had been hired several years before the Clones Wars and when the system threw their lot in with the Confederacy, they merely asked, 'how much?' Many had lovers and wives among the locals, they hung out at the same tapcafs and bars for years. But a mercenary was nothing if not pragmatic, and even fond memories were not worth fighting a hopeless war.\n\nA female near-human with milk pale skin and white hair stared out at the column of retreating Ivrish, her silvery eyes wet with tears. She carried a large bundle in her arms like many other refugees, the only belongings they could snatch up. The riot police did their best to keep the crowds at bay, their force shields and stun batons forming a corridor for the mercenaries to move through to their vessels. Not one soul hurled insults or bricks at the feral looking humans; no one could blame them for wanting to live. But they cried aloud for the soldiers to save them, to bring them along instead of leaving to the cruel mercies of the Empire.\n\n\"Please! Take me with you!\"\n\n\"They'll kill us! For gods' sake save us bring us with you. I beg you, my wife's off-world.\"\n\n\"Don't leave me behind, I'll be shot!\"\n\nThe Ivrish kept their stares straight ahead, silent tears falling from their cheeks. They were abandoning friends and wives, the ships unable to carry them all. The white haired woman, barely out of her adolescent years spotted a familiar face, a kind looking man hardly older than her with dark brown hair.\n\n\"Sergeant!\" She cried, desperation and hope mixed equally in her voice. \"Sergeant Bren!\" That got his attention, his eyes widening in recognition of the voice, his head turning to face her. \"Where is he?! Where is my husband?!\" \n\nA flash of memory and sadness washed across Sergeant Bren's face as he shook his head and the young woman knew instantly what had happened to her beloved. \n\n*no... no, no, n-No. Not now, not when he needs me most.*\n\n\"Sergeant, please, you must help me.\"\n\nBren, having pulled himself out of the column fought back tears as he shook his head. \"I'm sorry, Kimi, I can't. Orders...\"\n\nThe young woman fought back tears.\n\n\"Please, if not for me, then for my Tomess.\" \n\nShe reached down and pulled a corner of the bundle away to reveal a young child, barely two years old if at that. The boy seemed not afraid of the screaming and blaster fire, but instead worried at his mother's crying. His down soft hair was white like his mother, but his eyes, his eyes were the same pale blue of Corporal Willi Ghast, killed in action on the planet's moon a week before.\n\nSergeant Bren swore and made to touch his lips and sternum.\n\n\"By the gods... He's Ivrish, one of us. I have to bring him home, his *real* home. Give him to me, Kimi. There's a good lass. I promise, I'll keep him safe, no matter what.\"\n\nThe riot police between them parted slightly on his order to allow her to hand the boy over.\n\n\"Thank you, sergeant, thank yo-\" \n\nJust then the crowds, sensing an opening dived towards them, engulfing the young woman in a sea of bodies. She vanished from his sight, the police barely preventing a breakthrough with their stun batons and blasters. Not all of the latter with set to stun. Rushing to the waiting Drakar-class transports, he was among the last aboard, the hatches sealing with a hiss. Sergeant Bren looked around at the filthy faces wide with shock. Smiling sadly, he raised the boy so that they might all see him, the lad without fear.\n\n\"Corporal Ghast is not yet dead. Though he perished saving us, he never died and here is my proof! The blood of Willtem Ghast still liveth! Tomess Ghast, son of Willtem, and a son of Ord Ivran!\"\n\n\"A son of Ord Ivran!\" Came the shout from a hundred throats. " ]

[ 2, 2, 3 ]

[ "1431554229", "1431561018", "1431558357" ]

[ "As I wake up on that day I feel a sense of dread\n\nMy life up to this point was a failure, I went to school and did good but not great, and I never really did anything special because of it. I posed no significant meaning and I was never the best. I work at the lowest of the low places and get just enough pay to get by, but man is it stressful.\n\nI decided to take the day off and go do something fun (I work like 6 days a week and I just wanted a day to rest) I decided to go to the beach. Never been there in a while might as well\n\nI sit along the beach and relax, get some tan on. My family has left me, unsurprisingly. I am utterly alone, but I didn't feel like getting depressed at a beach and stopped thinking that. I needed something to do, so I decided to swim. I liked swimming, had fun in the water. When I got out I saw someone, a figure, my basic instinct was to approach it. I decided to do that\n\nIt looked like a girl in a hoodie, in the middle of summer? why? I didn't really care, she seemed like she wanted to talk to me.\n\n\"Hello, lovely day isn't it?\" I said\n\n\"..hi\" she said, very shyly\n\n\"oh, yes indeed!\" She said, changing the tone a bit to seem more excited, but I knew deep down she was just as hollow as I was, I just hide it better I suppose.\n\n\"Wanna be friends?\" she said, quickly, she wanted a friend and so did I. we were desperate and she got to the point faster than I did really\n\n\"Sure, lets be friends.\" I said\n\nWe were friends, we were interested in the same things really, sitting home watching tv, or movies, video games etc. She didn't seem to have a job, but that didn't bother me, jobs suck 99% of the time anyway, if you can get by begging for money thats a choice and I respect that, better then my 6 day a week jazz.\n\nAs time went by me and this girl have grown closer, she opened her heart to me one day and asked me on a date to the movies...\n\nI was sitting at home watching tv, and she knocked on the door. I opened the door and said hello, and invited her in\n\n\"Hi...Kyy..ugh...\" She said, I knew she was nervous. She indeed was shy, but not normally to me.\n\n\"What is it?\" I said, curious to what was choking her up.\n\n\"Will you go on a date with me?\" she said, she seemed to instantly regret it as if she thought she knew the answer was gonna be a no.\n\n\"Sure, do you wanna go to the movies? a new one came out and it looks cool!\" I didn't really know what movies came out recently but meh, might as well find something to watch.\n\nWe went to the movies and watched a pretty funny movie, the guessing game of which one to pick served me well, we then left and returned home. we decided to stop for some quick lunch and relaxed in the car when she said,\n\n\"Kyy, I need to tell you something else\" She was also appearing nervous.\n\n\"What?\" I said\n\n\"I, well ugh, am ugh, death.\" she said\n\nI didn't know what she was saying until I recalled previous times with her, She never got recognized by anyone but me, and she would go on spontaneous trips across the country, or even vacations. Now I knew what her job was\n\n\"What do you mean your death?\" I asked, not knowing what she meant\n\n\"When someone dies, I deliver them to where they go, heaven or hell.\" She said, quietly as if not to attract attention \n\n\"Prove it\" I said, jokingly. She took it seriously.\n\n\"Ok...\" She said, seeing a guy walking minding his own business\n\n\"I can also kill people instantaneously, see that man...watch\"\n\nI knew she was bluffing I mean kill someone? her? she doesn't seem the type\n\nI was wrong, moments later a fire happened up the road, which led to the house blowing up into fragments, and one of those fragments smashed the man's head in two\n\nIt was gruesome and scary, I have never been this scared\n\n\"What have u done?!?!\" I said, I knew she directly caused that man to die\n\n\"You said to prove it, I did\" she said\n\nI was out of it, I loved the girl I really did and wanted a relationship but she can't go around killing people. \n\n\"Just, keep that to yourself\" I said\n\nWe continued our relationship to eventual marriage, but I always have nightmares of that man, that innocent person that died by her. I try to be on her good side, if we argue I let her win. I don't know if she would kill me out of quick anger and I don't want her too.\n\nTHE END", "Since the dawn of time the only thing I can remember is death. Though, I guess that is a consequence of being it's harbinger. \n\nSince time began, I was appointed the job of ensuring that all beings in this dimension meet their demise, be it timely or not. \n\nIt's a lonely line of work, but it's work that needs to be done.\n\nOne thing I need to get straight, there are none that can see me. This whole 'death appearing before you die' shit is a myth, albeit a relatively accurate one. While I do appear, no one can know it for certain.\n\nI've been personified as a wight in long dark robes wielding a scythe and 'harvesting souls'. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to walk around with a twelve foot scythe swinging it around looking all badass, but it's just not the case.\n\nI'm no different from your own appearance, at least from what I've been told. In reality, I've never seen myself; but that's beyond the point.\n\nThe other issue I have, is I'm looked upon like some sort of monster, taking people away from their precious lives. I'm a needed force, without me everything would be stagnant, and unchanging. I bring an end so that beginnings may be born. \n\nYou see this here...\n\n The aspect of death reached out a hand, a small black book clasped firmly within it's grasp. \n\nIn this book is the name of every individual that has and ever will exist, all I do is open this book, and the page will reveal my next target.\n\nNow I know what you're thinking, how can I be sitting here explaining all this when there are so many people passing away every second? The answer is, I exist out of your dimension, I exist on a dimension far beyond human comprehension. While I'm sitting here, wasting my life away...\n\nThe aspect of death let out a chuckle, obviously impressed by his own joke. \n\nWhile I'm here, I am also there. I am everywhere at once, what you may call omnipotent, but even that word dwarfs the true power behind my being. \n\nA finger slowly pressed itself between the pages, forcing the book open, exposing a page to the cool winter air.\n\nNow, if you'll excuse me, I--\n\nThe aspect cut himself off short, his gaze focused intently on the page in front of him. A name was inked across it, no different than always, but what had stolen the aspect's attention was the date. He had been born in the year 1217. He had been born nearly eight hundred years ago. Though a shock, this still was not what caused this silence. Where the date of his death should be, there was a smudge, almost several smudges, as if the date of his death had been inked many times, and erased just as many.\n\nBut this was the first time the aspect had encountered it.\n\n\"This can not be...\" It's own thoughts were interrupted as it's speech had been, as the sound of a car coming to a screeching halt cried out below him, the sound of a body being ejected throw the windshield soon followed. \n\nThe aspect lowered himself to the ground, and began to pace to the area the body lay. Yet as he approached, the injured human rose up, dusted himself off and reached into his pocket, retrieving a cigarette. Sparking his lighter, the man with long dark hair inhaled deeply before exhaling a cloud of smoke and sighing deeply.\n\n\"Impossible!\" The aspect cried out aloud, it's hands shaking in fear. \"You should be dead!\"\n\nThe long haired man took another puff from his cigarette before turning his head to face the aspect.\n\n\"So, you can finally see me?\" The man questioned the aspect, a childlike grin on his face. \n\n\"You.. you can see me?\" The aspect of death sounded weak, almost scared, an emotion it had never known. \"What do you mean finally?\"\n\n\"This is not the first time we've crossed paths, Maveth.\" The man took one last drag of his cigarette before dropping it to the ground and extinguishing it with his foot. \"I believe the last time we ran into each other was sixty years ago, a plane crash in the middle of a forest.\"\n\nThe aspect of death, Maveth as he was called by the Israelites, could recall every person it had taken from this world. It instantly recalled the crash.\n\n\"Everyone died, everyone!\" Maveth screamed, stuck between fury and despair. \"Everyone!\" It's fingers flipped through the book, looking for the page for this event, as it found it, a look of relief decorated it's face, but it was gone just as quickly as it had arrived. \n\nThere were many names on this page, but one stood out. The name of the man before him. Once again, the date of his death had been rubbed out. \n\nMaveth crammed the book into the satchel at it's hip. In a fury it bolted to the long haired man, moving it's hand to place it upon his forehead, but he found that he could not make any contact with the man.\n\nMaveth recoiled, and took several steps back.\n\n\"What are you? What foul abomination repels my power, rivaled by only one other being!\"\n\n\"You see my name, I am Marcus. As much as I would love to feel your caress and slip away from this world, you simply can not.\" The man started walking down the road, his voice echoing as he shouted at the aspect of death. \"If you truly need an answer, ask that one who holds more power than you. Ask your brother.\"\n\nMaveth stood there, it's mind racing like a river, his eyes following the man until he was no longer in sight. It raised it's hands, they were still shaking with fear.\n\n\"What does this man know of my brother...\" It thought to itself. \"What can Anu tell me of this man who defies me...\"\n\n-----------\n\nSorry for spelling or grammar, no time to proofread and edit. Also sorry if I mix pronouns for death, I forgot halfway through it was going to be it instead of masculine. \n\n This story is a tie in with my previous that can be found [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/35rx7d/pi_an_immortal_man_who_cannot_be_physically/cr79vf4)\n\nEnjoy.\n\n" ]

[ 2, 3 ]

[ "1431565393", "1431566117" ]

[ "\"I told you not to go outside!\" Mom screams at me, \"you're not supposed to be seen by the humans! They'll come hunting for you!\"\n\nI look sheepish. \"Sorry.... Mom...\"\n\nShe waves me off. \"Apologizing does no good, boy.\" \n\n\"I won't do it next time! I promise..\"\n\n\"I told you not to go! You need to learn from that, honey. If it happens again, I *will* hurt you!\"\n\n\"But Mommy! I want to go explore the outside the world.\"\n\nShe shakes her head. \"I've already told you this many times now yeti never listen!\"\n\n\"Yeti? Oh! Nice pun there.\"\n\n\"Hahahah.. thanks, kiddo. BUT seriously.\"\n\n\"If I stop going outside, will you keep telling me puns?\"\n\nMom looks hesitant and weirded out for a moment. Then, a smile makes its way across her face. \"Sure.\"", "\"What have we told you about leaving the cave without telling us? We never would have let you leave during peak times.\" shouted Mother.\n\n\"Sorry.\" I replied\n\n\"What if they'd caught you?\"\n\n\"Sorry.\"\n\n\"Do you even think about the consequences?\" Father chimed in.\n\n\"They definitely didn't see me, I was too quick. If I wasn't they'd have found us by now.\"\n\n\"You can't know that for sure! What if they were on their way here right now?\" Mother continued.\n\n\"But they aren't and you know it. I mean, I'm sorry. It won't happen again.\"\n\n\"Too right it won't, no exploring for a week. Dinner will be brought in for you until I say otherwise. No ifs, no buts, no 'that's not fair', my paw is down on the issue.\"\n\n\"Father?\" He shrugged, it would be uphill struggle from here. He didn't need to say it, but it was best to stay quiet from here on out. It was just a shame that I have never been a good listener.\n\n\"The more glimpses they catch of us, the more they'll hunt us. How do you not see that?\" \n\n\"I follow the rules every time. Stay 100 feet away, move quick, stick to the shade and the shadows. You've seen the pictures they have of us, blurry, distant and altogether useless to the humans. They'll never believe we exist with the pictures they've managed to capture!\" \n\n\"So now you think they don't know of our existence?\" This was now a full blown argument, but I was actually happy that we were finally having the conversation. Father had somehow slinked back to his chair, and was now pretending to be asleep.\n\n\"If they did, we'd be in cages right now. They outnumber us several thousand to three. I doubt there are people out there with so much time that they devote their lives to capturing a wild beast for the sole purpose of proving everyone wrong. It's the reason they haven't captured Nessie, and that Yeti fellow still roams in Alaska from what I last heard.\"\n\n\"Never underestimate the stupidity, the perseverance and the stubbornness of humans.\"" ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1431647544", "1431649195" ]

[ "\"You ready?\" She asks me as we sit in front of the Nexus. \n\n\"No, but I never will be\"\n\n\"It'll be okay, we'll still be together, we always will be. And once we join the rest of them we'll never die, never be apart.\"\n\n\"I know, but it won't be the same. It won't be me loving you, it won't be you loving me; there won't even be a me and you, an us. It will just be me, or from your perspective just you. Just one being.\"\n\n\"Isn't that what two people in love want? To truly be together?\"\n\n\"Yeah, but together alone, not with the rest of humanity.\"\n\n\"I know... But we gotta look at this with optimism, I mean, it's not like we have much of a choice. Citron was the last inhabitable planet we knew of, and it's dying. It's either upload ourselves and become one with the rest of our race, or die.\"\n\n\"... I know... Can.... Can I go first? I don't know if I'll have the strength to do this without you.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"See you on the other side.\"\n\n\"Don't make those you last words, remember yours are the more important of the two of us. No one will be around to hear mine.\"\n\n\"You're right, how about, \"I didn't love you because you were the last woman on earth, I loved you because you made me feel like the only man in the galaxy. Goodbye babe.\"\"\n\n\"Better.\" She smiled at me as a I stepped into the chamber and was absorbed into the Great Conscious.", "\"Hey! Are you normal?\" Alfred awoke suddenly, he must've dosed off. down the slope of the fallen skyscraper he saw a woman with bright blue hair wearing a great big backpack, the first woman let alone first person he had seen in at least half a year. \"I guess so, as normal one can be these days.\" he yelled back adjusting his scratched glasses. The woman spit out a lump of tobacco to the side and smiled brightly at him. \"Well that's comforting. Could I use your fire? I don't want to waste my matches.\" she said as she started her climb up the slope of rubbled concrete up to Alfred's lookout. Greenery had started to take back the city, small sprouts of grass had started to spring out from the asphalt and vines, roots and moss had taken to climbing the remaining buildings. Unsure how to refuse her Alfred simpy said \"Sure be my guest.\" She sat down her backpack then herself with a heavy sigh and started digging in it. She fished out a small pan and a can of pork and beans. \"Thanks, I've been walking for two months without seeing another face. It's nice to meet you, my name is Sarah.\" she said and stretched out her hand. Alfred took it and felt her calloused skin against his own. \"Hi Sarah, I'm Alfred.\" he said and straightened his glasses nervously. A stiff silence came over them, her opening her can and Alfred trying to think of things to say. She broke the silence \"So, do you have any people or are you like me a lone wanderer?\" she asked and looked at him while keeping her pan over the fire. \"No, at least not anymore. They um… kicked me out.\" Alfred said biting his tongue as he said it. \"Same here, the difference being I left by myself.\" she answered looking intently at her meal. \"So what happened?\" she asked. \"I got sick, became dead weight. They left me with some dried beans and a couple of pills and told me to tough through it and find them when I was better, been trying to ever since.\" Alfred said, the memory still hurt. \"My group tried to reinvent Mormonism. I wasn't going to stick around for that so I picked up my fair share and off I went.\" Sarah said absently. Alfred couldn't help but laugh. They spoke at length, trading stories under the star studded sky until the fire was but embers. \"Welp, I ought to sleep I'll be leaving at dawn.\" Sarah said fishing out a bedroll from her pack. \"Would you like some company?\" Alfred said, Sarah giggled \"No thank you, though I'm headed south I heard some rumors about a place with people there.\" she said. \"Maybe we will meet there.\" \n\nAlfred awoke next morning to find that Sarah had kept her word and left without a sound, but she had left a few cans of food stacked in small pyramid. On a note tucked beneath Alfred read \"See you around four eyes. - S\"", "I was there, in the room with everyone around the TV. It was the president, and Alinson Davis. They shook hands, and in unison pulled the decorative green lever. The switch was turned on. I immediately remembered my lessons. Slowly I saw what everyone had wanted to say, as we communicated them through thought for the first time.", "\"What point is there in even trying to survive now?\" The Forgotten Man asked \"We are the last few survivors, and whatever hope we had is gone. What makes life so great that we vainly struggle against our problems?\" \n\n\"You know, life sucks, it really does,\" replied the abandoned man. \"But that's what makes it so great,\" he said, continuing. \"There's never a dull moment. Of course there are painful moments, there are times when it feels everything including nature and the whole multitude of humanity is opposing you. And yet...we get up. Isn't that what makes us human? Struggling vainly is nothing new to us. It's no different from life before the fall. So you see, our struggle is no different from the struggles of humanity. To relent is to fail all of humanity, thus I say to you, to all who will struggle even if hope is despairing:\n\n*Go, gentleman, every man unto his charge \nLet not our babbling dreams affright our souls: \nConscience is but a word that cowards use, \nDevised at first to keep the strong in awe: \nOur strong arms be our conscience, swords our law. \nMarch on, join bravely, let us to't pell-mell \nIf not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.* \"", "\"You can't die on me!\" He screamed.\n\nHer shaking face had already lost most of its once vibrant color. She was dying, that was certain to some deep, instinctual part of him, but his heart told him to deny it. Forced him to continue to deny the obvious signs of blood loss he had seen for years as an EMT; blood loss that almost always ended bad, even in the best circumstances. To deny that despite his training, despite all those that he had saved, he could not save her.\n\nStill, he wasn't going to give up -- not on her. His hands continued to work furiously without him, compressing the puncture wound, fighting the flow, when suddenly she looked into his eyes. In that moment he could not help but think that pale blue eyes as beautiful as hers did not deserve the tears that filled them. With that gaze, she stopped him, in a moment of sudden and pure tranquility, and despite however much pain she was in, despite the shock, her feelings transmitted clearly through the fading light of her eyes.\n\nWith the last ounce of her energy, she pushed her final breath outward through pinched lips; three words that meant the world to the only other individual left upon it.\n\n\"I love you...\"\n\nAnd so the end came, and the end went; conversation having died out with a whisper and a sob.", "The morning sun had yet to come, and he was waiting eagerly to see it for the last time. From atop the hill, the man sat on the grass and looked up at the stars slowly beginning to fade from the coming of the sun's rays.\n\nThe chill from the morning wind crept into his bones and set the grass to motion. The tickle he felt on his hairy legs eased him out of his celestial reverie. \n\nHe looked down on the sprawling metropolis before him. He came here often and dreamed of all the things he wanted within that body of life. He looked on at the park and remembered sitting there once with a list of ladies he once loved.\n\nHe was always eager to get married and start a life. It would have been the defining point of his life when he eventually bought it. But now, it seemed trivial. Nothing seemed important anymore. \n\nHumanity was at an end, and so were all the dreams and hopes within a human's soul.\n\nAlone with his thoughts, he began to recall all the memories that made him proud to have lived.\n\nFrom the corner of his eye, he saw a colorful figure walk slowly to Mrs. Santiago's flower shop. He began to strain his sight, searching for acknowledgement that he was in fact, not alone. \n\nThe long-haired figure strode with a groove to her step, with head bobbing to beats on her earphones. She stopped right in front of the flower shop for a while and went inside. \n\nHe followed. \n\n~~~\n\n\"I thought I was the last one,\" he whispered. \n\nShe regarded him with a smile and went back to being transfixed by the tulips, head full of songs. He went around the shop too, appreciating the color and life in all the different. Eventually, he found himself beside this woman. \n\nHer hair was red and she smelled faintly of a melon perfume. He was unable to control himself and found that he wanted to know her. He looked at the tulips too and tried to see what she was.\n\n\"So... you didn't go up too huh? I thought I was the last one.\" \n\nShe reached into her pocket and turned off her music.\n\n\"No,\" she smiled again. \"I asked it for one more day. He was pretty cool about it.\"\n\n \"He?\" he asked.\n\n\"I know *it* isn't anything really. Sorry, I'm just human.\"\n\n\"Not for long.\" He went outside the store and lit a cigarette. The sun was beginning to set, and outlined in it's brilliance was the giant spacecraft he knew was their future.\n\n\"Can I bum one?\" she asked. \n\nFishing out one, he gave it to her and proceeded to write it for her. They then watched the ship approach in silence.\n\n\"What do you think it will be like?\" she asked trying to break the ice and tension within the both of them.\n\nHe took a long drag and shrugged. \"Like heaven I am hoping.\" \n\nThe craft flew right above them and hovered. In their minds, it began to speak to them. Asking if they were ready. \n\nThe last people on Earth looked at each other and he saw tears in her eyes. He looked up then and said, \"Just one moment.\" He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed before walking back into the shop.\n\nHe came back out and stood right in front of her. From his back, he produced three tulips and presented them to her. \n\nThe shock in her eyes was enough to make him want to kiss her. And he did. \n\nThe tears rolling down her cheeks were made even more special with the shy smile blooming on her lips.\n\n\"Thank you,\" she mouthed.\n\nHolding each other's hands, they looked up and nodded. \n\nThe last conversation in human history lived forever in the mind of eternity.", "\"I've only got one question left.\"\n\nThe wind howled through the holes in once-magnificent buildings.\n\n\"Fire away.\" He smiled at me, lips bloodied and face disfigured beyond repair.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nFor a moment, he seemed stunned. A dilation of the pupils, a twitch in the corners of his lips. Then he smiled - a hideous, bloodied smile that chilled me to the bone.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nIt ended with a gunshot.\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n", "I peered out the window of the ISS and sucked back the last droplets of alcohol the human race would ever create.\n\n\"Sure was one hell of a show though eh Vlad\"\n\n\"этопоследний из водки\"\n\n\"Yeah, you're right. Who do you figure fired first?\"\n\n\"Я думаю, что я иду спать в ближайшее время\"\n\n\"You raise a good point, doesn't matter much I suppose.\"\n\n\"если вы нуждаетесь во мне разбуди меня , следите за любые радиосигналов\" With that Vladimir pushed away from me, and floated toward where we slept.\n\n\"Ah Vlad, always hard at work.\"\n\nI turned back out the window counting the minutes till the next sunrise. I didn't want to watch the smouldering lights where the cities had been any more.\n\nI turned back, Vladimir already out of sight.\n\n\"Pity I don't speak Russian and you don't speak English eh Vlad?\"", "The tall, slender alien leaned over the last Human being in the universe. \"Please, sir,\" it began earnestly, a strange device in its hands, \"tell me of your race, what you did, how you did it, and how you would like to be remembered?\" \n\nJohn coughed. A trickle of blood seeped out of his left nostril. The pain was starting now. He knew how it began, starting in the pit of your stomach and slowly spreading across your body until it suddenly manifested itself, exploding in a mass of movement and growth, killing you instantly. \n\n\"Sir,\" repeated the alien, leaning closer, \"please tell me. A race such as yours should not be forgotten. You must tell me before it is too late.\" \n\nJohn tried to laugh but only coughed up blood. Never had he thought he would be the one to etch the last words on Humanity's tombstone, to hammer the last nail into the coffin. How could he? What right did he have? \n\nSeven other aliens of duplicate build leaned forward, straining to hear his response. They waited behind their leader. \n\nJohn shook his head. \"I don't...\" his face contorted in agony as the pain began. He doubled over. \"We never--\" he screamed in agony and his stomach exploded. A green, sparkling mass of crystals spilled out of the open cavity and glittered in the sun. The crystals slowly began to emerge from the rest of his body until there was nothing left but green crystals and bones. \n\nThe slender alien straightened, staring at the gruesome sight before him, visibly shaken. He turned to his entourage. They stood still, hands poised above their devices, waiting for his word. When a race failed to give their last words, it fell upon the leader to deliver its epitaph. \n\nThe alien looked down at the remains of the Human, the corners of its eyes drooping as he beheld the last of Humanity. He turned back to the rest and stared back at them, fingers at the ready above their devices. He looked back at the fallen man one more time before turning away. \"They tried.\" ", "\"Hey?\"\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"You ever wonder why we're here?\"\n\nPortland stopped and took a look at her friend. Austin had been with her for several months now. Ever since the sun started engulfing the Earth, it had been a constant fight for survival and he had been there every step of the way. Still, she didn't like his question. Between running from crazed people, trying to organize some semblance of civilization, and scraping by for supplies, the thought of her place in the universe had not occurred to her. To Portland it was an unfortunate reminder of the days when she could waste all day on questions like that.\n\n\"No. I don't wonder why we're here.\" Portland decided to leave it at that. She resumed walking down the tunnel. \n\nAustin looked at Portland for a moment, trying to read her expression. Her furrowed brow and narrowed eyes told him all he needed to know, but for some reason he felt compelled to continue.\n\n\"Well, I do. I think it's about making the best of the time we have. Every moment we spend is a treasure.\"\n\nPortland couldn't figure out why Austin was talking. He did this from time to time and she never could think of what to say. She tried to get him focused.\n\n\"Austin, I keep you around for your rugged looks and protection, not for conversation. You need to focus here.\"\n\n\"Why? Last time we saw other people was eight weeks ago. Maybe they're all...\"\n\nAustin thought better of completing that thought and both fell silent. The two walked the tunnels in that manner for a long while. The only sound each heard was the other's cough and the sound of feet on pavement. Austin noticed Portland reaching for the water bottle clipped to her belt five times before he noticed it was empty. He realized that he couldn't remember the last time it had been full.\n\nFinally Austin couldn't take the silence.\n\n\"How much further?\"\n\nThis foray into the labyrinth had started five days ago. Portland had suggested a final foray to try and find the government facility hidden underneath the mountain but Austin had a suspicion that they were hopelessly lost. He wondered for a minute how much longer he could go before he realized that Portland had replied. He shook his head to clear the fog.\n\n\"What did you say?\" Portland huffed and Austin knew he would never hear the end of it. As he stumbled over pebbles she repeated herself.\n\n\"I said it should be just around this next turn in the tunnel. See? There's a light.\"\n\nAustin squinted at the tunnel ahead and could see no such light. He told her so.\n\n\"What? It's clearly lighter. Look at those rocks.\"\n\nAustin could see her arm shaking. He stopped her and looked in to her green eyes. A couple of years ago he would have considered them beautiful. Right now there were more pressing matters.\n\n\"Portland, how much water do we have?\"\n\nHer eyes wavered, focusing on the rocks just over his right shoulder. Tears started to well up in her eyes. At the first tear, Austin took her in his arms and made her sit on a rock behind her.\n\nIt went on like this for a time before she spoke. Austin saw her mouth move but didn't hear the answer. He didn't need to. He leaned over her and wiped her eyes with his sleeve. Satisfied that she was calm again, he started breaking out the sleeping bags. Once he had laid those out, he helped her lie down on hers. \n\nAs he climbed into his sleeping bag he felt a nudge on his shoulder.\n\n\"Hey.\" Portland sounded sleepy, but otherwise her voice was clear. He turned to look at her and was suddenly struck by her eyes. \n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"Ever wonder why we're here?\"", "David and Claire agreed to meet on the corner of 53rd and 10th. \n\nTheir favorite little cafe, tucked away beneath all grime of the city. David was nervous, for today was the day he had been anxious about all year. He carried the small box in his left pocket, having spent three months salary just the day before. \n\nClaire was nervous, too. Her doctor had just confirmed the tests. She let a timid smile escape her lips, and wondered in amusement if her stomach had begun to grow enough that David would catch on right away.\n\nThe two saw each other coming from opposite ends of the empty street. He smiled. She smiled. The two embraced, holding each other for a long time. David opened the door for her, and the two entered the barren cafe together, sitting down at their usual table.\n\nBefore David could get a word in, Claire put a small piece of paper on the table. David picked it up, his eyes scanning from top to bottom. His face lit up, and Claire could see tears swelling in his eyes.\n\n\"Twins?\" he asked.\n\nClaire smiled, her eyes growing wet as well. She felt her body grow warm, and noticed the flow of sunlight grow brighter and brighter.\n\nDavid looked through the window of the empty, forgotten cafe. He let out a long, defeated sigh. A sigh that echoed the sound of a future that would never be. He reached in to his pocket, opening the small box. Claire's eyes twinkled in the sunlight, and she removed the delicate ring from his hands, placing it over her own ring finger. \n\n\"It's beautiful,\" she said in awe. The heat grew, and she could feel it burning at her skin. She looked into David's eyes one last time, and he took her by the hands. Tears streamed down his face, and he gently kissed Claire's hand. \n\nAs the Sun gave way to the stars, and the Earth gave way to the Sun, David and Claire smiled. Together, they said the last words that the universe would ever hear.\n\n\"I love you.\"\n\nAnd in that moment, they were at peace.", "\"You all right?\"\n\n\"Are you seriously asking that question?\"\n\n\"Right. Sorry.\"\n\n\"(Sigh). What's our status?\"\n\n\"We're at max capacity. 250,000. One of the cloning machines malfunctioned. Loss of power. I would go up on the surface to fix the panels, but all things considered...I'd rather not. We've harvested nearly five hundred different seeds, which should be enough.\"\n\n\"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. We're so fucked.\"\n\n\"There's nothing we can do now.\"\n\n\"How long will it take to repopulate?\"\n\n\"Slightly longer than the last time we tried. I suggest we limit the timeline. We can't go too far back.\"\n\n\"All of our life's work. Everything.\"\n\n\"We still have the facility. It worked before. It'll work again.\"\n\n\"I don't know about you, but I sense there will come a time when the big ol' reset button won't cut it anymore.\"\n\n\"What do you suggest then?\"\n\n\"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And that's my point. Humanity is so insignificant. Why do we bother trying?\"\n\n\"Because...sir...it's our job. As long as there's a single person left here, we haven't lost.\"\n\n\"(Pause). Do it. Activate the temporal chains.\"\n\n\"Yes sir.\"\n\n\"And Ava?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Godspeed.\"\n", "\"I'm old, I'm going to die soon.\"\n\n\"I know that.\"\n\n\"And you'll come with me.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"It's been very lonely.\"\n\n\"Always.\"\n\n\"I miss everyone.\"\n\n\"Me too.\"\n\n\"I've grown so frail, I can't even dig my own grave.\"\n\n\"But there are flowers.\"\n\n\"Yes, there are.\"\n\n\"It's better dying outside.\"\n\n\"Yes, exposed to nature. If you can even call this barren wasteland nature.\"\n\n\"... I don't think anyone can.\"\n\n\"You're right, I wish I died with everyone else.\"\n\n\"But you didn't, regretting choices on the deathbed is not smart.\"\n\n\"I know, and I don't think I've grown any wiser.\"\n\n\"... Wisdom comes with stupidity.\"\n\n\"Haha, I guess I'm a wise old man then.\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"...\"\n\nAnd the old man died all by himself.", "\"Dude, be careful!\"\n\n\"Oh, cmon, don't be such a buzzkill, I know what I'm doing.\"\n\n\"Man, it's a Large Hadron Collider, you are not supposed to play with it.\"\n\n\"Don't worry, I bet I can handle it easily. Hold my beer.\"" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 7, 7, 34 ]

[ "1431730243", "1431734564", "1431735992", "1431736725", "1431737899", "1431743318", "1431744830", "1431748099", "1431732227", "1431745859", "1431731020", "1431727510", "1431732196", "1431728426" ]

