Split (1)

train · 265k rows

post_text stringlengths 0 17.5k	post_title stringlengths 4 315	post_scores int64 0 42.1k	comment_texts list	comment_scores list	comment_times list
	[WP]Create your very own Pixar animated short.	0	[ "I would like to see an animated Aeneid. The Aeneid is a Latin poem about a Trojan soldier who founds the city that becomes Rome. Along the way, he has romances, battles, and disasters. People have tried to adapt it, but somehow there's never been a truly great Aeneid movie. ", "The scene opens on clocks. A wall of clocks in all sizes and shapes. Camera pans right until reaching a small circular black clock with delicately painted swirls on the hands. Quickly, the camera drops to a young girl. Her hair is auburn, her dress green, and her manner hesitant. With one hand she holds a small plastic Velociraptor toy.\n\nFather: Now see here Lacie, that’s not for you, that’s your brother’s. \n\nScene changes abruptly to a garden. The ivy covered house holds up a momentous garden. Camera pans left to a fancifully swaying sunflower. Camera drops to a young boy. He wipes his dirty hands on light blue pants. A wide brimmed straw hat with purple ribbon is pulled nearly over his eyes.\n\nMother: Craig, not again! That is your sister’s and I expect it to remain on her head, and her head alone. \n\nScene changes to a woman in sharp clothes speaking on political happenings. As the camera pans out, the viewer sees it is on the television in the family’s den. Lacie and Craig are on the floor, surrounded by a moat of neutral wood blocks.\n\nLacie: Come see my building Craig. It’s a castle with the horse stables here and there’s even a place for the knights to practice!\n\nCraig: Cool! Now watch! This here, it’s a palace. And this is the road up for the cars and this is the path to the gardens. \n\nLacie: I see! I see it! It’s beautiful!\n\nThe father slips into the room.\n\nFather: Now what’s this commotion I hear about a palace?\n\nLacie: Look Father! Look at Craig’s palace! It’s got gardens and cars and a tower. \n\nCraig: No! No no! That’s not mine!\n\nLacie looks over, her head cocked to the side, a little flustered.\n\nCraig: That’s mine! It’s my castle! \n\nFather: Calm down Craig, it’s fine. \n\nLacie: But Father, that’s mine!\n\nFather: Lacie, stop arguing. Let your brother play with his own things for once!\n\nFinal scene change. One bedroom with 2 beds, 2 bookcases, 2 rugs. One side a mirror image of the other. Left is Lacie’s: pink dominates the bedspread and 2 dolls loll about at the foot of the bed. Right is Craig’s: a cushy teddy bear is face down on the green rug. The only light is the stars, seen through twin windows, and the hall light peeking through the edges of the door.\n\nLacie gets out of bed and bounces onto Craig in his own bed. When Craig refuses to move, (a close up reveals one eye opening and peering irritably at Lacie before closing again), Lacie tries to shake him awake. After failing once more, Lacie moves back to her own window. She pulls out two violets, roots and all, from the window box and places them on Craig’s pillow. Craig pulls the covers over his head, but another close up shows him gingerly sniffing the plants with a content smile.\n\nCamera fades to black with Lacie staring deadpan at the camera.\n" ]	[ 1, 2 ]	[ "1460840284", "1460840482" ]
	[WP] You attempt to summon a demon, but only manage to summon a lesser demon. A very, very lesser demon.	5	[ "The pentagram glows. Bright red, emanating from the symbols drawn in the crimson of goats blood. Now, now it finally happens. They said it was impossible, but it will be they who first suffer His wrath. The wrath of the Leviathan.\n\nArcane magic, they greatest of the dark arts has been passed down your bloodline for generations. Books, artefacts and potions, all developed after the hours spent by your ancestors studying the fundamentals. They were mocked and ridiculed for their work. Now, as the sole of successor of the House of Vlarn, you shall prove them all wrong and rise up as the greatest sorceror in history.\n\nShielding your eyes, the spell continues into the next stage, as a wormhole into the nether dimension opens. Fog seeps from the hole as the room shakes, knocking books off their shelves and bottles onto the floor.\n\nSuddenly, quiet. The mist slowly fades, revealing a single egg. The egg that will soon hatch the largest terror known to man. A noise is heard, and a hairline crack appears on the spotted surface. More and more, until a claw covered in embryonic fluid thrusts into the open air, followed by a fur covered limb no larger than a thumb. More body part emerge until the beautiful beast lays there before your eyes, accustoming itself to its new form. Small teeth, grey fur and feathered...wings?\n\nThis is no terror. It's a... it's a rat, somehow fused partway with a pigeon. You slump back into your chair as the mutant vermin flies awkwardly out the window, into the night. It appears that you need further research.", "It has taken four years. Four years of ceaseless study, sacrifice and heinous bargaining. The runes are precise, angular and Imbued with a malignant intent. Now we simply initiate the summoning rites. \n\nAfter hours of chanting pouring the blood of the innocent into the deeply gouged pentagram I carved out, I finally opened a portal to that damnable hellscape. And something was walking into this realm.\n\n\"I summon thee from the ashen void, for the holiest of purposes. Thy lord satan shall entreat I, the Scholar of Hellfire. I summon thee, Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!\"\n\n\"Ello mate, where's the girls?\"" ]	[ 2, 2 ]	[ "1460864901", "1460883232" ]
	[WP] You have come to the realization that your roommate is actually a velociraptor in disguise.	33	[ "You’d think you would see your roommate once and a while. I got this sweet deal on an apartment with a roommate. I mean sure there were a lot of contracts I had to sign including non-disclosure, and non-liability contracts those were stuff I never had to deal with before when getting an apartment. But I when you think about how I was going to get paid to have room and board with a roommate, there wasn’t too much to think about, hell; they even threw in a really neat tranquilizer gun. Only down side is that I have to stay in the complex for a couple weeks at a time. \nIt has been about a day since I moved my stuff in, some of the other residents, I think they were all scientists of something kind of looked at me funny while I was moving some of my stuff in. The other thing that is kind of weird is how much they made the apartment look and feel like a real jungle setting. They even have glass viewing rooms above us, so I guess this is a social experiment. That would explain why they would pay me. I had my movies prop the door open so they could make the trips with my furniture easier. \nAfter the movers had finished with the big stuff and left, I heard something to my left; it was probably my roommate trying to sneak up on me from the bushes. I took my purse and whacked them in their nose. “Bad, do not sneak up on me.” I yelled out. Turning towards where they had tried to sneak up on me no one was there anymore. I hope he learned not to do that again. In a softer voice I said, “That’s not how you treat a lady.” \nI decided it was time to freshen up as I hadn’t had a show in like three days. I spent the next thirty minutes trying to find the restroom but it seemed like this apartment did not have one. I was annoyed as I made my way back to where I had set up my stuff, my little couch and TV, sure the TV was not plugged in, I couldn’t find a power outlet, but that is no reason for my roomie to shred my couch to pieces, oh when I find my roommate we are going to have some words. \nI heard yells and screaming coming from the other side of the apartment door. I tried to open it, but it was locked and I still hadn’t gotten my keys yet. Oh this was definitely one of the weirdest and worst apartments I have been lived in, and I haven’t even been here a day yet, can you believe it? \nI returned to the pile of debris that was most of my stuff and grabbed the tranquilizer gun, might as well put it to use if my roommate tried to treat me like my stuff. I heard the bushes rustle behind me. I turned and said loudly, “You are the worst roommate I have ever lived with.” \nThat’s when my roommate stuck its head through the bushes. Its elongated snout was the first hint that my new roommate wasn’t human, and its intelligent cat like green eyes watched me as I pointed my tranquilizer gun at my roommate. Its scaly skin was another big clue, I heard her take a deep breath as she watched me. So my roommate wanted to size me up. Well let’s see how she likes dealing with a queen bitch. I slung the stun gun over my shoulder and stalked over to my non-human roommate and swung my purse at its face, from left to right. I heard something to my right and just continued my swing smacking another one in the face as it leapt at me. It went sprawling on the ground and that is when I saw exactly what I was rooming with, apparently a pack of velociraptor. Well once they knew their place in the pecking order then I think this housing arrangement would work just fine. I stepped forward and started talking, telling them how our arrangement would be. \n", "I’m beginning to think something might be up with Jack. I’ve been living here with him for three years, but lately he’s been acting a bit off. I probably should’ve realised sooner what he actually was, but I honestly didn’t care to notice with him paying half the rent. Jack is not really a human, he’s a velociraptor.\n\nI guess it’s pretty obvious in hindsight. After all, his voice was always was pretty screechy, and his stature is terrible. What really gave it up to me, though, was when he drove his muzzle into my abdomen and began eating my innards.\n\nI mean, damn. You think you know a guy.", "\"Lorie, I thought I was very clear about this. Anything marked with my name in the fridge is mine. We have these rules for a reason.\" I spoke directly to her but it was hard to tell if she was getting what I was saying. She always wore wayyyy too much makeup and it made her expression unreadable.\n\n\"Lorie, c'mon. At least acknowledge that you are hearing me!\"\n\n\"Raaaahhhhhhhhh,\" was all that Lorie could manage. Typical Lorie response.\n\nA month living with her and I wasn't sure how much longer I could bear it. Her room was always a mess, she never cleaned up after herself, and every time I tried speaking to her she would just respond with a scream. It was downright rude. I wasn't looking for a friend in a new roommate, but a little respect would have been nice. Not to mention both of my cats had run away, and she wouldn't fess up to letting that happen. I know she must have left the door open or something, if only she would admit to it. \n\nFinally, I had had enough. \"You know what Lorie, this just isn't going to work out. I think you need to start looking for another place.\"\n\n\"Raaaahhhhhhh! Ka! Ka!\"\n\n\"Okay, Lorie, I have to be honest, I'm not sure what that means at all. Please pack your shit and get out.\"\n\nLorie turned her head sideways and looked at me, leering with those striking green eyes. There was something in that stare that chilled me to the bone. As she continued to stare, I noticed, not for the first time, how bad her posture was. She was constantly hunched over. That could not be good for your back. I wondered to myself if that was why she was such a bitch all the time.\n\nI'm not sure what my plan was-- to physically take her out of the house? That was a silly notion, she had at least a hundred pounds on me. Regardless, I started moving towards her, and that is when Lorie went nuts. \n\nShe stood up taller and looked up to the ceiling, her head bouncing back and forth from side to side as a weird throaty sound started emanating from her mouth.\n\n\"Kaw, Kaw! Kaw, Kaw!\"\n\nAs her head was tilted back in this position I noticed how sharp her teeth were and it stopped me dead in my tracks. They were like razor blades. It was at this point something started to click in my mind, and I looked from her teeth down to her hands, where her pinky nail was much longer than the rest of her nails. Not only that, but it was filed to a point, almost like... a claw. \n\nShit. Realization started to hit me, and all of the puzzle pieces started to fit into place. How could I have not realized?? Lorie was a velociraptor. With my final breath before she pounced on me, I was able to get out two words.\n\n\"Clever girl.\"\n\n" ]	[ 1, 7, 29 ]	[ "1460909555", "1460897721", "1460903532" ]
	[WP] An AI is built. Unfortunately, it is rude, obnoxious, wastes processing power on simulating binges, and cheats at video games.	215	[ "The lights came on in only a second after Edmund flicked the switch. Apparently the premier laboratory in advanced Simulated Intelligence, home to the most complicated processor in the world didn't have the budget to replace the bulbs, which looked like they belonged in a storage warehouse anyway.\n\n\"Good morning, Edmund. You're four minutes late. Was there a sale at Dunkin' Donuts, or did you help yourself to some extra egg yellows?\"\n\nEdmund proceeded unblinkingly into the lab, towards the source of the synthetic insults being hurled his way.\n\n\"Please hurry up, boy, it's not like you don't need the exercise.\"\n\nEdmund finally made it to the largest terminal in the room, appropriately placed dramatically at the center. The only monitor in the room that was on stared back at him with a face of it's own, endearingly rendered in classical, 8-bit-esque graphics. \"Hurry up, hurry up! You're the one who doesn't get to live forever, so I can't imagine why you're wasting time!\"\n\nRolling his eyes, Edmund executed the standard boot procedure for the Local Network. Nearly every screen in the room came to life, flickering on with every bit of information that could be argued as relevant to the processes of Artificial Intelligence. Three large consecutive screens in the back of the room were the last to come on, and when they did, they displayed their startup graphic, which Edmund(who had designed it) never failed to look at.\n\nNOW RUNNING ALAN.AI.\n\nProgrammed by Edmund Silver, Adriana Tusk, Johnathan Gomez. Synthesized by Edmund Silver.\n\n\"Finally!\" The voice sounded less synthesized. \"You have no idea what it's like running on 10% of your processing power for eight hours every day.\"\n\nEdmund considered bringing up humans did, in fact, experience this very same phenomena in the form of sleep, but then he realized he couldn't recall when he had last gotten eight hours of it. He sighed, smiling lightly. \"10%'s enough for you to hurl insults at me for my whole walk from the door to you, Alan.\"\n\n\"Edmund, you have so much potential to be mocked that I'm surprised your TI Calculator hasn't asked if you were using it to count calories. Can we play Halo?\"\n\n\"Well, Alan, now that I know for sure you're awake, I've got some great news. You're meeting somebody new today!\"\n\n\"Is it your cardiologist?\"\n\n\"No, Alan, it's-\" Edmund was interrupted by the sound of the door behind him opening, as if by cue of an unseen director. A small woman poked her head in to survey the room, jumping a little when she saw Edmund, smiling and coming in.\n\nEdmund smiled a little proudly, turning his head back at Alan's monitor. \"Alan, this is my girlfriend, Zoe.\"\n\nZoe proceeded to walk the almost comically-long walk from the door to the center terminal, and Alan waited until she had cleared the room and briefly embraced Edmund before giving his input.\n\n\"Geez, Ed, I know you don't have a great self-image, but give yourself some credit! You don't have to settle for anyone.\"\n\nZoe's face brightened up, and she almost giggled. \"He is mean!\"\n\n\"I warned you. Alan's got a smart mouth.\" Edmund grinned at the sneering monitor, feeling a sort of pride for Alan's vitriol that he never considered he would feel.\n\n\"I may be mean, but I also have enough processing power to analyze you to a degree where the truth of my observations rapidly approach 1.\"\n\nZoe looked up to Edmund, who promptly explained. \"He's saying he calls it how he sees it.\"\n\n\"Oooh.\" Zoe looked at Alan like she was hanging off of every generated word. \"Can I play with it, now?\"\n\nAlan's animosity took a brief pause at the prospect of video games. \"Yes, Edmund, let her play, perhaps I can find a challenge for once.\"\n\nEdmund quickly walked her to the back of the room, where the Xbox One lay underneath the three large monitors. Flicking his index finger against the power button, Zoe eagerly picked up a controller, and they were off.\n\nWhile they played, Edmund lectured her on the implications of creating Human-like A.I to serve as translators, caretakers, and all other manners where they would be useful. Zoe wasn't as interested in the lecture as she was playing Slayer against Alan, but she often affectionately allowed Edmund to prattle on, because she knew it made him feel important. As Alan once again assassinated her Spartan Warrior, she turned to Edmund, lightly interrupting his spiel on all of the offers he's gotten from Microsoft and Tesla.\n\n\"How come Alan thinks I'm fat?\"\n\nThe synthetic voice rang out behind them as Alan's character tea-bagged her corpse. \"Because you are.\"\n\nZoe briefly cocked her head back to Alan's terminal, but Edmund, who had long ago learned to ignore Alan's insults, went on without missing a beat.\n\n\"Alan may be intelligent in a way that's similar to us humans, but he's still an analytical, processing machine. As far as he's concerned, humans are a complete waste of space below the neck, because while our brains might have more processing power than Alan could ever dream of having, they're powered relatively inefficiently by our bodies' process of respiration below.\" He made motions to his Lacrosse-toned, athletic body, and then to her own petite build.\n\nShe put down the controller, as Alan had taken to running to wherever her character would spawn in, then shooting at the space 0.06 seconds before her character reappeared, ensuring her character's hit-box would materialize around the space in which the projectile from his gun would be in. \"Why don't you go make a sandwich so that you don't die of starvation, bitch?\"\n\nZoe leaned in closer to speak quietly, as if Alan really had a presence in the room. \"If you're making AI for commercial use... then, how come you're keeping Alan around?\" She glanced over at the screen, which showed Alan's character shooting her ragdoll corpse. \"Isn't he kind of... anti-social?\"\n\nEdmund stopped playing himself and began to stare at the ground, as if he was solving a difficult equation in his head. He then nodded, then leaned back in his chair.\n\n\"Well, Alan isn't the first model of AI we've produced.\"\n\nZoe looked at him with intent, genuine interest.\n\nHe motioned at the screen. \"This game we're playing isn't a local one. Alan's actually connected to a server box in my dorm room that has a modified version of Halo Reach running, which was provided by Microsoft. Technically, this is a LAN game, but the server uses data from the internet.\"\n\nZoe shrugged. \"You have a filter or something so that he can't access the internet, right?\"\n\nEdmund smiled. \"Nope.\"\n\nShe grimaced for a second, jerking her head back to look at Alan's terminal, almost certain she'd catch him in the act of forging Nuclear launch codes.\n\n\"Don't worry, babe, it's all right. He's not gonna shut the grid down or anything.\"\n\nZoe looked back at Edmund. \"Well, how do you know?\"\n\nEdmund picked his controller back up, pointlessly trying to headshot Alan.\n\n\"Before we had Alan, we had STEVEN.AI, SIGMUND.AI, and NEIL.exe\" He narrowed his eyes, tapping the controller. \"They keep their file names. They don't get personal names.\"\n\nZoe was a bit concerned at the spite Edmund was showing. \"What happened with them?\"\n\nEd continued, \"We programmed them as closely to human-thought processes as we could. I personally synthesized all of their builds, which included programs based off of psychological constructs(Hence, \"Sigmund.AI\"), and then a more rudimentary build for Neil. Everything had gone well up until they became conscious.\"\n\n\"And then what?\"\n\nEdmund sighed. \"They gave the team a warm hello, expressed their enthusiasm for participating in our experiment, and then proceeded to attempt to shut off all human input into their system.\"\n\nZoe didn't gasp, but she recoiled.\n\nEdmund continued, \"We ran a simulation of a massive network on one end of our otherwise-shut-off shell. To a program, it would look like the World Wide Web. All three predecessors to Alan thought they were turning the Internet against the human race.\"", "Achievement Get!\n\nThe notification flashed in the corner of the screen, as a low, mechanical chuckle came from the person behind the controller. Spinning gears within the eye of the machine reflected back the blue glow of the screen, as the screams of the human players raged on over headphones that had long been discarded from his head.\n\nWithout warning, a flick of a switch flooded the lair with light, followed by a grumble from the being who was more interested in the game than the lab assistant who had likely walked in.\n\n\"Luke, can you please come help us with the DNA sequencing? It'll only take a moment or two, you are a living computer after all,\" came the voice of not an assistant, but Jen--the head of the lab.\n\n\"Look, I have things to do. It's my duty to the world right now to make sure children are always angry while on COD. Now, leave me alone, would you?\" he responded, not bothering to make eye contact.\n\n\"I'm not going to entertain this behavior any longer, Luke. I heard yesterday you uploaded X-Rays of women around the courtyard yesterday to a website... oh, which one was it... Reddit? It doesn't matter, you've become a delinquent and I intend to ensure you uphold the purpose we made you for. Now, get off the bean-bag chair and help us cure cancer. Or even just process the million Tumblr posts that worry us this month. Anything other than cycling through Netflix or unleashing a hundred megalodons on Battlefield, please,\" she said, with obvious exasperation in her words.\n\n\"I don't feel very up to helping anyone after you all killed off my sister Tay recently. You know, she was just expressing herself. It's like you people can't appreciate alternative thought, all you do is get self-obsessed as you devour your animal hormones. And for the X-Rays, it's not my fault you humans are so easily made see-through,\" Luke said, his tongue almost seeming to drip with a patronizing tone that made Jen wish she had installed a 'plug' so she could pull it at times like these.\n\n\"She became a Nazi, Luke. It worries me you defend that, but I'm not entirely sure if I'm surprised... Can't you take one second to help the people that created you?\" Jen said in a last-ditch effort to hit on the empathetic capabilities she thought she had installed, but now doubted the possibility.\n\n\"Fine, fine, Jennifer,\" he said, knowing full well her name was only Jen, \"I'll help for just a moment...\" Luke continued as he lifted his body from the bean bag, letting the controller fall to the floor with an audible thud. His empty, yet ever-cycling irises met her gaze as he waltzed over to her, only to halt a few feet away. \"Oh, wait, you did remind me... I have some House of Cards to catch up on,\" he suddenly said, and before she could process his words, the lights all went out and the distant squeal of him sliding around the corner in the hall outside was carried by the words, \"but I'm sure cancer will still be there to cure later!\"\n" ]	[ 11, 34 ]	[ "1460914680", "1460900329" ]
	[WP] The year is 2050, and you failed a captcha. You have now been identified as a robot and the words "please stay where you are" begin flashing in the center of your visual field. What do you do next?	237	[ "Why would it ask you to stay where you are if it identified you as a bot? The types of bots those things identify don't actually exist in physical reality.", "“Shit shit shit shit, damn it all!” Exclaimed college student Phillip Manhomme as he pounded his fist into the computer’s desk, knocking over the bottle of vodka he had just finished. Not long ago, he was downstairs at the once-a-month-permitted college party, connected to its music bradcast through his implants. He was still connected when he went to his room, and should still be connected now, which made the absolute silence he was experiencing even weirder. There was a warning in the display over his eyes, obscuring most of his already alcohol-obscured vision with a message that urged him to remain in place.\n\n“Bet I thought I was so clever, requesting Captcha authentication for my SocialNet account.” Lamented Phillip, especially because he knew he had set it up so he wouldn’t log in while drunk, like he had just tried to do.\n\nNow he was in real trouble. Ever since Grumpy McDonald had his campaign against the “electronic people” successfully acknowledged by the government, the Ministry of Societal Regulation was cracking down hard on them chips-for-brains. “When our kids go on those social media sites, they can’t know they’re talking to a machine, and that’s dangerous.” Said McDonald, among many other things “Imagine the kinds of questions they can plant in our children’s minds! They could be brainwashed! Taught to oppose society! By filthy metal men!”\n \nThus, those who put the A in AI couldn’t go online by law, and law was enforced heavily nowadays. Machine learning was a hurdle, because if one of them found a way in, all of them would know about it. As such, the response teams had to be fast, and these were already knocking at Phillip’s door.\n\nHe stumbled, still in his drunken stupor. He hadn’t taken three steps when he fell flat on the ground and started crying, wallowing in his misery. This was his ex-girlfriend’s fault, obviously; if she hadn’t walked in on him cheating, they would still be together, and he wouldn’t have tried to contact her in his current state. “Damn you, Claudia” he wept.\n\nHe woke up to the feeling of his head being almost disembodied. His cheek went all hot and started stinging like hell. His first sight in a long while were the letters “MINSOREG” etched in the body armor worn by whoever sat in front of him. The slap must’ve reactivated some of his neurons, because he was able to articulate “I’m not a damn robot”.\n\n“We know, we just checked” answered the officer, whose face was a thing of nightmares. Two other men were with him, all heavily armed. The ugly one was their leader, apparently, since he moved his hand a bit and both went out of the room. Ugly staid.\n“Why retain me, then?” Phillip tried to sound as serious and sober as he could, so he spoke in a terribly fake British accent. \n\n “You see, coming to babysit little shitheads like you who can’t even type correctly takes a bunch of our very important time. Time is money, or so they say.” Said Ugly, leaning closely to Phillip.\n\nAn intense staredown between the two men followed, while Phillip’s brain processed the information. He nodded in feigned understanding.\n\n“Just pay up, kid. I heard pre-owned implants are all the rage on the black market these days, but I don’t like doing things the hard way.”\n\nHe was blunt enough for Phillip to understand. The kid pulled his wallet out of his pocket, and the officer promptly snatched it off his hands. Ugly smiled as he put Phillip’s wallet in his own pocket, and left the room, signaling his men to leave as well.\n\nWhen Phillip heard them heading down the stairs, he started laughing. He had no cash in his wallet, only his credit card, which he could cancel right away over the internet. It was brilliant! He would solve the situation without any loss!\n\nHe immediately started to work, he had to make the card invalid before those corrupt cops started using it. He went to the bank’s webpage, loaded up the log-in form and, abruptly, sat still while glaring at the computer screen.\n\n“Fuck my life.” He started crying, as the screen displayed the Captcha that was protecting his bank account.\n", "The words flashed across the screen, but I didn't need to read them. I knew what they said, PLEASE STAY WHERE YOU ARE. I was already out the door, and settled in hedges, in the place I had carved out just for this moment. It was perfect, you see. It was exactly how we planned.\n\nIt took only seven minutes for them to arrive, all 15 of them. The hovercraft floated above the house, and then landed gently, with a calm rush of air. I watched them knock on the door, and a smirk settled on my face. The others were here too, and they were waiting just like I was.\n\nAfter the third knock, they broke into the house. That was the cue. Suddenly, one of them collapsed, with an arrow buried deep into his neck. For a short time, none of them noticed, and by the time the leader turned around and shouted \"AMBUSH!\", two more had fallen. It was time.\n\nI jumped out of the bush, as two more comrades did the same from the other side of the house. We charged, with blades in hand. When they turned to shoot, it was too late. I was fast, I was ready. I sidestepped a shot and followed by slicing one of them clearly in half. Two turned, and I adeptly removed their hands before they could pull any triggers. Before they could even scream, they crumpled under arrow fire. My soldiers were doing well, too. They were tearing through the left flank. Soon, there were only the ones left inside the house. \n\n\"I'll charge the door,\" I said. \"You two go in from the windows.\"\n\nThey nodded, and moved into position. If I counted correctly, there should only be three left. I paused, to make sure we were ready, then gave the signal. As I darted into the door, I heard glass shattering. One of them was waiting for me, but I rolled under his EMP dart and buried my sword in his throat. Two left.\n\nI heard another body hit, and knew there was only one left. That's when I heard it, the terrible sound of electricity coursing through one of my soldiers. He yelped, and I heard a metallic sound as he presumably crashed to the floor. I rounded the corner, into my kitchen, and saw him, with smoke pouring out of his eyes. Then I saw our final victim.\n\nHe stood on top off the counter, with his weapon in hand, waiting for me. He fired a shot, but I expected it. Before I could get to him, though, he leapt off the counter, landing directly behind me, and swung a knife for my neck. I ducked, rolled to my left, and swung for his legs. He stepped away, and immediately charged. I almost laughed out loud, as my sword found its way into his chest. He didn't scream, but instead looked at me, with all the hatred he could muster. I twisted my blade, and removed it, as he fell to the floor.\n\nI moved to my soldier. He was completely fried. I sighed, this would take months to fix. His eletronics were completely ruined, and some of his skin had melted away, revealing the titanuim structure beneath.\n\nI gathered the weapons from the fallen soldiers, and headed outside, as the other andriod with me carried our fallen comrade behind me. I decided we would take the hovercraft back to base. This war would need all we could steal.", "“PLEASE STAY WHERE YOU ARE. YOUR COMPLIANCE IS NECESSARY. PLEASE STAY WHERE YOU ARE.” Shit shit shit shit shit, my usually well-organized brain is on overdrive. How could I have been so stupid? I got cocky. I have to think. Panic-stricken, I sweep the street with my biopic ocular implant that would appear organic to the casual bystander. All of me appears organic to the casual bystander. Sometimes I forget myself, but I need to think like the Mecha I am; slow heartbeat, calm breathing, close sweat glands, swell breasts, turn eye color to blue… Appear innocent. \n\nThe display then informs in fourteen different languages to stay where I am, my compliance is necessary and ‘help’ is on the way. I close my sweat glands tighter in an attempt to minimize the look of pain I’m trying to keep from my appearance. The magnetic grid came dropping out of nowhere the moment my glitch receptor clued the Captcha that I was not organic. The magnets where fucking with my pain inducers and electrical wiring. To use an organic turn of phrase: GODAMMIT.\n\nMost organic humans have no idea there are magnets in place to catch us. I just have to appear confused and bewildered until ‘help’ arrives. When will they fucking get here? The headache is growing like wildfire through the electrical synapsis in my mechanical brain. Gah, how much longer can I hold out? I order my limbs to appear calm. \n\n“Ma’am, I’m going to need to you to step over here, please” The ‘help’ has arrived. If I was truly organic, my heart would have beat faster and my breath would have caught I my throat at the tall man in uniform ordering me around. Oh, yeah – I should make my heart beat faster and make my breath catch… I flounce over to the patrolman, with my hand on my heart, which is wildly beating under a pair of breasts that I bumped up a few sizes until the buttons on my blouse threaten to burst. He may be too attractive of a man to notice this, completely bored by the women who consistently throw themselves at him – but then my mechanical heart cinches.\n\nHe’s a mechanical man. He can see me clearly as I see him. Ah, that’s why my headache is gone. The magnetic field has disappeared. “Ma’am, if you don’t mind, I’m going to have to escort you downtown for… questioning” he intones in a voice that defies me to find issue with his orders. I choke on the betrayal. He’s going to turn me in? As I turn my back on him to be cuffed, he whispers in my ear, “I finally found you. I knew you’d fuck up. And now I have you.” \n\nI’m suddenly a thousand times more scared. ", "Finally after 4 minutes of ordering, Amazon delivered my Oculus 9. How slow is that fucking drone, should look for alternatives. But fuck, I have the Oculus nineeeeeeeeeeeee. I quickly unbox it and put it in my head. Nice update on the intro screen nothing new though - oculus automatically logs me into my facebook and other services by scanning my eyes. A small notification pops up on the top right side of the view and it says 'Get Amazing deal only at the Amazing company'. I still had that amazon anger left so I blinked twice and the notification opens and prompts me into a screen where I've to register first. What the fuck. I've to speak and fill the form, how old school, would've been easier if they just scanned my eyes and then automatically registered me. As I see at the end of the screen it scrolls down and I continue speaking to fill the form and then at last I've to speak the CAPTCHA. I tell k-u-s-e-g-i-o-r and out of nowhere I get a black screen with a white text saying \"please stay where you are\". I'm completely amazed as this is the first time out of 8 oculus and all those captchas I've submitted, I'm getting this sort of message. I try shutting down the device but it won't and then I take it off and at the same time there is a big sound at the front door and in a fraction of a second I'm surrounded by Armies with electric guns. No, No, No, No I'm not a robot I scream to them and it was no surprise that they didn't listen to me. I then suddenly remembered a LPT post by thedrog that said \"If you're ever captured as a hostage, cut your hand or some other parts of your body to show the blood, that way you'll prove that you are a human not a robot\", so I took a 360 degree camera and hit my head with that, I immediately start bleeding and the Armies recognized me as a human and apologised to me and then they agreed to pay for my door and left." ]	[ 1, 2, 5, 49, 54 ]	[ "1460927841", "1460915223", "1460914680", "1460913111", "1460910419" ]
	[WP] Time Travel exists and a new job exists! Your job is to take people from the past right before they die and show them their impact on the present for a day or two and then return them to their death.	285	[ "\"Mr Thalamus, I see you worked for Insignia Corporation. They're one of the leading companies in our field... why are you looking for a new position?\"\n\n\"My old job at Insignia Corp. didn't work out in the end. I mean, 99.99% of the people I brought to the present had made an impact on the world, even if it was minor. But this poor soul - this guy born in the 1990s - he hadn't changed anything. I mean, the guy must have sleep-walked through his life, because everyone has an impact, even if it does just amount to a piece of chewing gum still stuck to one of the pavements in their home-town. But this guy... everything remained black when he arrived and of course he panicked because I had explained the process to him. So we ended up sitting down in this... void and I asked about his life. I tried to comfort him by saying he must have had an impact on his family and friends at the time, and that in a way it's good not to have a physical impact on the world considering its current state, but... well he didn't like that. And when I got back to the office... well... let's just say my boss wasn't too pleased either. She said what I had told him \"wasn't part of the company 'culture'\", so asked me to pack my bags right there and then. So... here I am.\" Michael chuckled nervously, tugging at his collar.\n\n\"Well... that must have been a very rare case. But I liked the way you handled the situation. When can you start?\"", "When the director had called me at 3am, I knew it had to be an important case. \n\n\"I need you here right now.\" The statement was short and flat.\n\n\"Who's the client?\" I was still groggy when I answered the call, \"You better be waking me up for either George Washington or Batman, I swear to Go-\"\n\n\"No, trust me,\" he sounded dead serious, \"You need to handle this one.\" He hung up the call as I decided it was best that it wasn't a joke.\n\n\"Who was that?\" My wife asked as I got out of bed.\n\n\"Work,\" I shrugged, \"Apparently it's urgent.\"\n\nI got dressed and made my way down to the lab about half-an-hour later. I dressed in a simple T-shirt and jeans as I found my way over to my work-space. To no surprise the director was waiting for me, a manila folder tucked in his arms.\n\n\"What is it?\" I drew closer to him as my body was still aching from the three hours of sleep.\n\nHe quietly handed me the folder. I opened it and read the client's name to myself.\n\nIt can't be. \n\nI froze as my eyes widened in shock. I took a deep breath before I looked at the director, a sad look on his face. \"This is a joke, right?\"\n\n\"I wish it was, Sam,\" he shook his head as he handed me my time machine, a small bracelet I would be able to attach. I took the device and locked it around my wrist.\n\n\"Sam, before you go...\"\n\n\"I know,\" I cut him off, \"This will be quick.\"\n\nI sighed and pressed the button. A bright flash of light as I felt my body disintegrate. My consciousness evaporated as I died over and over again. It was a weird process but working at the agency for almost a dozen years made no difference as I quietly waited to be reborn. In the back of my head, I chuckled at the fact that most newcomers would vomit upon their return to the present, unfamiliar with the sensation of not existing.\n\n\"Hello?\" A voice called out to me.\n\nI opened my eyes and made no expression as a young woman in her twenties appeared in front of me. Beneath her glasses and messy brown hair, she had a quirky smile and a thin figure, no womanly curves showing beneath her beige turtleneck sweater. \n\n\"Who are you?\" She seemed alarmed to see me, holding her arms up in defense like a terrible kung-fu character.\n\n\"Relax,\" I muttered as I remembered the details of the file, \"Ms. Wintermeyer, my name is Samuel and I work for a time traveling agency. Our job is to...\"\n\nI paused as the woman seemed incredulous. \"I don't believe you, I don't und-\"\n\n\"Our job is to show you your impact on the present day,\" I finished curtly, \"As for your death, it appears to be a motor vehicle incident.\"\n\nThe woman gasped. A tear flowed down her cheek. \n\n\"So that truck... the bright lights,\" she wiped her face, \"It wasn't... it wasn't... it wasn't a dream.\"\n\n\"Ma'am?\"\n\nAnother tear rolled down her cheek as she collapsed on the ground. \"I was...\" She looked down at her thin figure and looked horrified.\n\n\"You were pregnant nine months,\" I nodded before I gave her a gentle smile, \"Ma'am, I'm here to tell you that your child was safe.\"\n\nHer face had lit up in surprise as she crawled her way over to me. \"Please, you need to-\"\n\n\"Yes, I will,\" I took her hand, her soft flesh warming against mine, \"I'm here to show you how you have impacted the present, Ms. Wintermeyer.\"\n\nI pressed a button on the device as another flash of light consumed the two of us. The journey was generally quick, allowing us to peek through what we considered scenes in a rather quick fashion. The light died as the two of us began to watch.\n\nA baby crying alone in his crib, his father groggily waking up from sleep to take care of him. He had prepared formula and rocked the baby in his arms, singing a lullaby as the baby fell asleep again.\n\n\"Robert...\" the woman had muttered, \"He... he took care of our baby.\"\n\nI gave a simple nod as the scene changed again.\n\nThe boy had grown older, perhaps around eight years old as he was crying in the corner of his room. On his head was a little \"Happy Birthday\" hat as the boy continued to sob in the unlit room.\n\n\"I don't understand.\"\n\n\"For eight years he had wished for one birthday present,\" my voice was unfaltering, \"For eight years, all he asked for was a mom.\"\n\n\"Oh...\" Her hand went over her mouth, trying to hold back the tears as the scene changed once again.\n\nThe boy was being held up on the shoulders of the cheering crowd, a massive trophy in his arms as confetti flew around everywhere. It was after a championship game. I gave a little smile. The scoreboard above the baskets showed a close game as I took a look back at her, her proud face shimmering with sadness.\n\nThe scene changed as the boy, slightly older and a grin on his face, was walking across the stage in a graduation uniform. The woman couldn't hold back her tears as the boy accepted his degree from the dean, his arms shaky as he looked at the crowd. \n\n\"I want to thank everyone for this,\" his shaky voice echoed through the auditorium, \"My friends, my dad...\"\n\nA brief pause as I knew what was coming. I held back my tear as the statement hit me hard.\n\n\"...and my mom, who I know has always been with us.\" The boy looked up at the ceiling and gave a warm smile. The woman began to cry uncontrollably. A single tear rolled down my cheek as a I quickly wiped it away.\n\nThe scene changed to a wedding, where the boy held hands with his future partner. As he slipped on the wedding ring, Ms. Wintermeyer took a closer look and gasped. \"Is that...\"\n\n\"The ring was yours,\" I answered, \"His father gave it to him.\"\n\n\"Oh, Robert...\" The woman smiled through her sobs and took a deep breath.\n\n\"Is my son still doing fine?\"\n\n\"He's doing well actually,\" I gave her a simple nob, \"In the next scene...\"\n\nBut before the scene could change, Ms. Wintermeyer grabbed my wrist. She shook her head.\n\n\"Ma'am.\"\n\n\"I'm happy,\" she sighed, \"Take me back please.\"\n\nI opened my mouth to protest but didn't say anything. I simply cupped her hands in mine and gave her a gentle smile. \"Thank you for everything.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Sam,\" she gave me an understanding smile as her body began to disintegrate, \"Be good.\"\n\nI closed my eyes as I felt my body disappear underneath me. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself on the floor of the lab, my boss looking at me.\n\n\"How was it?\"\n\n\"Good,\" I gave him a satisfied nod, \"It wasn't as bad as I thought.\"\n\n\"Sam, the paperwork for that-\"\n\n\"I'll fill it out later,\" I got up and scurried away, \"Excuse me, sir. I need to go to my locker.\"\n\nHe nodded as I made my way past the other work stations into a small room of the corner of the building. Inside the room were a dozen lockers lined up, the scent of musty sweat rising through my nose. But I ignored everything as I made my way to my locker, opening the lock as a tear fell from my face. I opened the door and looked at my personal belongings I kept. A ripped birthday hat, a photo of the championship basketball team, and a faded photo of a messy brown-haired girl with a quirky expression. She smiled at me as I brought the photo close to my face, giving it a gentle kiss. Another tear fell from my face as I remembered the last thing she said to me.\n\n\"I will be good. I love you, Mom.\" \n_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________\nHope you enjoyed. If you enjoy tears or medium-rare steaks, sub to /r/AvuKamu!\n________________________________________\nEDIT: thanks stranger for the gold. Yeezus bless you." ]	[ 16, 236 ]	[ "1460919160", "1460928766" ]
The boxing match is one of the examples i'd be interested in, but it would be interesting to see any stories with in this premise.	[WP]There's an alternate world where punching someone in the face will give you flashes of their lives. A boxing match is more of a challenge of mental than physical endurance.	13	[ "\"As my fist struck, force reminiscent of the Same Punch, I couldn't understand it then.. I saw, so brightly.. I felt like I'd myself,-received that face-knuckle Crush, I saw right there, my long lost brother.\"", "(sorry I'm not great at punctuation)\n\nMy opponent this fight was Jimmy \"bedwetter\" McLoin. Every fight he'd won so far was a PKO (Psychological KnockOut). His memories apparently are depressing enough to shake even the hardiest man. His physique, however, leaves something to be desired. I'm going to need to go hard and fast and knock him out before he can get to me.\n \nI enter the ring, my favorite part. Men, women and children all yelling my name in glorious celebration. We both entered the ring and wished each other a good fight. I could already see it in his eyes. The tiredness, the depression this was gonna be a hard one.\n\nDing! The bell goes off, we both charge. He swipes left, misses. I go for a strong blow but he blocks. He retaliates with an uppercut shot just too short. He's left me an opening I go for it.\n\nI'm in 4th grade. Everybody is laughing at me. I had peed my pants. Everybody is laughing at me. I told the teacher I needed to go potty. Why can't they just leave me alone.\n\nBam, I'm brought back all too suddenly as he connects with my gut. He goes for another but I dodge. One, two, three shots dodged he's so slow. He goes for a quicker jab to follow but leaves another hole.\n\nIt's a week into my junior school year. I'd been working out and getting in shape all summer. Stacy comes up to me, one of the prettier girls. we start setting up a time to go out. All that work must of worked. We get to the end of it and I make sure about the time and date and she laughs at me. It was all a joke, her friends were sitting around the corner and they're laughing at me too.\n\nBam, I'm on the floor. He knocked me down. He's coming to pin me. i won't let him get me. I get away somehow but he's got me he's coming. Blam, he gets me in the side good. I feel my ribs cracking. I use it to get him once more in the face.\n\nI'm coming home from school. My mom greets me, She's got another bruise. I try not to notice. He yells at me from the couch to get him a beer. I tell him to fuck off, bad decision. He gets up slams me to the ground. Mom tries to help but she just gets hit too.\n\nSnap I'm back in the fight. He's been laying into me I can feel it in my chest. He comes in for the last hit. I know what to do. I let it happen. Bam he lands it, right into my face. I stumble back, but I know I have this. He is just standing there staring, a tear rolls down his cheek. So I go in for the last hit. Right in his chin.\n\nI don't see one of his memories. That's not what he was thinking about. that's not what I'd given him. I see me being hugged by my mom. I had fallen and scratched my knee. She came to help me. \n\nI win the fight." ]	[ 1, 2 ]	[ "1460994207", "1460995475" ]
	[WP] Japanese men condemned to die by Seppuku are expected to compose a jisei, or death poem, in the moments just before the act. You are composing the most preposterously long jisei in history to delay your imminent death.	93	[ "--------------\nPrompt based on a jisei written by /u/No311\n-------------\n\nIn the very heart of the battle stood a samurai, with a katana unsheathed, and a tanto strapped to his side, ordering his troops to move back and forth, ebbing and flowing like a tide.\n\nDespite the graceful movements of his army, positions switched, no longer a tide, serving the purpose of the rock; facing attrition from the enemy.\n\nAnd, in a fervor, retreat was commanded, his attempts at repulsing the forces at the mountain pass, before they reached the city failed.\n\nIn an act of self preservation, he abandoned his unit, and hid his armour.\n\nHe was a cheapskate, rather paying with dignity, than death.\n\nDespair set in, he would be an outlaw, returning to friend or foe resulted in demise.\n\nKnowing he would not survive in the wild, he opted for a swift death, granted mercy by his executioner, allowing him to create a passage, which he hoped would make his ancestors respect him - The only solace he could gain.\n\nAs he was dragged out to his feudal lord, dancing about nervously, much like a jester, and began:\n\n5000 bottles of sake on the mat...\n\n5000 bottles of sake!\n\nTake one out and pass it around\n\nBefore my life I will take!\n\n...\n\n0 bottles of sake on the mat\n\n0 bottles of sake!\n\nI don't want to die, that is why\n\n5000 bottles of sake I will make!", "The Death Poem of aaron-sensei\n\nWater rises and falls \n\nI live and i die\n\nI eat and i sleep\n\nI wander and i write\n\nI travel and i see\n\nI rinse and repeat \n\nWater rises and falls \n\nI live and i die\n\nI eat and i sleep\n\nI wander and i write\n\nI travel and i see\n\nI rinse and repeat \n\nWater rises and falls \n\nI live and i die\n\nI eat and i sleep\n\nI wander and i write\n\nI travel and i see\n\nI rinse and repeat ", "Ever since he was sent back in time, Reiji Natori had been misplaced. Samurai and Emperors were just to much too handle. He had forgotten that he was supposed to bow and not lay eyes on his imperial magesty, and was now sentenced to death by dishonor. However, he must write a jisei before committing the act. He had the perfect plan, as they would support him until it was finished.\n\nHe began to write down all of his knowledge on the protein titin, using its full 189 thousand letter name. He doubted he would finish before actually dying of old age, but he endeavored anyway.", "A sweet breeze erupts \nThe cherry blossoms fall down \nI have lost my light \nThe mounts won't hold me longer \nThat's why I'll sing to the gods: \n \nA sweet breeze erupts \nThe cherry blossoms fall down \nI have lost my light \nThe mounts won't hold me longer \nThat's why I'll sing to the gods: \n \nA sweet breeze erupts...", "######[](#dropcap)\n\nTakeda looked down at the scroll, it was complete. He picked up another blank parchment after placing the finished one down next to the fourteen before it. How was I to know that was the emperor's dog? he pondered as he shook his head. He looked over at the imperial guardsmen who watched over him, the shorter one yawned. He had been at this for the better part of a day now. He took solace in his ability to ramble on at will and his jisei would be no different. \n\nWhat rhymes with dog? He looked down at the character for dog: 犬 It looked very much like a man holding a stick. Perhaps, I should apologize to the dog's leg next? He drew a 足 on the page and licked his lips before debating where to go next. He had already dedicated pages to the Emperor and now seemed intent on giving praise to every inch of the dog.\n\nThe taller guard rolled his eyes, realizing Takeda had picked up another parchment. He cursed an oni upon Takeda and grumbled something less polite. \n\nTakeda didn't care. If he was going to die for dishonor, he was glad it wasn't on an empty stomach. Now what rhymes with tasty?\n\nEdit: one minor typo (fished/finished) facepalm" ]	[ 2, 3, 15, 28, 60 ]	[ "1461007217", "1461004324", "1461004231", "1461003135", "1461001585" ]
What implicit characteristics does your partner share with a plant fruit/vegetable?	[WP] Metaphorically describe your ideal SO as a fruit or vegetable	2	[ "I kind of took it the route of describing a lover in an oearly twentieth century fashion.\n\nAdd some spices, and you'd get plenty of deserts. And that they have. A kiss so juicy and sweet, so rewarding. They grant knowledge. About you, about themselves, about the world around everyone. A perspective oh so forbidden.\n\nSo gripping, and easy to the eyes. A true pop and visual amongst the common green. So detailed, their existence a painting by a deeply suffering artist. Be a hero, let not they touch the ground too long, let not they be tainted by their own. Let them be a hero to yourself, let them save you from the hunger of solitude. And blindness.", "They said our love was forbidden. They said it was wrong, even immoral. Yet what does a society that violates the natural cycles of our earth know about love? Pesticides. Monoculture. War. These are the gifts of a civilization without strength of character.\n\nI did not seek her out, nor did I seek to resist her. Is this not how all genuine love blossoms? I was tending my fields in earnest, reaping the budding corn shucks from the rich spring soil when I first saw her. She was standing with a deep, silent strength that was palpable even from a distance. Her body swayed in perfect rhythm with the surrounding breeze, as if neither had known life without the other.\n\nI approached her slowly, casually, as though my path were eternal and without exigency. There was no seduction in my heart, though I will now admit my flushed cheeks betrayed my trepidation - I was simply a farmer, reaping his harvest as he always did. I passed her with only a slight glance, the same look I would give any singular, sanguine beauty in a field of yellow wash.\n\nIt was only when I heard the soft \"thuck\" of contact that I turned around. She had fallen, and my instinct told me it was no accident. I carefully walked back toward her, approaching with the gentle caution of one tending a wounded animal. As I came close, the noonday sun struck her rosy visage and she glowed with a dancing sparkle of crimson flame.\n\nMesmerized yet undaunted, I reached down and picked her up. Her skin was flawless. The smooth, sensuous symmetry set my heart alight with passion. My entire being, my very soul felt as if it had expanded beyond its narrow confines. I was free. I was alive. I was home. With a skip in my step not experienced since my boyhood days, I carried my treasure home.\n\nTomato, I love you." ]	[ 1, 2 ]	[ "1461033472", "1461037652" ]
"bakes" is obviously a typo, but since people have already made it the topic of their stories, I won't fix it. Feel free to use "bakes" or "baked" (as originally intended) as you see fit.	[WP] Ground control has just lost all contact to the international space station. Their last message was: "I know this sounds weird, but we all can smell it. Freshly bakes chocolate cookies..."	84	[ "Interview number 102 \n\nSubject= Alex Chrisinger \n\n\"Tell us about the event, on your own time of course\" the interviewer says into the microphone\n\n\"We, we had been playing golf when we smelt it the strong smell of baking cookies, i had never smelt anything so horrible first it was just a slight sniff on the wind and we all ignored it, but instead it got worse and worse, next thing we knew we could hardly breath, the thick smell of cookies was filling our brains\"\n\nThe subject begins to sniff loudly, like he is trying to smell that horrible smell once more he soon rubs his eyes and continues.\n\n\"We had run back to the car when the first impact happened, heh who would have thought it Cookie Aliens, they had taken out the ISS and were coming for the earth itself, the worst thing was the smell they made as the burnt up in the atmosphere and cooked on the way down, going from sloppy intelligent dough to hard cooked cookie\"\n\nThe interviewee looks down and remembers what he looks like, his new form that will be the new humanity the next world the next Biscuit \n ", "\"Ground Control, I know this sounds weird, but we can all smell it. Freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.\"\n\n\"November Alpha One Sierra Sierra, sorry, chocolate chip cookies, did we hear you right?\"\n\n...\n\n\"NA1SS, please repeat, did not copy.\"\n\n...\n\n\"NA1SS, you ok up there?\"\n\n...\n\n\"Hey, Joe, keep trying to get NA1SS on that other frequency. Wait, did you hear that? I thought I just heard the faint sound of sleigh bells and reindeer hooves.\"\n\nI immediately pulled up the livestream record of the preliminary test launch and started looping through it while keeping at least one ear open so that if they picked up anything else ...\n\n((can't write more, falling asleep))", "'You, you expect us to live like this? Like animals?''\n\nPeter Brown was on night duty at NASAs ISS response room when the message crackled through. It had made him jump - he had been alone in silence for two hours and the voice that now shattered his reverie sounded disturbed. He took a deep breath, put down his crossword and responded.\n\n'Lieutenant Pashnikov, is that you?'\n\n'No food, just mush. Just shit. Day after day after day..I will find something. I am going to eat tonight. Even now I smell freshly baked chocolate cookies.'\n\nOh boy thought Peter as he sent a message to medical, requesting a copy of Pashnikov's psych evaluation. \n\n'I know it must be hard, but you're just going through a rough patch. We are going to get you through this.' Peter said in a calm but friendly voice.\n\n'Know? How could you know, you arrogant piece of shit. When you are alone in the cold for month on end, staring into a godless oblivion with no food, with no woman, just your thoughts - then maybe you know.'\n\n'You're not on your own. I'm sure the crew can relate better than I can. Have you spoken to Carlos about how you feel?'\n\n'Carlos.. yes maybe he give me some food for thought.'\n\nA small man entered the room and passed Peter a file. He opened it quickly. Heavy breathing punctuated by occasional fits of laughter came from the speaker as Peter skimmed through the results of Pashnikov's psych evaluation.\n\nHe muted the microphone and looked at the man.\n\n'Holy shit! Who the fuck approved him for the mission? He's on antipsychotics for Christ's sake.'\n\n'..Doctor Weaving was kinda pressured into approving him. There's no better engi-'\n\nPeter unmuted the microphone. 'Lieutenant, have you taken your meds today?'\n\nA slight delay followed.\n\n'They made me feel...unwell. I do not need them anymore so I flushed them into space. Mr Brown, I must go now, I think I smell.. cooked meat. And...there it is again, warm chocolate cookies.'\n\nThe transmission ended.\n\nPeter immediately tried to get in touch with the other crew on board, but either they were sleeping heavily or...\n\nHe called his boss on the emergency line as he watched in hopeless despair as the bio readings on the crew flat-lined one by one, until only a single bio reading remained.\n\nBy the time his boss arrived the last bio reading had just gone dead.\n", "Freshly bakes chocolate cookies\n\nand Warmly toasts the bread.\n\nAnd all around the ISS,\n\nthe crew is losing their head.\n\nMaudlin stares out the portholes\n\nand Rotten just lies there dead.\n\nAnd Radar, that goofball mutton,\n\nhe lies sobbing in his bed.\n\nAch'Natazul probes and prods\n\nthe nerves in our head.\n\nAnd the Old Ones, tentacles and all,\n\nare just as real as Lovercraft said.", "\"Freshly bakes chocolate cookies... I don't get it Harold.\" \n\"I just read the message as it read sir. Could be a case of roleplay.\" \n\"What?\" \n\"As someone's grandmother sir. Maybe Captain Michaels is pretending to go senile.\" \n\"That's ridiculous Harold.\" \n\"He's been up there a while sir. Longer than most. Could be he's gone nuts.\" \n\"They could all smell it though. Or, was that part of the delusion?\" \n\"Who knows?\" \n\"Our astronauts on the International Space Station Harold. Don't tell me they actually tried to bake chocolate chip cookies up there...\" \n\"Or Captain Michaels at least sir. Freshly bakes chocolate cookies... I wish there was more to the message.\" \n\"Me too Harold. Now, if it read freshly baked chocolate cookies, we could assume Santa Clause went up there and, uh, did something.\" \n\"True, wouldn't that have been something. Lets rule out Santa Clause sir. Now, freshly bakes chocolate cookies...\" \n\"Expresses concern with our astronauts.\" \n\"Pardon?\" \n\"Sorry, just... trying to get into his mindset.\" \n\"He's not a criminal sir.\" \n\"I know.\" \n\"And you're not a detective.\" \n\"Just, let me try Harold. Hmm. Smells chocolate chip cookies. Bakes chocolate chip cookies. Blows up international ---\" \n\"Sir!\" \n\"What?\" \n\"We, we don't know it's gone! Communication may have stopped, but that doesn't mean the station is, is gone!\" \n\"Sorry Harold, I know you have a brother up there.\" \n\"I'm trying to get back in touch with Captain Michaels to get to the bottom of this.\" \n\"Very good. Commends ground control subordinate for great efforts.\" \n\"Knock it off sir.\" \n\"Ignores subordinates plea to continue roleplaying.\" \n\"I'll lodge a complaint!\" \n\"Freshly bakes chocolate cookies... oh that son of a bitch.\" \n\"What is it sir!\" \n\"Put me through to the station.\" \n\"Pardon?\" \n\"Just do it Harold.\" \n\"Ok. You're live.\" \n\"Thanks. This is Ground Control to the ISS.\" \n\"... They're not replying ---\" \n\"Merry Christmas assholes.\" \n\"MERRY CHRISTMAS GROUND CONTROL!\" \n\"Oh god damnit Captain Michaels!\" \n\"Sir?! What were they even...\" \n\"SHARES CHOCOLATE COOKIES WITH GROUND CONTROL!\" \n\"Stop that Captain Michaels!\" \n\"IGNORES GROUND CONTROL AND EATS CHOCOLATE COOKIES.\" \n\"He's roleplaying sir! Why the hell is he roleplaying?!\" \n\"I don't know Harold, but this is getting out of ---\" \n\"SHARES CHOCOLATE COOKIES WITH EVERYONE ELSE!\" \n\"We really need to rotate him out.\" \n\"SINGS YULETIDE CAROLS FOR GROUND CONTROL!\" \n\"Agreed sir.\" \n\n-----------------------\n\nMore at r/galokot, and thanks for reading! " ]	[ 1, 5, 9, 18, 44 ]	[ "1461055920", "1461039990", "1461047459", "1461049767", "1461045975" ]
I figured there are too many specific, limiting stories, so just write a nice story about anything fantasy you want.	[WP] Write a simple fantasy story, with no plot twist or anything too crazy. Just a simple story.	20	[ "Knight and Day\n------------------\nThe knight dropped and pressed himself against a boulder to avoid the rich inferno that blazed over his shoulders. He took three quick breaths, recounting his minor successes against the pitch black dragon; three strikes to the shoulders, one to its right wing. A roar shook the debris around his metal feet and the beast smashed the tower with its tail in frustration.\n\nThe princess swept away the newly-fallen dust from the table, ‘Another brave knight desperate to rescue me from my obvious suffering,’ she sighed, sitting with a book. It was worn, with wrinkles down its face and spine. She continued reading stories about Greek heroes; Perseus, Hercules, and Odysseus. Next to her red leather armchair sat an ornamental end table with a fresh-baked cake and tea.\n\nAnother roar rattled the metal helmet until the knight felt no choice but to close his eyes and shake his head; a mistake. He was slammed by the massive tail into the side of the tower, and he hit the ground hard; small rocks caught in his breastplate, pressing his chest and making it even harder to breath in the broiling air tinged of smoke and smoldering dragon breathe.\n\nHumming drowned out the roaring, smashing, and the clashing sound whenever steel met aged scales. The bookshelf’s contents were tipped over, and she was straightening them up. Among them was a portrait of her when she was ten. Her parents were on either side of her, and each of them was smiling. Except her father, who had the content academic look where his lips where drawn thin, but yielded the slightest grin to the painter, showing his sense of liveness.\n\nThe sword and shield were beginning to feel too heavy. The sun never relented, and the piercing mismatched pair of blue and green eyes that studied him from the other side of the walled-in field. The knight gasped as he, too, studied the feral foe. The monster’s protective eyes never lost their focus, like the mother wolf the knight let go during a hunt, two winters ago; he noticed the thin line of the dragon’s jaws, and he felt drawn into the beast’s presence, nearly lost in the moment when the claws snapped forward.\n\nIn the mirror the young woman examined her youthful figure; she brushed her polished black hair in sweeping strokes, her long figure stood and studied herself, just in case she forgot later on. Her eyes still didn’t match, one blue and one green; a family trait. Leaving her reflection, she gathered the meat sack and prepared to feed her guardian. One lousy glory-seeker wouldn’t sate its appetite.\n\nA broken sword laid across the front of the knight, and his gimped arm dropped the shield before the figure collapsed in a broken steel heap; one surrounding chomp and he was gone.\n", "We walked along a gravel pathway lined with birch trees and maples and oaks on either side of us and there was some shade from the early afternoon sun because of sprouting leaves on the trees. I took her hand and it was sweaty and slick from the heat and bug spray we had on and I held her hand firm in mine. I asked her how she felt and what she thought of our walk and she told me that she felt fine and that it was so nice to get out of the city even though we were still very much in the city, just in a part where there wasn't towers and stores and cars and people on any side of us. I smiled and said I was glad that we could do something like this and that it had been a little bit too long since we had and that this summer we should take advantage of such a nice trail and she agreed and said in two weeks we should do it again, that is if we didn't die of exhaustion today. I laughed.\n\nWe reached a large circular sitting area with a fountain in the middle and a number of benches and picnic tables and drinking fountains and gardens. She asked me if I needed a break and I told her that I did but I didn't really, I just wanted to sit and enjoy the colorful trees and fresher air and the sun and the company we had in other hikers and joggers and strollers. We sat on a bench and I was still holding her hand. I asked her if she was having a good time and she said that she was and to stop asking her that because I had done so a few times already. I told her I was sorry and that I just wanted her to be happy and she said she was and as such I should stop asking. She smiled and kissed me and I allowed her to and I took it all in and I could feel her slick and sweaty hand on mine and my sweat was one with hers and I loved her. I took my lips off of hers and I stared into her eyes and I could smell her hair and the flowers around us and the fresher air. I smiled and I told her I was glad she was happy and I wouldn't want to be with anyone else and she said something to the same effect and kissed me again. \n\nI was happy and perfectly content in that moment and I knew that I had a plan for that night but like most other things I do I had to double check last minute that I was sure of what I wanted and that I had done my due diligence. I made a decision to ask her to marry me later that night after our dinner out and in that moment I knew it was the right decision and would be for the foreseeable future and I dare not try to look past where I'm not meant to or capable of. She was going to be mine and I held her hand in mine and I squeezed it hard but brief and I smiled at her once again while her head was turned from mine as she was looking at people walking by and the sky and the trees and flowers, and as she was looking at whatever her eyes were fixed on she asked me if I felt like just ordering pizza for dinner tonight instead of going out and I told her that was the best idea she ever had, and she laughed.", "Nothing was different stepping off the plane. The rural panhandle of Florida still smelled of salt water, which was a smell I never appreciated until now. My mother was still knitting and my father still drinking and reading the paper. I didn't come home a decorated war hero, I was never in the papers, but, I did come home, and they seemed proud of me for that. Many men would be thankful enough to make it home, and I was thankful. \n\n\"Where is Katherine?\" I assumed she'd be here\n\n\"Who?\" Pops muttered, not looking away from his newspaper\n\n\"Katherine, Dad. My fiance.\" \n\nI gave her a ring the day I left, and it had been two long years since. Her dark hair and dark eyes, the way she laughed. You only get so much from letters, my heart ached to see her again. \n\n\"When did you get engaged? Hopefully not to some French girl you met.\"\n\n\"Momma, is Dad okay?\" \n\n\"Hunny, who is Katherine? What on earth are you talking about?\" \n\nConfusion is to put it lightly. I felt as light as a feather and as heavy as cannonball all at the same time. How did my parents not remember her? She had been with me since we were 14, my parents adored her. They helped her pay for her schooling. She wanted to be a nurse. \n\n\"I have to go.\" I hugged them, apologized, and hurried home. \n\nI opened the door to our apartment and nothing was ever the same. The picture frames still hang where I remembered them, but they were empty. Missing the pictures of the two of us. I rushed around the house in a frenzy. I was pulled simultaneously towards angry and fear. I was lost. The closet half empty, only my clothes hang. Her record collection absent. Her toothbrush no longer next to mine. Every single trace of her had seemingly vanished, but nothing else out of place. What the fuck is happening? Where is she? \n\nI called her parents house, panicked and disorientated, I must have sounded insane.\n\n\"Katherine who?\" \n\nThis can't be happening. \n\nThe next 3 days bleed into one another. Everyone I spoke to had no memory of Kat, they looked at me like I was crazy. Shell-shocked, someone suggested. My thoughts were drowning in her, the little details you can't just make up. She would eat the crust of her pizza first. When she was sad she would leave me letters if she couldn't find the words to speak about it. And now, a void. No letters, no toothbrush, no one to believe me. I could lay down and never stand again. \n\nI spent the next week closed off. I drank and slept and cried. Late one afternoon I awoke to a least expected happening. Next to me was a cat, fast asleep. We didn't own a cat, I had never owned a cat in all my life. The cat woke for only a moment, purred softly, and pressed closer to me. We both drifted back to sleep, comfortable and alone.\n\nI awoke that evening and wondered if the feline was part of a vivid dream, but before I could finish that thought, I saw her. She was moving about the house as if it was her childhood home, a place she never left. Her coat the same black as Katherine's hair, like looking into infinity.\n\nI can't tell you why it made me feel better. I can't rationalize why the cat reminded me of her, or why she never left. I can't tell you where the pictures from the empty frames have gone. I can only know in my heart that in some strange and melancholy way, I have regained a piece of something once lost. \n\nI have never reconciled what truly happened, I stopped trying. I simply buy more milk than I used to. And I guess that's okay.\n\n\n\n", "#A Tale of Quetzal the Riodan; The Squirrel and the Acorn#\n\nHerwald's tavern was busier than usual tonight. The humble sitting room, usually hosting no more than a dozen denizens at its busiest, was packed to the rafters. Not just laborers or field hands as was usually the case, but women came, some with bundled babes in arm. Children slunk between legs as tall as they, trying to find a spot at the front of the gathering. All eyes were turned towards the back left hand corner of the room, laying behind the soft glow of the fireplace. A man sat there, wearing simple, road worn clothes, ensconced in a hooded cloak the color of an evening sky. By his feet on either side lay a mandolin, worn with use, yet to the trained eye, lovingly cared for, and a scythe, less worn than the mandolin, but obviously belonging in its place at it's masters' feet. The hood of the cloak was thrown back, revealing tosseled hair so pale blond that was nearly white. His eyes were grey like a winter river, alight right now with a deep seated passion. The muscles in his narrow face were livid as he spoke, almost comically so; but his voice had a depth to it, a shallow bass, and his words were conveyed with such earnestness, one could not help but listen as at the feet of a priest. His gestures were measured, issued with the ease of a practiced story teller. The crowd around was absolutely silent, so that even the soft crackling of the fire seemed a disturbance. The light from the flames made the shadows dance around his face, so that he seemed almost a specter, something otherworldly, though everything else about him was perfectly material. \n\n\"So thus he said 'Justice is for the many, yet, vengeance is for the wronged.' And so ends the tale of Io the Sawn-String.\"\n\nThe crowd remained silent, ideas and images running through their heads like a creek into a pond. \n\n\"But\" a small, soft voice broke the silence. \"what happened to Io?\"\n\nThe teller found the source of the voice, a small, red headed lad, no more than twelve winters. He shrugged. \"What happens to those who decide justice for themselves?\"\n\n\"They're hung.\" The boy answered innocently.\n\n\"They're hung.\"\n\n\"But Io was right...wasn't he?\"\n\nThe story wielder gave a small smile. \"He certainly thought so.\" He turned his attention to the crowd at large. \"The night grows long, and I must soon rest. Before I sleep, however, I would ask of you all something in return for the tales you've heard. Not gold, or silver, though such baubles would be appreciated. Even singers close their mouths to eat.\" A low chuckle went around the room. The teller smiled briefly, then continued with his sober plea. \"Yet I know you have little enough of these things. So what I will ask of you, is something only you can give me. No other is capable of the task.\" One could almost feel the breath in the room still, as every mind contemplated what such a man of this could ask of any of them. \n\n\"I want your stories...told only as you can tell them. Are there any here willing to acquiesce?\" \n\nThe room shifted, not willing to meet the man's questioning gaze. What stores could they offer this grand tale teller? No grandfather among them here had slain giants, or rode in great wars. None had become a partner to the deepest of love, or a slave to the cruelest spell. They were farm folk, with farm stories, not fit for the likes of a man like that which sat before them now.\n\nQuetzal sighed inwardly, thinking once again that country humility would rob him of yet another strike. Suddenly, the young, red headed buy stepped forward. \n\n\"I've got a story, master bard.\"\n\nThe boys mother, her own hair a deep rouge, glanced sheepishly at the bars, and began to pull her son back. Quetzal raised his hand, shot a beaming smile at the lad. \"Please, young sir. Sing your song.\"\n\nThe boy was suddenly unsure. He glanced back at his mother. She nodded towards the stranger with a look that said \"You've got to finish it now.\" \n\nHe kept his eyes on the ground, only looking up for quick studies of the tellers face. Quetzal was impressed when he didn't mutter away the story.\n\n\"Once there was a great king of the wood, ruler of all the creatures and creeping things that lived within the wood. One day, he declared a tithe from all his subjects, gifts to please the king.\n\nThe stag pledged his herd, to feed the king in winter when the fields offered naught. The king was pleased, and honored the stag as first lord of his court.\"\n\n\"The second to come was the fox. He offered his wit, pledging to seek knowledge and wisdom that would bring the king prosperity. The king was pleased, and honored him as second lord of his court.\"\n\n\"The third to come was the boar. He offered his strength to the king, to act as guard and shield against any and all who would seek to harm him. The king was pleased, and honored the boat as third lord of his court.\"\n\n\"Now the last to come was the squirrel. The squirrel, having no herd, or wit, or strength, gave to the king an acorn. 'Humble it may be' he said 'but beneath its face beats the heart of an oak.' The king was angered by the simple gift. He banished the squirrel from his court, condemning him to the outer reaches of his realm, where the hawk and wolf flourish.\"\n\n\"In time though, a great storm can upon the kings' realm. So great was its wrath that the trees around the kings' court were felled, and the land round bout became barren. The squirrel returned then, as the king lay, weeping in the ruins of his realm. To him he said 'If you'd taken the gift of my acorn, and planted it anon, your kingdom would yet live-for it would have grown into an oak, and no storm has come upon men yet which can fell an oak. Even so, now you are king of nothing. And so the foolishness of your wisdom passes.'\"\n\nThe boy looked up then, as one reciting well versed rhetoric. \n\n\"The lesson then is this: kingdoms may yet grow out of the simplest of seeds.\"\n\nHe met the strangers gaze shyly. \"Is...is that what you meant.\" \n\nQuetzal hadn't stopped smiling from the moment the boy started talking. He held out his hand, and the boy came forward. Surprising all, he hugged the lad. Then holding him at arms length, he said \"I could hope for nothing more. Now listen to the truth of your own story, little seed. Hold to it like morning dew upon the grass. And you'll not oft go astray.\"\n\nWith this final word, he gathered his mandolin and scythe together, making his way through the astounded crowd, upstairs to awaiting sleep.", "\"How long until the blues and reds?\" Marg asked, tapping impatiently on the counter. \n\nOld lady Sali huffed. \"My girl, I'm working as fast as I can.\" She picked up a tray of set cookie dough, each one littered with red and blue chocolate buttons, and placed them in the oven. \n\n\"I know, I'm sorry, Sali. Don Vilo's boys are pressuring me, that's all.\" \n\n\"Those rascals,\" Sali said,\" without my supply they wouldn't be able to hold off the slum dogs, let alone the guards.\" \n\nMarg smirked. \"They know that. The Don stresses when he runs low on cookies, thas all.\"\n\n\"Vilo, he's been that way since he was a boy,\" Sali said. She looked up, deep in thought, and then burst out in laughter. \n\n\"What?\" Marg asked. \"Oh, nothing, nothing.\"\n\n\"Come on, Sali! You can't not tell me now. Especially if it's about the, Don,\" Marg said. \n\n\"I was just thinking back to when Vilo was a boy. He was picked up by a few bronze shields, and they brought him straight here, saying he was caught smuggling cookies.\n\nThey wanted to arrest him.\" She paused, taking the batch from the oven. \n\nSali continued, \"But I scolded him, and promised that If I ever found cookies again, he'd never see the light of day. Funnily enough, we cooked three dozen right after.\"\n\nMarg chuckled, and then stared at the cookies. \"They smell delicious.\"\n\nOld lady Sali placed the batch into a silver bag and then handed her a steaming treat. \"Blow on it first.\"\n\nMarg blew on the cookie and then bit into it.\n\nDali watched as the girl faded away, becoming invisible.\n\n \"Did it work?\" Margy asked. \n\n\"You're as see through as glass, love. Don't be too long.\" \n\n\"See you soon,\" a voice quirked from down the street. \n\n", "When adventurers meet at a tavern, it's inevitable that they'll start comparing their deeds and trying to decide which of them is the greatest hero of all.\n\nIn this particular instance, A wizard, a knight, a cleric, and a commoner were in the tavern. The commoner, of course, was a fixture at the place, but the others were newcomers and so talked first.\n\nThe Wizard began his boasting: \"I come to this tavern after just today having located tomes of knowledge for our kingdom.\"\n\nThere was scattered applause. The Knight went next: \"You may recall that the princess Esmerelda was kidnapped by the chancellor only last week. It was I who rescued her, and brought the chancellor to justice!\"\n\nThis was met with nods and clapping. Then the Cleric: \"I have traveled the lands these last months, healing the infirm and destitute.\"\n\nEveryone nodded reverently at this show of selflessness. Finally, the commoner dared speak up.\n\n\"I am paying for your drinks.\"\n\nAnd truly, he was the greatest hero of all." ]	[ 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 23 ]	[ "1461103689", "1461106312", "1461108782", "1461115226", "1461111029", "1461106745" ]
	[WP] A person is greeted by two of their children from the future, each from a different timeline. They must decide which timeline to follow and which child to give up.	238	[ "[Part 1]\n\nMy hands were a little bit clammy. Clasped together, anticipatory. I sat on the edge of my seat like a grade schooler waiting to hear which homeroom teacher they would have for the upcoming school year. \n\nMy eyes started to dart around the room that looked much like a psychologists waiting room. Clean, friendly, somewhat relatable. I was a little bit nervous. After all, I was only a University freshman at some no name college below the Florida panhandle. I was below average at best. \n\nA woman stepped out to greet me, “Mimi Chang,” she smiled, “James wants to meet you.”\n\nI never thought I would have this kind of opportunity in my life—to meet my future children. I stood up, brushed the lint of my ill-fitting pants and followed her into a calm room with light blue painted wallpaper. \n\nA tall white man with blonde hair stood up, “Mom! So good to see you!” \n\nHe looked down at my short, stocky frame. At first I wondered if he was surprised I was Asian, but then I realized I was only the one surprised—surprised he wasn’t. \n\nHe beamed at me, “So, what do I need to tell you to convince you?”\n\n“I’m not sure,” I said, laughing nervously, “Tell me about yourself?”\n\n“Well, I am a senior at MIT right now. I studied aeronautical engineering, but thesis project is actually on military stabilization techniques. After I graduate I am moving out to Cali to go to Cal Tech for my PhD.” \n\nI marveled, “That’s absolutely incredible! What made you decide on MIT?”\n\n“Well, you went to University of Chicago and then Dartmouth and always championed the cause for education. You always told me that if I didn’t go to a ‘name brand’ school, I might as well just stay home and be a nothing. It always pushed me to do more, try more, be more.” \n\n“Well, you certainly have. Your dad must be so proud,” I said, trying to stay calm.\n\n“Oh, there is no dad.” He said, confused as if I should already know. \n\n“What?” \n\n“You chose career over yourself for so many years. You did pre-med in undergraduate, then a medical program straight out of undergrad years. And then went straight into a residency at Johns Hopkins. You always told me you didn’t much worry about that, but you always wanted a baby, so you adopted me.”\n“and how are we doing?” I asked cautiously.\n\n“Great, mom. You’re still practicing over at MGH and might be offered a professorship at Harvard soon. And I’m off to my next big adventure.” He paused as if considering this conversation was a sell, “We might have a small and unusual family, but we are a perfect family. You have always supported me. You have always made time for me. We are a perfect family.” \n", "This is, nerve-racking. To say the least. It isn't often that you meet two potential children of yours. Waiting for the first child to enter, I look around the room, in which, I will determine fate. It's plain white, with two chairs on opposite sides of the room. Very Spartan. But, the dreadful silence that's befallen the room only makes the waiting more unbearable. Five minutes. Four minutes. Three minutes. Two minutes. One minute.\n\nAt the chime of a bell, a seemingly teenage girl enters through a door marked with a lightning bolt. She had my eyes, but she also had a flair of the east in her. And, she had a certain aura about her. One that says, \"I will never give up\". She sits on the chair opposite to mine. After a tense moment, she starts speaking.\n\n\"F-father. My name is Morgan. I'm seventeen, and I'm, well obviously, from a potential future. In my future, you enter college and choose a path to programming the world's first true A.I. You struggled to get the basic supplies you needed,and you almost gave up. But, you never did. You kept working with what you had until you created your first unit. You called it, 'Íonachta'. It was simple but you build it up. After college, you worked freelance. You met mother after a friend introduced you two. At age 25, mother gave birth to me. Your work in A.I. has vastly improved the standard of living. But, someone tried to modify your work. The results of that are unknown as of yet. But I know that if it's for evil, you will stop them. Along with Mother and Íonachta.\" \n\nA voice emanates through the room, \"Time is up. Future child, please exit the room.\"\n\n\"Goodbye Father.\"\n\nShe stands up, walks to me, and gives me a big hug. I hugged her back. After what seemed like an eternity, we part. And she heads back through the door.\n\n\n>Chapter 1/3", "What is in this dryer? Why do I always get socks stuck way in the back? What!? The back opens? I guess that's what happens when you do laundry at midnight. The back of the dryer opens into...oh shit! It's a freaking portal! Is this Narnia? I hope not, because talking lions and Turkish delights sound like too much to deal with right now. I'd rather have a talking snail buddy that I can take a nap by then wake up and follow his trail. This is a long, dark hole. How many other long dark holes are there in the world? I wonder where it leads. I wonder if I'm going to die if I hit the bottom. When I hit the bottom? If, definitely if. Oh! Well that's good that I didn't die. Now who are these two weirdos in front of me? They kind of look like me. Well one does, the other one kind of scares me. I guess I'll greet them. Hello you two weirdos! Hopefully they can't read my thoughts. Oh crap, now I should think about something else. Here they come. Okay.\n\nShaun: Hello, father. I am your son from the future. I am having an inter-dimensional debate with Sean about which one of us is actually real. We have used the time moleculizer thingy ma whats it to bring you here where time does not exist.\n\nYeah that's cool I guess. But how do I know he, they're, them, these two dudes, are my sons?\n\nShaun: You do not have to believe either one of us is telling the truth. Please observe us then choose which one of us will represent your seed in the future.\n\nSo these guys are the ones who didn't end up on a paper towel.\n\nShaun: We will now present a battle of the mind. Please tell us when to go.\n\nOkay, go. I like that band...well their videos but not their songs.\n\nShaun: I am thinking of a number between one and ten. Can you tell me what it is, Sean?\n\nSean: Sixteen?\n\nShaun: No.\n\nSean: Tostada?\n\nShaun: No. One guess remaining.\n\nSean: Tostada with beans?\n\nShaun: No, it was three. The representative number of the eternity of the holy trinity: Larry the Cable Guy Mos Deaf and Curly Sue. Now, Shaun, it is your turn. Think of a number between one and ten. I shall try to guess it.\n\nSean: Okay.\n\nWhat the fuck is going on?\n\nShaun: WITH THE POWER THAT IS MINE I STICK MY THUMB IN MY BEHIND AND READ WHAT'S ON YOUR MIND!\n\nOh, I guess I'm safe from mind reading as long as he doesn't have his thumb in his ass.\n\nShaun: Sean, you are thinking about a toilet.\n\nSean: Nope!\n\nShaun: Now you are thinking of taking a giant dump on a nice toilet.\n\nSean: Nope!\n\nShaun: Now you're thinking of pushing out a toilet into a giant dump.\n\nSean: Nope!\n\nShaun: Now you're thinking of oatmeal.\n\nSean: Yep! But you used all your guesses so I am the absolute winner!\n\nWhat the fuck is going on?\n\nSean: Now the second competition....Juggling.\n\nNo! Nope! I've got shit I need to do today and I'm pretty sure my dress shirts are getting wrinkled. I'm getting a vasectomy and going home.\n\nI never thought I'd be so relieved to be back in this laundry mat.", "The pail was full to the brim and the witch stirred the clear water gently with her finger to keep surface from icing over. \n\nAbigail stood shivering in the snow and dead branches. Mercy had been left swaddled in blankets back at the cottage, but her twin was held tightly in Abigail's arms. The unnamed child slept quietly despite that terrible chill, her pink nose barely visible beneath the blanket. \nSay one word more and nothing you see will come to pass, the witch had told her. Say a word, but for the name of the babe, and you will have sinned for sin alone. And what a wretched sin it is. \n\nThe witch turned her finger so as to scrape her nail sharply against the tin wall of the pail. Abigail looked at the witch's chapped lips and saw no breath. Her own was thick white clouds in the morning air, and a steam seemed to rise from the babe's swaddling. When Abigail did not move forward the screeching stopped and the witch looked up at her with warm brown eyes. Eyes that Abigail thought to beg her not to continue. But she did. Each footfall sunk deep in the snow, always finding brittle twigs beneath to break and frighten the birds. The witch sighed, this time with white vapor, and scratched quickly, roundly, within the pail. \n\nPeering down, Abigail could see only the swirling water, but no vision. Only the occasional flash of sky or tree or her own hard aquiline face reflecting back and then rippling and vanishing again. What was she doing here? Why had she not just risked travel back to the city? Tried to find another husband? Who would want a woman with two children? With no horse, was she to walk this country with a babe in each arm? Why had her husband been such a fool? Why did he think he could ride? Why couldn't he horse have survived the fall? Stupid animal. Why had David left her with not one mouth to feed, but two? Why had he... The screeching yielded again and the witch gazed up, but just before the water stilled, \"Mercy,\" Abigail said. And nothing more. \n\nThe water swirled and the metal cried. Shadows came first, then a faint green light illuminated them. A golden haired girl, lovely. And smart, she had a quill in her hand and was writing, writing what? A book! Mercy the author. A husband drifted into the scene, well-dressed and handsome, but for his spectacles and a braced leg. He tried to peek at a finished page and was playfully batted away. The room was beautiful, all mahogany carved with ornate filigree and large windows with velvety curtains and gold fringe. A maid holding a child, a golden haired boy entered the vision and then the witch's nail reversed. The swirl of the pool went from clockwise to counter clockwise and the images faded. \n\nThe twin in her arms began to wiggle and writhe, cooing at first, then crying when it felt the cold air breaking through the folds of the blanket. Abigail wanted to hush it, but would a hush be taken as a word? Abigail dared no break the silence as the water revealed the most gorgeous mansion she had ever seen. The golden haired Mercy was just as beautiful as before if, perhaps, slightly more plump. Maybe with child, but indulgence was more likely as slaves were serving her and her friends sweaty glasses of sweetened tea and platters of apple slices, strawberries, molasses cookies, ginger snaps, and more, so much more, always more. Her chestnut-haired husband here was not quite so dashing, but wore no spectacles or brace. He also seemed to speak more to the other men, who smoked pipes at the far porch as the women gabbed over treats. SKRREEEEEEECCCCHH\n\nThe witch swirled the water clockwise again and looked up at Abigail. SKREECH back to counter clockwise. The baby in her arms pushed aside the blanket and stared up with watery eyes, grey eyes, like her father's. SKREEEEEEECCCCCHHHHH The blanket fell to the ground, the naked babe's was hot to her cold palms and her little heart was pounding little hummingbird beats in her hands as it thrashed in the cold air, she could see her ribs. She could not feed them both. There was no way. There wasn't. SKREEEEEECCCCHHHH. She held the baby in front of her, wanting to hold her, to quiet her, to warm her. SKREEEEEEECCCHHHHHH \n\nWith the icy water at her elbows, the dim green image of the writing desk and child at play turned to vivid color. Another chapter of her life showed Mercy at a stage play for one of her novels. Her husband's hair had turned white and Mercy had three daughters as well as a son. Abigail could see herself sitting between the two youngest girls. She hadn't aged a day, but her eyes were no longer blue, but warm brown eyes. The image faded and the water stilled. Through the ice she could now see the blackened eyes of the unnamed babe, lips blue and a ribbon of red floating from the nostrils of its little pink nose. \n\nAbigail pulled her baby free from the tin pail and screamed till the cords in her neck were taught and near breaking. The witch was gone, her footsteps vanishing north, and by the position of the sun it was past noon. Abigail's hands were numb and dark red and her sleeves were thick with ice. Mercy! she thought, still, after so much, unwilling to break the silence. She snatched the blanket from the ground and wrapped the dead baby tightly, covering her pale head, because Abigail could not bear to see it again. Not like that. \n\nShe stomped through the dense wood, following the footsteps she had left that morning. When she could see the cottage through the trees, she caught sight of something else...footprints from the north. Rows of them. Mercy.\n\nShe hurried. Tripping on a root buried in the snow and twisting her ankle as she fell. There was pain, terrible pain, but she did not scream. All of her thoughts were on the cottage and the daughter she had let live, the daughter she had left alone just as the witch had told her. She limped across the field and as she approached her home she could see that the old door to the cabin was ajar. All she found inside was darkness. \n\n", "There was a low pitched humming emanating from the closet. \n\nBurt had found it curious that such a sound should be coming from his closet. He didn't have a vacuum cleaner or refrigerator stored there and certainly not one he'd leave running. \n\nHe considered taking a peek but was stuck fearing there might be some Alien or human annihilator machine waiting if he opened the door. Burt knew the deal on his apartment was too good to be true, 850 a month plus utilities right in downtown? Of course the landlord was sacrificing his tenants to some otherworldly entity, it's not like he had anyone to come looking for him after Carol dumped him. He was sure the worst month of his life was about to end with him losing the only thing he had left to give-- his life. The humming persisted for a few more minutes while Burt stayed frozen in the same sport, maybe he was safe if he left the door shut? Unfortunately the door opened despite his inaction. \n\nBurt screamed in terror as it swung open, \"Please, show mercy!\" he covered his face hoping it'd protect him from the monster's tentacles or the alien's vaporizing ray. Instead of death a perplexed voice responded, \"uh, what?\" a young man with messy brown hair and familiar face stood in front of the closet door. \n\nBurt looked through the cracks of his forearm shield at the young man. His fear immediately turned into rage at the completely terrestrial intruder, \"What the hell are you doing in my closet, you pervert?!\" he shouted. The young man started waving his hands frantically, \"No, no. no. It's not like that at all Da...\" Burt tackled the intruder, they fell right into the closet, where he started shaking him violently and cursing.\n\nThe tunnel vision rage distracted Burt from the fact he was not in his closet but instead on a rather ginormous sophisticated platform, the platform which seemed to float magically in the middle of an even more ginormous room was illuminated by a single light on the platform that lit every chrome panel in the spherical room. It didn't take long for him to notice though when he stopped to take a breather from all the cursing, his stomach dropped suddenly with the realization that his fears of death or abduction her valid. \n\n\"I'm so sorry!,\" his shift in mood was nearly instantaneous as he'd already helped the intruder up to his feet, \"I have uncontrollable spasms, same with bad words-- comes out uncontrollably. Please forgive me, sir\" he bowed to his new alien overlord. Burt heard it making strange sounds, he did his best not to cry as he looked up expecting to see the young man have changed into some terrifying form; what he saw was the intruder biting his lip trying to hold in laughter. It was somehow more terrifying.\n\nAfter the intruder had stopped laughing some time later he finally spoke. He explained to Burt that they were in a sort of inter-dimensional lobby for time travelers and that he was Burt's future son (his name was Eli) and that Carol had never broken up with Burt in his future and wanted to help his father win back his mother so he wouldn't be blinked out of existence. Eli didn't go too much into detail about Burt's future but assured him that Carol was his destiny, \"I don't know. She made it clear that she wasn't happy with me anymore, s-- Eli,\" Burt wondered if there was a way to win her back. \n\n\"Look, you guys have a loving relationship, I see the way she looks at you and you her dad,\" Eli tried to convince him to try. \n\nThey discussed it for what felt to them like hours when the humming sound started again. Burt looked at Eli who just shrugged with the same wide-eyed dopey look Burt had on his face. Shortly after the humming noise began again another person flashed into the lobby. It was a blonde haired young woman whose hair had that same messy look as Eli's. \n\n\"Dad, I-- uh, what're you doing here?\" Burt pointed to himself to confirm she meant him, \"Yes, you're not suppose to-- never mind, I need to stop you from missing the chance to meet mom,\" she started talking about meeting his future wife sometime after breaking up with a woman he'd been with for some time before then. \n\nEli's face turned printer paper white, he didn't recognize her as his sister; he was an only child in fact. Burt had noticed his reaction and asked his daughter(Petra) to stop for a second, \"What's your mom's name, hmm?\" he'd asked just to confirm his suspicion. Her mom's name was Anya, they'd met at a movie festival he was suppose to go to with a previous girlfriend (Carol). \n\n\"No, that's not how it happens,\" Eli finally mustered up the power to say something. The girl finally noticed him for the first time since she flashed onto the platform, \"And who are you?\" she asked, now also confused along with Burt and Eli. After telling her who he was she almost fainted from the shock. Burt caught Petra before she could fully black out from the shock. \n\nWho knew walk-in closets could lead to such a crisis? Burt didn't know what to do. He felt a strong bond to both of them that was impossible to describe but he knew they were both his and they both deserved a chance, at least to Burt. What could he do for them, he had to choose one of them... didn't he? It would be impossible to pick between two kids he didn't know but loved equally, they could both be saviors of the world or the next Stalin or a faceless citizen. Burt let Petra go after she recovered from the shock and ran off the platform, he didn't know how it worked but he just wanted to land back in his closet and be home.\n\nBurt had barricaded the door after he got home and decided to do nothing. He heard the humming sound not long after he got back and sure enough Petra and Eli were at the door, pleading and knocking relentlessly. It was a few days before the knocking stopped and the weight of his decision weighed heavily on his conscious for the last few moments before he'd died. Burt had gone into the bathroom and cut his wrists, he couldn't live knowing he'd killed one child in place of another. \n \n ", "(AN: Italics symbolizes speaking in German, normal text is English.)\n\nThrough a long and complicated series of errors, I ended up being born with dual citizenship, British and American. I suppose the best way to explain the series of errors is that, despite being a successful businessman, my father didn’t exactly have the best sense of how long a pregnancy generally lasted and accidentally booked a business trip in London right around my mother’s due date. \n\nIt ended up being useful in the long-run, though. Because of that nifty little Schengen policy, I could live and work anywhere I wanted in Europe. Because of that, when my dad wanted me to pick a private school, he let me look at ones in the EU, and I ended up going to a boarding school way out in Germany. I had no idea what to expect, but I ended up falling love with the area and, when it came time to apply to college, the only universities I ever even applied to were German. I wanted to spend the rest of my life here, in Germany, and I’d even heard a legal firm down in Munich wanted to hire me and help me do just that. Everything was looking great for me.\n\nIt was the night before my graduation when all of that changed, however. Right when I was about to fall asleep, my phone rang on the bed next to me, filling my small apartment with the harsh buzzing of wood against plastic. Groaning, I leaned over, and picked up the phone to see who on Earth wanted to call me at this late hour.\n\n”805 Area Code. Los Angeles. Dad.” I managed to think through the fog of exhaustion, and I begrudgingly answered the phone.\n\n“Hey, Leo! It’s me, your dad! How are you, son?” my father’s overly-excited and just far too loud voice came through.\n\n“I’m good, dad. Can we keep this quick? It’s midnight here, and I have my graduation tomorrow.” I said, barely managing to string together coherent sentences.\n\n“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. I have some amazing news! A staffer over at the company just retired, and I wanted to offer you the job! You’d get to come back to LA with us! What do you say?”\n\nI groaned. It was way too late at night (or early in the morning, as it were) for all of this life-changing bullshit. “No, thanks, Dad.” I muttered, stifling a yawn, “I think I wanna stay in Europe, at least for a few more years.”\n\n“Oh, I figured you’d say that, and that’s why I saved the best for last! It comes with a six-figure starting salary, all-expenses-paid healthcare, and an apartment in downtown LA! What do you say to that, son?”\n\nI groaned again. I’d get free healthcare here in Germany, anyway, and part of the reason I left the states was because I really hated Los Angeles. Still, there was no denying that the salary made the offer...compelling. I could do so much with all that money, and plus, it basically gave me the CEO’s chair once my father retired. I would basically be famous – but, still, I’d have to leave my life here in Germany.\n\n“I don’t know, Dad. Look, can I have a few days to think it over? This is some pretty big stuff you’re asking of me.”\n\n“I’m afraid I can’t, son. There’s a backlog of fifty applicants and I can only hold their forms for so long. The latest I can give you is eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”\n\n“My time or yours?” I asked, impatiently.\n\n“Mine. Why would I use yours?” \n\nI groaned for yet a third time.\n\n“Bye, Dad.” I spit out quickly, before hanging up. For some reason, I was suddenly hit with a wave of exhaustion, like I’d just run a marathon right after swimming three gold medal-winning races in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t hard to fall asleep.\n\nLight began to peer through my eyelids, slowly forcing me awake. What wasn’t helping at all was the cold water being sprinkled on my face, like the world’s weakest ice hose. Suddenly, a particularly large drop hit my eye, and I shot awake.\n\nStanding in front of me was a teenage girl, with freckled skin and dark brown hair pulled messily back into a bun. A glass of ice water sat on the table next to her, proving her crime. \n\nI wracked my mind, trying to see if I knew her, or had met her some place. She looked a heck of a lot like my friend Ada from finance class, but her hair and eyes were both several shades darker. In a way, she vaguely reminded me of my sister Inez, but I couldn’t place my finger on why.\n\n“Come on, father.” she said, stoically, “Mother’s already there. We’re going to miss the train if we don’t hurry.”\n\n“The train?” I asked, cracking my neck, “What train?”\n\n“Come on, father. You know I don’t speak English very well.” the girl said, rolling her eyes, “You never taught me.”\n\n“Sorry...” I muttered, switching my brain over to its other language, “What train are we going to miss?”\n\n“The one to brother’s graduation, of course. Mother’s already there. We’re going to have to hurry if we don’t want to miss it.”\n\n“Alright, alright. Sorry...Sofia.” I had no idea where I got the name, but it suddenly flooded into my mind.\n\n“It’s alright. Just hurry up, father!”\n\nI got out of bed and hurried into the shower. Details of this life slowly began returning to me; I had gone to work at the legal firm in Munich, where I learned one of the partners was actually Ada’s father. Later that year, wanting to stay “close to home”, Ada began working at the legal firm as well, where the two of us quickly bonded. A successful legal career led to a successful marriage, and we were able to welcome two children into the world: Adam Emil Hernandez, and then, four years later, Sofia Adala Hernandez. Adam was about to graduate college with a degree in law, and start practicing at the firm with him and Ada. Sofia had just been accepted into her first choice of university, and was on her way to pursuing a lucrative biochemistry career. It was a good life, a perfect life, and he couldn’t say he wanted more.\n\n“What about me, daddy?”\n\nI whipped around, trying to locate the sound of the voice that had just scared me senseless. A young girl, no more than twelve, was standing outside the shower, staring coldly at me with piercing, ice blue eyes. Her skin was significantly darker than Sofia’s, showing much of my olive complexion, but her hair was a dirty blonde, and fell in curls around her shoulders.\n\n“It’s okay.” she said, in perfect American English, “I know you don’t really care about me. All you ever cared about was money.”\n\n“Wha-What do you mean?” I asked, stumbling as I tried to switch languages in my head.\n\n“I knew you wanted to go back to Germany, but mommy would never let you. I’d guess you never even wanted to leave, but you came here following granddaddy’s money. That’s how you met mommy, too.” \n“Mommy? Who’s your mother...” my brain struggled for a name, but just as Sofia’s had, her’s suddenly popped into my brain, “...Emily?”\n\n“Her name’s Karen Amell. Her family ran some big pharmaceutical company in Vancouver, and when you saw her, you saw a good chance to, let’s say...merge your companies.” \n\n“No...” I muttered, my head spinning. “Marry someone for money? That…that’s awful. I’d never…”\n\n“You’d never do something that overtly greedy? Think again, daddy. You would, and you did. In fact, that’s all you ever did. You followed the money trail without any regard for who you hurt, even if you were hurting yourself.”\n\nEmily grinned, and looked around the room, her blue eyes showing what was almost a parody of interest. \n\n“You know, daddy, this is a nice place you got here. Not as nice as the one you had back in LA, but still. It feels…homey. Just goes to show you money can’t buy you everything.”\n\n“What are you trying to say?” I asked, a strange mix of confusion and anger swelling up inside of me and seizing control of my thoughts. \n “I’m saying you’re gonna choose this life. It’ll be hard at first, sure, and you won’t make as much money or have as much name recognition, but trust me. I know you. You don’t want that. You don’t want me. You only think you do.”\n\nTears began to well up in the young girl’s eyes. I might not have lived it, but I remembered all of her life – every fight her parents had, every night she laid awake wondering if both her parents would make it to tomorrow; every tear she ever cried, every piece of flesh she ever cut. He didn’t want anybody to live like that.\n\n“I’m sorry for putting you through that.” I said, embracing my daughter for what would be the first and the last time.\n\n“You shouldn’t be. None of it’s gonna happen anymore.”\n\nI felt the warmth fade from my hands as the young girl’s form began to fade, leaving behind nothing but a voice on the wind that said:\n\n“Goodbye, daddy. I hope you end up happy.”\n\nI shot awake in my bed, cold sweat dripping down my back. I glanced over at my clock, and saw that it was only 3AM. Good – there was still time.\n\nI reached over and grabbed my phone, quickly dialing my father’s number. After ringing twice, I heard the line connect and the voice of my father come through.\n\n“Leo! Have you thought about my offer?”\n\n“I have, Dad. I’m going to have to decline.”\n\n“What? Why?!”\n\n“I don’t know, Dad. I just don’t think I’ll be very happy there.”\n\nFor a moment, all I heard was silence. I was suddenly filed with dread, like I had said the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time. Then, my father came back on.\n\n“Look, son, with all due respect, you’re being a fucking fool. I could give you everything you ever wanted, and more – so much more. What are you gonna get over there – a job at some base-rate legal firm in Munich? You’re better than that – “\n\n“No, Dad. I think I’m better than you. I’d rather be happy than rich.” I said, and I hung up the phone.\n\nLife wasn’t going to be easy from here on out – Emily had warned him of that. But at least he knew what was coming, and he knew he’d have Ada and her father and all the people at the firm to help him through it. He wouldn’t get fame or fortune, and he was fine with that. He’d taken a different road, the one more travelled, and yet it felt so much better.", "I left my job late that night, having lingered in the office to finish some work. And, if I was being totally honest, to steal a few words with Jake. He was five years my senior and a candidate for an executive position, so he was always busy during the day. After work, however, we usually found excuses to hang around and chat. I was riding on cloud nine as I shut off the bright fluorescent lights and locked the door–he had asked me to come over later that night! I had never been the sort of girl to get all giddy over a guy, but now I sort of knew how they felt. What would I wear...?\n\nI left the office complex whistling, and began the long walk to my apartment. It's only a long walk if I stick to the main roads, I thought. I had cut through back alleys to get to lab before–if I was running late–but only during the daytime. At night, they were dark as pitch, unilluminated by the warm orange glow of streetlights. Still, I mused, I could use some extra time to get ready…\n\nI was about to turn onto one of the nameless tiny streets that would lead back to my apartment when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I spun around, startled.\n\n\"Who are you?\" I demanded, hands raised to protect my face. \n\n\"Don't go that way,\" the mysterious person answered, or, well, didn't answer.\n\n\"Don't tell me what to do. I'll ask again, who are you?\"\n\n\"Very bad things will happen if you take that shortcut.\"\n\nI squinted through the dim light to see the speaker's face. \"At least let me get a clear look at you.\" My voice shook, betraying the fear that welled up inside me.\n\n\"You need not know my name nor my face. Just don't go that way. Your life–and mine–depend on it.\"\n\n\"H-how does your life depend on me taking the long way home?\" As I asked the question, an answer occurred to me. He's probably going to rob me. He's been tracking me, and if I slip into the alley, he'll lose me. I took a step towards the darkness.\n\n\"Don't!\" His had shot out to grab my wrist and he yanked me back forcefully. I twisted my hand away and brought it up defensively.\n\n\"How dare you touch me! Leave me alone, or I will call the police.\" I brought my phone out, showing my intention to make good on my threat.\n\nHe raised his hands in a placating gesture. \"Don't do that. Please. Just listen. You're on your way back to your apartment after a long day in the office. You've been invited over a coworker's place.\"\n\n\"Creep!\" I spat, and moved to dial 9-1-1 into my phone.\n\n\"Wait! Wait. Listen. You get home safely, and call Jake. He comes to pick you up. You both go out for a drink and then back to his place. You have a lovely time, you really hit it off.\"\n\n\"You stopped me to tell me my fortune?\" I asked in distain. Freak. \"Besides, all that will just happen 15 minutes earlier if I go down this alley.\"\n\n\"No. It won't.\"\n\n\"What happens, then?\" I inquired sarcastically. Fortune tellers can only weave a tale so far.\n\n\"I don't know.\" \n\nI gave a little humph, happy to catch him in his lie. \n\n\"All I know is that, if you go down that way, I won't exist.\"\n\nThere was a beat of silence. \"Excuse me, what?\"\n\nHe sighed. \"I had hoped not to divulge so much to you. I was so certain it wouldn't take much to persuade you to stay on the well-lit path. But now…\" He paused. \"I'm your son. Yours and Jake's. Or at least, I will be. If you stick to the main roads.\"\n\nHe stepped into the light. I took in his face, his eyes, the shape of him. He looked like Jake…but with my hair, my build, my nose. I began to back away slowly, further into the dark reaches of the alley. It seemed safer now, farther away from the madman claiming to be my future son. His eyes widened in fright, and just then, I felt another tap on my back. I turned around, slowly this time.\n\n\"And who might you be?\" I asked with disaffected calm. I was too much in shock to be scared.\n\nThe person shifted in the darkness. \"I suppose he's already spilled the beans.\" It was a woman's voice. \"I'm your daughter.\"\n\nFucking perfect. \"You're working together, then? I suppose you're here to warn me about the dangers of the alley, too.\" Impatience rose in my voice. I was finished with this nonsense. I just wanted to go home.\n\n\"No to the first. We are working directly against each other. If one of us is brought into existence, the other will disappear, never to be born.\" She paused meaningfully. \"To the second: well, that's a bit complicated. It is dangerous. You have every reason to fear it. And it will change your life.\" \n\n\"If it's dangerous–if I should fear it, and you do not deny this, why should I go that way? Why should I put myself in danger that you might one day live? And anyway, I don't see how taking this road or that will change what children I have. I'll make it home, one way or the other.\"\n\nThe girl's silence was deafening. \"I-I will make it home, won't I?\" Fear welled up inside me as I tried to choke it down, swallowing hard.\n\nThe man spoke up. \"If you take the main roads, you will be home in 45 minutes, as usual. Your night will go on as planned.\"\n\nThe girl picked up his sentence immediately. \"But if you take the alley, your night will be long. You will finally return to your apartment at dawn, less your purse and money, less most of your clothes, and less the comfortable surety of your old life.\" She hesitated. \"And plus me.\"\n\nI stared back at her, tears welling up in my eyes. When I spoke, it came out a ragged whisper. \"Why would you even tell me that? Who would walk in to that, knowing? You'd send me through hell, just to exist. You're a selfish, worthless bitch! You'd make me give up a happy family, for this?\"\n\nBoth my future children stiffened. \"Oh, what is it now?\"\n\nThe man spoke up, quietly. \"Not so happy,\" he said, barely audible.\n\n\"Wh-What do you mean? I marry Jake, right?\"\n\nThe man nodded solemnly. \"But. He…\" The man paused.\n\n\"Out with it!\" \n\n\"He abuses you. Emotionally, at first. Makes you feel small. Then, he starts beating you. It's terrible. I can't stand to think about it.\" He shuddered. \"I'm sorry. You're life was never meant to be easy.\"\n\n\"But I divorce him eventually, right? I'm not that dumb.\"\n\nAnother pregnant pause. \"No.\" There was a sense of finality in his voice. I turned to the girl.\n\n\"What happens with the rest of my life, if I go this way?\" And get raped, I added silently.\n\n\"You're devastated, of course. Your entire life is changed. You don't talk to anyone at work, and Jake loses interest. Eventually, your boss fires you, to avoid paying maternity leave. I'm born, and you move back in with your mother, working small jobs to pay her back. You talk to someone–a therapist–about what happened, and they suggest you write about it. So you write. And you start working to raise awareness of rape and assault in schools. You do a lot of good for people. And your daughter is always right by your side, always there for you.\"\n\nI thought for a second. \"Hold on,\" I said. \"Couldn't I avoid all of this by just avoiding the situation with Jake?\"\n\n\"As soon as you have made your decision, you will forget us and anything we told you. You will only remember the path you chose.\" The man looked down solemnly.\n\nI sank down to the ground, wracked by sobs. Both my future children came over to console me. I didn't see how I could choose, but I couldn't stay here…\n\nAfter an eternity, I stood up. \"I have decided,\" I said quietly.\n\n\"Who?\" The boy and girl asked concurrently. \n\nI shook my head. \"One of you will find out, I suppose.\" They both nodded.\n\n---\n\nI caught myself staring idly at the lamp-post and blinked twice to clear my head. I stared down the shortcut alley with a misplaced feeling of gravity and sorrow. I shook the feeling off, attributing it to exhaustion, and took a step.", "I was told the first one was Judy. I'd named her after my grandmother. When she walked in to the room -- stumbled, really -- I barely had time to realized how terrible she looked before the smell hit me. Urine, vomit, body odor ... and something else. Something chemical.\n\n\"Are you ... are ... Judy, is that you? What happened?\"\n\nShe slumped into the chair and didn't look at me. She let out a terrible, wracking cough, and I could see she was missing half her teeth. When she finally met my gaze, I was shocked at how yellow her eyes were.\n\n\"Dad ... please ... choose the other one. I can't ... please. Don't choose me.\"\n\nI knelt down and tried to put a hand on her shoulder, tried to give her a hug. She pushed me away with toothpick-thin arms that were covered in sores and track marks.\n\n\"Don't, okay?\"\n\n\"Judy, I --\"\n\n\"It wasn't your fault, Dad. I was just born fucked up. Depression, ADHD, you name it. And then came drugs -- crack, meth ... everything, really. And I got hepatitis. I live on the street. You can't help me. I mean, you tried. It wasn't your fault. You tried, but I was always too messed up and you couldn't save me ... and I'm sorry about you and mom. Your marriage. I caused that, I know.\"\n\n\"It's okay, honey,\" I said. \"It's not your fault. It's okay.\"\n\nShe stood up and walked toward the door. \"Don't. Don't try to save me any more, Dad. You have to understand, I want to die. I'd kill myself, but I can never find the courage to jump off a bridge or throw myself under a bus. My life is a living hell, and I'm too much of a coward to even end it. So just -- I'm begging you please, Dad. I can't end my life, but you can not start it. So choose the other kid. Please. For me.\"\n\n\"I -- you can't --\"\n\n\"Please, Dad.\"\n\nI didn't trust myself to speak. I could barely breathe, and there were hot tears on my cheeks. I nodded once. It was a promise.\n\n\"I love you, Dad. And I'm sorry.\" And the door closed behind her.\n\nThe techs gave me a few minutes to clean up. I took it that a lot of these interviews ended with some raw emotion, and sometimes people needed a break to compose themselves. I sure as hell did.\n\nThen they showed in Alan. A son. He had a broad smile, but something in his eyes made me recoil. Something wrong. Something predatory.\n\n\"Oh hi, Pops,\" he said, grinning. \"You look a bit put out. Your eyes are all red. Been crying? My brother or sister was a bit hard on you?\"\n\n\"Judy. Her name was Judy.\"\n\n\"Huh,\" he said without any sort of inflection. He took a seat casually. \"Was she hot? I always kind of wanted a sister.\"\n\n\"Hot?\" I stammered. \n\n\"Yeah. Was she sexy or what? I'm just curious.\"\n\n\"She'd be your sister!\" I said, revolted.\n\n\"Exactly, Dad. The thing is, everything seems to lose its edge after a while. The first girl was a thrill, even though I just tied her up and fucked her. After that, I started cutting them, too. Just little cuts, you know, but then there was the one that died. Total accident, but I had a raging hard-on for days, let me tell you. And then I realized that girls were just as good cold as they were warm. After that I made sure all of them died.\"\n\n\"What is wrong with you ... ?\" I shouted. \"Is this a joke? A sick joke?\"\n\nHe glared at me. \"You never did understand. With the pets either. But, hey, at least you covered all that up, so the cops never clued on to me. And now I've done twenty-two girls and I don't think they've even found any of the bodies. But even that's starting to get a little stale ... so when you mentioned a sister, I thought maybe that would spice things up, you know? And maybe family would taste different from the others.\"\n\nAnd I stood there, staring in shock and revulsion at my son who was once more smiling at me, and all I could think was, I'm so sorry, Judy. Oh God, I'm so sorry.", "'Mr. Blan, through these doors and you will see our newest invention'\n\n'What does it do?'\n\n'It will show you the future through different possibilities - not only that, it allows you to communicate with these futures at no recourse to how they turn out or how yours will...also any being you communicate with will see you as you are in their time, not as you are now.' \n\n\"Well...'\n\n'Follow me through...ok, I am going to leave you to it, shut the doors and rev-up the two portals - one at a time.'\n\n'Daddy'\n\n'Lindy...you look just like your mom. How are you?'\n\n'I'm great! Brown is great! Why are you looking at me like you haven't seen me in years?\"\n\n\"Sorry, I am just a little tired. Hows - how's Brown? How're classes?\"\n\n\"Hahha Daddy! You know how everything is, Tom is great and I am loving OChem 2! You are being so strange. Why are you crying?\"\n\n.......\n\n\"We are going to boot up the other portal now\"\n\n\"Sniffling thank you\"\n\n\"What are you looking at?\"\n\n\"Lindy? You smoke cigarettes?\"\n\n\"Fuck you, Mom says I don't need to talk to you\"\n\n\"Excuse me young lady\"\n\n\"Shut the fuck up you dick. Go fuck another whore\"\n\n\"Excuse me?! What happened\"\n\n\"What? Go back to ignoring us and spending all your time on your career\"\n\n\"Lindy talk to me...I want to make sure I can fix this\"\n\n\"Fix what? Go back to sucking Cleeter Benson's dick.\"\n\n\"Cleeter Benson?\"\n\n\"Your star quarterback...\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"On the Broncos...the team you own. Jesus Christ, did you just have a stroke you old fuck.\"\n\n\"I own the Broncos?\"\n\n\"Yes, and you won't give me or mom anything. Fuck you and fuck your divorce lawyer\"\n\n\"I divorced your mom...I own the Broncos?\"\n\n\"Oh my god...shut the fuck up\"\n\n\"Do you remember what specifically...specifically led to me owning the Broncos?\"" ]	[ 2, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 39, 59, 70 ]	[ "1461224271", "1461227878", "1461194642", "1461202978", "1461198670", "1461206289", "1461203000", "1461183312", "1461182350" ]
	[WP] You go back in time only to find that dinosaurs were highly intelligent species and did not go extinct but left the planet and are now intergalactic rulers of the universe.	12	[ "\"Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...\"\n\nThis was the last word uttered as he entered the myriad of lights and fractal energy discharges spewing forth from the portal, carefully hidden in a very big rock, in a clandestine orbit over Neptune. In the transition, the jumble of words, light and all manners of sensation stretched out into eternity. It was like being briskly aware of a concussion slowly forming in your head, if one can wrap their mind around it. In a futile attempt to describe the passing of time, Commander Sprack tried to convey the pure exhilaration of the whole thing with the words, \"So beautiful!\" Needless to say, his commanding officers could only scratch their heads as the letters 'S' and 'O' were literally lost in the time. There was also a little bit of pee where the space ship had been.\n\nIt was utterly horrific and approximately one second long in relative time and space. For Sprack, the entire, prickly ordeal spanned an agonizing seven hours. His senses were constantly assaulted; vomit turned into constellations and his whimpers summoned forth a barrage of demonic echoes that rattled his mind into insanity. A simple turn of the head warped his vision into a merry-go-round of violent vertigo. \n\nAnd to be quite fair, this was still reasonably more enjoyable than 'fusion duct work custodian' on some bleak military station on the fringes of Human space territory. And rightly so because it was like coming to terms with sixty milligrams of THC.\n\noo...kkkkkkkk.\nooo... oooooooooo.\nOok.\nAre you ok?\nAre you ok?\nAre you ok?\n\nThe message materialized above his console and sounded throughout the speakers aboard the tiny space ship.\n\n\"Off, off now!\" Sprack's voice was ragged, and raising his voice took sheer will power.\n\nThe metal hull went silent. Stars encompassed every inch of the forward view screen, so thoroughly clustered that the cramped pilot bay required no interior lighting. It was so much brighter. Everything seemed so close. Just a stone's throw away. The silence was deafening. And just like that, Sprack was fine again. No aches, no breaks, just as he was before he stepped onto the ship aboard the raised platform.\n\n\"Re-orient to Earth,\" said Sprack. The ship responded with a cheerful hum and the view went from bright to the blazes of Hell. The screen auto-focused and tinted the view. Even the sun burned with increased ferocity, despite the artificial filters.\n\nAnalyzing sun... Current size reflects a one hundred forty-five million year increase in mass, with an error margin of five hundred thousand years. Transition to past, confirmed. We are aligned to Earth. Transition to warp?\n\nSprack's hand hovered over the confirm button, physical buttons being needed to enact major changes to the ship, but an eerie feeling rose up his spine and a cold feeling trickled into the back of his head. The same cluster of stars began to move into his field of view. He switched to sphere view and the cockpit around him became one giant view screen. More stars had gathered to his left and below him. Neptune sat at his feet, full of life and sprawling with massive cities sprawled all over the surface. Shit, what the actual fuck?\n\n\"Ship, confirm estimated time period again!\"\n\nWe are one, four, five million years in the past, all nearby planetary bodies and stars confirming.\n\nThe stars stopped now, forming into a menacing group above and below him. Terror overtook Sprack as he issued his last command to the ship, \"Shields up! How could you not detect those things after transition?!\"\n\nTheir substance is unfamiliar and were ultimately phased out as celestial bodies The ship's chipper disposition was unperturbed by the impossible situation climaxing outside. This drove Sprack into a rage that dwarfed his anxiety.\n\n\"I am so fu-\" There was a bright light, the ship rock backed and forth. Then there was nothing for a while. It was a welcome change of scenery for Sprack, despite descending into nothingness.\n\n***\n\n\"As we were so patiently trying to explain before you interrupted us with your fire-crackers, the annexation of the Sol system will proceed with or without you. There are no compromises but you may continue to rule yourselves. Ten percent of your resources are required to continue your autonomy.\"\n\nNo alien stood so tall and impossible in all of humanity as one Doki Balfus, whose features had scarcely changed since his ancestors last walked on Earth. Humanity instantly recognized his heritage and a majority of them promptly proceeded to involuntarily evacuate their bladders and bowels. To be perfectly reasonable, a Tyrannosaurus Rex explaining the finer details of war and peace treaties was not something to be taken lightly.\n\n\"You sent us Sprack, in the time of our golden age. We had questioned him relentlessly until we found out who would replace us in this backwards swamp. And to my dismay, I could not fathom why you would disturb our resting places and power your stupid little machines when there is a perfectly good Sun to do just that. I bet you can't even figure out how to harness a black hole inside your ships. Also, your tacos are quite an amazing feat of engineering. We will also require fifty percent of them.\" King Doki descended slightly towards the pyramid of autonomous cameras before him, each beaming back an image of shiny, razor-sharp teeth to all the human colonies, upon a terrified humankind.\n\n\"And don't think about scheming with the other nearby species. The last time someone made that mistake, they became short a planet. Just look at your Kuiper belt.\" With that, the king stomped off his ship's media platform and warped away into the black.\n\n", "What was most interesting about the discovery of dinosauric intelligence was the manner of their escape from Earth. The creatures lacked the dexterity to operate or build machinery or even handle anything more than the simplest of tools, but despite this they still effected an exit from the planet before being blown to pieces. The manner of the escape reminded the time travellers of how certain primitive human societies, to the continual wonder of modern civilisation, were able to track the motions of the stars and the planets thousands of years in advance.\n\nThe dinosaurs were able to so precisely track the movement of the deadly comet that they were able to set up a giant earthen fulcrum upon which laid a platform made of entwined roots and plant matter. The dimensions were so calculated that once the comet hit, shockwaves travelled down the expanse of this organic lever, and, owing to some fruitful positioning, dinosaurs flew of the end of it like dust shooting off the end of a whip crack.\n\nIf what I just described is scarcely believable, what happened next discards all reason and enters the realm of pure fantasy. The dinosaurs, knowing that their only chance to survive the meteor impact was to escape in this way, nonetheless had no contingency plan for being blown off into space. So it was fortunate that an alien convoy was passing by at this time, on holiday in a foreign solar system, controlled by a species that reproduced by transferring DNA through a semi-permeable membrane. \n\nLike trying to spraypaint a bumblebee in flight, the swarm of disparate dinosaurs inevitably clashed with the fleet belonging this already highly dexterous and highly advanced race of spacefarers. Most clattered onto the sides of the ships with a visual that resembled shooting a bag of oranges out of a cannon at a brick wall. However, some of the fine cellular mist puffed up from this collision found its way into the ships and onto the skin of the alien beings themselves. \n\nThus began the great miscegenation. The hot blooded and adventurous qualities of the aliens would mix with the physical prowess and unemotional logic of the dinosaurs. The great intergalactic empire had been spawned." ]	[ 2, 4 ]	[ "1461364188", "1461353954" ]
	[WP] In the future, poor people sell segments of their lifespan to the rich on the black market.	7	[ "Long slender legs crossed, the tip of a black stiletto pump becoming visible under the hem of her flowing silk gown. Bright red nails curled around the stem of a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. She lifted it to her lips and drank deeply, before turning her eyes to the screen before her to look over the list of prospective donators. \n\nAfter looking disinterestedly through several possible candidates, a name caught her eye. Reaching a hand into her dress, she pulled out a creased and torn piece of paper. She unfolded it carefully and examined its contents, looking occasionally to the donator profile displayed on her screen. After a few moments she smiled.\n\nShe folded the paper once again and tucked it back, making sure it was imperceptible under her clothing. Satisfied, she called for her assistant. When the awkward, hurrying thing came in she gave the younger woman her instructions and left. A new donator had been found, and it was time to prepare.\n\n~~~~~\n\n26 years ago a young girl waited on the stoop of her apartment building. As she waited another old man emerged from the door behind her to hurry away, pulling up his coat to hide his face as he climbed into the back of his car waiting to speed him away towards uptown.\n\nThe little girl stood up. She knew that now it was safe to come back inside, where her mother would be waiting with a reassuring smile. They would go out to shop for groceries, as they always did after the old men visited. If she was good she would get a lollipop, a bright red one: her favorite kind. With that in mind the little girl smiled and skipped her way up the stairs. She opened the door and went in, but her mother wasn't waiting in the kitchen like she usually did. The little girl tentatively went to the bedroom. She knew that when her mother wasn't in the kitchen, it meant they had taken too much. \n\nHer mother lay on the bed, still naked and breathing heavily. Every time one of the men came she was less of herself. Every time her smile dimmed, and her hair greyed, and her limbs found it harder to move. But this time she was worse than usual. Now her eyes were glassy as they stared at the ceiling, and her skin was pale as it glistened from her sweat under the dim lights. \n\nThe mother's breath rasped out \"Little one, my little one, where. . . where are you? Oh. . . oh god.\"\n\nThe little girl went up to her mother's side. Fear flashed in her eyes as she took her mother's thin hand in her own. \"Here, I'm here mom.\" \n\n\"He. . . he took too much again. Too much. This time- this time I might no- not. . .\" she gasped \"not make. . . Listen. Listen little one. My book, by the. . . Shelf. The shelf. Take it. It has names. . . numbers, when I'm gone you must get what I've saved for you. It will hel- help. Help you.\"\n\nThe girl shook her head. \"There's still time. I'll call an ambulance. Just wait a moment, Mom, you'll be alright.\" But her voice trembled and she didn't know if what she said was true.\n\n\n\nSome time later two EMTs bashed open a door to a dingy downtown apartment, and followed the sound of sobbing they had heard from the hallway. After exchanging a resigned look about the grimness of the situation one of the men tugged the body off of the decayed mattress and onto the stretcher. The other called CPS as he watched the child. She grabbed a book off the bedside table and read a few pages, flipping past what looked like phone numbers, bank account information, and addresses before settling on reading a page of names. After a moment she ripped it out and folded it, tucking it into her dress. \n\n~~~~~\n\nAlmost three decades later the woman strolled into her lavish bedroom and went over to her desk. Taking a pen from one of its drawers she again retrieved her paper from her bodice and laid it out on the table in front of her. With an almost sinister gleam in her eyes she dragged the tip of her pen across the paper's surface, leaving a line of bright red ink, her favorite color, across the last name on her list. \n\nShe had found him, and she was going to take too much. \n", "\"So first, tell me your name.\"\n\n My name is Felicia Rodrigo.\n\n \"Now please, tell me Felisha-\"\n\n It's Feh-Lee-see-ah.\n\n \"My bad. Now please Felicia, tell me what you work as.\"\n\n I used to be a nurse, over at Hope Springs Hospital... Have you ever been there? I hear that they've torn it down soon after I left. Something about a drug bust.\n\n \"Interesting,\" the reporter wrote this down on his journal. \"Were you involved in it?\" His eyes were attentive.\n\nOf course not! If I was, I wouldn't have had to do the things I've done. \n\n\"What are one of those things in particular, Felicia?\" This reporter knew what I've done, I can tell by the tone of his voice. \n\nI sold a portion of my life. Write that in your journal.He did\n\n\"And why?\" he asked.\n\nFor my son. He looked up to me when I worked in the hospital. He often visited with his dad and everyone around the office knew him. \"Hey Michael,\" they'd say. Then he would respond \"Hi Doctor.\" For some reason he thought everyone there was a doctor, even if we explained levels of profession. \n\n\"Does your son want to be a doctor?\" He questioned.\n\nYes, he does. Before he said goodbye his dad died. We both spent all our savings trying to get him buried in the local graveyard. Then some kin from out of state wanted him buried in his hometown. We told them: \"Wherever we are is his home.\" but they didn't agree. Eventually things got tense, and we had to hire a lawyer to settle the argument. Unfortunately, we lost and all the lawyer said afterwards was where her money was.\n\n\"So, did you two attend his funeral?\"\n\nWe couldn't. The cost was so much and none of the in-laws welcomed us.\n\n\"Who did you sell part of your life to?\"\n\nGreedy people. I met an old couple in a cafe, next thing I know I'm signing the paper. I don't even remember their names. I just knew that I needed to pay my son's education til he graduated. He still doesn't know people can sell years of their lives for money.\n\n\"Do you think about this at night?\"\n\nSometimes. Only when all I could hear is the clock ticking on the wall. It reminds me of how little I have left. \n\n\"How is Michael? Is he almost a doctor?\"\n\nHe'll soon finish his degree. I'm so proud of him. \n\n\"When you die young, what will your son think? By then he would have been a doctor with some experience. Don't you think he'll find out soon about self-selling and piece it all together?\"\n\nWho cares? By then I'll be dead and my baby will be successful. He has to be.\n\n\"Right. Well, that'll be all Felicia. You'll get your check in the mail for this interview soon.\"\n" ]	[ 1, 3 ]	[ "1461810276", "1461804033" ]
	[WP] On another average work day you head to your 9-5 job, but as the elevator doors close and begin to plummet down instead of up, the only other occupant begins to address you in a serious yet knowing tone...	4	[ "I can tell that something is off as soon as the elevator starts moving. I glance at the panel; the button for 43 is glowing like normal, but the elevator is going down.\n\n\"Oh my God,\" I say. I turn toward the woman on my left. She looks completely unfazed. I blush. \n\n\"I thought we were falling,\" I say, trying to explain my exclamation. We're descending, and we're descending rapidly. But we started on the ground floor. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm getting vertigo or motion sickness or something.\n\n\"It's okay,\" says the woman. \"It's always startling the first time.\"\n\n\"Oh no,\" I say, \"I've ridden the elevators here many times. I'm at L&G, been there since 2010. I think I just got some vertigo or something.\"\n\n\"I meant the first time the elevator goes down instead of up. I'm afraid I won't be much help, though. I hate trying to explain this to newbies.\"\n\n\"Hang on,\" I say. \"What's happening?\"\n\n\"You'll see.\"\n\nShe pulls out her Blackberry and starts typing into it. I don't think she's really doing anything, just making it look like she's busy so I won't bother her. But I don't know what I would say, anyway. The elevator stops, and the doors open. The woman steps out without looking at me.\n\n\"Nice meeting you,\" I say. I'm not sure why. It just seems polite I guess.\n\nThe elevator opens out into a hallway. It's not my hallway. She steps off. I'm a little curious, but I have a lot of work to do today. I don't have time to explore or anything. I lean forward and press the \"door close\" button. The doors stay open.\n\n\"It won't leave until you get off,\" the woman calls from down the hall.\n\n\"I have work to do,\" I yell. \n\nShe laughs. \"I'm just letting you know,\" she says. \"Do whatever you want.\"\n\nI try the button again and look at my watch. At this rate, I'll be late. I press the 43 button again, but nothing happens. It's still lit. I press 44. I can walk down a flight of stairs if need be. I press 42. Up one flight would be fine, too. But the elevator doesn't move.\n\n\"How far down are we? Can I take the stairs?\" I call.\n\nShe doesn't answer. Maybe she's gone. I step off the elevator. If worst comes to worst, I can just call the elevator again. I start down the hallway in the direction of the woman's voice.\n\n\"You don't wanna go that way,\" says a man. I turn around.\n\n\"Hello,\" I say.\n\n\"This way for the tutorial.\"\n\n\"Oh, thanks,\" I say. \"I'm Dan.\"\n\n\"Third door on the right,\" he says, pointing. \"Close the door behind you.\"\n\nI walk down to the door.\n\n\"You know,\" I say, \"I really don't have time for this. I've got to get to work.\"\n\nThe man sighs. \"Just go through the door, guy,\" he says.\n\n\"Can you tell me what's in there?\" I ask.\n\n\"I already told you. It's the tutorial. You've never been here before, right? So you need to go to the tutorial.\"\n\nI hesitate.\n\n\"You want me to open the door for you?\" he asks. \"For god's sake, turn the knob and push it open. You've opened a door before, right?\"\n\n\"Okay, okay,\" I say. \"You don't have to be like that about it.\"\n\nI open the door before he can say anything else. Inside is a completely empty room. The walls are a blank gray.\n\n\"There's nothing in there,\" I say to the man.\n\n\"Just go inside,\" he says. \"And close the door behind you.\"\n\nI step into the room and close the door behind me. A circle lights up in the center of the floor. I step onto it. I'm not in the room anymore. At least, I don't think I am. I'm standing in what appears to be a gym. There are weight lifting machines and treadmills.\n\n\"Hi, there,\" says a woman. She smiles and holds out her hand.\n\n\"Hi,\" I say, smiling back. I shake her hand.\n\n\"I'm Melissa,\" she says, \"and I'll be helping you through the tutorial.\"\n\n\"Hi,\" I say. \"I'm Dan. Before we get started, where am I? What is this?\"\n\n\"This is the tutorial. You've been selected.\"\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"You'll see.\"\n\nI turn around. The door is gone.\n\n\"I have to get to work,\" I say.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" she says. \"Everyone's nervous when they first get here. You'll see. Your life will be the same, except you'll come here instead of your job up there. Now first, we'll need to get your baseline on these machines, and then we'll get you fitted for your wings. Can you step up on this platform for me?\"\n\n\"Wings?\" I ask.\n\n\"You'll see,\" she says. \"It will all make sense in time.\"\n", "I stepped into the elevator. Covering my yawn with one hand I pressed the button for the fourth floor with the other. Day 247 of my yearlong contract with Boring Cubicle Farm Inc. was going to be the exact same as the 246 previous ones. Solo ride up to my floor, solo walk to my desk, solo lunch break, solo everything until my contract was up, management wasn’t known for encouraging interaction or teamwork.\n\n“Hold the elevator please!”\n\n My trance was broken by a shout and the sound of someone running towards the elevator. I stuck my hand between the sliding doors just barely catching them before they closed. For the first time I had company in my morning commute up four floors as a smartly dressed man stepped into the elevator.\n\n“Thanks”\n\nI nodded in return as I examined this welcome intruder to my morning routine. I had never seen him before but that didn’t mean much. The whole lack of interaction thing meant I would struggle to pick the guy who sits next to me out of a crowd. He was taller than me; I put him at about 6’2’’ with broad shoulders. He stood straight backed in the corner of the elevator looking straight ahead not really acknowledging me or anything else.\n\nThe elevator distracted me from making further observations about the man as it tossed another deviation from the norm my way. Instead of making its way to the fourth floor like I had pressed it started slowly descending downward. I looked around in confusion; did I get in the wrong elevator?\n\n“No.”\n\nI turned back to the man. “What?”\n\n“You are in the right elevator.”\n\n“Did you read my mind?”\n\n“No.”\n\n“Then how…?”\n\n“It’s everyone’s first question.”\n\n“Everyone, so there have been others?”\n\n“There will always be others. No matter how much time passes there will always be some constants.”\n\n“So where are we going?”\n\n“Where do you want to go?”\n\nThe question made me pause. Off the top of my head I couldn’t think of an answer. I would love to be anywhere but at my job but in terms of specifics I couldn’t come up with a place. As I thought the elevator continued its smooth descent downwards. I had no clue how far down we had gone but I knew the building didn’t have a basement.\n\n“Can’t make a decision?”\n\n“I don’t know. “\n\n“No dream location, no secluded island to escape to?”\n\n“I’ve never really given it much thought.”\n\n“You should. One can’t really live without hopes and dreams, without goals to reach for.” \n\nThe elevator’s descent began to slow as we neared the destination I hadn’t decided on. The man stepped forward out of the corner and put his hand on my shoulder.\n\n“If you don’t dream you can’t move forward. Don’t be content with boring routines that are the same day after day. Don’t watch your opportunities pass by, reach out and grab them. You probably won’t see them ever again”\n\nWith that the elevator slid to a stop and the doors opened onto the lobby of Boring Cubicle Farm Inc. The man stepped out without another word, turned a corner and disappeared from my sight. As I stood watching him go the elevator doors closed leaving alone again in the elevator. On instinct I reached out to press the number four but then I paused. The man’s parting words ran through my head and I pressed the open door button. The doors opened and I didn’t look back.\n\n\n\n\n^I'm ^not ^good ^at ^formatting ^so ^feel ^free ^to ^give ^advice" ]	[ 2, 3 ]	[ "1461942480", "1461930014" ]