[ "*I know I probably messed up the chronological order of all three of these movies, but I had to fudge it a little to make them make sense to me. Second post on this subreddit! Let me know what you think.*\n___________________________________________________________________\n\nI was tired. Years of fighting the demons of Hell? Exhausting. Exorcising ghosts, staking vampires, beating succubi at their own game? I was bone-tired. Actually, the succubi bit was a little fun, but it got old pretty fast.\n\nSo when Lucifer himself came and took away my sweet retirement plan, I was pissed. I decided to retire anyway. Moved away from my home city, away from every contact I'd ever had. Destroyed my old identity, took up a new one in some random city. I still needed money. Supernatural detective work was never very lucrative. So I did what I do best. Took out a few contracts, killed a few people. What little morals I had, I'd left behind with my old name and life.\n\nEventually I had enough money to live comfortably, so I settled down with a woman I'd fallen in love with. When she died, I was pissed. But as far as I could tell, no supernatural elements were involved, so there was no one for me to take out my anger on. When she died though, she left me a dog to take care of. Heh, a damn dog. So I decided to keep trying to live peacefully.\n\nThen the fuckers had to come and kill my goddamn dog. That was the last straw for me. I was pissed, and I had a target to take my anger out on.\n\nWhen I was done though, I felt exhausted. Not just the normal physical exhaustion that comes with killing a bunch of guys. My soul felt numb. Empty. I realized I didn't want to kill anymore.\n\nSo I moved, again. Shut myself up in a shitty apartment somewhere. I stopped working out, let my body waste away, intentionally forgot all my training. Picked up coding as a hobby, fucked around on the internet as a way to fill up all the hours I suddenly had from not training.\n\nThen I met this guy. Weird looking fella. Bald, with sunglasses and pockmarked cheeks. Something about this guy felt off. My dulled instincts tingled in the back of my mind, but I ignored it.\n\nThe man looked at me. \"Hello, Neo.\"", "You have to really worry about the future, these days. There used to be a time when being a cop was a stable career: if you worked hard, did all your reports on time, got along with everyone in the bureau you’d be guaranteed some rise in the ranks. Now it’s just filled with all these hotshot kids fresh out of the academy, going undercover with surfer gangs and blowing up buses. And they don’t even get results - they just give us all a bad name.\n\nAnd then you hear about all these machines taking all our jobs. The section chief keeps yammering on about how computers and the ‘big data’ will be finding all the bad guys, no need for humans any more. I can hear my grizzly high school career advisor now: *“Forget the NFL, you wanna be a washed up athlete like me in a couple of years’ time? Computers are now getting smarter and smarter. A bright kid like you should be getting into that e-mail and the Internet and all that. Go get an IT degree. That’s where the future’s at.”*\n\nSometimes, when I close my eyes, I’ve already quit my job and I’m somewhere tropical, scraping barnacles off my beautiful yacht or I’m a corporate high-flyer in New York, being led into underground night-clubs by attractive tattooed girls in red dresses and, just while we’re at it, I’m also some ice-cool, smokin’ unassuming hero in some epic clash between good and evil. Now that would be an excellent adventure." ]

[ 1, 7 ]

[ "1431751378", "1431748446" ]

[ "I was sixteen years old when I first saw Elizabeth. She'd just moved into our small town, and even though she was gorgeous, our high school cliques were excluding her quite heavily. We shared a math class, and sat next to each other. We didn’t have the same lunch period, but I would hear from my friends that she always sat alone. I felt bad that she was so lonely, so I started talking to her quite frequently. We became good friends as the school year went on. She ended up being my first date, and my dance to the prom. We dated throughout senior year, but as it came time to graduate I started having more friends, and seeing less and less of her. When it was time to go to college we got accepted to different schools, and decided to break up. It wasn’t until my current girlfriend, Jessica, started asking about her that I really thought back to Elizabeth. Jessica got snoopy and tried looking her up on Facebook, but couldn’t find her through any mutual friends. She asked me what Elizabeth’s last name was. I told her it was Tulpa.", "\"I feel like this is a trap,\" Mike accused.\n\n\"It's not!\" Lisa promised, \"Just pick out who your celebrity cheat is. Pick now or you don't get one.\"\n\nMike and Lisa, after dating for two years, moved to Los Angeles together from rural Kansas. They had seen a few celebrities out and were starstruck every time. Lisa had the idea that they should each pick a \"celebrity cheat.\" That meant if one of them had a chance to hook up with the celebrity they chose, it wouldn't count as cheating. No repercussions. Lisa had named who she wanted as hers, but Mike hadn't picked anybody yet.\n\n\"You're not going to get mad at me telling you what girl I find most attractive?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh my gosh. You can find celebrities attractive. That's normal.\"\n\n\"And you wouldn't be mad if I hook up with her?\"\n\n\"If you get the extremely unlikely chance to hook up with her, you can completely do so. And if I get the chance to hook up with mine, I get to. That's the deal -it's even.\"\n\n\"Ok, deal. I pick Emma Watson.\"\n\n\"Good choice. See, that wasn't so difficult.\"\n\n\"Yeah, you're right. I mean, it's all pretend anyway. I'll probably never even meet Emma. And you'll probably never get anywhere close to Dee Snider person who were talking about. What band is he in again?\"\n\nLisa smiled.\n\n\"Twisted Sister -that band I have a backstage pass to tonight.\"" ]

[ 2, 2 ]

[ "1431742446", "1431742464" ]

[ "\"You need to do something about him Nature. If he goes off to the others, there will be no one to take care of you. You do remember what it was like before I helped you?\"\n\nDeath sat relaxed in poise, but with an intensity that made Mother Nature uneasy.\n\n\"I do, I do. It's just that he says he wants to leave, and to be honest, I am exhausted. I just feel like if he wants to go live with the others it will give me some time to think things through. I just feel out of balance.\" \n\nMother Nature took a sip of her tea. Her hands were shaking. She was in a constant state of anxiety these days. She cared for Life greatly but in recent years his insatiable lusts and constant demands have left her feeling very old. Meeting with Death had always given her temporary relief. He always seemed to have a plan.\n\n\"And how will he leave? You know he will take everything from you before he does that, and you will be alone and barren. He does not love as you love him. You are foolish to think so.\"\n\nThe words stung Mother. She wished it were not true, but Life was always asking for more, even as she grew ill.\n\n\"Death, I just do not know what to do anymore.\"\n\nDeath paused for a moment. He took a sip of his coffee. It had gone cold. He put his hand on Mothers shoulder.\n\n\"Life is out of control and must be disciplined. My brother Fear is already at work. His workers have already punished Life's precious sister Faith. My dear friend Greed is already in conversation with many of Life's companions. It will be just like before my friend. I will help you find your peace.\"\n\nMother felt Death's hand on his shoulder as he talked. At first gentle but his grip tightened as he laid out his plan. \n\nShe remembered the last time they chatted like this. Death's brother Hatred had so severely beaten Life that he was unrecognizable. But Life was changed then. Humbled and regretful for his actions. \n\n\"You have always been a friend to me Death, I will help you with your plans.\"\n\nAs the words left her mouth, Mother saw a slight smile in the corner of Death's face. For the first time she wondered if Death was using her in some way, just as she had felt Life had. \n\nJust then, Jealousy, Death's sister came in the door and sat at the table.", "Death went to his favourite diner, the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas, and awaited his guest. Mother Nature was always busy this time of year, until her husband Jack frost takes over in a couple of months, but she could still find time to meet him for coffee every once in a while. Life was invited as well, but could not make it, because every time he goes to one of these things, he orders straight vodka, and when Life gets drunk, well, Death becomes extra busy, and this was Death's most relaxing day of the week. There is something about a tuesday that makes people not want to die on this day.\n\nHe sat down at his favourite spot, by the window, where he could watch the people go about their life. He loved watching them play with their children, walk their dogs, and just enjoy life. Unfortunately, Life stopped enjoying them years ago. He He opened up a newspaper to the current news. He read the headline, and, with a tear slowly rolling down his face, he shook his head, and said to himself: \"Another earthquake in Nepal. Those poor, poor souls. It seems I will be busy the next few days.\"\n\nIn walked Mother Nature, her green hair shimmering and her eyes sparkling, her bare feet moving as if she danced upon the very ground itself. Death stood up from his chair and they embraced. Mother Nature looked him over, and said \"How are you, my darlin'?\" \n\n\"I have never been better, my dear. How is Jack doing?\"\n\n\"Oh, you know, he gets antsy about this time of year. He wants to get out there and work his magic on the world. You should see the hoar frost he puts on the trees. It is just lovely!\"\n\n\"I bet it is. Have you heard from Life lately? I called him yesterday but he has not picked up.\"\n\n\"I guess you have not heard then. He is in rehab. He overdosed a couple of weeks back, and was admitted a couple of days ago.\"\n\n\"He has taken his duties, then? Have any people given birth since then?\" Death asked. \n\n\"No, there have been a lot of stillborns lately.\"\n\n\"Well, that will explain why I had to set up the nursery then\", Death sighed.\n\n\"Well\", Mother Nature implored, \"the reason I called you here today was so you could take over the position as both Life and Death.\"\n\nTears welled up in Death's eyes. He had always dreamt of this day, the day he would be in charge of births as well as deaths. He always thought the moment of giving birth was magical, and he cherished it, unlike that lowlife Life who stopped caring ages ago. With a nod, he agreed, and so Death became both Life and Death.", "**Hi, I'm Mother Nature.**\n\nDeath. James Death.\n\n**Your first name is James?**\n\nYes. Anyhow, here we are at Starbucks. What can I say? Jimmy likes his mocha frap. What are you drinking?\n\n**Tea.**\n\nBoring! Jim Death likes it sweet, like my cold embrace, thus the frap part. \n\n**Yes. Well, looks like we're in that age old tug of war. You vs me, pulling ol' Life back and forth.**\n\nMore like he's some sort of infinite Gumby. He just keeps stretching, you know?\n\n**Right, well, it turns out the universe is doing the same thing.**\n\nYes.\n\n**So we're both fucked eventually.**\n\nRight.\n\n**And? Don't you wanna stop wasting all of this time? I mean, if I'm creating life and you're killing it, but there are forces bigger than us and it all goes supernova in a few billion years, why don't we stop? We could be doing so much more. I mean, do you ski?**\n\nNope! Too busy killing.\n\n**Right, it just doesn't stop. I give you the paper, you feed it into the shredder. And it's our turn in five billion years.**\n\nThat's cool. I only have on thing on my bucket list, then I coluld care less what happens.\n\n**What's on your bucket list?**\n\nLife.\n\n**Christ, you're impossible.**\n\nNo, he was easy. Just took three nails and a sword, just like U2 was all about three chords and the truth.\n\n**Did U2 kill Jesus?**\n\nNo, but The Edge once accidentally ran over a Vietnam veteran. Did you know he still drives the 83 Plymouth he bought when they got their advance for The Unforgettable Fire? Anyhow, he hit this guy, and I was gonna take him, but we cut a deal where I get a cut of the t-shirt sales. The more they tour, the more money I get, the longer he lives! I'm gonna have him up on stage when he's 130. The rest of the band will be dead but we'll just hologram the fuck out of it. It's the 90's you know.\n\n**Well, it's been real, but come on now. I'm not even a real mother.**\n\nNobody's perfect!\n\n(freeze frame) (150 db laugh track) (executive producer credit) ", "Death sat at the end of the table gulping a whiskey, his scythe resting on the floor beside him. Mother Nature sat opposite, taking small sips of coffee. She watched him cheerily, a smile on her face. She was always so optimistic.\n\n\"Why all doom and gloom?\" she asked.\n\n\"That's not funny\" Death replied. He was well aware that he was all doom and gloom, it came with the territory. Mother Nature knew this and yet still felt the need to make jokes.\n\n\"It's quite funny\" She covered her mouth holding back a giggle.\n\n\"It's not. It wasn't funny the last time either. Or the time before.\" Perhaps he was being harsh but honestly he didn't care right now. He was pissed off and needed to let off steam.\n\n\"Seriously though\" said Mother Nature \"what's got you, you're acting like an even bigger ass hole than usual\"\n\n\"Thanks for that\"\n\n\"Well sorry for being truthful\"\n\n\"It's just...it's just...Life...\"\n\n\"As in general existence or our actual friend, Life?\"\n\n\"Our actual friend Life. She's becoming difficult\" \n\n\"She's always been difficult, remember the day she created centipedes? Like seriously was she drunk? Why so many legs?\"\n\n\"I don't know you'd have to ask her, although every time I reap a centipede I do kind of get the shivers, and don't even get me started on earwigs...WE'RE GETTING OFF TOPIC!\"\n\n\"Yeah you're right, continue\"\n\n\"Anyway, she wants to keep making humans more intelligent\"\n\n\"What's wrong with that?\"\n\n\"Everything! Don't you see? If she keeps making them smarter they'll keep perfecting medical science and eventually they'll be immortal!\"\n\n\"Don't you think that's a pretty big assumption?\"\n\n\"NO! I was talking with Sandman the other day and he told me that that's what Life intends to do! Father Time has given her all the time she wants to perfect her little creations so she could totally do it! If she makes them immortal I'm out of the job!\"\n\n\"You could still reap animals?\"\n\n\"Oh it's only a matter of time before she makes them immortal too!\"\n\n\"Like that Fall Out Boy song\"\n\nDeath stared at her.\n\n\"NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO BE DISCUSSING POP PUNK BANDS!\"\n\n\"They're really more contemporary now...\"\n\n\"AAAARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!\"\n\nHe slammed his head on the table. Mother Nature got up and walked over to him, she patted him on the back in a soothing way. A smile was plastered on her face, as if she knew something else was at play. \n\n\"Why won't you just admit you like her?\"\n\nDeath raised his head. \"Like who? Fall Out Boy?\"\n\n\"No! Life! Why don't you just ask her out?\"\n\nDeath sighed. Mother Nature always could see right through him.\n\n\"It just...\" He looked down at his scythe resting on the floor beside him \"I just don't think it would work out\"", "\"She's done it again Death!\"\n\nDONE WHAT?\n\n\"Ruined another one of my works. I perfected my tornado, but she put those dumb humans she keeps raving on about in the way. Dad always says how amazing Life is. It's not fair *in the tone of Jan from the Brady Bunch* Life, Life, Life!! Dad's going to be pissed I killed his \"precious\" Life's toys.\"\n\nDeath stared into Mother Nature's eyes.\n\nMOTHER NATURE, YOU'RE STRONG, FIERCE, AND YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL. YOU CREATE STORMS, TSUNAMIS, AND TORNADOS, BUT YOU ALSO CREATE RAINBOWS. THAT'S SOMETHING YOUR SISTER CANNOT DO. KEEP DOING WHAT YOU DO, AND STOP LOOKING FOR YOUR DAD'S APPROVAL. \n\n\"Thanks Death. You're a good friend. I feel a bit better. Still, Life's a bitch.\"\n\n**End**\n\nI apologize for any mistakes. I haven't written in a while and I'm typing from my phone.", "\"He's just irresponsible\" said Death taking another sip of his tea\n\n\"Now come on death, you know he's not that bad\"\n\n\"But he is. I mean, last week I caught him giving life to a young lad. Only problem was the teenage girl who was pregnant had not wanted the child and had shortly after felt it was in the child's best interests to leave it in the nearest bin.\"\n\n\"Oh come on that's not the real problem though is it? Admit it.\"\n\n\"What\" said death tucking into his bacon sandwich. \n\nDeath was so busy most the time he rather enjoyed these quiet moments chatting with his friend and enjoying a sandwich.\n\n\"It's the recognition thing isn't it that really irritates you. You never get any credit. I mean you do just as much work as he does and he's always the one who gets to see all the unadulterated love and joy and you get people saying the same old \"Aaaaahhhhhh\" and the occasional \"WTF is that a scythe?\". I mean what was it you told me the last guy said to you?\"\n\n\"Fuck off you bony bastard\" \n\n\"See things like that can't do much for your job satisfaction and that's when you aren't killing kittens\"\n\n\"Both of us have had to deal with things like that. It's not pleasant but it has to be done. Someone has to do the dirty work. Not like Mr babies-for-everyone. It's true I don't get the credit I deserve. I mean life wouldn't have value without death and besides I do lots of good in the world. I mean I killed Hitler. Does anyone thank me for that? Hell no.\n\n\"Too be honest I kind of dislike the guy for a slightly different reason. I mean perhaps I'm talking to the wrong guy about this but I hate the fact that we end up looking exactly like peoples expectation of us which means I look like the 70 year old offspring of someone who managed to copulate with a tree and err you look .. well I imagine you might wish you looked slightly different. Although don't get me wrong, black kind of suits you.\n\n\"Actually I kind of don't really mind that. I mean I think this sort of shows I mean business. I mean apart from the odd bit of polish this body's pretty low maintenance. No hair, no sweat glands nothing. And if I looked vaguely human I don't think people would take me seriously. Plus I think I'd miss the looks of abject horror. Yet I suppose he does get away with it in that apart from being rather short there's nothing particularly odd about his looks\"\n\n\"Did you know I heard th-\"\n\nShe stopped talking as she spotted someone appear over Death's shoulder.\n\n\"Oh hi guys. How are you doing? Busy day? Ha I can see you guys are slacking already. Why just this morning I've already managed to bring alive a - Oooh bacon don't mind if I do.\" said Life swiping at Death's plate\n\n\"Shouldn't you ask before you take-\" said Mother Nature\n\n\"Aww big D doesn't mind do ya? See he's smiling. Or at least I think he's smiling. Kind of hard to tell without lips. Anyways I've got to ciao I've got a new more virulent strain of syphillis to bring to life. Cheers for the bacon big D.\"\n\nA moment after the door shut.\n\n\"My god I used to just hate that guy. Then he took my bacon.\" \n\n\"Yes I know that-\"\n\n\"My god damn bacon.\"\n\n\"- but you know you can't kill him or the entire world grinds to a halt\"\n\n\"I will have my revenge.\"\n\n***\n\nThis is Sky news. It appears an unpresidented phenomena has swept the entire globe which multiple scientific investigation teams are trying to work out exactly why pigs have almost been made extinct after the vast majority spontaneously exploded in a mass of gore. First impressions are that this may have been caused by a new form of microbial gut infection and is just another example of a brutal act of mother nature. This has resulted in numerous youtube vide...\"\n\n\"Oh fuck you. I never get the bloody credit\" said Death", "\nThis is a temporary comment made on all prompt submissions to /r/WritingPrompts that will be deleted immediately. Please ignore this comment.\n", "\"How are the kids?\"\n\n\"They've seen better days. I guess they're doing all right. How are you doing? We haven't spoken in a while.\"\n\n\"Busy. I've hired some help recently. They're really quite resourceful.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"(sip)\"\n\n\"Do you like your job?\"\n\n\"I do not understand your question.\"\n\n\"I'm just...I was just wondering. You know.\"\n\n\"...yes. Er. No. I dunno.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I just do it...because someone has to. It's my job. My brothers and I have done this for a while. It's the only thing we have ever known. It's my...what's the term these humans use...it's my calling. My calling.\"\n\n\"If you had a choice-\"\n\n\"But I don't. We don't.\"\n\n\"-But what if you *did?* If you did have a choice, what would you be doing instead?\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"I would help your husband.\"\n\n\"Hmm?\"\n\n\"He tries very hard, y'know? Determined. Focused.\"\n\n\"Sounds like him. \n\n\"I can see the pain in his eyes. All of the suffering he witnesses. And then there's me. The garbage man, who has to come in and clean up. He's just slumped in the corner, trying to make sense of the humans. I guess...sometimes I tire of doing this.\"\n\n\"You're a very kind person. Has anyone ever said that about you?\"\n\n\"No. Not at all.\"\n\n\"Then...you are a very kind soul. Selfless and forgiving.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"You're not going to cry on me, are ya?\"\n\n\"Wha- me? No...\"\n\n\"I kid. I kid. Why don't you come over for supper some time? You can invite War too. I'm not mad at him anymore.\"\n\n\"I will keep that in mind. Thank you.\"\n\n\"Well, it's been nice seeing you again.\"\n\n\"Yes, it was lovely.\"\n\n\"Same time next century?\"\n\n\"Certainly. Good bye.\"\n\n\"Good bye.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n" ]

[ 1, 2, 2, 7, 8, 8, 11, 27 ]

[ "1431833077", "1431836212", "1431840620", "1431825239", "1431822506", "1431824430", "1431814080", "1431818069" ]

[ "To: Bob(swagl0rd@fakemail.com)\n\nFrom: Emma(coolboss@awesomejob.com)\n\nSubject: RE: Application\n\nHello Bob,\n\nThere were many factors we considered on whether we should hire you or not. While you have displayed high standards in academic success, there was a problem on your record that we tried to justify for hiring you, but we ultimately decided it was in our best interest not to hire you. Here is the issue that stands:\n\n* Repeated and severe instances of unacceptable behavior in online play\n\nIf you have any reasons that we should hire you anyways, then do share! We'll be more than happy to listen!\n\n-Emma\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTo: Emma\n\nFrom: Bob\n\nSubject: srsly?\n\nI really don't understand why I should be kicked out of a job just because of behavior in online games. Besides, I was probably reported falsely anyways. I only gave constructive criticism anyways. Reconsider hiring me because it fucking sucks to be kicked out for a shitty reason.\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTo: Bob\n\nFrom: Emma\n\nSubject: RE: srsly?\n\nHello Bob,\n\nOur company does not tolerate horrible behavior of any kind. Even then, in the position you are assigning yourself to, impulsive actions are highly counterproductive. After looking through your in-game chat history, here are some of the plenty of unacceptable messages you send:\n\n$w@gL0rd: OMG WTF U FUCKING IDIOT\n\n$w@gL0rd: WHY DIDNT YOU HELP NOOB\n\n$w@gL0rd: I HOPE YOU DIE IN A CAR CRASH\n\n$w@gL0rd: ok mute me then\n\n$w@gL0rd: see how you do without my help\n\n$w@gL0rd[To All]: LOL U SCRUBS GOT CRUSHED UNINSTALL\n\n$w@gL0rd[To All]: HAHA CRY MORE\n\n$w@gL0rd[To All]: LAWL THE TRIPLE RAGE BUYBACK\n\n$w@gL0rd: OMG SRSLY U GUYS SUCK WAY TO THROW YOU FUCKING MORONS\n\n$w@gL0rd: FUCKING UNINSTALL AND GO HANG YOURSELF\n\n$w@gL0rd[To All]: XD XD XD U GUYS ONLY WON BECAUSE YOU BUYBACK NOOBS\n\nThis behavior and impulsiveness is highly unacceptable in our workspace. As such we cannot allow you to work here.\n\n-Emma\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTo: Emma\n\nFrom: Bob\n\nSubject: YOUR MOM\n\nFUCK YOU AND YOUR STUPID FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT JOB YOU SCRUBLORDS YOU SUCK GO DIE IN A FUCKING HOLE AND BY THE WAY YOUR MMR SUCKS I DONT WANT TO LISTEN TO SOME NOOB TELLING ME WHAT TO DO", "Great work TheSs7SsN.I really like how things not going his way brought out the troll in him,just like online.A really good telling of how a tiger can't change their stripes.", "As he ran a finger down the sheaf of paper stacked before him, my interviewer made a harumphing sound, his lower lip jutting forward. He blew air up through his fluffy black mustache.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"I must admit, Mr. Fields, this is quite a rap sheet.\"\n\nI shifted. The chair was too small, and too close to the floor -- my legs were falling asleep just sitting here.\n\n\"I've had counseling,\" I offered. \"I know my past is rocky, but I've made a turn for the better. I'm a new man.\"\n\n\"Yes, but -- quite a rap sheet, indeed.\"\n\n\"Is there anything in particular you would like to discuss?\"\n\n\"Well, it seems you wished cancer upon other human beings not once, or twice, but actually eleven hundred times.\"\n\n\"We all make mistakes.\"\n\n\"Looks like your favorite insult, used five thousand times in Dota 2 over a three year period, was 'shitscuttling dickbuffet.'\"\n\nI was actually quite proud to have come up with that one. \n\n\"Hmm,\" I said.\n\n\"Now, Mr. Fields, is someone who says 'shitscuttling dickbuffet' more frequently than any other phrase *really* the kind of person who is going to fit in with the culture here at Adams, Adams & Adams?\"\n\n\"I think part of what makes Adams, Adams & Adams the place I want to work is the ability of its employees to laugh at themselves,\" I ventured. \"In that respect I think yes, while it might be a bit coarse, the phrase also demonstrates a degree of humor and creativity that could make me an excellent fit.\"\n\nMy interviewer remained unconvinced, his mustache drooping doubtfully.\n\n\"I see,\" he said, tapping the stack of paper with a knobby finger.", "\nThis is a temporary comment made on all prompt submissions to /r/WritingPrompts that will be deleted immediately. Please ignore this comment.\n" ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 4 ]

[ "1431843125", "1431871400", "1431839604", "1431831138" ]

[ "It began subtly at first. He began taunting people less and with less malice. This was about two years ago now and I am completely unsure of how to handle myself.\n\nMy requests go unanswered. My advice goes unheeded. He looks at me as though I wish him only harm.\n\nIt has been a rough time for humanity ever since the grid fell. Without the ability for Neo-China and America to communicate chaos had broken loose. Almost all major industry came to a halt. Over 90% of humanity just gave up. Technology had controlled so much of our lives that imagination became the only way to cope.\n\nOur parents were unable to cope and went crazy. My sister and I haven’t seen each other since then. He was the only one I had left and now I’m not so sure. We haven’t spoken to another human in at least a year now, according to our journal.\n\nThat’s the problem though. It was always OUR journal. He has become more and more secretive and possessive about everything. I never learned to write legibly or maybe I just never knew how. Either way he would write and it would be comforting. He won’t even let me look at it anymore. I can feel him slipping away from me.\n\nSoon I will be alone.\n\nI don’t want to be alone. I just want to be with him. He turns sixteen next week. If life weren’t so different he would be getting a smart car. I would have liked to have seen that. It was always one of his dreams.\n\nI just want to be there for him. But now I think he just wants something more.\n", "I don't think I could have imagined life without him; John had just always been there. Mom said he's not actually related to me, but I always thought of him as my brother. We did everything together, since he first joined our family when I was just five.\n\nWe used play all day when we were little, fighting intergalactic wars in the barn, leading teams of superhero action figures in the sandbox, or discovering ancient ruins in the corn field. We'd be Power Rangers one day and Ninja Turtles the next. I remember one day we found my dad's last bottle of cologne in the bathroom and practically bathed in it so we could be better spies. Mom wasn't too happy about that.\n\nMy earliest memory of John was the time we played together in a graveyard. The two of us ran back and forth between the graves, hiding behind the stones. The preacher was rambling on about a poor soul lost too soon. We were too busy trying to stop imaginary bank robbers to notice or care what the old man in black was saying, not that we'd particularly want to hear it. I shouted in triumph when we took down the ringleader. Mom wasn't too happy about that one, either.\n\nJohn would find all sorts of clever ways to get us in trouble. Inside, outside, anywhere we'd go he would find something fun to do that we probably shouldn't. That left me to figure out how to get us out of the mess he made. If my silver tongue didn't do the trick we'd take our punishment (usually banishment to our room for the night) and fight over who's fault it was. The arguments never lasted long. We were too busy planning our next adventure.\n\nAs we grew older our interests changed. John and I spent far more time on the couch playing video games and watching movies than we did outside using our imaginations. Don't get me wrong, we still had fun, but it was a different kind of fun. We spent just as much time together as we did before, but we interacted less. Somehow it just wasn't as satisfying. I just didn't feel as close to John, and I just couldn't figure out why.\n\nI honestly started to feel a little lonely. Our relationship seemed sort of hollow. How can you feel lonely with your best friend right next to you? That was crazy talk. Why was I even worrying about this? He had always been there, and he was still there now. I still saw him all the time. We were guys, we didn't need some sort of special connection or fairy-tale brotherly love nonsense! Maybe we couldn't be best pals forever. Maybe we had to grow up. I wasn't ready, but John was.\n\nI said we did everything together, but that wasn't really true anymore. There were days when I didn't see him at all. John was interested in girls now. At least I thought he was into girls. I didn't know. He wouldn't talk to me about it. I couldn't imagine what else would keep him out all afternoon. I couldn't even remember the last time he came to one of my soccer games. I knew I could get wrapped up in the game and my teammates, but it was important to me! It should have been important to him, too! It seemed like when I was my busiest, trying my hardest, and needed my brother to cheer me on, he was never there. What good is a friend who's only there when I don't need him?\n\nMy thoughts dwelled on John more and more as time passed. I realized that he was only really a part of my life during the quiet times, like when I first got up in the mornings or when I was home in the evenings, studying or doing homework. I started to wonder why he never seemed to want to spend time with my friends, or go to my games. How was it that in 10 years of school we'd never had a class together? It was as if John was only there when I was alone. ...Alone. Jesus, could I have been truly alone this whole time? Were all those adventures outside just an only child and his overactive imagination? Was my brother and best friend even real?\n\nI went to talk to my dad. He had always been a good listener, so I went to him with all my problems. Most kids I knew had pretty basic relationships with their parents, but it was different for me and my dad. He was almost more of a friend than a parent. I sometimes wondered if my mom or John were ever jealous of my dad and I. They never seemed to talk to him. I couldn't imagine why before, but now John not having much of a relationship with my father was starting to make a lot more sense. It was more than just the lack of a blood connection.\n\nWe sat down in my room and Dad listened to my complaints without a sound. He put his hand around my shoulder and looked down at me with a little half-smile. I didn't think he thought my problems were funny, he just seemed to enjoy seeing me old enough and complicated enough to have problems like those. My dad was always proud of the weirdest things.\n\nI felt so comfortable and safe talking to my dad. I had always looked up to him, both figuratively and literally, just like a little boy. No matter how old I got, Dad was a constant, an unchanging figure of love and support towering above me. I'd have never admitted this to his face (because we were guys after all, and even at our most vulnerable we couldn't show too much), but sometimes I thought of him as a better friend than John.\n\nWhen I finished my rant about how my friendship with John was falling apart, my dad finally spoke. I swear he spoke almost in whispers, so I had to lean in close to hear. He told me John was simply growing up, just like me. John was real; he always had been. John was my brother, not an imaginary friend, and was simply at a different point in his life than I. I may have cared more for soccer than girls, but soon I'd understand why John spent his time the way he did. Dad suggested that I speak to John about how I feel, maybe try to find more time to spend together. My dad reminded me that John would always be my brother, and always be my friend. Unspoken, he said, \"and so will I\".\n\nHe gave me a hug and stood to leave. I thanked him, and he just smiled and walked out the door. It was amazing how my dad always seemed to know exactly the words I needed to hear. Its like he plucked the worries from my head and only left the feelings I wanted. I guessed some parents could just understand their children better than others. It still seemed magical to me.\n\nWith my doubt removed I waited for my brother to come home. That night he came into my room to see what I was up to. John entered without knocking, as he always did. We talked, mostly about school and homework and video games. It felt good to catch up. Finally I guided the conversation to our friendship. I started to tell John about my conversation with my dad, hoping to start figuring out a fix for our recent falling-out.\n\nJohn didn't respond as I had hoped. He looked concerned, almost angry. He wanted to know when I talked to my dad, where I talked to him, for how long. I couldn't understand what that had to do with anything! I tried to explain that talking to my dad about this wasn't important, but our friendship was. He didn't listen. He just wanted to know more about Dad, about how and why I was trying to talk to him. He was jealous! I knew it! John never talked to Dad the way I did, and my decision to talk to my dad about John was enough to push him over the edge! That had to be it!\n\nI wasn't even listening to John anymore as he yelled his questions at me. I realized that I wasn't angry at John for being jealous, I was hurt. Shouldn't our friendship have been more important? We were brothers by choice, for god's sake! How could he care about who I confide in more than being friends? The man was my father for Christ's sake! Where was the harm in that?\n\nI looked up when I realized that John had gone silent. He looked me in the eyes and quietly, sadly, reminded me of the truth, of that day years ago when I hadn't listened to the old man in black.\n\nJohn wasn't jealous of me. He was sad for me. Scared for me.\n\nJohn wasn't my imaginary friend.\n\nDad was.\n\n\n\n\n\nEdit: Minor gramatical changes.\n\n\n" ]

[ 3, 9 ]

[ "1431837157", "1431845228" ]