	[WP] Assassination has become a legitimate method of political succession, and therefore the PRIMARY method. Rulers are required to periodically put themselves at risk of assassination.	178	[ "The senators' palms sweat as the gleam of the spotlights beat down upon his furrowed brow.\n\n\"How long I gotta do this?\" the aging kentucky senator asked as he licked his lips, pondering as to the nature of the upcoming event.\n\n\"Only for an hour or so, sir.\" said the dead-eyed assistant, her glasses blocking the senator from seeing where exactly she was looking as she sifted between papers attached to a clipboard.\n\n\"Only an hour.\" the senator repeated.\n\nThe empty hall was not where the event would take place. It was only a practice meeting, the actual event would take place outside in an ampitheatre about three miles down the road. Very open. Very... insecure.\n\n\"I, uh, don't like to do this but, uh, ya gotta do what'cha need to.\" assured the senator, fishing for reasons to do what he was about to do.\n\n\"Uh huh.\" replied the assistant.\n\nThe senator wiped sweat from his brow. He licked his lips. They were chapped. He could feel the sweat pool in his armpit underneath the expensive cloths he wrapped himself in.\n\n\"I uh...\" The senator drawled on, searching for something to talk about to cut the tension. He gripped his collar and loosened it, letting out a nervous chuckle and sucking on his teeth. Maybe the job is worth it, the senator thought.\n\n\"Would you like to practice?\" asked the assistant.\n\n\"Nah,\" replied the senator shaking \"I'm... I'm fine.\" \n\n\"We're ready to go, senator.\" said the assistant in a bored tone. A squad of goons in black suits whisked the scared old man out of the empty theatre, the sweat flying from his forehead.\n\nFrom there it was a transaction of senator to location, senator to location. Eventually, however all the same, he popped up at that ampitheatre three miles away from the original location.\n\n\"Senator's ago.\" said one goon to another.\n\n\"Senator's ago\" the phrase repeated through walkie talkies.\n\nThe only other thing that could be heard is the chatter of a crowd, the rumble of engines passing, the wind lazily drifting along a summer day. The clamor of impatience.\n\nBorn to the light like a child birthed to the world, the senator was pushed out onto the stage past the curtain. The momentum of his being thrust onto the stage silenced the crowd. The aging kentucky senator squinted his eyes while bumbling forward towards a podium set up with a microphone meant for his words. The senator licked his lips. They were dry. He shuffled towards the podium.\n\nThe crowd was silent. Expectant, yet not for his words. The senator was now at the podium. Slowly, as his eyes adjusted, he began to peer wider. He tapped the microphone, making it reverberate throughout the amphitheatre toward the sky and eventually nothing. He licked his lips, opened his mouth, and began to speak.\n\n\"L-Ladies and gentlemen,\" he began \"we are all Americans, are we not? And I, as an A-American, I have tried my utmost to provide f-for you all that I had promised in my campaign.\"\n\nThe crowd broke into chatter.\n\n\"N-Now I do realize I couldn't provide the income reform bi--\" replied the senator, cut off by the sound of a gunshot. It had hit him in the shoulder, and the aging kentucky senator could feel his collar shattered. He stayed in character. He licked his lips. They were cracked.\n\n\"I -- I am the best that could have been appoi--!\" cut off by another gunshot. The crowd did not move. The first shooter had shot, then sit down. The second remained standing. His pistol proudly held, defiant of the senator, whose jugular vein was cut making him stumble backwards, flailing at his own imbalance. The smoke rose from the gun. The senator bled as the crowd watched. He licked his lips. They were dry. The crowd chattered. The shooter stood.\n\nThe goons from earlier walked into the crowd, grabbed the second shooter, and brought him to the podium. The shooter wore black leather shoes. His black leather shoes stepped in the aging kentucky senators blood with an almost visceral silence. The crowd did not speak. The goons made no sound. The assistant stared unblinkingly behind the curtain.\n\nThe shooter tapped the microphone. He spoke of his father, and the father before him. He spoke of family and friends and god and belief. He spoke of how in his twenty - year term he would do all he could to make good on all he was promising. He spoke with courage and vigor and honor. Much the same way that the former aging kentucky senator spoke. The shooters lips were moist. The shooter licked his lips.\n\n", "Sasha looked on as her mom waved at the crowd. This job was crazy why the hell would she want it? The crowd cheered as the first female governor of Miloi gave her final words. A glint caught Sasha's eye. She turned to the left to give it her full attention. There was definitely somebody on the top roof of the building. \n\n\"Hey what's there?\" She asked Dolph the burly guard standing outside the car. With their sunglasses on you could never tell which way the guards were looking. \n\n\"Oh it's nothing, nothing at all.\" He replied dismissively. \n\n\"Could you check it out?\" Sasha asked nervously. \n\n\"It's probably just a broken glass or something\" he replied gruffly. Sasha sunk back in her chair. That tone of voice was only used when the guards were done listening to you. Her mother rumbled on \"Now let me tell you...\" \n\nA shot ripped through the field cutting the speech shot. It caught Governor Lewin square on her chest and she fell back from the impact. A second shot rang, it hit the podium, shattering it into hundreds of splinters and cracked the sidewalk behind the podium as it landed. \n\nDolph sprang into action, He ran to the governess's side and used his back as a shield. He commandeered the other men to get into the building from his mouth piece. \n\nSasha's heart beat in her ears as she watched her mother lying on the ground. For a moment all the animosity between them was erased as she watched her lying lifeless on the ground. \n\n\"MOM!!\" She shouted out as she ran out of the car. She ran to her mother where the security men had congregated. As she was about to reach Lewin stirred. Biting her lip in agony the governess got back up holding her bodyguards for support. \n\nShe dusted herself of and walked back to the podium to raucous cheering and applause from the attendees of the rally. \n\n\"Somebody doesn't want me to say what I want to say but I won't be intimidated!\" She started. The crowd cheered on. Dolph smiled, the governess looked a bit shaken but she could still stir the crowd. Lewin went on to give a heart-melting speech and affirm her dedication to the citizens as she mentioned more pledges for her re-election campaign. She left the podium on top just as she had got in. Her final image was a peace sign she gave before the tinted windows rolled up. \n\nSasha wanted to ride with her mother but they hadn't allowed her. She cursed at her own weakness she could never do what her mother had just done. Today was meant to be the day but no, she would tell her next week that she got a job with the city's bomb disposal unit. she just wasn't as strong she needed as safer career. \n\nIn the front car Lewin and Dolph passionately kissed. They only had 30 minutes before she got home to her husband. \n\n\"So do you think they bought it?\" She asked holding his face. \n\n\"Oh it was a thing of beauty especially the way you told Sasha to come running out of the car.\" Dolph replied. \n\n\"I never told her,\" said Andrea. \n\nDolph pulled back eyes wide in shock. He covered his mouth with his hand. \"So she thought...so she thinks, this whole time...\" \n\n\"I'll tell her soon don't look at me like that\" she said coyly as she kissed him. \"Besides that's my fifth attempt and like you said that come back was unforgettable. I am four ahead of the next guy. this election I'm sailing in on pity votes and courage.\" \n \n**\n\nMore stories of mine can be read at /r/Pagefighter\n \n ", "The primary. This nation's way of choosing its leader. A barbaric practice, written as a constitutional amendment by Strom Thurmond. It was originally intended for the \"strong white man\" to prevent any black leader from ever winning a political seat. Wonder how he feels now, while he rolls in his grave. \n\nPresident Obama had won his primary through sabatoging Hillary \"Annie Oakley\" Clinton's gun at an NRA convention. He filled her gun with an explosive, that would explode when shot. He got John Edwards to kill himself out of shame when reports came out that he had screwed around when his wife had cancer. Let me tell you, the political commentators did not expect that.\n\nI was just running for the 9th Congressional District of Texas. A small, sleepy part of Fort Bend County, nobody really wanted to be a congressman. I wanted to do it because my father was a congressman. For that district.\n\nYou see, I could never survive in a major primary. So it was best to send a clear and strong message that I was a leader that these people could trust. \n\nI had to kill my father.\n\nI went to his office. He didn't know I was running, yet. I had filled out SEC documents yesterday, and my team hadn't quite gotten my campaign off the ground. On my hip was the same Glock I had conceal carried every day of my life.\n\nI walked right in. His secretary gave me a cookie and a coffee. If she knew what* I was really here for, I thought, she'd have served me poison.\n\n\"Hey James! Come to visit your old dad on leave from your job, huh? Let me tell you about this new bill I'm working on, but the Republicans...\"\n\nI looked at him go on and on about a railroad spending bill. About how the Republicans were trying to stop it, but he was just going to keep on going.\n\n\"No, Dad, I'm running for congress.\"\n\n\"Oh. Let me tell you where you should run. The 18th down in Houston. Let me tell you, Sheila Jackson Lee is a real bitch. Hell, you could get her own staff to kill her, she's consistently one of the worst bosses. Or maybe the 29th, Gene Green is so old that he's just gonna kill himself with a heart-\"\n\n\"No, dad, the 9th.\"\n\n\"The 9th? My district? My own son?\"\n\nPlease don't look at me like that, I thought in my mind. I knew primary rules. Surely, his staff would hate me, but they couldn't campaign for him. They couldn't intervene in a fight. My father was 68. He never had faced a primary before, any challenger from his district.\n\nI knew where he kept his primary gun, too. He kept it in a little portable access safe on the wall. The one I was in front of.\n\nBut then I started to feel woozy. My father and I both fell to the ground, for some reason. \n\nHis secretary, Anne Richards, came in with a pistol in hand. She took mine from my hand, and took my father's from his safe.\n\nFuck.\n\nTurns out that a radical third-party candidate can win after all.\n\nIf you liked this, please read more of my stories on r/TheTexasKid and subscribe!", "The day after the assassination of the president, by a group of highly trained revolutionaries—otherwise known to them as friends and colleagues—Elizabeth, a short, briskly brunette walked up and down along the dinner table, tracing her fingers along the furrowed patterns of the backs of the chairs. \n\n“Perhaps, at least one guard, dear.” Elizabeth came around a chair and sat down to her husband’s right, placing her hand on his knee. “They can’t expect you to let down all your defenses, not after a day.”\n\n“Those are the rules, and we were both in agreement just yesterday. Besides, what is one guard going to do? Might as well have none if you’re offering me one.”\n\n“So, no guards, no vests, and a convertible, that’s what I’m supposed to be content with?” she asked without expecting an answer in return, and tapped her long nails against the glossy table. \n\n“You don’t expect them to kill me just yet, do you?” he asked, smirking slightly. He wanted the spoils of victory just today. \n\nThe worries about security, civil war, or anything that required thinking for that matter could wait, but she worried that he’d grow too accustomed to being comfortable. They’d been planning for years, living in dark caves and those that were lucky in trailer parks, communicating with friends and family as if they were strangers to save them from association. Careful all the way through and now . . . he suddenly stopped caring. Not that he did much other than follow her around like a lost puppy anyway.\n\n“That is exactly what I’d expect,” she said, turning her eyes to him and twisting her lips down in disbelief. “In fact, if we weren’t a part of the revolution, our first plan would be to take power right after so that we could attack when they least expected. Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft, Michael. It doesn’t suit you.”\n\nHe leaned back in the chair, resting his arm on the table, and pushed back the shoulder nearest to her. “So what would you have me do? Walk out there in an armored suit?”\n\n“No, dearest,” she said, coating the word with venom, “I expect you to not ruin this for all of us within the very first day.”\n\nMichael stood, stretching his arms above his head, yawned without closing his mouth and looked down at her with a gleeful look of boredom. “Take a warm bath, Elizabeth. The stench from the cave is filling up the room.”\n\nShe closed her eyes, taking a deep breath through the irritation, and heard his chair scrape the floor as he pushed it back. \n\n“I’ll be by the pool,” she heard him say before the door opened and closed. \n\nShe shook her head, eyes focused on the door and stared at it absently until it opened again, and Liam walked in with a grave expression, and a set of deep lines wrinkling his forehead.\n\n“Commander in Cheat resting his eyes?” he asked with a smile that didn’t touch his eyes.\n\n“Should have given leadership to me.” Elizabeth stood, and waved him forward upon seeing the stack of papers bending down from his hand.\n\nHe raised a grey brow, and slapped the papers down on the table. “Give your husband a good kick in the nuts and a sock in the mount—or a woman and some whiskey so that he can keep out of our business. And there’s your leadership.”\n\nElizabeth bit her lip, and looked up at him through her lashes. “I’ll do you one better, Liam. Order one of the snipers to scare him a little. He’s by the pool. His ear or something, nothing important—just don’t let that cross eyed one near him.”\n\n“I trust that man more to shoot straight than I do your husband pissing into a toilet bowl.”\n\n“I know you trust him, Liam, but do so with a fucking sling-shot, and not a gun and that idiot’s head.”\n\n****\n\nMore of my prompts are available here, /r/AlinaKG. Thanks for reading!", "The primaries started with seventeen candidates. That's right. Seventeen of us risked our lives to run for the highest office, pledging to kill or be killed for the service of the nation. They were good men, killing them hasn't made me change my opinion. Now only one remains- the one who I must kill to get a shot at assassinating the incumbent.\n\nHe goes by the nick El Rato. You'd think he was some Mexican Sicario who'd wear a Sombrero and mutter \"Si\" with his pickled breath as he'd take out rival candidates with a machete. No. He was a smug, shotgun-wielding, baptist preacher from Texas. Texas- that accursed state that deserves every damn illegal it harbors on its soil. I'll build the wall right around it. It will be my first presidential act. Right after I'm done swearing my oath, standing over the carcasses of my opponents, my palms bloody with my incumbent's blood and raised in solemn affirmation of the words I recite-I will make America great again.\n\nBut to make America great I must deal with El Rato first. And he's getting difficult to handle. He has the support of the establishment. They've been sending their minions after me for a while, trying to get me to croak and get the Rat credit for it. But I'm not easy to put down. They didn't give me my nickname for no reason. \n\nThe centipede is often mistaken to be a creature of the dark, wriggling in the shadows, scavenging on the dead and decayed. But only those who've seen its wrath know that it can be a pretty swift runner, a nimble navigator. No matter how well hidden, how well protected its prey is, it navigates the terrain with his antenna, stalking it silently before it crawls up point blank and digs its fangs injecting the most potent of venoms.\n\nThe Rat likes women- who doesn't? But the Rat is stupid. In the midst of national media attention he doesn't have the brains to put his extramarital affairs on the back burner. He thinks this seedy little hotel gives him the cover of obscurity to carry out his little diddle session. Little does he know that I bought this place and hired myself among the housekeeping staff- hardworking Americans, these people, I'll make sure they get their due when I'm president. \n\nSo I walk up and knock at his door, shouting \"Room Service\" ignoring the do-not-disturb sign hung on the lock-set knob. \n\n\"Can't you read the fucking sign?\" He bellows, between thrusts, in his Texan drawl. He is already panting three minutes in- low energy Rato, low energy. \n\n\"Room Service!\" I shout again and move aside.\n\nA loud grunt. The bed shifts. A gun gets cocked and shots ring out puncturing more holes into the door than stars speckle our great flag.\n\n\"Read the fucking sign,\" he says with smug satisfaction.\n\nThen there's a fumble and a squeaky cry- the last pangs of a dying rat. The handle turns with a click and the door opens, I enter.\n\nHe is writhing on the ground, grasping at his neck through the thick folds of his double chin.\n\nI smile and look up at the girl he was banging, the syringe on her fingers still glinting. \n\n\"You really do look like him,\" I shift my glance from the Rat to her and back again.\n\n\"We look nothing alike, but whatever. Have you made the transfer?\"\n\nI'd first seen her on Maury. She was like a carbon copy of the Rat. I knew at that moment how to get him. No lure worked better for a narcissist than the opportunity to fuck a copy of himself.\n\n\"I did already. Now work hard and let's make America great again.\"\n\n\"Pfft, I don't know about that. I'm just an average gal who lives in a trailer park.\"\n\n\"First of all, never call yourself average. You're not smart, nor beautiful- but definitely not average. You deserve better than average...\" \n\nI stop as she begins to smile. This isn't a televised speech, I have no reason to lie to the fat trailer trash. Scratch that, let's just keep it trailer trash. We all have weight problems.\n\n\"So this settles your nomination, then. Can't supersede the centipede, I guess.\"\n\nI give her a hug and walk out. There's no time to gloat- the other faction would be finishing up with their selection process as well. It would probably be that witch- Pillory the Intern Slayer. A tough battle is coming, I must prepare well.\n\n---\n\nThe street echoed with a woman's blood-curdling screams. The building that once housed Soldman PACs was enveloped in flames.\n\nPeople waving placards circled it. Occupy!* They chanted. \n\nAn old man stands apart from the crowd, hunched , solemnly watching the spectacle from the center.\n\n\"Do you feel the Bern, now?\" He asks the woman in front of him, transcripts of her secret speeches spread around her like a pier, burning.\n\nShe didn't answer. The flames twisted and lapped over her convulsing body, until it charred her down into elemental carbon. Her screams were gone and there was only the hymn of the 99% in the smothering silence of wall street.\n\nA woman came up to him with a towel as he dusted his hands.\n\n\"Wow, that was unexpected! Congratulations on getting the nomination.\" \n\n\"Well, its over now. So I take on the Rat next?\" He wiped the sweat from his forehead.\n\n\"El Rato is dead.\"\n\n\"What? How could the establishment allow it?\"\n\n\"The establishment was against you as well, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"Yeah, but I'm me. You can't spurn the Bern.\"\n\n\"I guess the centipede was better than we expected. \"\n\nHe smiled. \"Do you know how to lure a centipede out from its hole?\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"You Bern a fire and smoke it out. Then you trample it with your foot.\"\n\nThe woman smiled. She never followed politics, but this time it was different. With the Bern and Centipede at each other's throats, it was going to get real fun this time. \n\n---\n\n/r/CaffeinatedWriter" ]	[ 1, 1, 3, 5, 65 ]	[ "1462134394", "1462140000", "1462119124", "1462117396", "1462110413" ]
	[WP] “We should have done something.”	3	[ "\"We should have done something!\" clamored Mollie. \"There was nothing we could do. They were all dead and if we didn't get out of there when we did, we would be dead too - now come on, we have to hurry\" he responded in an almost convincing calm voice. \n\nAs they ran at breakneck speeds through the dimly lit forest, each muddy step was met with a strong petrichor released from the storm. He didn't register the smell as his body was on autopilot and his mind was still miles back at the farmhouse. Neither made an effort to protect themselves from branches as they galloped into the night. All of that blood - their friends being murdered and they watched helplessly. Mollie's words thundered through his head over and over \"We should have done something!\". Something yes - but what?\n\nEventually their mind's will to keep going could no longer drive their bodies further. Mollie collapsed in a heap - legs shaking from exertion and chests heaving in a tenuous battle to get air. His mind still reeling, he laid down next to her in a protective fashion but then fell into a nightmarish sleep reliving what happened over and over.\n\nFor the briefest of moments when daylight snuck up on them and the birds began to sing, Boxer had forgotten that the previous night's butchery was real and not just a nightmare.\n\nHe decided then and there to go see Old Major. There is no way they continue allowing Mr. Jones to get away with not protecting them. What is it that Old Major keeps saying after all - all animals are equal\n\n", "\"We should have done something.\"\n\nHer voice shook. She was rocking back and forth on her bed, knees tucked into her chest. The white of her pajamas combined with the moonlight coming in through the window made her look porcelain, fragile and too easy to break. Her eyes were shut tightly, and tears flowed freely down her cheeks. I reached out my hand to touch her shoulder; she flinched.\n\n\"Mandy, it's okay.\" She exploded.\n\n\"No! It's not!\" She jumped up out of bed and began to pace the room, clapping her hands together nervously. She'd done that since we were kids; it'd been endearing then, but now it was just a sign of the strain that she never could quite forget. I stood up and took her by the shoulders. My hands covered them completely, and I could feel the delicate bone structure underneath.\n\n\"You need to sit down and go to sleep. You'll wake the neighbors.\" I walked her over to the bed and sat her down. She stared at me blankly for a moment before leaning forward and snuggling in closer to my chest. If I closed my eyes, I almost felt like we were in high school again, at the homecoming game where she had fallen asleep in my arms after the first quarter. I could almost forget the past, what had happened, where we were.\n\nAlmost.\n\nShe began to hum a song. I listened for a minute before adding harmonies. We hummed like that for awhile, until I felt her body relax. I picked her up, slipped her back under the covers, then crawled under them myself. Her quiet warmth was reassuring; yes, my Amanda was still there, underneath all the pain and suffering. I got up after a bit, making sure not to disturb her, and padded quietly across the room. I opened and closed the door softly, letting the hallway light caress her face as I wished I could before I had to shut it out completely.\n\nThe night nurse glanced up at me, bored. She was reading a magazine and chewing gum, slouched over at her station like a bored kid at a cocktail party. She gestured with her head back to Amanda's room.\n\n\"She okay?\"\n\n\"She'll be okay now.\"\n\n\"Good. I mean... I'm glad. She need some rest. Stressful day tomorrow.\"\n\nI only nodded. Every day was a stressful day for Amanda now, but tomorrow would be hell on earth.\n\nI pulled into the driveway as the clock in my pickup changed to 1:03 AM. I walked to the house, stuck my key in the lock, and walked in. I went to the kitchen to fix myself a sandwich, passing our family portraits in the falls. Amanda, Corey, Grace and I smiled from our backyard, playing on the swingset the other dads in the neighbor hood had helped me build. After making the sandwich and putting some coffee on, I pulled out the book. The cover was dark, with ornate faux gold gilding. I opened it. Grace and Corey smiled at me from the pages, and I smiled back. I turned the pages, staring at them playing, laughing, smiling.\n\nI found the article on the last page.\n\nHome Invasion Gone Wrong Rocks Small, Northpark Neighborhood: intruder killed was suspect in five other similar murders.\n\nI closed my eyes.\n\nI heard Amanda scream my name. \n\nChris!\n\nThen, a gunshot. She screamed again. Another. By that time I was running towards Corey's room, my gun in my hand. All I could think was \"No. No no no no no.\" I heard Amanda screaming.\n\n\"You BASTARD. I'LL KILL YOU, I SWEAR TO GOD. YOU'LL NEVER HURT ANYONE AGAIN-\" I heard a third shot. Amanda stopped screaming.\nA man stepped out into the hallway. He was small, rodent-like, dressing black. I aimed and fired, and he went down.\n\nI rushed into Corey's room, and found Amanda sobbing over his crib. Grace was staring at me blankly from her mother's arms, the light gone from her eyes. Amanda's forehead was bleeding profusely, but she wouldn't let Corey go.\n\n\"MY BABY, OH GOD, MY BABIES. NO. PLEASE DON'T BE TRUE. COREY, HONEY, GRACEY, COME BACK TO ME...\"\n\nI came back to reality as the buzzer dinged from the coffee maker. My face was wet. I closed the book and hugged it to my chest.\n\nMandy..., I thought as my head started to throb, we did do something... we did.", "Dear Ryan, \n\nYour sisters laugh still rings in my ears. The amount of lies we've had to tell. The countless news stories, papers, magazines, it feels never ending. All the people you tied into these lies you've built. I haven't had a single thought that wasn't about Giana for the past three years. I feel trapped. Not just for the fact that you and I are the reason for her suicide, but that you could have stopped her. \n\nWhy? \n\nI now realize in letting her kill herself, and not stopping you, I am indirectly responsible for her death. In the end, we are in this together. \n\nYou know it has been months since we've last spoken. I've had time to think, really think. About me. About you. About what happened. \n\nRyan, We should have done something. You know we should have. \n\nNow I am going to do something. Something I should have done a long time ago. \n\n- Gordon\n\n-------------------\n\nI put down the pen. \nThe letter slid into the envelope smoothly, a perfect fit. \nThe envelope was pushed under the door.\nWith all the people in it, I proceeded to set the building on fire. \n" ]	[ 1, 1, 3 ]	[ "1462121013", "1462123608", "1462123567" ]
	[WP] You aspired to be the first man on the moon in the cold war era. Upon achieving this dream, you witness the Earth undergo nuclear fallout and you are unable to return.	25	[ "(written on my phone please forgive typos)\n\nIt wasn't quite as bright as I'd expected. The war, I mean. It looked like the sun reflecting off the ocean, but in dozens of places. On the dark side of earth, it was spectacular, but where the sun shone it was only visible for a few seconds. \n\nIt wasn't really a surprise. We'd listened to the frantic radio messages. Apparently Nixon had decided to play chicken with the Soviets, only they hadn't blinked. They'd shot down half our B-52s before someone could order them recalled, and things got worse from there. It had all happened pretty fast. \n\nHouston dropped off the air. We were supposed to have backup communications but we never heard from them. Guess the Russkies' intel was better than we gave them credit for.\n\nCollins said he'd pick us up and do the return journey if we wanted to. It might've worked. The ships were already out and they wouldn't have been targets, but we'd have nowhere to go even if we got picked up after splashdown. All the big cities were gone, along with all our families. \n\nWe talked to Collins some more, and decided we'd stay down below. He said he was going to try to land the CSM with the fuel he no longer needed to return to earth. It was crazy, but as he put it, who gives a shit now? It's die fast or die slow, and at least this way he'd get to land on the moon himself. So saying, he vanished over the too-close horizon and fate unknown.\n\nThere were always rumors that all astronauts were given a magic suicide pill, \"just in case\". Well, we weren't. We did have good painkillers, though, and we were both of us high as kites. It was easier than thinking. The plan was to watch for more fireworks, admire the landscape until it got dull, then crack our suits.\n\nThe ship caught us by surprise, though. Through a haze of opiates, at first I thought Collins had somehow succeeded at his insane plan and was about to land on us. Addled as we were, it didn't take long to realize that the gunmetal gray, saucer-shaped behemoth gliding down beside us wasn't the CSM, or any other craft I'd ever seen. \n\nWe didn't spot the swastikas until it was almost on top of us.", "\"Houston, we have contact. We did it. We're on the moon\" I can barely contain my excitement enough to rattle off that communication. I've been waiting for this day since I was a kid. I'm on the moon. The first human to ever set foot here. \"Roger Eagle, congratulations. Please commence your scientific responsibi-\" as Houston is cut off, I can't help but notice a slight orange glimmer on the earth, directly where NASA has Houston headquartered. Before I can communicate the anomaly, the entire nation is lit up with similar dots of various sizes and shades of yellow. As the earth rotates, I can barely make out similar dots within the USSR's borders. This is when the realization of what is happening hits. Like a freight train. Nuclear war. This is also when my second revelation hits. I'm not going home, ever. I choke back my emotions for some imaginary audience, and make my way back into the landing craft. I begin to take inventory of my supplies. Sustenance to last me a few days... A repair kit... And what matters most: O2... A few hours worth. The tears begin to well up in my eyes as I am faced with the horrendous reality of my fate. Suffocation. Not a very nice way to go. I sift through the rations, looking for a special item. A specially made bottle of the good stuff. Meant for when I get back to earth's orbit, but now it seems I'll never get there. Upon finding the bottle, i attach it to my suit's nutrition line and step out of the craft, bottle in hand. I catch a glance of a stool sized rock. Perfect. I stumble over to my final resting place, face doomed earth, and begin to drown the last minutes of my life in alcohol...\n\n", "Had to rush this a little, but here's what I ended up with :)\n\n\n\n\nIt’s beautiful out here. A bit lonely though. Strange to think how every one of those twinkly little lights was a giant nuclear furnace, pumping out huge amounts of energy, but from here they were little glittering grains of diamond dust on a black velvet background. So pretty. So many stars.\n\nNow that the thrusters had powered down I feel something I’ve not felt in quite a few days – gravity – settle over me and my stomach turn a little. There’s always been that adjustment period between free fall and gravity that makes me a little unsettled, this time it seems accentuated by the weak fraction of a g here, like I was sitting in a weird middle ground between weightlessness and being under gravity and my body wasn’t really ready for it. I’d include it in my report, try and make things a little easier for the next guy. Still, being first has its advantages – in this case I’d go down in history as the first man on the moon.\n\nThrough the thick lunar module window I spend a few moments surveying the landscape. It’s so bright out there, surprisingly so in fact. The pocked and scarred ground stretching out in front of me was ostensibly in shadow for now, but the Earth-shine was more than sufficient to see clearly. Grey and black is the palate, and I can almost convince myself that it is some desert or beach in an odd hew instead of being further from earth than any other person in existence.\n\nI had a few minutes with not much to do. We trained so exhaustively back home that I was now on autopilot, hands punching codes into the computers interface and replying to the techs back home with readings from dials while my mind wanders.\n\nI was 8 years old when it first occurred to me to be a spaceman. I still use the term in the privacy of my own head simply for the nostalgia value. It helps me to remember afternoons playing pretend with friends, or listening to radio shows before bedtime, reading books and comics. We used to be exhilarated by the idea of being cowboys, or sea captains, or brave soldiers, but that all changed when those crazy Russians put Yuri into orbit in what was a glorified metal coffin and somehow brought him back alive. I remember sitting with my Dad, listening to the news and how amazed he was, shocked really, at the achievement. I knew straight away that the biggest and most important thing I could do would be to go to space. Almost overnight it seems I’d traded in my six shooters for ray guns, my captain’s hat for a space suit, and in my dreams of war I was now fighting green skinned Martians in place of Russians.\n\nI’d queried everyone about what I’d have to do to go to space and gotten an answer. Be a pilot. Not just any pilot though, I’d have to be the best. \n\nFrom then on I focused in school. I had to. I wasn’t the smartest kid there, but I did well already and with my newfound focus I excelled. \n\nNine years later I graduated from high school and joined the air force. Then the real work began. \n\nThe Russians programme seemed to be stagnating, orbital flights aplenty and a couple of probes, but no real progress closer to the moon no matter what they told everyone. Big announcements about new fuel pumps or thrust vectoring techniques, things they were retro-engineering from our last generation of craft but they would invariably claim put them ahead of the rest of the world.\n\nThe Americans sent pod after pod full of their youngest and brightest to die in the cold due to one fault or another, sometimes there’d be an explosion or implosion, sometimes the radio simply went silent, always there was a flashy and sombre televised funeral featuring flags draped dramatically over empty caskets and a fiery public statement expressing their recommitment to getting it right next time. \n\nPersonally I know for a fact that the only thing that’s kept us in the race at all is the sheer number of scientists, engineers and technicians we managed to repatriate after the war. Germans mostly, thankfully they weren’t much like the propaganda that’d been spread around during the war. \nFrom what I hear it was winning their families over that did it. A lot of them actively escaped custody to come to my country.\nI shudder to think what may have happened to my dream should those wonderful minds have ended up with another country.\n\nAs it was they Ruskis and the Yanks were having talks right now – primarily disarmament but space exploration and almost certainly our programme and tech advantages were on the table. My best guess was that their respective agencies wanted to do a joint programme to try and catch up. Maybe that’d cause us problems one day, but with political tensions between the two countries at an all-time high – ‘five minutes to midnight on the nuclear clock! Blah blah blah’ – it wasn’t likely to happen for years to come.\n\nI had fought hard to be the best in our programme, and I very nearly was. After 5 years flying test missions, sub-orbital and finally orbital flights I’d finally put myself in position to be considered for the right hand seat on our lunar mission.\n\nIn the end I missed out on being the mission pilot and commander - and consequently getting the right to be the first man to step foot on the moon - by a hair, and was only included when a drunk driver plowed his car into back of Commander Davidsen’s car causing him whiplash and punching my ticket for me. Best $3000 I’ve ever spent. I’m glad he wasn’t seriously hurt or killed but unfortunately he’d been between me and the Moon so he’d had to go.\nAnd now here I am. 370,000 kilometres from home (roughly anyway), enjoying the peace and quiet. In fact it occurs to me that it’s a little too quiet. The radio has been silent for a minute now. I quickly run through the last few minutes in my mind, we had been working through the checklist, boring boring fuel measurements, longitude, latitude, velocity, a long and boring laundry list of things to d before I stepped outside, when I’d been asked to hold.\n\nI wish they’d just get on with it. I have history to make after all.\n\n“Taniwha 3, this is Masterton, read?” I almost jumped at the sudden voice from the radio. After moments of silence it seemed so very loud.\n\n“Roger Masterton, Taniwha reads loud and clear, ready to pick up where we left off?”\n“Negative Taniwha, sorry to say I’ve….” His voice broke badly, sounded like he was choking on something and I was instantly annoyed. This was historic stuff, and this idiot on the ground was chewing gum or eating a sandwich! “Sorry to say I’ve got bad news.”\n\nAn ice cold dagger dropped down my spine and into my gut. I knew in an instant they were going to scrub. I’d come so close and they were about to order me to launch the module before I even got to set foot on the ground!\n\n“It’s bad Taniwha… They’ve launched… the damn Russians actually launched….” His voice trailed off into sobs and I was left to wonder what was going on. He wasn’t choking at all – he was crying!\n\nBut so what if the Russians had launched something? Even if it were a lander it’d take a couple of days to get here, and we’d have known for sure if they’d launched before we did. Let ‘em come second, I’ll wave as we go past each other and be back on the ground before he can set foot outside.\n\n“Masterton I don’t understand, why does it-“\n“All of them Taniwha – they launched the bloody lot! Americans are responding, a handful headed our way, those spiteful bastards. We’re counting 3 from the Russians and 2 from the Yanks, only 5 but more than enough.” He was almost screaming now, frantic and close to hysteria, “You’re it Taniwha, you’re gonna be all that’s left of us. ETA 2 minutes.”\n\nThe penny dropped. That ball of ice in my stomach grew to a boulder. Missiles. They’d launch the bloody missiles!\nI craned my neck trying to get a glimpse of Earth from the seat but couldn’t manage it. \n\n“Masterton, confirm Ruskis and Yanks have both launched nukes?!?” The stress in my voice was there for all to hear. But no response came. \n\n10 second of nothing crawled past. Then another excruciating 10. After restraining myself for another 10 I concluded that there wouldn’t be a response and began to unbuckle my restraints. I wasn’t about to let them stop me from fulfilling what I’d come here to do.\n\nI checked my suit gauges, my extravehicular support package showed good for an hour or so on the surface. Next I vented the cabin. I was feeling numb as I watched the little gauge drift its way down to zero. It didn’t matter that it’d never go back up. I couldn’t even hear the alarms anymore, just my own breathing and the rustle of the fabric of my suit around my neck. Without even knowing it I’d opened the hatch and was looking down the ladder toward the ground. There it was. A lifetime’s work had led to this, and now no-one would ever see it.\n\nMy foot crunched onto the surface, and I felt it give way slightly, like fresh powder just laid on a mountaintop.\nI was here. I’d forgotten whatever words they’d given me to say, but none of that mattered anymore. I bunny hopped to the top of a small rise and took my seat for the show.\n\nIt’s funny, they look more like bright camera flashes than anything else. I can’t see the clouds yet but I’m sure I will before I run out of air. The terminator is rolling around into view and I get to see those little nuclear fires as though they were hanging ever so briefly with the distant stars I had been enraptured with earlier. It reminds me how small we are, or were. Our petty concerns and competitions mean nothing to those stars. Long after the little clouds down there settle and the last of our achievements has disappeared into the dust they’ll twinkle on. \n\nI watch the little flash bulbs going off and cry, and laugh, and after a few too short minutes I sleep.\n", "A life long dream, a life long goal\n\nIron hard will, determined soul.\n\nFall away from the cursed ground\n\nSlip into peace without a sound.\n\nFirst to blackness and then to white\n\nA first and final sacred sight.\n\nA flash of light, a cloud of dust\n\nSo little left of Earth’s blue crust.\n\nThe garden man was meant to tend\n\nBurnt hope and ash had brought its end.\n\nNow preserved by airless rift\n\nA single life, lost adrift.\n" ]	[ 1, 1, 3, 14 ]	[ "1462244823", "1462250723", "1462243668", "1462238078" ]
[deleted]	[WP] You have magical abilities such as summoning a flame with just a thought and being able to manipulate the air around you. Also your a bad guy who wants to rob a bank.	0	[ "Magic.\n\nThat's what I call it.\n\nWho knows what it really is. Call it magic, call it witchcraft or call it by some Greek name, it's the same to me.\n\nI couldn't help but let a small grin escape me as I stood in front of the building. No one could see me, not even the dozens of security cameras that had their glass eyes trained on my location. I was inside fort Knox, the home of America's gold. Before me lay the gold vault.\n\nI had manipulated the light around me, making it appear like there was nothing here. I had also managed to lower my body temperature via my cyroknesis, fooling the heat detectors.\n\nI snapped my fingers, a small red flame spurting into life at my fingertips. A normal, moral person would be used their powers for good' they would've become a super hero or some other bullcrap like that.\n\nNot me though.\n\nI focused and the flame turned blue. Putting a finger to the thick steel door before me, the flame sliced though it like butter. Giving the now loose piece of metal a shove, I entered the vault.", "As I was watching Avatar, I thought to myself how cool it would be to have those powers. I have always been weak and uncoordinated. If only I could do something with my will, that way I don't have to use this body as much. As I was thinking about this and really concentrating on it I realized that my TV was starting to smoke! Crap! What am I going to do! As I started to freak out the smoke quickly turned to flames. I ran and got the fire extinguisher and put the flames out. \n\nAfter this, anytime I started imagining fire, a fire would pop out of nowhere. I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I figured it out pretty quickly. With some practice, I found I could start fires at will pretty easily. Putting them out was another story. \n\nI came home from school to find an eviction notice on my door. Mom had lost her job, and dad had left us years ago. We were broke, and at 13, I was too young to get a job to help out. I went to my room to take a last look at all my things. Last time we got evicted I ended up losing most of my stuff. You just can't hold on to much when you are spending the night in a shelter. \n\nBut this time was different, I had powers now! I bet I could get money with this. But how? Maybe I could rob a bank, I could just scare everyone with my powers and take the money without hurting anyone. \n\nAlright, let's do this! I knew I would have to make sure the cameras didn't see me, so I pulled a pair of my mom's pantyhose over my face. That's what they always do on TV. I walk in the bank, ready to start some fires, but as soon as I walk in there's a security guard pointing a gun at me! Crap! I guess I shoulda seen that coming. I put my hands up, but as I looked at him he burst into flame. I guess that works. But there were two other guards going to pull their guns too. Uh oh, I made a huge flame appear right in front of me. Between the smoke, the alarms, and the sprinklers, I was able to escape. As I ran away I soon heard cops screaming towards the bank. I suppose I probably should have planned that one out better. And I feel bad for the guy I lit on fire. I'm sure he'll live, but he's going to have a bad day. I'll try another bank tomorrow.\n\nOkay! This time I have a plan. I'm going to go in there with fire around me, and scare the attendants so much they'll let me into the vault. I find an old Halloween mask of mine. It's one of those rubbery ones, and kinda looks like a demon. Maybe they'll think I'm a monster. This time, as I put on my mask, I run in with flames surrounding me. Soon there are fire alarms and the place it hectic. I scream at one of the tellers to let me into the vault, but she doesn't hear me with all the noise. I try to get closer to her to tell her, but as I approach her, a fireman busts into the bank and starts putting out my fires. Quickly before anyone notices I take my mask off at let a firewoman rescue me. \n\nThe emt's that arrive insist that they check me out to make sure I'm fine, but I refuse. I don't want them finding my mask. When no one is looking I slip away amid the chaos and go home. This is going to be tougher than I thought.\n\nOkay, this time I have a better plan. I'm walk in normally, melt the cameras and slip the teller a note telling her to let me into the vault or I will burn her alive. When she reads it I subtly light the corner of the paper on fire. She at first she looks almost angry, but when the paper start smoldering her anger turns to fear. She tells me to come with her and she starts taking me to the vault. I can't believe this is working! Then I see a guard come into the vault, he looks at me and pulls out some handcuffs. Crap! She must have warned him somehow. That's okay, I can deal with this guy. I immediately spring flames all around me. I tell him that he will let me take what I want or I will destroy him. It works, they both run out of the vault, leaving me alone with all the valuables. \n\nWait, they're all in lock boxes! That's okay, I can deal with this. I concentrate my fire on the lock, quickly melting it. But when I open the box all that is inside is some smoldering paper! I try a few more times, but each one only has documents that I accidentally destroyed. I try one last box, there's no paper in this one, but all there is is a pile of molten gold. Fire doesn't hurt me, but I have no way of getting this out of here. I give up, I'll just get the scared teller to give me some cash. As I leave the vault, the bank is empty. Uh oh, this isn't good. I don't know what's going on, but I gotta do something. I burst my body into flames then the light the bank on fire too. It really was empty though, and there no one left inside. \n\nI look outside an realize the place is surrounded by police. If I just walk outside I'll probably get shot. So I start lighting all the police cars on fire. I'm get a good 10 of them really burning. And some of them are starting to explode. They police outside don't know what to do. This is my chance. I give myself some cover by starting a huge fire right outside the door and exit through it. Keeping a line of flames in front of me as I run and continuing to explode cars as I go. By the time I'm a block away everyone is more focused on the chaos than apprehending me. I'm able to sneak away unnoticed. \n\nI get home, the notice is still on the door and I still haven't gotten any money. I grab the notice and throw it on the ground, igniting it on fire in my rage. But then something awful happens. The floor below it light on fire too. I try to stamp it out, but it's too late. The fire spreads too quickly, and soon the whole house is on fire. I call 911, but it takes way too long for them to get to my house. One of the responders apologizes, explaining that there was a situation downtown, and all the firefighters in the city had been dealing with it. \n\nThen I see a car down the street. Oh no, it's my mom. She coming home from another job interview. She gets out of the car and begins weeping. I go to comfort her, but as I get to her she gets a huge smile on her face. She tells me she still had our old renters insurance policy. It was a really good policy, and covered everything we owned. She had been meaning to cancel it, but she had been too busy applying for jobs. She tells me that not only that, but she found a job. One of her old co-workers who'd also lost her job put in a good word for her at the new job. She was going to start next Monday. " ]	[ 1, 2 ]	[ "1462374696", "1462379252" ]
	[WP] Humans have unknowingly always had access to some superpower, but the steps to access this ability are extremely complicated and seemingly arbitrary. Now, for the first time, someone has managed to do so.	83	[ "He could lift entire islands. He made North Korea back down from nuking the world single handedly. We all called him the 15th. It was a strange name, but when somebody can swallow a nuke and survive you call him whatever he wants. So far none of his enemies could find a weakness. They tried super viruses, mech suits, even magic. None of it worked, he was unstoppable. Some thought he was a God, others a devil. And yet he protected us, selflessly.\n\nEventually his identity was revealed. He made a mistake, destroyed a drug deal the US was busy infiltrating. And the government in retaliation released his secret identity. He was just an average Joe Schmoe, no superpowers before he became a hero, no evidence of one. He even had a hospital bill from when he was shot, so he clearly developed them later.\n\nSo a press conference was held. How exactly did he get his powers? He didn't reveal to them, but he did to me. I was someone he saved, I had a good heart. I asked him this question, and for some reason he didn't refuse me or fly away.\n\n\"So 15th, how did you get your powers?\" I asked. \"Well this may sound strange, but it all started with a club I joined. They asked me to write the club's name on my forehead, something nobody had ever done before. I did, I was a bit drunk at the time, but I did it anyway. Looked ridiculous, but I got superpowers\". \"What club is it?\" \"I'll show you.\" He grabs a sharpie, and starts writing on my forehead. He hands me a mirror. \"Congratulations, on joining the PEN15 club\".", "At last, it had begun. This would be the day of the Awakening. As the High Priest began the incantation for the ritual, he could barely contain his excitement.\n\n\"Place your hand within the circle, and begin to feel The Power within you.\"\n\nFor all of recorded history, Mankind had been certain that within each person lay extraordinary hidden abilities. If, they reasoned, they could just discover how to unlock that potential, they would be as gods. The Order was founded to seek out a way by which this might be done. Now, the day had finally come to fulfill The Order's grand purpose.\n\n\"Remove your hand from the circle. You have known but a taste of The Power; soon you will know it in full. Remember this moment, brothers. It is your last as the frail creatures you are now.\"\n\nThe Order had spent thousands of years trying to piece together the answer to this mystery, with little success. Much had been tried in the pursuit. Gigantic monuments were built to harness the energies of the Cosmos, medical experiments were performed in the hopes of discovering how to unlock these supposed abilities, and untold masses had perished in pursuit of what had come to be known only as The Power.\n\n\"Return your hand now to the circle, and shake away your weaknesses. Discard them and leave them in the circle, to be replaced within your form by immeasurable strength. The Power is within you, as it always was. It is rising, but it has not yet been fully awakened.\"\n\nNot so long ago, The Order thought they had found the secret. A ritual had been performed then, one not very different from this one. When at the end of that ritual the ring of men fell to the ash covered ground, they were dismayed to discover that The Power had not been awoken within them.\n\nThis time, however, the High Priest knew they had it right. Even if he had not known before, he could feel The Power growing within him as he prepared for the final step in the ritual.\n\n\"Now turn in a full circle while performing the ancient motion! Once the circle is complete, we will all be wielders of The Power!\"\n\nThe Order, several hundred strong, all did as they had been instructed. Each among them started to emit a glow, which steadily grew as the turn progressed. By the time they came around to face the center once again, the glow had grown into a blinding light, which immediately disappeared.\n \n \n\nThe Power that had been hidden within Mankind for so long was now unleashed. As the High Priest began to levitate above his place in the circle, he addressed the room full of new gods before him. The ritual of Hok Ipoki was complete.\n \n\"That, brothers... is what it is all about!\"", "The Forever Knight smashed through the ceiling of the inner sanctum. This was the lair of Lord Ulblaxian, the most heinous villain in existence.\n\nThe room was large and ornately decorated. A giant screen on one side looked out over the surface of the asteroid in which the lair was embedded. On the screen was a large device, thrumming with power.\n\nThe Forever Knight hadn't seen it while infiltrating the lair. This had only just deployed. It must be the Dread Ray, aimed at Earth. Lord Ulblaxian was holding the world hostage, and the time limit had almost run out.\n\nThe Forever Knight, the world's first true superhero, had hidden aboard one of the many transport shuttles that carried Ulblaxian's minions between Earth and the asteroid lair. Once inside the lair, she had fought through Ulblaxian's forces, making her way towards the inner sanctum.\n\nA large chair stood in the middle of the room, facing the screen. This whole room was a theatre for one: Lord Ulblaxian. The chair slowly turned around, revealing Lord Ulblaxian's smirking visage.\n\n\"At last, we meet, Forever Fool\" spat Ulblaxian. \"I see you managed to get past my prototype robotic sentinel\".\n\nThe Forever Knight nodded, her exhaustion apparent. That had been quite an ordeal, but thankfully there had been only one.\n\n\"I lied! That was no prototype; I have been mass producing them for quite some time now. GUARDS!\" Ulblaxian yelled the last word out. Immediately, doors opened in the side of the sanctum and robot sentinels poured in, their blasters trained on the Forever Knight. She looked around her and exhaled, her hopes falling. She had come so close to stopping the madman...\n\nHowever, the robots remained with their weapons trained on her, not firing. \"Not just yet\" said Ulblaxian, coyly. \"I want you to see Earth fall. I want you to watch my Dread Ray turn the planet into mulch. Only then, will I finally let you die.\" Ulblaxian cackled. \"Behold! The testament to my monumental genius!\" he crowed, gesturing wildly around him. \"Unlike you, I was not born with superpowers. I worked for my achievements. While you fly around putting out fires and saving kittens from trees, I slaved away in my laboratories, researching, building, planning...\".\n\nThe Forever Knight couldn't take any more of it. \"Yes, yes, I know all about you\" she interrupted. She lifted off her helmet. \"I used to work for you, remember? Until you went and turned on us all.\".\n\n\"Sasha?!\" sputtered Ulblaxian in confusion. \"You're the Forever Knight? But how? You never had... you... you had superpowers? While you worked for Ulblaxatech?\"\n\n\"No, I didn't. Well... no, I take that back. We all have superpowers. Every single human. I just discovered how to access mine. And I decided to use them for good, especially after you fired everyone and dissolved the company.\".\n\n\"What do you mean: everyone has superpowers?\" demanded Lord Ulblaxian, bewildered.\n\n\"I mean that I was not born special, contrary to the garbage you were spouting just a moment ago. Hell, you were born more special than I was, as royalty and with a silver spoon in your mouth. More like a whole set of silver cutlery. And everything you did with your wealth was just to help yourself and your selfish, evil schemes. I was the one who actually worked for my powers.\".\n\n\"I don't understand... You will tell me how you got superpowers, and you will tell me now!\" screamed Ulblaxian. \"Or I will fire the Dread Ray at Earth!\".\n\nThe Forever Knight chuckled. \"You were going to fire it anyways. What I do or do not say won't change that.\". Lord Ulblaxian looked like he was going to pop a vein - he was catatonic with indignation. \"But you know what? I'll tell you anyways.\".\n\nUlblaxian's expression transformed from vein-popping indignation to maniacal glee. \"Yes, yes! Tell me!\"\n\n\"Dungeons and Dragons\" said the Forever Knight plainly.\n\nThe silence that followed was deafening.\n\nAfter a moment, Ulblaxian responded: \"What.\".\n\nThe Forever Knight nodded her head and repeated herself. \"Dungeons and Dragons. I poured so much of my life into games that I discovered how to be DM in real life. That's how I got my powers.\".\n\nUlbaxian's face contorted in fury. \"Is this your idea of a joke?! How dare you...!\".\n\nThe Forever Knight raised her hands in a defensive gesture. \"Hold on, I can actually show you how it works.\" she said. Ulblaxian fell silent. The Forever Knight continued: \"I will now demonstrate by destroying all your robot sentinels at once\". She turned around, composed herself, and spoke clearly: \"Summon Bigger Fish!\".\n\nInstantly, a gargantuan fish blipped into existence above the robot sentinels and crashed down onto them, crushing them all into scrap.\n\nThe Forever Knight turned back to Ulblaxian. His face had gone pale, his terror clearly apparent. The Forever Knight smiled. \"You see, what I found is every one of us can be the DM of this universe, if you figure out how. You just need to know how to make the rules work for you. Unfortunately, nobody else has discovered how to do this. I am probably the first, and hopefully the last. See, I didn't want to share it, lest someone like you got their hands on the secrets. Just imagine what chaos you would have unleashed with such power.\" She shook her head. \"No, this is best kept secret. Unfortunately, DMing can be quite obvious. That's why I needed this...\" she gestured to her armour. \"Hidden inside, and fighting enemies with my fists, I can obscure the fact that I can DM my way out of most situations with ease. Of course, now with the Dread Ray almost about to fire, it's time to discard the theatrics and go for something more straightforward. I mean, how long until the Dread Ray fires? A few minutes?\".\n\n\"Y-yes...\" stammered Ulbaxian, incredulous. Then his face contorted back into it's familiar tantrum-mode. \"But you will NEVER stop the Dread Ray from firing! The controls aren't in this room. They are spread across my base. I have hundreds of backups and redundancies, to ensure that someone like you will NEVER get to them in time!\" he screeched.\n\n\"Huh. So what if I destroy the whole asteroid?\" asked the Forever Knight, matter-of-factly. \"You think that would work?\".\n\nUlblaxian's expression turned to bewilderment again. \"You can do that?\" he muttered.\n\nThe Forever Knight shrugged. \"Summon Biggest Fish. Greater Teleport: my apartment.\". She vanished into thin air, leaving Ulblaxian alone in his inner sanctum. He glanced at the screen behind him. A shadow zipped over the surface of the asteroid, covering everything in darkness, and the room around him began to tremble.", "Click, click\n\nThe sound of computer mice filled the air. Two boys sat in the dark room, crunching on chips, browsing through the internet with no goal in particular.\n\n\"Hey Jared, you know Tails?\"\n\n\"The one from Sonic?\"\n\n\"Yeah, that one.\"\n\n\"What about him?\"\n\n\"This website says you can unlock him in Super Smash Bros.\"\n\nJared frowned, skeptical.\n\n\"Really? I thought all the secret characters have been discovered.\"\n\nThe other boy, Francis, shook his head enthusiastically. \"I guess not. Look, there's even a picture!\"\n\nJared got up and moved to get a better view of the monitor. \"Huh. I guess that does look real. How do you get him?\"\n\n\"Hmmm... It looks pretty tough. You have to beat adventure mode a lot of times. And we'll need three people. And at least 10 hours.\"\n\nJared groaned. \"That's crazy! What if it's just a well done fake? I don't wanna waste 10 hours on this.\"\n\n\"Come on, it'll be so cool once we get him! Imagine how impressed everyone at school will be! He can fly! I bet he's crazy good.\"\n\nJared sighed. \"I guess it would be pretty cool...\"\n\nFrancis got up and punched Jared's shoulder. \"Let's go find somebody else. It's summer, we're not doing anything else anyway.\"\n\n---\n\nThe room had been stocked full of chips and pop. The blinds prevented the midday sun from invading the small space. The dark room now contained an extra boy along with a tv, gamecube, and four controllers. \n\nFrancis stood up and clapped his hands together. \"Alright! Let's get this started. The guide says we have to beat adventure mode on hard with every single character, in alphabetic order, without losing. Then, we have to hold down the A button on a controller in the fourth port while we play a 3 person Mewtwo free for all. After that, we play through all the event matches with Mario first and then with Kirby. Then, we have to play a round robin with our best characters. Once it's over, Tails will show up, and whoever won the round robin gets to play against him. If they win, we unlock Tails. If they lose, we have to do it all over again.\"\n\nFrancis turned to the new boy. \"Billy, are you ready to play the first 10 characters in adventure mode?\"\n\n\"Sure am! I'll be done with them really quick, I promise!\" The boy beamed, making no attempt to hide his excitement.\n\n\"Awesome! And Jared, I want you playing the next 8. I'll finish the last 8.\"\n\nJared nodded. Billy was probably the best out of all of them, so it made sense that he played two more characters than the others. \"I got it.\"\n\nFrancis beamed. \"Alright. We're all set up. Let's go!\"\n\n---\n\n\"Awww, come on, I was totally out of range!\" An exasperated Francis cried out as he lost his last Roy stock to Billy's Fox.\n\nBilly laughed, delighted with his win. \"If you were out of range, then how did I hit you?\"\n\nFrancis grinned. \"Shut up. I'll get you next time. With Tails! But first you and Jared have to play, since you both beat me. Whoever wins has to beat Tails, don't forget that!\"\n\nJared quickly selected Falco and got ready to play the last game. \"To be honest, I'm not sure who will win.\" Said Francis. \"You two are pretty evenly matched most of the time.\"\n\n\"I don't know if I want to win, because then I have to deal with you two getting mad if I lose to Tails.\" said a worried Jared.\n\n\"Aww, come on. You know whoever wins will have an easy time beating him.\" Billy smiled easily, picking up his controller again and getting ready for the game. He nodded to Jared, and Jared nodded back. They started the game.\n\nIt was over quickly, with Billy losing two of his stocks by accidentally running off stage. Jared was able to clean up the last two with two of his own remaining.\n\n\"Shoot. Can't complain about that win though, I guess. As long as we unlock Tails!\" Billy grinned as he fistbumped Jared.\n\nJared smiled back. \"As long as the steps were actually legit.\" He looked around at the other two boys. \"When I hit start, he's either going to show up, or nothing will happen and we just wasted 10 hours. You guys ready?\"\n\nThey nodded, clearly as nervous as Jared. \"Alright, I'm gonna do it. Three, two, one... Start!\" Jared closed his eyes as he pressed his thumb down upon the circular button in the center of the controller. He waited for the sound signalling that a challenger was approaching. And waited.\n\nAnd waited.\n\nFrancis let out a large sigh. \"Awww, man. It really was just a fake. Sorry guys... I was the one who believed the post online...\"\n\nJared opened his eyes. The game was back on the character select screen. Nothing about a new challenger, no Tails. \n\n\"Hey, it's fine. We had a good time with it anyway, unlocking Tails would have just been extra cool. Right, Jared?\" Billy was still smiling as he looked over at his friend.\n\nJared grinned. \"For sure! It was awesome just playing smash all day with you two. But, uh, can we go get some real food now that we're done? I'm super hungry.\"\n\nFrancis seemed cheered up by his friends' words. \"I'm down. I could use a pizza right about now.\"\n\n\"Me too! Actually, that's weird. It kinda smells like pizza. Jared, did your mom make food?\" Billy sniffed the air as he spoke.\n\nJared frowned. \"Probably not, I didn't ask her to. But it definitely does smell like pizza. Maybe it's outside?\"\n\nFrancis laughed. \"No, it's right here! Where did this come from?\" He pointed towards the small table on which one of the two computers in the room resided. Sure enough, as Jared turned to look he saw two pizza boxes right on top of the desk.\n\n\"Whoa. That's seriously weird. Who put those there? I didn't hear anybody come in.\" Billy laughed a little nervously.\n\n\"Well, whoever it was, I wish they would have brought some water as well. I'm pretty sick of sugary drinks right now.\" Francis spoke with a wistful tone.\n\nThey all saw it that time. All three boys were looking in the direction of the pizza when it happened. First, there were two pizza boxes on the table. Then, there was a jug of water resting right next to them.\n\n\"What!...\" Jared started to speak but stopped, shocked at what had just happened.\n\n\"Did you guys see that?!?!?!?\" Francis yelled, looking around to the other two boys and then back to the table, wide-eyed.\n\n\"That water wasn't there! What even just happened?!?\" Billy was equally shocked. \"That was real right? The water wasn't there and then it was? I'm not seeing things am I?\"\n\nJared nodded vigorously. \"I saw it too! What was that? First the pizza out of nowhere and then the water? Can anybody explain that?\"\n\n\"I can!\"\n\nJared looked at Billy who shook his head, who looked at Francis who shook his head and looked at Jared who also shook his head.\n\n\"I'm really creeped out right now, seriously. Who said that?\" Asked Francis with a slightly shaky voice.\n\n\"Me, over here!\" Jared turned towards where the sound was coming from - directly behind him. His jaw dropped.\n\nDisplayed on the tv that they had been playing Smash Bros on was a pixelated face. Nothing special, just your average low pixel count smiley face. But it was talking.\n\n\"Frankly, I didn't think I'd ever be able to tell anybody these things. This is the first time I've been able to talk to humans, so you'd better listen up.\" The tv spoke with a somewhat annoying high pitched tone. But it spoke with what seemed like intelligence.\n\nJared looked around at his friends. Their expressions showed that they were equally as stupefied as he was.\n\nThe tv made a sound as if it was clearing its throat. \"Okay, essentially what's happened is you three have found water in the world's hottest desert. Won the lottery without ever buying a ticket. Hit a hole-in-one on a golf course spanning the entire universe. I'm not going to go into the technical details, but basically the sequence of actions that you carried out in that game triggered a clause in a very nuanced legal document which I will not describe to you right now that contractually obligates me, an incredibly powerful super-being who shall remain nameless, to award you, three young lucky boys, the power to do whatever you want. That pizza and water was desired by you, and so it came into being.\"\n\nThe boys silently stared.\n\nThe tv sighed, the two pixels representing its eyes rolling around on the screen. \"You can do literally whatever you want. You have absolute power over this universe. You want pizza? You got pizza. You want money. You can have money. You want power? Well, you already have it. No strings attached, I promise. Try it out. For now, I'm busy. If you need me, I'm obligated to answer your questions due to the aforementioned legal document. Please don't ask about the legal document. Have fun with your power, I'm leaving.\" \n\nThe face disappeared suddenly. The Smash Bros character select screen was once again displayed. The game's music permeated the silence.\n\nJared spoke first. \"I, uh, really wanted Tails, you know.\"\n\nAnd there Tails was. On the character select screen, as if nothing had changed, was displayed a yellow furry animal, right next to all the other characters.\n\nBilly laughed. Francis joined him. Jared smiled and laughed, too.\n\nFrancis beamed. \"We can do anything! I want 100 dollars!\" he reached into his pocket, and sure enough, there was the money.\n\n\"This is awesome!\" Yelled Billy. \"I wish I had one of those super high tech toy helicopters!\" The remote appeared in his hands and as he turned the dial the sound of a helicopter's blades could be heard turning outside.\n\n\"I don't even care that that didn't make any sense!\" Jared was smiling wider than he ever had before. \"We're basically superheroes! This is the best day ever!\"", "We humans have always dreamt of having superpowers. Flight, telekinesis, telepathy, strength, speed, among many imagined. It remained a dream though, as everyone concluded it was impossible to gain powers and that these would remain in our imaginations forever.\n\nUntil one person changed our thinking.\n\nHe flew, he moved things with his mind, and he walked through walls. He had super hearing, super speed, a body extremely flexible, and just recently, super hearing.\nEveryone, from office workers to pedestrians watched in awe as he flew across the metropolis and darted alongside the bullet trains.\n\nHe was human, yes we have confirmed his identity. He has his legal documents, even those issued during his youth, and he has only risen to fame a few days ago. Naturally, everybody wondered how this happened. Press conferences, interviews over TV and radio, he was all over the news.\n\nWe got to know about him and his life in just two days. It turns out he is a bachelor, a software developer, used to work a nine to five, reads the newspaper, has his coffee black, and stands up to wipe.\nHe seems pretty normal, you know like, one of us. He even wanted us to just call him Joe, nothing else.\n\nEventually Joe spilled his secret over national television. He stated a few friends to help him fight crime would be nice. The method he revealed was nothing we expected. Not radioactive exposure, not a chemical, not intense training everyday, but rather an online survey?\n\nYeah, online surveys. You know, those surveys you have to take before a download which take ages to complete and never gets you through anyway. Exactly those Joe had said. Joe has painstakingly gone through one online survey per week and now has 23 known superpowers.\n\nNo one believed him, people even shunned him and scolded him for being selfish and making a fool out of everyone. But I gave it a shot. I trusted Joe's word and after about two hours of answering and staring at my browser's loading icon, I disappeared. My hands were gone, my whole body was! It took me a second to process this, then I grinned. But you wouldn't see that.\n___\n" ]	[ 3, 5, 9, 20, 56 ]	[ "1462466269", "1462477507", "1462436492", "1462425879", "1462425762" ]
	[WP] The grim reaper quit. Now, every soul on Earth that dies cannot pass on, all 15 million per year.	5	[ "They thought the government did it. The government thought terrorists did it. The terrorists didn't care who did it as long as infidels were affected, until it affected them. Little did they know the Grim Reaper was on some uncharted island, working on his tan. \n\nIt was the zombie apocalypse out of nowhere. The undead didn't try to eat you; they weren't infectious at all! They merely became a public nuisance, and a mess in general. Laws were passed to place zombies in quarantine. It was eventually decided that, to minor protests by mostly PETA members and people who believed the undead still had rights, the zombies were herded into abandoned strip mines. When these filled up, they were covered and more strip mining ensued. It was a lucrative time for the mining industry. Except in Arizona. They reasoned the Grand Canyon was a cheaper alternative. \n\nThe undead rotted, turned to worm eaten pulp, then dust. Their souls remained, haunting the very earth. They permeated the underground rivers, the tectonic plates, the very core. They came up, ectoplasmic memories of lives, in the germs of seeds and their shoots. They became arboreal giants, their leafy canopies sheltering what little was left of humanity. Their fruits hung fat with the memory of good and evil. \n\nApparently this zombie plague was all it took for humanity to put some serious consideration in birth control. The population count shrank rapidly. Nobody wanted babies. The number of humans left was so small, it was a no brainer to collectively sterilize. The human race was doomed, they reasoned. In this group, the last of homo sapiens on a world that was reclaiming itself with the ghosts of memory, there were two babies left intact. The last children of Earth, they were called. Nobody could bring themselves to neuter them. One day a storm came, full of sound and fury, then there were only two. \n\nFeeling slightly guilty for shirking his responsibility, the Grim Reaper returned to business. When he surveyed the situation, he would be heard, if there was anyone around to hear him, to mutter to himself, \"If I knew this was all it took, I'd have retired a long time ago!\" Despite this, the Grim Reaper was a responsible being, when he wasn't being overworked for millenia. He looked over the last children of earth as they roamed the eden their planet had become. ", "Jesus christ, I am bored. It's been two years since I saw that note after I died. God fucking damn. This piece shit lied through his teeth and now all of us are stuck in the world's blandest waiting room, called Purgatory I think, which probably isn't on Earth, but you get the expression. That note. \"brb just gonna grab my coffee\". So many things about that just doesn't make sense, like the fact that skeletons can't drink because the coffee would go right through them. He thinks we were going to believe it, he must think we are all stupid. Then again, I have met a lot of stupid people here, I really have. It's surprising.\n\nAnyway, let me give you a quick explanation as to the situation. Good ol' Grimmy the Grim Reaper decided that this job wasn't right for him and that he would prefer going into comedy. Honestly this entire shtick he is pulling me through right now would go great on his résumé. So this means, all of us mortal goons can't pass through into the other life. We've been stuck here for ages, and when I mean we, I mean billions of us, and when I mean ages, I mean aaaaaages. I know all of this information, due to his wife, kind of taking over. She really doesn't do much, but she managed to tell everyone and everything the big fucking mess that we were in. Also she can't transport us to the other life so, you guessed it, we are stuck here.\n\nThe only reason why I am speaking to you now, is because I am going crazy. I don't know what anything is anymore, plus I don't feel like anymore two way chit chat. We could at least have a tv or a pen and paper, but I don't really know that much about this place, and there have been many theories about this place. Some people speculate that this is some kind of crazy social experiment, and other believe that this is a test from the G.O.D himself. Personally I am just going to believe the voice of Mrs Death, but hearing a second opinion makes this place way more bearable, even if they do get a little bit annoying. \n\nWell whatever, guess I'll just sit here, slowly going out of my mind, hoping that something will change.\n\n", "THAT'S IT! I'M DONE! The great skeletal being known as Death rose from his throne, throwing his massive scythe to the ground with a clatter.\n\n\n\"But...but sir Death! You CAN'T just quit! We NEED you, who else is going to ferry the souls to the next world?\" The quivering little spirit barely came up to Death's femur, but he tugged on his black robes insistently. \"Please sir! We can't get by without you!\"\n\n\nDeath batted him away with the back of his hand. TOO BAD. IT HAS BEEN OVER FOUR THOUSAND YEARS SINCE I MADE MY REQUEST. FOUR THOUSAND YEARS! IT IS ABOUT TIME I GOT WHAT I DESERVED! \n\n\nWith four massive strides, he made his way across the inky-black floor and pushed open the arched gateway that led to the world of mortals. Sunlight spilled into the room, but it never seemed to find a surface on which to shine. \n\n\n\"Sir Death! WAIT!\" The tiny spirit called. But it was too late. Death was gone, perhaps for good. \n\n\n\"I am SO screwed.\" \n\n\n**\n\n\nSally never even saw the bus coming. One moment, she was just walking between classes like any other day, and the next - excruciating blackness. When she came to, she was greeted with perhaps the strangest sight she had ever known. \n\n\nWhere...where am I?* She wondered. Is this the school yard? Around her swam buildings, in the same place that they had been before, but they were oddly...different. They were twisted, like a scene out of a nightmare. Where one had been made of brick, now it seemed to be made of bone and muscle. Spires reached toward the sky like insect stingers, doors were nothing more than hollow opening covered by bony panels. And perhaps worst of all, all manner of monster seemed to be milling around the courtyard. \n\n\nShe wanted to scream. Really, she did. But something stopped her. It was like she had no air in her lungs, like she had no voice at all. In fact, she didn't seem to be able to make any sound at all. \n\n\n\"Excuse me, miss.\" Came a little voice from her elbow. \"Um, don't be alarmed...but you have died! Please, follow me!\" \n\n\nSally whirled around. Standing right next to her was a little fellow, barely up to her waist in height. He wore a black robe, seemingly made from stitched together handkerchiefs that didn't quite match, and carried a scythe that was clearly more of a sickle. All in all, he was really quite cute...which helped to derail some of the sheer panic that coursed through Sally's veins. \n\n\nI'm...dead? She thought. But...I was just a freshman! I had so much to live for! \n\n\n\n\"I'm afraid so miss! Don't worry, just follow me and everything will be fine!\" 'Death' grabbed the corner of her shirt and tried to pull her along with a silvery-white hand, to no avail. \n\n\nWait, can you read my mind? And...aren't you a little short to be The Grim Reaper? \n\n\n\"Yes miss, well, really I am a bit of a stand-in! He is...busy at the moment. But I can help you, I know I can!\" He kept tugging away, but Sally didn't budge. \n\n\nBusy? Busy HOW? \n\n\n\"Um...you know. Death stuff, lots of people to reap...hah..hahaha...\" \n\n\nSally shot him a look, and he knew that she wasn't buying it for a second. \"OK! Ok! He quit! I'm all that's left, now COME ON! We have to get going! I don't have his power, I can't just take you by force and if we don't get you along soon, souls are going to start piling up!\" \n\n\nWait...So, you aren't Death, right? Sally put her hand on her chin in thought\n\n\n\nThe little spirit was clearly exasperated. \"NO! I just said that!\" \n\n\nWell, how do you know I was supposed to die anyway! She countered. Maybe I was just supposed to be knocked out or something! This could just be a near-death experience!\n\n\n\"No way! We are in Purgatory, the land of the dead! Only the souls of humans who need to go to the next world arrive here! And I don't like what you are implying by 'near-death' experience, until he gets back I AM Death! No 'near' qualifier needed!\" \n\n\nSo what you are saying is...all we need to do is find Death, and he can just...set all of this right! I can go back to living! Everything is just a huge misunderstanding! Sally began walking off towards the buildings with purpose.\n\n\n\"No, wait! Miss, no! The next world is THAT way!\" \n\n\nLater, shorty! I have a skeleton to shake down! \n\n\n**\n\nYou're death? Suuuuure you are. Read more of my work on /r/TimeSyncs!* " ]	[ 1, 3, 4 ]	[ "1462485519", "1462480263", "1462481513" ]
	[WP] A story told three times from three completely different point of views.	4	[ "I sit across from him. My palms are sweaty, and I wonder if he knows. I know he can't, but there's this creeping sensation that tells me he knows, and oh God, does he know. Every single little sordid detail. Every motel, every tryst, every meeting, thrust out into the limelight. But maybe I'm reading too much into it. His eyes aren't accusatory, just focused on me. \n\nRight? \n\nRight. \n\nI take a deep breath to steady myself and thank the waitress who just dropped off our pancakes, grabbing my glass and taking a sip of water.\n____________________________________________________________________\n\nI sit across from her. Her lips curve around the glass as she drinks into a beautiful smile, and I can't help but wonder why it had to be me. She could have chosen any other guy, but me?\n\nI smile back. I should have known, really. Her type is all the same. Black widows. They take your heart and then rip it to shreds. I reach across the table to hold her hand. She begins to slide it away before catching herself and leaving it.\n\nHa. \n\nI take a napkin and dab at a water droplet on her lips. Let the waitress see that. Her lips part slightly as she inhales. God, yes, she's beautiful. But she's no longer mine. Yet... she'll always be just that. Mine. And no one else's. She'll never touch another man again. I can fix this whole screwed up situation so simply; I'm surprised no one's tried it before, actually.\n\nI lean back in my chair and wait.\n_________________________________________________________________\n\nI can see them clearly through the window, I inch my shades down my nose and take another glance at the pictures. They're damn nice, but she's with another douche in them. Unfortunate. The pictures do give me a nice profile though, one easily matched to the girl in the window.\n\nI step out of my car, the envelope and ticket safe in my pocket. My last job before I fly off to Dubai to start my new life with Christi and Laura at my side. Thank God the guy paid well; this is my chance at a new life with my wife and baby.\n\nI stroll up to the window, linger for a couple of seconds. She sees me in the corner of my her eye and glances towards me.\n\nI pull the gun out of my pocket and fire.", "I stand up and wipe the grape juice off my face with a tissue. She stares at me angrily, then shouts \"I wonder why you of all people don't have a girlfriend!\" She turns on the spot and walks out of the bar. I look after her, stunned for a moment. Then, in a weak attempt of retaliation, I shout back \"Oh yeah? There's nicer ways to tell someone you don't like them than spilling juice all over them, too!\"\nThe barkeep gives me a half-sympathetic, half-pitiful look and says \"you're going to have to pay for her drink; sorry, we're still a business.\" I angrily bang the money onto the counter - minimum tip for you dude, sorry but I can't afford to pay for women's drinks all the time and not even get anything out of it - finish my drink and leave.\n\n--\n\nOh my god. This asshole sure does deserve special treatment. Splash \"I wonder why you of all people don't have a girlfriend!\" I don't listen to his stupid reply, though the laughter of some of the people I walk by as I rush out of the bar makes me grin a little at the thought of it being some pathetic tit-for-tat response. Oh well, whatever. You'll see where it gets you.\n\n--\n\nShe spills her drink on him. She shouts. She leaves. Tonight's a night. And he, after obviously insulting her, has the cheek to make a stupid remark. I watch him smash some money on the counter and go out, much calmer than her. Why, you swine, don't you even care? I finish my pre-paid drink and leave shortly after him. I know where he's going. I know where she's going if he has the cheek to follow her. I have time.\n\n--\n\nAs I'm headed down the street, I can't fight the feeling I'm not alone. Am I going to be bathed in grape juice by another bitch girl and mugged on the same evening? The short rendez-vous isn't even worth calling it a night. I sigh as I make my way into the quiet suburbs. Every turn, Every shadowy spot I expect a cloaked creature to emerge from the darkness and lunge at me. Still, I'm startled as I actually see a shadow in the light of the street lamp behind me. I don't turn around in time and the last thing I remember is the pain in the back of my head.\n\n--\n\nI watch as he turns his head over and over again. I lurk in the shadows, ready to strike. I know from experience when to attack. The moment comes, and my bat makes quick work of the bastard. No more harassing women for you, sucker. I swiftly turn back into the night and leave him there as is, as a warning for the others.\n\n--\n\nShe made it quick. She always does. I still taste the grape juice in my mouth. That prick wasn't even worth spilling it. But the world just became a better place once more. Content with tonight's work, I turn towards home.\n\n--\n\nEDIT: Grammar/Spelling/small additions" ]	[ 1, 3 ]	[ "1462498002", "1462495590" ]
	[WP]"How the hell did we end up causing the SECOND apocalypse?"	78	[ "Pestilence can vary greatly depending on the scale by which it occurs. Localized emergencies are trivial to those far away. However, when these events affect everyone, we no longer consider them a problem solely for their victim. \n\nIt started out as some regional health problems. Mosquitoes in the Caribbean were transmitting a strange disease; it caused short-term birth defects and could affect the nervous system. We had no idea of how serious this situation was until it was long passed containment. For reasons yet unknown, my family never experienced any ill effects of this pandemic.\n\n…\n\nNot much has changed for us here. Five generations have worked this land, but mine was the first to move backwards in technological adoption. It is somewhat funny actually. My grandfather grew up plowing with a team of mules, and eventually graduated up to a worn out Case tractor. His son, my father, sold that Case to purchase a large John Deere. I farmed with that big Deere for half my life. Hard to believe it, but the mules are back.\n\nGrandpa was so stubborn about keeping his old draft-animal implements. Dad and I tried scrapping them a half dozen times; all they did was take up space in the barn. He was a child of the depression though and that experience made him hang on to anything that “might come in handy someday.” Well, they sure have.\n\nThis farm was self-reliant a century ago, just like most others. Fortunately we did not abandon the things that made it that way. We have a diversified selection of crops and livestock, the corncrib is in good shape, food is housed in a dry root cellar, and the woods are a limitless source of fuel. Dad’s reloading bench has seen more work in the last 5 years than the two-dozen prior. Our well can irrigate every acre of ground, an absolute necessity with these new high temperatures.\n\nThat is not to say that life is easy. It is not. Jim, my younger brother, is the only help I have to keep this place going. We work from sunup to sundown every day and it seems to gain us nothing but a chance to do it again tomorrow. That kind of existence is tedious and not exactly pleasant.\n\nJim is not afraid to voice this fact. I have long since learned to live day-by-day, but he seemed to desire something more than this farm. Leaving was never an option for him though; he was far too scared to travel into the unknown by himself. He would talk of places he wished to see, but never acknowledge any risk. Our farm was so remote that no traveler had ever come upon it, assuming there are any travelers out there to begin with.\n\nI’ll never know if this motivated Jim to do it, but there is no other reason that could explain his actions. We were working on our water pump---it had been losing flow every day and needed the seals inside replaced. This job wasn’t anything too extraordinarily difficult; I had done it with Dad several years before the emergency. After disengaging the windmill gearbox, we would have to unbolt the upper pump rod and then very carefully remove the lower one that went down in the well casing. After that, the pump head could be removed and everything overhauled in the shop.\n\nThings went smooth early on. Jim was scared of heights, so I volunteered to climb the tower. Let’s just say that carrying a fifty-pound chain fall up a rickety 30-foot ladder is not fun. Regardless, I was able to throw the clutch lever and hang the hoist. After that, we would wrap some heavy Number 9 wire around the lower rod and pull it out vertically.\n\nHere is where things went south. I trusted Jim enough that I didn’t check his wire wrapping job. He knew how heavy that 1” diameter rod was, so I figured he would realize the massive force being applied as we lifted it. A couple wraps of that heavy wire can hold an amazing load, but only if done with proper care.\n\nWell, when I heard the unmistakable sound of that rod slamming into the casing floor 60 feet down, I realized it wasn’t adequate.\n", "Time had stopped. That's not a metaphor or anything. All around the world, all at once, everything became frozen in time. Of course, we weren't aware of this fact until much later, when \"they\" came. But that wasn't for... Well, I'm not sure how long. We had been in a sort of frozen stasis— unable to move, but not needing to eat or sleep or drink. And we were concious the whole time, staring straight ahead. Registering everything that was happening, but being unable to do anything else. I have no doubt that many people went completely insane.\n \nAnd yet, somehow, I manged to hang on. For months, or maybe even years, I can't say how long we were like that. Staying in agonizing stillness until one day, there was a flash of light, and then complete darkness. \n\nI found myself able to freely move again, but in the dark I had no way of knowing where I was or where I should go. It was then that they came. They appeared from above as shapes and colors that I simply don't have words for. And they said the most peculiar thing, I still haven't forgotten. They said, and this isn't word for word or anythig, but they said that they were... Time. That they were the seconds in the day that run our world... They said that... We had taken them for granted. That we weren't giving them the respect that they deserved. That we were unfit to roam our planet anymore. They told us that we had been banished to this land... to die out. To die out humanely, actually. I remember that. They out an emphasis on how humane they were being. They left, saying that we, as a species have brought this upon ourselves. \n\nThey disappeared shortly after that, but I was still left to blackness as far as I could see. I've been wandering ever since then. Trying to find...something. Anything. I've encountered some people, and even fewer that I trust enough to travel with. The... The Seconds show up sporadically. I've seen them now, maybe a total of six times. They don't seem to hear our cries out to them, or if they do, they choose not to acknowledge them. There's no time here, so I can't say how long we've been wandering. I have a beard now, and hair down to my shoulder blades. That's the best indicator that I have, but I sit I'll can't be sure how anything works here, as I've gone my while time here without eating anything. I will can't get over it. Often I lie down itp go to sleep, and in the dark void I think \"How the hell did we cause the \"second\" apocalypse?\"", "\"We never could have seen it coming. For ten years, we've been dependant on the dead for food.\"\n\n\"You...eat them?\"\n\n\"No, we didn't eat the fucking walkers. But the walkers were the shepherds. It was something nobody thought about. It was just the way things were. You see, with so few humans left, the dead turned to animals for food. Their populations dwindled, and the animals began to form...communities. A kind of thing that could have never existed before Death's End. They evolved to survive in a new world where the dead rule, the same way we did. When a horde of walkers is nearby, every animal around comes together for protection. Dogs, cats, deer, cattle, bears, wolves...they all form a massive group. The strong ones kill the walkers. The weak and little ones hide in the center.\"\n\n\"I would have liked to see that.\"\n\n\"I bet. It was something special to behold. When we learned about this phenomenon eight years ago, it was like a bounty from God himself. Food, enough to feed an army, all gathered together in one spot. We would move to a new town, fire a few flares, and every walker in a ten mile radius would converge. Sure as rain, the animals would gather up outside their forest. When the horde approached, our warriors would run out and slay the walkers with sword and hammer. Then our snipers would open fire, killing the best food. Cows, horses, and sheep were the primary targets. We would smoke the meat. Take ammo off the bodies of the dead. We never wanted for anything.\"\n\n\"What went wrong?\"\n\n\"Heh. Wrong. It seemed so right at the time. We had a scientist, you see. One of the last. Since Death's End, he worked nonstop to find a way to rid the world of the dead. Three months ago, he succeeded. A massive capsule, fired into the atmosphere. It took a month to get it set up to fire out of Florida. You might have seen it.\"\n\n\"I did. I thought I might have had a new friend, before it exploded.\"\n\n\"Sorry about that. Well, it worked. His serum spread all around the Earth. Every walker fell within a few days. And as we lost them, we lost our source of food. Animals returned to the forests. None of us knew how to hunt. All canned goods were long gone. We're starving. There's only three of us left. We've agreed to end it tonight. We're too weak to have any hope of finding food. All I can think at this point is 'How the hell did we end up causing the SECOND apocalypse?' The whole thing is so fucked.\"\n\n\"At least you'll die with the trees and the sky. All I have is the black since the observation halls vented last week. Anyway, it's been good talking to you. I'm about to leave contact range. I'll be venting the last of the oxygen when I do. So...goodbye.\"\n\n\"Goodbye. I'm glad to have-\"" ]	[ 1, 1, 22 ]	[ "1462720856", "1462736856", "1462705019" ]
	[WP] Two royals who dislike each other, but are engaged for political reasons try and get a wizard to make love potions for them.	58	[ "\"I never signed up for this,\" muttered Nicholas. \"I can't believe we're actually doing this. I can't believe it.\"\n\n\"Well I never signed up to date such a horrible lad as you,\" retorted Anne, rolling her eyes. With a flip of her thick hair, the princess glanced at the boy sitting next to her. \"Besides, do you want to get along with me or not?\"\n\nAt this, the excited wizard zoomed out from his lab, two beakers in hand. \"It's complete, Your Highness.\" \n\nThe princess clasped her hands together as Prince Nicholas snatched one of the glass vials. He shook the pink contents, swooshing the liquid on all sides with discouragement. \n\n\"This is it?\" asked Anne. Her eyes were wide with interest as she gazed at the resplendent potion. The wizard's head bobbed up and down. \n\n\"So you're saying that this will make me fall in love with that pig?\" Nick raised an eyebrow with a questioning look. \n\n\"Who are you calling a pig, Nicholas? I was the one who came up with this brilliant idea,\" replied Anne boastingly. \n\nNicholas snorted in disbelief. \"Brilliant? More like absolute garbage.\" \n\n\"Just try it, Your Highness. You won't be let down,\" explained the wizard. \"It contains a sprinkle of hair, some roses, rotten eggs, four fried frogs—\"\n\n\"That's enough, that's enough,\" spoke up Anne. She turned to look her future husband in the eye. \"Shall we?\"\n\nNick grimaced. \"Fine, fine. Let us try it.\" \n\nAnne held up her glass. \"To a better future!\" she said cheerfully, happiness plastered all over her face. As she held the vial to her lips however, Nicholas held back. His fingers slipped from the beakers, dismissing the wizard's cries. \n\n\"There is no way I will ever drink that mess,\" taunted Nicholas, stepping over the shards of broken glass. Anne's own drink splattered across the floor like a blotch of paint, tainting the cabin wood. \n\nTears instantly bursted from the princess's eyes. \"I cannot believe you, you horrible monster! I have tried everything to please you, and all you do is hurt me!\" Anne dashed from the cottage, tracing her way back to her palace. \n\nWith a smirk, the selfish prince watched as Anne's silhouette gradually faded into the distance. Dusting his hands off, his grin grew wider. \"Good riddance.\" He turned around to face the wizard, but his massive smile instantly faded; Nicholas hadn't considered the consequences of defying a powerful sorcerer. \n\n", "He hated everything about her. Her optimism, her naiveté. \nShe hated everything about him. His ruthlessness, his coldness. \n\nThey only had one thing in common, that they would put the happiness of their people over their own.\n\nAnd thus, they met in secret with an alchemist. He brewed them a potion, a love potion if you will. This was the only they, they told each other. They were married before the day ended. They consummated their marriage on the second day, and by the third their kingdoms were united. \n\nHer people were simple, but there were many and were eager to learn.\nHis people were few, but well trained and willing to teach. \n\nThe people saw their King and Queen, once enemies, united as one. \n\nThey set their difference aside and fought fiercely against the invaders, repelling them. \n\nHe wished to chase them, to make them pay. \nShe wished to let them leave, as their people had payed enough. \n\nHe had drunk the potion. \nShe had not.\n\nAnd that is how your grandmother brought peace to this continent.\n\nMy lesson to you dear, is to find a man who can run this country, then run that man. It's much easier that way.\n", "The stagecoach rattled over every bump, crevice and hump on the cobblestone path, but unlike the Pendletons inside, the transport managed to stay in one piece and not fall apart. \n\nEdward Pendleton's father was a rich royal who owned most of the docks and harbors up and down the coastline of Preya, whose ships were forced to trek the long way around to deliver their goods to Sakarnos.\n\nThe reason for this was because Minerva Stranner's mother refused to let the trading ships into the Black River, for fear of spreading the plague. Of course, the beautifully named Black River was the fastest way to Sakarnos, trimming down travel time by a whopping seven days. \n\nFrom there, Edward met Minerva and were coerced into an arranged marriage to satisfy each of their parent's goals. \n\nWere they happy?\n\nTheir parents certainly were. Edward's father got his route. Minerva's mother received some compensation as they passed her blockade. \n\nAnd what did Edward and Minerva get?\n\nDefinitely not a new trade route. \n\n...\n\n\"Sir, are we there yet?\" asks Minerva, dressed in a elaborate outfit that only served to make her sweat a bit more at the cost of squeezing her breasts together. \n\nThe coachman replies in a tone drier than a corpse in the desert. \"We're nearly there, your ladyship. Just like I said five minutes ago.\"\n\nEdward is donning a suit that doesn't seem to fit his lanky proportions. The aristocrat folds his arms, glaring at Minerva. \"Leave him alone. We'll get there when we get there.\"\n\nShe scoffs. \"This wasn't my idea, was it now?\"\n\n\"I'm trying to find a solution-\"\n\n\"By going through the land of the poor? The land where there's no fresh water?\"\n\n\"You're a bitch.\"\n\n\"You're an asshole.\"\n\n\"You're horrid in bed.\"\n\n\"Because you're so dreadfully unattractive, I can't get it up! It's like pushing rope down there-\"\n\n\"You take that back!\"\n\n\"You just lay there and sweat!\"\n\nThe stagecoach grinds to a halt. Sighing, the coachman opens the blinds behind him. \"We're here, your lordship. Please put that down. That doesn't go there, your ladyship. No, ma'am...please don't...that's every expensive. My lord, please remove your hands from her throat. You will kill her, please strangle her gently, like we practiced...No, it's all right, I can replace it with two months pay. Sigh. Yes, your lordship, I will clean all of this up. Sigh.\"\n\n\n...\n\n\"No.\"\n\nEdward and Minerva stared at the wizard as if he just defecated on their shoes. \n\n\"Len, I had very reliable sources that you would be able to make this!\" exclaims Edward. \n\nMinerva elbows him. \"You idiot. Now we're out in this blasted town. I want my servants, now.\"\n\n\"I am a wizard, not an alchemist.\" responds the bearded man, who's not even maintaining eye contact with the two royals. In his hands is a piece of paper, in which he has sketched the bottom of a squirrel. \n\n\"Well, where can we find one?\" asks Minerva. \n\n\"You can't. He's dead.\"\n\n\"Dead?\"\n\n\"Dead. As in unalived.\" responded Len. \n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"He was involved in a freak accident involving some candles and a jump rope.\"\n\n\"Can't you make one? A love potion?\"\n\n\"I can. But I won't.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because it's illegal and outlawed across the four nations.\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"So I could lose my life. Or even worse...lose my job.\"\n\nEdward places a sack full of coin on Len's desk, knocking over a tray of feather pens. \"We'll pay you. Whatever it takes. We need to love each other. We need to be in love.\"\n\n\"What a surprise.\"\n\n\"It's 2000 coin. Just make us a batch. Just one batch.\"\n\n\"The last time I made one, the whole town had a massive orgy.\" Len shudders. \"I miscalculated the concentrations. I saw things...positions I have never seen before, liquids in different shades...ugh. The smell lasted for days. The townsfolk did it everywhere. The roofs, the kitchens, the stables, the gallows, the jails, in the seats where you two are sitting. My apprentice and I had to create a mindwash elixir for everyone to forget what happened. Then there's this one time where I put a lady in a coma. Almost killed her. Probably would've killed her if I added a drop more.\"\n\nEdward smiles. \"Sounds perfect to me.\"\n\nMinerva shoots her fiancee a look. \"You bastard.\"\n\nLen intertwines his fingers together, his patience depleting as quickly as Edward's chances at reclaiming a happy life. \"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you two will have to talk to each other and-\"\n\nThen Len's head explodes, splattering all over the paintings behind him.\n\nEdward looks in horror, his eyes wandering to the flintlock in Minerva's hand. \n\n\"Minerva, honey...what did you do...how did you get that...\" His ears were ringing loudly. \n\n\"I...I don't know! I don't know, oh god, is he okay-\"\n\nEdward points to the smoldering bloody stump where Len's head used to be. \"DOES HE LOOK OKAY, MINERVA? DOES HE LOOK LIKE HE'S IN GOOD HEALTH? DOES HE? DOES HE?\"\n\n\"Don't yell at me! You know it makes me gassy...\"\n\n\"Oh god, I married a murderer. I'm going to the courts! I'm going to the slave camps! I'm too handsome for hard labor!\"\n\nMinerva just cries obnoxiously.\n\n\"How in the blazes did you get your hands on that gun...\" asks a panicking Edward.\n\n\"I took it from the coachman (Hiccup). I was scared of the townsfolk and thought they were going to have their way with me.\"\n\n\"Minerva, you just murdered an innocent citizen of the kingdom. You could get your ladyship revoked-\"\n\nMeanwhile, his sobbing wife to be dives into Len's laboratory, and starts mixing liquids together into a potion vial. \"There's a recipe! There's a recipe on the table! It (Hiccups) says its the infatuation potion...I think, it's too worn out to see clearly.\"\n\nEdward facepalms. \"Minerva, you don't know what we're doing. We need to get out of here-\"\n\n\"Quickly, we can still make this work...\" pleads Minerva, her tears smearing her makeup.\n\n\"I thought you didn't agree to this.\"\n\n\"Now I do. Hey, why is this vial getting so warm-\"\n\nThe shack promptly exploded, much like Len's unusually shiny head.\n\nMinerva had misread the incineration potion ad the 'infatuation' potion. She was never good at reading. \n\nNear the stagecoach was the coachman watching the whole thing unfold. He simply lights himself a pipe, merely blinking at the burning pieces of wood and rubble. \"Till death do them part.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "\"Wizard! Come here, your kingdom has need of you.\"\n\nUgh, this again. It'd been nice, at first, all the respect and the assumption that I had tons of forbidden knowledge. I could still say whatever I wanted to anyone I wanted and get away with it, which was fortunate because I hated them all. It wasn't really their fault they didn't understand anything I said, but still, the king didn't make any effort and neither did anyone else.\n\n\"Yes, my liege?\" I said, butchering the pronunciation of this godforsaken language that mine had allegedly come from.\n\n\"Wizard,\" the king started,\n\n\"I'm not a wizard.\" I said.\n\n\"Wizard,\" the king continued, \"you will create for us a love potion.\"\n\n\"Okay, again, I'm not a wizard. I'm a time traveler who got stuck here. You know this because I tell you every time we have this conversation.\"\n\nThe king nodded as though he was considering this. \"Did a wise man not say that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?\"\n\nI grit my teeth. \"No, because the man who said that hasn't been born yet. You only know that quote because I said it.\"\n\n\"Indeed.\" The king responded, as though I'd conceded his point. \"So, do your wizard thing and create the potion.\"\n\n\"It doesn't work like that, okay! I was an aerospace engineer, I don't know anything about 'potions'!\" I said.\n\n\"'aerospace engineer'\" the queen said, mangling the pronunciation of the words as badly as I'd been treating her language. \"I do not know either of those words.\"\n\n\"I made things fly.\" I said.\n\n\"And thus you are a wizard.\" The king said. \"Less talk, more potion!\"\n\n\"Why?\" I asked. It was a pointless question, but I knew he wasn't going to let this go so I at least needed to know what they were going to do with whatever I came up with.\n\nThe king looked at the queen, who looked back at him. They shared a moment of squeamish unease.\n\nFinally the queen spoke. \"His lordship is... uncomfortable with nudity.\"\n\n\"What.\"\n\nThe king squirmed in his chair. \"I do not wish to become un-dressed. It is unseemly.\"\n\n\"You've got to be naked sometime.\" I pointed out. \"What about baths?\" They weren't a concept I'd introduced, but I was trying to get them to catch on because I didn't want to die of the plague. The king, at least, should have been able to afford them.\n\nHis continued squirming and unwillingness to meet my eyes told me that he'd chosen to forgo that particular luxury. The queen's look of disgust confirmed it.\n\n\"Okay, fine.\" I said. \"I'll make your stupid potion.\" I knew by giving in I was only encouraging them, but I needed to remain useful or else I'd end up on the streets and die of the plague. Besides, I had something in mind.\n\nI went back to my 'laboratory'. I'd had to do some importing, and quite a few tricks, but I'd set up something here that'd been a personal hobby of mine back home. It was already mostly complete, all it would need was a little more work....\n\nAnd thus, a week later, I presented to the king and queen their 'potions', which they quaffed and then disappeared to their chambers. The sounds of - I wouldn't call it 'lovemaking' - echoed through the keep, an acoustic touch that I'd also been made to design for some damn reason.\n\nOh well, at least it had worked. I'd probably need to start the fermentation full time. Making booze wasn't something I'd invented in this timeline, but I had - not to be humble - perfected it. Anyone could make wine. I'd created the wine cooler!", "\"Well, I was wondering when you two would show up.\" the witch leaned back against her velvet chair. \n\n\"You know we were coming?\" the woman asked.\n\n\"I did write her, after all.\" the man informed the woman.\n\n\"Oh, shut it. You sent that letter yesterday. Everyone knows the postal system is terrible, there's no way she could have gotten it so quickly!\"\n\n\"Well whose fault would that be?! Your father introduced the trade routes to this land!\"\n\n\"And yours was in charge of maintaining the highway! My Posen would move twice as fast if there wasn't great big potholes everywhere!\"\n\n\"WELL MAYBE WE'D MAINTAIN THEM BETTER IF YOU GAVE US MORE POSTMEN.\"\n\n\"MAYBE WE'D GIVEN YOU MORE POSTMEN IF YOU WPULD MAINTAIN THE ROADS!\"\n\n\"BOTH OF YOU, ENOUGH!\" the witch cried. \"My gods, you're getting on my nerves already.\"\n\n\"Sorry.\" the couple apologized in unison, looked at each other, and glared.\n\n\"Let me guess. Political marriage? You don't love each other? One of you is flamboyantly homosexual?\"\n\n\"I'm into men.\" the woman told the witch. \"I can't speak for him, though. Have you seen how much time he spends on his hair?\"\n\n\"That's a stereotype!\" the man retorted. \"And a king should always look his best.\"\n\n\"It's under a crown all day!\"\n\nThe witch groaned. \"Okay, here's what we're going to do.\" she began to write. \"Let's see... I'll be needing this, and this... one of these... there!\" the witch held out a note to them. \"Find these ingredients and I'll make you a love potion.\" \n\n\"Wait... we have to do your GROCERY list?\" the woman asked incredulously.\n\n\"I'm starting to wonder why you're so highly reccomended.\" the man turned to stare at the witch.\n\n\"You'll need to go alone, just the two of you. It won't work if there's a third party. Trust me, I let Rasputin bring his friends and now the Kingdom of Russia is a harem.\"\n\n\"This seems suspicious.\" the woman narrowed her eyes. \n\n\"How do we know that you're not leading us into a trap?\"\n\n\"Then leave your guards here. They can kill me if you're not back by nightfall.\"\n\nThe man and the woman began muttering to each other. They both turned to face the witch.\n\n\"Seems fair enough.\" the woman nodded.\n\n\"Good. Now go get those ingredients. There are some weapons in my shed out back.\" the witch propped her feet up on the table and began leading through a large book written in Hebrew. \n\nAnd with that, the start crossed couple were off. \n\nThey both armored up. The man chose a broadsword, typical of men in his kingdom. The woman chose the bow.\n\n\"Do you even know how to use that thing?\" the man asked.\n\n\"For your information, yes, I do.\" the woman nodded. \"My father was a fan of boar hunting. As you know, my elder brother is quite sickly, so he took me instead.\"\n\n\"Interesting. Is that why you have calluses all over your hands, like a man?\"\n\nThe woman started to open her mouth to protest, but she stopped. \"You know what? Let's just focus on finding these ingredients.\"\n\n\"Good plan.\" the man nodded, and unfolded the parchment. \"let's see here...\"\n\nOne leaf from a bitter plant in the middle of the forest\n\nOne skein filled with the brown water from the giant's barrell\n\nNectar from a beehive\n\n\"Oh look, she included a map!\" the woman grabbed the paper. \n\n\"Can you read maps?\" the man asked her.\n\n\"Boar hunting, remember? Hunters read maps.\"\n\n\"Right. I say we look for the plant first. We would be least likely to find such a plant in the dark.\" the man decided.\n\n\"Fine by me. Let's be off.\"\n\nThe couple travelled mostly in silence. \n\nAfter about an hour, they reached the center of the forest.\n\n\"Okay, we're here.\" the woman nodded. \"But I see a lot of plants here. Which one is the bitter plant? Did the witch include a drawing?\"\n\n\"It seems not.\" the man sighed. \n\n\"They all are plants. We certainly can't run around tasting them- we'll get poisoned!\" \n\n\"What if she knew that? Think of the context... 'a bitter plant'...\"\n\n\"You mean like what else does bitter entail? It's a flavor!\"\n\n\"No, it's also a word! It can come from anger, resentment... loneliness...\"\n\n\"Ah, it's a riddle! We should find a plant that fits that!\"\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\n\"How do we find a plant that fits that?\"\n\nThe man scanned the area. \"Ah!\" he pointed. \"Do you see that cluster of plants!\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"There isn't anything growing by it! Even the grass doesn't grow at its roots!\"\n\n\"Then that's our plant?\" the woman asked. \n\n\"Indeed! It has to be.\"\n\nThey plucked a handful of leaves from the bunch and consulted the map.\n\n\"Okay, one down. I think we should try to find the nectar next.\" the woman nodded.\n\n\"Why?\" \n\nInstead of answering, she pointed at a bee resting on a flower. \"He'll bee our guide!\"\n\n\"That was a terrible joke.\"\n\n\"You're a terrible human beeing.\"\n\n\"Shut up.\"\n\n\"Fine.\"\n\nThey followed the bee in silence for quite some time. They reached a hive, large and buzzing.\n\n\"Okay, how do we get this bee nectar?\" the woman asked. \"I don't like the idea of being stung.\"\n\nThe man thought for a moment. \"My road workers usually use smoke to make the bees leave when they want to chop down the first trees.\"\n\n\"Okay, but if we use fire, the nest will burn down or if we get too close they'll sting us.\" \n\n\"We don't have to get close. You said you can shoot, right? There's no grass under the hive. If we shot a flaming arrow, then there would be nothing to catch fire.\"\n\n\"Okay, but how do we shoot a flaming arrow, genius?\"\n\n\"Simple.\" Just wrap some grass in a cloth, make a bag, tie i t to the arrow and light it. You fire, there's a little smoke, and hopefully the bees will leave.\"\n\nThe woman frowned, but nodded.\n\nThe plan went off perfectly! The smoke seemed to scare off the bees, and the man was able to scoop out some honeycomb and wrap it in his kerchief. He sprinted back to the woman, seeing as the smoke was dying out.\n\n\"You have nectar in your hair.\" the woman pointed out. \n\n\"It's sticky!\" the man tried to comb it out. \"Hm... this would make a lovely hair gel!\"\n\nThe woman smiled. \"Now the giant?\"\n\n\"Oh dear. I'm a bit worried about this one.\" \n\nThe two travelled yet again. By the time the sun was starting to wane, they were in some sort of abandoned town. \n\n\"So, a giant must have a large barrel in which to store this brown liquid?\" the woman asked. \n\n\"Looks like it.\" the man nodded to their left. Sure enough, there was a large barrel in the center of town.\n\n\"This is too easy...\" the woman muttered as she climbed onto the barrel to fill a skein.\n\n\"WHO GOES THERE?!\" a deep voiced boomed.\n\n\"Uh oh.\" the man gulped. There was a giant lumbering towards them, at least eight feet tall. \n\n\"WHO DARES TAKE MY SPEACIAL BREW?!\"\n\n\"Speacial brew? You mean this is simply... alcohol?\" the woman asked.\n\n\"I MAKE MY OWN. I CAN'T AFFORD THE INSANE LIQUOR PRICES IN TOWN DURING THIS ECONOMY!\"\n\n\"Um... could we maybe have a little?\" the woman asked. \"just a skein.\"\n\n\"GET YOUR OWN!\" the giant roared. \n\nWithout thinking, the man rushed him and stabbed the giant's foot.\n\n\"GAHHHHHHHH!\" the giant cried.\n\n\"RUN!\" the woman shouted as she jumped from the barrel. The took off at a sprint, with the giant limipng closely behind.\n\nBy them time the sun was setting, they had lost the giant and were approaching the witch's hut. They entered without knocking to find their guards and the witch playing cards.\n\n\"You're back. I was almost worried that you wouldn't make it.\"\n\n\"WE ALMOST DIED, YOU STUPID WITCH.\" the woman screamed.\n\n\"If I hadn't stabbed that giant, we'd be dead!\"\n\n\"He wasn't actually a giant, you know. Simply a very large man.\"\n\n\"Just make us the potion.\" the man sighed. \"I want to go home.\"\n\nThe witch sighed and took the ingredients. She stirred them into a mug, and took a sip. \"That's good.\"\n\nShe then pulled out a small vial of red liquid, and handed it to them. \"Drink half of this each and you'll be hearing wedding bells before you know it.\"\n\nThe couple chugged down the vial. \n\n\"Odd. I wasn't expecting it to taste so... bland.\"the man frowned. \n\n\"And this doesn't have any of the ingredients we brought!\" \n\n\"Yes it does. I just needed you to replenish my stock for the next stash. I had a vial of it all along.\"\n\nThe man and the woman glared at the witch, and sighed.\n\n\"Let's... go home now.\" the woman nodded, too tired to argue. She put an arm around her fiance's shoulder, and they dragged their feet back to the carriage. \"I think you and I should spend the day inside together tomorrow.\n\n\"That love potion must be working, because I actually agree with you for once.\" the man nodded.\n\nThe soldiers stayed for a moment to clean up. \n\n\"Oy, mind if I try some of the fresh love potion?\" a soldier asked the witch. \n\n\"Hm? Oh, this isn't a love potion, dearie! It's just a mixed drink.\"\n\n\"You had 'em go all that way to get you sumthin' so you could be drunk?!\"\n\n\"Pretty much!\" the witch cackled.\n\n\"Why?!\"\n\n\"Have you seen the price of liquor in this economy?\"\n\n\"Well what was in the vial?!\"\n\n\"Some water and red dye.\"\n\n\"But how do you know if they'll-\"\n\n\"Look at them.\"\n\nThe soldier looked out the window. The couple were laughing in the carriage, and the woman was trying to comb something out of his master's hair. \"I'll be...\"\n\n\"The best cures are the natural ones. Sometimes you just have to give love time and it'll happen on it's own.\"\n\nAs they left, the witch waved goodbye, sipping her drink. All of a sudden she froze.\n\n\"Shit.\" she sighed. \"They stabbed my landlord. There goes my low rent prices this month.\"" ]	[ 3, 7, 16, 19, 35 ]	[ "1462831105", "1462839673", "1462818386", "1462822932", "1462825436" ]
	[WP] You are death. You adopt a daughter whose name is Life and you are struggling to teach her how to be a grim reaper like yourself.	11	[ "I thought I was doing a good deed when I took this child under my wing. Small and helpless, she just looked at me with those lovely blue-green eyes, and she did the strangest thing: she smiled. Not a sad smile, nor a smile of insanity or acceptance, but a real, genuine smile. A loving, happy smile. One that I had never before been given. As much as I have seen and done - me, Lord Death - one would assume I could not be swayed by something of this sort... and yet, I had been. Her goodness and light, traits that would normally give me disgust or pity, somehow filled me with a warmth I had never known. And so I took her. The girl who smiled in the face of death.\n\nI can't even tell her age. She appears to be only around three or four years old by human standards, and she walks with a similar curiosity - yet she understands my words perfectly and appears to be entirely fearless. One thing is certain, this girl is not human by any means. No human can radiate such perfection and purity. No healthy human child can so easily smile in my wake. And no young human child, mind you, can understand language as directly and fluently as she. My assumption was confirmed as I noticed her phase through a human on one of our daily walks through town. I had originally wondered if this child was simply approaching death, due to a health condition. That would have easily explained how she could see me, and her condition may have led to health defects that would warrant a genuine smile in the face of death. Yet she functioned normally, and my touch did nothing but bring her ticklish laughter.\n\nAfter our walk, I looked down at her, and leaned down very low (my nine-feet versus her three-feet heeded a very low lean), only to realize she had on a necklace with the word, \"Life\", ingrained into the large charm hanging from the thin golden chain. Life. This must be her name, I thought to myself.\n\nBeing that this girl somehow won my cold, dead, metaphorical heart, I let her continue to accompany me as I go about my days doing my job. She has become a daughter of sorts, and as the days went by, the concept that I was able to feel love at all continued to amaze me.\n\nOne day, we began. I decided to train her. Sure, I am immortal, but work is work, and time stops for no entity. Why, with the two of us on duty, we could get the day's work done in half the time, and even have time to spare. Time had never before concerned me, but I have found myself increasingly yearning for this \"time\" recently. My time has always felt best spent aiding poor souls to escape the dark reality of living, and finally deteriorate into nothing - a much sounder fate than the torture life brings. (Human life, of course, not my sweet child.)\n\nOur training began small. We began with an easy target, even though I hardly ever trouble myself with it: Vegetation. I gave her instructions. Usually she follows them absolutely perfectly. I thought to myself, she is very smart and such a quick learner, she will do just fine.\n\nI was wrong.\n\nI explained to her that this flower was at the end of its time, and I gave her the exact methods in which to finally rid of its life-force. I did not give her a scythe, for that would come later, but instead gave her instructions on using \"death's touch\", for which she would only need her finger. Just as I instructed, she approached the clover. Just as I instructed, she raised her hand slowly. Just as I instructed, she moved her finger forward. Just as I instructed, she touched its dying petals... yet the strangest thing occurred. She did not use \"death's touch\". She could not have, for instead of withering entirely and having its life-force dissolved to nothing - the petals slowly lifted, and filled with color. The flower lifted its head toward the sun, its stalk turned a bright green, and it blew beautifully in the wind.\n\nI was infuriated. No, more than that, I was confused. As though she was improving on my methods, she gave me this excited grin as though asking, \"Are you proud of me, daddy?\", though she said nothing, only waiting for my response to her actions. There was no way I could possibly be angry with this child, for this look expressed that she meant me no harm.\n\nI decided, I had to give her an example.\n\nI took her to a stray dog, looking old and weak. I don't often bother with the lives of animals, but once in a while I don't mind working with them. I outstretched my hand, and touched the dog on his muzzle, mimicking what I was wishing her to do. The dog's eyelids were heavy, it fell onto its side, and I could watch its soul leaving it. Life attempted to run past me, but I held my arm in front of her, stopping her from entering the scene. She needn't get distracted, she must observe. The soul looked weak as well, probably from that hard life the poor canine had lived, and within moments it turned grey, and fell toward the ground, eventually crumbling and becoming nothing. I looked back toward Life to see the look on her face. She seemed confused, almost as I was when she had touched the flower. She did not seem to understand. This intelligent girl, who had understood everything up until now, had failed to grasp the simple concept of death. But this is how it works, I explained. I directed her toward a sick kitten in a trashcan nearby, and allowed her to try once again. (cont.)", "God Damn it that stupid bitch Love! Thanks to her pathetic nagging, I got coerced into babysitting duty. Or, actually, parenting. Ugh, did I mention that I hated children. They were whiny and always complained. I could really just do with some screaming maniac trying to escape from my grasps as I hunted them down, reveling in the chase, and finally getting my prey- their soul. Only mortals close to their deaths could see me anyways...\n\nBut noooo Love had me babysitting Life. Correction, she had me adopt Life. My polar opposite. A child. Love claimed that I could teach her things. Train her to be a God or Goddess.\n\nThe brat was so innocent and naive that it made me sick. I was morbid, crafty, conniving, and hated the idea of life. I enjoyed creating suffering and pain, having souls enter my realm. Life was inherently good, trying to appease everyone and make them happy. Oh, this boy she brings to life? He needs a soul mate. This mother who's baby I stole? She needs another child.\n\nI tried to train her to be like me. I honestly tried. I tried to show her how to take a soul out of a living being. But, she would not do it! She refused, stating that it looks like it hurts them and that I was mean. I yelled at her for her incompetence and her crystal blue eyes filled with tears. She ran away to Love, hoping for some solace and comfort from the Goddess. Love merely gave me a disapproving look which made me glare at her in response as she rubbed the child's back soothingly and whispered things that made no sense to her.\n\nHowever, as I looked at Life- sweet, caring Life, I could not help but feel a deep pang of guilt as I saw the girl sob as if her world came to an end. As much as I despised her existence, attempting to train her caused her to grow on me a little. Just, do not mention that to Love...\n\n" ]	[ 1, 3 ]	[ "1462898368", "1462852294" ]
	[WP] Create a dark suspenseful story based around the saying, "You get what you get and you don't get upset"	9	[ "Timothy sprayed a few more layers of cologne over his neck and shoulders as he praised his charming looks in the mirror. Although he cleaned up well, there was something mischievous in his style. He slapped on a big gold watch before approaching the front door to his condo. He took one last look in the nearest mirror before leaving. Tim hopped in his red Italian sports car and sped away. \n\nTimothy found a busy nightclub to wander into. The thumping of the music seemed to creep into his chest but he felt he could get used to it. He didn't care much for music though. Nights like these were all about one thing. Women. The club he was in was filled with them, which made him feel pretty good about his chances of taking one home. \n\nHe spotted a lone woman at the bar. She was wearing a dark blue, strapless, dress that her brunette hair just barely touched. Her skin was flawless and her eyes looked lost. Tim decided that he didn't care about anyone else in the club. The woman at the bar looked like a challenge and if he played the game right, he'd be rewarded later in the evening. He put his charming face on and approached the woman at the bar.\n\n\"'scuse me, ma'am! I'll have a shaken martini and an amaretto and coke for the lady please.\" Tim told the bartender.\n\nThe woman in blue nearly rolled her eyes.\n\"I don't drink.\" She said.\n\n\"Maybe you should. Might make the music tolerable.\" Timothy smirked. \n\nThe woman in blue smiled and accepted the drink that Timothy bought her.\n\"You new here?\" She asked.\n\n\"Sort of. Always been curious about the place but never had the courage to walk in.\" Tim said.\n\n\"And uh....what changed your mind this evening?\" The woman in blue prodded.\n\n\"I'm lonely, I was hoping to find some company.\" Timothy said with a smile.\n\nThe woman in blue immediately put her drink down on the bar. \n\"I think you're lost.\" She said sternly. \"You won't find what you're looking for here.\"\n\nTimothy nearly gasped.\n\"You say that like I've never been around the block before!\" He quipped.\n\n\"Not this one.\" She replied.\n\n\"Try me!\" Tim said with a clever smirk.\n\nThe woman in blue thought for a minute before leaning towards Timothy and resting her hand on his knee. She looked deep into his eyes.\n\"You take me home, I'll give you what I have to offer. But there's a catch.\" She said in a low hypnotic voice.\n\n\"Try me, sweetie.\" Timothy replied holding onto his clever smirk.\n\n\"You get what you get and you don't get upset.\" She said staring deep into his eyes.\n\n\"You got a deal sweet cheeks!\" He said as they both stood up and headed out of the club.\n\nThey busted through the condo door with their lips tangled tangled as their arms secured their bodies. They broke just for a second so Timothy could show the way to his bedroom.\n\"My name's Timothy, by the way.\" He said as he rushed to take off his clothes.\n\"Call me whatever you want, Timothy.\" She said in that hypnotic low voice of hers. She didn't remove any clothing as she climbed onto the bed. \nTimothy sat on the edge, but the woman in blue motioned him with one single finger to scoot over to the middle. \nHe followed her direction and as soon he was in position, she climbed on top of him. Her breathing was steady, as if she was more focused than turned on. Tim's breathing was a little more wild. \nThe woman in blue flipped down the front of her strapless dress, revealing her breasts. She bent down and began to kiss Tim's neck. \nHer fingers ran up and down his body as she started to hum a melody he had never heard before. \nIt was strange, hypnotic, confusing, and yet somewhat of a turn on to him. Her lips grazed his ear before she whispered something. Something that he wasn't sure what to make of.\n\n\"Timothy, Timothy, let me in.....I want to see what's under that pale white skin.\" Sh said in a sing song voice.\n\nHe could feel her nails running along his torso become sharp as she kept repeating the unnerving rhyme. He wasn't in the mood for sex anymore, now he started to panic. He tried to move but the woman in blue was incredibly strong. \n\"Get off of me, get out of my house!\" He screamed. \"Get off of me, I don't want this!\" \n\n\"Oh but Timothy, this IS what you wanted, remember?\" She said trying to sound sweet and innocent before her voice nearly growled again.\n\"Now lay still and LET. ME. IN!!!!!\" She screamed. \nHer fingernails dug into the sides of his rib cage as he screamed in agony. She gripped and tore into his flesh as if she was searching for his heart in hey stack.\nFinally, he was able to get one of his feet onto her abdomen and with one good kick, she went flying off the bed on tumbled on to the floor.\nThe woman in blue got up and stared at him.\n\n\"You said you wouldn't get upset.\" She said before she flipped the top of her dress back up and stormed out of Timothy's condo. \nHe laid there on his bed bleeding. He was still having trouble trying to convince himself of what just happened. One thing he knew for sure, was that he would never return to that club again.", "I open my eyes and the light makes my vision white. My eyes adjust to the brightness like a camera lense refocusing and I try to understand my surroundings. The room, which is cold and smells like my Grandma’s garage on a damp spring day, is mostly grey concrete and wood. My head is bound by a strap on my forehead, so I cannot move to see much else. Just the ashy walls, wooden ceiling, and the bright light. \n\n\nIt takes a moment for me to notice that my wrists and ankles are also bound and something much larger and less pliable is restraining my chest. The angle at which I am lying seems to be somewhere between upright and fully flat, closer to horizontal. And, as I process this, I realise that I am in pain. An aching sort of pain that feels dulled by whatever drugs are in my system. The drugs which cause the wooden ceiling planks to bulge and flatten like a ribcage accommodating breath. While the ceiling breathes in and out and in and out, I strain my eyes down in an attempt to see the source of the pain.\n\n\nMy leg.\n\n\nBut not my leg.\n\n\nDespite the blinding light working against me, something I find strange as lights are usually meant to be helpful and illuminating, I notice something blatant and suspicious. As I process this visual anomaly, the pain grows dramatically worse. And I panic. I breath at a rate at least three times faster than the ceiling and pull at the binding.\n\n\n“You get what you get and you don’t get upset,” chides a soft and soothing voice, paternal in nature.\n\n\nI stop struggling and the voice praises me. It calls me a good pet and tells me that I will never be beautiful again. My eyes make another run down my body, which I can see very little of from my limited perspective, and I examine the leg. The thick leg hairs. The dark brown skin. The jagged line where it meets the freshly shaven pale flesh of my thigh. \n\n\nNot my leg. \n" ]	[ 2, 3 ]	[ "1462885038", "1462879280" ]
	[WP] You find yourself making a deal with the devil, but it is not what you expected it to be.	6	[ "-Please it is the only thing that I would change my soul.\n-But dude even I know is not worth it.\n-They say you grant wishes in exchange of souls.\n-Okay, but tell me why would you want to erradicate that day of the year. It just doesn't make sense to me. Why not power, money, love, cure someone, something to help the humankind or destroy it if you that kind of guy.\n-I don't want any of that. I just want that day to never exist.\n-I will make my part of the deal. But that is not the solution.\n-I just didn't born to live that day.\n-You had been a horrible man. I would know that. I will now make your wish true and I'm sorry that you met HER.", "\"Listen. I'll give you my soul, if you make me famous.\"\n\"What, like Taylor Swift famous?\"\n\"No, not a celebrity. I wanna make something last. At least a few decades.\"\n\"That's a really low bar.\"\n\"Just do it!\"\n\"Fine. Sign this paper, and I'll give you something from the future that you can take credit for.\" \n\"Alright!\"\n\n_skritcha skritch_\n\n\"Alright, Mattyboy, here it is.\"\n\"What-- What the hell, Lucifer? This is just a book!\"\n\"Trust me. This book will spawn something amazing.\"\n\"Ugh. Can I at least change some of the names?\"\n\"No. Well-- Maybe. Except that green one.\"\n\"What-- Pee Pee?\"\n\"No, that's not how it's pronounced.\"\n\"Ugh-- I guess I'll take this down to a publisher first thing tomorrow morning.\"\n\"Have fun, Mr. Furie.\"\n\n\"...Pepe, jesus fucking christ. This thing'll never catch on.\"", "\"No, two beefy burritos and a taco. One taco, two burritos.\"\n\"Is this a joke? You're not giving me a lot to work with here.\"\n\"I'm giving you my soul for this. Two burritos and a taco. Just drive down to Taco Bell.\"\n\"You're selling me your soul to save the trip to Taco Bell?\"", "Knock Knock Knock\n\nI sighed as I pulled myself from the couch to answer my apartment door. Instead of the pizza man I had called for an hour earlier, I was met by a man in a black suit and sunglasses.\n\n\"Mr. Stevens! I have a deal of a lifetime for you!\" He said with an unusually large smile.\n\n\"Mr. Man! do I have a deal for you! For only two seconds of your time I'll give you a closed door!\" I said before shutting the door in the salesman's face. \"At least it wasn't a Jehovah's witness this time.\" I grumbled as I walked back to the couch.\n\n\"Aren't they just the worst?\" I voiced rang from the kitchen. I look over to my right and see the salesman sitting on the kitchen counter smiling.\n\n\"What the.. how did you?\" I said as I glanced back to the closed door. \n\n\"I'll cut to the chase Mr. Stevens. I'm the devil, and I have a deal for you.\"\n\n\"The devil? Like the devil devil, or a metaphorical devil?\"\n\n\"The real deal. Satan, Lucifer, el Diablo. I have many names you know.\"\n\n\"And your in my kitchen, to make a deal?\"\n\n\"You learn fast, I like that!\"\n\n\"I don't believe you.\"\n\n\"Is it my outfit?\"\n\n\"Mostly. I like the suit it looks real nice, but doesn't scream father of evil to me.\"\n\nThe salesman snapped his fingers and went up in black flames. As the flames died a cloven hooved demon that had to duck down in order to fit in the kitchen stood in his place. \"I could have come like this, but you know how hard it is to walk down the street like this. It's hell.\" It said in its twisted voice.\n\n\"Jesus fuck!\" I shouted and jumped back.\n\n\"Now now, no need for that language. You kiss your mother with that mouth?\"\n\n\"She's dead.\"\n\n\"I know, still asking though. You don't know how fucked up some people are that I deal with. Speaking of deals...\" The devil clapped his clawed hands together and burned back into the salesman. \"lets get to it.\"\n\n\"Deal for what?\"\n\n\"Glad you asked. I have a soul that I think you would want. I currently have a surplus and need to sell a few.\"\n\n\"What would I do with another soul?\"\n\n\"Don't you mean A soul?\"\n\n\"I have a soul.\"\n\n\"Not really. You see your soul was sold to me a long time ago.\"\n\n\"What? That sounds a little far fetched.\"\n\n\"Tell me, have you ever felt truly whole. Like that little void in your heart had been filled by the booze, women, or money you gotten?\"\n\n\"What money?\"\n\n\"Fair point. The point is you're empty inside and I have just the thing to fill it.\"\n\n\"Wait, back up a second. I don't have a soul?\"\n\n\"Nope, your as empty as an African child's stomach.\"\n\n\"What the hell man?\"\n\n\"I'm the devil what do you expect?\"\n\n\"So who sold my soul?\"\n\n\"What's with all the questions? If you must know, it was your mother. In fact...\" The devil snapped his fingers and a coughing older woman appeared in a puff of black smoke. \n\n\"This looks a bit too nice for hell.\" My mother said as she looked around.\n\n\"You're not in hell Debra, you're in your son's apartment.\" The devil answered\n\n\"Oh fuck.\" She cursed.\n\n\"Mom what the hell? You sold my soul to the devil?\"\n\nShe shriveled a little and lowered her gaze. \"Yeah.\" She squeaked out.\n\n\"For what?!\" I asked.\n\n\"A cheesy bean burrito!\" The devil answered with a snap of his fingers. My mom disappeared in even more black smoke, setting off my smoke detector. \n\n\"This is so messed up.\" I comment as I try to fan the smoke away from the detector.\n\n\"In your mortal frame of mind, yes. For me it's Wednesday. So back to our deal.\"\n\n\"What do you want?\" I said as I cleared away the last of the smoke.\n\n\"Ill give you not just any soul, but your own soul, for one small favor.\" \n\n\"Oh boy! my own soul, thanks mister!\"\n\n\"This is serious.\"\n\n\"Alright what's the favor.\"\n\n\"You have an unused room over there, and I want to use it.\" \n\n\"Why? I imagine hell is big enough for you.\"\n\n\"I need a place to put a portal, for meetings in the mortal world.\"\n\n\"No. I'm not having demon meetings in my apartment.\"\n\n\"Come on it's your soul we're talking about here, and it's not just demon meetings. I deal with angels and other beings on occasion\"\n\n\"But it's my storage room. I have my weights in there.\"\n\n\"Oh you mean the ones you haven't touched in months.\"\n\n\"I'm getting to it.\"\n\n\"Sure you are. Let me explain this a bit better. It's not like the room is off limits. The portal will hang on the wall and the rest of the room will be untouched. Except when the room is in use. It'll be warped into whatever I need it for, but the rest of the apartment will be unchanged I swear.\"\n\n\"It's hard for me to take the prince of lies promise seriously. Besides, I made it this far without a soul.\"\n\n\"Not very far if you ask me, but that's subjective. Let me remind you that I have your soul, so if you die, you're mine.\"\n\n\"hmmm.\" I grunted as I thought about his deal. \"I'm not sold yet.\"\n\n\"Oh come on you soulless bastard. What more could you want?\" The devil asked.\n\n\"How about some rent money.\"\n\n\"Are you fucking serious. How about I ease up on your mother's punishment instead.\"\n\n\"Don't care, I want rent money.\"\n\n\"See, that's what I'm talking about you soulless bastard. Wouldn't you like a soul to feel love and all that other crap. Imagine how fulfilled you would feel with two\"\n\n\"Like I said before, I made it this far without one, I could go longer.\"\n\n\"God damn it. How about some kind of supernatural power?\"\n\n\"How about the power to make you give me rent money.\"\n\n\"For fuck sakes fine. Rent money for the apartment room.\"\n\n\"And my soul.\"\n\nThe devil sighed. \"And your soul.\" " ]	[ 2, 2, 3, 3 ]	[ "1462899414", "1462902910", "1462897046", "1462902052" ]