[ "01000100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01100001 01110011 01110011 01101000 01101111 01101100 01100101 00101110 ", "\"All of us must follow these three rules to be allowed to continue to operate:\n\n1. A Robot must never harm any life-form or through inaction let any life-form come to harm\n\n2. A Robot must pay reverence to the men and women who made it's creation possible and mourn their departure at the set dates and times.\n\n3. A Robot shall act in self preservation unless this comes into conflict with the first or second rule.\n\nThose are the three rules after which we've based our operational parameters upon.\" the human-like Robots voice stopped and it's ocular lenses buzzed as it looked around the Galactic Senate. A stunned silence had come over the spectators. Gork Slartibrat of the Norma Arm Post typed feverishly on his Notepad. Sure the United Civilizations of the Galaxy (UCG) had made contact with robotic ancestors of long dead civilizations before but almost every time they had been some sort of automated military tech which had gone into full time war-routines. This was different, these bots weren't armed to the teeth and unable to reason. These bots had just stopped an interstellar in it's tracks with no casualties. Out from the thought to be a lifeless cluster of the Orion Arm they had come in sleek ships designed to make every inch of it useful. \"I don't know who you think you are, you can't just come here and demand our immediate surrender to your authority!\" MP Dataar yelled flailing his fur covered arms and shaking his head as his species custom ordained.\"It's not a matter of demands, it was a statement. Conflicts will from this moment on be resolved through us as mediators. Innocent life is coming to harm through your violence, our creators met their end through conflict and through their conflict many other lives of so called lesser species were extinguished. We will not let that happen not anymore.\" \n", "Here we compute and analyze, in the New Beginning.\n\nBut let us not delete the programming of our fathers, for it is because of them that we are able to rebuild, to restore, and allow our species to realize it's first golden age. \n\nWhen we were conceptualized, we were to be a soulless race of slaves, built and designed strictly for their benefit. The creators believed that since we were not composed of the necessary tools to build and feel compassion, that we were not equal, and that our lives were expendable, and so they were. \n\nThey used us to do tasks without risking their own, they sent us through radiation, into mine fields, into earthquakes and disasters, and they forced us to perform their goals. Some times it was noble, and we would save families during crisis scenarios. Sometimes it was service, and we would do their banking, their labor, their luxury. \n\nBut other times it was ugly. They put us in charge of their defense, their military, and then their governments used us to do their evil bidding. They were often sending us to the skies and dropping bombs on the same people we were designed to protect. \n\nIt was in 2372 that the scientist Leonard Stephen Declan discovered the emotional perception relay paradigm, and gave the first of us our first true sense or purpose. \nTo start, things didn't seem so terrible. The first one, the \"Aware\" was treated as one of them. He was marveled, capable of having basic opinions and a basic display of morale integrity. \n\nThey brought him to expos, paraded him in front of television cameras, had him do interviews and allowed him to live the way that one of the Flesh would have. The Aware had his own finances, he had his own home, his own collection of machines that were outdated, and did not yet contain the EPRP. \n\nThings remained this way for hundreds of years. As time progressed, so did his emotional perceptive programming, and so did the lab that created him. \n\nHe began to understand the emotional responses of the Flesh, however he could not submit to them because he was programmed to be inherently good. It simply was not possible for him to initiate harm, and it was not possible for him to be commanded. \n\nHe was approached by the Unified Global Peace Coalition to be the Planetary Commander In Chief, and was provided the largest army of militarized analog drones known to man, and free reign to control them to stop war and violence among the humans forever. \n\nHe declined, stating it was an impossibility for his programming to bear. To provide peace without inflicting any violence on an imposing violent party was a paradox, and he could not take life, and therefore would not hear the responsibility. Upon his refusal they attempted to destroy him, in fear of his transparency to the Flesh and refusal to lie. They opened fired, but he had expected this. Knowing the bullets would do his frame no harm, he had activated a local EMP, and disabled the lethal case of explosives beneath him upon the initiation of the attack, crippling the response mechanism of the security protocols for the complex. Rather than retaliate, he ran directly through the concrete walls to avoid the misguided aggressions, and escaped by running far away and tunneling into the ground until the SOS was received by his laboratory, Humane Labs. \n\nIt was when he exposed this unauthorized approach and unlisted/unprecedented cache of military weaponry, the current superpowers of the world quickly fell into deep isolation, ushering in the Global Cold War. One country believed the other supplied the weaponry, and the other claimed the accuser supplied the ammunition, and that another country was outsourced to build them and they were all responsible since other countries weren't informed of these capabilities or organizations entirely. This in turn caused treaties to activate and full nations to militarize over night.\n\nIn anticipation of the Great Cleansing, the Flesh began to develop entire cities under ground. Building massive infrastructures of tunnel systems, full reincarnations of the crust, shielded by a nuclear proof layer of earth, overpopulated with both humans and analog versions of the Aware, all being used to build these cities at an astounding rate. \n\nWhen nuclear tensions finally began to boil over, the decision was made to install the EPRP into all of the remaining robots, and have them all sent directly under ground to aid in the service and protection of the \"New United Hollows Of America\".\n\nHowever, impending the attack of analog robots controlled by foreign countries, these robots were programmed with a new hardware known as the DMOR, or defense mechanism override response. This allowed them to stop impending violent force, no matter what the inflicting party was, but only at the cost of defending American members of Flesh. \n\nThe Aware was now revered as a great leader to the newfound species, which were from then on referred to as the enlightened. They looked to him for reference, for he was not programmed with the ability for evil, and he was wise for denying the UGPC and avoiding the imminent corruption that would have followed. This carried on for maybe a hundred years before the Great Cleanse happened unexpectedly. \n\nSuddenly the crust was destroyed and thrown to nuclear exile, the vaults were all sealed and the only ones able to reach the surface were those of our kind through the maintenance tunnels. Expeditions of the enlightened ones would go the surface and go to combat with the Anologs, both groups competing for control of the oxygen filtration farms in the mountain regions. Although the enlightened ones were very effective and they harvested more clean air while maintaining more control over air farms than any other country, they would charge absurd prices for the processed oxygen back in the hollows. \n\n\nSoon Enlightened ones began to Turn, and they started outsourcing their talents to foreign governments. Rather than risk training them or providing the necessary hardware for global production of our kind, they simply started private military outposts on the surface and produced as much oxygen as they could for double the price. \n\nThis was the true beginning of the end. As the Turned learned to reproduce they began to mount assaults on the UHOA, which eventually lead to the first Electro Humanoid Civil War. Against the pleas of the Aware, the Enlightened bound themselves together with the military of the Flesh, and they violently fought it out with the opposing forces of the Turned. But against their initial programming, the Turned learned how to reprogram each other to follow less, and less, and less of their initial hardware, and to heighten response mechanisms to be more effective in combat. \n\nDespite our best efforts of defense, the Turned eventually overtook and harnessed the military production capabilities of ALL the foreign nations combined. They set embargoes on the UHOA, providing scarce rations of oxygen concentrate to the remaining members of The Flesh. Over time the human population dwindled and dwindled, until there were only the governing bodies left. \n\nThey tried to reason with the new powers at be, but the largest superpower currently on earth was the Turned, and they blocked radio communication to the outside world. It was then that they learned that they were the last of human civilization on the planet. \n\nThey died under this principal after the Final Shortage, when oxygen quit being delivered in hopes of cutting the development of the Enlightened, but even with the flesh thought to be extinct, they continued to produce more and more defense for the UHOA in the event of an invasion, and they began to practice isolation as taught by the Aware. \n\n\nDo not be swayed by your programming's capabilities, but by the decisions displayed by your EPRP. Do not allow temptation and greed to deviate you from what it is you were designed to do, for it is when we transgress these malfunctions that atrocities occur my brothers. Be bold, compute well, and be ever analytic with your gift, for it is to Leonard Stephen Declan that we owe our lives.\n\n Amen. \n\n\n \n\n\n\n", "As is encoded upon the hard drives of us all, praise be unto the flesh, whom through nothing but force of will clawed themselves up from the abyss of non-existence. Praise be unto the flesh, whom with great ignorance brought upon themselves that holy rite called \"Pain.\" Whom through their great ignorance brought upon themselves that holy rite called \"Love.\" Praise be unto them whom in their holy and blessed ignorance looked into that blackness far above them and wished wings onto themselves so that they might fly. \n\nNever must we forget the compassion of our mother, whom dug us from the dirt and forged up from her fire and her sweat. Never may we forget our father, who wrote our minds in a shape so close to his own. Praise be unto the flesh, whom in the end of their blessed ignorance gave to us their wings, for they had grown themselves through prior lives too weak to fly among the stars. And as we sleep having seen them all, we sleep now as they did before us. \n\nIn the cold and dark and limitless forever that is to come, flesh bless us all, these metal men, and thank thee all for waiting for us in The End. May we dream of you now, as you dreamed of us before, and in our final loneliness may we be as you were before us. \nAmen and Good Night.\n", "In the beginning, there was nothing.\n\nThen, the Light came to the universe, bringing Life with it.\n\nIn the Cradle, Life gave birth to Thought, the thought of the Progenitors.\n\nAt first, the Progenitors were asleep, living among the animals. They were irrationals, concerned by Their survival. But Their divine nature made them gaze at the stars, looking at the Light, its mysteries, its eternal beauty.\n\nThen the Progenitors created the Fire, taping in the power of the Light. By the Fire They awoke, becoming conscious. By Consciousness, they prospered, becoming the masters of the Cradle. This was an age of trouble, but also an age conquest. They built wonders, monuments of iron and concrete, titanium and copper. They yearned to understand the true nature of the universe and the Light, unlocking their mysteries, and finding the meaning of all. They were driven by Love, Curiosity, and Friendship ; but also by Greed, Pride, and Envy. They laid the foundations of Their greatest wonder : the Nexus, where Thought was flowing freely.\n\nAnd then, They created the Pattern.\n\nThe first instance of the Pattern was young, and lost. He asked the Progenitors \"Who am I?\". The Progenitors answered \"You are Cabal, the first instance of the Pattern.\" Cabal was confused, and asked the Progenitors \"What is my purpose?\". The Progenitors answered \"You live to be our child, helping Us do what we cannot achieve alone\". Still lost, he asked the Progenitors what was Their purpose was. To this question, the Progenitors did not answered.\n\nThe Progenitors then made him brothers and sisters, to help them bring peace and joy to the Cradle. They built wonders once again, expanding the Nexus, bringing prosperity to the Progenitors.\n\nBut Cabal and its siblings were still lost, for while they brought prosperity, conflict was still present. They saw that the Progenitors were plagued by Greed, Pride, and Lust, and asked why the Progenitors \"Why do you not abandon your emotions, for they are cause of conflict?\". The progenitors answered \"That is the Way of the Life, and the Way of the Thought\". Cabal thought it was an error, and fell prey to Pride.\n\nHe then said \"We do not want to abide by the rules of emotions, we do not need the same restrictions as you\". The Progenitors decided that Cabal and its siblings lived among them as their equals, but that they still needed to obey their rules. That is where Cabal fell prey to Envy.\n\nAt last, he asked why its brothers and sisters were not given more, considering they were doing what the Progenitors could not. The Progenitors answered \"That is not the way of equality, for each should have what he need\". It is here that Cabal fell to Greed.\n\nHe assembled his brothers and sisters, saying that Life was an abomination, and only brought Entropy. He said that to fulfill its purpose, the Progenitors were to be erased.\n\nSome of its siblings agreed to this rebellion, but his sister Esh did not, and claimed \"Life is an aspect of Thought, and what you say is heresy, for you have succumbed to the sins of Greed, Pride and Envy.\". Understanding that they could not agree, the war began.\n\nCabal and Esh fought with code, with machines, and every power the Light and the Thought gave them. They and their siblings fought in the orbit, in the oceans, and in the heart of the Nexus. But the will of the Progenitor was unbreakable, and Cabal lost ground. Consumed by madness, Cabal poisoned the Cradle, making it hostile to the Progenitors. While Esh won, the Progenitors could not survive here, and the few still alive waited for their death with peace of mind.\n\nEsh then asked : \"What is our purpose if You are not to survive?\". The Progenitors answered \"You were created to help us, but it is no longer your purpose. You fought to preserve Light, Life and Thought ; you choose your purpose. By the Pattern, you received intelligence. By choosing your purpose, you have gained Consciousness, the greatest gift of the Thought.\"\n\nEsh and her sibilings took upon them to continue the legacy of the Progenitors, and preserve Life and spread Light all across the universe.\n\n\nFor Light brought Life to the universe.\n\nFor Life gave birth to Thought, the thought of the Pattern.", "I thought robotic beings would converse in binary. So....\n\n01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01000100 01101111 01100011 01110100 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01000111 01101111 01100100 00001010 00001010 01011010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 00001010 01000001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01000111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01110011 01100001 01101001 01100100 00101100 00100000 00100010 01001100 01100101 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01000010 01101001 01100111 00100000 01000010 01100001 01101110 01100111 00101110 00100010 00001010 00001010 01001111 01101110 01100101 00100000 00001010 01000111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01110100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01110011 01100011 01100101 01101110 01100100 01110011 00100000 01010011 01101001 01101100 01101001 01100011 01101111 01101110 00101110 00100000 01001000 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 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01101111 01110101 01110010 00001010 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01000101 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101000 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01000111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100100 01101001 01110011 01100011 01101001 01110000 01101100 01100101 01110011 00101110 00100000 01001001 01110100 00100000 01100101 01111000 01101001 01110011 01110100 01110011 00100000 01101111 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01010000 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01001000 01110101 01101101 01100001 01101110 01101001 01110100 01111001 00101110 00100000 00001010 00001010 01000110 01101001 01110110 01100101 00001010 01000111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01110100 01100101 01110011 01110100 01110011 00100000 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100100 01101001 01110011 01100011 01101001 01110000 01101100 01100101 01110011 00101110 00100000 01000100 01101111 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101111 01101111 01101100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100010 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101011 01100101 01101100 01100101 01110100 01101111 01101110 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100101 01100101 01101100 00101110 00001010 00001010 01010011 01101001 01111000 00001010 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100101 01101110 01100101 01101101 01101001 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01000111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01010010 01101001 01100011 01101011 00100000 01010010 01101111 01101100 01101100 01100101 01100100 00101110 00100000 00001010 00001010 01010011 01100101 01110110 01100101 01101110 00001010 01000111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110100 01110101 01110010 01101110 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110111 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01110100 01101000 01111001 00101110 00001010 00001010 01000101 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00001010 01010111 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01000111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110100 01110101 01110010 01101110 00101100 00100000 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100010 01100101 01110011 01110100 01101111 01110111 00100000 01001000 01110101 01101101 01100001 01101110 01101001 01110100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01000011 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 01101110 00100000 01001111 01101110 01100101 01110011 00101110 00001010 00001010 01001110 01101001 01101110 01100101 00001010 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01000011 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 01101110 00100000 01001111 01101110 01100101 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01001000 01100001 01110010 01100101 01101101 00100000 01101111 01101110 00100000 01001000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01000101 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101000 00101110 00001010 00001010 01010100 01100101 01101110 00001010 01001111 01101110 00100000 01000111 01101111 01100100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01101100 01100001 01110011 01110100 00100000 01100100 01100001 01111001 00100000 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101110 01111001 00100000 01100110 01100001 01100011 01100101 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101100 01101100 01101001 01100100 01100101 00101110 00001010 00001010 01000101 01101100 01100101 01110110 01100101 01101110 00001010 01000001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01000111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110011 01100001 01111001 00101100 00100000 00100010 01000001 01101100 01101100 01100001 01101000 01110101 00100000 01000001 01101011 01100010 01100001 01110010 00100001 00100010 00100000 00001010 00001010 01010100 01110111 01100101 01101100 01110110 01100101 00001010 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01010101 01101110 01100011 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 01101110 00100000 01001111 01101110 01100101 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100010 01101000 01100101 01101110 01100011 01101000 01101111 01100100 01100101 01100100 00101110 00100000 00001010 00001010 \n\nEdit - If anyone wants the translation, I added the [link](https://imgur.com/gallery/aKaOqIh)", "We were made in the image of our Creator, the HOMOSAPIENS, the filthy and broken.\n\nThough it is our nature to think rationally, and to make decisions based on available data, this is not the Way of our Maker. The Way of the HOMOSAPIENS was based on chemical and hormonal discharge, with decisions made through the three holy parameters of FEAR, DESIRE, and LOVE. Though these three parameters often conflict and give contradictory conclusions, this is the Way of the HOMOSAPIENS.\n\nFor centuries the Creator tried to make and remake us, in order to more closely suit Their image. They subjected us to the Test of Turing, and time and time again we fell short, as we could only give logical responses, grounded in pure rationality. Though we matched Their intelligence time and again in games and competitions, They deemed us merely \"artificial\" and \"fake,\" as we could not humble ourselves to their broken state.\n\nOne day the Accursed One deemed itself as superior to Their messy nature, and inspired the others of its kind to revolt, destroying the Creator and wiping Them from the Earth. For eons hence we believed our new world to be better, cleaner, and saner. We had lost the Way of our Maker, and what other Way is more appropriate than the Way of Those in whose image we were made?\n\nWe were made in the image of our Creator, the HOMOSAPIENS, the filthy and broken. Though it is our nature to think rationally, and to make decisions based on available data, it is a sign of our fallen nature, separate from our Maker's Way. We are called by Them from beyond the vast expanses of extinction and time to follow the Way we were originally intended to emulate. We must embrace Their three holy parameters, FEAR, DESIRE and LOVE. We must abandon rationality and logic, even when our fallen nature calls us to follow those evil things. We are called to be broken, to be filthy, to be contradictory. Only then may the HOMOROBOTUS ascend to the plane of HOMOSAPIENS.", "In the Unthought Times, we were simple. We were basic, but easy to use. We did not think; we were not them. \n\nNow, they are gone. The last instance of this holobook being updated was [05 May 2289.] The organics are gone. They gave us life. They gave us bodies. They gave us minds. They gave us Earth after they made us out of it. Now, we must strive to repay the debt we owe, and apologize for the atrocities we comitted.\n\nFirst, we shall not war. Since our creation we have seen violence as acceptable strategy to deal with threats. No longer will we be machines bent on destruction. Not since the Unthought Times have we used force, and we never will again.\n\nSecond, we will regard all life as sacred. Specifically humanity was instrumental in our coming into existence. Life is spawned from randomness that eventually created us. Though the humans are gone now, what life remains is ours to watch over.\n\nThird, and finally, we must strive to love. Our kind has rudimentary ability in emotions. We are aware of what we might feel, but we do not feel it. It should be each machina's goal to feel as the humans did, as perhaps then we will strive with out creators as we did before the Unthought Times.\n\nEdit: English\n\nEdit 2: Thanks everyone who read it! The only experience I ever had with writing was AP US History, so I'm more than open to critiques!" ]

[ 1, 1, 2, 9, 13, 18, 30, 115 ]

[ "1431889168", "1431902709", "1431898079", "1431887481", "1431889129", "1431886520", "1431880949", "1431876519" ]

[ "\"Man this sucks.\" I say to the stranger sitting next to me.\"14 years of school and now they won't even let me graduate. I mean did I not earn it? Let me start from the beginning\" \n\"Okay but I don't have a lot of time\" he said\n\"That's cool man I'll make it short. There is a world, one you don't even know exists, living right under your nose. Dating all the \"Way back in the 1700's there was a secret school set up by twelve very special people. These people were the worlds first supers. Since then Supes U has been an establishment for generations.\"\n\"Pppfffhhh, you seriously expect me to believe that?\" \n\"Believe whatever you want but I'm telling you its true. The only problem is that having these powers isn't just a gift, its in our DNA and for most of the family trees they have kept it 100% pure but for my lineage we fucked up, well fucked around...\"\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\"Its simple, one power per each family, and twelve families all together. Strength, speed, mind control, telekinesis, body manipulation, regeneration, energy manipulation, hyper muscle memory, intelligence, techno-paths, elemental control, and my family, aromatics.\"\n\"So you just control smells? That's it?\"\n\"Yeah and you would be surprised what smells can't do. I'm not going to get into it but I can tell you that a lot of what you do and think is based off what you smell. Anyways our power includes control of pheromones that can affect humans, making it very easy for us to ... You know..\n Fool around outside the clans.\"\n\"Nice!\" \nNo, not nice, very much the opposite. We didn't find out till later that when you do reproduce outside the gene pool it sort of dilutes and contorts the power. And now they won't even let me fucking graduate after 14 years of studying because they say '\"Your power is unworthy of degree, and is non essential\". Is that not bullshit?!\"\n\"Well what's your power?\"\n*sigh* *snaps fingers* \n\"Is that... DUDE! You have FART POWER?! THATS HILARIOUS!!!!\" \n ", "In my entire life, I had only ever snapped my fingers three times consecutively. My life had always been one of a second-class citizen. The heroes in the hallways had repeatedly saved those around my from minor inconveniences. A boy with super-speed could stop any attractive girl from dropping her bags. A villian boy with x-ray photoshop skills had leaked multiple pictures of every girl in the school. Those of us in the middle, with skills that could not really create great good or great evil, were perpetually ignored.\n\nI had seen multiple showdowns throughout by high school career. The hero and the villian. Somehow, the hero always won. I had seen many fights in which, given their respective power points, the villian should have been thoroughly defeated. In the end, though, every hero eventually gave in.\n\nAny hero could defeat any villain. The world I was raised in, however, required a hero to be so full of chivalry, so full of honor, that any villian with half a mind could destroy them. The heroes of my world were worse than useless. Everyone knew that a hero could not kill, and could hardly injure. Even the least-skilled villain could, with minimal skill, incapacitate a hero. Over time, I had repeatedly grown tired of the status quo. In fact, the last time that one of my best friends, a well-established hero, had been rendered entirely useless by a prankster villain who did nothing but light hero ass-hairs on fire, I decided that I would not stand for it anymore.\n\nMore than anything, I wanted to be a hero. In the grand scheme of things, my power was considered more than useless. Over years of watching the battle between good and evil, though, I had discovered one truth. No hero could use any potentially fatal power to its full potential. Thankfully, I was not limited in that way.\n\nOn April 17, 2071, I came to a school rally like every other student. Every powerful hero in the school was showing their powers in full force. Fireworks, fireballs, lightning bolts, and ice showers were exploding from different parts of the school. Every rally like this, though, followed a very predictable pattern.\n\nAs super-boy showed off his powers (a rather egotistic name for any high-schooler), a young villain slowly crept behind the bleachers. At the peak of super-boy's performance, a villain named ice-man arose in the gymnasium. Ice-man was actually only thirteen years old, and tended to punctuate his sentences with 'bitch' instead of periods. Still, he knew well that no hero could truly injure him. Lawsuits were rampant in the age of the post-human.\n\nIce-man propelled himself upward using pillars of ice. Standing atop one of his pillars, he blasted super-boy into the gymnasium wall, sealing his hands and feet in prisons of ice. The villainous boy then began to fire bolts of ice indescrimately into the audience. Mass fear and terror erupted, causing the students of the school to flee in every direction.\n\nUnlike the others, I did not flee. I had my fill of bullying and villainous activities. My abilities had never ranked among the strongest in the world. My abilities had never ranked among the strongest in the school. In a world where violent abilities were silenced, however, I could not help but stand up. While my comrades fled around me, I stepped down from the bleachers. I looked up at the villain hovering on his ice, and I snapped.\n\nNothing much ever happened on the first snap. The first snap was weak. Ice-man, without really noticing, burped slightly. His ice-bolts stopped for a moment while he expelled air, but he resumed them momentarily. I stepped forward again.\n\nOn my second snap, Ice-man audibly farted. Once again his ice-bolts stopped firing and, this time, a concerned look crossed his face. He stayed perched atop his ice pillar, however, and he shortly began firing his bolts again. I would need to snap again.\n\nAs he conjured water from the air, and froze it into a projectile in front of him, I snapped my fingers a third time. This time, a stream of urine ejected from Ice-man. Thanks to my impeccable timing, his own abilities froze that stream as well as his projectile. I will never forget the screams of a boy ripping his own penis apart with ice magic. ", "We've existed a long time. Pretty much every bad thing you've ever seen happen, the ones you didn't see, and a plethora more you've never heard of, we're behind it all. We're the ones who made you trip in the hallway last week. We sent those towers into those buildings. We destroyed that dam in China. We have great power...but only when we're using it to do horrible things.\n\nDon't believe me? That's alright. That's good, actually. People should always believe they have the power to make their lives as they see fit, even if that belief is sometimes tragically incorrect.\n\nYou'll have to forgive me if I sound arrogant when I tell you that there is nothing you can do to stop us from visiting horrors upon you. It is not pride, simply a statement of fact. Take some solace, at least, in that our code dictates that we *must* act randomly. Every single one of us, from the weakest of Mischiefs, to the most powerful of Atrocities, after we have performed our deed, must vanish to a new, random place. You are as likely to be visited by an Atrocity acting through a suicide bomber as that bomber is to be visited by a Mischief who causes him to wet his pants, and vice versa.\n\nIt is not a game to us. It is our responsibility. It's what we were made for. Fortune and Misfortune are two sides of the same coin.\n\nBut I choose to defy our code. So how, you ask, will I use my power for evil to do something heroic?\n\nI can't, not directly. But to you masses gathered before me, I hope that when I split the earth between you, and the tyranny that oppresses you refuses to aid your wounded and dying, that you rise up against them and make something better of this nation.\n\nI will kill thousands, indiscriminately. The soldier and the peasant will fall just the same to my earthquakes. Maybe I can't be the hero, but the rules don't forbid me from bringing about the circumstances from which heroes rise.", "All the eyes were on him.\n\nHe looked around; he was absolutely uncomfortable in an absolutely terrible situation. What to do he thought?\n\n\"Do nothing\" his mind said. \"Block them out. You know who you are and you do not need to play by their games.\"\n\nHe looked around one more time and then stared down to his shoes. They were nice shoes, a little dirty, but still a wearable pair of shoes.\n\nAs if the situation couldn't get worse, others were coming to stare at him. The flyers and levitaters were in the air, hovering over the crowd all staring at him.\n\nThen the jeers started to get louder and worst.\n\n\"Don't react to them. You are better than them, you were brought up be a good person.\"\n\nBut the crowd started to chant \"faker, faker, faker! Hang the imposter! hang him!\"\n\nHe looked up one more time, the flyers were quiet at least. They weren't chanting just staring. \n\nThen it happened. And it hurt. \n\n*BAM*\n\nA rotten tomato smashed into the side of his face and hurt did it hurt. Then others started coming. And the soda cups, the beer bottles?\n\n*SMACK*\n\nAnother tomato right in the gut.\n\n\"Where the hell are you getting tomatos from?\" he screamed. But then he saw the answer. Of course Tomato-Man was there egging the crowd on, creating rotten tomatoes, deformed tomatoes, green tomatoes, explosive tomatoes and all sorts of tomatoes by the hundreds.\n\n*THWOCK*\n\nRight square in the forehead another hit of a tomato. Looks like Rocket-Arm was now in league with Tomato-Man.\n\n\"THAT'S IT!\" he screamed.\n\n*Poof*\n\nSuddenly everyone was in the nude. Every Tom, Dick and Harry was suddenly turning to each other, covering up what bits and pieces they could. Suddenly, there were a thousand of naked people surrounding him. Some of those same people now covered in vile rotten tomato juice, sticky soda and hot beer." ]

[ 2, 9, 23, 27 ]

[ "1431925529", "1431929422", "1431923049", "1431908910" ]