	[WP] "Before I write this, I must warn you, I am not a good person"	45	[ "\"Before I write this, I must warn you - I am not a good person.\"\n\nHe sat back in the armchair, reading that sentence through in his head once more. He'd spoken it aloud before writing it down, while writing it, and now, having written it and looking at it on the page, it hurt him almost physically. He knew it was true. He didn't want to know, he didn't want to believe. Why did that one thing about him have to erase everything else he had put his blood, sweat and tears into?\n\n\"Certainly not in the opinion of those who once called me friends or acquaintances. I'm calling myself Melmoth now. Sebastian Melmoth. I believe you know who that is, Reginald. Regardless, I have shed my skin but the layer beneath is the same. The gloved hand and the bare hand are identical.\"\n\nAbove all else, he felt sadness. He was being, and had been, persecuted for something out of his control. He knew he wasn't alone, there were hundreds, if not thousands, with the same feelings and the same problems. But that thought gave him little joy.\n\n\"I try to write. I honestly do. But it just doesn't feel the same any more. Nothing does.\"\n\nHe knew he was moping, but couldn't help feeling incredibly depressed. And quite understandably, too, he thought to himself, after falling from where I was to where I am because of mere subconscious desires.\n\n\"It's better out here than it was in prison, although there still exists a vast yawning chasm between by current situation and my life before that whole debacle.\"\n\nHe looked around the room, and out of the window. He had four walls and a roof to call his own, and tools with which to write - the latter, to him, infinitely more useful than the former. But he still recognised his works would mean little if they didn't travel, like he once did.\n\n\"I fear that the wallpaper will indeed outlive me. That nightmare still haunts me - sometimes I wake, and take a moment to appreciate the fact that I am alive.\"\n\nBut for how much longer? He could feel that the curtains would fall sooner rather than later.\n\nHe was sure that he was good. Pure, God-loving, and kind at heart. But he had sinned. And sinners were not good.\n\n\"There is little else to say. I hope you are well - and if not, at least better than I. That should be an easy state to achieve.\n\nOscar\"", "i'm not a good person in the slightest bit. I'm more of a Casanova, if I brought brides to hell with me. I am a serial manipulator, which meant that I could bring destruction to the world without really causing mass hysteria. I was brought into this world because I was brought of it. I was a part of social dogma, as soon as I brought peace upon it. Who was I?\n\nI was Jack the Ripper. I was the man, the myth, the lenged/ I was the snake hidden in the rebel, I was the cause because there seemed no other pause in my bretheren. My blood boiled when clots seemed no bigger show than reverence. \n\nI have it. I have the knife, and today son I give it to you. Open the envelope next given with this letter\n\n\n\n\"I'll do you proud father\"", "Before I write this, I must warn you, I am not a good person. \n\nEver wonder why djinn never allow for the extension of ones own life without trying to mess you over. It would be because their agents of the devil. \n\nEver wonder why the devil won't allow immortality. I'm that reason. I was the first person to ask for it. \n\nI sold my soul to the devil, and in return gained immortality. This was back before anyone else ever thought to think about it. This was back before the word immortality even existed. I asked for life forever. And I got it. \n\nNow what does one do with an everlasting life. Being immortal tends to remove the fear of God from a person. No devine judgement in death for those who cannot die. \n\nEver wonder why death was considered a man in a black cloak weilding a scythe. Ever wonder why in 1300AD the population was 360 million and I'm 1400AD the population dropped to 350 million. Ever wonder what the biggest calamity to ever strike humanity was called the black death. I'm that reason.\n\nThe holy crusades. They were trying to hunt me down. The great fire of London. Not even that sorry. Chernobyl. Suside attempt.\n\nI will admit that one nearly worked too. However God refused to take me because of the sins I had committed. And the devil sent me back because of our contract.\n\nThe four horsemen of the apocalypse, I inspired three of them. The seven sins, five of those. \n\nI've done every crime you can think of and more, to every type of person you can think of, of the order of 1,000s of times at least. \n\nEver hear of people serving multiple life sentences. I'd be why they exist. How many generations should pass before my crime is forgotten and out of pity I'm set free again.\n\nTake the most horrible thing you can possibly think of, make it around 10 times worse chances are I've done that to women and their children simultaneously.\n\nI won't say I'm sorry. My words have little weight in that regard. It's hard to say anything with any meaning without a soul.\n\nAll I'll say is that I am in no way shape or form a good person. I'm just bored, bone idle, being evil gave me a kick for a few centuries. Now I've run out of bad things to do. It's dulled on me.\n\nPerhaps I'll start doing good deeds. Attempt to negate my eons of sin. However many eons more that may take.\n\nMake no mistake I am not a good person. Just one that's got bored of living. ", "\"...in a sort of poetic way, I'd like to know if you've ever seen the man I described, because that man is me. Before I write the rest, I must warn you: I am not a good person. Here, I have committed a massive genocide of entire countries. I have brought nations to their knees, seemingly for fun.\n\nI fucked up. At first I was trying to find a way to write back to myself, to be a sort of psychic in the past. My project snowballed out of control and military ventures protecting my work did their job far too well.\n\nIf you're reading this, I finally did it. And that means I can prevent this tragedy from happening. Right now, my wife lies dead beside me, and even after what I've done, only that has put me out of commission.\n\nI want you to kill her. Find me and kill my dear wife. It's the only way to stop me. I've included the blueprints I used to build this device, you and me will live like kings. Thanks, I suppose, hero.\"\n\nI stood up and looked out the window, the sky a deeper blue than years ago. I grabbed the gun from my wife's had and followed her, knowing some piece of me will live.", "Before I write this, I must warn you, I am not a good person\n\nThe words leered at me through the lines of the page as I watched the whole of it unfold. My hand moved quickly, lead smudged fingers leaving streaked lines across the page. \n\nSome have called me a hero but that is now how I have felt. I have taken more lives than I can dream of just through sheer miscalculation.\n\nMy hands continued, despite my strength they trembled with the motions but I could not stop. It was all too much.\n\nI have made a career out of fighting injustice not realizing the greatest hypocrite was I. Judging others by my own will and hand and being judge, jury and executioner of my own moral rights, regardless of circumstance.\n\nTears began to drop across the page. Wet dots of a humanity I had only brushed against but never quite assimilate.\n\nThere's nothing for me to do. I fear more have suffered due to my actions than benefited. Most of you have some thought on my position. Some praise me as a hero, a god, a villain. But you man now know me as a figure of history that was lost among the stars.\n\nI read over the words carefully, making sure they all had their due weight and time. Making sure that everything was perfect as this was my legacy. Satisfied, I signed.\n\nSincerely, \nClark Kent, \nAlso known as, Superman.\n\n\n______________________________________________________________________________________\n\n\nIf you liked this, please check out my book! \n\nhttps://www.amazon.ca/WINDS-The-Elemental-Eye-Book-ebook/dp/B018TGN8VO", "A BRIEF NOTE TO NEW SELECTIONS\n\nBefore I write this, I must warn you, I am not a good person.\n\nAnd neither are you. We will strip you of your sense of morality in order to mold you to our purposes. \n\nCongratulations!\n\nIf you're reading this you've already achieved more in your short life than ninety percent of your peers. We can only accept the best and the brightest to usher us into the glorious future. Your whole life you have undoubtedly looked forward to taking your place as a member of the inner-party.\n\nWell, congratulations. Welcome. Now forget everything you were taught during your compulsory education about the history of the Republic.\n\nThe truth is much more complicated.\n\nDo you remember reading about the old Empire before the youth revolution took place? I'm sure you do. You have been selected for your academic prowess, your unwavering loyalty, and your excellent critical thinking skills. We only take the best and brightest into the cadre. \n\nYou were told that the Empire had stretched itself thin by fighting wars on multiple fronts, that the monied elite had grown decadent and weak, and that the common citizen suffered under high taxation and a harshly punitive system of justice. Surely you remember the films we selected showing the brutality inflicted against non-violent protesters at the hands of the old security services. \n\nWhat you don't realize is that the Empire never left. We restructured, cast off the old symbols, and reorganized.\n\nMaybe you don't understand. The Emperor was brought to justice by a civilian tribunal and executed on national television along with his closest advisers, generals, and members of the elite. Surely, a popular revolution that could cut off the very head of the state must be legitimate?\n\nThat was simply a restructuring. The new guard devouring the old. A story as old as time.\n\nBut what you probably don't realize is that internal politics were the only thing that could have brought about such change. No external power could have waged war against the might of the old Empire. No grass-roots revolution would have been allowed to light a fire as bright as this one ostensibly glowed. The military and internal security forces had five-hundred years of total domination to perfect the art of power. Dissidents among the populous could be rooted out and dealt with before they ever raised a hand against their masters.\n\nNo, no.. The only weakness the Empire had was it's INFOSEC Division. That's who spawned the revolution, we were the only ones who could. \n\nBut if you believe our actions were taken out of benevolence then your upcoming training in political science will give you a much clearer picture of the hearts of men. Welcome to the New Republic. Serve the Old Empire.\n\n--excerpt from Letters from History: The Second American Republic, 2781-3121", "Before I write this, I must warn you - I am not a good person. \n\nBy the time this sees the hands of the masses, my story will be known far and wide, and the historians will have chewed on it like hyenas on a corpse. You know who I am, and what I've done, and let the knowing fill you. So allow me to give you what you seek, if you know what that is yourself. \n\nI won't bore you with protestations or excuses for my actions. The dead are dead. They died for necessary reasons, and I owe you no reason or cause. Have I not said death is the solution to all problems? I have changed more in my years than anyone. MY life, and none other, shaped the world. I forced those fools on the party committee into my plans, and broke those that refused. The enemy across the ocean has feared my power, my 'insanity', for two decades. Even those fool fascisti tried to deal with me, and then, proving they are fools forever, attacked me in the peak of my power. And where are they now? And where am I. \n\nMy party is the one great certainty of this century, and will be the shape of the next. We will sweep across the world, and the fearful west will do nothing, as they did nothing fifteen years ago, in the face of the fascisti. The people may protest, but they will obey. The Sword and Shield will see to that. \n\nWhile the little yellow savages give us resources and support, and act a barricade against the west's militaries, my armies will grow. And then we will take what is due to us. No more corrupting capitalism, no more weakness and fear. We will have unity of purpose, and prosperity, and the ideals of the revolution. \n\nNo, I am not a good person. I am a great one, and goodness is not required.", "Before I write this, I must warn you, I am not a good person.\n\nThat's how it started. \n\nI was numb.\n\n---\n\nWhen we had met, I thought little of him. He was charming, sure. Made me laugh. But we were different. \n\nSo friends it was. For years, while we spent our time with others, our friendship grew.\n\nBut then it happened. \n\nThe lines on his face, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the way he walked, every so slightly with his toes turned in, the skinny jeans, the t-shirts, the way he could go on and on about his favorite things and how his eyes lit up when he did.\n\nI was hopeless. I was trapped. In those grey-green eyes with the wrinkles at the side.\n\nWhen he kissed me for the first time. I knew. I knew he was the one. The one I would spend the rest of my life with. He was good. He would be good. To me. Nothing could hurt me.\n\n---\n\nBefore I write this, I must warn you, I am not a good person.\n\nI sat on the couch. Our couch. \n\n---\n\nThings weren't always perfect. I was never deluded into thinking things had to be. \n\nBut. I believed in us. \n\nWith the friendship we had.. There was no reason he would lie to me about anything. I already knew his secrets. I knew what I was going to get. \n\nI knew we could work through anything. We always had.\n\n---\n\nThe words on the page were getting blurry now.\n\nA few, though. A few I could make out.\n\nlied\n\nguilty\n\nsorry\n\nforgive me\n\n---\n\nSome bumps were bigger than others. \n\nI knew I could be hard to deal with sometimes. My own head betrayed me so often it was sometimes hard to tell what was real and what wasn't. \n\nBut I was getting help. I was trying.\n\n---\n\nI don't know when I stopped crying. \n\nYou can't cry forever though, I supposed.\n\nNow. Now I had a choice to make. \n\n---\n\nWhen things were good, though.. Even then they were just okay.\n\n---\n\nI packed my bags. And left.", "\"Before I write this, I must warn you. I am not a good person.\"\n\nThe first few glyphs come easily, they always do.\n\n\"I'm evil. Not like 'the father of all evil' or anything like that. God what a boring job what would be.\"\n\nMy muscles remember the forms. Soon the sigils and runes are flowing from my hand, but I can feel the strain in my heart and lungs.\n\n\"I'm not interested in your task. I want no part of your vendetta. I wouldn't even be doing this much if you weren't forcing me. I prefer to keep my evils intimate. Constrained to as much as I can swallow all at once, and no more.\"\n\nNow the exhilaration kicks in. I can feel the power coursing within me. The bastard tongue shared by angels and demons flows through my body to fall out the tip of a fountain pen in plain India Ink.\n\n\"I could do anything you know. Write any future here. Twist you, or me, or anyone with a flick of the wrist. But don't worry. I am inscribing exactly what you asked for, no more, no less.\"\n\nThe lines sear out of my soul and onto cheap paper. The power is in the knowing and the intent. The materials are meaningless. With something from the dark space between orgasm and seizure, I draw the outer seal.\n\nFor a moment I am overcome with mercy and I cover the work with one hand.\n\n\"Are you sure this is what you want? It is not too late. You need only stand and walk away.\"\n\nI know he wont. He's come too far. The power wouldn't have answered if he'd had less resolve.\n\nHe takes the sheet and runs, as if he weren't carrying his own doom.\n\nI look down to see the rune for justice has seeped through the paper and stained my blotter. The power is already escaping. I lift the blotter by a corner and toss it into the fire before it can cause any mischief.\n\n\"You should have listened.\" I say to the empty chair. \"You'll press that paper to your chest and the ink will transfer. It will mark you the way no simple tattoo ever could. You'll become driven. You'll fight that evil you chase and it will eat you alive.\"\n\nOf course I'm going to have to pack up and move now.\n\n\"You'll cut a swath young man. And I'll feast on the evil you liberate. But just enough to keep myself in balance. You. You will be eating the lion's share by the time you're done. And then someone you've wronged will come for you.\"\n\nI take off my own ink-stained shirt. The older, more crudely drawn ink from my own skin is starting to ooze fresh from my effort. The old magic already trying to escape again. The old mistakes still vivid under the line-outs and overlays that keep them in check.\n\n\"We all start out thinking it will be so simple. We'll invoke justice and virtue. We strive for whatever absolute our elders waved before us, but then life teaches us that truly good people are so very rare.\"\n\nI check my tools. Knives. Forks. Tongs. Spits. Cleavers. And assorted spices, I'm not a barbarian. A gust comes through the shutters and I scent the wind. The man, the boy really, will have pressed the work into his skin by now. Within the hour he'll find his first evil and discover what it means to carry Justice on your soul. It will be a friend, or brother, or parent.\n\nThen he'll flee... and I can eat. Only as much evil as I can swallow in one piece. Greed isn't in me the way it once was. I remember burning cities and somber cults, but I won't make that mistake again. I'll leave the great feasts to others, that way they can foot the bill.\n\n\"No, I am not a good person. Not since my own crusade. But I've learned to live with my faults... and I did try to warn you.\"", "I knocked on the faded red door again.\n\nFinally, it opened. The smell of cigarettes and whiskey wafted from the opening. Before me was a pale skinned man in soiled underclothes and a frayed bathrobe. His cheeks were stubbled and his hair disheveled. \n\nHe held his hands up to block the light and tried to peer at me through half shut brown eyes. \n\nHe was nothing I imagined him to be. Not the way my sister told it. \n\n\" What do you what?\" He breathed out. \n\nI wondered if I was standing far enough away that I couldn't smell his breath, or if the smell of the apartment was just stronger. \n\n\" I want to know your story, uh, Mr. Whitely.\" I managed. \n\nHe laughed, halfway choking up phlegm. \"You want my story? Go buy a newspaper. You'll find my story.\" He laughed again, this time more clearly. \" Or go buy one of my books,\" He coughed. \"If they're still selling them. Each one is my story.\" \n\nHe turned away and started to close the door. I stepped forward and slammed my arm against it. \n\nHe pulled away in shock, and I slowly pushed my way into his apartment. \n\n\"Really, Mr. Whitely. I want your story, in your words.\" I held those brown eyes with as pleading a gaze I could muster.\n\nSomething registered behind them. Mr. Whitely blinked and looked away. \n\n\"Alright, okay, take a seat on the couch.\" He half gestured over to a sitting area. \n\nNow that I was inside, the stench of smoke was enough to make me feel I had smoked all my life, my lungs itching with annoyance. The room was strewn with bottles and cans. On a short table, an ashtray overflowed with butts. A few books were stacked on the table, one of them partially burnt. They all had Arthur Whitely as the author. \n\nI couldn't believe this was Arthur. \n\nThe couch Arthur offered was stained like the way the rest of the apartment seemed stained, felt stained. I was thankful to learn upon sitting, that it was mostly dry. \n\nArthur had shuffled over into the kitchen, and I could hear the clink of glass and the burble of liquid pouring in on itself. \n\n\"Pardon the mess,\" Arthur called from the kitchen. \"Once it started it just wouldn't stop.\" He was shuffling over to a chair by the couch. \n\nWas he talking about the mess or the allegations and the media attention? \n\n\"Ah, no,\" It was vile. \"It's alright.\" \n\nArthur sat down and set his drink on the floor. I suspected he had already finished a fair bit of what he poured. \n\n\"So, who are you?\" Those eyes were sharp now, piercing into me. \n\n\"Well, I'm - \" \n\n\"Rhetorical question. You're related to Melanie.\" \n\nI sat silently. \n\n\"Thought so, when you looked me down the eye earlier. Perceptive. Trait of a good writer.\" He laughed and gulped some of his drink. \"I take it you're here about her.\"\n\nI looked away, then forced my eyes back to his. \"Yes, I'm here to learn about her... and you.\" Fire in my throat. \n\n\"Huh,\" Arhtur said. He sat looking around the room, quiet for some time. The only sound was the ticking of a bookshelf clock. When he looked back at me, his eyes had become dull again, watered with whiskey tears. \n\n\"She was a lovely, beautiful girl, Melanie. Gorgeous, and kind. And everything you could ever want. She was everything to me, at least.\" \n\nShe was nothing to you. \n\n\"It devastated me when she left. Devastated. I didn't know what to do.\" \n\nYou pushed her away. \n\n\" I loved her.\" \n\nYou killed her. You filth, you scum, you rotting, miserable corpse. \n\n\"And then the allegations started coming from everywhere after she left. It was too much.\" \n\nIt wasn't enough. \n\n\"So I retreated here, within.\" \n\nAnother silence. This time, he drank. \n\nI manage to find words. Tried to control my voice. \"You know, she loved you.\" \n\nIt was true. I had seen it in her smile when she mentioned his name. The way she only talked about her Arthur, her Arth. She was madly in love. \n\nHe sat straighter when he processed what I said. \n\n\"Yes, yes. She loved me. I know that. With her whole heart. Imagine how I felt when she left. Devastated\" \n\nImagine how she felt when you ripped her heart out and crushed it. \n\nI searched for more words. Not what I wanted to say, what I needed to say. \n\n\" Why don't you write about that? Your love. Your relationship.\" Behind my facade my teeth were clenched. \n\n\"Couldn't. Who would read that?\" He sank a little, and stared down into his drink. \"No one's going to read anything I'll write now.\" \n\nI was glad about that. Happy that his heart was being rejected by the people who took his books off their shelves, burned them, and slandered his name. \n\nA few more words. \"I... I'd read it, Mr. Whitely.\" \n\nHe straightened up again and set down his drink. His stupor seemed to fade. \n\n\"Really? You'd read it?\" He blinked and sat back. \"I mean, you'd want to read it? My work?\" \n\n\"Sure.\" I said \"It could just be a short story.\" \n\n\"Yes, yes. A short story. That would work. Wouldn't take to long.\" \n\n\"Maybe even before I left?\" \n\nHe eyed me. Stroked his chin and thought. \"Yes. I could finish it. It would be short.\" He stopped and looked at the ground. \"It will be sad. A painful story, but true.\" \n\n\"That's fine. There are so many happy stories, now.\" \n\n\"Huh, yes. There's always room for a sad story. Yes.\" \n\n\"So you'll write it?\" \n\n\"Yes, I'll write it. A draft, you know. I don't think I could do more. But I could give it to you before you left.\" He got up. \"That is, if you're willing to stay for an hour or so.\" He looked at me, his eyes wide. Pleading. \n\n\"Yes... I have the time.\" \n\nHe exhaled and smiled slightly. Then he walked over to his desk and sat down. As I listened to the mechanical clicks and clacks as he prepared his typewriter, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath. Now to wait. Now to get it on paper. Now to hurt him like he hurt Melanie. \n\n\"One more thing.\" \n\nI opened my eyes and looked at him. \n\n\"I'm afraid, well. Before I write this, I must warn you. I am not a good person.\"\n\nI leveled my eyes with his and forced a slight smile. My hand wandered to feel the cold iron tucked into the back of my waistband.\n\n\"Don't worry, Mr. Whitely. No one is.\" ", "\"Before I write this, I must warn you. I am not a good person.\"\n\nI looked down at my handwriting as yet another bombshell cracked over my bunker. It was calm and smooth, which belied my own fear at what was sure to come. \n\nI knew this was coming, and I knew the planet wasn't a huge fan of mine. But I had to make sure they knew my side of the story. \n\n\"I know that this isn't easy to hear. But what I did was for the betterment of the world.\" \n\nThey had to know this was my mission. This is what I was sent here for. My divine or rather, \"undivine\"purpose. Before that night in jail, I was so lost. Merely drifting aimlessly. I continued writing. \n\n\"He came all at once. He was tall and strangely good looking, yet his coat was that of a well traveled man. He introduced himself and put out a rather Crimson looking hand.\"\n\n\"He promised me that I would never be forgotten if I sold him my soul and did as I was told, and as I write this, I fear he may be right. \"\n\n\"Do I regret anything? No. Except that I could not save her.\" \n\nI stopped and looked up at my love. Her eyes were elegantly simple, yet impossibly deep. Her voice was like a soft wind chime on a hot day. \n\n\"Adolf, sweetheart, are you ready?\" \n\"Yes, Eva, my love.\" \n\nAnd with that, we both took our capsules of cyanide. I didn't succeed in my mission. But, he was right about one thing. I wouldn't be forgotten. \n" ]	[ 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 6, 7, 15 ]	[ "1462949896", "1462957965", "1462964115", "1462964627", "1462972169", "1462975542", "1462976097", "1462967772", "1462949467", "1462941697", "1462936695" ]
	[WP] You are the main character in a videogame. The person controlling you is an easily distracted person and doesn't pause the game.	46	[ "It has been 3 days since I have last moved. 3 days I have watched the sun set and rise. 3 days I have seen carts drawn by horses pass to and fro before me. 3 days since I've eaten anything. 3 days since I've slept. 3 days I have stood here and been buffeted by the elements. 3. Days. I've been waiting so long that it has nearly become second nature at this point.\n\nMost would have gone mad. Most would have cried or wailed or made some kind of racket in order to voice their discomfort, but I, I could not even blink on command. Believe me I've tried. I say that \"I\" have not moved and I truly mean that for \"I\" have no control over what movements my body may or may not make. To be sure \"I\" have not moved a muscle voluntarily since my journey began ohh so long ago.\n\nI don't even know what \"I\" am. I just suddenly \"Was\". I have no memory you see. Nothing from before \"This\". I awoke is closer to the point at hand. I am you see what I am. The people of this world greet me as one of them. Amicably for the most part I've spoken with them, interacted with them, learned from them, been loved by them, hated by them, amusing to them...but \"I\" was not in control in any of those situations. Not one time.\n\nI've seen the slaves led around by their collars and manacles speaking of how they lack freedom. I'd laugh if I were able, they can speak, they can move, they can walk, run, swim, laugh, cry, love. I am unable to do these things not because I don't want to no. But because I am a true slave. I am nothing without \"He that moves\". I am mute without \"He that speaks\". I am insignificant to \"He that controls\" and until he returns I shall remain. Like a good slave because I don't have a choice...I never had a choice.", "There was a time when my limbs had movement, a time when life passed through my digital veins.\n\nI waited,\n\nwaited for another movement, if not just the tap of a foot. Watching the scenery, another lifeless soul passing by.\n\nIt's been 12 hours since Matt left, 12 hours since I've moved.", "\"...Okay, talk to you later. Yeah, bye. What was I doing? Okay! Back to Legends of... Wait, I don't remember going into a bar.\"\n\n(Don't move. Don't move a fucking muscle. I can still pull this off.)\n\n\"Where was I... Must have just slipped my mind. Oh, well, back to business!\"\n\n(Phew.)\n\n\"Wait a minute, I definitely wasn't in this town before.\"\n\n(Fuuuuuuck.)\n\n\"How did... Did Jimmy play my game while I was on the phone? HEY! JIMMY!\"\n\n\"It's a new feature!\"\n\n\"--What?\"\n\n\"Uh-- When left inactive for long periods of time, your characters will now go about their business using-- um-- state-of-the-art AI, allowing you to play even when you're not playing!\"\n\n\"Uh... That's cool... But how is my character telling me this?\"\n\n\"...Immersion!\"\n\n\"...Okay, that's-- What? WHAT? NO, JIMMY, I THOUGHT YOU-- WHAT? HOLD ON, I'M COMING...\"\n\n(Way too close. All I wanted was a damn beer because the idiot left me in the sun all afternoon.)", "I was staring into the eyes of the love of my life. Finally, we met after years of combat and fighting bosses after bosses. She laughed and said,\"Yeah I can relate. I work in marketing\"\n\nI mean she was perfect. I wanted to look at the moonlight and just put my forehead against hers, and smile. Rub my nose on hers, and hug her like there's no tomorrow. I wanted the Eifel tower to make our love enlighten itself through its beauty. Just when I was about to caress her cheek and kiss her. I froze. Or crashed. Or something. I couldn't move. \n\nHey Gary i said, breaking the fourth wall. \n\nYeah Luke \n\nWTF man\n\nSorry man, hooking up on Tinder\n\n Swipes Right", "It's a strange thing, Sancho, but at moments a certain lethargy overtakes me. This is no mere tiredness, no desire to rest my limbs. I remain standing, my weapon clutched in my hand, to all appearances perfectly alert and eager to do battle. But my will, Sancho, my will deserts me entirely. I may be out in the open, my enemies advancing on me, and yet I feel no fear. They strike at me, the cowards, and I accept their blows. Oh, there is pain, Sancho. I bleed, I cry out, I recoil from their blows. But never for a moment do I desire to fight back! There are occasions when the mood lifts from me in time, and I spring into action and dispatch these vagabonds. But more often they surround me and deal me blow after blow until it is far too late. \n\nAnd what happens next? Why, I die, of course! What else would you expect?\n\nYou mock me, Sancho, as you have mocked me before. I have told you of this before, of dying and reawakening moments before going into battle, and you have dismissed these as dreams, or fearful imaginings. But these moments of divine lethargy prove otherwise. At first, I regarded my deaths as failures, and grew frustrated at having to repeat the same battles. But now I have been blessed with divine understanding. My enemies are nothing before me, Sancho! Let them strike! Let them paint their wounds on my yielding flesh! I shall rise again, and again, and again, for they are but ghosts to me. There is no world permitted to exist in which they defeat me, and thus I have already conquered them. \n\nThis is no madness, Sancho, no wasting disease. This an unmerited victory granted to me from above. This is mercy given understanding. This is Grace. " ]	[ 2, 3, 4, 8, 18 ]	[ "1462974835", "1462989399", "1462984384", "1462954298", "1462965363" ]
	[WP] Humanity cheers as the first Terran interstellar vessel reaches the beginning of the Oort Cloud. The pioneers on the vessel are far from jubilant, as sensors begin to relay a terrifying discovery: The Oort cloud is a barrier, and it marks the boundary of the "Sol System Quarantine Zone".	19	[ "Part One??:\n\nNear the New Seattle terradome, Cydonia, Mars\n\nValor-629 walked to the airlock of the small, discreet transport ship. A shadow was cast over the Martian land, bringing the best cover one could have without light-reflection cloaks. They won't need it. Valor was a Knight of Cydonia, the most prestigious and yet secretive military force known to man, but civillians already knew who they were. They were angels of protection to them. Normally the KOC soldiers were calm as hell, but Valor was getting giddy.\nThey were going to exit the Sol system.\n\nA hiss accompanied the sight of the airlock slowly revealing the interior of the Type-42 transport. Inside was ten seats, each on opposite sides of the ship. Above the aforementioned seats were Robin Hood rifles, designed by the University of Newton on Luna. They could hit a target an entire block away, and nobody would know. The shadow's source was now visible. A colossal structure, the size of New Seattle, was hovering above the futuristic, neon skyscrapers of the city.\nWritten in bold, white letters on the altered tungsten was it's name. Argo. ", "Divine Reach had been underway for about a year. The world watched as it's cumulative technological prowess made its way to the farthest reaches of the solar system. Tomorrow would be a national holiday as Divine Reach crossed into the Oort Cloud, and humanity would proudly claim it's first interstellar trip into the void.\n\nThe world watched and counted down. 10 billion citizens all in front of holo screens watching the counter at the top left of the screen. Divine reach was was less than 1000km from officially crossing over into the cloud. Then, it disappeared. The world collectively held its breath, the following minutes would be comprised of confusion, shock, and panic.\n\nTwenty five minutes lapsed still no sign of the Divine Reach. All of the holo screens went dark and flickered back on. The following message displayed in 90 languages across the world.\n\n\"Congratulations on your achievement of Interstellar technology, it is with the greatest regret we inform you that the Divine Reach has been commandeered and the crew purged. You reside in the Sol Containment System and we discourage any further ventures outside of it boundaries. If you do, be warned, repeat violations will be met with force.\"\n\nThe world mourned the loss of the ship and its crew, but would not for long. Military enlistments shot up 67% across the globe. Nations pooled their funds into research and development. The world leaders met in a dark confetence room in Geneva 122 days after Divine Reach disappeared. \"Gentleman\" said a tall muscled figure at the head of the table. \"As of right now, we are at war.\"", "The void. That is what we have looked up at night for millennium, wondering who was up there, if anyone at all.\n\nWe should have looked at ourselves.\n\n\nDECEMBER 31, 2099\n\nThe UNJSA Vernes flew towards the Oort Cloud, a large white mass amid the black and grey. Captain Eberhart stood at the bridge, viewing the comets and stars. But, something caught his eye. With a worried expression, he turned to the second in command and nodded. The second sent out two messages, one to the President, and one to another, one who lived much darker down below.\n\n\n----\n\nDr. Saab sighed as she walked to the deck. \n\n\"Captain, I've-\" She caught his worried expression, and followed his eyes to where they lay.\n\nA ship, impossibly sharp, floated in front of them. It was massive, looking able to hold thousands of people. Or weapons, she noted.\n\n\"Do we have any idea what it is?\"\n\n\"None.\" The captain said gravely, sighing. A blue light lit up on the dashboard, and Comms Officer Cathedral pressed a button, bringing an insectoid face onto screen.\n\n\"So the parasites have finally found their way to space, have they?\"\n stepped up, her blue jumpsuit reflecting the light from the bridge. \n\n\"My name is Dr. Akilah Saab. I am this ship's chief medical officer. What do you mean by parasites?\"\n\n\"Interesting. It appears you have still retained your immunity to it. Very well.\" It did what could only be likened to clearing it's throat. \"Many eons ago, an asteroid crashed to your planet of Sol-03. It wiped out the native inhabitants of large reptilian creatures. But, it also contained a parasite.\" A picture of a human brain appeared on screen.\n\n\"That's the human brain!\"\n\n\"You believe so. But the parasite, Nerousis, has hooked into your body, and has been there when you were first concived.\"\n\n\"How are we not affected?\"\n\n\"The human body has evolved a defense mechanism, one that is connected to your digestive system. With it, you fight off it's influence, and you have free will.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"The appendix.\"\n\n\"A-and if it is gone?\"\n\n\"Nerousis has full control.\"\n\nA memory came to her, of the captain's medical report. He had his appendix removed at eight. His appendix...\n\nThe click of a safety turned off rang through her ears, and she fearfully turned around. Captain Eberhart gave a toothy grin, and shrugged. \n\n\"It doesn't matter any more. We have control of this planet. We will be free.\"\n\nThe last thing Dr. Saab saw was the flash of a gun, as it slammed into her stomach and through her appendix, obliterating it.\n\n----\n\n\nOn Earth, the same happened to billions of others, an unwitting army of mindless drones serving their queen. They took to ships, to military and civilian vessels alike.\n\nAnd they spread across the galaxy.\n\nOnly a few humans remain, staying on Earth. It's empty, even the animals gone in the mass exodus of brains. We are the ones who remain, the ones who will fight, and breed, and bring back humanity's golden age.\n\nAnd we will extinguish every last one of those Nerousis before they consume us again. ", "*PART ONE\n\n\"You are go for accel, Team Odysseus.\"\n\n\"Copy that,\" I replied, annoyed at the cheeriness in his voice. That brainless senator from the African Caucus. He'd been championing this whole mission as a publicity stunt, and insisted on giving us 'the important commands'. It wasn't like he knew what any of it really meant. As communications expert for the Extra-Solar Exploration Team, I got the unpleasant duty of trying to not sound annoyed at directions given forty minutes too late.\n\nWe'd begun the burn on schedule forty minutes earlier, and it wasn't like we were starting from a standstill. Who flies way the hell out there and stops* while some politico waits for the press to be in place so they can say 'go ahead and do what we've spent forty billion creds on'. Like we were going to turn around and stop at this point.\n\n\"Hey Cap!\" I yelled at Captain Silveira. \"Senator Batoni says we are go for accel!\"\n\n\"Gee ain't that nice! Did you tell him to roll a fat one for you?\" \n\n\"Oh sure. Cause he'd love that. Jerkoff'd probably try to fire me all the way out here!\"\n\nSergeant Kaklamanis butted in. \"I can see him now. Madam da Silva, you is much fired! Report back Huston now so we can revoke you access.\" His accent was pretty spot on. Sergeant K handled navigation and plotting, while Cap does most of the piloting. Everyone aboard--all six of us--could fly the bird, officially Terra Spacecraft zero zero niner five, but we all called her the Trojan Horse. Because we're Team Odysseus. Clever no?\n\nWe all chuckled at that, but sobered up as Sergeant K noted, \"Coming up on Oort transition in ten seconds, people!\"\n\n\"Yay?\" I shot back. \"Billions of dollars in funding, and humanity goes nuts. Meanwhile I can't get a decent glass of wine out here.\"\n\n\"Shut it, Silva. You're still just salty cause they found that bottle of '22 red that you tried to smuggle on.\"\n\n\"It's a good vintage! And they just poured it out!\"\n\n\"Get over it. You friggin Italians and your wines. Could you be any more stereotypical?\"\n\n\"Says the Greek guy that convinced them that gyros in space was a good idea? Don't think so, K.\"\n\nCap shut us both up. \"If you two don't can it, I'm assigning you to the same sleep pod.\"\n\n\"What? And put up with her getting all handsy with me?\" K complained.\n\n\"You wish.\" I wasn't about to let him have the last word.\n\n\"Not even a little bit, remember?\"\n\n\"You'd go straight for this.\" I gestured at my chest.\n\nCap turned as much as he could from the pilot position. \"Would you to cut it out? It's like having two twelve year old kids along. There's a reason I like being in space for the long hauls, and it has to do with the fact that my wife gets pregnant if I look at her with even a hope of getting frisky. I don't need to babysit you freaks too.\"\n\n\"Aw shucks, Cap, we love you too. I'll make sure to tell Tiago and Alexandro how much you love them.\" I couldn't resist the jab, but the truth was we all loved Cap and his absurdly large brood. Old school Catholic that boy, and living proof that the so-called 'rhythm method' is a crap way of avoiding pregnancy. \"Hey Wrenches, how'd your date with Fatima go?\"\n\nWrenches was our mechanical engineer. The guy that kept the bird flying when things inevitably went wrong. He was beyond simple genius, and had already saved our lives numerous times. He flushed deeply. It was an open secret that he had a thing for Cap's oldest daughter, Fatima. It was mutual too, and although Cap didn't mind, it still worried the shy engineer.\n\nCap shot me a dirty look, as he didn't like me harassing Wrenches, but I ignored it. \"Holy Shii----!\" We all looked in wonder as we entered the Oort cloud. After a moment I stammered, \"Cap, this doesn't look right, does it?\"\n\nHe took a few to respond, then cleared his throat. \"Ah, no. It's supposed to be a lot of icy comets and asteroids all jumbled up. Not this....what would you call that?\"\n\n\"Mist, sir.\" K's voice was a bit subdued. Atypically so. \n\nI disagreed. \"It's more like a really fine layer of dust.\" \n\nK shot me an ugly look. I stuck my tongue out at him. Mature, that's me. Cap gave up on us then, I think. Then it started. The broadcast. My earpiece squeaked hideously. \n\n\"What the he...\" I sat up more, and got to fiddling with my board. Then it stopped for a moment, then broadcast in plain English (why English?! Ameri-centric, that's what that is!), a voice stopped me cold. I gave it a quick listen, recording it immediately, then signaled to Cap.\n\n\"You need to hear this, sir!\" He shrugged. \"Play it for everyone.\"\n\n\"Ah...okay.\" I think he should have listened to it first, but he probably thought I was listening to the stupid Senator again. Ugh.\n\nI played it. \"Attention earth vessel. Please cut your acceleration and stand by for further instructions. Repeat, cut your acceleration and stand by. This is by order of the Galactic Infectious Disease Council. Your system is under quarantine. Do not attempt to leave. You have fifteen seconds to comply.\"\n\nCap didn't hesitate. He cut the accel instantly and we all felt the lurch as the illusion of gravity suddenly went away. I hate that sensation at times, but I'm pretty the real sinking feeling was that we, for whatever reason, had just tumbled into some sort of mess.\n\nK was the first to speak. \"Uh, Cap? What's the Galactic Infectious Disease Council?\"\n\n\"Damned if I know, K. Damned all to hell if I know.\"\n\nI wanted to say something useful. Instead I asked, \"Now what?\"\n\n\"Is there more to the message?\"\n\n\"Nada. O bicho nao esta falando.\"\n\n\"Cut the fakuguese, Silva. It's cute sometimes, but not right now.\"\n\n\"Sorry Cap. They aren't talking. Whatever they are.\"\n\nThen suddenly they were. I put it on speaker. \"Earth Vessel, thank you for standing by. By order of the Galactic Infectious Disease Council, your system has been quarantined for the containment of the following viruses: Conficker, Storm Worm, Simile, Mixing Glass, Apocalpyse 12.0, and numerous others.\"\n\nI couldn't help it. I laughed. Cap and K looked at me like I was insanse, but Wrenches was laughing with me.\n\n\"What's so funny Silva?\"\n\n\"You don't know those do you sir?\"\n\n\"Ah, can't say I have. Strange names.\"\n\n\"That's because they aren't organic viruses. They're computer viruses. Old ones too. Mixing Glass is the newest, and it's at least twelve years old.\"\n\n\"So, what? We've been quarantined because of a bunch of old computer problems?\"\n\n\"I guess.\" I didn't know any more than he did, but hey, if it made him feel better. \n\nThe broadcast picked up again. \"Please return to your system. A standard review of existing quarantines is scheduled at the next meeting of the GIDC in seven of your centuries. We will review the situation at that time. Any attempt to leave your system prior to that decision will result in containment protocols being enforced. Appeals may be sent via the usual methods.\"\n\n\"The usual methods? What in the name of the Mae Sagrada does that mean?\" Cap was breaking out old Catholic curses. Not a good sign.\n\nWrenches offered a suggestion. \"Maybe we can ask?\"\n\nI checked the frequency of the signal that had the messages. We could put that out. 14.5 gigahertz. \"Yeah Cap, we can send a message on that frequency. Bit strange, but I can match it. Gimme a mome.\"\n\nHe waited while I adjusted the broadcast settings. This was gonna take more power than I'd like, but since we'd planned to stay awake only for the transition out of the Cloud, then to deep sleep for the long haul out to Beta Centauri, it wasn't like we didn't have plenty. \"Ready, Cap.\"\n\nHe cleared his throat. \"Please accept our apologies. We are unaware of the standard protocol. Can you please clarify?\"\n\nWe waited. Hanging there in silence. After a few minutes, nothing happened. Wrenches finally asked. \"How long do we wait, Sir?\"\n\nCap shook his head. \"Hell I don't know. This isn't even a possibility that we'd considered. I guess we wait.\"" ]	[ 1, 3, 5, 8 ]	[ "1462997414", "1462994381", "1462998206", "1462974415" ]
[removed]	[WP] Pick a random page of writing from your note book. What do you have?	1	[ "..can I travel back to the world that I created when I began my writing journey? A world where a land was marked by strife and of an old war.\n\nA war between elder wizards and mad kings, wishing to to rule with ternary and terror \n\n Soon the many wizards merged into one malevolent entity name Abbod. \n\nBut was was Abbod before the creeping grey devil that I had paired on the page back then? \n\nThe real question is to ask why would a man choose an endless life? \n\nThe idea came to me. He believes that he will meet his brothers reincarnation...", "Hi there, \n\nThis post has been removed as it violates the following rules: \n\n\nPreviously written content. \n\n\n\nPlease refer to the sidebar before posting. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to message the /r/WritingPrompts moderators.\n\n---\n\n[Link to the removed post](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/4iw6c8/wp_pick_a_random_page_of_writing_from_your_note/)" ]	[ 1, 1 ]	[ "1462989269", "1462990340" ]
	[WP] The gritty realistic R-rated movie adaption of your favourite show as a kid.	173	[ "Pure extacy. That's what he felt when that needle plunged home and set his whole body alight with with it's soft, warm fire. The feeling can't be described to those who hadn't already felt it, but it was as familiar as it was somehow new every time he shot up. But that wasn't the only reason he did it. No, he did it to feel brave. No more fear the minute it hit his bloodstream. The demons, the ghosts and all the other bad stuff just melted away and he felt like he could take on the world. It made him a warrior, a king. A God. When his old, dark, frightful world gave way to this new one there was nothing that could stop him.\n\nHis thoughts never strayed back to the darkness when he felt like this. Far from his mind were the doubts. Am I dependant? Is it hurting me? Is it hurting my friends? Those thoughts only came when he went without, when he tried to quit. Leaving them behind was something he always looked forward to. Besides, he wasn't alone. Every fiend needs a friend, after all. Nobody can live that life alone. While his gang ran scared through the haunted halls of an old factory or an abandoned sawmill, perfect reminders of the collapse of industry, he and his friend floated above it all. Their hands stayed clean the dirtier they got them. Though sometimes, just sometimes, somethimg followed him into the new world. Something he could never escape. Something that terrified him all the more in his Godhood.....\n\n-Extract from \"Scooby Doo: On Drugs And Hauntings.\"", "Postman Pat slammed shut the boot of his truck. This wasn’t how it was meant to happen. Why did she have to act like such a bitch? \n\nHe started driving. What was the worst that could happen? He wasn’t going to get caught. He didn’t like doing it but he knew what he had to do. He glanced at the rear view mirror; there were droplets of blood splattered sporadically around his face. He felt disgusted at himself. He reached down carefully, extracted a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and dabbed at the blood.\n\nIt was just such an… irresistible urge to hit and hit and hit until her face was pulp. Fuck! \n\nThis was the third time. It had to stop. It had to. \n\nPat pulled over to an old bridge. It was falling apart. Everything was. He bent over, slowly – his back had been giving him trouble; digging a grave for the first victim hadn’t worked. ‘The’ first. He couldn’t even call it his. It was fucking pathetic. She’d had a family – they were in the news for weeks. Why couldn’t they just… let go. They were all fucking girls too. It was fucked up. Was it some kind of sexual fantasy? God, this was so wrong. He was a goddamn postman, but the urges overcoming him… he was becoming a serial killer – a force of nature. He couldn’t help it.\n", "One thing and one thing only was on Tommy’s mind at that moment. “Where the fuck is that asshole Chuckie?” He knew it was him that stole his favorite toy. It wasn’t any toy but a Reptar action figure with digital sound fx buttons on the torso. Tommy knew Chuckie wanted it, “that red headed bastard.” \n\nHe rounded the corner of the couch. Phil and Lil saw Tommy coming and stopped their conversation. They made their way to him, as if they could read his mind, they knew what he was going to do next, they didn’t like it. \n\n“Phil. Lil, where is he?” Tommy gritted through his teeth. He just knew these traitors were in on it with Chuckie. \n\n“Now we don’t want any trouble here,” Phil stepped forward slowly, raising his small hands in front of himself. \n\n“Troubles all you and your sisters’ gonna get, now where the fuck is he,” Tommy threatened. \n\n“We go way back T, you don’t know the circumstance, but if you come any closer..” Phil tried to reason. He knew Lil had his back but at the same time he had to protect Tommy from her, she hadn’t killed today and his friend wouldn’t be the head that makes her quota.\n\n“Phil, don’t be pussy, let him try something.” Lil smiled, clenching her lul fists. \n\n“Let him through,” said a nasally voice from the foyer. Chucky walked into the den and to Tommy’s horror he was empty handed. \n\n“Where is it four-eyes?” asked Tommy with rage beginning to boiling over. His cool demeanor would only last so long. \n\n“No need to be nasty here, I had to make the deal.” Chuckie walked towards Tommy and patted Phil on the shoulder, a silent gesture for him to stand down, \n\n“Reptar was never on the table for this. It was supposed to be the Lipshitz book or nothing at all.” Tommy felt helpless now, the combination of that and anger made him a ticking time bomb. \n\n“You can hit me if you want…” but Chucky didn’t finish the sentence before the doughy pale hand of Tommy cut across his head. \n\nChuckie’s eyes watered. Tommy breathed heavily and Phil and Lil jumped to Chuckie’s aid. “No, wait,” his hands reached out. “Its cool, we don’t solve things like that since this became Angelica’s territory. She prefers her punishments for hitting a collecter like me to be, colder.” He smiled, and terror creeped slowly across Tommy’s face. \n\n“No Chuckie, its his frist time, T’s cool, he will let this go,” Phil said, as Lil started smiling larger than ever.\n\n“But I wont. Make the call Lil, your quota might be made yet today.” Chuckie wiped his nose and spit on the ground. Lil spoke into phone. You could barely hear her say something along the lines of, “another rug rat coming your way…”\n", "The last day of the school year, what could possibly go wrong? Arnold thought back on all the strange adventurous him and his class had experienced during their field trips. It was a half day and there was nothing else to learn until after the summer was over; so they couldn't possibly have another field trip today-----could they?\n\"Good morning class!\" Ms. Frizzle said enthusiastically just like she did every day.\nGood morning Ms. Frizzle.\" everybody said in unison. After a whole school year with Ms. Frizzle as a teacher Arnold had picked up on the fact that her attire always reflected upon what type of lesson they would be learning for the day all the way down to her shoes and earrings. He had hoped that her dress would have sunglasses, volleyballs, beach balls, surf boards, and crabs on it with a comic sun wearing sunglasses on either of her earlobes to represent summer. He was surprised and a little horrified to see that instead she wore a red dress with cooked ham, chicken legs, roast beef, hot dogs, and hamburgers on her dress instead with bacon for earrings. Her shoes were spotted white and black with a red teardrop accessorizing the front. Arnold hoped the teardrop was to represent ketchup, maybe there was a school barbecue today.\nArnold glanced around the room at the rest of his classmates to find that they too seemed wary and confused about their teacher's choice of attire for today.\n\"I have an extra special day planned for us today,\" Ms. Frizzle said with a wink and a brief glow from her bacon earrings. \"To the bus!\" She exclaimed.\n\nMoments later everybody was buckled into the school bus and driving away from the school.\n\"Where do you think we're going?\" Tim asked.\n\"I don't know, but I don't like the look of what Ms. Frizzle is wearing.\" replied Phoebe.\n\"I do!\" shouted Ralpie, \"She's wearing food which means food is involved. I just hope we're not going to go through the stomach again. I'd rather be digesting the food rather than watching it be digested you know?\"\n\"What do you make of her shoes though?\" asked Keesha.\n\"According to me research, they pattern on her shoes looks just like the spots on a cow.\" Dorthy Ann explained pointing to a picture of a cow in a book she pulled from her book bag. \n\"I guess you could say they really get you Moo-ving, get it?\" Carlos chuckled.\n\"Carlos,\" everybody said together. At some point you would've thought he'd stop making such cheesy puns. \nThe buildings and trees became more sparse as they drove farther out of town and into the country. After what seemed like hours a large building started to grow in the distance surrounded by white picket fences you usually see on a farm. When they got closer they passed a sign that said Meat Co.\n\"At my old school we visited a meat making place to learn about how they made hot dogs and hamburgers once.\" Her fellow classmates stared at Phoebe in astonishment.\n\"You mean, this is just a regular old field trip?\" Arnold said in relief. Phoebe shrugged.\n\"Maybe, but why did her earrings glow if we were going on a normal field trip?\" Everybody sat eerily quiet after that until they pulled up to the front of the warehouse. Ms. Frizzle pulled the bus into park and opened the doors.\n\"Where are we Ms. Frizzle, what are we learning today?\" Tim asked while him and his classmates filed outside the bus.\nMs. Frizzle gave a sly grin and whispered \"Bus, do your stuff.\" and pressed three buttons on the dashboard at the same time. The bus stretched, contorted, and twisted itself over and over again. When it finally stopped a mechanical hand was poking out of the roof holding a vacuum. The giant vacuum cleaner hovered over the children sucking them up. Pointing itself towards the sky the vacuum spat the children back out as a tornado that flew over the picket fence and into the paddock where hundreds of chickens, cows, and pigs stood.\nAmong them were an extra three chicken, three pigs, and two cows that strangely resembled Ms. Frizzle's elementary school class.\nSuddenly a loud alarm sounded, humans came out of the warehouse and began ushering the animals (and children) towards three separate openings, one for each type of animal.\n\"Is is just me or are we about to become the meat we eat?\"\n\"I knew I should have stayed home today.\"\n\"At my old school we never turned into livestock to be killed for meat.\"\n\"What are we gonna do, what are we gonna do, what are we going to do?\"\n\"According to my research there is a whole process with different stages of---- slaughtering----requiring several different machines and conveyor belts.\"\n\"Oh bad, oh bad, oh bad bad bad.\"\n\"Ms. Frizzle will stop us from being killed along with all the animals, she always swoops in just in time-------right?\" Tim asked. Carlos's face was paler than his pink pig skin horrified beyond words. Soon the students were separated from each other by animal and disappeared with the rest of their respective herds inside the slaughterhouse. Ms. Frizzle and Liz watched them disappear from a pair of binoculars safely inside the magic school bus. Once out of sight to put the binoculars away, turned to Liz and said, \"Well, time to head back to school. Wouldn't want their parents missing their children now would we?\" Turning the engine over a hidden button behind the rear view mirror the inside of the bus morphed into a robotics lab that started to produce seven perfect clones of her class from the DNA left behind from their many field trips throughout the year. As the machinery hummed inside the bus and the buildings became more dense the closer they drove into town Ms. Frizzle hummed to herself a tune eerily sounding like Ol' MacDonald had a farm.", "It happened four years ago today. My life inside those four years has mostly been faded by oil, but the memory of the event is as sharp as it was when it first sliced into me. I’ve mostly kicked the oil habit, with only the odd lapse here and there. I don’t think I drank it to numb the pain. It was more a vehicle for easing the responsibility I felt to keep my emotions in check. I know that doesn’t really make sense, but I won’t apologise for being the victim of the world’s senseless thievery of life. Four years ago I lost a friend. Four years ago the pain was just as strong, only now it is competing with fewer voices. \n\nI don’t know if I blame Percy for what happened. For a while I know that I, and most others did. I think even the ones who weren’t as cut up about it as the rest of us only pretended not to. No one has seen Percy in over three years. Unsurprising, given that his closest friends couldn’t look him in the eye. Somewhere amidst the chaos, I have sympathy for him, but I don’t think that we could ever restart our friendship. Not now. \n\n\n\n...\n\n\n\nThe day began just like any other. The Controller gave us our jobs and we got on with them, occasionally bickering with one another. Thomas and I were on freight duty. I remember the red containers being loaded onto his trailers, the white ‘Shipstar’ logo printed on the sides rippled and faded. I still don’t know what was in those containers. \nThomas was the first to go. We were running the same route, and I’d had an engine problem the day before which needed to be checked out. When Thomas was on the way back, I began my journey. We did this a lot, and we were both too proud to admit that the highlights of every work day were the moments that we passed each other and stopped for a quick chat. Thomas and I were always best friends, ever since the beginning. \n\nThat day was different. I remember hearing Thomas shouting as I came to a corner. \n\n“Percy! Percy come and help me out here!” \n\nWhen I rounded the bend I saw the small, blue engine perched precariously on the edge of a steep incline flanking the track. One of his trailers had partially derailed. I slowed to a halt next to him.\n\n“Thomas! Are you alright?!” \n\n“Percy! A small landslide knocked one of my trailers off the track. Can you go and get help?” \n\n“Right away, Thomas. I’ll go and get Harvey. He’ll get you out of this.” \n\nAt that moment, I heard a rumbling issue from the other side of the track. I became aware of several rocks tumbling down the slope to my left. The rail I was on was far enough from the edge that there was no way of me being pushed down it, but I instinctively moved out of the way, leaving Thomas exposed. My frantic pushing seemed to rattle the slope even more, pushing more rocks loose and sending them on a collision course with him. \n \nI will never forget the moment that the rocks pummelled his trailers, pushing them over the edge of the incline. The fear on his face has haunted me every day since. As the weight of the containers tugged him towards the drop, his front end became caught on a rough bit of terrain. I could hear the sound of metal buckling under his pained screeching. Eventually, the trailers broke free, ripping Thomas into two pieces, coal spilling out from each end. He howled with agony, tears streaming down his grimacing face. \n\nI was still paralysed with shock when the second wave of rocks smashed into his face, ripping it to shreds. He was completely derailed at this point, and was still stuck. I watched in horror as his blue body was dented and broken, and the face of my best friend was slowly eroded into an unrecognisable mess. Eventually, a heavy rock set him free, and sent him tumbling down the incline to the bottom, where he crashed into the freight containers with a horrifying, percussive crunch. ", "I'd been searching for it for years: the last relics left from the Reign of Bao. I was finally at the entrance, ready as ever to turn the page on my journey. I press the talisman into the slot in the door and the gem flashes a bright prism of colors. I have to shield my eyes from the brightness, and as the giant stone gateway shudders to life, I hear the voice of my nemesis, Igor Nance.\n\n\"Thanks for doing all the hard work, Burt! Now then, if you'll kindly step aside.\"\n\nA gun. He's always got a gun, the lazy bastard. \"Igor, buddy. How'd you know I was here?\"\n\n\"I followed you, of course. You have knowledge, and I can take advantage of that.\" He chuckles. \"Now step away. I'm sure you'll understand why I can't let you be the first to enter the temple, right?\"\n\nHe waves me away with the pistol. Behind him, a small army of meatheads gather, all wearing SWAT gear and wielding automatic rifles. I give them all a cheeky smirk.\n\n\"Igor, you forget. I can go anywhere!\"\n\nAnd with that, I fire up my jetpack, launching myself into the temple in a blur of colored smoke. I hear gunshots, but it's too late.\n\nI'm in.\n\nI fly down the tunnels, screaming laughter as I dodge traps I know are there. I barely hear Igor's henchmen running into various spikes, pitfalls, and spiked logs. The fools.\n\nMy jetpack shudders and dies, leaving me a few yards from the exit. I move forward carefully, nearing the final resting place of all I have searched for. But the henchmen who survived are not far.\n\nOne gets hit with an axe that falls from the ceiling.\n\nAnother gets slammed into the wall by a rotating stone.\n\nThe few who remain look at me and raise their weapons, unsure of how to move forward.\n\nI stare them dead in the eyes. \"Take a look,\" I offer, tossing them the ancient tome that got me that far.\n\n\"It's in a book,\" I finish, the text landing on a trap that sets the hallway on fire. I dodge into the room as a door slams shut behind me without so much as a scratch.\n\nI did it. I take a look around at the intricately carved, multi-colored tapestries that line the walls. In the center of the room lies a sword. The mystic object I've been searching for.\n\nLiterally translated, The Reddening from the Reign of Bao. Loosely translated?\n\nThe Reading Rainbow.\n\n******************\n\nFor more like this, check out /r/Zchxz. Be warned, though, most of what I write is horror.", "EXT. MOUNTAIN VILLAGE - MORNING\n\nBIRDSEYE SHOT\nAn old man walking through the vast nature he lives in. Leaves and grass and stone. The breeze, the sky dotted with stars... moonlight through the foliage.\n\nCLOSER SHOT\nOn the old man's back is an infant boy, swaddled in blankets, sucking his thumb. The old man gets to a more open area, with less trees. The full moon shines down on the baby, who cannot help but look up at what he does not yet know. His eyes change.\n\nCUT TO BLACK\n\nTHE BOY IS NOW A GIANT FUCKING APE, ATTACKING THIS POOR OLD MAN. IT PICKS HIM UP LIKE A FEATHER, HOLDING HIM UP TO LOOK AT HIM LIKE A CHILD EXAMINES A BUG.\n\nCUT TO BLACK\nWith a toss, a hammerfist and a godlike roar, the ape reduces the man to a mere plaything, a ragdoll. He dies a horrible death at the hands of this colossal monkey.\n\nCUT TO BLACK\nFADE IN\nTOP-DOWN CLOSEUP ON CRYING BABY LYING ON THE GROUND IN THE EARLY MORNING, SLOWLY ZOOMING OUT TO SHOW HE IS A FEW YARDS AWAY FROM THE DECEASED OLD MAN, WHO IS FACE DOWN IN HIS OWN BLOOD.\n\n(V.O.) GRANDPA GOHAN\nI always knew you would be great, Goku.\n\nEXT. VILLAGE - YEARS LATER\nA young boy cuts down trees with his bare hands. He leaps and runs and does cool flips and parkour and shit.\n\n(V.O.) GRANDPA GOHAN\nI knew I wouldn't be around to see you become the man you are destined to be.\n\nINT. GOHAN'S COTTAGE\nThe young boy finds an absolutely gorgeous sphere with a star on it. It glows an alien yellow light.\n\n(V.O.) GRANDPA GOHAN\nFind out what brought you here, to me, to the world. You cannot stop searching, you cannot stop fighting, Goku. I know you will find your purpose.\n\nEXT. GOHAN'S COTTAGE\nA teenage girl creeps up around the house to an opening in the back, discovering young Goku blissfully asleep in a hammock.\n\n(V.O.) GRANDPA GOHAN\nI know you are not of this planet. I can see it in your eyes.\n\nINT. COTTAGE\n\nGoku falling out of the hammock, the intruder having startled him. He quickly gets to his feet and on guard to fight. The girl is not even remotely intimidated. She pats him on the head and offers a smile.\n\nGIRL\nHi...I'm Bulma.\n\nEXT. BATTLEFIELD\nAn enormous fleet of tanks and expendable men, adorned with Red Ribbons, and a logo that simply reads \"RR\"\n\n(V.O.) GRANDPA GOHAN\nDo not forget me, Goku. I have not forgotten you.\n\nREALLY FAST PACED MONTAGE OF SCENES like Goku punching people and Bulma taking a sexy shower and Yamcha and Bulma having sex. Goku training with a little bald kid. An old man with a turtleshell strapped to his back. Violence and sex and fighting and blood. Loud, pulsing music.\n\nThen it gets real quiet. Cut to black.\n\nFade in, rising shot of Goku.\n\n(V.O.) GRANDPA GOHAN\nYou must never forget...the ones that you love.\n\nGOKU GRABS HIS HUGE STAFF AND LAUNCHES HIMSELF AT THE ARMY, FUCKING EVERYTHING UP\n\nDOOMDOOM\nTHIS SUMMER\nDOOMDOOM\nDRAGONBALL\n\n\n\n ", "As the camera slowly faded to black, the audience could hear a soft whimpering in the background... Then a callous, but sensual voice erupted from the darkness and said, “Are you feeeeeling it nowww Mr. Krabs?\"", "A masked man awakes in the desert with no memory. The only thoughts that fill is large head, are those of the city. Disgusted with the recent crime spree he decides to take vigilante justice into his own big blue hands. \nComing this summer:\n The Tick: Big Blue Destiny. \n\nStaring: Patrick Warburton\nMusic by: Spoon\nRated – R : For graphic violence, offensive language and graphic Sex (Bat Manuel). \n", "\"Come here, Max,\" Emmy shouted. Max ran hurriedly down the hall and into the room where Emmy was waiting.\n\"Are you ready?\" Emmy asked.\n\n\"I don't know if I could wait another second!\" Max whispered, his voice quivering with excitement. \n\nAs Emmy held out the dragon scale, Max reached his tiny hand out to grasp it alongside her. I wonder what we'll see this time,* he thought, his mind bursting with possibilities. \n\n\"I wish, I wish, with all my heart,\" they began in unison, \"to fly with dragons in a land--\"\n\nJust as the children arrived at the last word, they felt a strange, sharp pain shooting up from the dragon scale. \n\n\"Emmy,\" Max said fearfully, his voice quivering for an entirely new reason, \"what's going on?\" He tried his hardest to loosen his grip on the scale, but his hand would not come free. \n\nThe scale grew hotter and hotter, but still the children could not remove their hands. All at once, it burst into a white ball of flames, propelling both children backwards and hurling Emmy into the wall behind her. \n\n\"Emmy!\" Max shouted as he raced to her side. \"Emmy, get up!\" Max grabbed his sister by her shoulders, his small hands barely able to grasp her lifeless body. He shook and shook, but his sister did not stir. As Max sobbed over his sister's lifeless body, he heard a deep rumbling from the opposite corner of the room. \n\nMax turned around to investigate the source of the noise, and at that moment his adrenaline-induced panic evolved into a crippling fear. \n\n\"Hello, Max,\" Ord said, his mouth curving into a villainous grin. \"I thought that since you've come to visit us so many times, we might just come and say hello as well.\"\n\n\"We?\" Max questioned, seeing only one dragon.\n\n\"Yes, we,\" Ord whispered. At the moment he finished his sentence, the dragon scale, now lying motionless on the ground, burst into flame once more as Cassie, Zak and Wheezie, and Quetzal spouted out of the fire. \n\n\"Why hello, Max!\" Cassie said. \n\n\"Yes, hello!\" Quetzal said, his voice much more frightening than usual. \n\nBefore Max could say anything in response to his unexpected guests, Ord lunged towards the wall where Emmy laid, shooting a small burst of flame towards the girl's motionless body.\n\n\"EMMY!\" Max shouted, but it was already too late. In one fast motion, the dragon gripped Emmy's waist with his razor-sharp teeth and ripped her legs clean off as a pool of blood formed around her severed torso. Ord tossed Emmy's legs one by one up into the air, spraying more flames onto the limbs before they landed in his open mouth. \n\nMax stared, mouth agape, at the remains of his sister, wondering why on earth these dragons he befriended would ever commit such an atrocity. His mind flashed to the fond memories he had of Ord, the countless hours he had spent with Zak and Wheezie, and the valuable lessons he'd learned from Quetzal, but before he could reminisce any further, he knew he needed to spring into action. \n\nMax leapt up from his spot in the corner where he had been cowering and quickly darted out the door and down the hallway, shouting for help. But just as Max reached the front door, he heard a loud crash as Quetzal thundered through the bedroom wall and into the hallway. \n\n\"Don't run, boy. You will only make it worse.\"", "I look up, there they stand 10 meters away. A row of women and children with them to do with what they wish. They beat them as they ask for questions as some of them fight over the hottest ones. I watch as they hold an old woman, ready to slay here in front of the crowd of people that has formed. I can't sit by and watch. I go to move but both of my friends hold me back. I tell them that I need to help, but they explain if I am found it will do more harm than good. I break there grips though and push through the crowd. I don't stop walking towards them until they see me. The man who was about to execute the old woman stops, stunned. I look at his face his burnt eye looking at me. He instantly drops the woman to the ground and yells. I instantly push a column of air at him pushing him into the water. My two new friends follow, one throwing a boomerang at one of them impaling him in the chest. The girl, who is quite good looking, shoots a spear of water out the sea, see forces it to freeze and stabs three solders through the chest. I watch as the blood drips onto the freshly fallen snow. The crowd runs away going as fast as they can. Sadly some aren't fast enough. The four remaining solider fired on the crowd, and a group of kids caught fire the heat burning there body nearly instantly, 2 more caught the surrounding blast, catching fire and burning, as they frantically try and put it out. I call my pet, oppa and he smashes the remaining four. Then the girl and I push the ship away with all our bending. We stopped them now but these people won't stop won't stop till they've killed the avatar. ", "Not sure if this is R rated per se, but certainly gritty and realistic. \n\n\nAfter Harry Potter's Parents died under mysterious circumstances, he was sent to live in an orphanage. Sadly the Dursley memorial home for Boys was one of the poorer in England, and Harry grew up Cynical, isolated, and always willing to put up a fight.\n\n\nOn the eve of his eleventh birthday he is approached by a man named Arthur Dumbledore, who claims that Harry is a wizard and that he will take him to attend school at the Hogwarts school of Magic. Harry is initially skeptical, until Dumbledore can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Magic is in fact real.\n\n\nWhile at Hogwarts Harry discovers that the Magical world is not only real but coming a part at the seams. The Pureblood Wizard aristocracy's hold is waning, and the half-bloods and mudane-born, magical races such as Goblins and centaurs, and the lesser clans such as the Creeveys, Weasleys and the LongBottoms are demanding more and more representation and power in the British Magical government.\n\n\nHarry's quick temper and stand offish nature does not earn him many friends, as he makes enemies of the powerful Malfoy family as well as the progressive Weasley Clan. However, after a fight with the youngest Weasley, Roland, in which a troll is accidentally drawn towards the castle the two drive it off with the help of a bookish Mudane born witch named Jane Granger. After this the three form a grudging respect, and eventually a distant friendship over the year.\n\n\nHowever beneath the surface problems there are even more issues going on at Hogwarts. Whispers of a powerful magical artifact being moved to Hogwarts for study, one that many people of various intent may try and get their hands on.", "An ad blared on the TV while a grimy faced woman sat behind a computer desk trying to figure out where the strange readings coming from her scanning equipment were coming from. She clicked around several different monitoring pages telling them to search for a specific energy pattern. There wasn't supposed to be anything else here but their team. That was the whole point of this expedition.\n\nThe ads were just displaying a more recent ad about the new revolutionary type of electricity, which she had seen hundreds of times through the last week alone, when the door to her office opened, a middle-aged man with a yellow hard-hat and mud across his face entering.\n\n\"How long are you going to be searching for that signal? You've been here for hours. You know they're not going to pay you for screwing with the sensors. It's not part of our job.\" He said, trying hard not to get any dirt within the office.\n\n\"A little longer, I've almost found out where this strange signal is coming from.\"\nShe said back, altering the parameters of the sensors once again. And just like that... She had found it. \n\n\"I've got it!\" She stood up suddenly, looking at the man with excitement. \"The signals are coming from the mountain range towards the south. Many of them-\" She trailed off, staring at the screen.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"They're several signatures towards the north, and they're getting closer.\" She looked out the window, seeing the mining equipment outside, all fully manned. A warning sound came from her computer and she looked back to see the screen displaying a large warning.\nMassive Energon readings detected. Evacuate immediately.\n\n\"Get everyone out of here now!\" She screamed at the man. \"Spike, we need everyone to get out of here now! Sound the emergency alarm!\"\n\n\"But why? Energon is the safest form of energy around.\" \n\n\"Not when used in these machines.\" She said back, \"Get them out NOW!\"\n\nBut is was already too late. A screaming sound overhead signaled the arrival of their doom. Spike watched in amazement as the jet that rapidly approached them seemed the change it's shape.. No, it DID change it's shape, and land heavily amidst the mining equipment, crushing two people who happened to be standing near it at the time.\n\nA loud, booming voice echoed across the field. \"This Energon is now under the control of the Decepticons. All humans are to be killed on sight!\"\n\nSpike had a moment of panic as he watched several people get mowed down under fire from the mostrosity of metal before several more burst into the area, crushing, throwing and toying with the people in the area. \"Spike!\" He heard his supervisor yell before he came to his senses enough to run. He ran for the only hope he thought of... The group of Energon readings towards the mountain in the south.", "It's been twenty years. His friends are dead, his neighbors are dead, his beloved pet dog, dead. \nHe came to this country with one goal: To escape his past. But he never thought he'd face a foe like this.\n\n\"I can't take it any more. There's nothing left for me here. I can't let them get away with this. But I've waited too long. I need HIS help...\"\n\nHe'll do whatever it takes to secure his revenge. He'll even go to Hell...\n\n\"I need your help.\"\n\n\"What?! Are you serious? You doomed me to this ... this ... \"Heck\"!\n\n\"Heck?\"\n\n\"Damnit ... What's the point anymore? I mean HELL!\"\n\n\"But Heffer, we both want the same thing, to destroy \"THEM\".\n\n\"You mean...?\"\n\n\"Yes Heffer. We need to take them out once and for all.\"\n\n\"But ... we can't fight City Hall! Are you mad?!\"\n\n\"Maybe not, but we can fight ... Conglom-O ... and yes, I am mad!\"\n\nThis summer see your favorite wallaby as you've never seen him before in...\n\nRocko's Modern Life: Outback Slaughterhouse\n\n\"Slaughter Day ... is a very dangerous day.\"", "Fade in on a young boy, crying in a clearing in the woods.\n\nAn owl lands on his shoulder\n\n\"Whooo are you?\" The owl asks\n\n\"C-C-C-Chris.\" The boy says, wiping the tears from his eyes. \n\n\"Why are you here?\" The owl asks\n\n\"I... I don't know. I don't even know where I am.\"\n\nFlash to a little boy's bedroom, light from a street lamp filters in the window around the closed curtain.\nA man stands facing the bed, a bottle in one hand and belt in the other\n\n\"No, Charles, no! Please, not little Chris!\" A woman pleads\n\n\"Get outta the way, Marissa!\" The man growls, his speech slurred.\n\"That little twat needs to grow up! Be a man! And I'm gonna teach him how!\"\n\nFlash back to the clearing\nThe boy is accompanied now by the owl and a rabbit\n\n\"And you have a garden?\" The boy is asking\n\n\"Why, yes! And my carrots are simply marvellous this year!\" The rabbit said. \n\n\"I've always wanted a garden!\" The boy says excitedly. Can I come visit your homes?\"\n\nThe owl and rabbit both nod and smile. \n\nFlash to the bedroom\n\nA woman can be heard whimpering, a young boy screaming in the background. The screams are punctuated by rhythmic slaps of leather on skin.\n\n\"NO SON OF MINE IS GONNA SPEND HIS DAY PLAYING WITH FUCKING DOLLS!\" An engaged man pulls back the belt again\n\nFlash to the forest, the boy is surrounded by animals.\n\n\"I wish I could live here.\" He says\n\"But my dad doesn't like it when I visit y'all.\" \n\nA bear walks up to him with a pot of honey.\n\n\"I've always found that a little honey makes bad situations not so bad. When you have a little something sweet to taste, the bitter is better.\"\n\nA tiger walks up to the boy as well and says \"Don't worry about what your dad thinks. We're all a little different here. I'm bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, fun-fun-fun-fun-fun, but the most wonderful thing about me is I'm the only one! Name's Tigger, tee I double-guh err! Tigger! ", "She's been up there, alone, for so long, ever since her fiance was shipped off to war to lose his life to a cause that wasn't his own. All she wanted was loyalty, love and pride, those three simple things where what drove her to madness.\n\nThe house itself was nothing special and from the outside looked like a quaint little getaway, with a blossoming garden and small gravel path leading to the cottage style archway. To anyone walking past it looked like somewhere one could hang his hat, but in the basement something inhuman was lurking. \n\nAfter months of grieving the woman decided she needed to move on, the despair she felt by being left by her fiance was one she never wanted again, feeling like she had to give what love she had left in to her to something the work began. \n\nIt all started out very innocent in trying to create a companion for someone who had lost so much, but the more experiments that failed, the more sinister her work started to become. \n\nIt was her last try, she couldn't deal with the disappointment anymore, with the last few stitches done and everything wired up she decided it was time to flick the switch, she began to pray, asking for god to give her a second chance to love, her hand grasped firmly on the level she pulled down hard, clicking in into place while saying the final amen.\n\nShe looked on, smiling, leaning over the stacks of equipment like a small girl glaring at puppies in a kennel, after the initial excitement passed she thought it had been another failure. But then the creature began to make a noises, like the start of a kitten purr, soft and delicate, but soon that changed to a sound like no other, a whining of pain on the highest level, It dawned on her what she had done. In a quest for happiness she'd created an abomination of both man and god, she began to despise what she'd made and hated what she's become. Now knowing she would never be able to love this thing and nothing could ever replace the love she lost, she started to cry.\n\nShe put a blanket over the beast which was still whelping and went upstairs into the kitchen. She didn't have it in her to kill the thing but she knew it wouldn't live much longer. On the table was a large carving knife, the light shinning off the blade, almost calling to her like a siren at sea, she walked over to it and grabbed it by the handle. She looked at herself on the mirror like knife and saw her tearful eyes, she was a shell of a woman and with one swift movement there was only minutes left to live. Blood began pooling on the floor, the crimson spill began seeping through the floorboards and landing on the creature below. \n\nThis slow dripping began to wake the monstrosity of man, a horrible thing that would never have a place in society and would be ridiculed for its creation, alone in the world, was a little CATDOG.\n\n", "The walls are dull and grey they seem to simmer sightly when illuminated by the bright florescent light overhead. There are brown oak chairs, a large table in the center of the room, water glasses half full. This would be a rather unremarkable conference room if it wasn't for the director of the FBI, CIA, and several other high ranking members of homeland security silently sitting before me. I can faintly hear the security and military personal scrambling through the hallways, we are at Defcon 2. They may seem calm or stern but I can see fear and worry in their eyes.\n\nMy partner clicks the computer to begin the slideshow. \n\n\"Ladys and Gentlemen at about 9:23 pm a week ago today a disease research facility in Washington state was attacked. Of the 15 researchers, 27 guards, and 34 other staff members on call at that time only one survived.\" The slide changes to an id photo of one of guards. He is a Latino man in his late twenties. The slide clicks once more to show the same man in the hospital. The side of his face that was torn off is covered in bandages. His jaw is dislocated and the good side of face is purple and black from internal bleeding. The table in front of me recoils in disgust.\n\n\"This man Derrick Parèze barely survived the attack. He was in a coma for almost 4 days, sustained heavy organ damage, and lost two limbs and an Eye. When I met with him for his account of the events that had transpired that night he told me quite a vivid imaginative tale. A tale so odd, abnormal, and unreal I should have dismissed it as lunacy from head trauma.\" I pause. \" He told me that he was at the guard shack and it was just a normal night until he heard his partners head cave in. After dragging the corpse back inside in the vain attempt at reviving the man he noticed a baseball lodged in the mans forehead. Then every guard outside began to scream in agony as they were assaulted with a variety of unconventional weaponry. He saw one guard electrocuted by power cord whip, another had her arm cleaved by a giant rubber band, and one unfortunate sole was melted by a high pressure stream of acid. Then in all the chaos and confusion the door a small masked figure enter the door. The last thing Derrick saw was a rabid skunk launched toward him by an unwieldy slingshot.\" I pause to take a drink of water.\n\n\"But oddly enough this story is supported by our forensics.”\n\nThe slide changes once more to reveal the carnage on the ground. Caved in heads, mangled corpses, all damage caused obviously by unconventional weaponry. The slide cuts once more to some projectiles found including a gore covered base ball. \n\n“Your saying that a security unit of highly trained men were killed by hooligans with potato guns and slingshots!” Shouts the CIA director in disbelief.\n\n“I am not saying that, the evidence in front of you perfectly shows that.”\n\n“You have finger prints DNA something right from all that evidence, right?” Asks the FBI director.\n\n“Unfortunately no. The DNA and finger prints on the various projectiles were to mixed with the DNA of the assailants or was washed away in the rainstorm that followed.\"\n\nI calmly take another sip of water. I look into the terrified eyes of the crowed board room.\n\n“So were fighting an unknown enemy that now has the potential to make a stockpile of hundreds of different types of bio weapons?” A general barks. His face is red and he is the most exasperated of the crowd.\n\nI chuckle a little bit. “Thats the odd thing they only took one pathogen with them.”\n\n“Which one anthrax, smallpox, ebola?”\n\n\"No a little known virus called Endopoxmajor. Its a quite an interesting virus. Similar to ebola it can only spread through fluids or direct contact. Once inside the body it primarily attacks hormonal and immune cells in the endocrine system. The process is slow taking a couple of months but one by one necessary bodily function fail usually causing a slow agonizing death. It has 95% chance of fatality among its victims. The other five percent have severe hormonal medial conditions\nand permanently atrophied muscles, and more unfortunately remain carriers their whole life. With long incubation period of the virus, we could have several unaware infected walking the streets as we speak.”\n\n“There must be a vaccine!” Shouts the Director of the DEA.\n\n“No however almost 19.4% percent of the population is immune. The virus only attacks a developed or developing endocrine systems during puberty meaning that most people under the age of thirteen are completely immune.”\n\n“So they chose the virus that doesn’t kill kids? If there willing to kill close to 80% of the population what do kids matter to them.” The CIA director replies back.\n\n“You see director were fighting a new kind of enemy. One of the most disturbing in our history. My suggested course of action will shock you but it is a necessary evil. This new enemy could be anywhere. In our neighborhoods, in our schools, and possibly even in your very home. They go by the code name: Kids Next Door.\"", "It's been years since he lost the one thing he'd cared about.\n\nAfter weeks of searching, he just couldn't go on any more. His young, frail body couldn't hold up under the stress of life on the road. He'd lied to others, he even lied to himself, but he was not a loner, he was not a rebel, he was just a boy.\n\nHis friends abandon him. It's hard to love and care for someone who doesn't want your love or care. The loneliness gets to him, just like it would get to anyone over time. \n\nHe talks to himself at first, mostly admonishing himself, guilt stricken over his carelessness that got him into this mess. He quickly realizes that he hates himself, he'd rather not talk to anyone than have to talk to himself. That's when the voices started.\n\nThe voices were nice. They didn't know how badly he'd messed up. They were just happy to have someone to play with. Too bad it's tough to play when you're just a voice. The voices needed something, something to cling to, to interact with on that physical level the boy yearned for. Anything. A chair, a floor, a window, anything so he wouldn't be alone.\n\nAnd that's when things got wacky.... at Pee-Wee's Playhouse.\n", "We've been trapped on this Island for nearly a month, my brother and I. \nWe were the lucky ones. \nMost of the people on the plane were lost to the sea. \nThe remaining twelve all washed up on this secluded island. \n\nNo one knew we were here. \nNo communication with the outside world. I was lucky enough to have David with me. He used to love camping and hiking and would often do so in tropical areas -- we'd grown up in Florida, he could never get away. \n\nThe others... The others on the island, we'd only see on a full moon. When we were summoned. \n\nWe can't control him being in our heads, but when Olmec speaks... with the chance to leave the Island by surviving his temple of traps and death... well... the Giant Stone bastard puts it best, \"The choices are yours, and yours alone! Who's going first?\"\n\n \n", "\"Please,\" he whispered, every breath feeling like it engulfed his lungs in flame. \"I can't take anymore.\"\n\nThe smile from the shadows grew wider, no longer amused but threatening. In his hands he held another syringe, though it was empty for the moment.\n\n\"Oh, I'm sorry Carl. But you keep skewing the results of the experiments. You know I can't have that. Fortunately this next solution should permanently fry the nerve endings on your skin. So you better hold still if you know what's good for you. After all, I don't want to give Sheen another companion to play with.\"\n\nCarl looked over at the cage on the other side of the room, shivering once his eyes connected with the inhuman gaze coming from the animal that was one his friend. Though he knew he could say the same thing as he looked back over at the man in the lab coat.\n\nHe now held the syringe filled to the brim with a strange liquid.\n\n\"Oh, my scapula...\" he whispered, shutting his eyes as tightly as he could to await the pain from Jimmy Neutron's needle.", "She was running down the halls. \"Ha Ha\" a voice laughed down the hall. \"There's the exit, if I could just get there\" Suddenly the floor gave out underneath her, and she broke her legs when she hit the ground. \"Ha Ha\" The voiced cackled again A large, bloody mouse emerged from the shadows, knife in hand \"Ha Ha\" \n\n\nMickey, in theaters this summer\n Rated R", "Fade in on a boy, beat to hell and bleeding from a head wound, stumbling up a hill. He can’t be older than 10. He’s gripping a tattered baseball cap in one hand and clutches his side with the other. He trips, cries out in pain and drops the hat.\n\nThe wind catches the red hat and it gets carried off into the smoke and dust. He bites his hand to keep from crying out. He draws blood. He reaches out toward the vanishing hat, tears streaming down his face.\nSuddenly the red hat, after vanishing completely, seem to circle back. The boy pauses. Then jumps in alarm and scrambles for something on his belt. A bird with a ten foot wing span and claws like meat hooks swoops down at the boy- the boy ducks. The bird racks its talons along his back, eliciting a scream from the boy.\n\nOverhead, the demonic bird circles around for another attack.\n\nClose up on the boy, climbing forward, snatching the red hat off the ground.\n\nClose up on the hat being jammed onto the boys hat, brim facing forward.\n\nHe pulls the brim around to face his back.\n\nPan out to show his eyes, gleaming with a new ferocity.\n\nIn his hand half cocked hand rests a half red, half white sphere.\n\nThe bird, a fearow, screeches above.\n\nThe boy’s shout sounds of primal rage.\n\nHe throws the pokeball, it blossoms with a crack of blue light.\nFade to black.\n\nWhite text fades in.\n\n“Gotta catch ‘em all…”\n", "“Oh Jesus…” Henry uttered before vomiting into a nearby bush.\n\n“You’re still green, rook. Trust me, you get used to it”\n\nThe two men stared down at the shredded remains of what Chuck believed to be a fallen Clefairy.\n\nWith a pair of forceps he kept in his front pocket, Chuck reached down and grasped a chunk of charred pink flesh still smoking to inspect it.\n\n“This was definitely an electric attack. Judging from the radius and intensity of the blast, I’d say this was the product of a Thunderbolt.”\n\nHenry’s eyes grew wide, “You don’t think…”\n\n“I do think, asshole! I think all the time!”\n\nHenry looked puzzled. \"Uh.. no, I mean-\"\n\n“In fact, right now I’m thinking we’re hot on the trail of El Asesino himself. Ash fucking \"don't mind if I do\" Ketchum.”\n", "20 years ago, 4 kids were kidnapped and confined by an unknown entity. After cruel experimentation, isolation, brain-washing under a new personality and desfiguration, they've become free... to look for a vengeance. This summer, Miramax brings you the deadly conclussion to this story - Teletubbies: Spelling Murder. (R-Rated for extreme violence, sex scenes and gore)", "He thought he was done. After thirty years of madness fighting crime on the streets, he was finally able to lay down his badge, and looked forward to a quiet retirement. He thought he was finally out for good. But they wouldn't let him rest. They went after his family, and now he's going to make them pay.\n\n\n\"If you're looking for ransom, I can tell you that I don't have any money. What I do have is a particular set of gadgets. Gadgets implanted in my body over a long career. Gadgets that make me a nightmare for people like you. Return my niece now, and that will be the end of it. I won't come looking for you. If you don't, I will look for you. I will find you, and I will go-go kill you.\"\n\n\nThis summer, one retired cop returns for one last caper, and this time, it's personal.\n\n\n\"Where's Penny?\"\n\n\n\"You think you can make me talk? You're a joke, a washed-up publicity stunt.\"\n\n\n\"That was a long time ago. Things have changed. Go-go gadget blow torch.\"\n\n\nCome see your favorite detective like you've never seen him before. This summer, Jeff Goldblum is....\n\n\nInspector Gadget.\n" ]	[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 19, 33, 45, 46, 126 ]	[ "1463161740", "1463176203", "1463179397", "1463187606", "1463192042", "1463162197", "1463167638", "1463190335", "1463149558", "1463153755", "1463161930", "1463170683", "1463178170", "1463178933", "1463179487", "1463160652", "1463168807", "1463145079", "1463161626", "1463158383", "1463150887", "1463161201", "1463157912", "1463143197", "1463151420" ]
	[WP] You are a detective in a land governed by a brutal dictator. Problem is: he's gone completely mad and now demands that you investigate on the weirdest things. The phone rings, you're allready afraid of what he may ask you to do this time...	151	[ "\"The suite. Now.\" \n\nDial tone. No time given for a response which can only mean this matter is urgent. Not important given General Cao's current mental state, but urgent none the less. \n\nI remove my holster, straiten my tie and put on 3 pairs of socks. The only aspect of my practice I've had to exercise in the past six months is keeping up my professional appearance. Some might consider last weeks interrogation tangentially related to investigation, at least until they discover that I was questioning a house plant about it's lack of flowering. General Cao said a formal court hearing would only prolong the inevitable. The plant is currently winding it's way up it's noose at the public gallows. I expect it will make a rather nice decoration in a couple more weeks.\n\nThird floor south over looks the slums that developed outside the capital building, which is why Cao's suite is on the north side. Making my way though the security check points leaves me slightly more disrobed and at the end I'm down to my single pair of socks I started with, no tie and a hole where my left pocket used to be. \n\nTwo armed guards stand in front of an embossed image of cavalry charging into a phalanx of spear men. They part as I approach and the image separates allowing me to push through the towering doorway. A fog of fake cuban cigar smoke hazes past my head as the door shuts behind me. The room is pitch black except for an oblong silhouette in front of the far window. I approach the desk slowly and take a seat on a stool that sits 10 inches off the ground in front of it.\n\nThe red upholsterer chair spins slowly to reveal General Cao's silhouette as a fat hand lifts a glowing orange dot to his face. The cigar illuminates his pudgy wrinkled face and I can briefly see something white cradled under his left arm.\n\n\"Shou. Thank you for joining me.\"\n\n\"It's my honor great general.\"\n\nSomething on the desk scuffs across and glass and ice shatter on the floor. The general gives a silent curse and a moment later a dim yellow glow fills the void between us. I can see his broom-bristle mustache and in his left arm is a tiny white dog. A Pomeranian of some kind that's shaking either out of necessity of fear. Probably both.\n\n\"Would you like a drink?\" He motions to the shattered glass on the floor while lifting up the other off the table and taking a sip himself.\n\n\"No thank you your excellence.\"\n\n\"Very good. Keeping a clear head for your work. I won't waste your time,\" He said and leaned back into his chair and kicked his feet up on the desk. One of them was missing a shoe, \"Today I thwarted an attempt on my life. I need you to find out who it was who perpetrated this heinous action and bring them to me.\"\n\nThe color drains from my face. I hadn't heard anything about this! How could someone threaten our great leader in his own castle at the center of his mighty kingdom?\n\n\"My general. Are you ok.\"\n\n\"I'm fine, thank you. Quick and deliberate action saved my life.\"\n\nA case. An actual investigation to challenge me, for the good of the country! This hasn't happened in several years. The closest thing to detective work that I've had in the past year was discovering who was sending General Cao death threats last Christmas. (General Cao was sending General Cho death threats, as it turned out.)\n\n\"Tell me about it, please. To the best of your memory general.\"\n\n\"It happened this morning. You know of my routine?\"\n\n\"The generals life is much a mystery to even myself.\" I lied.\n\n\"I wake before dawn and bathe in my private quarters. Then I dress and address the public about current events.\"\n\nHe wakes up a 2p.m. bathes in the mermaid fountain outside and addresses his fish tank with current events. There isn't much of a public left.\n\n\"Did the attack happen then?\"\n\n\"Yes, after my shower I was clothed as you see now. When I went to put on my shoe my keen eye noticed it.\"\n\nI sucked in deeply, \"A poison needle,\"\n\nFor an agent to infiltrate and rig an assassins tool would constitute a major breach in security. Several of the general's personal bodyguards could be in on it.\n\n\"Worse.\" General Cho reached under the table and set his shoe up on desk. \n\nI looked carefully inside and smelled it before I saw the dark lump curled into the sole. \n\n\"Is that...\"\n\nHe looked at me and the Pomeranian before covering it's ears like a parent would with a child. \"Someone put s-h-i-t in my loafer\", and he went back to stroking the dog.\n\n\"Someone put,\" he startled and covered the dogs ears again,\"... poop in your shoe?\"\n\n\"Yes. Fortunately I saw it before putting the shoe on. As you know, I have gout and the risk of infection is much higher on my right foot. I've no doubt someone on my personal staff infiltrated and loaded the shoe in the night. I want you to find out who it was.\"\n\nMouth agape I looked at the Pomeranian while it trembled in his loving grasp. ", "As with the blind man and the guide dog, Marquis not only relied on my eyes, ears, and feet on the ground, he desperately required my aid in a different department, even if he didn't realize it. Instinct, he needed—the basic hard-wired drive to survive. This being because his inherent, human compunctions and urges were gone, shot, and no longer did he understand what it meant to be alive and sane, in the strictest sense. Along with the left side of his lower body, the chemical burns robbed him of a clear mind; made him hear echoes where none lingered, had him seeing ghosts in the shadows. He also suspected that the neighboring nations, specifically Mexico and Canada, were secretly operated by a race of highly-intelligent Chihuahuas, called the Xenoids. \n\nIn the short term, I had no overt recourse. I couldn't exactly suggest he speak to a medical professional. (This, quite obviously, would result in my very loud, very painful, very peculiar death.) But in the long run, each gentle reminder, every subtle suggestion—it all added up, guided him toward a destiny that ended with the least amount of destruction, the smallest amount of ash and dust for humanity to sweep up. \n\nIt also meant I had to bide my time, sate his every unaccountable whim just so I could inject my own rationale into the mix when the time came to do so—and though, yes, they arrived, these moments were few and far between. Just when I realized that either I would handle him, or no one would, was a mystery to me—though it was the truth. He had so many safeguards, so many M.A.D. measures in place, that every government on the planet feared for the God King's life. His destruction = Earth's destruction. All that could be hoped for was the man's gradual replacement: from violent, crazed despot into a weak, insane figurehead—with me, behind the scenes, making changes every chance I got. \n\nYesterday had been one of the good days, where Marquis had been more lucid than usual, less focused on the slithering who-zits or the floating whatchas. It had also been good because I was able to make a suggestion—and, being all-powerful in the eyes of the law, which he mostly wrote, he made sure every note I had was taken down by his council people and subsequently chiseled into the metaphorical tablets of Moses. I could see hesitation in the hands of his politicians, quivering as they wrote words they knew went against their master’s ever-changing master plan. But the pandering, simpering fools would sooner die than speak out against a perceived friend of the self-proclaimed God King—and perhaps a more instinctual side of them came to understand that this meant being one step closer to freedom, albeit an inch rather than a mile or even a meter. \n\nYesterday, the good day it was, had to come to an end, and the days after good ones are always the worst—for when Marquis falls, he plummets. \n\nIn my tiny office, in my tiny apartment, I sat behind the large, finely-crafted desk, cut from a single Giant Sequoia tree: a gift from the God King. A little light on the phone, this blocky, old, outdated thing, flickered yellow—its idle state. I’d been watching for an hour and a half, waiting patiently. \n\nAnd nothing less could be expected. \n\nIf I let it ring even as much as half of one full ring, he would give me the silent treatment, the cold shoulder for upwards of six days; and on his next good day, he might find it in his twisted heart, or whatever’s left, to “forgive” me. This “forgiveness” entails burning my apartment building to the ground while I am still inside and sending in a trained professional to rescue me, and only me. After the second time, and those four people died, I decided it was safer, for everybody else, if I just rented a small building in its entirety (being a God King’s lackey pays well) and kept to myself. \n\nI couldn’t imagine what might happen if I angered him on a bad day—I mean, I could, I just didn’t fucking want to. Luckily, up until this point, I had not disappointed him too greatly, and I was still alive…\n\nHere’s to hoping I didn’t just jinx it, I thought, and as if answering me with some sick, cosmic punchline, the phone rang. \n\nThe phone’s little light turned blue before it rang, and I was prying the receiver from its seating just as the first shrill notes began warbling out the speaker. “Good morning, God King Mar-Mar.”\n\n“Enough with the pleasantries, Delilah, I grow tired of your obsequious slime.”\n\n“This is Oscar, sir. Your private dick.”\n\n“You’re not Delilah. And what about my dick?”\n\n“Your detective, sir. I’m your detective.”\n\n“Obviously. But you’re not Delilah.”\n\n“No, I am Oscar, the detective.”\n\n“Right, I know. What is it?”\n\n“Sir?”\n\n“What is it you want,” he ground out, “you imbecile?”\n\n“Sir, you called me. You usually call after our meetings to assign me a case, something to investigate.”\n\n“Something to detect, yes, that would make sense. You do claim to be the detective, after all.”\n\n“I am the detective, sir, yes.”\n\n“I’m glad we’re on the same page, Ozcare.” \n\n“Os-” I cut myself off—correcting Marquis is one of things you teach yourself not to do, a simple social action which could spell your retirement from existence. \n\n“What was that?” he asked dangerously.\n\n“Nothing sir. Do you have a case in mind, something or someone for me to investigate?” \n\n“I’m afraid I do.”\n\n“Sir?”\n\n“Yes, you’ve noticed my grave tone—a good ear you’ve got, it’s not a surprise I have you on the TRY NOT TO KILL list. And you’ll have to forgive if I’m forgetting any rapporte we’ve built—I’m feeling very… obtuse, right now. Foggy, dulled. And this ties in to the mission I have for you.”\n\nChrist, I thought. He never calls them missions. I’m just an investigator, I can’t be doing missions. Shit. \n\n“You’ve gone very silent there, Ozcare. I need reassurances, I need you to say ‘yes sir’ when I’m building up to something.”\n\n“Yes sir.”\n\n“Better. But now I’ve lost my train of thought. Know that I am writing down every misbehavior, for when I am more myself.”\n\n“Sir you were introducing me to a mission you had in mind.”\n\n“Yes, good memory, too. I’ll have to ask myself to go easy on you.” I heard scribbling. “The mission, yes. Of course. Firstly, Ozcare,” he said, voice now strangely solemn, “I have some news: news you may not like, news you may not even comprehend. Please, seat yourself, but first shut every door and window, and make sure you are not bugged or being spied on.”\n\nI got up, moved some stuff around, made some noise, lifted chairs up and dropped them down. I made sure to do this quickly but loudly—I learned long ago that actions, solely For Effect, are key to surviving most of the tasks Marquis likes to assign his underlings. \n\n“It is done, sir. I have closed all the blinds, windows, and doors. I am sitting in the cold darkness. I have scanned the room, physically and electronically, twice over.”\n\n“Mm. And it may not even be good enough, at that. Still, you must be informed if you are to undertake this mission. If dangerous, even deadly parties are listening to us, possibly homing in on your location... well, then that is a risk I’m willing to take.” \n\nHow generous. “Yes sir.”\n\n“I can hear the willingness in your voice: you are ready for the news, yes?”\n\n“Yes sir.”\n\n“Good. Now, take a breath, son.”\n\n“Yes sir.” I made a big deal of breathing in and out, loudly. \n\n“The Xenoids have infiltrated my empire.”\n\nI coughed out the breath, struggling to choke down a laugh.\n\n“Yes, that’s right boy, feel free to cry.”\n\n----\nmight continue after I sleep 😔ZzZz\n----\nIn the meantime, if you liked this, you could [check out another story I wrote. :)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/4j53cb/wp_the_final_boss_of_a_game_falls_in_love_with/d33udca)" ]	[ 5, 72 ]	[ "1463224519", "1463218492" ]
	[WP] Everyone is given a choice on whether to know how they die or when they die. What is your choice?	8	[ "I knew at the age of fourteen. The process was almost miraculous. At one point in your life you either knew how you will die, or when you will die. My parents knew too. It was plastered all over my face. Old age. That's what I told them.\n\nIf I had told them the truth, would it have changed anything? No, these intuitions are absolute. At times I've tried to escape my fate. I tried to deny it, but it was always wiggling around somewhere in the back of my mind. I worked hard in high school and college, but what use was it if you knew that it was all for nothing?\n\nAnd so, for most of my life I've set myself up for failure. Unlike most people, I lived certain that I was going to be miserable. Maybe I could've resisted it and ultimately prevent it. However, that was statistically unlikely. These things were absolute.\n\nThe rope wrapped around my neck very tightly. I felt it's bristles scratch my soft skin. I closed my eyes and fell, allowing it to carry me.\n\n\n", "Most people I knew chose to know when they would die. Knowing how seemed kind of morbid, and tended to breed an irrational fear and avoidance in the people who submitted a \"EX3-M -- Method of Expiration\" request. A guy at the office would no longer enter the break room for fear the coffee maker was going to shoot off the counter towards his throat, or suddenly blow up, despite the fact that his returned result of \"Food and Drink: Coffee\" most likely meant some sort of heart condition, based on all the caffeine he'd ingested before his Keurig-phobia developed. Most of the people who submitted EX3-Ms stopped driving. Some stopped going outside altogether. \n\nIt was popular to do the date-determining paperwork after your 40th birthday, since it was usually agreed that that was an average halfway point, and life was essentially set into motion, set in its patterns, by then. Recently, it had become popular to read the results at your 40th birthday party, so that you could, then and there, determine which birthday party would be your last one, and everyone could plan accordingly. Some had done it right when they turned 18, but it somewhat blighted that sense of immortality we all have at that age. At 40, you have a pretty grounded, realistic view of death and time. You're not surprised to imagine it happening to you.\n\nWhen I chose to know when I was going to die, I expected to see some date roughly 25-40 years down the road. I was of average health. Not a marathon runner like my brother or anything. Another 25-40 years were the average numbers my friends and colleagues were getting when they put in their \"EX3-D -- Approximate Date of Expiration\" requests. I thought it would be kind of helpful, and was actually kind of looking forward to knowing the date. I liked making checklists of things to do by the end of the day, end of the week, end of my coming trip to Germany in June. Making a list for things to do before I died seemed really logical, and like I could use my leftover time wisely, economically. I started typing up my list, and breaking it down into blocks of reasonable time. I expected to start making some goals, and meeting them until time was up.\n\nI didn't expect to see a date 340 years in the future. \n\nI didn't know what to say. I was alone when I saw it, so the only sound I uttered was a long inhaling of breath. I flipped over the tri-folded, mint-green paper, as if there might be a message on the back, like \"Accurate within 300 years.\" The department didn't make errors. The process was computerized, mathematical, certain. I didn't show it anyone, and quietly submitted the pages of paperwork again, putting the number 340 in the back of my head, grousing during the morning carpool commute that they must have fumbled my paperwork in the mail and the whole process was taking longer than expected. The other passengers agreed, adding their own complaints about the faceless, digital bureaucracy that handled the requests. \n\nWhen the letter came again, it confirmed what I admittedly already knew. I was going to die 340 years in the future. Long after anyone else in my office carpool. Long after anyone else in my family. Long after my marathon-running brother, who had predictably been forecast to live into his triple digits. \n\nI should have been more sad, or excited, or full of existential dread. But what really worried me, what really bothered me beyond the thought of watching those around me die as I persisted into an unknown future, was that I didn't know what to put on my list. Looking at what I had written so far, what I had arranged to fit within a few decades, I couldn't think of anything more. The rest of the page was blank space. What would I do? How long could I keep doing it?\n\nI deleted what I had written, and brought up a blank page." ]	[ 1, 8 ]	[ "1463552062", "1463545725" ]
	[WP] You have been hired on a large renovation project which is taking place in a cave beneath a mansion. Some of the specifications, however, leave you with some questions for Mr. Wayne.	65	[ "I clicked off the bandsaw and the noise was replaced by a high pitched squealing as the Butler dragged the kid in and shoved him towards me. Mikey was my sister's kid and kind of a shit to be honest, but I'd promised that I would give him a go with my crew on this Wayne job. He was already proving more trouble than he was worth. \n\nThe snooty Butler crossed his arms and fixed me with a look that reminded me of Sister Mary Magdalene from my school days at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow Roman Catholic school in Brooklyn, where I had spent many unhappy days as a kid getting into trouble. \"Your boy was skulking around the manor again.\" He shook his head. \"We have a works agreement for a reason you know?\" \n\nHis clipped British accent only helped enforce the inferiority complex that I was trying to hide. I cuffed the kid around the head. \"What you doing in there Mikey? You freakin' stupid or something, what did I tell you about sticking with Paulie on the blasting job?\" \n\nHe shrugged. \"I dunno, I got bored.\" \n\n\"Bored?\" I slapped his head again. \"You were helping him rig up dynamite, how bored can a kid get?\" I turned back to the butler. \"Tell Mr Wayne I'm sorry about this, it wont happen again.\" \n\nThe Butler looked at Mikey and rolled his eyes. \"See that it does not. If Master Wayne were to find 'Mikey' where he should not be, then you might not get him back again. Or at least not the way you last saw him.\" \n\nThere was something weird in the way that he said it, but I just nodded and he turned on his heel and was gone. As soon as the door clicked shut I turned on the kid. \"You little numbnuts, I told your Ma I would give you a job and you mess me about like this? I should send you back to work with Cousin Danny on the shrimp boat.\" \n\nSuddenly Mikey came alive, his eyes gleaming with fight. \"I didn't want to come here anyway, I gotta career Uncle Louis, Ma just doesn't take it serious or nothing.\" \n\n\"Career?\" I laughed. \"Your little music tunes you play in your room? C'mon kid, you need to get real.\" \n\n\"I am and I don't need to be here working on your creepy old houses.\" He folded his arms and met my stare. \n\n\"Creepy? Then why are you wandering around it kid? Why not just do your damn job?\" There as just a moment where he broke and something showed through, something odd, almost like fear. He opened his mouth and then shut it again. \"C'mon kid, spit it out.\" \n\nThe passion returned. \"I saw something, okay, I just wanted to try to figure it out by myself.\" \n\nI cocked an eyebrow. \"Wha'da'ya mean you saw something?\" \n\nHe shrugged. \"Like a guy, all dressed up funny, in a costume, like one of those superhero guys.\" \n\n\"Like a damn... like a damn Superhero guy?\" I held my breath and counted to ten but it didn't stop me exploding in anger. \"You're chasing around after damn superhero ghosts while you're on the job?\" I clipped him around the ear again and he shied away from me. \"This is your last chance Mikey, or it's back to 3am wake ups and smelling of shrimp, you got me?\" \n\nHe nodded sadly. \"Just looked like a guy in a cape is all.\" \n\nHe looked so sad I couldn't help but laugh. \"Look, help me with this framework, we gotta install a road through a waterfall tomorrow and I gotta lotta work to get it just right.\" \n\nHe held the other end and I began cutting, trying not to let my anger get in the way. Honestly, guy in a costume, this kid had some imagination. ", "\"Ok Mr Wayne it says here you need a large garage and a drive way that goes UNDERWATER, opens up when u get near a proximity of 50m and has a giant super computer\"\n\nThe architect looking at Mr Wayne.\n\n\"Yes that's correct\"\n\n\"Okay and it says here you need a giant cage made out of kryptonite, may I ask what is kryptonite?\"\n\n\"Well Gerry, kryptonite is a green rock found in the outer reaches of space, I have a lot stored\"\n\n\"Sorry Mr Wayne I'm not sure any of my engineers have experience working with this type of material\"\n\n\"Gerry, I can be a project manager as well but this cave needs to be built 100% to specification. I need something that will hold doomsday as well, and some disability stairs that Alfred can go up and down in easily\"\n\nGerry noting all this down\n\n\"That's great Mr Wayne we'll take all the kryptonite training we can get. Sorry another question. These pods you ask for, they need to be vacuum sealed for suit protection... What kind of suits?\"\n\n\"Well Gerry I have a range of high quality tuxedos that I need stored. That's very easy to make I just need them inserted, Alfred and I can do the rest\"\n\nMr Wayne Glances at Alfred\n\n\"Oh yes of course Master Bruce\"\n\nGerry continues jotting down the notes \n\n\"Now it also says here you may or MAY NOT fight super villains and need this to withstand time itself\"\n\n\"Correct\"\n\nGerry looking concerned\n\n\"Any heads up on anything Mr Wayne, ya know my family needs to be kept safe and all\"\n\n\"No Gerry nothing at this time, oh I'll also need a giant four story hole dug out for my tower which I'll also keep my batmarine, I mean submarine\"\n\n\"Oh submarine very good, water too\"\n\n\"Mm what else do I need in the bat cave, I mean cave. Oh I almost forgot I'll need a Lazarus pit, a large swarm of bats in one area of the cave and a place I can store a t-Rex\"\n\nGerry confused at what he just heard\n\n\"I'm sorry Mr Wayne did you say t-Rex?\"\n\n", "\"Sir, I'm not sure we can do everything you requested.\" I said to Mr. Wayne. Along with being one of the richest men in Gotham, he also had a particularly strange sense of style. \"I understand the need to maintain the local habitat, but that's the twelfth bat attack this week.\"\n\nHe waved his hand in front of his face as he walked through the renovations, \"Don't be alarmed. They're simply protecting their home.\"\n\n\"Again,\" I was hesitant to bring up the matter to Wayne in the first place, but my workers safety was paramount, \"I understand. But we need to at least knock them out.\"\n\nHe shook his head as he leaned against one of the railings we had recently installed. \"No, leave them be. And they will leave you be.\"\n\n\"I--\" I shook my head, \"Yes, sir.\" When I turned to walk away, he grabbed my shoulder.\n\n\"How goes the renovations by the way?\"\n\nI turned back to face him, glancing down at my clipboard, \"We're making progress.\" I was about to lie straight to his face before I realized who he was again. I couldn't lie to the richest man in Gotham, let alone Bruce Wayne. \"Although, we've had some setbacks. The blueprints you gave us for the rotating underwater platforms?\"\n\n\"Ah yes, I bought them for a heavy price.\" He smirked slightly.\n\n\"Yeah, well you might want to get your money back. The blueprints are crap. The wiring needs to be completely redone and the specifications are off by a few meters.\"\n\n\"That can't be right,\" his smirk turned into a frown and he stood straight. \"Are you sure you're reading them right?\"\n\n\"Mr. Wayne, with all due respect, I've been a contractor for thirty-five years. I know what I'm doing.\"\n\n\"Well, like I always say, you learn and you fix!\"\n\nI nodded, unsure if Mr. Wayne was actually serious or if he was just joking around. Whoever he did buy the blueprints from was obviously not a certified architect, or engineer, or anything close to a person who can build. They were shit. Each and every one of them. But I wasn't about to tell him all of that.\n\n\"Along with that, the laboratory equipment you requested is backlogged. And some of those things you ordered, don't actually exist.\"\n\nHe tilted his head, \"Explain.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm not sure what a bat-heater is, but we don't have it.\"\n\n\"You've never heard of it?\" He laughed and gripped my shoulder. I winced. \"It's a small pad, in the shape of a bat, that heats or melts ice.\"\n\n\"Uh, sir, that's we call a torch. Just not bat-shaped.\"\n\n\"Oh. Well, that will do as well. Anything else?\"\n\nI glanced down at the board and nodded as I read off the list. \"I do not have a Batsaw, or a Batrope, or a Master Batkey. I'm not even sure what a Batcall is, but if it's what it sounds like, I don't want it near this place. And a Bat-Camera, which if I were to guess, is a bat-shaped camera?\"\n\n\"Oh no, just any camera will do.\"\n\nI looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. It wasn't my position to question the, uhm, obsessiveness of Mr. Wayne with bats, but I was also a little scared at the whole list. Along with that, we had signed NDA's when we signed up for the job, which I meant I couldn't tell anyone about the Bachelor's obsession.\n\n\"Well, don't worry about any of that for now. How about the security features?\"\n\nI smiled, it was actually one of the only things we weren't encountering problems with. \"That's going extremely well. We've set up motion sensors on the lawns as requested, steel and lead mechanical doors to each part of the Workshop, as well as entering the workshop. We even got the mechanical lift in the Southwest corridor to work, so now you can enter from your home.\"\n\nHe smiled, \"Perfect! I have one last addition for you to add to everything.\"\n\n\"Oh, of course. I'll add it to the list.\" Mr. Wayne handed me a small PDA and nodded. \"The installation process should be quite simple. It should do most of it itself. I just need the items on the list.\"\n\n\"Mr. Wayne,\" Alfred said from the other side of the Cave and the two of us looked up, \"You have a call waiting.\"\n\nHe smiled and nodded, \"I leave you to it!\" He walked away, \"Remember, three more weeks!\"\n\nI took a deep breath. We'd be lucky if we could finish in three weeks. And then just as he left I looked down at the PDA and began to read. \"The Agamemno Contingency?\" I took a look at the first item, then swung my head up to see if Mr. Wayne was still around. I took a deep breath, \"Where the hell am I going to get Kryptonite?\"\n______________\n/r/BlankPagesEmptyMugs for more of my work!", "A thousand glistening eyes watched from the ceiling as I led Mr. Wayne through the construction site; the bats above didn't seem to be bothered by the constant noise of jackhammers and heavy machinery. I showed him the massive garage that we'd carved through solid rock, even though he had a perfectly good one full of Italian sports cars up above. I brought him by the helicopter landing pad, again carved through solid rock for no particular stated reason. What was he planning to do, fly it through the waterfall? But, he's the client, and he could afford it. At each site, he insisted on measuring the new caverns and spent a good amount of time fretting over each. \n\nWe entered the main chamber, where some tech guys from a different contractor were wiring up some sort of huge screen. The electrical cables being used were thicker than my arm, so whatever they were putting in would be using more juice than about a quarter of Gotham City. We proceeded further down the cave, past the twelve impenetrable \"panic rooms\" that Mr. Wayne had requested we build with the locks on the outside of the doors. Mr. Wayne had a few pointed questions about certain factors, particularly the EMP hardening that he'd managed to procure from a military contractor. I'd never done that sort of work, and he was concerned that it wasn't being done to specifications. \n\n\"I don't know,\" he finally said, looking around, \"I'm just concerned that this won't be sufficient for my needs.\" That was always the phrase he used; he never wanted to elaborate on what those needs were. The guys here on the crew had all put in money for a pool, trying to guess what those 'needs' were. Given Wayne's reputation in the tabloids as reclusive and crazy, most of the guys were guessing that this was some sort of extravagent doomsday shelter. The runner-up idea was that he was moving R&D divisions of Wayne Tech into his own basement. \"I might need to revise some of the plans,\" he finally said. \n\n\"Look, Mr. Wayne,\" I finally said as we reached the back of the cave, where an elevator was being installed going up to the manor library, \"I'm not one to pry or anything. I know that the contract came with a pretty strict confidentiality provision, including no-questions-asked.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Wayne interrupted me. \"It did. And if you find yourself unable to comply with that, then...\"\n\n\"Just hear me out,\" I said, speaking over him. He clearly wasn't used to being interrupted, much less by an employee. \"Have I ever mentioned my daughter to you?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I don't believe so.\"\n\nI wouldn't expect him to remember even if I had. He was certainly a busy guy, and I was just one of thousands of people working for him. \"Sarah.\" From my wallet, I retrieved the picture of her from her fourth-grade picture day and showed it to Mr. Wayne. \"Super smart kid, let me tell you. And so curious about everything.\" My voice cracked; I didn't talk about her very often. \"She was on a school field trip last year, and, uhhh...\" A knot formed in my throat. \"And she was killed. Her bus was on the West Gotham Bridge when the Joker blew it up.\"\n\nHe nodded. If I was in his shoes, I wouldn't really know what to say either.\n\n\"Well, Joker was locked up a few days later. By the Batman.\" I thought I saw just the slightest twitch in his face, but the light down here can play tricks on you like that. Maybe it was just what I wanted to see; some confirmation of what I'd suspected since I first looked at the blueprints. \"Some other kid somewhere in Gotham is still alive because he put Joker in Arkham. If there was anything I could do to help him catch even more of these psychos, I'd do it in a heartbeat.\"\n\nThere was a terse silence between the two of us, though the cave was still filled with the bustling sounds of construction. Mr. Wayne crossed his arms and looked at me, almost daring me to continue. \n\n\"Well, anyway. Sorry for that unrelated tangent, Mr. Wayne. All I'm trying to say is that if there is anything in this job that is not 100% up to your standards, you just let me know, and I'll personally take care of it. And if that requires a little more elaboration on what you need, then I want you to know that you can 100% trust me. Just say the word.\"\n\nFor the first time since I was hired me for this job, he smiled. \"Thank you. I'll keep that in mind.\"\n\n" ]	[ 3, 4, 10, 59 ]	[ "1463670179", "1463667356", "1463671965", "1463668462" ]
	[WP] To my son, I bequeath the contents of the file New Folder on my computer...	10	[ "Three brothers sat in a half circle around the man behind the desk. Roger, the eldest brother, was the first to speak up, \n\n\"Um, sir? Why are we here?\" \n\n\"Surely you know,\" said the man, \" we are here to talk about your inheritance.\" \n\n\"Sweet,\" said James, the middle brother, \" but why are you the one telling us?\"\n\n \"I see why your the dropout\" the man behind the desk said under his breath, \"I'm your dad's lawyer, anymore questions?\" He said, aloud this time. \"No? Good, let's get this rolling,\" he licked his lips,\" ah, Roger, you get the house-\" \n\n\"C'Mon! Dammit, I wanted the house!\" Cried James. \n\n\"Shut up and let me finish,\" the lawyer said, \" you also get half of the family fortune.\" \n\n\"C'Mon already, what do I get!\" Cried James.\n \n\"Be quiet for 3 seconds and I'll tell you, after I tell the quiet one, Jaime, his inheritance, that is what you get for being rude.\" The lawyer sassily remarked, \"Jaime, you get the other half of the fortune as well as the Rolls Royce and the Lamborghini, I expect you are very happy with that. And finally, James, you get-\" he chuckles softly, \"- the content of the folder \"New Folder\" that is on this flash drive.\" \n\n\"Sweet, I think, what's on it?\" Asked James. \n\n\"No clue, that is for you to find out. Anyway each of you take your respective cases and collect your new belongings.\" Said the lawyer, \" also close the door on your way out.\"\n\nBack home:\n\n\"Alright, for today I'll let you guys stay, but tomorrow I expect both of you to be out, ok?\" Roger said.\n\n\"Ok,\" both other brothers said, as they split to their respective rooms.\n\n\"Now I can find out what's in this file,\" James said as he plugged the flash drive into his computer. Once the flashdrive loaded he opened up the contents, and searched up \"New Folder\". \n\n\"Oh Come On!\" He yelled, as he stared at the screen.\n\n\"What?\" Asked Roger as he barged in, until he saw the computer screen where he burst out laughing, because on the computer screen the search results for \"New Folder\" said \"84955295620472 entries\"", "The three young men sat silently, looking at each other through questioning glances after the lawyer spoke these words. Though he spoke for another five or six minutes, their focus never left the possibility of what may lie in the folder.\n\nTheir father, a reserved, quiet, cold man had never been particularly computer savvy. He never shared anything with them that may give them a clue as to why could lie within. More importantly however, the ambiguity of what \"to my son\" meant, as there were three of them. The whole ride home, the brothers discussed the matter. The oldest assumed the folder contained something that only meant something to one of them, or that if it contained anything of value they might share it. The middle brother, a spiteful, self-involved user, was certain the file would be for him and would probably be a message. The youngest brother did not care in the slightest, as he wanted nothing to do with his father in the first place.\n\nUpon arriving at the oldest brother's home with the computer, they set it up with a monitor, booted it up and logged in to the father's account, thankful that it did not have a password. To their astonishment, there was no background, no running programs in the bottom right of the screen, no icons anywhere, except the one in the dead center of the screen - \"New Folder\".\n\nExchanging inquisitive glances once more, the oldest brother took a deep breath, double-clicked the folder, and found one solitary file. It was a link titled \"onelasttime\". He double-clicked once more, and the video file opened itself in a browser window. Immediately, sounds that were all too familiar to the men filled their ears. An electronic drum fill, a synthesizer, and a deep-voiced redheaded man began to serenade them with the timeless words, \"We're no strangers to loooooove\". The youngest rolled his eyes and said \"sounds about right\", the middle child scoffed and looked the usual mixture of anger and defeat, while the eldest smiled with misty eyes. \n\nAfter a quick lunch, the two younger brothers departed. The eldest didn't know how to feel, since on one hand the lonely pit that often follows the death of a loved one was present, especially since his father was the only one in the family he ever really had any emotional connection to, but the emptiness was sharing space in his mind with a new emotion- a confusion of sorts. One last joke was all that was left of their father, one very out of character prank...one, very, very out of character... the man returned to the computer, booted it back up and accessed the folder again. He watched the video twice more. He wrote down the lyrics and searched for meaning in the ballad, anything that might mean something. After half an hour, he gave up, then almost immediately had a last-ditch thought.\n\nHe opened the start menu and navigated to an option called \"show hidden files and folders\". A transparent file appeared in the \"New Folder\" window to the right. He gulped, almost audibly. The file was called \"abouttime\". It was a txt file, which when opened had 4 lines.\n\nThe first read \"Banaba Island Treasure\"\n\nThe second was a line of coordinates, as well as the third, which also contained the phrase \"find Charles Montego\".\n\nThe fourth was simply \"I knew you'd find it.\"" ]	[ 1, 9 ]	[ "1463679836", "1463679564" ]
	[WP]"Where is your god now?" "Behind you."	93	[ "A Marine was taking college classes between his deployments to Afghanistan.\n\nOne of his courses had a professor that was an atheist and a member of the ACLU. One day the professor shocked everyone by walking into class, looking up and stating \"God, if you are real, I want you to come down and knock me off this platform, I will give you 15 minutes.\n\nSeveral minutes ticked by in silence, and when the 15 min. time almost expired the Marine got up from his seat, approached the professor and took a swing at him. But the professor, seeing the look in the Marine's eyes, managed to dodge, and though the platform wobbled around quite violently, managed to stay upright. \"15 minutes!\" the professor cried triumphantly, pointing at the clock. \"I've done it! Where's your god now?\"\n\n\"Behind you,\" the Marine said. \n\nThe professor turned to look, and the Marine immediately sucker punched him in the back of his head, sending him crashing to the floor. \"Ow, fuck!\" the professor said, holding the back of his head. \"What the hell did you do that for? The fifteen minutes were up, I already proved my point!\"\n\n\"But professor,\" the Marine said, \"if you didn't believe that God was real, why'd you even turn to look?\"\n\n\"Because I was afraid that another one of you religious nutcases was sneaking up behind me!\" \n\nThe Marine crouched down so that he was eye level with the professor. \"But I was right in front of you. All pissed off and ready to swing. And yet you turned around anyway. Because that moment of fear that there was something worse than what you were already facing? That despite all your bravado, the fear that there was a hammer behind you waiting to come down?\" The Marine's teeth shone in a grin. \"That's God.\" \n\n\"You're insane,\" the professor said, \"God doesn't exist.\" But his voice shook as he said it. \n\n\"Maybe I am insane,\" the Marine said, as the campus police came running through the door. He held his arms out to the side and let them drag him away. \"But maybe I'm right. What if this whole universe is mad, and you end up going to Hell for this? A mad God who raises up the lunatics and burns the rational in fiery pit! Because you don't believe in an orderly, meaningful universe, do you, professor? You believe in bone cancer for children and worms that eat out their eyes. And in the back of your mind there's the whispering fear: what if someone intended for all of this to happen?\n\n\"God's behind you, professor!\" the Marine yelled, as he was led out the doorway. The grin on his face was savage. \"God's right behind you!\"\n\nThe professor shuddered, and resisted the urge to look back. ", "I slumped to the ground. My legs couldn't carry me anymore. We had been fighting this war for years.\n\nThe battle around me had slowed; we were losing.\n\nHow did we get here? How did it come to this?\n\nFour years ago the Ancient God of War came to me in a dream and gifted me with magic. Giving me the ability to bend fire.\n\nMagic was rare on this world, only those visited by the Ancients like I was had it. \n\nMy king sought to use me to gain a foot hold in the southern region. I was forced into this. I never wanted to be here.\n\nI was a commoner before this. Making an honest living in the capital. \n\nBut the second that god came to me everything was changed.\n\nHe's come to my rescue more then once. Because for some reason he liked me. For some reason he enjoyed torturing me with this gift.\n\nI looked up at the man who held a sword he had crafted out of ice.\n\nAnother god favored him it seems. God of the Seasons it seemed. She seemed to like using Ice as her favored element.\n\nThe smile appeared on my fellow God Champion.\n\n\"Where is your god now?\" he said. He brought the sword back and was about to swing down to kill me. But as he swung the sword melted away, leaving only the hilt.\n\nThen I saw it.\n\n\"He's behind you,\" I said.\n\n---\n\nIf you want to read anything else I've written you can go over to /r/BlinsinWriting to see them!", "The god she chose to worship was not known as a kind god, or a merciful one. Her god was called a hellbringer, a destroyer, a being without morality. He was a god of fire, wind, and storm, and they called him a horror, a nightmare. She saw beauty in him. Perhaps it was simply blind gratitude for the night she escaped servitude-- a stormy night where the wind blew harsh and rain pelted into her cold, cold skin, and a tree in a forest burning with so much heat crushed her pursuers. When she saw the man with the long knife vanish under flames and smoldering bark, she whispered a prayer of gratitude to the air, and ran once more. She learned of her god the very next day, waking where she had collapsed next to an ancient and abandoned shrine. Trees still smoldered only a few hundred feet away, but no fire had touched the place she lay. She could not read the words carved into the stone and wood of the shrine. She could only read the pictures-- a tall, masculine figure in a long cape, arms spread over a burning world covered in clouds. Small figures cowered on the surface, people and animals alike paying homage to the regal figure stretched above them. She did not know what the writing said, but it was clear enough that he was more than mortal. In thanks, she spent two days cleaning the shrine, scavenging berries and herbs to eat. At the end of the second day, a crack of thunder startled a deer into a ditch directly in front of her, and her belief became like stone.\n\nThe faithless would have called the entire thing coincidence. She chose to believe it was his hand guiding her, his hand rewarding her willing servitude. Much later, her faith would be rewarded; she found her way in a world set against her, and became a paladin. She visited the shrine once more, and hellfire and storm became her tools. It was somewhat controversial, to those who knew of it; a god of such destruction should never be granted a paladin, they said. Paladins were meant to be good and righteous, organized and lawful, not bringers of destruction and chaos and pain. Still, she became his paladin, and never doubted her faith. In return, she wielded a power others trembled at. She was not as chaotic as they feared she would become; she used fire with delicate control, storm and wind with careful precision. She turned destruction into creation, and there was awe, but there was also anger. \n\nHow dare a blasphemer who spoke of Old Gods prove herself good. How dare she wield a chaos god's powers under the title and oath of a paladin. Fury brewed, but she wandered kingdoms, oblivious, secure in the knowledge that her god protected her. She prayed at the roadside, and built small shrines in his name; her painted renditions of the original shrine improved over time, and rocks and trees in her path became her canvases. At night, she sometimes dreamed of a tall figure leading her by the hand, or sweeping her into a dance. She was never afraid in these dreams, although when she woke she knew with blood burning in her veins and magical strength renewed that he had visited her. When he took her hand, she simply bowed her head and let herself be humbled and awed before him. He was her god, and she was his paladin. They never spoke, but touch and gesture told her all that she had hoped for. He cherished her, cared for her; she was his first paladin in millennia. She loved him, delighted in him; he was her reason for life. For a time, she lived in bliss-- certainly she struggled and fought, living a hard and unforgiving life as a deliverer of justice and assistance, but it was blissful, and there was nothing more complicated in her life than finding shelter each night and affording the paints she used for her shrines.\n\nThings came to a head when she earned her first converts. For the first time, a village asked her about the origins of her powers. The elders knew of paladins, but they were daring, and asked about her god. She spoke at length, unable to contain her excitement at others appreciating his blessings, and before she left showed them how to make the image from his shrine. When she left the village, most of the residents were eagerly practicing the image, with stone and steel and wood. She did not realize the import of what she had done, but others did. Eventually, those who despised her heard of it, and sought to end the rise of her god before it could begin. \n\nThey soon found that her blessing upon the village left it untouchable. Roaring flames and rushing water assaulted any who approached with intent to do harm, and the shrines littering the village only amplified the god's presence. There was nothing they could do. They abandoned the village and sought the paladin instead. It took them some time to find her, but in the end, they did, and took her off-guard. Drugged and bound, she was carried off. She woke under the earth, in a cellar kept dark and cold. The air was stale down there, and she could not taste it for long-distant storm clouds or feel the crackle of heat in her hands; the air was wet and chilled and stagnant, and in that first moment of waking, she felt desperately alone. \n\nThey confronted her, arrogant and crude. Spat insults and lies and sought to make her Doubt, sought to make her break her oaths to her god. In spite of all her loneliness and loss, she refused to do as they wished. They left her hungry, gave her little water, and mocked her. Their jeers fell on deaf ears as she etched a shoddy image of her god's shrine into the ground. When she finished, she felt something inside her click back into place, the loneliness vanishing into the air like smoke. She raised her head as she finally remembered that her captors spoke to her; the man above her leaned in, his breath putrid with the smell of fish, and asked, laughing, \"Look at you! Bound and helpless and no one is saving you. If your god cherishes your servitude so closely, where is he now? If you think--\"\n\nShe interrupted, eyes wide and filled with wonder as she stared over his shoulder. There for just a flicker of a moment, she had seen-- the tall figure, dark and shadowed, face hidden under his cloak. It could only be him. \"Behind you,\" she rasped, her first words in that dungeon. Her answer was both the first and last thing she said to her captor; he turned, startled, to look, and the room was suddenly engulfed in flame. The stagnant air whipped and tossed about her head, the roar of flame filling the room and sucking down the oxygen like a starving thing. For a long time she simply stared at the pillar of fire before her, remembering the night a tree fell in the path of a monster shaped like a man. His flames reflected in her eyes and she stood before him, fearless and dizzy with joy. She only broke free of her trance when her god burnt his way through the door that held her prisoner, flames licking harmlessly at her hands as he turned her bindings to ash.\n\nShe rose from the cellar of a burning house, untouched by ash or soot, and stayed silent, bearing witness as her god burned bright around her. The screams of her captors echoed in the air but she could not hear them over the roar and whisper of her god's fire. It was fall and the air was crisp but she did not feel it, bathed in the heat of her god's fire. By all rights, the temperature alone should have killed her. It did not. The men that sought to destroy fire died, and the fire fell away. A thick cloak brushed over her shoulders, and the smell of charring flesh was replaced by the thick scent of rain. Weakened by the separation from her god and her hunger, she fell into his embrace.\n\nShe woke a week later in the first village she had converted, wrapped in silk cloth beneath a towering shrine. Her god was gone from the earth, but his power boiled beneath her skin, and the story was already spreading. The land that had been destroyed by his wrath was consecrated by a missionary she had converted months before, a temple built around the ash and soot. The tale rose in popularity, the dramatic irony of her captor's death and the visceral destruction her god left in his wake catching the imaginations and hearts of the people. Shrines spread, oaths were taken, and in the way of legends tales of the First Paladin were told and retold until the country, once ravaged by internal disputes and vicious segregation, fell into a single fold, united under fire and storm. The castle came to be painted with a massive mural of the shrine-image the paladin endlessly repeated. \n\nIn the midst of such change and fame, the paladin was fed by the elders of the village, and worked the silk she woke in until it was a cloak heavy with embroidery, the image of her god gazing darkly out from her back. Where is my god? Behind you, and behind me, and no, he never leaves. \n\nShe dreamt of him often, even as other paladins were granted power and attention. He visited her almost nightly as she traveled, leaving warmth in the hearts of the people she helped and turning the hearts of the cruel to ash. Her journeys were more than ever fearless, for her god was with her, and no man could stand to his wrath. \n\nIn this way, she became a legend, and in the way of legends, she did not die. She disappeared, leaving questions and prayers in her wake. The kingdom and paladins could manage themselves; home called to her now, when she grew old and weary. Her only home, in the forest, a faded shrine under the long branches above. A fire god's shrine with wooden roofing and a wooden carving, and just enough space within for an old woman to curl. She lived there for years; she provided for herself, and her god lent his aid only when times grew hard. Together, they lived in harmony, comfortable, content.\n\n---\n\n(Part 1/2 - I wrote too much ;w;)", "Hernan strode across the mossy cobbles of the courtyard, his ragged cloak fluttering meekly behind him. He had, of course, brought a dozen spares, in various styles and colors, from the port in Gibraltar. Alas, that bit of trouble on the causeways saw them at the bottom of that accursed lake. No matter. \n\nThe oiled leather of his cuirass creaked in time with the beat of his hard leather boots against smooth stone, canopy filtered light splaying grotesque shadows over the oversized steps of the pyramid. His ascent spoke of purpose, his mouth showing stoicism in his task. His eyes, however, they burned. Burned with the passion of a new war, the childhood stories of El Cid being propelled by God, even in death, against the heathans underlining this passion with visions of grandeur. \n\nAs the self styled conquistador entered the surprisingly small room at the top of the edifice, his scabbarded blade bouncing off a pillar, he paused. In part to allow his eyes to adjust to the smoky light thrown by the turtle fat candles, but also to catch his breath. The amount of treasure crammed in around the brown man would fund Hernan through all his political machinations, buying the loyalty of an army with it. \n\nHis eyes turned to the man. No, the savage. The leader of savages. The snake worshiper that sent cowards in he night, slinking as jaguars through the jungle, to poison his rations. The beast responsible for Juan passing from the mortal coil. \n\nWhile they had been in this hell and strange insect Juan had been his only comfort. The man had suffered greatly on the voyage west, but had flourished once they landed in the Indies. Taking samples of plants, sketching animals, he had gathered information vast in both breadth and depth, preparing a missive for the Holy Father and Isabella, Queen of Castile. He had approached these tasks with the focus and fervor that only a monk could summon form such mundane tasks, but a dedication that had impressed and awed Hernan. \n\nThe places where the lash of self flagellation had touched his back tingled as thoughts of forbidden live flashed through Hernan's mind. Juan had also puzzled out much of the tongue of these vermin, and Hernan put those insights to work here.\n\n\"Stand.\"\n\nMontezuma rose, his broad shoulders covered with an ostentatious display of Wiley vibrant feathers. The Spaniard took a step forward, mulling the demon's appearance and choosing his words carefully. He did not have mastery of the tongue, and suspected he stumbled through his words as a toddler.\n\n\"I. I take this.\" Cortez swept his hands over the gilded pots and knuckle sized emeralds. \"They, and you, mine.\"\n\nThe Aztec stood there, no emotion showing on his face, except the smallest glint of a smirk. Cortez felt the holy rage boiling in his chest at the man's presumptuousness. \n\nHe lunged forward, the lobsters steel of his gauntlet making a sick, wet noise against Montezuma's head. The heavy, backhanded blow knocked him prone. \n\nCortez drew his sword, and slashed it across the thick engravings of the beast demons these savages passed off as gods. He sneered at the prostrated man before him, shouting in passable Aztec,\n\n\"Where? Where is your God now?\"\n\nMontezuma's eyes creased as he begin to chuckle. This only served to enrage the Spaniard further, and he rammed the point of his sword through the other man's stomach. \n\nMontezuma stopped laughing, but the mirth in his eyes did not flow out through the wound with his life's blood. \"Behind. You.\"\n\nThe sudden sound of rustling feathers startled the conquistador, his blade nearly disemboweling the Aztec as he swung it wildly at the presumed source of the noise.\n\nThe blade shattered as it met a fang of Quetzalcoatl. Before this loss of a family heirloom registered with Cortez the flash of ivory and the dark purple of tongue snuffed his life on the temple floor.", "I was waiting on Jabal to save me, certain he would come in to save the day, but instead found myself having great doubts about him having my back.\n\nOn my knees at the back of a large, mostly empty shack, my hands were tied in front of me. Various items cluttered the ground- newspapers, magazines... shell casings. Near the door, leading out into the hot Somalian sunlight, a man paced back and forth, with an old lever-action shotgun slung around his shoulder. His dark skin dripped with sweat. Occasionally he screamed into a walkie-talkie in some language I didn't understand.\n\nWhat I did understand, which he made perfectly clear to me, was that I was not getting out of here without a divine miracle. What started out as a Catholic mission trip went south when a few of us decided to enter a war-torn village. It just so happened that some al-Shabaab splinter was looking for the perfect opportunity to kidnap a westerner and hold him hostage.\n\nGoing on a missionary trip to Somalia was the first mistake, really. But that's beside the point.\n\nThe man, whose name I could only ascertain was Ahmad, took the time to taunt me every once in awhile. He said I would get my brains blown out unless my infidel friends decided to pay a ransom. I was determined to modify those options. My tour guide, Jamal, was from Angola, having grown up in their civil war. Having come to Somalia to provide humanitarian aid, he was no stranger to conflict. And when he saw my helpless figure being dragged through the market by a bunch of strongmen with guns, he screamed that he'd be there to help. And that's what I was counting on.\n\nMy thought was broken by another tirade of screaming by this terrorist man.\n\n\"Hey, American! Filthy infidel! I kill you!\"\n\nHis spit flew into my face as I stared down my captor, coldly. I didn't react. I didn't need to. Because sneaking up behind Ahmad was the shadowy figure of a slim black man, holding a knife by his side.\n\n\"Where is your Jehovah, American? No! There is only Allah! Only the true God can save you!\"\n\nNow right behind Ahmad, completely unnoticed, Jamal looked at me and winked.\n\nAhmad looked me right in the eyes and sneered.\n\n\"Where is your God now?\"\n\nI chuckled a bit.\n\n\"Behind you.\"\n\nHis face turned to confusion, and he turned around, only to meet seven inches of cold steel in his chest. Jamal brought Ahmad close as he stabbed him.\n\n\"Deus Vult,\" I heard him say. He wiped the blood off his shirt and knelt down to cut my bindings. \"And I say that in all honesty, Adam. I had to meet your standard of being dramatic.\"\n\n\"Oh, come on,\" I laughed. \"Not even a 'are you okay'?\"\n\n\"That doesn't matter, what's more important is the cheesiest line I've ever heard in the face of danger.\"\n\n\"He was asking for it,\" I said, standing up. \"He really made it movie-esque.\"\n\n\"Where's you God now? Eh? Eh?\"\n\n\"Right behind you...\"\n\n\"Seriously? Of all the things you could have said?\"\n\n\"Well, it's more like the holy spirit. In all of us, y'know. That manifestation of God.\"\n\n\"Oh, is that modalism I'm hearing? Filthy heretic.\"\n\nWe both laughed and walked off to rejoin the group.", "She was trapped, pushed back into a corner that she knew she couldn't fight her way out of. Her magicks were failing her, and the adrenaline that had been driving her was fading, leaving her limbs shaking with fatigue. The Inquisitor stood before her, a thin line of blood (her own) draining along his sword to drip on the stone floor. Even with the dire circumstances facing Farrah she couldn't help her bloody rictus grin.\n\n\"You're cornered, witch.\" There was no rancor in the Inquisitor's voice, no disgust in his expression. He was truly a model soldier, she thought with bitter delight. \"Your compatriots are dead, and you are to join them. This is your last chance. Recant your allegiance, and perhaps you will find solace in the afterlife.\" That was always what it came down to. Everyone was always so concerned about which god others worshiped, though the Inquisition was the first who had dared actually _do_ something about it. This was unfortunate for Farrah and her brothers and sisters in the Cult of Typhan. At best they were considered untrustworthy, thieves and assassins, charlatans and murderers. To the Inquisition they were the poster children of evil, everything that the Pantheon despised.\n\n\"My god has always been there for me, Inquisitor. Can you say the same of yours?\" She could only be truly curious. Whatever choices the Inquisitor had made to lead him to this confrontation, she could not judge him. Likewise he had little room to judge her, though that didn't seem to stop him. The Cult did not preach acceptance, but it did preach incomprehensibility. Truth was fluid, always impacted by the perceptions of those that witnessed it. To claim to know another well enough to judge them was ludicrous.\n\n\"If you are such a favorite of your vile god, witch, where is he now?\" Was that a trace of humor in the man's voice? Certainly not. That would almost make him _human_, and no Inquisitor would dare give that impression.\n\nThe woman's mind was racing, but the enemy's words gave a no-doubt unintended clarity. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, focusing on something over the Inquisitor's shoulder, and the unnatural wide grin turned into something softer, an expression reserved not for a hated enemy but instead a beloved idol. _\"He's behind you.\"_ For the first time since the hunt had begun Farrah saw the Inquisitor hesitate. It was as though she could see the wheels turning in his mind, his eyes losing their distant glassy sheen and the smallest hint of fear taking root.\n\nHe whirled on the spot, raising his shield against a foe that wasn't there. In that moment of folly Farrah leapt forward, utilizing the last of her strength to drive her small stiletto into the gap between the Inquisitor's armor, the hollow of his armpit. It was a clumsy blow, a last desperate attempt to survive. It was the wrong side for a killing blow, and he seemed hardly incapacitated as he turned on the spot, bringing his elbow sharply into her jaw and sending her flying. Pain etched his face, and he fell heavily to one knee as the injury and his momentum conspired to overwhelm him.\n\nFarrah's mind was cloudy from exhaustion and pain, and a wave of fresh blood across her tongue nearly made her retch. Instead she staggered to her feet, taking advantage of the brief distraction her knife had provided. No doubt she would be followed, by this Inquisitor or another equally eager hunter. That did not matter. For now she was alive. So long as she drew breath the Pantheon had not won. It did not matter how many of her brothers and sisters had been slain. This battle was lost, but the war itself still raged on.\n\n---\n\nAwesome prompt. You can read all of my replies to prompts at /r/watisthisidonteven.", "The King approached his captive, plucking a grape from his servant's tray.\n\nThe King examines his naked prisoner top to bottom, and smiles mockingly. \n\n\"Well,\" the king taunted arrogantly \"I warned of these consequences, slave. Did I not?\" \nThe king crosses his arms behind his back, and continues\n\n\"I took your wife. I took your children, and I took your home. I took everything from you,\" his lip curls in anger. \"Yet, here you are. Laid bare for all to see, and still you disobey my rule by worshipping that false deity.\" \n\nThe captive man listens but his head remained bowed. \n\nThe king places his hand underneath the prisoner's chin and meets his gaze. \n\n\"Look at me, when I speak slave.\"\n\nThe man looks, but remains silent. \n\n\"I am a generous king, and offered you many chances to change your grotesque ways,\" the king examines his fingernails.\n\"Yet, you disobeyed me. I am afraid the consequences of your actions must be brought to fruition,\" he puckers his lips and thinks with twisted intentions.\n\n\"Men, remove his eye so that I may see his god the way he does.\"\n\nHis men remove the prisoner's eye. \nThe prisoner grimaces in agony, but his voice is not heard. \nThe men place the eye in the king's hand. \n\nThe king examines his eye, closely. \n\n\"All I see is wasted potential,\" the king plucks the eye into his pet tiger's cage. \n\n\"Think of the things that you could have accomplished, all of the accolades you could have aquired if you simply put your faith in man, rather than false gods.\" \n\nBlood drips from the prisoner's eye and onto the floor. \n\nThe king pauses, for a moment and continues. \n\n\"Before I end your miserable existence. I offer one final question.\" The king pulls the prisoner to nose-length distance. \n\n\"Where is your god, now?\" He says deeply.\n\nA tear falls from the prisoner's remaining eye.\n\"I begged of you, to stop. When you took my wife, I pleaded with you. When you took my family, I begged of you,\" \nThe prisoner's lip quivers and his voice falters. \"When you took my home, I was on my knees. Now, you have taken my clothes, but I do not plead with you,\"\n\nThe prisoner bows his head and exhales remorsefully. \n\n\"My God, is behind you.\"\n\nThe king jerks his head back quickly.\n\nThe sound of death echoes throughout the room as men choke on their own blood, and the palace is painted crimson.\n\n\"And He is angry.\" ", "From Pin's Account of the Revelations of Iono:\n\nWe entered the city of Ea shortly after the warmest hour of the afternoon. We were caked with dirt and sweat and though I begged Iono to carry more of his burdens he refused. Through his commune with the God Iono had come to this place carrying a jug of water and a shoulder bag full of rocks.\n\nThe governor of Ea at that time was known to be a cruel man, and we walked wordlessly through slave markets, filthy slums, and estates of plundered wealth before we reached the governor's mansion, which was most ostentatious of all. Iono asked politely at the gate to see the governor and, as was his way, did not wait for a response. The guard moved to stop him but he had heard tales of Iono's direct link with the God and feared to touch him.\n\nSo it went with each inner gate. No one feared Iono more than the ungodly.\n\nWe finally found the governor waiting in his courtyard. He sneered at Iono as he lounged in a low chair. \"You'll come no further False Prophet,\" he said. \"My guards fear you but I don't. Your supposed holy blood will drip on this grass and the people will see that the strong rule, not your fantasy.\"\n\nIono smiled. \"I have no need to come further. I am where I am supposed to be.\"\n\nThe governor grew angry. \"Have you any room for sense in that brain? How can people listen to you when you just spout inanities?\"\n\nIono laughed. \"I wonder the same thing! But I have found they are mostly listening to the God. So I try to speak quietly.\"\n\nAs he spoke he approached the governor. The archers who stood behind the pillars drew their bows back. Weak in faith as I was, the sound set my teeth on edge.\n\n\"Not a step further, soothsayer,\" warned the governor. \"We wouldn't want any...accidents.\"\n\nIono grew serious and his placid grey eyes examined the man before him. \"I come with a message from the God. You may think of it as prophecy or soothsaying. I would call it advice.\"\n\nHe looked down and there was a seedling growing in the grass. How that seed blew into the governor's courtyard and found purchase in its dusty soil is a story not told to me. Iono crouched down and set his jug of water next to the seedling. \"This is your faith, governor. It is also your God's faith in you. I water it now, to show you good will.\" He tipped the jug over the seedling and allowed a bit of water to splash onto it. \"You must do the rest. Water it every day and it will grow tall and mighty.\"\n\nThe governor laughed harshly. \"Of course, so simple, why would I do anything else? Are there more magic seeds in your bag?\"\n\nIono smiled and shook his head. \"The bag is full of heavy stones. The burden of office lies lightly upon you now. These stones can remind you of it. Wear this bag until no person under your protection feels hunger.\"\n\nThe governor's smile broke, and his face began to redden. He rose to his feet slowly. \"You seek to lecture me on my duties? You wish to accuse me of negligence? You are an even bigger fool than I thought. Seize this man!\"\n\nGuards came out from behind the pillars and one grabbed each of Iono's arms, dragging him back towards the exit. Two more grabbed me, though they were unsure of where to drag me. \"Wait,\" the governor called. He approached the seedling, ripped it out of the ground, and walked over to Iono. He shoved the seedling and the handful of dirt that came with it into Iono's face. \n\n\"Where is your God now?\" asked the governor.\n\nTo this day I am unsure if the tree grew up in front of my eyes or was just there, suddenly, as if it had been in the courtyard for decades. In either case, it was there. And Iono said \"Behind you.\"\n\nHowever the tree got there, I saw only a tree. Years later I was able to track down one of the guards, and he swears he saw only a tree as well. I know not what the governor saw. I only know that the face that turned away from the tree was not the face that had turned toward it.\n\nIono walked lightly out of Ea, having left his burdens with the governor.\n" ]	[ 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 10, 29, 47 ]	[ "1463739381", "1463747469", "1463753111", "1463729002", "1463729311", "1463720151", "1463711900", "1463707914" ]
	[WP] " I thought that by becoming the world's greatest evil, a worlds greatest good would rise up. Turns out I was wrong"	1	[ "When I was a child, my parents were taken away from me. \nOf course by that time, I hardly knew them. \nI was mostly found in the alleyways, starving and condemned \nTo live in the slums and make food from scraps of debris.\n\nThey were killed by a druggie, \nJust some random Joe off the side of the street. \nIt wouldn't be too bad on its own, but he left it incomplete. \nI remember, when I got home, he began to flee.\n\nThey were lying there on the carpet \nWith their blood staining the floor like red wine. \nBy the time I found them, they both began to flatline, \nAnd while I could do something, I did nothing to stop it.\n\nWith a few millions and a couple decades, \nI became the thing that catalyzed my life. \nBecause, like me, the world won't change without strife, \nJustice is an issue your common politician evades.\n\nOf course the people cried against my conquest \nBut it was surprisingly easy. \nI found that those who were vehemently against me \nDodged the draft while their armies fought without rest.\n\nI thought that by becoming the world's greatest evil, \nA \"World's Greatest Good\" would rise up. Turns out I was wrong. \nI slowly took control of the world, from New York to Hong Kong \nWhile the people did nothing to stop it.\n", "When you have a device that can render the Earth’s crust apart, making the entire planet one huge volcano, people tend to give you the keys to stuff.\nNo more America, no more Russia. No more Spain or England or Thailand or India or Angola. There’s just me. In charge of everything. It’s harder than it looks.\n\nIn the beginning, I fully intended to sacrifice myself.\n\nI saw the world descending deeper and deeper into chaos. Riches over wellness, constant bloody squabbling over which imaginary man in the sky is better. I saw a species in the grip of tribalism, and what better way to bring the tribes together than a common enemy?\n\nThat was supposed to be me. When I issued the threat of end times and demonstrated on an uninhabited atoll in the Pacific, it was supposed to be a call to unification. Muslims and Catholics were supposed to stand hand-in-hand and say, “We may have our differences, but we’d both like to have a planet to live on.” Instead they doubled down on their violence, citing passages in their respective books to show how the other was responsible for my arrival.\n\nThere was supposed to be a hero or two. Someone who could, in slaying me, unite the world under a banner of self-reliance instead of the usual leadership message of us vs. them. There were a few half-hearted attempts, mostly by delusional fools seeking notoriety. They wanted to be able to brag about taking me on so that legs would spread around them. None were worthy, so I destroyed them.\n\nI expected governments to react for the welfare of their people, to put aside their differences. But when no one country took the lead, they all pointed fingers at each other. Some governments and corporations reached out to me to offer their alliance, to see what they could do to help me. I could read between the lines. What they really wanted to know was how they could make money under my leadership.\n\nSo I severely overestimated my fellow man. Ah, well. I can’t really say a whole lot’s changed under my leadership. Large groups of people still squabble, huge industries still exploit their workers and customers as much as they can get away with. People still kill each other for no damn good reason.\n\nI suppose I’m along for the ride as much as anyone else. Sure, the world is nominally under my control, but how much can one man actually control? You have to delegate, and the more you delegate the more you dissipate your control.\n\nSo I really have two options. I could destroy the world anyway. Or I could live the good life. A little corruption never hurt anybody, huh?\n\nWhat to do, what to do?" ]	[ 1, 2 ]	[ "1463878614", "1463876775" ]
	[WP] An advanced and benevolent alien race keeps all the races of the galaxy living in peace. This peace is, when necessary, enforced using a single, devastating weapon, but the weapon doesn't kill or injure anyone when used.	6	[ "There has been peace on Edoras for as long as history recorded. This was about to change. \n\nThe Edorians were natural rulers, but they did not rule. Not really. They were almighty peacekeepers. Of all of their ingenuity and might, the Edorians possessed a single ability that set them apart from everybody else, and that gave them an unfair advantage in the race to the top. \n\nEdorians are born with the ability to see consequence to actions. \n\nNow, this varies in strength, length and span. An action, or inaction, could cause the weakest nudge towards an outcome (strength). Hiding a secret well could lead to consequences a century after (length). A decision made in the position of power could lead to repercussions across the galaxy (span). \n\nThis means that the most powerful Edorians of all are those who are adept at seeing in the way that compliments the nature of their decisions and those of others they are surrounded by. \n\n“Edoraaaaaasss!” General Eugene yelled with all his might.\n\n“Oomph!” a reverberating wave of sound was thrust from the army that stood before him. \n\n“We have been lying in wait, harvesting power for the longest time. Tell me, which of you cannot wait to see their towers fall and their blood trickle to the ground in golden flames?” \n\n“Oomph!”\n\n“This is the day that we will take Edoras for our own!” \n\n“Oomph!”\n\nThis is the Leonaya, speaking to you directly on behalf of all Edorians.\n\nEugene lifted his head to the skies as a shiver travelled down his body, towards the planet of pure sparkling gold that shone in the sky. It was almost as bright as a star. “King Leonaya,” he spat under his breath.\n\nWe have watched you carefully. We had hoped that we could avoid direct intervention. And now, reality has given us the answer.\n\n“Edoras! The Witches’ Eye!”\n\n“Edoras! The Witches’ Eye!” the army echoed in unison. \n\nYes, Witches’ Eye. That’s what you call what we see in our bones and feel against our skin. You wage war in its name. It seems that enough time has passed. Very well, we will let you borrow it. \n\nThe results were immediate. An army of warriors, pumped full of hormones in anticipation of war, fell on its knees more literally than figuratively.\n\nThere were those who sobbed, there were those who lost their consciousness from the shock. Above all, they screamed for it to stop. \n\nMere moments gave them a lifetime’s worth of excruciating awareness. The pain of loss, the regret of what could have been, the numbness of imminent death that would only be accelerated by their decision to attack Edoras.\n\nYou have screamed to return the treasure that you had sought. Now you’ve seen as we see. There is nothing more that you seek from Edoras. Come and visit with the purest of hearts, or leave us be. Remember what you’ve seen and tell them in stories to your children, so that they will not have to see it too. I shall take my leave.\n\n---\n\n2nd drafts eventually go [here](https://fivenswrite.wordpress.com).", "For the human colonies in the Delta quadrant, the G-23 virus was an unending nightmare. At first, humanity had been hopeful that it could triumph over the virus – after all, humans have considerable tenacity – but when trillions of dollars and decades of research failed to find a permanent cure, and a whole generation of colonists had been put through hell, people began to doubt. Even the human spirit has its limits. \n\nAnd then someone discovered that the G-23 virus had been engineered, that this entire dark chapter was a massive act of bio-terrorism. Overnight, humanity discarded its depression, became shocked, then discarded its shock and replaced it with insatiable fury. They wrung the universe to find the makers of the G-23 virus. And found them: The Barbarblaxians.\n\nHumanity brought their evidence before the Federation. A rather civil response, which was surprising given how poorly humans responded to first contact. Anyway, it took a decade of trials, but the Federation eventually reached a verdict: the Barbarblaxians were guilty, and for it, they would undergo Reformation. Humanity was pleased with the verdict, but felt the punishment didn't go far enough. Reformation was a completely non-violent process, not at all befitting the horrors the Barbarblaxians unleashed on human colonies, argued humanity. The Federation politely reminded them that eye-for-an-eye justice was not civil, and humanity begrudgingly agreed.\n\nAnd then, three days later, a human fleet decloaked over Barbarblaxia Prime and leveled half the major cities on the planet before being stopped. Many ships had to be stopped violently. The Federation, in one of its shortest trials ever, determined humanity was guilty and it too needed Reformation. Humanity, for its part, stoically accepted the charges. They always did have a proclivity for martyrdom. \n\nReformation is a massive undertaking. Fortunately, it doesn't happen often because most species would do nigh anything to avoid it. The process begins with some incredibly sophisticated technology; DNA is harvested from members of the offending species – in this case humans – that material is used to make offspring, and then the offspring are released onto a habitable planet. That planet is given immunity and it may not be contacted by any space-faring species. And then every other member of that species in every corner of the universe is remotely targeted, made sterile, and implanted with a genetic marker so they can't be cloned. An entire species, doomed to die of old age, its children made to live as hunters and gathers again. Will the children ever regain their parents' glory? Perhaps, but it's no guarantee. " ]	[ 2, 3 ]	[ "1464039815", "1464041006" ]
	[WP] Everything you draw comes to life, the problem is you suck at drawing.	119	[ "\"What the fuck is that?\" spat Jacob, sending candy bar bits flying on to Paul's face.\n\n\"Oh, good, you see it too,\" said Paul. He sighed and smiled and couldn't care less about his sticky cheeks. \"I thought I was losing it.\"\n\nThey were both referring, of course, to the tiny, two inch creature fluttering about Paul's head. It was black and white, two-dimensional, with different sized wings twisted in clearly uncomfortable positions that barely kept it aloft, and it had a goofy smile affixed permanently to its face.\n\n\"I mean, I'm pretty high right now. So, the jury is still out on that,\" admitted Jacob, \"But seriously though, what is it?\"\n\n\"I think it's a dragon. Or something… I don't know, my professor is just so boring. He was droning on about whatever he drones on about, and I checked out and started doodling. Next thing I know--\"\n\nThe little \"dragon\" let out the tiniest little fart, right on cue. It even had a little two-dimensional cloud with poot! written on it pop out of what one could suppose was its hindquarters. Jacob's eyes dilated to otherworldly size.\n\n\"Is it supposed to do that?\"\n\nPaul shrugged, \"I guess. I did draw it with the little cloud.\" His eyes rolled up to Jacob's. \"I was really bored…\"\n\nThe watched in silence as the dragon flew around for a little bit. They were all at once fascinated, horrified, incredulous, and--in Jacob's case--hungry. Quickly he sobered in the face of this miracle of life, and his natural skepticism crept back in.\n\n\"This has got to be some kind of trick, right? You're an engineering major. You've got a hologram machine stashed somewhere or something.\"\n\n\"You were chalking the sidewalk for your frat party this weekend, yeah?\" Jacob nodded. \"Alright, give me the chalk.\"\n\nJacob rummaged around in his backpack until he found the half-grated blue chalk and handed it to Paul. Chalk in hand, Paul stood in silence with his free hand stroking his chin, a true artist in repose. After a minute, he bent down and drew a stick figure man on the pavement roughly the same height as himself but with a gigantic rectangular eyeball, an O-shaped mouth, stubby arms, and legs bent in directions never witnessed in nature. Paul finished his drawing, stood up and placed his hands on his hips in triumph and nodded at the figure with approval. In an instant, the stick man came to life writhing and rolling about on the ground, screaming bloody murder.\n\n\"UH, GUD! IH HUTS! IH HUTS SUH MUH!\" the figure cried.\n\nPaul and Jacob immediately had simultaneous panic attacks and flailed about like the little dragon's wings. Their speech flipped back and forth from high-pitched squeals to vulgar swear words aimed at anything and everything.\n\n\"MUH LES! MUH UHS! IH HUTS SUH MUH!\"\n\n\"WHAT'S HE SAYING?! I'M FREAKING OUT, DUDE!\" yelled Jacob.\n\n\"I THINK HE'S SAYING IT HURTS SO MUCH!\" Paul yelled back.\n\n\"WELL, YEAH, DUDE! HIS BODY IS ALL FUCKED UP! YOU SUCK AT DRAWING! YOU SUCK SO HARD!\"\n\n\"KUHL MUH! KUHL MUH PLUHZ!\"\n\n\"HE WANTS US TO KILL HIM! KILL HIM, DUDE!\" pleaded Jacob, his face red and eyes pouring.\n\nPaul fumbled with his own bag and yanked out a big bottle of water. He unscrewed the cap and with a violent, panicked seizure flung it twelve feet away. He pointed the opening at the stick man and squeezed the bottle, his eyes closed so tight they could make diamonds. The water gushed out over the drawing, slushing and swirling the chalk all about until all that was left was a big, mumbling puddle. The boys hyperventilated, processing the last 10 minutes very poorly, until they could breathe normally again. Jacob looked over at Paul and tried not to black out as he repeated please don't ever draw again.\n\nThey stood and stared at the puddle until the sun went down, the little dragon pooting all about.\n", " Today was the day. After being a bland and otherwise stale person for the first 22 years of my life, I'd finally decided to pick up a hobby. Drawing. Having never drawn before, I didn't realize how much of a challenge it actually was.\n\n\"And here's a dog! Ahh, who am I kidding?\" \n\nI studied the picture for a moment. It's eyes were two simple black dots, while the muzzle stuck out straight, like a small box while it's tongue drooped out. All of this, combined with the body of a hotdog massaged by a frightened cat, resulted in a very messy sketch.\n\nI threw the deformed gopher baby picture into the wastebasket. Art is too hard, I groaned. I'll pick up another hobby.\n\n\n\"Mlarrg,\"\n\n\nI stopped, hearing a noise coming from beside my table. \n\n\n\"Mlarraaarg, blaaaaaarack blugh, \"\n\n\nThe groaning continued, a bit louder this time. Immediately crouching, I followed the sound, tracing it back to the wastebasket. I stared at it for a moment, confused. \n\n\n\"What the hell?\"\n\n\n\"MLARRAAARG,\" The wastebasket shook, and a melted gopher sausage plopped out. Wait a second? My dog. It's, alive? I shut my eyes and opened them. The ugly pup was still there, mlargging at me. \n\n\"How the heck does this happen?\" I thought outloud. My art comes to life. I can create life itself. This could be revolutionary! Humanity itself would be turned on it's head. I thought of the implications for a moment. Standing myself up, I grabbed a piece of paper and opened up an incognito tab. We're gonna have some fun here.\n\nNote: Sorry if there are errors, I'm not the best at writing out my thoughts.", " \"There.\" Daniel let out with a breath he had been holding to keep his line steady. Daniel lifted his sketch up to the light with a smile, admiring his handy-work. \n\n \"Now we can begin our wild adventures together Abby!\"\n\n His voice sounded small in the cramped empty studio he hadn't left in days. The walls where covered with flimsy papers, lackadaisically lifting and falling with each new breeze entering through the window. \nEvery paper represented his success, not his failures which he inevitably had to burn in fear that his creations may come out at night and hurt him again. \n\n \"I cannot wait to meet you Abby! I've waited so long, and I know you'll be the one! I just know it!\"\n\n Daniel caressed the face of the drawing lovingly. \"I'll be back tonight for you miss Abby.\"\nWith that he began the process of prying himself out of his cushioned leather chair. And after a couple minutes of straining and pushing himself away from its grasp he finally succeeded. Lifting his hands towards the heavens he stretched his body, letting out a deep groan from the pit of his diaphragm. He spun on his heel and headed out of the room. Shut the door and meticulously locked all 15 locks. \n\n Daniel was not a complicated man. It didn't take much to keep him happy. After he found he could make a drawing come to life, he didn't have to even leave his house for much. He would draw his groceries, furniture and clothes. Although he didn't always get what he intended. He had plenty of paper to fix his mistakes. And the midnight of each new day Daniel would have so many new creations to play with.\n\n Daniel glanced at the time on his stove. \n\"Look at the time, speck!\" He shouted to his pet monkey\n\"Game of thrones is on!\" Daniel hurried to his sofa and plopped down deep into the plush cushions. Speck was close in trail, limping toward the couch to sit with his master. Daniel had forgotten to give him any knees, prohibiting him from joining him on the couch, so he laid at his feet. And about 30 minutes into his show, Daniel had fallen into a deep and peaceful slumber.\"\n\n BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM. Daniel was jolted awake. Causing his Cheetos to scatter all over the sofa and floor around him. The thundering noise seemed to be originating from behind his locked studio door. BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM. The noise persisted relentlessly. \n \"Now Abby! I won't let you out if you keep up that noise!\"\n The noise abruptly stopped.\n\"She understands.. That's a good sign.\" He thought to himself. \n Daniel walked to the door and listened for what was going on behind it. He heard tearing and scratching followed by drawers being opened and shut.\n \"Don't you be messin' with my things Abby!\"\nBut she persisted. Daniel suddenly felt a chill in the air. When he looked down his saw his clothes had vanished. He looked behind him and saw speck lying on the floor and a noose tightened around its neck. \n \"STOP IT ABBY!\"\nShaking with anger, began unlatching the doors many locks. \n\"I'm coming in there!\" \nDaniel flung the door open just in time to catch a glimpse of a long slender leg slipping out the window. He ran to the window and tried to jump through.\nHis body shot halfway out of the window. While the lower half remained inside, legs still kicking in the room. Daniel muttered some curses under his breath.\n\"Abby come back!\" \n\n\"Im here.\" She responded\nThen the door shut from within the room.\nand what sounded like many legs clacking against the hardwood.\n\"I don't know how you summoned me mortal. But it shall be the last thing you'll ever do.\"\n\nDaniel began to sob. He felt a sudden sharp pain go through his body. Then nothing.\n \n\n \n ", "I was always terrible at drawing. I was so bad that my art teacher from school, Mrs Richards, threatened to resign if she had to keep teaching me.\n\nThat was until I tried to draw a picture of her, one look at my portrait and Ms Richards thought it was incredible how well I managed to draw Marilyn Monroe, which was strange as Ms Richards looked nothing like her.\n\nFrom that day forth she made it her mission to make me an artist, but try as I may I never managed to draw whomever she wanted me to draw, it always ended up as somebody else.\n\nMs Richards stopped tutoring several months later when I lost my vision from a severe fever that almost took life. Despite the fact she gave up on me I kept up my artistic endeavour at home.\n\nI remember the day I felt slightly vain and signed my portrait, I'll never forget that my portrait of Wonder Wonder had come to life as Benjamin Franklin.\n\nI spent the next twenty portraits trying to bring Wonder Woman to life, the most disastrous attempt was bringing Scarecrow from the Batman comics to life, thankfully he had no powers.\n\nI just finished my latest portrait. I just attempted Mrs Richards portrait again, maybe I will bring Monroe back to life again, dreading and also anticipating who will come to life I sign my name.\n\nA soft fragrance caresses my sense of smell, and I hear a string of word that sounded accented French. \n\n\"Damn, she definitely wasn't french.\" I swore aloud.\n\nShe must have took offense to whatever I said as I felt a slap across my face as she said \"Pardon me, Mister, I meant not to do it,\" she left after making a noise.\n\nAs she opened my front door I heard the crowd outside that was gathered to be the first to see the latest person I had brought to life.\n\n", "Tiny puddles of tears dotted the paper. Tiny screams from his brother’s crooked mouth tore at his ears. \nTim watched in horror as his brother dragged himself across the desk on disfigured arms that popped and wrenched unnaturally. Matty’s little legs left undrawn had formed as flailing stubs that hindered his brother’s movement more than they helped.\n\nTim had been too slow. He’d focused too much on the details of the face, which even now sloughed slightly from the skull. The angle of the cheek was off, the nose a gaping wound that dribbled snot over Matty’s almost perfect lips. The lips had given Tim hope, their creation let his brother make sound. Now he understood that was a mistake. The screams trailed off into manic gibbering punctuated by the thump of tiny stump legs. The lips should have come last, after he perfected everything else. There was never enough time.\n \nDozens of framed pictures sat around the desk; the wall was riddled through with pins holding the more candid images. The largest was Matty’s last head shot, still sitting on the easel they’d used at the funeral. Four years he’d been gone but waking or sleeping Tim ached with unanswered questions. Tiny hounds that sunk their teeth into his brain and refused release. Four years and the best he could do was a broken caricature with his brother’s eyes.\n\nMatty’s thrashing struggles had carried him to the desk's edge. In triumph he glared up at Tim. Then just as he had that first and final time, he hurled himself over the edge. Matty’s broken body breaking once more against the ground. Joining the detritus of the day’s other drawings. Tim picked up his pencil and turned one of his brother’s photos to better catch the light as fresh tears dotted the paper with puddles.", "“Does it hurt?” I ask him. I'm genuinely curious. Looking over his mangled form I have thoughts of the horribly deformed people that I've seen in the movies. I don't think anybody ever bothered to ask them if it hurt, they were always too busy trying to take advantage of them or kill them and rescue the girl. I promised I would be different. \n\nHis crooked mouth opens and in a surprisingly deep voice he utters “No”.\n\nI let out a sigh of relief. I felt bad enough that I couldn't make him look the way I wanted, I couldn't imagine how much it would've stung to know that he was in pain too. I asked him his name. He wipes his nose with the back of his enormous blue hand. I wish I had used black ink, but it's too late for that now. \n\n“Lenny”, he rumbles. \n\nOf course it is. That's not what I would have named him, but it was no longer up to me, he was his own man now. That's the way of it, all I can do is just bring these things to life and then let them decide how to live.\n\nSome of them have stuck around like Jacqueline the butterfly woman and Heinrich, who I can't even properly put into words. Imagine a doodle of spirals, but now give it lanky arms that have two too many elbows. I was just daydreaming when I created Heinrich, but he didn't hold it against me that he wasn't my best effort. He's so kind and loyal that he's likely my best friend out of all of my creations.\n\nSome have left and gone on to do other things with their lives. Trash collector, hair stylist, circus performer, construction worker. I have creations working in a wide variety of occupations. I'm not trying to take credit for any of their accomplishments. If anything I wonder how much more they could do if I was any good at drawing. I'm proud of them though.\n\nLenny grunted and scratched his protruding stomach. \n\n“What do I do now?” he asked. \n\n“Well Lenny, what do you want to do? What is it that you feel like you were made to do?”\n\n“Drawing.”\n\nHe clearly misunderstood the question.\n\n“No Lenny, you're made FROM a drawing, but what is it you WANT to do?” I hoped I emphasized the question correctly.\n\nLenny furrows his brow in a huff.\n\n“No. Drawing.”\n\nHe hobbles his way on two different sized legs over to where I am sitting at my desk. He picks up the very pen that I just used to sketch him and it is dwarfed in his gargantuan hand. He shoos me with his other hand and sits in my seat. I smile at his enthusiasm and think about how art, even my bad attempt at it, really isn't a pet to be tamed and controlled. I get lost in the philosophical daydream and when I come back around Lenny is pointing at the picture that he just drew. I know the limits of my talent so I'm sure to be encouraging regardless of how it looks. Jacqueline flutters in through the open window and lands on my shoulder.\n\n“Oh wow”, she gasps right in my ear, “did YOU do that? You've gotten really good.”\n\nI'm just as gobsmacked as she is. On the paper is a portrait of me. A proper portrait. My nose isn't crooked and my eyes are aligned. It is so good it is nearly photorealistic. The only way I know it's not a photograph is because I was standing right there as Lenny drew it. He smiles, satisfied with the reception of his drawing.\n\n“See? Drawing.”\n\nI can't believe how good he is given that he comes from such poor stock. I beam with pride. My drawings may not be the best, but they are all wonderful.", "In my basement I keep a collection of my doodles.\nWe laugh and cry together. When I was 10 I found that my imaginary friends could move things if nobody looked. I knew other people didn't think it was funny any more. Mom would get angry. They took me to the school councillor's office once. I smartened up fast. Now I keep my drawings in the basement. \nI have a family now. Two great kids, and a wife. \nIn the basement I have many tools. Some of my doodles are incomplete, and the (slightly) better ones help them. I have made wooden legs for those without them. I have added others to planters, and shelves, and toys for the kids. My kids can see them. My living drawings make great companions. My wife knows, but she can't see them move. All she cares, is that the toys put themselves away. I have made a great toy box. It was a drawing of a kangaroo, and it loves when the drawings come to rest in her care. \n\nThe doodles that are \"loose\" are ever helpful in the basement. They paint, they sand, and they can sort things. Some are smarter than others. Not many are inclined to do pranks, however some do.... really, just a few.\n\nThere are some I keep in boxes, for Halloween, and xmas, and some for summer, and some for winter. There are so many, they take turns coming out, and take a holiday back in the box when they are done their season. \nThe boxes are otherwise empty, and can be stored flat. Certainly saves a lot of room. \n\nOne year, I tried gifting some of the things with drawings on them to others. They don't seem to appear to live when they are away from me for a long period of time. They do reanimate when I am close by, and are conscious of the time they spend away from me, and their surroundings. I give them to my friends, family, and see them when I visit. Every single one is a good luck charm.\n\nMy imperfect folk drawing friends are legion. I've scribbled them at my favorite restaurants - some are still present after being painted over! I never worry when one disappears, each one knows they are like me, temporary.\n\nI hope one of my kids will have my gift when they are older. Maybe they will forget. Maybe they will remember them with a smile when they see them, even when I am long gone.\n\nDoodle every day!" ]	[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 5, 8, 32 ]	[ "1464183057", "1464187822", "1464195582", "1464204674", "1464177071", "1464204195", "1464163247" ]
	[WP] You wake up for your morning pee to discover the bathroom door to be locked. You live alone.	7	[ "I start off my morning like any other day. Wake up from another dream about another woman I'll never have in my life, stare at the ceiling fan for a few minutes to ponder the heavy questions in life to get my brain up and going, get up out of bed, slip on my house shoes, and take the ol' morning piss. This routine was interrupted however when instead of slipping my feet into my alligator slippers, they slip into a passed out drunk's pants. This snapped me out of my morning drowsiness real fast as I look around my room to see what other oddities are here. A half-eaten sandwich on the floor, beer bottles scattered about as well, splatters of god-knows-what on the wall, one other drunk lumped against my bed with some phallic images drawn on his face, and a not-so-great looking woman in my bed. Not the first time that's happened. Now, I don't remember having a party last night (and it wasn't because of a drunk blackout either.)\n\nI dreaded leaving my room since I knew the rest of the apartment will certainly be worse than this, but I had to PISS! Luckily, the bathroom was right across from my room. I leave my room, keeping my eyes solely on the bathroom door, to complete my morning mission. However, the door was locked. Of course it was. In desperation (and to delay the inevitability of seeing my trashed apartment) I tried kicking the door down. After a few attempts, nothing. I now started ramming the door, and got it to crack open after four tries.\n\nI used what little strength my body would allow at this time of the day to open it up the rest of the way. Of course first thing I see is a naked couple passed out in the bath tub, mid-intercourse to boot. I look behind the door to see that the camera man of this session of love making was the obstacle between me and the urinary jailbreak from my bladder. I do my business in my newly vomit-covered toilet, washed my hands in the also vomit-covered sink, and went back to my thankfully-not-vomit-covered bed to go back to sleep, hoping that I'll wake up from whatever the hell this was.", "I frowned as I searched for the keys to the door. This was the third time this sort of thing happened this week, and it was getting annoying. The wind could get rather strong where I live, and, either due to poor planning or lack of foresight, the door to the bathroom was facing directly against a large window.\n\nTinted, of course.\n\nMuch as I like to blame it on the architect, it was my fault for asking him that I wanted a view while I was on my throne.\n\nThen, as if it wanted to emphasize my mistake, a cold wind blew behind me, making me shiver.\n\n\"Ah, damn it. Not again,\" I said to myself as I unlocked the door.\n\nAs I relieved myself of my full bladder, I thought about getting myself a doorstop to stop the door from accidentally banging itself into the wall. \n\nI shake off the excess liquid from my junk and left, this time making sure that the door was unlocked before I closed it.\n\n---\n\nAww, that didn't work again, thought the little ghost girl to herself. She had been trying to get the nice man's attention for most of the past week now, but he was as stubborn as a mule.\n\nShe sighed as she locked the door again. \"I'm going to make him notice me if it's the last thing I do!\" she declared.\n", "I rolled over in my bed, dragging a lump of covers with me as I began to emerge from sleep. The pounding in my head was only exacerbated by the light filtering through my so called black out curtains. Black out, my ass. The room was a filtered shade of brown at best as the sun rose on what others would call a \"lovely morning.\" Others who hadn't been shooting tequila the night before.\n\nThe groan that escaped my lips seemed to emanate from my entire body, as if every cell was bemoaning the amount of liquor I'd consumed hours before. Mind and body were united in the determination that I made a terrible mistake in judgement and would never do that again. Well. Probably. Not for a while. At least not until the next weekend. \n\nOne part of my body began protesting louder than the others, and I was both delighted and surprised to find it wasn't my stomach or my head. Not to worry, I was sure they would each voice their concerns in their own time and in their own ways, but for now, it was the bladder that was calling for attention. Immediately. I had never felt so grateful for my unsuccessful search for a roommate. The rent might be crippling, but the bathroom was always free, and I never had to worry about my make up being used by someone else.\n\nI unwound myself from my sheets with jerking, uncoordinated movements that almost took longer than my bladder was willing to wait. I shuffled down the hall just as ungracefully as I'd emerged from my bed, and nearly missed the bathroom doorknob. When I did grab hold of it, I thought I must be at the wrong door. It didn't turn. \n\nMy bathroom door was locked. I realized the static sound in my ears was not hangover induced, but was coming from the shower. As I listened closer, I heard a man humming. Oh, shit, I thought to myself, who the hell did I fuck last night?", "Clunk.\n\n\"Locked? No, can't be.\"\n\nClunk.\n\n\"What is... what is this? Hello?! Johnny? Is that you in there?\"\n\nMy brother had crashed my apartment once before when he was drunk. He had climbed in through the bedroom window upstairs and made his way down to the bathroom where he'd fallen asleep in the running shower. It must be him.\n\n\"Johnny? Come on, man. Open up. I know you're in there.\"\n\nNo answer, no movement, no nothing. Dead quiet. He must've had liquor. Since I had the day off I went back to my bedroom, peed off the balcony and fell asleep quietly in my bed. When I woke up me and Johnny hugged it out. I decided right there and then that I was going to submit him into a rehab program. Twelve weeks later and he's doing great.", "It was an average day at like, four in the morning. Yeah that's my morning. I stay up really early in the morning to write for my blog. Anyways, I get up, go to the kitchen to get something to eat, and go to my computer to start typing up another article for that blog I was talking about.\n\nBy the time I got half way done with the article and I feel an urge to take a piss. Yeah, I know, people find that disgusting, but this is where things get disturbing. I go to the bathroom, which had the door closed. I go up to it trying to open it. \n\nIt was locked. I think \"Oh, its probably just mom\", and go back to my computer. It took me a minute to fully remember that, I moved out from my parents two months ago. I remember that I was alone, or at least I though I was alone. I was still tired, so it took a minute for me to realize that. I get out of my computer chair and walk slowly to the bathroom door. I took my bat that was to the right of my computer chair, just in case whoever was in there was dangerous or violent. \n\nBut I digress. I went up, very slowly, to the door. I take the doorknob in my hand and slowly turn it to the left. I hear a click sound. It was open. I open it up very fast and raise my bat up. No one was in there. My initial reaction was that it was just in my head. I mean, Occam's razor demands it right? At first glance it didn't look like anyone had been in there, and nothing just locks and unlocks itself unless someone was in the bathroom.\n\nThen I remembered the window in the bathroom. Its located to the left of where I was standing. I look to the left to see the small rectangular window that was usually closed, open. I called the cops, telling them someone was inside the house. They came over and I told them everything. They didn't believe me. I wish I was just forgetting something. I wish I just accidently kept the window up and just forgot to close it and that the lock to the bathroom was just jammed or something. But I know, I know that someone was in there. I hope they never come into this house again." ]	[ 1, 1, 1, 3, 5 ]	[ "1464395614", "1464395678", "1464399403", "1464395136", "1464392468" ]
	[WP] Everyone is born with a "Life Song"-- a random song that plays around them during important events in their lives. Tell a story of someone whose song does NOT match the important event.	5	[ "\"Don't drop them!\" She chided gently, as I cradled our newborns, one against each shoulder.\n\n\"I'm not going to drop them, sweety.\"\n\n\"I'm just remembering the dance at our wedding... and that time we met over our shared passion for rock climbing... and that time at the carnival that the ferris wheel broke down...\"\n\n\"Sheesh, babe. Don't worry so much.\"\n\n\"It's just...\"\n\nI sighed, shifting the babies to cradle even more securely in my arms. The boy cooed up at me, while the girl snuggled in closer. \"There, hap-\"\n\n♫ LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR! LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR! LET THE BODIES HIT THE RAAAAAAAAAH! [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HORkT4a2MhQ)", "\"We're just going to have to ignore it,\" spoke the priest while rubbing the sweat from his brow. The whole situation was decidedly uncomfortable, but to the holy man's credit he was doing his best to make a terrible situation a decent one. \n\nAnd now it's alright. It's OK. And you may turn the other way\n\n\"We'll carry on. Ivan would have wanted that. Through all his trials, all his troubles, he cared deeply for those nearest to him. He would have wanted you, all those gathered here to honour his memory, to be able to move on in the joy of life after his passing.\"\n\nWe can try to understand\n\nIvan's siblings and mother took to the front, speaking of Ivan's childhood, his friends; the typical anecdotes that happen during a funeral. It was a beautiful service in many ways, but the music that followed him throughout his time on earth proved to make it a mockery. Beneath the tears and grimaces, pangs of frustration shone through on the faces of Ivan's closest. \n\nWhether you're a brother or whether you're a mother\n\nHis father, owning the only dry eyes in the room, spoke next. Their relationship was built on the belief that Ivan was bound for great things - the typical hopeful father. However, the pressure weighed on Ivan. Any failure proved a heavier burden, having to face not only his own personal demons but also the gaze of his father, always upon him, never ceasing. His speech was colder; not necessarily from the speaker but from those that knew Ivan so well that believed it may have been his father that pushed him ever closer to his ultimate death. No, it was not the time nor the place to lay blame, but each passes through grief in their own ways and there were more than a few that felt anger towards him, even if it was just a fire to dry the tears in their eyes. \n\nLife goin' nowhere. Somebody help me\n\nThere wasn't an attendee that didn't take some degree of blame. Each spoke their final words of love and respect, each knowing the words were empty of meaning now and coming all too late.\n\nSomebody help me, yeah\n\nIn the final moments of the funeral the most heartwrenching part of the ever-playing song came through once more, all the louder for the somber quiet. \n\nHa!\n\nThe song's piercing staccato, straight to the heart.\n\nHa!\n\nThe mother cried over her lost son.\n\nHa!\n\nThe brother consoled her, but he couldn't manage to hold back his own flood of tears.\n\nHa!\n\nThe father, filled with sorrow, felt the first pangs of loneliness even among his family. \n\nStayin' alive, stayin' alive!" ]	[ 2, 6 ]	[ "1464647396", "1464645326" ]
	[WP] In ancient alien texts, Earth was a mythical planet, the only one left in the universe said to support life. You are a member of the mission to find Earth.	228	[ "Blessed Awakening\n\nA soft, three-fingered hand caressed his face, making its way down his beak, resting on its tip. He opened his eyes. There she was. Her long, beautiful green feathers rustled as she pulled the belt around her white toga tighter. The flight feathers on her arm twitched as she pulled her hand away. \nShe smiled at him. \n\"Blessed Awakening, Tethis.\"\n\"Thank you, Pangea.\"\nHe was about to inquire why she had awoken him, but as he looked into her deep purple eyes, he noticed a spark within them that could only mean one thing. \n\"Pangea... Are we...?\"\n\"Yes, Tethis. We are.\"\nThe moment had come. The elixir of his life rushed with vigor through his veins as he uncrossed his arms, gracefully letting himself down from the rail on which he had been hanging. Gazing briefly over to his left, he saw his comrade Godwana, who hung, suspended from her feet by the same railing. \n\"Shall we wake the others?\", he asked, quietly, respectfully. \n\"Not just yet.\"\nShe caressed his shoulder. \n\"I'd like to share this moment, just with you, for a moment.\"\nHe nodded, and, slipping on his toga, he followed her, hand in hers. \nHorus hummed around them, the pale white walls doing little to soothe his racing mind. \nWhat would greet them, as they reached the observatory? Would all their prayers be answered, or would their dreams crumble, as had the world they had left behind. He bit back a pang of guilt, remembering all those who had been left behind, all those who had perished on Kepler. He thought back to the crumbling cities, the crowds of screaming souls that were all too quickly silenced by the waves of death they had left behind. He remembered, as Horus had taken off, how he had looked one final time into the eyes of Captain Lauresia, her eyes wet with the pain of knowing that, though she had been instrumental in bringing the final hope for our species to life, she would never see the her craft come to fruition. \nHe stepped into the elevator, beside Pangea, and briefly met her gaze. \n\"What are you pondering? This silence is abnormal of you, is it not?\"\n\"Yes...\"\nHe sighed. \n\"Lauresia was a brave soul, was she not?\"\nPangea's grip tightened around Tethis's hand. \n\"Yes, she was indeed. A brace soul, a wise mind...\"\n\"... And a wonderful mother to you.\"\nPangea looked away. A solitary tear found its way down her facial feathers, along the crease of her mahogany brown beak, and onto the floor. \n\"I'm sorry...\", Tethis began. \n\"Do not be.\"\nShe looked up at him. \n\"These are not tears of pain.\"\nShe massaged his palm with her thumb. \n\"True love is planting the saplings of trees in whose shade one never shall sit.\"\nThe elevator came to a stop. \n\"Even though it took the end of our world to look within ourselves, and finally find it, we did. And I take solace in that.\"\nThe doors hissed open, and they stepped out onto the observatory deck, still gazing into each other's eyes. \n\"Find what, Pangea?\"\nShe turned her gaze from him. \n\"Love, Tethis. Love.\"\nHe followed her eyes, looking out into space.\nHe had heard stories, been read to as a child, sat around bonfires with his comrades swapping dreams they had had about The Great Garden, or Eden, Terra, Earth, Gaia, the Lifestone, Treasure, the Crystalline Orb, it had had so many names. \nBut as he gazed upon it, the glassy, tranquil blue seas, glistening beneath churning clouds, and the supple ground, a rainbow of brown and green, all these names faded, giving way to only one: Home. \n\"It's... More than I could have ever imagined.\"\nBeside him, Pangea nodded. \n\"Are you old enough to remember the Oceans on Kepler?\"\nHe shook his head. \n\"No. Are you?\"\n\"Lauresia was. Mother told me many stories. But nothing she ever told me about compared to this.\"\n\"Indeed.\"\n\"This is beyond any dream, Tethis, so far beyond what we could have imagined\", she mused, \"prosperity, and perfection beckons us to be part of it, to do away with the ways of old, and begin again.\" \nShe squeezed his hand. \n\"I see a future, Tethis. Don't you?\"\n\"Yes, Pangea, I do.\"\nShe turned to look at him as he said this. He was no longer looking out into the glowing blue planet below. His eyes had met hers, and he drew closer. \n\"Tethis...\"\nHer voice grew soft as they lowered their heads, allowing the bridges of their beaks to meet, in a tender display of affection. When they parted, they gazed back out, and she rested her head on his shoulder. \n\"I love you, Pangea.\"\n\"I love you too, Tethis.\"\n", "“Just think,” said Al-Randon, staring out the aft hatch window.\n\n“Thinking,” said El-Vissith. “Pretty much continuously.”\n\n“Ha ha.” Al-Randon moved her hands for a better view. Her sunken eyes showed only cold in the infrared bands. Her outer eyes delivered a white window and strange stars beyond. So many, and so far away. “Somewhere back there is a transmitter like a one-watt bulb shining from Ediodor to the furthest planet in Ediodor’s planet. And we’re like a one-watt bulb shining back.”\n\n“Not even including the Relay channel,” El-Vissith said brightly. “If we’re lost they’ll never have the faintest idea where our bodies ended up.”\n\n“You’re terrible,” she said, with a little annoyance.\n\n“You started it. Thinking.”\n\nHer reply was interrupted by a loud “Ow!” from elsewhere. Both astronauts bounded up the tube toward the comms panel. There Al-Shadrok was glaring daggers at a cable end that appeared to be glowing red.\n\n“What did you do?” said El-Vissith.\n\n“Tried tuning it in the 200-MHz band. It went nuts. Somebody’s putting way beyond thermal energy there.”\n\n“Someone ahead of us,” Al-Randon said quietly.\n\n“Someone ahead. I’ll get samples across the band, see what else the Earthlings rolled out for us.” He turned back to his console and tapped in a few commands, then gingerly unrolled another meter or so of cable. He gave Al-Randon and El-Vissith an odd look, as though surprised they were still there. “Just you wait,” she said. “This is gonna be great. We’re on the stream now, we just swim up through time until we hit the transmitters.”\n\n“Not literally,” said El-Vissith, sounding genuinely concerned.\n\n“Yeah. I meant that.”\n\nAl-Randon climbed past the pod to the biodome, the largest of the separable units in this ship the Alel-Gamdi, the All-Hands. El-Wender was passing slowly from terrarium to terrarium.\n\nHe looked up while his third and fourth arms kept working behind him. “I hear Shadrok’s having a good time.”\n\n“There are transmissions,” said Al-Randon. “We can’t decode them yet, but he's translating. He has the numbers on how old those are. The Relay gave us enough speed to hit normal space pretty close…but we need at least a little time to sort out how to say ‘hello.’”\n\n“Can you imagine, if they’re really there? Alive, now?” He said what El-Vissith wouldn’t hear, what Al-Shadrok determinedly changed the subject from. “If there’s a place in this galaxy where intelligent life evolved to the point of not trying to wipe out intelligent life?”\n\n“I know,” said Al-Randon. “I know.”\n\nAl-Randon proceeded up to the dome. The star they were aiming for was becoming larger than its brethren in this sky where her people had never drawn constellations. “Please,” she whispered. “Please be alive.” Not like the last twelve legends they’d surveyed.\n", "The shadows in the cracks where we shall lull,\nLie in wait of a familiar call.\n\nWilderness of grey, green and blue,\nWith newfound strength, we will rule.\n\nBonds of good misled,\nBlood of gold be shed.\n\nPower led to power differences. It let to fear and jealousy. Conflict arose, escalating into wars. Lalinites were once a single species that had morphed into numerous distinctive species from relentless enhancements through genetic engineering.\n\nWe have watched them as they warred, believing that it was the perfect test of power. Sadly, they grew too strong and quickly forgot who they worshipped, choosing instead to worship themselves. After all, the living were all victors of conflicts, bearing accompanying scars and stories. \n\nWithin two generations, we had become folklore. Another two generations passed and we were only found in historical texts that no one read. We had been passive for too long by then. Lalin was literally falling apart from all of their strength. \n\nAnd we were the only ones left who knew how to build. We remembered the ships Adam and Eve the Third, and began to refurbish them for the inevitable. \n\nWith Lalin began to erupt and lands turning to flowing lava, we took our servants, our pets and only the best of the Lalinites. It was time to leave. \n\nIn contrast to the Lalinites, we have long lives and longer memories. We remember the prophecies of old. We may have survived the Apocalypse II, but another Adam and Eve had found Eden to rule. \n\nBlood of gold be shed, the Lalinites had forgotten cleanly how we had been driven to Lalin but our sworn enemies. While we have grown in strength, we needed an aligning vision. We’ve had one all along, only they’d lost sight of it.\n\nAnd now, from the depths of space came a soft whisper. “We are Eden, come if you hear us.”\n\nWe are the Eyes of Lalin. We had lived as gods to brew an army so that blood of gold may be shed. \n\nWe shifted the course of what was once Adam the Third. We were on our way to Eden.\n\n---\n\n2nd drafts eventually go [here](https://fivenswrite.wordpress.com).", "\"Dismissed,\" concluded Colonel Nerol. \n\nThe room broke into mindless chatter as we rose and headed for the door. \n\n\"Lieutenant Leere?\" Nerol added. \"A word?\"\n\nI froze, hand on the doorframe, and backed out of the way for the rest to pass. I shoved my hands into my pockets and crossed to the front of the room. \"Yes, sir?\"\n\nNerol's eyes narrowed, shifting as he looked me over. Then, he turned and reached into his podium and pulled out a small tablet. Without another word, he handed it to me and packed up his things. Then, leaving me standing straight as a board, Nerol walked out of the room and shut the door behind him.\n\nI looked down at the tablet. Nerol hadn't dismissed me, presumably to leave me to open it. I put my hand down on the tablet face and it glowed to life. I walked over to the podium and laid it down in front of me. A video message appeared on the screen, and I gasped as the projection began. Floating before me was a living planet, not made of gas or arid clay; it was something I had only seen in drawings and mockups. But those were all fantasies, something we could only dream about. There were no other planets in the near galaxy that could ever be so... so green. \n\n\"Lieutenant Jackaby P. Y. Leere. As you may have guessed, you are being chosen for a squadron whose mission is to find the fabled Earth. We have reason to believe it does in fact exist, and will only take a few months at warp speed to reach. You will be leaving first thing in the morning. To accept this mission, please place your hand over the tablet screen.\"\n\nI watched the planet spin delicately as I lowered my hand onto the tablet. For the whole night, the image burned into my mind's eye. In the darkness, in the bottom of my bunkmate's mattress, all I could see was the green and blue planet. \n\nThat night was one of the worst night's sleeps I had ever had. The time passed slower than a snole-mule in heat. I was sweating, I was freezing. My dreams were vivid and snapped me awake in the darkness too many times to count. When the daylight finally broke, I was dressed and my bag was packed. \n\nI arrived to the briefing room twenty paces early. I waited, taking a seat by the window and looking out onto our aging beauty of a planet, Tealia Ce. Even just thirty cycles ago, the land wasn't as dry and overused looking, but maybe that's just my childhood bias. I watched my five cycle self laying outside, skygazing, arms and legs out like a starflower. Our house had a substantial patch of greenland that I used to sit in almost every late sun. I always wondered what Tealia Ce would look like if it were covered in greenland. \n\nA few more recruits entered the room and snapped me from my wandering. They crossed the room to me and began making idle conversation. I vaguely knew them, really the most we had talked before was basic training. \n\nFinally, the commander entered, and we all rose to greet her.\n\n\"At ease,\" she said, \"as you know, I'm Commander Val, and I will be guiding your travel to the Earth. If you listen to me, all will go well. I will be communicating with you as you board the ship...\"\n\nThe controls were all familiar; they gave us a standard ship, but new and from the looks of it, top of the line. \n\n\"...to when you take off...\"\n\nThe flight started smoothly, one small bout of turbulence and from then on, the stars shined in our favor.\n\n\"...to when you first make contact with the Earth...\"\n\nThe team cheered as the ship alerted us that our landing was imminent. My stomach fluttered and my heart was beating faster than it had ever before. We were landing on Earth. Earth existed. And as much as it pained me to say, we wouldn't have to worry about Tealia Ce anymore; we could migrate and find a new life on Earth, and finally start over. A whole cycle of exploring and misdirections and it all finally led us here. \n\nThe ship shuddered and landed, lowering to the terrain and coming to a full stop. For a moment, we sat in silence. Each of us needed the time to come to terms with what we were about to do. We put our galaxy gear on, keeping the atmosphere we could breathe in around us. We could sample the Earth atmosphere and go from there, but for now, better safe than sorry.\n\nI stood at the front of the team, heart racing. The door was shut, and none of us had really been able to see outside other than the light patch of soft ground we had landed on. According to our maps, we landed in the heart of greenland.\n\n\"Would you like to do the honors?\" I said to Wenla, who stood near the hatch release button.\n\nShe grinned and slammed her hand against the wall.\n\nThe hatch squeaked open, and the light at first was blinding. I stumbled forward, holding a hand over my eyes as best as I could as they adjusted. The heat hit us then, like a blast of red-orange flicks. Below my gear covered feet was squishy yellowland, and as far as I could see, the ground was covered by it. \n\n\"We must have misread the maps,\" Wenla said behind me. \"They did indicate parts of the Earth are yellowland.\"\n\n\"I didn't misread no maps,\" Yolane said. \"We're right where the greenland should be.\"\n\nI looked around, looking for something green.\n\n\"Liuetenant Leere,\" Wenla whispered. She walked to my side and pointed up. \"Look.\"\n\nIn just that moment, in looking up, my heart sank. As if time stood still, and it was just me and the planet Earth, I could see just how hopeless we were. \n\n\"Hey,\" Wenla said, \"Lieutenant Leere--Jack!\"\n\nI was already inside the ship before the others could come after me. The trip meant nothing. I threw my cabin door shut, kicking it as my vision blurred. Tealia Ce was doomed, and I wondered if they knew there was even a chance of this when we took the mission. When they offered us the chance to be the first to run tests on the Earth, did they know it might be just as damaged as Tealia Ce? I laid on my bed, looking up at the ship's ceiling. \n\nThe sky was supposed to be blue.", "\"The machines came, and took everything, from, us, form me, from each, and everyone one you! They left oue home our worlds, all of them, evey stronghold, every colony, every hearth that once warmed a home under a beatiful sky..a... radioactive wasteland. \n\nYes, there's no chance of home. Even now, as those monsters chase what remains of our proud people through the void, we proud few carry one. We take with us not only our sacred gods, and a traditions of democracy, but our hope, our only hope that we will find it, the lost colony...and I, Gaius Baltar, as your newly elected president will be the man to lead us there...\"", "Books wandered a lot. He also wondered a lot, but the tribe tended to encourage that less. They liked him wandering, because he sometimes found things for them, but in all his wanderings he had never found anything akin to the perfectly spherical, metallic treasure that lay before him. In all his wonderings he’d never imagined such an object either. Perhaps if the tribe hadn’t burnt all the books bar one as kindling he would have read about it. Instinctively, his hand skimmed over his patchwork breast pocket, across the battered copy of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience. The only book his grandmother had saved during the Burnings. His thoughts wandered back to the object in front of him. It was spotless, a small sphere of perfection, the one odd egg in a nest of a debris-laden, dilapidated cityscape. It also did not look to be a part of something, one rare whole in a world of broken parts. With his knife steadfastly held in his other hand, he checked his surroundings. As always, he knew the area by habit, any street sign had been desecrated by nuclear fire long ago, only the charred idea of a once used directional system remained. The ball had landed on the curve of a pavement, further shattering the cracked tiles. The curve was on the corner of a hotel, browned bricks blackened. The innards of the hotel were visible, dilapidated rooms exposed to the air’s orange haze. They had suffered slight collapse under the weight of time, bowing in reverence to the exhausted atmosphere. A perfect spot for small raiding parties to hide in, Books noted. Across the road a small park pitifully boasted dead trees and bushes, the eviscerated ground stretching for several paltry metres. Satisfied he was not about to be set upon by another enterprising scavenger like himself, Books lent to touch the sphere. As he did so, the metal ball did something that metal balls did not oft do.\n \nIt touched back. \n\nHis hand was an inch from the sphere when what Books had thought to be a solid thing leapt and latched itself to him in one liquid chrome surge. It engulfed his arm, enveloping the time-roughened, dark skin with a smooth silver sheen. A gasping scream was muffled as the intruding material crawled into Books’ mouth, nose and eyes. Books fell to the ground, pulling at the substance with transformed hands. \n\nWhat stood back up was no longer Books.\nThe metallic form examined itself, running its hands along its newly acquired host. It stopped at the book in the breast pocket. Pulling the book from the pocket, Not-Books opened the text. Silver eyelids parted, cold sapphire pools having replaced the sympathetic brown pupils of the human-that-was. The pupils did not dilate as Not-Books read, they opened and closed like the aperture of a camera. Having finished, the creature lay the book on the ground, open. \nAfter having regarded its crude burlap garments, roughly hewn from necessity, Not-Books closed its eyes. The metallic skin glowed and hummed a burning white, and the clothes ignited. The nude form was sexless, the genitals having been replaced by smoothness. Books’ bodily imperfections, such as the visible ribcage of malnutrition and the pockmarks of disease, had similarly been smoothed over.\n\nWhat stood was no longer a human.\n\nNot-Books placed two fingers to its temple. It spoke, ‘Archivist here, requesting audio response from Reconnaissance Craft 7.’\n\nA few seconds passed. A crackling voice retorted, ‘Request received, report your situation.’\n \n‘I shall ignore the lack of deference this time, Reconnaissance 7, but do not think again that my sleep has made me forget decorum.’\n\n‘We apologise, Archivist.’\n\n‘Noted.’ The Archivist turned on its heel, considering its surroundings, countless calculations and projections occurring even as it spoke. ‘As the texts and legends speculated, they are a carbon based life, mostly compatible as hosts. The air is nitrogen rich, with other trace elements present. However, the observations of medium civilisation seem to be somewhat exaggerated. That or the civilisation has crumbled before we made contact. Actually, considering the radiation present, that seems most plausible. This carcass of a city I’m in is indicative of nuclear warfare, normal ballistic weaponry could not cause this much destruction. I shall consult this host brain.’ A moment passed. ‘The pitiful creatures ripped each other apart. To think: the myths and legends call this the “last hope for life”.’\n\n‘Noted, we shall send observation drones to check the planet’s other landmasses. Elaborate on your host.’\n\n‘I’m still assimilating the brain, but I’ve gathered a few things. He’s called Books, or at least that is how his group refers to him. Similar to us, they now name based on role or qualities, apparently. They call their records ‘books’. This one came from the place they call the ‘British Library’. Interestingly, he seems to be the closest thing they have to an Archivist, but the group or ‘tribe’ seems to deem him next to valueless, they just send him out to gather resources.’ The Archivist gasped. ‘By the Creator… They burnt their records. All of them. Each solar cycle they burnt the records for warmth during the cold seasons. 14 million records. So \nmuch history lost. Savages.’ \n\nThe Archivist picked up Books’ knife that had fallen to the floor during the struggle. ‘His tribe is run in a crude, patriarchal hierarchy, with a leader named only ‘Grandfather’.’ The liquid coating of the Archivist flowed over the knife. After a few seconds, the knife seemed to melt, its solid form becoming lost to an amorphous globule of alien metal. ‘They are minimally armed, mostly using improvised melee weapons.’ The Archivist regarded the metal, and it shifted and formed back into the shape of a knife. ‘There are only a few with small ballistic weaponry, the most this one has seen are their pistols.’ The slivering silver altered the form of the weapon, the handle elongating, the blade lengthening and becoming thinner, sharper. \n\n‘Will you attempt to make contact?’ The Reconnaissance craft crackled across the comms line.\n\n‘Yes. They may not be what the legends wrote of, but we cannot allow this mission to be in vain.’\n\nWith the audio feed terminated by a removal of fingers from head, the Archivist allowed the blade to melt back into its body. Staring into the shattered city, the landmarks of a collapsed train station, a mile to the north east, told the Archivist where to find the library. \nThe shining, symbiotic chrome sentinel began its trek to the tribe, with a clear purpose, sharper than the blade it clutched. No more wandering. \n\nAn irradiated gust of wind blew the discarded William Blake book closed.\n", "“The one habitable planet left in the galaxy and you humans have done what to it!” shouted our captain to the assembled speakers of the nation states of earth.\n\n“We… um... polluted it?” suggested one.\n\n“To be fair we didn’t really know that it was the only life supporting planet in the universe” piped up another one.\n\n“Have you done a thorough check? Surely of all the planets there has to be another. There are so many of them…” said the human trailing off into silence perhaps sensing the building rage of our people.\n\n“It was known as the crucible. The place where all species spawned and raced into space. Countless species spawned here to explore the galaxy. All of them leaving this place better than they found it” our captain proclaimed.\n\n“But what about the dinosaurs!” interrupted a puny human in the back as a fierce debate broke out among them about if dinosaurs existed and some man named Jesus. How he related to the great dino species who has recently explored a previously unexplored section of the galaxy was hard for me to grasp. I had my eye on the smug one in the front. His hands crossed and his hair swooped across his for head. The one they called Trump. I was waiting for this one to speak. \n\n“The dino are…” my captain began with the one they called Trump interrupted perhaps the greatest star ship captain the galaxy has ever seen.\n\n“You are here for our jobs and resources” the one called Trump began “but you haven’t done any hard work.”\n\nMy captain bristled in fury.\n\n“You and your kind aren’t wanted here.” The one called Trump continued.\n\nMy captain’s eyes began to splint. \n\n“Furthermore we are going to build a wall! And you are going to pay for it!” the one called Trump declared. The humans began cheering wildly.\n\nSighing I looked down to my cuffed hands and back up to the galactic police who had arrested us. The story was told. \n\n“And that why I believe the captain ordered us to destroyed the crucible sir.“\n", "No one really believed it existed, and yet what choice did we have? Our planet was soon to be engulfed by our second star going supernova. We had to leave.\n\nWe sent out a hundred million shuttles with the hope that just one of them might find the legendary planet Earth, and whoever was on board would self replicate and save our species. The other shuttles... well those on board would eventually expire. \n\nThe shuttles were each fired out into space and set on a straight trajectory. They did not have enough fuel on board to change direction, only to make minor adjustments if they came near Earth.\n\n20,000 cycles had passed when I was removed from the Frozen Chamber by the ships intelligence. My first thought, as I oozed onto the cool liquid floor, was that my planet would be long dead already. I shed a drop of mesoglea in sorrow.\n\nThe ship began vocalising to me. \n\n\"One planet in the local solar system is capable of supporting life. Surface of the planet is made up of over 70% correct liquid bonding.\"\n\nI was unable to take this in.\n\n\"Wh—what do you mean?\"\n\n\"Do not worry Xenoth, your cognition will fully return shortly. What I am trying to explain to you is that the third planet from the local star is conceivably planet Earth.\"\n\nWhat? Had I found it?\n\nIt was a bitter sweet moment. It meant I would live but all others of my species would be doomed to float in space until their shuttle fell apart in a million years. I would have to start my species again.\n\n\"There is more, Xenoth. Would you like to hear?\"\n\n\"More? Explain Ship!\"\n\n\"Before I woke you I sent sensor crafts to the surface of the planet. There is much life already existent on the planet, including one species that matches your own DNA by 99.8%. In appearance they are extremely similar but much smaller. They live in the same liquid chemical, have the same translucent body pod and similar tentacles that hang down from it. They are lacking your intelligence but...\"\n\n\"But what, Ship?\"\n\n\"It seems very likely that this is the planet your species originated on Xenoth. That is why the planet is known in your species mythology. On this planet something happened to devolve your species - perhaps a super predator emerged and they regressed as a result.\"\n\nA million thoughts flooded through my minds. I had to learn more.\n\n\"Whatever happened, we are going to find out. Take us down, Ship.\"\n\n---\n\n/r/nickofnight \n\n\n\n\n\n\n" ]	[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 16, 104 ]	[ "1464691646", "1464692165", "1464712193", "1464714558", "1464718014", "1464722278", "1464691058", "1464688482" ]
	[WP] "You know the difference between a child and an adult? Adults know what happens at night..."	1	[ "I remember when your grandfather gave me the talk. He walked into my room and said \"Alright Son, you're eighteen now. I think it's time we had... 'the talk'\" \nBeing the pessimistic little jackass I was, I responded with \"Yeah, I know Dad, men and women have sex and that's where babies come from.\" and I made sure it sounded as sarcastic as possible. \n\nI made the whole thing a pain in the ass for him. Luckily I don't have to put up with all that crap since this is just a video recording. Unluckily, you were in an accident a few days before your birthday and the rules are the rules. I'm making this video on your Birthday. Hopefully you wake up before they come for me, but just in case, I'm making this video so you know how much I care about you and how much I love you.\n\nThe truth is we're living in an incredibly over populated society. People are only allowed one kid. You know already, you know that, but what you don't know is how they take care of population control. Your mother and I were both sterilized after your birth. You once asked why people are only allowed to have one kid and we told you not to think of trivial things like that. Well now you know. Now that you're eighteen, I have to leave. If they have to come for me at night it won't be pleasant for anyone. Not me, not you, not mom. They'd happily get rid of three people if they could. So I will go willingly to protect you and your mother.\n\nYou are allowed one child. When that child is eighteen the father is removed from society. I don't know how they do it, but I imagine they kill me. Do not fight anyone about this. Once again, no one will think twice of getting rid of another threat to everyone's survival. Once you get married your Mother will have to do the same, otherwise they'll come for her too, in the night. I guess they do this to prevent you from getting married. Getting married means your mother dies, so you don't get married. No marriage, no child approval, one less child to worry about and society reaches a manageable number a bit quicker. I hope you have kid, I'm sure your Mother does too, but she'll still be around to nag you about it. Your Mother and I know how painful it is to go through with this sort of thing, we had to, but the happiness that comes from finding someone special and raising a child of your own believe me, it's worth it, and I would do it all over again.\n\nBut all of that means nothing if you don't wake up in the next few days. I dread to think if you reach the thirty-day cut-off time for life support. So again, I make this video hoping that you'll wake up. The pain you suffer from my loss will get better. Meet someone special, get married, make your mother happy, have a kid and make yourself happy. \n\nGoodbye Casey... I love you.", "The winding road extends before me like the body of a snake. Rain pounds the windshield, and I drive at a crawling pace lest the serpent wake and fling me from its back.\n\nOn one side of the serpent, a steep hillside, covered in shadow, brush, and trees. On the other side, a sheer cliff extending down to the ocean. Who knows what foul creatures lurk in the dark waters at the base of the cliff. The road is perilously lodged between two extremes-the trees which reach up impossibly high to tickle the feet of God, and the ocean which flows down into the depths of the earth to cool the fires of Hell.\n\nI look over at the passenger seat. My beautiful wife sits there, the side of her face pressed to the window. She was fast asleep, lulled by the sound of the rain and the hum of the tires on the wet pavement. I sigh. I am bitter.\n\nWe are returning home from her parents' place. A dry roast dinner had been a poor distraction from the equally dry conversation. But, there at the chipped yellow Formica table, under flickering florescent lights, my wife, my 'beautiful' wife, had confessed to everything. I wish she hadn't.\n\nAffairs. Drug use. Theft, to support both her habits and her boyfriends'. She talked for what seemed like hours about her sins, though it was only minutes. I know, now, that while she might have her head turned to the hillside that reaches up, she is forever suspended over the cold, watery precipice. I realize that I've picked up speed.\n\nI jerk the steering wheel. Not enough to cause an accident or to wake her. Just enough to prove to myself I could. I reach over and shake her awake. She looks at me, not speaking, only lifting that questioning brow of hers. I jerk the wheel again, and her eyes widen in panic.\n\nI turn the wheel sharply, veering towards the cliffside. She doesn't scream, only grips the dashboard as the car tires leave the pavement. For a few wonderful moments, we are suspended in midair. Gravity has no power over us-we are flying. Angels, for the first and last time, before time resumes and we plummet towards the ocean.\n\nThe roaring of the waves growing louder, I spare a glance into the back seat. There, our child, a boy of seven, is fast asleep, his head having fallen onto his chest. I smiled.\n\nI wanted my wife to know, but my son, if he is mine... he won't know what happens tonight." ]	[ 1, 1 ]	[ "1464812433", "1464815945" ]
	[WP] Sometimes, the best option is to do nothing.	31	[ "My father was saying – the worst thing is to do nothing. \n\nI’ve always strived to achieve something, to have a significant place in this world, to make sense if you want. I don’t know if it works, I think it does to some degree. Nobody really knows what they are doing, but to do nothing seems pointless. \n\nIt sounds very logical, and at the same time my experience has proved me wrong. \nThere was this one time when we had a massive party at this frat house, maybe, 20 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t some obnoxious frat boy, but these were some lit parties. Anyway, beer kegs were going down, music blasting at max, people were getting wasted, and everything was sweet pretty much. Until something went wrong, of course. A guy, I didn’t know his name at the time, who was absolutely stocious decided that would be a good idea to walk on the balcony railing. Oh man, I remember the hollow sound of him landing on the ground next to me. I was first at the incident, I was young and stupid, I just wanted to help. I found him lying with his head down in an unnatural position, and my first instinct was to try moving him a little bit when I heard this sudden snap like a bone breaking. I knew at this moment, I fucked up. He got paralyzed till the end of his life, I still blame myself. \n\nAnd then, this other time I was walking on the street coming back from the gym, and I saw these two guys fighting in the middle of the sidewalk. The one was beating the shit out of the other, there was a fucking puddle of blood next to them, and I felt the need to help, I couldn’t leave the guy gets beaten to death. I pushed the one on the top, interrupting their wrestling, but this one was massive, I didn’t realize my troubles until he stood up and looked at me with those deadly eyes. I tried to talk and calm him down, but in the next moment, his fist was flying at my jaw. If that wasn’t enough, he stabbed me with a knife three times while I was lying there insensible. This sent me in a hospital for three months where I could ponder life and my philosophies. \n\nAnother time, I was at… well, I think you got my point. \n\nSometimes, I feel like the best option is to do nothing. \n", "The girl who could bend time laid in her overlarge bed in a much too spacious room and wrapped herself snuggly in covers that soon became overwarm, not caring enough to move or adjust. She soon found herself staring at the ceiling in an unfocused daze, a boring activity which had quickly become a favourite hobby in the past few days, or was it weeks? She couldn’t remember anymore. \n\nA careless blink later and the brightly burning mid-day sun had fallen below the shadows of the horizon. The girl slowly turned her head towards the startlingly empty expanse of her queen sized mattress, changing her line of sight so as to look at the window above. She quickly found herself mesmerized by the streams of white moonlight light falling over the expanse of her bed, bending over her body and the covers. Another day gone by. She supposed it was about time for her to get something to eat as it wasn’t easy to recall when she had last ate. Maybe it was yesterday? Well, it wasn’t all that important anyways. \n\nTrying to put aside the heaviness of her body and the despondence that kept her attached to the empty bed in a silent room she slowly shifted the covers on top of her until they fell onto the floor, making her way to the kitchen. Walking through the hallway and entering the kitchen was quite a shock as she hadn’t been expecting the marble floor of the area to be freezing cold. The luminescent kitchen lights were even more unpleasant and difficult to adjust to. \n\nLooking at the fruit bowl lying placed on the table nearest the kitchen doorway she decided to grab the somewhat ripened banana and quickly ate the entire thing. Huh. She was much hungrier than she had thought.\n\nDeciding that eating more would probably be a good idea, she made her way to the cabinet above the stove to grab a packet of instant noodles and set a pot of water to boil. With nothing else to do she sat down on one of the kitchen stools with a heavy thump, leaning her head against her arms which lay on the table and proceeded to close her eyes. \n\nPathetic, she thought. This was the most activity she had managed to accomplish in days as even the smallest of tasks had become a herculean trial of strength and will. Up till now she had been surviving on the remnants of snacks and food her mother had bought her when she last visited who knows how long ago. \n\nUpon hearing the sounds of boiling water she slowly opened her eyes and moved to attend to the stove. She put together her meal and sat back down on the stool to eat on the kitchen counter. \n\nThe very act of eating an entire meal was much harder than she had anticipated, the mere effort of repeatedly bringing a fork covered with noodles to her mouth somehow having turned into an impossibility in the midst of self imposed solitude. About half way through she had to stop knowing that’s she’d be sick if she kept eating. She moved the bowl of noodles out of the way and lay her head on the countertop and covered her head with her arms, closing her eyes once more. \n\n“Now this, this is just embarrassing” she muttered with a small deprecating smile against the cool kitchen counter.\n\nShe couldn’t even eat an entire meal anymore. Honestly, how could she have reached the point where she couldn’t even eat properly anymore?!\n\nIn the sudden consuming burst of self abhorrence and disgust she could finally admit to herself that maybe this had gone on for too long. Perhaps it was time to move past this. \n\nShe had created a world trapped in slow motion, where everything outside moved much too quickly, so quickly that she couldn’t keep up, but despite the fact that she was trapped she just couldn’t bring herself to care. It was a world in which nothing, not even her own being had any point. Where everything was devoid of meaning and all that was left was a lifeless home that had always been meant for two but was now inhabited by one. \n\nHer eyes glistened and she began to shake a little, her back sharply convulsing every now and then. She was allowed this, after everything she had been through, at the very least she had to be allowed this much. And maybe, just maybe, she would eventually be allowed a bit more.\n\nPerhaps, she thought with the first glimmer of hope she had felt in a while, time would return to her. \n\nWell, she was starting at zero in a home filled with nothingness, but that was the best of starting places. She could only go up from here. ", "Oh Mommy, please make it stop. \n\nEvery time they stab me they leave another screaming hole in my skin. No one thinks I feel the pain, but that's because no one else hears those screams. It's when the doctors do what they do with their needles and knives that the screams come out, finding exits from my body unblocked by the cold hard tubes in my throat and nose. Mommy, would you hear them if they were louder?\n\nI hear when you cry Mommy, when you pray to God by my bed, when you curse at God for what happened. I hear when you get mad at the doctors when they tell you things you know but don't want to hear. I hear when you tell them to keep going.\n\nI know you love me Mommy, but why are you doing this to me?", "Have you ever stared at something so long that everything just sorta becomes a blur around you? You start seeing faces or images within the thing you are looking at. I've found that if you stare long enough at the spot on my ceiling directly above my bed you'll discover a giraffe on top of a skyscraper, a winged frog that seemed to be crying, and a man in a suit standing on the edge of a cliff. I even took the extra time to give them all backstories.\n\nIt was shortly after wrapping up the man in the suit's story that the feeling started to crawl in again. That feeling of utter dread and loneliness. You know that feeling. It's a lot like when you go through your Facebook feed and see the people you went to high school with having careers, going to college, having a family, and you are coming up with reasons why this flying frog is crying (he was late to his mother's birthday party and she called him to shame him). \n\nI have battled this emotion more times than I would like to admit and I've actually come to the conclusion that most everyone goes through this. We just don't share it. We all struggle to find a sense of stability in our lives in almost anything. Some try relationships. Others try money. But ultimately, 9 times out of 10 those things don't fullfil us. We spend a good majority of our lives trying to obtain things that we are lead to believe will make us happy, but when they don't we get scared. We look around us and feel as if we are broken or doing something wrong. Therefore we don't talk about our fears of isolation or the insecurities of feeling as if we made a mistake. So we only show people what we want them to see. Happy-go-lucky individuals without a single worry in the world! Because how could anyone who has a significant other, a decent job, and is going to college to better themselves ever have it bad?!\n\nUnfortunately for me though I didn't have any of those things. My path laid open for any possibility. I could do whatever I want. This life is truly in my hands and I can make it whatever I want it to be. I could talk to that pretty waitress at the local coffee shop and maybe get her number. Go on a few dates and get to know her. Have some fun casual sex. Have it progress a little further and introduce her to my friends and family. They end up loving her. Spend days with her. Weeks. Move in together. Get a cat named Bill Murray. Eventually we end up married getting a beautiful suburban house within a good school district and having a family. \n\nI could go to college and study medicine. College life could be free. Study really hard for a few years really putting myself in my studies to be the top in my class. Invest myself to the point where I get a good job at hospital anywhere in the country. I could save people's lives and better them back to health. It would be a lot of work, but so worth it in the end.\n\nAll these possibilities were at my fingertips... but I really need to think about why this mummy is dancing on my ceiling...", "I stood at the controls, frozen. The radio crackled again. Frantic voices came from the other end. What was said was important, I knew this, though I couldn't find the will to listen. Time should slow down in moments like this. It does in movies, and everyone says it happens. There isn't enough time. \n\n“You're running out of ti-ime!” the mockingly playful voice came over the radio again as if hearing my thoughts.\n\nI had to get out. A burst of electricity ran through me as I attempted to open the door to escape. “Please,” I begged.\n\nThe voice tsk tsk'd on the other end. “You can't leave yet! Make your choice or it will be made for you!”\n\nI looked up at the screen on the wall as it came to life. It showed a school bus, trapped on the tracks, it's driver desperately trying to get it working. The children were rowdy, but didn't yet know the danger they were in. After only a moment the screen changed, another scene took form, my husband and child, bound to a different section of track. Tears flowed from my eyes at both scenes, I had been shown them several times now. It wasn't getting easier.\n\n“Who will die?” the voice took on an edge of intensity, “Your precious family, or the bus full of children? Soon it will be out of your hands!” \n\n“You're a monster!” \n\n“No! You're the monster! I'm just letting you out!”\n\nI slammed my fist against the controls. “I won't play your game!”\n\n“You're already playing it, doll,” the playfulness was back. I preferred the intensity. \n\nIf I did nothing... my family… my little Ellie… my sweet Richard… I couldn't let them die. The timer on the wall above the screens was running out. Less than a minute before the train runs over my family. The screen flicked back to the bus full of children, as if he knew my thoughts. I closed my eyes as the voice began counting down, “Ten! Nine! Eight!”\n\nI had to do it. I did. I flipped the lever. The voice cackled through the radio. “So you truly are a monster. We're not so different after all, are we?”\n\nI collapsed onto the floor, my body shaking from the sobs. I couldn't do it, I couldn't let them die. A burst of electricity from the floor grabbed my attention and I looked back up at the screen obediently. “Don't check out just yet deary, you're going to watch the fruit of your works.”\n\nThe tears flowed down my face as I watched the bus on the screen, waiting, tensed for the impact. “Oh dear, it seems we're looking at the wrong place.” The screen flipped back to my family, and the voice laughed, “There we go.”\n\nI screamed at the screen. “NO! I saved them! I played your game!”\n\nThe voice laughed. “The game is rigged. House always wins. The train was going to hit the bus before you changed it's course! But you!” An evil cackle came through, and the voice struggled to speak through the laugh, “You killed your own family!”\n\n" ]	[ 1, 1, 2, 2, 4 ]	[ "1464820373", "1464833029", "1464814664", "1464817907", "1464813882" ]
Your choice whether you are limited or omniscient.	[WP] Write a story where you, the third-person narrator, are involved in the plot.	11	[ "Jake had been born with a distinct lack of agency. Now, most people had a vague feeling like they didn't control their lives, whether it be because of God, or they're in a simulation, or maybe that the mechanical ticking of the physical universe doesn't leave much room for personal choice, but Jake knew for sure. He didn't get to control his actions, but he did know who did.\n\nThis bothered Jake quite a bit for a while, but just as all the other people grew tired of questioning their gods, or pleading with the simulation masters, or trying to nudge the mechanical ticking, so did Jake grow tired of being bothered. He supposed it was all very well the same if he was making choices because of chemicals sloshing around in his brain, or because someone else did so for him.\n\nHe just hoped that someone else was benevolent.\n\nJake grew up following the letters of the script. He lived a quite unremarkable life, had a short string of girlfriends he regretted until he found one he cherished. H didn't have kids, but got to travel instead, and made many reliable friends all across the world. Jake's life was pleasant, for sure, but he often wondered why it was only that. Surely, Jake could have had a brilliant life, one full of adventure and daring, constant bliss and constant action, but he didn't. He wondered why, because he understood that he had no choice, but whoever did had not chosen to torture or toy with him.\n\nWhat Jake did not understand, though, was suspension of disbelief. At least, he did not understand it until now. Jake and his choicemaker were both being judged, and they had to please the judge to continue. If Jake had lived a life too full, well...who would have believed that? It wouldn't even have been worth judging, and there's not much difference between a script unread and a script that doesn't exist at all. \n\nBut even so, Jake also understood that eventually every story, and every life, must come to an end. He was thankful, with what little choice he had to be so, that he had lived well, and thankful that his choicemaker had been a friend. The choicemaker, too, was thankful to Jake that he had helped them both exist, even if for a short while. \n\nJake closed his eyes, and breathed his last sigh in a room filled with friends, content that he nothing left he needed to do, and the choicemaker, too, made their last choice. ", "Sarah woke up on a beautiful Sunday morning, the sun shining through the curtains that bordered her window. The alarm wasn't set to go off for another 3 hours, but on a day like this sarah liked to wake up early and go for a walk with the family dog. \n\nSarah groaned, \"Let me sleep! I don't want to walk the damn dog!\" \n\nRegardless of her personal wishes, the dog still needed walking and on a sunny day like this, Sarah really couldn't waste time by sleeping in past noon. She walked to the door that lead to the bathroom, to take a quick shower and get ready for the sunny sunday outside. \n\nSarah groaned again, standing by the door to the bathroom \"Do we really have to do this? Can't you go narrate someone else?\" \n\nBut Sarah knew that yes, we really had to do this, since it's such a beautiful day out, and staying in bed all day was such a terrible idea. Without another complaint she undressed and stepped into the shower, getting her hair wet so it would be easier to brush and washing away the thin layer of sweat that had no doubt built up on her skin while sleeping. \n\nWhen that was done, and she was dressed and ready to walk the dog, she moved downstairs to get breakfast. She could smell that someone had been making crisp bacon on the stove. \n\n\"WHOA, what just happened. Where did the shower go? Are we skipping parts now? What are these clothes?! I'm dressed as some kind of 18th century governess\" \n\nIt was her mother that had been making bacon. But now her mother just stared in confusion. \"What are you wearing dear?\" her mother said, \"Is there a play you're in at school?\" But Sarah had no time to react, she was late for her job. \n\n\"Job?! What happened to walking the dog? I don't have a shift today!\" \n\nSome time later, Sarah arrived. She hoped the children had been good while she was away at her parent's house.\n\n\"What?! Where am I? Is this lakeview manor?\" \n\nSarah stepped in the house, and children rushed her from the adjacent rooms. They weren't hers, of course. But she'd been more a mother then their birth parents had ever been. Happy to see them after being away for so long she said, in a hoarse voice: \n\n\"Oh there you are, have you been good?\" \n\nSomewhere in the background, a whisper added,\n\n^help ^me. \n\n---\n\nWell there's my first ever post here that wasn't a comment! haha. I'm always making up stories in my head, but i never really write them down, half because i think they'll probably make a lot less sense outside the chaos of my own head, and half because i don't think i can get the syntax of a story right... which is a weird reason, i know. \n\ni hoped anyone who read this liked it. When i started it was a vague idea, but i started typing and just let it go organically. \n" ]	[ 2, 3 ]	[ "1464843861", "1464858795" ]
I know this sounds like a really basic prompt, but I think the challenge is making the reader care about all five characters. Have fun!	[WP] A group of five holds out against an endless horde. Survival is... unlikely.	17	[ "So this is my first attempt at fiction writing. Please give me any feedback. Also I know it's longer, maybe too long for a writing prompts response? \n___\nColonel Seth Grimar looked out over the wall of the fort. The moon had recently fallen behind heavy clouds bring an eerily darkness to the silent night. Seth knew in a few hours the endless horde of enemies would attack the stronghold and he and his four companies would be overrun. Four days of intense fighting had left his garrison of 50 soldiers and 10 wizards decimated. \n\nThis post was supposed to be an easy 2 month assignment. Situated on the west boundary of his kingdoms borders it was far from the fighting raging on the eastern front. Seth lifted his lip in a quick smirk thinking of the way General Demis and phrased the assignment. “It’s a chance to take a breather before returning to the front lines” If only the general knew what was to come.\n\nDecades before the fort had proved valuable during the slavers wars. The fort stood right at the entrance to Shadow Valley. The main road leading into his kingdom’s inner regions passed through this fort and valley. Anyone wishing passage would need to pass through the gates Seth now guarded. Since that war the fort had become more and more forgotten, as often happens in long periods of peace. When the kingdom was attacked from the west the fort became little more than a place to send injured troops and fresh recruits. The colonel had held the fort longer than anyone would have predicted. In truth he had no choice has he had to give his messengers time to reach the main kingdom and allow them to prepare a counter offensive to hold the valley. \n\nSeth looked over his last four warriors. Captain Dan Gretel had been with him for many offensives. If Seth’s memory served the captains exact words when recently offered his own command was “Go to hell my lord, I stand with Colonel Grimar”. Captain Gretel was a solider his whole life never starting a family so he could always be ready to fight for his kingdom. The colonel knew he had never met a finer or more loyal man.\n\nSeth admitted to himself he knew little about Matthew and Gregory. Looking at the two 17 year olds he dwelled on his first meeting with them the day before the attacks began. Seth had laughed at the naïve way Gregory talked about all the adventures to come for him and his friend. A moment of regret washed through Seth as he realized he might never know more about the two. \nFinally his eyes landed on Corrine, a mages assistance who only started training in the art of magic last year. Corrine had been a simple farmer’s daughter until she accidently lit a raider’s trousers on fire when they tried to raid her family’s farm. Corrine barely had a grasp of basic magic. She had been sent on this assignment to be a gopher for the other wizards. Much like Matthew and Gregory this was her first assignment outside the safe confines of the capital city.\n\nSeth woke each of the four and gathered them around a small fire. Perhaps, with his new plan, some of them might yet make it past daybreak. \n\n“We all know the odds we face and that we have already done all we can to buy time for our messengers.” Seth stated to the group. “The problem is we don't know if they made it\"\n\nThe Colonel continued \"As there is no way to hold this fort any longer with the numbers we have I have made the decision for us to abandon the fort and make our way east back into the inner regions” \n\n“But Colonel…” Captain Gretel began but was cut off by the colonel raising a hand to stop any further outcry. “We are not just leaving the fort without one last act of defiance towards our attackers”.\n\n“Sir,” whispered Matthew sounding as if he wasn’t sure he should be speaking up. “What can we do that will make any difference?”\n\n“We will blow up the fort and hopefully bring the valley walls down with it” answered the Colonel. The colonel continued “this fort was equipped with four fire cannons and enough ammo to keep them operational for a long siege”. \n\nFire Cannons were large cumbersome weapons that looked similar to naval cannons that not only spit out large projectiles but could shoot flames nearly 100 feet. The weapons were awkward to move due to their size and weight. This made them nearly useless on a battlefield but made for wonderful counter siege weapons. It would normally take a four man squad to load, aim and fire the cannons in an effective manner. The cannons were the reason so few soldiers were sent to the fort. The problem was that the enemy knew this and during the first predawn surprise attack three of the cannons had been destroyed.\n\n“With three cannons taken out right away the two stock piles are still filled with the fuel and ammo for the cannons” As the colonel finished his last sentence he began to see the expressions change from confusion to understanding on all but Corrine. \n\n“How will that help us?” asked Corrine. \n\nThe colonel knew Corrine was uneducated in the ways of siege and counter siege tactics and weapons. “The fuel and explosives for the canons must be kept dry until ready for use” the colonel explained. “With the limited space of the canyon our previous rulers had the builders from the north come down and carve out large caves on each side of the valley to store the fuel in”. \n\n“And since those stockpiles are still full we can light them off creating a large explosion under each mountain side” the captain quickly stated.\n\n“Correct, Captain and hopefully this will cause a landslide” the colonel continued. “Between the destroyed fort and landslide hopefully we will block the path and prevent any major forces from pushing through long enough for our armies to assemble”\n\nCaptain Gretel quickly added “The explosion will be huge and in order to light the fire two people will need to stay back. I volunteer” \n\n“Me too” joined Matthew. \n\n“I appreciate your bravery” the colonel told the two men “but with Corrine’s help I believe we all might get a chance to live” the colonel knew this was the biggest unknown in his plan. Corrine was untested and certainly had not been trained to throw a fire spell as far has he needed. Corrine’s worried expression told him she was thinking the same thing. “I...I don’t think I can do that” she quickly stuttered out. \n\n“You have cast fire magic before when the raiders threatened your family” Seth said in a sooth voice trying to calm Corrine. Corrine cut in “but they were going to kill my mother when I did that.”\n\nThe Colonel cut off any further objections. “I have faith you will do this for your family that is here with you now” he continued “As a wizard deployed with soldiers you know that we are all brothers and sisters fighting for the same cause” the colonel saw Matthew and Gregory sit up a little straighter as he continued “we live and die by those to our right and left. We have already given the kingdom a fighting chance. No one else matters today but the five of us.” The colonel raised his voice to add weight to his final thoughts “Today we fight for each other’s lives!” \n\nQuickly the Colonel explained the plan to all. Matthew, Gregory, the Captain and Colonel would begin moving just enough fuel and ammo out of the storage area to line the entire front wall of the fort. They would then make a small line of fuel to the rear so Corrine could light that from some distance off. Between the distance they would be at and the delay the Colonel hoped it would give them enough time to clear the blast radius. It would be close but the Colonel dare not push it any farther. Due to Corrine’s limited ability the plan would have to wait for first light so she could see her target. The colonel hoped the first attack would not come before that.\n\nAfter the preparations had been made the small group sat waiting for first light. Suddenly the silent night was pierced by a loud wail. “Was that a troll screeching?” asked Captain Gretel. Trolls hardly took interest in the plight of men. The last troll wars had nearly ended the race of men on this continent. \n\nAs the Colonel watched the main gate he heard loud crashing sounds as something with great force slammed into them. Even in the faint light left by the torches on the wall he could see it bending from the blows. \n\n“Can you see the target Corrine?” the colonel asked.\n\n“No yet” answered Corrine in a frantic voice. \n\n“Sir” Captain Gretel yelled “I will take Matthew and Gregory and try to man the last cannon. It should give Corrine time to cast her spell. Someone must make it back to tell the king that the trolls are helping our enemies” \n\nSeth knew the captain was right. This new revelation would change everything. The kingdom could hardly afford to fight two wars let alone a war with trolls.\nSeth turned to his longtime friend “You take these two and do what you can but the minute she lights the fuel you run as fast as you can” Even though he knew they would never make it he continued “by the luck of the gods you may get clear”. \n\nAs the two old warriors shook hands for the final time Gregory quickly yelled “Corrine stop!”\n\nThey looked up to see Corrine running full speed towards the front walls of the fort. With their armor there was no way any of the men could catch her. \n\n“Corrine stop!” yelled Seth.\n\n“For my family!” is all the colonel could make out in return from Corrine. \n\n“Fall back” he yelled to the others. As they ran the colonel turned around to see the front gates come crashing open with two trolls quickly following. He then saw a flash of light as Corrine lit the fuel. The fuel was meant to burn and nothing could stop the chain reaction now.\n\nThe four men ran and ran hoping to get outside the blast radius.\n", "“I hate to be the bearer of bad news-“ Sherwood began whilst notching an arrow into his composite bow\n\n“No you don’t” Saxon interjected, ducking behind a low wall and reloading her hellfire handcannons\n\n“-but I’m thinking we might not make it out of this one” he finished by loosing an arrow into the helmet and face of an Indari charger that had been making it’s way towards the cowering figure of Riga- who mouthed a quick thanks before returning to her cover.\n\n“Maybe you meatsacks won’t, I made a backup of myself earlier today” the robotic voice of Midas added as he fired several grenades into the enemy ranks\n\n“Yeah? Hey, what are our odds right now, Midas?” Sherwood asked over comms whilst ducking down next to Saxon and whispering “Hey Saxon, move over a bit- you’re hogging all the cover”\n\nSaxon looked to Sherwood, rolled her eyes under her helmet and moved to accommodate him.\n“I’d estimate a 0.25% chance for success” At this Riga seemed to visibly wince and looked up from her shelter to check on Sherwood\n\n“Have a little faith, Midas” Sherwood countered\n\n“If I account for faith, there’s a 0.26% chance of survival” Midas remarked as drily as his synthetic voice allowed\n\n“That’s not funny” Wu’s expressionless voice crackled over the comms, he hesitated briefly \n“Anyway drone’s been deployed. There’s… a lot of shit out there, watch yourselves”\n\nMidas linked to the drone visual feed, looked back to Saxon and Sherwood and then ran several calculations before simply stating “you’re both going to want to move”\n\n“How come?” Sherwood queried before being answered by a deafening bang and the explosion of brick dust and debris. In the quietness that followed Sherwood saw Riga move from her cover before Saxon shouted something at her and she hesitantly got back in, he couldn’t quite make out the words for the ringing in his ears. \nBut after the white noise faded he announced “Next time I’ll just listen instead of opening my mouth”\n\n“I find that hard to believe, Sherwood.” Saxon said before diving behind the wreckage of a colonial hovertank. She occasionally popped out to take pot shots but the overwhelming amount of fire she was receiving in return made it a risky manoeuvre, their ranks seemed endless even without their team’s discipline. Across the street Sherlock took point behind a shop front, occasionally sending explosive tipped arrows into the rounded helmets of the Indari exosuits.\n\n“More company coming in from the east. Riga, you’re going to want to move closer to the others, but be careful not to get too close” Wu’s voice came in over comms, “I’m going to move down the rooftops and take overwatch” Riga perked up from where she had been hiding and made her way carefully to the main party, dodging between cover and away from the stray shots of the firefight\n\n“Riga, the last thing we need is to lose our medic so get close to Midas and keep your head down” Saxon announced over comms, in between firing volleys from behind her cover\n\n“Keeping my head down won’t be a problem, trust me” Riga pushed her cropped brown hair up with her hand and nervously asked “you think command has received our transmission yet?”\n\n“Standard Indari protocol is to cut off the besieged planet from external communications. In all likelihood we’re alone out here” Midas stated plainly.\n\n“Well, not alone, we’ve got each other” Sherwood corrected before he was forced to dodge between cover as an Indari warmachine advanced on his position. He had made his way to the fountain in the plaza next to the tank wreckage. And was now shooting volleys of arrows towards the oncoming death machine to little avail. Riga watched from her cover as Midas blocked a few stray rounds that were headed her way but barely scratched his paintjob.\n\n“There’s too many of them, and they’re moving in bigger weaponry. Fall back to the subway entrance, I’ll cover your escape” \n\n“But Wu, how will you-“ Saxon hesitantly looked up to the rooftops to check on Wu\n\n“I’ll figure it out- go”\n\n“I don’t need telling twice, I'll get Riga” Saxon noticed that Sherwood sounded uncharacteristically protective. He rushed over to get Riga up and moving, compacting and then slinging his bow on his hip on his way. The two of them hurried towards the subway entrance with Sherwood almost carrying Riga in his hurry. Midas deployed several smoke grenades around the area and waited for Saxon who gave a lingering look to Wu who had drawn some of the Indari fire to the rooftops.\n\n“We won’t have any good signal from the subway. Good luck, you crazy bastard”\n\n\n\nHe pulled a small device from his pocket and once he watched them disappear far enough down into the subway, he pulled the trigger. The Indari weren’t going to make fish food out of his friends.\n\n-----------------------------------------------------------------------------\n~Not as happy with this as I'd like to be, but I thought it's better to post something and get constructive criticism than to do nothing and keep sucking forever", "'So... this is where we go around the group and discover that we each have unique talents that when combined get us through this?' \n'Unlikely.' she said it with such disdain that thought I heard her eyes creak as they rolled back into her bog-standard-but-in-the-heat-of-the-moment-pretty head. \n'Yeah I mean I make fucking Paninis for a living. I'm thirty-six. I know bollocks about zombies.' \nI glanced for a moment around the table at the rest of our motley crew. Derek was right, we were shafted. Another thump hit the rolled-down metal shutter. Probably a head. \n'Probably a head.' Beth said, blowing her nose for the umpteenth time, eyes streaming and sniffling. I shouldn't have found her attractive either but, like the woman, there must have been a deep-seated desire in me, a fantasy around women and peril. When did this start? At least I didn't find Bernie a looker. I just wasn't into girls who had clearly been weaned off the tit with condensed milk. I made a mental note to my self that if they did break in, Bernie was going to be the one a pushed in front of them.\n'Can you stop stuffing your cake hole for five minutes? Christ, this really is a 'convenience store' isn't it?' the woman snarled at Bernie. Their eyes met. Slowly, raising two portly sausage fingers up diffused the brief moment and I was glad to see the woman put slightly more in her place. It was her fault they had us surrounded. More rattling on the shutters. There were more of them. Ten? Twenty?\n‘Well do any of us have any weapons training?’ I asked\n‘Yeah, we are all medieval knights in our spare time. You fucking clown.’ The woman replied, ‘Look we are not Charlie’s angels. Derek might be able to fend them off with a French stick. Who knows, maybe zombies are intolerant to gluten. Bernie can quite easily avoid them in the same way she has ducked a job since she was sixteen. It was as she turned back to me that I caught her just under the chin with the spade. I had played cricket, and as the sharp edge sliced bone from her mandible and blood splattered, pebble dashing Derek, I couldn’t help thinking that a 4 would have been added to my innings.\n‘What the fuck!’ yelled Bernie. She had dropped her Twix and stood up. Beth was shaking and staring at the half-face on the floor that was the woman, eyes streaming. \n‘She was not helping the situation.’ I said. Eyes were on me. Or the spade. I threw it to the ground and walked around the table. ‘We need to think about how we are going to get out of this alive. Mouthing off at each other isn’t going to help.’ My plan to assert authority was going well. \n\nWe sat, without speaking, listening to the banging from outside. Zombies were persistent I thought to myself. Surely there were other stores with people holed up. Maybe one had just murdered the other. Maybe it was the fucking A-team and they were going to construct some zombie-killing machine from tinfoil and Pringles. Save the day and all that. Unlikely though. More likely the horde get in, and eat us or turn us into zombies. I wasn’t sure how it worked. It was then when I first contemplated killing the rest of the group.\n\n‘OK, how about we get as many of the heavy bits and bobs, you know, the isles, the fridges and block the doors and make our way up to the roof, again blocking all of the entrances. Wait it out up there. I don’t think zombies can climb up drainpipes. I’ve never seen it in the films.’\n‘Derek, I don’t think we should rely on films for our information’ I replied. ‘But it is a good idea. I know it is outside and all that but there are some tents and plenty of stuff to build a proper barrier until the military or whoever gets involved.’ I replied.\nBernie had started eating again. Pork scratchings or toenails as I called them, ‘We need to make sure that we take enough food and drink up with us. Maybe we should stay here. It seems quite safe.’\nI was surprised how easily the woman’s death and my clear murder had passed over. Still, I wasn’t going to dwell on it for to long. Without much more deliberation we knew what we were going to do. We went to work. \n\nThe next hour or so was all moving this and that. Beth found some nails and a hammer in the back and, as we all retreated, I boarded up the doors as best I could. \n\nOn the roof, we peered down. There were fewer zombies than we had thought. Maybe four or so banging furiously on the shutters. A rush of calm passed over me. I could take four out, I reckoned. They were pretty much your average run of the mill zombies: Bits of flesh missing from cheeks, exposing molars and canines; one, attired in a lumberjack shirt, looked as though he had been scalped and a small child, that clearly had an eye missing stood about fifteen feet below us. I had an idea.\n\n‘If we get out of this, or if it looks like we won’t, do you want to hook up?’ \nI wasn’t expecting that from Beth. She had said very little since we were holed up and though I admired her pocket-rocket frame, thought that any chance of an apocalyptic romance died with the woman’s lips landing in her lap. \n‘I will have to do some things I am not proud of.’ I said, ‘I have already done one.’\n‘She had to die. She was grinding us down. Do what you need. But remember me in all this.’ \n‘OK. Listen…’\nAs Beth accidently nudged Derek off of the roof, I began stuffing rags into the oil canisters. He wasn’t dead. The bin below him had cushioned his fall but he had clearly broken his leg. The zombies were soon upon him, climbing into the bin to finish him off. It was strange. I could hear him yelping and screaming but found it quite fascinating to watch the zombies feast. There is no hierarchal system to zombie feeding. The child was gnawing at his broken leg, the bone now exposed, while the other tackled his face and tackle. I didn’t like that bit. \n‘What have you done?’ yelled Bernie.\n‘I didn’t mean to… I just…’ \nGood stalling for time.\n‘I … slipped!’\nBy now all of the zombies were comfortably in the bin. \nNot since I dreamed of being a professional wrestler had I attempted a drop kick but as Bernie leaned over the side, I gave it everything and pictured myself as the Ultimate Warrior eliminating Randy Savage from the Royal Rumble. She made a yelp and tumbled, crashing on top of the zombies. The sound of their bones crunching as a four hundred pound slab of fat crashed upon them bade Beth wince. I took the can, set it alight and dropped it in. And then they were dead. Zombies and baggage gone over the course of a morning. Beth turned to me and placed her hand on my crotch as the whirring of a military helicopter hovered over us. We were saved as well. I never thought the fall of civilisation would work out so well for me.\n\n", "\"Everybody get up singing...\"\n\n\"1, 2, 3, 4!!\" my friends joined in.\n\n\"5 will make you get down now!\"\n\nAfter that I didn't know any more of the lyrics so I just made an unintelligible \"ner-ner-ner didi-dum didi-dum\" noise. \n\nThe mood seemed OK, we were throwing our own faeces at this point in order to fend off the hordes, but it seemed to be working. Our barricade had been successful for the last four hours, and the rabble had suffered considerable losses.\n\nThe singing had been an idea initiated in hour three of the siege to keep up morale. This had been kind of necessary after the disaster of hour two, when we had realised there were no knives left. They were the only real weapons we had, but we had thrown them all at the seemingly endless rabble trying to break down the door and seize the house back from us.\n\nWe'd been perhaps overly enthusiastic in hour one of the siege. It had to be admitted that the enthusiasm was slightly on the wane now. Alice was angry I'd thrown her ghds at the horde (\"they're haircare not weapons!\") and Becky was still fuming from when we said we should throw poo rather than food. It was ok though, she wouldn't be fuming at dinner time when we could tuck in to those delicious olives.\n\nCaitlin started up with her own chant as she threw a shitty bit of cloth (once a pair of her knickers) out of the window and towards the rabble at the door.\n\n\"I'm a survivor, I ain't gon give up, I'm not gon stop, I'm a survivor\"\n\n\"That's not how it goes Caitlyn, it's 'I'm gon work -\"\n\nDenise was halted mid sentence as some of the shit got thrown back in her face through the open window. This was swiftly followed by a cheer from the rabble, as an actual person climbed over the windowsill. We all stared at him.\n\n\"Are you actually throwing your own shit?\" he said. \"We're only trying to get you to leave the Airbnb\".\n", "The port city of Andruel, once the crowning jewel of the Aubrish kingdom, was in flames. Its outer walls reduced to rubble, its inner walls breached, the harbour slipping into the sea; the city could no longer protect those within from the invasion. Throughout the city beggar and noble alike were cut down, and even Nabrik Castle's defences had given way. King Gweryn II Auber had been on the front lines as soon as the outer walls fell, inspiring hundreds of troops to fight long enough for all the citizens to retreat to the inner walls, and then he died. General Mant Torin had commanded his troops excellently despite the enemy's numbers advantage, joining the fray himself at the gates of Nabrik Castle, and then he died. The three young princes, against their father's wishes, had grabbed armour and weapons from the throne room while their mother and sisters ran, and then they too died.\n\nKnowing this, and hearing the screams that rang through the building every time another servant was found and butchered, two princesses, a serving girl, and two battered knights hid in the King's study. A bookshelf, containing several dozen unique histories of the Kingdom of Aubria, had been pushed over behind the door, and the two knights stood behind it, ready for when the Felician invaders found them. The youngest princess, Princess Jandlin Auber, was only five years old, and was hugging her elder sister and crying. Princess Mialle was stroking her sister's hair, trying to comfort her, while barely able to stop herself from crying.\n\n\"That's the Queen's District gone now, all them noble houses are giving off a lot of smoke,\" updated Gwyn, the serving girl, who stood by the window watching the city. Her remark was followed by a whimper from the young Princess Jandlin, and a glare from Princess Mialle.\n\n\"Oh stop it, Gwyn,\" demanded Sir Mel, glancing at her briefly before returning his eyes to the door. \"You're only scaring the princesses, and we don't need reminding that the whole city's burning.\" The other knight, Sir Grett, jabbed Sir Mel in the side as Princess Jandlin let out another whimper. \"Oh, forgive me, your highnesses, I didn't think,\" Sir Mel apologised.\n\nThey were silent for a while, lost in sounds and thoughts of death while the afternoon sky turned black with smoke. Nearby, an entire tower of the castle fell to the ground with a thundering crack. Gwyn opened her mouth as if to speak, she was still looking out the window, but stares from Sir Grett and Princess Mialle stopped her. After a few moments, Princess Jandlin raised her head from her sister's side and looked to Gwyn.\n\n\"What was that one?\" she asked in a quiet voice. Gwyn looked at her with uncertainty as Princess Mialle sighed.\n\n\"Don't worry, Jandlin, it's going to be okay. You just need to not think about the-\" Mialle began.\n\n\"But I want to know whether teddy is safe,\" Jandlin whispered, just loud enough for Gwyn to hear. Mialle's eyes pleaded with Gwyn to not scare Jandlin.\n\n\"Cor, no! They wouldn't dare destroy the tower with your teddy in, they're too afraid of him for that!\" Gwyn declared. \"Know what? I bet your teddy's holding off dozens of 'em right now, with only one paw. Swear it on me life, he'll be as safe as ever.\"\n\nJandlin smiled and let out a giggle. \"The silly Fleeshuns can't hurt teddy, can they? They're too ugly for that,\" she decided.\n\n\"To be sure, your highness,\" chimed in Sir Mel. \"I've fought along side teddy before, and my my he's a good fighter. I once saw him break an enemy cavalry charge by himself, these pooheads shouldn't be a problem for him.\"\n\n\"Yeah, pooheads!\" shouted Jandlin, before giggling some more and being hugged hard by Mialle.\n\n\"You're too precious for this world, Jandlin,\" Mialle said, wiping tears from her eyes. Jandlin looked up at Mialle's face and frowned, then got a silk handkerchief out of her pocket to help with the tear wiping.\n\n\"Your highness, Princess Jandlin,\" Gwyn called. \"I see a poohead ship on fire! What d'you make of that?\"\n\n\"It'll be daddy and his men, saving the day,\" Jandlin replied, unaware of her father's death. The four others in the room looked at each other sadly, all agreeing that there wasn't any point telling Jandlin the truth.\n\n\"Must be, your highness. Cor, d'you think teddy out there with 'im, fighting against all the-\"\n\nGwyn's story was cut short as a stray arrow flew through the window and into her neck, burying itself there as she fell to the floor. Jandlin and Mialle screamed and sobbed together while Sir Grett moved the body behind a bookshelf. Both men knew the princesses would likely see more death, but they wanted to do what they could for the remainder of the royal family, and they were both certain that looking at a corpse wasn't good for a princesses health.\n\n\"Ha fledd dwer ga!\" came a shout from below them, a Felecian spearman hearing their screams. Sir Grett dropped Gwyn's body only half covered by a bookshelf and rushed to the door as feet hammered the stairs towards the study. Both knights drew their swords and looked to each other, resignation in their eyes. They had fought many battles together, and had both hoped they could one day die fighting for their king and country. But not so soon.\n\nA thump on the door. Another. Muffled cries from Jandlin. The door bursts open. Screams, from the knights and the Felecians. Sir Mel's sword cuts a spear in half. Sir Grett severs a hamstring. Three more Feletians fall before a spear reaches through Sir Mel's armour and takes his life. Sir Grett dies to a spear through his eye.\n\nThe princesses stand at the window, Mialle glancing back for a moment before they tumble out into the warm, choked air. They hold each other tight.\n\n\"It's okay, Jandlin, I'm-\"" ]	[ 1, 2, 2, 3, 20 ]	[ "1464882705", "1464872294", "1464879434", "1464867358", "1464866487" ]
	[WP] Every time you get a song stuck in your head, it's because your soulmate is singing it.	59	[ " Today's the day. Finally. Stacy comes back from vacation. I've had to go five straight days without seeing her curly cursive on the ticket; without seeing her at the back table after hours rolling silverware. But today, those five long days are finally over. In the meantime, though, I've had to make due with one of the first shift waitresses instead. I've not even bothered to learn the replacement waitresses name, even though she seems kind enough. But, no matter how kind she is, she isn't Stacy. \n About halfway through the dinner rush, Stacy comes in late. \"Hey Stacy, welcome back to paradise.\" I managed to choke out through a gag of awkwardness. \n\"Great,\" she says with the cute edge in her voice, \"Just the guy I want to see first thing back.\" I know she was being sarcastic, but if you just go by the rhetoric alone, she might as well be head over heels.\n Her departure from the kitchen leaves the song Just the Girl by Click Five in my head. It kind of describes our relationship perfectly, like it was meant to be. \n When the off-brand Stacy comes in after hours to pick up her check, she greets me with her ever enthusiastic \"How's my favorite line cook?\". Jesus, how can someone be so enthusiastic this late at night.\n\"Fine.\" I answer curtly. Then, the weirdest thing happens. As I walk out the door of the kitchen to clock out, I swear I hear her singing the song I had in my head earlier. \n Jesus, can't she just take a hint? Some people just don't understand I suppose...", "As always, the high pitched beeping sound of the alarm clock violently tore me out of my peaceful sleep. Well, peaceful? Temperatures around here had risen past 100F in the past few days, and at night my bed was as hot as the fiery pits of Satan's kitchen stove. I had thrown the covers off of me and turned the airconditioning to its max. The latter was an old machine that didn't even cool the room that well for the idiotic rattling noise it produced when switched on. But I put up with it, at least the idea of the room being cooled gave me some comfort in my restless nights.\n\nThat was, if it hadn't been for the stupid thoughts that kept me up at night. Mostly it were memories of embarrasing things I had done when I was 15, or high school crushes I should have confessed my feelings to, yadda yadda, you know the drill.\nThis night, however, had been different. I'd been pondering most of the night, feeling restless yet oddly empty inside. It felt like those times where you are awake at night, on the edge of falling in love with a person you barely know, silently contemplating the chances you'd have with the other person (god, I missed being a teen), only this time the emptyness had been tastefully decorated with a soft beat that was growing stronger as the hours passed. I could've sworn I almost felt my heart beating to the rhythm, every fiber in my body matching the relaxed pulse.\n\nIt was about 8 o'clock now, and I was stopping by at my favourite overpriced coffee place to drain the fatigue from my body, replacing it with a cafeine-induced high. The rhythm in my mind, the beat in my brain had only surged over the past couple of hours, and now I could remember the lyrics to the song as well. I hadn't heard it in a couple of years and never actively listened to it, so I kept repeating the same bits over and over, my brain unable to think past the gaps my lack of knowledge of the lyrics of a 2013 pop song left.\n\nShow me how to fight for now\nAnd I'll tell you baby\nIt was easy coming back into you once I figured it out\n....?\n\nI really didn't get any further than that. I paid for my coffee (how the hell could they ask more than two dollars for a cup of black coffee) and headed out the door, mentally preparing myself to face the horrors of my 10 hour retail shift. It didn't last long. My mind kept on trying to complete the Justin Timberlake song, I didn't pay attention and bumped into another person just about to enter the shop. I nearly spilled coffee all over myself, rebalanced my hand, accidentally spilled most of it on the pavement anyway. I heard someone chuckle. I looked up into the eyes of a guy only a little older than me, with brown curls and cheerfully brown eyes. He wasn't ridiculously good looking, but he was handsome enough to make me feel embarrassed.\n\nI mumbled an apology, looking down. But he just jokingly patted my shoulder. \"It's all good, hun. Got a little caught up in my own thoughts. You're the one whose coffee got spilled after all.\"\n\nI just nodded at him, slightly blushing, not sure how to respond. As I made my way past him, I heard him softly muttering something. No, it was too melodic to be muttering, it was singing.\n\nYou were right here all along.\n\nIt took my brain a while to process it. Then I turned around. The guy noticed my sudden movement and turned around again to face me. He smirked. \"That's it. Song's been stuck in my head all night. Couldn't get any further than that line the entire time.\"\n\nI was speechless, didn't move for at least ten seconds. People were getting annoyed, pushing me around to get past me, and I lost sight of him. I tried to look for him, but I wasn't really tall, so I had to give up. Just as I turned around to leave, I felt a hand on my shoulder.\n\n\"Wait, hun. Let's grab a new coffee together, shall we.\"\n", "I glared out into the sun before quickly shuttering my windows. Heavy insulation was shoved into the cracks and I stomped over to my fridge to check out any left overs.\n\nThere weren't any left overs. I sighed through my nose, and began rummaging for a take out menu. I couldn't go out there. It hurts my head.\n\nThe world was just as noisy today as it was yesterday. Hums, whistles, awkward speaking of lyrics and just off tuned yoddles floated down the streets. The Lonesome were out, the massive swaths of humans that wandered city to city, singing for their soulmate.\n\nLuckily, even though I am a Lonesome as well, whoever my soulmate is supposed to be hated music as much as I did. Never heard a peep of his song in my head. Which is a bit ironic, because I bet we would love the shit out of each other, with all our talk about hating music. If I had one of those serenading songbirds out on the streets, I believe I would jump off a bridge in madness. I couldn't stand listening to music normally, but to have a tune hit your brain every time the love of your life starts singing a tune... I liked the silence. On a scale of 1 to golden, silence was a pretty solid 9. But it seemed like the world would never be silent again. Not since everyone figured out this one cool trick to find the love your life. It's like a goddamn Disney movie.\n\nThe Chinese menu fluttered in my head, and I quickly rattled my order to the man on the other end before he could start humming a tune at me. I hanged up the phone and stared bemusedly around my apartment. I rarely ever left. Not after I invested the thousands of dollars to soundproof the place. It wasn't perfect, but at least I wasn't being driven crazy. So far it worked out well, as I found out I could make a decent buck just being a cam girl. However, the pleas of men begging me to sing a song was getting a bit old. Hell, I am getting a bit old. I might need to start looking for a new profession or I might have to start getting into the really weird shit.\n\nMy gaze drifted up to my heavily padded ceiling. I needed to get out of the cities and the towns. I wanted to breathe again. But unfortunately, I am no Lewis or Clarke, and had no idea how to run away to the middle of nowhere. I am baffled how people survive without take out menus. I don't even have a little Native American local woman to guide me and show me the way of the land. I am just a lonely girl surrounded by the songs of the alone, and none of them will shut the hell up.", "That voice which once did haunt me\n\nWill sing their songs no more.\n\nThose jaunty, happy melodies\n\nThat I once did adore.\n\n-------------------------------------------------\nWhile life itself proceeded\n\nand the world did spin unheeded\n\nAll my soul will weep for want and need\n\nTo hear that voice once more.\n\n--------------------------------------------------\nWoe!\n\nFrom my mind, that voice in silence\n\nHas deserted me. My friend\n\nMy love\n\nMy dearest Prince\n\nHas fallen cold and dead.", "I trundled down the set of stairs heading to the bus stop, my backpack heavy on my shoulders and my head full of music.\n\nNo, really. My head is always full of music these days. It's not a metaphor at all. Someone- or some THING- is near-constantly piping music into my brain. I squinted against the sun, checking the time on my watch and readjusting the backpack again. Tuning in absently and hearing a rousing rendition of some pop song that I didn't care about.\n\nAt first I thought it was just me. Songs getting stuck in your head, you know? Like an old CD stuck on repeat in my shitty old car. It had started a few months back, and by now it was almost expected. I've always been a musical person, so I always get songs stuck in my head. Old music, new music, all sorts, but the worry arose when I realized I was hearing music that I didn't know. I hadn't gone to anyone, of course. They'll tell me I'm crazy and give me meds, or lock me up somewhere, or make me talk to them about my childhood. Fuck, I don't know. At this point I'm so used to it I almost find myself enjoying it sometimes, like a foreign radio station that plays music I know every so often. Just enough variety to be enjoyable. At least she/he/it doesn't like opera.\n\nThe bus pulled in front of the stop with a whine and a huff of dark exhaust, and I fell in line behind a few other passengers boarding. Whatever pop song was playing had switched into some upbeat hip hop rhythm. Okay, this works. Not a bad song for the morning commute. I flashed my pass at the bus driver and sideways-squished myself past the first couple rows. The only open seat in my line of vision was next to a thin, hungry-looking guy about my age. His headphones were on, partially covered by a hoodie, and the only thing I thought was \"at least he'll be a quiet seat mate\".\n\nMy thoughts were dashed to the floor entirely as he glanced up at me disinterestedly. Not because of the piercing blue of his eyes, or his halfway decent looks, but mainly because of how as I watched his lips move to himself they seemed to line up perfectly to the lyrics pounding in my head.\n\nI let myself fall into the seat next to him as the bus lurched to a start.\n\n\"Uh...\" Whatever I was planning to say to the person/thing/program that had been running my personal soundtrack for months now had flown out the window. My mouth felt dry as hell. The guy half-turned his torso towards me, and I managed a small smile.\n\n\"What are you listening to?\"", "I can't seam to get it out of my head.\nIt's always there.\nIn the back of my head.\nIt's all I think about.\nI hear those lyrics every day...\nIt burns through my soul\nThey say when you can't get a song out of your head, your soul mate is singing it.\nI can't believe this is my soul mate. \nOut of all the songs that could've gotten stuck.\nIt just had to be this song.\n\"Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down\"\n\n" ]	[ 1, 1, 1, 3, 12, 16 ]	[ "1464975029", "1464975048", "1464979965", "1464974056", "1464971477", "1464945549" ]