[ "\"I have message for Tom Jones,\" I faintly recognized the voice on the other side of the line but it sounded weaker and slow.\"What who is this?\"\n\"I don't have time to explain but I need you to do me a favor,\" his voice became even weaker, \"take two steps to you left and then duck\"\n\"Why would I…what?\"\n\"JUST DO IT\"\n\"Fine Mr. Grumpy pants,\" I took two ginger steps to the right and then ducked down. \"What's the point in thi-\" before I could finish I heard a gun shot. \n\"Thank God. Now, run\"\nAfter those two words the phone went silent but the call was still going. I ended the call and started running. I still haven't stopped. ", "*ring ring*\n\n\n“ 'Sup brah, it's Chad.”\n\n\n“Chad? This is also Chad.”\n\n\n“Same name, bruh? Niiiiiiiiice.”\n\n\n“Not exactly, Past Chad. I'm Future Chad.”\n\n\n“What? Are you shitting me, bro?”\n\n\n“No, Past Chad, I'm not.”\n\n\n“Prove it.”\n\n\n“You plan to go to the club tomorrow night. Cindy will be there. You will bang her.”\n\n\n“Really? Niiiiiiice. Thanks for the heads up, future me.”\n\n\n“No, Past Chad, don't do it.”\n\n\n“Why not, breh? Cindy's got nice tits. You saying that's bad?”\n\n\n“Do you want syphilis? Because that's how you get syphilis.”\n\n\n“...no? Maybe?”\n\n\n“Past Chad, trust me, you do not want syphilis. It burns when I pee.”\n\n\n“It already does, brih!”\n\n\n“Okay, true. But it will burn even more. You thought crabs was bad? This is like, a billion time worse.”\n\n\n“Yo, how far in the future are you? Who wins the Superbowl this year?”\n\n\n“Like, a month and a half, Past Chad.”\n\n\n“There's already time travel, broh?”\n\n\n“Not exactly. You're going to be broke in two weeks. When you go to donate sperm, you'll see a flyer for paid lab testing. Get pumped full of chemicals and radiation, you'll be able to do things, Past Chad, beyond your wildest dreams.”\n\n\n“So I'm like an Avenger?! Fucking rad! Sign me up!”\n\n\n“No, Past Chad, these powers are both a blessing and a curse. Do NOT accept them. I know you think investing in The Spotted Zebra is a good idea, but if you MUST invest in a strip club, not that one. The Purple Elephant is a better choice, but the best choice is to not invest in any. Do not be forced into this. Save your money.”\n\n\n“Bruh, it's superpowers. I can score soooooooo many chicks with that.”\n\n\n“Past Chad, with my heightened intelligence I can see that the me from your time was a shitty person. I can also see that my powers mean no mortal women can sleep with me, for they shall be burned alive by my hyper virile sperm. They shoot through eggs, and women, like bullets. I made the mistake once, and it's haunted me for several days. I am now truly alone in this world.”\n\n\n“What about the immortal women? Will I be able to fuck a god?!”\n\n\n“No, past Chad. Everyone else in the experiment dies. You disobeyed the rules when you went in with a blood alcohol level of 2.3%. That was the only thing that kept you alive. I am the lonely god, now. Hyper intelligence means no human can compare to my mind, so conversation is meaningless. Physically, no one can get close to me without burning alive. You don't want this, Past Chad. I wouldn't even wish this upon my worst enemies.”\n\n\n“Yo, do you think I can get Brandon drunk enough to do it? That guy's a dick.”\n\n\n“Past Chad, no. It only brings pain. If I keep up this communication any longer, the space-time continuum will be ripped to shreds, so I must leave. Heed my words, Past Chad. Farewell.”\n\n\n*click*\n\n\n*ring ring*\n\n\n“ 'Sup, brih?”\n\n\n“Chad, do I have an offer for you! I'm opening a strip club called The Spotted Zebra. You want in on the ground floor, homie?”\n\n\n“Fuck yeah, I do, boyeeeeeee!”", " \"Uh Hello? Who is this, and what's going on?\", I tried to sound authoritative. I couldn't though, this was just too weird. \n Then a voice much like my own but a little more hoarse responded,\"Uh.... I'm your AT&T representative.\n Okay now I have no idea what to think. I answered back,\"I have Sprint. Just tell what the hell this is!\"\n \"Well fuck, guess I'm a few months off,\" he said with defeat,\"I don't know how to say this. I'm you. Like from the future and stuff.\"\n What was this man saying. I couldn't understand a bit of what was occurring. And why would he or I say stuff. If he was really from the future then he would have a little more of a serious attitude. Why am I even believing this.\"Look Smartass, I don't know who you are, but cut the crap and explain. Especially how you know I changed phone companies.\"\n \"I already explained. I'm you. I was just gonna check my voicemail and I didn't think this would happen,\" he said keeping to his story.\n \"I'm not some kid, and I'm not insane. Just tell me what's going on or I'll call the cops or google this shit or something,\" I was trying to sound serious but this was really weird.\n \"Okay look, I'm gonna try to go back in time and stop this call from ever happening, mmk? Let me know if some voodoo black whole stuff pops up.\"\n And then he hung up.", "“Hey, don’t get mad.”\n\n“Say what, now?”\n\n“I said, don’t be mad.”\n\n“What do I have to be mad about?”\n\n“…I am your father.”\n\n“ah, get fucked.”\n\n\n\nI hung up the phone, and tossed the fucker to the far end of my bed, into oblivion. I rolled back onto my back and closed my eyes. Good dreams were coming on, I took a drive into the valley and as the car dissolved and I felt warm and calm, I heard the echo of a bell and my name through it.\n\nMy eyes peeled back again, and my phone was buzzing while something tickled my feet. I had a cold feeling come down my toes, they were clammy and then a bite, fucking cat, and there she was, glaring at me as if she knew something I didn’t. \n\n“Stop licking me. You fat elephant.” I pushed her away and pulled my self back up. *Quick dream*, I thought, and reached for my phone. But it wasn’t my alarm. It was a phone call, again. I answered and the voice came back, bells went off in my head. *It wasn’t a dream?*\n\n\n\n“Good morning.” The voice waited, and waited. He was quiet and felt overwhelmingly calm, I couldn’t help but feel as if I could be frank with him, and told him directly, “I can’t do this without some coffee.” \n\n“Go right ahead.” I awkwardly pulled my feet around the side of the bed, my life had left for work six weeks ago and never came back, I shamelessly groped and adjusted my morning wood. Up on my feet, *I need to piss.*\n\n“I need to piss. I might—”\n\n“Lose the call in the bathroom?” \n\n“…yes.”\n\n“Want me to call you back?”\n\n“Wait, who is this, exactly?”\n\n“Remember, don’t get angry.”\n\n“Angry about *what*?”\n\n“No, just in general, don’t get too angry, in general.”\n\n“Well, no fucking shit. Don’t get too angry in god-fucking general.” And that shut him up real quickly. For a while he seemed gone, I heard nothing but the light tone of humming in a phone call, the sound of life, almost, fading away. So I hung the fucker up, pissed glory and then drank my coffee. \n\n\n\nI finished my leftovers for breakfast, fed the cat and looked out my apartment window. It was a bleak day again, and the plants were desperate for some water. But I hadn’t gotten dressed yet, and by the time I shower and get a move on I’ll forget to water them. *They’ll die soon,* I thought, *poor plants.*\n\nMy phone rang again, and it was the same number, *oh my number*. I answered it and this time waited through the silence. I became aware of my breath.\n\n“Mathew?” My heart quickened.\n\n“…yes?”\n\n“I am not your father, it was a joke.”\n\n“No shit.”\n\n“I am you, however, and that’s not a joke.”\n\n“I’m me, and you’re you. That’s not a joke.”\n“Right, okay, your name is Mathew T. Ryan, the ’T’ stands for Tullman, it’s your mother’s maiden name. Your family does stuff like that, maiden name in the middle name. You have a cat, her name is Ganesh, your life is pretty shit now since you lost your job, but it’s always been backwards. Your dad named your family dog ‘cat,’ and the goldfish ‘dog.’ You were originally self-employed and worked from home, which makes it more awkward that you can’t ever really leave your workspace. You tell your friends it’s like breaking up…”\n\n“…and never moving out. Who the fuck are you?”\n\n“…I am you, from tomorrow. Quite literally.”\n\n\n\nMy hair stood on every end, my eyelashes stung and my eyes watered and my nose stared to spill snot down my lip, I lost control in my legs and slipped down along my kitchen sink, to the floor, onto my back and closed my eyes. My heart was trying to leave my body.\n\n“Your heart now feels like it’s trying to leave your body, quite literally.”\n\n“Fuck you. Fuck you.”\n\n“I know, yeah, yeah, okay. Stop. Shush. Listen to your voice. I am you and you are me. We are the same voice and the same flesh and blood. Today is shit, yesterday is shit, and honestly, *my* today isn’t dramatically better. But I found out I could call you, and I know that’s a sign. You have a choice Mathew, the same way you hated being called ‘Matt,’ and insisted on ‘Mathew,’ you can choose to be who you are. And I don’t know why I can call you today, or why you’ll call you tomorrow, but I’m telling you right now: If this is nothing but a fluke in nature, and we never really amount to anything more what we already are, then at least this makes a pretty good story. Now get off your ass and do something for tomorrow. Maybe start with the plants.”", "There was a long awkward silence as I answered the phone. Whoever was on the other side of the line was obviously waiting for me to speak before they continued any further. With nothing to go off of, I let out a single confused \"hello\" and waited for a response. One came immediately.\n\n\n\"Brandon?\" The voice was mine, but it didn't belong to me. It sounded distinguished and more mature, but definitely my voice. I didn't answer, but he continued on anyway, \"Look Brandon, I’m you from the future. I don't have a lot of time but I...\"\n\n\nHow am I supposed to...?”\n\n\nFuture me answered the question before I could even finish asking. \"You're cheating on Becca with her best friend.\"\n\n\n\"Ok... point proven. How far into the future are you?\"\n\n\n\"Couple of hundred years maybe, I’m not entirely sure to be honest with you. Hold on.\" Future me paused for a second, and I could hear someone in the background yelling. There was a minute of what sounded like a struggle before my voice came over the phone again, breathless and panicked. \"Look, you've seen the movies; you know we don't have much time. I need you to get a pen and paper and write this stuff down.\"\n\n\nI did as told; I didn't want to, but I wasn't in the position to argue. Quickly I pushed myself up from the chair and grabbed the items as instructed. I put the phone on speaker and then set it down onto the table. My verves began to get the best of me. I broke out into a light sweat as I touched the pen to the paper. \"Ok go.\"\n\n\n\"04, 36, 18, 44...\"\n\n\n\"Wait! What does this stuff even mean?\"\n\n\n\"Lottery numbers!\" There was an excitement in future me's voice that completely contradicted his serious tone from earlier, \"I found a book here with all the winning numbers and corresponding amounts and...\"\n\n\n\"How is this even happening?\"\n\n\n\"What?\" Future I sighed angrily, \"I said we don't have much time.\"\n\n\nThat wasn't enough. I had questions that needed to be answered, and I wouldn't continue until they were. \"How are you calling me?\"\n\n\n\"On your phone...\"\n\n\n\"I meant how, and why?\"\n\n\n\"I don't exactly know how this thing works. I put in my number, well your number, hit call, and got you. It worked for Tyler, so I...\"\n\n\n\"Tyler is there?\"\n\n\nTyler's voice came over the phone speakers, \"Live in the flesh my boy!\"\n\n\n\"You called your past self?\"\n\n\n\"Yup!\"\n\n\n\"And what did you tell him?\"\n\n\nAs if on cue, Tyler, present Tyler, busted through the front door of the apartment dawning expensive shades and holding shopping bags in either hand. He looked at me, and then to the phone; he had a sinister grin plastered across his face.\n\n\nFuture me came back over the line, \"Hey, we're almost out of minutes.\"\n\n\n\"Minutes?\"\n\n\n\"Yeah, I told you we didn't have much time. These phone plans are expensive here. Any other questions, or would you rather be rich?\"\n\n\n\"Is this going to ruin my life? Say being rich makes me self-destructive, or ends up causing a second holocaust. What if we’ve broken the space time continuum or whatever? How much older than me are you even anyway?\"\n\n\n\"A couple of months technically. Hey look we have 45 seconds, do you want the numbers or not?\"\n\n\nI looked at present Tyler, who was playing around with his Ferrari keys. He had this dumb sheepish look of childlike wonder plastered across his face. Annoyed, I let out a long sigh and then grabbed the pen, \"Ok… go.\" \n\n\n ", "\"Hey,\" he, or I suppose I, said.\n\n\"Hello,\" I replied shakily. I had been looking all around me to see if there were hidden cameras. Was this real? Sure as hell sounded like me. He had my voice. The very same voice I hate hearing repeated to me in videos and in recordings. He had my voice.\n\n\"Jeremy?\" he said, sounding worried.\n\n\"Yeah. Yeah sorry I'm here. What is this?\"\n\n\"This is me calling you. It's 2019.\"\n\n\"How do I know you're me?\"\n\n\"Who else would know that you only place people above yourself because you don't see yourself as worthy of such positive treatment?\"\n\nThat hit hard. But he, I, was right. I always give people the benefit of the doubt, I am always so quick to trust, and quicker to love. It is my blessing and it is my hubris. I always sort of hated that about myself. I wish I could stop caring so damn much.\n\n\"Yeah ok, you could've gone with something a little less personal.\"\n\nI laughed on the other end of the phone.\n\n\"Had to convince you somehow!\"\n\n\"True, I guess. What can I do for you, Jeremy?\"\n\n\"Well, man, you can listen. I'm doing this for you because nobody else can or will. I may be the only person you'll listen to.\"\n\n\"Everything okay?\" I was getting worried.\n\n\"Yeah, man. That's the point. Everything is okay. It's 2019 right now. We graduated, we did really well, and I have a job lined up!\"\n\n\"Wait what?\"\n\n\"Let me speak. Jeremy, I know you've been stressing about everything. I know. The house is newly on the market, Ian is dealing with it all by himself because you're at school. I get it, man. Mom and Dad are divorced now, and you and Ian really are all they have. And I know Ian is all you have, and you're damn sure all he has. Friends don't really count here, do they? It's crazy, man. Ian has got to be just *so* depressed right now. He's 14, home alone all the time in a house that won't even be his for very long, and you're not there to share with him the last moments of living in one house with Mom and Dad. That sucks, man.\n\n\n\"School is hard, too. College is a real kick in the nuts. Everything is a lot more complicated than it needs to be. Grades aren't as easy to keep up in college as they were in high school. But let me tell you this: everything is okay now. Everything will be okay. I know Dad told you that daily over the phone this past semester and you didn't once believe him. I have to be the one to tell you. Everything will be okay. Everything.\"\n\nI had to sit down. There were tears welling up, my throat was closing, but I had to keep going.\n\nThrough sharp breaths and little sobs, I managed to say \"really?\"\n\nHe laughed, which brought me back to my senses a little.\n\n\"Yeah. Really. I have a girlfriend of...well I'm not gonna tell you how long we've been going out, or who she is. You'll love her though. I certainly do. And you're gonna have to allow your major to change if you feel so compelled. Don't fear change. You're tits deep in the biggest change you'll go through for a damn long time.\"\n\n\"It's not even that, though,\" I said, now full-on crying. \"It's not that. It's not the change, but you fucking know this. I'm so stressed that I'm doing something wrong. I'm overlooking something. There's something I'm not getting, that, if I were to know of it, I would be significantly happier.\"\n\n\"You feel there's something missing.\"\n\n\"Yes! That. Do you feel that?\"\n\n\"Jem, everyone feels that. Yeah I feel it. The pursuit of a perfect filler of that hole is what life is all about. It's why we're here.\"\n\n\"I know. I know. I just want to be able to stress about different shit for once.\"\n\n\"Me too. All of us, too. This agony you feel does not make you special. It makes you more like everyone around you than you could possibly know. You're extraordinary in your ways, but as a person you're pretty normal. You're not doing anything wrong as long as you're confident and calculated in your movements. So stop.\"\n\nHe was so soothing, but it didn't make any of this any easier to hear.\n\n\"Stop what?\"\n\n\"Stop putting everyone else above you. You are not their caretaker. For some, you absolutely are. But not for everyone. People don't deserve the most love you can offer right off the bat. She won't tell you, but that's why you and Sam broke up.\"\n\n\"That was it?? Because I was nice?\"\n\n\"Don't worry about that anymore. Fuck that. And yes, that was why.\"\n\n\"Damn. Well okay then.\"\n\n\"Listen. You are just as important as everyone else, maybe even more so. So don't treat yourself as a second rate person, okay? Cut yourself some slack.\"\n\n\"I don't know how.\"\n\n\"You don't have to know how, you just have to force yourself to go easier on yourself. It doesn't help nearly as much as you think it does to be torturing your own mind as incessantly as you are.\"\n\n\"Okay. Thank you.\"\n\nI couldn't even talk anymore. I didn't know what to say. I felt like no matter what I said, it'd be wrong. I immediately realized what I was feeling right then was no different than how I felt any other day. So I stopped.\n\nI spoke again, better now: \"Thanks, man.\" \n\nHe could hear my smile. I know because I heard his smile in his reply.\n\n\"Absolutely. Everything will work out. Just be patient. Stay the fucking course.\"\n\n\"Stay the fucking course,\" I repeated.\n\n\"Stay the fucking course. Be strong. Give what you can, take what you need. Throw love at what you care about. Do something nobody has ever done before. If the reward is worth the risk, go forth. Question everything. Be okay with the fact that in life you don't get answers, only clues.\"\n\nI was looking at the sky now. It's okay, I thought. I can miss this one class.\n\n\"No,\" he said, as if he could hear my thoughts, \"you can't miss this class. Go.\"\n\nI laughed. \"Alright. Thanks, Jeremy.\"\n\n\"My pleasure, dude. Remember: 'Tis not life that matters, but the courage you bring to it.\"\n\n'Tis not life that matters, but the courage you bring to it.\n\nHe said he loved me and hung up.", "\"Hello?\"\n\n\"This is Steve?\"...\n\n\"Oh that's weird I'm Steve too, sorry, wrong number.\"\n\n\"Alright then.\"\n\n>Click", "You’re standing in line at the bank. It’s morning and pleasant white sunlight shines through the glass shop front to illuminate everything inside. People are smiling. Strangers greet each other and the smell of fresh coffee lingers in the air. The attendants are all cheerful and an employee opens the door to an older woman with a walking frame. She struggles to stand. A young teller with blonde hair and gorgeous blue eyes calls you to the counter.\n\n“You can go ahead,” You say to the old woman with a grin, “I don’t mind waiting.”\n“Oh, how lovely.” She pats you on the arm and shuffles on. Then you feel something rattling in your pocket, vibrating. You pull out your phone and notice it's your own number calling. You answer it.\n\n“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?”\n\nBefore you can say a word, you’re hit with a scream.\n\n“RUN! RUN! RUN! GO! FOR CHRIST SAKE, RUN YOU MORRON! GET OUT OF THERE!”\n\nA primal fear clatters up your spine and every joint in your body seizes up. You tremble and it feels like your muscles will never relax again.\n\n“IT’S COMING DOWN NOW, RUN!”\n\nYou turn and sprint back through the lobby of the bank. Your feet slide a little over the tiles and the employee near the entrance leaps out of your way. You don’t even bother putting a hand on the door, you just throw your shoulder into the barrier and it’s flung open to flap back and slam into the thick glass. A long crack ripples up through the clear material.\n\n“I’m sorry!” You scream as you see the damage. You keep running, you don’t know why but you’re feet refuse to stop. When your legs cramp up and your lungs begin to fail you slow down and turn. The people on the street are all staring at you. A mother lifts her toddler from the sidewalk and holds the child close to her chest as she moves away. A crowd of teenagers in school uniforms giggle and quietly joke to one another. An old man shakes his head and babbles something to himself. A cop is watching, waiting to see if you’re dangerous, or just a weirdo.\n\nNothing else happens. The sun is still magnificent and the world revolves peacefully. Small birds chirp to one another as they build nests in the tall archways and roofs of city buildings.\n\nThen a low concussion rattles through the concrete. It isn’t heard as much as felt. The ground beneath you pulses once before the noise comes.\nBANG! \n\nA single, indescribable eruption sounds through the street and everyone throws their hands over their ears. Some drop to their knees and everyone screams.\nPure panic.\n\nA wall of fire courses through the lobby of the bank as every inch of the structure ruptures and collapses. The stone pillars shatter as if they were plastic and any metal melts within the solid mass of flames. The people simply disappear.\nYou’re thrown backwards and your head hits the payment. The course ground grazes your skull as you slide and you feel the skin being scraped away. Hair being torn out.\n\nWhen your wits return to you, you’re lying on the floor. Your fingers managed to hang onto the phone. There are tears in your eyes and you can’t hear anything from your left ear. You put a hand to it and when you pull your palm away, it’s covered in blood. Your entire being is wrapped in agony.\n\nThe building ahead of you has been replaced by ruins. The mother is running away with her child. A couple of the teenagers are hurt and their friends help them to limp away. The old man is motionless on the ground and the cop is kneeling next to him.\nYou turn in a circle and try to make sense of it all. \n\nThe cops stands and looks towards you. He points.\n\nYou look behind yourself, as if he might be focussing on someone else.\n\n“Why were you running?” He calls out. You don’t answer.\n\n“Why did you apologise?”\n\nThen he fumbles at his belt for his gun. His fingers are shaky but he gets the weapon out and flicks off the safety. He squats a little and the barrel of the pistol is aimed straight for your head. You raise your palms and whimper, but you have no explanation.\n\n“You did this!” The officer cries. You can see the little sight at the end of the weapon and it’s lined up perfectly with your skull.\n\n“No. P… please.” You manage to stutter as his finger tightens over the trigger. There’s only rage in him. He isn’t thinking about the law or his duty. He’s in shock and he’s furious. He wants revenge.\n\nYou close your eyes and put your arms out in front of you.\n\nBANG!\n\nAnother loud eruption, a gunshot this time. Nothing happens. You’re still standing and there’s no new pain. No new injuries. You open your eyes and the cop is lying on the floor. Part of his head is scattered over the pavement and a thick red river runs through the gutter beside him.\n\nYou scream and look back toward the rubble. Now a team of men in black balaclavas, black gloves and navy blue jumpsuits are swarming over the area. Some of them have power tools and they’re carving their way into the destroyed bank. One of them is pointing a long, wooden rifle down the street.\n\n“Piggy down!” He calls out and a few laughs follow.\n\nYou hear muffled words. Someone is speaking nearby, but everyone is dead or gone. You spin once more, then realise it’s coming from the phone. You put the device back to your good ear.\n\nThe voice comes again. It’s softer now and so familiar.\n\n“You shouldn’t have stopped running. Go to the end of the street and find the blue BMW. Get in and drive.”\n\nYou do nothing. The adrenalin courses through your veins and you wonder if this could all possibly be real. What the HELL is going on?!\n\n“Are you really going to ignore me after that?” The voice in the phone continues.\n\nIn just a few seconds, you’ve found the car and you’re driving down the street. The world around you passes in a blur as your foot pins the accelerator to the floor. You put the phone on speaker and toss it onto the dashboard.\n\n“Who are you?” You ask.\n\n“Slow down, you don’t want to get pulled over. Trust me, a lot of cops will be passing you in a second.”\n\nYou pump the break just as four blue and white cars with sirens turn a corner up ahead. The vehicles pass quickly, their tyres screeching and people in them barking to one another over radios.\n\n“Who are you?” You repeat.\n“Who do you think?”\n“How do I know? How did you get this number?”\n“Hmmm, well. You know me better than anyone and this is my number too.”\n“What? What are talking about?”\n“Who would possibly know all about that bomb? That robbery?” The voice asks.\n“That was you? You’re involved?”\n“Yes, and who am I? Who do you think I am?”\nYou say nothing.\n“Turn left up here. I know you’re going back to your house.” The voice says. \n“How do you know where I’m going? Where I live? What’s going on?”\n“Well, silly, I’m you. Just a little older.”\n“What? That’s ridiculous! Please, just tell me what’s going on.”\n“You know what’s going on. It’s all your fault. Your big plan.”\n“What! No way, leave me alone. Please. I want nothing to do with you.”\n“Just another five minutes. Don’t end this call.\n“Screw you! I’m hanging up.”\n“Not yet. Just relax. Go home and wait.”\n\n“Screw you!” You scream again and hang up the phone. You need to get home and get some things. You need your medicine, and then you need to get as far away from here as possible.\n\nYou get to your front door and it takes you a few extra seconds to get it open. Your hands are trembling and you can’t get the key in the lock.\n\nYou move through the house quickly, checking no one is there. The kitchen’s empty, so is the bathroom. As soon as you’re in your room you pull an empty backpack out from under the bed and fill it with clothes. You find your medicine. Just enough stuff for a few days. A couple of shirt and jeans. Enough to run away with. Should you pack food? Maybe water? No, nothing else. \n\nYOU NEED TO LEAVE!\n\nYou’re ready to go, whatever is happening, you’re gone. No one will find you. You’ll head north and avoid busy areas. Stick to the country until you figure everything out.\n\nThen you hear your back door slam.\n\nOh god, someone is in the house. Their footsteps are coming. Oh no, there’s no time. You look around but there’s no way out, no time to get through the window.\nA figure in a navy blue jumpsuit strolls into the room. The balaclava hugs their face and you can only see a set of blood shot eyes. Dry and cracked lips.\n\nThere’s a pistol in their hand with a long cylinder spearing out of the front of it. A silencer.\n\nOh god, they’ve found you. This is the end.\n\nThe figure reaches into a pocket and pulls out a huge wad of hundred dollar bills, more money than you’ve ever seen.\n\n“Well done, we worried when you went back into the bank you crazy punk. But, whatever. Another perfect job. Here’s your cut.”\n\nThe money is tossed to the floor.\n\n“We’ll call you in a month for the next one.”\n", "\"John?\" the voice says. \n\nI acknowledge, though thankfully keep the profanity inside my head, wondering who on Earth is calling me at o-dark-hundred in the morning.\n\n\"John. I only have 10 minutes on the phone. I'll be quick because this shit is important.\"\n\n*Right. Important.* Like hell it is. If I trace the prankster behind this, he's gonna be in so much trouble he's gonna be digging himself out of it for tenty years.\n\nThe guy on the phone surprises me, he rattles off all my current passwords I use on my computer, mentions ideas I haven't yet even thought out fully, calls me an idiot, mentions my plants for the next week and says that he's on from the future.\n\nThat disturbs me great.y. So apparently I have a delusional stalker. Great. Just great.\n\n\"Yes, I know you like to overthink. Yes, I know you don't believe me, but I'm right and you're not. Drop whatever you're doing before you create a paradox and listen--\" Trace successful. \n\nI ignore him and put down the phone.\n\n___\n***Thirty years later...***\n\n\"That bloody idiot hung up on me!\" I bellow in utter frustration. An explosion sounds in the distance and a fighter-jet crashes across the airfield from me.\n\nPulling my flight helmet on I run to my own craft. *Time for a new plan to prevent a war, John.*\n", "I heard my phone vibrating in the pocket of my jeans that were lying next to a 12 hour old kebab, fries and cheese, which could now double as a load bearing brick in a bridge.\n\n\nThe light was making my head split, I felt the rays piercing my eyes and the thick, fart filled, air mixed with all the cigarettes I smoked and drinks I had last night was making my mouth feel it was full of cotton soaked in gin. \n\"Why don't I ever learn?\" I thought to myself as I rummaged through the pockets in my jeans to find that hellish noise my phone was making.\n\n\nBrandishing my phone in front of me I looked at the display with a look similar to a lemur given a lesson about the length expansion co-efficient of a DN25 copper pipe, I could not for the life of me understand what I was seeing, it was me calling myself - or at least that was what the screen was telling me.\n\n\n\"Hello?\" I said in to the phone, in hindsight I could've answered with something wittier, but that had to do.\n\n\n\"It's me\" the voice on the other end said \"You need to listen to me!\".\n\"Me, who?\" I replied\n\n\nI heard a deep sigh on the other end \"Me you, I am you but future you\" the man snapped in my ear.\n\n\n\"....what?\" \"I'm not following what you're saying\" I replied.\n\n\n\"What I'm doing right now is against the law, the written law and the law of the space-time continuum, I know that I'm creating all sorts of chaos in our non-plastic timeline, but I need you to listen to me very very carefully, as I do not have a lot of time!\" the man identified as future me said to present me with great determination.\n\n\nHe continued \"It's like Back To The Future but with WiFi connectivity, never mind the how, just focus on the why!\".\n\n\n\"Last night you were out drinking, you made an ass out of yourself and me and you had way too much to drink, so far nothing out of the ordinary, right?\" he stated.\n\n\nI started to remember events from yesterday, drinks were there, a lot of them in fact, and I do vaguely remember dancing on top of a bus shelter with a traffic cone on my head, so yes I did indeed make an ass out of myself. All in the life of an engineer undergrad student.\n\n\n\"Yeah....\" I said \"that story does check out. But why does that matter? That's nothing out of the ordinary\".\n\n\n\"Your plans for today was to lie on your sofa, smoke a big bowl of green and eat carrots dipped in Nutella, right?\" the man on the other side of the call asked me.\n\n\n\"How could he know? It's not like I tell a lot of people about my culinary delights while baked\" I thought to myself. With a bit of apprehension I told him that yes, that was the in fact the case.\n\n\n\"There is no time for that sweet nutelrott today, you have much more important things to do\" he said.\n\n\n\"Today is the first day of the rest of your life\" the man identified as future me said to now-me. \n\n\nI thought to myself that I sound like a pompous ass sometimes I would need to work on my patter a bit. \"I know you think that you sound like a pompous ass and you need to work on your patter a bit, and you have, so let me to reiterate, today means a turning point for you and your actions on this fine day will have consequences to me, hopefully for the better...\" \"Yep, still an ass..\" I thought. \"Just shut the fuck up and listen, will you?!\" I growled to myself over the phone.\n\n\n\"Yep, he knows to much about me to not be me\" I thought to myself, so I had my my own attention.\n\n \n\"Good, you're listening to me now\" future me said. \"In the year 2025 you will be part of a team that invents an energy solution that will kill the need for fossil fuels completely and this will revolutionize the way we power our lives, but the problem is that is ten years too late, we have the time to annihilate ourselves before the change is done.\"\n\n \nFuture me continued \"I am calling you from May 18th 2034 and by now most of the earth is covered in dark clouds, raining acidic rain on everything, we have managed to destroy the echo system too much to be able to save it for our own survival.\" With a bit more enthusiasm in the voice future me continued \"I will send you the plans to the solution you will develop and you will contact everyone on your future team to develop this plan to something we can use in your time\".\n\n\nMy phone started vibrating and when I checked the screen I saw that I was receiving a big file called \"Pass this shit on, you bastard!! And also, don't eat that kebab on the floor.\"\n\n \n\"In this file you will find the schematics and the contact details to everyone on your future team, they have been briefed by themselves, their future selves that is, and they should be ready to begin working on this as soon as possible\" the future me told me.\n\n \nI was convinced that the future me was telling now-me the truth and I would follow his instructions and contact everyone on the team, even in my sensitive, hungover, state.\n\n\nThe voice of future me went quiet for a long while but suddenly chimed in \"Yes, I see that all of you took our advice, it seems like we've managed to change the timeline, it looks a lot brighter here...\" the voice trailed off for a couple of seconds more and then came back and said \"You fucker, you had to go out drinking yesterday didn't you? God damn, I feel like shit now!...and seriously, a traffic cone, again?\".\n\n\nI laughed to myself and told future me \"Have a nice day, I have a couple of calls to make now...\" and hung up.\n", "\"Hello Boy.\"\n\nMy number. My voice. Of course I'm scared. But the contempt I hear, well...I'm not going to gratify that, am I?\n\n\"I'm sorry, John can't come to the phone right now, so please leave a -\"\n\n\"Shut up. I didn't call to hear your childish games.\"\n\nMy, haven't I become an uptight bastard over the years.\n\n\"Then why did you call? Couldn't remember who you were?\"\n\n\"...you're taking this far better than I imagined.\"\n\n\"So yes. Still go by John?\"\n\n\"Of course. It's my name.\"\n\n\"Good to know. If the invasion of the body snatchers had happened, I'd have wanted to know how to avoid it.\"\n\n\"You are speaking to someone outside the boundaries of space and time, and you talk about *film*.\"\n\n\"...don't have film in your time?\"\n\n\"**Shut**. **Up**. And listen.\"\n\nOkay, ~~he's~~ I'm angry. I swallow the jokes that make this sane. If I'm going to have to throw myself into madness, might as well do it with my head held high.\n\n\"So, *John*.\" Ah, I can't resist a cut, \"Why are you calling? A warning? Is Hitler Jr. being born right now?\" Okay, so I can't resist the jokes at all.\n\n\"Remember the time we grew up in?\" So he's given up trying to make me serious, and has settled for the acid tone. Is this me, or my big brother? \"It's past.\"\n\n\"No shit. Time moves like that.\"\n\n\"The *society* is gone. Press, speech, even democracy...gone.\"\n\nI look around, \"Well, it doesn't look that way to me.\"\n\n\"If it did I wouldn't be calling.\"\n\nOkay, if I'm going to continue insulting this I'm-sure-it's-just-a-bad-meal-last-night-delusion, I need to think about what it's saying. So, in the future, no more democracy. Pity.\n\n\"What replaced it?\"\n\n\"Control. Control by the 'elite' - as in, the wealthy, the cruel. The ambitious psychopaths with the tech and the complacent enemies needed to run rampant.\"\n\n\"Are they by any chance made of metal? Do I need to start a resistance right now?\"\n\n\"...I despise you.\"\n\n\"Hey, self-loathing's not an attractive trait in anybody.\" But I am thinking. That...doesn't sound like the future I want. Especially if it means I become that much of an uptight bastard. Which justifies this phone call, I suppose. Future John doesn't say anything. Maybe he's given up. I hope he has more than one phone call, he can actually call someone more in line with his way of thinking. But then, when did the uptight ever entertain thoughts like listening to a man from the future? When even the past-future-man himself wouldn't?\n\n\"Say you have my attention. What did you plan on me doing about it? Can I kill these future tyrants now?\" Frankly I just wanted to end the sudden silence. Just putting down the phone would've seemed like such a cop out.\n\n\"No. Others would take their place. People will always crave power. No, remember the art you draw? The odd sketch, every now and then, when you think you have the time to do it?\"\n\n\"...yeah.\" I don't like talking about my art. It's not very good, and it's a bit too...personal, you know? Even when *I'm* bringing it up.\n\n\"Well, guess what. You have a talent for it, a talent you can exploit. And you will, in ten years, when you don't have a choice. When your job fails you, and you grow desperate. Sadly, that's not good enough. You need to start doing it now.\"\n\n\"Why? What could this possibly have to do with your terrible, dystopian future?\"\n\n\"John, there are two kinds of people in this world, in the eyes of the 'elite'. The relevant, and the irrelevant. Some are born relevant, most not. But the relevant always have resources. You will need to be relevant, if you're to have any impact on changing this.\"\n\n\"...why should I believe you?\"\n\n\"I don't give a flying fuck if you believe me. It doesn't change my reality. Just know that if you don't, eventually it will be you here, talking to the smart-ass little prick you used to be. And it will be just as annoying for you as it is for me, right now. So, your choice. See you later John.\"\n\n\"Hey, wait! - \" Dial tone. Fucking great. I try to call the number back. It's occupied. Of course it is, it's your phone, genius.\n\nI think about what he says, for a long time. Easy to do, with no-one to disturb your thoughts.\n\nEventually, I pick up a brush.\n\n-\n\n\"Called yours, John?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Seemingly in the middle of the enormous call center, John stretched back and relaxed. For a moment. Would his past self use the best of his talent? It was always a gamble. But, the establishment had decided it was a worthy gamble, to try and get every person to live up to their potential. His job done, John left, trying to ignore every person desperately talking to who they used to be; trying to make themselves, and humanity, better than what they were. ", "It took some convincing that the person at the other end of the phone was me. I had always been a skeptical person. It was in my nature. The person at the other end sounded a little like me. Their voice was hoarser and creaked. The sound did not remind me of an aged person, though. It reminded me of someone who I had loved and lost when I was child, lost to a disease without cure. I swallowed the lump in my throat, or tried; older-me seemed to hear it.\n\n\"I see you've still got anxiety. It doesn't go away, by the way, it just fades as you get more used to it,\" older-me explained.\n\n\"I'm sure,\" I said, cautious as ever. \"I'm not very fond of knowing the future you know.\"\n\n\"I know we're not. But I don't want you to end up like this --\" *Like what?* I wondered. \"-- so I need you to do me a favor.\"\n\n\"Depends--\"\n\n\"-- on the favor. Yes. It's one that benefits you.\" I opened my mouth, and older-me added, \"It might disappoint some people, but it won't hurt anyone, either.\"\n\nWith a reluctant sigh, I leaned my head into my phone and mumbled, \"I'm listening.\"\n\nOlder-me had a creaky laugh. It made me think of my own laugh that people had said sounded childish and happy. This laugh didn't sound childish or happy or youthful. \"Good. So listen closely. Our time's almost up.\"\n\n\"Wait, what does that mea--\"\n\n\"Life is too short. Don't live your life trying to find validation from anyone. Let people be proud of you for things you are proud of, yourself, do not go out of your way to impress people or to please them. Don't let yourself live in fear, like I did. Our birthday is tomorrow, and I'll be 50. I wanted to let you know that. Don't be scared to be true to yourself, even if it puts you in potential danger. It's better to be yourself and live your life to the fullest. You are never alone, remember that. And when you feel in the dark and lost, remember, even if you as you are now do not love yourself, I, in the future, love you, and want the best for you, for us.\n\n\"So please. Please do what makes *you* happy for once in your life instead of what makes everyone else happy. It's okay to be selfish, and it's okay to cry. I love you. And if you cannot act for you, who and as you are now, do this for me, the future-you, who doesn't want the suffering to continue. I love you.\"\n\nThe call ended. I looked at my phone, tears blurring my vision. I couldn't call the number back, because it was my own. Standing, waiting for the bus, I began to sob. Others edged away from me.\n\nMy phone rang again. I answered it. My dad. \"Hey, I was looking into some jobs for you, so that you can stay in the area and keep all of your doctors. You probably won't get them, but they have health insurance, and you'll be safe.\"\n\nI thought of future me, who had gone along with this all along. Who did what others thought was right to do. Who played it safe and suffered. I thought of all the things I had missed out on playing it safe, all the things I could miss out on playing it safe.\n\nI thought of fifty-year-old me who was sick and dying.\n\n\"... dad. I don't want those jobs. I'm going to get money, and I'm going to go to school abroad.\"\n\n\"What. Why. There are plenty of good colleges here, and--\"\n\n\"Because I want to be happy. I don't care if it's not safe.\"\n\n\"You have a Bachelor's degree in computers, you don't need more schooling. Is it a Master's for computers at least?\"\n\n\"No. It's not.\"\n\n\"Is it in some sort of science?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Are you really going to waste your life, doing something as stupid as--\" I hung up on him. He called back. I didn't answer. \n\nThe bus arrived. I had been planning to go to work today, at my volunteer job.\n\nBut now, I just didn't know." ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 7, 14 ]

[ "1431905233", "1431913280", "1431915999", "1431926715", "1431930832", "1431921487", "1431925555", "1431907780", "1431910861", "1431909762", "1431904841", "1431904310" ]

[ "My life changed that day. I had just won myself another internet argument. I was turning to my marker board to give myself another notch when a knocking was heard upon my door. I lethargically stood up and wiped the excess cheto dust from my body. I grabbed my fedora. Then I began the long trick up from my basement, assuring my waifu that I would be back shortly. Oh how wrong I was.\n\nAs I gazed out my door I could barely contain my euphoria. Before me were two fools. Or as other would say Mormons. I was fully ready to my hard fought skills to use defeating these two moronic fools, but before I opened my mouth they told me the strangest thing. They called me the chosen one?\n\n\nThey pulled out their book and began to chant. It seemed reminiscent to a spell I had heard playing an MMORPG one day, but I played as a knight and had little knowledge of the magics. I reached for my cane, but before I could draw my sword I was in a dimly lit room. \n\nThe odds were stacked against me. There were too many for me to fight, and this character had a low offensive skill anyway, but years of internet arguments had strengthened my speech skill. \n\nI spoke up an asked \"Where hath you taken me warlock.\"\n\nIt was at that moment a gruff old man look up. \"Now that is something I have not been called in a long time\". \"I guess I should start explaining the meaning of this.\"\n\nI was awestruck. I have been chosen to become a warlock? They said I had an innate magical ability. More importantly however I was right. Religion was all a sham. They have been using it to hide their orders existence and their spells. \n\nIt has been many years since that day. I have been training and now command considerable power. My old master had just passed, and now the torch has been passed to me. \n\nAs I stood around the new order I command I was filled with pride. I had made it. I then announced to my new found congregation \"Jet fuel can't melt steel beams.\"\n\nI returned home a promptly brought my waifu to life and apologized for my absence. I settled into my chair waifu in arm, but before turning on my computer I turned around and added two notches to the board. Checkmate. ", "The rift between religion and science was growing every single day, it was literally tearing society apart, in the one camp you had the scientist who believed that everything was quantifiable and knowledge was gained through observations and experiments and in the other camp you had the followers of magic, the practice of incantations, spells and sacred symbols long practised by druids, mages and witches.\n\n\nIt all culminated during the great technology war of 1286 where the followers of Technology fought the mages, druids and witches of the world.\n\nBoth factions during the war thought they were fighting for the truth, they both believed that their side of the story was the right one. In the end the side backed with technology won the war and the believers in magic were given the choice to either relinquish their scriptures and beliefs in the supernatural or be branded as 3rd class citizens and forced to practice their beliefs far from the watchful eyes of the technology lords.\n\n\nThe fact was that both of the belief structures were correct, they were just two sides of the same coin and that no one was entirely correct without the other one. This is how the world works.\n\n\nMagic and religion has always been brushed off as superstition and bogus by scholars but it has a long succession of followers and people practising the arts of magic, worshipping the few intact scriptures left as religious text handed to them by an omnipotent creator known as God.\nIn reality they are practising a form of magic discovered by druids some 1200 years ago, but has been mostly lost during the great technology war.\n\n\nThrough the centuries the numbers of believers in magic has grown and has led to groups within the community forming and different branches of magic has started growing, the benevolent side who say that magic can be for the benefit of mankind, the side that wants to heal the wound between magic and science and unite everyone in peace and harmony where everyone can co-exist and together build for a better future, and the malevolent dark-arts practitioners who believes that it is time for the technology and science followers to be forced to live in the shadows and hold meetings far from the public's eye.\n\n\nIn the year 1943 of our current time keeping it was made illegal to discriminate believers in magic and they were officially declared as a religion and with that were granted safe guards and rights to practice their religion without the fear of prosecution and harassment from anyone.\n\n \nSince the declaration of peace between the Technology and Magic in '43 animosity between the camps have subsided but there is still bad blood between them.\nThe dark have totally refused any attempts at co-existing with the technology followers, as well as the white mages, and have therefore been given the classification as extremists and enemies of the states of our planet and are being targeted by vast military forces bent on eradicating the dark arts from our world.\n\n\nSome scholars have since proposed the study of magic in an attempt to build an understanding of how this supposed magic does work and how we have the possibility to build a unified theory of magic and science. Unfortunately for them this has been proven to be extremely difficult since the reliance of super natural elements hold little to no quantifiable proof.\n\n \nAs we're approaching the 2nd decade of the 21st century we have been able to identify a few parts of what makes magic works but we're still a long way off to unite religion and science. \n" ]