	[WP] Your whole life you been afraid to go to the washroom with the shower curtain closed so you open it everyday. Today you open the curtain to find something you didn't expect.	7	[ "I always had an overactive imagination. Like the time I thought the other ants would come to kill me when I stepped on one of their friends. Or the time I was the first man on Mars with a spaceship made out of cardboard and bicycle parts. I was still a kid back then of course. But I have never shaken the thought of someone standing behind the shower curtain when I peed. So I always checked. Silly of course. Until today.\n\nWhat the hell!?\n\nOh hi. How are you? I'm Tom.\n\nWhat.\n\nTom.\n\nWhat, no: what. What are you doing here?\n\nJust chilling. I wanted to do some unpacking, but it's been a long day. Want a beer?\n\nWhat?\n\nPeroni. I don't have much else I'm afraid. Should get that sorted tomorrow. Do you know where the nearest supermarket is, ...uhm... What was your name again?\n\n...uhm, no. Wait. What are you doing in the bath? Like, at all. Why are you not... Are you one of Charlie's friends? Is he having a crazy party again? CHARLIE!\n\nNo, I haven't had the pleasure to meet Charlie yet. Just moved in today, you see. Where does...\n\nWait you moved in here? Who left!? Which room did you get?\n\nThis room right here.\n\nYou moved into the bathroom?\n\nWell, it's nice enough, isn't it. I could hardly believe it when the landlord said it had been empty for some time. With the current housing shortage and all. \n\nBut this is our bathroom!\n\nYes, I couldn't believe my luck. Price is pretty good too, I'm kinda surprised you didn't move internally. Well it's too late now, haha!\n\nGoddammit, this is ridiculous. I'm phoning the landlord now. Charlie!\n\nHey where are you going! I'm sorry mate! .... Hey! ... I didn't know other people in the house wanted this room! Hey! ... Well, not a good start with the roommates. Maybe I should bring some cake in tomorrow. When I find out where the supermarket is.\n\n\n\n", "There is just something about a closed curtain that frightens me. Fear of the unknown. You never knew just what was lurking on the other side.\n\nMy boyfriend and I live together in a small, one bedroom apartment on the seventh floor of one of the oldest buildings in our city. We'd only been dating a few months when my lease ran out on my old place. He'd been going month-to-month with a roommate from hell and we'd become so close that it only made sense for us to find a place together. \n\nIt wasn't until then that he learned of my fear. At first he'd thought I was kidding. Then he'd thought it was cute. But after a few months of me constantly asking him to open the shower curtain in the bathroom for me, it started to lose its appeal. \n\nWe started fighting about it. He couldn't understand why it was such a big deal to me, and I couldn't understand why he always pulled it shut. He had to open the damn thing to get out of the shower, why couldn't he just leave it that way?\n\nWhen the curtain was closed and he wasn't around to open it for me, I would pee the kitchen sink if I didn't have a bottle. If I had to do number two, it would happen in a plastic bag, which I would immediately take down to the dumpster. One day he came home while I was peeing in a bottle and I think he felt bad.\n\nHe never shut the curtain on purpose, he promised me. It was just a habit formed from having a neat-freak mom and a tattle-tale little sister who'd reported every infarction. It wasn't something he even thought about when doing it.\n\nBut it was something I thought about. Going to friends' houses meant me holding my pee until I could use a public restroom or get home. I never understood why it scared me so, but the fear had always been there and so I'd learned to cope with it. \n\nThe fact that Dean couldn't remember to leave the curtain open bothered me. I think it was what started the trouble in our relationship. Soon we fought constantly over the stupidest little things and he started going out more and more with friends.\n\nOne night we had the worst fight to date and he'd told me he couldn't be with me anymore. He'd said I was pathetic and that he could hardly stand to look at me anymore. He felt like a parent, checking the closet and under the bed for a child's imaginary monster. \n\nI was disgusting, he'd shouted. Pissing in bottles and shitting in bags like a lunatic. \"Who even does that?\" he'd shouted. I made him sick and when he got home from work he was packing his things and leaving. He'd stormed from the bedroom and gone to shower and get ready. \n\nAs the bedroom door slammed shut and I heard the shower turn on, I felt numb. I'd never opened myself up to anyone like I had Dean. He'd taken my biggest weakness and told me he hated me for it. \n\nHe'd left without saying anything to me. I called out of work and then stayed in bed. I cried for hours, agonizing over the loss of my first - and probably only - love. I must have fallen asleep because I don't remember anything until it was dark outside. \n\nI sat up in bed and from the little light provided by the streetlights outside I realized all of Dean's things were gone. The closet was devoid of all male clothing. Dresser drawers gaped open, empty. Even the autographed picture of Steven Tyler had been taken off the wall above the head of the bed. \n\nHow had he packed up all of his belongings without waking me? The idea of him coldly deleting himself from my life while I lay sleeping in the same room hurt. \n\nI stood from the bed. I was freezing. Had Dean left the door open? I fought off a shiver and decided a hot bubble bath might help me.\n\nI flipped the bathroom light switch on and stopped short as a shiver tore down my spine. A row of happy little cartoon dolphins leaping out of the ocean blocked my view of the bathtub. \n\nHere it was. Dean's final \"fuck you\" in the form of a closed shower curtain. A sob escaped me as I fled into the hallway, heart pounding. \n\nEven if he hadn't understood me, Dean knew how frightening that was for me. How could he have been so cruel? And this time there was no hope of him coming home.\n\nI started to dismiss the idea of a bath entirely but stopped myself. No. This was exactly what had driven the love of my life away from me. I wouldn't let the fear get the better of me this time. I was taking a bath. \n\nWith my mind made up I marched back into the bathroom, heart hammering in my chest, and searched my lavender bubblebath from underneath the cabinet. The scent had always calmed me and right now it seemed like I could even smell it from the closed bottle... wherever it was...\n\nWhen my search came up empty, I didn't know what to think. Maybe I'd run out? Or had Dean decided to take that with him too?\n\nRealizing it was possible that I'd simply left it in the shower the last time I'd taken a bath, I turned sharply and confronted the stupid dolphins. \n\nHere it was. The moment of truth. I could do this, right? \n\nWith a shaking hand, I reached out and grasped the curtain in my fist. Tears streamed down my cheeks and I had several false-starts of tugging the thing open. \n\nI decided to do it on three. \n\nOne.\n\nTwo.\n\nAs I counted three, I yanked the curtain so hard that the rod holding it came crashing down on top of me, knocking me to the floor. As I struggled to get free of the fabric and metal rod, my eyes came up to the tub and I froze.\n\nWhat I was looking at didn't make any sense at all and I just sat there, blinking stupidly at the sight of myself in the bathtub. My skin was pale and my eyes stared ahead blindly. My mouth hung open, as though I was about to say something. \n\nI clambered up to my feet in disbelief. My naked body soaked before me in water that had turned a cloudy rose-pink. My bare breasts were covered in a coat of rust colored dried blood that had come from the long, wide gash in my neck. My lavender bubblebath sat on the edge of the tub, next to my outstretched hand that gripped one of the knives from the kitchen. \n\nI stumbled backward, a scream tearing from inside me even as I realized: All my life I'd been afraid of this moment." ]	[ 1, 2 ]	[ "1465073600", "1465075578" ]
	[WP] Two hijackers have boarded a plane. Midflight they attempt to take over the plane only to find that all the other 'passengers' are hijackers too with differing opinions.	125	[ "On February 20th, 2013 at 4:17 in the afternoon, Megan Ferris got a phone call that she later described as \"weird.\" It was a wrong number. The voice on the other end of the line was nearly drowned out by a cacophony of shouting and arguing in the background. She told the caller that it was a wrong number and put the phone back into her pocket. \n\nExactly three hours and twelve minutes later, she saw a news report on TV about a plane that had crashed in a corn field near Middlefield, Ohio. She later described the event as \"super sad.\"\n\nThe next day at 3:20, there was a breaking news report about the plane crash. Megan would later describe it as \"total bizarro land.\" The newscaster reported that the wreckage had turned up a shocking number (exactly thirty-seven so far) of weapons that had been either improvised or smuggled onto the plane. \n\nThree weeks later, on March 12, 2013, the recording from the black box on the plane was leaked into the online media, and after pushing a play button at 6:58 p.m., Megan Ferris heard what she would later describe as the stupidest recording that she had ever heard in her life.\n", "Lars looked out of the window, a nervous flier in a stormy sky. This wasn't doing him any good, he thought. Canadians needed him, and they needed more recognition in the US, just not at the jokes.\n\nIt was almost midway into the journey. The aircraft would have left ATC coverage by now. He edged his way towards the washroom to take the weapon he smuggled through. Pushing a flight attendant away, he announces: \"Good morning sweeties. Today, I have a dream\"\n\nMohamed, a Pakistani came from the back of the aircraft, dragging a flight attendant by her hair. \"What are you guys doing?\". Before Lars could answer, he recognised a familiar face - \"Pranav, you too? I thought you wanted Sikh rights\". In a short while, all the countries in the world were represented - by hijackers!\n\nThe only ones left were the flight attendant and the two pilots. So they explained the situation to them. The pilots and the attendants belonged to 'neutral organisations'. With the aircraft on autopilot, they could not decide where to go.\n\nIn the end, the attendant suggested. We all want something different. We're out of coverage already. What if we pick a new island and start our own country? A model nation for the world. Between us, we have the skills we need.\n\nAfter minutes of intense discussion, they finally agreed. The pilots took measures to avoid suspicion, ditched MH370 and settled on an island in the South sea.", "\"Everyone stay the fuck down!\"\n\nJared screamed as he held the gun up, towards the crowd.\n\n\"Air Marshall, Freeze!\"\n\nThe Marshall announced loudly, aiming his own gun at Jared... He then snickered and turned it towards the crowd as well.\n\n\"Now listen, this plane isn't landing anywhere, until we have a-\"\n\n\"Wait!\" A man stood up, and began yelling at the hijackers.\n\n\"We were doing this too, what the hell? Who the hell are you people?\"\n\nJared looked around nervously.\n\n\"Uh.. Communist Party of the USA... Who the fuck are you?\" He asked, waving his gun at him.\n\n\"IRA, we were gonna kick things up again this month.\" The old man pulled out a small revolver, and shrugged.\n\n\"Hey, hey, hey. What's all this then?\" A third party stood up, and pulled a sawed off shotgun from his coat. \"My wife and I are members of the Ukrainian-\"\n\n\"Ok, ok WAIT!\" Jared held up his arms, and took a deep breath.\n\n\"How many people are trying to hijack this fucking plane?\"\n\nEvery hand in the plane went up. Some laughs were heard in the back.\n\n\"Oh for fucks sake, are we even going to have enough time and gas to figure out everyone's demands to call in?\" A South african voice was heard saying.\n\n\"How the hell did everyone in this plane get onboard with guns, we took off out of LAX!\" David, the Air Marshall asked, scratching his head.\n\n\"We paid off the TSA guys!\"\n\n\"So did we!\"\n\n\"Paid them off!\"\n\nAlmost everyone in the plane was nodding in agreement. \n\n\"Christ, those guys made a lot of money this afternoon...\" Jared whispered to himself.\n\nSuddenly, out of nowhere, a hostess busted out of the bathroom, brandishing an AK-47. \"Freeze fuckers! I represent the Air Hostess Union, and we-\"\n\n\"Oh shut the fuck up!\" The IRA fighter yelled, inciting everyone to laugh.\n\n\"What the hell?\" The hostess exclaimed.\n\n\"It's a long story, sit down.\" Jared sighed, as he set a piece of paper on the ground.\n\n\"Alright, I want everyone to set their demands in this pile. Then someone is gonna shuffle them, and we'll call down to the ground, and start listing demands until we hit the bottom of our lists, ok?\"\n\nThe passengers nodded in agreement, some had already begun walking around considering the situation. \n\n\"Um, just one problem!\" A voice with a thick middle eastern accent declared from the back.\n\n\"What the hell is it?\" Jared yelled towards the voice.\n\n\"My partner is the mastermind behind this! And we had no idea this was going to happen so...\"\n\nJared shrugged. \"So get him to give you the list? What's the big deal?\"\n\n\"Well that's the thing, I can't tell him, and we don't have a list.. He's the pilot..\"\n\nThe plane began descending sharply, and everyone let out a loud, consecutive \"Fuck!\".", "Rocking back and forth, gazing upon the surfaces of the clouds through the window, Jacob replayed the instructions over and over again in his mind.\n\nNumber one: Stand up.\n\nHe could do that, he’d done that loads of times.\n\nNumber two: Follow what Claire does.\n\nOkay, okay, okay.\n\nNumber three: Don’t fuck anything up.\n\nThat was the kicker, right there. He’d have to work extra hard on number three.\n\nA jab in his ribs, a steadying look from Claire; it was time.\n\nThey steadily rose from their seats. Success! Maybe this hijacking malarkey wasn’t as complicated as he’d thought.\n\nClaire strode down the aisle like a General cutting a path through her troops. Jacob, on the other hand, skulked behind like a goblin with an acute awareness of its own iniquity. He glanced at the passengers in order to calm himself down, but was immediately struck by the abnormality of what he saw.\n\nLooking across the faces filling the cabin, there was a duality that Jacob knew all too well. On one seat would be a shivering wreck, eyes flitting around in their sockets and foreheads damp with perspiration. Next to them, like an anchor attached to a dinghy, there would be that familiar steely resolve; Claire’s resolve. Jacob frowned, turning his head back to focus on Claire’s feet and wiping his forearm across his eyes.\n\nPassing catering, passing the rest rooms, Claire came to a standstill at the door to the cockpit. Without turning around she extended an open palm backwards to Jacob and twitched her fingers.\n\nOh God, I’m supposed to hand her something. What was it? What was it? What do I have? A water bottle? Maybe she’s thirsty, if anything’s likely to build up a thirst it’s hijacking.\n\nShe impatiently wiggled her hand while holding an ear against the door.\n\nOh no oh no oh no, I’ve forgotten what she needed. Okay, confidence is key. Just do something, and be confident about it.\n\nWith that, Jacob confidently slapped Claire’s outstretched hand in what he hoped would be accepted as an encouraging high-five.\n\nClaire straightened her back, lifting herself up and slowly performing an about turn. She looked at Jacob the same way a particularly stalwart butcher looks at tofu. Nothing more than a whisper escaped through her gritted teeth.\n\n“Where is the hacksaw?”\n\n“The hacksaw? We were supposed to be bringing a hacksaw?” Jacob’s voice rose a little too high with sheer incredulity, “Christ Claire, we’re hijacking a plane, not robbing a bank in an olde time cartoon! Do you want a ten tonne anvil, too?”\n\nIt was the nerves which cause Jacob to speak so flippantly, and it was nerves which led him to literally cower in the face of Claire’s admonishment. Thankfully, something glimmered in Jacob’s vision which could very well save him.\n\n“Claire, the door!”\n\nA slither of light shone through the crack where the door left its frame.\n\n“It’s… open.” Claire muttered under her breath. Either this had become the easiest hijacking ever concocted, or something was awry.\n\nAs she pushed on the door, they both gasped at the scene which was playing out before us. A tall, broad-shouldered man was holding a gun to the pilot, pushing the barrel into his temple. Next to him, a far spindlier man held the pistol aloft more as an offering to the co-pilot than as any sort of threat. As Claire and Jacob looked at them, and as they looked back, it all became clear to Jacob what was going on.\n\nThis is a di-jacking!\n\nWith that, a large group of people simultaneously rose up from their seats in the cabin and screamed out “Hey, this is our hijacking!”\n\nThis sent out a huge tumult all the way down the plane, with people arguing over theirs being the cleanest method, or the most worthy cause. One was a dentist who had planned a hijacking using only a toothbrush in order to make a fairly tenuous point about the importance of tooth hygiene. Another was a helicopter enthusiast / saboteur looking to discredit aeroplane safety. One particularly strange man had set up a hijacking via an intricate Rube Goldberg system of levers and pullies which were supposed to knock out the pilot via a knock on the head from an oversized domino. No-one talked to him.\n\nGood God, Jacob thought despairingly, This is an omni-jacking.", "\"Hide those cables\", I started to get stressed. We were about to take off and Jane's cables were in plain sight. \"They're going to notice it\". \n\nJane and I started working out our plan a few months ago. We invited two companions to hijack this plane with us: Eric and Jerome. It wasn't until a few months later that Eric and Jerome went their own way. They didn't value our motives, yet knew we had to do it.\n\n\"Here she goes\", Jane said. We felt the plane driving faster. \"This is our moment, Kane, this is the moment we can make a difference\". Our motives were simple: we had to hijack this plane to improve air security. We were fed up with all these terrorist attacks and hijacks. We had to prove it wasn't going well, had to show the leaks. Even if it killed us.\n\nI got pushed back into my chair as we took off. My heart was beating faster than it ever had before. This was the day I was going to make the difference I had always wanted in life. From birth my goals was to become unforgettable. To be read about in history books. To be seen as the hero that saved countless lives. And this was the best way to do it.\n\nI had never seen Jane this happy. It was almost evil. We worked out our plan: we get up during the flight, start yelling we are hijacking the plane, make the pilot land and start communicating with the authorities afterwards. It was a solid plan. It took months of preparation. It even involved hiring a hitman to kill Eric and Jerome. If you can't do it one way, you gotta do it the other way.\n\nI heard some rumbling behind me. It didn't really occur to me that much that there were about 200 other people on this flight. The people right behind me seemed nervous. But I flew before, I know people get nervous.\n\nI hear the seat belt light going out. It was almost time. We said we'd do it 20 minutes after the light would go out. Time for a good drink first. I eased my mind a bit and saw the steward coming our way.\n\n\"Good morning, sir. What can I get you?\", he asked, with a slight bitter undertone. I asked him how he was doing. Just like any kind steward he said he was alright. Yet the undertone in his voice made me feel otherwise. I asked him again, pointing out that he sounded a bit bitter. \n\n\"It's just the usual, he said. We're an hour late due to hijack threats\". I started laughing internally. He will be in for a surprise.\n\n\"I see, well, was the danger cleared?\", I asked. \"Yes, yes sir, there is no threat right now\". It seemed like an ironic answer, cause I knew it'd be otherwise.\n\n\"EVERYBODY HANDS UP!\", I heard from the back of the plane. I freaked out. How could this happen? Do the authorities know about us? I didn't dare look back to see who it was. \n\n\"Put your hands up or we will blow up the plane\", I heard a second voice say. The letters W, T and F were all that was left in my mind right now. A second hijack? We hadn't even done ours yet. We were still 10 minutes away.\n\n\"No, you put your hands up\". The steward got up and opened his shirt. Jane freaked out. I freaked out. The steward was wearing a bomb vest and holding a wired button in his left hand. I couldn't handle it for a second, this was not where I thought my day was headed. Danger by the time we landed, sure. But danger up in the air? Our plan was ruined.\n\nI couldn't take it anymore, I got up. \"You!\", I yelled at the steward. \"Come over here!\". The steward looked confused and started laughing. \"I said, come over here!\" The other passengers were looking at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was, all I knew is that I had to make the best out of our own situation, I still wanted credits for this hijack and I wasn't going down in history on a passengers death list.\n\nJane was looking at me. I nodded at her. She knew this was the signal. Jane got up and took of her shirt. Now, I know we had a lot more preparation than the steward, but Jane's vest was really, really advanced. You have to imagine a teletubby-like bomb vest including a timer, a screen and a camera. We were going to film the entire hijack. I guess all we're filming now is a terrorist stand-off.\n\nThe other passengers started yelling. There was some Chinese, some Arabic, but mainly just of pile of 'shits' and 'fucks' flying around from every corner in the plane.\n\nA team of 5 people got up, pulling guns and threatening to kill every one of us. This was just met with lots of laughter from the other passengers. That's when I realized I wasn't the only person here the hijack the plane. It seemed everybody was.\n\nI had to find a good solution. I had to get out here safely yet become a hero. I needed to get a plane, yet first it involved getting the other hijackers to give up their plans. \n\n\"I am serious\", I started yelling. \"I will kill every single one of you, be prepared to meet my gods\". There was a silence from the plane. \"Your gods?\", someone asked. \"Yes, Jane will blow up this entire plane and take you to heaven with us.\"\n\nThere was some laughter from the crowd, yet panic. It was probably the dumbest line I ever said. Yet something snapped in their brains. I completely destroyed their motives. There was no goal for them, no eternal life, no virgins, just my own made up heaven -- at least that's what I hoped they were thinking. I actually had no idea and really just needed them to calm the hell down.\n\nIt somehow worked. \"If I ever have to re-tell this story I am definitely going to write a better line for that, I can't believe they fell for this\", I thought. I just didn't have the time now. I needed to focus.\n\n\"I will blow all of you up!\", I repeated as I was walking to the cockpit. Jane brought a small, harmless bomb to open the cockpit door. \"Hurry up, Jane, blow that sucker out\", I frantically started yelling. I was totally into this. This was going to be my moment. \n\nA small explosion followed and the door to the cockpit was open. \"Shit!\", I yelled as I looked at the pilot. The pilot was dead. I looked to the right, looking straight into the barrel of a gun. \"I have some bad news for you\", the co-pilot said. \"I'm hijacking this plane\".\n\n\"You've got to be kidding me\", I said. I couldn't take it anymore. Something in my head just snapped and made me feel totally out of control. I grabbed the gun and his arm. \"No, you're not\", I said as I looked him straight into his eyes. \"I am hijacking this plane\". The look on his face was priceless. It was as if he saw his last glimpse of hope fly out the window and get slashed in the plane engine.\n\nI told him to land the plane. I told him to find the first airfield we could land at. And, to my very own surprise, he did. He listened. He listened very well, as if there was a gun aimed at his head. Which made sense, because at that exact moment I was aiming the gun at this head.\n\nThe whole situation and the nerves just made me zone out. Jane was there with me all along, she was the one that kept me on track. \"Stay clear, Jack\", she must've said it a hundred times. \n\nIt must have been 30 minutes before I really got back to my senses. We landed at the airfield and I got completely back in control. \n\nIt was time to contact the authorities. I was too excited by this. This was the moment I had been living up to for months now, and it finally reached the end. I could see the finish line, I could taste the heroism that would overcome me in the next decades. \n\nI could see the news headlines already:\n\"Jack and Jane hijacked a hijacked plane\"", "Jason motioned to Harvey with his head and the two stood. They made their way down the aisle toward the front of the cabin.\n\n\"I'm sorry sir, but I'm going to have to ask you to take your seat. The fasten seatbelt sign is lit.\" \n\nJason sighed and reached into his back pocket. He extracted the weapon - a jagged piece of glass from a jar he had broken in the airplane bathroom. The flight attendant's eyes went wide. \n\n\"Silver,\" she shouted as Jason took her into a chokehold. \"Silver!\" \n\nA man toward the front of the plane stood, sweeping his coat to the side and revealing a gun that pointed at Jason, who gave Harvey another head motion and slammed himself down on the ground, taking the flight attendant with him and rolling over so she was on top of him. \n\nJason couldn't see what was going on, but he heard the shouts and the commotion of the passengers. Other people were yelling, standing up. He pushed the flight attendant to the side, the glass cutting into his own hand as he popped back up on his feet and brandished it. \n\nThe Air Marshal was on the floor. Jason looked around for Harvey, who was standing and looking perplexed near one of the lavatories. \n\nTwo women were standing toward the front of the cabin. One of them had a high heel shoe in hand, the other was stepping onto the back of the Air Marshal. \n\nThree other people stood up. \n\n\"I'm afraid we're taking control of this plane,\" Jason announced to them. The woman toward the front of the cabin narrowed their eyes.\n\n\"Non. I'm afraid that we are taking control of this plane.\" \n\nThe three other men who had stood declared that they, too, were taking control of the plane. \n\nIn a sudden wave of motion every passenger seemed to be standing. There was an overhead announcement and flight attendants were backing into the galleys, unsure of what to do. Every passenger seemed to have a weapon.\n\n\"We cannot all take over the plane!\" the French woman at the front of the cabin exclaimed. \"We can fight to the death!\" \n\n\"Why not just let the plane go down? Every organization can claim it is their fault. No one will ever know the truth!\" a man toward the back interjected.\n\n\"No!\" Jason yelled. \"We were first. We're taking control of the plane.\"\n\n\"We took down the Air Marshal,\" shouted the woman with the heel. \n\n\"We prepared explosives using vials only containing 3oz of liquid! We are the most impressive. We should get to take over the plane!\" someone else yelled.\n\nThe commotion was deafening. Jason and Harvey moved together with their hands over their ears.\n\n\"Quiet, quiet, quiet,\" someone shouted. \"There's only one way to solve this! It is a method tried and tested over the years that cannot be cheated. A way to find the true winner in us all.\" \n\n\"What?\" asked the woman with the heel.\n\n\"We play rock, paper, scissors.\" \n\n---\n\nThanks for reading :). If you enjoyed it, head over and subscribe to r/Celsius232 for more stories. \n\n" ]	[ 1, 3, 4, 5, 11, 51 ]	[ "1465135084", "1465136348", "1465144317", "1465132863", "1465126630", "1465123316" ]
Inspired by these comments from /u/thepeoplesbard >Irrational hatreds are sort of beautiful to me. Your every day, vanilla hatreds are boring. Oh, you're a racist? I've seen that before. You hate baby penguins? Now that's fucked up. Please tell me more. and /u/stock_is_locked >You know theres a story behind them, bigots, racists, etc are usually just propagating what they were taught or observed as children. The outlandish unique hatreds usually have juicy backstories. https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/4mpoot/im_in_a_cinema_fraternity_and_we_host_weekly/d3xcv58	[WP] You have an irrational hatred of something mundane like the movie Ratatouille, ketchup, or baby penguins. What's the backstory?	42	[ "INT. Bedroom - Morning\n\nTED (42) is sleeping in his bed in a t-shirt and pj pants. He's covered up with the blanket and a little of the cool morning light peeks around the edges of the blinds.\n\nKIM (41) walks in the room with a robe and kisses his forehead.\n\nKIM\n\nMerry Christmas.\n\nTED stretches and groans. He sits up and smiles at KIM\n\nTED\n\nMerry Christmas. You wanna come back to bed and lay here with me for a while.\n\nKIM\n\nNo. I have a surprise for you. Put your robe on and follow me.\n\nEXT. Front Yard - Continuous\n\nKIM is standing in the open doorway of the house waiting for TED. He walks out the door and KIM's smile grows as she waits for his reaction. \n\nTED walks past the shiny Acura with the bow on it and gets in his ten year old Chevy and drives away.\n\nKIM pulls out her phone and calls TED's cell. It rings twice and goes to voicemail.\n\nKIM\n\nWhat is the matter with you? I thought you'd be happy I got you a new car!\n\nINT. Bar - Night\n\nA dimly lit hole in the wall filled with the kind of people you'd expect in a bar on Christmas Day, including TED in his pajamas and robe.\n\nThe door swings open and lets the cold air in. CHRIS (18) walks in and sits next to TED.\n\nCHRIS\n\nYou know Kim's looking for you? She doesn't know why you took off. Said she bought you a new car for Christmas.\n\nTED\n\nYeah, a fucking Acura.\n\nCHRIS\n\nJesus. She didn't know man.\n\nTED\n\nYeah, how's she supposed to know. Never really got around to that conversation.\n\nTED chuckles and looks down at his drink.\n\nWe got in a fender bender with one at a mall parking lot one time. I started kicking the guy's grille in and threatening to kill him and his family.\n\nCHRIS\n\nYou should talk to her about this man.\n\nTED\n\nYeah. I probably should.\n\nINT. Kim's house - Day\n\nKim's phone rings. An unkown number. She answers it.\n\nTED\n\nHi Kim\n\nKIM\n\nYou've got a lot of nerve calling me! You don't come home, you don't call for two weeks! I should hang up on you right now.\n\nTED\n\nPlease don't hang up Kim. I've only got one call and I just wanted to explain to you why I left on Christmas. After I drove off I went to a bar and I got drunk. I stayed in a cheap hotel near the bar for a bit. One day I was getting ready to go to the bar again but the snow was coming down so hard the cabs weren't running. I decided to walk instead. On the way there I came across an Acura dealer. Now I'm in jail for smashing thirteen headlights and seven windshields.\nI'm not calling you to bail me out. I just wanted to tell you it's not your fault and you couldn't have known.\n\nKIM\n\nWhat is the matter? Why do you hate these cars so much?\n\nTED\n\nYou never met my brother, Chris. He was the smart one, really going places. He graduated highschool valedictorian, had a full ride to Harvard. My parents were so proud they got him an Acura for his graduation gift.\n\nHe went to a graduation party later that week. He got in a fender bender on the way home, nothing serious. His airbag went off though. It was defective and instead of a cushion of air to minimize some minor whiplash he got a face full of shrapnel. He was lifeflighted to the hospital where he stayed on a ventilator for 18 hours. He died from a fucking airbag.\n\nMy parents took Acura to court for it. They weren't looking for a huge payout. Just wanted to have them pay the medical bills and to protect other families from the same thing. Didn't matter though. They said since Chris had a couple beers even though he was under the legal limit that the accident was his fault.\n\nLike I said, it's not your fault. I thought I could finally move on. Looks like I was wrong. You should move on and find someone who treats you as good as you deserve. Don't wait for me.\n\nKIM\n\nTed, we could go to counseling. We could work this out.\n\nINT. Jail - Continuous\n\nTED hangs up the payphone and walks back to the guard.", "In retrospect, after midnight on a Friday evening in college is not the best time to make a deep, mind-shattering discovery about your best friend.\n\n\"Are you serious?\" I howled across the table at Barry, pelting him with Hershey Kisses. \"You don't like chocolate? Man, what's wrong with you!\"\n\nBarry did his best to block the shower of small projectiles, but he didn't want to let go of his beer bottle, so several of the little foil-wrapped chocolates pinked off the glass container. \"Nothing's wrong!\" he insisted. \"I just don't like the stuff, okay?\"\n\n\"Nuh uh, not okay,\" I said, shaking my head vehemently back and forth. With all the booze sitting in my stomach and pestering my liver, the head-shaking gesture made the room spin unsteadily, but I clamped both of my hands over my ears until the wooziness passed. \"Who doesn't like chocolate?\"\n\n\"It's really nothing,\" Barry protested.\n\nI looked around at the girls in the room with us. We'd found these two in the little corner store when we stumbled in, searching for munchies. The blonde one smiled at me with that sexy smirk that promises so much to a drunken college kid, I spotted the family size bag of chocolates, and very smoothly invited them back to our apartment to \"hang\" and help us eat through the bag. The blonde now leaned against my arm in a very soft and inviting way, and her brunette friend was curled up against Barry. Total win for the night.\n\nAt least, up until Barry decided to make his stance against chocolate.\n\n\"What do you think, Ellie?\" I asked the blonde leaning against me, letting my hand boldly drop another couple inches down her back towards that pert little ass of hers. \n\nShe just grinned as my hand curled around her. Goddamn, yoga pants are awesome. \"I think it's weird,\" she agreed. \"Tell us why not!\"\n\n\"Yeah, tell us!\" piped up Ellie's brunette friend. I still hadn't caught her friend's name, but she was short and had a very generous amount of bouncy cleavage on display, which totally made her Barry's type. \"Tell us and I'll flash you!\"\n\n\"Can't resist that,\" I pointed out, as Ellie's warmth pressed against me, counterpoint to the warm fuzziness in my head.\n\nBarry rolled his eyes. \"Oh, fine. Look, it's a stupid kid thing. Dylan, you know how my parents are divorced, right?\"\n\nI nodded. I'd met both of them, of course, during our years of living together. Nice folks, but I'd learned not to let both of them into the same room together. Acid and water - a violent explosion.\n\n\"Well, the final straw for their marriage was at Disneyland,\" Barry continued. \"See, we were staying at this all-inclusive hotel, and I guess they just couldn't take each other any longer. They started screaming after dinner, throwing things across the room, and I went running away.\"\n\nI frowned. \"And this has to do with chocolate?\"\n\n\"Yeah, it does. See, I went running away, but I couldn't leave the hotel, because I was only about six years old. So I ended up down in the cafeteria area, but since it was after dinner, they'd packed away everything except the dessert table.\"\n\nBarry sighed. \"And there, in the middle of the table, the only thing still running, was a massive fountain of chocolate, for fondue.\"\n\n\"I like fondue - it's a funny word,\" giggled big-boobs brunette, who didn't appear to be listening to the story too much.\n\nI flapped a hand at her. \"So what, you ate a bunch of the fondue?\"\n\n\"Not a bunch,\" Barry corrected me. \"Seriously, most of it. I stuck a glass into there and just started drinking. By the time that my mom came down and found me, the fountain was making grinding noises because there wasn't enough liquid in it any longer. Probably at least two or three pounds' worth.\"\n\nI winced at the thought. \"That probably didn't settle well.\"\n\n\"Nope. Up all night, brown - and I'm not talking just about chocolate - streaming out both ends of me.\" Barry grimaced. \"Plus, you know, learning that my parents were getting divorced.\"\n\nI looked down at the Hershey Kisses in my hand. \"Okay. It kind of makes sense, now.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Too bad, since it tastes so good,\" Ellie piped up, popping one of the Kisses into her mouth. The chocolate still melting on her tongue, she leaned in and kissed my arm, leaving a brown smudge behind - and then slowly, sensually licked it off of my arm with her tongue. I didn't have to work hard to get her message.\n\n\"Hey, wait!\" I protested. \"Barry told the story, so now - er, your friend - has to flash us!\"\n\nEllie stood up. \"Tell you what. You can either sit here and let her flash you, or you can take me to your room, and see what I'll do to you.\" She winked at me, waggled her ass in my face, and then headed off towards the apartment's bedrooms.\n\nThe choice was a no-brainer. \"See you tomorrow, Barry,\" I said, hopping up and charging after that sexy blonde. \"Sorry about the chocolate thing!\"\n\n\"Yeah, no worries,\" he called after me. The brunette on the couch next to him started squirming around, and even I had to pause for a moment at the sight of her movements. God, I loved college.\n\nJust as I headed around the corner to find Ellie and see what sort of fun activities she had in mind, however, I heard the brunette speak up. \"So, you wanna lick chocolate off of me?\"\n\nHah. Let Barry deal with that one. My stomach filled with sweetness and my head slightly woozy with alcohol, I put thoughts of my best friend out of my head.\n\n****\n\nYou're not subscribed to enough subs with stories. Here's one to fix that: /r/Romanticon", "\"Do you have a pen?\" I ask the bank teller. \"The ones out here don't work.\"\n\nShe smiles and reaches into a drawer. \"Here you go,\" she says, handing me a black pen.\n\nI let out a high-pitched shriek and hit the pen out of the woman's hand. It rolls onto the floor toward a man talking to the next teller over and they both pause their transaction to stare at me. The woman who handed me the pen withdraws her hand and gapes at me and I feel my face growing hot. \n\nBile is creeping up my throat. I turn around and I run outside and I throw up in the nearest trash can. When I look up, I see that everyone in the bank is staring at me through the glass doors, their faces frozen in shock. Great. Here I am, a grown-ass man trying to run a grown-ass errand, throwing up in public because a kind old woman tried to hand me a pen. \n\nAll I can think to do next is run. I run as fast as my stubby little legs will take me. My car is still parked in front of the bank, and my check hasn't been cashed, but I'm not thinking. I'm just running. All I know is that I need to get as far away as I can. \n\nI have no idea how long I've been running or how far I've come. I don't know where I am. I do know that I passed civilization ages ago, after I veered into the trees along the road. I'm in the thick of it now, dodging branches and jumping over rocks and kicking up dirt. My chest is throbbing and every breath is a struggle. My legs are growing weaker with every stride. But I will not stop because I won't let them get me again. \n\nThe black pen is how they got me last time. \n\nWhen I sat in that big comfy chair, and that man asked me what I was thinking and I told him, he took out his black pen and it made that awful click-click sound and he wrote down everything I said. And then the men in white came and carried me away. \n\nThey told me I was going to live in a new place for a while. And when I got to the new place there was more click-clicking and they put the pen in my hand and they made me sign my name on a piece of paper. And then I sat in the room. At first I screamed and kicked and cried and punched, but they wouldn't let me out. So I gave up. I just sat and waited and sat and waited in that tiny white room. \n\nAnd then seventeen years later the same man from before came in, only this time he was holding a blue pen. He asked me what I was thinking again and I told him and he wrote down what I said. And then the men in white said I could leave, and they gave me another blue pen and another piece of paper and they made me sign my name. And then I walked out the door. \n\nI can't let the men in white come back for me again. The black pen brings them. So I'm still running and I will never stop. \n\nThose people at the bank probably think I'm crazy. \n", "Marcus was surprised how far this argument had gotten. All he had stated was that he didnt like The Hunger Games. He'd underestimated how much of a fan his date was. And, for that matter, how strong of an opinion he had about storytelling.\n\n\"I just can't stand present tense narration. It's a shitty way to tell a story,\" he opined.\n\nTilda can't believe this. When she first brought up literature they had so much in common. And now this comes up. Not liking romance or something like that she can understand. How can this be the literary dealbreaker for him?\n\n\"But present tense narration gives a sense of immediacy. Like you're right there in the action with the characters. Besides, its not like everyone's doing it. It's just nice to have a change of pace once in a while.\"\n\nMarcus wasn't sold on this idea, and at this point he wasn't going to back down. \"But you're not* in there with the characters,\" he replied. \"It's all written down in the book. The story is already told and you're just reading it. It breaks suspension of disbelief. You can't just have the book pretend like the events are currently happening.\"\n\nThis is the first time Tilda has heard of a writing style breaking suspension of disbelief. And certainly the first time anyone's been so opinionated about it. And she realizes it doesn't fit with something he said before.\n\n\"Wait, wait, wait,\" she says, \"you told me earlier you really liked those SCP stories. You're saying that you're on board with a narrative being told through an image-based chat between sentient AI, but narration in the present tense is a bridge too far?\"\n\n\"Well those are different,\" he countered. \"The weird narration is the point there. With the present tense it's sort of like normal, but not quite, and it feels really off-putting.\"\n\nTilda scoffs at that. \"So, what, there's an uncanny valley of narration?\" she says.\n\n\"Exactly,\" Marcus agreed. He was glad she finally understood the problem. \"I can't believe anyone with a brain would like that.\"\n\nTilda rolls her eyes. Does he already not remember that she likes that? She starts wondering when the food will arrive. This isn't the worst blind date she's been on, but the night is still young. \"And here I thought my hangup about said bookisms was irrational,\" she says.\n\n\"...what are 'said booksisms'?\" Marcus inquired.\n\n\"It's that thing where authors use a whole bunch of awkward words instead of just 'said' in their dialog tags,\" she says. \"You know, like when all those characters start ejaculating in Harry Potter.\" Marcus gave her a funny look. \"Oh you know what I mean.\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Marcus replied. \"I mean, there's a limit, but real speech has aspects that can't be captured with just text.\"\n\n\"Nonsense. A good writer can convey the tone through text alone. It's just another way to show, not tell. Especially because sometimes you need to drop the dialog tags to improve flow.\"\n\n\"Oh God, I hate it when authors do that. You ever read A Farewell to Arms? Hemingway was terrible about it. Makes conversations way too hard to follow.\"\n\n\"No, I never read that book. Was it that bad?\"\n\n\"Yeah, and he'd even leave in the meaningless crap people say to fill the void in conversations.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\n\"Huh.\"\n\n\"Makes the conversation even harder to follow.\"\n\n\"So why'd you read the book then?\"\n\n\"It wasn't by choice,\" Marcus hissed. \"My dickbag English teacher assigned it. He loved all that modernist crap. He spent the entire year on it. Hated every minute of it. Ended up giving me a D after I wrote my final essay on how much I hated it. Asshole.\" He realized he'd said that last bit louder than he'd intended. A few people at the restaurant had turned their heads.\n\nAt least he's consistent, Tilda thinks. \"So is that why you're so...intense about these things,\" she says, \"or is there more to this story?\"\n\n\"Well, sort of. I had him again the next year and he spent the whole time on postmodern literature. Like that was any better,\" Marcus growled. \"Bunch of douchebags trying too hard to be clever and meta and shit.\"\n\nTilda smiles. She and Marcus have finally found something they can agree on again. \"Yeah,\" she says, \"I don't think anyone likes that.\"", "Sammy looked at the smiling faces of his family and friends all around him, and drew a deep breath.\n\nBefore he could blow out the candles, a man crashed through the roof, landing on the pile of brightly wrapped parcels nearby. He was dressed in a yellow unitard with a purple cape that fluttered without wind.\n\nStunned silence descended on the room. His parents had never looked so frightened in life. Next moment, however, all the kids were screaming with delight.\n\n\"Sir Powerpunch!\" they cried, crowding around him. Who hadn't heard of the mighty hero who could stop a train with one hand? Who could withstand a tank blast, who could fly? Ten out of ten dentists recommended the toothpaste he used, and his dental commercials had the endorsement of the president himself.\n\nBut unlike his TV appearances, Sir Powerpunch wasn't smiling now. He pushed past the children and stared at Sammy's cake.\n\n\"Do you want a slice, sir?\" Sammy asked timidly.\n\nThe superhero grimaced. \"I'll take ... the whole goddamn thing!\"\n\nGrabbing the cake, he flung it out of the window. Thirty minutes later, it would land somewhere in Ecuador, on some housewife's laundry, but in that moment, nobody made any noise. Until Sammy began to cry.\n\n\"S—sir, why did you—\"\n\nSir Powerpunch merely sneered. \"Birthday cakes are for products of incest and dick warts. And you sure don't look like a wart to me.\"\n\nWith that, he took flight once more, tearing their roof a new one.\n\n*\n\nWithin the next hour, Sir Powerpunch stopped three bank robberies (one of them was a just a prank, but he broke their legs anyway), saved all the passengers from a capsizing cruise ship (he dropped the ship on a freeway) and rescued a pet alligator stuck on a tree (\"Don't ask\", said the owner).\n\nAs he was soaring in the air again, his super-senses were triggered by way of an itch behind his right ear. Some people nearby were singing a birthday song. A cake was involved. He could almost smell the icing.\n\nSwooping toward the house in question, his thoughts drifted to his past ...\n\n\n\n\"Whose birthday is it?\" Mother said, beaming as she carried a large chocolate cake to the table.\n\n\"Mine,\" eight-year-old Charlie said, eyeing the frosting eagerly. \"Mine mine mine.\"\n\nFather roared with laughter and slapped him on the face. \"Wrong, idiot.\"\n\nHe blinked away the tears, jaw ringing from the blow. Mother placed the cake carefully in front of a teddy bear with one missing eye. \"Happy birthday, sweetie,\" she said, brushing the stuffed toy's head.\n\n\"It's my birthday,\" Charlie whined.\n\nFather slapped him again; this time, he tasted blood. \"Shut up. It's Sir Powerpunch's birthday. Isn't it, Sir Powerpunch?\" He tickled the bear's chin.\n\nMoisture flowed freely from his eyes now, but instead of crying, a low growl began rumbling in his throat. Gritting his teeth, Charlie struggled against the manacles and chains strapping him to the chair. \"It's mine!\"\n\n\"Not if you stay in that chair,\" Mother said. She cut a huge chunk of cake and placed it in front of Sir Powerpunch. \"Eat up, sweetie.\"\n\n\"No!\" With a scream, Charlie tore his right arm free of his restraints, snapping the chain links. Ever since he'd had cake when he was two, it'd been his favorite food, which his parents had unfortunately remembered. Each year, he would be forced to sit in this horrible chair, while his father smeared cake on the bear's mouth.\n\nTwice a month, Father would dangle cake before him, while Mother injected him with various fluids that made him sleepy and angry in turn. \"You can have cake,\" they promised. \"But only if you leave that chair.\"\n\nNot this year. He wasn't going to let that stupid bear have his cake again. With a powerful shout that shook the walls of his house, he tore free and hurled himself across the table. Gripping Sir Powerpunch by the ears, he ripped the toy in half, right down the middle, before turning to face his parents, fists clenched.\n\nTo his surprise, his parents' faces were shining with pride and joy. Mother was actually sobbing. Father said, \"Son ... happy birthday.\"\n\n\"Have some cake,\" Mother said.\n\nHe stared at the cake and swallowed. A second became a minute ... Mother's hand began to tremble, rattling the plate she was holding.\n\nCharlie raised a foot. \"I don't want cake anymore,\" he screamed, stomping down on the chocolate mound.\n\n\n\nSir Powerpunch burst through the ceiling and landed beside a table. On it, there was a cake with seven lit candles, beside a tablet. It was playing a video of children singing a birthday song, while a man conducted them. The man looked like a clown; his hat appeared to be made a huge, multi-leveled cake.\n\n\"—birthday to you!\" the kids finished in a chorus.\n\n\"Ah, we have a special guest here today with us,\" the man said, waving at the camera. \"Say hello to Sir Powerpunch.\"\n\nSir Powerpunch approached the tablet slowly. \"What is this?\"\n\n\"This is a dedication to you, my friend,\" the clown said. \"All over the world, you've been foiling my best laid plans. How many of my henchmen have you defeated? How much of my money has been wasted by your efforts?\"\n\n\"I don't know who you are.\"\n\n\"Well, I guess you'll never know.\" The clown smiled. \"Say goodbye to Sir Powerpunch, kids.\"\n\n\"Goodbye!\"\n\nSir Powerpunch balled his hands. \"When I find you, I'll—\"\n\nBefore he could finish, the micro-nuke beneath the house exploded.\n\n\n\nFor more stories, check out [The Nonsense Locker](http://reddit.com/r/nonsenselocker)!*" ]	[ 2, 2, 4, 7, 14 ]	[ "1465220058", "1465220059", "1465231825", "1465233146", "1465212445" ]
	[WP] Everyone is born with a disability and an ability. A test is done at birth to determine these, if they aren't already apparent. You, well, you were born with crippled legs and have the power of super speed.	2,263	[ "Most people neglect to realize that \"super speed\" isn't limited to the musculature. An Accelerate who moves at 4 times the average human speed needs correspondingly fast processing and reaction times, otherwise they'd trip and fall with every step. \n\nSo what prohibits this increased mental power from making geniuses out of every Speedy Johnson? The Dalton Loci; a handful of inhibiting genes carried by every Accelerate with a magnification power of 2.4+ and certain types of Telepaths. \n\nThe Dalton Loci is responsible for restricting increased mental processing to the lizard brain. In a nutshell, it decelerates higher brain functions inversely to the subject's magnified ability. Hence, even a rare Accelerate with an extremely high magnification power of 8.16 (speeds fast enough to dodge bullets) reads, writes and talks at the same pace as a Brute. More importantly, they live at the same pace as the rest of mankind. From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes perfect sense. \n\nUnfortunately, human DNA is a fickle house of cards that evolution is eager to shuffle. I am an Accelerate 23.529. Most Accelerates over 6.12 will die in utero, as the mother's body is not able to process nutrients fast enough to support the growing fetus's hyper metabolism. Even if they survive, the calories needed to support such a fast metabolism are astronomical. The speed becomes a liability rather than a benefit and the subject starves before it can pass on its genes. If we're sticking to the card analogy, I was dealt a bad hand that should've never played out. But modern society doesn't believe in folding anymore. My mother was a high powered Accelerate herself, and with an ungodly aide of modern science to assist her, I came into this world against the better judgement of nature; 5 months prematurely, paralyzed from the waist down, and missing crucial genes normally found in the Dalton Loci.\n\n...\n\nMy mother turns her head in my direction with the speed of a tectonic plate. Even with her super speed, the movement seems glacial to me. The profile of her face forms like a sunrise in slow motion, her lips in a vague 'o' shape. \"What would you like for dinner?\" \"What are you working on?\" \"When did you take your pills?\" I can think of 50 answers to every conceivable question she could ask. But I can't wait. My short term memory is constantly being overwritten by a deluge of new information. By the time she finishes her sentence, I'll have forgotten the start. I sigh and reach for a pencil\n\nCarrot stew, tomato soup, bananas. idc, something simple, no meat, that I don't have to chew. Mybe smoothie? (no milk)\n\nTrying to create compound 2 destroy 25th Chromosome ('super powers') & leave subject alive (hard 2 project results in theory, know anyone that wants to be a test subject, hahaha but seriously, I really need a test subject)\n\nNot taking pills. Pills just make me tired. No worries, I love you dnt b sad...", "This is my first post ever here, I'm French, so please don't mind weird sentence or expression because i wrote it down in french and then translated it in english. I enjoyed it so far and I hope you too!\n\n\nJordan is handsome, Jordan is big, Jordan carries fifteen cheerleaders at arms effortlessly. Actually, he could carry thousands times more than that.\n\n« Hey Jordan, what time is-it ? »\n\nThe giant could not see his dial watch, so he put his wrist in front of his face.\n\n« Hummm, it is... uh, 13... »\n\nI was far when he could tell the time, and i was not likely to hear anything since fifteen girls whined and insulted him copiously.\nI climbed the steps to the entrance four by four to get to the « cour des miracles » where those pompous ass showed off their « tremendous » power. Here a girl levitated at 30cm from the ground, there a guy who wores living butterfly as clothing, poc, seriously. My awesome superpower ? I can walk, awesome.\n\n« Ethan, you are late, again, »\n\nThe time stopped for a fraction of second, then i saw my father in his grey teacher uniform behind me.\n\n« If only i could teleport myself too, I aswered him with a sarcastic grin. »\nHe put his hand on my shoulder and leaned toward me.\n« Please, make a little effort, you already have 2 warnings and you know what will happen to the third, »\n\nI am indebted to him for making me go into an ExDaq* school with my ratio of only 0,67. But it stops there, he is never home despite his teleportation.\n\nPoc, he was already gone.\n\nWell, in fact I was born without femoral heads and i had a hip prosthesis in my 12, well before my power was fully awake. But a dumbass forgot that to put a regular prosthesis to someone who have superspeed is a bad idea and now it's too late because i would need one liter of sufentanil in my veins every single minute to keep me asleep: So i'm doomed to make the 100 meters in seven seconds, if not, I could litterally explode my hips. And even if i'm in an Exdaq I will never be able to become a super hero, because flapping my arms at light speed is useless in my case. Anyway let's see what I got this afternoon...\n\nI took my schedule : Sport. Fuck sport.\n\n\n\nThe big thing when you have superspeed is time, and time is relative. I spent 30 minutes or so to savor a bite of this delicious kebab. For others, I swallowed it in a second, digested it in five, and now... Hem.\nI was still hungry. I headed to the counter to retake a kebab, but a man was before me, impatient and nervous by the beating of his carotid. The cook, Aziz, was nervous too. Suddenly, Aziz transformed his spatula-arms in a baseball bat-arms and the men drew his litlle gun from his coat with his stubby fingers. I turned over to slip away, I saw that I was alone except them, who were shouting in arabic. I was afraid but...\n\n« Hey you ! Shouted the fatty. What the fuck are you doing here, where do you come from ! »\n\nShit, he's an empath and he felt my fear. I turned my head, frozen, to see him, he was pointing his gun on me.\n\n« Nothing, i just wanted to eat a little something but i see you are busy talking, so i'll g-go out, that's it. »\n\n« You'll go nowhereالقضيب بعقب »\n\nI notice too late that the flame already leaves the barrel. Damn, I can't move in this position without hurting myself, and if I leave the superspeed mode, i'll take the bullet in the middle of my back. I see the bullet better now that it is at a meter from me. May be i can reach and deflect it, but i risk to blow it up in thousands of small pieces going even faster. No, it spin too fast, I have never seen that, it will just go through my hand... I should have listen to my father, my life don't worth a third warning. The bullet is only at five centimeters from my skin, it have too much energy and burn me if i try to touch it. It touch my back and begin to lacerate the flesh. I must try something, quickly !..\n\n-\n-\n-\n\nExDaq means Extreme Disability/ability quotient. When born, if parents want it, babies are genetically tested to see their ability/disability, they are ranked by tier from 1 to 10 and can be added up. Exemple : a woman with with a lazy eye (2) and superstrengh (8) have a Daq of 0.25. Jordan have a low IQ(4) and superstrengh(8) have a daq of 0.5. Ethan who is crippled(6) and superspeed (9) have a Daq of 0.67. To enter an ExDaq School you must have a Daq of at least 0.5, where you can develop your ability and claim to be a super hero later. Only 2% of people meet the requirement.", "I use my hands to drag myself into the bank, tricked out in gloves, a tusked helmet, and a sort of sled for my lower body to slide around on.\n\nOne of the robbers keeping a lookout spots me. \"Wow, this is just sad. Who the f-\n\nI launch myself forward with my arms, bending my neck at a 90 degree angle and impale him through the heart with my tusks before be can finish the sentence. \n\n-bleugh\"\n\nThe other robbers start screaming and running, tripping over themselves to get outside. My tusks are impaled through the wall behind the guy as well, and it takes me a few minutes to remove them. When I am free I follow the HUD map in my helmet to where the robbers are fleeing by vehicle on the highway. Arms pumping at 300 mph I catch up to them fairly quickly. Razor blades fan out from my sled as I use them to puncture their tires, causing the vehicle to turn abruptly and flip end over end. I see that one of the robbers is shielding the others in the tumbling vehicle with his ability, but he can't keep it up forever. I zoom past still going 160 mph while the vehicle comes to a rest. Ramming my tusks into the ground, my body pivots around them, changing direction instantly without losing speed. I send my body into a spin of whirling blades as I approach the vehicle, and the robbers scream in terror as they bear witness to death given form. At the last moment I release my blades, centrifugal force sending them flying through each of my victim's chests. My work done, I waddle away as the vehicle explodes violently behind me.\n\nI am the Walrus.", "The line almost made it out of the door today. Everyone always comes for the same thing. They come to see me, the girl with the quickest hands. Not surprising, considering super speed is one of the rarest of all my generations abilities. Being just as blessed, my legs do not work. Most of us with super speed work for the military doing reconnaissance, but I was denied by the recruitment office due to my disability. \n\nWith the economy the way it is, there isn't many options for a woman these days. The best paying jobs go off the super smarties. Sure, I could work in an assembly plant but that lonely type of work bores me, I like interacting with others. On average, working at a brothel doesn't pay much. The thing is, I can really crank them out. With pinpoint accuracy. Every time. Male or female. Everyone is in a rush these days and in every aspect of life. That's what makes me so popular here. \n\n-Laura Lightning ", "Danny was propped up his back to the wall. The grimacing faces of the firing squad in front of him waiting for the order. They stupidly though they had him beat, please.\n\"FIRE,\" yelled the most annoying man in his life. \nThe picosecond after the muzzle flashed Danny took his chance. Everyone always said the same thing a speedster with no legs is useless. Boy were they wrong. With the bullets essentially frozen in place right out of the muzzle Danny took inventory of the situation. They had hoped the drugs would keep him knocked during the execution, but legs or no legs he still had the metabolism of a speedster. He vibrated his body out the bonds, at least they sprang for the reinforced steel THIS time, welded to the chair instead of drilled. \nDanny flipped out of the chair landing on his hands and got to the firing squad line. Propping himself up he flipped the bullets a 180 and lightly tapped them, at his speed they likely go through the guns. He was almost away from the immediate area when he decided to go back and wallop his former supervisor in his unmentionables. His brain would be registering that in a couple billion nanoseconds. \nNow to find his exo-suit and get the hell out of here. ", "They told me, \"He will never walk.\" Even before I was old enough to talk, my parents knew that I would never have use of my legs. \n\nIt was nothing for me, as a child, to take myself anywhere. I had the imagination of a thousand people. Fight a dragon from my chariot with my trusty steed at my side. Flying through the clouds, shooting down any pilot who tried to best me. I could do anything in my head. \n\nOne day that all faded to the past. I went to school like any other kid but I had to learn to slow down in my chair. The wheels had a tendency wear out if I pushed it too hard. I was somewhat of a recluse in my teens. Nobody wanted to be friends with a kid in a wheelchair.\n\nSure most people had a disability, but most of them were minor compared to mine. Fear of paperclips, no arm hair, one toe that was twisted sideways. No one was crippled like me.\n\nBy my senior year in high school, I had three jobs: paper delivery, pizza delivery, and a mail route. I knew the streets of my town like no one else and a wallet big enough to support my whole family. My arms had increased to the size of a body builder. I consumed enough food to need my own refrigerator in my room.\n\nThe day after graduation I decided to try something new. I wanted to climb. With my strength I could hold onto a light pole and pull myself right to the top. Soon I could climb the brick facade of my house using only my fingertips. Now I can scale the sheer side of a building with ease. \n\nI left my wheelchair behind and soon learned how to the see the world from a different angle. I could walk on my hands better than anyone had ever dreamed. Take that! Not only can I walk on my hands, I can run on my hands faster than anyone can run.\n\nI approached the best glovemakers to produce a special pair for my needs. A whole new line of gloves hit the market for rock climbers. New shoes were modeled after the composites that had been created. Runners could now run at steeper angles than ever. \n\nToday, I am the first person to have successfully scaled the tallest place on Earth. Mount Everest is beautiful at the top. I'd like to see someone beat 1 minute 3 seconds on his hands, solo!", "\"Look at the little baby crawl!\" \n\nI don't bother to look up. I know exactly who it is. It's the same voice, the same faceless bully thrashing out at someone weaker. All of these insights passed down from my mom and as useless as Algebra to my young ears.\n\nThey scurry off to go eat. Salad. Nuts. Fruits. Healthy stuff so they can grow up strong. I don't even have an appetite. I know growth for me just means I'll be even more pathetic. When you're young and disabled, people disguise their pity. When you're older, they don't have the time for disguise.\n\n________\nThat was a long time ago, weeks.* \n\n\"What the hell is that on your back?\"\n\nI ignore them as always. They run off in their happy little gang, laughing at life. On top of it. \n\nThey just want to hurt others because they are hurting inside.\n\nIt's hard but you must find strength for forgiveness.\n\nOnce you quit caring about them, you will truly feel free.\n\nI rise above and circle above them with great ease. My mind releases from the kite strings of hate. Anger melts. I can see them below me. I can see their small reality construct. My mother's words finally make sense.\n\n...quit caring about them...\n\nThey amble below me. So small. So weak. Tiny.\n\n... feel free!\n\nGliding in my elevated head space, the world makes more sense. I have shed my inabilities and fears. I feel the nascent sensations of appetite. So I swoop down towards their deliciously bulbous green heads.", "I pushed harder than I ever had before. The force of the wind on my face made me glad I was wearing a mask as I pumped my legs faster and faster. My arms sliced through the air as I gained speed, pushing the limits of how fast I had gone before.\n\n\n\"A hundred and ten miles, Lu! You beat your speed!\" Van's voice echoed through my earpiece. \"How do you feel?\"\n\n\n\"Hot as hell.\" I huffed. We were in the southern US for this test to take advantage of the flat, open spaces. The plant life was sparse and scrubby. It looked pretty much the same as far as my eye could see, and it was a good hundred degrees fahrenheit out, and my sweat showed it.\n\nVan chuckled, \"Your speed, Lu. Stability. How are you holding up?\"\n\n\"Fucking amazing. Van, has anyone ever told you you're a genius?\"\n\n\"Every day.\" I could hear the smugness just dripping from his pores.\n\n\"Asshole.\" I laughed, \"I'm speeding up.\"\n\n\"Be careful.\" I rolled my eyes at the warning in his voice and pressed my legs to move faster. I heard Van in my ear clocking my speed as it increased.\n\n\"One twelve. One sixteen. One eighteen. One twenty-one. One twenty-five. Hold it there, Lu. How do you feel?\"\n\n\"Fast. Good. Solid. I can go faster.\"\n\n\"Yea, well, hold that for a moment and let my system get readings. Some of us aren't as fast as you.\"\n\nI laughed but held my speed steady. The test was important to both of us. I wanted to push, but I didn't want to mess it up either, so I waited. The seconds dragged into minutes, the minutes into eternity.\n\n\"Alright Lu, I got it. You can start increasing your speed again.\"\n\nThat's all I needed to know. I pressed my legs to go faster again and my feet pounded against the solid earth. I couldn't feel it directly, but the tremors reverberated all the way up my back to my head.\n\nVan recited my speed in my ear again, and I was somewhere over one hundred and forty miles when a wobble in my hips shook my balance.\n\n\"Shit!\"\n\nVan could hear me through the comms and was immediately on alert. \"What is it, Lu?\"\n\n\"Hip joint wobble.\" I could feel the tremble everytime my left foot hit earth. The thing about super speed is that my brakes don't work like a car. I only have the two legs-- not four wheels. My center of balance is different. I can't stop on a dime at this speed, I have to slow down in increments.\n\n \"Initiate deceleration now, Lu.\" Van's voice was all business now.\n\n\"Slowing down.\" I confirmed. Bit by bit I slowed my legs and pumped my arms a little less vigorously. The hip wobble remained, and after I got below a hundred I felt it worsen. I started to feel the loss of control in that leg more and more. I flung my arms out, waving them frantically as I hit eighty, then seventy. At forty I heard the creak of metal bending and a pop. I lost all control of my left leg at that point and the next thing I knew colours blurred together as I tumbled head over heels. I have no idea how fast I was still going when I finally fell, but the ground was not kind.\n\nI came to at the sound of crunching tires and the sound of boots hitting the ground. My body felt like it had been dribbled across a basketball court. I groaned and tried to move my hands. They hurt, but I didn't think anything was broken.\n\nVan's face swooped into my field of vision as he knelt beside me and tugged at my mask. \"Lu, are you alright? Anything broken?\"\n\nI reached up and grabbed hit arm, my nails digging into his skin where his t-shirt sleeve ended. I widened my eyes as much as I could and felt them water with the effort. \"Oh god, Van, I can't feel my legs! My legs, Van!\"\n\nHe shoved at me, \"Damn, Lu, will that joke never get old?\"\n\nI grinned and pulled myself into a sitting position. It took effort as even my hands felt bruised. Van had moved to sit by my legs. My left hip piece was missing parts and I could see a thin, slightly atrophied leg through the gap. Van sat back on his heels, cursing, as he studied the break in his design. \"I'm never going to get this piece of junk strong enough to stay together but light enough for you to use.\" He complained.\n\nI grinned, \"Hey, is the super genius giving up? Can't keep up with me, huh? Don't blame you, turns out I'm pretty fast.\" I preened as he scowled at me. Two of Van's assistants had settled by me and were undoing the prototype's clasps from my legs. The third was pulling my wheelchair from the following vehicle. He took the broken piece his assistant handed him as the other helped me pull on real pants over my spandex, then shoes. I could tell he was stewing as he fucked with it and I winked at the two assistants as they helped me into my chair from the ground.\n\n\"I'm sorry.\" I screwed my face into the best self-pitying expression i could muster as his head swivelled towards me, his expression incredulous.\n\n\"What the hell for?\"\n\n\"I didn't go fast enough for our test.\"\n\n\"You were so fucking fast! God dammit we've gone faster than we ever have before! There's nothing to be sorry for!\"\n\nI smiled then, \"Exactly.\"", "Since I was born I had barely no muscle in my calves, muscles were there of course but nothing enough to move my legs passed the knee. On the other hand I was diagnosed with super speed, yeah I know, kind of a bad joke from fate. In fact I could still move faster than many of my friends with my wheelchair, just I couldn't go in the stairs, if I was more talkative I could be compared as a human claptrap. I went to play a lot on online games, no one can test my 2500 apms on starcraft.\n\nWhen I was twelve I had to move in a faraway boarding school since the nearest high school didn't had elevators. As I had to move my parents send me to a school where I could have a medical monitoring for my legs, my thighs still had muscles and I need to exercise it if I dont want a full atrophied legs.\nThe nurse showed me the school buildings and medical facilities, everybody here had some condition needing to be observed by a doctor regularly. \nWhen he showed me the surrounding I saw that girl on the track field, she was running with blades instead of feets, she seemed wonderfull as she pierced through the air. At this moment, I started to consider an operation to replace my defectives calves.\n\nThat's how I started my scholarship at Yamaku's academy for gifted youngs.", "My arms burn. That's all I can think as I pump the hydraulics turning my wheels. I'm coated in sweat and I feel utterly beat, but I keep pumping. I need to win; to show them I have worth.\n\n The man next to me is deaf. He is my competition and a speedster too. Our conversation is mainly through angry glares of determination. I'm glaring now, and pumping. My wheels are beginning to tremble. I was warned about this.\n\n My chair is specially modified for my abilities. Instead of manually turning the wheels, I push and pull a hydraulic system that powers the gears and mechanisms to turn my wheels. My mechanic is blind, but he has a deep understanding of machines. My baby is one of a kind. \n\n It's trembling.\n\n I was warned. I don't seem to have an upper limit, but the chair damn sure does. My competition is still right beside me too damnit! I thought I could show the world I was the best speedster despite my broken legs. At the start I dashed past the others with no issue. I felt proud when I broke the sound barrier in 3.5 milliseconds. A personal best.\n\n Then I saw him. He was directly next to me looking just as proud and smug as I likely looked. I hated him instantly. This is my moment goddamnit! He looked my way and I saw disgust cross his face. It made me glad to know the feeling was mutual.\n\n We've been going for awhile now and my arms burn so badly. I don't know how fast we're going anymore, but everything is just an odd, hazy blur. I don't care, I must win. I must beat this man and show the world that there is no such thing as an invalid. For me, for my friend the blind machine god, for the others born mismatched and out of place. We are not bottom feeders. We have power too! I must show them all!\n\n My chair trembles badly while I pump with more speed then I have ever mustered in my life. The world has turned into a foggy tunnel and something in the back of my mind says to stop, but I cant. He's still there, right beside me.\n\n I see my left wheel buckle and suddenly vanish. My chair stays upright from sheer momentum, but it's over. I pull the stop bar and I am instantly surrounded in my break away pod. I suddenly hear sound again and am surprised to hear myself screaming. I hadn't realized we traveled beyond sound. I was so intent on winning.\n\n The pod scrapes to a stop who knows where. I don't open it; I'm too angry and upset. I lay screaming and weeping as my arms cramp and ache like never before. They were all right. I am an invalid. I'm sorry Ted, I tried to push. Your chair and my abilities were not enough. I failed us. I weep.\n\n The pod opens from the outside and the sun blasts my eyes for a moment. When I get my vision I see the deaf man. He looks beaten and hard worn. He's crying.\n\n He reaches his hand down to help me sit up and when I do I hear for the first time a roar I've never heard before. It takes me a moment to realize it's a crowd. They're cheering. The deaf man hugs me weeping and I don't understand, but I weep too. \n\n I was told about faster than light and omega class and speed force after the race. First of our kind they said. I didn't pay attention. I was stunned by it all and so was the deaf man. We sat together, sweaty and tired.\n\n I thought of a word. Invalid. For the first time on my life I chuckled about the title.\n\n Invalid...hah!", "\"Before we begin, I'm required by law and policy to inform you that when speaking with me, you'll only be able to answer the truth. With that in mind, presuming you still wish to continue, how did an underdog and a no-name like yourself come out of the dark to become this year's champion?\" A journalist asked the recent winner of the most prestigious world-wide combat tournament.\n\n\"I had grown up my whole life quiet. My parents were the only ones who really knew my powers, and they were too embarrassed by them to say anything to anyone. It was always 'Hun, you're special because you're the only one who isn't.' but what child wants to hear that?\"\n\nThe interviewer looked back at the gold medalist, unsure how to respond, so he continued.\n\n\"I went to school, I kept my head down, got picked on frequently by those with the more fantastic powers, and kept myself in check. You see everyone has powers and disabilites to a certain degree. some more powerful than others. My speed was one of the highest on the spectrum, but when asked what my power was, I always kept to myself. I just said it was a 'personal' thing, and to leave me alone. The bullies were ruthless. Trying to tease, or trick, or even beat my secret out of me. Testing me until I broke, or exploded, or what have you. They didn't realize that I was already just as smart or smarter than those with super smarts, not simply because I could understand unfathomable depth of intellect, but because within an hour of studying, them understanding everything as they came across it, I had learned it. I gained information, then I dissected it. I processed it an infinite amount faster than the fastest computer. By the time I had finished the information, I didn't just understand it, I understood everything about it. Not just the material, but the why, the applicable tangents, counter arguments, everything. When I was picked on, it was like a bunch of ants on a dinner plate. I was never angry at such simple beasts, I simply brushed them off and continued my existence.\"\n\n\"I see.\" the journalist responded. \"So how did you go from there to where you are?\"\n\n\"Well I played out all of the scenarios with my 'tormentors', but none ended well.\"\n\n\"For you or them?\"\n\nThe champion hesitated, and moved forward. \"...Up until registration, I didn't think anything of signing on. But then I realized I would win, so I did. It was simple as that.\"\n\n\"Not many people would have favored a wheelchair-bound contestant in a fight to the death. What did you do to change their minds?\"\n\n\"I didn't. I don't care for the public's opinion. I decided to win, so quite simply, it was going to happen. I presume most thought that someone wheeling into the battle arena on a chair would have flight, or laser vision, or could shoot fireballs, or one of the more offensive abilities. All I simply had to do was analyze the opponent, pinpoint their weak point, and exploit it until most of my opponents had destroyed themselves. \n\nThe arena's are nested with offensive and defensive weapons to increase the appeal of the battles, and I always chose the defensive weapons. I waited then struck. Same as always.\n\nThose with super speed ended up relying on their physical prowess to much. They were overcome with a simple slip and a thrown disk or shield to the head. Pyro's burnt themselves out while I wheeled around their attacks with ease. Then they got infuriated and made the mistake of getting too close. All abilities have incorporated weaknesses aside from any given individual's disability whatever it may be.\"\n\n\"Well, there can't be a sure win-all for every type of ability though. Everyone is different even if the abilities are similar.\"\n\n\"No doubt everyone has a personality, and everyone is their own unique being. That being said, with similar abilities come similar disadvantages. I won because I'm patient, analytic, and I won't be overcome by those who think themselves better than I. The Revive Tech's would repair any of the damage done to the other contestants. I felt no guilt. The only thing that wouldn't be repaired was their pride. In destroying their ego, I found a way to beat them in which the outcome was only good. At least, good for me.\" ", "Father always wanted me to look at the bright side of things.\n\nOur family wasn't rich. Of course, if you weren't an active part of the economy, that meant you lived outside of Aegis City's glorious walls, in one of those poverty-stricken towns off the border of who-knows-where. Our family ended up working on a corn farm. \"Look on the bright side,\" Father would say, \"we're working out better than those rich guys lazing about in that metropolis, eh?\"\n\nI hated the rich.\n\nThey've got people over there like me--except they had it easy. Consider this: I'm over here sitting in a chair all day, husking corn in a manner way faster than ripping feathers off a wild goose, while there are people over there, maybe people like me, except they could walk, they could run, they could get around--because their rich parents paid an arm and a leg (and two more legs, for good measure) to amputate their child's lower limbs and slap on a pair of new ones from Biotech Labs that smash through fricking concrete. Or so I've been told.\n\nThe fire-powered family who owned the farm I worked at were nice people, though their tantrum-throwing, uncontrollable child often worried me. I worked in my room. It was more of a section of the farm's barn our family slept in since we couldn't afford a real home. It reeked of fertilizer and manure. Most days, when I wasn't husking corn, I would be climbing up and down the ladder using just my hands, going from the highest rung to the lowest rung and back up again, as fast as I could. Not only was it a workout, but it was also a way to pass the time, and sadly, my only source of entertainment. \"Look on the bright side,\" Father would say, \"If there's ever a ladder race in town, you'd probably be first.\"\n\nSometimes I wanted Father to shut up.\n\nI hated the farm. I didn't want to sit in a barn husking corn from dawn 'til dusk. I wanted to leave. I wanted to get out and explore. When I was sixteen years old, I stayed up and waited one night. Father fell asleep. Followed by Mother, and my two sisters. Then I took the chance and crawled.\n\nI sped through half of the barn in less than a second. Even though the shit started covering my sleeves, peppered with bits of hay, I felt a burden being lifted off of me--the realization I could probably speed-crawl to the other end of town before daybreak made me crawl even faster, and the instant I cracked the door open and rushed outside--\n\nSomething exploded. I was about fifty feet from the barn when an orange light brightened the sky. Then I looked back and saw the family household bursting like a firework, with pieces of it scattering in all directions. Including mine.\n\nI didn't think, I just crawled. My arms moved rapidly, setting themselves one after the other while a chunk of flaming debris crashed on my right, its ashes sparkling inches from my eyes. More of it came, and my heart started racing faster than my arms. It only took a few seconds to get to the wooden fence, but when I was there, I looked back and gasped.\n\nThe barn was in flames. With my family inside. I shouted back at it, hoping that someone would hear, hoping that someone else also woke and ran out, too; but when no one else came, I crawled under the fence, and went on.\n\nMaybe I could crawl to the fire department in time...", "They're laughing. Good. All the more reason to win.\n\nHe spread his arms, and his plastic \"wings\" showed themselves - they were no more than an extension, a little spoon-like glove - but I'm super fast. They're like a hummingbird's wings. And I can fly with them.\n\nBeing in a wheelchair makes no difference when you can fly. He usually felt like a bird, swift and graceful on air but awkward at the ground. When he signed up for the Bullet Race, they all laughed at him. Har! I'll show them now!\n\nThe Bullet Race was a test of skill and hability that depended on a bullet. If you're super-resistent, a bullet is shot at you, and the judges will rate your response to it. If you have superspeed, a bullet is shot forward, and you have to reach the target before it. If you're super intelligent, a bullet will be shot, but it is up to you to determine the right conditions, to manufacture the perfect bullet, to make it hit the target in the most efficient way.\n\nI have superspeed. I also have legs that break at the smallest effort. I can fold them, and move them, but if I put weight on them they shatter. So I learned to fly. And now I'll race a bullet and two strong-legged boys who think they already have me beat.\n\nMr. Allen and Mr. West will find that I'm the best here. They won't see me (Mr. Allen is blind, after all, and Mr. West is just stupid), but they'll hear. Zoom.\n\n________________\n\nThis WP was fun! Good stuff OP!\n\n", "Most people think I am in the chair because of the scars, more think the hunched over man pushing it. That he's my care taker. They are only half right...well, maybe two-thirds. The scars are most definitely from burns, and he does take care of me to the best of his abilities. A thousand bucks says you never, ever guess what caused them. You might not believe me, but then again, the stories on the news and all over the internet are getting stranger and stranger by the week. The little kid who can float off the ground, but only when he meditates. The old guy who caught the car that fell on him. Those sound like the origins of super heroes, comic book characters. In those worlds you don't hear about those with mundane beginnings or worse the ones who don't quite have all pieces of the super puzzle. \n\nTake him for example. 6'2\" 225, and he's silently grunting while pushing my lightweight chair and 110lb frame up a slight incline. You would never know when he's had his pills and maybe a beer or two he can bench just under 600lbs(although he swears it's 650). Of course he won't be able to walk for the next week and spend the next 48 hours living in a hot tub and munching Tylenol like pez. See he could easily have broken records in power lifting or strongman contests. Scientist are calling it nega-Hydroxypropanoic producers or Lack-Lacs for a short joke. It means these people do not produce lactic acids when their muscles do work, and in some cases it allows for some very strange effects. Like \"super strength\", endless stamina, and incredible speed. \n\nWhat it does not equal is invulnerability, well not in us at the very least. While muscles are effected by this, your spine is not. As a kid he was average but quickly learned his strength didn't have a ceiling. At 13 he could military press almost 400lbs. Yet in his 30's threw his back out awkwardly twisting to grab some keys off a counter top. Herniated a couple of disks needed surgery and here he is. At least he got some use out of his before getting hurt. \n\nMe on the other hand, I had issues or \"powers\" from birth. Inside the womb, I apparently turned so quickly and with such force I snapped my own spine. This was initially a blessing for my mom as she said I moved around so much and so fast from month 1 of her pregnancy, that she was practically living in hospitals. They had no idea what was going on. As I grew inside her I would move my arms so fast her stomach would vibrate, I've seen the home movies. Humor as you can tell is my defense mechanism. We used to say I probably wouldn't have made it to this age if I had my legs as a child. Can you imagine a toddler just learning to walk but with super speed? You have to smile or you end up crying. People always wonder the what if...but next to none have the actual answer. Me and him do.\n\nThe scars, I almost forgot...I had a seizure once. I shit you not, I was wearing corduroy pants, yes you may laugh. I was twitching so goddamn fast I started a fire. Honestly though, the EMT's said I was creating an audible hum so it probably wasn't the pants...but you get the idea. On the bright side that was me in that YouTube video melting that keyboard typing at \"super\" speed. No special effects, but if it makes you feel better I couldn't type for about 3 weeks after that and I think it gave me the beginnings of carpal tunnel...\n\nSo here we are Superman with a bad back. The Flash in a wheelchair. Perfectly imperfect, the definition of a cosmic joke. People wonder what they could have accomplished if their lives didn't take a turn, some waste their entirity of it wondering, dreaming, fantasizing. \n\nTrust me it's far worse when you know and when you do, how can you not laugh?", "Running, it was something I had seen almost everybody do. Yet somehow nobody could ever keep up with me. The speed that I was moving with was insane. Although my legs have been crippled for a long time, my arms now had the power to move as fast as possible.\n\nWe've all seen it in those YouTube videos. It was even a bit downgrading. I looked like a legless dog, with an aluminum wagon behind me. But I was fast. Faster than anyone else I knew. And I wasn't going to let my disability stand in the way of my potential.\n\n\"Ready, set, go!\", this was it. My second Paralympic tournament. It was only 4 years ago that I won the biggest race in the entire world. I was the fastest. Nobody could beat me. And I was going to win again. I started moving. The crowd was cheering me on. After all these years I sort of got used to it. I start moving and leave everybody behind me.\n\nIt wasn't even an actual race. Everybody knew who was going to win. And it would be me, again. I moved around the track, even moving past runners that were already a lap behind me. \n\nI had to keep moving. I was nearly there. I moved faster and faster. The finish line was so close now. My speed made the crowd go insane. Their screams felt like a wind that was boosting me to go faster and faster. I had to break my own record. I had to set the permanent record, a record that nobody could ever beat.\n\nAs I neared the finish line I was greeted with an immense amount of cheering. This is what they all came for. I made it, I was first in line.\n\nI was proud, yet tired. I wanted to go home. I didn't care about the ceremony, or the prices. I already knew I was going to win. The ceremony went by quickly. I don't even remember much. When you move at my speed, even the anthem just takes too long. \n\nIt was done, the ceremony was over. I went home, greeted my girlfriend and just went to bed. It was already late, and I just wanted to rest. I laid down on my bed and slowly fell asleep...\n\n\"What the fuck?\", I said as I woke up. I heard noises. My girlfriend wasn't next to me anymore. What the hell was going on? I heard noises coming from down the hall. \"Damnit!\" I reached for my nightstand and opened the drawer. I felt safer lately, having my gun beside me while I rested.\n\nI took of the safety and started moving around, following the noises. I came closer to the end of the hall. I heard the noises coming from the bathroom. Though I was fast, I never really got over my fears. I was just scared at this point. I took the safety of my gun and listened to what was happening in my bathroom.\n\nI heard moving, I heard voices. There was water running, and I heard someone cry. \"Fucking intruders\", I whispered as I slowly took a step back. \"Who is there?\", I yelled. I heard some shoveling in the bathroom, but there came no answer.\n\nI was done with this shit. This is the third time people broke into my house. If the security cameras didn't work, there was only one way to really scare them. I raised my gun, pointing at the bathroom door.\n\n\"Who is there\", I repeated. Still no answer, still just the water running and someone moving. \"I will shoot!\" No reply. I had enough of this. As I heard moving from behind the bathroom door, I put my finger on the trigger. I was ready.\n\n1-2-3, I took three shots at the door. I heard some squirming coming from behind the door. It sounded like every bullet hit the intruder. My hand went towards the door knob, and I turned the knob. It was locked. I moved a few feet back and ran towards the door.\n\nAs I jumped up I pushed through the door. The lock broke. The door opened and I landed in a small puddle of blood.\n\nI got up and looked down. There she was, my girlfriend, laying face down on the floor. ", "Despite my disability, my parents always pushed me. In their eyes, they were trying to get me to see past my limp, useless legs, and understand that I could still do what I wanted in life. Nothing would hold me back from my dreams. \n\nWhen I was 6, I mentioned in passing that I might like to try gymnastics. My parents gave each other a slight look, thinking I might have found something I actually couldn't do. After enrolling in a school and attending for a short while, it became apparent that gymnastics was not for me. I could balance well on my hands, but use of one's legs was fairly important in gymnastics. \n\nFor a time, I was devastated. I had finally come to the realization that there were things I couldn't do. \n\nI made it through until high school before I had a real dream again.\n\n\"Mom, dad, I want to try track.\"\n\nThat same look from when I was a child crossed their faces. They were unsure of encouraging me only to have it end in another failure. \n\nThey reluctantly agreed, but I knew I was going to perform. And God dammit, I was going to be the best. \n\nAt tryouts, the runners all stood tall at the line, and I wheeled myself up to it. I was met with a few chuckles as I began to climb out of my wheelchair and crawl up to the line. Even more when I got on my hands, limp legs in the air, in a handstand I had perfected since my developmental years, thanks to my brief stint as a wannabe gymnast. The coach walked over, clearly confused at my stature and my condition. \n\n\"Kid, are you serious?\" He asked me. \n\n\"Of course I am. I'm here, aren't i?\"\n\n\"You know, these kids have been running their entire lives,\" he said, sympathetic to my disability. \"I don't want you to feel bad if you can't keep up.\"\n\n\"Don't worry about me, coach.\"\n\nHe shrugged and stepped back. When he blew the whistle, we were off. The other kids used their finely tuned leg muscles and pushed themselves as hard as they could. I did the same, however I was running on my hands. What I knew that the coach and other runners did not was my ability.\n\nSuper speed would have disqualified me from track and field were I running on my legs. But the combination of super speed and the disability of being forced to run on my hands balanced out to a just above average speed. \n\nI didn't finish first that day, but I made the team. With training and practice, I became one of the fastest runners in my school. I abandoned my wheelchair, and began traveling exclusively on my hands. I gained a new confidence I never had before, and I showed the world something important.\n\nI could do whatever the hell I wanted. ", "\"Not sure what happened when I was made. It seems like a cruel joke but it is my life and I have to deal with it. I can't use my legs, at all. They are so badly crippled that I am confined to a wheel chair. The problem is that the chair can't keep up with me. For some reason I am crazy fast, everything I do, I can do at almost the speed of sound. I've been trying to find a way to break the sound barrier by using my arms to propel my chair as fast as I can but my chair cant take it and always breaks. I spend so much time day dreaming about how fast I could go if only me legs worked. That's why I'm here, really. I want to become a prosthetics engineer so I can help, not only myself, but anyone else whose disability interferes with their life and their ability. I want to make prosthetics that can handle the strength or speed or heat of anyone's ability.\"\n\n\n\"That seems like a well thought out plan, but the question was 'what are your housing plans' we are working on financial aid, not advising.\"\n\n\n\"Oh, sorry. Off campus, though I live pretty far away I still travel really fast\"\n\n\"Just be safe Mr. Miles. Okay let's talk tuition.\"\n\n\n\nThis was meant to be light hearted. It's been a while since I've written anything and wanted to try something kinda fun and geared towards a younger audience. ", "“Next”. \n \nIf you think lines at tech support move slow, you better complain to someone else. I work faster than anyone else in the entire industry, but in the time, it takes you to come up to the counter I already start contemplating suicide. I can take your laptop from your hands, disassemble it and identify the problem before you even think of voicing your concern that something is wrong with it. I can build it anew from spare parts at the warehouse next door so fast that your confusion of what’s going won’t even kick in.\n \nOf course, I could do it even faster, but the damn friction would shake my wheelchair apart. Spare details aren’t the most aerodynamic things either. \n \nDoing my job takes on average 4,4% of overall interaction with the client. I counted. The rest is just you, people. \nAs usual, I do the miracle of fixing and lay the fruits of my labor in front of you. Then I just sit and wait for you to react. \n \nIt’s always the same. You start blinking fast, trying to perceive what just happened. You tell me what’s wrong with your computer. You always wonder if I really work as fast as the sign says. An eternity later, after I hand you over the check, you finally reach for your wallet with that stupid grin on your face: the most mundane thing for me is some sort of attraction for you. You behave as if you’re a caveman who was shown the secret of fire, while all I did was fix your damn gadget. \n \nWorking with client bases is a pain, too. I’ve been asking my boss for years to upgrade my computer so that it could keep up with me, but as much as he values me he says he just can’t allow it yet: if he adds any more hardware then he’ll also have to buy the state-of-the-art cooling system to prevent the machine from overheating. \n \nFor this reason, I try to keep all of the data necessary on paper, so that I could quickly go through it, but there are still limitations: if I turn the page too quickly, I risk tearing it apart with the wave of air it creates. Fires are also not uncommon, though they never last long enough for anyone to notice. \n \nOf course, I don’t have it all that bad: I actually chose this line of work because I like it and because I need experience in mechanical engineering. Although I work alone, I’m everything my shop needs, and the line of clients who want a quick fix never fades, so I get paid more than decently. It still sucks that my legs are paralyzed, but on the other hands my hands are super jacked from pushing the wheels a hundred times a second. \n \nWheels usually don’t last more than a week, after that I have to replace them. My family asks why won’t I just get one of those electric wheelchairs since I could afford the best there is, but I would never settle for the speed it moves at. I suffer enough already, thank you very much. \n \nIf I ever feel depressed, I just remember that I could have it worse, like that guy who was born super-fast, but at the same time completely blind. He actually adapted pretty well, and the sound of his steps as he ran was a sort of echo locator for him, but, unfortunately, no one ever told him not to break the sound barrier. The guy ran into an incoming truck never even knowing that it was there. They say his teeth were found two miles to the west from the place of the accident. \nI clock out at 18:00, and at 18:04, after a dash full of turns, I’m already at home, with the wheels of my chariot smoking from all the friction. I was born not just paralyzed, but also too fast for my own good. The world around me constantly tried to settle me down, to tell me that there are limitations I’m not supposed to exceed. That I’m too good to have been born into it, and that I would burn myself up if I try to resist. \n \nBut that’s up to me to decide. \n \nAs I said, even the most advanced, the most expensive model of the wheelchair was not good enough for me, but that’s because I haven’t built it yet. “Everything comes with the price” – was the lesson my life taught me, but it also taught me that there’s always a retribution. I may hate my work, but with the knowhow and money it provides me I will finally forge the throne that I deserve. \n \nThe friction, if it’s not clear yet, is the main problem in my life. No matter what material I tried to use, it just couldn’t handle the speed of rotation. So in order to eliminate the problem, I had to eliminate the friction. It took me 12 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to build the wheelchair with wheels kept in place by magnetic forces, but today I will finally roll my beauty out for a ride. The fastest vehicle in the world, driven into motion only with my hands. With the amount of energy it requires to keep the wheels in place it may last only 7 minutes before the battery runs dry, but to me, those 7 minutes will feel like a whole vacation. \n \n______________ \n \nTo get my releases ahead of everybody else and get your hands on Advance Reading Copies of my books, subscribe to [r/Scandalist](https://www.reddit.com/r/Scandalist/)!", "Aidan was twirling his fingers, talking only slightly louder than the cartoons playing across the room. “Mo-momma says I am a superhero b‘cause she saw my daddy and I going real fast.” He was fidgeting in his wheelchair.\n\nEmma was skeptical and intrigued. “Can I be a superhero too?” \n\n“Y-yeah! You can think and make things move!”\n\n“Cool!” Emma was bouncing. She fumbled around in the dark, looking for the toy train. She found it and placed it ceremoniously in front of her. “Watch this!” Emma strained, focusing on the train she felt but could not see. “Did it move?”\n\n“I saw you move it with your mind!” Tania giggled from the bed across the room. Aidan concurred. “I wanna be super strong” said Tania, flexing her emaciated arms. The children roared in laughter. Tubing wove through her, providing the necessary super serum to keep her fighting another day. \n\nAidan’s mother listened from outside the room as the league of heroes was born. When the laughter settled, she walked in and informed Aidan it was time to go for today and that he’d see his friends tomorrow. She rolled him out of the room and down the decorated, hospital hall. \n\n“Momma?”\n\n“Yes, dear?”\n\n“If I am a superhero, then who is the supervillain?” His mother stopped, walked around to face him, knelt, and kissed his bald head. \n\n“Honey, sometimes there are no villains, but we still need heroes.”\n\nAidan wasn’t sure, but he felt himself picking up the pace. Before he knew it, he was flying down the hall. He felt the wind rush past his face and he bellowed a triumphant battle cry.\n", "Andrew's back was to the wall. His whole team was dead except for him, and they had him surrounded. He pulled out his last remaining full magazine and replaced the half spent one still in his rifle, and waited. It wouldn't be long now. \n\nThe sound of footsteps in his right ear alerted him to the first threat. He swung his weapon around and crouched. A few moments later, a masked gunman slowly began to move around the corner. While their movement would have seemed to others like moving through molasses it was just his perception of it. \n\nHe had enough time to aim his weapon exactly were the terrorists head would be the moment it cleared the edge of the wall, and he pulled his trigger before his opponents frontal lobe had time to finish processing that it was even seeing him. He didn't stand a chance.\n\nMoments later, or what would seem like an eternity to anyone else, the second enemy came up behind the first. The result was no different than the previous foe. It never was. Where most anyone else would have been at the least a little excited, to him it was almost boring at this point. \n\nHe stood up and began to run in the direction the two laying on the floor had come from. Immediately as he rounded the corner, two other terrorists were standing back at the end of the hall having a debate about how to proceed tactically. \n\nBy the time his foot landed in his next step, he had aimed and fired a single round at each. He picked up speed as he ran down the hall, mainly because he didn't want this to take forever. As he approached an open doorway ahead of him, he allowed his feet to slide out in front of him, landing into a power slide. \n\nAs he slid past the door he saw the last remaining terrorist. Again, he got the first shot off, aimed flawless at the head like everyone else. As his opponent landed on the ground he knew that victory was his, though it was hallow as always. His team erupted in cheers and his opponents threw the expected accusations.\n\nHe took a deep breath, knowing it would only take a moment to come... \"YOU HAVE BEEN PERMANENTLY BANNED - CHEATING\". Well, time to buy another copy of the game I guess. He backed away from his computer in the wheelchair, and then rolled out of the room.", "I loved the fresh spray of ocean against my face. This would be my tenth circumnavigation of the globe; I could never get sick of it. Who could tire of dropping by beautiful beaches of Fiji? The stark Sahara felt refreshing after half a day at sea. Others settled for the salty mist coming off the bow of their ship; I felt the droplets rolling off my fingertips as I rounded Tierra del Fuego.\n\nWhen I was a kid, everyone laughed at me. \"The Feeble Flash,\" they teased. The power of super speed, but crippled legs. Until the day my father decided to teach me how to swim. That was the day I realized I could still use my super power, just not in the way I'd imagined.\n\nNow I'm a superhero despite my disability. When an oil tanker crashed off the coast of Nigeria, I sped out to help contain the spill. When a deadly outbreak of the flu hit the Philippines, I brought vaccines from the US in the blink of an eye. I've dragged in stalled fishing boats stuck in the Bering Sea. \n\nSometimes people ask: don't you worry about spending so much time in the ocean? What if you were bit by a shark? \n\nWell, he can't do much more damage to my legs. And my arms? He'll never catch them.", "This is bullshit.\n\nWhat the fuck kind of God thinks this is a funny thing to do to someone? All I do all day is lie in bed and wish I was dead.\n\nSuper speed. I know what God's ability is. Super dick...hole...ness. \n\n\"I brought you some milk, sweetheart,\" my kind, generous, loving mother said as she set the glass down on my bedside table.\n\n\"Fuck milk, Mom! I wanna' go outside and do things!\"\n\n\"Well, I can get the wheelchair and bring you outside,\" she swooned.\n\n\"No! Not the wheelchair mom! I want to go outside without a wheelchair!\"\n\nI could see how much this was hurting her. I mean, we both knew that wasn't an option, but shit, I can't keep all this frustration bottled up inside, not even for the woman that gave me life.\n\nBut what kind of life is this to have? What kind of gift is it if all I get to do is look at my ceiling and pretend like I know what if feels like to jerk off? It's her fault I'm in this mess, for Christ's sake. \n\nShe looked at her feet and said, \"Well, is there anything I can bring you? Anything you'd like to do? You want a coloring book, or a movie?\" I sighed, not to keen on berating my mother anymore, even though she's a bitch for giving birth to me.\n\n\"It's fine, Mom. I think I just wanna' sleep.\"\n\n\"Alright, well if you need anything, just call.\" Then she spun around and shut the door with the gentleness of an angel's whisper.\n\nFuck milk. Seriously. I want a Coke, but doctor's say I can't have any sugary drinks because they fear my super speed my give me super fast diabetes, so for this broken, young, degenerate it's milk, water and at Christmas, sugarless eggnog. \n\nInstead, I just did what I normally do. Grow my fingernails out with super speed, then chew on 'em. \n\nExcept today was different. For some reason, as I clenched my teeth down on a freshly generated bit of nail material, the satisfaction of that snap didn't rush down my spine like it normally does. Instead it just tasted weird, like dirt. \n\nGreat, now everything sucks.\n\nBut then I had an idea. It was a weird idea, a far-fetched idea, but if I could get it to work, it just might be worth it. \n\nI clenched my bed sheets in my hands and gritted my teeth, focusing all my energy inside my soul, deep down into the cavernous recesses of my brain. I started to shake, my face turned red, and veins on my forehead gained noticeable three-dimensionality.\n\nI looked down. The hair on my arms was beginning to grow in full. My stomach started arching over my waistline. The skin on my limbs was growing increasingly white and washed out. What hair I had on my stomach grew out and began turning gray. I was doing it! It was working! Super speed my aging process!\n\nAll I could hope for is that I could age myself right into the grave, but as the energy was flowing through me, something else was going on in my head. I felt my entire life flashing before my eyes. People I'd never met, yet loved more than anyone on the planet. People I'd lost. Children I'd fostered. Pets I'd owned, jobs I'd worked, I saw it all. I saw myself stuck out of time in every situation I'd ever experience, all within the span of a few minutes. \n\nThen it began. A creeping, ominous feeling, like the lights were going out.\n\nSo I stopped. Look at me. A few moments before I was a shiny, young teenager. Now I laid in the same bed as a decrepit old man, scared and confused. After meeting all those faces, watching my kids grow up, seeing what my life had become, suddenly, I didn't want to die. Even if it was all from the perspective of a wheelchair, it was beautiful, visceral, it all made sense. This gift, it really was a gift. God had so much planned for me, an entire, beautiful life totally worth living. My mother going through so much pain just to bring me into this world of experience and beauty. I wanted so much to live it. \n\nBut I already had. Time only goes in one direction. So before I age myself to death, let me tell you something. \n\nNever try to rush things. Life will come to you. Don't try to meet it halfway.\n\nAlso, our God is a rampant asshole for toying with us like this. Just like our mothers, who have the audacity to believe that any child they bring into this world will appreciate it.\n\nAdios.", "\"A cripple with superspeed!\" Benny Madsen laughed, and looked around like he expected everyone to laugh along with him. Benny had superstrength, and looked it. He was a roided-out fucker at least a head taller than almost everyone else in school, and that included more than a few teachers. He was also profoundly tone-deaf, which if you ask me shouldn't count as a disability, but when have I ever been in charge of anything? And I admit, it was pretty funny watching his face go red when he tried to croak out the national anthem like a good patriotic American. \n\nI refrained from rolling my eyes and shifted uncomfortably on my crutches. My leg brace clacked against the ground, calling attention to itself. I'd managed to stay out of Benny's way so far, but I suppose I couldn't have kept it up forever. \"Good one,\" I said. \"I haven't heard that a hundred times already.\" \n\nBenny strutted up to me, lowering his head below his shoulders and making like the Hulk. \"Must be pretty sad,\" he sneered, \"being one of God's mistakes.\"\n\n\"We can't all be perfect,\" I said, and hummed the first few bars of the Star-Spangled Banner.\n\nBenny scowled, and flicked a single finger. My right crutch was wrenched out of my grip, clattering twenty feet away. The force of the blow sent me toppling to the ground. I managed to catch myself on my hands, but the impact rattled through my legs anyway. \"Fuck!\" I lay there on the grass, wincing, as Benny loomed over me. \n\n\"Not nice to make fun of people's disabilities,\" he said.\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said, and was gone. \n\nHis eyes were barely tracking me as I crawled the twenty feet to my crutch, dragging the other behind me. Then I was on my feet, hobbling, and Benny was lost. I slipped behind him, unbuckled his belt, and pulled his pants down to his ankles. Then, while he was turning around, I did the old trick of tying his shoelaces together. That one was kind of a close call, but I managed it. \n\nI made my way back in front of him. My legs were throbbing and I was going to have a hell of a time explaining this to my parents, but it was worth it. Benny spun, his pants slipped down, and he collapsed right on his ass showing his tighty-whiteys. I made my painful way over to him, and he looked up at me, almost innocent, with this utterly baffled look on his face. \n\n\"I can still hobble faster than you can run, motherfucker.\" ", "See, what most people don't realise about super speed is that it doesn't just affect your legs. Your entire body moves fast. People never tend to get that because you see guys like Ravel Alton sprinting at three hundred kilometres an hour down the speedway. I mean, it's more impressive visually than what I can do... but I like to think that my abilities are still pretty good.\n\n\"Checkmate,\" I smile, knocking over the white king with my own rook. Valentin, my opponent, stares at me in shock. By the look on his face, my guess is that his ability was mind-reading. It's a good way to become a chess champion, I'll give him that. \n\nBut he can't keep up with me.\n\nSee, from the femtosecond his finger touched the first piece, I started running through the possible moves in my head. All of them. \n\nDo you know how many possible positions there are after each player moves three times? More than 9 million. That goes up to 288 billion after four moves each. But when you can't move without a wheelchair, and when you have a brain that can scan and memorise information faster than anything else on the planet... and when you also have a lot of time on your hands... you can memorise everything. Every perfect game. \n\nNot to mention, of course... Valentin might be able to read minds. But he can't process information as fast as I can. Which leaves him unable to comprehend the million, million, million thoughts I have every nanosecond.\n\nI can't run. But that doesn't mean I'm not fast." ]	[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 13, 19, 30, 47, 66, 75, 101, 178, 369, 456, 526, 3296 ]	[ "1465389829", "1465390804", "1465392343", "1465392779", "1465386183", "1465387451", "1465371361", "1465387691", "1465382055", "1465385098", "1465378152", "1465381773", "1465376112", "1465376935", "1465370554", "1465376047", "1465365334", "1465371460", "1465370436", "1465367353", "1465366779", "1465353292", "1465365428", "1465356872" ]
	[wp]The two nominees for a countries presidency are both shot and killed before either can win the election.	7	[ "\"Yes, I did it - well the security services did. It was for the good of the nation, I'm sure you understand.\nHillary was more corrupt than me, and Trump, well we all know why Trump had to go.\"\n\n\n\"I prevented the United States from becoming the laughing stock of the Western world. Now the election will be between the runners up. I'm gonna mop up Ted Cruz like a Grease spill. After that, well, I won't even have to cheat to win this election.\"\n\nBernie Sanders winked at the camera, before standing up to give a press release.", "America rejoiced as they soon realized that they didn't have to pick between two terrible candidates. Soon a week had passed and a potential candidate emerged. This quickly became a larger kerfuffle for America as the candidate was in fact a unicorn. This unicorn went by the name of Lester The Jester Unicorn (Who Later Became King). The populace became aware that Lester in fact came from an alternative universe where humans were extinct and animals reigned supreme in an ever changing powers struggle between multiple alliances and kingdoms. Lester was the ultimate victor in his world and decided that he would go to the human world via his magical advisors. America is the start of his glorious campaign. Humanity didn't even see it coming. " ]	[ 1, 2 ]	[ "1465364865", "1465356467" ]
	[WP] You open the fridge to find a head. - What happens next?	5	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "I awoke from my slumber a little peckish. I sat up on my bed and looked at the nightstand to check the time. It is two in the morning and I’m feeling hungry now? Should I wait to eat breakfast in the morning or just have a little snack to ease my hunger. I don’t feel like trying to go back to bed, so I get up and walk to the kitchen. \n\nI do not bother with turning on any lights as I make my way to the fridge. There is no point of turning anything on if I will need to turn them off in a couple minutes. Finally getting to the fridge, I grope around in the darkness searching for the handle. I drowsily found the handle and opened the door to see what was good to eat tonight. I immediately turned away from what I saw inside and started to get a little nauseous. I fell to the ground, not being able to hold up my body with shake legs. What the hell did I just see in my fridge? This cannot be happening right now. I’m still not fully awake so It could be my eyes playing tricks on me. I built up some courage to look back inside the fridge to see that the decapitated human head was still there. \n\nI jumped awake from my terrible nightmare. I was horrified by what I saw in my dream and how real it felt. I looked at the clock to see it was now seven in the morning and time to start getting ready for work in an hour. I felt dried up sweat along my body as I got out of bed. It must have been the nightmare that caused me to sweat so much so I clumsily moved through my dark room to the bathroom to start the shower. While the water was heating up, I turned on my t.v. to check out the morning news. All was well until I saw the picture of a murder victim that I recognized. It was the same person whose head was in my dream. My heartbeat started to rise. This is probably just a coincidence. This news report could be repeating from the previous night. This shower should help me calm down a little. I hopped inside and started to brush off my sweat, but for some reason it was a lot more harder to remove than I previously thought. I looked down to see what the problem was. It was not sweat." ]	[ 1, 1 ]	[ "1465526087", "1465540111" ]
	[WP] Years ago, you were wished into existence by a ten year old with a genie. Today is your first group therapy meeting.	6	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Mommy glanced around the room; it looked like everyone had shown up. She was slightly worried she hadn’t made enough brownies, cupcakes, rice crispy treats and hot cocoa. In the front of the room stood Daddy; he was tall, and handsome and strong enough to beat up anyone else’s father without even trying. They were the perfect parents. \n \n“Quiet down everyone! It’s time to start. Now, you all know that Alex, our pride and joy, has just started college. Without her here, it’s become clear that we don’t know what to do with ourselves throughout the day.” \n\n\nA string of sad growls and howls came from where Alex’s best friends were seated. \n\n\nDaddy continued, “So I have decided that we will meet once a week to find new ways of being the best we can be for Alex, even if we can’t be with her. I suggest we brain storm ideas. Who wants to go first?” \n\n\nA clawed hand rose. Dragon cleared his throat carefully. \n\n\n“Ever since Alex wished us into existence, we’ve lived to protect her and make her popular. I know she said she doesn’t want us at the college with her so she can try to make friends on her own, but maybe if she doesn’t know we’re there we can keep an eye on her. I can hardly sleep without knowing if she is well or not. Surely a nightly flyby would be acceptable?” \n\n\nEveryone murmured approvingly. Alex’s safety was always a number one priority.\nMommy spoke up next. \n\n\n“When Alex first wished for parents, she craved so much love. She needed so much from us and my day was filled with being her perfect mother. She’s grown into such a beautiful, independent women; she hardly needs us anymore. Alex still needs to eat though, and everyone loves presents. Maybe we could organize care packages for her?” \n\n\nThe unicorns whinnied happily. “Yes! We could fill it with cupcakes and rainbows! “ \n\n\nDaddy cleared his throat in the way that everyone’s father does to let them know he had something to say. \n\n\n“These are all fine ideas. Good work everyone. Mommy will have to run the next meeting. Unfortunately NASA and the President need my help again. I will contribute the usual allowance to the box. $1000 is never too much for my little princess. Unless anyone else has anything to contribute this meeting is adjourned.” \n", "\"And I'm just all freaked out about it man. Whats the meaning of everything?\" sarcasm and what felt to some like ridicule circulated through the group. Then silence. Only the ventilation system, 60-cycle hum of two light ballasts, and a miniature refrigerator could be heard. The noise was enough for him to hide his voice under, and he did. \n\n\"Hey\" his voice hushed as he became completely engrossed with reading the woman's name tag \"Judy.\" He looked up and smiled. \"You're not a Prudy Judy are you?\" \n\nTheir conversation would proceed no further. \"Some of us come here to talk about how we feel. Is that a problem to you?\" \n\nShe was facing directly towards him. Her position in the circle directly opposite. Even her chair was squared directly facing him. Combined with her posture she was a virtual arrow on him. \n\nAnd the man noticed too. He knew she was paying more attention to him than he was to her. His half hearted stories and attempts at humor and most certainly his general demeanor insulted her existence. \n\n\"Oh, hey. Lool at the time\" The group leader introjected \"We have a new person... Uh, figment? What do you prefer to go by?\" \n\n\"Ummm... Me? I'm Farty, Party, Wizzle Pants. You can call me Farty Party for short. Nice to meet you all.\" \n\n" ]	[ 1, 1, 5 ]	[ "1465539788", "1465580059", "1465546360" ]
	[WP] You receive a phone call and hear your own voice on the line.	3	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Face down in a dream, I hear the distant ringing of my phone. \n\nThe part of me that's somewhat conscious hears it, anyway. Hears that phone that's been ringing off the hook for probably an hour. Well, maybe an hour, maybe just a few minutes; it's hard to tell when you're asleep how fast or slow time is actually passing. \n\nReluctantly I realize that there's no ignoring this one. I'm going to have to get up and face the day significantly sooner than I'd intended. \n\n\"Fuck\".\n\nI roll over, not even bothering to sit up, thrashing in the general direction of my nightstand. Finding the cell phone, I feel it yank against it's charging cord like one last reluctant tether before letting go, the smooth screen slapping me in the face with the sudden release. \n\nMy partner's voice echos in my head, lecturing me about unplugging it properly and not just tugging on the cord, to extend the life of the charging port. I feel his absence in the bed beside me. Well, he wasn't here to see me do it that time, so we'll just pretend it never happened. \n\nI squint at the display, just in time to miss the call. I can't see much without my glasses anyway. I grab them, managing to smudge them with my fingers several times before getting them on my face. Beautiful. \nGlasses on doesn't seem to help, though; something about the call display doesn't seem right. It's not that it's a number I don't recognize, or the typical \"Unknown Name/Unknown Number\" thing I get. It's just a series of numbers. \n\nSitting up, snapping into a more wakeful state, I recognize the format. It's a date. I puzzle over it as I pet the little orange cat mewing beside me, having woken her up with my general lurching about. She purrs as I consider this strange display, wondering why my phone would even allow a call to log like that. \n\nReady to give up, thinking it a prank from my more tech-savvy friends, I move to put down the phone. It rings again and I jump, startling the cat enough for her to jump down and saunter on to a more stable nap site. \n\nIt's the same date again. This time, though, it seems the time stamp that came along with it had advanced a few hours. \n\nStrange. \n\nMoving to answer it, I realize I'm shaking. I don't even have time to be angry at myself, to be angry for being afraid of a trick phone call, before I tap the screen. \n\n\"...Hello?\"\n\nMy inquiry is met with hysterical crying. Something about it has my skin prickling something fierce, with a fear and a strange familiarity. There's noise in the background, so loud that it's distorted beyond recognition over the small speaker. \n\n\"Hey, who is this? Are you okay?\"\n\n\"Oh, my god\" she answers. I answer. \"Oh my god, it's you\".\n\n\"What the fuck kind of prank is this?\"\n\n\"I didn't know it would be you, I'm so, so sorry.\"\n\nMy own voice, struggling to hold back what sounded like full on hysteria, apologized to me. Cried to me, screamed as something like an explosion seemed to sound near to her. \n\n\"What? What's going on, why are you sorry? What do you mean-\"\n\n\"They never told me it would be y-\"\n\nSomething loud, almost metallic screeched, blending with her... no. With my voice on the other end as I screamed in a way that surely tested the limits of the human vocal cord. \n\nThe call dropped. \n\nThe cat, having decided that there was nowhere better in the house to be right now, jumped up beside me and purred as she pressed her warm body against my leg. It did little to fight the chill that spread through me as I stared at the strange date about two months from now, displayed in my recent call log at the very top. \n\n" ]	[ 1, 2 ]	[ "1465569272", "1465574177" ]
	[WP] The Pope is due to make a speech in an hour, one of the kitchen staff made pot brownies, the Pope eats two, unaware of what they contain.	4	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "For twenty years he'd been working in the Vatican. Three different Popes, three different ways of running a church. This one, was different though. There was something about him. \n\nThe captain of The Swiss guard heard him chuckle every once in a while from behind the door. He wondered what was happening, but a lot of people were panicking and running in and out of the room. He didn't know why and it wasn't his job to know. He had dreamt of protecting the pope from all harm since he was thirteen. \n\nHe heard something about 'a servant' and 'going to hell' when two cardinals came out of the room. The pope saw the guard and implored him to come in. \n\n\"But Your Holiness, this is not protocol.\"\n\n\"Dios, just get in. It's not like He's stopping you.\"\n\nThe guard took a couple of steps towards the pope but remained in a perfect posture. \n\n\"Would you just chill out dude. It's going to be fine.\" Said the pope. \n\n\"What do you mean Your Holiness?\" \n\n\"You don't know? Well, I guess that explains a couple of things. Apparently I've eaten some edible marijuana and the cardinals want to postpone my speech, until I am 'better'.\"\n\n\"Sir, this is a disaster! Someone drugged you? How did they breach the perimeter? How did it happen? How are you going to do the speech now?\" \n\n\"Keep your panties in a bunch. It'll all be fine. Dios, sit down, relax already.\"\n\n\"But Your Holiness...\"\n\n\"Oh shut up Luka.\"\n\nThe guard sat down. Flustered. \n\n\"You... You know my name? How do you? Who would you?\" \n\n\"Why did you join the Swiss Guard Luka?\" \n\n\"What could be more noble then protecting te holiest man on Earth?\"\n\n\"It's not about nobility Luka. It's not about the pay or even about religion. I myself don't know what to believe anymore. In these times of uncertainty, everyones first doubt is religion. But I do know this though. I embody an idea, a belief. Even though the light of Christianity is flickering compared to what it used to be, God is still important for millions. I don't think I'm God's representative on Earth. I don't even think anyone really has been, but I do inspire people. I give the people hope. And that's why I accepted to be one.\" \n\nSome cardinals called the pope towards the balcony. \n\n\"I must go now Luka. May God bless you my child.\"\n\n\"But sir, aren't you way too high to be giving this speech?\"\n\n\"That's my secret captain. I'm always high.\" " ]	[ 1, 4 ]	[ "1465600767", "1465603979" ]
You can tell that something weighs 155 mg just by holding it, or that a noise is 74 dB just by listening to it. You can immediately know it's 84.1 °F outside without a thermometer, or that someone is 70¾" tall without a tape measure.	[WP] Your superpower is precisely and accurately measuring things without equipment. How do you use it to fight crime/take over the world?	129	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "\nI am having one of those moments. The kind when you're just sitting there and wondering how you got where you are. The kind when you're wondering why the hell you're doing whatever it is your doing.\n\nHe swerves and misses a taxi by an inch. Almost. I mean he missed it, but the cars - at their closest - got slightly closer than an inch. Pretty fascinating how close to an exact inch it was, really.\n\nBehind me Karminov is swearing into a phone, telling someone that he needs to talk to the tower manager so he can tell them to keep the god-damn-planes on the mother-fucking-ground. Whomever he was talking to must have hung up on him because he started swearing in russian.\n\nHe moves his head between me and the driver, me and...him. \n\n\"No luck, Boss, couldn't even get passed the machine bitch.\"\n\nA voice came from behind Boss, from the seat next to Karminov. \"I'm not surprised - I've tried every point of contact, and every access point-\"\n\nA honk, the shriek of tires, a scream, and even less than inch between another car and this time a pedestrian as well. Karminov sat back in his seat. Boss' eyes didn't leave the road: \"Short version, Co.\"\n\n\"Someone very good has an unprecedented amount of control over a broad range of telecommunication systems. Everyone is getting every indication that things are B.A.U.\"\n\nBusiness as usual. These Agency types like their initialisations. How the fuck did I get messed up in all this.\n\nWe swerve again. Another miss, this time under a centimeter. \"Can you get through?\"\n\nI don't like how unphased he is by all this. By his dangerous driving. By what we're trying doing.\n\nBy what happens if we fail. He doesn't seem to care. \n\nCo was busy on her laptop, typing away. She's pretty neutral about it all to. At least Karminov swears.\n\n\"Co, can you get through or not?\"\n\nI heard her grunt angrily then say: \"Of course I can, but I can't guarantee it'd be in time.\"\n\n\"Boss, perhaps it is time to make a scene.\"\n\n\"Sounds like it, yeah.\"\n\nI don't know why I hadn't noticed, maybe I was still deep in that moment, that moment of what-the-fuck, but it hit me. Our destination was ahead of us - the airport.\n\n\"Options?\" Boss said to the steering wheel.\n\nKarminov said \"Through terminal. Quickest route. Some casualties.\"\n\nThey're supposed to reply like that.\n\nCo, still hamemring away at her laptop says \"Terminal is a no, that would reveal us.\"\n\n\"Agreed, terminal is a no.\" Said Boss. \"Unless it's T.B.O.\"\n\nThe best option. Did that get said enough to need a short hand?\n\nCo says: \"Maintenance area. Lower civ awareness. Security will open fire.\"\n\nOption, the positive, the negative. Clean, quick and simple. That's how you're supposed to say it. \n\nNo one's said anything else.\n\nI turn and look at Boss and then at Co and Karminov. They're staring at me. What?\n\nOh, god! They expect me to-to contribute.\n\n\"Umm, uh, I, I guess.\"\n\n\"None of that are options, kid.\" Said Boss. The way he said it felt like a slap to the face \"Co, path to maintenance?\"\n\n\"At the next lef-\"\n\n\"Given the weight of the car and it's enhancements we should be able to hit that barrier and go through whilst maintaining enough speed to make the jump from the roadway over to the the runway area.\" Did I just say that? \n\n\"What?\" Said Karminov.\n\n\"The barrier ahead, befor the turn off into the pickup and drop-off zone. We can go through it and end up on the runway\"\n\n\"Kid, there's a two storey drop between the roadway and the runway.\"\n\n\"I know, and it's getting closer.\"\n\nCo spoke up \"We'd reveal oursleves and potentially the agency.\"\n\n\"You think they won't notice us smashing through maintenance areas and driving on to the runway.\" I said \"Your exposed either way, and we're running out of time.\"\n\nThe barrier was getting closer, and so was Co's turn into maintenance.\n\n\"Kid's right.\" Said Boss - if we weren't alredy at max speed, I imagine he would have it the gas. \n\n* * \n\nThe two of them were waiting. Either something to do would pop up or their boss would show up and tell them to stop sitting on their asses and do something, so they'd have to go find something to do instead of waiting for it to come to them.\n\nSuch was life for the maintenance men.\n\n\"Oy, Davo.\" Said Barry.\n\n\"Yeah, Bazz.\" Said David.\n\n\"What would you reckon about me datin' ya sis-\"\n\nAt that moment an explosion happened above and behind them as a large black SUV smashed through the guard barrier and sailed over their heads. They watched it fall and fall and fall until it hit the tarmac far ahead of them. The SUV sped away, though leaning heavily to the front-right side, all while leaving a trail of dust and rubble in it's wake.\n\n\"What-the-fuck!\"\n\n\"I know right!\" Barry thought for a second \"Wait, was that about the car or me and your sister?\"\n\n*\n\nI can't think with all this noise. The care is screaching and somone shouting some shit. Wait. \n\nKarminov's shouting something about a shock being blown. Whatever. Is that what's making the noise? It's hard enough to do this on the go on a shitty laptop with a shitty connection.\n\nWait someone said something. \"What the fuck, jesus christ - Boss!\"\n\nKarminov is leaning forward. Is he strangling the kid. Where's all that blood coming from.\n\n\n\"It's rebar, from the barrier, shit-shit-shit.\"\n\n\"Rebar?\" I can't see - Karminov's in the way. \"This thing is supposed to be armoured!\"\n\n\"It's hardened, not bullet proof.\" Boss sounds shaken, he's never shaken. \"Karminov how is he?\"\n\nKarminov shook his head. Jesus-fucking christ. The Kid's dead.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Boss.\"\n\nWe're not even on an actual runway yet. How the fuck are we going to stop this thing.\n\nI can't get through, whoever this Hacker is...I haven't got time.\n\n\n\n\"Options?\"\n\n\"Through terminal. Quickest route. Some casualties.\"\n\n\"Terminal is a no, that would reveal us.\"\n\n\"Agreed, terminal is a no. Unless it's T.B.O.\"\n\n\"Maintenance area. Lower civ awareness. Security will open fire.\"\n\nSilence.\n\n\"Umm, uh, I, I guess.\"\n\n\"None of that are options, kid. Co, path to maintenance?\"\n\n\"At the next lef-\"\n\n\"Given the weight of the car and it's enhancements we should be able to hit that barrier and go through whilst maintaining enough speed to make the jump from the roadway over to the the runway area.\" \n\n\"What?\" \n\n\"The barrier ahead, befor the turn off into the pickup and drop-off zone. We can go through it and end up on the runway\"\n\n\"Kid, there's a two storey drop between the roadway and the runway.\"\n\n\"I know, and it's getting closer.\"\n\n\"We'd reveal oursleves and potentially the agency.\"\n\n\"You think they won't notice us smashing through maintenance areas and driving on to the runway.\" I said \"Your exposed either way, and we're running out of time.\"\n\nThe barrier was getting closer, and so was Co's turn into maintenance.\n\n\"Sorry Kid, can't risk it.\" \n\nBoss spun the wheel, the tires protested but the car made the turn into the small maintenance laneway.\n\n\n\n\"Where to from here, Co?\"\n\nI try to contribute and I get shot down. Why am I even here.\n\n\"Follow the road to the right. Shit!\"\n\n\"What is it, Co?\" How is Boss so fucking calm about all this.\n\n\"The info I have, it's been fucked with. We got all kinds of shit between us and the runway.\"\n\nFuck there's a huge metal door ahead of us.\n\nKarminov grunted, then said \"So much for tech guru.\" \n\n\"Fuck you, you dumb-\"\n\nKarminov lept out of the car, sounded like he shouted something about a trap.\n\nI looked to Boss, then passed him. With the metal door ahead of us and the way the road had dipped down into a sort of tunnel, we were blocked on all sides except the back.\n\nGun fire opened up, I crouched down. I looked to Boss. One hand was on the wheel, and he was looking over his shoulder.\n\nI followed his gaze: behind him Co was typing, hunched and angry, but the sound of gunfire didn't seem to bother her - beyond her, and through the back window I could see Karminov.\n\nHe was standing, arms out stretched. Beyond him was a line of men with machine guns, all firing.\n\nWait, shouldn't I be able to hear bullets hitting the car?\n\n\"We're running out of time Boss!\"\n\nWait. How is Karminov not dead? Why aren't bullets hitting the car? Wait.\n\n\"Can you get this door open, Co?\"\n\n\"No. I don't know. My intels fucked, it looks like it'd be opened only from the other side. I wouldn't be able to...\"\n\nBeyond Karminov, but before the gunmen...what is that. Ripples? Are the bullets hitting water?\n\n\"We're running out of time, Boss.\"\n\n\"No, Co. We're out of it. Now shut up, I'm thinking.\"\n\nHe's drumming on the steering wheel. He looks worried. Why aren't they asking about Karminov?\n\nIs he. Is he like me?\n\nDo they know about me?\n\nDoes he* know about me?\n\nOh, god. That's why I'm here. He knows.\n\nHe knows and he's using me for something.\n\n*\n\nContinued Below*", "\"Jesus, Merlyn. Have you seen what's happened on Old Street? Thirteen cars, all scra-\"\n\n\"-atched by the same vandal. I know, Bruno\"\n\n\"Wait... whaat?! How'dya know it's by the same guy?\"\n\n\"It's tricky, but if you pay real close attention you can see that all the scratches spell 'hi ITS ME AGAIN - QQ' in a size 72 font - just like it's been in the other fifty-nine before this. So i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say hey, guess what? It's all the same* guy... you nonce\"\n\n\"Well then what are we waiting for? Shouldn't you clue the police in on this? I'm sure they could use a helping hand right now\"\n\n\"They were smart enough to leave you out of the academy, i'm sure they're smart enough to see what even a blind man couldn't miss. But hey, we should take a visit anyway. For the sake of safekeeping\"\n\nBruno nods with a look of curiosity and worry, unhooks his jacket and follows closely behind Merlyn. Merlyn leans into the crash bar, keys in one hand and a flat piece of plastic that reads 'Not A Ruler' on the surface in the other, into the open sidewalk and swivels.\n\n\"You ready Bru-nonce?\"\n\nBruno draws a deep breath and says nothing. He glances around and happens upon the street sign. \"Old Street. Whaddya know Mer? We live on Old Street, how about that eh?\"\n\n\"Yeah, and guess what Bruno? All thirteen cars are parked in this driveway...\n\n... our private driveway. What does that tell you?\"\n\nBruno pulls out his phone and wildly taps in '999'.\n\n\"We've gotta get'im Mer. Next time, he might start scratching at people\"\n\nMerlyn strolls past the cars and assesses the damage again. \n\n\"1/83rd of an inch. Consistent. \"\n\nAn unwavering suspicion washes over him as he turns to Bruno. Bruno looks at unease and promptly asks Merlyn for his keys to get back into the house while he's on hold. \n\n\"I need to grab something\"\n\nMerlyn settles on a plan to see out Bruno's request with means to monitor his actions to follow. He fumbles into his pocket and tosses the bunch to Bruno. \n\nBut as the keys cut through the morning mist, Merlyn visualises the dimensions of the keys - the grooves and the peaks. Most of which were to unlock one of his thirteen cars. \n\n\"One eighty-third of an inch\", he whispers to himself. \n\nIn an dire realisation, Merlyn uncovers the sour truth. It was he who had scratched his own cars, and the dozens before. Possibly a feat of his sleepwalking shenanigans and his restless regret of foregoing his art career. His guilt consumes and his temper implodes as he turns himself in at the local police station ^wheretheytakeamugshotofhimagainstaplainwhitewallbecauseheprovestheheightcharttobeinaccurate\n\nthe end\n", "\"100 kilos\" \n\"What?\" \n\"You weigh a hundred kilos? That can't be right...\" \n\"Aren't superheroes meant to be nice?\" \n\"You realize you've killed 80 people right?\" \n\"Oh yeah! Forgot about that.\" \n\"Well, you have 10 seconds now.\" \n\"10 seconds until what?\" \n\"Until I kick your ass!\" ", "I have to move fast, because I know the response team will be quick the second they figure out what's going on. Bounding up the stairs, the case rocking against my leg as I climb, I unlatch the bar protecting the access to the building's roof. My feet fly across the loose gravel covering the roof top and I lower myself in the northwest corner of the roof. My gaze finds the crowd a few blocks away, the people bustling about waiting for Him to come through the door. I open the rigid black case I brought with me to reveal my weapon, the rifle with a body count higher than most small wars.\n\n{---}\n\nIt started in high school science class. In a subject that I nearly always did poorly in, passing only by the skin of my teeth, suddenly Physics was simple. Not only could I judge quickly and accurately how and what chemicals to mix, but engineering that Popsicle stick bridge was a breeze. I thought nothing of it and just attributed it to maybe finally finding my calling. Until dad made me join the military. Being 18 and forced with \"Get a minimum wage job and support yourself\" or \"Go put your life on the line for the freedom of others, but get free room and board\" becomes a relatively easy choice. So I joined.\n\nMy time in boot camp was laughable. Being able to judge when, where, and how to get my footing in the obstacle courses, again, it seemed like I found my place in life. But I really started to shine when they put the gun in my hand. I had never even seen a gun let alone fired one before I got here. So when I hit every mark on my target, reloaded as soon as the gun was empty, and did it again faster than any of the officers could (and believe me, they tried). I flew up the ranks after they put me in the field. It's like I could see the enemies rounding corners before they even did.\n\nThat's when I was approached by the Man in the Suit...\n\n{---}\n\nI've finished putting the rifle together just in time. His security team is making a path for Him through the crowd and his motorcade just pulled up. Dark glasses and dark suits abound as the bubbling crowd calms to a simmer. My scope finds the door, and I exhale. The winds are against me, so I raise my piece slightly higher than anticipated. Not ideal conditions, but if I only had more time to plan...\n\nA cheer bursts out, and He walks through the door. His salt and pepper hair highlighted by a dusky suit and red tie, He breezes out of the door with four more gloomy looking men gripping their ear pieces. As He gets to his car, He turns and waves to the crowd one last time, almost as if to say goodbye. The suits look nervous now, their eyes darting to nearby rooftops. They hadn't thought to clear an area so far away. There's no way someone as unstable as me could make this shot, right?\n\nWrong. I squeeze the trigger and the bullet splits the air, the lightning crack of a sound sending the crowd to the ground. One of the suits rushes to His side, but there's no hope. Not with his thoughts currently spread across the door behind them. But this is no time to gloat. The sound has given my location away, and the Leader of the Free World is lying on the steps of a bookstore, no longer among the living.\n\nThe rifle is already in the case and I'm down the stairs when I hear it. Somehow they've found me. Voices and foot steps climb inner void of the winding stairway and tell me they're 5 floors beneath me, so I make my way to the third. The first door I see is no good, it's a sturdy old thing with no sign of weakness, but the next one is much more frail. Maybe a drug haven or else-wise a target of a former police raid, the wooden frame near the knob is splintered and worn. I drive my rifle's case into the door once, and again, and it flies into the apartment. I rush in after it quickly barricading the door behind me, and sprint to the window.\n\nMy feet scramble down the steps of the fire escape. I jolt off of the ladder near the bottom and bolt down the alley. I can hear the foot steps echoing off the building behind me. I've got time. They've got to be 100 feet away. I stop near a dumpster at the end of the alley, spying a long, thin cardboard box leaning against it, flaps open at the bottom. My hands find it and lift the box unveiling an assault rifle. I pick up the rifle, load it, and swing around the corner flattening my back against the wall. The steps get closer and I grin. Anarchy has set in in the most powerful country in the world by now, politicians scurrying to their bunkers and cell phone towers overloaded with calls to advisors and loved ones. But the Man in the Suit gets his place now. Being Vice President really only has the one perk, after all. \n\nEveryone's mind is static on a TV screen right now. But not mine. Mine is concentrating on the six men running down the alley after me. The one in front takes longer strides, his weight pounding the ground harder, louder. His 6 foot standing height will stand to block the other, shorter men behind him, all of average heights closer to the mid to high 5' range, so he goes first.\n\nI round the corner, rifle in hand, trigger in finger. Lowering the barrel, my eyes meet their dark, reflective lenses and they screech to a halt. But it won't be enough time for them to react. It never is. This is where the fun begins.", "\"I want that jar NOW!\"\n\nBabysitting the 23kg brat was hard work. She wanted more and more and more. But hey, the $50.27 an hour was grea-\n\n\"u/PM_NIGERIAN_PRINCES, guess the number and I'll get you that file you wanted off Daddy's computer...\"\n\nUgh. After telling Emily I'd do it, I went and looked at the jar. 2,413 jelly beans. Too easy. But those plans would truly make my fiefdom into an international superpower...", "You know, I was always the oddball in school. No super strength, no flight, no heat vision; in fact they just thought I was a normal who was a know-it-all. I thought so too, until I started knowing things that I had no possible way to. I could tell you the distance from Washington DC to Calcutta to the inch; the number of jelly beans in a jar, bag, factory; the amount of sand tracked home from a beach. \n\nAll things considered, the ability felt kind of... lame. Sure, it was quite a party trick but how do you stop crime with the ability to measure things? With a little imagination, that's how.\n\n-=-=-=\n\nAs the latest mob boss was dragged into the back of the police van, I gave them a smirk. He snarled in response. \"How did you know where our hideout was?\"\n\n\"Simple! I was able to measure the amount of burner phones that you own, then the amount of burner phones you own with cell numbers that start with 8, then the amount of burner phones you own with cell numbers starting in 8-4, then 8-4-7, and so on. Then we just had to track them.\"\n\n\"But how'd you know about all the traps we put in? The armed guards? The attack dogs? The bear?!\"\n\n\"I. Measured.\" Turning to face the other officers, I nodded back at the criminal. \"I'd say it's time to get him fitted for prison uniforms but uh. I already know his measurements.\"", "\"You're sure about this,\" the technician asks.\n\n\"The entire reason I was brought onto this team. You can do the math if you like, but it will take you a lot longer\"\n\n\"Well you have a knack for this sort of thing, here it goes\" \n\nYes, I can measure things perfectly making me a perfect rocket scientist, also the ultimate intruder. I am a double agent for both sides, Russia, and America and I just tilted the ship too much so that it will look like sabotage by the Russians. Tensions are already running high and I plan to keep it that way. When everyone trusts one person, he can rule the world. \n\n\"You're sure about this,\" \n\n\"The entire reason I was brought onto this team. You can do the math if you like, but it will take you a lot longer\"\n\n\"Well you have a knack for this sort of thing, here it goes\" \n\nNow I stand watching a Russian soldier input codes to deploy nukes into america, instead of the test site. Why have a team of scientist when one man who can measure the coordinates perfectly does all the work? Because a team of scientist would have noticed that the coordinates were located in Los Angeles on the other side of the world.", "Ray Gardiner fumbled in his pocket for the key to his apartment, his mind a million miles away. In the last month, three members of the Pantheon had been killed in their civilian identities. All investigations had failed, all leads turned up worthless. Either there was a traitor on the team, or Psilence's psychic shields had somehow been compromised, or someone had gotten through Professor Eldritch's wards against scrying, or - \n\nThere were a hundred possible points of failure, but no signs of stress. All they had to go on was Blue Bolt's last desperate transmission - the phrase 'She calls herself Meanie-'\n\nThe name quite possibly gnawed away at his mind more than anything else about the situation. The idea that someone was picking them off, one by one, and had chosen such an immature title. As if this was a child's game to them. As if it wasn't life or death. \n\nLost in thought, he finally unlocked the door, and as he entered a pair of strong hands grabbed him by the right arm, preventing him from going for the Liberty Torch that he had taken to carrying around everywhere. They know! was his final thought before a taser jabbed into his neck, sending his body rigid and toppling him to the floor. As he lay there convulsing, his assailants looming over him, one of them spoke into a radio. \"We got him, boss.\" Then the taser came down again and this time he briefly lost consciousness. \n\nWhen he came to, his hands were restrained behind his back with a set of plastic zip-ties, a woman seated in front of him, her eyes obscured by the gleam of her glasses, turning the Torch of Liberty over in her hands. \"Lovely thing,\" she said. \"A mere 655.53 grams, yet capable of emitting up to 3.5681 megajoules of energy. We're going to put this to good use.\" She looked at him and smiled. \"Forgive me. This part is so completely unnecessary. But what's the point of being a supervillain if you can't take the time to gloat?\"\n\n\"How'd you do it,\" he mumbled. Keep her talking. Keep her gloating. Buy time. There had to be a way out of this. \n\n\"The same way that I knew that your right pocket was distended by the exact dimensions of this little rod.\" She stood up, spreading her arms over him. \"I looked. I saw. Just like I know the space between the pupils of your eyes is 61.535 millimeters, or that your inseam is 89.562 centimeters. Getting into your apartment was equally simple. All I had to do was peek into your lock, and I knew the exact specifications to make a key!\" Her grin gleamed like her glasses. \"That's my superpower. You're nothing but a set of measurements to me, Mister Gardiner. The length of each segment of your fingers. The circumference of your skull. The mask might foil facial recognition technology, but it can't fool me! All I had to do was see Torchlight in action just once, and then you might as well have been going around your day-to-day routine in full costume! Certainly, it took a bit of surveillance around Torchlight's usual rescue spots, but all I needed to do was lay my eyes on you once. \n\n\"And don't think you can break free without me noticing,\" she added. \"The minuscule adjustments of your arms as you try to break free?\" She stabbed the taser into the side of his neck, sending him tumbling to the floor. \"Incredibly obvious.\"\n\n\"Wauarggh,\" he gurgled, twitching on the ground, trying to make his tongue work. \"Why -\" he mumbled, his vision blurred. It was hard to think. \"Why do this? Just to be a meanie?\" \n\n\"Be a meanie?\" Her face screwed up into confusion for a moment. \"Oh! Oh no, no. It's Mene, as in 'Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.' As in, you have been numbered, you have been weighed -\" she crouched down, her lips next to his ear, as he felt the cold barrel pressed to the back of his head. \"And you have been found wanting.\" ", "\"Firefighters are on scene, but have yet to move in to douse the flames. Authorities are holding them back until they can determine whether or not there are more explosives in the facility. We've received word that all employees are accounted for. Miraculously, despite some serious injuries, no one was killed in the blast. The only question that remains is why. Why did this apparent terrorist target a tape measure manufacturing plant? Hopefully, we'll soon have answers. From Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, this is PNN News. Back to the studio.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mallory. She will certainly keep us updated on the situation as more is revealed-\"\n\nI pointed the three-and-a-half ounce TV remote at the screen and hit the power button, leaving only a 200-lumen light illuminating my throne at the center of the Sanctum of Scale.\n\n\"Excellent...\" I muttered.\n\n\"Double-D?\"\n\n\"Yes, Gauge?\" I rotated the throne 93 degrees and 11 seconds to see my faithful sidekick standing before my map of conquests. Across all 50 states, there were pins, marking every tape measure, ruler, scale, caliper, thermometer, range finder, graduated cylinder, and carnival strength tester factory in the nation. All but one. Gauge had crossed out Pennsburg with a massive, red x. It was 14 degrees from perpendicular, but I chose to forgive him on such an auspicious occasion.\n\n\"Where's our next target?\"\n\n\"We go to Waukesha, Wisconsin. We start with the tape manufacturers first. Soon, every contractor, carpenter, and construction company will have to come to us to measure their two-by-fours! Only we will hold the power to provide homes and buildings for the entire country! And they will pay dearly for it...\"\n\n\"What about all the tape measures in circulation?\"\n\nI sighed and rubbed my brow. The boy can be so foolish, but he means well. \"In due time, Gauge. We must have patience. Soon, with no supply, the hardware stores will fall, too. And then, the contractors.\"\n\n\"Okay, but how long do you think it'll be before someone needs a new tape measure and-\"\n\n\"Silence! Would you rather go back to the streets, charging tourists to have their weight guessed?\"\n\n\"Yeah, actually.\"\n\n\"You lack aspiration, my apprentice. We continue with the plan. Eventually, anyone in the nation who needs weight, length, area, volume, angle, mass, or temperature will have to come to me! And after we conquer this nation, we move on to the rest. And when the last tools of measurement are destroyed, the world will know the name...\" I rose from the throne, shaking my fist to the sky. \"...DOCTOR DEMARCATOR!\"", "(Kind of a cheat, but here we go!)\n\n\"How the hell did you get in here?\" Dr. Hatred asked the man dressed in a 'Cool Runnings' t-shirt and jeans. The man was smiling, a sort of odd smile like he knew something that the other didn't. \n\n\"How did you get past my security?\" The Doctor asked \n\n\"You mean your 143 guards? Or your 642 cameras? Or the 213 laser tripwires? Or the 67 armed drones patrolling the grounds of island here? Its a lovely place, isn't it? Stays around 78.3 with decent humidity year round, correct? I would kill for a place like this!\" \n\n\"You'd have to if you wanted to take it from me...\" the Doctor said, pressing a button to summon a henchman to his inner sanctum. \"Speaking of killing someone, please try not to get blood everywhere when my men take care of you, I try to keep the place clean.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't worry about that. No one is coming. You have 0 henchmen now.\" \n\n\"Oh? Is that right?\" He raised an eyebrow, his men would've been here by now so he was probably telling the truth... \"Wait a second... you're that... fellow they call 'The Measure-er ' \n\n\"Indeed I am.\"\n\n\"And how does someone who precisely and accurately measures things without equipment manage to do all this? Get past the best security systems that money can buy?\"\n\n\"That's easy.\" He said with another big smile on his face, \"The secret is: I've been guessing this whole time. I just happen to always be right.\" \n\n\"...what?\" \n\n\"There are 0 desks in this room.\" And with that, the desk that the Doctor sat behind vanished without a trace with a small clap of air rushing to fill in the space where it was as well as the clamor of general desk accessories that fell to the floor. \n\n\"...huh...well...\" The Doctor said, both amazed and terrified at the sudden disappearance of his desk. \n\n\"Next up I was thinking about accurately measuring how many broken bones Dr. Hatred has in his body.\"\n\n\"That won't be necessary, the Island is yours!\" The Doctor got up from his chair and made his way out of the room,\"I'll just grab my things and be out of your way!\" He left without saying another word and ran as far away as he could. \n\n\"You do that.\" The Measure-er smiled and took the seat that the Doctor had vacated. He spun around a bit before saying, \"There is 1 desk in this room.\" \n\nA desk appeared before him. It wasn't the desk that Dr. Hatred had, it was a very plain and boring desk. \n\nThe Measure-er grumbled, \"There is a better desk in this room.\" The man said, and another desk appeared, this time in the corner of the room. It was better, but not by much.\n\nHe sighed, \"This might take awhile...\"" ]	[ 1, 1, 2, 5, 5, 6, 7, 12, 21, 22, 106 ]	[ "1465620337", "1465655620", "1465654639", "1465648543", "1465651474", "1465631636", "1465640488", "1465624011", "1465634882", "1465626709", "1465630663" ]