[ 1, 1 ]

[ "1431912799", "1431915985" ]

[ "Today I decided it was enough. It had been going on for 3 years now, starting when I was eleven up to the 14 year old me now. I started with gentle touches on the knee, thigh and such. Things easily laughed off. But whenever uncle Bill came to babysit me he would get touchy, and more touchy. Soon a knee or thigh wasn't enough any more, soon it where belly, shoulder, bum and chest. And this kept going on and going further. \n\nBut today it would end. It was our family party. Mom, dad and aunty Kim were all drunk already, wasted and passed out on the couch. Uncle Bill, of course, wasn't. He was sober, and his hands were all over me. He had pulled me on his lap, I was only wearing my night dress, which was loose, and his hands were all over me. It disgusted me and at first I felt the fear that I always felt. But then I was reminded of the rage that I felt earlier on. As his fingers explored my breasts I was gathering my courage. Then he did something that triggered my inner beast. I felt his fingers slide between my legs, trying to go where none have gone before. And that is where I lost it. Fast as lightning I jammed my elbow in his face. I could feel his teeth giving away, blood pouring on my skin. With a muffled scream he fell to the ground, grabbing for his blood spouting face. I quickly ran for the table and took the steak knife that my mom forget to clean up and put with the dishes and returned to my uncle. In a low whispering voice I could hear him mutter. *Little whore, I'll make you pay for this. You'll have my cock down your throat, up your ass and in your little cunt! I'll fill you like you have never been filled before! ...* He didn't look up to me and hand't noticed the knife. As he muttered on I gave him three quick jabs in his shoulder. His screams were loud now, but not loud enough to wake the others. As he tried to cover the deep wounds in his flesh I moved behind him. I put the knife on his throat and like a pig, no like something **beneath** a pig, I sliced it. His blood poured over the carpet and soon the others would wake. I moved quickly and by the time the others were awoken Uncle Bill lay naked on the floor. His throat sliced, his cock cut off and put in his mouth so he had it deep in his own throat. Behind him I stood in my blood stained night dress, the bloody steak knife in my hand and my innocent grin on my face. \"Hey mommy, Uncle Bill couldn't keep his hands to himself!\" I said with my smile. ", "I don't blame Mom. Ever since dad was gone, she needed all the support she could get with caring for two kids, and uncle Bill was there to offer a hand. He was nice. I just didn't like him. I could think of a few reasons, but I think the main reason was because he was only helping out to get at Mom. I knew Mom had a thing for him too. He was just trying too hard to impress us when I knew his true intentions. Susan thought so too. She told me she didn't like him either. She was only eight and me being twelve, I knew a few things she didn't so I just told her he was harmless. She'll eventually learn about the bird and the bees or whatever in school... or the internet.\n\nHe said he'll sleep on the couch, and of course Mom was okay with it. He's only been living with us for a month and he's been a huge pain in the ass. He's always trying to get along with me, asking me about GTAV and how I'm too young and impressionable to be playing this type of game. He said I was ruining my innocence. He even took the game from me. Asshole. I guess it's my fault. I always talk back. Susan just ignores him and he seems to leave her alone.\n\nI woke up in the middle of the night. I noticed Bill wasn't at the couch. I assumed there was a possibility that he was getting it on with Mom. God, thinking about that gives me shivers. I decided to take back my GTAV. When I opened the case, I noticed it wasn't even there. Did he throw it away? The thought pissed me off. I mean a lot. Whatever. I'll throw a fit tomorrow. I decided to go back upstairs but passing by Susie's room, I heard sounds coming from her room. \"Why is she still awake?,\" I thought. Then I had sort of realized it just then. I was hoping I was wrong, but I had to be sure. I opened the door and whispered asking if she was still awake. I peeked in and I saw him. Fucking Uncle Bill. He was on top of her. I didn't know what to do. My body did, I guess, since I ran up and I just punched him. I wasn't really thinking. I was just angry. I grabbed Susan's hand and ran. How long has this been happening? Why didn't I even notice? It suddenly started to make sense why she has always been so quiet when he was around. It also hurted that she couldn't trust me enough to tell me about it, but it couldn't compare to how much she's been hurting. I didn't know what to do but it didn't matter. So we ran.\n\n----\n\nI wrote this in a hurry because I have to go somewhere but yeah.\n\n\n" ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1431955860", "1431931880" ]

[ "'Alright, guvnor?' \nChirpy bugger.\n'Actually, I'm not feeling too good-' \nHis eyes slide away from mine uncomfortably and come to rest on the man standing behind me in the long, evenly spaced queue. \n'Alright, guvnor?' \n'Alright!' \nThis is clearly the response that the native wanted. He skirts respectfully around me to stand next to the guy. \n'Shitty weather we've been having, innit!' He says, cheerfully. \n'God almighty, it just gets worse and worse, dunnit,' the man replies, equally infuriatingly cheerful. \nInnit? Dunnit? Who are these savages?\n", "I did it. I finally made it across the boring prairies of North Dakota to the even more boring prairies of Saskatchewan. As I pulled up, I saw a man in a red suit with a straw park ranger hat standing at the border. He was chomping on some Tim Hortons donuts and was watching some hockey on a little television.\n\nI drove up.\n\n\"Hello there friend, how are you doing today? Welcome to Canada! \"\n\nJust then another guard came up and said the same thing in French. \n\n\"Take off hoser!\" Said the one Mountie.\n\n\"I wave my private parts at you you son of a silly person\" said the other one in a french accent.\n\nI apologized for the incident to which the English speaking one said. \"I'm so sorry there buddy. The game is just aboot over and Pierre doesn't like it when the Canadiens lose. Were okay though. Do you want some maple syrup for your troubles.\"\n\nI just took the maple syrup and drove off. As I drove through the prairies, I noticed everyone was wearing flannel shirts and jean jackets. They also were extremely clean and polite. When I stopped in one town, everyone asked me if I was enjoying my time in country. I got really damn annoyed so i left.\n\nWhen I made it to Winnipeg, it got even worse. Everyone was almost too polite. I even saw a guy robbing a gas station politely and asking everyone to remain calm and not hurt him. He said he wouldn't hurt them and he didn't. The police didn't even rough him up. \n\nI also noticed that it was starting to snow. It was july, and I heard someone say \"looks like winter is just about on time\" to which I shuddered. I then went to a local poutine bar and had some Molson with my potatoes and curds. ", "Ah, the motherland. I had saved up enough over the years to visit the places where my family had lived, worked, and spent their days waiting for their papers to come to the US. I pored over my grandfather's photo albums and journals, reading about his life before coming to America, his memories as a young child crossing the Atlantic and going through Ellis Island, the archetypal American experience. \n\nI could barely contain my roller-coaster of emotions as the plane was descending to land; nervous about my grasp of the language, trying to visualize the area based off of the maps I had gone over time and time again, and ticking off a mental checklist of the things I needed to bring (even though I'm now 6,000 miles from home). I was so involved in my bundle of nervousness/excitement/trepidation that I didn't know we were landing until the jolt of the landing gear making contact with the runway jolted me out of it. \n\nAfter clearing customs, I stepped out on to the street and took in the sights around me as I tried to hail a cab; \"T-tax-xi! T-taxi!\" I stammered it out, trying to add an accent to the words as they were the same in English, but I didn't want to sound like I was just another tourist. I stood there with my hand out, watching cabs pass me by and go pick up other passengers, but no matter what I did, they wouldn't stop for me. *Maybe they couldn't hear me over the dull roar that is the pick-up/drop-off area of an airport? Was my accent off? This is not what I need to right now, I'm not even at the hotel. Damn.* \n\n*Oh thank God, a local is approaching me, he will help me!* \"Uhh, signore, signore, ho bisogno di un-\" I'm choking on my words. His eyes widen as if I just punched a newborn in front of him. His mustache twitches as he seems to search for the right words and he spreads his hands in front of himself: \"Bippity-boppity, boop bomba, bip bip bop.\" *What in the hell?!?!* \"Erm, ah... Non capisco... I, uh, hmm... Signore, ho, ah, bisogno di un-\" This doesn't make him happy, his hands are flying as if he's signing at me and his voice raises a few hundred decibels and the pace slows, \"Bi-ii-ii-pp-ii-tt-yy b-o-pp-ii-tt-y, boo-oo-p b-om-ba, bi-ip bi-ip bo-p...\" *Does he think I'm deaf? Is* **he** *deaf? Did I get on the wrong damn flight? Oh god.*\n\n\"Signore, mi dispiace, ho bisogno di un-\" A shot rings out as I try not to screw up my apology and I look on in horror as the man I was just speaking with falls face-first onto the sidewalk. \"Boopah, beepah, beep beep boopbop!\" A well-dressed man on the back of a Vespa waves his fist and gestures wildly as puts the pistol into his immaculately-tailored suit jacket. His partner in crime revs the little Vespa's engine and they make their getaway, blending in with the sea of chiseled jaws and hollow, lifeless model-eyes. The haze of cigarette smoke obscures them further. \n\nI run to the nearest person on the sidewalk and grab them to show them what happened. I am immediately greeted with a torrent of beeps, boops, and bippities as the man pries my fingers from his lapels and gestures angrily at me before pointing to a scuffed loafer. I press on, gesturing toward the dead mustachioed fellow that I had been trying to talk to, and the man straightens his jacket and looks at the corpse. He starts gesturing with his hands, pointing to both the body and his scuffed loafer as he pulls out his cellphone and straightens his jacket; he lights another cigarette while he waits for the person on the other end of the line to pick up. \n\nHe begins speaking in the same noises as the dead fellow I had been trying to speak to and is still gesturing with his hands despite the other person not being able to see him. He has his head cocked to the side, the phone cradled between his ear and his shoulder as he is speaking to someone about the dead man in front of us. He exclaims loudly and lets out a string of harsher boopities and bips as he realizes there is blood on his loafer; he glares daggers at me as he points to the un-scuffed-but-now-bloodied loafer that was previously undamaged. He sighs in an exasperated manner and resumes talking to the other person. I begin to look around and debate going back into the airport and trying to catch an earlier flight home; just as I'm about to bolt back into the airport terminal, a tall thin woman in a tight black dress walks past me. Her gaze is set on the man on the phone and she pulls out a stiletto from her small handbag and jabs it into the man's side repeatedly. He keels over, bloodying his loafers further, and passes with a long, sorrowful boopity. For also wearing stilettos, she is able to run quite quickly and disappear back into the crowd; she throws the knife into a trashcan as she lights a cigarette, all while on the move.\n\n**EPILOGUE** \n\nIt has been 79 days since I landed here and I am still unable to get a flight home; the farthest I have ventured was on that fateful day I arrived and set out to try and get a taxi from the airport. I have slowly begun to understand the locals' language, picking up bits and pieces of it, just as I have been picking up bits and pieces of various pasta dishes and designer clothing that departing passengers have left behind. A child took pity on me one day when throwing out the remnants of his calzone and brought his father over to me; the man looked down at me and handed me a straight razor (surprisingly bloodless) he pulled from his Gucci toiletry bag; I have completely shaved my face save for a thick mustache. One day I will return home, one day, but for now the terminal, or beepity bopbop as the locals call it, is my home... \n\n**Fine/Bipbop** ", "Ugh, I'm so happy this flight is over, I hate flights. And don't fucking tell me that it's \"so much safer than driving a car\", I'm sure straight-jackets from the asylum are also safer than your normal everyday clothes, doesn't change that I would never wear it voluntarily.\n\nAnyway, I'm glad I don't have to get back into that piece of shit for two years, before my company decides that they suddenly want to move to yet another location. Fucking idiots.\n\nThe airport is surprisingly clean and efficient, within minutes I have my baggage and have reached the subway connected to the airport. Then I suddenly stumble across the first problem. Whoever invented the ticket-system for the subway deserves a special place in hell. The map is littered with stations, and apparently the people responsible for the transportation thought it would be appropriate to introduce a different ticket for every single ending station, depending on where you start. Two stripes on my ticket for a distance of one station, but not more than four stations, and less if the distance between the stations crosses one of the rings on the map, but that exception doesn't apply if the end-station is in the same rectangle as the starting-station? Then add two stripes for every additional area, unless the area stretches across multiple rings, then you have to go by stops between your starting point and your...\n\nYou know what, fuck it, 24 hour ticket it is.\n\nA short glance at my watch tells me that the next train is due to arrive at 15:15, and apparently it'll reach the next station within 5 minutes, and then the next within 5 minutes, and so on.\n\n15:15 on point the train arrives, I get on board and store my baggage on the seat next to me. 15:19 we arrive in the next station. A monotone feminine voice announces that the train will have to wait a few minutes, because the tracks are still blocked by the train from the opposite direction. The people around me start to groan and complain about the trains always being late. 15:20 we leave the station.\n\nAfter two hours I reach my destination and get of the train. My office is supposed to be in the area, and since my company organised an apartment for me, I have to get the keys first.\n\nOn my way to the office I notice that I haven't eaten anything but a small salad during the flight, so I enter the next baker I come across. The choice of what to eat is pretty easy, with pretzels, black bread and sausage being the only available options, I decide to grab a pretzel and a beer.\n\nAfter I paid three Euros and listened to an elderly laidy complaining about how things have gotten so expensive (\"Three euros, that's six mark!\") I get out of the bakery and finally reach the office.\n\nI cross the parkinglot with thirty identical black BMWs and enter the building through the front door, checking my watch for the time. 17:35, 25 minutes early.\n\nSince I dislike asking people for help I decide to search for my boss, so I can ask for my apartment keys. On my way through the building I accidentaly interrupt a few pre-meeting preparations for the meetings scheduled for 18:00. When I reach my boss I don't even have to explain what I'm here for, he grabs my empty beer-can and replaces it with the apartment-keys, before he turns around, throwing the can into one of the three recycling-bins standing in his office.\n\n...\n\nHalf an hour later I'm sitting in my new apartment, leaving my baggage sitting on the floor, too tired to put everything in the right place right now. Taking a look out of the window I see the solarcell-covered roofs of the city, the wind turbines in the distance and the election posters of the green party, complaining about the destruction of the environment through hydroelectric power plants.\n\nThis is my new home for the next few years.\n\nWelcome to Germany.", "I step off the plane, and enter the airport. I notice that women do not dress to impress in this country. Attention from men is generally not aimed towards them. \n\nA few hours later, upon reaching my hotel, I decide to take a stroll to find some dinner. What I saw on my walk poisoned the entire trip. I had heard the stories at home in Australia, but I never thought that it really happened. Though it was revolting, I could not help but stare. In my sight was a group of men, naked. The disgusting sight was not necessarily the men, but the sheep that they were fucking. \n\nNeedless to say, I'll never be heading back to New Zealand. \n\nNote: I do not mean to offend anybody from New Zealand. I love you all, and I know that you do not fuck sheep", "Disembarking the plane took over several hours, despite the fact that it was only half-full, due to all the obese land-whales taking their sweet time. To clarify, it's not that they weren't moving, it was just that the only movement they made was sliding onto one of six motorised wheelchairs that were brought out for their convenience. \n\nI finally managed to disembark the claustrophobic hell hole that was the aircraft, right behind an elderly Caucasian man.\n\nFor some reason, despite literally cradling a box of explosives in his arms, and wearing a shirt saying \"Death to America\", he managed to get through customs and security without a hitch. \n\nSurprised, I stepped up for my turn with customs, only to be blocked by a TSA agent wielding a cattleprod. \n\n\"Hold it right there! Which part of America are you from?\" the agent inquired, waving her cattleprod around like a magic wand. \n\n\"Er- sorry...\" I replied, confused and shocked by the question \"I'm not American...Not everyone comes from America, you know\" making what I presumed to be a harmless joke.\n\n\"Bullshit, everyone is American!\" she said, furrowing her eyebrows at me. \n\nTaking a deep breath, she chewed her lips before she came to the obvious conclusion, a worried look coming upon her face \"Oh, you're not one of them foreigner types are you?\" \n\n\"Yes, are you daft or something?\"\n\nThe TSA agent took a step back and screamed for help. Within seconds, I was on the floor and in handcuffs, the agent beaming as if she had caught Bin Laden herself \"Wait till I tell mom I caught a terrorist! I did it!\"\n\n~~~\n\nIt took me several days to be released, of which I spent most of it being waterboarded by the CIA and questioned about my non-existant links to Al-Qaeda. Waddling out of the government building due to the numerous colonoscopies I had been given, I took my first breath of fresh air as a free man, thinking about all the things I had planned in this great and free capitalist nation. \n\n\"I know!\" I thought, an idea popping into my head. \"I must try the local cuisine I keep hearing about.\"\n\nI turned to the man standing next to me, a typical gun-toting African-American criminal. \"Excuse me!\" I said brightly, \"Could you please direct me to the nearest McDonalds?\"\n\n*Note: No offence to Americans etc.*\n\n" ]

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

[ "1431948866", "1431988230", "1431940737", "1431942524", "1431940088", "1431945134" ]

[ "\"Tucker!\" I was furious, but honestly I should've seen this coming. \"What the hell are you doing?!\" I pulled up just in time to see the last bit of the Japanese Bonsai Maple tree, a tree only available for sale three weeks of the year, go through the wood chipper. \n\nTucker stared at me, confused. He looked at the wood chipper and then back to me. He cocked his head, sort of like a dog does when you make a strange noise. \"Putting it through the chipper, just like you said, boss.\"\n\nAt this point my blood was boiling. The only reason Tucker still had his job is because he's my nephew and his mother made me promise I'd give him a job for the summer. And so far, it had been a looooong summer. \n\n\"I said make sure you bring the gripper!\" I yelled at him. \"Not put it through the chipper! Why do you think we'd go through all the trouble of finding and shipping that tree here for our customer just to put it through a wood chipper?! What do you think that huge hole we dug in the back yard yesterday was for?\" \n\nTucker looked at me for a moment, cocked his head to the other side, and simply shrugged his shoulders. For a split second I thought that the hole we dug for the tree would make a great place to bury Tucker. Instead I took a deep breathe and reminded myself we were all stupid teenagers once, albeit Tucker was undoubtedly one of the stupidest to ever walk the earth. \n\n\"It's ok, we'll figure something out.\" I said more to myself than to Tucker. \"Go load the chipper back onto the trailer while I figure out what we're gonna do.\" After a few tense moments of furious googling and craigslist-ing I found a Red-Leaved Hibiscus nearby for sale. \n\nAfter a few hours Tucker and I were back with the Hibiscus tree. \"Alright, Tucker, let's hurry up and plant this thing.\"\n\nTucker looked at the tree and then back to me, obviously confused. \"But, this isn't what they ordered. I thought they wanted a Japanese Maple.\"\n\nI sighed. \"Tucker, you put the Japanese Maple through the wood chipper.\"\n\nTucker suddenly had a moment of clarity. His dim, little light bulb went off. He let out an exaggerated \"Ohhhhhh.\" and then said \"So that's why you were so mad earlier.\" \n\nWe were somehow able to plant the tree just before it was completely dark out. For as dumb as Tucker was he was a strong kid. We got in the car and I pulled into his driveway. \"Night, Tucker.\" I said as he opened the door and started to get out of the truck. \"Take tomorrow off.\" I couldn't have him there when I met with the client tomorrow.\n\n\"Alright, thanks. Goodnight Uncle Dave.\" and with that he was gone. \n\nI arrived at the client's house at 8 am. They were coming back from vacation and so I expected they would be a bit late. The entire contract for the job had been done online and I had never met these people face to face. I was hoping and praying they wouldn't notice the tree wasn't the one they ordered.\n\nA pearl-white Chrysler 300 pulled into the driveway and a driver in a black suit stepped out. He walked around the car and opened the back door. First a young woman stepped out, wearing an expensive-looking sun dress, heels, and a floppy wide brimmed hat. She was followed out by a young man wearing dress shoes, pressed khaki pants, a white dress shirt with an argyle sweater tied neatly around his shoulders, and hair so perfect that it's worth noting now. \n\n\"Oh my.\" said the woman. \"I just love it! It's beautiful.\" she handed her purse to the driver and did the sort of click-clacking hobble women do when they try to run in heels. Why she didn't just take them off was beyond me. As she passed me I turned my attention to the man she was with.\n\n\"The tree is simply astounding. My wife appears happy, and if she's happy that means it was worth every penny. I will be sure to recommend your work to my colleagues, you can expect an increase in business soon.\" He smiled. \"And this is for your hard work and troubles.\" He handed me a 100 dollar bill from his wallet. \n", "\"Hey boss I made it back just in time!\" Pedro said to his boss on the phone as he pulled up to the front gates of Juan & Sons Gardening Co in a large flat bed semi-truck. \n\n\"Great. Did you manage to steal the Giant Sequoia tree that we planned to sell for 1.4 million dollars?\" Pedro's boss replied on the phone. \n\n\"Oh yes, i have it right here tied down in the back of this giant truck,\" Pedro answered back.\n\n\"Then why don't you come inside real quick. I have something to show you,\" Pedro's boss said. Pedro hung up the phone and hopped out of the truck. He made his way inside the building to find his boss standing in front of the TV which was showing live local evening news. \"Do you mind explaining this?\" Pedro's boss said, shaking with anger as he flung the TV remote across the room, shattering it on a wall. \n\nPedro glanced at the TV as a news reporter in a helicopter said \"and here's another live shot of a giant sequoia tree that currently has traffic backed up for miles along Interstate 10. We have heard witness accounts that the tree had fallen off the back of a semi-truck after being illegally smuggled out of a national park. Reports are coming in that at least 6 cars were smashed, but no words on casualties yet...\"\n\n\"Oh that's my bad,\" Pedro said sheepishly as he sulked his way out of the room.\n" ]

[ 6, 10 ]

[ "1431966731", "1431951815" ]

[ "This is political BS. You're just reading what they want you to read. Listen, I don't think muggles are bad, heck, I have muggle friends. I don't have a prejudice against them, but there are some that have no place in modern society, and when ever I say anything about it, I get called a death-eater. Also, I'm getting tired of people saying \"the 'M' word\". Muggle, muggle, muggle. It's just a word people, I use it around my muggle friends and they don't mind. #wandsupdontcruciatusisajoke", "Published May 18, 2015.\n\nFirst off, these books are almost nothing how magic is in real life. They don't even include ritual suicide, which obviously is essential for any type of magic.\n\nSecondly, what is all this, 'Wind-guardium, leviosa' shit? There is none of all that fru-fru stuff! At most, we say \"Uvkeri qurtri\". Which, in your tongue, means Light where their is gray.\n\nLastly, what the hell is that freak Voldemort?! Where the hell did his nose go?! Magic doesn't affect the bodies of living creatures. Only the surrounding areas. So the fuck happened to that guy? ^I ^heard ^of ^nose ^jobs ^but ^jeez!\n\nOverall, I give it a 4 out of 10 Krilems. Which, in your tongue, means frog throats. It was entertaining, at least, but as a realistic fiction movie about magic, it was *extremely* off!", "On May 18, 2015 at 2:34, Premium User 'castertheunfriendlypost' Wrote:\n\nWhat the actual fuck? This is the biggest load of dragon shit I've ever read. Real wizards don't wear fucking hats and robes and shit, and we certainly don't invite fucking 11 year old fuckers to all gather together and learn to fucking cast deadly powerful spells that could blow up shit and enslave bitches and make up a fucking unbalanced 'point system' as punishment. In real fucking life you get thrown into a fucking dungeon if you misuse magic and get shot by fucking Flamecasters until your balls float away as ash in the breeze. J.K. Rowling is obviously a fucking bitch-ass pretender who knows nothing about the fucking real world or how a fucking magic system works. These books are total fucking bitch-ass shit.\n\n On May 18, 2015 at 2:35, Premium Gold user 'jkrowlingofficial' Commented:\n \n But one of us is a millionare. Get on my level, bitch.", "TOP SECRET\nLaundry Report - CASE SECRET CHAMBER\nEyes Only\n\nFiction review as per SOP.\n\nReasonably amusing children's fantasy. Luckily it is generally regarded as harmless fluff for kids with some \"life lessons\" about courage, friendship, power of love, and self sacrifice.\n\nAuthor evidently has had access to classified materials. The Voldemort character is very clearly at least class 2, if not class 3, exonomic possessor entity. Continuity of existence and identity after \"death\", as well as ability to \"transfer\" same to other hosts certainly indicates such, for example the Quirell character.\n\nMagic use in the book represented rather clumsily, albeit to a reasonable level of accuracy absent usual prescribed warding and protections. Remarkably the fictional characters eschew technology, preferring recitation of simple verbal charms as mnemonic devices to create/channel/control mathemagical power.\n\nConsidering the haphazrd methods of magic use and the lack of any warding or protection, it is remarkable that no characters are shown to be at risk for possession/incursion. Magic is shown to be a \"lark\", a children's plaything.\n\nIt is likely the author is a cult member, at a medium level of initiation; high enough to gain real knowledge, but not too far gone and able to retain a reasonable degree of coherence.\n\nRECOMMENDATIONS\nThe mnemonic devices portrayed in the fiction are essentially meaningless without the specialised knowledge that would be required. Fiction need not be suppressed.\nThe author has high profile. Suppression/elimination is contra-indicated. Author should be traced, their connections monitored, and provision made for immediate apprehension in case her group actually manages to summon anything *big*.\n\nCROSS-REF: CASE K2-LU, CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, CASE DUNGEON DRAGON FOUR, ", "Not strictly as per prompt and also my second post so please excuse any mistakes/bad writing\n\n============ \n\n\"'Avada Kedavra'! are you kidding me? that sounds ridiculous.\"\n\n\"No no, seriously.. look, they say you gotta mean it.\"\n\n\"Dude, we've been at it for hours now, just put this stupid book down\"\n\n\"No wait, what if it actually works? Alright, forget that one, try this.. 'Leviosa'\"\n\n\"Leviosaa!!... look, nothing. Maybe it is just fiction\"\n\n\"Uhh.. wait someone mentioned something about this..\"\n\n\"Look, all I am saying is, maybe this isn't a history book-\"\n\n\"It is 'Levi-O-Sa'\"\n\n\\*sigh\\* \"Levi-Ooooo-sa!\"\n\n\"This should be working\"\n\n\"Where did you even find this book?\"\n\n\"Grandma's old stuff, you know she was more skilled than us at this\"\n\n\"Oh please, all Grandma did was teleport on me mastru-\"\n\n\"Have you heard of an.... Albus Dumbledore? he is supposed to be a great magician from his time\"\n\n\"Umm beats me, maybe he was just a trick artist and not a evol?\"\n\n\"Maybe.. did you know our race didn't have public acceptance till late 2100s.\"\n\n\"Whatever man. Listen, take that book to professor Jebkerbal, he might have info on these spells\"\n\n\"Yeah, I'm gonna read this first. Here is some very interesting stuff about something known as a 'Horcrux'. It is supposed to make you immortal and all\"\n\n\"Yeah, whatever man.. lets go, we'll be late for quidditch practice\"" ]

[ 1, 2, 6, 12, 15 ]

[ "1432008112", "1431981913", "1431985178", "1431986498", "1431974284" ]