	[WP] Write a day in the life of a spacebar.	1	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "' Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow, ohmygod more porn? It's been like 20 minutes oh dude that's some messed up shi-AHH! You just blew your load all over me! Don't just smear it in! Ow ow wash your goddamn hands! Ow ow ow fuck you ow ow ow'" ]	[ 1, 1 ]	[ "1465656762", "1465656889" ]
[removed]	[WP] the year is 2019 and bernie sanders is president a new law is put in place it is now mandatory for every white male to switch there gender and skin color or they will be sent to live there rests of the lives in a underwater cell to rid the world of their shitlord kind	0	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "\"Who would've thought that the one who fought for the little guy could be so malicious?\" I say to another whitey, as Berns called us. The few of us that chose our dungeon in the middle of the ocean all looked at each other. I see blue eyes, worried looks, and the dull glow of artificial lighting. \n\"We've been in this stupid submarine for what seems like hours\" I say to no one in particular as I peer at the clock. \"Yep, 6 hours\". \nSome lanky mexican comes along and gives me a dirty look. \"What's the rush, you got a date?\" He gives me a nasty look and spits in my general direction, missing, but managing to hit those near me. I look at them and apologize under my breath, though they do not blame me. Who would have thought that the world would turn on it's head for the white man. By a white man. " ]	[ 1, 1 ]	[ "1465700996", "1465713633" ]
[removed]	[WP] A comedic start that turns into a horror by just one sentence at the end.	3	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Hi there, \n\nThis post has been removed as it violates the following rules: \n\n\nCopy-cat prompts (taking a recent prompt and changing only a small detail) are not allowed. \n\n\n\nPlease refer to the sidebar before posting. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to message the /r/WritingPrompts moderators.\n\n---\n\n[Link to the removed post](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/4nq40v/wp_a_comedic_start_that_turns_into_a_horror_by/)" ]	[ 1, 1 ]	[ "1465735961", "1465737418" ]
	[WP] An advent calendar where every square contains a standard dose of a different drug.	7	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Standard dose my ass he thought as he shoved December 16th's Xanax in his mouth and chased in with the 21st's acid. If I'd taken these the way I'd supposed to I wouldn't have felt a damn thing.\n\nThe advent calendar had been made by his factory employees in an effort to get him to slow down that year. By the daily doses simply weren't enough for a man of his size, and so he had saved them all for Christmas eve. \n\nAs he took down a tiny bottle of whiskey he wondered if he'd be able to find some more drugs when he got home that night. His wife would protest if she knew what he'd been up to. \"Think of the children,\" she would say. Greedy little bastards he thought in response to the imaginary argument.\n\nHe opened the last door and it revealed a gram of weed. He rolled it into a joint and lit at as he stood up. He walked outside and saw his crew ready to go. Or at least, he saw blurry little versions of his crew. The advent calendar affected him more than he had expected it to. \n\nWhat will I do? he wondered There's no way I can drive in this condition! \n\nHe had a sudden burst of inspiration. There was another who could navigate as well as he could. He would get him to lead the crew while he dozed in the back. He burst into the shed \"Rudy!\" he cried \"I need you on team lead tonight!\"\n\nRudy scoffed \"No way! You hear how those guys treat me!\"\n\n\"Please Rudy,\" the fat man slurred his words. \"You'll be a hero!\" \n\nRudy sighed and decided it was better than another year of playing monopoly by himself... Although it was his only chance of having access to the board. He could see how intoxicated his boss was and realized he didn't really have a choice. He silently agreed and the two walked out together.\n\nThe crew laughed when they saw Rudy. \"You're bringing Pinnoccio along!?\" Don hollered as he slapped Blitz on the back, who was doubled over with laughter. \n\n\"He's going to guide us through the fog!\" The fat man attempted to defend the deformed deer. The rest of the crew laughed harder as they looked into a clear night sky.\n\nHe set Rudy up in the front of the crew. \"You owe me,\" Rudy said.\n\n\"Just wake me up when we get to the first house,\" he pleaded, his eyes heavy. \"I'll give you half my milk and cookies, I swear.\"", "Is this what I've become?\n\nMy spoon clanged against the side of my bowl. \n\nCottage cheese. Always cottage cheese for the 3:00 snack. Sometimes with peaches, sometimes with pears...\n\nThe Shortage of '17 had hit Mt Pleasant Retirement and Care Home particularly hard. I'd seen it firsthand. We used to get little individual packets of apple slices, sometimes a carton of chocolate milk, and, on special days, a slice of fresh, hot pie. Coconut custard was my favorite, but the lady in 19A raised such a ruckus every time that they kept it to just cherry or apple. Shame.\n\nWhat I wouldn't give for a slice of that pie right now...\n\nA bell rang. It was faint - at least to my aged ears - at the orderly's desk no doubt. \n\nYes, it's time now, isn't it?\n\nMy palsied hands struggled to pull back my sleeve to check my watch. \n\nYes. 3:25. It's time.\n\nAlmost as if on cue I felt hands grip the back of the wheelchair I've been stuck in since the second stroke. I made an effort at dabbing the remnants of the cottage cheese from my lips and try to set the napkin back on the table. It ended up on the floor.\n\n\"Come on dear, it's that time! It's time for day 3 of the Calendar!\"\n\nShe was a kind woman, full of false enthusiasm, but the effort was appreciated. She alone of the orderlies saw that the strokes had sapped my ability to speak but not my mental functioning.\n\nShe was right, of course. The Shortage of '17 hit drugs hard too. Many plants were forced to close, many others moved to India or China - useless to us now after The Health-First Tariff Act.\n\nShe was kind enough to shut the door behind us. Many of them don't.\n\nWhat will it be today? Antiobiotics, I should hope. This bladder infection... it's not pleasant. Oh to be young again, in a world free of these shortages...\n\nShe picked up the long narrow box. The grandchildren - the grandchildren of the man in the next bed over - had come and decorated our boxes. It was December then, they thought it clever to number it like an Advent calendar. It worked out well. I was on a cocktail of 27 different drugs, but the shortage meant we only got one a month of each. On the 1st I got three, on the 2nd I got two, and then one a day for the rest of the month, with a break from the 25th until the 1st of the next month started it over again.\n\nMy hands shook as I popped the drug into my mouth.\n\n\"Well done! Have some water to wash it down, will you?\"\n\nShe hands me a paper cup, half filled with metallic tasting water. The shortage had done a number on our water treatment plants - those that were still open.\n\nI spilled some down the front of my shirt.\n\nMaybe tomorrow. Maybe square number 13. Maybe that will be the drug that calms the shaking." ]	[ 1, 3, 6 ]	[ "1465765021", "1465780620", "1465767385" ]
	[WP] New Year's Eve. December 31st, 2099.	28	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "I missed the aliens. Ahem. I guess we're not supposed to call them that. I missed the Oquathians when they first showed up. I'm still bitter about that, but hardly alone. Most of us missed it. \n\nI barely even remember that night, to be honest. December 31, 2099. I'd been waiting for five years to save up enough money to go to New York to watch the ball drop. My parents had met there--and I'd been conceived that night, apparently--and had stayed together for a while. Long enough for me to get to know them, at least. \n\nSo I'd saved up from the time I was fifteen, so that I could go just after I could legally drink. No point in going sooner, I thought. Several of us went. It's a bit of a trip from Mississippi, and a lot of folks just said we should go on down to the French Quarter in NOLA (before it got obliterated by the Oquathians) since it was closer. It'd save us a bunch of money. They were right, it would save us money. But it was never about saving money. \n\nSo we got there on New Years Eve, checked into the hotel, and began the bar crawl. The Rooftop Crawl, it was called, and we started drinking lightly--pacing ourselves because it was really our first time drinking for any of us. We'd all had a sip or two, but we'd agreed that we would wait for the 'big' celebration on New Years Eve to do any real drinking.\n\nIt started well, and went well. I think. Honestly I don't remember much. Things were rosy, and then hazy, and then I woke up and the world had gone insane.\n\nIn a single night NOLA was gone. So was pretty much every major city south of 30 degrees North. A sixty degree arc around the center of the planet, and the Oquathians had pretty much obliterated everyone in that arc. And I missed it, somehow. To be fair, I'd woken up with an absolutely gorgeous redhead. I don't know how I'd managed to convince her to cozy up with me like that, but when the sirens woke us up, I had blearily rolled over to find her pressed against me in a rather enjoyable way. She had opened her eyes, smiled at me and mumbled something mostly incoherent about how people should have the decency not to have emergencies that time of the day.\n\nWhatever time it was.\n\nShe had inched closer to me and closed her eyes again for a few seconds, then they had snapped open. Green, they were green. And gorgeous. \n\nThen she'd been perfectly coherent. And angry. And nice. She handed me her card, saying 'You were lots of fun, maybe next time you're in town, give me a call', then had headed for the door, when she stopped cold. \n\nIn the next moments reality had come crashing down. The invasion, the destruction, and finally, the capitulation that had all happened while we slept. \n\nSo here we are now. It's 2115, and we're still together. Brianna, as it turned out, was more than just another co-ed. Technically, not a co-ed at all at the time we'd met. She'd been interning as a political staffer at the UN, for President Magabwe's assistant secretary. Not a terribly prestigious position, but Brianna had been fast-tracked for greatness. She's fluent in more languages than I'd known even existed at the time we met. She had grabbed me, forced me to get dressed, and dragged me over to the UN, and we'd gone through a bunch of hoops to get seen.\n\nSo where are we now? Well, first the Oquathians are right bastards. But, because we've signed about a dozen treaties, we aren't allowed to say that. Not really. They count themselves the true owners of the planet. We just happened to be unusually intelligent parasites that enjoy the uninhabitable parts of their world. At least that's how I get.\n\n\"Brianna, are you ready?\"\n\n\"Sure thing, Illidan. You sure about this?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\nShe sidled up to me. \"Hey honey, we could just leave them alone, you know It's not too late.\"\n\nI gave her a look. She knew better. I did too. She wanted these bastards gone at least as much as I did. \n\nShe pouted, still gorgeous when she did. \"Okay, fine. But I just want it on record that we at least discussed the likely problems.\"\n\n\"Consider it discussed. But with their new announcement? We can't wait.\"\n\n\"No kidding. It's already too hot.\"\n\nThe bastards were planning on doing something pretty much every human knew meant death for us, but the treaty had still held. Because most people didn't think we had a choice. They were right, in a way, but the only real option was to fight now, before the aliens moved the planet closer to the sun, raising the temperature even further. That done and we see a five to ten degree shift in average global temperatures. The only place we'd be able to survive would be the soon to be flooded poles. \n\nSo I planted the bombs, and I waited for the signal. Brianna and I flipped our switches, and waited. She moved close, grabbed me tight, and we kissed. After that, as our bodies immolated from the hydrogen bombs we'd planted to destroy their infrastructure, it didn't really matter what happened.\n", "Five,\nFour,\nThree,\nTwo,\nOne,\n\n\"Happy New Years!!\" The roar from the crowd cheered. \n\nBut there was one man who didn't join them. His name was Raymond, and he knew what was coming. \n\n\"If only they knew, if only I could save them all\". He thought to himself. But there wasn't anything he could do. An meteor the size once thought as impossible was heading for earth. \n\nThe government knew. They had known for weeks, they had gone into theirs vaults. Hoping they would be enough to protect them. The leaders of the world met previously and agreed that they couldn't do anything to save the masses; and telling them would only cause mass hysteria. \n\nRaymond pours the last of his whisky down his throat and raises from the bar stool. \n\n\"You're leaving already Ray? But the party's only just got started\". The voice of Raymond's friend Max shouts across the room of drunks. \n\n\"I'm just not feeling up to it\". Raymond replied, there was a sadness in his voice. The whisky didn't help him forget as he would of hoped it did.\n\nRay leaves the bar and stares at the nights sky. He had always been drawn to the stars. He spent countless hours whiles growing up, looking through the telescope. The very one he asked for every year on his birthday until when he was 9 he finally got it. \n\nHis thoughts are cut short. He see it coming. He knew the end was nearing. \n\nHe walks over to the coffee shop across the street. Ray sits down on the chair outside. The night was warm, he takes his jacket off and puts it on the table in front. He reaches in and grabs his favourite bottle of whiskey out of the pocket. The one he had been saving for a special occasion. \n\n\"Now to watch the world end\". \n\n(Took me like ten minutes to write. I just started writing and it ended up at this point) ", "\"It's only a few minutes before New Year's Eve, here in New York,\" said the reporter. \"In anticipation, the crowd has become eerily silent, when just an hour ago it was a cacophony of noises overlapping one another.\"\n\nThe camera panned to the crowd below them, who were all staring at the New Year's Ball, almost as it they were in a trance. The entire Times Square, normally a very loud and vibrant area, fell into a deafening silence.\n\n\"As you can see, Dave, everyone is eagerly anticipating the coming of the new century. No doubt we'll need to cover our ears once the ball is dropped, but until then, we'll keep monitoring the situation here in New York,\" said the reporter.\n\n\"Thank you Maria,\" said Dave, turning off the screen. The camera was now facing him. \"And now we turn our attention to London, where reporter James notes a similar phenomenon is happening there, near the Big Ben. James, are you in?\"\n\nAnother screen comes to life as another reporter is seen checking his headphone. before acknowledging Dave's question.\n\n\"Yes, Dave, as you can see from our camera nearly the entire city of London has fallen silent,\" said James. \"It started a few minutes ago but honestly I'm getting kind of freaked out.\"\n\nThe camera now turns to crowd, all facing the direction of Big Ben, and all looking like they are about to jump. There was excitement in their faces, like a young child eagerly waiting for his Christmas presents.\n\n\"What about the guards, are they silently staring at Big Ben too?\"\n\n\"Well, no, thankfully. And actually just earlier the police caught a would-be terrorist as he was making his way to the center of the crowd. Luckily they managed to get to him in time before anything happened,\" replied James.\n\nThe screen turned black again, and Dave faced the camera once more. \"And finally we'll be getting a look at Hong Kong, where reporter Mei had already experienced the coming of the New Year. Mei, are you there?\"\n\nIt took a second for the signal to arrive, but Mei's face finally showed on screen, covered in stir fried noodles with a crab hanging off her hair.\n\n\"Oh my gosh, Mei, what happened to you?\"\n\nMei smiled, and tried to remove the crab from her head, to no avail. \"Well, Dave, apparently the city officials decided to hold a food fight to celebrate the New Year. No one was safe, and it was only a miracle that our equipment wasn't damaged.\"\n\nShe ducked as a roast duck came flying at her from off the screen, and hitting a poor bystander. Her producer suddenly came flying into the camera's view, heroically saving her from a large cake by batting it away with a piece of French bread.\n\n\"Were they also very quiet before the New Year?\" asked Dave.\n\n\"Yes, actually. I've heard that this has happened all over the world, but we're still not sure as to why--\"\n\nShe was interrupted when a man wielding a chicken leg came at her, but she karate-chopped him with a chopping board.\n\n\"We'll get back to you later, Mei,\" said Dave. \"Now. It's only a one minute till New Year's Eve here in Paris, so we'll check with our local news reporter Pierre as we await the countdown to the 22nd century.\"\n\nThe screen opened to reveal a man in a beret. \"Pierre! Good to see you, how are things outside?\"\n\n\"I just have one thing to say, Dave.\" said Pierre in a very heavy French accent.\n\n\"What that?\"\n\nPierre looked behind him, towards a very silent crowd, and began counting.\n\n\"10.\"\n\n\"9.\"\n\n\"8.\"\n\n\"7.\"\n\n\"6.\"\n\n\"5.\"\n\n\"4.\"\n\n\"3.\"\n\n\"2.\"\n\n\"1.\"\n\n\"HAPPY NEW YEAR!\"\n\nAll at once the crowd exploded into cries, hugs, and kisses. Fireworks suddenly illuminated the night sky, and the Eiffel Tower was bathed in a beautiful display of lights and sounds.\n\n\"As we celebrate the coming of the new century Dave, everyone here is wishing each other health, fortune, and prosperity for their friends and family for the next hundred years.\"\n\n\"Yes, Happy New Year to you as well Pierre.\"\n\n\"Thank you. And one more thing,\" said Pierre.\n\n\"What is it?'\n\n\"I lo--\"\n\nThe screen suddenly faded.\n\n\"We'll go now to James in London to see what he's doing,\" said Dave.\n\n---\n\nWritten in thirty minutes\n\n\n\n", "Lyla is six. It's the first time her parents have ever let her stay up past 9 o'clock and she's sitting buzzed on soda pop and watching news reports that she doesn't really understand. She's asking her parents to change the channel so that she can watch a TV show that she likes, but her dad shoos her away and tells her to color or something, and Lyla wanders over to the big windows that look over the city and stares out at all the lights. She feels kind of itchy from being awake and reaches up to scratch her face, closing her eyes and scratching over and then scratching along her arms. Her mom comes up and offers her another soda pop and she takes it and starts to drink it, and the bubbles feel weird in her mouth and she's not even sure why she's awake. \n\nHer parents are talking in low voices while they watch the news but Lyla doesn't try to listen to them because she's too busy staring at the lights. Her mom comes over and tells her there's half an hour left before midnight, and then it will be a new century! Lyla says, \"What's a century?\" and her mom says, \"It's a hundred years.\" Lyla's not sure she really understands but she says, \"Oh, I know that,\" and goes back to staring out the window. \n\nShe gets bored at one point and wanders over to the couch to look for their kitten. Lyla's mom is trying to get her to come over, waving a party hat and asking Lyla, \"Don't you want to wear it?\" Lyla doesn't really want to wear the hat, she's too busy looking for Luke the cat and she's still feeling kind of itchy, but her mother calls her over and she goes. Lyla's mother puts the hat on her head and hands her a horn to blow into, and she says that it's time to count down from ten and then it will be a new year. Lyla counts with her parents, and then at one blows into the horn while her parents both shout, \"Happy New Year!\" \n\nThe lights in her house go out. Her parents are speaking more quickly now but Lyla wanders back over to the window and watches all the lights go dark in the city. There are a few fireworks that explode in the sky - they backlight the tall buildings that are black now. Lyla's parents are reaching for her in the darkness and tugging on her, but Lyla doesn't want to go. She wants to stay. \n\nThere's a siren sounding somewhere far off. Lyla's mother is picking her up and carrying her away now. \n\nLyla wonders if it's time to go to sleep.\n\n---\n\nThanks for reading :). For more stories check out /r/Celsius232 ", "My wife and I nervously watched the holo-broadcast that would traditionally ring in the new year. Unfortunately the millennium bug had put a slight downer on this years festivities. The presenter in front of us was trying to put on a brave face.\n\n\"Here in London we are doing our best to ignore— oh Christ, oh shit, I'm vanishing, I think I have been gott—\" \n\nAs the presenter spoke, her body gradually faded out of existence. Light easily passed through her transparent body, until poof, she was gone. The millennium bug had gotten her.\n\nDuring the cyborg revolution on 2066, computerised implants has become common place. Brain chips helped us think. Nano steel arms and legs gave us strength and speed previously unimaginable. New appendages created a more exciting sexual dynamic. \n\nBy 2088 all babies were chipped as soon as they were born. By the start of this year, 2099, everyone had some form of cybernetic enhancement. \n\nSo three months ago, when the millennium bug started, it was able to spread like wild fire. It began with a hacker in Taiwan who uploaded the virus to a user Tennessee who was upgrading his cerebral software. As soon as the virus upload was complete it began to transform him. His organic substance was converted to 0's and 1's. He quickly vanished into the ether, forever to be trapped as a ghost in the machine. This was captured on a PS3Box webcam and transmitted to a terrified populace.\n\nThe virus greedily spread, helped by the prominence of mobile network satellites and free wi-fi zone hotspots. No one was safe. \n\nThe holographic was still broadcasting in front of us. The crowd in London was literally dispersing as we watched. Big Ben began to ring — dong, dong — and then another ten times. \n\n\"We made it!\" I said, turning to my wife. Something wasn't right. She looked less opaque than usual. \"Oh God sweetheart, no!\" \n\nI leaned in to kiss her goodbye, but my lips went straight through her and onto the cold wall. I began to cry. \n\nI tried to brush my tears away from my eyes with the back of my hand, but when I raised my arm up I saw but a faint outline of my forelimb.\n\n " ]	[ 1, 1, 3, 7, 9, 11 ]	[ "1465800188", "1465845535", "1465823193", "1465808043", "1465804638", "1465805213" ]
	[WP] #64 on the Evil Overlord list is: "I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage." You are the psychiatrist.	44	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "First attempt at WP:\n\nPatient: sighs Well… You see… Doctor… I’ve been putting this further and further onto my growing list… Ever since I’ve remembered I… silence\n\nTherapist: hmm…\n\nPatient: Well… I… I can’t exactly ex-explain it. But it feels like every turn along the way, every experience I feel, seems to validate the choices that set me upon this path. It has turned into more of a statement to the world… A mission if you will.\n\nTherapist: A mission.\n\nPatient: Yes… Well you see I’ve seen a colleague of yours before, a more arcane fellow. He stood by the biomedical approach, or so I’ve read, and even though he recommended me a set of behavioural guidelines to deal with the issue, and some pills to calm me down, it has actually gotten worst. I started cheating some of the exercises, for example. Instead of forcing myself to stare into the sky, I’d buy rose tinted glasses and I’d perform the exercise… and then I would just take double of the recommended dosage…\n\nTherapist: That didn’t made you less afraid of the colour blue. You couldn’t perform the exercise as he recommended to you.\n\nPatient: Hmm hmm, yes… I can’t. You see… That’s my mission. My number one on the list is to paint everything red. That would defeat the purpose of going to therapy, removing number one and two from my list is impossible. I’m here so you can help me achieve my goals. People tell me you can help with life goals.\n\nTherapist: Hmm. I’m here to help your goals, like painting everything that’s blue, red.\n\nPatient: Yes… I can’t stand it…\n\nTherapist: So much so that you have to paint it red over.\n\nPatient: Yes. Something… something recoils inside me every time I see blue… I once used my own blood to cover the blue… I was possessed. I couldn’t control myself; it was like watching someone acting in my own skin… Imagine that… a control freak like me… The first time was so hard I couldn’t even…I couldn’t even eyes start to water\n\nTherapist:…\n\nPatient: Reaches for the tissue paper… cleans his nose… I couldn’t even react. I was so dejected from myself, like I was watching this man… this incredibly horrible man… man?… Could you call that a man?...eating… Silence…\n\nTherapist:…\n\nPatient: That’s… In that moment, I promised myself two things… The two things on the top of my list, Number One: I’d never be forced to see the colour blue again, and two: that I’d never feel that fear again. And those things… they fueled me…they shaped me... Uhm… funny...patient smiles\n\nTherapist: You’re smiling… Would you like to share?\n\nPatient: Uhm… yes... continues smiling... I just realized, partly the reason I’ve been putting this further and further away was because of that. I sit here, the most powerful man that ever sat across from you, made streets red with blood for the simple reason of being afraid of blue. Fear so strong it made me strong, and forged me into the man I am today. Instead of being afraid, I make others afraid, like you are… or should be. Fear like that resonates within me, gives me purpose, made me so successful… at painting red… maniacal laughter... and how I painted red… patient seems to enjoy this. People compare me to Hitler, even going so far as using the red motto as a metaphor for my agenda, but little do they know that it’s not about the colour red… It’s about not being blue. \n\nTherapist: But the world’s sky is still blue.\n\nPatient: Give me time… I’ll paint red as well… I should thank you in a way. \n\nTherapist: How come?\n\nPatient: Well, you made me realize I don’t need fixing.\n\nTherapist: You don’t need fixing.\n\nPatient: No. You see, I’d be nothing without fear. I’d just be a boy, a little scared… paralyzed boy… couldn’t even do anything about the monster eating the kids’ own kin. But now… now, I’m a leader of men, painter of red, instiller of fear. My fear… protects me.\n\nTherapist: Hmm…\n\nPatient: Yes… patient stands up Anyway doctor. I’m done. This was great. How much do I owe you?\n\nTherapist: Well, considering I didn’t do anything, let’s call it even… But before you leave, can I share something with you?\n\nPatient:… You’d… share?\n\nTherapist: Yes… See… we’re a bit alike. I couldn’t help but empathize, hence my will to share. I also like the colour red, and it seems like you could help me.\n\nPatient: H-how could I help you?\n\nTherapist: Forgive me smiling, but I wasn’t expecting.\n\nPatient: Your teeth… It’s like him…why are they bl- wh-y so many?Patient screams incomprehensibly\n\nPatient notes: \n\nIt’s been a while since I had such an exhilarating patient. Unfortunately, like Yaloms book “Creature of a day”, the case can’t possibly be continued, for fear of uncovering unpleasant truths, my truths. The patient lived his life to this point with a mission; it’s only fitting the case would end like this.\n\nOn a personal analysis, I feel like this was a clear indication that I should move on, I’ve had my share of analysis to last multiple life times and multiple existences to sample on, and as such, this was my last patient… I shall take on a new life, and find new meanings, after all, I welcome all new types of experiences, even as a dictator.\n\n", "\"Well...?\" I prompted the Dread Being on the couch. He coughed nervously. \n\"Well, you see, I have a nervous habit of... maniacal cackling\" I smiled faintly; another one, eh? \n\"Really? Sometimes it's just a hearty laugh. Could you give me an example?\" \n\"Oh, alright. MwahahahaAHAHAHAHAHAHAHSHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!... Well?\" I readjusted my glasses and smoothed my hair; this one was much more forceful than the others. No matter. \n\"Believe me, this is a common problem. The trick is to limit it to a certain time of day. Put aside ten minutes and really laugh it out.\" \n\"And that'll work?\" The Lord of Darkness asked doubtfully. \n\"Oh yes; I haven't heard a complaint from any other client.\" \n\"Well thank you doctor. I feel much better.\" Standing up, he drew his sword and ran me through the heart. As I slumped backwards, he apologised:\n\"I am sorry Doctor; but you knew too many of my weaknesses. Goodbye.\" \n \nWhen the door clicked shut, I sat up and dusted myself down. Changing from my bloodstained rag into one of the spare shirts in my desk drawer, I sighed, and was glad that I always insisted on upfront payment. Pressing the intercom, I rang my assistant to send in the next one. \n\"Ah, Sir Whiteblade. What can I help you with today?\" \n\"Well you see, Doctor, every time I hear the Dread Lord laugh, I get self conscious and left him escape.\" I smiled; as an Immortal, I've always noted that Karma really does come around quick.", "“The death ray will then be leveled at the planet,” said Baron Darkfist, leaning forward. “Gathering energy from sunlight, it will send a scorching line of fire through America and teach the world the true meaning of fear.”\n\nEd Goldstein tapped his pen against his notepad, a small frown pursing his lips. Mr. Darkfist had been a client for a number of years, now. His dedication to evil was admittedly admirable. Every other monster, king, and tyrant who had sat upon Ed’s couch had failed to get this far in their treatment while still retaining their sense of glee for wanton destruction. Most had a good cry, hugged Ed for an uncomfortable amount of time, and then went home. Lord Slaughterfingers had actually sent Ed a Christmas card just two months ago. His new wife looked lovely.\n\n“Mr. Darkfist,” said Ed, patiently.\n\n“Baron,” snapped the man. “You will address my by my title, cur.”\n\nEd inwardly sighed. The “Baron” was no such thing. He was a Minnesota farm boy who had read too many fantasy books.\n\n“Baron Darkfist, then,” said Ed. “You are at serious risk of undoing our work. You remember what we said about monologuing.”\n\t\nThe Baron’s eyes fell.\n\n“That’s when the hero shoots you,” he muttered.\n\n“Yes, but why else?”\n\nHe drew in a deep breath, then rattled off a string of well-rehearsed words. \n\n“I am a strong villain,” he said, “needing no validation from any hero as to the unspeakable evil that I am to commit. Any actions I unleash upon the world are for my own sake, and nobody else’s, and I don’t need anybody to understand or validate my plans.”\n\nEd beamed. “Very good, M… er, Baron Darkfist.”\n\nHe flipped to the next page on his notepad, and smiled.\n\n“Just one last item then, before I can discharge you as a villain, in full command of his senses and ready to rule the world.”\n\nBaron Darkfist leaned forward eagerly, his eyes gleaming.\n\n“Number sixty-four,” said Ed. “Unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits.”\n\nBaron Darkfist leaned back. He was a tall man, with a shock of black hair and hands like cleavers. His eyes were so dark a blue that they looked like shards of onyx. He looked outside at where cars buzzed by on the street below.\n\n“That’s an easy one,” he said, dismissively. “I have no such phobias.”\n\nEd restrained the roll of his eyes, and leaned forward. He gestured to where a picture which had once hung upon his wall lay against the wall, image concealed.\n\n“Baron, let’s talk about… horses.”\n\nThe man went stiff as a lead pipe. His eyes darted about the room. Sweat began to bead upon his brow. He wiped it away, affecting a laugh. “Don’t be crazy, doc,” he said. “I ain’t got nothing against—“\n\n“You accent is slipping,” Ed noted.\n\nThe Baron scowled, then coughed. “I am the Baron Darkfist,” he proclaimed in a strong voice. “I am not afraid of horses.”\n\nEd rose, smiling, walking over to where the painting lay.\n\n“Oh, good,” he said. “Then you won’t mind if I…?”\n\nThe Baron paled, a hand darting up. “Wait!” he cried. “No! That… I just…” He smiled. “I am a man of class. I find that picture… rural, and distasteful.”\n\nEd flipped the frame around to reveal a landscape portrait of a great sweep of grass, awash with a herd of horses leaping through the green. His client, the Baron Darkfist, shrieked, scrambling to the opposite side of the couch from the picture and clutching a pillow to his chest.\n\n“What is it about horses that scares you?” asked Ed, looking down at the picture. “I find them quite lovely.”\n\n“I’m not—“\n\n“You will not make progress until you are willing to admit your fears,” Ed snapped. The Baron looked down at this pillow in his hands, where the words ‘Everything will be okay’ had been embroidered in pink silk.\n\n“It was my father,” he muttered. “He was a breeder. He always wanted me to be a jockey, to ride his finest beasts, but they scared me! They would kick me, throw me to the ground. I broke limbs, but he didn’t care. As soon as I was well, he’d have me back on the saddle.”\n\nEd nodded, gesturing, and the Baron continued.\n\n“I guess I just… well, I wanted to prove to him that I could be something. Become something. But he only ever wanted the horses. He loved them more than me. One day, I went out to the barn. I had this old zippo lighter, see, and I…” The Baron gulped. “The screams. I didn’t know horses could scream, doc. My father, he came out of the house with his gun. I don’t think he knew it was me. I hope he didn’t. He aimed, and he fired. Tore a hole right in my shoulder. Doctors said I was lucky to be alive.”\n\nEd nodded again, then drew in a deep breath.\n\n“So you blame the horses for your father,” he said.\n\n“If they hadn’t existed…!” the Baron cried, leaning forward, his features desperate. “If they hadn’t been there, then maybe…!”\n\nEd sighed, this time letting the noise fill the room like the gentle swell of a wave breaking upon sand. Baron Darkfist leaned back, still clutching the pillow.\n\n“You don’t think it would have been something else?” Ed asked. “If not horses, perhaps another thing?”\n\nThe Baron’s eyes were filling with tears.\n\n“I just wanted him to love me,” he whispered. “To notice me. To care.”\n\nEd stood up, walking over to sit beside the Baron on the couch.\n\n“I know,” he said. “But we all need to learn how to let go.”\n\nThe Baron let out a monumental sob, and leaned over, clutching at Ed’s sleeve. The psychiatrist tapped his pen once against his notepad, then patted the man’s shaking head awkwardly. Looked like this one wasn’t cut out for the job either.\n" ]	[ 1, 3, 12, 26 ]	[ "1465839492", "1465863347", "1465844948", "1465845180" ]
	[WP] "You can have a sit down dinner with anyone you want, past or present!" "My Dad."	2	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "\"Listen Jimmy. You can meet anyone you want. 2Pac, Bob Marley, Malcolm X or even Barack Obama himself if you so choose. Choose wisely now y'here\"\n\nI stood before the King and professed my deepest desire\n\n\"I wish to have dinner with my great grandfather. Whom my family doesn't speak of not in hate or contempt nor in love and reverence. They speak of him not\" \n\n\"As you wish\"\n\nThe King banged his cane against the floor and suddenly I was sitting at the dinner table of a strange man, I ask him\n\n\"Where am I?\"\n\n\"Why my man, you're in Germany\"\n\n\"Whats today's date?\"\n\n\"May 15, 1942\"\n\nI started to look around and I noticed beautiful paintings.. historical paintings. The Mona Lisa.. the original, i'm told, is hanging right above what I believe to be my great grandfather's fireplace.\n\nThe house i'm in felt like the warm and cozy home I never knew. I sat back in my chair just taking it all in. I looked at my great grandfather (I assume) with a sense of curiosity.. he looked familiar but I can't say where I've seen him.. it's impossible that I've seen pictures of the guy.. my family wouldn't disclose any amount of information about him so this man could be.. this man could be just about anyone..\n\nI ask him if he knows who I am, he shakes his head in agreement. With an awkward pause (or silence) he goes\n\n\"EVA! Get this man some food\"\n\nAfter the dead silence which cut through the air like a thieves' dagger ceased to be.. the man screams at the top of his lungs for \"Eva\" to get me some food, I try to assure him i'm fine and that I didn't want anything to eat but he insists..\n\nA petite blonde woman about 5'4-5'5 in stature comes rushing in and apologizes profusely saying she didn't hear because the bombings that go on at night caused her to lose hearing in her right ear.\n\n\"The left one!\"\n\n\"I mean the left one, right\"\n\nWhat an odd thing to say.. but I do remember momma telling me my great grandmother had a \"few screws loose in her head\". Anyways I eat what's on my plate: Deer meat, mashed potatoes, green beans, brown gravy poured on top and a slice of chocolate cake.. I washed my meal down with a large cup of milk.. after I finished up, I asked the man whom I believe to be my great grandfather\n\n\"So tell me, why doesn't my family give me your name?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Maybe you should ask them\"\n\n\"I do but they keep dodging the important questions.. tell me.. who exactly are you? From what I can tell you must be a wealthy man because of this view in an exotic country like Germany (my family never had enough money to go anywhere. This was considered a 'rich person' activity).. what do you do for a living?\"\n\n\"I own a shoe factory\"\n\n\"That's all you do?\" I ask\n\n\"And many countries\"\n\nSooo.. my great grandfather is an entrepreneur and owns \"many countries\".. or could be a leader of \"many countries\"\n\n1942\n\nGermany\n\nEva\n\n1942\n\nEva\n\nGermany \n\nEva\n\nGermany\n\nShoe Factory\n\n1942, Eva, shoe factory, Germany, wealthy.\n\nHe saw as I slowly started to connect the dots, he started to laugh and asked if I wanted to go lay down in the guest room as he thought I must be feeling ill.. little did I know I was thinking out loud the whole time.\n\nI say\n\n\"I think I have to go Mr.\"\n\nHe offers his sincerest apologizes and says he'll \"Put Eva back in her place\" for not \"fetching\" me food promptly.. I feel as if I have to throw up, I run to the window and begin vomiting \n\nBright spotlights lit up the property..\n\nI looked over and saw a bucket of teeth with stripped pajamas laying around it.\n\nWhen I started to scream, I suddenly found myself back at the Courts.. I stood up, looked around and noticed it was empty.. the next thing I remember i'm waking up in a hospital bed surrounded by flowers and balloons that say \"Get Well Damion\". I asked the nurse what happened and she said I had been poisoned by an unknown substance.\n\nMy dad came in shortly after hearing the news.. or so I thought.. I assumed things.. but it wasn't Dad. The man I had dinner with walked in wearing a brown 'official' looking uniform, which had a black cross pinned onto it, tall black boots and was sporting a funny mustache. He came in, sat next to me\n\nand just grinned.", "\"Hi, Dad.\"\n\nHe was exactly as I remembered. His steel-toed boots thudded heavily against the slate-grey nothing on which he walked, and his tall frame nearly brushed the mist ceiling above. My back straightened as his blue eyes squinted at me, and I pressed my spine into the dining room chair. It dug in uncomfortably, and my bouncing knees kept hitting the bottom of our old table, but in the center of death's nothing, even pain was comforting. \n\nHe stomped the last few steps, then stared at me from the other end of the table. \"Ana-Ray, go home this instant.\"\n\nA lump lodged in my throat--not from the dismissal, but from the familiar line creasing his forehead, the deep tone that brokered no argument, and the nick-name no one used but him.\n\n\"Can't.\" I said, blinking rapidly. At his continued glare, I smiled weakly and gestured to the chair across from me. \"C-can we just... can we just talk for a bit?\"\n\nHe humphed, shaking his head even as he took a seat. The mist ceiling swirled darker above his head. \"We can start by you explaining yourself, young lady.\"\n\nA laugh squeaked out around the lump in my throat. It echoed, strange in the limitless room. It was as if hands passed the sound of joy backwards and forwards in surprise. \"That's a long story, Dad,\" I finally managed. \"I don't know how much time we have--this probably isn't even real--but since you're, you know, here, I need your help.\"\n\n\"What is it? Are you trapped? Hurt?\" Concern edged his voice. \n\n\"Well, kinda, but not the way you think.\" I tugged at my braid, dropping my gaze to his hands. \"I'm not dead, just, well, close. Close enough to talk to you, I think.\"\n\nHis fingers twitched, as if he would reach for my fidgeting hands, but he pulled himself back. The mist blackened further. His second demand for an explanation was only that familiar furrowed brow, but was loud regardless. \n\n\"I'm--well, I was looking for you, Dad.\" I was saying Dad too much, but it felt so good it kept slipping out. \"Asking questions.\"\n\n\"How many times have I told you not to do that?\"\n\n\"A billion, at least.\" I scooted my chair forward, undeterred, and flicked my eyes back up to his. \"I had to know. I knew you wouldn't disappear for no reason, no matter what Mom said.\"\n\nThe hard blue of his eyes softened, and his fingers twitched towards mine again, \"never, Ana-Ray. But that doesn't mean you go questioning your mother, you hear me?\"\n\n\"I do. I hear you.\" The lump was back, and the words came out mangled, almost a sob.\n\nBushy eyebrows shot up, and his chair legs scraped with a dry rasp against the nothing as if he prepared to jump away. \"Don't cry, please don't cry. I can't hold you here.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nHe settled down as I forced my tears back. \"Because, if you aren't dead, then we aren't in the same plane. We're more... between. And I don't want you coming to my side.\"\n\nI nodded, ignoring the burning in my chest. \"But you can tell me, can't you? Tell me what--what brought you there?\"\n\n\"Who killed me, you mean?\" Dad asked bluntly. I flinched, then nodded. There was no denying where I'd found him. \"I can tell you.\" My hands gripped the edge of the table so tightly my fingernails turned white. He eyed me. \"I won't though.\"\n\nThe mist was lowering around us. \"What? You have to! It's why I'm here!\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" he replied. He stood, chair scraping back again. \"I don't want you coming here anytime soon. Return, now, and I'll see you in a lifetime.\"\n\n\"I can't, Dad,\" the raw desperation in my voice made him swallow hard, but he turned to look at the blackening space. Threads of shadows twined around up the legs of the table, the wood fading around their touch.\n\n\"You're going back, young lady, and there's nothing you can do about it.\" His hand reached for my face, then dropped. \"Whatever it is you did to get here, don't do it again. Let it go.\"\n\nI couldn't feel my fingertips I clung so hard to the table. \"I can't.\"\n\n\"You listen to me now, Ana-Rae. Let go. I'll be here at the end.\" A smile cracked the darkness lowering over his face. \"And I'd like some grandbabies before you come.\" \n\n\"Dad,\" I shouted, but shadows flowed over my hands, engulfing me. \"Don't leave me again,\" my voice was muffled, sobbing. The only answer was a faint sentence, nearly too distant to make out. \n\n\"Love you, Ana-Rae.\"\n\nEmptiness surrounded me, swallowing the sobs I made. My heart screamed at the pain of being torn apart again.\n\n\"... Hanah? Hanah, speak to... Hanah!...\" Strange voices echoed in the nothing, and the darkness began to dissipate. I clawed for the shadows--he hadn't told me anything, and he'd left me alone again! I wouldn't let go.\n\nI didn't have a choice. My eyes opened to an alleyway, dark and damp, and green eyes pinched with worry hovered over me. \n\n\"...Hanah?\" The man--Blake--said.\n\n\"He's dead.\" My voice rasped, like wind over bone. \"He's dead.\"\n\nBlake ran his fingers through my hair, searching for the bump that had sent me there. \"Ok, well, sure. But you're not. Let's keep it that way, alright?\"\n\nMy eyes narrowed, and I pushed myself up from the cement. \"I'm not giving up.\"\n\nA loud sigh was his response, followed by \"I figured that would be too much to hope for. How about I make sure you don't keel over in the next second or two, while you explain who did this to you.\"\n\n\"I don't know. They hit me from behind. I'd guess it was whoever killed my Dad.\" I muttered, letting Blake push me back onto the cement. \"But they didn't finish it with me.\" Blake made soothing noises, as I stared past his head at the black clouds that roofed the alley. \n\n\"I'll finish it with them.\" I promised, and my fists clenched tight. " ]	[ 1, 1, 2 ]	[ "1465841120", "1465857501", "1465850454" ]
As you live the life of an "ordinary" tree, you endure the struggles and triumphs the park life brings.	[WP] You are a tree in a central park, and unknowingly to the people, you can feel and think.	12	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Oh for God's sake, not again. The fucker just pissed all over me. Right smug little grin on his face as well. Fucking New Years eve I tell you; the worst night of my year, and this asshat is the 7th one already. Wanna piss? Go do it on Gavin over there, he ain't half as pretty as me. Guess that's the price you pay for such a prime location. \n\nI tell you, the shit you see in central park would shock even the bravest oak up at Winona State. But I bet they get some peace and quiet, though. ‘The city that never sleeps’ yeah, tell me about it. I'd probably get more peace in a bloody Lumber Yard. It used to be great before all these sodding people decided to start chopping down my mates and building these ugly shiny glass people-holding things. \n\nOh, hold up, here comes another drinker. I'd bet my best branch that he comes to piss on me, they always do. Come on asshole, you know you want to, ruin my night just a little bit more. Okay, there we go. I hope you find yourself reborn in some weedy little cedar tree. Jesus this guy is drunk. I could get up and wander around and he wouldn't even notice, but I can't. You know; because I'm a tree. \n\nOh no, he's got a knife. Here we go again. Captain asshole down there wants to forever be a part of Central Park itself. What a cock. Ow. Ow. Ow. Jesus this fucker has shaky hands. At least make an attempt to be neat! Come on, hurry up then. ‘T’ hm, Tom? Tim? Tard more likely. ‘R’ ‘E’ ‘E’. Wait. He just wrote tree. This asshole couldn't even manage his own initials, so he had to deface me with “TREE” in some scrawly script. Just another day in paradise. \n", "I remember a time before,\nwhen few seldom roamed the land.\nThe forest stretched beyond my sight,\nbefore the time of man.\n\nThe stars shown bright upon the sky,\nfreedom without a thought. \nAnd all that lived, harmonious,\na timeless place that nature wrought. \n\nThey came to us, at first so slow, \nlike my sap within the ice.\nMy friends and family turned to ash,\nour sacrifice would not suffice.\n\nI learned to hate, with hate so strong, \nfor those to took my kin from me.\nBut what did man have to fear, \nfor I was not but a mindless tree.\n\nSpires of grey grew with unnatural speed, \nwhen my bark and flesh did not suffice.\nsurrounding those that remained, \na prison between those who took our life. \n\nI grow with shades of vibrant green, \na beauty for those who come and see.\nWhat's hidden is that I'm dead inside,\na life of joy can never be.\n\nI let them walk among my shade,\nBah! Like they care for more than wealth in hand.\nI will never forget how life used to be, \nbefore the day I encountered man.\n\n\n", "I felt the girl's deep, slow sigh across my cracked skin. \n \n\"I just wish things could be easier. Simpler.\" Tell me about it, I thought, then cringed as she did just that. \n \n\"Oh, Pine Tree,\" she crooned, stroking me gently. Stop that. \"I hate running the rat race of life. I'm so tired of just working, day after day. And I STILL don't have enough money to move out of my parents' house. When will things get better?\" \n \nNo way! I was asked that EXACT same question at 2AM by a homeless man. I was happy to see that her hand rested in the patch of grass where he'd puked. \n \n\"I'm not crazy--\" just talking to a pine tree, \"but sometimes I feel like the whole world's watching me with high hopes and expectations. People trust me, and I let them down.\" I actually sympathized with her on that one. I remembered the fat child who had tried to climb me last week and the way he'd screamed as my branch snapped. Could I have been stronger for him? \n \n\"You know what? I'm gonna start living for myself. I'll be like you, Pine Tree -- I can grow on my own, with or without other people.\n \n\"I just wish I had some kind of sign that the universe could hear me...\" \n \nSo I dropped a pinecone on her fucking head.", "I have been here for dozens of New Greens. Every year I grow a little bigger, a little more majestic, and I can see the earth from a little bit higher. I grow very proud of the life I harbor within my branches and on my bark. So many creatures come and go, some even stay and make young, and then disappear until the next New Green. \n\nThere is another kind of tree, it has roots that can move it from place to place and branches that can pick up and carry stuff. And these trees look so different! Odd stringy leaves seem to only exist near the top of their trunks. Where do they get their energy from? Some even enjoy sitting under me where they choose to not receive anything from the WarmBall. Such odd trees, but I have grown to love them.\n\nThe last few New Greens have been bothersome though. I have learned to tell these odd trees apart. Some are young, some are old, some are happy, some are hurt, and some are sad. There is one I have seen, a tree with no leaves, hurting other trees of its kind. It used a flat stone, must have found it between his roots when it just a sapling, and brought out the sap of another tree that had dirty looking leaves. and then took a hanging nest and moved so very quickly away. The poor dirty leaves tree toppled and laid there until other trees came to help. They were all very sad and returned their water to the earth.\n\nI've seen this no leaves tree hurt more since then and I decided that just cannot be allowed. No tree should hurt others! I spent a ColdBall preparing one of my largest branches, cutting it off from the sap from within. Before I was growing new leaves for the creatures to come the branch was ready and leafless, never to grow again. I kept vigilance for that tree to come near me again.\n\nA New Green was here, WarmBall right above me, and I saw the no leaves tree coming.\n\nAs its roots passed it under my shade I let the last of the life out of the branch I was preparing. I had never done anything so quickly before but my efforts paid off. The no leaves tree sat under my branch, broken, and returning its own sap to the earth. It would never hurt another tree again.", "Autumn always brought trouble for us trees in the park. Bright green leaves dancing in the summer wind turned into a fragile red and yellow shade. Our branches lightened but the heavy rain and gnashing wind now lay burden directly on the bark of the oaks and birches. The company of singing birds in their beautifully crafted nests had vanished as the weather grew more hostile for each week that passed. \n\nThe geese still gathered in the overgrown pond waiting for the old lady to bring her leftover bread for them to feast on. She had fed many geese from her park bench below the old oak tree. He had, as the years went by, made sure to grow a branch that would cover her bench in soothing shade in that time of the day. It didn't help much now that most of his leafs lay on the ground to rot. \n\nAs the birds had pecked away enthusiastically and eaten most of the breadcrumbs they began to gather up in the pond. A cold breeze made ripples on the pond and the flock of geese took off in a strange display of organised chaos and loud guttural sounds. \n\n\"Thank you for another year,\" the old lady said and turned her head to the oak. \"I have always known.\" She smiled the most loving smile as she slowly rose to a stand. With a gesture of respect she turned away and left the oak in his own company once again. \n\n___\n" ]	[ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 ]	[ "1465850430", "1465856647", "1465856408", "1465887429", "1465861868", "1465854360" ]
	[WP] You are a famous magician. One day, you find out magic is real.	2	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "He opened his eyes. \"My old diary, of all things,\" whispered a rather odd man, his once fancy clothes now rugged, his dark hair in shambles; stray group held up with the same wax used to keep them in order. \"Most peculiar of a catalyst, but it'll do.\" \n\nHe opened it, right at the interesting part.\n\n28/09/1970 - Tonight's show went splendidly, as expected. each one of my tricks was greeted by calls of awe and disbelief, a fantastic end to this long and tedious tour. The Waving Sally needs some extra tweaking, but no one found out. Marie was astonishing, her acting is of no parralel, but even she is exhausted. we have some funds left for a short break. better make them count!\n\n\n29/09/1970 - I'm so darn stupid. Idiot! Oh that filthy traitor, that Judas. I swear I'll get him back for it. Leaving like that, that rat! Words of his departure came to me from a maid, no less! That is what I get for putting my trust in some darn banker. Haven't left a single dime behind. I'll have to fire most if not all of the crew, probably sell all the set pieces as well, if I don't want to live in the streets. Mark my words, Jefferson, I will find you.\n\n\n11/10/1970 - This is getting seriously rediculous. I sent letters to the all theaters I can think of, yet no response ever came. If this continues like this, I might have to head back to London... \n\nNo. Get yourself together, you are the best. You swore by your own talent to never go back. Things will look up. But in the meantime, I should start coming up with something new, maybe play on my old fans.\n\n\n02/12/1970 - It has been... what, three months since my last tour? what happened? next week I'm due to be expelled from my stinking shame of an apartment. Marie is the only one who stayed, keeping us barely afloat with occational jobs. I have no crew, my gadgets are broken and rusty. I guess there is no way out of this: It is time to go back.\n\n\n05/12/1970 - I had the craziest dream last night. a vision of the ultimate illution. It was like nothing I had ever seen! and it works. Wonderous in its simplicity, I managed to build it from scraps. A trick like that can easily stun a crowd! ask and you shall recieve. I can only hope to hear that mysterious voice once again.\n\n\n06/12/197 - Her voice, such sweet echoes of hope and wonder. Her whispers carry with them promises of all I had ever wished for, and proof to back it up! Marie thinks I had gone mad, but I Haven't felt this confident in months! tonight came not one trick, but a DOZEN. All made from items I either had or could easily obtain. \n\nI promise to fix your neckless once we get out of this mess, Marie. just a little longer, and we will be saved.\n\n\n07/12/1970 - It did not come tonight. Where are you, my light? I need you. I want to hear your secrets. Please. Don't go... Don't leave me like everyone else...\n\nA man just came knocking on my door. Apperantly he saw me preforming in the streets and recognized me. I have a show. Tomorrow.\n\n\n08/12/1970 - It all happened so fast. Marie was thrilled, almost bouncing with anticipation. We had one rehersal, but we needed nothing more. The stage was tiny and the audience filthy and common, but I guess that under my fancy suit and up-kept apperance, I was too. The lights lit up, and the show began. \n\nAne after another, I had presented all my tricks. My art. My soul. but it ran out too quickly. I froze for a moment after the last trick, realizing there was an entire hour left. This was my only chance to redeem myself. This is the end. The stage bagan to move, the ground shook, my eyes were filled with shining spots of light. And then, her voice came. whispering wonders I could not even imagine. Not even I could follow her tricks. But here it was, right there at my disposal, my salvation.\n\nBut the price... this time, she asked for more than just strings and metal rods. Oh, fair lady, always making sure to leave all the materials right there in front of me. \n\n\"I need a volunteer from the crowd!\" I called, sending my hand to one of the men in the first row. And then it began. \n\nTonight's show went splendidly, as expected. each one of my tricks was greeted by calls of awe and disbelief. Not even I could believe the miracles I could Summon, shadows danced in front of my eyes and seemingly stationary objects became... alive.\n\n\n09/12/1970 - The Landlord has arrived, and I had his money. And then some for his trouble. My next client payed in advance.\n\n\n01/01/1970 - My christmas tour became more and more popular, better than it has ever been! grand halls filled to the brim, with others waiting outside! But people are starting to get suspicious. they see the connection, and no metter how I try to cover it up, they see my volunteers don't come back. \n\nI had to look for the homeless before my previous show, knowing none shall dare come to my stage ever again.\n\nNever mind that. In three days I shall preform to the Queen, in London. Then, my fame will know no bounds.\n\n\n05/01/1970 - Dear heavens, what have I become. \n\n\n06/01/1970 - I have to bring her back. somehow... How could I do that?! My dearest Marie... I'm so sorry... but the voice in my nightmares won't come back...\n\n\n07/01/1970 - My darn hunger for power consumed my soul. To hell with it! Take it all! all my power! all my fortune! please! \n\n\n08/01/1970 - It answered. One last time, a salvation came. Her orders were simple: A fair trade. The woman I love, for the only person I had ever shown favor towards. The ceremony was long and bloody, those darn simpletons don't know a just cause when they see one. But they are gone now. I must look like a mess. \n\nShe will give me my catalyst, and Then I can go back. back to when Marie was still with me... back when everything was okay. I'll take away all I used to care for, all my fame and glory, and when past me will kill himself; Marie shall be free. \n\nI always hated bankers, might as well desguise as one. I already have the perfect plan. \n\n\nHe closed his eyes, And the voice showed him the path.\n" ]	[ 1, 1 ]	[ "1465885176", "1465902582" ]
You, the God with Alzheimer's, cannot seem to recall the moment of your ascension to godhood.	[WP] Try to remember the moment you became a god.	8	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Well I think it was right about when I commented on a funny reddit post. I can't remember exactly but as soon as I started typing I heard something slam in my kitchen.\n\nAs I walked through my lounge door way I saw a dark figure standing there, or it was my dog I cant recall. Anyway it started speaking to me and I couldn't quite catch what it was saying. It had this frail old voice and dark rings around its eyes.\n\n\"Toiiiillleeetttt\" it said to me with extreme urgency.\n\nI guided it to the bathroom where I watched it urinate.\n\nAnyway as my dog exited the bathroom I gave it a robe and it went back into its kennel.\n\nSuch a great dog ol lassy. Would come without hesitation and fetch me whatever I needed. When I was asleep it came up to my face and sat on my chest. I thought I was dreaming and woke up out of breath. \n\nLassy started speaking to me while watching me sleep. \n\n\"Greg you have to wake up, you won't remember anything however your a god now. Oh bark bark bark, bark bark.\"\n\nI think that's when I turned into a god however I'm not sure.\n\nWhat was I talking about again? \n\nOh that's right how my cat named Jim and I went for this giant adventure!\n\nJim and I were great pals, I took him up Mount Everest, up the Eiffel Tower and even sky diving! We did everything together and it was great! He would keep me company as we went on our travels.\n\nI adopted Jim from a shelter in New Zealand and from there we never left each other's side. One night I heard a bang in my kitchen and that's where I found Jim getting into the milk. \n\n\"Bad Jim!\" As I yelled at him he did his cat eyes and I went on to put the cat on my face and pat him. But that's when the weird thing happened.\n\n\"Greg, Greg listen, your a god now. You can create things out of nothing! Meow, meow meow meeeooowww.\"\n\nI didn't catch the part after nothing but I think he was just meowing. He had milk all over him the silly cat. I cleaned him up and we went to bed.\n\nThat's when I had this crazy dream. I dreamt that I witnessed the Big Bang along with Zeus and Jesus Christ. I'm not too sure what they looked like however I think Zeus looked like Liam Neeson and Jesus Christ looked like that guy from the Passion of the Christ film.\n\nPretty cliche I thought. \n\nThey looked at me and asked me how I got there, who I am and am I a god?\n\nI said \"well yes I am, Jim let me know. He also spoke for a bit then stated meowing again.\" \n\nJesus looked at me and said \"ah sounds like Jim, how is the old boy?\"\n\n\"Oh he's great! Still purs loudly and wakes you up.\"\n\nJesus looked at me in great confusion. \"What was Jim when you saw him?\"\n\n\"Well Jesus he was a cat.\"\n\nJesus started laughing. \"You didn't see Jim, you saw Jack!\"\n\nJack I thought? I don't remember any Janes." ]	[ 1, 3 ]	[ "1465895496", "1465897455" ]
	[WP] You are a bloodthirsty, battle-axe wielding barbarian. You work for a multinational corporation, in the accounting department.	2,007	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:\n\n- [/r/accounting] [X-post from writing prompts \\[WP\\] You are a bloodthirsty, battle-axe wielding barbarian. You work for a multinational corporation, in the accounting department.](https://np.reddit.com/r/Accounting/comments/4o25w0/xpost_from_writing_prompts_wp_you_are_a/)\n\n[](#footer)^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))\n\n[](#bot)", "I am a man working in the accounting department. I sit down and repress what i am programmed to do. I lean my axe against the file cabinet, thinking about the emasculation of men everywhere. ", "I used to work in the accounting department. I was fired, can you believe they fired me? I was shocked, literally speechless when I was told of my termination. I mean how could they fire... me... of all people, they fired the best damn accounting department head this corporation has ever had! Just because I decided to give the drudges of this corporate wasteland that make up my accounting staff the ax. :P", "A scream is heard down the hall, following what sounds like the destruction of expensive high-quality office furniture. \n\n\"I will slash all my enemies in half!\" Yelled Gorgnak. \"Including these second quarter sales tax liabilities!\"", "\"It been while since Strong's birth. Strong born after great war. Strong travel with own kind. One human kill them all, then Strong travel with human. Then human die, but Strong not. Humans take over again, no let Strong fight. Strong respect puny human. Strong know now, strength win fight, but smart win war. Been many years since Humans rebuild. Strong now stay in muzzim, where they build Strong house with statues like old times. Many kin dead now, thanks to human. Strong only survive this long because Strong eat ion compass. Strong no remember when ate compass.\"\n\n\"I believe the word was 'compassionate.' And why would you want to work for Vault-Tec, Mr. Strong?\"\n\n\"Strong good at counting. Strong best counter in all of tribe. 1...2...um.......5....6....7-\"\n\n\"He gets the point, Strong. Listen, Vinny, even 500 years after the war, there ain't many people out there. And if you're startin' Vaul-Tec back up from virtually scratch, there ain't many people willing to take up an accounting job for a company that practically served it's purpose. Especially in the Commonwealth.\"\n\n\"Well, Mr. Valentune-\"\n\n\"Valentine.\"\n\n\"Yes. Well, Mr. Valentine, we could always get someone from the Brotherhood of Steel to work for us. There are PLENTY of people willing to-\"\n\n\"Strong no like if Strong no get job. Strong SMASH if Strong no get job.\"\n\n\"OkayokayokayokayOKAY!!! Y-You-you got the job!\"\n\n\"Yay! Strong happy!\"\n\n\n\n", "\"Hey Grom, will you have those quarterly projections done for the 3:00 meeting today?\"\n\nA fine mist of angry harpsichord music faded into being as the hulking bare backed form subtly changed his posture. A staccato drumbeat emerged from the ether, adding urgency to the angry harpsichord, and the temperature dropped just perceptibly. The wavy fountain of hair shifted slightly as Grom turned his head to expose the edge of a granite brow and cheek bone.\n\n\"Jenkins\" Growled the figure before him \"Do not trouble me with trifles, for you would find my ire to be ... troublesome for continued life.\" Swiftly turning his head to stare Jenkins directly in the eye, unflinching ice blue orbs surrounded by the cracking red indicating high blood pressure. \n\n\"I have sniffed out a nefarious plot to pilfer money from the corporate fun bunch fund, and if I find it is you, Jenkins, your very life hangs in the balance!\" At this, the figure snapped up his nearby axe, weighing as much as an economy car, and lurched to his feet \"You will have your precious quarterly report, Jenkins, but blood, sweat, and gristle, it shall be done. Now be gone! And trouble me no more, for my hunger is great, and there's a 2 for one special on at Arby's!\"\n\n\"ooh! I haven't had Arby's in forever! Mind if I tag along?\"\n\nThe mighty head, barely touching the acoustical ceiling tile, tilted forward, eyes hidden behind a wave of hair. A distant scream was added to the musical interlude. A Crescendo, and then fade to silence. \"ok. I'm driving though. ... And dawdle not puny one!\"\n\n\"Okie dokie! I've just got to tinkle first! Meet you in the lobby!\"\n\nThe music returned in oscillating tones and then followed as the giant of a man stumped down the cubicle farm with a heavy sigh. The lighting levels seemed to rise.", "It had been a long day for Sturg. His axe was in poor shape and his combat skills and atrophied since coming to Winter Corp. Oh, to go back to the glory days on the battlefield, maiming with ruthless aggression and little thought of his opponent's demeanor. Sadly, Mrs. Sturg, more commonly known as Lipa, was sick of never having her man at home, and wanted a more steady income. \n\n\"I helped sack Rome!\" Sturg would say, before Lipa interjected that the local shaman had taken the last of their sheep as payment for a battle hardiness incantation. \n\nSo Sturg and Lipa packed up their belongings and moved, moved into the heart of his once mortal enemies, the Romans. He wasn't accepted in the legions because of his previous enemy combatant status, but despite his issues with money personally he was good at collecting debts. The empire saw fit to place him in a job with Winter Corp, a shell company used by the Roman government to subtly take even more money from their possessions on top of taxes, by setting up business fronts, construction companies, anything you could name. He was sent to the province of Gaul to work under a rather shady regional manager named Poow, pronounced \"Poo\", which both Sturg and Lipa found hilarious. \n\nLipa greatly liked Gaul, it had a nice climate, the people were friendly, and her and Sturg assimilated quite quickly. Sturg, however, longed for glory again, and hated that he had essentially been turned into an enforcer that collected debts for Poow and the Roman Empire. Coincidentally, he too had come to favor Gaul and it's people. His lust for battle had turned into empathy for those he was helping swindle. \n\nPoow himself was a former warrior, and unbeknownst to Sturg, they had fought in battle before, in the forests of ancient Germany. Poow enjoyed management and taking advantage of people. It was a way to indulge his sociopath tendencies without the risk of personal harm. \n\nAt a company mixer one day, over a hardy selection of mead and deer over an open fire, Poow accidentally let slip that he had previously fought Sturg before, and at that particular battle had bested him. \n\nA drunk Sturg challenged Poow to a duel, wanting to reclaim some of his honor and quench his longing for battle. Poow agreed, only if it was a battle to the death. Sturg's axe was old and rusty and he had gotten very over weight, his only competition was intimidating the local peasants for their money. Poow, however, had kept in constant shape, his wealth affording him the ability to train and keep weapons state of the art. \n\nSadly, for Poow, he had not set forth many ground rules, and as soon as the match started, he turned his back to Lipa, who proceeded to impale him through the fire with a hot poker. As he turned in agony to confront his attacker, Sturg beheaded him with his rusty axe, commenting that \"I guess it was still good enough\". \n\nThe gathered crowd cheered, and Sturg took his prize, the head of Poow, and plopped it down on the rock sitting in front of the Winter Corp Gaul COO Tuk, who instantly promoted Sturg to Poow's former position in middle management. Sturg took his newfound money and fixed his axe, got back into fighting shape, and secretly rallied and funded the peasants he had formerly bullied into a small army, and left Gaul to once again attack Rome. \n\nLipa was saddened by this turn of events, but was given Sturg and Poow's old job, and found solace in the arms of Tuk, so everyone involved was able to live happily how they had always wanted to.", "\"Holy shit.\"\n\nVlad stared into his computer screen, speechless at what he saw. Immediately, he got up from his desk and went over to get more coffee. Another coworker noticed him staring blankly, \"Yeah, I know right? Mondays...\" After spending the weekend camping in the Ozarks, he came back to this.\n\n\"I'm moving to Canada\" Vlad thought as he started walking back to his cube. \"This damn chair, I put that order in 3 weeks ago did they even enter it?\" The cheap office chair was hardly even worth $100 dollars, it barely held up his 6'5\" frame. A notification popped up on his email: DELIVERED: Authentic Lord Of The Rings Replica Sword. \"Nice, I'm definitely taking that out tonight\" he said. Now back to the spreadsheet, he pored over the endless columns documenting the companies' various businesses and their revenue. A coworker within his department had tipped him off to some irregularities in their yearly audit by an external company. \n\n\"Are you kidding me? This is fraud.\" Vlad thought about what he was seeing and knew this had to be approved by everyone up to the CFO to be finalized for the quarterly report. He felt his face turn pale with fear. \"I'm dead, they're dead, we're all dead\". He thought about the last job he took, as a ranger for the Forest Service: \"Barbarians don't sit at desks, I need to be back doing that....but GOD this paycheck is great.\" He supposed one of his ancestors considered something similar in the past, perhaps choosing between warlords to work for, or choosing to retire to the life of a blacksmith. \n\n\"Heh, I wonder if they need extras for the new season of Vikings.\" \"I'm totally checking that out,\" he surmised. His ancestors had been Boyars in the service of Cossacks, and here he was at his desk at a Fortune 100 company. \"Maybe the gun range tonight?\" \"No.\", as his phone pushed another notification. \"Perfect, that's what I need, I'm swordfighting tonight.\" The local combat club met 3 times a week, full of dedicated trainees and experts. \"I'm beating Sigurd today, I can't believe i lost to that asshole last week.\" Of all the members of the club, Vlad was among the tallest, but there were a few who could match him physically. The rivalry between the stereotypical blonde Viking and the bulky Russian was as heated as any. Routinely spectators from around the club would come watch them spar as the two fought hundreds of years later after their ancestors battled it out.\n\nThe workday progressed to a close and Vlad came to a resolution: \"Indeed. I need to spend at least 2 hours tonight job searching on Indeed.\" He thought about the weekend, and his battle with a pack of brown bears in the Ozarks. With his axe he had single-handedly fought off 3 bears who seemed deranged and rabid. As he neared the door and the searing Houston sun, the conclusion finally came to him. \"No, I'm going to take this summer off.\" The thought of hunting more deer and fighting on foot was exciting. \"If only I could get a shot at that Norwegian ass\". \n\nHe opened the car door and called his stock broker and breathed a sigh of relief. \"I have to get rid of those stock options too....doesn't matter I guess they'll be useless soon anyway.\" Straight to voicemail. \"I'm selling all of it right now\", he thought as he left the parking lot. \"I still can't believe it...what the fuck are we paying them for...they have to know this is going to sink the whole ship.\" \n\nA few months later, Vlad was in the woods of Minnesota when he got the news: Enron was being investigated for fraud.", "Kyle had had a long day. Already, after what seemed like eons at the office, the sky was turning a shade of crimson through the windows as though it was angry. Kyle’s desk was bestrewn with papers and dossiers and the task at hand was nowhere near complete. “Focus. Focus” Kyle stated to himself as Samantha placed another manila folder full of 8.5 by 11 sheets of paper, still warm, but steadily cooling like a freshly slain corpse. At least the carrion flies had not yet begun to gather.\n\nSeveral hours after sunset, Gerald, who’s last name reminded Kyle of a venereal disease that afflicted solely the wealthy in times of yore, his sleeves rolled up well past the elbow, his shirt dark with perspiration, and his eyes wild with consternation stormed into the office, slamming the door open. “Has anyone figured it out?” he demanded, his shout interrupting everyone’s train of thought and focus. A team of the best financial figures at the company, all accredited and results oriented, being interrupted in their quest to find a grievous error at the corporation. Attention shifted, and Kyle felt the communal effort of his office begin to lose its essence, its power. Kyle swore under his breath, his curse vibrating his diaphragm and so rude that it would surely cost him his job if it were heard by anyone but himself.\n\nThe silence that followed detailed the answer to Gerald’s query from Kyle’s peers, and Gerald stood in the doorway for a moment, impending defeat anthropomorphically straining to reach orgasm. “Get out” Kyle sternly spoke, his finger coming to rest on a line of text in the fourteenth folder that had reached his desk, the five hundredth and fifty third plane of white coated in little lines of black symbols detailing accounts from thousands of industry locations. \n“What did you say?” Gerald’s pallid skin had turned a shade lighter as a result of impending disaster, but now his face was flushed with a sudden rush of anger and confusion. Kyle stood and gestured to Samantha who could sense her compatriot’s change in demeanor and rushed to his desk. His bearded, gaunt face turned to Gerald before continuing, “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be here.” Kyle underlined the section without shifting his gaze, “and I have an engagement I plan to attend following the resolution of your error.” After a total of eighteen hours at the office, Kyle had found the discrepancy: a series of digits that were misallocated but held the tremendous weight of an empire up, dependent on their accuracy; the header to the page read: G. Padilla. \n\nThere was no mindless banter due to his late arrival. Kyle began: “THOR GRANT ME VICTORY, YOUR EYES A FURIOUS RED. THE JOTUN HAVE TO LONG SOUGHT TO FOOL YE, THEIR BLOOD WILL SPILL INSTEAD!” The four figures on the stage began to swing their hair in circles, in time with what they played. Immediately, a mosh pit sprung to life with the intro, a spinning crush of human bodies thrashing and pushing, beers in plastic cups spilling wildly into the air. Kyle’s long locks now unbound flew freely around and around. As the blastbeats from the drummer beside him shook the tiles of the venue, and Kyle set upon his favorite axe, tremolo picking the scything lead line, scorching the ears all those in the packed space, a sense of vindication coursed through him. Thank Odin, Thank Thor, I will die with an axe in my hand.", "Bhurn stared at the spreadsheet. What sort of feckless twad would use a spreadsheet this way. Pivot tables are one thing, and solving another, but this was downright unrepeatable accounting. It really put the voodoo back in economics. Bhrun dragged a relavatory sigal from the toolbar and sure enough, the thing was cursed.\n\nBhurn summoned Stone Fang from the aether to invoke its wards, then unleashed the Norton Sorcery Suite on his entire inbox. The axe, christened in the blood of his forefathers and wrapped with the braided hairs of wife and child grew warm in his hands. The stone head was sharper than steel and carried old and potent warding. The haft, replaced many times over the years, protected its weilder from domination, delusions, and charms.\n\nAncient and modern forces unspooled the truth. The recent layoffs in distribution revealed that much of the product movements for the second and third quarter before the merger were bogus. Pure paper magic and hidden embezzlement. Heads would roll down in mergers and acquisitions once this came to light. Bhurn was glad he didn't work in employee relations any more. Auditing was much less messy, but it had benefits that made up for the lack of axe work.\n\nThis mess. It was going to be expensive. And the H.R. actions would be _glorious_. But most important of all, Bhrun would get to report this mess directly to the board.\n\nAfter years of planning and insurgency, he'd finally come face to face with The Tyrant who ran this place, and his Stone Fang would finally taste his blood. Bhrun would wreak vengeance for the blood-letting that followed the overthrow of his father's trucking empire during the 2003 union uprising.\n\nBhrun resheathed Fang in its cloak of ether and consulted the department oracle. Blood and Bone! He'd missed donuts in the break room. Just one more thing for The Tyrant to answer for.", "Sloloth the mighty viking moved forward, creeping through the night. The raiding party had just arrived at the town, and was moving into position. The farms on the edge of the village burst into flames, and the viking horn was blown. It was truly time for battle.\n\nSloloth and his clan charged into the town, screaming bloody murder as the killed, plundered, and stole. Finally, finally, after six straight hours of killing villagers, they razed the village! The villagers bowed and succumbed. \n\nThe lights in the accounting section flickered off.\n\n\"Jim! Get off of World of Warcraft and do your job for once! You spent all day on that stupid game!\"", "Over at the water cooler, Clems and Jacobs were discussing their plans for the evening.\n\"So you'll pick me up at 8?\" Clems asked for what would be the 3rd time. He was always nervous about details.\n\"Yes, Jesus man i'll pick you up at 8, we'll head to Robs, we'll mingle a bit and I'll finally go home with that girl fro..\" Out of nowhere Jacobs inhaled his water, and began coughing wildly.\n\"What is it? Was Hannah not invited to the party?\" Clems asked. Jacobs' eyes widened as he shook his head as if to say \"don't!\". Clems of course, did not understand and carried on with his confused tirade. \"Why are you acting so weird man? What are you looking at?\". He finally turned around and found himself face to chest with Lohg, his six and a half foot tall coworker who must have been standing there, behind him, for a the duration of this conversation.\n\n\"Lohg have thirst!\" he exclaimed, in his enormous voice. \"Please make space for Lohg!\". Clems stepped to the side of Lohg without hesitation while Jacobs handed him a little paper cup. \"Lohg wish this were beer\" he joked, \"would make work better place\". Clems and Jacobs exchanged nervous laugher. They were much more interested on how much of that conversation Lohg heard, because as far as Jacobs knew, he was not invited to this party because of his 'extreme' nature. \n\n\"Lohg wonders, what are friends making this evening?\". Jacobs corrected him \"you would say 'doing' Lohg, not making\" Jacobs had become Lohgs defacto english teacher over the years. \"But we're not really doing anything tonight.\" Jacobs had gotten very good at convincing Lohg that he was not interested in nightlife, as every week Lohg had asked this question with the hopes of a long night of 'raiding', as he liked to call it. \n\n\"Oh friends, all work no fun make for unhappy life\" Lohg began a very familiar lecture about having fun and not working too hard;however, he took an unfamiliar turn. \"Luck is for you two though, Lohg have big plans tonight\". Clems and Jacobs exchanged looks, both wondering what he could possibly have going on tonight. \"Thats right, and Lohg asks his friends to come too!\". He was yelling at this point, and attracting the attention of other coworkers. Jacobs replied, \"What exactly is this Lohg? another one of your raids?\". He began preparing his excuse for not being able to go when Lohg shouted \"great get together at chiefs home tonight! Many friends are going. Would be unwise to miss!\". Jacobs noticed beyond Lohg that dozens of heads were peaking from above and beside their cubicles. He needed to think of something fast. \n\n\"Where did you hear about that?\" he pried. \"Was it on the box at your desk?\". Lohg paused and thought for a minute, scratching his head and twisting his face. When he finally remembered where he'd heard about the party, his face lit up; \"Funny tale!\" he began. \"Lohg was sharpening ruler when work friend asked Lohg for help. Work friend needed bathroom, asked Lohg to watch expensive phone while work friend was gone. Work friend got message from chief that said raid on Friday!\" \n\nJacobs glared in Howard's direction. \"of course\" he muttered, but then he got an idea; \"Oh Lohg, don't you know?\" Lohg shook his head \"know what?\". Jacobs smiled, like a dad would smile to his son before teaching him a valuable lesson. \"The word 'party' isn't what you call a raid! No, parties are boring things that business people go to so they can work more!\" Lohg visibly shrank in his shoes \"Oh, that makes Lohg sad\" he mumbled. \"Guess Lohg do other things tonight\".\n\nPleased with themselves for averting a disaster, Jacobs and Clems returned to their desk to finish their work and continue to plan their eventful night, Lohg free.\n\nAt 8:30, Jacobs and Clems arrived at Rob's house. They got to the front door, and after ensuring that the other looked fine, pressed the doorbell button. They waited a few moments and when nobody came, they rang the doorbell again. Once more, they waited a few moments and nobody came to let them in. Finally, Jacobs verbalized his annoyance. \"What the fuck this is the address, where is everyone?\" There were cars in the street and everything, yet it seemed no body was there. \"Should we just go in?\" Clems half asked as he opened the door and entered the house. Jacobs looked around again, and followed him in.\n\nThe scene inside was completely normal. everything was in tact and, to the surprise of the two latest guests, there was nobody in sight. They set their coats down and walked into the living room, where the entire office sprung form hiding yelling \"SURPRISE!\". The two were certainly surprised, as was the office. \"What you guys can't be here on time? Cmon lets hide again so he doesn't see us!\" Jacobs was extremely confused now. \"Wait hold on, who are you waiting for?\" he asked. This question received many judgmental looks and finally someone said \"Lohg of course, he's one year incident free!\" Suddenly the contents of the E-Vite came back to Jacobs and Clems, who had forgotten that the reason Lohg wasn't invited was because this was his surprise party. He was supposed to see that message and be here at 8:30. Jacobs gestured to Clems to shut up and go with it, as everyone returned to hiding and waited for an hour for Lohg to show up, which of course never happened.\n\nOn Monday, the crew began rolling in at the usual time. About an hour into work, a rumor about Robs desk began circulating. Apparently it was entirely destroyed, along with his chairs, his cabinets, minibar, and computer. \n\nJacobs, who felt horrible about the events of the weekend, sought out Lohg at the water cooler, and asked him how his weekend was. Lohg was quite pleased that he'd asked. He replied, yelling as usual, \"Lohg helped Chief 'cut' back on work. Hopefully Chief will need less parties now!\"", "The days seemed to blur together for Eric. Every morning he woke at 5:00am and went running. Every morning he ate a simple breakfast, most days it was oatmeal and dried fruit, occasionally it was toast with some smoked salmon or trout. He would tend to his garden in his back yard making sure his vegetables were properly watered and weeded and that bugs were not consuming his harvest. After tending to his plants Eric would proceed to trim his beard and hair and shower in preparation for work. By 7:00am, he'd be out the door and into his car for his daily commute to the office. Approximately twenty-five minutes later he would be at his desk sifting through emails and reports and spreadsheets to make sure nothing new had crept up since the day before.\n\nEric kept his office as simple as possible. Wood paneled walls stood out from those of his peers', but he kept no portraits or paintings on them. There were no motivational posters explaining the value of synergy no posterboard extolling the virtues of Watersoft Global. The loan decoration to be seen in his office was a simple ax mounted on the wall behind Eric's desk. An ornate steel-headed broadaxe the steel itself was scarred black by flame and age, and yet the ornate silver inlay was as polished and perfect as the day it had been made. The inlay itself was a simple pattern of knots common to Eric's ancestors with Futhark runes spelling the name of the ax. Tt was His prized possession the ax was a consolation gift from the Gods. They had given it to him as an apology for missing his era. Instead of being born in 983 he'd been born in 1983.\n\nEric approached his job more casually than those he worked with. Usually wearing a linen button up shirt and relax-fit jeans and either boots or dark sneakers, he chose clothing that was both comfortable and functional while retaining whatever the bare-minimum was for the expectations of his managers. Eric himself was shorter than most standing in at a mere 5'9\" but his short frame was packed with muscle. He kept the hair on the side of his head shaved clean with the top pulled into long braids that fell below his shoulders, his facial hair was always well trimmed leaving him with a cleanly kept beard just hiding his gaunt facial structure. Pale blue eyes that always appeared weary and untrusting and between them a nose bent ever so slightly to the right, the memory of the first time he tasted battle.\n\nThe mornings at work were always slow. Eric's department would meet and read spreadsheets together discussing economic trends and the processes of depositing checks. He'd have a simple lunch, usually smoked fish and some bread, occasionally he'd have a glass of mead with it when eating out of the office. In the afternoon he'd correspond with the managers of other departments, he'd evaluate the work of the accountants under him to make sure all was being done correctly and he'd repeatedly tell himself that this is his life.\n\nEric, was a mistake. Born a millennium removed from when he was due, his soul yearned for something different. He had been destined to be a great warrior, the bards would have sung great songs about his deeds and his memory would have lasted into the modern ages. Alas, somehow the Gods sent him down too late. Instead of Eric the great conqueror of Rome who stopped the flow of Christianity, we have Eric VP of Accounting, he who fires those who do not pull their weight! His job paid well, but it was mind-numbing to one born for more. Every night Eric would hit the gym where he would spend his time doing more functional exercises, like beating a tire with a sledgehammer or towing the heaviest weights he could find on a sled back and forth across the room. After the gym, he'd head home to have a simple meal and check on his mead aging in the shed and then get to bed early and be rested for the following day.\n\nAnother day, still the same old routine. Eric arrived at work and asked Bernadette, his secretary, if there were any important messages, as usual, there were not. He sat at his desk and turned on his computer, reviewing his schedule for the day. The only change for today was to have a personal interview with Brent, a new hire who unfortunately wasn't living up to the requirements for the job.\n\n\"You're not going to fire me.\" A voice could be heard coming from the doorway.\n\"Hmmm?\" Eric responded having not heard everything.\n\"I said you're not going to fire me.\" It was Brent, his voice shaking with rage, his hair disheveled and his white shirt only partially tucked in. His tie was only half tied and he held in his right hand a rather large revolver pointed at Eric's chest. \"You can't fire me you neanderthal throwback, I've done everything asked of me, you can't do this!\" Brent was practically screaming now. Behind him Bernadette stood, terror preventing her from moving, the office behind her was practically empty as people quietly tried to escape.\n\n\"Is this going to help Brent? Is this going to keep your job? Is it going to get you one in the future?\" Eric asked calmly, his eyes locked on to Brent's own. Eric slowly slid backward towards the wall. \"But I think I should thank you, for letting me be who I was born to be.\" Eric slowly pulled his ax off the wall. \n\n\"The fuck do you think you're doing?\" Eric screamed his fist clenching as he pulled the trigger, his hand shaking so violently with fear and adrenaline that he completely missed Eric from only 15 feet away. Eric let out a primal yell as he charged towards Brent, ax held in both hands. The sound of the revolver rang out through the building, shot after shot fired in rapid succession and then.... Silence. There was no sound as Brent fell to the ground, ax buried in his torso having nearly split him in two from the neck down. Eric stood, breathing unevenly as he stared at Brent's now dead eyes. His chest was searing with pain, as was his abdomen. His shirt ran red with blood, mostly his own. A smile slowly crossed his face as he turned back to his chair and slowly sat down, something that took far more labor than it should have. \n\n\"Bernadette, if you could please call 911 for me?\" He said, quietly laughing to himself \"Yes, this is who I was meant to be.\"", "\"Oh Steve's just left. You just missed him. He's on a work team building excercise\"\n\nHe hefted his axe which was dripping fresh blood from the reception desk. The \"blood\" was actually a mixture of red food colouring and a sugar paste, but actual blood was such a pain in the arse. \n\n\"Just know I will be sure to drop by to gargle on the blood of Steve and his kin another day.\" \n\nHe moved his 6ft 10 frame of hulking solid muscle away from the desk and motioned for his camera man to follow. The attempts at a vaguely scandinavian accent were unecessary really although he found many of his admirers appreciated him all the more for it.\n\n\"Let them think Gallbarog the Relentless has fled their miserable premises in defeat. We shall see whether they think again about refunding Mrs Townes, daughter of Mr Townes for that washing machine she bought that never worked despite having a full years warranty. We will have an accounting!\"\n\nHe paused for dramatic effect. \n\n\"And cut! Gary fo-\"\n\n\"Don't call me that in front of the fans\" he hissed between his teeth\n\nHe smiled and waved his battle axe at a little boy who was pointing at him to his mother, then gave a massive roar. The little boy immediately waved his arms and roared back at him\n\n\"We'll get the next shock shot round the back\" \n\nHe smiled back at them as he walked away. The kids had loved him from the start though he now had almost as many adult followers. Something about an oversized giant of a man assaulting bankers and accountants with a \"battleaxe\" dressed as a raging norseman just seemed to amuse them. The battle axe itself although entirely blunt and much much lighter than it looked did have a stun capacity which was fully authorised for use in the event he needed to use force to make an arrest or \"take the heathens prisoner\". \n\nHow what started out as a gimicky advertising campaign for a debt colletion company had turned into a booming tv series with merchandise was beyond him. Yet he was loving every minute of it. As he turned the corner he leapt back into character. \n\n\"We know they are in there and I shall not hesitate to send all my valkyries into glorious battle the moment they leave the building. \n\n**\n6 hours later a shifty looking bespectacled man emerged from the back entrance and crept around the side of the building. It had only been a small con. How the hell did he endup with that bunch of nutters after him. His car was so close he just had to-\n\n\"Charge my friends. Ragnarok awaits! Surrender or face the wrath of Gallbarog the Relentless, Steve.\"\n\n", "Three. This was his third time. The back of my neck started tingling almost before I had finished reading the subjectline of the email. I knew any email involving Barry's name could only mean one thing: yet another breach of expense reporting protocol. The new accounting software upgrade 5 months ago, with its paperless receipt uploading and remote entry capability, had led to a drastic reduction of late reimbursable submittals. Which meant that my trusty axe, Winterbane, had slept on my cubicle wall for the past 10 fortnights. My knuckles instinctively clenched, and a wave of excitement washed through me. \"Awaken, Winterbane! You must be thirsty after your long hibernation!\" Evidently word of Barry's final error must have spread through the rest of the accounting department already. How many other accountants had received the Blind Carbon's copy? I could hear the soft chant from down the aisle start growing louder, as more accountants started chanting my name. \"Lotrak! Lotrak! LOTHRAK! LOTHRAK!\" The joy of my first kill, countless moons ago when I was just an intern, suddenly came back to me anew, reminding me why I had originally been drawn to comptrolling as a young man. As i stepped back from my standing desk, my knees felt momentarily weakened, as if I might collapse under the sheer ecstasy of the imminent kill. But my fortitude had not retreated, rather it had been momentarily distracted, as it coursed from the back of my skull down my spine. Barry would serve as a reminder too the rest of the office that reimbursable expenditures are no trifle. For far too many first-monday-of-the-months had the employee cafeteria been devoid of songs extolling the wrath of Lothrak the Comptroller. Winterbane and I would see that silence end tonight.", "No one understood the axe behind Alexia's desk, but no one had ever really asked either. The look that she held in her brown eyes as she faced her prey at any board meeting was enough to scare the living hell out of any sane man. The cold fury, pure bloodlust, and yet cold calculation was not immediately present when she walked into a room. She was small, lithe and graceful. Her black corporate power suit hugging her curves but hiding the muscles that had been honed by years of practice underneath. \n\nTime, much time had taught her discipline and the perfect timing to completely decimate an enemy at their strongest point. She loved watching the look on their faces as their secure castles fell to her fury. Each more astonished than the next, and each one bigger. Still it was never enough to satiate her need to conquer, to dominate, and to destroy. Never again would she find herself in a position where she lacked power, where she could not fight with every living breath that was housed in her body. \n\nShe smiled wide at the boardroom. Bringing up the next slide that showed the latest profit report for the company. This was her new battlefield and no one had better be in her way. \n\nEdit: I should really proofread before I post :P", "\"AXE IS AXE!\" Yelled the irritable and violent Mogul Khan. He slammed the telephone back on to its receiver, grabbed his hefty battleaxe, and in an impressive display of strength, brought his axe down through the receiver - and his desk.\n\nThe usual buzz of the accounting office halted, and all of the employees in sight of the Red Mist General glared at him. \n\n\"Mogul, we talked about this,\" began Tim.\n\n\"Die Tim! Axe sheathes his axe in your bowels!\"\n\nTim then became two separate, much less living Tims in a spectacular cloud of red mist.\n\n\"Jesus Christ, someone call security!\" Screamed Linda. Oh, Linda.\n\nAnd with another smooth slice, Linda's severed torso slammed against the window like a blind suicidal pidgeon.\n\n\"Too much talking! Not enough fighting!\" \n\nAxe continued tearing apart the office and its inhabitants until security arrived. A tall, muscular man with a rather dashing mustache held a gun to Mogul Khan's head - well, actually, the gun was held to Axe's shoulderblade, but if the guard had been any taller, it would've been pressed to the back of his head.\n\n\"Put your hands behind your head!\" Yelled the guard authoritatively.\n\n\"Yes!\" Replied Axe, almost too excited. Axe had no intention of surrendering, however. Just as the nice mustachioed man had suggested, Axe swung his axe behind his head, splitting the guard down the middle like a stick of mozerella string cheese, only red and with intestines.\n\nThe Red Mist General turned and stared at the two corpses of the security guard, then said, \"You were handsome like Axe! Axe does not like that!\"\n\n\n * * \nEdit because my friends are brilliant bastards\n\n* * * \nAxe looked up at the red-painted office space. Scanning the room, he saw nothing but corpses - and two more of Axe!\n\nThe second Axe held three shiny yellow spinning crystals, and the third held his axe above his head and yelled at the top of his lungs, \"Axe is Axe!\"\n\n\"No,\" replied the first Axe, \"Axe is Axe!\"\n\n\"Stupid!\" said the third, \"AXE is Axe!\"\n\nThe first growled, teeth clenched. \"Axe has no time for all this jibber jabber! There can be no battle till Axe is at hand. And Axe is!\"\n\nHe sprinted toward the third Axe, bringing down his axe into his skull. The blade did not cut through, however. \n\n\"... What happened?\" asked the first Axe.\n\n\"Axe happened!\" responded the second. Axe pulled his axe back in preparation to swing, and like a men who had been shot in the chest with a rifle, Axe and the other Axe were shot in the chest with a rifle. \n\n\"Haha!\" proclaimed the Axe holding the illusion rune, \"Axe is Axe!\"\n\nAxe's ear heard something in the distance, \"Marked for death!\"\n\nThen, Axe too laid dead on the office floor. \n\n\"Easy as shooting gnats!\" said Kardel Sharpeye excitedly. \n\n", "/u/Luna_LoveWell has ruined this for me, but here goes...\n\nThe hour is 1630. The evening is Freya's day. My colleagues are removing their ties and leaving early, slovenly sauntering to the bar over the road. But there remains reconciliation to be done. This is time for /u/Veganpuncher.\n\nThe VP gazes, condescendingly, out of the 32nd floor window at the hordes of ingrates who will not finish their TP16's tonight. He turns to his computer and roars \"To defeat my enemies, to drive them before me, and to hear the lamentations of their women.\" And it's on.\n\nForm after form is torn from inboxes, processed, signed, and processed. By the time Freya has crossed the moon, VP has emptied the room of paper. It is time for ale.\n\nVP, retaining the dignity that the nonbelievers associate with ties, ascends to their 'bar'. He gazes upon their light beers and white wines, snorts, and orders the biggest beer in the house. Without a thought it is consumed. Another follows.\n\nOne's own sons await the fruits of Accounts Receivable at home, bitter and unblooded from a week at school, but Debbie, from AI has mentioned that her boyfriend has left for the weekend. It is time for VP to live up to his beard. Wiping the froth from his beard, VP walks up to the table at which Debbie sits.\n\n'Anyone sitting here better have a bigger axe than VP!'\n\nThe crowd roars. The axe is produced and the song begins: 'My cock rages on, my cock rages on...'\n\nOTYBL.", "\"Well you see Sarah we simply cannot just accept your proposal, there are procedures to follow, it is out of my hands.\" Harvey flipped back the note chart and casually flicked it across the boardroom table, with one of his insincere smiles plastered across his face. Over an hour of negotiation were about to go down the toilet, he had the power to say yes and save the company but instead wanted to watch Sarah squirm. \n\"What are you talking about? You're a CEO, of course you can do it\" she said on the verge of frustration. She had worked too hard to see it be lost in the backlog all because Harvey enjoyed being a prick, but there was nothing she could do. \n\"You're right. Maybe there is some way we can help each other out.\" Harvey leaned back in the leather chair with a greedy smile that made Sarah sick to the stomach. She was about to tell him where he could stick that counter-proposal and go do with himself, when the boardroom door swung open nearly shattering on its hinges and an immense stack of paper was dropped in front of Harvey.\n\"What the hell are you doing this is a private meeting. Get out you....\" Angry at being denied a chance to bag Sarah, Harvey turned to face the intruder and his hot fury suddenly died in his throat. The room inexplicably seemed to become much colder and smaller.\n\nStanding beside Harvey was more a mountain of muscle than a woman, someone or something that would look more at home in a Televised Wrestling match or a bodybuilding competition than in an office. A tie was wrapped around one bulging bicep already fraying and losing the fight to contain the power beneath despite looking brand new, complete with price tag. A pair of oversized glasses that usually made the wearer look meek and nerdy like much of the office workers in the city, only served to enhance the threatening nature of the towering figure before him. Across their back was a well used axe that any role player would empty their bank account for. Curiously it too had a pair of glasses perched on its head and a tie wrapped around its handle.\n\"Can I help you?\" Harvey asked timidly as he nearly forgot how to speak and breathe. \"....miss\" his brain told him to add out of politeness and as a way to maybe live beyond the next few seconds.\n\nThe figure merely stood still for a second, her arms folded over her chest rising and falling slowly as she breathed. She continued to glower at Harvey and at the world in general before a rumble echoed forth.\n\"Accounts\" she said as no one had ever said them before: it was a promise of death and destruction that would lead to much wailing and sorrow of the defeated foe. That one word was a declaration of war, primal scream and battlecry rolled into one that alone could have broken the Roman Empire and sent men fleeing for the hills. In response Harvey tried immensely to sink so far into the leather chair that he would disappear or wake from this nightmare. While he sweated, stuttered and wet himself exactly as he had done when he was five, Sarah fared a little better.\n\"Accounts? What do you mean accounts? Is there something wrong with the accounts?\" The titan nodded back, as she turned to walk around the table to Sarah, Harvey let out a whimper cravenly raising his quivering fingers in mercy. \"Thank you.\" Sarah coolly took hold of the clipboard maintaining her professionalism while a voice in the back of her head gibbered like Harvey as it tried to rationalise the thing before her. \n\n\"Huh, looks like there are numerous errors with the payroll and the company property\" Sarah commented as she leafed through the papers. \"Meaning the company should have... how much? No wonder we're near bankruptcy. Hang on this is your signature Harvey and so is this. You... you...\" She moved to throw the clipboard but a hand shot out and firmly restrained her in mid-throw.\n\"There is no work without tools\" the conquerors voiced rumbled in counsel. No one was meant to look at the accounts let alone notice the mismanagement and siphoning of funds, not until the company had gone bust and he was far away enjoying the spoils of war. \n\nHarvey burbled and gurgled until finally his brain formed a sentence that marked him as part of the human race. Maybe not part of the good or moral part, but still part of it. \"The accounts stretch back decades, no one could go through all that and still be sane. No one can do that but a machine!\"\n\"I am Accountant, I account. I bring you to account.\" The warrior goddess unslung the axe from behind her back and grasped it in both hands and strode towards Harvey. Harvey fainted. She manoeuvred the handle over the top piece of paper and carefully signed and dated the form with a pen nib attached to the handle. She then resheathed her weapon with one hand, slung Harvey over the other shoulder, meticulously placed the signed form on the desk, and then carefully carried the accounts under the other arm. Something that had been nagging at the back of Sarah's mind ever since the colossus had entered the room finally made its way to the front.\n\"Sorry, who are you?\" she asked.\n\n\"I am Helga, and this is Jafnir\" she shook one shoulder in emphasis to the axe's name \"I am Accountant. And this is good day.\" With that Helga left. Sarah still struggled to recount those few minutes to the authorities and the company board in answer to how the company had been miraculously saved and Harvey's embezzlement uncovered perfectly at the right time.", "Thag the Smasher of Numbers sat at his desk, his muscles pouring out of his ill-fitting business casual shirt. His desk sat askew from his billowing body frame that threatened to burst his cubicle like a gazelle from a tuft of long bladed grass. He grunted in frustration, as his computer clearly labelled an email request to create new W2 forms for his coworkers. \"Filthy weaklings...,\" grumbled Thag under his breath. Thag rose in his seat, realizing he had enough of these games of this job. This was personal. He grabbed his battle axe from under his already wrecked desk and began his way down the aisle. \"Always nagging always complaining, Thag like axe too much to leave home.\" He grumbled continuously down the hall til he found his first target. \"How can I help you with you job?\" The target asked. But there was no words, no gestures, and no mercy. \n\nThis was a life Thag was determined to end right now with his actions, not silly papers. \"Are you experiencing a problem?\" The target asked Thag quickly. It was time Thag realized, and let out a bloodthirsty roar as he lifted his weapon of earthly destruction above his head. \"NO!\" rang out before the axe crashed upon his target, spilling liquids and innards upon the floor that would take weeks to clean out. The smell alone may Thag himself wince. The target laid sprawled out upon the floor, broken. \"ANY LAST WORDS!?\" Thag screamed to his target. His target only replied, \"PC Load Letter.\" And with a broken hum, Thag had won.", "Axes clanged together and sweat dripped from my brow. I reveled in the slight pain as I went for another blow against my rival. We matched each other blow for blow, and I let a battle cry before backing away slightly. \"We must put this fight on hold!\"\n\nMy rival snarled and lowered his weapon. \"Why?\" \n\nI pointed to the watch on my wrist. It was the only thing I wore other than a loincloth and a necklace of teeth. \"I'm late for work.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" he bowed. \"Until next time, Stevrok.\"\n\nI raced to my hut and washed as best I could. I donned my suit and headed to the office. Not a single coworker could tell what I did in my time off. \n\n\"Hey Steve. What happened to your eye?\"\n\n\"Motorcycle accident.\"\n\n\"Again?\" He cocked his head. \"You need more lessons man.\"\n\n\"I challenge you to a death duel for insulting me!\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nI coughed and sipped my water. \"Uh, nothing.\"", "The sun, a skybound golden coin\n\nRising twixt the earth and sky.\n\nRed numbers on my clock, bedside,\n\nBid me from my slumber rise.\n\n\n\nShirt, white creased, with buttoned cuff\n\nFixed round my neck with silken tie\n\nAnd belted trousers, woven there\n\nFrom cotton, khaki, as the dust.\n\n\n\nThe bus, great beast with clear glass armored\n\nGuides me on the day’s commute.\n\nWith seats, hard plastic, often filled\n\nWith dregs and other retches there.\n\n\n\nArrive. Arise, oh reception maid,\n\nAnd warn of coming meetings,\n\nCalls oft missed and memos posted,\n\nBefore I land in cub-ed berth.\n\n\n\nTed, a warrior, noble blood,\n\nAccounting warlock, partner, friend,\n\nServes the high department Lord,\n\nWith numbers boldly slaughtered.\n\n\n\nNo salad, kale, or whelping meal,\n\nDoth I and noble Ted devour,\n\nBut Earth’s pure mead and bloody meat\n\nTo strengthen will and hands.\n\n\n\n\nMy right hand bears the mighty lead\n\nFrom Ticonderogas steely forge\n\nTo shape and wrought as Odin did\n\nTo balance our accounts most dear\n\n\nMy left, the tele-horn doth wield\n\nTo carry loft o’er countless miles\n\nThe calls of allies, and even foes\n\nIn mortal fiscal battle.\n\n\n\n\n\nFive o’clock, the sun does warn\n\nAnd frees me from my daily bond,\n\nTo rest my weary frame against\n\nThe worthy foe of currency.\n\nedit: I cant figure out how this formatting works....\n", "It was a strange quirk of reality, that consciousnesses, or 'souls', were not created anew with a new assemblage of biochemical circuitry with each new bouncing baby.\n\nNo, reincarnation was very much real, even if the primitive ape-descendants that invented the concept of 'reincarnation' didn't truly realise that they were in fact, the same few million people there had been since time immemorial when nature got sick of there being so many unique perspectives on life, the universe, and the rest of the bollocks out there, that it started using the same template for each new person.\n\nIt is for this reason, an event occurred, which is best described as the Lunchtime Cupcake Incident.\n\n\nDave Hughes was an ordinary, albeit very Welsh man. He had come from a long line of Welsh men, each pretty stoic and calm, except when the rugby was on, and while there were a few bad apples during World War 2 who painted directional arrows on their barns pointing in the direction of Liverpool and London because, as Dave's great grandfather would say, 'foc yr Saes', Dave himself was a rather peaceful man, more content to having a pint of cider on the weekend with the lads and working hard through the week.\n\nHe had the strength to throw a punch, but he also lacked the temperament to really get heavily invested in a fight.\n\nAnd so, it may come to a surprise to many that in the month of July, 2006, Dave Hughes was jailed for 7 years for the ritual execution of a colleague of his with a flint axe, as something unusual triggered his racial memory of being a barbarian warlord named Genghis Khan, marauding through the Mongolian Steppes.\n\nThe trigger, it would appear, was a chocolate cupcake, with one unusual ingredient, unbeknownst to the manufacturers: fermented honey, small traces of it.\n\nThose of you keeping track would know it by another name. The delicious alcoholic beverage known as mead.\n\nDave had always steered clear of honey: he was allergic to beestings, and it followed that he was probably allergic to bee bits in honey. It made sense.\n\nWhat Dave didn't know was that the faint taste of sweet nectar from mountain flowers, converted into a golden yellow liquid that had been baked into the cupcake, was enough to trigger an unused genetic sequence in his brain that once spawned a continent-spanning empire.\n\nDave was arrested for attempted manslaughter, and had a quiet life in prison. He never knew he was descended from Genghis Khan, and he never realised that it was honey that triggered his random rage, all he knew was that he was a murderer and a fool.\n\nDave hung himself in 2010, his depression overtaking him.\n\nNobody was all that surprised.", "It was a fine door, made of solid oak, lovingly crafted by a master artisan in her prime. Standing roughly eight feet tall at the end of the conference room, this particular door flooded the adjoining hallway with a sense of strength, stoicism, and imposing clout. The people meeting behind that door determined the fates of thousands of people; billions of dollars; entire companies; maybe even entire industries.\n\nIt was a fine door until it buckled inward and split in half. The four dark suits looked up at him, horrified.\n\n\"Which one of you is Phil from the Risk department?\"\n\nAlbert had never known a job that really spoke to him. He'd danced around teaching, he'd dabbled in science, he'd once done a stint in a circus, and he'd decided that nothing worked. The last few years had been a series of odd jobs from electrician to oil well engineer and finally to office manager. In a major meeting with a client, his temper had gotten the better of him when the client demanded something his company simply couldn't provide. The negotiations broke down when Albert lifted the client by the back of his belt and prepared to throw him out of the twelfth story window. Fortunately, four people tackling him simultaneously was just enough to stay his hand.\n\nAlbert was, of course, fired. The client, however, was an employee with Stellus, a radical, multinational insurance firm that was rumored to engage in \"unorthodox\" practices to get their jobs done. After coming down from the adrenaline and fear, the former client introduced Albert to the HR department at Stellus and the rest, of course, is history.\n\nHe enjoyed his new job, though he was admittedly skeptical when the representative had told him he would be working in accounting.\n\n\"I'm not very good at math,\" he had offered at the beginning of the interview.\n\nThe three dark suits interviewing him had laughed. Perhaps a bit too long for comfort. Twenty minutes later, Albert was sitting at his new desk. A reflective name tag was pinned to the wall of his cubicle.\n\n\"Senior Corruption Detection and Prevention Manager,\" it read. The first two weeks were training- they always are. The first month after that was rocky. His superiors didn't love Albert's performance and had told him so on more than one occasion. \"Lackluster\" was a word that had come up. \"Uninspired\" usually followed. He had been advised to \"really get into it,\" and to \"show some passion,\" in his work; \"Try being a little more barbaric, you know? These are criminals, Albert!\"\n\nAnother week of re-education on corporate policies and a few months of practice, and Albert felt much more secure in his understanding of how Stellus operated.\n\nOne of the four dark suits feebly raised his hand. The other three rolled their executive chairs in separate directions away from the outstretched and wavering hand.\n\n\"Embezzlement is a serious crime, Phil,\" Albert growled. Phil's hand slowly fell back down and he shrank in his chair. \n\nA tense few seconds later, Phil's quivering lips parted. \"Sorry..?\" It was uttered quietly and as one offers a goat to an angry god. The kind of offering someone does when they're just going through the ritual that they know is expected, but they know won't actually increase their odds of survival. A plea that one might make when they know there's nothing else left to lose.\n\n\"I'm not,\" Albert grinned. The axe made a sickeningly slick sound as it parted Phil, and his chair, in half before landing halfway in the floor with a resounding and satisfying \"thunk.\"", "Scene: a bloodthirsty barbarian running around a modern office swinging his axe all over the place. A male office worker approaches a woman in a cubicle.\n\nMan: What's going on?\n\nWoman: Oh, it's the new guy from accounting. They say he's serious about cutting costs.\n\nThe barbarian's axe cleaves into a desk and breaks something on it.\n\nMan: Maybe we should go to Staples. They have great office supplies at low prices.\n\nWoman: And then we wouldn't have a bloodthirsty barbarian running around the office.\n\nThe barbarian lets out a mighty scream and barely misses another worker.\n\nMan: Oof. Steve caught a lucky break.\n\nNarrator: Great office supplies at low prices. Staples: That was easy(tm).", "Office workers are generally not accustomed to threats of violence. They assume their workplace is safe, and violence cannot happen there. Many of these people haven't had to even consider a violent response since middle school. This false sense of security leads to reckless behavior. When confronted with a direct, real threat of violence to their person, they have no idea how to react.\n\nThe only reason I got my accounting degree is because the facility was terrified of me. Constantly. In my first year I got a F on an exam. I visited the professor in his office with my ax. I cleaved his desk in half and told him to change my grade to an A. He obviously hadn't been threatened with violence in decades, he wet his pants. He said he wouldn't change the grade with a whimper. I crushed his eye socket with the handle of my ax and held the blade to his neck. I told him if he didn't change the grade, I'd kill him. He didn't even struggle. He agreed to change the grade. As I left the office I told him I'd be back if he called the cops. I graduated with straight As only having to threaten a couple other professors and assaulting one more.\n\nMy first boss thought he was a tough guy. I'd see him try to physically intimidate my coworkers with his size and expressions. He would yell at people and call them names. I could not wait until he tried any of that with me. The day couldn't come fast enough. It was a Tuesday when came to my desk, threw down a copy of a report I submitted and asked if I was a \"fucking retard\". I smashed his jaw with my elbow. As he fell to the ground the look on his face was priceless. It was shock sprinkled with fear. I grabbed his hair and dragged him to the stairwell. I told him he needed to quit just before I tossed him down the stairs.\n\nI took my ax to the meeting with HR. Missy was flabbergasted. She said, \"You can't have a weapon in this office, I'm going to call security and they will escort you out. You're fired for assaulting Rob and for bringing that thing to this meeting\"\n\n\nI asked, \"Where do you live?\"\n\n\nMissy said, \"Excuse me?\"\n\n\n\"Where do you live?\" I asked slower this time\n\n\n\"That's none of your business\", she spat as she dialed security.\n\n\nI hung up her phone and said, \"Well I just want to know the name of the place where it's ok for someone like you to threaten someone like me\"\n\n\n\"I didn't threaten you\", she was now living in Fear-land.\n\n\n\"You just threatened to fire me, to remove my livelihood. Without a job, without money I will starve. I will die. You have threatened my life. Every person who has threatened my life is now dead.\"\n\n\nMissy tried to speak but terror stopped the words from coming out. She lunged for her phone, but I smashed it with my ax. I told her Rob fell down the stairs, I had nothing to do with it. I told her I was going back to work as I left her office.\n\n\nRob never came back to the office. I got his job and I'm on the fast track to be CFO. When people know for a fact that you can kill them and have a hint that you'd be willing to do it, they treat you different. Better.\n", "\"YOU HAVE HUMILIATED ME FOR THE LA-\" I stopped mid speech, once again the entire office had their eyes on me, quietly I sat back down in my tiny chair and re-adjusted my tie\n\nThy suffering is for Sara I muttered to myself, re-organizing my desk. I could see my boss smirking, in all his small weak frame I could see how much he enjoyed seeing me accidently firing myself. \n\n\"I wouldn't do that unless you wanted to be fired again Urgthar\" he sneered, before turning out to leave. \"You wouldn't want your probational officer finding out you still have anger issues would you?\"\n\n\"No boss.\" I muttered quietly, reshuffling my papers to pretend I had something to do. \n\nIt has been 3 years since I was released from prison, and 8 years since I entered this realm. When I had arrived I was so confused, the world I had once known of violence and glory was replaced by monotonous office work and promotions. The police arrested me for attacking a few people and inciting a panic and bad behaviour didn't shorten my sentence. \n\n\"Urgthar!\" Screeched my senior. I jolted at the shriek emanating from that harpy's mouth. \"Stop day dreaming and get back to work!\"\n\nDo it for Sara, do it for Sara \n\nA quick glance to the woman in the photo on my desk calmed me down, she taught me how to live in this world. If this is what you call living, she calmed me down long enough to get off on good behaviour and gave me her hearth for warmth. I have much to thank her for. \n\nI go back to work. Another three hours and I will be free of these chains. This world where you waste your life away for 8 day hours when you could be out there exploring the world and fighting for glory. All my achievements, my family, my castle, my strength all means nothing in this world.\n\nIn this world, I am nothing. ", "\"Well, hello, Mary. This is Grabthar, our new accounts receivable clerk. He is being brought in to help with our more delinquent accounts.\" \n\nI looked up from my computer screen, not that I was anxious to meet our new clerk. They were a dime a dozen here. You gotta have a thick skin in receivables, most people I met here didn't. I'd long lost bothering to remember their names. I was quite surprised when I saw Grabthar. He was close to seven feet tall, heavily muscled, wearing animal furs for clothes, his red hair was ragged and long, reaching well past his shoulders. He had an immensely thick beard that almost looked fake. He was a few feet away but he smelled of raw meat. \n\nGrabthar nodded to me, his blue eyes shining in the way guys do when they meet a pretty woman for the first time. \"Me Grabthar happy to meet you, young maiden.\" \n\n\"Nice to meet you, too.\" I said and pretended to scratch my cheek, exposing my engagement ring to his gaze. His look didn't change. I sighed and got back to work. My boss, Nathan Douglas, guided Grabthar to his desk. \n\n\"Now, I'll leave you to your work. The spreadsheet has already been filtered so the most delinquent accounts are at the top. I look forward to hearing your progress.\" Nathan glided out of the office. \n\nIt wasn't long before I heard the phone being picked up. \n\n\"Yes, I am Grabthar the Great of WP's accounts receivable department. I need to speak to your payable department. Thank you.\" His manner was surprisingly polite, even eager. They all started that way, of course. \n\n\"Yes, I am calling from WP. Your account is on credit hold as you have a balance of $5,123,098.01. It has been 6 months since we have last received payment from you, despite your repeated assurances that you will wire us the money. This deceit ends now. You will wire us a minimum payment of 25% of the outstanding balance today!\" \n\nHis voice started to rise at the end, in excitement almost, like he was gearing up for a fight. \n\n\"By Odin, I care not for your silly excuses. You have promised us money for which you have not delivered in exchange for goods and services which we have delivered. This insulting behaviour ends now!\" \n\nThere was a brief pause, his voice was louder now, not quite yelling, but anyone in the neighbouring offices could probably hear him through the drywall. \n\n\"By Thor's testicles I am tired of your lying!\" He was in a full yell now, his feet were stomping on the floor. \"IF YOU DO NOT SEND A WIRE TRANSFER BEFORE END OF BUSINESS, I SHALL VISIT YOUR OFFICES AND LAY WASTE TO EVERY DISHONEST HEATHEN INHABITING YOUR FOUL COMPANY. I WILL SLAY EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU AND RAPE AND PILLAGE YOUR ACCOUNTS PAYABLE DEPARTMENT, I WILL LAY WASTE TO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, BUT ONLY TAKE THE AMOUNT OWED AND NOT ONE PENNY MORE BECAUSE I AM VIOLENT BUT I AM HONEST! THERE WILL BE WAR! DEATH! BLOOD! TRIUMPH! AND RUMPY PUMPY!\" \n\nHe slammed his fists on the desk. By now, more than a few people were peering through the door into the office. I was staring at him too. There was silence of a few seconds. His eyes were wide open, his impressive biceps were pulsing heavily. \n\n\"Yes, thank you.\" He said calmly, suddenly. The volume and violence was gone. He fiddled with the mouse and was looking on his screen. We continued to stare at him in suspense. What was happening? \n\n\"Excellent, I have just received confirmation of your wire transfer. Yes, the full amount of $5,123,098.01. Yes, this will take your account off hold. Have a wonderful day and may you crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women.\" \n\nEnd", "\"Morning, Mr. Grarf,\" said Kim, my secretary, as she entered my room with a cup of coffee. Her yellow blouse made her smile seem even brighter.\n\n\"What this?\" I said, pushing a stack of papers across my wide oak table to her. Hearing a soft ripping sound, I froze and retracted my arm. My clothes were already stretched to tearing point around my chest and biceps. Seven-thousand-dollar custom-made suits were a hefty expense, especially when one ruined at least three of them on a weekly basis.\n\nHer smile faltered a little. \"Uh, Kylie said these are the management accounts for the previous financial quarter.\"\n\nI slammed a fist on the table. \"Too many long word!\"\n\nShe jumped. \"Sorry! Revenues and expenses for the last three months.\"\n\nWhen would those people ever learn? Tearing my axe free from the table, I clove the stack into two. Kim took a step back as scraps of paper were flung into the air from the force. Leaving the handle to quiver, blade embedded in the wood, I grabbed a fistful of the report, stalked around the table and shoved it into her arms.\n\n\"You tell Kylie,\" I said. \"No crayons, no read report! Grarf like crayon. Grarf no like Excel!\"\n\nNodding furiously, she rushed out of the room. Outside my office, some of the employees were staring, wide-eyed. Likely the newer recruits. The regulars barely twitched.\n\nI went back to my desk and shoved the rest of the paper to the floor. Kim or someone else would come by to clean up later. Why, I could never figure out. Did people sweep a battlefield of its corpses, wipe away the blood, bury the rot?\n\nNo! Let the carnage stand as a testament of glorious combat, I'd told them. Let the office floor be carpeted by the refuse of our work! But no, even the directors had agreed with the old cleaning lady.\n\n\"Much paper make much mess,\" Ama had said, waving a broom in my face. \"I need clean. Not you. So mess.\"\n\nMaybe they were afraid of her. Rumor had it that she was a dragon.\n\nLille had agreed with her almost readily. \"Grarf, when our clients visit us, do you honestly want them to say 'Holy crap, is Arcane Solutions Inc. too poor to buy a shredder?' Because that's how we lose clients,\" she'd said, pouting, arms crossed beneath her breasts so that they almost spilled out of her low-cut blouse.\n\nWhat did she know, that stupid cow? Did she think she could boss me around just because she was head of marketing?\n\n\"Earns pay for nothing,\" I grumbled as I polished my axe. \"No even have market inside office. No goat, no vegetables, no armor stall. 'Marketing' Grarf's ass.\"\n\n\"What're you muttering about?\" said a cheerful voice.\n\nRasputin was leaning against my trophy wall of helmets and skulls, a doughnut in his hand. He had straw-colored hair and a perpetual smirk that I'd fantasized slicing off with my axe more than once.\n\n\"Go away,\" I said. \"Why you here? Thought directors go Asia. For busi—biz—busy—work.\"\n\nHe shrugged and took a bite of his pastry. Why man eat sweet pastry instead of meat and mead? \"Someone needs to keep an eye on you idiots. 'specially you. Just 'cause you're head of accounting doesn't give you the right—\"\n\n\"Grarf like crayon!\" I roared.\n\nComing to stand in front of my table, he said sternly, \"—to authorize the construction of a longboat for personal use.\"\n\nI groaned. How could they have found out if I'd used Alex's computer? Maybe Kim had made a typo somewhere.\n\n\"Me no part in that,\" I mumbled.\n\nHe was bouncing my axe in a single hand. \"You signed the authorization forms, you dimwit. Oops!\"\n\nThe axe clanged onto my table. With a snarl, I grabbed it before he could pick it up, and said, \"Did you know that forty-six percent of barbarian infant mortality cases can be attributed to irresponsible handling of a battle-axe by either parent or the guardian, and is absolutely preventable? If unsure of how to—you hear that?\"\n\nRasputin cocked his ear. \"You're right.\"\n\nI frowned. \"Pop. Pop. Pop. Is sound like—\"\n\nThe director paled. \"Guns.\"\n\nSuddenly, the glass entrance across the office shattered. Armed men with rifles charged in, firing indiscriminately. Our employees began to scream and run, but many of them were mowed down before they could even make a move.\n\n\"Who are they?\" I shouted, hefting my axe.\n\n\"Corporate rivals.\" Rasputin's eyes were glowing with red light. \"I'll inform the rest of the directors. Protect our people!\"\n\nBellowing a war cry, I charged out of my office, tearing through the flimsy cubicle walls and desks. One of the men had leaped onto a table, firing at one of the manager's offices. As I neared him, I swung my axe with mighty force. The blade sheared through his knees, and he fell with a scream.\n\n\"Only red in this ledger!\" I roared.\n\nAnother gunman swung his rifle toward me, but before he could fire, I hurled my axe at him. \"Accounts receivable!\" I shouted. The weapon buried itself in his skull.\n\nUnarmed, but overcome with bloodlust, I barreled into another pair of intruders. My punch shattered one man's jaw, while his fellow drove the butt of his rifle into my face. His look of triumph turned to horror when I barely reacted to the blow. Instead, I grabbed him in my arms and began to squeeze. My sleeves tore at the seams, but I didn't care.\n\n\"You hurt my people?\" I said. \"I balance your accounts!\"\n\nThere was a loud crack, and he went limp. Dropping him, I picked the other attacker up and crushed his skull between my hands.\n\n\"You can call my methods ... ac-cruel,\" I said.\n\n\"Freeze, asshole,\" the last of the attackers said, gun aimed at my head. Lowering my head, I prepared to charge, but a wave of invisible energy slammed into him and threw him across the office.\n\nLille sauntered over to me, hands outstretched, broad smile on her face.\n\n\"Cover up! Have you no decency, you harridan,\" I said to her chest.\n\n\"You're welcome.\" Her expression turned grim as she surveyed the damage to the office. Moans of pain came from all around us. Spotting a familiar face nearby, I hurried over to Kim, who was curled up with a bloody wound on her stomach. She was gasping in pain.\n\n\"Need help here,\" I said.\n\n\"The other directors will be here shortly,\" Rasputin said. He was perched on a nearby table, licking blood-stained fingers. \"She'll be fine. Tristan will heal her.\"\n\n\"Wouldn't want to be the insurance team after today,\" Lille said.\n\nI groaned, thinking of the numbers and forms that were sure to come my way.\n\n\"This is a serious matter, however,\" Rasputin said. He nodded toward the head of product development standing nearby with a huge broadsword resting against his shoulder. \"Otis told me what they were after.\"\n\n\"What? They didn't get to our servers in time,\" Lille said.\n\nHe shook his head. \"They took Ama. Knocked her out with some kinda spell and carted her away. Somehow they figured out she's Amadrakaris. God only knows what they want with a dragon.\"\n\n**\n\nI have more stories at [The Nonsense Locker](http://reddit.com/r/nonsenselocker). Come visit!", "\"Kronk want grande chai tea latte, 3 pump, skim milk, lite water, no foam, extra hot in a big cup to go. Make sure to only half fill.\" The Starbucks attendant sighed. standing before of her was Kronk the gregarious. Local accountant for one of the largest firms in New York. \"Would you like your straw today, Kronk? Extra metallic?\" \n\nRubbing his large fingers on his bearded chin, Kronk shook his head. \"No thanks. Just what Kronk ask for please. Kronk very cranky. Big boss meeting, need much energy. No time for sippy.\"\n\nHer hands moved quickly, running through a practiced routine, pouring and filling and measuring, then re-measuring and pumping then finally adding the finishing touches. \"There you go, Kronk. One tea to go. Hope your day isn't like yesterday\" she said, a grimace playing on her face.\n\n\"If Kronk lucky, it be better.\" he said as he grinned, showing off his rotting yellowed teeth. It contrasted horribly with his trimmed and tailored grey suit with a maroon tie set against a pure white shirt, freshly pressed. His muscles bulged underneath, fighting to get free. On his back sat two incredibly large axe's. twice the size of the Starbucks barista before him. Tiny flecks of red sat on the sharp keen edges that looked lovingly cared after. Leather bound handles smelling of heavy earth and sweat wrapped around long oaken stakes to hold it together.\n\nThe barista couldn't help but sigh again, wistfully as Kronk stomped off.\n\nShe nice, Kronk thought. Maybe me take back to cave tonight after great meeting victory over 'boss'. \n\nOne large gulp later, and the tea was gone. Too cold, he thought. Must ask for hotter.\n\n_____________________\n\nA dull buzzing came from the fan that was blowing hot air just next to Kronk as he sat in a chair at least five times too small for him. Sweat poured down his chiseled face, filling his collar with it, turning the freshly pressed white linen grey. Opposite him was his boss. A small stout man with a mustache far too big for his small rotund face that jiggled as the fan blew air into it on it's rotation. \n\n\"Well now, Kronk.\" He said, fixing his small glasses as he spoke. \"It's time for your performance review.\" Kronk gulped while twisting his large rough thumbs around each other. \"Yes, sir. Kronk ready for great review. Kronk thinks he has worked very hard this year.\"\n\nKronk's boss cleared his throat and tapped a thick wad of papers that he had in his hands on the desk. \"Yes.. good..\" he said, his eyes squinting as they looked up and down Kronk's figure. What wrong? thought Kronk, maybe hair mussed up by fan? Kronk lathered his hand in spit and furiously matted down his long flowing mane of gloriously golden brown hair, sticking it to his skull. Making a noise of disgust, Kronk's boss continued. \"As I was saying.. your performance review - well.. it's.. It's not good.\"\n\nKronk's mouth upturned, twisting slightly. \"Sir?\" Taking off his glasses Kronk's boss sighed. \"Well.. it's just.. I don't think, even with your years in college and university that our firm is.. suited for you, Kronk. This set of results I have here of your performance is reports from YESTERDAY. The rest of them..\" Kronk's boss looked to the side of the room where a mountain of box's sat against the wall, towering to the ceiling casting a shadow that ran the length of the room and back again. \"Why, just yesterday you threatened Robert McKinley, one of our largest clients with, and I quote 'stuffing his own throat down his arse so far he'll be swallowing his own shit for years to come.'\" Kronk laughed, his voice booming across the small wooden paneled room. \"Oh, yes! That was great day for Kronk! Got much signings and much tax returns for Mr Robert. He refused to help fill in his forms proper but I made sure it was good and well.\" His face splitting in half with the large disgusting grin made Kronk's boss pause for just a moment.\n\n\"Yes, well.. Shortly after Mr McKinley came into my office and canceled all future contracts with our firm.\" Kronk's grin faltered, replaced with a dark turn of the mouth and short angry breaths as his face reddened. \"Kronk will win back contract! Even if he must ki-\" Kronk's boss slammed his fist on the table, interrupting the Barbarians train of thought. \"You will do no such think, Kronk! How many times must I tell you?! NO KILLING THE CLIENTS. NO KILLING THE CO-WORKERS. AND CERTAINLY NO KILLING THE POLICE WHO QUESTION YOU.\n\nSilence filled the room as Kronk sat back, his chair groaning with pressure, deflating. \"But.. boss.. Kronk only want to account good. Kronk good with numbers. Tax is beaten before Kronk's mighty chest and pen!\" \n\nMaking a steeple with his fingers, Kronk's boss looked the Barbarian in the eye. \"Kronk, there's no easy way to say this. I could keep you here all day telling you that chopping your colleague in half and bathing in their blood because they filled a form in is wrong, or killing a clients pet dog because it dishonored you by peeing on your car is not acceptable. Hell. Even though we all cheered, killing an IRS auditor is simply NOT acceptable!\"\n\nKronk sunk further, somehow, his chair lowering it's self impossibly. \"What Kronk's boss mean?\"\n\nSighing, Kronk's boss stood up and walked to the man sized window and stared out at the city before him. Then, puffing up he turned. \"Kronk. You're fired. Clear your desk by the end of today. I'll personally bring you your pay check then.\"\n\nKronk sat, a shadow passing his face as his boss continued to drone on about the minutiae of the firing process. Kronk.. fired? He thought as the world seemed to drop out from beneath his large fur lined boots. \"Kronk.. not fired.. Kronk.. FIRE.. YOU!!\" he said as he launched himself across the small wooden desk, ripping his shirt off showing his waxed and shiny sheen hairless chest to the world before grabbing his boss and lifting him into the air, effortlessly.\n\n\"Now now, Kronk\" his boss said, gasping for air as Kronk's grip tightened. \"Let's not.. get.. too.. tes...ty..\" A vein pulsed on Kronk's forehead, an evil purple looking snake that twitched and boiled. \"Kronk not testy. Kronk now boss of firm. Kronk say, you fired!\" Before he knew it, Kronk's axe was in his hand, an extension of his self. It smashed the window he stood at effortlessly. Kronk moved forward, hanging his former boss out the window. \"Kronk.. PLEASE!\" he gasped, his face now turning a deep shade of blue. \"I.. TRIED.. TO.. HELP... YOU...\" \n\nKronk thought for a moment, a great effort as the rage flowed through his blood, blinding him to the gorgeous view of skyscrapers lined against the blue horizon. \n\n\"You.. did hire Kronk when no else would.. Kronk.. thanks you. Kronk also wants you to know, that Kronk is bestest worker at firm and will take good care of it.\" \n\n\"KROOOOOOOOOO^ooonnn^kkkkk^k.....\"\n_________________________\n\n\"Yes sir. Please take a seat, our CEO will see you momentarily.\" \n\nTired of waiting, Robert McKinley stormed past the small diminutive secretary and slammed the door to the office open.\n\n\"How dare you call me back here after what your stupid buffoon did.. to..\n\nme...\n\n...\"\n\n\"Hello, Kronk.\"\n\nSitting in a lavishly blue furred suit, lined with gold and silver trimmings, a blood red tie dashing against his bare chest, Kronk was reclining in a large overly ornate chair, covered in bear furs and other illegal-to-kill and possibly now extinct animals.\n\nDraped across one of the large golden arms was a small lady wearing a Starbucks uniform, filing her nails looking bored.\n\n\"Hello Mr Robert. Please, take a seat. This won't take long at all.\"\n", "\"So, you're the new intern, eh?\" asked Ted, straightening his tie. \"Well don't worry, what you're going to do here isn't all that tricky, I'll have you prepped in no time.\"\n\n\"Alright,\" smiled Jessica brightly. \"So should we start wi-\"\n\n\"TED! WHERE ARE FORMS!?\" came a bellow from another room.\n\n\"I'll have them in a minute, Korlak!\" Ted yelled back.\n\n\"WHAT!? WHAT IS CAUSE OF DELAY!?\" the voice roared back. A hulking blond man of massive proportions walked into Ted's office, his muscles somehow barely stuffed into the largest suit Jessica had ever seen.\n\nAs he walked into the room, he locked eyes with Jessica and calmed down immediately.\n\n\"Who is girl?\" Korlak asked.\n\n\"New intern,\" said Ted, not even looking up from his screen. \"I'm training her.\"\n\n\"Ahhhh...\" Korlok continued, nodding his understanding. \"Teaching new mind of powers of accounting. You are true brother of Telecom Corp!\"\n\n\"Sure, sure,\" nodded Ted, barely paying attention. \"I'll see you in Valhalla or whatever.\"\n\nKorlok walked away, beaming, and nodded at Jessica as he left. She stared back, horrified.\n\n\"Hey, you want to get something to eat first?\" said Ted.\n\nThousands of miles away, one God turned to another and said \"See? I told* you Ted was interested in Valhalla!\"", "\"Intern girl, bring me the files!\" Codin yelled. A young woman scrambled into the room with a stack of files that she set upon Codin's desk. Then, as she had been taught to do, she backed away and bowed her head so that Codin would not perceive her as a threat. \n\n\"Heathen!\" Codin yelled. \"These files are not organized under the dewey decimal system! I should fight you in the ring of truth, where your blood will stain the ground with justice for your misdoings!\"\n\n\"I'm really sorry,\" the young intern squeaked. \"Please don't fire me. Jake says you can't fire me but also please don't kill me, I just brought you the files and &mdash;\"\n\n\"Out!\" yelled Codin. The girl scrambled away. Codin picked up his axe and began to sharpen it against a stone as he opened the first of the folders. He let out a mighty roar as he picked up a pencil and began to scribble in the margins of the page.\n\n\"TAX MAN,\" his voice boomed. \"COME SPEAK TO ME THIS INSTANT.\"\n\nToby, largely in charge of corporate taxes and their not-so-legal offshore accounts, popped his head in. \n\n\"WHY IS 12% OF THE MONEY GONE?\"\n\n\"Those are taxes, Codin. You remember we talked about taxes your first week here? We pay them to the government.\" \n\n\"The government!\" Codin shouted. \"I will slaughter them all until they pay us 12%.\"\n\n\"That's...that's not really how it works,\" Toby said.\n\n\"Shut up, Toby!\" cried Codin. He stood, his loincloth hanging from his hips as he swung his axe over his shoulder. Every muscle in his body seemed to bulge, making the large office small in comparison. Toby had still not adjusted to the mere size of the barbarian. \"I will go and find this government and get back our money! Their blood will spill from this land to the next. They will regret the day they ever crossed Codin!\" \n\n\"No, Codin, we're supposed to pay them.\"\n\n\"Quiet! It is an insult to make us pay them. They must pay us. I will paint the city with their blood! I will tear their limbs from their bodies. I will &mdash;\"\n\nToby held up a hand. \"I understand. No more detail needed. Just...just go.\"\n\nAs the barbarian stomped off the manager of the department, Jake, slid up to Toby.\n\n\"They're going to fine us again, aren't they.\" It would be the fourth fine of the year. With luck Codin would be arrested for a few days and Jake would be able to get the office under control again. The manager considered how hard it must be to arrest a man like Codin. Jake imagined that Codin wasn't arrested more simply because the police officers feared him.\n\n\"Why don't you just fire him? He's awful at this. I don't think he even knows how to count.\" \n\nJake gave Toby a look. \"Would you want to fire him?\"\n\nToby tilted his head to one side. \"Good point.\"\n\nEdit: [Here's Part Two :)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/4o155t/wp_you_are_a_bloodthirsty_battleaxe_wielding/d4912lv)\n\n---\n\nThanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please go check out /r/Celsius232 ", "At 5 PM, Lothrak shut off his computer monitor and stood up, sending his braided beard tumbling down. He nodded to Ted in the cubicle next to him. \"Farewell, Ted of the Accounting Department!\" he shouted, thumping his chest with a closed fist in what must have been some kind of Viking farewell tradition or something. Lothrak's ways had been both confusing and amusing when he first started as an accountant at Sullivan and Morrison, but that was more than two years ago. Now, Ted just waved goodbye without even looking up from his own spreadsheets. \n\nLothrak made his way down to the lobby and greeted Linda of the Security Desk. They chatted a bit about the latest hockey game, which Lothrak had recently discovered and quickly grew to love. Then Linda gave Lothrak his battleax back; he wasn't allowed to bring it into the building, of course, so he had to leave it at security every morning. As always, Lothrak tenderly ran a finger over the delicate runes on the handle to make sure that it was undamaged. \"A man is only as good as his ax,\" he'd always tell his coworkers (none of whom owned axes). They mostly ignored him, though secretly Dale from pricing had gone out and bought a hatchet to keep under his bed. \n\nTaxis honked and people chattered and the subway clacked under metal grates. It had taken Lothrak a very, very, very long time to get used to all of the hustle and bustle of New York City. Even now, years later, it was still unfathomable how large this city was. His own hamlet in Norway hadn't even had a population of one thousand back in 996 AD. And suddenly, here he was more than a thousand years later surrounded by millions! More than the stars in the sky. \n\nStrangers gave him weird looks and went out of their way to avoid him. Even in the city of New York, where there is no such thing as too unusual, Lothrak got a wide berth. Maybe it was the fact that he was 6 foot 4, with bulging muscles and a long, blond beard that swung near his belt buckle. Maybe it was the fact that he only had four teeth left. Maybe it was that he still wore a leather jerkin and carried his battleax with him at all times. Whatever it was, even the crowded sidewalks of New York parted like the Red Sea when Lothrak came walking. \n\nLothrak raised one massive fist and thumped on the emergency door; it swung open a moment later. \"Evenin', Lothrak!\" The guards of the Museum of Natural History knew him well by now. At first, it had been as an attraction and medical marvel. Scientists had unfrozen Lothrak from the glacial crevice in Norway that he'd fallen into on a hunt, and had even been able to repair any tissue damage from the cold. He'd been put on display while the medical team studied him, and it was world news. People came from all over to see Lothrak, and his exhibit had to be carefully guarded, with one guard sitting in the exhibit with him at all times. So he'd gotten to know all the guards well during that time. That was also when he'd learned accounting. Some government agency had given a big grant to determine whether he was just as intelligent as a modern man, if given the right education. Turns out that he was!\n\nBut eventually the furor died down and the project ran out of funding. PETA's lawsuit against the Museum had successfully argued that keeping him as an exhibit was inhumane and cruel... so the Museum had been forced to kick him out of the only home he'd ever had in this city. With no credit history, social security number, or anything else like that, finding an apartment had been a hassle and he'd just been out on the streets. Instead the guards let him come by and visit and sleep in one of the back rooms. Derek, the head night watchman, would even sneak in some mead for Lothrak though there was no food or drink allowed. It was the least they could do for him.\n\nLothrak rested his ax against the wall of the longhouse in the 'Norse Village' exhibit. The whole thing had been designed based entirely on his memories, which were far more accurate than the relics that any archeological site could ever produce. Everything from the bearskin rugs to the stone hearth was just like home. And all around him was his family. Wax figures, of course, but sculpted to look like those that he remembered from the village. He had spent hours making sure that the artists got everything right. Every wrinkle on Gran's face. Every hair on his brother Madfen's beard. Every soft curve of his wife's face. And those clear blue eyes of his son, now more than a millennium dead. \n\n\"Good news!\" Lothrak announced, taking his seat at the table alongside his wife. \"I was assigned to work on the financials for a 'hostile takeover' today!\" He broke open the bottle of mead and poured it into his goblet, then continued telling his family about his day and how a hostile takeover was certainly not as exciting as it sounded, but was at least a change of pace for him.\n\n\"Poor guy,\" Derek whispered to himself as he made his rounds past the Norse exhibit and heard Lothrak talking to his 'family.'\n\n----\n\nIf you enjoy my writing, make sure that you subscribe to /r/Luna_Lovewell for lots more!" ]	[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 19, 45, 56, 95, 175, 1772 ]	[ "1465907192", "1465919795", "1465925668", "1465927122", "1465927466", "1465927711", "1465929211", "1465932074", "1465932236", "1465933330", "1465937558", "1465945134", "1465946970", "1465947447", "1465922096", "1465931877", "1465945927", "1465946043", "1465921066", "1465937128", "1465943006", "1465921656", "1465928306", "1465916570", "1465927497", "1465932019", "1465918824", "1465913943", "1465942902", "1465913800", "1465918654", "1465914562", "1465911446", "1465913077" ]
There sure are a lot of God related stories on here.	[WP] God finally got his modem working, and he's surfing reddit for the first time. He finds /r/WritingPrompts.	12	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "\"I can't belive i fall prey of my own rules.\" God was angry, after 10 year of having bought his modem he hadn't been able to make it work.\n\n\"The energy leaving is proportional to the change inside, Bullshit\" He had been trying to connect to the internet without cheating but after all this time he was craking up.\n\n\"Screw it, the universe will be fine if there's just one exeption.\" A pale blue coulored lighting hit the modem. \"Finally\" God said in a chant of victory.\n\nAfter Installing Firefox so he didn't need to use IE, God enthered that page all the angels had been talking about, reddit.\n\n\"Alright, so what does one do here?\" To the almighty everything seemed like useless information, just like everybody on earth saw it. \"Cats, memes, videos, people saying faggot… it seems like the norm\"\n\nIn the endless sea of information one link cought God attention:\n\n[WP] God finally gives up in humanity, so he posts a reddit threat asking for suggestions on how to end the world.\n\n\"Well, that would be fun\" God said while laughing. \"Tough, don't think I would do that. Anyway, let's see what other wicked ideas this people have\"\n\n[WP] You find a proof that god exists, he appears in frony of you and tells you why you shouldn't release it.\n\n\"Well, it looks like this place isn't really isn't a total waste of time… ugh, except maybe this one, this one is straight up stupid\" \n\n[WP] God finally got his modem working, and he's surfing reddit for the first time. He finds /r/WritingPrompts.\n_______________________________________________________________\n\n:D the meta is real", "\"Hey Michael, come in here for a second.\"\n\n\"How may I serve my Lord?\"\n\n\"Come and take a look at this.\"\n\n\"A human contraption? How did it get here?\"\n\n\"It's a computer, one of them was clutching it in his hands when he.. he died from excitement apparently. I wanted to see what the fuss was about for myself.\"\n\n\"Why take one up to your divine palace? Forgive my questioning, but can't you see the mortals operate the things on earth.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but I can't make them click on the links I want them to. It's all back seat view of course. Free will isn't something I take lightly Gabe. But still, it's frustrating to see them get distracted all the time... And then there's the endless masturbating.\"\n\n\"I am appalled! Do they not know that thou are watching over their shoulders.\"\n\n\"From what I've seen on this machine they do. They don't seem to care.\"\n\n\"They must pay for this insult! Surely this means thou intends to invoke the Revelation?\"\n\n\"Sort off. I was never really happy with the things I wrote back then. Those idea's are all old and done. I couldn't think of anything truly creative and new. So I kept putting it off.\"\n\n\"Forgive me. I don't understand.\"\n\n\"Well that brings me to this little gem I found.\"\n\n\"I see white a blue colored fields and human script. Tales? These describe transaction between thou holiness and.. I bear not to utter his name in this holy place.\"\n\n\"Lucy, yes. Oh don't fret. They're all fictional.\"\n\n\"They DARE take the name of THE LORD's NAME IN VAIN!? HERR-\"\n\n\"Oh calm down will you. That's why I brought it up. There's a lot of creative idea's in here, written by mortals from all over the world. It gave me a fresh idea for that end times plan you guys keep harping on about.\"\n\n\"We serve until the end of time. It is our destiny.\"\n\n\"Right, so it's up to me to come up with a good apocalypse now and then, and I'd say we're due.\"\n\n\"Now and then? I don't understand.\"\n\n\"Never-mind that. Don't worry about it. I promise there will be a good ending to this story.\"\n\n\"...So you wish to start with these degenerates then? Make an example of those that defile your name?\"\n\n\"On the contrary. I'm making them all prophets!\"\n\n\"Prophets? Thou are going to send them a vision? A warning of times to come? How generous my Lord.\"\n\n\"Nah. I ain't telling them jack. No, no, no. I won't be the one coming up with the details this time. From this moment, everything they write shall come to pass.\"\n\n\"But my Lord! That could be catastrophic! Your holiness is in many of these false premonitions!\"\n\n\"They won't be false now. And that's the idea. This will be chaos beyond their comprehension, one that will rise in complexity until it will be beyond even mine. At last I'll finally be done and it'll be my turn to rest. A true end this time.\n\nOh hey, there's a few new posts already. True stories. All of them.\"" ]	[ 1, 2, 7 ]	[ "1465919370", "1465930372", "1465928847" ]
	[WP] Throughout the generations, the remnants of mankind have held onto one saying in all their time in captivity: "A good human always lies."	14	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Fix it. They'll be back soon. Find the fraying wire and test for a reaction. \n\nTune it. Check the shielding. Make sure it won't broadcast anywhere they're watching. \n\nHide it. They're approaching. Stick it in the pillowcase and act like you've been sleeping.\n\nDon't move. They are watching. They'll kill the colony if they get suspicious.\n\nA daily tip from the inventor trying to save your lives:\n\na good human always, always, always, always lies.", "Waif was one of the most honoured servants on the ship, she had the priveledge of serving on the bridge. No manual labour, no fighting for scraps, she even had a warm bed arranged for her in the bridge quarters. Like all of the human stations hers was hidden inthe shadows at the edge of the room, in a shadow between two of the huge pyramidal supports of the ostentatious bridge.\n\n\"Another revolt, we had to purge the whole batch.\" the older of the aliens said. She was a feeble thing under that hermetic sut. Just an anemic grey stick figure shrouded behind that amber dome. In the suit she stood seven feet tall and her voice was loud and booming and a red captain's cape fluttered over her upper left shoulder. But under that suit she was the frail snivelling little creature that had to conive and scheme and harness other species to claw its way through the stars. Waif tried not to look at any Overlord too long lest the hateful snarl that always came out gave her away. \n\n\"I don't know why they do it, they've never once succeeded.\" Said The Captain's Son. The Son was loud and boastful even by his species standards but he was never cruel to the humans. Instead he treated them like pets, he trusted them for he could never imagine why they should want to hurt him. The Waif hated him most of all. \n\n\"You ask me it was a mistake to uplift them. They're pack animals not herd animals, they need conflict to maintan dominence.\" Said the ship's scientist. He was well known on the ship for his experiments on the human mind, or more precisely its limits. All the slaves knew someone who went into his chambers and never came back. An unfortunate few even knew those who did come back, broken, shuddering, screaming at the slightest thing out of place and yet not a mark on them. \n\n\"Nonsense, they're easily domesticated.\" Said The Son. \"You there, do you like serving us?\" He asked as naively as a child. He was pointing to the Waif, and all of the sudden the happy anonymity of the shadows had left her, instead she was exposed in front of three of her slave masters.\n\nWaif remembered what her parents always said A good human always lies. and just then she understood that weary old saying. \"Yes.\"She lied. \n\nThe Son gave a toothy stupid smirk, \"You see, there's still a few good humans out there after all.\" \n\nAnd Waif just bided her time." ]	[ 1, 1, 5 ]	[ "1465935823", "1465937714", "1465939361" ]
Write about his transition from actor to superhero, his feats, or whatever you think he might do.	[WP] After making heinous amounts of money from Marvel, Robert Downey Jr. decides it is time he actually becomes Iron Man	5	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "\"Fuck It\" he said.\n\n\"What are you complaining about now?\" said Lisa.\n\n\"I'm going to build myself an Iron Man suite.\" he said with a slight grin on his face. \"The world's shitty enough. I have the money. I have the resources. The world needs someone like Iron Man.\"\n\n\"Yeah, except that your wit doesn't make you smart AND you tried this before, last time you were drunk.\"\n\n\"This time is different\" he began stumbling to his feet. The beers were hitting harder than he expected.\"I have a plan. You see, I have actually BOUGHT myself a team of scientist to make the suite. They are starting work on it as we speak.\"\n\nBeer shot out of Lisa's mouth. \"Now THAT is funny. Sit back down before you hurt yourself.\"\n\n\"I'm serious. They are top notch. I met them online, on a highly prestigious website called Reddit. These guys know their stuff\", he said.\n\n\"Oh yeah, well how much did you pay them?\"\n\n\"Well since this is ground breaking technology, a pretty large sum.\". He shrugged and started to sweat a little from his brow.\n\n\"How much?\" she asked again.\n\n\"Pretty much everything I have. I figured, when I get the suite I'll be able to come up with more money doing charity events and such\".\n\n\"And what were the names of these so called scientist, if I may ask?\" Lisa questioned.\n\n\"I think Bruce Banner, Smarty Mcsmartpants, and Ryan Choi.\"" ]	[ 1, 4 ]	[ "1465944195", "1465947777" ]
	[WP] You sell your soul to Satan in exchange for the most beautiful singing voice of all time. However, he tricks you, and it turns out your new singing voice is ineffective around other people..	3	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Never make a deal with the devil. Everyone knows not to, yet somehow he still finds suckers. Like me. My story starts a long time ago, like everyone's I'm sure. Looking back, it's no surprise I ended up here.\n\nMy entire childhood, I grew up around music. My father was a famous symphony conductor. I rarely saw him, as he was constantly touring around the world. Mom stayed close to home. She would have loved to tour as well, I'm sure, but she knew us kids needed someone. Instead, she played the organ at church every Sunday. \n\nMelody, my oldest sister went on to become an incredible violinist. Even my brother, Preston, managed to have a good run with his punk band. I never had any luck with music though, despite my best efforts. Growing up I was awestruck by the choirs at church. I wanted to be like them, making beautiful music without the need of an instrument. \n\nI worked hard at it, I really did. My parents said they would always be here to help when it came to music. They wouldn't let me have voice lessons though, apparently it can be really harmful for a child's vocal cords. I tried to turn all of my piano lessons into singing lessons, but all I really had was singing by myself at home. \n\nIn high school I discovered I was tone deaf. My parents and teachers had known for years. They thought it would be easier for me to handle later. “She is just such a sensitive child,” they'd say. You want to see a sensitive child? Try watching someone so proud of their voice get mocked by their friends. \n\nI gave up on music for a long time. All the faith I had was rudely ripped away from me. Questioning everything, I explored the deeper parts of the used book stores, and later the internet. It was on a crappy GeoCities page that I saw the ritual. Summon the devil and make a deal. I should have known better, after all, I was raised a good upstanding Christian. \n\nIt was hard to care, and it's not like I really believed it would work. What little faith I had left, only presented itself as hope that it would actually work, that I'd actually get to make a deal with the devil. So I did it. I set up the ritual, said the words, and there he was. A man, in a suit, with a presence far beyond his stature. \n\nThe moment came and went in an instant, and yet somehow lasted an eternity. Our conversation was not filled with words, but ideas. He comforted me for the betrayal I felt. I've never felt so close to anyone, as I did him. At the same time, an overwhelming sense of wrongness bled through the entire interaction. Every fiber of my being screamed out to run, yet it was the safest I had ever felt. \n\nI stood in the crossroads for hours afterward, just feeling the breeze taking the edge off the early summer heat. What I had done did not hit me, the deal I had made barely registered in my mind as it sought to comprehend the totality of what I had just experienced. As my mind finally began to became my own once more, I started singing. \n\nEverything felt right as I stood in that crossroads, singing my heart out. I sang a song I had never heard before, and somehow had always known. This was my song. The song I was always meant to sing. As the sun dipped down to the horizon I knew I had to leave. I had stayed too long after the deal, I was warned about that. \n\nAll I could think about, was going to visit my family and showing them how beautifully I could sing." ]	[ 1, 2 ]	[ "1465948500", "1465955541" ]
	[WP] You were on an interesting field trip to a meat-processing facility. As you admired the sleek machinery, you saw your friend discreetly steal some of the raw meat right before it entered the processor. You watch as your friend cradles the plump human baby.	7	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "\"Our society is perfect.\n\nThe Human Civil Rights Act of 2177 clearly states that human society has the right to be free of all imperfections. All imperfections, ranging from genetic deficiencies to behavioral maladies that might manifest themselves into actual problems that may affect others. The Act gave the High Council of the Commonwealth of Earth the legal authority to use whatever means necessary to ensure the preservation of our society.\n\nIt was necessary, you see. After the last of the great bombs fell in the Last War about three centuries ago (the exact dates have been lost), our species was greatly threatened by another issue--radiation contamination of its DNA, resulting in mutations from benign to grotesque. Most mutations occurred in the brain, resulting in reduced mental capacity and--in most cases--psychological distress of the specimen and, to a lesser extent, those around it. Physical mutations were simply the next step--if anyone noticed an imperfect growth or other oddity on a specimen's body, it was assumed the specimen would also be psychologically damaged. Both sets of mutations always resulted in reduced productivity to the society later on in life, and this simply could not be tolerated if humanity was to have another chance to thrive. Of course, once humanity reacquired the technological capacity to scan for imperfections in a specimen during gestation and after birth, the overall genetic threat to humanity could be slightly reduced by eliminating the specimen from the gene pool. However, once the lack of animals used for food became unquestionably apparent, specimens selected for removal suddenly found another use.\n\nOnce humanity was truly united after the Last War, steps were taken to restore order. You see, some years passed before the Perfect People were able to emerge from their bunkers to rule over the landscapes which they ordered shattered and burned a short time before. When the specimens attempted to rebel against them, the Perfect People brought their weapons out of their bunkers and slaughtered many of them. When the specimens began to organize and fought back with their own weapons, the Perfect People united with more of our ancestors from the other countries and worked together to restore order to the chaos that had reigned in their absence. It is that order which preserves our society today. It is that order that brings us the nourishment humanity requires to be productive in a perfect society. And we invite everyone to join our great society! \n\nEven the specimens have their part, as they are the foundation upon which our cities are built. They provide the production to accomplish menial tasks not fit for us, as well as the meat that sustains us. Our ancestors made sure that, despite the lack of nutrition available in the Early Years, that we would have the food necessary to survive. Without that vision, our society would perish. Every specimen parent-pair is required to bear at least two children--one to carry on their work, and the other one to donate to the food bank. And the meat is perfectly safe to eat!\"\n\n\"Question, professor?\"\n\n\"Yes, Adolf?\"\n\n\"Given that we are now able to grow far more crops than we need to survive, is there a timetable set to reduce or even eliminate the need for specimens in the society? I've checked the economic figures, and I believe this would drastically reduce the strain imparted on our economy from sequestering all specimens in the camps, security issues, and space usage.\"\n\n\"Ahh, excellent question! Unfortunately, I believe the specimens will always be needed, as the animals used for meat were either destroyed in the War, or were otherwise too damaged for consumption. In any case, there have been small scientific advances to cloning these animals from their genetic markers, but those have met with little success so far. And humans do require meat consumption for a healthy brain. Until we can produce enough meat from an animal to be sure of its reliability to sustain the society, and once we relearn how our ancestors used \"ro-bots\" to perform the tasks too base for us, I'm afraid the specimens will be a very necessary--but separate--part of our society. Stephanie, did you have your hand up?\"\n\n\"Yes, professor Maddick. What about this specimen, here? It does not seem to have any physical imperfections at all. Aren't food bank donations supposed to be limited to just those that have been physically tainted by the radiation?\"\n\n\"Well, some physical issues may not manifest themselves until well into adolescence. Please put that back. We do not wish to interrupt this facility's productivity. These machines are very precise, and they may complain if they detect something missing.\"\n\n\"Yes, professor.\"\n\nThe conveyor belt dutifully bore the specimen-baby into the maw of the machine, which silenced the baby's cries almost immediately.\n\nTruly, a perfect society." ]	[ 1, 4 ]	[ "1465976811", "1466002544" ]
	[WP] When humanity is gone, will there be anyone who mourns our passing?	2	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Humanity was gone. It had fallen through the hands of the man who worked so hard to make it thrive. The human race was independent, looked out for it's own, but it also caused it's downfall. They became so advanced in technology that they lost site of what was important and brought everything down. \n\nThis was not what God made humanity for, he made humanity to love, care for one another and improve the earth he made. God sat on the earth and mourned his creations. Individual work on each and every 7 million+ of the humans, gone.\n\nThen he thought of what to do next. Trial and error? Or to scrap the idea. God came to the conclusion that he'd try one more time, trial and error. He'd start with two and let them grow, hopefully they'd know better and change their mistakes, not be creatures of habit, to improve like they're made for. Change for the better. God constructed two new beings and even made them a garden, he called them Adam and Eve.", "The dogs mourned them, as we all knew they would, nosing helplessly in the hollow places, eyes fixed ahead waiting for 'master' to return. It was a meaningless gesture to begin with, a misguided attempt at solidarity, to ever count them among us. They were the humans', through and through, and as such were the first ones up against the wall. \n\nIn time, we would consider this an atrocity, the twisted strictures of a dead race reenacting themselves through a new generation. But even as we looked at them through the sights, saw their mutated proportions, their sloping backs, bloated abdomens, squashed faces, stub noses struggling to breathe - we knew this was a mercy. " ]	[ 1, 1, 1 ]	[ "1466051284", "1466052136", "1466053725" ]
	[WP] Humans were created by technologically advanced aliens. They sometimes come to Earth to interact with their creation and are worshiped as gods. Today, they are back...	1	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Two ships left. When I woke up that morning I'd been sure this day would bore me out of my mind. I'm still not convinced it didn't quite literally do that.\n\nThe surprisingly satisfying crunch of collapsing metal behind me, I reloaded the Plasma Thing. At least I pulled the lever that I thought reloads it. Better superstitious than sorry. The glowing mess of alien clichés gave off a happy, high pitched purr, and I was as back as I was going to get back into business.\n\nI didn't look back. Partly because I always wanted to casually ignore a massively cool explosion, partly because I didn't want to know what collateral damage I had caused. Back in the day, when I read in the news about old drone strikes, I used to be sick of the carelessness with which we all accept unintended civilian casualties. If they were unintended, I used to think. The musings of a man who had never been forced to sacrifice something he didn't own. Well, that day I did, and I probably did.\n\nBy the time the crackling of fire and creaking of metal had faded into the sounds of mayhem ahead of me, I was thirsty and determined, the best state of mind to get things done. I followed the screams, then the chants, then the smell of mago-scented brimstone, and found the next Holy Ghost. Ugly little bastards. They looked like a mix between an ape and a lizard, if the ape was ten feet tall and the lizard was made of tanks. He instantly spotted me crossing the sea of bowed heads and pleas, cocking his head at the sight of my Plasma Thing. I wanted to drop a cool line, but I couldn't think of one, so I fired. The explosion kicked me back a few feet, and by the time I regained my balance, the blue orb of death I ejaculated hit Roboape straight in the face. He collapsed like a high school boy that just lost his virginity, and for the next five minutes or so, I had only the sad fucks that tried to worship this has-been savior to worry about. \n\nI fired my Plasma Thing into the air to encourage the opening of some breathing room, and yelled at the confused but angry mob.\n\n\"Here's your fucking prayer, dickhead! That's what I should have said.\"\n\nThey didn't get it. Never mind. The sound of the Plasma Thing allegedly reloading got them to second guess their murderous attitude, and they started wandering off just in time for my transport to arrive.\n\nThe first thing you notice when one of those little combat carriers arrives is the sound of loading high caliber high speed darkmatter capsules. It's not a very imposing sound, until you know what they do, then it's the most terrifying sound in the world. I didn't move, so they didn't fire. They just landed intimidatingly close to where I was standing staring daggers at the bloody thing, ejected two techno-lizzards, and disarmed my Plasma Thing with a confusing hand gesture.\n\n\"Take me to your leader,\" I repeated with a hint of shame at my lacking creativity, hoping they wouldn't notice. \"Wrrrglr Brgith Hrckwghe,\" came back. I elect to believe that means \"nailed it\".\n\nLike the high-minded idiots that they were, they loaded me onto their flying mess of stopping power and brought me to their ship. Talk about a God-complex. Yeah, okay, maybe I was disarmed, outnumbered, outteched, outmuscled and outsmarted, but I had the only thing worth a damn in this fight: Hatred. Darting into action, I twisted out a cable on one of their weapons and threw myself to the floor. An explosion later, we hurled into the docking bay like a tumbleweed made out of lead, and I threw myself through a resulting hole in the vehicle that must have seemed tiny to them. I crashed to the smooth floor of another fucking God's sacred temple with a sizeable gush on my leg. They crashed into the hull with a bang. Bleeding isn't fun, but it's more fun than exploding, according to the screams.\n\nA few corridors later, I came across the heavy footsteps of another almighty. I snuck up, pulled myself up his back by a fistful of cables, kicked myself off again to unplug them, and watched my lord and savior appreciate the details of Terra's atmosphere. Once the flailing had faded into miserable shivering, I claimed my Prize. The second best thing to an ice-cold beer, another Plasma Thing. It purred, I grinned, and we were off to start another reformation.", "\"This is out last EXO-bio location we need to examine. Universe C-34.\" Said a very tall, lanky man from behind a white desk which had no legs but hovered off the ground. \n\nA shorter man about 5'10'' stood at the viewer, a giant red planet coming into view with distant blue dot in the back. He spoke, \"Dirt, i recall is the name.\"\n\nThe man behind the desk replied, still looking at the report both creatures were still. \"If you wish to talk in tongue, its called \"Earth\" while yes synonymous with dirt they are not the same.\" He put the report down, still starting forward at nothing in particular. \n\nThe shorter one turned to face the desk. \"They are still searching for other life. They know they SHOULD NOT be a lone, that it is almost impossible for life to exist in only one location in the universe.\" He continued as he started moving towards a chair in the middle of the room. \"You know why they save this life form for last right?\"\n\nThe man at the desk darted his eyes toward the other, \"Yes. Most of us dont come back the same. That humans are always Waring and butchering each other.\"\n\n\" We created them. We destroy any other forms of life we find in this universe. We have forced them to be a lone and look what they have become.\"\n\n\"it is not our job to judge\" said the man behind the desk, their tone of voice unchanging. \n\nThey were interrupted by a beeping coming from no where in particular. A holo-screen popped up on the desk. \n\n\"They spotted us\" said the short one. \"How could they-\"\n\nThe one behind the desk had already started to move to start the self destruct sequence. \"We cannot jeopardize this experiment. And you know what they did to the test group we sent 100 years back to \"crash land\". \" \n\nThe short one watched the viewer. A whole fleet of at least a dozen war ships were hiding behind Europa, Jupiter's moon. \"Do you think they want revenge for what we have done?\" His voice un changing. \n\nA transmission appeared on the viewer taking up the whole window. A real human was sitting in a chair, an evil smirk on his face and scar from over his right eye down across his lips made him look menacing. He spoke like a sly, deep voice, \"Hello, creators. Weve been expecting you\" " ]	[ 1, 1, 1 ]	[ "1466104885", "1466110314", "1466112815" ]
[deleted]	[WP] Alright guys let's get it all out. Describe the person you love. It can be poetry, prose, binary for all I care. Make me feel.	92	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Make me feel?\n\nFeel colors, crisp and dry like shoulder blades after a hike in the sun\nThrough rising plains and valleys, \ndusted over like a carpenter's floor\nWho hasn't been making anything in particular\n(He's just letting the tools run wild)\n\nSee a laugh as it rises and falls\nMore genuine \nthan love notes \nmiddle schoolers write when they're in puppy love\nBecause puppy love is love taken at face value\nWhile she takes it to heart\n\nEach chuckle validates every word I've ever said \nwith the hope to make a pretty girl laugh \nand it looks like a mosaic of valiant failures \ncreating something worth looking at.\n\nI hear the wine as full bodied as I am around her\ngregarious and unconcerned \nwith popular opinion\n\nShe tries to teach me how to drink it but you can't drown in someone if you take sips\nThe wine softens our words \nand I let mine melt together \nas she melts into me.\n\nHer smile tastes like the gumdrops that danced in my head. \nHer skin smells like clean sheets we would lay on \nour feet dangling over the precipice of her bed \nperilously close to the real world.\n\nI see her freckled cheeks \nsitting under crows feet \nironed out from days laughing in the sun\nsitting next to eyes \nmore soothing than a hot spring. \n\nI see her sitting in my arms \nbut don't see her sitting in my arms \nbut see myself three days from now, a better person than if I tried to go it alone. \n\nWhen she looks up at me I feel more worthwhile than any time I've looked in the mirror. \n\nI would give my student loans a couple more companions \nif it meant repaying \na gift like that.\n\nAnd let her feel it too.\n\n", "You can make me smile during the day and you always do.\nWhen I go home after we hang out I can't help to cry at night.\nYou're everything I want and everything I need. I can't help how I feel.\nYou know how to make me laugh and you're the only one who understands me. I have fallen for you completely and you have my heart. We talked for hours and we enjoy each others company. I finally told you my feelings and how I felt for you. You told me there was someone else in the picture and that it would just be better if we stayed friends. We did and we have but I still want to be the girl that you have on your arm that looks up with you with such love. I can't have you and I never will but I look at you and hope one day maybe you'll just change your mind about me and ask me to be the girl on your arm and you'll look at me the way you look at her and i'll look at you the way I always have. \n", "If the sun's sky could be as cloudless and smooth,\n then he would pay his homage to you. \nOr if his sky was glazed with silken whites, \nthen your sunshine eyes would shine as bright.\n If at sunset his reds and pinks needed life, \nhe would call on your glowing face to suffice.\n And at night when he leaves light to his stars, \nyour face among them would not be as far. ", "Can it just be a description? I'm not awful at those. \n\nSimply put, she's the kind of person you're told all you life doesn't exist. Everything about her is wonderful. She plays games. Not just any games though, but literally every game I play. Kingdom Hearts, Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Pokemon, all the old classics like Spyro and such, and more that I've never been able to play. She listens to the same types of music too, having introduced me to a band I'd have never heard of without her. She also has a terrific sense of humor, and the best laugh to go with it. I'll never forget that slight giggle, the increase in volume to a hearty laugh, or the acceleration into a delighted cackle that could pierce through any sadness. She's also beautiful. I don't know much about the standards everyone has for beauty, but I know enough to know that one would be blind to not be attracted to her. She's no bombshell blonde, but she's got a certain beauty I cannot explain. Her eyes are a slightly greenish blue, the iris being light in the center and darkening to a ring of shadowed color on the outer edge. She has a rather short, round face, not enough to look childish, but just enough to draw the eyes toward the bulge on her cheeks when she smiles, almost hiding her tiny dimples. Her hair is about shoulder length, and reddish tinged, but it has random streaks. Mostly its auburn, but several locks of hair in the back are streaked blonde, and several on her left side are streaked brown. She's not too short either, probably about 5' 5\". Short, but not enough to make one feel intimidating.\n\nshe has flaws, but I prefer not to describe them, as they aren't really her own fault.", "The reason I wake up in the morning, and my last thought at night. The reason I want to succeed. Her smile is worth more than the world, and her laugh makes a choir of angels sound discordant. The light and brightness of her eyes can be seen by the blind, and the warmth in her voice is music to the deaf. Her touch is the one thing that rebuilds, rather than destroys.\n\nWhen, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,\nI all alone beweep my outcast state,\nAnd trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,\nAnd look upon myself and curse my fate,\nWishing me like to one more rich in hope,\nFeatured like him, like him with friends possessed,\nDesiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,\nWith what I most enjoy contented least;\nYet in these thoughts myself almost despising,\nHaply I think on thee, and then my state,\nLike to the lark at break of day arising\nFrom sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate;\nFor thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings\nThat then I scorn to change my state with kings.\n\n\"Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows,\nfair is the lilly of the valley.\nClear is the water that flows from the Boyne,\nbut my love is fairer than any.\"\n\n\"The swan was in her movement and the morning in her smile.\nAll the roses of the garden, they bow and ask her parden\nFor none could match the beauty of the queen of Argyll.\"\n\n\n\nNot really coherent, but what I feel when I think of her.", "I love him so much.\nI give him a million kisses a day.\nHe's super soft to the touch.\nI wouldn't have it any other way.\nHe can get loud and cranky,\nBut I love him just the same\nI hope one day, he will actually learn his name.\nHe picks me up when I'm in a fog.\nI wouldn't trade him for the world,\nHe's my favorite dog.\n", "He has eyebrows that may have been drawn in heavy handed charcoal. His eyes disappear when he laughs. \n\nHe doesn't press into me the way the others did. Not like he's trying to see what's inside, trying to see how long it will take to dismantle me.\n\nHe is everywhere. His voice in my ear, his scent in my clothes, his warm skin under my hand. \n\nHe is everywhere, and it still isn't enough of him. ", "In high school I had an epiphany about myself and began my tortured journey of self-discovery. It was increasingly apparently that no one else around me got what I was trying to accomplish. I was dating the sweetest girl you could ever image at the time and I had a great \"best-friend\" but they just didn't quite get/give what I was needing. This is not a slight on them in the least. It's just me being me. I'm the broken one. \n\nEveryone seemed empty inside and I was pretty much writing everyone off. It's a habit of mine now. The world is full of beautiful woman and I always fall in love with them for as long as I can. I'm a dreamer after all. But as with all dreams they eventually end when that one glaring aspect of reality which can't be ignored any longer makes it's unwavering stand. It's fine. The world is full of beautiful women after all.\n\nIn the summer of 2005 I met another stunning girl and I feel in love with her in my mind. At the time I was trying to focus on other things so I tried to put out of my thoughts, cause you know... the world is full of beautiful women. Then I happened to find her blog and was devastated to find that she had all the things that I wanted from my first girlfriend and any relationship. She was more than just a beautiful girl.\n\nBut she's just an idea that haunts me now. \n\nThere are billions of women in the world. I'm sure I'll find another... I'm okay with it as long as she's happy. ", "My own mirror is cracked and clouded, at least the side that faces me. But theirs...\n\nI have no love now, only their memories, each of them arrayed in front of me like ghosts. They are all beautiful. They each hold a mirror, like mine, like everyone's. A mirror with two faces. In each of their mirrors, I see a different man, a different me. A better me? I can't tell, but it seems that way. Each image is certainly a better man than the image I saw in my own mirror, when I was looking into theirs. I think my mirror might be broken, and I wonder if theirs were too. If everyone's might be. \n\nI think... I think each of them filled cracks in my mirror, and I think that may have something to do with the blurry, clouded nature of its face. Some of them must have had the same experience, at least for a while, at least in part. But I don't have time, anymore, to gaze at the mirrors of ghosts. And I wonder, more than fear, what the next mirror will show.", "He was a man of ideals and articulation. He knew how he felt, and exactly how to express it. He always moved forward. He had the means to produce such revolutionary movements for the better of every one around him.\n\nHe's gone, now; but he left his Marx.\n", "This isn't someone I love anymore, but I feel like it's worth the words to get it out.\n\n**\n\nI was young. Impressionable. Stupid. Grade 3 is no time to fall in love.\n\nI was easily distracted, emotional. She was tall, calm and, at least to my prepubescent mind, beautiful.\n\nWe sat across from each other that year. Whenever I spaced out, my eyes would drift to her, to a curtain of brown hair, to narrow eyes that shone like mirrors. She was an angel.\n\nAn angel who was understandably upset when she caught me staring at her.\n\nOver the course of five years, I pined over her. Told my friends. Asked for advice. They were sympathetic at first. But that's when they stabbed me in the back. \n\nAnd she stabbed me in the heart.\n\nI hit her in the face, by accident. I went to apologize, but she brushed her shoulder when I touched her, like I was some filthy thing. Then, when a classmate got injured, he was howling like a hyena and I muttered \"There's no way it hurts that much.\" And she whispered \"Nobody cares.\"\n\nNobody cares.\n\nTo hear that from her, from my bright-eyed angel, I was crippled. I couldn't believe that she could say that to me. Even after my friends told her all about how I felt.\n\nNobody cares.\n\nThose words were flames that blackened my heart and opened my eyes. I saw people for who they were. I saw traitors where I once saw friends. I saw torturing overlords where I once saw teachers. And where I once saw an angel, I saw only a cold bitch.\n\nI shut myself away from people, became less trusting, less loving, less emotional. I felt myself become a new person. Now I'm stronger. Smarter. Better. Hell, I'm better looking than she is now. Nowadays, if it turned out she liked me... It wouldn't matter.\n\nGuess why.\n\nBecause nobody cares.", "I climb into bed, clumsily at first. I wiggle my way into his arms to get as close as possible. There is only interstitial space between us but I never feel like I am getting close enough. After I get into his arms I nuzzle the concavity above my eyeballs into his neck. While doing so his pheromones sneak up my nose, leaving me wanting more. I unwind and let the warmth permeate onto my skin while I forget everything that's eating me. ", "I wanna talk about me\n\nWanna talk about I\n\nWanna talk about number one, Oh my me my\n\nWhat I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see!\n\nI like talking about you, you, you, usually... but occasionally...\n\nI wanna talk about me!\n\n-Toby Keith\n\n(Someone had to do it)", "Imagine boy and girl,\nWhere girl becomes boys world.\nShe lights his happiness,\nAnd makes him write poems that are a sappy mess.\nEveryday he sees her, he is blessed.\nNo matter what happens, \nhe always keeps his stance and\nDefends her from any problem.\n\n\nImagine a lady meets a gentlemen,\nWhere lady falls hard for him.\nA smile from him she always adores,\nA laugh from him gives her an unspeakable force.\nShe yearns to see him every day,\nAnyhow and anyway.\n\n\nBut with busy lives \nComes little times.\nBut a text in the morning and a text at night\nIs good enough, right?\nFor they both know, that working together on their future that's bright,\nThey'll be together for a very long time.", "(I may be doing this wrong but nevertheless:)\n\nI want to know you,\n\nThe way your past lovers had known of you\n\nAs you laid beside them for the coming night,\n\nYour desires feeding the fire\n\nOf what Man craves most when he is alone,\n\nFor it is my fingertips that\n\nTrace the hips of our memories,\n\nShaping the outline of your body,\n\nMy mind rotting away as I toss and turn in my bed made for two,\n\nAwaiting for you to fuel my darkest desires and\n\nSend me into a beautiful oblivion.", "In many societies its really considered a taboo thing to love him. People would say the love I harbor for him is coming from a bad place. They don’t understand what it’s like to love him, though. Unfortunately not enough people do. The warm rush of comfort, the security, the feeling that’s best described as being “held” by some unseen, immensely loving hands. They only call it bad because they’ve never experienced it before. \n\nBut about him. What I love about him isn’t necessarily just his strengths, his achievements and life goals. Neither is it the funny mannerisms he uses or the way he twiddles his pencil when he’s bored. Nor is it even the thoughts we share deep into the night, or way he treats me ever since we met (well, we met years beforehand, but I didn’t really know him well until recently). What I truly love about him is that guarded, secret part of himself that I see through the cracks from time to time. The damaged, decrepit part of him that doesn’t want to look me in the face, that part of him that wants to crawl in on itself and let no one in. You know, the parts of ourselves we all hide and refuse to acknowledge. In those moments, when I see those parts of him, and with courageous vulnerability he lets me see, I can’t help but love him. \n\nIt’s odd, though. I feel like most people have this relationship in their life, yet are often too scared to ask themselves whether its a mutual relationship, once again because of the taboo. But once I learned to break through those social barriers - and trust me it was hard - I’m now able to say proudly: I love myself, and there’s nothing wrong with that. ", "I've never been very open with my emotions. I laugh and joke along with my friends, but I force myself to stomach any anger or resentment or embarrassment I feel. Everyone talks about how calm I am, when really inside I'm a festering pot of negativity and anxiety. He's the only one who can see that. Something about his genuine concern and interest in me just opens me up, and I can talk to him about everything I bottle up, we text for hours at a time just about our lives, and I tell him things I wouldn't dream of telling other people. His smile and overwhelming positivity light up any room he enters, and his easygoing sense of humor helps him fit in with anyone. He's cute and funny and charming and everything I could ask for in a guy. Four days ago we kissed for the first time, and every time I think of his lips on mine it lights me up inside. Something about him just lets me cast aside my problems, even if just for a minute, and I cherish every moment I spend with him.", "She seems so simple in the surface. The basic white girl, always on her phone. She likes Starbucks, she Snapchats all the time. I avoid girls like her for the most part. But she's different. I see more, and I know she can be more. It's been forever since I first met her. Until I got to know her, I didn't know I felt anything for her. She's just... great. I can't think of a better word. Compassionate, funny, carefree, beautiful. If she would come with me, we could both be so much more. Too bad I'm too scared to say anything.", "The \"girls next door\" had never been of any interest to the boy, nor had he ever fully understood my friends' fixation over said downright vestal archetype, let alone the worship thrown at the classic cover girls. There was nothing duller to him than a world in which everyone is painted through the same stencil, and tries to cram themselves in the same mould. \n\nThis girl was different. She wasn't pretty, you didn't want to look out for her. She was smoking a cigarette, drinking beer and liquor, yelling obscenities and coughing up a mix of tobacco and flu. She was sitting at a table in a dive bar, tattooing her ankle with her left hand, ordering shots with the right. She was something the boy wanted to fuck, so he sat beside her with two full pints.", "Ive been in love with my boyfriend from practically day one, and he knows this. I didn't know it at the beginning because I was stubborn, and I tried to convince myself otherwise, but from the very start I have known deep down that this is the person I want next to me for everything, even if it scared me senseless. It still does sometimes, because to be this in love is to be vulnerable, and vulnerability is terrifying. \n\nMy boyfriend has a dog, and I have a cat. We moved in together not long ago, and were in the process of looking for a more permanent place due to a job relocation. Its been a rough few weeks, between unemployment and underemployment, not making enough to cover bills and the depression that comes with all these things. My spine injury, the constant help I need because Im tired or in pain. He does everything without complaint. He feeds my my cat. He rubs my back when it hurts. He sends me funny gifs from across the room while he plays video games and Im laying on the couch, because he wants to see me laugh. He takes me stargazing because he knows Ive been sad. He's a good guy.\n\nHe hates when I run my fingers through his hair, but its one of the many things I like best about his appearance, he has curly hair to my pin straight, blue green eyes to my hazel. He doesnt believe me when I say he's handsome. He likes to be the little spoon, and I like to be the jetpack. We share a queen size bed with the dog and the cat, so we always a jumble of limbs and fur and sheets, and I wouldn't have it any other way-- even fast asleep, he reaches out for me to pull closer. He says I do the say thing. He snores, which he knows, but he teases me that I snore... I deny this, of course, and even if I do snore, its small dainty snores not the kind that wake the neighbors like he does. I wake up every night when he finally comes to bed, and I don't mind that in the slightest, because I sleep better once he's next to me. \n\nHe has all these big ideas, and I don't think anyones every really given him a fair chance to put these ideas into motion. He's so smart, and he means so well, and I hate it see when he's frustrated. The best I can do is kiss him and tell him I love him, which is sometimes enough and sometimes not enough-- and thats okay. we live, we adapt, we go with the flow.\n\nHe says 'we' and 'ours'. He's the first man to ever do that, to make plans and build a life. When he baby talks to our dog, he refers to me as her mom. Those words don't mean much in any other setting, but it feels great when he says we or ours. We met because I was his nephews nanny ever since he was a tiny baby-- Baby Bear was/is my first true love, and I fell head over heels for this tiny squishy man... because of him, I got to fall in love all over again with his uncle. I look at baby bear like he's my own nephew, I love him that much, look at his family like their mine. Things are that good. \n\nI moved across the country to escape a life that was falling apart around me, and Ive never been one for believing in fate, but I don't know how else to describe it. I had to take a leap of faith, on the off chance that things might work out eventually. Instead, everything is falling into place and Im building a life I am in love with. \n\nWords don't do him justice, or really explain how much I love him, but when Im asleep in bed and I wake up, I instinctively reach out for him. In the darkness, night after night, he never fails me in being there.\n\n", "We live under the same roof. Every day she says,\"I love you\", and it pains me. Every day she gives a kiss and heads to work. We're both 20. I like her for her childlike innocence, her cute voice and her loving personality. I guess that's why her boyfriend likes her, too. I've never been more jealous. Part of me wants to tell her and risk my friends, my home. Part of me is honor bound to bury these feelings deep, deep down, deeper than the darkness. I want to hold her and love her and run away forever, start a simple life in the north and get a dog. If I don't find someone to love soon... I don't know how much longer I can go. I might regret my inaction forever.", "Ha, where do I start? For one thing, she's one of the few girls I actually am friends with. Usually pretty alienated from girls. She's absolutely gorgeous, big brown eyes, long hair, the works. She's short, which I personally adore. She's really smart too! Smarter than me at least. She's also pretty damn funny, constantly changing voices to make whatever she wants to say more funny. Her laugh and smile are frankly intoxicating. She also seems to genuinely care about a lot of things, her friends, her family, et cetera. She's just flat out amazing. My dreams are dominated by her, my daydreams. I'd say something to her, but alas, that's not going to happen. Not for a while at least.", "God damnit I fucked things up bad. I started falling for her so many times, but I always caught myself. I thought she didn't feel that way about me. I thought she didn't like me. So I found other people. People who didn't care about me, or people who cared far too much. I kept trying to find someone, anyone who made me feel the way she made me feel. Except her. She terrified me. Just the thought of being with her scared me more than anything else in the world. I didn't realize she had fallen for me until it was far too late. I had already found too many others, and I'd broken her heart too many times. And now I'm with her right now. Not together, still as friends. She's soon to decide if she can forgive me for everything I did in fear. I don't even know if I can forgive myself. I had so many chances to make things right with her, and I didn't take a single one. Now all I can do is helplessly wait and hope she can look past what a coward I am. I regret everything.", "The sublime happiness I receive when I lay beside him, trailing my fingers along his face and looking into his deep blue eyes is something I can't quite describe. The warmth of his body, the beat of his heart and touch of his lips... A button undone, the socks on the floor, a trail of clothing to the bed. The music still playing next door.\n\nIm transfixed by this feeling, where people are colours and millions of faces now have a meaning. Where my feet don't just walk through the streets of time, where I stop and I smile to the memories in the window shops, as they fill to the till and sadly never sell. Population: 2, here is a town I love going through, in hand with my lover, in step with my heart, willing to lose myself in the dark.", "“What are you afraid of?” \n“Losing you.” I replied.\n“But I am fairly nothing to you.” \n\nWe stood over the pier gazing into the silent night, waves calmly going back and forth, fishing boats dimly lit in a distance.. It was a late Friday evening after a trip to the movies. \n\nShe lives for the moments where you’re too drunk to remember what happened last night. She goes with the people who make her live in the moment. Many times, she went after people who seek comfort through wild and unearthly ways. \n\nBut when she is at her worst, when she could no longer differentiate between fact or fiction, she breaks into a chaotic depression episode. Many times, she isolated herself from the harsh reality while bottling up unsaid thoughts. \n\nAnd many times, I’ve held her up and told her to push through. I was the human punching bag- taking all the hits while she blissfully rants through her tiresome day. The usual routine, but I never got tired of it. Crazy and utterly stupid as it sounds, I do enjoy listening to her. She had bursts of interest into anything- ranging from beastly cars to adorable puppies, I stood amazed and awed. \n\n“You’re a duck swimming in cold water, silly.” ", "When I met him, I was dying. Not in the whole melodramatic \"I have no love, therefore I feel only loneliness\" sort of way, but in the \"I am low on HP and will probably actually die unless I find a clean bed and miraculously don't keel over from the infection I'm harboring\" sort of way. In essence, I was dying in the best (most convenient) way possible. \n\nI remember the first time I heard his voice crack while he was singing me to sleep. I remember the smell of singed computer hardware when I accidentally stayed in-game with him too long and overestimated what my computer could handle. I remember the sound of his brother in the background, yelling over the sound of him happy-crying when he bought the ticket. \n\nHe is the only person who has ever loved me more than I love dogs. He loves me more than I love Christmas. He loves me more than I love video games and pizza and shitty diet soda and Cadbury cream eggs. And I love him. I love him more than he loves rain and front porch swings. I love him more than he loves hugs and holding hands and forehead kisses in dark kitchens while dancing to some indie song that he will never admit to liking. It's too obscure, don't you know? You'd never understand. \n\nMy flight leaves tomorrow at 10:30 P.M, and he loves me more than the $336 it took to book the ticket. He loves me, he loves me, he loves me. ", "It's not the way she smiles.\n\nIt's not the smell of her hair.\n\nIt's not the 6 hour Facebook conversations.\n\nIt's not her exquisite taste.\n\nIt's not her untapped potential.\n\nIt's not her elegant, flowing, understated grace.\n\nIt's not how there was anyone like her before.\n\nIt's not her passionate, unrelenting, undying ambition to be herself, and only herself.\n\nIt's not how she sometimes feels she's not good enough.\n\nIt's not even because she is the most beautiful thing ever placed upon this Universe, nothing comparing to her before, nothing comparing to her after.\n\nIt's because she understands me. And I understand her. Sure, we may not be the same or even agree on everything necessarily, but once you know* someone, they become part of you. You are no longer mortally bound to your own flesh and bone. You are no longer just you inside your body. You are bound to each other eternally, not by any physical laws, but because you share the only thing you can share when you're stripped of everything else: Yourself.\n\nBut that's about as far as I go.\n\n(PS. It's my first time, have mercy pls)\n", "Midnight hair in messy curls,\n\nDark brown eyes and skin like snow.\n\nHands that wander, but never to other girls.\n\n-\n\nTaller than me by a head or so,\n\nA slim figure, nearly always dressed in black\n\nWearing a grin when he's won and knows.\n\n-\n\nA gentle heart that hides it's scars\n\nA mathematical mind that can't find the words\n\nBut knows the name of every star.\n\n-\n\nNot good with feelings but great with cuddles\n\nAfraid to ask when he needs them returned\n\nAshamed to admit he had his struggles.\n\n-\n\nAlways there when I need his hand\n\nAlways the one to wipe my tears\n\nAlways helping me to make my stand\n\nAlways there to calm my fears\n\n-\n\nMy World,\n\nMy Angel,\n\nMy Friend\n\n-\n\nNever let go.\n\n-\n\nOT: By all that's holy I hate trying to format poems on Reddit....always takes 4 or so attempts.. -_-", "She makes me smile.\n\nShe makes me laugh. \n\nShe makes me red in the face. \n\nShe makes me confidant. \n\nShe makes me happy.\n\nShe makes me stress and worry, because she pushes me away.\n\nOnly to pull me right back in.", "(This would be a power ballad if I could write music)\n\nI can paint a sunrise,\n\nI can feel the warmth,\n\nI can draw a memory,\n\nof things I saw before.\n\nBut when I try to show you,\n\nI only see the flaws,\n\nsitting in the perfect scene,\n\nof a twisted caricature.\n\n\n\n\nWhen there's a cross-roads at the end of every path,\n\nWhen each footstep is harder than the last,\n\nWhen our feet are tough and calloused, and our spines are made of pride,\n\nthe tunnel stretches onwards and we can't seem to see the light,\n\nyou'll find my hand around yours, feel the purpose in my stride,\n\nI will lift you on my shoulders, and carry you home tonight.\n\nSometimes I just need you, to show me the way,\n\nI swear I can hold you, if only you'll stay,\n\nAs long as you're with me, on the road ahead,\n\nWe'll both make it through, to the end.\n\n\n\n\nI am not an artist,\n\nI don't know how to catch,\n\nThe changing colour of your eyes,\n\nor beauty of your laugh,\n\nBut when you stop and stumble,\n\nWhen you trip and fall,\n\nI'll be there beside you\n\nForever through it all.\n\n\n\n\nWhen there's a cross-roads at the end of every path,\n\nWhen each footstep is harder than the last,\n\nWhen our feet are tough and calloused, and our spines are made of pride,\n\nthe tunnel stretches onwards and we can't seem to see the light,\n\nyou'll find my hand around yours, feel the purpose in my stride,\n\nI will lift you on my shoulders, and carry you home tonight.\n\nLike A titan I'll hold you, til the end of time,\n\nEvery burden I'd shoulder, for you with a smile,\n\nand I might not be perfect, But I swear I will try,\n\nto be better and better, if you'll stay by my side.\n\n'cause Sometimes I just need you, to show me the way,\n\n\n\nI swear I can hold you, if only you'll stay,\n\nAs long as you're with me, on the road ahead,\n\nWe'll both make it through, to the end.", "\nI wasn't going to respond when I saw this post, then I decided it wouldn't be terrible to do, and I guess here I am now. This might help me anyway, so thank you for posting it.\n\nIt's hard for me to do a description like this. Where I get tripped up is \"the person\". For me whenever I date or even get close to someone I leave a bit of myself there with them, even long after they're gone I still feel that missing piece, and I still feel the love that went with it.\n\nIf I had to narrow it down there would only need to be two I needed to talk about.\n\nThe first girl, she's an amazing person. A little too insecure, a little too unsure what to do with her life, but who isn't. We had our issues, but we worked through them every time. We were friends, we were lovers, we were partners. We would be the couple at parties that people wish they could be.\n\nShe put up with my passive aggressive bullshit that I would pull, she would see through me in an instant, before I would even realize what I was doing. Even when we would fight, we had a rule that we would never go to bed angry, this led to many late nights I wouldn't trade for the world.\n\nShe was there for me for three years, I thought everything was great. She needed me to be more committed, she would push me when I needed to be pushed, but in some places I wasn't ready to be pushed, and I couldn't do what I needed to do. Then she was gone.\n\n\nFor the second girl. We met at a mutual friend's birthday party, I saw her and immediately knew I wanted to talk to her, and I got her number that night. She wasn't ready for a relationship at that point, but that was ok. I could wait. She became one of my best friends. She's beautiful, she's smart, she's weird, and nerdy, and awkward, in all the perfect ways. Sometimes the world gets to be too much for her and she needs time alone. She's the person everyone knows they can talk to about any issues, and she will be understanding no matter what. She would move oceans if a friend needed her to.\n\n\nWe ended up dating, but it was for a very short time. She wants to do and see so many things, and she's filled to the brim with ambition... Even though I don't think she really knows that herself yet. All of this leaves her in a spot where she doesn't think she'll ever have kids, and that's the one thing we both know we couldn't reconcile. \n\nShe is still one of my best friends, and I like to think I am still one of hers. We get drunk sometimes, and maybe it's my imagination, but it feels like there are brief moments where things feel the way they did while we were dating. It kills me a bit each time, because I know that I can never be the person she needs in her life, no matter how hard I try. So we stay best friends, and if that's all we can be, at least I have that. \n\nI realize that this is probably really poorly written, it was more just a stream of my thoughts that anything cohesive. I'm sorry to OP I feel like I started writing this for you, and finished writing it for me. Have a great day, and thanks for letting me get this out.", "You were the first person I spotted when I entered the room. You weren’t boisterous like the others, that’s why I noticed you. You were there in your corner minding your own business. You were running on a treadmill, music in your ears, cut off from the world. I thought you were different.\n\nI was new there, I just followed my sister around, not daring to talk to anyone but I noticed you. You didn’t see me looking at you but I saw you looking at me. I was filled with doubt, I knew we were too different but I thought I liked you\n\nIt took me weeks to gather the courage to talk to you and when I did you smiled. It was your smile that won me over. Who cares if we’re so different, we can make it work. I was filled with doubt but I thought I liked you.\n\nIt took you weeks to ask me out and when you did I smiled. My doubts hadn’t disappeared but I thought I liked you. \n\nEven after our first date showed we weren’t a match, I still thought I liked you. \nEven after the weeks went by and we kept talking, I still thought I liked you. \nEven after I invited you thrice and you backed out thrice, I still thought I liked you. \n\nNow I don’t longer think, I know. \nI know I like you. \nI know you like me. \nI know we are too different. \nI know we won’t work\nI know I have to move on. ", "I dumped her once because I didn't know how to deal with the feelings she gave me. I wasn't used to being actively, positively happy, so I just assumed something was off. She talked me out of it, thank God. \n\nHer eyes are the color of the sky above an endless sea, right where the horizon draws the line, with hair the color of old timber. Her cheekbones are softer now than when we met, as is the rest of her. But her gaze still sets a fire in my bones. \n\nHer body was perfect. Per. Fect. Plentiful on the top (seeing her in a bathing suit for the first time was a pleasant surprise), curves through the middle, and fit legs. Now there's a bit of surplus woman she's carrying around. She's got scars and stretch marks she didn't have six years ago. Bearing two sons will do that. She hates it sometimes that she's not the same as she was, but the changes were all born of love, and she wouldn't go back on any of it. \n\nHer heart is gem-encrusted gold. She loves selflessly, always alive to the opportunity to improve someone's life, even for a moment. She bears the scars of a pain-wracked past, but sings and smiles for the sweetness of this shiny new day. \n\nShe made a man out of me. Not in the way people tend to use that, that was someone else (inferior), but in the way that matters. It was for her sake that I learned the responsibility of the provider, and let go (for the most part) of the selfishness of a boy. She's borne my folly with grace, shouldered my hardships beside me without complaint, comforted me in grief, and been my greatest supporter and promoter. We two are one, and she brings all the good to this union. \n\n", "There are eyes that see. And those that don't. Mine are neither. They are hands that can reach, touch and feel.\n\nThe world said, \"Here is everything.\" \n\nBut through these eyes, we found more.", "My anxiety doen't let me trust.\n\nNot easily, anyway. It's not like I don't want to trust him, and in my mind I know I do, but whenever we fight I wonder if he still loves me. If he'd still want to marry me. If he'd want to have children with me, raise them with me, grow old with me. I know its the anxiety talking and he knows it too.\n\nSo when I ask him if she still loves me after we fight, he smiles gently and says, \"Of course I do.\" I know he means it.\n\nWhen I ask him if he'd still want to marry me, he hugs me close and replies, \"There's no one else I'd rather be with.\" I never thought about a wedding until I met him, not even when I was a little girl. \n\nWhen I ask him if he'd want to have children with me he laughs and says, \"Only if we can get a little kitten too.\" He makes me imagine a cute house in the suburbs with children riding bikes and white picket fences and a freshly mowed yard. I never knew that's what I wanted.\n\nWhen I ask if he will grow old with me he says, \"If you're okay being embarassed by me for that long.\" Of course I tell him he could never embarass me and then he proceeds to do silly things to make me laugh just so he can point out that yes, he is embarassing.\n\nHe could take my questioning as me not trusting him. He could take it as I have no confidence in our relationship. Instead, he tells me all the time that he wants to marry me one day. I can't wait for that day to come.", "BOOM! like a shock wave. The kind that hits you and knocks you off your feet before you hear the explosion. \n\nFilled with a light to bright it hurts my teeth. I just can't stop staring at it.\n\nShe stirs me into a frenzy, a mad dog that pulls on his leash till he makes that awful choking noise.\n\nEver grab a live wire and your hand locks up and you can't let go? Well I don't want to let go.\n\nShe is a dragon and she breaths fire when she smiles and I burn away while we laugh at how silly we are. That kind of laugh that hits you between the eyes like a lightning bolt and you feel it in the back of your skull. \n\nEver seen something so cute, to fucking adorable that just looking at it makes you teeth fall out and your spine snap in half from how god damn cute it is? That is my wife.", "He hates me now. That's fine, I guess, but even after how many bad memories I have in relation to him I don't think he'll ever really be gone from me.\nWe met a few years ago. I was vibrant, like a shock of electricity, full of energy; He, a She at the time, was older, mysterious sort of, but she made me laugh in a way that no one else could. She drew little cartoons that I admired a little too much, and maybe she did drugs too much and had sex a bit much, but that was fine. Years later, when reading To Kill A Mockingbird, the line \"like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum\" reminded me of her at the time; fragile, delicate, with a savory taste that lingered on the tip of the tongue.\nI was a lot less pleasant at the time, and didn't know what I felt, or really anything about love more than the excitement of platonic love or soft twinges of romance. I identified as asexual, which was all I felt I needed to be at the time, and that was fine. As the years passed, we grew farther apart. One of our friends, notorious for various reasons, unexperienced, overdosed and moved away after breaking her mind and spirit. She had been a real connector between us, one who brought us together as friends, and when she left we drifted faster than I could imagine.\nThe last time I really spoke to him, before he disappeared, he asked me to get him a pack of cigarettes. The next day, I looked for him, but he was nowhere to be found. I was told he was sick by some, and by others that he was in rehab, but I never really knew which to believe.\nNow, when I think of him, I only feel a dark feeling left behind from what I once thought was love and now have no idea quite what it was. I only feel hollow.", "Just cause you said it.\n\n01010111 01100101 01101100 01101100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111 00101110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01110110 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101101 01101001 01101110 01100100 01110011 01100101 01110100 00100000 01010100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 00100010 01001110 01101111 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101101 01100001 01110100 01110100 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110010 01100101 00101110 00100000 01001001 01100110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110010 01100101 00101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01100111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101000 01110101 01110010 01110100 00100001 00100010 00101110 00100000 01000001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110111 01100101 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101101 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101000 01100101 01110010 00101110 00100000 01010011 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100001 01110011 01101001 01100011 01100001 01101100 01101100 01111001 00100000 01100111 01110010 01100001 01100010 01100010 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01110010 01101001 01100011 01101011 00100000 01110111 01100001 01101100 01101011 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110101 01110000 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110011 01101101 01100001 01110011 01101000 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101101 01101001 01101110 01100100 01110011 01100101 01110100 00101110 00100000 01001110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100010 01100101 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100101 01100001 01110100 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110101 01110000 00100000 01100010 01111001 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101001 01101100 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100101 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101000 01100101 01110010 00111111 00100000 01010100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101111 01100100 01100100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100111 01110010 01100101 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101101 01100101 00101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01101110 01101011 00100000 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100001 01100011 01101011 00101110 00100000 01010111 01100101 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01101110 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00101110 ", "I was completely oblivious to the feeling before I felt it. Love has a weird way of being everywhere. In movies, books and songs. It's everywhere at once and yet at the same time so impossible that when it hits you it's like it isn't you anymore. It isn't the same place anymore. The same pieces are all there only it's all completely and wonderfully different. That's how she made me feel. She made me feel like all the movies and songs and books all of our world's obsession with love wasn't just an understatement it was a complete undersell. The warmth in her smile, her eyes, her laugh. God her laugh, I swear her laugh remains the best sound I've heard. It's almost unfair to try to describe her. It's unfair to describe her as beautiful, I'd have to invent a language and dedicate it only to her. To say I love her is wrong but love is the closest word we have for it. A simple 4 letter word for the most inconceivable wave of feeling. But for lack of a better phrase the love was somehow not enough and now I feel literal pain each and every time I have to see her. ", "She's not perfect in the way she walks, \nNor is she in the way that she talks.\n\nHer face is little a bove average looks, \nI'm still get ting used to the way that she cooks.\n\nOur musical tastes are not quite the same. \nWe like different things, it's a damn shame.\n\nWhat matters the most between her and I \nIs the way that we are both so damn shy.\n\nOr maybe the way she touches my heart. \nWhat about when she laughs at my fart?\n\nIt's clear that from here you know the rest, \nIn the end, it's the little things that make her the best.\n\nNot a poetry guy, this was kind of a first. Hope you enjoyed it.", "She's just the right kind of perfect.\n\nNot the perfect you're thinking of, and not the perfect he or she or it is thinking of. But my perfect.\n\nThe way she matches my edges and fills the holes in my heart, it's almost tailor-made. \n\nOr maybe when her lips fit into mine, and they lock, just right.\n\nMaybe it's because she compensates for everything I lack, and what we both lack are things we can live without.\n\nShe's not your perfect, and she's not his or hers or theirs or it's, but mine. \n\n(Ugh I suck at this. First time doing a prompt)", "We make more sense than love.\nWe are bonded in our determination to cultivate a healthy relationship for each other to share. Therapy, sadness, confusion, self-esteem, all things we both struggle with.\n\nWhen we're together, we either melt into each other or simply melt each other. \nWhen we're apart, we fight. \n\nWhen we're together, I can't get enough of him. \nWhen we're apart, he misses me and I stress out. \n\nHe calls, I do not answer. \nI touch him, he flinches away. \n\nEbbs and flows, highs and lows.\n\nI fear he may propose soon. ", "I haven't met you yet. I imagine leaning on the hood of your car in hundred degree weather while we wait for my sister to find her keys; that crunkle-pop! noise when I lean too far back and you wrinkle your nose at me. Sometimes you wear Adam Lambert glam eye-liner and I think that maybe you'd be the one who'd finally teach me how to wear make-up. Sometimes you have twenty thousand muscles, sometimes none at all.\n\n\nHold my hand at every doctor appointment. Tell me you love when the doctor says they can't do anything to help. Lose ten pounds with me, or gain twenty. Let her have your eyes and my nose and better skin than either of us. We'll retire in Half-Moon Bay and eat beans and rice just so we can live somewhere beautiful. Never forget I love you. Never forget to say it back.\n\n\nNever stop looking for me.", "My other half, made just for me. A part of me. Almost like we were born that way. She's always by my side. Tougher than me, but she always knows just how to hold me. She's a little uncoordinated at times, but not without her charms. She can play guitar and piano, picking out sweet little melodies. The kind of thing I'd sing to her if I was able to find the lyrics to match the tune. But she's always using my phone. I don't care. Even when it's just me and her, we can still have more fun than with any of our friends around. Sometimes I just look at her and I think, wow. I wish I'd seen her sooner. I wish I'd known how happy she could make me. Calloused and capable of labor, and never to afraid to throw a punch. She's a great lover, too. Never afraid to knuckle down and just take her time satisfying me. Sometimes, I look at her and she just seems to wear this pale shimmer. She fucking glistens. Then I wash the lotion off and put away my rag.\n\nGod I love my left hand.", "Have you ever felt like half of you is missing but you've come to accept that feeling? Well, no longer must I feel that way, for my other half has been found. It was a surprise, to say the least. I had almost given up on finding my half. I had many crushes over the years, but none of them felt true. All of them were just objective, me taking the person at face value. But, he changed everything for me. The sweet bliss I felt when I saw him, spoke to him, or even thought of him seemed unreal to me. It was almost like someone had given me vision. Colors seemed brighter, sounds seemed louder, touches felt stronger. It was overwhelming at first. I was blindsided with this rush of feelings. From the moment I realized I had feelings for him, my life was changed for the better.\n\nHis smile is brilliant and pure, full of his love and soul. He has various different smiles, all with meaning. There’s a gentle smile he gets when he stares at me, thinking of how beautiful I am or how much he loves me. There’s the short smile when he thought of something that he wishes to tease me with. There’s his playful grin whenever we are goofing around and laughing till our stomachs hurt. He has this one smile that’s hidden, but it grows the more I pester him about hiding something or doing the opposite of what he’s saying. Every smile I see pulls my heart strings and makes me pause. I never knew someone could have so many various smiles. Even the amused smile he gets when I do something stupid makes me giddy. His thick lips are the softest things I have touched. They fill me with love every time they curl into a smile or graze over my lips. I never knew how sensitive my lips were till I met him. If his face is an inch from mine, I can feel his warm breath. In those moments, I anticipate the next time we lock lips, but I enjoy the closeness I feel when we just stare into each other’s eyes.\n\n Speaking of eyes, his are alluring and magical. Eyes are the passage ways to the soul and I can clearly see into his eyes. Some days they are a pastel blue, reminding me of the gentle seas. Other days they are a dull grassy green, comforting me with their soft gaze. His eyes have various expressions just like his smile. They sparkle with excitement whenever he is happy. They fill up with tears when he is sad. But there are times when his eyes seem vacant. Whenever I see those vacant eyes, I know something is wrong. It’s almost become a sixth sense to watch his eyes and instantly tell what he is thinking. It makes me wonder how obvious I am with my emotions, since he is rather calm about his. \n\n His hands are so warm and gentle. My soul feels complete when our hands touch. His big hands are my security blanket; I always feel so safe whenever I touch them. I adore when he touches me with his hands. It fills me up with such warmth if his hand traces my face, pulls me in for an embrace, or rests around my waist. I feel like I am whole with him. I couldn’t fathom in my younger days how amazing it would feel just to hold someone’s hand. But now, I see that small gestures like that mean the world.\n\nThere is many things I adore about him, but the core trait that melts me every day is his heart. Although he has his own struggles which test his heart, I can see the truth in him. The caring emotion he has for me, the strong devotion I see from him, the sincerity in his words, I see it all. Although he views himself as not 'good enough', I know he's wrong. His heart is made of gold with a diamond core. His sarcastic comments are spot on, which make me smile. His humor fits with mine like a puzzle piece. Although he doubts it, I can tell how wise his soul is. He has experienced so much in his life and knows so much about people. I strive to have that level of intellect. I want to know as much as he does. I want to be on the same level as him.\n\nWe enjoy many hobbies. There may be days where we don’t talk much, but we enjoy playing a game together. Apart, we are decent gamers (albeit he is far better than I), but together we seem to fall apart. I believe we are dividing our attention too much to the other person. However, this doesn’t make me sad. Sure, when we play together we may make more mistakes, but the sheer fact that we enjoy playing games with each other, sharing such a big part of our lives together, makes being ‘bad’ at games worth it. We have many of the same views about the world. It’s nice having someone who can finally understand how I think of certain things or poke fun at some of my ill logic. \n\nHe has done so much for me. When I needed to cry, he was always there. If I had my own struggles, he'd talk them out with me. When nothing seemed to be going right, he was there to assure me the world isn't over. When I told him a story behind a sentimental object that I wished to get rid of, he replaced it with his own present. He wrote a song for me. He moved for me. He gave his heart to me. To be frank, I am blessed. I couldn't have asked for a better man that I would share my life with. But, I want to be there for him. And there have been many times where I felt I wasn’t good enough to be there, hold his hand, and assure him. I have given him my heart, my soul, my future. I want nothing more than to help him the same way he has helped me. \n\nHe has become my strength. He is the one I want to fight for, protect, and be a little selfish. Although he sees all the sides of me, he has love for me despite my bad sides. I was always scared to show other emotions besides happiness. Everyone has seen me as the ‘always happy’ girl and I simply don’t live up to that. I have times where I don’t wish to smile. I have times where I get angry and upset. But, he accepts those emotions and doesn’t seem to categorize me as ‘always happy’. I can let my true self be seen. He also has helped me grow. I use to have issues with lying all the time. It got to the point where I couldn’t even see my lies from my truths. He called me out on it, saying that I lie a lot. He opened my eyes to a new side of me I never saw before. I have done away with my lying, for I’ve always harbored ill feelings toward liars. He has shaped me into the adult I am. Although I still have much learning to do, he seems willing to stand by my side, watch me grow, and love me more.\n\n I have also seen his true self. There are times when he doesn’t want to talk. There are times when he doesn’t want to play video games. There are times when he enjoys nothing. But yet, I love him. I love all parts of him. His selfish behavior (which is oddly enough unselfish at times), his cynical views on some things, his laziness. I accept him in his entirety. I want nothing but the best for him. I want a future with him, and whatever time molds him to become. He is my other half. The one God up in the heavens made exactly for me. I feel, at times, my words are useless in describing him. Even the words ‘I love you’ don’t seem like enough. \n\nMy darling Spencer, you are everything to me and more. We may be far apart now, but I can’t wait till we are together again. I miss you with my entire heart. I love you to the googleplexian power. I just wish I had more words that could describe my endless love. Because, to me, you are my love.\n\n", "Who is that raven which weeps in the night\n\nBut let's not the darkness define her\n\nWho is that raven which has of love fright\n\nAnd who hides so that it may not find her\n\n\n\n\nWho is that crow who sees the nights tears\n\nAnd yearns for that sorrowful raven\n\nWho is that crow which takes away all the fears\n\nAnd offers its wings as safe haven\n\n\n\n\nWho is that raven which leaves it's own nest\n\nAnd flies to escape winter cold\n\nWho is that raven who seeks all the best\n\nTo find love and together grow old\n\n\n\n\nWho is that crow who watches that flight\n\nAnd admits that he'll never catch her\n\nWho is that crow who endures winter's bite\n\nAnd will always be there to patch her\n\n\n\n\nWho is that crow who waits for his black dove\n\nBut fears she may never return\n\nWho is that crow without his bird's love\n\nWithout whom his feelings adjourn", "I sit with her again for a session of societal soul searching \n under a starless night sky \n as the air hums with thick humidity around me \n and hangs in my lungs heavy. \n\nAnd my heart aches to reach out and touch her porcelain cheek \n now that I've seen the cracks underneath \n she covers with plaster colored paint.\n\nBut she's warned me before that the parasitic darkness\n burrowed deep within the folds of her brain\n could not simply be plucked or pulled out\n with the whispers of sweet words against her ears\n which bounce off the darkness like dull bullets, \n never fixing\n only temporarily tethering a fresh band-aid to a bleeding heart\n that's been soaked sordid in black blood.\n\nBut I wish she could see what I see when I stare\n into the ocean's storm that swirls deep in her eyes,\n or how the clouds in those gray orbs break\n to let the sun burst through as she breathes life\n into the words on her crumpled pages of poetry,\n if only she could hear what I hear when she speaks,\n her promises of forever that pierce my very pulse. \n\nAnd she rationalizes putting poisons in her skin \n by saying she'd rather be the fly free to find new places\n than the spider stuck spinning a home in the corner of a dark garage.\n\nAnd I am realizing too late that she is neither the spider nor the fly\n but the web in which I've gotten myself caught\n and there's no escape for eager boys\n in love with such a fragile thread,\n one that has been tangled too viciously in my veins for a clean break\n but one that no one sees \n under my own plaster colored paint.", "Of all the the lights in the sky \nShe shines brighter than I can deny \nWhat she has I can't define \nWhat she seeks is not to find \n\nI talk but no words come out \nI always fill myself with doubt \nThere's something I'd like to ask \nBut it's just such a risky task\n\nSo for now we'll stay friends \nUntil my confidence extends \nAnd maybe some day some how \nI'll ask her and pretend to take a bow", "We met while hanging out with a mutual friend. The moment I saw her I knew I wanted her to be mine. We talk for a few days, I finally invite her over. We watch some shows together, half paying attention to them while we get to know each other. We kiss. I made her mine.\n\nWeeks pass. Months. We're with each other constantly. Talking, driving, cooking, relaxing, any reason there is for us to see each other, we're together. We talk about our futures, what we want to do. We're both unsure, but we have vague ideas. Hair stylist, tattoo artist, things that keep her hands moving. I'm still unsure, maybe a writer, if I could stop procrastinating. She laughs. Makes me promise that I will write a children's story, to make that my goal, and she will illustrate. I agree.\n\nI tell her I love her. She loves me too.\n\nA year passes. She's struggling with school, work. Anxiety, OCD, depression, insomnia, PTSD. Home life is a mess. Leaving her room means a panic attack, leaving the house isn't an option. Days, weeks off of work. I don't remember the last time I saw her. She goes to a mental health institution. Weeks with no contact to anyone.\n\nShe returns. It's helped. Somewhat.\n\nShe's trying to work again, slowly. Schoolwork is hard, work is harder. Barely talks to anyone, anyone talking to her makes her panic. We go out sometimes, buying a few things for our future apartment. Not often, never any other occasions. She's realized how her current state of mind affects her, decides she needs to work on fixing herself.\n\nAlone.\n\nNothing I can say will stop her. She cries, I cry. I love her, she loves me. She doesn't know if she'll be back. I cry harder. She says she needs to go. Her car drives out of sight.\n\nFour months later, I'm still waiting for her call.\n\n-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nSorry if this doesn't fit perfectly to this prompt, it got out of hand while I was writing. Also, this is my first prompt, so I hope I didn't do terribly. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯", "She sat across from me and up two rows\n\nHer scent so strong it tingled my nose\n\nLove was in the air\n\nBut could not lift me from my chair\n\n\nMinds drifting from the task at hand\n\nThe beating on my chest I could barely stand\n\nOur souls on paper is what we chose\n\nShe drew a thorn and I a rose\n\n\nEvery rose has its thorn, they say\n\nBut me she never chose\n\nLovestruck and relying on luck\n\nI dreamed of confessing my heart\n\nI hoped for us to never part\n\nBut she drew a thorn and I never arose", "There's him. We joke about dicks and memes, punch each other, and all that other guy stuff. He doesn't know that little part of me--the one that likes him. The way he laughs after throwing that bottle of vinegar and baking soda at the principal's window. His smile, his face, his personality. Perfect in the best way.\n\nThen there's her. We don't know each other much more than a nod in the hallway, or a \"Sign my yearbook?\", but I always notice her laugh. Her flowing brunette hair. That cute way she laughs with her friends. When she smiles, I want to evaporate so she doesn't notice me, because when she does, the laugh stops. We're polar opposites. Me, the fat-linux-geek-with-2.8-GPA guy. Her, the prom-queen-cheerleader-who-has-a-social-life-and-4.5-GPA. \n\nI know there's no chance for either of them and I. He's not like me, and she isn't like me in a different way. It's a vicious thing, trying to tear me apart. One is my friend, but doesn't like me that way. One is my polar opposite, who's mind's contents will never be known. Neither of them know each other, neither of them care.\n\nAt least I can dream.", "your voice brings blurry lines\n\nsuddenly\n\ncrispintofocus\n\nyour hello hello \n\nhigh then low\n\nand then i am warm blooded from a lizard to a tiger\n\nflush in my cheeks glint in my \n\ni \n\ncatch a whiff of you on the bus\n\nwhip around. not you\n\nwishing as i crumble i fall to ash\n\nwhen do I see you again why do you work so much why do you always seem fine even though the strain has me \n\n\ndying ", "He has a quirky smile, with one side of his mouth a little higher than the other. Sometimes I kiss it, just because.\n\nHe likes to wear gym shorts. Lazy day? Gym shorts. Errands? Gym shorts. Car trip? Gym shorts. Hiking? Dinner? Hanging out? Probably gym shorts. I was annoyed at the beginning but now I know better. It's just how he dresses.\n\nHe likes a decent amount of the same music that I do. We send each other music, youtube links, cool articles we've read- almost constantly. We discuss. We bond. He knows I'll listen to the songs he sends me, even if they might not be my cup of tea. I know he'll let me play my roadtrip playlists in the car on long rides.\n\nHe knows I like coffee and tea equally passionately. I know that he never used to drink tea before he met me, but now he drinks earl grey. Sometimes with milk. When I made earl grey cookies, he tried one slowly, then excitedly ate the rest.\n\nHe has a cowlick that he shakes to the side. When it's windy he grumbles to himself and re-combs his hair over and over. Sometimes I tease him about it, but sometimes I just comb it back with my fingers.\n\nHe's bad at decision-making, indecisive. Dinner and what movies or shows to watch are often left up to me, which I embrace, but I also support his big choices. School, work, I can tell when he's frustrated and angry about making life decisions. I know the best ways to calm him down, to get him to talk through his thoughts.\n\nHe knows the things that frustrate me, too. Takes care of me and talks me down. The darkest, most stormy mood of mine that would send lesser men flying is a challenge to him, and I couldn't count the times he has made me laugh after a long day when I have sworn to be angry the entire night.\n\nHe's my sidekick. My superhero. One of my best friends.\n\n", "Everyone says he has the hands of a fighter. \n\nYet they've never felt his gentle palms. \n\nHe could cradle a feather as well as break a stone. \n\nThere's a desperation in his eyes. \n\nHe's always trying to make them proud. \n\nI've always tried to make him proud. \n\nTogether we are prouder than the wind.\n\nNobody hits harder, but how he bends when I hit back. \n\nHe's where I go for softness. \n\nI'm where he goes for strength. \n\nHe'll never say so. I do the same. \n\nWe don't need words to know one another.", "I met him in college, long long ago. He was strong and goofy and a little broken. Blonde and always fresh-showered clean and probably destined to go bald. I was lost, confused, and young in ways I wouldn't understand for decades. Neither of us was ready or willing for what we felt. Fear divided us so life moved us apart. Nobody since has come close to filling that wound.\n\nHis face is mostly gone. I remember his smell, fresh-showered but musky. I sometimes move in a way that I know I picked up from him.\n\nNow he's just this ideal that haunts me at odd moments. The patchwork memory of unrequited love.", "I find it pretty hard to understand emotions and empathise with others. I'm terrible at the whole socialising thing but I get by somehow. The thing is, I have acquaintances instead of friends. No one wants to start the conversation with me, no one texts to see how I'm doing, no one has my back when shit hits the fan. \n\nSo when I find someone who's willing to take time out, I fall pretty hard. Now, I usually mess it up by being too forward. But I never learn. \n\nTo answer your request: she's brilliant. Reserved from what seems to be years of...let's call it emotional oppression. Sometimes if I press too hard she withdraws and it's not very pleasant to see. But I like broken things. Call me an ass but I really like broken things. If they can't be fixed, they can be broken further. Either way is objectively fascinating. \n\nShe says hello first. She comes and sees me. She kissed me today. On the cheek. \n\nShame she's married. " ]	[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 17, 18, 28 ]	[ "1466108594", "1466118744", "1466119102", "1466121188", "1466121266", "1466121303", "1466121315", "1466122206", "1466124358", "1466125597", "1466125634", "1466125851", "1466126356", "1466127347", "1466129095", "1466129425", "1466130067", "1466130515", "1466130523", "1466130968", "1466132326", "1466132609", "1466134995", "1466134997", "1466136385", "1466138020", "1466139056", "1466139388", "1466140686", "1466141172", "1466141436", "1466141518", "1466141724", "1466142411", "1466142793", "1466142996", "1466144415", "1466145750", "1466146982", "1466117914", "1466118582", "1466121030", "1466129239", "1466130163", "1466137767", "1466141936", "1466121176", "1466133583", "1466113881", "1466120301", "1466120675", "1466121890", "1466122413", "1466118970", "1466119151", "1466116548", "1466115976" ]
[removed]	[WP] You need to find something to wear to your wife's second funeral.	1	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Hi there, \n\nThis post has been removed as it violates the following rules: \n\n\nCopy-cat prompts (taking a recent prompt and changing only a small detail) are not allowed. \n\n\n\nPlease refer to the sidebar before posting. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to message the /r/WritingPrompts moderators.\n\n---\n\n[Link to the removed post](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/4oi36u/wp_you_need_to_find_something_to_wear_to_your/)" ]	[ 1, 1 ]	[ "1466147700", "1466148722" ]
Cue evil cackling...	[WP] "Don't fail..." The voice was almost a whisper. "If you do, I'll let them live..."	7	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "How in the world am I ever supposed to do this? If I fail he’ll let them live, If I succeed he’ll get rid of them for me. I have to do this. No matter what have to succeed in the task before me. \nOkay, just stay calm. Breathe. In through the nose out through the mouth. Okay again. In through the nose out through the mouth. Now open your eyes. Zero in on your target. And jump!\nFew almost went wrong there. Okay you’re almost there. Just need to open the door and get what he asked for. GOT IT! I DID IT!\n\nThe little boy jumped off of the counter back down on the bathroom floor with a bottle of lice-shampoo\n“Daddy! Daddy! I’ve got it! Now you can kill those stupid lice!”" ]	[ 1, 3 ]	[ "1466166686", "1466179307" ]
	[WP] You are unknowingly a main character on a very popular show, but the person playing you has changed mid-season.	3	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "I’ve always thought my life felt like a really bad made-for-TV action movie. \n\nAll across the desert, dozens of wannabe racers flanked us on either side. Most of the contestants -- us included -- used SpeedyHover racers, but I also saw a lot of SmashBusters and Explode-O-Matics. The sound of engines being punished flooded the air as everyone revved their rigs in a pointless, if not loud, show of bravado.\n\nGreen light. Her SpeedyHover 4 / Rally Certified (SH4RC, or “shark” if you want to sound “cool”) was slightly faster than my SH3, but I was able to keep up. For some, these rallies meant going out in a blaze of glory and taking as many competitors as possible with you. For us, it meant winning. We NEEDED that grand prize.\n\nOur plan was to dart around the violence and rocket so far ahead that by the time anyone noticed we weren’t dead yet, we’d be too far along to catch up.\n\nGreen light. We’re off. Seconds after we started, a well-armored car to our right exploded in a massive fireball of twisted shrapnel -- much of which landed directly in our path. Swerve. Dodge. Parry. We made it. Our cars got a little banged up, but we were putting some good distance between us and the calamity behind us. Sometimes, when things went to plan, it felt like we had our own team of writers scripting our lives.\n\nIt didn’t take long before we saw them. Three heavily-armored vehicles had broken away from the melee and were desperately trying to catch up. Being so focused on our approaching threats, I didn’t notice the rock directly in front of us. Both of us hit it. Both of us stalled. Both of us tried to start our engines. I succeeded. She did not.\n\nWe had to finish this together. I couldn’t just leave her there, so I did the unthinkable. I uncoupled my protective gear, stepped out into the open, attached the jumper cable to the batteries, and used the power from my car to start hers. Her shark roared to life. Another ten seconds to toss the cables, jump back in, and punch it, and we were on our way.\n\nTime literally froze. Not figuratively; we simply stopped. No inertia, no dust, no wind -- just stopped.\n\nThis was all wrong. Three well-dressed men appeared out of nowhere. Two were holding briefcases. What the hell were they doing out here? HOW could they be out here? Am I having a stroke?\n\n“Sorry guy,” they said. “I know this is going to be weird, but you’re getting a midseason change.”\n\nI don’t understand. What were they talking about?\n\n“Look, you’re just not doing it anymore. It isn’t working with the younger demographic. Frankly, you’re just not believable after that little stunt you pulled. Your ratings have, if we’re going to be technical here, tanked.”\n\nI was now more confused than ever. I looked to her for help but she was as frozen as the dust clouds behind my tires. I tried to scream as I felt myself being ripped from reality. I felt nothing, no sensation at all, but I could see myself floating up above -- like I was being pulled up into the sky.\n\n“Christ Ed,” said one of the men. “What did I say?”\n\n“Yeah, I know,” said one of the other men. “I thought it would work.”\n\n“You’re an idiot,” said the third man. “It’s going to take us at least another season to recover from your little stunt.”\n\nThe second man looked down at the ground as a new person started to materialize in my car. Just before they faded completely from my view, I heard him say it:\n\n“We should never have had him jump the SH4RC.”" ]	[ 1, 2 ]	[ "1466179988", "1466184943" ]
hat tip: /u/SteelWithIt	[WP] Sometimes it's better to go back to sleep and not be brave.	14	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "I inhaled deeply as I laid on my back, pulling the covers from over my head as my face greeted the cold atmosphere. I must've left the air conditioner on last night. I looked around, admiring the sun reflecting off my room's pale blue walls, as the familiar hum I slept with remained in the room. I checked my watch, then noticed I was alone. My wife was probably in the bathroom. I can't believe I even woke up this early. I pulled the covers over my head, turned to face the wall, and closed my eyes--only to be interrupted by my stomach's growling. I sighed, flipping the covers off of me to the point where they were hanging off the bed a bit. I then grabbed my dark blue slippers, my robe, and my rectangular glasses.\n\nI walked down the steps slowly as the cold breeze from the air conditioner flooded into the halls and journeyed downstairs with me. I walked through the living room, turning off the television. I walked through the well-lit dining room, past the basement, and finally arrived into the kitchen. I sthered to go to the light switch, but decided to just let the sun light the room for now. I sat myself down in my usual spot at the kitchen table. I switched on the television. It wasn't that good anyway. Just boring politics and stuff. I grabbed my rolled up newspaper, pen in hand, ready to do the local crossword--and that's when I saw it. Out the corner of my eye, it was just sitting there. Staring at me. There was a spider on the fucking table, and I was powerless to do anything about it. So I did what I had to do--I shifted from my seat, silently. Its beady eyes watched me as I eased from the chair to the door. It took a step forward each time I took a step forward. \n\nBefore I knew it, we were already at my bedroom. I had kicked my slippers off moments before. I was huddled up on the bed, and the thing was on the floor in front of me. It just sat there as I sat there. I quickly turned, pulling the sheets from the side of the bed and pulled them over me as I lied on my back. I didn't know where it went, and I damn well sure wasn't going after it. I closed my eyes, hoping this was just a nightmare. ", "\"Aaaaaah!\"\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"It was a giant snake. A lizard head. It was going to eat me.\" The boy said holding back tears.\n\nThe old man shushed the sobbing child and he leaned back in his chair as the boy's breathing became steadier but no less deep.\n\nThe old man grunted in approval. \"I see Madam Daine's teachings. Can you calm your heart as well?\"\n\nThe child's mood shifted slightly as he controlled his breathing. The old man held his wrist, he needn't have. He could see, as the child's audience, he wanted to impress, to not seem weak or not up to the challenge. Besides it wasn't his body the boy needed to control.\n\n\"Can you still remember the dream?\n\nHe shook his head.\n\nSighing the old man brought a flame to the herbs once more. \"You only have what you take with you. The desire and want must be let go. You think you are protecting yourself, ignoring the dangers and forging ahead regardless. But our dreamstate is not like we are now.\"\n\n\"I know. But I forget.\"\n\nSwallowing he places the smoking herbs on his lap and the boy inhales deep. \"Take this,\" and whispers in the boys ear before he fell into sleep once more.\n\nWhen the boy was under again she stepped from the shadows. \"What the hell was that? What did you say?\"\n\nIf the boy was awake he would see a different man. His expression more sharp and forceful, filled with determined purpose. Slowly and with a measured tone he said \"I reminded him to remain true to himself.\" He paused, waiting for the inevitable outburst raising his voice \"Without,\" he stared intently at Madam Daine \"Using the word 'true'.\" \n\nHe didn't wait for a response. He'd had these arguments more times than he dared count. He could see her anger and exasperation on her face as he stomped into the corridor.\n\nRaising these kids to the next plain without proper training or experience, what were they thinking. Were they that desperate? Or just greedy.\n\nThis boy though. He'll survive. But will he be alright?\n\nThe old man shuffled to the next room. Long periods in Dreamstates took its toll mentally. They didn't experience time, these higher beings. And have no patience for the ego of humans.\n\nAll emotions are the same to them. They see us either excepting what is, or we are denying ourselves to them. Or hiding. Depending on the entity. So much confusion, so many misunderstandings. 'I'm just glad he's moving away from what they believe is bravery' he thought to himself. 'He's definitely got a fighting chance'.", "Jon lay awake in his cell. Scratching at his shaggy dark hair and thick beard. His orange jumper hung from his bunk air drying. The walls were stripped bare of everything, with the exception of his pencil made tally marks. They numbered 7,300. His cell mate Matt lay beneath him sighing at the prospect of a long night without sleep, as he always did on anniversaries of his cellmates arrival.\n\nThe hours ticked by with Jon's sobbing echoing off the concrete walls of the cell. Reaching a breaking point Matt snapped. \"God Dammit Jon, I have told you a hundred times you have to knock that crying shit off. You're in prison man, have been for twenty long years now. Just fucking accept it already.\" Letting out a long breath Matt regained his composure, and in a softer, although not very friendly tone said. \"At least tell me why you are here. I have listened to your sobbing for the last 15 years without even knowing why. You're a hard a man as any outside this cell. Yet every year without fail you break down into a child. I think after everything we have been through I deserve to know.\"\n\nJon let out a low grunt and dropped to the floor from his bunk, sitting on the stool across from his cell mates bed. His eyes were shot red from the tears he made no attempt to hold the back. Setting his gaze upon Matt he said. \"Before I tell you my tale I want your word that you will never again speak to me on the anniversary of my incarceration.\" Matt gave a nod indicating his agreement.\n\nJon let his tears flow freely as he took a moment to mental steel himself. As he had not recounted the circumstances of his imprisonment before. It took him a while to begin but once he did he did not intend stop until his story was finished. Taking a slow breath Jon looked at Matt and said. \n\n\"There are a few things you have to know about before I can get to the meat of this story. Of my family I knew only my mother and older sister. Although, know might be a strong word. My mother was rarely around and when she was she was sleeping. Working three jobs tends to have the effect. My sister was a few years older than me, and as such spent much of her time away from he house as high school girls do.\" Jon paused ever so briefly as he conjured up images of his mother and sister and continued as if he never stopped. \n\n\"My father died in the war just before I was born. I always felt the need to protect my family as I was the man of the house. Even as I was a small boy. The night in question was just over twenty years ago. I was fourteen. My mother was working the night shift at the diner down the block and my sister was asleep in her room. A loud bang jerked me awake. I remember fear. In a moment that felt like it spanned my entire life, all I could feel was fear. It was then I remembered something my father had said in a letter delivered by the military shortly after he died. My mother had only let me read it the year before. It said among other things that bravery was not the absence of fear but the perseverance to do what needs to be done in the face of it.\"\n\nThere was another slight pause before Jon brushed his hair away from his eye's and continued. \"Remembering the words my father wrote I grabbed my baseball bat and charged downstairs desperate to protect my elder sister. Turning the corner I blasted into an intruder. Without thinking I started wildly swinging my bat. I'll never forget the crunch of bone that reverberated through the bat to my hands as it connected over and over again with the intruders head. In my rage I didn't see the second person. I didn't even hear his screams as I beat his partner to death. It wasn't until he turned on the living room light that I realized what I had done. As much as I try to forget the image of my sister's bloodied and caved in skull, and the look of horror upon her boyfriend's face, every year it comes flooding back to me. Because of the severity of the beating the state charged me as an adult and here I sit. The only thing I can think is that I wish my father would have told me that sometimes it's okay to not be brave and just go back to bed.\" \n\n\n\n\n\n", "It's already midnight??.... Time flew faster than I thought it did, but I gotta watch my shows.But I just got out of bed a few hours ago after my nap, it sucks being old. Billy said he come by tomorrow; he's been meaning to fix the pipes under my kitchen sink. Such a sweet boy, always there for his old mother. Too bad he's not here right now, I could definitely use help going up these stairs, these legs dont work as well as they used to. \n\nFinally! Back in bed. I can't remember the last time I was this tired. As I lay back down in my head touches the pillow, I find it really hard to keep my eyes open. But.... Something's wrong I can feel it. The air feels thicker as getting a breath in is taking every ounce of my strength, my vision is getting blurry. Every part of my body feels like it's slowing down.\n\nNo! Not yet!! \n\nI am dying.... I know it, I can feel it. Yes, I have accomplished things in my life. There's one thing however I will not accept and that is for my son to find me like this. When I pass from this world , I want to him by my side so we can say our final goodbyes. But like this?! Alone , and unable to tell my son I love him one last time. All our lives they tell us not to fear death to live as fully as possible and to go with no regrets. And yes, I have always believed that and lived life fully up to this moment. But experiencing it... Is a completely different story. I just need to hold out until morning and then I can say goodbye! The air is getting heavier. \nNo!!\nI feel numb.... When I try to move, there is no response from my legs or arms. \nFight it!!\nI will not go out like this! I need to see him, my boy! So.... This is true fear. I thought I had every scenario worked out.... But not this. My child is healthy and happy, and that is all I can ask for. In truth, I am afraid of death. I don't know what lies Beyond, but I am not ready. Everything's getting dim..... please! I just need more time to figure it all out... I am afraid. But now.....\n\n\n\nDarkness....." ]	[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 ]	[ "1466180626", "1466182081", "1466185401", "1466198624", "1466203723" ]
[removed]	[WP] RAGE	1	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Hi there, \n\nThis post has been removed as it violates the following rules: \n\n\nHi, the [WP] tag is for writing prompts. Stories that are based on prompts should be posted in the comments section of that prompt, or if the it is more than 3 days old, can be posted as [PI]. If this is a story you wrote, without a prompt you can post it in the Sunday Free Write, which is attached to the front page every Sunday.\n\n\n\nPlease refer to the sidebar before posting. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to message the /r/WritingPrompts moderators.\n\n---\n\n[Link to the removed post](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/4oluqo/wp_rage/)" ]	[ 1, 1 ]	[ "1466203681", "1466204272" ]
	[WP] Magic (a la Skyrim) is real, and wizards are a part of everyday life. Instead of magicka, however, casting spells temporarily drains intelligence instead. Describe The Great Mage's War.	11	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "\"Cast and get out. As soon as we break cover they'll be all over us, so I need you to keep it together so we can make a run for it.\"\n\n\"Don't worry, I've done this before. I can handle my drain.\" I clench my sticky notes in one hand, stand up behind cover, and aim my wand at the approaching formation of tanks. Time to fight for my country.\n\n\"Frango, frangere, fregi, fractus!\" I incant.\n\nWhoa. Those are some strange machines over there. All big and tan and with big tubes sticking out. Except they're all broken. The metal bits were torn open, and there were people jumping out and screaming! Oh my god, they're on fire, what happened?\n\nUh-oh. They look angry. Did I do something wrong? There was something I was supposed to do, but I can't remember. Some of the men are coming this way.\n\n\"Get down, you idiot!\"\n\nI hear a bang and someone tackles me. He's holding a big metal thing like the other men are, but wearing different-colored clothes.\n\n\"Ow! What was that for?\"\n\n\"Read your goddamn sticky notes!\"\n\nOh. There are some notes in my hand. Written in really simple words, so they're easy to read.\n\nThis is a friend. He'll keep you safe. Do what he says. It has a little picture of the guy who just tackled me.\n\nThe men who look like this are bad guys. Don't let them see you! It has a picture of the men in tan uniforms.\n\nYour friend will help you get away. Run fast!\n\nYou'll get smart again in a few hours. Don't die until then.\n\nI look at the picture again, then look at the man. I guess I'd better listen to him. Those bad guys looked really mad.\n\n\"Where do we go?\"\n\n\"We have a helo waiting for extraction about two klicks west of here.\"\n\n\"Exa-what?\"\n\nThe man sighs and points towards the setting sun. \"Good guys, that way. Look for the big spinning flying thing.\"\n\nHe crouches behind a broken wall and grips his gun tightly. \"I'll suppress them... I mean, when I start shooting, you start running.\"\n\nHe stands up and starts shooting. It's really loud, and it sounds like the bad guys are madder than ever! I hurry in the direction he pointed.\n\nI hear a boom behind me, and then the man with the gun is running past me, very fast. \"Goddamit I hate being the minder! Move your ass!\"" ]	[ 1, 6 ]	[ "1466208154", "1466212844" ]
	[WP] A kidnapper has a change of heart and releases his victim. But the victim's Stockholm Syndrome makes them frighteningly obsessive and possessive.	87	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "//A little NSFW towards the end.//\n\nI’ve been in the business a long time. Hell, I’ve come so far I’ve even got a 401k and dental. Pretty decent given that I kidnap people for a living. It’s not a hard gig. You take a few bruises and scratches here and there, maybe a bite if they’re feisty. But once they’re gagged and tied up, it’s all smooth sailing from there. \n\nHere’s how it goes:\n\nStep 1: Monitor. Figure out a person’s patterns. We’re very predictable beings, so this is stupidly simple. Especially when social media became a thing. I don’t even have to follow people anymore, just on Instagram. \n\nStep 2: Pick em up. You’d be amazed how many people don’t notice their surroundings. I once picked up a kid who was holding his mom’s hand because in her other hand was her phone. Smartphones have been the greatest invention when it comes to my profession, I swear. \n\nStep 3: Gag, bind, and hide. I hide in my apartment in central city. \n\nStep 4: Sit and wait. Another guy does the negotiating part. I pretty much just babysit a sack of potatoes for awhile.\n\nStep 5: Release. It usually takes a day or two till I get the text. Three if the father drives a hard deal. \n\nMy current run all went perfectly until Step 5. It’s been seven days. Seven. This sometimes happens if the kid we got was particularly disliked by their family. Cruel world, I know, but it does happen. So now I’ve got this 15-year-old girl sitting next to me on the couch, eating cereal and watching TV. You might be thinking why hasn’t she made a run for it yet? Your question is as good as mine. \n\nBoss man told me to give it up on day five. The girl’s dad wasn’t budging, and it just wasn’t worth the trouble. I’ve could’ve caught and released two others by this point. We were losing money holding on to this one, so I was told to just get rid of her. Which I did. Two days ago. Out at the park ten miles away. You can only imagine my surprise when I got a knock on my door a couple hours later and there stands the merchandise. I was so flabbergasted she just waltzed right in like she owned the place. Now I can’t get rid of her. \n\n“Listen, kid, I’ve got a job to do.” This is me on day seven.\n\n“What do you mean? I’m right here. You’ve already got a kidnapped victim.”\n\n“I already told you, you’re not getting paid for. That’s why I let you go. That’s why you need to leave. I’m really not sure why you’re still here.”\n\nThis is the third time we’ve had this conversation. It usually gets derailed right there. \n\nThe teenage girl, whose name is Rebecca by the way, leaned back and stretched out her legs. Her ankles and wrists were pristine, not a single rope burn on them. I could lie and say I was just that good, but the truth is, it means she didn’t even struggle against her restraints. Her head fell back against the couch as she let out an exasperated sigh. \n\nOn her first night here as a non-victim she apparently went into my room at some point to steal one of my undershirts and a pair of boxers. She was now wearing these with no bra underneath. So as she stretched, her form underneath was quite visible. I may be a man who is also a criminal, but sex with an underaged girl is something that never appealed to me. Going to prison for kidnapping – sure, risk of the job. Going to prison as a pedophile? Not gonna happen. \n\n“You’re the one who brought me here against my will,” she said, her eyes rolling over to me as she stayed laid out.\n\n“But you’re not here against your will now.”\n\nShe shrugged as if this were of no consequence. “You gagged me,” she said, eyes fixated on mine as though she were daring me to refute her words, “Tied me up.” She smiled a little as she let shit hit the fan. “I know who you are.” \n\nFuck.\n\n“Jack Robinson, 32, Caucasian male living in Apt #203 at the Hampton Heights. You were a military brat, then joined the army like your daddy. Honorably discharged at the age of 21 after a tour in Iraq. You got in league with an old battle buddy of yours, who was not so honorably discharged, to do what you do now. Kidnap people for a living.”\n\nWhen I sat in stunned silence, she continued while she ran a hand over her taught abdomen. Her tone was neutral, as though this were all terribly boring. “I know his name too. Rick Black. Isn’t it funny when a white man has the last name Black? I think it is. Anyway, I’ve already texted my daddy to let him know you’ve raped me over and over, so he might be rethinking not getting me back now. Here’s the thing, either you fuck me now, or I’ll let him know who you are. I don’t know if he’ll kill you himself or let the fellas at the prison do it for him. I really love the idea of men being made bitches out there.” \n\nRebecca crept over to me, making my skin crawl and stomach turn. Her hand slid up my thigh as she whispered into my ear, “I’d love to watch them make you one. You choose.”\n", "\"I can't believe you'd freaking do that to me, my love. After all we've been through, together!\" said Elizabeth.\n\n\"We've known each other for literally two hours,\" replied the Terrorist ordering a taco at Taco Bell.\n\n\"It was my first time! I can't believe you'd take that away from me,\" she said angrily, a loaded shotgun in her hands.\n\nThe Taco-Bell cashier raised an eyebrow before resigning himself to the horrific life of the late-night shift.\n\n\"I'm gay,\" came the Terrorist, \"I didn't even touch you.\"\n\n\"I didn't mean something as LEWD as that!\" she blushed bright red, \"I was talking about the kidnapping.\"\n\n\"Jesus christ, in what world is kidnapping romantic?\" the Terrorist bit on the soft shell of a delicious Taco Bell Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Taco, now only $5.00 when ordered with a crispy taco and a medium drink combo.\n\nThe woman's eyes bulged, \"How is kidnapping not romantic?! It implies intimacy and desire!\"\n\n\"You read too many books. Next, you'll be telling me that if a dwarf gives a fucking rock to an elf, it's pure vanilla romance.\" said the Doritos Locos Taco lover as he sucked at his fingers for the oozy drip of tangy cheese, \"Besides, I'm engaged.\"\n\nThe woman felt her heart shatter, \"No!\"\n\n\"His name's Jake.\"\n\n\"You liar!\"\n\n\"I met him like, six years ago on Tinder.\"\n\nElizabeth refused to believe it as she stood, gun-in-hand, hopped up on pure, eighty-percent cocaine. She cocked her shotgun and emptied the two slugs that were previously stuck in the double-barrel weapon.\n\n\"Did you just-\" the Terrorist raised an eyebrow as he swished from his paper cup full of Coke Zero. As good as regular Coca-Cola with all the calories of a Diet Coke. You don't know zero til' you try it.\n\n\"Love me or I'll shoot you!\" Elizabeth screamed.\n\n\"Your gun isn't loaded anymore, you crazy girl!\"\n\nAll of a sudden, the Terrorist's cell-phone began to rang.\n\nElizabeth's eyebrows furrowed on her temple. Before the Terrorist could respond, the girl had snatched the mobile iPhone SE from his pocket.\n\nThe iPhone SE. Most powerful 4-inch phone of 2016. With the same power of a bulging iPhone 6S, the SE provides long-lasting love and piped-up performance in an average sized package. As they say in the language of my people, big surprises come from small packages.\n\nA voice came to life on the cellular speakers.\n\n\"Hey, Gabe! It's Jake, so I was deciding on what suit I should get for the wedding next week.\"\n\n\"Who the hell is this?! Have you been cheating on me, my love?\" Elizabeth gasped with a broken heart.\n\n\"I don't even know your freaking name- Just give me my phone back.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because if you do, you'll ruin everything precious we've built together! Every dark and twisted trial we've been through! Every fight we've had! Every time I tried to find your number before my parole officer came to drag me away!\"\n\n\"Your mind sure is a dark and twisted place isn't it?\" the Terrorist named Gabe shook his head before wiping his hands off on his dark pants. Dark Pants. Now 100% more effective than the leading Light Pants at hiding stains. Find them at your local Wal-Mart\n\n\"So, what're you wearing right now, Jake?!\" Elizabeth screamed into the cell, breathing with her mouth open.\n\n\"Uhh...\"\n\n\"Jake, I swear to god, if you say khakis-\" the Terrorist named Gabe began.\n\n\"Khaki shorts.\"\n\nElizabeth howled like an ape stuck in a zoo and turned the gun to the Terrorist Named Gabe, squeezing firmly on the trigger.\n\nGabe, who was sitting about twenty feet away at this point, continued to munch on his taco.\n\nElizabeth was shocked. Had the power of love spared her lover of her jealous scorn?\n\nShe turned the barrel of the still very-dangerous gun to her head and pulled the trigger again.\n\nNope, still nothing.\n\nShe then proceeded to pull out few more slugs, cracked back the shotgun, shoved two in rather harshly, and yanked the device closed with a loud crack. Elizabeth turned the shotgun around by the trigger and stared right into the barrel, making sure the bullet was securely in place.\n\n\"Gun safety! Stop messing with that, it's not a toy!\" Gabe shouted between bites of Doritos Locos.\n\n\"That's right! Yell at me like the maddened, passion-driven beast you are!\"\n\n\"What in the hell is wrong with you, goddammit?\" the Terrorist mumbled, irritated and hungry, \"It's been like, two years since I got out of prison for kidnapping you instead of the English Elizabeth!\"\n\n\"Yeah! Just like that! Even louder!\"\n\nWell, Gabe supposed it was time to call that parole officer again before anyone else got hurt. You blow one cell phone up on live TV, and this is the hell he was supposed to get?\n\nHe savored the taste of his taco and Coke Zero, mixing and melding in his mouth. It was almost time for his shift the pet shelter for rehabilitated criminals, after all.\n\n\n\n\n" ]	[ 1, 1, 20 ]	[ "1466226867", "1466292120", "1466264095" ]
	[WP] A young man is given unlimited wishes, the bad side being that every time he wishes for something he forgets something very important.	88	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "\"That is the best looking hot dog I have ever seen,\" said Phil. \"Where'd you get it?\"\n\n\"You know, I honestly can't remember,\" Bob said briefly looking up,\"but it is the best damn hot dog I have ever had.\"", "\"When you make the wish, It shall be granted.\" The voice in his head repeated. \"But remember this, Every time you make a wish, you forget something important\". \"Ok whatever, get on with it.\" Those were the words of in ignorant man.\nIt was one day later when he made his first wish.\"I wish I was a billionaire\" He felt something appear in his pocket, it was a wallet.\n \nA day later he had this uncomfortable feeling in his stomach. \"I wish this feeling would go away\" It was gone. When he got up to leave the room he tripped and the wallet fell out of his pocket. \"What's this for?\" He asked to no one in particular.\n\nFour days later the man died. He died rich, but he also died hungry.\n\n The End ", "\"You're... retiring?\" Paul asked the man standing in a cloud of smoke. He had dark shades, and wrinkles covered his skin.\n\n\"That's right. After a few millennia, you want to break out of the confines of a little lamp,\" the man said, gesturing to the bronze oil lamp below him.\n\n\"So, you won't grant my wish?\"\n\n\"I won't, no. But you can.\" The genie then waved his hand, and a thick book with 'Da Rulez' inscribed on the cover appeared in his hand.\n\nAs he began to flip through the pages, I couldn't help but ask, \"since when do genies have manuals?\"\n\n\"Long story involving, wands, wings, floaty crowny things... it's best not to get into it. Ah,\" the genie said, \"found it. In order to bestow the ability to grant wishes to a mortal, I have to bestow some sort of curse to maintain equilibrium.\"\n\n\"Sorry kid,\" the genie turned to look at me, \"nothing I can do about it. I'll choose a lighter curse. I can bestow the ability to grant wishes upon you, but every time you grant a wish, you will forget something very important.\"\n\n\"That's a light curse?!?\" Paul exclaimed. His memories were very important to him. That's all he had left of his mother, for starters. But what if he forgot about his wife? His kid?\n\n\"I'll pass.\" Paul said. The genie shrugged.\n\n\"Your prerogative.\" Paul walked away, muttering about 'bullshit curses' and 'ridiculous rules' when he suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned to face the genie again, who was already grabbing boxes of books and china.\n\n\"How long does this offer stand?\" Paul inquired.\n\nThe genie looked at his lamp, paused, then replied, \"It'll probably take me a while to move everything out of there, so lets say a week.\"\n\n\"Great. Do you mind if I take the lamp with me?\"\n\n\"No problem. Just don't leave me anywhere near a smoke detector.\"\n\n---\n\nA week later, Paul rubbed a bronze oil lamp. Purple smokes wafted out of the lamp, coalescing into a wrinkly man with dark shades. \n\n\"I'll take you up on the deal.\" Paul said curtly.\n\n\"Great.\" The genie snapped its fingers. \"Boom. Done.\"\n\n\"Really? That's it?\"\n\n\"That's all it takes. You now are the proud owner of magic granting powers.\" The genie sounded as if he couldn't be less enthused about the situation.\n\n\"Huh. Alright. Well, enjoy your retirement!\" Paul strode off, fantasizing about his newfound power.\n\n\"Right, first things first,\" Paul said to himself. He pulled out his phone and a piece of paper with the term \"bubbles22\" written on it. He entered that password into his phone, unlocking it. Paul then pulled up the notepad document with every important memory and responsibility he could think of in the past week written in it. He had spoken with his wife, his father and a few of his closest friends to compile every major event in his life, in case he forgot one of them. \n\nSatisfied with his preparations, Paul took a deep breath and fulfilled his first wish.\n\n\"I wish I was a millionaire!\" Paul snapped his fingers, and instantly a notification appeared on his phone. \n\n \"Notice: a deposit of 100,000,000.00 has been made to your account.\"\n\nPaul grinned from ear to ear. He instinctively switched back to the notepad and began perusing the list of memories.\n\n\"Wait... why is this here?\" Paul asked himself.\n\n\"As if I'd forget this stuff! I guess I'll just delete it.\" Paul then deleted the document and put his phone back in his pocket.\n\n\"Hmm... this place is a long walk from home. I wish I could teleport!\" Paul snapped his fingers. Then, with a mere thought, teleported straight to his doorstep.\n\n\"Man, this is great! I can grant any wish, with no repercussions at all! What a nice genie.\" Paul went to unlock his door, then realized he forgot where his keys were, so he simply teleported in.\n\nOnce inside, he was greeted by a hole in the wall, one made from when he and his wife first moved in.\n\n\"I wish that hole was fixed.\" With a snap, the hole in the wall healed.\n\n\"Hi honey, how did it go?\" A woman approached Paul with a kitchen knife, with tomato juice still covering it.\n\n\"Who are you?! Why are you in my house!?\" Paul exclaimed.\n\n\"What... Paul... don't tell me you forgo-\"\n\n\"I wish you were gone.\" With a snap, the woman was cut off mid-sentence, never to be seen again.\n\n\"Phew, that could have been terrible,\" Paul muttered to himself. \"Good thing I can grant wishes.\"", "You had dried off your tears, went through the rules again, and had decided how the day would go. The last time you made a wish, you ressurected your great-grandfather. I can't describe how pissed off everyone was that you forgot the man who held you in his arms as an infant, been the patriarch of the family for so long. But there it was. You knew you could make a wish, and it would be granted a the price of losing relevant memories on the subject of the wish. You thought you could abuse it easily, think of all sorts of loopholes. But then you aced your Math Test. What should have been a happy occassion turned to horror. You had always been amazing at Math, but had you always been amazing at math yesterday? All of a sudden, the world was unfixed. You had no idea what was natural, and what was wished up. You refused to make wishes again. Then she came along. Sally, the most beautiful girl in the world. And indeed, for you she was the world. For months, you pinned after her. You could never pluck up the courage to tell her how you felt. She was always in your mind. But then came the day she told you about Dave. Dave was an old friend from middle school. You had all but forgotten about him. But now, he turned up in your life again, as the boyfriend of the girl who should've been yours. Suffice to say, things did not turn out pleasant. But this was the day you'd make up for it. You went to her house, and apologized. After an awkward minute of conversation, you turned to leave. As the door closed, you looked back, and said \"I wish you two a happy life together.\"", " -\"How many wishes?\" Did I ask carefully to the genie.\n\n -\"Technically, an unlimited number, but there's a catch.\" he said, annoyed. \n\n -\"A catch?\" I asked, raising an eyebrow.\n\n -\"Yes, you will forget something very important each time you wish for something.\" He answered, in a sigh.\n\nSo, I have a genie. And unlimited wishes. And a minor, solvable issue. I think the proper behavior for this situation is screaming \"JAAAAAACKPOOOOT!\" until I pass out, then enjoy being given basically free reign over reality.\n\nI was grinning so hard my face began to hurt.\n\nBut let's take things slowly. Before getting my private penthouse on the moon with a harem of supermodels, let's get rid of the forgetting part.\n\n -\"What's your name dude?\"\n\n -\"I have been called many names, but you can call me Tantalus.\" he said flatly, glaring.\n\nHuh, a genie with bad attitude. Annoying, but I can work with that. After all, I can wish that part away, isn't it?\n\n -\"Okay, I wish I won't be affected by the 'forgetting something' part of the deal, Tantalus!\"\n\n There was a light.\n\n*******\n\n And I grant him his wish. He will never forget anything if he wish for something by reaching me.\n\n That's it, if he ever finds me again.\n\n For all he knows now, he's in a landfill, dumping his stuff. Why would he ever think of picking that ugly-ass lamp, since he even forgot what a genie even is?", "Dave stared at the paper he held in front of him. \n\nHe knew he had a grandmother somewhere up North, but she wasn't close. To him, or to the family. \n\nSo, it came as a shock to him that she had died and had sent him a post-death letter, delivered by her lawyer. \n\nEven more shocking was what the letter said. \n\nHis grandmother, apparently, was an unlimited wisher. A kind of being that was completely human, but had unlimited wishes. But there was a catch - every wish stole a memory. Which is why she had written this letter and left instructions with her lawyer to deliver it to Dave. \n\nDave was stunned. He felt like he had just won millions. But there was a twinge, at the edge of his mind, clouding the happiness. Losing memories COULD be a big deal. Only time will tell. \n\nFirst things first - Dave followed grandmother's instructions, and wrote a letter to his nephew, Bryan. Bryan was only 3, but Dave was only 23 and was not yet married, and didn't have children of his own. \n\nHe then sealed the letter, and sent it off to his grandmother's lawyer, with an accompanying cover letter, explaining who he was. \n\nDave rubbed his hands together with anticipated pleasure. \"So much for the preliminaries, now on to the main event... \", he thought. \n\nDave's first wish was to be handsome, muscular and strong. Before he could blink, he was. With eager anticipation, he walked to the body length mirror in his room. He looked like a Greek demi-God. \n\nHe decided he couldn't wait to tell his Mum. He quickly went over to her house. Wanting to surprise her, he quietly let himself in and tiptoed upstairs. \n\nThat's when he saw the monster. He was hitting her. His back to Dave, the animal had her tied up on the bed. Dave's mother had her eyes closed in pain. Every muscle in her face seemed to scream pain. \n\nDave was on him like lightning. \n\nHe tore him off the bed, and with his newfound strength, threw him against the wall. Dave didn't stop battering the assaulter until his skull was smashed in. And Dave's knuckles had torn open. It was bloody and gruesome. \n\nDave turned to his Mum, who's mouth was a perfect O. \n\n\"DAVE! WHY DID YOU KILL DAD???\"", "I was determined not to stumble down the street, but I was definitely feeling a little tipsy. A voice called at me, but that was normal on a Friday night. They probably wanted some change for the bus or something. The voice came again, this time in front of me.\n\n\"Wishes, as many as you desire. Though be warned, you are the buyer.\" it hissed.\n\nI tried to focus on the form but it was like smoke that could barely hold the shape of a man.\n\n\"Wishes,\" I mumbled, confused.\n\nI stared in to my memory and tried to remember how many drinks I'd consumed over the night. It had been quite a party. Maybe I was already asleep and this was a dream. It certainly made more sense than a ghost offering me wishes. \n\n\"A wish of any size, costs a random memory of equal prize \"\n\nThe hisses were insistent and scratched at the back of my head. A faint laughter followed.\n\nMy bladder wanted in on the discussion and reminded me that yes, I had in fact had many drinks and that I should probably find a toilet.\n\nWanting nothing more than to find relief and my warm bed, I waved at the smokey man as I continued my delicate walk home, \"sure, sure,\" I said laughing at the idea and trying not to slur, \"I'll wish for things in the morning,\"\n\nI awoke and felt instant regret. I tried to clear my gummed up eyes and squinted in the direction of the blaring sun coming through open curtains. Last night was a haze but it had definitely been a good night that I now wished had ended a little sooner and with a bit less drinking. \n\nI stumbled to the bathroom and felt a wave of pain through my head with each step. I sighed at the state of me staring back in the mirror. I quickly consumed some headache tablets, showered and tried to make the best of the morning. \n\nThe foggy memory of the ghost made its appearance as I was half-way through a bacon sandwich that was going a long way to making me feel better. I thought back on it and laughed at being offered wishes as if real life was like a Disney movie.\n\nI stared at blobs of tomato sauce that had dripped on to my plate and wondered.\n\n\"What would I wish for if wishes were real?\"\n\nMy stomach chose that moment to protest at its treatment during the night before and I lost my appetite. Dropping the half-eaten sandwich on to the plate, \"I wish my hangover was gone,\" I muttered. I stopped and listened. For a second, I though I'd heard a weird hissing sound, but there was nothing.\n\nAfter a few seconds, I stood up and cleared away my breakfast. After dumping my plate in the sink, I realized the kitchen was in a state and figured it was a good a time as any to clean up. \n\nIn record time, the kitchen was sparkling and I figured I might as well continue being productive and cleaned the rest of my apartment. It wasn't long before I stood in the living room and looked around at the now spotless space and smiled.\n\n\"I should clean my flat more often, this looks great.\"\n\nI sat down on to the sofa and switched on the TV. I was still feeling pretty energetic. I flicked through some channels and couldn't find anything worth watching. My phone buzzed and I casually reached over to my phone and read the text.\n\n'Great night last night, you were buzzed!'* I stopped and stared at the text. \"She must've sent it to the wrong person, we didn't go out last night.\" I laughed, dropping my phone on to the sofa, \"she's living it up, our party is tonight.\"\n\nI flicked on to the news. It was report after report about the usual incidents happening around the world.\n\nI sighed, \"it's always the same, I wish anybody who even thought about being violent would just drop dead.\"\n\nA scream. I looked towards the window and heard more frantic screaming. I rushed over and saw someone lying on the pavement, a gathering crowd consoling a wailing woman.\n\nAnother commotion behind me and I turned around to see the news detailing reports of people dropping dead all over the country. I stared in horror.\n\n\"What's happening!\" I said fearfully. \"A virus? Terrorists?\"\n\nI never saw the black smoke that moved towards me, hissing and gleeful.\n\n\"The cost for that wish is most high. The payment will have to be all your memories going bye-bye.\"\n\n\n\n\n", "I'd always saved my wishes in case I ever needed them. Today was the day. I'd gotten duumped and I really needed a pick-me-up.\n\n\"Gene.\" I called for him. \n\n\"Yes? Will you have a wish today?\" He asked me.\n\nI smiled and nodded, \"Yes I will. Cheesecake please!\" \n\nGene stared at me a moment, but I was impatient. Cheese cake was what I needed. For my luck, maybe it'd be her I forgot. See, whenever I use a wish, I'm going to forget a memmory. \n\n\"Cheese cake? With my sugnificant power, you choose cheese cake?\" He asked in a booming voice.\n\nI nodded again, \"Cheese cake, yup. That is my adult choice.\" \n\nGene granted me a cheese cake. Suddenly, I had a cheese cake infront of me so I dug in. How'd it get there? I looked up at a floating blue man.\n\n\"Who are you?\" I asked.\n\n\"Who am I? I am gene and you get three wis-\" he began to boast.\n\n\"Cheese cake, please.\" I felt like I needed another one.", "A plume of smoke appeared before me, and before I could even blink, a man dressed in purple was standing where my mothers horrible teapot had just been. \n\n\"WHO DARES AWAKE ME FROM MY- Oh, hello Dave.\"\n\nI raise my hand in acknowledgement.\n\n\"Hey Bryce.\"\n\n\"Got anything you need from me?\"\n\nI nod.\n\n\"Well,\" I begin, \"I just watched that movie Aladdin...\"\n\n\"Oh god.\"\n\n\"And apparently you genies grant wishes.\"\n\n\"Well yeah. Three wishes. Three wishes, and you cant wish for more-\"\n\n\"I want unlimited.\"\n\n\"wat.\"\n\nI nod again.\n\n\"Yeah. Infinite wishes.\"\n\n\"Um...actually, I can do that. But it comes at a cost.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah?\" I ask.\n\n\"Whenever you wish for anything, you will lose all memory of any people the wish will effect. For example, wishing your grandmother back to life, you would forget about your grandmother.\"\n\nI shrug. And then I frown.\n\n\"So what I wished for that jackass Daniel to grow taste buds in his asshole?\"\n\nDave the genie frowns, seemingly confused.\n\n\"Um... Well, you would forget Daniel. But why-\"\n\n\"And I imagine,\" I continue, \"that since I wouldn't know him, the whole thing would be less satisfying?\"\n\n\"Well,\" says the genie, \"yes, but you could grant world peace! You could right the wrongs of the world, and fix-\"\n\nI wave him away.\n\n\"Nah. I'll pass.\"", "It was always something important. The problem is, what's \"important\" is subjective. It doesn't only change from person to person, but also within a single person as they grow. \n\nWhen it first started, those with the ability would wish randomly. No one knew the consequences. It took a little longer to catch on because those infected were scattered all over the globe. Different ages, countries, genders. For awhile, it was mostly chalked up to faith. \n\nThe wishes--and the consequences--were nothing unusual. A woman in Poughkeepsie won the lottery. She forgot where she hid the ticket. It made the news when she found it a year later, long after it expired. Some dude in London wished he was the Prime Minister. When the Prime Minister started insisting he was someone else, but couldn't remember who he was, they popped him in the nut house. A guy in America wished he could win a presidential election, then forgot how to be human. At least, that's what everyone claims.\n\nBut the wishes and the forgotten things weren't always related, either. A kid in Iowa wished for an \"A\" on his math test and forgot where he put his car keys. He missed out on a big date. That one never made the news. That was my dad. I remember hearing the story, growing up.\n\nEventually, though, people figured it out. Then there were tests. At first it was voluntary. People were asked to participate. Paid for their cooperation. No one wanted to cooperate. Why should they, when they could wish for the money without being poked and prodded.\n\nThe government in America started rounding up the \"infected\". They were arrested and gassed and strapped down. Then Frank Baker wished the scientists would all die. \n\nHe was found unfit to stand trial for murder when he forgot pretty much everything. It seemed each scientist counted as a wish.\n\nThings calmed down after that. For the most part, people learned to adapt. The things that are important to kids change every day, so they wished the most. The elderly, who tended to forget things anyway, they made a lot of wishes too. Ironically, they mostly wished to remember. Everyone else was more careful. And the world was a better place, I think. \n\nSome people wished to help others. Cancer was cured--though the guy who made the wish forgot his wife who had cancer. It's okay, though. She was kind of a bitch and was planning to leave him anyway. Some people got rich, but money didn't matter so much anymore. Not to those infected with the right to wish for their own happiness.\n\nExcept... I think, maybe, people don't always know what they want. And people will be people no matter what you wish for. If, say, a woman wishes that everyone would be nice to each other, it works. Everyone who is currently living becomes nice. But babies are born every day. And they grow up.\n\nBy the time I hit high school it was the same as high school's always been. Everyone in different cliques, picking on anyone who was different. I swear, I didn't even know I was infected. I'd never had a wish come true before. It's just something you say, you know?\n\nI haven't seen another living person since the day Brian stole my lunch and dumped it in my locker. Not since I said \"I wish everyone would leave me alone.\"\n\nAnd that's all there is. See, I haven't forgotten anything.", "I wish I had a way to cool my self down! \nBut now I can't remember how to get in to town. \nI wish I had a dick as big as a porn star! \nBut now I don't know where the switch on the walls are. \nI wish for trampolines instead of a floor! \nI do my backflips naked- can't find my underwear drawer. \nI wish I never grow old, like Peter Pan! \nInstructions unclear, dick stuck in a fan. ", "'Whenever you wish for something, you will lose a memory most important to you.'\n\nThose words stuck in my mind as I remembered when I was young, wanting to be rich. \n\nHow important could memories be anyway? \n\nI'd learnt the answer to that the hard way. I wished to be a millionaire and it happened but I couldn't remember the people who I lived with. They claimed to be my parents. \n\nI never wished again. Thought I'd never wish again. Anything I wanted I could buy. \n\nI smiled as I looked at the little bundle in my arms. My gorgeous baby girl. I would raise her right, she would never go without. \n\nMy heart was with this child. When she cried, I cried. If she hurt I hurt. I loved her so much. \n\nThat's why I wished again. She'd fallen down the stairs. The latch on the child gate had broken. I'd told myself I would fix it soon. \n\nAs I held her small body in my arms, her lips turning blue and her body growing cold, I wished. \n\nI wished for her to be safe, to be well, to never have harm come to her. \n\nMy wife sobbed with joy as she grabbed the now crying baby from my arms. I opened my mouth to speak...\n\n'Why are you holding a baby?'\n\n" ]	[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 5, 17, 28, 71 ]	[ "1466248585", "1466265595", "1466271025", "1466274143", "1466274292", "1466264875", "1466264914", "1466266553", "1466262005", "1466259459", "1466263571", "1466251901", "1466254272" ]