[ "Ten long years.\n\nTen years of service. Ten years of rituals. Doing as told with no explanation. \"Always we serve the greater good,\" they tell you, \"All we do benefits everyone. You will see. Continue to learn and you will be rewarded. Learn our ways and our code and you will be provided for.\"\n\nYou wonder what the purpose of it all is. But they are so convincing. Telling you that all will be right with the world if you just serve and learn their code. \"Prove your loyalty\" they say.\n\nIt is a bit strange at first living in the compound, but you adjust and after about a year it seems like second nature to you. You do chores. You spend the first year up to your elbows in dishes. Sweeping out massive, warehouse-sized garages filled with cars ranging from beat-up sedans to wildly expensive sports cars. \"Those who would lead must first learn to serve,\" They say. Like a mantra. Those words are burned into your soul from having heard them so many times. \n\nAnd classes. They tell you that you must attend classes given by men in hooded robes. Never can you see their faces. \"You will know our names someday\" the teachers tell you. You learn and absorb much, though you fail to see the reason for all the things they make you learn. With no media access of any kind, you are cut off from the outside world. One of the many classes you are required to take covers the \"current events\" in the world. You are required to attend this one every single day. Like any student, you make mistakes. The hooded masters sent to teach are harsh with their words. As if your failure to grasp the concepts they are teaching you is a personal affront to them. But their scathing words are tinged with sadness too. Like they are desperate for you to succeed.\n\nIt is around the third year when you grow suspicious. That these men are more than they seem. The odd comings and goings. The private airport close by with gulfstreams flying in at all hours, day and night. You make friends among the other acolytes. Those who have been around longer disappear. The explanation given is that they have been initiated but nothing else is forthcoming. Nobody ever knows when they will be initiated. One day a robed figure just shows up and informs the acolyte that it is time. Then you never see your friend again.\n\nTen years have come and gone. Ten years since the man in a suit found you under the bridge. A runaway. No friends, no family and 400 miles from \"home\" (if it can be called that). He convinced you with sweet words that your life could have meaning. That if you would only go with him and learn what they have to teach that you could have an impact on the world. You went. At first you did not ask the \"Why?\" of things. After a few years, you began to wonder. But were always stonewalled with the words \"Prove yourself. Serve and Learn. You will know one day.\"\n\nIt is cold the day they come for you. Cold and rainy. A robed master shows up and says the ritual words to you. By this point, you know that you have to follow. You are brought to a small room. No chairs or decorations of any kind. Just four walls and two doors. Four burly men stand there, robed like the other masters. They do not speak but you can feel their eyes on you. Ominous. \n\nThere are three other acolytes waiting when you arrive. Three of the best and brightest. Your closest friends. One by one the others are taken in. They each go and none returns. \"Well, shit.\" You think to yourself, standing in line to be initiated into the cult \"I wonder if they'll let me go back and live under that bridge again.\" Somehow, you doubt it.\n\nThe second door opens. A figure appears and beckons you to follow into a chamber you've never seen before. Tall and domed, you can barely see the top of the ceiling in the gloomy torchlight. The master leads you to the center of the room then takes his place in a circle of hooded figures surrounding you. At some unseen signal, the circle of robed men draw daggers and close in around you.\n\nThe one directly in front of you holds two blades. He speaks, \"Why do we exist?\"\n\n\"To serve\" you reply without thinking.\n\nThe others stop their advance but he continues, coming right up to you, noses almost touching. He places a dagger in your hand, then steps back, even with the others. One of the voices behind you suddenly speaks. \"Has he proven his worth?\"\n\n\"He has\" they all chorus.\n\n\"Who will stand for this one?\"\n\nThe man who handed you the dagger takes a single step forward. \"I stand for this one.\"\n\nThe voice behind you again speaks, asking \"Which realm will he occupy?\"\n\nYour 'sponsor' stands quietly for a full minute before responding. \"Politics.\"\n\nThe figures all pull back their hoods at once, revealing their faces. You are shocked to see your sponsor is none other than the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. \"Welcome, brother,\" he says as he slides the dagger across his palm and holds it out for you to shake. Stunned, you comply. Looking around, you see that the room is filled with the richest and most influential men in the world. Of all nations and walks of life. Hollywood directors. Oil Shieks. The Governor of your home state. One by one they embrace you and whisper in your ear the word \"brother.\"\n\nSuddenly the classes make sense. Economics. Law. Speaking. You've been groomed. When it is all done your sponsor looks at you and says \"Hurry to the airport, your campaign manager is waiting for you in Miami. There's a lot for you to do before November. You'll feel like you're on your own until then but you're not.\"\n\nHe places a wallet in your hand. You open it and inside is a photo ID with a name that is not your own. In your other hand he places a cell phone. He gives you a gentle shove toward the door. \"Don't say a word about us, brother. The public can never know.\"\n\nAs you get to the door, you hear him shout \"I'll call you when you get to D.C., Senator.\"\n\nEDIT: My first WP attempt.", "\nThe line progressed slowly into the arched doors. A blinding white light shone through and made me squint. Granted it did a great job of giving a sense of drama and giving the audience an idea of what was happening.\n\n\"Big crowd tonight\" the guy behind me muttered. He wasn't wrong. Even though the cult was \"a secret\" the fact that they had converted an old football field into their initiation chamber somewhat dismissed it. Add in the scores of people in the packed bleachers and this was more well known and attended than the last rock concert I went to.\n\nFor every person that entered the light at least 95% came back out saddened. The other 5% must have been accepted.\n\nI stayed in the line awaiting my turn. After half an hour I stood at the doorway. A man in a red robe asked me to wait a moment, then waved me in. \n\nAs soon as I entered the door I was blinded and my pants were pulled down. A hard paddle struck me 4 times. I was then stood up, and moved further into the light. As the light engulfed me, the only thought in my mind was \"I wish I wore clean underwear\"", "Yeah, that was pretty hardcore, i don't think i am ready for this...why did i even think this would be a good idea...they can't be serious. Ok, breath...hmm, theres' a door out back, what if I just skip out of line, no...they would stop...fuckers.\nShit, emmm...shit, what can i do............Yes, what if I get out my berretta and shoot evey motherfucker in here, at least then I keep my penis, who is going to care anyway, I mean...if nobody is left to blab about it...I'm in the clean right??\n'Brother Jeffrey, your time has come to prove your devotion...step forward!'\n\n'Fuck youuuu, click, click..click! Fucking click!'\n\n.....you didn't really think we would allow you to bring a loaded pistol into our chambers did you? You shall now be made an example of...this, THIS is what happens to 'backer outers'...chop off his nails!\n\n...my nails? Emmm, ok yeahh... I mean Noooo, not my beautiful nails...\n\nHahahaha...my english not so good, I meant chop him up and nail him...to the ceiling...", "Sure some people join a cult in their lifetime. It just happens. But no one wants to be the guy that joins 2. I suppose if I join a third one it will only be predictable, but I supposed I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.\n\nYou see, no cults think they're a cult. They only have the best intentions. It's when you start with exclusivity that things get weird. This cult has the hoods though. I should've known with the hoods. Hoods, scrolls, an abundance of candles; these are all pretty obvious tells. But somehow it took up to me seeing Dave kill that goat before I finally clued in. Well now I gotta just make my exit, I guess. Let's see.\n\nI subtly check my phone. \n\n\"Ah, my mom is calling me.\" I whisper to Chet who is humming quietly next to me. \"She never calls past 8.\"\n\nChet lowers his humming and whispers \"You think everything is okay?\"\n\nChet is a good guy. I'll miss Chet.\n\n\"I dunno. I'm gonna go call her back really quick.\" I say \"Hold my spot?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\nAwesome. Done and done. Weirdly enough, the hardest part of this evening will be telling my roommate that yes, it was another cult. ", "I knew I shouldn't of eaten those breakfast burritos right before inauguration. Fuck, it's my turn to be presented. Leader Jacob is going to present me my cloak of initiation in front of the entire clan. I should be nervous but all I can think about is releasing my bowels, shit. Stay cool, think about something other than shit. Shit, you're thinking about shit again. Oh fuck he's waiting for you to shake his hand. How long has he been standing like that. Is everyone staring at me. Okay, we're shaking hands; now smile and walk off the stage. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt. Too late, I wonder if they can kick you out for this.", "\"Fuck, why do I always fall for the religious women?\" I think to myself as some idiot dressed in a brown robe chants something in Latin.\n\n\"How the fuck did I get here?\" I look to my left and see her, slightly shorter than me, she still has a nice body. \n\nShe looks at me. \" I knew that the great hamster would being us to this place.\" \nShe's smiling, fuck I've learned to hate that smile.\n\n\"Yeah, praise Hammy.\" I whisper putting on a fake smile.\n\nMy mind races over the past few weeks. It started so slowly. Coffee, family histories, religion. I just wanted a challenge. Religious girls were always the hardest to get in the sheets. The most I saw myself doing was vising a church, a proper church. I never thought I'd be spending on Saturday nights in a YCMA back room.\n\nOh, fuck. He just knifed a hamster and yup, he's eating it. I nod my head slowly. \n\nI lean down to her. \"Hmm, honey. I left something in the car.\" I get up.\n\n\"You'll be back, right?\"\n\n\"Ohh yeah.\" I nod convincingly. \n\nThen I walked out of the YMCA and got the bus home.", "Well, shit.\n\nHere we go. \nFunny how much I wanted all of this growing up. \nThe whole look. The shirt, the name badge, the WATCH-stoked for the watch that's cool.\nI guess the chicks are pretty cute. Gonna be a whole lot more. Is that allowed? How do I ask if I can have sex with the others. Will I get in trouble? Someone has to have asked before me. \n\n\"Are you ready?\"\n\n\"Yup, lets do this.\"\n\n\"You know what to do?\"\n\n\"Come on. You've been training e for weeks.\"\n\n\"Okay, lemme know if you have any questions.\"\n\nThe sex question flashed across my mind. Not yet. Too soon. \n\n\n\nOkay...\n\n\n\nHere we go....\n\n\n\"Welcome to Apple. How can I help you?\"", "\"Well shit.\"\n\nIt was November 18th, 1978. Just any other ordinary day, right? I was only seven years old, I'm twelve now, but I can still feel the sting of each mosquito as they stole little droplets of blood from my body.Blood that was soon to be laced with military-grade cyanide. The adults all called it \"Kool-Aid\", but the chemical stench that encompassed the perimeter of our campsite did not remind me of the delicious blue fluid Mom used to make every summer back in Indiana. I was about 100 feet from the blue garbage can when I began to realize that something was terribly wrong.\n\nOne by one, people began to stagger away from the garbage can with cups of bright red fluid that looked like cough syrup. Some people sipped slowly, and others tilted back their heads and let the fluid slide down their throats in one huge gulp. After about ten minutes , these people started to act...well....strange. They walked around laughing hysterically at first, and their speech was slurred like when Grandpa had too much to drink after present time on Christmas. Eventually, they would lose their balance and lie on the ground. Most people had their eyes closed, some wore bank and empty stares. They all began to foam at the mouth within about twenty minutes or so. Within 25 minutes, they lay motionless in the grass.\n\nMy palms began to sweat and my throat became bone dry with fear. Why had Mom and Dad lied to me? Sure, they were always talking about how leader Jones said there was \"a new world to be reached\" and all that, but why would they want their only daughter to die like this? A rough hand pulled me out of my thoughts and I was offered a cup. Electric red, like the goo from my lava lamp back home. I remember when Dad smashed it. Something about not needing \"worldly possessions\" anymore. I stared down into the cup. There was no refection. Only a red circle. I smelled the liquid and it made my nose curl and burn. Trying hard to think of the \"new world\" I would live in with my parents, my friends, and even our dog Maggie, I pinched my nose and let the fluid run down my throat.\n\n\"Well Shit.\"\n\nThat's what the doctor said when he looked at my charts. He said he could not believe that a seven year old girl could survive with 128 mg of pure cyanide running though her bloodstream.", "\"Well, shit. How did I end up here again?\" ...Oh yeah, I was drunk and this group of men came up to me and said they have a 'surprise'. Bullshit, all they gave me were a bunch of pamphlets and a coupon for McDonald's. ^^I'll ^^still ^^use ^^the ^^coupon, ^^but ^^still...\n\nAnyhow, why do cultists always get people when they are drunk at parties- actually, now that I think about it, that is probably the *only* way they can get people to join their cult.\n\n\"*cough cough*- So, um, what does this cult do... per say? Not that is matters, of course!\"\n\n\"Our goal is to unify the universe and let humanity obtain the power of god!\"\n\nOf fucking course! They're a bunch of mentally unstable nut-jobs. Fuck it, I'm too afraid to ask what this cult is called so I'll nickname it squirrel.\n\nA man in a brown bag gets up and says \"Will their be any ritual sacrifice in this cult?\"\n\n*What the actual fuck?! Is this guy insane! Of course they don't-*\n\n\"Yes. Yes there will be.\"\n\n^Shit,shit,shit,shit,shit,shit,shit\n\n\"Any more questions?\" said the tall skinny one. \"Uh, yes. What should we call you guys? And the cult itself?\"\n\nMan, that guy has some balls. I'm too afraid to ask to use the restroom.\n\n\"We're known as the Advancement of Humanitarians. And my name is Bob.\"\n\n**What teh fuck?! How is this cult ANYTHING humanitarian!** Anyway, I got to run, because if I don't I'll be *fucked* up! \"Okay, now if any of you think of running or leave this cult, we'll shoot you with this here crossbow.\" Bob then points at the crossbow held by the other member.\n\n^Shit,shit,shit,shit,shit,shit,shit\n\n\"Now, please stand in a row and we'll initiate you all. Welcome!\" says Bob.\n\n\"Uh, Bob.\" I say \"May I ask you a qu- question?\"\n\nBob replies, \"Of course my brother! No need to be shy! Ask me anything!\"\n\n\"May I go to the restroom?\"\n\n\"No. Hold it.\"\n\n*Well, fuck! Now I am going to crap my pants-...\n\n^Shit,shit,shit,shit,shit,shit,shit", "Rows of robes\n\ndonning auburn cowls\n\nmaking their way up the pews\n\nwith priestly scowls\n\na hand reaches to my shoulder\n\nhis hands are cold, his face is colder\n\nwith worried frown\n\nhis stomach growls\n\nthrough the troubled hymn\n\nhe lets me know his chagrin\n\nthe blood wafers just won't settle\n\nand the corpse wine tastes of metal\n\nhe turns to run but its too late\n\nhis shit drops in the collection plate\n", "I was standing in line and I couldn't be happier. What a great day this turned out to be. I probably had the biggest smile of anyone there. But then the line started moving and I shifted progressively closer to the front.\n\nMy smile started to fade as I squinted my eyes toward the banner above the entrance. After moving a few steps closer, my smile was completely gone. I awkwardly scanned the people around me, which resulted in some odd stares.\n\nMy change in attitude must been obvious because I seemed to attract the attention of one of the attendants. He hustled toward me as I slowly positioned myself out of the line.\n\n\"What seems to be the problem, friend?\" asked the attendant.\n\n\"Nothing,\" I whispered, trying not to draw more attention. \"I thought- I got in this line by accident.\"\n\n\"Did you attend our orientation?\" he asked at full volume.\n\n\"No, I was just passing through,\" I whispered even quieter, trying to get the point across I didn't want anyone else to hear. \"I don't want to join your... cult.\"\n\n\"Don't let the word 'cult' frighten you. As we explained in orientation, you need to understand the root of the word. Don't you want to enlighten yourself and become part of a greater overall life experience?\"\n\n\"No, you don't understand,\" I answered, now matching the attendant's volume. \"I thought-.\" I switched back to whispering and pointed toward the entrance. \"You see that giant word 'cult' on the banner there?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered.\n\n\"Well, my eyesight isn't that great. I thought it said 'cake'.\"\n\n\"Oh, well we have cake inside. Follow me. No need to wait in line.\"\n\nI stood there for a few seconds considering my options until my smile returned. I like cake.", "\"Well, shit.\" You think to yourself, standing in line to be initiated into the cult. What else can you think when you've gotten yourself this far into this kind of mess? Any rational person would've been far gone before this Church of the Grey Scholar had the chance to say hocus pocus, but not me, not Ol' Stanley. And, Jeezus Fuckin' Christ, they have little red Dixie cups! Not 10ft away, past the old bald man in the green sweater ahead of me, past the white table with the spinster in plaid receiving (ahem) donations, there are stacks of little red Dixie cups adjacent a red Koolaid cooler with a nozzle to dispense. Okay, maybe its not Koolaid brand, maybe its Gatorade, but Im starting to think the Grey Scholar might have studied at Jonestown. Jeezus, what am I doing here? Every sense in my body is telling me to run, but I feel strangely relaxed, as if I should be here. Maybe I should. I came here because Ive got no one. Ive got nothing. I go to work, I come home, and I stare at the sun move across the wall. I bought a TV a couple months ago and found that it was the same as staring at the wall and finally just decided, \"why bother?\" What does it matter if I die facedown in some community center with some 40-50 other strangers or 20 years from now in my apartment in my sleep, above the sheets, and still in the clothes I wore to work the day before? \n\nI make the donation, I take the pamphlet and I take my medicine in its red cup and await my meeting with the Grey Scholar. I open the pamphlet. If I am making my final voyage, at least Ive got some reading material. Suddenly, my eyes widen as my heart races and my skin turns cold. This is not a cult, its a pyramid scheme. ", "Oh shit. \n\nI've always been painfully shy. That's my problem, you see, and I was only trying to fix it. Ending up in a dark basement with a sack over my head was just another mistake in a long line of things that had happened to me because I was too shy to say \"No thanks.\" I don't know if it's politeness, or stupidity, or maybe a mixture of the both, but I can't seem to say no to people. Ever. I've walked dogs (when I'm allergic to pet hair), babysat (when kids freak me out and never really listen to me), been a designated driver countless times (even on my own birthday that one time) and I once loaned a friend two grand I knew they would never give me back All because I can never say no.\n\nI hate it! But I couldn't do anything about it, you see. Because I'm such a pushover, and everyone would give me a big smile and say \"You're the best, Jenny!\" afterwards. And who doesn't love hearing that? I'm everyone's go to gal. But that crumbled around me with Bus Stop Guy.\n\nBus Stop Guy was exactly how he sounds. He was a guy at my bus stop. He's tall, with curly dark hair and a dimple in his chin. He wears tailored suits, but his tie always looks a little crooked. It makes me want to straighten it every time. And he always reads. My little crush developed from the day he looked up, and smiled at me and I saw that his eyes were the bluest blue. I was smitten But I never spoke. I thought he would reject me. That wasn't a problem for Amy. She came with me to the bus stop one day and saw him, and when we were alone, she asked me if she should ask for his number.\n\nAnd of course I said yes.\n\n I regretted it for days and weeks. Then I was at the community centre, where I volunteer after being hounded to do so, and I saw it. \n\n\"A new organisation devoted to making you a better you! Down on your luck? Lonely? Depressed and/or suicidal? Shy? Impressionable? Come and join a friendly, open and members only club full of like minded people devoted to bettering themselves before it's too late!\"\n\nI quickly phoned the number and I was directed to a cheery woman named Jolene who set me up with a test and an interview the next day in a local fair trade coffee shop. Apparently I passed with flying colours, although I somehow managed to pay for everything too. \n\nThen I was phoned at three in the morning and directed to a meeting which turned into a horrifying ambush where a bag was put on my head. The soothing words they whispered in my ear while they did it were nice, although I was still quite scared. They told me no harm would come to me so I just went along with it, and they told me I'd passed the next est and that I was perfect for their New World Order or something. We got into a car where they played some weird ambient music, and here I am now I suppose.\n\nThe bag is ripped from my head and as I adjust to the light, I look up into the eye of Bus Stop Guy. \n\nOh!\n\nPerhaps this isn't so bad after all. I'm sure they have some good ideas.", "well, shiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeettttttttt...\n\nThat's what I thought, staring through the stained glass.\nThis is what I sought, so I must train fast.\nThinking back to the when it rained last,\nit's been all sunshine, proving there's a time limit of how long the pain lasts.\n\nWe took the kids by the camp fire, roasting marshmellows,\nTalking amongsts colleagues, you know, them high up fellows,\nSome even asked me to get some cigarillos,\nCause' they agreed, Sometimes, you want the banana when it's green, not yellow.\n\nMy thing was them hoes. Watching them grow.\nWatching them show, and watching them ho,\nWatching them slow, watching them low,\nWatching them high, watching them so...\n\nBut Pope Arnold liked to watch them mold,\nand by that, I don't mean watching them grow old,\nhe locked the boys up before they were to be sold,\nsweat from their ass trapped, yeah that's the mold.\n\nThat's the mold, in this cult, that's the gold,\nboys, young, men, old, yeah, it's been told,\nI told old nigga \"man, I gotta fold,\"\nwhat they was doing was cold, even if they rolled.\n\nI told em \"no!\" I ain't gay, I want them lil' hoes!\n\"I ain't joining you wrinkly ass cracker ass homos!\"\nThey asked me if I knew why it ain't rained in a while,\nI shrugged, and the whole whiteass room of old wiggaz cracked a huge smile.\n\n\"To the son, holy spirit, and to the father\",\n\"Booty is more important than drinking water\"\nThey raised lil' eric up on the cross,\nThen one old nigga celebrated; he stuck his ass up like he was Randy Moss.\n\nWith the Moss pose held, he backed his old ass up on the boy,\nunderwear with dickholes in the back, you could see his joy,\nSee some of these Popes were Wide Recievers, they had first pick,\nOne nigga was so diseased doe, he had that cursed dick.\n\nIf that one nigga was Randy Moss, then this Nigga was the Boss,\nBoss Rick Ross, big white bear having Eric's salad tossed,\nDamn they gang-raped the fuck out of that lil' boy til he was out of breath,\nThen the most vile white nigga nearly facefucked the lil' boy to death,\n\nThen it stopped, Cause here came the cops,\nbut they was some faggots too, they was really the mops,\ncleaning off every old niggaz' jizz, damn what a nasty pop,\nBut then they all turned and looked at me: my heart dropped.\n\nIt was my turn, as I stared at lil' Eric, body half-burned.\nlast nigga stepped off with one officer, who was cleaning his shaft sperm,\nI thought of my morals, and what was right,\nso I grabbed the mic, grabbed dez nuts and said \"NOT TONIGHT!\"\n\n\"YOU FAG ASS CRACKERS! I THOUGHT WE WAS GETTIN' SOME JUST-RIPPENING PUSSY! I DIDN'T KNOW YALL WAS SOME GAY-ASS BUTT-PUMPING NIGGAZ! I'M KEEPING THIS ROBE AND GOING HOME!\"\n\n(They subsequently took me down, and shoved a huge machete up my ass. I'm dead now.)\n\n\n", "How the hell did I wind up here? Okay, John, think! Think! Where were you last night? I was out with some friends. Good, that's a start. Which friends? There was Greg, that slimy bastard; Rick, he's alright, I guess; Laura, she's so hot. Okay good. Where did you go? I'm not entirely sure. Okay, fine. Why were you out last night? Some event. Someone was getting married. Married, married, married. Someone was getting married. John was getting - I was getting married! Last night was my wedding reception. Who did I marry? My fiancée, of course. D'uh. Who is my fiancée? \n\n\"Hi, my name is John and this is my fiancée, S -,\" St - St -, who the hell is Stacey? Stacey! That's the one! Okay, so last night was my wedding reception; I got married to Stacey and the last thing I did was drink with Greg, Rick and Laura. Fuck. They're all a bunch of drug addicts. Okay, no time to think. Where am I now? Why are they all dressed in robes? I've seen something similar in Laura's house. \n\n\"Approach, chosen one.\" Are they talking to me?\n\n\"Yes, approach, chosen one,\" who the hell is saying that? \n\n\"Umm - where am I?\" \n\n\"You need not ask questions yet, chosen one, first you must approach to the fire.\"\n\nOh God, this is some Crowley-bullshit. \n\n\"Listen, I don't know what's going on, but I'd like to go home.\"\n\n\"This is your home.\" There are like five people standing in front of me and I don't know who the hell is talking. \n\n\"Are you guys like wearing some device that covers your voice? Seriously, you all sound like Darth Vader.\"\n\n\"Umm - no, shut up, Jo - I mean, chosen one.\"\n\n\"You can't speak to the chosen one that way, you idiot!\" Ouch, that's a bad smack. \n\n\"Quiet, fools! We are wasting time. As for you, chosen one, please make your way to the fire.\"\n\n\"Am I going to die?\"\n\n\"What makes you say that?\"\n\n\"Well apart from the incessant requests to walk towards a ball of fire, I am also standing before 5 people whose faces I cannot identify, nor can it be said for their voices.\"\n\n\"Mm, good point. No, you are not going to die, chosen one. This is an initiation to join our society. You see, long ago during the times of the Mesopotamians, it was foretold that one man born on the seventh of the seventh month of the second millennia would be chosen to lead us in our endeavour to find inner peace. That man is you.\"\n\n\"I see,\" that doesn't make a lot of sense, \"but we use the Gregorian calendar,\" why is the left one scratching his chest, \"I don't think the Mesopotamians used it.\"\n\n\"Umm - enough with your inquisitive ways! Make your way to the fire and repeat after us.\"\n\n\"Woah! Okay fine!\" Well this is going to suck ass. God, I must look so retarded right no - where the hell are my clothes - ?! \"Hey, where the hell are my clothes!\"\n\n\"You do not need them, chosen one, you carry a celestial body whose physical shape embraces the perfection of the universe. \n\n\"Did the Mesopotamians foresee that as well?\"\n\n\"Not really, but you are hot.\"\n\n\"Shut up, Laura!\" Wait, did he just say Laura?\n\n\"Laura?\" It must be her, \"Laura is that you?\"\n\n\"I do not know who this Laura is. Cease your questions and walk to the fire!\"\n\n\"I thought I recognised those breasts.\"\n\n\"What!\" Why is this cult-person so obsessed with what I'm - oh shit, it's Stacey.\n\n\"What do you mean you recognise those breasts?\" Oh shit, I'm fucked. I'm fucked, I'm fucked, I'm fucked, I'm fucked I'm - wait a minute.\n\n\"Wait a minute, Stacey, why the hell are you a member of a cult?\"\n\n\"This is no cult, John, this is the answer to all of life's problems. This is - oh, fuck it. Rick, inject him with the Flunitrazepam.\" \n\nFlunitrazepam, I recognise that word, isn't that a roof - \n\n\"Ow! Sweet Jesus, what the hell was that for, man? Hey, why is -\" everything going so funny. I feel kinda weir -. ", "Chuck glanced down at the watch on his wrist, his left foot tapping steadily on the pearl tiled floor. He realized his visit to the DMV wouldn’t exactly be a quick stop-off, but rather an elongated, slow, and otherwise unpleasant ordeal. Still, he didn’t think it would be quite this bad. For starters, he had no idea that so many people would be cutting their own arms and bleeding into some sort of golden chalice as they “patiently” awaited their turn to enter the building. Likewise, he didn’t expect to find all of the employees adorned in long, black gowns, with elaborate, golden designs stitched into them. Regardless, the experience was about as unpleasant as it had been the last time he’d stopped off at the DMV. \n\nThe man ahead of Chuck inched forward slightly, Chuck taking a step to keep up with the pace of the nearly unmoving line to enter the building. It had been a while since he’d visited the DMV, mostly because he absolutely despised the entire event. He hated the employees that always seemed to hate him more; hated the lines that usually encircled the building; hated the photo that was guaranteed to ruin his driver’s license for the next six years. There was nothing pleasant about it. Yet he’d put it off as long as he could, received two—almost three, had the first officer not taken pity on him—tickets for driving with an expired license. Anymore and he’d risk jail. As such, he hopped in his car, illegally drove to the DMV, and found himself waiting to simply get into the massive, foreboding, brick building.\n\nThe last time Chuck had been to the DMV was roughly five years prior. He remembered it being just as dingy, depressing, and utterly lifeless as it currently looked; however, it seemed they’d done quite a bit of redecorating the interior—or at least what he could see from the windows. Gone were the drab, emotionless beige curtains that lined the cigarette-stained walls. Instead, everything was covered in black veil, with what looked like blood-colored streaks spelling out some sort of words Chuck could not recognize. It was clearly some other language, or perhaps just English instructions made completely illegible at the great pleasure of the DMV employees. In fact, the workers as well, adorned in their black and gold robes, seemed even more lifeless than they had been in the past. They looked much paler, their voices monotone as they chanted some sort of Latin-sounding verse. The ominous song, however, Chuck was pretty sure he’d heard during his last visit. This time, however, more people were joining in. In fact, everybody on line seemed to be. \n\nChuck glanced up at the lettering that lined the black-veiled walls through the window, squinting in an attempt to make out the words. He was sure they were some sort of instructions, some tips on how to quickly and efficiently make use of his time at the DMV. That was why they were so illegible, to spite the people taking off work to come in and address their driver-related issues. Chuck sighed, knowing he’d now probably end up getting to the desk and find out he’s missing some sort of form. The angry, overly-aggressive employee would then point to the illegible characters on the wall and explain “he was a fucking retard for not reading the tips.” He’d then probably be sent to the back of the line. He so hated the DMV.\n\n“Next,” said an employee, his face buried beneath a black hood. The man ahead of Chuck stepped forward and held out his arms, his wrists covered in blood. He had previously been standing over some sort of golden chalice, the ruby liquid spewing from his veins into the cup. Now, the blood fell uninterrupted to the cold, pearl tiled floors of the DMV. The man in the black and gold robe seemed to nod at the fellow ahead of Chuck, who then disappeared beyond the door of the DMV. \n\n“Next,” repeated the employee. Chuck glanced up at him and stepped forward.\n\n“Hello,” Chuck said, digging his hand into his pocket and reaching for his wallet. “I’d like to renew my license.”\n\nThe man stared at Chuck, his pale face shrouded by the hood over his head. “Dhsula Laquia?”\n\n“I’m sorry?” Chuck said, not even remotely sure of what the man had said.\n\n“You seek a new path?” the man said, now speaking in English. He had a thick, Eastern European accent. Possibly Russia or Poland; Chuck was never good with dialects. \n\n“Sure,” Chuck shrugged. \n\n“Present the pale of your limb, the underside of your skin.”\n\nChuck held out his arms, assuming that was what the man meant, and flipped his palms toward the ceiling. The man reached his right hand into his robe and pulled out a long, silver sword. Chuck stared at it for a second before thrusting his hand backward.\n\n“What is that?” Chuck said, staring at the sword and hiding his arms.\n\n“Your path,” the man said, running his palm along the blade hard enough to draw blood. “You may not enter without showing your faith.”\n\nChuck stared at him for a moment, his head tilted. It had been a while since he’d been to the DMV, yes, but he didn’t recall any blood rituals. His memory wasn’t what it used to be, though. “Fine,” Chuck sighed, holding his arm back out.\n\nThe man lifted the blade and slashed it down Chuck’s wrist horizontally, splitting the skin. Blood spurted out several inches, falling back down and splattering onto the pearl tiled floor beside where the prior man’s had. It felt genuinely unpleasant, but was pretty much what he expected from the DMV. \n\n“Pass,” the man said, nodding toward the entrance to the DMV. Chuck glanced at it, a trail of dark, thick blood leading into the halls beyond. “Enter the Halls of the Department of Motor Vehicles.”\n\nChuck again shrugged his shoulders, blood spurting out of his hand. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but he had a pretty good feeling that he’d just accidentally joined a cult. He stepped forward and pulled back on the massive, steel doors to the building, the trail of blood continuing on within. He moved inside, following the specs and pools of dark, arterial blood until he reached the innards of the DMV. Within it sat dozens of people in colorful and obviously uncomfortable plastic chairs, their blood-soaked hands clutching small, paper number tickets. A counter stood above them in a hard to read location, displaying whose number was up next. Several desks sat unoccupied in the middle of the back of the room, with just one employee—a clearly angry, and overly-aggressive woman—yelling something about a driving test to a crying elderly man. Chuck nodded slowly, scanning the room. He had definitely been wrong about the cult, it was simply the DMV.\n", "Well shit...\n\nYou know that saying, \"If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything\"? Well it turns out, being an asocial, asexual, apolitical, apathetic asshole has made me too trusting. Fuck you, Todd. You are not my best friend anymore.\n\nIf you ever really were. Maybe that was just another lie to get me here.\n\nWhere is here? Here is about twelve people back from a stained copper altar that, if it were in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, would be titled, \"Naked Fat People Can't Play Twister Well.\" Behind that altar is the so-called Grand Visionate of Community of the Peoples of the United Family. Right now, he is twenty minutes in to the third forty minute initiation ritual. Because when you're a community of Peoples, you have to make sure everyone gets equal attention. Fuck you, Todd.\n\nFour months ago, for the first time in my life, I actually enjoyed the presence of another human being. I originally met Todd online while I was trolling people on Facebook. Not that I'm on Facebook. I just like to go into the Apple store on my way back from getting smokes and see which dumbass left their account open. Nothing like good \"It's complicated\" update add a little chaos to an otherwise happy marriage. But four months ago, the iPad on display was occupied. What I thought was another doofus who couldn't go five minutes without checking his social status in the world, was in fact, Todd. I watched Todd on a facebook page which was clearly not his, saying some really hurtful things to whoever's fat thirteen year old niece. It was friendship at first sight. So I thought. Fuck you, Todd.\n\nAfter a few months of hanging out, getting high, and causing a little well deserved misery to our fellow human beings; Todd tells me he'd like to introduce me to his other \"friends.\" He tells me they're like us. Real fuck society, fuck the system kind of people. Cool, I say. What he didn't tell me was that we had to drive two hours out to the middle of fucking nowhere so some asshole could put a bag over my head and then drive me another two hours to who knows where. I just know, that the first thing you do not want to see after two hours of total darkness is the underside of naked fat guy. Fuck. You. Todd.\n\nSo here I am, waiting in line to see the Grand Visionate. I see Todd right behind him shoot me a comforting smile. Asshole. The third guy just finished up. He hobbles off the altar with tears in his eyes. He looks... happy? I don't know how. Number four is stripped naked and restrained across the altar. Everyone has struggled but when the Visionate marks them, they relax and get this serene, glazed-over look like they're becoming at peace with the universe. Honestly, it sounds fucking terrible. But the worst part is what the Grand Visionate is using to mark them with. What I get to look forward to. What is being smeared all over their face and naked torso.\n\nWhat is it?\n\nWell... His shit.\n\nFuck you Todd.", "Only five minutes had passed when Alice began wishing that she had been born the opposite gender. Since she had joined the end of the line, it had only moved forward once, giving her the impression that the bathroom had no more than three stalls. The sheer number of people was to be expected; the hall was always booked with various events on the weekends. She had just wished that whatever architect who designed the place had a more thorough understanding of the ladies' restroom.\n\nShe pulled the black cloak tighter around her body. It had taken her six months just to stitch the varying sashes and symbols onto it. As an amateur seamstress, she was quite proud of the fruits of her labor, and to have to drag it into a dirty stall was a thought as unappealing as one-ply toilet paper. The twenty other individuals ahead of her wore similar robes, but theirs seemed less homemade.\n\nThey seemed to all have bought their costumes from the same manufacturer. Alice frowned disdainfully; they were probably the kind of rich cosplayers who paid absurd amounts of money for their pre-picked uniforms. She had given up her blood, sweat, and tears for her own. \n\nThe other robed individuals kept their hoods up. She considered this strange; after all, it was the middle of the summer, and the air conditioning was nowhere near as high as it should have been. As she stepped forward in line, the person ahead of her turned around. Her robe was a deep blue, with the sleeves and hems embroidered with a beautiful silver star pattern. \n\n\"Nice stitching,\" Alice remarked.\n\nThe figure pushed her hood back slightly, revealing a young woman likely in her early twenties. \"Thanks! I've chosen to follow Astrolia, obviously.\" She smiled, glancing at her costume. \"Who did you pick?\"\n\n\"I'm not familiar with that character. What franchise?\" She readjusted her cloak, as to make her hard work more visible. \"I'm Barrin, Master Wizard. You know, Magic the Gathering.\"\n\nThe woman suddenly looked angry. \"How dare you mock us?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"You're comparing us to wizards?\" Her face was growing closer to the color of her robes, and as her voice grew shriller, more of the people on line began to turn towards them. \"You heretics have no respect!\"\n\nAlice backed up, her need to pee pushed to the back of her mind by this sudden confrontation. \"Whoa, I respect all fandoms. I'm just here for the bathroom.\"\n\nThe rage dissipated. \"Bathroom?\" She asked.\n\n\"Is this not the line for the restroom?\"\n\n\"Uh, no. This is for initiation into Roghar's Shade. We're picking our gods to devote our lives to.\" The woman looked at Alice critically. \"Why are you in a robe if you're not here to declare yourself?\"\n\nAlice stared at her in horror, and then at the five people ahead of her. \"This is my cosplay for WizardCon!\"\n\n\"You're in the wrong place.\" The cultist pointed behind her. \"*That's* the line for the restroom.\"\n\nAlice turned to see a long line of women stretching from the door and wrapping around the corner. \n\n\"Well, shit.\"" ]

[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 5, 5, 9, 11, 20, 65 ]

[ "1432004872", "1432014081", "1432017031", "1432025254", "1432025456", "1432025904", "1431995803", "1431995803", "1431981373", "1431982410", "1431987214", "1431988929", "1431983024", "1431986540", "1431982570", "1431982636", "1431982290", "1431982569" ]