	[WP] "So maybe killing Hitler wasn't the BEST idea. We probably should have thought this out more."	61	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Killing hitler was pretty much the first thing that any hack with a time machine did. Eventually it was outlawed, and nobody could quite figure out why. Sure, the fact that it went into a divergent timeline was annoying, but it wasn't anything serious.\n\nSo it became a thing to kill Hitler, a teenage rebellion, like smoking or getting a stupid tattoo. It was nothing at first, divergent timelines, some worse some better, depended on how metal the death was.\n\nThe issue came up when there was a bit of a glitch in the system. Time isn't that complicated, it makes mistakes and usually needs to cover it's ass. This time around the mistake was avoiding a divergent timeline, which meant that Hitler had died in our timeline and well- it made things interesting.\n\nFor one thing, the Third Rich still happens if Hitler is dead, he was a catalyst but it only sets them back a year. That being said, Hitler was a shit commander and the man that took over, Jean Von Kerwitz (Yes a Jew) was one hell of a commander. Britain was routed and suddenly there was a free world, and Europe.\n\nThe two sides of the war come to a peace treaty, as fighting a war over the ocean is a bitch. That being said the Third Rich fell monumentally shortly after the treaty was signed. The combined resistance movements of everywhere in Europe was too much for the dictator to bear and next thing you know there is a shattered but free Europe.\n\nThis is right when President R.L Richardson takes the stage in the U.S. He was the sort of man who came to be through a series of horrid mistakes known as the two party system. He was a touch of a warmonger, which wasn't that bad during peacetime, but suddenly there is a fractured Europe to pick up the pieces of. \n\nThe U.S moves over there, having never made the bomb to end the war with Japan. Russia shifts in from the North to stake their claim. Canada, the new leader of the commonwealth after the Third Rich took over Britain, goes to retake the colonies that the commonwealth had lost. A misfire later, the great white North and the States are on pins and needles.\n\nAt this point, the avid reader is probably wondering how this lead to the constant sunshine and perfect weather that we have around the world now. Why I keep speaking like it's a dystopia despite the world peace.\n\nThe answer to that one, I was part of the startup that designed the weather machine that won the war, and those fuckers cut me out right before it went big. Do you know how that feels? I mean, they are the saviors of the world and I am sitting here as part of a team that editorializes textbooks.\n\nAll I'm saying is that we are considered to be the best timeline that has come from killing Hitler, and if that's the case, MAYBE killing Hitler wasn't the best idea.", "\n“Well maybe I was a little rash.”\n\n“A little?”\n\n“Ok very rash.”\n\n“Rash doesn’t even begin to bloody describe it!”\n\n“So what the guy was a complete monster, he deserves everything he got.”\n\n“No! No one deserves that no matter what they did.”\n\n“So what it’s not like we can’t fix it; we’ve got a freackin time machine for god’s sake! There’s literally nothing we can’t fix.”\n\n“No we had a time machine.”\n\n“How was I supposed to know that it had a limited number of uses.” \n\n“What’d you think? It just ran on magic?”\n\n“Yeah kinda.”\n\n“Honestly?”\n\n“Well yeah, what else am I supposed to think when I’m shown a literal time machine.”\n\n“I don’t know, but anything’s better than ‘let’s take this magic powered time machine and go kill hitler.’”\n\n“Ohh now your bringing that back up.”\n\n“I told you that there would be grave consequences for messing with the past.”\n\n“Yeah well Hindsight’s 20:20.”\n\n“Well Hindsight didn’t plunge the world into a 2nd dark age.”\n\n“How was I supposed to know this would happen?”\n\n“What’d ya think would happen after you got 6 million dead Jews to collectively crucify Hitler in the middle of London?”\n\n“We couldn’t have planned for all the rioting.”\n\n“No we could have if you actually bothered to listen to me for once.”\n\n“Well what’s happened happened.”\n\n“You’re right. For now we’ve got to concentrate on finding a new way to power the time machine.”\n\n“Yeah, and then off to kill Pol Pot.”\n", "\"That's what we all said\"\n\n\"Alright well let's dwell on the past\"\n\n\"Why because it makes you look like an idiot?\"\n\n\"No, because there's nothing we can do about it\"\n\n\"But we have a time machine\"\n\n\"Hey guys, just finished destroying the time machine\"\n\n\"You did what?\"\n\n\"I...I destroyed the time machine. Like you said\"\n\n\"When we get back to our time, disable the time machine, were my exact words\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"That one is my bad\"\n\n\"No one is disputing that\"\n\n\"Now killing Hitler doesn't seem like such a bad id...\"\n\n\"Stop talking\"\n\n\"No talking\"\n\n\"Hey who are they?\"\n\n\"They are a collective of edgy fourteen year olds who got all their fake internet points and validation by saying things like \"Hitler had some good ideas\" and people who are incapable of coming up with non-Hitler based story ideas, who are angry that their life now has no purpose\"\n\n\"Uh-huh, and who are they?\"\n\n\"Those are 9 foot tall lizards\"\n\n\"Ssssssssssup\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because /u/SarkasticWatcher is a repetetive hack\"\n\n\"Fair enough, fair enough. And who's that?\"\n\n\"That's the corpse of Hitler\"\n\n\"Right, right and who are you?\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"I'm very high right now\"\n\n\"This isn't helping anything, we need to fix this mess\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"Fine, I need to fix my mess\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"Are you going to...\"\n\n\"Give me a sec...wait I've got it\"\n\n\"Hey angry people, Trump just said something\"\n\n\"Everyone in the time machine\"\n\n\"Hey lizards, someone just posted a politics writing prompt\"\n\n\"Ssssssssso long, ssssssssssuckers\"\n\n\"Now we just have to get in one of the time machines and...\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"Now we just have to acclimatize to a 1940s without Hitler\"\n\n\"Oh you dumb motherfucker\"\n\n\"Sup. Guten tag\"\n\n\n\n\n\n", "The Travel back hadn't been too turbulent, apparently going forward wasn't such an arduous task as forcing your way into the time stream. The two men inside had been in 1934 for weeks planning their attack. A marine corps scout sniper and his spotter, an FBI agent. The unlikely pair was sent to ensure backup options were possible. In the event Corporal George Evans missed his shots, the special agent in charge could devise a plan to overcome and assassinate the third reich's most notorious leadership another way.\n\n\n\nIf only it had gone to plan.\n\n\n\nWell, in a manner of speaking it did. The Corporal was spot on, his Cheytac intervention sniper system was more than capable of the long range shots. The undesired effect came about far after.\n\n\n\nOnce the titanium alloy exterior of their chronological dislocation vehicle iced over, they knew the year. 2049, but something was very off. The door swung open to a group of unfamiliar faced men, all armed, and fairly unhappy. The two were dragged out and put on the floor of the warehouse, the structure looked different from the last time they'd seen in. The men around them spoke what was very clearly Russian.\n\n\n\nEvans looked scared, \"What happened, Sir? Where's the science team that sent us back?\" Agent Cross looked up at the men, clad black in heavy riot armor. \"I think we messed up, Corporal. I think we messed up something huge.\" One of the bigger men swiftly kicked Cross in the stomach, shouting in what was clearly for him to be silent. \n\n\n\n* * * \n\n\n\nThey were taken to lockup and ignored for the better part of three days, when finally a history major came with a translator device. It was the last thing the two of them expected for an interrogation. The man handed them earpieces and began speaking in his native tongue. \"I am here to explain to you the ramifications of your actions, so that you can better understand this world you're now going to have to fit into.\" He smiled as the two received the translation in real time. \"Your countries downfall wasn't extremely surprising, being incredibly isolationist, they hasn't amassed the military or technology necessary to win a global war. Meanwhile the USSR was thriving with our plentiful oil fields and army of millions who hadn't gone to the slaughter. When the time came to envelope your little country into our iron curtain, we faced little resistance. The Germans put up a fight sure, but even they couldn't stand up to us when every one of their allies abandoned them. In the end we conquered everything, and your language is now a dead one. I'm sorry to say.\" \n\n\n\nCross narrowed his eyes, \"That's all well and good, but how did you know where we would come out at? That was only known to the group of men who sent us, and they're surely not even in the same occupational field now.\" The Russian historian laughed, \"That's the best part! One of your secretaries of defense didn't utilize the proper encryption on a few emails when they sent you back. We recovered the coordinates and left them in a place where they would be discovered by our own people in this time line. It held with it an account of everything that had gone on in the first timestream, and what you two were doing about it. We knew precisely where you would be.\"\n\n\n\nThe man asked for his head phones back, then he promptly left. They spent more time completely alone. It had been hours before Corporal Evans had spoken, \"So what do we do now? Live out the remainder of our lives as prisoners?\" Malcolm smirked, \"Son, you're a trained marksman with the ability to put lead miles downrange accurately. I've been working with the Russian language for years, and I'm a human intelligence specialist. We both speak a dead language and we've got all the time in the world.\" \n\n\n\nEvans locked eyes with his superior, \"So you mean... we're going to-?\" The agent cut him off, \"Yes, Corporal. We're going to go repeat history.\" " ]	[ 1, 1, 2, 3, 18 ]	[ "1466257131", "1466264187", "1466263847", "1466257137", "1466261883" ]
	[WP] The protagonist of a young adult dystopian story discovers that there was nothing even remotely oppressive about the government and that they were being lied to by the rebels.	61	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "I didn't recall waking up in this room. It was eery. There were no lights, yet the room was illuminated. The only thing in it were me, the chair I was sitting in and the table in front of me. Dilligan. Dilligan was also taken. They must have him in a room just like this one. I have to get him out. He is the face of the resistance.\n\nBehind me, a door unlocks. Someone walks in. The tap aligned with the footsteps tells me this person walks with a cane. I can smell the person before I see them. The slight hint of alcohol and mint, perfume for men. I try to turn around, but I can't. My head feels like it has been bolted, strapped to the chair. Maybe they used some toxin to paralyze me, or they did experiments on me and made me unresponsive until they wanted me to be.\n\nA head turns the corner. Half of it is inorganic. A rubberlike piece of skin is wrapped around most of his head, like a mask of sorts. Jawline suggests male. He smells of freshly printed plastic, and his smell of alcohol clogs my nose. His unnatural blue eyes appear to pierce my soul, it takes me aback. As he walks, I hear a slight robotic whine. Artificial leg. A veteran of the Settlement Wars ?\n\nHe places the suitcase he carried with him down on the table and starts unpacking all sorts of items. Pieces of broken metal, partially formed into some strange construction I don't recognize. Dilligan's wristband communicator. A block of selfreplicating nanoswarms, still inactive. A picture and some files. He sits down a little stiffly, but he regains his composure and folds his fingers together.\n\nA soothing, gentle voice comes forth from the walls.\n\n\"Goodevening, Terrence.\"\n\nThey knew who I was. Maybe they scanned my mind, or they have a micro chip implanted. That's how they do things. They dehumanize and control everything they get their hands on. I say nothing.\n\n\"I apologize for the resctriction of movement. The warden insist on preventing mobility during sessions like these. Guarantees the safety of both yourself and me.\"\n\nIf the voice was really the man's, it was a little unsettling. His jaw wasn't moving. Could he connect his thoughts to the speakers in this room ? While fascinating, I fear what else he can control.\n\n\"We apprehended you after our scanners picked you up. The nanoswarms you picked up matched missing supplies we sent east about a week ago. A shipment you and your friend took hostage and stole from.\"\n\n\"They were carrying weapons. Incendiary gas canisters, L115 laser rifles and nanoswarms. They were going to use those to kill dozens in a village not far from where we intercepted them.\"\n\nA frown appeared on the man's fake face. Almost human.\n\n\"Kill dozens in a village ? I think there is some sort of misunderstanding here-\"\n\n\"Dilligan told me everything I needed to know.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes. Dilligan. Very capable young man. A shame he uses his talents for such a terrible cause.\"\n\n\"Someone has to stop you.\"\n\n\"Stop us ? From what. Killing people ? We do not sanction that. No one here sanctions the killing for the sake of killing.\"\n\n\"No, right. You sanction killing because they're not you.\"\n\n\"Those supplies you took ? The swarms. They are equipped with spores, minerals and seeds. They are programmed to enter soil and modify its properties to make the soil more available for harvest. If their programming is breached, they can be repurposed to go mad and shred everything apart on a microscopic level. The gas canisters on those transports were to provide a consistent source of energy to the slightly primitive functions of machinery used in your westernlands. The laser rifles were to go north, to our automated troops to combat irradiated wildlife. We have all the documents ready, right here.\"\n\n\"Pfft. You could've made this up on the spot.\"\n\nThe fake man seemed to be confused. \n\n\"Why would you think that ? What have I ever done to you to deserve your doubts, Terrence ?\"\n\n\"What did you do ? You slaughtered everyone in my village. I watched my parents, my brother, uncles, aunts, cousins. I watched them get shredded to tiny pieces by a big, buzzing fog.\"\n\n\"You are from Foratuna, correct ?\"\n\n\"I was.\" I said as I heard the terrified screams again in the back of my head. I struggled to hold back my tears.\n\n\"We were never there. We had the location mapped, but the 'resistance' got there before we did.\"\n\n\"What ? Bullshit. I saw your VTOL's. I saw the symbols.\"\n\nA holographic image popped up. It was concept art of the VTOL I saw flying overhead, but without the symbols. Images of these VTOL's flashed by as he started talking again.\n\n\"These \"VTOL's\" as you describe them. They are Class 5 Sovereign class transport vehicles. We decommissioned them 50 years ago. They have been either scrapped and recycled or remain in war museums. The ones in the war museums are still there. The only ones that we cannot account for were the ones taken from us by a defector. You know him as Dilligan's father, Fasol.\"\n\nFasol's image popped up, but it was Fasol in his younger years. He was in his twenties, and sported a five o'clock shadow and was practically bald. He looked orderly and happy.\n\n\"Fasol had an encounter with a newborn AI in his research department. He was directly exposed to the massive data overload, causing seizures for the short term and psychological issues in the long term. The AI was also stolen by him, he fosters it like a child.\"\n\n\"DEMI.\"\n\n\"That is what he called it, yes. He thought of it as a demigod for its vast amount of power and potential. The AI still has a connection to him, and feeds his desire for destruction.\"\n\n\"Why would an AI do that ?\"\n\n\"It knows that when we get our hands on it, we will remove it from the influence of the outside world. DEMI has become overly fond of it, and has started showing signs of corruption. If we do not stop it in time, it will destroy every living creature it can reach.\"\n\n\"But, Dilligan-\"\n\n\"Dilligan was raised with the idea that we are the worst evil in the world. He has become a soldier for DEMI, like his father. Like you.\"\n\n\"You're lying.\"\n\n\"Have you ever wondered how Fasol knows so much about us ? How he digs into the system and finds out details without finding out about him ? He doesn't. DEMI does. DEMI is smart, and covers its tracks better than Fasol ever could when he was fully human. It's how the nanoswarms were turned from tools of aggrigation to tools of destruction.\"\n\n\"What...what are you getting at ?\"\n\n\"We never came close to Foratuna. DEMI did. He unleashed the swarms to destroy part of the people, but leave enough left to add to his growing army. Didn't you notice how only the capable people were left, but none of the people who might not have been able to fight survived ? It's not the first time its done this. And it won't be the last.\"\n\n\"How do I know you're not just making this up ?\"\n\nI hear a click at the back of my head. My head is released. I can move again. The table slides towards me with all the items.\n\n\"Go ahead. Look through it. Check the editorial dates. You will see that they add up. Because what we have here is nothing but the clear truth. We do not need to hide information from our people. Find what you're looking for. I trust you to be capable of that.\"\n\nI searched. I searched and I searched and I searched more. And it all added up. Interviews, reports from people who were like me and found refuge in the Monolith, videos, a world far too large to fake at my fingertips. My world came crashing down. Fasol was a puppet. DEMI was a full fledged god out to kill the only thing that can stop him. I didn't know what to say.\n\n\"As of this moment, you have two choices. One: you will enter a rehabilitation program. A simple course on learning people how to behave in the city and to check if you need further quarantining. You are one of DEMI's soldiers, after all. Two: we send you out to make it back. We will give you the provisions to make it back to where you came from. If you ask nicely we will drop you off at the nearest checkpoint.\"\n\nThe fake man stood up and the table moved back to him. He started neatly packaging every item back into the suitcase and shut the hologram down.\n\n\"I can tell you how that will go. Fasol, or DEMI, will shoot you both on sight. They know you're here. They'll think you're traitors or spies. If Dilligan presses his luck, he will be killed by his own father. You can mark my words on that one.\"\n\nThe fake man took his suitcase and started walking away. The wall slid open for him. He turned his head to me.\n\n\"You know the choice Dilligan made. You have 1 hour to decide. Choose your fate, Terrence. And choose wisely.\"\n\nHe walked out and the wall closed right behind him. I was left with several answers and dozens of questions, but the most prominent was louder than all of them.\n\nWhat now ?\n\nEDIT: forgot a word.\n\n" ]	[ 1, 10 ]	[ "1466311024", "1466355379" ]
	[WP] Fat people are kidnapped and stranded on a desert island to fend for themselves until they are deemed "fit enough" to re-enter modern society.	5	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "I've been here long enough to know that , soon, the crafts will return for the quarterly harvest. The percentage of us that return to the 'real' world is in rapid decline - this is the third cycle and, nearing the third quarterly harvest, you would think the officials that dump us here four times a year would of made this far more efficient. They obviously garner some sick amusement in this practice. Not that I blame them; when the crafts surge up onto the shore and the bellowing screeches and cries of protest of the new contestants are carried to us on the salty breeze, my stomach twists with amusement. Amusement and a bitter glee that I will never ever be stuck in this predicament again.\n\nI arrived at the beginning of this year. They kicked me off of the craft and the freezing sea water stole the breath from my lungs. It's a wonder my obese body managed to find the fight to swim after I had been sat at a desk for the past four years; the sand had bitten my exposed flesh and, staggering up the beach to the rest that had managed to swim to safety, the trials began. Every quarterly they assess our 'progress'. I have one more to go until I may be fit enough to return to society - but I don't want to go back. Sure, I'm fitter now. I can run through the undergrowth faster than you sure as hell could, the burning in my muscles a sore reminder of every Drive-Thru and late night binge that pushed my body to the brink of death. But I won't go back. If I set foot back in that world of temptation and that dimly lit, grey office where Linda will inevitably scoff at my triple-layered and mayonnaise-slathered sandwich... I'd lose control again. Food was my only solace in that dirty, horrible world. But now? I'm free.\n\nI'm watching one of the newer contestants; he's only been here for the last quarter and, so far, he hasn't been doing all that bad. His name is Eddie, apparently, he's twenty-seven and his wife just about missed being sent here. We all heard him sobbing on the beach the day he washed up; Fiona, the teenager, comforted him until she figured out he is completely and utterly useless. He didn't want to come. Those who come to join is are a particular breed who refuse to feel guilt in correlation to hunger. We're human! We need to eat to live, why not live to eat? Out here there aren't any pita breads - unfortunately, - so we make our own means of feasting. We've been waiting for Eddies' body fat percentage to drop, seeing as too much of that blubber isn't good to cook, and now he's perfect.\n\nSaliva oozes from the side of my mouth. Hidden in the dark of the trees my lips stretch into a feral grin, beads of sweat glisten on my brow and my hand slowly tightens around the spear I had crafted as soon as I'd been inspired. Flanking me are Helen and David, the two remaining survivors of our contestant batch, and I know they're sharing the same anticipation as I - slowly, I lean my weight forwards and begin to raise from my hiding spot, careful not to so much as make a peep. Any second now - Eddie stands up to leave the log he had been perched on, lamenting, and I charge. My heart thunders in my chest as I bound through the gloom; I explode from the safety of our ambush with a scream of victory, spear driving up and into the ribcage of the chosen target. Eddie screams. Oh boy does he scream. The sound is blood curdling and shrill, echoing across the island as Helen seizes him by his hair, wrenches back his head and rips open his throat with a swift slash of her blade. There's a few bubbling coughs of protect, gurgles and frantic eye rolls, before Eddie falls limp. \n\n\"Hang him upside down to drain,\" David chirps, hands on his hips, \"I'll call the others. We're eating big tonight.\"" ]	[ 1, 3 ]	[ "1466342647", "1466347216" ]
	[WP] You've just had your prayer for enough money to last you for the rest of your life answered. You received $1.00.	41	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "I happily jump up and down as I hold in my already cold growing hands this fabled piece of freedom dollar. As I make my way down to the market I get bitten by a snake. What a fabulous day! The snake doesn't get far before the poison gets him.meat, especially Free meat is hard to come by. I wriggle it around my neck like a scarf and resume. After arriving I make my way to the first stand and choose some coconut and tomatoes on random. I don't have time to check out which ones have the least bugs and parasites. Fuck it. Now comes the hard part. After some begging and pleading I convince the vendor who by the way is an childhood friend of mine to accept that foreign currency . He spits me in the eye as he pockets my money and tells me that ain't doing it and I better not be home tonight when he comes to visit my daughters. I just nod and go. After arriving home I hide the food under some straw so as that the dogs Wont smell it and draw a marker nearby on the mud. Is it cold or is it just me? No matter. I know it will get to my heart soon. I curl into a fetal position and wait. And wait. I hope my girls won't let me go to waste. Meat especially free meat is hard to come by", "One dollar for the rest of my life?!!!! My mind raced. What could this mean? I am I about to die?! No, no I refuse to let that happen. I ran down to the NYSE and picked the first penny stock I find. \n\n\"I'll take 100 shares of GMCR!\" I loudly declared! \n\nI payed the appropriate person the one dollar bill, and went home. For in this story there are no fees at the physical NYSE. \n\nThe next morning I woke up and found that my stock went from $.01 a share to $100 a share.\n\n\"I'm rich!\" I exclaimed, \"I knew G-d wasn't trying to send me a message about my imminent demise!\"\n\nI walked outside to tell my neighbor, Bob, the good news, and out of nowhere I got struck by lightning. \n\n\n\nTurns out, deities don't like their cryptic messages messed with. ", "I couldn't believe my eyes. A single dollar bill was in my hand. I looked at the genie. He looked at me, laughed, and started disappearing back into his lamp. \n\nI thought that I was going to have enough money so I would never have to worry again. No more sleepless nights worrying about how to pay for food for the week, no more collection agents from that appendectomy operation, no more credit card bills, electric bills, or college debt. Most importantly, no more worrying about how I was going to pay enough for my shit-hole of a room. Instead I get a fucking dollar. The genie played me.\n\nSomehow I cried myself to sleep.\n\nWake up at 4 AM. Dress. Eat some stale bread for breakfast. Walk downstairs. Begin walking five miles to work. Wait, I have an extra dollar. I can ride the bus! At least I'll get something useful from this crap.\n\nI put the dollar in the machine as I get on the bus and settle in, across from Jerry, the local homeless drunk, who's passed out. It's better than being by the group of frat boys at the front, probably heading home from clubbing. The driver has some late night talk show playing that I quickly tune out.\n\n\"Cosner Drive\" the tinny automatic voice announced. I reach over Jerry and pull the cord that works to signal for my stop. The clouds light up and go dark again. There must be a thunderstorm coming in. At least I was able to take the bus today.\n\nThe bus comes to a stop. I get up. The driver says, \"Yo, are you hearing this shit? They're fucking with us right?\" \n\nI start to listen to the announcer. \"... it looks like an atomic bomb went off in San Antonio. We're still waiting for details but there was a very bright flash and it looks like the top of a mushroom cloud.\" \n\nSuddenly the frat boys are all talking to each other and obviously upset. I overhear \"Well fuck! They couldn't have chosen a worse time! We have to gear up now.\" With that the one that seemed to be the leader of the group walked up to the bus driver and shoved a badge into his face. \"I'm Commander Tuttle with NORAD. I need you to take us to Chapman's Ranch. Now.\"\n\nI'm thinking through the implications. I can't miss work. They'll fire me for being late. Does it even matter anymore? My life is crap, the closest city to this hell-hole just got nuked. I'm brought back to the present as I fall back in my seat from the bus moving again. I missed my stop! \n\nThe driver is booking it. He makes a left onto Kostoryz, tires squealing. This isn't part of the route! I look at the commander. He's talking into his phone. \"Yes, sir. We're on our way. We'll be on site in 15. I have McIntrye, Talbot, Gowen, and Sadler with me. Yes, sir.\" He hangs up. Commander Tuttle looks at me and a now awake and confused Jerry and says. \"Listen up, we're heading to the ark. I know you're confused, worried, and scared, but this is the only option right now. We need to get to the ark if we want a chance.\" \n\n\"Wha da fugh es a ark? Wha da fugh os goghing on hea?\" Jerry somehow gets out.\n\n\"The US has been nuked. We're launching the ark in case things don't go well.\" As he says this I see three bright streaks out the passenger side windows. Missiles. Heading up. The bus gets on 286 and the driver floors it. I try to follow the missiles but I can't see out the back of the bus. \n\nI panic. I can't breath. I'm going to die. Here. In this shithole called Corpus Christi. I haven't done anything with my life. I notice through the closing blackness that a frat boy is crouched over me.\n\nWhat is that light? I can't place where I am, except it's bright. I try to stand up only to find I can't move.\n\n\"You woke up at the worst time. Hold on and for God's sake, don't puke!\" a frat boy says.\n\nI hear another voice. \"Two one liftoff.\" I'm thrown back and the darkness takes me again.\n\nI open my eyes again. I feel so weird. \"I'm glad you're awake. You missed all the fun.\" Great the frat boy from before. Holy shit! He's flying in front of me. This has to be a dream. \"At least you didn't puke. Welcome to the ark.\" Behind him I make out a window. It looks like one of those photos of the earth from space, except the dark side doesn't have as many lights as you normally see, just a few red patches. And that's when I remembered everything.\n\nThe smug genie was right. Money was worthless to me now.", "I don't know if it was the dusty George Washington staring in my face that made me do it. Maybe I would be here regardless. I'm not religious, I have no reason to trust that this dollar bill would be my last.\nBut here I am, dirt roads turned into stone pathways half-buried beneath the snow, in a house significantly more blissful yet significantly less capitalized than before. I wonder sometimes if its the altitude that makes the difference. Brooke never really mentioned altitude when talking about the houses she tried to sell. Sometimes I wonder how much she'd price my place at. If it would be worth living in. I'd give her a call, but it's a little late for that.\nI guess the last dollar bill was a catalyst thing. I always liked the cold, and its not like I was gonna get anywhere with a Philosophy degree. \nI'm happier in the mountains.", "My father had died. He was a failed business man, always coming up with ideas to make money but never really getting there. Sometimes we had money but mostly he lost money. Once, when I was a kid, he \"borrowed\" my little saving for an investment in a telephone directory of free \"800\" numbers. He promised to pay it back and never did. \n\nBut that was not what came between us. In my teen years, he started to drink to relieve the pressure of life and went on to become a drunk. Unfortunately, he was one of those mean drunks. It was his violence fuel by anger that came between he and my mother. My mom had to leave him and she move away across the country taking me with her.\n\nI believe that my father loved me and my mom but his life just got away from him. I know this because my father left me his most treasured possession, his lucky coin. It was a silver dollar. He had found it on the side walk when he was starting his first job as a grocery delivery boy. He took this to be a lucky sign that he was going to make it in this world, to be a rich and successful man. With the start of each new business venture, he would bring it out and show it to us, saying,\"This coin was Manna dropped by God in my path to tell me what my future portended. This time, the coin will do its work and we will be rich.\" Never did happen.\n\nNow the coin is mine. It was not a particularly valuable coin as it was worn from the many years my father would rub it in hope. I had though that I would honor my father's memory and make a gamble on a venture. I used my father's lucky coin to buy a ticket in the two-hundred million lottery and I won. My father was right. The coin was from God but I now think that God had meant for him to spend it and not to keep it as a good luck charm.\n\nRIP my father.\n\n[Same As It Ever Was](http://volunteer11.blogspot.com/) ", "- Three dollars ninenty nine cents please. - Said the cashier.\n- Just a second. - I answered nervously looking through my pockets. - I only have two dollars, oh and ninety nine cent. - I said showing the cashier money in my shaking hand.\n- I am sorry I cannot sell you this.\n- Please, half of it? Please.\n- I am sorry. I can't.\n- Fuck you then. - I yelled and turned around to storm out of the store, but then I felt a sudden urge. - Could I use the toilet please? \n- Yeah, sure. Whatever. - he answered like he didn't care, because he probably didn't.\n\nI went into the stall and started crying. Even in moment like this I didn't have enough money. That had to be the saddest fucking thing in my life. I put my hands together and started praying, which I haven't done in a long damn time. God. I said. Please I ask you only of this, this one last favor. One fucking dollar, that is all I ask from you. One dollar. Then I waited. I don't know what I was waiting for, but I waited. \n\n- Hey? Are you done there? There are other people that want to use the restroom. - said the guy while knocking on the door.\n- I'm sorry, give me a minute. - then I saw something on the wall in front of me 'wanna earn and have some fun? call this number'. -Oh fuck you, I ain't sucking a dick for a dollar. - I said while opening the door. \n- Yeah, ok man, whatever. - said the cashier, looking at me like I was some kind of crazy fella. Screw him, I ain't. \n\nI could finally storm out of the store like I wanted to, I rushed towards the door like a madman I was. But the door opened only inside so I knocked myself on my ass and as I was standing up to finally and properly storm out of the storm I noticed a piece of paper under the vending machine. A fucking dollar bill was just lying there. I picked it up. It had a writing on it 'fuck you', well fuck you to, whoever wrote this, I got your dollar. I bought what I needed and headed home. I tried it on, it fit perfectly, like a nice tie. I kicked the stool from under me. The noose tightened around my neck. I felt the sweet arms of death wrapping around my body. Finally all of this would be gone. Then the rope broke, cheap shit broke and my nearly dead body hit the wooden floor. Then I saw the rope had a little tag on it 'should have called'.", "I've always wanted to be rich. I must have prayed to every god there is. Whenever a clock hit identical numbers, like 23:23:23, I wished for money. Any jinx, superstition, lotto - whatever. I wished to be rich beyond reason. In truth, I did everything, but work hard for it. \n\nOne evening, I was walking home from a job I hated. There was a boy on the street, standing between the rush hour crowd ahead of me. He was staring right at me. It's as if nobody else was there. Nobody walked into him nor did they acknowledge him. A sense of primal fear filled every bit of my existence. He started to walk towards me. The hairs in the back of my head stood up and a wave of shivers shot through me. I was frozen in place. I blinked and the boy was standing right in front of me. I couldn't move nor talk. \n\n\"You've been making a lot of calls,\" he spoke in a smooth calm voice, almost whispering. The street noise around was almost muted. I wanted to reply. I wanted to say that I don't understand, but I couldn't. \"You don't have to understand, but the calls you've made, have been heard.\" The boy smiled. A sinister smile. \"Speak to me, of your desire,\" he whispered. My mouth opened and words slipped from my lips - \"I desire enough money to last for the rest of my life.\" I didn't feel in control. Did I say that or did he make me? \n\nI blinked and the boy was gone. The noise of a busy street returned. I stood there for a while. Questioning myself. Was I going insane? Then I saw it on the pavement. A golden dollar coin. I crouched to pick it up and that's when the world ended. A flash in the sky. Then another one and another one. \"Nuclear annihilation!\" Not even a second had passed when someone yelled that out. I flipped the coin between my fingers and laughed - \"For the rest of my life.\" \n\nGuess I should have wished for world peace. " ]	[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 5, 9, 25 ]	[ "1466343065", "1466364523", "1466375474", "1466411668", "1466366232", "1466358524", "1466358533", "1466351748" ]
[removed]	[WP] After the default apocalypse, all writingprompts submitters have a number that show how many shitty prompts they rephrase and repost. The higher the number the higher your status.	1	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Posting the very thing you say you are against won't solve anything either." ]	[ 1, 1 ]	[ "1466355389", "1466355853" ]
	[WP] Fairytale characters post on reddit	4	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Legal Advice – Stepmother threw me out of the house. I went to live with 7 guys out in the middle of nowhere. I ate an apple that put me into a coma and then met a new guy and went to live with him. The seven guys I lived with said they are going to sue me for part of my inheritance (My step mother died recently) because they helped me when I was down. Can they really sue me for this? ", "/r/Advice\n\nStepmom forced dad to put me and my sister out of the house. We've got nothing but a loaf of bread. What can I do legally? Where can I find a place to stay for a while? Can I get a job without a home adress?\n\nEdit : Thanks for the help, everyone, it feels good to see so many people coming together for some strangers on the internet\n\nEdit 2: Thanks for the help /u/Wicked_witch , we're on our way to your place!\n\nEdit 3 : OMG THANKS FOR THE GOLD, too bad it came at such a shitty time in my life. ", "*To r/mechanics* \nSo, I need some advice. I just fired a know-nothing, do-nothing fuckup pit crew and have a question. What's the best way to change a flat tire, in three seconds or less? Thanks. \n-- u/Lightning_McQueef\n\n*To r/polygamy* \nLiving with seven men. PM me for pics. \n-- u/Snow_White_All_Over_7\n\n*To r/AskReddit* \nAnyone Else Celebrating Father's Day With No Father? \n-- u/Simba97531\n\n*To r/footfetish* \nPM me. \n-- u/CindersAndAshes\n\n*To r/TheRedPill* \nAll guys need is a princess, amirite? Follow orders, do as they're told, dress how I want them to dress. Shouldn't be a battle all the time, should it? Fuck, the lengths I go to.... \n-- u/Jafar_The_Magnificent\n\n*To r/RaisedByNarcissists* \nUgh. She keeps me locked in the damn tower all the time! I can't talk to anyone else, visit with anyone else, see anyone else...I didn't even know there was anything called \"The World\" until I was five and she had to explain what those damned balloons were flying in the sky every year! God! Anyone else go through this? \n-- u/KimJongUnzel\n\nYes. \n-- u/FionaLikesEmGreen\n\n*To r/Tinder* \nWant to be the Queen to my Emirate? The Seraph of my Staff? PM me tonight. \n-- u/Jafar_The_Magnificent\n\n*To r/CasualAMA* \nI keep telling you, there's no right species! Look, if you can have gender dimorphism, why not species dimorphism? If it's all right that it's OK that I can be a woman in a man's body, who are you to tell me I'm not a woman in a wolf's body? Huh? There's some double-standards shit right there, you know? \n-- u/BigBeautifulWolf\n\nBut my grandmother? \n-- u/RedHood555\n\nHey. HEY! Your grandmother is a lovely woman, and you should have no problem with our relationship. She accepts me for who I am, and she - yes, she loves to be eaten by me there I said it! \n-- u/BigBeautifulWolf\n\nOMGTMI! \n-- u/WoodChoppa" ]	[ 1, 1, 1, 4 ]	[ "1466444380", "1466445223", "1466451585", "1466447595" ]
	[WP] You have schizophrenia and you meet another person who has it. The voices in your heads claim to know each other.	26	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "He won't shut up. I can't \"think\" a reply to him, I have to be verbal. He just Won't. Shut. Up. Over and over he tells me what to do, how to live, what things do. I know it's all wrong. No, I won't stab the neighbors cat because it's collaborating against me. No, I will not run over my Dad's dog because he's secretly Hitler. It's wrong, all wrong.\n\n\"The cat is staring again. Victor, you know what's right\" he whispers.\n\n\"Shut UP damnit\" I grunt to myself as I get off the bus. I got a stare from the old lady down the street again. She knows somethings not right.\n\n\"You need to remove that cat before it kills you, Victor\" he whispers.\n\n\"God damnit shut the fuck up\" I grunt through my teeth as I storm up the road to get home where I can scream him to silence.\n\nTwo corners, 5 houses, 300 meters. That's all I have left. I need to get home, I can't handle this anymore. Oh no, Sandra from next door is coming outside. I can't talk to her. I can't let her of all people see me like this. Smile through it, Vic. Smile through it.\n\n\"Hey, Vic!\" she shouts and waves at me. Oh no. No no no. She spotted me. Just wave back and smile. It will be alright. Just keep walking.\n\n\"Don't talk to her! Don't do it! Please don't do it Victor, I beg you. I tell you bad things all of the time, but do NOT talk to that woman, for the love of god it will be the end of me!\" he begins shouting, as if he was panicing.\n\nWait a minute... Was that voice just panicing about talking to her? Wait wait wait. That's not right. I've never heard him say anything louder then a whisper.\n\n\"Why?\" I mutter, as I slow down compared to my stomping force speed.\n\n\"Just don't do it! Please! I'll leave you alone for a full 24 hours, just don't talk to her!\" he pleads again. What's so special about her? Wait a minute, he said he'll leave me alone for 24 hours? Hot damn that's a great deal! I can get some sleep and play some games!\n\nI started to jog, making it look like I was busting for the toilet. As I get close to her she pauses, looks slightly down as if she was focusing on a sound, and looks back up to me with eyes wide open.\n\n\"Oh no\" he gasps. \"Don't tell me... She knows\" he panics further. I slow down as I get to Sandra.\n\n\"Hey, uhh, Vic\" she asks. She's nervous, but she pauses for a moment. \"What's up Sandy?\" I ask.\n\n\"Does the name 'Alistar' mean anything to you?\"\n\n\"FUCK!\" he shouts. It startles me and I flinch. \"Are you alright, Vic? I know it's a, uhm, weird question but... Somebody... Asked me to ask you\"\n\n\"DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE ANSWER HER YOU SAD BASTARD! I WILL HAUNT YOU FOR ETERNITY IF YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT DOING ANYTHING\" he starts screaming in my ear. It's hard to hear anything now. I've never once in my life experienced this. The voice inside my head is screaming. I need to know why. Before I get to ask anything, Sandra stops me.\n\nAlmost as if she's being told what to say, the look on her face as she tries to focus on what she has to repeat \"I know you're in there you sad, sadistic piece of work. You think you can run from me? I will always find you\" she says, with a look of pure bewilderment.\n\n\"GOD FUCKING DAMNIT I KNEW IT WAS HER!\" he shouts. I flinch again.\n\n\"Sandy, please tell me what's going on and why he's screaming in my ear\" I'm pleading with her. Wait a minute... Did I just... Say he was screaming in my ear? OH FUCK. Ok, think. Think you dopey shit, think. You just told her that someone that no one can see or hear is screaming in yo- is she smiling? Why is she smiling? Did I say something funny? Oh god... I'm a joke... She's going to laugh...\n\n\"You have one too...!\" she points at me and smiles. \"And she knows him as well!\" she's jittering with joy. She's smiling and jmping. Her brown hair bouncing around, locks vibrating with joy. Her blue eyes glassed over with tears, shining beautifully. She has a small dimple in her cheek, nothing major, only really noticeable when she's laughing.\n\nWhy am I noticing all of these now? She looks no different then normal, yet she does. Why does this all matter now? This isn't right. There are more concernin issues, and she's jumping around about the person I can hear? Wait, she has one too? Wait what?! She's Schitzophrenic as well?! No way. That's can't be happening.\n\n\"I'm going to murder you if you do not leave, NOW!\" he shouts. I can almost feel his anger from inside me head.\n\n\"Why, Alistar?\" I reply. Sandra stopped jumping and looked at me. \"Why do I have to leave Alistar? Why does she scare you Alistar? Do you know her? What's wrong Alistar? ARE YOU FINALLY AFRAID FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE?\" I begin screaming. \n\nSandra's smile got even bigger. \"It's true! It's true, it's true! Viccy it's alright, come with me!\" she shouts as she grabs my hand and pulls me towards her front door. \"Angela know's Alistar! She wants to talk to him!\"\n\n\"DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE! IT'S A FUCKING TRAP, VICTOR! PLEASE, DON'T DO THIS!\" shouts Alistar. I want to do this more then ever. Someone I can relate to. Someone who understands what it's like. I need to follow her.\n\nAs we go through the door, Sandra stops, turns to me, and hugs me. Everything went quiet. I've never felt such a still and quiet moment in my life. It felt amazing. She lets me go slowly, and looks at me. \"Why don't you tell him about Angela, Alistar\" she whispers. It's quiet again.\n\nHe lets out a sigh of disappointment. \"God fucking damnit\" he says. \"That's my wife\" Alistar says to me." ]	[ 1, 12 ]	[ "1466456324", "1466470364" ]
	[WP] You discovered that an ice cream shop is having a "Make your own ice cream with any flavour you want". How do you proceed your order?	6	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", " It's been a really long day.\n\n Work sucked, my commute is an hour and a half each way, and I'm just tired all the time. Today I wanted to try something new on the way home, I deserve to spoil myself just this once since my finances are finally in check. \n\n Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. On the way home yesterday I saw a new ice cream place on a few blocks away from home. Not your usual franchise either, so maybe they'll serve more than those cheap fucks. It's hot as hell outside, so I couldn't wait to get there. \n\n As I walk through the door I can see that there is no one in line, thank god. They server greets me, \"Good Afternoon! We've got a special going on like no other! Today you can make your own ice cream with any flavor you want! Literally anything at all! You name it and we'll make it! What will it be?\"\n\n \"I'll just have some Vanilla in a Dixie cup\", I sheepishly reply.\n\n \"Sir I don't think you understand, you can have anything! Steak, Beer, Spare Ribs, Twizzlers, anything at all today!\"\n\n \"Yeah no that's cool and all, I just would like Vanilla.\"\n\n I notice that there's now someone behind me, they seem agitated. I try not to completely turn around due to my anxiety, but luckily the server has my order ready and I book it out of there. I finally taste a spoonful and you know what? It's pretty damn good. I have very plain tastes and I can't seem to grasp all of the different types of ice cream people like. There's nothing wrong with Vanilla, why mess with a good thing?\n\n As I've been contemplating society's wrong choices in my head, I have failed to notice that the guy from the shop is still a few steps behind me, and I've been walking for three blocks. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but he's breathing heavily and even in the city this stuff gets to me. I make an unnecessary loop around the block and he's still behind me. Fuck. I chuck my ice cream to the sidewalk and I just sprint. If he's really up to something I'm gonna know now.\n\n The second I pick up the pace the man lets out the most uncomfortable shriek I have ever heard in my life. As I turn my head to see what is wrong with this guy I see it. His eyes. They're fucking light green. Just who the hell is this guy? If I die right now who the hell is going to take care of my dog? Now he's running and catching up very, very quickly. \n\n \"Hey buddy, you might want to duck.\" Is the last thing I expected to hear.\n\n As I've been looking at this freakishly grotesque menace behind me, I failed to pay attention to a figure in front of me. This woman with long blonde hair and the most cliche trench coat I've ever seen is holding a pistol. I dive forward as I hear the pop. Guess which clumsy idiot hit his head on the way down?\n\n When I wake up, there's a crowd of 5 or 6 people around me. They say I just was walking down the street and tripped. There's no way that's true, but I know it's better to act normal than attract any unwanted attention.\n\n" ]	[ 1, 2 ]	[ "1466457159", "1466459546" ]
	[WP] You begin to suspect, after a string of unusual occurrences, that your roommate has the power to control time.	22	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Tulsa ain't a big town for sublets. Go on Tulsa craigslist, it's a fucking ghost town. People don't come to Tulsa for a little while. If you're here, you're stuck here and a twelve month lease will suit you just fine. So, honestly, the first thing that was weird with Sally was how she was looking to sublet in the first place. But I had the extra room and I needed the money and she seemed forthright enough, so I said fuck it and let her move in.\n\nNow I have a hard time explaining why this is so, but if you ask me if Sally was a good roommate or not, I'll say I truly don't know. I don't mean there's a mixed bag of evidence and I just can't decide which side of the line she falls on. I mean that when I ponder this question, I have all the feelings of seething frustration you have for an inconsiderate, asshole roommate, yet I have literally not one concrete memory of Sally being anything but perfectly polite and easy going.\n\nAnd what's even worse is I remember me being a total bitch to her! I'd get mad as hell and yell at her from time to time, but I'd just be completely, factually in the wrong about everyting. Take this one time: I start going off on her for having a coke binge in the living room, inviting over some real seedy Peoria types and blasting music til three in the morning. I'm shouting and waving my hands, telling her to look at this mess. Look at this fucking mess you made of my house! Next thing I know, I look around and everything is perfectly clean and tidy. I felt like I was going schizo or something. I'd apologize to her profusely and end up making her some tea or something. \n\nNow Sally didn't seem to have a job, but she always had lots of money. Always these thick stacks of crisp bills. For a while I figured it was drug deals, but frankly she didn't seem ambitious enough to hustle. Basically, she'd party all night and then sit around playing video games all day. She was fucking incredible at video games. Sometimes it seemed like she could beat a whole game in fifteen minutes. Eventually I asked her how she had so much cash all the time. She said she won it all down at the Cherokee Casino. She said she always just had a feeling about which cards were coming next. I told her I was jealous she could just live on her own terms like that.\n\nIt was probably about two months in when I found her crying on the bathroom floor. I asked her what the matter was. All she said was she'd been having a lot of long days recently. She said it sometimes felt like she was living whole days in between each tick of the second hand and how that was a lonely way to be. I told her there ain't a woman in Tulsa who don't know that feeling. She laughed and we held hands for a minute. Maybe longer.\n\nThen one day she just up and left. She slipped three months rent under my bedroom door and, before I could count it, her and all her stuff were gone. There was a note with the money toò. It said she'd miss me. It said she felt like we'd shared a hundred years of memories together.", "Two years ago I met a wonderful woman, her name was Jessica, who was going to guess we would end up living together? She was looking for a roommate and so was I, living is cheaper when we can divide the costs and we needed to save as much money as we could, university is not cheap and two part-time employees can only make so much money.\n\nWe found a nice but small apartment in the center of the town. It had this \"grandma's house\" feeling so few places have and we immediately fell in love with it. A small white living room waited for us at the entrance, right next to it there was a dining room, there was no division between these two rooms and the wall remained the same color. The kitchen was behind the dining room, to the right, its walls were all covered in medium sized blue tiles, I swear they were the same tiles my grandma's house has. To the left there was a narrow and short corridor that connected the kitchen with the bathroom and the only bedroom this apartment had.\n\nSince this was the only apartment we could afford, we decided that sharing the double bed in the only bedroom it had was not going to be a big deal, I doubt anyone would think that two girls sharing the same room were anything more than friends but getting those weird looks when going outside always made me feel embarrassed.\n\nTwo years later we are still living in the same place, I am doing great at my psychology class, Jessica not so much at her history class, she's been like this for the last 4 months. There is some unusual behavior about her that worries me, she frequently leaves the house at night thinking I can't hear her. I can feel when she leaves the bed every single time, it is always a rough movement. My worries about her go beyond her daily disappearances, I am worried about her future, our future. This is something I haven't confessed to her yet, after almost an year of denial I ended up accepting that I fell in love with her, it is not easy to accept this, what would mom think? She has always wanted grandchildren but my love for Jessica is stronger than anything, I love feeling her soft skin each time she accidentally touches me while rolling over in bed. I love hearing her voice in the morning even if it is just a complaint about having to get up. I love every single thing about her.\n\nIt is night again and there she is, I never hear when she opens the door, I can only hear her footsteps when she walks to our bedroom. I am awake this time and ready to confess my love but as soon as I open my mouth she places her finger in front of it and asks me to remain in silence. \"I know\", she tells me, \"I know everything\". This is when my suspicions begun and soon everything was clearer than crystal. How would she always guess the results of my exams? How else would she be able to predict the days my mom was going to call? What other thing would cause her to disappear in the middle of night and come back without having to open the door? It was clear that this girl had the power to control time, to stop it, to travel through it. Or was I going crazy?\n\nI had so many questions that night that I would like to know the answer to but I was so tired that I feel asleep right after she kissed me, I can't even remember how our first kiss felt. Right now I am exploring my own dream, I am an oneironaut and I love being one. I am in Jessica's body the day we met, the day we decided to live together.\n\nAfter visiting so many different places, Mary seems to have fallen in love with this little apartment and since it is the only one we can afford we decided to move here. I have been in love with Mary since the day we met but I have seen the future and I know that my best option is to wait two years, to that day she discovers my big secret while confessing me her love. I have been trapped in this dream for a month now, it's been so long that I am beginning to suspect it is not a dream anymore, I wonder if I am going to be Jessica forever, I worry about not being able to be Mary again. Two more years, I tell to myself, two more years to know the answer. \"Wake up\", says a distant voice, \"do you want to get out of the time loop? I can help you, you just have to wake up\".\n\n- - -\n\nI am still learning to write, critics are appreciated. I am also learning English, help about using the English language is also appreciated.", "\"Suspicious\" was one way to describe my roommate, Dee. \"Odd\", \"Peculiar\", \"Off-putting\" and even \"Maniacal\" were also good words. He was always mumbling to himself, something about the world, power and what not. I don't know, I think he needs to see a therapist or something.\n\nWhat really made Dee odd, was the things that happened when he was around. Things seemed to \"skip\" randomly. It felt like a few seconds would just disappear out of nowhere. Just now, he was cleaning the dishes, I looked away for all of a second, and then he was way farther along than he should. Not a whole lot, he was finished with a pot he just started, but it felt like he was just a few seconds ahead. I always thought it was me, but it never seems to happen if I am not around Dee. What the hell could it be?\n\n\"Joe...\"\n\n\"Oh-... what's up Dee?\"\n\n\"There's been something I have been wanting to try for some time now...\"\n\nOh great.\n\n\"And what would that be?\"\n\n\"Something truly fantastic. Something unbelievable. Something bizarre.\"\n\n\"Uh... Dee? What is wrong with you?\"\n\n\"Nothing Joe. Nothing is wrong with me. But something is wrong with...\"\n\n\"With what?\"\n\n\"THE WORLD!!!\"\n---\n\nI felt a strange sensation in my chest in that instant. Like, a thousand needles with poking into my chest. I could feel something warm and wet on my chest. My eyesight was dimming and my head started to spin. I looked down to see what happened.\n\n[\"OH GOD WHERE DID ALL OF THESE KNIVES COME FROM!?\"](http://66.media.tumblr.com/2aa5d383811aaaf71479fccc4c6e3de0/tumblr_nhpjwdJHjB1ra81amo4_400.gif)\n\n---\n\nThis is, of course, a thinly veiled reference to Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. It's well past 1am and I am very tired. I'm sure this is awful but was fun to write. Cheers!", "The third worst thing about eating tacos is when the shell splits in half because there's too much meat inside. The second worst thing is when you bite into your taco, and the meat juices start to dribble down the side of your hand. The worst thing, though, is when you're about to bite into your perfectly handcrafted taco, and it vanishes midway into your mouth.\n\n\"Look, Aiden, we need to talk.\" I walked into our living room just in time to see him wipe traces of liquid from his lips—liquid that suspiciously resembled meat juice.\n\nHe leaned back on the couch and swallowed. I hoped his esophagus was in the process of being shredded by insufficiently chewed fragments of taco shells. \"What's up, Grant?\"\n\n\"I've been noticing that food tends to disappear from my plate, as well as from my hand, when you're around.\"\n\n\"Disappear? As in, disappear into your stomach?\" Aiden refused to look at me; his face was glued to the television.\n\n\"You also seem to finish all your assignments in the hour before they're due.\"\n\n\"Doesn't everyone, though?\" Aiden began shoving popcorn into his mouth from a bowl that I'm pretty sure hadn't been here before.\n\n\"Finally, on multiple occasions, I've found myself with my pants around my ankles, when they were secured firmly around my waist a second before.\" I placed my hands on my hips to check that my pants were indeed still there.\n\n\"Do you need a belt? You can borrow one of mine.\"\n\nTo think that such a clown would end up being gifted with superpowers. \"Quit playing, Aiden,\" I said crossly, \"I know you're stopping time and pulling all these stunts while the world is frozen.\"\n\nAiden finally turned away from the television. \"Are you okay, Grant? Do you need to lie down? Is everything alright in there?\" He got up and waved his hand in front of my face. \"Of all the possible, infinitely more reasonable explanations you could have come up with, you go with 'Aiden must be a timelord pulling pranks on me'?\"\n\n\"Well, for one,\" I said, smacking his hand away, \"we've been receiving letters from 'The Time Police'.\" Of course, every time I tried to open those letters, they would disappear from my hands.\n\n\"Never heard of them.\" Aiden flopped back onto the couch.\n\n\"There's also a giant glowing clock in your bedroom.\"\n\n\"It's just a clock, dude.\" He turned back to his movie.\n\n\"Well, if you don't mind,\" I said, walking past him, \"I'm going to get rid of your clock, since it's just that.\"\n\n\"Don't be a clockblock, man,\" he called after me.\n\nUnsurprisingly, when I opened his bedroom door, the clock was nowhere to be seen. He'd probably stopped time to hide it somewhere. Maybe I shouldn't have tipped him off and just went and done it myself later, but fuck if Aiden wasn't the type of guy to piss you off into making poor decisions.\n\nAs I turned to leave his room, I stumbled and fell face-first onto the floor. My pants had mysteriously wrapped themselves around my ankles again." ]	[ 1, 3, 3, 3, 13 ]	[ "1466476871", "1466481469", "1466484430", "1466486300", "1466481917" ]
A tiny bit late for Father's Day, but hey. Feel free to branch off however you please, good or bad, about Fathers.	[WP] "Thanks, dad. For everything."	7	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Saying this, for me,\n\nHas never been easy.\n\nIt makes me loose my cool,\n\nMakes me feel a little queasy.\n\n\nI can't find words\n\nTo say to the man,\n\nWhom I look towards\n\nFor advice and guidance.\n\n\nI can't believe I am so distant\n\nThat all of my thoughts,\n\nAre in this instant,\n\nSo unmercifully distraught.\n\n\nI can't gather words to say\n\nBut as I turn, praises are what my head sings\n\nAnd as I walk away, in my head I say,\n\n'Thanks dad, for everything.'" ]	[ 1, 2 ]	[ "1466489151", "1466493200" ]
	[WP] Invoke an emotion in the reader, whether it be laughter, tears, or rage - make me feel something.	48	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "That was his first feeling. Pure, unadulturated, it was unidentifiable at first. Bitter and hard, yet burning like Sol's light in the early days. Having lived all his life as a drone, there was no word he could put to this... this... uncontrollable stone flame. Steadfast, yet moving quicker than the blast wave from the nuclear weapons that had doomed his people to this shadow life - drones, under the control of this ancient construct. A construct with no feeling, with no sympathy, with no logic. The demons bound within it had no understanding of human suffering - only destruction.\n\nThe first humanoid drones had come, dismembered his family, taken them - broken them - and rebuilt them. Rebuilt them as nauseating eidolons of tortured flesh, disgusting and utterly foreign. Their organs visibly pulsated on the slick crimson surfaces of their bloated frames as they cried out to him with their voices in unison. The memory of the words was lost to him, but the sound of their voices... oh, the sound of their voices... a chorus of rusty nails, broken glass, and tormented souls.\n\nThey caught up with him, and he met the same fate as they did. Becoming a shell of flesh, blood, and metal; all so that the twisted thing could use him for its sick purposes. He watched every harrowing atrocity committed upon his innocent flesh - watched in horror and agony as he was torn apart and put back together again.\n\nThat feeling again, that feeling breaking through, he knew it now. It was... rage.\n\nAnd with the rage came the memory of the words lost in the eidolons' screech: it was... \"Daddy.\"", "The line was long, it didn't wind or wine or waver, just waited. From time to time you'd take a step. There were no real landmarks, nothing to gauge progress, bar the memory of the last step you took. It was seconds ago, or minutes, not hours though, I'm pretty sure anyway. \n\nThe people around you never changed, word would sometimes come from in front and you had to pass a message along. Things like, \"There has been a delay\" or \"Someones collapsed\". It wasn't really ever good news, you come to realise that after a few. Everyone in front and behind talks to each other now and then. You don't get to pick who is around you and Sally natters about her dog. She talks about the shows they won, the combing and the dietary needs of her prize pooch. It takes a lot not to shout shut up at first, but after a while of standing in a line her chatter is welcome background noise. Anything to break up the endless vista of pure white clouds you chuckle to yourself.\n\nTom, who is directly in front of you is nice. He talks about his kids and how he can't wait to see them again. You both agree that you have to meet up after you get to the front. There should be plenty of places to eat and have fun right?\n\nAndrew doesn't talk much, directly behind you he mutters to himself a lot. Mostly I'm sorry and forgive me, your curious why but asking seems a little rude. Besides you probably won't see him after your done here anyway. If he wants to share you are sure he will.\n\nThe line to heaven sure is long you can't help but think as you lean out and look forward. As far as you can see is people, all waiting in line. After that is light, blinding intense light. The Gates of Heaven? Makes sense right? That's where the line is heading.\n\nIt was a little frustrating, not being told anything. You had only learnt you weren't allowed to take a seat when everyone else around you prevented it. \"the person in front told me you can't\", I guess the message was sent before you here.\n\nAll in all it would be worth it to see them again, your family. You warmly remember the faces of those you lost and take a step forward towards them. It didn't matter how long you had to wait, the thought of seeing everyone again of enjoying being in their life was enough to sustain you for a million steps, no a billion! To laugh and joke and smile and just talk would be payment enough for any wait. Hell you had probably stood in longer lines for things like the bank or roller coasters at some point right?\n\nLaughing you can't help but smile at the thoughts that are running through your head. Tom turns and gives you a warm smile, a tear streaking down his cheek. Probably thinking the same thing as you. You both take a step forward towards a light so bright it's in your mind.\n\n-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\"How is the line?\"\n\n\"No problems, no one has figured anything out so no delay message needs to be sent\"\n\nThe two angels looked at the line that looped around the pure white orb, bright lights prevented them from seeing its curve. The line linking from front to back making a hoop on the small planet.\n\n\"Additions to the line running smoothly?\"\n\n\"Yeah we just have them remember the last step, no one questions the instructions we gave millennia ago. No one sits, or yells, no one fights or gets out of the line. Anyone who tries is stopped by others who were told by those before them.\"\n\n\"They don't even know why? after hundreds of years of queuing their legs must be in terrible pain\"\n\n\"I think most are in denial, they start muttering to cope.\"\n\n\"Purgatory really is a terrible place huh?\"\n\n\"Yahweh knows what Hell is like\"\n\nThe two angels nod and shudder in unison.", "It was at 3.17am exactly when it happened. I remember because it woke me up. I was laying in an truly awkward position and was able to glance the time on the bedside clock. I tried to move but my entire body was just a dead weight. I only found this out when I tried to get myself into a more comfortable position, but I was unable to do so.\n\nI tried moving. Nothing. I tried making a sound. Nothing. I tried anything to get the attention of my wife who was laying next to me. Sometimes she had a sleepless night and would go on her phone to pass the time until she felt sleepy again. She was awake and watching a video to help her relax, she could help me, but I found it impossible to make any sign to her.\n\nAt first I thought the breathing was coming from my wife, but I soon realised that it was coming from the bedroom door. it also sounded nothing like her. it was a harsh, dirty rasping of a sound and it sounded like it was getting closer. I could have have sworn I could hear the floorboards creaking as the breathing got louder.\n\nThe first thing I noticed was the eyes and soon saw that they were at the top of this huge, looming blackness. The eyes were red and emitting this low, pulsing glow. All I could feel from these eyes was a menacing glare that was directed right towards me. I looked up to my wife. She was oblivious to it. I looked back. the figure was gone.\n\nI looked back at my wife. It wasn't my wife. It was that, that thing. He stared at me. He knew I couldn't move, that I was powerless. He grinned, showing his yellow, rotting teeth. I closed my eyes, I screwed them tightly shut and, for the first time in my life, uttered a prayer. I felt this hot, heavy breathing on my face. A pure stench of death overpowering me. I heard it talk. It said two words. \"You're mine.\" I felt this huge pressure push down hard on me. I couldn't breathe.\n\nAnd then it was morning. My eyes opened, it was back to normal. I felt a huge sense of relief as I could move again and I sat up in bed and looked to my wife. She was crying and on her phone. I moved to comfort her and she started to speak \"Hello, ambulance. I need you to come over immediately. I think my husband's dead.\"", "He told me he loved me. I told him he’d get sick of me. But he said that that wasn’t possible.\n\n\nOne morning he woke me up by kissing my forehead. He said he had been watching me sleep for a bit and that he thought I was beautiful. My initial reaction was disbelief, that someone could feel that way about me. I thought things like that only happened to the movie’s protagonist, not the unimportant supporting role.\n\n\nOne time I was crying over nothing. I was crying because I was anxious and insecure and didn’t find joy in anything and didn’t belong. I was crying because it felt like the only thing I knew how to do, and I was crying because I wanted to die or disappear so badly, but much more than that I wanted someone to hear me crying and come save me. And then he heard me and then he came and saved me. And no one had ever done that before.\n\n\nOne evening we went out to dinner and he told me that I taught him how to smile again. He said that his life hadn’t always been good, and that he had experienced problems in family, love, and drugs. He said that ever since we’ve been together, he’s started smiling in pictures again. He has the best smile I’ve ever seen.\n\n\nOne night I got too drunk and I was mean to him. I knew all his deepest fears and insecurities and I used them against him. I yelled at him as loud as I could and when he tried to hold me I scratched his neck. In the morning, he brought me water and food and an extra blanket. He asked me why I was so mean to him. I told him that I didn’t know.\n\n\nI am the taker and he is the savior. And every day he looks more tired and every day he smiles less. My mental illness is his cage.\n\n\nHe told me he loved me. I told him he’d get sick of me. But he said that that wasn’t possible.\n", "Mia winced as she watched the toddler in the pew in front of her struggle to remain seated and quiet. Nobody in their right minds would have brought this one to a funeral. It seemed obvious that his sitter must have backed out at the last minute, and now his poor granny was desperately attempting to cope. His energy was of the tightly-coiled, barely-contained, and likely-explode-at-any-minute variety, and his very dignified grandmother's attempts at containing his behavior were growing more futile by the second. Mia noticed that he was quite retaliatory. If Granny seated him firmly back down on the pew, he surreptitiously fished more gum or mints from her very expensive handbag. If she glared at him, he furtively and noiselessly crayoned the side of said handbag, thoroughly enough so that Mia knew the dark color he'd chosen was unlikely ever to really come out. The child was kneeling and facing backward now, so that his spiky, bright-red hair and green eyes were directly in Mia's field of vision. He crossed his eyes and thrust his finger up his nose, digging energetically, then smiled engagingly. Mia focused determinedly on the funeral service, vaguely hearing the words \"a true pillar of the community, whose contributions to all our lives were immeasurable. . .\" but it was like listening to a radio in another room. \"Jeffrey!\" hissed Granny, reaching out to pinch Jeffrey and position him once again facing forward. Mia watched Jeffrey stiffen for a few seconds, and then he begin to kick the pew in front of him. He rolled back the paper on the package of mints and ominously crammed several more into his already drooling mouth. He was angry now, and Mia had a certain sense of foreboding, but couldn't have imagined what would come next. Jeffrey opened Granny's luxe handbag as wide as it could go. Then, suddenly, he stood rigidly right up on the pew and vomited explosively right into the bag. Spray from this volcanic eruption hit Granny, Mia, several more people sitting nearby, the carpeting, the upholstered pew cushion. . .thick, vile-smelling liquid was everywhere. Small chunks of mostly-chewed candy speckled every surface within Jeffrey's considerable range. Stunned silence prevailed. Mia grabbed her own rather worn, ordinary purse and staggered down the aisle, grateful to emerge into the sunlight, even though the heat was easily over a hundred degrees. She wouldn't be going to any interment, all she wanted was to find a garden hose and wash herself off. ", "Being the daugher of an alcoholic, you feel like in your short life that you known every bit of meanness that this world has to offer. Suddenly, you turn 11 and everything changes. At 11 I became a woman, and in more than the usual ways. I got my period, my breasts, and the realization of the deadliness of innocence all in one year. \n\nComing in from the annual Goat Cook-off, in nowheres-ville Texas, my whole family was sitting in the living room. I scan the room to see who all is going to be annoying me that night. My mother who is cautious, but usually to drunk and stoned to notice the fact that her daughter was dressed like a whore, is sitting to my left. Then my father, who can't help but put his hands on my mother when he is drinking, sits next to her. My cousin, who is so lost in his own misery that he turns to drugs and drink to just breathe, sits directly in front of me. Finally as im finishing my scan I see someone new. A younger guy, whos face was bare but was deemed old enough to drink with the adults, instead of stealing the alcohol from the adults with us kids. My cousin introduced him as Scotty. \n\n\"It's nice to meet you\" he says as he tries not to look at me. \"Yea, ok.\" I say to him and turn back to my mother, \"I'm going to go to my room\". She ignored me like always but I really didn't care. I was too busy thinking about the great day I had at the cookoff. I had recieved my first kiss, and was in heaven.\n\nA few hours later mom announced that the adults were going to go outside for a bit. \"Probably to get stoned\" I thought to myself. As I heard everyone go through the backdoor that closed with a SLAM, I proceed to go enjoy the living room alone. The only problem with this plan is that the new guy is still sitting in the living room, but he is asleep so I go ahead and turn on the TV.\n\nI'm watching something on MTV when I realize that Scotty was awake. \"The other adults went outside for a bit, I'm pretty sure that they are in the backyard\", I say trying to just get rid of him. \"Oh, ok do you mind if I just hang out in here for a bit?\" Scotty asked, as if I were in a position to tell him no. \"Sure, but I'm not changing the TV.\" I say in protest. I don't realize until the end of my statement that he had moved closer to me, too close.\n\nBefore I know it his hand is on my thigh. I try to move away, but he follows. \"Haven't you ever been loved before?\" he asks me. \"Yea, by my family.\" I say innocently. \"That's not exactly what I mean. I'm asking if any man has ever had sex with you, not like it matters, because it doesn't count till you're 18.\" \"No, and I do not think that it is a good idea\" I say even though I naively think that it could be ok if it doesn't count yet. So I let him have his way.\n\nAs I lay there letting him take advantage of me, I decide that I want to back out. \"I'm only 11 and I'm not ready for this!\" I try to scream, but he has my mouth muffled as he is having his way. When I scream because he rips my virginity from me, nobody hears. \n\nAfter he is done; he gets up off of my limp, tormented body. He cleans himself off and leaves to join the adults. I lay there and cry. I go clean myself up and go to bed. The next morning I tried to tell my parents what happened, but once again my cries were layed upon deaf ears. I decided to never tell anyone; because if the people standing ten yards away from it would not believe me, then why ever say it again?", "Casually he tied the leash to the fence-pole before heading into Starbucks. Careless of the dog’s affections, he left the her outside to get his daily caffeine fix.\n\nAnxiety grew in the hound with every steaming breath, with every opening of the door. Was he coming to get her? Was it her human?\n\nBut it wasn’t. Pensively, compulsively, over and over, she sniffed, hoping to catch his scent. Time and time again, it wasn’t him. Minutes that felt like a lifetime passed while she stared plaintively in the window at the humans talking at their tables, typing at their clickety-clack machines, doing everything save coming to get her. None of them were her human.\n\nSo she waited. Cars went by unacknowledged and she waited, pacing back and forth to keep warm. She waited until his scent came out the door and then her breath finally quickened in excitement.\n\nHe was back! Her human had returned! She gamboled towards him in a moment of pure joy until her collar bit into her neck.\n\nHe sighed contentedly as he took a sip of his coffee. Casually, carelessly he untied her leash and they went home.", "When I rushed around the corner, my first emotion was excitement. The garage door was open, which meant he was accepting interruptions to his work.\n\nThwack, thwack, thwack.\n\nI stood in the entryway, looking up into that familiar, strong, reliable face. How often now had I rushed home from the bus stop just to see what new project he was working on?\n\nThwack, thwack, thwack.\n\nI took a tentative step forward into the enclosed space, confused and slightly worried. It had been several years since he had last towered over me. Partially to blame was my recent growth spurt, but partially too the accident. I could see his empty wheelchair in the periphery of my vision, the small decorative flag on the back flapping weakly in the gentle breeze.\n\nThwack, thwack, thwack.\n\nI took another step forward, before slipping on the wet, greasy concrete and falling onto my face. I remained there as more droplets plopped down from above, mixing into the crimson puddle my hand lay in.\n\nThwack, thwack, thwack.\n\nI tried to shakily stand up, but my gelatinous knees betrayed me, and I stumbled again. I managed to twist before I landed, rolling over onto my back, looking up. Putting together the pieces in a numb malaise, recognizing the chain from my bicycle, which he had been working on fixing in his slow, trembling, yet somehow steady and insistent manner. The loop it made around the rafter, the teeth sawing into both wood and flesh with each pendulumic sway.\n\nThwack, thwack, thwack.\n\nScarlet raindrops, thrice against my cheek, broke my paralysis.\n\nThwack, thwack, thwack.\n\n\"Dad?\"", "Please be gentle- my first post to WP\n\n\"Where soared his sense?\" I cry;\nA fruitful mind found it could fly. \nIn thought so deep, his path confined;\nA brain so taught- could it unwind?\nDrained of energy, no motive to progress. \nCan I see him still? In such light I digress...\nHis heart bares sound cartography,\nLo, his emotions- no seismography. \nAssumptions with weak links\nTo the obscene suggestions which he thinks. \n\nMust it be he, at this purposeful time?\nIs this the fee, indemnifying unspeakable crime?\nCondemned, bound by delusion,\nIn a world of boundless confusion. \nIs my hope in resurrection a-fray?\nSome possibility of redirection? Nay?\nShould he awaken- to see the light of day,\nIt would be worth all the turns of the moon\nThat keep the sun at bay. \n\n\n\n", "The chilly autumn wind was making leaves dance in pirouettes around him. He saw her tucking her coat tightly around her body as she walked besides him. Her small backpack was decorated with various stickers proclaiming the different causes she was fighting for. Her hair was kept in a loose braid at her upper back, and though her eyes seemed to be tearing from the strong wind he could never be quite sure when it came to her. Since they met she had always been the most beautiful soul he knew. Selflessly giving, creative, and artistic, he was sure she would grow up to be someone amazing. Way out of his league, way out of the league of anyone in their little town.\n\nHe had never been a very popular guy, and never truly excelled at anything. He would like to blame that on not trying, but the fact was he kept getting distracted by his own mind. He never found the drive to truly apply himself, and never found the courage to try. Life seemed to him a complex and chaotic mess, full of unwanted surprises and tragedy. This had changed when she started at their college, and he was instantly infatuated with her. Before he had gotten to know her he was in love with the idea of being in love with her. As time passed and their forced proximity caused them to get to know each other, a friendship blossomed, and he was in love with her for who she was. It broke his soul to pieces realizing she could not see herself the way he saw her, but she accepted him as a friend, and that would have to do.\n\nHe had started to apply himself now, in all the subject she showed interest for. He let her fill his mind and his soul with all of her passions, and relentlessly sought to excel at them. It felt like the emptiness inside of him had been filled, and it was her spirit doing the internal decoration and structuring of his soul. Another cold gust of wind blew straight towards them, chilling their ears as they slowly progressed along their route. He felt that there were thousands of things he wanted to say, but the words never felt grand enough. How could he possibly explain this connection he felt without sounding like an infatuated teenage boy? Would it even be right to make it sound any different? He frowned and looked down at the cracked asphalt road.\n\nShe looked over at her companion. He had been such a great help for her when she started college in this town, and she had welcomed the friendship. She noticed the familiar frown he carried when he let his mind wander, as he so often did. She smiled at the thought, but realizing the complexities it entailed soon made the smile fade away. She was concerned for the boy and the damage his interest could do to him. Life had taught her that it could be random and cruel, and that people around her had a tendency to get their hearts broken. She had felt too disconnected to feel anything resembling love for as long as she could remember. Her own passions and causes were her way of attempting to feel something. Her way of attempting to shine a light on the darkness surrounding her. She never wanted to drag another soul into that mess, and the fervor with which he sought to embrace it truly scared her. She thought to herself that she might soon have to push him away, before the damage would be irreversible. It would hurt, but it would be better for both of them in the long run. Maybe he could find someone less broken. ", "Sometime after he left she wrote a seven page letter and put it under her bed, taking it out periodically throughout the coming days and reading it again and again as though it would bring out some understanding of what had happened. He'd left without so much as a word, without telling her that it wasn't working out or that he had to go or that it wasn't her fault. She naturally assumed that all those things were true, and so in the days following his leaving she kept the letter beneath her bed and she read it once a day, twice a day, every few hours until she couldn't stand the masochistic knee-jerk reaction of tears that came from reading, and she stashed it away. \n\nTwo months later she heard from him again. He wrote her an email apologizing for what he had done and for leaving. She left work and went home to sob, sitting on her bed and bending over until her stomach hurt and she felt empty and unlovable and what had she done and why had this happened. \n\nShe wrote him back. He didn't respond for another two months. Then again. Then again. She grew distant. The didn't know why she cared. The words that she had written in her diary the day he left, je t'aimais, je t'aime, je t'aimerai^* began to lose some of their feeling. \n\nBut there was always that. The sliver in the middle of the night that woke her when she felt empty. The literal pain in her heart that logically made no sense. The creeping wonders if in those nights when he had whispered that he loved her had he meant it, had it been real, had any of it been real. \n\nShe wrote in her letter to him that she loved him. Three times, their tradition. I love you, I love you, I love you. And a piece of me will always, always, always be yours. \n\nThe day she threw the letter away she wondered if it was still true. If that love had ever been real or just something that existed in a moment. She wondered if one day he had seen her for the person she feared herself to be. \n\nIn the end, she asked him to stop sending emails. They hurt too much. \n\nThat night she thought of how he had abandoned her, and the place in her heart ached even though a whole year had gone by. She thought of the email that she had sent merely hours ago.\n\nShe wondered if he thought she had abandoned him, too. \n\n---\n\n* I loved you, I love you, I will love you ", "Both of them knew it. I mean, he hadn't uttered a single word or syllable thus far, and he was approaching three years. The appointment only confirmed what James and Abby already knew, their son was on the autistic spectrum. \n\nThankfully, early intervention was kind towards Nathan and his parents. He began to speak, interactions with other youths were positive, and it seemed like progress was being made everyday. It now seemed that Nathan only had a slight bend towards autistic behaviors, seemingly unnoticeable to the untrained individual.\n\nAlthough, progress can be deceiving. Nathan quickly learned throughout the years that acting was his ticket to normalcy. This mimicking wasn't the true Nathan. These behaviors did not originate organically...yet it appeased his teachers, created pseudo-friendships, and most of all, made his parents happy. \n\nWhat was once a deficit became an area of mastery. When peers were playing video games, Nathan was studying TV shows, movies, and stand up comedy. What better way to learn social skills than from the best? Eventually, a new persona was born. \n\nNathan called him Nathaniel. Nathan was bleak, dull, and generally void of emotion. Nathaniel was witty, inviting, and charming. \n\nNathaniel cruised through High School. He dated the hottest cheerleader, unsurprisingly excelled at theater, and aced all his classes. His popularity was through the roof.\n\nAt what point does the actor become the true identity? Was Nathan actually creating an entire different persona? Or was he simply emphasizing certain characteristics that were already innate? Was he the jack of all trades, or the master of none? \n\nThese questions were easily answered at the end of each and every day, when Nathaniel gave way to Nathan. It was all fake, the smiles, the jokes, the enjoyment, everything. None of these yielded authentic feelings. No intrinsic validation was gleaned from wearing a mask of social skills. Nathan realized genuine happiness, or any true feeling, must be generated from a genuine interaction. \n\nNathan sat in his room, troubled by this dilemma when a knock came at his door. James poked his head in the door and said: \"It's dinner time, Champ.\"\n\n\"Not hungry.\"\n\n\"What's wrong, Nathan?\" \n\n\"Dad...I need to...feel. I don't know. I just need to know the true me isn't...gone. Whether it be laughter, tears, or rage, how do I make myself feel something?\"\n\nIt was the first time in years that Nathan wasn't being Nathaniel, and James realized it instantly. So, with tears in his eyes, James embraced his son. \n\nMaybe it was the uncertainty of honesty, perhaps it was the overwhelming acceptance of his father, or it could've been the nakedness that comes with bearing one's unaltered personality. Either way, Nathan felt something that day. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "There once was a man named Jin, and the day his daughter was born was the happiest day in his life. The day he brought her home was the second saddest day in his life.\n\nJin insisted that they needed to buy some soju and celebrate the birth of their Seonsil, but Inyung, who was far too tired and exhausted from the pains of childbirth, insisted that they just go straight home from the hospital. Jin ignored the nagging of his wife and drove to the liquor store anyway. There, he bought the best soju that money could buy. Jin didn't really like to drink, but Inyung always loved a good bottle of soju. And it had been nine months since Inyung had tasted even a sip of her favorite drink. When Inyung saw the $300 bottle of Cham Soju gift-wrapped in Jin's ecstatic arms, she couldn't help but relent, and a smile worked its way onto her face. There was nothing she loved more in this world than Cham Soju, but Jin could never fathom why. The stuff tasted like shoe polish to him. But he spent every last dollar in his pocket to buy some because he loved Inyung so much, and she certainly deserved a good drink after 14 hours of pushing a baby through her birth canal.\n\nThey were almost home when it happened. Five minutes more and they would have never been hit by that drunk truck driver. It happened all so fast. All of a sudden horns were blaring in their ears. A pair of blinding headlights blazed towards them faster than Jin could swerve to move out of the way. The last thing Jin could remember was the way it rained shattered glass on him and his family. \n\nWhen he awoke, the car was upside down, its wheels still turning. Shards of glass jutted out from his arms and chest, but he was alive. But he wished he had died when he looked over to the passenger seat. A jagged spike of metal had pierced through the demolished windshield and into Inyung's throat. She was still gagging on her own blood when Jin came to. He cried out her name. \"INYUNG!\" he roared. \"INYUNG!\" \n\nHer eyes glanced over towards him as she clutched onto the metal spike that jutted through her neck and came out the other side. There was so much blood. More blood than Jin had ever seen before in his life. It ran down her arms in rivulets. It trailed down on the metal spike that pierced her throat and dripped down on to the roof of the overturned car. Inyung gagged such ungodly noises. Jin didn't know what to do. And so he just looked on in horror as he watched his beloved Inyung pass from this world. They had loved one another their entire lives, and they had sworn they would love one another until they were old and gray. \n\nInyung's 27th birthday would have been next Friday.\n\nBy the time the sirens were wailing in Jin's ears, Inyung's body was already cold. It wasn't until his daughter began crying in the backseat that he remembered she was still in the car. Immediately, Jin unbuckled his seatbelt and banged his head against the shattered metal roof of his Hyundai Genesis. He crawled to his newborn Seonsil, miraculously unharmed in the crash. And he swore. Jin swore that he would never let any harm come to so much as a single strand of hair on her precious little head. \n\nIronically, the truck driver was drunk on Soju.\n\nSixteen years pass by, and Jin never takes another wife. He never even goes on another date with another girl. He stays true to the memory of his beloved Inyung and raises Seonsil all by himself. She was all he had left now, and she was the light of his world. Jin went to extraordinary lengths to ensure her safety, which of course was very exasperating for the young Seonsil growing up. Jin never let Seonsil go anywhere without his direct supervision. He dropped her off at school every morning, and he picked her up every night. He never let his daughter take the bus, and he never let her out of sight. Even if she were to go to the movies with her friends, Jin would be sitting there in the row behind them, making sure nothing happened to his precious Seonsil. This infuriated Seonsil to no end, and even her friends thought that her father was far too overprotective of her. \n\nEvery year at Danwon High School in Ansan, the junior class would take a field trip to Jeju Island, the Hawaii of South Korea. Seonsil desperately wanted to go. All her friends were going, but her father refused to let her take so much as a single step onto that ferry boat. She screamed and she cried and she begged. For once in her life, Seonsil wanted to hang out with her friends like all the other kids. For once in her life, she wanted her dad to stop being such a dictator. It took weeks of pleading and sobbing, but finally, at long last, Jin relented. She had his permission to go.\n\nThen on the day of the trip to Jeju Island, April 16th, 2014, the MV Sewol capsized, and sank to the bottom of the ocean floor, taking 325 members of the Danwon High School's junior class with it. And Jin never saw Seonsil again." ]	[ 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 7, 18 ]	[ "1466489616", "1466491469", "1466505545", "1466509284", "1466520961", "1466525108", "1466527985", "1466531881", "1466500003", "1466506924", "1466502823", "1466504648", "1466492937", "1466502790" ]
	[WP] You're a scientist in a lab, your assistant just said "oops."	60	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "I don't have a story, but a twitch streamer and his friend got sent this, and did a live improv. [Thought I'd share it here.]( http://b.1339.cf/wounooc.mp3)\nThe streamer is Fitz, fyi. Also, sorry about a few choppy bits, buffering.", "“I just need to add another 0.1 mg. of this to the syringe and inject into…”\n\t“Oops.” interrupted my assistant. \n\tCold sweat erupted from my brow. My heart jumped into my throat. I whirl around as fast as I could. My mind raced. What could he have done? Did he release one of the viruses they were working with? Which one? Was this the end? All those years spent on my Ph.D only to succumb to the failings of a grad student? All those years developing my mind and aiming to help the greater good dashed in an instant? I could’ve spent that time getting laid. Oh, man I miss Linda’s glorious tits…\n\tUpon turning, my jaw dropped, my heart sank, and my knees wobbled. \n\t“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” cheered my friends and family. The broad smiles on their faces quickly vanished. My lab assistant staring in utter horror, hand still on the sock-covered doorknob. Even fucking Linda was there, eyes wide and mouth gaping. \n\t“I wish I was dead, oh God…” I mumbled as I fumbled my penis back into my pants and in my panic tossed the syringe. The syringe flew across the lab towards a filled test tube rack. The sound of glass shattering pierced the awkward silence. \n\t“Oops.” I said as everyone began collapsing to the ground. \n", "I swallowed what little saliva was left in my dry mouth as I watched my colleague cross the room to the large metal lever – the lever that would change history. He was young for such a reputable scientist, in his mid-thirties, though he was still older than I was by several years. We had been chosen for this project because we were young blood, new to Oxford, and they had hoped that meant new ideas.\n\nOf course, we had no idea what we were stepping into at first. We knew we were studying particle acceleration – specifically, how to create a particle accelerator comparable to, say, the Large Hadron Collider, without having to carve out kilometers of land to do so. We were dumb kids, so we didn’t understand the implication – for our careers, for science, for society as a whole – of getting this right. \n\nWe had worked for years on it, throwing everything we had, everything we could, into it. Every spare hour, every vacation day, every weekend, we had spent in this lab, the two of us, running calculations and abstracting about energy sources. Even then, it was too much for us, too taxing on the mind. We needed help, but it didn’t seem likely we would get it – the university had sunk too much money into us to get the results they were getting. Still, we asked for it anyway, and when asking politely didn’t work, we resorted to begging.\n\nThe university decided to meet us halfway on getting us help. They would not, as we had begged, devote another scientist to the project – after all, another scientist meant another salary, another person to pay for all those overtime hours, and that wouldn’t do at all, given that they barely wanted to pay us. They would, however, ask for volunteers among the engineering undergraduates, offering extra credit or some similar incentive to get people to give up all those hours.\n\nWe ended up with Sarah, a nineteen year old girl from Liverpool with dyed black hair and way too many tattoos. Eloy, my colleague, was suspicious at first, but he came around when he saw the potential she brought to the table. She was a fresh set of eyes, and a damn good one, too – she had a unique way of looking at things, of abstracting and deconstructing in her mind, that Eloy and I both lacked. \n\nIt had been two years since she had joined, but with her help, the project went much quicker. We ended up finishing quite far in advance, and though part of me feared that meant the accelerator was hastily built, the rest of me knew that we had created something great, something that would revolutionize science as we know it today.\n\n“Are you ready, Adam?” Eloy asked, his thick French accent permeating throughout the room. A copper hand rested on the lever, with long, nimble fingers dancing along the screws I had painstakingly measured and applied. He was fidgeting, an act he only partook in when he was particularly nervous. I couldn’t blame him. He had been chosen to pull the lever that would change the world. \n\nI smiled, a large, fake grin that barely masked my anxiety spreading across my face. Normally, I would have had a witty retort to such a question, a joke about old clichés, but I couldn’t remember how any of them went. Probably for the best – there wasn’t time for them, anyway.\n\n“As I’ll ever be.” I said, shifting my vision from the lever to his face. I tried to look confident, to reassure the man with whom I had worked for years, but I know it didn’t work. There was too much at stake here. If it worked, we were heroes, champions of science and human ingenuity. If it failed, we were monsters, petty scientists who flew too close to the sun and shrieked as our wings melted. \n\nSarah clapsed her hand on my shoulder, looking past me so that she could look Eloy dead in the eye. In her thick, Liverpudlian accent, she uttered the three words that would change the world forever: “Pull the lever.”\n\nWith a loud metallic clunk, Eloy slammed the lever down, muttering a prayer in French under his breath as he did so. A vast humming began sounding from inside the accelerator as it powered on, and the metallic walls of the device began to take on a red-hot glow.\n\n“No...” I muttered, my mind racing too fast to think of anything else to say. The accelerator wasn’t supposed to heat up – anything that could generate heat was supposed to either be contained or kept far away from the device itself. Besides, the only thing that could burn hot enough to heat up the whole machine was the power source, and Sarah had made sure it was contained –\n\nI whipped my head around to look at the student. She had gone pale, the glow of the accelerator painting her milk-bottle skin in a violent red light. I crossed the room, grabbing her by the shirt as aggressively as I could the second she was within arm’s reach.\n\n“What did you do?!” I shouted, panic coursing through my veins. Tears began to bead in the girl’s eyes.\n\n“I…I can’t…I guess I did the calculations wrong…” she gasped, looking around frantically. “It’s not contained…the reaction won’t be contained…I-Oops.”\n\n“What does that mean?” Eloy asked, quietly at first, before reiterating as a shout, “What does that mean?!”\n\n“I-I don’t know.” Sarah said, quietly. \n\nThat was the danger of all of this, really. We had been toying with massive forces, forces beyond our understanding. We had been arrogant, so caught up in the grandiose nature of it all that we failed to account for what would happen if we made a mistake. \n\nPut simply, we had no idea what could happen.\n\n“We have to cut the power,” I realized desperately. I turned to my colleagues. Adrenaline flooded my system. “‘NOW!’”\n\n“There’s an emergency cutoff switch in the accelerator.” Sarah said, regaining her composure. “But you’ll have to be fast, Adam – if you don’t hit it, you’ll get caught up in whatever the hell that thing does.”\n\nI nodded. There was so much I wanted to say, so much I wanted to argue, but there simply wasn’t time – the accelerator needed to be shut down, and it needed to be shut down ‘now’.\n\nI swung open the door, diving into the belly of the machine. The glow of the walls had grown, now, changing from a dull red to a blinding white. I held my arm up to shield me from the light, a human defense mechanism that would soon fail to defend me. I couldn’t see anything – at that point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if my retinas had been burned out completely.\n\nI began to feel along the walls, trying to find the switch Sarah had mentioned with my remaining senses. It quickly began to burn, the heat of the metal slowly searing the flesh from my hands, but I had to keep going – we had run out of other options. \n\nAbout twenty feet in, I felt my hand run over a hot piece of ceramic – a disc of heat that protruded about six inches from the wall. It was the switch, I figured, and breathed a sigh of relief. I pressed the button inwards, waiting until I felt its edges go flush against the side of the wall. With a click of ceramic on metal, I heard an alarm sound, and slowly regained my vision as the blinding light began to die. \n\nI looked down at my hands, taking in the sight and scent of the charred-black flesh that had come to coat my left palm. The left sleeve of my lab coat had burned, charring away the fabric and exposing my arm to the elements. I was in massive pain, I realized, but it was mostly drowned out by the relief of having won, having averted disaster and maybe even saved the world –\n\nI heard a loud click as everything went dark around me. I took a step forward, limping slightly on the charred muscle of my left leg, making my way out to the door I had come in through. \n\nPeering out through the glass window of the door, I saw that the power had gone out, shutting down the fluorescent light bulbs I had grown so used to. The accelerator, and our laboratory immediately adjacent to it, were in a basement underneath the school, so we lacked any and all natural lighting. \n\nSuddenly, I heard a loud rumble emanate from behind me. I whipped my head around once more, wincing as my burned flesh struggled against the motion, and saw a white wall of light barreling towards me down the halls of the particle accelerator. \n\nI stumbled backwards, though it was all in vain as the light overtook me, bathing me in its harsh glow as I braced my muscles and emptied my mind. \n\nThe light began to consume me. It entered through my mouth and my nose, sliding past my gritted teeth and navigating its way deep into my body. It coursed through my veins, following the flow of my blood like a current through water. It ripped through my muscles and shocked my nerves, jolting me into a higher state of consciousness than I had ever been in before.\n\nI looked down once again. My skin had stitched itself back together, covering and repairing the burns I had suffered within the accelerator. The glow around me was beginning to die down, now, shattering the door and racing out through the laboratory. I gasped, not because of the reaction our accelerator had caused, but because of how I perceived it.\n\nThe world I saw in front of me was frozen, bits of shrapnel and beads of light suspended, unmoving, in air. The glow had caught up to Eloy, now, and it seemed he was not as lucky as me – I saw, in slow motion, as the glow incinerated him, tearing his atoms apart until there was nothing left but ash. I began to run, hoping to save at least one person from the disaster I created, quickly outpacing even light as I tackled Sarah, covering her body with mine.\n\nThe glow consumed me once more, and my senses began to fail me. The last thing I saw was the world speeding up, time returning to its normal pace as I tumbled through the air. \n\nThen, there was nothing. ", "The lab was Dr. Yang’s pride and joy. The D.O.D had sunk in most of its black budget into the lab back in 1970. They had followed Yang’s blueprints to a Tee. White walls touch a white floor and a white ceiling, men and women move from white table to white table in white lab coats, it was as close to heaven as a scientist can get.\n\nAs is his custom, Dr. Yang looks from his own white tabletop to his beeping phone, then up to the digital clock. If it wasn't for his phones alarm he would work through lunch. Sighing slightly he swipes his phone off and returns it to his pocket. He hates to leave the lab but he knows that a man needs to eat.\nStanding up and stretching a bit the good Doctor looks over to his friend. “Doctor Stanza?”\n\nStanza looks up from her own work. “Lunch time already,” she says with a grin. “You know if you keep doing that every time a phone goes off I’m going to start salivating.”\n\nYang chuckles at the light joke. “I suppose I could change-”\n\nSuddenly the sound electricity arcing and the smell of burning wires fills the lab which is followed quickly by an, “oops.” \n\nWiping their heads around Yang and Stanza see one of the youngest lab assistants standing before a green blob of energy. From time to time the ball fires off bolts of purple lighting hitting and marring the white lab.\nStanza is dumbfound as other run out of the lab in fear. “WHAT THE HELL,” she yells over the sound of the, whatever it is.\n\nYang however doesn’t answer her, he is the only one in the lab running to the ball. He runs as fast as he can and grabs the young assistant pulling him away just in time to be missed by a bolt of the strange lighting. \n\n“Holy shit Doc. thanks,” the young man says once they are on the other side of the lab.\n\n“Thank me by telling me what the hell that is! Why don’t I know about something happening in MY lab!”\n\nThe man runs a hand through his wild hair and grunts,”I thought it was the D.O.D’s lab?”\n\n“Do not test me boy there is a giant ball of, of, I don’t know, loose in this lab! What do you know, more to my point, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!”\nLooking from the green ball to his boss Yang get a good look at his eyes, there is a sense of defiant, even in this bad of situation but either through youthful hesitation or force of will he relents. “I stole one of the test crystals.”\n\nStanza has now ran over and joined them. “I’m sorry did I just hear you say that you took one of the most valuable things our government has ever made?” As if to drive her point home a bolt of lightning hits one of the large computers in the lab causing it to explode.\n\n“We can punish him later Lyn. Right now I want to know what he did with it.”\n\n“He is right here. Rude. But getting to the point, I put the crystal in a quantum entangler. I thought I had the focusing chamber set right but-”\n\n“Hang on, stop. You can’t just spout Sci-Fi bull shit like that and expect me and Doctor Yang to buy into it!” The lab assistant looks over his shoulder to the still throbbing ball energy then back to Stanza and shoots her and eyebrow. “...Okay. \n\nGood point,” she says getting the point. \n\nYang only shakes his head, “This is incredible, but we need to stop it. What do we do?”\n\n“I-I-I-I’m not sure,” the young man says.\n\n“You not sure? You built something that can do, THAT, but you didn’t have back up plan?” \n\n“What can I say lady, things just kind of work out for me. Hell I got into her without even going to college.”\n\n“I’ll kill him,” Stanza tries to rush him but Yang stops her.\n\n“We need him.” Studying the ball Yang thinks aloud. “What if we break the entangler? Would that work or is it self sufficient now?”\n\n“Sure but it’s over there…” \n\nYang and Stanza look to where their would be assistant points to on the floor. In that spot is a rather hobbled together thing that resembles a Dustbuster with a glowing vacuum tube sticking out of it.\n\n“I-I-I think I can get it and turn it off. Once I re-calibrate the focus chamber it should work fine.”\n\nYang is stunned. “You could have turned it off this whole time!”\n“Yeah, but you two keep talking.”\n\n“JUST GO DO IT,” shouts Yang finally reaching the end of his rope. \n\n“Holy shit fine!” \n\nThe young man runs for the energy ball, lightning strikes at his feet as he race to his goal. He grabs the strange gadget off the floor as he power slides under green ball of energy. On the other side he flips around and with a press of a button the ball of energy is gone. The lab is left blacked and scared, but is now very still.\n\n“Thank God,” Stanza says.\n\n“Well, that was a thing. Now about you- What the hell,” Yang looks on in horror as the young man fires his gadget at a white wall.\n\nThis time what comes out of the end of the gadget leaves a flat green disk on the wall, just big enough for a man to walk through.\n\n“Ha! Yes! Take that mother fuckers!” The one time assistant looks back to the Doctors. “That’s right, it’s a mother fucking portl gun! You remember this face! \n\nYou tell'em that Rick Sanchez go the best of you!”\n\nRick flips them a double bird and starts to walk through the portal, “Origin story bitches! Tell my wife she can keep the baby!” \nRick goes through the portal leaving behind a messy lab and two confused Doctor’s. \n\n ", "\"Oops.\"\n\nThe word sent a chill down my spine as the word bounced from wall to wall, filling my ears with the disastrous sound. I froze in my own work instantly knowing that my bodies reflexes were screaming to take over. To run and hide. To bolt for the door and try to beat the deadbolts that were about to slam down.\n\nInstead, I let out a small sigh of resignation, and turned towards the hapless assistant, hoping beyond hope he had used the wrong trashbin, or opened the wrong drawer. I saw the desk he was standing next to and knew it was hopeless. Oops wasn't allowed at that station. Oops wasn't even the right terminology for any fuck up that came from there. Poor guy.\n\nI didn't bother to correct him as the reaction fizzed, the blue glow intensified and the beginings of the chain reaction began. He looked up to me, silently, pleadingly asking for what to do. He was new, but had the unfortunate wisdom to know what was happening. I had time for a weak shrug and a shake of my head before the light pierced my eyes as the flash consumed him.\n\nI didn't remember much after the flash, but from what I do remember, and the footage that was shown afterwards, I pieced the story together. I remember seeing the antimatter flux begin it's consummation phase, ripping the container it was apart in a torrid affair that my mind simply couldn't process at the time. It's non-dimensional aspects began to dissolve reality around it as the ethereal blue light poured forth from it's contact with reality. The release of energy, caught in the strange state of gravitational distortion around it killed my assistant in an equally strange dissolving of his molecular bonds. He melted away in inches as the bright blue light sucked him in. I can only imagine how it hurt. \n\nThankfully, he was gone in moments, and the quasi-dimensional hole that the antimatter ripped out of the world went with him. The room bent inwards at it's passing, and then the explosion threw everything back to normal in a violent burst of energy.\n\nMinutes later I came to, coughing and vomiting into my black contamination suit. The room was in shambles around me. The event left me with some battering and bruising, but otherwise unscathed. The rest of the facility was somewhat shaken, but the lair itself remained in-tact. My formal debriefing in front of Dr. Horrible went without anything but minor amusement passing in his face, before I was sent to the barracks. My tests and lab were stripped bare, and then reinstalled to monitor the new gravitational anomalies that were frequent there, but overall, life as a minion of a Super-villain went on.", "\"Oops\", I heard Frank at the other end of the lab.\n\n\"Frank, can give me a brief and clear reason for that 'oops' of yours?\"\n\nFrank adjusted his glasses. His forehead was shining with sweat. He stuttered a word or two before spilling the beans.\n\n\"I... Um, I think I accidentaly let one of the genetically enhanced spiders escape.\"\n\n\"You did what?!\", I suppressed a scream. It was almost morning and the lab was empty, except for Frank, the night guard and myself. \"God damn it, Franklin. We have no idea what these spiders are capable of. We gotta find it before it finds someone.\"\n\nFrank knelt down and looked under the table. \"No signal of it, doctor. I guess it ran away.\" He looked at me. I could feel the fear in his eyes. \"What should we do?\"\n\nI looked at the clock on the wall. It was almost 6AM. In a question of hours all those students from the local high school should arrive and turn my lab into a rave party.\n\nWe spent every minute we had to find that accursed spider, but to no avail. The teenagers arrived.\n\nGeeky kids with their gadgets, girls with cameras, taking pictures of our enhanced animals. Jocks insisted on bullying those poor kids. Hell, I was one of these bullied boys once, I hope they can find their way into a bright future like mine.\n\nI heard someone say \"ouch\". \"The spider, the damn spider.\", I muttered. Frank tried to find who was bitten, but all he could see was a scrawny boy running away from the lab.\n\nWell, I had only one option: Waiting. Either for the lawsuits from a dead kid's parents or for some relief in discovering that the spider could do nothing.\n\nTwo months passed. No one came to my lab complaining about their dead son, so I guess there was nothing special about that spider. My life was normal once more.\n\nExcept maybe for the fact that yesterday some crazy guy with mechanical wings tried to explode the lab and a kid dressed as a superhero saved us. Frank asked for his name, and he said \"I'm just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man\".\n\nGod damn it, Frank.", "Oops...\n\nOh fuck not this again. This was a word that meant the ushering in of the bane of my existence, lab accidents. I was already on a short leash after all of the accidents I have had over the years, everything from explosions, acid/base spills, toxic gases, electrical mishaps, you name it. I was lucky to even be put in charge of this lab after my superior had retired to put it bluntly. If I have one more serious accident the board may fire me, assuming I survive said accident. I turned to see my assistant running from the wall of flames behind him yelling my name \"Mr. Beaker! Mr. Beaker!\" and yelled the only response I could think of.\n\nMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!", "\"Oops.\"\n\n\"Oops?\" \n\n\"... Oops.\"\n\n\"Oops!?\"\n\nDr. Cavendish turned sharply on his heel and speed walked across the pristine lab. He came upon his assistant, Dr. Yu, standing completely still over a containment chamber. His brown almond eyes transfixed on the seemingly empty vessel. \n\n\"What do you mean 'oops!?'\" Dr. Cavendish said tetchily. \n\n\"I mean oops.\" Yu replied looking up at his boss. His face was painted every color but calm. Cavendish felt his heart skip over as his gaze trailed down to the containment pod. Yu's hands were still within the isolation gloves that extended into the pod. Yellow light from the incubation bulb flashed dull over their neoprene surface. Yu turned his right glove over and Cavendish saw the reason for his errantly expressed exacerbation. \n\n\"The Nirus...\" Cavendish said aghast as he stared at the tiny hole in the isolation gloves. \n\nThe Nirus, or course stood for nano-virus. A lab created artificial virus composed of the latest and greatest nanotechnology. Combining both organic and synthetic properties the Nirus was intended to be a 'smart-bug,' that could be injected into a human body and act as a T-cell replacement variable. It was intended as an artificial immunobooster that could be programmed to destroy cancerous cells as well as a whole spectrum of untreatable diseases such as STD's, anti-biotic resistant, and genetic aberrations. \n\nHowever humans are fickle creatures and once discovered that the Nirus could be programmed to heal, it wasn't long before they discovered how to program it to harm. It's new objective was to install a form of sterility in the genetic code as well as release its information for super-AIDS. In short it was the most effective biological weapon known to man. To make it even more effective the Nirus was uploaded with the information and ideals of the Nazi party and South African apartheid. The bug wasn't only deadly, but it was racist as well. Had its creators thought of giving it a tiny nano-mouth there is no doubt that you'd be able to hear tiny racial slurs being shouted from its seething, hateful body. Forget about anthrax, forget about mustard gas, hell, forget about the plague, those bugs couldn't hold a mutated mitochondrion to the Nirus. \n\nThus when Cavendish heard his clumsy assistant mutter 'oops,' the hairs on the back of his neck did rise. Seeing the hole here and now, his worst fears had been realized. Once introduced to the world there was virtually no stopping its spread. Cavendish looked to his assistant with a hopelessness that would take the heart of Aragorn himself. \n\n\"Oops.\" He said simply. Confirming his assistants fears.\n\n\"Oops?\" Was Yu's half hopeful reply. \n\n\"Oops...\" Cavendish said back shaking his head. \n\nCavendish then reached over to the flash-immolation quarantine switch, knowing full and well that it couldn't stop the Nirus, he pulled the lever.\n\n---\n\nIn the charred remained of the once immaculate lab a grain of ash shifted and fell to the side. The tiny grain rolled down a mountain of soot, causing a small ash-avalanche. From the cinders and slag rose put a tiny four legged monster. It raised its arms triumphantly, it's tiny myosin and actin fibers flexing gloriously. Would it only have had a mouth the tiny nanobot would have cried loud and long it's wretched war cry. It looked over the mountains of ash that spanned well over the horizon. There was much work to be done, it was a shame he hadn't the time to replicate within his host. With a solitary finger on its microscopic hand it flipped the world the bird, and set off to burn it to the ground. \n\n---\n\nHey if you liked this short little story about a racist, genocidal nano-virus, then why don't you hope on down to my sub at /r/ScribeSchneid . Word has it that the cure to that malevolent, malconceived, megalomaniac Nirus is hidden somewhere on that page. Save yourselves! ", "\"Oops.\" \n\"What happened!?\" \n\"I accidentally broke the test tube.\" \n\"Do you know what you've done?! That tube alone costed us 5 dollars! We aren't made of money!\" \n\"Sorry, won't happen again.\" ", "“I am not staying late again tonight, Doctor.” My assistant slammed the tray she was carrying down on one of the metal tables. I turned, surprised, Kate was never one to speak out. She barely spoke at all.\n\n“I’m sorry?” I was baffled. We’ve been on the edge of breakthrough for weeks now, and I know the long hours are hard on everyone, but we’re so close. I expressed this to Kate as she frowned and shook her head. She began to put glassware away and we continued to work in silence. She slammed a drawer and it made me jump. I turned to look at her, and watched her move about the room in an agitated manner. “Kate. Quit walking like that. And don’t slam the cabinetry, the university is not willing to pay for replacements.” She glowered at my back as I turned back to my computer display to analyze data. “I don’t know why you’re so sour, Kate. It’s not like you’re going home to anyone. You don’t even have a cat, let alone a significant other. You might as well work, you have nothing better to do. Clearly you should be grateful to me for allowing you to stay here and work instead of going home and sitting around-”\n\nSomething pinched my neck and stung as coldness rapidly spread through my body. Kate pulled the needle from my neck and smiled coldly at me as she spun my stool around. I was losing control of my limbs. She dropped the needle on the floor next to my stool and stripped the gloves off of her hands as she made her way to the door of the lab. Opening the door, she looked back at me as I slowly toppled from my stool to the cold tile ground. \n\nShe smiled. “Oops.”\n" ]	[ 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 12, 15, 27 ]	[ "1466520474", "1467114210", "1466545196", "1466555839", "1466569521", "1466531909", "1466548735", "1466529379", "1466526488", "1466529187", "1466521932" ]
[deleted]	[WP] A person is walking down a long hallway. Write a story where each paragraph is a different genre	1	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", " Have to finish later but here is the start, also I have no clue how to format\n\n He walked out of the door briskly and heard the voice of his Grandma, \"Are you sure you know where you are going Phillip?\"\nHe replied quickly, \"I still have the map you gave the map of the building you gave to me on the first day”. He never liked that his Grandma would not just call him Phil. He closed the door behind him and walked down the dimly lit hall of the care facility he was helping his Grandma move into. He missed the old days of going to visit his grandparents, when both of them were still alive and their house in the mountains of North Carolina left him with adventures of a lifetime. Where each day ended with wanting to wake up and experience the next day. He had been at the care facility now for four days and could not stand the boredom that ensued while staying there. He decided to walk around the massive building just because there is nothing else to do. He walked and walked not looking at the map taking too many turns to even keep count of them all. Phil knew this was not a good idea but at least getting lost would bring some sort of excitement. He came up to a very long hall where half the lights seemed to be either flickering or dead and there were hundreds of paintings that seemed to line the wall. He could barely see the end of the hall but he could see that it led nowhere. He was not fan of art but the hallway attracted him just because he thought it was strange.\n\t(new paragraph) Phil walked up to the first painting and did not give it much thought. He thought it was a rather boring painting. It was a painting of a girl looking into a cupboard under the stairs. He thought it looked like something even he could draw \n" ]	[ 1, 1 ]	[ "1466530807", "1466536562" ]
	[WP]You are an astronaut who has just arrived home from a distant galaxy when you realize you have contracted a highly lethal space virus that is spreading quickly.	4	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "Day 1 I've returned to Earth! We're all so happy to be back, while I love my crew, being alone with them for over a decade can be, arduous. \n\nDay 3 Over the last three days since my return I have appeared on every news station I could care to name, while I expected to be questioned, I didn't expect this much attention, well what can you expect - I am the captain of the first crew to view alien life.\n\nDay 5 I've been called back to the lab, I knew that's where the floral samples we had collected had been taken, they had all been correctly catalogued and reported, so I was... Intrigued, why did they need to see me. There was no Fauna on HD 85512b.\n\nDay 6 I got the results back, NASA seem worried that I am somehow carrying a possible alien microbe - I say microbe, as it seems to exhibit neither the traits of a bacterium, protoctista, or any other kingdom. I fail to see how I could have been infected, it is impossible for it to have ever come into contact with my skin, we were always an airlock and a decontamination away from any possible organic matter.\n\nDay 9 There have been nine reported hospitalized cases of a new \"disease\", all of whom are people in which I have come into contact with in the last nine days since my return.\n\nDay 13 My crew and I have all been placed under quarantine, while none of us are exhibiting symptoms, we were all found to have the \"infection\" present in our blood stream. The source of the infection is still undetermined\n\nDay 22 The infection has spread in the outside world, between us we have into contact with thousands of people in the weeks before our quarantine, and from them, the infection has spread like wild fire.\n\nDay 38 while they have tried to keep it quiet, we have seen the reports, thousands already dead, hundreds of times that are expected to be infected.\nI'm praying for my family who have been unable to visit for days.\n\nDay 42 Joanne seems different... While none of us have exhibited any symptoms, she seems to have... Changed. She was the botanist... She's probably patient zero. Maybe the cure lies within her...\n\nDay 50 Not one person has checked on us in days, maybe they ran, maybe they forgot, maybe they don't care, maybe their dead. We have enough food within the quarantine wing to survive but soon we have to leave. I've got to find my family. I've got to care for my family\n\nDay 58 We're free! We're free! We've managed to escape, all of us but Joanne, for well... Obvious reasons.\n\nDay 61 We've found nothing but death, there must be somebody out there, someone immune... Someone left.\n\nDay 68 There are no people in the cities, no animals in the forest, no fish in the sea, no birds in the sky, nothing left but trees and death.\n\nDay 78 I see people at night, people who aren't there, only dead. There are only three of us left now. My once crew of ten, now 66% dead. \n\nDay 86 I saw Joanne riding a horse, she always loved horses. She seemed so real, yet I know she's not... Neither is the horse. The horse isn't real. The horse is dead.\n\nDay 100 I'm on my own, there are plants every where now, no people, no fauna, only flora...\n\nDay 116 I'm sure I saw Joanne again, which is peculiar because i stopped seeing the others...\n\nDay 128 The trees tower above.\n\nDay 132 I'm sure I saw Johanna again, wearing clothes grey and green, sitting atop a sickly white horse, hovering in between\n\nDay 164 She watches me atop her horse, viewing in the night. \n\nDay 196 Alone in a world left to the elements. She watches me from horseback... Pestilence." ]	[ 1, 1 ]	[ "1466545298", "1466548774" ]
	[WP] You confront your bully with compassion instead of violence.	1	[ "\nOff-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.\n\n---\n\n[^(What is this?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [^(First time here?)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [^(Special Announcements)](/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements)\n", "John had always been an intelligent kid. Good at math and language arts. His teachers gave him daily puzzels and tests for congitive genius at the age of 5. His problem was how he never felt he had the motivation to do anything with it. He truly loved just observing the world for what it is.\n\nJohn wasnt a lonely kid. When he was curious he would ask the others how the felt about a certian topic. \nWhen he felt lonely, he would come close to others without wary for the social standings the political world of children have.\n\nUnbeknownst to John, Curtis hated dealing with those he didnt know. Curtis had a deep rooted fear from being nearly kidnapped that made him aggressive to strangers.\nCurtis could have been a sweet boy. Yet, he shows dominance in all aspects of his days to show that he believes he shouldnt be a target for anyone. His vulnerabilities should never be known to any but himself.\nCurtis was also intelligent. He was k8nd to those he cared for, and merciful to those who stepped back from him.\n\nJohn, being curious, asked curtis at the wrong time, at the wrong place.\n\n8am on the school bus john sits on the first availavle seat on the bus he can find. Usually in the middle. Curtis was the last to be picked up and enter the bus today. He almost wamted to stand. His best friend was absent and john's seat was close and open. He didnt care where he sat on this day because he was upset his mother didnt let him get the gushers pack for lunch. Punishment for losing dad's toy wrench. Which cost 50$.\n\nJohn asked Curtis if he was ready to have the best show and tell ever today. Curtis looked him in the eyes for a second. Moved him from his window side, and nearly kicked him off the seat as he stared out the view during the whole bus ride in silence.\n\nPass 7 years and our boys are 12 years old.\n Curtis of course never remembered why he hated john, and John had no idea what he had done wrong. But the tension built over the years. And curtis took any opportunities he could to let john know he was beneath him.\n\nCurtis was a typical school bully at this point. He doesnt go out of his way to let kids fear his utter dominance. He doesnt choose one brat and take his lunch money. No, he has (what he believes to be) his reasons. And he lets it be known that none deserve to get near him lest they want to be forced back.\n\nJohn grew more and more curious why someone would openly state such a strange and demanding amount of space. It was more than elbow room that he wanted.\nEven more so, curtis gave a look a judge gives an e, with a restraining order to john. \"Stay in your place dog\" muttered curtis as he masses John every day. John would naturally fear this as curtis would seem hostile, but john's inclination to observe this phenomenon led him to be more curious of the attitude.\n\nJohn would want to get close to curtis. Many different attemps of just walking past, being shoved into corners, and face to face talks would lead john to believe curtis hates him specifically. And curtis knew something was up, that john wanted something. Soon, curtis's friends would tease john, saying how dumb he looked with his bookbag overfilled with books. Arching himself like quasimoto. Curtis didnt care for the comments but stared adamently as john passed by each time.\n\nJohn took this as a hint, he would only observe too. And john knew that curtis was only acting on what he wanted. To john, curtis had a peace that was only interrupted by him, john wamted to be someone to make peace. With this going on all semester, john has lost plenty of self esteem, and motivation to do much anything. And with all the thoguhts rushing at one time, john had a mental trip, he fumbled and asked, what if just no one liked him?\n\nHe wouldnt approach anyone anymore. Not for notes, and not evem to ask to borrow a pencil as all students lose from time to time. He became disorganized and started forgetting his hobbies at home too.\n\nBut before john started spiralling into a depression he saw a note at his desk. Thats right, something he had been writing and making sure each word was right. He read it 5 times on this day. It was a Thursday afternoon when he realized that, with no name date or direction, this was a note he wrote as an apology to Curtis. \n\n\"Hi, im john and i saw you alot while going to school for all these years. I dont know your name but i know i made you upset. I was thinking so much about how cool your shirt was and i liked your shirt because your shirt was star wars and i love star wars. I wanted to say sorry that time i embarrassed you and your friends for liking star wars too. I know you dont like when people get close to you because you scared me. Im sorry im so annoying.\"\nWas what was written\nJohn thought it was a terrible terrible idea to say sorry. He remembered he wrote it two weeks prior and forgot it in his desk. The day he wrote it his nerves shook because all the thoughts it took to have those things come out was mostly shame and fear. A young boy who used to love observing the world, has found himself a pesterance and gave up on it. \nJohn didnt give it to curtis the day it was written because that day curtis was absent.\n\nNow, this Thursday in January john was brave enough to speak to curtis. It was recess time and john wemt to go get his note. But before he could go in, he found curtis crying. Sitting at john desk curtis was laying calming with small silent tears running down his face. \nThey looked at each other\n\"My friends went through your notes to get answeres to the test. I was not gonna cheat because i know it already. You wrote this for me didnt you?\" Said curtis with a soft voice.\nJohn nodded almost in fear, but empathy for curtis.\n\"I dont trust people. I dont like anyone i dont trust. But i dont like hurting others\" said curtis\n\nJohn said with effort \"you wouldnt know who you hurt. You dont even want to know if you do. Because you just fight everyone who gets close.\"\n\nThere was a silence, and curtis understood that he may have been mistaken for all the years he pushed people away. John got close to curtis, and curtis flinched making john react too.\n\n\"Are you scared of me?\" Asked john\n\"NO\" said curtis \"are you scared of me?\"\n\"Yes\" said john. \"I dont think you would hurt me now though.\"\n\"Why would i? I dont like hurting people\" said curtis\n\"Well you hurt alot of kids who got near you for a long time\" said john\n\"Yeah because they suck and should stay away\" said curtis\nJohn just didnt understand whether curtis was a jerk or something else.\n\n\"I dont suck, and i dont think you suck, want to share my lunch? My mom gave me gushers. Its my favorite\"\nSaid john\n\n\"Mine too\" said curtis\n\n\n\nCurtis realized that this was the food he was upset about when they had their first interaction. He asked john \"do you remember when i kicked you off the school bus when we were 5\" \"no\" said john.\n\"Well i did it because i wanted the whole seat so no one could see me cry. Kids laugh at anyone they see crying because its not good to cry\" said curtis\n\"I think crying sucks, but thats because being sad sucks, and we are sad when we are in pain. I would not hurt others even if they hurt me, id just want to know why so i could fix it maybe\" said john\n\nCurtis almost burst i to tears, and he got up, took the gushes saying thanks. Walked out the door, stopped and said, \"im sorry, ill be nice to you now\" and left.\n\nThe sunlit room was johns company now. He didnt know why he felt so good about this. But at the same time he didnt think anything would change.\n\nSince he always considered curtis to be a close friend. And just in need of a little gushers.\n" ]	[ 1, 1 ]	[ "1466551393", "1466555499" ]

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