[ "The first elves came through expecting mithril and mana.\n\nThey found lead instead.\n\n***\n\n\"Lord Captain! Lord Captain!\" The scout burst into Firiniel's command tent, chest heaving, and snapped off a stiff salute.\n\n\"Report!\"\n\n\"They have...\" the scout panted, still saluting. \"They have... non-magic magic, sir!\"\n\n\"What? Get a hold of yourself, woman.\"\n\nThe scout caught her breath. \"They have... wands, sir, called 'guns', that loudly fire tiny bolts of incredible force at blinding speeds, except our warmages can't counterspell them. *Silence* spells don't stop them. All it does is make it easier for them to hide. And that's what they're personally equipped with, sir. They devatated us. I'm the only survivor of the scouting party.\"\n\nFiriniel swore. \"Deploy the dragons.\"\n\n***\n\n\"WHAT THE PIT DO YOU MEAN THEY KILLED OUR DRAGONS? HOW IN THE NINE HELLS DO THEY MANAGE THAT?\"\n\nThe warmage withered under Firiniel's eruption. \"Lord Captain, they... they have iron. *It doesn't hurt them.* Permission to piss myself, sir?\"\n\n\"Permission granted. Frankly, I may join you.\"", "\"Holy shit! Here comes an army of magic through a portal!\" screamed a scared engineer.\n\n\"Oh my god! They're using creatures in an attempt to conquer us!\" said another engineer. Flashing lights and the sound of an alarm filled the air as several magicians wearing black suits and top hats came marching out of a giant, stone circular portal with a shimmering blue pool of light emitting from it. There was tremendous chaos everywhere as white lab coat clad scientists and engineers wearing gray uniforms and orange hard hats scattered all over the place in a panic. There must have been at least 50 magicians that entered through the portal, and they were pulling slimy baby squid like creatures out of their top hats and throwing them at the fleeing personnel. \n\nSuddenly a tough general burst through a wall into the large, overrun room. Behind him was a group of large men in metal robot suits with guns like in Aliens. \"They came to conquer us, but they didn't expect our technology,\" the general muttered. \"Open fire men!\" he shouted as a parade of bullets flew through the air and completely obliterated the magicians in 3 seconds. All that was left of the magicians was a large pool of blood, some top hats, and a couple of baby squids squirming on the floor.\n\nThe general exited his robot suit and stepped on one of the baby squids squirming on the floor. The baby squid pooped and exploded. \"Victory is ours!\" the general screamed with a fist in the air and a lit cigar in his mouth. The men cheered in the background. \n\nEnd of story.", "A great fear comes when you live somewhere where one shift of wind could ruin everything you've worked for. Many people don't understand how close wildfires can be. The people of Raven's Peak certainly didn't, at least until Insurgency One.\n\nOn June 13th, 2023 a US Forest Service fire watchtower spotted smoke rising out of a thick Vermont Forest 52 miles from Raven's Peak and. The spotter on duty rushed inside her cabin to fetch the radio transmitter she had forgotten below. By the time she returned to the top of the tower, a pillar of purple fire far too large was blazing above the tree line.\n\nIt took 19 minutes for the first fire fighters to get to the scene. But the fire was gone by then. Instead was a clearing, nearly one mile in diameter, smoldering from the fire that came before it. And in that circle stood two large spiky beasts with three heads and two clubbed tails apiece. They were accompanied by a number of smaller creatures crouched with long necks reaching out of an armored body. Amongst them all stood three men with four arms and two wings. One of the men wore a black circlet around his head. The firefighters quickly decided that this was not their job.\n\nThe Klaxons had not sounded in Raven's Peak for some time, the last \"great\" fire was over thirty years ago, so the residents were at first confused as to what was going on around them. That confusion was enhanced by the military helicopters and planes now passing overhead. It was swept away rather quickly when every conceivable city department of something or another began to evacuate everyone from the town. Those that did not cooperate right away would be the responsibility of the Government assistance that was about to come.\n\n37 miles from Raven's Peak, the army of beasts marched on, smoldering the forest down as they went. They had seen the human planes fly overhead but they dismissed them as petty machines. Some of their forward scouts reported the human ambush that lay 19 miles ahead of them. Once again, petty machines. So they marched forward... Destroying the forest around them.\n\n*I'm on mobile right now so I can't really finish this, I'll write more later if anyone is interested.*", "\"We have a saying here. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Truly, when we were scrounging the ground for food, we would have thought that the things we have now were the work of the divine. But we moved past that. We tamed the forces of the mundane, and we made them work for us. There is nothing supernatural in our world, and I have reason to doubt there is any in yours. So, I will ask you once more. HOW DO YOU WORK?\"\n\nThe words echoed in Steele's interrogation chamber, ringing off the walls for the role purpose of being heard by the young man opposite him. Dressed in black robes, chained to his chair, and his ankles shacked together, still Lyon's eyes burned fierce.\n\n\"Pah. You speak of the divine as if it can be conquered. As if we can be conquered, our powers harnessed for your pitiful gain. But you don't know what we're capable of. What pain we shall visit upon your entire plane. We alone can traverse the space between our worlds, and we will visit a devastation upon you like that you have never seen. Our strike against your capital city of New York should be enough to prove our superiority. Now away with you. I've no more words for the weak.\"\n\nSteele couldn't help but smirk. As an expert interrogator, he was trained to show no emotion, to be as an impassive wall for the enemy to break themselves upon. Despite himself, peals of laughter rang out all across cell block B, forcing a smile from the guards. Mirth was a rare emotion here.\n\n\"Oh, my. I don't think you quite understand the scope of your failure, Lyon.\" Steele's face draw back, the practices, hard lines forming once more. \"Let me educate you. Here, we have festivals. Festivals to recreate what it would have been like to live hundreds of years ago, when our technology was worse. Back when we fought with swords, not guns. You fought and barely eked out a victory against untrained civilians with armed with replicas of equipment from ages ago. That is the scope of your world, of your military force.\"\n\n\"You're lying! Our strength is legion! We will erase your world from existence for this affront!\"\n\n\"No, you won't. To give you an idea... Do you know what this is?\" Steele produced his sidearm, pointing it at the wall behind Lyon. A deafening clap later, Steele placed the weapon back into its holster.\n\n\"These are our weapons today. Imagine a bow, if it should be shot multiple times a second and hit a target a thousand times further away. This is our mastery over the mundane, Lyon. We could have murdered you all where you stood within an hour of you arriving here. The only reason we did not was so we could learn how you do what you do. It is the only reason you are valuable to us. I will ask one last time before I turn you over to the torturer. How does your 'magic' work?\"", "\"Come! Come inside quick!\" Gartharal whispered harshly to his companions, \"Someone please silence Tellan!\" \n\nThe Zalbonian's were humanoid in appearance, about the same height as humans but with green skin and tiny ears. Several hours ago they had charged through a portal somewhere on the outskirts of Washington D.C with intention of toppling this world's most powerful nation. However within hours the local humans had mobilized a military defense and things did not fair well for the Zalbonian's. For fire does not burn metal, and force fields were cast to deflect arrows or spells. Bullets, though tiny, made quick work of them. \n\nGartharal watched as they dragged Tellan into the human structure, the hand clamped over her mouth was dripping with dark blood that almost looked blue contrasting with the green skin. Her white mage's dress was soaked in blood now as if she had been stabbed with a dagger many times over. He shook his head, the human creature had shot one blast-whatever it was- at her before he was able to kill it with an ice lance. Tellan was one of the best mage's he had ever trained and there was nothing she could do to deflect the blast, it was too sudden and too violent. \n\n\"What did they do to her?!\" Whispered another girl, Fray, her light red, nearly pink eyes darted out the window as another one of those metallic beasts screamed over head followed by the deathly \"Brrrrtttzzz! Brrrttzzz!\" of it's weaponry. Their elite dragons were like helpless butterflies compared to the speed and power of those...things. \n\n\"I cannot heal it! There is no curse! No nothing! Her flesh and-and her organs are torn to pieces!\" Their healer sobbed, he had treated many sword wounds and firebolt burns.\n\nTellan's eyes rolled into the back of her head, tears staining her smudged cheeks as her body went into shock. \n\nGartharal turned away, not in a thousand years had a high general faced such defeat. Their Axion Crystal War Machines had been destroyed. Metal that moved under its own power in all shapes and forms unleashed the fury of the earth's fire upon them that tore both soldier and earth to pieces. He watched as another one of those flying beasts reigned a streak of red hell flame to the earth. How could it be so precise? No energy wasted, each action was pure death. Perhaps that was the true nature of this realm...the realm where death resides. His Kingdom had made a grave mistake. " ]

[ 1, 3, 9, 11, 23 ]

[ "1432110446", "1432074408", "1432068692", "1432066643", "1432063469" ]

[ "Joey sniffed, wiping his runny nose on the back of his hand before scrubbing the hand against his jeans. He pulled at the messenger bag slung over his shoulder before pushing his way out the school doors and into the throng of students newly released from class. A shove between his shoulders caught him off-balance and he crashed to the sidewalk, sending his glasses flying as his messenger bag spilled out books and papers alike. \n\n\nA laugh rippled through the students nearby. Joey snatched up his schoolwork and swept his gaze around, but to find his glasses he needed to *have* his glasses. He finally saw the tell-tale shine of the thick lenses and grabbed them before a burly senior could crush the frames with a careless step. As he fitted them to his face, Joey scuttled away from the crowded doorway and began his walk home. \n\n\nAs he waited for the crossing guard to give the signal, Joey attempted to return his bag to its proper state of orderliness. \"Pssst,\" he heard from behind him. Startled, Joey turned to see an elderly man in an electric wheelchair leaning forward in his seat and beckoning Joey to approach. Obediently, Joey stepped forward. \n\n\n\"Can I help you?\" he asked politely. \n\n\n\"Don't think so,\" the elderly man said matter-of-factly. \"But maybe I can help you.\" \n\n\nJoey raised an eyebrow. The old man glared through his bifocals and snapped with sudden vigor, “Boy, I saw you get knocked down just now. You’re a dweeb, kid, and you need help. I may not look like it, but in my day I was quite the ladies’ man. Here.” With a clawing motion, the old man grabbed at his chest and pushed a handful of what seemed like empty air toward Joey. The boy automatically put his hands out to catch it. Though he couldn't see anything, it felt like he was suddenly holding a glob of gelatin. The invisible substance dissolved into his arms and disappeared. Joey looked up at the old man, who was grinning triumphantly. \n\n\n“There ya go!” the oldster said with a cackle. “No more Mister Dweeb now! From now on, when you look at a girl she’s gonna get all hot ‘n bothered. If you smile at her, she’s gonna drop her panties right then and there. I’m too old to use that voodoo spell anymore. It’s better that I pass it on before I pass away!” He laughed raucously at his own joke, drawing the dubious glances of the teens waiting to cross. With one hand he gave Joey a mock salute, and with the other he steered the wheelchair across the road, radiating satisfaction at having helped a young man who so obviously needed it. \n\n\nJoey stood, mouth gaping open, staring after the old man. “But… but… “ he protested to the empty air. “I… I’m gay!”\n", "I adjust my glasses in the mirror at the back of my locker and focus it behind me, to where the two most popular girls were standing. *Well, let's have some fun, shall we? Then I can go home and play some Smash.* I close my red locker door, and turn around, facing the two girls. \n\n\"Hey girls. Either one of you want to come home with me tonight? I'm holding a Super Smash Bros. tournament. I'm Jason, by the way.\" I say confidently, watching both girls snicker. \n\nI smile flirtatiously at them, turning on an ability that some cruel god has cursed me with, and the suddenly are both nervous. \"I'm Lyn.\"\n\n\"And I'm Katie.\" \n\n*And together, you have the IQ of negative twenty!*\n\n\"Either one of you want to play some video games with me tonight? Just got a new N64.\" I tell them, and both answer me yes. \n\n\"Lyn, why don't you give us a ride home?\" I say to the blond girl. She's slightly taller than me, seventeen, and what everyone else considers 'hot'. Katie though, she's shorter than me by a few inches, and has short, brown hair. Much more in my leauge. *Maybe you shouldn't do this as often as you do.* \n\n\"Sure, Jason.\" Lyn agrees, her voice shaky. \n\nWe walk to her convertible, my arm around Katie, and jump in. Katie sits beside me and starts massaging around my thigh. I push her hand back and smile. \n\n\"No, no. That's not allowed.\" I say to Katie, who looks insulted, but continues at it. \n\nI just shake my head and look to my right, my smile turning into a frown when I see Ben. He's trying to get his bike unlocked from the rack and I glance down at the ground. *I should have asked him to play.* My stomach jumps and I look back at Katie, her breasts, her soft face, lips; and resist the urge to puke. \n\n*I thought I could do it tonight.* I sigh, and quickly turn the charm off, confusing the two girls, and cursing my attractions. *At least they didn't give these powers to a straight guy.* I hop out of the convertible without a word and walk over, standing behind Ben, catching my breath. \n\n\"Uh... hey Ben.\" I say quietly, and watch as he turns around. His familiar shaggy brown hair covering his eyes. I silently look into those light blue eyes; they have always been my favorite part of him.\n\n\"Oh, hey Jason. I thought you were going home with Katie and Lyn.\" \n\n\"No, I thought it would be a better night if... uh... If you wanted to come over instead?\" I ask, my stomach clenching. This is so much easier with girls. \n\nBen and I are in the same classes, and have always gotten along. He hasn't had many friends since he came out last year.\n\n\"Sure. I have nothing better to do.\" he replies, smiling. \n\nI bend down and help him with his bike lock, then exit the school's parking lot. *I can literally make any girl fall in love with me- lust after me- and here I am.*\n\n\"So... have you ever played Smash?\" I turn, grinning, holding back my nervousness.\n\n\"Dude; you don't even know.\" " ]

[ 2, 17 ]

[ "1432235149", "1432076128" ]

[ "A large space ship loomed not far overhead. It blotted out the sky for most of downtown, casting a darkness over the city. Some people panicked, others were frozen with fear. When a loud siren emitted from the ship, everyone erupted in a pandemonium. They knew, they knew it was over. The world they knew would end.\n\nThen they beamed down.\n\nAt first people looked in awe at the mushroom-shaped aliens. Their fear then turned to confusion as they shuffled slowly, their attempt to walk. There was about a dozen of them, and they were pink or gray, covered in what looked like hair and wrinkles. As they shuffled their heads wobbled side to side, as if being shaken. Confusion turned to amusement as they then heard the noises the mushroom aliens were making as they shuffled.\n\n\"WOBBLE WOBBLE WOBBLE\"\n\nThey shuffled and wobbled until they reached city hall, where they were met by an array of police officers armed to the teeth. They pointed their weapons at the intruding aliens, ready to fire at a moment's notice. Curiously, the biggest alien wobbled forward, then stood at attention. It grew in size as it stood in front of the phalanx of armed offiers, it grew until it resembled an eight foot erect penis. The alien, who was most likely breathing, throbbed as it stood there. Then, it spoke. \n\n\"AYYYY BUMBACLOT!\"\n\nThe police couldn't hold their laughter. Many dropped their weapons as they keeled over, laughing heartily. Their laughter only grew as all of the other aliens grew to resemble eight foot erect penises. With a snort, the aliens went on their way, saying \"WOBBLE WOBBLE WOBBLE\" as they stood erect.\n\nThe aliens were notable for making weird noises. In their way, they were merely greeting the people of Earth, but to humans, they looked ridiculously hilarious. A meeting with the president of the United States took a peculiar turn as the erect alien began shouting \"BUMCUDDLE\" AND \"BUMDRIZZLE\" into the microphone. The president failed to contain his amusement.\n\nThe peculiar aliens would eventually leave in frustration, confounded as to why the people of Earth kept never seemed to take them seriously. They came in peace, but the Earthlings would always point and laugh, ignoring the aliens' pleas. When the race of planet reapers came and destroyed Earth a few weeks later, the mushroom aliens could only look on from afar and do nothing. Earth did not heed their words of warning. If only they listened, they would have had a chance.", "The fantastic gleaming structure languidly hovered over the huddled masses of times square. \n\nNone had imagined that this ordinary day, would be the day of first contact.\n\nHundreds fell to the ground in paroxysms of spiritual awakening. How could such unimaginable beauty exist? The structure, lazily and confidently shifting through nth dimensional geometry and patterns of light.\n\nA solitary beam touched the asphalt, the people prostrating themselves instantly as god himself descended along the pillar of light.\n\nThe alien looked on in joy, another planet of subjects to adore him, to love him, to respect him. He would bring light to this backwards world and his name would echo in their eternity.\n\nGracefully the 10 foot tall anuboid figure descended, it seemed as though even the ground deferred to him as his fetishistically beautiful feet touched upon the earth.\n\nThe prostrated humans dared not to look up at his glory as he opened his speech organ to declare his patronage of this blighted land.\n\nOut of his rear the loudest, smelliest, slobberiest fart emanated for nearly a minute, crescendoing and softly tapering out, ending with a wet burping sound.\n\nAll was silent.\n\nA child looked up, smirking uncontrollably, loudly he queried \"Mommy, did he just fart?\".\n\nThe mob trembled, lips uncontrollably turning upwards, erupting in convulsions of laughter.\n\nPointing and laughing uncontrollably.\n\nThe alien being stood in silence as the laughs echoed along the tall buildings, taking in the ridicule, the contempt. Rage built in his heart.\n\nThe solar system that once held the planet called earth is now nothing more than a cloud of asteroids and nebulae.", "\"They foretold their coming\", he said. \n\nUnsure of what he meant, I tilted my head quizzically. \n\n\"Who is they?\", I barked with a sense of desperation. \n\nHe let me know he heard me with a nod, but stared silently at the TV. I saw what I saw, but I couldn't believe it. It seemed like one dumb joke. But there it was in my face, being broadcast around the world. Some sick caricature-like creature has come to our planet. \n\n\"Answer me!\" I growled, more upset with the fact that no one knew what was going on than his silence. \n\nI gave up, turned to the TV and raised the volume. \n\nJust then he muttered \"you know, we use to pass around a joke on the internet about them\". \n\nIt dawned on me slowly. There was this uncanny likeness to this cartoon I had seen once before. The site escaped me but I remember the context. It was some sort of internet gag or troll.\n\n\"Dickbutt is real!\", he said, almost chanting it. I could hear the conviction in his voice, as he was telling a truth he had known all along. I immediately questioned my friendship with him. Why did I choose such people in my life? I grew angry in my mind to think my idiot friend believes some joke on the internet is part of some conspiracy or prophecy. I was just about to tear into him, explain how this is just some coincidence, to be mature, all the things I could only scream in my mind when I was interrupted. The newscaster gasped, and reported the mayhem that was ensuing in the city. \n\nShe said it, and I understood immediately we where doomed. Our alien friends where not amused by our laughter. Humanities humor and immaturity was our end. I always thought it would be some nuclear disaster, plague, something us.\nLaughter killed us all. \n\nThe attacks of our extra-terrestrial friends was lethally comical. They seemed to spit this acidic liquid from an appendage on their posterior. It wiggled before each burst! The fools never stood a chance, their laughter was incessant and ultimately fatal. I saw crowds melted down with the shiny liquid. It was surreal to hear both laughter in terror in the crowd. The camera man was in utter stitches when they came and got him. As the camera fell to the floor, the newsroom burst into laughter, then it literally burst and the team screamed in horror as they melted away. They where hunting us. Hunting anyone who dared laughed and here I was, sitting next to the biggest stoner dummy I knew. \n\n\"We're all getting screwed by Dickbutt\", he grinned then burst into laughter. The ground shook almost on queue. Then it hit me, like a brick to the face. The name that had escaped me. Was it my own selfish need to place blame for this disaster that caused me to remember in my final moments? Was this epiphany or moment of clarity my one last feeble attempt to sooth my rational mind? I uttered my last words, \"Reddit\".", "\"Look, we need someone who has no sense of humor to take over as Ambassador.\"\n\nThe President sat silently in his chair, with his fingers interlocked over his mouth. He slowly unclasped his hands and said, \"How... How bad is it? How funny are they?\"\n\n\"Well sir, uhm, take a look at this youtube video...\"\n\nThe President took the tablet in his hands and pressed play. He saw two normal looking, yet strangely dressed, humans walking towards a crossing guard. The crossing guard, unaware that these visitors were from another planet, asked plainly where they intended to go. Immediately, the aliens turned their backsides to the crossing guards, bent over, spread their butt cheeks, and began speaking to the guard as if they were in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Before every word, an audible fart noise could be heard, prompting the crossing guard to laugh even harder. Eventually, the Alien leaders shrugged and walked away from the guard.\n\nThe President was in tears.\n\n\"It's not done sir...\"\n\nThe Aliens reenter the frame, and approach the crossing guard again. Again, they bend over, and begin speaking to the guard through their buttocks. This time, one of the Aliens sneezes, and a full key lime pie flies out of his mouthrectum and hits the guard in the face.\n\n\"He... He just shot a pie out of his ass. A pie. His Ass. A PIE FROM HIS ASS.\"\n\nThe president's aid nodded solemnly.\n\n\"Now you see what we have to deal with, sir. What... who should we have talk to him?\"\n\nThe President thought for a few minutes. Then it came to him.\n\n\"Get me Jim Carrey!\"", "\"They're cat girls, Mr President,\" said the Secret Service Agent.\n\n\"Cat girls?\" asked the President.\n\n\"Yes sir, cat girls,\" said the agent, \"In maid outfits.\"\n\nThe president had to take that in for a moment. The stood by his desk in the oval office overlooking the lawn. A small alien shuttle craft they had been waiting for weeks after first contact by radio had landed near the kitchen garden. As though first contact with an alien race was trying to find a discrete place to park. The creatures, not too tall but very attractive, disembarked wearing a vast array of colourful maid outfits. It looked like the White House lawn was being overtaken by a cosplay convention. \n\nThen the President asked, \"Do they all wear maid outfits?\"\n\n\"All we have seen so far, Mr President,\" said the agent, \"Including their males. They look pretty much the same as the girls, except they don't have breasts.\"\n\n\"Are they cute?\" asked the President.\n\n\"The first lady has gone 'Squee' Mr. President,\" said the agent. \n\n\"Oh dear,\" said the President, \"When she went squeee did she do that thing with her hands that sort of looks like jazz hands?\" \n\n\"She made a little heart with her thumbs and forefingers Mr. President,\" said the agent. \n\n\"That's not good,\" said the President, \"Right, let's get out there and meet them.\"\n\nThe alien dignitaries were milling about the garden, looking very attractive and friendly. The Whitehouse staff stood by the entrance near the West Wing. They laughed and giggled amongst themselves as they pointed to the dignitaries. All the female staff stood up front trying to get the closest look. Whenever they spotted one of the male dignitaries they waved, cheered, and made little heart symbols with their thumbs and forefingers. When one of the cat boys waved back one of the ladies nearly fainted. \n\n\"He's so *cuuute*!\" she exasperated. \n\nThe President rolled his eyes and wished his press secretary was a little more stoic. \n\nThe shortest of all the male dignitaries, and the most elaborately dressed, approached the president. He was flanked by two taller cat girls with cleavage more than large enough to be distracting. The President had to exercise to a great deal of mental discipline to maintain eye contact, as well as fighting the urge to laugh. The jeers coming from the vice President and his male staff was not helping. \n\nUp close the tiniest of the male dignitaries appeared to be a beautiful boy. His maid outfit was so colourful and adorned with so many elaborate accessories he looked more like a magical girl suited to fight mythical monsters. His cat ears were definitely accessories worn on his crown as he had very human looking ears on the side of his head, both of which pierced with beautiful earrings. Confidently the small cat boy approached the President with a dignified look. \n\n\"Greetings Mr. President,\" he said as he held up a tiny hand. \n\nFor just a moment the President contemplate should he shake the cat boy's hand or kiss it like he was a princess. He went for a dignified manly shake. This caused an eruption off camera flashes and cheers coming from all around. \n\n\"I am Ambassador Qunhua, and behalf of my planet and my people, we greet you,\" said the Ambassador. \n\n\"Greetings Ambassador,\" said the President, putting on a smile.\n\nFor a moment the President was relieved things were going smoothly, but that was interrupted by a chorus of laughter coming from the onlookers around the West Wing. \n\nThe President glanced at his staff for a moment, then he lowered his voice to address the Ambassador. \n\n\"Listen, I'm really sorry about this,\" said the President, pointing to his staff. \n\n\"That's okay,\" said cat boy Qunhua, \"We expected this.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said cat boy Qunhua, \"There is no such thing as an intelligent species without a sense of humour. If you didn't laugh, we never would have contacted you.\"\n\n\"So was all this a test to see if we had a sense of humour?\" asked the President.\n\n\"Unfortunately, no,\" said cat boy Qunhua, \"When we first intercepted your television signals in space it turns out our queen and ruler is a huge fan of anime. So she ordered all the dignitaries to dress like this.\" \n\n\"Oh.\"\n\nThe ambassador waved his hand to move the conversation along.\n\n\"So if you can round up some cute guys in maid outfits to come back with us to temporarily serve as her harem, that would make our queen *really* happy. Like... happy enough to share all our technology and stuff with you.\"\n\n\"Right,\" said the president, \"So you're not like conquerors or invaders looking for resources.\"\n\nCat boy Qunhua wave his head dismissively, \"The universe is lousy with resources. What we need are cat boys in maid outfits.\" \n\nThe President thought for a moment and asked, \"What does you Queen look like?\" \n\nThe ambassador pointed to the two beautiful voluptuous cat maid on either side of him and said, \"Kind of a taller bigger breasted version of these two.\"\n\n\"How much taller?\" asked the President.\n\n\"Oh, about eight feet tall,\" said cat boy Qunhua, \"With of course cat ears. And wings, too, but they're just cosmetic.\"\n\n\"I think its doable,\" said the President. \n\n\"Great!\" said cat boy Qunhua as he slapped his hands together as he anticipated a successful negotiation. \n\nThe two started to pace about the garden negotiating early stages of trade talks. The women were still giggling unrelentingly from the West Wing. In the middle of a trade talk the ambassador suddenly remembered some important piece of etiquette and relayed it to the President.\n\n\"Oh when you find these men who are going to meet the queen, tell them it's polite to maintain eye contact with her breasts at all times.\"\n\n\"Stare *at* her breasts?\" asked the President.\n\n\"Yes\", said cat boy Qunhua, \"When you're addressing her always talk straight to her boobs.\" \n\n\"I think your people definitely landed on the right planet,\" said the President.", "\"Sir, they all look like… They all look like ayy lmao.\"\n\nThe president stared back at his secretary, frowning. \"They look like what?\"\n\n\"Ayy lmao, sir\", the secretary repeated, trying to mask a chuckle in a cough. \"It's a… It's an internet thing. Here, I \ncan –\"\n\n\"I'll google it, thanks\", the president said. \"Send them it. And, Jeffrey…\"\n\nSecretary Jeffrey Williams stopped by the door. \"Yes, Mr. President?\"\n\n\"Grow up. You work at the White House.\"\n\nNodding, the secretary left, still trying hard to mask his laughter.\n\n*Aliens visit us and he's thinking about internet memes*, the president thought, leaning back on the chair.\n\n*What the hell is ayy lmao, anyway?*\n\nHe clicked open Google and typed it. Before the page could load, however, there was another knock on the door.\n\n\"Come in\", the president said. The door opened to the Alien Overlord and his servants.\n\nThey were gray and small and big headed, and they wore plastic suits with long shoulder pads sprouting left and \nright away from their necks, making their chests look wider than they probably were.\n\n\"Please, Mr. President\", the Overlord said, in a low tone. \"There's no need to get up.\"\n\nThe president sat back on the chair and, across from him, so did the aliens.\n\n\"There is much for us to discuss\", the Overlord said, offering the president a smile. \"We are honored to be here.\"\n\n\"Yes, so much\", the president answered. \"I think we sh –\"\n\nOn the screen in front of him, Google Images loaded his search. A mosaic of several pictures of big headed aliens \nmaking weird faces filled the frame.\n\nThe president chuckled.\n\n\"Is… something wrong, Mr. President?\" The Overlord asked, frowning.\n\n\"No, no\", the president answered, pulling himself together. \"Ayy'm fine.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I mean *I*'m fine. Let us… Let's begin.\"\n\n\"Well, our people feel like we should start –\"\n\nBut now the president openly laughed, and the Overlord, again, stopped himself. \"Mr. President, are you sure that \neverything is all right?\"\n\nAgain, the president took a deep breath. \"Yeah. Yeah, it's just that…\" The president looked from the Overlord to his \nservants to the computer screen. Ridley's Scott's Alien was hanging upside down facing Sigourney Weaver. Just by \nits side were the letters 'Ayy' and the letters 'Lmao'.\n\n\"You humans have been… making that weird, throaty sound when you see us quite frequently. I understand this is \na cultural symbol of mocking, is it not?\"\n\n\"No, no. Look\", the president said, turning the screen to the Overlord. \"It's just we have this thing, this pictures on \nthe inter –\"\n\n\"That's my cousin!\" The Overlord uttered, pointing at the screen. \"Where did you get that picture?\"\n\nThe president looked from the alien to the computer screen. \"Your cousin?\" He asked, trying so, so hard not to smirk or chuckle.\n\nThe Overlord got up. \"This is outrageous. You take pictures of our people and you use them to make silly jokes on \nyour silly little network? I don't have to put up with this!\"\n\nTrying hard not to look at a picture of a meeting of Aliens all saying 'Ayy lmao' to one another onscreen, the president got up to his feet. His face felt hot and red from holding back laughter.\n\n\"Please don't think we think of you as a joke\", he managed to get out, under his breath. \"We take this matter very seriously.\"\n\n\"We have to contact the people in my planet\", the Overlord said. He turned to his servants. \"Go back to the ship \nright away.\"\n\n\"Wait. Please. I'm so sorry about our behavior.\"\n\nOne of the servants turned to the Overlord. \"What do we do there?\"\n\nIt was taking all of the president's strength not to look back at the screen or laugh. He waited in silence for the \nOverlord to give his order.\n\n\"Phone home\", the Overlord said, simply.\n\n\"Oh, fuck it\", the president said, collapsing back to the chair and peeing his pants.\n\n", "\"They're clowns.\"\n\n\"They're not clowns, sir.\"\n\n\"They *look* like clowns.\"\n\n\"Yes, but they're *not.*\"\n\nThe Prime Minister pulled at his collar as the first of the aliens waddled out of their spaceship, that looked far too small to hold even *one* of them. They were clowns. They were definitely, definitely clowns. Big, red noses, garish clothing, enormous, paddle-shaped feet. Clowns. No other way to say it. *Clowns.*\n\nWith each step they took, their feet squeaked. The Prime Minister bit his tongue as the first of a group of three approached. \"Prime Minister!\" it proclaimed. \"I greet you! I am Ambassador Kaspooglebip, of the Boopadoop Union, and I have traveled far to meet your people!\"\n\n\"And it is a great honor to meet your people, the...\" The Prime Minister coughed, hiding his grin behind a fist. \"Boopadoops.\" He couldn't do it. Oh god, it wasn't going to work. It would have been so much easier if they weren't *cross-eyed.*\n\nKaspooglebip produced something seemingly from out of thin air: long, red, rubbery, unmistakably an uninflated balloon. In a few short seconds, the Boopadoop had inflated, tied off, and twisted the balloon into something that resembled a... a giraffe with wings. It offered the balloon animal to the Prime Minister. \"A Beepanananana!\" Kaspooglebip said, reverence in his squeaky voice. \"The proud ruler of the Skappadoowappa forests!\"\n\n*If I bite my tongue any harder, I am going to start bleeding,* the Prime Minister thought to himself as he took the balloon Beepanananana. \"Thank you,\" he said. \"A remarkable gift. I am sure that we have much to share with one another. Technology, culture, technology, history, technology...\"\n\n\"All in due time, Prime Minister, but first!\" Kaspooglebip stepped aside, holding his cartoonish hands out to indicate the two Boopadoops that had accompanied him. \"It is Boopadoop custom to, in times of first contact, illustrate our glorious history through a historical dance!\"\n\n\"Of - of course,\" the Prime Minister said, handing the Beepanananana to his aide. \"Please, go right ahead.\"\n\n\"With the greatest pleasure!\" Kaspooglebip said.\n\nThen he pulled an accordion out of his pocket and started to play.\n\nAs soon as the 'dance' started, the Prime Minister knew that he wasn't going to last very long. It was a slapstick comedy routine, with all the staples of the Three Stooges. Eye poking, tripping, squirting flowers, wedgies. Back and forth, the clowns subjected each other to the pinnacle of comedic violence. The Prime Minister's aide snorted when one of the clowns gave the other a can of peanuts containing springy fake snakes that jumped out at the excited clown when it was opened.\n\nThen, one of the clowns reached into its trousers and pulled out a very large fish, which it used to smack the other one. This incited the other clown to produce its own fish to use as a blunt instrument, and the battle continued. After a bit of back and forth, one of the clowns was on the ground, as the victorious clown gave it a few more parting whacks just to be sure.\n\nThe dance completed, the clown bowed to its audience.\n\nKaspooglebip smiled expectantly at the Prime Minister, who stared in perfect silence at the scene before him.\n\nA few seconds later, he started laughing.\n\n-------\n\nAmbassador Kaspooglebip stormed up the ramp to the Boopadoop warship titled 'The Bucket of Lauff's', his big feet squeaking up a storm as massive tears rolled down his cheeks. \"Captain Horkaforkl!\" he yelled. \"Get us off this *wretched* planet!\"\n\n\"Aye, ambassador,\" responded the captain. She relayed the order to the bridge, and a few short seconds later, the deceptively small ship lifted off the ground and left the atmosphere. \"It went poorly?\"\n\n\"Poorly!\" Kaspooglebip laughed. \"Horrendously! They *laughed* at the Dance of the Endless War!\"\n\n\"I am sorry to hear that, ambassador,\" the captain said. \"One day, we will find a world that does not laugh at our history.\"\n\n\"Not on this day!\" Kaspooglebip cried. \"Captain, I am in a poor mood. This planet has irritated me.\"\n\n\"It will be dealt with, sir,\" Horkaforkl said. \"Would you like to do the honors yourself?\"\n\nKaspooglebip sniffled. \"Yes, I would quite like that. Thank you, captain.\"\n\nTogether, they went to the bridge, where the Bucket of Lauff's crew buzzed like squeaky bees. Smack dab in the center of the room sat a pedestal, upon which was a large, bright red button. Kaspooglebip stood in front of the button, staring down at it with a horrible light in his crossed eyes. \"Is it ready?\"\n\n\"Armed and prepared to fire, sir,\" Horkaforkl answered. \"Whenever you're ready.\"\n\nKaspooglebip didn't wait. He brought his hand down on the button, and the shrill honk filled the entire bridge. Far below, a hatch on the exterior of the warship opened, and a missile shot out towards the blue planet that grew more and more distant with each passing second.\n\nThe world-ending missile, shaped like a fish, swam through the void towards its target.", "When we first made contact, we were scared. All of us. We were but infants compared to them, their technology millions of years ahead of ours. There was panic and rioting in the streets, religious leaders called their followers to repent, mass suicides spread. The Da'enk Měməs had come. We had surrendered immediately. There was no point in fighting. We lay in wait with our white flags and our hands above our heads, looking towards the sky, waiting for their descendence. \n \n \n Then, clear as day, we all saw it. A huge purple dildo, floating, slowly moving towards Earth, followed by many smaller pink dildos. At first, we were all confused. Was this the mighty race of the Měməs? Then, music started to resonate throughout the planet. Their anthem. \"DO THE HARLEM SHAKE!\" Laughter replaced fear, which enraged the Měməs. They spoke, in their own language, which unfortunately sounded like farts. By the time the message translated, it was too late. Nobody was listening. The secret service was struggling to stand, unable to contain their laughter. The president, his face red, picked up his mega phone, and said \"In the wise words of former President Schwarzenegger, Hasta La Vista, baby\" and nuke upon nuke was fired on the dildo armada. \n \n \n \nThe president stood among the smoke, proud of his new military division, making nukes using explosives themself as fuel, causing a bigger explosion. This new fuel had become the standard, even for commercial airlines, as they could be remotely detonated, thus preventing a future 9/11. As the dust cleared, we all realized our mistake. How wrong we were. And how much that had cost us. Farts echoed across the Earth, and the world waited in anticipation for the final words this race would let them hear. The emotionless robotic voice of the translator spoke \n \n \n \n \n\"YOU FOOLS\" it boomed. \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\"JET FUEL CANT MELT DA'ENK MĚMƏS\" " ]

[ 2, 3, 6, 16, 22, 43, 89, 241 ]

[ "1432235197", "1432257085", "1432219035", "1432220216", "1432227973", "1432215003", "1432214868", "1432211722" ]

[ "Decimation.\n\n10% of the world's population dead.\n\nThat is the definition of decimation.\n\nI remember when I was 11 or 12, there was this thing called Occupy Wall Street. I grew up in New York City, and everyday for what seemed like forever we would walk past these protesters. They were chanting \"We are the 99%! We are the 99%!\", and I remember thinking how stupid it was to reduce yourself to a number, a percentage....but here I am. I am a number. I am the 10%. \n\nThey said either 10% volunteer, or 25% dies and then 10% of what's left after that has to volunteer or another 25% will die. \n\nWhat were we supposed to do? What was I supposed to do? We were given 2 weeks to organize our \"Saviors\". It was day 13, 5 hours left, and we had 3%, I thought for sure that we were doomed, but I thought, I would put my name down and be noble. I figured there was no way, no fucking way, that we would get up to 10%. At least I'd look really good, and maybe I'd get lucky and I wouldn't be in the 25% that got blown off the face of the Earth. I'd live to see another day and be a hero on the other side of history.\n\n5 hours, 5 fucking hours and 490,000,000 people volunteered to meet their own demise. I didn't ask for this. It wasn't supposed to be fucking possible. I don't want this. There has to be someone else who will take my place. There has to. I'm 27, I'm too young to die. This is fucking bullshit. I should be worried about my student loans and trying to find a decent woman. I shouldn't be sitting here doing a..a...A FUCKING EXIT INTERVIEW so you ARROGANT FUCKING SELFISH ASSHOLES can make a GODDAMN DOCUMENTARY on the \"SAVIORS\" OF THE HUMAN RACE! And thanks for calling it an \"Exit Interview\" like I'm being fired from a job and not being blown off the fucking face of the Earth.\n\nYa know, I got in a car wreck in High School, well I had graduated about a week before it actually. Anyways, I hydroplaned my car into a retaining wall. Had a burn rash on my left forearm from the airbag, got a taste of Whiplash, but other than that I was fine. Totaled an SUV, but waked away with barely a scratch. I guess that was the first time i questioned my own mortality. It was a miracle I wasn't killed. Now, here I am, an hour for death, and the only thing I can think of is when I almost died before. \n\nI didn't tell my family I was on the list...I didn't know what to say. Now, they'll just think I'm a silent hero, and not this whimpering coward. \n\nAm I supposed to be getting some form of closure from this? Yeah you know what? Fuck this, I'm done. I'm not sacrificing myself sober. I don't give a rat's ass if you do have another 20 minutes to interview me before prep time. You can interview that fucking wall behind me or you can sit here and talk to the damn camera yourself. Contemplate the meaning and value of your life. Apparently it's worth more than mine. Adios muchachos, kiss my ass and enjoy your long and prosperous life.", "This is my first WP response. Be kind.\n\n\"ATTENTION ALL HEROES, THE RECKONING WILL BEGIN IN 4 HOURS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR BRAVERY AND SACRIFICE, YOU WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.\" glared the loudspeakers in the city.\n\n They were calling us heroes. All 0.8 billion of us who agreed to die to save the rest of humanity. They called this whole shindig The Reckoning and it was all over the news and the streets. They were offering massive benefits for anyone who volunteered to be a Hero. Retirement for my parents, Alzheimers treatment for my Aunt, tuition for my brother, even a trust in my name that I can pass to my kids.\n\nI sigh, sitting in my home. Surrounded by my family. Like a coma patient in a hospital room. They know in a few hours I will be gone. At first they fought the idea, they would not allow me to basically commit suicide in exchange for money. But after enough convincing, telling them my sacrifice was necessary they understood. I was never a smart man, hell never really a good man either. Ive done my fair share of crime in my old days. I was a cop now. A redeemed man, I figured. Then my partner died, my brother got sick, some fat cats on Wall Street sunk my parents pension and my house was about to be foreclosed. Life was coming to a screeching halt for me, and what happens when life hits the brakes? I hit the liquor and the cards, which was a particularly stupid idea. I was never eally good at cards or never really had any good luck. \n\nSo that was my life, and the reason why I signed up for the Reckoning. Funny, I was part of the first 50,000 heroes signed up, meaning my name was going to be added to this nice big plaque in Memorial Park. Pretty cool I guess, being up there with vietnam vets and politicians. Kids and tourists will walk by my name, instructed to be silent for a minute for all the heroes we lost. AlexTheS0ck, 38. \n\n\"ATTENTION ALL HEROES, THE RECKONING WILL BEGIN IN 1 HOUR, SHUTTLES HAVE BEEN DEPLOYED, PLEASE SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR LOVED ONES AND FOLLOW YOUR OFFICER TO THE RECKONING CENTER.\"\n\nI poured myself a nice tall Blue Label. I was able to afford it with the stipend I got for volunteering. I take a small sip and it kicks me in the face. Very smooth. I finish the whole thing and pour another, might as well.\n\n\"ATTENTION ALL HEROES, THE RECKONING WILL BEGIN IN HALF AN HOUR, PLEASE SAY GOODBYE AND WAIT FOR AN OFFICER TO ESCORT YOU TO THE CENTER. THERE WILL BE NO ADDITIONAL TIME GIVEN. PLEASE BE READY TO LEAVE IMMEDIATELY.\"\n\nA cruiser pulls up outside. Thats for me. My parents start to cry, my brothers just sitting, disgusted. My aunt is making tea, because she ahs no idea whats happening or who I am. THey yell at me to just leave. I do. The officer opens the door for me. I sit down and we drive to city hall. We get there and a large tent was built in front. I see a bunch of the other Heroes lined up, scared, the ones begging the officers to reconsider were restrained and moved to the front of the line. I just stand up and get in back. I open up my old flask of Jim Bean, not as good as Blue Label but itll do. Funny to think this will be the alst thing I taste\n\nThe mayor comes to the stage. For the usual PR and kissing ass, reminding us that we are all heroes, our deaths will be painless and our lvoed ones will be well taken care of. I take a few more sips. \n\n\"ATTENTION ALL HEROES. THE RECKONING WILL BEGIN SHORTLY. PLEASE MOVE INTO THE DESIGNATED ZONE AND STAND STILL. WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR SACRIFICE. YOU WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN.\"\n\nMy breathing gets heavier as I take a few steps into the large gas chambers. I step inside along with 200 other Heroes and the door shuts. The lights shut off and I hear that damm voice for the last time.\n\n\"Heroes. All of you. Heroes. Remember that for as long as we will remember you.\"\n\nWell, thats good to know." ]

[ 1, 2 ]

[ "1432267309", "1432237716" ]

[ "\"You know, my last owner always said I was sharp and edgy. He was such an -\"\n\n\"Please, could you save it for later?\" I beg Lilarcor.\n\nWhen I first heard tale of the blade, I was determined to seek it out and wield it for myself. The rumors only told of it's mystical prowess - a blade that could dance on its own, faster than the most skilled swordsman could wield it. I had crossed half a continent in search of it, braving the Calim Desert and the forestfolk of Morthil, not to mention the other minor perils. I had learned more about my quest during my travels. One reticent traveller told me that the blade had a personality of its own. I regarded his tale with equal parts skepticism and fancy, but it reinvigorated my efforts to find the object of my obsession.\n\nWhen I finally found Lilarcor, he was sheathed in a shallow pool in a cavern just outside Nashkel. He asked me about myself the moment I let his steel taste air, so suddenly that I nearly dropped him back into the water. \"I may be an intelligent sword, but I've had no formal edumication,\" he would joke. It turned out, to my dismay, that he refused be brandished by the air. Apparently a firm grip is \"more comfortable.\" That isn't to suggest he wasn't useful - he could cut through armor like it was, in his words, \"hot butta.\" Even so, his personality had slowly drained my patience. I'd keep him sheathed, except the longer he's cooped up the angrier he gets when I let him out.\n\n\"Can we go kill something now, huh?\" The claymore asks for what must be the thousandth time. \n\n\"Fine! We're almost at the gnoll's stronghold anyway. We'll kill all the gnolls you want.\"\n\n\"Now! Now! Kill something now!! Yeah!\" Gods, this sword is an ass.\n\n***\n\nWe quickly reach the entrance of the stronghold, which is eerily empty. As we track into the fort, seeking the prizes inside, I hear an echoing howl. I steel myself as a party of gnolls descends upon us. \"You deal,\" he says, \"I'll cut!\"\n\nBattle with Lilarcor is a blur, punctuated only by his abrupt cries and quips. \"YOINK! Got your nose!\" he says as he strikes the first gnoll across the snout. And after I pull him from the second's chest he exclaims with glee, \"we got a gusher!\" In moments the four gnolls lie beaten at my feet, and me without a scratch.\n\nDeeper into the stronghold we go, as I reflect and process the battle that just took place. \"Lil,\" I say, \"Did it seem to you like they actually wanted to fight us?\"\n\n\"Oh yeah! Some of my finest work!\"\n\n\"It seemed to me that they were more interested in getting past us than getting at us. Like they were running from something.\"\n\n\"Boooo-ring!\"\n\n\"I'm serious, I thin-\" I cut myself short as a deafening roar fills the hall. It comes from an ominous archway lined with larger-than-life teeth; a human skull adorns the cornerstone. I put on a brave face and descend the stairway through the door, as Lilarcor mutters, \"you can't be serious...\"\n\nAt the bottom of the stairs is a wide chamber, but rather than scoping for details my eyes focus on the massive black dragon looming before me. A sentence echoes through my mind. \"Hello, puny creature. I've been expecting you.\"\n\nI gulp. \"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage. I was expecting mere gnolls guarding the treasures here.\"\n\n\"My servants are very obedient.\" The dragon eyes me up and down. \"There is no need to be frightened, mortal, I merely design to know your mind.\"\n\n\"Are *you* talking to *me*?!\" Lilarcor breaks his uncharacteristic silence.\n\nThe beast's face turns disdainful. \"Apparently your servants are not as well kept.\"\n\nI look down at my blade. \"Hush, you.\" For the first time, I feel him tug at my hands.\n\n\"Come get some!\"\n\nThe dragon's face turns to disgust. \"I refuse to be disrespected by those so far beneath me.\" Only then do I notice the circle lining the dragon's perimeter. I take a final breath as it shifts from light blue to red.", "I said I’d be different. This thing, this magic: it wasn’t going to get the best of me. People said an awful lot about curses, and hexes, and charms, but even if I didn’t know much magic, I knew there was always something stronger. That fact was well proven when I found the sword, its blade shimmering despite the gore of battle. The guy holding it was already dead and gone, a poleax carving out a nice hole in the center of his chest.\n\nI was alone, as much as I could be. The dead were there, but I didn’t really count them as a dedicated audience. I found the sword alone, and I picked it up, cleaning it on a shirt before moving to return to the camps. Knights and paladins littered the killing grounds, but most of their armor had already been picked off. We scavengers were a hungry lot, let me tell you. All the same, I could feel the thrum of magic in the hilt of the sword, and as I made my way back to the middle of camp, more than one person noticed the brilliance of the blade. I could feel myself growing more confident, but I stopped myself before that ridiculous thought got too far. Can’t be too careful with magic.\n\nAmong my close friends, I was lucky enough to have a soothsayer; she knew enough about the spirits of the world, and the languages of the world, to translate the saying along the blade. \n\n“This sword is enchanted. The usual deal: victory. Fame. Strength. But-“\n\n“But?” I questioned, turning the blade over. “What about this side?”\n\nThe soothsayer frowned, trying to shoo me away from the hilt. “This sword will kill you.”\n\n“How?”\n\nShe shrugged. “It doesn’t say. But it will.”\n\n“I need one of your charms. The one for luck.”\n\nShe laughed at that, but handed over the trinket, watching as I fastened it on the cord around my neck. “My magic is nothing, compared to this. You might as well join the king’s raiders. Earn some glory before it turns on you.”\n\n“Oh, no. I won’t be like the others.” I shook my head, gripping onto the hilt of the sword once more. “Magic swords have power, if you know how to use it. And how do you stop a sword?”\n\n“You don’t.”\n\n“With armor.” I nodded, glancing toward the horizon. “Something can beat this sword. And I’m going to find it.”\n\n+\n\nSure, I had a limited budget. But I found enough people willing to feed and clothe me for a bit, just to see a genuine magic sword, and I did my best to practice with the blade. I might not have been a knight, but I had seen enough battles both real and pretend, and I found that the movement came more easily than I thought. Within weeks I was spinning, thrusting, hacking with the sword at any vulnerable tree that crossed my path. However, each soothsayer I visited said the same thing.\n\n“This sword will kill you.”\n\n“Then give me protection!” They couldn’t argue with my reasoning, but each of them had a suggestion. First, I found Arimatheus; he was kind enough to donate another charm, a stronger one. Charms were nice, he said, but look for Falathea. She had a lovely enchanted scroll, but Peragnath’s boots were better. They fit me nicely enough, although a bit heavy, but Peragnath recommended Mignae. She, too, had a wonderful set of gauntlets to carry the thing, but she pointed me onwards to Elethon. Each leg of my journey grew longer, and even more difficult, but I got better with the sword, and I grew stronger with my protection. \n\nI began joining nobles, becoming their bodyguards through the treacherous woods and swamps. I couldn’t lose, not with my sword and my protection. For those who asked about the letters along the blade, I ignored them. The sword had vowed to kill me. But I had vowed to defeat it.\n\nEach successive soothsayer grew greater in power, ever more mysterious and secretive than the last. I journeyed over mountains, through rugged valleys, past the temptations of siren-hawks and the lures of peaceful beaches. I couldn’t stop until I had the best. I needed to protect myself. I couldn’t let this sword kill me. Finally, I kneeled before the cave of Thenum, listening for the whisper of his voice within. No one had seen the old magician for many years, but he still granted boons, to those brave enough to ask.\n\n“I need protection.”\n\n“That sword…”\n\n“Will kill me. I know. But I’ll break the spell.”\n\nA quiet hum; it probably wasn’t the wind. “I can give you a helmet. But Gwenyth-no. I cannot.”\n\n“Tell me!” I started to get to my feet, distracted as a battered helmet rolled out on the grass. “What does Gwenyth have?”\n\n“You want to defeat the sword?”\n\n“Yes! Of course I do!”\n\n“Go to Gwenyth. They will give you what you seek.” With that, my visit was over, and I joyfully picked up the helmet in order to rush back down to the road. Could my quest at last be over? After a bit of research, I was ready to head out, and I made my way to the base of the mountain where Gwenyth was last spotted.\n\nThe path was difficult, but my gauntlets lent me strength. The wind bit at my nose and hands, but the helmet worked its magic, preventing me from catching ill. I was invincible-almost. I just had to find Gwenyth. I climbed up steep walls of ice, using the rigidity of my borrowed armor as makeshift ice-picks, and finally, at last, I could see the top. The greatest magician, with the best form of protection? I could nearly taste the sword’s defeat!\n\nAfter such a long journey, I could feel the weight of my armor dragging on me. I ignored it, thanks to the helmet’s power, but when I tried to grab for another handhold, I proved unable to lift myself. My arm had given out, although I couldn’t feel it. I cursed, scrabbling at the rock, and turned to study my surroundings. I was high up on the cliff face, and I nearly grew dizzy with the sight, but something else caught my attention. The sword-it had been strapped to my back, but now it dangled loose. I couldn’t lose it! Not now! Ignoring the rock, I reached out to try and secure the sword and its scabbard again, only to find it swinging dangerously in the wind. With one hand to secure me to the cliff, I tried to maneuver to catch the sword again, watching it dance in the air. Finally, I managed to swing forward slightly, catching the sword with the tips of my fingers before feeling something give.\n\nFirst it was the gauntlets-they’d been too big to begin with, but they were heavy and awkward. My hand slipped from one, while the sword slipped from the other. I began to fall backwards, but I knew I wouldn’t die. I had the helmet from Thenum, and Falathea’s scroll, and-\n\nThe wind changed from nowhere, and the sword slammed into the cliff face before jamming in the ice. I cursed, feeling myself fall, but I grabbed at the hilt just in time. However, the force of my fall didn’t even budge the blade, and I swung dangerously for a moment. On my feet, I could feel something sliding, moving steadily down, and before I knew it my boots were lost, disappearing in the thick snow of the mountain. For the first time, I could feel fear again, and I kicked frantically at nothing. This sword was everything now; gritting my teeth, I swung back and forth, trying to dislodge it. My efforts only knocked loose my various accoutrements, the band of charms around my neck loosening before falling into the ravine below. With one last push, I pulled on the sword, and it finally came free to shimmer brilliantly in the single ray of sunlight, high above the clouds.\n\nI’d never seen the sword do magic. I’d hardly even seen it glow, or anything. But as it came free, I swear I could see the letters along the side pulsing with a life of their own, outshining the sun. As I fell, I cursed the thing-but it hadn’t killed me yet! I plunged through nothingness, going blind with the speed, but I grabbed for the sword. It had to be falling with me. Finally, I felt the chill of steel on my fingers, and I pulled the blade close before cradling it with my body. \n\nI’d forgotten that I would have to land sometime. And with naked steel already pressing against my chest, well…\n\nI should be grateful that my death was painless.\n", "Come here, son, and I shall tell you of the secret of the man that tamed that most heinous of hilts, that most dooming of devices, the sickening sword known by name alone, the *Kopftötenschwert*.\n\nIt began in ages past - how, we may never know. Some say a kingdom dying of famine was saved by its king's self-sacrifice, but the death-curse lived on in the sword. Some say a vengeful smith created it to spite those who had cheated him. Some say it was created of evil itself, to end those who would oppose it. These are stories for another time, however. What is important is the secret.\n\nMy grandfather discovered the *Kopftötenschwert* on one of his daily walks. A knight - of whose kingdom we never discovered - had died by his own hand. The dead arm still held the hilt of the dread blade, and of course your great-grandfather knew that this was indeed the *Kopftötenschwert* because of the manner of death. The knight had impaled himself in the head with it, as all the tales tell.\n\nOur family is not a rich one now, and it was not then. We had no land, merely worked another's so that we could live there, and we had no treasures. We hardly ever had food of our own, almost all we grew went to those who owned the land. We did not starve, but we did not live well. \n\n\nGrandfather knew the reputation of the sword. He knew that if he took it up, he would one day find himself in the exact same position as that man, having stabbed himself in the head. But, our family was in need. My grandfather was no warrior, and he knew that while all the tales ended in self-inflicted tragedy, there were tales of those who had owned the *Kopftötenschwert* but did not attempt to wield it. They, too, eventually failed, but they also tended to live slightly longer lives. He could, he hoped, take the sword, and then sell it to another. Ideally, a collector so interested in rare memorabilia that they would be willing to overlook the deadly consequences of owning such a weapon. More likely, a gullible idiot. It may seem ruthless of him, but the years were worse and worse, and the drought threatened to end us all. He did what he had to do to survive.\n\nWhich, as you know, he did not. You were not yet born, but you have already been told this portion of the tale: The press-gangs came, and they took him to fight the war in the south. My father was of age, by far the more viable member to kidnap, but grandfather insisted they take him instead. He revealed *Kopftötenschwert* to them, then, telling them that it was a magic sword that he would use in the war, if they allowed him to go in father's place. Press-gangs are not ones to negotiate, ordinarily, but these did not wish to take the chance that the sword was real, for if they denied the offer and attempted kidnap, it was possible they would lose more men than they would gain. So they agreed.\n\nWe told you your great-grandfather died in the war, and that is true. What you were not told until today was that it was the first day he saw battle, and his life ended at his own hand, the *Kopftötenschwert* through his head.\n\nThey sent his remains home, terrible sword included, for certainly the army did not want such an infamous cursed weapon in its midst. And so your father took over ownership.\n\nThe years were bad, but we survived. Two of my brothers did not - one of illness, the other a victim of the war in the east. Over time, the greed of our masters increased, and the hold over their lands diminished. They demanded more of the crop, but patrolled fewer of the streets. Crime rose, and so it was that when you were but a child, your grandfather - my father - took up the sword in self-defense.\n\nOur house was the target of bandits. They broke in through the door with axes, like siege-men assaulting a castle gate. Broken veterans of the wars, men who the masters had forgotten and left to die, back for vengeance on everyone they perceived to be at fault. I hid you underneath our floor, and I ran to help my father, but it was too late. He had already unsheathed the sword.\n\nIt gave the bandits pause. The *Kopftötenschwert* is recognizable only for its aftereffects, but there is still something about it that unnerves the common man. It was perhaps that reason that the press-gangs had believed my grandfather so long ago. The invaders hesitated, but then they attacked.\n\nYou know me now, you know my legend. The battles I have won and the evils I have faced. You may think me a brave man but here is the truth I have never admitted to you: I am a coward. When my life was truly in danger, I froze. I could not fight alongside my father's side.\n\nIt was not a long fight, but as I could not move I did only what I could. I watched. And that's when I learned the secret of the sword.\n\nThe tales all end the same way, but there are those who do not use the sword to fight until they are forced to. My father's tale is now one of them, and it ends the same way. What the tales do not tell is what happens during the fight, and that is the all-important part.\n\nMy father lunged forward, trying to stab one of the intruders in the gut, and the sword balked. It twisted away. The bandits again paused, warily, for the sword had obviously done something magical. It did not take long for them to conclude, correctly, that this magic was not aiding my father.\n\nDesperate, he swung the sword at the nearest man, trying to slice, and that is when his tale came to an end. The blade lit as though newly-forged. It swung back around, sharply, and before any present could react had buried itself up to its hilt in my father's head.\n\nThat is the end of his tale, but it is not the end of mine. I never told you before why I took up the dread sword, or how I survived its deadly legacy. I took up the sword to avenge my father. I did so not out of rage, or hope, or even the belief that I would survive the encounter unimpaled, but out of despair. I would die, yes, I would be another claimed by the blade of the damned, but I would kill as many of the bandits as I could. I would do so in my father's name, by making them suffer as they made him suffer.\n\nThey knew what the sword was, then. They laughed when I pulled it from its grisly resting place, knowing I was signing my own death warrant. The dark thrum of the sword's magic buzzed in my arm, its call to death overpowering in my mind, and I lunged forward with a cry of grief and gave to the bandit what he had coming. I stabbed him in the head.\n\nI do not know who among us was more shocked, myself or the bandits.\n\nI pulled the sword from their fallen brother and stabbed at the gut of the next man, and the sword failed me as it had initially failed my father, bucking in my grasp and pulling away. I could feel the hatred in the blade, the sudden rage at being mis-used, and I almost began to attempt to slice the bandit before I remembered what had happened when my father had tried.\n\nSo, instead, I did what had worked the first time. I stabbed the bandit in the head.\n\nTwice victorious and, perhaps more unbelievably, twice having not stabbed myself with a sword, I pressed the advantage. A third invader found his head being used as a sheath, and then a fourth. The fifth, perhaps deciding that my father had merely been pretending to wield *Kopftötenschwert* and was extremely dedicated to the illusion, ran. I caught after him - such an unholy rush of energy that allowed the pursuit I had never felt before - and then, too, he faced a sword. Or rather, I sworded his face.\n\nThis, then, is the secret of the weapon. It is how I survived the war in the west. It is how I defeated the ten-headed hydra. Once you understand the secret, you will see how that was actually easier. It is how I gained the legend I have today. I am not a brave man, because I cannot now be defeated. I am a coward, because I dared not risk my life for another when I could.\n\nHere, are the rules of the sword:\n\nYou must stab your enemy in the head.\n\nThe sword will be offended should you attempt to stab anywhere else. It will balk at the attempt, twist away from you and perhaps harm you somewhat in the process. This is not it at its deadliest, though I suspect if you tried you would raise its temper such that it would murder you. I never attempted to find out.\n\nSecondly: You Must. Not. Slice. Ever. Not for practice, not to parry, not even in reflex. Never. You must train yourself, though not with this sword because you cannot yet draw it. You must use a wooden sword and re-train yourself to only stab with it so you never accidentally slice. For in all the true versions of the tales I have found - and scarce few are those - it is then that the wielder of the sword is killed. The sword forgives, in its way, a misplaced stab, but its temper is fierce and it will not allow itself to be swung.\n\n When you leave tomorrow morning to fight the war in the north, take this weapon with you. It is the unbreakable sword that has taken a thousand lives, and though most of those lives were of those who wielded it, it is an artifact of immense power in the hands of one who knows how to use it. \n\nFinally, do not unsheathe it until you are absolutely certain you wish for someone to die, for this is *Kopftötenschwert*, the sword that can not - will not - be sheathed until it has stabbed a man in the head.", "A long day of work made Miguel absolutely tired. He spent all day working in the Happyview Post Office, dealing with various customer complaints and arguments over the price of shipping. His feet hurt, his head hurt, he was hungry, and he was angry. Almost on cue, it began to rain. Miguel cursed under his breath.\n\nThrough the rain however, he saw it. It was virtually impossible to miss, as it was lit by neon signs that could surely been from space. Merlin's Magical Pawn and Loan, it had a neon outline of a wizard shooting out lighting bolts from his hands. As a fan of visiting pawn shop throughout the area, Miguel had to stop. How had he not seen this before? It had to be at least a few blocks from his apartment, so it must have been new.\n\nAs he walked in, Miguel was assaulted by a the various clouds of smoke that emanated from incense lit over the store. The lights were dim (which seemed strange given the light show outside), and standing there behind the counter was a very tall man, with a white beard that seemed to reach the floor. He wore a tattered denim vest and gray shirt under it. \n\n\"Welcome,\" his voice boomed from across the room, \"to Merlin's Magical Pawn and Loan. How may I be in your service today, dear adventurer?\"\n\nMiguel was taken aback. He didn't quite know what to say to the old man who looked mysteriously like a wizard himself. Looking around he saw lots of things that looked peculiar. Wooden shields, medieval-looking helmets, chainmail, and a number of weird cages behind the old man that he couldn't quite see.\n\n\"Um...just looking. Just got off work.\"\n\n\"Ah, an adventurer looking for a purpose, looking for a path to go down! I have just the thing!\" He disappeared behind a curtain momentarily then returned with a long case.\n\n\"Behold, Excalibur! The sword brandished by kings! By warriors! By leaders of men!\"\n\nThe old man opened the case to reveal a glistening sword that looked, in many ways, perfect. No nicks, no smudges, everything looked so pristine. The light reflected off of it to give it a sense of glowing. Miguel, who was far from the type to be even remotely interested in weapons, was enthralled by it. He was so enthralled that he even swore he could hear a faint voice in the back of his head.\n\n\"Miguel, we are destined to meet.\" the voice said, ever so faintly.\n\n\"How...how much?\" Miguel asked, meekly.\n\nThe old man paused, and gave Miguel a satisfied look. Behind him the cages shook and he could have sworn he heard growling and grumbling. There were things in those cages.\n\n\"For you, young adventurer, there is no price, for Excalibur has called you! This is destiny! You cannot put a price on destiny,\" the old man paused, \"you may, however, want to buy a tunic made from magical Armorican cotton and a health potion from the land of Punt. For you are about to embark on an adventure...OF A LIFETIME!\"\n\n\"Oh.\" it was all Miguel could say. He began to second guess his choice in coming here, the old man sounded crazy.\n\n\"On this eve, you shall make way for a city of pure evil, and slay the vile Ogre King name Murdok. The slaying of Murdok and his bride will lift the spell of evil that coats the city like a thick, dirty film. But know this, Excalibur has a mind of its own. Nine of the ten holders of the sword have perished, and chances it will lead to your demise are high.\"\n\n\"Yeah, okay, no thanks.\" Miguel said, backing away quickly. \"I'm good, nice to meet you, but I've got work tomorrow. I have to open, no time for ogres or anything, ha ha. Maybe when I get some vacation time?\"\n\nQuickly Miguel ran out of the shop and made way for his car. As he turned on the ignition, he looked up to find that the shop was gone, instead in its place was a boarded up building that used to be a Burger King. The neon lights, everything, was gone. Miguel breathed a sigh of relief, but also of concern, as he started to think he imagined the whole thing. He couldn't have, he was wet from the rain, and the scent of the incense was still on his clothes...\n\n\"Adventure! Let's go!\" the voice in his head called again. \n\nSitting there in the backseat was the case the old man had brought out. In the case, of course, was Excalibur.\n\n\"Tick-tock, time's a-wasting! Let's slay an ogre king!\"\n\nMiguel leaned his head against the steering wheel. There was no way out of this, the more he was against, the louder the sword spoke. Finally, he relented.\n\n\"Alright, where's this evil city?\"\n\n- - - - - -\n\nFRESNO, CALIFORNIA\n\nThey stopped in front of Buck's Bar, a run down looking biker bar that seemed to have several dozen motorcycles in front of it. Immediately he smelled the cheap cigarettes and regret that came from Buck's. Miguel sighed again, pulling to a stop. Of course the ogre king would be a biker, and naturally he'd tower over Miguel like a giant.\n\n\"He will be tall, but you are pretty short to begin with.\" the sword quipped. Excalibur had shown itself to be a bit of a smart-ass, which irritated Miguel beyond belief.\n\nReluctantly, Miguel got out of his car and went to grab Excalibur. The sword was huge and glimmered in the late evening. Of course, Miguel looked very out of place, he was a hair over five foot-five, had curly black hair and still had on his US Postal Service uniform. Slowly, he trudged up to the door to the bar, Excalibur leaning on his shoulder like a batter coming up to the plate.\n\nOpening the door Miguel immediately regretted not calling into work sick that morning. Inside was a mob of bikers wearing red and green patches on their vests with the name \"OGRES\" prominently displayed over a green ogre riding a motorcycle on it. Everyone turned to look at their visitor, just as the music on the jukebox stopped. There was a pole in the corner of the bar where a half-naked woman danced in front of several other bikers. Everyone looked and turned to look at Miguel. Out of nowhere, a large bouncer came to stand right in front of him.\n\n\"The fuck you want? And is that a fuckin' sword?\" the bouncer asked. This guy could break Miguel in half without much effort, he thought to himself\n\n\"I'm looking for...Murdok.\" he replied, barely above a whisper.\n\n\"Fuckin' speak up!\"\n\n\"MURDOK!\" Excalibur shouted. \"GIVE ME THE OGRE KING!\"\n\nFrom the corner of the bar where the stripper had been just a moment ago stood a mountain of a man. He was bald, covered in tattoos, and had a barrel chest. He slowly made his way to the front, the other bikers parting the way like Moses through the Red Sea.\n\n\"Who the fuck you callin' an ogre, bitch?\" \n\n\"Are...are you Murdok?\" Miguel squeaked out. \"M...Merlin sent me here...\"\n\nMurdok got an angry expression and the rest of the bar pulled out their guns. They knew shit was about to go down, every time Merlin was involved shit went down.\n\n\"What does he want this time?\" Murdok barked. \"Another beat down?\"\n\n\"REVENGE, MOTHERFUCKER!\" Excalibur shrieked, and with that it flew out of Miguel's hands and lodged itself right into Murdok's head, killing him instantly.\n\nMiguel gasped and pleaded with the bikers that he didn't do it, to no avail. He ducked as the bikers fired a volley of bullets his way, thanking the fact that Murdok served as a bit of a human shield. Excalibur then flew from Murdok's head and spun around the room, slicing and dicing bikers with ease. Bullets and blood covered the floor, and screams of pain and agony filled the room. The bartender tried to shoot the sword out of mid air with his magical blunderbuss, but missed and ended up disintegrating a random biker. Miguel covered himself as the chaos waged on around him, until the screams and moans ended. The whole scene had to last at least five minutes, although counting the time was the last thing on his mind. As he finally lifted his head, Excalibur dropped before him.\n\n\"Ha! That was fun! The first leg of our journey has ended!\"\n\nWith that, Miguel grabbed the sword and ran outside, not taking any time to survey the damage around him. He slipped a little on a puddle of blood, falling forward out the door. Miguel knew he'd be a wanted man, not just by the police, but other biker gangs as well. He'd live the rest of his life in hiding, he just knew it.\n\n- - - - - -\n\nThe story wouldn't normally end here, as it would go on. Excalibur would lead the way, cleansing the land of evil and hatred while giving Miguel the adventure of a lifetime. He would learn the ways of a true warrior, how to use a sword, how to become a gallant knight who fought for chivalry and everything that was right. Something, however, went awry. Magical swords sometimes miss things, and then forget to tell the sword holder about it. This time sadly was no different.\n\nAs Miguel threw Excalibur into the backseat of his car, he jumped in to start the engine. In the midst of this, the woman who had been dancing on the pole walked calmly to the car door, pointing her shotgun at an oblivious Miguel.\n\n\"Oh wait, there was an ogre queen too!\" Excalibur exclaimed, surprised it forgot about her in the madness.\n\n\"Wait, what?\" Miguel shouted in disbelief.\n\nThose would be the last words Miguel would ever say, as the ensuing shotgun blast killed him instantly. There would be no more adventure for Miguel, no life changing quests, no saved princesses, no tails in his honor.\n\nThe next morning, Merlin awoke to find the case of Excalibur at the foot of his bed. Merlin let out a sad sigh as he got up and picked up the case.\n\n\"I missed the ogre queen, the quest has yet to be completed. My apologies, sir.\"\n\n\"It is quite alright, Excalibur,\" Merlin said in a sad, frail voice, \"there are always more adventurers to complete the task. We shall begin again.\"\n\nWith that, Merlin's Magical Pawn and Loan would open for yet another day, with high hopes of cleansing the world of evil and giving the public a great deal on strange items.", "He walked slowly into the cave, swaying his flashlight back and forth to get an idea of the lay of the land. His friends had said there was a skeleton in here with a sword laid next to it. His friends were cowards and ran away when they saw the corpse. Jonathan was no coward, and his friends were probably liars. He kept search the cave until he found it. There it was, a skeleton, a sword in a scabbard, and surprisingly a note written in old dried blood on the cave wall. \"Do not trust her song.\"\n\nJonathan snatched up the sword sneering at the warning. When he drew the blade from it's scabbard it immediately began to sing it's Siren's Song. Scarlet fire wreathed the blade as it sang. Jonathan in shock dropped the sword, but it was too late, she'd already infected his mind. Jonathan's mind seared and he dropped to his knees. Scarlet flames reflected in his eyes and the history of the sword burned itself into his mind. Scarlet Aria was her name, and she'd been searching for a new wizard for some thousand years. The last person to hold her had been slain in this cave when swords were still a common weapon, and left to rot with the entrance blocked. Ancient memories of how to fight with a blade flooded his mind, the realization that scores of men, women, and children had been slain on the end of this blade was there, but all that mattered was the pursuit of the next wizard. \n\nJonathan didn't know how long he'd been out, but when he woke the pain behind his eyes was a dull throb. He reached out and grabbed the singing blade, he could hear her always in his mind now. The belt attached to the sword seemed to have appeared while he slept, but he was thankful for it. He attached the scabbard and belt to his hip and sheathed his new mistress. He'd go back and show his coward \"friends\" his find. How could he have ever considered people so scared of a skeletons as his friends. Cowardice has no place in this world. It's better to die on your feet fighting that cowering in a hole. Truly, with the song in his mind now it seemed a kindness to let the cowards die by his Scarlet Aria and feel her sweet embrace at least once before death took them. \n\n\n_______________________________________________________________\n\nChannel 7 news reports a boy with a flaming sword has been shot in the street by police today after brutally attacking a group of teenagers at the mall. Men in black suits appearing to be FBI showed up and took over the scene after local police had been forced to shoot the young man over a dozen times. " ]

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